40 h. ago Family feared for their lives when Land Rover Defender burst into flames on country road as mother yelled at children: 'Run as fast as you can!'

Caroline Rodda and her family were left fearing for their lives when their Land Rover suddenly 'exploded' into flames on a country road as they shouted at the children to 'run as fast as you can'.

Society

63 h. ago Counting the potential toll of Trump's tariffs on major Asian economies

Export manufacturing and free trade helped transform China and other Asian countries into economic powerhouses

Politics

5 d. ago Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya review – teenage lives at the crossroads

A night of violence exposes the dynamics of race, masculinity and privilege at play in America’s schools The Marabar caves in A Passage to India represent the breakdown of order and communication as well as provoking the terrible accusation that drives EM Forster’s story. Sameer Pandya plays with a similar plot device in his compelling US-based novel, including an epigraph from Forster’s classic.It is set in southern California, where three teenage boys on the brink of adulthood – stars of their high school American football team with promising college careers ahead of them – attend a party at an abandoned house in the hills. Vikram is an Indian American, while Diego, who is Latino, lives with his academic mother. MJ is white with wealthy parents. Part of the pleasure of Pandya’s writing lies in his unravelling of identity politics – a theme explored in his debut, Members Only.Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observ...

Politics

6 d. ago Fairer chocolate trade ‘transforming mothers’ lives in Ivorian cocoa villages’

Women in the African nation’s cocoa villages face acute challenges, including gender inequality, economic exclusion and limited access to healthcare.

Society

6 d. ago We live underneath the M4 motorway... the pillars ruin our view and the cars coat our gardens in thick dust

EXCLUSIVE: Mother-of-four Joan lives in Port Talbot, South Wales, where a 45ft high fly-over on the M4 goes right above her back garden.

Transport

1 week ago I've had 180 rounds of chemo... tragic reason I'm giving up after 10

Jamie Comer, a 55-year-old mother from California, who was given just six months to live from 'death sentence' colon cancer is finally giving up treatments after nearly a decade fighting the disease.

Events

1 week ago I hate the unique names my cousin wants to call her first child

The cousin of an expectant mother, thought to live in the US, took to Reddit last week to ask readers for advice on how to go about convincing their relative to avoid using a very peculiar baby name.

Politics

1 week ago Albanian criminal can stay in the UK as his deportation would cause 'considerable distress' to his son who has a learning disability

Blendi Axhami won a legal challenge as his son - who lives with his mother and is cared for by Axhami only once a week - is being treated 'as if he is autistic' while awaiting final diagnosis.

Events

1 week ago Social media companies will not put lives before profit – Brianna Ghey’s mother

Esther Ghey was speaking at the screening of ITV film Brianna: A Mother’s Story, which explores the murder of her daughter.

Politics

1 week ago Mother's chilling words to husband after killing newborn baby when he was minutes old

Killer mother Joanne Sharkey, 55, from Liverpool, was not identified until recently when cold case detectives found a match for her older son in national DNA databases

Events

2 w. ago Starmer must drop ‘cruel’ Pip proposals or face ‘mother of all rebellions’, Labour MP says – UK politics live

Richard Burgon says PM’s failure to defend new Pip eligibility rules at PMQs shows why ‘cruel’ plans should be droppedLast night, to back up its analysis of the disability cuts, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published two charts illustrating aspects of the changes.This one shows how the £5bn cuts announced yesterday compare in scale to previous benefit cuts, listed here in order of how big they were, in current prices. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Maternity Service by Emma Barnett review – a tour of duty in early motherhood

In this valuable, brutally honest guide, the broadcaster argues that a supposedly joyful time is often steeped in drudgery and social isolation“It’s a bloody weird experience, maternity leave, and it’s OK to acknowledge that,” Emma Barnett writes in Maternity Service, her short, no-nonsense guide to surviving this curious – and relatively recent – phenomenon that can feel, in the thick of it, like a temporary exile from the outside world. For many new mothers, the abrupt severance from their professional lives and previous identities can leave them flailing in a strange and destabilising limbo where it seems almost taboo to voice any feelings of dislocation, in case these come across as a lack of maternal devotion.Barnett proposes that the whole business should be rebranded – rather than “maternity leave”, which suggests a nice relaxing break, it should be styled “maternity service”, with all the latter term’s connotations of a military tour of duty. Words such as “duty” and “servic...

Politics

3 w. ago Cheltenham festival: Marine Nationale lands poignant win on day two – as it happened

It was an emotional afternoon as Marine Nationale and Jazzy Matty – winners for late jockey Michael O’Sullivan in 2023 – both won again at CheltenhamPreview: 2.40 The Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, 2m 5fThis is always one of the fiercest betting heats of the week, and also one of the trickiest of all the races to solve, with just two successful favourites this century and winners at 50-1, 33-1 (twice) and 28-1 in the last dozen years alone. Dan Skelton fields the likely favourite in Be Aware as he attempts to complete a three-timer in this race, following victories for Langer Dan in each of the last two runnings, and while the old warrior in not in the field this time around, Henry de Bromhead’s Ballyadam, the three-and-a-half length runner-up 12 months ago, is back for another crack. Be Aware, a hold-up horse who is certain to get a strong pace to aim at, has run well in handicaps at Cheltenham and Ascot on his two previous starts this season, but his run-style means he will need some ...

Politics

3 w. ago Cheltenham festival 2025: Marine Nationale lands poignant win on day two – live

Live updates from day two of the Cheltenham festivalDay two tips | The view from Benidorm | And mail NiallPreview: 2.40 The Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, 2m 5fThis is always one of the fiercest betting heats of the week, and also one of the trickiest of all the races to solve, with just two successful favourites this century and winners at 50-1, 33-1 (twice) and 28-1 in the last dozen years alone. Dan Skelton fields the likely favourite in Be Aware as he attempts to complete a three-timer in this race, following victories for Langer Dan in each of the last two runnings, and while the old warrior in not in the field this time around, Henry de Bromhead’s Ballyadam, the three-and-a-half length runner-up 12 months ago, is back for another crack. Be Aware, a hold-up horse who is certain to get a strong pace to aim at, has run well in handicaps at Cheltenham and Ascot on his two previous starts this season, but his run-style means he will need some luck in running and punters are, frankly, s...

Politics

3 w. ago Cheltenham festival 2025: Ballyburn shocked; The New Lion roars to win on day two – live

Live updates from day two of the Cheltenham festivalDay two tips | The view from Benidorm | And mail NiallPreview: 2.40 The Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, 2m 5fThis is always one of the fiercest betting heats of the week, and also one of the trickiest of all the races to solve, with just two successful favourites this century and winners at 50-1, 33-1 (twice) and 28-1 in the last dozen years alone. Dan Skelton fields the likely favourite in Be Aware as he attempts to complete a three-timer in this race, following victories for Langer Dan in each of the last two runnings, and while the old warrior in not in the field this time around, Henry de Bromhead’s Ballyadam, the three-and-a-half length runner-up 12 months ago, is back for another crack. Be Aware, a hold-up horse who is certain to get a strong pace to aim at, has run well in handicaps at Cheltenham and Ascot on his two previous starts this season, but his run-style means he will need some luck in running and punters are, frankly, s...

Events

3 w. ago Cheltenham festival 2025: news, tips and more after snow falls on day two – live

Live updates from day two of the Cheltenham festivalDay two tips | The view from Benidorm | And mail NiallPreview: 2.40 The Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle, 2m 5fThis is always one of the fiercest betting heats of the week, and also one of the trickiest of all the races to solve, with just two successful favourites this century and winners at 50-1, 33-1 (twice) and 28-1 in the last dozen years alone. Dan Skelton fields the likely favourite in Be Aware as he attempts to complete a three-timer in this race, following victories for Langer Dan in each of the last two runnings, and while the old warrior in not in the field this time around, Henry de Bromhead’s Ballyadam, the three-and-a-half length runner-up 12 months ago, is back for another crack. Be Aware, a hold-up horse who is certain to get a strong pace to aim at, has run well in handicaps at Cheltenham and Ascot on his two previous starts this season, but his run-style means he will need some luck in running and punters are, frankly, s...

Politics

3 w. ago Cheltenham festival 2025: snow falls before racing on day two – live

Live updates from day two of the Cheltenham festivalDay two tips | The view from Benidorm | And mail TonyDid you know today was ‘Style Wednesday’? No neither did I. Anyway I have my blue John Smedley long-sleeved polo shirt on and a pair of vintage Levi’s so I hope that passes muster. I discovered that name for today in the details about the all-important going underfoot from the track which many were saying was bordering on good (ie faster ground than the general description) yesterday. The snow will have softened it up a bit and Jon Pullin, Cheltenham’s clerk of the course, said just now: “We had a covering of snow this morning but it turned to sleet as forecast and that should soon disappear. The going for today remains Good to Soft on the [main] Old Course and is Good to Soft, Good in places and Soft on the top loop on the Cross Country Course.”Hello, and welcome to day two of the festival. And, as Cheltenham themselves point out, what a difference a day makes. When my son got i...

Politics

4 w. ago Woman who says she was raped by Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner in 2004 opens up about 'guilt' that she couldn't 'prevent' abduction three years later

Speaking on the Irish Mirror's Shattered Lives podcast, the mother-of-three admitted she often blames herself for the horrors faced by the McCanns.

Events