The author has been explaining Sichuan cuisine to westerners for decades. But ‘Fu Xia’, as she’s known, has had a profound effect on food lovers in China, too

Every autumn in the mid-00s, when I lived in China, my friend Scarlett Li would invite me to Shanghai to eat hairy crab. Named for the spiky fur on their legs and claws, the crabs are said to have the best flavour during the ninth month of the lunar calendar. They’re steamed and served whole, with a dip of rice vinegar spiked with ginger. The most prized specimens come from Yangcheng Lake near Suzhou, which is not far from Scarlett’s home town of Wuxi. She had moved to Hong Kong as a child, attended high school and college in Australia, and returned to China to pursue a career as an entrepreneur. Despite her years abroad, she remained Chinese through and through – and eating hairy crab with her, I became Chinese, too.

Beginning in the Tang dynasty in the seventh century, crabs were harvested from the lakes and estuaries of the Yangtze delta and sent as tribute to the imperial court. Twelfth-century Hangzhou had specialised crab markets and dedicated crab restaurants. “I have lusted after crabs all my life,” wrote the 17th-century playwright Li Yu. “From the first day of the crab season until the last day they are sold, I … do not let a single evening pass without eating them …. Dear crab, dear crab, you and I, are we to be lifelong companions?”

Scientists discover thousands of sea creatures have made their homes amid the detritus of abandoned second world war munitions off the coast of Germany

In the brackish waters off the German coast lies a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands of munitions have become matted together over the years. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.

Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.

At a youth detention centre in north-east England, the paedophile Neville Husband raped and assaulted countless boys. Why was his reign of terror allowed to go on – and why hasn’t there been a public inquiry?

When I met Kevin Young in 2012 he was in his early 50s, handsome, charismatic, smart – and utterly broken. The moment he started talking about Medomsley detention centre he was in tears.

Young was born in Newcastle, in 1959. At two, he was taken into care, and his parents were convicted of wilful neglect. At eight, at a school in Devon, he was sexually abused by the gardener. At 14, at St Camillus, a Catholic residential school in Yorkshire, he was sexually assaulted by the headteacher, James Bernard Littlewood. But none of this compared with his experience at Medomsley, a youth detention centre in north-east England.

Prime minister has accused the Samoa Observer of inaccurate reporting during his eight-week medical stay in New Zealand

Samoa’s only daily newspaper has been banned from attending press conferences with the Samoan prime minister, in a move that critics say threatens the democratic integrity of the Pacific nation.

Relations between La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Fosi Schmidt and the Samoa Observer have deteriorated in recent weeks, with the prime minister accusing the newspaper of inaccurate reporting during his eight-week medical stay in New Zealand.

True to his irreverent style, author of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) thanks his psychiatrist, his gastrointestinal doctors and his drug dealers

Rabih Alameddine has won the National book award for fiction for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), a darkly comic saga spanning six decades in the life of a Lebanese family.

The novel, which traverses a sprawling history of Lebanon including its civil war and economic collapse, is told through the eyes of its titular protagonist: a gay 63-year-old philosophy teacher confronting his past and his relationship with his mother and his homeland.

What will it take to improve women’s safety in Mexico? With Estefanía Vela Barba and Ann Deslandes

Earlier this month, the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was greeting citizens on the streets of Mexico City when a man groped her and tried to kiss her. A video of the incident quickly spread around the world.

Estefanía Vela Barba, an activist for women’s rights, tells Annie Kelly that while the president’s assault was shocking, Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman. The pair discuss the policies around women’s safety that Sheinbaum has subsequently announced and the importance of cultural change as well as legal reform.

Australia had been pushing to host climate conference next year with south Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters

Papua New Guinea has voiced frustration after Australia ditched a bid to co-host next year’s UN climate talks with its Pacific island neighbours.

“We are all not happy. And disappointed it’s ended up like this,” foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told Agence France-Presse after Australia ceded hosting rights to Turkey.

The interstellar visitor, known as 3I/Atlas, will be seen just in this instance, never to come back again

Nasa released close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas is only the third confirmed object to visit our corner of the cosmos from another star. It zipped harmlessly past Mars last month.

RSPCA says pet abandonments in England and Wales rose by almost 25% in 2025 compared with 2024

There is an “epidemic” of dogs, cats and other pets being abandoned as owners struggle to cope with the cost of living crisis, the UK’s largest animal welfare charity has said.

The RSPCA said abandonments in England and Wales had risen by almost 25% in 2025 compared with last year, reaching their highest rate for at least five years.

Molecular profiles will give detailed snapshot of person’s physiology and predict diseases from diabetes to cancer and dementia

The world’s largest study into key substances in the bloodstream has paved the way for a swathe of pinprick tests that can detect early signs of disease more than a decade before symptoms appear, researchers say.

Work on the tests follows the completion of a project by the UK Biobank to measure the levels of nearly 250 different proteins, sugars, fats and other compounds in blood collected from half a million volunteers.

• Forward makes claim about dressing room incident at Montpellier

• ‘It was hard to see it as merely a simple error,’ says Matildas star

Matildas star Mary Fowler has claimed she experienced racism while at Montpellier in 2022, when she was given bananas while others in the squad received flowers at the end of her final season with the French club.

The explosive revelations are contained in her memoir Bloom, which was released this week and details the extensive challenges she has faced in her young career, including a pattern of self-harm she has worked hard to overcome.

Brown University researchers run joint-and-drink study to find alcohol consumption falls after smoking cannabis

It turns out that going “California sober” may actually help you stay away from alcohol, according to new research published in the the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A team of Brown University researchers conducted a study in which participants were given marijuana joints to smoke and then sent out to a controlled “bar lab”, in which they then were given the choice to have up to eight mini alcoholic beverages. The experiment was conducted three separate times: once with 7.2% THC cannabis, once with 3.1% THC cannabis and once with 0.03% THC cannabis, which was considered a placebo.

More than 300 people most at risk are moved to shelters as tallest peak on Java island unleashes clouds of hot ash

Indonesia’s Mount Semeru, the highest peak on Java island, has erupted, blanketing several villages with falling ash, prompting evacuations and leading authorities to raise the alert to the highest level.

The volcano in East Java province unleashed searing clouds of hot ash and a mixture of rock, lava and gas that travelled up to 7km (4 miles) down its slopes several times from midday to dusk, while a thick column of hot clouds rose 2km into the air, Indonesia’s Geology Agency said in a statement.

President’s claim that Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with 2018 killing contradicts US intelligence

Donald Trump on Tuesday said that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, had nothing to do with the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose assassination in 2018 left the Saudi leader an international pariah.

But Trump’s own intelligence services, as well as a 2019 UN investigation, have painted a very different picture. The assassination took place inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where a 15-person team led by a close associate of Prince Mohammed was said to have drugged, murdered and dismembered Khashoggi in order to hide evidence of the crime.

Some may be nostalgic for a time when the landline made communication a family affair, before smartphones were an extension of each of us

When something becomes old and then new again during my lifetime, I might be forgiven for feeling at once quite aged and a little sentimental.

But suggestions that the landline telephone may be having a cultural renaissance just make me feel old and somewhat triggered by experiences of fraught teenage social negotiations over the long obsolete rotary dial phone of my youth.

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Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

Critics warn move could have devastating impact on lives and wellbeing of those affected

New Zealand has announced it is banning new prescriptions of puberty-blocking drugs for young transgender people, in a move that critics warned could worsen the mental health of those affected.

The step comes amid growing global debate about the number of adolescents seeking to change gender, dividing those concerned about hastiness in prescribing such medications and those worried about access to remedies they deem lifesaving.

Alessia Russo’s second-half double secured a 2-1 comeback victory for Arsenal against Real Madrid in the Women’s Champions League.

The hosts enjoyed plenty of opportunities during the first half but the former Arsenal player Caroline Weir sent the visitors ahead on the stroke of half-time with a brilliant volley.

JMW Turner left behind some 37,000 sketches when he died, many of which have rarely been seen. Do they – including a huge collection of explicit sketches – reveal truths about the elusive man?

The hook for Turner: the Secret Sketchbooks is meant to be that many of the 37,000 sketches left behind by the great British painter JMW Turner have rarely been seen and never been filmed; therein may be hints at the nuances of his elusive character that his main oeuvre kept hidden. Equally remarkable, though, is the documentary’s bold choice of contributors. As well as the art historians and present-day British artists who would dominate a standard art film, there are famous laymen, from the obviously somewhat qualified – Timothy Spall played the artist in Mike Leigh’s biographical film Mr Turner; Chris Packham is well placed to comment on Turner’s reverence for the natural world – to the more surprising hire of Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones.

Neither the sketchbooks nor the celebs turn the documentary format upside down, but they add something to a distillation of Turner’s life and legacy that balances accessibility with analytical muscle. Will a previously uninitiated viewer now be more likely to attend a Turner exhibition? Yes. Can existing Turner experts finesse their knowledge? Yes. Job done.

Fortnight-long event to be held in Antalya but Australia may lead negotiations

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Turkey will host the Cop31 climate conference after the Australian government dropped its push to hold the event in Adelaide at the last moment – despite having invested in a more than three-year campaign.

Independent sources confirmed to the Guardian that the fortnight-long event would be held in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya in November 2026.

The clip of the US president on Air Force One last Friday has taken off without much help from the media itself

It’s one outrage in days full of outrageous material.

“Quiet, piggy,” Donald Trump told a female reporter in a press gaggle, pointing his finger at her angrily.

Saad Almadi’s family thanks Trump and state department as announcement comes after meeting with crown prince

Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.

Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.

Autocrats like Prince Mohammed are eager to benefit from Trump’s brazen effort to use the presidency to enrich himself and his family

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, visited the US this week for the first time in seven years – and Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for his favorite Arab autocrat. On Tuesday, Trump hosted the prince for lunch and talks at the White House, followed by a black-tie dinner that included members of Congress, business leaders and top administration officials. The next day, Trump and the prince appeared together at a US-Saudi investment summit at the Kennedy Center.

It’s all part of a rehabilitation tour for Prince Mohammed, years after US intelligence agencies concluded that he had ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who dismembered his body with a bone saw. For a time, the killing turned Prince Mohammed into an international pariah. But Trump never wavered in his support of the Saudi leader, and during his first term protected the prince from US sanctions and pressure from Congress.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

Exclusive: A top official in Beijing’s Cop delegation says China is committed to clean energy – but US’s absence is a problem

China is committed to the energy transition needed to avert climate breakdown – but does not want to take the lead alone in the absence of the US, one of the country’s senior advisers has told the Guardian.

Wang Yi said China would provide more money to vulnerable countries, but the EU’s climate commissioner has warned Beijing is not doing enough to cut emissions.

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3 min: … so having said that, Kelly advances down the right and crosses. It’s a slight mishit, and nearly loops over Rodríguez’s head and into the top left! But the Real keeper adjusts to the situation quickly, backpedaling and plucking the ball from the sky, just under her crossbar.

2 min: Arsenal haven’t really had a sniff yet. Real are pressing hard and keeping the hosts in their own half. “There is chatter among the Arsenalati as to how soon Kyra Cooney-Cross will displace Kim Little,” begins Charles Antaki. “The latter is no youngster, though retiring from international football has kept her going for a while yet. But it’s stating the obvious that Arsenal have missed her composure and problem-solving in midfield these last games while she’s been injured. Cooney-Cross is always tidy and firm in her passing, but doesn’t seem to be so much of a schemer as Little, and inevitably Arsenal have certainly suffered from a lack of guile recently. Some smartness needed tonight.”