The lowest ever viewing figures, an identity crisis for the show and a confusing Billie Piper-based cliffhanger – whoever takes on the BBC fantasy drama has quite the job on their hands …

The announcement that the BBC has abandoned the planned Doctor Who Christmas special, and is ending its partnership with showrunner Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf production company, will not have come as much of a surprise to many fans. It has been rumoured for some time. Aside from the gossip, the fact that no filming appeared to have taken place for a programme that traditionally requires a lengthy post-production process had already suggested something was up.

The BBC has said the show remains an important part of its portfolio, stating it wants to ensure that “when the Tardis lands once more, it does so in all its glory”. While it isn’t inconceivable that Bad Wolf might bid to make the show under a new regime, Davies appears to have hung up his Tardis keys for good, posting on Instagram: “Now I’m as excited as anyone to see what comes next!”

From marvelling at teenage wonderkids to tracking the world’s largest coffee pot, our team of writers outline their expectations for the jamboree in North America

• Use our Bracketology to click your way through the group stage and the knockouts to crown a champion

  
  

Spain and Portugal in the final, with Spain winning. I’ve played our Bracketology game 20 times and gotten 20 different paths but Spain always end up winning. Alexander Abnos

In the UK – and across the west - incendiary language and white supremacist policies are entering the political mainstream

What qualifies as too rightwing these days? It’s a question I’ve considered often in recent years. But it takes on even greater urgency when contemplating the rise of Restore Britain. Founded by multimillionaire businessman and former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, the party enjoys the active support of far-right tech bro Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. If Nigel Farage strikes you as a wet liberal, then Restore Britain may be the party you’ve been waiting for.

Its mission, it says, is to “reverse mass migration”. That means deporting not just undocumented migrants but “legally resident foreign nationals” who live in social housing, claim benefits or supposedly “fail to integrate” – a strikingly elastic category. Lowe himself declares that “millions and millions” need to leave or be made to leave. Officials and politicians “who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities” will be imprisoned.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

‘The tabloids will always try to sensationalise. But it was 6.30pm. If Kate really had been falling out the door blind drunk, it’s not a picture I’d particularly want to take’

I have photographed Kate Moss a fair few times. The first time was probably around 1990, during the Johnny Depp days. I also shot her with Jefferson Hack and many of her other boyfriends, but it was only on official occasions, Topshop launches and things like that.

There was a period when whatever she did, 200 photographers would turn up. For her 33rd birthday, I was asked to cover her party at the Dorchester hotel. Then I got a call saying she was at the Donmar Warehouse theatre watching a matinee of a play with Rhys Ifans in it. “Could I go over there and get a picture of her leaving before arriving at the birthday party?” When I got there, there must have been 200-250 people outside. They had the front door surrounded – photographers, camera crews, fans, you name it. It was absolutely packed. I quickly realised that getting a decent picture was going to be very difficult.

First lady and affected families in audience for highly charged performance of excerpts of Mothers of Kherson

It was hard to imagine an opera with a subject more potentially traumatic – or cathartic – for the assembled audience. The occasion, in the grand and gilded spaces of the National Opera of Ukraine, in Kyiv, was the premiere of excerpts of Mothers of Kherson, an opera about the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian occupiers – a continuing, raw story of real-life loss and agony.

The opera was originally intended to be about the Maidan protests of 2013-14. But the American librettist George Brant, the author of the hit play Grounded, switched course in 2023 when the stories of abducted children hit the news.

People across the Black diaspora are increasingly turning to weight-loss drugs. How might this reshape our health, wellbeing and body image?

• Don’t get The Long Wave delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

These days, I barely make it through the week without seeing news about what weight-loss medications, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, can now supposedly achieve. Beyond the health benefits of shedding fat, “GLP-1” medications are also touted to treat addiction, and, as reported recently, even lowering the risk of breast cancer. But the extreme weight loss fuelled by these drugs is also reshaping beauty standards.

In this week’s edition, I’m digging into whether Black beauty ideals across the diaspora are under threat from the spread of weight-loss medication. It’s a delicate conversation that I’ve been eager to have for a while.

Relatives of Stephen Ogilvie say unrest is unwelcome and that many migrants make valuable contribution to UK

The family of the victim of the Belfast knife attack have called for calm after riots erupted across the city.

Stephen Ogilvie is in hospital having lost his left eye in the attack, footage of which was shared widely on social media late on Monday evening and through the day on Tuesday.

US launches attacks in retaliation for downing of US army helicopter, while White House source says deal could still be close

The future of peace talks in the Middle East has been thrown into question after Iran’s foreign ministry said it needed to “reassess” its participation, while Donald Trump said Iran would have to “pay the price” after the two countries traded fire overnight, drawing neighbouring states back into an on-and-off war that has consumed the region since late February.

The US launched strikes against Iran in the early hours of Wednesday, in retaliation for what it said was Iran’s downing of a US army helicopter near the strait of Hormuz. Iran then launched a wave of retaliatory airstrikes claiming hits on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

Footage appears to contradict Israeli military’s account of killing of seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal in West Bank

Footage has emerged that appears to contradict the Israeli military’s account of the shooting that killed seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal in his mother’s arms, showing the family’s car slowing near a military post before soldiers opened fire.

On Friday, the killing of the infant by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank caused outrage, after soldiers opened fire on the family’s vehicle despite it having complied with an order to stop. Sam was killed and his mother, Daniyah Abu Haikal, and father, Fahed Abu Haikal, were both injured.

Mohammad Tajik and Alnour Ali, who steered boats on Channel crossings, are first to be sentenced under new law

Two men have been jailed under the new offence of endangering others during a journey at sea.

The two men who were steering small boats are the first to be sentenced under the law, which came into force in January as part of government efforts to counter small-boat crossings.