From starting new careers and reconstructing houses to keeping children’s rooms the same, these parents are navigating a ‘rollercoaster’

The term “empty nest” first emerged in the late 19th century, gaining traction in psychological and sociological discourse by the 1940s. Originally, it evoked a singular image: a mother alone in a quiet house, mourning the departure of her last child. But the reality, then and now, is far more nuanced. While the term was once gendered, today the emotional impact is felt across all parents, regardless of role or identity.

The empty nest is not a fixed state but a mutable one. For some, it arrives with a deep ache, a sense of disorientation or loss. For others, it marks a period of renewal, space reclaimed, silence embraced, autonomy rediscovered. The nest may stay quiet or grow noisy again with boomerang children, ageing parents or new partners. Some preserve their homes like time capsules; others transform them entirely, reimagining their lives within, claiming room for new identities, desires and rhythms.

A raid on property wealth and pensions is being signalled by the Treasury, and it has sound reasons for doing just that

Dear baby boomer, the government is coming for you and your store of wealth. The property and pensions built up over the past 40 to 50 years are, for the first time, in play. The triple lock on the state pension might be guaranteed, at least for the time being, but for the wealthier boomer, it looks like their private assets are being laid out on a chopping board, ready to be carved like a Sunday roast and fed to hungry government departments starved of funds for almost two decades.

These are desperate times and taxing the wealthy is a desperate measure. No government wants to do it. If you tax the rich, they might fly away in their private jets. That’s happened in Norway, one of the few European countries to retain a wealth tax. It’s true that older middle-income voters are more likely to stay put, but they also have a tendency to vote with their self-interest in mind. And because baby boomers are the most active age group on polling day – many of them among the richest in society – that has always spelled disaster for the party in government.

Phillip Inman is senior economics writer for the Guardian

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Who had an accent that could skin a corgi? Who was one of the greatest TV monsters of all time? And who did far too much flashing of their buttocks? We put television monarchs under the microscope

Rejoice! For the historical fiction stork has descended from on high with another bundle of monarchical joy. King and Conqueror (BBC) – a hugely entertaining depiction of the events that led to the Battle of Hastings – is the latest addition to that most stately of small-screen genres: the royal drama.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, though! For the portrayal of any British royal – and here we have Harold II (James Norton) and Edward the Confessor (Eddie Marsan) – is subject to a set of unspoken rules, most of which apply to the circumference of the royal nostrils and vowels, all of which must expand to fill the space available and, where necessary, beyond.

The Guardian has visited three frontline hospitals to hear from women who say they have been left fearful of childbirth after more than 80 attacks on maternity units since Russia’s full-scale invasion

It was one of the most horrifying targets of Russia’s war on Ukraine so far. Reports showed a pregnant woman on a stretcher, her face ashen with shock, legs smeared with blood and a hand holding her bump. Behind her, the bombed-out ruins of Mariupol’s maternity hospital. More than a dozen people, including women in labour, were injured in the attack in March 2022. The woman photographed, Iryna Kalinina, later died along with her unborn baby.

In the three years since then, maternity care in Ukraine has remained under constant attack, with more than 2,000 strikes on medical facilities, including 81 affecting maternal care and delivery rooms. Just last month, Diana Koshyk, seven months pregnant, was killed when a missile struck a maternity hospital in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

Ahead of a new biography of the late director (whose favourite number was seven), we rundown some of the most offbeat things about this most mysterious modern genius

David Lynch was an artist first, and a film-maker second (later, he’d also be a photographer, a songwriter and musician, a furniture designer and many other things). He would create works of visual art right up to his final days, but the most infamous would remain his “kits” – a pair of pieces he made in the late 1970s and early 80s, in which parts of a real, dissected animal (first a fish, then a chicken) were pinned to a board, along with kid-friendly instructions on how to reassemble and play with it.

Crystal Palace forward was released by club aged 13 and rejected by others before his breakthrough at QPR

They say good things come to those who wait. But for Eberechi Eze, it has taken 14 years for his dream to come true. The England forward made a dramatic entrance during Crystal Palace’s open training session on Wednesday before their Conference League playoff when he was last to emerge from the changing room with frenzied anticipation that his expected move to Tottenham was close to being agreed.

Even if he had been aware of Arsenal’s intention to step up their longstanding interest in him, Eze was certainly giving nothing away when he signed autographs and spoke to supporters on his way out of Palace’s training ground in Beckenham.

Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.

As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found.

8,900
Named fighters listed as dead or ‘probably dead’ in Israeli database as of May 2025

Exclusive: One NGO placed on an online hitlist had to temporarily close its office owing to harassing phone calls

Refugee support organisations have been forced to install safe rooms in their premises, relocate to less visible sites and in some cases close their offices in response to the threat of far-right violence.

Half of NGOs and charities supporting people seeking refuge have faced threats, a “hostile environment” of protest and safety concerns since the riots of 2024, according to research documents seen by the Guardian.

Moscow backs away from accepting western security guarantees for Ukraine as US president appears to vent frustration in Truth Social post

Moscow threw Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace initiative into disarray on Thursday, insisting it must have a veto over any postwar support for the country as its forces carried out a large-scale overnight missile barrage.

In a series of hardline remarks, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said European proposals to deploy troops in Ukraine after a settlement would amount to “foreign intervention”, which he called absolutely unacceptable for Russia.

Court ends Sanjeev Gupta’s control of UK’s third-largest steelworks as ministers seek to save 1,450 jobs

The government has taken control of the UK’s third-largest steelworks as ministers try to protect 1,450 jobs after Liberty Steel’s operations in South Yorkshire were put into administration.

The high court in London on Thursday ordered the winding up of Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), which has plants in Rotherham and Stocksbridge, despite the company’s request for more time to find new financial backers.