88 m. ago Would the NBA’s transatlantic expansion strip the soul of European basketball?

The league is exploring plans to set up a competition in Europe. But, from playing style to fan culture, it would be a clash of visionsWhile the multibillion dollar behemoth that is the NBA means North America is basketball’s powerhouse, the sport thrives in Europe where raucous crowds give the professional game across the Atlantic a compelling charisma while producing superstars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić.The character of professional basketball could be about to change though. Continue reading...

Politics

1 hour ago Shocking figures reveal number of breakdowns on smart motorways

The president of AA has spoken about the new figures

Events

2 h. ago Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle review – what exactly is ‘clairgustance’?

A chef can taste the favourite foods of the departed, in this debut mash-up of satire, ghost story and slushy romanceReading Aftertaste, I found myself wondering how readers visualised novels before the age of cinema. Now we all have a set of preformed mental images of things we might never have seen – or won’t ever see – in real life, from plane crashes to zombie apocalypses. Sometimes, a novel comes along with a climactic scene that’s so exact a fit for a particular movie’s aesthetic (Ghostbusters, in this case: we’re talking angry spooks! SFX! Manhattan!) that it’s practically an extension of the franchise. Daria Lavelle’s debut is an amalgamation of hypermodern satire, slushy romance and savvy cultural allusion that is as vigorously brought together as its lead character’s recipes.Konstantin “Kostya” Duhovny has been plagued since childhood with a strange affliction. Tastes he has never experienced invade his mouth. He seems to be having other people’s food memori...

Politics

2 h. ago Darling review – Julie Christie’s romantic satire of swinging 60s has a terrific punch

Christie won an Oscar for her role in John Schlesinger’s film as an insouciant model caught between two lovers at the height of London’s fashion sceneSome of it feels a bit dated now, and that brittle, sophisticated chatter in the cocktail party scenes has a fingernails-down-the-blackboard screechiness that can’t have been intended at the time. But John Schlesinger’s winsome adventure from 1965 still has verve and ambition, a romantic satire of swinging London now on rerelease for its 60th anniversary.Julie Christie plays Diana Scott, a model and actor who enjoys an insouciantly upward rake’s progress in smart-set London: an innocent, almost childlike Becky Sharp-type character, for all her dissolute encounters, and abortion and divorce are notably presented without sorrowing dismay and disapproval. The wry, Oscar-winning screenplay from Frederic Raphael imports and anglicises the influence of Godard, Resnais, Varda and the French New Wave; fashion models and advertising are vitally...

Events

2 h. ago Honour for foster carers with combined total of nearly 200 years of service

Long-service awards were given to the unsung heroes from across South Lanarkshire.

Politics

3 h. ago 'Middle aged' Taylor Swift blasted for 'masquerading as a 17

Taylor Swift has been dragged into a new drama with a conservative media pundit as he launches an apocalyptic tirade against celebrities 'masquerading as 17-year-olds.'

Politics

3 h. ago Dept. Q review: Edinburgh's murder rate increases again as Matthew Goode's rogue detective delights in Netflix drama

There’s a new crimefighter on the streets of Auld Reekie in a hotly-anticipated new Netflix series - and we’ve seen the first two episodes.

Events

3 h. ago Review: We test a bargain Amazon air compressor that inflates tyres in seconds

This compact new inflator from TowerTop is fast, simple to use, and packed with smart features – and it’s currently less than £40 with a voucher deal on Amazon.

Politics

4 h. ago The Acid Queen by Susannah Cahalan review – Timothy Leary’s right hand woman

A key a protagonist of the psychedelic counterculture, Rosemary Woodruff lived a life every bit as fascinating as her husband’sOf Timothy Leary, we know plenty. How, in the early 1960s, he gave LSD to his psychology students at Harvard, to the inmates of a maximum-security jail to see whether it would stop them reoffending, to artists such as Charlie Mingus and Allen Ginsberg to map how it expanded their creativity.The Beatles’ song Tomorrow Never Knows was based on his writings. Mick Jagger flew to Altamont in a helicopter with him. He had perma-smile good looks, evangelical patter and likened himself to Socrates and Galileo. He even had a Pied Piper invitation: “Turn on, tune in, drop out”. No wonder Richard Nixon believed he was “the most dangerous man in America”. Continue reading...

Politics

4 h. ago Along Came Love review – l’amour, loss and lingering shame in eventful French relationship movie

Director Katell Quillévéré explores the ravages of romance in an intelligently performed period piece about a shamed mother and a closeted husbandThe title of Katell Quillévéré’s first movie, Un Poison Violent from 2010, was taken from Serge Gainsbourg’s song Un poison violent, c’est ça l’amour, and the awful toxicity of love is a theme that has run through her work ever since. It is an underground stream that has become very much an overground stream in this new, heartfelt movie. It’s robust and a little unsubtle, without the nuances and indirections that govern her best work, but handsomely produced and resoundingly performed, avowedly autobiographical and inspired by her grandmother. Quillévéré has said that her influences are Maurice Pialat for the tough realism and Douglas Sirk for the melodrama and the sense of buried shame. I wonder if there isn’t some David Lean in there for the final scene at the railway station.Madeleine is a young single mother played by Anaïs Demoustier;...

Politics

4 h. ago The Better Sister review – Jessica Biel’s glossy thriller is full of gorgeous interiors and death

This sleekly entertaining whodunnit is a schadenfreude-packed take on streaming’s favourite theme: watching sexy, successful people suffering terrible misfortuneIt begins as thousands of stories have before – with a dead body and a host of unanswered questions. In The Better Sister, the deceased is lawyer Adam Macintosh (Corey Stoll), husband to high-flying women’s magazine editor Chloe Taylor (Jessica Biel) and father to amenable teen Ethan. As a couple, the Macintosh-Taylors are extremely well off and not particularly sympathetic: she radiates sleek perfection, absolute success and suitable levels of ruthlessness; he seems to be despised by all and sundry – including people unaware of the mind-boggling betrayal his current life is built on. So the question is not so much who murdered Adam and destroyed this family – but why on earth should we care?The obvious reason is simply to sate our own morbid curiosity, which The Better Sister – an adaptation of the novel by Alafair Burke – ...

Events

4 h. ago Netflix horror film about kinky sex game 'most disturbing fans have watched'

The psychological horror thriller has been adapted from a 1992 Stephen King novel which was long considered to be unadaptable and unfilmable for the big screen.

Sport

5 h. ago With 'Karate Kid: Legends,' Ben Wang is the 1st Asian American new 'Kid' on the block

It didn’t occur to Ben Wang right away that in taking on “Karate Kid: Legends,” he’d be the franchise’s first Asian American “Kid.”

Politics

5 h. ago I tested 16 cars in a day – there was only one that scored a perfect 10

EXCLUSIVE: Christopher Sharp drove 16 cars in a single day at SMMT's annual test day, taking the wheel of cars that came from all sides of the automotive sphere

Politics

6 h. ago Dept Q review – this excellent crime drama is a grimy, gothic treat

After getting another officer killed, a detective is forced to head up a cold-case department in a dank basement. This Scotland-based adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Danish crime novels is fantastic, rich TVIt must be so galling for an actor to be blessed with just the right face for one kind of part. Galling for good actors anyway. Pretty sweet for the others – “You need a face someone would definitely kill for? Put this useless hunk/babe in there and just move the scenery round them.”Matthew Goode is, nomenclaturally and otherwise, one of the former, but cursed with a face best described as “modern patrician” and has therefore been the first port of call for just about every period drama there has been for the last 20 years. He’s been in everything from Brideshead Revisited (as Charles Ryder) on the big screen, to Downton Abbey (Henry Talbot) and The Crown (where at least he got to play that bounder Lord Snowdon) on the small one. Judging by the relish with which he seizes the c...

Events

6 h. ago Downtown Abbey star unrecognisable with hairy new look in huge Netflix thriller

After embodying dandy Anthony Armstrong -Jones in The Crown and the polished Henry Talbot in Downton Abbey, Matthew Goode is diving into murkier waters for Netflix.

Politics

6 h. ago Downton Abbey star Matthew Goode looks unrecognisable in new Netflix thriller

Matthew Goode stars in Netflix's latest crime thriller Dept Q. as a broken but brilliant detective and terrible colleague - worlds away from his polished days as Henry Talbot.

Politics

6 h. ago 'Ocean darkening' warning as fifth of the world's waters undergoes creeping transformation

A new study has warned that a significant portion of the world's oceans is undergoing a mysterious process known as "ocean darkening" - and the consequences could be dire

Events

7 h. ago 'I made one change to my meals and lost weight, felt fuller and cut down my caffeine'

I tried out Sune's protein shakes for women for one week - the health benefits were immediate, from less bloating to more energy

Politics

8 h. ago Britain is set to splash £1billion on an 'army of hackers' to target the likes of Putin

The Defence Secretary says the Government has plans to set up a cyber command to counter a 'continual and intensifying' level of cyber warfare as part of the strategic defence review.

Economics