FT branch of NUJ say there is not ‘compelling case’ for mandate for editorial staff to be in office four days a week

Journalists at the Financial Times are at loggerheads with the publication’s management over plans to order staff back to the office four days a week by the end of the year.

Members of the Financial Times’ union have unanimously voted to invoke the company’s dispute procedure over the proposals, arguing that management have “not made a compelling case” for the need to move from the current three office days.

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Global Sumud Flotilla describes interception as ‘violent raid’ as IDF urges activists to deliver aid via ‘established channels’

Israeli forces have intercepted and detained the crews of at least 22 boats near the Greek island of Crete from a flotilla that is attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, consisting of about 58 vessels carrying people from across 70 countries, departed from Italy on Sunday.

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What we inherit in the kitchen isn’t only a list of ingredients, but a living tradition – one that shifts with our lives, our fridges and the people we feed

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“Chicken, leek, flour, a few more ingredients.” That was it: my grandma’s WhatsApp response to me earnestly asking if she’d mind sharing her time-honoured chicken pie recipe. She wasn’t being obtuse – well, not deliberately. She had simply never before committed a dish that was second nature to paper, let alone an iPhone screen.

It wasn’t how she’d learned it and it wasn’t how I’d go on to learn it, either. I knew I’d have to make her chicken pie many times to get it even close to her standard, that I’d have to learn by watching as well as by asking, and that even then there’d be elements I’d miss. Such is the nature of a family dish – indeed, of any dish that has taken time, repetition and love to master, and for which, even then, perfection remains ephemeral. There is more to their method, meaning and flavour than can ever be confined to and conveyed by a recipe.

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As the actor turns 86, we rate his greatest screen performances and ask which Godfather was the best of the trilogy

With greased-back hair, dainty spectacles and bristly chops, Pacino is a former Little League baseball coach turned locksmith. But – symbolism alert! – who holds the key to his clenched heart? One scene gives good cringe: over a would-be romantic dinner with a bank teller (Holly Hunter), he starts reminiscing about his great lost love, oblivious to his date’s escalating indignation.

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Cryptocurrency ATMs also face ban, after public inquiry found Canada lacked anti-money-laundering strategy

Canada is to establish a new and powerful law enforcement agency to investigate financial crime, in stark contrast to the US, where weakened federal investigators have struggled to pursue fraudsters and the White House has pardoned convicted money launderers .

A bill to create the Financial Crimes Agency (FCA) completed its first reading in parliament earlier this week. The legislation was introduced by the governing Liberals and with their parliamentary majority, the party is likely to move the it through both levels of government quickly.

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A Russian commander who led troops during the Bucha massacre in 2022 was said to be the blast’s intended target

An explosion killed an army officer in a closed-off military town in Russia’s far east this week, in what appeared to be an attempt to target a more senior commander known as the “Butcher of Bucha”.

Three sources familiar with the incident said the bomb detonated at about 9am on Tuesday in a residential block in Knyaze-Volkonskoye-1, the home of Maj Gen Azatbek Omurbekov, who commanded Russian troops during the occupation of Bucha .

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Royal Festival Hall, London
Featuring music that inspired the designer, this show brings together Le Gateau Chocolat, dancers in body stockings and a formal orchestra to mild effect

The small print tells us this show has no connection to the fashion house of McQueen, nor does it feature any of Alexander McQueen ’s designs. You could think it’s a cynical attempt to get bums on seats for classical music, but it is created by McQueen’s longtime musical director, John Gosling, alongside Robert Ames, conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra. The LCO plays music that inspired the designer, all run together like a DJ mix with theatrical lighting and multi-genre guest performers.

Far from “unnatural”, most of the harmonies here are as concordant as Classic FM, mostly film soundtracks (The Hours, The Piano, a couple of John Williams’) and tearjerkers (Dido’s Lament, Barber’s Adagio for Strings). The friction, however, is all in the combinations. For example: two dancers posturing in nude body stockings – one has hooves instead of hands and tights over her face – and then behind them, the cello section in formal white tie and tails. Hearing Handel cut with the Rolling Stones in a jaunty string arrangement, or a blast of Nirvana, feels like your GCSE music teacher trying to be cool, although the blaring siren of Armand Van Helden’s Witch Doktor is genuinely unsettling.

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Everyone is obsessed with the hit hospital drama – and the internet is abuzz with curious predictions and theories. Ghost medics, anyone?

It’s thrillingly intense. It’s obsessed with intubating. It’s occasionally infested with maggots or rats. And it has single-handedly made medical dramas cool again. With each episode covering an hour inside the hectic emergency room at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center (PTMC), awards-gobbling HBO Max hit The Pitt has become the most talked-about show on TV.

And where there’s a hit series, you’ll find an obsessive fandom. Fully invested devotees of The Pitt are busy spotting details, making predictions and hatching theories. As season two approaches midway, here are 10 for your thorough medical examination. Let’s go save some lives …

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With ‘oeno-flation’ as it is, it’s hip to be square and branch out into less exclusive – and cheaper – varieties from often overlooked regions

The sommelier Honey Spencer, of Sune in east London, struck a real chord on Instagram earlier this year: “I’m so fucking sick of expensive wine,” she lamented. There followed an angry plaint about the “unrelenting rise” in the cost of bottles from “artisans making wine properly … and FORGET BURGUNDY”. In a difficult climate, this is “one of the hardest pills to swallow” for the restaurateur.

It’s not an easy swallow for the customer, either, given the mark-up on hard pills these days: according to UKHospitality , the price of wine has gone up 40% since 2020, which will surprise no one who has quietly wept into a £59 rioja.

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