Janine Roebuck, from London, says she no longer considers herself deaf after double cochlear implants restored hearing An opera singer who hid her deafness for more than 30 years has described “life-changing” surgery that has the potential to become the norm for thousands of NHS patients. Janine Roebuck, 72, from London, had double cochlear implants fitted to restore her hearing, a method now being trialled nationwide to see whether it can transform the lives of thousands more people. Continue reading...

Plus: youngest players to score a trophy-clinching goal, an apology to Albert Kidd and keepers seeing red Mail us with your all of your questions and answers “Sheffield Wednesday finished their Championship season on zero points, accumulating 18 points throughout their 46-game season after being handed an 18-point deduction for severe financial mismanagement,” notes Michael Butler. “But has any team finished on zero points simply because they lost every league game?” There are many instances of teams finishing on zero points (with deductions), but one really has to delve deep to find those teams unfortunate enough to lose every single match in a full season. Even Fort William, famously branded as the “worst football team in Britain” after going 840 days and 73 matches without a win in 2019, managed to dig out a couple of draws in those seasons. Continue reading...

It’s an annoying choice: either lug around a heavy tome or try to remember when the paperback version is coming out Recently, readers have been all a-flutter over the publication of Patrick Radden Keefe’s richly reported new book, London Falling. Reviews of the celebrated writer’s exploration of the death of an English teenager embroiled in the murky worlds of crime and the ultra-rich have been rapturous. The podcast interviews are plentiful and images of the fresh hardback copy are popping up all over my Instagram. And about all of this I think: “Looks great, but I’ll wait for the paperback.” I’m a fairly typical reader and get through a decent number of books every year. I mainly read fiction and try to keep up with what’s going on in contemporary literature. But time and money aren’t plentiful; I’m a slow reader and a freelance journalist. Larry Ryan is a freelance writer and editor Continue reading...

If supporters want transparency, they won’t find it in the rubber-stamping of Steve Borthwick’s coaching team There has been a lot of fuss in recent days about French TV directors not giving rugby fans the full picture. In that particular department, sadly, there remains a runaway market leader. To say the Rugby Football Union’s public response to England’s disappointing Six Nations campaign has failed to supply all the relevant angles is an understatement. In an ideal world, there would have been a media conference with Bill Sweeney, the RFU’s chief executive, alongside Steve Borthwick, his head coach, presenting a united, purposeful front and outlining precisely why the status quo needs preserving despite England having racked up four championship defeats for the first time since 1976. Instead, there was only a “Don’t tell ‘em, Pike” statement on email best summarised in four words: “Nothing to see here.” Continue reading...

Taking on its US rival in Britain is expected to lead to ‘collateral damage’ for UK retailers “We’re here to shake up the UK e-commerce market,” says Matthew Nobbs, the UK boss of Joybuy which is spearheading a European charge by China’s version of Amazon. “I see our competitors as everyone,” he adds, reflecting the scale of ambition of the online retailer that sells home appliances, groceries, makeup and more. Continue reading...

Federations have concerns over men’s World Cup model FA works with Uefa to freeze ticket prices for Euro 2028 The Football Association and US Soccer Federation have joined forces to lobby Fifa to alter its proposed organisational model for the 2031 and 2035 Women’s World Cups. Both federations are understood to be seeking more local control after concerns that have arisen over the organisation of this summer’s men’s World Cup, particularly regarding the cost of tickets and financial disputes with some US state and city authorities. Continue reading...

A history of the social and cultural impact of DH Lawrence’s novel shows how it inspired comedy as well as controversy Not known for his humour, DH Lawrence thought of Lady Chatterley’s Lover as a serious novel about the sacred nature of sex. But some of the activity between Connie and the gamekeeper Mellors is funny, either unintentionally (as in the scene where they garland each other’s naked bodies with flowers) or with a playful recognition of carnal absurdity: his penis is “farcical” and intercourse involves a “ridiculous bouncing of buttocks”. More comic still was the fallout from the book: customs officers seizing banned copies, high court jinks, innumerable skits and cartoons. As Guy Cuthbertson shows in his entertaining book, “It’s not a comic novel as such, but one way or another, it created laughter.” On a steam railway in Devon, you can ride in a carriage called Lady Chatterley. Boots, blouses, thongs, earrings, pens, postcards and saris also bear her name and there have been endless jokey variations on the title: Lady Chatterley’s Pullover, Lady Chatterley’s Loofah, Lady Loverley’s Chatter and so on. Allusions to the novel turn up everywhere from lonely hearts ads to fancy dress parades. And as John Profumo and David Mellor discovered, if you were caught with your pants down in a sex scandal there’d be jokes about the new moral decrepitude that followed the unbanning of the book. Continue reading...

Butcher’s shops and dive bars sit side by side in a district where you can swap the touristy beer halls of the city centre for raw creative energy In the south-west of Munich, Schlachthofviertel is an area in flux; a jarring district that is home to a theatre, a techno club and a controversial active slaughterhouse. Continue reading...

Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot up. Recently, the biggest manufacturers of laptops and phones, including Microsoft, Samsung and Dell, started putting up prices and pulling cheaper models – which is going to make finding budget phones and laptops under £400 much harder. Continue reading...

From images exploring the depths of space and time to a series on life in war-torn Ukraine, this year’s photography festival celebrates 10 years uplifting new artists Continue reading...

Sophie Hyde’s semi-autobiographical tale about sexual identity and intergenerational dynamics falls flat, but is buoyed by Colman and Lithgow’s committed performances Sophie Hyde has directed an earnestly intended but very indulgent film, somewhere between autobiography and autofiction; it blandly congratulates itself on its sensitivity and cathartic honesty, but is without the spark of her 2019 quarterlifecrisis comedy Animals. When the teen female lead takes soulful photos on a hipstery disposable roll-film camera instead of on a smartphone like anyone else, it is frankly a little bit insufferable. Yet there are focused and committed performances from Olivia Colman and John Lithgow. Adelaide-based film-maker Hannah (Colman), based on Hyde, goes on a trip to Amsterdam with her smiley husband and non-binary child Frances, played by Hyde’s own child Aud Mason-Hyde; this is to visit Hannah’s charismatic, brilliant and impossibly life-affirming father, Jim (Lithgow), adorably calledJimpa. He is a man who came out as gay to his wife and daughters in the early 70s and left them to live in Amsterdam as a radical lecturer and campaigner on issues such as housing and HIV. Continue reading...

The Melbourne declaration aims to direct funding and power to those most overlooked and affected by injustice. But for many its promise is a distant one I first spoke to Shazia Khanum for a report I was writing on adolescent girls in informal jobs. The 16-year-old’s fingers moved swiftly as she talked, rolling bidis – tobacco in tendu leaves tied with string. She told me she rolls about 300 to 500 thin cigarettes daily, earning a little more than £1 on a good day (roughly 250 rupees for 1,000 bidis is the rate). In the cramped workshop where she works in rural Yarab Nagar, in India’s Karnataka state, dozens of other girls do the same job. There are no toilets or sanitary facilities. When asked how she manages her period, Khanum just pointed to a makeshift curtained space where she changes and reuses cloth rags. Continue reading...

Financial Stability Board report reveals tech, healthcare and services sectors as the biggest borrowers The private credit industry’s role in fuelling the AI boom could backfire, with a sharp correction leading to “sizeable” losses, the Financial Stability Board has warned. A new report into private credit by the global watchdog, which monitors financial authorities including central banks in 24 countries, found that the healthcare, services, and tech sectors have become the biggest borrowers of private credit. Continue reading...

Nigel Farage’s party sees local elections as showcase for a sleeker approach borrowing from an unlikely source Nigel Farage was midway through his walkabout of Waltham Abbey when a hunting horn loudly sounded on the Essex market town’s pedestrianised high street. “Oi oiii!” exclaimed the owner of Ouch Tattoos, Rob Chillingworth, putting down the instrument and reaching out a welcoming hand to the approaching Reform UK leader. For Farage, this was the latest stop in a midweek tour of half a dozen towns in Essex, where more than 1m county council votes are up for grabs. Barring breakthroughs in Wales and Scotland, going from having a single councillor here to taking power would be one of Reform’s biggest achievements in Thursday’s polls. Continue reading...

Using handmade needles and thread, Lucie Kamusekera has recorded the decades of conflict she has lived through in the Congo She could hear the sounds of artillery. “I have no idea how I am still alive,” says Lucie Kamusekera. When the city of Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, fell to a rebel offensive in early 2025, the 82-year-old artist was hiding at home. Kamusekera, 82, stitches scenes of contemporary Congolese history on to tobacco sacks Continue reading...

When I became pregnant, all I wanted was a healthy baby. Discovering I would be having a son gave me a new perspective on the narratives around masculinity At the 20-week ultrasound, because of the baby’s position, my partner and I didn’t get any proper pictures to take home. Instead, the sonographer printed us a shot of the genitals. So, there it was, in black and white: I was having a boy. Growing up, boys were a slightly alien concept. Our household was female-heavy – a mum, two sisters, a dad with no interest in conventional “boy stuff”. We did have two male cats, neutered, extremely fluffy and ironically named Mr White and Mr Orange by my dad (“Reservoir Cats”). Continue reading...

Under new guidelines caning will only be used in schools for male students aged nine and above Male school students who bully others, including through cyberbullying, will face caning as a “last resort” under new guidelines introduced in Singapore. Male students can face up to three strokes of the cane under the new rules, which were discussed in parliament on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Lucy Punch’s titular protagonist deals with a new rival in the opener of season two. Plus: a hair-raising documentary about the Salisbury poisonings examines a near catastrophe. Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, BBC One Continue reading...

State’s attorney general petitions for overhaul of how Meta’s child safety protocol in second phase of landmark case Meta has returned to court in the US this week for the second phase of a lawsuit brought by Raúl Torrez, New Mexico’s attorney general, following a March verdict that found the company liable for child safety failures and imposed a $375m fine. On Monday, the state petitioned for a legal sanction against the company, a monetary penalty 10 times the original amount, and a sweeping, drastic overhaul of Meta’s child safety protocols. In the second part of the landmark case, known as the remedies phase, the state is asking for Meta to be declared a public nuisance and for the judge to order the company to pay $3.7bn in an abatement plan. The money would fund programs for law enforcement, mental health services and educators. The state is also requesting that the judge force a series of design changes to Meta’s platforms aimed at improving child safety, including universal age verification, de-encryption of children’s messages, a guardian account linked to every child’s account, and a child safety monitor tasked with holding Meta to account for five years. Continue reading...

Scores of women have told how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum for an awareness campaign Women have had to undergo major emergency surgery, including a hysterectomy, when medical staff failed to detect they had a rare but potentially fatal complication of pregnancy. Scores of women have come forward to tell their stories of how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) since the launch in February of a campaign to raise awareness among NHS staff and mothers-to-be of the dangers it poses. Continue reading...

Objection after museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from list of countries of ancient Levant and Egypt and from some explanatory panels The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has called for Foreign Office intervention after the British Museum removed references to Palestine from its exhibits. The UK recognised the state of Palestine in September 2025, but the same year the museum removed the name “Palestine” from a panel listing the present-day countries encompassed by the ancient Levant, and replaced it with Gaza and the West Bank. Continue reading...

Glyphosate is currently sprayed on cereal and pulse crops to dessicate them and make them easier to harvest A new trade deal with the EU could lead to restrictions on the use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate on UK food crops. The full-spectrum herbicide, which kills almost every plant it touches, is often sprayed on wheat, oats and other cereal and pulse crops immediately before harvest to desiccate them and make them easier to handle. Continue reading...

Difficulty means severe storms arrive with little warning of where or when exactly they will hit, with sometimes deadly consequences In October 2024 eastern Spain was hit by a deadly storm when more than a year’s worth of rain fell on the streets of Valencia. The resulting floods claimed more than 230 lives. Weather forecasts predicted that a major storm was on the way, but failed to pinpoint exactly where and when heavy rainfall would land. Now a study has shown that one of the reasons rainfall is so hard to predict is because climate models are underestimating the shifts in large-scale wind patterns, such as the jet stream, that control storm tracks and rainfall distribution. Continue reading...

Will Reform take Sunderland, or the Greens take Hackney? Can Plaid Cymru take a historic victory in Wales, and will Labour be forced into third place in Scotland? We examine the possible outcomes for election night The Scottish, Welsh, and local English elections on Thursday 7 May are a huge test for all the main political parties – and may be existential for Keir Starmer as prime minister and Labour leader. The elections, two years into a Labour government, will see more than 30 million people across England, Wales and Scotland vote in the devolved administrations, in six mayoral races, and for more than 4,500 councillors in city and county councils. Continue reading...

Wastewater from nearly 40,000 people and businesses pumped straight into sea as island still has no treatment plant Raw sewage from nearly 40,000 people and businesses is being pumped straight into the sea because the British overseas territory of Gibraltar does not have, and has never had, a wastewater treatment plant. For decades, untreated sewage has poured into the Mediterranean from the southern tip of the peninsula at Europa Point, where the government of Gibraltar says there are “high levels of natural dispersion”. Continue reading...