Author: Eleanor Price

NHS England has granted staff from Palantir and other external contractors unlimited access to identifiable patient data within its flagship £330 million data platform — a disclosure that has drawn immediate condemnation from MPs, privacy campaigners and medical groups and reignited a fierce debate about the role of a controversial American technology firm at the heart of British healthcare. The change was first reported by the Financial Times, which cited an internal briefing note written by a senior NHS data official in April 2026. NHS England has agreed to create a new “admin” role that grants non-NHS staff “unlimited access”…

Deep in a remote valley at the foothills of the Himalayas, straddling China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, lives a tribe of 40,000 people who have built a society in which men play almost no role in raising children — and women hold complete control over family life, finances and inheritance. The Mosuo people, long dubbed the “Kingdom of Women,” are one of the few remaining matrilineal societies on earth. Women head every household, control all assets and decide how resources are distributed. Men, by contrast, hold no formal role in the family structure and bear no responsibility for the children…

Lea Michele has called out of Broadway’s Chess, sparking rumours that she was left devastated after being overlooked for a Tony Award nomination — though insiders are pushing back on the diva narrative, insisting the former Glee star is genuinely unwell. Michele missed Friday’s performance of the Broadway revival, in which she plays Florence Vassy, and has since been absent again, fuelling speculation that the snub had taken a heavier toll than the production is letting on. “She gave another excuse,” one source told Page Six. “Everyone knows she was upset. She was hysterical.” But a Broadway insider offered a…

Tens of thousands of commuters across southern England faced a day of significant rail disruption after a fault with the radio communications system used by train drivers and signallers caused widespread cancellations and delays across six major networks — with passengers urged to avoid Waterloo station entirely at the height of the chaos. South Western Railway, Southern, Thameslink, CrossCountry, Gatwick Express and London Overground services were all affected after the fault emerged on Thursday morning, with Waterloo — one of the busiest stations in Europe — particularly hard hit. The disruption was then compounded by a separate and unrelated signalling…

Ted Baker has made its return to the British high street, two years after the collapse that shuttered every one of its physical stores, with the opening of a new boutique inside Selfridges at Manchester’s Trafford Centre. The brand, which was founded in Glasgow in 1988 and grew to operate more than 500 stores worldwide at the height of its success, vanished from the high street by August 2024 after the firm behind it, No Ordinary Designer Label, appointed administrators. The closure marked a dramatic fall for a label that had spent nearly four decades establishing itself as one of…

Men are more damaging to the planet than women, according to a controversial new academic study that has drawn sharp attention for its sweeping claims about gender and environmental impact. The paper, titled Men, Masculinities, and the Planet at the End of (M)Anthropocene, was produced by 22 researchers from 13 countries and published in the International Journal for Masculinity Studies. It argues that men consistently generate larger carbon footprints than women, are less concerned about climate change, and are less willing to alter their behaviour to address it. According to the researchers, the gap is driven largely by male patterns…

Claire Nielson, the Scottish actress best known to audiences for her role in one of Fawlty Towers’ most beloved episodes, has died at the age of 89, prompting an outpouring of tributes from fans and colleagues. Born Claire Elizabeth Isbister in Glasgow in 1937, Nielson trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Dramatic Art before further honing her craft at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in London. She went on to build a career spanning several decades across television, film and theatre — but it was her appearance in the classic BBC sitcom that cemented her place in British comedy history.…

A British Airways flight attendant with nearly four decades of service has been sacked and fined after boarding a flight from Malaga to Heathrow almost eight times over the legal alcohol limit — telling the court she had drunk bottles of wine the night before to deal with personal stress, believing it would have cleared her system by the time she flew. Deborah Merritt, 59, from Basingstoke in Hampshire, was working on the Airbus A320 service last month when fellow crew members noticed she was unsteady on her feet mid-flight. She was removed from her duties, taken to the back…

A full recording of Marilyn Monroe’s final interview, conducted just weeks before her death in the summer of 1962 and largely unheard for more than six decades, reveals an actress who was upbeat, making plans for the future and looking forward to a new chapter in her career — not a woman on the verge of suicide. The interview, conducted over four hours by Richard Meryman, Life Magazine’s associate editor, was played in full to The Times and will be published in book form later this month to mark what would have been Monroe’s 100th birthday. Only a small portion…

A man left infertile by chemotherapy he received as a boy is now producing sperm after doctors successfully transplanted testicular tissue that had been frozen for more than 16 years — a world first that could transform fertility options for thousands of young cancer survivors. The 27-year-old patient, who was treated for sickle cell disease in 2008, had one testicle surgically removed before undergoing high-dose chemotherapy as part of a bone marrow transplant. The removed tissue was cut into small pieces and frozen by specialists at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, whose team had pioneered reproductive tissue banking in 2002 — the…