This collection of new short stories about Bertie and his valet pays homage to the genius of PG Wodehouse – just in time for Christmas

As with most of the giants of late 19th- and early 20th-century English literature, the vast majority of PG Wodehouse’s readers today are non-white. Perhaps it was brutal colonial indoctrination that ensured the modern descendants of the aspirant imperial middle classes from Barbados to Burma, with their tea caddies, gin-stuffed drinks cabinets and yellowing Penguin paperbacks, still devour Maugham, Shaw and Kipling. Perhaps they just have good taste.

Wodehouse’s detractors are many – Stephen Sondheim (“archness … tweeness … flimsiness”), Winston Churchill (“He can live secluded in some place or go to hell as soon as there is a vacant passage”), the Inland Revenue – but for millions around the world he remains the greatest comic writer Britain has ever produced. And he clearly still sells here, as this collection of a dozen new officially sanctioned stories by writers, comedians and celebrity admirers, out in time to be a stocking filler, attests.

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© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

© Photograph: Album/Alamy

Deputies found Dickens at the home along with his 3-year-old son, who was alive and unharmed.

“It’s hard because for me I am in pain and then I am at peace, but then I put the pain onto my family.”

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Last week in the comments, someone dared raise the ancient philosophical conundrum: when we say “the first line of a play”, do we mean the first words spoken by a character, or do the stage directions count? The Thursday quiz condemns such quibbling, hair splitting and dramaturgical pedantry – unless of course it’s the quiz making a fuss. Still, the show must go on regardless, so limber up for another 15 questions of topical nonsense and dubious – though entirely correct – general knowledge. Let us know how you get on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 224

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© Photograph: Denise Taylor/Getty Images

© Photograph: Denise Taylor/Getty Images

© Photograph: Denise Taylor/Getty Images

"It's pretty wonderful," Ireland said of becoming a commercial fisherman. "I'm so grateful for the opportunities that I have."

“If confirmed, he would be the first ever truly pro-Second Amendment nominee to head the agency,” Knox Williams, president and executive director of the American Suppressor Association, said.

• Captain hits out at comments made by Monty Panesar

• Weatherald gets nod to open in series opener in Perth

Australia captain Steve Smith has confirmed his team for Friday’s opening Ashes Test – but the announcement was overshadowed by an extraordinary verbal attack on Monty Panesar after the former England spinner suggested Ben Stokes and his touring team should try to upset him by rehashing the infamous sandpaper ball tampering controversy of 2018.

Smith insisted the comments “didn’t really bother me”, but only having apparently demonstrated the opposite – by raking over Panesar’s notoriously miserable appearance on the TV quiz Mastermind in 2019.

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© Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA

© Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA

© Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA

Exclusive: union leaders say proposed changes are immoral and could threaten patient safety if there is staff exodus

Up to 50,000 nurses could quit the UK over the government’s immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.

Keir Starmer has vowed to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.

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© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Moore/PA

Imposing a 1% levy on the super-rich isn’t a policy, it’s pantomime. Tackling inequality in Britain will require much more far-reaching changes

By this time next week you will be digesting the budget, you lucky thing. Yet even before Rachel Reeves has commended a single damn thing to the house, her efforts have been written off as a “shambles”, from a “chaotic” government that is Labour in name alone. Which begs the question: what is the leftwing alternative?

Because there is one, on which agreement stretches from Labour backbenchers to many of their opponent MPs and far beyond. Whether you listen to Zack Polanski or Zarah Sultana, the TUC or the YouTubers, they all call for a wealth tax – stinging the rich to pay for schools and hospitals. Who could be against such a thing?

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian

© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian

© Illustration: Bill Bragg/The Guardian

Study finds new party divide as backing for Labour and Conservatives plunges from 84% in 2020 to 58% in 2025

A new party divide is emerging among British Jews, research has found, with support rising fast for the Greens – buoyed up by younger and “anti-Zionist” Jews – while older Orthodox men turn to Reform UK as trust in the two main parties “collapses”.

Support for Labour and the Conservatives among British Jews had fallen to 58% by July 2025 from nearly 84% in 2020, according to a report from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR), which said it was “the lowest level we’ve ever recorded by some distance”.

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© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Exclusive: Trade agreement means UK is subject to some food labelling rules, with vote on vegetarian food terms this week

Calling plant-based food veggie “burgers” or “sausages” may be banned in the UK under the new trade agreement with the EU, the Guardian understands.

The Labour government secured a new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the EU earlier this year, which allows British businesses to sell products including some burgers and sausages in the EU for the first time since Brexit.

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© Photograph: Vladimir Mironov/Getty Images

© Photograph: Vladimir Mironov/Getty Images

© Photograph: Vladimir Mironov/Getty Images

Slivers of garlicky red pepper on a creamy Balkan white bean dip known as papula

This week, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on an interview I recorded with legendary Australian cheesemaker Richard Thomas, the inventor of an ingredient you may not even realise is Australian: marinated feta, AKA “Persian fetta”. An unexpected stop on a trip to Iran in the 1970s gifted Thomas a chance meeting with a Persian doctor and his breakfast: fresh labneh with soft, still-warm lavash. It was a revelation. On his return, Thomas got to work creating a fresh cheese from goat’s milk (similar to chèvre) and from cow’s milk, marinated and preserved in oil, with an extra “t” to avert confusion with the Greek-style feta, that’s still being utilised by cooks and chefs right across the world.

Persian fetta is a shapeshifter, capable of remaining both firm and steadfast when crumbled across the top of a platter or salad, and of yielding to a soft, velvety cream, enhancing all manner of dishes from pasta to pesto to whipped dips and schmears – and, of course, as a topping for that Aussie cafe staple, avocado toast.

Alice Zaslavsky is a Guardian Australia food columnist

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© Photograph: Alice Zavlasky/PR

© Photograph: Alice Zavlasky/PR

© Photograph: Alice Zavlasky/PR

A whistle saved the Knicks from an embarrassing defeat.

The 44-year-old mother of two lured the child to meet up with her over a course of several months in 2022, driving him to several different locations where she forced him "to engage in sexually explicit conduct with her."

Guo, who pretended to be Filipina to become mayor, found guilty of human trafficking after raid on compound where more than 700 people were forced to run scams

Alice Guo, a Chinese national who became a mayor in the Philippines while masquerading as a Filipina, has been sentenced to life in prison along with seven others on human trafficking charges, state prosecutors have said.

Guo, who served as mayor of a town north of Manila, was found guilty of overseeing a Chinese-operated online gambling centre where hundreds of people were forced to run scams or risk torture.

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© Photograph: Ditjen Imigrasi/AP

© Photograph: Ditjen Imigrasi/AP

© Photograph: Ditjen Imigrasi/AP

Asian markets climb as chipmaker shrugs off bubble concerns

President has previously criticised the New York City mayor-elect, labelling him a ‘communist’ and threatening to deport him

Donald Trump has confirmed a long-awaited meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will happen in Washington this week, setting up an in-person clash between the political opposites who for months have antagonised each other.

The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place on Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star.

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© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds,charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds,charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds,charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

Father-and-son tech billionaires flash cash to overcome rivals Netflix and Comcast as they pursue a Hollywood empire

French government withdraws funding after claims of toxic management and dismissal of staff member who lodged rape complaint

One of the world’s most prestigious comic book festivals is under threat of cancellation after leading graphic novelists and publishers announced they would boycott the event and the French government withdrew a tranche of its funding.

In the biggest crisis in its illustrious history, the Angoulême festival of la bande dessinée (comic strip) may not take place in 2026 after claims of toxic management and the dismissal of a member of staff who had lodged a rape complaint.

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© Photograph: Yohan Bonnet/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yohan Bonnet/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Yohan Bonnet/AFP/Getty Images

People in tent cities on shore of southern Gaza fear disease, cold and hunger as shortages continue

Everyone knew what was coming. But there was little the inhabitants of the tent cities that crowd the shore of southern Gaza could do as the storm approached. Sabah al-Breem, 62, was sitting with one of her daughters and several grandchildren in their current home – a makeshift construction of tarpaulins and salvaged wood – when the wind and the driving rain broke across Gaza last week.

“Everything collapsed … We repaired our shelter but in the night it fell down again under the heavy rain. All our belongings were soaked. The day the winds blew was a black day for us,” said Breem, originally from Khan Younis but displaced multiple times since the start of the war in October 2023.

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© Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

© Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

© Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

In trying to woo hard-right voters, Les Républicains risk destroying France’s Gaullist legacy and putting Paris on a collision course with the EU

‘Not one vote for the left!” That call from Bruno Retailleau, chair of the mainstream conservative party Les Républicains (LR), helped a candidate allied with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) to sweep to victory in a byelection run-off against a socialist in southwest France last month after the centre-right candidate was eliminated in the first round.

It was a clear sign that, despite frequent denials, the much-diminished heirs to Charles de Gaulle’s conservative movement are inching towards a controversial “union of the right” that could put Le Pen or her protege, Jordan Bardella, in the Élysée Palace in 2027.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

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© Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

It can cause physiological and emotional problems, but none of us can avoid it entirely. Here are some of the best ways to react when stress hormones start coursing through your body ...

Most people contend with stress in some element of their lives. What can you do when you are overwhelmed by it and your coping mechanisms no longer seem to work? Here, psychotherapists share their techniques for managing in the moment, seeking help, and minimising everyday stress.

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© Composite: Guardian Design; Klaus Vedfelt;Davidovici;Diana Taliun/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design; Klaus Vedfelt;Davidovici;Diana Taliun/Getty Images

© Composite: Guardian Design; Klaus Vedfelt;Davidovici;Diana Taliun/Getty Images

A year after her last bombshell Budget, the chancellor is once again mired in political chaos. Could the fallout consume both her and Sir Keir Starmer?

Online conversations about hot meme stocks or cryptocurrencies are the source of some very bad decisions