In a small, dank, insect-infested cell in a Pakistani jail, a 73-year-old man is waiting to die. He is kept in solitary confinement for days on end. He cannot exercise properly, since the room measures only 6ft by 8ft, including the latrine.

There is no window, and sometimes the lights are switched off so he sits in blackness for days on end, waiting to be able to see again. For long periods he is given no access to books or newspapers, let alone visitors, with the result that he feels increasingly divorced from the outside world, and in fear of his mental stability.

It is now more than three years since he has been incarcerated in these conditions, enduring extreme heat in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. After shoddy and delayed medical treatment, he has lost 85 per cent of the sight in his right eye.

The conditions in which he is being kept have now been condemned three times, in the past two years, by the UN special rapporteur on torture. Amnesty International has voiced its concern, and – perhaps most importantly – so has the Supreme Court in Pakistan, which has ruled that the prisoner is being denied access to proper medical care.

He is, of course, Imran Khan, the former prime minister from 2018 to 2022, and his suffering is now becoming a global scandal. Since leaving office he has been subjected to a barrage of politically motivated cases, designed to eradicate him permanently from public life.

These charges have been so blatantly without merit that they have mostly collapsed – all except one: an accusation that Imran Khan’s government steered some UK government cash towards a certain property developer, who then made a handsome donation to a university that had connections to Imran and his wife.

Even if these accusations were true in every particular – and Imran Khan is appealing his conviction – the Pakistani prosecutors have conceded that neither he nor his wife stood to benefit financially from the university donation.

Even if it is true that Imran has some sort of case to answer in the so-called Al-Qadir case (and it is far from clear to me that he does), he has done nothing to deserve the kind of mental and physical torture he is getting. Above all, he deserves to have his appeal heard speedily and by an independent court.

Supporters welcome politician Sohail Afridi in Hyderabad, Pakistan, this month ahead of a planned protest demanding the release of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party’s founder Imran Khan

Instead he is being left literally to rot to death in jail. That is because this case was never about corruption, since he has been in fact one of the most open and transparent Pakistani politicians of modern times.

This case – like all of the lawfare he has faced since leaving office – has been driven by the desire of the Pakistani military to get him off the scene. His mistake was to take democracy seriously, and to try to use his prerogatives as the elected representative of the people of Pakistan.

Under the constitution, he had the right to appoint the head of the military – but when he wished to exercise his discretion, in favour of his preferred candidate, it turned out that the generals had other ideas.

Imran Khan tried to change the way Pakistan works, and paid a price. That is essentially why he is in jail.

I should declare that I of course know Imran, and like him. He did some good things as prime minister of Pakistan – or tried to. He had great ideas on forestry and the environment. He understood the cardinal importance in that country of female literacy.

Ask yourself why Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world with continued vast and unsustainable population growth – and the answer is obvious in the literacy figures. Apart from Afghanistan, Pakistan has just about the worst record in the entire world, with about 50 per cent of women still unable to read and write.

Imran understood that this was a disaster for his country, and tried to turn it round, with bonus payments designed to encourage girls to stay in school. He perhaps didn’t make as much progress as he would have liked – but that was mainly the fault of Covid, which kept everyone out of school, boys and girls alike.

He certainly wasn’t right about everything. I remember calling Imran the day after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and finding that he was far from totally solid in his condemnation of Moscow; but then you could say the same, I am afraid, of some other notable friends and allies of the UK.

Nor was he 100 per cent sound on the Taliban; but then it is a longstanding policy of the Pakistani government to support anyone in Kabul, no matter how ghastly and fundamentalist, provided they are not aligned with India.

You can object to some of the attitudes he struck, and to his teenage anti-Americanism, but nothing he said or did can conceivably justify the brutality with which the Pakistani generals are treating the former PM: banged up in foul conditions, with deteriorating health, no date for a new trial and no apparent hope of release.

Why are they doing it? Simple: they are scared of him. Imran Khan is one of the greatest cricketing heroes Pakistan – or the world – has ever produced. He led his country to its first ever test victories over both India and England, and in 1992, at the age of 39, he steered Pakistan to its first World Cup victory.

What the Pakistani generals fear is that if they let him out, his millions of fans in Pakistan will simply bear him aloft to a tumultuous victory in the next available election. That is why they are treating him with such cruelty – refusing even to allow his two sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, to have visas to visit him in jail.

The continued jailing of Imran Khan is a pathetic and unnecessary act of cowardice by Pakistan; and the UK government has been correspondingly abject in its protests.

What the Pakistani generals fear is that if they let Khan out, his millions of fans in Pakistan will simply bear him aloft to a tumultuous victory in the next election, writes Boris Johnson

These two Khan boys have British passports. Imran Khan was himself educated at Royal Grammar School Worcester, read PPE at Keble and captained the Oxford Blues team before playing for Worcestershire and Surrey. He has millions of fans in this country, to say nothing of Pakistan, and yet the Foreign Office has barely raised a peep on his behalf.

Britain has longstanding, deep and in many cases familial ties with Pakistan. After three years of watching Imran in torment, it is time for us to stop pussy-footing around, use our leverage and call for his release.

The Pakistani generals, led by Asim Munir, are riding high. Field Marshal Munir has been the go-to man in the Iran negotiations. He is admired in the White House.

The Field Marshal has nothing to fear from a 73-year-old man in poor health, and it would be the obvious and humane thing to let Imran out, and if necessary keep him under house arrest pending his appeal.

That, above all, would be in line with Pakistan’s own Supreme Court ruling.

At the moment I am afraid that it looks as though the Pakistanis are actively hoping that he will die in jail. That would be a serious stain on the country’s reputation.

Unlock that cell – and free Imran Khan.

Joao Pedro was not in the matchday squad for Chelsea’s Premier League clash with Brentford due to a knee injury.

The Brazil international has enjoyed an electric start to the new season, scoring three and providing three assists in four appearances.

Pedro was absent from training this week, however, sparking injury concerns ahead of tonight’s game in west London having also withdrawn from the Brazil squad ahead of upcoming games.

Pedro was not named in Xabi Alonso’s squad tonight with Danny Welbeck leading the line in his absence.

Alonso gave little away when discussing Pedro’s fitness this week but ESPN Brasil report he was examined by doctors on Tuesday, with the striker nursing a sprain of the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments during last Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Hull City.

It has been recommended he takes three-and-a-half weeks to recover.

When will Joao Pedro return from injury?

While it ruled him out of Friday’s game, the timing does benefit Chelsea with an extended three-week international break now looming large.

Based on the reported timeline, Pedro will be available when Chelsea return to action on 10 October.

Chelsea were also without Moises Caicedo and Reece James against Brentford.

Caicedo is still to start a game this season, aggravating a muscle injury just 14 minutes after coming off the bench against Brighton in August.

James meanwhile was close to making the squad for the Brentford game but just missed out, according to his manager.

‘He’s had a little injury in his hamstring,’ Alonso said of kick-off ahead of Friday’s game.

‘He tried and we waited until this morning. He tried to make it but he couldn’t now we have enough time to prepare for the next one. He was just short of recovering.’

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Whitby RNLI, along with North Yorkshire Police, Yorkshire Ambulance Service and coastguard crew, were called to the area shortly before 12pm today (Friday, September 18).

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A RNLI spokesperson said its crews had launched its inshore lifeboat to provide medical assistance to the driver, who was then transferred into an ambulance.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “We were called with a report from Whitby that a car at the Marina car park had entered the water, shortly before midday today, and was fully submerged.

“Our officers attended immediately, alongside other emergency services.

“It’s believed that the driver had suffered a medical episode. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.”

A North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: “Whitby and Lythe [assisted] assisted the coastguard and police with reports of a person who had driven into the harbour and was submerged by water inside their vehicle.

“The vehicle driver was rescued by a passerby prior to fire crews arrival.

“Crews administered immediate emergency care prior to the arrival of ambulance crews who took over the care of the driver on their arrival. The driver was taken to hospital via road ambulance.”

An analyst is said to have used a chatbot that wrongly identified the nature of the Chinese ship’s cargo.

The US reportedly “almost started a war” against China after an AI chatbot wrongly concluded a Chinese ship was carrying a nuclear weapons component.

The incident happened this spring, when the vessel was spotted in the Middle East amid America’s war with Iran. The US was preparing to board the vessel and planes were circling, with plans to intercept the ship underway.

But, once officials had a more detailed look into the intelligence report that led to the large-scale response, they realised it had been generated with the help of AI, CNN reports. An analyst is said to have used a chatbot that wrongly identified the nature of the Chinese ship’s cargo, suggesting the vessel was transporting components of a nuclear weapons programme.

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A 23-year-old man has been arrested after a woman was left in a critical condition

A woman is fighting for her life following a stabbing in Liverpool. Emergency services were called to an address in the city centre at approximately 2.55am on Thursday, September 17, after reports emerged that a woman had been attacked.

The victim was rushed to hospital with stab wounds to her stomach and arm, where she remains in a critical condition. Footage from the scene shows a significant emergency response on Henry Street, with armed officers and multiple ambulances at the scene.

One witness described seeing armed police “searching every floor” of a building on the street. A 23-year-old man from Liverpool was subsequently arrested on suspicion of Section 18 wounding. He remains in custody at a police station in Merseyside, while officers continue their enquiries into the incident.

Detective Inspector Daniel McWhinnie said: “I would like to reassure residents that we believe this was an isolated incident that happened early this morning.”, reports the Liverpool Echo.

“Although an arrest has been made our officers are still investigating what happened at the address in our city centre after a woman was left with serious injuries.

“Therefore, I would appeal to anyone who lives in the area, that has any doorbell footage that may have captured anything suspicious to get in touch as soon as possible so we can continue our investigation.”

If you have any information on this incident please contact Merseyside Police’s social media desk via X or Facebook @MerPolCC or ring 101 with reference 26000765447.

You can also report information via the force’s website: https://www.merseyside.police.uk/ro/report/ocr/af/how-to-report-a-crime/ or call 101.

Alternatively, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, or via their website here: https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/forms/give-information-anonymously.

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With new adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility arriving on our screens this autumn, television’s long-running love affair with Jane Austen shows little sign of abating. But there are other 18th-century writers with whom TV could have a wonderful love affair, too.

One writes about a woman who disguises herself as four different people to pursue the same man. Another writes about a woman becomes so obsessed with romance novels that she struggles to distinguish fiction from reality. In other’s work, a young heroine navigates the dangers of high society while a sheltered young woman uncovers dark family secrets in a remote castle.

Don’t these sound like pitches developed for a contemporary streaming platform? Although largely forgotten today, they contain many of the ingredients that contemporary television audiences love. Here are romance, scandal, mistaken identities, unreliable narrators, gothic suspense and sharp social commentary. Indeed, some of the 18th-century’s most influential novels seem almost uncannily designed for 21st-century screens. Here are five such tales.

The titular protagonist of Haywood’s best-known work is a young woman who repeatedly reinvents herself through a series of disguises to sustain a relationship with an unsuspecting lover. Long before Tinder profiles or TikTok personas, Haywood understood that attraction often depends on performance and self-presentation.

In a recognisably contemporary act of self-fashioning, each disguise grants Fantomina access to forms of freedom, mobility and sexual agency denied to respectable 18th-century women. It is only by shedding her “respectable” identity and becoming anonymous that Fantomina is able explore the freedoms offered by public life.

In this respect, the novella’s interest in reinvention anticipates everything from online pseudonyms to the carefully curated selves of dating apps, while its suggestion that women are judged differently depending on how and where they appear in public feels strikingly relevant in an era of social media, personal branding, and constant visibility.

Few mid-century novels generated more controversy or excitement than Pamela, the story of a young servant girl who resists the unwanted advances of her wealthy employer. Centred on questions of power, class, precarity and consent that remain highly relevant today, the novel sparked fierce debate amongst its first readers and spawned several imitative responses.

Long before the #MeToo movement forced a wider reckoning with how economic and social authority can be abused, Richardson’s bestselling novel was asking pertinent questions about the options available to women when the men pursuing them also hold power over their futures. The novel’s conclusion can feel deeply troubling to modern readers. Yet it is precisely its ambiguity — and the difficult conversations it can provoke — that would make Pamela such a compelling adaptation today.

Often read as a satire on the dangers of excessive reading, Lennox’s novel feels uncannily attuned to contemporary debates about BookTok, fandom and so-called “book boyfriends”: fictional characters, usually male, who readers wish existed in real life. Its heroine Arabella’s habit of interpreting real life through the conventions of romance recalls contemporary anxieties about the influence of popular fiction on readers, particularly women.

Yet The Female Quixote also invites us to question why female reading habits attract such scrutiny in the first place. Much like modern debates about romantasy or fan fiction, Lennox’s novel exposes the tendency to dismiss the cultural interests of women as frivolous, unhealthy or delusional.

A smart adaptation could capture both the comedy of Arabella’s misconceptions, and the novel’s surprisingly sympathetic defence of the pleasures of imaginative reading.

Evelina is perhaps the easiest sell of all because its often seen as Austen before Austen. Following a young woman as she enters fashionable society for the first time, the novel combines romance, comedy and social satire with a heroine whose uncertainty about the world around her makes her instantly relatable.

But beneath its humour lies a story about the challenges of establishing your own identity in a society obsessed with status and reputation.

Burney was one of Austen’s favourite authors and readers familiar with Pride and Prejudice and Emma will recognise many of the qualities that Austen would later make famous. So an adaptation of Evelina would offer something both fresh and familiar by giving viewers a chance to revisit the literary world that made Austen possible in the first place.

A riot of gothic excess, Anne Radcliffe’s chiller arrives packed to the brim with many of the ingredients that have recently enjoyed a cultural renaissance: crumbling castles, sublime landscapes, dark family secrets, brooding villains and a pervasive atmosphere of mystery. But the novel’s enduring appeal lies in the way it uses these gothic trappings to explore very real anxieties about female precarity and male power. Isolated, surveilled and threatened by powerful men, the fate of heroine Emily St. Aubert explores inheritance, coercion, gender, and authority.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Austen remains endlessly adaptable. I, for one, will be watching the latest takes on her work when they land on our screens. But as this list shows, Jane’s was never the only game in town. The novels beloved by Austen and her contemporaries were often stranger, riskier and more inventive than the stories that often make it to our screens. Three centuries on, they may be ready for their big moment.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

John F. Kennedy’s niece praised a Democratic lawmaker as a “national hero” for challenging President Donald Trump’s proposed changes to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, took to social media to applaud Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is spearheading a legal challenge to Trump’s effort to rename the performing arts center after himself.

“@RepBeatty is a national hero,” Kerry Kennedy wrote on X on Thursday. “She has fiercely and courageously stood up for the Kennedy Center, for the arts, for Uncle Jack’s memory, for this country’s history, and most importantly, for the law, time and time again.”

“We will not be bullied into silence or submission,” she added. “Thank you, Rep. Beatty. We are all so grateful for your leadership.”

Beatty, who filed her lawsuit challenging the Kennedy Center’s renaming in December 2025, secured a victory this week. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper barred the 80-year-old Republican president from etching his name into the building, a living memorial to John F. Kennedy.

“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

Following the ruling, Beatty said that Trump erupted into a “tantrum” during a meeting with the board of the Kennedy Center, which the president chairs.

“I mean, let me just make it simple. It was the most unprofessional thing that I’ve ever witnessed,” the Ohio congressman, an ex officio member of the board, told MS NOW on Tuesday evening. Trump reportedly labeled her an “obstructionist” and “dumb.”

Trump administration officials have accused Democrats of letting the center fall into disrepair, while Democrats, including Beatty, have characterized Trump’s rebranding effort as a “vanity project.”

After the high-octane confrontation, the Trump-controlled board voted to close the performing arts venue.

The vote came after the administration failed to convince a judge that the Kennedy Center could not continue to operate without his name on the building. Administration officials have argued that without adding Trump’s name to the center, fundraising efforts could be hampered.

The president then announced on Truth Social that he won’t start his multi-million-dollar renovation project unless courts agree to let him put his name on it.

“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Trump wrote, “the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”

On Thursday, Trump suggested that the center, which sits on the banks of the Potomac River, could be “ripped down.” The same day, he was spotted gazing at a poster that read: “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

A federal judge then ordered the administration to provide at least 30 days’ notice before making any physical changes to the building.

According to a May Pew Research Center poll, only 9 percent of Americans said it would be acceptable for Trump to name government buildings after himself while serving as president.

Police, paramedics and firefighters were called to the two-vehicle collision in Thornton-le-Street, between Thirsk and Northallerton, shortly before 2.55pm on Friday (September 18).

The driver of the vehicle that landed on its roof managed to get free from the wreckage with support from firefighters, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said.

Both drivers were checked by paramedics and taken to hospital by ambulance, the fire service said.

A service spokesperson added: “Crews made the vehicles safe before it was left in the hands of police.”

Councillors said there was a ‘degree of cynicism’ after years of proposed transit systems failing to be delivered

A study which could suggest introducing trams or a light rail network to combat the city’s congestion could be released later this year. Representatives of the Cambridge Development Corporation appeared at a meeting of South Cambridgeshire District Council’s scrutiny and overview committee to answer questions from council members.

The development body was established earlier this year to accelerate building new homes and infrastructure in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire amid concerns it would strip planning powers from councils. Cllr Mark Lunn, of Shelford, asked about their current plans around a new form of public transport for Cambridge, after a study was launched earlier this year.

The Lib Dem councillor said: “There have been many proposals in the past over many years for metro services, tunnels under the Cam – you name it – none of which have come to fruition. There’s a degree of cynicism among the electorate I would say, not just in this room.”

Philip Harker, technical director of the Development Corporation, said: “What’s different this time is there’s the growth ambitions coming forward.”

He said plans for the future growth of the city, with the government aiming to more than double its population by 2050, would provide more support for a mass rapid transit system. He said they expect to provide an argument for moving forward with the plans by the end of the year, or start of 2027, which will suggest different options.

The Cambridge Growth Company, the predecessor to the Development Corporation, launched the study to look at options for a transit system.

As part of this, they are investigating which form is the most appropriate for the city and surrounding area in terms of feasibility, value for money and environmental impact. Options could include trams, a light rail network or expanding the busways and use of automated vehicles.

Mr Harker said: “What the final solution will look like we aren’t there yet we won’t be there at the end of the study – there will be options around that.”

When it was first launched he said “congestion in Cambridge is already holding back our communities and our economy,” with employers delaying investment decisions “until credible solutions are found”.

Paul Bristow, Mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, pledged to build a light rail system of urban trams when elected in 2024. When the study was launched he said it “restarts a long-stalled conversation” and would support the government’s “wider growth ambitions”.

The region’s last Conservative mayor, James Palmer, launched plans for an autonomous metro system in Cambridge in 2017 but these were scrapped in 2021. Labour mayor Dr Nik Johnson succeeded him but pioneered bus franchising instead, which would bring Cambridgeshire’s buses into public ownership.

After a review of franchising, Mr Bristow announced that franchising would take a phased approach starting in 2027.