85 m. ago Universal deny that head Lucian Grainge was personally involved in Kendrick Lamar attack on Drake

UMG have called for Drake’s motion to include Grainge’s communications on the matter to be denied, calling it ‘so strained’ as to ‘defy credulity’Universal Music Group has denied new allegations made by Drake’s lawyers that its British chair and chief executive Lucian Grainge had a “role in and knowledge of the scheme to defame and harass” the Canadian rapper by peer Kendrick Lamar, and that as such the label should “collect, review and produce” communications by Grainge.Drake is suing UMG – his label Republic’s parent company – over its release of Lamar’s 2024 diss track Not Like Us, which contains the line: “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles.” The artwork for the global hit single features an image of Drake’s home dotted with icons used to identify the homes of registered sex offenders. Continue reading...

Events

1 hour ago Palestine Action prosecutions should be suspended, say UK rights groups

Campaigners tell attorney general that proceeding with trials before judicial review raises legal and moral questionsUK politics live – latest updatesProtesters arrested for supporting Palestine Action should not be prosecuted until a legal challenge to a ban on the group has been heard, organisations including Greenpeace and Human Rights Watch have told the attorney general for England and Wales.In a letter to Richard Hermer KC, also signed by Friends of the Earth, Global Witness and the Quakers, they say proceeding with charges or trials before the judicial review, which is expected to be heard in November, would raise significant legal and moral questions. Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago And Just Like That was a total disaster – and I’m heartbroken

The much-maligned ‘Sex and the City’ sequel series has finally come to an end, with a typically inept episode of unfunny jokes, hateful characters, and baffling plot turns. It was a mortifying last stand for a franchise that many of us once adored, writes Adam White

Events

2 h. ago Michael Phelps is right. USA Swimming’s failure runs deeper than medals

The 23-times gold medallist warns of drift and weak leadership. Governance failures, and a troubled safeguarding record, could cost the US more than podium places at LA 2028In three years’ time, the swimming programme for the Los Angeles Olympics will unfold over nine days and nights on the grandest stage the sport has ever known. A purpose-built pool inside SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will be the centerpiece of a 38,000-capacity open-air natatorium, transforming the $5bn home of the NFL’s Rams and Chargers into the largest swimming venue in modern history. For the United States, a rare Summer Games on home soil should be a coronation, a chance to showcase the depth of its talent in the country’s most spectacular arena. Yet Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of them all, fears the US swimming program is in no shape to seize the moment.Phelps has launched a withering attack on USA Swimming’s leadership, accusing it of “weak” stewardship, “poor operational controls” and presidi...

Events

3 h. ago Two of the UK’s biggest bakeries to combine to make bread giant

The move follows a strategic review of the Allied Bakeries business

Politics

3 h. ago A84 review underway to enhance road safety for crossing school children

Transport Scotland is conducting a review and is consulting with Kincardine-in-Menteith Primary School to look at potential improvements to the A84 past the school, the church hall and bus stops there.

Politics

3 h. ago Benedicte Maurseth: Mirra review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

(Hubro)Rhythmic repetitions and rustling textures evoke the traditional music and ecological harmony of Maurseth’s native NorwayA hardanger fiddle player from the fjord-and-mountain-filled region of Norway, where the instrument comes from, Benedicte Maurseth explores traditional music, nature and landscape influenced by the idea of ecosophy, a philosophy of ecological harmony. From childhood, she studied under master hardanger fiddler Knut Hamre, exploring the tunes, styles and effects associated with her instrument: its sympathetic strings, funnelled under the fingerboard, are particularly hypnotic, vibrating in response to the notes resonating above, as they do on the sitar and sarangi.A follow-up to Maurseth’s 2022 Nordic music prize-winning Hárr, Mirra is named after an old dialect word describing wild reindeer running together in a circling pattern. Norwegian folk’s rhythmic repetitions feed Maurseth’s intricate compositions (as do the influences of minimalism and Krautrock), b...

Politics

4 h. ago Rise Against: Ricochet review – slick shift doesn’t skimp on righteous anger

(Loma Vista)Blood-and-guts emotion with the energy of the punk veterans’ early years meets high-sheen recording craft in a hulking 10th albumRise Against are not the first punk band to embrace the trappings of arena rock, but few of their forerunners can say they moved between those opposing states with the confidence and style displayed here. Having spent two decades retrofitting the breakneck melodic hardcore of their early work with rafter-shaking hooks and gleaming production, the Chicago veterans’ 10th album is a hulking thing, its bombast and righteous anger fed by vocalist Tim McIlrath, who finds the middle ground between Strike Anywhere and Creedence Clearwater Revival more often than you might think possible.Working in tandem with producer Catherine Marks, fresh from Grammy wins for her work on Boygenius’s The Record, and mixer-to-the-stars Alan Moulder, they regularly square the circle between blood-and-guts emotion and high-sheen recording craft. McIlrath’s community-mind...

Politics

4 h. ago Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser review – how did television ever sink so low?

Cruelty. Contestants who have abuse screamed in their face. Cash prizes. This documentary about a horrific 00s weight-loss reality TV series in the US makes for deeply troubling watchingThe mid-2000s were a peculiar time in television. After the dubious 90s innovations of Jerry Springer in the US were followed by the UK launch of Big Brother, it was clear that using the travails of so-called ordinary people as fuel for small-screen entertainment was an idea with legs. There was a mini goldrush of sorts as programme makers realised that conflict, extremity and dysfunction would always sell – and that any human-interest subject could be shoehorned into some version of reality TV.In Britain, ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show began casting its malign spell in 2005. In the US, something similarly queasy (and enduring) had arrived a year earlier in the shape of NBC’s weight loss bootcamp-meets-bearpit, The Biggest Loser, which took contestants living with obesity then belittled them with humilia...

Culture

5 h. ago In the Green Heart by Richard Lloyd Parry review – neocolonial jungle fever

An intensely political story of a new father’s escape with his baby through a rainforest during wartimeRichard Lloyd Parry, a longtime foreign correspondent whose experiences of war and regime change are recorded in his remarkable 2005 memoir In the Time of Madness, can be said to know whereof he speaks. Many of that book’s issues, including the psychic damage he incurred from events he witnessed in Indonesia, East Timor and Afghanistan in the 1990s and early 2000s, are reinflected in this, his first novel.Kit and Lara live in a remote village in the deep rainforest. She works for a small, undependably financed NGO. He’s a stay-at-home husband, living for their baby daughter Helen. While Lara presents as impulsive yet practical and barely able to contain her own energy, Kit is dreamy, internalised, exhibiting a calmness that falls easily into dissociation. “This is your life,” she shouts at him shortly before they leave the UK, “a day of your life, and it requires your presence.” He...

Politics

5 h. ago 'Disney ghost village' stands frozen in time with hundreds of 'mini castle' homes

Burj Al Babas was once meant to be a Disney-like haven that would be built with hundreds of mini castles. It offered the glam lifestyle of Europe's royal for those tired of Monaco and France

Politics

6 h. ago Josh Barrie On the Sauce at All My Gods: Nuclear daiquiris in a temple of darkness

Praise be for this this charming sanctity

Events

6 h. ago Alison Goldfrapp: Flux review – Melody and meaning evaporate in mid

Goldfrapp said in 2023 that she wanted to challenge herself with her solo work, but she seems less edgily present here than she did with her bandmate Will Gregory

Politics

7 h. ago Limitless: Live Better Now review – Chris Hemsworth has absolutely no sense of rhythm

The Thor star’s documentary about improving his mental resilience sees him trying to learn the drums. But given how dreadful he is, promising to join Ed Sheeran on stage may have been a mistake So, you know how there was once the Era of All the Chrises? Pine, Evans, Pratt, Hemsworth. And they all looked the same, especially Pratt ‘n’ Evans and Pine ‘n’ Hemsworth (plus Hemsworth had 17 brothers who also looked the same, which felt like an unnecessary layer of complication). Then Evans became Captain America and Hemsworth became Thor and that sorted things out a tad, although Pratt ran interference as Star-Lord in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise for a bit.Anyway. Limitless is a reality-documentary sort of thing by the Hemsworth one (if you need further elucidation, he is Australian and looks like a handsome teddy bear with an unparalleled fitness regime). In the first series he investigated ways to deal with stress and shock, and how to slow the ageing process and other ills tha...

Politics

7 h. ago 'Quirky' fruit cake recipe is made and ready to bake in under an hour

This simple yet delicious fruit cake recipe is easy to follow and perfect for a hot summer's day. And a creamy element makes it even more unforgettable than your typical cake slice

Politics

12 h. ago Night Always Comes review – Vanessa Kirby gets lost in poverty thriller

A woman is forced to take extreme measures to save her family home in an initially stressful yet ultimately meandering Netflix dramaThere’s been a recent overkill of stories told about the super-rich, glossy films and shows set in ostentatious houses filled with characters as superficially on trend as they are painfully out of touch. It felt like needed escapism as we crawled out of the very worst of the pandemic, with The White Lotus, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu and Glass Onion all hitting a sweet spot, but it’s grown rather tiring, as Sirens, The Better Sister and Your Friends and Neighbors have felt less eat the rich and more what if we just admired their kitchens instead.It’s become especially uninteresting as the gap between the uber-wealthy and the rest of us has widened, food prices up and empathy down. That particular anger pulses through Night Always Comes, a well-intentioned yet often inert Netflix drama based on the 2021 novel by Willy Vlautin. It’s told over one awful ...

Politics

12 h. ago Stephen King meets The Office in the best Literary Fiction out now: THE EXPANSION PROJECT by Ben Pester, WATCHING OVER HER by Jean

Anthony Cummins reviews the best Literary Fiction out now.

Politics

14 h. ago JK Rowling claims Sturgeon created a 'dystopian nightmare' in foul

JK Rowling has published a review of Nicola Sturgeon’s Frankly - and the Harry Potter author has not held back

Politics

14 h. ago JK Rowling blasts Sturgeon memoirs as a 'shameless denial of reality and hard facts' in scathing review

Author JK Rowling has penned a scathing review of Nicola Sturgeon 's hotly anticipated memoirs on the day it was officially launched.

Politics

14 h. ago Warren Buffett stuns Wall Street as he snaps up stake in struggling UnitedHealth

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway quietly built a stake in a struggling company over the past two quarters, a regulatory filing shows.

Events