“Tony,” the Anthony Bourdain biopic, is a coming-of-age tale for a modern culinary giant. Set over just a summer, it’s also clearly an appetizer. And like all first courses, it leaves you with a nice first taste — but still hungry.

Director and co-writer Matt Johnson has frustratingly taken liberties with a formative period in Bourdain’s life, but still only manages to tell the story of how a callow lad became somewhat of a less callow lad after toiling in a restaurant kitchen on Cape Cod in 1975.

In “Tony,” the world-weary, forever romantic, noodle-slurping Bourdain that we would fall in love with decades later via travel shows like “Parts Unknown” stays firmly out of grasp. What’s perhaps most frustrating is that this could have been a fine movie without Bourdain at its center at all. Who doesn’t like a good coming of age? Why did it have to be Bourdain if Bourdain never gets to be Bourdain?

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Dominic Sessa plays the teenage chef-traveler as an angular misfit, his tall frame hunched, peering at people through a mop of unruly curls, his chin forever jutted downward — a surly Bob Dylan in kitchen whites. We rarely see moments of joy flash on his face, even for lust or food. He never unlocks. Even a beautifully documented moment in Bourdain’s life — when the sea that summer was filled with stripers, triggering a mass fishing frenzy at night — doesn’t trigger awe.

Bourdain spent two chapters talking about this time in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in his star-making 2000 memoir, “Kitchen Confidential,” and he would return in TV episodes of “A Cook’s Tour” and “Parts Unknown.” It was certainly an important time in the young Bourdain’s life, but hang too much on it and the hanger apparently collapses.

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The new movie opens with a quote from “Kitchen Confidential”: “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” He got that as he went from dishwasher to plating shrimp cocktails and learning the insult-based, testosterone-filled ways of the kitchen.

Bourdain would develop two love affairs during this fateful summer: One, a delight for the kitchen — the pressure, the camaraderie, the artist’s heart, the pirate’s adoration of heat and knives — and, another, hard drugs. “This is where I bought my first bag of heroin,” he says in “Parts Unknown.” But, like a collapsing soufflé, it fails at that first task — never showing us how this wannabe writer with a Velcro wallet in a Stooges T-shirt pivoted to become a global culinary raconteur. And it never depicts Bourdain’s own heroin use.

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Antonio Banderas steps into the role of the mentor, but it’s a fuzzy image. His character is spiritual, punctual and deeply religious, yet silently overseeing a very misogynistic, racist and drug-addled workforce. Our film’s Bourdain will inspire him to reach higher by adding a lobster thermidor to the menu, one of those tired devices by which the mentee becomes the mentor. (The gorgeous Banderas fails to fully capture the book’s mentor with a “gin-blossomed face” and “boozer’s gut.”)

What’s most frustrating is we never feel Bourdain’s muse come alive. He doesn’t, over the course of more than 100 minutes, become an evangelist for cuisine or its power to heal, celebrate and embrace. He acknowledges — from “Kitchen Confidential,” in a childhood chapter — that oysters tasted “of the future” — but the rat in “Ratatouille” had better passion.

There are lovely moments, like when shucked oysters are used to flirt or when chef Eric Ripert, a longtime friend of Bourdain, makes a cameo, or whenever actor Emilia Jones as Bourdain’s love interest appears. Leo Woodall also does a fantastic turn as Bourdain’s kitchen and drug pal, Sal.

Focusing on a slice of time from a cultural icon — most recently done for The Boss in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” — is a now-savvy alternative to the cradle-to-grave biopic. But “Tony” fails as an origin story. The cook is off.

“Tony,” an A24 release that debuts in theaters in Los Angeles and New York on Aug. 7 and expands on Aug. 21, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “pervasive language, drug use and sexual content/nudity.” Running time: 106 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Freddie Burns is laughing down the phone from Romania.

‘It was typical of me to miss out the slide on my Instagram post that actually said I was retiring,’ chuckles the former Bath, Gloucester, Leicester and England No 10.

‘I had to post it again separately just to make sure people were clear!’

In an 18-year professional rugby career, Burns, now 36, has always been an entertaining character. So, it was fitting he continued that trend when announcing it was coming to an end on social media this week. 

In an era where most modern players trot out anodyne press conference quotes and seem reticent to show their true selves, Burns has always been an outlier. 

‘I’ve had some good moments and some f****** low ones,’ says Burns, who will play one more season with Dinamo Bucharest before calling it quits. 

Burns kicked two penalties against the All Blacks on debut in 2012 as England stunned the world champions with a 38-21 hammering 

He also became a Leicester cult hero, after kicking the drop-goal that sealed the Premiership title for the Tigers in 2012

He will depart as one of English club rugby’s cult heroes. A more-than-talented fly-half, whose last-gasp drop-goal sealed Leicester the PREM Rugby title in 2022, Burns won five England caps. His Test debut was one to remember. He kicked two penalties as a replacement in a famous 2012 victory over New Zealand. Not a bad way to start.

‘All I remember from that night was being hammered when I went up to collect my England cap at the post-match function at Twickenham,’ recalls Burns. 

‘I was bumping into all these legends, guys like Richie McCaw and Dan Carter. I was s*** faced. It was just after the 2011 World Cup and all the shenanigans that had gone on there. Stuart Lancaster was the coach and the RFU were still trying to save some face. So, we drank hard at Twickenham, then got the bus back to Pennyhill Park instead of going out.

‘I woke up on the floor of the bathroom in my room at Pennyhill. It had a heated floor and there was a lovely little pile of sick cooking next to me. I was still wearing my suit.

‘I was quite glad we didn’t go out that night as there would probably have been a good chance I’d have ended up in the Thames!’

Burns adds: ‘As a boy, I lived down the road from where Bath trained. When I watched them, I remember thinking playing just a minute of PREM Rugby would have been enough for me. My career went miles beyond what I expected.

‘I could have played more for England. But I want to be grateful for the five caps I got, not the ones I didn’t. It was five more than most people get. I want to avoid being bitter about things that didn’t happen because I’ve had so many good ones that did. I want to be thankful for that.’

Burns played hard and celebrated harder. But his outgoing character – sadly all too rare in the game these days – shouldn’t distract from his on-field ability.

Three of Burns’ five Tests came against New Zealand, scoring 20 points in two matches on England’s 2014 tour

‘I could have played more for England. But I want to be grateful for the five caps I got, not the ones I didn’t’

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Burns started at Gloucester, had two stints at Leicester, and also represented his home city of Bath. Rugby also gave him the chance to travel the world. He made trips to Japan and New Zealand with Shoki Shuttles and the Highlanders respectively and will end his playing days in one of the game’s more unusual outposts in Romania. 

‘In rugby, there are a lot of very, very tough days with a few brilliant ones sprinkled in,’ Burns says, ‘One thing I’d say to young players now is make sure you enjoy your wins. 

‘That doesn’t mean you have to have 20 beers. Now, players focus on having their protein shake and a good sleep. When you have a good win, sit in the changing room with your mates you’ve gone to battle with. Enjoy having a drink or two. Share time with the opposition. It all goes by so quick. 

‘I definitely made the most of my career in terms of celebrating! But even now, I still wish I’d enjoyed certain moments more. 

‘One of my frustrations with rugby is that there are so many brilliant personalities in the game, but some lads don’t want to express themselves or say their opinion. The Six Nations Netflix documentary was so f****** boring. It didn’t show the personalities of the players. You’re starting to see that more now with guys like Henry Pollock. Hopefully it continues.’

If downing the All Blacks and slotting a PREM-winning drop-goal were Burns’ highs, one of the lows came in 2018. In action for Bath against Toulouse, he celebrated what should have been a try too early and Frenchman Maxime Medard knocked the ball from his grasp.

Burns broke through as a 19-year-old, having joined Gloucester from Bath’s academy and going on to spend six seasons at Kingsholm

Burns celebrates too early while playing for Bath against Toulouse in a Champions Cup match and has the ball knocked out of his hand by Maxime Medard

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‘The thing I’m most proud of in my career is my resilience,’ Burns says. ‘That’s what that incident taught me. 

‘The biggest frustration with that game is if I’d scored and we’d won, I reckon I’d have been man of the match! I had a brilliant game at full-back. I scored one and kicked a couple of long-range penalties. Yes, I s*** the bed at the end but on the whole, I was all right! I’m glad it happened because of the way my career panned out after that.

‘I went to Wasps the weekend after and I kicked well in a draw. I got off the bus there and immediately, there was a camera in my face. I knew it was what all the pundits were talking about. The keyboard warriors were after me.’

Burns celebrated winning the PREM in 2022 by doing the post-match press conference in his pants, before a big night out, a mammoth McDonald’s order and heading to bed with the trophy. 

‘We partied hard. It was just a big feeling of relief,’ he says. ‘Before I’d come back to Leicester, I’d had to deal with the blow to the ego of going to Japan. It was one of the best things that happened to me, but at the time going to the Japanese second division at 30 was tough.

‘I was thinking, “F****** hell, is this where my career has gone?”.

‘The funniest stories have come from the hard times. When Aaron Mauger was coach at Leicester, he came in one day and put a Tigers shirt in the bottom of an empty bucket.

‘He gave each player an empty pint glass and said: “Go and fill your glass up with how much you’ve given to the shirt and what you’re willing to do for this club.”

‘Most guys filled their glasses two thirds or so full. One of the academy lads who hadn’t really played much walked up to the bucket so slowly because his cup was so full. We absolutely f****** hammered him for that! 

‘I don’t really care what people thought of me as a player,’ reflects Burns. ‘But I’d always like to think they’d say I was a good bloke’

‘I tried to never lose the love of the game. Sometimes I was s*** and sometimes I was OK, but I’d like to think the fans always saw I tried. 

‘I don’t really care what people thought of me as a player. People will think I’m good, bad and indifferent. But I’d always like to think that when my name comes out of someone’s mouth, they’d say I was a good bloke. 

‘If that’s all I’m remembered for, then I’ll be happy.’

In the end, even Jason Arday’s resignation statement should have carried a health warning.

The cliché-filled 600-word note announcing ‘with profound sadness’ that he’d decided to fall on his sword amid an ‘unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack’ was, within minutes of publication, run through AI detection software by online critics.

It found that the professor’s remarks were between 90 and 100 per cent likely to have been written with the help of a computer bot.

The ensuing social media kerfuffle on Wednesday night marked a fitting end to an utterly surreal scandal in which almost nothing proved to be quite as it seemed.

Arday remains convinced of his own righteousness. His self-serving statement contains no admission of guilt, or apology for the endless well-documented falsehoods he has propagated.

It fails to express regret for the various people passed over for the highly paid jobs (Cambridge pays its professors between £82,000 and £150,000) he elbowed his way into.

He chose, instead, to complain of the ‘relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary’ which have apparently taken a ‘profound toll’ on him.

Quite how that ‘profound toll’ compares to the one Arday’s behaviour exacted on David Harris, an emeritus professor at Plymouth Marjon University, who attempted to blow the whistle on his relentless academic fraud as far back as 2023 only to be reported to the police for ‘harassment’, is unclear.

Arday claimed to have earned an advance of ‘1.4million’ (it’s unclear whether he meant pounds or dollars) for his memoir Great And Unfortunate Things which is due for release on Tuesday

So too are Arday’s thoughts about his behaviour towards Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education, who last September emailed a few questions regarding alleged plagiarism to both the professor and Cambridge University.

For the crime of carrying out this act of public-interest journalism, Mr Grove was made the subject of a four-month probe by the Metropolitan Police. 

He was then instructed by detectives to drop his story, to protect its subject’s mental health. The Met belatedly apologised yesterday.

This disgraceful episode sums up almost everything that needs to be said about this very British scandal, which has exposed in quite chilling detail how a wide array of institutions, from the police, to academia, the Labour Party, major broadcasters, the publishing industry and the charity sector, have been captured by the progressive dogma of the Left.

Even now, public figures from Green Party leader Zack Polanski to Labour MPs John McDonnell, Apsana Begum, Clive Lewis and Bell Ribeiro-Addy, to Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the NEU teachers’ union, continue to offer vehement support for the professor.

Their names feature on an online ‘letter of solidarity’ created by the Good Law Project, a liberal pressure group which seeks to blame Arday’s downfall on a ‘smear’ campaign by ‘Right-wing newspapers’ and suggests anyone who doubts the professor’s credentials is a racist who wants to ‘undermine black people who hold positions of influence’.

That many of Arday’s Walter Mitty-style antics were actually exposed by the Left-wing Guardian newspaper does not seem to have registered with this cabal of useful idiots.

Let’s start, however, by looking at Cambridge, supposedly one of the world’s most elite institutions, which appears in the case of Arday to have surrendered basic academic standards to a woke orthodoxy in which minorities are unfairly promoted in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion.

From the day in 2023 when he became its youngest-ever black professor, the university decided to treat the working-class son of Ghanaian immigrants as a PR asset. 

Press releases portrayed him as a living, breathing demonstration of their commitment to inclusion, waxing lyrical about a Hollywood-style life story in which he’d conquered severe autism that had allegedly left him unable to speak until almost his 12th birthday, and incapable of reading or writing until adulthood.

The credulous BBC took the bait. Arday was made guest editor on the Today programme, appeared on Question Time, and on multiple occasions featured as a panellist on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

During a BBC Radio 4 debate about the future of the monarchy, which went viral this week, Arday made the baseless claim that 70 per cent of Britons live below the breadline. It went entirely unchallenged. 

A second viral BBC clip, from his first day at Cambridge, shows Hilary Cremin, the head of its education faculty, holding his hands in the manner of a bride at the altar and gushing ‘we’re so lucky to have you’ and ‘you are the best in the world in terms of the research you do’.

Perhaps if Cremin had read his PhD, which contains an errant apostrophe in its title, or watched some of the extraordinarily shoddy lectures that remain online (including a 2019 presentation about alleged racism in the university sector in which he complains about the ‘poultry numbers’, rather than ‘paltry’, of ‘black academic leaders’), she might have taken a different view.

When questions began to be asked about Arday’s credentials, Cambridge circled the wagons. Reporters covering the story were, they suggested, taking part in a ‘vile campaign to undermine his credibility’.

Powerful connections may explain how Arday, pictured on This Morning in 2023, ended up being handed a smorgasbord of (sometimes paid) jobs in the so-called ‘third sector’

Hilary Cremin, the head of Cambridge’s education faculty, can be seen in a video holding his hands in the manner of a bride at the altar and gushing ‘we’re so lucky to have you’

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A combative legal letter was sent out on Arday’s behalf by the libel law specialists Carter-Ruck, accusing critics of racism, although Cambridge denies paying the firm’s fees.

As to the substance of the complaints, Cambridge insisted that only Liverpool John Moores, which had awarded Arday’s PhD in 2016, could scrutinise it. 

Inquiries about work he’d published since then were ignored. Inconsistencies in his life story were none of its business.

Four of the university’s most senior figures were among those who put their name to the Good Law Project’s ‘letter of solidarity’ which, as the scandal deepened, was then stealthily edited to remove false claims Arday had been exonerated after allegations of plagiarism had been ‘thoroughly’ investigated by two institutions.

One signatory, Simon Woolley (Lord Woolley of Woodford), was forced to remove his job title from the online note. He’s the Principal of Homerton College. 

Another, Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, president of Wolfson College, removed her name altogether, as did Simon Baron-Cohen, an eminent neuroscientist in its department of psychology.

Baron-Cohen played a particularly shabby role in subsequent events, using X to describe scrutiny of Arday’s academic record as ‘relentless bullying of a vulnerable autistic man’, adding that because studies show ‘one in four autistic people have planned or attempted suicide’ he was now ‘very concerned about the impact of media coverage’ on his colleague.

On Wednesday, the name of Sonita Alleyne also belatedly vanished from the Good Law Project’s letter. She happens to be the Master of Jesus College, where Arday worked. Somehow, Jesus College is now supposed to be carrying out a thorough and even-handed inquiry into the man she so vigorously backed.

Don’t expect this laughable conflict of interest to be probed by the Department for Education, however. It’s also up to its neck in the Jason Arday scandal. As the Mail revealed yesterday, Sarah Waite, Secretary of State Lucy Powell’s special adviser, handed the professor a role as patron of her charity, Get Further, last year.

There are more wheels within wheels. For political intrigue surrounds Arday’s wider links to the Labour Party, for which he stood as a council candidate in Croydon in 2018.

The Board of Electors which handed him the Cambridge job was, after all, chaired by Sally Morgan, a Labour peer who worked in Tony Blair’s Downing Street.

Powerful connections may explain how Arday ended up being handed a smorgasbord of (sometimes paid) jobs in the so-called ‘third sector’.

A former trustee of the Runnymede Trust race relations think-tank, he’s also patron of the Adult Literacy Trust, a trustee of the British Sociological Association and Autism Action, and sits on the Centre for Labour and Social Studies National Advisory Panel, the NHS Race and Health Observatory Academic Reference Group and the ITV Cultural Advisory Council. The Royal Society of Arts made him a fellow.

Like everyone else, these supposedly rigorous organisations believed without question every facet of Arday’s fantastical life story, from the claim that he only learned how to read and write aged 18 (making his award of GCSEs two years earlier somewhat remarkable) to unlikely tales about raising millions of pounds for charity via feats of ultra-distance running that would have put him among the world’s elite.

The latter included a claim that he’d run 30 marathons in 35 days, despite suffering from an epileptic fit which caused him to fall on day 21, sustaining a hairline fracture that made his leg swell to twice its normal size.

Although the feat was reported in local newspapers, no reference was made to the injury. Photos and video of him crossing the finishing line reveal the leg to be of normal size.

In his forthcoming autobiography, Arday claims ‘two or three thousand people’ stood adjacent to the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus to cheer him on, creating a ‘wall of sound’. The photographs show that there were actually around 30 people on the statue, though several were tourists eating their lunch.

Arday has also claimed that he subsequently took part in two further fundraisers that saw him run 300 miles in three days and 600 miles in six days. There are no records in existence demonstrating he completed either challenge.

The 600-mile trip was supposed to have started in London and ended in Edinburgh, which is a mere 320 miles as the crow flies. It allegedly took place around the time he has separately claimed to have been suffering from a benign brain tumour, which affected his balance.

He’s boasted of appearing in the famous Granada documentary Seven Up!, even though it was filmed decades before he was born (Pictured: The original Seven Up show which aired in 1964)

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As the Mail revealed yesterday, Secretary of State Lucy Powell’s special adviser handed the professor a role as patron of her charity, Get Further, last year

He claims the tumour was removed a few weeks before his PhD viva (the final oral exam, in which someone defends their thesis), prompting a stroke which affected his short-term memory. Nonetheless, he managed to pass.

Arday has also claimed that his charitable work included installing pumps in Africa and South America for WaterAid. The charity is adamant it has never sent volunteers abroad. And he’s boasted of appearing in the famous Granada documentary Seven Up!, even though it was filmed decades before he was born.

Though easily debunked, the Arday myth was nothing if not hugely lucrative. He became a highly paid speaker on the international lecture circuit, and once claimed to have earned an advance of ‘1.4million’ (it’s unclear whether he meant pounds or dollars) for his memoir Great And Unfortunate Things, which is allegedly still going to be published by Simon & Schuster this month.

The facade only started to fall apart on June 21, when Nathan Cofnas, a former researcher at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, published a blog detailing alleged plagiarism in Arday’s PhD, which contains more than 180 passages which are identical or nearly identical to that of another researcher, Brunel University’s Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, published six years earlier.

It swiftly emerged that his other published work contained false declarations about funding, and included ‘impossible’ statistics, such as a breakdown of the gender of participants in a study which adds up to 110 per cent.

Further scrutiny revealed that quotes supposedly made in focus groups and interviews Arday had overseen had been plagiarised from a study by the renowned epidemiologist Anjum Memon.

One of Arday’s papers quoted a Latin-American academic saying: ‘Sometimes I struggle to articulate clearly and accurately what I would like to say to the healthcare professionals provided at university.’ Another contains the same quote, but attributes it to an Asian female undergraduate student.

In a bid to take control of the narrative, Arday was interviewed by the Guardian. He admitted errors, but characterised them as inadvertent, saying he is autistic and his method of learning relies on mimicry. He then made a bizarre series of claims about a campaign of racist harassment, stretching back several years.

This included a claim that the Met Police had investigated a pig’s head being left outside his family home (described as categorically untrue by the force) and suggestions that he was confronted in his faculty office at Cambridge by a masked knifeman (though he was not captured on CCTV and Professor Arday did not bother telling his colleagues there was an armed intruder on the loose).

As to prior claims that he’d single-handedly raised £5.5million for charity, Arday told the paper he’d in fact been part of a ‘syndicate’ of more than 100 fundraisers, whom he could not name because they had, for some reason, signed non-disclosure agreements. 

He continued to insist he did run 600 miles, but changed his story to allege that it took 12 rather than six days.

The straw that seems to have broken the camel’s back, from Cambridge’s point of view, came this week, when four universities – Ohio State University, in the US, Nelson Mandela University, in South Africa, plus Glasgow and Durham – denied that he actually held the jobs with them that were listed on his CV on the Jesus College website.

Other academic claims then evaporated. Footage also emerged of a talk in 2022, in which he described studying for a master’s degree in ‘psychodynamic practice’ at Birkbeck, University of London – a claim not reflected in any published list of his qualifications. And Jesus College quietly removed the claim that he had an ‘MA in Education Studies’ from Liverpool John Moores.

In a serious oversight for a working academic, he’d also falsely claimed to have had a book published entitled Being Young, Black And Male: Challenging The Dominant Discourse. It never hit the shelves and was abandoned by publisher Palgrave Macmillan several years ago.

Among those who repeated this untruth were Simon & Schuster, the supposedly venerable publishing house. It once claimed on its website that he had ‘previously published three books of academic work’. That has now been amended to two.

The firm still intends to publish his ghost-written memoir, despite the fact that it almost certainly contains myriad falsehoods – whether it will appear on the fiction or non-fiction shelves remains to be seen.

As for Arday, he is preparing to embark on a lecture tour, of both the UK and US, promoting what he hopes will be a lucrative bestseller. In the words of his (possibly AI-assisted) resignation note: ‘This is not the end of my work. It is simply the end of this chapter.’

It comes in black, mid grey and chocolate

As summer evenings begin to turn chillier, shoppers are increasingly seeking out lightweight layers that can help bridge the gap between warmer and chillier days. A practical cardigan serves as an essential wardrobe piece for adding coverage without excessive bulk, and Marks & Spencer customers have been gravitating towards a newly launched style that’s already proving popular.

Those wanting to update their collection for cooler summer nights might consider purchasing the M&S cardigan for less, with certain buyers eligible to claim it for free via a Topcasback promotion. The Crew Neck Button Through Cardigan has emerged as a popular recent addition on the M&S website, retailing at £15.

Nevertheless, new TopCashback members who are either new or existing M&S shoppers can secure the cardigan for free after cashback (further information provided below). The promotion features complimentary click and collect, while standard delivery is priced at £3.99.

With the weather starting to become cooler, lighter layers are proving essential for adding warmth while maintaining your summer wardrobe. This M&S cardigan provides an effortless transitional piece that can be layered over outfits as the temperature falls.

The cardigan features a timeless crew neckline, front button closure and a gently cropped length that falls around the waistline for a modern look. It comes in three adaptable colours – black, mid grey and chocolate – with sizing options spanning from extra small through to extra large, reports Wales Online.

For those seeking additional layering pieces, similar options are available from other retailers. Next offers the Supersoft Crew Neck Long Sleeve Cardigan at £29 in four different shades.

Meanwhile, Debenhams stocks the Karen Millen Statement Balloon Sleeve Cardigan, currently discounted from £49 to £34.

Returning to M&S, customer reviews praise the cardigan as a wardrobe staple.

One M&S shopper commented: “Good quality for the price, was better than expected – nice soft cotton.”

A further customer noted: “Originally ordered for a special occasion. May not wear it this time, but kept it as it is a nice cardigan – everyone needs a plain black cardigan. Seems good quality for the price.”

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Several reviewers emphasised the Crew Neck Button Through Cardigan‘s versatility across varying temperatures, with one stating: “Nice for cooler summer evenings and will be perfect for autumn.”

They did, however, deduct a star, adding: “I would like these in different colours.”

Another purchaser remarked: “Nice quality. Wanted a lightweight cardigan with a crew neck not a v neck.”

How to purchase the M&S cardigan for less through TopCashback:

• Register as a new member at Top Cashback free of charge using this link.
• Look for ‘M&S‘ on the website, click through and complete your purchase as usual.
• Receive £15 cashback when spending £15 or more on an item.
• The cashback will appear on the TopCashback ‘Earnings page’ within seven days of making your purchase.

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The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, has said that the most expansive census-based estimate accounts for about 22,000 to 26,000 babies born in the US from birth tourism every year. Government data, according to the institute, showed that there were 9,600 births to mothers with foreign addresses in 2024.

“The idea (is) that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor,” Stephen Miller, homeland security advisor and White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said while standing beside the president on Thursday.

“But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, (to) leave our country and then have a US citizen child,” he said, adding that thoe children then gain access to welfare benefits, the voting booth, and “all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans”.

Miller said the president has the authority to ban birth tourism under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which grants the president the power to set exceptions and limitations on who can enter into the country.

On one of his first back days in office in 2025, Trump signed an executive order that tried to end birthright citizenship as guaranteed in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

A legal battle brought the case to the Supreme Court, which in June ruled that Trump’s 2025 policies could not stand and birthright citizenship remained the law.

The decision was a major blow to Trump’s ongoing efforts to limit who can live, work, and become citizens in the US.

The high court made “a bad decision, very unfair decision”, Trump said from the Oval Office on Thursday while announcing the executive orders. “Our country suffers because of it, and we’re ending in a different way.”

Gabriel Chin, a professor at the University of California Davis’ School of Law, told the BBC that while parts of the order might hold up, other aspects “raise some serious constitutional questions”.

Chin said the president does have some power to restrict people coming into the US specifically for the purposes of having a child.

“But once it does happen, once a child is born in the United States, I don’t think the president has any power to decide that that child is not a citizen,” he said, adding that the issue was settled in the Trump administration’s recent loss in the Supreme Court.

He called birth tourism a “drop in the bucket” against the millions of births in the US.

“It’s an unusual phenomenon,” he said.

The roadworks may be delayed by up to four weeks following the discovery

More skeletons have been discovered at the site of major roadworks in a Cambridgeshire city centre. Roadworks are currently ongoing on the Queensgate roundabout in Peterborough as part of the City Link project.

The multi-million pound project aims to improve the city’s train station and connections across the city. While carrying out the works at the end of July, seven human skeletons were discovered.

With works paused and archaeologists called in, more skeletons have been found. A Peterborough City Council spokesperson said: “Following an initial discovery of one human skeleton, as standard practice, the police were initially called to establish if this was a crime scene.

“When they were satisfied it was not, a burial licence was applied for and obtained from the Ministry of Justice and then an archaeologist attended the site. A total of 11 skeletons have been discovered so far on land within the Queensgate roundabout. Since the discovery, the contractors have increased site security.”

The site of the roundabout used to be a Victorian cemetery and was closed to burials in 1858. Records show that the remains from the cemetery were cleared when the subways were built at the roundabout during the 1970s. Due to the discovery, the roadworks could be delayed up to four weeks.

The council spokesperson added: “The speed at which we were digging has had to slow down, so we don’t damage any remains. We are looking at options to reduce these delays in later phases of the project and will announce any timetable updates in due course.”

This is the moment masked thieves broke into an elderly woman’s house and ransacked it as she watched on helplessly. 

In footage captured on a Ring camera, an 83-year-old can be seen sleeping in her bed at her home in Hayes, west London, when four balaclava-clad men burst in.

The startled pensioner then gets out of bed as one of the men, carrying what appears to be a weapon, approaches the woman – ordering her to be quiet.

The robbers can then be seen rummaging through her belongings as she is sat shaking on her bed.

After just two minutes, they flee – leaving her personal possessions strewn across the room and the visibly distraught woman is left alone in her room. 

Now, the Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation into the robbery with enquiries still ongoing. 

The force said that several items of jewellery, as well as around £500 in cash was stolen from the property. 

While one suspect was captured on CCTV carrying a weapon, no injuries were reported, it added.

The startled pensioner then gets out of bed as one of the men, carrying what appears to be a weapon, approaches the woman ordering her to be quiet

Although crime across London has dropped by 15 per cent in the last year, data from the Daily Mail revealed that in the decade since Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London crime has soared across the capital.

The data shows that a range of crimes, including theft from the person, sex offences, drugs and violent crime, have dramatically increased from when Sir Sadiq first came to power in 2016.

Theft from the person has increased by 140 per cent from 35,570 in 2016-17 to 85,465 in 2025-26. In 2024-25, the year Sir Sadiq was re-elected, it had even skyrocketed to 101,053.

Elsewhere, sexual offences have risen by 55 per cent from 17,491 in 2016-17 to 27,074 in 2025-26.

Drug offences have risen by 34 per cent from 40,652 in 2016-17 to 54,291 in 2025-26.

And violence against the person has soared by 51,086 incidents 27 per cent from 191,691 in 2016-17 to 242,777 in 2025-26.

The figures, based only on crimes reported to the Metropolitan Police, do not factor in how London’s population has grown over the same time. Official estimates suggest the capital’s headcount has risen from 8.7m in 2016, the year Sir Sadiq was elected, to just shy of 9.1m in 2024 – the most recent year.

Despite these statistics, London remains one of the safest major cities in the world with a per capita homicide rate lower than New York, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. 

But, for Londoners, it is the threat of petty crimes that pose the greatest day-to-day risk.

On the Transport for London (TfL) network crime has increased under the Mayor’s watch with more incidents of violence, public disorder and a huge rise in vandalism.

The London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee said that 48,000 crimes were reported across TfL services in 2025 – up 46 per cent against a pre-pandemic average of 16,544 amid ‘unacceptable’ levels of violence against women and girls.

A Met spokesman said: ‘We are aware of a video circulating online showing a burglary in Hayes. We understand the concern that incidents like this can cause for those affected and the wider community. 

‘Detectives are conducting a thorough investigation and are pursuing all lines of enquiry.

‘On Monday, 29 June at 21:57hrs police were called to reports of a burglary on Judge Heath Lane, Hayes.

‘Officers attended but the suspects had fled the scene. They spoke with the victim, an 83-year-old woman. One suspect was captured on CCTV carrying a weapon, but no injuries were reported.

‘It is believed that several items of jewellery, as well as around £500 in cash was stolen from the property.

‘No arrests have been made at this stage. Enquiries continue and anyone with information that may assist police is asked to call 101 quoting CAD 9067/29July.

‘Information can also be provided anonymously to independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.’

Fingal County councillors Cathal Boland and Eoghan Dockrell spoke to DublinLive at the scene of the fire.

Cllr Boland said: “When I was in Ballyboughal this afternoon, I came out of Giddy Up, the coffee cart, and I looked up to find this enormous blooming black smoke.

“I immediately tried to contact people I knew along the way, but I tracked down here and realised that there was a traffic problem.

“Traffic was back down the rural lane that the fire was on, so I immediately began to direct traffic.

“There’s been great cooperation from the public.”

Cllr Dockrell added: “I know that there were some people in nearby houses who were asked to move away.

“As far as I’m aware, nobody is injured and everyone is safe presently.

“This has been one of the largest fires to take place in north Dublin, and certainly Ballyboughal, in years and years.

“We have to say thank you to Gardai and the firemen for all the work they’ve been doing the past few hours.”

Two men were arrested on Thursday following two nights of disorder in Thetford, Norfolk, after people attempted to storm homes linked to asylum seekers and police officers were assaulted

Further arrests have been made in Thetford after crowds attempted to storm homes linked to asylum seekers and police officers were attacked.

Two men were arrested on Thursday, Norfolk Police confirmed, following two consecutive nights of unrest in the market town. One was arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred in connection with events on Wednesday. The other was held on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly and failing to provide his details to officers when requested.

Police powers were stepped up on Thursday evening in the aftermath of the earlier disorder. This followed officers being “subjected to significant aggression” on Wednesday, with one struck by a rock, one bitten and another spat at

Two officers were taken to hospital after responding to the scene at Clover Way that evening, which police described as “fast-moving and volatile” with tensions mounting as a crowd advanced towards a residential property.

On Tuesday night, windows were smashed, fences broken and attempts were made to force entry into a residential property, police said.

The protesters’ attempts to break into homes were fuelled by fears that the properties were being used to house asylum seekers.

Video footage circulating on social media appeared to show police escorting a number of asylum seekers away from properties in the area.

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Eyewitnesses and social media users had condemned the police response, with reports suggesting that a woman in a mobility scooter was pepper-sprayed on Wednesday. The force defended their actions as proportionate and appropriate, including the deployment of Pava spray.

They stated that Pava, a handheld incapacitating substance similar to pepper spray, was deployed in response to an individual’s behaviour within the crowd.

A police spokeswoman added: “We understand that concerns have been raised about a woman using a mobility scooter who was affected during the incident.

“It was not the intention for any bystander to be impacted; however, where people remain within an area of active disorder and do not follow police instructions to move away, there is a risk they may be affected by tactics deployed to protect public safety.”

A resident of Clover Way, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed that at around 9.30pm on Wednesday “lots of young boys… came up on bikes and chucked eggs at the house”. The largely seated demonstration began “peaceful” until additional officers arrived and formed a line, she said.

Subsequently, “it started to get a little bit rowdy” and “people took a step forward towards the police”.

Nobody attempted to enter the property, she said, noting that police “started pepper-spraying people”, including “a lady in a wheelchair”.

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There were “a few young idiots picking up stones, lobbing them at a police car”.

“They brought a riot van down and blocked the front of the house,” she said, adding that officers brandished batons, made arrests and instructed people to disperse. Norfolk Police confirmed that two arrests were made on Wednesday night on charges including public order offences, harassment and possession of an offensive weapon.

One man in his 40s remains in police custody.

Brian Thompson, 68, of Fairfields, Thetford, has been charged with possession of an offensive weapon, namely a wooden bat. He has been released on bail and is due to appear before Norwich Magistrates’ Court on August 25.

A man in his 30s, who was arrested on Wednesday in connection with Tuesday’s incidents on suspicion of a public order offence, has since been released and issued with a conditional caution.