Search and rescue efforts under way after quake strikes region’s north, officials say, while at least seven aftershocks recorded

A magnitude-7 earthquake has hit China’s Tibet region, killing at least 16 people, injuring 54 and collapsing hundreds of homes in the northern regional city of Nagqu, official media said.

Search and rescue efforts continued after the collapse of at least 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds, the Nagqu media office said, citing city government officials.

People succumbed to heat at highest rates in Malta, Italy and Hungary, with health issues, loneliness and poverty exacerbating toll

Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths.

Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

Alois uses the first veto of his reign to quash parliament-approved bill backed by a national petition

The hereditary prince of Liechtenstein has used his veto for the first time in his reign to quash a bill aimed at bringing abortion laws in line with much of Europe.

The legislation was approved by Liechtenstein’s parliament last month after the presentation of a citizens’ initiative signed by roughly a quarter of the nation’s voters.

In 1996 doctors told me I wouldn’t walk again unaided, but in 2022 I took the record for the most Everest summits by a non-Sherpa

I grew up in Slough, Berkshire, in a bungalow beside a farm. My father was a scout leader, and I was always outside, building dams and dens, sleeping out and hiding in trees. In my teens, family holidays were two weeks in Wales. At home, nature was my playground.

When I was 17, a school friend took me to a climbing wall where he was a regular. I loved the physicality of it and trying to work out where to put my hands and feet next. We would go there twice a week. In sixth form, we headed to the south coast in Dorset for my first real climbing outing. The waves were crashing and it felt scary and exhilarating. I thought it was magical.

Activision; PC, PS5, Switch 2, Xbox
From parkour over Manhattan rooftops and car chases in Paris to the climactic battle at a North Korean air base, the developers have thrown absolutely everything at the game

And so we return perhaps one final time to Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare strand, with stories, “ripped from the newspaper headlines”, featuring shady terror organisations, nefarious rogue states and the brutally capable, monosyllabic war fighters who stand between us and Armageddon. Last year’s Black Ops 7 instalment was a sales disappointment for Activision, and that has no doubt put extra pressure on Infinity Ward, the studio leading Modern Warfare 4 development. Fortunately, this developer – like series heroes Price, Gaz and Ghost – seems to thrive on pressure.

As you may have read, this year’s campaign is based around a fictitious North Korean ruling family that has seized an opportunity to invade its southern neighbour. Amid the chaos, a small group of Korean and American marines must help lead the fightback, while in the shadows, SAS hard man John Price makes an unlikely new comrade in his own morally ambiguous quest to put the world to rights. Mads Mikkelsen pops up as evil mastermind The Archer, but like Kiernan Shipka in Black Ops 7 he’s rather wasted, with very little screen time.

No screaming is allowed in the spooky spin-off, but the stars are only in danger of cracking up over these golden comedy moments. Even Jack Dee looks delighted to be there!

British comedy is a broad church united by a simple adage: less is more. The most acclaimed and beloved shows – Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, Brass Eye, The Office – tend to be exceptionally short-running. Compared to the Americans, our series are brief anyway, but we also seem anxious to bow out well before a premise is squeezed dry. We don’t milk it, we don’t money-grub. In a weird way, comedy is viewed as a precious finite resource liable to become exhausted at any moment.

Which is why I feel slightly sceptical about this Halloween special of Prime Video’s Last One Laughing, the reality gameshow that involves a group of comedians competing to see who can remain straight-faced for the longest. The enormous success of the first two series – incredible ratings, healthy media coverage, a pair of Baftas – was well deserved: the show produced some of the most hysterical TV comedy in recent memory. You can understand why the streamer would be keen to capitalise on the interest of the circa 6 million-strong fanbase with this four-part miniseries, which whittles down the usual 10 contestants to seven. But might this snacky stopgap dilute the precious joy of the yearly series proper?

In 1986, Bamber was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing five members of his family. Now analysis of crime scene photographs by a leading forensic biologist could exonerate him

On 7 August 1985, five people were found dead at White House Farm in Essex, England: 28-year-old Sheila Caffell (familiarly known as Bambi); her six-year-old twin sons Daniel and Nicholas; and her adoptive parents, June and Nevill Bamber. All five had been shot with a rifle. Caffell’s 24-year-old brother, Jeremy Bamber, who was also adopted, had alerted Essex police to a disturbance inside the farmhouse – he said his father had called to tell him – and was outside with the police for four hours before the bodies were discovered. Caffell, who had recently been hospitalised with schizoaffective disorder and is said to have feared her children were going to be taken into foster care, was found with the rifle lying on her chest, pointing towards her neck. There were two gunshot wounds to her neck and chin, and a bloodied Bible by her side.

New film Fatherland took Sandra Hüller back to a divided Germany. She talks about damaged dreams, Hollywood feelgood and - just maybe - appearing in the new Marvel movie

Sandra Hüller is crying, and it feels very strange. A wildly gifted actor, she can convey every human emotion there is. On screen, though, she is most often asked to embody deep self-possession. Even doing karaoke, Hüller is in control. And in real life, life is good. Her 2026 will end with four high-profile movies this year alone. Two (Fatherland and Rose) are black-and-white arthouse films that centre on her brilliance, and though one of the others (Digger) is already a Hollywood cautionary tale, a second (Project Hail Mary) was a giant $684m hit. (There may also be a fifth movie, bigger still. We will come back to that.)

And yet, dressed in film star black, she is in tears. “This is really hard for me,” she says.

With elections looming in 2027, Roberto Vannacci’s new far-right movement could fatally outflank the prime minister

Giorgia Meloni’s government became the longest serving in Italy’s republican history last month. This unusual political longevity, a moderate foreign policy, a certain personal charisma and even a recent spat with Donald Trump have combined to sharpen Meloni’s profile as the go-to leader on the European right.

Meloni’s personal approval rating – at about 41% – is one of the highest among west European leaders. Her far-right Brothers of Italy party has retained most of its support – a striking feat in our anti-incumbent era and by Italian standards, an achievement.

Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali, in Rome