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

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

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

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

You write that “changing the way you think about the brain cliff can literally change the way you think and remember”. How?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Betsy and Felix have sex once a week when they are alone in the house – it frees up their minds just to be together

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I used to kick guys out of bed after any sexual encounters. But with Felix it was totally different from the start

Schools and councils express financial concerns as EHCP applications surge before potential change in provision

• ‘Powerful example’: minister looks to Essex school for blueprint to transform Send provision

Schools and councils across England are expecting the proportion of children with special needs plans to double to one in 10, with families rushing to secure support before ministers bring in changes.

Headteachers have reported an “unreal” surge in applications for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) mandating support for needs or disabilities such as speech and learning difficulties, autism or ADHD. In 2025, just one in 20 school-age children had EHCPs.

Exit poll shows Alternative für Deutschland on 44.4% of vote in Saxony-Anhalt after huge turnout, with votes still being counted

The populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the winner in a crucial state election in Germany, exit polls have projected, securing a historic result and more than doubling its support. The AfD now appear on the brink of becoming the first far-right party to gain power in Germany at state level since the second world war.

Initial exit polls showed the party to have secured 44.4% of the vote, a larger share than predicted, and decisively larger than that of the Christian Democrats (CDU) of the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in a contest that was being followed across the world. However, it still remains unclear as to how and whether the AfD will be able to form a government, having ruled out entering a coalition and being refused any form of cooperation by the mainstream parties.

Witkoff says he hopes trilateral talks involving the US, Ukraine and Europe will be announced ‘in short order’

The US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to Ukraine for the first time on Sunday for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an attempt to end the war with Russia.

The Ukrainian president announced plans to widen peace discussions to include European countries in the near future, saying he wanted to do “everything to ensure that trilateral meetings take place” with Ukraine, the US and Europe.

Leon Panetta tells Guardian US is risking ‘forever war’ and says Pentagon ‘turmoil’ sending message of weakness

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former US defense secretary, has warned, as the US president struggles to find his way out of the controversial conflict.

Panetta declared in an interview that the war with Iran – launched by Trump over six months ago – risks becoming another “forever war in the Middle East”, with no clear end in sight.

Far-right linked group able to mobilise at scale due to police ‘inaction’, says founder of Hope Not Hate

The group of masked, black-clad vigilantes who blockaded roads in Dover could repeat the disruption unless police step up efforts to stop them, politicians and campaigners have said.

Responsibility for the demonstration has been claimed by Patriot Platform, an anti-immigration group with links to the far right, which styles itself as having a “fierce love for our homeland”.

FAA confirms crash as videos show heavy plumes of smoke surrounding aircraft that flew in from Puerto Rico

An Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami international airport in Florida on Sunday afternoon when a flight from Puerto Rico landed and overshot the runway, sending flames and dark smoke into the sky.

Videos posted online show heavy plumes of smoke surrounding an aircraft bearing the Amazon arrow logo on its tail. Unconfirmed reports suggest there may be casualties, but details about injuries or fatalities remained unclear.

Robert Jenrick says party has followed legal protocol ‘at all times’ as Met police consider launching investigation

Nigel Farage has acknowledged the overseas donation row engulfing Reform UK “looks bad” for his party but denied it had ever taken foreign money in breach of electoral law.

The Reform leader, who is battling to contain the fallout from the allegations, was asked if he could categorically rule out that foreign money had ever been funnelled to his party. He replied: “I can. Never happened.”

Protest using 10 coffins to symbolise struggling manufacturing industry to take place in Brussels

Job losses in EU manufacturing will rapidly increase unless Brussels stops the “colonisation” of industry by Chinese component manufacturers, a leading industry trade body has warned.

Eurometal predicts 300,000 job losses in manufacturing in the rest of 2026 because of expanding competition from China, which is now enjoying a record €1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc.

The first heavyweight encounter of the Premier League season was previewed in some quarters as the immovable object versus the irresistible force. Arsenal do not give an inch. Chelsea have been fun and free-scoring under Xabi Alonso. Yet that overlooked something pretty fundamental. The percussive force of Arsenal’s game when they have the ball and want to make something happen.

Chelsea landed a significant blow after 77 seconds when Morgan ­Rogers put them in front with a nicely executed volley from the edge of the area. It was not only the first goal that Arsenal have conceded this season but one with rich narrative strands. Rogers was chased by Arsenal over the summer only to join Chelsea for £117m.

Georgia Gould says moving system towards inclusion will mean parents ‘don’t need to fight’ for support in future

• Pupils with Send plans in England likely to double in rush for support

Georgia Gould is in a race against time. And the minister responsible for overhauling England’s special educational needs provision is hoping that a state school in Colchester will help her beat the clock.

Gould visited Thomas Lord Audley secondary school last week to see the secrets of its success in persuading local parents that it can help children with special needs thrive in a mainstream setting.

A Dr Seuss-style story written in seconds alerted me to the power – and perils – of the technology. But how can children embrace it without forgetting core skills?

When I was growing up, my dad and I often talked about a story we wanted to write together. It was called “The Day Nobody Went to Disneyland”. One day, the story goes, the weather is so perfect that everyone in the world decides to stay away from Disneyland because they expect it to be far too busy. But my dad, who has the same thought as them, sees the disappointment on my face that morning – and decides to risk it. We set off. And when we arrive, the park is completely empty. Nobody else was brave enough to visit. We have everything – the rides, shows, food – to ourselves.

I loved the idea of writing that story. But, as so often happens, we were too busy to do anything about it. Life ran away from us. I grew up, and we both forgot about it.

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

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

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

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

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

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

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

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

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

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

After her role in the fantasy series, the actor felt lost. Now she’s getting relationship advice from Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, and following a Sex and the City star’s mantra: never be anywhere you aren’t enjoying yourself

Maisie Williams has dabbled in witchcraft exactly once. The actor was getting ready to audition for a part in a film. “I wanted it so badly that I went on to Etsy, and I paid a witch to manifest me the role,” she says, poker-faced.

“It didn’t work, and that was where my days of witchcraft ended,” she adds, breaking into an infectious cackle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry, 33, Manchester

Occupation Waiter and musician

Guardian Australia’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Miles Herbert

• Get this in your inbox every weekend. Sign up for Five Great Reads here

Hello and welcome to the weekend.

This week, we have selected stories that will move you. A dispatch from a disaster zone, where rescue teams are sifting through scattered, buried remnants, a feature about walking away from a community that once welcomed you, and a piece on running just to see how far you can go.

Our premier political comedian heads out on tour, while the 70-metre-long woven story of 1066 arrows its way to Britain for the first time

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
Out now
Widely popularised by an episode of Friends in which Ross makes an ass of himself with Isabella Rossellini, the notion of the “celebrity sex pass” completes some sort of cultural loop here as another Friends star, Jennifer Aniston, comes full circle to play a version of herself, the subject of Tom’s (Michael Cassidy) get-out-of-jail lust freebie. A romcom from David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer).

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

Willem Dafoe stars as an ageing bohemian being embraced by a younger generation, while the troubled K-pop stars put the emphasis on their songs. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

• Manager praises team’s resilience after late equaliser

• ‘Everyone has to find a way of making it work’

David Moyes praised Everton’s resilient response to a troubled week after his side twice came from behind to salvage a point against Manchester United through Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s long-range strike.

The deadline-day signing, who was introduced in the 77th minute after James Garner pulled up with cramp, preserved Everton’s unbeaten start to the season with a 25-yard effort in the 96th minute.

• The latest fourth-round updates from Flushing Meadows

• You can mail Daniel here

We’re 4-4 in the doubles and knocking up on Ashe. Thinking more about the match, I’d expect Townsend to use top spin to hit cross at Sabalenka’s backhand, taking her outside the lines if possible. She’ll also try and slow the game down, I think, and frustrate the champ, who doesn’t enjoy the wind-ups.

Townsend comes out wearing a coat that wouldn’t be out of place in the Night’s Watch, photo to follow but, in the meantime:

• Italian overhauls George Russell late on at Monza

• Verstappen third for Red Bull, with Hamilton sixth

For all that they could not enjoy a win for Ferrari, the tifosi at the Italian Grand Prix were treated to a moment that will live long in the memory. Their homegrown hero Kimi Antonelli produced an exceptional, extraordinary victory from 19th on the grid, definitively ­marking his arrival as a potential great of ­Formula One and putting him within reach of his first F1 championship.

The 20-year-old Italian, in only his second season in F1, gave a performance of a seasoned veteran. Antonelli has proved repeatedly this season that he has verve and skill vying at the front with abandon but his comeback drive here proved he has the racecraft, control and judgment to scythe through the field and deliver from a seemingly impossible position.

• Batter hits second ODI century of career to set up victory

• Ireland capture England’s final six wickets for 31 runs

A fine hundred from Sophia Dunkley ensured England sealed a series clean sweep in their third one-day international against Ireland at Worcester on Sunday, but not before a disappointing batting collapse.

The hosts, batting first for the first time in the series, had looked on course for a huge total after Dunkley’s and Maia Bouchier’s powerful ball‑striking up top. But the innings finished limply with the loss of their last six wickets for 31 runs, as England were bowled out for 291 in 48.5 overs.

• Belgian beats Briton Lewis Askey into second

• Bradley Wiggins’ son Ben finishes in 10th

Tim Wellens, teammate to Tadej Pogacar at the UAE Emirates XRG team, took overall victory in the men’s Tour of Britain, after the Belgian rider had decisively snatched the overall race lead on the fourth stage on Saturday, through the hills of North Yorkshire.

Wellens had started the final stage in Earlston 21 seconds ahead of Lewis Askey but extended that advantage to 42sec by the finish. The British rider finished second overall after riding impressively through the earlier stages, while Ben Wiggins, the 21-year-old son of Sir Bradley Wiggins, placed 10th overall.

• Striker scores twice to sink Birmingham

• Arsenal, Palace, Spurs and Liverpool win

Some things just feel inevitable. Some strikers just feel inevitable. Despite a new season, a fresh start and new opponents, it is still the same storyline for Manchester City: Khadija Shaw wins them the game. The Jamaica striker began the campaign exactly how she finished the previous league season, with two goals, and demonstrated why it was so crucial that the club eventually persuaded her to sign a new contract in the summer.

Last season’s Golden Boot winner in the Women’s Super League could have scored at least twice in the first half had it not been for an excellent debut performance from Sophie Baggaley in goal for promoted Birmingham.

• Fermín, Raphinha and Pedri also score in 5-0 La Liga win

• Goalkeeper Koeman Jr scores two penalties in Eredivisie

Lamine Yamal struck twice for Barcelona as they demolished Valencia 5-0 on Sunday to maintain their 100% start in La Liga.

The reigning champions moved three points clear at the top of La Liga after Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid lost 1-0 at Real Betis on Friday. Fermín López, Raphinha and Pedri were also on target for Hansi Flick’s swaggering visitors on a hot afternoon on Spain’s east coast.

• Infantino is under pressure to resign after sell-off plan

• Uefa has led calls for president to quit

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has reiterated his desire to stand for re-election next year despite the continuing controversy surrounding his leadership.

Infantino refused to answer questions about his future when asked by reporters at the Women’s Under-20 World Cup in Poland on Saturday. The 56-year-old Swiss is under severe pressure to resign after trying to sell stakes in Fifa tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors.

• Vardy a free agent after departing Cremonese

• Plans to play on despite burgeoning media career

Jamie Vardy has returned to English football after signing for Burnley in the Championship as a free agent.

Vardy, who will be 40 in January, has signed a contract until the end of the season, having spent last season at Cremonese in Italy. A return to Leicester, where he spent 13 years and was a Premier League champion in 2016 and an FA Cup winner in 2021, was mooted in the summer, only for Vardy to rule out a reunion.

Our US friends may pity Europeans for our low salaries, high taxes and dependence on public transport – but they’re forgetting the really important stuff …

I’m sorry to break this to you, but you may be “Europoor”. This is, apparently, what proud American patriots (the kind who describe themselves in those terms on their flag-forward X profiles anyway) are calling us Europeans, mocking us for our low salaries, high taxes and dependence on public transport.

GB news presenter Tom Harwood declared this dig “entirely accurate”, but is it? Well, sort of. US post-pandemic GDP growth is more than double that of the eurozone (15.6% compared with 7.2%; the UK is even worse on 6.3%). As for wages, once you adjust for national differences in the cost of essentials such as housing, food and services, the US average is $86,977 compared with the UK’s $66,299, Germany’s $76,286 and France’s $60,483, according to the OECD. A Sunday Telegraph investigation of the “Europoor” question highlighted astronomically powerful growth of the US tech sector supercharged by AI, making it easy to raise and make big money unencumbered by “old world” regulation and taxation. “We don’t want to be like what Europe has become,” said the Republican pollster Brent Buchanan.

This young American band, led by Cameron Winter, make music for a generation on the edge

“If you want me to pay my taxes,” sang the 23-year-old man on the stage, loudly accompanied by the thousands in front of him, “You better come over with a crucifix/ You’re gonna have to nail me down.”

Last Thursday night, I stood in a field in Dorset, and watched the headlining attraction on the first night of the End of the Road festival. Geese are a rock group from New York, led by the extremely talented Cameron Winter, who has a lot to say, and an often gnomic, veiled way of saying it. But the meaning of the most celebrated lines on his band’s most recent album – Getting Killed – might be clearer than a lot of the rest.

We’ve all had meetings that could have been emails. Often, this also applies to casual chats with your friends

The last thing you need in a meeting that could have been an email is attachments. Sadly, it’s sod’s law that there’s one oblivious person in every work gathering who raises extra, unnecessary queries using as many words as possible, and holds everybody up. Now, Forbes magazine has helpfully supplied three phrases business leaders can use to stop rambling questions from hijacking or lengthening proceedings, without embarrassing the hijacking lengthener.

But obviously it’s not only the office where we encounter those seemingly hellbent on derailing interactions, so can we steal Forbes’ gameplan for boring chat in real life?

Bond market volatility means John Healey will have to take tough decisions, soon, if he wants to meet spending pledges

In John Healey’s bright Treasury office, overlooking St James’s Park, the artwork has not changed since his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, selected a row of Bridget Riley prints in her feminist rehang. Judging by the signals emerging from No 11 about the chancellor’s 28 October budget, not much else has changed either.

Voters listening to Andy Burnham’s promises to overthrow 40 years of neoliberalism and vanquish the ghost of Margaret Thatcher would be excused for expecting a radical policy reset. Early signs suggest they may be disappointed.

It’s no surprise some analysts say we are already in the midst of the third world war, but ordinary people have more power than we think

Don’t look up! The world is a mess. The sky could fall in any day. Unending wars, expanding humanitarian crises, rising authoritarianism, dysfunctional democracies, rampant racial and religious extremism, and unchecked lawlessness cast a dark cloud as the west’s new political year begins. Set all that against a backdrop of staggering global economic inequality, corporate and individual greed, irresponsible government indebtedness, dangerous AI gambles, climate breakdown and proliferating nuclear weapons, and a truly apocalyptic global outlook begins to take shape. It’s enough to make anyone shut their eyes, cover their ears and utter a Munch-like scream. And it’s only getting worse.

Democratic leaders who promise a better, safer, more optimistic future – what Britain’s freshly arrived prime minister, Andy Burnham, calls a “new era of possibility” – cannot escape this wider international context. Last week’s global bond market upheaval, sparked by external factors, left Burnham’s cash-strapped government struggling with sharply increased borrowing costs before he barely got started. The fact he chose Ukraine for his first overseas trip, while symbolically important, highlighted another grim reality. As a lead opponent of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, Britain now finds itself in a de facto state of war with Russia – and facing attack. Argentina, too, is eyeing UK defence vulnerabilities. These are not the sort of possibilities Burnham envisaged.

I’m one of many creatives turning to teaching mid-career, but that’s no bad thing. I’m thrilled by the prospect

You know those dreams when you’re back at school? And you’re sitting at a desk reading a GCSE exam paper? Only you don’t recognise anyone around you? Well, I am living that dream. Because, at the age of 41, I have gone back to school. And not just any school. I have gone back to my own secondary school. Only this time, I am allowed in the staffroom.

That’s right: a short 25 years after walking out of those concrete and carpeted halls, the smell of polyester jumpers and canteen chips heady on the early summer air, I am back. But now I’m training to be a teacher.

Nell Frizzell is a journalist and author

Global AC demand will inevitably accelerate as the world continues to warm amid the climate crisis

The greenest campaigners against climate change have long suffered from a crippling shortcoming: they too often frame the challenge as a problem of excess consumption. This motivates calls to “degrow” the economy and to curb the population. The claim is that humans consume too many resources, which in the context of climate change means too much energy.

Nowhere has the tension between this proposition and reality become more palpable during this sweltering summer than in the conversation over air conditioning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and Chinese competitors, faces talks with union leaders and government

The government has signalled that it will not invest taxpayers’ money to limit job losses at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), after it emerged that the UK’s biggest carmaker is planning up to 4,000 redundancies.

Before crunch talks on Tuesday between JLR, union leaders and government officials, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was not his job to “intervene and run businesses”.

Slavery’s legacy continues ‘to deprive our country and our people’, says minister, as group prepares to appeal to Jamaica’s head of state

A landmark petition is to be handed to King Charles by Jamaica over slavery reparations, aiming to confront historical crimes that still disadvantage former British colonies, the Caribbean nation’s culture minister has said.

The petition will be lodged with Charles, Jamaica’s head of state, on Monday.

Ash cloud from Anak Krakatau affects hundreds of flights and some school and fishing activities

Indonesia halted operations at eight airports on Sunday, including from its main international hub, affecting hundreds of flights as a result of an ash cloud from the Anak Krakatau volcano.

Saturday’s eruption, which produced lava and booming sounds that were heard up to 435 miles (700km) away, according to Indonesia’s geology agency, also interrupted some school activities and fishing. Two more eruptions were recorded on Sunday.

Beijing wants banks and insurers to bolster investment in stock market as it helps to replenish cash reserves

China will inject $54bn (£40bn) into its financial sector as Beijing attempts to shore up banks and insurers in the face of faltering economic growth.

A host of financial institutions said they were due to receive billions of yuan in capital from state institutions including the ministry of finance and even the company that runs the country’s tobacco monopoly.

May el-Toukhy says we must end veneration of male directors that causes ‘structural problem’ for women

The enduring cult of male genius is keeping down female film-makers, one of the only two female directors in the running for the top prize at this year’s Venice film festival has warned.

“I’ve never ever read an article where a female director is promoted as a genius,” said the Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy, whose film Woman Unknown has been selected for the Golden Lion competition on the Lido this year.

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

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

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

Climate scepticism is common at the Reform party conference, but many also criticise Labour for failing to protect Britons from hot weather

On the second day of the Reform UK conference, in the wake of an undercover investigation alleging party officials plotted to evade the law on foreign donations, the deputy leader, Richard Tice, addressed the audience. Within minutes, a banner appeared behind him reading: “Collect £5m, burn the planet.”

It was taken down promptly and Tice, who has repeatedly called on people to enjoy the summer’s five successive heatwaves and record drought, rolled on. As Reform members at the Birmingham venue applauded Tice, there was plenty of agreement with his views. “I enjoyed the heat this summer,” said Jeanette Bowden, of Bexley. “I don’t think people need telling to take care of themselves.” Her partner, James, added, without scientific backing: “Carbon dioxide was much higher in the past, it was 10 times higher than this during the ice ages. It’s not a human problem.”

The coastal community in California had already been devastated by landslides and wildfires before a fatal crash

California’s rugged Big Sur coastline is often called a slice of heaven, 120 miles (195km) of unspoiled rocky promontories, sandy beaches and redwood forests at the foot of the Santa Lucia mountains. This year, it has endured a long summer of hell.

Wildfires, road closures and repeated disruptions to the local hotel, restaurant and campsite businesses all have posed significant challenges in an era of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns. One large fire broke out in the highlands east of Big Sur in early August and is still less than 25% contained. A second fire erupted 30 miles to the south two weeks later and is so inaccessible to firefighters that it has grown bigger than the first and is barely contained at all.

Experts say invasive species are creating ‘pollinator deserts’ and could have serious impact on food security

British beekeepers have called for a national awareness campaign about the impact of Asian hornets as they warned the invasive species was creating “pollinator deserts” and threatening food security.

Native to south-east Asia, the yellow-legged hornet is thought to have arrived in Europe in 2004 and has continued to spread ever since, its numbers probably boosted by increasingly warm springs and summers.

Tories and Reform hope to unseat the incumbent by tempting some Labour voters to shift to the right

The bicycles have been brought out and eager fists are getting ready to knock on hundreds of doors as the race for one of the most sought-after jobs in British politics springs into action.

Sadiq Khan has had a vice-like grip on London, but a range of candidates hoping to unseat him in 2028 have announced themselves. The three-time mayor has been coy about whether he will stand again, and said he would make a decision next year.

Report documents use of commercial licensing for free or donation-based exercise classes in parks and on beaches

At 6am on the beach at Westgate-on-Sea in Kent, Angela Brier-Stephenson used to meet a small group of about 10 people for yoga.

The class lasted 45 minutes and participants paid what they could.

Exclusive: Tan Dhesi says Argentinian threats make it more crucial than ever that PM increase defence spending

Javier Milei’s threats to the Falkland Islands make it even more important that Andy Burnham increase defence spending immediately, according to the Labour chair of the defence committee.

Tan Dhesi said the comments by the Argentinian president this week show why the government should raise military spending to 3% of GDP by 2030. But he said Burnham’s plans remain mired in confusion after the prime minister appeared to reassure him that the 2030 target would be hit, only for Downing Street to later retreat.

Business secretary looks to simplify corporate reporting rules and exempt some SMEs from certain form-filling

The amount of paperwork businesses are required to regularly carry out could be slashed, the business secretary has announced.

Jonathan Reynolds said he plans to simplify corporate reporting rules and exempt some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the need to carry out certain form-filling exercises altogether.

Storm, which may make impact as soon as Monday, is third system in weeks to threaten state during hurricane season

Hawaii has declared a state of emergency as powerful Hurricane Lowell makes its way toward the islands, with the first impacts expected as soon as Monday.

The storm is the third system in just over three weeks to threaten Hawaii during an active hurricane season in the central Pacific. Lowell remained a category 3 hurricane early on Sunday morning, packing winds of 125 miles per hour while moving north-west at six miles per hour.

Isar Aerospace plans rapid expansion amid race to capitalise on expanding satellite-launch market

A German startup has launched the first commercial rocket to reach orbit from continental Europe, a milestone for Europe’s efforts to secure independent access to space.

Isar Aerospace said on Sunday that it would rapidly ⁠expand satellite deployments after the ⁠first orbital launch of ​its uncrewed Spectrum rocket from Arctic Norway, marking a ⁠breakthrough for a region where several countries are seeking a foothold in the fast-growing market for satellite launches.

Chinese man at Trishuli hydropower project and Nepali woman in Nuwakot found 10 days into rescue operation

Emergency responders have rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal.

The Nepali military said on Saturday a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel.

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

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

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

A spate of serious safety incidents have increased fears about the power and impenetrability of the most advanced models

Picture humanity in a boat being swept down a raging river, praying there is no Niagara Falls ahead. Or imagine standing with the pioneering physicists in 1942 before they triggered the first self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction beneath a Chicago stadium.

These were two of the analogies used this week by Prof Robert Trager, an expert in the nascent field of AI governance, to describe the perilous but potential-filled moment the world stands at with accelerating artificial intelligence.

From mortgages to inflation, concerns about the public finances of major economies have wide-reaching consequences

When Donald Trump was asked recently about the threat of rising interest rates on US government debt, he told baffled reporters: “The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, his bellicose words did not soothe fractious bond markets, and his resumption of the bombing campaign against Iran only made matters worse.

Under-pressure carmaker will shed 15% of workforce and halve its product line in sector’s biggest ever restructure

The car company Volkswagen has approved controversial plans to shed 100,000 jobs in a battle for survival as it faces fierce competition from Chinese rivals.

After the latest round of talks this week, the company announced a further 50,000 job cuts and agreed a staggered end to current production at four German plants: Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and the Audi site in Neckarsulm between 2031 to 2034. There are no specific plans beyond that.

Bank of England governor says central bankers must explain decisions or risk being seen as ‘unrepresentative elite’

The governor of the Bank of England has said the rise of populist politicians presents a serious challenge to independent central banks.

As Nigel Farage’s Reform UK gathered for its annual conference in Birmingham, Andrew Bailey said central bankers must be prepared to explain their decisions to the public or risk being attacked as an “unrepresentative elite”.

Acclaimed Korean director Lee Chang-dong returns with an inspired account of an unhappy married couple befriended by a documentary maker and her wealthy husband

Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong brings to Venice his first feature for eight years. It is a finely judged, beautifully acted and rather novelistic work, in which a character at one point actually compares her surroundings to something from a novel. It is expansive and diffuse in terms of storytelling scope and dramatic focus, rich in intelligence while paying its audience the compliment of treating them as intelligent also. There are moments of pure inspiration in the superb flashback scenes of two characters’ early lives, and I rather regretted that these flashbacks were phased out relatively early on and that more was not made of their relationship with the present. Possible Love is perhaps a little contrived and self-aware and unsure how much emphasis to lay on its moments of irony and comedy, but it is made with such fluency and verve.

It is a tale of two couples. Jeon Do-yeon (from Lee’s Secret Sunshine) and Sul Kyung-gu play Mi-ok and Ho-seok, a deeply unhappy married couple from a blue-collar background with a young son. Ho-seok is angry, depressed and struggling with a drinking problem after a catastrophic end to a strike at the factory where he worked. While at the funeral of a colleague of Ho-seok’s, who has taken his own life, he and Mi-ok meet a fashionable and wealthy couple who are making a documentary about the injustice of the way the factory workers were treated. (This couple have a dog instead of a child.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fans of Guilt will enjoy this thriller about two siblings who accidentally kill a man. Plus: more claustrophobic action in Vigil. Here’s what to watch this evening

10.15pm, ITV1

In this bizarre new gameshow, you will encounter John Bercow doing topless karaoke while tossing glitter at pensioners and Joey Essex pounding on the walls of a shipping container. Why? Who knows!

What is The Box? It is easier, perhaps, to list the things The Box is not, if only to give ourselves something to cling to when the more recognisable trappings start to wobble, the floor gives way and we find ourselves in a tent with Joey Essex, watching in silence as a topless John Bercow hurls glitter at an audience of braying pensioners.

So. Some things The Box is not: a sitcom; a medical drama; a property show presented by sockless men with teeth that follow you around the room; a thing about badgers. Beyond this, however, we are on our own. The opening titles do little to assist. “10 BOXES” booms a caption as the camera swoops over a collection of giant yellow containers strapped to the back of a flatbed lorry. “10 CONTESTANTS” it continues, as a montage of coming attractions reveals footage of Graeme Souness squinting at an egg and a member of JLS running towards some trees. And, finally, a distinctly disobliging caption that is nevertheless pivotal to the wilfully befuddling modus operandi of this six-part series: “NO HELP”. Bloody hell. Or rather, “bløødy hell”, because The Box is a Norwegian format so something may have been lost in translation. Anyway, shh, because it’s episode one and here is Gary Lineker.

Favela Rising showed me how a grassroots movement can change the lives of young people. Its ethos is baked into the youth charity I work for – and where two of Ezra Collective met

• ‘Like painting with light’: photographer Temi Adegbayibi on capturing the energy of music

I grew up in Great Yarmouth listening to classical music, learning piano and violin, playing in an orchestra and singing the Beatles in choir. Music was something that was arranged and formal, a privilege handed to me. At 18 I moved to London to study it at university. But outside my small town, I quickly realised that I didn’t have what it took to make it as a performer.

There were, however, two course units that really resonated with me: music therapy and music in cultural industries. They weren’t about being a musician but about using music in the wider world. And so, as graduation approached, I determined that if I could build a career in organisations that helped people through music, that would be a valuable way to pass on the opportunities I’d been given to others.

The Infinity Song artist is embracing uncertainty as she launches her solo career, while challenging the assumptions placed on Black women in music

“I’m trying to figure out where I’m supposed to be, but at the same time enjoying the fact that there’s nowhere I’m supposed to be.” This admission might seem like the beginning of an existential crisis, but it’s a welcome, liminal space for the rising singer and songwriter Momo Boyd. Between her recently released debut EP, a second EP in the works, and two tours, the 27-year-old is being pulled in many directions. But she’s also enjoying the emotionally ambiguous position she’s currently in – it’s what characterizes much of her work.

Boyd, who’s a part of Infinity Song, a pop rock sibling quintet that debuted in 2015, confesses that she’s nervous about striking out on her own as a solo artist. The demands are high: Her debut Miss Michigan tour just finished its US leg this past August and she will continue on throughout Europe in the fall, with a stop in London in November. She said that in comparison to Infinity Song’s sound, which can be characterized by guitar-driven melodies full of romanticism. “I’m doing my own thing and it’s a bit folksy, emotional and personal.” One might expect that Boyd being both a solo artist and an ensemble group member means that she runs the risk of producing indistinguishable bodies of work. But her moodier sound could not be more different from the family band’s more optimistic tunes. Nevertheless, the young singer is quick to say that the balance between the two lanes has been “pretty easy”.

Royal Albert Hall, London
Smartly programmed Prom included a nimble rendition of Britten’s Violin Concerto, the visionary masterpiece that is Vaughan Williams’s Ninth, and the world premiere of Carmel Smickersgill’s A Brick Thrown With Love

Over a century of British music was on display at this smartly programmed Prom in which the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic proved you don’t have to hail from Berlin to hold a London audience spellbound. Principal guest conductor Andrew Manze bookended the concert with career-spanning works by Vaughan Williams, there was a world premiere from Carmel Smickersgill, and Simone Lamsma was a commanding presence in Britten’s Violin Concerto.

Smickersgill’s A Brick Thrown With Love imagines an act of protest from three perspectives: the idea itself, the affected community and the person responsible for lobbing said brick. The opening movement featured a cheeky clarinet theme, mocked, distorted and ultimately hijacked by a subversive orchestra. A shiver of bells built to an elated climax in part two before shifty, syncopated brass propelled the third section to a brutal catharsis. The musical impasto was applied a little thickly in places but the imagination was impressive.

Girl bands from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are going global with their fusion of traditional and modern sounds

“We all know that music is a universal language,” says Maloi Ricalde from Filipina girl band BINI, which mixes tropical pop with traditional songs, English with Tagalog, and silver knee highs with pastel colours.

“Incorporating Filipino language, Filipino culture, Filipino sound, into our music, it really gives identity and meaning to our music,” Ricalde tells the Guardian.

The Vancouver band earned a cult fandom for their uncompromising gigs. As they ready their brutal debut album, they discuss subverting audience expectations and the nightly toll of excavating trauma onstage

You’d be hard pressed to find a band with fewer airs and graces than Piss. First, there’s the unavoidable matter of their name, which they style in all caps, no nonsense; a word that scans as vulgar and combative but also somewhat facetious when displayed on their merch in loopy cursive, sometimes decorated with bows. The Vancouver quartet’s music is a merciless cyclone of hardcore, poetry, sound collage and performance art that revolves entirely around singer Taylor Zantingh’s experiences with sexual violence.

On stage at Eindhoven’s Hit the City festival in late August, the band greets the stacked crowd with a trigger warning before drummer Garreth Roberts, bassist Gavin Moya and guitarist Tyler Paterson launch into pulverising fits of noise-punk, broken up by audio samples of children laughing and feminist writer Andrea Dworkin talking about pornography. Zantingh hurls herself around, clutching at her stomach and flinging her pigtails before winding down to a nervous, twitching standstill. The intense set is finely tuned to present a narrative of gender-based violence not as entertainment, but as lived experience. They play it exactly the same every night, and have done for the last two years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In other words, books matter. Reading matters.

The author on dashed dreams of being the next Bob Dylan, cruel words from a revered poet and listening to his own snores

Born in Dublin, Sebastian Barry, 71, published his first novel in 1982. In 2005 and 2008, A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture were shortlisted for the Booker prize; three of his other books have been longlisted. Barry has twice won Costa book of the year and he was laureate for Irish fiction. Tomorrow he discusses his latest novel, The Newer World, at Queen’s Park book festival in London. He is married with three children and lives in County Wicklow.

When were you happiest?
Purely and unconsciously, living on Greece’s Paros aged 25. Exhausted and happy, when our babies were small.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National Theatre, London
Letitia Wright plays the ambitious young reporter seduced into cutting corners with contentious reporting in a brilliantly kinetic production

Tracey Scott Wilson’s play follows in the fine tradition of the fast-paced newsroom drama, beginning with the cold-blooded murder of a white schoolteacher by an unknown Black assailant as his pregnant wife watches. Cue moral panic, rolling news and the entry of a fiery young journalist determined to solve the case.

That is where the Watergate-style investigative blueprint warps because Yvonne (Letitia Wright, of Black Panther fame) is no simple hero in pursuit of truth. She is an ambitious Black woman, assigned to an enclave of a newspaper reserved for Black journalists. Her imperious editor, Pat (Lorraine Toussaint) is after positive news stories on the Black community while her white editor boyfriend, Jeff (Wilf Scolding) promises her a bigger gig if she proves herself worthy.

Actor will play 15th-century hero in sweeping production about Welsh rebellion against English crown

There are myriad films, plays and books focusing on heroes of English, Scottish and Irish history but far fewer that tell the stories of the great figures of Wales.

A major new play about the Welsh nobleman Owain Glyndŵr’s early 15th-century rebellion against the English crown will help redress the balance this autumn.

A collection of previously stored away pictures will be displayed at a new exhibition to mark 25 years since the deadliest terrorist attack in US history

He saw the first one on September 11 itself. “Missing”, said a hastily designed poster on the window of a bar in Tribeca providing food and water to first responders. It was a plea for information about a person who had vanished in the deadliest terrorist attack in US history.

“I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be …’” recalls Phil Buehler, an artist and photographer who had watched the twin towers collapse from his office window. “But you knew that there would be very few survivors. You knew it then.”

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
Even though Beyoncé rumours prove unfounded, there are plenty of guests, from Idris Elba to Lauryn Hill – but this show doesn’t need cameos to lift it

Jay-Z’s first solo tour in nine years bills itself as a celebration: it marks the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. But it feels less concerned with nostalgic reverie than a show of strength in the present day. Hip-hop is a genre predicated on constant forward motion, in which careers tend to burn brightly, then dim as the music moves on. Jay-Z may not be the only fiftysomething rapper out on a career retrospective tour in 2026, but he is, unequivocally, the only one who’s capable of doing it at this level: packing out the biggest stadiums in the world nearly a decade after he last released an album, his standing impressively undiminished by a retreat into semi-retirement.

Moreover, he’s doing it in considerable style. The show’s musical approach can clearly trace its origins back to 2001, the year Jay-Z solved the problem of how on earth a rapper was supposed to appear on MTV Unplugged by eschewing hip-hop’s standard DJ-and-backing-tapes approach and employing a live band: the Roots were apparently astonished to be asked, but the end result was pretty jaw-dropping. Back in May, his first solo gig in five years essentially recreated it – he headlined the Roots’ annual Picnic festival with Questlove and co in tow once more – but the Jay-Z 30 tour supersizes it, featuring not just a 10-piece band, but an 18-piece string section. The resulting sound can, very occasionally, feel a little de trop – the squealing metal guitar solo appended to Can I Live definitely seems surplus to requirements – but for the most part, it works extraordinarily well, amping up the cinematic sweep of Empire State of Mind and the lush 70s-soul inflections of Izzo (H.O.V.A), adding a thunderous heft to Public Service Announcement and 99 Problems. It also serves to underline Jay-Z’s technical skill: a lesser rapper would be swallowed up by the density of the sound, but the precision of his delivery consistently cuts through.

Photographer Max Dupain’s diverse and creative output helped shape Australia’s visual identity in the mid to late 20th century. A major retrospective, Definitive Dupain, runs at the State Library of New South Wales until July 2027

• Sydney Dance Company’s 40 years at the Wharf – in pictures

The Dutch photographer was pleased to capture this suitably orange scene in some toilets in Rotterdam

‘I must admit I was very sceptical of phone photography at first,” Henk Stam says. Sixty years ago, he received his first camera for his 11th birthday. The advent of a newer technology initially stumped him. “My first portable phone, that we used to call ‘a brick’, had a terrible camera that took fuzzy pictures. But like everyone, I noticed the steady improvements,” he says.

This photo was taken in Portlantis, a visitors’ centre in the Port of Rotterdam that opened in spring 2025. Stam spent his working life in Canada but was born in the Netherlands and returned there on retirement. With a friend from his photo club, he went to visit Portlantis on a Monday, but found it closed. “As we were leaving, we noticed a large tour bus arriving filled with teenagers,” he says. “We simply joined the slipstream as they entered; no one batted an eyelid.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The best supermarket anchovies, tasted and rated

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughtful, clever cooking that errs on the side of tasty

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

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

A delicious and triumphant blend of Levantine and Malay cuisines

This is a dish with roots in ancient Egypt. There, it started life as ful medames, the famous fava bean dish lightly seasoned with cumin, garlic and lemon. Then it was, reportedly, brought to Johor in Malaysia by Arab traders. It has since been adopted and adapted with a fierce sort of love, plus more spice and a tin of baked beans. I adore it. It’s a very delicious dinner and a triumphant blend of two cuisines.

High food prices are affecting everyone right now, but it turns out they are affecting some people way more than others. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks at the grocery price situation and official healthy eating advice in different countries to find out how food prices are hitting lower-income households harder and whether it’s even mathematically possible to eat a government-recommended healthy diet

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

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

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

When Karen Bleakley locked eyes with Matt on the dancefloor, it was a sign of a new beginning. But when she lost his number, she thought she’d never see him again

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

In 2002 I was in the midst of a messy breakup, so my friend Clare did what friends do – she took me out, fed me shots and showed me a good time.

We were at Route 66, a cheesy nightclub in Portsmouth on the southern coast of the UK, that was blasting 80s tunes. Then on the dancefloor I saw him: a young, hunky Ryan Phillippe lookalike, if Ryan Phillippe had spent the summer windsurfing. Matt, a Portsmouth local, was all blond curls, tanned skin and bright blue eyes that caught mine as I stared at him.

It’s kind of you to wonder if you should change the way things were left, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But it’s possible his preference is already clear

• Read more Leading questions

My dad died suddenly earlier this year, with no will, and I am unsure as to how I should distribute the estate. We are talking about very modest sums of money – about £5,000 (US$6,750, A$9,500) in total.

My dad was a very ethical person. While his death was unexpected, he had a sense it was coming. About six months before he died, he arranged for the disposal of many personal effects. The lack of a will, given his self-discipline and preferences for forward planning, is odd.

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

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

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

As the government prepares to crack down on ‘phoney bargains’ we ask experts about what exactly constitutes a genuine price reduction

When is a sale not a sale? Online and on the high street, some shops just always seem to be selling at a discount.

Whether it’s the closing down sale that goes on for years, or the crossed-out original price that you can’t remember ever paying, some retailers try all kinds of ways to convince us we are getting a bargain.

As the battle for current account customers takes a new twist we look at how tempting the offers really are

Fancy up to £500 of “free” cash – or how about a complimentary eco-friendly electric toothbrush? Many of Britain’s banks are offering sizeable “welcome bonuses” and other freebies in an attempt to convince people to switch to their current accounts.

This week the battle was turned up a notch. Santander is offering £240, while NatWest is hoping to tempt high-earners to defect by dangling the carrot of £500.

Sell-off raises concerns of higher borrowing costs for households. Here’s what it could mean

The bond market sell-off has sparked fresh fears of higher borrowing costs for UK households. We look at what the turmoil in financial markets could mean for your mortgage, pension and savings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Studies have found that anti-inflammatory drugs can improve your mood. But what does that mean for conditions such as depression and anxiety?

Inflammation is the immune system’s response to injury or infection. If you cut yourself and the area becomes red and swollen, that’s inflammation: immune cells are rushing to fight germs and repair tissue.

But inflammation can also occur in the body during illnesses, and a low level of inflammation can arise from obesity or ageing. “A marker of that inflammation tends to be elevated cytokines in people’s blood,” says Prof Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London and author of Immune Health: A Myth-Busting Guide. “They’re the molecules immune cells use to communicate with each other.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September is the most fun time of year to shop, but it can also be dangerously seductive. Keep your wits about you with these tips

I used to love back-to-school shopping when my children were little. The miniature highlighter pens, the name labels, those pop-out pencil cases from Smiggle, even the intergenerational wrangling over when the price of a water bottle becomes unreasonable. I love the ceremony of new beginnings. The curtain-raising drama of it all.

Luckily for me, you don’t have to grow out of back-to-school shopping even though your children do, because in fashion September is considered the start of the new year. This is eminently sensible, because this time of year is a much better moment for a restart than January. The actual new year is dark and bleak and makes resolutions and projects feel intimidating rather than exciting. But right now, the evenings are still light, and while I’ve still got a bit of a tan pretty much anything feels possible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Distilleries are the backbone of Islay’s economy and tourist trade. Thanks to their success, other businesses – from breweries and farms to restaurants and chocolatiers – are now thriving and adding to the island’s appeal

The Paps of Jura disappear into the mist as I pedal along the shores of Loch Indaal, and the rain cloud I’ve been racing finally catches up. I stash my hire bike at Port Charlotte youth hostel, quickly change and make it to Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen just before the downpour.

I’m soon warmed, by the welcome then by a bowl of creamy fish chowder. “We’ve plenty of fresh seafood just in,” is all the temptation I need to order the seafood plate. It’s a bowl for one, but a hungry one, and soon I’m picking and cracking my way through piles of fat langoustines and crab claws, with hot whisky-butter scallops and plenty of bread and butter.

Social media, mental health problems, the pandemic and financial instability all contribute to the phenomenon

On Tess Lavanda’s YouTube channel there is one video with substantially more views than the rest: it is titled “I don’t have any friends” and has been watched more than half a million times since she posted it a month ago.

Over on Instagram she has posted dozens of reels with titles like “I turned 22 alone”, “Living alone in London” and “Feeling alone this summer is OK”, each garnering thousands of views and hundreds of comments, many from people feeling the same way.

Has your cat been gaining weight and staying out at night, only to arrive home reeking of marijuana? These are just some of the signs that a neighbour is trying to entice them away ...

When Amy’s cat, Sid*, first started spending more time away from home, Amy* put it down to wanderlust. A former street cat, Sid had landed on his feet in her leafy London suburb, but still retained his free-roaming sociability. When Sid began disappearing for up to days at a time though, Amy worried. She put a tracker on his collar to find out where he was going. She didn’t expect to discover him a few doors up the road.

Sid is roaming – but most of the time, for entire afternoons and even sometimes overnight, he is with Amy’s neighbour. “He is in her house, constantly, all the time,” she says. This is not a coincidence. Sid might not be getting six dinners, like his famous namesake in Inga Moore’s 1990 children’s book, but the neighbour is certainly spoiling him, as she recently let slip to Amy’s partner. “She’s feeding him organic chicken!” Amy says indignantly.

Isle of Lismore, Argyll: They skim over the surface like stones, making such a hullabaloo you could hear them a mile away

I hear them before I see them: a wailing, or something more like ululation. High-pitched, repeated vocalisations that are neither man nor cat, but somewhere in between. I throw open the cabin door, unsure what to look for, and for a moment see nothing new: only the rocky strand and the sweep of dark wrack high above the shoreline.

The strange, warbling sound comes again. Ai-ai-ai-ai. Not quite screaming, not quite howling, not quite trilling, but all of those things at once.

A new breed of adventurer is chasing internet fame by targeting uncontacted peoples. Critics say they are risking the wellbeing of these remote communities – and their own lives

He set out from the beach around midnight, packing his camera, a coconut and a can of Diet Coke. Mykhailo Polyakov – then 24 and a native of Scottsdale, Arizona – pointed his inflatable dinghy out towards the open water, keeping his speed slow in the hope of avoiding detection.

After hours of motoring across the Bay of Bengal, his destination came into view: a low-lying island, narrowly separating sea and sky. With the sun now high above him, Polyakov cut the engine and set his GoPro to record. “So, the goal,” he said, squinting towards the blinding-white beach. “Introduce this Palaeolithic tribe to modernity … Let’s land on this bitch.”

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

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

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

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

Tapestry’s loan to UK is just another chapter in the love-hate relationship that has spanned the centuries since it was created

Five British prime ministers ago – and six French ones – when Emmanuel Macron first confirmed that France would return the Bayeux tapestry to Britain after 1,000 years, he told an audience at Sandhurst and Theresa May – the No 10 seat-warmer of the day – that when it came to France and Britain there were “two things that nothing can change, be it a vote or a political decision: our history and our geography”.

It was January 2018, 18 months after the UK had voted to leave the EU, and relations between the near neighbours were not good. The French political establishment had been shocked and angered by Brexit; personal relations were frazzled, and cross-Channel government contacts measurably dwindling. This was not a rupture that a piece of embroidered medieval linen, however perfectly it represented that tangled history, was going to solve on its own.

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of Gloria Steinem – whether you met her, or appreciated her work

Gloria Steinem, the American feminist and journalist whose activism helped push through greater rights for women around the world has died, aged 92.

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of Gloria Steinem – whether you met her, or appreciated her work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wake up to the top stories and what they mean – free to your inbox every weekday morning at 7am

Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

Get smart, sustainable shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox, every Sunday

The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.

A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.

Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.

Upgrade your space today, with eight emails packed with tips to brighten up your home - whatever your budget

Embrace your space: the Guardian’s House to Home newsletter is bursting with tips and tricks to help you boost your bedroom and give your living room some love.

Sign up any time, and get eight emails direct to your inbox every Sunday morning.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world