Author: Darren Smith

Britain is bracing for yet another heatwave this weekend — just weeks after the last one — but experts say the most significant development is not the temperatures themselves, it is what they reveal about how dramatically the UK’s climate has already shifted. Professor Andrew Charlton-Perez, head of the School of Mathematical, Computational and Physical Sciences at the University of Reading, said the fact that late June temperatures in the high 20s barely raise an eyebrow any more is itself a warning sign. “It’s perhaps a sign of how much our perception of hot weather has shifted that 27 or…

ITV has been hit with accusations of sexism after Emma Hayes was made to deliver her tactical analysis of England’s 4-2 win over Croatia from what viewers described as a kitchen-style set, complete with a small blackboard and chalk while male co-pundits used digital technology elsewhere. The setup, which featured kitchen units and overlooked Brooklyn Bridge, sparked an immediate backlash on social media and drew criticism from within the broadcasting industry. One TV insider described it as “hugely embarrassing” for ITV, questioning whether male pundits such as Gary Neville would ever be placed in a similar situation. “Can you imagine…

Giovanni van Bronckhorst has been reappointed as Feyenoord head coach on a two-year contract with an option to extend for a further year, returning to the club where his entire footballing life began. The 51-year-old takes over from Robin van Persie, who was sacked after just 16 months in charge of the Eredivisie club, according to the BBC. Van Bronckhorst had most recently been working as one of Arne Slot’s first-team assistants at Liverpool, but left the Premier League club earlier this month when Slot was dismissed. Van Bronckhorst previously managed Feyenoord between 2015 and 2019, a period in which…

The chief executive of one of Austin’s most prominent tech venture capital firms has been killed after the private jet he was travelling in crashed on a Texas highway and split in two, bursting into flames in scenes witnesses described as being “like part of a movie.” Joshua Baer, 48, the CEO and founder of Capital Factory, was identified as one of two people killed when the Netjets aircraft came down on Texas State Highway Loop 20 in Laredo at around 10pm on Tuesday. The plane had taken off from Los Cabos International Airport in Mexico and was bound for…

A Long Island architect who led a secret double life as one of America’s most prolific serial killers has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after admitting in court to the murders of eight women, most of them sex workers whose remains lay undiscovered for years on a desolate stretch of highway near New York City. Rex Heuermann, 62, of Massapequa Park, appeared before a judge in Riverhead, New York, on Wednesday wearing a black suit and blue shirt, and confirmed what investigators had come to believe — that he had strangled his victims and dismembered some of…

Luigi Mangione will assert a psychiatric defence in his state murder trial over the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, a judge confirmed at a hearing on Wednesday, as the case that captivated the world moves closer to its September trial date. Mangione, 28, faces state murder charges in New York in connection with the killing of Thompson, 50, who was shot dead on the streets of New York City in December 2024. The killing sparked a days-long international manhunt that ended with Mangione’s arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He has pleaded not guilty to all…

A 70-year-old Missouri woman has admitted trading her foster daughter to a family in Texas in exchange for a monkey because the pair were not getting along, in a case that has exposed a devastating catalogue of alleged abuse and a failure by authorities to act on hundreds of complaints stretching back years. Brenda Deutsch, of Winfield, took a plea deal on Monday, agreeing to plead guilty to one count of endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree. She faces up to seven years in prison, with her case due to be reviewed on 21 July. The…

A glamorous Russian influencer who became a household name after appearing on national television as a rape victim faces up to six years in prison after being arrested for allegedly selling explicit content on OnlyFans, as Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on what the Kremlin calls anti-traditional values claims another high-profile target. Diana Shurygina, 27, was detained after returning to Moscow from an extended stay in Bali, with reports suggesting she attempted to flee back to Indonesia before being stopped. Law enforcement officers raided her apartment, seizing cameras, gadgets and filming equipment. She has since been placed under house arrest while investigators…

A massive fire has engulfed a Paris warehouse, sending towering plumes of black smoke visible across the region and prompting a major emergency response, with around 150 firefighters and 50 vehicles deployed to tackle the blaze. The inferno broke out at around 2pm at the Vignes industrial park on Rue Henri Gautier in Bobigny, a commune in the north-east of the French capital. The fire took hold of a 75,000 square foot two-storey warehouse housing approximately ten furniture and equipment companies, rapidly engulfing the entire building. Shocking footage circulating on social media shows the blaze spewing vast towers of black…

A teenager who started running a cannabis supply network across a city while still about to sit his GCSE exams has been unmasked as the ringleader of what a judge described as a family drug operation involving his girlfriend and her father and siblings. Jack Barrett, now 21, was just 14 years old when he established the illicit business that would grow to span the city of Norwich, operating for more than four years between June 2019 and October 2023. When police eventually seized his phone, they found a staggering 47,000 drug-related messages — a figure that laid bare the…