At times it felt like the three parties thought they were governing three completely different countries

Germany’s coalition government, which collapsed in dramatic fashion on Wednesday night after almost three years in power, was always an odd throuple.

A pact between three parties with three quite different histories and different priorities, it was made up of two outfits that have traditionally located themselves on the left of the political spectrum – the Social Democratic party (SPD) and the Greens – and one, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), that had until then been a loyal junior partner to the conservatives.

Susan McGowan took two doses of tirzepatide, under Mounjaro brand, before she died in North Lanarkshire

A weight-loss drug recently approved for use on the NHS contributed to the death of a 58-year-old nurse from North Lanarkshire, according to a report.

Susan McGowan took two low-dose injections of tirzepatide, under the Mounjaro brand, over the space of a fortnight before she died on 4 September, the BBC reported .

The Democrats must learn to speak to voters who don’t believe in the politics of old and aren’t interested in returning to it

The ever-splenetic HL Mencken once wrote that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”. He was no liberal, but it’s a line many Democrats today would be taken with. On Tuesday, the first wave of election postmortems have lamented, the American people took the full measure of Donald Trump ⁠– oaf, cheat, bigot and fascist ⁠– and re-elected him under no illusions, in full cognizance of what another Trump term would mean for the country.

One can quibble with this just a bit: there’s a lot that emerged over the course of this campaign that most voters probably didn’t know much about, from a plan to invade Mexico that Trump may well have forgotten himself to late breaking news on the depth of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Still, frustrated Democrats are directionally correct here on the whole. Trump won this election fairly, squarely and soundly as a well-known quantity ⁠– a former president and the most widely discussed man in the world, who will return to the White House in his 10th year at the center of American life.

Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist

The virtuoso jazz guitarist has worked with a string of legends, winning 20 Grammys in the process. He speaks on his beginnings as a jazz trumpeter, and still striving to improve at 70

Pat Metheny is pretty much everywhere. For the past four decades, the 70-year-old guitarist has been crisscrossing the globe, playing an average of 150 shows a year. Instantly recognisable thanks to his wild mop of hair and the custom three-necked, 42-string guitar he wields on stage, Metheny has released more than 50 albums, won 20 Grammys and collaborated with David Bowie and Joni Mitchell, as well as free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman and bass legend Jaco Pastorius. When we speak, he is 160 dates into a solo tour and fighting with patchy wifi in a hotel in Nancy, France, that aptly leaves an image of a guitar with hundreds of strings on screen rather than his signature plumage.

While he meticulously keeps written records of each show to improve on his performance, Metheny is widely considered a master improviser and virtuoso, pioneering an intricate, harmonic style that is as dextrous as it is melodic. Between shows and travel as his current tour kicked off, Metheny recorded 13 solo compositions that make up his latest release, MoonDial. Spanning the intimacy of Chick Corea cover You’re Everything to a downtempo reworking of his 2012 composition This Belongs to You and the instantly recognisable melody of the Beatles’ Here, There and Everywhere, it feels like Metheny at his most tenderly introspective.

The party, increasingly divorced from workers, leaned too much on an activist base instead of a voting base

I turned on MSNBC after the election results came in and this, verbatim, was the commentary I heard: “This really was a historic, flawlessly run campaign. She had Queen Latifah [who] never endorses anyone! She had every prominent celebrity voice, she had the Taylor Swifties , she had the Beyhive. You could not run a better campaign in that short period of time.” Democrats , it seems, are already blaming their defeat this week on a host of contingent factors and not on their own shortcomings.

It’s, of course, true that inflation has hurt incumbents across the world. But that doesn’t mean that there was nothing that Joe Biden could have done to address the problem. He could have rolled out anti-price-gouging measures early, pushed taxes on corporate super profits and more. Through well-designed legislation and the right messaging, inflation could have been both mitigated and explained. That’s what president Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered his supporters in Mexico and his governing coalition enjoyed commanding support.

We’re now into the Persephone Days, with fewer than 10 hours of sunlight – a time when rocket loses some flavour, but kale and carrots grow sweeter

For those of us in the northern hemisphere winter has arrived. And perhaps more importantly for the plant world, we are also entering into our Persephone Days.

This phrase (named after the Greek goddess of spring, who was abducted by Hades and whose mother, Demeter, goddess of agriculture, withheld plant growth until she was returned) describes the period of time when there are fewer than 10 hours of sunlight in the day (mid-November to early January in the UK, depending on where you are in the country). It’s the point at which most plants cease to grow.

Seventeenth-century riverside cottages with a warren of tiny spaces have been transformed into a sanctuary for modern living

At first glance, you might think it was its good old-fashioned period charm that convinced Lee Thornley to splash his cash on this 1650s double-fronted cottage in Poppleton, a tranquil village on the outskirts of York. However, it was more than good looks that persuaded Thornley, founder of the tile company Bert & May, and his partner, Phil Brocklebank, to make this their forever family home with their two daughters, Lyla, 14, and Iris, 11, plus dogs Tilly and Molly.

“It ticked boxes that most houses don’t,” says Thornley. “The River Ouse is literally at the bottom of the garden, so it had the potential to offer a very different way of life. For example, yesterday I was messing around setting up a makeshift mooring, and we regularly take kayaks or paddleboards out on the water. Sometimes I even pick up the girls from school by boat. I love the headspace it provides.”

UK foreign secretary, asked about calling the US president-elect a ‘sociopath’, says ‘there are things I know now that I didn’t know back then’

This is what David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told the BBC’s Newscast podcast about how the government would respond to Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs of at least 10% on imports from Britain and other countries. Economists say this could halve UK growth .

Asked if the government would seek an exemption, Lammy said he hoped Trump would realise his plan would be counter-productive. He said:

We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States – and I believe that they would understand this – that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long term interests.

Not even vaguely. I’ve got to say, I found him to be a very gracious host.

He did offer me a second portion of chicken. He was very generous, very gracious, very keen to make sure that we felt relaxed and comfortable in his surroundings. He was funny. He was warm about the UK. Very warm about the royal family. I’ve got to tell you, [he] loves Scotland …

I suppose what I’m saying is I’ve met the man and in the end diplomacy – actually, just common manners – is in particular building relationships [with] people. And I think he’s someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest because we must.

He didn’t seem to think it mattered a few weeks ago.

Look, I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the the real duty of public office are two different things. And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then, and that’s the truth of it.