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Dementia is a spectre that has loomed large in my family. I watched as it slowly chipped off parts of both my grandmothers, with a gradual fog entering their eyes as time went on. It left a deep fear within me that I might someday suffer the same fate. That fear remained in the background until 18 months ago, when I started to experience the first flickers of peri-menopause in the form of brain fog . I gradually started to forget things at an increasingly alarming rate, whether that was walking into a room and forgetting what I’d come in for, or not being unable to remember names of people I had known for years. This didn’t feel like middle-aged forgetfulness – it felt like something more insidious. The thunderbolt moment came when I forgot the bank account number that I have had since I was 12. It became clear this wasn’t stress or juggling things; it was perimenopause. A recent study of 180,000 postmenopausal women by the Norwich Institute for Healthy Ageing found that taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may reduce the risk of dementia by 10 per cent and Alzheimer’s by 16 per cent. More women are diagnosed with dementia than men, which is thought to be partly due to living longer. This study, however, suggests that perhaps menopause may also play a role. But what we also need is a greater understanding of perimenopause and menopause, combined with better education of doctors. I’ve interviewed women who have previously taken early retirement because they were worried th

There is an old – and deeply dubious – bit of playground wisdom: when a boy pulls a girl’s hair, it means that he likes her. This aphorism is showing its age. Few modern parents would now shrug off what many of them would see as an assault on their child at school. But more than that, boys are expected to grow out of these impulses pretty early. Even if you think hair pulling is charming at age six, it’s less so once you hit 20. Eighty-year-old Donald Trump seems not to have learned that lesson. For the last two years, he has alternately been insisting he would like Canada to become the USA’s 51 st state, or else launching trade wars against America’s northern neighbour, close trading partner, and longtime ally. In recent weeks, the US-Canada trade war has intensified again, after Trump imposed fresh auto tariffs. Faced with an erratic and unreliable primary trading partner, Canada has understandably done what most countries would in its situation – looked to build up relationships and increase its trade elsewhere. That diplomatic work delivered a win for the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney , on Wednesday, when Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, offered Canada “associate membership” of the European Union in a keynote speech. In reality, no one – including Carney and Von der Leyen – knows what “associate membership” of the EU actually means. EU parliamentarians had not been forewarned about the line in the speech, there is no existing politica

Nigel Farage has returned to presenting GB News after a gap of more than six months, having been being forced to take a break from broadcasting because of May’s local elections and the Clacton by-election. He’s now back in his traditional primetime 7pm slot, three nights a week, Tuesday to Thursday. Viewers watched the old, ebullient Nigel back in his element, not the bad-tempered Farage we witnessed this summer. And no wonder, given that last weekend his Reform party received two huge donations of £36m each from two cryptocurrency billionaires, Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. While Reform’s £72m war-chest is great news for the party, in a strange way it actually poses a threat to GB News. Reform has been quick to announce how they’ll spend the crypto money. They’ll double their policy staff at Reform HQ from 10 to 20, and recruit 100 campaign agents for target seats around the country. Much more ambitious, and probably more costly though , are plans for a new online Reform Party TV channel on YouTube. It’s being dubbed Reform TV, but that title is dull. A stronger name would be “Farage TV”, which is thought more likely to excite its probable viewers. But what will Farage do about his continuing commitment to GB News? For five years he’s been the star of the nationalistic, right-wing, pro-Brexit channel, presenting hour-long shows in the primetime 7pm slot. Farage has shown himself to be an astonishingly effective TV anchorman. Without him, and without Farage’s personality

Landlord Sia Tabibi, 75, lost £21,000 after a group of subletters secretly turned his flat into a cannabis farm . Sia, from London, has 13 properties across the capital and has been renting them out since 1992. He has owned the flat in question since 2018 and rented it out to various tenants over the years who caused no issues – but in 2023, that changed. Just over a year into the tenancy, he got a message from one of the neighbours of the flat, telling him it had been raided by police . When he visited, he found that “everything was ruined,” and the tenant had been subletting the property to a group of people that were growing cannabis within the home. He added: “They planted cannabis basically throughout the whole flat. They bypassed the electricity meter, made a hole in the wall to get to the chimney for ventilation and the bathroom was ruined. The smell was tremendous.” Sia had to spend a year renovating the entire flat which included replacing carpets, repairing and repainting the walls and changing the entire bathroom. The flat was only ready to let out again in February this year. He estimates the issue has cost him around £21,000 in renovation costs as well as rental income loss. The rogue tenant and several others he was subletting the flat to fled the scene shortly before the police raided it, and have since “disappeared”, according to Sia. He says no issues were raised to him before the incident, with the managing agent for the property not inspecting it prior, bec

A fresh month means another crop of brilliant books arriving in paperback . This time, there are big names everywhere, from Margaret Atwood’s sprawling memoir and Kiran Desai’s long-awaited novel to Anthony Horowitz’s latest playful mystery. Add a history of the World Wide Web from its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, darkly inventive fiction and plenty of gripping crime , and there is no shortage of reasons to make room on your shelves. Here is our pick of the best… A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz When an actor is stabbed on the set of an adaptation of The Word Is Murder , Horowitz’s first novel featuring himself and private investigator Daniel Hawthorne, the pair are drawn into another murder case. A clever, playful meta-mystery. Penguin, £9.99 We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad Awad’s brilliantly strange Bunny introduced Sam and the terrifyingly sweet clique of MFA students who drew her into their surreal world. Here, after Sam writes about them in a successful novel, the furious Bunnies kidnap her and insist on telling their side. Scribner, £9.99 Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister A road trip across America is meant to bring Simone closer to her teenage daughter, Lucy. Instead, she wakes in a Texan desert cabin to find Lucy missing – and a phone containing instructions that will force her to commit a terrible crime. Penguin, £9.99 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai Desai’s first novel in two decades follows aspiring writer Sonia and journalist Sunny, whose fam

The greatest weakness in British defence and strategy has been hidden in plain sight for decades. It is a failure in policy for which even our close allies are now criticising us. This is our woeful preparation for defending our homeland – including what every one of us might have to do were the unthinkable to happen. Yet increasing acts of violence on British soil and across Europe have changed the game and are now forcing a reckoning at the highest levels of the military. Senior members of the armed and security forces, officials, analysts and practitioners alike are now drawing up plans for how we defend ourselves. Finally, they are acknowledging our lack of provision for and understanding of homeland defence – and are taking steps to address it, including tearing up the long-neglected “war book” to prepare for invasion, and even looking at splitting the Army into separate forces to protect ourselves at home and abroad. Hybrid attacks are on the rise across Europe – many blamed on Russia and its proxies. Only this week the Netherlands was hit by what appeared to be a major act of sabotage across its rail network. Commanders and defence officials fear that an attack like this – or worse – on the UK is only a matter of time. Last year’s cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover should have been a warning. It was dismissed first as an accident, but appears to have been sponsored by Moscow. The whole operation cost the company just shy of £2bn and the British economy as a whole a furt

Approaching the town of Limone sul Garda on Lake Garda by boat or along the coast road, the shoreline comes into view, lined with a clutch of red-roofed, pastel-painted houses. But just above, backed by a cliff, rise strange-looking structures made up of rows of stone pillars arranged in tiers. These are historic lemon houses, the produce of which once connected this isolated community to the rest of Italy and Europe . I’ve lived in Italy for 12 years, and the town draws me back annually for languorous days breathing in the perfume of the groves, sipping limoncello spritz and walking by the breezy lake shore. I’ve road-tripped several times around Lake Garda and visited around a dozen towns, but Limone sul Garda’s history, and the fact that I love anything lemon-flavoured makes it one of my favourites. One of Italy’s most beautiful villages Last December, Limone sul Garda – towards the north of the lake, on its western shore – was recognised as one of the Borghi più belli d’Italia (the most beautiful villages in Italy). Suspended between the lake water and the mountains, it feels both Mediterranean and Alpine. September (with high temperatures in the mid 20°Cs) and October (up to 18°C) are pleasant months to visit. It’s also less crowded in shoulder season, as Lake Garda is still favoured as a summer resort for Italian and international tourists. That makes parking easier, as you have to leave your vehicle in car parks above the town or a very busy one by the shore, the histo

The Government will look to cut the number of people receiving benefits for ADHD , it is expected, with a review set to recommend symptoms should not lead to an automatic offer of a diagnosis. A number of reviews have been examining the increase in those being diagnosed with conditions like ADHD and autism and a link to the rise in young people not in employment, education or training (Neets). The topic has sparked a fierce political debate at a time when the cost of Britain’s welfare bill is soaring. Reform UK’s Richard Tice is among those who have previously claimed there is a “crisis of overdiagnosis” of special educational needs among children. Wes Streeting , the former Labour health secretary who ordered a review into the issue, initially claimed that “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions was leading to “too many people being written off”, but later retracted his comments saying he had “failed to capture the complexity of this problem”. Streeting’s review, which is being led by Professor Peter Fonagy, a clinical psychologist and professor at University College London, is expected to be published imminently and inform government policy across departments including health and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). How many people are diagnosed with ADHD or autism and are receiving benefits? NHS statistics estimate that 2.5 million people have ADHD, including those who have not been diagnosed formally. Of these, an estimated 740,000 are children and young people

The White House could not disguise just how big a blow this represented to Donald Trump . “Rather unfortunate,” was how a White House spokesman on Fox News described the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates for the first time since 2023. The quarter of a per cent hike by America’s central bank will make borrowing more expensive across America and comes just weeks before crucial midterm elections in which Republicans are expected to struggle . President Trump, who hand-picked the new chairman of the Fed, Kevin Warsh , believing that unlike his predecessor Jerome Powell he would cut interest rates and juice the economy, was clearly disappointed – to put it mildly. On Truth Social, he demanded that interest rates be cut to 1 per cent or less, but notably he did not mention Warsh directly – or call him dumb or a jerk, insults he regularly hurled at Powell . Instead he blamed the Fed’s board which was, he claimed, “very hostile, they’re very political”. Since his return to the White House, Trump has repeatedly and aggressively demanded that the Fed slash borrowing costs. Warsh’s elevation to chair prompted serious concern that he would bow to the President’s demands, jeopardising the independence of what is considered the world’s most important central bank. And Warsh must have been bracing for the President’s wrath. Trump continued with his tirade, demanding that interest rates be lowered “fast”. Trump said that the benchmark interest rate should be lowered to “1 pe

In May, Donald Trump announced he had received a perfect score of 30 out of 30 for the fourth time on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, a cognitive screening tool used by doctors. The President called this proof of his “extreme intelligence”, but the announcement rang alarm bells among clinicians. The chance of a perfect score on the MoCA test for a healthy adult is about 10 per cent, according to its creator. The odds lengthen to one in 10,000 for four consecutive perfect scores. But the more concerning aspect was the frequency of the test, with Trump taking three in little more than a year, says Dr Henry David Abraham, professor of psychiatry emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine in the US. “You give a MoCA for a rapid screen. Is the person functioning in a cognitive sense or not?” he said. “If you are doing two, three, four, you’re not doing a rapid screen. You’re looking for a trend.” Abraham is convinced there is a trend towards a decline in Trump’s mental state , and that it could threaten disaster for humanity. “He’s certainly our most impulsive president in my lifetime,” said Abraham, noting the sudden attacks on Iran and Venezuela , and Trump’s conduct during them. “He is an unstable individual with absolute control over the American nuclear arsenal.” Some of the President’s threats towards Iran, such as “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, were widely taken as a veiled reference to nuclear weapons . The clinician also pointed to disturbing images

In September 2026, Japan announced that the number of its population who are aged 100 or over has surpassed a record-breaking 100,000. Women make up the majority (88 per cent) of this lucky 107,677 . Here, we speak to a 106-year-old woman from Hiroshima. She reveals the habits that have helped her live for over a century. What is the secret to living a long and happy life ? If anyone would know, it’d be Tetsuyo Ishii. Also known as Granny Tetsuyo, she was born in 1920 in Japan and has lived in a mountain town in Hiroshima since 1946, when she married her husband. She worked as a teacher until she was 56 years old, and doesn’t have children of her own. Ever since her husband died, when she was 83, she has been living an independent life – one that has stretched well into her second century. Granny Tetsuyo did not consider this to be remarkable until she was interviewed by a local paper in 2020, aged 100. She became a local celebrity, stealing people’s hearts through her sense of humour, her pragmatism and her refreshingly simple approach to living. Even now, she doesn’t see herself as exceptional. As she puts it: “Eating, sleeping and chatting are my special skills.” If there is a secret to longevity , Granny Tetsuyo shows that it doesn’t lie in expensive, invasive treatments or complicated protocols. Instead, it lies in knowing yourself and embracing the every day, as shown through her diaries and interviews, published now as Happy on Her Own at 102 (her age at the time of or

At least nine European countries have been allowed to delay the full roll-out of controversial border biometric checks until the end of the year, The i Paper can reveal. Brussels has given extensions to several member states after a deadline for full implementation of the Entry/Exit System (EES) for non-EU nationals at Schengen area airports passed earlier this month. At least nine European countries have been allowed to waive the full introduction of EES until the technology required for the necessary facial and fingerprint scans is working effectively, it was reported earlier this week. They include France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland – countries where airports in popular holiday hotspots have been hit by long EES delays. EES, which launched last October, is replacing manual passport stamping, but has led to queues as long as seven hours at airport border checkpoints. Some passengers were forced to miss their flights. Long queues have been reported at European airports due to EES checks, forcing some to miss their flights (Photo: John Calladine) When asked about the nine countries yet to fully introduce the checks, a spokesperson for the European Commission told The i Paper it was in “close and constructive contact with those few member states where some adjustments are still needed at certain border crossing points”. “We have asked them to further intensify their operational preparedness, including the necessary technic