In the Warrington suburb of Culcheth, people are hopeful about what one of their own can achieve as the first northern prime minister in half a century. The Guardian's Richard Partington, who also grew up in the quiet suburb halfway between Manchester and Liverpool, gets the thoughts of local people on the new prime minister.

He was Queen’s flamboyant frontman. She was his shy girlfriend, dreaming of marriage until they both realised he preferred men. Thirty-five years after his death, in the week he would have turned 80, Mary Austin talks about their unbreakable bond

There were four silver trunks in Mary Austin’s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn’t opened since. It was too painful. Almost 40 years on, in 2022, she opened one. It was crammed with lyrics from songs written by Freddie Mercury – Don’t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, We Are the Champions and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody. She shut the case. It was still too painful.

“To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement,” she says. “I couldn’t look at the lyrics. I felt as I did when I originally packed them – that they were his personal belongings and I was being offered an opportunity to delve into them, and I couldn’t do that.” Eventually she asked her two sons to sift through the treasures on her behalf.

An EU export ban on Dutch tech giant ASML’s machines could force the pause we all need

At this point, it should be clear that AI is a choose-your-own-adventure book where every option ends in disaster. Exploding carbon emissions and ecological collapse? Turn to page 37. Other outcomes include some or all of: the bubble bursting and an ensuing financial crisis; mass unemployment via automation; the end of democracy and the rise of authoritarian surveillance states; raving cults who believe the pattern-matching algorithm is a consciousness; terrorists who create devastating bioweapons; nation states that deploy autonomous weapons systems that act on non-human timeframes; nation states or terrorists that hack all the myriad systems we depend on; or an AI that, conscious or not, pursues directives that are at odds with human wellbeing.

Imagining that people such as Elon Musk, the OpenAI boss, Sam Altman, Palantir’s Peter Thiel and the Trump administration tech adviser Marc Andreessen will lead us to a utopian future of flourishing environmentalism, social harmony and endless leisure requires hallucination and sycophancy so great that that choose-your-own-adventure scenario could only have been written by ChatGPT.

Alexander Hurst writes for Guardian Europe from Paris. His memoir Generation Desperation is out now

The retired second-row on his recovery from addiction, depression and incarceration to find a new life as a meditation teacher

“Carefree,” says Ryan Caldwell when I ask him what word is tattooed across his fingers. He looks up from his hands on a rainy morning in Belfast. The former Ireland international, who played the role of enforcer for Ulster, Bath and Exeter, then laughs softly in acknowledgment of that incongruous word.

We have spoken for almost two hours about a wide range of dark and heavy subjects – from his addiction issues and imprisonment to his injury-riddled rugby career and the last big concussion that ended his playing days and sent him plunging into a deeper spiral of suicidal depression.

A self-confident woman strides on to the Fourth Plinth, Nan Goldin captures sex, cats and death and even the Turner Prize shows promise this year

• See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here

The most anticipated exhibition of the year centres on an embroidered epic of war and conquest that miraculously preserves an intimate window on the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066. Yet, you may find yourself simply fascinated by the artistry of the Anglo-Saxon women who used coloured wool to depict billowing sails, charging horses and King Harold’s spectacular moustache. Jonathan Jones
• British Museum, London, 10 September to 11 July

Apparently a dedicated mud room will make you less stressed. But I have a very different approach

I was excited to learn that the latest interiors essential, according to the Washington Post, is a “dirty zone”. I’m ahead of the curve – I’ve already got a dirty zone by each main door (and also one directly outside the back door, where, rudely, a mystery animal has defecated). The fridge drawers are dirty zones thanks to the windfall apples I thought I would cook, but predictably left to liquefy. There’s a dirty zone next to the washing machine and a mildewy one inside it. There’s the festering compost bin I’m too chicken to tackle post-heatwave, plus the cupboard under the stairs, which we don’t talk about. Good luck finding a clean zone, basically.

Does this make me kinda chic? Unfortunately not: the Post is actually preaching the benefits of confining the sordid ephemera of life to carefully delineated and hidden areas: storage benches, monogrammed totes or even a “mud room” (for coats, shoes, skis, lacrosse sticks and dog-washing sinks – I think posh Britons call it a boot room). A 2021 study in the Netherlands found that participants who did chores in chaotic environments had higher levels of the stress marker salivary alpha-amylase. I always wonder what’s brewing in my mouth as I fall over piles of filthy shoes yet again while running to answer the door.

After cabinet meeting this morning, prime minister will talk about plans to bring more essential services back into public control to boost growth

My colleague Richard Partington, the Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, grew up, like Andy Burnham, in the Warrington suburb of Culcheth. He has been home to find out what people there are saying about the new PM.

Yesterday, Kemi Badenoch announced a reshuffle, replacing Mel Stride with Andrew Griffith as shadow chancellor and Priti Patel with Tom Tugendhat as shadow foreign secretary.

Seven-year-old girl and aunt, 34, died and four others were injured in blaze near Middlesbrough last week

A 23-year-old man has appeared in court charged with murdering a seven-year-old girl and her aunt who died in a house fire.

Natalie McDonald, 34, and Valentina Foster died and four other people were injured in the blaze in Grangetown, near Middlesbrough, in the early hours of 26 August.

Exclusive: 7,280 suspected illegal spills in rivers and sea recorded in first five months of 2026

The number of suspected illegal discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas by water companies during dry weather increased significantly during the first five months of 2026.

Dumping raw sewage into waterways during dry spells via overflows amounts to pollution. It is considered a breach of the permits given to water companies and is illegal. Discharging during dry weather increases the toxicity of the sewage pollution entering waterways. Rivers have less flow and volume, and there is no rainwater to dilute the sewage pollution entering the waterway.

Las Vegas jury returns verdict against ex-South Side Compton Crips gang leader in killing of US rap legend

• Thirty years of waiting, a memoir and a trial: conviction in Tupac Shakur killing brings closure

A Las Vegas jury has found former South Side Compton Crips gang leader Duane Keith Davis guilty of the murder of Tupac Shakur, bringing the case to a close nearly 30 years after the famous rapper was gunned down.

The jury took about three hours to reach a guilty verdict in a case that relied heavily on multiple confessions from Davis himself, including his description of the killing in the 2019 memoir Compton Street Legend.