A joyless England display, football’s equivalent of assembling a wardrobe, was rescued by the No 10

In the half-time break at a rain-fogged New York New Jersey Stadium, with England still living out the same painful never-ending 0-0 draw, a lone saxophonist could be heard playing a series of noodling riffs on the deserted concourse outside.

So it’s come to this. Even the New York dinner jazz scene is having a pop now. And sometimes it really does feel as if the world is trying to tell you something. England had been footballing toothache to that point, awkward, rigid, unable to think or move freely, to find combinations to fit the patterns in front of them.

With a new prime minister incoming, Labour faces a fundamental question about its economic vision

As Keir Starmer stands down as prime minister and attention turns toward Andy Burnham, the current moment should not be reduced to a story of personalities. The question that matters is strategy, and the Labour party has three years left to get this right.

When Labour won its landslide in July 2024, it did so on the promise of a new kind of governance: five national missions to tackle the UK’s deepest structural challenges, from clean energy to child poverty, inspired by my book, Mission Economy. That was the right answer to a real question: what is the economy for, and why should it matter to people’s daily lives? Mission-oriented government is not just a political slogan, but a proven approach to solving society’s biggest challenges, generating good jobs and resilient growth in the process.

Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, where she is founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is the author of The Common Good: a new compass

Graham and Josephine were friends for years, but after their spouses died they discovered a mutual attraction – and a fondness for adventurous sex

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Our sexual preferences cover everything from vanilla to being tied up and spanked

The mayor hopes to ‘write a new chapter in the party’s history’ – and recent democratic socialist wins prove he might be able to do it

In the back yard of a Brooklyn bar, beneath strung-up lightbulbs and swaths of fabric that swooped like great sails, an ecstatic crowd greeted Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, and his victorious ally, Brad Lander. These Democrats also had a withering verdict on their own party establishment.

“To me, centrists can go fuck themselves,” said Léa Zimmerman, 34. “They’re fucking useless, they don’t stand for anything, and if they do stand on something, it’s pathetic. I’m done with pathetic, performative people.”

It may have only just opened, but this restaurant has about it the feel of a family taverna that’s already been here for about 62 years

There’s a brand new Greek-Cypriot taverna in Covent Garden, London, that’s offering taramasalata, souvlaki, spanakopita, kleftiko, kaimaki ice-cream and all the rest. Yet Zylia, which is pale, humbly furnished and deliberately homespun in its styling, somehow has about it the feel of a family taverna that’s been here for about 62 years. You know the sort: up a cobbled back street, with a beleaguered 98-year-old yiayia doing the dishes, a one-eared dog on the step waiting for lamb titbits, and a toilet that’s essentially a cleaning supplies cupboard, as well as home to 200 tins of olives.

Zylia has none of those things, by the way, and its feel is more down to clever interior design mixed with a thoughtful, authentic menu. Then again, you’d expect clever things from chef Nick Molyviatis and hospitality veteran Barry Karacostas. You might link Molyviatis more with Thai food, both at Kiln, where he used to be head chef, and the tarted-up, much-hallowed second rendition of Singburi, which relocated to Shoreditch last year; Karacostas, meanwhile, has recently been working with Arcade, a growing chain of London-based food halls. This is where things get doubly interesting, because Zylia is considered part of the new Covent Garden Arcade, except that, unusually, it has its own front door, its own brick walls, its own website and its own identity. It’s definitely part of Arcade. But it isn’t. Step out of Zylia and into Arcade to spend a penny, and you may as well be walking from a sun-battered Kefalonian alleyway into a Hitchcockian hotel lobby of rich woods, lacquered finishes and oxblood leather banquettes.

This Arcade/Zylia venture is testament to the wibbly-wobbly world of modern hospitality. Ten years ago, the likes of Dalston’s Street Feast and a thousand nationwide copycat street-food concepts told us that bricks-and-mortar dining was old hat. What we wanted, they insisted, was open-plan, wooden benches, ad-hoc ordering, confused queues, no servers; apparently, we wanted a bun fight over bao with all involved clutching buzzers. Now, in 2026, not only do chic, sexy food halls such as Arcade feel more formal and glossy than, say, The Ivy, they’re even hatching separate spaces on their sidelines with brick partitions and individual personalities. For the sake of argument, let’s call these annexes “restaurants”.

I decided to combine my need to top the leader table with my daily step count – which is how I found myself walking 10 miles a day while reading out sentences in Japanese, German, Spanish and French

Hugh and I were driving from Washington, DC, to the Sea Section, our house on the coast of North Carolina, when I noticed a dot with legs traversing the hem of my untucked shirt. “There’s a tick on me!” I said.

He looked down at my lap. “Well, throw it outside. It’s nothing to get hysterical about.”

Flare-up in tensions comes as Washington and Tehran have been negotiating a memorandum of understanding to end an unpopular war

The US military has launched further strikes on multiple targets in Iran, a day after it struck Iran in retaliation for a drone attack on a cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz.

US Central Command (Centcom) said its strikes were in “direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping” and that it had targeted Iran’s “military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities” in response.

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England reaction from our writers in New York/New Jersey.

Bellingham can be dismissed a little by some as a player of moments. Is that bad? Moments win games. Bellingham is 22 and still finding his final form. He promises to do these things, walks and talks like he might do them. But then he also does them, which seems important. With England paddling here, he had the will and the craft to take out the spoons and rattle something off on his knee just when they needed it most.

Draft resolution seeks to shield board members and security forces from potential prosecution for work in Gaza

The UN-sanctioned Board of Peace announced by Donald Trump earlier this year to rule Gaza is planning a sweeping grant of legal immunity for itself, according to a draft of the resolution obtained by the Guardian. The draft language would also let the organization obtain public property in Gaza “free of charge”.

The four-page resolution, labeled “sensitive but unclassified”, extends broad protections to every member of the Board of Peace and its administrative affiliate, the office of the high representative (OHR), as well as to the Palestinian technocrats, international military forces and nonresident contractors lined up to perform work in Gaza. It defines legal processes from which they would have immunity as “any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts or other entities in Gaza”.

Search for survivors continues with nearly 70,000 people reported unaccounted for by their family members

The ⁠death toll ⁠in ⁠the twin ​earthquakes that struck ⁠Venezuela earlier ⁠this ​week ‌has ‌risen to ‌1,430, according to one of the country’s top politicians, Jorge Rodríguez.

Another 3,200 ​people were injured ⁠and 3,100 ​left homeless ​by the ​disaster, ​the National Assembly president added, speaking ​on ​state television.