73 m. ago IKEA to open stores in old Homebase sites across UK – you can expect lots of meatballs

Having reached an agreement to acquire three former Homebase sites, the new stores will offer the classic IKEA experience that customers know and love, on a smaller scale

Politics

1 hour ago ‘I feel as though I’ve been in chains’: the bittersweet life of lovers rock legend Mari’ Pierre

The British-Guyanese singer topped the reggae chart with 1978’s Walk Away, but despite work with Robert Plant and others, she’s rarely returned to the studio. This interview might change that In December 1978, Marie Pierre was at No 1 in the UK reggae chart with the lovers rock classic Walk Away, a beautiful tearstained lament on a troubled relationship. Her 1979 debut album Love Affair, powered by another enduring scene song in Choose Me, remained one of Trojan’s best-selling albums well into the 1980s; Pierre, with her crystalline multi-octave voice, seemed destined to follow her contemporary, Silly Games singer Janet Kay, into mainstream pop-reggae success.But in the 46 years since, Pierre has never released another album. A career that promised so much has – despite TV work and successful backing singing gigs with Robert Plant, Donna Summer and Chaka Khan – been one of frustration and thwarted ambition. Misfortune, mistrust and mistreatment, personal and professional, have sidel...

Politics

2 h. ago ‘Please leave feedback’: how constant online reviews are changing our brains – and our lives

We live under mutual surveillance, asked to leave public ratings for every purchase, meal, taxi ride or hair appointment. What is it doing to us?‘Alexlilly1999* has left you feedback!” pings the Vinted notification. My stomach flips as the app loads and I open my review: “Quite good.” A gut punch. I sit in shock, scrutinising the words in front of me. “Good” is a bit uninspired but “quite” feels both passive-aggressive and viciously spiteful: quite good. Alexlilly1999 has also given me just four stars. It’s a lukewarm write-up considering the dress I sold them was good quality, a brilliant price and shipped quickly. I glare at the review. And then another notification pops up: do I want to leave feedback for the buyer? Well, yes, actually, I do.It’s likely we’ve all, at some stage, been asked to leave feedback online. Called your electricity provider with a query? Please answer a few quick questions about the service you received. Had something delivered by a courier? Please rate yo...

Politics

2 h. ago Man charged over attempted murder after armed cops fired shot and stormed Dundee property

The incident and the circumstances have been referred to the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner.

Events

2 h. ago Bogus AI reviews on the rise as holidaymakers warned of 20 clues to look out for

A study of 2,000 adults also discovered three in 10 travellers have been left disappointed when they arrived at their destination - as the review they read had been exaggerated

Events

3 h. ago The Most Precious of Cargoes review – postmodern Holocaust fairytale is dreamy curiosity

Michel Hazanavicius’s sentimental tale about a baby found in the woods features sweet little cartoon birds and rabbits as well as the real horror of Nazi death campsDirected by Michel Hazanavicius, this postmodern Holocaust fairytale premiered at Cannes last year, and turns out to be a dreamy animated curiosity which is certainly different to the icy realist rigour of other films which have appeared there on the same theme, such as Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest or László Nemes’s Son of Saul. It is adapted from a novella by author and screenwriter Jean-Claude Grumberg (who collaborated with Truffaut on The Last Metro), whose own father was murdered in the Nazi death camps.The late Jean-Louis Trintignant has his final credit as the narrator, introducing us to scenes that could, at first glance, be from the Brothers Grimm. We see a dense central European forest through which a second world war Nazi train is seen speeding through, carrying terrified Jews to Auschwitz. One man, ...

Transport

3 h. ago One Australian’s dramatic rescue from a flood in of one of the driest places on Earth

As floodwater flows past towns and cattle and sheep stations – normally isolated by desert – many now sit as islands amid a muddy seaMany are those rescued from Munga-Thirri-Simpson Desert – in what is normally the dust bowl of outback Queensland – who have sunk wheels in a sand dune, busted tyres upon gibber rock or even been bogged in the mud left by a sudden downpour. But Tony Woolford is among a far more exclusive club.In fact, the 66-year-old South Australian may well be the first person ever plucked by helicopter in this, one of the driest places on Earth, from flood waters. Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago See if you can tell which of these Iceland images are real and which are fake

One in five Brits have booked a trip based on a review that was either misleading or entirely fake - can you tell whether these pictures of Iceland are the real deal?

Politics

5 h. ago Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold review – engrossing retelling of ‘the crime of the century’

This account of Dr Crippen’s notorious Edwardian-era killing shifts the focus to the women at the centre of the sordid taleOn the evening of 31 January 1910, two couples dined together at a house in Hilldrop Crescent, on the borders of Holloway, London. The hosts, Dr Crippen and his wife, Belle Elmore, had been entertaining their friends, Clara and Paul Martinetti, until the small hours. After some difficulty fetching a cab, the visitors headed home around 1.30am. It was the last time they, or anyone else, would see Elmore alive. When her colleagues at the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild made inquiries about their friend – she was treasurer of the organisation – Crippen told them she had gone off to America to deal with a family crisis. Some weeks later they were informed she had died of double pneumonia in Los Angeles.Thus was sparked an international murder case, one of the most notorious in Britain, later called “the crime of the century”. But Hallie Rubenhold’s engrossing account begin...

Events

6 h. ago What do you get for £250 at Gordon Ramsay’s new chef’s table – and can £10 pasta compete?

From a sky-high tasting menu with seaweed beurre blanc to a walk-in Soho pasta bar slinging amaretto-laced ravioli, Hannah Twiggs launches her new column comparing high-end splurges and low-key gems – and finds fine dining isn’t always about the altitude

Economics

11 h. ago Martin Clunes explains the one major reason Men Behaving Badly can’t be revived

Men Behaving Badly was one of the biggest British sitcoms of the nineties, but lead star Martin Clunes has shut down questions about a series reboot for one very particular reason

Politics

12 h. ago Trump administration to review $9bn in federal grants to Harvard

Latest escalation against elite universities follows recent withdrawal of funding to Columbia

Politics

13 h. ago Twitter: Breaking the Bird review – how all the hate speech flooded in

This film shows how a ‘hallucinogenically optimistic’ vision descended into the hellscape we know today. Young, confident men really should not rule the internet It turns out that Mike Judge’s supposed sitcom Silicon Valley was a documentary after all. My bad, as the people young and in touch enough with the world to have known this all along may still say.Twitter: Breaking the Bird is a 75-minute CNN film chronicling the rise, fall and possibly end of the social media site that was launched by a group of eager young things in 2006 amid a widespread belief – at least in the Valley – in the power of the internet to remake the world in radically better ways. This, a co-founder or two has come to consider since, may have been a “hallucinogenically optimistic” view. Well, we were all young once. Although that feels – and in no small measure because of Twitter – like a very long time ago. Continue reading...

Events

14 h. ago Trump task force to review Harvard's funding after Columbia bows to federal demands

Harvard University has become the latest target in the Trump administration’s approach to fight campus antisemitism

Politics

14 h. ago Trump officials to review $9bn in Harvard funds over antisemitism claims

Administration accuses university of failing to protect students and plans to look into federal grants and contractsThe Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.The multi-agency Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates. Continue reading...

Politics

14 h. ago Trump administration announces review of Harvard University’s federal contracts and grants – live

Education department announces review of Harvard’s $255.6m contracts and $8.7bn multi-year grant commitments amid allegations of antisemitism Immigration remains a strength for Donald Trump, but his handling of tariffs is getting more negative feedback, according to a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. About half of US adults approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, the survey shows, but only about four in 10 have a positive view of the way he’s handling the economy and trade negotiations. The poll indicates that many Americans are still on board with Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations and restrict immigration. But it also suggests that the Republican president’s threats to impose tariffs – which have been accompanied by tumbling consumer confidence and wild stock market swings – might be erasing his advantage on another issue that he made central to his winning 2024 campaign. The economy was a drag on then president Joe Biden, who saw th...

Politics

17 h. ago Buskers in London's famous Leicester Square perform 'psychological torture' on local workers on a daily basis and some are so bad they need to be stopped, a judge has ruled

Staff at Global Radio, home to stations including LBC, Heart FM and Classic FM, say the racket through their windows is so bad they are forced to make phone calls in cupboards.

Events

18 h. ago Samsung Galaxy ring review, tried and tested by our tech expert

I test Samsung’s latest bit of wearable tech to see if it lives up to the hype

Science

20 h. ago Peter Navarro faces bipartisan wrath over ‘exceptionally stupid’ claim that ‘tariffs are tax cuts’

‘They think you are stupid,’ Pradeep J. Shanker, a contributor for the conservative National Review magazine, said about Navarro’s claim

Economics

21 h. ago Love, actually: How intimacy survives marriage and motherhood | Saman Shad

The key isn’t chasing some impossible ideal of passion that never fades, but learning to appreciate love in all its evolving formsThe first thing a friend did when I told her the title of my book was laugh. “The Sex Lives of Married Women?” She asked. “You mean The No Sex Lives of Married Women.”I laughed too. She wasn’t wrong – married people aren’t exactly known for their thriving sex lives. And I suspect the only couples reliably having sex must be the ones who have scheduled it into their Google calendars, probably in a shared folder alongside “Bunnings trip” and “remortgage review”. Continue reading...

Events