As AI job losses rise in the professional sector, many are switching to more traditional trades. But how do they feel about accepting lower pay – and, in some cases, giving up their vocation?

California-based Jacqueline Bowman had been dead set on becoming a writer since she was a child. At 14 she got her first internship at her local newspaper, and later she studied journalism at university. Though she hadn’t been able to make a full-time living from her favourite pastime – fiction writing – post-university, she consistently got writing work (mostly content marketing, some journalism) and went freelance full-time when she was 26. Sure, content marketing wasn’t exactly the dream, but she was writing every day, and it was paying the bills – she was happy enough.

“But something really switched in 2024,” Bowman, now 30, says. Layoffs and publication closures meant that much of her work “kind of dried up. I started to get clients coming to me and talking about AI,” she says – some even brazen enough to tell her how “great” it was “that we don’t need writers any more”. She was offered work as an editor – checking and altering work produced by artificial intelligence. The idea was that polishing up already-written content would take less time than writing it from scratch, so Bowman’s fee was reduced to about half of what it had been when she was writing for the same content marketing agency – but, in reality, it ended up taking double the time.

In Cardinham, which has had 366mm of rain this year, there’s little need to check the weather forecast: more rain

• Tell us: how have you been affected by the rainy weather in the UK?

“I’m thinking of building an ark,” said Sarah Cowen, an artist and cafe owner. “It’s been horrendous. We’ve never known anything like it. The mud, the silt, the endless rain.” Cowen is one of a hardy, if soggy, bunch who live or work in and around the parish of Cardinham, on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which has endured 41 consecutive days of rain – and counting.

“This is definitely global warming. You get either baking sun or continuous rain,” Cowen said. The locals don’t have to look at the weather forecast here at the moment. “You know it’s going to be rain,” Cowen said.

The party’s MPs know their leader is failing but with no obvious replacement, getting rid of him now would cause more hurt than healing

Westminster time is counted in scandals, resignations, rebellions, U-turns and leadership crises. All the things that aren’t good government age a regime. Keir Starmer has presided over a lot of woes in 18 months, making a young government look old.

The premature decrepitude is more advanced, and more disturbing to Labour MPs, because it feels like continuity from the turbulent Tory regime that came before. The policies and personnel are different, but to the casual passing voter the sound of screaming and breaking crockery around Downing Street is familiar as a sign of a political problem family in residence.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Monday 30 April, ahead of May elections join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat is Labour from both the Green party and Reform and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader of the Labour party
Book tickets here

Whether it’s Zendaya in tennis-inspired shoes, Cynthia Erivo dressed in green, Margot Robbie as Barbie or Jenna Ortega in shredded black leather, today’s movie stars rarely disappoint on the promo circuit

‘Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?” Kristen Stewart said last year, the implication being that method acting is the exclusive preserve of a particular type of man, unburdened by caring responsibilities or needing to be agreeable. But what is available to all actors (without getting their teeth pulled, taking magic mushrooms or demanding to be spoon-fed on set) is method dressing: that is, promoting a film in an outfit inspired by their character.

Everyone seems to be doing it, particularly in the past few months as Wicked: For Good and now Wuthering Heights have hit the red carpet. Why? It’s a low-stakes way to offer an extra endorsement for the film the actor is promoting (they liked it so much they’re willing to stay in character) and to drum up column inches and excitable TikTok commentary. It can also be a knowing wink – a gift, even – to fans. Some actors (or their stylists) include subtler sartorial semiotics and Easter egg accessories in their outfits that only the hardcore fandom and fashion nerds can appreciate. Either way, there’s a lot of it about. But who are the Daniel Day-Lewises and Robert De Niros of promo tour dressing?

Children are encouraged to get hands-on as the world’s leading stop-motion studio showcases its work in east London

What would Wallace – everyone’s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor – look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker’s coat? Would a massive set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana?

Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London’s Young V&A that showcases the work of the world’s leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman studios. Early sketches for Nick Park’s much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak.

The only reason we might not get our seventh prime minister in 10 years is that no one can find one

Keir Starmer is now the only person to have lost more comms chiefs than Meghan and Harry. After yet another day of drama, we kept hearing that the prime minister would be pressing the reset button. Not again! Starmer’s reset button is like the OK button on your TV remote – worn blank through overuse. He has pressed that thing more often than you’ve decided another 44 minutes of a crap thriller is somehow less of an effort than getting yourself to bed. Anyway, next episode in five, four, three …

Fine. One more.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Health secretary poised to make leadership bid after May local elections to pre-empt a potential challenge from rival Rayner, MPs close to him say

Allies of Wes Streeting expect him to try to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership within weeks, despite the health secretary insisting he backs the prime minister and is not intending to move against him, the Guardian has been told.

Starmer attempted to regain authority over his party on Tuesday after a tumultuous day in Westminster during which he was denounced by the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and lost his director of communications.

More than 25 people are injured, including two with life-threatening injuries, after shooting at secondary school and local residence

• Latest updates: ‘devastating’ shooting hits remote town of Tumbler Ridge

• What we know so far about the Tumbler Ridge shooting

Nine people have been killed and dozens injured after an assailant opened fire at a school in western Canada, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history. The suspect was later found dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury.

Police found six dead inside the high school in the remote town of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, with a further two bodies found at a residence believed to be connected to the incident. Another person died on the way to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said.

Exclusive: Most people in charity’s study say they worry about being separated from relatives under Mahmood plans

Families of nurses and carers have said they fear being torn apart under an immigration crackdown condemned as “an act of economic vandalism”.

A survey of more than 1,000 people, many of whom moved to Britain to work or study, found that three in five worry about being separated from their relatives.

Boy, 13, held on suspicion of attempted murder after pupils aged 12 and 13 stabbed at Kingsbury high school

A police counter-terrorism unit was on Tuesday night leading the inquiry into the stabbing of two boys aged 13 and 12 at a school in north-west London.

Police were called to Kingsbury high school in Brent on Tuesday afternoon after reports that a 13-year-old boy had been stabbed. When they arrived at the scene, officers found a 12-year-old boy who had also been stabbed.