Daniel’s boyfriend thinks his youthful complexion is down to fancy skincare, and Jessica’s nearest and dearest still don’t know she’s had a breast enhancement …

Jessica was at a spa with her friends of more than 20 years when she noticed one stare at her bikini, lock eyes with her and laugh, before asking: “Wait, have you …?” The game was up – eight months after she’d had a secret breast enhancement, she’d been rumbled. Fearing judgment from even her closest circle, she had only spoken to two people who’d had the procedure, for advice, and told a neighbour in case she was unwell after the surgery. “My family still don’t know – most people don’t,” the 42-year-old from London says, including her two children who live between her and her ex-husband. “I’m not alone; I’ve since learned winter is the most popular time for people to get things done, then they can just hide under jumpers while everything settles in, so no one notices.”

For years, celebrities have endured public speculation about their tweakments and surgeries – but as procedures become more commonplace, “civilian” patients are facing the same questions from family and friends. And many of them are choosing to go incognito; some surgeons estimate up to 70% of their clients aren’t telling others about their aesthetic procedures. But what are the practicalities of disguising everything from breast augmentation to filler to hair transplants from your closest circle? And why are so many people spending thousands of pounds to alter their appearance – only to hope that no one notices?

They rule the roads and, in their wake, even old-style saloons have been supersized. It’s an illusion of consumer choice

Recently, while traipsing from showroom to showroom in search of a used car for my growing clan, the iconic line from Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman movie The Dark Knight came to mind: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” And by villain, of course, I mean an SUV driver.

Because, if you haven’t shopped for a secondhand family car recently, I’ll save you the shock: wherever you look, it’s SUVs.

More direct flights from North America and, say tourism chiefs, Highland warriors and Tartan Army have helped

For the tourist industry, 2026 has been a rocky year, with war, EU border delays, climate and economic woes gnawing away at holiday plans. But while much of Britain is feeling the loss of visitors from the Middle East and beyond, one part is thriving.

Scotland is reeling in ever more visitors, with strong annual growth and a 15% rise in flight bookings to Scottish airports in June and July, compared with a drop in bookings to London and the rest of England in recent months, according to VisitBritain figures.

Boats carrying hundreds of people are a clear and alarming trend. But where do such large vessels come from?

Providing a large dinghy for use in the choppy seas of western Europe was not a problem, as long as the order was for more than 20 vessels, they said. The sales manager at the Chinese company even had an online brochure for an undercover Guardian reporter, posing as a prospective client, to peruse.

They had a production capacity of 500 boats a month and, yes, it was possible to get even bigger ones for the right price. They could do a seven or even an eight-metre military-style dinghy for $1,678 (£1,238) a boat, without the engines, but that would be lacking CE certification, the mandatory mark that shows a product meets EU health and safety requirements.

Additional reporting by Lyndon Li

The New York congresswoman’s power is in the spotlight as people wonder if the stars are finally aligning for her to run for US president in 2028

“They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.”

The words were delivered slowly, deliberately and with some steeliness by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her audience, crammed into the pews of Rockefeller Memorial chapel at the University of Chicago, burst into spontaneous applause. That was in May. In the three months since, the speculation around Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitions – for herself and for America – has only grown louder.

The British writer is known for his unique ability to get inside the heads of serial killers. But a Guardian investigation reveals multiple accusations of assault and child sexual abuse. What is the truth about the man described by his own daughter as ‘absolute evil’?

Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual abuse and violence

From the outside, it looked like the sort of happy family home a child might draw. Red brick, surrounded by rolling countryside, in Curdridge, near Winchester. Here lived the true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee, with his second wife, Tracey Dee, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha, in the early 1990s. Inside, it was a house of horrors, full of murder memorabilia. In a wardrobe were the clothes a nine-year-old girl had been murdered in. One afternoon, Zoe was playing when she found them. The now 38-year-old council worker from Romsey says she remembers “putting it all on … going downstairs and everyone being absolutely traumatised”. Later, another gruesome memento was added to the collection: the Austin Metro that convicted murderer Michael Sams had used to transport a body in 1991. Bloodied sections of the seatbelts had been cut out for forensic tests.

Berry-Dee was the serial killer man. He wrote to convicted murderers in jail and befriended them. They told him everything. Through them he saw the terror in their victims’ eyes, watched their anguished death throes, heard their final screams. He listened to tapes of their confessions in his study. Zoe grew used to hearing them echo through the house. “It would always be on,” she says. “At the time, it felt normal.”

Exclusive: More than 100 homes on King Charles and Prince William’s inherited estates have EPC ratings of F or G

• ‘It’s archaic’: the struggle to heat poorly insulated homes let by royal estates

More than 100 homes on the inherited royal estates of King Charles and Prince William fail to meet the legal minimum energy standards for landlords, the Guardian can reveal.

An analysis of a large sample of domestic lets on the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and the Sandringham estate found that one in five have Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings of F or G.

Andy Burnham calls for reflection after ‘tragedy on so many levels’ in comments echoed by London mayor Sadiq Khan

Andy Burnham has called the death of Jason Arday, whose body was found at his home in south London on Friday, a “tragedy on so many levels”.

Arday resigned as a professor at the University of Cambridge last week after allegations of plagiarism, which he denied. He was pronounced dead just after 3pm on Friday.

Border security tightened after social media posts call for another mass crossing into Spain’s north African territory

Moroccan police have arrested 111 people as they tried to enter Spain’s north African territory of Ceuta, amid ⁠tightened security on both sides after social media posts ​called for another mass crossing.

The attempted crossing on Saturday came two weeks after more than 72,000 migrants surged into Ceuta, causing tensions within the EU and prompting anti-immigration rhetoric among far-right parties worldwide. At least 96 people died trying to ⁠reach European soil.

Fans line streets, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart ahead of Welsh singer’s Swansea funeral

Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects to the singer as her coffin was brought back to her former home.

The singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan, died unexpectedly on 8 July in Portugal at the age of 75.