From the top lollipop person to the most dedicated convenience store managers, we celebrate the winners of the year’s most unusual accolades

Michael Leech, from Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, has been named the UK bus driver of the year

This update of the 1995 documentary series is utterly authoritative. And its tweak of the Fab Four’s songs is a thing of wonder – their music absolutely thumps!

It would be wrong to go into The Beatles Anthology expecting another Get Back. Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary did such a miraculous job of recontextualising the glum old footage from Let It Be, by setting it against an ingenious ticking clock device and expanding it out to become a maximalist feelgood avalanche, that it felt like you were watching something entirely new.

But The Beatles Anthology is not new. If you saw the original series on television in 1995, or on YouTube at any point since, you’ll know what you’re in for. It is almost the exact same thing, only the images are sharper and the sound is better.

The Beatles Anthology is on Disney+ now.

Daniel Craig is joined by a sparkling array of talent including O’Connor, Glenn Close and Josh Brolin in this latest murder mystery with a religious undercurrent

Rian Johnson’s delectable new Knives Out film is a chocolate box: mouthwateringly delicious on the first layer and … well, perfectly tasty on the second. Daniel Craig returns as private detective Benoit Blanc, in a slightly more serious mode than before, with not as many droll suth’n phrases and quirky faux-naif mannerisms, but rocking a longer hairstyle and handsomely tailored three-piece suit.

Blanc arrives at a Catholic church in upstate New York to investigate the sensational murder of its presiding priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a ferocious clerical alpha male played by Josh Brolin, thundering his reactionary views from the pulpit. (That “Monsignor” title can only be bestowed by the pope incidentally: presumably Benedict XVI or John Paul II, not milksop liberals like Francis or Leo XIV.) And prime suspect is the sweet-natured, thoughtful junior priest Father Jud Duplenticy, amusingly played by Josh O’Connor, who was upset by the Monsignor’s heartless attitudes and was caught on video threatening to cut him out of the church like a cancer. Atheist Blanc faces off with the young priest, a worldview culture-clash which leads to an extraordinary encounter with the Resurrection itself.

From joint bank accounts and pooled savings to mortgages and tax allowances, talk about money for a happy financial future together

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for whether you should manage your finances jointly, separately or somewhere in the middle.

The CMP system means Huda Ammori will not be allowed to know what allegations were made against her

At some point in the challenge to the ban on Palestine Action beginning on Wednesday, the co-founder of the direct action group will be asked to leave courtroom five at the Royal Courts of Justice, as will her legal team and most others present. Then the case will continue without them.

When Huda Ammori returns to the room, the special advocate – a security-cleared barrister – who represented her interests in her absence will not be allowed to tell her or her legal team what evidence was presented against Palestine Action. If Ammori asks what allegations were made directly against her, the special advocate must not tell her, even though that means she will have no chance to rebut them.

As casualties mount, recruitment is expanding. Three women talk about why they signed up for a brutal combat environment

Women have been involved in Ukraine’s drone operations since the early months of the full-scale invasion, but as shortages in the military increase their presence has grown, particularly in FPV (first-person-view) attack units.

Casualty figures are not disclosed but widely understood to be high, and Ukraine is becoming reliant on civilians to fill roles that once belonged to trained military personnel. A short but intensive 15-day course is given to a trainee operator for frontline deployment, a turnaround that reflects the urgent need.

Indoor and outdoor training courses set up for trainee pilots at a drone school

Chancellor to deliver fiscal statement, billed as decisive moment for fate of Starmer government, at 12.30pm

• Tax, pensions, savings: what to expect in the budget

• Reeves’s high-stakes budget in five key charts

• Could you do better than Reeves? Play our game

Yesterday the Metropolitan police said they were not allowing a planned protest in Westminster by farmers to coincide with the budget. Farmers have been protesting regularly about the decision announced in Rachel Reeves’ budget last year to extend inheritance tax to farms.

The decision was criticised by the Conservative party, who said originally the Met had indicated the protest would be allowed. Last night Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, issued a statement saying:

It doesn’t smell right, particularly when we think of the regular and frequent protests that are allowed in SW1 which inconvenience motorists, residents and businesses without consideration. Is this to save the chancellor embarrassment ahead of her budget of broken promises?”

A number of tractors were seen driving through Westminster early on Wednesday, with police stopping around 20 of them in the vicinity.

This included a farmer dressed as Father Christmas, his tractor carrying a large spruce tree and bearing a sign that read “Farmer Christmas – the naughty list: Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Diane Abbott, Angela Rayner & the BBC”.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as the City braces for the budget

• Millions of UK workers to get pay rise as Reeves plans increased minimum wage

• What to expect in budget 2025: tax, VAT, pensions, savings and more

• Could you do better than Reeves as chancellor? Play our interactive budget game

Deutsche Bank’s UK economist, Sanjay Raja, has predicted that Rachel Reeves will deliver a second “historic tax-raising budget”, although the scale won’t be as large as last year’s effort.

Raja predicts that macro-economic downgrades, policy u-turns, and a push to shore up fiscal resilience will probably lead the Chancellor to deliver nearly £35bn of fiscal consolidation.

Here’s what Rachel Reeves is tipped to announce after months of speculation

• Could you do better than Reeves as chancellor? Play our interactive budget game

Every chancellor likes to float ideas before a budget to test how they might land with the public.

However, the sheer volume of policy ideas floated – and in some cases quickly jettisoned – through the media in the run-up to Wednesday’s Westminster set-piece has set Rachel Reeves’s second budget apart.

Chancellor to set out tax and spending plans shaped by weak productivity, high borrowing costs and cost of living crisis

• What to expect: tax, VAT, pensions, savings and more

Rachel Reeves will unveil her make-or-break autumn budget on Wednesday, after months of speculation over tax rises.

In a critical speech in the Commons, with the government under intense pressure, the chancellor is expected to announce tax and spending measures aimed at plugging a multibillion-pound shortfall in the public finances.