What should be done about the small proportion of babies born with genitals that are neither typically male nor typically female? Many of those affected believe parents and doctors are often too quick to schedule operations

Small Luk was initially “so happy” to be offered genital reconstruction surgery, aged eight. Doctors had told her she was a boy, but that she had an illness, which was why she couldn’t urinate standing up. “They told me this is a problem,” the 60-year-old from Hong Kong says. “And that in the future, you cannot marry, you cannot have a baby, so you need to have surgeries.”

Having been bullied at school for her ambiguous gender presentation, she found the idea that she could be “modified back to normal” a compelling one. But it wasn’t as simple as the doctors made out: Luk had an undeveloped uterus and vagina in her body as well as underdeveloped male genitals.

With this level of unpopularity, the question of the PM’s future may seem simple. But what comes next could be nastily complicated

Be absolutely clear. Keir Starmer is in very deep trouble indeed. Perhaps belatedly, he himself grasps this. His team and his ministers knew it already. His party and the public get it too. For this deeply unpopular Labour prime minister, the words approval rating are a contradiction in terms.

The eruption of speculation about Starmer’s future this week may have taken people by surprise. Where did that suddenly come from? The short answer is that No 10 briefed the latest twist – that Starmer expects to face and defeat a leadership challenge – on Tuesday evening. The longer one is that the Starmer leadership issue has been steadily gaining traction and credibility among MPs since the summer. This story is not a Westminster confection. Politically, it is very real. Dismiss it at your peril.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

The traditional treat is all over Instagram and TikTok. But does it always taste as impressive as it looks? And why is it so hard to get it to set rather than slump? Time for a deep dive …

Jelly has a dowdy reputation, but it may well be the perfect food for the Instagram age: when it works, it’s incredibly photogenic, so who cares what it tastes like?

There can be no other explanation for recent claims that savoury jellies – the most lurid and off-putting of dishes, reminiscent of the worst culinary efforts of the 1950s – are suddenly fashionable. This resurgence comes, according to the New York Times, “at a time when chefs are feeling pressure to produce viral visuals and molecular gastronomy is old hat”.

Head of F1 Academy explains how close she came to a grand prix debut, her quest to produce female drivers, and a frightening knock on her hotel room door by a powerful man in the sport

“There was a deep loneliness to karting, and then definitely in single‑seaters, because no one else was going through the same thing as me,” says Susie Wolff as she remembers her long struggle in motor sport, from racing as a teenager against Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to her determined, but unfulfilled, quest to become a Formula One driver.

“After the whole #MeToo movement, we forget what it was like before. But the way I heard boys talking about girls in the paddock made me think: ‘I never want to be spoken about in that way.’ I realised I’d have to be whiter than white to get through it unscathed.”

Naked in a forest, among people of every age, race, gender and physique, I finally shook off the self-doubt that had haunted me since my teens

When I was 15, I grew nine inches in nine months. My bones ached at night. I grew out of my clothes at a rapid clip, exposing skinny ankles beneath the bottom of my blue jeans. I went from being average height to towering over everyone in my class.

I had been uncomfortable in my own skin even before that. I grew up in the US in the late 70s, and my body type was not in fashion. I was curvy in places that were not celebrated, with thighs and a butt that announced themselves in ways I found uncomfortable. I was a teen when I first started dieting, and women’s critiques of their bodies, and the bodies of others, quickly became a constant refrain of my youth.

A declining sense of collective identity is corroding trust in our institutions and undermining democratic politics

Imagine you are given a pile of tokens, representing real money, and invited to donate to a common pot. There are other players but you can’t interact with them. The sum of collective contributions will be trebled, then shared equally among all players. What do you do?

If everyone submits all their money, all get richer. But if everyone except you pays in, you can enjoy the collective payout while retaining your original stash. The flaw in the selfish strategy is that other people might have the same idea. If no one pays in, there is no bounty to share.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Spokesperson says Giuffre repeatedly said Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing as she accuses Democrats of trying to ‘smear’ president

• Trump knew about Epstein’s conduct, newly released emails suggest

• Democrat who could force Epstein vote to be sworn in after standoff

In a new batch of emails released by Democrats on the House oversight committee, Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Donald Trump knew about the late financier and sex-offender’s conduct. In the three emails released, Epstein apparently told his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump “spent hours” at his house with one of Epstein’s victims.

In two other emails to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote that “of course he knew about the girls”, referring to the now-president. According to the exchanges, Epstein also solicited Wolff’s advice about how he should handle Trump discussing their friendship in an interview with CNN. “I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff writes. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

Ministers and Labour MPs point finger at PM’s chief of staff over No 10 operation that targeted Wes Streeting

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer is facing intense pressure over the future of Morgan McSweeney after the prime minister’s chief of staff was blamed for No 10’s pushback against a possible leadership challenge.

After Starmer dodged a question from Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions about whether he had full confidence in his key aide, Downing Street later clarified that he did.

Internal party memo says ‘trust has been lost’ as US president reiterates threat of legal action against corporation

Reform UK has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the party amid a row over the broadcaster’s editing of a Donald Trump speech.

The film, which was due to be called the Rise of Reform and would have been presented by Laura Kuenssberg, was being made by the independent production company October Films.

Fears rise for displaced civilians as UN reports deteriorating situation and MSF warns of ‘staggering’ malnutrition

There are grave fears for civilians who survived the capture of El Fasher by a Sudanese paramilitary group last month, as the UN warned relief operations were on the brink of collapse and an aid group said malnutrition in displacement camps had reached “staggering” levels.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher – the capital of North Darfur state and the last urban centre outside of its grasp in the wider Darfur region – on 26 October. Survivor accounts and video and satellite evidence suggest more than 1,500 people were killed in ethnically targeted massacres in the immediate aftermath.