Beginning, Middle and End form a trilogy charting the ups and downs of different relationships. Audiences have taken them to their heart – one couple saw the first play on a date, got married and had its title engraved on their rings

It’s October 2017 and I’m sitting at the National Theatre, notebook open and pen poised, waiting for the third preview of my play Beginning to begin. The first previews had flown and I felt relaxed, enjoying the preshow music and its house party vibes. But instead of the play’s two characters, Laura and Danny, awkwardly flirting in her north London flat, I found myself imagining a couple 10 years older, in a big house in Essex. A relationship at breaking point. Middle. Fuck, I thought, and pushed the thought away as the show started.

Eight years on and the final play of my trilogy, End, is in rehearsal at the National Theatre, with Saskia Reeves and Clive Owen playing a couple knocking 60. The three plays aren’t linked narratively as I wanted audiences to be able to experience them as individual works. Beginning tells the story of a couple on the edge of 40 who have just met and the 100 minutes it takes them to kiss. Middle is the story of a late fortysomething couple whose marriage hangs in the balance at 4am. In End, Alfie and Julie must decide how to live the end of their relationship. You don’t have to have seen Beginning or Middle to appreciate or enjoy End, but the collection of plays make a whole and explore my preoccupations from differing perspectives.

Champion could snatch drivers’ title away from the leading constructors just as Kimi Raikkonen did 18 years ago

A few short months ago Max Verstappen’s world championship defence appeared to be over. But when he took the flag in Sunday’s US Grand Prix it heralded the most remarkable resurgence as he waded with a gleeful swagger back into the title fight. Verstappen was down but he is far from out and could yet still pull off what would count as his greatest triumph.

Going into the weekend in Austin, Verstappen was still treating the idea of him being a contender against the two lead protagonists, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with a certain indifferent levity.

• England coach talks up 6ft 5in wing’s humility and desire

• Door closed on Tom Willis but left ajar for Owen Farrell

England could fast-track the Saracens teenager Noah Caluori into the Test spotlight as soon as next month following the wing’s dramatic start to his top-level club career. The 19-year-old celebrated his first Prem start with five tries against Sale Sharks on Saturday and the national coach, Steve Borthwick, says he is already in contention for a senior England debut.

It was impossible to miss Caluori’s aerial ability and eye for the try line at the weekend with the former Lions captain Sam Warburton describing the 6ft 5in tall youngster as “almost undefendable” and “an absolute diamond”. England have been aware of his potential for a while and it seems that some game time against Fiji a fortnight on Saturday is not impossible.

Colombian president accuses US of killing a local fisher in boat attack as Trump threatens to slash aid to country

Colombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between Colombian president Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of “murdering” a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a “direct threat to national sovereignty” and that the victim was a “lifelong fisherman” and a “humble human being”.

Subscriptions dropped at an increased rate after backlash from late-night host’s temporary removal, new data shows

Disney’s short-lived suspension of Jimmy Kimmel under pressure from the Trump administration may have had a permanent impact on the company’s subscription numbers.

According to data released by Antenna, an analytics firm that tracks subscription and viewership data for major streaming services, cancellation rates for Disney+ and Hulu doubled from August to September – from 4 and 5% to 8 and 10%, respectively. So-called churn rates for Disney+ have hovered at 3-4% all year, with Hulu at 4-5%.

Injury-hit and under pressure, Hansi Flick turned to defender turned makeshift striker to take them top of La Liga

“I told my teammates: ‘If I go on, I’ll score,’ and everybody laughed,” Ronald Araújo said but they weren’t laughing now. Actually, wait, no: they were laughing now. Laughing and shouting and swearing and scrambling to escape the bench, like someone had set fire to it. Someone like him: 6ft 3in and 15 stone of Uruguayan beef, tearing off his top and leaping over the boards advertising Kicking My Feet, fists thudding at his bare chest while Barcelona’s players chased him, Frenkie de Jong leapt on for a ride, and over on the far side of Montjuic the manager who wasn’t supposed to be there let rip. “It’s football, it’s emotion,” Hansi Flick said.

When it’s like this especially. On a weekend when the first 15 seconds of every game weren’t played at all and weren’t always broadcast either – La Liga distracting everyone from the 22-man standstill protests over their unilateral decision to go to Miami by encouraging cameras to look elsewhere and commentators to talk about something else – the best was instead saved for the final seconds when attention was actually on the pitch. And there it was all kicking off. Properly, this time.

Head coach has plenty to address as his side find themselves in unfamiliar territory after four consecutive defeats

For almost the entirety of Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool career, Anfield would have been in uproar over the striker being withdrawn moments after their team had fallen behind and with the clock ticking down on another defeat. Especially facing Manchester United, against whom he has scored a record 16 goals. Not on Sunday. Salah’s 85th-minute substitution for Jeremie Frimpong was accepted as a necessary last throw of the dice following another poor display from the Egypt international. The reaction to the switch was telling. Salah’s guaranteed place in Liverpool’s starting lineup is under threat for the first time since he joined more than eight years ago. The threat would be greater if Federico Chiesa or Frimpong, the only real alternatives on the right, made as much of an impact when starting as they do off the bench. There are no replacements of Salah’s level in the squad for the system that Slot operates. Any dip in form by the 33-year-old is therefore felt acutely. Whether it is helping Salah by selecting a more settled side around him, or rewarding Chiesa’s lively cameos with a starting role, Slot has a pressing issue to address on the usually phenomenal side of Liverpool’s forward line.

We asked experts to share tips on how to take control of dreams once you realize you’re in it

Usually, we don’t have much say in what we dream about. Our brains churn up images, and we sit back and watch. But it’s possible to take control. You can turn the monster chasing you into a mouse, or fly through the sky like a bird. All it takes is realizing you’re in a dream, mid-dream – otherwise known as lucid dreaming.

Lots of people want to lucid dream. There are online communities devoted to sharing tips and tricks, like the subreddit r/LucidDreaming, which has about 98,000 weekly visitors. Recent discussion topics include “If flying is hard, try giving yourself a Green Lantern ring,” and “Has anyone gone to space in [a lucid dream]?”

Advertisers exploit our misogynistic culture, making women feel as if their bodies are broken. But better information might just help

How was your Menopause Awareness Day 2025? Did you slip out of your meno pyjamas, sip your meno tea with a slice of homemade flaxseed-added bread and a side order of meno chocolate? Did you rush off to the gym to lift weights then to a pilates class to keep you healthy for ever? Did you remember your MHT (menopause hormone therapy – the now widely accepted term for HRT) pill, patch, gel, pessary, suppository or cream, trusting your GP or private clinic to be prescribing for you and only you, grateful that finally medication has made a difference for you? Or did you think: “How the hell do I know what is right for me?”

If you wondered who you can trust, you’re not alone. In an Australian study published earlier this month, more than 500 women aged 45-64 noted “significant scepticism” about the motives of the pharmaceutical industry, along with genuine concern about who to trust and who was after their money at a vulnerable time of life. Now researchers warn that women are being exploited in a “menopause gold rush”.

Stella Duffy is a writer, theatremaker and existential psychotherapist in private practice. Her book Being the Change will be published in 2027

• Club turn back to German after Muscat talks collapse

• ‘Fans want results, we have no time to waste,’ says Röhl

Rangers have appointed Danny Röhl as their manager on an initial two-and-a-half-year deal. The German will assume the position immediately and will be in the dugout for Thursday’s Europa League clash with SK Brann.

Röhl had declared himself out of the running last week, when Rangers were in advanced talks with Kevin Muscat, but those discussions broke down. Muscat joined Steven Gerrard in backing away from the Rangers post despite taking part in detailed negotiations. Gerrard remains out of work and Muscat has stayed with Shanghai Port.

Securing historic public-facing buildings has never been easy, and is even less so in times of economic constraint

To break into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grab eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanish into the Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

The philistine thieves skipped the museum’s real treasures in favour of dull royal knick-knacks. Was the French cultural minister serious when he talked about their ‘immeasurable cultural value’?

I am furious. My instructions had been perfectly clear: break into the Louvre, head for the Denon wing and deliver me the Leonardo da Vincis. Instead, what did they do? Brought me trinkets! Stand there, over the trap door. A bit more to the right.

It would be nice to think an art collector supervillain somewhere was punishing the Louvre raiders for their moronic bad taste. Admittedly, security around the Mona Lisa has improved since it was last stolen in 1911, but the museum’s other Leonardos just hang on the wall like other paintings. And there is so much beauty, so many quiet galleries, scattered through this vast former palace: the thieves could have got out with a Chardin still life, a Rogier van der Weyden, an ancient Mesopotamian statuette.

Documents indicate they came from Sde Teiman, which already faces allegations of torture and unlawful deaths

• Middle East crisis – live updates

At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza had been held in a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody, officials from Gaza’s health ministry have told the Guardian.

The director general of the health ministry, Dr Munir al-Bursh, and a spokesperson for Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where the bodies are being examined, said a document found inside each body bag indicated the bodies all came from Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev desert where, according to photos and testimonies published by the Guardian last year, Palestinian detainees were held in cages, blindfolded and handcuffed, shackled to hospital beds and forced to wear nappies.

Plans for a fossil fuel project in Wadden Sea nature reserve have angered local people and campaigners, as political enthusiasm for renewables wanes

Peering out on a clear day from the windswept dunes that dapple the north-western tip of Germany, on a gull-shaped island in the Wadden Sea nature reserve, tourists hoping to spot seals may soon see a dark metal platform rise out of the water.

The planned structure is one of several fossil fuel projects that Germany is pushing to build despite a legal deadline to stop polluting the atmosphere with carbon emissions in 20 years’ time. The joint Dutch-German venture, which received the green light from regional authorities last month, seeks to extract 13bn cubic metres of gas from just outside a protected area at the marine border between the two countries.

High rate of spoilt ballots also probable as poll shows 49% of voters do not feel represented by either candidate

With four days until Ireland’s presidential election there are growing fears that a lacklustre campaign will prompt many people to spoil their vote or boycott the ballot.

Opinion polls give Catherine Connolly, an independent leftwing candidate, a wide lead over Heather Humphreys, who represents the ruling centre-right establishment. However, they also show frustration and disillusionment about their campaigns.

The former Tottenham manager made a rash Premier League return, and it will probably be his last

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The weirdest aspect of Ange Postecoglou’s 40-day reign at Nottingham Forest was how inevitable it all felt. The only shock was that he was sacked on Saturday, within minutes of a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea, rather than a day or two later. But by then, it was obvious this ill-starred adventure had run its course; perhaps it was kinder to everybody to bring it to an end. Forest, certainly, had to act quickly if they are to make the most of their first European campaign in three decades.

But why was such an obviously terrible appointment made in the first place? What was it that made the Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, ever think that Postecoglou was the right man to succeed Nuno Espírito Santo? They met in July at an event staged by the Greek league to celebrate Postecoglou winning the Europa League with Tottenham, but was it really just that? That they got on well over a glass of wine?

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Bailout by Trump attempts to stabilize shaky economy under Javier Milei as he faces mounting midterms pressure

• US politics live – latest updates

Argentina has formalized a currency swap agreement with the United States for up to $20bn aimed “at contributing to Argentina’s economic stability”, the South American country’s central bank said.

The deal is part of huge financial support from the administration of Donald Trump, a strong backer of the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, who is under pressure ahead of midterm elections on 26 October.

Culture secretary resonds to urgent question in Commons and says policing resources will not be an issue at match

There will be two urgent questions in the Commons this afternoon, followed by a statement. Here is the running order.

3.30pm: A Home Office minister will respond to a UQ from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, about the China spy case.

The family of Virginia Giuffre, whose life was destroyed, are angry and aghast. The public across these isles are angry and aghast and they both deserve to know that some MPs share their outrage.

So I won’t sit silent. If an act of parliament is required to strip the likes of Peter Mandelson and Prince Andrew of their titles then there can be no justification from this Labour government as to why that is not immediately happening.

Public funds, police protection and royal privilege have long buffered Prince Andrew from the consequences of his actions. And we’ve paid for all this.

I will support any efforts to hold royals to the same standards and laws as everyone else – parliament must have the power to remove privileges from abusers of position.

As the 86-year-old music legend prepares to release a new album, she will take on your questions

At the age of 86, Mavis Staples is still pressing ahead with exciting new music – indeed, one of the most star-studded and resonant albums of her career is coming up. As she prepares to release it, she’ll be answering your questions.

That new album, Sad and Beautiful World – released on 7 November – includes a small galaxy of music legends orbiting around Staples at the centre. As well as covers of songs by Curtis Mayfield, Gillian Welch, Frank Ocean, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Porter Wagoner, plus US alt heroes Mark “Sparklehorse” Linkous and Kevin Morby, there are new songs, including one written for and about Staples by Hozier and Allison Russell.

Even if it ends up another multiversal tangle of familiar faces and recycled heartstrings, a film with the old Spider-Men might be Sony’s best hope of a box office hit

In many ways the entirety of geek culture – certainly as far as the movies are concerned – is built on giving the people what they want. The Flash exhumed Michael Keaton’s Batman, but left him drifting through the end-of-days haze of a dying cinematic universe. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine returned for one last hurrah in Deadpool & Wolverine, even though we already had his last hurrah in Logan. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness brought back Patrick Stewart’s Professor X for the umpteenth time, then promptly shredded him into psychic confetti.

And then there was Spider-Man: No Way Home, a movie that mainly seemed to exist to remind us that the original Sony Spidey films were really rather good in places. Has there ever been a better cinematic Spider-Man villain than Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin? Did any of the Marvel films give us an antagonist with the same startling blend of pathos and menace as that delivered by Alfred Molina’s Doc Oc? And what about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the two wall-crawlers we never thought we’d see again, who somehow turned a fan-service cameo into an elegy for the superhero genre itself?

It originated in a rap song, then featured in South Park, and is now the bane of schoolteachers in the US and UK as pupils shout it out at random. How did it become such a thing?

Name: Six-seven.

Age: Less than a year old.

King Charles cannot have been unaware that the future king would not relish having to deal with his uncle

The Prince of Wales, whom Buckingham Palace has said was “consulted” before Prince Andrew’s dramatic statement, must have felt some relief at his uncle agreeing to relinquish use of his titles and honours.

At some point William will become king. His uncle, 12 years younger than King Charles, may well be watching when he takes his coronation oath. The indications are, however, Andrew may be watching from afar.

The arrival of AI is a chance to remind kids that the joy of creativity is not in what you made, but in the process of making it

Somewhere in the middle of the last school holidays, as I was attempting to work from home, the kids came bounding down the stairs armed with a new song they had written. The lyrics were nonsensical (as you’d expect from a pair of preteens), but there was a surprising crispness to the rhyming structure.

“We got ChatGPT to write it,” the eldest said. This was neither a confession nor a boast. Every 12-year-old knows the AI shortcut. Two minutes earlier, they didn’t have a song. Now they had something ready to perform. Admittedly the improvised melody could best be described as “indeterminate”, but the right prompt could have fixed that.

When Nolan’s space epic was released in 2014, critics picked at the plot holes and scientists picked at the science – now, 11 years later, it’s the internet’s favourite film. Was it just ahead of its time?

Every Saturday, for the last 18 months, Shane Short has watched the same film: Christopher Nolan’s 2014 space epic Interstellar. He’s not even sure how many times he’s seen it now, though he does know he saw it 31 times in cinemas when it was briefly rereleased for its 10th anniversary in 2024. This year he has flown from his home in Hawaii to Melbourne to watch Interstellar projected on 1570 film at the city’s Imax – twice – where the regular screenings of Interstellar, even those held midweek and during the day, can reliably sell out in minutes.

Set in a future not that far from us now, Interstellar follows Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former Nasa test pilot turned farmer who leaves his children Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murph (Mackenzie Foy) behind on a climate-ravaged Earth to search space for a new home for mankind. Murph is furious with grief at Cooper for picking a future for humanity over a life spent with her; as the decades pass, Tom (played as an adult by Casey Affleck) settles into embittered detachment, while Murph (Jessica Chastain) becomes a scientist and works closely with Prof John Brand (Michael Caine), the Nasa scientist who sent her father away on his mission with his own daughter, Dr Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway).