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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
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
‘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, of varying popularity, gazed disinterestedly at the scene.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 04:00:49 GMT
The best toys and gifts for eight-year-olds, tested by eight-year-olds

From science kits to karaoke machines, shower sets to brain-boosting games, here are the presents our mini testers loved the most

• The best gifts for seven-year-olds

Eight is such a wonderful age. Kids are old enough to have their own interests and hobbies, but still young enough to get swept up in play and be absorbed for hours if you find the right toy for them.

By eight, children’s interests and skills are taking shape. They’re more confident readers, more strategic thinkers and curious about how things work. And while they think they’re extremely grown up, eight-year-olds still need plenty of time to play for their overall wellbeing.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 11:00:00 GMT
Going nowhere fast? Personal trainers on why you aren’t seeing results in the gym

From doing too much cardio to wasting time – PTs reveal the common fails stunting your progress, and how to avoid them

We’ve all done it. Launched ourselves head first into a new regime – perhaps as the result of a new year resolution, recent breakup or aggressively unflattering photo. “You go all in and train five days a week,” says Elizabeth Davies, personal trainer and author of Training for Your Old Lady Body. “Then life happens. You miss a few sessions, then stop completely. You feel deflated that you couldn’t stick to it. Then some time later, motivation strikes again and the cycle repeats itself.”

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 05:00:50 GMT
‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italy was exploited by ‘hooligans’

The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend.

A march in central Milan on Saturday to protest against rising living costs began peacefully but ended with masked rioters throwing stones, paving blocks and other objects at riot police and setting fire to barricades made from bar tables.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 11:02:39 GMT
New NHS England policy for trans people could have ‘a number of adverse impacts’, report finds

Exclusive: rules on same-sex wards could lead to delays in care, discrimination and animosity between groups, finds internal assessment

Trans people could face delays and a greater risk of “corridor care” under new NHS England guidance that means they will no longer be able to use same-sex wards, according to an internal report.

An NHS England impact assessment, seen by the Guardian, stated that trans people may also potentially experience discrimination and this could lead to them “avoiding accessing healthcare at all”.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 12:00:03 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
Two killed and at least 17 injured as Russia and Ukraine trade blows on power infrastructure

Ukraine used more than 1,000 drones to target Russian oil depots, logistics facilities and datacentres

Two people have been killed and at least 17 injured as Russia and Ukraine continue to trade strikes on each other’s power infrastructure, after the breakdown of Donald Trump’s short-lived and unilaterally declared “energy ceasefire”.

One person was killed and 15 wounded overnight after Ukraine used more than 1,000 drones to target Russian oil depots, logistics facilities and datacentres in one of its largest ever aerial bombardments.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2026 14:31:30 GMT

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