I doused myself in Poison perfume and made the trip back to my childhood home, friends and college. What could I learn by re-immersing myself in a world that brimmed with hope and potential?

The house in which I turned 18 was full of clocks. Dark wooden things with aged faces. Every room ticked. If you stood in certain doorways, you could hear all the misaligned second hands racing. I could not understand why anyone would want to count away life like that or decorate their living quarters with so many symbols of mortality.

There was no escaping time. Shortly before each hour, a mechanical whir heralded the first chime. We lived in a retirement town with an elderly and conservative population, which amplified the ticking. Worthing, on the south coast of England, was known as “God’s waiting room”. Death was there in our wide, slow roads and low bungalows, the grey sea mists and blue rinses.

As the midterm elections loom, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone travel to rural West Virginia, a Republican party stronghold, to explore how soaring gas prices, war in the Middle East and datacenter expansion are affecting Donald Trump's popularity among his base. Although the state remains staunchly Republican, there are signs of a new politics emerging – and local Democrats are looking to capitalize on it

I was in my early 20s when the classic series debuted and I recognised so much. I can’t wait to see how the reboot takes on a new – equally messy – stage of life

HBO’s Girls is coming back, Lena Dunham and her fellow cast members announced this week, and the internet is already abuzz. Women of a certain age, myself included – approaching, turning or having turned 40 – are genuinely thrilled, if also slightly trepidatious. When you’ve loved, loathed and most importantly grown with characters in the way many of us did with Girls, you feel protective of a show’s legacy. But with Dunham, I’m confident it is in good hands.

Girls means a lot to me, in part because it was the topic of my first ever column for this newspaper: in 2012, shortly after the show premiered, it was already generating a bananas amount of internet discourse and I was on work experience. I was in my early 20s and not long off the dole. I didn’t share the privilege of Dunham’s characters, which is perhaps why I so enjoyed how she skewered it. (I never understood the criticism that the show was about spoilt rich girls. So many people missed the satire.) Yet there were aspects of it that I related to, as I wrote at the time:

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

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After losing a few stone, Abdeen now likes to plan his meals ahead, but Claire says he is taking the joy out of going to restaurants. Whose argument carries more weight? You decide

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I want him to be more spur-of-the-moment because that will improve my dining experience

As climate breakdown pushes families to starvation, many feel forced to ‘sacrifice’ daughters to save siblings. Photographer Elise Blanchard travelled the country speaking to girls as young as eight, 10 and 14 who have been engaged or married to repay debts or pay for food

‘I’m not happy about this,” says 11-year-old Khatira, who was sold into marriage to repay debts, sitting in her home in Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province in north-west Afghanistan. “She was healthy before her engagement, now she is worried and cries a lot,” says her 40-year-old mother, Noor Bibi.

When her 20-year-old husband-to-be comes to her home, Khatira runs away. Since her engagement, she has stopped going outside because she “is ashamed of having a husband in front of the other girls”, says her mother.

Shepherds watch over their sheep in the hills of Bala-Murghab, Badghis province, north-west Afghanistan. By March, the pasture was already too dry for the season

Peru’s anchoveta have made up about a 10th of the entire global commercial fishing catch since 1970, more than any other fish. A combination of warming seas and decades-long overfishing spells disaster

On 10 June 2026, the government of Peru made a decision that it knew would hurt one of the world’s major fishing industries. It stopped all anchoveta fishing boats from going out to sea, suspending the fishing season. At first the order was temporary, but in mid-August, the suspension turned into a total closure. This was no easy call. For one thing, it was a brutal blow to the Peruvian economy.

Peruvian anchovies – the scientific name is Engraulis ringens – are not the salty, punch-packing little fillets in a puttanesca sauce or caesar salad dressing. That is a different species – Engraulis encrasicolus – which is smaller, tastier and found mostly in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Only a small part of Peru’s anchoveta catch is eaten in fish form. The rest – more than 90% – is immediately processed as fishmeal and fish oil, packed in sacks and barrels, and shipped to fish, shellfish and seaweed farms, factory farms and nutritional supplement producers around the world.

Donaldson was found guilty in June of 18 counts of sexual abuse including one rape between 1985 and 2008

Jeffrey Donaldson has been sentenced to 15 years for sexual offences against two women who were children when he abused them, paving what was described as a “catastrophic descent into disgrace”.

The sentence at Newry crown court completed the downfall on Thursday of a former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader who once dominated unionism in Northern Ireland.

Moscow sends swarms of drones to attack infrastructure in central Ukraine as Zelenskyy says Kyiv will restart strikes on Russian oil refineries

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The White House’s unilateral effort to negotiate an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine has collapsed as Moscow sent a record swarm of drones overnight to attack infrastructure in central Ukraine and Kyiv appeared to resume strikes on Russian oil refineries – despite warnings from Donald Trump.

Moscow accused Ukraine of launching a strike against a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region, its first since Trump abruptly declared an “energy ceasefire” that neither Russia nor Ukraine said they had agreed to.

Some reservoirs in south-east and south-west at critically low levels as water companies call for non-essential user bans on businesses

A severe drought has been declared in six areas of England with some reservoirs at critically low levels, threatening public supplies.

Parts of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex have moved into severe drought, and urgent measures are being taken to secure public supplies of water after the UK experienced its hottest summer on record.

Party faces fresh crisis as three councillors quit after ITV undercover filming exposed violence, misogyny and racist views

Reform UK has been rocked by a fresh crisis after councillors and election candidates for the party were caught on film making graphic threats of extreme violence and expressing racist and misogynistic views.

Three councillors have already stood down from the party, which said it was conducting an investigation over the first revelations from an ITV undercover investigation that aired on Wednesday.