By WILL HALLOWELL, NEWS REPORTER

Published: 01:28 BST, 22 September 2026 | Updated: 01:51 BST, 22 September 2026

After more than 24,000 pictures from around the world were submitted into the renowned competition, the Bird Photographer of the Year winners have been revealed. 

And it was a British snapper who claimed the £3,000 prize money this year with an extraordinary submission from under water. 

Henley Spiers was named grand prizewinner after capturing a gannet mid-dive as it plunges into Scottish waters in search of prey at speeds of up to 86km/h (53mph). 

Mr Spiers said of his image, named Sunball Rocket, and competition victory: ‘The handsome northern gannets lead a dualistic existence.

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‘In the nest, their newborn is carefully nurtured, and a couple’s bond is reinforced by pointing sharp beaks to the sky as they tenderly stroke their white necks together. 

‘In flight, hunting mode takes over, and piercing yellow eyes, fringed with blue circles, scour the sea for prey.

‘When fish are spotted, the gannets fly into the wind and stretch out their wings as brakes, precisely adjusting their position in relation to their quarry. 

‘Moments later, with wings tucked in tightly, the gannet shape-shifts into a pointed torpedo, diving into the water at speeds of up to 86km/h.’  

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A photographer was snorkeling in the magnificent Port Charcot bay in Antarctica when a raft ofgentoo penguins suddenly showed up, en route to fish and feed on krill

The Great Bear Rainforest on the west coast of Canada, as its name suggests, is a wetplace, and on this particular day, it had been raining nonstop. A snapper was walking on a Zodiac when he spotted this magnificent juvenile baldeagle with its wings spread open

The winning entry by British photographer Henley Spiers. He named the image Sunball Rocket as the photo shows a northern gannet bursting through the sun as it pierces down through the water in Scotland (Awards: Overall Winner and Birds In The Environment)

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A male greater sage-grouse during its courtship display. As the sunwas rising over the shadowed sagebrush hill behind him, itilluminated the bird’s tail feathers such that they appeared to radiate light. (Award: Best Portrait)

Camouflaged against bark and shadow, a fledgling tawny frogmouth stretches its wings in what looks like covering its other siblings from water drops from the rain in an Australian forest (Award: Bird Behaviour)

A short-eared owl courses over the salt marshes of BritishColumbia’s Fraser River Delta (Award: Birds In Flight)

An ostrich makes its way towards the dry lake bed of Amboseli. In black and white, the stark landscape emphasizes the bird’s solitary journey across the dust and heat. (Award: Black and White)

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On a blazing summer day, a common swift slices through the air, captured in an in-camera multiple exposure reflected in the glossy roof of a blue car (Award: Creative Perspectives)

A seagull lands on a wall depicting a cartoon seagull wearing a balaclava and carrying an open wallet with its feet. The seagull imitates the movement of the cartoon (Award: Urban Birds)

A great blue heron (with a bobber and fishing line around his beak) landed right next to the photographer and was so close the snapper could only get a head shot (Award: Conservation)

On a small island in Norway, a teenager observed Red-Necked Phalaropes foraging for food. One bird they found a pair of Great Horned Owls nesting in a park next to their house (Award: 15-17 Years and Young Bird Photographer of the Year) 

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A bird flies up from the water to catch prey. It is caught mid-flight by the photographer (Award: 12-14 Years)

A Great Cormorant, with its ’emerald-green eyes’ as the photographer pointed out, is pictured in London (Award: 11 And Under)

A majestic golden eagle drifts in dark silhouette across the face of the moon, itsoutstretched wings cutting a powerful shape through silver light

This picture was taken on Deception Island, near the Antarctic Peninsula

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A male Western Parotia dances in the dark rainforest of West Papua 

Silver award for the Sunset Puffin snapped on Skomer Island

When Olivia Besters began caring for the patch of soil beneath the chestnut tree outside her home in Freiburg, Germany, more than 35 years ago, biodiversity was not on her mind.

“It was the optics,” she told me. The ground was compacted and littered with trash and dog “legacies”. Besters simply wanted the space directly outside her front door to look nicer. “Everything else came much later,” she said. “Thirty-five years ago, no one talked about climate change or insect decline.”

Over time, one tree bed expanded into 36 across Besters’ neighbourhood of Herdern. So deep is her commitment to her tree beds that her children gifted her a bike trailer to cart around her watering system, her phone is filled with stunning pictures of the flowers growing in her tree beds, and she has been nominated for city-wide engagement awards.

As towns and cities grow, biodiversity is being squeezed into ever smaller spaces while people experience a progressive loss of everyday contact with nature. Street tree beds – and the practice of caring for them – offer cities a way to counter urban biodiversity loss while enriching people’s connection with nature in their neighbourhoods.

Our research shows that citizen stewardship of street tree beds can boost species richness and diversity in urban areas.

For years, officials in Freiburg, a city known for being green and eco-conscious, had noticed residents informally planting and caring for the small patches of soil around street trees. In 2004, the city formalised this activity through its tree sponsorship programme, or Baumpatenschaftsprogramm, creating a way to organise and support something residents, like Besters, were already doing.

Biodiversity was built into the concept, but has become much more prominent over time. In 2010, the city joined forces with the Ecostation, an environmental education centre in Freiburg to launch Freiburg blüht auf (Freiburg in bloom). This initiative connected tree bed stewards directly with ecologists, providing stewards with seeds, plants and advice on turning street tree beds into small habitats for native plants and insects. The result, according to the city, are “small flowering islands” that can help the soil retain moisture and provide habitats and food for insects.

Until our research was published, however, there was little data to show what these tiny spaces were actually contributing to urban biodiversity.

In our first study, we surveyed plants growing in 200 street tree beds, comparing 100 beds actively stewarded by residents with 100 similar beds that were not stewarded. Over three months, we recorded 474 plant species growing across these beds. We found that stewarded beds supported around 1.6 times as many plant species as the non-stewarded beds. Although stewarded beds contained more non-native plants than non-stewarded beds, they also supported more native plant species and more varied plant communities.

Through surveys and interviews with more than 100 stewards in Freiburg, participants told us they were very conscious of this ecological role. Planting tree beds can “really promote biodiversity” in what might otherwise be a “concrete district”, said Shari, a 62-year-old steward who has been caring for one tree bed for six years.

Participants frequently described tending their tree beds as relaxing, restorative, absorbing and meaningful. For Besters, it’s “pure relaxation” that feels “good for my soul”. Hank (a 39-year-old steward who has cared for one tree bed for about three years) reports: “I’m so focused … when I do something in the [tree bed] … I forget the world.”

Care and connection

Caring for tree beds also helps stewards connect with neighbours and the wider community, while encouraging others to take up stewardship themselves. One steward described receiving “a lot of positive recognition from people I don’t know”, while another said an “insane number of people” stop to chat while she is gardening her tree bed.

Once she transformed a neglected tree bed into a clearly cared-for space, Besters noticed that people began treating it differently: dog excrement and litter declined. Visible signs of care signal that a place is valued, which can prompt more respectful behaviour from others.

In one of our early studies, we found that 73% of stewards reported first learning about street tree bed stewardship from a neighbour or by seeing someone actively gardening a tree bed. This reinforced previous studies that suggest visible gardening practices can cluster spatially as nearby residents observe and replicate one another’s actions.

In Freiburg, more than 500 residents now participate in the tree sponsorship programme, caring for approximately 700 tree beds. Around 3% of the city’s 22,000 street trees are stewarded. Enhancing even a portion of the remaining beds could expand habitat for plants and insects and, when strategically located, create ecological stepping stones that reduce isolation and support species movement between larger green spaces.

The social potential of these tree beds may scale in a similar way: stewardship can make these small public spaces meaningful relatively quickly, creating chances for people to connect with nature, develop a stronger sense of place and interact with both neighbours and strangers. And because these acts of care are highly visible, they can inspire others to participate, creating more stewardship, more habitat and more opportunities for nature and social connection.

As the BBC revival of Gladiators continues to undergo major changes, another new athlete is joining the cast.

This time, it’s Team GB skeleton athlete Tabby Stoecker, who is swapping the frozen skeleton track for the Gladiators arena.

Among her numerous accolades is a gold medal she won at the Winter Olympic Games earlier this year. She also has World Championship and European Championship medals under her belt, suggesting she’ll be a tough opponent to beat.

What’s more, Tabby, 25, is taking part in the 2026 series of Strictly Come Dancing, meaning she’ll probably be making the most of any sleep she can get towards the end of this year.

She’ll be part of the Gladiators cast for its fourth series, which will air on the BBC early next year.

Announcing the gig, she said: ‘I’m over the moon to be joining the Gladiators family for series 4.

‘It’s incredible to be part of such an iconic show, and I can’t wait for audiences to see what I bring to the arena.’

The London-born sports star added: ‘Being an Olympic champion and coming from a circus arts background has prepared me for this exciting new challenge, and I can’t wait to bring my positivity, athleticism, and competitive spirit to the show. Bring on the Contenders!’

Tabby’s Gladiator name will be revealed in due course, along with further details about the series.

She made her Strictly ballroom debut on Saturday when the launch show aired and this year’s celebrities were assigned their professional partners.

Tabby is dancing with a fellow newbie after five professionals joined the Strictly roster, replacing axed pros Karen Hauer, Nadiya Bychkova, Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk, and Michelle Tsiakkas.

Mark Karmalita, 23, from Canada, has won multiple championships of his own in his home country, meaning Tabby has every reason to trust that he can help her add another trophy to her cabinet.

The other new pros this season are Aleksandra Isaeva, Cristian Priori, Lethabo Monametsi, and Maddie Ingoldsby.

Who else is leaving and joining Gladiators?

The announcement of Tabby’s signing follows the news that three-time World’s Strongest Man champion Tom Stoltman had also joined the cast ahead of series 4 filming.

Aged 32 and from Invergordon, Scotland, his character name is Highlander.

He has replaced Giant (real name Jamie Bigg), who was sensationally dropped from the programme, he claims, over his romance with an OnlyFans model, which he wanted to make public. The two are no longer together, but Jamie remains out of the Gladiators squad.

With Tom declaring the job a ‘dream opportunity’, Jamie also spoke positively about him, despite him taking his place.

His predecessor told Metro: ‘Tom’s a fantastic person, and I know he’ll absolutely smash it on the show.

‘He’s got a heart of gold and will be a brilliant addition to the line-up. I wish him the very best of luck.’

Jamie isn’t the only person to have left Gladiators recently, as several other popular figures have left or been forced to sit the next series out.

Athena (Karenjeet Kaur Bains) sustained a major knee injury requiring surgery, meaning she won’t feature in season 4.

Meanwhile, Bionic (Matty Campbell) is still recovering from a shoulder injury he suffered in a past quarter-final.

Going up against Contender Finn in Hang Tough, he was clearly in pain and had to be escorted away by medics after the event.

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Other departures include Cyclone (Lystus Ebosele), who has stepped away from the show of her own accord, while Comet (Ella Mae Rayner) hinted at being axed.

Announcing her absence from the upcoming series, she replied to a fan page on social media: ‘Thank you for mentioning and acknowledging all my skills that were never aired.

‘And I am so sorry to all the fans and families who were not told about my absence this season. I will be there for the tour and I can’t wait to see you all.’

Finally, in a surprising addition, rugby player Joe Marler was announced in August to be the first celebrity Gladiator.

The 36-year-old, who took part in The Celebrity Traitors, will also feature in series 4 as Mauler.

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When will Gladiators series 4 air?

The BBC has confirmed that series 4 filming took place in Sheffield over the summer, with Tabby as part of the ‘formidable line-up’.

Viewers will get to see all the action as Gladiators are challenged by Contenders in tests of speed, strength, and endurance when it returns to BBC and iPlayer in 2027.

An exact launch date has not yet been confirmed.

MORE: Strictly Come Dancing’s new spin-off show confirmed bringing viewers ‘closer than ever’

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MORE: BBC removes 11 offensive Mitchell and Webb sketches that no longer ‘work today’

MORE: BBC star Bob Harris shares cancer update after getting ‘a little bit worried’

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The Tuesday letters page looks forward to an annoucement about Final Fantasy 17, as one reader fears too much of a good thing with Silent Hill.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Fantasy No. XVII
With Final Fantasy 7 Revelation out next year it doesn’t seem like we have any clues as to what comes next. There’s been some hints of more Final Fantasy 7 games, but I assume they must be years and years away. But what about Final Fantasy 17?

It’s only been two years since Final Fantasy 16 but it feels like a lot longer, I think because nobody really liked that one and the Final Fantasy 7 remakes have gone down a lot better, or at least that’s how it seems to me.

Personally, my hope is that Square Enix go back to the Japanese style strangeness of the series, rather than the Game of Thrones knock-off that 17 was going for. I think there was a rumour that they were thinking of moving back to turn-based combat and I think that’d be a great idea.

It’d be nice if there was a reveal date to look forward to but hopefully we’ll see something about it next year at least. I really liked the Final Fantasy 7 games and I’d like to see them take what they learned from them and make a brand new game.
Lockmaon

The legend of Navi
I think the general mood around the Zelda: Ocarina Of Time remake is positive, which means it’ll probably sell well enough to see Majora’s Mask get the same treatment. But what I wonder is if they’d ever do a sequel to those two games. As far as I know there’s never been an explanation for where Navi went at the end of the game and Link doesn’t find her in Majora’s Mask.

Maybe it’s discussed in some manga or something, but I would very much welcome a new game in the style of Ocarina Of Time, which was about Link and Navi reuniting. I feel it would be a good excuse to go back to the old style of game, which they’re not going to do again for a mainline sequel, and it would tie up a plot point that’s always bugged me.

The fact that she left and Majora’s Mask is all about finding her seems like they had very specific plans for her and a possible third game, but I’ve never heard anything about that. Or am I missing something obvious?
Korbie

GC: As far as we know there’s no explanation for where she went.

Silent Hill: Luxembourg
Nice review of Silent Hill: Townfall and I’m glad to see it’s decent. But I don’t really see how they’re going to keep this going for one game every year. Setting it in a different country each time is all very well but when the gameplay is always the same it’s not going to make much difference.

Silent Hill f impressed me because the story and characters were so unique but that doesn’t seem to be true of Townfall, which is more of a generic Silent Hill story. There’s nothing wrong with that right now but there is going to be if there’s another next year and another after that.

And I hear they’re trying to get a new movie done too, after the success of Resident Evil. That’ll be the fourth one? Or is it fifth? You really can have too much of a good thing you know.
Benson

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Constant trolling
I also admire the people constantly trolling Sony over their no discs policy, on YouTube and Twitter and everything. I check in on the YouTube channel every now and then, to see if they’re still at it, and they always are. I do feel sorry when it’s an obscure indie game but at the end of the day it’s Sony’s fault and they deserve to get all the flak they can.

I can just imagine their plan involved them assuming people would get tired of complaining within a couple of months but that hasn’t happened. That hasn’t changed their approach though and I think they only ever had one plan: wait them out.

I was curious to see what the comments would be like on the GTA 6 trailer but for some reason they only have Trailer 2, which came out before the all-digital annoucement. The only other video they have is for the GTA 6 controllers which are, you guessed it, filled with comments about whether you can buy them digitally… Good on those people.
BilBlipper

Status quo
Anyone thinking Marvel’s Wolverine would flop was never being serious. He’s a popular character, the graphics are good, and it’s a Sony first party game. Doing slightly worse than Ghost Of Yōtei is as bad as it was ever going to get and even then I would imagine it still makes its money back.

However, you can be sure that Sony has seen all the complaints and discontent and… will probably do nothing about it. I mean what should they do? Maybe they’ll tell Insomniac to make the skill tree a bit bigger next time or add a few more combos, but that’s all.

The things that upset gamers do not upset ordinary people and there’s a lot more of them than us. Now if it had flopped, that would have been different, but when it’s only a small dent in their profits it’s much easier to just carry on as they were.
Ishi

Technical support
One of the best things about this site is the Underbox. It’s one of the few comment sections left on the internet where reasonable and logical discussion can be found. There’s a dedicated community down there, with some people being there for years and conversing daily with each other.

So it’s a shame that it’s littered with technical problems that have persisted a long time now. I know this isn’t your department, but it really has become an issue.

The first issue is the logging out problem. It is constantly logging you out on mobile. And it’s an absolute chore to log back in sometimes. This has been an issue for well over a year now.

The second is the terrible moderation of the comments. I and many others have left comments that are in no way against the terms of service. Very long comments and then they’re rejected for unknown reasons.

And the final one is the downvotes by anonymous users. You can always tell it’s an anonymous user because they have a colour or fruit in their name and never comment. They really should only allow users to vote on comments.

I’ve been visiting and commenting on this site for close to a decade, probably more if I really looked. So thank you for news, the articles I’ve been reading. Thanks for all the joy their bringing.
QWERTY

GC: Thanks for this, we’re having someone look into it now. As you can imagine though, it’s not something under our direct control and we can’t act unless we get a complaint.

Spreading the cost
There’s something very odd about any company advertising a video game as being 5p a day, but I guess it makes sense when they’re £70 in total. I’m surprised we haven’t heard about it before because it seems to be something O2 has been doing for a while.

I can’t see it really taking off because it’s so drawn out but maybe if you paid in quarters that would be easier to swallow. But even then £17.50 is more than most indie games. That really brings it home just how expensive full price games are now. Are they four or five times better than an indie game? Not usually, I would say.
Winston

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As seen in-game
Your story about a patent to introduce advertising into gameplay was disturbing. Talk about sacrilege. I detest all adverts. Not to sound like a moany old person but the ads that we had in the seventies and eighties were much better than the ones that are around now.

Works of art in places, and often quite quotable and funny. If the dancing woman from the Shake n’ Vac advert (put the freshness back) interrupted a video game race or sniper battle that I was engaged in I might not even mind so much. But if those meerkats suddenly popped up…

If people are really feeling the pinch and the only way that they can continue gaming is to choose a cheap advert riddled tier, fair enough. In the streaming services that I subscribe to I always choose a more expensive ad free service. I would do the same if adverts invaded gaming.

What’s wrong with having real ads on billboards and signage within games? Whenever I’ve encountered adverts presented that way in the past I haven’t really minded. If I recall correctly some of the Need For Speed games had billboards that advertised real products/brands didn’t they?
Michael Veal

GC: That sort of thing has been tried before, particularly in the late Xbox 360 era, but it never seems to have caught on.

Inbox also-rans
My goodness the GTA 6 characters are a grumpy lot. We’ve all seen countless pictures of them over the last year or two and I’ve not seen a single smile!
Arteta26Legend

Been playing Star Fox Adventures on Nintendo Switch Online and it is amazing how well those graphics still hold up. Pity the game is still rubbish though. It’s like Zelda with every ounce of charm and interactivity squeezed out of it.
Focus

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE: Games Inbox: Will GTA 6 have a co-op mode?

MORE: Games Inbox: Will Zelda: Ocarina Of Time review better than GTA 6?

MORE: Games Inbox: Is the new Resident Evil the best video game movie ever?

The Prime Minister has said the UK will provide “defensive air-to-air refuelling” support for Saudi Arabia against Houthis

Andy Burnham has agreed to provide British military support for Saudi Arabia in its struggle against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Prime Minister said British planes will provide “defensive” air-to-air refuelling for Saudi jets.

He said he made the decision after discussions with Defence Secretary Wes Streeting and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband.

Click here for the latest on Greater Manchester’s politics in our newsletter

The discussions came amid fears that the deepening Middle East crisis will add to cost pressures facing British households, he added.

Several of the busiest airports on the East Coast were hit by FAA ground stops after a construction accident triggered a major telecommunications failure.

The ground stops were expanded to include New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, as well as Boston Logan International, after earlier flight halts at Newark Liberty, Philadelphia and Teterboro airports.

Federal Aviation Administration officials confirmed that the disruptions stemmed from an accidental line cut at a construction site in New Jersey.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said a new circuit would be operational imminently, but it was not clear when ground stops at the New York-area airports would be lifted.

The outage comes as 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers are arriving in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

The outage centers on frequency and radar link failures at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, an essential facility responsible for managing aircraft approach and departure traffic across the region.

FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, said more than 5,600 U.S. flights were delayed or canceled, including 1,200 flights at the three New York-area airports. Newark operates as a major hub for United Airlines, while Philadelphia serves as an American Airlines hub.

“The FAA is pausing flights into Philadelphia International, Teterboro and Newark Liberty International airports due to issues with some frequencies at Philadelphia TRACON,” an FAA spokesperson said at around 10 a.m.

Travelers stranded across the region posted updates on social media as the delays grew.

“Man, worst possible day for all New York City airports — JFK, LaGuardia, AND Newark — to go down,” Matthew Boyle posted on X as he was preparing to board a flight from Washington, D.C. to New York that was delayed just before boarding. “Beginning of the UNGA high-level week, and apparently FAA problems shutting all three down. (As I was about to board a flight from DC to NY, they delayed it just before we got on plane). Insane.”

Another user by the handle OkadikeOnyeisi wrote on X that the ground stops create “an enormous logistical challenge for airlines, passengers, security teams, and diplomatic delegations” during “an especially sensitive time, with the UN General Assembly bringing hundreds of world leaders and international delegations into New York.”

The outages also prompted concern among travelers regarding heightened security measures.

“I took a flight from Austin to JFK yesterday that had additional TSA check at the gate itself,” X user Michael Scaglione posted. “They assured us it was random, but another person flying told me her flight from Maine to NYC also had additional TSA check at the gate there. “They are lying. Something’s going on.”

The Philadelphia TRACON facility has faced lingering scrutiny regarding its infrastructure. In May 2025, the same air traffic operation guiding flights around Newark suffered repeated communication blackouts. Telecommunications outages also disrupted controller radar displays at Philadelphia TRACON last year.

Congress previously approved $12.5 billion to modernize aging air traffic management infrastructure and expand controller hiring to resolve chronic system vulnerabilities.

The outage at the major U.S. airports comes as the United Kingdom is dealing with its own flight issues.

A “connectivity issue” at NATS Prestwick control center in Scotland grounded flights across Edinburgh, Leeds Bradford, Belfast and Manchester on Monday, disrupting thousands of travelers.

Michael Connors, of Landen Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin, has been jailed for 13 years and one month after he was extradited to the UK on June 16 this year following his arrest by the Garda

A 28-year-old Irish man has been jailed for causing the death of a 47-year-old woman by dangerous driving.

Michael Connors, of Landen Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin, was also sentenced for causing serious injury by dangerous driving to the woman’s husband, and a 16-year-old girl. Connors appeared before Mold Crown Court yesterday, where he was jailed for 13 years and one month.

He previously admitted all three charges after he was extradited to the UK on June 16 this year following his arrest by the Garda in Dublin, Ireland on March 11 2026, in connection with the collision.

On March 24 2025, Connors was driving a silver Mercedes car when he made off from police and collided with a Toyota car between Belgrave Road and Percy Road in Hightown, Wrexham.

Lydia La Polla, 47, from Wrexham, the driver of the Toyota car, sadly died from her injuries in Stoke hospital two days later. Lydia’s husband, a passenger in her car, was serious injured in the collision.

Connors, and another male in the silver Mercedes, fled the scene of the collision, leaving two young passengers behind in the car. One of them, a 16-year-old girl, was also seriously injured.

In a victim impact statement read out to the court on sentencing, Lydia’s husband said the death of his beloved wife had left him with a “profound sense of loss”.

“My life will never be the same again,” he wrote. “To say I am heartbroken is an understatement.

“Lydia was a wonderful mother to our children and they absolutely adored her. It breaks my heart to know that their mother won’t be there for their weddings, and she won’t be there to see them grow up and have children of their own.

“Our close family unit has been shattered into a thousand pieces, and it will never be the same again without Lydia.”

Lydia’s daughter added that losing her mother is a “pain that words cannot describe.” She wrote: “This collision did not just take my mum from me; it took away the future I always imagined with her in it. It changed my family forever.

“I have lost the person who loved me unconditionally, who guided me through life, and who was always there whenever I needed her. No amount of time will ever heal that loss. The sadness never truly goes away; I have simply had to learn how to carry it.”

Speaking following sentencing, Chief Superintendent Jaqueline Downes said: “Our deepest sympathies remain with Lydia’s family, who continue to live with the devastating consequences of this incident.

“No one should ever leave their home and not return safely. Lydia’s family conducted themselves with the utmost dignity throughout this complex and protracted case, and I am grateful to them for their trust in our investigation.

“I would also like to thank the members of the public who came to assist those at the scene of the collision before the emergency services arrived.

“In addition to the prison sentence Connors will now serve, he must live with the knowledge that his actions resulted in Lydia’s death and has caused unimaginable pain to her family, as well as serious injury of two more people.

“This case demonstrates the very real dangers associated with driving dangerously and we hope this sentence serves as a warning to others about the potentially devastating consequences of such behaviour.”

The latest indie cosy game mixes the tweeness of village life with a zombie plague that proves surprisingly helpful in running your grave-keeping business.

With their pixel art styling, focus on village life, and refusal to engage in anything as nerve jangling as combat, cosy games have enjoyed increasing popularity over the last decade. Perhaps it’s the parlous state of the world that’s created such a widely felt need to retreat from violence and threat, or maybe it’s just a matter of exploring the boundaries of what video games are capable of simulating.

Whatever it is, cosy games are everywhere, from Nintendo’s evergreen Animal Crossing to Strange Horticulture’s pleasantly occultist take on running a florist. The risk they continually run is crossing the line from comforting to twee, their sweetness mutating from authentic warmth to saccharine sentimentality. Luckily that’s not an issue 2018’s Graveyard Keeper had to contend with.

While it looked much like Stardew Valley, its amusingly morbid interest in autopsies and corpse disposal made it a fundamentally grittier proposition. Its sequel is similarly bereft of schmaltz, its anti-hero accompanied by his only friend and trusted advisor: Larry the cursed talking skull. You both inhabit an in-game base that once again combines morgue, graveyard, sepulchre, alchemy laboratory, and hovel with kitchenette.

Starting the game chained up in a dungeon, you’re soon freed, escaping through a town beset by zombie hordes, before finding yourself once again assigned to grave keeping duties. There you begin your progress through the game’s multiple tech trees, which slowly extend your crafting options, powered by all sorts of resource generators that increase in complexity as you progress through the game.

Presented in a top-down pixel art style that will be immediately familiar to fans of the first game – and Stardew Valley – the sequel retains most of the original’s systems and mechanics. Perhaps assuming prior knowledge, its tutorials are brief rather than comprehensive, which makes for a steep learning curve if you’re coming to this cold. It’s not insurmountable but it makes the opening hours more confusing than they need to be.

That’s because there’s a great deal more to Graveyard Keeper 2 than mere corpse burial, which actually occupies a comparatively small proportion of your time. It is significant though, your surgical abilities tested by removing vital organs and tissue samples before bodies can be laid to rest, their graves decorated with a growing range of respectful fencing and memorials, each of which adds to your cemetery’s quality score.

You’ll also be gardening, your initially small plot dedicated both to cash crops and ingredients for your culinary creations. Preparing the soil, planting seeds, then coming back a day or two later to harvest grains and vegetables; waste foliage can be added to a compost heap that generates peat, which in the fullness of time will help you establish an orchard.

There’s a nearby town with colourful characters whose side quests you can help with, in a gradually expanding web of dependencies that drip feeds in new currencies and powers for your crafting and exploration. Your wooden anvil gives way to an iron one, as you upgrade your rusty starter tools for shiny new bronze ones, which are themselves soon supplanted by iron and steel replacements. It makes for long minutes spent holding down the action button as you craft the necessary combinations of ingredients.

Fortunately, those undead in town turn out to be good for more than just slaying, as you can also send small legions of them into battle rather than paying to hire mercenaries, and put them to work outside your morgue. Zombie stations let you automate crafting that had previously been manual, conveyer belts transporting and combining resources, your production facility changing from occasionally tedious time sink to a partially automated facility staffed by a cooperative cohort of the living dead.

Your keeper needs to take frequent breaks to sleep, recharging the energy needed for crafting, grave digging, and everything else. It’s also worth keeping an eye on the day/night cycle, and the game’s six-day week, which governs when certain characters and jobs will be available. For most of its playtime that’s the only real time pressure in Graveyard Keeper 2, which gives you the space to make up your own mind about priorities and which goals to pursue next.

The number and complexity of concurrent tasks you’re continually undertaking makes the game a test of working memory, with numerous distractions constantly threatening to derail your focus on whatever short and mid-term objectives you find yourself working on. It can also be quite a challenge remembering what combinations of resources you need to bring with you for a particular remote crafting project.

That issue’s eliminated when making stuff closer to home, where ingredients are automatically harvested from nearby chests, obviating the need to fiddle about, getting just the right number of items into your inventory. It’s a useful quality of life upgrade and frees you up to concentrate on more interesting problems.

There’s a huge amount to do, the script is appropriately offbeat, and the voice acting includes plenty of wonderful regional British accents, but despite those myriad touches and the over-arching upgrade process, Graveyard Keeper 2 never quite feels compelling enough. Whether it’s the continual sense of not quite knowing what you’re doing, or the lack of deadlines and sense of looming threat, the moment-to-moment gameplay keeps you busy, but fails to grip you in the way that many crafting-based games manage to.

It’s still a quirky and amusing twist on the genre and if you can get past the sense of bewilderment, as you navigate your way through its systems, there are many hours’ worth of crafting, unlocking, and pixel art cadaver embalming to be had in Graveyard Keeper 2. But it’s not hard to dig up half a dozen other cosy games that are significantly more compelling.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £15.99
Publisher: tinyBuild
Developer: Lazy Bear Games
Release Date: 22nd September 2026
Age Rating: 16

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it is concerned that some people are being steered towards fee-paying debt solutions that may not be suitable for their needs, sometimes through high pressure sales tactics, misleading information or being advised by firms who do not have the appropriate permissions.

Bob Saget’s final project will finally be released more than four years after his death.

The comedian died at age 65 in 2022 after accidental head trauma caused by an unwitnessed fall while he was on a stand-up tour.

Now, he will posthumously appear in a Netflix documentary titled Who is Martin Mull? about the late painter and musician. Saget co-directed and executive produced the project.

A trailer for the documentary, out October 7, shows Saget conducting core interviews with Mull, who died in June 2024 at the age of 80.

“I don’t know where to begin because, to me, you truly are a jack-of-all-trades,” Saget told Mull at the start of the trailer. Without missing a beat, Mull responded, “Jerk-of-all-trades,” earning a belly laugh from Saget.

Saget began working on the documentary about the cult comedian in 2018, with co-director Neil Berkeley taking over after his unexpected death.

“I’m so, so grateful to have been asked… to help complete the work that Bob Saget started back in 2018,” Berkeley wrote on Instagram. “And huge thanks to everyone at Netflix for guiding the film to the finish line.”

The film will chronicle Mull’s wide-ranging career with footage and interviews. “Told in his own words and by the friends who watched it happen, including Steve Martin, Tom Waits, David Alan Grier, and more, it’s the story of a comedy icon who, as he put it, ‘had a hell of a ride,’” according to an official Netflix description.

Saget served as an executive producer on the film alongside Kevin S. Bright, Morgan Neville and Caitrin Rogers. Sean Bradley, Tara Billik and Berkeley produced the project.

The Independent has contacted Netflix for more information.

The movie is one of four documentaries about comedy that Netflix is putting out in October.

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Berkeley worked on another documentary in the lineup: A film about stand-up comedian Maria Bamford that he co-directed with Judd Apatow.

“Since the 1990s, stand-up comedian and actor Maria Bamford has built a career on turning radical honesty into radical comedy,” Netflix’s official documentary for the movie reads. “In this documentary, co-directors Apatow and Berkeley trace the comedian’s path — and pathos — from her childhood in Duluth, Minnesota, to her hard-won fame in Los Angeles and her present-day life, showing how Bamford’s mental health journey and family relationships shaped her art and career.” Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story will be out October 23.

Apatow also directed Norm: The Tale of Norm McDonald, which will be released on the platform October 16. The doc was built from archival footage, home videos and personal photos, according to Netflix, which “lets Norm tell his own story in his own voice.”

Finally, the documentary out October 30 is SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of. Starring Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, the documentary follows the rise and fall of one of the most iconic sketch comedy series in TV history.