GLP-1 medications have been a gamechanger in the fight against obesity. But for a minority of patients, their impact is negligible. Why?

When Mercedes was told by her doctor that she could be prescribed GLP-1 weight loss jabs in 2024, she broke down. “[When] she said yes, I cried in her office. And I didn’t really stop crying for a week,” she said.

“Finally, after being overweight my entire life, this was going to save me. My struggle, my burden, my shame was finally going to come to an end.”

The rage, the wine, the power mums, the PTA horror – the BBC sitcom was a spot on send-up of life at the school gates. A decade on, we remember its most awkward bits

If Uncut Gems was about the school run instead of gambling debts, it would look like Motherland. It is now 10 years since the BBC sitcom jangled the already frayed nerves of all parents watching and turned Anna Maxwell Martin into the most frazzled woman on television in the name of skewering middle-class motherhood.

Whether she was marching her children to buy school shoes the night before term started (“Don’t be closed. Pleeeeeaaaaase don’t be closed”) or having a meltdown at temporary traffic lights en route to a school drop-off that proved redundant because she’d forgotten it was half-term, Maxwell Martin’s Julia would undoubtedly have a more chilled-out time in the kitchen of The Bear than raising her kids.

The ‘stop the boats’ narrative is increasingly presented as if it stems from a concern for women’s safety. This is just the laundering of thuggery

It was a busy weekend for the insurgent and hard right, as Reform party delegates redoubled their commitment to women’s safety by physically attacking a female protester and Patriot Platform, a new group established by Danny Tommo, real name Daniel Thomas, arrived in Dover on Saturday, then Portsmouth on Sunday, dressed in balaclavas. No arrests were made in Dover, and therefore the protest was deemed peaceful. “A message was sent!” Thomas exclaimed later on his socials. “Now imagine how powerful the next message will be.” The next powerful message of peace the following day spurred the issuance of a dispersal order from Hampshire police, alongside some smashed windscreens (of police cars) and advice for local people to avoid the area.

The “stop the boats” narrative, along with a lot of Reform’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, has become increasingly bound up with a concern for the safety of women and children. It might be a slyly vague sentiment from Robert Jenrick, in which he doesn’t want his daughters sharing a neighbourhood with men “who broke into the country illegally, about whom we know next to nothing”, or it might be Zia Yusuf’s much more explicit complaint that the nation is prepared to “sacrifice British women and girls on the altar of diversity”. Protesters outside hotels housing asylum seekers get all their righteous wrath from the danger posed to women from foreign nationals, and Thomson stated his aims straightforwardly on Instagram – posting video of Saturday’s protest, he wrote: “Protect our country! And more importantly our women and children! This is our warning!”

Stanley Praimnath and Brian Clark were two of only four individuals known to have survived above the impact zone in the south tower

He has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”

Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.

With the release of his new biography, the British designer talks about leaving school at 15, the real reason he won’t retire and why no one wears velvet trousers any more

Go for a browse in the Paul Smith shop in Mayfair, London, on any given Saturday and you’ll likely find an older shop assistant, straight-backed in fine tailoring, approaching to help you with a new shirt, or a suit for a special occasion, perhaps a jaunty pair of socks. There aren’t many global fashion brands, Paul Smith points out, perhaps unnecessarily, “where the owner is a Saturday boy”. But working in his shop, one of more than 130 around the world, is probably Smith’s favourite part of the job. “It’s fantastic, you meet so many interesting people,” he says, smiling broadly. Smith’s whole career, he says, has always been about doing things in a different way. He’s the untrained fashion designer who created a global British brand, who put a bright lining or some stripes into classic tailoring, and who has turned down multiple substantial offers to buy his company, in order to remain in control.

Sir Paul Smith has just turned 80 – and he has the enviable energy of someone less than half his age, swimming each day before 6am. He’s about to publish his memoir, Threads: My Life in Style. It’s been a good opportunity to do a stocktake. His has undoubtedly been a lucky life – right place, right time, right people (not least his wife, Pauline, whom he met at the age of 21 and who has been integral to his success) – but it’s also a story of hard work, integrity and modesty. We’ll get to whether those values are still relevant in a harsher, more competitive world, and whether Paul Smith can survive.

From loafers to lunch boxes to fancy stationery, these picks for kids, teens and grownups will bring that new-term energy, whatever your age

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Shiny shoes. Freshly sharpened pencils. New rucksack. Back-to-school season is here, and even for those of us no longer in full-time education, the energy of this time of year is undeniably one of fresh starts and renewed momentum.

A couple of well-chosen items, from a notebook to inspire ideas to a lunch box that might encourage you to bring in your own food, are often all it takes to feel a touch more pulled together after a languorous summer. So whether you’re looking for school kit or your own stuff, here’s our pick of the best back-to-the-grind products for kids, teens and grownups.

Ed Miliband to reassert support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution in move likely to draw fierce criticism from US and Israel

Ed Miliband will announce what he has described as a broad reset of the UK’s relations with Israel on Tuesday, promising the government will take a more active approach in supporting the Palestinian cause.

In an intervention that is expected to draw fierce criticism from the US and Israel, the foreign secretary will impose a UK ban on the trade in goods and some services from illegal Israeli settlements. He has also told civil society groups he is determined to reassert the call for a two-state solution to the conflict with an appeal for the protection of Palestinian rights and respect for international law.

Hundreds of men, some in balaclavas, try to prevent asylum seekers’ processing, two days after similar scenes in Dover

Downing Street has condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads in Portsmouth when a boat carrying asylum seekers arrived in the city, two days after similar scenes in Dover.

Hundreds of men, some dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, tried to stop the arrivals from being transported for processing until 3am, when police removed them with threats of arrest.

Friedrich Merz said his conservative CDU was shaken ‘to its very foundations’ after far-right victory in Saxony-Anhalt

A “shocked” and chastened Friedrich Merz has vowed to stay in office despite the far right’s triumph in a state election that has brought anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin politicians within striking distance of power.

The German chancellor, appearing ashen-faced in front of reporters in Berlin, said on Monday that the landslide victory by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt had shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) “to its very foundations”.

Hamza Chowdhury says most of his fellow Green Camden councillors back him to contest 8 October byelection

Zack Polanski is facing unexpected opposition from his own party in his attempt to fight the Holborn and St Pancras byelection for the Greens, with a local councillor saying he is also seeking the nomination, and that the seat does not need “a politician you’ll only see on a leaflet”.

The intervention by Hamza Chowdhury, a Green representative on Camden council in north London, came as the date for the byelection was confirmed for 8 October, after Keir Starmer’s formal resignation as an MP.