Looking for an alternative to fast fashion, Eve Ogden Schaub decided to create a garment from homegrown flax

From crop tops to shorts and brightly patterned dresses, many of today’s clothes are the result of fast fashion. But one woman is taking a radical approach to challenging this trend by growing her own dress.

Eve Ogden Schaub is in the midst of a project to create a linen garment made from flax she is growing at home, documenting the process in videos shared on her Instagram account.

Family members pin photos of Nepal’s missing to hospital wall as people try not to give up hope on loved ones

• Nepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updates

Posters of missing people line the wall of the hospital, the glue still fresh beneath. A schoolgirl smiling in her uniform; a beaming, chubby-cheeked baby; a couple smiling on their wedding day; a young man, hands on hips, atop a mountain peak; a young girl with flowing hair, peaking out from behind a door.

These faces are just a fraction of the thousands who have not been seen since deadly flash floods coursed through the Himalayas and wiped away entire villages. By Saturday morning, the toll of the missing had risen to almost 3,000, in both Nepal and Tibet.

Five-day showcase reveals leaps Beijing has made in humanoid tech, but also its limitations as US rivals come up from the rear

With exploding pelvises, enough comic pratfalls for a Buster Keaton show reel and the odd moment of ruthless violence, the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing gripped the world this week with an unsettling mixture of hilarity, trepidation and relief.

The five-day showcase staked out China’s claim to undisputed leadership in humanoid robotics as android martial artists landed knockout roundhouse kicks and robot teams marched into the arena heralded by flag-waving captains astride giant robotic dogs. The games’ blue-riband event, the 100m, did not disappoint when the robot-sprinters ran quicker than Usain Bolt before slamming mindlessly into a padded wall in a blaze of sparks, flames and flying mechanical limbs.

The former UK prime minister is still shaping politics (even if he doesn’t want to interfere). He talks about keeping his temper, staying fit – and why he won’t pay £90 for a Scotland football shirt

It’s a Monday in August and as England burns in dystopian heat, Gordon Brown and I are in his office at the top of his house in North Queensferry, overlooking the moody waters of the Firth of Forth. It’s hard to recall the top of my own sauna-like house in London as we stand here in the cool, wearing wool suits and necessary socks, my coat slung over the back of a chair. “I was watching Raith Rovers – the local football team – on Saturday,” Brown says, “and it was really cold. There was a wind blowing in from the sea.” He asks if I’ve heard the famous joke – “Scotland’s only got two seasons: July and winter”– then chuckles. It’s one of his favourites. (I’ll hear him tell it three times today.)

That’s not to say Fife has been untouched by the multiple heatwaves. They had a few sunny days. One hit 24C – “a shock”, Brown says, July temperatures typically being 15-17C. He stood in his kitchen and considered the modest patch of grass at the back of the house. “I never imagined being out in the garden in the summer. I never imagined it because it’s either raining or too cold.” Once out, he found himself battling a “very dangerous” nest of wasps. One family member was stung, then there was the rigmarole of specialists in thick gloves and protective suits undertaking its removal. By the time that was done, the sun had gone in.

Country star came to South Yorkshire town in 2007 for UK launch of the Imagination Library, her book donation scheme

Shane Jarman was up a ladder decorating a Christmas tree at the school where he was deputy headteacher when he got a call asking him to come to Rotherham hospital ASAP. It was December 2007 and Jarman’s wife, Claire, had given birth the previous day to their first child, a girl called Emma, so of course he rushed to the phone. All was well, he was told, but that “everything would become clear” when he got to the hospital.

Once there, his wife told him – somewhat unexpectedly – that they were going to meet Dolly Parton. “And literally within what felt like five minutes,” he recalled, “there were great camera flashes, lots of noise, lots of clicking and in walked this real big bundle of energy.”

Thetford has a welcoming history. So why have there been so many demonstrations this summer over plans to house asylum seekers at a nearby military base – as well as nights of violent disorder?

‘I don’t talk to mainstream media,” says a young man in an Arsenal shirt. I’ve just asked what brought him to the latest protest against the housing of asylum seekers in Thetford, Norfolk, and his disdain is clear as he goes to warn other protesters of the Guardian’s presence. This isn’t exactly the unity promised by the flyer advertising today’s march: “Everyone welcome: families, friends, dogs. Including the media.”

The protest is planned as a two-mile march from Thetford’s market square to RAF Barnham, a site just over the border in Suffolk, which is due to house asylum seekers while they progress through the system. It is the latest part of a campaign that has lasted the whole summer. Banners line the square, the largest succinctly describing why people are gathering here today: “Thetford and Barnham says no to asylum seekers.”

Nepali government says India and China are sending expert tunnel rescue teams, as minister estimates cost of rebuilding could be billions of dollars

• ‘The flood took everything I have’: survivors grieve for relatives and homes swept away in Nepal

• Chinese rescuers find ‘nothing but ruins’ at border crossing as Nepal seeks help to ID and store the dead

Outside the army camp in the Nuwakot district of Nepal, people run their fingers down the sheets of paper pinned to the wall, scanning the growing list of those reported missing for news of loved ones. Nepali authorities said nearly 3,000 people are missing, while China reported more than 550 people unaccounted for.

Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, has appealed for international support to help rebuild the country after the floods, saying reconstruction efforts could run into “billions of dollars” AFP reports.

Three vessels and a helicopter deployed to monitor four ships travelling through the North Sea to the Channel

The Royal Navy spent three days tracking Russian vessels as they passed through UK waters, it has emerged.

The “intense” 72-hour operation took place last week, with radars used to monitor four ships that made their way from the North Sea through to the Channel.

Bridget Phillipson says government would not have to consider releasing prisoners early if Tories had created more capacity

Cells to hold newly arrested people could run out without the early prison release scheme, a government minister has said.

Bridget Phillipson defended the plan to address the prison capacity crisis in England and Wales by releasing thousands of prisoners early, which has been criticised by domestic abuse charities, bereaved families and probation officers among others.

In move that could generate millions, Exeter academics to deliver MA at National Defense University in Riyadh

The University of Exeter has approved plans for a “formal partnership” with Saudi Arabia to train senior military officers and government officials, despite long-held concerns about the Saudi government’s human rights record, the Guardian has learned.

In a deal that could generate millions of pounds for the Russell Group university, Exeter academics will deliver an MA in applied security and strategy (also known as an MStrat) to a cohort at the National Defense University (NDU) in Riyadh.