It’s five years since the TV presenter killed herself after being charged with assaulting her partner. Her mother Christine wants the world to know what the police, crown prosecution service and media got wrong

When Christine Flack was invited by Disney to make a documentary about her daughter Caroline, one that would focus on the last few months before her suicide in 2020, of course she had to think hard. Why put Caroline back under the spotlight, expose her to more scrutiny, when tabloids and talkshows and social media had long since moved on?

“I knew there could be as many bad outcomes as good outcomes,” says Christine. “Certain things will be picked up and stories might come out, including ones that aren’t true. But I’d been trying for four years to understand what happened and I still had so many questions. I’d come to a brick wall so I went ahead.” She pauses for a moment before adding: “And whatever happens next, I always say that no one can do anything worse to me now. Nothing worse can happen than Caroline dying.”

Arsenal’s title tilt is built on solid defence, Chelsea miss Cole Palmer and what happened to clampdown on shirt-pulling?

“One-nil to the Arsenal” may not be thrilling but it is certainly effective. Sunday’s victory over Crystal Palace was Mikel Arteta’s side’s third by that margin in nine Premier League games. Last season, Arsenal managed that result five times in the league, while also drawing 1-1 in seven matches. Clean sheets in just half of those might have made for an intriguing title race. For all the noise surrounding Arsenal’s attacking talent, their defence is just as vital. It is their solidity at that end of the pitch that will probably lead them to glory, with three goals conceded in nine top-flight games so far. Sunday also marked a century of games across all competitions since they have conceded more than twice. The last to put three past David Raya? Luton – remember them? – back in December 2023. Sam Dalling

Match report: Arsenal 1-0 Crystal Palace

Match report: Aston Villa 1-0 Man City

Match report: Brentford 3-2 Liverpool

Match report: Manchester United 4-2 Brighton

Match report: Everton 0-3 Tottenham

Twenty-five years on from her dazzling debut, and as a new collection of essays comes out, we assess the British author’s best books

How do you follow a smash hit like White Teeth, which, as everyone now knows, sold for a six-figure sum while the author was still at university, and turned Zadie Smith into a literary superstar and poster girl for multi­culturalism at 24? With a novel about a pot-smoking Chinese‑Jewish autograph hunter, the dangers of fame and the shallowness of pop culture, of course.

A new collection brings essays, fiction and fragments together in a wild if uneven portrait of a restless mind

Think Anthony Bourdain and a whole rush of TV memories flood back. There he is – in shows such as Parts Unknown and No Reservations – a gonzo gourmand trekking to backstreet nooks and favela hideouts in parts of the world where celebrity chefs fear to tread. In Beirut and Congo; savouring calamari and checking out graffiti in Tripoli; slurping rice noodles and necking bottles of cold beer with Barack Obama in Hanoi, Vietnam. One course follows another, evenings drift past midnight and he’s still chewing the fat with locals, hungry for stories – about drugs, dissidence, gristly local politics.

But Bourdain, who killed himself aged just 61 in 2018, had always seen himself as a writer. His mother was an editor at the New York Times, and his youthful crushes were mostly beatniks and outlaws – Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Lester Bangs, Hunter S Thompson. (Orwell too – especially his account of a dishwasher’s life in Down and Out in Paris and London.) A college dropout, he later signed up for a writing workshop with famed editor Gordon Lish. His earliest bylines appeared in arty, downtown publications; two crime novels (Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo) got decent reviews but sold poorly.

In last week's byelection in the Welsh constituency of Caerphilly, Reform UK were the hot favourites, and the focus of huge attention. But as John Harris and John Domokos saw close-up, a Reform win failed to happen thanks to a story most of the media didn't see: how online fear and loathing were beaten back by community spirit, facts trumping fury, and everyday empathy 

Lion’s mane mushroom, maca root, collagen concoctions: there’s a menopause gold rush out on social media’s wild frontier

A woman gets to a certain age and all she wants is to be left alone. No chance. Writing in the medical journal Post Reproductive Health, a group of academics warned recently of a “menopause gold rush” leaving women vulnerable to financial exploitation, misinformation and, frankly, a sweat-inducingly gigantic avalanche of advertising. A lot of this activity has been driven by – guess what? – social media. One respondent told the researchers: “Everything I know about the menopause I learned on Instagram from other women.” As gold rushes go, this has got to be the one you’d least like to see dramatised in a Hollywood movie: “Quick, Bianca, activate the algorithmic analysis of the campaign for the vitamin B6 supplement!”

The academics warned of “a rapid expansion in unregulated private companies and individuals providing menopause information and support for profit”. So now, instead of talking about the treatment and management of menopause, we are talking about how to cope with an equally pernicious condition and one that seems to have no cure or end: the ubiquitous commercialisation of menopause.

Viv Groskop is a comedian and author of How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking

Commons committee describes successive governments’ failures to manage hotel use, contracts, spending and safeguarding

The Home Office has squandered billions of pounds on asylum accommodation due to long-term mismanagement of a “failed, chaotic and expensive” system, according to a report published by a powerful parliamentary committee.

The Commons cross-party home affairs committee report, published on Monday, highlights the previous and current governments’ failures to manage the mix of hotels, large sites such as the Wethersfield former military base in Essex, and shared housing.

Justice secretary David Lammy to announce series of measures after Hadush Kebatu was wrongly freed

Prisons are expected to begin enhanced checks before inmates are released after a man who sexually assaulted a young girl was mistakenly freed from jail.

The justice secretary, David Lammy, will set out a series of measures aimed at strengthening the system in England and Wales as he faces questions from MPs in parliament about the error.

RSF says it has seized control of army’s main base in Darfur, home to famine-stricken displacement camp

Fears are growing for hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in El Fasher, Sudan, after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said it had captured the city, which it has been besieging for more than a year in the country’s civil war.

The group said on Sunday that it had seized control of the army’s main base in the city in Darfur, where famine was declared in a displacement camp last year. It then released a statement saying it had “extended control over the city of El Fasher from the grip of mercenaries and militias”.

US president says Vladimir Putin should focus on ending war with Ukraine rather than testing missiles

• Europe live – latest updates

Donald Trump has described Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a nuclear-powered cruise missile test as “not appropriate” amid growing tensions between Moscow and Washington.

Putin said on Sunday that Russia had successfully tested its “unique” nuclear-capable Burevestnik cruise missile, which the Kremlin described as part of efforts to “ensure the country’s national security”.