Britney Spears has been charged with driving under the influence, following her arrest earlier this year.

In March, the Grammy winner was pulled over by the police while driving in California and taken into custody.

The Ventura county district attorney’s office has since confirmed on Thursday evening that the Piece Of Me singer had been charged with a single misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol and at least one drug.

Following her arrest, it was reported that Britney was due to appear in court on Monday 4 May. However, because her charge is a misdemeanour, she will not be required to attend in person.

HuffPost UK has contacted Britney’s team for comment.

Around a month ago, Britney’s team confirmed that the pop star had checked herself into rehab.

Britney’s spokesperson previously told HuffPost UK in the aftermath of her arrest: “This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable. Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life.

“Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time. Her boys are going to be spending time with her. Her loved ones are going to come up with an overdue needed plan to set her up for success for well being.”

Britney has had some very public ups and downs in the years since being released from the conservatorship she’d been placed under for more than a decade in 2021.

Over the last five years, she has married and subsequently divorced the actor Sam Asghari, released a popular memoir telling her own story for the first time and returned to the music scene with the top 10 Elton John collaboration, Hold Me Closer.

More recently, she has made it clear that she intends “never” to “return to the music industry”.

What have you given up since becoming a parent? It’s a common question mums and dads are asked.

It might be precious time spent with your newborn – the UK’s paternity leave is the worst in Europe forcing many dads back to work before they’re ready. It might be career progression, a pay rise or even your job (85% of women leave the full-time workforce within three years of having their first child).

It might be your savings or any extra income you are forced to make in order to pay for full-time childcare, which can range from £60 to £100 per day (government help with these costs is applicable to some, not all).

A new study on fatherhood from Equimundo, which polled 8,000 parents and caregivers across 16 countries, found fathers value care more than ever – but are increasingly stretched to breaking point.

The study found parents don’t have the time, resources, or support to care for their families without constant strain, which it dubbed a “crisis”.

Savings (and safety nets) are drained, hours are cut to work around the school day (four out of five parents said their employer won’t allow flexible working), job security hangs in the balance, and study and leisure time quietly disappears.

The report’s “sacrifice scorecard” asked the world’s mums and dads what they have had to give up in order to care for their loved ones.

It found parents are making six to eight separate sacrifices to provide care for their children.

One in four had to refinance their homes to pay for care services, one in three turned down a professional advancement to provide care, almost two-thirds worked overtime to bring home extra pay, and half took on a second or third job to increase their income.

It’s no wonder then that three in four dads, and four in five mums, are losing sleep over their financial future.

The report highlighted how these sacrifices can also fuel increased anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and higher alcohol consumption. It noted fathers have higher odds than mothers of falling into the high-distress group, with younger dads most at risk.

Its authors summarised that fathers want to be present and active in the daily lives of their children, but are held back by norms and policies that haven’t caught up – and it’s placing great strain on families.

Elliott Rae, founder of Parenting Out Loud and Equal Parenting Week, said the sacrifices dads are having to make, per the new research, tell “a new version of the same story that we have heard” from mums over the years.

“This isn’t about competition between the sexes; it’s about recognising that both parents are continually having to make sacrifices because of societal structures that make parenting in the UK akin to the ‘wipe out’ obstacle course tryouts,” he said.

“Unequal parenting leave means that mums are set up as the primary carer and dads are set up as the chief provider, and both parents then struggle to excel in each other’s lanes.

“We need to set parents up as equals from the get-go by levelling up paternity leave, and then we need to instil flexible working practices that allow mothers to work to their full potential instead of making themselves smaller in order to ‘have it all’ and dads to be able to be the present dads that they want to be.”

Gary Barker, president and CEO of Equimundo, responded that while “men are doing more of the care work and finding meaning and happiness in doing so”, families everywhere “face enormous challenges to provide basic care”.

He called on men to “demand and advocate for the care services we all need”.

Lee Chambers, founder of Male Allies UK, wants to see changes to policies that better support parents.

“The problem is we’re asking dads to be providers first and then telling them they need to do 50:50 childcare too. They want to do it, they want to be there, but there’s still a huge pressure to work like you don’t have kids,” he said.

“The reality is something has to give and without policies in place to support dads to be dads, they end up taking a hit as a family, both financially and mentally.

“We need to create balance – put structures in place that enable mums to work without getting paid less than dads for doing so, and we need to enable dads to be dads by giving them time off to bond and care for their children.

“We need to close the gaps if we want any hope of reaching equality at work and home.”

If you think your morning cup of coffee is a “guilty habit,” you might want to think again.

Drinking up to about three or four cups of coffee a day has been linked to a longer life. Black coffee with no sugar in particular could help us live longer and age better. However, we aren’t definite about why that may be.

But a new paper published in Nutrients suggests researchers have found a clue: it seems to relate to a process involving protein NR4A1.

The scientists wanted to look at the link between coffee and NR4A1 receptors, which are involved in a range of biological processes from tissue repair to metabolism.

NR4A1 is “involved in protecting the body from stress-induced damage,” Prof Dr Stephen Safe, who co-wrote the study, said.

“If you damage almost any tissue, NR4A1 responds to bring that damage down.. If you take that receptor away, the damage is worse.”

After looking closer at both coffee and this protein, they found that some parts of the caffeinated drink, including compounds like caffeic acid, seemed to bind to NR4A1 and change its activity level.

“What we’re saying is that at least part of coffee’s health benefits may come through binding and activating this receptor,” Prof Dr Safe said.

They also saw that compounds in the coffee seemed to reduce cell damage and slow cancer cell growth in lab models, an effect that disappeared when NR4A1 was removed from cells.

The researchers found that caffeine might not actually be a major driver of these effects. Instead, other components seemed to matter more.

“Caffeine binds the receptor, but it doesn’t do much in our models. The polyhydroxy and polyphenolic compounds are much more active,” said Dr Safe.

Still, the professor said, this is likely only one of many ways the beverage might help to protect us from the effects of ageing.

“There are many receptors and many mechanisms involved,” he shared.

But this finding “helps explain why coffee has the effects that it does,” and may show “there’s a mechanism behind it.”

I am that stereotypical runner and I am sure everyone in my life is sick of hearing about how strength training has transformed my workouts and my reasons for getting back into the sport in the first place.

Bad news for them. I have another running obsession.

“Jeffing,” named after Olympian and author Jeff Galloway, is a kind of lower-key fartlek (another 10/10 name). If both of those terms sound like gobbledegook, they refer to a period of slower walking (or running) before bursts of higher-energy sprints or jogging.

Jeffing, also known as the “run walk run” or Galloway method, is ideal for beginners – a version of it is often used by Couch To 5K apps.

But Galloway himself said that non-stop runners who adapt to the method correctly run “an average of 7 minutes faster in a 13.1-mile race” and over 13 minutes faster in a marathon.

Personally, it’s transformed my 10K time.

You can pick a ratio of walking to running that works for you. That might be 1:1 at the start (so one minute running to one minute walking).

As you progress, you might like to try 1:4 (30 seconds of walking for two minutes of running).

Women’s Running reported that Galloway doesn’t recommend more than a 30-second walk break if you’re trying to up your pace; you can stack these up if you save them, though.

For instance, if you choose a 1:4 pace, you can run for four minutes and walk for a minute instead of going for two minutes on and 30 seconds off.

You can use distance as a marker, too, or a combination of distance and time. I like having a 30-second walk at the end of each kilometre.

Some people calculate their ratio by looking at their heart rate, walking until their beats per minute lower back down to a certain number.

In general, Women’s Running pointed out, the more improvement you want to see in your pace, the shorter the walking sessions should be.

A 2016 paper found that runners who did a combination of running and walking in marathons had similar finish times to races run non-stop, but faced less muscle strain.

Galloway said he invented the method to combat muscle fatigue, lower injury rate (especially over long distances), and keep beginners motivated.

“By shifting back and forth between walking and running muscles, you distribute the workload among a variety of muscles, increasing your overall performance capacity,” he said.

“For veteran marathoners, this is often the difference between achieving a time goal or not.”

I’ve been more motivated to complete my runs and, to my shock, have since shaved six minutes off my 10K time (though part of it might be that I’m more excited to get running knowing I’ll have breaks, leading to more practice).

The method has improved my muscle recovery time, too.

The interval training style is yet another example of how going slower seems to have more benefits for runners than you might expect (good news for me personally).

In 2025, there were about 10.2 million pet cats in the UK; almost a quarter of all UK households (24%) have a feline friend.

But, per Cats Protection, 3% of these were injured by cars outside the home, and the most common cause for injury was fights among other cats in the great outdoors (15%).

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that a new paper has suggested the best way to help our cats live longer is the simple, free technique of keeping them indoors.

Roaming cats may die as many as 10 years before their indoor peers, the researchers wrote.

This is partly because outdoor cats are exposed to “substantial risks of traumatic injury and infectious disease, plus lesser risks of poisoning and abuse”.

They added that the “cohort of outdoor cats has approximately 70-80% of the lifespan of the cohort of indoor cats”, and that chronic conditions created by e.g. injuries sustained outdoors can create expensive vet bills for owners.

Additionally, they found that the quality of life of indoor cats was generally better than that of outdoor cats.

Even their bond with their owners tended to be more satisfying and fulfilling.

The researchers say this doesn’t mean keeping your cat indoors carries zero risk.

“Containment,” they say, may lead to “obesity, diabetes or behavioural problems… Contained cats are also unlikely to express all cat behaviour”.

And though solutions including “environmental enrichment, exercise, and correct feeding, plus containment logistics,” are plentiful, they “may strain owners’ time and finances”.

But, they add, on balance, it’s probably still the better choice.

They ended their paper, “We conclude that, based on health and welfare, the advantages of containment are considerable and the disadvantages often remediable.”

President Donald Trump went on a lengthy tirade against The New York Times on Thursday, accusing the newspaper of being “seditious” after its editorial board published a piece titled “The US Military Was Losing Its Edge. After Iran, Everyone Knows It.”

During his rant, Trump continued to insist that Iranian forces had been “militarily decapitated” before accusing both the Times and CNN of reporting that Iran was winning the war.

“…And yet I read in The New York Times, I see it on that stupid CNN, which I only watch because you have to watch a little bit of the enemy,” Trump said. “So I watch it for a very short period. But you have to, you know, you have to be smart. And if you see CNN, you’d think they’re winning the war. If you read The New York Times, it’s actually seditious in my opinion. You read The New York Times, you actually think they’re winning the war.”

It’s unclear which specific CNN report the president was referencing. As for the Times piece, it, among other things, argued that Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz was the linchpin in the conflict thus far, and that the United States’ trillion-dollar military was “ineffective against cheaper, mass-produced weapons,” such as Iran’s vast drone supply.

“But the problem is bigger than any single commander-in-chief. The United States has left itself unprepared for modern war,” the Times wrote.

What the NYT didn’t do in its article was “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States,” which is how seditious conspiracy is defined under 18 U.S. Code § 2384.

The last people convicted of seditious conspiracy in the US were leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who stormed the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump pardoned all those convicted in connection with the insurrection on his first day back in office.

Donald Trump has claimed to remove tariffs on Scottish whisky in honour of King Charles and Queen Camilla after their state visit.

The US president announced on TruthSocial on Thursday evening that this decision would help boost industry in Scotland and Kentucky.

The UK government has since confirmed this applies to all whisky tariffs including those on Irish whiskey.

Trump, known for being an ardent royalist, added in his post: “The King and Queen got me to do something that nobody else was able to do, without hardly even asking! A wonderful Honor to have them both in the U.S.A.”

His announcement came after the monarch and his wife visited the White House this week.

Buckingham Palace said the King sent his “sincere gratitude” to Trump and “will be raising a dram to the President’s thoughtfulness”.

The president said he would be removing tariffs and restrictions related to “Scotland’s ability to work with the Commonwealth of Kentucky on Whiskey and Bourbon, two very important industries within Scotland and Kentucky”.

The two areas are linked through the use of wooden barrels to age the alcohol.

Trump, who declared sweeping tariffs on international allies in April 2025, has often used alcohol to apply pressure to other countries.

He threatened a 200% tariff on European wine last year, though it was never realised.

Business and trade secretary Peter Kyle welcomed the announcement, saying: “This is great news for our scotch whisky industry, which is worth almost £1bn in exports and supports thousands of jobs across the UK.”

The state visit from the royals came amid rising tensions between the UK and the US governments after Keir Starmer refused to join in America’s offensive on Iran at the end of February.

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the prime minister in the months since, saying the Labour leader was “not Winston Churchill”.

But in the run-up to the royal visit, the president suggested Charles’s visit could help to repair the fractured “special relationship”.

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