News
Rosenberg: How Putin and Trump shook up the world in a week
Trump administration trying to rehire USDA bird flu officials it fired
Fact-checking Trump claims about war in Ukraine
US must not interfere in Tate's case, say alleged victims
'Real life Squid Game': Kim Sae-ron's death exposes Korea's celebrity culture
Grief and tears as Hamas hostage returns to family
Fast-food giant KFC leaves Kentucky home for Texas
Philippine town offers bounty for mosquitoes as dengue rises
'Grow up' - Kevin Spacey responds to Guy Pearce allegation
Race to save whales in Australia mass stranding
Why did a plane crash in Toronto, and how did everyone survive?
Tensions laid bare as Germans worry about immigration ahead of election
When is Sean 'Diddy' Combs' trial and what is he charged with?
Space sector is 'very much changing', says NI's first astronaut
Moscow back at the table - and appearing to call the shots
A$AP Rocky not guilty of firearm assault on LA street
New York governor weighs Eric Adams' fate after scandals
Meghan puts new label on jams and lifestyle range
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Man jailed for attempted murder of former Japan PM
Irish goods exports to US surge by 34%
Business
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Too many video games, too little time - but could that be changing?
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US government tries to rehire nuclear staff it fired days ago
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Innovation
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'I call her my Italian sister': The power of cross-cultural friendships
Natural doesn't always mean better: How to spot if someone is trying to convince you with an 'appeal to nature'
What your fingernails can reveal about your health
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Humanoid robot Ameca leaves public 'gobsmacked'
What is Doge and why is Musk cutting so many jobs?
London-based AI firm creates more than 100 jobs in Belfast
AI scanner used to detect potential potholes
Culture
Jam drummer Rick Buckler dies at 69
'It's exactly what the country needs': How Brazil propelled drama I'm Still Here to be this year's Oscars dark horse
How to watch the awards season films
Jonathan Bailey's new character 'Succession inspired'
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Awards Watch: Why this is 'one of the closest and most thrilling Oscar races ever'
'He meant a great deal to me and my people': How the assassination of Malcolm X shook the US 60 years ago
The Narrow Road to the Deep North review: This WW2 miniseries is a 'stunning' showcase for Jacob Elordi
Mickey 17: Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho's confused sci-fi blockbuster is a 'serious disappointment'
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Arts
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Schoolgirl Ada, 9, launches Open Studios art show
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Travel
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The fearless lionfish huntresses of the Caribbean
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'It risks becoming a Venice in the desert': The dark side of Uzbekistan's tourism boom
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Earth
Japan to increase reliance on nuclear energy in post-Fukushima shift
Large solar farm to power thousands of homes
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Atomic grains of sand: How the history of humans is written into the fabric of the Earth
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Stares and ear-twitches: The linguist learning to speak the expressive language of cows
Record January warmth puzzles climate scientists
When he penned his eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution, American journalist John Reed famously titled it Ten Days That Shook The World.
But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They've shaken things up in a week.
It began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations.
It continued with the Munich Security Conference and a schism between Europe and America.
Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there.
One image dominates Wednesday morning's Russian newspapers: senior Russian and American officials at the negotiating table in Riyadh.
The Kremlin wants the Russian public and the international community to see that Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine have failed.
Russian media are welcoming the prospect of warmer ties with Washington and pouring scorn on European leaders and Kyiv.
"Trump knows he will have to make concessions [to Russia] because he is negotiating with the side that's winning in Ukraine," writes pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets. "He will make concessions. Not at America's expense, but at the expense of Europe and Ukraine.
"For so long Europe had gone around all puffed up, thinking of itself as the civilised world and as a Garden of Eden. It failed to notice it had lost its trousers… now its old comrade across the Atlantic has pointed that out…"
On the streets of Moscow I don't detect that level of gloating.
Instead, people are watching and waiting to see whether Trump will really turn out to be Russia's new best friend and whether he can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
"Trump is a businessman. He's only interested in making money," Nadezhda tells me. "I don't think things will be any different. There's too much that needs to be done to change the situation."
"Perhaps those talks [in Saudi Arabia] will help," says Giorgi. "It's high time we stopped being enemies."
"Trump is active. He's energetic. But will he do anything?" wonders Irina.
"We dream that these negotiations will bring peace. It's a first step. And maybe this will help our economy. Food and other goods keep going up in price here. That's partly because of the special military operation [the war in Ukraine] and the general international situation."
Putin and Trump have spoken on the phone; their two teams have met in Saudi Arabia; a presidential summit is expected soon.
But a few days ago the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets tried to imagine what the two leaders had said to each other during last week's phone call.
They came up with this rendition:
"Trump called Putin.
'Vladimir! You've got a cool country and I've got a cool country. Shall we go and divide up the world?'
'What have I been saying all along? Let's do it!…."
Make-believe? We'll see.
US President Donald Trump's administration is attempting to rehire officials with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) who worked on the government response to bird flu before being fired over the weekend, US media report.
The layoffs were a part of a cost-cutting mission across the US government by Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) leader Elon Musk.
The terminations came as the latest outbreak of the bird flu has wreaked havoc on poultry and cattle farms, causing egg prices to skyrocket and raising concerns among public health experts.
A USDA spokesperson told US media that although "several" officials working on bird flu were "notified of their terminations" over the weekend, "we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters".
US President Donald Trump has appeared to accuse Ukraine of being responsible for the war with Russia, in a flurry of claims from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.
Speaking to reporters, Trump also made claims about President Volodymyr Zelensky's popularity and observed that Ukraine had yet to hold scheduled elections due to martial law.
Trump's comments - some of which appeared to mirror common Russian talking points about the war - came just hours after US officials met with a Russian delegation in Riyadh to open talks to end the conflict, which has raged for almost three years.
Zelensky later accused Trump of "living in a disinformation space" created by Russia.
BBC Verify has fact-checked Trump's claims.
Claim: 'You should have never started it'
Claim: 'I hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating'
President Trump also claimed that Zelensky's approval rating has fallen to 4%.
It's unclear what source the president was citing as he didn't provide evidence. We have asked the White House to clarify this.
A survey conducted this month found that 57% of Ukrainians said they trusted the president, according to the Ukraine-based Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
However, that was down from 77% at the end of 2023, and 90% in May 2022 - suggesting that the president has suffered a drop-off in his popularity.
Some other polls suggest Zelensky trailing his nearest rival, former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in the first round of any future election, indicating the two would face each other in a run-off.
Official polling is limited and it is extremely difficult to carry out accurate surveys during a time of war. Millions of Ukrainians have fled and Russia has occupied around a fifth of the country.
In the wake of Trump's comments, some major Russian media outlets seized on the claim and cited a poll carried out by Ukrainian MP and Zelensky critic, Oleksandr Dubinsky, on Telegram which they claimed backed up Trump's assessment.
Dubinsky has been charged with treason in Ukraine, and accused of "operating at the behest of Russian intelligence" - which he denies.
Claim: 'We have a situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have essentially martial law in Ukraine'
Trump also drew attention to the fact that Ukraine has not held a presidential election since 2019, when Zelensky - previously a comedian with no political base - swept to power.
His first five-year term of office was due to come to an end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since the Russian invasion in February 2022, which means elections are suspended.
Ukraine's martial laws were drafted in 2015 - shortly after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and years before Zelensky and his Servant of the People party came to power.
In November all parties in Ukraine's parliament backed postponing elections until the war ends, a position which a survey suggests is popular with Ukrainians.
Some 60% of people were opposed to holding elections to replace Zelensky during the war, according to a survey of Ukrainians conducted in September and October by the International Republican Institute.
Zelensky has vowed to hold a new election once the conflict ends and has yet to confirm that he intends to stand. Some experts have observed that holding elections in Ukraine before the conflict ends would be practically impossible, as Russian attacks on many cities persist and millions of citizens are displaced abroad or living under Russian occupation.
Trump's intervention on the subject came just hours after the Kremlin questioned Zelensky's legitimacy as his term in office has ended, a claim Moscow has repeatedly made in the past months. On 28 January, Putin called Zelensky "illegitimate" in an interview with Russian media.
Referring to the electoral situation, Trump appeared aware that it has been a frequent Russian allegation, saying: "That's not a Russian thing, that's something coming from me, from other countries."
For his part, Zelensky has previously said it would be "absolutely irresponsible to throw the topic of elections" in the middle of the conflict.
Additional reporting by BBC Monitoring.
What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?
Four women who allege they were sexually abused by the social media influencer Andrew Tate have urged the US not to interfere in his case in Romania.
The women said they were "extremely concerned" by reports that US officials had asked Romania to relax travel restrictions against Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, who have dual UK-US nationality.
Lawyer Matthew Jury, who is representing the four alleged victims, told the BBC they were "absolutely bewildered why the Trump administration has decided to interfere in this way", although Romania denies being pressured by the US.
Tate, 38, and his brother were arrested in Romania three years ago and face trial on allegations of rape, trafficking minors and money laundering, all of which they deny.
Separately, the brothers are wanted by police in the UK over allegations of rape and human trafficking, which they also deny. Their extradition to the UK will be dealt with once the Romania case finishes.
The Financial Times newspaper first reported that US officials had brought up the case with the Romanian government last week, and it was then followed up by Trump's envoy Richard Grenell at the weekend.
One source told the paper that a request had been made by the US to return the brothers' passports to them so they could travel while waiting for the criminal case against them to finish.
The Tate brothers are currently banned from leaving Romania, although are no longer under house arrest.
Romanian Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu confirmed to Euronews that Grenell had raised Tate's case with him, and that Grenell had said he was "interested in the fate of the Tate brothers". The minister denied this amounted to pressure from Americans.
A spokesperson for Mr Hurezeanu told the Financial Times: "Romanian courts are independent and operate based on the law, there is due process."
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu also denied the reports on X, writing: [The US] has not made any requests to [Romania] upon the legal situation of well-known foreign influencers investigated by the Romanian authorities.
"There were no demands either during the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs- Richard Grenell discussion or after it. Romania and USA share the same values regarding the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens."
According to the FT, Grenell said he had no "substantive conversation" with Hurezeanu, but added: "I support the Tate brothers as evident by my publicly available tweets."
The US State Department has been approached by the BBC for comment.
'Gaslighting'
The Tate brothers have wide support on right-wing social media, and supported Trump during the US election campaign.
Lawyer Mr Jury said: "It's very clear from members of the Trump administration's social media posts and public statements that there is a great deal of support for Tate.
"Either they don't know or they don't care about the nature of the allegations and how serious they are," he told BBC Newsnight.
He said the women he represented were "absolutely distraught".
"To see the most powerful man in the world support their alleged abuser, is incredibly traumatising... it's gaslighting of a sort."
And he called the reported US actions a "gross interference in my clients' right to a fair trial and due process".
Mr Jury is representing the four women in a civil case against Tate at the High Court in the UK, after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute their case. The Tate brothers deny the claims.
The civil case is separate to the criminal allegations currently being investigated by British police.
In their statement, the four women added: "We hope that the Romanian and the UK authorities will be left alone to do their jobs."
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick also warned the US not to interfere, saying the Tate brothers "must face our justice system".
"No obstacles should be placed in the way of UK authorities. The government must make that clear to US counterparts."
Tate is a self-described misogynist and has previously been banned from social media platforms for expressing those views.
A former kickboxer, he has gained millions of followers online and has lived in Romania for a number of years, having previously been based in the UK.
Actress Kim Sae-ron's death in an apparent suicide has renewed criticism of South Korea's entertainment industry, which churns out stars but also subjects them to immense pressure and scrutiny.
Kim - who was found dead aged 24 at her home in Seoul on Sunday - had been bombarded with negative press coverage and hate online after a drink-driving conviction in 2022. Police have not provided further details about her death.
Experts found the circumstances leading to it depressingly familiar. Other celebrities also ended up taking their lives after careers upended by cyberbullying.
As Kim was laid to rest on Wednesday, analysts say they are not optimistic her death will lead to meaningful change.
South Korea's entertainment industry is enjoying massive popularity. Today, there are more than an estimated 220 million fans of Korean entertainment around the world – that's four times the population of South Korea.
But there is also increasing spotlight on the less glamorous side of the entertainment industry.
South Korea is known for its hyper-competitive culture in most spheres of life - from education to careers. It has one of the highest suicide rates among developed countries. While its overall suicide rate is falling, deaths of those in their 20s are rising.
This pressure is heightened in the case of celebrities. They face immense pressure to be perfect, and are subjected to the demands of obsessive "super fans" who can make or break careers.
That is why even the slightest perceived misstep can be career ending. Kim Sae-ron became so unpopular, scenes featuring her were edited out of shows such as Netflix's 2023 drama Bloodhounds.
"It is not enough that the celebrities be punished by the law. They become targets of relentless criticism," Korean culture critic Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.
He referred to K-pop artists Sulli and Goo Hara, who died by suicide in 2019 after long battles with internet trolls, even though they did not have known brushes with the law.
Sulli had offended fans for not conforming to the K-pop mould, while an internet mob had targeted Goo Hara over her relationship with an ex-boyfriend.
'A real life Squid Game'
Cyberbullying has also become a money-making gig for some, Kim Hern-sik told the BBC.
"YouTubers get the views, forums get the engagement, news outlets get the traffic. I don't think [Kim's death] will change the situation.
"There needs to be harsher criminal punishment against leaving nasty comments," he says.
Kim Sae-ron's father has blamed a YouTuber for her death, claiming the controversial videos they published caused her deep emotional distress.
Others have pointed fingers at some local media outlets, who reportedly fuelled public animosity against Kim by reporting the unverified claims.
"This cycle of media-driven character assassination must stop," civic group Citizens' Coalition for Democratic Media said in a statement on Tuesday.
Na Jong-ho, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, likened the spate of celebrity deaths in South Korea to a real-life version of Squid Game, the South Korean Netflix blockbuster which sees the indebted fighting to the death for a huge cash prize.
"Our society abandons those who stumble and moves on as if nothing happened.. How many more lives must be lost before we stop inflicting this destructive, suffocating shame on people?" he wrote on Facebook.
"Drunk driving is a big mistake. There would be a problem with our legal system if that goes unpunished. However, a society that buries people who make mistakes without giving them a second chance is not a healthy one," Prof Na added.
Last year, the BBC reported on how "super fans" in the notorious K-pop industry try to dictate their idols' private lives - from their romantic relationships to their daily activities outside of work - and can be unforgiving when things go off script.
It is no surprise that Kim Sae-ron chose to withdraw from the public eye after her DUI conviction, for which she was fined 20 million won (£11,000) in April 2023.
It is worth noting however, that not all public figures are subject to the same treatment. Politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, also have past drink-driving convictions but have been able to bounce back - polls show Lee is now the country's top presidential contender.
In South Korea, it is "extremely tough" for artistes to recover when they do something that puts a crack in their "idol" image, says K-pop columnist Jeff Benjamin.
He contrasts this to entertainment industries in the West, where controversies and scandals sometimes even "add a rockstar-like edge" to celebrities' reputations.
"While no one cheers when a Hollywood celebrity is arrested for DUI [drinking under the influence of alcohol or drugs] or sent to jail for significant crimes, it's not necessarily career-ending," he says.
While the Korean entertainment industry has made moves to address performers' mental wealth concerns, it is unclear how effective these have been.
Real change can only happen when there is no more financial or attention incentives to continue with such intrusive reporting, says Mr Benjamin.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.
Additional reporting by Jake Kwon in Seoul
When newly-released Hamas hostage Eli Sharabi saw his brother-in-law for the first time in over a year, the first thing he did was make sure he and his family were okay.
Mr Sharabi, 52, was taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Beeri on 7 October 2023, while his British-born wife Lianne and their two teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel were found murdered in their home.
His brother-in-law Steve Brisley and his family, from Bridgend, have been campaigning for over a year for Mr Sharabi's release.
He added Mr Sharabi had been unaware his wife and children had been killed and was told by an Israeli soldier after asking if they were waiting for him.
Mr Sharabi was released on 8 February and was one of three hostages handed to the Red Cross by Hamas in a choreographed release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
Mr Brisley told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast the last week had been "intense, emotional, but cathartic".
He said his wife and daughters were desperately waiting for news on the day before Mr Sharabi was due for release.
"We saw Eli step out of the vehicle but he was unrecognisable," Mr Brisley said. "All four of us were saying 'is that Eli?', he was so drawn and gaunt, emaciated."
Mr Brisley said: "The most distressing thing for us was the darkness in his eyes, the light looked like it had gone."
Mr Sharabi made a speech on the stage at the release and said he was looking forward to being reunited with his wife and children.
"It wasn't until he was in the Israeli army vehicle being transferred from Gaza into Israel that he asked 'are Lianne and the girls waiting for me?'
"One of the soldiers had to tell him that they had in fact been murdered on the 7th and were not waiting for him," Mr Brisley said.
Arriving at the hospital where Mr Sharabi had been transferred, Mr Brisley said: "We just threw our arms around each other, hugged, we told each other that we loved each other".
"He spent 490 days in captivity and his first thought was to make sure we were okay and to express his condolences to us for the loss of Lianne and the girls," he added.
Mr Brisley said he wanted to make sure his brother-in-law knew he remained "an integral part of our family".
Mr Sharabi told his family his wife and daughters were alive when he was taken from the house.
"We will never know exactly what happened, what went wrong for them to be killed," Mr Brisley said.
"He hasn't spoken to me much about what his experience was but his emaciated frame shows the starvation all the hostages have spoken of has been his experience as well.
"I've spent 16 months speaking on his behalf because he didn't have a voice, obviously now he's out he will have his own story and his own truth to tell."
Mr Brisley said they sat and talked about memories of Lianne, Noiya and Yahel.
"It was emotional, we shared tears, we shared hugs, obviously he got quite choked at times but he was able to talk about them."
"I gave him some grief about how rubbish Man United have been for the last year and he laughed at that, it was that, seeing the light back in his eyes that reassured me that Eli is still in there.
"I think the most positive thing that came out of my conversations with him is that he does see a future and he does want to go on," Mr Brisley said.
Travelling to Israel also allowed Mr Brisley to "process the loss of Lianne and the girls" as he said "it was always difficult to fully engage with our grief while Eli was still in captivity".
He said he visited the Nova festival site and the Sharabi family home which was "cold and dark and devoid of the love and the laughter and the light that had been there 18 months ago".
"I sat on the floor and sobbed," he said.
"It was at once beautiful and awful, but cathartic, grief is just love that has no home," Mr Brisley said. "Now Eli is back we have somewhere to direct that love and I think that will help us to grieve for Lianne and the girls."
"We're looking to close a chapter of this whole horrific book, but we're going to be dealing with it for the rest of our life," he said.
Lianne grew up in Staple Hill, on the outskirts of Bristol, and first moved to Israel as a volunteer on a kibbutz when she was 19, before relocating to the country permanently.
After just three months in Israel, she met Eli. They had two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, who were 16 and 13 when they were killed.
One of Eli's brothers, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October, but was later killed in captivity. Hamas said his death was the result of an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said was likely.
KFC, the fast-food restaurant chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is moving its corporate headquarters in the US from Louisville in Kentucky to Plano in Texas, according to a statement from its parent company, Yum Brands.
About 100 corporate employees and dozens more remote workers will be required to move and will receive relocation support.
The decision by Yum Brands is part of a plan to have two headquarters for its main brands — KFC and Pizza Hut will be headquartered in Plano, while Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill will remain in Irvine, California.
In recent years, many companies have relocated to Texas attracted by the state's lower taxes and business-friendly policies.
"These changes position us for sustainable growth and will help us better serve our customers, employees, franchisees and shareholders," said David Gibbs, the chief executive of Yum Brands in the company's statement.
Yum also expressed hope the plan will boost collaboration between its employees and brands.
The statement added that Yum will be maintaining it corporate offices as well as the KFC Foundation in Louisville.
The governor of the state of Kentucky, Andy Beshea, has criticised the move to relocate KFC's headquarters, according to a statement given to the Associated Press.
"I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company's founder would be, too," Mr Beshear reportedly said.
"This company's name starts with Kentucky, and it has marketed our state's heritage and culture in the sale of its product."
KFC's history in the state dates back to the 1930s, when its founder Colonel Harland Sanders began selling fried chicken at a service station in Corbin.
Today, Sanders' face is emblazoned on the shop fronts of more than 24,000 KFC restaurants in over 145 countries and territories around the world.
Since the pandemic, many US companies have moved their headquarters. According to a report by real estate services firm CBRE, Austin and other Texan cities have been particularly successful due to the state's business-friendly environment.
Authorities in one of the Philippines' most densely-populated urban centres are offering a cash reward for mosquitoes in an attempt to stop the spread of dengue.
Carlito Cernal, village chief of Barangay Addition Hills, announced the bounty of one peso (less than 2 US cents) for every five mosquitoes after two students in his neighbourhood died from the disease.
Cernal said the bounty was meant to supplement existing measures such as cleaning the streets and preventing the build-up of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes lay their eggs.
The reward applies to live and dead mosquitoes and their larvae, Cernal added. Live mosquitoes will be exterminated using ultraviolet light.
The Philippines' Department of Health (DOH) told the BBC that it "appreciates the good intentions of local government executives to fight dengue".
It declined further comment, however, when asked if catching mosquitoes in exchange for cash is an effective way of stopping dengue.
"We urge all concerned to please consult and coordinate with their local health officers or the DOH regional office in their area for evidence-based practices that are known to work," it said.
The bounty drew swift ridicule after it was announced late on Tuesday.
"Mosquito farming is coming," one social media comment read. "Will a mosquito get rejected if it has only one wing?" read another.
Cernal said he was aware that the bounty had been bashed on social media, but that it was necessary for the community's health.
Dengue is endemic in tropical countries, and outbreaks often occur in urban areas with poor sanitation which allows virus-carrying mosquitoes to multiply.
In severe cases, dengue causes internal bleeding which can lead to death. Its symptoms include headaches, nausea, joint and muscle pain.
Barangay Addition Hills is home to nearly 70,000 people, crammed into a 162-hectare patch at the heart of the capital, Metro Manila.
Cernal said local health authorities recorded 44 cases of dengue in the area during the most recent surge of infections.
"This is one of the biggest and most dense areas. We have to do something to help the local government," Cernal said.
National authorities have recently flagged a rise in dengue cases nationwide due to seasonal rains. The DOH said it recorded 28,234 cases on 1 February, a 40% jump from the previous year.
The department has advised the public to maintain the cleanliness of their surroundings, destroy potential mosquito breeding sites such as tyres, wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers and apply mosquito repellent.
Aside from dengue, the DOH said the rains have also fuelled a spike in influenza-like diseases and cases of leptospirosis, a rat-borne disease that people get when wading in flood waters.
Kevin Spacey has responded to fellow actor Guy Pearce's allegation that the Oscar-winner "targeted" him during the making of 1997 movie LA Confidential, telling the Australian to "grow up", adding: "You are not a victim".
It comes after Pearce - one of the stars of the recent Bafta-winning film The Brutalist - this week expanded on his alleged experiences with the US actor having previously called him "a handsy guy" in 2018.
Spacey - whose career was brought to a halt by a string of allegations - admitted to "being too handsy" and "pushing the boundaries", in an interview last year with Piers Morgan, while saying he'd not done anything illegal.
In 2023 the actor was found not guilty of all charges of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013 after a trial in London; and in 2022 a US court dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against him.
Spacey currently faces a civil trial over another allegation, which he denies, that he sexually assaulted a man in 2008.
A further sexual abuse claim was lodged against him last week at the High Court, according to filings.
'He targeted me, no question'
Pearce told the Hollywood Reporter that the Oscar-winner "targeted me, no question" during the making of the 1997 crime thriller LA Confidential.
"But I did that thing that you do where you brush it off and go, 'ah, that's nothing. Ah, no, that's nothing'. And I did that for five months," he said.
"And, really, I was sort of scared of Kevin because he's quite an aggressive man. He's extremely charming and brilliant at what he does – really impressive etc.
"He holds a room remarkably. But I was young and susceptible, and he targeted me, no question."
Pearce revealed he had told his wife at the time that he felt safe on set when his co-star Simon Baker was present, because Spacey allegedly focused his attentions on him instead.
He said the #MeToo movement, which saw allegations made against many men in Hollywood from 2017 onwards, had been "a really incredible wake-up call" for him.
The actor said he "broke down and sobbed" and "couldn't stop" after he saw the allegations against Spacey in the news headlines. "I think it really dawned on me the impact that had occurred and how I sort of brushed it off and how I had either shelved it or blocked it out or whatever."
On Tuesday, Spacey responded directly to Pearce in a video posted on X, saying: "If I did something then that upset you, you could have reached out to me.
"We could have had that conversation, but instead, you've decided to speak to the press, who are now, of course, coming after me, because they would like to know what my response is to the things that you said.
"You really want to know what my response is? Grow up."
Spacey claimed Pearce omitted to mention he had flown to Georgia a year after LA Confidential was made "just to spend time with me" while he was filming another movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
"I mean, did you tell the press that too, or does that not fit into the victim narrative you have going?" he added.
"I apologise that I didn't get the message that you don't like spending time with me. Maybe there was another reason, I don't know, but that doesn't make any sense. That you would have just been leading me on, right? But here you are now on a mission, some 28 years later, after I've been through hell and back."
Spacey concluded his message by saying he was happy to have a "conversation" with Pearce "anytime, anyplace".
"I've got nothing to hide," he said. "But Guy - you need to grow up. You are not a victim."
Pearce earlier told the US publication he had raised Spacey's alleged behaviour with him years later, and had "had a couple of confrontations with Kevin" that "got ugly".
His new strategy these days, he noted, was "just try to be more honest about it now and call it for what it is".
Rescuers are rushing to save more than 150 whales which have been stranded on a remote Australian beach.
Tasmania's Department of Natural Resources and Environment said 157 false killer whales had beached near Arthur River, in the island's north west.
Conservation experts and veterinarians at the site estimate 136 of the animals - which witnesses say include juveniles - are still alive. They are planning an operation to return them to sea.
Tasmania has seen a series of mass whale strandings in recent years - including the worst in Australian history, involving almost 500 pilot whales, in 2020.
Authorities asked members of the public to avoid the site - about 300km from the city of Launceston - as there are bushfires burning in the area and limited road access.
"Stranding response in this area is complex due to the inaccessibility of the site, ocean conditions and the challenges of getting specialist equipment to the remote area," a department spokesperson said in a statement.
"If it is determined there is a need for help from the general public, a request will be made."
Local resident Jocelyn Flint told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she had travelled to the site on Wednesday morning after her son noticed the pod while out shark fishing overnight.
"There are babies... There's just families of them. Their eyes are open, they're looking at me, like 'help'."
"It's just absolutely horrific. They're all struggling."
More than 80% of Australian whale strandings take place in Tasmania - often on its west coast.
Around 470 pilot whales were stranded further south at Macquarie Harbour in 2020 and about 350 of them died despite rescue efforts. Another 200 become stranded in the same harbour in 2022.
Whales are highly social mammals and are well known for stranding in groups because they travel in large, close-knit communities which rely on constant communication.
There are a range of theories for why beachings occur. Some experts say the animals can become disoriented after following fish they hunt to the shore.
Others believe that one individual can mistakenly lead whole groups to shore.
Passengers have described their amazement after most of them escaped unscathed from a plane that crash landed in Toronto on Monday afternoon.
The Delta flight skidded along the runway in flames before flipping over and coming to a dramatic halt upside down, losing its tail and an entire wing in the process.
Some of the 80 people on board were then left hanging upside down while still strapped to their seats, before they scrambled over luggage to escape onto the snowy runway.
No deaths have been reported after the incident, which is under investigation.
Analysts have suggested the harsh winter weather may be to blame, or that the plane landed badly. They have also credited the plane's safety features with saving lives.
What happened when the plane crashed?
The incident took place shortly after 14:00 local time on Monday (19:00 GMT).
It involved a model CRJ-900 plane, operating as Delta Air Lines flight DL4819.
The aircraft arrived at Toronto from the US city of Minneapolis and was carrying 76 passengers and four crew members.
As it landed, the plane appears to have struck the runway, slid for some distance and then flipped over, observed Dan Ronan, a journalist and pilot licensed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who spoke to BBC News.
Footage obtained by TMZ showed part of the aircraft bursting into flames as the landing happened. Firefighters rushed to put these out.
Passenger Pete Carlson told broadcaster CBC it was "a very forceful event", recalling the sound of "concrete and metal" at the moment of impact.
He and others on board were suspended upside down in their seats, and had to release themselves onto the cabin ceiling before leaving the inverted aircraft.
All 80 people on board survived. On Tuesday morning, Delta said 21 injured passengers were initially transported to local hospitals - with 19 later released.
Delta has promised to give more updates.
How does a plane flip over?
BBC Verify has analysed recordings of communications between the plane and air traffic control.
At no point in discussions was there anything to suggest trouble was anticipated with the landing.
This was confirmed by Marco Chan, a former pilot and a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK, and plane crash investigator Ismo Aaltonen, who also listened to the audio recording.
Mr Chan also said the plane appeared to have made a hard landing - involving an unusually high rate of descent.
It seems to have touched down with one wheel first, Mr Chan told the BBC, which might have caused the landing gear to collapse on impact. This could have lead to the right wing hitting the runway and in turn causing the plane to roll.
The weather may also have been significant. The airport fire chief stated that the runway was dry at the time of the incident.
Airport authorities had said earlier that although recent heavy snow had stopped, "frigid temperatures and high winds [were] moving in".
As the plane came in to land, air traffic controllers told the pilots of 38mph (61km/h) gusts and the possibility of a "slight bump in the glide path", CNN reported.
The pilots appear to have attempted what is known as a crab manoeuvre, Mr Ronan said. This involves turning a plane into the wind, and then directly onto the runway at the last moment.
How did everybody on board the plane survive?
"The sheer survivability of this is really amazing," Mr Ronan told the BBC, pointing out that the aeroplane's fuselage (body) had stayed intact.
Other commentators hailed the craft's safety features. CNN analyst and former FAA inspector David Soucie said the plane had broken apart as it had meant to, with the detachment of the wings stopping the fuselage ripping apart.
Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at the UK's Cranfield University, said planes were also designed so that air passengers involved in an accident did not hit things likely to cause injury.
"Even the design of the seat back or the tray table is all part of how we consider making that survivable space," he told the BBC. "And the seatbelt that people have is so important - that is the ultimate thing that stops people being thrown around the cabin like this," he added.
The flight attendants have also been praised for getting everyone off the flipped aeroplane quickly. Emergency crews on the ground were labelled "heroic" by the airport chief after reaching the crash site in a matter of minutes.
Mr Carlson said the passengers themselves had worked together very effectively. "What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another," he said.
How did the seat design help?
Mr Ronan highlighted the importance of the plane's high-impact 16g seats, which he said were "designed to absorb a great deal of punishment".
The seats can withstand deceleration of 16 times the force of gravity, and must pass rigorous testing using human dummies to model crash dynamics.
The seat legs, attached to a track on the floor, must be able to pitch down 10 degrees on one side and roll 10 degrees on the other side so that they do not break, said Kevin Campbell, founder of Aviation Consulting & Engineering Solutions, who is FAA-authorised to approve seats that are required to comply with the regulations.
In previous accidents, the FAA had seen seats piled up in the fronts of aircrafts, with bodies still attached in many cases, Mr Campbell said.
Mr Ronan said the regulations keep "the seat in place and bolted to the floor, so you have a higher degree of survivability in your seat itself and you have less likelihood that the seat is going to become detached, where you're now strapped into a moving object that's being bounced around the cabin."
The regulations also require a passenger to be able to withstand hitting their head and legs on the seat in front of them, and seats help absorb weight in their spine so that they do not break their back. Seatbelts are also less stretchy than they used to be so the restraint is more secure.
"As a result of that aircrafts are much, much safer," Mr Campbell said, and those factors were "absolutely" at play in improving safety in this crash.
"It really is remarkable that the seats did exactly what they were supposed to do, they stayed intact... the seatbelts worked just as they were supposed to, and the seats did not become detached from the floor," Mr Ronan said.
"Think of how many head injuries we would have had, spinal injuries we would have had, if the seat became detached."
Which other plane crashes have happened recently?
* All 67 people on board a passenger aeroplane and military helicopter died after the two aircraft collided in mid-air near Washington DC on 29 January
* Seven people were killed on 1 February when a medical transportation plane carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia. Another person was killed on the ground
* All 10 people were killed when a small plane came down in Alaska on 6 February
"I was crying," says Alya, when she saw news of last week's Munich attack that left a toddler and her mother dead.
"Why should someone do something like that? Why? I can't understand it."
An Afghan man's in custody after what was the latest in a series of attacks in German cities where the suspect has been an asylum seeker.
Last Thursday it was a mother and daughter in Munich; last month another child and an adult were killed in Aschaffenburg.
Alya came here a decade ago from Syria with her baby son. Now 10, he and his mother welcome me into their home.
They were among a record 1.2 million people who applied for asylum in Germany from 2015-16, many of them from Syria but also from countries including Afghanistan and Iraq.
The attacks have put security and migration front and centre of an election campaign, days before Germans vote on their next government on 23 February.
Alya despairs of those who commit violence in a country that, she says, has "given us everything".
The BBC first heard their story a decade earlier when they were filmed at a refugee centre in the city of Oberhausen.
Rami looks at a photo of himself from 2015. He's tiny, enveloped in a life jacket from when his mother fled war-torn Syria.
"How could I go with him in that boat?" she asks herself, remembering how they crossed the Aegean Sea with 60 others, packed in a small boat.
"I didn't know I'd gone through that," says Rami. It scares him to see it now.
Ten years on, Alya has trained in elderly care and re-married. She is looking for work, while Rami goes to a local school and is a passionate football fan.
They both speak German: Rami has grown up with the language and Alya has studied it.
They're grateful to their adopted country and plan to stay; Rami has dreams of becoming a doctor, policeman or footballer.
Mother and child have, unsurprisingly, changed in the past 10 years.
So has Germany.
Back in 2015, there were scenes of sweets being handed out to refugees arriving at Munich train station, as an unparalleled number of people fled to Europe due to conflict, instability or poverty.
German Willkommenskultur, or Welcoming Culture, was encapsulated when the then chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared: "We can manage this."
For her supporters, it was a pragmatic and compassionate reaction; for her critics, one of her most unforgivable mistakes.
A decade later and anyone I have spoken to agrees that attitudes have hardened, in society and politically.
Alya says she has "lots of German friends" but has detected the broader change in mood in Germany and mentions hearing the phrase Ausländer raus – foreigners out.
However she is "very sad" about refugees and migrants who don't learn German or, in her view, have failed to properly integrate.
"The key to this country is the language," she says, while adding: "There's also a positive side that a lot of people have learned the language and they've started to work."
Near Oberhausen's main park, Georg, 66, says he gets on with people from all backgrounds but worries about cases of "radicalisation."
He has lived in the city most of his life and used to work as a car mechanic and tiler. He mourns what he sees a general decline in Oberhausen, pointing to because of ageing infrastructure and a lack of investment.
Many in Germany also talk of a wish for greater public safety and a disillusionment with the parties that have governed the country since reunification.
Germany's outgoing government has reimposed border controls as it tries to bring down the number of asylum seekers, and opposition parties want to go further.
Georg says it's a difficult issue but believes there needs to be security: "No matter who's in charge. Not like it is right now. It has to change."
Before Europe's migration crisis, Oberhausen was already a multicultural city.
Local government figures show that in 2010, 22% of people in Oberhausen were either not born as German citizens or had one immigrant parent.
By 2016, that figure had risen to 28% while the latest figure, from 2023, was up to 37%.
Walking through the centre, the strained nature of Germany's migration debate becomes quickly evident.
Around one corner, there's a demonstration against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which has embraced the concept of "remigration"; a phrase widely understood to mean mass deportations.
On the main street, an AfD party stand has been put up, but it soon attracts shouts of "Nazis."
Two men of colour end up in a heated argument with party activists which we are openly filming.
We hear one of the AfD campaigners, who we'd been speaking to earlier, say: "Go back to your Heimat (homeland) if you don't like this here."
When I challenge this man, Jörg Lange, afterwards, he denies the remark was racist.
A city councillor, he tells me voters will have their say and voices scepticism that one of the men grew up here, despite their fluency in the language.
"Would you have said the same thing to a white person?" I ask.
"No, of course not," Mr Lange replies – but again denies it's racist.
"He personally attacked me," says Mr Lange. "He said 'you're a Nazi'. And then of course you have to say that if something doesn't suit you here in Germany then you can go back. Then leave us alone here."
Police arrive, during which time I talk with the two men involved in the argument, Kwame and Prathep, who are both in their thirties.
"He told us to go back!" says Kwame while Prathep says going "back" would mean going about, "Three streets away from here."
"We went to school over here, we grew up over here… we have kids here," they tell me. "We pay taxes, we pay a lot of taxes!"
I ask the pair about whether their role in the altercation is adding to the rising temperature of political debate.
Kwame, who used the term "Nazis" in the argument, says the "derogatory" language he hears about people of colour "triggers" him. "We feel like, wow, are we still in the same place right now?"
A dance choreographer, he tells me he came to Germany from Ghana aged 13 while Prathep describes how he was born in the city.
"I'm a German," says Prathep. "I'm proud of this city," chimes in Kwame. "Wherever I go in the world [I say] I'm from Oberhausen."
Both think their community has become "drastically" more divided in recent years.
The political climate, which includes consistently strong polling for the AfD, has led to a toughening of language by some of Germany's main political parties.
The conservative Christian Democrats who lead the polls have called for a "border ban" on anyone entering Germany without the right papers, even if they're seeking protection.
The Social Democrats have pledged to speed up asylum procedures and boost deportations.
The AfD want to close Germany's borders and leave the common European asylum policy.
Alya hopes that Germany will keep its doors open to refugees: "There's still war everywhere. And the people need this… maybe there are very good people running away from war."
The future of Germany's migration policy will depend on which parties form a coalition after this election, and what they can agree on.
But a rightward shift is already underway, in reality and rhetoric.
Sean "Diddy" Combs, one of the most successful rappers and music moguls in the US, will soon be on trial for sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
He also faces dozens of lawsuits from individuals who say they were harmed and exploited by the rapper through drugs, alcohol and physical abuse.
Mr Combs has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and rejected the accusations in the individual lawsuits, calling them attempts "for a quick payday".
If convicted, he faces up to life in prison on the racketeering charge and a minimum of 15 years for sex trafficking.
Who is Sean 'Diddy' Combs?
Mr Combs - who has also gone by the names Puffy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Love, and Brother Love - emerged into the hip-hop scene in the 1990s.
His early music career success included helping launch the careers of Mary J Blige and Christopher Wallace - aka Biggie Smalls, or the Notorious B.I.G.
His music label Bad Boy Records soon became one of the most important labels in rap and expanded to include Faith Evans, Ma$e, 112, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez.
Mr Combs also had a prolific business career outside of music, most notably, signing a deal with British drinks company Diageo in 2007 to promote the French vodka brand, Cîroc, in the US.
In 2023, he released his fifth record The Love Album: Off The Grid and earned his first solo nomination at the Grammy awards. He also was named a Global Icon at the MTV Awards that year.
What are the charges and allegations against Diddy?
In the federal criminal case, Mr Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
He is accused of kidnapping, drugging and coercing women into sexual activities, sometimes by using firearms or threatening them with violence.
In a raid on his Los Angeles mansion, police found supplies that they said were intended for use in orgies known as “freak offs”, including drugs and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil.
Separately, Mr Combs faces a number of lawsuits accusing him of rape and assault.
Tony Buzbee, a Texas lawyer handling some of these cases, said that more than 100 women and men from across the US have either filed lawsuits against the rap mogul or will do so.
In December 2023, a woman known in court papers as Jane Doe alleged that she was "gang raped" by Mr Combs and others in 2003, when she was 17. She said she was given "copious amounts of drugs and alcohol" before the attack.
Mr Combs' legal team dismissed the flurry of lawsuits as "clear attempts to garner publicity."
His current legal issues began when he was sued by his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, also known as Cassie, in late 2023. She accused him of violently abusing and raping her.
That lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount a day after it was filed, with Mr Combs maintaining his innocence.
Since then, multiple women have filed lawsuits accusing Mr Combs of sexual assault, with accusations dating back to 1991. He denies all claims.
His controversial history with Ms Ventura resurfaced in 2024, when CCTV footage leaked by CNN showed Mr Combs kicking his former girlfriend as she lay on a hotel hallway floor in 2016.
He apologised for his behaviour shortly afterwards, saying: "I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I'm disgusted now."
What has Diddy said about the charges?
Mr Combs has consistently denied the allegations made against him in the civil lawsuits, and has previously labelled them as "sickening" – suggesting they were "made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday".
In a statement issued at the start of February - in response to a claim from a lawyer that he would face more than 10 more civil lawsuits - Diddy's own lawyer restated that his client was innocent.
In a statement to the BBC in response to the federal criminal charges, his lawyer said: "Mr Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process.
"In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone - man or woman, adult or minor."
Diddy's lawyers later filed a motion to dismiss an aspect of the federal indictment in which he is accused of "transportation to engage in prostitution". His team argued he was being unfairly targeted due to his race.
Is Diddy in jail?
Mr Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York since his arrest on 16 September 2024.
His lawyers have argued for his release in the run-up to the trial, citing the jail’s “horrific” conditions.
Critics describe the prison as overcrowded and understaffed, and describe a culture of widespread violence.
A New York federal judge denied the request for bail, arguing that Mr Combs was a “serious flight risk”.
Prosecutors have alleged that Mr Combs has been breaking prison rules by contacting potential witnesses ahead of the sex trafficking trial.
They accuse him of "relentless efforts" to "corruptly influence witness testimony".
When is the Diddy trial and how long will it last?
US District Judge Arun Subramanian ruled his trial will begin on 5 May.
Prosecutor Emily Johnson told the judge that the government will need three weeks to present its case.
Defence lawyer Marc Agnifilo said the rapper's team will need a week for theirs.
Mr Combs' trial - scheduled to take place at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in New York City - is expected to be public.
All of Mr Combs' court proceedings thus far have been open to the media and the public, but not livestreamed.
Most federal courts do not allow cameras or electronics in the courtroom.
How long could Diddy spend in jail?
Mr Combs faces up to life in prison if convicted on the racketeering charge.
He faces another statutory minimum sentence of 15 years if he is found guilty of the sex trafficking charge.
Dr Rosemary Coogan - Northern Ireland's first ever astronaut candidate - has said the space sector is "very much changing in terms of having more and more commercial partners".
"It is difficult to say where we would be" without commercial space vehicles, the astrophysicist told BBC News NI.
Last year, Dr Coogan completed basic training with the European Space Agency and received her graduation certificate at a special ceremony in Cologne in Germany.
On Wednesday, she will be discussing her work at the Northern Ireland Science Festival, where she is hoping to inspire the next generation of scientists to pursue a career in the industry.
'Space is really developing'
The landing of the first commercial spacecraft on the Moon last year sparked excitement about a new age of possibilities in the Solar System.
Several months later, SpaceX's Polaris Dawn crew returned to Earth after five days in orbit, following a historic mission featuring the world's first commercial spacewalk.
The US space agency Nasa said the mission represented "a giant leap forward" for the commercial space industry.
Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme from the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, USA, Dr Coogan said the space industry is "very much changing".
"Of course, there is a need for a huge amount of people who need to be regulating what we do and why, both government and commercial," she said.
"There are benefits to having that commercial side, we now are going up to the International Space Station in commercial vehicles and, without that, it's difficult to say where we would be."
'Learning to do space walks'
Dr Coogan is currently in the US for pre-assignment training, which will last six months.
"What I am doing at the moment is one of the really exciting parts of the training and that's learning to do space walks," she said.
It happens underwater in a giant pool, complete with a spacesuit and a mock-up of the space station, she explained.
"I absolutely love the water, but it feels nothing like diving.
"Of course we have a lot of the same constraints in terms of safety underwater, decompression considerations.
"But in a space suit you can't swim, in space there is nothing to push against.
"It's physically hard work," she said, adding it seems ironic that a 'space walk' is mostly achieved through upper arm work.
Work in space for the 'benefit of Earth'
Dr Coogan emphasised the science being conducted in space is "very, very important".
"[It] cannot really be replaced in any other context. That's why I do this job."
She pointed out that while exciting experiments are happening in micro-gravity environments on Earth, these can only last for a brief period.
"Removing that gravity element is completely irreplaceable," she said.
Dr Coogan added that as space is used more for various purposes, it's crucial to protect both the space environment and the Earth's environment.
"What we do in space really is for the benefit of Earth," she added.
Regarding satellites, she mentioned that while they play a role in Earth research, scientists must also consider the issue of space debris.
"When we send these new technologies into space it is very much a push now to have an end-of-life plan for the satellite," she said.
"How is it going to be de-orbited or send into a higher orbit where it is out of harms way?"
On Wednesday, Dr Coogan will be speaking to the NI Space Office about her journey as part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival.
"There is a real pull to say yes to these events, particularly when you are engaging with young people," she said.
"School children wrote in and recorded their questions, it is fascinating for me to see what young people are interested in and try my best to give them answers.
"Every now and then there will be a question you'll have never imagined before."
The sight of senior Russian and American officials back around a giant negotiating table is extraordinary.
For many, most of all Ukrainians, it will have been very hard to take.
In Saudi Arabia, Moscow achieved something major: after three years of all-out war on its neighbour and isolation by the West, it was back at the "top table" of global diplomacy.
Not only that, Russia looked for all the world like it was the one calling the shots.
Even as air raid sirens continue to sound across Ukraine, that's exactly the image Moscow wants to project.
This was not a defeated Russia, forced to the negotiating table. It was more like the US inviting the aggressor to set out its terms.
True, US officials went into the process saying they wanted to feel out Russia, check whether it's serious about peace.
But Donald Trump had already drawn his conclusions. Last week, after he spoke to Vladimir Putin by phone, he announced that the Russian leader "wants to see people stop dying".
Trump could have responded by telling him to withdraw all his troops.
Instead, he clearly wants to cut a deal with Moscow to end the war, as he promised voters, and move on.
After more than four hours of talks in Riyadh, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerged to the press and announced the first steps towards negotiations had been agreed, with teams to be formed on both sides.
He'd concluded that Russia was ready to engage in a "serious process" to end the war.
But why was he so sure?
Across the table was Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, still under sanctions for what the US Treasury called Russia's "brutal war of choice".
When Lavrov met the Russian media, he told them the US had proposed a moratorium on attacking energy infrastructure.
"We explained that we have never endangered the civilian energy supply and only target what directly serves Ukraine's military," was the minister's reply.
That's not true.
I have personally walked through the ruins of civilian power plants that have been directly targeted by Russian missiles.
This is the country that the US is attempting to engage with, although there is ample evidence that it can't be trusted.
Russia has also shown zero sign of conceding any ground: why would it, when the Trump administration has already agreed that Ukraine will never join Nato, as Moscow demands, and won't get its occupied land back?
That's why, for Ukraine's allies, it won't only be the image of US and Russian officials seated at the shiny Saudi table that jarred. It's also how they talked.
"Laying the ground" for future investment sounds like a promise of dropping sanctions: no reckoning for Russia's war of aggression, then, just reward.
These are, of course, the earliest of early days.
But in Moscow, officials and state media sense the start of Russia's return to where it believes it belongs: face to face with the US, as an equal.
Rapper A$AP Rocky has been found not guilty of firing a gun at a former friend.
A jury in Los Angeles acquitted the musician, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, on two felony assault charges that carried up to 24 years in prison.
Terell Ephron claimed the Grammy-nominated hip-hop star opened fire at him during an argument on a Hollywood street on 6 November 2021, grazing his knuckles with one of the shots.
Mr Mayers, who is also a fashion mogul and the longtime partner of pop star Rihanna, denied the charges, arguing that the weapon was a prop gun and that his former friend, who calls himself A$AP Relli, was only after money.
As the first not-guilty verdict was read on Tuesday, the court rang with screams and clapping. Mr Mayers rushed to hug his family, who were seated behind him.
He hugged his lawyers and appeared to have tears in his eyes as the second not-guilty verdict was read.
"Thank God for saving my life," Mr Mayers said aloud. He thanked members of the 12-person jury.
The rapper was arrested on the two felony assault charges after a heated argument with his former friend in the heart of Hollywood.
Mr Mayers and Mr Ephron have known each other since high school in New York and were part of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective.
Their relationship eroded over time as A$AP Rocky's career took off.
Authorities said Mr Ephron met Mr Mayers on 6 November 2021, a day after the pair had a disagreement.
They met outside a hotel about a block from the iconic pavement stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
A heated argument ensued.
Mr Mayers was alleged to have whipped out a gun from his waistband and pointed it at Mr Ephron, telling him: "I'll kill you right now."
"He looked me in my eyes and pointed the gun at me," Mr Ephron testified.
Mr Ephron said he told the rapper to fire the weapon, but Mr Mayers started walking away.
As he left, Mr Ephron followed, shouting.
Prosecutors alleged that at this point, Mr Mayers once again pulled out the gun and fired multiple shots, with one bullet said to have grazed Mr Ephron's knuckles.
Much of the trial hinged on whether the firearm in question was a harmless prop gun, as Mr Mayers's defence said, or a real weapon capable of causing harm, as Mr Ephron and prosecutors alleged.
The weapon has not been recovered by authorities.
Jurors were able to watch some footage of the altercation because parts were captured on surveillance video, including audio of gunfire, but no video evidence directly showed any shooting.
Mr Ephron took two days before reporting the incident to authorities and brought shell casings he said he had retrieved from the scene.
But police who responded to reports of a shooting in the area did not locate any shell casings.
Mr Ephron, who said he returned with his girlfriend hours later, said he knew exactly where to look, but no surveillance footage corroborates his account.
He also was not admitted to hospital in Los Angeles and instead went for medical treatment after flying back to New York.
Attorneys for Mr Mayers suggested that Mr Ephron planted the shell casings to frame the rapper.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has called a crisis meeting on Tuesday to weigh whether to remove Mayor Eric Adams from office following a series of overlapping scandals.
A top prosecutor in Manhattan last week alleged the New York City mayor had asked the Trump administration to drop a corruption case against him in exchange for his cooperation on immigration enforcement.
Four of Adams' top deputies, including the first deputy mayor, resigned on Monday after the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against Adams.
The "alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored", Hochul said in a statement.
"In the 235 years of New York State history, these powers have never been utilized to remove a duly-elected mayor; overturning the will of the voters is a serious step that should not be taken lightly," Hochul said.
Adams was indicted last year for allegedly accepting gifts totalling more than $100,000 (£75,000) from Turkish citizens in exchange for favours. He denies the charges. The trial is scheduled for April.
But his administration has been plagued by staff departures and scandals since the charges against him were first announced. A number of members of his orbit have also been charged as a part of the investigation.
The governor's meeting with "key leaders" on Tuesday follows the resignations of four of Adams' top deputies - First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer; Deputy mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom; the deputy mayor for operations, Meera Joshi; and the deputy mayor for public safety, Chauncey Parker.
"I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future," Adams said in a statement after accepting the resignations on Monday.
In a joint statement, Torres-Springer, Joshi and Williams-Isom said they were resigning because of the latest scandal.
"Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles," they said.
Last week, the former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, resigned over pressure from the Justice Department to drop the Adams case.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove argued that the case against Adams had "restricted" the mayor's ability to address "illegal immigration and violent crime" - two of President Donald Trump's key priorities.
Ms Sassoon said dropping the case would set a "breathtaking and dangerous precedent".
Seven other Justice Department officials left before prosecutors eventually filed a motion to drop the case. New York Judge Dale Ho still needs to sign off on the request.
During an interview alongside Trump's border czar Tom Homan last week, Adams denied he had proposed the Justice Department drop the case in exchange for immigration measures, a move Ms Sassoon said amounted to a "quid pro quo".
Adams said the allegations were "silly".
Hochul faced calls to remove Adams after the indictment against him was first unsealed last September, but she did not move to do so then.
Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has announced a new identity for her lifestyle brand, which will be called As Ever.
Despite the social media teasers showing celebrities with pots of jam from Meghan, the previous brand name American Riviera Orchard seems to have reached a sticky end.
On a social media post, Meghan said the newly-named product range would be a joint project with Netflix, which is showing her cooking and lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan next month.
"'As ever' means 'as it's always been' or some even say 'in the same way as always,'" said Meghan's post.
The recorded message, delivered in close-up by Meghan, emphasises the continuity with her former, pre-royal, lifestyle blog, the Tig.
She said that the new venture would be "beautifully weaving together everything I cherish - food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living, and finding joy in the everyday".
Prince Harry, who has been at the Invictus Games in Canada, is heard briefly off-camera in the background of the recording of the Instagram posting. Their three-year-old daughter Lilibet is also seen in the distance, against a sunny Pacific sky, on the accompanying As Ever website.
The previous name American Riviera Orchard had been a reference to the part of California where she lives with Prince Harry - and Meghan said it "limited me to things which were manufactured and grown in this area".
That name had been promoted since April 2024, when celebrities published pictures on Instagram of jars of strawberry jam, in a launch that tried to preserve a sense of mystery.
But there had also been reports of delays because of trademark problems with the original title.
If this latest announcement means the lid is going to come off a new jam war, the Californian contender will be up against Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle Strawberry Preserve, both at £7 and Highgrove Organic Preserve at £6.95.
The new As Ever brand will be a partnership with Netflix, with reports that the TV company is going to open shopping outlets which will sell merchandising connected to its shows.
"Of course there will be fruit preserves, I think we're all clear at this point that jam is my jam," said Meghan.
"But there's so many more products that I just love that I use in my home and now it's time to share it with you, so I can't wait for you to see it."
The launch of Meghan's TV show was delayed by the wildfires in California, with the US state the backdrop for the series, which is expected to be a mix of cooking, hosting tips and celebrity friends and is due to run on Netflix from 4 March.
It is five years since Meghan and Prince Harry stepped down as working royals, becoming financially independent in the United States. Meghan says in her social media post, she has "poured my heart into" this forthcoming product range.
Meghan divides public opinion, with strong reactions on social media from supporters and opponents. Her fans have saluted her independence and creativity, while her opponents have already labelled the brand as "whatever".
Appropriately, she signed off her own post: "As ever, Meghan."
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Doctors are struggling to clear a backlog of civilians and soldiers wounded at the end of January, when the rebels took Goma. The M23 say they "liberated" the city.
The death toll in the fighting was close to 3,000 people, according to a UN estimate.
Four operating rooms are in use - simultaneously - throughout the day and sometimes at night.
"It's been a terrible situation for the doctors," says Myriam Favier of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which supports the hospital.
The medics have been sleeping in the operating theatres, she says.
"Our medical supplies were looted at the very beginning of the escalation of the conflict. And we had an influx that was unseen before - between 100 and 150 patients a day for weeks."
That is now down to about 10 admissions per day, according to Ms Favier, and "right now people are just trying to live again".
Drive around Goma and the streets hum with motorbikes. Many shops are open, and pavement sellers are back with their piles of onions and avocados and tomatoes.
There is little sign of well-armed M23 fighters. They do not stand on street corners. They don't need to. Everyone knows they are in charge.
One local journalist said many in the media are "self- censoring" what they report, waiting to gauge how the new rulers will behave.
One activist told me many were "living in a big silence" because of fear of reprisals by the rebels.
"This is the most worrying period of Goma's history," he said. "I am afraid, the future is very uncertain."
Not according to the M23.
"Expect peace, security, development, job creation… a future with zero refugees, zero corruption, zero hunger," Willy Manzi, a newly appointed M23 vice governor who has recently returned from Canada, posted on the social media platform X.
But a different message was delivered to tens of thousands of people who have sought refuge from fighting in recent years in a network of camps in Goma.
They were given 72 hours to go. The M23 want the camps erased, along with any rival armed groups hiding in them.
"They came and told us, 'You have three days to leave,'" says Divine, 19, who has one child on her hip, and another at her feet.
"We were very scared because we have nowhere to go. Our houses have been destroyed. Hunger is killing us here, but how we can go home to nothing?"
As she speaks a crowd gathers around us. There are silent nods and worried faces.
"They were our enemies and now they are our neighbours," says one man, who asks not to be named.
Home for Divine is Bulengo camp - an expanse of scrappy white tents, perched on dark volcanic rock, surrounded by green hills.
Many of the shelters are little more than scraps of tarpaulin. But the camp was something to cling to - until the M23 ultimatum.
When we visited many were already packing up, salvaging bits of wood and plastic, and rolling up bedding.
After ordering people out the camps the M23 later said they were "encouraging voluntary returns".
It does not feel voluntary to many of the displaced.
Human rights groups say it fits a pattern of abuses by the rebels who they accuse of indiscriminate shelling, gang rape and summary executions.
They level the same accusations at the Congolese army and their allies.
The decades long conflict has its roots - in part - in the Rwanda genocide of 1994, when around 800,000 people, mostly Tutis, were killed by Hutu extremists.
Afterwards many Hutus fled into DR Congo, including some involved the genocide. Rwanda says they remain a threat.
Critics say Kigali has its eye on DR Congo's vast mineral wealth, crucial for much of the world's technology including laptops and mobile phones.
There are growing fears that the scramble for control of these riches could trigger a new regional war, with implications far beyond Africa.
Either way - if history is any guide - the treasures beneath the soil are unlikely to benefit the people here.
Back at Bulengo camp we met Alphonsine, who was leaving with her extended family, bent double with the weight of belongings tied to her back.
She said it would be a two day walk to reach her area, and there was nothing to go back to. Her home had been destroyed.
"How will you survive?" I asked.
"I came from suffering," she said, "and I leave in suffering."
Additional reporting from the BBC's Wietske Burema and Göktay Koraltan.
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
A man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the attempted murder of Japan's former prime minister Fumio Kishida in 2023.
Ryuji Kimura, 25, hurled a pipe bomb at Kishida as the country's leader approached a crowd for a speech during an election event in the city of Wakayama.
Although Kishida was unharmed, the explosion of the homemade device caused minor injuries to a police officer and a member of the public.
The attack shocked Japan as it came less than a year after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead at an outdoor election campaign event.
Kimura, who was sentenced on Wednesday, claimed during questioning his intention was not to kill Kishida, but to object to the country's election age regulation which prevented him from getting into politics.
The minimum age to become a member of parliament in Japan is 25 for the House of Representatives and 30 for the House of Councillors.
Kimura further added that he threw the bomb to bring attention to a civil lawsuit he filed in 2022, claiming the age restriction was unconstitutional, which was dismissed.
Kimura's defence argued he should not face a charge of attempted murder, as he did not expect the bomb to cause injuries, and that a three-year prison sentence would be reasonable given the extent of those injuries.
The court stated, however, that the explosives were powerful enough to cause fatal damage.
When handing down the ruling, presiding judge Keiko Fukushima noted that "targeting a serving prime minister caused significant anxiety to society as a whole."
In addition to the attempted murder charge, Kimura was also found guilty of violating explosives regulations and firearms control laws.
His 10-year sentence is five years less than what prosecutors had sought.
While violent attacks are extremely rare in Japan, anxiety around politicians' security has surged in the wake of Abe's assassination in 2022.
The attempted attack on Kishida, which came less than a year later, raised questions as to why there was not a tighter security presence around the country's leader at that time.
Ireland's goods exports to the United States surged by 34% to €72.6bn (£60.4bn) in 2024 while its imports from the US fell slightly to €22.5bn (£18.7bn).
That meant Ireland had a goods-trade surplus with the US of just over €50bn (£41.6bn), according to the data from Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO).
These trade patterns have gained political significance since Donald Trump regained the US presidency.
He regards countries which have big trade surpluses as taking advantage of the US.
Last week he launched his "fair and reciprocal" plan for trade which could pave the way to large tariffs, or import taxes, on goods from many countries.
Trump mentioned Canada, Taiwan and India as well as describing the EU as being "absolutely brutal on trade".
So far Trump has not given any indication that he would seek to single Ireland out among EU countries.
Irish pharmaceutical manufacturers
Trade policy in the EU is what is known as an "exclusive competence" meaning that only the EU can negotiate trade deals and impose tariffs, rather than individual states.
The major reason for Ireland's trade surplus with the US is the presence of pharmaceutical manufacturers who export most of their Irish output to the US.
The CSO said that in 2024 overall exports of medical and pharmaceutical products rose by 22.4bn or 29% to just under €100bn (£83.1bn).
These products accounted for 45% of all Irish goods exports.
One likely factor for the increase in exports in 2024 is that Eli Lily manufactures its weight loss drug, Zepbound, at a facility in County Cork.
US pharma companies are in Ireland partially because of the country's low corporation tax rate.
The researcher Brad Setser, who works for the US Council on Foreign Relations, has tracked the activities of the pharmaceutical companies.
In 2023, in evidence to the US Congress finance committee, he said: "There is no plausible explanation for the current scale of US imports of pharmaceuticals from Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, and Singapore that isn't tied to tax avoidance."
UK inflation jumped sharply in the year to January, driven by rising food prices, air fares and an increase in private school fees.
The higher-than-expected jump to 3% from 2.5% in December, means prices rose at the fastest pace for 10 months.
Food staples such as meat, eggs, butter and cereals were all more expensive than a year ago and comes as many households prepare for higher energy and water bills later this year.
Following the latest figures, the government warned that the road back to low inflation would be "bumpy", but the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats argued Labour's tax rises and spending plans had caused the latest spike.
Rising food prices last month mean, on average, the cost of buying groceries is 3.3% more expensive than it was a year ago.
While many staples have edged up in price, some items such as olive oil and lamb have increased markedly, by 17% and 16% respectively.
The rise in inflation, which is a measure used to give a general picture of how living costs have changed over a year, comes ahead of predicted increases to energy bills in April.
Water and council tax bills are also slated to rise in two months' time, which will push up the cost of living for households.
The government has raised the minimum wage for all age groups from April. Benefits and the state pension will also increase.
But some businesses have warned that higher pay, as well as a rise in National Insurance, will mean increased prices for customers as companies attempt to cover increased costs.
"Life is a struggle"
"Life is a struggle," said Gaby Cowley. The young mum told the BBC that she could already "barely make both ends meet" but food prices are now "ridiculous" – something that keeps her up at night.
"Food shopping has almost doubled from about three years ago," she said. "We spend, maybe, a minimum of £90 a month now and that doesn't include £20-£30 topping up during the week with fruit, veg and milk."
If there is more money going out than coming in, Ms Cowley said she will sell her baby's old clothes "just to make a little bit of money to do things".
She hopes the rise in minimum wage will see her pay go up, although she thinks the struggle is far from over.
As well as food, inflation was fuelled last month by plane tickets. Air fares tend to rise into December and fall into January, but the drop was less than in previous years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It also said that private school fees grew by about 13% at the beginning of the year due to VAT being added from 1 January after the government removed the tax exemption.
The sharper rise in inflation - it had been expected to climb to 2.8% - has also led to speculation over how the Bank of England will react in terms of interest rates.
High inflation in recent years, peaking at 11.1% in October 2022, saw the bank raise interest rates, which pushed up the cost of loans, credit cards and mortgages.
As price rises have eased, borrowing costs have fallen and the Bank decided to cut rates earlier this month to 4.5%.
But with the rate remaining above the Bank's 2% target, some economists suggest further cuts could be made at a slower pace.
Professor Jonathan Haskel, a former member of the Bank of England's interest rate-setting committee, told the BBC that policymakers could "take no signal" from the inflation spike and carry on cutting rates gradually or view it as a "harbinger of more to come" and change course.
Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said because the VAT charge on private schools came into effect last month, the impact on inflation was a "one-off".
But Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the threat of higher wage bills for supermarkets and producers meant there was "every chance" food price rises in January would not be the last.
"This is on top of rises in everything from water bills and council tax - which is why it has become known as Awful April," she said.
James Murray, exchequer secretary to the Treasury, admitted that getting inflation back down to the 2% target would be "bumpy".
"We are in a different world than we were a few years ago under the previous government, where inflation was routinely double digits," he said.
"The Bank of England has been clear that they expected inflation to be slightly higher in the first half of this year....but we're confident in our plan for change to make sure that we're kick-starting economic growth by making the reforms that are necessary to boost economic growth right across the country," he added.
But shadow chancellor Mel Stride said Labour's "tax hikes and inflation-busting pay rises" were to blame for the scale of January's rise.
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey added: "The chancellor's misguided policies are putting us at risk of a new era of stagflation. The economy still isn't growing, and now people are being hit in their pockets too."
Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said January's figure would be "uncomfortable" for the Bank of England, but said she doubted it would prevent further rate cuts.
"The risk is that the rise in inflation proves more persistent and rates are cut more slowly than we expect, or not as far," she added.
Depending on how you read it, New Zealand's latest tourism tagline can be a well-meaning plea for people to visit - or a threat to kick Kiwis out.
"Everyone Must Go!" reads a slogan printed across posters of people in New Zealand's majestic landscapes - part of a NZ$500,000 ($285,000; £227,000) campaign unveiled on Sunday.
But what was meant as a catchy call to action aimed at Australian tourists has been accused of being tone-deaf, as New Zealand deals with record emigration rates and unemployment.
The government has defended the campaign, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon saying he "[appreciates] there's lots of chat about whether everyone loves the slogan or not".
"The fact that we're talking about it is a good thing. It's a great thing," he added.
Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, tourism spokesperson for the opposition Labour Party, told local news outlet Radio New Zealand (RNZ) that the new slogan "makes New Zealand sound like we're in a clearance bin at a sale".
"The irony of that messaging is, that's how Aotearoa New Zealanders are feeling right now," she said, pointing to the "many cuts" that residents have experienced.
Job cuts to the public sector over the past year, as part of the government's austerity push, have affected thousands of people.
Meanwhile, people are moving out of the country in record numbers. Official figures show that there were nearly 130,000 departures last year - though that was offset by the arrival of nearly 160,000 immigrants.
"New Zealanders are voting with their feet, leaving in record high numbers," Labour MP Barbara Edmonds wrote on X on Monday. "Is their real tourism plan 'Everyone Must Go' - for Kiwis?"
Others associated the slogan with demand for lavatories.
"I think 'Everyone Must Go' might refer to the need for toilets in some of our high-tourist spots. I mean, the queues are ridiculous," Green Party MP Celia Wade-Brown told RNZ.
"They don't go kayaking, they don't go diving, but, my goodness, they queue at the toilets."
Tourism minister Louise Upston said in a statement on Sunday that "the campaign tagline of 'Everyone must go' lets Australia know that New Zealand is a 'must visit' destination, and that we're ready and waiting to welcome them now".
New Zealand's tourism numbers have yet to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, and authorities are channelling efforts into attracting visitors from neighbouring Australia, its largest source of tourists.
Last year, New Zealand welcomed more than 1.2 million visitors from Australia. But Upston said visitors numbers were only 88% of that in 2019.
Luxon said he hoped the latest campaign would boost Australian visitor numbers by 5%.
"It would be totally and utterly tragic if those Australians don't get here before they do die," he said.
The month-long tourism campaign is set to start on Thursday.
In Japan, there's a word to describe a shelf full of books you've bought but never read - tsundoku.
Video gaming has its own version of this.
The backlog.
Most console or PC owners probably have one - an ever-growing collection of unfinished or even unplayed titles.
There are websites allowing players to catalogue their digital cabinets of shame, and Reddit support groups sharing tips on how to shrink them.
It's a thing. And a symptom of a potentially bigger problem.
More games are being released than ever before, and blockbuster releases in particular have been getting longer.
Some estimates suggest that as few as 10% of those who buy a game make it to the end.
But are things starting to change?
Of the top 10 best-reviewed games since 2020, according to review aggregator Metacritic, five are estimated to take at least 60 hours to complete.
Analyst Rhys Elliott, from Midia Research says the trend towards longer games has been "an insidious creep over time".
"Games got bigger each year, and then, over the span of 10 years it's been an insane jump in game length."
Rhys uses the popular Assassin's Creed series as an example.
Earlier sequels would take about 25 to 30 hours to finish. But 2020 release Assassin's Creed Valhalla, could take anything from 60 to 100-plus hours.
On paper, more game for your money sounds like a great deal.
But Rhys says games take longer and cost more than ever to make while the price players are charged for them hasn't gone up as much.
Based on public data from major console makers and on PC store Steam, Rhys found that the longer a game is, the lower the number of players who finish it.
"And this suggests that the growing development timelines and budgets that are fuelling these longer games have reached a point of diminishing returns," he says.
Rhys has previously published research arguing that companies would be better off making shorter games.
"If game developers cut the length of a game like Assassin's Creed by 20%, most players would never notice."
There is another option - give players a choice.
Carrie Patel is the game director of Avowed - released on Xbox and PC this week - at developer Obsidian.
The Microsoft-owned studio has a long history in the role-playing game (RPG) genre, and has been behind hits including The Outer Worlds and Fallout: New Vegas.
RPGs generally take dozens of hours to finish, but Carrie says the studio has tried to design Avowed to accommodate players who might want a shorter game.
"I've definitely heard a sentiment on many of our teams, and from our player base, of: 'Oh, good! A game I can actually finish'," she says.
Reviewers have suggested a quick playthrough of Avowed will take about 15 hours, and completing all its extra optional content will take 40 or more.
That's in line with some of the studio's previous titles, but with Avowed the developers have been keen to point out it's a game that "respects player's time".
"We know everybody has plenty of options, plenty of things to do with their time," says Carrie.
"So we want everything that they find in our games to feel worth their time."
Games don't have to contain hundreds of hours of content for them to be big hits.
Some fans complained when they learned that 2023 PS5 title Spider-Man 2 - a full-priced release - could be fully completed in just under 30 hours.
But the game reviewed well and broke a sales record for Sony - a case of quality over-riding quantity.
It's an approach that chimes with Carrie.
"I don't think most people are looking for something just to kill a few hours," she says.
"They want a really immersive, valuable experience."
Analyst Rhys says this is a "smart" approach.
"If you just want to blast through it, you can go for it, and you still get the full experience.
"And I think we'll probably see a little bit more of this kind of experimentation going forward."
Which begs the question - why do companies make them so long in the first place?
Even with a game like Avowed, a good number of players will see only a fraction of what the game has to offer.
Carrie admits: "There's always this little voice in the back of your head that says: 'But what about the players who are going to skip this?'
"And so you always want to make sure that you have those exit ramps for people who are less interested in getting into the weeds.
"But I can make sure that the people who are going to look for it, who are going to engage with it are going to have the best possible time with it."
MPs are challenging stereotypes around older people stockpiling wealth as younger generations struggle.
A report from the Commons' women and equalities committee is calling for action to tackle age discrimination, which MPs describe as widespread in the UK.
They criticise depictions of baby boomers - those born between 1946 and 1964 and now in their 60s and 70s - as either frail or enjoying a life of luxury at the expense of their children and grandchildren.
The report also hits out at what the authors say was a failure by previous governments to address digital exclusion of older people as services, particularly around banking and health, increasingly move online.
The UK's population continues to get older overall, with 11 million people in England and Wales now aged over 65, and more than half a million people aged over 90.
However, the Commons report highlights evidence that ageist stereotyping is still highly prevalent across all media in the UK, including "portrayals of older people as frail, helpless or incompetent, or conversely as wealth-hoarding 'boomers'".
Research from the Centre for Ageing Better found that this type of generational stereotyping contributes to the "othering" of older people, causing "divisive and "harmful tensions in society".
An example might be the "OK Boomer" meme used to dismiss older people's opinions by suggesting they are out of touch.
The Commons committee wants to see a crackdown on these sorts of stereotypes by watchdogs including the Advertising Standards Authority and the broadcast media regulator Ofcom.
Some older people are also still at high risk of "digital exclusion", MPs believe, because they do not have the skills to access online banking, council or GP services - despite the government launching a digital inclusion strategy 10 years ago.
Latest figures from Ofcom say nearly one-in-three people (29%) aged over 75 do not have access to the internet at home, compared to roughly one-in-16 (6%) of all adults.
The Commons report concludes that existing laws against age discrimination are too weak and "failing older people" because they are rarely enforced, despite evidence of the harm such attitudes cause.
Committee chair Sarah Owen, a Labour MP for Luton North, said it was time for a review of how to shrink the UK's "pervasively ageist culture" and bring in enforcement with teeth.
"It is a considerable failure of government that the digital inclusion strategy has not been updated, nor progress tracked, for a decade," she said.
"Ultimately much more must be done to tackle ageist attitudes and discrimination across society, including in access to healthcare, local services, banking and transport."
Owen is calling for the UK government to follow the Welsh example of establishing a commissioner for older people alongside community champions to deliver a national strategy.
South Korea has accused Chinese AI startup DeepSeek of sharing user data with the owner of TikTok in China.
"We confirmed DeepSeek communicating with ByteDance," the South Korean data protection regulator told Yonhap News Agency.
The country had already removed DeepSeek from app stores over the weekend over data protection concerns.
The Chinese app caused shockwaves in the AI world in January, wiping billions off global stock markets over claims its new model was trained at a much lower cost than US rivals such as ChatGPT.
Since then, multiple countries have warned that user data may not be properly protected, and in February a US cybersecurity company alleged potential data sharing between DeepSeek and ByteDance.
DeepSeek's apparent overnight impact saw it shoot to the top of App Store charts in the UK, US and many other countries around the world - although it now sits far below ChatGPT in UK rankings.
In South Korea, it had been downloaded over a million times before being pulled from Apple and Google's App Stores on Saturday evening.
Existing users can still access the app and use it on a web browser.
The data regulator, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), told South Korea's Yonhap News Agency that despite finding a link between DeepSeek and ByteDance, it was "yet to confirm what data was transferred and to what extent".
Critics of the Chinese state have long argued its National Intelligence Law allows the government to access any data it wants from Chinese companies.
However, ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, is owned by a number of global investors - and others say the same law allows for the protection of private companies and personal data.
Fears over user data being sent to China was one of the reasons the US Supreme Court upheld a ban on TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance.
The US ban is on hold until 5 April as President Donald Trump attempts to broker a resolution.
'Exercise caution'
Cybersecurity company Security Scorecard published a blog on DeepSeek on 10 February which suggested "multiple direct references to ByteDance-owned" services.
"These references suggest deep integration with ByteDance's analytics and performance monitoring infrastructure," it said in its review of DeepSeek's Android app.
Security Scorecard expressed concern that along with privacy risks, DeepSeek "user behaviour and device metadata [are] likely sent to ByteDance servers".
It also found data "being transmitted to domains linked to Chinese state-owned entities".
On Monday, South Korea's PIPC said it "found out traffic generated by third-party data transfers and insufficient transparency in DeepSeek's privacy policy".
It said DeepSeek was cooperating with the regulator, and acknowledged it had failed to to take into account South Korean privacy laws.
But the regulator advised users "exercise caution and avoid entering personal information into the chatbot".
South Korea has already followed a number of countries such as Australia and Taiwan in banning DeepSeek from government devices.
The BBC has contacted the PIPC, ByteDance and DeepSeek's parent company, High Flyer, for a response.
Argentine President Javier Milei has denied promoting a newly launched cryptocurrency which collapsed shortly after he mentioned it in a social media post on Friday.
The cryptocoin $Libra quickly rose in value before nosediving, causing severe losses for the majority of people who had invested in it.
A judge will now determine if the president should face fraud charges over the incident.
On Monday, Milei said he had acted "in good faith" and dismissed investors' complaints, comparing their actions to people who gamble: "If you go to a casino and lose money, what's there to complain about when you knew the risks?"
President Milei spoke about the $Libra incident in an interview with Argentine TV channel Todo Noticias on Monday, after a weekend during which he had stayed unusually quiet on social media.
He insisted that his post on X, which contained a link to a site selling $Libra, did not constitute an endorsement.
"I didn't promote it, I merely shared it," he told Todo Noticias' Jonny Viale.
Milei's post, which he deleted after just a few hours, drew heavy criticism not just from his political rivals in Argentina but also from those who had invested in the cryptocurrency.
Some have argued the $Libra launch resembled a "rug pull" - where promoters draw in buyers, only to stop trading activity and make off with the money raised from sales.
The presidential office insisted that Milei was in no way involved in the development of $Libra and announced that the Anti-Corruption Office would determine if the president had acted improperly.
Milei himself defended deleting his post, saying that at the time he did not know "the details of the project and after learning about it, I decided not to continue promoting it".
Opposition politicians, however, have not been placated by the statements, threatening to start impeachment proceedings against Milei.
While political analysts point out that the opposition is unlikely to get the votes needed for an impeachment trial to go ahead, the scandal threatens to divert Milei's attention away from his radical reform agenda.
A federal judge has been tasked with deciding whether fraud allegations brought against the president by a number of plaintiffs should go ahead.
In his TV interview, Milei appeared combative, stressing that he had "nothing to hide".
He also said that those who had invested in $Libra had done so "voluntarily" and knew of the risks.
"It's like playing Russian roulette and getting the bullet."
In Tulsi, a village in central India, social media has sparked an economic and social revolution. It's a microcosm of YouTube's effect on the world.
As villagers head into the fields of Tulsi, a village outside Raipur in central India, on a muggy September morning, 32-year-old YouTuber Jai Varma asks a group of women to join him for his latest video. They gather around him – adjusting their sarees and sharing a quick word and a smile.
Varma places an elderly woman on a plastic chair, asks another to touch her feet and a third to serve water, staging a scene of a rural village festival for fans who will enjoy his content from cities and countries thousands of kilometres away. The women, familiar with this kind of work, are happy to oblige. Varma captures the moment, and they return to their farmwork.
A few hundred metres away, another group is busy setting up their own production. One holds up a mobile phone, filming as 26-year-old Rajesh Diwar moves to the rhythm of a hip-hop track, his hands and body animated in the expressive style of a seasoned performer.
Tulsi is like any other Indian village. The small outpost in the central state of Chhattisgarh is home to one-storey houses and partially paved roads. A water storage tank peers out above the buildings, overseeing the town. Banyan trees with concrete bases serve as gathering spots. But what sets Tulsi apart is its distinction as India's "YouTube Village".
Some 4,000 people live in Tulsi, and reports suggest more than 1,000 of them work on YouTube in some capacity. Walk around the village itself and it's hard to find someone who hasn't appeared in one of the many videos being filmed there.
The money that YouTube brings has transformed the local economy, locals say, and beyond financial benefits, the social media platform has become an instrument for equality and social change. The residents who've launched successful YouTube channels and found new streams of income include a number of women who previously had few opportunities for advancement in this rural setting. Under the banyan trees, conversations have turned to technology and the internet.
February 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of YouTube. Approximately 2.5 billion people use the platform per month by some estimates, and India is one of YouTube's biggest markets by far. Over the decades, YouTube has changed not only the web but the entire way we think about creating and consuming human culture. In a way, Tulsi village is a microcosm of YouTube's effect on the world itself, where for some, their entire lives revolve around online videos.
"It is keeping the children away from bad habits and crime," says Netram Yadav, 49, a farmer in Tulsi and one of the many admirers of the village's burgeoning social media scene. "These content creators have made everyone in the village proud for what they have been able to achieve and do."
A social media revolution
Tulsi's Youtube transformation started back in 2018, when Varma and his friend Gyanendra Shukla launched a YouTube channel called Being Chhattisgarhiya."We were not content with our routine lives, and wanted to do something that would allow our creative juices to flow," Varma says.
Their third video, about a young couple being harassed on Valentines Day by members of Bajrang Dal, a right wing Hindu nationalist group, was the first to go viral. The mix of comedy and social commentary struck a chord. “The video was humorous, but it also had a message, and we left it open for viewers to interpret," Varma says.
The duo gained tens of thousands of followers in a matter of months, a number that's since spread to over 125,000 subscribers and a cumulative viewership exceeding 260 million. Their families' concerns about dedicating so much time to social media were silenced when the money started flowing in. "We were earning over 30,000 rupees [about £278 or $346] a month, and were able to support the team members who helped us," Shukla says. He and Varma left their jobs to pursue YouTube full-time.
Their success was soon an inspiration to other Tulsi residents. Shukla says his team paid their actors and even provided training for others in editing and script writing. Some villagers created their own channels, while others were content to volunteer.
It was enough to attract attention from local officials. Impressed by the success of the village content creators, the state government established a state-of-the-art studio in the village in 2023. Sarveshwar Bhure, former collector – a senior civil servant – of the Raipur district which includes Tulsi, says he saw the village's YouTube work as an opportunity to address the digital divide. "I wanted to bridge the gap between rural and urban life by providing this studio," Bhure says. "Their videos are impactful, with strong themes, and have reached millions. Setting up a studio was a way to motivate them."
The bet paid off. YouTube has created a livelihood for hundreds of young people in the village, Bhure says. It's stoking a regional entertainment industry and launching some Tulsi YouTubers out of their small-town life.
From the cellphones to the big screen
Of all the social media stars born in Tulsi's YouTube frenzy, none has risen higher than 27-year-old Pinky Sahoo. Growing up in a remote village built around agriculture, Sahoo's aspirations of becoming an actress and dancer felt like a distant fantasy – thanks especially to disapproval from family and neighbours who saw acting as taboo.
Despite their criticism, Sahoo started posting dance videos on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Her breakthrough came when the founders of Being Chhattisgarhiya spotted her videos and recruited her for their own productions. "It was a dream come true," Sahoo recalls. "They recognised my talent and honed my skills.”
The momentum continued as her work with Being Chattisgarhiya caught the attention of local filmmakers in Chattisgarh's regional cinema business, and Sahoo was cast in her first movie role. She's since appeared in seven films. Anand Manikpuri, a producer and director in the nearby city of Bilaspur, was impressed by her YouTube performances. "I was looking for a fresh face who could act, and Sahoo had it all," he says.
Tulsi resident Aditya Bhagel was still in college when, inspired by Varma and Shukla, he decided to start his own channel. Adapting their techniques, he grew to over 20,000 followers within a year and started earning money from YouTube. Eventually, Varma recruited him for a writing and directing job on the Being Chattisgarhiya team. "It was like meeting celebrities," Bhagel says, recalling his first meeting with Varma and Shukla.
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A job in the production house in the nearby city of Raipur soon followed, where he was hired based on his YouTube work. That streak continued when Bhagel landed a role as a scriptwriter and assistant director for an upcoming, big-budget movie titled Kharun Paar. "I can only hope that one day I get to work in tinsel town," he says.
Yet another YouTuber turned cinema professional is 38-year-old Manoj Yadav. He had his first acting role as a child, portraying a young Lord Rama in an annual reenactment of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. Yadav never imagined that those claps would one day echo in cinema halls across Chhattisgarh.
After years of showcasing his talent in YouTube videos, Yadav landed a role in a regional film, one that earned widespread praise for his acting skills. Today, Yadav has not only made a name for himself but built an entire livelihood through his craft. "None of this would have been possible without YouTube," he says "I can't put my feelings into words."
Empowering women
In Tulsi, YouTube has paved the way for women to take centre stage in this technological revolution.
According to Draupadi Vaishnu, the former Sarpanch, or village head of Tulsi, YouTube can play a crucial role in challenging biases and changing societal norms in India, where domestic abuse remains a prevalent issue. "It's common for women to perpetuate [misogynistic practices], especially in how they treat their daughters-in-law. These videos help break those cycles," Vaishnu says.
Recently the 61-year-old starred in a video addressing the subject. "I was glad to take on that role because it promoted the importance of treating women with respect and equality, a value I championed during my time as village head," she says.
Rahul Varma (no relation to Jai Varma), a 28-year old wedding photographer who learned the art from YouTube from his fellow villagers, says the platform has been transformative. "At first, our mothers and sisters were just helping out. Now, they're running their own channels. It's not something we would have imagined before," he says. Even his 15-year-old nephew assists the village content creators, Varma says. "It is a serious business here, everyone participates."
There was an explosion of rural content creators in India during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly on TikTok, before India banned the app in 2020. That initial wave was primarily driven by men, says Shriram Venkatraman, an adjunct professor of digital anthropology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. However, there are a lot more women running successful social media channels post pandemic, Venkatraman says, and that's created new economic opportunities.
"The amount of global connections that it has brought about is transformative, to say the least," he says, for both men and women. "Some even start other businesses from YouTube using their subscribers and content consumers as their initial customer base, for example, hair oil and homemade spices/masalas."
But for some, money is beside the point. "I love contributing to the videos produced by my village’s channels, and I do it without expecting anything in return," says 56-year-old Ramkali Varma (also no relation to Jai Varma), a homemaker who has emerged as the go-to actress for roles portraying loving mothers, making her one of the village's most sought-after talents.
Ramkali's acting roles often address gender issues. A favourite was a supportive mother-in-law who encourages her daughter-in-law to pursue further education, she says. "I've been able to advocate for women's education and success. Acting brings me satisfaction and peace of mind."
Now a successful and self-reliant actress, Sahoo hopes to inspire other young girls. "If I can achieve my dreams, they can too," she says, reflecting on the pride of watching her performance on the big screen with her father. In Tulsi, Sahoo has become a role model for young women. "Seeing girls dream big and aim high is the most rewarding part of my journey. There are girls now who aspire to become filmmakers," she says.
As the sun sets over Tulsi, Diwar and his team work tirelessly to perfect their hip hop beats. "Switching from content creation to rap music hasn't been easy," says Diwar, whose channel's name is Lethwa Raja, which loosely translates to "Amazing King".
Diwar hopes YouTube can be a vector for other cultural shifts for his people. "Not many people rap in our language, but I believe I can change that," he says. "I want to bring a new sound to our region and make Tulsi known for its music as much as its videos."
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Zeeshan Ali has been a drag artist for 10 years and has taken his show all over India.
Central to his performance is a collection of around 45 wigs.
“It’s an alter of identity, helping me transition from my everyday self into exaggerated, glamorous or whimsical characters. The right wig makes me feel more authentic and empowers me to command the stage," says Ali, who is based in Mumbai.
But getting that look right wasn't easy in the early days.
"When I started my career the accessibility of the wigs was extremely difficult in India. Most of them were to be sourced from abroad or I used to make wigs sourced from whatever was available to me like wool, fabric," he says.
But things are different now.
“The trend is changing. Wigs are no longer just meant for drag or movie artists, but many straight women wear wigs to look different. It's no longer just a hair accessory but a style statement.”
Indian hair has always been in demand for wig-making. The nation is the world's biggest exporter of human hair, supplying 85% of global demand.
Kolachi Venkatesh, based in Avadi, Chennai, has been collecting hair for 20 years. He started at the bottom of the industry as a picker - collecting hair from households and rescuing it from the rubbish.
“My parents were hair pickers and then I started doing the same," he says.
Hair collected by pickers from homes, salons and barbershops is called non-Remy hair.
It requires more processing than Remy hair, which is carefully shaved straight from the scalp. Nevertheless, it has value.
"It’s just thrown away but it's gold," says Mr Venkatesh.
Those pickers typically sell hair to local traders like Mr Venkatesh for between 10 cents and $1 (£0.80) per kilogram, depending on the quality and length of the hair.
Shorter or damaged hair fetches less, while longer strands bring higher prices.
For the individual picker, there's not much money in it.
“A diligent collector might gather 1–5 kilograms of hair in a day, earning anywhere from 59 cents to $6 per day. This income level is often below minimum wage standards, particularly in rural areas,” says Mr Venkatesh, who has 50 pickers working for him.
“While our work contributes to a billion-dollar global market our earnings remain meagre. Intermediaries control prices.”
Most of the Indian hair collected by traders like Mr Venkatesh is exported to China where it is made into wigs.
“China has a huge wigmaking industry which is worth five to six billion dollars," says Benjamin Cherian from Plexconcil, the hair industry body that promotes the Indian industry and liaises with the government.
If India wants a slice of the lucrative wig market, he says, then it has a lot of catching up to do.
"When we look at China there are hundreds of factories spread across the country which add value to the hair industry, whereas in India the value addition still needs to be picked up,” Mr Cherian says.
He says the government needs to help promote investment in the hair industry.
"It needs automated sorting systems, sophisticated hair treatment procedures for the hair collected, innovative production techniques for manufacturing of wigs which will make India stand out.”
Instead of exporting hair for hundreds of dollars, India should be selling wigs worth thousands of dollars says Mr Cherian.
“We have started working on it but it’s a long way to go. We need to have research and training centres," he says.
One Indian business trying to make inroads is Delhi-based Diva Divine Hair, co-founded by Krishan Jalani in 2019.
It is currently managed by chief executive and co-founder Nidhi Tiwari.
The idea was to create high-quality hair extensions and wigs that would appeal to a broader range of customers.
"There is a growing need for these solutions due to rising issues of hair loss and thinning among women in India," says Ms Tiwari.
The company has been helped by a shift in attitude.
"Once considered a niche or taboo topic, wigs and extensions are now openly discussed, thanks to evolving social norms and a shift toward acceptance," she says.
Wigs have also seen a lot of development making them more attractive and comfortable.
"Technologies such as 3D-printed wigs and digital colour-matching tools offer highly personalised options. Lightweight, breathable wig caps and improved adhesives have given customers to wear it for long time without discomfort," says Ms Tiwari.
At the top end of the hair market is Temple or Remy hair.
Much of the supply comes from Hindu temples in the south of the country where hair is shaved off in an act of veneration and faith.
Raj Hair International is one of the biggest traders in the Temple hair business.
Craftsmen at the company's Chennai factory sort and grade the hair according to colour, texture and length.
"Remy hair has aligned cuticles, hair flows uniformly in one direction, which leads to less tangling and a silkier texture. This is high-value hair," says George Cherion, the company's chief executive.
The firm tries to waste as little of the hair as possible. To help with that it developed a machine to untangle the hair. It's allowed them to work faster with fewer staff.
"Our mission is to constantly upgrade the technology," says Mr Cherion.
Business is booming.
"Indian human is in demand globally due to its high quality, natural look, and thinness. The demand is skyrocketing," he says.
Back in Mumbai Zeeshan Ali wants to see more Indian wigs on the market.
As well as making them more affordable, he has a design suggestion: "A wig that can create a wow factor."
The US government is trying to rehire nuclear safety employees it had fired on Thursday, after concerns grew that their dismissal could jeopardise national security, US media reported.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) workers were among hundreds of employees in the energy department who received termination letters.
The department is responsible for designing, building and overseeing the US nuclear weapons stockpile.
The terminations are part of a massive effort by President Donald Trump to slash the ranks of the federal workforce, a project he began on his first day in office, less than a month ago.
US media reported that more than 300 NNSA staff were let go, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
That number was disputed by a spokesperson for the Department of Energy, who told CNN that "less than 50 people" were dismissed from NNSA.
The Thursday layoffs included staff stationed at facilities where weapons are built, according to CNN.
The Trump administration has since tried to reverse their terminations, according to media outlets, but has reportedly struggled to reach the people that were fired after they were locked out of their federal email accounts.
A memo sent to NNSA employees on Friday and obtained by NBC News read: "The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel."
"Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people's personal contact emails," the memo added.
Last week, nearly 10,000 federal workers were let go across several agencies, according to multiple US outlets.
That figure was in addition to the estimated 75,000 workers who have accepted an offer from the White House to leave voluntarily in the autumn.
Trump is working to slash spending across the board, abroad and at home, and going so far as to call for eliminating the education department.
He is getting help from the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who, through an effort called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), has sent workers to comb through data at federal agencies and helped implement the "buyout" offer.
Last week, the Trump administration ordered agencies to fire nearly all probationary employees, those who had generally been in their positions for less than a year and not yet earned job protection. That included the NNSA staff members.
Altogether, the move could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of people.
Several of the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the government's size and spending have been met with legal challenges.
More than 60 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration since the president was inaugurated on 20 January.
The Trump administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC.
Several hundreds of the agency's probationary workers received the news via email late on Friday night, head of Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union Alex Spero said in a statement.
Spero called the firings "shameful" and said they "will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin".
The agency "has retained employees who perform safety critical functions", the FAA said in a statement.
Average wages are continuing to outpace inflation with pay packets rising for both the public and private sector workers, official figures show.
Pay, after taking into account the pace of price rises, rose 3.4% between October and December compared with the same period a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The UK's unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.4%, although the ONS has advised that its jobs figures should be treated with caution because of low response rates to its employment survey.
The figures follow warnings from businesses that they are planning to cut workforces and raise prices ahead of higher employment costs in April.
Employers have raised concerns that paying more in National Insurance, along with minimum wages rising and business rates relief being reduced, could hit pay rises going forward and also affect investment.
Without taking account of inflation, the ONS said annual pay growth, excluding bonuses, was 5.9% from October to December. which was up from the previous figure of 5.6%.
Earnings growth for the private sector was 6.2%, while for the public sector it was 4.7%.
The UK's inflation rate, which measures the rate consumer prices rise at over time, was 2.5% in the year to December, but is predicted to rise again as a result of higher energy and water bills.
Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said she expected a "steady downward trend" in pay growth in the coming months.
Some economists suggested that a small rise in private sector wages, which are closely watched by the Bank of England when making decisions on interest rates, would not result in policymakers changing their approach to "gradual" reductions in borrowing costs.
Earlier this month, the Bank cut interest rates to 4.5% from 4.75%.
Rob Wood, of Pantheon Macroeconomics, said rate setters would remain "cautious" on rate cuts following the recent wage growth figures.
Ms Selfin said the latest employment figures indicated that hiring intentions by businesses had "weakened significantly".
She said the hospitality and retail sectors were expected to be "disproportionately affected" by the incoming cost hikes due to them employing a higher proportion of lower-wage workers.
"There is a limit to how much additional cost business can absorb without employment and investment opportunities being damaged," added Jane Gratton, deputy director Public Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce said.
"The government must do all it can to minimise costs for business and ensure they have access to a skilled and healthy workforce."
From April, employers will have to pay National Insurance at 15% on salaries above £5,000, instead of 13.8% on salaries above £9,100 at the moment.
The Treasury has repeatedly said its Budget measures will deliver stability businesses need to invest and grow, but there are concerns that firms cutting back will impact UK economic growth, which is the government's main priority in its effort to improve living standards.
A recent survey of UK employers suggested companies could raise their prices to cover the increased costs.
If firms do raise prices, there is a risk it could feed through to further increases in inflation in the coming months, and place more pressure on household budgets.
Total estimated vacancies were down by 110,000 (11.8%) from a year ago, according to the ONS, but remain above pre-Covid levels. It also estimated that the number of UK workers on payrolls rose by 21,000 during January to 30.4 million.
Chris Eldridge, chief executive of UK, Ireland and North America at the recruitment firm Robert Walters, said it was case of "wait and see what happens" in the jobs market in the early months of 2025.
"The first big test is going to be at the end of the quarter [in March] when we see the National Insurance changes kicking in and also we've got this backdrop of the Employment Rights bill where we're still waiting to see what's happened there," he added.
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Argentine President Javier Milei is facing impeachment calls - and legal action accusing him of fraud - over his promotion of cryptocurrency on social media.
Milei posted on X, formerly Twitter, about the $LIBRA coin on Friday, which he said would help fund small businesses and start-ups.
He shared a link to buy it, causing its price to shoot up. But within a few hours, he deleted his post and the cryptocurrency nosedived in value, losing investors most of their money.
Some opposition members of Congress say they plan to start proceedings to impeach Milei. Meanwhile, lawyers filed complaints of fraud in Argentina's criminal court on Sunday.
Some people online have accused Milei of what is known as a "rug pull" - where promoters of a cryptocurrency draw in buyers, only to stop trading activity and make off with the money raised from sales. They pointed out that the link used to buy the coins referenced a phrase the president uses in his speeches.
But Argentina's presidential office said on Saturday that the decision to remove the post was to avoid "speculation" following public reaction to the launch of the cryptocurrency.
It said Milei was not involved in the cryptocurrency's development, and that the government's Anti-Corruption Office would investigate and determine whether anyone had acted improperly, including the president himself.
Jonatan Baldiviezo, one of the plaintiffs who filed the legal action, told Associated Press "the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president's actions were essential".
Milei's political opponents have jumped on the opportunity.
Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is now in opposition, was heavily critical, calling him a "crypto scammer" in a post seen 6.4 million times.
For its part, the country's main opposition coalition said it would file a request to impeach the president, calling it an "unprecedented scandal".
Esteban Paulón, a member of the opposition Socialist Party, said in a post on X that he would also request the start of impeachment proceedings.
Meta has announced plans to build a 50,000km (31,000 mile) sub-sea cable across the world.
The tech giant said Project Waterworth - connecting the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions - will be the world's longest underwater cable project when completed.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has sought to extend its presence in technology beyond social media, including in artificial intelligence (AI) and the infrastructure that supports it.
It said its new cable project would provide "industry-leading connectivity" to five major continents and help support its AI projects.
"This project will enable greater economic co-operation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions," Meta said in a blog post.
The cable would be the longest to date that uses a 24 fibre-pair system, giving it a higher capacity, according to the firm.
Sub-sea cables have become increasingly important as they provide the means to power a variety of digital services and transfer data worldwide at speed.
One regularly-cited statistic suggests more than 95% of the world's internet traffic is transferred through undersea cables.
Telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography says there are currently more than 600 publicly-known sub-sea cable systems worldwide.
This includes the 2Africa cable, backed by Meta and mobile network operators such as Orange, Vodafone and China Mobile, which links three continents and spans 45,000km.
Tech's bigger stake
Tech firms that serve as major providers of web services have invested huge sums in cable infrastructure.
Google said in 2024 it would build the first sub-sea cable connecting Africa and Australia, and announced a $1bn investment to boost connectivity to Japan with two new sub-sea cables in the Pacific Ocean.
"Over the past decade there has been a shift in which these cables are increasingly laid by large technology companies," Professor Vili Lehdonvirta of the Oxford Internet Institute told the BBC.
He said this is in contrast to the past, where underwater cables were laid and financed by large groups of national telecoms firms, due to their considerable investment needs.
Prof Lehdonvirta said this reflects the growing size and position of big tech firms to be able to fund such infrastructure independently - something that "may be significant to policy makers concerned with concentration in digital markets".
Telecoms and technology industry analyst Paolo Pescatore said it spoke to Meta's ambitions.
"Meta has shown a strong desire to own more of the connectivity slice," he told the BBC.
"This is a further demonstration as it seeks to leapfrog rivals in providing users with an unique experience by tightly integrating hardware, software, platform and its growing aspirations in connectivity," he added.
Protecting against threats
South Korea has banned new downloads of China's DeepSeek artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, according to the country's personal data protection watchdog.
The government agency said the AI model will become available again to South Korean users when "improvements and remedies" are made to ensure it complies with the country's personal data protection laws.
In the week after it made global headlines, DeepSeek became hugely popular in South Korea leaping to the top of app stores with over a million weekly users.
But its rise in popularity also attracted scrutiny from countries around the world which have imposed restrictions on the app over privacy and national security concerns.
South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission said the DeepSeek app became unavailable on Apple's App Store and Google Play on Saturday evening.
It came after several South Korean government agencies banned their employees from downloading the chatbot to their work devices.
South Korea's acting president Choi Sang-mok has described Deepseek as a "shock", that could impact the country's industries, beyond AI.
Despite the suspension of new downloads, people who already have it on their phones will be able to continue using it or they may just access it via DeepSeek's website.
China's DeepSeek rocked the technology industry, the markets and America's confidence in its AI leadership, when it released its latest app at the end of last month.
Its rapid rise as one of the world's favourite AI chatbots sparked concerns in different jurisdictions.
Aside from South Korea, Taiwan and Australia have also banned it from all government devices.
The Australian government has insisted its ban is not due to the app's Chinese origins, but because of the "unacceptable risk" it says it poses to national security.
Italy's regulator, which briefly banned ChatGPT in 2023, has done the same with DeepSeek.
The company has been asked to address concerns over its privacy policy before it becomes available again on app stores.
Data protection authorities in France and Ireland have also posed questions to DeepSeek about how it handles citizens' personal information - including whether it is stored on servers in China, as its privacy policy suggests.
It also says that, like other generative AI tools, it may collect information such as email addresses and dates of birth, and use input prompts to improve their product.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in the US have proposed a bill banning DeepSeek from federal devices, citing surveillance concerns.
At the state-government level, Texas, Virginia and New York, have already introduced such rules for their employees.
DeepSeek's "large language model" (LLM) has reasoning capabilities that are comparable to US models such as OpenAI's o1, but reportedly requires a fraction of the cost to train and run.
That has raised questions about the billions of dollars being invested into AI infrastructure in the US and elsewhere.
OpenAI's board of directors has officially rejected Elon Musk's nearly $100bn offer for the maker of what is the world's best-known artificial intelligence (AI) tool, ChatGPT.
But the unsolicited bid might not be a failure - at least as far as Musk is concerned, experts say.
That's because the offer could still complicate CEO Sam Altman's plans to transform OpenAI from a non-profit controlled entity to a for-profit company.
Musk is "basically trying to stymie OpenAI's growth trajectory," said University of Cambridge associate teaching professor Johnnie Penn in an interview with the BBC.
Profit & non-profit
Last week, Musk and a consortium of investors including Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel tabled a $97.4bn (£78.4bn) offer for all of OpenAI's assets.
It was a huge sum - but less than the $157bn the firm was valued at in a funding round just four months ago, and much lower than the $300bn that some think it is worth now.
Complicating all of this is OpenAI's unusual structure which involves a partnership between non-profit and for-profit arms.
Mr Altman is understood to want to change that, stripping it of its non-profit board.
That involves costs which Mr Musk is seemingly trying to inflate.
"What Musk is trying to do here is raise the perceived value of the non-profit arm of OpenAI, so that OpenAI has to pay more to get out of the obligations it has to its own non-profit," said Dr Penn.
The value of its non-profit assets isn't clear. With his bid, Musk was floating a price, according to Cornell University senior lecturer Lutz Finger, who is also the founder and CEO of AI startup R2Decide.
"By Musk putting a price tag on the non-profit part, he makes the split way more expensive for Altman to do," Mr Finger told the BBC. "It's very simple."
'Missed the AI train'
Mr Musk justified his actions by saying he wants to return OpenAI - which he co-founded - to its non-profit roots and original mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity.
Others, though, suggest he has somewhat less noble motives linked to his own AI company xAI and chatbot Grok, which have received a lacklustre response from the public.
"Musk has missed the AI train, somewhat. He's behind, and he has made several attempts to catch up," Mr Finger said.
Now, Mr Finger says, Mr Musk is trying to kneecap his most formidable competitor.
An already-tense relationship appeared to worsen further last week with Mr Altman taunting Mr Musk's offer on X, and Mr Musk retorting by calling his onetime partner a "swindler".
Mr Altman then hit back in an interview with Bloomberg, opining that Mr Musk is not "a happy person" and saying his decisions are made from a "position of insecurity".
The tit-for-tat is also playing out in court, where US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is considering Mr Musk's request for an injunction that would block OpenAI from its planned conversion.
He claims that he will be irreparably harmed without her intervention.
"It is plausible that what Mr Musk is saying is true. We'll find out. He'll sit on the stand," Gonzalez Rogers said during a hearing in Musk v Altman earlier this month in Oakland, California.
According to OpenAI's lawyers, Mr Musk's recent bid contradicts his earlier claims that OpenAI's assets cannot be transferred away for "private gain."
"[O]ut of court, those constraints evidently do not apply, so long as Musk and his allies are the buyers," their reply brief states.
Some observers say making a deal never appeared to be his goal.
"I think he's just trying to create noise and news and consternation," says Karl Freund, founder and principal analyst at Cambrian-AI.
But in addition to causing problems for his old rival, that strategy could inflict lasting damage on Mr Musk's own reputation.
"He's brilliant. He creates incredible companies that are doing incredible things. But his personal agenda is causing people to question his motives," Mr Freund said.
Imposing US tariffs on UK steel would be "negative" for both countries, the business secretary has said.
Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC the UK and US have a "mutual interest" in negotiating an exemption from President Donald Trump's plans for the 25% import tax, which could come into force in March.
He said the UK was in a different trading position to other countries and could offer "very specialised" steel and aluminium exports the US needs like Navy submarine casings made in Sheffield, while tariffs would push up costs for US taxpayers.
Reynolds' comments came after the government promised up to £2.5bn in support for the UK steel industry.
President Trump has said his tariffs would be enforced "without exceptions or exemptions".
However, Reynolds told the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that imposing them on UK steel "would be negative for ourselves, it would be negative for the US as well".
He said he has had "some very constructive conversations with key people in the Trump administration recognising our relationship is different", including the US special envoy to the UK.
The minister told the programme he thought there was a basis for "constructive engagement" between the UK and US but "I'm not saying it's easy".
He added: "I appreciate they have a mandate for changing how they approach the issues of trade, but we have got a different argument, a different story to tell, to the EU or to China in relation to our trading relationships."
The government has already said it would not retaliate immediately to the tariffs announced by Trump.
UK Steel, which represents the industry, has said the tariffs would be a "devastating blow" that would damage the sector's £400m-a-year contribution to UK-US trade.
The UK is not a big supplier of steel to the US, with the country accounting for about 10% of British steel exports.
But there are concerns within the industry the tariffs might not just hinder exports to the US, but also lead to excess steel being "dumped" in the UK.
This could occur if other countries no longer exporting to the US decide to offload steel at cheaper prices, which could potentially lead to UK steelmaking businesses being undercut.
Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said the "uncertainty" the steel industry faced due to US tariffs was something the government "has been entirely silent on when instead they should be talking to the US, our closest trading partner".
On Sunday, the government launched a consultation on its Plan for Steel, which will look at ways to reverse long-term issues facing the industry - including cheap imports flooding the domestic market.
* Identifying opportunities to expand steel production
* Encouraging the use of UK-made steel in public infrastructure projects
* Improving scrap processing facilities
* Investing in electric arc furnaces, which are less energy-intensive than blast furnaces and take out the need for high carbon-emitting coke
Griffiths said he looked forward to seeing a detailed plan, but added "a clear part must be steps to reduce the cost of energy which is placing an intolerable strain on UK steel".
Help for the sector will be available through the National Wealth Fund, which partners the government with the private sector and local authorities to finance infrastructure and other projects.
The government says this financial assistance could benefit Scotland, as well as areas of England such as Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, Rotherham and Redcar which have "a strong history of steel production".
But the DBT said it was "wasting no time" supporting UK steel, pointing to the government's backing an expansion of Heathrow Airport, which it said would require 400,000 tonnes of steel.
The GMB union said the government's plan to support the "beleaguered" steel industry provided "desperately needed" funding after "years of dithering".
"As the world becomes more volatile, primary domestic steel making capacity is vital for both our economy and domestic security," the union's national secretary Andy Prendergast added.
Gareth Stace, director-general of UK Steel, said the government's commitment to the industry was "both vital and welcome".
Information gathered in the consultation will be used to help form a "steel strategy", to be launched in the spring.
Stace added a robust strategy "has the power to reverse the sector's decline, particularly as we face increasing competition from imports benefiting from more favourable business conditions".
The Liberal Democrats have said the government urgently needs to prepare for retaliatory tariff. Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the UK steel industry was being left "dangerously exposed" to the "devastating damage" Trump's tariffs could inflict.
It has been more than a decade since James Howells' hard drive - containing Bitcoin now worth hundreds of millions of pounds - ended up on a landfill site.
But despite facing numerous setbacks, he is determined to continue on his mission to retrieve it.
"This is my job, if you will. My 9 to 5," he said, adding he would "absolutely not" give up.
The value of the cryptocurrency has dramatically increased in recent months, and with the hard drive currently worth about £620m, Mr Howells said "it makes sense for me to focus my energy on this" - although he does do some other work with crypto currencies.
Mr Howells, from Newport, claimed his ex-partner mistakenly threw out the hard drive, containing 8,000 bitcoins, in 2013, with it ending up in a tip owned by Newport City Council.
Last month, a High Court judge threw out his efforts to access the landfill or get £495m in compensation, saying there were no "reasonable grounds" for bringing the claim and "no realistic prospect" of succeeding at a full trial.
He is now planning a case – representing himself using artificial intelligence to support his claim – at the Court of Appeal. He has also expressed interested in buying the site after the council said it planned to close it in the 2025-26 financial year.
Newport council said it was making no further comment on the matter.
Mr Howells was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies, mining the Bitcoin in 2009 when it was a small fraction of its current value.
He has said that his former partner accidentally dumped the hard drive – about the size of a mobile phone – containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013. As its value soared, he organised a team of experts to attempt to locate and recover it.
He repeatedly asked permission from the council for access to the site, offering it a share of the missing Bitcoin if it was successfully recovered.
After Mr Howells launched legal proceedings, the council applied for a High Court hearing to ask a judge to dismiss the claim before going to trial – which the judge did last month.
The council argued its environmental permits would forbid any attempt to excavate the site for the search and previously said such work "would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area".
Unwilling to give up, Mr Howells now believes he has two options open to him to retrieve the digital wallet – launch a case at the Court of Appeal, or work with investors to try to buy the landfill site from the council, after it announced the site is "coming to the end of its life" and it plans to close it within the next two years.
Mr Howells told BBC News he was pleased with the work his legal team had done in the High Court trial, but that he would now be representing himself in a case filed with the Court of Appeal – using an "artificial intelligence agent" to assist his claim.
He described AI as "an absolutely amazing technology" that had helped him better understand court processes and the law, and that he believed he had about seven "solid grounds in law" for his case, which he hopes to be able to present in-person to the Court of Appeal.
What is James Howells' legal case?
One of the arguments in his case will centre on the council's plans to close the site, something he argued should have been revealed during the High Court trial.
"That is material information that should have been made [at the trial] – the judge should have been aware of that, as well as myself," he said.
Mr Howells also said buying and fully excavating the site would save the council what he argued were significant maintenance costs once the site closes.
"Every single piece would be extracted or recycled, and at the end of the process we would have a hard drive in our hands - and we would also have an empty landfill," he said.
In the High Court trial, the council also argued that the hard drive became its property as soon as it entered the landfill site, but Mr Howells said this failed to take into account the fact it was his ex-partner who threw it out.
"It was taken without my permission or consent," he said.
Early 'agreements' with investors
Mr Howells said he was also exploring the option of buying the site from the council, adding he had "preliminary agreements" with investors – including those in the Middle East and the United States – who could make funding available if he had permission to buy the site.
"They're not just going to put millions of quid in my back pocket... but if the council show a willingness to sell the site, then the funding will be available," he said.
The council has made no indication it is interested in selling the site and, as part of its closure, has secured planning permission for a solar farm on part of the land.
Having spent many years pursuing it, including opening legal cases, Mr Howells said he was certain the hard drive remained on the landfill, which holds more than 1.4 million tonnes of waste.
He said he had done his "due diligence and research", having spoken to a site manager at the landfill.
"Anything that was put into that site is still there. So, where else could it be?"
Asked if he would ever give up his mission to retrieve it, he said: "Absolutely not. This is like the final battle in Braveheart."
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a virtual or digital currency that has no physical form.
Bitcoins can be split into smaller units, with a satoshi being the smallest monetary unit.
Satoshis are named after Bitcoin's inventor Satoshi Nakamoto – believed to be a pseudonym – who wrote a key document about the currency in 2008.
Those investing in the product around this time, like Mr Howells, were part of a "very small" crypto community known as Cypherpunks, said Billy Bambrough, author of the CryptoCodex newsletter.
Bitcoin was not the first cryptocurrency to be invented, but it did gain considerable attention with early adherents being "very quickly enamoured with it", Mr Bambrough said.
Prices began to rise in about 2016 and 2017, and again in 2020 during the Covid pandemic when "stock markets, cryptocurrencies and meme coins went up hugely".
"A lot of people got very rich, but a lot of people also lost money," Mr Bambrough said.
The cryptocurrency also saw rapid increases in late 2024, shortly after Donald Trump's victory in the US general election, with his administration being seen as far friendlier towards cryptocurrencies than the Biden White House.
"A lot of people in the crypto and Bitcoin worlds say the price has gone up so much in such a short amount of time, they claim it could go higher and higher," Mr Bambrough said.
"So I can understand why James [Howells] is keen to find his Bitcoin."
Gypsum may be an unfamiliar name to many but we are surrounded by it every day. It is a mineral used to make types of plaster which coat our homes, schools and offices - and in Cumbria sits the world's deepest gypsum mine.
Outside the small village of Long Marton, against the backdrop of the North Pennines, stands a bungalow in the corner of a field. It is perhaps the only clue that something else is happening close by.
Underground, at a depth of 1,000 ft (305m), is Birkshead drift mine where a lengthy system of conveyor belts snakes its way from where the stone is mined to where it is treated.
"You've got to have your wits about you all the time, but I just feel at home down here," says shift manager Peter Richardson. "I'll probably miss it when I retire."
The drift mine, near Appleby-in-Westmorland, sits under rolling farmland and supplies the raw materials to make plasterboard for the building industry, something it has been doing for almost 50 years.
Its 30ft (9m) high tunnels, wide enough for a Range Rover to drive through, are grey and there is a smell of dust in the air.
"With ceilings as high as they are you don't really feel like you're in a mine," says one of the workers.
The underground road leading down to where the gypsum is extracted is steep and with sharp bends.
Staff here say that without external contact there is no way of knowing what the weather is like outside. But while they are cut off, they are reminded of life continuing above them with the smell of freshly cut farmland grass making its way through the ventilation system.
But the reality of life underground is never too far away.
"If you're down a mine and your light fuses - which has happened to me in the past - it's not good," Mr Richardson says.
"Now we've got a little pen torch, just in case, whereas the old pitmen's lamps used to have a little bulb, but if your battery fused you were up the creek really."
The mine has been here since 1977 and these days machines can cut through 3.3ft (1m) of gypsum per hour.
"It just peels it off," Mr Richardson explains.
Conveyor belts then take thousands of tons of material a day to a factory in Kirkby Thore, operated by British Gypsum.
The machine that cuts the stone looks a little bit like a giant porcupine.
A staff member sits in an air-conditioned cab so they are protected from the dust, which engulfs the tunnels when the machine operates.
The only way to see what is happening is through monitors inside the cab.
Some belts travel up to 3,300ft (1km) each but, as they roll back on themselves, they are double that in length.
Replacing them is a "big undertaking", Mr Richardson says.
"We've got a few of the lads here who've done it a few times and you need them lads on the job - they know what they're doing.
"You have to clamp it up and chain it, you can't just cut the belt because of the tension on it.
"You'll end up with a concertinaed heap at the bottom."
Safety is obviously a major focus and were things to go wrong there is a specially built room which has its own life support system and supplies of food and water.
"If I had a vehicle fire and the tyres caught fire, there would be thick black smoke and you'd struggle to see, hence the strobes on there to guide you in," Mr Richardson says.
It would take about an hour to walk back to the surface from here, but he says he feels safe working at Birkshead.
"The fear factor just isn't there, you don't think about it.
"You're obviously aware of your surroundings and you check where you're going to be working.
"Dare I say it, you never take it for granted.
"Like the old saying from the coal miners: It's always the good roof that'll get you, not a bad roof because you've got that sorted."
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In an old Welsh farmhouse a group of friends chatter and joke while tucking into a lunch of home-made soup and sourdough.
But behind this convivial scene a "gnarly and unpleasant" legal battle is underway.
Last year, Brithdir Mawr - an 80-acre (32-hectare) farm in Newport, Pembrokeshire, that has been home to an off-grid community for the past 30 years - was sold to a new owner who plans to turn it into a retreat centre.
The community were issued with an eviction notice and some members left by the 31 December deadline, but others refused and are determined to remain.
Will Cooke, who has lived with the community for four-and-a half years, said he hoped the adults who remained living on the site could come to an arrangement with the new owner that would work for all.
"There are no bad people in this situation, there are just many, many people trying their hardest to do the right thing and we've got into a glitch with each other," he said.
"I want us all to sit down with each other and try and straighten it out."
Brithdir Mawr was established in 1993 by Julian Orbach with his then wife Emma and was originally part of a site of 160 acres (64 hectares).
After the couple separated the site was split into two, with Emma establishing the neighbouring Tir Ysbrydol [Welsh for spiritual house] community and Mr Orbach remaining at Brithdir Mawr.
In 2002, he moved out but remained Brithdir Mawr's landlord.
When Mr Orbach decided to sell, he said he "very much" wanted the community to continue and it was given first refusal to purchase the site.
But after the community's 10-year bid to raise the £1m for the purchase, he sold the site last year to Rachel May, who is described as a shadow work and mindfulness coach, doula [offering help and support] and soul guide.
She has not responded to requests to be interviewed.
"We are aware that Rachel is our new owner, we are very aware of the fact that she's spent a large amount of money to do this, but the way in which she is wanting to bring about this process of change is completely out of alignment with who we are as a community," said Will.
"We've invited Rachel to come and visit with us several times, to come and negotiate with us to find a way forward that works for everyone."
Will was a teacher and later worked for Extinction Rebellion UK before moving in with the community.
"I was expecting to spend two weeks here and I never left," he said.
"It's a really good fit for me, I get on really well here and feel like I'm valued and appreciated for who I am."
The community's members are dedicated to sustainable living. They keep goats - primarily to make cheese and occasionally for meat - as well as chickens, grow their own vegetables and manage the site's woodland.
The building runs off hydropower and a tiny wind turbine and is heated by a log burner.
They host weekly Welsh language classes, run workshops, open days and volunteer weeks to demonstrate their way of life.
Many in the community have jobs away from the farm, they eat communally five times a week and, before the community's families left ahead of the eviction notice, the children were home-schooled.
Will and the other members each pay rent as well as their contribution to "food club", bills, and a savings pot for expenses such as building repairs.
With no-one in charge, decisions are made collaboratively and their shared values include inclusivity, gratitude and valuing learning and culture.
Does living in this way come with the occasional conflict?
"There absolutely are difficulties at times," admitted Will.
"Occasionally conflicts happen... but there are far fewer than there are beautiful times."
He said the community tried to take blame out of conflict.
"A conflict for me is when we find a glitch in the way in which we're working, no-one's at fault," he said.
He said "detangling" conflicts when there was no-one in charge was "very deep and intense work and often very painful, but by the end of it we find ourselves stronger, more beautiful, able to act with each other in a more beautiful way".
Rosie Gilam, who grew up in nearby Cardigan, is Will's partner and spends about three days a week with him at Brithdir Mawr.
She has been visiting the community since she was a child and previously lived in communities in Cornwall.
"A major wonderful thing about being human is to accept others for what they are, understand they've got their own needs which might not intersect completely with your needs, and to come to a place where you're accepting of your differences and find a way to work together," she said.
"I think that is so needed on the planet at the moment."
Like Will, she insisted "nobody's to blame" for the community's current predicament.
She said the situation was an example of "broken systems" which meant "tenants don't have rights, a family can be turfed out of its home with little notice, and that people generally don't have affordable access to land".
She hopes media attention on Brithdir Mawr will start a conversation about land rights and be "one step towards systemic change".
"So for example, there might be community right to buy, which means that a community like this in the future would have the right to buy an asset," she said.
Andromeda Gervasio, who is from Portugal, moved to the UK 12 years ago, and moved to Brithdir Mawr last summer after feeling burnt out with city life, "craving a different lifestyle" and being drawn to "intentional community".
"The water is the purest water I've ever drank, and the food is the best food I've ever eaten," they said.
"People are here not just because, there's a bigger purpose of really living together and sharing the work that it is to live and to live in a place like this... it's pretty incredible."
They said they cherished being accepted in the countryside.
"Being a queer person in the rural landscape has always been something that I was generally scared about... and then actually discovering it and feeling incredibly safe here, I've been so grateful... and I think that I owe lots to Brithdir in that regard," they said.
Like the rest of their community, Andromeda insisted they did not feel animosity towards the new owner.
"We're not up against a particular person but a system and a normalised way of going about things," they said.
"Just because someone has the legal backing to do something, it doesn't necessarily make it okay or how the world should be.
"We have a history of things that were within legal bounds not corresponding to what is morally OK to do... [denying] women's rights, slavery and queer witch hunts were all legal at some point."
For now, what will happen next for the community is uncertain.
"Essentially I feel really, really sad about it," said Rosie.
She lives in hope of all parties sitting down together and looking for a solution "with an open heart".
Will is confident a resolution can be found.
"I don't know exactly what that would look like and that's OK," he said.
"This complexity and this difficulty feels very difficult, feels gnarly and unpleasant, but also I truly believe that something very special is happening.
"I look forward to this process continuing and resolving in a way that works for everyone in the near future."
Linda Koistinen and her husband Dale stood outside a Tesla dealership in Berkeley, California, on Saturday, protesting.
They were not there to take aim at the company's electric vehicles, but the person behind Tesla - Elon Musk - and join with others who are upset at the world's richest man's work to disrupt and take apart large portions of the US government.
"It's a place where we can make a visible stand against him personally," Ms Koistinen told the BBC. "He should not be deciding the fate of our democracy by disassembling our government piece by piece. It's not right."
As part of an effort organizers dubbed #TeslaTakeover, clutches of protesters across the country gathered outside the company's showrooms, having largely planned when to meet and where on the social media platform Bluesky, an upstart competitor to Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter.
In some places, those protests barely numbered a dozen, with people in Washington DC, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Lyndhurst, Ohio, stamping their feet to stay warm amid snow and cold weather. Some held signs that read "Say no to Doge" and "Deport Musk".
The protest in Berkeley - a top California city for electric car ownership - numbered 200.
As part of his White House-backed effort called Doge, for Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has been sending teams into government agencies to comb through data and pushing for massive spending cuts as well as "clawbacks" of money already spent.
President Donald Trump, who received an historic amount of campaign donations from Musk, is on the same page, freezing hiring as well as laying off thousands of federal employees.
Musk says he has uncovered wasteful spending and his work is aimed at making the government operate more smoothly. But to many, he is stopping the government from functioning while making decisions that should be left to elected leaders and accessing private information.
"It's just really grinding on the mind," said Dale Koistinen. "I'm 84 years old. This is unbelievable. This is a takeover of our government."
Along with X, Musk also is the primary owner SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company. But it is Tesla he is most known for and Tesla is where people unhappy with his Doge work are taking out their anger.
For days, concerned Americans have been asking fellow citizens to dump their Tesla stock and sell their Tesla vehicles.
Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow posted a video to Instagram that showed her Tesla being towed away.
"There comes a time when you have to decide who you are willing to align with," she wrote in the caption. "So long Tesla."
Crow added that she was donating proceeds from the car's sale to National Public Radio in the U.S., a frequent target of Musk's ire.
Tesla stock surged following Donald Trump's election in November. Musk contributed a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump's re-election effort, and hit the trail on Trump's behalf in the final days of the campaign.
But after touching an all-time high in December, the company's shares have shed 30% of their value with a pronounced selloff since Trump was inaugurated last month.
Saturday's protests were promoted by prominent disinformation researcher Joan Donovan and the actor Alex Winter, who played Bill in the 80s movie "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure."
Teah Jackson, though, noticed the Berkeley protest during an outing with her girlfriend, and stopped to show her support.
"It's hopeful," Jackson told the BBC. "It's an acknowledgement that people aren't going to go down without a fight and that they're going to continue to push for what they believe in."
Elon Musk's children have been to places many will never see.
From meetings with foreign leaders to the control room of a SpaceX launch, Musk's children have debuted as constant sidekicks to their father's endeavours in tech, business and now, politics.
They have made frequent appearances in the nation's capital since President Donald Trump tapped the tech billionaire and Tesla CEO to lead the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk's four-year-old, "Lil X", hung on the corner of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday sporting a tan pea coat and a collared shirt.
On Thursday, X and two of his siblings exchanged gifts with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi while their father discussed technology and innovation with the foreign leader.
Musk has frequently been seen with his children even before coming to Washington - at a meeting with the president of Turkey, a memorial service at Auschwitz concentration camp, and a Time magazine ceremony where he was named the 2021 person of the year.
But why do Musk's children tag along?
"The inclusion of the kids in many public appearances is very much a politician move or a political move to make him seem a bit more personable (and) take a human approach to how the public views him," says Kurt Braddock, an American University professor of public communication.
Why bring the kids?
Still, Mr Braddock thought the decision to bring Musk's preschooler to the Oval Office was unusual.
X appeared bored during the 30-minute press briefing as he mimicked his father, sat on the floor and received the occasional side glance and smile from the leader of the free world. At one point, it appeared he told someone in the room to "shush" their mouth.
Mr Braddock said he believes their inclusion is intentional - a distraction that benefits both Musk and Trump.
"I do think that there is a bit of a strategy here trying to draw attention to some things while diverting attention to other things," he said.
Jon Haber, a strategic communication consultant who has worked with five presidential campaigns and teaches at Harvard, said Musk's children making frequent appearances - and creating viral moments - is beneficial for Trump.
"For Trump, the more chaos, the more he floods the zone, the less anybody can really focus on. Chaos works for him," Mr Haber said.
Grimes, Musk's ex-girlfriend and the mother of X, criticised her son's appearance in the Oval Office.
"He should not be in public like this," she wrote in a post on X. "I did not see this… but I'm glad he was polite. Sigh."
In a 2022 Vanity Fair article, she said that she wasn't a fan of her son being in the spotlight.
"Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there. I mean, I think E is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff.… X is out there. His situation is like that. But, yeah, I don't know."
Musk and his children
Long before politics, Musk allowed his children to tag along.
A decade ago, when he was still building his profile and eager to draw attention to his electric-vehicle maker Tesla, it wasn't unusual to see them at events.
As analysts and reporters waited for one unveiling to begin at a Tesla facility in Silicon Valley in 2015, his five children could be seen running through the hallways chasing after each other and shrieking with laughter.
Despite being forced to wait for hours for attendees, the presence of Musk's children created an atmosphere that felt relaxed and even joyous.
It was a departure from the stiff, far more formal events held by other companies for which the prospect of seeing an executive's very young children would have come across as odd.
Musk has had 12 children with three different women.
His most-recognised son, X Æ A-12?, goes by "Lil X", the same letter Musk used to re-name Twitter when he purchased the social media company.
The four-year-old has been dubbed an "emotional support human" by Musk himself.
Walter Isaacson, the author of Musk's biography, said on The Diary of a CEO podcast that Musk is "deeply committed" to his children and is "almost obsessed by them".
"With his own children, his lovers, his wives, there is the same intensity that is baked into everything he does," Mr Isaacson said.
"He always likes having some of his children around him. He always likes having a companion, but that doesn't mean that he likes calmness."
We use them to clean the dishes we eat off, but your kitchen sponge is a damp, crumb-filled environment that is perfect for bacteria to thrive in. Should you opt for a washing up brush instead?
Many species of bacteria know how to rough it out. Some thrive deep within the Earth's crust, or inside boiling hydrothermal vents, and others even call frozen tundra their home. Ask most bacteria where they'd really like to live though, and a kitchen sponge would probably top the list.
Yes, it turns out that the very tool we use to clean our plates and glasses is packed full of microbial life. Sponges are bacterial heaven. They're warm, damp, and full of nutritious food crumbs for the microbes to feast on.
In 2017, Markus Egert, a microbiologist at Furtwangen University in Germany, published new data on the bacterial microbiome of used kitchen sponges. He discovered a whopping 362 species of microbes in those sponges. In some places, the density of bacteria reached up to 54 billion individuals per square centimetre.
"This is a very big amount, it's similar to the number of bacteria that you would find in a human stool sample," says Egert.
Sponges are full of holes and pockets – each providing a niche for a community of microbes to settle down in.
Lingchong You, a synthetic biologist at Duke University, and his team, used computers to model the complex environment of a sponge for a 2022 study. He found that sponges with pockets of varying sizes encouraged the most microbial growth. His team then replicated these results by growing different strains of E.coli in cellulose sponges.
"They found out that having a variety of different pore sizes in kitchen sponges is something that really matters [for encouraging bacterial growth]," says Egert. "This makes sense because, for microbes, you have individualists [such as] bacteria that like to grow on their own, and you have bacteria that need the company of others. Inside a sponge you have so many different structures or niches that everyone gets happy."
Sponges definitely make good homes for bacteria. However, it does not necessarily follow that these utensils are also a health risk to us. Bacteria exist everywhere – on our skin, in the soil, and in the air around us. Not all are harmful, in fact many perform vital jobs. The important question is, therefore, are the bacteria found in sponges even worth worrying about?
In Egert's 2017 study, he sequenced the DNA of the most common species. Although it was not possible to identify the exact species of each bacterium, five out of ten of the most prevalent species were closely related to bacteria known to cause infections in people with compromised immune systems. Special cleaning measures such as heating in a microwave or rinsing with hot, soapy water didn't really help either, as although it eliminated some bacteria, it allowed other, more resistant strains, to thrive.
"Our hypothesis is that cleaning measures might lead to a kind of selection process, where the few survivors can grow up to large numbers again," says Egert. "If you do this a couple of times, then this might lead to a selection of bacteria that are better adapted to cleaning."
It's important to note that none of the bacteria found by Egert are linked to food poisoning or severe sickness. In fact, 90% of hospitalisations from food-borne illnesses can be traced to just five pathogens, three of which are bacteria – Escherichia coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter. Thankfully, these are quite rare in sponges.
"We only found potentially pathogenic bacteria, so bacteria that can be dangerous to people with weak immune systems, or the elderly or children," says Egert. "Usually, for a healthy person, the bacteria inside the kitchen sponge are not harmful."
In 2017, Jennifer Quinlan, a professor of food safety at Prairie View A&M University in the US, and her colleagues, collected kitchen sponges from 100 homes in Philadelphia. She found that only 1-2% of those sponges contained bacteria linked to food poisoning in humans. The ones that did contained only small amounts of harmful bacteria.
This finding was backed up by a 2022 study in which Solveig Langsrud, a scientist at the Norwegian food research institute Nofima, compared the bacteria found in washing up sponges and brushes. She found a common set of harmless non-pathogenic bacteria in both kinds of utensil, including Acinetobacter, Chryseobacterium, Enhydrobacter, Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas. However, brushes contained much less bacteria overall.
"The vast majority of bacteria on sponges do not cause illness, they're just going to make it smell. They're going to make it unpleasant over time," says Quinlan. "Having said that, there is a possibility that if you use a sponge to wipe up raw meat or raw chicken juice that you could have some of those pathogenic bacteria on there, and studies have found that pathogens can be isolated from kitchen sponges."
So, while the bacteria growing in your sponge are not usually harmful, if dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella arrive on the scene, the sponge's structure makes it an ideal place for this pathogen to grow.
There's evidence this is the case. In Langsrud's study, when the researchers introduced Salmonella to kitchen sponges, they thrived, but when they added this bacteria to brushes, they died. That could be because brushes will often dry out more effectively between uses, killing the Salmonella bacteria, while sponges can still remain damp inside if they are used daily.
These potentially pathogenic bacteria can then also be transferred from your sponge to the plates and utensils or surfaces.
More like this:
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So, how often should we change our kitchen sponge? Quinlan argues that from a hygiene perspective, ideally you should replace it on a weekly basis, but there are things you can do to prolong its service.
"There's two easy ways of cleaning them. You can put them in the dishwasher at the end of the evening, or you can microwave them for a minute until you can see steam coming off. That will kill the majority of the pathogens."
Certainly, studies have shown that putting your sponge through the dishwasher or the microwave can reduce the bacterial load and can be more effective than soaking your sponge in bleach. But as Egbert's study demonstrated, this can then select for more resistant strains and so cleaning will become less effective over time.
Putting a sponge in boiling water and disinfectant will also kill most bacteria, although some may survive, especially those that form protective gooey biofilms. But this approach has been found to be effective at reducing potential pathogens such as Salmonella.
Other tips include not storing the sponge in the sink, so that it is allowed to dry in between uses, and really squeezing out the moisture and getting rid of food crumbs. However, some may consider using a different tool entirely in order to clean dishes.
"I wouldn't use kitchen sponges at all. It actually does not make sense to me to use such an item inside the kitchen environment," says Egert. "A brush is much better because it contains less bacteria and it dries out more easily. It's also easier to clean."
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Two years after ChatGPT took the world by storm, China's DeepSeek has sent ripples through the tech industry by collapsing the cost for developing generative artificial intelligence applications.
But as the global race for AI supremacy heats up, India appears to have fallen behind, especially in creating its own foundational language model that's used to power things like chatbots.
The government claims a homegrown equivalent to DeepSeek isn't far away. It is supplying startups, universities and researchers with thousands of high-end chips needed to develop it in under 10 months.
A flurry of global AI leaders have also been talking up India's capabilities recently.
After being initially dismissive, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this month said India should be playing a leading role in the AI revolution. The country is now OpenAI's second largest market by users.
Others like Microsoft have put serious money on the table – committing $3bn (£2.4bn) for cloud and AI infrastructure. Nvidia's Jensen Huang also spoke of India's "unmatched" technical talent as a key to unlocking its future potential.
With 200 startups working on generative AI, there's enough entrepreneurial activity under way too.
But despite having key ingredients for success in place, India risks lagging behind without basic structural fixes to education, research and state policy, experts say.
China and the US already have a "four to five year head-start", having invested heavily in research and academia and developed AI for military applications, law enforcement and now large language models, technology analyst Prasanto Roy told the BBC.
Though in the top five globally on Stanford's AI Vibrancy Index – which ranks countries on metrics such as patents, funding, policy and research – India is still far behind the two superpowers in many key areas.
China and the US were granted 60% and 20% of the world's total AI patents between 2010 and 2022 respectively. India got less than half a percent.
India's AI startups also received a fraction of the private investment that US and Chinese companies got in 2023.
India's state-funded AI mission, meanwhile, is worth a trifling $1bn compared with the staggering $500bn the US has earmarked for Stargate - a plan to build massive AI infrastructure in the US - or China's reported $137bn initiative to become an AI hub by 2030.
While DeepSeek's success has demonstrated that AI models can be built on older, less expensive chips - something India can take solace from - lack of "patient" or long-term capital from either industry or government is a major problem, says Jaspreet Bindra, founder of a consultancy that builds AI literacy in organisations.
"Despite what has been heard about DeepSeek developing a model with $5.6m, there was much more capital behind it."
Lack of high-quality India-specific datasets required for training AI models in regional languages such as Hindi, Marathi or Tamil is another problem, especially given India's language diversity.
But for all its issues, India punches far above its weight on talent – with 15% of the world's AI workers coming from the country.
The issue though, as Stanford's AI talent migration research shows, is that more and more of them are choosing to leave the country.
This is partly because "foundational AI innovations typically come from deep R&D in universities and corporate research labs", Mr Bindra says.
And India lacks a supporting research environment, with few deep-tech breakthroughs emerging from its academic and corporate sectors.
The enormous success of India's payments revolution was due to strong government-industry-academia collaboration - a similar model, he says, needs to be replicated for the AI push.
The Unified Payment Interface (UPI), a digital payment system developed by a government organisation, has revolutionised digital payments in India, allowing millions to transact at the click of a button or by scanning a QR code.
Bengaluru's $200bn outsourcing industry, home to millions of coders, should have ideally been at the forefront of India's AI ambitions. But the IT companies have never really shifted their focus from cheap service-based work to developing foundational consumer AI technologies.
"It's a huge gap which they left to the startups to fill," says Mr Roy.
He's unsure though whether startups and government missions can do this heavy lifting quickly enough, adding that the 10-month timeline set by the minster was a knee-jerk reaction to DeepSeek's sudden emergence.
"I don't think India will be able to produce anything like DeepSeek at least for the next few years," he adds. It is a view many others share.
India can, however, continue to build and tweak applications upon existing open source platforms like DeepSeek "to leapfrog our own AI progress", Bhavish Agarwal, founder of one of India's earliest AI startups Krutrim, recently wrote on X.
In the longer run though, developing a foundational model will be critical to have strategic autonomy in the sector and reduce import dependencies and threats of sanctions, say experts.
India will also need to increase its computational power or hardware infrastructure to run such models, which means manufacturing semiconductors - something that's not taken off yet.
Much of this will need to fall in place before the gap with the US and China is narrowed meaningfully.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have got significantly better at answering legal questions but still can not replicate the competence of even a junior lawyer, new research suggests.
The major British law firm, Linklaters, put chatbots to the test by setting them 50 "relatively hard" questions about English law.
It concluded OpenAI's GPT 2, released in 2019, was "hopeless" but its o1 model, which came out in December 2024, did considerably better.
Linklaters said it showed the tools were "getting to the stage where they could be useful" for real world legal work - but only with expert human supervision.
Law - like many other professions - is wrestling with what impact the rapid recent advances in AI will have, and whether it should be regarded as a threat or opportunity.
The international law firm Hill Dickinson recently restricted access to several AI tools after it found a "significant increase in usage" by its staff.
There is also a fierce international debate about how risky AI is and how tightly regulated it needs to be.
Last week, the US and UK refused to sign an international agreement on AI, with US Vice President JD Vance criticising European countries for prioritising safety over innovation.
A future for 'fleshy bits'
This was the second time Linklaters had run its LinksAI benchmark tests, with the original exercise taking place in October 2023.
In the first run, OpenAI's GPT 2, 3 and 4 were tested alongside Google's Bard.
The exam has now been expanded to include o1, from OpenAI, and Google's Gemini 2.0, which was also released at the end of 2024.
It did not involve DeepSeek's R1 - the apparently low cost Chinese model which astonished the world last month - or any other non-US AI tool.
The test involved posing the type of questions which would require advice from a "competent mid-level lawyer" with two years' experience.
The newer models showed a "significant improvement" on their predecessors, Linklaters said, but still performed below the level of a qualified lawyer.
Even the most advanced tools made mistakes, left out important information and invented citations - albeit less than earlier models.
The tools are "starting to perform at a level where they could assist in legal research" Linklaters said, giving the examples of providing first drafts or checking answers.
However, it said there were "dangers" in using them if lawyers "don't already have a good idea of the answer".
It added that despite the "incredible" progress made in recent years there remained questions about whether that would be replicated in future, or if there were "inherent limitations" in what AI tools could do.
In any case, it said, client relations would always be a key part of what lawyers did, so even future advances in AI tools would not necessarily bring to an end what it called the "fleshy bits in the delivery of legal services".
Collagen supplements might make your skin more elastic – but the evidence is weak.
Collagen is hugely hyped. This protein, which is important to the structure of skin and joints, has been presented as a miracle cure for everything from wrinkles to poor sleep.
Production of collagen, the most abundant protein in the body, naturally slows with age – whether you protect your skin from the Sun or not. To compensate, collagen supplementation has become a booming business. One aficionado is Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur who has become a one-man experiment for how to prolong your life, who says he takes 25g (0.9 ounces) of collagen peptides every day.
But collagen is not always well understood. While there is some evidence that supplementing with this molecule has health benefits, research is limited. The main risk of taking it as a supplement may be of wasting money – there are few known side effects – but is the scientific evidence keeping pace with the marketing claims?
Why collagen is confusing
To start with the basics, "collagen is only found in animal connective tissue", notes Andrea Soares, a registered dietitian in Georgia, US, who is part of the Top Nutrition Coaching network, a company which helps to connect people with dietitians in their area.
Collagen products come from a variety of animals: cows, pigs, chickens and fish. Gelatine, which is used to make sweets, jelly and the capsules for pharmaceuticals, is a form of collagen. "Some plant-based supplements claim to be 'vegan collagen', but what they actually contain are collagen-boosting ingredients like vitamin C, amino acids and minerals that help your body make its own collagen," says Soares. "If you're vegan, you might want to spend your money on a well-rounded diet instead of plant-based 'collagen' supplements that don't actually contain collagen."
Different types of collagen appear to work differently. Hydrolysed collagen (collagen hydrolysate) is collagen which has been broken down into short chains of amino acids known as peptides. These get broken down further as they move through the digestive system. On the other hand, undenatured (raw) type II collagen is a component of cartilage surrounding joints. In theory it can help replenish collagen around the joints, says David Hunter, a rheumatology clinician researcher at the University of Sydney, focusing on osteoarthritis. Type II collagen is also broken down into amino acids in the stomach, though hydrolysed collagen tends to be better absorbed by the body.
In addition to the wide variety of sources and types of collagen, the substance is packaged into many different forms, from bars to drinks. Compared to powders and liquids, "tablets and gummies often have less collagen per serving and may contain added sugars or fillers," Soares says. And while consuming food rich in protein and vitamin C generally helps our bodies to make collagen, the amount of collagen present in food like bone broth varies. She advises those taking collagen as a supplement to opt for a powder or liquid, with at least 5-10g (0.2-0.4 ounces) of collagen per dose.
Overall, many marketing claims made about oral collagen products don't stand up to scrutiny. In the European Union, "no health claims for collagen supplements have got the green light," explains Leng Heng, a senior scientific officer for human nutrition at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
EFSA is the EU agency that assesses risks related to novel foods. When they took a look at collagen, they concluded that the health claims submitted about it so far were not supported by enough high-quality evidence. They were "not sufficiently defined, lacked supporting human studies, or relied on evidence from animal and laboratory research, which cannot predict effects in humans," says Heng. She points out that claims such as the idea that collagen helps to maintain skin elasticity, or that it improves joint functioning, have not yet been demonstrated sufficiently by scientific research.
Potential industry bias is a key concern for determining rigour, Hunter says. Many collagen studies are funded by supplement companies or authored by employees of these companies. Conflicts of interest are supposed to be declared in academic papers, but this does not always happen. For example, one published paper includes five of seven authors who stated an affiliation to supplement companies, though no further information was given in the conflicts of interest section. (In response to a BBC query, the publisher of this paper, Elsevier, stated that the paper is now under investigation.)
"The reality for many of these studies is that it's hard to find any that are completely independent of industry," Hunter says. Influencers sometimes tout poor-quality research and may promote higher dosages of supplements than is recommended by health authorities. Even systematic reviews and meta-analyses – large-scale reviews of the evidence, which pull together the results of multiple studies – can be compromised by the quality of the underlying studies. Hunter and his coauthors assess the risk of bias from such studies, including industry involvement. But he says that it can be hard to account fully for the bias when there simply aren't enough independent trials, as is the case with collagen.
While individual health risks of collagen supplementation appear low, there are some larger potential consequences of the growing appetite for collagen. For example, collagen supplements from cattle have been linked to deforestation in Brazil.
Meanwhile, the European Commission commissioned research into the possibility that collagen or gelatine could lead to new cases of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE, or prion disease). EFSA estimated humans' oral exposure to infected gelatine under hypothetical worst-case scenarios, and found that there was a vanishingly small to no risk.
Collagen for skin, tissue and joints
One key problem with any claims about the benefits of collagen is what happens when the molecule is ingested. As the London dermatologist Anjali Mahto told the BBC in 2019 , there is "little solid proof it will survive digestion, travel into the blood stream and make it to your skin". In fact, when any protein arrives in the stomach – including collagen – it is usually swiftly broken down into amino acids, which are then reassembled into the proteins that the body needs at that moment. So, if the body needs collagen, it might reassemble those amino acids into collagen, but there are no guarantees.
Another issue is the formulation of collagen supplements. In many dermatology studies of collagen products, those products also contain other ingredients that may benefit skin health, making it hard to isolate the effects of the collagen.
However, many consumers swear by the effects of collagen on the look and feel of their skin. One systematic review and meta-analysis found that hydrolysed collagen can have beneficial effects on the skin, such as improving hydration and elasticity. However, the authors concluded that further research was needed to confirm this.
Other (industry-funded) studies have suggested that oral products with high amounts of the collagen peptides prolylhydroxyproline and hydroxyprolylglycine can improve the moisture and appearance of the skin. "What's key is consistent use," Soares says.
There are certain strategies to boost the potential benefits of collagen supplements, for instance for the tendons. Robert Erskine, a reader in neuromuscular physiology at Liverpool John Moores University, suggests that exercise might be able to stimulate the body's tissues to regenerate collagen more than usual. In turn, this can strengthen tendons, allowing someone to move more quickly and be less likely to fall.
In one study, Erskine and colleagues from universities across the UK tested whether taking hydrolysed collagen could boost the amount of collagen made by the body after high-intensity resistance exercise. The research, on a small sample of young, healthy men, found that the men produced significantly more new collagen when they drank a mixture of vitamin C and 30g (1 ounce) of hydrolysed collagen before exercise. This was a higher dosage than what had previously been studied or is typically packaged for consumers.
In another study Erskine was involved in, the team tested the same effect in healthy middle-aged men. They found that there was still an effect of collagen supplementation, but a smaller one. So, age is a factor in collagen production, as is sex. There are links between oestrogen and collagen synthesis, for example.
"I'm really interested in trying to investigate how we can improve well-being and performance of athletes, female athletes in particular," Erskine says. "I think collagen will have a big part to play in that," not only to improve performance, but also to reduce injury risk. While such research is relatively new and small-scale, it is already being integrated into the nutritional habits of elite athletes. "I think the evidence is strong enough to make these suggestions," he says.
In fact, though collagen supplements are often associated with the young and athletic or image-conscious, it is increasingly being investigated as a possible treatment for chronic conditions associated with old age. For example, there is mixed evidence of whether collagen helps with the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. One recent meta-analysis found that the overall quality of the research in this area is poor, so it was not possible to decide if collagen supplements can help. However, the authors noted that some studies reported adverse effects.
As for osteoarthritis, Hunter and colleagues conducted a systematic review of studies, finding that collagen supplements appeared to reduce osteoarthritis-related pain in the short term.
However, Hunter stresses that the evidence base is limited. The collagen studies the team drew on were limited in both quantity and quality (such as having small sample sizes). This is why he and colleagues didn't include collagen in a new clinical trial of complementary medicines that appear to be more promising for osteoarthritis: pine bark extract, Boswellia serrata extract and curcumin.
Should you take a collagen supplement?
With any supplement, there is a risk of interactions with other medicines people are taking, so Hunter advises anyone considering taking a supplement to talk to a health professional first. Increased intake of a protein like collagen could be a concern for people with kidney or liver conditions that affect protein metabolism, Erskine says.
Many of Hunter's patients are interested in supplements, after hearing about them from adverts, media or people they know, he says. "It's really important people, particularly health professionals, be open to having those conversations," he says. "If you're dismissive, I think it's very likely that a lot of these patients will go off and just take it anyway."
In his own practice, Hunter tells patients who express interest in supplements that some are worth trying for three or four weeks. As with skin appearance, some studies suggest that the joint benefits of supplements don't kick in for two or three months, if at all. However, Hunter notes that many people living with osteoarthritis will find it hard to keep going with a supplement if they don't see effects within a month or so.
Overall, given the many reasons someone might be seeking out collagen, there's no single answer to whether a collagen supplement is worthwhile. It will depend on why you want to take it, how long you can keep taking it, how affordable it is, whether the collagen is combined with other ingredients, and how it might affect other aspects of your health. "Not everybody will respond to a collagen supplement in the same way," Erskine notes.
Ultimately, scientists point out that the hundreds of pounds per year spent on collagen supplements could be spent instead on more balanced diets, which would improve health in a number of ways. In addition to nutritious and varied food, exercise, sleep and sunscreen all have well-known benefits for skin appearance and health, for instance. It may seem boring, but it could also save you some serious cash in the long term.
* All content within this article is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of a doctor or other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.
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Pathfinder 1, bankrolled by a Google billionaire, is an attempt to revive the airship. A century after terrifying disasters, is it a safe-enough bet?
On 24 October 2024, a brief post was shared on the social media network LinkedIn. In it Google co-founder Sergey Brin's airship company LTA Research finally announced Pathfinder 1's first if brief untethered flight at Nasa's Moffett Field in California, part of the space agency's Ames Research Center. "This morning, Pathfinder 1 reached another milestone: untethered outdoor flight. This successful test marks another important step in our journey, and we are excited to build on this achievement through our rigorous testing program."
Airships are hard to hide. Despite the secrecy, one YouTuber filmed it from the road and uploaded it to the video-sharing site.
"Pathfinder 1 is a pretty amazing vehicle," says Alan Shrimpton, editor of the Airship Journal. "It is the first fully rigid airship, certainly of that size, for a very long time, and there was a great expectation that it would fly shortly after it began its outdoor testing programme.
"But Alan Weston [founder and former CEO of LTA Research] always said the biggest fault with rigid airships was that people in the past rushed their development and they were not going to make that same mistake. They were going to check it and check it again – and they did."
The understated tone in LTA's post belies the historic achievements of Brin's company so far. This was the first flight of the first airship built by the Google cofounder's company, the first time a classic rigid airship of this size had flown since the 1930s, and the first of a new generation of airships. The last giant rigid airship Graf Zeppelin II flew for the final time on 20 August 1939, 12 days before World War Two started, and was scrapped the following year. Rigid airships have a complex metal framework that supports a huge envelope filled with enough hydrogen or helium to lift a sizeable number of passengers, or cargo such as disaster relief, for days at a time.
Hydrogen-filled airships are also symbols of the Golden Age of the airship. The era between the world wars when the promoters of the technology beguiled the public with promises of scheduled commercial passenger services between destinations like Europe and North America, and North America and the Pacific, and in some cases delivered on these promises. The Graf Zeppelin flew "the first regularly scheduled, nonstop, intercontinental airline service in the history of the world" between Germany and South America, and was far faster than ocean liners that plied the route.
But the crash of the airship Hindenburg in 1937 – which killed 36 people including one person on the ground – showed the drawbacks of the flammable gas used as buoyancy. The airship faded into obscurity; just as conventional aircraft design surged ahead.
Eighty-six years later in November 2023, Pathfinder 1 emerged for the first time from the historic Hangar Two at Moffett Field to begin its outdoor flight-testing programme. But the largest aircraft in the world stayed stubbornly tethered to the ground to the frustration of many aviation enthusiasts. Its expected first flight just didn't happen.
But thanks to the Google co-founder's deep pockets, LTA Research appears to have the freedom to wait-to-get-it-right that others have not always had.
They have used this freedom to, for example, find better materials than lightweight aluminum alloys like duralumin to construct the giant frame of a rigid airship from, and cotton-composite materials and even cow guts to make the envelope out of, and gain a much better understanding of aerodynamics involved in flying very large airships. And it seems like they have been able to cautiously flight test their creation, without the over confidence and pressure from investors that have been a problem in the past.
"People said that they could not do it and that it was impossible," says Janne Hietala, CEO of Kelluu Airships, whose 10 autonomous drones, each of which can be transported in a 12m (40ft) sea container, are currently "the world's largest" fleet of airships. "This is a brilliant, very bold attempt to do the hard work, the engineering that is required, to mass-manufacture big airships. I don't think they will build hundreds of those because of the difficulties in mass-manufacturing airships of that size, but it's still possible."
Pathfinder 1 is not a historical replica. It is a proof-of-concept airship designed to see if a rigid design can be updated with new materials.
In particular, LTA Research wants to solve the thorny problem of how to mass produce aircraft of this size. It wants to build production models in Goodyear Airdock in Akron, Ohio, where the great US rigid airships of the 1930s were built.
"I've been down to Moffett Field to see Pathfinder 1 twice, and it is really an amazing thing to see in person," says John Geoghegan, author of When Giants Ruled the Sky. "It's very impressive to be able to see the learning they have made from the past even from the outside."
The fact that the giant rigid airship does not have tail fins in the traditional cross shape, but at an angle, is an example of such learning, because airships float up and down on a mooring mast and the bottom tail fin used to get damaged. Likewise, the airship's engines are no longer inline but staggered along its length to reduce the wind, drag and vibration that they used to cause. Like many other new designs, it uses helium as a lifting gas to prevent the infernos that doomed the Golden Age of the airship.
Helium is less flammable than hydrogen, but there is a trade-off for this increased safety. It generates less lift than hydrogen, and it is in short supply. This makes it very expensive to fill the envelope of an airship with.
"There's a lot of baggage around airships, and a lot of people who have pre-set ideas about them, and so these guys are being incredibly careful and extremely cautious about the information they release," Geoghegan adds. "They do not want to do anything to contribute any more negative publicity. For the public always remember the airship disasters and not the successful flights."
Pathfinder 1's first untethered flight also has significance for the wider lighter-than-air community, which has for a long time had little more than glossy CGI graphics of large airships to show investors. That it has occurred at a time when high-profile airship companies such as Flying Whales "appear to be struggling to… build a flagship production facility" is a good morale boost for the sector, says Shrimpton.
"Investors tell so many people going out to try to get funding for their lighter-than-air projects that yes, it's interesting, I can see the benefits of it, but show me one that is flying today… now they can."
"It is fantastic that LTA Research is making so much progress using modern technology to solve these problems," says Diana Little, co-founder of airship startup Anumá Aerospace. "It reminds people about the capabilities of lighter-than-air flight.
"Aviation is an industry desperately looking for a decarbonisation solution and airships are part of that solution," Little adds.
The first flight of Pathfinder 1 has been at least 12 years in the making. Brin's interest in airships seems to have begun in 2012 around the same time as a modern semi-rigid Zeppelin NT (New Technology) airship began tourist flights from Moffett Field.
The following year he founded LTA Research Ltd and in 2017 his airship company began to lease space at Moffett Field and research began at the Akron Airdock. There they built a 12-engine, 50ft-long (15m) electric "baby airship" to test their technology.
No one had built aircraft like these giant rigid airships for decades. So, it took time for the engineers to learn how to do this, particularly with a focus on safety and not repeating the mistakes of the past. In the 1930s, the materials used to create the such rigid airship's framework and envelope which were simply not strong enough to deal with the stresses of flight.
The use of computerised controls, new and much stronger lightweight materials like carbon fibre and titanium to construct the complex skeleton of the rigid airship are just some of the ways the giant rigid airship has been brought into the 21st Century. So too are the use of flame-retardant synthetic materials for the envelope of the airship, sensors to monitor the helium and engines that can be rotated to provide vectored thrust.
The knowledge and skills of the great engineers of the past had to be relearned by LTA – together with the latest research and technology – in order to design the airship and work out how to mass produce even larger craft in the future. Rather than expect their engineers to work at the top of unsteady 85ft-high (26m) ladders to build these ships like they did in the 1930s, LTA have designed a massive cradle-like structure that allows the workers to stay on the ground while the giant ships are slowly rotated in front of them. To do this they needed to find the skilled workers who were willing to join a risky project that may one day make aviation history, and are continuing to seek them today.
In 2017 work started at Moffett Field on LTA's smallest airship Pathfinder 1, and planning began in Akron on the Pathfinder 3, its successor which is planned to be one-third-larger. (There is no Pathfinder 2.)
But a fully-fledged return of large airships is not yet a given. "I am crossing my fingers," says Shrimpton, "but if Pathfinder 1 suffered a failure in flight everybody would point to it and say, 'See once again, a large airship crashes – it is not safe,' which would provide an almost insurmountable hurdle for the whole passenger/cargo-carrying airship industry."
The same applies to other airship companies, such as Flying Whales, whose airship has not even been built yet. "They need to get over that same hurdle and prove to the public that they have a vehicle that is safe, like LTA Research is doing."
Geoghegan is more sanguine about it. "Interest in airships is cyclical," he says. "Every 10 or 15 years a company comes along that is working in the airship category and a couple more sprout up. Some get prototypes flying. But none of them ever pan out.
"So, there is a lot of skittishness among the investor community about building these things. It is in part about the technology, is it robust enough to work. Then, second, what is the business application? Is there a market that exists that would financially support airships on this scale?
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"We keep hearing the same things trotted out. One is for tourism. One is for disaster relief. One is that it will be a green, non-polluting alternative to conventional aircraft, and the fourth one is specialised cargo.
"But I remain to be convinced that there's an economic case for these things."
The engineering challenges that LTA faces certainly remain significant.
"In the end, for LTA Research it is proof that their design worked, and a milestone for their staff, who worked tirelessly for three or four years to bring the design to fruition," says Shrimpton. But Pathfinder could have much wider implications if it successfully takes to the skies. "It is really important. It is something the whole airship industry needs – to be seen in the sky."
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YouTube is about to turn 20. An unusual research method is unveiling statistics about the platform that Google would rather keep hidden.
YouTube may not seem secretive. It's public facing. You can watch an endless stream of content from now until your dying breath. There's been a mountain of research about the platform, unpacking everything from the commodified economy that surrounds it to the radicalising effects of its algorithm. But the picture goes blurry when you start asking simple questions. For example: how much YouTube do we all watch?
Google, which owns YouTube, is quiet about that and many other details. In February, the company revealed that people who access YouTube on their TVs collectively watch one billion hours a day, but total numbers for the platform are an enigma. Estimates say YouTube has around 2.5 billion monthly users – almost one in three people on Earth – and the average mobile app user watches something like 29 hours a month. With that, let's try some back-of-the-napkin maths.
If we make a few assumptions, and say that monthly viewing average for app users can be applied across all YouTube users on both the website and television, we can multiply 2.5 billion by 29 hours. This would tell us that humanity consumes something like 8.3 million years of videos on YouTube every month. Over 12 months, that adds up to almost 100 million years, hundreds of times longer than the sum total of human history.
How many YouTube videos are there? What are they about? What languages do YouTubers speak? As of 14 February 2025, the platform's will have been running for 20 years. That is a lot of video. Yet we have no idea just how many there really are. Google knows the answers. It just won't tell you.
Experts say that's a problem. For all practical purposes, one of the most powerful communication systems ever created – a tool that provides a third of the world's population with information and ideas – is operating in the dark.
In part that's because there's no easy way to get a random sampling of videos, according to Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the US. You can pick your videos manually or go with the algorithm's recommendations, but an unbiased selection that's worthy of real study is hard to come by. A few years ago, however, Zuckerman and his team of researchers came up with a solution: they designed a computer program that pulls up YouTube videos at random, trying billions of URLs at a time.
You might call the tool a bot, but that's probably over selling it, Zuckerman says. "A more technically accurate term would be 'scraper'," he says. The scraper's findings are giving us a first-time perspective on what's actually happening on YouTube.
In its 20 years of operation, YouTube has shaped entire generations' sensibilities and redefined global culture. Surveys show YouTube is the most popular social media site in the US by far, with 83% of adults and 93% of teenagers among its patrons. It's the second-most-visited website on Earth by most estimates, topped only by Google.com itself. But as the platform enters its third decade, the most basic facts about YouTube are still a closely guarded secret.
A Google spokesperson shared a blogpost about the platform's recommendation algorithm, but declined to comment on the statistics and other issues mentioned in this story. For now, YouTube's mysteries continue.
Unusual methods
"It's extremely difficult to get a grasp on what's going on inside social media platforms, because while the companies that operate them do make certain public disclosures, those disclosures are fragmentary and often somewhat misleading," says Paul Barrett, deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. "I think there's an instinct at Google that it's not in their interest to emphasise just how gargantuan YouTube is, how titanic the number of users, how phenomenal the amount of content. Google doesn't want to be seen as influential as it really is."
But Zuckerman and his colleagues found a way to peek behind the curtain. YouTube URL's have a standard format. With a few exceptions, the addresses begin with "youtube.com/watch?v=" and end with a unique string of 11 characters. Gangnam Style's identifier is 9bZkp7q19f0, for example.
So, the researchers wrote a program that basically generates 11 random characters and checks if there's a corresponding video. When the scraper finds one, it downloads it. Zuckerman says you can think of it like a pesky teenager, punching in random numbers for prank calls after dipping into his parent's liquor cabinet.
"If I wanted to know how many valid phone numbers there are in New York's 212 area code, I could just dial 212 and seven random numbers to see if somebody answers. I'd probably get cursed out a lot if I did it enough, but eventually I'd gather enough data to figure it out," Zuckerman says. "That's what we did with YouTube. The thing is, YouTube has 18.6 quintillion potential numbers, so you have to dial a few billion before someone picks up."
So, Zuckerman's lab let the scraper drunk dial YouTube, over and over again, until it put together a big enough data set. To collect the first 10,016 videos they gathered for their initial study, the scraper tried more than 18 trillion potential URLs. It took almost 1.87 billion bad guesses for every real video it found. If you did that work yourself, spending three seconds on each try, it would take an average of 178 years before you landed on a single video.
When the researchers analysed their findings, the results challenged the prevailing narrative about what YouTube actually is.
Secret stats
The first question was simple. How many videos have people uploaded to YouTube? Google used to release that statistic in the early days, back when YouTube had something to prove. When Google first acquired the platform in 2006, around 65,000 videos were uploaded every day. More recently the company says more than 500 hours are uploaded per minute, but it's tight-lipped about the number of videos.
Zuckerman and his colleagues compared the number of videos they found to the number of guesses it took, and arrived an estimate: in 2022, they calculated that YouTube housed more than nine billion videos. By mid 2024, that number had grown to 14.8 billion videos, a 60% jump.
For many, YouTube brings to mind the faces of bright-eyed influencers vying for money and fame, or professional content creators like MrBeast or Joe Rogan. But the researchers then took a subset of the videos and had human reviewers watch each one to answer a series of questions about what they saw. For the most part, they didn't find the work of professionals.
Only 0.21% of the videos they analysed featured any kind of monetisation, such as a sponsorship or an advertisement in the video itself. Less than 4% of the videos included a call to action like YouTube's famous invitations to like, comment and subscribe.
Those with some kind of set or background design accounted for 14% of videos, while only 38% had undergone any form of editing. More than half of the videos had "noticeably shaky" camera work. Only around 18% of videos we're judged to have high quality sound, and the sound quality varied significantly almost 85% of the time. More than 40% had just music, and no speech. About 16% of videos in the sample were primarily still images.
The top YouTubers attract audiences in the hundreds of millions, but the researchers estimated the median number of views for a YouTube videos is just 41, and 4% of videos haven't been watched a single time. About 74% of videos have zero comments. Around 89% have no likes. Typical YouTube videos aren't just getting little attention it seems, they're also very short. They assessed that the median YouTube video is only 64 seconds long, and more than a third of videos are less than 33 seconds long.
Troubling questions
YouTube once sold itself as a tool for regular people. The company's early slogan was "broadcast yourself". But today, YouTube suggests it's more of a service for people to watch the work of professional creators. In his annual letter at the start of 2025, YouTube's chief executive Neal Mohan said the company's mission is still to "give everyone a voice" – but most of the message was a discussion about how "YouTubers are becoming the start-ups of Hollywood" and "YouTube is the new television".
This narrative misses a critical piece of the picture, says Ryan McGrady, the senior researcher in Zuckerman's lab, who participated in the scraping project. YouTube is a free service that was built from the ground up by a private company, and it could be argued that Google should be able to run the platform as such. But when you examine how people are actually using YouTube, it looks less like TV and more like infrastructure, McGrady says.
"Most of us imagine YouTube as this place where millionaires give away prizes in a Squid-Game-style contest," he says. "But when you want to have a conversation about YouTube and its place in our society, we need to look at the ways it's used, not just the ways it's consumed."
YouTube is one of the internet's de facto repositories, the first place many of us go when we have videos we want to post or store online. It's also a place where local authority meetings are broadcast, for example, providing a vital opportunity for public accountability in ways that weren't possible before it existed. It isn't just a "platform", McGrady says, it's a critical piece of infrastructure, and that's how it should be regulated. "For companies that own so much of our public sphere, there are some minimum expectations we should have about transparency."
Google is dealing with more regulatory pressure than ever before. The company has faced multiple cases across the globe accusing it of running illegal monopolies in several industries. Google has lost several of them, and is currently fighting a number of other antitrust lawsuits.
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But YouTube has escaped much of the scrutiny that's challenged its biggest social media competitors, according to Barrett of New York University. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk make frequent, loud pronouncements about how they do business and what's happening on their platforms. "Google, in contrast, has largely stayed out of the crossfire by choosing a strategy of being much quieter, a strategy I'd say has largely worked for them," he says.
"Social media is an anomaly when it comes to how little companies need to explain themselves if you compare it to other industries like finance, or agriculture or even broadcasting," Barrett says. "But social media companies are fundamental players not just in mass communication but in all matters of political and civic life."
The most important thing to understand is the inner workings of YouTube's algorithm, a system that has astronomical power over the distribution of information all over the world, Barrett says. But simple details about what happens on the platform are important as well. "It would be very valuable to know all of the facts that are currently so shrouded and unavailable. They are the building blocks of doing deeper research," he says. "It only takes you so far, but you've got to start someplace. The more basic information we have to assess, the healthier the public debate about the role of social media in society will be."
* Thomas Germain is a senior technology journalist for the BBC. He's covered AI, privacy and the furthest reaches of internet culture for the better part of a decade. You can find him on X and TikTok @thomasgermain.
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From raw eggs to protein shakes, those hoping to expand their brawn are often encouraged to ingest vast quantities of protein. But how much is really necessary and what's the best way to consume it?
Sophia Moulson, 21, a fitness influencer based in West Sussex, began taking fitness seriously at the age of 19, after struggling with being overweight.
"I often turned to food as a source of comfort, which ultimately left me in a cycle of negative self-image and low confidence. One day, I realised that I needed to take control – not just for my physical health but for my mental wellbeing too," says Moulson.
Initially, she joined the gym with the sole intention of losing weight. But over time, she fell in love with the process of building up a healthy amount of muscle too. "I discovered how empowering it felt to grow stronger, and each small strength milestone motivated me to keep pushing forward," she says.
An integral part of Moulson's progress was research on nutrition. That's when she learned about the importance of protein for building muscle. However, as a vegetarian, Moulson initially felt that she was struggling to get enough protein through just her diet, so she turned to protein powders. "While it was possible for me to meet my needs through a well-balanced diet, it often required time and careful planning. Protein powders offered a convenient solution, especially with my busy lifestyle," she says.
While in the past, bodybuilders were notorious for consuming vast quantities of steak and drinking raw eggs, today, protein powders and tailored diets are big business. But do we really need so much protein to grow stronger? And what is the best way to consume it?
Building the body
Linea Patel, a Sports Dietitian at the company Pure Sports Medicine in London, explains that proteins have many roles in the human body. As they are digested, the proteins in food are broken down into amino acids – building blocks that can be rearranged to form any protein that the body needs. Haemoglobin, enzymes, muscles, the keratin in our skin and hair – there are more than 20,000 proteins in the human body, performing a wide range of functions.
However, the amount that each person needs can vary greatly, depending on their age, body composition and lifestyle.
"In the UK, the government guidelines say that the general baseline for sedentary adults is that they should consume 0.8 or 0.75g [around 0.03oz] of protein per kg of their own body weight," says Patel. "So, for example, if somebody weighed 70kg [154lb], then you just multiply that by 0.8 and you'll get 56g [around 2oz] of protein a day."
Most people get more than that amount from their normal diets. In the US, the average American consumes around 14-16% of their total calories as protein. However, if you're more active, your protein requirements may exceed 1g per kg each day. The amount of protein you need also depends on factors such as your age, because people tend to lose muscle mass as they get older – consuming more protein can help us to hold onto more muscle. Post-menopausal women also have higher protein requirements.
"What I see in my clinical practice, particularly because I work with women in the menopause or high performing individuals [sportspeople], is that perhaps that they're not eating enough protein for their level of activity or to maintain [appropriate] muscle mass for their stage of life," says Patel. One size doesn't fit all, she explains.
Different requirements
For individuals engaging in regular high-intensity resistance training or athletes and powerlifters or body builders, research has found that the daily protein requirement is approximately 1.6-2.2g (0.06-0.08oz) per kg of body weight to maximise muscle protein synthesis.
Many medical professionals recommend that people acquire the protein they need from their diets, wherever possible. For vegans, this can involve consuming more nuts, seeds and soya-based products, as well as pulses such as beans and lentils. For vegetarians, eggs, yoghurt and certain types of cheese can be added, while omnivores may also want to increase their consumption of meat and seafood.
For many, consuming enough protein involves experimenting with different foods. However, not everyone has the time or money to acquire adequate protein through their diet alone.
"Even though, theoretically, one can meet this target through a balanced diet rich in protein-dense foods like lean meats, eggs, dairy and legumes, for many this may not be easy without supplementation," says Cyriac Abby Philips, a liver specialist at the Rajagiri Hospital in Kerala, India.
Lauren Manaker a dietician based in Charleston, South Carolina in the US, adds that protein powders "do provide a convenient and portable option, especially for individuals with busy lifestyles or limited access to whole food sources".
Globally, the protein powder market has been valued at $4.4bn (£3.6bn) in 2021, and is expected to grow to $19.3bn (£15.6bn) by 2030. There are many formulations – both animal and plant-based, in the form of shakes, or added to nutrition bars, yoghurts and ready meals.
"When I incorporated plant-based protein powders into my diet, it became much easier to hit my protein goals… Over time, I experimented with different options and found that lean protein powders or whey protein worked best for me, as they are low in calories but high in protein," says Moulson.
However, protein powders can come with risks, and there's some evidence in rats that they could lead to liver damage in those who are not exercising. There have also been rare cases of toxicity to the liver from whey and soy-based protein powders in humans.
Protein powders can also be misleadingly labelled and may contain harmful contaminants. For a recent study, Philips and colleagues from India and the US analysed protein powders sold in India. The team found that many powders contained more or less protein than they were marketed as having – leading to concerns about "protein-spiking" – as well as contaminants including heavy metals, fungal toxins and herbal extracts that may be toxic to the liver.
Toxins in protein powders may be more widespread than we think.
In 2018, a nonprofit group called the Clean Label Project, based in Broomfield, Colorado, released a report about toxins in popular brands of protein powders in the US. Researchers screened 134 products for 130 types of toxins and found that many protein powders contained heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury), bisphenol-A (or BPA, which is used to manufacture plastic), pesticides, or other contaminants with links to cancer and other health conditions. Some toxins were present in significant quantities.
For example, one protein powder contained 25 times the allowed limit of BPA in the US. The pesticides and chemicals came from agricultural residue and from the packaging of these powders, researchers observed. Interestingly, one certified "organic" product had twice the contaminants of non-certified ones. Plant-based protein powders were the most contaminated, while egg and whey-based powders were found to be the cleanest.
Because protein powders are considered dietary supplements and not pharmaceuticals, regulation from governing authorities tends to be more relaxed – in the US and the UK, they're considered food. This has led to concerns that they are not being regulated strictly enough.
A central protein
When increasing body muscle, it's not impossible to get your protein requirements through the foods you eat, but it can take considerable time and planning. The key to achieving your daily requirements is to eat protein at every meal and to plan your meals around a principal source of protein, says Patel.
"We're looking to aim for at least 20-30g (0.7-1.1oz) of protein per meal," says Patel. That would be the equivalent to a couple of eggs or some Greek yogurt with nuts sprinkled on top, or a chicken breast, or a piece of tofu that is the size of your fist.
"So, for example, you might have to have two eggs on sourdough toast with some avocado with some seeds sprinkled on top – with the eggs being the principal protein, the food source with the highest protein content," says Patel. "In a meal that consists of beans or lentils with some rice, the lentils would be the principal protein."
The protein powder route
If you decide to take a protein supplement instead or as well as altering your diet, there are a few simple rules for choosing one that is least likely to contain harmful substances. First of all, prioritise high-quality proteins with minimal additives, says Philips.
"One must definitely avoid 'blended' proteins with herbal components as the risk of adulteration, contamination inclusive of the presence of heavy metals and fungal toxins are higher in these types of protein supplements," he says.
Manaker also advises that consumers do their research, particularly to avoid unnecessary ingredients. "Look for protein powders that contain high-quality ingredients and have minimal additives, fillers or artificial sweeteners. Opt for brands that prioritise transparency and provide detailed information about the sourcing and processing of their ingredients," Manaker says.
Manaker also recommends considering the source of the protein in the powder. It's important to check labels to see if it's from whey, casein, soya, plant or animal-based proteins, she says. "Choose a protein source that aligns with your dietary preferences, allergies or sensitivities."
If you're taking a protein supplement or powder, timing can play a role in optimising its benefits, says Manaker. "Consuming protein within 30 minutes to an hour after a workout is often recommended to take advantage of the body's heightened ability to absorb and utilise nutrients during this time," she says.
And the way you take protein powders matters. While protein supplements can be beneficial, it's crucial to avoid relying solely on them as a source of nutrition. "Whole, nutrient-dense foods should form the foundation of your diet, and supplements should only complement a well-balanced eating plan. Avoid the temptation to replace meals entirely with protein powders, as this can lead to an inadequate intake of other essential nutrients," says Manaker.
Beware of too much protein
With widespread access to protein powders and protein-rich foods today, some people do consume more protein than what they probably need, says Manaker. For example, while the average adult needs around 45-56 grams (1.6-2 ounces) of protein per day, in the UK people tend to consume around 75-100 grams (2.6-3.5 ounces). While it is essential for muscle building and overall health, consuming an excessive amount of protein intake can have potential risks.
"High protein intake over a prolonged period can put strain on the kidneys," says Manaker. "Individuals with pre-existing kidney conditions should be particularly cautious."
Furthermore, a sudden increase in protein intake, especially from protein powders, can sometimes lead to digestive discomfort such as bloating, gas and constipation. "Keep an eye on the way your body reacts, even as you tweak your protein [intake]," says Patel.
Keep in mind that it's easy to go overboard with protein powders. "As a general guideline, I wouldn't recommend that people using protein powders exceed 80g [2.8oz] a day," says Patel. "Even 80g of protein from protein powder is excessive for most people. It's going to completely displace whole foods that provide vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that we need. So in general, for most of my clients I tell them to stick with 20 to 40g [0.7-1.4oz] of protein powder per day."
In particular, problems tend to arise when one's diet is laser-focused only on proteins, says Patel. Micronutrients from fruit, vegetables and carbohydrates, which are also vital for a balanced diet, can end up being neglected.
In order to optimise your diet while weight training, ensure that you're including quality carbohydrates and prioritise micro-nutrients like Vitamin D, magnesium, iron and Omega 3 fats. "They're all essential for optimum muscle contraction, bone health and energy. Eat fruits, vegetables and include oily fish in your diet at least once a week," says Patel.
Getting enough protein is key to growing stronger muscles, but it's only one of the pillars of wellness, says Patel. "The other pillars are physical activity, getting the training right and sleeping well," she says.
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What happens when we make friends across borders? Two writers talk about their British-Italian friendship – and the fascinating cognitive science on such cross-cultural bonds.
David Robson, London: Aristotle famously described friendship as having "one soul dwelling in two bodies", but what are the challenges of stretching that bond across countries?
Having explored the psychology of social connection in my most recent book, I find that my conversations with my own acquaintances can become rather meta – in the sense that I now often talk to my friends about friendship. I was particularly interested to hear the thoughts of my Italian "sister" Alessia Franco, who lives in Palermo in Sicily, on the joys of befriending someone from another country.
Although certain psychological barriers can make it harder to establish a rapport with someone from a different background, the research suggests that these cross-cultural and cross-linguistic connections also bring some unique benefits – a fact that we have experienced in our own friendship.
As friends and frequent co-writers, it seemed natural to put our (metaphorical) pens to paper and explore the topic in depth. I'll leave it to Alessia to start.
Alessia Franco, Palermo: Across one's professional life, a journalist encounters hundreds of people. The number clearly depends on the type of work one does, whether we feel the need to be present for every story, all the time, or whether we wish to alternate between moments of observation and moments of introspection. But we rarely expect to form a lasting connection with the people we encounter.
I first met David in one of Sardinia's remotest villages to record a series of short films exploring the forces behind its residents' extraordinary longevity. David was the host, and I was the producer. We had every reason to believe that, after our job was done, we would each return to our individual lives in London and Sicily without any further contact.
One of the first things I appreciated was David's willingness to "take one for the team". I am teetotal, and yet the Sardinians that we met had the habit of offering us their homemade wine as if it were coffee. To refuse would have been bad manners, but David was always ready to help me finish my glass without our hosts noticing.
This secret complicity was the first step on the path to our friendship. It was only a few months after the work was finished that we got back in touch, however. I can't remember which of us was the first to make the call, but after very little time we started to brainstorm ideas for future projects. We soon recognised how well our interests complemented each other. I am a cultural journalist and storyteller, who writes magical realism novels. David is a science communicator, who tries to find sense in the world through data and analysis.
Together, we have covered such diverse subjects as the mysterious disappearance of the Island Ferdinandea; the shipwrecks rewriting world history; the secret of the Montessori method and the challenge of how to help children raised in Mafia families. Throughout these projects, we have come to feel more like siblings than colleagues.
From our appearance, it's hard to imagine two more improbable "siblings": unlike me, David is long-limbed, blond and blue-eyed. But our sense of kinship can be found in the novels we read: our shared love of Virginia Woolf, Anna Maria Ortese and Zadie Smith. We each feel that literature is a part of who we are and it is also central to our friendship.
David: I couldn't have said it better myself (though few English people would consider my hair to be blond). Despite the physical distance – we have spent fewer than two weeks in the same location together – Alessia lies at the very centre of my social circle with just a handful of other people.
This may be surprising given that we don't share all of the seven pillars of friendship – seven factors that can deeply shape the closeness of social bonds, according to research by Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford. Having the same language or dialect, and growing up in the same location, are two of these crucial factors. Alessia and I don't share a mother tongue, and grew up in very different places, the UK and Italy.
We do however tick the five remaining boxes on Dunbar's list: having similar educational history or profession; the same hobbies and interests; the same world view (an amalgam of moral, religious and political views); the same sense of humour; and the same musical taste.
As Dunbar explains in his book Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships, most people's social networks stretch to around 150 people – and someone's position within that network depends on the number of pillars supporting your relationship. People may share just one or two pillars with those on the outer fringes of their social circle, compared to six or seven with those lying at the core.
However, despite us scoring only five out of seven pillars, my bond with Alessia is very close. Does that mean some factors in Dunbar's list are more important than others? Research on the importance of pursuing shared activities for maintaining a friendship may help answer that question.
One of Dunbar’s studies explored how family relationships and friendships change with our circumstances. The researchers followed a group of school leavers as they embarked on their first year at university – a time when we might expect a rapid transition of their social circle. As you might expect, regular conversation – either face-to-face or remotely – predicted which friendships were most likely to endure, but just as important were joint activities. Persevering on the same task appears to build a stronger sense of unity than talk for its own sake.
Those joint tasks don't necessarily involve being in the same location, as our experience shows. Whenever Alessia and I write together, there is a unique satisfaction to bouncing ideas off each other and then perfecting our text for publication – and I am sure that this helped to cement our bond.
But there is also another, perhaps more fundamental emotional experience we've had as friends, one which research suggests is the most important basis of any social relationship: a sense of "shared reality". This is the perception that the other person thinks and feels and interprets events in broadly the same way as us – that they understand us, have the same visceral reactions, and experience the world in the same way.
Maya Rossignac-Milon, a psychologist at the University of Navarra, Spain recently devised a scale to measure this core element of social connection, by asking people to rate, on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) statements such as:
* We frequently think of things at the exact same time
* We anticipate what the other is about to say
* We typically share the same thoughts and feelings about things
The higher people score these statements, the greater their overall commitment to their platonic or romantic relationship.
Despite some momentary misunderstandings that inevitably arise while speaking each other's language, our conversations are filled with many such moments. In our experience, friendship can easily surmount linguistic barriers.
Alessia: There is an old Italian saying that "proverbs are the wisdom of the people". The Sicilian realist novelist Giovanni Verga often put them in the mouths of his characters: fishermen, farmers and small landowners who used these axioms to make sense of reality and to comfort us from life's uncertainties.
Unfortunately, this cultural knowledge is often expressed in stereotypes. As a southern Italian, I should be lazy but shrewd. As an Englishman, David should be cold, calculating and unfeeling. I had never personally believed these crude generalisations, and my friendship proved me right. He is warm and caring – more than many Sicilians – and I am fastidiously punctual, more so – David assures me – than most English people.
By now, we have both stepped into each other's worlds. I am happy to have discovered London with him. We took trips to sites in London associated with the life of Virginia Woolf, and visited Kensington Gardens, where J M Barrie's Peter Pan mocked adults and helped the lost children. I went to sleep savouring the fog and the cold – which, as a Sicilian, I should hate – while hugging a hot water bottle bought for me by my English brother.
In Palermo, I dragged David through the hustle and bustle of the Capo market, full of fried street food, multicoloured fruit and loud voices. We lost ourselves in the mosaics of the Palatine Chapel. I told him the history of the Sicilian puppet theatre at the Museo Internazionale delle Marionette Antonio Pasqualino, where I am head of public communications; and we immersed ourselves in the graffiti of the Steri, the prison cells where heretics were held during the Spanish Inquisition.
These visits are few and far between, but we are often in contact through WhatsApp and Instagram. Writing can often be a solitary profession – shut within a room in a kind of monastic silence, as we try to crystallise our thoughts after months of research. But I can say with certainty that sharing our experiences has offered an antidote to this loneliness. Knowing that someone dear to you is wandering through the same kind of interior world is a profound comfort.
'Self-expansion' through friendship
David: Cross-cultural friendships may often lack the natural reference points that ease our interactions with people of our own background, but they do have the advantage of creating a sense of self-expansion. This is the sense that we are growing as people, and while you might expect this to be important for our life-satisfaction – as individuals – studies by Arthur and Elaine Aron at the State University of New York at Stony Brook show that it is also fundamental for our social relationships.
Self-expansion can come in many forms. It may come from an exposure to new points of view, or an introduction to new and exciting experiences that we had never encountered alone. As Alessia describes, we are constantly learning from each other.
Stretching our minds in this way may fuel greater creativity. Friendship, in general, tends to be associated with more original problem-solving, as each individual within our social circle introduces us to new ideas and viewpoints that we may not have come across before.
This may be especially true for connections across countries, since those people will be drawing from a different well of cultural knowledge and beliefs. Even if we are not directly inspired by the words they say, our interactions may have helped to loosen some of the shackles on our thinking so that we are more receptive to new ways of viewing the world – a more flexible and open-minded attitude that encourages innovation.
Such benefits can be seen in an international study on innovation and cross-cultural friendship led by Jackson Lu at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The researchers surveyed 2,226 repatriates in 96 countries, people who had previously worked in the US and then went back to their own countries. For evidence of innovation, the researchers considered whether the participants had started their own business as an entrepreneur, or whether they had introduced some profound change to practice in their existing workplace. The people who had continued to maintain their American friendships were more likely to show both signs of creative thinking, compared to those who did not.
Most of us would not choose our friends solely for the cognitive benefits that they provide, of course – those are just happy by-products of our interactions. We are friends for the sheer pleasure of someone's company and the meaning they give to our existence.
Thanks to the incredible advances in communications, we do not need to be in the same physical location to experience someone's continued presence in our lives. According to recent studies, many people underestimate the value of video calls and text messaging for maintaining our social bonds – and these false assumptions may lead our long-distance friendships to fade. Any contact is better than none, provided that we use these tools to affirm our mutual care and understanding. I think that's worth remembering when we read opinion articles decrying the effects of these new technologies on our lives. It all depends on the ways that we apply them.
One hundred and fifty years ago, Alessia and I may have posted letters outlining our thoughts and feelings on the events of the day, but we would have endured weeks of delay. Today, we can respond to each other's messages within seconds. In those moments, the distance between London and Palermo feels negligible.
I was lucky to meet Alessia in Sardinia all those years ago, but plenty of websites and apps now offer anyone the possibility of forging cultural or linguistic exchanges. There has never been a better time to build bridges across borders.
* David Robson is an award-winning science writer and author. His latest book is The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life. He is @davidarobson on Instagram and Threads and writes the 60-Second Psychology newsletter on Substack.
** Alessia Franco is an author and a journalist focusing on history, culture, society, storytelling and its effects on people. She is La Raccontatrice on Facebook and @la_raccontatrice on Instagram.
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Suggesting that natural products or ingredients are inherently superior to those that are synthetic is a common flaw in reasoning used by influencers, brands and politicians alike.
Before writing this column, I had a hair appointment. As my stylist fastened the smock cape around my neck, she gestured to the shampoo she'd use. "It's a new line, made from 90% natural ingredients," she explained. The accompanying pamphlet, contained short descriptions of each product – one shampoo used prickly pear extract, another acai berries. A third incorporated chia seeds.
When I got home – purchased shampoo bottles in hand – I took a closer look at the ingredient list. Cetearyl alcohol, glycerin, behentrimonium chloride, isopropyl myristate. All common, laboratory-made ingredients. None worried me. But none of which, despite being used in far greater quantities than any of the fruit extracts, were highlighted in the brand's adverts.
The tactic that had been used – perhaps successfully, in my case – is hundreds of years old. It is often deployed on social media, by brands and influencers, and by politicians around the globe.
Often called an "appeal to nature", or the "naturalistic fallacy", it is one of the most commonly-seen types of logical fallacies, or flaws in reasoning that can make a claim sound surprisingly convincing. Anytime you hear someone make a claim that a product or practice is superior because it is "natural", or that one is inferior (or even harmful) because it is not "natural", this is the naturalistic fallacy at work. So are arguments that something is "as nature intended", or that something is bad specifically because it is a "chemical" or "synthetic".
Nature is, in many ways, wonderful. And it has a great deal to teach us. So why isn't it true that something is better merely because it comes from nature?
For one thing, because nature, of course, does not have intentions – not in any conscious sense. As such, nor does it have intentions to be good, or to help humans, specifically.
We don't need to get too philosophical to grasp this. Just consider a handful of nature's creations. Arsenic, which can kill an adult with a dose as little as 70mg, is natural. So is asbestos, which causes cancer. Cyanide, which can kill with as little as 1.5mg per kilogram of body weight if ingested, is a phytotoxin produced, naturally, by more than 2,000 different plant species, including almonds, apricots and peaches. This is also why some "natural" remedies frequently marketed – such as ground apricot seeds – can in fact be dangerous to consume.
And this is the trouble with the use of the word natural that is so commonly used to market products. It is a poorly defined term that doesn't necessarily mean the product labelled as such will be better for you, or indeed safer, than any other alternatives.
One investigation of teething products for babies labelled as "natural" found, for example, that more than 370 infants experienced adverse events such as seizures or delirium. The products were found to contain inconsistent, and at times elevated, levels of belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade.
Of course, there are other natural phenomena we could look at beyond ingredients used in products. Smallpox, for example, once killed one out of every three people it infected. This naturally occurring virus was responsible for killing a jaw-dropping 300-500 million people in the 20th Century alone before it was eradicated thanks to vaccination. Poison ivy and polio, tornadoes and tick bites, the inevitable and eventual death of the Sun that will end all of life on Earth? Natural, natural, natural.
In his 1874 essay On Nature, this was one of the main problems with making "appeals to nature" that philosopher John Stuart Mill pointed out. "Either it is right that we should kill because nature kills; torture because nature tortures; ruin and devastate because nature does the like; or we ought not to consider at all what nature does, but do what it is good to do." In other words: if the premise of the appeal to nature is correct that anything "natural" must be better, because it's natural, then we have to be willing to embrace everything that comes from nature. If we aren't, well, we probably don't really believe something is inherently better because it's natural.
Meanwhile, there are hundreds of things that we might consider not to be natural that, in fact, have made life quite a lot better for many of us. Prior to modern medicine, more than one in 100 women died in childbirth. In wealthy, industrialised countries such as the UK today, it is more like one in 10,000. Before vaccinations were rolled out globally, whooping cough (pertussis) killed one out of every 10 children infected. After the global roll-out, deaths fell to a fraction – 1/157, specifically – of what they had been before.
That's just medicine. Look around you right now, and you'll see a dozen more examples. It's may not be "natural" to wear glasses, refrigerate food, or turn on the heating in winter, for example – but for many of us, it's a better alternative than walking around near-blind, leaving meat to spoil or shivering in the cold.
Much of the food we eat does not come to us as nature presents it. We process and cook it. The harvesting, grinding and processing of grains helped to drive the transition of our species from being nomadic hunter gatherers into settled farmers capable of building sophisticated civilisations. So, too, did the way in which we cultivated and cross-bred crops – meaning that many of the nutritious foods we consider "natural" today, from the orange carrot to the modern banana, look (and taste) far different than their wild forebears.
Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that human-made products don't also cause us problems, whether pollution from synthetic plastics to the use of guns and explosives. Nor does it mean that, in many cases, the more "natural" option is not better for us. But it does mean that we cannot assume the more "natural" option is better just because it's natural – despite a frequent tendency for people to believe the contrary. Carrots might be better for us than crisps, but so too is paracetamol versus arsenic.
Some of these examples hint at one of the other main problems with the "appeal to nature" – how can you delineate what is, and what isn't, natural at all? Humans, after all, come from nature. So, if anything an animal or plant produces is "natural", why isn't anything that humans do? And what of those creations that are blends of what we'd traditionally consider natural and man-made – like vaccinations, which are derived from the parts of a (natural) virus or bacteria, and, when injected, help teach your immune system how to (naturally) fend off that same pathogen in the future?
"Like all truly interesting words, 'nature' is a mille-feuille of meanings," writes the science historian Lorraine Daston. It can mean almost anything, depending on the context. This slipperiness, of course, is exactly what makes it such clever language for marketing – and makes it so easy for us to fall for.
There's another problem, too: even if there were a clear-cut delineation between "humans" and "nature", we're often not very good at knowing what is actually synthetic, versus what is not.
Take brushing our teeth. Is it natural to brush your teeth with a fluoride toothpaste? What about to brush your teeth with a non-fluoride toothpaste?
For many of us, our instinct might be to say that brushing with fluoride is unnatural, while brushing with non-fluoride toothpaste is natural. But fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that can be found in soil, water and rocks, while one of its common replacements in "natural" toothpastes, nano-hydroxyapatite, is synthetic. And, of course, we'd need to consider that cleaning one's teeth, certainly with the items we use today, is far from natural; the closest primates get to brushing their teeth is "flossing" with whatever is on hand (like bird feathers). Even if we wanted to brush our teeth the way that our human ancestors did, we'd need to scrub our teeth with a twig, pig hairs or even porcupine quills.
Meanwhile, if I told you that I had made a drink for you that was made up of 99% dihydrogen monoxide, would you recoil? This chemical name sounds pretty synthetic, after all, until you think about it.
Dihydrogen monoxide is, of course, two hydrogen atoms and a single oxygen atom. You might be more familiar to see it written in chemical shorthand: H2O. In other words, water.
The next time you see a product being marketed on the basis that it is natural – or see someone arguing against something because it is not – it is worth questioning what is really being meant. And, perhaps, questioning why it is that those behind the product or practice are leaning on the "appeal to nature" fallacy to persuade an audience of its merits – rather than simply laying out the logical argument for just why it is actually the better option.
* Amanda Ruggeri is an award-winning science and features journalist. She posts about expertise, media literacy and more on Instagram at @mandyruggeri.
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Fingernails help protect the underlying skin from injury, and they also come in handy when you want to scratch an itch or peel a satsuma. But what do they reveal about your health?
There's no shortage of folk wisdom about how to glean the state of your overall health from your nails, such as the pervasive idea that the white flecks that sometimes turn up – known as leukonychia – are a sign of calcium deficiency. But is there any truth to these ideas?
First up some basic anatomy. Nails are an extension of the skin. They are made from keratin, a super tough protein that shields the toes and tops of your fingers from trauma. The half-moon shape seen at the base of the nail is the lunula, which serves as the "growth centre" for the nail, producing the cells that will eventually harden into the nail plate . It sits above the cuticle, a layer of dead cells joining the base of the nailbed to the skin. The cuticle offers extra protection by acting as the nail's security guard, stopping bacteria, fungi and other pathogens in their tracks.
While the eyes might be the windows to the soul, to a doctor the nails can be the windows to your health. Physicians can use them to diagnose all sorts of conditions, from dermatological problems to kidney disease or even autoimmune disorders.
A sign of something serious
"One of the first things I learned in medical school was to look for something called clubbing, where there is this loss of the angle between the nail and the nail bed itself," says Dan Baumgardt, a general practitioner in medicine and lecturer in neuroscience and physiology at the University of Bristol.
With clubbing, the nail beds soften, and the nails almost seem to "float" instead of being firmly attached to the finger. The fingertips also appear large or bulging. "It causes an unusual sort of swollen finger appearance where the finger looks a little bit like a drumstick," says Baumgardt.
Clubbing is a sign of extremely low blood oxygen levels. It is most commonly associated with lung cancer, but it can also indicate an infection of the lining of the heart chambers and heart valves, among other things. Other conditions where it is observed include celiac disease, cirrhosis of the liver and lung infections amongst others.
"If you do see a patient with clubbing the rule of thumb is to get them an x-ray as an urgency, because it could be an underlying lung cancer that could be explaining it," says Baumgardt. "Having said that even though it's one of the first things that we learned in medical school. I really don't know why, because in all the 14 years I've been a doctor, I've only ever seen it once," he says.
White flecks on the nail – known as leukonychia – are often touted to be a sign of vitamin or mineral deficiencies. However, the evidence to support this is mixed. In one small study of undergraduates, there was no correlation between this symptom and a person's intake of either zinc or calcium. However, in one case report of a patient with Crohn's disease who developed severe leukonychia on his fingernails while deficient in selenium, it disappeared after treatment with this mineral.
In general, leukonychia are more likely to be a result of nail trauma. Stubbing your toe, trapping your fingernail in a door, too many manicures, or dropping a heavy object on your foot may cause such a mark.
Nevertheless, white discolouration on the nail could suggest an underlying health issue. For instance, white marks can be a sign of heavy metal poisoning with lead or arsenic. White discolouration of the nail could be a sign of psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that causes raised, inflamed, scaly patches of skin. If the entire nail turns white, this could suggest a deficiency of protein in the bloodstream, which can indicate kidney disease, liver disease or diabetes.
"If people have low protein levels in their bloodstream it [often] causes the whole nail to go white," says Baumgardt. "We tend to associate that with people who've got liver disease, so things like cirrhosis of the liver, perhaps as a result of alcoholism."
Blue nails, on the other hand, are a sign that the body might be lacking oxygen. It could be a sign of serious heart disease or emphysema and is something you should get checked out by a doctor as soon as possible. This is also the case if you see dark lines underneath the nail, as although this can be caused by trauma, it could also be a sign of subungual melanoma, a rare but serious type of skin cancer.
Bleeding beneath the nail – if it doesn't heal – could also indicate something more serious. "You can get what we call splinter haemorrhages, which look like little red streaks of blood, similar to if you imagine a splinter stuck under your nail," says Baumgardt. "That haemorrhage can sometimes be suggestive of vasculitis, which is an inflammation of the blood vessels. One of the main underlying causes can be an infection of the heart valve, which causes these odd little red swellings," he says.
A touch of fungus
Other, more common conditions can also be diagnosed by looking at the nails. When examining a patient, doctors typically look for alterations in colour, thickness and shape.
For example, in a healthy nail the underlying nail bed should be pink except for the white tips. Other colours could indicate an infection of the nail itself, or an underlying health condition.
"If you see either white or yellow discolouration on your toes, especially on your toenails, that is a sign of a fungal infection," says Holly Wilkinson, a lecturer in wound healing at the University of Hull.
Although in many countries, such as the US and the UK, you can buy over-the-counter topical medication for mild fungal nail infections, if you leave it too late then it can become more difficult to treat. (It's important to always consult a doctor if you suspect that you have a nail infection.)
"I think a lot of the time when people have discolouration in the nails they don't realise that it's an infection, so it can get to a point where it becomes quite bad, and then they have to go and see a podiatrist," says Wilkinson.
Fragile nails
Meanwhile the shape of the nail can also reveal underlying problems. Healthy toe and fingernails should be convex, which means they curve slightly outwards. They shouldn't contain any dips or craters. If they do, it may be a sign that you have koilonychia, a condition where the nail curves inwards and looks thin and brittle. In some cases, people with koilonychia have a central depression in their nail deep enough to hold a drop of fluid, hence the condition is often referred to as "spoon nails".
If your any of your nails bear a resemblance to a spoon, this could be a sign of anaemia, when the body doesn't have enough healthy blood cells to carry oxygen to the tissues. Anaemia can be caused by iron deficiency. However, it can also be a sign of coeliac disease, among other conditions.
On the other hand, some changes in the nail can indicate nutritional deficiencies. Some people have horizontal ridges, known as Beau's lines, that run horizontally across their nails. This could indicate a deficiency such as insufficient protein. However, this feature could also be a sign of diabetes and peripheral vascular disease – a disorder involving reduced circulation of blood to certain parts of the body, usually due to the buildup of fat and cholesterol in the arteries – so it is still important to get it checked out.
"Beau's lines can indicate zinc deficiency, while brittle nails are a sign of hypothyroidism or vitamin B7 deficiency," says Mary Pearson, a paediatrician working at the University Hospital of Wales. "In some cases we might be more diligent about looking for these, for example in safeguarding cases where we are concerned about a child's nutrition, or where we suspect chronic disease," she says.
In other cases, nail changes may be caused by lifestyle factors rather than health problems. For example peeling nails, also known as onychoschizia, occurs when thin layers of the nails literally separate from the free nail edge and peel back. "Onychoschizia may be the result of excessive hand washing, nail dryness, and the use of acrylics and other nail polishes," says Joshua Zeichner, professor of dermatology at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
You may wonder what it is about nails that makes them so revealing of a person's underlying health. One of the main reasons is that nails are obviously one of the few parts of the body that you can see from the outside.
"Nails are extensions of the skin, effectively, and your skin can tell you so much about what's going on in your body," says Baumgardt. "Your first impression of a patient often starts from the bedside, so you look them all over and you start off with their nails, you look in their eyes and their mouth. And you start to do an end-of-the-bed assessment, trying to pick out diagnostic pictures from that point early on. So nails are one of the first things we see," he says.
While most of the time changes in the nail are harmless, and are simply down to a nail injury, if you notice that the change in shape, colour, or texture is more permanent, then you should always consult the advice of a doctor.
* All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.
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A "fireball" spotted hurtling through the sky in Lincolnshire was probably the remains of a rocket booster.
The flaming ball with a bright streak trailing behind it was seen shooting over homes across the region and beyond at about 03:45 GMT.
Social media posts suggest it was seen as far as the Netherlands.
Horncastle astronomer Paul Money said the reports he had seen so far suggested it was the remains of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched a series of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites earlier this month.
Rocket boosters help launch spacecraft into space.
Mr Money said they deliver the satellite into the correct orbit before eventually dropping down to Earth and burning up.
"It was quite bright so it does seem to have been quite a substantial object. So I suspect it was actually the rocket booster itself," he said.
SpaceX, which has been contacted for comment, has launched 14 Falcon 9 Starlink rockets so far this year.
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A human-like robot invented and built in Cornwall, made its first interactions with the public at a festival on Tuesday.
Part of the Cornwall Festival of Tech, the sell out event 'Ameca: A Robot's Journey to Creation' saw about 250 participants attend Truro College to explore tech workshops, exhibits, and talks.
The robot has made several appearance at events across the world, but the festival in Cornwall was the first chance for the public to see it up close.
Some festival-goers said they were "gobsmacked" by its range of expressions while others found it "disconcerting."
Will Jackson, CEO of Falmouth based Engineered Arts, which created Ameca, said its facial expressions and gestures made it standout from other advanced humanoid robots.
Mr Jackson said his team had focused on how the robot communicates to help with its purpose as a platform for artificial intelligence development.
"The human face is one of the highest bandwidth communication tools, you can get a lot of information over," he said.
"You're nodding your head a little bit, you're making eye contact, your eyebrows raise a little bit, I can read a thousand words into every little gesture.
"If we can bring that kind of capability to a robot it would make our communication so much more human-like, so that's the idea."
Mr Jackson said Ameca had deliberately been designed not to look too realistic.
"You'll find the more it looks like people the more acceptable it becomes, up until a point where it gets very, very close.
"Then you get a big dip and people go 'I don't like that'.
"It's at that point that you've started to blur the line between what's human and what's robot."
'Disconcerting'
One woman at the Cornwall Festival of Tech told BBC Spotlight that Ameca was "a little bit disconcerting" due to how its robotic facial muscles moved and how human-like its hands were.
A man at the festival said he was "gobsmacked" by the "amazing" robot and that he was impressed that it was made in Cornwall.
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A new advisory body created by US President Donald Trump and led by the world's richest man has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending.
Elon Musk is leading this effort to drastically reduce the federal workforce and weed out what he sees as taxpayers' money being wasted.
But his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has encountered legal obstacles, allegations of conflicts of interest, and fears that it will wreak serious damage.
Explaining his actions to reporters in the Oval Office, Musk defended his plans and denied the assertion of rival Democrats that he embodied a "hostile takeover" of government.
Polling suggests cutting government spending has widespread support.
What is Doge?
Despite its full name, Doge is not an official government department, which would have had to be established by an act of Congress.
Instead it came into being through one of Trump's presidential executive orders, and operates as an advisory body with at least four employees dedicated to each government agency.
Part of Doge's mission, says the order, relates to IT upgrades aimed at boosting efficiency. It must finish its work by July 2026.
Many of Doge's staff appear to be young people with tech backgrounds.
*
Is Elon Musk a government employee?
Yes. Musk initially said he would perform his role as an outside volunteer but the White House later said he was operating as an unpaid special government employee.
That designation is officially defined as those working for the government for 130 days or less in a year.
To some supporters of this new body, Doge's outsider status - as well as its somewhat vague mandate - will increase its effectiveness.
"They're a little more untethered to the bureaucracy itself and to the systems that slow processes down around here," Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told the BBC. "I think the lack of parameters is part of what will make them effective."
What has Doge done so far?
* Doge representatives entering various departments to monitor spending. Trump says they have identified "fraud and abuse", without giving evidence
* As part of a war on "woke" policies, Musk said his team had "saved taxpayers over $1 billion in crazy DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] contracts"
* Taking an axe to USAID, America's main foreign aid organisation that funds projects in dozens of countries - which both men call wasteful
* Making a buyout offer to two million government employees to try to slash the size of the federal workforce
* Attempting to take control of, and possibly shut down, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This was set up to protect consumers after the 2007-2008 financial crisis – but is accused by Republicans of overreach
What do Americans think?
What opposition has Doge faced?
A London-based artificial intelligence (AI) company is creating more than 100 jobs at its new office in Belfast.
Napier AI provides technology to help banks and other financial institutions detect and prevent criminal behaviour, such as money laundering.
The firm, which was founded in 2015 and employs 250 people, moved into its new office at Pearl Assurance in the city centre last week.
Twenty-five of the 106 new jobs are already in place, with the remaining roles expected to be filled by 2027.
The new roles come with average salaries of more than £46,000.
Once the jobs are filled, Napier AI said it will contribute almost £5m in additional salaries to the Northern Ireland economy.
Greg Watson, chief executive of Napier AI, said the company's mission is to tackle what he describes as a "blight in society" – money laundering.
"Money laundering is incredibly successful unfortunately," he said.
"3.2 trillion dollars a year is laundered, so we're trying to bring automation AI to try and solve that and we feel like we're making a big difference."
Mr Watson said the firm's decision to expand into Northern Ireland followed a "really extensive search globally" on locations, including Warsaw, Porto and Lisbon.
"We felt there was talent pools we could tap and we looked at about 12 different countries," he said.
"We looked at the talent and some of the benefits here, the location, the language, the whole thing and we're super excited about growing a presence here."
Mr Watson said the roles include high-end research and development positions.
"A lot of AI skills, a lot of development skills. We believe the talent coming out of the universities and the talent in the general area is super impressive and we feel like we're going to have a big future here."
'Vote of confidence in NI'
Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald said the announcement of about £10m in investment by the company is a "vote of confidence" for Northern Ireland.
"These are high-tech jobs in what is a priority sector for us as an executive, and they really closely align with what we're trying to achieve in terms of our economic vision," she told BBC News NI.
"It's an exciting company that has chosen to base itself here in Belfast because of what we have to offer in terms of a location, but also that skill talent pool that is coming through our universities and colleges, so this is a really positive announcement."
Invest NI's chief executive Kieran Donoghue said it was "wonderful news" for Northern Ireland.
The creation of "very high quality jobs" in data science, software engineering and professional services would help raise Northern Ireland's profile to other tech companies, he added.
New artificial intelligence (AI) technology could help a council detect potential potholes before they become a problem.
Hertfordshire County Council has been trialling Robotiz3d's ARRES Eye, a scanner which can be placed on council vehicles and used to collect data as crews go about their usual daily duties.
It scans the road surface to identify potholes, cracks or areas of weakness across the road network.
Phil Bibby, executive councillor for highways, said: "We know that prevention is better than cure – so trialling technology like this that can prevent potholes forming in the first place [and] is also an important part of our long-term strategy."
The dimensions, location, and severity level of defects are displayed on a remote screen in near real time, helping highways engineers to plan road resurfacing programmes and pothole fixes more effectively, the council said.
It added that its team had been collaborating closely with scientists from Robotiz3d to help refine the technology.
Initial trials and testing on a short route were carried out last year and the system was now back in the county for a long-term test.
The scanner will be used to survey a trial route multiple times over a period of several months using laser technology to read the road surface and look for tiny changes as cracks widen in the cold and wet winter weather.
Tracking small changes over time could help the team to identify the early warning signs of deterioration, meaning future potholes could be fixed before they form, the council said.
Mr Bibby added: "We know that our residents care about roads and pavements in the county, and the changeable weather we've had over the last few months, including excessive rainfall and long periods of colder weather, all contribute to potholes appearing and a decline in road surfaces."
He said fixing potholes would remain a challenge, but he hoped the new AI technology could help identify issues at an early stage.
The council said it was proposing an increase of £6m in next year's budget for the maintenance of its highways.
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Rick Buckler, former drummer in The Jam, has died at the age of 69, his ex-bandmates have confirmed on social media.
The Jam rose to fame in the punk and new wave era of the late 1970s and are credited with inspiring a revival in mod fashion and music.
The band were led by singer and guitarist Paul Weller, who posted on X that he was "shocked and saddened" by Buckler's death.
Bass player Bruce Foxton said he was "devastated".
Starring Fernanda Torres and centring on a family torn apart by Brazil's military dictatorship, I'm Still Here is up for three major awards – and could pull off an upset on the night.
When the Oscar nominations were announced, the surprising strength of Walter Salles's I'm Still Here – with nods for Fernanda Torres as best actress, best international film and most unexpected of all best picture – caused celebrations in Brazil. "I'm so proud! Kisses to Fernanda Torres and Walter Salles," the country's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, posted on X. Emotionally powerful and eloquent, the film tells the real-life story of a family living under Brazil's two-decade military dictatorship, which ended in 1985. In 1971, Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman, was taken by military police and never seen again, leaving his wife, Eunice (Torres), to create a future for herself and her five children. In the following years, as Eunice returns to school and becomes a prominent human rights lawyer, she never stops trying to find the truth about her husband's fate and to hold the state accountable. And on the day the nominations were announced, 23 January, the film and reality intersected again. Paiva's death certificate, which had declared him missing, was amended to reflect the reality that his death was "violent, caused by the Brazilian state".
I'm Still Here is an Oscar dark horse and much more. It now looks like the frontrunner in the international category, and Torres has at least a realistic chance of upsetting the best actress frontrunner, Demi Moore. Behind those nominations is an alchemical mix of the personal, the political and the artistic. Few films have depicted the devastating effects of politics on individuals in such an intimate, visceral or timely way, arriving at a moment when the rise of authoritarianism has become a global concern.
"I was always tempted by filmic narratives in which the journey of the characters somehow blends with the journey of a country," Salles tells the BBC. And while the film is explicitly about the Brazilian dictatorship, and has been a big commercial hit in that country – becoming the highest-grossing homegrown film there since the pandemic – it has also touched audiences around the world. Its global box-office numbers are remarkable for a low-budget film: more than $25m, including more than $3m in just a month in the US, where it is still playing strongly in cinemas.
Why Brazil has got behind it
The film's awards journey has been propelled by its impact in Brazil, where Torres is a major star with an enormous social media following. Isabela Boscov, a Brazilian journalist and film critic, tells the BBC: "What is really unusual in Brazil is a film that is not a comedy having that sort of box office. That hasn't happened in years and years." She attributes the success to a combination of factors, including Torres's popularity, how realistically the film captures 1970s Brazil, and the national mood. The country's recent history has been tumultuous. Jair Bolsonaro's far-right government was in power from 2019 to 2023. When he lost the 2022 election, his supporters stormed the Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court, and last year Bolsonaro was formally accused of allegedly plotting a coup. "Walter Salles has this gift for encapsulating exactly what the country needs, for really touching the zeitgeist," Boscov says. "At the moment Brazil is a very divided country in terms of thought and ideology. And I think half of the country would like to face whatever happened in the past [during the dictatorship], so as to prevent it from happening again.
All the attention and manoeuvring wouldn't have mattered, of course, if voters and audiences weren't responding so strongly to the film itself. Although it deals with tragedy, it is also full of warmth, and begins with scenes of the Paiva family and their friends, laughing and dancing at dinners and at the beach, living a full life. Salles knew the family personally as a young teenager in Rio de Janeiro. "I was invited into that house, into the intimacy of that family. I was enamoured of it," he says. Recreating its atmosphere is a way of welcoming viewers into the film. The family is always aware of the dangers around them, though. Driving home from a film, one of the teenage daughters and her friends is pulled over and questioned by police.
The long road to production
Salles's films include Central Station (1998), which was also nominated for the international film Oscar and, with what turns out to be poignant symmetry, in the best actress category for Torres's mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who plays the older Eunice in I'm Still Here. Creating I'm Still Here took seven years, he says, partly because "there were so many layers of memory involved that I wanted to be faithful to". He was inspired to make the film after reading the 2015 memoir by Rubens and Eunice's son, Marcelo Paiva, who began writing it when "his mother, who had fought to preserve the family's memory for decades, was falling into the abyss of Alzheimer's, and therefore losing her memory at a time where the country was starting to lose its collective memory," Salles says. That story offered what he calls "a double reflection" on the past.
Reminding viewers of his country's past was crucial to Salles, and was another reason getting the film made took so long. "It would have been unthinkable to shoot this film during the Bolsonaro years," he says. "We would not have had permission to shoot in public spaces. Basically, we would have been able to shoot the interiors, but not the exteriors of the film. This certainly added three or four years to the development."
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Salles says of the real-life woman, "Eunice is a character who refused melodrama," a quality that infuses the film and Torres's sophisticated, powerfully restrained performance. As she watches her husband taken away from their front door, calmly driving his own car as if to a friendly meeting, Eunice gives a slight, reassuring smile, but her face is a wrenching image of sorrow beneath the calm facade. Torres always allows us to see the grief and pain beneath the restraint. After Rubens' disappearance, Salles says, she was determined "not to bend to an authoritarian regime, never to allow herself to be portrayed as a victim". He points to "this extraordinary idea of whenever they wanted her to cry on camera, she would do the exact opposite, which is to smile". A scene in the film recreates just that, when a journalist asks the family not to smile for a photograph, and Eunice insists that they do.
It took until 1996 for her to get a death certificate at all, the first one that erroneously listed the cause of death as "missing". In the film she proudly shows reporters the certificate and says, "Forced disappearances were one of the cruellest acts of the regime because you kill one person but condemn all the others to eternal psychological torture." Capturing that enduring grief and uncertainty is one of the film's most original, affecting accomplishments.
Even Salles couldn't have foreseen exactly how timely the film might become, although he says, "When we shot the film, we were already aware that the fragility of democracy was something that wasn't only pertinent to Brazil anymore. It was pertinent to too many countries in the world." One of the first things authoritarians routinely do, he says, is "to try to erase memory and somewhat rewrite history". Preserving that memory and history, personal and political, goes to the heart of I'm Still Here. Salles says: "I think one of the reasons the film echoed so strongly in Brazil with audiences is because they were embracing the humanity of that family, but they were also seeing a reflection of themselves on the screen, and they were accessing a part of Brazilian history that had been forgotten for too long."
I'm Still Here is out in US cinemas now and released in the UK on 21 February.
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A Complete Unknown
What's it about? A biopic of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, focusing on his early career as he was making his name in 1960s New York.
Who's in it? Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, alongside Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 17 January.
Read more: Critics praise Chalamet's portrayal of Bob Dylan
A Different Man
What's it about? An aspiring actor with a disfiguring facial condition has a radical medical procedure, drastically transforming his appearance. But he gradually starts to regret his decision as he grapples with a sense of lost identity.
Who's in it? Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 4 October and is available to buy digitally.
A Real Pain
All We Imagine As Light
Anora
The Apprentice
Better Man
Bird
Blitz
The Brutalist
What's it about? A Hungarian architect tries to build a new life for himself and his wife in post-war America, but their plans are changed by a wealthy client.
Who's in it? Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 24 January.
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Flow
What's it about? A cat fleeing its home after a devastating flood finds refuge on a boat populated by various animals, and must team up with them despite their differences in order to survive.
Who's in it? There are no big-name actors as the film is dialogue-free (although the animals bark, meow and squawk).
Where can I see it? In cinemas from 1 March.
The Girl with the Needle
What's it about? After a young factory worker becomes pregnant, she meets a charismatic woman who runs an underground adoption agency.
Who's in it? Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri.
Where can I see it? In UK cinemas now and on Mubi soon.
Gladiator II
Hard Truths
I’m Still Here
Inside Out 2
Kneecap
What's it about? Rapping in the Irish language, a hip-hop trio from Belfast lead a movement to save their mother tongue.
Who's in it? Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, Josie Walker and Michael Fassbender.
Where can I see it? On Amazon Prime Video.
The Last Showgirl
What's it about? A seasoned showgirl must plan for her future when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run.
Who's in it? Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dave Bautista.
Where can I see it? In UK cinemas from 28 February.
Maria
What's it about? A biopic focusing on legendary opera singer Maria Callas's final years in Paris in the 1970s.
Who's in it? Angelina Jolie, Haluk Bilginer and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 10 January.
Read more: Angelina Jolie 'spellbinding' as opera star Callas
Memoir of a Snail
What's it about? In 1970s Australia, a lonely woman dictates her life story to her favourite pet snail.
Who's in it? The voices of Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Eric Bana.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas from 14 February.
Moana 2
What's it about? Moana reunites with Maui to find the lost island of Motufetu and break its curse.
Who's in it? The voices of Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson.
Where can I see it? In UK cinemas now.
Nickel Boys
Nosferatu
The Piano Lesson
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
September 5
What's it about? The 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis told from the perspective of an ABC Sports crew, incorporating real-life footage from their coverage.
Who's in it? Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro and Ben Chaplin.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 31 January.
Sing Sing
The Substance
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Wicked
The Wild Robot
What's it about? An animated robot named Roz adapts to its new surroundings after being shipwrecked on a deserted island, and develops a parental bond with an orphaned gosling.
Who's in it? The voices of Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal and Bill Nighy.
Where can I see it? It was released in UK cinemas on 18 October and is available to buy and rent digitally.
From playing Anthony in Bridgerton to Fiyero in Wicked, Jonathan Bailey has nailed the art of portraying regal characters.
The trend continues as he now takes on the role of Shakespeare's Richard II at the Bridge Theatre in London.
He tells the BBC that his portrayal of the authoritarian king who ruled in the 1300s was inspired by HBO's Succession, which explores the power struggle between the children of media mogul Logan Roy.
"I channelled many Roys," Bailey explains, adding that Richard II "explores inherited power in a very similar way to Succession but also expands on it and takes it to a new level".
The first of Shakespeare's history plays, Richard II sees the unlikeable and corrupt king be usurped by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke who goes on to become Henry IV.
Directed by Nicholas Hytner, the modern-dress production sees Bailey as a cocaine-snorting and camp king.
The 36-year-old said he chose to take on the role of Richard II as there was "so much to explore with his character".
"It's a feast of a play and really speaks to our times - it's fascinating to explore a king who has a cast iron right to rule."
'Commands the stage'
Bailey's performance has been positively received by most critics.
The Guardian's three star review said his "words glitter with feeling" and added that he "singularly shines, his luminosity putting the others slightly in the shade".
The Evening Standard's review added that Bailey "commands the stage and even allows a little camp to seep into the character" while the Independent said, in a four-star review, that Bailey has "an infectious spirit of camp naughtiness, he hugs his crown like a teddy bear, aims wry put-downs at dull courtiers, and bosses his court around like they're actors in a play".
However, in a three-star review, Dominic Cavendish from the Telegraph suggestedthat Bailey "doesn't attain the greatness of Ben Whishaw and David Tennant".
There was also praise for some of the other actors, notably Michael Simkins. The Times said his Duke of York is "stateliness personified", but also awarded three stars overall.
The New York Times also commended Simkins: "His finger-wagging exasperation, verging at times on slapstick, gives an audience-friendly commentary on the unfolding intrigue."
Newer fans of Bailey may not realise that he is first and foremost a theatre actor.
In 2013, he played Cassio in Hytner's Othello at the National Theatre and has also performed alongside Ian McKellen in King Lear.
Productions of Shakespeare's plays rarely have a large audience of young women, but Bailey's appeal among that demographic seems to have inspired them to visit the theatre.
"It makes me so happy to inspire a new generation of young people coming to the theatre," he says.
"If 10 people per show come and see Shakespeare for the first time then I'm doing something right."
Over its 40-year run, EastEnders hasn't just been plot twists, emotions and gripping "doof doof" cliffhangers.
It's also tackled social issues head-on, its stars say.
The series has "done more to create social awareness" on these issues "than probably any documentary", says actor Ross Kemp, who plays leather-jacket-wearing Grant Mitchell.
Kemp, who is hosting a BBC documentary on the history of the soap, says over the last four decades EastEnders has been able to take on subjects many feel are taboo - and it continues to do so with recent storylines including topics such as spiking.
"You can introduce those things through a continuing drama, a soap like EastEnders, and inform more people than you possibly would do with a government campaign," he says.
First gay kiss
On 17 November 1987, EastEnders aired a kiss between characters Colin Russell (played by Lord Michael Cashman) and his boyfriend Barry Clark (Gary Hailes) on the side of the head.
There was a "furore" after the kiss was broadcast, Kemp recalls, adding "it wasn't even a kiss on the lips".
Former actor Lord Cashman speaks to Kemp about the reaction during the new documentary EastEnders: 40 Years on the Square.
"The media went berserk," he says. "There were calls for 'this kind of filth to be taken off our screens'."
Lord Cashman says "it was a weird and dark time," adding "there was rampant homophobia".
In 1988, Section 28 of the Local Government Act was introduced, which banned places like schools and libraries from "promoting homosexuality".
Lord Cashman's character Colin went on to share the first mouth-to-mouth kiss between two gay men on a British soap with character Guido Smith (Nicholas Donovan) in 1989.
However, the former actor, later an activist and politician, recalls the reaction from fans: "There was one guy and he said: 'I used to stand behind the sofa so that my mum and dad couldn't see me looking at you and I knew I wasn't alone.' It made a difference."
Domestic violence
According to Ofcom's first review of public service television broadcasting, audiences said early evening programmes, like soaps, had an important social role in airing complex and controversial issues.
One example came in the early 2000s, when the soap featured a domestic violence and coercive control storyline featuring Little Mo Slater (Kacey Ainsworth) and her brutal partner Trevor Morgan (Alex Ferns).
Actor Ainsworth says members of the public would often confuse her for her character and offer sympathy to her in the street. "People would try and sit me down in places, they'd put their arms around me," she says. "They'd want to look after me."
The actor adds she received "hundreds" of letters a week from victims of similar violence.
Though one watchdog at the time said the show went "too far" for pre-watershed TV, research for a national domestic violence helpline highlighted the storyline as the most significant TV portrayal of violence in the home in 30 years.
Colourism
Molly Rainford, who plays Anna Knight, was introduced to the Square in 2023. She is the daughter of George Knight and Cindy Beale and is part of the first black and dual heritage family to run a pub on any UK soap.
In February 2024, the soap aired scenes of Molly and her on-screen sister, Gina Knight (Francesca Henry), discussing colourism and how differently they are treated because of their different skin tones.
Colourism is prejudice against people who have a darker skin tone or the preferential treatment of those who are the same race but have lighter skin.
Speaking about the storyline, Rainford says: "These are conversations that happen in every mixed-raced family's life. All of these conversations are so important and so valid, especially right now."
Rainford says parents told her their children had "conversations on the playground that day after seeing that".
Transgender representation
In 2015, Riley Carter Millington became the first transgender man to play a recurring trans character in a British soap, with his portrayal of Kyle Slater in EastEnders.
Carter Millington says "there wasn't a lot of on-screen representation" for trans people and he was "overwhelmed" and grateful to have been cast in the role.
"I understood the weight of it and I didn't take it lightly," the actor says, adding that despite leaving the soap in 2016, he still gets messages from fans about his character.
Kemp adds that EastEnders is "ever-evolving" with society - and that while there will "always be a certain crowd that will poo poo it and look down upon it", it has made some "landmark television" over the last 40 years.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, you can visit BBC Action Line, including for issues related to sexual abuse and violence and domestic abuse.
As part of EastEnders' 40th anniversary week, BBC News will be hosting live coverage of the live episode on Thursday 20 February, which you can watch on BBC One and iPlayer, and follow on our live page.
From Wednesday, you'll be able to cast your vote here on who Denise decides her future is with, Jack or Ravi.
Peaky Blinders will continue beyond the upcoming film, says creator Steven Knight, sparking rumours of a potential new series.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, he said the work so far on the movie looks "fantastic" and will prove to be "a very fitting way to end this part of the Peaky story."
When quizzed on what he meant by "this part" by presenters Jon Kay and Sarah Campbell, Knight added: "It's not over, let's just put it like that. I'm not allowed to announce it... but I'm just saying that the world of Peaky will continue."
The writer and producer was appearing on the show to promote his new Disney+ period drama, A Thousand Blows, starring Stephen Graham.
'Best British actors'
There have been six series of the Bafta-winning hit BBC TV show Peaky Blinders, from 2013-2022, with the upcoming Netflix film continuing the story of Tommy Shelby and his Birmingham crime gang.
It will see Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy reprise his lead role alongside an ensemble cast including Graham, Sophie Rundle, Ned Dennehy, Packy Lee and Ian Peck; as well as Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth, Jay Lycurgo, and Barry Keoghan.
"I think we've got the best British actors all in one place, including Stephen," noted Knight.
"The stuff that I'm watching, the rushes... no-one will be disappointed.
"It is quite an incredible thing."
Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Knight also described himself as a "BBC loyalist", despite the fact his new period drama A Thousand Blows is launching on Disney+.
In his latest creation, Graham stars as notorious boxer Sugar Goodson making his way in the dangerous world of illegal boxing in 1880s Victorian London.
It follows the tale of two friends from Jamaica, Hezekiah Moscow (Small Axe star Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), who find themselves thrust into the capital's bare-knuckle boxing scene.
It's here that Hezekiah meets Mary Carr (The Crown star Erin Doherty), queen of an all-female criminal gang known as the Forty Elephants, who hopes to use his talents to her and her gang's advantage.
Asked by Today presenter Nick Robinson if this type of show could still be made by the BBC, Knight replied: "Peaky is a BBC show and there was no issue with making that at the BBC. I'm a huge BBC loyalist, as I think you know.
"I love to work with the BBC creatively. There is no place like it. I think the BBC should be strutting on the world stage amongst the streamers, more so than it does."
He continued: "There are issues of money. I think the BBC has a history of making do and making the best of what they have.
"I'm working with the BBC on another series now, this just happened to come along from a different direction."
'Brutal new drama'
His new drama, based on the blurring of several true stories, finds Knight - with the help of executive producer, broadcaster and historian David Olusoga - imagining "what would have happened" if Hezekiah Moscow and Mary Carr had actually met.
"I find that the best stories are the ones least told for some reason," he added.
Knight added he was trying to address the issue of class within the series, as that was more prominent at the time than the issues of gender and race.
"People in the East End [of all genders and races], if you're cold, you're cold; if you're hungry, you're hungry," he noted.
"The real struggle, I suppose, in A Thousands Blows, is about east versus west", he added.
In a five-star review, the Telegraph's Benji Wilson said Knight's "brutal new drama may be his best yet."
"The Disney+ 19th-century bare-knuckle boxing series is blockbusting television in every conceivable sense."
The Standard's Adam Bloodworth awarded it four stars, writing that the show's ingredients made for a "fantastically entertaining stew – as well as a chaotic and gruesome one, where limbs get hacked off in the ring and bones crunch like so many cornflakes.
"Tinge Krishnan and Nick Murphy's directorial vision is a dingy but Disney-fied labyrinth of intimidating backstreets and ropey pubs, while script writer and creator Steven Knight's script is confident but often sparse; a look speaks a thousand words, but when men like Goodson talk, you listen."
Empire's Nicola Austin also gave it four stars, calling Graham's "metamorphosis" into Goodson "incredible".
"Though not always a total knockout, A Thousand Blows certainly packs a punch – courtesy of excellent lead performances, a gripping plot, and a fascinating historical setting," she wrote.
And in another four star review, Morgan Cormack of the Radio Times said: "Peaky Blinders comparisons will come, but this boxing drama is its own beast."
Series one of A Thousand Blows launches on Disney+ in the UK on 21 February, with production on a second series already completed.
An iconic image of Kate Moss marked an explosive moment of change in Britain – and helped to create the culture we now live in. It's among the photographs displayed in a new exhibition that celebrates the photography of The Face magazine.
Freckled and fresh-faced, a 16-year-old Kate Moss laughs, make-up-free and unadorned except for a delicate string of beads and a headdress made of feathers – the image on the cover of The Face magazine in July 1990 was perfectly timed. It captured a moment in Britain when the nation's youth was coalescing around a burgeoning acid-house movement, with impromptu parties filling disused warehouses, aircraft hangars and fields across the country. The escapist, chaotic rave scene that spanned class and race was an explosion of optimism and euphoria amid difficult times of high unemployment and a weak economy. The magazine's cover portrait marked a new era, with Kate Moss the coming decade's feather-crowned queen.
The iconic portrait by Corinne Day is among the photographs on display at London's National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition The Face Magazine: Culture Shift. Lee Swillingham, former art director of The Face – along with photographer Norbert Schoerner – came up with the idea for the show, which charts the British style magazine's photography through the years. "For me, The Face really was the best chronicler of British youth culture," says Swillingham, who co-curated the exhibition with NPG's senior curator of photographs, Sabina Jaskot-Gill.
The Moss portrait was "a breath of fresh air," Swillingham tells the BBC. "It was a moment of moving on from the aspirational, stylised glamour of the 80s, and into a more pared-down and realistic phase in fashion terms. That whole photography style went hand in hand with a more attainable sense of beauty."
It was Swillingham's predecessor as art director Phil Bicker who initially championed the emerging photographer Corinne Day and the then unknown teenage model Kate Moss. "I was searching for someone who would be 'the face of The Face'," Bicker tells the BBC – not a glossy, "aspirational" fashion muse but a natural, real one, in tune with the magazine's readership. "Kate had the Britishness and youthfulness that The Face represented – she was funny, and laughed a lot. She seemed to me a person first, and a model second." Inside the July 1990 issue of the magazine, Moss is shown on the beach at Camber Sands on the south coast of England, messing about guilelessly in a series of photos striking in their simplicity and naturalness.
It was "a perfect storm," says Bicker. "And despite Kate's subsequent global profile and extensive career, she's still associated with The Face, and that defining moment which launched her career. It was shot in a way by Corinne that allowed Kate’s personality and positive energy to come through, so that when people saw the images, they forgot they were looking at a styled fashion story, instead believing this was a portrait of Kate unadorned."
Moss nor her agency particularly liked this raw, slightly gawkish depiction of the model, according to Sheryl Garratt, then The Face editor, writing in The Observer in 2000. The shoot has nonetheless remained a cultural touchstone, embodying a moment in time. The magazine's founder Nick Logan later said: "At that time, at the start of the rave scene, I remember saying, 'let's aim it at those people dancing in fields'." The 1990 images of Moss reflected not only a new aesthetic but also a deeper cultural change in the UK, with the cover line of the magazine referring to a "summer of love", in reference to the exploding outdoor rave scene.
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"It was a real moment of transition," Angela McRobbie, professor of cultural studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, tells the BBC. "It marked a shift, when a subculture moved into mass visibility. Rave culture opened its doors to a much vaster section of boys and girls who would never have gone dancing in that way before. It was a new form of leisure, and a youth culture becoming mass leisure."
Whereas the post-punk music-and-fashion scene had emanated more from an "art-school" milieu, argues McRobbie, the rave scene at its height was a much broader movement that grew organically from economic and social circumstances. "The working-class rave scene was an escape from the mundanity of post-industrial Britain, where the skilled labour market had declined. Rave gave working-class kids a sense of freedom," she says.
It was a sense of empowerment, McRobbie continues, which was later echoed in Morvern Callar, the 2002 film by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, which starred Samantha Morton. "It's based on a book by Alan Warner," says McRobbie, "and it's about working-class girls in Aberdeen, stacking shelves". It charts a gradual awakening of the protagonist's sense of agency and self, and – like Day's image of Moss on the beach – emanates a mood of escape, freedom in nature, and a sense of possibility.
"The rave scene was a gamechanger in terms of gender," says McRobbie, whose book Feminism, Young Women and Cultural Studies traces the evolution of British subcultures from the 1970s. "For boys, it was a new moment of emotional, non-aggressive sexuality, partly because of the [drug] ecstasy, and the expression of feelings of love and joy, and dancing for five to seven hours non-stop, which boys would have done before in gay or queer spaces like Heaven in London. But for your average working-class boy to enjoy that physical pleasure, openness and freedom, that was new. And for girls it was a time of getting in touch with their physical bodies, too, dancing for hours."
But despite the "summer of love" headline on The Face's 1990 cover, according to McRobbie, this cultural moment in the UK had nothing much in common with the original 1960s Summer of Love in the US. "Sociologists wouldn't put those two movements together," she says – the hippy Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 was "qualitatively different". "[The rave scene] was not connected to an overtly political agenda. The San Francisco Summer of Love was a time of social change that grew from Berkeley University and was pro-civil rights. It was overtly political and, with [Allen] Ginsberg involved, literary."
Young style rebels
If there was a precursor of the British rave movement, it was the Swinging '60s, which were imbued with a mood of liberation and the breaking down of past hierarchies. "The Swinging '60s were associated with a freeing up and a breaking down of barriers, in class, sexuality and gender," says McRobbie. "It was designer Mary Quant [creator of the mini skirt], the Pill. Doors were opening, and for working-class young women it was an important time of excitement and freedom, particularly in urban centres such as London and Glasgow."
The It girl of that moment was the gamine, teenage model Twiggy – with her waifish figure, cheeky smile and working-class origins. Bicker told The Observer: "Kate hadn't been modelling for very long but, even in her awkwardness, she had that thing about her that Twiggy had in the 60s, a freshness that matched the times." She was, in the way she defined her era, Moss's predecessor – along with the late Marianne Faithfull, the "wide-eyed poster girl for the Swinging '60s", who later in life became good friends with the model.
It wasn't long before the new aesthetic sparked by the summer of love shoot was influencing the commercial world, most noticeably in advertising campaigns by Calvin Klein with Moss for Obsession, and with Moss and Mark Wahlberg for the brand's underwear. In subsequent issues, The Face continued to reflect the optimistic feeling about the decade ahead – one cover story shot by Day, and titled Young Style Rebels, featured "five faces for the 90s" with Moss, Rosemary Ferguson, Lorraine Pascale and other models who departed from the 80s "glamazon" norm. "After the supermodels, a new generation is coming through with new ideas and attitude" said the introduction.
The next time the Moss-Day pairing caught the public's attention was with a 1993 fashion story for British Vogue, in which a very thin Moss posed in underwear in a downbeat bedroom. They were again defiantly unglitzy images, but this time – perhaps because of the context of the venerable magazine in which they appeared – they provoked outrage. Grunge fashion, waif style and "heroin chic" became phrases used in the British tabloid newspapers.
The Face was soon moving on to its next phase of the 90s – a succession of new lads and ladettes, grunge and Britpop bands, and edgy young British artists (known collectively as "the YBAs") all adorned the covers of big-selling issues of the magazine, which from 1993 had a fresh look, courtesy of Swillingham, the new art director. "There was a kind of shift. From reality to anti-reality, technology and retouching, a more kinetic, colourful feel," he says. Swillingham commissioned photographers such as Norbert Schoerner and Elaine Constantine, and the resulting aesthetic was, again, soon adopted by the commercial world, with numerous ads influenced by the colour-drenched, hyperreal style – notably a 1995 ad for Levi's.
New Labour was on the horizon. The Face was, says McRobbie, central to the "post-industrial creative economy, which was welcomed by Tony Blair and New Labour". In 1997, artists, pop bands – including Oasis – and fashion folk were invited to 10 Downing Street by then British Prime Minister Blair. In the same year, Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit adorned the front cover of prestigious US magazine Vanity Fair with the coverline "London swings again", and the YBAs' Sensation exhibition showed at the Royal Academy. Cool Britannia was born. "Just as the Swinging London of the 1960s was a moment of great creativity and entrepreneurship, so was the 1990s," says McRobbie.
Then and now
Some have argued that the late 80s and early 90s rave movement in Britain was a moment of conscious uprising and egalitarian protest, a uniquely anarchic outpouring with its hedonistic, unruly origins in the country's chaotic and distinctive folk rituals. It is argued that it was a coming together of all genders, races and classes, and a significant movement that resonates now – and has enjoyed a recent revival. For others, it is a collective memory of joy. There's no doubt the movement drew from a broad sweep of society – its adherents gathered from far and wide, from the football terraces, the suburbs, the inner cities, student campuses, the home counties. And certainly, there were protests around the introduction by the government of a bill brought in to end illegal raves.
However, according to McRobbie, rave was not a movement about ideas or politics. "The rave scene and the waif look weren't political. The movement evolved and became about jobs and entrepreneurship, eventually becoming the creative industries in fashion, music and more. The legacy of The Face is that it kickstarted a valuable – to the economy – celebrity culture, big industries and sponsorship deals."
Lee Swillingham echoes this: "Fashion got industrialised in the 2000s, brands got bigger, and were bought out by big groups. High fashion became industrialised, and The Face was part of that change. The magazine started getting more advertising, though we were still outsiders." This phase in pop culture of the late 2000s and 2010s – which was dominated by a grimy, hedonistic look, and the sounds of bands like The Strokes and The Libertines – was later revived and reincarnated in the 2020s as the Indie Sleaze aesthetic.
Sadly photographer Corinne Day died from a brain tumour in 2010 – her photographs have been exhibited at the V&A, Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery and Photographers' Gallery, among others. Many of the other names associated with the fashion and photography of The Face became central to the fashion-celebrity industrial complex – not least, of course, Kate Moss, as iconic as ever. Swillingham went on to work at Vogue with Edward Enninful (who had been at fellow style magazine ID). Photographers including Ellen von Unwerth, Nigel Shafran, Kevin Davies, David Sims, Glen Luchford, Juergen Teller, Inez & Vinoodh, Elaine Constantine and others went on to have profitable careers in the commercial world, "at the centre of the contemporary fashion industry" says Swillingham, who is now consultant art director of Harper’s Bazaar Italia and has his own creative agency, Suburbia. As Bicker – now an international, award-winning creative director – puts it: "Ultimately the only way the industry could take some control over the young disruptors was to embrace its protagonists."
It is perhaps difficult to imagine now in our digital age, but there was a sense of cultural cohesion about this time – and the way it was distilled and chronicled – that we won't see again. As McRobbie puts it: "The Face marks out a pathway to social fragmentation. There was a coherence which was impressive about The Face, and that has been dismantled in the digital age, which is a loss." Swillingham loved the "ephemeral" nature of things then, and remembers his time at The Face as the most exciting job he ever had: "We didn't have time to think about it, we were in it."
The Face Magazine: Culture Shift is at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 20 February to 18 May.
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The Baftas, which is often seen as a key indicator of where the Oscars are heading, left commentators none the wiser, paving the way for a tantalising finale to this year's awards season.
With less than two weeks to go until this year's Oscars, we've reached the stage where most of the results should be boringly easy to predict. Awards season gets going with the Golden Globes – held on 5 January this year – and in the weeks that follow there are so many prize-givings thrown by so many guilds and critics' associations that by the time the Oscars themselves roll around, they can seem anticlimactic. By then, everyone knows that Oppenheimer is going to win a stack of trophies, or that the best picture prize is a coin-flip between a couple of favourites – La La Land v Moonlight, Coda v The Power of the Dog – so what is there left to get excited about? Sometimes, the Oscars can feel like a round-up of all the preceding award ceremonies rather than a ceremony in itself.
Not this year. With several horses still neck and neck on the home stretch, this is one of the closest and most thrilling Oscar races ever. The odds keep changing, different awards bodies keep going in different directions, and pundits keep struggling to say with any confidence who the big winners are going to be. The Baftas sum up the glorious confusion. The British film industry's glitziest gala was held in London on Sunday evening, but the event, which is often seen as a key indicator of where the Oscars are heading, left commentators none the wiser.
Conclave won the prizes for best film, best British film, best adapted screenplay and best editing, so Edward Berger's exquisitely clever and well-crafted Vatican-set thriller, adapted from Robert Harris's novel, might seem to be a clear frontrunner at the Academy Awards. But the film's star, Ralph Fiennes, didn't win the best actor Bafta, an award for which he'd been widely tipped. Instead, the trophy went to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist – a film that also won Baftas for editing, score and director (Brady Corbet). Hmm. If the UK's voters were willing to honour Brody over Fiennes, a much-loved pillar of British cinema, should we be saying that the Oscar frontrunner is actually The Brutalist?
Well, maybe. But what about Anora? Sean Baker's dynamic anti-romantic comedy won best picture at the DGA, PGA, WGA and Critics Choice awards, so in the last week or two it has been nosing ahead of the competition. At the Baftas, it won prizes for best casting and best actress, and the latter prize, for Mikey Madison, seemed especially significant. Before Sunday, most commentators assumed that the Bafta would go to Demi Moore for The Substance, or Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the British star of Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, who hasn't even been nominated for an Oscar. But if the 25-year-old Madison can beat both of them, does that mean that she can beat Moore to the Oscar, despite Moore being the current favourite for best actress? Furthermore, does it mean that Anora itself now has the momentum to carry it all the way to the best picture prize? It's a narrative that seems almost convincing until you remember how many people expected Baker to win the best original screenplay Bafta for Anora, only for Jesse Eisenberg to nab it for A Real Pain.
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One or two categories aren't so mystifying. Kieran Culkin won the best supporting actor Bafta for A Real Pain, having already won the Golden Globe among other awards, so he must have cleared some shelf space for his Oscar already. Meanwhile, Emilia Pérez won the Bafta for best film not in the English language, and its co-star, Zoe Saldaña, was named best supporting actress, so despite the calamitously bad publicity that Jacques Audiard's gangland musical has had during awards season, it is still in with a decent chance to win in those categories at the Oscars. It's probably no longer in the running for best picture, but James Mangold's Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, has enough goodwill behind it to be a contender, and Timothée Chalamet could well beat Brody to the best actor prize. On the other hand, A Complete Unknown didn't win any Baftas at all, so... well, so it goes on.
Why is the race so tight? The main reason is that the list of best picture nominees is exceptionally strong this year, with an astonishing variety of excellent films. The only line-up to match it recently was last year's, but that brings us to reason two: Oppenheimer and Barbie were both commercial and critical smashes, whereas no film in the past 12 months has reached their level of all-conquering appeal. They all have their fans, but they all have their detractors, too. The only surefire winners are the people who produce the Academy Awards, and the people who tune in to see them. Never mind the speeches, the gaffes, and the song-and-dance numbers: for once, it's going to be the results which make the Oscars worth watching.
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US black nationalist leader Malcolm X was assassinated on 21 February 1965, at the age of 39. The BBC reported on the reaction in his adopted home of Harlem, New York, as thousands of people queued to pay their last respects.
At a time when black civil rights leaders were preaching peaceful integration, Malcolm X's uncompromising vision of black separatism inspired many people, while terrifying others. He was murdered in February 1965, and a reporter for the BBC's Panorama, Michael Charlton, stated at his funeral that he "spoke a vengeful message, as forthright and chilled as the winter morning they buried him". Amid tight security, the many thousands of people who had filed past his body were searched by police as a precaution against bombings. "To these people, he preached that if the white man didn't answer for the black man's frustration, he must answer for his fury," added Charlton.
He was internationally famous for his incendiary rhetoric, yet he had been developing a new, more moderate worldview. Asked what the death of Malcolm X meant to him by Panorama, one clearly upset man who was in the queue said: "It's a blow to every black person in the United States of America." A young man described him as a hero, saying: "He stood out among all black people. He showed the white man where it was at." This interviewee was one of several people who feared that more violence would follow. "Whoever did it, Muslims or whoever did it, there's going to be a whole lot of hurt," he predicted. One young woman said: "I don't believe it. Why would they kill another black man?" Another woman had no doubt who was responsible: "The white power structure in America is behind it. They quickly capitalised on it by saying that one of his own kind did it, but they put it up to be done. They know they had more to gain by getting Malcolm X out of the way than they had to let him live."
Malcolm X was shot dead on stage at a New York ballroom as he prepared to deliver a speech to his Organization of Afro-American Unity. His wife and children were in the audience. Three men convicted of his murder were all members of the Nation of Islam, the political and religious body that, a year earlier, Malcolm X had left amid acrimony. One of the men was caught while attempting to flee, and confessed to the murder, but the other two convictions resulted in a long-running miscarriage of justice campaign. In 2021, a New York state judge agreed, and their convictions were quashed. Both men were later fully exonerated after New York's attorney general found prosecutors had withheld evidence that, in all likelihood, would have cleared them of blame for the murder.
Still a controversial figure 60 years after his death, Malcolm X remains to some the ultimate symbol of rage and resistance in the face of oppression. Born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, he was the son of a Baptist preacher. When Malcolm was six years old, his father was killed in what many believe was a deliberate racist attack by white supremacists, although nobody knows for sure if this was the case. The shock of his father being killed led his mother to have a mental breakdown, and Malcolm and his seven siblings were shipped out to foster homes. He fell into a life of crime, and in 1946 he was jailed for burglary. While in prison, he discovered a love of learning and self-improvement. There, he encountered the ideas of the Nation of Islam, a political and religious body that argued that equality for black Americans could only be achieved through black and white people living in separate states.
Upon his release from prison in 1952, he formally changed his name to Malcolm X. It was a firm rejection of the surname that had been given to his family by the people who, generations earlier, had enslaved them. He toured the US, spreading the Nation of Islam's message, and discovered that he had the power and charisma to inspire people with his words. Public speaking was a skill he had learnt, having entered prison as a middle-school dropout who, he admitted, "didn't know a verb from a house". He was not afraid to use shock tactics to get his message across, condemning white people as the "white devil" for the historic oppression of black people. When US President John F Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, he said it was "chickens coming home to roost".
While Malcolm X attracted many followers, he also made a lot of enemies. In March 1964 he announced that he was leaving the Nation of Islam, having become disillusioned with its leadership. That same month, he witnessed a debate in Washington DC about the Civil Rights Bill, and he finally met Martin Luther King, Jr, a civil rights leader whose belief in nonviolent protest was often seen as being in stark contrast with Malcolm X's more confrontational philosophy.
To deepen his Muslim faith, he went on the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. He wrote about how he witnessed "pilgrims of all colours from all parts of this Earth displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood like I've never seen before". He also toured several countries in Africa, where he made the decision to form a new secular group that sought to reconnect African Americans with their heritage. Upon his return to the US, he renounced the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Around that time, Malcolm X's wife Betty Shabazz began receiving death threats over the phone, and their home was firebombed.
Moving towards moderation
Despite apparent threats coming from many directions, he continued making his electrifying public appearances. In June 1964, he officially launched his Organization of Afro-American Unity, telling the gathered audience: "We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary." The venue was the Audubon Ballroom in New York's Washington Heights neighbourhood; eight months later he was murdered on that same stage.
As mourners continued to file past Malcolm X's body in a Harlem funeral home, Charlton asked several prominent people about what sort of leader he might have become. Malcolm X had become a regular visitor to the United Nations headquarters in New York, according to Daniel Watts, the editor of black nationalist magazine The Liberator. Watts said that he had been highlighting discrimination against black people in the US to members of the Afro-Asian bloc. "I think for the first time in the history of the struggle here in this country, we had a molecule of hope – hope in the sense in knowing that we had a heritage, we had roots, we had a motherland to which we could look for," he said.
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James Farmer, director of the Congress of Racial Equality, told Panorama that while Malcolm X had not been a part of the civil rights movement, his "more extreme stance" had boosted its position. He said: "The public saw very clearly that unless they did what the civil rights movement demanded, they might get Malcolm X. In fact, Malcolm said just that to me once after a debate we had. He said, 'You know you ought to stop pushing us around like this.' I asked why. He said, 'Because we help you. We make a lot of noise, people look at us and scream bloody murder, and then turn to you.'" Farmer said that Malcolm X had been successful in giving younger black people a sense of identity. "It has been very important because a person cannot have a sense of destiny for the future unless he believes he is somebody first."
Farmer also said that Malcolm X had been trying to broaden his appeal since his split with the Nation of Islam. "I feel that his position was in a state of flux, and that he was moving closer toward an integrationist and desegregationist position. He was over at my house just six weeks before he died, and there I asked him if his views had changed on racial issues and he indicated it was true, he was giving up black racism. Now he was prepared, he told me, to accept a man on the basis of his deeds rather than his genes. This was a switch."
Poet Maya Angelou was a friend of Malcolm X who had reconnected with him during his Africa trip when he visited Ghana, where she was living at the time. Speaking in 1992, she told the BBC: "He came to Ghana and said, 'I have found blue-eyed men who I'm able to call brother, so my prior statement that all whites were devils is erroneous.' It takes an incredible amount of courage to be able to say, 'Say everybody, you remember what I said yesterday? I've found out that's wrong.' And that's what he was able to do. That was amazing."
Charlton concluded his Panorama report on Malcolm X's funeral by observing that he "died too soon after his adoption of more moderate views for us to know what wider appeal he may have attracted". He said the "most arresting epitaph" he heard that week came from a black person who said, "I don't know how many followers he had, but he had a hell of a lot of well-wishers."
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The Euphoria star shines in this remarkable adaptation of a Booker Prize-winning novel about an Australian prisoner of war in Thailand.
What do we want from our war stories? That's a question at the core of this new five-part adaptation of Australian author Richard Flanagan's Booker Prize-winning novel. Preparing to make a speech for a book launch, World War Two veteran Dorrigo Evans (Ciarán Hinds) ruefully says people just want tales "of heroism and mateship" – where he would rather give them "the truth".
It's certainly true that in general cultural discourse, there can be a tendency to present war history through a romanticised, "inspirational" lens – but on screen there is also a strong lineage of works that have sought to lay bare its abjectness, from Apocalypse Now to All Quiet on the Western Front. However, if this miniseries is not radical in that respect, it is, on the evidence of the first two episodes that have premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, set to be a stunning, shell-shocking piece of work nevertheless – as well as an impressive showcase for Jacob Elordi, the in-demand star who made his name with HBO series Euphoria and, after working with the likes of Sofia Coppola and Paul Schrader, continues to make judicious choices.
It sets out its stall right from the opening scene, in Syria in 1941, in which a group of Australian soldiers' blokeish banter is cut through by a bomb explosion that gruesomely takes out one of their number and a Syrian child: filmed with tight, disorientating camerawork by director Justin Kurzel, the visuals drained of colour amid the murk of the landscape, it immerses you completely in the horror.
From there the story moves between three timelines. There's young Dorrigo (Elordi) in 1940, as he is stationed to Adelaide for military training and forms an intense connection with his uncle's young wife Amy (Odessa Young); Dorrigo in Thailand in 1943, now one of thousands of prisoners of war in the Thai jungle forced by the Japanese to help build Burma's notorious "Death" railway; and 77-year-old Dorrigo in 1989, an affluent surgeon with a happy-ish marriage who nevertheless can never hope to forget what he witnessed all those decades ago – "the strange terrible neverending-ness of human beings," as he puts it – or make others who didn't experience it understand.
The older Dorrigo's sense of alienation is deftly sketched in an early scene in which he is interviewed by a combative young journalist, prepared to question his blanket definition of the Japanese as "monsters". It's a measure of Shaun Grant's skilled writing that as she prods him, and with his rebuke, you sympathise with both characters' point of view. Similarly impressive is the way the show deals with Dorrigo's extra-marital affairs, as both young and old man, with no crude judgements. There are no heroes and villains in either set-up, exactly, just messy feelings and a search for connection.
Where the drama possesses clearer moral definition is in the indisputable evil of the sadism directed at the captured Australian soldiers. It is in these prisoner of war scenes that Kurzel, known for films like Snowtown and True History of the Kelly Gang, really excels himself, creating grimly powerful images – take a scene early on of a heap of dehydrated men being transported in a truck, sticking their tongues out ecstatically as rainwater comes through the slats of their container. But he also deftly colours in the bravado and, yes, mateship, that (barely) sustains them in the most terrible of situations, as they share penis jokes and impromptu comedy skits amid the unbearable slog of their labour.
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When it comes to their Japanese captors, meanwhile, the dangers of presenting them as one-dimensionally malign are counterpointed in part by the character of a conflicted young major. At the same time, the way one of his seniors talks about how cutting off someone's head feels both "euphoric and horrible" could not be more chilling. It will be interesting to see how their perspective develops, as the episodes progress.
But this is a show as much about love as war, and it's good that the romance has equal impact, thanks to the smouldering chemistry of Elordi and Young. Young gives a beguiling sense of a woman with a wisdom and self-knowledge beyond her years, while Elordi has simply never been better: returning both to the small screen and his homeland Australia, he holds the screen with a particular kind of reserved charisma, suggesting his character's hidden recesses of pain and desire with mere flickers of expression. And even if he hardly resembles Elordi, Hinds is equally superb in the older timelines, his natural lugubriousness put to good use.
As for Kurzel, he brings an auteur's confidence to everything here, creating a seamless symphony of visuals, editing and music. The Narrow Road to the Deep North feels like a searingly "true" account of war, indeed, but also one founded on the finest artistry, if that's not too much of a contradiction.
★★★★★
The Narrow Road to the Deep North will premiere on Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand and Canada and soon on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer in the UK. A US release date is yet to be announced.
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Robert Pattinson stars as multiple clones in the South Korean film-maker's big-budget follow up to Parasite – and while the star himself is entertaining, the film as a whole is a mess.
No best picture winner at the Oscars has been as exciting in recent years as Bong Joon Ho's Parasite – and not just because it was the first ever victor not in the English language. A scabrous takedown of the complacency of the rich, it was subversive in the way few awards players truly are, while its celebration within the gilded denizens of Hollywood added an extra layer of irony.
For fans of the South Korean film-maker, the good news is that despite his added commercial stock, his long-awaited follow-up is no less mischievous: a large-scale sci-fi filled with Hollywood stars and big themes it may be, but it mostly eschews the grandiose self-importance typical of such an endeavour. The bad news – and possibly an explanation for its delays in release – is that it doesn't really know what approach it wants to take instead. All in all, it must be considered a serious disappointment from the director.
At least Robert Pattinson fans will be happy to get multiple (well, mostly two) versions of the actor for the price of one. He plays Mickey Barnes, a down-on-his-luck guy in a dystopian near-future, where floods of citizens are desperate to leave Earth, who signs up to a space colony program as an "expendable" – that is, a guinea pig worker who can be deployed in various perilous experiments for the benefit of humanity, only to be "reprinted" every time he inevitably dies, as a new cloned version of himself. Which is all well and good, until version number 17 of him unexpectedly survives after falling down an ice shaft on the planet Niflheim – and finds Mickey number 18 already installed in his living quarters. The question is: how do two versions of the same person learn to get along – or not?
The "reprinting" or human cloning premise is certainly one that should have plenty of narrative potential. It could be a rich source of philosophical inquiry, given what it raises about the nature of the self, death, and more besides. It could also, of course, be the basis for some decent satire, casting as it does its "expendables" scheme as the logical endpoint for a society that desires to exploit people without consequences. Yet on the former front, the film seems peculiarly uninterested in dealing with the questions it throws up, while in the latter respect, the comedy is so broad as to be completely toothless.
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The colony is run by Mark Ruffalo as a veneer-toothed, bouffant-haired, callous showman – and it's a groaningly obvious performance, from start to finish; just as tiresome is Toni Collette as his equally despotic wife, flashing a Cheshire Cat-sized grin of insincerity throughout. The brilliance of Parasite lay in how it took apart the superficial "niceness" of its privileged characters: here, however, they are so obviously and uninterestingly awful – characterisations worthy of a bad Saturday Night Live skit – that the effect is to defang the story of any genuine bite. That might be forgivable if the film was at least funny – but again and again lines and scenes strain for comic effect, but fail to deliver the goods.
Some of the actors fare better with the material: as Mickey's lover Nasha, Naomi Ackie is enjoyably sweary and makes the most of a rousing anti-authoritarian speech, while Pattinson has fun with the antagonism between Mickey 17, a nebbish type with a touch of Steve Buscemi, and the surly, more rebellious Mickey 18. But then that, too, becomes sidelined as the pair put their animosity aside and join forces for an epic action climax, involving them meeting the planet's native cockroach race the Creepers – think Dune's gapingly-mouthed Sandworms with legs. Suddenly, Bong does indeed go for a conventional blockbuster earnestness he has hitherto rejected – and fails to make that fit too; like its hero, this is a film with a major identity crisis.
With a reported budget of $150m, it would certainly be a surprise if this curio can find the kind of audience it needs to succeed. In these risk-averse times, it's good to see an expensive studio film that is at least deeply idiosyncratic – but you have to hope such a folly doesn't make the money men even more cautious in future.
★★☆☆☆
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Among the many controversies of this year's Oscars race, some believe that favourites to take home the acting awards have been recognised in the wrong category.
This year's race to the Oscars has been shockingly chaotic and vitriolic, with one actor's history of bigoted social media posts and two directors' use of AI being revealed, and plenty of gossip about who is behind all this revealing. Another contentious topic has been "category fraud" – that is, the phenomenon of actors being nominated in categories where many believe they don't really belong. "Absolute category fraud" said one X user, of Kieran Culkin's best supporting actor nod for A Real Pain. "It's time to stop the category fraud madness," said another, referring to both Culkin and Zoe Saldaña's supporting actress nomination for Emilia Pérez. And there are many more posts like these. Kyle Wilson said in a piece for The Ringer in November that this was poised to be "the fraudiest awards season in Oscar history".
Still, we shouldn't get carried away. No one is accusing anyone else of committing actual fraud. The practice they're talking about is simply a long-established way of boosting actors' chances of winning an Academy Award (or a Bafta or a Golden Globe), by placing one co-lead in a lead acting category and the other into the supporting, rather than have them compete against each other. Nate Jones in Vulture has called it an "understandable bit of gamesmanship". But Michael Schulman, the author of Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears, tells the BBC that "category fraud is particularly egregious this year".
The films being criticised are the aforementioned Emilia Pérez and A Real Pain, plus Wicked, all of which are on the shortlist for Best picture. All three films are dominated by pairs of actors of the same gender who have almost equal amounts to do, rather than playing lead roles and supporting roles. For instance, when Wicked was a Broadway show, the actresses playing Elphaba and Galinda, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, were both nominated for the Tony award for Best actress in a musical, so it would seem logical that the actresses playing Elphaba and Galinda in the big-screen adaptation, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, should both be in the running for best actress prizes. But that's not what has happened. At the Oscars and the Baftas, Erivo has been nominated as a lead actress, and Grande as a supporting actress.
Some say the categories occupied by the two stars of Emilia Pérez are even more questionable. The film divides its time between characters played by Saldaña and Karla Sofia Gascón – and according to Matthew Stewart, who has crunched the numbers for Screen Time Central, Saldaña is on screen and/or on the soundtrack for 57 minutes and 50 seconds, or 43.69% of the film, which is slightly more than Gascón's 52 minutes and 21 seconds, or 39.54%. And yet it is Gascón who has been nominated for a lead actress Oscar and Bafta, and Saldaña who is on the "supporting" shortlist.
But the alleged "category fraud" that is really getting film journalists and social-media commentators hot under the collar pertains to Culkin in A Real Pain. Stewart has calculated that the film's writer/director, Jesse Eisenberg has more screen time (62 minutes and 29 seconds) than Culkin does (58 minutes and six seconds), but the film is obviously about the relationship between two cousins who are almost always on screen together. They are as much co-leads as Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were in Thelma & Louise – and yet while Davis and Sarandon were both shortlisted for best actress Oscars in 1992, Culkin has been nominated as best supporting actor at the Oscars and the Baftas alike. Last year, Culkin took home the Golden Globe for Best performance by a male actor in a television series – drama for his portrayal of Succession's Roman Roy – he was up against his onscreen brother Jeremy Strong in the same category.
"There are no official rules delineating a lead versus supporting performance, and Academy members can vote however they want," says Schulman. "In practice, though, the actors and the studios choose how to position the cast, through 'For Your Consideration' ads and the like. The positioning is often strategic, so that two co-stars aren't splitting the vote, or so a semi-lead can cannonball into the supporting race." It's worth recalling that neither Davis nor Sarandon won an Oscar for Thelma & Louise, so the fact that they were up against each other may indeed have split the vote. In contrast, Saldaña and Grande have been put into different categories from their co-stars, and they are the current top two favourites to win the best supporting actress prize. Meanwhile, Culkin – "a semi-lead", to use Schulman's phrase – is a dead cert to win an Academy Award for best supporting actor. If he had been on the leading actor list, up against Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet and Ralph Fiennes, his chances of taking home a statuette would have been a lot smaller. The BBC contacted both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Bafta regarding the issue of "category fraud", as well representatives of the three films in question, Emilia Pérez, A Real Pain and Wicked, but all of them are yet to respond.
Some commentators see "category fraud" as out-and-out cheating: the equivalent of entering a Great Dane in a contest to find the world's biggest Chihuahua. But is it really so insidious? Charles Gant, the awards editor of Screen International, admits that he has "sympathy" for studios that push actors towards one category or another. "Why wouldn't Universal, Netflix and Searchlight Pictures try to split their actors into leading and supporting categories," he asks. "Anybody would." He also notes that Ampas in the US and Bafta in the UK: "are not obliged to play ball" – just because a studio advertises someone as a leading or supporting performer doesn't mean that voters have to agree.
The most bizarre instance of voters going their own way came in 2021, when Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield were co-leads in Judas and the Black Messiah. Stanfield was marketed as the lead, and Kaluuya as a supporting actor, and yet, somehow, both men ended up being Oscar-nominated for best supporting actor. In this instance, the two competing nominations didn't split the vote, and Kaluuya won the Academy Award – but who exactly either performer was meant to be supporting was never explained.
The trouble stems from how difficult it is to say what constitutes a "supporting" role. "The word 'supporting' often feels inadequate to define a performance," says Rich Cline, the chair of the London Film Critics' Circle, "so it's used across a very wide range, from ensemble casts to people who are onscreen throughout a film, like Ariana Grande in Wicked, to someone who comes on briefly and delivers a devastating moment, like Isabella Rossellini in Conclave."
What makes a 'supporting' and 'lead' performance?
Some journalists argue that timings should be involved – eg, an actor should have to appear in more than half of a film to be its lead, and less than half of a film to be a supporting player. Others maintain that the distinction between categories depends on more subtle and artistic factors, such as which character evolves the most during the narrative, and whose perspective is prioritised. "Grande, Saldaña and Culkin are all in movies that centre on a pair of characters who share more or less equal screen time," says Schulman, "but the protagonists of their films – the ones who go through the pivotal emotional journey – are played by Erivo, Gascón, and Eisenberg. Can you really decide who a story is about by using a stopwatch?"
Cline, too, has come around to the view that A Real Pain is "told specifically through the perspective of Eisenberg's character", and so it is legitimate to count Culkin as a supporting actor. He feels the same about Saldaña's Rita and Gascón's Emilia in Emilia Pérez. "Personally, while I was watching the film, I felt that it was Rita's story, with Saldaña giving the lead performance. Then Netflix quickly defined the title role as the lead role in all of their marketing. I can see that, too, as Emilia's journey is so momentous, driving the entire narrative, including Rita's arc. So in my voting this season, I have gone along with those categories."
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Considering what a subjective business this is, you could just ignore "category fraud" and declare that all's fair in love and the Oscars. But, as Schulman says, putting Saldaña, Grande and Culkin in the supporting categories comes "at the expense of actors like Isabella Rossellini [in Conclave] and Yura Borisov [in Anora], who have what I think of as exemplary supporting roles: they're on screen for a limited time but make an indelible mark". As excellent as Rossellini and Borisov are, how are actors with genuine supporting roles meant to compete with those who can show off their skills through the whole of a film? It definitely feels as if the supposedly-supporting-but-actually-lead-actors have an unfair advantage. Just think of Viola Davis, who won the Best supporting actress Oscar for her role in Fences in 2017, beating competitors with much less screen time including Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea). "Was Davis really a supporting character?" asks Schulman. "Arguably, but she won the Lead actress Tony Award for playing the same role on Broadway."
Another eyebrow-raising example is Mahershala Ali's best supporting actor Oscar in 2019, when he was really Viggo Mortensen's co-lead in Green Book (Mortensen was nominated for best actor). And in 2016, Rooney Mara was Cate Blanchett's co-lead in Carol (and she had more screen time), while Alicia Vikander was Eddie Redmayne's co-lead in The Danish Girl – but both Mara and Vikander were nominated for best supporting actress, and Vikander won the Oscar.
Weirder still are the examples where it's not just a case of co-leads being separated into discrete categories, but lead and supporting actors swapping places. It's Emma Stone's character who goes on the most significant journey in The Favourite, but she and Rachel Weisz were both classed as supporting actors – neither won – leaving the way clear for Olivia Colman to win the Oscar for Lead actress in 2019. And spare a thought for Al Pacino, the star of The Godfather. In 1973, Pacino's Hollywood career was just getting started, while Marlon Brando, in a smaller role, was an icon making a thrilling comeback, so Brando was unjustly placed in the lead actor category, and Pacino had to make do with a supporting actor nod, alongside two of his colleagues from the same film, James Caan and Robert Duvall. With the vote split between the three younger men, it was hardly surprising that none of them won – Joel Grey nabbed the Best supporting actor Oscar for Cabaret. Brando, on the other hand, won Best actor, and Pacino had to wait another 20 years before he finally got his own Oscar for Scent of a Woman.
There are even cases when studios play around with categories in order to stop actors and actresses competing with themselves. In 2009, Kate Winslet had leading roles in two films from different studios, Revolutionary Road and The Reader – but was suggested in "For Your Consideration" ads as a leading actress for the former, and a supporting actress for the latter. However as Gant notes, while the Golden Globes played ball and "nominated her as supporting actress in a drama for The Reader, and leading actress in a drama for Revolutionary Road – handing her both prizes on the night – gratifyingly, Bafta and Oscar rebelled. Both said that she had a lead role in The Reader, and nominated her as such. She won leading actress for The Reader at both events".
Is "category fraud" a slight against under-appreciated character actors giving incontrovertibly supporting performances or just a harmless sign of how arbitrary the Oscars can be? Your answer may depend on how much of a fan you are of the nominees in question. One common theme on social media is that Culkin's nomination may be in the wrong category, but that he's so terrific in A Real Pain that it's hard to begrudge him his inevitable Oscar. Others take a harder line: "Guy Pearce I'm so sorry that category fraud is about to rob you of your Oscar," said one X user, referring to Pearce's best supporting actor nomination for The Brutalist. As for the performers who are up against Grande, Saldaña and Culkin, they're sure to smile and applaud the winners on Oscar night, but, deep down, they may wish that the Academy had issued voters with stopwatches, after all.
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In 1966, the BBC's Tomorrow's World visited a party in New York organised by the electronic dating service Tact, or Technical Automated Compatibility Testing. Around 2,000 singles were invited to Manhattan to try out this modern method of matchmaking.
In 1788, a man going by the name of "AB" placed New York's first known personal ad in the Impartial Gazetteer, according to historian Francesa Beauman. He was seeking a woman "under 40, not deformed, and in possession of at least one thousand pounds". Describing himself as "a young gentleman of family and fortune, who is lately come to town", the ad was the Tinder bio of its day. Whether AB had any replies to his ad is unknown. But nearly 200 years later, New York was the home of another novel approach to dating – computer matchmaking.
Invented by Bob Ross (a computer programmer at IBM, not the painter), and accountant Lewis Altfest, Tact – or Technical Automated Compatibility Testing – launched in New York 60 years ago, in 1965. First confined to the Upper East Side, it soon expanded to the entire city and had thousands signing up to be matched by computer. Each hopeful had to pay $5 (£2) and fill in a questionnaire, which would then be used to match people "on three levels", according to Ross: socio-cultural factors, opinions and values, and psychological factors. The answers were fed into the computer, which would then spit out supposed matches of the opposite gender. Same-sex dating was not an option. "Tact is not a lonely-hearts club," Ross told the BBC's Tomorrow's World. "It's not a marriage brokerage service. It's a new fun way of meeting new people." He pointed out that it was open to "all fun-loving people between 18 and 45", and added: "People go into Tact for a number of reasons. Some of the people go into it just to meet new people, to get a lot of dates… some people want to get more serious, they are interested in forming a more lasting relationship, and then there are people who just want to get married."
The matchmaking questions were approved by psychologist Dr Salvatore V Didato, who felt there was "a great social need" for services such as Tact. He complained of other services, "They say that they match people on many, many variables, but it winds up that they match them only on age, sex, religion, and height, or something like that." The Tact questionnaire went further by including a series of statements with which respondents had to either agree or disagree. The BBC report features responses from a typical customer: "I worry over my relationships with people – yes. I enjoy people who express affection freely – yes. Most of the time I act as an independent – no. I enjoy going to parties – yes."
While Tact was at the crest of a new technological wave, it was not quite the first computer-aided dating service. The two inventors had been inspired by Operation Match, which had been started earlier that year by Harvard students – decades before some students at the same university would create another computer-powered way for people to connect: Facebook.
In 1965, computers were still novel. Operation Match had to rent one of the university's computers for $100 an hour. It quickly proved popular, with thousands of students sending in questionnaires. "You thought the computer was god, and the computer knew all," co-creator Jeff Tarr told the BBC's Witness History in 2014. Coincidentally, Tarr's daughter would go on to marry one of the creators of Match.com, one of the first internet dating sites. The computer provided reassurance: instead of relying on luck when finding your partner, you could be algorithmically matched to your soulmate.
The 1960s were a time of revolution. In the United States, the civil rights and second wave feminism movements were in full flow. Social norms were changing, and technology was developing quickly, too: the arrival of the computer coincided with society's increased permissiveness. By 1969, computer dating – or at least the idea of it – was mainstream enough to feature as a storyline in Bewitched, the supernatural sitcom. Samantha's cousin Serena (Elizabeth Montgomery plays both characters) signs up to a computer dating service to find a mortal to marry, only to be matched with a warlock. Even Bob Ross himself found love through Tact – although it wasn't thanks to the computer. According to a New Yorker article published in the New Yorker in 2011, he eventually married a journalist who interviewed him about the project.
Tact's thousands of willing customers signalled a shift away from the more formal courtship culture of the first half of the century, and towards more modern attitudes. However, these early computer matchmaking services did not last long. While some people found their perfect partners, the services had a few fatal limitations. Because the services were primarily aimed at middle-class college students and graduates, there was a finite pool of potential matches. Also, the system was inefficient – it could be weeks between sending off your questionnaire and receiving your matches, who you then had to contact by phone or post. The parties organised by Tact were an attempt to get matches to mingle despite the distances that might be involved. Even then, it could still be awkward. The BBC's report pointed out that even "a public relations man present couldn't get this party going until after dark," despite a prize of "a big night out on the town" for the most compatible couple present. Possibly the paper sign hung between two bins did not inspire confidence in the service.
True love and artificial intelligence
The questions left something to be desired, too. As well as all the basic demographic and attraction-related queries, the form's "dislikes" section had options such as "homosexuals" and "interracial couples". The questionnaire also played to stereotypes: according to the New Yorker, men were asked to rank women's hairstyles, whereas women could specify where they could find their ideal man: chopping wood, painting in a studio, or in a garage.
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While the creators were proud of the detail in their "three levels" of compatibility testing, their Cupid's arrows weren't always on target. "We matched an older brother with his younger sister," admitted Ross. "That didn't work out too well." He also said they'd had "a number of people who weren't too satisfied after they've gone out". On Tomorrow's World, one potential client quizzed Dr Didato on the robustness of the matching computer, after a bad experience with another service. "She specified an age limit and gets some guy 20 years older!"
Still, while Tact, Operation Match and other similar services now seem comparatively quaint, people keep using technology to guide them towards romance – from the first personal ads in newspapers to video dating services, from online dating sites to AI-aided apps. According to Pew Research, one in 10 people who had partners in the US in 2023 met them via online dating. When it comes to matters of the heart, it seems, we can't help falling in love with the latest innovations.
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A Suffolk musician has moved one step closer to representing Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest after a "nerve-wracking but incredible" performance during the televised heats.
Ollie Trevers is the lead singer of The Great Leslie, who have made it to the semi-final of the Chefsache ESC 2025 competition after impressing a panel of judges.
The winner will be chosen to perform for Germany at this year's Eurovision, which takes place in Basel, Switzerland, in May.
Mr Trevers, who is from Framlingham, Suffolk, would be eligible to represent the European country due to his band having a German member.
The Great Leslie were initially part of 24 acts chosen to audition for Germany's Eurovision selection competition, having been picked from a pool of about 3,000 entrants.
The four-piece group then made it to the semi-final after performing an "authentic" rendition of Coldplay's Fix You.
"I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it but it was amazing and incredible," said Mr Trevers, who studied at Framlingham College.
"When you go up there, it's one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of your life because you are going on television in front of millions of people."
Fortunately for the group, the performance proved a hit with the judges, but it could have gone very differently, Mr Trevers said.
"I made a bit of a faux pas because the studio air was really, really dry, as they had loads of dry ice.
"I was sucking on a cough sweet to try and keep my vocal chords lubricated, but as I went up on stage I forgot I still had it in my mouth.
"So for the entire performance I was fighting for space in my mouth while I was singing, so I freaked out a bit at the beginning!"
'I am confident'
Mr Trevers, whose family is "very excited", will next perform on Saturday, but this time he will have to play the song which he could find himself singing in Basel in May.
"We will be performing our Eurovision entry song, so it will be an original song," he said during an interview on BBC Suffolk.
"The whole competition is a really great opportunity for everyone involved and there are some really lovely talented people there.
"But, I am confident and I think the judges really like us, so I am hoping we go through."
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A rare pen and ink sketch by a leading 18th-century British portrait artist has been discovered by chance in a wheelie bin in the US.
The piece, by Lancashire-born George Romney, depicts Henrietta Greville, Countess of Warwick, in a seated pose.
It will be auctioned at Roseberys on 12 March in London and has been valued at between £600 and £800.
The finished version of the portrait - in oils - is held in The Frick Collection, less than 200 miles from where the sketch was stumbled upon by an antiques enthusiast in Hudson, New York.
The collector, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "When I first found it buried in the wheelie bin it looked interesting but I had no idea it was nearly 300 years old.
"After taking it home and doing some research I couldn't believe it. How did this mid-18th century drawing from England end up in the trash in upstate New York?"
'Remarkable find'
Lara L'vov-Basirov, of Roseberys, said: "This is a remarkable find, and I'm delighted it was saved from the rubbish.
"This sketch is from Romney's mature period at the height of his sensitivity as a portraitist.
"It highlights his close relationship with the Grevilles, who were lifelong patrons and friends. We hope this discovery will help establish a provenance trail."
The work is regarded as typical of the artist's experimental technique, which marked him out from his contemporaries Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.
Henrietta Greville (née Vernon) married George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, in 1776.
Her brother-in-law Charles Greville introduced Romney to his artistic muse and lifelong obsession Emma Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson.
Henrietta sat for Romney in 1777, 1782, and 1784, frequently appearing in his portraits alone and with her children.
Born in Dalton-in-Furness when it was part of the historic county of Lancashire, he died in Kendal, Cumbria, in 1802.
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An eight-year-old artist is preparing for his first exhibition after an art gallery spotted his paintings online.
Kevin Kovacs, from Wellington, Somerset, will have his watercolour paintings of scenes from around the south west of England showcased at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre in Taunton.
Centre director Andy Pulleyn said: "For an eight-year-old boy doing that now, what might he be doing in the future?"
His mother Natalia said she first noticed he was showing promise as an artist when he was just five years old.
"He taught himself by watching tutorials online," she said. "I was amazed with the results and so was everyone around me."
Rather than sticking them on the fridge door, Kevin's parents posted the paintings on social media.
Kevin said his posts started garnering lots of likes, with one photograph receiving more than 300 interactions.
The posts were spotted by staff at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre who approached Kevin's parents with the idea of hosting his first show.
Angela Harding, exhibition co-ordinator, said: "I was very impressed with the work that he did for his age.
"Then the more I saw, I could tell that it was a constant talent rather than just a one-off."
Kevin, who is a pupil at Beech Grove Primary, said his favourite thing about using watercolours is the speed.
"Watercolours take half an hour to dry, oil paintings take like a month. If I have an exhibition, I want to have lots of paintings ready."
The exhibition starts on 25 February and runs until 28 April.
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Albert Square is not really in the East End of London, it is actually in Borehamwood in Hertfordshire.
Since its beginnings, EastEnders has been shot on an outdoor set at BBC Elstree Centre, which is tucked away in the town centre.
To an outsider the terraced houses complete with satellite dishes could fool you into thinking it is just another residential street, but only when you get close enough do you spot fans camped outside the security gates with umbrellas and chairs.
So what is it like for the people of Borehamwood who, for the last 40 years, could technically call The Queen Vic their local?
Phil Mitchell's neighbour
A few weeks ago Darren Bloch was washing up when something exploded: "I started panicking. I could see smoke and all that."
"I quickly shouted to my wife to call the fire service and she called down to say, 'Oh, no, don't worry, it's EastEnders, They sent a letter around to say it was going to happen'.
"I was panicked for a bit."
The couple live so close to the set that Phil Mitchell's house overlooks their back garden.
Mr Bloch said: "From our bedroom you can see the whole set, the tops of the buildings and all the set, so we're right on the set.
"When we tell our friends where we live they find it's amazing... They've definitely come up to our bedroom and had a good look."
The 37-year-old only moved to the area four months ago. He is originally from South Africa where they have never heard of Ian Beale, Dot Branning or Kat Slater.
Although Darren lives closer to Walford than anybody else in the world, he has never seen an episode in his life.
"I've Googled it a few times, just to see if I know any of the faces that I regularly see walking around, nothing so far, I haven't been so lucky.
"We did watch Strictly [Come Dancing] this year, that was my first reference of an EastEnders actor."
Alongside the couple's home is a road that leads into the set, which is blocked off by a large security gate.
Fans are often sat on the edge of Darren's driveway hoping for a glimpse of their favourite characters on their way to the local shops.
"When we first moved in it was something we definitely had to get used to, having so many people just walking and looking over.
"You think, 'Are they looking into our property?' and then you realise they're just trying to get a glimpse of the studios.
"I sometimes see people getting autographs or signatures or something. I just don't know who they are."
'They admire my roses'
Somebody who would recognise the cast is Mr Bloch's neighbour and fan of the soap, Pamela Waple.
The 74-year-old, who moved to Borehamwood eight years ago, said: "They are all so friendly and so charming. If I'm out in the front garden they will stop and they chat and they admire my roses.
"They sometimes film out the front of the house, there was one a few weeks ago with Jack Branning."
Behind Ms Waple's garden shed are two houses, part of the soap's set, but through the gap between them you can catch a glimpse of Albert Square itself.
"We do hear the occasional bang, and shouting and hoorays. At Christmas, we see the decorations when they decorate the square.
"Christmas goes up about August and there's all snow on the rooftops. It is very odd."
In 2022, the show started using a new set after the original one, used since 1984, had deteriorated to the point it was no longer usable.
During construction, residents were invited for a tour of the £86.7m replacement.
Ms Waple said: "We could walk around Albert Square which was quite surreal, but the neighbours I went with didn't watch it so it didn't mean much to them, but for me it was bizarre walking around Albert Square."
On Thursday there will be a live episode of the soap, broadcast from the set in Borehamwood.
Ms Waple said: "To think when they do the live performance they're actually going to be there, and I'll be here watching it on my TV - I can get it in stereo.
"There's a child that lives next door, he cries a lot and screams a lot, I wonder if that interferes with their filming because you do hear them shout 'action'."
She added: "I dread to think anything happens to EastEnders. We'd have a housing estate there."
Walford High Street
If BBC Elstree Centre is the EastEnders equivalent of a Hollywood studio then Borehamwood high street is the walk of fame.
Ask anybody in the shops, cafes or pubs at the centre of town and they will probably have a story about meeting or serving the show's cast.
Aziz Chatt, a cook at Golden Plaice fish and chip shop, said: "Bianca was here a couple of weeks ago, she came twice in the last couple of weeks," he said.
"Minty used to come nearly every week."
"Phil Mitchell loves his fish and chips. He comes and takes his cod and chips, I saw him a few weeks ago, he's a nice and chatty man... He likes salt and vinegar."
Michelle Smith, the manager of Peace Hospice Care, has noticed that things bought in her shop have ended up on screen.
"We used to be a furniture shop so they bought a lot from us... we've spotted sofas and things," she said.
"Ten years ago it was a Jubilee or something, they had a big episode with Dot and another lady. I watched it and was like, 'Oh my God, there's all the bits they bought from the shop'."
She has lost count of how many cast members have visited the shop over the 22 years she has worked in the area.
"Max Branning used to run round in his little 80s shorts. You used to see him jogging all the time in his teenie weenies."
Karen Whitehouse works in the same shop, and when the show started her son was an extra in one of the first episodes.
She said: "He was just in a carnival scene where the kids are running around.
"The funny thing is, when people come into Borehamwood to see if they can spot the actors, you do get a lot."
Ms Smith added: "We've had to take a few out the back door when they've really been harassed.
"They're all really lovely people, because they come in so often you see them in the street, and they shout 'all right?'."
To mark the soap's 40th birthday, Hertsmere Borough Council presented Chris Clenshaw, the show's executive producer, with a special award.
Council leader and Chair of Elstree Film Studios, Jeremy Newmark said: "EastEnders has been totemic of the growth in the screen sector here in Hertsmere and proven a trailblazer with its treatment of the important social issues of the day.
"It's played a critical role in our national conversations over the past 40 years and we are very proud to have the BBC EastEnders team right here in the heart of our borough."
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Central Cee has made history at the Mobo Awards, becoming the first artist to be named best male act three times.
It was his seventh trophy, matching Stormzy's record as the most decorated rapper in the awards' history.
He did not attend the ceremony in person, with his prize instead collected by host Eddie Kadi who joked they "share everything... except royalties".
The event in Newcastle also saw Bashy claim best album and best hip-hop act after a 15-year break from music and Darkoo beat off competition from Raye and Jorja Smith to be recognised as best female act.
Accepting her award, Darkoo said she "tried Chat GPT" to write her speech "but I didn't know how to make it work", so instead freestyled and thanked her family for supporting her.
"It's been a rollercoaster but they believed in me for the past year and I've been shutting it down."
Cental Cee, also known as Cench, was previously named best male act in 2024 and released his debut album last month after eight top 10 singles.
Reacting to his win on Instagram, he posted a screenshot of the awards' coverage with the comment "that's nice".
He missed out on his other two nominations including best drill act, which went to Pozer, and song of the year which was won by Darkoo alongside her trophy for best female act.
Despite not making breaking into the UK singles charts, the British-Nigerian artist won for Favourite Girl, a collab with Dess Dior, ahead of Stormzy's number one track with Chase & Status, Backbone, as well as Central Cee's collab with Lil Baby, Band4Band, which peaked at number three.
Ayra Starr also scooped two awards, making history as the first African woman to win best international act and becoming the first woman to win best African music act in 16 years.
Jamaican dancehall artist Vybz Kartel was also recognised with the Mobo impact award.
He was released from jail last year after his murder conviction was overturned and at the weekend was confirmed to be performing at this summer's Wireless festival.
"Think about this, got locked up, did 13 years in prison," he said while accepting his accolade.
"Meanwhile I'm diagnosed with Graves' disease so I'm fighting to be free, I'm fighting my illness, I'm fighting to keep my family together, I'm fighting to keep the fans pleased.
"And now I'm here, I walked the red carpet at the Mobo's. That taught me to believe in three things now more than ever: fate, change and forgiveness."
The ceremony saw performances from Nova Twins, Spice, Krept And Konan and award winners Odeal, Darkoo and Bashy.
Bashy, who returned to music after a 15-year break to focus on his acting career, won best hip-hop act as well as album of the year for Being Poor Is Expensive - an award he said he "wanted and deserved".
"This has been a 20-year plus journey, it's been hard work, tenacity, a lot of ups and downs.
"I stood in my truth, stood in my community's truth and now I'm here," he said on stage, making a point to thank the Windrush generation.
"I'm just a regular guy from the ends. I was a bus driver, I was a postman, I worked in retail. So if you're out there and you're working a job to fund your passion, don't be ashamed of your job.
"This is an amazing honour, I'm humbled."
It was the first awards since Mobos founder Kanya King revealed she'd been diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer.
Labour MP Dawn Butler became emotional as she announced Kanya would receive a surprise award, paving the way, which was also won by athlete and broadcaster Denise Lewis.
Kanya came on stage to a standing ovation from the crowd, saying she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude "because there was a time I thought I wouldn't make it".
"Next year marks our 30th anniversary and I very much intend to be there."
* Best male act - Central Cee
* Best female act - Darkoo
* Best newcomer - Odeal
* Album of the year - Bashy, Being Poor Is Expensive
* Song of the year - Darkoo feat. Dess Dior, Favourite Girl
* Video of the year - Mnelia, My Man
* Best hip-hop act - Bashy
* Best grime act - Scorcher
* Best drill act - Pozer
* Best R&B/Soul act - Odeal
* Best media personality - 90s baby show
* Best African music act - Ayra Starr
* Best performance in a TV show/ film - Jacob Anderson as Louis in Interview With The Vampire
* Best electronic/ dance music act - TSHA
* Best gospel act - Annatoria
* Best jazz act - Ezra Collective
* Best producer - Juls
* Best Caribbean music act - Shenseea
* Best alternative music act - ALT BLK ERA
* Best international act - Ayra Starr
* MOBO paving the way award - Denise Lewis MBE
* MOBO impact award - Vybz Kartel
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Actor Jimmy Martin, who played "Auld" Eric in BBC sitcom Still Game, has died at the age of 93.
Martin appeared in 47 episodes of the show alongside Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan between 2002 and 2018.
He was one of the few members of the cast who was actually a pensioner when the show began, but his character was killed off in the eighth series.
His management company said his performances "brought joy to so many".
Former Still Game producer Michael Hines described him as a "wonderful actor" in a post on X.
He wrote: "Just to let all the Still Game fans out there that Jimmy Martin 'Eric' passed away today.
"He was a wonderful actor and I was honoured to call him pal."
Martin was born in Glasgow's Partick, but lived for a long period in Musselburgh, East Lothian.
He joined the Royal Navy at the age of 17 and spent 16 years in the fire service before becoming an actor.
Martin was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2024 King's birthday honours for his services to military charities.
He began acting regularly in the 1980s, including appearances in Taggart and Take the High Road, before joining Still Game - a spinoff of comedy sketch show Chewin' the Fat.
Eric was a regular presence in The Clansman alongside Jack and Victor (Kiernan and Hemphill), as well as Winston, played by Paul Riley, Tam, played by Mark Cox, Isa, played by Jane McCarry and barman Boaby, played by Paul Mitchell.
The beloved character helped lure tight-fisted Tam into a poker night at Jack's flat, graphically described the effects of aging on the human body to the long-term friends and found out, to his cost, the dangers of tampering with a fire hydrant on a hot day.
Parts of his real-life back story were worked into that of his character on the long-running show when he became the first customer of new Craiglang funeral director Iain Duncan Sheathing in 2018.
That was only after he claimed to have carried out a summer romance with Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida in Rome, which was later found to be untrue after the character's funeral.
He also appeared in Peter McDougall's Just Another Sunday, Rab C Nesbitt and Netflix comedy Lovesick.
Posting on Facebook, Red Shoe Entertainment wrote: "We are deeply saddened to share the news that Jimmy Martin, the beloved actor known for playing Eric in Still Game, has passed away.
"His warmth, humour, and unforgettable performances brought joy to so many, and his legacy will live on through the laughter he shared with the world.
"Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and all who loved him. Rest in peace, Jimmy."
Carry On film star Julian Holloway has died after a brief illness, his agent has said.
The Oxfordshire born actor played various characters in the comedy films which included Carry On Doctor, Carry On Up The Khyber and Carry On Camping.
His theatrical agency, Sharkey and Co, said he died on Sunday at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in Dorset.
Holloway had a daughter, supermodel-turned-author Sophie Dahl, with British actress Tessa Dahl, daughter of children's author Roald Dahl.
His voiceover agency, Damn Good Voices, told PA news agency he would be missed.
As well as appearing in eight Carry On films, Holloway had parts in numerous TV series, including Doctor Who, Uncle Silas, and Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?
His film roles included prison comedy Porridge, The Rum Diary starring Johnny Depp, and A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey.
Holloway was born in Watlington, Oxfordshire, the son of My Fair Lady actor and singer Stanley Holloway and wife Violet.
In his later years, he lived in California and undertook voice work including in James Bond Jr, Where's Waldo, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Captain Zed And The Zee Zone.
He also had a prominent role in 1960s courtroom film Hostile Witness and appeared in Burt Reynolds' crime movie Rough Cut and The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols.
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A graduate who received a major film award has described the win as a "surreal".
Franz Böhm studied at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, after he moved to the UK from Germany.
His film about the war in Ukraine, Rock, Paper, Scissors, won a Bafta for Best British Short Film.
"Being part of the Bafta ceremony is already such a dream, then when we had the enormous honour and pleasure of winning the award that was absolutely surreal," he said.
"It was certainly an amazing atmosphere there, it was insane to be invited to the winners' bar. I tried to keep it cool, I had amazing people speak to me, and I was trying to act like it was every day business for me."
The 20-minute short film is a war thriller based on the true story of a 17-year-old Ukrainian civilian named Ivan.
The film was shot in the UK and featured a performance by Ukrainian actor Oleksandr Rudynskyy.
Mr Böhm wrote and directed the film during a two-year masters course on directing fiction.
"It was our graduation project... For the graduation film we do get a lot of support from the school itself, it is obviously a proper film and everything, but it was made during our time at the film school," he said.
"I think I did OK there, I certainly wasn't the best student of all."
The winner of Best Short Animation, Wander to Wonder, was made by NFTA alumnus Nina Gantz.
Another former student, Nick Park, picked up two BAFTAs for Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
In 2024, NFTA students triumphed in the British Short Animation and British Short Film categories for the films Crab Day and Jellyfish and Lobster.
NFTS director Jon Wardle said: "Winning BAFTAs for student work two years in a row speaks volumes about the creativity, dedication, and innovation of our students.
"The School continues to be a global leader in film and animation training, and we couldn't be prouder of the team for this outstanding BAFTA win.
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It has been dubbed one of the world's rarest treasure troves of art but few people outside its host country know about it.
For decades, masterpieces by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock have been kept in the basement of a museum in Iran's capital Tehran, shrouded in mystery.
According to estimates in 2018, the collection is worth as much as $3bn.
Only a small portion of the work has been exhibited since the 1979 Iranian Revolution but in recent years, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has been showcasing some of its most captivating pieces.
The Eye to Eye exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in October 2024, was extended twice due to overwhelming public demand, running until January 2025.
The display was widely regarded as one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of the museum, and it also became its most visited.
The showcase featured more than 15 works unveiled for the first time, including a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet - marking its first-ever appearance in an Iranian exhibition.
From abstract expressionism to pop art, the collection at the museum serves as a time capsule of pivotal artistic movements.
Among the artwork is Warhol's portrait of Farah Pahlavi - Iran's last queen - a rare piece blending his pop art flair with Iranian cultural history.
Elsewhere, Francis Bacon's work called Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants shows figures appearing to spy on two naked men lying on a bed.
On the opposite wall in the basement of the museum, a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is on display in juxtaposition.
The museum was built in 1977 under the patronage of Pahlavi, the exiled widow of the last Shah of Iran who was overthrown during the revolution.
Pahlavi was a passionate art advocate and her cousin, architect Kamran Diba, designed the museum.
It was established to introduce modern art to Iranians and to bridge Iran closer to the international art scene.
The museum soon became home to a stunning array of works by luminaries including Picasso, Warhol and Salvador Dali, alongside pieces by leading Iranian modernists, and quickly established itself as a beacon of cultural exchange and artistic ambition.
But then came the 1979 revolution. Iran became an Islamic republic as the monarchy was overthrown and clerics assumed political control under Ayatollah Khomeini.
Many artworks were deemed inappropriate for public display because of nudity, religious sensitivities or political implications.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Gabrielle with Open Blouse was deemed too scandalous. And Warhol's portrait of the former queen of Iran was too political. In fact, Pahlavi's portrait was vandalised and torn apart with a knife during the revolutionary turmoil.
After the revolution, many of the artworks were locked away, collecting dust in a basement that became the stuff of art world legend.
It was only in the late 1990s that the museum reclaimed its cultural significance during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami.
Suddenly the world remembered what it had been missing. Art lovers could not believe their eyes. Van Gogh, Dali, even Monet - all in Tehran.
Some pieces were loaned to major exhibitions in Europe and the United States, briefly reconnecting the collection with the global art world.
Hamid Keshmirshekan, an art historian based in London, has studied the collection and calls it "one of the rarest treasure troves of modern art outside the West".
The collection includes Henry's Moore's Reclining Figure series - an iconic piece by one of Britain's most celebrated sculptors - and Jackson Pollock's Mural on Indian Red Ground, a vibrant example of the American's painting technique pulsing with energy and emotion.
Picasso's The Painter and His Model - his largest canvas from 1927 - also features, a strong example of his abstract works from the post-cubism period.
And there is Van Gogh's At Eternity's Gate - one of the very rare survivals of his first printmaking campaign during which he produced six lithographs in November 1882.
But for art lovers in Britain, the collection is out of reach. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Iran and says British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention.
Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for detention by the Iranian authorities, it says.
Challenges remain for the museum which operates under a tight budget. Shifting political priorities mean that it often functions more as a cultural hub than a traditional museum.
Yet it continues to be a remarkable institution - an unlikely guardian of modern art masterpieces in the heart of Tehran.
A British conductor has apologised for likening singers at one of Italy's leading opera houses to warring Mafia families.
Edward Gardner, who is principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, was threatened with a defamation action for his comments about chorus members at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.
Speaking to the Times last month about a recent appearance at the venue, Gardner said: "The chorus is made up of two rival Mafia families - who after one performance put each other in A&E."
In a statement issued by the opera house, he said he wanted to "sincerely apologise to the members of the chorus of the San Carlo Opera House".
Gardner explained: "Shortly before my arrival in Naples I was informed that two members of the chorus had a public fight just outside the theatre resulting in one person being hospitalised. I was very surprised by this.
"However I did not intend to suggest that the choir were members of the Mafia, and I am more than happy to retract that allegation."
Gardner said he had "deep respect and appreciation for the choir and its members", and his appearance in Naples last summer was "a meaningful experience that highlighted the talent, dedication, and hard work of this group".
"I regret that anything I said may have suggested otherwise because I have experienced firsthand the professionalism and excellence of this choir and I want to make it clear how much I value and respect everyone involved," he continued.
His original comments angered the mayor of Naples, who said they were "very serious allegations that are completely unfounded".
Teatro San Carlo's general director Stéphane Lissner said those at the opera house had been "deeply affected by the comments made earlier", and thanked Gardner for his apology.
"We welcome with respect and gratitude the desire to clarify and correct what has been said, in recognition of the value and work of our ensemble," Lissner said.
A re-discovered artist described as a "great" is offering a £50,000 reward in the search for dozens of his missing works.
Henry Orlik, 78, from Swindon, has made £1.6m from his surrealist art work in the past year, with all the sales coming from two exhibitions.
While he had work displayed beside the likes of Salvador Dali in the 1970s, Orlik became an artistic recluse some decades ago and is now in poor health.
After being evicted from his social housing in London while recovering from a stroke in 2022, his possessions - including a large amount of his work - disappeared, and the search is on to find them.
Orlick currently lives in his childhood home in Swindon, where other works had been safely stored.
Family friend Jan Pietruszka said he had been sorting through them, with some items going to the recent exhibitions for sale.
He said Orlik remained desperate to find the missing works lost during his eviction and "my brief is find them at all cost".
"He's getting weaker all the time. His health situation is deteriorating. He's quite depressed that we're not making great progress in finding these paintings," he explained.
Mr Pietruszka said his friend struggled to speak much now.
"He's very deprecating about his work," he added.
"When it comes to the money side, he's ambivalent, he's not really interested. The subject always reverts back to, 'Can you get the paintings back?'."
It was initially thought that 78 works had been lost when Orlick was evicted from his London flat and could not get back inside.
Now, it is believed at least 90 pieces - potentially hundreds - are missing.
The £50,000 reward is for the recovery of all the pieces, as there has still been no confirmation of their whereabouts.
Some of the artwork is enormous - life size or larger and already on a frame - and would be easily noticed as a result.
Interpretations of Marilyn Monroe were among them.
"Nobody in their right mind would throw that in the skip," said Mr Pietruszka.
Hundreds of sketches and work laid out flat were in an architects chest that was in the London home too, including several of his own copies of the Mona Lisa.
A lot of Orlik's work is not signed, but one of his specialisms is something called "excitations", his method of composing a picture using small squiggles.
Orlik paints with incredible accuracy and tiny brush strokes, but has mastered different styles.
Marlborough art dealer and gallery owner Grant Ford has been working with Mr Pietruszka and organising the exhibitions.
He said he could hardly believe what he was seeing when one of Orlik's works was first put in front of him.
"I've never come across an artist quite like this," he said. "As a specialist, I think his imagination is extraordinary."
Mr Ford has three decades of experience at Sotheby's and can be seen as an expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.
He said that Orlik "should be considered one of our greats".
"I think had he not turned his back on the commercial art world in the 70s, he would have been one of the really big names.
"Now is a critical time because his health is deteriorating," said Mr Ford.
Mr Ford said they had had interest from all over the world, including the US and China.
As a young man, Orlik spent some time in New York in the 1970s and an exhibition is being organised there for this year.
Due to Orlik's art not being sold for decades, the gallery owner had to start from scratch in working out how to price them.
Some have gone for more than £40,000.
Mr Ford and Mr Pietruszka said they were determined to find the bulk of the missing work with this reward - not just one or two pieces.
Anyone with information about the works' whereabouts has been urged to contact the Winsor Birch gallery.
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An exhibition featuring more than 200 works of art created by primary school children has had its official opening.
The showcase in York was the idea of nine-year-old Ada, who said she thought it was unfair "adults were the only ones who got the fun of an art exhibition".
The event at Spark on Piccadilly saw entries from 45 different schools.
Guest of honour, local artist Lincoln Lightfoot, said he hoped the "amazing work" would remind adults of the time they had "an unbridled urge to create something".
Ada came up with the idea when she was eight years old, after visiting the York Open Studios arts festival in 2023.
She swiftly recruited friends Seth and Mabel to help her organise her own version of the event for children.
Speaking at the opening of YorKAOS - which stands for York Kids Art Open Studios - she said: "It's really amazing seeing all this art up on the walls.
"I never thought we would achieve this, and I thought we wouldn't get that many works, but there's tonnes and tonnes of pieces of art, that are all really good."
The exhibition is not only a showcase for the creativity of younger artists in York, but is also raising money for Explore York Libraries and Archives, BBC Children in Need and St Leonard's Hospice.
Ada's collaborator, Mabel, 10, said: "It feels weird because when Ada told me about it I imagined we'd only get a few pieces in Spark and just a little money for charity, but these walls are just completely full of really cool art pieces."
Meanwhile, Seth, nine, said he had been shocked at the way the project took off.
"It's just amazing that all these kids have wanted to be involved and been really passionate about this idea," he said.
"We've had to do quite a lot of work with all the committee, but here we are now eventually, after everyone working together, we've achieved this."
Ada opened the event with a stirring speech to motivate onlookers.
"Look around, buy the artwork and tell your parents to make a donation," she said.
Meanwhile, Lightfoot said it was an "amazing honour" to be part of the event and said Ada had come up with an "incredible idea" which showed a love for art and creating that he hoped "young people will continue into their later life".
He said everyone who submitted a piece "should be incredibly proud" of themselves.
"To be part of an exhibition in the centre of York at your age is amazing," he added.
The exhibition runs until 22 February.
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A bus stop in Fowey has been transformed in the latest of a series of paint jobs that go back more than 20 years.
The Fowey Pretty Bus Stop on Lankelly Lane was given its first bespoke makeover by Jane Tinsley after it became a target for anti-social behaviour.
Since then, the location has been decorated to look like a library, a tea room, a yacht race, and last year even marked the 200th anniversary of the RNLI.
Sarah Worne, the artist behind the latest horticultural-themed design, said she took on the task to "make people smile".
She said: "I've done them since 2021, sometimes it's a couple of times a year changeover, sometimes it's not, that's the joy of bus stop painting."
The finished work, called Thyme to Stop, features real and painted plant pots, with users of the bus stop encouraged to take part in a seed swap or take a pot home.
The bus stop has its own Facebook page, with more than 2,700 followers and has had many looks over the years.
Ms Worne said the designs were inspired by day-to-day life and never tried to be "too topical".
"It really is just for the joy of painting a bus stop," she said.
"People love it, people come to Fowey and it's great that people notice it.
"This latest design also had to have the skyline of Polruan in it because that's close to me.
"It's just a fun thing to do."
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A theatre has said it was forced to remove an audience member from its venue after a homophobic comment was shouted during a play.
Liverpool's Royal Court said the incident happened during a performance of The Peaceful Hour on Saturday.
Posting on Instagram, the venue said the audience member was "removed from the building and has been banned from the theatre", with the incident also reported to police.
"Offensive, hateful language is unacceptable and has no place in the Royal Court, Liverpool or wider society," the theatre said.
'Such offensive language'
The venue went on to say that it supported its cast, crew, audience and staff, adding it was "saddened that they had to hear such offensive language".
"It is important that we foster spaces where respect and acceptance prevail. We believe in inclusivity and embrace diversity, we encourage those around us to do the same," the theatre said.
It said in the Instagram post that "anyone found to be using offensive language including homophobic comments will be ejected from the theatre and banned from future performances".
"We all deserve to feel safe, respected, and valued, regardless who we love or how we identify. We are against hate and actively support environments that support all people," Liverpool's Royal Court said.
The Peaceful Hour is set in 1980s Kirkby and follows the relationship of Julie from Kirkby and Tim, an anthropology student from the Cotswolds.
Written by Gerry Linford, the playwright behind Yellow Breck Road and Haunted Scouse, the show explores "true love, real life and cheesy love songs".
The incident comes after a Dolly Parton-themed musical had to be suspended mid-show when homophobic abuse was hurled at the stage.
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A town's theatre will screen its first film later this week after stepping in to fill a void left by the closure of a Cineworld complex.
Weymouth Pavilion will show Dirty Dancing on Friday 21 February on its newly-installed 11m (36ft) screen in the theatre's auditorium.
The theatre said ticket sales had been strong, with capacity in its auditorium reaching just under 400 seats.
The town's only cinema, the Cineworld on New Bond Street, closed its doors on 30 December as part of the firm's national restructuring.
Phil Say, director of Weymouth Pavilion, said several trial screenings at the theatre had been successful.
"It was lots of hard work getting a huge projector into position - a lot of sweat and tears getting it up there.
"[And] we have a surround sound system to make it properly enhanced and an experience... we're ready to go for Friday night."
Mr Say added that tickets began selling "straight away" after the theatre announced the first film would be from the 1980s.
"We're up over 100 tickets for the first screening," he said. He added capacity in the auditorium would be slightly less than 400 to ensure everyone had "a great view".
The theatre said previously said the loss of the cinema that had been open for 25 years had left a "void in Weymouth" and hoped it could bring back the cinema experience "the community are missing".
Cineworld's closure of its cinema at Tower Retail Park in Poole means Weymouth's nearest Cineworld complex is 30 miles (48km) away in Yeovil.
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A young artist who started her paint business "by chance" has worked for some of America's biggest stars.
Tesni DeLuna, originally from Cardiff, has designed custom shoes and products for celebrities such as Usher, Drake and Lil Baby.
She started the initiative while working in a gym in Austin, Texas, and said it had gone from strength to strength.
Ms DeLuna said her job was "a lot of fun" and she was excited to see what the future held.
Ms DeLuna moved to Connecticut in America when she was 12 years old, but after losing her job during the Covid pandemic she relocated to Austin.
Her business began by chance when a colleague happened to see her colouring at a desk instead of working, and asked if she could paint the "boring" white shoes he had just bought for his daughter.
"I've been painting shoes ever since," she told BBC Cymru Fyw.
Ms DeLuna's work varies from painting shoes to a wide range of other products.
She has built an impressive clientele that includes world-renowned rapper Rod Wave, professional golfer Sergio Garcia, basketball star Cameron Brink, and CrossFit champion Noah Ohlsen.
She said: "Usher has worn my shoes on stage, and there's a picture of Lil Baby holding three pairs I gave him.
"I didn't see Drake with the camera bags I painted for him but I've heard he likes them so I'm happy."
Although she does not often meet the stars in person, Ms DeLuna regularly receives tickets to their concerts - including Drake and Usher.
"I really enjoyed doing work for them and then going to the concerts. It's a lot of fun."
Ms DeLuna said she hoped to work with more female athletes in 2025, adding: "I want to grow the business more now and want to give much more energy to the business because I have always worked 9-5 so I only work on shoes in the evenings, but now I want to do it full-time."
Ms DeLuna is expecting a baby girl in two weeks' time and has already made lots of shoes for her - and the family is planning on coming back to Wales for Christmas.
"Wales is a big part of my history but it will also be an important part of her history, so I can't wait to come back and show her and my husband why I love Wales so much."
Spanning 11,000 sq km of protected, pristine wilderness, Jasper National Park offers a one-of-a-kind destination for stargazers.
It's a balmy October evening and an overture from the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra Strings hushes a buzzing crowd. Dusk has fallen in Jasper National Park, and I'm snug under a blanket, gazing up at a sea of stars amidst the Milky Way's glow. Just below, snow-dusted peaks rise towards the heavens and the clear, glacial-blue waters of Lac Beauvert blend into the inky darkness.
Symphony Under the Stars is one of many events at the annual Dark Sky Festival (17 October to 2 November 2025) held in Jasper National Park, one of the world's largest and most accessible dark sky preserves.
Designated as a Dark Sky Preserve in 2011 by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) and spanning 11,000 sq km of protected land where minimal to no light pollution is allowed, Jasper isn't just one of the best places to stargaze; it's also an ideal spot to see the Northern Lights. And as experts predict that 2025 "will mesmerise" with one of the greatest aurora displays in 20 years, there's never been a better time to explore this quiet corner of the Canadian Rockies.
Unlike other Dark Sky Preserves in Canada and the US like Wood Buffalo National Park and Grasslands National Park that have little to no infrastructure or lodging, the eponymous 4,700-person town of Jasper – located within the preserve – allows travellers easy stargazing access. According to Tyler Burgardt, an astrophysicist and general manager of the Jasper Planetarium, what makes Jasper so unique is visitors can drive right in. Located roughly 3.5 hours from Edmonton and Calgary, the town's hotels and locally led stargazing tours means star-lovers don't need to rough it.
"You get to see something you don't get in other [accessible] places, which is the ability to see thousands of stars, even from the middle of town," Burgardt said.
His favourite tour is one offered in summer, where guests visit the planetarium and then take a twilight stroll down to a peninsula located on Lac Beauvert. Ringed by rugged peaks and hauntingly silent, the only sound you may hear is the soft ripple of wind on the water. Burgardt estimates the Northern Lights are visible here roughly every 10 days to two weeks. "It's just absolutely beautiful," he said. "It's a really cool way to truly experience the nighttime side of the Canadian Rockies."
The quaint, alpine community is committed to ensuring that minimal artificial lighting is visible by installing streetlights that point downwards and have a softer glow than regular lights. As Burgardt notes, Jasper's location within the national park, and surrounded by the Unesco-designated Canadian Rocky Mountains, also provides a natural barrier from the artificial light created by nearby cities.
According to the RASC, the goal of a dark sky designation in a community is to promote "low-impact lighting practices, to improve the nocturnal environment for plants and wildlife, to protect and expand dark observing sites for astronomy and to provide accessible locations for naturalists and the general public to experience the naturally dark night sky".
Phillipa Gunn, public relations and communications officer for Parks Canada, said Jasper National Park initially met some of the requirements from the RASC needed to become a Dark Sky Preserve prior to its official designation, including accessible observation sites where visitors can view the sky.
"Jasper National Park is an ideal location for a Dark Sky Preserve as 97% of the park is a designated wilderness area, free of light pollution," Gunn said. Parks Canada has also continued to expand its dark sky interpretation programmes, while working with the town and private partners to ensure all the street fixtures in the townsite are dark-sky compliant. As a result, when driving to Jasper at night, it's nearly impossible to tell a town is even located in the vast blackness that envelopes the area.
In July 2024, a series of devastating fires ripped through Jasper, causing the "jewel of the Rockies" to close for several months. The park reopened last autumn in time for the Jasper Dark Sky Festival – albeit just on a smaller scale. But with 2025 marking the festival's 15th anniversary, Naji Khouri, director of destination development for Tourism Jasper, says this year's festival will be bigger than ever before. Plans include a drone show where 200 synchronised drones put on a light display, notable guest speakers (Bill Nye has previously attended), planetarium stargazing sessions and a portable telescope and tent at the base of the Jasper Sky Tram.
"We invite space or science enthusiasts, aurora chasers and anyone that is fascinated by the dark sky and wants to learn more about it. We have unique experiences that are really of interest to a wide range of people, including families," said Khouri. And locals want people to know that Jasper isn't only open for the Dark Sky Festival, but for business as usual, with more than 80% of local businesses back open since the blaze.
After hiking the Sulphur Skyline trail to experience sweeping views of the Fiddle River Valley and Utopia Mountain, paddling on the "pearl necklace" that is Maligne Lake or exploring the Pyramid Lake Overlook by day, visitors should also seek out stories of the stars from an Indigenous and cultural lens.
The Indigenous people of Canada have long utilised the night sky in all aspects of daily life: the stars and constellations served as guiding lights for their ancestors and the sky was used as both a clock and calendar, indicating when to plant, hunt and work the land. The stars are also intrinsically linked to First Nations' spiritual identities and are connected to the legends of the past.
Matricia Bauer of Warrior Women, an Indigenous- and women-owned business run by Bauer and her daughter, offers a fireside stargazing tour in Jasper that is based around Indigenous creation stories. Being of Cree descent, Bauer recognised the importance of decolonising her own education and that included learning about the Cree Star Chart and the Indigenous constellations that came to rest in the kisik (sky), in Cree.
"[The Cree Star Chart] made sense of the world around me, it made sense of the Northern Lights," she said. "I understood who Star Woman was. I understood why we come from the stars and why we return to the stars."
In Cree culture, there are different Star Beings, and Star Woman is one of them. According to Bauer, Star Woman saw the Earth – where humans lived – and she gave up her Star Being to come to "Turtle Island" (North America) . When she became pregnant with twins, this was the start of the First People. At the end of her life, she was granted three wishes and one of the wishes was that she could return to the sky.
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"And so, when we see the Northern Lights, we call that the Cipayuk," said Bauer. "It means ancestors dancing, or ghosts dancing. It's reminding us that there is another realm that exists, that we get to stay in for the rest of our lives. It's when we go back to the Star World where we came from."
As Bauer recants stories with songs, she also tells me about Spider Woman, the one who is weaving our fates in the dark sky that soars above us. She then recounts the story of the coyote, tricking the wolves and bears into the sky so that he could create his own constellation. A story that takes place in winter, to be told in winter, when the days are short, the nights are long and the fire becomes a place to gather.
To Bauer and many First Nations residents in and around Jasper, the stars, also known as achakosak, are considered relatives: "Every constellation, every star has a beautiful song, has a beautiful story, has a beautiful place in our culture."
There are many more stories that Bauer wants to tell for visitors, and many more conversations to still be had under the black cloak of Jasper's night sky. The snap, crackle and pop of the fire is an accompanying beat to the drum that she plays, and her voice dances towards the place where she knows she will one day return.
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The BBC looks into the psychology behind travel souvenirs: why we buy them, their impact on local communities and the planet, and how we can shop more thoughtfully.
On a recent backpacking trip through the Himalayas, my bruises became the truest souvenirs. Three months later, many of the contusions remain – stubborn scars with no intention of fading. More personal than anything I could have bought, they carry a backstory only I can tell, and I know exactly where they came from, with no hidden costs to the planet or people. Perhaps that's why, over time, my desire for typical souvenirs has faded. I now value experiences over objects – looking for meaning in what I bring back rather than just another trinket.
But maybe that's just me. Two out of three Americans bring back a souvenir from their travels, with US sales topping $21bn (£16.7bn) in 2022. The souvenir industry has drawn criticism for its reliance on mass production and cultural appropriation. Still, it remains to be an often-overlooked side of tourism's impact. Frequent flyers face scrutiny, but trinket collectors rarely do. Innovative ways to preserve memories remain largely unrealised. And when a friend hands me a fridge magnet stamped with their latest destination, I cringe. What does it really mean to take home a piece of a place, and at what cost?
Humans have always had a penchant for collecting things. The Romans brought home spices, animal skins and rare artefacts to commemorate their travels and conquests. In the 18th Century, iconic locations like the Rome's Colosseum and Stonehenge in England were plundered by souvenir-seekers.
With the rise of industralisation and capitalism, a lot changed: the world became more connected, tourism boomed and profits took centre stage. But the human need to remember stayed. "Looking at a souvenir can bring back happy emotions as the brain links it to positive experiences," said Vaishnavi Madarkal, a psychologist and therapist based in India. "This connection can happen with anything – [whether it's] an object, music or a smell."
The word "souvenir" comes from French, meaning "memory" or "remembrance". But the allure of souvenirs goes beyond memories. According to Madarkal, often it's the dopamine rush of retail therapy or cultural gift-giving norms. Take Japan's omiyage tradition, where travellers bring back small edible gifts for friends, family and co-workers. I, too, have picked up presents like saffron and pimentón in Spain or seaweed chips in Thailand, wanting to share my travels with loved ones.
For many, souvenirs go beyond tangible reminders and material gifts – they satisfy a deeper need to say, "I was there!" "At the core of our actions is a desire to feel heard, seen and validated," explains Madarkal. "The same holds for why we may buy souvenirs."
But how does this fit into a world already overwhelmed by excess? "The era of innocent tourism – where it was seen as a benign and universally positive force – ended around 2015," says Justin Francis, co-founder of Responsible Travel, a UK-based travel agency specialising in ethical tourism. "In Europe and America, protests against overtourism are growing. People are realising their vacations can leave lasting impacts on others' homes."
Yet, while travellers today are more aware of their impact, souvenirs have been somewhat left behind. With 25 years in the travel industry, Francis offers a macro perspective. "Though we haven't fully shifted yet, things have changed," he said. "I've often witnessed travellers examine products, and ask, 'Where did this come from?'"
In a world flooded with mass-produced items and fake markets, this question is crucial. A 2022 report by the Australian Government's Productivity Commission found that up to 75% of souvenirs marketed as "Indigenous" in Australia were counterfeit, with boomerangs and didgeridoos traced to Indonesia. Meanwhile, more than 70% of Thailand's popular elephant pants are made overseas. The battle of pashmina shawl artisans against cheaper, mass-produced alternatives is also well known.
"In the Leh market [in Kashmir, India], about 95% of fabrics sold as pashmina aren't genuine," says Sonam Angmo, co-founder of Lena Ladakh Pashmina, a slow textile brand focused on preserving the pashmina legacy while supporting local artisans. "[The fake fabric] is mass-produced in places like Ludhiana and Punjab then brought to Ladakh by outsiders."
A genuine pashmina shawl can cost upwards of 30,000 rupees (£280) due to the effort of raising goats in harsh climates and handcrafting the shawls. But for many travellers, this price is out of reach. As a result, some shops sell imitation shawls for 3,000-5,000 rupees (£27.4-£45.7), with most customers simply seeking a pashmina "bought in Ladakh" and giving little regard to its origins.
The high cost of genuine pashmina has driven demand for counterfeits, with the profitability of fake or "semi-pashmina" ensuring a steady supply. Angmo aptly calls this a "vicious cycle" that impacts local communities dependent on tourism. Frustrated by the difficulty of selling authentic items, some artisans resort to purchasing fake fabrics or working with mechanised looms. "It's how they feed their families," Angmo explains. This may create a dilemma for shoppers: while purchasing counterfeit goods might seem to support local retailers, the true cost is often borne by artisans who rely on time-honoured craftsmanship.
One thing is clear: the desire to immortalise our travels isn't going anywhere. What's more, many communities, like those around busy tourist sites like Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Petra in Jordan, have thrived by turning souvenirs into a source of livelihood. Perhaps it's not about avoiding souvenirs entirely, but about making responsible choices.
It used to be easier to spot genuine local souvenirs. In places like Fez, Morocco, travellers could expect every leather good in the medina's souks to come from the city's iconic tanneries. But today's knockoffs are so sophisticated that even experts may struggle to distinguish them.
Besides, most souvenirs are small, portable and affordable – qualities that make them appealing. This explains why many of the world's most popular souvenirs fit this mould. Meanwhile, sellers are more aware of consumer mindfulness, often marketing items as "handcrafted" or "recycled", though the truth can be far from the label. When so many forces are at play, even the best intentions to be mindful and responsible can become difficult to uphold.
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So, how can you buy souvenirs that are ethical, sustainable and meaningful? Sonam and Francis both agree: ask questions. "Be curious… it's not just about buying or choosing carefully, it's about rejecting and explaining why," said Francis. "You could say, 'This sculpture is beautiful, but I'm concerned about its environmental impact.'"
Srishti Tehri, a mindful traveller and content creator, emphasises being patient when souvenir hunting. She loves magnets for their daily visibility, but not just any magnet. "I try to find the most interesting ones and put them on my wall of fame – my fridge," she says. "I go the extra mile for unique designs or to support an artist. The generic ones are mostly ugly and feel like a scam." I agree. My rule: if every shop carries the same design, it's likely mass-produced.
Another way to ethically shop is to support reputable cooperatives and fair-trade markets. For instance, Women in Hebron features embroidered products and handicrafts by Palestinian women. Bangkok's Artist House, a centuries-old Thai wooden home, sells live portraits and wooden Muay Thai figurines and even offers opportunities to create your own souvenir.
Many countries now certify authentic local goods, too. In India, genuine pashmina shawls bear GI (Geographical Indication) tags; Australia uses the black-and-red Indigenous Art Code logo; and the Sámi Doudji label in Nordic countries guarantees items are made by Sámi artisans.
Intentions also matter. I no longer buy souvenirs on every trip – for myself or others. When I do, I ensure they're meaningful. Sometimes, I even ask friends what they want instead of guessing. Tehri echoes this: "I never buy the same thing for everyone. My love language shifts – some prefer something utilitarian; others love collectables."
A good souvenir doesn't always have to be bought or tangible. When you think beyond "souvenirs" and more about what sparks memories, the possibilities get exciting. Maybe it's a letter sent from your destination, a well-kept travel journal, or even something salvaged – like beer caps or ticket stubs. Some travellers capture the sounds of their adventures while others take home tattoos. Join a cooking class, and you can take home a souvenir that keeps giving – new culinary skills.
Ultimately, there's no universal rule for what makes a "responsible" souvenir; it's a personal decision we each make. But next time you're grabbing a quick airport trinket or ticking off your gift list, pause and reflect.
"We live in a world of faceless transactions," says Francis. "If you think back to the Silk Road, trade was personal. You met the seller, exchanged something of value and that made the trade meaningful." Souvenirs, he believes, offer a chance to reclaim that intimacy. By buying directly from the maker, witnessing their craft and cutting out middlemen, you experience what Francis calls "the purest form of commerce".
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The new operators of Doncaster Sheffield Airport have said they are "confident" it will be financially viable if it reopens - but added that it was "too early" to announce airlines or destinations.
German firm Munich Airport International (MAI) will provide operational and management services to FlyDoncaster, a company set up by Doncaster Council to run the airport.
The council said securing MAI was a significant milestone in its plans to reopen the site by spring 2026.
Dr Lutz Weisser, managing director for MAI, said there were still long and confidential discussions ahead with airlines but that Doncaster was an ideal location.
He said: "The UK is a very important aviation market and we are interested in Doncaster because it is all there.
"This is not a greenfield project, this is not something that needs to be built. You don't have the risks of planning approval or construction and all these other things.
"It may need some renovation, and recertification is important, but it is all in place. It just needs a bit of polishing and then you have an airport and that is exciting."
The airport closed in November 2022 after landowners Peel Group cited a lack of profitability and disappointing passenger numbers. They are willing to lease the site to the council.
Mr Weisser said MAI had high standards and customer satisfaction and that passenger experience was important.
"We can really shine and make the customer journey very pleasing, it doesn't have to be cramped or people queuing forever.
"You can actually make money as well. Revenue comes from stable operations and making the airlines feel at home.
"We don't mind smaller airports. Everybody says you can't make money with low-cost airlines but there is a basic misunderstanding on how you treat your business community.
"You might not make a lot of money from the airlines, but you can still have a very satisfied passenger that brings some business to the airport.
"It's a lot easier to make money from 40 million passengers but even as a start-up airport, which this will be for a while, there is a viable option to turn a profit."
'Tough discussions ahead'
Mr Weisser said "major players" in the airline industry had shown interest but there were still "tough discussions" ahead.
"Whenever you have to mothball an airport like this and you try to reopen it, you have to be within the market and there's competition.
"We're fully aware of that, but some of the airlines will show a grain of trust now that we are bringing some of our operational expertise into the fold.
"This will be a long journey, for sure but there's nothing more exciting than aviation industry. Everybody loves to fly."
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A Guernsey travel agency that has been in business for more than 40 years said online bookings and rising overheads were behind its decision to close.
Trafalgar Travel, based at Picquet House near the Town Terminus, in St Peter Port, said it had stopped taking new bookings from Monday and would close for good at the end of May.
The company, which started in 1981, said it would deal with any bookings for travel before it closes normally, while anything from June on would be picked up by alternative travel agencies.
Manager Charlie Coyle said the "very sad and tough decision" to close had been taken "with a very heavy heart".
He said he wanted to thank customers "wholeheartedly" for their "support over the years and placing your trust in us to make your dreams a reality".
"Every booking has been a pleasure for us to manage for you and your support has meant we have continued to do the job we all love doing all these years - we can't thank you enough," Mr Coyle said.
He said the company planned to move out of its current offices at Picquet House at the end of February as part of a "controlled closure".
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All 80 people on board a plane which crashed and overturned while landing in Toronto have survived, officials said.
The Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis skidded along the runway with flames visible and it came to a halt upside down as firefighters came to the rescue.
Survivors said they were suspended upside down in their seats and had to release themselves, dropping on to the ceiling before clambering out on to the snow-covered tarmac.
Eighteen people were injured but only a small number are thought to be seriously hurt, and investigators are looking into what caused the crash.
Twenty-two passengers were Canadian nationals and the rest were "multinational", Ms Flint said.
The airport was closed after the incident, but flights into and out of Toronto Pearson resumed at about 17:00 local time.
Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said it was working to "gather information and assess the occurrence".
Two runways will remain closed for several days for investigation and passengers have been told to expect some delays.
Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said "the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions".
That contradicted earlier reports of wind gusts of more than 64km/h (40mph) and a crosswind.
Video footage shared on social media shows people clambering out of the overturned aircraft, with fire crews spraying it with foam.
Passenger John Nelson told CNN that there was no indication of anything unusual before landing.
"We skidded on our side, then flipped over on our back," he said, adding that "there was a big fire ball out the left side of the plane".
Like Mr Nelson, Ashley Zook took immediately to social media to express her disbelief, filming herself saying: "I was just in a plane crash. Oh my God."
Of the eighteen people taken to hospital, a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s suffered the worst injuries, said Ontario air ambulance service Ornge.
After the crash, the airport's arrival and departure boards showed scores of delays and cancellations to flights. Some passengers told the BBC that they were now stuck in Toronto for days.
James and Andrea Turner were in customs - located right before the departure gates - when they were suddenly told to evacuate.
"They got rid of everybody from customs to security, and then put everybody back to the general area," James said, adding that the departures hall was packed as a result.
Toronto Pearson Airport had been experiencing weather-related delays over the last few days, with heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures battering parts of Ontario.
Two storms - one on Wednesday and one on Sunday - covered the city with a total of 30-50cm (11.8-19.6 inches) of snow.
The BBC's US partner CBS reports that there was light snow falling at the time of the crash.
Earlier on Monday, the airport warned that "frigid temperatures and high winds were moving in".
It said a "busy day" was expected, with airlines "catching up after this weekend's snowstorm".
The crash is at least the fourth major aviation incident in North America in the past month.
The worst was a deadly in-air collision between a passenger plane and a military helicopter near Washington DC which killed all 67 people on board.
"Our plane crashed. It's upside down."
These were the words of John Nelson, a passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight that had just crashed and flipped while landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
All 80 people on board the flight from Minneapolis - 76 passengers and four crew - have survived, the airport's chief executive has said.
Eighteen people were injured but only a small number are thought to be seriously hurt, and investigators are looking into what caused the crash.
As White Lotus season three is released, executive producer Mark Kamine explains the behind-the-scenes wrangling and key challenges when choosing a filming location.
It's being called the "White Lotus effect": the way that major TV shows influence the way we travel, thanks to the hit TV show that's back on 16 February 2025.
The black comedy-drama, written by Mike White, is in a new location for a third season, following the guests and staff of fictional five-star resort, the White Lotus. The dark drama satirises the excesses of the rich, set against the struggles of the staff, in a glamorous setting.
It's thrilling, pacey stuff with beautiful people, gripping action and a tense setup that tells you from episode one, that although this looks like paradise, something terrible is going to happen. In the first season, a coffin is unloaded from a plane; while in the second, a body is discovered floating in the sea by a guest. Season three's trailer is peppered with shots of guns and whispers of body bags amid the palm trees and luxury spa treatments.
Despite the gory details and the lampooning of the rich, everyone wants to stay at the White Lotus. When it was announced mid 2024 that Thailand would be the location for the TV show's third season, global interest in travel to the country soared, with booking platforms reporting immediate increases in searches, and airlines including Finnair adding extra weekly flights to Phuket. Hotels.com reported a 40% spike in booking interest for the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, one of the filming locations.
The expectations come with a precedent: the Sicilian hotel, the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Taormina, Sicily, where season two was filmed, reported it was booked out for six months when it reopened after filming and continues to attract guests wanting a slice of the White Lotus lifestyle. The original White Lotus, the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, Hawaii, said it saw a 425% uptick year on year in website visits and 386% increase in availability checks.
The White Lotus isn't the first drama to have an outsized effect on the travel industry – the impact of films like Lord of the Rings and The Sound of Music on tourism has been well documented, as has the much-criticised Emily in Paris. But what's interesting right now, in the digital age, is how quickly news about a streamed TV show setting can have an impact.
"Back in 2015, research showed that around one in five people coming to Britain were coming because of something they'd seen on TV," said screen tourism specialist Seren Welch. "Fast forward to now, and the latest Visit Britain research shows that nine in 10 visitors to the UK are influenced by what they have seen in film and TV. It's unheard of."
This rise is down to the prevalence of streaming platforms: as Welch notes, 10 years ago, we didn't have Disney+ and Netflix was a lesser phenomenon. Today, streaming algorithms are powerful drivers of our behaviour far beyond the screen, with the opportunity to binge-watch everything anywhere leading viewers to be ever more immersed.
"I've heard a British Airways exec say that when they see a spike in traffic to a destination, they look at what's peaking on Netflix to explain it," Welch said.
What's in a filming location?
When it comes to planning a location for a TV show like The White Lotus, Mark Kamine knows a thing or two. Kamine, one of The White Lotus's executive producers, started his career as a location scout working on all six seasons of The Sopranos, along with film credits on Hollywood films including Ted, American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook.
His new book On Locations: Lessons Learned From my Life on Set with the Sopranos and in the Film Industry details the behind-the-scenes wrangling inherent in location work, from negotiating with strip club owners keen to do under-the-table deals, to pacifying home owners who have just found out you've staged a mafia killing in their house. It's a lively read, running through the behind-the-scenes production level details about how to make one destination stand in for another on the tightest of tight budgets.
While many of Kamine's previous film and TV productions have had financial issues constraining filming locations, when it came to The White Lotus, the wild success of the first seasons meant that when deciding the location for season three, there was plenty of choice.
"Mike White had the idea for something around Eastern philosophy," Kamine explained. "We were looking for what was practical and eye-catching, and to start with, Korea, Philippines, Japan, Bali and Sri Lanka were in the mix, as well as Thailand."
Further discussion and research narrowed the choice to Japan and Thailand, with White and Kamine and others making research trips to see what would work best. (White typically stays in the resort to write and research the show ahead of production.)
Kamine notes in his book that the key challenges faced by location scouts centre on budgets: productions often end up being shot in dupe locations, where, for example, Prague might stand in for New Jersey, because even when subsidised, US locations can't compete with European, Asian or African crew and material costs. But for a sure-fire hit like The White Lotus, which had a reported $38.5m budget for season two and drew in 4.1 million US viewers for its finale, Karmine and his team chose the option that reflected the story they wanted to tell best, rather than make a financial compromise.
"Mike said that he feels like we've cracked the code," Kamine admitted, "in that we've figured out how to stay in these luxury locations and create great TV. What a life."
The new series is filmed in the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, with the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok, Anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villas and Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort also featured – along with a little creative licence.
"Anyone who has been to the Four Seasons in Sicily that we used in the show will know that the beach isn't where it seems to be," said Kamine. "Some scenes in season three are shot at one hotel, and some aspects are filmed elsewhere. The common spaces need to have real impact, that's a driver here. Overall, the main thing is that it looks beautiful."
The White Lotus team are aware of the impact the filming has on future bookings and the local tourism scene. Kamine says he keeps in touch with the hotel managers from the previous series and is aware of the debate around overtourism, noting that these popular five-star locations already have existing tourism infrastructure and have been developed to handle a certain number of visitors.
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However, given that films shot in Thailand have driven a surge of tourism in the past – the extreme popularity of The Beach caused Maya Bay to close, for instance – it's somewhat surprising to find that Thailand has no plan in place to mitigate a potential tourism surge from the show. A spokesperson from Tourism Thailand noted that the country is still trying to build back its tourism industry following Covid, and that since the show airs in Thailand's shoulder season, it is most likely to boost tourism numbers in these quieter months when there is more capacity than in peak season.
Where next?
The White Lotus isn't the only streaming show boosting holiday bookings. As set-jetting continues to be a popular motif in the travel industry, new series including Yellowstone prequel 1923, set in Montana, are expected to drive more tourism. It's not without its problems: in 2023, The Washington Post reported that Yellowstone has driven tourism to the region but has brought with it misconceptions: it does rain, it can be cold, and not everyone is as well dressed as the show would have you believe. That's showbusiness.
Season two of Wednesday, also releasing this year, is a good case in point: the show is set in a fictional town in Vermont but season one was shot in Romania and season two filmed in Ireland. The final season of Stranger Things will air later this year as well, set in the town of Hawkins, Indiana but filmed in Jackson, Georgia. It's a known filming location – The Walking Dead and The Vampire Diaries were also shot there – and the local tourism authority already has information on how to follow the shows around town. Tellingly, it notes that "the upside down is NOT included".
As for The White Lotus, now that season three is out, thoughts are turning to season four. Kamine wouldn't confirm or deny any location currently under discussion for the next series but did let slip that one thing is important: going back perhaps to his Soprano days, it needs to be somewhere where it's easy to dump a body.
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This more remote part of Iceland offers visitors a deep dive into its fascinating history and authentic culture.
Iceland wasn't always the blockbuster travel destination it is today; in the early 1990s, the country saw just a little more than 130,000 visitors a year. By 2023, however that number had surged to 2.21 million, far outpacing Iceland's tiny population of around 380,000. Experts chalk it up to a mix of savvy marketing, social media virality and sheer natural spectacle. The 2014 #MyStopover campaign turned layovers into week-long adventures, flooding Instagram with images of steaming hot springs, glacier lagoons and volcanic black-sand beaches. Soon, Iceland was no longer just a niche destination for intrepid explorers; it was on every traveller's bucket list. But with soaring popularity came new challenges, pushing the country to grapple with the pressures of overtourism.
Most visitors touch down in the capital city of Reykjavik and make a beeline for the Blue Lagoon or the well-trodden Golden Circle. But as Iceland's tourism boom shows no signs of slowing, the country is looking for ways to ease the strain on its most popular spots. The conversation around overtourism has become impossible to ignore, and one solution is clear: encouraging travellers to venture beyond the usual highlights. The country's north, with its dramatic fjords and geothermal hotspots, offers a quieter yet equally spectacular alternative to the capital, with idyllic towns like Akureyri and Húsavík providing a gateway to breathtaking landscapes without the crowds.
Húsavík is the country's oldest settlement as well as its whale capital. The small coastal town was once known for its whaling industry, and indeed Iceland is still one of only three countries that allows commercial whaling. However, many former whale hunting boats are now being converted to whale watching vessels in an effort to attract more visitors.
"I've been told there's a 97% chance of seeing a whale on any trip you take here," said BBC Travel Show presenter Roma Wells. "Depending on what time of year you visit, you can see all sorts of different species."
That's because a variety of whales, including humpbacks, orcas and minkes, migrate through this area. In addition, many whale-watching vessels use electric rather than diesel engines, creating a quieter, more relaxing experience for both passengers and sealife.
The northern part of the country is also a great place to get a glimpse of Icelandic history and culture. Start in the town of Sauðárkrókur, around 200km west of Húsavík, visitors can explore 1238: The Battle of Iceland – a museum and virtual-reality experience that allows visitors to be a part of the renowned battle of Örlygsstaðir, which is recounted in one of the country's most famous Icelandic sagas. The exhibition also includes historical items from the 11th Century that provide tangible proof of the country's Viking past.
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"Every generation has the responsibility to preserve history and to mediate it in a way that can be understood," said museum manager Freyja Rut. "I think we've come to the next step. We need to use technology to kind of make it more interesting."
Another piece of Iceland's history is its iconic turf houses. These grass-covered dwellings, inspired by Viking longhouses, blend seamlessly into the landscape like something out of a fairy tale. Built with wood and stone and insulated with thick layers of turf, they stand as a testament to the resilience of Icelanders who found ingenious ways to survive in an unforgiving climate. The north is home to some of the country's finest examples, including the Glaumbær turf farm, a cluster of beautifully preserved homes, and the striking Víðimýri Turf Church.
Sheep farming and knitting are also central to Icelandic heritage. The region's hardy, free-roaming sheep – believed to be direct descendants of those brought by Viking settlers – produce the wool used for Iceland's famous lopapeysa sweaters. Recognised worldwide for their warmth and distinctive circular yoke patterns, these sweaters are a living connection to Iceland's pastoral traditions that remain a cornerstone of rural life.
"Icelandic people only survived here because of the sheep," quipped Hélène Magnússonis, one of the country's leading knit designers.
Visitors interested in purchasing an authentic lopapeysa sweater should look for a label that says "Handknitted in Iceland" – a mark of quality that according to Magnússonis, often includes the knitter's name. Operators such as Green EdVentures offer tours where travellers can learn more about Icelandic life and practice their knitting skills with a local lopapeysa expert.
Along with the boost in tourism, Iceland has had to wrestle with environmental degradation and unsafe behaviours from visitors, such as taking selfies too close to active volcanic sites. In 2017, the country proposed the Icelandic pledge, which encourages responsible and considerate behaviour in visitors. The hope is that the combination of this pledge and the push to encourage visitors to explore more of the country will help Iceland remain on the top of everyone's visitor list, without further damage to the local ecosystem or culture.
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As tensions between the US and Canada rise, a tiny puffin-filled island has become emblematic of a larger conflict about where one nation ends and another begins.
On Christmas morning, Anthony Ross woke up on an island at the point where the Gulf of Maine meets the Bay of Fundy. Outside, the wind whipped across the frozen brown grass, blowing snow in drifts against the lighthouse while waves lapped the rocky shore. In the next room, his older brother Russell was already awake and keeping a watchful eye on the sea.
It was not exactly how one pictures a family holiday, but for the lighthouse keepers of Machias Seal Island, it would have to make do. Once the helicopter lands on this 18-acre hunk of rock between the US and Canada, there is no going home until the end of the month.
“You are away from home for 28 days at a time; that is the hardest part. But you get used to that,” said Russell, who has been a lighthouse keeper for about 20 years.
Luckily, Russell and Anthony came prepared with turkey, presents and beer – all anyone needs for a nice Christmas day. After decorating the tree and calling their families back home in Nova Scotia, the brothers tucked into a roast dinner.
“It was a pretty good Christmas, all around,” Russell recalled.
Located smack-dab between the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the US state of Maine, Machias Seal Island is the last contested land territory between Canada and the US – but that may soon change.
In recent weeks US President Donald Trump has called the US-Canada border an "artificially drawn line" and even threatened to annex the entire nation. And as Trump's proposed tariffs on Canada have sent economic shockwaves through North America, this unassuming 20-acre island has become somewhat emblematic of the rising tensions between the neighbours and longtime allies.
The story of the dispute goes back more than 200 years. During the War of 1812, Great Britain (now Canada) and the US each laid claim to the land and the waters that surrounded it. Although the island is far too small and remote to be permanently settled, it was strategically located in the middle of a valuable shipping route, near Grand Manan Island, and neither country wanted to give it away.
In 1832, Britain built a lighthouse on the island to physically stake its claim. Since then, Canadians have been living there, helping keep sailors away from its rocky coastline and protecting the land from both human and natural foes.
That is where Russell and Anthony come in. As lighthouse keepers on the island, they are part of a long line of watchmen manning Canada’s frontier in the Atlantic Ocean. While most of the lighthouses in Atlantic Canada have closed, the government has kept this one open – in part to keep its claim on the rock.
“The opportunity we have to be here, to stay on here and man the island, it is important,” Anthony said. “There are not many light-keepers left.”
Neither brother works full-time – union rules say that part-time keepers can only work three month-long shifts a year. But one full-time position may be opening up, and both Russell and Anthony want to go for it.
“May the best man win,” Anthony said with a smile.
Both brothers have been doing this long enough to know the island’s rhythms: the way it fades from emerald green to dusty brown with the seasons; how the puffins swoop and cackle when they spot a fish in the water; and how the lobster boats emerge from the horizon just after sunrise.
“The boats are fishing right in the cove there – you can see all the fishermen,” Russell said. “I have been here long enough that they know my name now, they know my voice on the [radio], and they know me too.”
Russell and Anthony also play a role as unofficial ambassadors for the island, greeting American and Canadian tour boats that dock during the summer, when the island turns into a seabird sanctuary. They treat everyone the same, no matter their nationality, offering the birdwatchers a hand onto the slippery, seaweed-covered boardwalk.
“The birds do not care; they do not know the difference,” said Russell of the US-Canada border dispute
As island guardians, Russell and Anthony play an important role in protecting the thousands of seabirds – Atlantic puffins, common murres, Arctic terns and razorbill auks – that nest here during the summer.
They help deter gulls that would prey on the young chicks, and also fend off one of nature’s biggest homewreckers: man.
As one of the largest seabird colonies on the East Coast – and the most diverse – the island is protected by Canadian Wildlife Services, which limits the number of tourists allowed on the island at any one time.
Only two tour boats, one from Maine and one from New Brunswick, are allowed to land each day on the island’s dock. With just 15 passengers per load, spots fill up fast. By early April, both boats have usually sold out for the entire birdwatching season, which runs from June to the first week of August.
Those lucky enough to score a spot must make their way to either the island of Grand Manan in New Brunswick or to Cutler, Maine, where the boats are docked. It can be tricky for the vessels to land on the narrow and rocky shores of Machias, and bad weather can easily cancel a long-awaited trip. But if the seas are fair, adventure-seekers may see a pack of seals sunning themselves on a rock during the boat ride (which is two hours from Maine and 1.5 hours from Grand Manan), or even spot a whale.
Once on the island, tourists are restricted to boardwalks to keep them from stepping on a puffin burrow. The skittish birds like to avoid the human interlopers, so people crowd into wooden sheds called blinds, where they can observe the pigeon-sized, tuxedo-wearing birds undetected.
The hassle is worth it, according to Dr Tony Diamond, who has been running the University of New Brunswick’s Atlantic Laboratory for Avian Research (ALAR) since 1995.
“It is the only seabird colony in the whole of the East Coast where the general public can actually come on shore and get a close-up look of the birds,” he said. “It is unmatched.”
In May, thousands of puffins flock to the island to dig their burrows and lay their eggs. Once the eggs have hatched, mama and papa puffin take turns guarding the chicks and going out into the sea to bring back dinner.
This process, which can last until about August, attracts birdwatchers, scientists and wildlife photographers from around the world.
During the summer, three researchers from ALAR live on the island full-time to track and monitor the birds’ breeding season. It is a unique experience that helps scientists like Mark Dodds get a sense of not only the individual species, but how the ocean as a whole is doing.
It is like a little snapshot into the life of a bird,” Dodds said. “Through them you get a really good look at the ecosystem.
But it is not the puffins of Machias Seal that have historically led the US and Canada to fight – it’s what lurks in the ocean just beyond the island. Over the past decade, the price of lobster has about tripled, with fishermen able to command about CAD$4 (£3) a pound for their catch wholesale. On a good day, a lobster boat can easily earn thousands of dollars.
That makes the contested waters around Machias, nicknamed the "grey zone", a veritable goldmine. Neither country wants to relinquish rights to fish those waters, so the fishermen have worked out a kind of unofficial truce.
“Most of the time, if you try and work with them, they will try and work with you. But if you want to be a push and shove, you are going to be pushed and shoved back,” said Donald Harris, a fisherman from Grand Manan, a Canadian island of about 2,500 people located about an hour and a half, or 32km (20 miles), away by boat from Machias.
On a lazy August afternoon, Harris and a couple of other fisherman are working on their boats out by the Grand Manan pier, taking it easy before the autumn season kicks in. Practically everybody on Grand Manan is a fisherman or knows someone who is – the industry is the lifeblood of the community.
The lobster boom is evident everywhere you go in Grand Manan, from houses decked out with fresh coats of paint to boats laden with the latest gear.
“Lots changing. There’s a lot more people over here right now, there is a lot more stuff to do right now – our community’s getting better all the time,” said fisherman Dane Lynton.
The ‘grey zone’ has only added to their wealth. Although the Canadian lobster season officially ends in June, in 2002 the government decided to allow year-round lobster fishing in the 700-sq-km (270-sq-mi) ‘grey zone’. It has helped tide many a fisherman over in the off season, and helped grow the lobster boom in Grand Manan even more.
“That is just making money before we make more money,” Lynton said.
But while many maintain that current regulations are enough to keep the fishery from being overfished, some are worried that the sky-high prices, driven by market demand in Asia, will prove too great a temptation.
“Man can ruin anything, right? And greed will ruin a lot of things too,” Harris said.
Although everyone is flush with cash for now, Harris has been around long enough to have seen the fortunes of the village go up and down with the tides, depending on what the catch is.
“Usually Mother Nature looks after herself, but I have been around long enough. I have seen how the herring went, and the groundfish and the scalloping,” he said. “When you have only got lobster to rely on, and everybody is pounding so hard at the ‘grey zone’… it is all going to affect it sooner or later.”
This story has been updated from its original publication to reflect recent events.
Wesley Schultz, half of the rock duo The Lumineers, knows all the best places to go in Denver. Here are his local favourites, from concerts at Red Rocks to wine at Sunday Vinyl.
Denver, Colorado is known for its laid-back lifestyle, its easy access to hiking and biking and a myriad of cultural and culinary attractions.
With the Rocky Mountains as its backdrop, the Mile High City's glittering skyscrapers and artsy vibe belie its Wild West roots.
Wesley Schultz, who along with Jeremiah Fraites is part of the internationally renowned folk-rock band The Lumineers, has called Denver home since 2009. Though the band formed in 2005, it was their move from New Jersey to Denver that rocketed them to stardom. Schultz credits the relocation with giving them the space as creators to define their signature energetic folk-rock style and to write the songs that have brought them their fame.
"We just kind of took a chance, and when we got here, it was beautiful," says Schultz. "There are a lot of transplants here; the weather is gorgeous and the people are super-friendly. I love it here."
Denver is also a short drive from one of the world's most unique and remarkable music venues – Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre; a venue built into and surrounded by orange-red sandstone rock formations that create a natural theatre. A bucket-list destination for performers and concert-goers alike, the stage has welcomed musical acts like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, U2, Bob Dylan and Widespread Panic.
"You get a relatively intimate concert with some of the best acts in the world, who are bringing their A-game when they play there," says Schultz. "The artist is in awe of what they're seeing just as much as the audience is. You're in awe of the natural beauty and it's the best venue of any I've ever played as far as sound and lighting… It's amazing that it's right in our backyard."
Whether you're in town for a show at Red Rocks or otherwise, here's how Schultz recommends spending a weekend in Denver.
1. Best for families: the Children's Museum of Denver
One of Schultz's favourite things to do with his family is bring them to the Children's Museum of Denver; a venue that encourages dynamic play. "You're kind of surprised that you don't have to sign more waivers – in a good way," he says.
Intrepid youngsters can don helmets and climb to the top of a towering structure; use recycled materials to make their own creations from tools like saws, hammers and screwdrivers; play pretend at a "supermarket" or immerse themselves in a myriad of activities involving bubbles.
The museum also hosts numerous special events for children and their accompanying adults. Grown-ups sip local craft beers while watching kids roam free in the museum's outdoor park, which features climbing, digging and water exhibits, plus a zipline. For families like Schultz's who have young ones, the Children's Museum is a place where kids get to be themselves, explore and have fun. "It's great for new families," he says. "We love to bring our kids to the Children's Museum."
Website: https://www.mychildsmuseum.org
Address: 2121 Children’s Museum Drive, Denver, CO 80211
Phone: 303-433-7444
Instagram: @childrensmuseumdenver
2. Best classic Denver culinary experience: El Taco de Mexico
Denver's culinary scene ranges from upscale Michelin-starred restaurants to places like Old West-style saloons. One of the most legendary eateries is El Taco de Mexico, an unassuming yellow stucco restaurant on 7th Avenue and Santa Fe Drive.
"It's a place Stealth [Ulvang, who plays keyboards for The Lumineers] took me to because he was a local and showed me the local wisdom," says Schultz. "All the musicians know about this spot. Once I was there and met the guitarist from Cheap Trick – he was in town to play Red Rocks that night."
Opened in 1985 by Mexico City native MaLuisa Zanabria with the help of her mother, the restaurant brought hungry Denverites a taste of Mexico City's street food. At this counter service-only eatery, patrons order off an illuminated letter board menu featuring authentic tacos, burritos, enchiladas, sopes, chiles rellenos and tamales, often smothered in its legendary green chilli. The modest restaurant has a cult following and was the recipient of a James Beard American Classics Award in 2020.
"They used to be cash-only and only women work there," says Schultz. "They cook using real lard, they have beef tongue and kind of exotic stuff on the menu. I always order the chile relleno burrito smothered [with green chilli] and it's life-changing."
Website: http://www.eltacodemexico5280.com
Address: 714 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204
Phone: 303-623-3926
Instagram: @eltacodemexicodenver
3. Best outdoor experience: Golden Gate Canyon State Park
To enjoy the great outdoors without having to drive for hours, Schultz recommends Golden Gate Canyon State Park; less than an hour's drive from downtown Denver.
The park offers 56 kms of hiking, biking and equestrian trails, with a variety of ecosystems including mountain meadows full of flowers, lush alpine streams and lakes, rocky peaks and areas densely populated with evergreen trees. It's also home to wildlife like moose, deer and bobcats and offers stunning panoramic views of the Continental Divide.
"I've been hiking at Golden Gate Canyon State Park – it's a really pretty hike and you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, but it's not far from Denver at all," says Schultz.
For those who want to make their outdoor adventure into an overnight excursion, the park has campgrounds with full hookups, backcountry campsites, cabins and yurts.
Website: https://cpw.state.co.us/state-parks/golden-gate-canyon-state-park
Address: 92 Crawford Gulch Road, Golden, CO 80403
Phone: 303-582-3707
Instagram: @goldengatecanyoncpw
4. Best nightlife: PS Lounge
For a live musical experience that's slightly more low-key than Red Rocks, Schultz recommends the classic Denver watering hole, PS Lounge.
"The PS Lounge is really fun. The owner used to serve Tang shots to all the ladies," says Schultz. "There's a free pool table, which was great when we were poor musicians. It's a friendly, interesting, quirky place. I love it. It's right by the Bluebird [Theater] and by Lost Lake Lounge."
Walking through the doors at PS Lounge is like going through a portal to a mid-1980s dive bar. Its octogenarian owner, Pete Siahamis, has helmed the bar for decades, serving every woman who comes in a single rose and a sugary Alabama Slammer shot. The lounge still has a jukebox, is still cash only and its walls are plastered with snapshots of its guests over the years mingled with Greek tchotchkes like a statue of the Venus de Milo tucked between bottles behind the bar, in homage to Siahamis’ Greek roots.
Address: 3416 E. Colfax Avenue, Denver, CO 80206
Phone: 303-320-1200
Instagram: @ps.lounge.denver
5. Best place to get a feel for everyday life: RiNo
RiNo, or Denver's River North neighbourhood, is an arts district known for its colourful murals, hip cocktail lounges, retail shops, galleries and upscale restaurants. Once an industrial area occupied primarily by warehouses, factories and railyards, the area began transforming a decade ago. Some of the existing buildings have remained and have new tenants, but in other cases, empty lots have been developed with new builds.
"The RiNo area is a place where you can walk along Larimer Street all the way to the baseball stadium," says Schultz. "Once you're there, that whole area, there's stuff all around. When I first moved to Denver, there was nothing there – it was a lonesome stretch. Now it's one of the most desirable places. I really love to take friends there and just walking along there."
RiNo offers easy access to the downtown and lively LoDo neighbourhoods by foot or on a bike. The city has both scooter and bike share scheme.
"The city is super walkable," says Schultz. "They're making Denver more and more bike friendly, too. If you can take advantage of that, it’s beautiful.”
Website: https://rinoartdistrict.org/
Address: 1320 27th Street, Ste. G, Denver
Instagram: @rinoartdistrict
6. Best hidden gem: Sunday Vinyl
"A very special place for drinks [like] cocktails but especially for wine, is Sunday Vinyl," says Schultz.
Found just behind Union Station, the Mediterranean tapas bar Sunday Vinyl is helmed by local restauranteur and music lover Bobby Stuckey; inspired by the success of his weekly Instagram posts where he chronicled himself pairing a record with a bottle of wine.
They do these theme nights, where they pick a record and pair that with a drink," says Schultz. "It's a whole vibe. They spent something like a half million dollars on the sound system and they just spin vinyl, that's all they do. Even for my friends that are really into music, it's cool to remember just how special it is to be around music and seeing the cover of an album, and holding a record, it's just really tangible."
Website: https://www.sundayvinyl.com/
Address: 1803 16th Street, Denver, CO 80202
Phone: 303-738-1803
Instagram: @sundayvinyldenver
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The celebrated TV chef calls her Roman heritage her "superpower". Here are her picks for enjoying the Eternal City with kids.
If there's one thing as eternal as Rome, it's the familial bonds that have breathed life into the city over the centuries. For Rome-born celebrity chef Giada de Laurentiis, these cherished childhood memories in the Eternal City have also fuelled her career.
"Rome really is home," says de Laurentiis, who emigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven years old. "All of my earliest memories are in Italy, mainly "[centred on] family and food."
De Laurentiis may have built her culinary empire on the sunny shores of southern California but she has never lost ties to the city of her birth, visiting once or twice a year. Her relationship with her Roman roots, nevertheless, wasn't always an easy one.
"As a kid, it was the bane of my existence," says de Laurentiis. "Everyone made fun of the pasta I had in my lunches, the way my name sounded, the list goes on."
With time, however, she came to see her Roman heritage as an invaluable asset – a "superpower", as she calls it. She describes feeling connected to Italian culture as the "joy of life", something she has tried to pass on to her daughter, Jade. "I think her Italian roots have served as a really beautiful anchor for her," says de Laurentiis.
But now, and especially as the 2025 Jubilee propels Rome even further into the limelight, she hopes for others to taste the true beauty of Italian family life – especially the new generation.
Rome can prove overwhelming for children; the crowds are large, the landmarks daunting in size and in sheer quantity. But with the right approach it can be a magical experience, one that they cherish and share with their own families – as de Laurentiis loves doing with hers.
Here are de Laurentiis' favourite family-friendly ways to experience the Eternal City.
1. Best culinary experience: Campo de' Fiori
Few places bring a family together like Campo de' Fiori, a vibrant street market tucked behind Piazza Navona that has something for just about everyone. Originally established as a flower market in the late 19th Century, Campo de' Fiori has been supplying locals and tourists of all ages with everything from fresh flowers and food to kitschy trinkets and souvenirs for more than 150 years.
And just behind Campo de' Fiori is the historic Antico Forno Roscioli, serving one of de Laurentiis' favourite family-friendly treats: pizza. Opened in 1972, with lines sometimes stretching deep into the piazza, the bakery is a local institution, favoured by locals and gourmets alike. Their pizza is a masterclass in Roman baking tradition, made with little yeast and left to rise for 24 hours, resulting in dough that is light, crispy and, in de Laurentiis' words, quite simply "great".
"Roman-style pizza is really fun for kids to try," she says. Served al taglio (by the slice), Roman pizza is thinner and crispier than the puffy-crusted Neapolitan pizza widely recognised outside of Italy. But the pizza al taglio at Roscioli has its own flair: "It's like a focaccia type of dough and they sell it in squares," says de Laurentiis. "I love the potato and onion slices."
Website: https://www.anticofornoroscioli.it/
Address: Via dei Chiavari 34, 00186
Telephone: +39 66864045
Instagram: @anticofornoroscioli
2. Best historical experience: The Trevi Fountain (and its underground secret)
Completed in 1762 under the design of Baroque mastermind Nicola Salvi, the sumptuous Trevi Fountain has become an emblematic part of Rome's architectural iconography.
Its international renown – bolstered by appearances in silver screen classics ranging from La Dolce Vita to Roman Holiday – is such that, last autumn, exasperated city councillors considered ticketing visitors to curb the inflow following a heated debate on the havoc overtourism is wreaking on the Italian capital.
The gargantuan crowds might prove intimidating for the younger ones, but its appeal for children in particular is not to be underestimated.
"[It's] fun because the kids get involved in history (and they get to play with money)," de Laurentiis says, referencing the tradition of tossing coins into the fountain to ensure one's return to Rome.
There's also much more to Trevi than meets the eye.
"You can go below the Trevi Fountain. It's honestly amazing," de Laurentiis says. Indeed, beneath the monument is "the City of Water" – a hidden maze, an ancient Roman apartment complex dating to the 1st Century CE called the Vicus Caprarius, as well as the aqueduct that funnels water into the fountain itself.
Website: https://www.vicuscaprarius.com/visite/
Address: Vicolo del Puttarello, 25
Instagram: @vicuscaprarius
3. Best family activity: A cooking class or food tour
Cooking is the glue that brings Italian families together – as soon as the garlic starts sizzling in the morning, the tone is set for the rest of the day.
"My childhood taught me the art of gathering," says de Laurentiis, whose upcoming cookbook Super-Italian is a meditation on superfoods and healthful lifestyles. "It exposed me to amazing ingredients from a really young age, which taught me the beauty in simple, well-made dishes."
So what better way to experience Italian family life than taking a cooking class with your kids?
De Laurentiis recommends classes offered by Katie Parla, an Italian-American tour guide and food writer who has lived in Rome for 20 years; and Sophie Minchilli, a Rome-born and bred author and influencer.
"Kids get to be really involved with the process," de Laurentiis says. "[Katie and Sophie] have both have lived in Rome for decades. Sophie was born in Italy and Katie is a true Roman historian."
Parla's deeply insider approach to Rome offers both a tour of the main market feeding Rome's residents – the Mercato Trionfale near the Vatican – as well as a three- to four-hour cooking class with chef Arianna Pasquini, held in the leafy Monteverde neighbourhood and culminating in a five-course meal.
Minchilli, on the other hand, provides a tailor-made, intimate tour with up to six people, taking clients on what she describes as a "walk around the city with a friend", exploring its best foodie spots as well as offering customised visits upon request.
"Both give you access to Italian culture in a really impactful way," says de Laurentiis.
4. Best stop for a sweet treat: Venchi
You'd be hard-pressed to find a kid who doesn't love chocolate, and at Venchi, any kind of sugar craving can be abundantly satisfied.
The chocolatier – founded in the northern Italian city of Turin in 1878 – has become a vital stop for anyone with a sweet tooth, which de Laurentiis openly confesses to have.
"Anyone who knows me knows chocolate is my weakness," says de Laurentiis. "I've tried it all, and Venchi is one of my faves."
De Laurentiis notes how children will particularly delight over its two main showstoppers: "the chocolate fountain and gelato".
With a plethora of delicacies, from crepes to hazelnut ice cream, all of which can be topped with different kinds of melted chocolate (and a complimentary treat), it's the perfect afternoon stop for a bit of mid-sightseeing indulgence.
And with three stores across the city centre, you don't have to venture far from the main landmarks to get a hold on their delicacies: there's one near the Trevi Fountain, one a stone's throw from the Spanish Steps and another just behind the Pantheon.
Website: Venchi Cioccolato e Gelato, Roma Via del Corso - Venchi
Address:
1. (Trevi Fountain) Via del Corso 335, tel: +39 66784698
2. (Spanish Steps) Via della Croce 25/26, tel: +39 69797790
3. (Pantheon) Via degli Orfani 87, tel: +39 6992 5423
Instagram: @venchi1878
5. Best excursion: The beach at Lido di Castel Fusano
Visitors often forget that Rome is, to all effects and purposes, a coastal city; from the Colosseum, it's barely half an hour's drive to the beach. The city's seagulls, appearing most commonly in the city's piazzas and parks at night, are a clear (and occasionally aggressive) reminder.
Crystalline waters, white-sand beaches and lush Mediterranean woodland can be found at the picturesque Lido di Castel Fusano, an unspoilt stretch of coastline that has a particular sentimental value for de Laurentiis.
"Lido di Castel Fusano is a favourite,” she says. "When I was a kid, we loved to go to the beach for the day. It's so nostalgic, packing lunch and driving to the beach with my family."
There is no more quintessentially Roman family experience than prepping a few hearty snacks and an insalata di riso (rice salad) in a thermal bag, grabbing the car and heading to the beach for a lazy afternoon, especially as short-lived winters give way to months of endless sunshine.
And at a mere 30km from the city (accessible by a 55-minute train ride on the Metromare from Rome's Porta San Paolo station), Lido di Castel Fusano is easily reachable and a welcome distraction from the Eternal City's heady chaos, especially for the little ones. "It's just such a nice break from the bustle of Rome," de Laurentiis says.
While Lido di Castel Fusano's beaches are most popular in the summer months, there's a year-round joy to be taken from strolling along the shore, horseback riding in the surf or getting lost in its 916-hectare pine forest.
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He's an expert on all of NOLA's iconic foods but has a special place in his heart for gumbo. Here are his favourite bowls – from Cajun-style Brigsten's to the OG at Commander's Palace.
There are few things that New Orleanians feel more passionately about than their hometown's famous cuisine – unsurprisingly, since the city's historical blend of cultures has given rise to a vast array of destination-worthy dishes.
Beignets, jambalaya, étouffée, po'boys, king cake and muffuletta are just a few of the city's culinary stars; their flavours reflecting its Creole, Cajun, West African and French heritage. But only one iconic NOLA dish has been named the official dish of the state of Louisiana: gumbo.
Gumbo is a thick meat, seafood and vegetable stew whose name derives from ki ngombo, the word for okra in many West African languages. It has French and West African roots, and both Cajuns (an ethnic group of Acadian descent) and Creoles (people of mixed European, African, Caribbean and Native American ancestry) make the dish. The first recorded mention dates to the early 19th Century when it was served at a gubernatorial reception in New Orleans.
There are countless variations of the Louisiana classic and no shortage of opinions on the right way to make it, but gumbo almost always starts with a roux: flour cooked in fat that forms the base of the dish. The other consistent element: the "holy trinity" of onion, celery and green bell pepper, ever-present in Cajun and Creole cuisine. The proteins range from seafood or poultry to ham or beef, veal or game – or a combination thereof. Tomatoes may or not be used depending on the particular preparation, but you'll often find the eponymous okra – a savoury pod-shaped green fruit that gives the stew its unique flavour.
NOLA-based chef Emeril Lagasse – famed for bringing Creole and Cajun cuisine into America's homes via his acclaimed, long-running television series, Emeril Live – has been making and eating gumbo since he moved to New Orleans in 1982. "I eat it five times a week and make it at home, but there is excellent gumbo all over the city," he says. Though he appreciates traditional gumbo – served over rice – Lagasse offers a modern take at his flagship restaurant, Emeril's, which he says has evolved quite a bit since the space first opened in 1990. "It used to be made with seafood," he says, "then we switched to chicken sausage and now it's made with lobster."
It's not just the ingredients in the stew that have changed; the presentation has too. "The gumbo is currently in the form of a hot canape," he says, "that's the perfect concentrated taste of lobster-based gumbo made with a super dark roux." While his son, EJ, is now running the kitchen, Lagasse frequently wanders over to the restaurant to say hello to everyone and fix himself a bowl.
Here are Lagasse's top picks for gumbo in the Big Easy.
1. Best classic Creole gumbo: Commander's Palace
Commander's Palace, a New Orleans institution, has been a landmark in the Garden District since its founding in 1893.
In the 1970s, legendary Louisiana chef Paul Prudhomme helped put the restaurant on the national map for its distinct blend of Cajun and Creole cooking. In 1982, at only 23 years old, Lagasse took over from Prudhomme, continuing a tradition of "haute Creole cuisine", with classics such as garlic bread, turtle soup with sherry and Creole gumbo.
Even though Lagasse left Commander's Palace in 1990, he still cites the gumbo as one of the best in NOLA because the quality of the seafood is so good. Their recipe for the stew starts with a toasty, dark roux and includes crab stock, crabs, shrimp and okra. "Some places add chunks of seafood, but for me, that's something you do at home cause the fish starts getting stringy as it sits," he says.
Website: https://www.commanderspalace.com/
Address: 1403 Washington Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130
Phone: +1 504-899-8221
Instagram: @commanderspalace
2. Best gumbo for a cause: Café Reconcile
Café Reconcile was founded in 1996 to help local 16-to-24-year-olds with career exploration and job readiness, using the restaurant as a foundation for learning and training.
While most of the hundreds of interns who have been through the 14-week programme go on to work in restaurants, others become nurses, mechanics, technicians and more. What's consistent is that they all learn to cook classic New Orleans fare like red beans and rice, po'boys and gumbo. "Café Reconcile's chicken and sausage gumbo has a rich roux with lots of okra," says Lagasse, "and it always hits the spot." It's a win-win, according to Lagasse. "Your meal helps support the workforce development," he says. "What could be better?"
Website: https://cafereconcile.org/
Address: 1631 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70113
Phone: +1 504-568-1157
Instagram: @cafereconcile
3. Best gumbo z'herbes: Dooky Chase Restaurant
Known as the Queen of Creole cuisine, chef Leah Chase was the heart behind legendary Dooky Chase Restaurant, first opened in 1941 by her in-laws and later evolving into a meeting place for excellent food, music and dialogue.
In the upstairs dining room, many influential leaders of the civil rights movement, such as Martin Luther King Jr and the Reverend A L Davis, met to discuss crucial issues affecting the African American community.
Starting in 1973, every year on the Thursday before Easter (Holy Thursday), Chase would cook up to 100 gallons of her special gumbo z'herbes, made with nine types of greens. "They do a traditional style of gumbo," explains Lagasse, "but during Lent it has lots of greens – mostly collards, mustard, turnip greens and okra, and it's finished with gumbo filé." For decades, Chase's Lenten gumbo attracted New Orleanians from all over the city. Chase passed away in 2019 but her grandson, Edgar "Dook" Chase, carries on the gumbo tradition. Some say it is the best in New Orleans.
Website: https://www.dookychaserestaurants.com/
Address: 2301 Orleans Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70119
Phone: +1 504-821-0600
Instagram: @dookychaserestaurant
4. Best seasonal gumbo: Casamento's
Family-owned since 1919, Casamento's on Magazine Street is primarily known for its briny Gulf Coast oysters, which peak during cool autumn and winter months. "Locals love to go there whenever they see the open sign, which is only when the oysters are great," says Lagasse. He enjoys eating the plump oysters alongside their much-loved seafood gumbo, which is replete with shrimp, tomatoes and okra. Other Casamento's must-haves include their oyster stew and sandwiches, made with their signature "pan bread" instead of traditional French bread.
Website: https://casamentosrestaurant.com/
Address: 4330 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70115
Phone: +1 504-895-9761
Instagram: @casamentosrestaurant
5. Best Cajun-style gumbo: Brigtsen's
Chef Frank Brigtsen also started his culinary career as an apprentice under Paul Prudhomme, who helped him and his wife Marna open Brigtsen's in 1986 in NOLA's Riverbend neighbourhood, where he serves classic Cajun-Creole cuisine.
"Frank is an excellent cook," says Lagasse, "and I really like his filé gumbo, which is Cajun-style, meaning it has no tomatoes." Cajun gumbo also doesn't include okra. Instead, Brigtsen thickens the stew with filé powder, a ground spice made from sassafras leaves. "The flavour is kind of like dehydrated greens," explains Lagasse. The other distinction to Brigtsen's gumbo is a little unorthodox: instead of slowly frying the oil and flour for the roux, the recipe starts with heating a pot of oil to 375F, then quickly whisking in the flour. This cuts the cooking time significantly and yields a deep, complex flavour.
Website: https://brigtsens.com/
Address: 723 Dante Street, New Orleans, LA 70118
Phone: +1 504-861-7610
Instagram: @frankbrigtsen
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Two women are working to save the coral reef from the invasive lionfish, using it as a sustainable teaching tool and cooking it into everything from tacos to fish and chips.
Curacao is facing an ecological challenge: the invasive lionfish. The venomous lionfish have brown, red and white zebra-like stripes, fleshy tentacles and long, fan-like fins. They are native to the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, but sometime in the late 1980s they were introduced to the warm tropical waters off Florida's Atlantic Coast. Although the exact cause of this is unknown, it's theorised that they were released from marine aquariums. By the early 2000s, they had reached the Caribbean coastline and Curacao's coral reef, where diving significantly contributes to the local economy and employment.
Lionfish are not a welcome species anywhere because they reproduce at an alarming rate; females release about two million eggs per year and as they grow, they eat smaller native fish and marine life that protect coral reefs. This behaviour creates an imbalance that disrupts the reef's ecosystem. The presence of lionfish impacts both diving tourism and the commercial fishing industry, with research showing that even in a short period of time, the presence of lionfish can reduce a native reef fish population by 79%.
But what is problematic has become a catalyst for innovative adaptation and environmental responsibility. Through food, art and education, the unique but complicated relationship between Curacao and its lionfish is being tackled by two local women, Helmi Smeulders and Lisette Keus.
Smeulders left her law career in the Netherlands in 1998 and relocated to Curacao, eventually becoming a chef, diver and conservationist. But what did a lawyer-turned-chef know about hunting the invasive lionfish, sustainable fishing and the importance of protecting the reef for future generations? Turns out not much, until she teamed up with local diver Keus, who taught Smeulders (along with other women on the island) how to find and capture the lionfish to help save the coral reef. "I showed [chefs] how to clean them, gave [them] recipes and gave batches [of the fish] for free to restaurants to practise with," says Keus.
After coming across the fish during dives years earlier, Keus decided to dedicate herself to controlling its population. She excelled at catching it and became known as somewhat of a lionfish whisperer as she always seemed to know exactly where to find the elusive creature. In 2012, she started trying to sell the fish to restaurants.
At first it was a challenge. No one wanted to buy (or eat) the fish because they were believed to be poisonous (they're actually only venomous; the fins on their back sting when touched and can cause swelling and pain). "Everyone was afraid of [the fish] and they didn't know if it was safe to touch or eat," she says. "I had my cooler full but I found myself throwing pounds of fish back into the ocean because I couldn't sell it. "
Keus devised a way to make the fish palatable to local chefs. "I explained that lionfish are an invasive species, so by cleaning it safely and serving it, they were actually helping to protect the local Curacao ecosystem," she says.
As Keus's lionfish business grew, she wanted to address another issue: waste. After removing the venomous, spiny parts of the fish, only about 20% of each lionfish was left for consumption. Keus started asking restaurants for the fish fins back to make jewellery. She opened a retail store called Lionfish Caribbean in 2016, located in Kura Hulanda Village, selling hand-made lionfish jewellery and providing education and training to divers and tourists about the invasive species. She also opened a tasting room serving lionfish tacos and fried lionfish and chips.
Their tagline? "We eat them to beat them."
Smeulders is also a big proponent of cooking lionfish, which she first started doing in 2013 when she cooked at a large dinner reception for the King and Queen of the Netherlands during their visit to Curacao. With a reputation for using exclusively local ingredients, Smeulders’ decision to include the lionfish was not only logical, but a beneficial and sustainable menu choice.
Smeulders reached out to Keus and other divers with a request to catch as many lionfish as possible for the dinner. Then? "I did what I do best: I served a plate of small bites with a modern Caribbean flair," she says. Her poached lionfish, prepared with a rich and buttery hollandaise sauce and hint of lemon, was the standout. Because lionfish is a white fish with a mild, delicate flavour that's somewhere between cod and lobster (and a good source of omega-3 fatty acids) "it helped capture the essence of the island's unique cuisine," says Smeulders.
Beyond cooking lessons and full stomachs, Smeulders shares her own dives and lionfish hunting adventures with her students and has become a fearless lionfish huntress in her own regard. She uses the lionfish to teach about sustainability and environmental responsibility, encouraging people to consider the ethical side of consuming the fish that's given up its life. She hopes it reminds people of their own role in the food chain, fostering a direct relationship with the environment and the cycle of life. She's written two cookbooks and also offers Chef's Table events where people can watch Smeulders and her team work.
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"Some of my favourite recipes to use lionfish are flavourful ceviches,” Smeulders says. "I also like it as a tartare, tacos and I use the bones to make a good stock." She goes on to explain, "we can use the spine as well because it's protein. We heat the spine for 20 minutes at 200C and it neutralises the venom. You can use [the spine bones] as little scores [picks]".
These two dynamic lionfish huntresses are fearless to no end. They each admit to being addicted to the thrill of it. "If you wake up and realise it's a day you get to go lionfish hunting," says Smeulders, "then it's definitely going to be a good day."
Tequila and Passionfruit Lionfish Ceviche recipe
By Helmi Smeulders
Serves 4
Method
In a medium bowl, mix the lime juice and tequila with the passionfruit pulp, coriander, sugar, chilli and salt. Arrange the fish on a serving plate. Spoon the dressing over the fish. Briefly refrigerate to chill the fish. Garnish with the pomegranate seeds before serving.
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BBC's Discovering the World's Table sees food writer Nick Kwek journey to his ancestral homeland of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, where he eats pufferfish with the Bajau Laut sea nomads, learns the art of rice wine-making and is given a secret hangover cure.
Pristine turquoise waves lap our boat as we depart the harbourfront in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's busy state capital, and sail towards a jungle oasis. But it's not an island paradise we're heading for – in fact we're not touching foot on land at all. Instead, we're destined for a cluster of stilted shacks perched above the water's surface some 7km from the shore. The settlement is home to the Bajau Laut, a nomadic community who live most of their lives at sea.
Who better to kickstart my culinary adventure around Sabah with than the Bajau, who eat Malaysia's spectacular seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner? But first we'll need to catch it. As renowned hunters, they follow the fish, dismantling and rebuilding their makeshift houses as they go, expertly freediving and spearfishing their prey with seemingly supernatural skill.
"They can erect them in as fast as a day," says local tour guide, Emily Chin, who has been working with the Bajau and other Indigenous groups for years. "They're so connected with the sea that they often don't know what to do if they're not on the sea – it's almost like a third arm for them."
Indeed, their bodies have evolved over the years giving them extra-large spleens that act like a biological "scuba tank", allowing them to hold their breath for up to 10 minutes at a time. Meanwhile, my breath has been taken away.
This is my first time back in my father's homeland, Sabah, in almost two decades. Born and raised in Fife, Scotland, I grew up in my parent's pan-Asian restaurant, surrounded by the billowing smoke of red-hot woks, scorching chilli and fragrant ginger. The exotic flavours and enchanting ingredients of my childhood inspired my passion for food and an insatiable appetite for travel.
To be returning here to discover more about Sabah's traditional dishes, explore its local ingredients and their heritage is an emotional, fantastical experience.
Kwek is a Chinese surname, with my father's side part of Malaysia's largest ethnic minority – the Chinese-Malay community. They live alongside Malays, Indians and Indigenous groups that make up the melting pot that is Malaysia. And it's this uniquely rich cultural diversity that makes for a very special cuisine, bursting with bold, lasting flavours.
Today’s menu is no different – the Bajau are treating me to freshly-caught pufferfish, notoriously poisonous if not prepared correctly and usually served on special occasions such as weddings or family reunions. It's boiled with chilli, garlic, turmeric and fresh calamansi juice, a native citrus with the appearance and sourness of a miniature lime but with the sweet zing of clementine orange. The dish is both hot and tangy, with the fish unexpectedly meaty, reminiscent of monkfish.
Whilst cooking, Chin introduces me to a delicacy adored by the Bajau: latok, a type of seaweed, normally eaten raw. Glistening green globes, these mini bunches of "sea grapes" pop on your tongue, releasing a salty, juicy, refreshing essence of the sea. This so-called green caviar is gaining popularity across Southeast Asia as a healthy and nutritious snack.
Back on dry land, it's an ingredient celebrated by chef Raphael Lee, of high-end eatery OITOM in downtown Kota Kinabalu. Originally from Sabah, he moved to Melbourne, Australia, to train in refined cooking techniques before returning to introduce a new fine dining concept to the city, catering to its burgeoning middle class and international visitors.
"Oitom means 'black' in Kadazan-Dusun [the language of Sabah's largest ethnic group]", Lee tells me. "We are championing heritage cuisines through the lens of the culinary world." Named in honour of Lee's heritage, the restaurant has a dark-black interior that acts as a stage so his colourful plates can shine.
Today we're preparing a raw white fish salad called hinava, a traditional cured dish of the Kadazan-Dusun tribes. Akin to ceviche, it comprises grouper, fresh chilli, ginger, shallots, calamansi juice and bambangan (an indigenous wild mango). But Lee's modern take on the classic dish involves homemade kombucha, strawberries foraged from the foothills of Mount Kinabalu and latok.
"We have around 33 tribes in Borneo and each prepares their hinava differently. Some use vinegar, some use bambangan seed. Food is all about cross-culture, and of course whilst we want to treasure the authenticity of our cuisine, for its growth, it needs innovation as well," he says.
Lee's version is delicately presented, with each element tweezered into place and the taste is softer, smoother and more complex than the original.
Seafood is undeniably the star of the show in Sabah. Coastal towns sprawl with fish markets, while restaurants and food courts have tanks teaming with live, freshly caught grouper, crabs, lobsters, prawns and clams. These ingredients play a leading role in the country's signature specialities like the lusciously spicy curry laksa, char kway teoh (a gloriously fatty fried noodle mix) and the iconic butter prawns – delightfully crispy yet wondrously creamy, served in the shell.
But as well as sublime seafood surrounding the huge island of Borneo (the third largest island in the world at around 290,000 sq km), inland is another staple of the modern Malaysian diet: rice.
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Popularised with the arrival of migrants from China, India, Sumatra and Thailand during British colonialism in the 19th Century, rice takes centre stage for the country's national dish, nasi lemak. A meal made of several parts but almost always coconut rice, boiled eggs, cucumber, sambal sauce and tiny dried fish known as "bilis". (Try it with beef rendang – a dry lemongrass and coconut stew – you won't regret it.)
Two hours' drive over the hills into the mountain valley of Keningau belies a sea of green fields – pastures of rice paddies as far as the eye can see. Out in the blistering Sun I meet village chief Mami Ita whose family has been growing rice here and making traditional tapai (rice wine) for generations. She welcomes me to her home where she teaches me how it's made.
We start by building a fire and boiling rice that's leftover from last year's harvest and has had time to sufficiently harden. "It's a family activity," she tells me, something sacred to bond over. In addition to love, the secret ingredient here is ragi, a yeast formed by hand. The caressing of the yeast helps form its unique flavour profile as the scent and spirit of its handler becomes solidified within. Each family's brew produces its own distinct taste.
"You don't touch chilli or lemon for two weeks before handling the ragi," warns Mami Ita, whose yeast starter used today was her grandmother's.
Instead of a wooden barrel, the wine is matured inside a clay pot known as a tajau, but it's left to age without water. Only upon opening a tajau several months later is water added and the newly infused wine ready to drink. Before I sip, Mami Ita lets me in on a secret ritual to keep the hangover demons at bay.
"Place your finger into the wine, then touch it against your forehead and then into your belly button and say "Tuka Tuka!" To my disbelief, it worked!
Tapai is having a moment in Borneo. It's being reimagined at Limau & Linen, a contemporary restaurant and lounge in Kota Kinabalu's upmarket Signal Hill neighbourhood, where proprietor and executive chef Linn Yong mixes rice wine with coconut syrup and pineapple juice before garnishing the cocktail with local mountain flowers.
Yong is keen to convey that Malaysia's cuisine is a reflection of its people. She's crafted a dish that honours her nation's diversity yet togetherness: the "tajau treasure community pie". A confit of smoked octopus, scallops and shrimp, rice, rice wine and fish stock are combined in a tajau and topped with a puff pastry lid. It's a celebration of Sabah's bounty, intended to be enjoyed together.
"Behind every restaurant is a community of farmers and customers. For me it's like breaking bread with the people we love," says Yong.
As the pie reaches the table and Yong makes a speech about her creation's genesis, steam rises up around us, filling the room with a warm comforting aroma that brings me home. A befitting finale to our journey of discovery, reconnection and the indelible impact of cultural traditions.
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Ever since absinthe was outlawed due to rumours it led to insanity, this simple drink has become the nation's go-to apertif.
It's difficult to imagine France without apéro (aperitif hour), that magic moment when time stops, and suddenly, everyone has a drink in hand.
In a country so proud of its regional products, it's not surprising that the contents of one's aperitif glass varies, from cassis-scented kir in Burgundy to beer on the Belgian border to cloudy aniseed-infused pastis in Marseille. But despite its strong association with southern France, conjuring images of lazy summer afternoons playing pétanque by the sea, one apéro spirit is omnipresent in France: pastis. Not only do sales of pastis represent one-fifth of all spirits sold nationwide, but it's the default aperitif drink as far north as Picardie.
"It's not like some of those other regional aperitifs," said Forest Collins, author of the book Drink Like a Local: Paris. "Pineau de Charentes, you're mainly going to find around Cognac. Pommeau, you're mainly going to find in Normandy. But it's pretty likely that anywhere in France, you might find a bottle of pastis."
Yet, pastis didn't become France's go-to aperitif by design. If not for the nation's 1915 ban of absinthe due to its alleged harmful effects and the marketing chops of Marseillais Paul Ricard, the herbal liqueur may never have become France's most famous.
Absinthe's quiet conquest of France occurred in the wake of the 19th Century phylloxera epidemic that wiped out nearly half of the country's vineyards. Soon, it supplanted not just wine but beer in the north, cider in Normandy and flavoured wines like quinquina, explained Marie-Claude Delahaye, author of the book L'Absinthe: Histoire de la Fée Verteand founder of the Musée de l'Absinthe in Auvers-sur-Oise. According to Delahaye, absinthe introduced aniseed to the aperitif hour, along with a "playful and convivial ritual" of diluting the 75% ABV liquor with sugar and water.
"It was the sprout of what could be an extraordinary success," Delahaye said. Yet, absinthe's rise to fame was stymied in 1915, when it was banned throughout the country following rumours that it led to insanity. Aficionados immediately began clamouring for something to fill the aniseed-scented gap. "If absinthe had continued to be commercialised," explained Delahaye, "pastis never would have appeared."
While pastis and absinthe share an aniseed flavour profile, the similarities stop there. Distilled absinthe boasts more complexity than sweetened, macerated pastis, and at 40 to 45% ABV, pastis' alcoholic power pales in comparison. This put pastis at an advantage, according to Collins: absinthe, she said, was seen as "the drink of degenerate artists" (including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh, who even included the spirit in some of his paintings). With pastis, meanwhile, drinkers still got "that nice little buzz, and that nice aniseed flavour" without the negative connotations.
"I think that's the effect that pastis had on aperitif culture," Collins said. "It allowed this drinking culture of aniseed to carry on."
Order a pastis in most cafes, and it'll be poured from a bottle emblazoned with a bright yellow sun and one name: Ricard. But before there was Ricard, there was Pernod – two Pernods, to be precise. Both Henri-Louis Pernod and the unrelated Jules-Félix Pernod launched anisettes in 1918, merging their companies in 1928. Ricard, meanwhile, only began selling his version in 1932. If Ricard's became the most famous, it's in large part thanks to his marketing chops. He appealed immediately to the French love of terroir, deriving the name of his anisette from the Provençal pastisson(mixture), and attributing his recipe to "a poacher … who knew all of the herbs of the mountains and the garriguesurrounding us". He soon set about disseminating the story – and the local liqueur – by going door to door to bistros and cafes across France.
"He used to say, 'Make a friend a day,'" said Gabrielle Arevikian-Xerri, brand director of Pernod-Ricard.
Perhaps Ricard's most successful initiative was merch. An amateur artist, Ricard created branded posters evoking sunny Marseille, not to mention glasses and ashtrays, bucket hats and caps. He released thousands of such objects during the 1948 Tour de France; today, they're omnipresent at French flea markets, where keen collectors track them down.
Jacky Roussial is one such collector. Over 39 years, Roussial has amassed no fewer than 3,500 Ricard-branded objects, including 180 different goblets, playing cards and umbrellas. His most prized pastis possession is a pichet tambourin, a 1950s-era pitcher depicting a tambourine player he dubs "the grail of any collector". It goes for about €4,000.
These pitchers aren't just trinkets; they're an essential part of serving pastis, a drink that's customisable by design. Each 2cl pour is meant to be diluted with water to taste. Many also sweeten their pastis with syrup: a blend of bright green mint and pastis is called a perroquet (parrot), while the addition of grenadine makes a tomate (tomato). Of them, Arevikian-Xerri said, the mauresque (a blend of pastis and local southern orgeat) is the most popular.
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In recent years, modern mixologists have been toying with crafting more complex pastis cocktails. Margot Lecarpentier of Paris cocktail bar Combat likes blending it with cachaça to highlight floral notes, while Aurélie Panhelleux, co-founder of CopperBay cocktail bars in both Marseille and Paris, combines it with gin, lemon juice, dill-infused orgeat and citron to create the house Mauresco. But these creations remain anecdotal at best, according to Collins, who said that while there was an attempt to make a pastis-scented play on an Apérol Spritz popular about a decade ago, "it hasn't really happened."
"I think the traditional way is the way that pretty much anybody drinks pastis," she said.
Even Lecarpentier agrees. "Ninety-five percent of French people will tell you pastis is drunk with a glass of water and ice cubes," she said. "It would be weird to not serve it like that."
Pastis does incur a ritual, of sorts, as the drinker dilutes the spirit with water from a branded pitcher until it takes on its cloudy-yellow hue, adding syrup or ice to taste. According to Collins, the relative simplicity of how pastis is served – especially compared to absinthe, which was dripped into a glass through a sugar cube set on a special perforated spoon – is part of the drink's enduring popularity. "Everyone in their house can have a little pitcher, but not everybody is going to go out and get an absinthe fountain and absinthe spoons," she said.
Pastis' accessibility has cemented its place as the aperitif to rule all aperitifs. Drunk by men and women, by young and old, pastis is above all, according to Arevikian-Xerri, "for bringing people together. Whatever their background, whatever their social status."
But it's not just pastis that remains popular – it's Ricard. Other brands exist, of course, from high-end Henri Bardouin to organic Distillerie de la Plaine. Even Pernod, which merged with its one-time rival in 1975, has stood the test of time. But in 2022, Ricard wasn't just the most-sold pastis in France; it was the most-sold product in French hypermarkets, outranking mineral water, Coca-Cola and Nutella. In the leadup to Christmas 2024, Ricard outsold even Champagne.
"Pastis is a question of taste, and often of tradition," said Panhelleux. "In France, it's the only spirit people order by brand."
"I don't drink pastis," echoed Roussial. "I drink Ricard."
Some of the drink's popularity still stems from the fantasy Ricard constructed. "It's the symbol of sunshine, of holidays, of the Mediterranean, of far niente (the art of doing nothing), of conviviality," said Roussial. But connotations aside, for Collins, its charm comes above all from its omnipresence.
"For most people, it's just a way of life. Almost like a [table wine]," she said.
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Food is life for this meal-obsessed island, especially when you're feeling poorly – including a spicy soup that soothes flu symptoms and a beloved chocolate drink that brings comfort.
A few years ago, my girlfriend and I landed in Singapore after a winter holiday in Europe. Coughing, dizzy, our throats rusty and inflamed, we were far from well. But help was at hand. My (future) Singaporean mother-in-law came to the rescue, stocking our fridge with liquid medicine: congee. We spooned the thick, savoury rice porridge down our throats, feeling a little better with every swallow.
Warm and filling but gentle on the stomach, in good times congee is a power dinner in and of itself, and endlessly remixable. You can top it with a runny egg, chopped chives and coriander or neon splashes of garlic-chilli oil, and eat like a king. Or when sick, you can cut the tempting add-ons to a bare minimum and still be left with the soothing starch and heat. No wonder congee and its cousins are a key flu go-to in Singapore, Malaysia, China, South Korea – almost any place in East Asia where rice is a staple.
So strong is this porridge's connection to illness that some people can only stomach it when they're under the weather. Like Yuri Cath, a Japanese Indonesian who recently became a Singaporean citizen. "I had a negative association with congee for the longest time because I only had it when I was sick," she says, echoing a sentiment of many locals. "So, having it kind of made me feel ill." Not for long though, she laughs – the flavours won her over again, "and I love congee now".
It's tempting to call congee the king of flu food, but this is Singapore, one of the most culinary-obsessed nations on Earth, and competition is fierce. A literal melting pot, the island's official languages are English, Tamil, Malay and Mandarin, representing the many cultures that form its core population. Each brings with it enough comfort dishes to soothe an army.
Hippocrates would have liked this nation of six million hungry souls. The Ancient Greek thinker and physician, who once said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food," could witness his words come alive as a daily habit in Singapore's restaurants, homes and 120 hawker centres boasting 6,000 stalls. Below are just some of the health-giving dishes and ingredients Hippocrates would approve of.
The solace of tamarind
Singaporean Syazana Izzati has vivid memories of her mother taking care of her when she was a child. Not with prescription pills, but with a long-held Malay practice that uses food as medicine.
"Whenever my siblings and I were running a fever, she used to do this thing where she'd wet our foreheads and hair," Izzati recalls. "As we were lying down on bed, with a towel placed on our brow, she'd wet it with tamarind water." Why tamarind, or asam as it's known in Malay? "Because it has cooling effects," she explains, "and lowers the body temperature."
Traditional Malay Medicine, like many ancient healing methods across Asia, leans deeply on jamu, or herbal and plant-based treatments like Izzati's fever poultice. "These days, I just rely on painkillers," she laughs. But that may change, she says. Should she have children, she'll turn to tamarind on their feverish days – just like her mother and grandmother before her.
But tamarind is too popular to be used as a poultice alone. Some ingredients are so revered they crop up in other healing dishes, from cultures thousands of miles away.
Life-giving bowls of broth
Some 5% of Singapore's population is made up of people with Indian Tamil heritage, who regularly turn to one of the tastiest flu cures you can fit in a bowl. Colourful but light, rasam, a broth originating in South India, is more than the sum of its parts. Its base consists of spices like pepper, turmeric and cumin along with garlic, onions and tomatoes – and, yes, tamarind again, in this case acting as a souring agent that gives the broth its addictive tart flavour. As a paper by two Indian medical researchers notes, rasam's ingredients are so therapeutic that the dish constitutes a "functional food", whose ingredients provide benefits above and beyond their nutritional value.
Rasam's turmeric alone, the researchers explain, offers antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties – perfect for soothing any ails. Not surprisingly, they add that rasam is "an ideal recipe subscribing to the principles laid by Indian system[s] of medicine such as Ayurveda and Siddha". As local blogger Miss Vanda noted when she shared a rasam recipe online, "This soup is a perfect remedy for flu," she wrote, calling it "especially good for sore throats".
Like many ancient foods, the broth comes with a legend attached to it, one that bolsters rasam's reputation. Troubled by his ailing son's health and waning appetite, an ancient king of Madurai in Tamil Nadu province offered a reward for anyone who could make his child eat. One enterprising chef presented a humble bowl of rasam, which was promptly slurped up by the patient. Needless to say, the boy was soon healed.
Hot-and-cold healing
Another broth with a historic backstory is bak kut teh, or pork rib soup. Made with long-simmered pork bones, lashings of pepper and a cornucopia of herbs, this salty, fatty meal was popular with Chinese coolies who came to Singapore in the 19th Century. Bak kut teh, which translates to "meat bone tea", nourished many a labourer before their gruelling day.
Rasam's turmeric alone, the researchers explain, offers antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties – perfect for soothing any ails. Not surprisingly, they add that rasam is "an ideal recipe subscribing to the principles laid by Indian system[s] of medicine such as Ayurveda and Siddha". As local blogger Miss Vanda noted when she shared a rasam recipe online, "This soup is a perfect remedy for flu," she wrote, calling it "especially good for sore throats".
Like many ancient foods, the broth comes with a legend attached to it, one that bolsters rasam's reputation. Troubled by his ailing son's health and waning appetite, an ancient king of Madurai in Tamil Nadu province offered a reward for anyone who could make his child eat. One enterprising chef presented a humble bowl of rasam, which was promptly slurped up by the patient. Needless to say, the boy was soon healed.
Hot-and-cold healing
Another broth with a historic backstory is bak kut teh, or pork rib soup. Made with long-simmered pork bones, lashings of pepper and a cornucopia of herbs, this salty, fatty meal was popular with Chinese coolies who came to Singapore in the 19th Century. Bak kut teh, which translates to "meat bone tea", nourished many a labourer before their gruelling day.
Today it remains a popular pick-me-up from the flu and is prized particularly for its decongestant properties. Bak kut teh is often eaten late at night, when the day is cooler. That's because it's considered a "heaty" soup in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) due to its herbal make-up. The spectrum of internal "heatiness" and "cooling" are core concepts within TCM, a popular practice in Singapore. Excessive heatiness, for example, may see the body erupt in a fever, sore throat and irritability, while the inverse can lead to paleness and fatigue. The key is to balance your warm yang energy with yin, its cooler counterpart.
Ace Tan, head chef at the newly opened fine-dining restaurant ASU, is a strong believer in this balance. His childhood was steeped in the ancient health system: Ace would often visit TCM stores run by his aunts and uncles. It spurred a passion in him to understand what ingredients affected the body, and how. "The practice of consuming specific ingredients during each season is deeply rooted in the Asian philosophy of the five elements," Ace says: "wood, fire, earth, metal and water. These elements are intricately connected to our body systems. By consuming certain ingredients, we nourish specific body parts, ensuring a continuous cycle of cultivation and overall well-being."
So how does Ace cool himself down when balance is disrupted? "I do have a strong affiliation towards two drinks in particular," he says, both commonly drunk as teas: "chrysanthemum and barley, as they help mitigate the heat of my body system, preventing sore throats and fever."
Cocoa means comfort
Sometimes, however, you just need comfort above all. That's where Milo comes in, a chocolate drink sold in practically every hawker centre in town. The brand is so beloved that a paper at the National University of Singapore Centre for Governance and Sustainability dryly noted: "It has even humorously been suggested that Milo flows through the veins of Singaporeans."
They're not wrong. During the Covid-19 pandemic, ad-hoc medical centres gave thousands of patients a care package with critical necessities such as toothpaste, crackers – and sachets of Milo powder.
Though it originated in Australia in the 1930s, Milo became popular in many British colonies in Asia, including Singapore. In a 2019 lecture at the National Museum of Singapore, historian Dr Geoffrey Pakiam explained how, once the island achieved independence in the mid-1960s (first from Britain, and then from the Federation of Malaysia, which it briefly joined), Milo was marketed "as a national drink". In 1984, Milo began to be manufactured locally as well, further cementing a homegrown connection with the beverage.
What makes this best-selling drink such a treat for the poorly? In part, it's because Milo is an embedded part of childhood, served at school canteens, birthday parties and picnics. That connection continues as people age or join mandatory National Service (NS). Loong Lim, who served his NS decades ago, shares that "for a lot of guys, Milo will still bring back memories of the night snack you get in the army, when training ends late." Drunk by young Singaporeans drenched in sweat and mud, Milo has revived many a tired soldier, who will likely serve it to their child one day should illness strike. Followed, perhaps, by a soothing bowl of congee.
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If you pray for love in Izumo, there's a good chance you'll be heard. Every year, eight million gods gather in this seaside city to decide the fate of humans' relationships.
The romance of air travel still exists. At least that's the impression when you land at Japan's auspiciously named Izumo Enmusubi Airport. Translating roughly to "the tying (musubi) of bonds (en)", or, more popularly, "matchmaking", the word enmusubi encompasses many of the relationships that are part of life, such as those with family, friends and work, but most often references romantic entanglements. This connotation is in the air as you step off the plane and walk past a statue of a jovial god named Okuninushi, known as the "great matchmaking power", and a rack of ema (wooden prayer plaques) inscribed with travellers' romantic wishes.
It may seem like travellers here have love on the mind, and that's because if you pray for love in Izumo, there's a good chance you'll be heard.
Lying along the Sea of Japan in Shimane, the second-least populated of Japan's prefectures and, in 2023, the least-visited, Izumo is far off the Shinkansen bullet train track, making it one of the few cities in Japan that is easier to fly into. The city is home to Izumo Taisha, thought to be the country's oldest shrine and dedicated to Okuninushi, who is worshipped as the creator of Japan and the god of enmusubi in Japan's indigenous Shinto religion.
"He is the god who governs things that cannot be seen by humans", such as fate, explained local guide Minori Maeda, "You could say he is the god of matchmaking. He brings people together; he has tremendous power."
That's why Izumo Taisha has become popularly known as one of Japan's "power spots", a term that emerged in the 1990s to describe places, usually surrounded by nature, that are said to possess special powers to generate good luck, better health or, in this case, love. While the philosophy of power spots is a fuzzy grab bag of Shintoism, new age spirituality, feng shui and marketing, its popularity over the last few decades has increased tourism to places like Izumo. More than seven million people visited the shrine in 2023, according to Izumo City, including around 350 couples who got married there.
Certainly not everyone who visits Izumo does so in pursuit of love, but the number of matchmaking-related activities here suggest a fair number do. With this in mind, tourism boards have compiled sightseeing itineraries focused on romantic spots in Izumo and the wider San'in region, from Yaegaki Shrine where a pond forecasts the outcome of relationships, to a pleasure boat whose bronze "matchmaking bell" summons the gods and even a train station painted pink and adorned with hearts. Less widely promoted is Izumo's Umi Shrine, which people visit to pray for enriki, the severing of ties, the other side of the enmusubi coin.
Set on an often tempestuous sea and a place of sunsets so stunning that they are certified by Japan Heritage as an important cultural property, Izumo is romantic by nature. But nowhere exerts such a mighty pull as Izumo Taisha. Singles visit to ask Okuninushi to find them a partner, while couples ask him to bless their relationship. Many write their wishes on an ema in the faith that they will reach Okuninushi directly.
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Some, perhaps seeking a larger audience, time their trip to the 10th month of Japan's old lunar calendar (usually November), because that's when Japan's eight million kami (gods and spirits) travel from all around the country to gather in the city. Throughout Japan, this month is known as Kan-na-dzuki (the month without gods), but in Izumo it's called Kami-ari-dzuki (the month with gods). The reason for this seaside gathering is that the gods have a job to do: they are there to decide the fate of humans' relationships in the coming year.
The seven-day gathering of the gods (11-17 November 2025) is a spectacle in its own right. It begins on the beach at Inasa-no-Hama with a ceremony welcoming the kami to Izumo. Just after sunset, bonfires are lit and shrine priests escort the kami to Izumo Taisha, shielding them from the gathered public's view with white sheets. It's not all work and no play, said Maeda. The kami also enjoy feasts and lots of sake offered up by local brewers. A handful of those eight million kami enjoy the local sake a little too enthusiastically and hang around well beyond their official departure date. "There's a goddess who is known for her persuasiveness," Maeda said. "She eventually has to perform a ceremony telling them that they have to go home."
I visited Izumo a few days after (most of) the kamis' departure in late November last year. I hadn't arrived looking for love, rather to sip sake in the place said to be its spiritual birthplace and explore the rugged coastline's cliffs and caves. But, still, I felt compelled to visit Izumo Taisha. Approaching the altar under a huge shimenawa (rope), I dropped a five-yen coin into the offering box – five yen ("go-en") is thought to be good luck because in Japanese, go en is a homophone with go-en, the respectful way to refer to "en" (bonds). Then I clapped four times, twice for myself and twice for my partner, the custom distinct from other Shinto shrines where worshippers clap just twice. After silently making my own wish, I browsed the amulets on sale. Maeda said the red-and-white amulet is particularly well known, "for bringing people together in love". Then I peeked at some of the handwritten wishes inscribed on the ema hanging along the shrine's pathways. "It's said that writing your wishes on an ema will ensure that [they] reach the gods directly," said Maeda. Some of those written wishes asked to simply find love, others were more specific, requesting to "get married within three years".
The eagerness of visitors' desire to get married felt like a counterpoint to Japan's much-publicised plummeting marriage rates. In the same month that I visited Izumo, the Tokyo government, in an effort to nudge residents towards marriage and stem the city's falling birthrate, launched a matchmaking app, aptly named Tokyo Enmusubi. But I'd just read of travel trends suggesting that people are tired of looking for love online. Could they ignore the apps and look to the heavens instead, I wondered, and, if so, is a degree of belief in higher powers required?
"Whether they believe or not is beside the point," said Tokyo-based author Hiroko Yoda, whose book about Japanese spirituality, Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan, will be published in December 2025.
"Unlike the West, "belief" or "disbelief" doesn't really factor into Japanese spirituality," she explained. "People go to Izumo Taisha because it is famous or because they feel a personal need, or simply because they want to check it out. There's no recruiting or evangelising or claims of power." As for choosing between praying for love and downloading a matchmaking app, you can do both, Yoda added: "Japanese spirituality embraces rather than rejects."
Yoda considers Izumo Taisha's image as a sacred matchmaking spot to be largely the product of tourism marketing; when I hear the word 'power spot', I always roll my eyes," she says. But she also believes that there's a "spiritually playful aspect" to its promotion, which the flexibility and inclusivity of Japanese spirituality allows for. "In Japan, religions are not based in dogma. They co-exist with modern society," she said.
Go to Izumo to pray for a partner but do so with the awareness that "Izumo Taisha's offering of connection goes far beyond that of finding your romantic match", Yoda says, reinforcing the widely inclusive meaning of enmusubi. "It's about the invisible web of metaphorical threads that bring us together for all sorts of things, in all spheres of life, in ways unpredictable and unexpected, wondrous and wonderful."
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The Uzbekistan government is on an ambitious tourism drive – but is sparring with heritage experts over how to protect its historical sites.
The sound of a jackhammer rattles through the air. In Bukhara, a former trading hub on the ancient Silk Road in what is now Uzbekistan, tourism is the new commerce and new hotels are popping up on every street corner. I've counted three construction sites in a 100m radius outside the former caravanserai where I'm staying, and I observe the progress of a guesthouse being built just metres from a 16th-Century madrasa (school).
It's a trend that's visible across the country. In the capital, Tashkent, construction work for a shopping mall lines the avenue leading up to the Hazrati Imam mosque complex, next to the shiny, almost-completed Centre for Islamic Civilisation. The small historic city of Khiva, surrounded by mud fortifications, cannot expand outwards – but mud-and-straw residences in the historic centre are being knocked down and replaced by modern hotels. It is perhaps most obvious in Samarkand, where billionaire businessman Bakhtiyor Fazilov has poured money into flashy projects to raise his home city's profile, such as a new airline, an international airport that opened in 2022 and the strange Disneyland facsimile Silk Road Samarkand, a soulless and sanitised tourist resort situated outside the city.
"The concept of the Silk Road is being applied to everything," said Svetlana Gorshenina, a researcher and member of the Uzbek heritage protection association Alerte Héritage. "You have Silk Road restaurants, Silk Road shops, Silk Road tours, tourist agencies uniquely dedicated to the Silk Road. It has become our only selling point and it's self-exoticising. It's a kind of self-orientalisation, which is a hangover from colonialism."
The thing is: it's working. The World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Development Index now ranks Uzbekistan at 78th out of 119 countries, moving up 16 places in the last five years. The Uzbek government is ploughing investment into its tourism sector after the country's president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, laid out his Uzbekistan 2030 strategy in September 2023, an enormous governmental plan detailing the goals to be achieved in various sectors by that date. That includes increasing the number of foreign tourists to 15 million, more than double the 6.6 million visitors to the country in 2023. He has also called for the creation of "tourist clusters" – complexes providing accommodation and other services for tourists in one place.
One of these new clusters is the reason I've come to Bukhara. It's a 33-hectare site on the fringes of the old town on which a leisure complex called Eternal Bukhara will soon be built. Samarkand tycoon Fazilov has a hand in this project too: he's the chairman of one of Uzbekistan's largest contractors, Enter Engineering, which is building the complex. The company is cagey about its actual plans for the site – not least because it has already proven quite contentious.
Initial plans reported in the local press described it as an "ethnographic park" that would recreate traditional Uzbek buildings such as chaikhanas (teahouses), as well as restaurants serving Uzbek cuisine and a museum about Uzbek culture. But the 3D renderings pasted on the high walls that surround the construction site show instead blocky, modernist shopping arcades and glimmering pools adorned with abstract art.
"We're not trying to replicate historic buildings. We don't want to repeat history – but to create something that will have its own impact," Rustam Khaydarov, the deputy general director of Enter Engineering, told me, as we sat in a portacabin in the construction site with excavators and diggers whirring nearby. "It will be a place where people can relax, with cafes and a cultural centre for local artists to display their art. And about 70% of it will remain a green site."
Enter Engineering also plans to build a number of five-star hotels, with up to 700 rooms on site. "Wealthy people already come to Bukhara but are dissatisfied with the quality of the hotels. So we want to improve the class of hotels on offer," he said. There will also be medical facilities to cater to a new type of tourist that Uzbekistan is trying to attract: visitors who come for cheap healthcare, from dentistry to plastic surgery.
This area used to be Bukhara's administrative zone, with government offices and a large public sports arena. The demolition of the sports stadium im 2024 provoked a public outcry (which is rare in Uzbekistan, a country where public dissent is swiftly silenced), and Enter Engineering responded by building three more sports facilities on the town's outskirts. The site is ringed by a road, beyond which there are drab and semi-dilapidated residential apartment blocks, with many ground-floor spaces for businesses unoccupied. Although it's just a short walk to Bukhara's tourist sites and monuments, it feels a world away from the relentless tourism of the city centre.
"For years, Uzbekistan has been undergoing a process of emptying city centres of their inhabitants," explained Gorshenina. "We are witnessing a transformation of towns into museum-towns that are made for tourists. In Bukhara, you already have this 'tourist zone' that is clearly separate from the rest of the town where residents live. It's become an open-air museum."
An Uzbek architect, who did not want to be named for this article but whom I met in his office in Bukhara, told me, "Every year, there are more and more tourists. I have always thought of Bukhara as a living organism, and that organism is becoming very weak and fragile. It should not become a town solely for tourists but for its residents as well. It risks becoming a Venice in the desert."
Alerte Héritage is fiercely opposed to the Eternal Bukhara project, in part because it says that locals were not consulted about the use of the space, and also because of the loss of important Soviet-era architecture, such as a government building that was the former regional headquarters of the Communist Party, built in 1987. It was torn down in early 2024.
The Uzbek architect said that the current government was repeating mistakes from the Soviet era. "The Soviet Union destroyed a lot of heritage and replaced it with Soviet buildings because it wanted to leave its own imprint. That tradition of demolition is still – unfortunately – in our blood."
Although Eternal Bukhara is not within the historical centre that is classified as a Unesco World Heritage site, it falls within the "buffer zone", which still requires Unesco validation before urban changes can be made. When contacted, a spokesperson for Unesco, said that they were "closely monitoring" the situation, adding: "We hope that the authorities will comply with their commitments to the World Heritage Convention and that they will not carry out any demolition/construction project without the prior assessment of the World Heritage Committee in July 2025."
Demolition on the Eternal Bukhara site is visibly ongoing, with only a handful of buildings still standing. That seems problematic for Unesco – even more so as the international organisation plans to host this year's General Conference in Uzbekistan, which would be the first time since 1986 that the annual meeting has been held outside Paris.
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"Unesco is toothless, without principles. What has it really done for Central Asia, for Uzbekistan?" asked the Uzbek architect. Both he and Alerte Héritage are unconvinced by Unesco's warnings to Enter Engineering. Khaydarov, however, assured me that the company will not launch any building work until they get Unesco's green light – which means that they could still be waiting for months before construction is able to begin.
"We don't want the city's image to be damaged," Khaydarov said. "This is a reputational issue. But we chose this area because it's in the buffer zone and we are confident we will get Unesco's approval to continue."
He also insisted that locals support the plans, describing it as "a social project" rather than a commercial one. "We will create minimum 15,000 jobs with this site," he promised.
Uzbekistan's headlong rush into the world of mass tourism could well create thousands of jobs and boost the country's economy – but it risks bulldozing or damaging both the country's ancient heritage and vestiges of its more recent history. You only have to walk through Bukhara's covered bazaars that were once filled with Uzbek silk and crafts and are now teeming with imported, mass-produced goods to get a feel for what the country may look like in just a few years.
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The world's only museum dedicated to the history and culture of the Gulf of Mexico may be in hot water following Trump's decision to change the name of the planet's largest gulf.
Last year Karen Poth decided it was time to rename the museum she runs in Mobile, Alabama, to better reflect its unique status.
To do so, she first had to line up support from elected officials and her board of directors before raising money for the project. Next, she needed to update the museum's website, logo and printed materials. Then in April 2024, she finally unveiled the new name in letters stretching 50ft across the eight-storey building: the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico, the only museum in the world dedicated to the history, folklore and culture of the largest gulf on Earth.
So, imagine her response when US President Donald Trump recently announced that he planned to rename the body of water to the south of the US from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. "My personality is to laugh," Poth said. "Or else you cry."
The name change, which was signed into law on 20 January and is part of a broader Trump effort to "honour American greatness", has created an international firestorm. After Google recently announced that it would follow Trump's executive order and also change the Gulf's name on Google Maps in the US, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum argued that Trump alone cannot legally do that.
Poth says she's not taking sides, but admits she's overwhelmed at the thought of what would happen if the museum had to change every reference to the Gulf of America. "It would be a complete redo of the entire museum. If you think about it, every audio, every video, every digital, every sign… that will be very, very expensive."
Since the museum is owned by the city of Mobile, Poth said she will ultimately follow city officials' leads. "If I need to change the name of the museum, we'll be up there changing the signage on the top of the building." The museum still carries debt from its opening a decade ago, and Poth estimates that changing the museum's name in 2024 cost nearly $100,000.
But as visitors to the museum learn, the Gulf has actually had many names throughout its multi-cultural history. The name Gulf of Mexico, for example, first appeared on Spanish maps in the mid-1500s as a way of honouring the Mexica people who founded the Aztec empire. Yet, the 218,000-sq-mile oceanic basin – which borders five US states and a longer stretch of shoreline along the eastern coast of Mexico, along with the north-west coast of Cuba – has had other names too.
According to John Sledge, the museum's maritime historian in residence, when the Spanish first reached the Gulf in 1513, they thought they had found a route to Asia and initially called it the Chinese Sea (a name unlikely to appeal to Trump, Sledge noted). Other early explorers called it the Gulf of Cortés or the Gulf of New Spain.
"It was really a Spanish sea throughout the 1500s and the 1600s," Sledge said. The Spanish were followed by the French, who founded Mobile and New Orleans in the early 1700s. The British gained control of the eastern edge of the region in the 1760s, before the United States finally seized the area in the 1810s.
The massive ship-shaped museum, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025, is set on a commanding waterfront location in downtown Mobile's Cooper Riverside Park, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Mobile's port and bay, which feeds directly into the Gulf. Interactive displays highlight the area's multi-layered history, as well as its global influence. Visitors learn how the first European settlement in the US wasn't in St Augustine, Florida, as is commonly thought, but some 450 miles west on the Gulf in Pensacola. Exhibits also show how the Gulf's waters have become one of the world's most productive fisheries and one of the US's largest oil-producing regions. In addition, the Gulf Stream, which originates here, influences transatlantic shipping routes and moderates the weather in Western Europe by bringing warm tropical waters north.
Other popular exhibits include a simulator that lets guests practice piloting ships, models of famous shipwrecks, a multi-storey screen tracking European voyages and towers of shipping containers, which hold exhibits. The city of Mobile, museum curators like to say, changed the world when a local company helped launch the first containerised ships in the 1950s.
Most people have no idea about the region's complex history, says Jack E Davis, whose 2017 book, The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, won a Pulitzer Prize. "They associate it with oil spills and hurricanes."
In recent weeks, Davis says friends have teased him that his 592-page book might have inspired Trump's executive order to rename the body of water. But Davis says he's not happy with the US's official new name for the Gulf, and when he saw the phrase "Gulf of America" used last month in an official pronouncement from Florida's governor, he had a physical response. "I almost puked, it was just awful. It's so wrong."
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Given that the Gulf has been central to many cultures over the centuries, Davis claims the new name is just too confining. "It's not just us," he said. "[The name Gulf of Mexico] takes my mind beyond what we call America, beyond the US to other people to other places."
Davis, who grew up along the Gulf Coast, urges travellers to get to know its museums, historic homes and natural scenery. One of his favourite spots is Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. "If you go to Padre Island and you don't feel emotionally moved, check your pulse, because it's just really this otherworldly place."
According to Davis, the Gulf's first residents arrived 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Early European visitors were astonished when they encountered the Calusa people who thrived along what is now south-west Florida. The tribe harvested the Gulf's abundant seafood, and piled up mounds of oyster shells that stretched for miles. Tribe members were so well-nourished they towered over the Europeans.
The next several hundred years saw Spain, France and England competing for influence, said Deanne Stephens,a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and executive director of the Gulf South Historical Association. "It was quite an amalgamation of players in the region."
Since the 19th Century, the Gulf has attracted immigrants from around the world, ranging from fruit-selling Sicilians in New Orleans to Greek sponge divers in Florida. Along Stephens' Mississippi coast, the seafood industry has attracted workers from places as varied as Poland, Croatia, Vietnam and now Latin America. "Regardless of who was here, it was always recognised by people as a place of opportunity," she said.
Likewise, Poth says her museum consistently surprises visitors. "They had no idea how important the Gulf of Mexico is to the world."
She's excited about plans for a new exhibit devoted to another Gulf global influencer: the late singer and Mobile city native Jimmy Buffett, whose hits like Margaritaville introduced many around the world to the coast's laid-back lifestyle. Yet, she admits that the project may bring up a host of issues. "What are we going to call it? Every one of his songs is about the Gulf of Mexico."
Sledge, meanwhile, says if Trump wants to change the Gulf's name, a better choice might be to call it the Gulf of the Americas, which would acknowledge its geographic breadth and its enormous challenges. Scientists say the zone faces many threats in the coming century from pollution, coastal erosion and climate change.
"It's a shared resource," he said. "We all depend on it, and it's in our interest to take care of it – whatever we call it."
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Japan says it will increase its reliance on nuclear energy in a major policy shift as it seeks to meet growing demand from power-hungry sectors like AI and semiconductors.
An energy plan approved by the cabinet on Tuesday called for "maximising the use of nuclear energy" and dropped reference to "reducing reliance on nuclear energy".
The energy plan, written by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry says that by 2040, nuclear energy should account for 20% of Japan's grid supply in 2040, more than double the 8.5% share in 2023.
It comes as the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster from 14 years ago continues to hang over the country, conjuring painful memories.
In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake near Japan's north-east coast spawned a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people, wiping out entire towns and flooding the reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Japan now operates 14 commercial nuclear reactors, compared to 54 before the Fukushima disaster when 30% of the country's energy was from nuclear sources.
The plan still needs approval by parliament, where it will be discussed in the coming months.
The country, which imports 90% of its fuel, needs to look to nuclear sources as part of its plan to cut back on carbon and be self-reliant on energy, said Daishiro Yamagiwa, an MP who was part of a government advisory committee on the energy plan.
"Because of the conflict in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, even fossil fuels have become difficult to buy," he told the BBC. "Japan is a country without energy resources, so we must use whatever is available in a balanced way."
Yamagiwa added that energy burdens are growing because of demand from AI data processing centres and semiconductor factories around the country.
But experts say increasing reliance on nuclear energy will be both risky and costly.
Japan will need to import uranium, which is expensive and will make the country reliant on other countries, said Professor Kenichi Oshima at the faculty of policy science at Ryukoku University.
Prof Oshima told the BBC the main concern is that increasing the number of nuclear power plants also raises the risk of potentially disastrous accidents.
He cited the 2024 New Year's Day earthquake in the Noto peninsula, where two decades ago, a plan to build a nuclear plant was scrapped because locals opposed it.
"If there had been a nuclear power plant there, it is quite clear that it would have caused a major accident," he said.
Fukushima looms large
In Japan, any mention of nuclear energy inevitably brings back difficult memories of the nuclear meltdown at the Daiichi power plant.
"We all had such a terrible experience at the time of the Fukushima quake," Tokyo resident Yuko Maruyama told the BBC.
"How could I support it [the nuclear energy plan]? I want the government to rely on other sources of energy," she added.
"As a mother I think of the children, of their safety. I cannot help but think about what would happen in the future."
The meltdown at Fukushima is considered the world's worst since that of Chernobyl in 1986.
It stirred fresh controversy in 2023, when Japan started releasing treated water from the site of the Fukushima plant. This drew protests from Japan's neighbours, including China, over safety concerns.
The United Nations atomic energy regulator IAEA said the waste water was safe and would have a "negligible" impact on people and the environment.
In response to the new energy plan announced this week, Greenpeace said promoting nuclear energy is "outrageous" when the fallout from Fukushima is still ongoing.
"There is no justification for continuing to rely on nuclear energy, which remains toxic for tens of thousands of years, produces radioactive waste that requires long-term management, and carries risks like earthquakes and terrorism," the group said.
To meet the government's goal, experts say 33 reactors must be put back online, but the current pace of safety checks as well as residents' objections in some areas will make this difficult.
Many of these nuclear plants are old and will need to be refitted with new technology for them to function safely.
"That most difficult problem is that each nuclear power plant is in a different location and will need its own safety protocol and infrastructure," Yamagiwa said.
"We must check each of them carefully. It still takes time."
In recent months, regulators have given several old reactors approval to keep operating.
In October 2024 Japan's oldest reactor, Takahama nuclear power plant, was given the go-ahead to continue operations, making it the first reactor in the country to get approval to operate beyond 50 years.
A large solar farm is set to power almost half of a Kent town and make millions for the local council.
Folkestone and Hythe District Council plans to build the facility on agricultural land in Court-at-Street, Lympne, near the Otterpool Park site.
The solar farm will provide energy to 8,500 homes, which are due to be built on and around the former Folkestone Racecourse, near Sellindge, after receiving planning approval in 2023.
Council leader Jim Martin said the plans were to "create a credible pathway to a net-zero development".
The authority's final goal is to build 10,000 homes, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
At a cabinet meeting last week, it was revealed the scheme will generate £21m over the next three decades.
"One of the beauties of this is that the solar installation builds with the development," Mr Martin said.
"There's no point putting panels in the field when you haven't got houses to connect them to."
The solar farm, which could expand onto neighbouring land in the future, is set to be run by renewables firm SNRG.
Documents show that the site will be built in phases, with phase one covering an area of about 47 acres, and the second covering 49 acres.
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Hundreds of solar panels have been installed on top of two Staffordshire leisure centres to help cut carbon emissions and lower energy costs.
Freedom Leisure (FL), which manages both the Stafford and Stone centres on behalf of Stafford Borough Council, worked with the authority to secure government funds to invest in 650 panels.
The authority said the renewable energy source would help the centres' reduce their reliability on traditional electricity sources and increase sustainability.
Councillor Gillian Pardesi said the council's partnership with FL was boosting the authority's aim of reaching net zero.
Angela Brown, FL's head of sustainability and environmental, said the installation demonstrated their joint commitment to sustainability" and their "collective approach to reducing carbon emissions".
The commitment was particularly important for aquatic facilities where energy demands are "typically high", in order to maintain the heating and ventilation of the pool environments, Ms Brown added.
The borough council said the project was "part of a broader effort" to make authority-run facilities more energy efficient and ensure they remain sustainable for years to come.
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Two more activists who were convicted over a blockade at a Muller dairy site in Worcestershire have been fined and ordered to carry out unpaid work.
The Animal Rebellion members blocked the factory in Droitwich, in September 2022, as part of a campaign to encourage people to eat plant-based food.
Protesters climbed onto trucks, milk silos and loading bays while some glued themselves to the ground and chained themselves to fences, Worcester Crown Court was told.
Kat Chan, 23, and Ben Pattison, 31, were ordered to carry out up to 240 hours unpaid work and pay fines of more than £1,000 each.
Muller plants in Gloucestershire and Somerset were also targeted as was Arla's milk factory in Buckinghamshire.
Chan and Pattison were both convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage, while Chan was convicted of having an article with intent to destroy or damage property, having denied all the offences.
Pattison was found guilty of of intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance.
Pattison was ordered to pay £1,200 and complete 220 hours of unpaid work.
Chan has been told to compete 240 hours of unpaid work and pay a fine of £1,500.
Five more defendants were sentenced earlier with community service orders ranging from 120 to 240 hours.
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A wildlife park has welcomed two new females to its colony of king penguins in a bid to boost its breeding programme.
The females, who have yet to be named, arrived at Birdland Park and Gardens in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds last week.
The pair hatched in Wuppertal, Germany, in 2021 and 2023 and are believed to be the first female king penguins to be imported to the UK in 15 years.
Staff learned in December that a supposed female called Maggie, who joined the park eight years ago, was in fact a male who has since been renamed Magnus.
The discovery meant that for many years the park has had just one female, named Bill.
Until the latest additions to the park arrived, Bill was also the only female King Penguin in the UK.
She is 10 years older than she would live to in the wild.
Head keeper Alistair Keen said: "We've not had a [king penguin] egg at Birdland for three years, and we've had no breeding success for nearly a decade now.
"The fact we now have two young females who could potentially be breeding for another 10 to 15 years is absolutely massive for us and the breeding programme across Europe."
The new penguins have joined the park as part of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria Ex-situ Programme.
The programme aims to ensure a healthy and viable captive population of more than 500 endangered and threatened species is maintained in the long term.
"There was so much paper work to complete - jumping through various hoops and making phone calls and emails at all times of day," Mr Keen said.
"It was a day-and-a-half for them to travel by road from Germany but they are feeding great, they are looking great so we just can't wait to get them out and meeting the boys."
The pair will now go through a period of quarantine before they join the rest of the colony.
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A fresh round of consultations over a planned long-distance power line will be held next month.
The 56-mile (90 km) overhead line would run from substations just outside Cottingham in East Yorkshire to High Marnham in Nottinghamshire.
National Grid said it was needed to carry energy from wind farms in the North Sea.
The initial proposals caused controversy in some areas and North Lincolnshire Council previously called for the route to be reconsidered due to the potential impact on the landscape.
* Increasing the distance of the line away from Skidby and Bentley, which lie on opposite sides of the proposal in East Yorkshire
* Routing the new line further away from the village of Ellerker, near South Cave, to avoid the village having pylons both to the north and south.
From Scotland to California, golf courses are being rewilded – with lofty aims to benefit both people and nature.
Sinking into nature comes easy at the Plock of Kyle. I visit this tiny wedge of parkland on the west coast of Scotland, just across the bridge from the Isle of Skye, on a rainy day in late September, and park ranger Heather Beaton and I spend the afternoon wandering around its various ecosystems-in-miniature.
We clamber over rocks at one of its little hidden natural harbours. We freeze as black darter dragonflies land on her pink shoe by a pond. And we bend to peer at circles of huge mushrooms which have sprung up overnight in its tiny woodland.
A wildflower meadow, ponds, scrub habitat, coastline and even an area of peat bog can be found on this little 60-acre (24-hectare) plot, which boasts roe deer, otters, lizards, eels and a huge array of insects and birds. "We do describe it as a microcosm of Scotland," says Beaton. "If you think of all of the major habitats of Scotland, we've got them here on the Plock, just in miniature." It's an impression she works to cultivate. "The more little pockets we have, the more chance a person has to... end up having a nature experience," she says.
All of these habitats had fallen into serious disarray until a few years ago, says Beaton. In fact, most of this area used to be a golf course.
The Plock is part of a small but significant global trend of land once used for golf being turned back over to nature. From California to Pennsylvania and Australia to Canada, these projects are reaping in some big rewards for both biodiversity and local people.
But what does it take to rewild a golf course? Could this be a key to both supporting biodiversity and helping more people get the immense benefits that come with interacting with nature? And what do we win – and lose – in the process?
Huge swathes of land are used for golf. According to one recent study, many countries across the world, including the UK and the US, use far more land for golf courses than they do for wind or solar energy. The US has the most courses of any country by far: its 16,300 golf courses occupy an estimated 8,000 sq km (2 million acres), an area around a third of the size of Vermont.
Golf emerged as a sport in my home country of Scotland in the 15th-17th Centuries, and for a time was relatively widely played, with courses often shared spaces used for walking and other activities as well as golf. Over the last century or so, however, it has widely emerged as the sport of the most affluent in society.
Luxury hotels and golf clubs have sprung up across the world, sometimes damaging precious ecosystems in the process. In just one example, in 2017 a golf course built by now US president Donald Trump in Aberdeenshire was found by a Scottish government watchdog to have "destroyed” the sand dune system it was built on, causing permanent habitat loss and loss of its status as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI). Responding to a request for comment about these criticisms, Sarah Malone, executive vice president of Trump International, Scotland, called the reports "inaccurate and grossly misleading".
"Nature Scot [Scotland's conservation body] ignored and neglected the dunes under the previous ownership and have barely set foot on this site over the past 20 years," she said. "Their own assessment acknowledged that many attributes of the SSSI – which was, in fact, less than 3% of our vast estate – had flourished since the first golf course was completed in 2012. Trump International's ongoing investment and care of the land is beyond question, as anyone who actually visits the property will attest."
A separate proposal for an 18-hole golf course on another fragile Scottish dune sand ecosystem continues to divide public opinion.
There are other environmental impacts of golf courses alongside land use. In the US, an estimated 1.5 billion gallons (5.7 billion litres) of water a day is used to irrigate golf courses, mostly from lakes and onsite wells. Courses are also treated with some 100,000 tonnes of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash a year. Run off from these fertilisers and pesticides have been found to cause risks to humans, wildlife and the environment.
"Certainly, some of the key environmental concerns with golf over time have involved pesticide spraying, the quantity of water used, especially in times of drought, and the significant amount of land sometimes needed for a golf course," says Brad Millington, associate professor of sport management at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, and co-author of The greening of golf.
The environmental impact of golf has also developed over time, Millington adds, as humans have developed the capacity to build golf courses "seemingly just about anywhere", no matter the type of land.
Golf has increasingly become a target for environmental activists. Brazilian activists camped out on a highway in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympics, to protest the city's decision to build a new course on an area of environmental protection. In 2022, climate activists in France filled golf course holes with cement to protest an exemption from water bans amidst a severe drought. In 2024, Extinction Rebellion activists disrupted the Travellers Championship, a golf competition in Connecticut, spraying coloured smoke and powder and sporting t-shirts reading, "No golf on a dead planet".
Some anti-golf movements completely reject golf, a view that's become common to see on social media in recent years. But the overall impact of any individual golf course depends on a huge array of factors, says Millington: the amount of non-recycled water and pesticides used in maintenance, for example, and what was there before the golf course was built in the first place.
From an environmental standpoint, it's also worth considering what else the land might be used for. Land disused for golf can end up being developed for housing or commercial ventures. And while building housing is important for many other reasons, concreting over part of the land may well not improve the environmental profile of an ex-golf course, leading some to argue brownfield sites should be used instead.
During the decades that the Plock was a golf course, meanwhile, some of its natural habitats remained. Most of the woodland here is natural, and the peat bog, while deliberately drained by golfers, also survived, based on the depth of peat, which accumulates very slowly, Beaton estimates it could be over 1,000 years old.
Previously used for farming, the Plock was never a high-end golf course: it first opened for the community in the 1920s by the local lord and lady, says Beaton, and after various ups and downs the course eventually petered out in the mid 2000s. For a time the land was left largely to its own devices. In 2019, the trust which owned the land passed it to the local Kyle of Lochalsh Community Trust, which opted for it to become parkland. "It was just overgrown and abandoned and just unloved, really severely unloved," says Beaton. "A lot of effort has gone into bringing it back."
The main green, previously kept short and highly manicured for golf, had become a dense area of tussocky grass. Now it is managed as a permanent wildflower meadow with over 80 species of flowering plant, from native orchids to pignuts and goldenrods, and heaves with butterflies and other insects. "In the height of summer, it is just beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful," says Beaton.
Many of the golf tees, meanwhile, have been reclaimed by scrub and will, in time, naturally become woodland, says Beaton. Fresh water is being brought back, supporting its new otter population. The peatland is being rewetted, a measure which can stunt carbon emissions and bring back species.
Beaton, who is in her mid-30s, clearly has an unbridled affection for the Plock. She grew up on a farm in the Scottish borders and previously worked as a warden on Uist in the Outer Hebrides, before moving to Kyle of Lochalsh in 2021 to start work as one of the Plock's two rangers. "We just work away to make it as good a place as possible for all the visitors and users, whether human or wildlife," she says.
The struggle, as always, is money. The transformation of the Plock has largely been supported by grants. The trust has explored other options: charging for scything training, a secondhand shop and community facilities, including a laundrette it runs in the village. But it will need something larger scale to become self-sustaining, says Beaton: likely some kind of onsite tourist accommodation. It also hopes to build a traditional-build longhouse to use as a small museum, ticketed for tourists. "I think the sustainable income is going to be the big challenge," says Beaton. "How we approach that, how we develop that, that is going to be the big question."
Magical as it is, the Plock is certainly miniscule. But it's not an isolated example of an ex-golf course being repurposed for nature. Projects are springing up in Scotland, the wider UK as well as across the Atlantic in the US and Canada.
In 2018, The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a US non-profit, bought the 157-acre (64-hectare) San Geronimo Golf Course in California and set about creating a new commons and restoring its wildlife and streams. At the time, the golf course was likely one of the top 10 water users in Marin County, says Erica Williams, who led the TPL's work on the park.
San Geronimo Golf Course was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a climate-resilient ecosystem", says Williams, by reconnecting the property's creeks and waterways as well as recreating its historic floodplain.
The trust opened pathways to the public and stopped irrigating the land. It worked with partners to restore the ecosystem of the endangered coho salmon. "The 2024 spawning season brought record numbers of spawning salmon to the San Geronimo Valley watershed, particularly to Larsen Creek," says Williams. Hundreds of species have been spotted in the park: everything from deer, coyote and bobcats to native egrets, ducks and hawks, along with dozens of native plant species.
While some people did experience the loss of the golf course, many residents and users have expressed "their deep gratitude for this beautiful now publicly accessible landscape", says Williams. "Overall, the public reaction has been quite positive," she says.
In August 2024, the TPL transferred ownership of the San Geronimo Golf Couse, now known as the San Geronimo Commons, to the local government, including land set aside for a future fire station. The TPL has used a similar model of restoration and transfer to public ownership with several other golf courses, usually ones that were becoming financially unviable, says Williams.
In fact, snapping up golf course land for rewilding in the US makes a lot of sense, because the land covered by golf courses has been decreasing for decades, falling by 12% between 2005 and 2021. "Given the climate crisis, there's a good case to use [this land] to address problems such as biodiversity loss," says Millington.
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Golf course properties are often large, adds Williams, and by design often built within larger natural landscapes near natural features, such as creeks and streams. "They are often relatively flat, with cart paths and trails that allow for public access." Long broad golf course airways can present a unique opportunity for wildlife corridors, she adds. Plus, they tend to consume a lot of water, meaning rewilding can help with significant water conservation.
Of course, closure is not the only way to bring nature back into golf courses. In some cases, the TPL has saved golf courses that were otherwise set for closure, and worked to open up the game to everyone while also managing the land in a way that works for wildlife. On many actively used golf courses around the world, greenskeepers are making efforts to manage the land to better support nature, which is often cheaper too.
In fact, in the US fertiliser and water use in golf have substantially decreased in recent decades – in part due to course closures, but largely due to management changes.
Naturalised areas, sections of the golf course that aren't so heavily maintained, have also been on the rise. In 2015 survey, 46% of US golf courses said they had increased the land dedicated to naturalised areas over the past decade, with just 5% saying they had decreased it.
"This can be done to reduce maintenance costs but there can be an environmental angle as well, such as enabling wildlife to flourish," says Millington.
However, while many golfers support wilding efforts on non-play areas, there can be trade offs in terms of playability of having more dense vegetation around.
Golf courses that are being made a little wilder can offer lessons for other types of land as well. "I do think there's ways of introducing nature into manicured landscapes,” says Beaton. "You can do it in cities, you can do it in any sort of any land."
Because ultimately, what managers of many rewilded golf courses tend to emphasise is the benefit to local people. At San Geronimo, people from across the San Francisco Bay Area come to hike, bike, walk their dogs and ride horses, says Williams. "One thing that is absolutely wonderful to see is the multigenerational use, made possible by the property's gentle terrain. I've seen family members, young and old, walking together on the land."
At the Plock, nestled helpfully close to the town of Kyle of Lochalsh, paths now wind through the tightly knit ecosystems, many of them disabled-friendly. The Plock runs guided walks, a mental health support group and scything classes (useful for locals with big gardens or crofts who want to cut away overgrown bracken).
It also hosts groups of local schoolchildren, who sometimes help with restoration efforts. "If you can imagine little nursery kids, so you're talking three, four year olds coming along and planting a wee tree with a spade," Beaton says of one recent visit. "And then I had to come back afterwards and just make sure they were properly in the ground. But you know, they did that. When they're 20, this is going to be a woodland."
Leaving the Plock after my walk with Beaton, I meet William Roe, a local who comes here to walk his two Hungarian vizsla dogs almost every day. I ask him whether it’s a shame to have lost the golf course, but he shakes his head. "You can make a golf course in lots of places… but you can't make something like this." There are oak trees here, he adds, that are more than 200 years old. "And that just tells you that this place has been special for a long time, and I hope it will be forever more," he says.
Jocelyn Timperley is a senior reporter for BBC Future. You can find her on X @jloistf.
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The UN climate summit in the United Arab Emirates in 2023 ended with a call to "transition away from fossil fuels". It was applauded as a historic milestone in global climate action.
Barely a year later, however, there are fears that the global commitment may be losing momentum, as the growth of clean energy transition is slowing down while burning of fossil fuels continues to rise.
And now there is US President Donald Trump's "national energy emergency", embracing fossil fuels and ditching clean energy policies – that has also begun to influence some countries and energy companies already.
In response to Trump's "drill, baby, drill" slogan aimed at ramping up fossil fuel extraction, and the US notifying the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Indonesia, for instance, has hinted that it may follow suit.
'If US is not doing it, why should we?'
"If the United States does not want to comply with the international agreement, why should a country like Indonesia comply with it?" asked Hashim Djojohadikusumo, special envoy for climate change and energy of Indonesia, as reported by the country's government-run news agency Antara.
Indonesia has remained in the list of top 10 carbon-emitting countries for years now.
"Indonesia produces three tons of carbon [per person a year] while the US produces 13 tons," he asked at the ESG Sustainable Forum 2025 in Jakarta on 31 January.
"Yet we are the ones being told to close our power plants... So, where is the sense of justice here?"
Nithi Nesadurai, director with Climate Action Network Southeast Asia, said the signals from her region were concerning.
She said the "richest country and the largest oil producer in the world" increasing its production gives other states "an easy excuse to increase their own - which they are already doing".
In South Africa, Africa's biggest economy and a major carbon emitter, a $8.5bn foreign-aided transition project from the coal sector was already moving at a snail's pace, and now there are fears that it may get derailed further.
Wikus Kruger, director of Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town, said there was a "possibility" that decommissioning of old coal-fired power stations would be "further delayed".
However he said that while there was some "walk back" from transition to renewables, there was still growth in the clean energy sector that was expected to continue.
Argentina withdrew its negotiators from the COP29 climate meeting in Baku last November, days after Trump won the US presidency. It has since followed Trump's lead in signalling it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement of 2015 - which underpins global efforts to combat climate change.
"We now expect our oil and gas production to go up," Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, told the BBC.
"President Milei has hinted that he intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and has said environmentalism is part of the woke agenda."
Meanwhile, energy giant Equinor has just announced it is halving investment in renewable energy over the next two years while increasing oil and gas production, and another oil major, BP, is expected to make a similar announcement soon.
'American energy all over the world'
Trump has not just said "drill, baby, drill" but also: "We will export American energy all over the world."
Potential foreign buyers are already lining up.
India and the US have agreed to significantly increase the supply of American oil and gas to the Indian market.
At the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US visit on 14 February, the two countries issued a joint statement that "reaffirmed" the US would be "a leading supplier of crude oil and petroleum products and liquified natural gas to India".
A few days after Trump's inauguration, South Korea, the world's third largest liquified natural gas importer, has hinted its intention to buy more American oil and gas aimed at reducing a trade surplus with the US and improving energy security, international media have reported from Seoul.
Officials with Japan's largest power generator, JERA, have told Reuters they too want to increase purchases of liquified natural gas from the US to diversify supply, as it currently imports half of it from the Asia-Pacific region.
"There is certainly a threat that if the US seeks to either flood markets with cheap fossil fuels, or bully countries into buying more of its fossil fuels, or both, the global energy transition might be slowed," said Lorne Stockman, research director with Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organisation for transition to clean energy.
Scientists have said there can be no new fossil fuel extraction and there needs to be a rapid reduction of carbon emissions (around 45% by 2030 from the 2019 level) if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius compared to the pre-industrial period.
"The economics of energy supply are a key driver of decarbonisation," said David Brown, director of energy transition practice at Wood Mackenzie, a global energy think-tank.
"The resource base of US energy supports the role of natural gas and liquids production. By contrast, import-dependent economies such as China, India, and those in Southeast Asia have a dramatic economic incentive to decarbonise sources of energy."
Global energy transition investment surpassed $2tn for the first time last year but studies have also shown that the growth of clean energy transition has markedly slowed in recent years, while many major banks continue to finance fossil fuels.
The world's frozen oceans, which help to keep the planet cool, currently have less ice than ever previously recorded, satellite data shows.
Sea-ice around the north and south poles acts like a giant mirror by reflecting much of the Sun's energy back into space.
But as rising temperatures cause this bright layer to shrink, the dark ocean below can absorb more heat, warming the planet further.
This latest sea-ice low appears to have been driven by a combination of warm air, warm seas and winds breaking apart the ice.
Over the 5 days to 13 February, the combined extent of Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice was 15.76 million sq km (6.08 million sq miles), according to BBC analysis of data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
This breaks the previous 5-day record low of 15.93 million sq km (6.15 million sq miles) from January-February 2023.
Arctic sea-ice is currently at its smallest recorded extent for the time of year, while Antarctic sea-ice is close to a new low in satellite records going back to the late 1970s.
The decline of Arctic sea-ice in response to a warming planet is well-established. Its end-of-summer extent fell from an average of 7 million sq km in the 1980s to 4.5 million sq km in the 2010s.
But until the mid-2010s, Antarctic sea-ice had been remarkably resilient, defying predictions that it would shrink.
Since then, Antarctica has shown a series of very low sea-ice extents, although there is still lots of natural variability.
"Every year, every data point that we get suggests that this isn't a temporary shift, but something more permanent, like what we've seen in the Arctic," Walter Meier, senior research scientist at NSIDC, told BBC News.
"It is indicating that the Antarctic has moved into a new regime of lower ice extents."
Antarctic sea-ice is relatively thin and mobile - being surrounded by ocean rather than continents like the Arctic - so it can be particularly sensitive to winds breaking up the ice.
But warmer air and warmer waters look to have played a key role in this latest 2025 low, towards the end of the southern hemisphere summer.
The Antarctic ice-shelves – ice flowing off the Antarctic continent, rather than sea-ice – appear to have had a particularly extreme season of surface melting, driven by high air temperatures.
"Atmospheric conditions in December and January looked like they were strongly promoting surface melting on the ice-shelves," said Tom Bracegirdle, research scientist at the British Antarctic Survey.
"That could also have contributed to what we've seen in Antarctic sea-ice, and ongoing ocean warming is setting the backdrop to all of this as well."
Antarctica's record sea-ice low of 2023 would have been a one-in-2,000 year event without climate change, according to a recent study. Yet 2025 is not far from eclipsing it.
At the other end of the planet, the Arctic should be reaching its annual maximum, with cold winter temperatures helping the oceans to freeze over.
But current sea-ice extent is nearly 0.2 million sq km below anything previously recorded for the time of year, and has been tracking very low since late 2024.
This is partly as a result of a late freeze-up of ice around Hudson Bay, with unusually warm ocean waters taking a long time to cool down.
As well as warmer seas, some storms also disrupted ice around the Barents and Bering Seas, with the consequences likely amplified by long-term reductions in sea-ice thickness.
"A thinner ice cover is more responsive to weather [… so] weather events can have a stronger impact than they used to," said Julienne Stroeve, professor of polar observation and modelling at University College London.
In recent weeks, Arctic sea-ice has moved even further below average. Temperatures around the north pole were about 20C above normal in early February, leading to melting conditions in places like Svalbard.
This "is quite astonishing" for the time of year, according to Dr Bracegirdle.
This very low winter extent doesn't necessarily mean the Arctic will end up with record conditions throughout 2025, as conditions can change quickly at the poles.
But, with the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the global average, declines over the coming decades are almost inevitable.
The Arctic is expected to be essentially free of sea-ice at the end of its summer at least once before 2050, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Some recent studies suggest it could happen sooner.
Declining sea-ice at both poles not only has implications for local wildlife like polar bears and penguins, but also the Earth's climate.
Polar sea-ice has already lost around 14% of its natural cooling effect since the early-to-mid 1980s, as the area of bright, reflective ice has declined, according to a study published last year.
"If you significantly change the sea ice distribution in and around Antarctica, you modify that part of the planet which is actually helping us fight against climate change," said Simon Josey, a professor at the National Oceanography Centre.
Sea-ice also plays an important role in the great ocean conveyor, the mass movement of water that helps distribute heat around the planet and keeps places like the UK and north-west Europe relatively mild.
"If we see another strong winter loss [of Antarctic sea-ice], people are going to start to worry about what it's doing to the ocean circulation," said Prof Josey.
Additional reporting by Becky Dale
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Solitary lifestyles can have some big advantages in the animal world. Can humans learn anything from them?
The Middle East blind mole rat is the ultimate introvert. Residing about a foot underground, it digs out its own tunnel systems where it stays for most of its life, gathering roots, tubers, and bulbs. Each mole rat has its own territory – for good reason; if one mole rat accidentally burrows into another one's tunnel, the rodents will bare their teeth or bite each other in violent, often deadly battles.
Blind mole rats generally only interact with others of their species during the mating season, but even then, they must proceed cautiously. The male digs through the soil towards a female but pauses before entering her tunnel. For several days, they send vibrational signals to each other by drumming on the tunnel ceiling with their heads. Only when the female expresses an interest to meet will the male advance, mate with her, and leave. After closing the tunnel behind him, he continues his reclusive way of life.
Solitary lifestyles such as this are remarkably widespread across the animal kingdom. Even among mammals – a generally sociable bunch – 22% of studied species are largely solitary, meaning that males and females sleep and forage or hunt alone for most of the time.
But solitary animals have received relatively little attention from scientists. Perhaps because we are social creatures ourselves, we've been more drawn to studying creatures that cooperate in groups for protection or to find food, breed and raise young. Experts say that for a long time, many scientists have tended to overlook the solitary life, deeming it a more primitive, basic state of existence, associated with anti-social behaviour and poor intelligence.
But researchers are now coming to recognise that some animals have evolved to be solitary precisely because it can be so beneficial to avoid the competition and stressful conditions of group living. To boot, many solitary animals are in fact highly intelligent and live diverse and complex social lives, despite their solitude. Though blind mole rats are an exception, many solitary animals do tolerate, learn from and occasionally even cooperate with others of their kind, allowing them to enjoy the best of both worlds.
As humans are increasingly spending more time alone, these animals remind us of the many benefits of solitude and that living alone does not equal lonely – a thought perhaps worth considering for people spending Valentine's Day alone.
"Maybe by studying solitary species and how they succeed with this tactic… we can also better identify for human society what is good about being alone," says behavioural ecologist Carsten Schradin of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique in Strasbourg, France, and co-author of a 2024 review about solitary living in mammals.
Living in groups certainly has many benefits. Think of zebras that find safety in herds and lions that often hunt together to overcome prey larger and faster than themselves. Some birds collaborate to raise young and chimps that socialise by picking parasites off each other. But it also has downsides. In a group, "every shelter has to be shared, every bit of food has to be shared, every access to a mate has to be shared", says David Scheel, a behavioural ecologist at Alaska Pacific University. "Or if it's not shareable, only one of you can get it."
And while hunting together and sharing food makes sense for animals like lions that are often surrounded by abundant, large prey that can feed multiple individuals, this is less beneficial in situations where prey is smaller and less shareable. Nor is it as helpful when prey is scattered throughout the landscape where it takes more effort to find them.
This is probably why armadillos and anteaters forage alone for few-and-far-between insects, and why tigers – which roam far and wide to find relatively scarce prey – hunt by themselves, helping them to sneak up on their prey more easily. To further reduce competition, tigers and some other solitary hunters form small territories that they defend from other predators.
For blind mole rats, solitude means not needing to constantly compete for tunnel space, which takes a lot of energy to dig. Solitary animals may also face less competition for mates and a reduced risk of contracting diseases and parasites. Meanwhile, young-raising females can invest all their energy into caring for their own offspring without having to tend to their neighbours' young, like some more social species do. For other creatures, like sloths, their camouflage may only work if they're not in large groups.
"If you're solitary-living, you're less conspicuous," says Lindelani Mayuka, a zoologist from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and co-author of the review with Schradin.
Living alone does create other challenges – such as missing out on the benefit of huddling together to stay warm. But some animals like the bush Karoo rat of southern Africa get around this by building big stick lodges to protect themselves from temperature swings as well as predators, Mayuka says.
For highly social animals, being alone can be stressful – often leading to poor health and anxiety – but solitary animals do just fine. In fact, Middle East blind mole rats become stressed and anxious when they're placed next to one another, even if there's a barrier between them, with smaller, more submissive individuals suffering the most.
"They can die from the stress that they have," says Tali Kimchi, a behavioural neuroscientist at the Weizmann Institute in Israel who studies the blind mole rats in her laboratory. Like all mammals, blind mole rat mothers tend to their offspring, but mums eventually become hostile, forcing their young to dig away from her tunnel. "It sounds funny, but that's the survival of these creatures," she says.
Not all solitary species actively repel each other. Many of them are drawn together by shared resources and have surprisingly rich social lives, tolerating each other and even cooperating when it makes sense. For example, bush Karoo rats that live close to related individuals have frequent, amicable interactions with one another – sharing foraging grounds with related females and sometimes even stick lodges at the end of the breeding season when there’s a great demand for stock lodges.
"Just because some animals are solitary living does not mean that they do not have social interactions," Mayuka says.
Even some octopuses – a group once considered so solitary it was a running joke that they'd only meet to mate or eat each other – sometimes aggregate, Scheel says. At one site in Jervis Bay in eastern Australia, individuals of a species called the gloomy octopus are drawn together by the availability of shelter. This probably started when one octopus piled up discarded shells after eating and these eventually stabilised enough of the sediment that another octopus could build its burrow inside. This new resident then created its own pile of discarded shells – until as many as 16 octopuses gathered on one spot, says Scheel, who has been studying the site with his colleagues.
In this "octopus city", individuals find themselves in a much more crowded situation than they are used to and exhibit curious behaviours to cope with others of their kind.
Males sometimes try to coerce females into staying nearby and chase other males – occasionally crawling into each other's dens, wrestling with and evicting them. Sometimes when evicted males come back to their den, "the evicting male may return and repeat the eviction", Scheel says. And as they clean out their dens, the octopuses often push debris onto their neighbours' side. Sometimes, they hold the debris and use their funnels to blast it at one another, says Scheel, who documented some of these interactions in a 2022 paper.
Neither aggressive nor cooperative, some scientists call these behaviours "jostling", says Scheel, who is still working out the purpose of these interactions. "Here we've plopped a solitary animal into a complex social situation, and all they're doing is jostling, and they seem totally healthy. That suggests they're either less solitary than we thought, or the stresses of being [social] are not that severe [for them]."
These sophisticated social interactions underscore the intelligence of solitary creatures. Similarly, researchers have seen some solitary reptiles closely watching other individuals and using that information to solve problems – an ability once thought to be unique to humans, says behavioural scientist Anna Wilkinson of the University of Lincoln in the UK. "Animals who maybe wouldn't naturally form complex groups can actually have really quite sophisticated aspects of social learning," she says.
In experiments with red-footed tortoises, which forage by themselves but might encounter one another under fruiting trees, for example, Wilkinson presented them with a V-shaped, transparent fence with food on the inside. No animal could reach the food until Wilkinson and her colleagues trained one of them how to do it. Upon seeing their fellow reptile reach the food, the other tortoises immediately followed suit. It's especially remarkable to see that reptiles have the ability to learn from other individuals by imitation, considering that many of them have evolved to hatch from eggs without a parent around to teach them skills.
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Evidence like this is causing scientists to see solitary living not as a fixed, uniform category, but rather as a continuum: from animals like the (arguably) antisocial blind mole rat to species that live largely alone but learn from and cooperate with one another. Some species even blend solitary and more social lifestyles, like communally living striped mice that go solo once they start breeding, or raccoon-like coatis, whose males are solitary and females hunt in bands.
Studying solitary animals and their social networks can help conservationists better protect and preserve their populations from human threats. Mayuka and Schradin have already started an effort to build a community of scientists to further decipher the lives, benefits, needs and challenges of solitary animals. "Being solitary is not simple and primitive," Schradin says. "It can be quite complex and provide challenges… which are solved in different ways by different species."
Understanding the full breadth of solitary living could even be helpful for people. Kimchi is studying changes in the brains of blind mole rats as they switch between introverted and more social mating and pup-raising stages. Perhaps such research can help scientists understand how people with neurological or psychiatric conditions become socially withdrawn, she says.
But solitary animals can also help us consider that being alone doesn't necessarily have to be problematic, even if it has been somewhat stigmatised in our extrovert-driven society, says Schradin. "Social" solitary animals construct meaningful social networks around them – and people living by themselves can, and do, too. "Being alone," Schradin says, "can also be the best choice for many humans."
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Rare British daffodils may be hiding in plain sight in gardens and parks and experts want to track them down.
They have drawn up a wanted list of long-lost varieties linked to local places, such as the vibrant "bonfire yellow" daffodil associated with bonfire nights in Sussex.
Rare varieties could be lost if they're not found and cared for, said Gwen Hines of the plant conservation charity, Plant Heritage.
"There's the joy that they bring to all of us in the springtime ... and also, in the future, they might be important for medicines for science," she said.
Believed to have been brought to Britain by the Romans, daffodils are a source of galantamine, a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
The much-loved plants have been bred for centuries and now come in a dazzling array of about 30,000 different shapes, sizes and colours.
Most daffodils are yellow but some are white, orange and salmon-pink.
The gardening charity, the RHS, is asking for help in finding rare and missing daffodils that are feared lost to history and science.
The Sussex Bonfire
The Sussex bonfire is named after the famous bonfire night in the Sussex county town of Lewes.
The daffodil is one of many bred by the local plant breeder, Noel Burr, but has not been seen for at least 20 years.
It is known for its very bright orange-yellow flower.
Sussex horticulturist Roger Parsons hopes it is still growing in a garden somewhere.
"Perhaps someone planted it in their garden and it still exists but our challenge is to find that person," he said.
"Finding this and other daffodils thought to be lost helps maintain those genes for future plant breeding."
The Mrs R O Backhouse daffodil
This daffodil is one of many bred by the plantswoman Sarah Backhouse. It was named for her by her husband after her death in 1921.
The daffodil is unusual in being one of the first daffodils with a pinkish colour. It has a salmon-pink trumpet surrounded by ivory flowers.
The daffodil is known to exist in national collections but its actual whereabouts are unknown.
The Mrs William Copeland daffodil
Daffodils were fashionable in late Victorian and Edwardian times, bred into different shapes and forms.
William Fowler Copeland (1872 to 1953) is a particularly well-known daffodil breeder from this time.
He named this white, double-flowered daffodil after his wife.
The RHS is also calling on the public to record where and when they see daffodils appearing this spring.
RHS scientist Dr Kálmán Könyves has spent 15 years studying "these remarkably fascinating plants".
He said mapping which daffodils grow where will help us find out how the plants are responding to the changing climate.
"With this we can get some data on whether the flowering time changes as our climate changes," he said.
Moments in human history are etched into the Earth. Now researchers are piecing together evidence of our impact on the planet – through the marks we've left on nature.
The microbes living in this French harbour have never recovered from World War Two. Between 2012 and 2017, Raffaele Siano pulled sediment cores from the seabed at Brest harbour, wondering what he was going to find. When he and his colleagues at the French Institute for Ocean Science (Ifremer), analysed the fragments of DNA captured in those cores – they discovered something remarkable.
The oldest, deepest layers of sediment – dating to before 1941 – had traces of plankton called dinoflagellates that were strikingly different to the genetic traces of plankton left in the shallower, more recent layers. "There was a group, an order of these dinoflagellates, that was very abundant before World War Two – and after World War Two it almost disappeared," says Siano. He and his colleagues published a study detailing their findings in 2021.
Siano mentions that Brest harbour had been bombed during the war. Then, in 1947, a Norwegian cargo ship exploded in the Bay of Brest. The disaster killed 22 people and spread ammonium nitrate, a toxic chemical used to make fertiliser and explosives, into the sea. Even younger sediment in the 1980s and 1990s showed further changes in the plankton community in the harbour. "We correlated this from another type of pollution coming from intensive agricultural activities," says Siano.
Nature has a way of remembering things. Echoes of certain human activities, especially highly-polluting ones, sometimes show up in tree rings, coastal sediments and ecosystems. Arguably, these traces are hints of the Anthropocene, a proposed geological epoch in which humanity is said to have irrevocably, and drastically, altered Earth. Human history, it turns out, is written into the very fabric of our planet – and the life that co-exists here with us.
Siano and his colleagues are predominantly ecologists but they also work with historians. "The land changed because of human impact and also because of historical events," Siano says. When the team analysed the sediment cores from Brest, they also detected a gradual rise in heavy metal pollution as time passed. Younger layers of sediment contained higher volumes of mercury, copper, lead and zinc, for example.
The report notes there were similar levels of some of these metals – especially lead and chromium – in Pearl Harbour, a major US naval base in Hawaii that was heavily bombed by Japanese warplanes in 1941. However, Siano adds that he can't be sure whether these metals came directly from the bombs themselves. Either way, there is a signal in both Brest and Pearl Harbour of a calamitous, and polluting, moment in human history.
Other researchers have also scoured the planet in search of geological records of anthropogenic pollution. In China, soil sediments reveal a sharp increase in metal contamination since 1950 – which correlates with a rise in air pollution there during the second half of the 20th Century. A separate study explores how the emergence of industries such as shipbuilding may be linked with a higher incidence of heavy metal deposits in tree rings from certain parts of China.
Even Roman metallurgy, from many centuries ago, has left its mark. One 2022 study found a noticeable rise in lead contamination in ice, sediment and peat cores from Europe, correlated with the development of Roman industry. It is sometimes difficult to be sure which specific events caused spikes in lead contamination, however, note the authors.
Jean-Luc Loizeau at the University of Geneva has studied the sediment of Lake Geneva, particularly the material found in a small area of the lake near to a wastewater treatment plant. He says the sediment there contains many traces of human activities. Crucially, the way water moves around in this part of the lake has helped to preserve such clues.
"It accumulates because there is a kind of gyre that keeps the sediment within the bay," he says, referring to Vidy Bay, on the northern shores of the lake. In a 2017 paper, he and colleagues describe the heavy metal pollution that became evident here in sediment layers dating to the 1930s. Among the specific examples he gives is a spike in mercury contamination during the 1970s.
"We know there was an accident in one of these industries," explains Loizeau. "There was some spilling of mercury because there was a break in a tank and we really find this peak in the sediment." Plus, traces of elements such as barium in the cores could be linked to the rise of the automobile, adds Loizeau – because car brakes often contain barium.
Besides metals, radioactive materials have also found applications in various industries. In Switzerland, for instance, radium was long used to make glow-in-the-dark details on watch faces. Remnants of radium from the watchmaking industry have turned up in landfill sites and buildings in the country.
And scattered around the globe are pieces of evidence that reveal the grim legacy left by nuclear weapons during the 20th Century. Take the giant craters in the Nevada desert made by huge weapons tests, for example. But some contamination caused by nuclear detonations is much more subtle.
In 2019, researchers revealed that some of the grains of sand on beaches near the Japanese city of Hiroshima are in fact particles of debris created when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city on 6 August 1945, towards the end of World War Two. "The chemical composition of the melt debris provides clues to their origin, particularly with regard to city building materials," the authors wrote. In other words, the bomb turned buildings into dust, heat from the explosion reshaped that dust, and the blast ultimately spread this material across the nearby landscape – marking it forever.
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Remnants of nuclear explosions are not confined to the outdoors. They may be in your attic, too. Attic dust often lies undisturbed for decades – unlike urban soil, which is more likely to be disturbed – so traces of contaminants may remain.
A study published in 2003 reports the results of a survey of 201 homes in the US state of New Jersey. Among the traces the researchers found there were lead concentrations that roughly correlated with the prevalence of lead in air pollution during the 20th Century. But they also found small amounts of Caesium-137, a radioactive isotope. This was more common the older the property was and could perhaps be explained, the researchers suggest, by the frequency of above ground nuclear weapons tests in the US – especially during the 1950s and 1960s.
Siano and his colleagues are now looking further afield in their search for clues of human history embedded in nature. The team has collected more than 120 sediment cores from nine different countries around Europe, with the hope of finding further correlations between historical events and trace DNA or metal contamination left in those cores.
"We can look for the impacts of the Vesuvius volcano [eruption] in Naples," says Siano, noting that the volcano last erupted in 1944. And here, as in other locations, the team may also detect signs of radioactive material ejected during the Chernobyl disaster – contamination from the accident having spread to over 40% of Europe.
And in yet more places, says Siano, evidence of everything from oil spills to the development of oyster farms may have been locked away in the sediment. "We have all the material to answer these questions," he says.
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Scientists and industry are finding unusual new uses for brewers' spent grain – the beer industry's largest waste product.
Ponder the idea of a beer well-brewed and enthusiastic drinkers at least are likely to imagine a pint glass filled to the brim with golden nectar.
What they probably won't picture is the mountains of wet sticky shavings that pile up as the largest waste material of brewing beer.
This is what's known as brewers' spent grain, and there is an awful lot of it. Around 200g (7oz) is produced for every litre of beer brewed. Globally some 37 million tonnes is produced each year – equivalent to the weight of around 340 double-decker buses per hour. And as we drink more beer – sales are expected to rise by a third in the next seven years – only more and more will be churned out.
Most brewers' spent grain, around 70% of it, is currently repurposed as cattle feed, while 10% is used to make biogas. Around a fifth is simply sent straight to landfill – at an additional cost to breweries – where it rots and releases methane into the atmosphere.
But inside this beer by-product there are a mountain of useful chemicals to tap, including lots of protein. Researchers and companies are now beginning to explore how these could be put to better use.
Swiss start-up Upgrain is one of these. In 2024, it launched a processing system to turn brewers' spent grain into protein and fibre, passed as fit for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration in the US and the European Food Safety Authority (brewers' spent grain is, after all, still just grain). The system comes ready for installation on brewery premises: shipping container-sized for micro-breweries and a much larger unit for the likes of Brauerei Locher, Switzerland's second biggest brewer, which opened in September 2024 and is now building Europe's largest onsite facility.
William Beiskjaer, Upgrain's co-founder, argues brewers spent grain is a "kind of hidden treasure in terms of sustainable and healthy nutrition". He says it could help to tackle rising global demand for protein. "There's more and more demand for our foods to be enhanced, especially to get more protein and fibre in our diets," he says.
Upgrain and other producers such as Agrain in Denmark and BiaSol in Ireland are already selling brewers' spent grain protein and fibre extract to food manufacturers for inclusion in baked goods, pizzas, granola and even crisps. It's also being used in plant-based meat alternatives, such as those launched last year by the Swiss supermarket chain Migros, and in a coffee created by Singapore-based company Prefer.
Huge brewers such as the Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev and Chicago-based Molson Coors have even created their own vegan barley milk spin-offs made from spent grain. Molson Coors claims its Golden Wing product has a "rich and creamy taste" and 25% less sugar than most oat milks.
"This is an exciting new idea," says Beiskjaer. "If you'd have said to me four years ago that brewers' spent grain would be a [human] food source, I'd have asked what you were talking about. But we're on the way to seeing upcycled BSG as a staple in the food industry."
Beiskjaer says he can see why some people may be squeamish about the notion of "upcycled food". "But we have to get across the idea that brewers' spent grain is not a waste product," he says. "It's being saved from being a waste product."
Making use of this waste product to make plant-based protein could in theory also free up the small amounts of arable farmland used to grow wheat, soy and pea for human protein – or, if it replaced meat, a far larger amount of land. Äio, a biotech start-up based in Tallin, Estonia is using brewers' spent grain and other food and agricultural waste products to develop an alternative to palm oil, a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia and other countries. To do this Äio grows fatty acid-making microorganisms and applies these to a fermentation process not dissimilar to that used in brewing beer.
There are some caveats to using brewers' spent grain in food, however. Since it is loaded with moisture and so spoils quickly, using it close to where it is produced is essential. This is one reason why a good proportion ends up in landfill: there's not enough demand from local farmers to meet supply. That dampness risks mould and microbial infection. In fact, says Beiskjaer, "it becomes the perfect environment for bacteria unless it's quickly preserved". Techniques for making preservation easier are now being explored.
But nutrition isn't the only area where spent grain could make an impact.
Brett Cotten concedes that early efforts by his young London-based company, Arda Biomaterials, to create leather-alternatives from brewers' spent grain resulted in something more akin to a flapjack.
But the start-up has since successfully used supramolecular chemistry to make several proteins from brewers' spent grain that mimic the animal proteins in leather, resulting in a strong and supple alternative. The colour reflects the spent grain used, he says. "Guinness and stouts make for a naturally black material, IPAs and lagers more mid-browns."
Cotten argues that to date many leather alternatives have either not been as environmentally sound as promised or are not scalable enough to replace animal leather. In contrast, he says, Arda's first test material was made in a home lab using standard kitchen equipment, using the abundant feedstock that is brewers' spent grain.
So far staff at the company and a local brewery have wear-trialled this new material with bags and cardholders. Current production is at lab scale, but a pilot facility set to open in London in 2025 will allow it to produce up to 1,500 sq m (16,000 sq ft) a year, the company says.
Arda's own estimates suggest that, were a facility tied to a single major brewing plant – the likes of one run by Heineken or InBev – all of the spent grain being produced by the plant could make for 5-10 million sq m (54,000-108 sq ft) of its mid-range faux-leather, suitable for use in fashion and the automotive upholstery industries. Tied to, say, three major brewing facilities, it could undercut the cost of both real and plastics-based synthetic leathers, it argues. Cotten estimates that just 10% of global brewers' spent grain output would satisfy the global demand for leather.
"Of course, the look and feel [of our material] is important, but so is scalability," says Cotten. "The fashion industry just wants a new option [to animal or current bioleathers]. And while it's often happy to work with a batch of proof-of-concept material for a small collection, you have to be able to produce at scale to be of real interest."
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That comes with a cost, however. Processing brewers' spent grain typically involves mechanical methods – using high pressure and temperature and spinning the grain in a centrifuge – or the use of strong acids and alkalis, all of which are energy-intensive and can raise their own environmental questions. There is therefore an ongoing exploration of cheaper and more sophisticated methods to extract protein from spent grain, such as the use of bacteria and fungal enzymes to break down chemical bonds, for example.
Last year, a team in Singapore, funded by Heineken Asia, unveiled the use of fermentation to break down the chemical bonds in spent grain, which also resulted in the extracted protein – for use in foodstuffs – being richer in nutrients and fatty acids. In another step that might be widely applied, the researchers heated the spent grain using microwaves and found they could extract over 80% of its available protein content this way, the most harvested to date.
"Using microwaves is a difficult challenge, in their energy requirements, efficiency and scalability," says William Chen, professor of food science and technology at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. "But it's certainly possible to scale up [a microwave approach], or to find other ways of applying heat, through vibration, for example."
The overall objective is to move towards an "ever more functional, higher value products", he says. "And we should be doing the same with [other protein-rich waste products such as] soybean residue, for example," he adds.
Arda's experiments may prove to be just the first steps in exploring the potential of spent grain beyond the edible. Antioxidant-rich brewers' spent grain could provide an eco-friendly alternative to the chemicals used in cosmetics, for instance, or used to replace the virgin fibres used in paper making.
Rosa Arrigo, associate professor in inorganic chemistry at the University of Salford in the UK, says brewers' spent grain has a "niche composition that's rich in chemicals [that] certainly have potential to [in time] be used to produce new materials". Work at Salford to extract various organic compounds from brewers' spent grain is ongoing and Arrigo envisages these being used to make robust composite materials that could, for example, be bindable to the likes of concrete to make it stronger, more lightweight and more sustainable.
"Certainly there's a whole other layer to what brewers' spent grain could bring beyond protein extraction for food," says Arrigo. "Exactly what that is what we're now starting to examine." Doing this, though, could be expensive and complex, she adds. "So we need further investigation to understand really what we have here, and what's actually needed by industry: what's good enough in terms of its quality but also economically feasible."
The development of one such material is already underway: a group of researchers coordinated by University of Perugia, Italy, is currently working on a bioplastic derived from brewers' spent grain.
Currently, spent grain usually needs to be dried before it can be further processed, which is both time and energy consuming. But the Perugia team has developed a means of processing it while wet, critical to developing a bioplastic that could improve on the mechanical properties of those already available. The so-called Polymeer project hopes to have its first product – perhaps a biodegradable film wrap that could be used in packaging and agriculture – within four years.
"I think the true potential of brewers' spent grain has been overlooked, because even when the protein is removed there's still a lot of [useful] waste, the likes of lignin and cellulose, that has the potential to be a raw material [for other purposes]," says Assunta Marrocchi associate professor in biotechnology at the University of Perugia and Polymeer's project coordinator. "And the extraction of its additional components seems to be possible by relatively easy, low energy methods."
But what really matters here she adds, is that "because almost everyone drinks beer, there's just so much of it to work with. It really is an incredible feedstock".
So, the next time you're in the pub, perhaps you'll find yourself considering how the undertaking that put the beer in your glass might just prove an unexpected game-changer to both our diets and the materials we use.
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The government is committing billions of pounds to an "unproven" green technology for reducing planet-warming gases without considering the impact on consumers' bills, MPs have warned.
Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) facilities prevent carbon dioxide, produced by industry, being released into the atmosphere by capturing and storing it underground.
In October, the government pledged nearly £22bn for CCUS facilities and three quarters of the money will be raised from consumer bills.
But on Friday, the House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee raised serious concerns that the government had not properly assessed the financial impact on households and businesses.
"It is an unproven technology, certainly in this country. And we are concerned this policy is going to have a very significant effect on consumers' and industry's electricity bills," said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, a cross-party group of MPs which scrutinises public spending.
Speaking to the BBC Today programme on Friday, Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy, acknowledged the technology was novel but said it was vital for tackling climate change.
”CCS is an innovative technology in terms of being used at scale, but all the expert advice - UK Climate Change Committee and others - say if we don't do this we are never going to cut global emissions,” he said.
He added he was “100% committed” to the government's climate goals.
The UK has a target to reach "net zero" - meaning no longer adding to the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, by 2050. As the country switches to renewable energy and away from fossil fuels for heating homes and running cars, greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, also known as CO2, will fall.
But a small amount of gas will still need to be used to maintain electricity supply and there are some industries such as cement where there are few green alternatives. Carbon capture could prevent the CO2 produced by these processes from entering the atmosphere - and the government has bet achieving its climate goals on it.
Both the UK's independent climate watchdog and the UN's climate science body, the IPCC, agree that CCUS will be needed if countries want to reach net zero and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
By 2050, the government wants carbon capture and storage to prevent the emitting of 50 million tonnes of CO2 - more than 10% of what the country currently releases - and has committed £21.7bn to achieving this goal.
The funding, announced in October, will go towards clusters of carbon capture projects in Merseyside and Teesside, which it said would create thousands of jobs and attract private investment.
Dr Stuart Jenkins, research fellow at the University of Oxford, pushed back on the committee's assessment of the technology.
"I really don't like the phrase "unproven" technology, it is not representative of the status of the technology as an engineering problem," he said.
Although there are no commercial CCUS sites in the UK, there are 45 commercial facilities already operating globally capturing around 50 million tonnes of CO2, and there are more than 700 being proposed or developed, according to the International Energy Agency.
But Dr Jenkins did agree with the Public Accounts Committee that there were questions about whether the government's current funding model was sustainable.
The committee have recommended that the full financial impact of the programme on consumers be properly assessed, taking account of cost-of-living pressures.
The committee did recognise the importance of early government support for novel technologies like CCUS to give confidence to the industry.
But it added it "was surprised" to discover that the government had signed two contracts with CCUS developers last year and not guaranteed that if the projects were successful that the government - and the public - would receive profits or benefits such as lower energy bills.
"If you were a venture capitalist investing this sort of sum of money, which is effectively what the taxpayers are doing here, you would expect to have a big equity stake in this whole thing," said Sir Clifton-Brown.
His committee recommended that any future contracts be changed to include profit-sharing mechanisms.
The government said that it expected the £21.7bn funding for CCUS to unlock £8bn in private sector investment over the next 25 years.
Mirte Boot, co-founder of Carbon Balance Initiative and research associate at University of Oxford, said her team's research suggests a better long-term model for financing could be introducing a carbon storage mandate - placing a legal obligation on fossil fuel producers to store a share of the CO2 they produce, or face a financial penalty.
"We argue that carbon storage mandates on fossil fuel producers are fair whilst also providing the kind of investment certainty that companies need," she said.
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Dutch linguist Leonie Cornips has become fascinated with how cows communicate. But can this really be called 'language'?
Leonie Cornips was long overdue for her coffee break. The chilly autumn air made a hot drink feel enticing. But Cornips was busy. She was a couple of hours into her work with a small herd of dairy cows. If she left now, she would lose something that would take time to recover. Cornips and the herd had entered a delicate, shared space she calls "the rhythm of the cow".
Cornips is a sociolinguist at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The scholars who pass through the institute's ornate doorway usually specialise in the study of Dutch language and culture. The soft-spoken researcher earned her academic laurels in the 1990s, and she still studies variations in syntax between different dialects in the Netherlands. But in addition to this, Cornips' work has more recently taken what professionals in the field call "the animal turn".
For years, Cornips has spent her summer holidays on a farm. She was struck from the start by the different personalities of individual cows. She read an essay by a philosopher that asked why linguists never study animals. It affected her deeply. Cornips felt that cows had the intelligence and social habits to be good research subjects for a linguist. As a Dutch person, she also knew they were cultural icons in a nation with a passion for cheese. So she turned her professional skills to cows.
Humans have assumed for centuries that the ability to use language is a measure of our superiority. There is even an academic term for it: "logocentrism", meaning those who use words (from the Greek logos, meaning "word" or "reason") occupy a privileged position. Language, say many linguists, is what makes us human. Animals may grunt, bark or chirp, but they do not possess anything that counts as language.
Cornips is using her work with dairy cows to push back on this idea. It extends half a century of effort that began with Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees and Roger Payne's recording of humpback whales in the 1960s in an effort to show that humans may not be as linguistically unique as we had assumed.
Many of Cornips' colleagues were sceptical when she suggested they apply the framework of linguistics to animals.
"The problem is people have no clear idea about language," she says. "When they talk about language, they always refer to what comes out of the mouth." But after spending six years thoroughly immersed in the lives of cows, Cornips thinks that language is better understood as "distributed" between the mouth, body and surroundings, making it embodied, multi-modal and sensory. "I'm eating with the cows, touching, kissing, walking, hugging," she says.
Most research on cow language tend to focus on sounds. A 2015 study in the Netherlands, for example, looked at the pitch of cow sounds to see if they correlated with behaviours and concluded this could be a way to determine their welfare. And a 2019 Australian study found cows not only have distinctive individual vocalisations, but maintain these distinctive calls across a variety of contexts.
Cornips and the farmers she recruits to assist her record the frequency, duration and intensity of the sounds cows make. But she also focusses on the other ways meaning is expressed among bovines. Her methods are often ethnographic, a way of studying cultures that relies strongly on observation by the researcher. Cornips carefully observes cow behaviours and interactions alongside sound to determine how they communicate. "I notice with cows that the body is an instrument to get to know the other," she says. Recognising this leads Cornips to talk less of "language" and more widely of "languaging practices".
Cows, for example, have an elaborate greeting ritual that Cornips must follow to successfully slip into the rhythm of the herd, she says. This became obvious with Piet, a young male Fleckvieh from an intensively managed indoor facility who Cornips brought to join five other cows in an outdoor pasture.
"I was always so happy to see him, that when I got into his meadow, I walked straight towards him and tried to touch him immediately," Cornips says. When she did so, Piet would back away.
Cornips gradually came to understand the need to respect Piet's personal space, as she might with a fellow human. She learned to keep her arms by her sides and only use eye contact intermittently, taking turns with Piet to look at each other and then look away. "It took me quite a while," she says. "I was very stupid. They are teaching me how to connect to them." Cornips realised she had to learn an etiquette. Without patience and attention, she says, you would never see it.
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Patience also turns out to be crucial when cows communicate with each other. When a mother calls her calf, it sometimes takes 60 seconds for the calf to respond. The space between is filled with bodily gestures. Studies from Austria show that ear positioning and neck-stretching are integral to cow language. Humans think of the ability to wiggle our ears as a party trick. For a cow, it appears to be fundamental to communication. The first sentence in a conversation with a cow is likely to involve movement of the ears and a look.
Cows are not the only animals being studied for their complex modes of communication. Michelle Fournet, an assistant professor specialising in marine acoustic ecology at the University of New Hampshire in the US, has learned it is unhelpful to impose human expectations on species like whales and seals.
Animals use sound completely differently from how humans use it, she says. "If we are to do a good job at understanding how animals are communicating and why they are communicating, it behoves us to adopt their perspective."
Fournet stops short of using the word "language" to describe the information transfer taking place between non-humans. But she has gained a deep appreciation for the subtleties of animal communication. Their system is not less than ours, Fournet says, but other. We do them a disservice by searching for similarities.
One difference between humans and many animals is their use of the environment. Cornips has found cow communication leans on its surroundings more than ours. She observed one herd where individuals used their bodies to bang on an iron fence to communicate with the rest of the herd at feeding time, which she views as a type of language. She noticed cows responding to her differently depending on whether she entered a barn with solid walls or open sides: since cows on different farms are surrounded by different physical features, this offers distinctive opportunities for linguistic expression. Cows, she argues, develop diverse languaging practices – almost like dialects – where meaning depends on the shape of their surroundings.
Like other domestic animals, cows face the additional challenge of interspecies communication with humans. "Most farmers are not sensitive to the rhythm of the cow," says Cornips. "The cows must obey the rhythm of the farmer." Dairy herds are constantly shunted between feeding, milking and grazing grounds. If a cow does not learn the daily routine or fails to be productive, it goes to the slaughterhouse. She is shocked by how readily people assume cows are stupid.
"In becoming a dairy cow," she says, "they must have very rich communicative skills because they have to understand what the farmer wants them to do… which is not easy."
Cornips has analysed recordings to show that cows will simplify their vocalisation once a farmer recognises their need. Rather than having their intelligence bred out of them to be more compliant, Cornips thinks domestic animals are forced to develop a fuller communication repertoire than wild animals.
If dairy cows have complex linguistic practices, it's tempting to ask how they stack up against the other great communicators in the animal kingdom. How would they compare, for example, to humpback whales? Cornips admires the complex vocalisations found in whale song. Humpbacks are among the cetaceans known to develop different dialects in different regions. They also communicate over vast distances. (Read more about the sophisticated structures similar to those found in human language which researchers are uncovering in whale communication).
But Cornips points out that whales lack some of the capacities of cows. A whale's ears are not as moveable as a cow's, she says. They also lack hooves. "Whales cannot express themselves bodily very much," Cornips says. "In that way they may be [less complex] than cows."
Fournet says she does not believe it makes sense to rank animal communication by its complexity. "There isn't an answer to what you are looking for," she told me when I asked her to compare whales to cows.
Many traditional linguists are still hesitant to ascribe language to non-humans. Leora Bar-el, a linguistics professor at the University of Montana in the US, is not hostile to the idea of animal language but thinks it worth asking what we gain and what we lose by expanding the definition of language to include cows.
"We may lose the fact there is something unique about human language," she says. For example, human language permits incredible creativity. Think of the works of Shakespeare. It can also refer to distant events and even reflect back on itself, as language does when it provides a definition.
But Eva Meijer, author of the essay that first inspired Cornips and the 2018 book Animal Languages, argues such claims can be self-fulfilling. "What we see as language has been developed by excluding the language of other animals," she says. In fact, we define language in a way that makes it easy to deny it to others. Meijer points out the long history of human oppression associated with denying other people their language. She believes that recognising language in animals provides new tools for understanding them and perhaps even for learning how to inhabit the planet more sustainably.
Cornips, though, does not put an animal rights agenda at the centre of her work. She is focused primarily on expanding the field of linguistics. But the implications are hard to ignore. Cows may have more complex social lives than we thought. Her research reveals numerous additional avenues for exploration. How much does language contribute to distinctive bovine communities and cultures? What sort of planning can cows do with each other? Can they use language to pass on knowledge between generations?
The answers to these questions could change how we regard the lives of many animals. When 96% of the weight of mammals on earth is made up of humans and domesticated livestock, understanding better what cattle, sheep and chickens are communicating could lead to improved relationships with them, as well as better lives for animals.
Cornips knows things are unlikely to change fast. Recently, though, she has noticed the idea that animals have language has become more common in academic journals.
She hopes linguistics can be a tool for unlocking different attitudes. "My most important goal," she says, "is to show others that you can look with different eyes at a domestic animal."
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Last month was the world's warmest January on record raising further questions about the pace of climate change, scientists say.
January 2025 had been expected to be slightly cooler than January 2024 because of a shift away from a natural weather pattern in the Pacific known as El Niño.
But instead, last month broke the January 2024 record by nearly 0.1C, according to the European Copernicus climate service.
The world's warming is due to emissions of planet-heating gases from human activities - mainly the burning of fossil fuels - but scientists say they cannot fully explain why last month was particularly hot.
It continues a series of surprisingly large temperature records since mid-2023, with temperatures around 0.2C above what had been expected.
"The basic reason we're having records being broken, and we've had this decades-long warming trend, is because we're increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told BBC News.
"The specifics of exactly why 2023, and 2024, and [the start of] 2025, were so warm, there are other elements involved there. We're trying to pin those down."
January 2025 ended up 1.75C warmer than January temperatures of the late 19th Century, before humans started significantly warming the climate.
Early last year, global temperatures were being boosted by the natural El Niño weather pattern, where unusually warm surface waters spread across the eastern tropical Pacific. This releases extra heat into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures.
This year, La Niña conditions are developing instead, according to US science group Noaa, which should have the opposite effect.
While La Niña is currently weak - and sometimes takes a couple of months to have its full effect on temperatures – it was expected to lead to a cooler January.
"If you'd asked me a few months ago what January 2025 would look like relative to January 2024, my best shot would have been it would be cooler," Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal predictions at the UK Met Office, said.
"We now know it isn't, and we don't really know why that is."
A number of theories have been put forward for why the last couple of years have been warmer than anticipated.
One idea involves a prolonged response of the oceans to the 2023-24 El Niño.
While it was not especially strong, it followed an unusually lengthy La Niña phase from 2020-23.
The El Niño event might therefore have "lifted the lid" on warming, allowing ocean heat that had been accumulating to escape into the atmosphere.
But it's unclear how this would still be directly affecting global temperatures nearly a year after El Niño ended.
"Based on historical data, that effect is likely to have waned by now, so I think if the current record continues, that explanation becomes less and less likely," says Prof Scaife.
The fact that sea temperatures in other regions of the world remain particularly warm could suggest "that the behaviour of the ocean is changing", according to Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus.
"We're really looking to see how the ocean temperatures evolve because they have a direct influence on air temperatures."
Another prominent theory is a reduction in the number of small particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols.
These tiny particles have historically masked some of the long-term warming from greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane by helping to form bright clouds and reflecting some of the Sun's energy back into space.
Aerosol numbers have been falling recently, thanks to reductions in tiny particles from shipping and Chinese industry, for example, aimed at cleaning the air that people breathe.
But it means they haven't had as large a cooling effect to offset the continued warming caused by greenhouse gases.
And this cooling effect of aerosols has been underestimated by the UN, argues James Hansen, the scientist who made one of the first high-profile warnings on climate change to the US Senate in 1988.
Most scientists aren't yet convinced that this is the case. But, if true, it could mean there is greater climate change in store than previously assumed.
The "nightmare scenario", says Prof Scaife, would be an extra cloud feedback, where a warming ocean could cause low-level reflective clouds to dissipate, in turn warming the planet further.
This theory is also very uncertain. But the months ahead should help to shed some light on whether the "extra" warmth over the past couple of years is a blip, or marks an acceleration in warming beyond what scientists had anticipated.
Currently, most researchers still expect 2025 will end up slightly cooler than 2023 and 2024 – but the recent warmth means they can't be sure.
What they do know, however, is that further records will follow sooner or later as humanity continues to heat up the planet.
"In time, 2025 is likely to be one of the cooler years that we experience," Dr Burgess said.
"Unless we turn off that tap to [greenhouse gas] emissions, then global temperatures will continue to rise."
Graphics by Erwan Rivault
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