A new drug cocktail known as pink cocaine has doctors on edge and law enforcement officials sounding alarms. The substance hit the headlines when former One Direction star Liam Payne, who died after falling from his hotel room balcony in Argentina, was found with pink cocaine in his system. The drug has also been cited in a sexual misconduct lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs. Beyond its celebrity status, there are signs that pink cocaine is growing in popularity in the United States and across the world.

What is pink cocaine?
Despite its name, pink cocaine, also called tusi, does not usually contain cocaine – and isn't naturally pink. It is "typically a powdery mix of ketamine and illegal substances such as methamphetamine, MDMA (also called molly or ecstasy), or opioids," said NBC News. Food colouring is used to turn the powder pink, and it may also have a distinctive sweet smell.

Why is it dangerous?
Pink cocaine is "referred to as 'Russian Roulette' because its composition varies drastically between batches", Joseph Janes, a criminology lecturer at Swansea University, told Newsweek. This "significantly increases the risk of overdose or severe adverse reactions".

The drug can "put people into a 'k-hole' where they feel like they're in a blank space, like they are disassociated from their body, they're disassociated from their brain, they don't know what's going on", Bridget Brennan, New York City's special narcotics prosecutor, said to CBS News.

Researchers fear that "fentanyl may begin to appear in pink cocaine, increasing the potential for overdose and death", said the Los Angeles Times.

What is being done?
In the US, officials are now actively warning the public about the dangers of pink cocaine and working to remove it from the streets. The Drug Enforcement Agency said it has begun targeting those involved in its distribution.

Efforts are also under way to limit imports from countries linked to illicit drug trafficking. Earlier this year, US authorities reported seizing pink cocaine and other drugs off the coasts of Mexico, Central and South America, according to The Associated Press.

A "great cheese robbery", which saw cheddar worth hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from an artisan London cheesemonger, has highlighted how food retailers and restaurants are becoming more vulnerable to scams.

Some £300,000 of premium British cheddar was taken from Neal's Yard Dairy by conmen pretending to be buyers from a French supermarket, and who failed to pay.

The "cheddar heist" shows British supply chains are "as holey as Swiss cheese", said The Times, noting that invoice fraud rose last year by 11%, according to UK Finance, putting the total cost of fraud to the economy at £1.2 billion.

'Dodgy dealers'
The cheese con story felt all too familiar to Chris Swales of Chapel and Swan Smokehouse. This summer, he told The Times, he received an email ordering "substantial quantities" of smoked salmon, supposedly for a French supermarket. But two weeks after a UK haulage firm collected the fish, the buyer still hadn't paid. Swales drove to the supposed "supermarket distribution hub" and discovered it was in fact a "dodgy car dealer in east London".

Restaurants "generally have low profit margins" and so owners are vulnerable to getting stuck in a "vicious cycle of risk and reward", wrote Morgan Ackley for Kount. The desperation of food firms and the competitive industry they work in make them ripe for being conned. As Swales said, the hoax fish deal was "the sort of business we were aiming for" and "we were so up for it". The people who conned him "knew the desire of a small business to grow" and "we've been punished for that".

Reputations at stake
Blackmailers have also targeted restaurants, using threats of fake reviews to extort payment. The owners of the Bracebridge restaurant chain were contacted on WhatsApp by a scammer who demanded £2,000 and threatened to flood the group's Google listings with fake one-star reviews.

Independent restaurant groups are the "perfect targets" for these sorts of "scammers", said The Sunday Times, because they are "incredibly reliant" on their online reputations and "big enough to be able to pay", but "not big enough" to afford lawyers to come after the blackmailers.

"As this delicious, suitably erratic exhibition shows, the mind of Tim Burton is a strange and wonderful place," said Nick Curtis in London's The Standard.

The sprawling new show at the Design Museum in London explores the life and work of the iconic filmmaker. More than 600 exhibits are on display, spanning everything from photographs and drawings to film clips, costumes and puppets. "Creepy, witty and visually ravishing", the exhibition focuses on Burton's biggest hits, as well as providing "tantalising glimpses" of his unrealised projects like the "Superman Lives" film that was cancelled due to high production costs.

Visitors are "definitely immersed" in several of Burton's weird and wonderful worlds. The first room explores his childhood growing up in the oppressive suburbs of Burbank, California, where the "solitary misfit found refuge in his drawing". "Teenage creations" on display include "The Giant Zlig" – an unpublished illustrated children's book that Burton submitted to Walt Disney Publications.

From here, the show "follows his progress" from a "moody and taciturn 20-something" animator at Disney to his 1985 feature film debut "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" to the "cavalcade of fantastical black horror-comedies that followed".

The show "fails" to show an unexpected side to Burton's style, said Leaf Arbuthnot in The Telegraph. "Visitors who aren't on board with the dark palettes and staring eyes, the over-friendly monsters and ever-living dead won't find much escape." However, for newcomers and fans of the filmmaker there is "much to feast on".

Rishi Sunak's angry farewell
Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman
As he "delivered what is all but certain to be his final performance in frontline politics", there were "two Rishi Sunaks", writes Rachel Cunliffe – both "dramatically distinct from his persona as prime minister". During his last PMQs as leader of the opposition, Sunak was "magnanimous, funny, and above all relaxed", but after the Budget speech he became "a ball of ferocious rage". Where he had once "fabricated petulance" during his spell as PM, this was "catharsis".

Now's your time, House of Lords
Marcus Walker in The Critic
The House of Lords has a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to "prove its worth" and block the "irreversible, strategic error" of handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, writes Marcus Walker. The Lords were "made for" this – a "poor policy" that "was not in the governing party's manifesto". They "have the chance to stop an appalling surrender of Britain's strategic interests" and "remind" us of their "constitutional importance" as a "check on the government of the day".

Am I a Halloween Grinch?
Katja Vujić on The Cut
Yes, I am "a Halloween grinch", writes Katja Vujić, and "I'm not afraid to say it". Halloween parties are a "misery" and the plastic waste it generates is "mind-boggling". And "can we put some respect on pumpkins, please"? This "marvellous vegetable" doesn't deserve to be "rotting by someone's front door". We certainly don't need "the gore and the general promotion of fear", when "I have enough anxiety" from following the US election.