From the top lollipop person to the most dedicated convenience store managers, we celebrate the winners of the year’s most unusual accolades

Michael Leech, from Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, has been named the UK bus driver of the year

Chancellor to set out tax and spending plans shaped by weak productivity, high borrowing costs and cost of living crisis

• What to expect: tax, VAT, pensions, savings and more

Rachel Reeves will unveil her make-or-break autumn budget on Wednesday, after months of speculation over tax rises.

In a critical speech in the Commons, with the government under intense pressure, the chancellor is expected to announce tax and spending measures aimed at plugging a multibillion-pound shortfall in the public finances.

This update of the 1995 documentary series is utterly authoritative. And its tweak of the Fab Four’s songs is a thing of wonder – their music absolutely thumps!

It would be wrong to go into The Beatles Anthology expecting another Get Back. Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary did such a miraculous job of recontextualising the glum old footage from Let It Be, by setting it against an ingenious ticking clock device and expanding it out to become a maximalist feelgood avalanche, that it felt like you were watching something entirely new.

But The Beatles Anthology is not new. If you saw the original series on television in 1995, or on YouTube at any point since, you’ll know what you’re in for. It is almost the exact same thing, only the images are sharper and the sound is better.

The Beatles Anthology is on Disney+ now.

Daniel Craig is joined by a sparkling array of talent including O’Connor, Glenn Close and Josh Brolin in this latest murder mystery with a religious undercurrent

Rian Johnson’s delectable new Knives Out film is a chocolate box: mouthwateringly delicious on the first layer and … well, perfectly tasty on the second. Daniel Craig returns as private detective Benoit Blanc, in a slightly more serious mode than before, with not as many droll suth’n phrases and quirky faux-naif mannerisms, but rocking a longer hairstyle and handsomely tailored three-piece suit.

Blanc arrives at a Catholic church in upstate New York to investigate the sensational murder of its presiding priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a ferocious clerical alpha male played by Josh Brolin, thundering his reactionary views from the pulpit. (That “Monsignor” title can only be bestowed by the pope incidentally: presumably Benedict XVI or John Paul II, not milksop liberals like Francis or Leo XIV.) And prime suspect is the sweet-natured, thoughtful junior priest Father Jud Duplenticy, amusingly played by Josh O’Connor, who was upset by the Monsignor’s heartless attitudes and was caught on video threatening to cut him out of the church like a cancer. Atheist Blanc faces off with the young priest, a worldview culture-clash which leads to an extraordinary encounter with the Resurrection itself.

From joint bank accounts and pooled savings to mortgages and tax allowances, talk about money for a happy financial future together

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for whether you should manage your finances jointly, separately or somewhere in the middle.

The CMP system means Huda Ammori will not be allowed to know what allegations were made against her

At some point in the challenge to the ban on Palestine Action beginning on Wednesday, the co-founder of the direct action group will be asked to leave courtroom five at the Royal Courts of Justice, as will her legal team and most others present. Then the case will continue without them.

When Huda Ammori returns to the room, the special advocate – a security-cleared barrister – who represented her interests in her absence will not be allowed to tell her or her legal team what evidence was presented against Palestine Action. If Ammori asks what allegations were made directly against her, the special advocate must not tell her, even though that means she will have no chance to rebut them.

Chancellor’s fiscal statement billed as decisive moment for fate of Starmer government as she tries to fill £20bn spending gap

Rachel Reeves will promise to tackle Britain’s cost of living crisis and deliver fiscal stability in Wednesday’s budget, which is billed as a decisive moment for the fate of Keir Starmer’s beleaguered government.

The chancellor will say she is taking the “fair and necessary choices” to shore up the economy as she raises billions of pounds worth of taxes to help offset lower than expected growth forecasts.

Exclusive: Dulwich college contemporaries ‘rubbish’ Reform UK leader’s suggestion alleged racist taunts not intended to hurt

• Don’t believe Nigel Farage’s denials. He targeted me for being Jewish – and it hurt | Peter Ettedgui
  
  

Three more school contemporaries who claim to have witnessed Nigel Farage’s alleged teenage racism have rejected the Reform UK leader’s suggestion that it was “banter”, describing it as targeted, persistent and nasty.

One former pupil, Stefan Benarroch, claimed that people emerging from a Jewish assembly at Dulwich college had been in the sights of Farage and others for taunts while a second, Cyrus Oshidar, described as “rubbish” the claim that the Reform leader did not act with intent to hurt.

Steve Witkoff spoke to Yuri Ushakov on territorial control and suggested congratulating Donald Trump and framing talks more optimistically, audio recording suggests

Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told a senior Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg.

In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically.

Senior lawyers criticise justice secretary’s radical plan for England and Wales, saying it could ‘destroy justice as we know it’

Jury trials for all except the most serious crimes such as rape, murder and manslaughter are set to be scrapped under radical proposals drawn up by David Lammy.

In proposals that drew a swift backlash from senior lawyers, who said that they would not reduce court backlogs and could “destroy justice as we know it”, the justice secretary has proposed that juries will only pass judgment on public interest offences with possible prison sentences of more than five years.