Republicans are seven seats away from House majority that would give Trump control over all branches of government

• Ten key takeaways from Trump’s win
• The key swing states and counties that handed Trump the White House

Our latest episode of Politics Weekly America dropped in the last couple of hours. With Donald Trump president-elect, a 6-3 conservative majority in the US supreme court, and a majority secured in the Senate, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Washington Post reporter Marianna Sotomayor about what happens if Democrats are not victorious in the lower chamber …

You can listen to it here: Can the Democrats salvage the House of Representatives? – podcast

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Tariffs, tech and Taiwan: how China hopes to Trump-proof its economy

Wang Dong , a professor of international relations at Peking University, has warned that “Trump 2.0 is likely to be more destructive than the 2017 version.”

In a pre-election interview with Chinese media, Wang said:

“Compared with his first term in office in 2017, Trump’s views in his second campaign in 2024 have not changed much, but the domestic situation and international environment have changed dramatically … during the Trump 2.0 period, China and the United States are likely to have constant friction and conflict”.

“China and the United States can achieve many great and good things through cooperation, and the list of cooperation should be stretched longer and longer.”

“The more success stories of mutually beneficial cooperation, the better.”

This tricksy caper ranges from 1980s Cambridge to the rise and fall of Liz Truss with entertaining results

Well, it worked for Richard Osman. Twenty-three-year-old Phyl, stuck in her parents’ house with an English degree and a zero-hours job in a sushi chain, is wondering how hard it could be to write a cosy crime novel. “Death in a Thatched Cottage? The Beach Hut Murders? The Flapjack Poisonings?” As another character points out, it’s bizarre that violent homicide has been rebranded as “cosy”. “It’s very British, in some indefinable way.”

Jonathan Coe, the laureate of Britishness, sets his 15th novel against a particularly wobbly period of national history: the short-lived ascendancy of Liz Truss and the death of the Queen in autumn 2022. It is indeed a happily playful and nicely satisfying slice of cosy crime, scattered with clues and red herrings, locked‑room mysteries, teetering cliffhangers and stagily withheld information. Before she is shocked out of her apathy by a sudden death, Phyl also considers trying her hand at the genres of dark academia and auto­fiction, and accordingly one section of the book is a memoir of mysterious goings-on in a Cambridge college in the 1980s, and another a report in real time of a search for a rare book, with two narrators who can’t agree on whether to use the present or the past tense (“fake and embarrassing”).

From rustic cottage charm to old school high ceilings, renovations that hit the mark

Protesters and political prisoners are being drugged, tortured and beaten in state-run institutions, say rights groups

Human rights organisations say they are gravely concerned that a young Iranian woman arrested for stripping down to her underwear could be subjected to torture after she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital by the authorities.

Amnesty International said it had found evidence that the Iranian regime used electric shocks, torture, beatings and chemical substances on protesters and political prisoners taken to state-run psychiatric institutions after being called mentally unstable. It said the situation facing the young woman was “alarming”.

With Germany’s government collapsing and Europeans so divided in their response to Trump, unity is essential yet elusive

The first victim of Donald Trump’s second term as US president is likely to be Ukraine. The only people who can avert that disaster are us Europeans, yet our continent is in disarray. Germany’s coalition government chose the day we woke up to news of Trump’s triumph, of all days, to fall apart in bitter rancour . Unless Europe can somehow rise to the challenge, not just Ukraine but the whole continent will be left weak, divided and angry as we enter a new and dangerous period of European history.

In Ukraine itself, people have been trying to find a silver lining in that orange cloud rapidly approaching Washington. After all, they were increasingly frustrated with the self-deterrence of Joe Biden’s administration . This slender new hope was perfectly captured in a text message sent to me by a frontline Ukrainian commander. Trump, he wrote, “is a surprise-man, maybe things will get better”.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist

The Joop Swart Masterclass invites emerging photographers to flourish in the field of documentary photography, photojournalism and visual storytelling

Art nouveau cafes, Ottoman architecture and beer halls make these modest cities a big draw away from the crowds

I got off the train to Venice last summer in Trieste, planning to spend a few hours there, but was so knocked over by its beauty that I stayed for a few days. Tucked away in the north-east of Italy, it’s a crosscultural cocktail of Hapsburg, baroque and Slavic views and vibes – with a slice of Latin lemon thrown in. Piazza Unità d’Italia is an elegant square full of classy art nouveau cafes with the sea on one side – locally known as the Living Room of Italy. I strolled along Barcola for the evening passeggiata after checking out the nearby Miramare castle . There are beaches on the edge of the city that are easy to walk to – I had a swim one day. The food is hearty – Germanic meaty stews and spicy pizzas - while the coffee is strong. Joyce and Hemingway loved lingering over meals and drinks here – and I could see why.
Nigel

Sharon Horgan’s pitch-black comedy is back, plus a gripping new drama about a mother of 10 abducted in Northern Ireland during the Troubles

While season one provided a very satisfactory conclusion to the Garvey sisters’ feud with the monstrous John Paul, the aftermath of a murder can’t easily be shrugged off. So even if it does begin with a blissful Grace remarrying, the second series of Sharon Horgan’s black comedy has plenty to work with. After the body of John Paul’s father is fished out of a lake, the cops are all over his mother’s house and the Garveys have a new antagonist in the shape of Angelica (Fiona Shaw), the sister of Grace’s former neighbour Roger. It’s carried along by the writing, which balances trauma with salty humour, and the glorious performances that perfectly evoke the exasperation of sibling relationships.
Apple TV+, from Wednesday 13 November