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BBCOct 16Preview

Labour calls for M4 relief road, seven years after axing the plan

Seven years after the party axed the project, Labour says the Welsh government should build the road.

NYTOct 16Preview

Japan’s Leader Says She Loses Hours to Makeup and Chores. Opinions Abound.

Sanae Takaichi said she has a busier schedule than her male predecessors, a nod to the disproportionate share of household tasks in Japan that fall to women.

Javier C. Hernández and Kiuko NotoyaCosmetics and ToiletriesPolitics and Government

GuardianOct 16Preview

‘Clean air is not a favour’: Indonesia’s neighbours fed up with acrid haze as Singapore threatens to prosecute

Millions affected by smoke from wildfires as schools close, respiratory illnesses soar and diplomatic tensions riseSingapore is threatening to prosecute companies responsible for some of the worst fires in years in neighbouring Indonesia, as the region grows increasingly frustrated with a persistent, acrid haze that could result in diplomatic relations fraying.Lawrence Wong, the Singaporean prime minister, said his government was distributing masks to vulnerable citizens and working with countries in the region to deal with the smoke. “At the same time, we are looking into which companies may be responsible for the fires,” he said in a Facebook post on Thursday, adding that he was exploring the idea of “joint action with other countries”. Continue reading...

Oliver Holmes South-east Asia correspondentIndonesiaSingapore

GuardianOct 16Preview

Sod’s law: what can two turf swaps 40 years apart tell us about Britain’s biodiversity crisis?

In 1983, David Nash dug up a section of Kensington Gardens and swapped it with Welsh grassland. Four decades later, Mike Perry’s reverse swap revealed a striking reversal in the fortunes of urban and rural natureIn 1983, an open-topped truck unloaded an unusual cargo in Kensington Gardens: 83 hunks of turf cut from Cae’n y Coed, a wooded hillside in the Ffestiniog valley. The ring of turf measuring eight metres in diameter that was removed from the park beside the Serpentine Gallery in west London to make space for the Welsh sods was then trucked from London to north Wales.So began Sod Swap, a piece of sculptural defiance by David Nash, which has had an unexpected and epic afterlife. More than 40 years later, photographic artist Mike Perry restaged the work as Reverse Sod Swap, exchanging exactly the same amount of turf between Springfield Park in Hackney, east London, and pastureland in

Patrick BarkhamArt and designArt