Levels of fatigue among women in Britain are soaring, and this isn’t the kind that can be cured by a nap. What lies behind the exhaustion epidemic?

Look around you and it isn’t hard to find an exhausted woman. There she is, standing behind you in the queue at the post office or delivering your Amazon package. Here she is at the school gates, puffing after running from the car, coffee in hand, apologising for forgetting to pack a PE kit. Or trying to stop a yawn escaping during a long work meeting. Or eyes closed on a noisy commuter train, about to miss her stop.

Maybe this seems normal to you because, honestly, in today’s fast-paced culture, who isn’t exhausted? But take a closer look and you’ll see that this level of fatigue is often much more than something a simple nap could remedy. You’ll find these bone-tired women asking friends in WhatsApp groups why their hair is falling out, or complaining to their beautician that their nails are always breaking, or manically Googling symptoms, trying to work out why their brains are so foggy or why, despite having youth on their side, they sometimes forget how to form a sentence. Friends ask each other online whether everyone else is so overwhelmed with anxiety that they can’t sleep. Perhaps they’re taking antidepressants and wondering why their racing thoughts are not relenting. They may have asked their GP why day-to-day life leaves them feeling so drained and been told it’s “inevitable” with small children, or asked if they are getting enough exercise.

The ex-diver is so fantastic that this needle-based Bake Off wannabe is 80% better every time he’s on screen. He absolutely makes this show

‘A new generation of knitters is taking the world by storm,” says Tom Daley, striding towards us in his ankle-length woollen poncho. “With just two needles, they are testing the limits of creativity.”

And so it proves, as 10 of “the nation’s finest” amateur wool enthusiasts join the Olympic diver (and recently murdered Celebrity Traitor) “to battle it out, stitch by stitch” for the chance to win the ineffably snuggly eight-part series Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter.

In an exclusive extract from her forthcoming autobiography, the former England goalkeeper reveals how her life unravelled during the Covid lockdowns of 2020

In early 2020, on the eve of lockdown, Phil Neville, then head coach of England, dropped Mary Earps from the squad.

For the first time ever, I began to feel something unimaginable; I felt disillusioned with football and unsure what I was doing in life, chasing this dream that was constantly in reach but never fully within my grasp. And then, abruptly, lockdown hit. And the world changed, at either the best possible time for me – or the very worst.

Masculinity is almost always presented as toxic on my feed – but we need constructive alternatives to give hope to those who feel lost

If you judged modern boyhood from the headlines, you’d think we were broken – radicalised, misogynistic, angry. But as a teenage boy myself, I don’t see a generation of lost boys around me. I see young men trying to make sense of a world that seems apathetic to our voices.

I’d be the first to admit that there are serious issues facing young men my age – I’ve experienced some of them first-hand. Between the ages of 12 and 14, I was drawn into harmful online communities promising me money, meaning and manhood. Muscular, wealthy men, parading through Dubai draped in designer labels and flanked by beautiful women flooded my feed. They said there was no excuse for the rest of us not to be in their position too, and offered what they claimed was a blueprint to get us there. Misogyny was rife in these communities, as was political extremism.

Josh Sargent is a Year 11 student and writer who campaigns around masculinity and online spaces

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Why did an obscure Dostoevsky novella sell 100,000 copies in the UK last year? And why are TikTokers raving about a 1943 Turkish novel? The way young people are discovering books is changing – and their literary tastes reflect our times

The sales patterns for classic novels are normally a fairly predictable business. “Every year it’s the same authors,” says Jessica Harrison, publishing director for Penguin Classics UK. “Austen is always at the very top, and then all the school ones: Orwell, An Inspector Calls, Of Mice and Men, Jane Eyre.”

But last year it was different. Penguin’s bestselling classic by far was a little-known novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. White Nights sold more than 100,000 copies in the UK in 2024. It is an angsty story of impossible love, run through with characteristic Dostoevskian gloom. A young man and woman meet on a bridge in St Petersburg on consecutive nights: his love for her is unrequited; she is despairing because the man she really loves has ghosted her. The pleasure the young man takes in her company is shadowed by the knowledge that it can never be permanent.

She burst on to the scene with Ratcatcher and terrified audiences with We Need to Talk About Kevin. The Scottish film-maker’s latest stars Hollywood darling Lawrence, but it doesn’t flinch from the dark side of family life

Several years ago, Martin Scorsese read Die, My Love in his book club. The novel, by Argentinian author Ariana Harwicz, follows an unnamed woman who moves with her husband to the middle of nowhere in France. Isolated and frustrated, she battles the confines of marriage and motherhood. She introduces herself to the reader as “a nutcase”, as “someone beyond repair”. She sets fire to ants, swears at her child, complains of its “constant clucking and grousing”. She speaks the unspeakable: “I’m a mother, full stop. And I regret it, but I can’t even say that.”

Scorsese subsequently sent the novel to Jennifer Lawrence’s production company. He was convinced that Lawrence could – should, must – play the mother. In turn, Lawrence and her producing partner, Justine Ciarrocchi, only ever had one film-maker in mind: Lynne Ramsay, the Scottish director who has exhibited a preoccupation with the dark side of parental responsibility and family dynamics throughout her career.

British Transport Police say LNER worker ‘undoubtedly saved lives’ as suspect remains in custody

A “heroic” rail staff member who intervened in a mass stabbing to save the lives of high-speed train passengers suffered life-threatening injuries, police said on Sunday, as a suspect remains in custody.

The member of LNER staff was recorded on CCTV attempting to stop the attacker as the train travelled between Peterborough and Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, British Transport Police said.

Additional reporting: Harry Taylor and Vikram Dodd

London mayor says government should stay true to its beliefs and face down those who claim net zero adds to cost of living

Keir Starmer’s government has shown a lack of confidence that it has the answers to the country’s problems, the mayor of London has said, as he called on the chancellor to back green investment in this month’s budget.

Speaking on the eve of a summit of world mayors in Rio de Janeiro, Sadiq Khan said the Treasury should be more supportive of the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, in his pursuit of the government’s target of an 81% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

Reform UK leader to set out ‘pro-entrepreneurship’ agenda while rowing back on tax cuts pledge

Nigel Farage will promise a bonfire of business regulation as he spells out his party’s economic policies in more detail than ever in an attempt to bolster its reputation for fiscal credibility.

The Reform leader will give a speech in London putting deregulation at the heart of his economic agenda, while also dropping a commitment made at the last election to deliver £90bn of tax cuts.

Laure Beccuau said ‘upper echelons of organised crime’ unlikely to be involved as one perpetrator remains at large

The brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was carried out by petty criminals rather than professionals from the world of organised crime, the Paris prosecutor has said, describing two of the suspects as a couple with children.

The assertion comes two weeks after thieves parked a stolen truck outside the world’s most-visited museum, used a furniture lift to reach the first floor, then smashed their way into one of the museum’s most ornate rooms. Less than seven minutes later, they escaped on scooters with crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m).