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

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

• The best toys for one-year-olds: 25 fun, skill-building ideas

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.

A lot of fitness advice is based on research into people who don’t have periods, give birth or go through menopause. How much of it should be modified – or even thrown out?

I can’t remember when I first became aware of the phrase: “Women are not small men.” But once I’d heard it, I started hearing it everywhere. Fitness types on social media kept alluding to it. Friends would talk excitedly about the new strain of female-specific exercise research, which was smashing the template we had all held dear for years. And the originator of the phrase, Dr Stacy Sims, was suddenly on every podcast you cared to name. A highly credentialed sports scientist with a huge social media following, she’s hard to avoid, if your algorithms skew vaguely towards self-optimisation content.

While her stance remains divisive in the sports science world, it has the kind of splashy, audacious quality that mainstream exercise advice does not. As a result, it has taken hold in a big way. You might say that Stacy Sims is to women’s exercise what Dr Chris van Tulleken is to ultra-processed foods: changing the conversation almost single-handedly while undaunted by any pushback.

Two British nationals who left MV Hondius before outbreak was detected are already self-isolating at home, say officials

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British passengers onboard a cruise ship hit with a deadly outbreak of hantavirus will be asked to self-isolate in the UK for 45 days, a health official has suggested, as two passengers who left the vessel continue to isolate at home in Britain.

Neither of the two Britons who left MV Hondius at Saint Helena in late April are reporting symptoms, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKSA).

Tory leader tells Sun that there won’t be council tie-ups as Farage’s party is not ‘serious’ as votes under way in England, Wales and Scotland

And here is the eve-of-poll statement that Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, issued yesterday.

Service is a value which has always sustained Wales. It’s a value instilled in me from a young age by my parents, both teachers. It’s a value I’ve sought to pass on to my children - the gift of giving back to the people and places who gave us so much.

Tomorrow is a chance for the people of Wales to choose who serves our nation for the next four years. It’s Plaid Cymru’s deep sense of service to Wales - focusing just on our needs and our future - that first drew me to politics.

Today is Scotland’s opportunity to choose a better future by voting SNP for real action on the cost of living, to lock Nigel Farage out of power, and to secure a fresh start with independence.

I urge people in every part of Scotland to unite behind the SNP to make it happen.

The SNP is the only party that has set out a positive vision for Scotland’s future - and we are the only party with a serious plan to support people with the cost of living.

We have set out our plans to bring down food costs, give families more support with the cost of childcare, lower the cost of your daily commute and provide more support for first time buyers.

The SNP wants to lower your bills – but all the other parties want to do is stop us.

They have no plan of their own and nothing to offer. They want you to vote for an opposition to stop things happening. I am asking people to vote for an SNP Government to get things done.

By casting both votes for the SNP, Scotland can elect a strong majority SNP government that will always stand up for Scotland, prioritise the cost of living, and deliver that fresh start of independence that Scotland needs.

That opportunity of a better future is now within touching distance. Let’s make it happen today by voting SNP.

Relations between the Vatican and Washington are increasingly fraught after the US president lashed out at the pope over his criticism of the war in Iran

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.

Ryanair says that unlike others it will not be cancelling summer flights, as it hedged fuel contracts before Iran war

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Airlines that cancel flights because of fuel shortages this summer will still have to compensate passengers under European law, the EU transport commissioner has said.

Apostolos Tzitzikostas told the Financial Times that jet fuel prices or shortages do not meet the criteria that protect EU airlines from passenger claims.