2 h. ago Love Forms by Claire Adam review – the power of a mother’s loss

Forty years on, a Trinidadian woman has never stopped looking for the daughter she gave up for adoption, in a quietly devastating novelClaire Adam’s 2019 novel Golden Child was her debut, but it felt like the work of a master. It was tender, ravishing, shattering – you believed every word of it. The book had an effortless narrative authority that most first-time novelists would kill for.Love Forms is every bit as alive and convincing, and returns us to Trinidad, with its potent fizz of colour, heat and political instability. But unlike the earlier book, it’s also set partly in south London – the writer’s own home turf – and has a mother, rather than a father, at its heart. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago Deep Cover review – Bryce Dallas Howard leads improv actors into London’s underground

Howard, Orlando Bloom and Nick Mohammed star in an entertaining odd-trio crime caper with turns by Sean Bean and Paddy Considine Producer and screenwriter Colin Trevorrow has co-created this amiable, high-concept action comedy about three hapless improv actors dragooned into going into deep cover to bust a drug ring. It’s entertaining, though I think some of the cast understand comedy better and more instinctively than others. It’s set in London (though Trevorrow might originally have imagined it set in LA or New York) and the credit is shared with his longtime writing partner Derek Connolly, and also with Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, the funny British double act known as the Pin, who also amusingly appear as two squabbling coppers with a Mitchell and Webb energy. The director is the talented Tom Kingsley, who has a substantial TV career and with Will Sharpe got a Bafta nomination in 2012 for the dark comedy Black Pond.Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kat, an American actor whose caree...

Events

2 h. ago Harrowing last words dying people all hear but no one knew until now

Some people have reported hearing their time of death being announced by medical professionals before coming back to life - and there's a scientific reason behind it

Events

2 h. ago Watchdog warns over common payment method where you 'need protection'

Which? has raised concerns over the 'protection gap' for shoppers who will not be covered by consumer rules

Events

3 h. ago Chemtrails: why is RFK Jr battling a debunked conspiracy theory?

The US health secretary is among those who believe nefarious substances are covertly added to commercial jet fuelThe Trump administration appears sceptical about the climate crisis but is deeply concerned about another weather phenomenon: chemtrails.To conspiracists, chemtrails are visible trails left by commercial airliners, lasting longer than the usual condensation trails from jets and containing unknown, sinister chemicals. Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago Rachel Reeves seized her moment – whatever the future brings, Labour’s economic course is now set | Martin Kettle

The chancellor is no mere technocrat: her spending review revealed a visceral commitment to social and economic mobilityThe consensus has long been that the 2025 spending review would be a defining moment for Keir Starmer’s government. For once, the consensus proved spot-on. The government’s main priorities were set out on Wednesday in a blizzard of Commons announcements from Rachel Reeves, some economically substantive, others more for show. The upshot is that the shape of the British state, as Labour intends it, is now decided until the eve of the next election.There are further crossroads still to come, some of them major, as the years covered by the review unroll. Taxes are likely to rise, probably as soon as the autumn budget, to pay for Reeves’s big ticket boosts on Wednesday for defence, health and housing. Council tax could rise too, with possibly dramatic results. The review’s emphasis on capital spending means current spending could be squeezed again, perhaps heralding pay...

Economics

4 h. ago Confessions of a Parent Killer review – a grisly tale of the murderer who lived with her mum and dad’s corpses

This look at Virginia McCullough tells a deeply strange story. Unfortunately, it also leaves the viewer in suspense about her motive for so long it feels horrifically manipulativeWell, what do you think a 90-minute documentary entitled Confessions of a Parent Killer is going to be about? That’s right, well done! It’s the story of a murder by an (adult) child of her parents. Virginia – Ginny – McCullough killed her mother, Lois, and father, John, and confessed immediately to police when they raided her home in 2023 that she had done so four years previously. The twist was that she had been living with their bodies ever since. “She was weird at school,” says a childhood friend. “But not ‘kill your parents and hide the bodies’ weird.”You can probably tell from such unimpeachably phlegmatic commentary that this case occurred in England. Great Baddow, Essex, to be exact, and the film paints a portrait of quintessential small-town, almost-rural life in these sceptred isles that has gone u...

Events

4 h. ago Man City warned by lawyers over new 'unlawful' season ticket policy

A Manchester City fan group has engaged solicitors to write to the club over proposed season ticket changes.

Events

7 h. ago The man who invented the Sound of Summer: He was the genius behind The Beach Boys, but his abusive father drove him to years of ruinous drug addiction

From his brutal childhood - beaten so badly by his monstrous father that he was deaf in one ear - to his decades of paranoid, drug-addled seclusion, he fought a constant battle against the world.

Events

7 h. ago Star Wars, Simpsons and Spy Kids: Trump and Gavin Newsom locked in bizarre LA protests meme battle

The administration and the governor have locked horns in courts, in back-and-forth statements, and, increasingly, with memes write Josh Marcus

Events

8 h. ago Don't forget who real enemy is, U.S. warns Lammy over sanctions of two Israeli ministers over 'egregious abuses' of human rights in Gaza

The White House has criticised Britain's decision to sanction two Israeli ministers over 'egregious abuses' of human rights in Gaza.

Events

8 h. ago The betrayal of Gibraltar: Anger at Starmer's 'surrender deal' with EU that hands Spain control over territory's border

The agreement means Britons travelling to the peninsula could be refused entry by Spanish guards enforcing the EU rules - despite it being a British Overseas Territory.

Economics

9 h. ago Israeli forces kill at least 60 Palestinians seeking food in Gaza, health officials say

Dozens more wounded as crowds approached food distribution centres run by Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian FoundationIsraeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, most of them as they were seeking food from a US-Israeli distribution scheme, according to local health authorities.Medical officials said at least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded as they approached a food distribution centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), near Netzarim in central Gaza. Continue reading...

Politics

10 h. ago ‘Apocalyptic’ video shows hundreds of Palestinians rushing to secure aid

Footage posted to social media shows hundreds of Palestinians rush to enter an aid site in west Rafah to secure food and supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in scenes described as "apocalyptic".

Culture

10 h. ago An AP photographer captures a powerful moment in the chaos of the Los Angeles protests

Jae Hong is based in Los Angeles and has worked with The Associated Press for more than 18 years, covering many of the city’s biggest stories

Events

10 h. ago Flight 149: Hostage of War review – a tale so staggering you couldn’t write it

This excellent documentary tells the tale of a BA plane’s Kuwait stopover just as Saddam Hussein invaded. It’s a crucial tale of a four-month nightmare that is barely believableIf it were a work of fiction, the story of Flight 149 would probably be deemed too horrifying – or too unbelievable – for television. Indeed, as a documentary interspersed with dramatic reconstructions, at points it is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a crucial piece of work: a one-off film that goes deep into a bizarre and increasingly hideous ordeal to ask how and why it happened.On 2 August 1990, a British Airways plane carrying nearly 400 passengers and crew from London to Kuala Lumpur touched down for a scheduled stopover in Kuwait. Those on board knew nothing of the unfolding Iraqi invasion of the country and the brutality Saddam Hussein was inflicting on his neighbours (this would, of course, soon lead to the Gulf war). British Airways maintains that it, too, was unaware of what was taki...

Events

10 h. ago Like Brooklyn Beckham, I've also cut off contact with a parent. Here's what he needs to know

The world of estrangement is a weird little club that no one really wants to be part of, says Eilidh Dorgan

Politics

11 h. ago Kennedy names 8 vaccine committee replacements, including COVID shot critic

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F

Politics

11 h. ago ‘Tipping culture is out of control’: Study reveals which states tip the most and least

Toast recently published a restaurant trends report which analyzed the average amount a diner tipped per state

Politics

12 h. ago Spending review in five charts: Where Rachel Reeves cuts and pay boosts will land

Departmental spending will increase by 2.3 per cent each year, with some areas seeing real-terms losses, writes Alicja Hagopian

Economics