56 m. ago Buying a used EV can save you more than £2,500 over an equivalent petrol car

A recent report concluded that the 'days of EV costing significantly more than fossil fuel models are over' after analysing the second-hand value of cars.

Economics

56 m. ago Is your work pension scheme a dud? We reveal performance of best and worst funds

Workers saving into some of the UK's most popular workplace pensions could be left hundreds of thousands of pounds worse off in retirement because their scheme is performing badly.

Economics

81 m. ago Literary gold or betrayal of trust? Joan Didion journal opens ethical minefield

Soon we can all read the late author’s private notes about her therapy. But should we?In 1998, the late journalist Joan Didion wrote a scathing essay about the posthumous publication of True at First Light, a travel journal and fictional memoir by Ernest Hemingway, 38 years after the author killed himself. “This is a man to whom words mattered. He worked at them, he understood them, he got inside them,” Didion wrote. “His wish to be survived by only the words he determined fit for publication would have seemed clear enough.”Just over a year later, in December 1999, Didion began writing her own journal about her sessions with a psychiatrist. She addressed these notes – detailing her struggles with alcoholism, anxiety, guilt and depression, a sometimes fraught relationship with her adopted daughter Quintana and reflections on her childhood and legacy – to her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp review – the filthy truth about trash

A globe-spanning study of the waste industry reveals how wealthy nations dump their garbage on the poor while the rate at which we produce near-indestructible rubbish only increasesYou know the drill: plastic and glass containers go in the blue recycling bin, paper and cardboard in the blue sack, vegetable matter in the green compost bin, and the rest in the grey general rubbish bin. Households up and down the land go through variations of these familiar refuse-sorting tasks each week. But where does it actually all go?Into the trucks that pick them up, yes, but after that? It’s a kind of act of faith that we imagine our detritus that we’ve carefully – or not so carefully – categorised is transported to the right location where appropriate measures are taken to dispose of it in the most sensible and ecological manner. Continue reading...

Events

2 h. ago Slash heating bills and stop heat 'slipping away' with task that makes a 'noticeable difference'

People are being urged to make some quick checks at home that could help you save over £100 a year

Politics

2 h. ago Is 11A on a Ryanair flight the worst airline seat in the world? Find out why flyers take to social media to warn others about booking the dreaded berth

One travel blogger, whose Instagram handle is @travelsofchloe, filmed a video of herself in the seat giving a sarcastic thumbs up to the camera.

Events

3 h. ago One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad review – Gaza and the sound of silence

This powerful new book examines the moral contradictions of the west and asks what liberal values mean in the face of such brutal and sustained obliteration of human lifeLike many people, I have followed the unrelenting horror that has unfolded in Gaza since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 mainly through the medium of social media. The Instagram reels of citizen journalists on the ground have become for me and countless others the most powerful testimony to the slaughter, destruction and trauma visited on the already beleaguered Palestinian population. Recorded at great risk, they are often heartbreaking and enraging: so many dead infants; so many maimed and traumatised children; so many obliterated families and communities.Some of these witnesses have achieved heroic status among their millions of followers, the likes of Motaz Azaiza, a photojournalist who was evacuated to Qatar after 108 days covering the carnage at close hand; Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Al Jazeer...

Politics

5 h. ago Insanely beautiful Spanish seaside city with theme park named cheapest for Brits

Getting a holiday booked can be an expensive ordeal, but Travel Supermarket has named the cheapest city to visit in Spain for budget-conscious families

Politics

6 h. ago Melania ‘laughed’ at Trump campaign’s attempts to get her to accompany him on trail, new book claims

Controversial author Michael Wolff makes claim in upcoming book about the 2024 election titled All or Nothing,

Politics

9 h. ago Party of one: Donald Trump’s 75 minutes at CPAC talking about himself

Contemptuous and sure of himself, the US president boasted of his victories and taunted his enemiesGod save the king. Drunk on power, Donald Trump spent Saturday afternoon before adoring fans, boasting of his victories, taunting his enemies and casting himself as America’s absolute monarch, supreme leader and divine emperor rolled into one.Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland began with country singer Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA and raucous cheers in a crowded ballroom that included January 6 insurrectionists. Continue reading...

Politics

9 h. ago How to know you've had a visit from an ANGEL. Feathers, ladybirds, robins and even coins contain poignant heaven

The significance of that feather? Finding one is like being given an angelic business card or love note. When you see one in an unusual place, you've been visited by an angel.

Politics

9 h. ago Revealed: If your work pension scheme is a dud. We reveal performance of best and worst

Workers saving into some of the UK's most popular workplace pensions could be left hundreds of thousands of pounds worse off in retirement because their scheme is performing badly.

Economics

10 h. ago Scorpions by Tuppence Middleton: I have to take photos of my taps before I leave the house...

Why? Because that's the only way Downton Abbey actress Tuppence Middleton - who suffers from crippling OCD - can be sure they're turned off.

Politics

10 h. ago Picnic on Craggy Island by Lissa Evans: How Graham Norton Riverdanced his way into Father Ted

This behind the scenes look from the producer of seasons 2 and 3 of Father Ted is the perfect book for any fan.

Politics

14 h. ago Marco Asensio doubles up to steer Aston Villa to win over Chelsea

Unai Emery recently graded Aston Villa’s season as a seven out of 10 at best, acknowledging while their progress in Europe has been eye-catching, they needed to kick-start their Premier League campaign. Just as it seemed they would extend their winless run to six matches, the Chelsea goalkeeper Filip Jörgensen made a mess of a routine save, inadvertently giving Villa the leg-up they had been looking for, allowing Marco Asensio’s side-foot volley from Marcus Rashford’s cross after a short corner to slip through his gloves. Rashford’s half-time arrival proved inspired given he also laid the ball on for Asensio to cancel out Enzo Fernández’s opener.Thousands of Villa fans had spent the previous 24 hours plotting their second trip to Brugge in four months but for all of its pluses the Champions League has undoubtedly damaged their league form. Unai Emery has highlighted as much, unable to hide his mixed feelings on their season so far. Villa won six points from a possible 24 after midwe...

Politics

14 h. ago Marco Asensio double leads Aston Villa to fightback victory over Chelsea

Unai Emery recently graded Aston Villa’s season as a seven out of 10, acknowledging while their progress in Europe has been eye-catching, they badly needed to kick-start their Premier League campaign to bank another Champions League adventure. Approaching the 89th minute, Villa’s season appeared to be stalling, a third consecutive draw incoming. Then the Chelsea goalkeeper Filip Jörgensen made a mess of a routine save, allowing Marco Asensio’s lukewarm volley from Marcus Rashford’s cross to squirm through his gloves.Rashford’s half-time arrival proved inspired given he also laid the ball on for Asensio to cancel out Enzo Fernández’s early strike. This was a big result for Villa after taking four points from their previous five matches and one that squeezes the order towards the top. Chelsea can vouch for that. Villa are now seventh, a point behind fifth-placed Bournemouth and sixth-placed Chelsea, though those above and below Emery’s side have at least one game in hand. Continue rea...

Sport

16 h. ago Writer David Szalay: ‘We live in an era of short attention spans – we have to work with it the best we can’

The Hungarian-English author on addressing what it’s like to be a male body in the world, learning the tricks of literature from Frederick Forsyth, and the feeling of nearly winning the BookerDavid Szalay, 51, grew up in London and now lives in Vienna with his wife, having previously moved in 2009 to Hungary, his father’s birthplace. In 2016 he was shortlisted for the Booker prize with his fourth novel, All That Man Is, nine separate stories “self-assembled in the reader’s mind into a sort of collage-novel” (London Review of Books). His new novel, Flesh, follows the fluctuating fortunes of a young Hungarian ex-convict who makes his life in the UK after serving in Iraq.Tell us how Flesh came to be. I decided to abandon a book I’d started in 2017. It just wasn’t working, so it felt like a weight off my shoulders; nevertheless, I was under contract and had to come up with something. Literally nothing in Flesh is directly autobiographical, but it started with my underlying experience of...

Politics

17 h. ago A new branch of photography? Found images of women in trees – in pictures

For 25 years, Hamburg-based collector Jochen Raiß scoured flea markets for historical amateur photographs. After finding a photo of a woman smiling in a tree, he started to notice this was a recurrent theme, especially popular between the 1920s and 1950s. Over the years he accumulated 91 such photos, now collected into a book, Women in Trees. “A number of the photographers have created images that possess a remarkable depth and beauty,” he wrote in the book’s introduction. “The women exert a great effort to hold on to these trees without losing their balance. Their Sunday dresses and fashionable shoes stand in stark contrast to the nature around them.”Women in Trees by Jochen Raiß and Johanna Adorjan is out now (Hatje Cantz, £18) Continue reading...

Culture

17 h. ago West Lothian Council claim empty building rates relief change will save them '£1m a year'

West Lothian’s Executive has agreed the changes which will see an end to rates relief on empty properties after six months, and in some cases three months.

Economics

18 h. ago ‘My paedophile letters’: French surgeon to stand trial accused of abusing 299 patients, mostly children

Joël Le Scouarnec’s ‘black books’ of handwritten notes in which alleged sexual abuse was recorded are at the heart of case against himWhen two gendarmes knocked on her door in 2019, Marie had no idea that she was about to find herself at the dark heart of one of the world’s biggest child abuse cases.The French mother of three, now 38, was shocked when the officers told her she had been the victim of Joël Le Scouarnec, a surgeon and an alleged serial paedophile accused of raping and sexually abusing hundreds of children. Continue reading...

Science