She was born with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. After my decades working in film PR, I now face the biggest campaign of all: the fight for her life

My daughter Elsie has beautiful curls – blond like a little Botticelli cherub’s, hair that someone dark like me could only ever dream of. She laughs a lot, has a cheeky sense of humour and soaks in all the sounds around her – rustling leaves, the sea, a dog barking, children playing around a pool, me impersonating the alarm clock every morning, me impersonating monkeys. Indeed, me impersonating any animal.

Sound is important for Elsie because she has a visual impairment and, while we know she has some peripheral vision, is legally classed as blind. As a result, she uses her tongue to check her environment. When she’s excited it sticks out, tasting the air around her, licking anyone close, sensing space. And when she likes the taste of something she keeps her tongue out until you give her more. This is how we know she likes lollies.

Decision not to pause proceedings means £18m report does not engage with concerns over former nurse’s conviction

Just two months before Lady Justice Kathryn Thirlwall opened her inquiry into events at the Countess of Chester hospital and the crimes of Lucy Letby, a report by Chris Henley KC was published into the “atrocious” wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape.

Henley prefaced that report with a plea for the legal establishment to recognise that the criminal courts produce miscarriages of justice. Right up to top judges in the court of appeal, Henley wrote, the system has “a deep-seated … cultural reluctance” to accept it “will on occasion make mistakes” and that “entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted”.

As Russians vote this weekend, remember that Britain is not immune to the cynical tactics and corrosion of trust that keep him in power

Millions of people will participate in elections in Russia this weekend and a new parliament will be chosen, but not necessarily in that order. The purpose of the exercise is to maintain Vladimir Putin’s authority over the political process, which means United Russia, the president’s party, will retain control of the Duma.

That much is settled before the polls open, although the scale of the government’s victory won’t be declared until the votes are counted. A portion of seats is available for other “systemic parties” that function as Kremlin licensed-opposition, padding out the pretence of pluralism. They serve as a pressure valves for public frustration and parliamentary proxies when rival factions within the ruling elite want to nudge Kremlin policy in one direction or another.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Dozens of Bank of England directors and founding subscribers invested in trafficking of enslaved Africans

The Bank of England and the British financial system were for centuries deeply involved in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people, according to new research on Britain’s slavery history.

Research by historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders has found that the scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. The Bank of England, the central bank owned by the government since nationalisation by Clement Attlee’s Labour administration in 1946, had dozens of financiers involved in its foundation who were also significant investors in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.

The show’s creator has gone, it’s been retooled as a conventional thriller and it feels like it’s starting to run out of ideas – even if it’s as slick and confident as ever

This is a new Slow Horses: season six is the first not to be guided by its creator, Will Smith, a writer whose previous work on The Thick of It and Veep explained why this espionage saga had an unusually sharp comic tongue. The absence of Smith’s drollery is discernible in a more straight-faced new story, but the bigger problem is one of a creative work naturally eroding over time. Slow Horses is now old.

It’s always been a difficult, delicate proposition. The staff of Slough House, a purgatorial spin-off of MI5 where misfits and screw-ups are given boring work when it would make more sense to just fire them, regularly outstrip supposedly elite spies despite being shambling losers. Leading the field agents is River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), who has the good looks of a spy hero and some of the skills, but is also a brittle, luckless and rather whiny wretch, who regularly has to be saved from ignominious death. The jokes have helped us suspend our disbelief that River and the rest haven’t yet been riddled with bullets, and the relocation of traditional spy thrills to decaying urban settings is still a tonic, but enjoying this conjuring trick gets harder every year.

Fire threatens Kalimantan’s rainforests. On the peatland frontlines, a group of local mothers is defending their community. Words and Photography: Garry Lotulung

Irma puts on her heavy rubber boots as she prepares for a volunteer firefighting shift in her village of Sungai Putri, on the Indonesian side of Borneo island.

Dressed in full safety gear she heads into fire zones on her motorbike, the air thick with toxic smoke.

Financial markets predict one-in-five chance of quarter-point rise in interest rates when Bank of England decides on Thursday

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UK inflation has returned above 3% as soaring fuel and transport prices triggered by the Iran war heap renewed pressure on British households.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show inflation as measured by the consumer prices index rose from 2.9% in July to 3.1% in August. The increase, which matched City forecasts, was driven by motor fuel prices rising by almost a quarter.

Rotherham has 46 online vacancies for every 1,000 young people but there are 288 in Cotswold district council area

Young people in Rotherham face a local jobs market with the fewest suitable opportunities in Britain, according to a report that warns stark regional divisions are fuelling a crisis in youth work.

As ministers push to combat rising youth unemployment, the analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) showed young people faced a tougher challenge in some parts of the country to find work than in others.

Thaçi held criminally responsible for war crimes during the violent break from Serbia in the 1990s

Von der Leyen says “kickstarting Europe’s economy is our number one priority,” as Europe needs to tap into its huge market, world class industries and services.

She says its single market remains too fragmented and needs to reform further, with the aim of completing it by the end of next year.

“Do we want to rally around our European idea that together we can decide our own destiny? Or do we let our democracies be undermined by the proxies and puppets of authoritarians?

Whether it is the ultra nationalist or the anti-European, whether it’s Russian interference or disinformation, the names may be different, but their goal is the same.

Leaked documents and testimony reveal extent of regime’s crackdown in 2022 and how it paved the way for more brutal killings of protesters this year

Iranian security forces “coordinated” the killing, torture and sexual abuse of hundreds of people who took part in the women-led nationwide protests in September 2022, according to leaked state documents and interviews.

Tens of thousands of people, including children, took to the streets of towns and cities across Iran after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, after her arrest by the “morality” police for allegedly not complying with the country’s hijab regulations.