The award show was held at Utilita Arena in Newcastle last October, the first time it took place outside of London since it launched in 1992, and will return to the venue this autumn.
The award ceremony aims to spotlight the best new British and Irish music while also celebrating artistic achievements across genres.
Dr Jo Twist and YolanDa Brown from organisers the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), said: “Last year’s Mercury Prize and its brilliant performances and Fringe gave the region a £1.4m economic and cultural boost and the whole of Newcastle came together to give the event a warm, big Geordie hug.
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“We are delighted to see the Prize return to the Toon and to the North East for what we know will be another memorable occasion for artists and fans.”
An independent judging panel selects a shortlist of 12 albums across genres, championing emerging and established artists alike.
The 2025 ceremony marked the first time the event was held outside London, bringing an estimated 8,000 extra visitors to the region.
This year’s return aims to build on that impact, with organisers planning an expanded public programme.
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Councillor Karen Kilgour, leader of Newcastle City Council, said: “The return of the Mercury Prize to Newcastle for a second consecutive year is a tremendous vote of confidence in our city and our thriving music scene.”
Past winners of the Mercury Prize include Sam Fender, English Teacher, Ezra Collective, Little Simz, Dave, Wolf Alice, and Young Fathers.
Stephen Colbert isn’t backing down in an extraordinary public dispute with his bosses at CBS over what he can air on his late-night talk show.
On “The Late Show” Tuesday, Colbert said he was surprised by a statement from CBS denying that its lawyers told him he couldn’t show an interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico — which the host said had happened the night before.
He then took a copy of the network statement, wrapped it in a dog poop bag, and tossed it away.
Colbert had instead shown his Talarico interview on YouTube, but told viewers why he couldn’t show it on CBS. The network was concerned about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr trying to enforce a rule that required broadcasters to give “equal time” to opposing candidates when an interview was broadcast with one of them.
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“We looked and we can’t find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview, not only for my entire late-night career, but for anyone’s late-night career going back to the 1960s,” Colbert said.
Although Carr said in January he was thinking about getting rid of the exemption for late-night talk shows, he hadn’t done it yet. “But CBS generously did it for him,” Colbert said.
Not only had CBS been aware Monday night that Colbert was going to talk about this issue publicly, its lawyers had even approved it in his script, he said. That’s why he was surprised by the statement, which said that Colbert had been provided “legal guidance” that broadcasting the interview could trigger the equal time rule.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Colbert said. “For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one.”
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He said he was “just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.” CBS is owned by Paramount Global.
Colbert is a short-timer now at CBS. The network announced last summer that Colbert’s show, where President Donald Trump is a frequent target of biting jokes, would end in May. The network said it was for economic reasons but others — including Colbert — have expressed skepticism that Trump’s repeated criticism of the show had nothing to do with it.
This week’s dispute with Colbert also recalls last fall, when ABC took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a remark made about the killing of conservative activist founder Charlie Kirk, only to reinstate him following a backlash by viewers.
As of Wednesday morning, Colbert’s YouTube interview with Talarico had been viewed more than five million times, or roughly double what the comic’s CBS program draws each night. The Texas Democrat also reported that he had raised $2.5 million in campaign donations in the 24 hours after the interview.
Wintry showers are set to fall from 5pm as sleet before snow falls throughout the night, turning to sleet into the early hours and during the rush hour.
Temperatures will reach a high of five degrees and lows of two degrees.
Wintry showers are set to move in, with snow expected to continue throughout tonight, February 17, and into the early hours of Thursday, February 19, until approximately 8am.
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The Met Office has cautioned that there’s a slight possibility of delays on roads, potentially resulting in some vehicles and passengers being stranded.
Both rail and air services may also encounter delays or cancellations.
Snowfall could also isolate some rural communities.
Possible power cuts and disruptions to services, including mobile signals, have also been predicted.
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Snow showers are expected in Bolton on Wednesday afternoon.
By Thursday morning, sleet showers are set to begin, with an 80 per cent chance of precipitation at 6am.
Temperatures are forecast to peak at around 5C.
Conditions are expected to turn drier during the afternoon.
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However, spells of rain, sleet and snow will push northwards through the evening.
Tonight, rain, sleet and hill snow will continue to move northwards, turning lighter and more patchy towards the end of the night as winds begin to ease.
“It’s heartbreaking now, when I think about it, that young Noah has gone on”
A retired police officer has described the “horrendous” conditions in a storm drain tunnel network in which the body of Noah Donohoe was discovered.
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Retired inspector Menary, who previously managed the PSNI hazardous environment search (HES) team, told Belfast coroner’s court that anyone entering the tunnel without protective clothing would have been “absolutely frozen”.
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy at Belfast Coroner’s Court, which is being heard with a jury, is now in its fourth week.
Noah, a pupil of St Malachy’s College, was 14 when he was found dead in a storm drain tunnel in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of the city.
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A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was drowning.
Resuming his evidence on Wednesday, Mr Menary told the jury that his team had resumed his search of a stretch of the storm drain network on Thursday June 25, four days after Noah went missing.
The tunnel could be accessed from a culvert entrance in Northwood Linear Park in north Belfast, close to where Noah had last been seen on the Sunday before.
Mr Menary told the jury that at this stage he was involved in a search operation, not a body recovery operation.
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He said at that point there was “no evidence” Noah had gone down into the storm drain.
He said: “We were looking for anything strange or out of the ordinary within the culvert.”
Mr Menary searched in an area underneath Seaview football pitch, the home of Crusaders FC.
Describing the conditions, he said: “It’s freezing cold. My flood suit at the time is sealed, but doesn’t fully seal around the waist, so when I was lying down the water was coming over the top of me and up into the bottom of my jacket.”
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Counsel for the coroner Declan Quinn asked what it would have been like for someone to be in the tunnel without protective clothing.
Mr Menary said: “Somebody doing that with no clothes would have been absolutely horrendous and you would have been absolutely frozen.”
Mr Quinn asked about the physical exertion which would have been needed for someone to travel from the entrance to the culvert system at Linear Park to the stretch of tunnel which the retired officer had searched.
Mr Menary said: “The water would have continually come over you and you would have been frozen.
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“You begin to get disorientated because of the cold, you begin to slow down and you just continually move on that section underneath the football pitch.”
The retired officer said it was “heartbreaking” to think Noah had been in the tunnel.
He said: “It’s hard and that bit underneath the pitch was fairly horrendous.”
Asked about the email to the First Minister, a spokesperson for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service told PA: “The Lord Advocate provided the First Minister with an update to ensure it was understood she was not involved in the case, that it was active for contempt of court, and therefore it should not be commented upon.
From hit series such as Heated Rivalry and Bridgerton to the most talked about movie of the moment, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, yearning is everywhere right now. Falling in love and living happily ever after? BORING – we want storylines with long, drawn out power dynamics, tortuous emotional restraint and hopefully, a moment of release.
Yearning, as the Cambridge Dictionary defines it, is “a strong feeling of wishing for something, especially something that you cannot have or get easily” – and we can’t get enough of it.
You only have to search #yearning on TikTok to be flooded with videos (245k posts, in fact) to find romanticised clip after clip of Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff looking miserable on the Moors or videos of Jonathan Bailey’s Anthony Bridgerton staring down a camera with misty-eyes.
Meanwhile, the phrase ‘best yearning scenes’ has been Googled so many times in the last 30 days that it’s been classified as a ‘breakout’ term (Heathcliff’s finger sucking has a lot to answer for).
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However, according to new research from Tinder, it turns out that many of us don’t just want these intense feelings in our pop culture, we want them mirrored in our own dating lives too.
Not content with yearning being restricted to screen, stage and page (yes, we see you too A Court of Thorns and Roses readers), 71% of UK singles aged 18-25 want love that feels as intense as it does in films or books, while two thirds (67%) say they love the feeling of being yearned after, and 61% enjoy yearning for someone they like.
However, is yearning really all it cracks up to be in practice in the real world?
Well, as chartered psychologist Dr Tracy King explains, one of the main issues with yearning is that a lot of it is based around uncertainty and it can actually lead us to have an unrealistic idea of the person we’re yearning for.
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“When someone is just out of reach, the mind fills in the gaps,” she says. “You are not relating to a full, consistent picture of a person, you are relating to fragments and possibility. That creates intensity, but intensity is not the same thing as compatibility.”
In other words, you’re so wrapped up in this feeling of want and longing that you might be blind to the pitfalls of the person themselves – that this idea of them is actually more attractive than the reality of who they are.
We’ve all been there, when the thrill of the chase and the ‘will we, won’t we’ element of dating is absolutely intoxicating, but then when things eventually work out after painful uncertainty, everything feels a little… flat.
Tinder’s data actually echoes this, with 28% of UK singles saying they enjoy having a crush even if it doesn’t go anywhere i.e. the whole point is the feeling of longing over the actual fruition of a relationship.
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And unfortunately the reason it can feel so delicious is because yearning sits in the brain’s same learning mechanism as intermittent reinforcement – and for this example, Dr Tracy uses rats (sorry Heathcliff).
“We can look at the effects of intermittent reinforcement from past behavioural psychology experiments using rats. When a reward was delivered consistently to the rats, their behaviour stayed steady.
“However, when the reward was delivered unpredictably, the behaviour became far more embedded. The uncertainty drove the animal to keep trying. Unpredictable rewards embed action and need far deeper.”
Apart from desperately trying not to make a joke about our exes and rats, how does this relate to our dating lives? Time to reintroduce our dating trend friend breadcrumbing, something which yearning relies upon, according to Dr Tracy.
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“Yearning is exactly how breadcrumbing is able to work. A message arrives after silence. Interest appears and disappears. There is just enough contact to keep hope alive, but not enough consistency to create security. People may call this romance, or proof of how much they need and want the other but what is happening is nervous system activation plus a reward loop.”
Yearning suddenly isn’t as sexy when you think of it as a weapon for shitty dating behaviour, is it?
At the moment, pop culture tends to romanticise yearning because it looks like depth of feeling on screen but in real life, it is worth asking a more grounded question: is this feeling coming from mutual connection and real knowledge of the person, or is it being driven by inconsistency and the pull of possibility?
Sure, healthy love might not be as glamorous and sexy as yearning, but maybe we should leave the misery on the Moors and the unpredictable breadcrumbs for the rats.
Lying face-down in a floating cabana during an aromatherapy massage in a 500,000-year-old cave is the closest thing to nirvana I’ve ever experienced.
My cabana sits above an azure underground lake, and I’m entirely surrounded by stalactites, hanging like icicles from the roof, and stalagmites (mounds formed on the floor) in Prospero’s Cave, Bermuda.
It’s hard to imagine a more calming setting as I feel my muscles relax, to the soundtrack of the drips of water (or calcium carbonate deposits, more accurately) falling from the ceiling, echoing around this ancient cavern.
This cave and the nearby Cathedral Cave form a pair of expansive ancient underground limestone grottos beneath Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa.
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Guests can also take a dip in the Cathedral Cave’s naturally cool waters – which reaches depths of nine metres – a welcome relief from the balmy outside temperatures.
A refreshing dip in the cool cave waters at the Grotto Bay Beach Resort (PA)
These caves were first discovered during Bermuda’s early colonisation. It’s thought that Sir George Somers, whose ship was wrecked near the country’s shore in 1609, first discovered Prospero’s Cave.
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Now, the resort’s Natura Spa, set inside the cave itself with just three overwater cabanas, offers an exclusive setting for a variety of treatments – and it’s said to be one of the few places in the world for such a unique experience. It also marks the beginning of my wellness journey on this beautiful archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Famous for its pink-sand beaches and turquoise waters, the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, comprising seven main islands within an archipelago of 181 in total, is positioning itself as a leading destination for wellness-focused travellers.
I’m pleasantly surprised by the mild winter temperatures in January, ranging from 16 to 20 degrees Celsius, a respite from the harsh British winter and some eight hours away by air.
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A view of the private pink sand beach at the Rosewood Bermuda (Rosewood Bermuda/PA)
But Bermuda feels worth visiting for the warmth and hospitality of its people alone. Walking around the capital, Hamilton, on Main Island, with pastel-coloured buildings lining the waterfront, splashes of street art, and charming shops and cafés, it’s almost impossible to pass anyone without being greeted with a smile.
I’m staying at the luxurious five-star Rosewood Bermuda on Tucker’s Point in Hamilton Parish, home to Bermuda’s largest private pink‑sand beach.
The sand has a subtle pink hue on several beaches here, thanks to the presence of a microscopic marine organism, foraminifera – its bright red or pink shells mix with white sand and tiny coral fragments, giving the distinctive colour.
And a trip to Bermuda wouldn’t be complete without a visit to nearby Horseshoe Bay, the island’s famous crescent-shaped pink-sand beach with dramatic limestone cliffs.
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My spacious room, complete with its own private balcony and a dark-wood, four-poster king bed, has views straight over the North Atlantic Ocean.
This 240-acre resort also features a spa, five scenic swimming pools, and three restaurants with two bars, the perfect setting to relax and unwind.
The island’s food and drink scene celebrates flavours and produce unique to its shores. A driver, Tim, insisted I couldn’t leave without trying a Dark ’n’ Stormy, made with Gosling’s Black Seal rum and ginger beer, and the famous Bermuda fish sandwich: fried white fish served on toasted raisin bread. It’s a challenge I happily accept.
The main objective on this trip, however, was to explore the full range of wellness experiences Bermuda has to offer.
One stop on the wellness tour is a barre class at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. Also known as the ‘Pink Palace’, the hotel boasts an impressive art collection, including original works by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, and prides itself on being Bermuda’s only luxury urban resort.
But no one embodies Bermuda’s wellness ethos quite like Jessica Burns, founder of The Retreat House, described as “a sanctuary for connecting more deeply with yourself, others and the natural world of Bermuda”.
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A Bermuda native, Burns established the business after losing her mother, Kim, to ovarian cancer in 2023. Leaving behind her corporate career in London, she returned home to transform the beach-facing property her mother had rented to tourists for more than a decade into The Retreat House.
Local vegan chef Doreen Williams-James who led our foraging tour (Lynn Rusk/PA)
Since 2024, she’s hosted a range of retreats, from the Kim Burns Retreats for people living with cancer, to programmes designed for expectant mothers. Her aim, she tells me, is to help establish Bermuda as “one of the world’s leading wellness destinations,” encouraging travellers to embrace the island’s healing nature.
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With its turquoise waters, lush tropical greenery, and unhurried pace of life, Bermuda naturally fosters relaxation and restoration.
But it’s also rich in natural culinary sources and medicinal plants. I join a foraging tour with local vegan chef Doreen Williams-James on Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve, at the south-eastern tip of the island. She leads us on a leisurely walk, pointing out edible and medicinal plants along the way, including Old Spice, fennel, wood sorrel, hibiscus, and scurvy grass.
“I grew up eating scurvy grass, a coastal, vitamin C-rich plant, as a child,” Williams-James explains.
“My father would take me out at this time of year to pick it – it only grows once a year. When sailors first arrived on the island, their diet consisted largely of salted pork, which led to vitamin C deficiency and scurvy. They discovered that eating this plant cured the disease, which is why [we know] it’s so high in vitamin C.”
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She also touts the health benefits of eating seasonally: “At this time of year, there are so many plants naturally high in vitamin C. Eating what’s in season can help prevent illness and support healing through food.”
Lynn Rusk at Horseshoe Bay (Lynn Rusk/PA)
Foraging isn’t just a popular activity on the island, it was once a way of life. Williams-James adds: “For the older generation, foraging was simply how they lived – that’s what they ate and relied on. When I go foraging now, younger people often look at me and think, ‘What is she doing?’ But I’m seeing more of them join my tours because they want to eat better and embrace a different lifestyle.”
From a massage in an ancient cave to foraging in the wild and spending time on unspoilt beaches, I leave Bermuda feeling refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of city life once again.
A number of Southern routes from London Victoria to Ore, Littlehampton, Eastbourne, Bognor Regis and Portsmouth Harbour are also impacted. Meanwhile, Thameslink services between Peterborough and Horsham, Cambridge and Brighton, and Bedford and Three Bridges or Brighton may also see alterations.
A van driver who crashed into the back of a broken-down car in the fast lane of a smart motorway has been convicted of causing the fatal collision.
Barry O’Sullivan, 45, was driving a grey Ford work van along the M4 on March 7 2022 when he hit a Nissan Micra which had stopped in the outside lane.
The crash, which took place on the M4 westbound between junctions 11 and 12 in Berkshire, caused both vehicles to propel forward, with the Nissan bursting into flames.
Pulvinder Dhillon, who was a passenger in her daughter’s Micra, suffered fatal injuries.
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It was later discovered an unresolved technical failure on the M4 smart motorway network meant alerts for broken-down vehicles were not properly communicated in the days leading up to the collision, the trial at Reading Crown Court was previously told.
Defence lawyers argued O’Sullivan could not have caused the death of Ms Dhillon because the crash was “inevitable” given that the car was stationary in the fast lane and the smart motorway was not displaying any warning signs to other motorists.
While acknowledging “something went wrong” with the motorway’s safety alert system, the prosecution argued O’Sullivan still caused the death of Ms Dhillon by driving carelessly and “at speed”.
He did not pick up on “cues” that the vehicle was stationary, including the fact other motorists were taking steps to avoid the broken-down Nissan, the prosecution told jurors during the trial.
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The panel found O’Sullivan guilty on one of one count of causing death by careless driving, having deliberated for more than six hours.
On the day of the crash, alerts from stopped vehicle detection radars on the M4 junction eight/nine to 12 had not been communicated for five days due to a technical failure on the IT network, the trial heard.
Consequently, the network “wasn’t showing messages about any obstructions in the road ahead” on the morning of the incident.
The technical malfunction had been flagged by the system on March 2 2022 and automatically generated tickets, but they were assigned to the wrong National Highways team and with an incorrect priority level of “seven-day resolution”, the trial was told.
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The Nissan had been stationary on the fast lane for six minutes before the collision, jurors previously heard.
O’Sullivan, of Wixams near Bedford, was driving his Ford van at speeds of 74-80mph along that same stretch of motorway for the five seconds before the crash.
A roadside breath test and drug test was later administered and O’Sullivan had a zero reading for alcohol and no cocaine or cannabis was detected.
Ukrainian officials will boycott next month’s Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics over the participation of a handful of Russian and Belarusian athletes who have been cleared to compete under their flags.
Russia and Belarus will have a combined 10 athletes at next month’s Winter Paralympics following Tuesday’s decision by the International Paralympic Committee.
Ukrainian athletes will still take part in the March 6-15 Paralympic Games, but the country’s sports minister, Matviy Bidnyi, said no Ukraine official would be at the opening ceremony or any event of the Games.
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Mr Bidnyi said: “In response to the outrageous decision to let Russians and Belarusians compete under their national flags, Ukrainian public officials will not attend the Paralympic Games.
“We will not be present at the opening ceremony. We will not take part in any other official Paralympic events.
“We thank every official from the free world who will do the same.
“We will keep fighting!”
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This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Work is set to start this year while Magor and Undy is set to be the first completed
A long-awaited transformation of Wales’ rail network is set to begin as ministers prepare to green-light a multi-million-pound programme of new stations across the country.
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Construction on new railway stations across Newport is scheduled to commence this year with Magor and Undy expected to be the first to reach completion.
Whilst the UK Government confirmed work on those five stations will begin this year the anticipation is that construction of just two will commence by 2029.
The announcement will also secure funding for a Cardiff Parkway Station at St Mellons, with a seventh station to be constructed in north Wales serving the Deeside industrial park, with the government claiming 12,000 jobs throughout Wales will be generated.
Almost half a billion pounds was pledged for the stations in June’s spending review. The Prime Minister said: “This government is turning the page on historic dither and delay with seven new stations, thousands of jobs, and a generational commitment to build a rail network fit for Wales’ future.
“This isn’t tinkering nor sticking plasters. This is investment for the long term – and change communities will feel. This is putting Wales on the front foot and getting Britain building again.” For the biggest stories in Wales first sign up to our daily newsletter here
A Wales Office statement confirmed that construction will start on stations at Llanwern, Newport West and Somerton alongside Magor and Undy and Cardiff East later this year. Magor and Undy is anticipated to be the first of these stations to reach completion.
The announcement will be viewed as welcome news for First Minister Eluned Morgan who has urged Mr Starmer to commit funding to rail infrastructure as polling indicates Labour may face difficulties in May’s Senedd election, potentially ending the party’s 26-year control of the Welsh Government.
Ms Morgan said: “We are now in an unprecedented position to deliver the next chapter of transformation for rail services in Wales. We have secured long-term commitments to key projects and a renewed ambition for our rail network.”
She added: “Today marks another important milestone for rail as Transport for Wales publishes an exciting and essential pipeline for future investment. This includes projects the length and breadth of our nation.
“We warmly welcome the UK Government’s support for these plans and for their commitment to putting right the injustice of Welsh rail underfunding left by the previous government.”
The new stations flanking Newport had been proposed by the Burns Commission in 2019 to tackle M4 congestion following the abandonment of earlier relief road proposals, and are designed to facilitate easier commuting into Newport and Cardiff.
The proposal Mr Starmer is expected to formally back on Wednesday is the strategy developed by Transport for Wales, which oversees local rail services and public transport strategy.
The UK Government is also pledging funding to enhance the line speed of the relief lines running parallel to the main lines between Cardiff and Severn Tunnel Junction, which will establish two additional high-speed lines and offer greater flexibility for freight and passenger operations.
A comprehensive business case is expected to be submitted this spring, with work coordinated alongside the proposed new stations and services.
Campaigners, who initially put forward proposals for a walkway station designed to serve commuters within walking distance in 2013, had urged for Magor and Undy to be prioritised when funding was announced, as a station could be delivered without requiring an upgrade to the line.
The demand to prioritise Magor and Undy has received cross-party support from Monmouthshire County Council. Cardiff Parkway is projected to serve approximately 800,000 passengers annually which is expected to generate around 6,000 jobs.
Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens added: “This investment in seven new stations and other upgrades will boost capacity across our network and transform the experience of thousands of passengers.
“It is part of the generational investment we are making to improve Welsh rail which will better connect people with the well-paid jobs we are creating across the country and drive economic growth.”
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