Chancellor to give Downing Street speech as markets open and is expected to be ‘candid’ about choices to fill fiscal gap

Keir Starmer perhaps gave a clearer hint as to what is coming in the budget when he addressed Labour MPs in private last night at a meeting of the PLP (parliamentary Labour party). This is what Jessica Elgot and Pippa Crerar are reporting in their splash story.

Starmer told MPs on Monday night it would be a “Labour budget built on Labour values” and promised it would protect the NHS, reduce debt and ease the cost of living.

The prime minister gave MPs a hint at how the government would frame its potential manifesto breach – saying it was “becoming clearer that the long-term impact of Tory austerity, their botched Brexit deal and the pandemic on Britain’s productivity is worse than even we feared”.

Later this month, I will deliver my second budget as chancellor.

At that budget, I will make the choices necessary to deliver strong foundations for our economy – for this year, and years to come.

• Kyler Murray said to be not ready after foot problems

• Dallas fall to 3-5-1 as Arizona move to 3-5 with win

Jacoby Brissett had a stock answer ready for the question of whether the Arizona quarterback has done enough to be the replacement, not just the fill-in, for Kyler Murray. Coach Jonathan Gannon barely had an answer at all. The Cardinals will worry about what appears to be a full-blown controversy later. For now, they’ll enjoy ending a five-game losing streak.

Brissett threw for two touchdowns and ran for a score in another game with Murray sidelined by a foot injury, and the Cardinals beat the Dallas Cowboys 27-17 on Monday night. Brissett made his third consecutive start after the week began with expectations of Murray returning coming off the team’s open week.

The story of hot tea and unconsummated love hails from a very different era – and was far from easy to make. Yet it remains a key influence for film-makers from Sofia Coppola to Celine Song, James Ivory to Greta Gerwig

The first time David Lean’s 1945 romantic masterpiece was shown to the public, the audience were in stitches. It not being a comedy, this was far from ideal. The director was so embarrassed, he returned to his hotel planning to break into the film lab and burn the negative at the earliest opportunity.

Eighty years on, the legacy of Brief Encounter has proved anything but. First, its train station setting and ubiquity on British TV led to parodies by everyone from Victoria Wood to Birds Eye ready meals.

Nasser Abu Srour says prisons became like ‘another front’ in Gaza war and tells of struggle to adjust to life outside

A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war.

Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exile to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.

Cut-price watch offers most of what makes the Series 11 great, including an always-on screen, watchOS 26 and wrist-flick gesture

Apple’s entry level Watch SE has been updated with almost everything from its excellent mid-range Series 11 but costs about 40% less, making it the bargain of iPhone smartwatches.

The new Watch SE 3 costs from £219 (€269/$249/A$399), making it one of the cheapest brand-new fully fledged smartwatches available for the iPhone and undercutting the £369 Series 11 and the top-of-the-line £749 Apple Watch Ultra 3.

A quarter century after that landmark cult novel, this new epic has aspects of brilliance but seems designed for academic study rather than readerly enjoyment

In this moment of cultural panic about the decline of reading, it takes an enviable confidence to deliver a volume such as Tom’s Crossing. Weighing in at more than 1,200 pages of closely printed text, the novel contains, I would hazard, about half a million words – roughly two Ulysses. It’s also, for that matter, about twice the length of Danielewski’s debut, House of Leaves, which secured cult status for its author on publication 25 years ago. Tom’s Crossing is so big that when I got it out on the tube, I felt like that character on Trigger Happy TV with his enormous mobile phone. “Look,” I seemed to be telling the passengers scrolling Instagram on their devices, “I’m reading a book!”

The novel is not merely long, it’s also a challenging, deliberately arcane work that insists on its own epic status, yet has at its heart a straightforward and compelling story. Kalin March, a 16-year-old nerdy outsider in the town of Orvop in Utah, is a preternaturally talented horse rider. Through a shared love of horses, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with handsome and popular Tom Gatestone.

“Earlier that afternoon, when for some reason Allison’s thoughts had angrily returned to the curse she’d laid upon Kalin before he’d left, warnin him from guns, makin it clear by insubstantial decree that even handlin a gun might cost him the horses he loved, and for the rest of his life, she and Sondra had returned to the Isatch Canyon parkin lot, where they’d promptly learned about the great rockfall.”

From sharks to rays, from island cliffs to the tribes of Africa’s Omo Valley, Cristina Mittermeier’s show A Greater Wisdom celebrates the beauty of our planet – and highlights the biggest threats it faces

Laid-back clubs proving a hit in London, Birmingham and elsewhere as people look for new ways to socialise

One of the liveliest spots on a Tuesday night in east London’s Brick Lane isn’t a restaurant or a streetwear brand pop-up, it’s a chess club – or chess club-nightclub hybrid, to be exact.

Knight Club is the unlikely crossover between chess and London’s fervent nightlife scene. It was started by Yusuf Ntahilaja, 27, who began his first chess club in August 2023 at a smaller bar in Aldgate, not too far from the current location at Café 1001 on Brick Lane.

After a colleague had the bright idea of a workplace version of the hit BBC show, I lied and cheated with impunity. Then the strain began to show

There aren’t many people who understand the stress that the celebrity Traitors Cat Burns and Alan Carr have been feeling as their stint wearing that famous green cloak draws to an end – but I do. I spent four weeks lying, cheating and murdering friends and colleagues in our office version of The Traitors.

I almost lost my mind.

Ed Campbell is a journalist who reports on British culture, politics and the internet. He also co-hosts the PoliticsJOE podcast

Minister says obligations for school boards to ‘give effect’ to the treaty are unfair while critics argue the move will sideline Indigenous education

• New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi – explained in 30 seconds

A plan by New Zealand’s government to scrap a legal requirement on schools to incorporate local Māori culture in classrooms has been condemned by teachers, principals and school boards.

Since 2020, school boards have been obligated to “give effect” to the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document signed in 1840 between Māori tribes and the British Crown and instrumental in upholding Māori rights.

• Melham becomes second woman to win famous race over 3200m

• Jockey and horse complete Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double

Jockey Jamie Melham became the second woman to win the Melbourne Cup after Half Yours saluted on a wet track under cloudy skies at Flemington, in front of around 80,000 spectators. The five-year-old gelding – the only Australian-bred horse in the race – finished two lengths ahead of Goodie Two Shoes, with Middle Earth third.

Interviewed on the track immediately afterwards, Melham, who created history as the first female jockey to complete the Caulfield-Melbourne Cups double, said: “What just happened? Oh my god”.

Democratic leaders decry ‘unbelievably cruel’ move, saying ‘Trump is using food as a weapon’ during shutdown

Senate Republicans shot down a Democratic-led attempt to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits on Monday during the government shutdown – a move that heightens uncertainty for the 42 million Americans participating in the country’s biggest anti-hunger program.

Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, attempted to pass a resolution via unanimous consent that would have forced the Department of Agriculture to fund Snap benefits for the month of November.

Guardian US writer Adam Gabbatt and columnist Mehdi Hasan explore how Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani came from nowhere to the brink of becoming mayor of New York City

A year ago, Zohran Mamdani was a political nobody. On Tuesday, as New Yorkers head to the polls, he is the overwhelming favourite to become the city’s next mayor.

Guardian US writer Adam Gabbatt charts his rise from his radical campaign promises to his savvy social media videos, and explores how this most unlikely of candidates – a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, Muslim, born outside the US – has propelled himself to the summit of the city’s politics.

Throngs of people took to the streets, and Dodger Stadium, to mark team’s nail-biting win against Toronto Blue Jays

The City of Angels erupted in celebration following the Los Angeles Dodgers’ nail-biting, seven game World Series win. Angelenos joined fans around the world in jubilation as the Dodgers became the first team in 25 years to secure back-to-back championships.

Los Angeles area celebrations included a downtown parade on Monday morning, a ticketed rally at Dodger Stadium and a smattering of spontaneous parties across the city.

When Donald Trump set about dismantling USAID, many around the world were shocked. But on the ground in Sierra Leone, the latest betrayal was not unexpected

Earlier this year, Donald Trump appointed a 28-year-old Doge alumnus, Jeremy Lewin, to oversee his administration’s approach to global aid. Lewin’s primary task has been to gut the US’s aid funding. In an interview with the New York Times, Lewin argued that the traditional approach, which he termed the “global humanitarian complex”, didn’t help poor countries “progress beyond aid”, instead keeping them dependent. The system, he continued, has “demonstrably failed”.

This isn’t just the Trump administration’s view. For decades, there has been a robust debate in academic and policy circles, discussed over drinks by development practitioners, written about by critical economists and postcolonial independence leaders, and percolating into the broader consciousness, that aid isn’t working, or at least not as promised. When the news of Trump’s USAID cuts broke this year, President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia told the Financial Times that cuts in aid were “long overdue” and would force countries such as his to “take care of our own affairs”.

Facing allegations he insists are politically motivated, Pedro Sánchez has cast doubt on independence of some members of judiciary

Despite spending the past 18 months variously defending his wife, his brother, his party, his attorney general and his government against a relentless slew of corruption allegations, Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has not entirely lost his sense of humour.

Three weeks ago, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the opposition conservative People’s party (PP), rattled off the familiar litany of accusations and concluded by suggesting the man sitting opposite him in congress was neither “a decent or worthy prime minister” but rather a seasoned enabler of corruption. After the giddy applause that greeted Feijóo’s speech from the PP benches had died down, Sánchez rose to his feet and uttered two words.

Giorgia Meloni, Sophia Loren and writer Francesca Barra among prominent figures to have ‘nudified’ photos posted on sexist forums

As she reeled from the discovery of a pornographic website featuring AI-generated images of herself naked, the prominent Italian journalist and writer Francesca Barra said the question that struck her the most came from her young daughter.

“She asked me: ‘how do you feel?’,” Barra, 47, said. “But what I heard was another more subtle question that my pre-adolescent daughter perhaps didn’t have the courage to ask, and that was: ‘If it happened to me, how would I handle it?’.”

The 22-year-old history student spent almost two years on a popular French quiz show – becoming a multimillionaire in the process. He discusses the importance of curiosity, frugality and 10-11 hours sleep a night

Being a TV general-knowledge quiz champion is a funny kind of fame, because random strangers want to test you on all sorts of trivia. “Sometimes I’ll be walking down the street, a car slows, the window goes down and someone screams: ‘Capital of Brunei?’ I answer and they drive off – it’s amusing really,” says Émilien, a 22-year-old history student who this summer became not only the most successful French gameshow contestant of all time, but the biggest gameshow winner in European history and the world record-holder for the most solo consecutive appearances on a TV quizshow.

And everyone, of course, wants to know how he did it.

The Berlin airlift was a cold war victory that relied on a persuasive story about starving civilians. But was it true?

We in the west used to play dirty – and during the cold war, we were good at it. Nowadays, we leave grey-zone tactics and hybrid warfare to Russia, which is winning the disinformation war. Europe’s pride in playing by the rules might just be democracy’s achilles heel.

The Berlin airlift is a good example of what we once did well – and have since forgotten. The cold war arguably began and ended in Berlin, bookended by the 1948-9 airlift and the fall of the wall in 1989. The former was the largest air relief operation in history. It supplied Berlin when Stalin tried to force out the western allies. In parallel, the west used radio (RIAS, or Radio in the American Sector, a precursor to the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty), and strengthened soft power with cultural missions such as the British-staged Shakespeare in the rubble, and education through American-run libraries and courses.

Joseph Pearson is a historian who lectures at the Barenboim-Said Akademie and New York University in Berlin. His book The Airlift, is out in the UK and comes out in North America as Sweet Victory, in December.

Construction of 182-metre tall lift has been halted after outrage from locals on the Indonesian tourist island

It is famed for resembling the silhouette of a T rex. But the view of Kelingking beach in Bali will never be the same again, due to the construction of a new, 182-metre tall glass elevator that is meant to increase tourism to the area.

Kelingking Beach sits on the coast of Nusa Penida, an island off Bali about a 45-minute ferry ride from Denpasar. The site is popular on the tourist track, with a breathtaking aerial view of a rock formation resembling a dinosaur and a treacherous path to the beach below.

The musician, who also provided backing vocals on Suspicious Minds and When a Man Loves a Woman, died of cancer in Nashville on Sunday

Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, a soulful mezzo-soprano who provided backing vocals on such 1960s classics as Suspicious Minds and When a Man Loves a Woman and was a featured singer with the Grateful Dead for much of the 1970s, has died aged 78.

A spokesperson for Godchaux-MacKay confirmed that she died of cancer on Sunday at Alive hospice in Nashville.

Click here to submit a picture for publication in these online galleries and/or on the Guardian letters page

Police are often not equipped to deal with mental health callouts. Alternative first responders are better placed to de-escalate tension and reduce harm

When police tasered and killed Clare Nowland – a 95-year-old aged care resident with dementia – after her nursing home called triple zero for help managing her behaviour, her family were devastated and the public was shocked.

How could a frail and elderly woman on a walking frame, albeit grasping a steak knife, die in such a violent way?

Chancellor to promise ‘fairness and opportunity’ but will not repeat manifesto pledge on tax, after PM’s hint at breach

Rachel Reeves will lay the groundwork for a tax-raising budget that could break Labour’s election promise on income tax, in a major speech in which she will be “candid” about the tough choices ahead.

The chancellor will give the speech as the markets open on Tuesday, when she will promise to make fair choices at this month’s budget but decline to repeat her manifesto pledge of no rise in income tax, VAT or national insurance.