Emily McGonagle was watching cartoons with her sons when she decided to embark on a career change. A decade on, she is a star of a globally popular children’s series

Emily McGonagle was on maternity leave from her job as a lawyer, juggling the care of her new baby and her toddler son, when the daily diet of TV cartoons made her think about an unlikely career change.

Watching Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol, her older son’s favourites, “it occurred to me: who does this job?”, says the 42-year-old from Essex. “How do you get into it? Even when I was watching TV commercials, I’d think: well, how do you do that?”

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For Halloween, Guardian writers have picked the most efficiently terrifying films outside of the horror genre from How to Have Sex to The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Minor spoilers ahead

Hiding in plain sight throughout Lee Chang-dong’s deliciously enigmatic Burning, in which a spirited young woman (Jeon Jong-seo) disappears, and a wealthy playboy (Steven Yeun) gives serial killer vibes, is a disaffected male rage. That’s perhaps the most commonplace horror of our times, whether on the internet or politics, and you feel the tremors of it steadily breaking the surface in Yoo Ah-in’s performance. He plays Jong-su, an aspiring writer, quietly frustrated with his lot in life. Jong-su works odd jobs and tends to his incarcerated father’s dilapidated farm, growing more desperate to grasp some sense of control over the world around him, which is where the scary part comes in. Chang-dong is the master dramatist who with Burning tilts violently into thriller territory, navigating elements from Taxi Driver, The Vanishing and Michael Haneke’s Caché, using the language of horror movies to conjure up a creeping anxiety and dread that erupts into pure existential fear. Radheyan Simonpillai

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Oxygen, food and water supplies running low and massacres taking place, says Nabil Shamsan

The Houthis are trying to send the city of Taiz back to the stone age, the city’s governor said in a briefing designed to urge the international community to do more to lift the month-long siege.

Nabil Shamsan said massacres were taking place in Yemen’s third city, that oxygen and water supplies were running out and that rubbish was piling up in the streets due to landfill sites being either full or inaccessible.

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After UK’s hottest summer on record, Ardingly near Haywards Heath is just 19% full – and next-closest reservoir is unusable due to broken treatment works

“You can see the water level at Ardingly going down and down. I don’t remember ever seeing it this low,” says Caroline Allan, a lifetime resident of Haywards Heath, the nearest town to one of England’s most depleted reservoirs.

The Ardingly reservoir, managed by South East Water and serving about 95,000 properties in and around Haywards Heath and Uckfield in Sussex, is currently 19% full.

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The Pennsylvania center found rugby early and is nominated for World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year. In New Jersey, the Red Roses will present her stiffest Test yet

Going into their WXV Global Series game against England’s world champion Red Roses in Harrison, New Jersey, on Friday, the US Eagles women have five successive wins and a squad mixing great experience with great youth. Among potentially great younger players is the first American ever nominated for a major World Rugby award.

“I keep getting told like, ‘Oh, don’t let your head get too big,’” laughed Bella Vogel, the 19-year-old center or fly-half from Washington Boro, Pennsylvania, nominated for Women’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year. Still a student at Life University in Marietta, Georgia, she has had an extraordinary season.

USA v England and USA men v Australia XV will be broadcast in the US on Paramount Plus and in the UK on the England Rugby YouTube channel and BBC iPlayer.

Martin Pengelly writes about rugby in the US on Substack, at The National Maul.

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⚽ News and previews heading into the weekend’s action
⚽ Premier League: 10 things to look out for | Mail Tom

After a week of Carabao Cup action, we are counting down to the weekend football action.

Last night saw the last of this round of matches as Everton beat a poor Newcastle side to move into the quarter-finals, crucially without Jack Grealish. The England international was dropped for what the club described as a ‘breach of club discipline’, with David Moyes later saying he supported the decision without offering further details. Interestingly, Everton travel to Newcastle for Monday night football, whether Grealish will travel for that one will surely gather a lot of attention.

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Een deel van de A20 is dit weekend in beide richtingen afgesloten. Wie van plan is om over de snelweg te rijden tussen Gouda en Rotterdam moet volgens Rijkswaterstaat rekening houden met een halfuur extra reistijd.

Een deel van de A20 is dit weekend in beide richtingen afgesloten. Wie van plan is om over de snelweg te rijden tussen Gouda en Rotterdam moet volgens Rijkswaterstaat rekening houden met een halfuur extra reistijd.

LONDEN (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Het Britse olie- en gasconcern BP heeft in het derde kwartaal de hoogste winst in achttien jaar behaald dankzij de sterk gestegen energieprijzen en hoge winstmarges bij raffinage door de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten. De winst bedroeg bijna 8,5 miljard dollar, tegen 2,2 miljard dollar een jaar eerder.

Topvrouw Meg O'Neill spreekt in een toelichting van "dynamische tijden met volatiliteit en verstoringen van handelsstromen die de energiemarkten blijven bepalen". Volgens haar draaien raffinaderijen op bijna volle capaciteit om aan de vraag naar benzine en diesel te kunnen voldoen. Over de eerste negen maanden zette BP een winst in de boeken van 17,4 miljard dollar. Dat was ruim 5,9 miljard dollar in dezelfde periode van 2025.

BP volgt met de sterke resultaten zijn Europese branchegenoten Shell en TotalEnergies, die eveneens hoge winsten hebben behaald in de afgelopen periode. Shell zag de winst verdubbelen naar 10,8 miljard dollar, wat het hoogste niveau sinds 2022 was.

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