London’s Oxford Street has been a “key thoroughfare” since the capital was called Londinium, said The Times. “Where the Romans used chariots or animal-drawn carts, modern Britain filled Oxford Street with double-decker buses, black cabs and e-bikes. Until now.” From today, after “2,000 years of traffic”, half a mile of the “nation’s high street” will be pedestrianised. 

What are the new rules?
All ordinary cars, buses, taxis, private vehicles, bikes (including e-bikes), scooters and pedicabs are now banned from the stretch between Selfridges (near Bond Street) and Ikea (by Great Portland Street). Emergency vehicles will continue to have access at all times.

The hope is that Oxford Street will become more like Times Square in New York, or the shopping streets of “La Rambla in Barcelona or Strøget in Copenhagen”, said the Financial Times. A change like this would certainly “welcome”, as the area has gone through a “bleak period” since the pandemic.

How did it happen?
It all comes after “years of proposals, abandoned schemes and political wrangling”, said London’s The Standard. Pedestrianisation has been the subject of debate “stretching back to the early 1960s” but the idea was first formally promised in Sadiq Khan’s election manifesto for London Mayor in 2016.

There was a consultation a year later but plans had to be abandoned after the Conservative-led Westminster City Council – which controls the area – withdrew its support. The scheme was revived in 2024, as part of Khan’s “wider transformation” of the area.

Why has it been controversial?
The “thorny issue” of council opposition has “foxed mayoral administrations for years”, said the BBC. To circumvent it, Khan created a development corporation, allowing a mayoral body to take control of the area and remove planning powers from the council.

Doing this in a semi-residential area was “unprecedented”; when the method was used before, it was at brownfield-site developments for the Olympic Park and Old Oak Common. The move also needed the approval of central government – which it duly got after Labour’s landslide election victory in 2024.

Critics called the move “anti-democratic”, said The Telegraph. Residents are concerned that re-routing buses will cause congestion and danger to communities living near Oxford Street, and larger footfalls won’t be matched with adequate police resources or security.

Fifa’s controversial president Gianni Infantino looks “increasingly likely” to be re-elected unopposed for a fourth and final term, said the BBC’s Dan Roan, but there could be a “sensational twist”. Senior figures within European football want former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, now head of global development at the governing body, to run as a “surprise candidate”. But would Wenger (pictured above, left, with Infantino) “really challenge his own boss”?

‘Break the chain’
“At first glance”, the Frenchman “looks an unlikely figure to stir a revolution from within”, said Oliver Brown in The Telegraph. Wenger, who turned 77 last week, would hardly “represent fresh blood”, but he “could fundamentally change an ossified bureaucracy that has produced just three presidents in 52 years”.

The role of president of world football’s governing body has been “debased” and “mired in the machinations of keeping power by whatever means necessary”. But Wenger – “a true football obsessive” who has “seldom come across as financially motivated”– could “break the chain”. “So please, Arsène, in the name of sanity, declare your candidacy now.”

Any hopefuls for the role may be planning to “keep their identity under wraps until the last minute to catch Infantino and his acolytes off guard”, said Alyson Rudd in The Times. The “smart money” is on Wenger. He is popular in Africa, having “supported the growth of the game on the continent”, and has “universal appeal” following his success as a manager in Japan.

‘Intriguing prospect’
At Fifa’s HQ, in Zurich, there’s “no indication” that Wenger, who joined Infantino and others for dinner last week, is “plotting a bid”, said the BBC’s Roan. But a “large number of Fifa’s staff” want Wenger to run. They “believe he could change the organisation’s image”, so “it is an intriguing prospect”.

Wenger has yet to comment on the speculation in the run-up to the 18 November deadline. Any reluctance to stand “probably comes from the fact you cannot risk losing to Infantino”, said John Cross in the Daily Mirror. The president “looked damaged beyond repair after the summer but has gone round the world on a charm offensive – and it appears to have worked, outside of Uefa, of course”.

Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado receives a hero’s welcome in Caracas after nearly a year in exile. The Nobel Peace Prize winner returns to the country amid growing fears for democracy under interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who replaced ousted longtime leader Nicolás Maduro in January. 

Jesus Vargas / Getty Images

As leaves fall and the nights draw in, coffee lovers are diving into a “sea of spice-infused foam”, said Metro. A “non-negotiable” autumn fixture in coffee shops nationwide, pumpkin spice latte is available everywhere “from high-end bakeries to budget spots offering their own signature twist”.

The pumpkin spice latte has “become a cultural phenomenon greater than itself”, said NPR. Over the years, it’s been seen as “shorthand” for everything from “basicness” to “femininity, and even for white culture”. But its most enduring impact may be the “$500 million-dollar industry” that it generates every year.

With the average pumpkin spice latte now costing £5.25, you may want to swap your coffee shop’s “autumn favourite” for a homemade version, said The Telegraph. The “real secret to the drink’s success” is in the “warming” blend of spices that is sweetened with pumpkin purée. Even if you don’t have a milk steamer to produce the signature latte froth, you can create a delicious “all-in-one” version of the PSL. Simply put 200ml milk, 50ml espresso and a tablespoon of tinned pumpkin purée in a pan, then add a tablespoon of brown sugar and a pinch each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and ground nutmeg. Heat gently, whisking once steaming. Pour into a mug and top with a swirl of cream and another pinch of cinnamon to serve.

Could Europe’s autumn of discontent threaten the survival of the EU?
Catherine De Vries in The Guardian
The EU faces a “real test” amid mounting global pressures, writes political scientist Catherine De Vries. Protesters in Paris, Milan and Madrid are demanding “functioning public services, affordable housing, economic and national security, and a sense that they have some control over their futures”. If Europe doesn’t respond, the “discontent” on the streets “could increasingly turn against the EU itself”. The bloc’s “proved remarkably durable” in past political crises; “now it must ensure that the people living through” this one see “tangible improvement to their lives”.

Benjamin Netanyahu is destroying the case for a Jewish homeland
Tim Stanley in The Telegraph
“When I was a boy, and memories of the Holocaust were fresher, creating a homeland for the Jews” was seen “as a human-rights cause”, writes Tim Stanley. But the Gaza war is “the Vietnam of its time”, and the way Benjamin Netanyahu pursues it “with such pitiless arrogance has turned a whole generation off Zionism”. The idea that he, “uniquely, speaks for Israel” is “specious”. But the world’s Jews are left “more vulnerable” as “anti-Semitism flourishes under multiple rocks – left, right, Muslim or Christian”.

I’ve been wrong all my life – the coffee snobs are right
Caitlin Moran in The Times
Where I grew up, you made coffee with “dark and bitter” supermarket granules, “boiling water, and a splash of evaporated milk”, writes Caitlin Moran. This has been my quirky “Coffee Status” for decades. “Then, last month,” I was served “an ethereally light latte” and “it was like drinking the soul of an angel”. I went straight out to buy my own “fancy coffee machine”, and now realise “there’s a difference between ‘being proud of your heritage’ and ‘unnecessarily repeating a profound oral trauma’”.