It comes as the character, along with Moth and Toastie, performed in front of the studio audience and judges Jonathan Ross, Davina McCall, Mo Gilligan and Maya Jama, for one last time this evening.

Although Conkers made it to the final three, they just missed out on being crowned the 2026 champion in second place.

They almost followed in the footsteps of last year’s winner Samantha Barks as Pufferfish, who performed on the ITV show once again tonight.

Over the latest series of The Masked Singer, viewers have been sharing plenty of guesses when it comes to who Conkers could be, including This Morning’s Ben Shephard, Olympian Tom Daley and Take That singer Mark Owen.

During the final, Conkers sang Keep on Movin by 5ive which Mo said: “Conkers, I really enjoyed that, that was so good.”

Just some of the judges’ guesses tonight included Tom Daley, Joe Sugg, Will Best and Charlie Cooper.

They then performed a duet with Snail (Andrea Corr) to I’ve Had The Time of My Life.

Who was Conkers on The Masked Singer 2026?

But in the end, it was time of the character remove their mask and “take it off”.

It was revealed that Conkers was none other than Ben Shephard, who was actually on the panel of The Masked Singer earlier in the series.

He joked: “I’ve always dreamt about being a conker.”

Ben added: “It’s an extraordinary experience, having turned 50, I thought I’ve got to do a few more scary things.”

Conkers was unmasked just moments before Toastie, who was revealed as Mica Paris.

Recommended reading:

Who was Can of Worms on The Masked Singer UK 2026?

Can of Worms was also unmasked as JLS star Marvin Humes last week, after he made it all the way to the semi-final.

The 40-year-old said his son asked him to send his teacher the video of his unmasking on The Masked Singer, adding that he was “so overwhelmed” by the reveal.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain earlier this week, the radio host has said his youngest child, five-year-old Blake, was “so emotional” after watching the reveal.

He explained: “I had to send his teacher, last night, the video of me being on The Masked Singer.

“He must have told all his friends today that daddy is Can Of Worms.”

GENEVA (AP) — Iran and the United States will hold a second round of talks over Tehran’s nuclear program next week, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

Oman, which welcomed the first round of indirect talks on Feb. 6, will host the talks in Geneva, the Swiss ministry said, without specifying which days.

After the first discussions, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that failure to reach an agreement with his administration would be “very traumatic.”

Similar talks last year broke down in June as Israel launched what became a 12-day war on Iran that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump also has threatened Iran over its deadly crackdown on recent nationwide protests there.

Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could spiral into another regional conflict.

Trump said Friday the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was being sent from the Caribbean to the Mideast to join other military assets the U.S. has built up in the region. He also said a change in power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen.”

The indirect talks on Feb. 6 were between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. The top military commander in the Middle East was also present for the first time.

The Trump administration has maintained that Iran can have no uranium enrichment under any deal. Tehran says it won’t agree to that.

Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Before the June war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his nation is “ready for any kind of verification.” However, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been unable for months to inspect and verify Iran’s nuclear stockpile.

Trump has suggested in recent weeks that his top priority is for Iran to scale back its nuclear program. Iran has said it wants talks to focus solely on the nuclear program.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with Trump in Washington this week, has pressed for any deal to include steps to neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

A vehicle was stopped in the Cockerton area on Friday (February 13) night, where a man was found to be carrying a significant amount of suspected controlled drugs, police said.

Durham Police said a man has since been charged with possession with intent to supply, and he has been remanded in custody.

Officers from the Cockerton’s neighbourhood policing team said they have been proactively looking to reduce the concerns of drug related activity in the Cockerton area.

A spokesperson said: “If you suspect drug activity, tell us on 101 or anonymously via crimestoppers and we will act.”

Winter Olympics athletes are getting a Valentine’s Day gift from organisers – a promise of a renewed supply of free condoms.

This apparently followed “higher-than-anticipated demand”.

Providing condoms for athletes has been a gift from organisers – and a constant fascination to the world – for decades.

“We can confirm that condom supplies in the Olympic villages were temporarily depleted due to higher-than-anticipated demand,” the Italian organising committee said in a statement on Saturday.

“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all villages between today and Monday.”

Some 300,000 condoms were provided for more than 10,500 athletes at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, but the stock was originally much lower for these games.

“I think 10,000 have been used, 2,800 athletes – you can go figure, as they say,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said Saturday.

“It clearly shows that Valentine’s Day is in full swing in the village.”

Read more from Sky News:
Olympic gold means ‘absolutely everything’

Condoms are traditionally popular for Olympic athletes to take home as “a kind of gift” to friends, Alpine skier Mialitiana Clerc said on Saturday.

“I’m not so shocked. I saw it in Beijing already,” said Ms Clerc, who also competed for Madagascar four years ago at the Winter Games in China.

“There were some boxes with a lot of condoms at the entrance of every building where we were staying at the village.”

“We are having more and more players who are now capable of playing at this intensity level every three days, and that is where we struggled a lot in the beginning of the season. It was sometimes hard for us to play at our best level once a week let alone every three days. But now we’re able to do so, we see more and more the quality we are adding. 

“That’s why I’ve said so many times already that the future looks very bright for the club and these players.”

While they have all but surrendered the Premier League title, the FA Cup, along with the Champions League, is a competition Liverpool can still win this season.

Brighton’s Cup run is over, however, and the pressure is increasing on manager Fabian Hürzeler. They are without a win in six games and have won just one of their last 13 Premier League fixtures. Hürzeler’s side are struggling to score goals – they have gone three games without finding the net and have just three in their last six – but they had enough chances to score several at Anfield. Diego Gómez and Jack Hinshelwood were both guilty of wasting good opportunities to equalise in the first half before Lewis Dunk missed a header in the second. 

“We had two big chances in the first half and we didn’t use them,” Hürzeler said. “Liverpool were more effective. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, we can’t complain about these moments. 

“It is about us and me taking responsibility and working for it. You have to do the small step right and then we can take a big step.”

Both teams lacked fluidity in the final third in the early stages, but Liverpool started to pile on the pressure from the half-hour mark. Cody Gakpo had his header ruled out for offside before Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele made a superb save to deny Szoboszlai. 

But there was nothing Steele could do to prevent Curtis Jones from scoring his first goal since Boxing Day 2024. Jones, who was filling in at right-back because of injuries, timed his run well to meet Milos Kerkez’s cross and tap in from close range.

Four astronauts have docked at the International Space Station (ISS) after blasting off from Earth on Friday.

The crew will spend eight months aboard the ISS after replacing a team that evacuated last month due to a medical emergency.

On board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft travelling to the ISS were two Nasa astronauts from the US, Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, from France, and Russian Roscocosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

The four are known as Crew-12, because they make up SpaceX’s 12th crewed rotational flight to the International Space Station.

The tearoom offers a selections of cakes among other things and one previous guest described it as the “best of English afternoon tea”

Cambridgeshire has some truly fantastic afternoon tea experiences. From an afternoon tea in a train carriage, to another one set on the sixth floor of The Varsity Hotel with panoramic views of Cambridge.

But one spot in the city of Ely, offers a marvellous afternoon tea dubbed as “the best of the best”. Sophie’s Afternoon Tea and Cakes opened in Ely in 2022, and is run by Sophie Elliot who has a passion for afternoon tea and cakes.

Sophie’s offers a range of cakes, homemade sausage rolls, paninis and other goods alongside her selection of afternoon teas. This includes a children’s afternoon tea for £11pp, so that even the little ones can give it a try.

The traditional afternoon tea offers a selection of finger sandwiches, a scone with clotted cream and jam, a selection of homemade cakes and a drink of choice. This is priced at £18pp.

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The place offers a traditional aesthetic with the afternoon tea set up on a beautiful patterned stand with pretty tea cups, and a warming atmosphere.

On Sophie’s website, she said: “I have loved baking ever since I learnt to make my very first Victoria Sponge and my mum and grandmother are my inspirations when it come to baking and cooking.”

The passion for her baking really shows and customers seem to think the same. The tearoom has built itself quite a reputation with glowing reviews.

One delighted guest captioned their review on Tripadvisor as “Best of the best!” They went on to say: “The best cakes, best sausage roll and super friendly staff! Little cosy café tucked away in the back streets of Ely.”

Another joyful guest dubbed the place as “Best of English afternoon tea”. They said: “Such a pretty place for a magnificent afternoon tea. My favourites were the fruit scones with jam and cream – or is that cream and jam!?”

The letter to Lord Mandelson, signed by representatives Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam, said: “While you no longer serve as British ambassador to the United States and have stepped down from the House of Lords, it is clear that you possessed extensive social and business ties to Jeffrey Epstein and hold critical information pertaining to our investigation of Epstein’s operations.

It’s become so mad the owner says she is getting anxious about the whole thing

On a cold Saturday morning in mid-February you’d be forgiven for thinking everyone had lost their minds as a queue snaked around a city street with eager customers.

You might be even more surprised to know the huge queues at Whitchurch Road in Cardiff on Saturday were for pastries. But not any old pastries, we were reliably told when we visited Astrid’s Petite Cuisine on Saturday morning.

One customer says she got here at 8am to make sure she got her hands on the goods. “I think we got here at eight originally,” Eliza, one of the many queueing, said. “We went to get coffee because no one else was here, but we queued up because, honestly, we’ve never tasted a better pastry.”

A seemingly never-ending queue continued throughout the morning for Astrid Roussel’s monthly pop-up shop despite almost freezing temperatures, and it isn’t the first time it’s happened. At her previous pop-up her pastries sold out in less than an hour. For the latest restaurant news and reviews, sign up to our food and drink newsletter here

What’s all the fuss about? Eliza said: “I came about a year ago and had just a plain croissant and I’ve been to France and they don’t do them as good as Astrid. Everything she makes is literally incredible, it’s like a firework in my mouth every time.”

Trays of golden pastries are arranged in immaculate symmetry and filled with cream, fruit and praline. The weekend’s specials include a milk ganache bow, pink praline brioche, a macadamia, dulcey and raspberry nest, lemon meringue cruffins, blood orange and rhubarb danishes, palmiers, caramel and chocolate tartlets and rum and vanilla cannelés.

Classic options range from croissants and pain suisse to cinnamon buns, pistachio croissants, pecan “chonkas” and hazelnut praliné pain au chocolat.

Another customer, Lydia, says she has become a regular. “She has really good baked goods. Every pop up she has, she does different specials, so I queue early to make sure I get the specials that I want. For today I am looking at the lemon meringue and also the Valentine’s bowl.”

It’s so popular because it doesn’t come along all that often. Astrid began the business after quitting corporate life following the first lockdown in order to focus on her family.

Baking started as a way to relax and reconnect with her French upbringing, where daily trips to the bakery were routine, she says. After ordering an English afternoon tea at home, her husband suggested she offer a French version. She began practising more seriously and took her first orders in February 2021.

In spring 2022 she was offered a commercial kitchen in Cardiff as a production base, allowing her to increase capacity and take on more orders, but the economic climate of 2023 made the model harder to sustain. Working long hours left little time for her husband and two young children, she explains.

In April 2023 she shifted to operating one trading weekend a month while supplying local businesses during the week. She also launched workshops in June 2023 teaching aspiring bakers how to make French bread and pâtisserie.

Alongside this, she developed a range of artisan “bake at home” frozen pastries, made with a small number of ingredients and designed to replicate the same result as those sold at her pop-ups.

And Astrid can’t quite believe how well it’s gone – so much so she’s quite nervous about the whole thing. “It makes me feel nervous if I’m honest with you,” she says of the mad queues.

“Because you feel obliged to have all this stock for these people who have been waiting a very long time and took time out of their day to come here.

“More often than not we don’t because we are only a small bakery with two ovens so we do the best we can. It is quite nerve wracking but lovely at the same time. I think it’s the longest queue even with Christmas.”

Gina Knight (Francesca Henry) and Harry Mitchell (Elijah Holloway) have been EastEnders’ very own Ross and Rachel for a long while now. Will they? Won’t they? Could they? Should they?

I mean, admittedly, Ross was never sucked into a drug dealing and exploitation racket, held prisoner in a trap house, force fed drugs, killed the man who fed him said-drugs and had to go to rehab. Although we might have preferred that to the ‘Emily’ storyline.

But suffice to say, Harry and Gina have been circling each other for quite some time

It all started back in April of last year when Harry gave Gina a very intense induction as she began working at Harry’s Barn, owned by his mum, Nicola Mitchell (Laura Doddington). She was hardly smitten at first, but a bit of Mitchell magic, combined with a glowing reference from Kojo Asare (Dayo Koleosho), Gina’s uncle and Harry’s bestie, seemed to work!

There were more shenanigans as Harry sought to free both himself and Kojo from the horrific drug dealing ring they’d found themselves trapped in, but his feelings for Gina were clear and it seemed that the new twosome were destined for a fully fledged relationship.

But the path of true love never did run smoothly. Especially in Soapland.

Gina was crestfallen when Harry, alongside Kojo, suddenly disappeared on a ‘lads holiday’. What she didn’t know was that Harry hadn’t actually stepped foot outside of Walford, he was being held in captivity by ‘Okie’ Okyere (Aayan Ibikunle Shoderu), who’d begun to feed him drugs.

He added to Harry’s torture by promising to romance Gina while he rotted away in the base of their drug operation. Gina agreed to a drink with Okie, though she immediately sensed that something was very wrong.

The Harry that emerged from captivity wasn’t the Harry that went in and, after hitting rock bottom as his addiction threatened to destroy his life, he went to rehab. Though Gina was keen to rekindle their relationship when he returned, Harry explained that he still had a way to go and he didn’t want to risk a relapse. Though heartbroken, Gina understood.

Next week sees Kojo determined to return to his flat, the same flat that was the location of their captivity and Harry’s slaying of Kojo.

Though his brother, George Knight (Colin Salmon), worries about what this means for Kojo, Harry takes a massive step for his best friend and, despite massive hesitation, decides to move into the flat with Kojo.

As the boys head out with Gina and Penny Branning (Kitty Castledine) to celebrate moving day, things turn awkward when a characteristically acerbic Penny makes some digs at Harry’s expense regarding his previous ‘player’ behaviour.

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As quick as she is to cause an issue, though, she also puts it right, when she suggests that Harry fix things with Gina once and for all.

Harry takes her advice and before long, he and his flame are back in each others arms and sharing a reconciliatory smooch in the Square.

With all obstacles removed, is this finally the time for Harry and Gina and the burgeoning love story? Or does Walford have another grim twist in store for them?

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