Turkey-Syria earthquake 2023 This article is more than 11 months oldPhoto of Turkish man holding hand of dead daughter underlines earthquake despairThis article is more than 11 months oldImage showing father from Kahramanmaraş region comes as death toll from Syria and Turkey quake pushes past 7,800 Videos and photographs of the two earthquakes that have devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria, killing at least 7,800 people, show rescuers digging with their hands, apartment blocks concertinaing to the ground in seconds, and the shaking apart of a castle that had stood for almost two millennia.

The 100 best novelsFord Madox FordFord's masterpiece is a searing study of moral dissolution behind the facade of an English gentleman – and its stylistic influence lingers to this dayRobert McCrum introduces the series The Good Soldier was conceived by Ford Madox Ford as the summation of his career as an admired and influential Edwardian novelist, his "last book", and a middle-aged writer's traditional riposte to the literary Cubists, Vorticists and Imagists of the day.

Observer New Review Q&ATom BurkeInterviewTom Burke: ‘Alan Rickman was like family, really’Michael HoganThe actor on tapping into his sinister side for Joanna Hogg’s Sundance hit The Souvenir, losing godfather Alan Rickman, and growing sideburns for new film The Wonder Actor Tom Burke, 41, was raised in Kent by actor parents. He trained at Rada and has worked extensively on stage, including at the RSC and the National. On TV he has played Athos in The Musketeers, Dolokhov in War & Peace and the eponymous detective in Strike, the BBC series based on JK Rowling’s novels.

CitiesObituaryVictoria Henshaw obituaryUrban planner and academic who believed good design considered the smells of towns and cities as well as their sights and sounds The urban planner and academic Victoria Henshaw, who has died from cancer aged 43, devoted her life to an aspect of cities that is entirely invisible, but which she was convinced had a huge influence over how we perceive places – namely, their smell. A town centre manager turned urban academic, she became fascinated by this element of the environment that she thought had been crucially overlooked by architects and planners alike.

US newsAs the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year – probably accelerated by Covid Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics. As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.