The Guardian News

• Board ‘really good and positive’ at ‘difficult time’

• Gunners visit WSL leaders Manchester City on Sunday

Renée Slegers says she has felt the full support of Arsenal’s board and praised her senior players for showing “monumental leadership” this week as she vows to find solutions to recent poor form before Sunday’s pivotal trip to Manchester City.

One win in five matches has put Slegers under mounting pressure. Arsenal let slip a two-goal lead to draw at Paris FC in the Women’s ­Champions League on Wednesday and in the WSL they have slipped seven points behind City, the ­leaders and defending champions, having scored only twice in their four league games.

Opposition lawmakers join forces to defeat proposals made by Socialist-led coalition after eviction of 87-year-old

Rightwing lawmakers in Spain have rejected emergency measures put forward to tackle the country’s housing crisis, pitting a fractured parliament against the widespread protest movement that has swelled in recent days.

On Friday Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition put forward two decrees that included a range of measures aimed at improving access to housing, from a ban on evictions until 2030 to the regulation of temporary lettings and lettings by room.

Kathy Hochul briefs journalists with state attorney general Letitia James, who will be taking over the entire case

• Letitia James appointed special prosecutor in alleged gang-rape at Cornell

Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, said on Friday that she would “ensure” that all the facts of the alleged gang-rape at a fraternity house at Cornell University “are brought into the light”, while harshly criticizing the elite institution for how it handled the 2024 case.

Hochul, a Democrat, said the woman in the case, was “failed” by people obligated to protect her, including the police and the county prosecutor.

American in Paris showcases new simplicity with stretch cocktail frocks, but there’s still plenty of gold-foiled nipples and peekaboo fabrics to wow the frow

In a world of mega brands, the house of Schiaparelli is small but perfectly formed. There are only 10 points of sale worldwide where Schiaparelli clothes can be bought. The size of the business has risen from $6m in 2020 to around $100m today, but Schiaparelli is still small fry compared with other names on the Paris catwalks.

However, the Schiaparelli name punches above its weight. An exhibition at London’s V&A museum this year made a strong case for its founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, who collaborated with Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, as a creative force in the surrealism movement of the 1930s.

The 1938 mansion, Casa Encantada, once belonged to Conrad Hilton and was sold at foreclosure auction

The tech billionaire Peter Thiel has been revealed as the new owner of a storied Bel-Air estate that quietly sold in July for a staggering $130m.

The 1938 mansion, Casa Encantada, was sold at an open-air foreclosure auction in Pomona, with the name of the buyer kept under wraps for months. The winning bid is now revealed to have come from a limited liability company linked to the venture capitalist and PayPal and Palantir co-founder, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the buyer’s identity.

Maariyah Seedat wonders at what point does her family become ‘English’ enough, Mark James Slater has always regarded himself as British and not English. Plus letters from Dr Richard Seabrook and Alan Baker

Jason Okundaye’s piece on defining Englishness mirrored my own experiences as a member of an ethnic minority (Of course you can be English if you’re not white. So why can’t the right leave the question alone?, 26 September).

As a child, growing up in multicultural Leicester in the 1990s and 2000s, I was “corrected” by adults in positions of authority – the vast majority of whom were white – for wanting to call myself English. It was a descriptor that I could not claim and, implicitly, was not my right because of my skin colour. I learned very quickly that referring to myself as British was the better, less objectionable option.

Readers respond to an article by Will Hutton and Andy Haldane suggesting that they could be run for the public benefit

Will Hutton and Andy Haldane advocate “turning [utilities] into public-benefit companies with a primary, constitutional objective of delivering high-quality services, with profitability subordinate to that broader aim” (Andy Burnham talks about ‘public control’ of the utilities but it’s a minefield. We can lead him through it, 25 September). So still companies, but with a public interest rather than a profit motive. This is still the wrong approach.

Utilities should not be run as businesses but as essential public services. They do not function in isolation, and business models are unsuited to their functioning in the public interest. They have social and environmental as well as economic responsibilities that have to be met. For 20 years, prior to the advent of the Scottish parliament, local government functioned well in Scotland within a framework of regions and districts. The regions had powers and responsibilities for the wide range of functions that had to be coordinated and operated strategically at the regional level. They included water and sewerage.

A German service matches retired professionals to firms that use their experience, writes Alan Coppin, responding to an article about a 90-year-old Japanese competitive bodybuilder

Your feature on the 90-year-old bodybuilder Toshisuke Kanazawa was a joy (‘I’m 100% natural’: how Japan’s 90-year-old bodybuilder is still winning titles, 25 September), but it’s also a useful provocation. Almost 30% of Japan’s 123.7 million people are over 64 yet, rather than being written off, people like Kanazawa are still contributing well into their 90s.

Britain does the opposite. Between 670,000 and 860,000 people drop out of the UK workforce annually, and by their 60s more than a third of people are economically inactive. The loss is a stock of judgment and knowhow that simply walks out of the door.

Measures of wellbeing should carry real weight in decisions about tax, spending and public services, says Sarah Davidson

Re your editorial on Andy Burnham’s conference speech (29 September), the outcome that all governments should seek is a real improvement to people’s lives, particularly for those with the least, and without storing up problems for future generations. But that requires ministers to measure what matters and use that evidence to guide decisions.

The good news for the prime minister and his colleagues is that the Office for National Statistics already collects robust evidence about our lives through its UK Measures of National Well-being Dashboard. Yet there is little suggestion that this sort of data has been driving policy, including tax and spending plans.

Exclusive: Education secretary sends Ofsted back to ‘drawing board’ as teachers raise serious concerns about new system

School inspections in England will be overhauled for the second time in a year, after a barrage of complaints that the new system was dangerously stressful and damaging teachers’ mental health.

Lucy Powell, the education secretary, will tell the schools regulator Ofsted to “go back to the drawing board” after becoming concerned that inspection changes overseen by her predecessor, Bridget Phillipson, were creating problems for headteachers.

Experts say that if you’re eating any berry – strawberries, blackberries, currants, raspberries, blueberries – you are benefiting

Sprinkled on top of yoghurt, blended into smoothies or baked into crumbles, berries are among Americans’ favorite fruits.

Luckily, berries are as healthy as they are delicious and versatile: low in calories, full of vitamins and antioxidants, and a good source of fiber. Research shows that, depending on the type, berries support cardiovascular health, may boost gut health and fight inflammation and show promise as part of a “healthy dietary strategy for diabetes prevention and management”, to quote researchers. Meta-analyses also link compounds in berries with improved cognitive health.

Exclusive: Party leader says outcome of ‘knife-edge’ vote in Keir Starmer’s former seat will not affect his position

Zack Polanski has said his authority as leader of the Green party of England and Wales does not depend on winning next week’s Holborn and St Pancras byelection, amid suggestions the party’s popularity may have peaked.

Polanski, who is trying to take Keir Starmer’s former seat from Labour, described the contest as “probably 50/50 right now” and “really on a knife edge”.

Rolling stock companies, which also paid out nearly £400m to shareholders, accused of profiting at passengers’ expense

The chief executives of three firms that rent out trains to Britain’s railways were paid a combined £3.5m last year as they passed on almost £400m to shareholders in dividends.

Rail unions accused the rolling stock companies (Roscos) of raking in profits at passengers’ expense.

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US lawmakers say operating in region where Muslim minorities face mass detention is ‘morally bankrupt’

US lawmakers have urged Starbucks to close newly opened outlets in China’s Xinjiang, saying it was a “morally bankrupt decision” to operate in a region where Beijing has been accused of widespread human rights abuses against Muslim minorities.

The coffeehouse chain, which last year sold a controlling stake in its China retail business to the Hong Kong-based investment firm Boyu Capital, opened two stores in the region on Tuesday.

Experts sceptical flydubai co-pilot’s only motivation was to end his own life and say key question is means of radicalisation

At about 9.30 on Wednesday morning local time, Tali Manes was taking her six-year-old daughter, Nina, to the toilet on the regular flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when she heard a series of heavy blows against the cockpit door.

Manes, an Israeli bank executive, immediately told a flight attendant seated nearby that something was wrong. When he did not react, she shouted at him: “Something is happening in there!” Seconds later, the man “simply went to the [cockpit] door and opened it”, Manes told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.

Title rivals bring upgrades to first Grand Prix in Malaysia since 2017 on a demanding but well liked circuit

While the byzantine nomenclature of this weekend’s “Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia” will have Formula One’s statisticians muttering darkly under their breath for years to come, the import of the sport’s return to the Sepang circuit remains all too straightforward at the sharp end. Complicated only perhaps by a Red Bull resurgence and an enthused Max Verstappen, determined to make his mark on the championship run-in.

The return to Malaysia for its first race since 2017 has been welcomed in F1. It is a much-liked circuit among drivers, albeit the high temperatures and humidity make for an enormous physical challenge.

Rhun ap Iorwerth tells Plaid Cymru conference he asked PM to ‘put Wales on equal footing with Scotland as bare minimum’

The Welsh first minister has formally called on Andy Burnham to deliver a “new deal” in his first address to a Plaid Cymru annual conference since taking office.

Rhun ap Iorwerth told party members during a keynote speech in Llandudno on Friday that his government had a “clear mandate” for devolving more powers from Westminster.

Australians are conversing less every year, with a recent study showing we lost an average of 338 spoken words each day between 2005 and 2019

We talk a lot about losing our ability to write as a result of AI. I’m convinced our greatest loss might be our ability to listen. Listening to different views and entering into different worlds is integral to our humanity.

But Australians are conversing less every year. While rapidly evolving AI tools and chatbots promise faster responses and so-called “empathetic” listening, a recent study showed we lost an average of 338 spoken words each day between 2005 and 2019. That adds up to a staggering loss of 120,000 spoken words per person, compared with the year before.