5 h. ago Police under rising pressure over ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans at Aston Villa tie

West Midlands crime commissioner demands review as ministers meet to ‘find a way through’UK politics live – latest updatesPressure is mounting on West Midlands police over their ban on fans of the Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv from a match at Aston Villa next month, as the area’s crime commissioner demanded a review of the decision.Senior cabinet ministers, including Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, and Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, are due to meet on Friday to “find a way through”, after the ban was criticised by politicians across the spectrum, including the prime minister. Continue reading...

Events

7 h. ago Sebastian Rochford: Finding Ways review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month

(Edition)Rochford showcases his signature alchemic touch, featuring seven electric guitarists in a fusion of improv, reggae and romantic popWhen Aberdeen-raised drummer and composer Sebastian Rochford’s star rose around the millennium, he quickly made an impact with his precocious and inclusive awareness of 1950-1960s Monk-and-Miles jazz grooves, rock, funk, global music and more. From 2002, Rochford’s unique sax-led quintet Polar Bear began earning nominations for Mercury, Mobo and Urban Music prizes, as well as the kind of fame rare in instrumental jazz. He also played key roles with Acoustic Ladyland, Basquiat Strings, Fulborn Teversham, Sons of Kemet, and as a sideman with Damon Albarn, Brian Eno and Adele.Finding Ways follows 2023’s A Short Diary (a duo album in partnership with pianist Kit Downes) in dealing with the death in 2019 of Rochford’s beloved poet father Gerard. The title of Finding Ways is no accident: this sharply contrasting record features edgy, metal sounds from...

Politics

3 d. ago The House at Hallow End review – home renovation horror finds emotional heft among the terror

Angela Gulner’s tragi-horror debut trades jump scares for depth, as a family home turns into a mirror of loss and madnessNew mum Harper (Katie Parker) and her baby daughter move in with her mother Sadie (Patricia Heaton) to help finish sorting out an old fixer-upper of a home, bought with intent to flip. Also along for the ride is Bette (Emma Fitzpatrick), a live-in carer who turns out to be pregnant. But the path of property renovation never did run smooth, and soon, the weird noises and shadows and visions of a strange figure with a beak-like face start to take their toll on Harper. But how real is the threat? Is it all simply the projections of a frayed psyche or is something supernatural going on?Initially, it seems that writer and director Angela Gulner’s debut (previously titled The Beldham) is akin to a low-budget version of The Babadook, the breakout hit from 2014 that saw Essie Davis’s young widow living perpetually on the verge of a breakdown. There is indeed a similar int...

Events

3 d. ago Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai review – growing up in public

Clambering up bell towers, dancing the night away and falling in love – how ‘saint’ Malala forged a new identityLying in her Birmingham hospital bed in the weeks after she’d been shot in the head by a Taliban assassin, 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai used to imagine the conversation she would have with Taliban leadership. “If they would just sit down with me I could reason with them and convince them to end their reign of misogyny and violence,” she writes in her new memoir.Malala kept a notebook by her bed, filled with rhetorical strategies and talking points – the names of journalists who might be able to broker a meeting with the Taliban, the Qur’an verses she could cite to show that girls do have a right to education in Islam, the things she could say to establish her own credentials as a God-fearing Muslim. Of course, that conversation never happened. Much later, after the fall of Afghanistan in 2021, it made her wince to recall her naive be...

Politics

1 week ago I ate at Jamie Oliver's only UK restaurant and was stunned when I saw bill

Last month Christopher Sharp went into central London to review the Jamie Oliver Catherine St restaurant and to find out what it was like to eat at

Society

2 w. ago Frailty in ageing populations worsened by air pollution, global review finds

Coauthor of research says condition linked to heightened vulnerability and loss of independence – but is reversibleAir pollution increases the likelihood of people becoming frail in middle and old age, according to an international review of studies.People are living longer and, while this is often painted as a challenge to healthcare systems, it is also something to celebrate. There are many opportunities to increase the quality of life in old age, maximise independence and minimise the amount time spent being ill. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Eric Idle at the Royal Albert Hall review: still finding life's bright side

This veteran comedian’s set brought together Monty Python memories, stories of Elvis Presley and the Masked Singer

Politics

2 w. ago Gay Malaysian man rejected for Australian protection visa could face persecution over sexuality, tribunal says

Home affairs to reconsider application after review finds man could be subject to physical harm, conversion practices and prosecution under sharia lawGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s home affairs department rejected a gay Malaysian man’s bid for a protection visa, saying he did not provide enough evidence that he was an LGBT person.But the administrative review tribunal subsequently accepted the man is gay and could face persecution in Malaysia, sending the man’s visa application back to the department for reconsideration last month. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Celtic release findings of Independent Review into policing before Rangers clash

CELTIC have denied having any knowledge or involvement in the police operations that took place before the Old Firm derby on March 16. The Scottish champions received a large number of complaints from supporters after almost 100 fans were denied entry for the fixture amid police concerns. They were refused access into the game after...

Events

3 w. ago Cat On The Road To Findout by Yusuf/Cat Stevens review – fame, faith and charity

The enigmatic singer-songwriter on pop stardom, becoming a Muslim and returning to the stage decades laterWhen Cat Stevens changed his name to Yusuf Islam and announced his conversion to the Muslim faith and retirement from music in the late 70s, Bob Dylan apparently remarked that he had “finally stopped trying to be the prophet and begun to follow The Prophet”. It’s a quote that Islam reproduces in his autobiography, viewing it as a benediction, but it also tells you something about the music that made him globally famous.In the early 70s, the charts were awash with sensitive folky singer-songwriters. Their constituency, as Islam perceptively notes, was “the college generation, away from home, lonely and trying to find their place in the university of high academic expectations”. But none were as obsessed with spirituality as Cat Stevens, with his album titles that namechecked Buddha or referenced Zen poems, his conceptual song cycles based on numerology, his lyrical...

Politics

3 w. ago Instagram still poses risk to children despite new safety tools, says Meta whistleblower

Meta rejects review findings, which claim two-thirds of new features designed to protect young people are ‘woefully ineffective’Children and teenagers are still at risk from online harm on Instagram despite the rollout of “woefully ineffective” safety tools, according to research led by a Meta whistleblower.Two-thirds (64%) of new safety tools on Instagram were found to be ineffective, according to a comprehensive review led by Arturo Béjar, a former senior engineer at Meta who testified against the company before US Congress, New York University and Northeastern University academics, the UK’s Molly Rose Foundation and other groups.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other in...

Events

3 w. ago Concern after review finds police in NI tried to identify journalists’ sources

Amnesty International has said the report ‘exposes a disturbing pattern of unlawful covert surveillance of journalists’.

Events

3 w. ago PSNI’s use of covert surveillance on journalists ‘not systemic’, review finds

But the McCullough Review has identified more than 20 attempts made by the police service to identify journalists’ sources.

Politics

3 w. ago Major review finds possible link between pregnancy complication and autism

The research found notable differences in outcomes for children exposed to gestational diabetes in the womb

Politics

4 w. ago Cécile McLorin Salvant: Oh Snap review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month

(Nonesuch)From breezy swing to scampering synths, folksy harmonies to stark wails of the soul, Salvant’s crystalline vocals shine across her ingenious experimentsWhen the US-raised French-Haitian singer Cécile McLorin Salvant played Ronnie Scott’s for the first time as a 25-year-old in 2014, the awestruck atmosphere recognised a young multilingual jazz artist of rare gifts – but it was soon apparent that her sublime technical skill as a singer wasn’t the half of it.Salvant had all the jazz tools: coolly hip timing, improv quick-wittedness, the crystalline sonic clarity of her early model, Sarah Vaughan. But she could also conjure up a dream world of her own that listeners would willingly follow her into. Her new album, Oh Snap, is a set of 12 originals and one cover that she created on her own over four years, before adding her band. She experimented for the first time with computer-generated sounds to draw on grungy pop and intimate folk music and expand on the classical-vocal educ...

Politics