3 h. ago BBC is accused of 'insulting' mothers after hailing drag queens as 'inspirational mums' on CBeebies site aimed at children as young as six

American drag queens Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are listed among the selection of inspirational mothers on the online channel 'for International Women's Day'.

Politics

5 h. ago CPAC provides a safe space for Elon Musk against Bannon and parental responsibility

Analysis: Musk, facing lawsuit from his child’s mother and DOGE outrage, runs to CPAC for a warm embrace, writes John Bowden

Events

5 h. ago Writer David Szalay: ‘We live in an era of short attention spans – we have to work with it the best we can’

The Hungarian-English author on addressing what it’s like to be a male body in the world, learning the tricks of literature from Frederick Forsyth, and the feeling of nearly winning the BookerDavid Szalay, 51, grew up in London and now lives in Vienna with his wife, having previously moved in 2009 to Hungary, his father’s birthplace. In 2016 he was shortlisted for the Booker prize with his fourth novel, All That Man Is, nine separate stories “self-assembled in the reader’s mind into a sort of collage-novel” (London Review of Books). His new novel, Flesh, follows the fluctuating fortunes of a young Hungarian ex-convict who makes his life in the UK after serving in Iraq.Tell us how Flesh came to be. I decided to abandon a book I’d started in 2017. It just wasn’t working, so it felt like a weight off my shoulders; nevertheless, I was under contract and had to come up with something. Literally nothing in Flesh is directly autobiographical, but it started with my underlying experience of...

Politics

5 h. ago Steve Witkoff: from property developer to global spotlight as Trump’s tough

His friendship with the president dates back to a late-night encounter in a deli. Now he is a loyal envoy brokering the Gaza ceasefire and peace talks on UkraineWith the first phase of the ceasefire nearing its end, an American property developer has emerged as a key figure in determining whether Gaza attains a more enduring peace or slips back into war.Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s typically idiosyncratic pick as special Middle East envoy, has also found his way into the midst of talks with Russia over Ukraine’s future, sitting opposite Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, instead of the official special envoy for the region, Keith Kellogg. Continue reading...

Politics

6 h. ago 'I tried six beers with one ingredient missing – most were still great'

With virtually all of them, you would never know the difference

Events

6 h. ago Watching Rangers grates again as St Mirren turn American dream into a nightmare – 3 talking points

Two second half goals from Stephen Robinson's men remind everyone why there's such desperation for an Ibrox takeover

Politics

6 h. ago Manchester pub that didn't serve alcohol was a 'doomed' social experiment

The Pop Inn in Openshaw was a pub with 'absolutely no beer or common sense'

Politics

6 h. ago From saviour to Judas How Trump’s pivot on Russia also endangers his own country | Simon Tisdall

With a Putin-appeasing president at the helm, it is clear the transatlantic alliance is collapsing and European leaders must plot their own courseHow do I betray thee? Let me count the ways Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for mangling her celebrated poem to reflect Donald Trump’s multiple Ukraine treacheries. This most perfidious of presidents surpassed himself last week, accusing Kyiv of invading itself three years ago . “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he fatuously griped.Candidate Trump, touting a just peace, pledged to end the war in a day. Now he praises Vladimir Putin, claims Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is “a dictator” and backs a settlement on Moscow’s criminal, one-sided terms. This deranged collapse into craven capitulation, this transition from American saviour to American Judas, took less than a month. It’s contemptible. Continue reading...

Politics

7 h. ago Creative industries are among the UK’s crown jewels – and AI is out to steal them | John Naughton

The tech firms’ efforts to change copyright laws and gain free access to intellectual property is patently wrongThere are decades when nothing happens (as Lenin is – wrongly – supposed to have said) and weeks when decades happen. We’ve just lived through a few weeks like that. We’ve known for decades that some American tech companies were problematic for democracy because they were fragmenting the public sphere and fostering polarisation. They were a worrying nuisance, to be sure, but not central to the polity.And then, suddenly, those corporations were inextricably bound into government, and their narrow sectional interests became the national interest of the US. Which means that any foreign government with ideas about regulating, say, hate speech on X, may have to deal with the intemperate wrath of Donald Trump or the more coherent abuse of JD Vance. Continue reading...

Events

8 h. ago Voices: Keir Starmer’s secret letter reveals that he sees Nigel Farage as the real leader of the opposition

The prime minister has set out a restrictive approach to immigration in a memo to cabinet ministers – making clear that he sees Reform, not the Conservatives, as the threat at the next election, writes John Rentoul

Politics

9 h. ago Heathrow security staff confiscated my 100ml gift bottles of rare whisky worth £70 each for a bizarre reason

EXCLUSIVE: American holidaymaker Susan (pictured) said she would never return to Britain after her treatment from Heathrow security staff.

Economics

10 h. ago CTEK CS Free review: We test a car charger you don't need to plug in to the mains

Motoring and consumer technology writer Gareth Butterfield uses CTEK’s latest off-grid charger and starter to keep his vehicle batteries in tip-top condition

Politics

10 h. ago ‘We’re clearly heading towards collapse’: why the Murdoch empire is about to go bang

An explosive succession trial and an astonishing interview with one of Rupert’s sons have exposed the paranoia and hatred at the heart of global media’s most powerful family. This could get messy When some of the mind games and manoeuvres that turned a Murdoch family “retreat” into an ordeal appeared in Succession, the TV drama about squabbling family members of a right-wing media company, members of the real-life family started to suspect each other of leaking details to the writers. The truth was more straightforward. Succession’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, said that his team hadn’t needed inside sources – they had simply read press reports.Future screenwriters have been gifted a whole load of new Murdoch material in the past few days, after two astonishing stories in the New York Times and the Atlantic lifted the lid on the dysfunction, paranoia and despair at the heart of the most powerful family in global media. Continue reading...

Events

11 h. ago Angels are real, I have seen them all my life: Here's the signs you should look out for, writes KYLE GRAY

I am an angel communicator and since I was a teenager people have been coming to me asking what their divine experiences mean.

Politics

11 h. ago Voices: Luigi Mangione’s popular appeal highlights our fetishisation of ‘dangerous’ men

By framing criminals as sex objects, we’re not only vindicating them but their behaviour, writes Olivia Petter. What message does it send to other young men who might go on to become offenders?

Politics

12 h. ago ‘I tried this unusual wellness activity loved by Meghan Markle and was wowed by the results’

If you're looking for a new wellness activity to try, then sound baths could be for you. Here's what happened when one writer tried an experience reportedly loved by Meghan Markle

Politics

12 h. ago ‘The essential ingredient is openess’: Curtis Sittenfeld on the deep joy of midlife friendship

Friendships become closer as you get older argues the novelist, because by middle age everyone has faced dramatic challenges, disappointments and sorrows – and being honest about them is a powerful point of bondingMy ninth book is published this week, and in recent years I’ve described my writing like this: I take care with my sentences, but exquisite prose isn’t my goal. My goal is to give the reader the feeling that you – and by you, I mean me – have when you’re going for a long walk with a close friend, and the friend says: “The craziest thing just happened to me.” What?! You think and possibly say. Tell me immediately! And then what happened, and then what happened? As a writer, this is the urgency I’m chasing, this is the investment, the richness of emotion, the confiding and closeness and caring.A line in Miranda July’s 2024 novel All Fours, a book I’ve discussed with many friends, perfectly captures for me this sense of participating in a bottomless conversation: “I was often...

Events

12 h. ago ‘The essential ingredient is openness’: Curtis Sittenfeld on the deep joy of midlife friendship

Friendships become closer as you get older argues the novelist, because by middle age everyone has faced dramatic challenges, disappointments and sorrows – and being honest about them is a powerful point of bondingMy ninth book is published this week, and in recent years I’ve described my writing like this: I take care with my sentences, but exquisite prose isn’t my goal. My goal is to give the reader the feeling that you – and by you, I mean me – have when you’re going for a long walk with a close friend, and the friend says: “The craziest thing just happened to me.” What?! You think and possibly say. Tell me immediately! And then what happened, and then what happened? As a writer, this is the urgency I’m chasing, this is the investment, the richness of emotion, the confiding and closeness and caring.A line in Miranda July’s 2024 novel All Fours, a book I’ve discussed with many friends, perfectly captures for me this sense of participating in a bottomless conversation: “I was often...

Events

13 h. ago Phaidra Knight, rugby great, set for pro MMA debut at 50: ‘All roads lead to where I am’

After 35 US caps, three World Cups and hall of fame recognition, the former flanker is still a fighter – but now it’s in the octagon, for moneyPhaidra Knight is already a pioneer, the only African American woman in the World Rugby Hall of Fame. In 2017, when she retired after three World Cups and 35 US caps, she was 43. Now she’s 50 but on Saturday night in Patchogue, New York, she will claim another first: the oldest woman ever to make her pro MMA debut.“All roads lead to where I am,” Knight says, by phone from New York, on her way to training, with a sort of fierce zen sentiment familiar from conversations about rugby, the game she found at law school, through which she found herself, and which she came to see as a prop and a flanker as “violent yet controlled, kind of a form of art”. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago Why after three years of Ukraine war the bloodiest battles may be still to come

The outcome of this war is still likely to be decided on the battlefield, Alexander Titov writes

Events