Beneath the wig and rhinestones, Parton was the genius behind strings of classic songs from Jolene to I Will Always Love You that continue to inspire new artists

• Dolly Parton, US country star, actor and philanthropist, dies aged 80

• Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – latest updates

• Dolly Parton’s family say goodbye to their aunt, sister, grandmother - video

• Share your tributes and memories of Dolly Parton

In December 1977, Dolly Parton submitted to an interview with ABC Television’s Barbara Walters, much against her friends’ advice. Walters was not noted for her deep love and understanding of country music. She was a notoriously tough cookie, a Boston-born, Sarah Lawrence-educated journalist who had battled scarcely believable sexism to become the first female co-host of an American news programme. The month before she met Parton, she had interviewed Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin while they were working out the terms of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

It was all a very long way from Parton’s world, and the interview has something of the anthropological exercise about it. Walters looks aghast as Parton shows her around her tour bus, her collection of wigs and her “hand-washable and wrinkle-free” stage outfits (“you really like this? To me, it seems like horror”), and sits impassively as Parton sings Coat of Many Colours to her: an impressive feat, given the song’s saga of rural poverty and homespun wisdom is the mother of all tearjerkers from an artist never averse to yanking at her audience’s heartstrings. She asks Parton if people from “where I come from” would call her a hillbilly; regards the singer’s outfit with a jaundiced eye and tells her “you don’t have to look like this”. And, most infamously, she enquires: “Do you ever feel that you’re a joke?”

Discussing people’s bodies can be fraught. We asked eating disorder experts how to do so – or not – responsibly

In the age of Ozempic and people being open about plastic surgery, discussion about people’s bodies is rife. At the same time, nobody seems quite sure how to talk about them, as shown by recent coverage of celebrities like Ariana Grande.

It is a fraught topic. We asked eating disorder experts for guidelines to follow when talking about other people’s bodies, and how to do so without doing harm.

This moreish show about a do-gooder keen to save the day stars Hugo Weaving and The Pitt’s Shabana Azeez … and it’s pressure-packed from the get-go

Hugo Weaving plays the eponymous airport chaplain in this pacy and moreish eight-part series, which was co-created by Elise McCredie and Jude Troy, and directed with jittery flair by Bonnie Moir and Tig Terera. In case you were wondering, yes, that profession really does exist.

I doubt the lives of real airport chaplains are anywhere near as frenetic as those of this show’s protagonist, Tobias Wallace (Weaving), whose existence is a testament to that old saying: “Not all heroes wear capes.” Sometimes, they wear hi-vis.

The crimes he stands accused of required whole armies of facilitators. Don’t the victims deserve to see them face justice too?

How reassuring to learn that police investigating claims of sexual assault against Mohamed Al Fayed have handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, a mere three years after the former Harrods owner’s death at the age of 94, and just decades after the first survivors made reports of abuse. The CPS has said it won’t provide a timescale for any decision, to which we might remark: no shit. With this case, the one thing you could never accuse any of the authorities of is being bound by anything approaching a timescale.

The story does, however, certainly have scale. So far, more than 400 allegations including rape, sexual assault, sexual exploitation and human trafficking have been made against Al Fayed by at least 156 women – abuse he got away with, having died without any charges ever being brought against him. The claims span the years 1977 to 2014. At least 21 women came forward while he was alive, and there have been extraordinary rundowns in news articles and documentaries about all the alleged enablers of his wicked behaviour, from lawyers to mouthpieces to security henchmen to the doctors who carried out “purity examinations” on his young female PAs.

There are countless initiatives around the world that can inspire people and spur them into action. Amid the devastation of the climate crisis, our journalists strive to highlight these stories of hope

• Climate campaign 2026: help us reach 30,000 acts of support

The news is very often about the bad things (especially if you’re on the Guardian’s environment desk). Wildfires, floods, tipping points, billionaires making huge profits and buying themselves island refuges for the apocalypse … And yet, ticking along beside that is the steady pulse of what the rest of humanity is doing in response to the climate crisis. From housing developments with no cars to buildings made out of hemp, all over the planet people are ploughing ahead and changing their neighbourhoods and cities and the world.

But as news stories typically need to be about new developments or things people didn’t previously know about, it can be hard to cover all those brilliant initiatives being undertaken in the background – no matter how cheering they are. Which is why, back in 2023, we decided to ignore the usual rules about what constitutes “news” and start writing about them anyway. Readers, we knew, would like to hear about them.

Climate campaign 2026: help us reach 30,000 acts of support

Robert Corrigan has been dealing with the ‘smart’ rodents all his life – and believes there are better solutions to deal with the growing infestation in the world’s cities

“The rodents have paid for every single bill I’ve ever had – every mortgage, every car payment, every pint of Guinness,” says Dr Robert Corrigan. “It’s been a great ride and I’m still at it.”

New York-based Corrigan is one of the most respected voices in the world of rodentology. Now in his 70s, he has devoted his entire adult life to studying rats and our relationship with them.

Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 also invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes

• Alexis Petridis on Dolly Parton’s peerless career which turned country music cliches inside out

• Dolly Parton – a life in pictures

• Country music legend Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – latest updates

• Share your tributes and memories of Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton, one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music who was also much cherished for her philanthropy, has died aged 80.

Her death was announced by nephew Brian Seaver on Instagram. “I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now,” he said. “It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness.”

Exclusive: Nearly 100 Labour MPs support commission on changing the system used for Westminster election

• Why do some Labour MPs want electoral reform and will it happen?

Andy Burnham will face an immediate test of his backing for electoral reform in his first week in parliament as prime minister, with almost 100 Labour MPs supporting a bid for a new national commission.

Burnham, a longtime advocate of electoral reform, will be asked to support the new commission into ditching first past the post in his first 100 days as prime minister.

A total of 17 people have now been arrested over Saturday’s crash in which car drove wrong way along dual carriageway

Five more people have been arrested by detectives investigating a crash that killed seven people, including two police officers.

PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, were killed on Saturday when a Volkswagen Passat, which had been pursued by police, was driven the wrong way down the A66 near Middlesbrough and hit their marked armed response vehicle.

Ottawa’s ‘focused response’ to levies imposed by Donald Trump on Canadian products comes after trade talks collapsed last week

• US politics live – latest updates

Canada has announced it will impose tariffs on a wide range of key American industries including cosmetics, dairy, wood products and outdoor equipment in the coming weeks, as it retaliates roughly “dollar for dollar” against levies imposed by the US.

In a strong Canadian countermove to tariffs levied by Donald Trump, which took effect on Saturday after trade talks collapsed the day before, Canada’s finance and industry ministers on Tuesday called the measure a “focused response” to what they see as unfair trade practices.