A new exhibition in Liverpool tells the story of the grassy arenas, from churning tribal terraces to hyper-modern, wedding-cake-like structures with retractable pitches. And let’s hear it for the world’s first all-timber stadium!

Bill Shankly, a man so beloved by Liverpool that there is now a hotel in the city named after him, once famously observed: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”

Inevitably, Shankly pops up in Home Ground, a punchy new exhibition on the architecture and social culture of football stadiums. The legendary manager is pictured savouring the acclaim of an adoring crowd, part of a tableau on the farewell to the Kop prior to its metamorphosis from churning tribal terrace into a more sedate, all-seater stand.

Dispelling confusion about the collapsed case would build confidence that the government has a coherent policy

No single word describes the challenge that China poses for UK foreign policy. There is threat and opportunity; a requirement to engage and an imperative to be guarded. The Communist party in Beijing represses dissent and pursues its interests overseas with coercive nationalist determination. It is not a regime with which Britain can build a relationship based on common values.

But China is also a superpower with near-monopoly control of some mineral resources and pre-eminence in important manufacturing supply chains. Trusting friendship is not an option; hostile rejection is unrealistic. It is not easy to manage relations through private diplomacy, let alone under public scrutiny. But Sir Keir Starmer’s government has looked especially awkward in its response to the collapse of a high-profile espionage case, involving the alleged transmission of secrets from inside parliament to Chinese officials.

Ignore the bombast: Steve ‘build, baby, build’ Reed’s boast looks likely to end in targets more pathetic than they are now

If the name Steve Reed means little to you, rest assured that is a pothole he is eager to fill. Having replaced Angela Rayner as housing secretary, he bounded around Labour conference last month dishing out Maga-red caps stamped with his credo “Build Baby Build!”. Headgear and slogan have both been filched from that very rightwing guy in the White House – because, like Robert Jenrick, Steve Reed is what happens when self-identified centrists turn populist.

Imagine Donald Trump had, years ago, swerved TV fame to become instead ward councillor for Brixton Hill. Imagine if Trump had no towers, but knew his way round a Travelodge. Most of all, imagine this scene from the conference fringe, recounted by Inside Housing magazine:

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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Speaking at the London film festival, the triple Oscar-winner mounted a fierce defence of movies and method acting, although he conceded My Left Foot couldn’t be made today

The actor Daniel Day-Lewis railed against audiences being priced out of theatres, and what he perceived as a continued snobbery concerning cinema in the UK at an event at the London film festival.

Speaking to the critic Mark Kermode for a lengthy conversation in front of an audience at the BFI Southbank, Day-Lewis said he felt “there’s still an elitism in this country that theatre is the superior form”. His drama training at the Bristol Old Vic school had encouraged in him the sense that theatre work was the goal. “Then there’s films: bit dodgy. Television: like, really? OK, you gotta pay the gas bill. That was the thinking.

In a critical phase, Brussels should find a way to bypass Hungary’s prime minister in the interests of European solidarity

Hosting European Union leaders in Copenhagen earlier this month, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, described Europe as facing “the most difficult and dangerous situation since the second world war”. There have been other moments of high tension, such as during the 1980s when US cruise missiles were deployed in Germany in response to an escalating arms race with the Soviet Union. From next year, long-range missiles will be back on German soil, amid fears that recent Russian incursions into EU airspace herald a new and ominous phase of the war in Ukraine.

As Donald Trump’s US continues to carry the status of an unreliable ally, European unity, cohesion and solidarity are of critical importance. But little of substance emerged from the Copenhagen talks. Disagreement persists, for example, over the advisability of leveraging €140bn of frozen Russian assets to assist Kyiv.

As machine-made books flood online marketplaces, a new UK initiative is introducing an Organic Literature stamp to help readers identify books created by real authors

A new UK start-up is taking aim at the growing wave of AI-generated books, launching an initiative to verify and label human-written works.

Books By People has launched an “Organic Literature” certification, partnering with an initial group of independent publishing houses.

Declining strength of US passport, tied with Malaysia’s at 12th, signals ‘shift in global mobility’, says index creator

For the first time in two decades, the US has dropped out of the world’s top 10 most powerful passports, marking a significant dethroning for the global superpower.

According to the latest Henley Passport Index, a ranking that measures how many countries a traveler can visit without needing a visa, the US passport now ranks 12th globally, sharing the position with Malaysia.

Jean Laprade ordered to pay $3,500 in legal saga of ‘hijacked planes’, Interpol red alerts and ‘inappropriate use’ of AI

A Quebec man has been ordered to pay C$5,000 (US$3,562) for submitting artificial intelligence hallucinations as part of his legal defense, a move the judge warned was “highly reprehensible” and threatened to undermine integrity in the legal system.

Justice Luc Morin of Quebec superior court levied the fine on Jean Laprade in a decision released on 1 October, capping a legal saga the judge said “contains several elements worthy of a successful movie script”, including a “hijacked plane passing through several complacent airports”, Interpol red alerts and the “inappropriate use of artificial intelligence” by Laprade.

The late singer’s iconic music video for Untitled (How Does It Feel) had him unfairly pigeonholed for much of his career

• Experimental, sensual and political, D’Angelo radically redrew the boundaries of soul music

• ‘The architect of Black Gen X sonic feeling and eloquence’: D’Angelo’s 10 greatest tracks

The news of D’Angelo’s death following a privately handled pancreatic cancer diagnosis had shocked fans crying Shit, Damn, Motherfucker – a cult favorite from the 1995 Brown Sugar album that heralded the R&B singer as a force in the blossoming neo-soul movement. But the winking references on social media to that crash-out song, about a man who discovers his girl in bed with his best friend and lets rage take over, were soon crowded out by shirtless images of the four-time Grammy winner as tribute. It’s the last thing he’d want to be remembered for.

The images all derive from the same source: the 2000 music video for Untitled (How Does It Feel), from D’Angelo’s sophomore album, Voodoo. And to hear the multiplatinum-selling artist himself tell it over the years, he would have swiftly backpedaled from the New York soundstage where it was filmed if he had the day to do over. While the song itself was composed as an homage to Prince, D’Angelo’s handlers had the bright idea to reposition the music video as a mouthwatering teaser for Voodoo that would also exhibit a dramatic fitness transformation that had the singer striking an even stronger resemblance to the NFL running back Marshawn Lynch.

Mark Carney says automaker’s move to inject $13bn into US is ‘direct consequence’ of Donald Trump’s tariffs

Canadian jobs are being “sacrificed on the Trump altar”, union leaders have warned, after the automaker Stellantis announced plans to transfer production of one Jeep model to the United States.

Stellantis announced what it described as its largest US investment push in its 100-year history, saying the $13bn cash injection would create 5,000 jobs across the midwestern United States.

She made her name with a horror reboot and a mega-budget Marvel. So what drew Nia DaCosta to the dour Norwegian’s work? We meet the film-maker and Tessa Thompson, who plays Hedda as a sexy, sultry, machiavellian mess

Nia DaCosta and Tessa Thompson are reminiscing about the first time they met, at Sundance film labs where DaCosta was workshopping her debut feature, Little Woods. “Honestly, Tessa had a great vibe,” says DaCosta. “She was super open, super generous and very intelligent.” A smile creeps on to her face. “Like – that was a fucking relief.”

Thompson gives a look of mock offence. “I really just like working with smart actors,” adds DaCosta, filling the silence. “Why did you assume that we’re dumdums?” asks Thompson, turning to look directly at her director, as they sit in a Soho hotel in London. “I didn’t,” she is told. “I was just like, ‘What a pleasant surprise.’ Who would have thought it? Not me.”

This is a man who once mocked the movements of a disabled reporter, so we’ll take what schadenfreude we can get

It is, in my experience, often the photo that does it. You can be nice or mean, bland or snide, accurate or wildly off-base. But none of what you write as a journalist matters much in comparison with the photo that runs alongside it. That’s the main determinant of how bitterly a subject will complain about a piece, or whether they will tip from mildly annoyed to actively raging. In this regard, Donald Trump, who went after Time magazine this week for using a photo of him on the cover he has called “super bad” and “the Worst of All Time”, has acted in a way that, unusually for the president, is in line with how other people act.

Even more unusually, he’s not wrong. The Time cover, shot from below to give readers an unrestricted view up Trump’s nose, is extremely unflattering. His turkey wattle neck looks like a ski run after the snow has melted. His eye is reptilian. His hair is the flyaway gauze of a newborn. Or, as Trump put it in the Truth Social rant he published in the early hours of Tuesday morning: “They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one.” (He can’t stay normal for long – the “crown” is just flare from the sun behind his head.) In these circumstances, it doesn’t matter to Trump that the headline is fawning (“His Triumph”), or the piece positive, praising the ceasefire in Gaza as “the deal [that] could become a signature achievement”. He only has eyes for the photo.

Influential American singer and songwriter who was a pioneer of ‘neo-soul’ music

The American R&B singer and songwriter D’Angelo, who has died aged 51 of pancreatic cancer, was a pioneer of what came to be known as “neo-soul” – forward-looking music that incorporated elements of funk, jazz and hip-hop.

Despite releasing just three albums over two decades from 1995 to 2014, he was influential well beyond the boundaries of the new musical style he helped to create, with a series of Top 40 single hits in the UK and US that included Brown Sugar, the title track of his debut album. His second long-player, Voodoo, reached No 1 in the US and his third and final album, Black Messiah, also made it into the Top 10, with both releases winning two of his four Grammys.

Guardian readers shared how caring for ageing parents with siblings tested – and sometimes broke – family bonds

When Katrina, 60 (who withheld her last name for privacy), moved in with her family in Mexico during Covid, it made sense for her to manage her aging parents’ medical care; she’s a nurse. Her sister, who has an MBA, took care of the administrative tasks. It was the first time the family had all lived together since Katrina was in high school. The lockdown was a “very challenging, wonderful” time, she says.

At first, the division of responsibilities between the two sisters worked well. But slowly, Katrina started to feel there was “scope creep”. Instead of staying in her administrative lane, her sister started weighing in more and more on Katrina’s management of medical matters.

Review of screenplay, novel, and comics suggests film-makers made late decision to make diminutive Jedi master green

“You must unlearn what you have learned,” Jedi master Yoda instructed his stubborn apprentice, Luke Skywalker. And now Star Wars fans may have to do the same after confirmation that the beloved fictional alien was very nearly blue, or even purple.

Reviews of archival sources – and new testimony from a special effects makeup artist who worked on the first Yoda puppets – suggest film-makers made a decision late in the development process to switch the character’s skin colour to green.

Carefully planning your routine can feel good in a chaotic world – but experts say we should ‘choose when to choose’

Social media is in its intentional era. On TikTok and Instagram, living intentionally means operating on the highest plane of existence: each moment is the product of heartfelt planning, part of the careful pursuit of a life flawlessly lived. Perhaps you intentionally spend half an hour after work decompressing, then put on your carefully curated playlist while you intentionally work out, intentionally choosing exercises that center your mind and body while also giving you huge forearms, before intentionally preparing dinner using locally sourced ingredients.

As Marie Solis wrote in the New York Times recently: “You can just do all of these things. Or you can do them ‘intentionally’.” The fear, it seems, is that a failure to act with purpose means letting life happen to you.

The ‘grandmother of performance art’ and I both have Slavic roots. But I didn’t recognise any of her 14th-century Dalmatian fertility rites – and neither did my mum

I’ve just texted my mum to ask why, on the morning of my wedding, she didn’t advise me to drill a hole in a wooden bridge and put my penis in it. No reply from her as yet.

This is the morning after I was lucky enough to be at the world premiere of Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic at Aviva Studios in Manchester. It is said of Ms Abramović, formidable as ever at 78, that she is the “grandmother of performance art”. Addressing us beforehand, visibly nervous, she spoke of this work as perhaps her most ambitious, her magnum opus. In the programme she writes: “This gives me the chance to go back to my Slavic roots and culture, look back to ancient rituals and deal with sexuality, in relation to the universe and the unanswered questions of our existence.” Having Slavic roots myself, I wasn’t going to miss this one. And fully acknowledging – as a friend of mine from Stourbridge would put it – that what I know about performance art and a five-pound note wouldn’t get my hair cut, here is my review.

Conservative justices appear sympathetic to the argument that new Louisiana congressional maps that added majority-Black district violate the constitution

The far-right US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is further distancing herself from her fellow Republicans and accusing men in her party of being “weak”.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Greene expressed her frustrations with Republicans, signaling her further deviation from the political strategies of her party, as the government shutdown beginning 1 October was slated to enter its third week.

High income levels are associated with slower ageing – but so is another factor that will cost you nothing at all. It just involves plenty of time spent hanging out with family, friends and neighbours ...

Name: Cumulative social advantage.

Age: If it exists, it’s always been there.

• Ahmedabad is also bid city for 2036 summer Games

• Concerns over mismanagement and governance issues

India will be formally approved as hosts of the centenary Commonwealth Games in 2030 next month as the country steps up its ambitions to stage the 2036 Olympics.

Commonwealth Sport says its executive board had recommended Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, as the host city for the 2030 Games ahead of what it called an “ambitious bid” by Nigeria. The decision still needs to be ratified by a general assembly in Glasgow on 26 November, but multiple sources described that process a formality.

Medical experts have called for new way to more accurately measure obesity, although definition has yet to be adopted

Almost 70% of adults in the US would be deemed to have obesity based on a new definition, research suggests.

The traditional definition of obesity, typically based on having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater, has long been contentious, not least as it does not differentiate between fat and muscle.

Researchers say carbon emissions change in Queensland tropical rainforests may have global climate implications

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Australian tropical rainforest trees have become the first in the world to switch from being a carbon sink to an emissions source due to increasingly extreme temperatures and drier conditions.

The change, which applies to the trees’ trunk and branches but not the roots system, began about 25 years ago, according to new research published in Nature.

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Only two female northern white rhinos are left – but neither can carry a pregnancy. So a surrogate was used. Tragically, the foetus didn’t reach full term

This photograph captures a moment of fragile hope: the world’s first IVF rhino pregnancy, a tiny foetus that reignited optimism among scientists fighting to save the northern white rhino from extinction. There are only two female northern white rhinos left on the planet – Najin and her daughter Fatu. Neither can carry a pregnancy due to health complications. The last male died in 2018 and that makes the species functionally extinct.

For the past 15 years, the BioRescue Project – an international consortium dedicated to saving the species – has been collecting and preserving sperm from deceased males. Using this genetic material and egg cells from Fatu, they’ve created 38 embryos. It may sound like a lot, but it’s not. Since Najin and Fatu cannot carry a pregnancy, surrogate mothers are essential and it was decided to use southern white rhinos, a less endangered subspecies. The team also needed to prove that their technique would work with southern white rhino embryos before transferring any of the northern white rhino embryos into a surrogate.

After 13 attempts to transfer an embryo they achieved the first viable IVF pregnancy in a southern white rhino. The foetus in this image is the result after transfer. Tragically, the pregnancy didn’t reach full term (16-18 months), as the surrogate mother died from a bacterial infection at 70 days. But the pregnancy demonstrated that the technique is viable – a critical milestone.