Milder weather led to a bloom in the invertebrates in south Cornwall and Devon, wildlife charity says

Record numbers of sightings of one of the world’s most intelligent invertebrates over the summer have led the Wildlife Trusts to declare 2025 “the year of the octopus” in its annual review of Britain’s seas.

A mild winter followed by an exceptionally warm spring prompted unprecedented numbers of Mediterranean octopuses to take up residence along England’s south coast, from Penzance in Cornwall to south Devon.

The art activists made headlines during the US president’s state visit when they shocked the waiting media with a short documentary – and were quickly arrested

When Donald Trump’s second state visit was announced, and when the finer details for the Windsor banquet on 17 September 2025 became known, there was no way Led By Donkeys was going to let that pass unprotested. It was just so craven, rolling out the red carpet for Trump. Their next art-activist event unfolded like clockwork.

Led By Donkeys made a nine-minute film about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein which ended: “The president of the United States was a long-time close friend of America’s most notorious child sex trafficker. He’s alleged to be mentioned, numerous times, in the files arising from the investigation into that child sex trafficker … Now that president, Donald Trump, is sleeping here, in Windsor Castle.” (Trump says that he fell out with Epstein years before Epstein was first arrested, and has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.)

In the first 10 months of this year, South Korea imported $159m worth of kimchi, almost entirely from China, while exporting $137m

The pungent scent of red chilli powder hangs in the air at Kim Chieun’s kimchi factory in Incheon, about 30km west of Seoul. Inside, salted cabbage soaks in large metal vats in the first stage of a process that Kim has followed for more than 30 years.

But watching over the production line has become increasingly fraught. South Korea imports more kimchi than it exports, and the gap has widened as cheaper Chinese-made products take hold in the domestic market.

Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany’s new TV drama is flat, airless and banal. It’s a crass affair with a thin, half-hearted performance from Sharpe

Here’s my position. If you are going to create a miniseries about the life, death and music of one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western civilisation, and if you are going to use as your source material a script for a great play that was made into a near-perfect film beloved by almost everyone for its wit and immense, profound themes rendered accessible and moving, and for the fact that it had two of the most extraordinary performances ever committed to what may still then have been celluloid – well, you had better be pretty damn sure that you are bringing something new, exciting, different, richer, cleverer, even more illuminating to the table. Otherwise you are going to look like a bit of a berk.

And so, my friends, to the new six-part drama Amadeus, about the life, death and music of Wolfgang A Mozart, one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western history. Co-creators Joe Barton and Julian Farino have retained parts of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play and the 1984 film starring Tom Hulce as Mozart and F Murray Abraham as his rival composer Antonio Salieri, reworked them into lesser forms, and surrounded them with lesser – flat, airless, banal – scenes. Shaffer’s driving interests in the corrupting power of envy, the survival of religious faith under duress, the mystery of talent and what we expect to come from genius are mostly reduced to pale, petty versions of themselves. The performances – well, we’ll come to those.

Emulating the bike-friendly highways enjoyed by our continental neighbours will take a lot more money and political will

Ever since Team GB’s velodrome successes at the 2008 Olympics, campaigners and government ministers have confidently predicted that Britain is about to become a nation of cyclists. There is just one problem: for the most part, it has not happened.

Apart from a very concentrated spike in bike use during Covid, the level of cycle trips in England has stayed broadly static for years, and things do not appear to be changing.

While many use our phones predominantly to doomscroll, smartphones have a range of little-known functions that could make life better and easier – from heart monitoring to even developing camera film

Our smartphones are magical things – far more than dopamine drip providers and a way to keep in touch with friends and family. Using the built-in features and easily available additional apps, there are plenty of clever things you can do with your smartphone.

Exclusive: Warning from Social Mobility Commission chair comes after UK report found ‘entrenched disadvantages’

Keir Starmer has no coherent strategy to tackle entrenched inequalities harming the life chances of millions of people, the government’s social mobility commissioner has said.

A report warned last week that young adults in Britain’s former industrial heartlands were being left behind as a result of failed or abandoned promises by successive governments.

Government has vowed to end use of asylum hotels and plans to send first men to Crowborough site within weeks

The Home Office plans to send the first group of asylum seekers to a military site in East Sussex in the new year, the Guardian understands.

Discussions in Whitehall are under way to use Crowborough army training camp within weeks as part of efforts to end the use of hotels for asylum accommodation.

Documents released Monday outline allegations against Naveed Akram and his father Sajid over the 14 December attack

New details about the police case against the alleged Bondi terrorists have been released, including details of an alleged video manifesto linked to the Islamic State and the undetonated explosives – including a “tennis ball bomb” – found at the scene.

Naveed Akram, 24, faces charges of murdering 15 people and injuring dozens more in the shooting at a Hanukah celebration on 14 December. His 50-year-old father, Sajid Akram, 50, is the second alleged shooter, and died at the scene.

MPs and next of kin of prisoners Amu Gib, 30, and Kamran Ahmed, 28, call for immediate government intervention

Two Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners taking part in a hunger strike have been taken to hospital, as their next of kin and MPs expressed concern over prison conditions and called for immediate government intervention.

Amu Gib, 30, who was being held at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey while awaiting trial, is on day 50 of their hunger strike and 28-year-old Kamran Ahmed was being held at Pentonville prison in London and on day 42 of his hunger strike. The two are the latest of eight prisoners who have been admitted to hospital since the hunger strike action began on Balfour day, 2 November, according to Prisoners for Palestine.