When I found out my father had been adopted, I was curious to know more about his side of the family. Nothing could have prepared me for what I would discover …

Above my grandma’s bed hung a framed black‑and-white photograph of my dad. As a small child I quietly admired it; his luminous eyes, dark hair and gentle smile. He embodied a tender yet spirited early adulthood, staring into the future. Handsome and seeking.

As I grew older, I would discover that it was not, in fact, a photograph of my dad but of a man called Elvis Presley. Apparently he was very famous. My grandma had been a lifelong fan. My parents laughed – an adorable mistake – but I felt a hot pulse of humiliation.

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
His music is still all over the place, lurching from landfill indie to solipsistic ballads, but the youngest Beckham son can certainly play guitar

“Memorabilia,” the person on the door says, passing out a commemorative ticket welcoming fans to Cruz Beckham’s show in “Cardiff, England”. It’s an inauspicious start, particularly in a building that’s a decades-old monument to Welsh-language culture, but once the house lights go down, there’s enough to suggest that, even if he’ll never make it as a geography teacher, he could give this music thing a proper lash.

It would be easy to go in studs-up on Beckham, the youngest son of David and Victoria. He’s already a tabloid fixture, his profile supercharged by the recent intra-family beef that has opened up new seams in the content mines, and his every move might duly be viewed with cynicism. His desire to play clubs, to “do it the right way”? The machinations of a nepo-prince currying favour with the masses.

Forget snake yoga. All it takes to increase your life expectancy is factoring a set of simple exercises into your weekly routine

Are you still keeping up with your 2026 resolution to exercise more? Or perhaps you’re just trying to survive the winter doldrums, with exercise the last thing on your mind. Whatever it is, social media is alight with fitness influencers showing off all kinds of bizarre and viral exercise trends.

Take squats, a core exercise move. Those don’t seem good enough any more, so now we have Zercher squats (holding a barbell in your elbow crease like a metal baby), squats on vibration plates, squats while throwing a heavy ball and on and on. Some of these exercises may in fact be good, some useless, but because influencers can’t be seen to be doing the same thing every day, the key thing is that they’re novel and can be sold as “the little-known secret exercise that everyone should be doing”.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the supermodel has been under fire. But is there another motive behind all the controversy?

“I was rooting for you,” Tyra Banks famously berated a contestant on America’s Next Top Model some 20 years ago. But who, now, is rooting for Tyra Banks?

The supermodel and reality-TV mogul has been under fire from all sides ever since Netflix dropped its documentary series, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model. Long-circling scrutiny of the show’s tasteless extremes, frequent body-shaming and blatant failures of duty of care have come to rest on Banks herself, with viewers, Top Model contestants and even her former friends all expressing outrage at her apparent lack of repentance.

Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the ‘most hopeful person’ before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbot

On 7 August, Kate Fox received a phone call that upended her life. A medical examiner said that her husband, Joe Ceccanti – who had been missing for several hours – had jumped from a railway overpass and died. He was 48.

Fox couldn’t believe it. Ceccanti had no history of depression, she said, nor was he suicidal – he was the “most hopeful person” she had ever known. In fact, according to the witness accounts shared with Fox later, just before Ceccanti jumped, he smiled and yelled: “I’m great!” to the rail yard attendants below when they asked him if he was OK.

There is no end in sight to the pollution caused by a ‘broken’ system. Experts say it could even be getting worse

Sarah Lambert took her usual morning swim for 40 minutes off Exmouth town beach before her volunteer shift helping disabled people get access to the water.

A wheelchair user herself, Lambert’s regular sea swims twice a week between the lifeboat station and HeyDays restaurant were the perfect form of exercise for her disability.

US president says Khamenei’s death is ‘justice for the people of Iran’ as he repeats call for regime change

• Full report: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response

• War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Loud explosions were heard early on Sunday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP reported. Thick black smoke was rising from the airport area.

On Saturday, US-led coalition forces downed several missiles and explosive-laden drones over Erbil.

The US joined an Israeli assault after intel suggested Iran’s top clerics and commanders could be hit at once

• Full report: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response

• War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

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Donald Trump launched attacks against Iran on Saturday as part of a joint operation with Israel after they developed intelligence that they could simultaneously target the country’s leaders and mullahs, according to two people familiar with deliberations.

The Israelis had been tracking the movements of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and determined there was a window of opportunity to launch attacks as they convened, the people said.

War launched by US and Israel on Iran has quickly escalated prompting anxiety and concern in whole region

• Full report

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday.

Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.

The building appears to be among many devastated in Trump’s ‘major combat operations’ as long expected attacks arrive

• Full report: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response

• War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded

Iran’s parents had just dropped their children off for class on Saturday morning when they found themselves racing back to school gates, as bombs began to fall across the country in a joint US-Israel attack.

At one elementary school, according to Iran’s state-controlled media, they arrived to find devastation. At least 100 children had been killed in the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, the Mizan news agency reported, with dozens more unaccounted for.