Beneath the wig and rhinestones, Parton was the genius behind strings of classic songs from Jolene to I Will Always Love You that continue to inspire new artists

• Dolly Parton, US country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80

• Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – latest updates

• Dolly Parton’s family say goodbye to their aunt, sister, grandmother - video

• Share your tributes and memories of Dolly Parton

In December 1977, Dolly Parton submitted to an interview with ABC Television’s Barbara Walters, much against her friends’ advice. Walters was not noted for her deep love and understanding of country music. She was a notoriously tough cookie, a Boston-born, Sarah Lawrence-educated journalist who had battled scarcely believable sexism to become the first female co-host of an American news programme. The month before she met Parton, she had interviewed Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin while they were working out the terms of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

It was all a very long way from Parton’s world, and the interview has something of the anthropological exercise about it. Walters looks aghast as Parton shows her around her tour bus, her collection of wigs and her “hand-washable and wrinkle-free” stage outfits (“you really like this? To me, it seems like horror”), and sits impassively as Parton sings Coat of Many Colours to her: an impressive feat, given the song’s saga of rural poverty and homespun wisdom is the mother of all tearjerkers from an artist never averse to yanking at her audience’s heartstrings. She asks Parton if people from “where I come from” would call her a hillbilly; regards the singer’s outfit with a jaundiced eye and tells her “you don’t have to look like this”. And, most infamously, she enquires: “Do you ever feel that you’re a joke?”

Critics say ownership registers are too costly and too complicated, scuppering attempts to expose alleged money laundering

Since Britain’s offshore secrecy jurisdictions caved in to pressure from Westminster to embrace corporate transparency, finding out who owns a company in one of these island havens is, in theory at least, a piece of cake.

Take the Cayman Islands.

Its council is due to merge with Leicestershire’s in 2028, and some locals are incensed. Can the county hold on to its ceremonial status – and biggest selling point?

Mysterious disappearances have been taking place lately in Rutland, an East Midlands pocket between Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire that is often considered to be England’s smallest county. Usually, there are road signs when driving into a new county welcoming you over the border. But in recent months, these have been going missing. After 10 signs vanished, the council decided to remove the remaining 17. Now there are no official “Rutland” signs at all.

The area’s MP, the Conservative Alicia Kearns, is “not sure” what the motivation behind the thefts is. But they are certainly a fitting metaphor for Rutland’s disappearing status: its council is due to merge with Leicestershire county council in spring 2028.

The vast majority of the global public wants international cooperation on human rights, climate and AI. Like-minded countries must stand together to deliver

Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, is already having to make one of his gravest decisions. He has to issue the instructions that he alone gives to the military, setting out the UK response in a doomsday scenario of a nuclear weapons attack on us. He will, as I did two decades ago, sign a piece of paper telling commanders whether or not to retaliate and, if so, whether through targeting civilian conurbations or military sites. These instructions are written down in the aptly named “letter of last resort”.

Now, more than at any time since the 1960s Cuban missile crisis, the European public fears a third world war. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock developed by atomic scientists moving ever closer to midnight, and Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Poland and Germany contemplating either acquiring nuclear weapons or siting them on their soil, our world is descending from a rules-based order to a power-based one, where might is deemed right and brute force dominates.

Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

The future starts with us: Gordon Brown in conversation
On Thursday 10 September, join Hugh Muir and Gordon Brown to discuss the intricate connections between global instability and civic decline, as explored in Brown’s new book, The Future Starts With Us. Book tickets here

With their twangy sound, madcap outfits, lusty yodelling and pirouetting pirate frontman, the band became global superstars almost overnight. But, as their guitarist Marco Pirroni recalls, the thrill ride soon hit the buffers

‘The essence of pop is, one, brilliant fucking songs – and the rest is sex, subversion, style and humour. And that was us.” So Adam Ant told me in 1995, describing the reconstructed Adam and the Ants, which formed in early 1980 with the arrival of guitarist/songwriter Marco Pirroni, who was sitting next to him. “We’re responsible for bringing back dressing up, going mad and screaming your head off.”

“That’s it!” grins Pirroni when I remind him of this, as we sit in the shabby-chic lounge of London’s 21Soho venue. Back then, I didn’t tell them I was 15 in 1980, forever sprinting across dancefloors pretending to be Adam Ant, chiffon scarves tied to knees, limbs flailing like a whirling Cossack. Pirroni hears this today and laughs. “That’s what it’s all about,” he hoots. “When I was 13, watching Bowie, Roxy, T Rex, you just go, ‘I wanna do that.’ It’s exciting, sexy, about looking good, Top of the Pops. I can’t imagine anyone saying, ‘Wow, I desperately want to be in Cabaret Voltaire. They must be earning no money, look boring and nobody likes them – that’s the band for me!’”

Spectrum Building leaseholders awaiting payouts after freeholder, Arinium, went bankrupt shortly after 2024 blaze

Sarah Williams vividly remembers the night in 2016 when she camped overnight in a car park to put down a deposit on a flat in the newly completed Spectrum Building in Dagenham, east London.

“People started queuing for those flats 24 hours before they went on sale,” she said. “It was basically the only flat I could afford in London. This was a year before Grenfell, and the flats market in London was completely crazy.”

ONS data shows rising toll of climate crisis, with officials warning this summer on track to set further records

Over 40,000 more people died on the hottest days in England between 1988 and 2025 than would be expected, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday.

The figures do not include this summer, when England has sweltered under a succession of heatwaves and is on track to record its highest ever number of heat-related deaths. The UK Health Security Agency announced on 30 July that an estimated 2,877 people had died in the May and June heatwaves alone. The total is almost double the figure for the whole summer in 2025.

Lily Tomlin, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Céline Dion and Oprah Winfrey are among those remembering the queen of country after she died aged 80

• Alexis Petridis on Dolly Parton’s peerless career that turned country music cliches inside out

• Dolly Parton – a life in pictures

• Country music legend Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – latest updates

Tributes have poured in for Dolly Parton, the country singer, songwriter and actor, after her death aged 80.

News of her death was shared by her nephew on social media. “Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus,” he said.

Researchers say benefits of two-dose Shingrix vaccine could be comparable to taking daily blood pressure medication

The current shingles vaccine appears to significantly lower the risk of heart attack and stroke, according to scientists who say it could help prevent thousands of deaths each year.

The research, based on records of 70,000 people in the US, found that those who had received Shingrix had a 12% lower risk of a cardiovascular diagnosis in the following three and a half years. If confirmed, this benefit would be comparable to taking a daily blood pressure-lowering medication, the scientists said.

Authorities at biggest state hospital in Islamabad say 15 babies were in the ward when fire broke out

At least 14 newborn babies have died in a fire that broke out in the maternity ward at one of Pakistan’s most prominent state hospitals.

The blaze began in the early hours of Wednesday and engulfed the ward at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the biggest state hospital in Islamabad.