Student activists seem set to defeat Aleksandar Vučić at the ballot box this Sunday. The EU should never have written off Serbian democracy

History may not be about to repeat itself in Serbia, but it is beginning to rhyme. Just over a quarter of a century ago, Serbian citizens turned out to vote in large numbers to inflict a historic defeat on the then strongman in Belgrade, Slobodan Milošević, who was seeking re-election as president. He lost despite his extensive control over the media, the judiciary and the security forces. When he was reluctant to leave office, Serbs poured on to the streets in their hundreds of thousands, finally forcing him to go.

On Sunday, a new generation could have the decisive voice in an equally fateful election, this time for the national parliament. Today’s strongman, Aleksandar Vučić, recently resigned as president to fight the election with the aim of swapping the locus of power from the presidency to the prime minister’s office.

This summer alone, 26 local authorities in the UK had to stop accepting fridges and freezers for recycling. Now the appliances are piling up around the country – with no proper disposal date in sight

Not much is happening in the tiny Norfolk hamlet of Little Hautbois on the day I visit. The pub, once popular with airmen from RAF Coltishall, stopped being a pub a long time ago, even before RAF Coltishall stopped being RAF Coltishall. It’s not Saturday, so there are no weddings at Hautbois Hall. Nor is it 19 May, so the restless, headless ghost of Thomas Boleyn isn’t driving his carriage across the bridge over the River Bure, as he is said to do on the anniversary of the execution of his daughter, Anne. Today, a lovely autumn one, all is as it should be.

But half a mile down a narrow country lane is an incongruous and baffling sight: a strip of gentle hillside made up of large white rectangular blocks, piled up and sparkling in the sunshine. A glacier, you might think, if you were in Norway rather than Norfolk. (And ice is involved, as it happens.) As you get nearer, the picture becomes clearer; the blocks have coils on one face, doors and handles on the opposite one, plus the manufacturers’ names. It’s a glacier of fridges, more than 3,000 of them.

City behaved much like other top clubs but their rule-breaking deserves to be punished. The Bundesliga, where members have a controlling stake, can show the way forward

Do we have to reassess Manchester City now? In my columns, I have repeatedly engaged with this club and its key figures. Looking back at what I have written over the years, I believe it remains beyond question that the team have achieved greatness. I always loved watching them: they were a true unit on the pitch, a finely tuned orchestra.

I would also write all over again that the conductor, Pep Guardiola, masters his craft like few others. I could recognise his teams even if they were wearing the wrong shirts and the game was broadcast in black and white – by the passes, the distances between the players and the intelligence of their interplay. It is no wonder Guardiola inspires others to become managers; look at Vincent Kompany, Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca, and perhaps some time Ilkay Gündogan and Rodri.

Despite US-Israeli airstrikes and Tehran’s attacks on shipping, the waterway still has to provide a lifeline for those that live and work there

Capt Farouq turns the wheel as he watches the ferry terminal of Bandar Abbas grow smaller, its bright lights flickering in the distance.

In front of him, the navigation radar beeps periodically, its green and pink lights glowing in the darkness. The ferry, today at about half capacity with roughly 100 passengers, turns and heads into the darkness of the strait of Hormuz.

Capt Farouq pulls into the deeper waters

While facing grief, illness and a very public breakup, the comic reached for his diaries – and found a happy kid who spiralled into despair. Inspired by a Nobel laureate, he wrote a frank, funny book about that boy and what he grew into

It begins on Christmas Day, 1996: “It’s been a lovely day … I realised how much I love my family.” It ends three years later: “I’m lying on the floor in floods of tears and all I want to do is die.” Say what you like about adolescence but it is nothing if not an emotional tumult. “If I’d known as a teenager,” says the comedian Jon Richardson ruefully, “that I’d one day write a book about them, I couldn’t have bookended my teenage diaries with better quotes to show what a storm of shit those years can be.”

The book is The Teenage Diaries of a Stand-Up Comedian, and it has been two years in the making. Two years that, if not quite the hormonal rollercoaster the book itself records, have been quite the ride. The project is borne of a crossroads moment in the Lancashire man’s midlife, after he experienced bereavement, serious illness among family and friends, and the breakdown of his marriage to fellow comic Lucy Beaumont. The last was an inevitably very public ending, splayed across the tabloids, to a relationship which itself played out in public, courtesy of the couple’s acclaimed mockumentary about their domestic arrangements, Meet the Richardsons.

In 2014, 13% of the population of this Belgian city described themselves as flexitarian. This year, 83% did. Here is how everyone was convinced to eat their greens – and love them

Sixty bowls of slime-green soup sit waiting for the children to arrive. Pupils rush in from their morning lessons, grab the bowls by the handles and start slurping. No complaints, no refusals. (OK, maybe a few “bleurgh” faces.) Chicory soup dispatched, they get stuck into the main course: falafel, Mediterranean vegetable tagine and couscous. Some ask for seconds; most grab a piece of fruit for dessert and run out to play.

This is a typical Thursday lunchtime in BS De Stadspoort primary school in Ghent, Belgium. Similar meat-free menus are being eaten in other schools and nurseries across the city, plus community centres, care homes and assisted living facilities, not to mention many work canteens and restaurants. Thursday in Ghent is officially “Veggie Day”, with residents encouraged to eschew any meat or fish. So how did a city get its children – and everyone else – to eat their greens?

The Jackdaw field will start supplying gas to homes and businesses from the end of the month, the government said

Here is an explainer by Jill Ambrose about the Jackdaw decision.

But environmental groups have condemned the decision. Ami McCarthy, head of politics for Greenpeace UK, said:

Approving Jackdaw shows the toxic grip fossil fuel lobbyists still hold over our energy policy. Andy Burnham promised pragmatism [see 8.40am], but there is nothing pragmatic about rubber-stamping a project that won’t lower energy bills, won’t boost energy security and will create just 27 full-time jobs …

True pragmatism means severing our reliance on expensive oil and gas that leaves British households broke, supercharges extreme weather, and leaves our energy security at the mercy of petrostates.

Is the prime minister living in a parallel universe? One where we haven’t just endured our hottest summer on record, with droughts, wildfires and, in all likelihood, the most heat-related deaths on record? And where the UN hasn’t warned that we’re on the brink of breaching the all-important 1.5 degree warming limit?

Shell will be cheering this decision but it won’t knock a penny off our energy bills, which is what’s keeping people up at night, or make a meaningful difference to our gas supply.

Jackdaw will provide around just 2% of our gas demand for roughly ten years. It has been oversold and won’t stop the decline in North Sea jobs, as it will be largely unmanned and operated remotely.

Haines is in stable condition. Surgeons tried to save her right leg but both have now been amputated due to injuries

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The independent MP Helen Haines has lost both legs but remains in a stable condition, two days after an alleged targeted attack near her electorate office in north-east Victoria.

Haines, the federal MP for Indi, had been in a critical but stable condition after she was struck by a car in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon. Surgeons were trying to save her right leg on Tuesday, but both legs had to be amputated due to the seriousness of her injuries.

French government bond yields highest since 2002 as country rocked by protests; UK approves controversial North Sea gasfield Jackdaw

The approval of Jackdaw is an “important step” for the North Sea, according to Shell.

The UK energy giant jointly owns Jackdaw operator Adura, which is headquartered in Aberdeen, together with Norway’s Equinor.

This is an important step in ensuring the UK North Sea can continue to contribute to the country’s energy security and economy.

Long-term energy projects depend on a competitive and stable investment environment, alongside timely and predictable regulatory decisions.

Court of appeal decision prevents woman from suing police and CPS for disclosing her address to violent ex-partner

The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she hopes the UK’s highest court “sees sense” and overturns a ruling preventing a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for disclosing her address to her violent ex-partner.

Phillips said that if the supreme court upheld the court of appeal’s decision when it hears the case on Wednesday and Thursday, it would prevent police from being held accountable for failures in cases of violence against women and girls.