By learning to live with its ursine neighbours, mountainous Pettorano sul Gizio has drawn tourists and new residents, bucking a trend of rural decline

Pettorano sul Gizio is a medieval mountain town full of alleys, watchful cats and wooden doors locked sometime in the last century. In the lower parts of town, rustic charm turns into abandonment – branches grow out of walls and roofs have fallen in. The only bar closed at Christmas, after the owner died. Some “For Sale” signs have been up so long the phone number is illegible.

The town, with its faded ochre and orange hues, is listed as one of Italy’s I Borghi più belli (an association of historic towns). In 1920, about 5,000 people lived here, now the population is 390 . It resembles many others in Italy’s south-central Abruzzo region, home to a shrinking, ageing population. One nearby town has been almost completely abandoned, and is home to just 12 people.

George Freeman urges country to act as global lead for space regulation, insurance and finance

The UK’s role in the next generation of interplanetary exploration should be that of a space “watchdog” leading on regulation, insurance and finance, a former science minister has said, in an effort to rein in a situation he compared to the wild west.

George Freeman, the MP for Mid Norfolk who was minister for science, research, technology and innovation under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, said the need for standards was pressing.

Transport secretary says overhaul in response to Trump tariffs supports car firms and climate goals

• UK politics live – latest updates
• Business live – latest updates

Labour’s changes to electric vehicle (EV) rules in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs will have a negligible impact on emissions, the transport secretary has said.

Keir Starmer has confirmed plans to boost manufacturers, including reinstating the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

Exclusive: 136 organisations call on PM to stop using ‘demonising language’, after his remarks before crime summit

More than 130 refugee and human rights organisations have called on Keir Starmer to stop using language that demonises migrants, after he made controversial remarks before an international people-smuggling summit.

The criticisms are contained in a letter to the UK prime minister, coordinated by the campaign coalition Together With Refugees. It has been sent to the prime minister in response to comments he made before the Organised Immigration Crime Summit on 31 March, where more than 40 countries came together in London to focus on tackling organised immigration crime including people-smuggling gangs.

Sketched in cinematic black and white, this illustrated interpretation of the late author’s postmodern detective novel is a ‘stone-cold masterpiece’

It was a wrong number that started it – literally in the case of The New York Trilogy . In 1980, or thereabouts, Paul Auster twice answered the phone, only to hear a voice ask: “Is this the Pinkerton Agency?” (Pinkerton is a legendary American detective bureau.) He told the caller they had a wrong number, yet he was soon filled with regret. Here, surely, was a story: why hadn’t he asked any questions? But never mind. While a third call never arrived, in its place came inspiration. Out of the disappointing silence, Auster spun the first volume of his trilogy, City of Glass , a literary hall of mirrors that made him famous.

City of Glass was published in 1985. Nine years later, under the brilliant eye of Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus , Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli created a graphic adaption of the book, produced with Auster’s approval, and it was widely acclaimed as a work of art in its right. Only now, however, is the cartoon form of the trilogy at last complete. Ghosts , the second volume, has been drawn by Lorenzo Mattotti , an Eisner award-winning Italian comics artist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker and Le Monde , while The Locked Room is again the work of Karasik , a celebrated figure in comics (he began his career at Raw , the magazine run by Spiegelman and his wife, Françoise Mouly). Both were overseen by Auster before his death in April last year, at the age of 77.

The comfort-food staple has been given a culinary glow-up and is suddenly the toast of the town. What’s not to like?

A dispatch from the menus of the capital’s fancier pubs, Instagram restaurants and wine bars: there’s a new favourite dish in town. Though maybe “new” is the wrong word. Cropping up in the types of establishments where you’ll easily pay a fiver for olives is the humble but universally beloved cheese toastie.

I’d call it a renaissance, but that would ignore the fact that the toastie is and has been for decades a staple of busy lunches, sick days and CBA dinners, when all you’re after is instant satisfaction. Let’s say instead, then, that the cheese toastie has had a bit of a culinary glow-up.

Lauren O’Neill is a culture writer

Business owners say they are already struggling and furnace closures would make trading worse, but some residents say it’s time to move on

“Everyone is despondent,” said Roj Rahman when trying to sum up the mood of a town where thousands of people could be out of work and 160 years of iron and steelmaking history could come to a juddering end in just a few months.

“The steelworks is the very fabric of Scunthorpe,” he said. “It’s not just the steelworks, it’s all the small businesses associated with it, all the logistics and so on. Anything that happens at the steelworks has a massive, massive, massive impact on this town.”

• Red Bull team principal delighted with win at Suzuka
• McLaren’s Stella: ‘We need to nail all the opportunities’

The Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, has hailed Max Verstappen’s victory at the Japanese Grand prix on Sunday as one of the world champion’s best races and admitted the team had to turn their car “upside down” to put it in a position for the Dutchman to deliver an unexpected win.

Verstappen drove a superb lap to claim pole position at Suzuka, which proved crucial in the race where he led from the front with an exemplary display of control and execution in a car that remains enormously difficult. It was a striking victory to hold off the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in second and third, given the pace they have demonstrated in the opening three meetings of the season.

Airstrikes hit media tent outside Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, say medics, injuring nine others

Welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.

Israel struck tents outside two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and injuring nine, including six reporters, Palestinian medics said.

At least three people were killed by Israeli attacks on the Zeitoun district of Gaza City , according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

US airstrikes on Sana’a yesterday killed at least four people and injured over 20 others, including women and children, according to health officials and local reports.

Hamas said yesterday it had fired rockets at cities in Israel’s south in response to Israeli “massacres” of civilians in Gaza. Israel’s military said about ten projectiles were fired, but most successfully intercepted. Israeli emergency services said they were treating one person for shrapnel injuries.

A war crimes complaint against 10 Britons who served with the Israeli military in Gaza is to be submitted to the Met police by one of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers.