Bridgerton bosses have finally confirmed that Hannah Dodd will be taking the lead in the next season of the hit period drama.

After much speculation, Netflix announced on Tuesday afternoon that season five would focus on the love story between Francesca Bridgerton and Michaela Stirling (played by Masali Budaza), the first time the show has had a same-sex romance as its main plot.

It also marks something of a departure from the Francesca romance outlined in the Bridgerton novel When He Was Wicked.

While in the book, Francesca falls in love with her late husband’s cousin, Michael Stirling, this character was gender-swapped for the TV adaptation.

Showrunner Jess Brownell previously said: “I didn’t want to just insert a queer character for queer character’s sake. I want to tell a story that accurately reflects a queer experience, and the first time I read Francesca’s book, I really identified with it as a queer woman.”

Jess went on to say that she related to Francesca, who is described in the books as feeling “different” without “really knowing why”.

“As a queer woman, a lot of my queer experience, and I think a lot of my friends’ [experiences have] been about that sense of feeling different, and navigating what that means,” she explained.

Bridgerton author Julia Quinn also gave this move her personal seal of approval, insisting: “Anyone who has seen an interview with me from the past four years knows that I am deeply committed to the Bridgerton world becoming more diverse and inclusive as the stories move from book to screen.”

Production on season five of Bridgerton is officially underway, following the success of the fourth run, which concluded last month.

Fans could still be in for a bit of a wait until their next trip to the Ton, though, with Francesca and Michaela’s season expected to premiere in late 2027 at the earliest.

If you grew up hooked on Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus has a very special nostalgic present you’re going to absolutely love.

To commemorate 20 years since she first donned that iconic blonde wig, the Grammy winner recently took part in an exciting anniversary special, which premiered on Disney+ in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Over the course of the hour-long special, Miley revisited the classic Disney Channel series, performing iconic songs from its soundtrack, taking part in one-off skits and interviews and reuniting with almost the entire cast.

Here are seven of the biggest highlights from Hannah Montana’s 20th anniversary special, including stand-out performances, surprise revelations and A-list guests…

Miley Cyrus’ long and complicated road to being cast as Hannah Montana is a well-documented one, with the child performer originally auditioning when she was far too young for the part, only to be asked back around a year later when producers deemed they couldn’t find anyone as good as her.

However, what fans might not realise is just how close Miley came to not being cast in the show at all.

Former Disney exec Gary Marsh recalled: “We were down to the last two girls, and you were this 12-year-old pistol, raw and real, and fresh out of Tennessee. And you both left… there [were] 10 people in the room, and we took a vote. It was not a landslide.

“People put forth their real opinion, and I had made a decision, and I wrote an email to the team. It said, ’we pride ourselves not just on creating great television, but on creating stars. I’m ready to pull the trigger on Miley. Is she a risk? Unquestionably true. Is she a potential star? Absolutely.

“’And whatever comes of this decision, I’m thrilled that all of us will be able to sit down over a drink in a few years and remember this moment when we decided to forsake the safe route for the riskier one and the greater reward’.”

“Dylan Sprouse was my boyfriend,” Miley admitted, referring to the child star, who at the time was known for The Suite Life Of Zac & Cody and his work as Ben on Friends. “I think he was the cutest.”

She added that Dylan and his twin brother Cole Sprouse’s father “would take us to sushi”.

Miley quipped: “It was a two-for-one. Like, bring the brother. Hello!”

The future chart-topper would go on to share the screen with her childhood sweetheart in a cross-over episode between Hannah Montana, The Suite Life Of Zac & Cody and That’s So Raven.

As well as writing songs for Hannah Montana: The Movie, Taylor Swift also made a cameo in the 2009 film.

“This was kind of the beginning of her career,” Miley recalled in the new special. “They were looking for someone that would authentically – no shade – be performing in a barn.”

She continued: “We both performed in the barn, and so she came into the performance, and she had written a song for the Hannah Montana movie, maybe even two. But she actually wrote the finale song, You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.”

“Credit where credit’s due. She ate with that one,” Miley added.

Miley and Selena Gomez started their careers around the same time, with the latter appearing in Disney projects like Wizards Of Waverly Place around the time Hannah Montana was becoming a TV and musical phenomenon.

Selena even appeared in three episodes of the show as Mikayla, a rival pop star to Hannah Montana.

As a surprise for Miley during one segment, Selena made an impromptu appearance in the anniversary special, where they reflected on their early starts on the Disney Channel.

“The whole Meet Miley album was my life,” the Only Murders In The Building star enthused. “You created culture, babe!”

One thing producers managed to keep under wraps before the special was that it would feature a short interview between Miley and woman of the hour, Chappell Roan, who was a Hannah Montana superfan growing up.

During their conversation, the Pink Pony Club singer also thanked Miley for her contributions to pop culture, claiming: “You walked so I could run. What I do on stage [or] when I go on a red carpet and I can just be… that’s because you took a lot of heat for that in 2012 and 2013. I don’t have to deal with that as much because the world took it out on you.”

Chappell added: “I’m so grateful that I get to be a part of this – I mean, I grew up watching Hannah at my grandparents’ house. It just means so much and I’m so grateful to you.”

We’re definitely going to have that on repeat for the foreseeable…

Once you’ve popped it, locked it and, indeed, polka dotted it, you clearly never forget it.

Hannah Montana: 20th Anniversary Special is now streaming on Disney+.

If you think taking care of your health is an all-or-nothing game, we have some reassuring news: a paper published in February found that sleeping for five minutes longer, exercising for two minutes more, and eating an added half-portion of veggies a day may be enough to extend your lifespan.

And now, a study in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology has shared that tiny changes to your lifestyle can significantly decrease your risk of heart attack, too.

Dr Nicholas Koemel, the study’s lead author, said: “Combining small changes in a few areas of our lives can have a surprisingly large positive impact on our cardiovascular health.

“This is very encouraging news because making a few small, combined changes is likely more achievable and sustainable for most people when compared with attempting major changes in a single behaviour”.

This research followed over 53,000 participants in the UK Biobank study over eight years. They looked at diet (self-reported), sleep, and exercise (both measured with wearable devices), and compared those scores to participants’ heart attack rates.

They found that the people least likely to suffer heart attacks followed these behaviours:

• Sleeping from eight to nine hours a night,
• Doing 42 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day,
• Having a “modest” diet quality score.

That was linked to a 57% lower risk of heart attack compared to the least healthy groups.

But a 10% risk reduction can be achieved with:

• 11 extra minutes of sleep,
• 4.5 added minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day, and
• About 50g (a quarter of a US cup measurement) of additional vegetables.

Dr Koemel said that this study should help us remember the importance of tiny lifestyle tweaks.

“Making even modest shifts in our daily routines is likely to have cardiovascular benefits as well as create opportunities for further changes in the long run,” he shared.

“I would encourage people not to overlook the importance of making a small change or two to your daily routine, no matter how small they may seem.”

And the study’s lead author, Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis, added, “We plan to build on these findings to develop new digital tools that support people in making positive lifestyle changes and establish sustained healthy habits.

“This will involve working closely with community members to make sure the tools are easy to use and can address the barriers we all face in making tweaks to our day-to-day routines.”

Between its hilarious advertising campaign, Ryan Gosling back in full leading man mode and Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller delivering a karaoke performance for the ages, Project Hail Mary is the movie the whole world is talking about right now.

Adapted from the popular Andy Weir novel of the same name, the sci-fi adventure features an impressive cast that also includes Industry’s Ken Leung and The Bear’s Lionel Boyce – but the fact that one of Hollywood’s most recognisable names is also in the movie might have passed you by.

Meryl Streep is one of the voices of the alien Rocky, with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller having now opened up about exactly how they managed to snag the three-time Oscar winner for their new movie.

When putting together the character of Rocky, Phil and Chris began by doing “a bunch of silly voices ourselves”, before inviting members of the crew to try it out themselves.

Phil recalled to Entertainment Weekly: “We tried to imagine voices that would be preloaded into a text-to-speech kind of translator.”

It was then that the idea to try and secure Streep for the part, with the directors turning to the legendary producer Amy Pascal in the hopes that her existing relationship with the Devil Wears Prada star might play in their favour.

“And then she did, and she was wonderful,” Phil said, with Chris adding: “she was so fun and thoughtful and playful and did a million different versions: ‘I’ll do more. You want me to try this? Try that?’.

“But every time you rehearsed in the mirror, going, ‘Meryl, would you by any chance want to play a rejected voice of an alien?’ Just trying to explain it to her… ‘You know what? I’m going to ask her tomorrow’.”

Interestingly, Project Hail Mary is one of two films featuring voice work from Meryl in cinemas now, with the legendary actor also playing a role in the new Pixar project Hoppers.

These two movies have brought an and to a hiatus from the big screen of almost five years from Meryl, who last appeared in the film Don’t Look Up.

In that time, she has appeared in several TV roles, though, most notably the award-winning mystery comedy Only Murders In The Building.

Later this year, she’s also due to reprise the role of Miranda Priestley in the long-awaited Devil Wears Prada sequel, released 20 years after the original movie.

Additional comment provided by Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume.

Burnout is alarmingly common in UK workplaces. It’s expected to affect about 65% of workers (20% of employees have taken time off for work-related stress).

That can be caused by high workload, low pay, a lack of support, and unrealistic expectations.

But if you ask Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, some of those people are experiencing something called a “competence hangover,” too.

It’s a form of burnout that happens when a worker feels solely, or mostly, responsible for keeping their workplace afloat.

You might feel that standards would drop to unacceptable levels without you, or that serious mistakes would be made in your absence – leading to immense perceived pressure.

“If you feel responsible for other people’s well-being at work, you might be more likely to push yourself further, taking on extra tasks or working later, potentially to the point of burnout,” said Duris.

“You can develop this issue in any kind of job, but there are some career paths where people might be more vulnerable to a ‘competence hangover,’” Duris told HuffPost UK.

“This includes jobs where workers can find themselves under a lot of emotional strain,” like medicine, teaching, and social work.

And, Duris added, personality matters too.

“Studies have shown that people who are highly conscientious are more likely to take on extra work, describing themselves as feeling exhausted and emotionally drained.

“Because they’re seen as reliable, these employees are often asked by managers to take on extra tasks on top of helping their coworkers. Managers should be mindful of this to avoid overloading their teams.”

Per Duris, some signs include:

1. Feeling exhausted,
2. Coming back to work after the weekend as if you haven’t had a proper rest,
3. Struggling with decision-making can feel harder,
4. Low creativity,
5. Feeling resentful of coworkers.

“On the other hand, if you’re a manager who’s worried about one of your team members, it might come out in a one-to-one meeting, so make sure that you’re making time for these catch-ups,” he added.

Competence “hangovers” are a form of burnout that can make you feel like you need to switch jobs.

“Sometimes a couple of days off can help take the pressure off a bit. But people whose exhaustion is deeper than this might find themselves needing to use sick leave, or consider leaving their job,” he said.

“Even if you love your work and you’re a high performer, it’s not worth risking your wellbeing and your health.

If you have a supportive manager and workplace, he added, relying on the people you work with more could help to ease your stress.

“But if you can’t rely on the other people at your company to pick up the slack after you’ve been giving it your all to keep everything going – to the point that you’ve burned out – it might be time to start thinking about a change of direction,” he ended.

Nigel Farage has been urged to sack Reform’s mayoral candidate after he compared a Jewish community group to “Islamists on horseback”.

Chris Parry, who is standing to be the mayor of Hampshire, made the shocking comment about members of a Jewish neighbourhood safeguarding group called Shomrim.

His remarks came hours after an arson attack on ambulances run by a Jewish charity, Hatzola, in North London, which works alongside Shomrim.

Parry, who previously courted controversy for claiming deputy prime minister David Lammy should “go home” to the Caribbean, reposted a post on X, asking: “Can Christian’s [sic] in Britain set up their own police and patrol certain neighbourhoods?”

Parry added: “Remember that these cosplayers have no more jurisdiction or legal authority than ordinary citizens.”

After another user questioned the mayoral candidate over the depiction of Shomrim, he wrote: “They are a community organisation, not a legal entity. It’s the same with Islamists on horseback. But if it offends you, I’ll remove it.”

He later told the Guardian: “Most people on X commenting seem to be confusing various community action groups with the real police. Keen that people understand that.”

The retired rear admiral is set to stand in the Hampshire and the Solent mayoral election in 2028.

A Labour Party spokesperson hit out at the Reform party leader for keeping Parry on.

They said: “Nigel Farage should have done the right thing and booted Chris Parry out of Reform UK months ago. He’s previously made a huge number of appalling and racist comments and faced no action – he simply isn’t fit to be a candidate for public office.

“All politicians should be standing squarely with the Jewish community in the face of appalling antisemitism – particularly after the despicable antisemitic attack in Golders Green last night.

“The fact Nigel Farage has repeatedly failed to take any action against Chris Parry shows how far he’s willing to drag politics into the gutter. Labour will always stand with the Jewish community and continue working to ensure they are not subjected to racism, discrimination, or violence.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson also lashed out at Parry’s remarks.

He said: “Nigel Farage should act now to drop Chris Parry as Reform’s Hampshire mayoral candidate. These remarks were deeply insensitive, insulting and not befitting of someone who wants to hold public office.

“At a time when we are all thinking of the Jewish community after such a disturbing attack, these comments will compound the pain so many people are already feeling.”

Reform UK has been contacted for comment.