What’s so life-affirming about collecting and trading miniature animals, keyrings, stickers and pins? We visit one of the 1,500 trinket exchanges to find out

I’m standing, holding a thumbnail-sized glass owl, in front of a pink box filled with a boggling kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and textures. There’s a plush elephant wearing a green and pink sombrero; a rubber oval that is part doughnut with sprinkles, part frog; a bubble tea keyring; stickers and pins; a sparkly tangle of bracelets and much more. My mission? To swap my owl to experience first-hand the buzz of trading at a trinket exchange.

Boxes filled with tchotchkes that visitors exchange for their own trinkets are popping up everywhere. Emerging in the US last autumn (Philadelphia had one of the first using a ready-made electrical junction box, a popular format), they’re a new iteration of a phenomenon that started with Little Free Libraries and diversified during the pandemic into myriad neighbourhood installations.

Ronnie is using Billy’s name to register for free streaming services and gyms, which Billy objects to. You get to preside over this trial
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Unlike the kettle or the wifi, my contact details aren’t for communal use. Plus it’s annoying

The actor on dealing with disruptive drinkers in his pub, what he’d ask Shakespeare, and being urged by Alec Guinness to withdraw from Stonewall

In more than six decades of acting, what has changed the most? eamonmcc
My first job, in 1961, was at the Belgrade theatre in Coventry, the first British civic theatre built after the second world war, with public funds and a subsequent Arts Council grant. My weekly wage was £8, enough to pay for my flat, which cost three guineas, and to eat well enough. Every city of similar size had a repertory company, presenting a new production every two weeks, and crucially providing employment for tyro actors in need of a prolonged apprenticeship in the company of senior players. You learned what you could and couldn’t do and what you could aspire to. Today, alas, there is not a single rep company in the UK and no comparable system for training new talent.

My Belgrade flat, built to house a member of the disbanded company, now holds the council’s office of outreach and education. What is unchanged since 1961 is the enthusiasm of audiences for lively theatre, classic or newly written. Going to live theatre is still one of the principal amusements in the UK.

She hit the big time with 4 Non Blondes, then penned hits for everyone from Christina Aguilera to Courtney Love. But as an intimate new film about her life shows, she’s had to confront illness, family trauma and an identity crisis

When Linda Perry agreed to let the director Don Hardy film her at work in her studio, she had no idea what she was getting into. Perry – the singer, producer and wildly successful songwriter-for-hire – had been friends with Hardy since she scored his 2020 film, Citizen Penn, about the actor Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti. If nothing else, Perry hoped she might use some of Hardy’s footage as content on her Instagram account: “So he just started showing up and I soon forgot he was there.”

After a few weeks, Hardy told Perry he had edited 30 minutes of footage and shown it to colleagues. “He said: ‘We think there’s an incredible documentary to be made here,’” she recalls. “And so I said: ‘OK, go ahead but don’t talk to me about it. I don’t want to know anything. Just do what you’re going to do and if I said it or did it, I’ll stand by it.’ And then things just started to go cuckoo for me.”

Exclusive: Documents obtained by consortium of journalists show role of Moscow university in training operatives in military intelligence

Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.

He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.

Interactive or imaginative, educational or just plain fun – whatever toddler you know, these gifts are parent, kid and play-expert approved

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Children really start to become little people by the time they’re two, with strong opinions on what they do (and don’t) like. Most are walking and running around – often at high speeds – as well as climbing and pulling themselves up on anything they can get their hands on.

They’re also a lot of fun, constantly learning and developing physically, with fine and gross motor skills, along with verbally mastering new words every day.

The outbreak has been linked to a birdwatching expedition in Argentina joined by two passengers before they boarded the ship

Meanwhile, Hungary’s incoming prime minister Péter Magyar has arrived for talks at Palazzo Chigi in Rome, where he is due to meet with Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

Since he is not the Hungarian PM yet – he will take his role this weekend – he was officially welcomed outside the Palazzo by a senior adviser to the Italian PM instead.

Report using research from senior Blair and Clinton pollster comes as Labour braces for dismal election results

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Progressive voters have been driven away from Labour by a lack of argument and vision from Keir Starmer, according to a report using research from a senior pollster to Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

Downing Street is understood to have been briefed on the research, which has also been handed to allies of the potential leadership candidates Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner.

British Medical Association says review into gender identity services was ‘robust’ after previously rejecting findings

The trade union representing doctors across the UK has dropped its opposition to the findings of the Cass review of gender identity services across the NHS.

The British Medical Association (BMA) had previously rejected the findings of the landmark review of transgender healthcare, with the medical body refusing to endorse the report’s findings.

Towie star Hall, 35, found unresponsive with head wounds reportedly caused by shards of glass at villa on Spanish island

The Only Way Is Essex star Jake Hall has been found dead in Mallorca.

The former reality TV show personality was found unresponsive with head wounds reportedly caused by shards of glass at a villa on the Spanish island.