I regularly drink from stray glasses of water I see scattered around my house that were poured the day before. I think I’m being efficient and resourceful, but am I being safe?

Experts say there is actually a tipping point at which it is better for your health to dump that glass of water and start afresh.

Kristen Smith, a dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said that she personally follows a 12-hour rule for a glass of water. After 12 hours, Smith will pour it out and drink a new glass. However, she said you can drink a day-old glass of water “as long as it hasn’t been exposed to contaminants or left uncovered”.

Microbiologist Jason Tetro, aka The Germ Guy, also said 12 hours was the limit for drinking leftover water in glasses.

To him, the potential bacterial problems wouldn’t come from air contaminants but from the tap. One study found that bacterial cell concentrations in drinking water increase overnight. Infrequently used drinking water taps can also harbour high levels of bacteria.

“For those first 12 hours, there’s not going to be enough food for the bacteria numbers to rise,” Tetro said. “After those 12 hours, there will be food for the bacteria to multiply.”

In other words, if you drink water from the night before, you’re likely fine. But if the water has been sitting for a whole day, it’s better to get a new glass of water, even if you used a water filter, Tetro said, or you risk suffering from gastrointestinal issues.

Day-old water “becomes a growing environment for opportunistic pathogens,” Tetro said. “And so what you want to do is just get a new glass of water.”

Sharing water with someone else speeds up the timeline of when you should tip it away.

“Once a person drinks directly from a bottle or glass, bacteria from their mouth can transfer to the remaining liquid and begin to multiply,” Smith said. “So for that reason, after you put your mouth on a bottle, it’s best to finish it in one go and dispose of it rather than saving it for later, especially if you’re sharing a cup or bottle with someone else.”

You can buy yourself more time by using bottled water, which is designed to avoid bacterial growth for longer than a day, Tetro said.

Of course, if you are parched, it’s better to stay hydrated than worry about how stale your water is.

If “the only option you have is that water bottle that’s been sitting around for a day, it’s definitely better to drink than to stay dehydrated,” Smith said.

Expert comment provided by licensed sexologist, relationship therapist, and author at Passionerad, Sofie Roos.

You’ve probably heard of polyamory, or non-monogamous relationships, which can sometimes involve more than two partners.

When done healthily, these involve open communication, clear boundaries, and frank discussions.

And while “tolyamory,” which was coined by relationship writer Dan Savage, is a relatively new term, sexologist and relationship therapist Sofie Roos says this kind of permissive behaviour has been happening for ages.

“I would say that this phenomenon is pretty common,” she told HuffPost UK.

It’s a combination of the words “polyamorous” and “tolerate”. It refers to a relationship where some indiscretion – be it flirting, flings, or inappropriate messages to other people – is understood to be going on in the relationship, but is never discussed openly.

One partner usually turns a “blind eye,” Savage said.

Roos told us people can be hesitant to bring up behaviour outside of the implied or stated boundaries of their relationship, “to protect the safety, peace, the family, to avoid conflicts or because it feels scary to open a door you might not be able to close again”.

And while the sexologist doesn’t think tolyamory is absolutely always terrible, she does think it usually comes with an imbalance of power.

“If two adults actively choose… this quiet agreement… I think it’s up to them,” she said.

“However, the problem is that this most often isn’t a mutual decision… [often], one tolerates, and the other one takes liberties. The one who’s the victim doesn’t feel they can say what it really costs them emotionally as they’re afraid of the consequences, which leads to a toxic situation.”

“The most obvious sign is that there are situations where boundaries have been crossed, moments which you both know you should talk about,” but nobody brings them up, shared Roos.

You might also sense an invisible “line” of candour about suspected, or known, indiscretions. These don’t have to involve outright cheating: it can also include unspoken feelings about an ex, a slightly-too-close relationship with a coworker, or “a general feeling around how your partner gives other people romantic appreciation”.

Perhaps, “you aren’t asking the questions you wanna ask, maybe because you don’t want to hear the answer, or… you tell yourself it’s better to keep the peace than to be honest”.

Your relationship could look, and even feel, great on the outside or the inside. But the two of you have “shut off” some lines of communication.

“To me, the problem seriously starts when this turns into you not being able to trust your partner, and when you start putting your own feelings aside to spare peace between you, which… tends to lead to a toxic relationship where you also start to step over the line with others instead of setting boundaries,” said Roos.

If you identify with some of this and aren’t sure whether it should be a dealbreaker, Roos says you should consider your sense of ownership in the decision.

“In my opinion, it should be a dealbreaker when the tolerance no longer is made out of free will, but is something you do out of feeling powerless, broken down or afraid of losing the relationship,” she shared.

That includes regularly feeling uncomfortable with your dynamic, constantly comparing yourself to others, losing your self-esteem, or feeling that your needs always have to come last.

“Another red flag is if the person uses confusion to their advantage in a way where they want to be free to do whatever they want, but without taking
responsibility, checking in on you, or giving you the same freedom,” she said.

If that’s the case, you’re likely facing an “imbalance” where it feels as though “one partner sets the boundaries for the relationship without you being a part of it”.

Ultimately, when silence is used to avoid responsibility, when you feel unable to tackle difficult topics head-on, and when you’re staying more out of fear than love, try to “think over the situation”, Roos warns, as the price for your relationship “is too high to pay”.

If you’ve spoken to a single teen in recent years, chances are you’ve been confronted with slang like “six-seven”, “glazing,” “mid,” and “unc”.

But according to new research conducted by Preply, which surveyed over 1,500 Brits, some of these are already deemed cringeworthy.

Here’s what UK respondents said bothered them the most, and why:

Per Preply, the words most likely to make people wince include:

1. Six-seven (24.4%)
Meaning: Nonsensical, “so and so”

2. Skibbidi (21.6%)
Meaning: “Cool” or “Bad”

3. Preggo (20.8%)
Meaning: Pregnant

4. Sorry, not sorry (18.1%)
Meaning: Humorously means “I don’t feel bad about it”

5. Holibobs (17.6%)
Meaning: Holiday

6. Slay (16.1%)
Meaning: To do something exceptionally well

7. Rizz (15.7%)
Meaning: To charm or seduce (from “charisma”)

8. Bae (15.7%)
Meaning: Significant other (similar to babe)

9. Wifey (15.3%)
Meaning: Wife or “girlfriend”

10. YOLO (14.9%)
Meaning: Abbreviation for “You only live once”.

Melissa Baerse Berk, an Associate Linguistics Professor from the University of Chicago, who is working with Preply, said: “Cringe isn’t really about the word itself, it’s about context and identity. Terms like ‘Skibbidi’ or ‘Rizz’ are closely associated with online subcultures and younger generations.

“When those words cross into everyday offline conversations, they can feel forced or inauthentic.”

As someone who heard “chat” out loud for the first time recently, I couldn’t agree more.

But, Prof Berk added, that doesn’t mean your favourite slang necessarily has to be out of reach.

“Using words found cringeworthy in an ironic sense suggests people aren’t just reacting to trends, they’re participating in them with a layer of self-awareness,” she explained.

“Irony acts as a social safety net, it allows people to engage with trends without fully committing to them.”

One of the many thrills of The White Lotus is its ever-rotating cast and location.

From one season to the next, you’ll go from Jennifer Coolidge cutting about on a boat in Sicily, to Jason Isaacs as a desperate man on the brink of ruin in Thailand.

With the last season of the Emmy-winning show wrapping up more than a year ago, chatter has naturally now turned to the next instalment – and what new collection of eccentrics and property porn showrunner Mike White’s brain will concoct for us.

From rumoured cast members to shooting locations, here’s everything we know about it so far…

Fans will be pleased to hear that filming for season four isn’t far off. In fact, according to Variety, it’s due to begin at the end of April and last until the end of October, meaning we can expect another sun-drenched season of the hit show.

With that in mind, it looks like we can expect the new series of The White Lotus at some point in 2027, but with no official announcement yet we’ll have to wait and see.

Season four will take us back to Europe after previous seasons in Thailand, Italy and Hawaii, with The White Lotus opening its doors in France this time around.

And with shooting taking place across the French riviera and Paris, it sounds like we’re in for a characteristically luxurious experience – especially if recent reports of filming at a 19th-century palace-turned-luxury hotel in Saint-Tropez are anything to go by.

So far, creators are staying tight-lipped on what the next storyline will be. All we know for sure is that it will stick to the classic White Lotus format of following a group of guests and hotel staff over the course of a week.

Variety has cited a combination of sources and alluded to filming dates that indicate we could see the Cannes Film Festival work its way into the plot, but for now that’s all speculation.

Season three saw the conclusion of the plot that straddled all series of the show, surrounding Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya and her eventual demise, so we can presume that that’s now totally done and dusted, and we’re in for a completely fresh storyline.

Having said that, the show has a penchant for bringing back old characters, and with Belinda’s Natasha Rothwell setting off to start a new life at the end of season three, there’s always the possibility that we could see a return from other familiar faces in the next run.

The good news is, we have a hefty list of cast members who have already been reported to be on the call sheet.

Among them are well-known faces like Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Coogan, Vincent Cassel, Ari Graynor, Sandra Bernhard, Chris Messina, AJ Michalka (aka one half of musical duo Aly & AJ) and Alexander Ludwig, with the likes of Caleb Jonte Edwards, Corentin Fila, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Dylan Ennis and Marissa Long also believed to be checking in.

Meanwhile, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall’s son Charlie Hall, previously seen in The Sex Life Of College Girls, will take the “nepo baby” baton from last season’s Patrick Schwarzenegger and Sam Nivola when he joins the cast.

Most recently, it was announced that Kumail Nanjiani would be joining the line-up, along with New Girl actor Max Greenfield, Marvel star Chloe Bennet and Jarrad Paul.

There’s also the possibility that we’ll see some unexpected guest stars later down the line, as was the case during last season’s surprise appearance from Sam Rockwell.

While White Lotus creator Mike White is keeping his cards pretty close to his chest for the time being, he dropped a few season four tidbits in a recent interview with W Magazine.

He spoke about shooting his latest stint on the reality show Survivor six months before kicking off his White Lotus prep, explaining: “I came up with the concept of the show and the characters while I was there. But I don’t know if the experience itself really influenced it.”

Mike explained that the experience of returning from Survivor, and seeing the social media of people who he’d bonded with on the show, shaped his thinking for the series.

“I don’t know if that’s exactly the theme of the next season of White Lotus, but it’s definitely something I’ve thought about a lot – prioritising likes or the attention of strangers over creating real relationships,” he noted.

Pressed on what the new season will be about, the creator said “it’s a bit about fame, about who has the world’s attention, who is the plus-one, and how that can organise a relationship”.

“Some people are satisfied with the love of just an intimate partner, and some people need the love of strangers and a bigger kind of attention,” he elaborated.

And after the high melodrama of guns, blood and parables we saw in season three, last year Mike said he was keen to return to themes more aligned with season one in an interview for the official White Lotus podcast.

“Maybe something a little bit back to the first season where it’s satirising stuff that I know about,” he pondered.

“Art and criticism and movies and fame and celebrity and a film festival type of thing, or like an art world sort of situation. It just feels like that would be some kind of new theme to get into that’s maybe a little less heady than what we just did, but still have some juice to it.”

The first three seasons of The White Lotus are available to stream on Sky and Now in the UK.

Cillian Murphy has officially bowed out of his frontline role as Tommy Shelby in the Peaky Blinders franchise with the Birmingham-based blockbuster The Immortal Man.

The film transports us into the throes of World War Two, with regular faces from the TV series like Cillian, Stephen Graham and surprise returnee Sophie Rundle joined by a collection of new characters as they navigate Nazi plots and gangland Birmingham.

If you thought a few of the new additions looked familiar, here’s where you might have seen them…

One of the biggest stars of the moment, you’re probably most likely to know Barry Keoghan from his major breakthrough as bathtub-lurking wrong’un Oliver Quick in Saltburn.

He’s also starred in critically acclaimed films like The Banshees Of Inisherin (which landed him a Bafta award and an Oscar nomination), The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, Dunkirk, Bird and Bring Them Down.

Barry’s also no stranger to portraying a gangster, having also played one in the TV series Top Boy, while you might have also caught him in acclaimed miniseries Chernobyl.

Pop fans might also recognise him from his cameo in Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please music video, filmed when the pair were dating.

Finally, if you have seen pictures of Barry with a Ringo ’do or moustache doing the rounds, that’s because he’s set to appear as the Beatles drummer in Sam Mendes’ upcoming musical biopic films.

Rebecca Ferguson has been a regular fixture on the big screen in both Sweden and Hollywood since her breakout as Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible, in which she starred opposite Tom Cruise.

Since then, Rebecca has appeared in the likes of Florence Foster Jenkins, The Girl On The Train, The Greatest Showman, Doctor Sleep, Dune and A House Of Dynamite.

TV fans might recognise her from BBC’s 2013 historical drama The White Queen, Apple TV+ sci-fi series Silo or The Red Tent.

Tim Roth is part of the “Brit pack” of British actors who broke into Hollywood in the 1980s.

Well-known for his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino – in films including Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight – he also picked up a Bafta win, and an Oscar nomination, for his role in Rob Roy.

His TV breakthrough came when he played the teen racist skinhead Trevor in Alan Clarke’s Made In Britain, after which he went on to appear in series like Twin Peaks: The Return, Tin Star and Last King Of The Cross.

DC Comics fans will recognise Jay Lycurgo for his work in the TV series Titans, in which he played Robin, but interestingly he also had a small role in the Robert Pattinson movie The Batman, too.

His other TV work has included I May Destroy You, Cheaters and Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself.

On the big screen, Jay appeared in another of Cillian Murphy’s projects, Steve, for which he won a British Independent Film Award.

Like Jay, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis appeared in Cillian Murphy’s Steve before being cast in the Peaky Blinders film.

She previously appeared in Apple TV+’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, portrayed a younger version of Susan Lynch character in the hard-hitting drama National Treasure and played Amy Robsart in the historical drama Becoming Elizabeth.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about that surname, yes, Ruby is the daughter of fellow actors Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne, sharing the screen with her dad in the 2020 Netflix series The Letter For The King.

Before landing the role of Virgil in The Immortal Man, Thomas Arnold’s film work included bit parts in The Golden Compass, Netflix’s Matilda: The Musical, The Aeronauts and 2010’s Robin Hood.

As well as his five-episode stint in Wolf Hall as Hans Holbein, Thomas’ TV work has included everything from War & Peace and A Very Royal Scandal to Call The Midwife and The Missing.

Early in the morning of Nov. 10, 2017, I got the phone call every parent dreads and none of us are ever prepared for. On that November morning, my oldest daughter, 15-year old Parker Lily, lost the battle with her mental health that we thought she’d been winning. Since that call, my family and I have been trying to rebuild our lives.

For years, I carried around the same tacit misconception many people do about suicide: if someone seems depressed, dejected or hopeless, you don’t say the S-word. You definitely don’t ask if they’re thinking about taking their own life. The worry behind this misconception is simple: you don’t want to put the idea of suicide into their head.

I’m here to tell you, as a father whose life was split into “before” and “after” by that phone call, the opposite is true.

If you take nothing else from what I’m about to say, take this: you will not cause suicide by asking someone directly if they’re thinking about it.

The mental health world has firmly renounced the idea of not asking someone directly. And I’m hoping to get as many people as possible to understand this and to jettison silence. You might be the lifeline they didn’t know they were allowed to grab.

Parker wasn’t a “statistic.” She was my daughter. She was also a force of nature.

Even as a little girl, she was formidable: curious, larger than life and constantly creating. Almost from the time she could walk, teachers were telling us how gifted she was as an artist, how she possessed a level of abstract thinking way beyond her years.

She was a protective, loving big sister to her siblings Rory and Hudson. She was fiercely loyal, cared deeply about her family and friends and had an antipathy for injustice that would light up a room, or a dinner table argument.

She was also very funny. At four, she was already asking big questions like, “Why can’t I eat ice cream for breakfast?” and delivering them with a level of confidence that made you think, “Honestly, why can’t you?”

In later years, you would have seen a bright, artsy teenager who was thriving at her Maryland high school; a place structured specifically for kids battling mental health issues. She made friends, acted in plays, created art and seemed, finally, to be hitting her stride. From the inside, there was a lot more going on.

Parker struggled with her mental health. There were moods we didn’t understand, self-harm, a stay in a psych ward. There were shifts in medications, potential diagnoses (bipolar? borderline personality disorder?) that were terrifying to hear attached to your child. There were stretches when she seemed to be climbing out of it – when we allowed ourselves to think, “She’s winning. We’re over the worst of it.”

We wanted that to be true so badly.

The morning she died, my phone rang with a Maryland number I didn’t recognise. I almost didn’t pick up. But I did pick up, and I heard an officer tell me Parker had taken her own life. Her roommate had found her. The police hadn’t been able to reach her mother, Deb, my ex-wife. I heard a voice come out of my mouth that said: “I’ll tell Deb.”

My brain split. Part of me was insistent that this had to be a mistake, a sick joke. The other part was already running toward the house where Deb and the kids were sleeping, knowing I had to wake them up and say the words out loud.

On my way there, I found myself standing on a corner, outside of myself, waiting for a traffic light to change. The bus stop, the police precinct, the blue sky: None of it made sense. Parker was gone. There was no right side up.

Then something overwhelmed me, rushing past the horror. It was the first of many to follow. It was a wave of grief. Grief that manifested itself as pure love.

I’m not ascribing any mystical significance to the experience. I was reacting to massive trauma. Adrenaline, flooding brain chemicals, my emotions, my memories, all working together to keep me from completely losing my grip. That’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But in that moment, Parker came to me – from my heart, my mind, my soul – and gave me the courage to go to her mother, to her siblings, and tell them that she was gone.

That was the beginning of “After.”

In the months after Parker’s death, I started going to support groups for people left behind after suicide. I walked into those rooms feeling that my story was unique, my pain singular. I walked out realising that suicide is heartbreakingly common, and that most people don’t talk about it.

I heard story after story, each different in details but similar in impact: the shock, the guilt, the endless replaying of “What did I miss?” and “Why didn’t I…?” and “If only I’d said X, or done Y.”

The numbers are brutal, especially for young people. Too many of our kids are battling suicidal thoughts, and far too many of them are doing it in silence because they’re ashamed or scared, or because the adults around them are too terrified to even think about, let alone name what might be happening.

Then, in the spring of 2022, my daughter Rory wrote a college essay about living in the shadow of Parker’s death and her own mental health struggles. Reading her words – raw, direct, courageous – awoke something in me.

She talked about not knowing how to be anyone but “Parker’s sister,” about trying to figure out who she was in the wreckage. It knocked something loose in me.

I realised I couldn’t keep expecting my kids to tell the truth about their pain if I was going to stay quiet about mine. It was time to confront the silence and guilt that take over after suicide, and to make sure that people who feel pulled toward that edge know they are not alone. There is zero shame in asking for help.

So, I started telling my story.

At first, it wasn’t a show. It was just me, at a table late at night, scribbling memories and fragments: Parker as a little girl insisting on ice cream, Parker drawing on every surface in the apartment, Parker in a hospital gown apologising for being sick, Parker onstage at school and absolutely owning it.

I wrote about the day of the phone call and the immediate aftermath: the wake, and what it feels like to stand over your child’s body. What it feels like to see your grief mirrored by the family and friends surrounding you.

Over time, those pages turned into a script – a one-man show about a family punched through the heart by suicide, and the love that somehow keeps flowing regardless.

It’s a family portrait and a love letter to Parker. It’s also a survival story. Not a triumphant “and then everything was fine” survival, but the kind where you limp forward, fall down and keep getting up because there are still people who need you, who love you. I called it “Bent Through Glass” because life is unspeakably fragile, the world a place of broken shards despite our best efforts. And also, and more importantly, because even when glass fractures or breaks, it never ceases to refract the light around us.

If Parker can no longer be here, then what I want is for her story to help someone else stay.

If you’ve lost someone to suicide, you might be in the same loop I was:

How did I not see it coming? How did I let it happen? What kind of parent, partner, friend does this make me?

I don’t have answers that make those questions disappear. What I’ve learned is that the questions themselves are a vacuum. “Why?” is eternal, possessing an infinite array of answers. I spent years asking why, only to be dragged deeper into a lightless hole, every time.

The only thing that has any consistency for me now is this: don’t turn away from it. Turn toward it. That means turning toward your own grief instead of stuffing it down and pretending you’re “fine.” It means turning toward the people around you who are hurting, instead of looking away because you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing.

And it especially means this: if you think someone you love might be suicidal, say the word. Ask the question.

You are not going to “give them the idea.” If they are in that kind of pain, the idea is already there. What you might give them is permission to tell the truth out loud. Ask directly: “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” If the answer is yes:

• Stay.
• Tell them you’re grateful they told you.
• Help them reach out to trained support: a crisis line (in the U.S., you can call or text 988), a therapist, a doctor, a trusted adult, whoever is available and trained to help.

You don’t have to fix them. You’re not a superhero. You’re a human being saying, “I see you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

If you’re the one in that dark place right now, hovering on the edge of thoughts you don’t want to admit even to yourself, this is what I want to say as a father:

Stay. Stay long enough to tell one person. Stay long enough to make one call or send one text. Stay long enough to get through this hour, and then the next one.

You are not weak for needing help. You are not a burden for feeling this way. There is no shame in saying, “I can’t hold this alone.”

When I step out under the lights and tell this story, I’m not doing it because I enjoy reliving the worst day of my life. I’m doing it because, in the aftermath of Parker’s death and Rory and Hudson’s struggles, it’s clear to me that silence around suicide is killing people.

We cannot afford that silence anymore. We never could.

Alex Koltchak is a writer, filmmaker, actor, performer, and stand-up comedian. His one-man show, Bent Through Glass, is being staged at The 30th Street Theater in NYC from April 1-25, 2026, with the aim of performing the work nationally.