The actor seemed destined for a long but unflashy career in musical theatre – until a role as a football club owner in the TV hit changed everything. She talks about her new Hollywood era, calling out misogyny and why she’s ‘more than just camp’

Hannah Waddingham clears her throat. Her voice is a little scratchy. Two days before we meet, the star of Ted Lasso hosted the TV comedy show Saturday Night Live UK. She took part in almost all of the sketches that night, from a skit about “two top-heavy, Reading-based drama teachers” called Janet, to a musical number about how many glasses of wine to drink at a bar, to a bit in which she played the stern northern leader of a speed awareness course. In her opening monologue, she zipped through a variety of accents and impressions. “You see?” she told the cheering crowd. “Range! Range.”

I should have remembered this line when making small talk. We are tucked away in the hidden private dining room of a hotel in London, the city where the actor was born and raised and where she still lives with her young daughter, Kitty. When Waddingham walks through the lobby, people notice her. She is tall, striking, and wearing the pulled-down baseball cap that is an actor’s day-off uniform. During lockdown, Ted Lasso – the amiable football series in which she plays Rebecca Welton, the owner of a fictional team called AFC Richmond – made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2021, it won her an Emmy award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. At 47, after a long but unflashy career on stage and screen, there was a sense that her time had come.

Vibrant areas for young workers who plan to rent while saving for a deposit and then get on the property ladder

• The new 100% mortgages for first-time buyers

The common property rite of passage for graduates and career-focused first jobbers has changed over the past decade. Many careers used to start in London, and an early house-share would be followed by a first flat purchase, then a move to somewhere bigger.

However, the heavy burden of housing costs in the capital is making would-be first-time buyers stop and evaluate whether – even with London weighting on some wages – it is possible to get on the ladder there.

England’s coach said ball possession is not in the team’s DNA – it’s an opinion that should disqualify him from the job

How we talked. On late-night news shows, disembodied heads above a rolling yellow banner. On planes and trains, at bus stops and flower shops and kids’ birthday parties, trying desperately to connect the ennui of the now with the vividness of the later, trying on some level to anticipate the feelings, the blood surge, the heart rush. At the sinks in the office toilets, jerthinktheylldoit, theyactuallymighty’know, shake-shake, and your devastating analysis of the Rice-Anderson-Mainoo triple pivot gets lost in the noise of the hand-dryer.

Two years of this. Countless millions sunk on tickets, hotels, Ubers, shirts, pizzas, flags, the hours spent on Google Maps trying to locate somewhere to eat after 11pm in Riga, the endless psychodrama over Jude Bellingham and whether he should have been left at home or not (turns out, not). How we bled and sweated over this, over the minor details of the journey, over whether Danny Welbeck had done enough to earn a place in the squad or not (turns out, not). All pointing towards the moment on Wednesday evening when England are 1-0 up in a World Cup semi-final against Argentina and your entire happiness rests on whether a bunch of millionaire footballers and a millionaire German coach can keep their shit together for 40 minutes, or not.

Director Honey Trehan decries ‘dystopian’ opposition to his film depicting crackdown on Punjab’s separatist movement

For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has wanted to tell above all.

Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was murdered in the process, is a national hero.

As the bombing starts again, it’s clear the president has dragged the US into a limitless fiasco – and the world into an economic quagmire

Feckless and clueless, Donald Trump is lost in Iran, unable to find a way out of the disastrous war he started. Once again, the US military is pummelling the country and, increasingly, its civilian infrastructure. As before, this unlawful bludgeoning strengthens the resistance of a hardline regime that cares little for its people’s suffering. How often have Trump and Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon’s wildling lord of bones, hailed a bogus victory? The president claimed this week to be “winning big”. No one believes him. Even as it counts the vast human and economic cost of his Persian folly, a watching world scoffs at US impotence.

Control of the strait of Hormuz, closed due to Trump’s belligerence, is now the White House’s limited, elusive objective. The grander US and Israeli war aims – eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme, degrading its regional militias, regime change – are less attainable than ever. It’s Trump’s craven leadership that renders US forces ineffective, not the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. If Iran really is the existential menace he claims, the logical course would be all-out conquest. When George W Bush decided Iraq posed unacceptable dangers, he invaded with 170,000 ground troops. It was a catastrophe. But at least Bush had balls.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

It’s silly, singular and occasionally tearjerking: this tale of a mechanical companion to an elderly widow is shot through with love and care

The home, warns Jamaican nurse Brianna (Michelle Greenidge), can be a “lethal” environment for elderly people. “You lucky like plucky you never smash your head on the corner of the coffee table, or land teeth first on the iron doorstep!” she says, fatalistically, as Sue (Sue Johnston) tries in vain to explain that she didn’t “have a fall”, but fainted due to low blood pressure. In any case, Sue – widowed two years ago – has wound up in hospital with a sprained wrist and is discharged with her arm in a sling.

At least she has her son, Michael (Paul Ready), to rely on. Except that Michael – gutless, whiny and covered in red blotches from a drug trial he’s joined for quick cash (“if it was dangerous”, he says, “do you really think drug companies would do it?!”) – is moving back in with his cheating ex. His solution? A robot carer, preloved and purchased on a 24-month contract. Cocking snooks at an era where everything is on subscription and at the general direction of late-capitalist travel, the preloved Ann Droid robot is useless without an internet connection, and is delivered by overburdened delivery driver Cass (Sarah Kendall), who we later discover has completed a PhD on Chaucer. Sue is appalled.

Defence minister seeks three ‘Naha’ outposts in Gaza as top commander says Israel now controls 65% of the strip, violating Trump ceasefire deal

Israel’s defence and finance ministers announced plans for three illegal settlements in Gaza and more than $400m (£300m) in funding to expand construction in the occupied West Bank, as Israel’s military commander for the region celebrated violent outposts as his “security partners”.

With national elections scheduled for 27 October, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is racing to expand control of land in occupied Palestine and drive out Palestinians before its mandate expires.

‘Strong confrontation’ comes at fragile moment for Reform’s relations with rightwing media as coverage turns negative

Nigel Farage is no stranger to expressing his ire at what he regards as the liberal establishment, but even figures close to him were surprised at the tirade of anger he unleashed upon the editor of the Times.

The exchange, which is said to have included an expletive aimed at Tony Gallagher, was triggered by the Reform UK leader’s outrage that the paper was planning to run a story about his houses, which he said endangered his family.

Former tube network cleaner says tribunal vindicated his health concerns, including about asbestos, that could affect public

A London Underground worker who was unfairly sacked after whistleblowing about his concerns over exposure to asbestos and other toxic dust has said he wants all tube passengers to know about the potential hazards his case has revealed.

Micky Steeds, a former professional boxer from Aveley in Essex, started working for London Underground in 2018 cleaning up decades of dust from vents, lift shafts and inverts – confined channels underneath station platforms for cabling.

A hasty handover from Starmer meant his successor has not had much time to prepare for office yet his team is quietly confident

• What Andy Burnham’s first speech as Labour leader tells us

Just 20 minutes’ walk along the road to Wigan Pier, Andy Burnham’s own route back to Westminster was cemented. At the Edge community centre, about a mile from the famous canal wharf, the result of the Makerfield byelection was announced, surpassing even his highest expectations.

“Andy knew running in Makerfield was high risk but it was the proof point he needed to show the Labour party and the country that if he could win there, he could win anywhere. He got 55% of the vote. It worked,” one of his team said.