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.

Israeli prime minister addresses media after US and Israel launch major combat operation against Iran; at least 201 people killed in Iran, media reports say

• Full report: US and Israel attack Iran

• Analysis: Trump’s attack has no mandate

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

Blasts have been heard in several cities, including the capital, Tehran, and Isfahan in central Iran.

Reuters reports there are long queues at petrol stations in the capital, as many people try to leave. An unnamed Iranian official who spoke to the news agency said several ministries in southern Tehran had been targeted.

Missiles and bombs landed across Iran, hitting political and security targets in Tehran, including supreme leader’s residence

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran – what we know so far

The US and Israel have announced the beginning of an unprecedented joint operation against Iran, beginning with a wide-ranging bombing campaign aimed at regime change.

Israeli jets and US missiles struck hundreds of targets across Iran, sending residents fleeing in panic from major urban centres. Among the targets were Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as weapons facilities across the country.

Footage circulating on social media appears to show the moment a missile fell near a residential area in Doha. Qatar's defence ministry said its air defences successfully intercepted several missiles. Explosions were reported in Gulf nations including the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, all of which host US military bases

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran: what we know so far

Members of Congress swiftly denounced the president’s military action against the Islamic Republic alongside Israel

• US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates

• US and Israel strikes on Iran: what we know so far
  

Donald Trump’s failure to build a case with the US public for striking Iran and then going ahead apparently after a last-minute alert to Congress’s key national security experts – the so-called “gang of eight” – has fuelled fierce domestic criticism of the military action against the Islamic Republic on Saturday.

Belying the gravity of Saturday’s attacks, the president spent just three minutes of Tuesday’s record-length one hour and 48 minute State of the Union address trying to explain why the need to act against a regime that had been a strategic foe for decades had suddenly become so urgent and whose nuclear facilities he claimed to have “obliterated” in previous strikes last June.