In this sixth and final part in our series on how the UK has changed in the past 25 years, we focus on tech, culture, religion and entertainment.

Media

Adrian Bingham, professor of modern British history, University of Sheffield

In December 2001 the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology published a report entitled E is for Everything? Public Policy and Converging Digital Communications. With “E” standing for electronic, prefixing everything from email to e-commerce at the time, the report outlined the rapid changes in the world of communications. It noted: “More than seven out of ten UK adults have mobile phones, over a third have home internet access and a similar proportion have digital television.”

It also observed, with a tone of wonder, the trend of convergence: “As faster internet connections become available to home users, it will increasingly become possible to view film clips and television programmes, listen to the radio and to play games over the internet on a home computer”.

How has the UK changed since the start of the century? From Blair to Burnham, from the dotcom era to AI agents, time has certainly not stood still. In this six-part series, a team of some 35 experts look at everything from defence spending to species populations to the rise of populism to try and make sense of the intervening years.

Twenty-five years later, this world has arrived and gone further than the report’s authors could ever have predicted. Indeed, looking back, the digital world of 2001 looks laughably basic: of the 39% of adults with internet access, almost all were using painfully slow dial-up connections.

We can identify four key shifts across the period. First, the UK has witnessed a dramatic decline of the print press. National daily newspapers were at the heart of British public life throughout the 20th century, and in 2001, sales remained substantial: The Sun’s circulation was over 3 million, the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror over 2 million, and even the Daily Telegraph had only recently dipped below 1 million.

Circulation data is harder to come by now, but the UK’s most popular newspaper now is the Daily Mail, with sales of just over 600,000; The Sun sells around half a million copies, the Daily Mirror 166,472, and papers like The Times, Daily Telegraph and Guardian less than that. The print newspaper is very much on life support.

The broadcasting environment has fragmented and globalised. In 2001, for the first time, half of UK viewers had access to more than the five terrestrial television channels, through digital, satellite or cable platforms. It was also the year that Sky launched its first Sky+ television recording box. Nevertheless, the broadcasting environment was still dominated by the big beasts of the BBC, ITV and, to a lesser extent, Channel 4, and governed by the daily schedule.

Twenty-five years later, YouTube has a bigger audience than the BBC, and UK broadcasters are struggling to keep up with the streaming giants of Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Apple. Viewers are now in charge: they have access to hundreds of digital channels providing more content than they can consume, and they can determine when and where they watch programmes through apps and catch-up services.

Spotify to the rescue?

The music industry has been transformed by streaming. In 2001 CD sales peaked in the UK – some 123 million were sold, more than five per household (the best-selling album was Dido’s No Angel. The threat to physical music sales was already clear, though.

The year also saw the launch of Apple’s iPod, a device offering listeners the ability to store around 1,000 songs in a pocket-sized device, while music executives were increasingly alarmed about the capacity for illegal file-sharing. The industry was saved by the rise of legal music streaming services such as Spotify (launched in the UK in 2009), Amazon Music and Apple Music.

By 2025, almost half of the UK population had access to streaming services, playing over 200 billion digital tracks – only 10% of music consumption was now through physical formats. Here was convergence in its purest form; even iPods died out because mobile phones became the device of choice for music listening.

Finally, and least anticipated by the authors of the 2001 report, social media has transformed the whole media ecosystem. Facebook and Twitter (later X) became open to the public in 2006, Instagram in 2010 and TikTok in 2018.

With the rise of internet-enabled smartphones (Apple’s game-changing iPhone launched in 2007), engagement with social media not only became supremely convenient, it has been hard to resist. As of 2026, 89% of adult internet users are engaged in at least one social media platform, with as many as 97% of 16-34-year-olds doing so. Two-thirds of users admit they sometimes spend too long on their devices, 40% that this happens most days.

In 2001 the UK media environment was still largely controlled by a series of key players, particularly the main broadcasters and the leading newspapers. Twenty-five years later, big tech (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (Facebook) and Bytedance (TikTok) operate global platforms that enable individuals to consume, share and sell in their own personalised worlds.

These tech firms are now facing lawsuits alleging that their platforms are deliberately designed to be addictive, just as artificial intelligence is providing cheap new ways to generate endless fresh content. “E is for everything” is perhaps a more timely slogan than ever before.

Entertainment

Andrew Russell, lecturer in film and animation, University of Portsmouth

In 2001 the way we consumed entertainment felt broadly shared. Primetime television drew millions of viewers watching simultaneously, enabling endless discussion around the watercooler. Chart music defined the sound of the year, with compilations such as the Now series collating the most popular songs. Twenty five years later this sense of a homogeneous mainstream has weakened, driven by technological change.

In the early 2000s television scheduling mattered, and competing options were limited. Popular taste was dictated by broadcasters who largely decided what Britain saw, with audiences having few alternative choices. A show like The Office or Big Brother could become a cultural barometer in a way that doesn’t happen so easily today.

By the early 2010s this model was eroding. The rise of streaming services such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer placed less onus on terrestrial scheduling, allowing viewers to shift to a watch-when-you-want approach that encourages binge watching.

Now algorithms push content that services believe we would like. This has the effect of making viewers less likely to step outside their comfort zones. Overwhelmed by the huge number of options available, we tend to stick with what is familiar. Big hits have included teenage crime drama Adolescence (2024), as well as Bridgerton and Stranger Things.

Algopops

Music consumption has followed a similar path. The UK singles chart used to reflect what people were buying in stores. By the mid 2010s, streaming had transformed both how music was discovered and how success was measured.

Artists such as Lil Nas X or Central Cee gained prominence not through being played on radio but by trending on social media. A recent report from TikTok claims that in 2025, all 13 UK #1s had a viral TikTok moment first. Playlists have replaced charts as the primary mechanism of discovery. Just like with TV algorithms, this allows listeners to inhabit highly personalised musical worlds with limited overlap.

Thanks to algorithms, short-form content is playing a more pronounced role in our lives in the 2020s. Viral clips now seem to be as important as mainstream appeal. Social media makes us feel like this is curated, yet arguably we are seeing a flattening of culture. The tech author Kyle Chayka argues persuasively that media consumers now have very little agency because of the extent algorithms dictate our choices.

This has also had a positive effect, though, especially for musicians, with older songs finding renewed interest after viral exposure. Fleetwood Mac benefited from this a while ago, for instance, and the same thing has happened more recently with Dire Straits. Meanwhile in the world of TV, [German sci-fi thriller Dark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_(TV_series) recently went viral nearly ten years after it began.

Film consumption has gone through a comparable transformation. With 68% of UK households subscribing to a streaming service, these are increasingly the first port of call for moviegoers, with the likes of romcom Office Romance (2026, Jennifer Lopez) and the remake of action movie Road House (2024, Jake Gyllenhaal) among the most popular. Cinema attendance dropped from 155.9 million admissions in 2001 to 123.5 million in 2025.

This said, there are indications that blu-ray sales are increasing again with boutique companies such as the Criterion Collection and Indicator on the rise. Some see this as a form of cultural rebellion, with these viewers relishing having a collection on their shelves. Generally streaming is also of a lesser quality than a 4k disc.

Importantly, however, there are also instances where films have been censored on streaming services, from God’s Own Country (2017) having sex and nudity removed to The French Connection (1971) having a racist insult edited out. This feels like an especially pertinent issue with censorship of history seemingly happening in real time.

Lincoln Geraghty, professor of media cultures, University of Portsmouth

In 2001, 23 million viewers were asking “who shot Phil Mitchell?” in EastEnders in what was the UK’s most watched TV show of the year. In the list of the top 50 shows, BBC One took the top two spots, though ITV had the most entries. Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant’s The Office on BBC Two captured the nation’s attention with mockumentary hilarity, while music fans were introduced to pop group Hear’Say (including Myleene Klass), who were created on ITV reality show Popstars.

The two big franchise releases that year were Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. They dominated the box office and would set the pattern for years to come. Book lovers rejoiced in seeing the hugely popular novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary, adapted for the big screen, becoming the most successful non-fantasy film of the year.

Fast forward to 2026 and one might be forgiven for thinking UK audience tastes have not changed that much. Last year saw the release of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the fourth film in the franchise, which received a favourable score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.

EastEnders showed its continued popularity and longevity by winning Best Soap at the Bafta Television Awards. Peter Jackson recently revealed that not only will there be a new Lord of the Rings film coming to cinemas in 2027 – The Hunt for Gollum – but there will be a second one some time after. It’s got the working title Shadow of the Past and is being developed by recently unemployed talk-show host Stephen Colbert.

By year’s end we will also have a brand-new TV version of Harry Potter made by Warner Bros and streamed on HBO (available in the UK through the likes of Sky and Amazon Prime).

So does this mean that a whole generation later, we have not changed our viewing and reading habits? Short answer: no.

Nostalgia is peak just now. In an era of global uncertainty, audiences are reflecting on more confident times. Through films and series like these, we see characters coming back, franchises rebranded and traditional formats reimagined.

To a similar end, popular offerings like The Great British Bake Off (since 2010), The Great British Sewing Bee (2013) and The Repair Shop (2017) are a shift towards lifestyle television that soothes rather than excites. It allows audiences to reminisce vicariously about food, fashion and favourite objects from their own past.

Having said all that, the types of stories we want to read and watch are similar to those on offer in 2001. Comedy and irony are still present: the American version of The Office (from 2005) was just as big in the UK thanks to Netflix. Romance is still romance, even if it has shifted to include reimagined history in Bridgerton (from 2020) and “romantasy” like the Twilight films (from 2008) and book series A Court of Thorns and Roses starting from 2015.

Tastes are more global as we have greater access to content across multiple streaming platforms and the internet. From Korea we’ve seen drama (Squid Game (from 2021), kids’ blockbusters (KPop Demon Hunters (2025) and music such as boyband BTS. We’ve seen Nordic noir – TV’s The Killing (2007-12) and The Bridge (2011-18) were global hits and adapted for other markets. And Japanese animation has appeared not only in cinemas (such as Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2021) but London theatre, where Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro has been very successful since 2022.

For the past ten years we have been intrigued just as much by retro visions of the 1980s seen in Stranger Things (from 2016) as what the series gave us in terms of horror and science fiction. In 2025 the latest episodes became Netflix’s most viewed Christmas Day offering ever. So even while we are told that audiences are more divided than they have ever been, the combined popularity of nostalgia and global series suggests that less has changed than has stayed the same.

Tech and culture

Steven Buckley, lecturer in media digital sociology, City St George’s, University of London

The internet made the world smaller, faster and more interconnected. It has given us the ability to access everything, everywhere, all of the time. But with this has come a range of issues that have helped make many feel disempowered and disconnected.

Multiple aspects of society have come to feel like a game. One example is the way people seek validation through likes and followers on social media, which has been shown to have a direct effect on their self-esteem. Combined with everything from trying to succeed on dating apps to more recently prediction websites like Polymarket where you can bet on anything, it’s not surprising the public feel disconnected from the real world.

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Back in 2001 it was far easier to have collective, watercooler moments through the shared experience of watching a particular TV event. Streaming networks and other digital content have enabled everyone to find content for their own niche interests, and less likely to have witnessed what our friends and family have.

This is especially true of news content, which we receive from an increasingly diverse selection of sources. The difference between younger and older generations is particularly pronounced, with younger people consuming content from a wide array of creators on places like TikTok and Instagram while older people still rely on traditional institutions like the BBC or newspapers.

This speaks to a cultural gap between the generations that seems far worse than a quarter century ago. The old social contract that “if you work hard, you can afford a home and start a family” has been broken in relation to today’s younger people.

Then there is the impending climate catastrophe. Younger people often blame it on older people, while it makes them feel powerless and not listened to, leaving many reporting feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

Large parts of the digital environment are now based upon meta-references and ironic detachment. There is now a generation with a “lol nothing matters” nihilistic mindset, who feel they might as well have a laugh while posting about the downfall of society.

Surveillance society

One final area where our culture has shifted is how our sense of privacy has been whittled down. At the turn of the century, we still assumed there was some level of anonymity online and that we were at little risk of having any of our actions caught on camera.

This changed with people’s willingness to hand over personal data to social media platforms, the introduction of digital IDs, and the fact that everyone now can record a video of anyone out in public. It has brought about a version of Orwell’s panopticon from Nineteen Eighty Four (1949), where not only is the state surveiling you, but corporations and fellow citizens are as well.

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Welcome to a world in which young people are now fearful of dancing in public. The looming social media ban for under-16s risks alienating teens further from attempting to find connections within society.

The question our culture has asked us over the past 25 years is “Could I interest you in anything and everything, all of the time?” Most people answered yes. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about the consequences.

Chris Rojek, professor of sociology, City St George’s, University of London

People now regard being attached to their smartphones and tablets as a standard part of getting from A to B. You only have to take a walk along any British street to see this in action.

In universities these devices have become a universal feature of lecture halls and seminar rooms. Here and in so many other parts of society, the first casualty is the art of conversation. Small talk and passing the time of day increasingly takes the form of texting and streaming. Online attention means bracketing out and devaluing physical face-to-face interactions.

Digital data flow has become the arbiter of facts and truth telling. If an authority challenges us for some reason, it is not the quality of our personality but the browsing and messaging history on our smartphone or tablet that is the best line of defence.

Unquestionably, digitalisation can make difficult decisions faster and sounder. But the effective use of the technology also depends upon digital competence. These days in universities we often work on the presumption that everyone has an internet account and a smartphone.

This may make sense when as many as 95% of British people use the internet, and the same percentage are estimated to own smartphones. But this still leaves 2.8 million non-digitalised citizens, most of them aged 75 and over.

Consider further the number of our fellow citizens that are classified as functionally illiterate: one in six adults, over 6 million people. An additional 8.5 million are estimated to have difficulties with reading. They do not have the knowledge or skills to fill in an online medical form, a job application, a council tax or passport document.

When I think of culture and citizenship in 2026 I often find myself concluding that the smartphone and tablet have become a prosthetic device. They enhance our communication skills and have become a precondition for full and effective citizenship. Conversely, they add new exclusionary dimensions to life with others.

Religion

David Voas, emeritus professor of social science, University College London

A question on religion first appeared in the census in 2001 (except in Northern Ireland, where it was being asked already). The results were a surprise: 72% of people in England and Wales selected “Christian”, considerably more than the 54% of adults classified as such by the British Social Attitudes survey in the same year. Perhaps Britain was a Christian country after all?

The census figure was probably inflated for various reasons and said more about the quasi-ethnic character of religious identity than belief or practice. Nevertheless, it led to some exhilaration among church leaders: having consoled themselves with the notion that Britain was at least believing, they now saw some hope that belonging – nominal as it might be – would persist.

That hope did not survive subsequent data collection. The Christian share of the population in England and Wales fell to 59% in 2011 and then 46% in 2021, according to the census. Using a slightly different question, the British Social Attitudes survey put the Christian share below 50% in every year since 2009, with estimates as low as 38% by 2018.

In Scotland, where the wording of the religion question on the census is slightly different and the tick-box options refer to specific denominations, the Christian figure was 39% in 2022; a majority of the population chose “no religion”.

The rise of religious minorities

Although the growth of “no religion” is largely responsible for the Christian decline across Great Britain, there has also been significant growth in minority religious groups. In 2001 just over 5% of the population of Great Britain was Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish or other. By 2021-22, the figure was almost 10%. The relative youth of non-Christians means that in decades to come their share of the overall population will rise to at least 16%, Muslims being two thirds of the total, even in the absence of immigration.

Northern Ireland is a case apart: nearly 80% of its people identify themselves as either Protestant or Catholic. Non-Christian religions are growing but barely exceed 1%. Non-religion is also on the rise in the province, however, largely as a result of Protestant disaffiliation, and reached 17% in the 2021 census. The major news is that Catholics now outnumber Protestants for the first time since the partition of Ireland in 1920-22, even using the “community background” measure, which focuses on which religion you were brought up in.

Of course religion is not just about identity, whether strong or weak. Belief and practice are important aspects of religious commitment. Some high-quality social surveys include questions on belief in God, life after death, and so on, and also on attendance at worship services and frequency of prayer. On nearly every indicator, religiosity is waning.

The engine of religious decline is generational replacement, not adult defections. Elderly people who are mostly Christian are dying out, and being replaced in the population by young adults who are typically less religious or non-Christian. Claims that young people are leading a revival of churchgoing caused renewed excitement among some church leaders in 2025, but the story was too good to be true. The evidence shows that the decline continues.

Interestingly, the royal family shows Britain in microcosm. The late Queen Elizabeth was a committed Christian. King Charles is interested in religion and spirituality but famously declared that he intended to be the defender of faith, rather than the faith. Prince William is well disposed to the Church of England (of which he will become the supreme governor) as long as he does not have to attend or think much about it.

In terms of religious change, the royals are just an ordinary family. Britain continues to undergo a long, slow secular transition.

The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.

An investigation has been launched

A woman was left “seriously injured in hospital” following a crash on the A10, according to Cambridgeshire Police. The incident happened at about 10am on Thursday, August 27.

A grey Skoda Fabia was being driven northbound towards Waterbeach when it was involved in a crash with a white Isuzu D-Max, with a cherry picker lift fitted on the back, heading in the opposite direction.

The driver of the Skoda, a 69-year-old woman from Milton, was taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge with serious injuries, according to the force. The injured woman remains at hospital. The driver of the Isuzu, a 41-year-old man from Oakington, was uninjured and was interviewed at the scene by officers.

An investigation has been launched and anyone with any information, including dash cam footage, is urged by the force to report this online or by calling 101, quoting incident 152 of August 27.

He pushed the victim to the floor before biting her and kicking her in the stomach

A man attacked his former partner and continually breached a restraining order. James Upton was handed the restraining order in March 2024, which meant he was not allowed to contact his former partner or visit her home in St Neots for five years.

However, the 26-year-old breached the order by making several attempts to contact the victim. He also turned up at her house on different occasions.

During one of those visits, in February 2024, an argument broke out between the pair which quickly became physical. Upton pushed the victim to the floor, bit her, and kick her in the stomach. Upton also damaged the victim’s iPhone, smashing the screen.

He was arrested and charged with ABH and four counts of harassment – breach of restraining order, which he admitted.

At Peterborough Crown Court on Friday (August 28), Upton, of Coventry Road, Bedford, was jailed for one year and five months after the activation of the previous suspended sentence.

DC Madie Mayers-Brandrith, who investigated, said: “Upton is a very dangerous individual, who shows no regard for the law and the restrictions imposed on him by the courts. To attack his former partner in her own home when the pair’s young son was present is despicable so I am pleased Upton will now serve time behind bars for his actions.”

If Kansas megachurch pastor and Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton manages to pull off an upset victory in his race for a U.S. Senate seat, he’d join a very small group. In the past 100 years, only incumbent Raphael Warnock of Georgia has accomplished what Hamilton aspires to do: serve in the Senate while continuing to lead his congregation.

Warnock has continued to preach regularly as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta since his election as Georgia’s first Black senator in 2021.

Hamilton has made clear that if he wins, he would like to continue as senior pastor — preaching 12 to 18 times a year — at the Church of the Resurrection. With roughly 25,000 members in the Kansas City area, it’s the nation’s largest United Methodist church.

Warnock, in a video on U.S. Senate Democrats’ Facebook page, discusses how he melds his political and pastoral careers.

“They are both about working for people even as you walk alongside them,” he said. “I have always been engaged in a kind of ministry that takes you far beyond the sanctuary to the streets, far beyond preaching to the public square.”

Only a few other ordained clergy have served in the Senate

Aside from Warnock, only a few other ordained ministers have been in the Senate in recent decades, but none who strived to simultaneously lead a church of their own.

John Danforth, who served from 1976 to 1995 as a Republican senator from Missouri, is an Episcopal priest who also worked as an attorney and diplomat. In 2004, he presided over Ronald Reagan’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

Hamilton said in an interview that Danforth has been an inspiration and mentor for him.

“I talked to Jack before I got into this. I actually phoned him up and just said, ‘Hey, help me understand, how does this fit together?’” Hamilton said. “He and I share a lot about trying to bring people together, as opposed to dividing people, trying to lead from the center.”

Tim Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican, was a Baptist pastor before entering politics in 1985. After serving in the state legislature and the U.S. House, he served one term in the Senate from 1997 to 2003.

Still serving in the Senate is James Lankford, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who has represented Oklahoma in the chamber since 2015. Before entering politics, he was president of a Baptist-run conference center and youth camp.

Many more clergy have served in the House

Throughout U.S. history, it’s been far more common to have still-active pastors serving in the House. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., for example, served 13 terms representing the New York City neighborhood of Harlem while he was pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Other Black civil rights leaders who combined pastoring with congressional careers included Walter E. Fauntroy, who was Washington, D.C.’s delegate to the House, and William Gray, a pastor in Philadelphia before serving in the House from 1979 to 1991.

Democrat Emanuel Cleaver, who has represented Kansas City, Missouri, in the House since 2005, was pastor of St. James United Methodist Church from 1972 to 2009. His district, just across the Kansas-Missouri state line from Hamilton’s home base, has been reconfigured by GOP state legislators to jeopardize his chances of reelection.

On the Republican side of the U.S. House, conservative white Baptist pastors who have served in recent decades include Mark Harris of North Carolina, Jody Hice of Georgia and Ron Lewis of Kentucky.

One of the most prominent clerics in Congress was a Catholic — Jesuit priest Robert Drinan. A Massachusetts Democrat, he served in the House from 1971 to 1981 before stepping down. He dropped his reelection bid in 1980 after Pope John Paul II said Catholic priests would no longer be allowed to hold political office.

Drinan was elected on a platform opposing the Vietnam War, and had moderate views on abortion and birth control that differed from official Catholic teaching. He was the first member of Congress to call for Richard Nixon’s impeachment — not due to the Watergate scandal, but rather what Drinan viewed as the administration’s undeclared war against Cambodia.

There is no official count of all the clergy who ever served in Congress, but overwhelmingly they have been Protestants. Drinan is one of only two Catholic priests elected to Congress; no rabbi or imam has served there.

The first speaker of the House, Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, was a Lutheran minister. He served in Congress from 1789-1797.

The first African American to serve in Congress, the Rev. Hiram Rhodes Revels, was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was elected in 1870 by the Mississippi Legislature to fill a vacant Senate seat as a Republican.

Other pastors are running for Congress this year

This year, several members of the clergy from each major party have been nominated to run for the U.S. House. The Democrats include the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a prominent Baptist pastor in Dallas, and two women currently serving in Iowa’s legislature — the Revs. Lindsay James, a Presbyterian chaplain, and Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran pastor.

On the Republican side, at least three current or former pastors – all evangelicals – have been nominated: pastors John Elleson, running in a Democratic stronghold in Illinois; Mark Harris, seeking reelection in North Carolina; and former pastor Tim Walberg, seeking reelection in Michigan.

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AP reporter John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

CAIRO (AP) — At least 22 people, including Egyptians and Jordanians, were killed Wednesday in a passenger bus crash in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, authorities in both countries said. Twenty-eight others were injured.

The accident happened on a road linking the tourist resorts of Dahab and Nuweiba in South Sinai province, the Egyptian Health Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said it deployed 20 ambulances to the scene to transport the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals. It didn’t elaborate on the victims’ nationalities.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said there were Jordanians among the casualties, without providing a toll.

The Amman-based al-Mamlaka public broadcaster reported that 10 Jordanians were killed in the crash. It said the bus was bound for Amman from Cairo when it overturned on a road between Dahab and Nuweiba.

The Egyptian health ministry didn’t elaborate on the causes, but local media reported that the bus overturned after one of its tires blew out.

Deadly traffic accidents claim thousands of lives every year in Egypt, which has a poor transportation safety record. Speeding, bad roads and poor enforcement of traffic laws are the main reasons behind most of the crashes.

In January, 21 people were killed and 16 injured in a massive multicar pileup on a road near the southern province of Beni Suef.

Daniel Levy, 48, pleaded guilty to the New Year’s Eve murder of Abdul Kaleem Shaik, 41, at his flat in Vauxhall, south London – his second killing after the death of his grandmother in 2000

A convicted murderer has confessed to fatally stabbing his friend in the neck over the New Year period before handing himself in to police, declaring: “It’s happened again.”

On Wednesday, Daniel Levy, 48, entered a guilty plea to the murder of Indian national Abdul Kaleem Shaik, 41, at his Vauxhall flat in south London.

It can now be reported that Levy, who suffers from schizophrenia, had previously been found guilty of killing his grandmother by stabbing and setting fire to her body in July 2000.

Levy had initially acknowledged the second death but contested the murder charge, citing his mental state at the time. He dramatically changed his plea just as his trial was set to commence before jurors at the Old Bailey.

During an earlier hearing, prosecutors revealed that Levy had plunged a large blade into Mr Shaik’s neck at his residence sometime between New Year’s Eve and the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Authorities were notified of an incident after Levy presented himself at Bishopsgate police station in east London shortly past 8pm on January 1. He confessed that he had killed someone, telling officers: “It’s happened again.”

The remark was interpreted as hinting at the killing of his 72-year-old grandmother, Russian-born Nurzida Galimozanova, on July 25 2000. Officers attended his Vauxhall residence in south London, discovering Mr Shaik’s body on an improvised bed with a stab wound and blood covering his chest, neck and face.

A bloodstained knife was retrieved from the premises. Levy was detained and formally charged with Mr Shaik’s murder the next day.

CCTV recordings confirmed that on the night of December 31, solely the accused and the deceased were present at the property. During a police interview on January 2, Levy provided a comprehensive statement, revealing to officers that he’d been friends with Mr Shaik for many years and had permitted him to reside at his flat.

He explained Mr Shaik had grown “very depressed” and was struggling to manage. He stated that due to Mr Shaik’s declining mental wellbeing, he believed he needed to assist him by ending his life and ensuring his journey to heaven.

Prosecutor Peter Ratliff informed the earlier proceedings: “He described how he had been considering and trying to do this for some time. In the early hours of January 1, he finally did what he had planned by stabbing the deceased in the neck.

“He said he could hear him dying but did not want to watch it and went to the mosque to pray, had a massage and showered before going to the police station.”

The court was informed Levy had admitted to his grandmother’s manslaughter through diminished responsibility and arson back in October 2001. He received an indefinite hospital order at the Old Bailey.

Throughout those proceedings, it came to light that Levy felt compelled to kill after hearing voices addressing him in the film Gladiator. Mrs Galimozanova travelled to stay with Levy, who was residing in Borough, south London at the time, after his mother grew frightened by his conduct and appealed for assistance.

Levy subsequently doused his grandmother’s room with turpentine and white spirit, ignited it and closed the door. Upon escaping, he unleashed flame from an aerosol canister into her face before inflicting 30 stab wounds as she collapsed.

A 2004 independent inquiry commissioned by Lambeth Primary Care Trust revealed that NHS personnel had neglected to consider his mental state in the months preceding his grandmother’s death. The investigation exposed deficiencies in his treatment and demonstrated that staff had overlooked his psychiatric history, which included multiple suicide attempts, leading up to the assault on his grandmother.

The court was informed that Levy had fled from a secure psychiatric facility in 2003, and following his discharge was readmitted to hospital in 2013 after voicing intentions to harm his parents. Post-release, Levy was obliged to stay in touch with his mental health team, and the accused believed he was keeping up with his medication regime, the court heard.

His medication was delivered via supervised injection, though Levy had voiced doubts about the necessity of his treatment, prosecutors stated. Prior to entering his guilty plea on Wednesday, Judge Lynn Tayton KC questioned Levy, asking whether he’d had sufficient time to reflect on his decision.

Levy informed her of his intention to admit guilt to murder, stating: “I don’t want to go to trial. I don’t want my personal information outside in public. I would rather just go quietly as possible, do my time.”

The judge determined that Levy was competent to submit his plea. Defence barrister Michael Holland KC argued Levy deserved recognition for his belated guilty plea, noting he had consistently acknowledged the killing.

He requested details regarding Mr Shaik’s psychological condition to determine whether the accused’s perception of his conduct as “akin to assisted suicide” held any legitimacy.

Judge Tayton remanded Levy in custody ahead of sentencing on Wednesday, 9 September.

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Mr O’Keefe said he would furnish the court with a number of updated medical reports on the defendant ahead of the plea hearing

A Belfast businessman today pleaded guilty to charges arising from a loyalist bomb hoax targeting Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.

Darren James Service, 45, of Ballysillan Road in north Belfast, appeared in the dock of Belfast Crown Court for his case which had been listed for mention.

His non-jury Diplock-style trial before a judge sitting without a jury was due to start next Monday, September 7.

Senior defence counsel Joseph O’Keefe KC told Judge Gordon Kerr KC that he had an application for gym owner Service to be re-arraigned on two of the three charges he faced which he had previously denied.

Service entered guilty pleas to hijacking a Vauxhall Vivaro van and placing an article causing a bomb hoax at the Houben Centre, Holy Cross Church on the Crumlin Road on March 25, 2022.

A senior Crown prosecutor told the court: “Those pleas are acceptable to the prosecution.”

He added that he had an application to leave the first count of preparation of acts of terrorism on the books of the court “and not to be proceeded with without the leave of this court or the Court of Appeal”.

Judge Kerr ordered a MARA (Multi-Agency Review Arrangements) report to be prepared on Service by the Department of Justice and set the plea and sentence hearing for November 4, 2026.

Mr O’Keefe said he would furnish the court with a number of updated medical reports on the defendant ahead of the plea hearing.

Service was released on continuing bail ahead of sentencing.

No details were given in court on Wednesday about the circumstances surrounding the charges.

But during a successful bail application at Belfast Crown Court almost three years ago, a judge was told that on March 25, 2022, a workman was threatened and forced to transport a device placed in the back of his vehicle by two masked men to a peace-building event on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast.

The then Tanaiste Simon Coveney was attending the event at the Houben Centre in the Holy Cross Church.

After the van driver alerted police regarding the device in his van, the Centre was evacuated in what was later described as a hoax bomb alert.

It was the Crown case that the two masked men who hijacked the Vauxhall Vivaro van were driven to the scene by Service.

A prosecutor described the March 2022 incident as terrorist offences “carried out by the UVF.”

The prosecutor said that when Service’s home was searched in the aftermath of the incident, officers seized £100,000 located in a safe as well as balaclavas, a replica firearm, UVF pins and luxury watches.

The court heard that a mobile phone belonging to the defendant, who at the time of the bail hearing had been on remand for 19 months, has never been found.

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The myth that when women live together their menstrual cycles become synchronised has long persisted – despite research showing there’s no evidence that this so-called McClintock effect exists. Any overlap that does happen is probably just down to chance.

However, just because this isn’t true doesn’t mean our bodies don’t sync with those around us in other ways. In fact, more and more scientific evidence of this happening is being discovered.

There are two key ways our bodies can “sync up” with people we’re close to. The first is synchronisation, where physiological or behavioural processes show coordinated patterns. The second is co-regulation, where the emotional or physiological state of one person influences another.

The heart

Our hearts have a remarkable ability to synchronise when we do things together.

For instance, a small study of 27 couples showed co-regulation of both heart rate and heart rate variability – a metric that represents the time between heartbeats. These metrics have also been shown to be synchronised when couples sleep in the same bed.

But it isn’t just couples this happens to. Research has found that choral singers also exhibit synchronised fluctuations in their heart rate when they sing together. Their heart rate increases and decreases at the same time as they breath in and out. This is caused by their breathing becoming synchronised – a phenomenon called respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

The eyes

Another interesting area of overlap involves our eyes.

Research has shown that when two people are involved in the same task or stimulus (such as watching a video interview), their pupils can spontaneously synchronise – becoming wider or narrower at similar points in time.

This is particularly interesting because pupil diameter is largely regulated automatically by the autonomic nervous system, in response to emotions, arousal and light conditions.

Although this synchrony could partly arise because the same stimulus produces similar responses in both people, a 2026 study investigated whether this phenomenon happens even when two people aren’t receiving the same stimulus.

One participant listened to emotionally evocative sounds (the study didn’t specify exactly what that entailed) while the other did not. Both could see only the other person’s eyes.

Even though only one heard the auditory stimuli, their eye behaviour still showed coordination. Both participants blinked in sync, regardless of how their attention changed during the interaction.

This suggests that some forms of synchrony cannot be explained solely by both people responding independently to the same external stimulus. Instead, different aspects of our behaviour and physiology can become coupled through the dynamics of social interaction.

Brain activity

People’s brains can show similarity in the electrical activity patterns they produce when imitating each other.

One study demonstrated that while one person spoke and another listened, both exhibited synchronisation in various different brain waves. This synchronisation didn’t just occur in brain waves important for processing speech – it also occurred in those relating to focus and even daydreaming.

Researchers have also found that as two people interact, their patterns of neural activity gradually become more closely aligned. This phenomenon is known as interpersonal neural synchrony.

Pain tolerance

Our experiences of pain can also be influenced by social synchrony.

For instance, one study found that rowers who trained together had a higher pain threshold than when they trained on their own. Similar results have been observed for people who sing together.

It isn’t clear what the exact reason for this is, but it could be that the camaraderie of the shared experience affects the body’s endorphins (our natural painkillers) – either by increasing their levels, or amplifying their effects.

Stress levels

Not all examples of synchrony are good, however. Even our stress levels can sync up with those we’re close to.

One of the keys ways that stress impacts the body is that it causes cortisol levels to rise. Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands which helps boost blood sugar so the brain and muscles can react quicker.

But over time, if cortisol levels remain too high, this is linked to weight gain, poor sleep and high blood pressure.

Studies have shown that couples often display synchronised cortisol patterns. Although the cortisol concentrations in the blood aren’t identical, couples often show similar day-to-day patterns of cortisol rise and decline. As a result, when one partner has higher-than-usual cortisol levels, the other partner is also more likely to show elevated cortisol levels.

This synchrony may be due to external factors that impact one partner directly causing a change in the other member of the couple. Or, it may be due to partners experiencing a shared source of stress.

Siblings also show linked stress profiles when going through a shared stressful experience. One study of 66 pairs of siblings demonstrated that during stressful shared experiences (in this case, caring for a parent), siblings may become biologically connected, with the fluctuations in their stress hormones becoming synchronised.

Humans appear to be biologically connected in ways we rarely appreciate. In an increasingly digital world that may be making us more disconnected from each other, there are many reminders that human connection is not only psychological but physiological too.

By CHARLOTTE DEAN, ASSOCIATE SHOWBIZ EDITOR

Published: 11:22 BST, 2 September 2026 | Updated: 12:35 BST, 2 September 2026

Peter Llewellyn-Jones, the British Sign Language interpreter and academic who became a familiar face to a generation of children as Mr Montgomery Lancelot Grimley in The Riddlers, has died aged 76.

For many viewers, Peter will be remembered as the slightly eccentric Mr Grimley, who is the neighbour of central character Marjorie in the long-running children’s show.

But acting was only one part of an unusually varied career which was closely tied with British Sign Language and the Deaf community.

The British Deaf Association have paid tribute to the author today, as a spokesperson said: ‘We are deeply saddened by the passing of Peter Llewellyn-Jones.

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‘A respected BSL advocate, interpreter, educator and ally, Peter devoted more than 50 years to supporting Deaf people and championing BSL.

‘His legacy will never be forgotten. Rest in peace.’ It has not been announced what Peter’s cause of death was as yet.

Peter Llewellyn-Jones, the British Sign Language interpreter and academic who became a familiar face to a generation of children as Mr Montgomery Lancelot Grimley in The Riddlers, has died aged 76 (pictured on The Riddlers)

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Peter qualified as an interpreter in 1972, at a time when professional interpreting for Deaf people was still developing as a recognised field.

His career subsequently encompassed social work, television, theatre, interpreter training and academic research.

One of his earliest television roles was as Supersign in Insight, the Yorkshire Television series made for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

The programme combined education and entertainment, and Peter’s signing made him a distinctive presence on screen.

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He later became known to a much wider audience through The Riddlers, appearing as Mr Grimley in dozens of episodes between 1989 and 1998.

His television work extended beyond children’s programmes. 

Peter appeared in programmes concerned with sign language and interpreting and was also involved in interpreting for the performing arts, including theatre and opera.

Alongside this practical work, he became an important figure in the development of interpreter education in Britain. 

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For many viewers, Peter will be remembered as the slightly eccentric Mr Grimley, who is the neighbour of central character Marjorie in the long-running children’s show

He taught at a number of universities and was instrumental in the development of higher-education courses for BSL-English interpreters.

At the University of Leeds, where he was Senior Teaching Fellow and Programme Director of the MA in Interpreting: BSL-English, he helped train a new generation of interpreters. He subsequently became a Visiting Research Fellow.

The actor later worked with the University of Central Lancashire.

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Fans and pupils of Peter took to social media to pay tribute following the announcement of his passing.

One wrote: ‘Lovely man and I had be pleasure of being taught by him. I always left his class feeling good about yourself.

‘Nice memories and he defiantly left his stamp on the world.’

Another added: ‘The most enthralling teacher I have had, funny and insightful! Sad news and he will be missed in all circles.

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‘I feel so privileged to have known PLJ. Such a wonderful man! Rip in peace.’

Others remember his role on 90s show: ‘He was brilliant. I loved The Riddlers.’

A second commented: ‘Sad to hear that Peter Llewellyn Jones has passed away, I love The Riddlers and I remember buying it on video, when i was a kid.’