Kate reveals ‘emotional reconnection’ with nature on secret trip
The Princess of Wales had a “very spiritual and very intense emotional reconnection” with nature during a trip to the Lake District in March, which was not announced at the time.
On Monday, Kensington Palace posted a new video of Kate sporting a baker boy cap and strolling near the shores of Lake Windermere last month with a group of Scouts from Cumbria and Stretford, Greater Manchester.
While in a conversation with chief scout Dwayne Fields, the princess revealed how being outdoors was “so… meaningful for me as a place of balance”.
Kate, who is in remission from cancer, has long advocated the benefits of spending time in the natural world, previously revealing how nature became her family’s “sanctuary” in the wake of her diagnosis and during her chemotherapy treatment.
Fields asked Kate as they walked through woodland: “When you come out here, when all the stresses and strains of regular life happen and you come into a space like this, what do you think about?”
The princess replied: “I find it a very spiritual and very intense emotional reconnection, I suppose, these environments.
“Not everyone has that same relationship perhaps with nature, but it is so, therefore, meaningful for me as a place to balance and find a sort of sense of peace and reconnection in what is otherwise a very busy world.”
Kate, in a knitted, roll neck jumper, jacket, matching trousers, and walking boots, is shown crouching down as the youngsters, aged between 10 and 15, crowd around a map on the ground.
The princess said, pointing at the map: “It’s so beautiful because so many of the walks here, you can see Lake Windermere because it’s huge, isn’t it?
“Look how hilly it is in here. Have you done any of these big mountains?”
She was also photographed standing and laughing with the Scouts while they sat eating ice-creams at a picnic table at the edge of the lake.
Kate, who is joint president of Scouts, was meeting Fields, who took on his role in September, for the first time.
She told him: “What’s so fantastic about the Scouts is that the same foundation has sort of always been there, and still, despite how different the modern-day world is now, actually it still resonates with so many young people and it’s making such a massive difference to them.”
Fields said: “When you come out into a natural environment, it helps you understand your self that much more.
“We really belong in nature. We’re in tune with it, and I think we need to come back to it because there is definitely something about being in nature that’s connected to our well-being.”
Kensington Palace said Kate’s visit to the Lake District, which was not announced at the time, took place in March.
Katy Perry and all-female crew land safely after blasting into space
Katy Perry and five other women launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket and successfully returned to Earth on Monday, marking the first all-female spaceflight in more than 60 years.
Jeff Bezos’s partner Lauren Sanchez was also onboard, along with CBS Mornings presenter Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.
As celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey looked on from an observation deck at the site in west Texas, the crew of six blasted off from Blue Origin’s launchpad and returned around 11 minutes later.
“I don’t think I realized how emotional it was going to be,” Kardashian said.
Winfrey wept as she saw her friend Gayle King fly at almost 2,000 miles per hour, experiencing zero gravity. Inside the capsule, the new astronauts could be heard exclaiming at their view of the moon and the experience of floating around the capsule.
After being met by a ground crew that included Bezos, the six women then left the ship. Pop star Perry raised a daisy to the sky as she left the capsule before kissing the ground.
Sanchez said: “It was, like, quiet, but then also really alive. You look at [the Earth] and you’re like, ‘We’re all in this together.’ We’re so connected. More connected than you realize,” she said. “All these things that divide us, but we’re not.”
Asked how she was feeling, Sanchez said: “Complete and utter joy and gratefulness. It makes me want to come back and hug everyone… We’re in this together. I didn’t expect to be this emotional.”
Sanchez was filmed embracing Bezos and afterwards joked that she “had to come back” because of the couple’s upcoming wedding.
Meanwhile, King, who said she couldn’t accept being called an “astronaut” after the brief jaunt in space, said that the mission had been a reminder to “do better and be better human beings”.
She continued: “It’s so nasty and so vitriolic nowadays. I mean, everybody could experience that peace that we’ve had up there, and the kindness and what it takes to do what we did, all the people that it took to get us up there and get us back safely… I’ll never, ever, ever, forget.”
She also revealed that Perry had sung “What A Wonderful World” after the crew had returned to their seats after experiencing zero gravity.
Perry, whose daughter Daisy was watching, said the experience was only “second to being a mom”.
“That’s why it was hard for me to go, because that’s all my love right there,” she said after returning to Earth. “And I have to surrender and trust that the universe is going to take care of me and protect me, and also my family, my daughter, because, like, I’m full up from being able to get that gift to be… being a mom and to go to space is incredible, and I wanted to model courage and worthiness and fearlessness.”
Blue Origin Flight NS-31 is the first launch with an all-female crew since the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo space flight in 1963.
The company has sent a range of celebrities, including Bezos himself, into space as part of promotion for what it hopes will eventually become a regular form of commercial space tourism.
Birmingham bin crisis continues as unions reject pay deal
Bin collectors in Birmingham have voted overwhelmingly to reject a “totally inadequate” deal aimed at ending a long-running strike, Unite announced.
The Army has been called in to help tackle the rubbish piling up on the streets, as action by refuse collectors continues as part of a dispute over pay.
The strike began on 11 March and has seen thousands of tonnes of rubbish go uncollected with local residents complaining of cat-sized rats amid warmings of a public health emergency.
Unite said the deal would have included “substantial” pay cuts for workers and did not address potential pay cuts for 200 drivers.
Meanwhile, a Conservative MP nicknamed who labelled the rats as the Squeaky Blinders said they “must be dancing in the streets”.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “For weeks, these workers have faced attacks from government and their employer pushing the lie that only a handful of workers are affected by the council’s plans to cut pay by up to £8,000.
“Instead of peddling untruths about these low paid workers and focusing on winning a media war, the government should have taken the time to check facts and used its office to bring the council to the table in a meaningful way.
“The rejection of the offer is no surprise as these workers simply cannot afford to take pay cuts of this magnitude to pay the price for bad decision after bad decision.”
Birmingham City Council disputes the figures, saying only 17 workers will be affected, losing far less than Unite is claiming.
Military personnel helping Birmingham City Council with its response have not been deployed to collect rubbish, but a small number of office-based military planners have been called in by the Government to give short-term logistical support.
Speaking from Scunthorpe, Angela Rayner said: “There’s no boots on the ground, let me be very clear, we’ve deployed a couple of army logistics to help with the logistical operation of clearing up the rubbish.
“We’ve got over two-thirds of the rubbish cleared off the streets now, this week we’ll start to see cleaning up the pavements and streets as well as the clearance of all of that rubbish, I’m very pleased about that. The kids are off school, obviously it’s Easter holidays, we want that rubbish cleared.”
The deputy prime minister visited the city last week and argued the union to accept an improved offer.
Following the rejection of the deal, Ms Graham said: “From the start, the council has constantly moved the goalposts for these workers, prolonging the strikes in the process. First it was equal pay, then it was about improving the waste service, then cost cutting. The list goes on.
“Unite has set out simple and reasonable steps to the council to resolve these issues. It is important to remember that this dispute is not about a pay rise, it is about preventing serious pay cuts.”
Ms Graham added: “The government must now call a meeting with the stakeholders to ensure these steps are taken to bring the strike to an end.
“The government must now also urgently consider Unite’s proposal for debt restructure at Birmingham City Council and other local authorities.
“Workers and communities cannot continue to pay the price.”
Talks are now set to resume on Wednesday, with Onay Kasab, national lead officer at Unite, suggesting they “could be resolved”
Asked if people living in Birmingham deserve better, he said: “They do. Absolutely nobody deserves this. Our members want to be back at work.
“They love the city and they love the job that they do.
“This doesn’t need to be happening because the council don’t need to be making these cuts, they’re trying to force these cuts through.”
What SNL’s Aimee Lou Wood gag tells us about the state of US satire
The US sketch show Saturday Night Live is well known as a TV institution, forever hailed as a hotbed of talent and for being a safe space for comedic experimentation and the slaying of sacred cows. But there’s a difference between experimentation and plain crapness, and a skit in last Saturday’s edition – which somehow got past the show’s filtering system and made it on to air – fell into the latter category.
In a sketch called “The White Potus”, characters from the newest season of the hit TV show The White Lotus were replaced by Donald Trump (played by James Austin Johnson) and his inner circle. Very apt, you would think, given the show’s portrayal of morally reprehensible rich people.
But after Jon Hamm’s Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK) asked: “What if we took all of the fluoride out of the drinking water? What would that do to people’s teeth?” – a reference to Kennedy’s anti-fluoride stance – up popped SNL regular Sarah Sherman, wearing exaggerated prosthetic teeth, and quipped: “Fluoride? What’s that?”
The joke, such as it is, is linked to the fact that Aimee Lou Wood, a British actor on The White Lotus, has slightly protruding front teeth.
In the pantheon of powerful people ripe for satire, she is certainly not an obvious choice, being neither a world leader with a criminal record (Trump), nor a high-ranking politician and unapologetic conspiracy nut in charge of a nation’s health (RFK). Nor, for that matter, is she your typical self-regarding Hollywood actor with more money than sense.
She is a rising young performer making her way in a ruthless industry that prizes a narrow and homogenous form of female beauty. So all power to Wood for using an Instagram post to decry the skit as “mean and unfunny”, adding, “The whole joke was about fluoride. I have big gap teeth, not bad teeth. The rest of the skit was punching up and I/Chelsea was the only one punched down on.”
The skit certainly seems to misjudge the current feeling around Wood, a hugely popular actor who has cornered the market in playing big-hearted young women, from the loyal, daffy Aimee in Sex Education to her sweet-natured waitress helping Bill Nighy’s office drone make the most of his final months in the movie Living.
As The White Lotus’s Chelsea, yoga-teacher girlfriend to Walton Goggins’ troubled older man, Wood once again plays an earnest young thing with a heart of gold.
Near the start of the series, Charlotte Le Bon’s Chloe says to Chelsea: “I love your teeth. You’re from England, right?”, a line that prompted a lengthy disquisition in The New York Times about Wood’s “broad, beautiful” smile being a novelty in a “sea of actors with straight, evenly spaced teeth having been apparently willed into submission by orthodontics or cosmetic modification.”
That the gag has backfired for SNL is hardly shocking in a show that is only fitfully funny and has long been riding on its own inflated myth.
The series has produced some comedy greats – Bill Murray, John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler – the list goes on. But it has also featured characters in blackface, mocked domestic abuse survivors (in a sketch about the Depp-Heard trial), and welcomed Elon Musk into its midst to deliver a monologue. Poking fun at an actor’s teeth is by no means the show’s worst faux pas, but it does suggest a writing team struggling to differentiate between cutting-edge humour and schoolyard bullying.
SNL has also perhaps forgotten that young actors are increasingly willing to call out mockery and criticism they deem to be unfair. See the Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown’s public takedown of the MailOnline journalists who criticised and dissected her appearance during her press tour for the film The Electric State.
There is a sense, nowadays, that the media has moved on from the bad old days of 2000s celebrity culture, when women in the public eye had to deal with gross intrusion and judgment about their bodies and behaviour.
But Brown and Wood’s treatment shows it’s naïve to think it has been stamped out. The SNL skit reveals misogyny lives on in supposedly liberal institutions and that old habits die hard.
Former Tory MP Craig Williams among 15 charged over election betting scandal
A former Tory MP and aide to Rishi Sunak is among 15 people charged with offences relating to bets placed on the timing of the 2024 general election, the Gambling Commission has announced.
The scandal over the alleged placing of bets on the timing of the election prior to Mr Sunak’s surprise decision to call the national ballot early engulfed the Conservative Party’s campaign last summer.
While the Metropolitan Police dropped its own investigation last August, saying the bar for misconduct in public office had not been met, the Gambling Commission announced on Monday that it had brought charges against 15 individuals.
Among those were Mr Sunak’s former parliamentary private secretary Craig Williams, the former Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire, who was charged with cheating under Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005, which is a criminal offence.
Russell George, the Tory Senedd member for Montgomeryshire, was also charged, along with the Conservative Party’s chief data officer, Nick Mason and the party’s chief marketing officer, Simon Chatfield.
Laura Saunders, who was the Tory candidate for Bristol North West at the election and her husband Tony Lee – the Conservative Party’s campaign chief – were also both charged.
The Gambling Commission said its investigation, which began during the election campaign in June 2024, focused on individuals “suspected of using confidential information – specifically advance knowledge of the proposed election date – to gain an unfair advantage in betting markets”.
The other nine people charged with cheating include a former police officer, the Gambling Commission said.
They are: Amy Hind, aged 34, from Loughton; Anthony Hind, 36, also from Loughton; former police officer Jeremy Hunt, 55, Horne; Thomas James, 38, Brecon; Charlotte Lang, 36, Brixton; Iain Makepeace, 47, Newcastle; Paul Place, 53, Hammersmith; James Ward, 40, London; and Jacob Willmer, 39, Richmond.
They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 10am on Friday 13 June 2025.
Labour Party chair Ellie Reeves said: “This is a very serious development. The British people will expect that anyone found guilty of wrongdoing faces the full force of the law.
“Kemi Badenoch must make crystal clear that anyone found guilty of using insider information to cheat the system to try to enrich themselves has no place in the Conservative Party. No ifs, no buts.”
The Tory party said on Monday that staff members who had been charged were being “suspended with immediate effect”.
A spokesperson said: “The Conservative Party believes that those working in politics must act with integrity. Current members of staff who have been charged are being suspended with immediate effect.
“These incidents took place in May last year. Our party is now under new leadership, and we are cooperating fully with the Gambling Commission to ensure that their investigation can conclude swiftly and transparently.”
The Gambling Commission is the industry’s independent regulator and has the authority under the Gambling Act to investigate offences and bring criminal prosecutions.
It’s time to make your smartest investment move yet
Saving money is one thing, but growing it is another. With interest rates on traditional savings accounts often struggling to outpace inflation, putting your money to work through investing has never been more important. A Stocks and Shares ISA is a tax-efficient way to invest in the market, helping you build wealth while shielding your returns from tax. But how does it work, and why should you consider Trading 212 as your go-to platform?
The tax-free investment secret
A Stocks and Shares Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a powerful tool for UK investors. Unlike a Cash ISA, which earns interest, a Stocks and Shares ISA allows you to invest in assets such as shares, bonds, and funds. The best part? Any returns you make within the ISA are completely free from income tax and capital gains tax, making it an attractive option for anyone looking to grow their wealth over time.
Opening a Stocks and Shares ISA is easier than you might think. First, you choose a provider that offers a suitable range of investment options and account features. Once your account is set up, you can start investing in a variety of financial assets, tailoring your portfolio to your risk appetite and financial goals. Unlike traditional savings accounts, your returns aren’t guaranteed – but with the right strategy, a Stocks and Shares ISA can deliver significantly higher growth over the long term.
The investor’s advantage
For those looking to build wealth over time, a Stocks and Shares ISA offers unbeatable benefits. Because all returns within the ISA are free from capital gains tax and income tax, investors get to keep more of their profits. This means that any dividends earned, or gains made from selling shares, remain entirely in your pocket. The ability to reinvest these gains can lead to significant compound growth, helping you maximise your portfolio’s potential.
If you’ve been relying on a traditional savings account to grow your money, you might be missing out. With cash savings rates often failing to keep up with inflation, a Stocks and Shares ISA provides an opportunity for much higher returns. By investing in a diversified portfolio, you give your money a chance to grow at a faster rate, helping to safeguard your future financial security. And with Trading 212’s commission-free investing, you can maximise your returns without worrying about unnecessary fees eating into your profits.
Why the Trading 212 ISA is a game-changer
With so many investment platforms available,which should you go for? Trading 212 offers one of the most cost-effective and user-friendly ISA providers in the UK. Unlike many competitors, Trading 212 offers zero-commission investing, meaning you can buy and sell stocks without incurring extra costs. This commission-free model ensures that every penny of your investment works harder for you, helping you achieve your financial goals faster. The platform also allows you to invest in fractional shares, so even if you don’t have thousands to invest, you can still gain exposure to big-name companies with as little as £1.
The Trading 212 app is designed for both beginners and experienced investors, with intuitive tools that make portfolio management easy. Features like ‘Pies’ allow you to create and automate your own investment strategy, helping you build a balanced portfolio with minimal effort. Additionally, Trading 212 offers flexible ISA rules, meaning you can withdraw and redeposit funds within the same tax year without affecting your annual allowance – an advantage not all providers offer.
Your first step to smarter investing
Getting started with a Stocks and Shares ISA on Trading 212 is quick and straightforward. Simply visit the Trading 212 website or download the app to open an account. Once set up, you can deposit funds and start investing in thousands of shares and ETFs with no commission.
If you’re looking to make your money work harder for you, a Stocks and Shares ISA is one of the smartest moves you can make – and with Trading 212’s commission-free investing, you get the best combination of cost efficiency, flexibility, and ease of use.
Make the most of your £20,000 2025/26 ISA allowance and put every pound to work.
Invest in more than 13,000 stocks and ETFs with 0 commission and 0 account fees.
Get the Trading 212 app and start building your wealth today.
When you invest, capital is at risk. Other fees may apply.
*Card distributed by T212, issued and provided by Paynetics UK, available with an Invest account. ATM withdrawals are free up to £400 per month, 1% ATM fee applies thereafter. Other fees may apply. When investing, your capital is at risk. By enabling interest, we hold your cash in QMMFs and banks. Otherwise we hold it only in banks. Interest applies on cash in an investment account. Terms apply.
Relatives charged after boy shot and killed in Australia
A man and a teenager have been charged over the death of a nine-year-old boy killed by an accidental gunshot in Australia.
Emergency services were called to a property in Windellama at about 11.20am local time on Sunday, and the Hume police were told the minor had sustained injuries.
Mohamed Fattah was on a weekend away with relatives near Goulburn in southern New South Wales when a 14-year-old boy allegedly picked up a gun from inside a vehicle and discharged it, hitting the minor.
Fattah, 9, was treated by paramedics for serious neck injuries but he reportedly succumbed on the spot.
The 14-year-old was arrested shortly after the incident along with a 33-year-old man and taken to the Goulburn police station. While the teenager was charged with possessing an unauthorised firearm, the man was charged with letting an unauthorised person possess a firearm and not keeping it safely.
The boy, given conditional bail, was likely to appear before a children’s court on 16 May, the New South Wales police said.
Ron Wenban, who lives two doors down from the property where the incident occurred, said it was “rare to hear one shot here”.
“We were outside and I said to my partner, ‘Was that a shot?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’” he told the ABC. Shortly after, Mr Wenban said, he heard sirens and about an hour later an emergency helicopter flew overhead.
“Once the chopper came over, I said to my partner, ‘Someone’s been hurt.’ To have a gunshot like that happen, that was a concern, neither of us wanted to go over there,” he said.
The victim’s mother remembered Fattah as a “very cheeky son”, the ABC reported.
New South Wales premier Chris Minns offered his condolences to the minor’s family and reiterated the need for compliance with gun laws.
“It’s a very troubling story and a life has been lost as a result. These are dangerous weapons, everyone must comply with the laws, they’re in place for a reason to keep people safe. I’m sure this was a terrible, terrible accident, but a life’s been lost as a result,” he said.
“We need to make sure that under all circumstances, everybody in the state complies with the law when it comes to firearms, it’s not designed to get in the way, it’s designed to save lives.”
Goulburn Mulwaree Council mayor Nina Dillon said that the incident was a reminder for the community to take gun security seriously.
Britain’s aid cuts harm the world – and the UK itself
When the government announced that it was to divert almost half of the annual foreign aid budget to defence spending, the outcry, beyond the aid community and the demonstrative resignation of the development minister, was rather less than might have been expected in response to such a drastic switch.
To be sure, the muted response had its causes, which included the acceptance that Europe was going to have to pay a lot more towards its own defence; the continuing strength of UK public support for Ukraine; and the regrettable reality that foreign aid is rarely a popular destination for taxpayers’ money. If there was also an element of ignorance – or, at the very least, a reluctance to acknowledge the likely consequences of such a major redirection of resources – such excuses are no longer tenable, if ever they were. The scale of the likely damage has now been spelt out in an analysis by the charity Save the Children – and a disastrous picture it presents, too.
As is so often the case, the first to suffer will be the poorest, and chief among those are women and girls, mothers and babies. Programmes designed to widen access to education, family planning, clean water and food are all likely to be cut back or ended, affecting as many as 12 million people. Almost 3 million fewer children could be in education compared with five years ago. Poor sanitation means the spread of disease; curtailing sexual health programmes risks increasing the spread of HIV. By any measure, these add up to a big step in the wrong direction.
Even those dismal figures, however, do not tell the whole story. When the reallocation between the aid and defence budgets was announced, the prime minister insisted that aid to Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan would be protected. Together, however, these commitments amount to nearly £7bn of the £9.2bn that is envisaged to be the aid budget in 2027. To that has also to be added the £3bn or so that currently goes from the foreign aid budget towards the cost of accommodating asylum seekers and irregular migrants in the UK. Save the Children estimates a “black hole” of at least £750,000 that could presage the end of practically every other aid programme, with as many as 55 million people affected around the world.
One very partial remedy might be for the government to reallocate the asylum costs to domestic spending departments. But this looks unlikely. While it was questioned at one time by none other than the foreign secretary, David Lammy, the use of the foreign aid budget to fund accommodation for asylum seekers is clearly designed to fend off criticism and, with the number of small-boat crossings only rising, these costs look unlikely to come down soon, despite the home secretary’s hopes of cutting spending by speeding up procedures. Dan Paskins of Save the Children has it right when he says, “We should not fund our response to one crisis at the expense of others.”
International pressure to keep up foreign aid spending is also diminished. The Trump administration went so far as to disband one of the world’s biggest aid agencies, USAID, with some immediate dire consequences, including for earthquake relief in Myanmar. Rather than being seen as an example of what not to do, however, that one move seemed to give others a green light to downgrade their own foreign aid efforts. The UK was one – and the scale of the cut was savage. At 0.3 per cent of gross national income (GNI), the UK’s aid contribution is now at its lowest for 25 years.
It is a far cry from the 0.7 per cent of GNI that is called for by the UN, was promised by the Blair government, and was finally reached by the UK in 2013. This is where it stayed until 2021, when it was “temporarily” reduced to 0.5 per cent by the Johnson government in the light of Covid spending pressures. Last year’s Labour manifesto included an undertaking to restore the budget to 0.7 per cent. For all the current special circumstances, the government should be held to its pledge.
Summary cuts to vital aid programmes harm the intended recipients above all. But they harm the donor country and its government, too. They damage its reputation and its projection of “soft power”, but they also threaten to increase multiple risks, from the spread of disease to security threats and enforced migration, any or all of which could eventually reach our shores. A supposedly short-term slashing of the foreign aid budget today can all too easily translate into much higher costs for everyone tomorrow.