Too costly for most, too large for UK car parks, and wheels bigger than a warlord’s pickup truck. But it does come in ‘London red’

• Jaguar targets young Americans with Type 01 EV

The cutting-edge car du jour, even while very few will ever buy one, is a good index of what the world’s coming to. It’s a dress-for-the-job-you-want principle, on wheels: drive for the world you want to inhabit.

That’s why when Tesla launched the Model X with a bioweapon defence mode (2016!), we should have been much more worried than we were, and it’s why the Jaguar Type 01 Grand Tourer EV has a lot to say.

Jeremy Strong’s slow-talking Facebook founder turns into a cameo, background to a thriller about a whistleblower that somehow never mentions Trump

Here is a film for all those people who solemnly deplore social media in conversation but haven’t quite got round to deleting their accounts. Sixteen years have gone by since The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher; this was the addictive, obsessive-compulsive movie about the birth of Facebook in Harvard’s macho-competitive cauldron of student sexism and nerdy self-pity, starring Jesse Eisenberg as the fast-talking, arrogant, not-necessarily-evil genius Mark Zuckerberg. Now Sorkin is back with a sequel of sorts, directing his own script – and now Zuckerberg is basically evil, but also weirdly slow talking, as if all the zinging, smart-alecky Sorkinesque dialogue energy of the first film has been siphoned away in early middle age and dispersed among the insurgents in the new cast.

Sorkin’s jittery, funny, syncopated style is unmistakable, as distinctive in its way as David Mamet, although he has one joke about “spatula” being a Yiddish word that he has borrowed from Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. It is the story of how in 2021, Zuckerberg’s Facebook empire was challenged by courageous whistleblower-employee Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz, who were on a mission to tell the world how Zuckerberg, scared by falling revenue, changed the algorithm so that engagement was supercharged by rage bait and hate speech, malice and envy. Facebook, moreover, didn’t factcheck political ads, thus driving a huge, nationwide surge in extremist groups and teen bullying and becoming a major player in the Capitol riots. (Having said that, this film does not say aloud the word “Trump” and rather cravenly declines to specify Maga activity.)

The Tory leader is now too big for the party to allow her to fail, so everything she does is acclaimed a work of genius

Where’s AI slop when you need it? It could all have been so much simpler. Just ask ChatGPT to write me a leader’s speech in the style of Kemi Badenoch. Make it an hour and 10 minutes long, so plenty of room for padding. Go heavy on the slogans, cliches and the obligatory crap politician jokes. Ones we’ve all heard many times before. Not least at this conference.

Make the usual digs at Labour and put the boot in to Reform. The main aim of the speech is to try to reposition a party that is tanking in third place on 20% in the polls as the main opposition to the government.

From a breathless tango to a kiss that sent fans wild, the pair crafted a sensational seven-year TV crush. The real-life best friends talk first impressions, Casablanca moments – and having hot husbands

• Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan on their heart-melting TV romance

“Dr Crane, your glockenspiel has sprung to life!”

It was a crush. An unexpected one. The psychiatrist Niles Crane (snooty, conflict-avoidant, married to a high-society wife with a fear of buffets) fell for his father’s physio, Daphne Moon (working class, Mancunian, reckons she’s a bit psychic) the moment he met her in his brother’s Seattle apartment.

Christa Pike, a death row inmate who survived the state of Tennessee’s attempt to execute her last week, is conscious and speaking. The 50-year-old is recovering in hospital after surviving two lethal injections in a case that has shocked many in the US and prompted a debate about the death penalty. She was due to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Michael Safi speaks to the chief reporter for Guardian US, Ed Pilkington – watch on YouTube

Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
With a WWE-style wrestling match, playful eroticism and a fine cast including Hamilton’s Jonathan Groff, this is an exquisite production

‘To liberty, and not to banishment,” exclaims Celia to Rosalind, the exile who finds freedom in her disguise as a man. It is a key statement in Shakespeare’s transformative, gender-bending pastoral comedy, just before the usurping Duke Frederick’s court is replaced by the romance of the Forest of Arden. That big reveal brought a prolonged technical difficulty on the opening night of director Daniel Evans’ all-male production, which was paused for well over an hour so it could be fixed. The technical hitch aside, it is a ravishing staging, with stunning visual effects.

There is little comedy or light in the severe court, which contains an intimidating physicality to reflect Duke Frederick’s thuggery, with slaps, shoves and a magnificently constructed WWE-style wrestling match, complete with bunny girls keeping score. It is replaced by Arden’s verdant hills on Anisha Fields’ exquisite set, so beautiful they verge on the voluptuous. The black Elizabethan gowns of the court, Puritan-like but flecked with ornament, and designed by Colin Richmond, are stunning too, as is the chequered shadow-play of the early scenes, in Ryan Day’s lighting design. The breathtaking contrast of the switch between worlds is inevitably lost, following the long wait of the technical problem, but is nonetheless beautifully envisioned.

Overhaul of special education in England could unravel, thinktank finds, because of ‘use it before you lose it’ dynamic

Labour’s flagship changes to special education in England are at risk of unravelling because parents are rushing to secure support for their children before the system changes, new analysis has found.

The Institute for Government (IfG) thinktank says the government’s plans to largely replace education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England with more widespread support in mainstream schools may be too optimistic and take longer to complete than its 2030 timeline.

TaxWatch contradicts claims about David Reuben’s departure and questions stories of super-rich exodus

• Apparent exodus of super-rich suggests UK is no longer billionaires’ playground

When the Sunday Times broke the news that David Reuben, one of the richest men in the UK, had apparently fled to the tax haven of Monaco, there was much pearl clutching. Reuben had moved from his Holland Park house in London to live full-time in the principality.

Labour’s tax regime was blamed and there were said to be fears there would be a cascading effect across the economy, with wealth draining from the UK. It was reported that he had probably left because of potential taxes on wealth in the upcoming budget.

‘Transparent information sharing’ from Moscow is required to conduct full risk assessment, UN agency says

The World Health Organization has said it does not have the “full picture” from Russia following the suspected death from plague last week of a 28-year-old laboratory worker in Siberia.

Darya Shipilova died two days after falling ill with cold-like symptoms. She was an employee at the anti-plague research institute in the eastern city of Irkutsk, with some reports suggesting she was infected after a workplace accident.

Optogenetic therapy, based on Nobel prize-winning science, involves turning nerve cells on and off using light

A type of gene therapy based on Nobel prize-winning science is safe and can partly restore sight in blind people, researchers have revealed.

The approach, known as optogenetic therapy, harnesses the technique for turning nerve cells on and off using light that scooped the 2026 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.

Convicted pair, plus third man released in August, have IPPs replaced after serving much longer than minimum terms

Two men jailed with indefinite sentences for public protection (IPPs) have been freed after each serving about two decades in custody despite receiving minimum terms of two years or less.

A high court judge and a magistrate hearing an appeal after a review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) told Luke Ings and Liam Bennett they would be freed, and also replaced an indeterminate sentence given to a third man, James Ward.

Organisations honour those who died three years ago as Andy Burnham says government stands with British Jews

British Jewish organisations gathered in central London on Wednesday for a vigil honouring victims of the 7 October attacks in Israel, after a day of tributes from politicians and community leaders.

The vigil took place at Richmond Terrace, opposite Downing Street. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Three years ago, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdering 1,200 men, women and children, injuring thousands and taking 251 people captive. May their memories for ever remain a blessing.”

Veteran leftwinger has been ‘in exile in the east’ in Russia and not been to Holborn and St Pancras constituency since campaign began

George Galloway has been elected seven times to parliament, but his attempt to succeed for an eighth this week, in the London seat formerly held by Keir Starmer, is undoubtedly his most curious effort yet.

Since the byelection campaign began, the leader of the Workers party of Britain has yet to set foot in the UK, let alone the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, because he is in what he describes as “self-exile” after being questioned by counter-terrorism police at Gatwick airport a year ago.

DNA analysis of oldest living land animal reveal patterns on genes that appear to protect functioning of mitochondria

The ancient quest to extend human lifespan has received a boost after scientists analysed the genetic code of the world’s oldest living land animal, a giant tortoise called Jonathan.

The tortoise, which lives in the grounds of Plantation House, the official residence of the governor of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, is believed to be 194 years old, making him a contemporary of Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin.

Sir James Goldsmith’s links to Hilton Head, South Carolina, add to mystery of Jane Doe 4, who claimed she was abused by Epstein in the 1980s

For Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Goldsmith family was a gateway to elite society and he wanted to be in their circle.

The disgraced financier, who died in prison in 2019 facing sex-trafficking charges, longed for a billionaire’s lifestyle and cultivated the family’s friends, bankers, business associates and advisers.

Israeli communities shattered by Hamas massacres are torn between rebuilding their lives and remembering lost friends and relatives

Keith Siegel spent many of his long hours in Hamas captivity in Gaza etching everything that happened after 7 October 2023 into his memory. For 484 days, he recited to himself every place he was held, the dates he was moved and every attack or humiliation he endured or witnessed.

He aimed to store intelligence that could help Israeli forces free other hostages if he was released, to keep track of time as the days slid by and be able to tell his family what happened to him. Now his body is free, but he cannot loosen those memories.

At Conservative conference, some worry about becoming a one-woman party, while others say party should thank their lucky stars they have her

• UK politics live – latest updates

Kemi Badenoch has long said that the Conservatives were “under new management”, but in a TV interview to mark the end of a party conference at which she has been front and centre of more or less everything, she took the analogy further.

“Your viewers will know that sometimes you have a football team that’s disappointing,” the Tory leader told GB News. “There’s a new captain, there’s a new coach, there’s a new owner, effectively – which is all me.”

This year’s Nobel prizes in chemistry, physics and physiology or medicine have celebrated work that has been used to develop countless drugs and transform modern medicine, allowed physicists to observe one of the most mysterious particles, and provided a tool that could act as an on/off switch for brain cells. To find out more, Madeleine Finlay talks to our science editor, Ian Sample, and correspondents Nicola Davis and Linda Geddes

Nobel prize in medicine 2026 awarded for research into mysteries of brain

Nobel prize in physics goes to Francis Halzen for south pole work on neutrinos

Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for work on mirror-image molecules

Sales at one UK retailer are up 200%, thanks in part to young people rejecting the informal look adopted by their middle-aged bosses

Name: Ties.

Age: Originated in the early 17th century.

Òran Mór, Glasgow
Blythe Duff and Mark Barrett are excellent as two people helplessly bound to each other in this bitter two-hander

The arrival of a first baby changes everything. It is not just the upheaval of fitting the child into your life: the shift is also psychological. Children become parents. Parents become grandparents. Responsibility and accountability move down a generation.

That is why, in Jonny Donahoe’s knotty, bitter two-hander, a man known only as Son (Mark Barrett) has called on Mother (Blythe Duff) after an eight-month gap. She is spikily indifferent to his appearance, here in her back garden where she is burning family photographs on a bonfire. Despite the frosty reception, he must persist.

A little exhibition of Daidō Moriyama at his artiest and strangest, like Warhol with added filth, is among the best on show in London’s free-entry commercial galleries this week

If it’s a crime to have a crush on an elderly avant garde Japanese street photographer then lock me up and throw away the key, because I have some seriously strong feelings for Daidō Moriyama. His ultra-confrontational, high contrast, aggressive take on photography just gets me blushing, what can I say.

From Carrie’s bullies to Cathy Ames, sympathetic backstories have made villains boring. It’s time to bring back truly awful villains – in all their deliciously sinful glory

The new Netflix adaptation of East of Eden largely sticks to the plot of the John Steinbeck novel. There are tweaks – the introduction of a wedding photograph, for example, which becomes a significant item – but otherwise, it is faithful to the book. That is, in terms of the plot. There has already been some discussion about what it has done to Cathy Ames, played with considerable ferocity by Florence Pugh. Cathy, who later changes her name to Kate, kills her parents by burning down the family house. She shoots her husband, Adam, and leaves her baby sons wailing and alone. She slowly poisons the brothel madam Faye, a woman who acts as a mentor to her and treats her as a daughter, while simultaneously tricking her into leaving her everything in her will. In the book, Steinbeck lets Kate reflect on killing Faye. She finds that she has “no feeling” about it at all.

She is a brilliant, brutal character, but on television, she becomes something else: complicated. Her cruelty remains intact, but Pugh and showrunner Zoe Kazan have fleshed her out and given reasons for her fury. They invent a scene that implies Cathy was abused as a child by two men in the woods, and when she takes her final bow, the series returns to this moment in flashback, suggesting that her campaign of destruction has been shaped by a life of trauma and pain. In Steinbeck’s hands, Cathy is cold and unfeeling. In the 2020s, Cathy is more sympathetic and less of a brute.

On the eve of the byelection, Polanski’s pledge is to keep the government ‘in check’. It may not be enough to stop a drift back to the political margins

Only a few months ago, in the spring, there was a sense of giddy possibility about the Greens. Zack Polanski’s radical new leadership felt fresh and dynamic, especially compared with those of the other parties. Former Labour supporters, in particular, were switching to the Greens in huge numbers, Green candidates were winning across the country, and the party was second behind Reform UK in some national polls.

Like Reform, the Green party presented itself as a revolt against a failed status quo. Unlike Reform, the Greens’ urgent stance on the climate crisis gave them a potent moral authority: even many people who did not support them believed that the Greens were right about the most universal issue.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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

Conference announcements on inheritance tax and childcare boosted the party’s mood, but the task is still holding off Reform, rather than any realistic bid for power

On paper, the traditional role of the journalist at a British party conference boils down to some simple questions: what was the mood of the assembled activists? Did the leader give a good speech? In practice, the changing nature of conferences and the media makes this superficially simple task more complicated than it may initially appear.

Any journalist covering the leader’s speech, for instance, will have watched it in full. But it will reach the vast majority of its intended audience in fragmentary form, through clips – and speeches are increasingly written with that reality in mind. The conference hall is not really the audience, or the full speech really the product. This adds a layer of complexity to the reviewer’s task.

Kim Kardashian’s revelation that she has five nannies for four children caused a ruckus. But the world of the ultra-wealthy throws up far more extreme approaches to childcare

“I have the best advice for women in business,” Kim Kardashian told Variety in 2022. “Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”

The billionaire got a lot of flak for this comment but no one can accuse her of being a hypocrite. It takes serious graft to spin a sex tape into lasting fame and a business empire. That said, like many high-flyers who preach the importance of hard work, the Skims co-founder isn’t above outsourcing the less glamorous domestic labour. She has primary custody of the four kids she shares with her ex-husband, Kanye West, and, according to an interview with the Sunday Times, employs five nannies to take care of them: “One nanny on duty, four on rotation,” she said. Despite having more nannies than kids, she apparently still does the school run. And I bet she doesn’t turn up at the school gate with yoghurt on her shirt like I do.

Owner of South West Water, Bristol Water and Bournemouth Water is tapping its investors for £550m after sewage spills

• South West Water owner taps investors after sewage spills

Water is “a service where the shareholders never lose and the public never win,” Andy Burnham, the prime minister, told the Labour party conference last week, reflecting the popular feeling towards the industry in England.

And, of course, his big-picture point is familiar: the £80bn, or thereabouts, that has been paid in dividends over the past 35 years represented over-the-top rewards for investors in many cases. It is easy to agree the public was taken for a ride.

One hundred years since the BBC first broadcast choral evensong, MP and former chorister Jonathan Davies hymns a beautiful and empowering collective experience that we should praise – and protect

Some sounds seem to belong to Britain. The peal of church bells. The brass band on a village green. The roar of a football crowd. And, heard from a cathedral at the end of the day, the extraordinary sound of a choir singing evensong.

This year marks the centenary of choral evensong on BBC radio. On 7 October 1926, when the BBC was in its infancy, listeners heard a live service broadcast from Westminster Abbey. A century later, evensong can still be heard on Radio 3 every week from cathedrals, churches, chapels and abbeys across the country. It is the BBC’s longest running outside broadcast and reaches hundreds of thousands of people every week.

I was stuck in traffic when a road sign set me dreaming. If the places on it were people, what would they be like? Could Leigh Delamere be anything but the glamorous heiress to a biscuit-making fortune?

Stuck in traffic in the Wiltshire town of Chippenham, I chanced upon a road sign to Christian Malford and Sutton Benger. Placenames that could be people are dotted across our green and pleasant land – it’s charmingly British, somehow. Waiting to escape Friday night rush hour, I found a persona for Christian Malford taking shape. I had him down as a child actor in one of the early Harry Potters. Sutton Benger was more of a stretch, but I settled on a precociously talented young footballer of Anglo-Norwegian heritage. He signed for Chelsea with great fanfare, but never really made the grade. Poor chap.

The traffic moved on, but my mind didn’t. Once on the M4, I was soon passing Leigh Delamere, the glamorous heiress of an American biscuit-making fortune, now fallen on hard times.

From Day of the Dead to Samhain, celebrating autumn is centuries old. Now, I want this to be a moment of magic and connection for my kids

Darker nights are drawing in, there’s a hint of a chill in the air and the supermarket’s seasonal aisles are groaning with spooky paraphernalia. Halloween is coming. Every year about now, I tell myself I’m going to get my hands on a pumpkin and bake a pie like the ones my mum would make with us when we were little.

Halloween wasn’t a huge deal in our house, and neither was baking, but I hold warm memories of helping my mum go through the steps that led us to one delicious latticed pumpkin pie and one ugly jack o’lantern that we would display in the window with pride.

Kemi Badenoch’s personal brand is not strong enough to revive a party that so thoroughly lost the trust of the British people

For a party that keeps losing elections, the Conservatives have enjoyed a remarkably upbeat conference in Birmingham this week. A party with a strong regicidal impulse is united behind Kemi Badenoch. Opinion polls show the leader’s personal ratings, while not spectacular, outperforming the wider Tory brand. Mrs Badenoch exuded confidence in her keynote speech on Wednesday, setting out what she believes is a path back to power.

The strategic focus is the economy. The Conservative leader expects Andy Burnham’s honeymoon to come to an end when his chancellor delivers a painful budget later this month. A spending review will then compound the pain, forcing grim trade-offs on a prime minister who has a reputation for deferring hard choices.

Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the economic struggles of voters have boosted Democrats. But with less than a month to go, there is no complacency

For once, Democrats and Donald Trump might be in agreement: “Pretend I’m on the ticket,” the historically unpopular president has instructed supporters. Midterms are in large part a referendum on the incumbent, and Trump’s war on Iran and its impact on the cost of living have boosted support for Democrats. With less than a month to go, they have reason to be upbeat. The party has a mountain to climb after the devastating defeats of 2024, and the gerrymandering of Republicans, but surveys give it a lead of about nine points on the generic ballot, which measures preference for parties rather than specific candidates.

Attention has turned from the prospects of seizing the House, where Democrats are forecast a clear majority, to what once seemed like the highly optimistic possibility of taking the Senate too. That would require flipping four seats, with 35 in play. Remarkably, Democrats are prospering in red states from Texas to Alaska. In Kansas – which Mr Trump carried by 16 points, and which has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932 – the race is neck and neck.

Anna Bird and Rick Burgess respond to the government’s proposal to axe the health element from universal credit that disabled people under 25 receive

Reports that the government is considering removing the universal credit health element for disabled people under 25 will be alarming for families (Key disability benefit for young people may be axed under major welfare changes, 1 October). For many, it raises serious concerns about how they will keep disabled young people supported and able to participate in everyday life.

At Contact, we hear from families worried about universal credit and its impact on disabled family members. Some receiving the health element are studying, working part-time or volunteering; others have disabilities so significant that paid employment is impossible.

Readers respond to an article in which Larry Elliott argues that Andy Burnham must challenge neoliberal nostrums

Larry Elliott’s column on the rightwing economic myths constraining Andy Burnham’s government should be required reading before John Healey’s budget (Rightwing economic myths could derail Burnham’s project – to destroy them, look to Keynes, 1 October).

I spent 20 years trading bonds, and agree that the household budget analogy bears no relation to how the UK state finances itself. Parliament votes on the spending, the Treasury instructs the Bank of England, and the Bank credits accounts in the private sector. Taxes withdraw money afterwards.

Steven Kay says Britain should act independently and in a role consistent with its status as a member of the UN security council

Patrick Wintour’s report (Libyan unity talks upended as warlord’s son linked to drone attacks on fuel facilities, 3 October) should not surprise anyone concerned with the attempts to end conflict and seek the unification of Libya. Saddam Haftar, like his father, Khalifa, has been backed by the US to support its aims and ambitions in Libya. There is no logic, if democratic elections are the goal, to be backing a member of the Haftar clan for any role in the future of Libya.

The Libyan population want nothing more than peace, security and to use constructively the wealth that could be generated from their extensive natural resources for the improvement of their society. Instead, their resources are being dissipated in corruption and conflict, a state of affairs that benefits only the warmongers.

Fiona Lindop says she will always be grateful to the TV presenter for establishing the Meet-a-Mum Association

Esther Rantzen (Obituary, 1 October) is rightly remembered and honoured for her wide-ranging charity work, including establishing Childline and the Silver Line. One of the charities that she pioneered was the Meet-a-Mum Association (Mama), founded in 1979. Mama established a network of local groups offering friendship and support for new mothers.

In 1984, I was a young mum with a toddler and a two-week-old baby, and had just moved to Hertfordshire from South Yorkshire. Mama was a lifeline that helped me become part of the new community with access to support, and I joined the local Mama committee soon after.

• Tyrrell Hatton and other big names likely to follow

• Tour filed for bankruptcy after Saudi funding withdrawn

Confirmation that Jon Rahm will play no part in LIV Golf in its post-Saudi Arabian form is likely to be only the start of a mass exodus from the breakaway circuit.

A bankruptcy hearing on Wednesday heard Rahm’s lawyer say “unacceptable” terms proposed by LIV 2.0 mean the Spaniard will shortly walk away from a tour which has lingering hopes of continuing as a going concern. Rahm’s departure from LIV, which he joined in 2023, was inevitable, but still a significant blow and moment in time given his status in his sport.

• Head coach pleased ‘everyone bought in’ to new ideas

• Jarell Quansah says: ‘We can really dominate teams’

Thomas Tuchel believes England have unlocked a new level after moving forward with his tactical tweaks in the opening Nations League fixtures. The head coach wanted the players to retain their aggression, especially in the high press, to step on to the front foot and to harness the chaos often seen in the Premier League. But he has also tried to get them to play with greater freedom, to trust and follow their instincts more – while being alive to the need to cover for their teammates.

The results have been positive. After losing to Spain at Wembley, England recorded three wins: two against Czechia either side of the 7-0 victory against Croatia in Rijeka. They have in essence guaranteed their progress into the quarter-finals of a competition regarded as a tune-up for Euro 2028, while putting a bit of distance between themselves and the heartbreaking World Cup semi-final defeat by Argentina in July.

Verdict has been a long time coming and the Southampton head coach has recaptured hearts and minds at St Mary’s

“Hi Tonda, are you a cheat?” That simple, succinct, question cut to the heart of a matter that has vexed the Football Association all summer. It was posed by the Northern Echo’s Dominic Shaw after Southampton overcame Middlesbrough in the second leg of May’s Championship playoff semi‑final and proved the cue for Tonda Eckert to walk out of his press conference at St Mary’s.

Although Southampton’s manager subsequently admitted to authorising spying on opponents, England’s football authorities struggled to decide what punishment best fitted an act some regard as heinous but which others fail to take seriously. Now, in autumn, we finally have an FA verdict, with Eckert given a six-week ban suspended until the end of the 2027-28 season, a £28,000 fine and a reprimand.

Jorge Messi wanted his country to fall in love with his son. That ambition was fulfilled during a brilliant international career that ended this week

“What Argentina is doing in this World Cup is of a sacred order,” Brazilian writer Milly Lacombe posted at the height of the tide of anti-Argentinian sentiment during this year’s tournament. She was exploring the contradiction she felt around her support of Lionel Messi: “a player who is a God and a man who shakes Trump’s hand”.

Lacombe highlighted the importance of acknowledging the complexities around Messi and the Argentinian team. How is it possible that Messi was not speaking out against the racist incidents we all saw around the Argentina team, she asked. “That’s why it hurts so much to see someone with Messi’s power choosing to make himself small,” she wrote.

Technical director held court at club’s training base, comparing rugby to winemaking and claiming interviews ‘steal my joy’

Brendan Venter began his long-awaited public appearance with head bowed, uttering one‑word answers and with a general demeanour suggesting he would rather be anywhere else. By the end he had compared Prem Rugby to an “autocracy”, mentioned Ukraine and Gaza, and detailed an inspirational talk he recently gave at a school. Of course there was wine to talk, too.

An audience with Saracens’ technical director and head of culture is rarely boring and the latest was worth the wait.

Improvements to the car are paying off as the team look to lay the groundwork for renewed success next season

The importance for Max Verstappen of emerging triumphant from the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia was writ large in the Dutchman’s pleasure at finally being able to drive a competitive car. In a ride with which he was comfortable and able to take to a dominant victory for Red Bull, Verstappen was in his element. With it came a sense of what might have been had he not been long out of the championship fight, but also what might be to come next year.

The transformation was so marked because for so long this season the car has been a handful – the reason Verstappen’s title hopes faded long ago. That the team have come back to deliver a win in such emphatic fashion was no little achievement.

• Four-year-contract secures Spaniard’s future

• Title winner is Premier League’s best-paid manager

Mikel Arteta has promised “this is only the beginning” of what he can achieve as Arsenal manager after signing a new long-term contract that would take his reign at the club beyond a decade if he sees it out.

The Spaniard is understood to have signed a four-year deal worth more than £20m a season, making him the best-paid Premier League manager. That is a hefty pay rise in recognition of his success last season as Arsenal ended their 22-year wait to be crowned champions after three successive runners-up finishes.

• Back end of 2027-28 season likely to be ‘challenging’

• Fixture contestion a growing area of concern

The Women’s Super League will face major disruption next season due to the Club World Cup, with Arsenal and Chelsea likely to be absent from domestic competition for up to a month.

The Guardian revealed last week that the inaugural Women’s Club World Cup is set to be awarded to the US, with transatlantic travel to cause additional problems for European sides, while the proposed dates of 5-30 January will clash directly with the WSL.

In an exclusive interview, former Ipswich manager talks of his lasting affection for the club, savouring time out with family and friends and ideas for his next move

It was on the Portman Road pitch, bathed in bright early May light while immersed in the relief and joy of a third promotion in five years, that Kieran McKenna realised the moment was right. The thought had flickered earlier in the season that this might be his final campaign at Ipswich, only to be pushed into the subconscious by the Championship’s remorseless grind. “But standing out there, I felt this was probably time,” he says of those moments after QPR had been swept aside and a return to the Premier League assured. “Another big victory, a full stadium, in front of my family and the fans. It was an amazing way to go out on a high.”

Five months later McKenna has no regrets about electing to cut things short while the going was so good. The golf bag lying outside his garage speaks of a man enjoying the break and, more pertinently, of something bigger. His son has recently become interested in the sport and sharing those moments with loved ones, whether out on the greens or spending part of the summer travelling along the East Anglian coastline in a camper van, were among the biggest reasons to pause a soaring career. At 40, McKenna had spent two decades immersed in coaching; it was time to appreciate life’s essentials while continuing professional development at his own speed.

Trump earlier said he has ‘no regrets’ about endorsing Ken Paxton amid leaked recordings of state attorney general decrying Iran war and high gas prices

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Tonight, we’ll have another set of midterm debates. In Iowa, we’ll see the Republican nominee for US Senate, Ashley Hinson, face off against Democrat Josh Turek, a state representative and Paralympian at 8pm ET.

The race has become one of the most competitive of this cycle, despite the fact a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate election in the Hawkeye state since 2008. Turek, however, trails by just a point in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll. And Hinson, who currently serves as a congresswoman, has pushed back on Donald Trump’s agenda of late, as the president’s approval rating sinks to a new low. Hinson has called for an end on the war in Iran, despite consistently voting against House war powers resolutions that would curb military action, and criticizing the president’s recent pause on tariffs for foreign beef imports, which, Hinson argues, will affect the bottom line for the many cattle ranchers in Iowa.

Energy and housing costs threaten biggest decline in modern times unless bold action taken, says thinktank

Soaring energy and housing costs mean Labour is on course to preside over the worst parliament for living standards in modern times, a stark analysis warns.

Three weeks ahead of John Healey’s budget, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said Britain faces a “dire” outlook unless the government takes “bold policy action”.

Bernadette Greene-Placentia says she is sharing her story in order to fight for victims of sexual assault

This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

A congressional candidate in Arizona says she was attacked and raped in August while trying to repair one of her damaged campaign signs.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Group’s fighters hit key airport in Aden with explosive moments before plane from Cairo was due to land

Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances on Wednesday in south-west Yemen, approaching the city of Taiz and firing a missile and an explosive towards the airport in Aden, the chief international hub of the Saudi-backed government.

The explosive hit the key airport moments before a plane was due to land. The British ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, said the attack could have endangered thousands of people. It forced the flight – from Cairo – to be diverted to Jeddah and led to a review about the safety of flights in Aden.

Judge tells Tennessee officials all items in execution room must be saved as Pike remains restrained in hospital bed

A judge ordered Tennessee officials on Wednesday to preserve all evidence related to the botched execution attempt on convicted murderer Christa Pike, as it emerged that the state has refused pleas from medical staff to allow her to be unshackled from her hospital bed.

At a hearing in Nashville on Wednesday, judge I’Ashea Myles said: “Anything that was in the actual room” during the attempted execution a week ago must be preserved by the state, including all drugs, intravenous lines and tubing used in the death chamber.

Chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski Island in Antarctica down by two-thirds since 2011, probably due to climate crisis

The world’s largest penguin colony has declined by two-thirds since 2011, most likely because of the climate crisis, a study has revealed.

Scientists said the rapid demise of chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski, the northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands in Antarctica, increased the risk of a wider ecosystem collapse.

Guardian reporters Jonathan Watts and Gabrielle Canon answered your question climate and extreme weather, from what to expect this winter in the UK to the increasing risk of natural disasters

funkymentalist asks: Unrelated to El Niño, what is the likelihood of the AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation) shutting down?

Jon says: I don’t think these two things are unrelated. Everything is affected by climate breakdown. And both El Niño and the slowdown of AMOC are related to the staggeringly huge amounts (see this article on zettajoules which I also referred to above) of extra energy that the oceans are being forced to absorb as a result of greenhouse gas burning.

Quick refresher for any readers who are unfamiliar with this topic: “Amoc, or the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, is a system of ocean currents that brings heat into the northern Atlantic. Warm surface water from the tropics flows north and releases its heat in the subpolar Atlantic, south of Greenland and west of Britain and Ireland. Then it cools and sinks to a depth of between 2,000m to 3,000 metres before returning south as a cold current. Amoc is one of our planet’s largest heat transport systems, moving the equivalent of 50 times the human energy use, and it has a particularly strong impact on the climate in Europe, affects the ocean’s CO2 uptake and oxygen supply, as well as rainfall patterns in the tropics.”

Gaby says: The name “El Niño” actually harkens back to long before forecasters used the phenomenon to track global weather patterns. Fishermen off the coast of South America began to track unusually warm water that would show up every few years right around Christmas - thus “The Little Boy” referring to the Christ child in Spanish. Scientists adopted the name, and added “La Niña” as its counterpart (when sea surface temperatures cool), and together they became ENSO - the El Niño Southern Oscillation. This year, though, feel free to call it “El Monstruo Gordo!” It’s going to be a big one.

As well as books, the new facility in Colorado offers hundreds of kits to connect people with the natural world. We asked five of the first visitors what they thought of it

Mark Fink knows exactly why he opened the first public nature library in the US. “There are a lot of barriers for people to access nature here. We want people to learn about the birds and the plants in their own back yard and to appreciate that you don’t need a three-day camping trip in the mountains to experience nature.”

The library offers people in Colorado’s Adams county the opportunity to borrow books and equipment to help them to engage with the natural world – for free.

This year’s harvest expected to be down 2% on mediocre yield in 2025, when production was lowest in nearly 70 years

France’s wine industry is facing a historic low harvest after the country was hit by a series of summer heatwaves.

At about 35m hectolitres, the total harvest would be down 2% on a mediocre 2025 yield and 14% below the 2021-2025 average, according to estimates published on Wednesday by the ministry of agriculture.

Party hopes to win over affluent middle-class voters as leader rejects calls to ‘unite the right’ in conference speech

Kemi Badenoch has announced that the Conservatives would abolish inheritance tax on family homes if elected, prompting criticism that she is prioritising cutting taxes for the rich.

The Tory leader also said couples would be able to leave an additional tax-free sum of £1m to their families, as the party attempts to shore up its traditional base in southern England.

Sean Peers admits offence against woman who was drugged and attacked for more than two decades

A man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, whose husband had drugged her and invited other men to abuse her.

Sean Peers, 38, had been due to stand trial alongside 11 other men, but admitted one count of assault by penetration on 15 September 2024 when he appeared at Manchester Minshull Street crown court.

Actors and musicians sign open letter urging government to protect residents amid impasse over Orange Order parade

Dozens of artists, actors and musicians including Susan Sarandon and Noel Gallagher have expressed support for Garvaghy Road residents in the impasse over the Drumcree parade in Northern Ireland.

In an open letter to the secretary of state, Chris Bryant, they urged the government to protect residents and to appoint an international mediator to resolve the dispute between the Catholic residents and the Orange Order in County Armagh.

Matt Brittin fields questions on whether ‘bloated’ senior ranks are being spared and lays out iPlayer overhaul

Matt Brittin, the BBC’s director general, has faced a barrage of accusations that frontline staff are being laid off instead of those from the “very bloated” senior ranks.

In an all-staff call, Brittin conceded the BBC was “going to be smaller” but said it could still have a bigger impact. He said it needed to be “a bit more Elvis – a little less conversation, a little more action”.

Authorities say they arrested an 18-year-old who was planning a shooting attack at the Mall of America

FBI officials stopped a potential terrorist attack on the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, authorities announced Wednesday. An 18-year-old was arrested on one count of obtaining a firearm to carry out an act of terrorism.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud had been investigated over the last nearly two years by the FBI. He was arrested Tuesday in a public park after he paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of the Islamic State for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

After a surprise first-round victory, critics suggest son of disgraced ex-president could seek to continue his father’s authoritarian project

• Flávio’s surprise first-round win highlights rapid rise of Brazil’s House of Bolsonaro

Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right frontrunner to become Brazil’s next president, has vowed to “re-democratise” the South American country, increasing fears about a move into authoritarian rule if he wins power.

Brazil was re-democratised in the 1980s after a brutal 21-year dictatorship that Flávio’s father, the disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, has long praised.

New ‘support and training centre’ prompts concern in region but China says it is ‘not directed at any third party’

Satellite images show attack jets stationed at a new Chinese military facility in Laos, which opened last week and gives Beijing’s air force its first foothold in mainland south-east Asia.

Images provided by the commercial satellite provider Vantor show eight light attack aircraft positioned at Ban Keun airport alongside what appear to be more than a dozen military vehicles lined up in rows.

August Hanning, 80, appears before judge after being accused of treason and espionage on behalf of foreign state

A formal arrest warrant has been issued against Germany’s former top spy, with a judge ordering him to be held in pre-trial detention, a day after he was arrested on suspicion of treason and spying on behalf of an overseas intelligence agency.

August Hanning, 80, is accused of buying secret documents from a former colleague and using them to advise a foreign intelligence service, according to the office of the federal prosecutor.

Former Selfridges owners buy UK high street institution from long-term backer Stefano Pessina

The Canadian family that once owned Selfridges department store has bought the UK pharmacy and beauty retailer Boots for $8.9bn (£6.74bn).

Wittington Investments, the holding company of the Weston family that controls the Loblaws grocery chain and Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy outlets in Canada, will own Boots’ UK and Irish retail operations and opticians chain, the No7 beauty brand and a franchise arm in Thailand.

Acquittals of five former bankers come year after supreme court overturned ruling against City trader Tom Hayes

Five more former traders who were jailed for rigging interest rates have had their convictions quashed by the court of appeal in London, after a long battle to clear their names.

The court overturned the convictions of Jay Vijay Merchant, Jonathan Mathew, Philippe Moryoussef, Alex Pabon and Colin Bermingham – all of whom worked at Barclays.

Pennon slashes dividend and launches £550m cash call ‘to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities’

• Burnham, take note: water shareholders have their uses

The owner of embattled South West Water has slashed its dividend and launched a cash call to investors as it attempts to fund infrastructure investment, days after it was hit by a record £7.9m fine for hundreds of sewage spills.

London-listed Pennon said on Wednesday it would tap investors for £550m, as part of a £1bn investment “to drive improved outcomes for customers and communities”.

Postal service says cuts will focus on head office and ‘support function roles’

• Business live – latest updates

Royal Mail is to cut up to 2,500 jobs as the embattled company seeks to restructure its business amid intense competition and the continuing decline in letter deliveries.

The postal service, which has been fined a total of £37m since 2023 for missing delivery targets set by the regulator Ofcom, said the job cuts would focus on head office and “support function roles” with the restructure to be completed by the end of next year.

The Canadian poet and Chinese experimental writer are the bookmakers’ favourites to win, with Haruki Murakami, Gerald Murnane and Margaret Atwood also in the mix

Canadian poet Anne Carson and Chinese experimental writer Can Xue are the bookies’ favourites to win this year’s Nobel prize in literature, set to be announced Thursday.

The frontrunners both have 10/1 odds of taking home the world’s most prestigious literary prize, this year worth 12m Swedish Krona (approximately £900,000), according to Ladbrokes.

‘This is Courtney doing her makeup on the ’95 Lollapalooza tour. I was documenting my generation being hijacked by corporate greed – and destroyed following the sacrificial death of Kurt Cobain’

When I was going through the archives for my rock photo book, I came across my first ever self-portrait, at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, in front of Jim Morrison’s grave. I am a 13-year-old on an awkward trip with my cool father. He had no respect or interest in Jim Morrison, and that photo is like every photo I’ve taken from that moment on – I’m trying to take agency over what is happening. Photography was the absolute first thing that gave me a feeling of having my own say. It became a way of creating my own universe, one that I could trust. It was absolutely my first love.

I was sidetracked into music in a beautiful way by these radical women and a countercultural movement, so the subject of my photographs just changed. It was me within this environment, on stage with Hole, backstage with these luminary, wild people, travelling across the world. My photography followed and morphed with me, and my camera documented my generation being hijacked by corporate greed and destroyed in the wake of the sacrificial death of Kurt Cobain. It was a generational call to document the Lollapalooza ’95 tour, where this photo was taken, for us to understand later. It was also when the wild alternative freaks crossed into the mainstream.

Andrew Garfield’s fictional ploughman joins the historical heroes of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in a dirt-caked, docudrama-style film with disconcertingly silly moments

Paul Greengrass has in fact already made his “uprising” film: United 93, the gut-wrenching 2006 masterpiece about the passengers onboard United Airlines flight 93 who rose up against the 9/11 hijackers and prevented them from hitting their destination and causing fatalities – except, that is, for those onboard the plane. Greengrass’s new movie, shot in his distinctive handheld, docu-reportage style, is notionally about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, in which Wat Tyler and John Ball became legendary for leading an insurrection against the cruel poll tax of Richard II. Or at least … it sort of is. Because the film, in a disconcertingly silly way, imagines the uprising as an origin myth for Robin Hood, or at least someone who’s supposed to be more or less Robin Hood – because that’s not what he’s called and the dates don’t quite match up.

Ex-soldier Tyler and radical preacher Ball, capably played by Cosmo Jarvis and Jamie Bell, are joined by a third fictional hero, apparently destined later to canter through the forest with a wealth-redistribution plan. He is a ploughman, known simply as “Ploughman”, played by Andrew Garfield; grieving the loss of his wife and children to the plague and sickened by the tax collectors’ greed and brutality, he instigates an insurrection that soon merges into other outbreaks of revolutionary rage. This involves rivers of smudgy-faced folk in rough clothes descending on the capital from all directions, to demand concessions from the king to whom they are still loyal and believe to have been misled by advisers.

Rightly described as ‘Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz’, this fun series has the high-spirit and gusto one hopes for in a show about evil killer gnomes

One can never trust marketing materials to accurately describe a movie or TV series, but I’m pleased to report that Gnomes’ official synopsis gets its tone right: “Gremlins meets Hot Fuzz.” This six-part horror-comedy series indeed feels like the kind of rambunctious, high-spirited production that’d be right up the alley of Joe Dante and Edgar Wright, directors of the aforementioned films. Particularly in its air of barely controlled chaos, staged with a slight wink to the audience but never too self-consciously.

It’s also – without a doubt – the greatest television series ever made about murderous garden gnomes awakened by an ancient evil.

After a windier road than expected, Paramount and Warner are now one, under the banner of Skydance, and the film industry is set for a shake-up

Hollywood’s big five have officially become the big four. Following a twist-filled saga that saw the century-old studio Warner Bros nearly acquired by the streaming giant Netflix, only to be outbid by Paramount owners Skydance, the company led by billionaire scion David Ellison. After facing legal opposition that ultimately crumbled, Warner Bros and Paramount are officially under the same corporate roof. They are divisions of Skydance, which joins Sony, Disney and Universal as the remaining major-studio players in Hollywood.

The merger goes beyond film production. Eventually, the streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+ will merge into a single entity, though a timeline has not been disclosed. The television channels HBO, Showtime, CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, TNT, TBS and CNN are among many now owned by a single corporation. The presence of CNN on that list has brought particular scrutiny, given the post-Skydance meddling with the once-respected CBS News, resulting in a rocky stewardship from Bari Weiss, who has overseen a dip in both ratings and prestige for the flagship program 60 Minutes. Weiss isn’t expected to add CNN to her purview; current chair Mark Thompson will remain in place for now, and Skydance has insisted that CNN will remain editorially independent. But given Ellison’s chumminess with Donald Trump, who has long ranted incoherently about CNN’s supposed biases, the presence of an oversight board with Ellison appointees has been cold comfort.

This witty, smart remake takes bullying and telekinetic violence to new extremes. Even the shower scene is more excruciating than the original

The automatic response to the news that a stone-cold classic of any genre is to be remade is: “Why?” In an accompanying letter to critics, the creator of the new TV series Carrie, Mike Flanagan, promises us that this was the first question he asked himself too when he was approached about the project. Why mess with perfection – in this case, the Brian De Palma horror film, based on and nearly eclipsing in terms of cultural currency Stephen King’s debut novel about a telekinetic teen, that has been gloriously shocking audiences for half a century?

But it’s a far less necessary question than usual. Why remake Carrie, a story of teenage bullying, alienation and the vengeful violence they can fuel, for the modern age? Babe, look around! We’ve got the internet now. We’ve taken teenage bullying, alienation and the fuelling of vengeful violence to levels that De Palma and King, with all their vaunted capacity for darkness, could never have imagined! We are, to use a construction popular among the very youth of whom we are speaking, Carriemaxxing these days. The question is not why remake but quite why it has taken this long.

This week, from Reich to Kendall and Celibidache, three musicians who prove there is no such thing as “pure music”, whether we’re talking about a technique, a mode of musical expression or a musician’s legacy.

Steve Reich turned 90 on Saturday, and I’ve been thinking about his early tape pieces from the mid-1960s, It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out. They’re such vital works not only because they opened his imagination to what could happen if you made a micro-canon – playing the same material slightly faster or slower – which is what happened when one of his tape machines slipped out of sync with the other: it’s that these are human voices that Reich is setting. It’s Gonna Rain is made from the voice of Brother Walter, a Pentecostal street preacher in San Francisco, whose warning of apocalypse in 1965 Reich recorded and looped against itself, over and over, so that Brother Walter’s voice becomes a wall and wail of sound, a sonic realisation of the sublime inundation he’s announcing. Come Out was made in 1966 with the voice of Daniel Hamm, one of the Harlem Six, six black men wrongly convicted of first-degree murder in New York. Reich’s piece was commissioned for a benefit event for their legal costs as “background music for passing the hat”.

These pieces don’t just set words, Reich says they “set human beings”, using the vocal recordings not only as musical material but political inspiration and emotional expression. Techniques that are seemingly all about narrowly musical processes – looping, canon-ing, fugue-ing – are embedded in the facts of where they were made and how, and whose voices are being represented by whom.

Born and raised in Valparaíso, JM is seen as one of the last of a golden generation after a late foray

At a concert hall in the Chilean capital, Santiago, an 80-year-old man edges unsteadily down a steep staircase. With one hand he grips the metal bannister, in the other he carries a mug of hot water with a slice of lemon, as if heading to bed.

But when the red stage curtain is pulled aside for him, Luis Gómez, or JM as he is universally known, transforms in an instant. He skips on to the stage to a roar from the crowd and launches into a bolero, punctuated by hip thrusts and shuffling two-steps.

After representing society’s dispossessed, Ponder started a music career in her 40s – then faced miscarriage, anxiety and more. She explains her survival instinct

“You can get everything you dreamed of career-wise, and your life can still crumble, and that is what happened to me,” says US singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder.

Five years ago, and five days before her 40th birthday, Ponder left her job as a public defender – a lawyer for those without the means to pay for one – to pursue music full-time. Ponder’s rich, church-reared voice and resonant music quickly lent themselves to cinematic moments: she wrote and performed the theme song for Apple TV+’s Manhunt and her trip-hop-infused track Roll the Credits has been used by adverts, TV shows and video games. Several comments on the YouTube video come from viewers who searched for it thinking she was Nina Simone. Her debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, came out in 2022 and was warmly received by critics, and she appeared on Seth Meyers’ talkshow. Her gamble had paid off. “But personally,” she says, “it felt like everything around me was falling apart”.

The legendary conductor was acclaimed for his dazzling music-making, and infamous for his hatred of recordings. His son, writer of a new film about him, remembers a loving yet intransigent and demanding father

My father, Sergiu Celibidache, loved children more than anything because they are free and true to themselves. And yet, he once made a young boy wet himself when he dared to ask for an autograph, shouting at the poor child as if he had committed a federal crime because he knew there was a black market selling his signature behind his back.

I grew up a privileged child with presents from all around the world. I was spoiled – to the despair of my mother, who always tried to keep my feet on the ground. But the gifts were part of my father’s way of making up for his long absences – he was often away touring with his orchestras.

The author of Moneyball brings his exceptional narrative skills to bear on Musk’s anti-government crusade

Donald Trump’s catastrophic errors get so much attention that his systemic ones can easily be missed. While the world looks on in dismay at his farcical war in Iran, the thuggery of Ice agents or clownish attacks on erstwhile allies like Canada and Denmark, the core functions of the American government are slowly disintegrating.

It is harder to get people to focus on the machinery of the state because the effects are often slow and hard to pin down. Outbreaks of disease – such as the recent wave of explosive diarrhoea across the US – might have happened anyway, but were probably made worse by lay-offs at the Centers for Disease Control. Likewise, Trump is not directly responsible for natural disasters, but response times in the past year may have been hampered by mass redundancies at the National Weather Service. Cuts to tax collection also seem to have reduced revenue by multiple billions, though we cannot be sure of the causal relationship.

There are moments of shivering joy as the protagonist of two enduring classics, Jack Sawyer, returns – but this time his journey feels endlessly repetitive

Bear with me, because there is some backstory to get through before we can talk about the book I am actually here to review. Back in 1984, Stephen King and Peter Straub collaborated on the fantasy novel The Talisman. Like all the best King stories, it follows a young boy: in this case Jack Sawyer, 12, whose mother, Lily, is dying. Jack learns that a magical object called the Talisman might save her – if he can find it in a parallel world known as the Territories. Straub and King followed this up in 2001 with Black House, in which an adult Jack investigates a series of child murders that turn out to have disturbing links to the Territories.

The books are very different: one a coming-of-age cross-country quest, in which Jack flips back and forth between two versions of the US; the other a fantastical and horror-inflected murder mystery. Both are brilliant and enduring classics which will always have a place on my bookshelves – I reread both of them, all 1,800-odd pages, to prepare for Other Worlds Than These and was as swept away and delighted as the first time round.

The sex writing threatens to throw the novel off-kilter, but there are rich rewards in this tale of music and middle-aged compromises

What is the role of art in an artist’s life? Should you commit everything to honing your talent in the hope of becoming a great master? Or should you use your artistic gift to enrich your life and that of your community? In Partita, acclaimed American novelist Barbara Kingsolver grapples with these questions seriously and passionately through the story of a piano prodigy turned music teacher.

The novel opens in the present, where Livia is a school music teacher in the same part of rural Tennessee where she grew up, married to a farmer who once worked on her father’s farm. Contented middle age has been disturbed by a phone call from Sigurd, a man she had an all-consuming, destructive love affair with at college. This pulls her back into her past: both the period of her brother’s suicide when she was 11, and the years when she escaped on a music scholarship to Indiana, convinced she was leaving her parents’ world behind for good. We discover that her dreams of being a world-class pianist were shattered by an accident that damaged her hand, and that Sigurd played a part in this.

The Talking Heads frontman considers dormant ideas that made a comeback – from Indian irrigation to Kafka

There’s barely been a moment in  the last half-century when David Byrne hasn’t been zinging about, dancing forward, opting odd. The art-school dropout frontman of Talking Heads, he moved sideways into ballet, dance and experimental theatre, collaborated on the proto-ambient LP My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with his fellow polymath Brian Eno, directed films, wrote musicals (on – of course – Imelda Marcos), co-founded a label (Luaka Bop) that introduced the likes of Os Mutantes and William Onyeabor to a new generation, brought out books of tree drawings, and designed bicycle racks.

Byrne’s career – by most measures a remarkably successful one – has been built from code-switching, fidgety intelligence, stylistic infidelity. At first glance then, it’s surprising that Sleeping Beauties is devoted to failure – to artists who were ignored, laughed at, forgotten; to ideas deemed batty or heretical; to ways of thinking about the world – sustaining it, replenishing it – that, often for political reasons, were found wanting, and wiped from our collective memory banks. Sleeping beauties is (of course) a term he first encountered in an academic paper by Leiden University scientometrics professor Ton van Raan. That was in 2004: this book, like a lot of the ideas and energies it animates, needed time to ferment.

The launch of a collector’s box hints at a new reality: the kinds of games I grew up with are becoming a luxury item, locked behind a forbidding spending barrier

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As a parent (and partner) to a habitual collector, I do feel like an unwelcome portion of my life is occupied by an endless war against stuff. Surfaces in my home ceaselessly accumulate piles of random objects: a JoyCon wrist strap, a sticker sheet, an unidentifiable plastic piece of a toy or gizmo, an Xbox 360 controller with no batteries, cases for Switch cartridges lost down the side of the sofa … Stuff encroaches everywhere, especially in a gaming household. Much as I regret the imminent disappearance of physical games, I do not regret the extra space I have in my attic as a result of switching almost entirely to downloaded games over the last decade or so.

Speaking of the imminent disappearance of physical games: Rockstar recently announced a £350 ($400) “collector’s box” of Grand Theft Auto 6 goodies … that doesn’t include the game itself. Not even a download code. The Grand Theft Auto VI: The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, to give it its full and unwieldy name, contains a hat, a bag, a pair of sunglasses, a figurine, a poster and more, including a mirror and a “swizzle spoon” that looks, unambigiously, like a cocaine spoon. The game retails at £70, so if you want something to play alongside all your stuff, you’re looking at an outlay of £420.

PC, PS5, Switch 2; Wych Elm Games, Team 17
Abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks make up a dark landscape in which you play a private eye searching for a missing singer-songwriter

In a weird deserted town miles from anywhere, a troubled detective searches for a missing musician and the girl he may or may not have murdered. It could be a Silent Hill game or a lost David Lynch movie from the 1990s – in fact, it’s neither. And also both. If that whets your appetite, stick around, there’s plenty more to come.

Developed by Scandinavian studio Wych Elm Games, Silver Pines is a dark Metroidvania-style adventure, where you play as shambling private eye, Red Walker, exploring a 2D universe of abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks. Officially, everyone has left because of an incoming storm, but very quickly you learn that something much darker is afoot. Someone has hired you to find singer-songwriter Eddie Velvet, but you don’t know why; your only contact with your client is via the payphones dotted around town, where you can also save your progress – as long as you have a dollar to pay for the call. Each location is filled with clues and puzzles – a weird newspaper story pinned to the wall, a strange statue that needs a missing piece – and through these artefacts you unlock new rooms and descend further into the mystery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barbican Art Gallery, London
What seem at first indistinguishable canvases offer challenges, revelations and transcendental effects – but only if you can give yourself over to them

Writing about painting is a futile exercise at the best of times. This is especially the case when, as with Robert Ryman, the paintings in question are variations on the theme of white. If that sounds pretentious – or like a tired joke – then it might also be understood as a reaction against the dependence of so much art on language (which is also to say, bullshit). Because these bare-bones paintings – white paint, a flat surface, wall fixtures – are the “real thing” in the most literal way: they are not trying to tell you a story, they do not require you to be familiar with any abstruse theories. There is just you and the materials, how the paint lies, how it scatters the light. So the question is: how much do you like looking at paint?

Happily for me, given that it is a non-negotiable part of my job, I really like looking at paint. If you also like looking at paint, then there is much in this exhibition that will take your breath away. Take The Painting of the Mysterious Shadow from the mid-60s, after Ryman had left his job as a guard at MoMA, having given up on a career as a jazz musician, and settled into the project that would occupy the rest of his life. Six thick white stripes run horizontally across the canvas, as close to each other as can be managed by a steady hand without overlapping. The fabric is stretched over a deep wooden frame, meaning that its surface sits about three inches off the wall, and casts a thin shadow upon it. That’s your lot.

Bush theatre, London
Mei Leng Yew’s play veers between humour and horror as a young woman ignores her mum’s warning about big life changes during a ghost festival

With shapeshifting performances and smart, heartfelt writing, Mei Leng Yew’s juicily spooky romcom is a seductively assured debut about second-generation family dynamics, the all-in nature of a new relationship, and the internal battles of a young woman trying to work out what she wants.

You must not make any big decisions during the traditional Chinese Ghost festival, our protagonist’s mum warns, or else the hungry ghosts will get you. But Girl (My Neighbour Totoro’s Mei Mac) already has her bags packed to move in with her secret girlfriend of three months and nothing is as powerful as lesbians ready to U-Haul. Except perhaps a third-wheeling ghost with severe attachment issues, played giddily by Bridgerton’s Isabella Wei.

Tate Britain, London
The Young British Art of the 1990s was brash and macabre but also intelligent and emotional. This breathlessly superficial show reduces it to a stylish pose

Jake and Dinos Chapman were dismissed by some even in the 1990s as overgrown adolescents selling shock for its own sake, and yet it is their work that brings this dismally shallow show closest to a moment of depth. Their sculpture Great Deeds Against the Dead, based on a print of Napoleonic war atrocities by Goya, is a display of dismembered, bleeding nude corpses hung on a tree. It asks questions about war and art, the representation of pain, whether art can have a moral purpose. The best British art of the 1990s was like that, coming on as brash, vulgar, macabre, yet also unexpectedly intelligent and emotional. Unfortunately this show is neither.

You’d think Tate Britain would want to do justice to a decade in which these Millbank premises played a starring role, staging the Turner prize in the years when bisected cows, concrete houses and elephant dung got the nation arguing. At the start of the 1990s no one thought Britain was a leader in contemporary art. By the millennium, we were better known for new art than new novels.

Riverside Studios, London
Andy Sandberg’s play gets off to an intriguing start before coming off the rails in spectacular, almost fascinating style. For all the wrong reasons, it’s hard to look away

It starts off with a car crash, and enters its own pile-up before your eyes. There is some initial coherence, at least: Dylan, the son in a filthy rich family, played by Netflix star Noah Schnapp, has killed two people while drink-driving and injured several more. His parents, at their Hamptons home, are hashing out Dylan’s defence with a hotshot lawyer. They deny he did anything wrong – “people died, he didn’t kill them” – and throw money at the problem in hope it goes away. All the while, 16-year-old Dylan plays Nintendo upstairs.

An original legal defence is invoked, along the lines of the poor little rich boy, suffering from “affluenza”, a psychological malaise in which a crime becomes the fault of wealthy parents who have failed to teach their progeny right or wrong. It is an intriguing setup with some parallels to the hit-and-run case involving teenager Harry Dunn and Anne Sacoolas. Its moral dilemma is promising, its echoes of victim culture resonant.

Project lead says it celebrates ‘incredible contributions’ Jamaica-born sociologist made to Britain’s culture

Whether it was Thatcherism, populism or the story of the Sony Walkman, Stuart Hall was a public intellectual famed for defining the times. Now a major digital archive of his previously unpublished papers, notebooks, recordings and videos has been launched.

When the Jamaica-born sociologist and seminal figure in postwar Black British history died in 2014 aged 82, his obituary in the Guardian said he had been “among the first to identify key questions of the age”. Hall coined the term Thatcherism and in 1985 warned of the dangers of “authoritarian populism”.

Oscar-winning actor celebrated for her outstanding performances in On the Waterfront and North By Northwest

Eva Marie Saint, who has died aged 102, made a lasting impression in two outstanding American films: as Edie Doyle, the wholesome, sensitive, Catholic girl who befriends the docker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954); and as Eve Kendall, the intriguing beauty helping and hindering the pursued advertising executive (Cary Grant) in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest (1959).

In the latter, Saint, the coolest and wittiest of the “Hitchcock blondes”, was lit so beautifully that her fair skin looked like porcelain. In the scene when they first meet in the dining car of a Chicago-bound train, Saint and Grant deliver the double-edged banter with supreme style. Assessing him, she says, “Good taste in clothes. Good taste in food.” He continues, “Good taste in women – I like your flavour.”

From Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques to Calendar Girls, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and her infamous appearance on The Celebrity Traitors, it’s hard to know where to begin

Celia Imrie has had such a varied career, it’s hard to know where you might know her best from. Maybe it’s as Miss Babs, the permanently flustered antiques-shop owner in Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques, or as Philippa Moorcroft, Dinnerladies’ spectacularly uptight HR manager. Perhaps it’s as Bridget Jones’s family friend Una Alconbury, or from Calendar Girls, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Maybe you know her as Mrs Quickly, the ghastly would-be stepmother in Nanny McPhee. Or maybe you first encountered her in Upstairs, Downstairs, To the Manor Born, Bergerac, Lovejoy or The Darling Buds of May, or as Claudia Bing, the magnificently awful PR rival of Jennifer Saunders’ Edina in Absolutely Fabulous.

Celebrated for his earnest, dextrous voice, Jackson crossed into the pop charts with the hits Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake) and You Are My Lady

Freddie Jackson, the US singer whose smooth and romantic take on R&B found a huge audience in the 1980s, has died aged 70.

A statement from his family on social media reads: “Freddie was more than a legendary voice. He was a kind, generous soul who loved his fans, his family, his friends and his music with everything he had. For decades he gave us the songs that became the soundtrack to our love stories, our celebrations and our most treasured memories. That gift will live on for ever.” No cause of death was given.

There’s a lot of Brando badboy baggage attached to this classic outerwear – here’s how to look chic rather than stompy

In lots of ways, the arrival of autumn makes getting dressed easier. Not having to shave above your knees. Enough pockets to make a handbag optional. But it’s not all plain sailing. For instance, I don’t think we talk enough about how hard it is to carry off a leather jacket.

I thought maybe it was just me. And then I came across Lucinda Chambers – Vogue fashion director for 25 years, now co-curator of gorgeous platform of desirables Collagerie – remarking that she found leather jackets tricky. Lucinda is without a doubt one of the best-dressed women in London, always rocking a strong look – colour, stripes, great jewellery, unexpected shoes – so I was amazed and a bit gratified to find even she struggles.

Black communities across the globe have large and complex vocabularies to describe race, shaped by their specific cultures and histories

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One thing you might not know about this newsletter is how much it is shaped by behind-the-scenes chat. The Long Wave team, and its broader family at the Guardian, is a mini-diaspora in and of itself – one that is constantly in conversation. Often, during our meetings, someone will mention what was assumed to be a quirk of their specific background, only to discover that it is replicated almost entirely across the board. This week, we spoke about the fact that in many of our cultures, there is not just one word for “Black”.

“Green”, “red”, “yellow”, “blue”, “wheat”. These are some of the words many tribes in parts of Sudan use to describe complexion. There is no “Black”. I tripped over my words trying to explain to colleagues what these colours denoted – each category is infused with so much cultural depth. In fact, in some cases, they are not even descriptions of complexion, but of features, of broad ethnic background, and even of attractiveness. “Green” means dark, but also implies a sort of uniformity of colour, an even hue, and therefore almost a comeliness. Yellow is lighter, and comes with an unstated connotation of beauty. Blue is the darkest, and is sometimes pejorative, but other times just a description. “Wheat” is the one most likely to be a compliment, a shade that does not diverge too sharply into light or dark.

From tactile textures to softer lighting, these expert-approved updates bring all the warmth of autumn while steering clear of Sleepy Hollow vibes

• Professional organisers’ tips for a tidy home

After a long, hot summer, the autumn chill is creeping in and, according to social media, that means one thing: cosy season. I’m all for a blanket, a candle and those gorgeous amber and russet shades, but I’m less convinced that welcoming autumn requires turning your home into Sleepy Hollow.

Pumpkins, faux foliage and Jack Skellington-shaped everything might be some people’s idea of heaven, but I’d rather bring in the season without needing to overhaul my lounge by December. As interior designer Lia Gold, winner of BBC’s Interior Design Masters, puts it: “There are so many ways to make your home feel cosier without it having to smell like pumpkin spice.”

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basics they scrimp on? The Queer Eye legend talks handmade gifts, secondhand shopping and bag obsessions with the Filter

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Jonathan Van Ness rose to fame as the beauty and hair care expert on the multi-award-winning show Queer Eye. Their eight-year tenure as one of the “Fab Five” presenters ended when the show’s final season aired in January 2026. A hairstylist by trade, they have their own cruelty-free, vegan haircare brand, JVN Hair.

Beyond TV and beauty work, Van Ness has continued a career as a comedian, writer and podcast presenter. They have written five books, including the New York Times bestselling memoir Over the Top and their latest young adult novel, which they wrote alongside Julie Murphy, Let Them Stare. Van Ness continues to be an advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, working on campaigns with The Trevor Project and Planned Parenthood.

Breathable bedding, slanted tweezers and an indispensable garlic press … here are the buys you wish you’d discovered sooner. Plus, the best walking poles, tested

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Sometimes a product changes your life – or, more likely, just makes your day 10% better.

Whether it’s something small-but-mighty (a gadget that helps you open a jar without swearing, tweezers that get every hair) or a more expensive item that has proved its worth over the years (a much-loved designer dress, a garden mulch-maker), we asked you to tell us about the buys that have made your life just a little bit better.

Which salty condiment nails that deep flavour profile, and which is saltier than the sea? Our resident taster tries 10 soy sauces straight from the bottle

• The best supermarket kimchi

Soy sauce was created in China about 2,200 years ago, as a means to preserve food and to zhoosh up the humble vegetarian Buddhist diet. It’s a demonstration in kokumi – literally “rich taste” – a flavour sensation that’s often called the sixth taste.

I tested all of today’s soy sauces straight from the bottle, in all their intensity. I first identified distinctive aromas such as cooked potato, sulphur and broth (all typical in soy sauce and not as off-putting as they sound), alongside caramel and malty notes. The best ones are more nuanced, with fruity high notes and vinous tones.

A creative way to use up the bits you already have around, all while getting in a healthy mixture of vegetables and whole grains

This hearty dish is inspired by the diets of the Blue Zones, or those regions of the world where people live the longest, including Sardinia, where minestrone is a staple. Dan Buettner, who studied these communities, found that their diets are generally rich in beans, whole grains and seasonal vegetables. I’ve generalised ingredients into groups such as alliums, rather than simply suggesting the standard onion base, to inspire you to use up whatever you have in the house and what’s in season; I’d of course also encourage further diversification with the addition of other vegetables and subtle spices.

Nutty in flavour and creamy in texture, autumn’s bounty of squash and pumpkin has many uses, both sweet and savoury

The shops are heaving with pumpkins and squash, and though there are so many different varieties to choose from, most of them are interchangeable. My favourites are kabocha, crown prince and delicata, for their deeply nutty flavour and creamy texture, plus they hold their shape well when roasted or braised. And if you’re carving a pumpkin for Halloween over the coming weeks, don’t waste the flesh: chop it up and throw into a risotto. It’s hard to imagine that such deliciousness could come from such a ghoulish grimace.

An unconventional technique makes this vibrant rice – finished with dill fronds – a lower-touch dinner for weeknights

• Check out more Alice Zaslavsky recipes

This shortcut risotto will have purists shaking their fists, but I like to live dangerously. Unlike traditional risottos where you stir the whole time, this one gets bunged in the oven with all its liquid, then right at the end, use a whisk to release the starches for a creamy finish.

Use a microplane to grate the parmesan over the risotto. This will yield a cloud-like consistency, but you could also just blitz the parmesan to a crumb in the food processor before grating the veg. I’d avoid buying pre‑grated parmesan, as it’s kept crumby with anti-caking agent, and the aroma is … not great.

Whether you sizzle, sweat, wet-fry or oven-cook, enhancing the savoury flavour of your mushrooms will depend on the variety, says our panel of fun guys

How do I cook mushrooms at home so they have the umami you get in restaurant dishes?
John, by email
For Chantelle Nicholson, chef-patron of Apricity in London, boosting the savoury side of ’shrooms comes down to three main things. First, they hold a lot of water, so “you need to cook that out of them, so heat is super-important, as are fat and salt”. Tomás Gormley, chef-owner of Cardinal in Edinburgh, adds that he can “almost guarantee” that John isn’t using enough of the latter: “As a rule, I use 1.5% of the weight of whatever I’m seasoning. With mushrooms, especially, season early, before they hit the pan, to draw out their moisture. That resulting mushroomy water then cooks the mushrooms while it’s reducing and concentrating the flavour.”

But there are so many varieties of mushrooms out there, and they all behave in different ways, so John needs to be using the right ones for the job. “If you’re making a soup, puree or paté, field, portobello or button mushrooms are fine,” Nicholson says. “But if you’re looking for a delicious sauteed mushroom, say, ideally you need something with less water content – chestnut, shiitake or blue/grey oyster mushrooms. Heat oil in a pan, then add the shredded or sliced mushrooms, and season with fine salt straight away.” Nicholson would be inclined to toss in a bay leaf and some thyme or sage, too, and maybe a smashed clove of garlic. “Cook over a high-ish heat until lightly golden, then add a bit of butter and keep cooking until golden. If you want to enhance the flavour even further, a splash of dry sherry works really well.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

LD is the submissive to Lady Alice’s dominatrix – and it has been a revelation for them both

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

I have cerebral palsy and live with my parents. Lady Alice is a delicious secret

You can be curious about others’ beliefs without compromising your own

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who explained that her ill health was down to reasons I would describe as dubious. Taking certain supplements and changing her diet have significantly improved her health. Good for her. However, she was disappointed and a little annoyed that I didn’t share her outrage and wasn’t going to follow her views.

I’ve got another friend who thinks cholesterol is a lie and that we should live largely on meat (and supplements). Another went through a sugar causes cancer phase. And another is sceptical of vaccines. Each of them may be right. They might not. We are learning more about the human body every day. But I was raised by scientists and I want to see a large-scale trial before I get outraged and change the way I live. Equally, I’m not convinced that a lightly regulated for-profit industry (supplements) is automatically more trustworthy than a highly regulated for-profit one (pharma).

Conor Curran’s first date with Chris lasted nine hours but their relationship remained casual. Then, when Conor was at his most vulnerable, Chris was there for him

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

At 29 I had lost my career in hospitality because of Covid and decided to throw my hat in the ring as a contestant on MasterChef Australia. By the time I was eliminated in 2021, restaurants still weren’t open and I didn’t know what to do with my life. My lease was coming to an end in Melbourne and I wasn’t doing well with the lockdowns and people recognising me from TV. So I decided to retreat to my father’s place in Adelaide for a while.

By early 2022 I was dating a guy but, after a few months, he ghosted me suddenly.

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

• Read more Leading questions

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

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

Average cost of home in September was £298,441, says Lloyds – about the same as year earlier and in August

• Business live – latest updates

UK house prices flatlined in September, according to a leading index, as rising mortgage costs started to weigh on the market.

The average cost of a home was £298,441, roughly the same as it was a year earlier and in the previous month, according to the tracker from Lloyds previously known as the Halifax HPI.

Sykes Holiday Cottages showed no empathy and insisted on paperwork we didn’t have so soon after my husband’s death

We booked a break with Sykes Holiday Cottages for 11 of us to celebrate my mum’s 80th birthday last February. The cost was £2,400, paid for by my 87-year-old dad, but it was my husband who made the booking.

In January, my husband was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma, and he died 10 days before the trip. My parents and some other members of the party still planned to take the holiday, and my dad informed Sykes of the death, since my husband was their point of contact.

Scammers reuse personal details harvested from fake Esta websites – and texts and calls can keep arriving for months

When the British actor Lisa Riley was preparing to travel to the US last year, she applied online for an Esta so she would not need a visa. After finding the site through a Google search she filled in her passport, bank and personal details and waited for the confirmation, which normally takes just under an hour.

When it failed to arrive, she emailed an address from the site where she had paid and got back a message unlike any she had seen before, with a link to a website that displayed a jumble of words and letters.

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

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

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

From blood pressure to ageing, research suggests the first 1,000 days of sugar exposure could leave a decades-long mark on health

They were born into a Britain still recovering from the hardships of war. Though the air-raid sirens had fallen silent, many everyday foods remained rationed, including sugar. Adults were restricted to about 3 tablespoons (40g) a day to stretch between cups of tea, baking and desserts; children were limited to less than a tablespoon. Babies and very young children were expected to have little or no added sugar.

Then, in 1953, the brakes came off. Separate restrictions on sweets and chocolate were lifted in February, followed by sugar in September. By the second half of 1954, average sugar consumption had almost doubled.

Experts looking at UK, US and Dutch data found ‘significant increases’ in early onset cases of seven cancers, prompting warnings about lifestyle choices

Cases of seven types of cancer have risen sharply among younger people in England, major new research has found, prompting warnings that lifestyle choices are costing thousands of lives each year.

The number of people under 50 diagnosed with prostate cancer in England has quadrupled since 2001, while early onset bowel, kidney and uterine cancer diagnoses more than doubled.

Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday

Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, as the disease continues to spread rapidly through the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was announced in May.

This is the 17th outbreak of the highly infectious, often deadly disease in the DRC. As of 2 October, 4,082 people had died out of 8,463 confirmed cases in the country since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still no vaccine nor specific treatment.

For years, eating was something to control, fear or regret. After I hunted my first deer, I started to see fat, hunger and my own body in a different light

I muffled my sobs with a pillow so my family couldn’t hear me from the adjacent room. I was 19 years old and we were in Paris, staying on the top floor of an old six-story walkup where every step echoed through the thin walls. I was trying, and failing, to hide the emotional war I had decided to wage on my body. Who does that on a family vacation? In Europe, no less?

Pulling tear-soaked strands of hair off my cheeks, I stood in front of a full-length mirror and grabbed the fat of my thighs. If only I could just – I pictured ripping off fistfuls of my body and flinging them out the windows, where they would land on some unknowing French person six stories below. I had this vision often: pulling bits of myself off and casting them somewhere far away from me.

No longer messy and cumbersome, a new generation of powders blurs, sets and mattifies without the faff

I can’t remember the last time I wrote about loose powder because, honestly, there’s been little point. Pressed compact powders have become so sophisticated in formulation, so finely milled in production, that most of us rely on those to keep shiny bits matte and makeup looking fresh past lunchtime. Loose powders – messy, cumbersome and barely improved in decades – seemed trapped in the past. But there have always been times when one absolutely does benefit from a proper dusting.

A fine coating of loose powder locks down foundation and concealer like nothing else can – no bridal or TV makeup artist, dancer or performer would be without it. Now, seemingly all at once, a flurry of new generation powders are offering way more for your trouble.

Models walk runway at the Louvre with flying cars hovering above as designer envisions city life in a warming world

In silk slip dresses, breezy vented tunics and gossamer layers of chiffon, the models on Louis Vuitton’s catwalk were perfectly dressed for an unseasonably warm October evening in Paris. As the show began at sunset it was still 24C.

This summer’s record temperatures were on designer Nicolas Ghesquiière’s mind. “The world is getting warmer, this definitely had a strong influence” he said.

Artistic director is all smiles as he swaps quiet luxury for bold colours and patterns at Paris show

“It’s a good start,” Matthieu Blazy said after a Paris show that marked a year of his tenure as artistic director at Chanel. “I am happy with where we are at.”

Chanel now holds the top spot in the Lyst index of the world’s hottest brands, which tracks demand and engagement across search and social media. The privately held company announces official financial results only once a year, but figures reported by Bloomberg showed 16% growth in the first half of 2026. In Vanity Fair’s list of the world’s 50 most powerful people, published this month, Blazy is the only fashion designer to make the cut. People who don’t much care about fashion have noticed him; people who do care about fashion talk about him non-stop.

Brand’s signature desire to subvert the ordinary brings blazers with track pants and crop tops under blazers to Paris fashion week

Speaking backstage at Miu Miu’s show on Sunday at Paris fashion week, Miuccia Prada said she had been thinking about “real clothes”. The clothes people wear on the street for running errands rather than posing on social media. Her findings? Succinct. “The reality of clothing today is this mix – sportswear, casual, normal,” she said. Her challenge? To make them “more interesting, more rich”. To achieve this, she outlined how she had decided to focus on mixing “elements of sports with sophistication”.

The collection opened with a series of five neatly pleated checked skirts. The first was worn with an equally neat checked blazer but rather than a smart shoe, such as a pump or loafers, there were brightly coloured trainers. The second featured a crop top under the blazer, the trainers swapped for spiky high heels. The other looks ditched the blazer and clipped the tops so they sat just under the bust line.

Wildfires raged through the national park this summer, but much of the landscape remains untouched – and autumn is the perfect time to go

In the Cairngorms national park, the bracken is changing from dark green to russet and umber. Birch leaves are lined with gold, while the Scots pines remain proudly green. Autumn is arriving with a little sigh of relief here, after a summer few will forget.

The wildfire that began near Glenmore and Abernethy on 15 July burned more than 33 sq km (13 sq miles) of moorland and forest. More than 500 firefighters were involved; homes and businesses were evacuated; and the emergency response lasted over a month. Visiting now, it’s hard to see, or even imagine, the damage. Much of the burned area is high on the hill and far from the roads. It’s a huge loss but, in a national park stretching 4,528 sq km (1,748 sq miles), surprisingly easy to miss.

A new series of rambles cuts the 185-mile trail into bitesize portions reachable by train, with urban beavers, the Devil’s Chair tor and some delicious food along the way

Few pubs boast a more idyllic setting. As I emerge from the woods after a 15-mile hike, The Bridges, on the banks of the Onny River, in the rolling south Shropshire hills, glistens in the late afternoon sun. Inside it’s all wooden beams, with light streaming through stained glass and huge bunches of homegrown flowers adding splashes of colour. There’s time for a pint before general manager Sam Thompson shows me to my room in the recently converted stables.

I’m here exploring part of the 185-mile (297km) Shropshire Way, on a two-day Heart of the Hills hike – one of the county tourist board’s new Rail-Ready Short Breaks. Designed for people who don’t have time to tackle the whole route, the itineraries focus on loops that are easy to access by train, with illustrated PDF downloads, GPX files, accommodation suggestions and highlights of what to do along the way. My route will take me from Shrewsbury to Bishop’s Castle via Ratlinghope – about 27 miles, perfect for a weekend.

The classic pre-dinner drink and snack combo varies depending where you are in Italy. In this fair city, it’s an institution that can even be enjoyed first thing

I arrived in Verona, I admit, without a particularly clear idea of what aperitivo meant. In Italy, the ritual – broadly, a drink and something small to eat before a meal – speaks a different dialect in every city.

Milan has turned it into a polished after-work institution. In Venice, it is more itinerant: an ombra (a small glass of wine) along with a cicchetto (a bite-size snack) and then on to the next bacaro (one of the city’s traditional wine bars). Verona follows another logic.

Tell us about a European ski resort that has retained its relaxed, uncrowded feel – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

This winter thousands of holidaymakers will be packing their thermals and heading for the ski slopes. We’d love to hear about your favourite smaller ski resort, one which has managed to hang on to its local character and charm, whether it’s in the Alps, the Pyrenees, Scandinavia or eastern Europe.

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

I was gripped by fear, aching all over – and still recovering from cancer treatment. But Dancing With the Stars was a joyous celebration of survival

It was an invitation I accepted in a moment of madness – and, over the next three months, regretted many times a day. I was in over my head, often with my heels literally over my head: I’d signed up to appear on the Greek version of Strictly Come Dancing.

Dancing With the Stars, as it is called in Greece, follows the same format as its UK counterpart, with an identical studio, a matching shiny floor, even many of the same costumes that are hired out and circulated among the 70 or more international versions of the BBC show. Of course, it’s all in Greek – and in the season I took part in, Covid restrictions had been imposed, which intensified its strangeness.

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Research has shown that colourful and patterned species are the subject of more studies, and receive more conservation funding

Large and beautiful butterflies attract far more attention than species that are smaller and dull. Now a new study has shown that this bias towards beauty results in the boring butterflies being overlooked in conservation programmes.

To understand the link between beauty and conservation, researchers surveyed more than 21,000 people from more than 100 countries, asking them to look at photos of European butterflies and rate their beauty on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their first impression. The results, which are published in Current Biology, reveal that larger more colourful and patterned butterflies, like the yellow swallowtail, were consistently rated more attractive than the smaller, less conspicuous brownish species, such as the alpine grayling. That bias also extended into scientific research, with more studies on attractive species, and more funding and resource going into conservation of showier species.

Allendale, Northumberland: On a hot autumn day, I see rosemary beetles here for the first time. This could be a problem for many thriving plants

This year there have been several firsts in my garden: old lady, vestal and blood-vein moths attracted to the light trap; hummingbird hawk-moths, normally occasional, feeding summer-long from verbena and buddleia; and it’s a painted lady year – a once-a-decade event, these high-flying insects migrating from Africa through successive generations. Southerly winds and heatwaves have added to the species visiting my North Pennine garden.

Now, in a herb bed, I spot something less welcome. Among the resinous leaves of rosemary is a gleaming beetle, its elytra striped in purple and green, scintillating like lustreware. It’s not something I’ve seen before, but I immediately know what it means. Rosemary beetle, Chrysolina americana, is a Mediterranean species with no natural predators in the UK. It is shimmering and beautiful – but can reduce plants of the Lamiaceae family to bare sticks and cause them to die back. This includes my favourites: lavender, sage, thyme – and rosemary.

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

An estimated 20,000 cases are disclosed to maternity services in England every year. Two survivors tell their stories

Evie bought the baby monitor with a rare flicker of enthusiasm, having become increasingly numb as her pregnancy progressed. She liked that it would send video footage to her phone. “I thought, ‘This is really good. Not only can you hear the baby – you can see the baby.’” Unfortunately, her partner appreciated the monitor too. Soon she was carrying it around the house on his orders, so he could watch her. “He used it as surveillance,” she says.

By then she was worn down, and terrified. He had become more controlling since they learned she was pregnant. By the seventh month he had become physically abusive, too. “We were just lying in bed watching something,” she recalls of the first attack. “An argument broke out but it started getting overly aggressive … It just felt more threatening and he looked really agitated. So I ended up shimmying over and sitting on the edge of the bed. All of a sudden he just swung the biggest punch at my arm. Then he did it again. The impact was like whiplash.”

Clinics and hospitals in affected areas lack staff, power and medicines, with supplies redirected to the Russian military

Earlier this summer, the once bustling corridors of the district hospital in Hola Prystan, a city in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, were ominously quiet. At times, it was plunged into darkness during power cuts lasting hours.

Much of the hospital’s medical equipment and supplies had been stolen and redirected to the military, and many experienced staff had gone.

Lack of majority for Parti Québécois puts any referendum in doubt, especially amid bruising trade war with Trump

The victory of the Parti Québécois in Monday’s election in Quebec might seem to bring its signature goal, of separating the French-speaking province from Canada, much closer – but Canadian unity may not be nearly as threatened as may first seem.

The PQ’s victory was both impressive and disappointing. The party added 56 seats to its roster and more than doubled its vote share compared with the 2022 election, giving it its first taste of power in 14 years. Crucially, however, it was left five seats short of a majority, making its promise to hold a referendum after Donald Trump leaves office in 2028 nearly impossible.

We would like to hear from young people in the UK about their experiences of looking for work

About 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in employment, education or training (Neet), according to a report published in May, which warned that the figure could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action.

Alan Milburn, the leader of the review into why so many young people are economically inactive, said the UK risked opening up a “generational fault line” between young and old without urgent steps to overhaul schools, the health service, the welfare system and the jobs market.

We would like to speak to people about their experience of using AI agents when dealing with their finances

Following the release of Meta’s Muse and Open AI’s dots there’s now capacity for these AI agents to assist with some financial transactions on a user’s behalf.

With this in mind, we would like to speak to people who use AI agents to manage their finances.

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

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

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

How long have you been in this accommodation? What are the conditions like?

Councils in England spent £2.93bn on temporary accommodation for homeless households between April 2025 and March 2026, recent government figures show.

This sum includes B&Bs, hotels, and self-contained accommodation.

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