Mikel Arteta had wanted something less stressful than Arsenal’s previous home win over Bournemouth and he got his wish. In March of last year, his team had needed a 97th-minute Reiss Nelson goal to complete a wild 3-2 victory from 2-0 down. Here there was glory in the general sense of comfort and control, Arsenal moving to 83 points, still asking the...

As elections loom across the continent, Italy’s prime minister and the commission’s president are in a dubious allianceIt’s rare that an Italian prime minister tops the table in Europe. But with Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron facing red cards at home, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez briefly stretchered off, and relegated Rishi Sunak sulking...

The novelist on a comedic TikTok sensation, the importance of a good suit and his favourite educational appAndrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968, grew up in a working-class Ayrshire family and studied English at Strathclyde University. His first book was The Missing (1995), which told the story of people who disappeared. In 2003 he was included...

Someone has brought an actual tractor. Someone has brought a flag the height of a small house. Someone has brought about two dozen smoke bombs and is letting them off one by one, like rounds of gunfire. Someone is holding a giant drum and someone else is beating it with all his might. A wheelchair emerges out of the blue fog, crushing the broken glass...

Egyptian and US mediators report signs of compromise but many analysts remain pessimisticMiddle East crisis – live updatesHopes of a ceasefire in Gaza rose on Saturday as a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to continue indirect talks, with what is believed to be a response to a new proposal, reportedly agreed by Israel, to halt fighting for an initial...

Government investigation into wartime atrocities on Channel Island will ask why Nazi perpetrators never stood trial in BritainThe government inquiry into Nazi wartime atrocities on the Channel Island of Alderney has been extended to investigate why none of the Nazi perpetrators responsible for the crimes was put on trial in Britain, the Observer can...