11 h. ago Snake surprise: Mum finds live snake in daughter's Peppa Pig birthday gift

Jennifer Baker, 30, thought it was a prank by one of her sons when a bright orange snake fell out of her daughter's new toy box after celebrating her birthday on Sunday (August 10)

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65 h. ago Russian bus passengers ordered to rush to bomb shelters over 'imminent nuclear strike'

A video going viral on Russian social media shows a woman passenger as she heard the warning today on the intercom of bus 191 to Grachevskaya station in the Russian capital

Events

6 d. ago Kevin Rowland: ‘If I could bring something extinct back to life it would be the Labour party’

The Dexys Midnight Runners singer on being arrested 15 times, a crushing comment from his dad and a lesson from ShakespeareBorn in Wolverhampton, Kevin Rowland, 71, was a hairdresser before forming Dexys Midnight Runners. The band had their first hit in 1980 with Geno. In 1982, Come On Eileen was Britain’s bestselling single; the following year, it went to No 1 in the US. Over five decades, Dexys released six studio albums including The Feminine Divine in 2023. As a solo artist, Rowland released two albums, The Wanderer in 1988 and My Beauty in 1999. Bless Me Father, Rowland’s memoir, has just been published. He lives in London and has a daughter.When were you happiest? On stage – the Old Vic in 1981 and Glastonbury last year. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Mum 'wrapped bleeding daughter, 3, in towel' and ran from Adelphi Hotel room

Danielle Kenny and her young family were staying at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool when she says daughter Valencia was hit on the head, leaving the toddler covered in blood

Politics

3 w. ago ‘I’d had 28 years of depression – now it was gone’: Comic Paul Foot on three seconds that changed his life

Driving through Manchester one Sunday, at the wheel of a Nissan Micra, Foot suddenly woke from decades of anxiety, anger and misery. He talks about the friends who tried to help him, and the forgiveness he struggled to findFor three years and four months, Paul Foot has been living in a state of joy. He is in it now, he says, sitting across a table, overlooking London’s Regent’s canal. He’s wearing one of his trademark blue LF Markey boilersuits, and seems serene rather than ecstatic, half smiling. But that’s because the joy doesn’t spike or yo-yo. It’s a “constant”, so reliable that even when someone he knows dies, “there’s still a peace beneath it and a joy in it as well”.Life was not always like this, and the story of how Foot, 51, overturned 28 years of “crushing, all-encompassing depression and anxiety” is told in his critically acclaimed 2023 show Dissolve, the filmed special of which is released this week. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Ukraine war briefing: EU and UK increase sanctions on Russia as drone strike on Odesa kills one

EU agrees 18th package of sanctions against Moscow, including a moving price cap on Russian oil 15% below market rates. What we know on day 1,242One person was killed and at least one apartment building set alight in Odesa after Russian forces staged a mass drone attack on the Ukrainian Black Sea port. The city’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, said at least 20 drones had converged on the city. “Civilian infrastructure was damaged as a result of the attack. A residential high-rise building is on fire” and rescuers were pulling people out, he said. The Odesa region’s emergency service said later that five people were rescued from burning apartments but “one rescued woman died”.The Russian defence ministry said its air defence systems destroyed 87 Ukrainian drones in a five-hour period on Friday evening, including over the Bryansk region bordering northern Ukraine and the Moscow region. Russian aviation authorities were once again forced to suspend flights at Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo ai...

Events

4 w. ago ‘We painted, sang songs’: the Russian woman found living in Indian cave with daughters

Nina Kutina told police she moved to forest with girls, aged four and six, to get away from modern urban lifeAccording to Nina Kutina, life for her and her two daughters in their jungle cave had been peaceful.Buried deep in the forests of Gokarna, a coastal town in southern India, they had woken “up with the sun, swam in rivers and lived in nature”. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago ‘I did not bring my daughters to die’: Russian mother defends decision to live in cave in India

Indian police officials patrolling the slippery trails of Ramteertha Hills in Karnataka, find Russian woman who had made a home deep in the woods with her daughters, aged five and six, Shweta Sharma reports

Events

last month Russian woman and her daughters found living ‘peaceful life’ in Indian forest cave

Ms Kutina spent her time in the cave meditating by candlelight, telling officers she was "interested in staying in the forest and worshiping God."

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