The screenwriter behind hit TV dramas National Treasure and Kiri, as well as the Harry Potter stage play, talks about his new, more personal project created with his wife - a feature film, Joy, celebrat​ing the birth of IVF

In 1968, three people decided to cure infertility. In the 10 years between 1968 and 1978, Robert (Bob) Edwards, a scientist, Patrick Steptoe, an obstetrician, Jean Purdy, an embryologist, worked together, with many others, to do something incredible. Basing themselves in an outbuilding at Oldham general on scraps of money, with nurses volunteering their time, and patients their patience, they worked incessantly on the issue of infertility.

Bob had had a number of breakthroughs working with mice and rabbits, and thought that with Patrick’s innovations with laparoscopes (keyhole surgery), there was a possibility that tubal infertility could be, at least partially, cured.

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A deep dive into football’s puppet masters; an evocative slice of Americana; and another tour de force from Pure author Andrew Miller

Nick Miller
Bloomsbury Sport , £18.99 , pp 256

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A new book by Musa al-Gharbi accuses liberal professionals of talking about justice but entrenching inequalities

When Musa al-Gharbi first arrived in New York in 2016, what he most noticed was the operation of a “racialized caste system” under which “disposable servants… will clean your house, watch your kids, walk your dogs, deliver prepared meals to you”.

The “disposable servants”, who earned “peanuts for their work”, were inevitably mainly black or Hispanic, the ones being served, almost exclusively white. No one remarked upon this; it was taken to be “the way normal society operates”.

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Questions raised about potential for undue influence after appointment of Ruth Dempsey, formerly of Philip Morris

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks, the Observer can reveal.

Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC).

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YouTuber Jake Paul versus the 58-year-old boxing legend – a grizzly pantomime? Or a grim harbinger of the future?

The trailer for Netflix’s latest ­multimillion-dollar venture starts with a dramatic drumbeat, the slap of glove on pad, and a familiar Brooklyn drawl. “He’s a manufactured killer,” says Mike Tyson, with almost cartoon relish. “I am a natural-born killer.”

The camera then cuts to the man he will face in the early hours of Saturday UK time, the influencer Jake Paul. “We’re going to war,” predicts Paul, who made his fortune filming pranks such as I Sunk My Friend’s Car And Surprised Him With A New One before an even more lucrative pivot into boxing. “And he’s getting knocked out.”

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Arnold’s feral, fantastical drama set in the rundown Kent of her childhood stars remarkable newcomer Nykiya Adams as a marginalised child who makes a strange new friend

Andrea Arnold’s films have a thrilling, entirely distinctive energy. Take her US-set American Honey (2016), with its itchy, restless outlaw spirit and music used front and centre, or the earthy fervour of her 2011 version of Wuthering Heights . The British director’s films are feral, unpredictable and untameable, informed by empathy, curiosity and a way of working that embraces chaos and discovery. With its marginalised milieu and themes of the wildness within, Bird , which earned an impressive haul of British independent film award nominations last week, could only be an Andrea Arnold creation.

In some ways, though, it’s also a notable departure for this continually evolving film-maker, who returns to the UK – specifically north Kent, where she grew up and later set her short film Wasp – for her first fiction feature since American Honey . The most obvious change is the fantastical element. Having long inhabited the gritty, social realist end of the spectrum, Arnold ventures into magical realism for the first time. If, like me, you’re somewhat allergic to the genre in its more twinkly and whimsical forms, fear not: this version has teeth.

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Sporting forward is scoring freely for club and country, and will surely be a target for Rúben Amorim at United

After a particularly tempestuous week or two in the life of Sporting Clube de Portugal, the forthcoming international window should have heralded calmer waters for a moment or two at least as the post-Rúben Amorim era moves into view. The emotional outpouring of the Manchester United-bound coach’s final game at the Estádio José Alvalade, the debagging of Manchester City , will seem like a few months ago by the middle of next week.

Recent internationals suggest, however, the opposite may be true. If clubs fret over the possibility of star players speaking a little too frankly in their native tongues surrounded by a few home comforts, it is the forthcoming on-pitch deeds of Viktor Gyökeres that threaten to prop up European football’s next salvo of gossip.

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Bans and taxes on the most popular and effective aid for giving up smoking could lead to a major health crisis

Imagine we’d found a way to get millions of people to switch from alcohol, which in this country kills 10,000 people a year , to another kind of substance: still addictive, still not risk-free, but when compared with the booze, pretty harmless. Coffee, say.

A public health miracle is hailed. Liver units are empty. Heart surgeons spend more time on the golf course, and costly government prevention programmes close. Millions chink into NHS coffers.

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Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick is planning to stack the incoming White House staff with Trump loyalists

Scrambling to construct an administration in the wake of his shock victory eight years ago, Donald Trump looked far beyond his inner circle, and those who ardently embraced his agenda. Not this time.

The president-elect has charged Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend, and one of the few high-profile figures in corporate America to vocally endorse his campaign, with recruiting officials who will deliver, rather than dilute, his agenda.

A masculinity researcher on the Democrats’ ‘fatal miscalculation’

Election deniers use Trump victory to sow more doubt over 2020 result

What a second Trump presidency means for big US tech firms

Who could be in Trump’s new administration

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