As AI job losses rise in the professional sector, many are switching to more traditional trades. But how do they feel about accepting lower pay – and, in some cases, giving up their vocation?

California-based Jacqueline Bowman had been dead set on becoming a writer since she was a child. At 14 she got her first internship at her local newspaper, and later she studied journalism at university. Though she hadn’t been able to make a full-time living from her favourite pastime – fiction writing – post-university, she consistently got writing work (mostly content marketing, some journalism) and went freelance full-time when she was 26. Sure, content marketing wasn’t exactly the dream, but she was writing every day, and it was paying the bills – she was happy enough.

“But something really switched in 2024,” Bowman, now 30, says. Layoffs and publication closures meant that much of her work “kind of dried up. I started to get clients coming to me and talking about AI,” she says – some even brazen enough to tell her how “great” it was “that we don’t need writers any more”. She was offered work as an editor – checking and altering work produced by artificial intelligence. The idea was that polishing up already-written content would take less time than writing it from scratch, so Bowman’s fee was reduced to about half of what it had been when she was writing for the same content marketing agency – but, in reality, it ended up taking double the time.

Yes, he betrayed the national interest in his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein – but also in his sanctioned role as enabler of corporate power

History is being rewritten. The story we are told is that an evil man called Peter Mandelson, pursuing his own interests, went rogue to collaborate with a serial abuser of girls and women, undermining the good work of people seeking to defend the public interest. All this is true. But – and I fear many will find this hard to accept – it is only half the story.

The much harder truth is that Mandelson’s disgraceful dealings with Jeffrey Epstein were less a betrayal of his brief than an unauthorised extension of it. In 2009 – just as, we now know, Mandelson was passing sensitive information to Epstein – I argued that the government department he ran, called Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr), “functions as a fifth column within government, working for corporations to undermine democracy and the public interest”.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basic they scrimp on? The Fundamentally author talks bodices, Chanel and regrettable heels in the Filter’s column

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Dr Nussaibah Younis is a peacebuilding practitioner and a globally recognised expert on contemporary Iraq. For several years, she advised the Iraqi government on proposed programmes to deradicalise women affiliated with Islamic State. She studied at Oxford, Durham and Harvard universities, and has a PhD in international affairs.

Younis has published op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and the New York Times. She was born in the UK to an Iraqi father and a Pakistani mother, and lives in London. Her debut novel, Fundamentally, was shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction in 2025 and is published in paperback on 12 February.

Children are encouraged to get hands-on as the world’s leading stop-motion studio showcases its work in east London

What would Wallace – everyone’s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor – look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker’s coat? Would a massive set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana?

Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London’s Young V&A that showcases the work of the world’s leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman studios. Early sketches for Nick Park’s much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak.

Most of us aren’t getting enough fibre in our diet, but, as our panel of experts explain, upping your intake is a case of taking baby steps …

Why is everyone talking about fibremaxxing?
Chris, by email
TikTok-born trends rarely go hand in hand with sage health advice, but that’s not to say upping our fibre – an often-forgotten part of our diets – is a bad idea. “Fibre needed its moment, so this is a good thing,” says dietitian Priya Tew. The non-digestible carbohydrate has two main functions: “There’s insoluble fibre, which is found in things such as whole grains, brown rice or vegetable skins, and I think about it like a broom,” Tew says, “in that it brushes the system out.” Then there’s soluble fibre (oats, beans, lentils), which she likens to a sponge: “It turns into this gel in your gut, and aids digestion and keeps us regular.” But that’s only part of the story, because fibre can also help lower cholesterol and stabilise blood sugar.

So, are you getting enough? “The aim is 25-30g fibre a day, but in reality most of us are maybe getting 15-18g,” Tew says, so we’ve got a little way to go. That said, some folk on the #fibremaxxing train have set their sights higher, which is where things can become problematic. “If you’re having too much fibre, you can end up feeling bloated, constipated or have abdominal pain,” she says, and that can occur when you increase your fibre intake too quickly: “The body needs time to get used to what’s happening.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

The only reason we might not get our seventh prime minister in 10 years is that no one can find one

Keir Starmer is now the only person to have lost more comms chiefs than Meghan and Harry. After yet another day of drama, we kept hearing that the prime minister would be pressing the reset button. Not again! Starmer’s reset button is like the OK button on your TV remote – worn blank through overuse. He has pressed that thing more often than you’ve decided another 44 minutes of a crap thriller is somehow less of an effort than getting yourself to bed. Anyway, next episode in five, four, three …

Fine. One more.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Health secretary poised to make leadership bid after May local elections to pre-empt a potential challenge from rival Rayner, MPs close to him say

Allies of Wes Streeting expect him to try to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership within weeks, despite the health secretary insisting he backs the prime minister and is not intending to move against him, the Guardian has been told.

Starmer attempted to regain authority over his party on Tuesday after a tumultuous day in Westminster during which he was denounced by the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and lost his director of communications.

More than 25 people are injured, including two with life-threatening injuries, after the shooting at Tumbler Ridge secondary school

• Latest updates: ‘devastating’ shooting hits remote town of Tumbler Ridge

Police in Canada say 10 people are dead, including the suspect, in a mass shooting that appeared to target a high school in northern British Columbia.

More than two dozen victims have been hospitalized in what premier David Eby called an “unimaginable tragedy” that ranks among the deadliest events of its kind in Canadian history.

Community Security Trust, which provides security to British Jews, recorded total 3,700 incidents in 2025

Antisemitic incidents increased sharply in the UK after the deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish year, according to an organisation that provides security to British Jews.

Two people died and three were seriously injured at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation on 2 October last year, in the first fatal antisemitic terror attack since the Community Security Trust (CST) began recording incidents in 1984.

Boy, 13, held on suspicion of attempted murder after pupils aged 12 and 13 stabbed at Kingsbury high school

A police counter-terrorism unit was on Tuesday night leading the inquiry into the stabbing of two boys aged 13 and 12 at a school in north-west London.

Police were called to Kingsbury high school in Brent on Tuesday afternoon after reports that a 13-year-old boy had been stabbed. When they arrived at the scene, officers found a 12-year-old boy who had also been stabbed.