It has become common for people to wait in long lines for cafes, bakeries and ice-cream shops. But why? And what do the owners think?

At 9.45am on a warm Saturday in September, a queue snakes down the pavement in Notting Hill, west London. Stretching for 20 yards past office blocks, estate agents and cafes, the line is waiting peacefully for an unusual morning snack: frozen yoghurt. The purveyor is the dessert shop Yo-Chi, which opened only a fortnight ago, one of the many hospitality businesses making queueing an increasingly common part of the British dining experience.

“We wait in line for everything now,” says 23-year-old Hannan Mahamud as she stands midway down the queue with three friends. “I queued for an hour the other week for a cookie, although it wasn’t worth it. We heard about Yo-Chi through a creator on TikTok who works in an office building across the road and posts queue updates. We thought it might be a fun day out.”

What sounds like the overwrought penultimate episode in a sci-fi series about AI doom is now our reality

On Tuesday, a former OpenAI researcher quit his job at Anthropic, warning that “neither company is acting responsibly” and that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”

As someone who’s reported on AI risk for years, this wasn’t news to me. But the outpouring of alarm suggests a much wider public is properly confronting this ludicrous situation for the first time.

Anna Sweeney Rossman was 5 when her mother, flight attendant Amy Sweeney, was killed aboard American Airlines flight 11 after helping authorities identify the hijackers

Anna Sweeney Rossman was only five years old when her mother, flight attendant Madeline “Amy” Sweeney, died aboard an airliner that terrorists hijacked and deliberately flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And for years, she said in an interview on Wednesday, Rossman’s grief primarily centered on her mother’s absence from certain milestones in her life.

She recalled how planning her 2023 wedding – particularly shopping for a dress – hit her especially hard without her mom there. And Rossman said it was as much a blow to not have her mom there for the birth of her daughters, each younger than 2, as the US prepared to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Friday.

Apocalypse dumps contestants in an abandoned town without essential supplies. Is it a serious test of endurance or just titillation? Our writer is parachuted in to find out

I have no shame confessing that I’d be a crap companion during the apocalypse. My practical skills are limited, I’d be a right Debbie Downer and I don’t respond well to sharing food. Still, last November, two survival experts spent a morning making a valiant effort to prepare me for Armageddon deep in the rural Indiana countryside.

I had ventured to the US midwest to see the making of Apocalypse, an ambitious new Channel 4 reality series: an eight-parter following 16 people attempting to sustain themselves after an unexplained catastrophe from which only they appear to have survived.

Some inventions, like the dishwasher, improve our lives. But driverless cars will lobotomise us

I’ve found a hill to die on. Driverless cars. Why? Really, why? If driverless cars are the answer, then what is the question? Who asked for them? Oh yes, they’re fine for the novelty value, for the lols, for the clicks. We probably know someone who’s been to California or China and sent home a video of their driverless journey. Fine fun for feeble minds, if you ask me. And feeble-minded is how we’re all going to end up if this madness takes hold.

It’s been a slippery slope since the invention of automatic transmission, rendering our left legs and arms redundant and sparing us the trouble of feeling our way up and down through the gears. Then there was the coming of satnav, before which time we needed a sense of where we were in the world and which direction we were facing. Now that’s gone, we can find our way anywhere without really knowing where it is. Not good.

Since Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, there has been a 63% rise in Americans renting properties in Scotland. Politics is one reason – but there are many other surprising motivations …

Four years ago, when Tammi Gaw, a 50-year-old property adviser, moved from Washington DC to Glasgow with her Scottish partner, friends and family laughed at her. “People back home kept asking me: ‘Ha ha, why would you want to move to Scotland, where it rains all the time?’ Now those same people are asking me: ‘Hey, how do I move there?’”

They are not alone. According to data from Rightmove, 28% of inquiries from Americans about buying a home in the UK are about Scotland, a larger number than for London. And a recent survey from lettings platform Goodlord reported a 63% rise in the number of Americans renting properties in Scotland since Donald Trump’s re-election in November 2024.

Labelled a tourist tax, proposals would give mayors power to decide how revenue raised should be invested

• UK politics live – latest updates

Holidaymakers will face a nightly levy on hotel and Airbnb-style stays in England under plans ministers are due to outline to give mayors new powers.

The idea, labelled a tourist tax, was first raised by Keir Starmer’s government in November and is similar to a scheme running in Scotland. It would allow mayors to charge a fee to visitors staying overnight and decide how the revenue raised should be invested.

Testimony from Israeli military insiders involved in surveillance and remote killings features in documentary produced by the Guardian

Testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders ​on the secret ​systems used in ​the war on Gaza​ has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award.

Vice-president suggests payment would not go to all and would be paid for by tariff revenues despite supreme court rulings against much of Trump’s program

• US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims

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Before departing for Republicans’ midterm convention yesterday, President Trump predicted to reporters that the war in Iran he helped launch would end immediately after the midterms (assuming that his party held onto its majority in Congress).

But a new report from the Wall Street Journal, published Wednesday evening, indicates that, behind closed doors, Trump’s top advisors have given him less optimistic forecasts. The paper reports that top officials – including JD Vance, Trump’s vice president, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state – have warned that Iran could hold out against US pressure through the remainder of Trump’s second term.

Environment Agency says talks under way about increasing prices for industrial users to try to reduce poor water management

Ministers are exploring making water more expensive for some users, in the face of severe supply shortages.

Despite the UK being a famously wet country, the precarious nature of the water supply has been made particularly acute this summer, with almost three-quarters of England and all of Wales in drought and 27 million people facing restrictions on their water use.

US government adviser Paul Christiano warns of risks to AI industry as he joins OpenAI’s non-profit foundation

OpenAI is not on track to reduce risks of “catastrophic” loss of control to an acceptable level, a member of its non-profit board has warned, amid spreading public and political concern that super-advanced AIs could one day wipe out humanity.

Paul Christiano, a US government technology adviser, said “there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term.”

Iran and its proxies move closer to full control of two shipping chokepoints as regional conflict widens

Yemen’s Houthi rebels are making a concerted drive to take full control of the country’s Red Sea coast, claiming control of the key port of Mocha, in the most serious wave of fighting with the Saudi-backed government in years.

Seizure of the coast would be a strategic disaster for Saudi Arabia and the US, taking Iran and its proxies closer to full control of two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula: the Bab al-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea and the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

CEO Michael O’Leary tells reporters the businessman was sucked ‘towards’ but not out of the opening

• Business live – latest updates

Ryanair has said it will be “disputing” that any part of a passenger’s body was sucked outside when a window on one of its aircraft broke while in flight.

US investigators are examining the incident which left Ljubisa Karović, 61, severely injured when the window beside him shattered on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany in July.

Volunteers told to consider not wearing charity-branded clothing and to shut lifeboat stations if they feel in danger

• Police working to protect RNLI in Dorset

The RNLI is increasing security after a backlash from far-right agitators over the lifeboat charity’s involvement in rescuing asylum seekers in the Channel and bringing them to UK shores.

Volunteers have been told by the charity’s bosses that they should consider not wearing RNLI branded clothing if they feel this might put them at risk. They have also been advised that they should feel empowered to close shops or lifeboat stations if they feel in danger.

Tech mogul calls director Alex Gibney a ‘bitter old man’ who has ‘zero integrity’ in series of posts on X

Elon Musk has issued an angry tirade at the film-maker behind a four-hour documentary about his life and influence, labelling director Alex Gibney a “bitter old man” who has “zero integrity”.

Gibney, who has previously made films about the collapse of Enron, WikiLeaks and Vladimir Putin, premiered his Musk documentary at the Venice film festival this week. He said he believed the world’s richest man was “extremely dangerous”.

Thousands of protesters are flooding the streets of Tirana in the biggest unrest Albania has seen since the collapse of communism. It began as the “flamingo revolution”, sparked by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s plans for a luxury mega-resort on a public nature reserve island.

But the protests have since grown into a wider challenge to Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government, which is accused of selling off Albania’s coastline to the elites. Matthew Cassel travels to Albania to see how an environmental fight over one island has escalated into a political battle over the country’s future.

Ask-a-Muslim campaign takes to streets as country faces prospect of extremists entering highest levels of government

Not far from one of Scandinavia’s biggest shopping malls, Kashif Virk stood on the pavement, handing out flyers and smiling at those who passed by. On a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, the Swedish-born imam had taken to the street to invite people to ask him anything they had ever wanted to know about Islam.

For years, Sweden’s far right has peddled its own, distorted view of Islam, portraying it as being at odds with Swedish values. The Ask-a-Muslim – or Fråga en Muslim – campaign, conceived by Virk in 2017, was his way of fighting back.

After a year of frenzied conjecture, the new hosts putting the razzle back into Strictly are Johannes Radebe, Emma Willis and Josh Widdicombe. They talk night sweats, sparkly pants – and the hilarious fake show cooked up to fool the press

Johannes Radebe, one of the three new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing, can barely contain his glee. Asked where they were when they heard they’d got the job, Radebe is quick to wind up his co-hosts. “We’ll never forget that call,” he grins. “It was a weekday afternoon and I was at home, preparing for that night’s performance of [West End musical] Kinky Boots. But go on, tell the Guardian where you two were.”

“We all got the same message, asking us to jump on a Zoom,” says Emma Willis. “We didn’t know if it was good news or bad news.” Josh Widdicombe picks up the story: “I thought, ‘Surely they wouldn’t tell me to my face if I hadn’t got it? They’d just text my agent or something.’”

As the French Canadian superstar returns for her first concerts since she was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, we count down the best of an unabashedly romantic catalogue. Wind machines at the ready!

When Céline Dion’s era as a foolproof hitmaker ended, she seemed weirdly liberated and more willing to take risks. Witness the video for Ashes: an impressively atmospheric ballad from the soundtrack to Deadpool 2, in which she gently mocks her own image in the company of Ryan Reynolds, in character as the antihero.

Jasper stands accused of being wasteful but feels aggrieved that Mindy says he’s being lazy. Is this a race to the bottom? You decide

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

Opening new products when old ones aren’t empty is wasteful – and he does it to avoid cleaning up

Everyone thinks Byker Grove broke the taboo in 1994, but another teen drama got there first. Here’s the astonishing story of Two of Us, which put a gay relationship on UK screens – and was the original Heartstopper

When I started looking for anything queer aimed at kids on TV from around the time I was born in 1989, I came across a children’s drama called Two of Us. Directed by Roger Tonge and written by Leslie Stewart, it was surprisingly akin to the 2020s series Heartstopper, both in its plot and in the way it makes you feel. But the reaction at the time couldn’t have been more different.

Both feature one character who realises he likes both boys and girls, who falls in love with another guy. Both are set at a comprehensive school. Both have characters who face homophobia and stigma but manage to find a way through because of their love and support for each other.

(Merge)
Britain’s best indie-rockers hold fast to their defiantly old-school sound, slipping wry sideways looks at despair in among hooky melodies that always sound like a good time

On a track called Heaven or London from the Tubs’ third album, the quartet’s frontman, Owen Williams, offers a blunt self-assessment. He is, he suggests, “the singer of a rip-off band”, engaged in “wanking himself into an early grave”. It’s a strange thing to say given that the Tubs have recently become a critical cause célèbre. Their last album, Cotton Crown, was a regular fixture in best of 2025 lists. They have been unexpectedly clasped to the bosom of the heritage rock press and had a profile in the New Yorker, which called them a “British jangle-rock band, with a cheeky dirtbag edge”.

That they’ve achieved this not by pandering to the dictates of musical fashion but by ploughing their own furrow makes it even more impressive. Much has been made of Williams’s vocal resemblance to folk-rock legend Richard Thompson, and you can understand why. But what the Tubs really sound like is old-school, pre-Madchester indie rock. Distorted guitars do battle with trebly acoustic or 12-string guitar, the punky heft and wistful melodies evocative of Hüsker Dü or the Replacements in their poppier, post-hardcore years. You could also throw pre-stadium REM into the mix: the most plangent of the lead guitar lines on Hard Life have a ring of Peter Buck about them, such as the lovely figures that spin around If You Don’t Love Me, and the arpeggio that drives In Your Place along for five and half minutes. The album comes liberally decorated with violin, which recalls Amanda Brown’s contributions to the Go-Betweens’ late-80s albums.

A film about sisterhood with fifty- and sixtysomething female leads is something to cheer – but would it have been made if its stars had aged like mere mortals since the 1998 original?

Would Hollywood have brought Practical Magic back from the dead if the intervening 28 years looked more visible on Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman? An awkward question, as it risks subjecting their faces to the invasive scrutiny older female actors already endure. Their return as leads in their late 50s and early 60s should count as progress. Yet it reveals a condition of female stardom: age can increase a female actor’s nostalgic value, provided it does not show too clearly on her face.

In Practical Magic 2, Bullock, 62, and Kidman, 59, return as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens. Dianne Wiest, 78, and Stockard Channing, 82, are back too. Joey King and Maisie Williams play Sally’s adult daughters, but Sally and Gillian remain central.

For decades physicists have been puzzling over the enigma of dark matter. We think it makes up 85% of the matter in the universe, but the mysterious substance cannot be seen or detected, and we know about it mainly through observations of the gravitational effects it has on other things. But now scientists believe they may be a step closer to detecting it. Science editor Ian Sample explains to Madeleine Finlay why, if confirmed, the finding could completely transform our understanding of the universe. And Dr Samuel Erikson, senior research associate at the University of Bristol, and first author of the research paper, explains how the finding has been received in the physics community

Every decade, the BBC’s continued existence must be secured through an elaborate multi-year negotiation with the government. But what does charter renewal actually involve – and will it secure the BBC’s long-term future?

In a temperature-controlled room in a suburb of Reading, the basis of the BBC’s existence is kept in a flat, square, faded navy case, the size of a large pizza box. Inside is a stack of vellum – calfskin, pounded until it forms a milky and translucent paper that is supposed to last for thousands of years. The queen’s red wax seal is secured to its base with red and gold cord. The pages are strapped down with two strips of white elastic, more PE kit than Buckingham Palace.

The document is unique. Like hundreds of other British organisations, the BBC was founded via a Royal Charter, granted by the monarch of the day. But unlike Oxford colleges, the British Film Institute, or the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, the BBC was given an expiry date. When the British Broadcasting Corporation was founded, in the 1920s, radio was seen as such an uncertain, risky technology that the government only gave it a 10-year guarantee, after which it would have to seek a new charter.

The Sussexes must have hoped for a warm welcome. Then they read the king’s delicately savage letter about ‘private citizens’

As welcome-back-to-Britain gestures go, the lord chamberlain’s letter, sent on behalf of King Charles on Monday to remind Harry, Meghan and everyone watching that they’re still “private citizens”, was so perfect as to restore me to monarchism. After six years in the wilderness, what greater comfort for Prince Harry than to find himself, once again, in the familiar waters of this country’s passive aggression, being attacked by his father via the merciless phrase “fully respected”, and provoking from the prince a coded up-yours in the form of his publicly stated “surprise”.

Well, it’s up there with better cheese, bread and the NHS, isn’t it?! Even the most Eurocentric American can’t match us for this kind of subtextual bare-knuckle fight. Before we get into what else the returnees may be enjoying this month, let’s fully excavate the letter’s encrypted hostility. First, the king’s repeated use of the words “personal” and “private” – as in “the charitable work of the Duke and Duchess is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity” – is so intense, so heavy handed, as to go beyond merely calling his younger son a civilian and come perilously close to the ultimate insult, “middle class”.

Emma Brockes 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.

The change in policy is a direct result of sustained pressure from activists and organisers across the Palestine movement. But what comes next?

The announcement on Tuesday by the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, of an import ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as a comprehensive sanctions regime, is a hard-won victory for the Palestine solidarity movement.

This is not simply a change of heart by the government: it is a direct result of sustained pressure from activists and organisers across the Palestine movement, who have consistently held the government’s feet to the fire over its complicity in the atrocities being committed in Gaza and the West Bank. Miliband’s announcement shows us what organised and persistent campaigning can achieve, and inspires confidence that movements can force political change.

Em Hilton is a Jewish writer and organiser. She is the co-founder of Na’amod: UK Jews Against Israeli Occupation, and the policy director at Diaspora Alliance

Climate catastrophe is on our doorstep – yet Labour’s impending approval of further drilling will bring more pain for negligible gains

Pinch yourself, it’s happening again. Here is a Labour government spending a vast amount of political capital to earn tiny material gains while risking huge political losses. It occurred repeatedly under Keir Starmer, and now – with the impending decision to approve further gas and oil drilling in the North Sea – it is happening under Andy Burnham. You rack your brains to explain it, but no rational explanation comes.

Burnham is studiously cryptic about his reasons. His clearest statement to date goes as follows: “There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that.” Does he mean that oil and gas workers are struggling? If so, this decision will be of little use to them. The Jackdaw gasfield, likely to be approved this week, will generate a grand total of 27 direct full-time jobs. The Rosebank oilfield, whose approval is likely to follow soon, will support 450 UK-based jobs during its lifetime. Yet the UK’s net zero economy directly employs 300,000 people, and a further 400,000 jobs are planned. The rest of the green economy employs more than 600,000. A just transition for fossil fuel workers, securing jobs in the green economy, is better for everyone.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

President suggested US might not help UK if Argentina tried to seize Falklands – a new low for UK-US ‘special relationship’

Last week, Donald Trump suggested in an interview with the British TV channel GB News that he might not help the UK if Argentina tried again to seize the Falkland Islands. It was a new low for UK-US relations.

The “special relationship” (Winston Churchill’s phrase) was never perfect, but the UK helped the US on countless occasions, from Korea to Iraq to Afghanistan. The US often stood by the UK as well – although not during the Suez Crisis of 1956, but Ronald Reagan’s government provided significant intelligence and logistics support to Britain during the dust-up over the Falklands in 1982. That relationship is fading fast.

Much of the corruption exposed by this brave woman remains unpunished. Brussels must carry on her work and demand reform

Nine years ago, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s foremost investigative journalist, was assassinated by a car bomb outside her home. The men who carried out the killing have been convicted or admitted their involvement. Nobody has been convicted of commissioning her murder.

Last week, a jury acquitted Yorgen Fenech, one of Malta’s most prominent businessmen, of complicity in the assassination and criminal association.

The president’s latest warning barely registered, written off as typical behavior. But the threats have real-world consequences

As the US and Iran fought around the strait of Hormuz last week, Donald Trump issued one of his typical threats. In an interview with a Fox News correspondent, Trump said Iran would be “totally wiped out as a country” if it retaliated for the latest wave of US air strikes.

That threat by the US president to wipe out another country generated few headlines, even during a relatively slow news week by Trump administration standards.

The architects of Brexit know it has failed. That presents Andy Burnham with an opportunity to set a bolder new agenda

Modesty is not a trait commonly associated with Nigel Farage. Something else must explain the Reform UK leader’s reluctance to talk about what is undoubtedly his biggest achievement.

Few individuals can boast of having influenced British politics as drastically as Mr Farage, with his record of campaigning for Brexit before that word was even coined. He will for ever be associated with the demand for emancipation from Brussels, but is rarely heard celebrating its completion. It barely earned a mention in speeches at his party’s annual conference last week. The simple reason is that none of the promises made about the benefits of life outside the EU have been fulfilled. Leaving made the country poorer, and voters know it.

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.

The US president seized a nation’s natural wealth in a modern-day version of gunboat diplomacy to feed his ego – not to lower Americans’ fuel bills

Imperialism does not require a flag to be planted or a governor dispatched. It can be a powerful nation deciding who governs a smaller, weaker country, and on what terms and for whose benefit its resources will be developed. Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, putting his deputy – Delcy Rodríguez – in his place as president, and then her signing a deal handing a fifth of the country’s proven oil reserves to the US, amount to a modern version of 19th-century gunboat diplomacy. Regime change supplied America’s commercial concession.

This won’t bother Mr Trump. But it should. The US president has oversold his neocolonial spoils. The additional production Venezuela is supposed to bring online might bring down oil prices eventually, but not anytime soon. Crucially, what Mr Trump calls “the biggest oil deal in history” won’t cause the price at the pump to fall before November’s midterms. When so many American voters are struggling to pay energy bills, it’s hard to see how unrealised Orinoco Belt riches are going to help Republican candidates.

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.

Readers respond to the loan of the Bayeux tapestry

I enjoyed your photograph of Andy Burnham, Macron and King Charles admiring the Bayeux tapestry and the king’s comment about the “entente amicale” between France and the UK (Bayeux tapestry loan symbolises ‘entente amicale’ between France and UK, says King Charles, 2 September). I also enjoyed Burnham’s wry reference to a tapestry that “shows a new leader emerging from a northern territory, travelling to the south of England in search of the crown. Something clearly that couldn’t happen today.”

There is a certain irony, however, in there being, I gather, 93 penises portrayed in the tapestry, and six women – three known and three anonymous. Yet all the beautiful and exquisitely observed needlework was done by women. Observation, detail and creativity – significant and often unremarked.

Readers respond to an editorial calling for Andy Burnham to relieve pressure on arts funding in English schools

Your editorial on the decline of music and drama in state schools (4 September) is right to highlight what has been lost. Education should enable young people to enjoy learning as well as achieve.

Michael Gove’s reforms, rooted in a dewy-eyed vision of a mythical golden age of education that never existed, diminished arts subjects in which many students found success. The EBacc prioritised academic subjects and measurable outcomes; the arts were squeezed from timetables.

The reported targeting of student activists in Serbia is an example of increased misuse, with serious consequences for the commercial spyware industry

The targeting of Serbian activists with advanced spyware (Report, 4 September) is the latest warning in a mounting record of abuse that makes the systemic and foreseeable risks of the commercial spyware industry increasingly impossible to ignore. Investors who aren’t paying attention are leaving their portfolios exposed to growing financial, reputational and human rights risks.

Despite industry assurances that its technology is intended only for investigating terrorists and criminals, spyware has repeatedly been linked to the targeting of journalists, activists, elected officials, opposition leaders, lawyers, judges, academics and civil society. The fallout for the companies involved has been serious: costly litigation, criminal complaints, crippling sanctions, judicial investigations, tightening export restrictions, executives being convicted, severe reputational damage and, in some cases, financial collapse.

Double talk | Tilting the scale | Far-right protests | Names in lights

I was interested to read your article regarding “vertical drinking” (Curbs on vertical drinking in Soho pubs to go ahead as Khan criticises council’s ‘breathtaking arrogance’, 8 September). When I was a lad we used to call this “drinking”. It’s a bit like “wild swimming”. Again, in my day, we used to call this “swimming”. Whatever next? Eyeball reading? Horizontal sleeping? Mobile walking? Audible talking?
Joe Hyde
Bilsborrow, Lancashire

• Re your report (UN votes to adopt new world map that shows Africa’s true scale, 4 September), it’s good to see the UN catching up with the Guardian, which uses an equal-area world map in the “The week that was” feature in Saturday’s paper. Many of us in geography classrooms have been using Equal Earth maps, such as the Peters projection, for years.
Dave Weight
Former secondary school geography teacher, Leeds

Over-by-over updates from at Edgbaston, 11am BST start
County cricket live – dog stops play at Grace Road. Yes
Jonathan Liew on Sooryavanshi | And you can mail Rob

41st over: England 169-4 (Brook 53, Lawrence 17) Mohammad Abbas starts from the other end with the keeper up to the stumps. Lawrence takes him for consecutive boundaries, a flick through square leg and an edge along the ground. England are off to a flyer.

40th over: England 160-4 (Brook 52, Lawrence 9) Razaullah’s first ball of the day is a hot, hot lifter that beats Dan Lawrence. After wearing another lifter on the elbow, Lawrence clips firmly through midwicket for four. Nice shot.

• Former manager says Chelsea should be stripped of title

• ‘The title should be for the team that was second’

Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea should be stripped of their 2016-17 Premier League title for financial rule breaches and the honour retrospectively awarded to Tottenham, who he led to second place that season.

Chelsea were fined £10m by the Football Association in July and given a suspended two-window transfer ban for multiple violations of the rules during the Roman Abramovich era. They were also fined £10.75m by the Premier League in March.

• Arsenal are monitoring midfielder’s workload

• Rice received painkilling injections last season

Declan Rice has insisted his body can sustain more than 60 appearances again this season, despite Arsenal’s concerns after he played through pain at the World Cup.

Rice racked up 69 appearances last season for Arsenal and England but revealed during the World Cup he had been managing neural back and hamstring pain, for which he is understood to have received a pain-killing injection, after a hamstring injury in December. It is understood Arsenal are monitoring the 27-year-old’s workload closely after he had only three weeks off before returning to training a week before the Community Shield last month.

Valdas Dambrauskas takes Sabah to Manchester United after journeying from Lithuania and a game show win, via London pub work

Valdas Dambrauskas can reel off the questions and answers without a moment’s pause. Who won the first Academy Award for best actor in 1929? It was Emil Jannings, even if someone else might have been tempted to go with Charlie Chaplin. Which country publishes the highest number of daily newspapers? India was the clear winner. Can you name the nation that produces the most electricity per capita in the world? His family, watching back home, clasped heads in hands but he was right: back then, in 2002, the answer was his native Lithuania.

It was enough to win Dambrauskas about £725 in his appearance on Six Zeros – A Million, the Lithuanian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? “At that time it was quite big money,” he says. “I could have bought a flat in my home town; it was a very difficult period there and they were almost free. But my plan was to go to England and follow my dream to become a coach, and that’s how it started.”

• American rallies from brink to defeat Andreeva

• Gauff survives 12 double faults in three-set escape

Coco Gauff has played far cleaner matches than on Wednesday afternoon. But few players today on the women’s tour have become better at finding answers on the fly when almost nothing is working for them.

The 22-year-old American’s serene march through the US Open women’s draw hit extreme turbulence early in her quarter-final clash with fifth-seeded Mirra Andreeva inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. She dropped the first four games before surrendering the opening set in 26 minutes, ending a streak of 20 consecutive sets won dating back nearly a month. She piled up 12 double faults and 42 unforced errors, the majority off a forehand in open revolt. She found herself one point from defeat not once but twice during a hairy second-set tiebreaker.

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Lancashire’s off-on-off wicketkeeper – sent to Essex on loan – collects 50, he and Akhter frustrating Yorkshire with an unbroken eighth-wicket partnership of 60. Essex 157 for seven, still 233 behind.

A wave to the Guardian’s Will Unwin who rang the five-minute bell today at Old Trafford, asked by a unwary steward who didn’t know the red rose fury within. Dhariwal and Taylor have now stretched the lead to 215, which feels enough already although conditions are looking easier.

It began with getting her dad into walking football after his diagnosis – now Gemma Darvill is taking a national team on tour to Canada

When Gemma Darvill’s dad, Les, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease aged 58, joining a walking football team stopped him from confining himself to his own home, and she believes the game saved his life.

What she could never have foreseen was that, eight years later, she would find herself coaching the first England women’s Parkinson’s team, helping transform the lives of women with the disease from all across the country. She is set to embark on a journey to Toronto to help spread awareness of the ways in which walking football can help put the brakes on the progression of Parkinson’s symptoms.

It was the time and place for Alexis Mac Allister to do his talking on the pitch and the disgruntled Liverpool midfielder delivered on cue. “Very sad” over Liverpool’s refusal to offer him a new contract, while Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch were getting theirs, Mac Allister made Anfield very happy with a match-winning display against Atlético Madrid.

The Argentina international, one of five World Cup finalists involved in an absorbing, delicately-poised contest, vented his frustrations in the best possible and most professional way – from behind an immaculate 20-yard strike into Jan Oblak’s goal rather than a microphone. Mac Allister believes he is playing for a new deal this season and promised to give “100% to my last day” at the pre-match press conference. He was true to his word to extend Atlético’s winless sequence against English opposition in the Champions League league phase to 11 matches.

• Fiba World Cup: USA 108-56 Hungary

• Reese and Clark have been portrayed as fierce rivals

Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark’ s interactions are a subplot of the women’s Fiba World Cup, the WNBA season and if you spend enough time on social media, a divided United States. Clark and Reese have shown their relationship on the court is thriving, and they both excelled in USA’s 108-56 quarter-final win over Hungary on Thursday.

In Thursday’s game, the growing chemistry showed. The pair had a nifty pick-and-roll to end the first quarter that ended with a layup by Reese. The Atlanta Dream forward returned the favor hitting Clark on a fastbreak for an easy lay-up later in the game.

Labour peer tells Council of Europe inquiry failure to implement legal protections still putting journalists at risk

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Malta is vulnerable to “repeated instances of high-level corruption” unless it strengthens the rule of law and protections for journalists, the Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti said at the opening of an inquiry into judicial failures following the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Chakrabarti, a member of the House of Lords and former director of the human rights group Liberty, has been named special rapporteur for a Council of Europe investigation into the fallout from the assassination of the anti-corruption journalist, who died in a car bombing in October 2017.

Mark Rutte said that Europeans ‘increasingly understand’ the need for their countries to take ‘greater responsibility for our own security’

Addressing German ambassadors, Wadephul repeats that the Russian threat “has reached our doorstep and it’s tangible.”

He adds:

“The Russian attempted attack at the airport in Leipzig is only the most recent incident in a string of constantly growing Russian aggression against Europe and against Nato.

Russia and its partners operate with a global network against our interests and in favour of an own imperialist claim to great power status."

Finalist in 2025’s inaugural celebrity iteration will be the host of several variants, which will see different characters banished, murdered and victorious

In another twist for the intrigue-cloaked world of The Traitors, Nick Mohammed is to star in the new West End play based on the ridiculously gripping TV series.

Mohammed, a finalist in the BBC’s first series of The Celebrity Traitors last year, will now play the host of the show, effectively taking over the role of Claudia Winkleman for the stage version. There are several different variants of the play, written by John Finnemore and directed by Robert Hastie, so audiences over the course of its run will see different outcomes as characters are banished, “murdered” and exposed as faithful or treacherous in the fierce competition to win a cash prize. The Traitors – Acts of Betrayal begins performances at the Gillian Lynne theatre in London in May.

Following six years of talks, Pitt Rivers Museum will return body parts collected by British colonial administrators to north-east India

Anthropologists and community leaders from Nagaland, a remote state in north-eastern India bordering Myanmar, have expressed joy and relief that human remains belonging to their ancestors that had been on display in a British museum for nearly a century are finally being returned.

On Monday, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford announced that 39 pieces of human remains – including parts of skulls, a finger and a piece of skin with hair – belonging to the Naga tribes, will be returned to Nagaland after six years of negotiation between the community and the museum.

Paul Nowak says changes to immigration rules risk overstretching social care and fuelling far-right sentiment

Andy Burnham must overhaul Shabana Mahmood’s migration reforms or risk overstretching social care and fuelling far-right sentiment, the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, has warned.

Speaking ahead of the TUC’s annual congress in Brighton next week, Nowak welcomed the “sense of optimism” around Burnham’s fledgling government, but he urged the PM to act in a series of areas, including migration and the cost of living.

Global shift towards clean electricity could trigger ‘cascade’ of progress, helping reduce air pollution, cut waste and revive oceans

A rapid global shift to clean electricity could trigger a “cascade” of progress towards repairing the damage to the planet by the climate crisis, according to a report identifying the environmental solutions most likely to bring about change.

The analysis focuses on “positive tipping points” – thresholds beyond which a sustainable technology or practice becomes increasingly cheap, widespread or politically popular, allowing progress to become self-propelling.

Emissions of planet-heating methane and CO2 from natural sources are worsening the climate crisis, paper says

Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found.

As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils, therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states.

The Syrian rock hyrax depends on the fragile landscapes of the border region. Alongside other environmentalists, I have been documenting the destruction of its habitat

Wars are usually measured in the number of people killed, homes destroyed and towns erased. Far less attention is paid to what happens beneath the rubble. Across southern Lebanon, repeated large-scale detonations are not only causing human tragedy by demolishing villages, they are also destroying the ancient limestone habitats that have sheltered colonies of rock hyrax for centuries.

As founder and president of Green Southerners, an environmental organisation documenting the ecological effects of war in southern Lebanon, I have been helping colleagues to record the damage inflicted on forests, wildlife and fragile ecosystems across the border region.

Native only to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the rare apes were found thousands of kilometres away in Odisha state

Five baby orangutans have been found in a forest in India, prompting authorities to investigate if they were trafficked into the country from south-east Asia.

The orangutans, native only to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra and known for their shaggy red fur, were found in Balasore district of Odisha state, thousands of kilometres away from their natural habitat.

Staff at schools in England say enforcement is ‘relentless’ and occasional holiday less worrying than disengagement

Teachers have so little belief in the importance of pupils’ full school attendance that they would take their own children on term time holidays if they could, staff have told a three-year research programme.

Frontline staff do not believe the school system is set up to deal with an ongoing attendance crisis in England and Wales, where nearly one in five children are now missing at least 10% of school, according to a report based on in-depth conversations with teachers.

Exclusive: Claimants could trade part of payment for specialist equipment, services or training under proposal

Some disabled people could receive “in kind” support rather than just cash payments under a radical overhaul of the personal independence payment (Pip) proposed by official government advisers, the Guardian can reveal.

The proposal, from an expert committee largely made up of disabled people, is one of a number of striking “emerging recommendations” likely to form the basis of the government’s Timms review of Pip, expected to be published in the next two months.

Experts say failure to immediately review cases involving corrupt police officers risks ‘ruining’ more lives

Convictions that imprisoned police officers were involved in obtaining should be automatically reviewed to correct miscarriages of justice such as those perpetrated by the corrupt and racist officer DS Derek Ridgewell, a report says.

The proposed Trew’s law, named after Winston Trew – who was framed by Ridgewell and spent decades fighting to clear his name – would trigger an immediate, independent review of past cases linked to any jailed officer in England and Wales.

Sagal Abdi-Wali, who came from Somalia in the 1990s, likely to face Zack Polanski in Holborn and St Pancras contest

A former child refugee who became the leader of Camden council has been selected to be the Labour candidate for the byelection in Holborn and St Pancras.

Sagal Abdi-Wali, who came to the UK from Somalia as a child in the 1990s and was elected leader of Camden council in May, was chosen by Labour members to contest the north London seat vacated by Keir Starmer.

Funding cuts in 2025 left women, children, older and displaced people hard hit, with 64m fewer people receiving aid

The humanitarian aid system is crumbling as funding shrinks, pressures increase and governments not only fail to protect civilians but are increasingly responsible for endangering them, a new report warned on Thursday as figures revealed 64 million fewer people received aid last year.

With aid contributions cut by 30% between 2022 and 2025 and thousands of aid workers losing their jobs, the humanitarian system has suffered one of its biggest contractions since being formed in the post-second world war era, according to the State of the Humanitarian System 2026 report.

Multiple search and rescue vessels deployed after blaze off Palawan island leaves at least five dead, says coast guard

A large-scale ⁠search and rescue operation ​is under way off the western Philippine island of Palawan on Thursday after a passenger ferry caught fire, killing five people and leaving ⁠scores of passengers missing.

The Philippine coast guard said multiple vessels and other assets were searching for survivors as rescue teams used drift-modelling tools ⁠to identify areas where people may have been carried by currents.

Brothers, arrested in Miami in July on UK rape and sex trafficking charges, to remain in custody in Florida

A US judge denied the bail request of the controversial social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate on Wednesday, ordering the brothers to remain behind bars as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom.

The Tate brothers, prominent figures in the so-called “manosphere”, were arrested in Miami on 18 July after British prosecutors filed new charges against them and sought their extradition to the UK. Those charges included criminal charges of rape and sex trafficking. British prosecutors previously charged the brothers with rape, human trafficking and sexual assault. The Tates, who are dual British-US citizens, have repeatedly denied the accusations against them.

Dow Jones convicted of one count of deterring Selina Cheng from role at Hong Kong Journalist Association but cleared of second charge

A Hong Kong court has convicted the publisher of the Wall Street Journal of deterring a reporter from taking up a trade union role, in a case that raised concerns about press freedom in the city.

The newspaper dismissed Selina Cheng just weeks after she was appointed chair of the Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) in 2024. She was told at the time her termination was officially due to restructuring.

Billionaire Alex Beard and his former deputy appear in London court over alleged payments to African officials

Glencore’s billionaire former head of oil trading has pleaded ⁠not guilty ⁠to ​two bribery charges after allegedly facilitating payments to west African officials in order to advance the Swiss commodity group’s operations ⁠in the continent.

Alex Beard, 59, denied two counts of conspiracy to make ⁠corrupt payments at Southwark crown court in London on Thursday, in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Boss Richard Walker is ‘proud to be backing Britain’ with a store in the capital, Stanley

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The supermarket chain Iceland has said it will open a shop on the Falkland Islands in early December.

The shop, to be launched in partnership with a local retailer, Kelper Stores, will be the first UK high street brand to have a presence in the British territory and will be in the capital, Stanley.

Retailer says first half was a tougher market than it expected, though Waitrose grew sales

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Losses at the owner of John Lewis and Waitrose widened by more than 40% in the first half of the year as it struggled with higher costs and shoppers feeling less confident about their money.

The John Lewis Partnership, which operates 36 department stores and more than 300 Waitrose supermarkets, said its pre-tax loss for the six months to 1 August climbed to £124m, compared with £88m in the same period in 2025.

The passport-size iPhone Duo serves as the first big test for John Ternus, who took over for Tim Cook last week

Apple has unveiled the iPhone Duo, the company’s first foldable phone and the most significant change to the iPhone since the smartphone’s introduction in 2007.

The nearly $2,000 device takes inspiration from iPads’ wide screens and combines them with the portability and camera features of iPhones. When opened, it is the company’s largest phone display and thinnest phone. The Duo opens and closes like a passport to double its screen size.

Manfred Karge’s play about a woman acting as her dead husband was a cause célèbre in the 80s. It remains a bracing portrait of a divided person in a divided culture

It was Pierre Audi, the much-mourned founder of the Almeida, who way back in 1986 sent me a coffee-stained copy of Jacke wie Hose.

Manfred Karge’s one-woman play is a study of female survival in a terrifying world. Ella is a working-class woman who takes on the identity of her dead husband, Max, to endure what Brecht memorably dubbed “the dark times”: the 12 years of Nazi rule. But Karge extends this to include the division of Germany into two nation states (one communist, one capitalist) and the reconstruction that followed.

Aardman’s hero is back in The Beast of Mossy Bottom – a terrifying tale of frankenfood, pitchfork-wielding villagers and a monster with suspiciously stiff orange hair. Our writer meets its makers and moulds her very own Shaun

The Aztec West industrial estate in Bristol was opened by Margaret Thatcher in December 1989. One hundred and sixty acres of breeze block and mirrored glass, it is home to about 7,000 employees and 100 companies, including EDF, EE, HSBC, Co-op Legal and Spandex. It has its own gym, spa, church and morgue. Step inside Unit 1410, though, and bucolic England is magically restored. A farm complete with sheep. Rolling fields in autumn colours. A small parish town boasting post office, war memorial, chippy. It looks lush. But before you hit up Rightmove, I should say: Mossingham is only two feet tall. And plasticine.

It’s January 2026 and Aardman animations are about halfway through production on Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. The 300-odd staff in this shed are full speed ahead – which means each of the 30 animators is rattling out almost two seconds of footage a day.

This year’s festival offers an unusual Patricia Highsmith thriller, an adaptation of a hit stage show, a harrowing prison drama and a new way into the Rocky franchise

Defining Toronto’s place within the fall festival season has become a little harder in recent years. As fewer studios and film-makers want to brave the risks that come attached to premiering on such a stage (last year’s best picture winner One Battle After Another skipped festivals entirely and went straight to cinema), those that do tend to prefer Venice, Telluride and, especially this year, New York.

Last year’s biggest Toronto breakout was Obsession, a micro-budget, up-for-sale horror that played as part of the midnight madness strand, and while that film is now being pushed as an awards contender, it’s not what crowds and pundits typically expect from the starry, prestige-first festival. Is it best viewed now as a rough-and-ready genre hub or maybe a sales market, where perhaps we can still expect some Oscar contenders to be unveiled. It can make figuring out what to see and what to avoid a little harder – but here are some films to keep an eye on over the next week or so.

Claude Chabrol’s 1969 film charts a complex marriage in which a husband suspects his wife is cheating on him

Writer-director Claude Chabrol’s eerie 1969 masterpiece of frozen emotions and unspoken truths is now rereleased, alongside a Chabrol season at London’s BFI Southbank. This is the suspense thriller remade by Adrian Lyne in 2002 as Unfaithful with Richard Gere and Diane Lane and (partly) remade again this year as Minotaur, a bitter and brilliant theme-variation by the Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. As for the original, watched again now, it does not in fact look like a classic noir thriller in the style of Chabrol’s hero Hitchcock, which is how it is often described, but more like something by Buñuel: an elaborate absurdist joke at the expense of the French bourgeoisie, a ballet of repression and fear.

The unfaithful woman of the title is the glacially beautiful but glassy-eyed Hélène, played by Chabrol’s then wife Stéphane Audran. She is cheating on Charles, played by Michel Bouquet, her prosperous husband and the father of their adored 10-year-old son. Charles has begun to suspect something is going on during his wife’s frequent trips to Paris, where she supposedly has appointments with the beautician, goes shopping or visits the cinema, but in fact has sex with the divorced writer Victor Pegala (Maurice Ronet) at his dishevelled bachelor flat. Charles phones the beauty parlour where she is supposed to be getting a treatment; she isn’t there. We see how this only confirms suspicions which have clearly accumulated in his mind like silt over months or even years.

Andrew Scott finds levels of complexity in a stoic character based on meteorologist James Stagg, the man who persuaded Eisenhower to delay Operation Overlord, for this slick wartime drama

The historic gamble of D-day 1944 gets a new perspective in this slick and watchable, if slightly cheesy and unreflective, period drama, whose staginess reflects its origins in theatre; David Haig adapts his play with the director Anthony Maras. Andrew Scott – in RAF uniform, short-back-and-sides and ’tache – plays James Stagg, a brilliant Scottish meteorologist attached to the military during the war. Stagg arrives at the top-secret allied base of Southwick House in Hampshire stubbornly intent on telling allied Cmdr Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, bullishly played by Brendan Fraser, that he has an outlier forecast of bad weather, which means D-day should be delayed from Eisenhower’s planned date of 5 June.

This is to the rage of Col Irving P Krick (Chris Messina), the swaggeringly gung-ho American meteorologist who has always had Ike’s confidence until now. And if we were unsure about this character’s brash-Yank status, in his opening scene he literally shimmies and bops to the Andrews Sisters’ Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy in the operations room to the uptight, thin-lipped astonishment of Stagg who, as overall commanding officer, tells the Americans to get that piano out of there.

Period instruments are miles away from retro affectation, and as two Proms this week will show, can actually bring historical music up to the moment

Nostalgia. What a kick. And what a commercial boon for the music industry. Love the sound of 60s pop and 70s disco? You need the original synths if you’re a composer or producer. You listen to music on digital streams? Loser! Join the retro-future of vinyl enthusiasm, and feel the grooves under your fingers like your parents or grandparents used to. Or you can even make music physical again through the horrible medium of cassettes: all that plastic, all those tiny liner notes, all that high-speed dubbing.

Retro-futurists cherish what they claim is the extra warmth and sonic richness of vinyl, but there is no acoustic reason why vinyl is better. It is in fact objectively worse as a carrier of sonic information than any high-resolution stream of the same track, song or symphony. For cassette nostalgists, if it’s got that old-fashioned tape hiss, it sounds more “real”. We’re now looking for things to sound less clean. Because we distrust today’s technological utopia, we want signs that our music is less polished, less perfect, and thus more human.

First Direct Arena, Leeds
The titanic choruses and stormy metal riffs of latest album Sanctuary are the perfect foundation for Amy Lee’s astonishing, skyscraping vocal range

To watch Evanescence in concert is to be spellbound by founder Amy Lee’s astonishing voice. The Arkansas band’s gifted mezzo-soprano lends their music vocals that range from skyscraping and spectacular to haunting and devastating. She soon moves through the registers on the opener Sanctuary, setting the stage for a show during which her vocals seem to scale ever greater peaks, even when you are convinced that there are no octaves left to conquer. And she makes it look effortless, striding around the stage, headbanging and fist-pumping the air.

It’s standard promotional protocol for a band to lean on their new album on tour, but it still shows impressive faith in their audience that tonight Evanescence perform all but one song from Sanctuary, which is also the title of their sixth LP. Jordan Fish, formerly of Bring Me the Horizon, produced most of it and his metallic influence is clear: pummelling drums, titanic choruses and walls of stormy riffs make the band’s new material noticeably heavier than the gothic hard rock of their earlier years.

Despite the city’s backdrop of deprivation and racism, vibrant nightclubs and daring artists thrived – but after No 1 success for the Real Thing, why was the scene ignored?

Months before the Real Thing’s You to Me Are Everything became a UK No 1 hit in 1976, lead singer Chris Amoo took the unreleased song to the Timepiece, a nightclub devoted to Black music tucked in between bars on Liverpool’s Fleet Street. His DJ friend Les Spaine stuck it on, and the empty dancefloor “just filled up, and nobody, not one person in that place, had heard the song before”, Amoo says with pride on a call from his home on the outskirts of Liverpool. “That’s when me and Les looked at each other and thought: you’ve got something there, brother.”

The track’s symphonic majesty and romantic vocals captured the hearts of millions, and it peaked in the charts during 1976’s summer heatwave. Fifty years later, Amoo is on tour with his fellow bandmate Dave Smith in celebration of its anniversary. But the Real Thing were just the most high-profile group from an underground funk and R&B scene which emerged in 1970s Liverpool, upheld by a generation, predominately from the Toxteth area south of the city centre, that embraced Black American culture.

Josh Baker is the journalist behind the BBC’s smash hit I’m Not a Monster. He’s back with his most extraordinary investigation yet – to solve the mystery of Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria 14 years ago

In 2012, the US marine turned freelance foreign correspondent Austin Tice disappeared in Syria. If he’s still alive, he’ll be the second-longest detained journalist in the world. That, says Josh Baker (speaking to me from Wales), was the podcast he thought he was making: “We thought we were looking for a missing person, and what we fell into was almost like a Bourne novel, utterly extraordinary. A world of espionage, spies, dictatorship.”

It’s also a story of American exceptionalism – the way the US saw itself in relation to the rest of the world. Moreover, “I don’t mean this in a crass way,” Baker says, “but through Austin’s story, we also learn a lot about the last 14 years of the civil war in Syria. We really go inside the regime’s industrial complex of disappearance and torture. As episode two begins, Assad is gone, and we enter into these facilities.”

Beautifully written by her daughter, this is a funny and intimate eulogy to the 60s star of The Avengers who went on to specialise in fierce, complicated women

The late actor Diana Rigg declined to call herself a feminist, noting: “Why would I burn my bra? I need my bra.” Nonetheless, her ideas on womanhood were ahead of their time. In an interview with Michael Parkinson, she observed how marriage was “all rather pagan, don’t you think? … A lot of women see it as security. Well, I’m not a woman who yearns for security.”

Taking over from Honor Blackman as the high-kicking Emma Peel in the 1960s spy series The Avengers, Rigg refused to play subordinate sidekick to Patrick Macnee’s Steed, turning her character into a beacon of female empowerment. When Rigg learned that not only was Macnee paid significantly more than she was, but the camera operator was too, she demanded a raise. She got it, but that didn’t stop the press from labelling her as a grasping diva. Fifty years later, she told Newsnight: “Equal pay. That’s what feminism means to me, only that.”

A refreshingly optimistic book that asks us to grasp the educational opportunities of AI, rather than shrink from them

In 1979, the government asked Wilfred Cockcroft, a now largely forgotten maths lecturer from the University of Hull, to write a report about a crisis in the teaching of his subject to children. It was wide-ranging and meticulous, and included a chapter on a technological innovation that was suddenly becoming available to the average consumer: the calculator.

Many parents and teachers feared that the gadget would undermine a basic skill and a pillar of education – one of the sacred three Rs – producing generations of dumbed-down drones who could reach for a device in their pockets to avoid the hard graft of arithmetic.

A journalist embarks on a wild goose chase that might – or might not – be informative about the male condition

Recovering from surgery at home in upstate New York in 2023, Jon Ronson awoke to a string of texts from his adult son about a weird evening he just had at a stranger’s castle in Connecticut. Having gone along with a friend who’d been invited to a party there, he arrived to find a few lost-looking young women with the sixtysomething host, Chris Mark, a steel heir filming a reality show about “101 princesses” whose first rule was “Never say no to King Chris”.

As a parent, Ronson is worried; as a reporter of more than 30 years on the cranks-and-crooks beat, he’s already on the clock. After trawling online whispers of sinister goings-on at the castle, he decides to pay a visit to Mark, who proudly shows off the stalactites and waterfall in his “cave-themed” bedroom before explaining how he picks up women on dating apps to “adapt” them to life as “princesses”. “The only girls that really work are drug addicts ... they don’t know what’s going on,” he says. Almost touchingly, Mark asks Ronson to sign an NDA, and the book describes Mark flooding his phone with threats when he declines.

The third in a loose American trilogy follows the epic journey of a formerly enslaved man in the aftermath of the civil war

But is not the story as good as the truth?” asks Tennyson Bouguereau, the narrator of Sebastian Barry’s The Newer World. Tennyson, a formerly enslaved man in post-civil war America, recounts his life story in ways that call to mind the age-old debate about whether it’s better to get our history from novelists or historians. While historians might argue that there is no contest, the question hints knowingly at the novelist’s counter-argument. It sent me searching for a line from Barry’s 2008 Costa-award winning novel, The Secret Scripture, in which the narrator describes history as “a fabulous arrangement of surmises and guesses held up as a banner against the assault of withering truth”.

In her Reith Lectures, Hilary Mantel suggested that history is “what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it”, but I tend to think of it as more of a butterfly net. Historians chase after and capture the things they deem significant. They leave things out, often deliberately. Barry’s entire body of work is a prime example of fiction’s ability to fill history’s gaps, merging personal tragedies with national ones in ways that (dare I say) demonstrate the supremacy of the form – especially for those of us descended from people for whom history never cared one whit. I was therefore intrigued to learn that he had set out to write the story of a man like Tennyson. Barry’s earlier novels refracted Irish history through the lens of two fictional Irish families, the Dunnes and the McNultys. His first foray into this period of American history in Days Without End, for which he won his second Costa award, also followed one of the McNultys – Thomas McNulty flees the Irish famine for America, where he finds himself drawn into the genocidal work of clearing Native Americans off their land, and then, together with his lover and fellow soldier, John Cole, adopts a Lakota girl, Winona, whose family they have helped slaughter. Barry picked up Winona’s story in A Thousand Moons, published in 2020, which follows her fortunes as she, Thomas and John settle on the same farm outside Paris, Tennessee that is occupied by Tennyson and his twin sister Rosalee among others.

Once hailed as the future, even the likes of Google, Sony and Microsoft have struggled to make streaming games fun, fast or affordable

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In August 2009, at the very first Gamescom expo, I sat in a small meeting room in Germany and played Mario Kart and World of Warcraft on a laptop, via technology that was then completely new: cloud gaming. It was a demonstration for a yet-to-be-launched service called Gaikai that promised to let you play any game in a browser window, without a console. (Here is an ancient video of that demonstration, featuring a very young Keza.) With a single click I could launch into any game, hosted on servers hundreds of miles away. It really did look like the future.

Since then, plenty of companies have tried to be the first to truly crack game streaming, vying to be the Netflix of games. Sony ended up buying Gaikai for $380m (£242m) in 2012; its technology now powers the streamable classic games library on PlayStation, and the PS5’s advanced game streaming. OnLive, Gaikai’s first competitor, launched in 2011 but shut down after less than a year, leaving Sony to acquire all its patents. Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service also imploded, launching in 2019 and shutting down three years later.

Historically a new Grand Theft Auto game inspired controversy around violence – but this time people are getting exercised about its romance

There was never any doubt that Grand Theft Auto VI’s extended look would elicit a viral reaction from the internet. Having won the Game Awards’ Most Anticipated award twice consecutively, Rockstar’s forthcoming crime opus is one of the most frothed-over games in recent memory, or indeed ever. It’s nothing short of a cultural phenomenon.

One aspect of the game has provoked an unexpectedly vehement response on social media: not violence, but romance. Protagonists Lucia and Jason are in love, you see, and as a player, part of your job is keeping their spark alive and their relationship strong, so that their criminal escapades are underpinned by a strong connection to one another. Holding hands, enjoying a date at the beach, spontaneously texting one another when apart – all of these interactions will strengthen their bond. You’ll be putting in a lot of work to ensure this couple thrives, which is why some people have come to believe that playing GTA VI counts as micro-cheating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yard theatre, London
Starkly staged panorama of Black female experience rushes through its scenes but is delivered with feeling by terrific cast

It has been 50 years since this “choreopoem” by Ntozake Shange premiered on Broadway and brought the emotions and experiences of Black women to the stage. And yet, until now – in this production directed by Diane Page for the Yard theatre’s reopening – it has never received a major London run.

Collectively, the poems form a rich panorama: tales of domestic abuse bound up in a threatening marriage proposal; infidelity that brings a devastating HIV diagnosis; and an eight-year-old girl who is inspired by the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture. In so many ways, they could have been written yesterday. Journeying between US cities including Chicago, St Louis, New York and San Francisco, seven brightly coloured “Ladies” – played by five actors here – cry out their stories, ready to be heard. Shange’s lyrical writing mixes their pain with surges of joy, as each woman takes her turn in the spotlight while the others watch on in witness and support.

Cadogan Hall, London
The 78-year-old has astonishing range but gets bogged down in middling rock, though later delivers some gorgeous acoustic songs – and a slinky Marvin Gaye cover

Todd Rundgren is a confusing man. After his tune-packed 1972 album Something/Anything? drew comparisons to Carole King and Brian Wilson, he took a pharmacopoeia of psychedelics and made a vexing masterpiece, A Wizard, a True Star, with no singles at all. He’s produced classic albums by Meat Loaf and the New York Dolls but he’s also released a record of nothing but vocals (A Cappella) and the world’s first interactive album (No World Order). Counting only the artists who appeared on his last two albums, his fans include Trent Reznor, Robyn and the Lemon Twigs. He called his memoir The Individualist.

Rundgren certainly looks the part. With his Addams Family hair, tinted goggles and limber dance moves, he could be a goth raver. Everything he says sounds teasingly sarcastic, even when he’s thanking the audience for spending their “discretionary income” on a ticket. He says the curfew means he can’t tell stories about the songs but it would have been worth sacrificing a couple of his two-hour show’s stodgier numbers to hear them.

Play is one of eight world premieres in programme with global conflict and political upheaval at its heart

A new play about John Major’s rise to power, written by James Graham, will premiere at the National Theatre in London next year, as part of a season that puts political upheaval and global conflict at the heart of its programme.

Major reunites Graham with Jeremy Herrin, the director behind the acclaimed parliamentary drama This House. It will chart Major’s emergence from relatively obscure whip to prime minister, taking over from Margaret Thatcher at a pivotal moment in Britain’s relationship with Europe.

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London
This production has a talented cast and looks the part, but the characterisation is thin and the songs are often cloying

Much like Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, this musical version of another Brontë sister’s literary masterpiece is lovely to look at. Designer Morgan Large’s monochrome palette fashions the women in black corseted dresses with attractive ruffles and delicate mesh detailing. Behind them on a screen, a mist appears to roll over sketches of moorland, graves and barren trees. It’s winningly atmospheric. But also like Fennell’s film, there’s too little beneath the frills in an adaptation (music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, book and additional lyrics by John Caird) that struggles to tap into the substance of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel.

Though smart-mouthed and bolshie as a child (played commendably on press night by Emily-Rose Samuel), there’s scant sense of a strong-willed, independent thinker in Charlie Burn’s adult Jane, who under Caird and Megan McGinnis’s direction is as pure and polite as a fairytale princess. Nor is there anything dark or dangerous about Ashley Gilmour’s courteous, too-charming Rochester.

At Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London, until 24 October

Maya Annik Bedward’s fascinating new documentary goes beyond reductive imagery to place the zombie and vodou in their true historical context

American film has a canon of racist disinformation that famously includes The Birth of a Nation, King Kong (1933) and Gone With the Wind.

A new documentary makes a compelling argument that zombies, as presented, commodified and popularized by Hollywood, are part of the same tradition. Black Zombie serves as work of restoration and correction, placing its faith in the quiet, persistent power of the truth as it stares down a tsunami of colonial erasure, denial, white-washing, violence and theft.

Ahead of Saturday’s Last Night, we want to hear what you’ve enjoyed this year. Has any of the new music made it on to your playlists? Which soloists wowed you? Did you sing along to Hey Jude with the Jupiter Ensemble? Share your listening experiences in the comments

With 86 concerts over eight weeks, the BBC Proms’ claim to be the world’s greatest and biggest classical music festival is hard to dispute. As the 2026 season draws to a close, we want to hear from you. Which proms have you enjoyed in the Royal Albert Hall, on the radio or online? Did you attend a concert in Bristol, Sunderland, Gateshead or Mold?

Our critics loved the Berlin Phil, John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London, the Oslo Philharmonic with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, and Aurora Orchestra’s exploration and performance of Mahler’s 1st among many others; while of the new music premiered this year, Turnage’s Festen Suite was a riot of colour, Thea Musgrave’s Bassoon Concerto was a beguiling treat and Jessie Montgomery’s Cello Concerto a mesmerising highlight.

Tango is an art form which, as the competitors themselves described, serves as a deeply personal means of expression, communication and connection between people beyond cultural and geographical borders. The final featured dancers from several countries including Russia, Turkey, Japan, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, underlining tango’s global and growing appeal.

The Wild Horse Nine actor had been due to appear on stage in The Music Critic in Tel Aviv – but pulled out over PR firm’s ‘unacceptable and untenable’ attribution of statement

John Malkovich has cancelled a planned trip to Israel next year to appear on stage after a PR firm hired by the show attributed quotes to the actor that the company had written.

Malkovich, who is a leading Oscar contender for his role in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, was due to appear in The Music Critic, a theatrical-musical satire composed by the Jewish violinist Aleksey Igudesman, in Tel Aviv’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium on 13 April.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The creative director talks 80s knitwear, joyful knickers and a love of Boots with the Filter

• How I Shop with Millie Mackintosh

Laura Jackson is a creative director and broadcaster who works across design, food and culture. She co-founded the homewares website Glassette in 2021 and later founded the skincare brand Rocco. Her broadcasting career spans television, radio and digital.

Jackson launched a collection with British jewellery brand Astley Clarke in September 2026, featuring gemstones, celestial motifs and tarot symbolism.

Solid battery life, snappy performance and quality software make for a great smaller phone with a killer camera

Google’s latest Pro phone is out to prove it has the best camera on a smartphone while embracing customisation, allowing you to change the look and feel of your photos far beyond simple filters even if that means making them technically worse.

The Pixel 11 Pro packs the best of Google’s hardware and software into a still-pocketable and easy to handle frame, instantly making it a contender for best smaller phone of the year.

Screen: 6.3in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (495ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G6

RAM: 12 or 16GB

Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: Android 17

Camera: 50MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 5x tele; 42MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.7 x 71.9 x 8.4mm

Weight: 204g

Christmas might be months away, but beauty Advent calendar waiting lists are filling up fast. From cult favourites to cruelty-free picks, here are the ones worth buying

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As I write, an ice-cream van has just parked outside my flat. It’s the middle of this year’s umpteenth heatwave, and I’m finally understanding the appeal of a cold shower. That can only mean one thing: it’s time to start testing the best beauty Advent calendars.

I wish I was joking, but many beauty brands and retailers have been curating their 2026 beauty Advent calendars since before last Christmas. And since these calendars offer a selection of high-end cosmetics, bestselling beauty staples and new launches at far less than their usual combined price, they’ve become a festive staple for beauty fanatics.

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

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

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

From space-saving storage to an affordable toastie maker, here’s how to set yourself up in halls without blowing the budget

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Clothes packed? Laptop at the ready? Flip Cup skills honed? As freshers’ week beckons, thousands of students are preparing for life away from home. But what do you actually need to bring with you, besides an eager mind and a broad tolerance of Jägermeister?

We’re here to help. Because student debt is big enough without spending on stuff you don’t need, we quizzed veterans (well, second- and third-year students) on what is and isn’t worth packing. We’ve also rounded up some of our best budget buys – from mattress toppers to toastie makers – rigorously tested by the Filter experts. These won’t break the bank and should last far beyond your first essay deadline.

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

• The best supermarket anchovies, tasted and rated

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

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

Whether you go for traditional champagne or sherry, or branch out with muscadet and picpoul, an appetite-whetting glass of wine will set you up for the evening ahead

Beginnings are important. As a writer, I’m all too aware of this: from the right introduction, the rest tends to flow. The same logic applies to drinks: a good beginning eases proceedings. For this reason, I am unbendingly particular about how I take my morning coffee and, if I’m drinking, what form an evening’s aperitif should take. Life’s too short for bad beverages, after all.

An aperitif is arguably less a specific drink than an appetite-whetting moment with a glass of something. But what? Typically, when it comes to wine, an aperitif will be light and crisp, with any fruit character at the more green or citrussy end of the spectrum. Brioche-y sparkling wine, be that champagne, crémant or something English, and dry sherry such as fino and manzanilla, with their savoury notes, are traditional choices to ready your palate for food.

A chocolate cake inspired by the Sacher hotel in Vienna’s trademark creation and emulated by a local Roman pasticceria

This column began two years ago, almost to the day, when I made a birthday cake for a friend. “I don’t mind,” was her reply when I first asked what sort of cake she would like. But then, a few minutes later, she said: “Hang on, I mean chocolate with glossy icing. Like the mini ones they make at Barberini.”

Barberini is a local bar and cake shop, and the mini cakes she was referring to are their sacher (inspired by sachertorte, of course) – chocolate sponge cakes with a heart of apricot jam and a glossy, chocolate glaze. At Barberini, each one is the size of a single draughts piece, but deep, so not quite two bites but slightly too big for one, unless you open your mouth very wide. “You mean sachertorte?” I said. “That would be great,” was her reply, before changing the subject to I can’t remember what. Walking home, I regretted asking.

A simple, stripped-back soup that lets the freshest, sweetest corn and fluffy, floury potatoes do all the work

Today’s super-simple corn chowder is inspired by one I came across on NewEngland.com that relies on an old zero-waste trick; namely, scraping the spent cobs to release the pulp and sweetcorn “milk” still left on the cob. Like asparagus, corn is best eaten as fresh as can be, so look for whole ears with bright green husks. Keep in the fridge and, for the most flavourful soup, aim to cook them the same day.

In Ayurvedic cooking, bitter ingredients are celebrated for their ability to refresh and rebalance. Here, the elegance of tahini and the cleanliness of grapefruit do the heavy lifting

Bitterness has long had an image problem: is it delicious or disgusting? Here’s another contradiction: though bitterness seems as if it should sit alongside hot, pungent flavours such as mustard and horseradish, in reality it cools more than it builds. In Ayurvedic cooking, for instance, bitter ingredients are valued for their ability to refresh and rebalance, and those are qualities that run through both of today’s dishes, from the elegant bitterness of tahini in the panzanella to the clean bite of grapefruit in the dipping sauce for the farinata.

As weight loss drugs have risen all around the world, it has reshaped users’ relationships for better and for worse

As GLP-1 use continues to rise in the US and the UK, people’s bodies are being reshaped – as are their relationships.

“Relationships tend to develop a sense of equilibrium and predictability over time,” says Dr Lindsey Berisha, a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with clients using GLP-1s for over 10 years. “When one partner undergoes a significant change, it can shift that equilibrium, and even positive change can create uncertainty for both partners.”

Sexual culture and wellbeing expert Alix Fox answered your questions about how to have a healthier, happier, hornier love life

Greygoose77 asks: Can electronic sex toys cause desensitisation?

Alix: Short answer: nope. But they can temporarily alter the threshold of stimulatory intensity that you require in order to get off. That has been covered more fully here.

Alix: Mate, I hear you. And I suspect you’re going to sigh with all the power of a wind tunnel when I tell you that unless you prioritise intimacy, it isn’t going to happen. You have to block in time for it – which will likely mean booting something else out of your diary. That can seem hard at first, when EVERYTHING feels important if not essential. But what’s harder is mourning a dwindling love life. Plus, having a sexy, silly, scrumptious time with a lover can be like a triple espresso when it comes to putting a pep in your step and soothing everyday stress. It may sound trite, but when intimacy functions as a therapeutic release, ‘doing it’ can actually help you get other things done.

To be clear, I’m talking about scheduling intimacy, not necessarily intercourse. Nobody should feel duty bound to engage in any particular physical act when the allotted date rolls round. You may find it helpful (and a welcome turn on) to write a ‘menu’ of different erotic ‘dishes’ you might like to choose from during a date night, ranging from more delicate flavours like having your hair washed for you or a bubble bath for two, to spicier exploits like taking turns to read from an explicit book. Dr Sara Nasserzadeh, author of Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love, says “scheduled sexy time should feel like a restaurant reservation: sometimes you’ll fancy a lighter meal; other times, a richer dish. You may both pick different courses, or feel drawn to the same plate. The only criteria is that everyone comes away satisfied – which doesn’t always require orgasm, by the way.”

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

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

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

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

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

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

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

Transport for London has fined me and warned that if I don’t pay it will possibly destroy my car

I paid the £12.50 London Ulez charge on my Amex card within hours of driving through the zone. I was then fined £90 for non-payment. According to my card issuer, Transport for London (TfL) had failed to collect the £12.50.

TfL’s letter threatened a £180 fine, rising to £360, and possible destruction of my car, if I did not pay. My appeal was rejected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Processor: Google Tensor G6

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 256 or 512GB

Operating system: Android 17

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

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

Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.8 x 72.0 x 8.6mm

Weight: 197g

Research finds temperature and amount of hot drinks consumed heightens possibility of developing disease

Drinking very hot tea and coffee triples the risk of developing cancer of the gullet, the world’s largest study of the link between them has found.

The findings show that people should let very hot cups of tea and coffee cool down until they are comfortable to drink, in order to reduce their risk of the disease, cancer experts said.

Key regions of the brain linked to movement, learning and emotions were affected and may lead to cognitive problems

Babies born to mothers with anaemia have smaller brains, particularly in key regions linked to movement, learning and the regulation of emotion, according to a study.

Researchers said the differences, first detected at the age of one, could lead to cognitive problems when children started school.

Who’s more likely to steal sweets from a child? According to science, it’s the rich. A study seemingly confirming our suspicions about the moral behaviour of the wealthy was one of the winners of the 2026 Ig Nobel prizes, which honour research that makes you laugh and then think. Science editor Ian Sample tells Madeleine Finlay what the researchers think could be behind the phenomenon, and they explore some of the other awards, including one for a surprising quality we look for in our friends and another for a biomechanical definition of kissing

New research shows turbulent flushes create toilet-generated aerosols that can transmit legionella, influenza and norovirus

Flushing toilets release particles into the “breathing zone” of adults and can remain suspended in the air for at least 20 seconds, a new study has found.

And closing the lid might not be enough to avoid a “plume” of potential pathogens.

I’ve always cinched my outfits at the waist, but shifting to a looser silhouette has helped me keep my cool in more ways than one

This was the summer of the Great Untuck. The long hot summer of 2026 finally taught me to do what fashion has been nagging me about for years, which is to quit tucking in my shirts and T-shirts. To stop assuming that the top half of an outfit must be neatly cinched by the waistband of the skirt or trousers.

It wasn’t a style epiphany, to be fair. It was just too hot to do anything else. An extended run of hot weather at home changes how you dress. In the old-school type of British heatwave, which lasted about half a week, I was too giddy with excitement at not having to wear a cardigan to think more strategically. But this summer was different. And eventually I discovered what hot-climate cultures have always known, which is that loose, generously sized clothing that maximises sun protection while minimising skin contact is way more pleasant to wear in the heat than anything short and tight.

From face tints and self-tan to summer scents, these lightweight buys saw me through multiple heatwaves

You’ll normally find me looking back on my favourite products of the past 12 months at year’s end. But this summer has been so freakishly hot and sweaty it has required its own toolkit and, by extension, its own list of exceptionally well-performing products that deserve rapturous commendation.

The first is Refy’s Skin Base (£30), a sheer face tint so thin and so lightweight it has been all I could bear to wear since July. It’s suitable for all skin types, but not at all appropriate for those who hate any hint of shine. While the texture is totally ungreasy, breathable and so comfortable as to be imperceptible, it does look unmistakably dewy, so avoid if you’re devoted to matte. Personally, I take the view that, in this heat, one might as well steer into the skid, but I am, admittedly, at an age when a juicier look works in my skin’s favour. Anyway, this is makeup that truly feels like absolutely nothing, and what it lacks in coverage can be made up with concealer where needed. Maximum points from me (I wear shade 140N).

When Phoebe Bridgers appeared at Venice international film festival with unshaven legs this weekend, it shouldn’t have made headlines – but did. What do young women make of the current expectations around depilation?

In 2026, female body hair feels as if it should be the least of anyone’s concerns. But although we may think we’ve come a long way since Julia Roberts’ unshaven underarm caused a furore at the 1999 London premiere of Notting Hill, depilation remains a staple of many women’s grooming routines – and when singer turned actor Phoebe Bridgers made her Venice film festival debut last weekend, her unshaven legs still made headlines.

Even so, her au naturel look may signal that attitudes are changing – particularly among younger generations. Vogue decreed that “rather than undermining the femininity of the look, unapologetic hair sharpened it”, and pictures of the 32-year-old’s hair-covered calves were generally praised by fans. But what do other gen Z and millennial women make of the decision to ditch the razor?

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

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

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

Repurposed railway lines make accessible and family-friendly walking and cycling routes. Here are some of the best, from Somerset to the Highlands of Scotland

Start/finish Coombs Road in Bakewell to Blackwell Mill in Chee Dale, but there are lots of access points along the way
Distance 8.5 miles
Cycle, hike or ride a horse along the Monsal Trail to explore a swathe of Derbyshire’s industrial history. This former stretch of the Midland Railway line winds past the imposing structures of two 18th-century cotton mills, through illuminated railway tunnels and over the Headstone Viaduct, which gives glorious views of the River Wye and Monsal Dale below. Interpretation and listening panels along the route explain the area’s history, geology and wildlife, while a short detour on to Monsal Head offers a panoramic view of the viaduct itself. Pause here for lunch or a pint at the Monsal, or stop in at Hassop Station Cafe, which offers bike rental alongside hefty sandwiches, homemade cakes and wood-fired pizza at weekends.
monsaltrail.org.uk

A remote 18th-century chapel deep in Sami lands is the goal of the Präststigen, a 37-mile trail that traverses some of the country’s most spectacular scenery

I wasn’t exactly in “Sunday best”, but I had made some effort. Well, I’d changed my underwear for the first time in a couple of days and given myself a baby-wipe bath. Still, as we filed into the chapel at Alkavare, I felt more a member of an expedition than a congregation. We sat on the low wooden benches, waterproof jackets rustling and leather walking boots stamping on the flagstone floor to keep warm. Fortunately, the priest, Mogens Amstrup Jacobsen, appeared to be a “man of the Gore-Tex”, as well as a man of the cloth, as he unzipped his own black rain jacket to reveal his dog collar. As the service began, the Arctic wind whipped through cracks in the dry stone walls, insulated only with reindeer hair, and candles flickered in their brass sconces.

I had hiked to Alkavare following the Präststigen, or “Priests’ trail”, a 37-mile (60km) route from Kvikkjokk that could stake a claim as Europe’s wildest pilgrimage route, and certainly one of its most beautiful. The Präststigen follows the path that priests would once have taken to the chapel, built in 1788, to perform a service each summer, and today, on the last weekend in July, intrepid hikers and perseverant pilgrims can attend that same service.

Conservationists have helped Cantabrian brown bears claw their way back from the edge of extinction in the beautiful mountains of Asturias – and carefully controlled nature tourism allows visitors to see them

Once upon a time, in the woods outside Pola de Somiedo, lived a family of Cantabrian brown bears. The villagers reported sightings of a mother bear who had lost a leg to a hunter’s trap, her two cubs and two adult males, either of which might have been the father. In those days, at the end of the 1980s, they seemed to be the last of their kind in this part of Asturias. Meanwhile, the wider population dropped to about 60 bears across the surrounding Cantabrian mountain range that gave the species its name.

They have since clawed their way back from the edge of extinction here in northern Spain, and nature guide Luis Frechilla believes their numbers may now be upwards of 500 again. “They’re still classed as endangered,” he tells me, until the official count hits 1,000. But relative abundance makes them much easier to see today in Somiedo natural park – one of Spain’s first such protected areas, established in 1988.

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

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

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

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

Every now and then the Thursday quiz stares broodingly out of a rain-streaked window, adopts an immaculate cheekbone-highlighting pose and hums a bit of David Sylvian. The sun shines high above, the “birbs” swoop down upon the crosses of old grey churches, and September is here again. Fifteen questions on topical news, general knowledge and obscure trivia await you. Let us know how you get on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 264

Allendale, Northumberland: My late-flowering poppies have lit up the garden, and it’s not only me who’s taken an interest

The opium poppies have now set seed, their leaves rattling like crisp packets, the vents beneath their pod lids open for the seeds to be scattered. Dotted throughout my flower borders, adding stature to the vegetable garden, Papaver somniferum is the breadseed poppy, its large, floppy petals unpredictable in colour: pale lilac, purple, pink or sometimes with fringed petals. The unexpected brings a freedom and a randomness to the garden.

Those blue-grey seeds are sprinkled on bagels and bread, baked into cakes or ground as a thickener for curries, adding protein, plant fats and trace elements such as manganese. But in its unripe state this is the plant that gives opium, a two-sided drug, both medicinal and destructive as a sedative – its specific name somniferum means sleep-bringing.

Rob Pike was 17 when he and three of his closest friends were in a car that smashed into a tree and split in half. He explains how he coped with the devastation

After the car stopped rolling and came to rest on its side, Rob Pike remembers being “hyperfixated” on the rainwater pouring down his face. When he tried to wipe it away with his arm, he realised it wasn’t water. “I look at my arm and it is covered in blood. The next moment, it hit me: oh my gosh, we crashed.”

He was in the back seat next to his best friend, Daniel McCoy. “I look up to my left to see if Daniel’s OK. He’s probably about a foot away from my face and … he’s not OK. I’m looking at my dead best friend and I wish that wasn’t my last memory of him, seeing how broken he was.” They were 17.

For decades, I had been haunted by paruresis, an inability to urinate in public toilets. But that day of nakedness suddenly, surprisingly, led me to shed my inhibitions

For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from a condition called paruresis – also known as shy bladder syndrome. This means that, unless I’m alone in public toilets, I cannot pee, however badly I need to go. I developed tactics to deal with this, such as loitering outside the gents if I see someone going in, so that I can walk in as they walk out. But if someone follows me in, I find I’m just standing there, which I worry looks odd.

I’m a writer, so am often out and about meeting people in cafes, hotels and at events. My agricultural background means I also meet a lot of my interviewees on farms – but at least there I could pop behind a hedge if I needed to go, and be assured of privacy.

Our global panel of writers reflect on the great legacy of the American feminist and civil rights activist, who died last week aged 92

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Shallah, Fatimah and Maahi are among hundreds of thousands of Afghan women and girls deported from Iran and Pakistan in the past year to a life of severe restrictions

It was a warm summer afternoon on 15 August 2021 when the Taliban entered Kabul and changed the lives of millions. Shallah*, then 16, watched the news at home on the Afghan TV channel Tolo news. She ran crying to the garden, to tell her mother that Afghanistan had fallen.

Her younger sister, Fatimah*, then 11, was at her cousin’s house, where her aunt told her the news. At the time, she says, she did not understand what a takeover meant, or who the Taliban were. Her elder sister, Maahi*, then 22, was well aware of the consequences and remembers her hands shaking at work as she read the news on her phone, on Facebook pages of Afghan news.

After the AfD’s landslide win in Saxony-Anhalt, people in the state capital share what they make of the result – and what comes next

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Asking residents in a city where a seismic political event has just taken place ‘How do you feel?’ demands chutzpah – this struck me as I walked around Magdeburg, Germany on Monday. The night before, the far-right populist, anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party Alternative für Deustchland (AfD) had landslide 44% win in Saxony-Anhalt’s state elections, sending shock waves to Berlin, across Germany and way beyond. Regardless of how people in the capital voted, it felt like a bit of an affront to probe. Given the radical plans of the victors, a party classified by domestic intelligence as “rightwing extremist”, that is what I wanted to know. But from the 21-year-old Guinean-German paramedic I met at the central bus station, collecting donations for a local hospice, to the elderly couple returning to their apartment after a stroll down the Elbe river, almost everyone I met opened up to me warmly.

Judith, 88, was initially reluctant to talk, but shared some of her life story. Her experience as an eight-year-old refugee, forced to leave Poland in 1946 and eventually ending up move with her family in Magdeburg, had shaped her outlook on life, her successful career as a project engineer – as well as her politics. The news that AfD had not only won the election, but by such a wide margin, was “heartbreaking”, she said.

We would like to hear your experience of seeing the Bayeux tapestry exhibit at the British Museum

The British Museum’s Bayeux tapestry exhibit opened on Thursday 10 September, and has already broken the British Museum’s record for the number of tickets sold in one day.

Have you seen the Bayeux tapestry at the British Museum? How far did you travel to see it? Tell us all about your experience below.

We want to hear from people under 30 about how you feel about the future and whether it’s changed the way you live your life, for better or worse

The future feels a little hard to plan for right now.

We’ve just lived through the hottest summer on record, global conflict looms large and AI has people wondering whether their job will still exist in five years – assuming they’ve got one in the first place.

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

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

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

We’d like to hear from people on the most unusual experience gifts they’ve received

People are buying more experiences as gifts for friends and family.

Whether it’s afternoon tea, skydiving or pottery classes, people are coming up with more unusual ways to treat their loved ones.

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