From Ewan Roy in Succession to Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons, here are 15 truly unforgettable characters who elevated their shows – when they eventually turned up

Mike Hannigan was the only character to truly feel like a seventh Friend. He was the perfect match for Phoebe, a lightning rod for her kookiness and providing the solid family she’d never had. It wasn’t just the fact that he was played by Paul Rudd that managed to win over the viewers. His profile was nowhere near what it would later become, so the audience weren’t responding to star power in the same way they had, say, to Bruce Willis, Tom Selleck or Reese Witherspoon. Mike had to play the long game, put in the graft and win Phoebe’s trust, and won ours in the process. AJ, London

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

• Spinner ‘pretty gutted’ after Australia choose all-pace attack

• Crawley praises Root’s first away Ashes ton as ‘one of his best’

Nathan Lyon admitted he was furious after being dropped by Australia for the first time in 13 years of home Tests as the battle for the Ashes got back under way in Brisbane on Thursday.

In his absence Joe Root plundered the home side’s all-seam attack for an unbeaten 135 on the first day at the Gabba, his 40th Test century and his first on Australian soil, an effort Zak Crawley acclaimed as “one of his best”.

Bombs were placed near both Republican and Democratic party HQs in Washington DC the night before US Capitol attack

US authorities have made an arrest in connection with pipe bombs that were planted outside the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington DC on the eve of 6 January 2021, according to reports on Thursday morning.

Explosive devices were placed at night and then, on the afternoon of January 6, the US Capitol attack occurred, when a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed Congress in an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.

As society becomes increasingly weird, birthdays are a chance to build connection. Even if it means 300 attempts at conversation with other tired parents

When my beautiful firstborn turned one, about 70 people came to the pub to celebrate. There were drinks, there were meals, there were balloons, there was singing. They were celebrating me. Since then his birthdays have become about him and his friends and the quality of the event has spiralled precipitously.

These days, with two kids out in society, kids’ birthday parties dominate our family’s schedule. Barely a weekend goes by without a scramble to find a gift that’s appropriate, I’m getting increasingly desperate for some form of wrapping apparatus, and I have long given up on cards.

When you make art proof of virtue, you can make it feel like a drag, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Instead, encourage him to develop his own sensibility

• Read more Leading questions

My eight-and-a-half-year-old son is a voracious reader and budding writer. I am very happy that he enjoys reading and want to help him find the next good read. Unfortunately he’s extremely easily influenced by cover art. He will unwrap a gift book and immediately dismiss it and refuse to give it a go if he doesn’t like the cover. He doesn’t even read the blurb. When I was still reading to him, we had a pact that he had to listen to at least one page, and that’s how he was introduced to many of his favourite books despite initial reluctance. I completely understand the appeal of great illustration, but now that he reads chapter books, I wish he could get over the two least important pages. How can I help him not to judge a book by its cover?

Eleanor says: I totally appreciate the virtue of getting him to see beyond the cover, but on the other hand … could you just change the cover?

The actor on playing Draco Malfoy, all-night fishing with his brother and taking a beating from Chadwick Boseman

Who is your favourite other school bully: Donovan from The Inbetweeners, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future, Heather Chandler from Heathers, Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons or Gripper Stebson from Grange Hill? Dr_J_A_Zoidberg
I have so much compassion for Draco [Malfoy], knowing that he is the result of piss-poor parenting on his father’s side. I know James Buckley from The Inbetweeners very well. His character is an example of a comedic bully. But as a lifelong fan of The Simpsons, I’m going to have to say my favourite is Nelson Muntz.

What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught? TopTramp
A 37lb 4oz common carp caught on the St Lawrence river in New York state 15 years ago. Chris, my older brother, got me into fishing, while he was my chaperone on Harry Potter. My mum chaperoned me for the first film, and my grandfather for the second. He looked so much like a wizard that [director] Chris Columbus cast him at the teachers’ table next to Dumbledore. Then my brother was commandeered. He was one of the worst chaperones in history – all he seemed to do was sleep the entire day – but that’s probably because we’d been up all night, fishing. Some days we’d leave set at 6pm, drive two hours back to Surrey where we lived, go straight to a lake, cast our rods, set up a tent, sleep – barely – for a few hours, wake at 6am, pack up, and head straight back to Hogwarts. It was a great introduction to a lifelong passion of being outdoors, fishing and walking the dogs.

Anthony Hopkins and Kathy Burke on acting, Jacinda Ardern and Nicola Sturgeon on politics, plus Margaret Atwood on a life well lived

Not all memoirists are keen to share their life stories. For Margaret Atwood, an author who has sold more than 40m books, the idea of writing about herself seemed “Dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?” Happily, she did it anyway. Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (Chatto & Windus) is a 624-page doorstopper chronicling Atwood’s life and work, and a tremendous showcase for her wisdom and wit. Helen Garner’s similarly chunky, Baillie Gifford prize-winning How to End a Story (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) is a diary collection spanning 20 years and provides piquant and puckish snapshots of the author’s life, work and her unravelling marriages. Mixing everyday observation and gossipy asides with profound self-examination, it is spare in style and utterly moreish.

In Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me (Hamish Hamilton) and Jung Chang’s Fly, Wild Swans (William Collins), formidable mothers get top billing. In the former, The God of Small Things author reveals how her mother, whose own father was a violent drunk, stood up to the patriarchy and campaigned for women’s rights, but was cruel to her daughter. Describing her as “my shelter and my storm”, Roy reflects on Mary’s contradictions with candour and compassion. Fly, Wild Swans is the sequel to Chang’s bestselling Wild Swans, picking up where its predecessor left off and reflecting how that book was only made possible by the author’s mother, who shared family stories and kept her London-dwelling daughter apprised of events in China.

At 88, the Canadian reflects on a golden era of underwater discovery and how shipwrecks and the cruel sea are the ‘greatest of all teachers’

Joe MacInnis admits there are simply too many places to begin telling the story of life in the ocean depths. At 88, the famed Canadian undersea explorer, has many decades to draw on. There was the time he and a Russian explorer and deep-water pilot, Anatoly Sagalevich, were snagged by a telephone wire strung from the pilot house of the Titanic, trapping the pair two and a half miles below the surface.

Another might be the moment he and his team stared in disbelief through a porthole window at the Edmund Fitzgerald, the 222-metre (729ft) ship that vanished 50 years ago into the depths of Lake Superior, so quickly that none of the crew could issue a call for help. MacInnis and his team were the first humans to lay eyes on the wreck.

MacInnis diving in Lake Huron, off Tobermory, Canada, in 1969. Photograph: Don Dutton/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Vehicle hire firms have struggled to succeed in London but other European countries offer examples to follow

Rotherhithe Community Kitchen in south London has been delivering hundreds of cooked meals a week for the last two years to pensioners and vulnerable residents. Yet the volunteer group’s plans have been thrown into disarray by the news that they will not have access to cars and vans on New Year’s Day.

The group had relied on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that offered customers the ability to access its fleet of vehicles from the street using an app. The company caused shock across London on Monday when it said it would shut down UK operations from 1 January.

He’ll be forever known for his festive hit, but Wood was virtually the face of 70s glam rock – writing and performing stomping hits with the Move, ELO and Wizzard

Roy Wood occasionally wrote for others – psych fans should check the Acid Gallery’s splendid 1969 single Dance Round the Maypole – and the single he made with girlfriend Ayshea Brough, an early 70s TV presenter, exemplifies his idiosyncratic pop skills and his kitchen-sink approach to arrangement: kettle drums! More oboe!

Any Lucia López Belloza, 19, was detained at Boston airport while on the way to see family in Austin for a surprise trip

Any Lucia López Belloza had not seen her parents and two little sisters since starting her first semester at Babson College, near Boston in August. A family friend gave her plane tickets so she could fly home to Austin and surprise them for Thanksgiving.

The 19-year-old business student was already at the boarding gate at Boston airport when she was told there was an “error” with her boarding pass; when she reached customer service, she was handcuffed and arrested by what she believed were two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Unbeaten in Europe and with eight wins in eight games domestically, the club are aiming high after name change

When the Olympique Lyonnais women’s team officially became OL Lyonnes on 19 May, they came with a new mantra: “New story, same legend”. The eight-time European champions, now owned by Michele Kang and part of Kynisca – a multi-club ownership group dedicated to women’s sports that also already includes the Washington Spirit – are a “new project” with the aim of “developing as a women’s club with our own model”. As Kang put it: “The women’s team cannot just be a little sister to the men’s section.”

The OL Lyonnes era kicked off on 7 September, coinciding with the Lyon’s 1,000th match in the French women’s top division, against Marseille. Kang was present, alongside Mikel Zubizarreta, Kynisca’s global sporting director, who was poached from Barcelona Femení last year. On the pitch, new recruits snatched from other European clubs this summer – Jule Brand, Lily Yohannes, Ashley Lawrence, Ingrid Engen, Korbin Shrader and Marie-Antoinette Katoto – discovered what it will be like to play at the Groupama Stadium, where the men’s team plays, for the entire season.

From homemade puddings to neighbourly tipples, the quiet exchange of festive treats reveals a world of kindness

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A guest at our restaurant recently told me about her mother’s seasonal side hustle, though no one would have dared call it that out loud: in the weeks before Christmas, she became a quiet merchant of puddings. The proper kind of pudding, too: all dense but not leaden, heavy with prunes and warm with careful spicing.

As December crept in, forgotten cousins and semi-estranged uncles seemed to find reasons to drop by her place. She never advertised the fact, of course, but everyone knew that if you came bearing even a modest offering, you might just leave with a pudding wrapped in waxed paper and still warm with possibility. The exchanges were subtle. One neighbour would “pop by for coffee” and just happen to bring two dozen mince pies; a friend would promise to collect the Christmas turkey from the butcher and bring it round, saving this lady the schlep across town. Nothing was said, no ledger kept, but the pudding always travelled in the right direction.

Lord Evans of Watford and other directors of investment firm deny claims made in lawsuits they say are ‘meritless’

A peer suspended by the House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules is now facing claims that he received at least $1m (£760,000) from an allegedly corrupt deal.

Lord Evans of Watford, a longtime Labour peer, was found last week by the House of Lords watchdog to have broken its rules four times after undercover reporting by the Guardian, and will be suspended for five months.

Touted as a cure for everything from wrinkles to autism, the treatment has been hyped by Robert F Kennedy Jr and various celebrities. Experts say it needs to be regulated

• Warning: this article contains distressing content

It was the kind of cold, damp morning that makes it hard to get out of bed, much less get a child out the door. The sun had not even risen when five-year-old Thomas Cooper and his mother, Annie Cooper, arrived for an appointment on 31 January at the Oxford Center in Troy, a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

Thomas was an exuberant child with a button nose and pinchable cheeks – a little kid who loved running fast, playing Minecraft and watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family. He had just received money in a special red envelope for lunar new year, and he planned to spend it later that day with his little brother. But first, he was going to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea.

From income to home ownership and public services, everybody is disgruntled – but for different reasons

The British economy has endured a series of setbacks in recent years: austerity, Brexit, the global pandemic, soaring energy prices and an increasingly fractured and uncertain world. The early optimism that accompanied Labour’s election victory faded quickly, with a recent poll ranking Rachel Reeves as the worst chancellor in modern history.

But is this fair? Is the economy really in as bad a shape as people feel?

Jonathan Swarbrick is a lecturer in economics at the University of St Andrews Business School

Co-founders’ acquisition of Venture Global shares before key permit granted draws scrutiny as pair deny wrongdoing

Two fossil-fuel billionaires with close ties to Donald Trump bought millions of shares in the company they co-founded just days after a meeting with senior White House officials, who then issued a key regulatory permit that helped expand the company’s fortunes in Europe.

Robert Pender, an energy lawyer, and Michael Sabel, a former investment banker, are the founders and co-chairs of Venture Global, a Virginia-based company that develops and operates liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.

German magazine Der Spiegel has reported the warning, quoting a leaked note from a recent call between the European leaders

But on a more serious note, we are hearing that German chancellor Friedrich Merz has postponed his planned visit to Norway scheduled for Friday and will travel to Brussels instead.

Merz will travel to Belgium for a private dinner with Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, his spokesperson said in comments reported by Reuters.

NYT accuses Pentagon of infringing on the constitutional rights of its journalists

A law has come into effect in Texas that will allow individuals in the state to sue abortion pill providers in other states. Proponents say it is a way to enforce abortion restrictions in Texas. Opponents worry about the methods complainants might use to find their evidence.

In this special episode of Politics Weekly America, the Guardian US reproductive health and justice reporter Carter Sherman speaks to people who are using, providing and protecting abortion pills and those fighting against them in Texas.

With the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, already in the hot seat over the 2 September boat strike and the inspector-general report on his use of the Signal messaging app in March, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hegseth had asked Admiral Alvin Holsey to step down after he had expressed concerns over the legality of the attacks in the Caribbean.

• Reds goal ruled Sunderland own goal in blow to Wirtz

• Mohamed Salah ‘still important’ after being dropped

Florian Wirtz should ignore his Premier League numbers and not lose confidence in his world-class ability at Liverpool, believes Virgil van Dijk.

Liverpool’s £116m summer signing thought he had scored his first goal for the club against Sunderland on Wednesday only for the 81st-minute equaliser to be deemed an own goal by defender Nordi Mukiele. The decision means the 22-year-old is still without a goal or an assist in 13 league appearances for the champions. Van Dijk, however, is convinced Wirtz is on the right path at Liverpool and will prove he is an elite level player.

Swiss bank says bequests made 91 people billionaires, while overall number jumped from 2,682 in 2024 to 9,919 this year

The super-rich are inheriting record levels of wealth as they pass down billions of dollars to their children, grandchildren and spouses, research by a Swiss bank favoured by billionaires shows.

Globally, there are 9,919 billionaires this year, up from 2,682 in 2024, UBS found.

England fans were bracing themselves for a familiar and depressing few hours before the opener finally came good

Anthems over, Zak Crawley left the field and took the water handed to him by Matt Potts. If he was a little dry of mouth it would hardly be a surprise – even without the burden of the brace of ducks he took from the first Test, the situation he was about to walk into might have verged awkwardly close to terrifying. He downed half the bottle, donned his helmet and turned back around.

Mitchell Starc, the bowler who dismissed him in the opening over of each innings in Perth and is even more effective in these day-night games, dried his hands on the sun-baked turf as Crawley made his way to the middle, and picked up the new pink ball.

Five families around the world share their struggles to keep their children away from UPFs

• Parents and young people: share your concerns about ultra-processed foods (UPFs)

The scourge of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is global. While their consumption is particularly high in the west, forming more than half the average diet in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are replacing fresh food in diets on every continent.

This month, the world’s largest review on the health threats of UPFs was published in the Lancet. It warned that such foods are exposing millions of people to long-term harm, and called for urgent action. Earlier this year Unicef revealed that more children around the world were obese than underweight for the first time, as junk food overwhelms diets, with the steepest rises in low- and middle-income countries.