Created in the 17th century, Japan’s Fujiko faith fuses Shinto and esoteric Buddhism in its reverence for Mount Fuji, the country’s highest peak. The faith still has some adherents, and visitors can join their pilgrimages, says Kate Crockett in Condé Nast Traveller, hiking 2,300 metres up the mountain’s lower slopes to the point, accessible by road, from which most climbers head out for the 3,776m summit. It’s a “soothing” one-day walk through ancient forests, which offers “tantalising” views of Fuji’s “snow-capped” peak, and stops at shrines along the way. You can do part of the route on horseback, and it’s worth staying longer, to visit other holy sites and sample the region’s “elegant” old pilgrims’ lodges – and perhaps the new luxury retreat Gora Kadan Fuji, with its “restorative” outdoor bath.

A four-day trip costs from £2,950pp, half-board (kammui.com)

The charm of Croatia’s “little Tuscany”

Most visitors to Croatia head for the “scrubby” and “sun-bleached” mountains and islands of Dalmatia. Set far inland, the rolling Samobor Hills are a different world entirely, said Mary Novakovich in The Guardian. Here, you’ll find a lush, “harmonious” landscape that could “out-Tuscany Tuscany”. The area is criss-crossed by forested trails, particularly in the Žumberak Nature Park, where residents of nearby Zagreb come to hike and bike at weekends. But the hills also offer less strenuous pleasures, including wineries known for their “elegant” sparkling wines. More than three dozen of these lie along the circular Plešivica Wine Road, including the “bucolic” 18th-century Griffin, and the “serene” Korak, which has a refreshingly unpretentious Michelin-starred restaurant. Also unmissable is the town of Samobor itself – the prettiest place in Zagreb county, full of “graceful” Habsburg-era houses in shades of “buttery yellow, apricot and pistachio”.

A week at Nadal’s school of padel

Often described as a cross between tennis and squash, padel is booming, with an estimated one million players in the UK. Being “utterly hooked”, I signed up for a week-long training camp at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, said Jemima Kelly in the Financial Times – an “exhausting” experience, but “fun and exhilarating” too. Located in Manacor, the academy not only delivers world-class coaching in both tennis and padel, it has “top-notch” accommodation too, making a stay here feel like a proper holiday. Training days run from 8.30am to 6pm, but include a 3.5-hour break for long lunches and trips to the beach. I was impressed by the attentiveness of our coach, Rodri Ovide, and loved the resort’s spa.

The week costs from €3,984, full board (rafanadalacademy.com)

Isolated in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1,200 miles west of Angola, the volcanic island of St Helena has a “magic” that is “hard to define”, said Michael Binyon in The Times. It derives partly from the “beauty and variety” of the island’s landscapes, including “rich steep pastures” and “rugged bare mountains” rising to 820 metres. But it’s also to do with the island’s small size and friendly atmosphere: St Helena is less than one-third the size of the Isle of Wight, and is home to just 4,200 people.

Then there’s its pleasant tropical climate, its extraordinary history, the charm of its old buildings, and the sense of “stepping back into an earlier age” (although there is Wi-Fi here). In any case, I find it so “enticing” that I’ve returned seven times since first visiting in 2009.

The island is Britain’s oldest colony after Bermuda, having received its charter in 1659 during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard. Its tiny capital, Jamestown, has “barely changed in two centuries”, and has the oldest Anglican church in the southern hemisphere, as well as a “beautiful” botanic garden. The governor’s mansion, Plantation House, was built in 1791 by the East India Company, and is famed today as the home of Jonathan, a tortoise from the Seychelles who is now aged about 194 and thought to be the oldest creature on Earth.

St Helena’s other “world-famous resident”, Napoleon, was exiled here in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo. The farm where he lived, Longwood, is now French property and has been restored to how it looked on the day of his death in 1821.

The island has an extraordinary wealth of endemic wildlife, with hundreds of species found nowhere else on Earth; and it’s also a good spot for diving and for dolphin-watching trips, although it has no proper beaches. If you go, I can recommend the Mantis St Helena hotel. But be warned that flights (from Johannesburg, plus Cape Town in summer) are often cancelled due to bad weather. If you can, add a few days to your trip just in case.

At present, England’s adult care system is “one of the most threadbare in the developed world”, according to Thea Stein of the Nuffield Trust, which has analysed the arrangements of 11 comparable nations and regions. England is an “outlier” in that eligibility for any public funding at all is strictly means-tested.

The most generous system is in Denmark, where the state pays 100% of care costs, with no means test. Those in residential care do get billed for bed and board, but means-tested housing benefit is available.

Australia has a similar system, also funded by general taxation. In most cases, bed and board have to be paid for, but there are a series of daily spending caps on different elements, such as food and hotel costs.

Japan, with the oldest population in the world, introduced a tax on all over-40s in 2000, ring-fenced for care. Everyone who needs it is given a monthly care allowance. They contribute 10%-30% of costs, depending on income; total contributions are capped.

A similar insurance system operates in Germany, but with no cap. Individuals usually pay half of costs. Unusually, adult children can (in rare cases) be liable to pay for parents’ care if the parents run out of money.

When I started at university, I tucked away, among the clothes and books, frozen containers of my favourite homemade foods, including this mung-bean dish, said Sanjana Modha. And my time at college was made infinitely warmer by knowing that, after a day spent studying, I could return to wholesome mung beans stewed with ghee, mustard seeds, curry leaves and spinach.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 300g mung beans
• 1⁄4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 tbsp ghee
• 1⁄2 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1⁄2 tsp cumin seeds
• 10 fresh curry leaves
• 1⁄4 tsp asafoetida (omit if gluten free or use gluten-free asafoetida)
• 1 1⁄2 tbsp gram (chickpea) flour
• 1 large brown onion, finely chopped
• 1 1⁄2 tsp finely chopped ginger
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 green finger chilli, finely chopped
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 1⁄2 tsp soft brown sugar
• 2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp plain yoghurt
• 1 1⁄2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 1⁄2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 400g baby leaf spinach, finely chopped

Method

• The day before, place the mung beans in a colander and rinse under running water, rubbing the beans to remove any surface dirt. Place in a large bowl with enough room at the top to allow for expansion. Add the bicarbonate of soda and enough just-boiled water to cover the beans by around 4cm. Allow to stand overnight.
• The next day, drain the beans and rinse well with fresh water. Drain, then put in a large saucepan.
• Add 1 litre of just-boiled water and set over a high heat, allowing the beans to come to the boil.
• Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer over medium-low heat for 30-40 mins, or until the beans are very soft (they should squish easily between your fingers). Top up with a little extra hot water if required. Remove from the heat and set aside but do not drain.
• Heat the ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to finish crackling before adding the cumin seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida and gram flour.
• Stir well to cook the flour out for 30 secs before adding the onion, ginger, garlic, chilli, salt and sugar. Sauté for 2-3 mins, or until the onion has softened. Add the tomatoes, yoghurt, turmeric and chilli powder and continue to cook for 2-3 mins, stirring all the time, or until the tomatoes break down slightly.
• Tip in the beans and their cooking liquid, along with 400ml of additional water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about 10 mins. Finally, add the spinach and stir well to wilt. Simmer for about a further 5 mins and serve.

Taken from “Modern Masala: Ancestral Indian flavours, Remixed with Love” by Sanjana Modha.

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“Acts of true heroism are rare,” said The Daily Telegraph. But the actions of those on board flydubai flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv last Wednesday “surely qualify”.

‘Constant threat’

As the plane neared Israel, the co-pilot, an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami, attacked his Indian colleague, Smit Machchhar, with an axe, kept in the cockpit for emergencies. Badly injured, Captain Machchhar somehow opened the cockpit door, allowing passengers to overpower al-Hammami, and two off-duty pilots to take control of the plane and land it in Saudi Arabia. It is a “fresh reminder” that, three years on from 7 October, “Israeli civilians continue to live under the constant threat of terrorism”.

“Israel almost experienced its own 9/11,” said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. We now know that al-Hammami had been preparing for the attack long before he joined flydubai. He intended to fly towards Israel as though making a normal landing, then to divert at the last possible moment and crash into Ben Gurion Airport or nearby tower blocks, before Israeli fighter jets could intervene.

‘Shirking responsibility’

The attack points to a “massive security failure on several fronts”, said The Wall Street Journal. Omani officials knew of al-Hammami’s interest in radical Islamism but failed to flag their concerns; flydubai never checked his record with the Omani authorities. The attack raises the question of whether pilots should be able to lock cockpits from the inside, said Jason Burke in The Guardian – a measure introduced after 9/11 to prevent passenger hijackings. If Machchhar’s “desperate efforts” to open the door had been unsuccessful, “there is little doubt all on board would have died”.

The Israeli authorities have questions to answer, said The Jerusalem Post. They knew of the risks posed by this flight route. Pilots from states without diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, are in theory prohibited from landing in Israel. Yet no official body seems to have been in charge of vetting them. With various authorities “shirking responsibility”, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has “vowed to fix the cracks”. But as the “euphoria” over the mid-air heroism dissipates, there must be “accountability”.

With polls suggesting a potentially historic showing for Democratic candidates in next month’s midterm elections, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a message for some in his party’s most enthusiastic base: slow down. Should the Democrats take control of one, if not both, chambers of Congress next term, the party should not expend energy impeaching President Donald Trump. Instead, they should focus on a “comprehensive ethics package” that can be used for future accountability. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Emanuel’s message of temperance has not been fully embraced by a party whose base is champing at the bit for change.

Impeachment is ‘going to be a food fight’

If Democrats take the House majority in November as they’re widely expected to do, they should “pass an ethics package” rather than jumping straight into an impeachment effort — “because it’s not going anywhere,” said Emanuel on “Meet the Press” this week. An impeachment push would simply “be a food fight,” signaling a “return to the politics of fighting.”

Polling last month showed government corruption “emerged as the second-highest-rated issue voters were concerned about,” said NBC News. “On the airwaves,” ads about “tackling government corruption and banning congressional stock trading” have “been a top issue” from both parties.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has not thrown his weight behind nascent impeachment efforts, and this “appeared to suggest this summer that it would not be a top priority,” said Fox News. Despite having impeached Trump “twice during his first term,” Democrats this time around “haven’t made much of an effort to impeach the president again,” said The Hill.

‘Wised-up disciplinarian figure’

Moderate Democrats like Emanuel are “laying the groundwork” for ineffective governance by advancing “‘don’t impeach anymore & just get back to work’ messaging,” said Mark Copelovitch, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on Bluesky. Rather than strictly running for office now, Emanuel is “using the midterms to build his base among future Democratic office-holders” ahead of a likely 2028 presidential campaign, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Substack. By framing himself as a “wised-up disciplinarian figure,” Emanuel offers the “same hoary consultant-brewed panacea” he introduced “as one of the initial class of New Democrats in the early 1990s.”

A national program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) is meant to help federal workers forgive their student debt after a decade of government service. But staffing shortages and other operational problems have left many of these workers behind.

‘Stuck and unsure’

PSLF, established in 2007, eliminates the “federal student debt of government and nonprofit workers after 10 years, or 120 qualifying monthly payments,” said CNBC. The program was largely successful in the past: About 1.2 million people had their student loans forgiven, according to the Brookings Institution. But new government evaluations are “reducing the number of qualifying payments and pushing those individuals further away from debt cancellation,” said CNBC.

The changes revolve around a Biden administration buyback rule that gives borrowers with deferred payments a “chance to recover lost time” toward paying off their loans, said The Washington Post, because “time spent in forbearance or deferment typically doesn’t count” toward PSLF. “Coding errors” cited by the Trump administration have led to a “backlog of roughly 82,000 applications,” leaving “borrowers stuck and unsure.”

Program ‘already in shambles’

Overall, the student loan repayment system is “more confusing and chaotic during President Donald Trump’s second term,” said The 19th. Experts believe policy shifts like the buyback-rule changes “have broken a student loan system that was already in shambles, leaving nearly 45 million borrowers, disproportionately women, in financial and emotional distress.” At the same time, the White House has promised up to $60,000 in student loan forgiveness for people who join Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“After nearly a year of hearing nothing, I sent all of my documentation to the Student Loan Ombudsman,” Christine Archer, a federal prosecutor in Hendricks County, Indiana, told The New York Times. “The entire packet was returned as ‘undeliverable.’” Archer graduated law school in 2014 and “tried 22 times over the past 20 months to erase her debt,” said the Times. Archer assumes that the government does not keep proper track of her payments, so she keeps her own records at home. “My husband knows that if the house burns down and he has to pick between getting the wedding album or the student loan file, that he should take the student loan file.”

President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade wars were intended to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. It is getting bigger instead. The gap between imports and exports hit $100 billion in August, a sign that Trump is losing ground on a signature policy.

What did the commentators say?

The latest trade deficit report marked a “17-month high, after also rising significantly in July,” said The New York Times. The last time the gap reached $100 billion was in March 2025, before Trump launched his “Liberation Day” tariffs — later struck down by the Supreme Court — and this fall’s trade war with Canada. But U.S. imports “hit a record $420.8 billion” in August. The United States is “just as dependent as ever on foreign-produced goods,” said Christopher Rupkey, the chief economist at FWDBONDS, to the Times.

The trade gap has actually been “gradually increasing in fits and starts” for most of the last year, said Sabri Ben-Achour at Marketplace, driven in part by the artificial intelligence build-out. It is also a consequence of foreigners investing in “all kinds of American stuff.” The trade number is driven by foreign investors using their dollars to “invest in our companies, lend to our government and buy our assets,” said John R. Puri at the National Review. U.S. officials should “treat that preference as a compliment.”

The $100 million milestone suggests the president’s economic agenda is “failing on his own terms,” said Steve Benen at MS NOW. Trump’s trade deficit is “now larger than at any time during Joe Biden’s presidency.” The importance of the import-export gap may be “exaggerated,” but the president has also argued that “this is a metric that matters.” That makes the latest report “notable.”

What next?

Trump has “scrambled the politics of U.S. trade policy,” said Marc L. Busch at The Hill. A “durable realignment in U.S. trade politics” might come after he leaves the scene. Democrats are arguing the president’s tariffs “raise costs and undermine ‘affordability,’” and it’s unclear if Republicans will be “willing to defend” the regime going forward.

Tuesday “may go down as one of the most consequential days in the history of mathematics,” said The Economist. Less than a month after astonishing the world with its solution to the long-standing Navier-Stokes problem, OpenAI has released 722 maths papers, proving or disproving problems across numerous fields from algebraic geometry to number theory. OpenAI said it had consulted extensively with mathematicians about publishing the results but the news seems to have stunned maths world. How they react to this “mathspocalypse”, and the panic it’s inducing, could determine if there’s any human-led maths at all in 50 years’ time.

What did the commentators say?

“If you want some sense of what things feel like now in maths, imagine a hunter-gatherer who’s spent his entire life learning to survive deep in an unforgiving rainforest, then a giant resort hotel springs up right next to him with a helipad and heated pools and Airbnbs,” wrote Scott Aaronson, chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, according to Sky News.

This is “heartbreaking” for our community, said Jordana Cepelewicz, maths editor at Quanta Magazine. In mathematics, “problems are posed not so much because their answers will be practical and important, but because they represent interesting journeys”. As we “struggle to solve a problem” we might “come up with intriguing tools and connections, stumble on novel ideas and directions, take fruitful detours, and answer new questions” no one’s ever thought to ask. AI models “just skip to the end”.

AI was already changing maths. Researchers have stopped positing open conjectures at the end of their paper, so they’re not “scraped by bots”. Others are publishing their papers prematurely, to avoid getting “scooped” by AI. There is now widespread fear that new blood will no longer be “attracted to this remade discipline”, resulting in a “whole lost generation”.

“Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power," said the Association for Human Mathematics in a statement. “We urge mathematicians to discontinue their work with OpenAI and to return to a vision of science that centres human understanding.”

The “floodgates are open”, said Joseph Howlett in Scientific American. This is without question the “biggest maths breakthrough in two decades”. But such is the speed of advancement, there are concerns the movement may be “coming too fast” even for the AI labs themselves. Not that they plan on slowing the tools down; they’re aiming to make them as powerful as possible to “show that their AI is really getting smarter”. The “consequences of this race are becoming harder and harder to predict”.

This could also have dangerous implications for cybersecurity, said Anthony Cuthbertson in The Independent. Cryptography forms the backbone of online encryption, used in web browsers, secure messaging and online banking. It also relies on “mathematical problems that are currently too difficult to solve efficiently”. There is no evidence that AI models have come close to breaking them but these latest advances could “lead to new algorithms capable of cracking them”, and reduce the time available to develop adequate protections.

What next?

It will take years to verify Open AI’s breakthroughs, said The Economist. Many of the papers are more than 100 pages long, only 127 of them “are accompanied by a code guaranteeing logical consistency (a norm in the field)”, and there is published internal reasoning for just 10. And it remains to be seen how many new research avenues the papers could open up. “For now, the mathematical problems AI is revealing are more existential than numerical.”

The execution by firing squad of former US Army major Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed for the public to watch, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said.

This will make it the first public execution in the US since 1936, and the prospect has already been described as “medieval”.

Who is he and what did he do?

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist from Virginia, fatally shot 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in November 2009, injuring another 32. The attack took place in a crowded medical building where soldiers were waiting for check-ups and vaccines. It was the deadliest ever non-combat attack on an American military base.

He admitted in court that he was the gunman, and said that he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He apologised for “any mistakes” but was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.

Why is it being livestreamed?

Hegseth signalled that the execution would be livestreamed as a deterrent for the sort of crime Hasan committed. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” he said.

The US government is sending “a very clear message”, said Sky News US correspondent David Blevins. Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, New York, told The Associated Press that livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent”, and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Christa Pike’s botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminals are put to death.

What’s the reaction been?

The Republican senator Thom Tillis said the plan is “beyond disgusting”. Chris Murphy, a Democrat senator, told CNN that public executions are “medieval” and mimic Islamic State killings. “That’s what America has become? That’s pretty extraordinary.”

Livestreaming “will not educate”, it will “terrorise”, and is “beneath the dignity that we owe to anyone”, even those who commit a “horrific” crime such as Hasan’s, Austin Sarat, a legal expert in the death penalty at Amherst College, Massachusetts, told The iPaper.

The decision to livestream the execution is “unprecedented in the modern era” and “on uncertain legal terrain”, John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death, told the BBC.

The livestream may face a legal challenge because federal regulations forbid the “visual or audio recording” of an execution without a specific judicial order.

Find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest news and other global events by putting your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

The Prime Minister of Lithuania has called for a firm Nato plan to respond to Russia’s hybrid attacks, “warning that Moscow is willing to test the alliance”, said Politico.

Mindaugas Sinkevičius spoke after the largest airport in Lithuania was forced to close due to a suspected drone, which was thought to have flown into the country from Belarus.

Forced shelter

Fears of drone attacks have risen this year. In September, a drone that violated Lithuanian airspace was shot down over the nation’s territory for the first time, following similar incidents in Latvia and Estonia. Residents in Vilnius were “forced to take shelter” across the capital in May after a drone alert was “triggered”, briefly grounding flights and rail travel, said the BBC.

Lithuania, a “staunch supporter” of Ukraine, shares a large part of its southern and eastern border with Belarus, a “key Russian ally”. Military drone incursions have become increasingly common across Europe since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the incident served as a reminder of the Baltic state’s vulnerability.

Achilles heel

A “tranquil corner” of Lithuania has become a “tinderbox that could help trigger World War III”, said The Sun. It has been called “the most dangerous place on Earth”, said Der Stern. Spanning 40 miles as the crow flies, the Suwalki Gap is a corridor of land, running along the Polish/Lithuanian border, that connects the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to Belarus.

The area has long been viewed as the Achilles heel of Nato’s eastern defences, because of the relative ease with which Russia could seize it by launching a pincer assault between Kaliningrad in the northwest and its client state, Belarus, in the southeast. The creation of such a land bridge would effectively isolate the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), which are all members of Nato, from the EU.

US General Ben Hodges has described the gap as “one of the most volatile points on the world map”, said The Sun. Lithuania has been “holding military drills and rehearsing wartime evacuation plans” and it has allocated almost €5 billion (£4.2 billion) to defence this year – 5.38% of its GDP, “dwarfing the UK spend of just 2.6%”.

A local father of 11, Valtemir Masharipov, told the tabloid that he fears a Russian invasion. “I would perhaps hide in the cellar, but that would be like burying yourself in a coffin if a bombardment came.” Meanwhile, Sinkevičius warned that a Russian victory in Ukraine would probably push Moscow to look for “other directions”.

Is there such a thing as ‘ethical’ gold mining? What does a new start-up tell us about the state of AI? And why are K-pop acts boycotting the Grammys?

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The Turner Prize no longer inspires the excitement and the “ire” that it used to, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Times. Once the “main event” of Tate Britain’s schedule, it is now a travelling show, chugging around provincial museums. In principle, this is an admirable attempt to “spread the word about contemporary art”, but in practice it means the Turner has become rather a sideshow.

This year’s iteration takes place in Middlesbrough, a corner of the country that has recently been much maligned. As ever, it presents the work of four British artists (or artists working in Britain) who are nominated for exceptional exhibitions in the past year.

The winner receives £25,000, the runners-up £5,000 each. And in this case, the participants truly deserve it. All of the nominees field “solid showings” – and, for the first time in years, “there is a genuine sense of the display putting its finger on Britain’s artistic pulse… I loved it.”

‘Boring’ at points

This year’s show, which features no painters, is “relatively conventional – and even, at points, boring”, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Kira Freije (b.1985) fashions figurative sculptures from “aluminium casts of parts of her own body and others’ faces”, creating “skeletal” effigies draped in “faded scraps of folksy fabric”. She fills a room with them, her creations projecting “a dramatic, sorrowful quality” that evokes “a broken world populated by impoverished survivors”. It’s impressive enough, but it feels “rehashed”: Freije fails to “synthesise” her influences.

Far better is the French artist Marguerite Humeau (b.1986), whose huge sculptures of animals, including a dying elephant and dramatically enlarged fungi, have “genuine flair, originality and refinement”. Humeau’s description of her own art – she says she is on a “quest” for “transcendence” – can sound a bit “hippy-dippy”, but the “unsettling” proliferation of sculptural forms she creates is “bizarrely beautiful”.

‘Feels, smells and tastes’ like modern Britain

Far from being disappointing, “this is one of the strongest Turner Prize shows in recent memory”, said Mark Hudson in The Independent. The favourite to win is 31-year-old Tanoa Sasraku. One piece covers an entire wall with paper imitations of fabric patterns used by her father, a Ghanaian fashion designer, coloured with saturated earth dyes. It has the air of “something Mark Rothko might have produced”, if he’d worked with wrapping paper.

My personal favourite, though, is Simeon Barclay (b.1975), who presents a spoken-word piece synced to a video, itself presented within a replica of the Huddersfield nightclub he was barred from as a teenager. It’s about growing up Black in South Yorkshire, and it hymns the M62 – the motorway “that connected Huddersfield, and by extension Barclay, to the wider world”. Maybe it’s odd to have spoken-work poetry in an art prize, but it’s a piece that really “feels, smells and tastes” like modern Britain.

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Until 29 March.

“Welcome to Bentley’s EV future,” said Top Gear Magazine – of the flagship new Torcal, unveiled last week. “The most powerful and torquey Bentley ever”, it has the same “whopping” 113kWh battery as the new Porsche Cayenne, with which it shares an EV platform, giving it an “ample” range of 360 miles. Add in 400kW charging and you’ve got a “capable transcontinental cruiser”.

The battery promises to retain 90% of its capacity after 100,000 miles of driving, because Bentley envisages the car as an “heirloom” to be “passed down through generations”, along with signet rings and castles.

Bentley’s first EV blends “heritage with cutting-edge innovation”, says CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser. Production is due to begin in Bentley’s Crewe plant this year, with just two trims from launch, both with twin-motor powertrains and four-wheel drive. The standard car packs 811bhp, while the 876bhp S has “more of a sporting bent”, said Autocar.

With 995lb-ft of torque, it can get from 0-62mph in just 2.9 secs, with a top speed of 162mph. “Tuned for maximum refinement”, its bespoke suspension uses active dual-valve dampers to create a “true ‘magic carpet’ ride”.

The Torcal is “impressively spacious inside”, said PistonHeads, with the “material plushness” that customers expect, including the world’s first 100% merino wool car upholstery. Bentley has opted for proper knurled buttons instead of a passenger display; the driver’s curved touchscreen is a “nice touch” and the adjustable seats are “exceptional”.

Live orchestral recordings have been used to replicate the noise of a combustion engine; other sound effects include a finger on the rim of a crystal glass for the voice command response. This is “one of the best Bentleys ever”, says Walliser – and with a lower-price Range Rover Electric arriving imminently, “it will need to be”.

A phoenix planet, created from the remnants of a dying star, has been found around a white dwarf star for the first time. The second-generation planet could be an indicator of the future of our solar system.

Cosmic death

The unnamed exoplanet was discovered circling the white dwarf HS 0209+0832, according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. White dwarfs are created when stars “exhaust the hydrogen in their cores needed to fuel nuclear fusion and create helium,” said Space.com (a sister site of The Week). HS 0209+0832’s atmosphere had an “unusual chemical signature” with “oddly heavy elements including zinc, copper and most notably, niobium,” which are “created during the death of a star,” said a news release about the study.

This signature is likely the white dwarf “feeding off a newly formed, second-generation giant planet” that “condensed out of a new disc of material formed during the star’s death,” said the release. Scientists also suspect that the atmosphere of the phoenix planet is “being stripped by the white dwarf’s stellar winds, causing the rare elements to fall back onto the zombie star,” said Live Science (also a sister site of The Week).

Rebirth

Many more phoenix planets around white dwarfs may exist. “Over 95% of stars in the Milky Way will evolve to become a white dwarf,” including our sun, said lead study author Jamie Williams to Reuters. In the future, our own solar system could “host a second-generation planet formed from the ashes of our sun,” said the release.

While this phoenix planet is a gas planet, others could be rocky or even hold life. “White dwarfs cool predictably over time ⁠and as they get cooler, their cooling slows,” Williams said. “If a second-generation rocky planet formed close enough to the white dwarf then it could remain in the habitable zone for billions of years.”

Fall is when studios love to drop some of their juiciest awards-season contenders. And October’s slate unsurprisingly features several buzzy, prestigious new offerings, with a movie for virtually all tastes.

‘East of Eden’

Florence Pugh stars in this adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel. She plays Cathy Ames, who shoots her husband, Adam (Christopher Abbott), and flees to run a brothel after delivering their twin boys. The series offers an “allegory of the moral corruption of a nation,” said Inkoo Kang at The New Yorker. (on Netflix now)

‘War’

Creator George Kay’s new drama tackles the divorce between actress Carla Duval (Sienna Miller) and tech tycoon Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) while foregrounding their warring law firms. The series is an “old-school adult drama,” said Michel Ghanem at The Cut. (on HBO Max now)

‘Carrie’

In this new take on Stephen King’s novel from horror auteur Mike Flanagan, updated for the social media era, Summer H. Howell plays Carrie White, the shy student whose bullying results in supernatural tragedy. Flanagan’s take on the story makes “everyone a little more sympathetic,” said Katie Rife at Inverse. (on Prime Video now)

‘The Diplomat’ season 4

“The Diplomat” returns with President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) and Vice President Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) scrambling to contain the fallout from a shocking act of espionage while Hal’s wife, Kate (Keri Russell), tries to salvage the international order. It’s a show that “treats politics as something deeply personal,” said Lacy Baugher Milas at Paste Magazine. (Oct. 15 on Netflix)

Multiple news sources, expertly edited together

Multiple news sources, expertly edited together

Multiple news sources, expertly edited together

Crossword - Oct. 16, 2026

SUDOKU - Oct. 16, 2026

This week’s question: A Colorado woman used Reddit to find a prospective mate for Asmodeus, her elderly pet tarantula, to save him from dying a virgin. In seven words or fewer, come up with a rated-PG message that a spider seeking love might post on a dating site.

How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this week, please type “Tarantula personals” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Oct. 13. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page of the Oct. 23 issue and at theweek.com/contest on Oct. 16. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first one received gets credit. All entries become property of The Week.

The winner gets a one-year subscription to The Week.

Click or tap here to see the winner of last week's contest: Cringe clubbing

The Department of Justice is revoking the citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens who have been accused of various crimes. The sweeping effort is in line with the Trump administration’s escalation of immigration enforcement.

Who is being targeted?

This week’s announcement marks the “largest denaturalization effort in modern history,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche in a press release. From an “individual convicted of espionage” to those convicted of other serious offenses, the defendants “concealed critical facts” from the government and “represent serious criminal offenders.” Under Trump’s leadership, the DOJ will “continue to employ the denaturalization process” to “maintain our national security” and “protect the American people.”

The denaturalization petitions were “lodged against the 40 individuals” between Aug. 10 and Oct. 2, said Time. They are accused of a variety of crimes, including “child sexual abuse, fraud and tax evasion.” Not all are “convicted of or pleaded guilty to violent crimes,” said USA Today. At least “19 of the 40 people” face denaturalization proceedings for “reasons related to accusations of lying on visa forms.”

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a federal court can revoke naturalized U.S. citizenship if the government establishes that the citizenship was “illegally obtained or procured through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation,” said Newsweek.

How does this fit into Trump’s larger agenda?

The Justice Department has “made denaturalization a priority” under the Trump administration’s “hard-line immigration crackdown,” said Newsweek. In June 2025, the Justice Department’s Civil Division in an internal memo directed attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.” The guidance cited “fraud or willful misrepresentation in obtaining citizenship, certain criminal conduct and national security concerns” among the grounds for pursuing cases, said Newsweek.

What used to be a “rare process reserved for the most egregious offenders” has become “common during Trump’s presidential terms,” said Time. At one point, Trump “leveled the threat at his political enemies” like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and tech titan and “on-again, off-again ally” Elon Musk. The administration allegedly plans to file at least 250 denaturalization cases by this October, according to an unnamed senior Justice Department official, per CNN.

The term ‘hobbymaxxing’ refers to filling up one’s schedule with as many hobbies as possible. Young people frustrated by the proliferation of AI and sick of screen addiction are investing in more nondigital pastimes, many of which have a nostalgic bent.

It should come as no surprise that a generation increasingly “disenfranchised by AI” and averse to alcohol consumption is hobbymaxxing, said Sadiba Hasan at The New York Times. The newfound focus seems to be on “wholesome, creative and tactile activities.”

Enriching and positive

In 2026, posts on TikTok using #hobbies saw a 15% increase compared to the previous year. There have been “plenty of conversations” about how hobbies can provide much-needed “fulfillment,” said Rainesford Stauffer at Time, but indulging in childhood amusements specifically can help people step back and see “how much” they have “changed.”

While people have often looked for ways to monetize their favorite pastimes, this new approach is not rooted in finances. Bringing something from the “distant past” into your present creates a “very positive experience,” Dan P. McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, said to Time. It involves “integrating your life around something that was once really important to you.”

Unsuccessful attempts at dating have also led to an increase in the “time, energy and disposable income” young people put into their “passions,” said Hasan. Instead of “spending hours swiping and messaging on apps,” they are focusing on having “packed” calendars that make their lives “feel rich, with or without a romantic partner.”

Having a “full life” can ultimately benefit your relationships, dating coach Amy Chan said to the Times. When a person shifts their focus away from finding a partner and works on “establishing independence,” they develop a different outlook on dating. Investing time in hobbies “creates a positive ripple effect” on your romantic life because you no longer come “from a place of scarcity.”

Taking it too far

Despite the rising cost of nonessential services and activities, known widely as ‘funflation,’ there seems to be no slowing down when it comes to hobby purchases, said Sawdah Bhaimiya at CNBC. According to an analysis by Bank of America, there was a 7.9% year-on-year increase in hobby-related spending in August 2026. A much higher number compared to the 3.4% increase related to other purchases.

Indulgent youngsters should, however, be wary of developing a “hobbying obsession,” said Grey Battle at The Washington Post. Taking it “too far” means the activities start to feel like “additional jobs.”

Digitalization has allowed us to optimize any activity through “metrics and digital record-keeping,” while “social media constantly exposes us to other people’s supposedly successful lives,” said cultural sociologist Sarah Pritz to the Post. This has changed our perspective on leisure, and some could begin to view hobbies as a way to improve productivity. Even “relaxation has acquired a purpose: to recover and perform better afterward,” said the Post.

One purpose of the death penalty is to offer closure — for survivors, victims and the justice system. It has not worked out that way in the case of Christa Pike. Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Pike for a 1995 murder is raising fresh questions about the morality and viability of the practice.

‘Things can go grotesquely wrong’

Pike’s case shows the death penalty is a “moral stain on America,” said Rex Huppke at USA Today. She is just the latest U.S. prisoner to survive an execution, said the Death Penalty Information Center. Tennessee tried and failed in May to kill Tony Carruthers for his conviction on a 1996 triple murder, and Alabama and Idaho have seen similar missteps since 2022. Executions are “messy,” Huppke said, and “things can go grotesquely wrong.”

It is a “scandal” that Pike’s execution was botched, said Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review. But she “should be dead” for her part in the grisly murder of Colleen Slemmer. The execution’s failure is the fault of those who have tried to “medicalize” state-sanctioned killing through the lethal injection process. Most death penalty advocates would “happily replace lethal injections with a firing squad or a gallows.”

Tennessee has proven itself “embarrassingly bad” at the death penalty, said Betsy Phillips at the Nashville Scene. The failed executions are “not justice” or “even revenge.” They are just “stupid and cruel, and there’s no honor in that.”

‘Watershed moment’?

Botched executions “make headlines,” but the latest will probably not be a “watershed moment” for the death penalty, said Austin Sarat at The Boston Globe. Tennessee leaders are already calling to restart executions, “if not by lethal injection then by other means.”

President Donald Trump this week “approved the execution by firing squad” of Nidal Hasan for a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, said NPR. Polls, however, show that support for the death penalty has declined in recent decades. Capital punishment was already “dying its own slow death” before the Pike case, Corinna Lain of the University of Richmond School of Law said to the outlet.

The framed school photo on the mantlepiece is a “familiar fixture of family life”, said The Times, but the annual push to encourage your child to smile nicely for the school photographer may soon be no more.

The school photography industry is “under threat”, and the main culprits are parents using artificial intelligence tools to scrub the watermarks from photographers’ proofs or previews, and print off photographs without paying. Nearly 60% of school photographers say they have “lost commissioned work to AI”, and more than two-thirds have “experienced copyright infringement”, according to the Association of Photographers.

Prices ‘can run up’

The average spend on a single school photo is £25 but, if you want extra copies for relatives, or fall for added extras like turning the picture “into a magnet, keyring or snow globe”, prices “can run up” to £100 or more, said The Guardian.

Parents are increasingly baulking at shelling out for “mundane headshots” when it’s so easy to use AI tools to erase the photographer’s watermark and get the pictures for free, said Futurism. Some are even opting to “fast-track school picture day” altogether by taking their own photos of their children and then “tossing them into ChatGPT, with a prompt” to “make it look like a school picture”. The tool then adds that “milquetoast background” school photographers so favour, and you’re done.

Privacy concerns

The big catch with this approach is that your child’s face “may not survive the edit”, said Gadget Review. Even after “explicitly asking” the chatbot to “preserve” your child’s features, a face “can change during generation”. You may end up with slightly different “eyes, facial proportions, and hairline”.

Uploading your child’s image to an AI chatbot may also “pose a bigger concern”, said USA Today. That image won’t be discarded after you’re done, even if you delete the chat; it will be kept for potential use in training AI to “generate more refined content”. You are “basically seeding your child’s image into a large language model, and who knows how that can be manipulated” in the future, legal expert Daliah Saper told the paper.

And scrubbing watermarks could “end up being far more costly” than paying for the official photo, said US business magazine Fast Company. Doing so is copyright infringement, and photography companies could choose to pursue legal action, hitting parents with fines that could run into hundreds of pounds.

When the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was revealed today, “all eyes in the literary world” were firmly fixed on Stockholm, said Deutsche Welle.

But the announcement of 76-year-old Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson as this year’s laureate marked the end of a lengthy, secretive selection process that began more than a year ago. And the world’s most prestigious literary award has, according to Euronews, “generated more controversies” than any of the other Nobel Prizes.

Who chooses the Nobel Prize laureates in literature?

Awards are chosen by the Swedish Academy, founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. The 18 members, known as “De Aderton” (The Eighteen), are currently made up of “distinguished Swedish writers, linguists, literary scholars, historians, and a prominent jurist”, according to the Nobel Prize website. They have tenure for life.

How do nominations work?

In September last year, the Academy’s “Nobel Committee” sent out hundreds of invitation forms to individuals and organisations eligible to submit nominations. These include literature and linguistics professors at universities, previous Nobel laureates in literature, and the heads of writers’ associations in various countries. The committee can also add names, such as past laureates. The list “can reach 200 names per year”, Gisele Sapiro, research director and Nobel Prize expert, told DW.

Those who don’t receive an invitation but are still qualified to submit nominations can do so – but no one can nominate themselves. That said, “there’s a tradition of writers lobbying for the prize by giving talks in Gothenburg or Stockholm and then flirting with Academy members over drinks”, said the Financial Times.

The Committee screens submissions after the January deadline and, over the next few months, “whittles down the nominations” to five candidates. The 18 then read and assess the work over the summer, confer in September, and vote in early October. The winner must receive more than half the votes. He or she takes home 12 million Swedish kronor (about £910,000), as well as a “lifetime of laurels”, said LitHub. But the public – and nominees – don’t learn which authors made the shortlist until 50 years later. Some authors are considered year after year, but never win.

What are they looking for?

In his will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the prize should go to the writer of the “most outstanding work in an idealistic direction”. The Academy “spent decades puzzling over what ‘ideal’ meant”, said the FT, before “quietly dropping the criterion”.

Last year, the prize went to Hungarian modernist László Krasznahorkai, for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that in the midst of apocalyptic terror reaffirms the power of art”. The prize is given to a writer’s body of work, rather than one book.

According to Sapiro, the Academy is looking for ambitious, influential literature that has spawned a new literary movement. The work must also be “universal, being able to transcend its own culture”, she told DW. Translations are key: most laureates are translated into English, French and German – “these three languages are the most important”. It’s also a “major advantage” if nominees have already won other prestigious literary awards, she said, such as the International Man Booker Prize.

So far, only 33 out of 122 laureates have come from outside Europe. Only about 15% of winners have been women, but since 2018, the prize has alternated between a man and a woman. Genre doesn’t seem to matter: in 2016, Bob Dylan won the prize for his song lyrics.

Why is it so controversial?

Possibly the most controversial winner was Peter Handke in 2019. The Austrian writer was a “known denier of the Bosnian genocide”, as well as a “close supporter” of former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, said Euronews. Hundreds protested, and several countries either condemned the award or boycotted the ceremony. Even Bob Dylan’s fans were “baffled” by his selection.

“The prize is ritually mocked,” said the FT’s Simon Kuper. Because achievement in literature is more subjective than in the sciences, the decision “reliably angers critics”. There is also a “comic discrepancy between the weight of the prize and the parochialism of the judges”. Some of the 18 are “obscure even in Sweden”. They have also awarded eight Nobels to Sweden: more than Asia, Africa or Latin America have each received.

But the prize still “shapes the global canon – even if the globe can push back”. Dylan’s award may have been “ridiculed”, but it “sparked a global debate on what constitutes literature”. The prize can also “turbocharge sales”, which benefits small presses that publish literature in translation. It also gets authors’ names trending on social media, far beyond their countries. In a world where reading is “in decline”, the prize matters more than ever.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement has been invoked for the first time since it was signed in August, following Houthi-led attacks on Saudi infrastructure Mecca, Medina and the capital’s airport.

While not identifying the Yemeni group by name, the alliance, composed of Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, will undertake a “rapid deployment” of troops to Saudi Arabia as part of their “collective defence commitments”.

Saudi Arabia is also supporting an offensive by the Yemeni government to take back the capital, Sanaa, held by the Houthis since 2014. Three people have been killed in attacks on Saudi Arabian airports over two days, as fighting spilled across the Yemen border into the Kingdom. It is unclear how Pakistan and Turkey will contribute to this action.

As the US continues to focus on Iran, and has ruled out direct intervention in Yemen, the alliance’s success could redraw the lines of power and control in the region.

What did the commentators say?

“Even the threat of joint involvement could dramatically shift the Saudi-Houthi conflict,” said Foreign Policy. Although in its infancy, members of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement boast nearly 1.4 million active troops combined, as well as “3,400 aircraft, 6,000 tanks, and more than 340 naval assets”. Pakistan has nuclear capabilities – “the only nuclear-armed Muslim-majority nation in the world” – and Turkey stands second only to the US for the largest armed forces in Nato.

Defence relations between the countries had already been close, even before the Mecca Accord was signed in August, said Abid Hussain on Al Jazeera. Pakistan has trained Saudi military personnel since 1967, and a declassified CIA assessment from 1985 estimated that 13,000 to 14,000 Pakistanis were serving in the Saudi army.

However, the Turkish “footprint is less clear”. And there is a potential sticking point, as Article 92 of Turkey’s constitution stipulates that the “authority to send troops abroad rests with the parliament, which has yet to ratify the Mecca pact”.

The timing of the announcement also “carries deep symbolic weight”, said Sean Mathews in Middle East Eye. Pakistan has been positioning itself as an “honest broker” for peace in the region, mediating between the US and Iran in previous negotiations, and Turkey has overtly established its stance as a “rival to Israel”. And by invoking the pact, Saudi Arabia has demonstrated that it has the “support of the wider region in its counter-offensive against the Houthis” and, by extension, Iran.

In the grand scheme of things, the Mecca Accord should be perceived more as an “additional layer of regional security rather than a wholesale strategic realignment”, said international relations expert John Calabrese on The Conversation. Traditionally, states in the region have relied on external support to gain “greater strategic autonomy”. Yet, as the threats in the region become harder to “separate into discrete categories”, and suspicion of the conventional allies grows, Saudi Arabia is moving to “hedge” its bets to avoid becoming vulnerable.

What next?

Despite the invocation, a resolution in Yemen against the Houthis is “unlikely without a wider deal between the US and Iran”, said Samer Al-Atrush, The Times’ Middle East correspondent. Currently, however, Washington is intent on demanding “concessions” from Tehran by enforcing its own naval blockade.

Halloween is all about “dressing up, carving pumpkins, sharing treats and enjoying spooky fun with friends and family”, said the BBC. Here are some of our favourite activities from across the country. Pick pumpkins in Yorkshire, cuddle tarantulas in Oxfordshire, or encounter ghostly figures in the Tower of London: no tricks, only treats.

Ghosts and ravens at Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London

“Where better to mark All Hallows’ Eve than some of London’s most haunted locations?” said Connor Sturges in Condé Nast Traveller. Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London are putting on their usual “spook-tacular” events for all ages throughout half term. Expect “roaming ghostly apparitions” as the sun sets, and follow autumn trails “filled with pumpkins, scarecrows and seasonal surprises” around the Palace grounds. For the first time at the Tower, there will be “early-bird access into the fortress for a unique encounter with the ravens”, while wardens regale you with tales of the Tower’s “darkest secrets”.
24 October to 1 November; hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace; hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london

Pumpkin Picking at Stockeld Park, North Yorkshire

A trip to Stockeld Park is “fantastic” all year round, said Alice Saville in Time Out. But it “lures” you in with an “added bonus” of themed adventure playgrounds around Halloween time. You can jump on a tractor and head out into the fields to select your own pumpkin, before settling in for a day of autumnal fun. The main event is a “pumpkin slingshot” which is included in your ticket price, but there are also wand-making sessions and a friendly roving scarecrow.
24 to 31 October; stockeldpark.co.uk

Scarefest at Alton Towers Resort, Staffordshire

Each year, the theme park “raises its Halloween game to offer an increasingly spookier experience for their annual Scarefest celebration”, said Amy Burns in The i Paper. This year it has after-dark rides on Nemesis Reborn, plus Wicker Man and The Smiler. Over the years, the park has introduced more “live actor experiences” and Halloween is the ideal opportunity to expand this trend – and offer “genuine frights”. To tone down the scare factor, you can head to Amigos in the Afterlife or Trick o’ Treat Town, where live actors will “amuse younger visitors and even hand out a few treats”.
10 to 11 October, and 16 October to 1 November; altontowers.com

Victoria Park Guardians, Victoria Park, Manchester

As October draws to a close, Stretford’s Victoria Park “transforms into an interactive family trail”, said Emmeline Banks in Secret Manchester. Teams gather together to solve clues to “uncover the mystery of the Keeper’s missing key” from the 13 Guardians hidden across the park’s paths, gardens, and historic spots. It’s designed for ages three to 12, and can take up to 90 minutes, but it’s well worth the reward waiting for you at the end.
24 to 31 October; eventbrite.com

Thrill-seeking at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

The Palace’s “haunted half term” has plenty to offer for a family day out, said Fran Watts in The Independent. Handling animals in the ZooLab is perfect for little ones, allowing them to see tarantulas, snakes, giant snails and more up close. There are also witch storytelling sessions, circus workshops and the popular Pip and Posy trail. “Older thrill-seekers may want to wait until after dark” for the spooky trail – think “immersive entertainment, light displays, jumpy twists and turns and Halloween food and drinks”.
22 October to 1 November; blenheimpalace.com

Increasing numbers of workers are opting out of their workplace pensions to save money, but there are risks to be aware of.

All employees are automatically enrolled into workplace pension schemes if they are over the age of 22. But a “growing number” of Gen Z and millennials are choosing to opt out, “due to cost-of-living pressures”, said BBC News.

However, the over-60s are “consistently the highest rate of any age group” opting out, said Fidelity International, but this “may not be the right decision and could cost them dearly”.

Why people are opting out of workplace pensions

Saving for retirement is, of course, sensible but with a “cost-of-living crunch and compressed real wage growth ”younger workers are “prioritising having money in their pockets now”, said Investors’ Chronicle.

Some over-60s may also feel they have enough for retirement or have a health issue that reduces life expectancy, said Fidelity, so their priorities “may understandably change”.

How to opt out of your pension scheme

If you wish to opt out of your pension scheme, your employer will tell you the scheme you are enrolled in. To leave, you will need to contact the provider directly.

Businesses “must not actively encourage their staff to opt out”, said the Pensions Regulator, so it must be your own decision.

You can opt out within a month of being added to your employer’s scheme, and you will get back any contributions. Once you have been enrolled for a month, any contributions will usually stay in your pension fund until you retire.

Other options include reducing the level of your contributions, although there is a minimum of 5% of pay for employees and 3% for employers.

The benefits of opting out

The “main benefit” of opting out, said Legal & General, is getting your hands on extra cash. This can be useful if you have “new financial commitments, or changed your spending priorities”.

But while it can seem an “easy way” to pocket more money each month, said TPT Retirement Solutions, it can have a “surprisingly large impact” on the plans you have for your golden years.

The drawbacks of opting out

Opting out of a workplace pension is like giving up “free money”, said Armstrong Watson, as you lose employer contributions and government tax relief.

It is easy to underestimate the impact of “even a few years of missing pension contributions” though, said The Times, especially when you are young.

Your retirement is more likely to be comfortable “if you can save over the longest time possible”, said MoneyHelper.

You will miss out on potential investment growth if you opt out from your pension, which can slow down your savings, said Legal & General, which means “you might end up having to fill the gap by working for longer, later on in life”.

Opting out isn’t a “one-time decision” though, said LV, and you can usually rejoin your company’s workplace scheme. But this can be a “lengthy process” so you will miss out on any benefits and investment growth in the meantime.

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Spooky season is all about getting your thrills, and for the literary-inclined, there is plenty afoot this month. Notable releases include a novel about police brutality, Barbara Kingsolver's return, 1980s fiction, and a deep dive into the very real specter of artificial intelligence.

‘The AGI Chronicles’ by Kevin Roose

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist at The New York Times, interviewed “over 150 insiders at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind” for this deep dive into the “race to reach the next frontier” of AI: a “system that can outdo humans at nearly anything,” said the Times. (out now, $29, Macmillan Publishers, Amazon)

‘The Occidental Book of the Dead’ by T. Geronimo Johnson

A cop killing a teenager “sparks an epic disquisition on race in the U.S.” in T. Geronimo Johnson’s forthcoming novel, said Kirkus Reviews. It is a “swing-for-the-fences novel,” both a “gripping procedural” and a “high-literary study of American bigotry.” (out now, $34, Harper Collins Publishers, Amazon)

‘Partita’ by Barbara Kingsolver

Livia’s “staid collegiate career” as a “scholarship piano prodigy” was upended by an affair with a “blue-collar Socialist.” Decades later, “he wants to reconnect,” said The Boston Globe. Kingsolver’s “still got the goods in her assured tenth novel.” (out now, $32, Harper Collins Publishers, Amazon)

‘Peck & Peck’ by Bonnie Garmus

“Peck & Peck” caters to readers who adore literary fiction set in “1980s New York City” that follows “young people with literary ambitions,” said The Skimm. The novel promises to be a “tender, thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining coming-of-adulthood story.” (Oct. 13, $30, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)

The spirit of the late, disgraced President Richard Nixon is tanned, rested and ready for a four-fingered comeback. Nixonmaxxing conservatives are working to rehabilitate the 37th president’s fallen reputation — an effort that also attempts to shape narratives about President Donald Trump.

‘Nixon is back’

Republicans see Nixon as a “historical analog” for Trump, said The Wall Street Journal. If Democrats consider both men to be uniquely villainous, conservatives have another view. “The same groups of people, the same institutions” tried to take down both presidents, said Vice President JD Vance this summer at the Nixon Presidential Library, per the outlet. The Justice Department is now “reviewing” whether the Watergate special prosecutor “committed misconduct” in the case, said the Journal.

“Nixon is back,” said Nathan Pinkoski at the Washington Examiner. Boomers view the former president as the “embodiment of perfidy and villainy.” Current in-power Republicans instead view him as a symbol of a “conservative counterculture” who has been embraced by a “younger, rebellious American Right.” The new surge in Nixonphilia is “perfectly timed to tap into a broader collapse of trust” in institutions like the media and legal system.

The Justice Department’s attempt to rewrite history is “extremely dangerous,” said Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, at MS NOW. The truth is that Nixon “tried to use the deep state to cover up his crimes.” Obscuring that story is just “another flagrant effort by the Trump administration to undermine our established rule of law.”

No big deal?

The right’s new embrace of Nixon “serves some obvious purposes,” Jonah Goldberg said at The Dispatch. Watergate ended his presidency, signaling “there’s a limit to what Trump can get away with.” But it is an “open question” if any of Trump’s scandals can be a problem if Watergate is retroactively declared to be “no big deal.”

“Nixonmaxxing” was “inevitable,” Heather Digby Parton said at Salon. One way the increasingly unpopular Trump and his GOP allies can fend off scandal is to argue the “deep state has been out to get Republicans ever since Nixon.” It might be the only way to contain a “massive revolt” against Trumpism.

When mortgage rates are high, many buyers are less inclined to make a home purchase. This can end up being bad news for sellers.

Conventional wisdom has called for staying put until rates cool off. But with “mortgage rates on the cusp of topping 7% for the fifth year in a row, it might be time to stop waiting for lower rates to put your home on the market,” said The Wall Street Journal. It may also be a good time to get more strategic.

How do high mortgage rates affect home sales?

Higher mortgage rates squeeze the budgets of buyers. Because “rising mortgage rates reduce purchasing power even when home prices change little,” prospective buyers may “lower their target price or postpone a purchase,” said U.S. Bank. Buyers are also likely to be more cautious and critical about making an offer. When rates are high, they are “quick to walk away from homes that are overpriced or in poor condition,” said the Journal.

For sellers, this means they may not sell their home for as much as they want or get it done as quickly as they want. While there are exceptions, “most sellers can no longer count on a swift sale,” said the Journal. They may also be forced to make concessions and address issues they may have otherwise avoided in a seller’s market.

What can you do to sell when mortgage rates are high?

When buyers are price-sensitive, “pricing your home correctly from the start is one of the most important things you can do,” said Homie, a real estate technology company. “Overpricing can scare buyers away, while smart pricing can lead to more offers — and even a bidding war.”

If you do get an offer, it’s worth being a little flexible. Although “five years ago, sellers could say no to repairs and rely on a backup offer,” today, it “might pay to provide a reasonable credit or fix the problem,” said Chris Wands, a Douglas Elliman real estate agent, to the Journal. It could additionally help to offer concessions, like paying closing costs, in order to make the sale.

Last but not least, it is vital that your home is in tip-top shape when you begin showing it. “Standing out from the competition is particularly important when interest rates are high because buyer traffic will be lower,” said REMAX.

Is it worth staying put instead of selling?

“When you look at the actual numbers, the high mortgage rates seller’s dilemma makes sense,” said REMAX. Still, “homeowners waiting to sell their homes due to high interest rates need to think about the whole picture.” Consider what the trade-offs are of postponing a move you want to make, and factor in the possibility that home prices themselves could go up while you are waiting for mortgage rates to fall.

It’s worth pointing out that staying where you are and selling are not necessarily the only two options on the table. As a third path, “owners holding ultralow fixed-rate mortgages can take advantage of the strong rental demand,” said Ben Dixon, another Douglas Elliman agent, to the Journal. “High rents might cover carrying costs, generate cash flow and allow the owner to hold on to their low-cost debt until the market takes a turn for the better.”

The movies are getting serious in October. The Iraq War, the Covid-19 pandemic, the billionaire bubble and a social media audit are among the heady subjects tackled in cinemas this month.

‘Atonement’

Boyd Holbrook stars as Lou D'Alessandro, a Marine who kills several members of an Iraqi family during the U.S. invasion and later tries to connect with Mariam (Hiam Abbass), who survived the attack. Director Reed Van Dyk’s heart-wrenching film “builds to a climactic sequence of stirring nuance and power,” said Owen Gleiberman at Variety. (in theaters now)

‘Love of Your Life’

Director Rachel Morrison’s unapologetic romance stars Margaret Qualley as an ER nurse whose husband, Charlie (Gabriel Basso), dies during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading her to wander numbly before meeting Felix (Aaron Pierre). It’s a “gorgeously shot romantic drama,” said David Ehrlich at IndieWire. (in theaters now)

‘The Social Reckoning’

In director Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to “The Social Network,” Mikey Madison plays a whistleblower, and Jeremy Allen White is the reporter who pens an expose about Facebook’s intentional harms. The “semi-admiring mood of the first film has drifted toward something darker” here, said Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times. (in theaters Oct. 9)

‘Sacrifice’

In this riotous send-up, Anya Taylor-Joy plays Joan, an eco-terrorist whose apocalyptic cult thinks it can avert a global cataclysm by doing away with three people. So the group storms an elite gala in Greece hosted by vapid billionaire Ben Bracken (Vincent Cassel). Director Romain Gavras delivers a “heady odyssey of self-discovery,” said Lyvie Scott at Inverse. (Oct. 16 on Netflix)

Concerns are sweeping across Russia and the world after a laboratory technician reportedly died from pneumonic plague in Siberia. Many more people are now being quarantined. But health officials in the United States say there is no reason to worry about a global outbreak, at least for the time being.

What happened in Russia?

A 28-year-old researcher at the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute of Siberia in the town of Shelekhov died last week after being infected with pneumonia of “unknown” origin, according to Russia’s public health agency, Rospotrebnadzor. The disease is now possibly believed to be pneumonic plague, an illness “caused by bacteria, Yersinia pestis, famous for causing the Black Death, that remains with us today mostly in animals across parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas,” Simon Clarke, a professor of cellular microbiology at the U.K.’s University of Reading, said in a statement.

The disease is deadly but “generally treatable with antibiotics if identified quickly,” said Clarke. After the researcher’s death, “dozens of people were reported to be in isolation,” even as Russia claimed “no microorganisms associated with the employee’s professional duties were detected in samples taken from the patient,” said CNN. The head of Rospotrebnadzor later arrived in Shelekhov to hold an emergency meeting about a “particularly dangerous infection,” said Russian news outlet IRK. It was originally reported that the worker who died caught the disease from a broken test tube, which Russia has denied.

What next?

Given the similarities to the alleged coronavirus lab leak cover-up, some people have “likened the reports coming out of Russia to those that circulated in the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020,” said Time. But for now, experts are saying a similar pandemic is unlikely. It is “important to remember that pneumonic plague is a very different disease,” Clarke said. U.S. officials say they will continue to watch for updates.

The State Department has also sent a letter to Moscow warning that its “failure to disclose details about the death of a lab worker from a plague research center in Siberia runs counter to its international health obligations,” said The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. is “monitoring it closely,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus.”

The employee in the cubicle next to yours is probably a woman. Recent job gains under President Donald Trump have gone mostly to women, who now outnumber men in the workforce. But gainful employment and truly gainful employment — that is, with more pay and status — are two different things.

What did the commentators say?

U.S. jobs reports of late “may feel especially lousy for men,” said CNBC. Women have outnumbered them in the workforce for eight straight months, the longest such stretch since 2010. That gap during the Great Recession happened “because men were losing jobs,” said economist Cory Stahle to the outlet. Now “women are gaining” jobs faster than men.

“The pink-collar economy is here,” said Justin Wolfers at Platypus Economics. Men once vastly outnumbered women in the workplace. Women’s employment “rose quickly” since 1970 while men’s work “grew more slowly and occasionally plateaued.” The gender gap “flipped” because of the growth of industries, especially healthcare, in which the job force was “already dominated by women.”

The trends defy Trump’s vision of an economy in which men can earn a “good living but also a sense of accomplishment and status,” said Paul Waldman at MS NOW. The president could urge men to seek out jobs in women-dominated fields like healthcare instead of an ever-diminishing manufacturing sector. “But it’s not the kind of profession Trump will encourage men to go into.”

The flip is “not an entirely good thing,” said Noam Scheiber at The New York Times. Women have become the majority of workers amid the “diminishing status of many American jobs,” a trend driven by factors such as reduced union membership, outsourced work and the rise of artificial intelligence. Women spent decades “reaching for the brass ring” only to find out that “it’s hopelessly tarnished once they finally grasp it.”

What next?

The next milestone is narrowing the wage gap. Women on the job “still earn far less starting the day they graduate,” said Fortune. They also make up “two-thirds of workers in low-wage jobs” such as teaching and nursing but remain “underrepresented in more lucrative fields such as finance, construction and STEM.”

Whitney Houston was a cultural icon who sold more than 200 million records.

Yet her achievements “were, and remain, obscured by public interest in her private life: her sexuality, her relationships, her relationship with drugs”, which ultimately contributed to her untimely death in 2012 at the age of just 48, said Liam Kelly in The Telegraph.

This, in part, is what makes her such a “compelling character” for Emily Lordi’s new biography, “Holding Lightning: the Life, Loves and Art of Whitney Houston”.

The version of Houston’s story that has played out time and again in the many books and documentaries produced since her death is of the “wholesome choirgirl” destroyed by her marriage to bad boy singer Bobby Brown in 1992, said The Times’ Victoria Segal. The tale is one of a “sparkling pop princess sliding catastrophically off the rails and into the drug abuse that claimed her health, her voice and, ultimately, her life”.

Refusing to “reduce Houston’s story to another ‘good girl gone bad’ narrative”, Lordi, a critic and professor of English at Vanderbilt University, instead “presents a pluralistic take on her life” in which the singer’s “queerness, drug use and eccentricities are not dismissed as aberrations (as they were in her lifetime) but rather seen in the wider context of her unique talent and the pressures placed on her to embody Black excellence”, said Priya Elan in The Guardian.

Going even further, Lordi “repeatedly and persuasively” makes the case that while she almost never wrote her own material, Houston was an artistic “genius”, said The New York Times culture editor Leah Greenblatt.

While Lordi’s analysis can “tip into academic mode, and she sometimes overreaches in her attempt to make the singer all things to all people”, the book “works eloquently to elevate and re-reframe an icon, and in its best moments also allows her the grace of something she longed for and rarely got to be: life-size”.

A seventh man has been arrested in connection with a suspected terror plot near RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, last month, which Andy Burnham has said was most likely linked to Iran.

Amid fears that Tehran was planning a complex drone attack against Fairford, which serves as a forward operating base for US aircraft targeting Iran, the Trump administration made a “historic, unprecedented” decision to withdraw all its 12 B-1 bombers on Sunday, said David Dunn, a professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham.

The incident “tells us much about Iran, Britain and the emerging threats to US forces and assets. None of it is good,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial.

What did the commentators say?

The Fairford plot is far from an isolated event. On Tuesday, three Iranian men appeared in court accused of spying on British-based dissident journalists on behalf of Iran’s foreign intelligence service. Earlier this year, a wave of arson attacks targeting British Jews were linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And in July, a Tehran-backed cyberattack halted operations at a UK power plant for four days.

It is important to note here that the UK is technically “not at war with Iran”, said BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner. But the US is, and “that is a distinction Tehran has publicly challenged”.

In July, Iran warned “any base used for aggression against Iranian territory constitutes a legitimate target for our forces”. As far as the IRGC “is concerned, Britain is already a participant in America’s war with Iran”, said Gardner.

The emergence of sophisticated state-run drone attacks, such as Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web last year, when low-cost drones were smuggled into Russia and carried on lorries to locations near airbases before being set upon strategic targets, have changed the game when it comes to perceived threats from hostile nations.

But “the question on minds in London is not whether Britain could stage such an attack but whether it could repel one”, said The Times’ defence editor Larisa Brown.

Given that it would require “months of planning, utmost secrecy and the purchase or smuggling of large quantities of explosives undetected by Britain’s security services”, one senior US diplomat asked, does Iran “really have the capability to pull off an Operation Spider’s Web on foreign soil? I think most of the community doubts that.”

“Yet there was enough concern for America to act”, said The Times.

What next?

The government’s strategic defence review published last year earmarked up to £1 billion for homeland air and missile defence over the next four years.

This week, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ramped up this pledge to £10 billion over the next 10 years to go towards a “Britannia Shield” that would protect military bases and critical infrastructure from missile or drone attacks.

While defence experts have questioned these figures, for Britain the “bigger problem has been finding the will to confront the Iranians and go on offence against their terror networks. Does protecting US jets and UK Jews fit the bill?”, asked the WSJ.

“The IRGC, like Vladimir Putin, clearly doesn’t think it will pay much of a price for orchestrating terror in Britain – or many other states. Until that changes, even the best defence technology can only do so much.”

The criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire has reached a “milestone moment”, according to a senior Metropolitan Police officer, almost a decade after the west London tragedy in which 72 people died.

Prosecutors have been asked by the Met to consider charges including manslaughter, fraud and misconduct in public office against 20 companies and organisations, and 54 individuals. Among those bodies referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, although the government department, unlike the local council, is immune from prosecution.

“We appreciate, of course, it has taken nine years to get to this point,” said the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Kevin Southworth. “As we have said before, this is one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency – the scale is truly enormous.”

The CPS has said that “charging decisions would be made before the 10th anniversary of the disaster, which is on 14 June 2027”, said the BBC.

These are the key events in that nine-year wait for justice.

14 June 2017: the fire

Just before 1am on 14 June, fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth-floor flat at the 23-storey tower block in north Kensington, west London. The fire rapidly spread and “ended up being the deadliest domestic blaze since the Second World War”, said Sky News.

15 June 2017

The Prime Minister Theresa May orders a full public inquiry, with then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn telling grieving relatives and displaced families “the truth has got to come out and it will.”

29 June 2017

Retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick is chosen to lead the inquiry.

30 June 2017

The leader of Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council, Nicholas Paget-Brown, resigns over “perceived failings” by the council related to fire.

19 September 2017

The Met announces it is expanding its investigation to “consider corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter”.

21 May 2018

The inquiry begins, with seven days of commemoration hearings to the dead, starting with the youngest, stillborn Logan Gomes.

September 2018

The Government bans the use of combustible cladding on all new residential buildings above 18 metres, including schools and hospitals.

October 2019

The report into Phase 1 is published. It concludes that the tower’s cladding did not comply with building regulations and was the “principal” reason for the rapid and “profoundly shocking” spread of the blaze.

27 January 2022

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry enters Phase 2, looking at issues around cladding, the tower’s management and emergency response.

4 September 2024

The final Grenfell Tower Inquiry report is published. It concludes that all 72 deaths were “avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years, and in a number of different ways, by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”.

7 February 2025

The government confirms that Grenfell Tower will be dismantled after engineers advised the tower is “significantly damaged”. The process is expected to take around two years, with materials from the site made available for inclusion in a memorial.

30 September 2026

The Met submits its final investigation file into the Grenfell Tower fire to the CPS, seeking charges against 54 individuals and 20 companies.

Gambling is putting people in the hospital, according to a new study. The increase in online sports betting has worsened mental health problems in younger men, leading to more hospital visits as a result.

Mind games

Online gambling is “associated with a doubling of the rates of severe cases of gambling disorders, with increases occurring only in young men,” said a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. More young men are showing up at emergency rooms with “major depression and suicidality,” as well as “other mental health or substance abuse diagnoses” exacerbated by gambling, said Time.

The uptick in these health issues is “particularly concerning given the rapid growth and promotion of online sports betting, which targets this demographic,” said study author Ryan Forrest, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, in a news release. And the “consequences of rising gambling involve not just harm to people who are gambling but wider effects on families and communities.”

Underscored

While the study centered on Ontario, Canada, the U.S. has a similar spike in gambling. Since 2018, several states have legalized online sports betting.

“It’s just not a regulated environment out there,” said Cynthia Grant, the vice president of clinical for Birches Health, the largest U.S. provider specializing in treating gambling disorders, to Time. “People’s lives are being ruined, their relationships are being destroyed,” and “their retirement accounts are gone.”

This data “likely represents only a small fraction of the overall harms associated with gambling in the population,” said the study. Unfortunately, “most people experiencing gambling problems will never seek care,” said senior study author Daniel Myran in the release. But increased ER visits may be “revealing much larger increases in gambling-related harm.”

The killing of a woman in Okinawa has sparked an outcry across Japan and inflamed long-simmering tensions over the US military presence on the island.

US Marine Devin Ballard was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of strangling Anna Yagi, 39, whose body was found at a hotel in Naha, the largest city on Okinawa. The 20-year-old lance corporal has denied the allegations.

‘Brutal’ crime

Security footage shows a man resembling Ballard entering the hotel with Yagi, and later leaving alone with her belongings, according to public broadcaster NHK. Yagi’s body was found in her hotel room.

Ballard, who was arrested in a civilian district while off duty, will remain in the custody of the Japanese authorities. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi urged US authorities to “enforce stricter discipline” of their troops in light of the “brutal and heinous” killing, while Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi posted on social media about his “strong indignation”. Incidents involving US military personnel “cause significant anxiety to the local community and must never occur”, he said.

On Okinawa, the incident has met with protests and also a grim familiarity. “Honestly my first reaction was, ‘Not again’,” one local told the BBC.

‘Anti-US sentiment’

Crimes involving US troops stationed on Okinawa have been “a constant source of tension between Tokyo and Washington”, said The Guardian. Most of the 54,000 US troops in Japan, and 70% of their military facilities, are based on the island.

In 1995, when three American servicemen raped a 12-year-old girl, tens of thousands of people protested for months, intensifying the “anti-US sentiment” in Okinawa. A teenage girl was raped by a US serviceman in 2024, one of four sexual crimes linked to US military personnel that year, and “anger erupted again”. It’s a problem that seems to be increasing: last year, there were 101 recorded crimes involving US troops, according to prefectural police – up from 40 in 2020.

The killing of Yagi is emblematic of a decades-long issue for the people of Okinawa, gender and peace professor Kozue Akibayashi told Al Jazeera. “They have expressed countless times their opposition to, and anger at, the US military presence,” she said. But Tokyo has “chosen the US-Japan alliance over the safety and lives and voices” of its people.