People describe their return to physical media – whether to protect data, support artists, or retain control of one’s choices

For some, it is the security of knowing they have a physical copy of their favourite films and music, free from algorithms, interruptions and the vagaries of streaming. For others, it is the sound of needle on vinyl, the click of a cassette player and the ability to interact with a physical format.

We asked people if they were moving back to CDs, DVDs, vinyl and older formats to escape algorithmically curated content. Here are some of their responses.

What happened to Pike was gruesome. No one deserves what she went through, not even those who commit horrible crimes

Botched executions are nothing new in US history. In the era when hangings were common, some condemned people were decapitated. Later, when the electric chair was in vogue, every now and again, someone would catch fire during an electrocution. And nitrogen hypoxia, the US’s newest execution method, has already proven notoriously unreliable.

But, of all of the ways we have tried to execute people, lethal injection has the worst track record. More than 8% of all lethal injection executions have been botched. Most of them resulted when those charged with carrying them out could not find a usable vein.

When a rarity blew up on TikTok, the solitary ambient artist had fraudsters trying to steal her royalties. It reinforced her DIY mentality – until reforming her band Helen reminded her of the beauty of collaboration

In mid-September, I watched as Liz Harris soundchecked to 1,500 empty seats at midtown Manhattan’s historic Town Hall theatre. Soon each plush red chair would be filled for the second of two sold-out nights, but this ornate seclusion felt oddly perfect. It is fair to infer that most of her concertgoers generally listen to the uncanny experimental music she makes as Grouper alone, just as she creates it.

Harris started Grouper in 2005 in the DIY noise warehouses of Oakland, California. At 46, she now lives farther north, in coastal Astoria, Oregon, where she creates densely tessellated visual art and spare, lucid albums that have made her a titan of modern ambient music. Painfully beautiful and often inscrutable, hers is a sonic language all its own, creating thickets of sound using little more than guitar or piano, voice and space; her angelic and alien songs have influenced artists as disparate as Phoebe Bridgers and Mk.gee, and been sampled by Lil B and 100 Gecs. It is intensely solitary work, often characterised as sad but full of profound relief. “Like a bloodletting,” Harris offers.

The PM might come across as a nice bloke but he is politically ruthless. He will need to be if he is to turn big talk into big changes

How much can a Labour government change the country? According to many voters, journalists and politicians, including plenty in the party itself, the answer to that stubbornly recurring question has always been: not that much. Labour governments can’t restructure the economy, radically redistribute wealth, truly empower the disadvantaged or adopt a genuinely ethical foreign policy without upsetting too many powerful interests, from the British rich to the US government to global financial markets.

This endlessly repeated conventional wisdom – internalised by some on the left as well as centrists and the right – has haunted many Labour governments, from the first, tentative ones in the 1920s to Keir Starmer’s diligent but failed administration a century later. Yet conventional wisdom can be wrong, especially in volatile periods such as the current one, when precedent may count for little.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Returning for a 20th album of sumptuous synthpop, Andy Bell and Clarke open up about difficult recent years, being happily uncool and battling resurgent homophobia

Andy Bell is rabbiting away on multiple topics. There’s his farm in Mallorca, where he and his husband Stephen Moss have had a fine year harvesting pomegranates, kiwis and lemons. Then there’s the Erasure frontman’s fascination with clowns (“Would the makeup help you avoid facial recognition technology?”), memories of 90s nightclubbing (“You could do anything and get away with it!”) and a worry that he’s turning into “a fussy old grandpa”. Suddenly, he catches himself: “But what about you, Vince? You’re being very quiet!”

Bell’s bandmate, whose only contribution since joining the video chat from his San Diego home has been to say hello, smiles. “No, no, I just love listening to you, man. I’m really enjoying this.”

Sixty top architecture firms from around the world have mooted 500 eye-catching projects across Albania, sparking fury and protests. Now they’re being celebrated in an 800-page tome that some are calling ‘a smoking gun’

Last autumn, I was sitting with a prominent architect in New York, when their phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. They finally checked the messages and chuckled. “Oh, the Albanian Architecture Army chat is blowing up again,” they said. “It looks like Edi has some new projects for us.”

Edi was Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania since 2013, who has been presiding over the rapid transformation of the former communist country with a fleet of glamorous building projects. There are twisting towers in Tirana, along with prize-winning public spaces, striking coastal resorts, and many more dazzling visions on the way – all now brought together in a hefty new book, The Albanian Files.

The Green party is holding its largest-ever conference, while its leader runs as a candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection

Zack Polanski also insisted his authority as leader of the Green party of England and Wales does not depend on winning next week’s Holborn and St Pancras byelection, amid suggestions that the party’s popularity has peaked.

Polanski, who is trying to take Keir Starmer’s former seat from Labour, described the contest as “probably 50/50 right now” and “really on a knife edge”.

This will be our biggest and most exciting Green party conference ever, coming on the back of a year of unprecedented membership growth and extraordinary electoral success.

Greens have turned hope into electoral wins – in councils, boroughs, in mayoral elections and with our exciting breakthrough in Gorton and Denton.

Exclusive: Martha Dalton worked closely with Burnham’s team on byelection that secured his return to parliament

A recent lobbyist for the controversial $450bn US tech company Palantir played a senior role in helping Andy Burnham become prime minister, it has emerged.

Martha Dalton, whose company Lodestone worked for Palantir in 2024 and 2025, campaigned for Burnham in the Makerfield byelection that secured his return to parliament. She worked closely with his team on strategic communications and rebuttals, and was among supporters who clapped him into Downing Street in July.

Motorists and small businesses struggle with costs as Iran war drives up cost of oil worldwide

• ‘Half my day’s pay goes to filling up my car’

• Business live – latest updates

British motorists face more pressure at the pumps after the average price of diesel climbed to a record £2 a litre.

The price of a litre at UK forecourts has risen 40.5% since late February, when the US-Israel war on Iran began disrupting supplies of crude and refined oil products from the Gulf, leading to cost increases across the economy.

Dozens of schools have been damaged and nearly 3,000 teenagers have been detained since the start of the tensions

Back to France, midday figures quoted by Le Figaro show that 564 schools and educational establishments have been disrupted by the ongoing unrest, and some 600 people have been arrested so far today as the high school protests continue.

Europe environment correspondent

Smit Machchhar says in video call with Indian PM that he realised if he did not get up ‘passengers would lose their lives’

The Indian pilot who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv said his faith and his desire to save his passengers allowed him to make a “last push” to open the cockpit door as he fought his life.

Capt Smit Machchhar, who was recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital, described to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, how he helped save the plane and its more than 170 passengers.

Pike alive but in critical condition as experts call ordeal that unfolded in Tennessee Wednesday ‘unimaginably barbaric’

Top lawyers, doctors and members of the faith community are calling for a moratorium on the US death penalty after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike left the prisoner alive but in critical condition and receiving life-saving medical care.

The recent spate of harrowingly botched executions across US death penalty states reached a new low late on Wednesday when Tennessee’s governor Bill Lee called off the procedure after Pike had been injected with two full syringes of pentobarbital. She is the only person to have survived being administered 5mg of the sedative – a massive dose that under normal circumstances is considered fatal.

• Burnham also urged to declare City stadium hospitality

• PM said he would be concerned if owners forced to sell

Andy Burnham is facing calls from the Liberal Democrats to publish details of all his meetings with Manchester City’s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), and declare all hospitality he has accepted at the Etihad Stadium.

The prime minister was widely criticised this week for saying he would be “really concerned” if ADUG were forced to sell City after being found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial regulations, which led to Downing Street issuing two clarifications of his position on Thursday.

Platform ‘for the curious’ says users outside the UK account for nearly 90% of its revenues

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Feeld, a UK-based dating app aimed at non-monogamous, queer and kinky users, has reported strong sales growth and paid its largest-ever dividend as it attracts users from more “vanilla” rivals.

Revenues jumped by 32% to £64m following a surge in interest from what it called “open-minded people exploring love, desire, and alternative relationships in a safe, inclusive space”.

Series opener had 3m more viewers than last year to see Claudia Winkleman select the first batch of traitors

Almost 3 million more viewers tuned in to the new series of Celebrity Traitors than for its previous debut episode, confirming its status as one of the few television shows capable of attracting the nation on to the sofa.

More than half of the audience watching TV at that time chose to witness the new cast of celebrities enter the show’s famous castle and observe the presenter, Claudia Winkleman, select the first batch of traitors.

These graphics explain what the Democrats would need to do to flip the Senate and House of Representatives

A turning point in Donald Trump’s second term will soon arrive. On 3 November, voters across the US will decide whether to keep the president’s Republican allies in control of Congress, or return Democrats to the majority.

Many indicators of voter sentiment suggest the Democrats are favored to take back control of the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate. Winning either would be a significant victory for the party and give it the power to block Trump’s legislative agenda and more aggressively investigate his administration.

PM has praised Abu Dhabi group as ‘huge partner’ in reshaping Manchester, but critics say this ignores public cost of city’s transformation

In July 2016, the Manchester City player Yaya Touré ambled into a small bar near Beijing’s Workers’ Stadium and offered a bemused smile as dozens of Chinese fans rushed towards him.

Manchester City had just won their sixth trophy under the big-spending ownership of Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group and the blues were international megastars. They were also magnets for investment.

He won a Bafta while only a teen, and now he’s the lead in a creepy sitcom adapted by Alan Partridge’s writers. Ahead of The Reluctant Vampire, he talks mates, mums who write him letters – and his love of David Brent

Only when absolutely badgered will Lenny Rush admit that the title role of The Reluctant Vampire, Val, was written for him: “Shane Allen, the executive producer, loved the books when he was young, and he was the exec on Am I Being Unreasonable?. So yes, the scripts were written with me in mind. I’m so happy they were so good. I’d have felt awful if they said ‘We’ve written this for you’ and …” he trails off, pulling a face of exquisite pained courtesy.

Rush likens the show to The Naked Gun and Airplane!, and it has the writing team behind Alan Partridge, so can conjure awkwardness out of thin air. But it also taps into a comic tradition that goes even further back: a delight in the ridiculous, people talking to bats and gargoyles, invisible women interjecting by surprise, a surrealism whose comedy comes from the audacity of acting it with such commitment. “In my opinion,” says Rush, “sometimes things are labelled as a family show but they’re aimed at kids. I really do get the feeling that The Reluctant Vampire is for everyone.”

When his son died aged 27, the director could barely bring himself to watch his old clips of the boy. When at last he did, it was the genesis of an extraordinary project

Ross McElwee is the film-maker who spun home movies into art, framing himself and his friends and his son Adrian. The director used to film Adrian for a few minutes each month. He tracked the kid from infancy to adulthood, trying to catch the significant turns of his life. When tragedy struck it back-shadowed the footage. Maybe every home movie is a ghost story at heart.

It feels crass to compliment McElwee on his latest documentary, Remake, because it isn’t the picture he’d ever have chosen to make. It is instead a grief-struck tour-de-force: a magnificent film about film-making and its real-world repercussions. McElwee filmed Adrian because he loved him, but now fears he might have hurt him. So he sifts through the material in search of clues, addressing his son as though he’s still in the room. “I look at the footage to convince myself that you were alive,” he says. “But also to convince myself that you’re gone.”

Need help with your wardrobe? Guardian stylist Melanie Wilkinson will be joining us online today at 3pm BST to share her favourite tips for making any outfit pop – men’s or women’s. Ask her your questions now!

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Baggy jeans are everywhere, can I still wear my favourite straight leg style? What should I wear to a Christmas work party? I’m broke, what’s an easy styling hack to update my autumn wardrobe?

The Guardian’s fashion stylist, Mel Wilkinson, has been styling and celebrities and fashion shoots for over 15 years. She’ll be sharing all her tips and tricks, and answering all your questions at 3pm BST today. So whether it’s advice on where to buy a pretty bra in a H cup, or how to find smart trousers if you’re 5ft 2, please post your questions in the comments now.

As the hit TV show returns, fans increasingly want to recreate their own versions of the game – but these don’t come cheap

On Thursday night, the singer-songwriter James Blunt, Love Island host Maya Jama and mathematician Hannah Fry were among the 21 Celebrity Traitors returning to our screens for another round of deceit and detective work. Famously, contestants do not stay at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands during filming, and the venue is not a hotel, so fans cannot book their own overnight stays without hiring the entire Ross-shire estate. But that has not stopped people from trying to recreate their own versions.

The show’s surging popularity has been accompanied by a bonanza in Traitors-style events across the UK. From stag and hen dos to castle conspiracy weekends, event companies now host year-round imitations for fans looking to recreate the drama of the candle-lit roundtable. The show is also proving to be a boom for the owners of Britain’s crumbling castles – with wealthy fans even hiring them out for their own private events.

Royal Opera House, London
Evgeny Titov’s brutal and powerful new staging of Wagner’s final opera explains as little as possible. Christian Gerhaher is a compelling and wild-eyed Amfortas and Jakub Hrůša and the Royal Opera’s orchestra are superb

Grail, wound, spear: some of the narrative trappings of Wagner’s final opera are immediately recognisable as symbolic. Others – woman, saviour, chastity, seduction, suffering, death – are harder to pin down, lodged in the half-light between the literal and the metaphorical. Wagner’s score is his most beguilingly luminous; its critics have pored over the work’s commitment to racial purity, its misogyny, its religiosity. The question that Evgeny Titov’s debut production for the Royal Opera poses is whether we really believe in the story Parsifal tells – the fall, the curse, the redemption through purity – and what it means if we want to.

Titov’s staging explains as little as possible. In Etienne Pluss’s sets, the grail realm is an underground bunker hewn from monumental stone blocks that trundle slowly around the stage. There are CCTV screens and a grimy washroom where Amfortas – the fallen King – is scrubbed down by Grail Knights in breathing apparatus. Costume designer Esther Bialas has the Knights in anoraks. Kundry (the virgin-whore dichotomy incarnate) wears black leathers at first, virginal white later. In a rare moment of literal-mindedness, Titov has Parsifal arrive holding the swan he has shot, which twitches gawkily until the orchestra heralds its demise.

The double Olympic champion insists a knighthood wouldn’t change his life, still trains on Christmas Day and explains why he got a video game and Seb Coe didn’t

“When you’re a kid, you think you can be Superman,” says Daley Thompson, as he gazes back to the era when he was track and field’s ultimate man of steel. “As you grow up, life kind of knocks those edges off you. But that never happened to me. I’ve always gone where I was aiming. I’ve been the luckiest bloke in the world.”

Luckiest? Hardly. During the 1980s, Thompson powered to two Olympic decathlon gold medals, broke the world record four times and remained unbeaten for nine extraordinary years. Along the way, self-doubt, like his opponents, was conquered and vanquished. That wasn’t luck, it was talent and unyielding willpower.

As frontman of Venom, Conrad Lant made an impact on metal to rival Black Sabbath, inspiring a whole new subgenre with his diabolical grandstanding, unruly spirit and heretic noise

• Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, frontman of UK heavy metal band Venom, dies aged 63

When Venom’s first blasts of ungodly racket emanated from Newcastle upon Tyne in the late 1970s, metal was enduring its awkward adolescence. Black Sabbath and Deep Purple had respectively slipped down the charts and broken up, and young guns Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were years away from reaching their commercial heights. Frontman Conrad “Cronos” Lant decided that the genre had become “lame”.

“There could only be one new way to do this,” he recalled to Guitar World in 2008. “For metal bands to get some fucking balls again.”

Madeleine Finlay hears from Steve Ramirez, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, whose book How to Change a Memory was shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Trivedi science book prize. He explains how scientists have been able to locate memories in the brains of rodents, trigger them artificially and even remove them, and reveals what the practical applications of this science could one day be for humans.

Yes, after 25 years I’m signing off, and I’ve cherished every moment – especially storming the French embassy with a (toy) AK-47

Journalism 101 – a course I have yet to complete – dictates that if you have something salient to say you should get there fast. So right now, I should mention that this is my last ever column for the Guardian. I’ll level with you: I spent a long time wondering how to write it. At first, I thought it should be about all the things I’ve learned, purely because that would be a hell of a lot shorter than a column about all the things I keep failing to learn, no matter how many times I make the mistakes. For example: if you’ve got a good joke, you’d best put it in the intro. (Why is there literally no joke in this intro?)

Or: remember that people love the piss-taking until it strays into the arena of something they like, when it suddenly becomes wholly unacceptable. Take the time I wrote: “Arguing on the internet is like playing real tennis: even if you win, you’re still a twat”. This prompted an immediate missive from a member of the Cambridge University real tennis club, which appeared on the letters page under the headline “Real tennis has been served badly by this unfair slur” and began: “Like many Guardian readers, I have thoroughly enjoyed and always look forward to reading Marina Hyde’s witty and caustic commentaries on the world about us. However …” Incidentally, I told this story at one book tour event, and then at the signing afterwards, a lovely young lady came up to get a book dedicated to her father, Jeremy. And of course, she said: “I should probably mention, he’s the guy who wrote in from the Cambridge University real tennis club.” Truly, the circle of life. To Jeremy, and the many other Jeremies who have written in over the years, let me just say: we all know the real twats are rackets players.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

It is simply wrong for the British Museum to hoard what doesn’t belong to Britain. Let the squabbling end and the sculptures be returned to Greece

For the Bayeux tapestry to return to France would be a scandal. It is British, probably made in Canterbury by British women, and displays one of the greatest events in British history. The tapestry certainly does not belong in Normandy. It is right that it is now on British soil in the British Museum. Its display is so brief that the herd of visitors desperate to catch a glimpse of the medieval artwork must be jostled to keep moving, as if watching Shakespeare’s Henry V on fast-forward. So let’s keep it. Everybody knows possession is nine-tenths of the law. We can call it a long-term loan.

I am joking, of course. This is largely what I assume the British Museum is worried might happen if it lent the precious Elgin, or Parthenon, marbles to Athens. In the Guardian last month, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, argued that the status of the Bayeux tapestry is parallel to that of the Parthenon marbles. “Both were conceived as single works, intended to be seen and understood as a whole,” he wrote, arguing it was time for the marbles to be reunited.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

The prime minister gave far and away the most powerful, emotional and gamechanging leader’s speech of the century

Words I thought I’d never write. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Tory party. Look, I know we ended up with Theresa May and Boris Johnson in the Conservative party leadership contests of 2016 and 2019 – and they were shockers, both of them – but at least the Tory MPs twice ensured we dodged the bullet of Michael Gove. Last week, Sky broadcast The War Game, a reality show for superannuated politicians and former senior civil servants and military officers. The setup was that the Russians had engineered an attack on a British warship in the North Sea and over the course of four episodes set in the Cobra emergency situation room, the assembled cast had to figure how to respond. We were left hanging at the final credits, but a nuclear apocalypse felt like the most likely outcome. And for that we have The Govester to thank. He was playing the prime minister and – to be blunt – he had an absolute shocker. For the first two episodes he seemed to be in a coma. All he could manage was to repeat back what the last person had said to him and then shout “asap”. But that was far more preferable to the Gove that turned up for the last two episodes. Despite frequently being warned about the dangers of escalation and the inadequacy of the UK war machine, Mikey kept on taking the option that would get the most people killed. Why bomb one Russian city when you can bomb two? The game ended with what were almost certainly nuclear warheads minutes away from destroying a major city in the UK. Still, Gove wasn’t the only deadbeat. Nicola Sturgeon, acting the deputy prime minister, was as hopeless as you would expect of someone who failed to notice her kitchen filling up with new appliances. It was terrifying TV. Not so much in the premise. What was really scary was the knowledge that our politicians were even more clueless than the rest of us.

Imagine the UK with a 20-year investment plan, with green homes and fast transport. We already have the tools to make it happen

You’ve just left school. What’s your future?

I know a physics graduate making flat whites; a 30-year-old living in his childhood bedroom who feels like a failure; a lad in Blyth who turned down a job 15 miles away because there’s no bus, and for young people his age car insurance is almost £2,000 a year. Britain’s young people are our greatest resource, and we are failing them because capital markets won’t allocate investment where it is needed. Saying “hope” in a conference speech sounds warm. But people need a plan.

Jamie Driscoll is a Green party councillor on Newcastle city council and former North of Tyne mayor

Refugees from third countries are being sent to Equatorial Guinea, where they are often sent back to the very countries they fled

For nearly a year, the Hotel Bamy in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, has been Adam’s prison. He is confined alone to a hotel room, under constant watch by the security officers and soldiers of a notoriously oppressive regime who control his movements. Not long ago, they barged into his room, handcuffed and beat him, and warned him not to tell anyone. There is no cell to point to, no charges or formal sentence, and nothing on paper to document his plight.

Adam, 26, has chosen not to share his real name or even his country of origin out of fear for his safety. He fled indefinite, forced military conscription in his home country after enduring abuse during his military service.

Boys learn by watching how the men they respect treat their partners, female colleagues, women on the street. Now is the time for those men to step up

There were seven men in all, and it lasted almost seven hours.

What followed, according to the woman at the heart of the Cornell University case that has gripped student campuses around the world, was less a sexual encounter than a grim pack-bonding exercise fuelled by booze and ketamine, in which she was passed around like a blow-up doll.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

In the UK, the Rape Crisis national freephone helpline is on 0808 802 9999 (12-2.30pm and 7-9.30pm every day of the year). Rape Crisis also operate a live chat helpline, open Monday: 2pm-4.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Tuesday: 2-4.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Wednesday: 12pm-2.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Thursday: 12pm-2.30pm, 6pm-9pm; Friday: 9am-11.30am, 2pm-4.30pm. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and also by email in Ireland jo@samaritans.ie. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk. The 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, is on 0808 2000 247. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Prosecutors will decide who to charge within eight months. But ministers should also re-examine the law

Police have at last asked prosecutors to consider charges relating to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. The suffering of those who survived or were bereaved by the blaze, which killed 72 people, has been exacerbated by the extraordinary length of time that the investigation has taken. But they can now look forward to a decision about who will face criminal charges. The Crown Prosecution Service has promised that this will be before the 10th anniversary next June.

The names of the 20 organisations and 54 individuals in the police files will not be released by prosecutors unless they are charged. But the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Kensington and Chelsea council have both announced that they are on the list. Angela Rayner promised on Wednesday that the government would cooperate fully whatever decision is reached regarding a potential breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Kensington and Chelsea council revealed that a charge of corporate manslaughter against it is being considered alongside health and safety and fire regulation breaches.

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.

Three-quarters of nations have rightly abolished capital punishment in law or practice, but killing by the state has surged in the US

What is the kindest way to kill? That’s the question being asked once more following Tennessee’s failed attempts to execute Christa Pike for the brutal murder of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. The 50-year-old was taken to a medical facility, her condition unknown, with witnesses describing her snoring loudly around 40 minutes after receiving two injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday. It is the second botched killing in months, prompting Tennessee’s governor to order a halt to executions.

Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering.

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

Readers respond to George Monbiot’s article about how those with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome, have been failed by the health system

George Monbiot (Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed, 24 September) is right about one important thing: people with severe ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome) deserve much better care than many have received. But two different questions are being conflated: how patients have been treated, and what the evidence tells us about the causes and treatment of ME/CFS.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence no longer recommends the old form of graded exercise therapy, in which activity was increased according to a predetermined schedule regardless of symptoms.

Responding to an editorial on Russian threats, Aneet Morar says companies that profit from spreading harmful content need to face real consequences

Your editorial (The Guardian view on Russian disinformation: a foreign threat that relies on UK complicity, 23 September) is right that Andy Burnham’s warning about the Kremlin only tells half the story. I would go further: disinformation is one symptom of a wider failure to regulate the platforms that now function as critical national infrastructure.

The harms are evident across a wide spectrum. We know that engagement-driven feeds are damaging young people’s mental health. The same amplification mechanics that carry foreign propaganda also accelerate far-right radicalisation at home, as your analysis of the disorder in Belfast and Southampton showed. The new generation of wearable devices, such as Meta’s smart glasses, makes recording people without their knowledge or consent a routine part of life.

David Andrews suggests a tram network could be the answer to London’s clogged streets, while V Narayanan says unused cycle lanes are a waste of valuable road space

Your analysis of slowing buses in global cities sets out the mechanism exactly, and the remedy follows from it (London buses in decline? Why public transport in global cities is slowing to a crawl – visualised, 23 September).

Transport for London’s own calculation that a 10% fall in speed costs 6% of demand and Imperial College London’s finding of the same decline across 15 cities show what happens to buses as the traffic thickens around them. Retiming the lights will not reverse it, and London is already trying. The phrase to notice in the article is one used by TfL: signals will give more buses priority “where possible”.

Anna Bird says the decision by some NHS integrated care boards to impose a two-year minimum wait is harmful to young people and their families

Blocking assessments of children with neurodivergent conditions for over two years is cruel to children, deeply damaging to families and ultimately more costly to taxpayers (NHS bodies in England impose two-year minimum wait for ADHD and autism assessments, 25 September).

Imagine the long-term harm inflicted on a six-year-old child forced to wait two years for an assessment of a physical condition. Waiting for a diagnosis of autism or ADHD is no different. That’s a quarter of a child’s life, and ultimately their potential, put on hold by state bodies that should be supporting all children. It prevents young people receiving the medical and practical assistance they need to learn, make friends and achieve the ordinary things that other children can every day.

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That’s it from me for now. Luke McLaughlin is here to take over.

Manchester City: Andy Burnham’s intervention in the Manchester City debate has revived tensions between the Premier League and the UK prime minister.

Club was a ‘shambles’ before takeover by boyhood Wakefield fan Matt Ellis – and on Saturday they face Warrington for the title

Last one out of Wakefield on Saturday, turn off the lights. Some 965 days ago, this story began on a field in Siddal on the outskirts of Halifax with just a few hundred people there to see it: this weekend, one of rugby league’s grand old clubs will be the headline attraction in front of more than 70,000 supporters when Trinity face Warrington in their maiden Super League Grand Final.

It is a rise so rapid it almost defies belief but to understand it, you must appreciate where this club were in the food chain even just a few short years ago. It was late 2023 when boyhood Wakefield Trinity fan Matt Ellis completed a takeover of the club; £10m worth of investment later, the results are clear to see on and off the field.

Northampton star on his tenacious rise to the international ranks – and eating ‘massive cakes’ with Springbok colossus Ox Nché

Some people are destined from day one to play international rugby for England. Others owe their selection to an injury crisis or simply get lucky. And then, in a totally different category, there is Steve Borthwick’s latest new cap, a player whose unlikely journey to the top has required inspirational levels of resilience and fortitude.

To describe the persevering Emmanuel Iyogun’s debut off the bench in Argentina in July as hard earned is to put it mildly. At times the Spain-born son of Nigerian immigrants has had to show immense levels of determination, just as his parents had predicted. “There was always a sense growing up of, ‘You’ll have to work harder than everyone else. You might not get the privileges that some people get initially. So when you get told no or something doesn’t go your way, you just have to keep working. There isn’t any argument about it.’”

Match against England is welcome test for former West Ham coach as he replaces history-making Zlatko Dalic

“I don’t believe in comebacks.” Slaven Bilic sat in the lobby of a hotel in Canary Wharf wearing a black Soundgarden T-shirt and dark denim, confidently discussing a wide variety of topics ranging from Sir Alex Ferguson’s autobiography to historical epics of Yugoslav cinematography and Nikola Tesla’s celibacy. He was living the good life in London, just before his third Premier League season as West Ham’s manager, and a rare interview for Croatian media was a chance for him to catch up with domestic intrigues.

“I’m now distanced by default, geographically,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, before continuing to jump from subject to subject; a bit about a Metallica concert, then a bit about steaks at an Argentinian restaurant, followed by some off-record anecdotes. He was clearly enjoying himself and didn’t hesitate to show it; his time as Croatia’s manager seemed long gone, although he always left a bittersweet aftertaste when talking about them.

As LeBron James and other NBA stars wholeheartedly embrace the murk of betting and prediction markets, the San Antonio Spurs’ 22-year-old cornerstone has drawn a refreshing line

If the song from LeBron James’s agonizing Polymarket ad is as stuck in your head as mine thanks to the commercial playing during every YouTube video and HBO show (all I wanted to do was rewatch The Leftovers), let Victor Wembanyama be your antidote. At the Spurs’ practice on Thursday, San Antonio Express-News columnist Mike Finger asked Wembanyama if he would ever partner with a sports betting firm. It couldn’t have been easier for the 22-year-old to say yes. The NBA displays ads for both FanDuel and DraftKings, in addition to hawking betting odds on its broadcasts. Until the streaming service met its end a few months ago, plenty of NBA games streamed exclusively on FanDuel Sports Network. Then there are Wembanyama’s legendary peers: James is the new face of Polymarket; Kevin Durant reads FanDuel odds and invests in Kalshi; Giannis Antetokounmpo is a Kalshi shareholder.

“Absolutely not,” Wembanyama said instead. “I will never do that. Honestly, I think it’s very sad to see some players promote it. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”

• Savage leaves Forest Green to take League One role

• ‘Excitement is the word I can use,’ say MacAnthony

Robbie Savage has been confirmed as the new manager of League One strugglers Peterborough.

Savage has left his role at National League side Forest Green Rovers and signed a long-term contract at Posh, who are currently second from bottom and sacked Luke Williams last month. His appointment marks his first Football League role since retiring as a player in 2011, and Savage said he is relishing the opportunity to prove any doubters wrong.

Have you been watching football, chess, cricket, rugby, motor racing, hockey, boxing, table tennis and horse racing?

Fighters have always provided rich material for stories on stage and screen and the appeal to audiences has not wavered

Three of my greatest joys in life are watching sport, going to the theatre and playing violin. So it felt almost embarrassing to discover a classic play that combined all three, yet I’d never heard of it before. To be fair, Golden Boy has not been performed in the UK in more than 40 years and its curious premise may be one of the reasons.

Written in 1937, it’s about a gifted young violinist in Depression-era America who also has a talent for boxing and is lured away from music by the pursuit of fame and money in the ring. In the current London production he is played by Josh O’Connor, who Knives Out fans have seen with his fists up as a boxer turned priest in Wake Up Dead Man. O’Connor is no less convincing on stage than on film, attacking a heavy bag with the kind of power that does indeed make you worry for his precious hands. Nor is that ab definition entirely the work of a makeup artist.

Host nation won having led almost from start to finish, while young English player reached a stunning landmark

Uzbekistan, the host nation, won the open gold medals at the 2026 Olympiad, the biennial chess international team tournament, at Samarkand last week in the style of the legendary Soviet grandmasters of long ago. India, the defending champions, were second, Germany a surprise third, and the top-seeded United States fourth.

The hosts led almost from start to finish, with world No 5 Nodirbek Abdusattorov and the world title challenger Javokhir Sindarov their top-board powerhouses. The team recovered swiftly from a single defeat by Germany, and were particularly impressive in crushing Armenia by 3.5-0.5 in the penultimate round. The Uzbekistan government rewarded each of the five players with $200,000 (£178,000), a house and a Volkswagen, plus $50,000 for the coach Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Exclusive: Plan under discussion involves intensive support to help young people into employment

Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work, the Guardian has learned.

Whitehall sources said the package of changes under debate was much bigger than previously thought, as Andy Burnham’s government hopes to persuade more people on benefits back into work.

Group says trading was helped by airing of Netflix documentary and opening of its 100th outlet

• Business live – latest updates

The UK arm of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants empire remained in the red last year despite sales topping £100m for the first time after a string of openings in a London tower.

The celebrity chef’s UK business, which has 34 outlets including the Savoy Grill, Pétrus and several Lucky Cat restaurants, narrowed losses to £5.8m from £9.4m the year before. Sales rose 3% to almost £101m.

Artwork created in Tahrir Square for Chinese president’s state visit to Egypt is painted over amid allegations it revived Afrocentric claims about Pharaohs’ origins

On the eve of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s state visit to Cairo last month, the city authorities were busy removing a 66-metre-long mural from the esteemed guest’s line of sight.

Depicting the Pharaoh Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertiti, the painting was among 40 murals commissioned to beautify the city for Xi’s arrival and was painted by volunteer youth group Rasmet Basma, in Tahrir Square.

New York attorney general brought in by governor after recent questions raised over university’s 2024 investigation

Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, said on Thursday she was appointing Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, as special prosecutor to investigate the alleged gang-rape at Cornell University.

“The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued,” Hochul said in a statement. “This action will ensure that the matter is fully and thoroughly investigated without conflict or bias, and handled independently with the rigor that this matter demands.”

Attack accessing historical data on bushfires occurred in June but not disclosed by the tech company until Thursday

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Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has disclosed another unauthorised hack on a government department in Australia.

In June, an OpenAI agent hacked into a New South Wales state government department and accessed historical non-public data on bushfires without authorisation.

Gieß den Kiez app shows trees in critical need of watering and can be adopted by other heat-stressed cities around the world

Amanda Gläser-Bligh sometimes attracts puzzled looks when she goes to water the eight-year-old street tree she has adopted outside her door in Charlottenburg, Berlin.

“I named her Linda the linden,” she says. “Berliners are not always known for being super friendly but most people react really positively when they find out what I’m doing.”

Micro aircraft used to help guide birds to Spanish stopover as part of efforts to create sustaining migratory population

Fifteen new birds have joined a growing flock of bald ibis in northern Spain, guided there by human migration guides in micro aircraft who helped them along the route.

The birds are part of the growing European flock of the northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita), the charismatic and frankly extraordinary bird that had been extinct on the continent for 300 years.

After five years of work, 5,750 panels of toughened glass will help keep hundred of plants safe from Scottish winters – but more work needs to be done

In the early autumn sunlight, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s extensive plant collection appears safe in their glass enclosures. But danger lurks from above for the tropical ferns, cycads and rare alpine heathers.

Soon the September sunshine will give way to the storms and gales of the Scottish winter, which can bring hundreds of glass panels crashing to the greenhouse floor on the windiest days. Nobody is allowed inside when the wind is above 30mph.

EU Copernicus report shows surface air temperatures from June to August were 2.5C above decadal average

The scorching heat that persistently baked western Europe this summer was the worst on record, a report has found, with more than half the continent seared by “very strong” heat stress that felt hotter than 38C.

Surface air temperatures in western Europe from June to August were 2.5C above the recent decadal average, according to an update from the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service on Friday, while milder but still deadly heat across the rest of the continent made the summer Europe’s third hottest on record.

The six stories on the shortlist for the 10th year of the writing award run by 4th Estate and the Guardian and open to unpublished writers of colour are ‘affecting in new and surprising ways’, said judge and author Gurnaik Johal

The shortlist for the 10th year of the 4thWrite prize – the short story competition for unpublished writers of colour run by the publisher 4th Estate in association with the Guardian – has been revealed.

The six shortlisted stories were “affecting in new and surprising ways”, said judge Gurnaik Johal, who was shortlisted for the prize in 2018.

Barbara O’Neill has previously claimed that cancer is a fungus that can be treated with bicarbonate soda

A controversial proponent of natural remedies who has been banned from providing any health services in Australia is due to embark on a series of events in the UK and Ireland despite criticism from scientists, health charities and academic bodies.

Barbara O’Neill, who describes herself as a naturopath and nutritionist, lectures internationally on “natural self-healing”.

Dispute over march will go to legal appeal on Monday after talks hosted by Northern Ireland secretary end

Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”.

Speaking on Thursday night after the latest talks with the Orange Order and residents of Garvaghy Road broke up, Bryant said: “I think this is the end of these conversations. We haven’t come to a settled agreement, and it’s a shame, but my door remains open.”

Britain’s nursing union axes Teva UK as commercial partner over links to Israel’s military and corporate track record

Britain’s nursing union has cut its ties with an Israeli drug company over the firm’s links to the country’s military and track record of corporate misconduct.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has axed Teva UK as a commercial partner and as sponsor of a forthcoming event on migraine and headaches at the union’s London headquarters.

City on edge as police comb home of Raymond Horsch, pornographer who died last year, in grisly case involving disturbing pictures and film

A dilapidated house, burned out above the second story, may hold clues to dark tales and – potentially – the darkest of endings as the FBI and police in Philadelphia try to unpick what took place at 417 West Chew Avenue for more than three decades.

Last week, homicide investigators shifted their focus from examining an archive of a million photographs and film recovered from what is known locally as the “house of horrors” to excavating what is in or under the home of Raymond “RC” Horsch, a career criminal, local artist, author and snuff photographer who died last year aged 82, and his son Eugene, 44.

Deployment underscores evolving complexity of Trump’s war against Iran as US midterm elections loom

The US military is dispatching a third aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, as President Donald Trump warned new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

The deployment, which includes a specialist amphibious attack group, underscores the rapidly evolving dynamic of Trump’s war against Iran as midterm elections in the US loom large.

In a region of Nigeria blighted by decades of pollution, Martha Agbani and her team are not just replanting trees but regaining ownership of their lost lands and livelihoods

A toxic landscape was familiar to Martha Agbani when she was growing up – the smell of crude oil in the air, rivers running black and trees dying on the banks. In Ogoniland, in Nigeria’s oil-exploited Niger delta, Agbani saw the spills rot away the mangrove forests and destroy the livelihoods of communities around her.

Now, she is training women to plant them back – one fragile green shoot at a time.

Speculation that Flávio Bolsonaro will try to strip Our Lady of Aparecida of position could become deciding factor in run-up to Sunday

A row of Biblical proportions has erupted in the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, with the country’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, emerging as an unlikely kingmaker in the deadlocked race.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the two frontrunners – the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro – are level in the polls.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• UK diesel price hits record high of £2 a litre

Core inflation in the eurozone also inched up last month.

Inflation, excluding energy, food, alcohol & tobacco, rose to 2.5% in September up from 2.4% in August.

Most of the betting industry is urging the chancellor not to double slot machine duty to raise up to £460m more a year

Gambling industry kingpins are fuming about reports that the chancellor, John Healey, is considering increasing taxes on high-street slot machines in his first budget.

The influential Social Market Foundation thinktank, the most vocal advocate for a rise in machine games duty (MGD), from 20% to 40%, thinks the measure could raise between £275m and £460m annually, on top of the roughly £610m collected last year.

Tech company releases Gemini 4 Argon only to a vetted group of cybersecurity experts to avoid misuse by hackers

Google on Wednesday said it would withhold its most powerful artificial intelligence model from the public for now, releasing Gemini 4 Argon only to a vetted group of cybersecurity experts to avoid misuse by hackers.

“Safely releasing frontier capabilities at this level requires a phased approach,” wrote Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google’s chief AI architect, in a blogpost announcing the model.

Report finds complaints of room intrusions at nearly one in 10 hotels, after woman attacked by man given a copy of her key

An independent review into Travelodge after a serious sexual assault has found that guests are still at risk, with room intrusions reported at nearly one in 10 of its hotels this summer.

The damning findings were published in a 70-page report on Thursday, which was commissioned earlier this year after a man was convicted of a serious sexual assault against a Travelodge guest in Maidenhead in 2022.

Creating a new policy to address violence against women and girls.

Improving safety policies for staff working alone.

Introducing body cameras for all reception staff.

Installing consistent CCTV systems across all its hotels.

Introducing mystery shoppers to test its key security policy.

The singer’s hit 2015 single Girls Like Girls was her breakthrough moment and also the first time she felt confident in her sexuality. Now she has directed a film based on the song – a love letter to her 17-year-old self

A lot of Hayley Kiyoko’s teenage summers were spent waiting, bored and pining, as she sat at the computer willing her crush to message her back on AOL instant messenger. Like Coley, the 17-year-old protagonist of Girls Like Girls, the film the pop star has co-written and directed, Kiyoko fell hard for a girl who “put me through my own heartbreak and haunted me for a long time”, she says.

Although the 35-year-old singer became known by fans as “lesbian Jesus” following the release of her breakthrough single Girls Like Girls in 2015 (the film is an extended version of the story first told in the song’s music video), feeling comfortable in her sexuality didn’t actually come until after its release. Her gay identity was, at the time, the topic she was “the most scared of writing about”, and the song’s confident refrain “Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new” came from wanting to “manifest feeling confident”.

In the film-maker’s Houston-set film, Ali stars as a devout Muslim who moonlights as a vicious hitman

Mahershala Ali is swinging around a blade in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. That’s not a nod to Ali’s previous attachment to Marvel’s Blade. It’s of a piece with Ali’s character, Latif, a devout Muslim who also happens to be a contract killer, though he fashions himself a righteous killer. Latif justifies his violence as divine retribution, dispensing victims he believes to have offended God. His sword, according to writer and director Bassam Tariq, is a part of Latif’s code, a negotiation with his faith.

“You are forced to strike with intention when you use a sword,” Tariq says, speaking in a recent interview in Toronto.

Docufictional 1981 comedy captures the working-class ska-pop pranksters in their hungry years with an almost Loachian authenticity

Opting for the former is the best idea for this unexpectedly revealing, vividly atmospheric, often funny and alarming, docufictional comedy from 1981 about the rise of the baggy-trousered ska-pop national treasures Madness. It takes us from their beginnings in 1976 to their chart breakthrough: gormless, penniless blokes, obsessing about music and roaming north London’s gritty districts of Camden Town, Stoke Newington and Crouch End. (This elicits some droll dialogue: “They’re all the same, these streets” … “That’s why they put signs on them.”)

Our naughty, dodgy heroes play people’s parties, sign on the dole and do mortifying odd jobs, get told off by site foremen and office supervisors, drive to gigs in Arthur Daley vans, almost get into fights with skinheads and have calamitous arguments with the drummer during rehearsals. It could have carried on like that indefinitely, but the arrival of Graham “Suggs” McPherson as singer is the mysterious ingredient around which everything coalesces: his voice miraculously ups the band’s game, apparently curing their worrying propensity for playing flat. His vocals mesh with the reggae thump of the keyboards and sax and the rest of the band’s goofy jogging-on-the-spot stage energy.

New York film festival: No spoilers here – TV’s grand illusionist meets his match when he moves in with Theranos founder and her family

For anyone remotely near the worlds of documentary, comedy or medical fraud, there has been one thing on the mind for weeks now: a single-minute clip of Nathan Fielder, the absurdist comedian whose boundary-pushing HBO series The Rehearsal cemented his status as docu-reality’s premier auteur, staring into the deep blue eyes of Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the blood-testing startup Theranos. Unblinking, faces inches apart, the famously dry purveyor of harebrained business schemes and the convicted fraudster appeared locked in a battle of wills. “Are you being real right now?” Fielder asked her, in a classically meta bit – could Fielder really have spent years filming a secret documentary with one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious pariahs?

The prospect of TV’s grand illusionist versus emblematic girl-boss scammer seemed potentially too good to be true; buzz for You Can See Everything, Fielder’s furtive documentary co-directed with wunderkind du jour Lance Oppenheim (whose narrative feature debut, the Robert Pattinson-starring Primetime, premiered last month) was such that access to the film’s New York film festival premiere on Wednesday became this fall’s hottest ticket.

Reports that Jon Watts could make a new trilogy about a clan who have already saved and destroyed the galaxy several times over leaves you wishing for a newer world

The Skywalkers: who are they exactly? A family that has moulded the entire Star Wars galaxy in their image, to the extent that nobody can really imagine the long-running space opera without them. An almost endless familial battle between good and evil, featuring absent fathers, secret siblings, murdered mentors, wayward nephews, surprise grandfathers. For nearly half a century they have blown up Death Stars, built Death Stars, destroyed Jedi orders, rebuilt Jedi orders, fallen to the dark side, risen from the dark side, died heroically, come back as ghosts. Star Wars has occasionally attempted to escape them. It has made films and TV shows about stolen Death Star plans, bounty hunters, smugglers and rebels from entirely different corners of the galaxy. Ryan Gosling will soon appear in a Star Wars movie that, as far as we know, has absolutely nothing to do with them. But they have never really gone away, and now they are back, possibly because Disney has run out of ideas for how to take the franchise forward without them.

Deadline reports this week that Lucasfilm has hired Jon Watts to direct the first instalment of a new trilogy continuing the Skywalker saga, written by Simon Kinberg, with Daisy Ridley reportedly being eyed to return as Rey. The films have not yet been greenlit, and there are precious few other details, but Watts does seem an inspired choice, if for no other reason than that he has previously overseen a film – Spider-Man: No Way Home – that was built around the idea that nobody in a long-running franchise needs to remain dead.

His hyperactive stylistic shifts and high-speed rhythms have a delirious, head-spinning beauty of their own

From Biafra, Nigeria/Texas, USA
Recommended if you like Los Thuthanaka, Jpegmafia, DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ
Up next Album Cantu of the Sower released via NTS Recordings on 7 October

Many listeners might find blown-out noise, hyperactive stylistic shifts and breakneck rhythms a hellish prospect, and fair enough. But for a certain stripe of sensory freak, such swarming intensity can tip over into a state of heady relaxation. The ultra-prolific Heavensouls’ latest project scratches that itch: the six songs on Cantu of the Sower glitter like rich seams of rare crystal, billowing from arcade glitter to compression-straining bass, sprite-like playfulness to warm, rushing brass. Languid trumpet lines float around trash-compactor crunch; sugary breakbeats reach tweaky maximalist peaks. I don’t know about you, but I could bathe in it.

(Transgressive)
The Maryland singer-songwriter’s third album has an impressive sense of scale compared to last year’s breakout Burnover, but is less immediately appealing

Greg Freeman’s third album All Set the Bone feels, at its best and most nervy, like an off-brand pressure cooker: too hot, bursting at its seams, rattling with kinetic energy. The Maryland-born singer-songwriter has a voice that often sounds like it’s straining at its limits, and although he is ostensibly part of a growing indierock revival that’s been taking hold over the past few years – a cosy perennial – there’s nothing particularly comfortable about the songs on this double album. On Marooned, frantic stabs of guitar and drums create queasy unease; opener Cahokia muddles up the catharsis of a great American road song, descending into proggy bedlam. And his lyrics most often drum up anxieties big and small: “Who do you look to when you’re all on your own?” he asks on Culture. “When all your heroes lost their microphones?”

Freeman broke out with last year’s Burnover, a set of taut story-songs that were at turns witty, delirious and devastating. Freeman’s secret was in his ability to weld that literary streak to loud, bolshy, riff-heavy music that wouldn’t sound out of place on mainstream rock radio. All Set the Bone is several orders more ambitious in its scale, and its songwriting, which is more imagistic and diffuse. The result is an impressive record but one that’s less immediately appealing. Freeman wrote it while travelling through the US and reckoning with “a lot of change in my personal sense of … everything”, and you can hear that searching quality in the final product. All Set the Bone contains fewer fireworks than Burnover, but Freeman still has plenty of spark.

(World of Echo)
With musical ideas spanning mariachi and motorik beats, and lyrics with Kneecap-grade rage, this brilliant collective evolve tradition with stinging, joyful songs

Quicksilver and giddy in its exploration of Irish music, language and identity, Trá Pháidín’s second album bursts open the idea of a 21st-century traditional folk record. It woos you with the reverb-smothered guitars and birdsong-like flutes of Tí Mhichael Phaddy (Michael Paddy’s House, an opener suggesting a psychedelically perfect rurality) before an Irish woman cuts in, bigging up her countryside Airbnb on the phone. A shouty local then comically interrupts her.

Trá Pháidín (Paddy’s Beach) are a six-strong collective of brilliant musicians from Galway, Ireland’s largest Irish-speaking county, and their album’s title, Cloch’s Claí (Stone and Dry Stone Wall), suggests that each track plays its own scabrous, weight-bearing part in the whole. The 45 minutes unfold as an interrupted sequence, full of improvisation, texture and ornament, the band freely roaming other genres, revealing them as connected neighbourhoods.

Have It by John Cooper Clarke; The Dodo Stories by Mary Mulholland; Red River Valley by Ian McMillan; Some Sacred Harbour by Roger Robinson; Otherwhere by Carolyn Forché

Have It by John Cooper Clarke (Picador, £16.99)
The latest collection from the original “people’s poet” displays his characteristic swagger, delivered with a distinctively northern humour. Merging blistering social satire and brash wit, Cooper Clarke irreverently tackles themes from the ridiculous to the sublime, including the malaise of contemporary urban life, the erosion of nature and the environment, money and the prospect of a cashless society, death and ageing, fascism, bachelorhood, popular culture and the NHS. His punk rock values caustically underpin the collection: “Me and my shrinking crowd / Each under our own personal cloud”; “We wish you no serious harm/ However, everybody sucks but us”. There’s heavy use of doggerel and jokes as he stridently proclaims his passion for writing. “It’s a meaningless job but someone’s got to do it / Thank God it’s me”. Overall, Cooper Clarke’s consummate performance skills in playing to the crowd demand applause as he advocates for the “blood royal of the working class”.

A twisting, beguiling investigation into the art of poetry that ends in a call to arms on behalf of the natural world

The poet Alice Oswald is no stranger to thinking in public about her art. She was Oxford professor of poetry until 2023, and her lectures are available online. But this is her first full-length book, and as such is something of an occasion.

So what exactly is it? For a work of prose it contains a lot of poetry, much translated or composed by Oswald herself. Shakespeare, Donne, Shelley and Ted Hughes also feature. Though nonfiction, the book is full of stories, particularly retellings of Homer and Aeschylus. It is billed as “genre-defying” and there is much formal experimentation. But at heart it is an exploration of the oral tradition, and the writer’s own subtitle is A Manifesto, which feels exciting and urgent, pointed at the contemporary world with its pressing realities.

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I was sideswiped by Giada Scodellaro’s Ruins, Child. A brilliant, strange book that challenged me in the most exhilarating way, with its fractured language and dream-cinema visions, the sense it bestowed of walking through a corridor full of echoes. Echoes of a less elliptical but no-less political kind haunt Jordy Rosenberg’s astounding Night Night Fawn. I guess you could call it a family novel? But it’s at least as much about fascism as it is about the family – as well as about unsettling linkages between the two. And for horrors and rage in a nonfiction register, Jonas Marvin’s The Breaking of the English Working Class is an indispensable – and beautifully written – essay on decades of structural, economic and psychic violence. The feeling it provoked in me brought to mind John Berger’s phrase “undefeated despair”.

Book clubs can be fun, fulfilling and interesting – but many members have seen a meeting or group go down in flames

For four years, Laura has been in a book club with other young mothers from her church. You might be picturing a docile scene of women drinking sweet tea – they live in the US south – and discussing a life-affirming family novel or chaste romance.

But you probably didn’t account for werewolf smut.

Xbox, PC (version tested); The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios
E-Day boasts the best combat in 20 years of Gears games – but everything surrounding it is disappointing

Every Gears of War game released in the last 20 years has made reverent reference to Emergence Day, when alien creatures emerged from the earth, single-minded in their savagery. In E-Day, you’re there to witness it: the police lights, flipped cars, ground tremors, civilians running, aliens pouring out of fissures in the earth and ripping faces off. You’re at ground zero in a squad of four soldiers called Gears – Marcus Fenix, the leader; Dom, who wants to retire; Lucas, a green cadet with a buzzcut; and the dishonourably discharged Mags. Only this dysfunctional quartet can turn the tide. With guns. Lots of ’em.

Instead of answering questions raised by the ending of 2019’s Gears 5, we’re back to the start to find out why Marcus has a scar on his lip and why these soldiers started strapping chainsaws on to their assault rifles. Anything that was left to the imagination is here, for you to point at and say: “I understood that reference. This is a thing that I have seen.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swoon at immaculate impressionism, ’ave it large with 90s Brit art and fashion and head to the beach with Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse – all in your weekly dispatch

Renoir and Love
Joyful and sumptuous, yet realist and raw, Renoir’s impressionist paintings glow in this immaculate exhibition.
• National Gallery, London, from 3 October until 31 January

Wyndham’s theatre, London
Grant brings shock-haired vigour as a vain novelist forced to welcome his boho children’s surprise guests in comedy of clipped social embarrassment

Hay Fever, now one of Noël Coward’s best-known and most-performed works, hasn’t always been a smash hit. British critics who found its West End debut in 1925 amusing enough nevertheless noted its lack of plot, and the first Broadway production was a flop. A critic for Vogue called it “funny in places”, which sounds like the kind of stinging putdown you’d expect from the playwright’s own hand.

A century of performances have proved the play’s lasting power, but its comic effect has always lain less in the words as written than their delivery – it is, after all, about a family that is “artificial to the point of lunacy”. At their centre is diva Judith Bliss, who has retired from the stage to take up the role of country hostess. When she, her husband and their self-consciously bohemian children Sorel and Simon all invite surprise guests for the weekend, the unfortunate attendees find themselves embroiled in a self-serving drama of exquisite embarrassment.

Watermill theatre, Newbury
Ian Hallard impresses as the detecting rector in a thoughtful adaptation that sometimes strains under a villageful of suspects, victims and doubling actors

Poirot, Marple, Rebus, Barnaby and Grace have all recently investigated cases on stage. The latest literary sleuth in the group is Canon Daniel Clement in this adaptation of the 2022 book by accomplished broadcaster and hapless Strictly Come Dancing contestant Reverend Richard Coles. The novel launched his series about a detecting rector.

Coles’ 1980s setting spared him the alibi-limiting restrictions of mobile phones and CCTV but also allowed characters in Champton, his fictional benefice, to have links with the second world war. The plot links the canon’s plans to install a lavatory at St Mary’s to events buried in the village’s military history that led to serial killing.

@sohoplace, London
There is no shortage of sparring between Anderson and Billy Crudup in Edward Albee’s classic, though its comedy has an air of George and Mildred

Those who want to moan about the toxic reliance on celebrity casting and screen stars in the West End can stop right there: Billy Crudup and Gillian Anderson both began their careers on stage. Here they are now, glittering up Edward Albee’s conflagration of a play about unhappy marriage and its necessary illusions, immortalised on screen by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Anderson and Crudup can hold their own against that landmark adaptation of the play about George, a middle-aged history professor with a sagging academic libido, and Martha, his frustrated, ceaselessly needling wife. They are confident performers and it makes sense that this 1962 American classic about conjugal warfare is taken on by two Americans, albeit under the aegis of British directorial powerhouse Marianne Elliott. If Elliott’s previous production, Les Liasons Dangereuses at the National Theatre, had what some considered an anaemic connection between its leading lovers, there is no shortage of sparks and sparring for the central couple here. They are shouty and jousting, although it does not feel dangerous or emotionally eviscerating enough between them for rather too long.

Obsession is a terrifying, violent nightmare of lovestruck madness – but the Globes’ rigid awards categories have forced it into an absurd choice

What do this year’s wish-gone-wrong tale Obsession, gross-out transformation bloodbath The Substance, and Jordan Peele’s generational masterpiece Get Out have in common? Well, they’re all modern horror success stories, with critics and at the box office, and they broke free of genre snobbery to become awards-season contenders.

They’re also toe-tapping laugh riots. At least that’s what the Golden Globes would have you believe.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Jonathan Larson’s much-loved show about New York artists has been revived for its 30th anniversary with a cast including the Stranger Things star

Rock band will still tour the UK, Europe and US over the next year but say decision to ‘fall dormant’ feels ‘liberating’

The British rock band Enter Shikari have announced they will go on hiatus at the end of 2027, a decision that may result in the band’s “extinction”.

The St Albans band, who formed in 1999 as Hybryd, are due to tour the UK in November, Europe and the US next year, and said they hoped to play some of their favourite places “one last time”.

My condition is severe, so I have to a keep close watch on my body temperature and can’t eat chilled foods

In 2012, when I was 37, I started noticing that my fingers would get swollen and red whenever I held an iced drink. I thought it was strange, but I didn’t know what was going on. Then the same thing would happen when I handled food from the fridge. My instinct was to put my hands under hot water, but that made it worse.

For a while, that’s all I experienced. I thought it was weird but not dangerous. I was busy with my three children, so didn’t worry.

From bullets to rabbits to wand vibrators, our sexual wellbeing expert demystifies what’s available and rates her top 17 models (she tested 67)

• 26 easy ways to spice up your sex life

I could write here about how almost a fifth of women surveyed by Durex said using a sex toy was the most dependable way for them to climax. Or I could point out how Kinsey Institute research suggests regular masturbation can help relieve and prevent symptoms of menopause, such as vaginal atrophy. I could even tell you that studies demonstrate a significant correlation between intimate toy ownership and greater satisfaction – not only with sex but also with life itself.

But the potted version is that orgasms and erotic pleasure are glorious, and top-class toys can help you savour more of both. So here are the best vibrators available. Scroll to the bottom to find out how I selected these vibrators from the 67 I tested for this piece.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The best screen-free activities

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

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

A warming, comforting, spiced drink that’s ideal for autumn, and pairs brilliantly with a slice of carrot cake

The move into autumn proper leads our taste buds to crave warmth and comfort in equal measure. And what could be more warming and comforting than a spiced vodka and citrus cocktail spiced with nut liqueur? Slice of carrot cake optional.

Bruce Dorfling, bar manager, Palé Hall, Bala, Gwynedd, Wales

With a deep, caramel richness and a bitter undertone, this cake is an excellent addition to your home baking roster

There’s enough dark chocolate in this gluten-free cake to put it firmly in chocolate cake territory, but the hero flavour comes from the sweet, creamy nuttiness of walnuts, so it’s important to use very fresh ones, because stale walnuts can quickly turn bitter. The dates bring a deep, caramel richness, while the espresso pulls everything back from being overly sweet. Despite all that richness, the cake is wonderfully light in texture. Serve with creme fraiche and perhaps some poached pears, if you want to turn it into a full-blown dessert.

Baked pasta, gnocchi, chicken, meatballs and greens – all perfectly served straight from the oven

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

As I have mentioned before, we live directly above a takeaway pizzeria and tavola calda (a canteen-like spot that translates as “hot table”). My desk is by the window, so the writing and editing of my next book (a collection of regional recipes that is only two years late) has been accompanied by the smell of whatever is cooking in their kitchen downstairs, before being arranged, in big roasting trays, behind a glass counter. Occasionally, I have to shut the window, but mostly the steady stream of pizza, baked pasta, braised meat, meatballs, roast potatoes and green vegetables shining with olive oil inspires me. And that is the inspiration for this newsletter: ideas for easygoing dishes that are best served straight from their rectangular roasting tins.

As I write this, it is almost lunchtime, so, driven by my own hunger, I would like the first serving from a roasting tray to be Angela Hartnett’s macaroni cheese: al dente pasta mixed with béchamel and various cheeses, then baked until golden brown and bubbling at the edges. Just as welcome would be a plate of baked pasta inspired by one of my friend Cinzia’s dishes: meze maniche, rigatoni, penne or macaroni with a rich tomato sauce, basil, lots of mozzarella and pecorino. Or a slice of Meera Sodha’s vegan sweet potato, miso and wholemeal lasagne, which, she promises, takes 15 minutes to put together and uses good, flavourful, ready-made ingredients such as miso, sun-dried tomato paste and passata.

Fried in pancakes, braised with duck, pickled with a roast chicken or baked for pudding, apples are one of autumn’s star ingredients

Few ingredients are as familiar as apples, yet few carry such symbolic weight. Peaking just as the season’s begin to turn, they are the ultimate symbol of nature’s abundance, imbued with a sense of nostalgia for the retreating sunlight. The symbolism became unexpectedly tangible to me during a recent autumn apple-picking trip with my family: surrounded by branches heavy with fruit, I found myself seeing the humble apple with fresh awe. It looked nothing short of nature’s miracle. Native to the mountains of central Asia, near the modern Kazakhstan-China border, it has travelled further than perhaps any other fruit, becoming at home in cuisines from Normandy to New York, Caucasus to Kashmir. Sweet or savoury, everyday or celebratory, the apple is truly universal. Its versatility always reminds me of the simple joy of cooking with the seasons.

Instead of asking her to step away from her distress, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, could you suggest she channel it into action?

• Read more Leading questions

My wife is obsessed with everything that’s happening in the US. She literally spends all day sitting on the couch, watching videos and reading opinion pieces. She’s originally from America and has been living abroad for 25 years and she has family in the US, so I get that she needs to feel connected to what’s happening. But it’s constant. Whether we’re eating, watching a TV show or movie, when we’re talking about something completely unrelated – everything, every topic, either starts or ends with outrage.

I’ve told her she needs to take at least one day off all social media, but she won’t do that even for an hour. It stresses her out more and more every day, but she just keeps going back to it – and it has been really affecting me, more lately than ever. On weekends I stay up late playing games (my way of winding down after a week of work) and she’ll go to bed early. And during those times sometimes I just sit and cry. Everything that’s happening is so stressful, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just wish I could rip away her phone and let her breathe! I don’t know what to say or do. Is there anything that could help?

Kitty is buying a flat and Henry is moving in with her, but they’re already having decor disagreements. You decide who needs to get over their hang-ups?

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

It’s not a showroom; it’s a home. Both people should get a chance to display their personalities

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Naylors’ four-bedroom home in Milton Keynes acts like a mini-power station after retrofitting solar panels, a battery and a heat pump

Clare Naylor paid close attention to how much energy she and her family were using last winter, filling hot-water bottles and bringing out extra blankets to ensure they didn’t go over budget. This year, she won’t have to worry as she is guaranteed not to receive a bill.

While millions of British households face the highest energy charges in three years from today after a 4% rise in the price cap, and predictions of a 16% increase in January, upgrades to Naylor’s home mean she will not have to pay anything.

From a neo-baronial country house with turrets in acres of grounds in Scotland to a modernist tower block in a bustling part of London

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

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

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

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

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

Judy Wearing has spent much of her life studying our follicles. She explains how our armpits betray our emotions, why some gentlemen really do prefer blondes and the reason we evolved to have eyebrows

As a PhD student at Oxford studying mating behaviour, Judy Wearing was suddenly struck by a thought: what was the purpose of pubic hair? The point of armpit hair? The function of each of our body’s furry patches? When the published literature failed to produce satisfying answers, Wearing began her own investigation. Her aim was to shed light on why exactly we evolved these particular patches, with pubic hair the most puzzling of all: was it for warmth, protection … or something else?

Wearing is still tangling with those questions, some 30 years after her student days. Now an author and editor (largely in the education sector), she has revisited her fascination with hair in Anxious and Hairy: The Evolution and Culture of Human Hair, exploring its unexpectedly dense and layered place in our history and psyche. Even Wearing was surprised by the places her research on hair took her, and the mysteries that still remain to be solved. “A lot of these questions, no one’s actually looked at,” she says over Zoom. Here is a mere snip of the fascinating facts she’s uncovered about hair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The animal welfare group has revived their runway-storming tactics from the naughts, now targeting the use of wool

Her walk was poised, her outfit – crop top, tailored trousers, high heels – so on point that when Josie Knowles strutted down a London Fashion Week catwalk last month she could have passed for a model. That is, had it not been for the sign the Peta protester held saying “H&M: Wool is Bloody Cruel.”

Still, as one social media commentator put it when praising her strut: “you cant tell me Peta didn’t know what they were doing when they hired this diva”.

Ease into outerwear season with a light extra layer that’s perfect for cool, dry autumnal days

Collaboration regarded as ‘really big thing’ for retailer in some quarters despite backlash around designer’s antisemitic remarks in 2011

A month after it was announced that a planned exhibition dedicated to fashion designer John Galliano at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art would not proceed, his debut collection for fast fashion company Zara has been released.

Called Re{form}, it was, according to a press release, “authored by the couturier John Galliano. Built from our memory. Made for now.”

Ready to fall back in love with getting dressed? Our fashion expert’s favourites bring layers, colour and just the right amount of drama

• The best women’s autumn wardrobe updates

October is when getting dressed starts to get interesting again. It is not yet cold enough for the full swaddling, but there is bandwidth for layers, texture, colour, a little drama. This month’s edit has all of the above. There is an irresistible coat, a tomato-red jumper to wake up everything you already own, and the bag I think may be the answer if you want something roomy that still feels neat. Also, stirrup leggings!

Elsewhere, I’ve finally located the right sheer shirt for anyone ready to dip a toe into transparency, some extremely glamorous Marks & Spencer jeans and a lovely ring that looks much more special than its price. And because October is also the month when staying in starts to sound as appealing as going out, there are candles for the kitchen table. A sensible autumn shopping list, but with a little soul.

From cycling in Berlin and the Black Forest to world-class cocktail bars in Cologne and magical North Sea beaches, readers share their travel tips

• Tell us about a sunny autumn break – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

In an often overlooked corner of Germany, near the Dutch border, Münster is an absolute gem. Covered porticos will convince you you’re in northern Italy, gothic churches will remind you you’re in Mitteleuropa and the buns from Zeit für Brot will insist you’re in heaven. Nature-lovers can take in the Botanical Gardens and relax by the Münstersche Aa river. Those of a historical bent can peek into the room where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 and mull the report card of nation states in the nearly 400 years since. But really, it’s a great place just to drop-anchor and lose a few days.
Jeremy

A ride in a water taxi transforms a stunning hike from Lyme Regis to West Bay into a perfect circular route

Many favour a circular walk, but you can give a linear one new shape with the addition of a novel form of transport. My wife Helen, our friend Tom Cox and I take the water taxi – a rigid inflatable boat (Rib) – from West Bay on Dorset’s coast to Lyme Regis, with a plan to walk back to our starting point.

The rain stops as the boat leaves the harbour, the views open along Chesil Beach to low-lying Portland to the east, and west to Lyme Regis; on the far horizon, we can see Start Point on the Devon coast. Our skipper, Nick, is highly knowledgable and takes time to stop and point out the history of the shoreline and the treacherous waters of Lyme Bay. The seabed is studded with wrecks – fishing boats and smugglers’ ships, but some are from the two world wars.

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

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

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

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

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

A hothouse in my garden may be just a fantasy, but I can still offer plenty of protection for tender plants

I thought I would have had a new coldframe by now, but the only new thing in the garden is a fox hole. It would be more polite of them to direct their exemplary digging skills towards where we’re excavating for new foundations, but so it goes.

I’m writing this, then, in the hope that it will spur me on to order one. I like to think that, one day, in a fantasy life, I might be a greenhouse person. I’d fill it up with pelargonium cuttings and orange blossom and hold tiny little lunch parties for one. Or maybe have a clever walk-through one like Mary Keen’s – genius for making sure you go in there, what with it being on the path. But I think of glasshouse life in the same way I think of one day learning Italian. It’s a nice idea, but unlikely to happen.

Now a $15bn industry, astrology is more mainstream in the US than ever. But its practitioners are still debating: who gets to have authority on the celestial bodies?

“The dwarf planets change everything,” said the woman with the smart haircut as she made a mind blown gesture with her fingertips, temples to air.

I am at the United Astrology Conference, the largest professional gathering of astrologers in the world, in downtown Chicago. Around me, vendors are hoping to excite the 1,500 attenders, flogging books, tracts, affiliations, proprietary apps and various software programs that have replaced the laborious chart-drawing of yore.

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

Swapping the glitz and glamour of last week’s visit to Istanbul for non-league football, your humble quiz master spent Saturday soaking up the sunshine while watching Walthamstow FC put a mere nine goals past a hapless Lowestoft Town. A quick sympathetic exchange with the shellshocked Lowestoft keeper – “Oh mate, long Saturday afternoon for you” – yielded the weary reply: “Long Saturday? Long fucking season.” Bless him. We hope you feel somewhat more optimistic about tackling these 15 questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 267

Frome, Somerset: With a sway and a swoosh, we’re entering the season to enjoy psithurism – the aural quality of the breeze in the trees

The wind-catchers along the bottom of the valley miss nothing. Even the lightest breath has them whispering. And when the wind strengthens, they do a good imitation of the river streaming over boulders below their feet. Truly, when it blows, it pours.

Pass a poplar and you are enjoying the best example of psithurism, the sound of wind in trees. All this growing season, I have listened politely to oaks, alders and willows, but if I rocked up in a pub looking for chatty company, I’d want a poplar on the bar stool next to me.

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

Co-pilot who attacked captain in apparent attempt to crash flight casts doubt over locked-door policy

• Motive behind flydubai stabbing unknown as investigation opens

Cockpit security on planes will come under renewed scrutiny after passengers and one wounded pilot joined forces to prevent flydubai flight FZ 1073 from crashing.

With more than 170 people, mostly Israeli, on board the jet heading from Dubai to Tel Aviv, some have spoken of averting “Israel’s 9/11”. However, the changes made to plane design after the terrorist hijackings in the US a quarter of a century ago, locking cockpit doors from the inside, have divided expert opinion.

Satellite imagery shows further destruction of homes, businesses and places of worship since fragile ceasefire

An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.

The images were taken in June this year and show further destruction of homes, businesses, places of worship and infrastructure since a fragile ceasefire came into effect almost 12 months ago.

In a new book, German artist and writer Philipp Ruch argues that viewing the ascent of Hitler’s NSDAP through the prism of the Third Reich has distorted our understanding of fascism’s electoral breakthrough

With your art collective Centre for Political Beauty you famously built a replica of the Holocaust memorial on a property next to the home of an AfD politician. Now you’ve written a history book about the Nazis’ rise to power. Don’t we already know everything there is to know about the 1932 elections, the Reichstag fire and the Enabling Act of 1933?

About three years ago I became interested in how Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ party (NSDAP) rose to prominence when Germany was still a democracy, because I hoped it could tell us something about the success of rightwing extremist movements today. From looking at historical sources, I realised that the Reichstag elections of 14 September 1930 were in many ways more important than what happened in 1932 and 1933. And I expected it to be an open-and-shut case. But the more I looked into it, the more I realised that most of the theories we have to explain the rise of the Nazis don’t make sense – the data tells a completely different, far darker story.

Much is made of the decision to try to preserve fertility but less explored are the choices that come afterwards. We want to hear from people about what happened next

Oocyte cryopreservation, more commonly known as egg freezing, has been around for decades but the procedure stopped being considered experimental in 2012. Since then, elective egg freezing has boomed. Often represented as an insurance policy against age- or illness-related fertility decline, the process can be costly and complex.

While figures vary, research suggests most people who undergo egg freezing never access their eggs and results are mixed for those who do. Long-term storage poses its own costs and questions.

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

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

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

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of TV presenter and Childline founder Esther Rantzen – whether you met her, or appreciated her work

Esther Rantzen, the Bafta-winning TV presenter and founder of Childline, has died aged 86. She announced lung cancer diagnosis in 2023 and became a vocal campaigner to change the law around assisted dying.

Ranzten hosted That’s Life! for 21 years from 1973 until 1994, which drew more than 20 million viewers at its peak. She presented Hearts of Gold in 1988, a series focusing on people responsible for outstanding acts of kindness, and hosted the chatshow Esther from 1994. In later years, she was a contributor to the One Show and hosted a podcast with Adrian Mills.

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

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

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

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