Mothers on social media are advocating a tough, no-nonsense approach to parenting. Does this teach children important lessons – or just make them feel isolated and ashamed?

A couple of weeks ago, a video posted on TikTok by Paige Carter, a mother in Florida, went viral. Carter explained that she had thrown her daughter’s iPad out of the window when she had been misbehaving on the way to school, and she films herself retrieving the tablet, now with a cracked screen. The video has been watched 4.9m times, and Carter was congratulated in the comments, with one person writing “Learning Fafo at an early age: top tier parenting.” Welcome to the parenting trend that doesn’t seem to be disappearing: “Fuck around and find out.”

In another video, when a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says “see ya”, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light – then opens the door to him screaming and pounding to be let back in (it has been liked 1.5m times). He had learned, said his mother, “the meaning of Fafo”.

Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

Summer after summer, I used to descend into a creek that had carved a deep bed shaded by trees and lined with blackberry bushes whose long thorny canes arced down from the banks, dripping with sprays of fruit. Down in that creek, I’d spend hours picking until I had a few gallons of berries, until my hands and wrists were covered in scratches from the thorns and stained purple from the juice, until the tranquillity of that place had soaked into me.

This period drama’s puddingy mix of clunking soap and fairytale wish-fulfilment is hard to resist. It is, however, utterly bananas

‘I am charting a more venturesome course outside this society and in doing so I am being true to myself!” snorts Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson), flaring his philandering nostrils as Lady Violet (Ruth Gemmell) looks on aghast. “But you still have two sisters who must marry and their fate depends on the family reputation,” she snaps, bustle crackling with maternal indignation. “This requires you to be a gentleman and not … a rake!”

At this point, when faced with such period-specific umbrage, it is customary for the casual viewer to insert her monocle and refer to her dog-eared copy of The Crashingly Inevitable Downton Abbey Comparisons Companion. And in many ways Bridgerton, bless its ridiculous socks, continues to invite such comparisons with open arms. There are costumes. There is a house. There are scones (pronounced “scones”, of course, not – heaven forfend – “scones”) and scrunch-faced toffs clearing their throats at news from the shires. There are scullery maids a-titterin’ an’ a-gossipin’ and footmen with calves like bowling balls plotting to relieve dignitaries of their britches. There is a string-heavy score that becomes aroused at times of narrative tension and actively tumescent at the sight of a poorly secured cravat.

After months of community resistance, the president backed down. Leadership from below succeeded when politics as usual failed

For most politicians and journalists, the answer to nearly every question is to look up. Not at the moon, the stars or even the chimney tops, but at their leaders: the people who sit atop institutions, wield power and set the line that others follow. The top of the totem pole is the sole focal point, and the stories that count usually come from the heights of power.

Bend your neck back far enough and Davos becomes not a talking shop in a Swiss ski resort, but a gathering of world leaders; Keir Starmer flying into Beijing is a summit of great powers; even who should be the MP for Gorton and Denton is really all about the Labour leadership. For this piece, the Guardian’s research librarians counted how many times the words “leader” or “leadership” appeared across the British press. Over the past week alone, the rough total stands at 2,000. A third of those stories concern one man: Donald Trump.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

As the musical version of the notoriously gory book returns to the stage, its tale of 80s yuppie nihilism feels more relevant than ever in the era of Andrew Tate, Trump and tech bros

I have just witnessed a murder. Spattered against the white walls of the Almeida theatre are several thin streaks of blood. Underneath them a particularly gruesome-looking hand axe rests on a table. And on the other side of the room, a clue to who the perpetrator might be. Discarded next to someone’s laptop is a business card – bone-coloured, raised black lettering – bearing a familiar name: Patrick Bateman.

Him again.

Forget flashy St Moritz or Zermatt, the unsung village of Arosa has childlike charm, with animal sanctuaries, cool accommodation and kid-friendly tobogganing

On the approach to Arosa in the Graubünden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret.

On the village’s frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand. A little farther along, on the snow-covered main street, children sled rapidly downhill, overtaking cars. The resort’s mascots are a happy gang of brown bears. And there are Narnia lamp-posts, which turn the falling snow almost gold every evening. Switzerland is replete with ski towns but none feel quite this innocent and childlike, like stepping into a fairytale.

Starmer tells Xi Jinping during Beijing meeting that it has been ‘too long’ since a British PM has visited China.

• Full report: Xi says he hopes China and UK can ‘rise above differences’

For more context on today’s Starmer-Xi meeting, China is the world’s second-biggest economy and Britain’s third-largest trading partner – to which it exports £45bn of goods and services a year – so it is no surprise the UK has turned to Beijing in its search for economic reliability.

As the Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar reported earlier today, the UK does not rank among the top 10 of China’s trading partners but the Beijing leadership has spied a political opportunity to improve links with one of Washington’s closest allies at a time of deep uncertainty in the transatlantic alliance.

Lord Stockwood says people in government ‘definitely’ talking about idea as technology disrupts industries

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The UK could introduce a universal basic income to protect workers in industries that are being disrupted by AI, the investment minister Jason Stockwood has said.

“Bumpy” changes to society caused by the introduction of the technology would mean there would have to be “some sort of concessionary arrangement with jobs that go immediately”, Lord Stockwood said.

Of those affected by midlife challenges such as menopause, nine in 10 do not seek help, therapists’ organisation says

Almost two in three women over 50 in the UK struggle with their mental health as they deal with menopause, relationship breakdowns and changes to their appearance, a survey has found.

Brain fog, parents dying, children leaving home and financial pressures can also trigger difficulties such as sleeping problems, feeling anxious or overwhelmed, and a loss of zest for life.

US state department calls for the release of all detained healthcare workers as at least one arrested surgeon reported to be at risk of execution

Doctors are being arrested in Iran for helping save the lives of some of the tens of thousands injured during Iran’s brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests, with at least one surgeon now at risk of being sentenced to death.

The arrests and death sentence are part of a campaign of “revenge”, say human rights groups, after healthcare workers and doctors refused to ignore the plight of badly injured protesters shot or stabbed at close range, and in some cases set up makeshift treatment centres.