The whole ecosystem inside a cave feeds off guano, dead bats, or any dead animals on the ground. It’s not for the faint-hearted It can be daunting entering a cave. It is an underground world that possibly hasn’t been explored before. The first smell that hits you is guano (or bat poo). Some of these caves host millions of bats – you can hear them chirping above, hanging in the darkness, and occasionally flying around. It always seems like night-time inside a cave because it’s pitch black. The walls are covered in interesting creatures such as tailless whip scorpions, which look like a cross between a spider and crab (they look dangerous, but are not), as well as millipedes and centipedes. The whole ecosystem feeds off guano, dead bats, or any dead animals on the ground. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Continue reading...

Researchers say lack of sleep could be a factor among young people interacting online for more than three hours a day Children who are on social media for more than three hours a day are more likely to develop depression and anxiety as teenagers, according to research. Experts said the impact was likely to be linked to a lack of sleep caused by using social media late at night, and that the link to depression was more pronounced in girls. Continue reading...

Repayments also affect financial stability of nearly half of graduates, according to report by UK bank People with student loans who are working towards a home deposit save almost £2,000 less per year than those without the debt, according to a new report by Barclays. The bank also found that 44% of student loan holders claim that repayments limit their ability to build long-term financial stability, while 41% say it prevents them from entering the housing market. Continue reading...

Survey suggests companies willing to hire care-experienced young people but few have changed recruitment processes Thousands of young people leaving care in England are being left “locked out” of work by employers who say they are open to hiring but make few changes to adapt, a charity has warned. Calling on employers to act on their promises, the Drive Forward Foundation said care leavers were almost three times more likely to be out of work than their peers. Continue reading...

This upsetting documentary goes to the town with the most terrifyingly high levels of Pfas in the UK, tests the locals and finds that nothing has been done to help them – and now it’s simply too late Forever chemicals are not a fresh scandal that the world is only learning about now: in 2019 there was a Hollywood movie about them, based on a true story from the late 1990s. Mark Ruffalo was Rob Bilott, the crusading lawyer arguing that a West Virginia chemicals company was poisoning the locale. The film, Dark Waters, concerned per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Pfas), synthetic compounds that resist oil, water and heat, and which came into wide usage in the 1930s with the invention of Teflon. Their selling point is that they refuse to break down. The problem with them is that they refuse to break down, and once they’re in soil, groundwater, rivers, food or the air, they get into humans’ bloodstream, from where some Pfas are thought to play a role in causing cancer and other serious health conditions. Yet it took until February this year for the British government to come up with a plan for how to deal with Pfas, and the documentary In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal suggests that, for at least one small town, it’s too late. Cameras arrive in Bentham, North Yorkshire, for what is by now the sadly familiar story of a community in northern England of a few thousand people, generations of whom have been proud and grateful to work at the medium-sized business that dominates the local economy. Years later, the people of the town wonder if the thing they helped to make might be bad for their health. Continue reading...

American beats No 1 seed 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 at Miami Open ‘Sebi was incredible today. Played such a great game’ An hour after his first catastrophic attempt at snuffing out the best player in the world, Sebastian Korda stepped up to the baseline to serve for his rollercoaster third-round match against Carlos Alcaraz once again. It would have been reasonable for the American to feel his tension even more profoundly, to collapse even more dramatically, but his determination won through. In front of his home crowd in his home state, Korda kept his head and held his nerve to close out the greatest upset of the ATP season so far and his career, defeating the top seed Alcaraz 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in the third round of the Miami Open. Continue reading...

Programme is being billed as the most ambitious housebuilding project in England for half a century Ministers have confirmed the locations for seven new towns, which include under-developed inner-city land, a historic village and an existing new town. The programme is being billed by the housing and communities department as the most ambitious housebuilding project in England for half a century, with the planned construction of between 15,000 and 40,000 homes in each new town. Continue reading...

A group of contestants dropped in a forest must hunt or hide – or both – to try to get their hands on £100,000. Expect heroes, villains, fragile alliances and big characters I can only assume that the brilliant minds who were locked in a vault at Channel 4 and commanded to come up with a rival to The Traitors came of age during peak Suzanne Collins fever. The new reality-competition show The Hunt: Prey vs Predator is indebted to The Hunger Games – battle takes place in an arena set in a 100-acre wood (Pooh could never) and the contenders charge off from podiums in the middle of it when a klaxon sounds. I would love to know how furiously they argued for a lethal element (“Come on, one longbow! Just one!”), but for now at least we remain in the realm of cash prizes only. The pot is £100,000. What do the 10 players have to do to secure it? First, they must divide themselves into two teams: predators and prey. Why would you want to be prey? Because the hunted get to take part in challenges scattered across the arena that will win them shares in the prize pot, which they will get to keep – unless a predator captures them. If that happens, the money is passed over and the roles swap: the hunted becomes the hunter. And on the swapsies go over nine weeks, with the prey voting one predator out each time. Continue reading...

Manager surprised by City’s level after European exit Mikel Arteta defends decision to play Kepa Arrizabalaga A delighted Pep Guardiola admitted disbelief at Manchester City’s second-half dismantling of Arsenal in which Nico O’Reilly’s double claimed the Carabao Cup at Wembley. With Sunday’s’s final goalless at half-time, O’Reilly’s headers in the 60th and 64th minutes gave City the season’s first trophy, a fifth League Cup of Guardiola’s tenure and the 16th major honour overall of his decade in charge. Continue reading...

City hall veteran forecast to beat rightwinger Rachida Dati, while Marseille’s leftist incumbent leads far-right opponent The Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire was on track to be elected mayor of Paris on Sunday night, roundly beating the former rightwing minister Rachida Dati, early projections showed. Grégoire, a Socialist MP with a long track record at city hall, was running for a united left including the Greens. He was projected to have won with about 53%. This would mark a clear win against Dati, who served in government under Emmanuel Macron and Nicolas Sarkozy and had sought to win the French capital for the right after 25 years governed by the left. Continue reading...

Keely Hodgkinson caps famous night for British team Georgia Hunter-Bell and Molly Caudery also take glory Shortly before 8pm here in Torun, Georgia Hunter-Bell, Molly Caudery and Keely Hodgkinson were jumping in delight and pure delirium after what was undoubtedly greatest 29 minutes for Britain in world indoor athletics championship history. Not one gold medal. Not two. But three. All in under 30 minutes. And as they waved the Union Jacks above their heads, and a phalanx of photographers crowded around them, you couldn’t blame them and the British fans in the crowd for getting more than a little giddy. Continue reading...

Nico O’Reilly was superb for City while it was another Wembley performance to forget for Kepa Arrizabalaga Kepa Arrizabalaga Howler dropping Rayan Cherki’s cross for Nico O’Reilly’s opener started rot: his inclusion poses question of Mikel Arteta’s selection policy. 3 Continue reading...

Customers told not to eat affected pot and sachet products and to return them to place of purchase for refund Several porridge products in the UK have been recalled over a possible mice contamination at their manufacturing site. The British porridge and oat drink brand Moma issued a warning for seven versions of its pots and two of its sachets. Continue reading...

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There was a time when the old trophy with the three handles felt like the personal property of Pep Guardiola. The Manchester City manager won the League Cup for the first time in 2018, beating Arsenal in the final, and he repeated the trick in each of the next three seasons. The ensuing years have been less kind to Guardiola and the club in the competition but here was the riposte. On so many levels. City had entered this final as the underdogs; an unusual position but a reflection of how Arsenal have been the pre-eminent team in England and Europe so far this season. Continue reading...

Leicester 33-19 Bristol Victory lifts Leicester into third place in Prem table Swapping the bright Saturday night lights of the Stade de France for the rusty old Crumbie Stand can be a real mental challenge. There is certainly less demand for foie gras in Aylestone but for certain people nothing beats a constant diet of rugby. England’s Ollie Chessum did occasionally look a tad weary during another selfless 80-minute shift but a vital 33-19 Leicester win made all those hard yards worthwhile. The result not only hoists the Tigers into third place in the Prem table but Gabriel Hamer-Webb’s spectacular last-gasp try earned what could prove a vital extra point when the playoff maths are totted up. Bristol, who had been pressing for a couple of bonus points of their own, were ultimately left empty-handed and down in fifth place after a game that was never less than intense and absorbing. Continue reading...

Accusations of intimidation and harassment within UK diaspora including ‘aggressive’ and ‘coersing’ videos online Iranians living in the UK have expressed safety concerns to authorities amid heightened tensions within the community linked to the conflict with the US and Israel. Videos online of individuals allegedly being “aggressive” and “coercing” in London, which is home to one of the UK’s largest Iranian communities, have led to some feeling unsafe, they claim. Continue reading...

The steep reductions are a grave error, both morally and pragmatically. But a better case needs to be made for spending Progress is possible. Over two decades, global child mortality plummeted. There were many reasons for a 39% reduction in deaths in lower and middle income countries between 2001 and 2021, but a significant one was overseas development aid, which supported everything from sanitation to vaccination programmes to food security. That shift has slowed, and – like similar advances – is likely to reverse if aid budgets continue to be slashed. Researchers warned last month that continuing cuts could result in more than 22 million avoidable deaths in the next five years, with a quarter of those among children under five. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

The increased use of tags makes sense if done right. But years of accumulated problems include a depleted probation workforce Given the frayed and depleted state of the public sector, it is not surprising that prisons in England and Wales are struggling to escape from a sense of perpetual crisis. Recent days saw the latest in a series of urgent notifications. These put a prison in special measures, and require ministers to produce an action plan within a month. Inspectors found that Woodhill in Milton Keynes is unsafe while a report on another failing prison, Swaleside in Kent, pointed to high levels of violence, staff shortages and education cuts. David Lammy, who was shuffled into the role of justice secretary as a result of Angela Rayner’s hasty exit from government, is busy with the alarming push to remove most defendants’ right to a jury trial. So the implementation of recent sentencing reforms, and problems inside jails, have largely been left to the prisons minister, James Timpson. While there is no doubting his personal commitment, good intentions will not be enough. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Madison Square Garden, New York City The British artist’s brilliantly ambitious first arena show is a breathtaking showcase of her artistic range, with pole dancing, vogue battles and sword fighting From time to time, photographs from FKA twigs’ stint as a backup dancer make the rounds on social media. In the early days, when her name recognition was secondary to the likes of Jessie J and Peter Andre, Tahliah Barnett would take to the stage and use her body and talent in service of someone else’s vision. The drama of being visible yet never being fully seen would become an important subtext to her work. Misrecognition from a lover, by the public, from the internet, provided powerful emotional stakes to her songwriting, which she complemented with ultra-tactile music that teased and staggered payoffs that went further than any expected beat. The most definite proof that she has become an undeniable star in her own right comes tonight, when she tears the house down on her first ever arena date at Madison Square Garden. “Did you truly see me?” the singer whispers from bed in the show opener, Mirrored Heart. The immediate, roaring response is at funny odds with her lament that follows: “No, not this time.” If anything, the evening proves again and again just how intensely she and her audience seem to recognize one another. For one thing, the crowd is styled in her image, in fulfillment of her wish from Home With You to “see a hero like me in a sci-fi”. From blocks away, you can follow the stream of make-do Rick Owens looks and be certain that you are headed toward FKA twigs’ location. Inside the arena, it feels like New York is doing its best approximation of a Berlin nightclub: an orgy of black tank-tops, Lucite pleaser heels and constellations of facial piercings that must be a nightmare for the people running the metal detectors. Continue reading...

With a 7 October inquiry looming, the Israeli PM’s political career, legacy and personal freedom may all be on the line Over three weeks of war, Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel, and injured many more, including about 200 in overnight strikes near a nuclear facility in the country’s south, but they have not touched public support for the war. An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls. Continue reading...

Sunderland’s Lutsharel Geertruida allegedly abused Referee stops game per anti-discrimination protocol Sunderland’s Tyne-Wear derby victory at Newcastle was overshadowed by reports that Lutsharel Geertruida had been the subject of racist abuse from home fans. The Premier League will now investigate after the referee, Anthony Taylor, stopped the match in line with the league’s on-field anti-discrimination protocol early in the second half. Continue reading...

GLP-1 medicines work best alongside lifestyle adjustments, writes Dr Sam Robson. Plus letters from Anne Williams, Siân Williams, and a reader who has had success with Mounjaro Your editorial (15 March) is right to highlight the growing evidence that GLP-1 medicines influence the brain’s reward systems and may have potential in treating addiction. These drugs represent an important therapeutic advance, and the moralising that has historically surrounded obesity treatment is both unhelpful and scientifically outdated. However, in clinical practice it is also clear that medication alone is rarely the whole answer. Obesity, like addiction, involves powerful biological drivers such as appetite signalling, reward pathways and metabolic adaptation, but it also unfolds within behavioural and environmental contexts. Patients who achieve the most durable outcomes are typically those who combine pharmacological treatment with meaningful changes in diet quality, physical activity, sleep and muscle preservation. Continue reading...

The problem isn’t the beaver on the banknote – it’s a politics that no longer recognises what holds value, writes Dr Michael J Richardson Jonn Elledge (What’s worth more: Churchill or a woke badger? Welcome to Britain’s banknote culture war, 16 March) is right that the debate over whether wildlife might replace figures such as Winston Churchill on Bank of England banknotes has become another front in Britain’s culture wars. As he notes, proposals to feature animals are neither unprecedented nor unpopular, with public consultation showing majority support for nature-themed designs. But the backlash relies on a familiar claim: that attention to wildlife represents a misplaced priority – “the definition of woke”, as Nigel Farage put it. This framing is not new. During the 2021 evacuation efforts of animal charity Nowzad in Kabul, the story was reduced to “pets over people”, despite the fact that both animals and staff were saved. Similar narratives now position social care v climate concern. Continue reading...

Governing body to meet to discuss next steps over sexual abuse claims made against suspended chief The international criminal court’s governing body is expected to meet on Monday to assess the advice of a panel of judges who have challenged the findings of an investigation into the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Last year a UN inquiry into the allegations about Khan’s behaviour is understood to have established a factual basis for claims of misconduct against him. The senior British lawyer has been accused by a complainant of sexual abuse. Continue reading...