Former Wimbledon champion on how taking accountability for his crimes allowed for rehabilitation, watching Novak Djokovic from his cell and the new era of brotherhood in the sport

“I heard the screaming and I didn’t know what it was,” Boris Becker says as he remembers staring into the dark in Wandsworth prison, just over two miles from Wimbledon’s Centre Court where he won the first of his three men’s singles titles at the age of 17 in 1985. “Were people trying to kill themselves or harm themselves? Or couldn’t they deal with their loneliness? Or are they just making crazy noises because they have lost their minds already?”

Becker had been sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year jail term. Amid his insolvency, he was found guilty of not declaring all his assets so that additional funds could be distributed to his creditors. The judge confirmed that his money was used, instead, to meet his “commitments to his children and other dependents, medical and professional fees, and other expenses”.

As she launches her first children’s book, the actor answers your questions on Alan Partridge, her iconic green dress and thrilling 10-year-olds with a bullseye

Have you read or listened to the delightful chapter in Alan Partridge’s Big Beacon where he demands: “We came for Knightley, we want to see Knightley, where’s Knightley?” dcieron
No! Do I want to see it? Or is it something that will make me cringe and want to hide under the sofa? I do like Alan Partridge. He’s kind of terrifying but amazing, so now that I know I’ve been a part of Alan Partridge, I should check it out.

When you first wore the green dress in Atonement, did you realise how iconic it would be? Murdomania
I thought it was a bloody good dress. It never actually lasted. It was so fragile that, any time you touched the front, it would completely break, so they had to make a load of different fronts. By the end, I was thoroughly sick with having the dress remade on me. But it’s a beautiful dress and I had no idea that it would have the life that it did.

Jed Mercurio’s police drama is getting a comeback – which gives it the chance to be TV’s greatest cop show once more. Here’s what it needs to do

Mother of God, fella, they’re back at last. In a rare piece of good news for the beleaguered BBC, blockbuster drama Line of Duty is to return for a long-awaited seventh series. So long-awaited, in fact, that many fans feared it would never happen. Luckily, the police still need policing. Even the fictional Central police force.

The last run of creator Jed Mercurio’s corrupt cop thriller was the top-rated TV drama (excluding soaps) since modern records began in 2002, pulling in an average of 16 million viewers and a whopping 17 million for the finale over 28 days. The show’s three stars will now reprise their roles in a six-part comeback that begins filming in Belfast next spring.

There are 27% fewer art teachers in England today than there were in 2011, and the proportion of students taking arts subjects has plummeted. Here’s what it’s like to work in a job that is essential and often perilously undervalued

When 64-year-old Sue Cabourn began her career in the late 90s, the next generation of artists including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Gillian Wearing were dominating the cultural agenda. All of them were state-educated but, had they attended school now, things might have panned out differently.

There has been an exodus of art teachers (a 27% drop in the number working in English state-secondary schools from 2011 to 2024), lower uptake (48% fewer students have taken on arts subjects at GCSE since 2010), and a reformed system that critics say has stifled creativity and prioritised Stem (science and technology) subjects over arts and humanities.

Could you keep the markets calm and your MPs happy as you pull the economic levers to deliver a budget?

On 26 November, Rachel Reeves will deliver this year’s budget to parliament. As in all years, the chancellor has to strike a balance between:

Raising the money needed to fund the services that voters demand.

Keeping taxes at levels that are acceptable to voters.

Persuading the government’s creditors in the bond markets that it will continue to be able to pay its debts.

We’re supposed to be used to this by now, but getting used to it is dangerous. Her colleagues should have spoken up

Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.

Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force One was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

Report on handling of pandemic contains stinging criticism of ‘toxic and chaotic’ culture inside Boris Johnson’s No 10

• ‘Chaotic and indecisive’: key findings of report on UK’s Covid response under Tories

• Dominic Cummings ‘poisoned the atmosphere’ of Boris Johnson’s No 10, Covid inquiry finds

The UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”, a damning official report on the handling of the pandemic has concluded, saying the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier than happened could have saved more than 20,000 lives.

The document also has stinging criticism of a “toxic and chaotic” culture inside Boris Johnson’s Downing Street – which it said the then prime minister actively embraced – in which the loudest voices held sway and women were sidelined.

Refugee Council says plans would create ‘expensive bureaucracy’ and keep people in limbo

• UK politics live –latest updates

People who migrate to the UK will be eligible for benefits and social housing only when they become British citizens and those who arrive by small boats could wait up to 30 years for long-term residency under new plans outlined by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood.

The plans could result in migrants only becoming eligible for benefits and social housing if they first become British citizens, rather than upon being granted settlement as is currently the case.

Exclusive: Courts minister says change needed to stop criminals opting for juries to delay cases, sometimes by years, and clear huge backlog

• UK politics live – latest updates

Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election.

Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”.

Officials say proposal is aimed at stirring up division and disorientating Kyiv’s allies

• Europe live – latest updates

A new US-Russian peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine has been dismissed as “absurd” and unacceptable by officials in Kyiv amid talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a high-ranking US army delegation.

They said the proposal reportedly drafted by Kirill Dmitriev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff was a “provocation”, the aim of which was to stir up division and “disorientate” Ukraine’s allies, they added.