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When you watch the acclaimed TV drama Time, remember this: I’ve seen inside our prisons and they are just as bleak | Alex South

The show depicts prisons as places characterised by violence and isolation, with no focus on rehabilitation. It’s depressingly accurate

The new series of Time is not an easy watch. The opening seconds of Jimmy McGovern’s prison drama show a normal woman on a normal bus, as it drives up a normal road. But to the right of that road is a huge concrete wall, topped with barbed wire and CCTV cameras.

The wall is only partly visible, just as prisons themselves tend to occupy a space towards the very edges of our thoughts. They exist, but not as part of normal life. But McGovern’s drama shows just how permeable that wall is.

Alex South is a former prison officer and the author of the memoir Behind These Doors

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 07:00:53 GMT
‘This is horrifying. This is madness’: the row over competitive yoga

Some yogis welcome the idea of competition – for others, it is anathema. Will those keen for yoga to become an Olympic sport win the argument?

Vaishnavi Saravanakumar describes herself on Instagram as “India’s rubber band girl”. In a typical video post, dressed in a rhinestone-studded crimson catsuit and accompanied by a Bollywood-rap anthem, she demonstrates an improbable feat. From standing, she snakes into a deep back bend, curls her head and shoulders up under her tiger-striped calves, and finishes beaming to camera with ankles crossed under her chin. This is yoga as we have seldom seen it before.

Earlier this year, the Indian government announced that it will push for yogasana’s inclusion in the Olympics, ahead of the country’s bid to host the 2036 Games. The news came the week before the inaugural World Yogasana Championship, held in Ahmedabad in June, at which Saravanakumar, a gold medallist, was one of 522 yogis competing.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 13:00:00 GMT
I saw rioting, looting, above all, anger. If French leaders think more violence will solve this, they’re mistaken | Oliver Haynes

It’s a perfect storm of protesters with heartfelt grievances and others set on conflict. The key here is the sense of betrayal that united them on the streets

The first thing I learned on the streets of Paris this weekend is that there is no arguing with teargas. I arrived at Place de la République just after 1pm yesterday. The mood was festive until police started firing volleys of teargas into the square from Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple.

I didn’t see the inciting incident – if there even was one – and tried walking into the cloud of CS gas hanging in the air. It was impossible. The gas clings to your nose and burns your eyes, and you quickly start struggling to breathe. I retreated towards the Boulevard de Magenta, blinking furiously to stop the stinging.

Oliver Haynes is a journalist and co-host of Sacré Bleu: the French presidential election podcast

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 15:06:42 GMT
Forty years on from the tragic killing of Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, activists call for renewed fight against the far right

The racist murder of a British Bengali schoolboy was a landmark moment. Now campaigners seek to build a multiracial alliance to combat the challenges of today

“For my brother Ahmed, British values meant standing up for others. It was doing right. It was supporting and looking after the underdog, whoever that may be, regardless of their colour or background,” Selina Ullah says, of the brother she lost to a senseless act of violence 40 years ago.

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, a British Bengali schoolboy, was 13 when he was murdered in a racist attack in the playground of Burnage high school, in south Manchester, in 1986, after defending young pupils from bullying.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 12:00:01 GMT
‘Medieval romance overflowed with sexually active fairies’: the surprisingly long roots of romantasy

Critics mock it as raunchy trash – but this enchanting genre is much older, and wilder, than you might imagine

There’s a popular genre, filled with beautiful, human-sized fairies having sex with humans (often quite violent sex, but the people reading it seem to enjoy it). Word is that it’s badly written and unashamedly escapist – all golden, glittering palaces, wild adventure and, of course, gorgeous fairies. It’s certainly popular – plenty of the stories have been translated into numerous languages, spreading across continents. Serious commentators are sure it spells bad news: at best, it’s just a load of trash; at worst, it’s actively leading people astray. Most damningly of all, women produce and consume it. Welcome to the 12th century, where fairy romance is all the rage. Sound familiar?

The romantasy that fills our shelves and bestseller lists – from Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses to Callie Hart’s Quicksilver – is not a new genre, but part of a centuries-old heritage. You only need to look at the medieval predecessors of the modern romantasy novel to understand why it’s enjoyed by millions and why, even after hundreds of years, fairy romance has such power over us – and why there are still those who want to diminish and dismiss it.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 11:00:01 GMT
‘4,000 people minding our own business’: four decades on, Falklands again face a hostile Argentina

Facing a slump in the polls, Argentina’s president is making economic attacks on the islands’ oil industry, and suggesting its key fisheries industry could be next

A dozen local people and a uniformed military police officer (“Do you mind if I sit in?”) took their seats at the back of the handsome wood-panelled courtroom that doubles as the Falkland Islands’ legislative assembly. Outside, it was a typically blowy early evening. It may nominally be spring in the south Atlantic, but Stanley harbour, with its dark grey water speckled with historical shipwrecks, was a cauldron of swells and churn.

Six of the assembly’s eight members – five men, one woman – waited patiently at a row of desks and microphones. The heating had been turned up to just short of uncomfortable. Behind them, a portrait of King Charles. From the other walls, dusty photographs of governors peered down on the scene.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 04:00:49 GMT
French government in crisis talks after ‘colossal failure of the state’

Ministers, officials and police under pressure over response to days of violent unrest in cities across France

The French government was in crisis talks on Sunday after one of the most violent days of unrest in years left public buildings burned, hundreds of shops destroyed and looted, and more than 2000 people arrested in cities across the country.

Politicians on the left and right called for the resignation of the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, after the government appeared to have been caught by surprise by the scale of violence as state buildings were stormed and torched, bus stops smashed, roads barricaded and shops broken into and destroyed.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 15:10:32 GMT
NHS staff who wrongly accessed tiger victim’s records should be sacked, says Yvette Cooper

Health secretary says inappropriately looking up details about William Chapman, who died at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, is ‘total disgrace’

NHS staff who inappropriately accessed the medical records of a man mauled to death by a tiger should be sacked, Yvette Cooper said.

The health secretary said the incident – which followed reports earlier this year that staff had unnecessarily viewed details about the Southport attack victims and those murdered by Valdo Calocane in Nottingham in 2023 – was a “total disgrace”.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 09:38:13 GMT
Microsoft pulls out of AI datacentre project in Essex over power supply concerns

Development by UK firm Nscale heralded by ministers as largest of its kind in country loses anchor tenant

The development of a huge AI datacentre hailed by the UK government has received a fresh setback after Microsoft pulled out of the project over concerns about power supplies.

The development by the British company Nscale, heralded by ministers as the country’s largest AI datacentre when it was announced in 2025, was planned to open at Loughton in Essex next year.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 13:05:14 GMT
Police investigate Reform mayor for allegedly sharing ‘naked and sexualised’ images of himself

Female colleague says she was forced out shortly after incident with Luke Campbell, Hull and East Yorkshire mayor

A Reform UK mayor is under police investigation for allegedly showing “naked and sexualised” images of himself to a female member of staff.

Luke Campbell, a former Olympic boxing champion and the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, is understood to have been questioned under caution by Humberside police earlier this month.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 15:18:04 GMT

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