JK Rowling responds to Emma Watson viral interview with parody clip

JK Rowling has responded to Emma Watson’s recent viral interview by sharing a parody video of the actor’s appearance.

The Harry Potter star, best known for her portrayal of Hermione Granger in the film adaptations of Rowling’s bestselling novels, sat down for a lengthy interview with podcast host Jay Shetty earlier this week.

Among the topics covered was her rift with Rowling over their differing views on transgender issues.

Watson, along with her co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, who played Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, respectively, have been vocal advocates for trans rights. Rowling, meanwhile, has attracted controversy for several comments that have been criticised as transphobic.

On Friday (26 September), Rowling responded to Watson’s interview by sharing a video created by comedian IntelLady, which spoofed the moment in which the actor said she would be open to speaking with Rowling again.

The author praised the comedian’s video, and in her caption wrote: “I’m here for all the spoofs.”

During the sit-down with Shetty, Watson said of their falling-out: “I think the thing I’m most upset about is that a conversation was never made possible.”

The Beauty and the Beast star added that she “will always believe” in having an open dialogue.

“I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, means that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I had personal experiences with,” Watson said.

“I will never believe that one negates the other and that my experience of that person, I don’t get to keep and cherish, to come back to our earlier thing. I just don’t think these things are either or. I think it’s my deepest wish that I hope people who don’t agree with my opinion will love me and I hope I can keep loving people who I don’t necessarily share the same opinion with.”

Rowling has previously lashed out at Watson, Radcliffe, and Grint, with whom she once had close relationships.

Last year, the author, who once stated she would “happily” go to prison for misgendering a transgender person, said she would not forgive the actors for criticising her opinions, telling them to “save their apologies”.

This new interview with Shetty was a rare appearance for Watson, who has not appeared on the big screen since 2019’s Little Women and who has spoken about her dislike of press tours.

Elsewhere during the sit-down, she spoke about trans rights, Palestine, Israel, and the immense scrutiny she faced as a young actor in the spotlight.

Tesco, Asda and Morrisons axe supplier after farm workers beat piglets to death

Workers have been filmed violently killing piglets by slamming them against concrete floors at a third farm owned by a major supermarket meat supplier after the firm promised it had banned the practice.

Secret cameras captured staff illegally killing young animals by “blunt-force trauma” at a farm owned by Cranswick, Britain’s biggest pig producer, which supplies retailers with products including bacon and ham.

Some animals were left writhing in agony and slowly dying over 20 minutes, according to activists who investigated Mere Farm, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire.

The video shows workers kicking aside piglets with head injuries that had been “thumped” this way.

Tesco, Asda and Morrisons suspended the farm when The Independent showed them the footage, and Cranswick sacked four staff.

The company says it has introduced changes to reduce cruelty since much of the footage was taken, including installing hundreds of cameras on its 45 farms and retraining staff.

But one worker seen in the latest footage, who was later sacked, had completed his training only around 10 days earlier.

It’s the third of the company’s farms in under five months where staff have been found inflicting painful deaths and suffering on pigs.

In May, workers were seen “slamming” piglets to death at North Moor Farm, Lincolnshire. The company said it launched an investigation, then at its July AGM said it had banned this killing technique.

In August, covert filming at Somerby Top Farm, also in Lincolnshire, showed workers hitting pigs with boards, paddles and fists.

Supermarkets said they cut ties with Somerby Top, and Cranswick said it was recruiting five new animal-welfare officers and introducing AI surveillance.

However, animal-welfare organisation Animal Justice Project (AJP) has now revealed that in footage shot in July – two months after Cranswick said it had banned “thumping” – workers were still killing piglets by grabbing their hind legs and slamming them on concrete.

Until the practice was outlawed, piglets deemed too small to be profitable were routinely killed this way on UK farms.

The activists said equally horrifying video clips showed a trapped sow being violently abused.

Unable to get up after giving birth, the animal was allegedly left without water for over 24 hours and food for more than 54 hours.

Workers repeatedly attacked the sow, kicking her with their boots on, pulling her head with ropes, treading on her side and prodding her with a sharp shovel, the footage shows.

One worker even stood on her side with his full weight. Finally, they pulled her with ropes bound around her legs.

The investigators also said they filmed nine piglets being thumped over four days and none were checked for signs of life.

They said they filmed:

Workers were filmed saying: “Bloody hell, I’d expect this to be dead” and “Think she’s gonna die anyway, let her f***ing die, innit”.

AJP said footage in March showed identical practices, “suggesting this is not isolated but systemic”.

The organisation says it’s planning legal action for Animal Welfare Act breaches.

A Cranswick spokesman said: “The behaviour depicted is wholly unacceptable and clearly breaches our values, standards and animal-welfare practices.

“Much of the material appears to pre-date the significant reforms we have been implementing, including an update to our welfare standards and the installation of AI-enabled CCTV systems.

“We will continue to work to improve the culture and practices at our farms. The individuals filmed at Mere Farm were all dismissed as soon as we saw the footage.”

A Tesco spokesperson said it suspended the farm immediately pending a thorough investigation. “Any failure to meet our high welfare standards is unacceptable and we take swift action where necessary,” they said.

Asda said it immediately suspended supply from finisher farms supplied by Mere Farm.

A Morrisons spokesperson said the company was deeply saddened by the footage and suspended it, adding: “We welcome and support Cranswick’s immediate investigation.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson branded the mistreatment “appalling and inexcusable”, adding: “It goes against Sainsbury’s values and standards in every respect.” They said they were in close contact with Cranswick about the fundamental overhaul of its sites, including Mere Farm.

Ayrton Cooper, of Animal Justice Project, said consumers were tired of being misled over “empty high-welfare claims”.

An Animal and Plant Health Agency spokesperson said: “We will always take appropriate action where non-compliances with welfare regulations are found.”

North Lincolnshire Trading Standards said it was investigating.

Animal Justice Project is calling for an independent public inquiry into pig farming.

Crystal Palace v Liverpool stopped after medical emergency

A fan was suspected to have been taken ill at Selhurst Park during this afternoon’s Premier League clash between Crystal Palace and Liverpool, causing a lengthy stoppage.

In the 13th minute, with Liverpool preparing to take a free-kick on the edge of the Palace box, fans at the bottom of the Main Stand desperately signalled to the referee to halt the game due to an apparent medical emergency.

The referee and players ran over the inspect the situation as medics and other emergency personnel gathered around the area.

As the fan in question received the medical attention required, referee Chris Kavanagh was seen informing Palace captain Marc Guehi of the ongoing incident.

Club medics from both the Palace and Liverpool dugouts also rushed to the scene and after a period of time returned to their stations on the other side of the pitch, with applause ringing around Selhurst Park as they jogged across the turf.

Crystal Palace posted on social media: “There has been a break in play due to an incident in the crowd. Our thoughts are with all those involved.”

The game was halted for around seven minutes before Liverpool were allowed to take their free-kick, one that was hit into the wall by Mohamed Salah before Ryan Gravenberch forced a fine save out of Dean Henderson on the rebound, tipping onto the post.

That denied the league leaders an equaliser, with Ismaila Sarr putting the Eagles in front inside nine minutes on his return from injury.

Ten minutes were added on in first-half stoppage time to account for the delay.

Why would Denmark be the target of a Russian ‘hybrid drone attack’?

Denmark has said it was the victim of a “hybrid attack” after repeated unexplained drone activity near five of its airports this week.

The most recent was Aalborg airport, in north Denmark, which closed on Friday following the drone sightings, while Esbjerg, Sonderborg and Skrydstrup regions all remained open despite similar incidents.

They came just two days after Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen refused to rule out Russian involvement when drone sightings forced Copenhagen airport into shutdown for four hours, in what she described as a “serious attack on critical Danish infrastructure”.

After Wednesday’s incident, defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen warned that it “certainly does not look like a coincidence, it looks systematic, this is what I would define as a hybrid attack”.

Similar drone sightings occurred in Sweden this week, including two mysterious drones spotted over the Karlskrona archipelago in the country’s southeast, and in Norway, where Oslo airport was forced to close for three hours on the same night as the incident in the Danish capital.

As Danish politicians hint at a real possibility of Russian involvement, The Independent takes a look at why Moscow would seek to target a country so far away.

“What’s been overlooked in a lot of the foreign media coverage is the history, in terms of Russia making angry noises towards Copenhagen,” Keir Giles, an expert on the Russian military and author of Russia’s War on Everybody: And What It Means For You, explained to The Independent.

This includes the “old litany of nuclear threats, precisely because Denmark is interested in defending itself, because it is looking at purchases of long-range precision strike munitions that Russia would not like it to have”, he added.

Last Wednesday, Denmark said it would acquire “long-range precision weapons” for the first time as it cited the need to deter Russia.

“With these weapons, the defence forces will be able to hit targets at long range and, for example, neutralise enemy missile threats,” Ms Frederiksen said, explaining the weapons could include either missiles or drones.

It provoked a sharp reaction from Moscow, with Vladimir Barbin, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, describing the Danish justification about needing to strike long-distance targets as “pure madness”.

Barbin then issued a thinly veiled nuclear threat to Copenhagen.

“No one, anywhere, ever in the world has considered threatening a nuclear power publicly. These statements will undoubtedly be taken into account,” he wrote on Telegram.

“From now on, we must assume that Denmark is not only considering the possibility of a direct military confrontation with Russia, but is also preparing for such a scenario.”

Katja Bego, a senior research fellow in Chatham House’s International Security programme, said that of the countries which don’t border Europe, Denmark has been “one of the frontrunner countries” in terms of challenging Russian aggression.

“There’s been this longer-term pattern that Denmark is one of those places that’s really pushing the rest of the [Nato} alliance to increase [military] support,” she added.

Russia could be cynically trying to sow distrust in the Danish population, which has been largely in favour of significant support for Ukraine, Ms Bego explained.

“[They are] kind of selling distrust or division among the population. Other countries that were targeted here were all very staunch supporters of Ukraine, and countries near Ukraine,” she said.

“These are Ukraine’s strongest supporters, which I think is part of a longer-term pattern. We’ve seen quite a lot of this activity in the Baltic Sea.

“So I think the choice of countries here is certainly not random.”

The benefit of doing this, she explains, is that it “creates fear” and may make populations “less willing to support Ukraine moving forward”.

There is a significant financial cost to use “incredibly expensive missiles” to shoot down “really cheap drones”, as she says was done in the case of Russia’s incursion into Poland with around 20 drones earlier this month.

It’s been widely suggested that Moscow is looking to probe Nato defences to ascertain how they would really respond to a more meaningful incursion of Russia’s military.

“Nobody is in any doubt that Russia’s ambition goes far beyond Ukraine, and to carry out that ambition, Russia needs to know whether it will be opposed,” Mr Giles said.

Although it is unconfirmed whether Russia was involved with the recent drone incidents, he said, Moscow still learns a great deal from it, even if it was “just local idiots”.

“One of the primary benefits is understanding more about the capacity of Nato and individual countries to counter Russian operations and the willingness to actually respond in a meaningful fashion,” he said.

But the capacity for victim states to deal with the threat has been proven to be “very limited”, he added.

The drone incidents would be a good means of “normalising the state of conflict”, he added, allowing Russia to get to a position where “these kinds of Russian actions are part of the background noise, as opposed to something which ought to be unacceptable”.

Ms Bego agrees, arguing that it may be Russia “testing the waters, or trying to see how Alliance members of Nato might respond”.

She added: “In this case, these are kind of lower key drones, but [the response] would not necessarily look that dissimilar if you were looking at a bigger escalation.”

Alcohol is a neurotoxin; there is no such thing as moderate drinking

A new study from the universities of Oxford, Yale and Cambridge has found that any level of alcohol consumption may increase risks of dementia. This wide-ranging study, published earlier this week on BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, suggested there may be no such thing as a “safe level” of booze, where brain health is concerned. Dr Anya Topiwala, lead author on the paper, said: “Even light or moderate drinking may increase the risk of dementia, indicating that reducing alcohol consumption across the population could play a significant role in dementia prevention.”

She went on to say that the common belief that a little bit of alcohol, the odd glass of red, say, might actually be good for the brain – neuroprotective – is almost certainly nonsense. “Genetic evidence offers no support for a protective effect,” she said. “In fact, it suggests the opposite.”

So, there you have it. Never mind congratulating yourselves for sticking to the government’s recommended guidelines on booze (14 units, spread out across seven days). Forget “everything in moderation!” and “A little bit of what you fancy does you good!” and: “I always do Dry January, so…” According to this new report, any alcohol is a potential problem.

Honestly? I’m not surprised. Slightly depressed – but not surprised.

This summer, I published my new book: How the Female Body Works. It is the result of two-and-a-half years of hard, joyful research and writing, all focused around interviews with the most knowledgeable academics, medics, neuroscientists, gynaecologists, psychologists and really any other world-renowned expert in women’s health I could get to talk to me.

It covers every stage of women’s lives, from puberty to older age. I wrote it because I realised I knew virtually nothing about my own body, which was absurd. I’d also watched the internet slowly get flooded with contradictory, confusing “advice” and – often contradictory – “wisdom” about women’s bodies, so I set out to get some definitive answers.

I asked my experts questions like “What’s a brain made of?”, “are we our personality – or are we our hormones?”, “why are breasts the shape they are? “What makes a hot flush happen? Not just ‘falling oestrogen levels’… What’s the actual function?” Dumb-but-illuminating questions, from an ignoramus, to the people whose life’s work is women’s bodies, what happens to them, and how to heal and support them.

One of the facts I came up against really early on was: women are twice as likely to get an Alzheimer’s diagnosis as men. Which troubled me. The other thing, a sort of overarching narrative, which ended up lodged in my consciousness like a bad smell, was that alcohol really isn’t very good for us. It really isn’t. Which is a shame, because it can be so fun.

Alcohol is hard on everyone – implicated in everything from cancer to strokes to heart attacks to infections – but it’s far harder on women than it is on men. This is partly because women’s livers produce less of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, or ADH, the purpose of which is to break down and eliminate alcohol from the body.

Women’s ADH levels fall further yet, in peri menopause and menopause. Beyond that, the way fat is distributed on a woman’s body means it holds onto alcohol for longer, which means female bodies are exposed to alcohol’s toxicity for longer, leaving women more vulnerable to liver damage, heart disease, and at a higher risk of breast cancer. Oh, and also? While a woman is still experiencing a menstrual cycle, alcohol will act more aggressively on her body at certain points in that cycle, leaving her (for example) far drunker, far quicker, around the time she’s ovulating, than at any other point. This is because her body is uniquely concerned with getting her pregnant, so tedious things like processing and removing alcohol from her system get jettisoned. I know!

I learned all this from Dr Sharon Cox, principal research fellow at University College London, an extraordinary scientist, whose work focuses on addictive behaviours, particularly around alcohol and nicotine. All those existing problems, she tells me, have been further exacerbated by, she says: “Women drinking more than we ever have”. Drinking has gone up in both men and women since the pandemic, when we all spent our time making cocktails along with Stanley Tucci on YouTube because there was nothing else to do, and the world was terrifying. “This is particularly in people over 30, and the increase in drinking was sharper in women.”

“Why?” I ask. “Stress?”

“These large national surveys tell us what is happening – not why. But yeah, it’s probably that alcohol was used as a stress relief – and it’s a difficult rut to get out from. [The increase has] mostly sustained.”

At no point did Dr Cox tell me not to drink. She herself drinks… well, moderately. As do I. Assuming the concept of “moderately” means anything, after this latest report, which it probably doesn’t. In fact, none of the experts with whom I spoke for my book told me not to drink, or told me to tell my readers not to drink. It’s just that, when you interview – in depth – 20-ish of the world’s leading specialists on all aspects of women’s health, and nearly every last one of them alludes, en passant, to booze, in a dispassionate, non-judgemental, scientific, but repeatedly critical way, for all manner of reasons, from all their different perspectives and individual areas of study, it’s tough to ignore.

And now a new study emerges, connecting any alcohol consumption at all with possible increased risk of dementia – one which is already twice as high in women, as it is in men – and… I sort of want to give booze up, right here and now. Don’t you?

Honestly? I sort of already have. If pre-book, I was “moderate” in my drinking, I’d now describe myself as not exactly sober… But really, not not sober, either. Physically, I have felt that enzyme in my liver, ADH, falter with age, got to a point where now, the very first sip of wine (once, so joyful, so promising, so potent!) triggers memories not of my last fun, feckless night out – but of my last hangover, the associated anxiety and anguish, all of which, by the way, were the consequence of barely three-and-a-half glasses of house white!

Being drunk used to be so fun! The silliness of tipsiness, the sweet slipe-slide toward disinhibition! I’m wondering if this instinctual and informed growing wariness around booze, coupled with a desire not to live a sober life, might explain the increasing number of people I know, ditching alcohol. The brilliant neuroscientist I interviewed for the book, Dr Sarah McKay, told me she’s hopeful the way women live their lives now – how much more educated we are, how much more likely to work, and have good, deep, social connections – which also leaves us at an advantage over earlier generations of women in terms of neuroprotection – our brains’ defences against cognitive decline.

So, should we just be giving up alcohol, full stop?

I ask Dr Federica Amati. She’s the head nutritionist at ZOE, a trusted source; earlier this summer, she caused ructions on Paul Sculfor’s This Is Powerful podcast by saying: “If you look at alcohol as a drug – like, as a pharmaceutical drug… they’ve calculated what the safe amount would be to consume before these neurotoxic, genotoxic {when a substance damages DNA] effects. And it’s two units a year.”

“I do [want to] give some nuance to that,” she tells me. Please! I say. Here for the nuance.

“We can choose some exposures we subject our body to,” Dr Amati says. “And alcohol may be one of them. But we need to be informed of the impact on our health. I have the occasional glass of red – but I don’t fool myself, it’s good for me.”

So: drink sometimes, but understand what it’s doing to you?

“Don’t if you don’t… But if you do, make sure you’re clear on the risk.”

‘How the Female Body Works (in all its miraculous glory)’ by Polly Vernon’ is out now

E.ON Next/Independent EV Index: Prices down 7.7 per cent

Electric car prices are dropping fast, according to the first publication of the E.ON Next/The Independent EV Price Index.

The energy giant and media company have combined to produce the UK’s first-ever electric car price index that measures real-world prices (including available discounts) on every EV on sale in the UK.

The first E.ON Next/The Independent EV Price Index has revealed that over the past twelve months the median price of an EV has fallen by 7.7 per cent, a figure of £3,750.

Month-on-month, there’s been a sizeable drop of £1,228 or 2.7 per cent, thanks to the introduction of the government’s electric car grant and the additional discounts car makers introduced while waiting for the grant to be implemented.

The biggest year-on-year drop has been in the competitive small electric SUV segment – including cars like the Citroen e-C4, Mercedes EQA, Peugeot 2008 and BMW iX1 – where a drop of £5,827 or 13 per cent has been seen. Larger medium-sized electric SUVs – like the Audi Q4 e-Tron, Ford Explorer, Nissan Ariya and Skoda Enyaq – show a similarly-large year-on-year drop of £4,666 or 9.8 per cent.

The data for the E.ON Next/The Independent EV Price Index has been compiled by auto industry market insight and pricing data specialists Insider Car Deals. The prices quoted are median prices sourced from Insider Car Deal’s mystery shopping and market research analysis and are based on real-world discounts offered, including any incentives given as part of finance packages.

As well as analysing prices, the E.ON Next/The Independent EV Price Index has also revealed an increase of 25 per cent in the number of electric cars available in the UK over the past year. At the time of research there were 111 electric vehicle models available in the UK, with that number increasing all the time.

When various trim levels and different battery options are taken into account across all available models, there is a choice of 1,029 different electric car choices for UK car buyers – up 32 per cent year-on-year.

The research has also shown that median PCP (Personal Contract Purchase) monthly payments for electric cars have dropped by £55 a month, or 10.8 per cent compared with a year ago. Again, the biggest drop is in the small electric SUV segment, were median monthly payments are down £76 or 16.6 per cent per month.

The quoted PCP terms are based on discounted transaction prices, manufacturer’s APR and GFV and standardised at four years, 8,000-10,000 miles per year and a 15 per cent customer deposit (plus any manufacturer deposit contribution). Where a manufacturer imposes a maximum term of 42 or 36 months, that shorter term is used instead.

One standout deal uncovered by the E.ON Next/The Independent EV Price Index research was for a Vauxhall Mokka 115kW Ultimate 54kWh, with total discount and finance savings of 36.4 per cent (£13,524). That brings the price down to just £24,580, or a possible £292 a month on Vauxhall’s PCP finance plan.

The research also highlighted the difference in average PCP APR finance rates available on electric cars versus hybrid and internal combustion engine (ICE) models. Buyers of EVs will, on average, benefit from PCP APRs that are 3.1 per cent lower than they are for ICE models and 2.2 per cent for hybrids. The average PCP APR for an electric car currently sits at 3.5 per cent.

At the time of research, nine car makers were offering zero per cent finance – the same number as this time last year, although the brands have changed. The scale of finance deposit contributions on electric vehicles has also been revealed with the highest seen being £7,750.

Two women die while crossing Channel from France to UK

Two women have died during an attempt to cross the Channel, French authorities have said.

Officials said the two migrants died on Saturday morning while trying to travel from France to the UK on a makeshift boat.

Rescuers found the women in cardiac arrest but couldn’t save them, the prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais region, in northern France, said in a statement.

A couple with their child were also transported to a hospital in Boulogne, the French authority said.

The incident happened off the coast of the town of Neuchâtel-Hardelot, beaches between Boulogne and Le Touquet.

The French media have reported that around 60 people were rescued from the overnight incident.

According to the prefecture, 17 migrants have died since the beginning of the year while attempting to reach the UK on board small boats from the coast of the Pas-de-Calais region.

The number of people arriving in the UK through channel crossings is at a record for this point in the year since data was first reported in 2018.

Last year, 50 people died while trying to cross the Channel, according to incidents recorded by the French coastguard.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has also reported several more migrant deaths believed to be linked to crossing attempts in 2024 and this year.

Earlier this week, a family of three, including a small child, became the first people sent to the UK by France under an agreement in which Britain returns migrants and France sends vetted asylum-seekers.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We can confirm there has been a tragic incident involving a small boat that had attempted to cross the Channel which has resulted in the loss of two lives.

“This latest tragedy underlines the terrible dangers of small boat crossings, and we continue to do everything we can to prevent callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people. Our thoughts are with those affected.”

How to more than double your annual leave and get 63 days off in 2026

If you’re savvy, you can turn 28 days of annual leave in 2026 into 63 by planning ahead and booking the right days off.

Take full advantage of the bank holidays in 2026 and you can stretch what feels like a few days dotted here and there into a longer and more satisfying break.

But get those annual leave requests in quick, as they’re likely to go fast.

4 days off at New Year

With 1 January 2026 falling on a Thursday, booking off Friday 2 January gives you a four-day block of holiday to recover from the revelry of New Year celebrations and begin the year well-rested.

16 days off at Easter

Spring is the perfect time to do a long-haul trip and get a chunk of time off altogether. Lots of destinations get a huge uptick in tourists over the summer so avoid the extortionate costs while getting more days off too.

With Good Friday falling on 3 April and Easter Monday on 6 April, booking off the four days between 30 March and 2 April and the four days between 7 April and 10 April means you use only eight days of your precious allowance and get 16 consecutive days off.

9 days off in early May

By booking off the dates between 5 to 8 May, you could get nine days off and use only four days of annual leave because Early May bank holiday falls on 4 May this year.

9 days off in late May

You can double your time again by booking off four days between 26 May and 29 May, taking advantage of the Spring bank holiday falling on Monday 25 May. That will leave you with another nine days off in a row. You’ll barely feel like you’ve been in the office.

9 days off at the end of the summer holidays

Another trick is to take full advantage of the Summer bank holiday, falling on 31 August in 2026. Request four days of leave for 1 September to 4 September and you can get nine days off in a row, doubling the chunk of time.

16 days for the price of 7 at Christmas

Last but not least: Christmas. This one might need more forward-planning because even though it’s more than a year away, it’s often the most competitive time for getting the days you want.

With 2 days off on Friday 25 December for Christmas Day and Monday 28 December for Boxing Day, next year’s festive season falls at almost the perfect time for maximising annual leave.

Book 21 December to 24 December and 29 December to 31 December and you’ll get a lovely 16 days off while using only 7 days of annual leave.