1 hour ago EastEnders' Zoe Slater star addresses 'struggles' with character ahead of soap comeback

Michelle Ryan's Zoe Slater will be reuniting with her mother Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) two decades after her explosive EastEnders exit

Politics

1 hour ago The Two Roberts by Damian Barr review – lost story of a gay art duo

The lives of Scottish artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, who found love and fame and lost it all, are vividly reimaginedWhat if the protagonist of a novel was not a single person but a couple? Damian Barr takes on this challenge, and he’s found a historic couple who make the ideal source material. Working-class Scottish artists Bobby MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun were rarely apart after they met in 1933. They lived and worked together, became famous together and then declined into desperate squalor together – even poorer than when they began.Barr knows what it’s like to conquer Glasgow from a small, working-class town on its outskirts; he knows what it’s like to find yourself feted for your portraits of the place you’ve left irrevocably behind. His memoir, Maggie and Me, was a hard-hitting yet rambunctious tale of growing up gay near Motherwell under Thatcher, uneasily aware that the woman who pushed his parents deeper into poverty also taught him that the ruthless ex...

Politics

1 hour ago A Short History of Stupidity by Stuart Jeffries review – comfortably dumb?

From Shakespeare’s fools to Donald Trump, this exhilarating read considers stupidity in its many formsStupidity, no question, can be just as rich and subtle as its opposite. Three and a half decades on, I still sometimes meditate on what a school friend of mine said in a here’s-a-profound-thought tone of voice: “I’d rather be stupid than happy”.In this clever book, Stuart Jeffries starts out at a double disadvantage, though. First: he has an excellently snappy title but it’s open to question whether stupidity can be said to have a history in any meaningful sense. The quality of stupidity is just, sort of, there; and there’s lots of it. Could you write a history of happiness, or bad luck, or knees? You’d be on firmer ground, as he recognises, historicising the concept of stupidity: a short history, in other words, of “stupidity” – how successive societies and thinkers have defined and responded to reason’s derr-brained secret sharer. As an intellectual historian w...

Politics

3 h. ago The best and worst of times: American advertisements of the 1930s – in pictures

It was a decade that saw the end of prohibition but also the start of the Great Depression and the looming threat of war, an unusual period for commerce, summed up in Taschen’s latest look at American ads from a certain era. In All-American Ads of the 30s, colorful advertisements for everything from alcohol to cereal showcase new developments in design and a persistent optimism despite economic concerns. The book will be released in September Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago Borderline review – Raymond Nicholson shines as a deranged fan in comedy thriller

It’s the 1990s and a famous pop star is taken hostage by a fan in Jimmy Warden’s stylish but confused film, loosely inspired by a real-life stalker case involving MadonnaPaul Duerson (Raymond Nicholson) has got it bad for world famous pop star and actor Sofia (Samara Weaving). It being the 1990s, he doesn’t have the option of simply being creepy on social media; instead, he takes her hostage and attempts to marry her, as you do, in a period-comedy-horror-thriller that is entertaining enough moment-to-moment, but doesn’t add up anything very substantial overall. Standing in the way of Paul’s deranged scheme is bodyguard Bell (a grounded and nicely judged performance by Eric Dane), and rounding out the men in Sofia’s life is her NBA player boyfriend Rhodes (Jimmie Fails).Screenwriter Jimmy Warden knows a grabby real-life premise when he sees one. In 1985, a bear ate a massive amount of cocaine and fatally overdosed, leading, in 2023, to the release of the Warden-scripted movie Cocaine...

Politics

4 h. ago Blame migrants, or blame the rich? That’s the populist divide in Britain’s politics now | Gaby Hinsliff

Taxing the ultra-rich may be a vote winner, but it’s just as important to shift the conversation away from Reform’s immigration doom loopThe long, hot summer of discontent is finally over. Parliament returned this week if not exactly with a rush of back to school energy, then at least with the sense that the government is now back to fill what was becoming an increasingly dangerous August vacuum.When exhausted ministers retreated to lick their wounds over the summer, Nigel Farage saw his chance and took it, filling the slow news days with encouragement of protesters over asylum seeker accommodation. He was rewarded by polling showing voters now see immigration – the terrain on which Reform UK is palpably desperate to fight an election, because it’s terrain on which Labour can never go far enough to please some supporters without horrifying half the rest – and not a broken economy as Britain’s biggest problem, an impression arguably only reinforced when the government’s first announc...

Politics

5 h. ago France has a massive debt crisis. So why is it spending billions a year subsidising business? | Alexander Hurst

The government is on the brink of collapse over planned austerity. Instead it must face up to the costs of its unnecessarily rigid labour marketAs someone who has always been against austerity, I find France, with a national debt at 114% of GDP and a budget deficit of 5.8% of GDP, a conundrum. Despite years of denunciation from his left and far-right opponents that Macron has engaged in “ultraneoliberalism”, there hasn’t been any. Not on a macro level, anyway, where both French government spending (57.3% of GDP) and tax receipts (51.4% of GDP) are among the highest in the world, including social spending, which outpaces any of its European neighbours.At the same time, it’s impossible to have spent the past decade in France without encountering the widely shared perception and accusation that public services are in decline. Doctors and nurses denounce a labour shortage in public hospitals; people who live in rural areas denounce the closing of rural train lines; students and academic...

Economics

5 h. ago Amanda Anisimova ‘excited’ by Iga Swiatek rematch after Wimbledon misery

The American suffered a 6-0 6-0 loss in the final at the All England Club.

Politics

7 h. ago Vietnam celebrates 80 years since declaring independence with flags, boba tea and a military parade

Vietnam marked its National Day with its largest military parade in decades

Events

8 h. ago The luxury life of the 'most hated man on the internet' who lives in 'village of millionaires' is revealed... as even his own countrymen turn on him

Piotr Szczerek is the super rich CEO dubbed the 'most hated man on the internet' after he was caught on camera swiping a hat signed by Kamil Majchrzak from the boy.

Society

11 h. ago Jodie Foster, 62, flashes her gray roots while going makeup free... after being a Hollywood blonde for decades

The 62-year-old movie icon made no effort to hide the streaks with a headband or hat as she seemed to be proud of the naturally changing hue of her locks.

Events

12 h. ago She was a fugitive accused of killing a woman in a 2006 car crash. Two decades later, she’s been captured

Leydis Menendez Abdala, 52, faces charges of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter in connection with the 2006 death of 39-year-old Gloria Marcia Hall

Events

12 h. ago Nestlé boss sacked one year into job after failing to disclose 'romantic relationship' with subordinate

Laurent Freixe worked for the Swiss food giant for four decades before being dismissed this week

Events

12 h. ago Naomi Osaka dominates Coco Gauff to power into US Open quarter

Four-times grand-slam champion wins 6-3, 6-2Osaka has always won title after reaching last eightNaomi Osaka turned back the clock on Monday in New York, producing the cleanest big‑stage performance of her comeback from maternity leave to overwhelm Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-2 in a blockbuster fourth-round meeting inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.In front of a packed 23,771-seat arena, the two crossover stars – who between them own three of the past seven US Open championships – reprised a rivalry that began with their famous encounter here in 2019. This time there were no tears, no consolations, only the sight of a four‑times major champion dictating terms again on the sport’s biggest stage. Continue reading...

Politics

13 h. ago Luxury hotels with the best service: The world’s most impressive stays loved by billionaires

Luxury travel ‘fixer’ Olivia Ferney is used to fielding the demands of mega-rich moaners – here she reveals to Ted Thornhill nine hotels that keep even the fussiest high-earners happy

Society

13 h. ago Summer 2025 officially hottest ever in Wales says Met Office

With an average temperature, according to provisional statistics, of 16.06°C in Wales from June, July and August, the figures have beaten a record which stood for three decades.

Politics

13 h. ago Muhammad Ali, Henry Cooper: The fights that made Joe Bugner a heavyweight legend

Bugner fought in four separate decades, racking up an impressive array of opponents. From Ali to Cooper, these are the foes that turned the Hungarian-born fighter into a legend

Politics

14 h. ago GK Barry stunned as TikTok star reveals why she didn't reply to Cruz Beckham's DMs

GK Barry spoke to a TikTok star about celebrities who had 'slid into her DMs' and was surprised by the famous name she was presented with

Politics

16 h. ago First Look at Love Island star's brand new show away from ITV with famous guests

The iconic Love Island star, who long-term fans are bound to recognise, will front a brand new show tonight.

Culture

16 h. ago Leaked ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan dismissed as ‘insane’ attempt to cover ethnic cleansing

Prospectus proposes forced displacement of entire population and puts territory into US trusteeshipA plan circulating in the White House to develop the “Gaza Riviera” as a string of high-tech megacities has been dismissed as an “insane” attempt to provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory’s population.The Washington Post published on Sunday a leaked prospectus for the plan, which would see the forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population of 2 million people, and put the territory into a US trusteeship for at least a decade. Continue reading...

Politics