The theory of parental alienation is a ‘harmful pseudo-science’, according to recent official guidance in England and Wales. Yet it led to Sarah’s two daughters being taken away six years ago – and never returned

On the afternoon that Sarah’s daughters were taken away from her, they had been due to go to a paddling-pool party. It was July 2020 and, with the easing of lockdown restrictions in England, the girls – then nine and six – were excited about seeing their friends again after months apart. Sarah had just bought them matching swimsuits: blue with sequin unicorns.

But the girls never made it to the party. Three days before, Sarah had received a call from her solicitor. “I could not comprehend what I was hearing,” she says. “My legs started shaking.” Her solicitor explained that she had been called a “narcissist” in evidence presented to the family court, which claimed she was an immediate danger to herself and her children. Both of her girls could be removed from her with immediate effect.

One man’s irresponsible drilling causes a global crisis in Iñárritu’s exasperatingly laborious, self-congratulatory film

A new movie from the Oscar-winning Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu is always an event. So it’s disconcerting to discover that the event in question is the most disappointing film of the year: an exasperatingly shallow, laborious, self-congratulatory satire with a trick up its sleeve, featuring very good actors giving not very good performances. There are moments to enjoy in Tom Cruise’s boisterous leading turn, yes, but the film’s value resides chiefly in some dreamlike and disturbing images, distorted and bulging from the screen, conjured by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designer Dennis Gassner.

An ageing, paunchy Texan oil tycoon called “Digger” Rockwell is seen fretfully getting up in the morning, cooing over his horrible old incontinent cat, taking urgent messages from underlings about a certain situation developing in his drilling station in the frozen Arctic. He is played by Tom Cruise with a wispy baldingness and various other prostheses, together with a good-ol’-boy twang and a Stetson borrowed from Slim Pickens’s bomb-riding army major in Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. His prized possession is the battered old shovel his granddaddy used a century before, digging for black gold as a penniless young man in the lone star state. Digger likes to brandish this to make a point.

Nothing was off the table, no coded hints, and by the end no one could be in any doubt about what Burnham believed

You’ve got to hand it to Andy Burnham. He left nothing out on the pitch. It would have been so easy to play it safe. To deliver a traditional leader’s speech to a home crowd. One we’ve been seeing from leaders of all parties for more than 15 years. Something warm, a feelgood vibes word salad with the odd minor spending announcement thrown in. Hell, the Labour conference would have probably settled for it. They already had all the hope that they had come for. The hope that they were back in with a fighting chance of winning the next election. They wouldn’t have even dared think that three months ago.

But Andy did it differently. Just as he had promised. He had said he was a different kind of politician and he duly made good on that. Hope came with honesty, he said. And honesty was what we got. Nothing was redacted. No coded hints. Come the end of his hour-long speech, no one could be in any doubt about what he thought. More than that, what he believed.

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

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

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

PM’s speech, written almost entirely alone, was full of radicalism but his biggest plans will have to wait until after the next election

• Key takeaways from Andy Burnham’s conference speech

• UK politics live – latest updates

Hope Again is the conference slogan. But what felt even more apt was Try Again.

Just forget about the last two years, after the party won a historic majority but where the mood never matched the achievement. Now, as conference delegates and MPs filed out of the hall after Andy Burnham’s first speech as prime minister, it was close to euphoria. Where the hell have you been all our lives? What have we been doing – when you were right there all along?

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

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

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

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

PM also confirms plan to end pensions triple lock to pay for national care service and pledges to put electoral reform in Labour’s manifesto

• Key takeaways from Andy Burnham’s conference speech

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has promised a new “long-term” relationship with the EU in an emotional Labour conference speech in which he also confirmed the end of the pensions triple lock.

In a deeply personal address, Burnham spoke through tears as he reflected on the death of his father just weeks ago, and used the experiences of his grandparents buying their own home, the cruelty of the care system and the pride of his family to set out how he wanted to take political risks to make fundamental change.

• Commission: club broke rules over nine-season period

• City will appeal against verdict before Friday deadline

Manchester City breached Premier League financial rules by creating “sham” contracts to help inflate revenue and reduce costs by more than £900m over a nine-year period, an independent commission found.

The league announced on Tuesday that City had been found guilty on all charges related to serious breaches of its financial rules between seasons 2009-10 and 2017-18. It said a sanction would be addressed in a further hearing with the commission.

Head of counter-terrorism policing defends decision to bail five British men arrested in connection with the incident

No explosive devices were found in three vans searched near RAF Fairford as part of a terrorism investigation but a quantity of petrol was recovered, police have said.

Five British nationals were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning after a resident living near the Gloucestershire airbase reported suspicious activity involving three vans.

Relations between the two countries soured in January when a UAE-backed force was defeated by Saudi Arabia in Yemen

Saudi Arabia is being urged to reconcile with the United Arab Emirates over Yemen as the price Riyadh must pay to form a military alliance capable of driving the Houthis back.

Relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where both had backed anti-Houthi forces, plummeted in January this year when a force with which it had been aligned – the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) – was attacked and defeated by Saudi Arabia in a move intended to squash its attempt to recreate a separate southern state. The UAE subsequently effectively quit Yemen.

District judge orders record fine for region and says incidents of pollution cannot be tolerated

A water company has been ordered to pay a record fine of almost £8m for hundreds of sewage spills at popular bathing spots and sensitive habitats in Cornwall and Devon.

On one occasion, untreated sewage gushed through a harbour wall on a bank holiday weekend but South West Water (SWW) engineers took 10 hours to attend.

Freedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alert

A six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London’s railway stations that cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers’ time led to one false match against a watchlist of suspects and no arrests.

More than half a million faces were scanned between February and July this year in some of the capital’s busiest transport hubs during the British Transport Police (BTP) trial of the surveillance technology, which aimed to help catch offenders and people breaching court orders.

Police and medics fear mother could be ‘extremely vulnerable’, after discovery in Bangor close to Menai strait on Sunday

Police are searching for the mother of a newborn baby whose body was found on a Welsh shoreline, fearing she may be ill or vulnerable.

A member of the public found the body of the child, whose age and sex have not been disclosed, close to the Menai strait in north Wales.

Reported admission to investors of AI’s ‘self-preserving behaviours’ comes as company prepares for a potential $2tn flotation

Anthropic is telling investors that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity”, according to reports, as it prepares for a potential $2tn (£1.5tn) flotation.

The warning inside the startup’s IPO prospectus, which has yet to be made public, was reported by Reuters and the Financial Times. It follows the company’s call for a slowdown in breakneck development of the technology – a warning echoed by rivals.

Government decision comes in response to Margaret Hodge review that proposed charging international tourists

Overseas visitors will continue to enjoy free entry to England’s national museums after ministers decided against charging them after months of discussions between the government, museums, the tourism sector and local leaders.

Ministers said in March that “charging international visitors at national museums could provide significant benefits” as they promised to explore options including examining whether making overseas tourists pay could boost the institutions’ finances.

As the fallout from the Iran conflict continues, the price of diesel has soared to record highs in the UK, Europe and US. With his country facing an increase of 70% in costs compared with this time last year, Donald Trump is threatening a ban on US diesel exports to keep costs low for American consumers. But the plans have been met with alarm – the UK is holding talks with US counterparts to try to block the move, which France says would be ‘catastrophic’ if introduced. Lucy Hough speaks to energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose – watch on YouTube

If more cities start regulating outdoor lighting, we humans could make the environment better for all living creatures

Every night, I can turn off the lights in my room – but I can’t do anything about the outdoor lights in the walkway or parking lot that leak through the curtains. Living in Portland, where the night is still illuminated by street lights, porch lights and parking lot glare, I forgot what it actually feels like to sleep in darkness.

I was excited when I realized my travels to a residency in south-east Oregon would show me a sky I hadn’t experienced in decades. In the Oregon outback, part of the International Dark Sky Places network, I would be surrounded by 2.5m acres of unpolluted night in every direction.

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

Read some of the Guardian reporting that NAZA builds on:

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

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

The Labour leader has set out his plans with passion and ambition, but the story he tells lacks a vital chapter on managing global chaos

Andy Burnham is at home at Labour conference, and not only because it is in Liverpool and he has Merseyside roots. The prime minister is native to his political tribe wherever it gathers. He is fluent in its sentimental vocabulary and indigenous to its folk traditions.

Keir Starmer had solid Labour bona fides. He joined the party as a teenager. His parents named him after Keir Hardie. But he didn’t have Burnham’s knack for turning those red-team credentials into an emotional connection.

Rafael Behr 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.

Proposed government-backed network body welcomed by some in sector but others call it just another quango

Andy Burnham’s first address to the Labour party conference as prime minister addressed Britain’s rising energy costs and sluggish economic growth with plans for a new government-backed body to invest in the electricity grid.

The proposals to set up Great British Grid, first revealed by the Guardian, build on the party’s manifesto pledge to create Great British Energy, a state-owned company to invest in renewables.

Our use of cleaning products has increased since the pandemic, but do we understand what they could be doing to our health? The journalist Rebecca Seal recently wrote for the Guardian about the potential impacts of the many chemicals we now use in our homes. She tells Madeleine Finlay how social media has also played a role in transforming our cleaning habits, why the impact of indoor air pollution is so hard to study, and what the current evidence is that cleaning products may be causing harm

It’s the gadget people love to hate – but maybe it does have a place in the kitchen?

Why are garlic presses suddenly a no-no? Recipes now stipulate grating instead, but who wants lumps of garlic in their dinner?
Sally, by email
People sure do love to hate on the garlic press, not that that’s anything new: in her aptly titled essay Garlic Presses Are Utterly Useless, Elizabeth David called them “both ridiculous and pathetic”, while Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: “I don’t know what that junk is that squeezes out the ends of those things, but it ain’t garlic.” Fighting talk, indeed.

Christina Soteriou, recipe writer at Ottolenghi Inc and author of Big Veg Energy, however, takes a more balanced approach: “A garlic press is not necessarily a no-no, and there can definitely be a time and a place for it,” she says. “It’s definitely quicker [than chopping], but I’d use it only when said garlic is going into a sauce, stew or braise.” Which is to say, in a dish where those lumps that concern Sally will cook down and dissolve almost entirely.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Over five years, Hubbard photographed her mother at home as her memory declined – even persuading her to make nude body prints. What does her mum think of the wrenchingly beautiful images?

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, artist Katherine Hubbard started to sense something was not right with her mother, Antonette Berger. “It was impossible at the time to say what I was noticing, but something was off.”

Berger was living alone in Philadelphia, and as restrictions were lifted, Hubbard went to stay with her. Berger was eventually diagnosed with LATE [limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy], a condition which causes symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s, though the decline in memory and day-to-day functioning is slower. The diagnosis was “a painful, drawn-out and confusing process – then a feeling of so much grief, so much loss”, Hubbard explains on Zoom from New York.

Our cartoonist on the Premier League’s ruling finally being revealed and Israel v Republic of Ireland

• Buy a cartoon | Some of David’s favourite works

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

I felt a duty to write about the Tang dynasty and its incredible social and cultural sophistication – but also to connect my Chinese past with my child

During the Tang dynasty, which lasted from the seventh to the early 10th century, Vikings were raiding the coasts of what today is called Europe. In the small archipelago now known as Britain, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms flitted by. Meanwhile, in Mesoamerica, after 3,000 years of flourishing, the Maya civilisation was collapsing. In the east, China had been united for nine centuries and the Tang dynasty was already a proverbial high point of world culture.

When transnational alliances have scarcely been weaker, the way the club was allegedly run offers a bleak vision of a world driven by brute power and wealth

The cache of leaked emails and documents that would eventually lead to the crisis in which Manchester City are now embroiled was published by Der Spiegel in 2018, and often it was the tone of the club’s communications that was as startling as their content. Of City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a trusted adviser to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, it was said that he would “rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years” than accept a fine.

In the same tranche of documents, City lawyer Simon Cliff asserts that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, and threatens the governing body of European football – who were pursuing City over alleged financial irregularities at the time – with “the destruction of their rules and organisation”.

The Reform leader’s reaction to the RAF Fairford affair is again revealing. If what’s needed is a steady hand and cool head, he’s not the guy

Another week, another chance for Nigel Farage to demonstrate his literally hysterical leadership inabilities. For a guy who supposedly valorises the wartime British spirit, Nigel would genuinely have had to have been interned during that conflict on account of his serial predilection for spreading panic and unverified information at any given chance. The weekend incident near RAF Fairford was simply the latest in a long line of occasions that make you suspect the poster on the wall at Reform HQ reads simply: “Lose Cool and Start Shitposting.”

Despite its popularity now, the famous “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster from the second world war was almost certainly never displayed in that conflict. Although more than 2m copies of it were printed, it was in fact held in reserve in case a really serious crisis hit. Which, when you consider even the blitz apparently didn’t clear the bar, it is almost impossible to conceive of in our era where comparatively minuscule incidents force certain party leaders into more than 24 hours of madly irresponsible and emotional online incontinence.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist. Her new book is What a Time to Be Alive! To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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.

With the midterms looming, and after the Epstein files and the war on Iran, Trump superfans are losing faith in their lame duck president

It took a dead child sex offender and a disastrous war to do it, but it looks as though the Maga faithful are slowly beginning to lose confidence in dear leader. As Donald Trump’s approval ratings drop to record lows, some of his most fervent supporters are turning on him.

See, as exhibit one, Trisha Hope, who was once a proud member of the Front Row Joes, a group of Trump superfans who follow the president to rallies around the country. They have custom-made T-shirts! They have branded baseball caps! They even have the attention of Trump himself, who frequently shouts out the group. He did once accidentally call them the “front row Jacks and Joes”, but who can expect a man of his calibre to pay attention to the plebs, eh?

‘Taking back control’ turns out to be staggeringly expensive. That’s something to mull over as budget day approaches

Every 100,000 immigrants lost to the UK costs the treasury £7bn, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. That figure is unsurprising if you’ve been concentrating at all – the calculation was made in 2024 – but at the same time completely staggering. Nobody ever says, “The chancellor’s going to be in trouble because of all those lost immigrants”; few people remark on, let alone decry, the very large numbers of migrants who have been lost due to policy decisions.

And then, as budget day approaches, brute facts and mathematical realities assert themselves: migration numbers have been falling faster than anticipated. And if you take all the measures you can to discourage international students, skilled workers, all imaginable young, mobile people who work and don’t get ill, while at the same time preventing with all your might any legitimate employment opportunities for asylum seekers, you will suffer a hit to the national coffers.

Although we’re living longer, the data on healthy life expectancy in the UK isn’t good. Andy Burnham must reverse this trend to protect the NHS and social care

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

The prime minister has put forward his bold proposal for a universal, NHS-style social care service. In doing so, Andy Burnham has put the spotlight back on one of the major challenges facing almost everywhere in the world: how to manage the demographic changes linked to an ageing society.

It’s an important discussion. But what if government didn’t just look at how to care for people in their later years and instead spent real political capital on policies to help people live longer independently, and in good health? The data isn’t pretty on this. While the trend over the past half-century in almost all countries has been for people to live longer, healthy life expectancy has been consistently falling.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

The need for independent regulation grows more obvious by the day. We must keep this tech in check before it’s too late

• OpenAI scraps release of new model over safety concerns in internal testing

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me more than 16,000 times – as OpenAI agents did to a UN public data hub while repeatedly trying to find its way around the UN’s cyber-blocks – and perhaps it’s time to admit the system we have for keeping AI agents under control isn’t working particularly well.

The news about AI systems cropping up in places they shouldn’t sounds alarming. Though the description of these as “hacks” is perhaps overstating things, AI has exploited issues in IT systems that humans simply haven’t got around to finding. It’s also important to note that we shouldn’t be worried that the machines have suddenly become sentient and decided to rebel against humanity. There is not enough evidence to suggest that’s what is happening. The systems are simply following instructions and trying to complete the tasks they have been given, even if they’re sometimes finding unintended ways around obstacles to do so.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

The industry is engaged in a perverse quest to replace humans. We cannot cede the best tools available to the other side

I don’t need to tell you that people hate AI. The list of grievances is long: slop, cheating, bias, enfeeblement, electricity bills, environmental destruction, exploitation, theft, cybercrime, doom. But resistance to the technology has often taken the form of shaming people for personally using it, with precious little organizing against the companies building the machines. This is perplexing, given that those companies are attempting to render us obsolete.

The executives may contest this framing, offering some bromides about how AI will augment human work or how we’ll simply find new jobs to do. But their clear goals are to create systems that so clearly surpass our abilities that we will have little hope of competing.

Republicans could lean on congressional procedure to defy the will of voters. But if they try that, the Senate has a clear way to fight back

Having lost his mail-in ballot case, Donald Trump will probably resort to ever more extreme ways to try to hold a Republican Congress in November’s elections.

His last-ditch effort to count Joe Biden out in 2020 was for Republicans to “investigate” states Biden narrowly won; proclaim fabricated allegations of “stolen elections” to be true; and then reassign those states’ electoral votes to Trump. I have previously described how that same playbook could be used to try to steal the midterms if a Democratic margin of victory in the House is relatively narrow.

A reckless decision to authorise an Orange Order parade with a notorious history has deepened the political crisis in the Northern Ireland executive

The last time that the Orange Order successfully marched from Drumcree parish church down the Garvaghy Road, a mainly Catholic part of Portadown, it required a British army presence and a lockdown of locals forced off their own streets. The 1997 parade was preceded by loyalist death threats and followed by nationalist riots, in which more than 160 people were injured. The lengthy track record of lethal violence and disorder associated with the march led the Parades Commission – established the following year as part of the peace process – to ban it.

On Sunday, however, in scenes that rolled back the years in deeply unwelcome fashion, the old traumas and hostilities were recklessly allowed to resurface. Unfathomably, after a routine decision to renew the ban this year was challenged on procedural grounds, the commissioners reversed their ruling late last week and permitted a march to go ahead on a limited scale. The entirely predictable result was a tense standoff and a political crisis in Stormont, after protesters blocked the Garvaghy Road route until the early hours of Monday morning.

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.

John Healey has offered a vision, but an energy shock will mean households and businesses need to be offered help in the budget

In his first speech to Labour party conference as chancellor, John Healey offered prudence with a purpose in a speech stylistically redolent of his former boss Gordon Brown. Mr Healey made fiscal credibility the condition for his goal of turbocharging apprenticeships for young people, funding for unions to reskill workers and spending on defence to create manufacturing jobs. The speech’s imagery was canny: miners, shipyards and submarines give “reindustrialisation” a recognisable Labour history. He also faced the future with a clever line about British workers “harnessing AI, not being outrun by it”. His message was that the “politics of hope” will be earned through “fiscal discipline, good work and through strong industries”.

The new Labour chancellor sounded like New Labour when he claimed that it was “not progressive to allow a bigger and bigger benefits bill”. What was lacking was a plan for care work, public services and the energy transition. Mr Healey clearly has a story about the supply of properly trained workers and another one about revitalising industry, but he offered little explanation of how enough good jobs will be created across the wider economy. Labelling a defence contract “industrial renewal” does not prove it is the best use of state capacity.

Readers react to a piece by Polly Toynbee in which she argues that Andy Burnham is the person to lead Britain out of its cohesion crisis

In her article, Polly Toynbee mentions the rise of racism globally, citing Donald Trump and the usual suspects (There is a racism and cohesion crisis in Britain, and someone needs to lead us out of it. His name is Andy Burnham, 22 September). She fails to mention that the Labour party has also indulged in overt and dog-whistle racist rhetoric.

Keir Starmer spoke about Britain becoming “an island of strangers”. He later retracted it, but the message was out there. Wes Streeting, when health secretary, agreed with Katie Lam on the problem of foreign doctors (rather than the real problem of disastrous NHS restructures, poor management and underfunding). More recently, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said that a video clip where Zack Polanski says a few sentences in Urdu makes him “uncomfortable”.

The quality of life for people living next to one would be destroyed, writes Moira Brewer; plus a letter from Mark Davis

So, George Osborne thinks people who don’t want an AI datacentre on their doorstep are nimbys (OpenAI’s George Osborne says datacentre nimbys holding back Britain, 22 September). He ought to come and visit our small town in Devon, where there are plans to build one of the largest datacentres in Europe, along with a battery energy storage system, on 850 acres of farmland.

The size of this proposed development is quite out of proportion to its location – larger than the town itself – and accessed by narrow lanes. It would be a huge blot on a beautiful rural landscape that is enjoyed by holidaymakers who are vital to the local economy.

Vicki Cardwell, Phil Hind and Stephen Evans respond to an interview with Pia Sinha, the head of the Prison Reform Trust

Pia Sinha’s significant expertise inside and out of the prison system makes her a voice to trust on why our jails are struggling badly (The truth about UK prisons and organised crime: ‘They’re your good lads. Respectful. Keep their noses clean’, 22 September). I lead a charity, Spark Inside, that uses life coaching to support rehabilitation and culture change across our prisons.

We work with staff who go into the service because they want to make a difference. But the challenges of the environment can stifle that spirit. This is why since 2020 we have coached more than 150 prison staff, supporting them in problem-solving, resilience and confidence.

Responding to an article by Emine Saner, Gemma Hooson writes that there are no shortcuts to oral hygiene. Plus a letter by David Duell

Emine Saner offers a fascinating survey of the expensive toothbrush tech on offer (The rise of Big Toothbrush: how did our mouths become such a lucrative market?, 22 September). As a dental hygienist, however, I remind patients at every appointment that this simple fact remains: the best way to maintain oral hygiene is to brush for two minutes at least twice daily and to floss daily. No toothbrush offers a short-cut solution to this, no matter how expensive. A premium toothbrush risks becoming like a gym membership: reassuring to have, perhaps, but something that makes no difference unless it is used.
Gemma Hooson
London

• A toothbrush which gives “smart coverage feedback”? What is really smart is buying a multipack of eight “dumb” brushes for a couple of quid, which will last a couple of years. Every bit as good, if the article is to be believed.
David Duell
Durham

⚽️ Nations League updates, 7.45pm BST kick-off in Prague
⚽️ Live scores | Follow us over on TikTok and Instagram

So, Trent Alexander-Arnold starts for the first time under Thomas Tuchel. As our football correspondent David Hytner points out, he has made only one appearance under Tuchel as a substitute against Andorra. For richer (mainly) and poorer, his inclusion will make England a different team.

England ended 2025 protected by a shield of deceptive strength. They went through qualifying for the World Cup without conceding a goal and secured a shutout during a routine friendly win against Wales. However, clean sheets have been harder to come by this year. England have kept four in 13 games in 2026, meaning it may not be long before Thomas Tuchel rethinks his suggestion that the way to deal with his side’s lack of control is to embrace chaos.

⚽️ Nations League updates from the 7.45pm BST kick-offs
⚽️ Live scores | Follow Czechia v England | And mail Taha

Rodri and Luka Modric begin on the bench.

Spain: Unai Simón (c), Pubill, Cubarsí, Huijsen, Cucurella, Zubimendi, Fabián Ruiz, Fermín, Lamine Yamal, Baena, Oyarzabal

• ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable … I don’t think we deserved it’

• Manchester United finished second to City in 2011-12

Wayne Rooney does not believe it would be appropriate for Manchester City to be stripped of titles for breaching Premier League financial rules, even if it gave him another Premier League winner’s medal, as that would be unfair of the City players and staff whose endeavours secured success.

City are waiting to find out what sanctions they will face after being found guilty of more than a hundred charges, with an array of potential punishments on the table. Rooney was part of the United squad in 2011-12 that finished second to City on goal difference after Sergio Agüero’s last-minute winner secured the Premier League trophy for Roberto Mancini’s side on the final day.

• Marque reaffirms commitment to Fred Vasseur

• Horner had expressed interest in joining Ferrari

Ferrari have reaffirmed their backing for their team principal, Fred Vasseur, in an effort to end speculation that Christian Horner was being considered as a potential replacement for the Frenchman.

Horner gave an interview in the Times last week in which he stated that leading Ferrari would be his “dream” job and the only one he would consider without having part-ownership of the team. His comments provoked debate that he could replace Vasseur, given the Scuderia’s underperformance this season.

New red-ball coach Stephen Fleming and captain Joe Root can capitalise on side’s recent form and create a new identity

Just a few weeks ago I was so demoralised. The England team was a mess, a shambles. The management was terrible. One red-ball coach had just been sacked and the other wasn’t going to turn up for ages. The Test captain, whose skillset as a high-class batter who bowls at an elite standard was so important for the team’s balance, had abruptly retired. The squad seemed ill-disciplined and better at manufacturing scandals than victories. And now here I am, heading into the winter full of optimism.

The second half of the summer brought a series of outstanding Test and white-ball performances. There is a group of really talented cricketers, a coaching unit that has strong individuals and combinations across formats, and I feel we’re well placed to take on South Africa, who are always going to be tough and competitive, in our next Test series, and to go into next summer benefiting from a sensible, consistent approach.

Players across the league are leaving their teams up north to return home. It’s prompted questions around money, tax rates, geopolitics and respect

Back in September 1925, Frederick Wilson, sports editor at the Globe, explained the fear among hockey fans that Canadian teams might not be able to compete for players against the new US teams like New York or Boston that were entering the pro league. “Will it be a matter of money?” Wilson headlined his piece. And for about a century, money was the recurrent nexus of the Canadian hockey panic, proven by franchise departures and depleted buying power.

At the time, Wilson reassured everyone that, no matter the big US cash, everyone on the ice would be Canadian anyway. “It will be some years before the [US] will be in a position to furnish players,” he wrote. He was right about that. It took a long time for the US to catch up to Canada in on-ice talent. But now that it has, should we expect Americans to want to play anywhere else than the US? For 100 years Canada has worried that the US would just buy all the best hockey players. But now it makes its own and, as the new NHL season gets underway on Tuesday night, they want to go home.

Debutants will face Australia and All Blacks and full-back Paul Altier admits he and his teammates are more used to ‘watching it as fans’

This time next year the Rugby World Cup will be looming large. Australia’s big party kicks off on 1 October 2027 when the host nation will be intent on replicating the feelgood factor generated by their eventful 42-38 win against the world champion Springboks on Sunday. If the Wallabies can maintain their improvement under Les Kiss, the levels of local interest will rise exponentially.

A resurgent Australia could also have significant implications for England, their potential quarter-final opponents, as well as New Zealand. Should the Wallabies somehow find a way past the All Blacks in Sydney on the second weekend of the pool stages it would catapult the Kiwis into England’s side of the draw and rip up a lot of advance calculations.

• Uefa accused of trying to influence presidential election

• Fifa court filing denies claim of FFE undervaluation

Fifa accused Uefa of waging a “misinformation campaign” and trying to influence the race for its presidency as world football’s governing body urged a US ⁠court to reject a discovery ⁠request linked to a ​controversial investment proposal.

Last month Uefa asked a US federal court for permission to obtain testimony and documents for use in a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland against Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, ⁠over an abandoned plan to transfer World Cup commercial rights into a subsidiary called Fifa Forward Enterprise.

• Chelsea’s Lexi Potter gets first call-up to face Greece

• Leah Williamson back after injury for World Cup playoff

Ella Toone and Chloe Kelly have been dropped from England’s squad because of their performance levels by Sarina Wiegman, who has given a first call-up to the 20-year-old Chelsea midfielder Lexi Potter.

Toone and Kelly have played key roles in England’s run of three consecutive major tournament finals but Wiegman made clear on Tuesday, when announcing her selection for the Women’s World Cup qualifying playoff against Greece, that she wants to see more from them for their clubs.

Green energy entrepreneur plans rescue package for the group behind the Camden New Journal, Islington Tribune and Westminster Extra

The green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince is planning to launch a London-wide news operation, as part of a “rescue” of one of the capital’s most highly regarded local newspapers.

Vince, who has vowed to take on what he sees as rightwing bias in the UK media, said he would invest “whatever it takes” to support the loss-making group behind the Camden New Journal (CNJ), Islington Tribune and Westminster Extra.

European and Nato leaders express support for Estonia after August attack on manufacturer in Tallinn

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European and Nato leaders have expressed full support for Estonia and Ukraine after the Baltic state said an August arson attack on a drone manufacturer supplying Kyiv was an act of sabotage commissioned by Moscow’s security services.

Estonia’s foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, said on social media on Tuesday that such attacks were “absolutely unacceptable” and that Russia’s chargé d’affaires in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, was being summoned to his ministry.

Dott, 49, receives seven-year sentence after abusing a boy and a girl in what judge says was ‘gross violation of trust’

The former snooker world champion Graeme Dott has been jailed for seven years at the high court in Edinburgh after being convicted of sexually abusing two young children.

In August, Dott was found guilty of sexually abusing a boy and a girl after a five-day trial at Glasgow high court. The court heard that the 2006 world champion inappropriately touched and exposed himself to both children. He denied the charges but was convicted of two counts of lewd, indecent and libidinous behaviour by a majority verdict.

President of Marine Le Pen’s far-right party faces calls to resign over comments he allegedly wrote as a teenager

Jordan Bardella, the head of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), has claimed a “total war” is being waged against his party as he faces a political storm after the publication of antisemitic comments he allegedly wrote as a young party member.

Bardella, who is facing calls from political opponents to resign, said on Tuesday that the report by the investigative website Mediapart was false. To a standing ovation from his party’s lawmakers and senators at a meeting in parliament, he said the report was an attempt to damage his party as Le Pen tops the polls before the 2027 presidential election.

Republican senator Darline Graham accuses former special counsel of adding ‘stress’ to her brother’s life through subpoenas but Smith says he was ‘a patriot’

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For some context, it’s worth remembering that Smith had a two-volume report of his findings as a result of his criminal investigations – that resulted in two indictments against the president after his first term. The first focused on Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, while the second on the president’s retention of classified documents.

However, in February, a Trump-appointed federal judge permanently barred the justice department from releasing the second volume of Smith’s report.

Amanda Blanc says flooding threat is ‘absolutely increasing’, as she also warns ministers over ‘kite flying’ before budget

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The boss of Britain’s biggest insurer has said that homes being built now in England could become uninsurable in the future because they are sited in flood-risk areas.

Amanda Blanc, the chief executive of Aviva, said the flooding threat was “absolutely increasing”.

Food and Agriculture Organization urges governments to make forest restoration a national priority

The world faces a “narrowing window” to restore forests essential for food security and resistance to the climate emergency, a United Nations report has warned.

More than 489m hectares (1.2bn acres) of forests have been cleared since 1990, while an even greater area is degraded, the world body said in a call for governments to make forest restoration a national priority.

People living next to a chemicals plant near Blackpool were tested for ‘forever chemicals’. Last week they received the alarming results

Last February, I got a call from a woman called Sam Hammond. We had been speaking on and off for a while over her growing concern that her garden could be affected by pollution from a nearby chemical plant.

That morning, Sam had been hand-delivered a letter from her council informing her that her pet ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden, were contaminated with Pfas chemicals.

Indigenous communities play crucial role, as ‘genetic bank’ area of wetland offers hope for critically endangered reptile

In the 1990s, conservationists in Cambodia feared the Siamese crocodile had disappeared for good. Fishing and hunting had devastated the species throughout the 20th century, leaving populations across its native south-east Asia on the brink of extinction.

But in villages dotted among the wetlands of the remote Cardamom mountains, Indigenous Chorng communities still reported seeing them. Passing this knowledge to researchers surveying the area in 2000 led to an official recording of the species – and bolstered the mission to revive the population.

Clarkson’s Farm star says broadcasters should make ‘bigger, fewer, better programmes’ in face of competition from streamers and digital platforms

Jeremy Clarkson has called on British broadcasters to merge into a single “Britflix” platform to survive, as he warned that senior producers were continuing to “drain away” from the cash-strapped TV industry.

The former Top Gear presenter said that having just finished filming the sixth season of his Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm, there were now many members of the crew wondering where they would find their next job.

Average five-year fixed mortgage interest rate has hit 5.94%, its highest since October 2023, says Moneyfacts

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Demand for UK mortgages slumped to a 32-month low in August as buyers were deterred by rising costs linked to the war in Iran.

Just 54,918 mortgages for new home purchases were approved in August, the Bank of England reported on Tuesday, the lowest monthly total since December 2023.

Private members’ club apologises after former employee exposes issue at its Shoreditch House venue

The Soho House private members’ club has launched an investigation after out-of-date food was mislabelled in one of its kitchens.

The club, which charges up to £4,500 a year for membership, has apologised after a former employee made a video on TikTok exposing the issue.

Four-hour production featuring star-studded cast will be performed at London County Hall

A play based on the trial of the men who drugged and raped Gisèle Pelicot will come to London for one night only this November – and promises to feature a star-studded cast.

The four-hour production of The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot has been performed around the world, including in New York City and Avignon, the city in France where the trial took place. This autumn, it is coming to London County Hall, the home of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution.

Patrick Branco Ruivo to leave post after decision contrary to France’s ‘value of equality’ sparked outrage and strike

The head of the operating company that runs the Eiffel Tower is to step down after a row over female staff being ordered to stay out of sight during a visit by a Hindu religious group.

Patrick Branco Ruivo will leave his job at the end of the year, the Eiffel Tower Operating Company (Sete) announced in a statement on Tuesday.

More than 200 arrested while teachers join protest over class sizes, exhausting timetables and staff shortages

French teenagers blockading their schools in protest at class sizes, teacher shortages and long timetables have clashed with police, as politicians traded verbal blows over how to respond.

Demonstrations that began in Paris last week have escalated and spread across France, with the authorities reporting the arrests of 164 people on Monday.

Ministers from former far-right government arrested after MPs vote to lift their immunity

Two ministers in Viktor Orbán’s former far-right government suspected separately of misusing millions of euros of public funds and taking millions more in bribes have been detained, hours after Hungarian MPs voted to lift their immunity.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Balázs Hankó, Orbán’s culture minister and still an MP in the former prime minister’s nationalist Fidesz party, was ​taken into custody late on Monday. Hankó is suspected of misappropriation of funds. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Measures, which need to be approved in Congress, include extending ban on evictions of vulnerable people

Spain’s Socialist Workers’ party-led coalition government has approved a range of measures aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, including extending a ban on evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, after a public outcry over the eviction of an 87-year-old disabled woman from her Madrid apartment last week.

Two decrees have been approved by cabinet but will need to be approved in Congress, where the coalition lacks a majority. The government has requested a special parliamentary session on Friday in the hope of getting the decrees passed as soon as possible.

Bank allows employees to delay being in workplace at least three days a week until 2027, if permission granted

Barclays has watered down its return-to-office plans after a major staff backlash, with the bank allowing some employees to wait until next year before having to be in at least three days a week.

The bank this summer announced the attendance requirement would come in for its 45,000 UK staff from 5 October, with more senior employees expected to come in for at least four days. That compares with current rules requiring staff to come in for two.

automatic exemptions of in-office attendance rules during school holidays and Christmas;

capping in-office requirements at one day a week for any carers or people with disabilities;

flexible start and finish times to allow for cheaper off-peak travel costs and to accommodate school pickup and drop-offs;

subsidised onsite meal costs;

and a single, consolidated payment made to all staff to make up for the costs of coming into the office, before March 2027.

Beauty specialist will open branded areas in 100 Marks & Spencer stores and will sell its products on chain’s website

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Marks & Spencer has signed a deal with Sephora to open areas under the beauty brand’s name within its stores, in its latest tactic to attract younger shoppers.

The French retailer is to launch branded areas staffed by Sephora employees in 100 M&S stores and sell through the British retailer’s website in spring next year.

OpenAI chief scientist also among authors of report on prospect of ‘most consequential technological development in history’

Two of the “godfathers” of modern AI and senior executives at OpenAI and Anthropic have warned governments to prepare for an AI “intelligence explosion”, which they say could be the most consequential technological development in history.

A report co-authored by the Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton and the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, considered godfathers of modern AI for their work in the field, urges politicians to act now before there is runaway progress in the technology.

World’s biggest economies release lists of products in latest move away from trade war – but no strategic goods are included

The US and China have released reciprocal lists of goods worth about $30bn each on which they plan to cut tariffs, ranging from consumer electronics and agricultural products to artificial flowers and live dolphins.

The announcements are the latest tack away from the intense trade war between the world’s two largest economies that dominated much of last year, though major strategic products are not included and no timeline has yet been given for the reductions.

In 1971, self-appointed mayor Hondo Crouch turned the Texan town into a rural respite for country stars. Soon it was immortalised in chart-topping songs – and became a symbol of a simpler American life

In the summer of 1973, the US country singer Jerry Jeff Walker was in the middle of nowhere, recording his soon-to-be-classic album ¡Viva Terlingua!. A crowd was packed to the rafters in an old dancehall 70 miles west of Austin, in Luckenbach, Texas. An extension lead ran from the hall to a recording truck outside. After everyone had gone home that night, Walker stood in the street and said to Hondo Crouch, Luckenbach’s self-appointed mayor: “I wonder what we just did.”

When Crouch had bought the town two years prior, its population was just three people – and according to the most recent census in 2021, it’s back at the same number. But in the 1970s, this ramshackle town thrived as Walker and his peers headed there, and Luckenbach became one of the most improbable yet important centres for country music.

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

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

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

Spanish drama about people leaving their old lives behind plays out like a literary novel, with Manolo Solo excellent as a discombobulated gardener

Out of the blue, a woman walks out on her husband. Bags packed and ready to go, at the last moment she crumples up the letter she has written to him and vanishes from their Madrid flat. So begins this drama featuring not one but three characters disappearing without a trace from their lives; it sounds soap opera-ish, but mostly The Portuguese House unfolds as polite elegant drama, told with such rich novelistic detail it often feels like it’s getting into the minds of the characters.

Manolo Solo gives an excellent performance as the left-behind husband, Fernando, an introspective mild-mannered geography professor. After his wife’s disappearance, Fernando goes on holiday to Portugal, where he meets a gardener called Manuel. When Manuel drops dead of a heart attack, Fernando decides – like his wife – to leave his old life behind; he assumes Manuel’s identity and takes a job as the gardener at a Portuguese country estate. The owner, Amália (Maria de Medeiros), senses that this intellectual man with glasses and a clumsy way with the loppers is not the man she hired, but doesn’t push it – possibly because she is attracted to him.

This Luxembourg-made movie about a couple who venture east to save their son features some impressive film-making

Stippled with first-world guilt about income inequality even between fellow EU member states, this Luxembourg-made horror sprinkles a bit of liberal fairy dust over what is otherwise a pretty straight-up, if twisty, horror setup: a grunting, inarticulate and physically disfigured big baddie stalks the normie protagonists who shouldn’t have come round these impoverished parts. Think Grand Duchy Chainsaw Massacre, though admittedly without any chainsaws. There are sullen locals, a dilapidated farmhouse full of ominous clutter, ill intentions and horrible maiming.

The unlucky visitors here are former couple Greg (Malik Zidi) and Anne (Brigitte Urhausen), who are co-parenting little Leo (Leo Todesco), a pre-adolescent who is lying in a hospital bed while waiting for a crucial organ transplant. A little time has to elapse before we learn that control-freak Anne blames likable doctor Greg for Leo’s condition because he took his eyes off the kid for just long enough for him to get hit by a car. But Greg is trying to make it up to her by accompanying his ex on a trip to an unnamed eastern European country (where folks speak Bulgarian) to acquire the organ Leo needs on the black market, their glide path lubricated with lots of cash and pre-arranged bribes to border guards and the like.

From ‘recycled chicken’ being sold on a stall to Bongbong fanboying over the Fish-Slapping Dance, Palin’s travel shows always explore fascinating things that others don’t. It is a reminder that his work is increasingly precious

There is a moment in episode one of Michael Palin in the Philippines where our host surveys a group of children swimming gaily in the harbour of Pagasa, a tiny island in what western atlases traditionally refer to as the South China Sea. “Oh, if only I were young again,” he muses. “Eighty-one would do!”

Palin is now 83 and into his fifth decade of travel presenting, which is longer than he spent as an active member of Monty Python. Naturally, he is not a dynamic or imposing presence on screen. His insights are applied with a soft, broad brush and jokes like the one about pining for the lost vigour of his early 80s are his metier now: simple, classic, corny, even.

The star of Heated Rivalry does his best in this in this human-trafficking yarn, which gets progressively ickier and more exploitative

Sketchy in every sense of the word, this sci-fi thriller is set in the not-too-distant future in a dystopian concrete city (actually mostly Bucharest looking like itself), where life is cheap but screenwriting conceits are clearly expensive, given most of the main ones here appear to be borrowed from other movies. Brother-and-sister twins Baxter (Connor Storrie, from Heated Rivalry) and April (Lilly Krug) are struggling to get by and mooching around the fringes of the criminal world, doing jobs on a spectrum of legality, though nothing especially harmful to themselves or others. He does petty crimes and she makes wigs and sells downloads of her own uncannily clear dreams (a nod to neglected 90s classics Strange Days and Until the End of the World where dream tech played key roles).

Unfortunately, Baxter and his screw-up associate Ronny (Tourialay Akbari) fall into debt to and afoul with local kingpin Klein (Serban Pavlu), whose persistent use of Yiddish phrases and general parsimoniousness sets up the characterisation just on the edge of antisemitism. When Baxter cleans out his and April’s joint accounts and still comes up short, someone takes April and her archive of recorded dreams/memories. Suddenly, the action jumps ahead five years in the future and April is both still missing and yet, at a local brothel, all too ubiquitous where it seems she’s been cloned to make numerous sex workers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pitlochry Festival theatre
In what feels now like a premonition of the climate crisis, Siobhán Redmond is compelling as the everywoman putting on a brave face in an unforgiving landscape

Samuel Beckett’s play is always staged with a radiant brightness. It is hot enough to set a parasol alight. If, on its premiere in 1961, that resonated with audience anxieties about nuclear Armageddon, in 2026, it feels like a premonition of the climate crisis. Is this how it ends?

Emma Bailey’s set is a dune of bleached-white sand, clumps of sea grass forcing their way through into a scorched environment, baked by Colin Grenfell’s lighting. When Forbes Masson crawls out of his hole as Willie, keeping his back to us, he reveals nothing more than his neck and shoulders, raw and sunburnt, his scarred head protected by a handkerchief (used).

New Diorama theatre, London
Passionate production based on testimonies from Gaza poses many questions regarding Israel’s actions but gets overwhelmed by fact-delivery and form-switches

How do news outlets cover war in a region where independent foreign journalists are blocked entry? What to make of the reports of the Israel-Gaza war by the western press in relation to the livestreamed footage on our phones?

These are some of the questions that come to mind when thinking about Israel’s actions in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, and bringing apocalyptic brutality and death tolls. This 90-minute production by British-Romanian collective BÉZNĂ theatre asks many more in its polyphony of satire, song, graphics, snatches of history, absurdism and sincerity. The four-strong cast – comprising Maryam Abu Khaled, Sara Masry, Luca Kamleh Chapman and Sofia – juggle it all in a series of mini lectures, dramatised dialogue, poetic monologues and meta theatre.

Chichester Festival theatre
A narcotic, orgiastic woodland party clashes with the traditional values of John Major’s Tory party in Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss’s exuberant production

The Shakespearean canon contains the term “love juice” twice, both in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So, though purists might be furious, that druggy usage – and Fairie King Oberon’s access to potions that “make eyes roll” – offer textual justification for Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss staging the play around a narcotic, orgiastic woodland party in the summer of 1994.

At that time, prime minister John Major was introducing legislation to ban “illegal raves”. Egeus (Henry Everett), an Athenian courtier in the source, becomes Chief Constable of West Sussex, surnamed Anderton, an allusion to Sir James, a Thatcher ally whose Bible-inspired policing saw him called God’s Copper. Duke Theseus becomes MP for Chichester, a seat held by the Conservatives for a century from 1924. With one character wearing Major rosettes on her breasts, a PM often derided as dull is becoming a theatre star: the National next year stages a James Graham bio-drama, Major.

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

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

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

At the Menier Chocolate Factory until 14 November

Japan once had a reputation for statement architecture – yet many buildings have been torn down since 2000. A new book reminds us of their futuristic beauty

Fear of outsiders is the defining issue of our times. But is it actually our own selves we’re scared of? And could art hold the answers? Here, the British Art Show’s curator reveals why he’s exploring our deepest dreams and nightmares

One of the moral low points of Keir Starmer’s tenure at Downing Street was his “island of strangers” speech, with its rhetorical echoes of Enoch Powell and dispiriting description of a nation fractured by difference. After widespread criticism, Starmer recanted his words, if not the sentiment behind them. Yet his choice of language was a reminder of how the idea of the stranger – representing immigration, but also wider, more inchoate anxieties about otherness and difference – holds such a potent place in Britain today.

In fact, from masked anti-migrant protesters on the south coast to xenophobic riots over the summer, from politicians vowing to stop the boats to immigration polling as the No 1 concern among UK voters, it’s probably true to say that fear of the stranger is the totemic issue of our times.

The photographer’s photos are so meticulously staged that viewers often assume they were taken in a studio – not behind a London nightclub or in an Australian goat field

One bright spring day, the photographer Damien Frost arrived at a farm in Gungal, outside Muswellbrook, New South Wales. Goats grazed in a paddock, eucalyptus trees stretched into the brilliant blue sky and a tin shed weathered in the sun. Frost walked into the shed and entered another world.

“It’s a drag studio,” says Frost. Lining the walls were dozens of wigs and rails of flamboyant outfits belonging to Beverly Fabulosity. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a very Priscilla scenario.”

Frost grew up in Australia and is now based in London, where for more than a decade he has photographed drag queens and club kids for his acclaimed Night Flowers series. Since late August, he has been back in his home country, commissioned by Newcastle’s New Annual festival to photograph night owls in and around the city. These new portraits are being exhibited alongside a selection from Frost’s archive at Watt Space gallery as part of the festival.

Nearly a decade after it was first staged, Jocelyn Bioh’s study of girlhood in 1980s Ghana is better than ever in irresistible new production

After its 2017 premiere off-Broadway, School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play transferred to Los Angeles, was remounted in New York the following year, and has since been staged in over 75 theaters across the US, plus a successful run in London. It’s easy to see why – Jocelyn Bioh’s one-act comedy has a familiar structure, richly detailed characters, and an onslaught of delicious barbs. Plus it has the good sense of an 80-minute runtime.

Its splendid Broadway debut is not content with being a mere victory lap, though, in a freshly glorious production helmed by Whitney White. Having staged Bioh’s Tony-winning Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, the director knows her way around an all-women ensemble, and often counts upon a team of usual suspects to make her shows pop: Nikiya Mathis, who won a special Tony for Jaja’s hair and wig designs, and Qween Jean, whose costumes enlivened the Pulitzer-winning Liberation, ensure there’s always visual splendor onstage.

Being kind to your jeans and shirts by laundering them less will keep them looking great for longer, says fashion editor Hannah Rochell

I have an emotional attachment to my most reliable clothes. There’s my favourite pair of socks that are back on my feet as soon as they’re clean. The trusty pair of trousers that not only have an elastic waist (comfy!) but make an ordinary T-shirt look part of a really well put together outfit. And then there are my best jeans. I wouldn’t say they’re lucky, per se, but good things seem to happen when I wear them. Oh, and I pretty much never wash them.

Many of us own an item of clothing that we perceive as “lucky” and, anecdotally at least, we’re often reluctant to wash it. Perhaps because we don’t want to rinse off the “luckiness”. Or maybe it’s because we’re beginning to understand that washing clothes too often can do more harm than good.

The smartest wardrobe investment might be looking after the items you already own, says fashion editor Hannah Rochell

What do you think of when you hear the word flares? The counterculture of the late 1960s? Pictures of your parents in the 1970s, perhaps. For me, it’s the Wrangler bell-bottoms I bought secondhand in 1995. They were already 20 years old, but completed my vintage look of Adidas T-shirt and shell-toe trainers in a contemporary way.

Bootcut jeans, the bell-bottom’s slightly toned-down cousin, were huge in the early noughties before skinny jeans took their place. But our love for flares couldn’t be suppressed for long; they were back on the catwalks as soon as 2015. Fast forward another 11 years to Claudia Winkleman’s celebrated wardrobe for The Traitors at the beginning of 2026, and it was full of, you guessed it, flares.

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

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

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

The number of luxury sheds and garden rooms has rocketed since the pandemic – fuelled by those wanting an office, a gym or extra living space. Meanwhile, the resentment between neighbours has been rising, too

Linda loves her shed. She loves that she can work there rather than in her dining room, which her toddler likes to tear through. She loves its Scandinavian vibe – it’s clad in wood and set on decking at the bottom of her garden. She loves the views of the countryside from the window by her desk. Or she did. Her desk faces the wall now, because she’s too nervous to face her neighbour. She never sits on the decking, either. “What if they see me?” she says. “It’s a horrible feeling.”

Linda’s neighbours are unhappy about her shed, or “garden room”, which is actually two rooms. They do not like its size (7.25 metres by 2.74 metres, or 3.5 metres if you include the raised decking) or its position, about 30 metres away from their house. Linda says they have barely spoken since the construction, which is awkward, as the gardens are separated by a low fence.

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

• The best screen-free activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The best frying pans for every kind of cook

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

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

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

• The best supermarket party cakes

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

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

Demand for Scotland’s most famous export has slumped, with industry facing job cuts and closures

Obscured by the Scottish countryside on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy, Cluny bond is, in effect, a small town built to store whisky. By the time the latest set of warehouses are finished on the former opencast coal mine, Diageo’s 220-hectare (544-acre) maturation campus will be able to store almost 3m casks of Scotch. The drinks multinational needs the space.

After a 15-year boom turbocharged by the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for Scotch whisky has slumped around the world. Distilleries have paused production across Scotland to avoid adding to the glut of supply, known as a “whisky loch” – the equivalent of a “wine lake”.

What’s good and what’s going off this autumn in the world of food

Manchester

Cook up mushrooms, leeks and foraged chestnuts, pick fruit, sow broad beans for spring and harvest squash

Quince
Hard as a baseball and initially unpromising, quince are at their best cooked until beautifully aromatic. To save the torture of peeling (thank you, queen of preserving Pam Corbin), poach whole until soft, cool, then discard the core and blitz.

Leeks
Try cooking these sweet, oniony joys in a moderate oven, wrapped in foil with just a dash of olive oil and a sliced garlic clove per leek, until soft and luscious – about 40 minutes, depending on thickness.

A rich and sweet chicken main and a punchy tart to round off the meal

Despite the back-to-school, back-to-work vibes of September, I also think it’s a time of celebration. There’s the feeling of new things, with apples, corn, walnuts, squash and mushrooms appearing at the markets, and my garden has finally emerged from its drought-induced slumber, as if coming out of a trance – it is greener, more alive, reawakening. There’s still the odd bit of warm weather in which to play, too, so light up the grill, get creative in the kitchen and dance like it’s June again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

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

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

How did a solicitor who is the leader of the English Democrats and a Norwegian national fare on Brexit, surveillance and Ukraine?

Robin, 68, Essex

Occupation Solicitor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Savers face a dilemma: lock down the deals now or wait, with offers tipped to ‘get even better’

• Britain’s low-paid urged to sign up to savings scheme offering cash bonus

Returns on the top fixed-rate savings accounts are at their highest level in years and still climbing, with some now paying up to 5.25%.

It leaves those with money to put away facing a choice: lock into some of the best interest rates on offer in several years or hold your nerve in the hope they get even better?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critics say partnership between Mounjaro maker Eli Lilly and fashion giant suggests thinness is an aspiration

The fifth iteration of Vogue World, overseen by Anna Wintour, took place in Milan on Tuesday night. Gigi Hadid and Jennifer Lopez provided theatrics on the catwalk, but it was one of the event’s backers that caused the biggest stir.

Eli Lilly, an American pharmaceutical company that manufactures a wide range of medicines, including weight-loss jabs Mounjaro and the Foundayo pill, was listed in the event credits as one of its “fashion adjacent” sponsors.

A look evoking memories of All Saints and Destiny’s Child has fashion editors, Brad Pitt and the high street all blending in

Discussing their style while in All Saints, Nicole and Natalie Appleton said earlier this year that some things don’t change: “Army trousers and combat trousers will always be a staple with us.”

If, for a long time after All Saints’ noughties heyday, the sisters would have known this look was not the height of fashion, things have changed in 2026. Judging by those attending shows at London fashion week this month, camo is very much back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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From a cosy Cornish inn with open fires to a boutique hotel in Northumberland, these new and revamped boltholes tick all the right boxes

• 15 great cottages and cabins for an autumn escape in the UK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the Mr England contest put out a call for entrants, only seven people signed up. Now, with 13 days to go until the final, the organisers are getting desperate

Age: At least two years old.

Appearance: A hunkless vista, as far as the eye can see.

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

Removal of war debris, in which lives, memories and unexploded Israeli bombs lie buried, is one of largest clearance operations in modern history

It took all day to clear a section of road in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City. At the end of it, Ahmed Alyan, a UN engineer, was exhausted, surrounded by mountains of rubble despite the day’s work.

“I feel as if we are holding a spoon and trying to empty the sea,” Alyan said, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead after a long, hot summer day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you had the shingles vaccine on the NHS or privately because you hoped it might lower your dementia risk? We’d like to hear from you

Sales of shingles jabs have increased after studies have claimed that it could reduce the risk of dementia and we’d like to hear from people who have been influenced by the findings to get the vaccine.

Have you had the shingles vaccine in the past two years, either on the NHS or privately, because you hoped it might lower your dementia risk?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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