The number of luxury sheds and garden rooms has rocketed since the pandemic – fuelled by those wanting an office, a gym or extra living space. Meanwhile, the resentment between neighbours has been rising, too

Linda loves her shed. She loves that she can work there rather than in her dining room, which her toddler likes to tear through. She loves its Scandinavian vibe – it’s clad in wood and set on decking at the bottom of her garden. She loves the views of the countryside from the window by her desk. Or she did. Her desk faces the wall now, because she’s too nervous to face her neighbour. She never sits on the decking, either. “What if they see me?” she says. “It’s a horrible feeling.”

Linda’s neighbours are unhappy about her shed, or “garden room”, which is actually two rooms. They do not like its size (7.25 metres by 2.74 metres, or 3.5 metres if you include the raised decking) or its position, about 30 metres away from their house. Linda says they have barely spoken since the construction, which is awkward, as the gardens are separated by a low fence.

The need for independent regulation grows more obvious by the day. We must keep this tech in check before it’s too late

• OpenAI scraps release of new model over safety concerns in internal testing

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me more than 16,000 times – as OpenAI agents did to a UN public data hub while repeatedly trying to find its way around the UN’s cyber-blocks – and perhaps it’s time to admit the system we have for keeping AI agents under control isn’t working particularly well.

The news about AI systems cropping up in places they shouldn’t sounds alarming. Though the description of these as “hacks” is perhaps overstating things, AI has exploited issues in IT systems that humans simply haven’t got around to finding. It’s also important to note that we shouldn’t be worried that the machines have suddenly become sentient and decided to rebel against humanity. There is not enough evidence to suggest that’s what is happening. The systems are simply following instructions and trying to complete the tasks they have been given, even if they’re sometimes finding unintended ways around obstacles to do so.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

Analysts believe PM has a ‘golden opportunity’ to offer older people better protection in return for weakening the triple lock guarantee

It is a brave party leader who is prepared to go into an election promising a multibillion-pound new public service – likely to be funded by tax rises or holding back increases in the state pension.

But Andy Burnham’s colleagues are excited about the confident promise of new social care system that seven previous prime ministers have failed to deliver.

Fear of outsiders is the defining issue of our times. But is it actually our own selves we’re scared of? And could art hold the answers? Here, the British Art Show’s curator reveals why he’s exploring our deepest dreams and nightmares

One of the moral low points of Keir Starmer’s tenure at Downing Street was his “island of strangers” speech, with its rhetorical echoes of Enoch Powell and dispiriting description of a nation fractured by difference. After widespread criticism, Starmer recanted his words, if not the sentiment behind them. Yet his choice of language was a reminder of how the idea of the stranger – representing immigration, but also wider, more inchoate anxieties about otherness and difference – holds such a potent place in Britain today.

In fact, from masked anti-migrant protesters on the south coast to xenophobic riots over the summer, from politicians vowing to stop the boats to immigration polling as the No 1 concern among UK voters, it’s probably true to say that fear of the stranger is the totemic issue of our times.

Manchester City have come out fighting against the guilty verdict but the Premier League faces questions of its own

Nothing is over, nothing is done. Or at least not judging by the bravura, balls-out confidence of Manchester City’s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, who remains convinced the past three days of whiplash are simply the drumroll before the big reveal, prelude to some clinching piece of evidence that will swish away the initial finding of guilt on the Premier League’s 100-plus charges.

This appears to be the official City position right now. Rope‑a‑dope litigation. Scooby‑Doo justice. A verdict that is simply exposition, buildup to that moment where we finally get to rip off the zombie mask and reveal the cranky old amusement park owner underneath, with his bulging ring‑binder full of irrefutable evidence of City’s innocence.

We tried humane traps, wire wool, hardcore cleaning regimes. Nothing worked. In the end, I wondered if the mice in our house were the real residents, while we were the intruders

Some of the happiest years of my 20s were spent in a house-share in east London. Four of us were crammed into a three-bedroom terrace where the dining room had been turned into a bedroom. My housemates were my closest friends. We were young women with the kind of intense-bordering-on-codependent dynamic that becomes unsustainable later in life, when you have long-term partners, pets and children. We lived together, we went out together, in the summer we took our Argos tent to festivals together. We stayed up late discussing love-life and work dilemmas, often crowding round a phone to draft text messages.

We were also not particularly clean, which meant our cluttered, chaotic house was the ideal home for mice. At first we told ourselves it was just one mouse we saw running along next to the skirting board or darting behind a sofa. But a quick scan of the internet confirmed our fears that it’s never just one – mice are social creatures, and they were likely in a nest-share similar to our house-share. A female mouse gives birth to a litter of five to eight mice and can be pregnant up to 10 times a year. We read forum posts that claimed mice were doubly incontinent (something I’ve since learned is fake news), and our horror began to grow.

Exclusive: Labour conference speech will kick off process that could replace current system with proportional representation

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham is expected to announce that he will push ahead with plans for electoral reform in his first conference speech as Labour leader, in the latest sign that he intends to radically transform the UK’s political system.

The prime minister, a longtime advocate of reform, will kick off a process that could eventually lead to ditching the first-past-the-post system in favour of proportional representation.

US secretary of state and Donald Trump express concerns about decision to bail suspects; some residents reported as hesitant to return home

• Rubio says foreign actor was ‘clearly’ behind suspected RAF Fairford plot

• Tell us: have you been affected by the incident at RAF Fairford?

An MP and councillors representing the residents of the village near RAF Fairford who were evacuated due to the suspected plot have expressed scepticism and concern over the security response to threats made by Iran.

Roz Savage, the MP for South Cotswolds, said she had many questions about the circumstances of how the alleged plot was averted. The Liberal Democrat MP, whose constituency covers the military base, said she would be writing to the prime minister and the defence secretary with her concerns.

Freedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alert

A six-month trial of live facial recognition (LFR) technology in London’s railway stations that cost more than £320,000 and almost 100 hours of police officers’ time ended in one false match against a watchlist of suspects and no arrests.

More than half a million faces were scanned between February and July this year in some of the capital’s busiest transport hubs during the British Transport Police (BTP) trial of the surveillance technology, which aimed to help catch offenders and people breaching court orders.

Dott, 49, receives seven-year sentence after abusing a boy and a girl in what judge says was ‘gross violation of trust’

The former snooker world champion Graeme Dott has been jailed for seven years at the high court in Edinburgh after being convicted of sexually abusing two children.

In August, Dott was found guilty of sexually abusing a boy and a girl after a five-day trial at Glasgow high court. The court heard that the 2006 world champion inappropriately touched and exposed himself to both children. He denied the charges but was convicted of two counts of lewd, indecent and libidinous behaviour by a majority verdict.