Generations of gardeners have added stones to their pots before topping up with compost, but does it really help?

The problem
Most old houseplant guides suggest adding a layer of gravel or stones to the bottom of the pot before adding compost. It is presented as basic good practice; the thing you do to stop soil from retaining water, which can cause root rot.

The hack
This layer of gravel is said to improve drainage by providing a place for excess water to collect below the root zone, keeping roots above the waterlogged area and allowing air to reach them from beneath.

The latest decree from Afghanistan’s rulers makes it impossible for women and girls to leave unwanted or abusive relationships, even with family support

When Fatima arrived at a district court in northern Afghanistan in late 2025 with her parents, she hoped a judge would finally allow her to leave her calamitous marriage.

She had never met her husband before their arranged wedding in the summer of 2024. Each time her family asked to see him, they were told he was shy. It was only on the wedding day, relatives say, that Fatima understood what had been hidden from her: her husband had severe intellectual and physical disabilities and could not eat, wash or dress himself without help.

The former Federal Reserve chair was a smart guy – but he had a huge blind spot. Here’s what I wish I’d said to him

Alan Greenspan has died at the age of 100.

My students don’t recognize his name, but you probably do. When he was chair of the Federal Reserve – for more than 18 years, from 11 August 1987 to 31 January 2006 – he not only ran the US (and most of the world’s) economy but was also in many ways the most powerful person in the US.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK

In HBO documentary The Welcome Table, director Josh Fox brings together people from across the world whose lives have been dramatically altered by the climate crisis

In an age of division, director Josh Fox is hoping to bring people of all kinds together. Specifically, he wants them to share a table – to break bread for a meal, and come together in exuberant song.

In his new documentary film The Welcome Table, the director of the the Emmy-winning Gasland travels around the world to talk to people at the leading edge of global warming’s effects. The film is part stark warning of the climate crisis, part opportunity to enter into the experience of those living in the corners of the globe. It culminates with the sounds of these individuals together at an enormous table in New Orleans, eating and rejoicing.

The colour-coordinated ‘clean girl’ athleisure aesthetic is dead. Now it’s all about mismatched outfits and vintage sportswear

At first, the goblins came for our downtime. Going “goblin mode” was a lifestyle confined to the home – to the bed, mostly. The “comforts of depravity” it brought (“watching 90 Day Fiancé on mute while scrolling endlessly through social media, pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth”, for example) weren’t compatible with doing anything productive.

Enter the gym goblin. The optics remain much the same – think ancient T-shirts, knackered socks, oversized cardigans – but the setting has changed, with goblincore devotees rising up from unmade beds, Diet Cokes in hand, to hit the treadmill. It’s Diana, Princess of Wales’s oversized college sweatshirts meets Josh O’Connor’s half-tracksuit look for the Disclosure Day press tour – and the polar opposite of the matcha-drinking, Lululemoned “clean girl” aesthetic that dominates fitness circles.

AJ Dybantsa is widely expected to have his name called first on Tuesday. But which other young stars are worth keeping an eye on?

AJ Dybantsa looked like a pro among college kids in his lone season at BYU, becoming just the fifth Division I player in the last 40 years to average more than 25 points per game while shooting better than 51%. Even beyond the numbers, Dybantsa’s natural length and ability to create his own shot make him look more like a future All-Star than Kansas’s Darryn Peterson, whose load-management habits stand in stark contrast to Dybantsa’s workhorse approach. Andrew Lawrence

Withdrawal of TPS designation puts workers who fill vital role in peril – and risks further shortages in US health system

When Dolores Jacoby’s doctor told her there was little she could do to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, a deafening silence filled the hospital room, where she was surrounded by her family. Dolores had only recently been diagnosed with the rare aggressive cancer. Her beloved nursing assistant, Janeth, was standing just outside her room. After the doctor left, Janeth entered with a tray containing each family member’s favorite beverage. “If there’s anybody who can recover, it’s your mother,” she told John Jacoby, Dolores’s son, before leaving the room as inconspicuously as she had arrived.

It was 2012. More than a decade later, John still remembers that day in his mother’s hospital room in the San Francisco Bay Area clearly. “We had just heard the worst news of our lives, and Janeth injected life into my mom, into her veins, into the atmosphere, you know, for all of us,” he said.

From book club meet-cutes to shared English Literature lectures, romance has blossomed beyond the page for these bibliophiles

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have been honeymooning in Italy, after throwing a star-studded wedding in Palermo earlier this month. But their relationship began with a book: running into each other at an LA restaurant, the pair realised that they were not only reading the same novel – Trust by Hernán Díaz – but had both just finished the first chapter. “So, we’re on the same page,” Turner said to Lipa. Here, four other couples share the literary sparks of their love stories.

Former Starmer loyalist Nick Thomas-Symonds suggests battle would not be in ‘best interests of the country’, as Al Carns and Darren Jones decline to rule out bids

Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, has been jailed at the high court in Edinburgh for five years and three months after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.

In Scotland Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, is being sentenced for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.