Jess Cartner-Morley has been the Guardian’s fashion editor since 2000. She is online now answering your questions from tips for the well-dressed man to trouser fastenings

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PetertheGray asks: Why are so many high end items made from synthetic fibres? And are synthetics always bad?

Jess:

The answer to the first part of your question is just, price. As to the second part - as a rule of thumb, natural fibres are a sustainable choice. Virgin polyester - which is made from oil, and doesn’t biodegrade - is to be avoided. But there are also sustainable synthetic fibres. Look out for Tencel, which is the most common brand name for a fabric called lyocell, which is made from wood pulp, and is biodegradable.

I commend both of you for having figured out what you like and what suits you. That’s the hardest part. My personal bugbear front-fastening trousers where the ‘hidden’ hook-and-eye fastening is too close to the edge of the fabric so the metal keeps showing. Drives me insane.

Next year’s competition won’t take place in the country’s capital, an announcement that even surprised Bulgarian winner, Dara

Ever since Bulgarian singer Dara was crowned winner of the Eurovision song contest this May, it has been clear that the Balkan nation would for the first time in its history have the opportunity to host Europe’s biggest party.

So when Bulgarian officials announced last week that the world’s largest live music event in 2027 will be held not in the capital Sofia but in Burgas, a Black Sea port city home to 200,000 people, it came as a surprise – even to last year’s winner.

It’s vital that Yvette Cooper’s taskforce acts on the Amos and Ockenden reports – and puts the needs of women and families at the heart of maternity services

It is hard to find the words to describe the agony for those who have experienced preventable baby loss, injury or maternal death. Understandably, families who have been through this have campaigned relentlessly for local and national investigations. Every family deserves to know what caused their loss or trauma, but current and past reviews have failed to deliver on resolution and accountability.

The vital debate about how to ensure safe maternity care has intensified since the publication of two reports, led by Valerie Amos and Donna Ockenden, and the appointment of Yvette Cooper as secretary of state for health and social care, offering a golden opportunity for system-wide change. “I want to make it a personal crusade to put the cradle back at the heart of the NHS,” Cooper told the Guardian last week, adding that she was committed to introducing a new national maternity commissioner.

Julia Sanders is professor of clinical midwifery at Cardiff University and was an expert adviser to the national maternity and neonatal investigation led by Valerie Amos

With a soulful sound and soul-baring lyrics, the Afghan Whigs rode the post-Nirvana boom to the big leagues. Their frontman explains his exploration of the male ego – and how Usher got the band back together

The Afghan Whigs were always heavier than their grunge-era brethren. Not musically – their turbulent, sophisticated rock was rooted in soul and funk, and frontman Greg Dulli says the group only embraced distortion in order to be heard over the volume of metalhead drummer Steve Earle’s playing. “Any kind of jangle wasn’t gonna work.” But Dulli’s lyrics, inspired by the likes of Motown bards Holland/Dozier/Holland, were pitch-black, depicting lovers in co-dependent cycles of betrayal and recrimination. Afghan Whigs songs take place in a world where sin is irresistible, punishment inevitable and some kind of judgment inescapable.

“My songs acknowledge consequence, more than they deal in judgment,” Dulli says, between sips of water in the bar of a London hotel. Forty years on from their formation, the Whigs are resurgent. Their new album, Soft Control, ably holds its own with earlier dark masterpieces such as their 1993 breakthrough Gentlemen, and its bleakly funky conceptual follow-up, 1996’s Black Love – records that affirmed their frontman as alt-rock’s poet of arch romantic dysfunction. “I understood sorrow and loss and loneliness from an early age,” he says. His dad was the youngest of 14; several of Dulli’s uncles died when he was young. “I had been there, so why wouldn’t I explore it?”

As warming seas push native species to cooler waters farther north, once-rare visitors have become more common

‘It sounds silly but I thought it was a person in the water waving,” says Kurt Lander, skipper of the Yellowfin charter boat, based out of Brighton. But when he grabbed his binoculars, he realised the fluttering movement he had noticed in the middle of the Channel shipping lane was a pair of sunfish.

The huge fish were lying on their sides and flapping their fins. “Apparently, they do it as a visual attraction to birds,” he says. “They’re trying to get the birds to eat the parasites off them.”

I’ve started writing to my sister, my mum, my friends … Not everyone writes back, but when we connect it’s on a deeper level than any group chat

Last January, I received a letter. Most of my post was predictably boring – a statement from the water company, my credit card bill, the occasional update about my pension contributions – but this letter was different. The envelope felt heavier than the run-of-the-mill ones I was used to. It was postmarked Paris, a place I had little connection to, and, most strikingly, it was addressed in messy handwriting – my own.

I had completely forgotten I’d written it until it turned up on my doorstep. On a trip to Paris the year before, I had visited a letter-writing cafe. The idea was simple: you wrote a letter (usually to yourself), the cafe kept it safe and sent it a year later. So, alongside trying escargots for the first time, I wrote a letter filled with questions about my not-so-distant future and addressed it to my home, in London. What will you be doing? Where will you be living? Do you have a boyfriend?

President issues threat to ‘bomb the shit out of them’ after previously threatening Gulf ally in May

Donald Trump has again threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of his effort to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Trump told Fox News on Monday, the second time he has directed such a threat at Muscat, a longtime US strategic partner that has traditionally served as a key backchannel between Washington and Tehran.

Deputy leader says it is ‘arrogant’ to try to stop global heating, despite UK being left reeling by summer firewave

Reform’s deputy leader has dismissed efforts to tackle climate breakdown as futile, as he urged British people to “enjoy” the warmth of the recent heatwaves.

Richard Tice told a press conference on Monday he believed it was “arrogant” to try to stop the climate emergency and added that politicians should focus instead on adaptation efforts, while encouraging people to focus on upsides such as better English wine.

Calls grow for inquiry into media reporting of the case as Cambridge chancellor criticises ‘racist feeding frenzy’

A Windrush campaigner who launched a fundraiser for Jason Arday’s family has said the outpouring of support shows “Britain still cares”.

Arday, who was found dead on Friday, had resigned the previous week from his post as professor of sociology of education at the University of Cambridge after allegations of plagiarism were made against him.

Campaigners demand greater transparency into water companies’ plans not made public due to ‘security reasons’

The UK government has been accused of a lack of transparency and of acting irresponsibly for refusing to publish the emergency drought plans that are produced by water companies.

Water firms are required to publish statutory drought plans every five years to detail the actions needed to ensure public water supply is maintained and the environment is protected during drought.