Jessica Guo hiked 30 miles a day, becoming the first woman to continuously hike two historic US trails in a calendar year

Jessica Guo had only slept for two-and-a-half hours on an overnight bus when she arrived at the Mexico-US border near Lordsburg, New Mexico, in April. Out of the window she saw a flat, shadeless landscape. First-day jitters had Guo questioning what she was doing there.

The former consultant had left corporate America to attempt something no woman had completed: a single, continuous hike of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and the Great Divide Trail (GDT) in one calendar year.

Reform’s leader may hope to tread a similar path to Italy’s prime minister, but she is an experienced parliamentarian open to collaboration and compromise

One of the more striking images from June’s G7 summit showed a small group of world leaders engaged in an impromptu and informal evening chat at the venue’s restaurant. In the foreground of that photo was a familiar blond head: Giorgia Meloni.

During her three years as the Italian prime minister, Meloni has moved beyond her hard-right populism, not to mention her fascism-adjacent origins, to earn at least the respect of other leaders – Keir Starmer among them – for her pragmatism and flexibility. Among those watching this transformation from the sidelines will be the man hoping to be Starmer’s replacement: Nigel Farage.

A handful of nuts a day can help manage obesity and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some kinds of cancer. Yet most of us don’t get enough. Here’s a no-fuss guide to getting your 30g a day

How often do you eat nuts? The planetary health diet, introduced in 2019 and updated last month, recommends that everyone eat a portion every day (unless you have an allergy). Alongside eating more fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, and fewer animal products and sugary foods, this could help prevent 40,000 early deaths a day across the world, as well as slash food-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet according to Prof Sarah Berry, the chief scientist at Zoe, many don’t eat any nuts at all. In the UK, the average consumption is 6g a day. Romanian researchers found higher levels of nut consumption in Canada, some African countries and some regions of Europe and the Middle East, and lower levels in South America. But overall, they said: “Consumers may not have a comprehensive understanding of the multiple benefits that nuts might bring.”

In the Royal Court’s Porn Play, Ambika Mod stars as an academic hiding a damaging addiction. She and the drama’s creators discuss the challenges of staging masturbation, and getting audiences to relate to its troubled lead

In Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s Porn Play, which has just opened at London’s Royal Court, Ani is a 30-year-old academic at the frontier of intellectual discovery: she’s winning awards for her radical revision of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, effortlessly earning the admiration of her mentor and her students alike. She’s also addicted to violent pornography and is masturbating constantly. She can’t stay in a real-life sexual moment, but she can’t stay in a real-life conversation, either – constantly reaching for her phone, watching porn and wanking, often in situations just about believable yet so outlandishly wrong that reading the play, and observing Ani’s career and relationships unravel, is like being trapped in someone’s anxiety dream.

So it’s quite a bold choice of role for the person playing Ani, Ambika Mod. Since starring in This Is Going to Hurt in 2022, but even more so since One Day last year, she has become known, in her words, “for playing very noble characters who die”. Mod has the world of romantic leads at her feet – a beautiful, relatable everywoman, who could tell you the truth of the human heart with one raised eyebrow. Starring in a play whose opening scene has her on all fours atop a mirror, in a frenzy of narcissistic delight, whose every action is centred on her body … well, it feels like it must have been a decision to wrestle with?

A dangerous faith in AI is sweeping American healthcare – with consequences for the basis of society itself

The computer interrupted while Pamela was still speaking. I had accompanied her – my dear friend – to a recent doctor’s appointment. She is in her 70s, lives alone while navigating multiple chronic health issues, and has been getting short of breath climbing the front stairs to her apartment. In the exam room, she spoke slowly and self-consciously, the way people often do when they are trying to describe their bodies and anxieties to strangers. Midway through her description of how she had been feeling, the doctor clicked his mouse and a block of text began to bloom across the computer monitor.

The clinic had adopted an artificial-intelligence scribe, and it was transcribing and summarizing the conversation in real time. It was also highlighting keywords, suggesting diagnostic possibilities and providing billing codes. The doctor, apparently satisfied that his computer had captured an adequate description of Pamela’s chief complaint and symptoms, turned away from us and began reviewing the text on the screen as Pamela kept speaking.

Climate summit in Brazil needs to find way to stop global heating accelerating amid stark divisions

“It broke my heart.” Surangel Whipps, president of the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, was sitting in the front row of the UN’s general assembly in New York when Donald Trump made a long and rambling speech, his first to the UN since his re-election, on 23 September.

Whipps was prepared for fury and bombast from the US president, but what followed was shocking. Trump’s rant on the climate crisis – a “green scam”, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated”, “predictions made by stupid people” – was an unprecedented attack on science and global action from a major world leader.

Exclusive: Almost half of families flagged as emigrants based on Home Office travel data were still living in UK

Home Office travel records used in a trial of a controversial anti-fraud crackdown under which thousands of parents lost their child benefit were so flawed that almost half of the families initially flagged as having emigrated were still living in the UK, it has emerged.

The pilot scheme saved HMRC £17m but left 46% of the families targeted incorrectly suspected of fraud, a margin of error far in excess of the 1% to 5% scientifically acceptable.

Royals joined by senior politicians at Cenotaph in London and events are held across UK to honour those who have died in conflicts

Veterans of the second world war were applauded as they arrived at the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, before being joined by royals and senior politicians to honour those who have died in conflict.

King Charles laid the first wreath in recognition of those killed in wars and conflicts dating back to the first world war. He was followed by his son, the Prince of Wales.

Andrew Walters has proposed a new town council in Broughton Park to meet the unique needs of the growing Orthodox and Haredi populations

On the surface, Broughton Park, in Salford, Greater Manchester, is a typical slice of British suburbia.

Leafy streets wind off a hill, lined with period properties, in an area where house prices have risen fast in recent years as families move there from across the UK, and abroad, attracted by the local way of life.

Exclusive: Leading ecologists say warnings over threat to wildlife have been ignored in drive to build 1.5m new homes

The scale of lobbying of ministers by developers on Labour’s landmark planning changes, which seek to rip up environmental rules to boost growth, can be exposed as campaigners make last-ditch attempts to secure protections for nature.

The government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March. Before and after the bill’s publication the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook have met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. The body representing professional ecologists, meanwhile, has not met one minister despite requests to do so.