Much remains uncertain about Valeria Márquez’s death. But it shines a light on a universal issue

Valeria Márquez was killed in one of the most horrifically public ways possible. On Tuesday evening, the 23-year-old Mexican social media influencer, who had built up a large following with videos about beauty and makeup, was recording a TikTok livestream in the beauty salon where she worked in Jalisco, a state in west-central Mexico. A man entered the establishment and, with her video still running, shot her dead.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Known for its trailblazing ‘Nordic model’ of generous parental perks, Norway now faces a return of low fertility

Norway’s generous parental leave, heavily subsidised childcare and high living standards have earned it a reputation as one of the best places in the world to have children. And yet fewer than ever are being born in the Nordic country.

Although falling birthrates are a global trend, such is the concern in Oslo the government has commissioned a birthrate committee to investigate the causes and possible consequences and devise strategies to reverse the population’s current trajectory.

Israel says intensified bombings are part of campaign expansion to ‘achieve all of the war goals in Gaza’

At least 140 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours, a deadly escalation as Israel seemed poised to launch a major offensive in the besieged territory.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 300 people since Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, one of the deadliest periods in the war since ceasefire talks broke down in March. The intensified bombing campaigns came as Israel’s total blockade on humanitarian aid has prompted fears of a famine in the Palestinian territory.

Keir Starmer did not deny a rethink of benefit cut to 10 million pensioners blamed for Labour’s electoral losses

Downing Street is actively investigating changes to the controversial winter fuel payment cut over growing concerns about the policy’s deep unpopularity among voters.

No 10 has stepped up its work on reviewing the policy by carrying out internal polling and focus groups on how voters would respond to potential modifications to it.

Deal that stops short of joining customs union or single market could pay for reversing benefit cuts, party says

A deeper trade deal with the EU that stops short of joining the customs union or single market could bring in £25bn of tax revenue and pay for reversing benefit cuts, according to research cited by the Liberal Democrats.

The party is writing to all Labour MPs this week asking them to join forces in a push for a much more comprehensive deal with Brussels, saying that backing closer trade ties would help revive the public finances.

Our Spanish supremo opens a few tins of supermarket sardines to discover the best catch for your cash

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I like to think of myself as a bit of a connoisseur of tinned seafood, and of tinned sardines, in particular. Well, of course I do: I’m Spanish, after all, and I’ve been eating this stuff since I was two (which, let me tell you, is a very long time ago indeed!). So I jumped at the chance to do a blind tasting of British supermarket tinned sardines – although, with the odd exception, I now think I perhaps jumped just a little too soon.

For me, the first thing you notice when you open a tin of sardines is the look of the fish, and then its smell and texture. They should be headless but otherwise whole, not boned fillets or skinned, and the flesh should feel firm to the touch; the bones, likewise, should still have some structure and substance to them (if you can barely feel them, the fish is likely overcooked). What I found especially illuminating about this blind tasting, however, was that three of the 10 products were pretty much identical, in pretty much every way, from the texture and taste of the fish to the quality of the oil, which is why I found it more or less impossible to tell them apart, or to find any points of difference between them.

In all the noise about borders and boats, one truth keeps getting ignored: most Africans don’t want to leave. We believe our home is worth fighting for – if western countries could just stop exploiting it

Keir Starmer said this week that Britain was becoming an “island of strangers”.

“The current system is contributing to forces that are slowly pulling our country apart,” said the British prime minister. “I believe we need to reduce immigration, significantly.”

John Alite, 62, was a top earner for John Gotti, the Teflon Don – now he says he’s on a mission to ‘do things right’

John Alite has big plans for Englishtown, New Jersey, a small hamlet best known for potatoes, a drag racing strip, and the Battle of Monmouth during the revolutionary wars.

But not everyone is certain they want Alite, 62, having a say over municipal matters in the town of about 2,350 people, where he was appointed a council member earlier this year and comes up for confirmation early next month.

Keir Starmer says Britons have moved on but views in seat that voted heavily to exit the EU are more ambivalent

When Keir Starmer was asked last week whether he thought Britons had finally moved on from the issue of Brexit, his answer was a definitive yes.

It’s not difficult to see why the prime minister would hope to settle the question, before a week in which he hopes to reset the UK’s relationship with the European Union, clearing a way for easier access to a marketplace that could help increase the economic growth he badly needs.