In-form Newcastle defender has chance to show Thomas Tuchel he can be solution to perennial problem on left

Expectations are low before England close their uneven Nations League campaign with Thursday’s trip to Greece and Sunday’s home game against the Republic of Ireland. The withdrawals are piling up, fatigue is rising and Thomas Tuchel has decided that he has better things to do than show up to watch the team that he will inherit from Lee Carsley in January.

Yet there is still meaning to be found in these fixtures and if Tuchel could ask for one favour from Carsley it would surely be to leave him a functioning left-back. England, who clambered to the final of Euro 2024 with the right‑footed Kieran Trippier dutifully playing on his weaker side while Luke Shaw battled for full fitness, are crying out for someone to step up and make the position their own.

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• Rick Parry says EFL ‘embraces’ tougher financial rules
• Parliament to discuss football regulator bill this week

Rick Parry has accused the Premier League of undervaluing the football pyramid, arguing that without the “variety and competition” that come from relegation and promotion the game would become “sterile”.

The EFL chair was speaking to the Guardian before legislation for an independent football regulator returns to parliament on Wednesday, potentially ending a four-year process of change. The EFL “embraces” stronger financial regulation, according to Parry, but he continues to argue it must come alongside greater financial redistribution from the Premier League, a goal not achieved despite years of negotiation and government pressure.

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• Former defence coach still employed remotely by RFU
• Richard Wigglesworth and players have not been in touch

England will not be benefiting from the insider knowledge of their ­former Springbok assistant coach Felix Jones this weekend after it emerged that neither their players nor key staff members have been in contact with the Irishman, still supposedly employed remotely by the Rugby Football Union (RFU).

England’s senior assistant coach, Richard Wigglesworth said he had not spoken to Jones and the players also say they have received no input from him before Saturday’s big game against South Africa. Jones handed in his resignation as defence coach after the summer tour to Japan and New Zealand but has not yet been formally released from his RFU contract.

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Belasco Theatre, New York

Darren Criss and Helen J Shen play advanced robots falling in love in an unusual and visually stunning show that could have afforded some better songs

Like the glowing logos on its all-important battery chargers, Maybe Happy Ending, a new Broadway musical from Hue Park and Will Aronson, is an overall bright affair, though you could forgive viewers of the first full number, World Within My Room, for shuddering with a thought of the pandemic. Oliver (Darren Criss) is much more sanguine about isolation than we were – he’s programmed to be. A humanoid personal assistant/maid/companion known as a Helperbot, Oliver was designed to serve one person and one person only – his owner, James (Marcus Choi) – and to eventually succumb to the obsolescence that devours all things. By the time we meet him, somewhere in Seoul’s not-so-distant future, Helperbot Inc has ceased production of his generation’s replacement parts.

In his interim retirement, Oliver keeps his space spick and span: daily cleaning, talking to his plant HwaBoon, reading James’s copy of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being, listening to jazz records by the fictional Gil Brentley (played as a daydream alongside Oliver by a dashing Dez Duron).

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After reading more than 150 books over seven months, the judges voted unanimously in favour of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital – which pulled them as far away as possible from our planet

In January, a box of books was delivered to my house, the first of many to arrive, with a steadiness that would at times feel overwhelming. I was about to spend the year as a Booker judge.

All my life I have dreamed of having swathes of time filled with nothing but reading. Yet as I stared at that first tranche of books, my overriding feeling was apprehension. Awarding a prize with the power to transform literary history, as well as the winner’s career, isn’t a task to take lightly. Plus, I’d been warned that each judge would be required to read more than 150 books over seven months; a diet, it seemed to me, with a high chance of leaving me feeling force-fed and unable to stomach reading a novel ever again.

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• UKA chief executive says cost would be too high
• Focus is on bid to host World Championships

UK Athletics has rejected the chance to be involved in Michael Johnson’s $30m (£23.5m) new Grand Slam Track competition because it fears it is too much of a financial risk. Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium and the London Stadium were rumoured to be among candidates to host one of the four events, which launches in Jamaica in April 2025. Los Angeles will be involved along with Miami, with the final venue to be announced this week.

Many elite athletes, including the four-times US Olympic gold medallist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Britain’s Olympic 1500m silver medallist Josh Kerr have signed up for the series, which is modelled on the four tennis grand slams and has a prize fund of $12.6m.

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British Columbia teen had no underlying health conditions and had been exposed to dogs, cats and reptiles, officials say

A teenager is in critical condition in a British Columbia children’s hospital, in what is believed to be Canada ’s first human case of bird flu .

“This was a healthy teenager prior to this, so no underlying conditions,” said the provincial health officer Bonnie Henry in a news conference on Tuesday.

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The British author’s novel about astronauts on the International Space Station was chosen unanimously as the winner, says judging chair Edmund de Waal

• ‘This is a book we need now’: Sara Collins on choosing this year’s Booker winner

Orbital by Samantha Harvey , the only British writer shortlisted this year , has won the 2024 Booker prize, the UK’s most prestigious prize for fiction.

Harvey’s tale of six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station was “unanimously” chosen as the winner after a “proper day” considering the six-strong shortlist, according to judging chair, the artist and author Edmund de Waal. “Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share”.

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Move by US authorities comes after plane was shot at on Monday, injuring attendant and forcing airport shutdown

The US Federal Aviation Administration has banned civilian flights into Haiti for 30 days after a jetliner was shot at on approach to Port-au-Prince.

Bullets hit the Spirit Airlines plane when it was about to land on Monday, injuring a flight attendant and forcing the airport to shut down.

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