From old love letters to pieces of string, our homes are stuffed with stuff. When it comes time to empty a parent’s home, sorting the junk from the memory can be overwhelming

Soon after her marriage in 1952, Ellen Rogers’ mother, Fay, bought a coordinated bedroom ensemble – a floral dressing gown and matching bedspread. The day I talk on the phone with Rogers, she has made a tough decision – she is putting the gown and bedspread in a garbage bag to be sent off to a charity shop. “I feel so bad,” she says.

Fay died in May aged 97, and had lived in the same terrace house in Camperdown in inner Sydney her whole life. Rogers grew up in the house and returned three years ago to be a live-in carer for her mother. Now she’s cleaning out the house so it can be sold. The decisions she must make are endless; which pile for what item – family, rubbish or charity? “It’s overwhelming – there’s so much,” Rogers says, “including every bloody card she ever received.”

From the blissful threat of ‘death by chocolate’, to a book made of sponge and the lemon drizzle to end them all, these are the bakes that left the biggest impressions

The Sorting Hat sponge I made for my son’s Harry Potter party is not the best cake I’ve ever tasted. That would be anything baked by my granny, or the coffee religieuse (a choux pastry puff) I ate in Boulogne-sur-Mer with my mum. But it’s the most surprisingly edible cake I’ve ever made – a vaguely Jamie-Oliver recipe with buttercream filling and tinned mandarin slices. It didn’t only work; it tasted great, and wasn’t quite as teeth-screechingly sweet as expected. My one regret is that I over-pimped the decoration: it looked so sinister in the fridge with its cold, Sorting Hat stare that the next day I stuck on googly eyes and further sparkles. This perhaps explains why everyone assumed it was a poo emoji cake, despite it being a Harry Potter party with heavy-touch theming. That people thought I actually wanted children to eat shit is a shame, but it still remains my greatest culinary success. Catherine Shoard

In a novel approach to urban housing, some residents have pooled their time and finances into redeveloping single dwellings. It’s a herculean task – with feel-good results

Melbourne architect Chris Gilbert had run out of eggs. He texted a neighbour and within minutes, he says, their child arrived with some. “Then I made brownies and my kids took some over to the neighbours’ house.”

It sounds like a flashback to a bygone era, but this neighbourly exchange took place this month, at the Davison Collaborative, a novel housing project in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. In 2020 the townhouse development replaced one past-its-prime brick veneer house with three architecturally designed three-bedroom family dwellings, trebling the lot’s density and future proofing it “for at least the next 50 years,” says Liam Wallis, from the sustainability focused property development and consultancy company Hip V. Hype.

Sensors that monitor vehicle volume are said to be ‘electronic assault weapons’ by the ‘Blade Runners’ group

At the top of an extendable ladder on a quiet street of Ilfracombe, in Devon, an older woman dressed smartly in cropped trousers, a red rain jacket and matching red socks is chopping at some wires at the top of a set of traffic lights with a small pair of pliers.

A grey-haired man holding a takeaway coffee supports the ladder, while others, filming their activities, give encouragement from behind the camera. “Yeah, that’s how you do it,” says one man. “Just cut the wires.”

Jobs and programme budgets in firing line at BBC, Channel 4 and ITV as they are outgunned by YouTube and Netflix

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the BBC or Channel 4 disappeared,” says one of the thousands of TV staff at risk of redundancy, as British broadcasters face what has rapidly become a fight for survival against US digital rivals.

“My generation grew up with Netflix and YouTube … Honestly, I feel like it is a losing battle.”

Moment of reckoning for ‘Mr Nice Guy’ of music, who embraced Macklemore’s political cred only for pro-Palestine rapper to be dropped under pressure from billionaire

Ed Sheeran has long been known as the “Mr Nice Guy” of music. His is an unthreatening kind of pop stardom; he looks and talks like the bloke who might be standing behind you in a pub, rather than someone selling out stadiums. He champions other artists, he celebrates different cultures. His songs are about love, heartbreak and friendship. People get engaged at his concerts.

But this week, one of the most successful musicians in the world faced the biggest controversy of his career, and found himself dragged into exactly the kind of political row he has spent his career avoiding.

Exclusive: A total £179m has been donated by wealthy individuals since 2019, research reveals

British politics is increasingly being funded by individual billionaires with a wave of mega-donations having flooded into UK political parties over the past two parliaments.

A total of £179m has been donated by wealthy individuals since 2019, research reveals.

Queen speaks of love of reading at festival for charity she founded after success of her Instagram book club

Queen Camilla has spoken of her love for books with a “life-enhancing power” after a series of allegations were made about King Charles in extracts from Earl Spencer’s memoir about the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Camilla was welcomed to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire for the first day of the festival for the Queen’s Reading Room, a charity she founded after the success of her Instagram book club during the pandemic.

The fact that some migrants pay people smugglers thousands of pounds makes them well off, MP claims

Asylum seekers who arrive on small boats across the Channel are “wealthy men” who do not deserve the help of the British state, according to the Reform UK MP Danny Kruger.

The former Conservative, who defected last year, said the fact that some migrants were paying people smugglers thousands of pounds – often using their life savings or borrowed money – made them well off. The claim was immediately dismissed by charities who support refugees.

British Museum chair tells Big Brue festival he thought no one would find out about the private viewing

George Osborne has said he thought no one would find out about a private viewing of the Bayeux tapestry he organised for the tech billionaire Peter Thiel at the British Museum.

The former chancellor, who is chair of the museum, told the Big Brue festival in Somerset that he had been on holiday when Thiel was shown the medieval artwork.