With questions over Farage’s finances and a new face in No 10, could Barnsley council be a bellwether for changing Labour fortunes?

Labour marked its worst performance in more than 50 years when voters went to the polls in Barnsley in May, but 100 days on from those seismic local elections, the political landscape has shifted drastically.

Could the South Yorkshire town, where Reform UK reaped the benefits of dissatisfaction with Labour, prove to be a test case for whether the governing party has turned the tide?

Daniel’s boyfriend thinks his youthful complexion is down to fancy skincare, and Jessica’s nearest and dearest still don’t know she’s had a breast enhancement …

Jessica was at a spa with her friends of more than 20 years when she noticed one stare at her bikini, lock eyes with her and laugh, before asking: “Wait, have you …?” The game was up – eight months after she’d had a secret breast enhancement, she’d been rumbled. Fearing judgment from even her closest circle, she had only spoken to two people who’d had the procedure, for advice, and told a neighbour in case she was unwell after the surgery. “My family still don’t know – most people don’t,” the 42-year-old from London says, including her two children who live between her and her ex-husband. “I’m not alone; I’ve since learned winter is the most popular time for people to get things done, then they can just hide under jumpers while everything settles in, so no one notices.”

For years, celebrities have endured public speculation about their tweakments and surgeries – but as procedures become more commonplace, “civilian” patients are facing the same questions from family and friends. And many of them are choosing to go incognito; some surgeons estimate up to 70% of their clients aren’t telling others about their aesthetic procedures. But what are the practicalities of disguising everything from breast augmentation to filler to hair transplants from your closest circle? And why are so many people spending thousands of pounds to alter their appearance – only to hope that no one notices?

They rule the roads and, in their wake, even old-style saloons have been supersized. It’s an illusion of consumer choice

Recently, while traipsing from showroom to showroom in search of a used car for my growing clan, the iconic line from Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman movie The Dark Knight came to mind: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” And by villain, of course, I mean an SUV driver.

Because, if you haven’t shopped for a secondhand family car recently, I’ll save you the shock: wherever you look, it’s SUVs.

More direct flights from North America and, say tourism chiefs, Highland warriors and Tartan Army have helped

For the tourist industry, 2026 has been a rocky year, with war, EU border delays, climate and economic woes gnawing away at holiday plans. But while much of Britain is feeling the loss of visitors from the Middle East and beyond, one part is thriving.

Scotland is reeling in ever more visitors, with strong annual growth and a 15% rise in flight bookings to Scottish airports in June and July, compared with a drop in bookings to London and the rest of England in recent months, according to VisitBritain figures.

The New York congresswoman’s power is in the spotlight as people wonder if the stars are finally aligning for her to run for US president in 2028

“They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.”

The words were delivered slowly, deliberately and with some steeliness by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her audience, crammed into the pews of Rockefeller Memorial chapel at the University of Chicago, burst into spontaneous applause. That was in May. In the three months since, the speculation around Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitions – for herself and for America – has only grown louder.

The British writer is known for his unique ability to get inside the heads of serial killers. But a Guardian investigation reveals multiple accusations of assault and child sexual abuse. What is the truth about the man described by his own daughter as ‘absolute evil’?

Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual abuse and violence

From the outside, it looked like the sort of happy family home a child might draw. Red brick, surrounded by rolling countryside, in Curdridge, near Winchester. Here lived the true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee, with his second wife, Tracey Dee, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha, in the early 1990s. Inside, it was a house of horrors, full of murder memorabilia. In a wardrobe were the clothes a nine-year-old girl had been murdered in. One afternoon, Zoe was playing when she found them. The now 38-year-old council worker from Romsey says she remembers “putting it all on … going downstairs and everyone being absolutely traumatised”. Later, another gruesome memento was added to the collection: the Austin Metro that convicted murderer Michael Sams had used to transport a body in 1991. Bloodied sections of the seatbelts had been cut out for forensic tests.

Berry-Dee was the serial killer man. He wrote to convicted murderers in jail and befriended them. They told him everything. Through them he saw the terror in their victims’ eyes, watched their anguished death throes, heard their final screams. He listened to tapes of their confessions in his study. Zoe grew used to hearing them echo through the house. “It would always be on,” she says. “At the time, it felt normal.”

Academic was pronounced dead at his home in south London after police called to address after 3pm on Friday

Jason Arday, the academic who resigned last week as a professor at the University of Cambridge, has been found dead at his home in south London.

The Metropolitan police said officers were called to Arday’s address by the London ambulance service after 3pm on Friday.

Campaigners fear deeper diplomatic contacts are undermining demands for improvements in human rights

The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.

Thursday has been described by residents as ‘horrendous’, ‘distressing’ and ‘one of the scariest days of my life’

People in Stourbridge have described the fires that devastated more than a dozen homes as “horrendous” and “distressing”, with one describing blazes that surpassed the height of residential houses.

Multiple fires spread across the West Midlands on Thursday as temperatures reached record highs of 38.1C in the UK, during the country’s fifth consecutive heatwave.

Airport advises passengers travelling from terminals 2 and 3 to use rail and tube as pipe leak closes road

Heathrow airport has warned of disruption after flooding caused by a pipe leak restricted access to terminals 2 and 3.

Water in the central terminal area means anyone trying to travel to or from either terminal is unable enter by road. Passengers are being advised to travel by rail and tube instead. Access to the terminal car parks is also impeded, leaving passengers with parked cars unable to access them.