Some young people are teaching in countries like South Korea as education funding is gutted and recent grads face a tough job market in their own countries

A year ago, Arianna Marie, 25, was struggling to control the students in her Florida elementary school classroom.

She was living with her parents to save on rent and quickly feeling her passion for teaching dry up, even though it was her first job since graduation.

A growing number of people are rediscovering their love of plastic bricks in later life and boosting the Danish company’s bottom line

In a cosy cafe in Kingston upon Thames on the outskirts of London, nine people gather in the early evening to drink and talk. To the casual observer it may look like a book club, but when the friends reach into their bags it’s not paperbacks they produce – but packs of Lego.

Geoff Lay, who organised the gathering, worked in software development before recently starting Noble Brick, a Lego-focused events organisation.

The move sends the right signal. While we’re at it, can we ban using ringtones and scooting on the sidewalk?

Imagine driving in Italy, with its narrow, cobblestone streets and scooter enthusiasts. I find it hard enough to drive in Los Angeles, a city designed specifically with the automobile in mind. I’d probably squash a pedestrian or two trying to navigate Italian roads.

The modern world is just too hectic for the ancient streets of Europe, so Italy is considering doing the only sensible thing it can: outlawing texting in crosswalks. The Italian government’s updated draft of its highway code proposes fines of €75 or more for anyone caught sending a DM, updating their LinkedIn, finishing Wordle on the fifth guess, or anything else phone-related that might make them miss an oncoming metal projectile. I’m sure most people will risk the slap on wrist to get that message off, but it at least sends a signal to the Italian people that paying attention to traffic is actually kind of important.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Labour has promised a ‘fundamental rewiring’ of power. But some areas are years into their devolution journey while others scramble to get started

Apart from the joyous hyperactivity that comes with suddenly making it to No 10, there are good reasons why Andy Burnham seems to be a prime minister in a hurry. If he decides that his first term is going to run to its maximum length, he has three years, which is a maddening time-frame: too long for him to just tinker here and there, set out his long-term vision and then ask the electorate for permission to do more, but probably too short to start and finish many of his key projects. His chosen solution, it seems, is a mixture of the strategies he would use for each approach, which includes running at some issues at breakneck pace.

So it is with his specialist subject: devolution for England. The huge changes now afoot actually began under Keir Starmer, with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed earlier this year. Areas that previously had two tiers of local government will see them replaced with new unitary councils. But the most historic move centres on regional mayors – what the government calls “strategic authorities” – and a shift that the Whitehall PR machine is hyping up as a “fundamental rewiring of the way our country works, surrendering power that for too long has been held in Westminster and Whitehall”. In principle, this is unquestionably worth celebrating. But it also gives rise to a whole range of increasingly urgent and awkward questions.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

The author’s new trilogy continues her aunt’s beloved family saga. What would happen next to the sprawling cast of characters ... and could she pull it off?

In the late 1980s Elizabeth Jane Howard was wondering what to write next. Jane, as she was always known, was at that time the author of seven novels. Her debut, The Beautiful Visit, had won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 1951 when she was 28 years old and The Long View (1956) was one of the first novels written with reverse chronology. Her talent was somewhat overshadowed in a tawdry world by her drop-dead beauty and by her having briefly been an actor (and by the famous lovers and husbands she walked out on, including Sir Peter Scott, the ornithologist and conservationist, in 1946, and Kingsley Amis, who was then himself a famous novelist, in 1983).

Stuck, she asked her stepson Martin Amis which of two projects she should go for: an updated version of Sense and Sensibility, or a family saga based on her own life? He said, do the family saga. Jane’s family project developed into the Cazalet Chronicles: five volumes in which she fictionalised her life’s experience, divided between three young female cousins, Polly, Clary and Louise, and a cast of 52 more named characters, set between London and a grandparental family home in Sussex.

A retired software engineer and a planetary scientist disagreed about putting up flags and nationalising private companies, but were they worlds apart on legalising drugs?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Finley, 23, London

Occupation Planetary scientist

• Promoter Warren confirms Briton recovering in hospital

• Croat accepts he lost first eight rounds before victory

Moses Itauma has been urged “not to give up” by Filip Hrgovic, the new IBF world heavyweight champion, who stopped the 21-year-old Briton with a dramatic and stunning turnaround in their title fight late on Saturday night at London’s O₂ Arena.

Itauma was taken to hospital in a precautionary measure after the fight and Frank Warren, his promoter, confirmed to the Guardian on Sunday morning that his young heavyweight was still under medical observation.

Dan volgt nu een begrotingsbericht. Niet over de komende; de begrotingsboot van JettenPiet en Piet Heinen meert morgen pas af aan de Raad van State-werf. Neen, dit gaat over de begroting van dit jaar en het budget van minister van Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking Sjoerd Sjoerdsma (D66) in het bijzonder. Weet u nog, zijn begroting ging pas eind juni met hakken over de sloot in de Eerste Kamer nadat de D66’er er eerst een puinhoop van had gemaakt door met alles en iedereen ruzie te maken.   

Dat groene licht kwam er pas na veel geritsel en gekonkel. Zo moest D66 eerst instemmen met een verbod op Hamasvlagzwaaierij, kwamen er in ruil voor de noodzakelijke steun van PRO honderden miljoenen ontwikkelingshulp bij en werd er 25 miljoen euro uitgetrokken voor een heus remigratieproject voor Syriërs.   

Dat de NCTV eind vorig jaar besloot taalpolitiek te gaan bedrijven en de volstrekt normale bestuurlijke term remigratie in de ban deed, weerhoudt het kabinet Jetten er namelijk niet van hier en daar wat remigratiebeleid te voeren. Het kabinet noemt het alleen anders. Die 25 miljoen euro wordt aangewend voor ‘stabiliteit en wederopbouw ten behoeve van het faciliteren van vrijwillige terugkeer naar Syrië’.

Een coalitie noemen ze ook wel gestold wantrouwen, maar bij de VVD is de achterdocht nog volop vloeibaar. Want nog geen twee maanden na dat akkoord over Sjoerdsma’s begroting twijfelen VVD’ers Ulysse Ellian en Nicole Maes al of de D66-minister wel serieus werk maakt van die remigratie van Syriërs.

Dat blijkt uit een alleraardigst setje Kamervragen in deze laatste week van het reces. Met daarin het verzoek of Sjoerdsma even wil ‘herbevestigen’ dat de afspraak van nog geen twee maanden oud nog steeds staat: dat die 25 miljoen dus wordt gebruikt voor de vrijwillige terugkeer van zoveel mogelijk Syriërs. En dan ook graag gelijk een update over de voortgang. Het VVD-duo heeft duidelijk weinig fiducie in de zaak. Ellian en Maes verwijzen namelijk naar een recent onderzoek van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken waaruit blijkt dat dergelijke projecten in Irak, Turkije, Tunesië en Marokko bar weinig zoden aan de dijk zetten.

Daarom willen de twee VVD’ers van Sjoerdsma weten of die 25 miljoen euro die in Syrië wordt gespendeerd wel ‘daadwerkelijk bijdraagt’ aan de terugkeer van Syriërs hier in Nederland. En kun je dat geld niet gewoon beter hier uitgeven om ze weg te krijgen? Gaarne antwoord vóór maandag 7 september, want die week staan er verschillende asieldebatten op de agenda. Alstublieft en dankuwel, excellentie Ploertsma. Enfin, passief-agressief Kamervragen stellen doen VVD’ers dus zo.

Dat liberale wantrouwen is terecht, want als Sjoerdsma de boel niet bedondert met een zelfverzonnen drankroddel of een zak geld voor UNRWA, pompt hij ook zo 25 miljoen euro in Syrië zonder dat er ook maar één Syriër ons land verlaat. Het zomerreces is duidelijk voorbij, lekker begin van het nieuwe parlementaire jaar dit. Benieuwd of deze coalitie het einde ervan haalt.

Vanillasludge posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

handwritten on back of photograph, "Col. Springs, Co, August 26, 1985"