Alma Asinobi wants to break Guinness world record for shortest time to visit seven continents

In 2019, Alma Asinobi, a Nigerian postgraduate architecture student, gave herself an ambitious goal after obtaining her first passport: to visit up to 16 countries every year.

Then Covid-19 triggered a global lockdown, curtailing her dreams. Since restrictions were lifted, she has visited more than 30 countries and founded a travel agency, Kaijego.

Once, anti-establishment youth disillusioned with mainstream politics headed left. Now increasing numbers are tilting right. Why?

Josh is 24 years old and works as a carer. It’s not easy work, but he prefers it to his old job in a supermarket: most of his clients are elderly and “just want someone there with them, because they’re lonely”. In his spare time Josh used to be into boxing. But lately he’s got into politics instead.

Like many of his gen Z contemporaries, he’s thoroughly disillusioned with the mainstream kind. “The two parties that have been in power for 100-plus years have done nothing. The economy’s a mess,” he scoffs. But if he sounds like the kind of anti-establishment young person who once rallied to the radical left, Josh’s frustration has taken him in another direction. An ardent leaver in his teens, who backed Boris Johnson in 2019, he now belongs to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The glamorous but gritty period drama continues to put on a show. Plus, enjoy some ‘doggy dancing’ at Crufts! Here’s what to watch this evening

9.15pm, BBC One

In these novels, the heroes are – to borrow a term from the fandom – cinnamon rolls: soft-hearted, sweet and, yes, delicious

Feyre Archeron has many talents: she can skin a wolf and track a deer, and in the words of an amorous fairy she looks “absolutely delicious”. An impoverished hunter gatherer, Archeron is the protagonist of Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, or Acotar as it’s known to fans. This five-book series belongs to a genre called romantasy, so called because it blends romance and fantasy. And it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that it has the popularity of both combined. Acotar has sold more than 13m copies and all five books are in the top 10 bestselling fantasy titles of 2025 to date. If you haven’t heard of them, the chances are that you have seen someone reading one on the train, perhaps concealed beneath the dust jacket of something less salacious.

Most of romantasy’s readers are women aged 18 to 44, and part of the genre’s appeal is its reversal of gender roles. Archeron, for example, can’t read. But that’s only because poverty has forced her to focus her energy on hunting. Her illiteracy is therefore ironically a sign of strength. Maas’s men, meanwhile, may live in gorgeous palaces with well stocked libraries, but as the plots develop they come to depend on Archeron for their salvation.

Max Fletcher is a London-based writer

Exclusive: More than a dozen authorities have bought more than 850 properties in English towns and cities since 2017

London councils and housing companies they own have spent more than £140m buying up homes to relocate homeless people out of the city.

More than a dozen councils in the capital have collectively spent millions buying up more than 850 properties in towns and cities across England since 2017, Guardian analysis of property ownership data found.

Robert Pattinson is beside himself in Bong Joon Ho’s new sci-fi satire, and the subversive pop queen goes back to basics on her new album

Mickey 17
Out now
Clones of Robert Pattinson? Thanks, we’ll take 10 please. Parasite director Bong Joon Ho crafts a sci-fi comedy in which a disposable man is sent to attempt colonisation of an inhospitable ice planet in the full knowledge that he will die many times over during the course of his task. But how much does death matter when you can regenerate with most of your memories still intact?