Three pasta salad products have been recalled from two major UK supermarkets over fears of possible contamination.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued a ‘do not eat’ warning over the products manufactured by Greencore due to the possible presence of Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause serious illness.

They are Asda’s cheese and tomato pasta salad and nacho cheese pasta salad, and Morrisons chicken and bacon pasta.

Anyone who bought them is advised to return them to their nearest store where they will be given a full refund. You do not need your receipt.

The recalled items in full:

• Asda Cheese and Tomato Pasta Salad – 300g – Code 5063089221990 – Use by August 10
• Asda Nacho Cheese Pasta Salad – 500g – Code 5063717198311 – Use by August 9
• Morrisons Chicken and Bacon Pasta – 300g – Code 5010251790587 – Use by August 7

What is listeria?

Listeria is a bacterium that causes listeriosis, a foodborne infection that is usually caught by eating unpasteurised dairy, cheese, deli meats, and other products.

Those who fall ill usually experience flu-like symptoms, including high temperatures, muscle aches, chills, and vomiting and diarrhoea.

In more serious cases, Listeria infections can lead to complications like meningitis and even death.

The FSA warns that those over the age of 65, pregnant women and their unborn babies, as well as babies under one month of age and those with weakened immune systems, are all more vulnerable to listeria infections.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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Jared Leto‘s mysterious Mars Island retreat promised fans a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend time with the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman.

The band invited fans, who call themselves the Echelon, to the event held on Obonjan, a private island off the coast of Croatia.

The luxury getaway was an immersive alcohol-free three-day retreat, which was said to have cost over $6,499 (£4.8K) to attend.

It included accommodation, workshops, performances and group activities designed around creativity, self-expression and connection.

Attendees were said to have swam, sunbathed, walked on the beach and engaged in yoga, all while celebrating the rock band.

According to Air Mail – which in 2025 published the accounts of sexual improprieties allegedly committed by Jared toward nine women, all of which he denied – the mostly female attendees also ‘meditated, chanted and lounged barefoot in caftans alongside Leto’. 

The band invited fans, who call themselves the Echelon, to the event held on Obonjan, a private island off the coast of Croatia

Fans described the event as magical and inspiring as they praised the atmosphere, while they also got the chance to interact with Jared in a more personal setting.

However, snaps from Mars Island quickly attracted attention online.

While Jared’s band called it a ‘spiritual retreat’, the overall vibe of the festival drew widespread comparisons to a cult.

Speculation reached a high after the actor was spotted in a photo standing on a cliff with his arms raised, with fans below him with their arms also out.

Other images showed fans wearing white while sitting on the floor listening to Jared speaking to them while seated on a stool.

‘Yes, this is a cult,’ a 2019 tweet posted by Thirty Seconds to Mars read, adding the hashtag, ‘#MarsIsland.’ 

Jared was even spotted in an image wearing a shirt reading ‘This is a Cult’ on the back.

Before Mars Island, Thirty Seconds to Mars launched an adults-only event in Malibu, California in 2015 dubbed ‘Camp Mars’.

It was a weekend fan retreat filled with campfires, archery, hiking, and music. 

Camp Mars finished in 2019, and though a 2022 Mars Island event was said to have been brewing, it seemingly never materialised.

According to L’Officiel, the band leaned into the ‘cult’ image by ‘playing on journalists telling them that they have a “cult following”.’

Interest in the Mars events has resurfaced amid the news that Jared has been accused by four women of sexual misconduct.

In June 2025, digital media outlet Air Mail published accounts from nine women accusing Jared of sexual impropriety, unwanted advances, and pursuing minors.

Then, a BBC documentary released last week amplified the crisis by featuring on-camera accounts from ten women – including four who explicitly accuse Leto of criminal sexual conduct, statutory rape, and grooming during their teenage years.

One of the women says she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17.

While Jared’s band called it a ‘spiritual retreat,’ the overall vibe of the festival drew widespread comparisons to a cult

Jared was even spotted in an image wearing a shirt reading ‘This is a Cult’ on the back

Another says the Dallas Buyers Club star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19, and had been unexpectedly left alone with him in a hotel room.

A third accuser describes how she had under-age sex with the star in California when she was 17 – which would be classified as statutory rape.

Jared ‘shrugged off’ a conversation about the age of consent being 18 in the US state, she alleges.

The fourth woman claims she was groomed by the actor, accusing him of abusing his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.

On at least one occasion, she alleges he suggested they should have sex.

The fourth woman was allegedly sent a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent her from talking about her relationship with Jared, according to the BBC, which claims to have seen the document.

However, she refused to sign.

Four further women allege they received strange and often very sexual phone calls from Leto when they were younger.

Another woman claims, when she was 14, the actor instructed a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival after having made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph signing.

The girl’s mother confronted Jared, but he repeated the comment, it is alleged.

The allegations all come from between 2002 and 2016 when the star was in his 30s and 40s.

He has since issued a denial since the BBC documentary. 

‘I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false,’ he said in a statement to The Associated Press. 

One unnamed accuser said: ‘This was 25 years ago… he has gotten away with it.’

A teenage boy is believed to have killed his grandparents and opened fire inside the secondary school, killing five staff members and pupils before taking his own life

A young girl has tragically died after a pupil allegedly opened fire at a school on Friday, bringing the death toll to eight.

Emergency services raced to Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province, north-west of Bangkok, at around 10am local time (4am BST) on Friday to reports of gunfire.

The authorities have now confirmed a 12-year-old girl has sadly died in hospital today, Thai officials have said. Her death follows five school staff members, the accused shooter, and his two grandparents. All eight bodies were claimed by relatives from Bangkok’s Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The tragic news also comes as the school posted an urgent message online yesterday, seeking blood donations for two injured students, including the girl who has now passed away.

A further 14 people remain in hospital, with seven still in critical condition. Most of the injured are between 12 and 14 years old.

It is believed the suspect, aged 14, killed his grandparents at the family home earlier in the morning.

Wiroon Supasingsiripreecha, head of the institute, said most of the victims had suffered a single fatal gunshot wound.

The injury found on the alleged shooter was consistent with the weapon he had used, Supasingsiripreecha said. More detailed findings, including toxicology results, are anticipated later.

Officials said the firearm, described as small and compact, was legally registered to the boy’s grandfather.

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It’s back at Christmas, but BBC have confirmed a major change

Call the Midwife fans have been left feeling divided as BBC teased the Christmas special which will be a spin-off from the beloved series.

At the end of the last series of Call the Midwife, viewers gave an emotional farewell as Sister Monica Joan sadly died after deciding to stop taking her medication.

This Christmas, Sister Monica Joan is set to make a return to screens, but not as viewers knew her. Call The Midwife’s prequel series will chronicle the early days of Nonnatus House.

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It was also recently announced that Julie Hesmondhalgh, who hails from Accrington, Lancs, would be joining Call The Midwife: Sisters In Arms, which will be a prequel to the original BBC series, set in Poplar in September 1939 during the outbreak of the Second World War.

New pictures released by the BBC show actresses Julie, who is best known for having played Hayley Cropper in the Salford-filmed Corrie, Helena Wilson, Ellie McKay, Liv Andrusier and Lizzie Back in their uniforms while taking part in the series for the first time.

Heidi Thomas, writer and showrunner, said: “Call The Midwife has a long and noble history of filming Christmas specials during heatwaves, and this year we welcomed the snow-machine back to the Nonnatus House set like an old friend.

“But I was surprised how many new emotions Call The Midwife: Sisters In Arms sparked. In particular, the evacuation of Poplar’s children, and the fear that they may not make it home for Christmas had us all in tears.”

A synopsis for the special from the BBC reads: “Sister Monica Joan is in her prime, Sister Julienne and Sister Evangelina are young and zealous, and Nonnatus House is the beating heart of Poplar.

“Together with Sister Alice, and local GP Dr Kit, the nuns dedicate their lives to mothers, babies and those in need. But there is no gas and air, no penicillin, no cure for TB, and no welfare state. Then war is declared – and life gets even harder. The three young secular midwives who complete the team – Sybil, Olive and Marianne – receive a baptism of fire as the blackout and the Blitz take hold.

“While bombs rain from the sky, women give birth underground, families are shattered, children run wild, and whole streets are reduced to rubble. But courage, compassion and resilience triumph as the community unites in its efforts to survive.”

An exact broadcast date has yet to be announced, but the special will be aired during the festive period. Emmy-winning actress Jenny Agutter, who stars in Call The Midwife as Sister Julienne, will narrate the special episodes as the older version of her character, while Helena, known for her work with the National Theatre, will portray her younger counterpart.

The spin-off will be helmed by the Call The Midwife creative team, including showrunner, creator and writer Heidi Thomas, who hailed the new show as “a joy to write”. She continued: “Having loved and lived with the sisters of Nonnatus House for so many years, I found myself longing to turn the clock back and tell the story of their finest hour – the Blitz.”

Now, fans of the beloved series appear to be somewhat divided when it comes to this Christmas special, drifting away from what viewers love ever so slightly.

One viewer penned: “New cast, but I do have mixed feelings” as another added: “I’ll definitely give it a go, just not sure if I will enjoy it as much as the original! But, can’t say until I have watched it all”.

Another fan agreed: “Yep! Will be interesting to see, keeping my fingers crossed that it has the same charm and thought added into it for that Christmas magic.”

However, others are already looking forward to it, as a viewer wrote: “Aww I cannot wait for this to air i do so miss Call the Midwife”, as another simply stated: “This will be brilliant”.

The mid-air emergency was declared during the Loganair flight from Inverness Airport.

A flight leaving from a Scots airport has been diverted following a mid-air emergency.

The Loganair plane was due to fly from Inverness to Manchester at 10.45am on Saturday, August 8. However, as the aircraft reached Ayr, a U-turn was performed at 30,000ft after a 7700 emergency code was relayed.

Flight radars show the plane turning back and landing at Glasgow Airport at 11.20am. The nature of the incident is not known at this time.

The flight was due to land at Manchester Airport at 12pm. It’s not yet known when it is due to take off again.

We’ll be bringing you the very latest updates, pictures and video on this breaking news story.

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Good Morning Britain reporter Ashna Hurynag has been part of the ITV show since the start of 2026

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One familiar face on Good Morning Britain has been missing from the ITV show over the past few weeks.

Correspondent Ashna Hurynag, who has been a fixture on the ITV programme since early in the year, informed her followers where she’s been recently.

Since joining the breakfast show, ITV viewers have seen the reporter cover the likes of the World Cup, railway fraud and showbiz weddings.

Among these was Taylor Swift’s marriage to sports personality Travis Kelce, which required her to head to New York for live coverage from outside the reported ceremony location.

On Instagram, Ashna shared a collection of behind-the-scene clips from her time in America, along with her time speaking to Richard Arnold via a livestream link on the show, reports the Mirror.

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She told her followers that at the time, the Good Morning Britain crew stayed awake for 20 hours to report on the celebration.

Sharing that she had to wear the same dress in 42-degree heat twice, she called having a chat with ‘Uncle Richard’ a gift.

Announcing her return to the ITV programme, she concluded: “PS. for those lovely people asking – back on-air next week, been soaking up some rays having some randr.”

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However, Ashuna isn’t the only person absent from Good Morning Britain as regular presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls are on their summer break.

On social media, Susanna confirmed her absence before bidding farewell to one of her ITV colleagues.

In a post shared online, the presenter wrote: “SHOES OFF, OUT OF OFFICE ON! Time for my summer break – but also time to say goodbye to our wonderful Director @stuearl, who has been the champion of this programme for a decade. Thank you for everything, Stuart.

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“@edballs and I will be back September 1st after our travels. THANK YOU to our amazing viewers for watching and for contacting us and sharing your views – never a “waste of time” being on this brilliant programme, and thanks to everyone on Team.”

Her ‘waste of time’ remark comes after an awkward moment that unfolded with Robert Jenrick.

The Reform MP could be heard saying, “Well, that was a waste of time” after his interview with Susanna and Ed.

Good Morning Britain is available to watch on ITV weekdays from 6am.

The man was tragically found dead after the alarm was raised

A man has been found dead at a Scottish football stadium as police launch a probe.

Emergency crews rushed to Harburn Road in West Lothian during the morning of Friday, August 7. An alarm was raised around 8.55am after police received a report of a death at West Calder United Football Club’s ground.

Officers confirmed the death is being treated as ‘unexplained’. Locals claimed there was a large police presence at the scene, with an area taped off by police, reports Edinburgh Live.

The Scottish Ambulance Service also dispatched an ambulance. They were called to West Calder Football Club at around 8.56am on Friday morning.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: Around 8.55am on Friday, 7 August, 2026, we received a report of the death of a man on Harburn Road, West Calder.

“The death is being treated as unexplained but is not believed to be suspicious. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal in due course.”

The Scottish Ambulance Service added: “We received a call at 08:56 hours today to attend an incident at West Calder Football Club and dispatched one ambulance to the scene.”

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The reenactors walked from Clifford’s Tower to York Mansion House on Saturday morning (August 8) as part of the York Georgian Festival.

Georgian military reenactors led the promenade followed by dancers who performed outside the Mansion House in St Helen’s Square.

Georgian festival attendees set off from Clifford’s Tower to parade to the York Mansion House (Image: Dylan Connell)

Georgian festival attendees gather at Clifford’s Tower before parading to the York Mansion House (Image: Dylan Connell)

Crowds formed in the square as people dressed head to toe in Georgian period dress performed traditional Regency dances.

They danced ahead of the festival’s Masquerade Ball on Saturday night at the Mansion House.

Amanda Robertson, 51, travelled with her daughter Sarah, 27, from Edinburgh for the festival.

Amanda Robertson, second from right, who travelled to the York Georgian Festival from Edinburgh with her daughter Sarah, middle (Image: Dylan Connell)

Elizabeth Usher and Tom Conyard at the York Georgian Festival (Image: Dylan Connell)

The pair travelled to York by train wearing full Georgian dress.

“When you do things like this, it gives you confidence not to bother [what others think],” Amanda said.

She said it had been a “lovely” day, praising York for being a “beautiful city”.

Amanda said she and her daughter are fans of the Georgian style which resulted in them attending the Jane Austen Festival in Bath.

And when they saw an Instagram post about the York Georgian Festival, they “knew we had to give it a try”, Amanda said.

Georgian festival attendees parade to the York Mansion House (Image: Dylan Connell)

Janet Bennett, marketing and events manager for York Mansion House, which organises the Georgian festival (Image: Dylan Connell)

Elizabeth Usher and Tom Conyard, both from York, were also dressed in Georgian period dress in St Helen’s Square.

Elizabeth said she takes part in other re-enactment events and is interested in learning through the historic clothing.

“Wearing historic clothing teaches you things about how people were in the past,” she said. “I’ve worn this [Georgian dress] many times.”

Janet Bennett, marketing and events manager for York Mansion House, which organises the festival, said it was “great to see so many people” taking part.

Dancing in St Helen’s Square during the York Georgian Festival (Image: Dylan Connell)

Dancing in St Helen’s Square during the York Georgian Festival (Image: Dylan Connell)

Janet, who came wearing a Georgian dress, said it “feels quite surreal” to walk through York in a period outfit.

“It’s quite fun,” she said, “the whole festival is such a nice atmosphere, such a happy atmosphere. People are just having fun and letting go for a bit.

“We’ve had really high visitor numbers at the Mansion House over the last couple of days, and similar events at Fairfax House at the Bar Convent have also been successful.

“We’ve got more to come tomorrow … It’s all looking good.”

The festival has seen talks and tours take place hosted by Horrible Histories author Terry Deary, along with tours of the Bar convent, talks on period fashion and dress at Fairfax House and York Castle Museum, and an examination of how women were treated by the Georgian justice system at Barley Hall.

One of York’s most famous Georgian visitors, Anne Lister, will also be the subject of a new play No Priest But Love hosted by Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, and Merchant Taylors’ Hall on Sunday.

The festival ends on Monday and will see a series of talks including the launch by York St John students of a new edition of correspondence exchanged between writers Ignatius Sancho, one of the first Black Britons known to have voted in a parliamentary election, and Yorkshire-based Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy.

For more information and booking details, visit www.yorkgeorgianfestival.co.uk

Ryan Murphy, director of the controversial Netflix true-crime Monster Anthology (2022-), and Bret Easton Ellis, literary provocateur and author of American Psycho (1991), seem the perfect match. Sure enough, Murphy’s new TV adaptation of Ellis’s 2023 novel, The Shards, for Disney+ is an exhilarating mix of teen drama, serial killer nail-biter and homoerotic cat-and-mouse thriller.

The Shards features a fictionalised version of Ellis himself (a standout performance by Igby Rigney). The show details the unravelling of a close-knit group of friends during their senior year at a private LA high school in 1981. It’s triggered by the simultaneous arrival of a charismatic and mysterious newcomer, Robert Mallory (Homer Gere, son of Richard Gere), and the terror and destruction wrought by a serial killer at large in the community dubbed “the Trawler”. Are these events coincidental? Or connected in some way?

Ellis has said that the appeal of his precocious first novel, Less Than Zero (1985) (which he was indeed working on in his senior year, as the series shows) was that it allowed viewers to imagine what it would be like to be a privileged youngster in cool, affluent Beverley Hills.

This TV incarnation of The Shards presents a particularly vivid version of this fantasy. The affluent teenagers pad around beautiful, empty houses, throw endless pool parties, drive through LA in their shiny cars and indulge in as much drugs and sex as they want.

Yet the flip-side of such extraordinary freedom is excessive vulnerability. The story of the Trawler recalls the dark history of late 1970s and 1980s LA. It was a time when over 20 serial killers – each given similarly foreboding monikers like the Night Stalker or the Hillside Strangler – were also traversing the city.

Watching the lives of such a privileged group become shattered might be considered just deserts: a secret satisfaction for viewers enamoured by that Beverley Hills fantasy life. This is, after all, the kind of dark morality which propels the slasher movie (a genre which has influenced both Ellis and Murphy) where characters, usually girls, die in seemingly direct proportion to how sexually active they are.

But The Shards wants to do more than glamorise and invite critique of the lives of affluent youth in the US. Outwardly its sumptuous rendering of Westside interiors and exteriors tempt viewers to regard it as another example of TV’s current fascination with displaying the indulgent existences of the super-wealthy, such as Big Little Lies (2017) or White Lotus (2021-).

The Shards aims at something more profound. At its heart is a comparison between 21st-century existence and the world of the early 1980s. The series reminds us that then there were no helicopter parents, no social media nor smartphones. Factors which explain how these teenagers can do what they wish without adult scrutiny.

Despite the permissive atmosphere – as Bret’s comparison of Mallory’s arrival to “a virus” signals subtly – all this sexual decadence was, in only a few years, about to be extinguished by the advent of Aids.

Lessons for today

Yet The Shards also insists this era is the gateway to understanding the world we exist in now. This is a core message of the novel, conveyed powerfully through references to songs from the period.

Ellis’s fiction has always used music as a way of summing up character or anchoring its narrative in a particular cultural moment. In The Shards, his observations about emblematic music tracks of the time – such as Ultravox’s Vienna or Kim Wilde’s video for Kids in America – focus on what he calls a pervasive social “numbness”.

The novel’s virtual soundtrack is one reason it feels so deeply personal. In literary terms, The Shards is what is known as an autofiction. It’s a mode of writing which differs from straight autobiography. Autofiction conveys personal truth in a way which keeps it unverifiable or obscure, perhaps even to the authors themselves.

Like Ellis’s Lunar Park (2006), another magnificent autofiction, The Shards seems an effort to understand which dark parts of his psyche could have summoned up a creation like Patrick Bateman, the psychopathic anti-hero of American Psycho.

Murphy’s adaptation of The Shards – as expected given Ellis’s close involvement as executive producer and co-writer – preserves much of this personal significance. This helps to elevate it above racy, entertaining but essentially empty, bonkbuster thrillers such as Hunting Wives (2025). It is hard, for example, not to see the casting of newcomer Gere, who plays Robert Mallory with a perfect combination of beauty and menace, in the light of Ellis’s notes about the elemental impression the work of his father, Richard Gere, left on his own formative years.

Ellis’s novel is remarkable for how it creates such a deeply immersive blend of image, narrative and soundtrack in prose. The tools available to screen directors ensure they can do this much more easily, as Murphy’s version of The Shards demonstrates. But the pairing of director and writer ensures the series also, just about, avoids the superficial trap TV can fall into – the lingering on surfaces, the indulgence in sex scenes or gruesome murders. It preserves the powerful elements of autofiction and cultural analysis that drive the original work.

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

The crash happened on Moss Bank Way in Bolton shortly after 9.33pm on Friday, August 7.

A fire broke out in one of the cars and two fire engines were called to the scene.

Firefighters extinguished the flames using a hose reel and were in attendance for over an hour.

The crash closed Moss Bank Way and Captains Clough Road (Image: PHIL TAYLOR)

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said: “Shortly after 9:33pm this evening (Friday 7 August), two fire engines from Bolton North and Bolton Central fire stations were called to reports of a road traffic collision involving two cars on Moss Bank Way in Bolton.

“Crews arrived quickly at the scene. Firefighters used a hose reel to extinguish a fire involving one of the cars and are working alongside colleagues from Greater Manchester Police to make the area safe. Six casualties have been taken into the care of North West Ambulance Service.

“Crews have been in attendance for around one hour and remain at the scene.”

The crash closed Moss Bank Way and Captains Clough Road.

The crash closed Moss Bank Way and Captains Clough Road (Image: PHIL TAYLOR)

Eyewitnesses said there was a second collision very close by, at around the same time, at the junction between Smithills Dean, Moss Bank Way and Halliwell Road.

It is estimated they were around half a mile apart from one another.

Both Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) have been contacted for more information about both of the incidents.

The Bolton News will bring you any updates as they come.