An international study found cool people are extroverted, open, hedonistic, adventurous, autonomous and powerful. At best, I have three of these traits. Could I change that?

Who would you say is effortlessly, undeniably cool? Charli xcx, certainly. David Bowie, of course. Yoko Ono and Fran Lebowitz – or do they just wear a lot of black? I’m not cool and never have been. As a teenager, I was a swot at a school that prized sports. As an adult, I’m always wearing a backpack. I’m garrulous, risk-averse, lazy with my personal presentation and not convinced that any drug beats eight hours’ sleep. “Cool” feels to me like the stock market or Michelin restaurants: none of my business.

I’m not alone. In a recent YouGov survey, a third of respondents said they weren’t cool at school, with only 10% reporting that, yep, they actually were. Half claimed they were “somewhere in between”.

When Nicola Thorp was growing up in Blackpool, the ‘kebab girl’ who had gone missing less than a mile away, aged 14, was spoken of as a cautionary tale. But what really happened to her? For the last three years, Thorp has been finding out

It has been more than 20 years since 14-year-old Charlene Downes went missing in Blackpool. Last captured on CCTV on a Saturday night in November 2003, Charlene still hasn’t been found, and the truth of what happened to her remains unsolved. Nicola Thorp, an actor, writer and broadcaster, who grew up in the town, describes Charlene’s disappearance, considered to be murder, as “a wound for Blackpool”. Over the last couple of decades, the case has been clouded by rumour, far-right rhetoric and police failures. In a new podcast, Charlene: Somebody Knows Something, she has set out to clear up some of the speculation, and expose how Charlene was repeatedly failed by those around her.

Many in the town, she says, still believe the two men who were first tried in 2007 – a retrial was ordered, which then collapsed amid “grave doubts” about the evidence – got away with murder. That in itself, she says, is an obstacle to finding out who is really responsible.

From her assistance with crosswords to a wink that set a career in motion, Guardian readers share favourite memories of the actor

In the 70s I wrote radio plays. Prunella Scales was in one of them. During a break I was doing a crossword and getting stuck. She sat down next to me and had a look at the mess I was making. “Silly boy!” she said (I was perhaps 30 at the time). “It’s ‘surprise’, not ‘suprise’!” and we soon finished it off. In the end I did around 25 plays, but that’s the only conversation with an actor I remember. Lovely lady. James, Sussex

During the feast of All Hallows’ Eve, supernatural tales were a way of promoting prayer for the salvation of suffering souls

• Dr Michael Carter is a curator at English Heritage

For centuries the supernatural, and Halloween in particular, have been contested territory. Folklorists have interpreted Halloween as a relic of pre-Christian Celtic beliefs, when the turn of the seasons was thought to weaken the membrane separating the living and the dead. Some Christian evangelicals, especially in the US, view it as a sinister and sinful celebration of the occult. There’s also the perennial complaint that it’s nothing more than a recent, brash American import.

None of these claims is quite true. There may once have been an ancient festival at this time of year, but the evidence is from centuries later and doesn’t support the assertions that any celebrations had a supernatural dimension. Evangelicals’ fear reveals more about their own brand of Christianity than about why Halloween has its ghoulish associations.

A Halloween screening doesn’t have to mean being scared witless. From serene sushi-making to a shell with shoes on, we run down the finest films for those of a nervous disposition

Just so we’re all clear on the brief, tomorrow is Halloween. But some people do not like scary films. Some people do not like films where there are any intense emotional moments whatsoever. This is mostly a list of those films. So, for example, Up cannot be included in the lineup because its first 10 minutes are genuinely traumatising. Similarly, Finding Nemo cannot be included because it is a film about a grief-stricken father searching for a son he believes might be dead. But Cars, a film about some cars, can. The scariest that Cars gets is when a car has a near-miss with a train. Other than that, barely any jeopardy at all.

Born into an independent Ukraine, the lives of these young women changed for ever when Russia invaded their country, forcing them to shoulder huge burdens of responsibility

• Photographs by Julia Kochetova

Ukraine is increasingly a country held together, behind the military lines, by women. Those in their 30s – millennial women born into an independent Ukraine, raised in economic turbulence and thrust into adulthood on the wave of revolution and war – are shouldering huge burdens of responsibility. They are fundraising for the army, or sometimes serving in it. They are running civil society organisations, advocating for their country abroad and becoming activists.

At the same time, unlike their male counterparts who are forbidden from leaving the country and are eligible for conscription, they have choices – to join the army, or not; to stay in the country, or not. For some, the question of whether to have children, when the war shows no sign of abating, looms large. For many of them, exhaustion, stress and grief are constant companions. We spoke to six Ukrainian women aged between 29 and 40 about their lives.

Pressure mounts on chancellor over failing to get a licence to rent out her south London home

• UK politics live – latest updates

Downing Street has refused to say whether Keir Starmer’s adviser on ministerial conduct has seen any evidence to support Rachel Reeves’s claim she made an “inadvertent” mistake in failing to get a licence to rent out her south London home.

As pressure mounted on the chancellor, despite the prime minister saying an apology should end the matter, No 10 also declined to say whether Reeves contravened the ministerial code or had broken the law in breaching Southwark council rules.

Outcome appears closer to truce than durable peace but outline of broader diplomatic relationship is visible

• Five key takeaways from Trump-Xi meeting

When Donald Trump launched his trade war against China in April, threatening tariffs as high as 145%, the Chinese government said it would never bow to blackmail and vowed to “fight to the end”.

The question now is whether the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday means that the fight really has come to an end, and if so on whose terms.

Status of pilot and potential passengers unknown as emergency crews attend incident near Doncaster

A helicopter has crashed in a field in South Yorkshire, police have said.

Emergency services were called to Ings Lane, Bentley, near Doncaster, at 10.15am on Thursday.

Under shake-up affecting about 4,000 roles, officials will run more of hiring process but ministers can have final say

Ministers are planning to speed up public appointments to bodies such as Ofcom, the Environment Agency and BBC by allowing more of the hiring process to be delegated to senior officials.

In the biggest shake-up of the public appointments process in a decade, the Cabinet Office is producing new guidance governing how candidates can be picked for about 4,000 public roles.