Burnout or breakup are constant dangers when one partner carries too much of the mental load of looking after the home and family. Here’s how to spread the burden more evenly

Many households have an imbalance in domestic duties, and women often struggle from carrying the weight of the organisational side of life. Here, mental load experts share the secrets to having a more equitable home – and the rewards that can be gained from it.

Older men and younger women were once an unremarkable screen pairing. But watching them with a new generation is a real education

I looked up the cast before I saw the new film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, thinking: “Who could be as good as Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet?” because of course I did. One, they were peerless and two, this is the condition of middle age, constantly looking at the world thinking: “This could be considerably improved by the presence of Emma Thompson.”

The notable casting update was Col Brandon, whose passion for Marianne would now be known as an “age gap” relationship. In the last film, Alan Rickman (born 1946) was in love with Winslet (born 1975), who cycles through a fair amount of: “Yuck, no thanks,” before having an epiphany.

People living next to a chemicals plant near Blackpool were tested for ‘forever chemicals’. Last week they received the alarming results

Last February, I got a call from a woman called Sam Hammond. We had been speaking on and off for a while over her growing concern that her garden could be affected by pollution from a nearby chemical plant.

That morning, Sam had been hand-delivered a letter from her council informing her that her pet ducks’ eggs, reared in her garden, were contaminated with Pfas chemicals.

I used to be terrified of socialising, certain I would embarrass myself the moment I opened my mouth. And as for dates …

As with a lot of teenagers, social confidence was not my strong suit. Throughout my time at school in the early 2010s, I hated the prospect of new social situations and would often lie awake at night overthinking the day to come.

What I now know to be social anxiety I dismissed as just nerves at that young age. Although I knew something wasn’t quite right, for most of my early teens I managed to disguise my discomfort. Sharing a friendship group with my twin sister meant I could hide behind my sibling.

‘The day Saff came into the studio with red hair, I said, “We’re gonna be massive!” It was the missing link’

We always had a vision of mixing acid house with indie rock, and we managed to rent a space and build our own studio in London’s Shoreditch area, long before it got trendy. I had a little vocal booth called Hattie Jacques, in honour of the Carry On films but also because it’s Cockney rhyming slang [for shakes]. We spent all our money rewiring it, and that’s where we wrote, recorded and produced Ready to Go – 100 mixes later!

After public backlash, the Trump administration changed its tactics from ‘siege’ to ‘soft feet’. Now, ICE is everywhere

Counter terror police say earlier that they arrested five men who were British national in their 20s from London

• UK security forces aware of suspected bomb plot, hints defence secretary

• RAF Fairford suspected bomb plot: have you been affected?

Speaking at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, the defence secretary, Wes Streeting, said he could not give further details about the RAF Fairford incident because there is a live police investigation.

However, he used his speech to stress that the UK-US relationship is “the closest alliance” of any two countries in the world, adding the two nations will always “stand together” against those who wish to cause harm.

Home secretary under pressure over changes to indefinite leave to remain that would penalise foreign care workers

• UK politics live – latest updates

Shabana Mahmood has signalled she is considering watering down her plans to make it harder for foreign workers to claim permanent residence in the UK amid growing demands for a U-turn from cabinet colleagues and unions.

In a speech to Labour conference, the home secretary said the government would “come to a position that balances fairness for those who came here legally and fairness to British citizens across this country”, after acknowledging that “some have said elements of these reforms are not fair”.

Exclusive: Instructors at tech training company Multiverse hit out at ‘remorseless’ and ‘unnerving’ monitoring system

Teachers at Euan Blair’s £1.6bn tech training company, Multiverse, have blown the whistle about “horrendous stress” and feeling constantly watched after bosses started using AI models to surveil and rate their teaching.

Staff delivering apprenticeship training in computer and AI skills to thousands of UK public and private sector workers now have transcripts of online classroom sessions analysed and scored by an AI programmed to alert human managers when they are suspected of doing things wrong.

OpenAI chief scientist also among authors of report on prospect of ‘most consequential technological development in history’

Two of the “godfathers” of modern AI and senior executives at OpenAI and Anthropic have warned governments to prepare for an AI “intelligence explosion”, which they say could be the most consequential technological development in history.

A report co-authored by the Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton and the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, considered godfathers of modern AI for their work in the field, urges politicians to act now before there is runaway progress in the technology.