A companion novel to the brilliant Writers & Lovers, this delightfully witty tale of college romance matures into midlife poignancy

The university experience is a risky business in fiction. Generally, the feelings are intense, but the stakes are low; it’s all very formative for the individual character, but it can feel a bit trivial to anyone else. In fact, reading an account of someone’s university days is surely only one or two stages removed from having to hear about the dream they had last night.

So my heart initially sank at Heart the Lover’s cover promise that our main character would soon be “swept into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games” – good grief, save me from the raucous card games! But obviously the caveat here is what it always is: a good writer will make it matter. I had faith, therefore, that everything would be all right, since Lily King is an exceptionally good writer. Indeed, she could probably write a book-length account of her most recent dream and I would still rush to read it.

The native woodland of Hoia-Baciu in Romania is a place where the human imagination can run riot. A guided night tour is the perfect way to discover its otherworldly charms

‘They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania,” says tour guide Marius Lazin, his breath expelling a procession of cotton-wool ghosts into the sharp evening air. “So many people have disappeared here, some say it’s a portal to another dimension.” Marius is leading me on a night walk through what is often described as the world’s most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of old-growth native woodland on the outskirts of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca. He’s been coming here three nights a week for the past 12 years, but even he looks a little uneasy as he arcs his torch like a searchlight against the knotted walls of elm and beech trees which embrace us on all sides, looking so thick that they might be the boundary of the known world.

Marius motions with his torch towards several pairs of slender beech trees, eerie in their symmetry, branches intertwined to form arches – portals or stargates, you might speculate, were you possessed of a particularly febrile imagination. “Many came in here and never came out. But don’t worry,” he adds, turning to me with a grin. “Our tours have a 100% return rate.”

Between 2019 and 2023, as the Taliban returned to power, Lorenzo Tugnoli took photos of families and fighters in Afghanistan, hoping to show a side to the country not seen in the news

Book-style Android with cutting-edge AI, good cameras and great tablet screen for media and multitasking on the go

Google’s third-generation folding phone promises to be more durable than all others as the first with full water and dust resistance while also packing lots of advanced AI and an adaptable set of cameras.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold builds on last year’s excellent 9 Pro Fold by doing away with gears in the hinge along its spine allowing it to deal with dust, which has been the achilles heel of all foldable phones until now, gumming up the works in a way that just isn’t a problem for regular slab phones.

Open letter signed by more than 100 leaders comes after local government secretary criticised a council for switching to shorter week

• Analysis: Benefits of a four-day week are ever clearer, despite Steve Reed’s stance

More than 100 business and charity leaders have called on ministers to “lead the country’s transition toward a shorter working week”, after the local government secretary criticised a council for shifting to a four-day work pattern.

Steve Reed wrote to South Cambridgeshire district council, the first English council to trial a four-day week, raising concerns about performance and value for money, and expressing his “deep disappointment” over the policy.

Though the probability is low, recent history shows there is a non-zero chance a celebrity – or monarch – may crash your wedding. However, not all big day cameos were created equal

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

There are a few things that celebrities simply love more than the rest of us: selling hot sauces, buccal fat removal, and crashing weddings. The most recent example is far sweeter than the term “gatecrasher” might suggest: the Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood, who surprised a bride and groom during their wedding ceremony in Hobbiton, a set from the films, in Matamata, New Zealand.

We last ranked celebrity wedding-crashers a decade ago, by how welcome they’d be at the average wedding; given how often it seems to happen, we’re due another go. In the case of Wood, everyone was screaming, he came in politely and left quickly, and he was the only one not wearing hobbity clothes – so, as gatecrashers go, we can confidently say he was very, very welcome. 10/10.

Speaking to the media following the talks, Donald Trump says meeting with Chinese counterpart was ‘amazing’

• Live coverage: Xi says US and China should be ‘partners and friends’

Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea as “amazing”, saying their dispute over the supply of rare earths had been settled and that he would visit China in April.

In early comments, Chinese state media reported Xi as saying a “consensus” with Trump had been reached on trade issues, and that there were good prospects for cooperation on trade, immigration and fraud.

Rogueish comedy comes to a close with climactic 50th episode. Plus, it’s Peter Pansy – The Rusical in Drag Race! Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Sky Max
Joseph Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst are bringing the curtain down on their comedy about a tight-knit bunch of likable chancers running riot in a rural Lancashire town. You might expect the finale to be a greatest hits victory lap of booze, drugs and cheeky thievery. But the vibes are distinctly darker as Vinnie (Gilgun) and the gang hole up in a pub with gangster Davey MacDonagh (Neil Ashton) for a climactic 50th episode apparently inspired by Quentin Tarantino. Graeme Virtue

The pricing standoff between government and industry has stalled research and put thousands of jobs at risk

‘We want to see more investment flow to Britain,” the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urged of big pharmaceutical companies this month, as she indicated that the government was willing to increase the price it pays for NHS drugs. Ministers are likely to announce a rethink on pricing soon, potentially by the end of this week.

But the size of that rise remains uncertain. The big question is whether it will be generous enough to convince pharmaceutical companies, which account for a near-£100bn slice of the UK economy, to resume the investments they had paused in a strong-arm campaign to secure concessions from government.

Thousands have fled the North Darfur city in terror with stories of the Rapid Support Forces attacking and killing civilians

• Hundreds reportedly killed at Sudanese hospital as evidence of RSF atrocities mounts

Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.

“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”

Ahead of the budget, Rachel Reeves should be out making her arguments. Instead, there is silence – and a huge opportunity for Labour’s opponents

Scroll back three years. The person sitting opposite me is yet to take their place at the top of Keir Starmer’s government. Instead, they are a star of the Labour opposition, for whom power advances or recedes with every poll and front page. They have just done a spot of electoral marketing, a photo op at a supermarket 100 or so miles from Westminster, and what they’ve brought home is the politics of the staff.

“They’d all voted for Boris.”

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

Stuffed, roasted, sauteed or mashed, pumpkin and squash truly are the great culinary chameleons of autumn

Pumpkins and squash seem the perfect symbol of autumn and winter cooking. The cook has the job of getting through that tough skin before finding the tender flesh, and they give off their best only after slow cooking. But it’s worth it. They are great culinary chameleons, able to soak up and marry well with ingredients as diverse as gruyere, chipotle, rosemary, sage and nutmeg. Their smoky, sweet flavours are just right for the season of turning leaves.

Confusion reigns, however, about the difference between a pumpkin and a squash. It is a difficult area, and often local usage dictates what is a squash and what is a pumpkin. Both are members of the same family and, although the terms are often used interchangeably, pumpkins are usually the jack-o’-lantern shape we associate with Halloween, with thick, orange skins, while squashes can be smooth, warty, striped, stippled, their skins as green and shiny as old leather books, pale yellow, flame orange or delicate amber. They come in myriad shapes – acorns, turbans, melons and curled, snake-like creatures – and sizes.

This is an edited extracted from Around the Table: 52 Essays on Food & Life, by Diana Henry, published by Mitchell Beazley at £20. To order a copy for £18, visit guardianbookshop.com

• Yesavage fans 12 to set rookie Series record

• Schneider, Guerrero Jr open with back-to-back HRs

• Toronto can clinch title Friday on home field

Trey Yesavage delivered a performance for the ages and Davis Schneider homered on the very first pitch of the night as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6–1 on Wednesday, moving within one victory of their first World Series championship since 1993.

The 22-year-old Yesavage, who made his major league debut in September, struck out 12 without issuing a walk – the first pitcher in World Series history to do so – while allowing one run on three hits across seven innings. The rookie right-hander, who began the year pitching before a few hundred fans in Class A ball, has now started and won two of Toronto’s three victories in the best-of-seven series.

• Liverpool dumped out of Cup by Palace at Anfield

• Reds have now lost six of their past seven games

Arne Slot said he had no regrets over fielding a weakened team against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup and accepted he is under pressure as ­Liverpool succumbed to a sixth defeat in seven games.

Palace beat Liverpool for the third time this season to advance into the quarter-finals thanks to two goals from Ismaïla Sarr and a first Palace goal from Yéremy Pino. A comfortable 3-0 victory was aided by Slot’s decision to make 10 changes from the Liverpool team that started at Brentford on Saturday, with nine ­inexperienced youngsters on the bench.

Enzo Maresca lambasted Liam Delap for his “very stupid red card” and called on his young squad to “grow up”. Chelsea, 3-0 up at half-time, managed to turn this into a topsy-turvy tie that earned them a ­Carabao Cup quarter-final tie at ­Cardiff, but has cost them the services of their striker for Saturday’s game at Tottenham.

The Chelsea manager had no ­sympathy for Delap who, ­returning as a substitute after two months out with a hamstring injury, was dismissed for collecting two similar yellow cards in seven late minutes.

• Ben Austin not wearing neck guard when struck in nets

• Officials say priority is family and boy who threw ball

Australia’s cricket community have begun to put their bats out in a gesture to remember teenage cricketer Ben Austin after he was killed by a ball hitting his neck in a practice session, in an incident in Melbourne on Tuesday described as similar to the death of former Test player Phillip Hughes in 2014.

The 17-year-old was wearing a helmet but not a neck guard, and while the incident is likely to trigger calls to make such protection mandatory at the community level – as it already is among elite players – cricket officials said the priority must be around supporting Austin’s family and the boy who threw the ball with a training tool known as a sidearm or “wanger”.

How did an obscure district in a neglected state become India’s byword for digital deceit?

On the surface, the town of Jamtara appeared no different from neighbouring districts. But, if you knew where to look, there were startling differences. In the middle of spartan villages were houses of imposing size and unusual opulence. Millions of Indians knew why this was. They knew, to their cost, where Jamtara was. To them, it was no longer a place; it was a verb. You lived in fear of being “Jamtara-ed”.

Over the past 15 years, parts of this sleepy district in the eastern state of Jharkhand had grown fabulously wealthy. This extraordinary feat of rural development was powered by young men who, armed with little more than mobile phones, had mastered the art of siphoning money from strangers’ bank accounts. The sums they pilfered were so staggering that, at times, their schemes resembled bank heists more than mere acts of financial fraud.

When Nicola Thorp was growing up in Blackpool, the ‘kebab girl’ who had gone missing less than a mile away, aged 14, was spoken of as a cautionary tale. But what really happened to her? For the last three years, Thorp has been finding out

It has been more than 20 years since 14-year-old Charlene Downes went missing in Blackpool. Last captured on CCTV on a Saturday night in November 2003, Charlene still hasn’t been found, and the truth of what happened to her remains unsolved. Nicola Thorp, an actor, writer and broadcaster, who grew up in the town, describes Charlene’s disappearance, considered to be murder, as “a wound for Blackpool”. Over the last couple of decades, the case has been clouded by rumour, far-right rhetoric and police failures. In a new podcast, she has set out to clear up some of the speculation, and expose how Charlene was repeatedly failed by those around her.

Many in the town, she says, still believe the two men who were first tried in 2007 – a retrial was ordered, which then collapsed amid “grave doubts” about the evidence – got away with murder. That in itself, she says, is an obstacle to finding out who is really responsible.

We have no crown jewels: the Louvre panic is a distraction from the real threat the far right poses to our democracy

According to some international commentators – and France’s perpetually doomsaying conservatives – the break-in at the Louvre was much more than a burglary; it was the latest chapter in a grand narrative of national collapse. Never mind that it was probably carried out by a couple of chancers with a crowbar: for some of the pessimists, it’s civilisation itself that’s being prised open.

Funny how the same people who decry France’s alleged dysfunctionalism probably marvelled at the Paris Olympics of summer 2024 – that brief, dazzling interlude when the city actually worked, the trains ran on time, and millions around the world fell a little bit in love with France again.

Patrick Boucheron is a French historian and author, and professor of history at the Collège de France; Pierre Singaravélou is professor of history at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne.

As he prepares to host The Game of Wool, the Olympian diver talks about trying to get murdered faithfuls resurrected on Traitors – and the time he knitted himself a woollen chandelier

In The Game of Wool, Channel 4’s quest to find Britain’s best knitter, you can’t take your eyes off Tom Daley’s outfits. One of his goals for the series, he says, is that “what I was wearing would get progressively more interesting”, which is ridiculous because in the very first episode he’s wearing a vivid, asymmetrical shawl that in some places reaches the floor, and he looks like a wizard who might seem chaotic but is actually very powerful.

“Sheila [Greenwell, one of two judges, along with Di Gilpin] made that for La Fetiche,” he says, referring to the avant garde house of knitwear. “Later on I wear some stuff by Hope Macaulay, a Northern Irish textiles designer, then Boy Kloves, right out of Central Saint Martins, then towards the end, two archival Stella McCartney looks.”

Conservationists hail ‘remarkable’ rediscovery after 40 years, at nature reserve only accessible by boat

A tiny spider thought to have vanished for ever from the UK has been rediscovered on a remote area of a nature reserve accessible only by boat.

The Aulonia albimana, a member of the wolf spider family with orange legs, was found on the Isle of Wight in a spot grazed by a flock of Hebridean sheep.

Born into an independent Ukraine, the lives of these young women changed for ever when Russia invaded their country, forcing them to shoulder huge burdens of responsibility

• Photographs by Julia Kochetova

Ukraine is increasingly a country held together, behind the military lines, by women. Those in their 30s – millennial women born into an independent Ukraine, raised in economic turbulence and thrust into adulthood on the wave of revolution and war – are shouldering huge burdens of responsibility. They are fundraising for the army, or sometimes serving in it. They are running civil society organisations, advocating for their country abroad and becoming activists.

At the same time, unlike their male counterparts who are forbidden from leaving the country and are eligible for conscription, they have choices – to join the army, or not; to stay in the country, or not. For some, the question of whether to have children, when the war shows no sign of abating, looms large. For many of them, exhaustion, stress and grief are constant companions. We spoke to six Ukrainian women aged between 29 and 40 about their lives.

US president makes threat in Truth Social post in wake of Russian nuclear-powered weapons tests, and shortly before meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping

• Trump meets Xi in South Korea – latest updates

Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to immediately start matching other nuclear powers in their testing of nuclear weapons, specifically citing Russia and China.

In a Wednesday post to Truth Social, Trump said that “because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.”

Russian president proclaims test of Poseidon which would launch from submarine and carry nuclear engine and warhead. What we know on day 1,345