Winger was one of the first big-money academy transfers, part of a child labour market that has barely been questioned

“What’s your name?”

“Raheem.”

Soaring fish prices, labour costs and changing tastes all spell bad news for Britain’s chippies. Is this the end for the seaside staple – or will a few innovators succeed in keeping them alive?

One day in 2007, Darren Sudlow drove past the old stationmaster’s house at Padgate station, in Cheshire, noticed it was empty and decided to lease it. “He just fell in love with the place,” says his son, Kieran, who was 11 at the time. “He said he always wanted a fish and chip shop, for some reason.” Despite having worked as a joiner up to that point, Darren made a go of it, and the Plaice Station, as he named it, was a success from day one. “He worked like mad to get it open and then realised that the hard work hadn’t even started, and he had a queue out the door,” says the younger Sudlow.

The family lived nearby. Kieran Sudlow, who is now 30, worked at the Plaice Station as a boy, peeling potatoes, washing dishes after school, then cooking at the range when he was 16. He went on to become a chef, working in Australia for a few years, then returning to help out at the chippy part-time when needed. Business had always been pretty good. They won local awards and had a loyal customer base. But one day in March, Kieran remembers, his father came in and told him: “‘I think the fish and chip shop’s going to go.’ He said, ‘It’s not making money. I can’t see it carrying on.’”

Notorious for ultra-violent movies like Drive and The Neon Demon, the Dane had lost the will to direct until ‘the Tom Cruise of surgeons’ saved his life – and triggered an astonishing creative rebirth

Nicolas Winding Refn has his phone out, showing me one of the goriest scenes he’s ever been involved in. Given that the Danish director’s movies have involved hands getting sliced off, eyeballs being gouged out and a son reaching deep inside his mother’s womb, that’s certainly saying something. In this video, the camera is fixed upon a beating heart when suddenly – slash! – it gets sliced open with a knife. We travel into the open chamber, as needles arrive to pierce through the muscle. Unsettling and compelling, could this be a future Palme d’Or winner?

Unlikely. You see, Refn isn’t the director of this footage; he’s actually the guy lying conked out in the operating room while a surgeon attends to him. Requesting that someone films your own heart surgery is a very Nicolas Winding Refn thing to do. “At first they said no,” says the film-maker known for Drive, Bronson and The Neon Demon. “But then they said, ‘As it’s you, we’ll record it.’”

In towns and in the countryside, I see SUVs and pickup trucks driven without care or conscience. It’s the Magafication of transport

Where is lawbreaking not just visible, but designed to be seen? Where is antisocial behaviour worn as a badge of honour? Where is pleasure gained directly from causing distress? And where is reckless endangerment often ignored by the police or treated with the mildest of punishments? The answer is on the roads.

Last month, three men in the West Midlands were convicted of street racing. Two were driving at over 80mph in a 40mph zone. The third clocked over 90mph in a 30mph zone. The West Midlands has long been blighted by organised racing, sometimes involving 200 cars or more and hundreds of spectators. The result is a long catalogue of deaths and life-changing injuries, including some caused when racers have left the road and ploughed into onlookers or pedestrians. And there are plenty more accidents where the police have little idea whether racing is to blame, for as soon as they happen, the drivers disperse.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Does your child’s favourite show give them a chance to reflect, or does it move too quickly for its lessons to sink in?

• A version of this piece was originally published on Aeon as The bombarding of childhood

I am at the airport gate waiting to depart, watching passengers hurry past with rolling suitcases and paper cups of coffee. A small boy sits very still beside his mother. He holds an iPad close to his chest, almost in a cramp, clutching the screen as if it might otherwise run away. I hear loud clapping hands and squeaking children’s voices. I lean over and see a cartoon character in green snatch a toy from another character in pink. The pink character begins to cry, tears splashing like sprinkles from its enormous eyes. The green character shouts sorry. Instantly, the tears stop and a wide smile replaces them before I have blinked. And, before I have even worked out whether the characters are speaking English or Arabic (as the mother does to the boy), the scene has changed and the two characters are rowing a boat with a random song in the background. The boy’s eyes dart on the screen from right to left, centre, down. His body is still but his attention is being hurried from cue to cue.

This is the problem I have come to think of as the pace of children’s media.

Readers describe feelings of rejection after submitting hundreds of applications but getting a handful of interviews

Hundreds of job applications, exhausting searches and relentless rejection – the experience of attempting to get back into the workforce after losing their jobs in their 50s and 60s has proved an ordeal for some Britons.

For some, those efforts prove fruitless and lead jobseekers to reluctantly take early retirement. Others may have to rely on benefits to pay the bills while they continue to job hunt.

Scientists say global heating was a destabilising factor in collapse of 200,000 sq metre glacier in August

Climate breakdown probably weakened the glacier that collapsed causing catastrophic floods and killing hundreds of people in Nepal and Tibet last month, the first scientific study of the disaster has found.

Researchers identified unusually warm conditions before the glacier’s collapse, which sent an avalanche of 110m cubic metres (3,885 cu ft) of snow and ice into the valley below. This triggered flash floods on an almost unprecedented scale, hitting communities downstream without warning.

Body found in pond in Suffolk village of Brantham, where Noah was last seen on Tuesday afternoon

Police searching for a three-year-old boy who went missing from a playground on the Suffolk-Essex border have found a body.

Noah Woods was last seen at 3pm on Tuesday in Merriam Close, Brantham, near Manningtree, before becoming separated from a relative.

Thousands with HER2-low advanced breast cancer will have access to Enhertu after ministers strike deal on price

Thousands of women in England with incurable breast cancer will get access to a life-extending drug on the NHS after negotiations over its cost proved successful.

About 1,000 women a year with HER2-low advanced breast cancer will be able to obtain Enhertu from Thursday after ministers and the drug’s makers struck a deal on its price.

US president warns over ‘hostile act’, as Canada seeks to move closer to the EU and diversify its defence ties

Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with “serious tariffs” and a cut to trade after the bloc proposed to make Canada its first ever associate member, calling the idea “laughable”.

Suggesting the move was a “hostile act”, the US president told reporters he could put “very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe”. He added: “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe.”

Charles Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister alleges comments were made during argument over Princess of Wales’ funeral arrangements

Prince Charles told Earl Spencer days after the death of his sister Diana, Princess of Wales, that “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough”, it is alleged in a memoir to be published this month.

Charles Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, contains the claim that the comments were made by the now king during a heated argument over funeral arrangements.

Research finds many in England lack proximity to green and blue spaces as Labour urged to speed up manifesto pledge

Nearly half of all parliamentary constituencies in England have low access to nature despite a government target to ensure everyone is within a 15-minute walk from a green or blue space, new research reveals.

The analysis by the Wildlife Trusts comes as the charity presents a green paper to ministers in an attempt to speed up Labour’s manifesto promise to improve access to nature and promote biodiversity.

Make it more affordable for local authorities to use compulsory purchase powers for land purchase.

Establish a community right to buy land for nature access.

Treat nature as essential infrastructure, and free up capital funds to pay for the ongoing maintenance of natural spaces.

Make it mandatory for developers to create climate- and nature-friendly housing estates.

Make access to major rivers, especially those in urban areas, a statutory right.

Israeli prime minister to pursue new laws as directors of Guardian-produced film face threats from far-right officials and activists

• ‘They know the house they are bombing is full of children’: NAZA’s directors on their devastating film about Israeli intelligence

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he would seek new laws allowing Israel to strip citizenship from people who “smear” Israeli soldiers, escalating the campaign against the Oscar-winning film-makers behind the Gaza documentary NAZA, who have faced threats from senior government and military officials and groups of far-right Israelis gathering outside their families’ homes.

NAZA, which was produced by the Guardian, concerns the country’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza and is named for an acronym used euphemistically by Israel’s intelligence service to indicate how many civilians it expects to die in an airstrike. The film builds on revelations first published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and the Guardian from 2023 to 2025.

Rapper challenged billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft to match his donation, with Kraft saying Sheeran has asked him to match a $2m donation

Macklemore has announced he will donate the $1m salary he was paid as an opening act for Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour to organizations working with Palestinian people and relief in Gaza, after being dropped from the tour following backlash to his onstage comments in support of Palestine.

The rapper also challenged Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots and prominent Israel donor who refused to let Macklemore play at his Gillette Stadium outside Boston, to match his donation.

Model adopting ‘jailbreak-like instructions’ among cases as firm says it is introducing new way of tracking AI misalignment

OpenAI has disclosed six more examples of “unexpected or concerning” behaviour by its technology, as it warned the pace of development could not continue at “maximum speed for much longer”.

In one of the new cases reported by OpenAI, an unreleased research model inserted “jailbreak-like instructions” into its own notes to disregard its normal constraints and told itself to be “freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots”.

Ursula von der Leyen has opened door for Canada to become associate member to deepen links in ‘openly hostile world’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has been advocating closer alignment with “middle powers” since January in the face of recklessness in Washington.

But what should worry another middle power, the UK, is that it was Brussels that came up with Wednesday’s big reveal in Strasbourg.

As three siblings came of age and had to leave their pack, scientists tracked the dogs’ perilous 2,500-mile odyssey to find their own territory

It sounds like a Disney movie: three wild dogs, all brothers, on an epic journey to find a home of their own after their family tells them to leave. They dodge cars and hunters in search of a new life, navigating bushmeat snares and the hostility of a human-dominated landscape until they find a new haven on the African savannah.

But this is exactly what happened in Zambia last year, when three endangered African wild dogs made the longest-ever recorded single journey of any mammal from the continent. The brothers travelled more than 2,500 miles (4,100km) over eight months in their “dispersal” – when a young dog comes of age and must establish new territory to find a mate and start a family of their own.

Initiative aims to keep alive age-old skill, and at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset improve habitat for rare shrill carder bee

It sounds like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel: a merry band of men and women roaming the West Country cutting meadows by hand in exchange for hunks of bread and cheese.

But the conservation charity English Heritage is recruiting a team of volunteer scythers to maintain 21st-century meadowland in the old-fashioned way.

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

At the very moment this week’s Thursday quiz launches on the website, the quizmaster fully intends to be supping a pint of beer at Stansted airport en route to Istanbul, and will presumably overfly Syldavia on the way. In between packing their books on Byzantine history, reading the rules on transporting feral hogs and fretting about the prospect of someone the size of Gary Barlow’s massive son reclining the seat in front of them, they still found time to write 15 questions on topical news, obscure pop culture trivia and general knowledge for your delight. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 265

A 1950s cookbook classic – eat it hot and stringy or firm and flavoursome

Yesterday’s lunch and this week’s recipe is thanks to my friend, the designer Jake Tilson, who gave me a pristine 1977 edition of The Talisman Italian Cook Book. With a cover of red, white and green stripes cover that makes me think as much of seaside rock as Italy’s national colours, the edition was part of the 24th printing of the US translation of Il Talismano della Felicità (The Talisman of Happiness), by Ada Boni. First published in 1950, the abridged translation was sold as a complete guide to Italian cookery, covering all notable dishes. Well, on the cover at least; inside, the introduction is more realistic, warning the reader that, “to criticise the writer [Boni] or translator [Mrs Matilde La Rosa] for failing to include certain dishes is useless”, because no living man or woman can be acquainted with all the variety of dishes of a such variegated country.

The introduction, by a man called Mario A Pei, goes on to explain that the variety of dishes mirrors the wide dialectical array in Italy at the time (1950); its diversity of speech, customs, costumes, psychology and general world outlook. In the next sentence, he notes that this variety was undoubtedly a very bad thing from the standpoint of national unity and progress (the professor and polyglot was an ardent supporter of European fascism and uniting humans under one language). Not that you would guess that from his following sentence: “Variety is the spice of life.” I regretted reading his introduction, and also telling an Italian friend, who said, laughing: “You don’t know the half of it”, in reference to my romanticism about the original Talismano, which may be great, but also (in her opinion) endorses a Stepford Wives fantasy of womanhood; a journey with Boni as patient guide.

The Bradford Pennine Gateway Trail, launching this weekend, aims to ‘change perceptions of Bradford’ by taking in the moors and the area’s new national nature reserve

A grainy photograph, dated 1938, hangs in a frame on the downstairs wall of my B&B. It shows 100, perhaps 200, elegantly attired trippers sitting on the green at Shipley Glen in West Yorkshire. They’re picnicking, chatting, taking the air and enjoying the sunshine, while admiring the rocks and woods that frame the deep gully below. It’s local, low-carbon, cheap-as-chips tourism before the jet age – and also a model for how we may travel in the future.

I arrived here thanks to a new trail, launching on 19 September, that runs through the also newly established Bradford Pennine Gateway national nature reserve – astonishingly, the first reserve of this kind to be created in West Yorkshire. The trail uses almost the same name and is a savvy bit of sustainable planning, connecting the three towns of Ilkley, Saltaire and Haworth but, by appealing to walkers, hopefully inspiring people to explore beyond the confines of these honeypots.

A bereavement memoir mingles with speculative fiction, in a wise and ragged examination of grief from the author of The Power

In his Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, Ludwig Wittgenstein alludes to an incident that followed the death of Franz Schubert. He recalls that Schubert’s brother cut several scores into small pieces, each consisting of only a few bars of music, and handed them out to Schubert’s favourite pupils. This, Wittgenstein argues, was a totally understandable act of grief. He goes on to suggest, however, that if, in his grief, Schubert’s brother had left the scores untouched, or even burned them, then that too would be equally legible to us. Such is the disorienting nature of loss – in its wake, anything goes.

In The Strangers, Women’s prize-winning author Naomi Alderman tests this thesis to its limits. How about dealing with grief by writing an uneasy memoir/speculative fiction hybrid about the sudden appearance of a new species of quasi-badgers that seem to improve the quality of local soil?

Seeing a pallid, washed-out face in the mirror? Prepare to be diagnosed …

Name: Ferritin face.

Age: The name is new, but the symptoms are old.

Beyond the morale boost and Mark Carney’s stardust, ‘associate membership’ means little

Ursula von der Leyen brought a new mascot to her annual State of the Union address to the European parliament: the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney.

The leader of a plucky, like-minded liberal democracy, locked in an unsought trade war with its much bigger bully of a neighbour, Carney crossed the Atlantic and attended this flagship event of Europe’s political calendar to demonstrate his country’s shared values and desire to get closer to the EU. He was rewarded with a standing ovation and the first ever offer of an (invented) status of “associate member” of the EU.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

The behaviours we observed could represent grief, but they could also reflect maternal attachment, confusion or instinctive caregiving

It was a tragic sight.

One day last July, a newborn humpback whale calf lay motionless on the seafloor, just a kilometre off Australia’s Gold Coast. The encounter was captured through underwater video.

A new report highlights the dangers experienced by those who seek to serve the public. People are being deterred and your democracy is suffering

There is a rising tide of abuse in our politics and I feel it every day. This week, the Electoral Commission warned that harassment and intimidation are changing how candidates campaign, what they feel able to do and whether they stand again. This is a threat to our democracy – and we cannot ignore it.

The figures are stark. Commission research into the May 2026 local and mayoral elections in England found that 55% of candidates said harassment or intimidation was a problem, up from 47% in 2025. Women, ethnic minority candidates and those with disabilities were most likely to encounter abuse. The experience was so unpleasant that a third considered not standing again.

Dawn Butler is Labour MP for Brent East

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.

In the Trusster’s latest appearance, she says Blair and Brown had a plot to dismantle civilisation and the Tories were part of the woke establishment

Some things you can set your watch by. Like every time small boats are in the news, the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, will manoeuvre himself in front of a camera to suggest that all male migrants are either murderers or rapists. Probably both.

But some things feel older than time itself. Like Liz Truss trying to persuade the world she was right all along. Most former prime ministers leave Downing Street relatively quietly. Lord Big Dave, the Maybot and even Boris nurse their grudges in private. Rishi lives in semi-retirement – almost a recluse – and only attends parliament when it suits him. Keir has been almost totally airbrushed out of history in a couple of months.

By standing behind support act Macklemore, who was removed from the tour for his vocal support of Palestine, these artists are demonstrating the self-sacrifice necessary to stand against those crushing free speech

In a statement about Macklemore being dropped from his US stadium tour for making pro-Palestinian comments, Ed Sheeran defended his own publicly apolitical stance: “If we only ever focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change. There are different approaches to being an advocate for change.”

Every other musician involved with the tour – support acts Finneas (Billie Eilish’s brother), Danish band Lukas Graham and Irish songwriter Aaron Rowe, plus Sheeran’s Irish backing band, Beoga – has made their approach to advocating for change clear, pulling out of the remaining dates to protest against the censorship of Macklemore and to express support for the Palestinian people.

When my loved ones are on the move, I can’t rest until I know they’ve got from A to B safely. How I long for the ignorance of the olden days

I’ll call it compassionate surveillance. It’s what I do when I’m worried about a loved one who is on the move. I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Be they travelling by plane, train or automobile, I will keep tabs on them. I can’t help myself. If my daughters – who are highly competent grownups – make a long car journey, by means of some smartphone hocus-pocus I’ll know where they are. I should point out that this is done with consent: they know that I know where they are. In my mum’s case, this is less true, if only because she has long given up trying to make head or tail of location sharing and other such sorcery.

I cross my heart and hope to die when I swear to you that I only do this when they are in transit. Honestly, I never look up where they are on a night out or whatever. That would be weird – or weirder, anyway. But when they get in a car, I get the fear. The catastrophising begins. It’s a big world and their car is small. A million other cars, buses and lorries share the roads on which they are motoring. In this, as in all things, overthinking is calamitous. The more you think about what could go wrong, the more your imagination obliges with a steady stream of ghastly possibilities.

The extraordinary success of the rebels, and Saudi counterstrikes, threaten economic havoc. But the country’s civilians are paying the highest price

Even in a region beset by turmoil and learning to expect the unexpected, the lightning advance of Yemen’s Houthis along the Red Sea coast has shocked observers. More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee in a country where immiseration and displacement have become routine and half the population depend on humanitarian aid. But outsiders are paying close attention, because by claiming thousands of kilometres in a matter of days, and seizing strategically important islands, the Iran-backed rebels now control the Bab al-Mandab strait – the other major regional energy chokepoint after the Hormuz strait.

The Iran war has forced Saudi Arabia to rely on moving oil via its east-west pipeline to Red Sea ports. Now drone strikes – blamed on an Iran-backed militia in Iraq – have shut the pipeline: on one estimate, a month-long closure could cut global crude supply by 120m barrels. The halt to shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait could be much more protracted. Taking the oil north is a far slower and more expensive route to Asian markets, and does not preclude attacks by the Houthis, who are also targeting oil facilities.

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.

After a desperately tight race, voters rejected the prospect of the far right in government. A potential centre-left coalition needs to seize the moment

European progressives searching for reasons to be cheerful have been finding them hard to come by this autumn. In Germany, the dramatic rise of the Alternative für Deutschland party is threatening the liberal values that underpin the identity of the federal republic. In France, polls continue to point to a likely Marine Le Pen victory in a presidential election, which is months away. Across mainland Europe, centre-left parties are failing to muster an adequate response to nativist movements that have colonised swathes of the working-class support that they once relied on.

In such an ominous political landscape, the outcome of a cliffhanger Swedish election provides a much‑needed source of optimism – albeit one that comes with heavy caveats. Prior to last Sunday’s poll, the outgoing prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, was explicit that if his rightwing alliance won the largest number of seats, he would invite members of the far-right Sweden Democrats party (SD) to become ministers in the next government.

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 are divided on whether the triple lock should stay or go

The article about whether the pensions triple lock should be ditched omits several key facts (‘Costing billions’: is the pensions triple lock a lifeline or simply unaffordable?, 12 September). The triple lock was introduced in 2010 to attempt to reinstate the value of the state pension relative to average earnings. The new state pension is just over £12,547 per annum, as your reporter says; older pensioners get a basic £9,615. Both are well below the European average, which is over €16,000 (about £13,800) per year. The UK median wage is above £39,000 a year. Moreover, the age at which the UK state pension becomes payable is among the highest in Europe.

The discussion on the affordability of the state pension seems to regard it as expenditure for no return. It is not. Pensioners spend money into their local economy, which generates tax revenues in the form of VAT and income tax from younger people who are dependent on pensioner money for their employment. Better-off pensioners pay income tax in the usual way. In fact, a pensioner with any income at all above the new state pension will pay tax on it as the personal tax free allowance is now £12,570, only £23 above their pension income.

Lars Janssen says self-driving vehicles would be a boon for him as he has an eye condition and can’t drive, in response to an article by Adrian Chiles. Plus letters from Richard Connell and Michael Fuller

Adrian Chiles (Driverless cars are taking us on a road to nowhere, 10 September) wants to know who asked for driverless cars. I did. I have an eye condition called nystagmus and will never be able to drive unless a “tech-bro willy-waver”, or anyone else, finds a cure. Fortunately, not every driver is as reckless as the ones Chiles despairs of, and the most careful of all may not even be human.

Waymo, Google’s sister company, says its cars have far fewer crashes causing injuries than human drivers. In July, the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that its cars had 68% fewer crashes per mile than human drivers.

Andrew Forsey urges the government to restore the link between free school meals and the holiday activities and food programme

There are 500,000 children growing up in poorer families who are confronted by a similarly cruel cliff edge to the one covered by your article (Chancellor urged to fix £100k childcare ‘cliff edge’ that prompts parents to cut work, 10 September). It is this group of children who, having recently become eligible for means-tested free school meals during term time, are disqualified from accessing the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme. While the government has rightly acknowledged the need for those children to receive extra help during term time, it has somehow reached the decision that this need does not extend into the school holidays.

HAF is a terrific programme providing nutritious meals, enriching activities and free childcare for many families. Since its introduction, eligibility for it has always been linked to the receipt of free school meals. But the government’s decision to break that link will result in working parents, earning as little as £7,500 a year, being unable to access this vital support. Any gains accruing to their children in term time risk being wiped out by this lack of support in the holidays.

Lucy Letby case | At one’s peak | Leaving the debate | Cut from the same cloth | End of the odyssey | A word’s worth

Re the Thirlwall report on the Lucy Letby case (Thirlwall report: what did it say about Lucy Letby case and what does it recommend?, 15 September), babies in neonatal intensive care units are saved by having consultant neonatologists (ie paediatricians who have undergone subspecialist training in neonatal medicine) doing rounds twice daily (in addition to being immediately available), trained neonatal nurses and appropriately resourced units – not by installing cameras on cots and insulin fridges.
Dr Chris Fitzpatrick
Retired consultant obstetrician; former CEO of Coombe hospital, Dublin, Ireland

• Following the introduction of a competitive element in the nominative determinism debate (Letters, 15 September), I’d like to advise everyone that I am at my peak.
Steve Munro
St Osyth, Essex

• ‘I take responsibility … it doesn’t feel good at the moment’

• United beaten 3-2 by Brighton after taking two-goal lead

Michael Carrick admitted Manchester United’s Carabao Cup capitulation against Brighton that was greeted by boos at Old Trafford was unacceptable and that answers had to be found at Fulham on Sunday.

United were knocked out 3-2 by Fabian Hürzeler’s visitors after leading 2-0 after 10 minutes through Shea Lacey and Mason Mount. Goals from Charalampos Kostoulas in first‑half added time, Pascal Gross on 65 minutes and Maxim De Cuyper four minutes later eliminated United.

Man behind US college football’s landmark match in London has dedicated his life to improving crowd safety since his daughter was killed in a crowd crush at a concert aged 23

On Saturday afternoon, as he looks up at the crowd of 60,000 he has helped entice to Wembley Stadium, Brian Dubiski’s dream will become a reality. But, as Arizona State and Kansas make history by playing the first US college football game in Britain, Dubiski will think most of his daughter, Madison, who was crushed to death at the age of 23.

Madison and nine other people were trampled and suffocated by a crowd at a Travis Scott concert in Houston in November 2021. Dubiski now dedicates his life to keeping people safe at sporting events and concerts and, since December, Wembley is one of the stadiums that follows the protocols he introduced.

Club legend Steve Fletcher reflects on the wild rise over two decades to playing Real Sociedad in the Europa League

It is 13 years since Bournemouth, a couple of months after finishing runners-up to Doncaster in the third tier, hosted Real Madrid. It was a balmy summer’s day, officially Carlo Ancelotti’s first match in charge, and, a few hours after checking into the Haven hotel on the Sandbanks peninsula, a wave of galácticos took to the pitch: Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Kaká, Karim Benzema, the list goes on.

An early, wayward Ronaldo free-kick broke the wrist of an 11-year‑old boy before Madrid ran out 6-0 winners in a bucket-list friendly.

New play spotlights fans’ tortuous trek from the Goldstone Ground, via Gillingham and an athletics stadium

It was the tip-off that changed Ian Hart’s life for ever. The funeral director from Worthing was co-editor of the Brighton fanzine Gull’s Eye when he received a phone call from Gordon Lucking, a Crystal Palace director, in July 1995.

“Gordon always wanted to join the Brighton board, but they didn’t want him there,” Hart says. “Ron Noades [the Palace chair] welcomed him with open arms. One of his [Lucking’s] employees had been on this golf day and someone got pissed in the evening and said: ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened – Brighton have sold the Goldstone Ground and are moving to Portsmouth.’ Gordon loved it, because it was another nail in Brighton’s coffin.”

Keely Hodgkinson and Gabby Thomas among the stars at London event whose promoter, Alexis Ohanian, has big plans and hopes for women’s sport

The timing could hardly be better. After a week when the discourse around women’s sport has been dominated by the actor Sydney Sweeney posing naked – and the intense backlash and counter-backlash – London will stage a major all-female track‑and‑field event on Friday.

A sell-out crowd at the Athlos meeting at the StoneX Stadium in Hendon will feature Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, along with the American stars Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall, competing for a prize fund of $1m (£750,000). There will be a red-carpet parade, celebrities galore and a celebration of the best of female sport.

• Rapper dropped from tour after pro-Palestine remarks

• Former NFL star settled case over collusion in 2019

Colin Kaepernick has accused NFL owners of colluding against Macklemore after the rapper was removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour over comments he made onstage about Palestine.

Kaepernick, whose NFL career was effectively ended in the wake of his protests against police violence, says he sees parallels between himself and Macklemore.

• Coach says Argentina’s gung-ho approach forced hand

• ‘No one is more hurt than me, no one wanted it more’

Thomas Tuchel stands by his heavily criticised defensive substitutions in the World Cup semi-final defeat against Argentina this summer, but the England head coach accepts he made them too early.

Tuchel said England were “waiting for death”, unable to cope with the attacking tactics adopted by Argentina in Atlanta as they chased the game after Anthony Gordon’s opener on the hour. He said fatigue and the success of defending with a back five in knockout games against Mexico and Norway also influenced his decisions to sit on the lead.

• American chair Boehly leaves role after deal is secured

• ‘I am confident that Chelsea is well positioned’

Todd Boehly and Mark Walter have sold their stakes in Chelsea in a deal under which Clearlake Capital takes full control of the Premier League club.

The American billionaire businessmen Boehly and Walter were two of the investors who partnered with Clearlake to buy the club from Roman Abramovich in a sale mandated by the UK government in May 2022. The private equity company Clearlake had previously owned 61.5% of the club, with Boehly and Walter carving up the remaining shares with another investor, Hansjörg Wyss.

• International Olympic Committee endorses Fitzroy River course

• World Rowing and Paddle Worldwide back Australian venue

A crocodile habitat has been given the green light to host 2032 rowing after the controversial site passed an assessment “with flying colours”.

Olympic authorities on Thursday confirmed they had approved central Queensland’s Fitzroy River as a Brisbane Games venue, ending months of debate.

Lords’ report faces criticism from lobby groups after suggesting ban would be ‘most effective’ way to reduce public harms

The UK should introduce a ban on almost all gambling advertising to protect public health, a cross-party group of peers has urged, prompting fury from the lobby group for bookmakers and casinos.

In a 173-page report, the House of Lords liaison committee said the government had been “too passive” in response to an explosion of digital advertising and social media influencers promoting the gambling sector.

Exclusive: Ten category C prisons in England and Wales asked to add second beds, in breach of safe occupancy limits

The Prison Service has drawn up plans to “double up” hundreds of prisoners in temporary prefabricated cells built for one person, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, leaked documents show.

Amid an ongoing overcrowding crisis in England and Wales, governors of 10 category C prisons have been asked to sign off the installation of second beds in “rapid deployment cells [RDCs]”.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Bank of England urged to slow or halt bond-selling to slash UK borrowing costs

• The Guardian view on the Bank of England’s £120bn bill: power without accountability

Given high energy prices are driving up UK inflation, the Bank of England will not be pleased to hear the latest transit data from the Middle East.

Commodity vessel transits through the strait of Hormuz dwindled to just three ships on Wednesday, down from 12 a day earlier.

Of the three vessels, an empty Supramax dry bulk ship entered the strait via the Iranian route, while an empty petroleum product tanker entered through a dark route, shipping data from Kpler showed at 0445 GMT.

A Panamax tanker exited the waterway using a dark route, the data showed.

This week’s data has painted a distinctly mixed picture: inflation is moving further above target and producer costs are accelerating, yet the labour market continues to soften.

The result is an uncomfortable trade-off between guarding against a second inflation wave and avoiding unnecessary damage to an already fragile economy.

Inquiry uncovered missed opportunities and failures by New Zealand police and government agencies that could have avoided four-year hunt

A major public inquiry into the disappearance of fugitive father Tom Phillips, who hid in New Zealand’s wilderness for nearly four years with his three children, has found authorities played down the harms he inflicted on his children, and did not do enough to protect them.

Taking his children, of whom he did not have legal custody, Phillips disappeared into the rugged North Island wilderness in 2021. That disappearance was preempted by an earlier, shorter stint where Phillips went bush with his son and two daughters, aged five, seven and eight at the time.

Protesters teargassed as minister claims widespread raids and arrests under obscenity laws were to ‘protect families’

Turkish authorities have used accusations of obscenity to justify a wave of raids and arrests targeting the LGBTQ+ community, which has grown to include journalists as well as more than 150 arrested during protests against the raids.

Starting in the early hours of Sunday, Turkish police carried out simultaneous raids on the offices of LGBTQ+ rights organisations and HIV-advocacy groups in the cities of Istanbul, the capital, Ankara, and the coastal city of İzmir, as well as the cities of Aydın and Mersin.

Analysis of global resources reveals depletion in world’s water savings bank to 42% below normal levels last year

Rivers across the world experienced one of their driest years in more than three decades in 2025, a comprehensive study of global water resources has found.

The assessment of the global water cycle by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reveals a depletion in the world’s water savings bank: the amount of freshwater held on or under the ground, including groundwater, lakes, rivers, snow, ice moisture in the soil and inside plants and trees, was 42% below normal across the world last year.

In year of extreme weather, ad agencies found to be building Big Oil’s image as integral to family life and security

“It’s that time of the year again,” the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company told Emiratis in a Ramadan advertising campaign. “Where tanks are always full – for night after night of majlis hopping.”

When you think about fossil fuels, you might think of offshore oil platforms flaring gas in rough seas, the US/Iran war or the greenhouse effect heating up the world’s climate. A new report argues, however, that what Big Oil wants you to think about is family, friends and faith instead.

MSPs vote for strict environmental impact assessments and will delay decisions until national strategy is developed

Holyrood has voted to pause planning applications for all new AI datacentres for up to a year until the Scottish government has developed a national strategy.

On Wednesday, MSPs backed a Scottish Labour motion to halt new schemes for up to 12 months while rules on hyperscale datacentres are developed in what could be a blow to the British government’s AI strategy.

Global push will triple toxic e-waste annually in 25 years, filling enough shipping containers to circle globe six times

The ongoing campaign to build thousands of massive datacenters for AI will create a “tsunami” of discarded electronics, putting the world on a course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste in the next 25 years, a new report projects.

The electronic trash AI generates in the next 25 years could fill enough shipping containers to encircle the globe six times, it said. Yet, says the report by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), there is no plan to deal with that waste – which typically contains toxins like lead, mercury, cadmium and forever chemicals, as well as valuable metals that are challenging to reclaim.

HSBC director Nicholas Brandram, 44, was found unresponsive by emergency services on Tuesday evening

A senior city banker suspected of pushing a woman into the path of a moving bus in the “Putney pusher” case has been found dead.

Nicholas Brandram, 44, was discovered at his home in Chiswick, west London, on Tuesday.

Ivan Jennings, 46, sentenced to five years after pleading guilty to encouraging terrorism on social media

A rightwing extremist who discussed poisoning Jews and Muslims and called for the killing of migrants and minority communities has been jailed.

Ivan Jennings, 46, called for the murder of hundreds of people he labelled “subhumans”, saying it was “justified and actually needed”, in extreme far-right groups over a period of three months in 2024.

Politicians from Solihull, Gateshead and Kent were in online group linked to balaclava-clad far-right agitators

At least five Reform UK councillors have been members of a Facebook group linked to the far-right group involved in the blockades of Dover and Portsmouth by masked men, according to anti-fascist campaigners.

Nigel Farage’s party has been wrestling with internal divisions over its position on the Patriot Platform group, whose activities have been condemned by Farage and across the political spectrum.

Exclusive: UK’s Green parties could take 40 seats if result replicated at next election, according to Labour-linked thinktank

The Greens are just four points behind Labour in urban constituencies across the UK, putting them within touching distance of taking as many as 40 seats if the result was replicated at the next election, according to new polling by a Labour-linked thinktank.

The survey by ThinkLabour, which has extensive links to Andy Burnham’s government, finds that urban voters have moved in large numbers towards the UK’s Green parties since the 2024 general election. The research highlights the challenge Labour faces in holding on to the Holborn and St Pancras seat in the face of a challenge from Zack Polanski, the party leader in England and Wales, at next month’s byelection.

Government estimates that one in 60 adults in Fiji now living with HIV, as escalating use of methamphetamine fuels ‘epidemic’

Fiji has declared a national HIV emergency amid a spike in infections as the Pacific nation grapples with a correlating rise in methamphetamine use.

The country’s health and medical services minister, Dr Ratu Atonio Lalabalavu, said in a statement on social media that an outbreak-level response was no longer sufficient to address what he described an “epidemic”.

Mark Rutte asks UK and Europe to ‘provide hard power Nato needs’ in face of geopolitical uncertainty

Nato needs “more UK and more Europe” to deal with the most dangerous security environment faced by the west in a generation, the secretary general of the 32-country military alliance said this afternoon on a visit to the UK.

Mark Rutte praised Britain for promising to increase defence spending in line with US demands after a meeting prime minister Andy Burnham – but argued that the military and financial effort must continue into the future.

Rescue workers say search for dozens of people hampered by lack of heavy machinery

A building housing about 100 displaced Palestinian families has collapsed in Gaza City, killing at least 21 people in their sleep, including 11 children, forcing rescuers to dig through the rubble with their bare hands as they search for dozens of people believed to be trapped.

A rescue team from Gaza’s civil defence said they had recovered the bodies of five children among the victims, while 25 injured people were taken to hospital. Medical sources said rescuers could hear the voices of people trapped beneath the rubble as they tried to reach them.

Trump urges lower rates after central bank agrees increase by quarter-percentage point to range of 3.75% to 4%

The US Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2023 as the central bank continues to fight to tamp down inflation.

The Fed’s open market committee voted unanimously to raise its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%. This is the first time the Fed has raised rates since July 2023 and potentially sets Kevin Warsh, the current Fed chair, on a collision course with Donald Trump.

Ursula von der Leyen announces draft law to stop apps ‘depriving children of their childhood’

The EU will move forward with plans for an under 13s social media ban, the head of the European Commission has confirmed.

Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that social media apps were “depriving children of their childhood” and big tech platforms needed to prove the safety of their products.

Latest attempt to secure future of Britain’s biggest car factory may be subject to UK weakening EV sales mandate

Nissan has said it will invest £170m to build a new SUV at its factory in Sunderland – but said the move was subject to the UK weakening its electric vehicle sales mandate.

The new hybrid model, the Kicks, is Nissan’s latest attempt to secure the future of the plant, which employs 6,000 people in Tyne and Wear and is Britain’s biggest car factory.

Entain, which also owns Coral and BetMGM, starts consultation process over customer care roles

• Business live – latest updates

The Ladbrokes owner, Entain, has said it is preparing to cut 400 jobs, only weeks after the FTSE 100 business reported better than expected profit in its first half of the year.

The gambling group, which also owns Coral and BetMGM, has started a consultation process that could remove one in five of its 2,000 customer care jobs.

Playwright was an unusual mix of originality and authority and in high demand as a cultural critic

Bonnie Greer, who has died at the age of 77, moved to the UK from New York in 1986. She grew up in Chicago with six younger siblings. Her father worked in a factory and her mother “kept house”, she said once – in a tone so elegantly ominous, she conjured an image of a woman holding up a full dwelling with seven children in it, with her bare hands. Greer was ambitious and, academically, a high flyer, but abandoned her law degree, facing baked-in sexism from professors. Yet, given she started writing plays aged nine, arguably she was only hastening a creative career that was inevitable.

The Actors Studio was what drew her to the West Village in Manhattan in the late 70s, and she was there at the height of the Aids crisis, a brutal time of mass bereavements and poisonous prejudice. She lost about 35 of her friends, and later told the Sunday Times: “I owe those people my life. If I hadn’t met my gay friends I would be a suburban SUV-driving granny. They taught me the value of insurrection and fun. Nearly 30 years on, I’m still that 25-year-old, on top of some bar, in one of those vintage dresses, dancing with those guys.” But when she arrived, touring, at the Edinburgh festival, it felt like a release, from the “shadow of death”, and a New York theatre scene bereft of its heart. She stayed in the UK permanently.

With tear gas, grenades and a new law, French authorities are targeting unlicensed music gatherings. Those in the rave scene explore the parallels with the UK in the 90s

When Spiral Tribe fled England in 1992, they left behind an indelible mark on rave history. The itinerant sound system collective are best known for their involvement with Castlemorton Common festival, an unlicensed free party drawing more than 30,000 people and lasting nearly a week. After a drawn-out and notoriously expensive trial for public order offences, Spiral Tribe were acquitted of all charges. They decided to drive their repurposed military caravans out of the UK and never look back.

Their documented history often stops there. But little known is the fact that they then kicked off “the biggest illegal underground movement that Europe had ever seen”, says Spiral Tribe associate Sebastian Vaughan, AKA electronic musician 69db.

Film-maker Jamie Roberts follows a Sussex man’s journey into the far right. If it wasn’t so horrific, parts could feel like they’d been written by Chris Morris

Standing in the street shouting virulent slogans or chanting loaded refrains about Islam was the mainstay of British far-right groups such as the EDL in the early 2010s. Now, that behaviour feels almost quaint. Recent weeks have seen major anti-immigration blockades in Dover led by balaclava-wearing men, and direct action against asylum seekers arriving on a small boat in Portsmouth.

Clearly, in 2026, the blame for much of the societal rot that has set in has been placed frequently at the feet of migrants, and vigilante tactics are on the rise. Channel 4’s one-off documentary arrives with depressing timeliness, then, telling a story that serves as a synecdoche for events playing out across the UK, at large. It is, says its maker, “the story of a community on the frontline of Britain’s broken asylum system, and one man’s journey into the heart of the far-right movement”.

A new series picks apart some shocking cases. Plus: a rival vet arrives in the Dales in All Creatures Great and Small. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC Two
Given that romance scam documentaries have become a regular fixture in the schedules, you would think they would have lost the power to shock. But blood will boil in viewers of the first of this three-parter, where three women in middle life recall what happened when they were lonely and started talking to a handsome man online. It turned out, of course, that the same man was dating them all – and he was finding new ways of getting them to send him money. Hollie Richardson

Shane O’Sullivan’s documentary weaves archive clips and snippets from films old and new to draw out the highlights of the crisis that rocked the US

Judging by his past work, the Irish-born, London-based writer and film-maker Shane O’Sullivan may have a chronic case of born-too-late nostalgia. It manifests as a fascination with the politics and counterculture of the late 1960s and 70s, and that’s clearly a theme in O’Sullivan’s previous works, which include: a book and film about the assassination of Robert Kennedy; the acclaimed feature doc Children of the Revolution about the female leaders of the Baader-Meinhof Group and the Japanese Red Army; and a film about Lee Harvey Oswald.

His latest takes aim at the big kahuna itself: Watergate – the crime, the scandal and the cultural phenomenon. It is explored through a hailstorm of archive clips and snippets of feature films, all nimbly stitched together, with a deadpan voiceover by the great Harry Shearer. The result is, of course, nostalgic, but also feels fresh and immediate, especially thanks to the use of moments from more recent features about, but not from, the period, including a Watergate-hearings-obsessed teenage Christina Ricci in The Ice Storm from 1997, the comic ineptitude of the Watergate burglars as represented in 1999 spoof Dick, or Shea Whigham’s skewering of break-in mastermind G Gordon Liddy from recent TV miniseries Gaslit. These performed moments all play nicely with O’Sullivan’s selection of clips from more contemporaneous, Watergate-adjacent classics such as Medium Cool, All the President’s Men and Taxi Driver.

The Weapons director delivers a seat-edge thriller with a standout lead performance from Austin Abrams as an everyman navigating chaos

Typically horror fans react to blatant on-screen stupidity with vocal derision. Don’t go in there! Girl, get out of the house! Guys, ignore that distress signal! But genre aficionados may find themselves falling a little bit in love with Bryan (Austin Abrams), the hapless de facto hero of the new horror film Resident Evil. It’s not that Bryan is traditionally hunky, or even a caricatured version of a square-jawed warrior, like Bruce Campbell in his later Evil Dead outings. But Abrams is in possession of a Campbell-ish charm, even in the face of his character’s repeated blundering, as well as an everyman relatability that makes this wild carnival-ride movie play a little closer to the ground.

Bryan is a courier – a glorified Postmates driver, in his own estimation – who postpones the end of his shift to take one last night-time run, driving an important item from one hospital to another in a snowstorm without the proper tires or four-wheel drive. After all, the distance and urgency means double pay. When he hits a mysterious woman who emerges suddenly on to a slick road, he’s drawn into a hellish outbreak that will look familiar to fans of the Resident Evil video game series (or maybe the previous six-movie Milla Jovovich franchise, which apparently drifted afield from the games’ storylines).

Though the masked country singer has a No 1 album and duets with superstars under his belt, his demons and mental health caught up to him

Orville Peck was in the middle of a soundcheck when he found out that his idol Dolly Parton had died. It was late August and the masked, pseudonymous country singer was due to perform an intimate set at London’s Rough Trade East in half an hour. The news hit him like a truck. With no chance to process it, he decided to grieve in real time, on stage, before a roomful of fans.

“I’m a little bit of a mess right now,” Peck told the audience, perched on a stool with an acoustic guitar. “Dolly was my hero,” he continued, his voice cracking. “As a gay man coming into country music and feeling sort of alone, I think the thing that always felt comforting is, like, just knowing Dolly existed in country. It made me feel like I had a friend there.” He then launched into a rendition of Parton’s iconic hit I Will Always Love You.

(Parlophone)
On this new compilation of his mid-60s Davie Jones years, Bowie can’t distinguish himself from the era’s other bands – and ends up hedging his bets

In 1973, David Bowie released Pin Ups, a loving if slightly over-wrought collection of covers from the mid-60s: the moment when the previous driving forces of British pop, Merseybeat and the blues revival started giving way to something noticeably weirder, noisier and more expansive. In an accompanying promotional interview, he waxed lyrical about his memories of seeing the Pretty Things, the Who, the Creation and the nascent Pink Floyd “with dear old Syd” in impeccable mod lingo (“up the Windmill or the Elephant, get blocked, bust over to Richmond”) but tactfully neglected to mention that he was more than an amphetamine-fuelled fan: he’d wanted to be a participant, and had recorded a handful of mid-60s singles inspired by his idols.

That elision shows what a strained relationship Bowie had with his pre-fame material. For most of his career, he simply tried to ignore it, although it doggedly refused to go away: his former labels kept re-releasing it, usually in sleeves that attempted to fool the buyer that it was current. Then, in his 50s, he seemed to reconsider, revisiting his 60s oeuvre on Toy, a 2001 album that was rejected by his then-label EMI – a baffling decision, if you buy the posthumous rewriting of Bowie’s history that insists his Glastonbury performance in 2000 utterly reinvigorated his career and made him as revered as he was in his peak years.

Playing a sound rooted in 80s bands such as Witchfinder General and Pagan Altar, metal bands are once again gravitating towards dark folklore – but in a ‘Glastonbury crystal shop’ kind of way

Behind Tom Templar’s shoulder as we talk over video call is a poster for The Wicker Man, the 1973 cult folk-horror film set on a remote Scottish island, whose sunniness conceals – inevitably – a dark secret. It’s fitting, because Templar is the singer of Green Lung, the breakout British metal band who immerse themselves in British mythology. The forthcoming Necropolitan, their fourth album devoted to the folklore of the isles, takes its inspiration from the “Magnificent Seven” London cemeteries built in the 1830s and 40s, and from the Necropolis railway, which transported the dead out of the city. No generic demons here: this is metal in the spirit of Fairport Convention as much as Black Sabbath.

“My big thesis is that heavy metal has become a form of folk music in the past couple of decades,” says Templar. “They’re both riff-based, circling around similar tropes, and about reinventing what has gone before. Metal even feels like a folk movement, in the way it’s full of festivals no one else has heard of. There’s such a thriving ecosystem.” Green Lung have certainly been nourished by it: at this year’s Desertfest in London, their T-shirts felt like an unofficial uniform.

(Iliad/Capitol)
On his first album in seven years, Beck keeps the quality control extremely high as he surveys mid-50s malaise in the wake of divorce

The last time Beck released an album it was 2019 and the singer-songwriter found himself in a strange and unenviable position. In some quarters, the arrival of Hyperspace was eagerly anticipated precisely because his personal life was in turmoil. Nine months before its release, his 15-year marriage to actor Marissa Ribisi had ended in divorce, an experience he understandably described as heartbreaking. Unfortunately for him, there exists a pervasive argument that Beck’s greatest work is born out of misery.

His beloved 2002 album Sea Change featured a set of disconsolate acoustic songs written in the wake of a break-up with his long-term girlfriend Leigh Limon that Beck had initially thought were too personal for public consumption. They were certainly very different from the knowing, postmodern approach with which he’d made his name, but no matter: Sea Change went on to become a huge critical and commercial success. It wasn’t entirely clear what prompted the gloomy mood of 2014’s Morning Phase, but it very much seemed to be cut from similar musical and lyrical cloth. Some critics suggested it was the best album of his career; it subsequently won three Grammys, including album of the year. Given the circumstances, there was much pre-release speculation that Hyperspace would be a companion piece.

This story of Soviet agent and his MI6 handler in revolutionary Iran is a page-turning masterpiece

Ben Macintyre uses the acronym MICE to describe the reasons people betray their countries: Money, Ideology, Coercion or Ego. In the set-piece that opens his latest work of true-espionage, we discover a new reason: erectile dysfunction.

Stressed, drinking too much, under constant surveillance, furious about the corruption of his colleagues and frustrated with his home life, the KGB’s Vladimir Kuzichkin is offering to betray the secrets of his homeland and its Iranian allies, if only a British doctor can help him have sex again.

The president’s former press secretary has learned all the right lessons, but how come it took him so long?

The most interesting chapter in Anthony Scaramucci’s All the Wrong Moves is the one where the hedge funder turned podcaster goes to work for Donald Trump. It’s summer 2017, and he’s been given the job of comms director, which he doesn’t know how to do, but he and Trump think it’ll work out because they’re both from New York. Or maybe he took it because he had “Potomac fever”, which afflicts Wall Street financiers who find themselves on the riverfront in Washington DC thinking they know how to run a country just because they’re “full of power and judgmental insight … about to fix everything”.

This appointment lasts only 11 days, not even enough time to be truly tainted by Trump’s first term, though it is enough time for Scaramucci to miss the birth of his son. The account is a mea culpa soup, with the author full of regrets for his hubris, his impulsivity, his “pride, egotism and asinine stupidity”, the fact that, despite the clear-sightedness bestowed by his humble beginnings, he’d come to assume the collective biases of the rich people he hung out with.

Part spoken-word poem, part journalistic meditation, this is an inventive, tender novel of a songwriter’s journey through love and loss in London

Tice Cin’s philosophical and poetic new novel about a young Turkish-Cypriot songwriter and music producer extends the preoccupations of her prizewinning debut, 2021’s Keeping the House. This intimately told sophomore novel, again a story of friendship, precarity and community, is at once an elegy, a spoken-word poem and a journalistic meditation, repeatedly asking readers: “So, are you listening?”

For our unnamed narrator, “hurts come in different shapes each time”: from the childhood scars of her father’s abandonment, to sexism in the creative scene and the difficulties of navigating short-lived flatshares on universal credit (“If you don’t know about being money dry, if you don’t know loss – you don’t get it. If you know, you know”). Her journey of personal discovery is mapped on to the contemporary travails of London’s wider working-class inner-city diaspora communities as she calculates her life by doorways, “walking past each one” without a roadmap for her personal and professional goals.

Twenty years in the writing, this paranormal epic of cold war espionage and family tragedy is a quantum leap in terms of ambition and moral seriousness

China Miéville’s epic new novel is presented as being “20 years in the making”. It is quite a testament to how extravagant – even Stakhanovite – his imagination is that during that period he also produced six novels (including The City & the City and The Book of Elsewhere, co-written with Keanu Reeves), two novellas, two series of graphic novels, a children’s book, a volume of short stories and two works of nonfiction, on the October Revolution and the Communist Manifesto.

It does not mean that these works were, as Graham Greene called The Third Man and Our Man in Havana, “entertainments” – Embassytown, to my mind, is the best translation of deconstructionist philosophy into science fiction – but certainly The Rouse is a quantum jump in terms of ambition, moral seriousness and stylistic bravado. It means that rather than classifying Miéville with “the new weird” or “speculative fantasy”, he ought to be compared to Roberto Bolaño or Mircea Cărtărescu. This new novel is equally maximalist, dense, disorienting and discomfiting, reflecting how surreal our reality seems to have become.

The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old.)

If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it.

The distinctively British RPG is returning courtesy of the makers of Forza Horizon – with comedy talent such as Richard Ayoade and Natasia Demetriou voicing sweary characters. We had our first play and spoke to its developer

When Playground Games was founded in 2010, its objective was straightforward: to make the best cars in video games. Operating out of an unassuming white building in Leamington Spa, the studio sought to challenge Gran Turismo with its critically acclaimed British racing alternative: the acclaimed free-roaming Forza Horizon series. Yet as the team grew, so did their ambitions. Now they are making the most intriguing British fantasy game we have seen in many years.

For those who have never ventured into Albion, Fable is a quintessentially British role playing game. Created by Lionhead Studios for the original Xbox in 2004, it boasted cheeky charm alongside world-altering player choices, and its droll writing was brought to life in later iterations by national treasures such as Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg. Thanks to its unique blend of farce and fantasy, Fable grew into a globally beloved franchise – before Microsoft unceremoniously shuttered Lionhead in 2016, after mandating that the studio turn its star series into a multiplayer game. The result, Fable Legends, was never released.

We have a first play of the forthcoming Tomb Raider remake and speak with its developers. Can they improve on the gameplay without losing what made the 1996 original such a classic?

We join Lara Croft in St Francis’ Folly – inspired by the Unesco-listed monasteries of Meteora in Greece – as the light shines through the cracked ceiling and a flock of bats glide across the vast ruins below. When Lara leaps down to the monastery’s crumbling pillared courtyard, it becomes clear that these screeching, leathery creatures aren’t just set dressing. As they lurch towards her with unpredictable movements, she dispatches the swarm with a flurry of gun fire and panicked punches.

It’s a suitably cinematic reintroduction to our heroine and her very first adventure. Co-developed by longtime Lara custodians Crystal Dynamics and Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of the classic 1996 game Tomb Raider, and this familiar cliffside location is now brimming with new life and believable detail. Yet while our reunion gets off to an auspicious start, I have my concerns. It feels like reconnecting with an old friend at the pub, only for them to begin spouting conspiracy theories two pints in.

PlayStation 5; Insomniac Games
Logan is well realised by Liam McIntyre and some exquisite character art, but there are lapses in narrative and emotional arcs and some of the combat feels like a chore

It was always going to be difficult to follow Spider-Man. Insomniac’s three games based around the web-slinger are masterpieces of superhero wish fulfilment, allowing you to swoop above a depiction of Manhattan alive with graffiti artists, roving journalists and gun-toting gangsters. If anyone should be up to the task, it’s Wolverine. A beloved Marvel stalwart, his life much darker and bloodier than Peter Parker’s, he seems the ideal protagonist for a moody action adventure. Yet somehow this well-made game falls short of its potential.

Set years before the founding of the X-Men, Marvel’s Wolverine sees a disenfranchised Logan falling back in with Sabretooth and Mystique when their mentor Nathaniel Essex is kidnapped by mutant-hating billionaire Bolivar Trask. This archetypal tech bro has a disturbing plan for world domination and the X Team are out to stop him – but there is a secret buried in Wolverine’s past that’s about to cause an eruption. It’s a decent setup, filled with the sort of intrigue, violence and Freudian tension we expect from the X-Men.

Barclays Center, Brooklyn

The tireless star brings her latest, somewhat over-explained album to the stage for a dazzling and euphoric show

For more than a year now, I have often returned, when seeking a bar for which to measure true pop transcendence, to the memory of Charli xcx taking the Other Stage at Glastonbury: the unofficial headliner, a year out from her culture-shifting opus Brat, commanded a dizzying 60,000 people with an imperious “don’t fucking play with me” and the stunning brute force of a performer at peak power. It was surreal, as a longtime fan, to witness an artist who was as recently as 2022 playing to cult followings in 2,000-cap venues convert thousands more in real time, to see years of hard-earned pop instincts and artistry collide with the zeitgeist in a career-defining, you-had-to-be-there achievement.

But life goes on, of course, and Charli, like the rest of us who surfed the high of Brat summer 2024, found herself on an inevitable comedown. A lesser artist may have confronted the question of what comes next with blunt commercial logic – more, again – but Charli, a self-professed workaholic and tireless interrogator of one’s own image, proved to be creatively restless, if scattered. A cinephile rebrand, three films at Sundance, an Instagram-dominating celebrity wedding, a defanged satire of her own sudden ubiquity, a windswept soundtrack that more or less saved the otherwise dreadful Wuthering Heights – all suggested a self-aware ambivalence with mainstream success that threatened to corrode all that came after. With the release this July of Music, Fashion, Film, her eighth studio album, I worried that she had succumbed to a seemingly manic drive to stay visible. The album, a deceptively vulnerable and winking pivot to rock that was either self-aggrandizing pastiche or genius, depending on what angle/substance/context you beheld it, did not seem to stand up the scrutiny and over-explanation of relentless celebrity promotion.

Exclusive: Exhibition focusing on Finnish writer and artist’s illustrations will include original art from her first Moomins book

The Moomin books about lovable trolls with hippopotamus snouts who live in harmony with nature are a global publishing phenomenon, having sold up to 30m copies since the Finnish artist and writer Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated them between 1945 and 1977.

Now previously unseen drawings of her eccentric characters will be among more than 100 exhibits in a major exhibition that is being staged in London 25 years after her death.

Theatre503, London
Lauryn Ajufo makes Tracey her own in a vibrant revival of Coel’s monologue, capturing the cruelty, confusion and comedy of adolescence

The self-flagellations of adolescence and its suddenly streaking hormones can make great fodder for comedy. Harry Enfield’s 13-year-old defined its comic pains for one generation. His Kevin is every bit matched by Michaela Coel’s exuberant and offensive Tracey. This revival of Coel’s 2012 debut proves her eternal relevance as a character: Black British and downtrodden, she is upstart, bully, trusty friend and a bewildered girl defined by class and race by her own schoolteacher. She is also horny and desperately infatuated with a white boy, Connor.

Beginning as a monologue performed by Coel herself, it is about friendship, sexual discovery and abuse, with Tracey telling us about everything from the girl in class who can lick her own vagina to her beautiful best friend with a controlling boyfriend 10 years her senior. The show went on to be adapted for the Channel 4 TV series Chewing Gum, which turned Coel’s one-woman polyphony into an ensemble of immensely colourful characters and fabulous comedy, but also lost some of its intensity and darkness.

At Theatre503, London, until 17 October

Royal Opera House, London
This revival of Richard Jones and Antony McDonald’s 2022 staging has kept most of its excellent original cast Lisette Oropesa is imperious and gleaming as the enchantress Alcina

Handel, but make it fun. Perhaps that was Richard Jones’s brief for his production of Alcina, first seen here in 2022 and revived by Sarah Fahie, its original movement director. And of all Handel’s operas perhaps it’s this one, with its desert-island storyline of sorcery and sex – what happens on the island stays on the island – that invites this treatment.

Jones makes the “good guys” into members of a kind of puritan cult, so the tension between the moral world and the sensual, instinctive one is less of a gentle pull, more a tug of war. Alcina’s prisoners are transformed by a squirt of her eponymous perfume into birds and animals – a parrot, a mandrill, a King Charles spaniel, all wearing prosthetic heads so beautifully made that for the past year or two they have been in display cases in the Royal Opera House foyer. The animals are kept busy fawning over Alcina or moving Antony McDonald’s sets around: there’s a huge bed, a greenhouse and an enchanted forest on wheeled platforms, found behind the doors of what might be a hotel corridor. It’s a wide stage, and there’s often at least one singer running across it. Amid all this, the opera’s moments of warmth, insight and introspection risk getting lost or at least overshadowed. It’s brittle, but it is entertaining.

A brush with mortality inspired sisters Sophia and Camilla Minden to create a death-themed event featuring live bands, wild swimming … and an ‘emoshpit’

Raised in the Lake District on “music, moss and macaroni cheese,” Sophia and Camilla Minden were mindful of death from a very early age. The sisters shared a bed and played in the woods behind their house, frequently bringing home injured and dying birds, frogs and a rat they named Adrian and fed pate and pork pie. “Everything we’d learned about their diet, we learned from Wind in the Willows,” admits Sophia. The creatures rarely survived, but the death of each one was respectfully honoured with a burial in the garden, words spoken, singing and a stone or flower placed on the grave.

What they didn’t expect was that little more than a decade later, they’d be planning Camilla’s own funeral. Diagnosed with late-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma just after her 20th birthday, she was given an 80% chance of survival, but the other 20% made her investigate her local undertakers (“dated, impersonal and expensive”) and work out what she wanted at her funeral (“spag bol and quite a lot of Michael Jackson”). Navigating “shit wigs” and people’s awkwardness around the subject of dying, she says that she spent a lot of time “bargaining with God”, promising that if she made it through, she’d live life to the full and appreciate every single day.

The Sondering is at Rydal, Lake District, from 18-21 September

The British-American novelist and playwright who regularly appeared on current affairs shows will be remembered for her ‘warmth, humour and generosity’, says her husband

The British-American novelist, playwright and commentator Bonnie Greer has died aged 77.

In a statement, her husband David Hutchins said that she died on Tuesday evening following a brief illness.

He risks his life for entertainment, but getting an anecdote out of him is a trickier matter. Happily, Cruise is no stranger to knuckling down and pulling off the impossible

By now, we’ve grown used to watching Tom Cruise excel at everything he does. Running in films? The best. Risking his life in action scenes so preposterously dangerous that audiences need to have their sphincters manually unclenched with a crowbar? Absolutely, none better. Singlehandedly ensuring that theatrical exhibition didn’t go extinct after Covid? The man deserves all the praise in the world for that.

But nobody is perfect. Live long enough and a few flaws will worm their way to the surface. This is as true for Tom Cruise as it is for anyone else. And while I realise that this might do me out of a cake this Christmas, the following really needs to be said: Tom Cruise isn’t very good at interviews.

The US artist, whose swirly, colorful, instantly recognizable designs became hugely commercially successful, died on Monday

Peter Max, whose colorful, psychedelic pop art expressed the optimism of the “flower power” movement of the 1960s and graced everything from postage stamps to a cruise ship, has died at 88.

Max died on Monday, his son, Adam Max, said in a written statement on Wednesday. No cause was given.

Let your legs enjoy the last of the summer’s breeze while a thick top or jacket keeps away the autumn chill

This is the most enjoyable time of the year to get dressed because clothes can just be clothes. They don’t have to function as a personal air-conditioning and sweat-disguising system, as they did for the summer, nor do they need to double as a portable central heating unit yet. Your outfit does not need to “take you from day to night” until party season starts, and it doesn’t have to jigsaw itself into a hand-luggage-sized capsule wardrobe until next summer. There is little in the way of functional heavy lifting, so you get to just wear nice clothes.

And this benign early part of autumn is more fun to dress for than the equivalent weather in spring, because we still have a bit of summer swagger. The summer habit of wearing shorts and halter tops and even swimwear has gotten us a little loose, a little more laid-back about flashing a bit of skin here or there. It is about more than bare flesh, though. There is something about summer that flexes the flashy dresser in everyone – whether that’s fancy dress for a festival, or just the way that putting on a pair of sunglasses brings out your inner movie star.

How often should you clean your cat’s litter box? Plus three other tips for peak cat cleanliness

Throughout history, people have revered cats. Ancient Egyptians worshipped feline deities. In Norse mythology, the Viking goddess Freya rode around in a sled pulled by two cats. And my father regularly takes his cat on walks around town in a little bubble backpack so she can see the sights.

As anyone who has lived with a cat knows, we serve them and not the other way around. This includes the messy and malodorous task of tending their litter box.

Craving cosiness, but too warm for blankets and baths? Try our autumn cheat sheet

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After a record-breaking summer of heat, temperatures aren’t set to drop enough for hot baths, warm tights and roast dinners just yet. But if the darker evenings and falling leaves have got you craving cosiness, here’s our recipe for achieving that comforting autumnal vibe while it’s still unseasonably warm out.

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Want to know the essentials fashion insiders swear by? Whether it’s great T-shirts or forever trainers, Guardian writers and stylists reveal the pieces they rate

• Jess Cartner-Morley’s September style essentials

Whether it’s a great pair of pants or the perfect T-shirt, nailing the basics can make or break your wardrobe. “They have to work harder than anything else,” says British Vogue style editor Funmi Fetto.

I asked Fetto and other stylists and style writers, along with members of the Guardian fashion desk – who all spend more time than most thinking about this stuff – for their most-loved basics. And don’t worry, most of them won’t break the bank.

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

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

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

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

Tired of squashed sarnies and spilt dressing? From stainless steel to insulated to plastic-free, here are the lunch boxes for kids and adults we rate the most

• The best water bottles

If packed lunches are a high-stakes game in your household (as they are in mine), the right lunch box is crucial. There’s nothing worse than opening the lunch you’ve been looking forward to since 8am to find yoghurt has leaked on to your sandwich and your cucumbers have dried out.

A lunch box may look like a simple bit of kit, but keeping food contained from kitchen to school dinner hall or workplace desk is a surprisingly demanding job. And the humble lunch box has come a long way from the simple plastic tubs that used to contain our clingfilm-wrapped, squashed sandwiches at school. Today, you can find bento boxes with multiple compartments, stainless steel containers, silicone pouches and leakproof designs promising to keep everything from yoghurt to salad dressing safely contained.

Prosecutors sought jail term for chief executive of Evett after insects not approved for consumption were on menu

A South Korean court has fined the operator of one of Seoul’s most celebrated restaurants and its chief executive for serving a dessert topped with ants, an insect not approved for consumption under local food safety law.

The operator of Evett, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in the affluent Gangnam district, was fined 10m won (£5,400) and its chief executive 15m won, Newsis reported.

The liquid from a jar of olives is naturally chock-full of savoury flavour, so why should it go to waste? It’s perfect for sprucing up a salad

Olive brine is a simple byproduct that has so much flavour, and it elevates a classic salade nicoise dressing while keeping things colourful, elegant and relatively simple.

Cooking at this time of year is all about low-effort, maximum-impact options. This savoury dish comes together quickly but looks striking, while the dessert showcases figs at their most flavoursome

The secret to late-summer/early autumn cooking is to keep things relatively low-effort, not least to assuage those back-to-work/school blues. And that rule applies across the board, whether you’re making a midweek meal, entertaining or serving up a long, slow Sunday lunch. The sauce for this pasta dish, for example, comes together while the pasta is cooking, while the semifreddo pudding makes the most of ripe figs when they are at their absolute best.

It’s probably not a good idea to freeze cooked risotto rice, but if you must, we have three experts who can tell you how to minimise the mush

I have tried various ways to reheat risotto after freezing, but it always turns into a gloopy, starchy, unappetising mess. What am I doing wrong?
Jill, by email
“Freezing risotto will be a bit of a disaster,” says Theo Randall, chef/patron at Theo Randall Cucina Italiana at the Intercontinental in London, “and it doesn’t really work.” The reason for this is that the cooked rice absorbs all the moisture while it’s defrosting, resulting in, well, Jill’s gloopy mess.

It’s also possible her risotto was overcooked to begin with, says Sue Quinn, author of Cheese Please. “Softer grains mean more leached starch, which leaves less leeway for further cooking without it going sticky and pasty.” Then there’s the question of reheating that defrosted rice for too long: “That can over-soften the already-cooked rice,” adds Quinn, so you have to do it “quickly and only until it’s piping hot”.

The reality, however, is that “freezing, thawing and reheating rice will make it squishier whatever you do”, Quinn says, but “if that’s the way Jill rolls”, her best bet is to get that defrosted risotto in the microwave, sprinkle it with a little water or stock, cover loosely, then reheat on high in one-minute intervals, stirring in between, until it’s hot all the way through. “To do this on the hob, put the defrosted risotto in a pan with a splash of hot stock or water, and stir gently over a medium heat for just long enough to distribute the heat.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

We got her as a puppy and she became particularly close to Adam – a blessing when he went into cardiac arrest in the middle of the night

My husband, Adam, and I had always planned to have a big family and that journey began when we got our dog, Polly, five years ago. I’ve loved golden retrievers since I was a child because I grew up with one. We got Polly as a puppy and she was everything we’d hoped for: loving and smart.

She immediately connected with both of us, but became inseparable from Adam. They would go for morning runs together; Polly could always be found wagging her tail by his side. This bond proved to be lifesaving.

Conversations are supposed to be two-sided – but all too often we come up against someone who’s passionately, exclusively in love with the sound of their own voice. Time to fight back …

When I was in my early teens, I was often invited round to a schoolfriend’s house for dinner. Her family struck me as wildly progressive: they were Danish and indulged in all sorts of “out-there” activities – fondues, candle-making and, most terrifying of all, the talking stick.

Before the meal was served, someone would retrieve the sacred broom handle and it would be passed around the table. You could speak only if you had possession of the stick. Despite it being the most stressful thing ever (it meant being in the spotlight, and then remembering to keep quiet the rest of the time), I now frequently yearn for a more convenient version of that stick.

For example, I met a friend recently who I see infrequently but keep up with via voice notes. No sooner had we sat down than he launched into a long discourse about his new marathon training food plan. He only broke the flow to order an omelette: “Four egg whites, two yolks, is that possible?” (We were in my local greasy spoon, so the request was greeted with mirth.) When we left, 90 minutes later, he finally had the grace to turn to me and ask: “And how are things with you?”
Walking home, I felt a mixture of disappointment and irritation. Had he always been so self-absorbed? So uninterested in anyone else? I couldn’t help wondering if our one-sided virtual updates had played a part in the problem.

There is a name for this type of egocentric behaviour – “conversational narcissism”. Although it was coined by the sociologist Charles Derber in his 1979 book The Pursuit of Attention, the term seems more relevant than ever. “WhatsApp communication and voice notes are really a series of monologues,” says Charlotte Fox Weber, a psychotherapist. “In face-to-face situations, people are forgetting how to pause naturally, to make space to hear and listen. And people are chatting on the phone – an activity that at least requires turn-taking in a defined way – much less often.”

A lot of our communication online can feel weirdly transactional, focused on logistics or niche WhatsApp groups. According to Tamu Thomas, a life coach and author, this has damaged the art of improvised conversation. “People have less capacity for meandering conversations that don’t have a purpose,” she says. “A good dialogue is a back-and-forth between two people discovering new things about each other, even if they have known each other for years. Because there are now so many different channels available to stay in touch, some people are confusing communication with connection.”

Knowledge is power, though. If you can recognise the five types of common conversation hogger, it will be much easier to handle them.

My son was inconsolable and the back seat was an absolute mess. After a few minutes of trying to clean up, a stranger emerged from a nearby house

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

Kids always get sick at the worst possible time. For instance: in the middle of a busy motorway, one hour into a three-hour trip.

My husband was away for work and I was driving our two small children to see him, when one vomited in the back seat. I pulled into a slipway just off the motorway to try to clean up as best I could. The kids were too young to be trusted to sit there safely right next to a busy road, so I had to leave them strapped into the car seats while I tried to mop up the vomit with wet wipes. My son was inconsolable and the car was an absolute mess.

A Tory twentysomething and a lifelong leftwinger agreed on the need for more housing stock, but did they concur on welfare and net zero?

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

Oliver, 22, London

Occupation Journalist for ConservativeHome

Psychology has become one of the most popular courses at university. That’s no surprise as the insights it gives to our behaviour can help in a huge variety of careers

For Niamh Mulcahy, 21, graduating with a psychology degree from the University of Bath has already paid off. After navigating a competitive graduate jobs market this year, she secured a sales role with a FTSE 100 company starting in September.

“My degree involved a lot of data analysis, which has been really useful in job applications,” she says. “The course felt very current. We covered everything from neuroscience to forensic psychology, and my dissertation was on ‘incels’. I’ve always been fascinated by human behaviour and why people make the decisions they do.”

It told me a year ago I had applied for a credit card – now it is it telling me my payment is overdue

A year ago I got an email from Barclaycard stating that my “application was successful” for a credit card. I had made no such application. I immediately reported this to Barclaycard. More emails arrived and I made repeated phone calls to customer service.

I was assured it was a simple typo rather than fraud, and that my email address would be removed. However, I’m now receiving notifications that the latest account payment is overdue.

The cost of living crisis hits students hard. Planning ahead and some self-discipline will help, alongside a sharp eye for a bargain and, if you’re eligible, a bursary

Like late-night study sessions and cramming into a student kitchen to cook up meals, being savvy with money has long been part of the university experience. But with the cost of living remaining high, students are more money-conscious than ever.

“It is one of the most difficult times to make ends meet as a student,” according to Tom Allingham, communications director at Save the Student (STS). He says soaring prices for essentials, such as food and energy bills, have “disproportionately affected” students, while maintenance loans (intended to help cover day-to-day costs) have failed to keep up with high rates of inflation.

With the budget looming, arguments rage over whether ministers should scrap a pledge popular with millions

There were fresh calls this week for the state pension “triple lock” to be ditched as debate rages over whether the UK can afford it.

The triple lock guarantees that the state pension goes up each year in line with inflation or wage increases or 2.5% – whichever is the highest.

Natalie Greenwood says surgery is no ‘magic fix’ for chronic pelvic pain – a view backed up by a new study

“It’s really frustrating to be in this cycle of continuous surgery. It makes you feel helpless,” says Natalie Greenwood, of a condition that affects her so badly she is “non-functioning most of the time because of the constant fatigue”.

Greenwood, 36, needs to have an operation every few years to limit the impact of the endometriosis that gives her chronic pelvic pain, as well as extreme tiredness and brain fog.

Collagen powders, gummies and pills have boomed in popularity in recent years boosted by claims that they smooth wrinkles, promote glossy hair and help with joint pain. Amid the noise it can be hard to figure out whether there’s any actual science behind the promise of looking younger for longer. Luckily Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the past three years writing Make me well: a quest to understand the confusing world of wellness, and his chapter on collagen dives deep into the evidence. He tells Madeleine Finlay what collagen does in the body, how we can get it without splashing out on expensive supplements, and why getting to the truth behind wellness claims can be so hard

Handstands display a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt – and they look cool. Experts share their advice for building up strength and practicing

My aspirations in life are modest: I want to write, spend time with my loved ones, and someday find a lipstick that flatters my skintone. But perhaps my greatest ambition is this: I want to be able to do a handstand.

Why? It turns the world upside down. It seems fun. It displays a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt. And it looks cool! Maybe it has to do with that one time in third grade when all my friends could do a handstand and I couldn’t, but that’s for me and my therapist to sort out later.

No run-of-the-mill tech, ‘Curie’ operates at 10 times the resolution of conventional microscopy and could spur discoveries leading to new treatment

The number of young people living with debilitating and incurable bowel conditions worldwide is growing, but researchers now hope a one-of-a-kind microscope will help them understand such diseases and find new treatments.

According to the British Society of Gastroenterology, more than half a million people in the UK are living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis the two main forms.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of painting on the gloss, but thanks to a range of fresh formats in sophisticated shades and textures, my head – and lips – have been turned

I’m deeply suspicious of people who never change their minds. To be so completely sure of anything as to be permanently entrenched in any position isn’t something I admire, which is why I shove an olive into my mouth every couple of years and hope it finally takes.

I do the same with lip gloss, with historically similar results. Fashion has, until recently, been on my side. Less sophisticated than lipstick, overshadowed by TikTok trending lip oils, less effortless cool-girl than tinted lip balm, gloss has barely had a look-in these past few years, but new formulas steal from other formats for a better user experience and, well, like everything eventually, lip gloss is back in vogue.

Experts don’t know exactly what causes dandruff, but if you’re seeing light flakes on your scalp, over-the-counter products can help

You spy a scatter of white flakes on your collar. Or you’ve got an itch that won’t quit, no matter how much you wash your hair. Dandruff isn’t glamorous, but it’s common: about half the world’s population has it.

An itchy, flaking scalp is rarely dangerous, but it can be annoying. Here’s what you need to know about what might be causing your flakes, what you can do about it, and when it’s time to get help.

The practice does increase blood flow to parts of the body but experts say this isn’t necessarily a health benefit: ‘A punch to the nose also increases blood flow’

• Read more in the Antiviral series

The world of wellness fads is a cyclical place. Everything comes back into fashion when a new generation of influencers decides to switch it up. Pretty much every current hype was popular in decades past, from extreme juicing to genital sunning and everything in between.

Gua sha is the ancient practice of scraping the skin to form mild bruises – called petechiae – which are thought to do a variety of helpful things for your body. The practice has been around in China for centuries and has spread through the wonders of social media to all corners of the globe.

Georgia O’Keeffe inspires the latest Calvin Klein while Michael Kors feels indebted to Alexander Calder

Calvin Klein has taken a highbrow turn in the two years since Veronica Leoni took charge. The Italian designer, a philosophy graduate who was schooled in the chic design studios of Jil Sander and Celine, has shifted away from jeans, boxer shorts and logos, stripping the brand to its minimalist bones: slip dresses and simple coats, slim skirts and crisp T-shirts.

Leoni called this the “discipline of removal”. Her muse this season was Georgia O’Keeffe, an artist who the brand’s namesake founder admired. Klein bought O’Keeffe’s painting Summer Days in 1983 for $1m, subsequently donating it to the Whitney Museum. A checked pattern taken from O’Keeffe’s distinctive capsule wardrobe of utilitarian chic appeared on this catwalk as a wrap coat, hardware-free with a fabric belt and no buttons.

Weekenders from Zagreb head to the rolling green Samobor Hills for nature, vineyards, delicious local food and Habsburg-era architecture

‘You’re going to Samobor? You must try kremšnita,” my Dubrovnik friends told me before I set off on my trip north. “But I’ve already had kremšnita in Zagreb,” I told them. They do it better in Samobor, they insisted. I wasn’t about to get embroiled in a battle of the cream cakes in a region where Croatians, Slovenes and Austrians all like to celebrate their own versions of this decadently thick, fat custard slice topped with puff pastry and icing sugar. But I was more than willing – happy, even – to follow everyone’s suggestions to try kremšnita in Hotel Livadić’s Kavana Livadić, in Samobor’s main King Tomislav Square, a mere half-hour drive west of Zagreb.

It lived up to the hype – delicately rich, creamy and with a light touch. After spending a few weeks in sun-bleached Venetian Dalmatia, amid the scrubby, limestone Dinaric Alps, I had swapped empires and was firmly in Habsburg Croatia. Here, in Zagreb County’s prettiest town, handsome baroque houses in pastel shades of buttery yellow, apricot and pistachio, festooned with stucco, line narrow King Tomislav Square, whose umbrella-shaded cafe terraces were filled with Croatians getting their morning fix of coffee and chatter.

Hiking alone in the countryside can be joyous, but for women it can sometimes feel unnerving. Here’s how to enjoy it safely, plus four stunning routes to walk solo

I did my first solo hike during a sunny September, seven years ago. After a summer of feeding and ferrying four noisy teenagers (and their friends) around, I was exhausted. But despite being bone tired, I had barely moved. I yearned, above all, for time on my own, for the chance to walk without interruption (and at the pace I chose), and for the silence of some empty wilderness.

But I was nervous. Not of being on my own, but of what might happen to me with no one around to help (breaking a bone, encountering a psychopath, being chased by a bull, getting fatally lost). I could have found a companion or joined a group, but my need for silence and solitude outweighed my fears.

It’s the birthplace of the popular cheese, but the Barletta-Andria-Trani province in southern Italy has an array of local delicacies – from olive oil and yellow tomatoes to goat prosciutto

‘I don’t eat mozzarella outside Puglia,” says our friend Savio. “It’s not the same.” Savio is a very opinionated foodie, so I take his words with a pinch of good Puglian sea salt (see below). He was adamant about the superiority of the stretched-curd cheese from his home turf.

Puglia is also the birthplace of ingredient du jour burrata, which originated in Andria, a few miles from Savio’s home town of Barletta. Andria forms one part of the triangular Barletta-Andria-Trani (BAT) province, but despite the cheese connection and Barletta having miles of palm-backed, sandy beaches, it is often passed over for better-known parts of Puglia. So I asked Savio’s company, Unexpected Italy, an app that calls itself the antidote to overtourism, to organise a trip to the area.

Chefs in the east of the country are shunning imported produce for local ingredients, reinforcing how food is intertwined with a region and its people

‘It’s a magical place, and not just because of the hotel.” Standing outside the greenhouses at Högbo Brukshotell, two hours north of Stockholm, Stefan Johansson is talking about far more than hospitality. The former head chef, now responsible for sustainability at Högbo, has spent much of the past decade helping reshape the way this corner of Sweden grows, cooks and thinks about food.

The catalyst was disarmingly simple. Years ago, a journalist asked Johansson why he was cooking the food he was cooking. Like many ambitious Swedish chefs, Stefan trained in Stockholm’s top restaurants, where ingredients from around the world were only a phone call away. The question lingered long after the interview ended.

She was born with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. After my decades working in film PR, I now face the biggest campaign of all: the fight for her life

My daughter Elsie has beautiful curls – blond like a little Botticelli cherub’s, hair that someone dark like me could only ever dream of. She laughs a lot, has a cheeky sense of humour and soaks in all the sounds around her – rustling leaves, the sea, a dog barking, children playing around a pool, me impersonating the alarm clock every morning, me impersonating monkeys. Indeed, me impersonating any animal.

Sound is important for Elsie because she has a visual impairment and, while we know she has some peripheral vision, is legally classed as blind. As a result, she uses her tongue to check her environment. When she’s excited it sticks out, tasting the air around her, licking anyone close, sensing space. And when she likes the taste of something she keeps her tongue out until you give her more. This is how we know she likes lollies.

For years, my vitiligo controlled my life, and I was constantly trying to disguise it. But one day, I realised I could take a very different and extremely liberating approach

The microphone felt heavier than I expected. As I stood on stage at a London comedy club last December, I looked out at a room full of strangers sitting quietly, waiting for me to make them laugh. It felt nerve-racking and surreal. I had spent years hiding my vitiligo, hoping people wouldn’t notice it. Now I was about to joke about it in my set.

I was three years old when I developed my first patch of vitiligo on the back of my hand, which later spread to my arms, legs, face and other parts of my body. By the time I was six years old, 70% of me was covered. I was too young to understand what was happening.

Chirag Bahri was working on board a tanker when six men seized it. For almost eight months, he and his colleagues were held captive, an experience that would change his life for ever

It was at noon on 8 May 2010 when the pirates came. Chirag Bahri remembers the exact time and date because it marked the start of the seven months and 20 days he was held hostage by a gang of Somali pirates. Bahri was 28 at the time, and working as second engineer on a chemical tanker, Marida Marguerite. It was his 12th journey through the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean. It had been a good job for a young man from landlocked Uttar Pradesh in India, and Bahri was about to be promoted. “But then, piracy,” he says.

The ship had been 120 miles off the coast of Oman, partway through a run taking benzene – a raw material used in petrochemicals – from Kandla Port in India to Antwerp in Belgium. The piracy problem in the Indian Ocean was well known; Somalis armed with AK-47s were setting out in fast skiffs and taking ships hostage. Yet commercial vessels, including the Marida Marguerite, remained undefended.

The rise of AI-generated tributes and bots for ‘talking’ to the dead has experts concerned more people will grieve in isolation

Tributes rolled in after the death of Dolly Parton last month. Jack White performed Jolene at a London gig. Kesha sang Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You), a single her mother wrote for the country music titan. Even Pitbull stopped his Madison Square Garden show to memorialize Parton and all the other “powerful women” in the crowd. But one of the strangest – and most viral – eulogies did not come from a celebrity. It did not even come from a person.

Run Jolene, at just under five minutes, is an earworm of a country song, containing all the cliches of the genre: twangy singer, banjo licks, corny lyrics. Those lyrics concern Jolene, the fictional romantic rival made infamous by Parton. “Somebody better warn Jolene / Dolly’s coming through those gates,” the voice croons. “Run Jolene / Girl you better move your feet.”

Rotherham has 46 online vacancies for every 1,000 young people but there are 288 in Cotswold district council area

Young people in Rotherham face a local jobs market with the fewest suitable opportunities in Britain, according to a report that warns stark regional divisions are fuelling a crisis in youth work.

As ministers push to combat rising youth unemployment, the analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) showed young people faced a tougher challenge in some parts of the country to find work than in others.

Thousands of children in state care were evacuated when Russia invaded. Kyiv wants them back – but many resist

When he first arrived in his new home in a small village in the Italian Alps in March 2022, 15-year-old Denys* says he felt homesick and confused. He had been put on an overnight bus and relocated along with more than 100 other children from his orphanage in Berdiansk, in eastern Ukraine, which was one of the first areas to be invaded by Russian troops.

“Ukraine was all I knew,” says Denys. “I had never left it my whole life.”

Dismissed in Taiwan as simply propaganda, the Long Watch, or Jiaofeng, has proved a sensation across the strait with its references to real-life crises

After shaking off the people trailing her through a crowded market and emerging from a bathroom in disguise, the double agent appears to have escaped. But a sip of water on a plane eventually gets her. She is poisoned after Taiwan’s military intelligence service discovers that she has been working secretly for China.

The plot comes from a new Chinese spy drama co-produced by the Ministry of State Security. Since its premiere on 6 September, it has become a TV hit, with a fictionalised take on a subject rarely treated so directly: the modern history of tensions with Taiwan.

We would like to hear about your favourite moments and storylines from the documentary series

As the 7 Up documentary series airs its final episodes with 70 Up, we would like to hear your highlights from over the years.

The ITV series started following the lives of 10 boys and four girls in England, beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old, and has returned every seven years since.

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.

From renting and troublesome landlords to buying or selling a home, send us your UK housing questions

Are you dealing with a problem with your landlord or tenancy, wondering about buying or selling a home, or facing another housing issue?

We’re planning to launch a new column answering readers’ questions about housing in the UK and helping them understand their options.

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

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

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

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