Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2023, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it.

From July: In 2024, libraries are unofficial creches, homeless shelters, language schools and asylum support providers – filling the gaps left by a state that has reneged on its responsibilities. By Aida Edemariam

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Starring an Oscar-tipped Timothée Chalamet, James Mangold’s biopic retells Dylan’s electric early career, but it resonates with today’s toxic fame and politics. The creative team explain their process – and what Dylan makes of it

Bob Dylan is notoriously averse to others poking around in his past – he once suggested the legions of self-styled “Dylanologists” who examine his career in forensic detail should “get a life, please … you’re wasting your life”. So when he summoned the director James Mangold to meet him and discuss the Dylan biopic Mangold was making, it had the potential to go badly.

The film, A Complete Unknown , was already well under way. A script based on the folk musician and writer Elijah Wald’s acclaimed 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! had been written by Jay Cocks, best known as the screenwriter of Gangs of New York. Timothée Chalamet was slated to star as Dylan: perfect for the role, Mangold suggests, because “he’s thin and wiry and mercurial and super smart and restless and he’s also a really fucking good actor”.

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Making it easier to get chest X-rays, rather than having to wait for a GP referral, could improve survival rates, finds study

More people with lung cancer symptoms in the UK should be able to self-refer for tests rather than wait for their GP to request them, experts have suggested.

Making it easier for those with symptoms to get chest X-rays could help speed up diagnosis and improve survival rates from the disease, they said.

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Household incomes to stagnate or fall but will be offset by better public services, says Resolution Foundation

Household incomes will stagnate or fall next year but the chancellor, Rachel Reeves , will be hoping people feel better off as a result of improvements to public services, a leading thinktank has said.

The Resolution Foundation calculated a new measure of “real living standards” that took into account both disposable income and the “in-kind” benefits of public services.

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The US president-elect’s ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and boxing, as well as World Wrestling Entertainment, might tell us about the kinds of sport he appreciates. But then there’s golf …

As the US prepares to host the World Cup and the Olympics during Trump’s presidency, Jonathan Freedland and Karim Zidan walk through his history with sport to see if it explains more about him

Archive: BBC, WWE, Fox 9 Minneapolis, NBC 10 Philadelphia, PBS Newshour, TMZ, MSNBC

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About 34,000 Ukrainian children have fled to UK since Russian invasion – yet are unable to study their mother tongue

Ukraine is lobbying the UK government to give teenage refugees who fled the war-torn country the chance to study a GCSE in Ukrainian, amid reports they are instead being pressed to study Russian.

Ukraine’s education ministry has written to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to say it is “crucial” to reintroduce a GCSE in Ukrainian.

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Modern life is so demanding that it can lead us to feel chronically drained. How can we address the problem before everyday stress turns into burnout?

There is a reasonable chance you are reading this while doing one or more other thing – perhaps switching between work emails and social media, or using it as a way to put off today’s gargantuan to-do list. We are living through an era in which there are so many demands on us , whether it’s the trivial – endless notifications from your most annoying WhatsApp group – or more serious, such as caring responsibilities or financial or work stresses. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you are not the only one.

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist and author of The Key to Calm , says: “I’m getting a lot of it in my clinic.” Some people feel paralysed, she says, and can’t decide what to do next. “A lot of my clients say they have trouble finishing any one thing, so that leaves them feeling more and more ineffective.” It’s demoralising, “and it’s not their fault”. It’s not even the fault of the tasks, she says, which don’t necessarily seem, to an outsider, that demanding. Blair thinks it’s an issue of sheer volume, adding: “I think our attention span has already been challenged by using screens so much.” The pandemic hastened this, but it didn’t invent overwhelm. “The problem is managing modern life.”

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Analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heatwaves, leaving millions prone to deadly temperatures

The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world.

The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people, an analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year.

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Spy agency says one soldier detained after reports emerge in Ukrainian media of possible first such capture, in Kursk region

South Korea’s spy agency has confirmed Ukrainian reports that an injured North Korean soldier has been captured by Ukrainian forces, in what could be the first capture of its kind since Pyongyang had sent combat forces to bolster Russian forces in the war in Ukraine.

The South Korean National Intelligence Service said in a statement on Friday: “Through real-time information sharing with an allied country’s intelligence agency, it has been confirmed that one injured North Korean soldier has been captured.”

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