💌 Happy Friday! Here’s your headlines roundup, recs, quiz and more

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Happy Friday, readers! 

When my boyfriend and I decided to move from Birmingham to London, I somewhat naively thought that the stress would end once we’d found somewhere to live.

It’s hardly an original observation to say that the rental market is brutal right now - and our joy and relief at finding a room that was actually within budget (and not a complete rip-off) definitely overshadowed any consideration of the challenges we had to come.

I’m finally settling into my new flat, but I’ve spent lots of time over the past couple of weeks chatting to friends and older, wiser adults about how to take the stress out of moving (and whether that’s even possible). Naturally, I wanted to share their insights with you too!

This week’s edition also contains our usual roundup of the week’s biggest headlines, culture recs, our Friday quiz and more - I hope you love it!

Esther x
Staff Writer

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POLITICS & GLOBAL AFFAIRS

🪧 Home Secretary Suella Braverman is facing calls to resign after she accused the Metropolitan Police of “playing favourites” by allowing a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day to go ahead. “I think she’s on a mission to get herself sacked,” one senior MP told Sky News.

🇺🇸 In the US, five Republican presidential candidates clashed in a debate on Wednesday - while the former president and frontrunner Donald Trump held a separate campaign rally across town. 

🌡️ Climate scientists said they are “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Their warning came ahead of the global COP28 climate summit, which is taking place in the UAE later this month.  

CULTURE

🎬 The US actors’ union Sag-Aftra struck a “tentative deal” with Hollywood studios to end a 118-day strike, the longest in the union’s history. 

🏛️ UK museums agreed to take collective action on the climate crisis. The first-ever Museum Cop, which took place at London’s Tate Modern, proposed measures such as managing collections more sustainably and engaging audiences on the issue.

📺 The Simpsons has ditched one of the show’s “most famous recurring gags”, said Euronews, as Homer will no longer strangle his son, Bart. “Times have changed,” Homer said in a recent episode, which aired in October but recently gained traction on social media.

WORK & INNOVATION

🤖 Elon Musk unveiled a new AI chatbot for premium X subscribers. “Grok [...] has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humour!” said the company in a recent blog post.

🏠 Airbnb owners in Western Australia have been offered $10,000 to rent to long-term tenants, as part of a wider push by the regional government to boost housing supply.

🩸 The NHS is to begin trialling simple blood tests for dementia that could “revolutionise detection” of the disease. The £5m project aims to roll out reliable tests within five years.

UPLIFTING STUFF

🐋 The Conkouati-Douli National Park in the Congo will be extended to include an area off the coast. The marine expansion will “strengthen the conservation of marine fauna” such as dolphins and humpback whales, said Afrik21.

🇨🇴 Dengue rates dropped dramatically in three cities in Colombia following the introduction of modified mosquitoes that are less able to transmit the virus. 

💚 Greener electric car batteries and an initiative to tackle illegal fishing were among the winners of this year’s £1m Earthshot prize, announced at a ceremony on Tuesday.

📰 Read: The best (and worst) Christmas supermarket adverts of 2023, according to The Independent. The competition has “heated up” in recent years, said the paper, “as each big brand tries to strike the right balance between just enough sincerity and humour”. 

🎁 Also read: The advent of Xmas ad season means we’re already thinking about gift-buying… despite it only being November! If you’re like us and struggle to think of perfect presents for the men in your life, check out our new men’s gift guide (it’s got something for everyone - from a woodcarving workshop to waterproof trainers). 

📺 Watch: 007: Road to a Million (Prime Video), The Buccaneers (Apple TV+), Escaping Twin Flames (Netflix), Planet Earth III (BBC iPlayer).

🎧 Listen to: They Like to Watch - a must for any TV addicts, hosted by the hilarious husband-and-wife duo Sara Barron and Geoff Lloyd. This podcast is a spin-off from Firecrotch & Normcore - the pair’s insightful, episode-by-episode breakdown of Succession. TLTW is just as witty and wise, and it features interviews with big names in the worlds of TV, comedy and more.

🍂 Do: It’s jussst about the end of butternut squash season, so make the most out of this autumnal delight before it’s too late! The New York Times has a glorious squash, kale and brown butter recipe (add sundried tomatoes and mozzarella for extra deliciousness), while Olive magazine’s simple butternut squash soup is an instant cold-day classic. 

We list jobs with qualities we know our readers are looking for: purpose-driven opportunities, flexible and female-founded environments, and employers who champion mental health.

Our top jobs include roles at the mental health charity Mind, the open-minded dating app Feeld and the meditation app Headspace. 
 
Want to reach 200,000+ women with your latest roles? Email [email protected] if you’d like to list a job with us.

In our email on Tuesday, we featured a story about new data showing that people in the UK consumed less meat in 2022 than at any other point since records began. We asked you, our wonderful readers, about your own diets - and the results were really interesting:

How would you best describe your diet?

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Vegan (34)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Vegetarian (59)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Flexitarian (69)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Meat-eating (50)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (4)

216 Votes

Almost 70% of you said that you followed a flexitarian diet, with a vegetarian diet the second most popular option (meat-eating came third). We loved scrolling through all your comments and found ourselves relating hard to many of them. 

“I like any food that tastes good and try to cook a few veggie or vegan dinners each week - both for climate and cost of living reasons,” said one reader. Another had the opposite view, writing: “I want to eat meat. Lots of it.”

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