61 m. ago ‘Charisma in abundance’: why Just Act Normal is the best showcase for new talent since Adolescence

Incredible newcomers! Chickens! Jamelia! The casting director of Stephen Graham’s Netflix smash hit has done it again with this hilariously bleak, utterly unique series. The cast open upOver the last few years, we have found ourselves inundated with sadcoms. Again and again, we’ve been deluged by ostensible comedies that are so concerned with grief and trauma that the laughs end up feeling like a distant afterthought. Striking the right balance between comedy and drama takes absurd levels of effort and craft at the best of times. Doing it with a premise as bleak as BBC Three’s new series Just Act Normal is almost impossible.My hands are tied with embargos, so I have to be vague about certain plot details, but Just Act Normal is a show about three young siblings who decide to struggle on as normal after their mother – a perennially unreliable woman with substance abuse issues – disappears. Their lives are suddenly spent trying to navigate the complex systems of the adult world while ...

Culture

62 m. ago Woman who ripped own eyes out while high on meth has 'no regrets' after getting fired

WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Kaylee Muthart thought she was saving the world by using her own eyeballs as a "sacrifice" after a crystal meth overdose - and seven years on she shares an update after being fired

Events

1 hour ago Soldier becomes the first woman to compete in the grueling Ranger contest

Female soldiers were not allowed to be Army Rangers until 2015

Events

1 hour ago Gun safety warning as relatives charged after boy shot and killed in Australia

Man, 33, and teenager, 14, charged over minor’s death

Events

2 h. ago Jay McGuinness opens up about 'poignant' moment he broke down in tears for Tom Parker

The Wanted star Jay McGuinness was left devastated after the death of bandmate Tom Parker and he struggled to come to terms with his grief while filming for BBC's Pilgrimage.

Politics

3 h. ago The mystery of the nameless girl found dead in a Spanish border town

On a summer morning in 1990, the body of a young woman appeared in a small town close to the frontier. For those who saw her, finding her identity became an obsession that would last 30 yearsNobody can recall who first phoned the police on the morning of 4 September 1990, but everyone remembers the girl. Her body, hanging from a pine tree on a steep slope above the Spanish frontier town of Portbou, was visible to anyone looking up from the beach or across from the opposite hillside. She was barefoot, with grey-blue eyes and thick chestnut-brown hair. She wore blue dungarees over a turquoise green shirt.Portbou, squeezed into a cauldron-like Mediterranean cove, had only 2,000 inhabitants but plenty of police officers. In these years before the Schengen agreement, guards were stationed on the French border but these officers were experts in immigration and smuggling, not violent deaths. Instead, Enrique Gómez, a 35-year-old investigator from the Guardia Civil police force was called i...

Events

3 h. ago UN: Civilian death toll in Sudan's Darfur attacks tops 300 in 2 days as war nears 2

The U.N. humanitarian agency says more than 300 civilians were killed in two days of intense fighting in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region

Events

3 h. ago ‘My partner died so I'm doing Race Across The World with my ex

Five new pairs embark on a once-in-a-lifetime journey in RATW's latest season as they travel from China to India. One contestant forced her ex-husband to join her in the show.

Events

3 h. ago BBC Race Across the World couple's 'unconventional' relationship after partner's shock death

BBC's Race Across the World is back for a new series with five pairs of contestants racing from China to India - but one couple's journey is more unconventional than most.

Events

3 h. ago TV star's horror battle to stay alive in Antarctic as penguins set to 'starve to death'

Bertie Gregory fronts a new documentary for Disney + as he lifts the lid on the Secrets of the Penguins. But filming for the three-parter made him face some gruelling challenges.

Events

3 h. ago TV star's Antarctica horror as he watches penguin colony fall to certain death

Bertie Gregory feared the worst during his new Disney + series, Secrets of the Penguins. The Award-winning explorer and filmmaker caught a penguin colony, seemingly doomed.

Events

4 h. ago Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter breaks his silence after woman sues him for allegedly raping her repeatedly

Nick Carter faces new legal woes after he was accused of raping a woman multiple times after they began having sex when she was 19.

Politics

4 h. ago Funeral home owner 'left woman's body in back of hearse for more than a year'

Miles Harford was arrested after the body of a woman was found in the back of a hearse along with the cremated remains of up to 30 other people stashed throughout his rental property

Politics

5 h. ago Woman who claimed her dead mother's pension for three years said it was 'a way of keeping her alive'

Catherine Byrne, 56, claimed that she did not use the money to enrich herself - instead said she was spending the cash on flowers for her mother's grave.

Events

5 h. ago Salvadoran fugitive convicted in deadly attack of Maryland hiker

A fugitive from El Salvador has been convicted in the 2023 slaying of a Maryland woman who was attacked while exercising on a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore

Events

6 h. ago Ukraine war briefing: Captive Chinese soldiers appear before the press in Kyiv

Republicans increase pressure on Trump after 35 killed in Sumy, with US president calling for ‘death and destruction to stop’. What we know on day 1,147Ukraine held a press conference with Chinese soldiers captured on the frontline after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of recruiting fighters from China using social media. The men were led into a press centre handcuffed and flanked by armed Ukrainian guards and it was unclear if they were speaking of their own volition. The pair told journalists they hoped to be part of a prisoner swap.Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has accused Moscow of dragging Beijing into its invasion, saying that several hundred Chinese nationals were fighting at the frontline. The Kremlin has denied it claim while Beijing has warned parties to the conflict against making “irresponsible remarks”.Zelenskyy accused Vladimir Putin of remaining focused on continuing the war, saying Russia had openly refused to engage in ceasefire talks. “There is only one re...

Events

6 h. ago Brutal tactics of Ecuador's gangs who send decapitated enemies' heads to their wives and their hearts to their parents

The coastal nation has seen murder rates soar in recent years as drug lords and criminal masterminds dug their hooks into fresh territory and exploited its ports for maximum profit

Events

6 h. ago Warwick Davis' wife Samantha died 'just hours before she was due to be discharged from hospital': Coroner rules on standard of her care

The 53-year-old actress passed away in the early hours of 24 March last year at London's University College Hospital, after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest the night before.

Events

6 h. ago Jack Grealish 'racks up £5,000 bar bill and copies Wolf of Wall Street gesture as Man City star parties in swanky London nightclub'

Grealish was given just a three-minute cameo at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday and headed down to the capital the following day for a big night out on the tiles.

Economics

7 h. ago Texas rapper found guilty of San Antonio man's death, second murder conviction since 2019

A Texas rapper has been convicted of murder for a second time after a jury found him guilty of fatally shooting a San Antonio man in 2017

Events