With the release of his new biography, the British designer talks about leaving school at 15, the real reason he won’t retire and why no one wears velvet trousers any more

Go for a browse in the Paul Smith shop in Mayfair, London, on any given Saturday and you’ll likely find an older shop assistant, straight-backed in fine tailoring, approaching to help you with a new shirt, or a suit for a special occasion, perhaps a jaunty pair of socks. There aren’t many global fashion brands, Paul Smith points out, perhaps unnecessarily, “where the owner is a Saturday boy”. But working in his shop, one of more than 130 around the world, is probably Smith’s favourite part of the job. “It’s fantastic, you meet so many interesting people,” he says, smiling broadly. Smith’s whole career, he says, has always been about doing things in a different way. He’s the untrained fashion designer who created a global British brand, who put a bright lining or some stripes into classic tailoring, and who has turned down multiple substantial offers to buy his company, in order to remain in control.

Sir Paul Smith has just turned 80 – and he has the enviable energy of someone more than half his age, swimming each day before 6am. He’s about to publish his memoir, Threads: My Life in Style. It’s been a good opportunity to do a stocktake. His has undoubtedly been a lucky life – right place, right time, right people (not least his wife, Pauline, whom he met at the age of 21 and who has been integral to his success) – but it’s also a story of hard work, integrity and modesty. We’ll get to whether those values are still relevant in a harsher, more competitive world, and whether Paul Smith can survive.

Schemes to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza are not being promoted by fringe voices. But the international community continues to avert its eyes

The gap between what is being inflicted on Palestinians and the appropriate reaction on the part of the international community has always been vast. But now it yawns so wide that it swallows reality itself. As arms export licences for Israel from states such as Germany surge, talk of harsher measures and sanctions on the part of other European countries remains talk. People continue to be killed in Gaza, Palestinian families remain besieged in the West Bank, and the Israeli political right has been removing all doubt that these violations are intentional, by telling the world of its hopes and plans.

A sample from only the past few days. On Thursday, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, detailed a scheme for the illegal ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. He also posted an AI-generated video, now deleted, of Palestinian men entering a conveyor belt into detention, emerging emaciated and tearful. Also a few days ago, the defence minister, Israel Katz, stated that the country was “organised and prepared” to expel Palestinians from Gaza “by every way possible”.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

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The ‘hugely important artefact’ that’s followed 14 children since they were seven is set to air its final instalment. The now-septuagenarians and director Asif Kapadia talk about breaking new ground for 63 years – and changing TV forever

Described as the Bayeux tapestry of television, the groundbreaking ITV documentary series Seven Up is coming to its final conclusion.

In 1964, a group of randomly chosen seven-year-olds from different backgrounds were brought together and filmed in an attempt to answer questions about the effect of fate, class and environment on people’s aspirations and outcomes.

Stanley Primnath and Brian Clark were two of only four individuals known to have survived above the impact zone in the north tower

He has told the story hundreds of times, but it never seems to fade. If anything, it only becomes more vivid. “Oh, gosh,” exclaims Stanley Praimnath, his voice cracking with an “ooooooh!” as if bearing a weight. “It’s like reliving that day.”

Nearly 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11 2001. But Praimnath and another office worker, Brian Clark, were two of only four individuals known to have survived from above the impact zone in either tower of the World Trade Center. The two strangers met in the smoke and fire of the 81st floor of the south tower, and walked down 1,620 steps into the rest of their lives.

Fulham need a win, Tottenham show some spirit and Jack Grealish offers Everton much-needed energy

With 25 minutes to go against Manchester United, the Everton supporters had something to roar about as Jack Grealish made his return after rejoining on loan. The attacking midfielder remains universally popular thanks to his desire to entertain, getting the hosts back on their feet by creating dangerous situations within seconds of his arrival. Everton were limited in the final third for long periods as Thierno Barry sat on the periphery. If David Moyes is to keep his side pushing for a top-half finish, he will need Grealish to be a creative focal point. Will Unwin

They fled a brutal civil war to reach safety in Egypt, but now many Sudanese women and girls are falling prey to sexual exploitation

Sudanese women who fled to Egypt to escape the war in their country are facing increasing levels of sexual exploitation, with the Guardian told of single mothers forced to sell their bodies to survive and feed their children.

Many of the women have not previously worked in Sudan, where conservative social norms dictate that men are usually responsible for financial support. Without established trades or professions, and with their husbands and other family members dead or missing, many female refugees are struggling to pay for food, medical care and rent.

Hundreds of men, some wearing balaclavas, attempted to prevent asylum seekers being transported for processing

• UK politics live – latest updates

The government has condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads in Portsmouth after a boat carrying asylum seekers arrived in the city, two days after similar scenes in Dover.

Hundreds of men, some dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, tried to stop the arrivals from being transported for processing until 3am, when police removed them with threats of arrest. A witness said two police car windscreens were smashed.

Chancellor says there’s ‘nothing progressive’ about government spending £1 in every ten on debt interest

• Chancellor to argue UK economy can ‘turn corner’ despite bond market turmoil

Healey says Andy Burnham set out in his statement to MPs last week what he thought had gone wrong

The fundamentals of our economy [were] hollowed out through a series of past policy decisions, political power was centralised, weakening the relationships between the people, the businesses and the institutions who can make things happen beyond Whitehall. The economic enablers were privatised and outsourced, leaving accountability to a thicket of arm’s length bodies and regulators, too often without the predictability or the pace that underpins a thriving market economy. And our country was deindustrialised as the cost to make anything, to build anything here soared, and our dependence on unreliable sources grew, including in areas critical to our national security and sovereignty.

Let me be clear, I recognise that the costs of business, its energy bills, regulation, burdens, planning constraints, labour costs, have grown since Covid and I want to draw the line.

And whether it is the cost of business or the cost of living, the only way we deal with these in the long term is growth.

Carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and fallout from cyber-attack, wants to reduce 34,000-strong UK workforce

• Business live – latest updates

Jaguar Land Rover has announced thousands of job cuts as it grapples with tough conditions in the car market, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.

Britain’s largest carmaker, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, on Monday confirmed the anticipated cuts, saying it wants to reduce its 34,000-strong UK workforce by about 4,000 over two years, as part of an effort to save £1.7bn.

Group fail to secure majority in Saxony-Anhalt state parliament leaving uncertainty over next steps

• Far-right AfD wins key German state election but falls just short of majority

AfD’s Chrupalla continues in this vein, saying the German public wants to see a change in direction, and specifically saying the electorate is “fed up” as the government keeps “transferring billions of our tax money to Ukraine … instead of using it for our own population.”

He says the party has “a clear mandate” to rule in Saxony-Anhalt and will hold discussions with others about what can be done.