She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now she’s as frank as ever

There is a long buildup before I get to see Tracey Emin – her two cats, Teacup and Pancake, preceding her like a pair of slinky sentries as she walks into the white-painted basement kitchen of her huge Georgian house in Margate. The lengthy overture is because – though I’ve been invited for noon – Emin is a magnificently late riser. Her average working day, her studio manager Harry tells me, runs from about 6pm to 3am. And so, while the artist is gradually sorting herself out, Harry takes me on a tour through her home town in the January drizzle, the sea a sulky grey blur beyond the sands.

At last, Harry is ringing the doorbell, and Emin’s lovely housekeeper, Sam, is sitting me down in the kitchen, then finally here she is, dressed in loose dark trousers and top, with those faithful cats. Emin is recognisably the same as she’s ever been – the artist who scandalised and entranced the nation in the 1990s with her tent embroidered with the names of everyone she’d ever slept with; with her unmade bed and its rumpled sheets and detritus. She still has that sardonic lip, those arched brows, those flashing eyes. But these days she is surprisingly calm, slow moving, her greying hair swept back into a loose bun. This is the Emin who has worked hard, survived a great deal and, somewhat unpredictably, ended up a national treasure.

Line handily sums up people’s bewilderment at state of world, but it isn’t quite what the Marxist thinker wrote

At a time when geopolitical certainties of old are crumbling away, it has become the go-to quote to make sense of the current moment in all its seeming senselessness. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” is a line attributed to the former Italian Communist party leader Antonio Gramsci.

Over the last two months alone, it has been quoted – and often mangled – by a rightwing Belgian prime minister, a leftwing British political leader, an Irish central banker and in the title of the most recent BBC Reith lecture, given by the author Rutger Bregman.

Universities, builders and health trusts are feeling the squeeze, as thinktank says effect of zero net migration could be similar to Brexit

• ‘It’s been life-changing’: young Britons on why they left the UK

When Greenwich and Kent universities said this month they would merge to save money, the heart of their financial difficulties could be found in the UK government’s crackdown on immigration.

Tough restrictions on foreign students have sent the number of university applications from abroad plummeting, cutting lucrative tuition fees and leaving all universities facing the same squeeze.

As calls for the former prince to cooperate with investigation become deafening, this may be the reckoning Andrew cannot escape

Gordon Brown is a man who gets into the detail.

In office, and since then, he has applied his forensic mind to the matters that concern him. Lately, he has been focused on the Epstein files.

A family struggled to rebuild their lives after an abusive marriage ended in tragedy and financial ruin

Family life ended for Francesca Onody on a late summer evening in 2022 when her abusive husband doused their cottage with petrol as police arrived to arrest him. She and her children escaped seconds before the building exploded. Her husband Malcolm Baker died in the blaze.

That night, Onody lost her husband, her home, her pets and her possessions.

Ritualistic Spurs manager sacking is a marker in the year, but the failing lies with executives responsible for some really vague recruitment

Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t talk about Spurs. Don’t keep returning to Spurs, bloodshot and shivering. Don’t end up twitching on a Manhattan street corner, nodding at Jean-Michel Basquiat as he drifts past, waiting for your Spurs man to appear out of a fire escape, uncork his Spurs pouch, and say what do you need, while you chatter about just wanting to return to the club DNA, whatever that is, nobody knows, but it’s Spurs, and Spurs is your wife and it’s your life and, you know, sources close to sources say a swoop for German wunder-coach Helmut von Wangerburg may actually be at an advanced …

So, Spurs then. It’s true that the media are addicted to this club. But it is also an understandable response to an entity that has become a content machine, perfectly structured to meet the requirements of any moreishly successful streaming drama.

Ukrainian president says ‘our unity is the best interceptor against Russia’s aggressive plans’

Rubio insists that the US “do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship.”

He says “we do not want allies to rationalise the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.”

“We do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.

We want allies who can defend themselves, so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.

Claims that agreement is unconstitutional could pose problems in talks with Washington over Greenland

Denmark could face legal action over an agreement that gives the US sweeping powers on Danish soil, over claims it is “unconstitutional” and could pose problems in talks with Washington over Greenland.

The agreement, which was signed under the Biden administration in 2023 and was passed by the Danish parliament last year, gives the US “unhindered access” to its airbases and powers over its civilians.

Pelicot says she wants to look Dominique Pelicot ‘straight in the eye’ over potential abuse of daughter and case of estate agent who was raped and murdered in 1991

Gisèle Pelicot has said she needs to visit prison to look her abusive ex-husband “straight in the eye” after his conviction for drugging her and inviting dozens of men to rape her in a case that shocked France and the rest of the world.

Pelicot, 73, said she needed “answers” from Dominique Pelicot over the potential abuse of their daughter and the case of an estate agent who was raped and murdered in 1991, which he is under investigation for.

Epstein files release shows David Stern advised against mentioning ‘being denied previously or criminal charges’

An aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor advised Jeffrey Epstein to illegally hide his child sexual abuse conviction to obtain a visa to China, according to the latest Epstein files release.

David Stern, who was a close associate of both Epstein and the then prince, was asked for his help after the disgraced financier’s initial application for a visa was rejected.