Patel reportedly became furious after reports said he flew to visit girlfriend and agency fired official who oversees fleet

A top FBI official with 27 years standing has reportedly been fired by the bureau after its director, Kash Patel, became enraged by press stories revealing he had used a government jet to travel to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match.

Steven Palmer, who had worked at the bureau since 1998, was fired as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group which is responsible for handling major security threats as well as overseeing the agency’s fleet of jets. He was the third head of the unit to be dismissed since Patel became the second Trump administration’s FBI director in February.

Targeting the negativity of the far right, the big winner of last week’s poll was able to cut through with voters

One of the tightest elections in Dutch history produced an outcome so close that first steps in negotiating a new coalition government have yet to begin. But at a time when the forward march of the far right across Europe is dominating headlines, sapping the confidence of mainstream parties, one uplifting takeaway was immediately clear: a less divisive kind of politics can still cut through with the public, if it is prosecuted with conviction and panache.

The big and unexpected winner of last week’s poll was 38-year-old Rob Jetten, the charismatic leader of the centrist liberal party D66, which almost tripled its vote and is set to top the polls by a whisker. Basing his campaign on the Obama-style slogan “Yes we can”, Mr Jetten presented himself as an optimistic unifier to an electorate exhausted by the polarising politics of Geert Wilders, whose anti-immigrant Freedom party (PVV) dominated the outgoing coalition. He now has a very good chance of being the country’s youngest-ever prime minister.

Former president also praises Mamdani’s campaign against rivals Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa

Zohran Mamdani, who is favored to win New York City’s mayoral election on Tuesday, reportedly received a call Saturday from his fellow Democrat Barack Obama – and the former president offered to be a “sounding board” if his expected victory indeed materializes.

Obama also praised the campaign Mamdani had run against his main independent rival, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

Reuters contributed to this report

From a Van Gogh self-portrait to Gauguin’s dreamscapes, new studies show that seeing original art can calm stress and boost health

In an era characterised by burnout and doomscrolling, a therapeutic alternative is hanging on a gallery wall. When volunteers at London’s Courtauld Gallery stood before Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère, and Gauguin’s Te Rerioa, their stress and inflammation levels dropped compared with those of volunteers viewing reproductions. Science suggests that original art is a medicine that one can view rather than swallow.

That art can lift spirits is well known. But that it calms the body is novel. A study by King’s College London asked participants to look at masterworks by 19th-century post-impressionists – Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet and Gauguin – while strapped to sensors. Half the group saw the originals in the gallery, half viewed copies in a lab. The results were clear: going to art galleries is good for you – relieving stress and cutting heart disease risk, as well as boosting the immune system.

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).

Back-row scored stunning try against Australia but perhaps he can be advised to rein in fractionally some of his antics

The sporting gods can sometimes be mischievous. Steve Borthwick’s vision of rugby heaven is a cohesive team that consistently delivers without huge amounts of fuss and squeezes the life out of opponents like a white-shirted python. Control, physicality, tactical acumen and work rate will forever be more central to his vision of Test match success than individual front-page razzle-dazzle.

And what happens? With almost comic timing the door to the England dressing room has been flung off its hinges by a 20-year-old rock star forward with the ability to transform games on his own. Henry Pollock has now scored three tries in 61 minutes of international rugby, is all over social media and already has half the rugby world itching to punch his lights out.

Mother of Bella May Culley, 19, awaiting sentencing on Monday, says conditions have improved after transfer to new jail

A pregnant British teenager accused of drug-smuggling has been moved to a mother-and-baby unit in a Georgian prison, her mother said.

Bella May Culley, 19, who is reported to be eight months pregnant, was arrested at Tbilisi airport in May.

It is unclear whether Martin O’Neill will lead out Celtic in next month’s League Cup final. For now, the interim manager will settle for taking them there. St Mirren lie in wait after a frantic, controversial semi-final in which the 10 men of Rangers competed admirably. Celtic needed extra-time to see off their oldest foes. The outcome will matter far more to O’Neill than the earlier scale of worry Rangers caused him. A turbulent week for Celtic, which included the resignation of Brendan Rodgers, ended with their supporters hailing O’Neill in song.

Rangers’ task was rendered harder by the actions of Thelo Aasgaard seven minutes before the interval. The midfielder was high and reckless when catching Anthony Ralston, a red card the correct punishment. Rangers felt the numbers should have been levelled in first half stoppage time after the Celtic centre back Auston Trusty crazily kicked the head of Jack Butland. Trusty escaped with a booking.

More to follow

• Hellen Obiri regains title she won in 2023 race

• Benson Kipruto wins men’s race by less than a second

Hellen Obiri set a women’s course record to win the New York City Marathon on Sunday while her fellow Kenyan, Benson Kipruto, won the men’s race by edging Alexander Mutiso by less than a second.

Obiri, who also won the race in 2023, finished in two hours, 19 minutes and 51 seconds. Obiri was running with 2022 winner Sharon Lokedi until she pulled away from her countrymate in the final mile, surging ahead and winning easily, besting the previous course record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Defending champion Sheila Chepkirui finished third. All three beat the previous course best.

Charismatic figure of the left is remembered as one of the most informed commentators on Latin American affairs

The former Guardian journalist and historian Richard Gott has died aged 87.

Gott’s career at the Guardian began in 1964 and included spells as foreign correspondent, leader writer, features editor and literary editor.

West Ham recorded a desperately needed victory and acquired perhaps just a modicum of belief in their battle against relegation as they picked off a surprisingly meek Newcastle in east London.

A Tomas Soucek ram-raid in second-half added time put the seal on a victory that was earned with a determined first-half display, with Nuno Espírito Santo’s face a barometer for his team’s fortunes. From gritting his teeth furiously after a fourth-minute concession, the West Ham manager was smiling by half-time, and roaring as the final whistle blew. Likewise, a crowd that struggled even to be frustrated early on found its voice.

• Anfield captain calls some takes ‘absolutely ridiculous’

• Liverpool ended run of four defeats with win over Villa

Virgil van Dijk has called Wayne Rooney’s criticism of him and Mohamed Salah this season “lazy” and has hit out at “ridiculous takes” during Liverpool’s recent run of bad form.

Rooney, talking on his BBC podcast, had said there had been a lack of leadership from the Liverpool captain and Salah this season and that their body language had not been right. From late September to late October, Liverpool lost six times in seven games, including at home to Manchester United and away to Crystal Palace.

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Here’s an interesting pair of stats, courtesy of Opta. Going into this weekend, City are the only side in the Premier League this season to spend more than half of their game time in a winning position (51.3%), while Bournemouth are the side that has spent the least amount of minutes (11%) losing.

Rayan Cherki’s only league start for City since his £30.5m summer move from Lyon was the 2-0 home defeat to Tottenham in August. It’s been a fairly underwhelming start for Cherki, who has flickered with some bright moments. Guardiola highly rates the Frenchman, who scored in the Carabao Cup against Swansea this week, and had this to say about the playmaker only last month.

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

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Officers did not find additional devices in a sweep of building, authorities say

There was an explosion early Saturday at Harvard University’s medical school that appears to have been intentional, but no one was injured, authorities said.

Police at the Massachusetts Ivy League university said in a statement that an officer who responded to a fire alarm encountered two unidentified people and tried to stop them. But they ran from the campus’s Goldenson building before the officer got to where the alert was triggered by an explosion, police said.

Inspired by childhood encyclopedias and Jane Goodall, Beth Pratt writes about the more than 150 species in the national park – and transports readers to a rarefied world

A shrill call was followed by a flash of movement through a pile of boulders on a high country slope in Yosemite national park. “Hello, Sophie!” Beth Pratt responded to the round, feisty pika who had briefly emerged to pose defiantly in the sun.

Pratt, a conservation leader and wildlife advocate, has spent more than a decade observing the tiny mammals and the other inhabitants of these serene granite domes and the alpine meadows they overlook, which gleamed gold on a crisp afternoon in mid-October.

Bethany England sealed for Tottenham a 2-1 win that shows one new manager has made a quicker impression than the other

Liverpool’s search for their first points of the season goes on, after Tottenham defeated Gareth Taylor’s side 2-1 at Brisbane Road. It was an illustration of the parallels and contrasts between two teams who are, in a multitude of ways, on relatively similar trajectories in the Women’s Super League but who are equally experiencing contrasting fortunes in the opening stages of this season.

With this win, Tottenham consolidated their fine start to life under Martin Ho to remain fourth, while Liverpool are rooted in the danger zone. The disparity between the two sides is underlined by the data – Spurs are the team who have outperformed their expected points by the biggest margin this season; Liverpool are the side who have underperformed the most.

• Toronto miss out on first World Series title since 1993

• Blue Jays held lead going into ninth inning

The Toronto Blue Jays have reflected on their agonizing loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.

The Blue Jays looked set to win their first World Series since 1993 when they entered the ninth inning with a 4-3 lead. But with one out, and Toronto’s Jeff Hoffman facing the Dodgers’ No 9 hitter, Miguel Rojas, the reliever threw a hanging slider which Rojas launched for the tying home run. Will Smith then hit the winning home run in the 11th inning off Shane Bieber, the first time the Dodgers had led all night.

The president is lashing out before the supreme court’s impending decision on his absurd policy

Halloween came early for Donald Trump. Ronald Reagan spooked him. Trump had a startled reaction to the TV ad that appeared during the first game of the World Series, placed by the provincial government of Ontario, featuring excerpts from President Reagan’s radio talk in April 1987 in which he explained the danger of trade wars. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump posted. It was, he falsely claimed, a “serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act”. In retaliation, he slapped an additional 10% tariff on Canada.

Trump was apparently horrified at the sudden presence of the ghost of conservatism past, who had kept the outlandish bounder at arm’s length and whom Trump regarded warily if not nervously. Reagan was the original, bigger and more successful performer, whose appeal was as the harbinger of morning in America, not the grim reaper of a zombie nightfall. Canada is being punished for Trump’s fright.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

The Utopia and No Offence star on channelling her righteous younger self, how she shakes off heavy roles, and her alter ego DJ Dave

Born in Ammanford, south Wales, in 1987, Alexandra Roach began her career in the S4C soap Pobol y Cwm, before training at Rada in London. Her first major role was as a young Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady in 2011, and she has gone on to star in TV dramas including Utopia, No Offence, Hunderby and Being Human; she is currently staring in Amazon Prime Video’s series Lazarus. She lives in Bristol with her husband and daughter.

This is me in my living room. I’m 12 years old and proudly holding a letter I’d written to the local town council. In it, I pleaded with them to do something radical for the sake of the youth of Ammanford: open a Claire’s Accessories.

Only a few years after first being detected in Australia, nitazenes have been found in everything from vapes to fake heroin – and the death toll is rising. What can be done about it?

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In the middle of winter last year, in a unit in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, Carly Morse, Thomas Vale, Michael Hodgkinson and Abdul El Sayed used a rolled-up bank note to inhale cocaine. About 3am on 24 June 2024, all four likely become unresponsive.

El Sayed’s uncle, Cory Lewis, became concerned late the following night when his nephew, who had been living with him, did not return home.

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Because our senses are so limited and the nature of all things so transient, what we know to be objective reality is a momentary snapshot of the whole picture

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

The latest iteration of OpenAI’s video generator, Sora 2, spells troubling times for objective reality. Even before the introduction of generative AI, an increasingly polarised political atmosphere meant we could barely agree on the same set of facts.

But for Buddhists, reality has always been something to be sceptical about.

Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva,
while contemplating profoundly the Prajna Paramita,
Realised that the Five Skandhas are empty,
and thus he was able to overcome all suffering.

Form, all the things our sensory organs can smell, taste, see, feel and hear.

Feelings that arise when we perceive things.

Perception is the lens through which we label things and assign value or worth like bananas are delicious or this article is boring.

Mental forces, or volition, are the actions and reactions to things and the feelings and perceptions that come from them.

Consciousness is the last because it its the aggregate or heap of the rest together. It is our memories and the human hard drive from which we draw from to inform how we will respond to new forms, feelings and sensations.

The dark nights are here and staying in is more appealing than ever. But there’s a very real cost to not venturing out

Since the clocks changed, a damp, dark blanket settles over York from about 5pm – and it’s brilliant; the perfect excuse to stay in. I love every quiet corner of home: my armchair, angled for a perfect view of bird goings-on and bleak skies outside; my marshmallowy bed; the sofa, stacked with blankets; the kitchen (I don’t cook, but it’s where snacks live). What could be nicer than sinking into the stifling embrace of multiple heated throws as a jacket potato crisps up in the oven and I succumb to a smorgasbord of good winter telly? Why would I ever move?

Me and everyone else. Right? We’re sleepmaxxing and soup-making in our slippers, sparking up fairy lights and enthusiastically appropriating hygge and gezellig (Dutch for cosy). We’re sharing memes on the thrill of someone else cancelling social plans before we’re forced to and proclaiming our Jomo. It’s natural to retreat in winter: we’re animals. But it’s not just a seasonal phenomenon now, and I’m conscious I need, and maybe you also need, to get a grip and go out.