Environment secretary backs Cunliffe review’s plan to end sewage scandals and financial mismanagement and ‘change the whole system’ in England and Wales

• Business live – updates

A new, “powerful” water regulator should replace Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and the Environment Agency to “reset” a sector tarnished by scandals over sewage spills and financial mismanagement, a major review has recommended.

The government is expected to adopt the recommendation for England and Wales made in the review it commissioned from Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, which was released on Monday.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

© Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

© Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

Jeopardy’s Jennings is the king of ken

Jeopardy! is the long-running US quiz show where contestants are given an answer and must respond with a question for that answer.

“Ken Jennings”, for example, is the correct answer to the following question:

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty Images

© Photograph: Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty Images

© Photograph: Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty Images

Move paves way for Helge Lund to depart after six troubled years steering the UK oil major

Austria’s upgraded sleeper proves an exciting way to travel between two absorbing, family-friendly cities for our writer and her young daughters

Toasted ham baguettes in hand, we cheered as the new-generation Nightjet drew into Vienna Hauptbahnhof. It was a little before 7pm, and as the carriages hummed past I felt a rush of joy, like celebrity trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, but without the GoPro on my forehead. For more than three years I’ve been documenting the renaissance of sleeper trains, and I’d wondered if I might one day tire of them. But the thrill seems only to intensify each time I embark on another nocturnal adventure, this time with my two daughters – aged eight and five – who were already arguing over the top berth. The first four carriages were designated for travellers to the Italian port city of La Spezia, the other seven carrying on to Roma Tiburtina, where we would alight at 10am. Once in Rome we had 24 hours to eat classic carbonara, dark chocolate gelato, and bike around the Villa Borghese before taking a train to Florence.

Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) has played the lead role in resuscitating Europe’s night trains. Towards the end of 2016, ÖBB launched its Nightjet network on 14 routes, using old rolling stock it bought from Deutsche Bahn. Then, to the delight of train nerds like me, it launched a brand-new fleet at the end of 2023, and now operates 20 routes across Europe. We were now on board this high-spec service, which smelled of freshly unpacked furniture, the carpets soft underfoot, the lighting adjustable to disco hues of neon blue and punk pink.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

Listeners get to ask the the broadcasting duo almost everything – just don’t mention sex in the 90s. Plus, Garry Kasparov asks if the US is sliding into a pseudo dictatorship

BBC broadcasting besties Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley follow those who have enjoyed new freedom in the podcast world. In a breezy series, which was nearly called “Jo and Zo’s Big Bushes”, they invite listeners to ask them questions on subjects from kids to gardening, interiors, music and the menopause. What they won’t be talking about, Zoe confirms, is band members they slept with in the 90s. Sorry! Hollie Richardson
Widely available, episodes weekly

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Scarlet Page

© Photograph: Scarlet Page

© Photograph: Scarlet Page

Andy Kalli discovered cocaine at the age of 29, and was soon blowing almost everything he earned on drugs. Twenty-four years later he finally hit rock bottom

For 24 years, Andy Kalli was addicted to crack cocaine. He lost contact with his family and sold his possessions – even his dad’s sovereign ring – to fund his addiction. But three years ago, at 61, he started working for a rehab centre. Now, he says, “I save lives. I make a difference.” The cork board full of thank you cards in his office agrees.

Kalli works as service manager at the Perry Clayman Project in Luton, Bedfordshire, and likes to advise clients not to apologise. “Because how many times have I apologised?” he says. “Don’t say sorry. Your families have heard it a thousand times.” It’s by making change that “you’ll be making amends,” he says.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Carrier says Horizon Air flights also suspended while not specifying reasons for outage causing fleet’s second grounding in a year

US carrier Alaska Airlines grounded its flights after an IT outage on Sunday that affected its systems, the company said, without specifying the nature of the outage, marking the second time it has grounded its fleet in just over a year.

“At approximately 8pm Pacific on Sunday (0300 GMT on Monday), Alaska Airlines experienced an IT outage that’s impacting our operations,” the carrier said in a statement. “We requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/AP

© Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/AP

© Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/AP

‘It’s an incredibly varied donation. He clearly held on to his books, some of them are quite old,’ says bookshop worker

Nick Cave fans have descended on a charity bookshop in Hove, in southern England, after the musician donated 2,000 books from his personal collection.

The Australian singer made the donation to Hove’s Oxfam Bookshop on Blatchington Road. The books were once part of his personal library, which was recreated for an art installation that went to Denmark and Canada.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

• Australia 88-79 Japan in Women’s Asia Cup final played in China

• Alex Fowler hits 15 points in decider and named tournament MVP

Australia’s Opals survived a late comeback by Japan to win the Women’s Asia Cup for the first time on Sunday.

With a breakthrough Asia Cup title now under their belt, the Opals can turn their attention to next year’s Women’s Basketball World Cup in Germany full of confidence.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

Overhaul prompted by public anger at pollution and high pay

A Florida "predator" was given a slap on the wrist after pleading guilty to luring rich men to hotels, pepper-spraying them, and robbing them of their luxury watches.

Russia bombarded Ukraine's capital city with drones and missiles Sunday night, killing at least one person and striking the entrance to a subway station where hundreds were sheltering.

It's Caitlin Clark's third injury stint of the season.

A ninefold increase is the result of huge advances in our understanding – and brings the hope of fulfilling lives to many more people

• Gina Rippon is an emeritus professor of cognitive neuroimaging and author of The Lost Girls of Autism

Soaring rates of diagnoses in various illnesses such as cancer and diabetes have stimulated a debate about whether medicine has an “overdiagnosis” problem. The claim is that individuals may be prematurely diagnosed with conditions that, although meeting criteria for a disease, will never cause symptoms or death during a patient’s lifetime.

Discussions of this problem in the world of physical medicine have mainly been described as compassionate, arising from concerns that many so-called diagnoses might be unnecessary (does being pre-diabetic really mean you are ill?) or even harmful (the worried well being driven to seek needless and possibly damaging surgical interventions). Now that there are ever-more sensitive screening tests, and access to predictive genetic information, are doctors handing out too many unnecessary sicknotes?

Prof Gina Rippon is emeritus professor of cognitive neuroimaging at the Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment, Aston University, and the author of The Lost Girls of Autism and The Gendered Brain

Continue reading...

© Photograph: John Gaffen/Alamy

© Photograph: John Gaffen/Alamy

© Photograph: John Gaffen/Alamy

Continue reading...

© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian

© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian

© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian

Transformed from a second world war bunker into Germany’s buzziest dance venue, the acoustics at Open Ground in Wuppertal are raved about by DJs such as Floating Points – and may even be good for your health

It’s 8pm when DJ Lag steps up to the booth for his sound check at Open Ground, a dance venue in western Germany. It has been described as the “best-sounding new club in the world”, and when the first track plays you can hear why.

Rotund bass lines roll across the acoustically treated room, propelled by an extraordinarily powerful, horn-loaded bass enclosure named the Funktion-One F132. High-pitched melodies and intricate textures develop with startling clarity. And as for the call-and-response ad-libs – they sound as if the vocalists are standing only metres away.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jonas Mokosch

© Photograph: Jonas Mokosch

© Photograph: Jonas Mokosch

Alaska Airlines has requested a ground stop for all its mainline aircraft, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) status page said on Sunday.

• First T20I: WI 189-8, Aus 190-7; Australia win by 3 wkts

• Debutant blasts six sixes in match-turning half-century

Mitch Owen has dazzled on his international debut with a power-hitting masterclass that helped rescue Australia on the way to a three-wicket victory over the West Indies. With Australia using the five-match series in the Caribbean as an opportunity to test the next generation and build depth for the longer term, Owen wasted no time in showing that he could be part of the future with a gamechanging half-century.

Australia still had to call on the more experienced Ben Dwarshuis and Sean Abbott to guide them home at the death, as the tourists reached 190 to win with seven balls to spare in the first T20I at Sabina Park.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Randy Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Randy Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Randy Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

A man on death row in Florida is scheduled to be executed next month for his conviction of abducting a woman from an insurance office and killing her.

The NFLPA’s nightmare saga has a new chapter. 

Driving through Manchester one Sunday, at the wheel of a Nissan Micra, Foot suddenly woke from decades of anxiety, anger and misery. He talks about the friends who tried to help him, and the forgiveness he struggled to find

For three years and four months, Paul Foot has been living in a state of joy. He is in it now, he says, sitting across a table, overlooking London’s Regent’s canal. He’s wearing one of his trademark blue LF Markey boilersuits, and seems serene rather than ecstatic, half smiling. But that’s because the joy doesn’t spike or yo-yo. It’s a “constant”, so reliable that even when someone he knows dies, “there’s still a peace beneath it and a joy in it as well”.

Life was not always like this, and the story of how Foot, 51, overturned 28 years of “crushing, all-encompassing depression and anxiety” is told in his critically acclaimed 2023 show Dissolve, the filmed special of which is released this week.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Encouraging institutions to get bigger by taking risks is the opposite of what Reeves should do

Britain should look to the likes of Singapore and Abu Dhabi, which understand the importance of smart, fast regulation

More than a decade after an economic crisis triggered an exodus, government seeks to rebuild its workforce