82 m. ago My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. How can I change his mind?

Masculine adequacy is a curse, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Beyond assuring him he meets the standard, could you help him to see the standard doesn’t matter?My boyfriend sees sex as a competition he is losing. He feels like he doesn’t perform enough (he does) and worries he isn’t big enough (he is!).He grew up without a father – the father’s fault – and I wonder if this has something to do with it. How can I assist him to see sex as non-competitive? I love him, and I find this self-loathing distressing. Eleanor says: I assume he doesn’t think he’s losing the competition with you, somehow, but with imagined manly foes, comparisons, symbols of everything he (imagines he) isn’t? Continue reading...

Politics

88 m. ago From small town New Zealand to Mont Blanc: how ultrarunner Ruth Croft made history

Croft’s recent win the 174km Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc made her the first woman to take out the triple series crown in the prestigious eventGrowing up in Stillwater, New Zealand, population 86, Ruth Croft learned hard work from a young age. Her father ran a transport company, managing dozens of drivers and semi-trailers across the 600km West Coast in the South Island.“On school holidays I worked for my dad full time, sometimes 14-hour days,” says Croft. “Shitty jobs like cleaning drains or the grease bay. I don’t know anyone who works as hard as he does.” Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago The Lady from the Sea review – Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander make waves in magnificent rewrite

Bridge theatre, LondonIbsen’s mysticism and mermaids are thrown out as director Simon Stone amps up the 1888 play’s psychological intensity with his eco-focused updateWriter-director Simon Stone is known for his rock’n’roll takes on the classics. This is a characteristically high-octane version of Ibsen’s play: loud, modern and led by screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln. Yet his script, again created in the rehearsal process, retains all of Ibsen’s layers and adds some of its own in the updating.All mystical talk of the sea and mermaids is excised. The production brings a sharply lit realism to the privileged yet complex family at its heart that seems to be slowly drowning: Ellida (Vikander), as the young, second wife of neurologist Edward (Lincoln), is caught between life with her husband and a long lost, formative ex-lover, Finn (Brendan Cowell), who makes a reappearance. Ellida’s stepdaughters, Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike) and Asa (Gracie Oddie-James), are trying to stay ...

Politics

2 h. ago Hansi Flick says opportunity to sign Marcus Rashford was too good to pass up

The 27-year-old is on a season-long loan deal at Barca.

Politics

3 h. ago UK doctors guilty of sexual misconduct are not being struck off, research finds

Analysis reveals 24% of guilty doctors handed suspensions but are allowed to keep working in medicineUK doctors who are guilty of sexual misconduct are not being appropriately sanctioned due to weak disciplinary processes, research reveals.Nearly a quarter (24%) of doctors found guilty of sexual misconduct were handed suspensions but allowed to continue working in medicine, according to analysis of fitness to practice tribunals by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). This is despite the regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), recommending they be struck off the medical register. Continue reading...

Science

3 h. ago CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox instead of single vaccine

Experts react with concern that increasing the number of vaccinations required will threaten children’s healthA powerful vaccines committee for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted on Thursday to change US vaccine policy and start recommending that children receive multiple vaccines to protect against diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox, instead of a single vaccine that can protect against all four diseases.The new recommendations from the panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), arrived just one day after top former CDC officials said that Robert F Kennedy Jr was a threat to US children’s ability to receive vaccines on schedule. The committee’s work typically determines which vaccines are provided for free through the US government, shapes state and local laws around vaccine requirements, and influences which vaccines health insurers tend to cover. Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox instead of single vaccine

Experts react with concern that increasing the number of vaccinations required will threaten children’s healthA powerful vaccines committee for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted on Thursday to change US vaccine policy and start recommending that children receive multiple vaccines to protect against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, instead of a single vaccine that can protect against all four diseases.The new recommendations from the panel, the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), arrived just one day after top former CDC officials said that Robert F Kennedy Jr was a threat to US children’s ability to receive vaccines on schedule. The committee’s work typically determines which vaccines are provided free of charge through the US government, shapes state and local laws around vaccine requirements, and influences which vaccines health insurers tend to cover. Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago Meet Trump’s ‘free speech warrior’ behind Kimmel suspension — who opponents call a ‘grave threat’ to the First Amendment

Project 2025 co-author pledged to ‘restore’ free speech before targeting broadcasters in Trump’s sights

Events

3 h. ago Teflon diet, garlic milk and zebra cows triumph at 2025 Ig Nobel prizes

Researchers into idea to blend powdered PTFE into food as a zero-calorie filler to curb hunger win chemistry prizeFor decades scientists, doctors and public health officials have battled to solve the obesity crisis. Now researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for a radical new approach: slashing people’s calorie intake by feeding them Teflon.The left-field proposal was inspired by zero calorie drinks and envisaged food manufacturers blending powdered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) into their products in the hope it would sate people’s hunger before quietly sliding out. Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago All Creatures Great and Small star confirms character's exit in series 6 update

All Creatures Great and Small is set to return to screens for a sixth season

Politics

3 h. ago Trump suggests punishing TV networks for ‘negative’ coverage amid outrage over Kimmel suspension

President says Jimmy Kimmel was ‘not a talented person’ as critics blast show’s suspension as an attack on free speechJimmy Kimmel suspension – live updatesDonald Trump suggested on Thursday that TV networks which cover him “negatively” could lose their licenses after his celebration of ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.On Air Force One, the president spoke to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the UK. The president said major US networks were “97% against me”, though he did not offer evidence to prove this figure or detail how this conclusion was evaluated. He said he read the statistic “someplace”. Continue reading...

Politics

4 h. ago Terland leads Man United to historic Women’s Champions League qualification

United will join Arsenal and Chelsea in this season’s Women’s Champions League after overturning a first-leg defeat against Brann

Sport

4 h. ago Rashford’s double silences Newcastle’s party and eases Barcelona to victory

A little more than 24 hours before kick-off, Hansi Flick spoke about how lucky he felt to have acquired Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United.Barcelona’s manager was not remotely bothered that his stock had fallen so far at Old Trafford. Rashford, he said, was a forward he had long admired and now believed he could help improve. Continue reading...

Politics

4 h. ago Doku decorates Manchester City’s win over Napoli after De Bruyne return ends early

Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?”But he might have spoken of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark. Continue reading...

Politics

5 h. ago Unraveling Exhibition Resonates at London Design Festival 2025, Confronting Art, Technology, and Boundaries

Unraveling Exhibition Resonates at London Design Festival 2025, Confronting Art, Technology, and Boundaries  FinancialContent

Politics

5 h. ago Swiped review – breezy drama gives dating apps the origins treatment

Lily James plays former Tinder employee who became founder of Bumble in an illuminating yet corny rise-to-fame taleIn 2012, a plucky, headstrong young entrepreneur crashes a startup mixer in Los Angeles, desperately trying to get their big idea off the ground. Naive and ruthlessly ambitious, they brave the skeptics, the losers, the people too good to talk to them and the people who don’t take them seriously. Eventually, inevitably, their genius – obvious, unsinkable, perhaps diabolical – collides with opportunity. Voilà! An origin story is born.Swap out the date and the city, and this would describe a pivotal scene in any number of recent movies and TV shows that take cinematic interest in the self-mythology of entrepreneurs. The dramatic logic and iconography of the origin story, basically true but always highly glossed, is by now so recognizable it almost writes itself: initial rejection, dogged persistence, chance meeting, lightbulb moment, big break. We’ve seen it in a wave of b...

Events

5 h. ago Juice season two review – Mawaan Rizwan’s enchanting sitcom comes at you like a tidal wave of creativity

The cast radiate charm, the storytelling is hugely imaginative and the narrative is irresistibly heartwarming. It’s not the funniest comedy, but it has so much more going for it than just laughsMawaan Rizwan began his career as a YouTuber; he later attended the prestigious Paris clown school, École Philippe Gaulier. In Juice, the 33-year-old’s BBC sitcom, he effortlessly unites these disparate comedy training grounds. As the fun-loving commitment-phobe Jamma, Rizwan channels the archetypal man-child vlogger. Puppyish and relatable, he wears his insecurities on his sleeve, and his attempts to conform to the expectations of adulthood are inevitably thwarted. But he is also a figure of more outre fun. With a severe bowl-cut and a penchant for retina-searing fashion, Jamma is overtly ridiculous: a master of slapstick and a magnet for chaos.In series one, Jamma spent most of his time clowning about: hardly working at a quirky marketing company (with mini trampolines instead of desk chair...

Politics

5 h. ago Hearts told exactly why they have 'no chance' of splitting Celtic and Rangers this season

The high-flying Jambos stormed nine points clear of Gers after a 2-0 victory at Ibrox last weekend

Politics

5 h. ago Clayton Kershaw to retire after 2025 season, Dodgers announce

Three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw will retire following the 2025 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced Thursday

Politics

5 h. ago In Whose Name? review – Kanye’s descent makes for grimly compelling watch

More than 3,000 hours of footage filmed since 2018 by a teenager gets turned into a strange, revealing and unsettling look at a fallen star‘What was Kanye West thinking?’ has remained a prevailing question since the Grammy award-winning rapper-producer pulled the rip cord on his spectacular descent into rightwing nihilism more than a decade ago. In Whose Name?, a cinéma vérité take on the tortured musical genius (who goes by just Ye now), offers fans and long-term observers a new artifact to pore over in search of answers – and reason to be disappointed all over again.That’s not a knock on the 104-minute opus, an outcropping of more than 3,000 hours of footage – some of it never before seen, some of it a reverse perspective on the viral stunts and rants that have marked Ye’s dramatic nosedive. Director Nico Ballesteros – who started filming in 2018, at age 18, with nothing to recommend him (his stint as a second assistant director on a Jesus Is King concert video came later) – had s...

Politics