Since 1985, the country’s toad population has almost halved, with hundreds of thousands killed on the roads each year. But many people are determined to protect them – including 274 dedicated patrol groups

It’s 7.30 on a Friday evening, but I’m not heading to the pub or putting on a film. Instead, I’ve caught the train to a market town in Wiltshire, where I’m meeting up with members of Warminster toad patrol. These are volunteers who – like similar groups up and down the country – give up their evenings to protect their local toad population.

For the common toad (scientific name Bufo bufo) is becoming increasingly uncommon. A recent study led by amphibian and reptile charity Froglife showed that the UK toad population has almost halved since 1985. To see a creature that has been a stalwart of the British countryside – not to mention a prominent feature of literature and folklore – in decline is “worrying”, says Dr Silviu Petrovan, senior researcher at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the study. Toads “don’t require very specific conditions” and “should be able to live quite well in most of the habitats in Britain,” he says – so if even they are not managing to survive, “it kind of suggests that things are not as they should be”.

The manosphere is known for misogyny, but that’s not the only thing that influencers in this space offer. Young men explain the allure and the problems of the manosphere in their own words

Iida Turpeinen’s novel has been a sensation in her native Finland. On the eve of its UK publication, she talks about her compulsion to tell of the sociable giant’s plight

Iida Turpeinen is the author of Beasts of the Sea, a Finnish novel tracing the fate of a now-extinct species: the sea cow. Similar to dugongs and manatees, the sea cow was only discovered in 1741 by the shipwrecked German-born naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller but by 1768 it had already become the first marine species to be eradicated by humans.

Translated into 28 languages and shortlisted for the country’s most prestigious literary award, the Finlandia Prize, Beasts of the Sea was described by the Helsinki Literacy Agency as the most internationally successful Finnish debut novel ever. Turpeinen, 38, a PhD student of comparative literature, is now a resident novelist at Finland’s Natural History Museum. Her book will be published in the UK on 23 October.

Tommy Robinson is said to be going to Villa Park as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan. Do the politicians jumping on this bandwagon care what they are doing

While navigating a steep trail, Jean Muenchrath lost her grip. She was horrifically injured, with a broken spine, shattered tailbone, pubic bone and hip fractures, internal bleeding, a head wound and one on her buttock that turned gangrenous. There was no choice but to get home ...

As Jean Muenchrath stood at the summit of Mount Whitney, a storm thundered in. It was May 1982, and here, at the highest point of the contiguous US, she and her boyfriend Ken were coming to the end of a month-long ski and hike, 223 miles along the John Muir Trail, through the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.

The trip had been gruelling at times – equipment had broken and they had been threatened by bears and avalanches. But it had also been exhilarating. At 22, Muenchrath was fit, strong and an experienced hiker. She had skied since she was a child and worked as a ranger for the US national park service in Montana; she and Ken, who she had met at university, had been on many smaller adventures while preparing for this one.

Zoe Williams describes the scandals that have engulfed Andrew, leading to him giving up his titles

On Friday evening, Buckingham Palace released a statement from Prince Andrew. ‘I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,’ it read. ‘I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me.’

It seemed that Prince Andrew was voluntarily giving up his titles such as the Duke of York, the Knight of the Garter, or calling himself the Earl of Inverness – but perhaps his hand had been forced by the palace, or by his older brother King Charles.

Rachel Reeves also highlights austerity and lack of capital spending as key harms to UK economy

Labour is spending significantly more on levelling up projects than previous Conservative government, new research suggests.

In a New Statesman article, Anoosh Chakelian reports on figures produced by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods thinktank that show that Keir Starmer has spent more on levelling up projects in his first year than any of his Tory predecessors did in the same timescale. Chakelian says:

In its first year in office, Keir Starmer’s government has invested £2bn more than Johnson did in his first year – with £4.5bn allocated to regional investment programmes in Labour’s first year compared with £2.5bn spent in the equivalent period under Johnson – according to new analysis by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods.

Investment in the North East will be seven times higher than under Johnson, and five times higher in the North West and Yorkshire and Humber by the end of the Parliament, based on current trends identified in this analysis of 46 government programmes and funds.

Lab, Con & LibDems today all agreed the decision by Weds Mids police to ban the Jewish fans is wrong, disgraceful etc, but nothing they can do because ‘operational independence’. Only Reform UK will change the law to put the police under the control of elected politicians.

Former prime minister grilled over pandemic’s impact on young people and says he wishes ‘another solution’ could have been found over school closures

Former prime minister Boris Johnson tries to give the inquiry context around the decision making on the closure of educational settings. He says:

Don’t forget that we didn’t know the effect this disease had on kids. We didn’t know much about the transmissibility of the disease. There were all sorts of things that were simply unknown and difficult to plan for. And the thing was moving very fast.

And from the point of view of No 10, we were focused very much on trying to stave off, trying to avoid an appalling public health crisis, and we were focused on getting enough ventilators, on getting enough PPE, trying to avoid a significant number of casualties, and I think it’s important for the inquiry to focus, to remember that at the time that the school closures were first mentioned, they were seen as something you put in at the peak of the pandemic, and we didn’t think we were yet at the peak of the pandemic.

Former president organised stage-managed departure from his Paris home before becoming first French postwar leader to be jailed

• Europe live – latest updates

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been jailed in Paris, after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

France’s rightwing president between 2007 and 2012 is the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to go to prison.

Governor Andrew Bailey says it’s an ‘open question’ if collapse of First Brands and Tricolor is merely idiosyncratic or “the canary in the coalmine”.

• UK borrowing reaches five-year high for September at £20.2bn

• ‘I’m having a great day’: AWS outage offers some a brief glimpse of a tech-free existence

The pound has dipped slightly on the back of the jump in UK borrowing.

Sterling is a little lower against the US dollar this morning, at $1.3395.

Overall, today’s public finance figures in the UK suggest that 1) there are deep set financial problems in the UK, and 2) the November budget is now virtually assured to be painful for all, without public sector spending consolidation.

“This Government will never play fast and loose with the public finances.

“We know that when you lose control of the public purse it’s working people who pay the price.