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The broadcaster knew she had a link to the central Asian country she first visited on her gap year 30 years ago. But retracing her steps, this time with her mother in tow, she made a big discovery about their family

‘Can you read what it says?” It was 1992 and I was standing in Samarkand’s impressive Registan Square, looking up at Arabic inscriptions on 15th- and 17th-century buildings, when an Uzbek man approached me, speaking in Russian. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, but he had lived his life in a period when Cyrillic script had been dominant and Islamic learning discouraged. Now, seeing a stranger trying to decipher the words on the buildings of his city, he wanted to know if I could explain them to him.

Back then, I was on my gap year and living in Moscow teaching English at a specialist language school, where many of my pupils were the children of officials, diplomats and – almost certainly – KGB agents. It was a time of political transition and widespread hardship, including rising prices and struggles to access food, even through the black market. The six of us who had come from the UK were largely protected from that, as whatever we had from home was in sterling, precious hard currency, rather than roubles. When the school had a spring holiday that March, we decided to fly nearly 2,000 miles south-east and see something of Uzbekistan, then emerging from decades as one of the Soviet socialist republics.

With four million copies sold and three books in adaptation, The Beach Read author is riding high. She talks about hope, TikTok tropes and escapism

A few weeks after Emily Henry’s second romance novel, You and Me on Vacation, was published in May 2021, she noticed a “giant” spike in sales. Her editor and agent had noticed it too. They were all emailing and texting, trying to figure out what was happening, when someone finally cracked it: “It’s BookTok”.

Henry had already made it on to the New York Times bestseller list twice, first with her romance debut, Beach Read, then with You and Me on Vacation. But TikTok videos made by impassioned fans vaulted the American author to a new level of fame. Since then, videos tagged #EmilyHenry have been viewed more than 300m times, and her books have sold more than 4m copies. Three of her five romances are being adapted for film.

UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says rising temperatures are exacerbating the sanitation crisis

• See all our coverage of the Middle East crisis

Iraqi Kurdish ministries of electricity and natural resources said on Saturday that they are working with their partners to restore operations at the Khor Mor gas field in Iraq’s Kurdistan region after output was suspended due to a deadly drone attack.

At least four Yemeni workers were killed and two other workers injured in the attack late on Friday, the Kurdish regional government said on X. It said gas supplies to power plants were also halted, resulting in a reduction of approximately 2,500 MW of power generation.

Joint UK-French investigation alleges group advertised small-boat crossings of Channel on social media

Four Vietnamese nationals have been arrested in London after an investigation into alleged people smugglers advertising small-boat crossings of the Channel on Facebook.

The joint UK-French investigation alleges the group shared posts aimed at the Vietnamese community and charged migrants thousands of pounds to make the crossing.

The law is badly lagging behind when it comes to rights for LGBTQ+ families. We need urgent root-and-branch reform

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act is 10 years old. In the UK, any couple can marry. Likewise, thanks to this courageous pair, any couple can now get a civil partnership. On marriage, the law has kept pace with the diversifying society it exists to regulate and protect.

If you reflect on what was updated – the religious institution of marriage – and how long it had been the way it was, it hits you afresh how monumental this step forward was. Yet here we are. The equality of love has become a cliche. Young children have only known a world where every auntie and uncle they’ll ever have could get married. It is meticulous and slow but ultimately, whether through parliament or the courts, the law moves forward.

Freddy McConnell is a freelance journalist

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The photographer documents daily life at Sunda Kelapa harbour in North Jakarta, Indonesia, including the schoolchildren who turn it into their playground

After school, many of the children local to the Sunda Kelapa harbour, in North Jakarta, Indonesia, go down to the water to swim and play. Jelly Febrian enjoys shooting the daily activities there whenever the weather is good. Always prepared for the right moment, he carries his phone with him to capture crews loading their boats, people fishing, and boys and girls jumping from the boats, as pictured.

“In the maritime villages near here there aren’t many fields, so the children mostly play around the pier. Every boat that docks here has a different owner and purpose, they load and unload basic necessities, and every week they sail to other Indonesian islands, such as Papua, Sumatra and Sulawesi.

They had only been married for 11 months when the world-famous novelist was attacked by a frenzied knifeman. His wife remembers the intense drama of hearing the news, and the traumatic aftermath

I woke early and alone on the sunny morning of Friday 12 August 2022. I was having coffee at the moment my husband, the Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, was nearly killed in a stabbing on stage in Chautauqua, New York.

This was the last morning, innocent and ordinary, before my life was shattered by the 27 seconds Salman’s attacker took to stab him more than a dozen times, driving a knife into his right eye until it nearly touched his optic nerve.

Man, 64, being treated for injuries to arm, leg and stomach after attack in shallow waters

A British man is in intensive care after an “unusual” shark attack on the Caribbean island of Tobago.

The 64-year-old man was receiving critical care after the bull shark attack left him with injuries to his left arm, left leg and stomach, Tobago’s Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation said.