As experts fear for future of UK capital’s bus network, some commuters are giving up entirely. London is not alone – with worrying implications for the poorest in society

Experts warn that slower buses risk driving passengers away: research cited by Transport for London (TfL) suggests a 10% fall in speed leads to a 6% drop in demand.

Passenger journeys in London have already fallen by more than 300m a year, or 16%, since 2013, despite the city’s population growing by almost a million people.

A growing number of men, including singers Shaggy and Harry Styles, are taking up pilates. When I realised I could no longer touch my toes, I decided to try it out

I realised something needed to change when I nearly toppled over trying to tie my shoelaces. I was on a busy high street, with people rushing past holding shopping bags, when I saw my open shoelace spooled on the ground. I bent down to deal with it and felt gravity move against me. Only a quick flail of my arms stopped me from faceplanting. When I raised myself back upright, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. This can’t be right, I thought.

Bracing my foot on a bin to finally fix my shoelace, it dawned on me. I’d become rusty. My core strength was nonexistent, as was my flexibility. Years behind a desk had taken a toll, not helped by an after-work routine of watching TV or playing video games on the sofa. But after getting home and doing some research (yes, from my sofa), I found a potential remedy: pilates.

Ed Davey’s strategy is meant to build a ‘firewall’ of MPs to prevent Reform UK entering government. The stakes are high if he gets it wrong

No politician craves obscurity, but it is better to be unknown than despised. That is consolation for Liberal Democrats, gathered in Brighton for their annual conference, fretting about Ed Davey’s low profile and wondering whether a more prominent leader would hoist their flagging poll ratings.

Renewal by decapitation is a concept that has succeeded twice this parliament for other parties. Labour’s fortunes were transformed when Andy Burnham entered No 10. The Greens enjoyed a polling surge last year when Zack Polanski was elected leader. In the fidgety culture of British politics, Davey’s six-year reign feels like an aeon. But the experience of other parties has little to teach the Lib Dems.

The actors co-star in a lightly fictionalised meta-comedy about their real-life bromance – and possible sharing of parents. It’s a tasty little treat

The cheek! The indulgence! The privilege! Did anyone, anywhere in 2026, look up from news of a world in flames and say, what we really need now is a meta-comedy where two actors play gently self-satirising fictional versions of themselves?

They did not, and yet here are Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. They once co-starred in the first season of True Detective, one of TV’s darkest and best crime dramas, but otherwise their personae have them as lifelong besties who are both free spirits, unencumbered by the rules of the fame game – not the sort of chaps who would stop and think about how their self-referential comedy bagatelle might be received. In Brothers, they portray themselves as blokes who don’t stop and think, full stop.

Brothers is on Apple TV

I found being a Booker judge hugely rewarding. All the works on our shortlist will change how you see the world

• This year’s Booker prize shortlist

As a Booker judge, I think I have worked harder than I have ever done before. Reading 163 novels in six months, making careful assessments, being ready to argue for your judgment, going back to check you haven’t got it wrong … in some ways it took more energy than actually writing a book. But it was also hugely rewarding and fun. I shall never forget the discussions in our regular judging meetings, and the pleasure of discovering how we had sometimes reached almost exactly the same view of a book, and sometimes dramatically diverged. There were no big newsworthy squabbles, but a lot of discussion, a lot of listening and re-reading.

When each new batch of 30 or so novels arrived at home, through the spring, I plunged in and picked them out at random (only occasionally cheating by selecting a slim volume when I felt I needed to get my total up!) But so that you have more to go on, here is a quick guide to each of the books on the shortlist – in strictly alphabetical order.

Explore the shortlist for this year’s Booker prize and, for a limited time, get all six books for only £79 at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

The newest judge on the culinary competition is a soothing presence who is the ideal complement to Paul Hollywood. Long may the show continue with her on it

There’s a very good argument to be made for requiring a national referendum on whether presenters of shows that are part of our cultural identity should be allowed to leave, followed by – if necessary – a vote on who should replace them. At the very least, this would avoid the parlous state of affairs we face right now: at the very moment the public is grappling with the new-look Strictly Come Dancing (Tess and Claudia replaced by Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe, three whole different people!) we are asked to cope with a change to the order of the tented universe too.

For The Great British Bake Off lineup has replaced Prue Leith (who stepped down after deciding that, at 86, she would quite like to go back to having holidays instead of filming the series all summer) with – the one! The only! – Nigella Lawson.

PM aims to ‘stem poisonous tide’ of disinformation and deepfakes with National Centre for Information Defence

Security chiefs will set up a new national centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes from hostile states such as Russia, Andy Burnham has announced, saying the government had a duty to “stem the poisonous tide” from damaging British interests.

The National Centre for Information Defence will “detect, attribute and disrupt” information attacks by foreign powers, many of which are enabled by AI, bringing together the intelligence agencies, law enforcement and social media companies.

New report predicts a heavy toll from Nigeria to the US – and comes on top of existing impacts of the climate crisis

More than 450,000 people are projected to die from the additional heat brought by the super El Niño in the next six months, according to estimates by climate scientists.

The toll is on top of the early deaths resulting from temperatures already driven up by the climate crisis. It will strike across the globe, from Indonesia to India, and Nigeria to the US. Many further deaths are expected from the droughts, wildfires and flooding that El Niños bring.

Thomas called followers to disrupt arrival of asylum seekers in Gosport, but Border Force instead transported them to Dover

Charities have condemned footage of far-right activist Daniel Thomas using a blade to slash an inflatable dinghy in the Channel while a rescue worker was onboard, in a further escalation of organised anti-immigration protest.

Hundreds of protesters gathered early on Tuesday evening at Gosport in Hampshire, aiming to disrupt the planned disembarkation of asylum seekers, but the Border Force vessels carrying them landed instead in Dover early on Wednesday.

County’s first such clinic, at Alder Hey in Liverpool, treating children suffering from chronic bladder problems with severe cases needing dialysis

Children as young as 13 in the UK have been referred to a specialist clinic for a “devastating” bladder condition linked to sustained use of ketamine.

Medics at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool opened the first ketamine clinic in the UK for young people amid a surge in urology problems linked to addiction of the drug.