General news

• Watch: Best moments of 2025 TV Baftas in under two minutes

  11-05-2025 23:03 via bbc.com
  Emotional speeches, funny moments and heartwarming wins - here are some of the best moments of the evening.
  
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• Meow Meow review – kamikaze cabaret combines clownish comedy and crooning

  11-05-2025 21:00 via theguardian.com
  Soho Theatre, London
  Whether singing or crawling cleavage-first over the shoulders of her crowd, the eccentric diva asks what an artist should do in such ominous times‘I do think in 90 mins,” says the kamikaze cabaret performer Meow Meow, “we can really make a difference.” It’s a joke, clearly: in the face of encroaching tyranny and freedoms everywhere circumscribed, this blithering and eccentric diva seems unlikely to be much use. It’s all she can do to get h
  
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• Finding a way forward in the India-Pakistan conflict | Letters

  11-05-2025 18:07 via theguardian.com
  Prof Shafiqul Islam and Wajid Mushtaq Teli respond to an editorial on the ongoing military clashes between the two countriesYour editorial (The Guardian view on India and Pakistan: a newly dangerous moment in an old dispute, 7 May) underscores the alarming escalation between India and Pakistan, but the suspension of the Indus waters treaty and the missile strikes are more than just a return to familiar hostility. They reflect a deeper pattern that I call the urgency-actionability trap: the impul
  
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• Freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari visits Spurs

  11-05-2025 17:33 via bbc.com
  British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari, 28, who was held captive in Gaza, is visiting the UK for the first time since her release.
  
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• The kindness of strangers: I was homeless and addicted to heroin. Joanne saved my life

  11-05-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  She said, ‘Come and stay at my house. I’ll look after you and we’re going to get you into rehab’Read more in the Kindness of strangers seriesBy the time I was 19, my life had spiralled out of control – I was homeless and destitute, my infant son was living with my abusive mother and I was addicted to heroin. I’d had a pretty dodgy childhood; my father died when I was very young and I was left with my mother. At 16, already very traumatised by what I’d ex
  
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• Nevermoor’s Jessica Townsend on frantic fans, her fantasy smash hit – and feeling ‘gutted’ by JK Rowling

  11-05-2025 17:00 via theguardian.com
  The latest book in Townsend’s bestselling children’s series is out amid a surge in anti-trans rhetoric. But she remains committed to making sure her millions of readers all ‘know they have a place in Nevermoor’Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailJessica Townsend feels for George RR Martin. The author of the bestselling middle-grade fantasy series Nevermoor has just released the fourth instalment, Silverborn, two-and-a-half years after it was supposed to come out in
  
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• Ikea Valevåg mattress review: a brilliant budget buy or too cheap for comfort?

  11-05-2025 16:00 via theguardian.com
  Ikea’s pocket sprung mattress is a relative bargain. Here’s what I loved about it – and what didn’t impress me• The best mattresses: sleep better with our six rigorously tested picksMy expectations for the Ikea Valevåg were, to be polite, limited. Ikea’s mattress is less than a fifth of the price of a Simba Hybrid Pro – but somehow comes with the same 10-year guarantee. Seriously? Expecting a decade’s worth of blissful sleeps from a Valev&arin
  
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• Want to swim but find it too much of a hassle? Me too – but here’s how I cracked it

  11-05-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  What is the equivalent of a Couch to 5k or parkrun for swimmers? Do I need loads of expensive gear? And should I join a club? Here’s how I learned to love the pool Mine is a familiar story: I used to hate even the idea of running. But, in 2020, when gyms closed their doors, I downloaded the Couch to 5k app, and ran approximately three times a week for the next four years, culminating in a half marathon in 2024 – and, predictably, an injury.Physios treating my persistent hip pain didn
  
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• The insidious doublespeak of Trump’s freedom of ‘choice’

  11-05-2025 15:00 via theguardian.com
  From showerheads to plastic straws, the president brags that he’s expanding options for consumers – while drastically restricting choices in almost all other spheresFreedom of choice is a venerable American value. Donald Trump’s attachment to it is, however, highly selective.Over the first four months of his administration, Trump has been eagerly promoting the expansion of choice in our economic lives. That’s especially the case when it comes to our role as consumers. Thi
  
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• Yungblud: 'I can't play a festival that's £800 a ticket'

  11-05-2025 14:17 via bbc.com
  The singer and musician said he decided to launch his own festival as he was tired of the status quo.
  
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• Tea-licious! 17 awesome ways to use earl grey, from ice-cream and cocktails to strudel and salad

  11-05-2025 12:30 via theguardian.com
  Who’d have guessed there’s so much you can do with bergamot-flavoured tea? Apparently you can even drink itAs you may already know, the title of Britain’s Best Loaf 2025 was awarded to a brioche that was flavoured with lemon curd and earl grey tea. The inventor – Miyo Aoetsu, who runs a baking business from her home in Derbyshire – says the loaf was inspired by a recent Japanese trend for foods that combine the flavours of lemon and earl grey. But outside Japan, how
  
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• ‘I hope this helps to capture a part of Hong Kong’s history’: Tong Ho Chung Howard’s best phone picture

  11-05-2025 12:00 via theguardian.com
  The street photographer celebrates the vibrancy of the Chinese territory’s traditional corner houseTong Ho Chung Howard took this image on an afternoon of urban and street photography in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong. He feels passionately about the history of the region where he was born and bred, and had hoped to capture what he regards as one of its most distinctive types of historical building – the corner house.“Built on the intersection of two roads, they often conta
  
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• ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Lady Gaga’: John Lydon’s honest playlist

  11-05-2025 10:00 via theguardian.com
  The Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd frontman prefers drinking to karaoke and loves the Kinks, but which out-there rock song changed his life?The first song I fell in love withI loved Gene Vincent as a kid. Then my mum and dad bought You Really Got Me by the Kinks. It shocked me that the guitar was so tough and brilliant. Ray Davies is one of Britain’s finest songwriters.The first single I boughtRuby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town by Kenny Rogers, from a little store in Finsbury Park,
  
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• ‘Hello pervert’: the sextortion scam claiming to have videoed you

  11-05-2025 08:00 via theguardian.com
  How to deal with an email that says your device has been hacked and the camera used to record an intimate act“Hello pervert” is how the email starts and frighteningly it appears to have been sent from your own account. It is a ransom note with the recipient warned that they have been recorded in a compromising act, and will be exposed unless they pay up.The sender warns “this is a very bad situation for you”, or something similarly threatening. Continue reading...
  
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• Song He Lou, London W1: no neon, no bunting and not much jostling for tourist dollars – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

  11-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  With three floors to fill, this 270-year-old restaurant chain’s understated approach feels rather boldThe demise of London’s Chinatown has long been predicted, what with recent rent and rate rises, and diners’ changing tastes. Yet on a spring lunchtime last week, business on Wardour Street was booming, with alfresco noodle-slurping, long queues and endless selfie sessions all in full swing.Song He Lou, a historic restaurant brand that champions Suzhou cuisine, clearly believes
  
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• I worry that I don’t ‘get’ romance and am disappointing my husband | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

  11-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  You’ve been married for 50 years and you’re in love, so maybe you just speak a different ‘love language’• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a readerI have been married to my husband for more than 50 years. We married as teenagers and are now in our 70s. We love each other, and are in love.The problem is I don’t appear to have a romantic bone in my body. My husband is romantic, and I either never notice or I think, “What’s t
  
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• ‘I lost so much weight, my husband thought I was terminally ill’: why do people lie about taking Ozempic?

  11-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  The dramatic results of weight-loss drugs often come with a side order of stigma, as though it’s ‘cheating’ not to stick to willpower, diet and exercise alone. Is that why so many are telling no one – not even their partners?Every Friday night, Claire, a 50-year-old woman in Berkshire, waits until her husband and son have gone to bed. When she is sure the house is quiet, she tiptoes out to her garage, and over to a tin tucked away in the corner. It is chilly out ther
  
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• After Blair’s bombshell, will Labour stick with or abandon net zero?

  11-05-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Under pressure from Reform and from the former PM, Keir Starmer is facing a series of tests of his resolve on green policyPopulist politicians are striking a chord with the public in their attack on “the green agenda” because they are right – climate policies are elitist. So says the man standing to be the next leader of the Green party in England and Wales.“We should all be angry about net zero,” argues Zack Polanski, currently the Greens’ deputy leader. &ldq
  
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