A 2014 picture of Lewis Hamilton and Kim Kardashian is going viral, with people citing it as an example – and even “proof” – of the so-called “invisible string theory”.

The decade-old photo shows Lewis and Nicole Scherzinger (who were together on and off for around eight years), pictured alongside Kim Kardashian and her ex-husband Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) at the GQ Men of the Year Awards.

“This 2014 picture really hits different in 2026,” reads a post on Reddit’s r/poprant, alluding to the fact Kim is now in a romantic relationship with the Formula 1 driver.

“What do they call it? The invisible string theory?” added a commenter.

Meanwhile a social media post by entertainment site Page Six suggested the new couple are “proof” that the theory “really does exist”.

It’s a belief that people can be connected by an unseen force (the invisible string) which ultimately brings them together when the time is right.

This idea – that people come together through fate, and that the right people will find their way back to you – has been around for a very long time (in Chinese mythology, a red thread of fate was tied around those destined to be soulmates).

However, in recent years it was popularised by Taylor Swift’s song, Invisible String, as well as through a multitude of TikTok videos where people have shared their own “invisible string” stories.

“While the concept has roots in folklore and popular culture, many people relate to it because it captures the feeling that some relationships hold a unique significance in our lives,” marriage therapist and author of The Formula of Desire, Anna Elton, told Cosmopolitan.

We all love a love story – and in the case of Kim and Lewis, it began as friendship. The pair have known each other as far back as 2014 (probably even longer) when they were both in relationships with other people, and would often cross paths at various events, from fashion shows to Innovator awards.

Last October, Kim told Radio Andy that she wasn’t “open” to romance while she was studying for the bar and looking after her four children who “needed a little bit [of] extra attention”.

During an episode of The Kardashians a month later, she suggested she’s the “biggest hopeless romantic” and “when the right person comes along, I’ll be so ready”.

And ready she was. In February this year, there were rumours abound that the Skims founder and F1 legend had spent a romantic weekend together in the Cotswolds, before jetting off to Paris.

The pair were later spotted at the Super Bowl together in what would be their first public appearance.

Fast forward to June, and Kim hard-launched their relationship by featuring the British racing driver in an Instagram post, alongside snaps of her family.

A week after that, Kim was spotted at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, where Lewis told ESPN: “It’s amazing to have her come this weekend and have the support … It’s amazing to have good people around you and good people supporting you and she does that for me every day.”

Whether you believe in it or not, experts note the theory can provide comfort during periods of loss or heartbreak – for example, it can help you believe you’ll eventually find your person as “everything happens for a reason”.

Licensed relationship therapist Jaime Bronstein told People it can also help people looking for love to “relax and extinguish ‘desperation mode’”.

“They can eliminate the fear that they aren’t going to find their soulmate because they can trust they will,” she said. “This doesn’t mean that people should sit at home and assume their ‘person’ will come knocking on their door. However, it helps as singles are starting to show up more authentically on their dates with less anxiety.”

But, there are downsides too. Cosmopolitan has noted: “Believing someone is ‘meant’ for you can make it easier to excuse unhealthy behaviour, ignore incompatibilities, or stay emotionally invested in someone who has made it clear they don’t want the relationship.”

So, don’t let it keep you stuck: either in a relationship that’s toxic, or waiting for someone who’s not showing up.

We’re approaching that time of the year when all of our favourite reality shows start coming back for their new seasons – RuPaul’s Drag Race UK being just one of them.

On Tuesday afternoon, Drag Race UK unveiled the eclectic mix of queens who’ll be put through their paces by returning judges RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Alan Carr and Graham Norton when the Bafta-nominated show returns for its eighth season in the autumn.

An official press release teases “a fresh batch of 12 sassy, snatched and seriously talented queens ready to race for glory”, and judging from the line-up, we’re inclined to believe it.

Here’s a quick guide to the new cast…

She says: “Brighton girlies have not had the best track record on Drag Race UK, but I’m here to smash that curse.

“I am infamous in Brighton, regularly performing in Brighton’s biggest gay club, and you know what, I am an icon.”

She says: “I deserve to be UK’s next Drag Race superstar because I am bringing something completely different that you all ain’t ever seen before.

“It’s all about being cool, calm, collected but having some poise, and having a good demeanour about you.”

She says: “If I had to describe my genre of drag, I would say I’m mer-mazing! My drag is very much inspired by my love of the sea and my background in marine biology.

“Growing up, I was obsessed by the ocean, sea creatures and mermaids. I always knew I wanted to be a mermaid or a creature from the deep one day.”

She says: “I represent a rare type of character-led drag. I have one signature distinct look. I love power dressing, shoulder pads, tailored suits and I always sashay into the boardroom with my signature bob!

“I am so excited to be here representing the undisputed financial capital of the UK, Darlington. Let’s get down to business!”

She says: “I want to remind people that drag is creative and powerful, but it’s more than dressing up. We can create positive change, and we can do so whilst looking amazing.”

She says: “I am the full package. I want to win this competition as a win for the older, more mature divas, and showcase the cabaret scene. I’m going to slide into this competition and make you want a little bit more KY.”

She says: “My aesthetic is culture, heritage, history, It’s very much East meets West. I’m very glamorous and playful, but beware, Lucky is shady but kind.”

She says: “I deserve my place in this fabulous competition, I’ve worked so hard to be here, and I want to prove to the nation that I can be the ultimate winner on this massive platform. Look at her, she’s an icon!

“But if I have to play dirty, to win the competition, I’ll play dirty, that said I’m a true professional, and I’m a very experienced lady!”

She says: “I’m Soho perfection blended with East London grit. Mocha is a good time girl who’s a little bit kooky. My drag is all about looking cartoonish, and I also love musical theatre – Barbra Streisand is my icon.

“I lean towards the vintage and the showgirl. I’m both fashionable and funny. I’m so blessed to be both because it means I’m sickening.”

She says: “If you come to a Naya Thorn show, you’re going to get a theatre performance that is going to make you feel every emotion. Are you going to feel happy or are you going to feel sad? That depends on the song, but I will always choose a song that means something to me. I just really enjoy connecting with an audience.”

She says: “Nobody else in the UK can do what I do, I can perform 60 numbers back-to-back, as long as I’ve got my wind machine, and my wig doesn’t come off, I’ll just keep going.

“I will definitely leave my mark, my impact, and Drag Race UK will forever be changed because of Paris Baby. Period.”

She says: “Tequila is a ray of sunshine, who cannot be suppressed. Obviously, with a name like Tequila, I’m the self-confessed queen of limes. I love juicy greens, hot pinks and bright citrus colours.

“I am a Vietnamese North Londoner, and my identity subtly informs my drag. I’m here on this platform to shine bright, like a tequila glass.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK returns to BBC Three and BBC iPlayer in the autumn. See more from the new batch of queens below:

There are a plethora of benefits associated with walking, so it’s no wonder the NHS previously called the activity “overlooked” as a form of exercise.

As little as 2,337 steps a day can lower your risk of dying from heart-related health conditions. The activity can also help to manage blood pressure and cholesterol, and has been linked to stronger bones, better sleep quality and even a reduction in dementia risk.

But while we know it’s important for our health, less is said about how it can benefit our relationships, too.

In fact, a new study suggests that couples who exercise together – mostly, through walking – report better communication, stronger conflict resolution and lower levels of marital stress than couples who don’t.

For the study, published in Family Relations, researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) looked at survey data from nearly 1,700 newly-married couples.

The team compared the effects of individual workouts and physical activity performed together as a couple on three outcomes: communication, conflict resolution and marital stress.

Walking was the most commonly reported form of shared exercise among couples in the study.

Both individual workouts and couple workouts were associated with healthier marriages, but exercising together consistently showed stronger associations with positive relationship outcomes than exercising solo.

“About 60% of husbands and wives in the sample said they exercised, but only about a third exercised together,” said BYU professor Jeremy Yorgason.

“That means about half the people who exercise are not exercising with their spouse. While the impact is not necessarily large, it is very consistent, which gives me confidence that it is influencing relationships in some meaningful way.”

Researchers said exercising together creates opportunities for positive interactions and conversation, which can strengthen relationships over time.

“Out of all three outcomes, exercise had the biggest impact on communication,” said study co-author Ashlyn Hiatt Mildenhall, who began the project as an undergraduate researcher.

“That’s why it was interesting that walking was the number one reported exercise. It naturally provides opportunities to communicate.”

Walking can give you the space to have deep and meaningful chats, free from distraction.

The research also found that couples who exercised together reported better listening and greater feelings of being heard and supported by their spouse.

Prof Yorgason said these interactions may help explain why shared exercise was associated with healthier communication and conflict resolution.

The authors did warn that shared exercise isn’t a cure for relationship challenges, but it can create regular opportunities for connection amid the demands of school, life and parenting.

In the last couple of years, Tina Fey’s heartwarming comedy The Four Seasons has become one of Netflix’s most popular new original series.

The show recently premiered its second run of episodes, once again centring on a year in the lives of a tight-knit group of devoted friends.

Netflix has already confirmed that the series – which stars Tina alongside the likes of Will Forte, Kerri Kenney-Silver and Oscar nominee Colman Domingo – has already been renewed for a third season, in which new addition David Tennant is expected to be boosted to the main cast.

Fans are in for a bit of a wait until then, though, with seasons one and two debuting in May 2025 and May 2026, respectively.

However, there’s been an addition to Netflix this week that could well help tide viewers over.

What you might not realise is that The Four Seasons is actually a reworking of a popular film from the early 1980s, directed and written by Alan Alda, who also stars as its lead.

Earlier this week, the film The Four Seasons began streaming on Netflix UK, offering many viewers the chance to check out the source material that inspired Tina’s Emmy-nominated series.

Co-creator Lang Fisher previously told Netflix that when she and Tina first began collaborating, the 30 Rock star “kept saying, ‘I want it to be like The Four Seasons’”.

“Finally we were like, ’Should we just watch The Four Seasons?’ We did, and then we were like, ‘Oh, we should just do that movie’,” she recalled.

In fact, Alan even had a small cameo in season one, sharing the screen with Tina and Colman.

Tina enthused at the time: “He’s fantastic. His timing is as incredible as it ever was. He looks so handsome.”

“Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to be able to tell Alan Alda in person how much I love the movie, and also [his Four Seasons co-star] Carol Burnett,” she added. “They both were kind of like, ‘That’s weird because you were 10. This movie wasn’t really intended for you.’

“Alan Alda was very generous in giving us his blessing early on to develop this. I think he was excited that it was coming back to life. It was obviously a project that was near and dear to him.”

This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of House Of The Dragon.

House Of The Dragon actor James Norton has weighed in on how things played out for his character in the season three finale.

James joined the cast of the Game Of Thrones prequel as Lord Ormund Hightower in its third outing, with the character meeting his end as season three drew to a close, being first stabbed in the bum (ouchie) and then burned to a crisp by a dragon (double ouchie) during an epic battle sequence.

Speaking to Variety in an interview published after the finale aired, James insisted that it was a “lot of fun” to shoot his character’s “big, delicious death”.

“Before I read the script, there was a lot of chatter around how it was going to happen,” he claimed.I” knew it was going to be very different from the books. It happens a lot with this show where they push it to the extreme. When they realise where the boundary is, they pull it back a bit.

“So there was originally a version where Ormund gets impaled like 20 times, and then we’re like, ‘That’s probably a little too much!’.”

James praised the “odd intimacy” in Ormund and Roddy the Ruin dying together and being “preserved”, comparing their fate to “the graves when you find these couples intertwined”.

“These incongruous people end up dying in the same dragon fire and looking the same way in a strangely intimate sort of pose,” he said.

He also admitted it was “bittersweet” to be saying goodbye to House Of The Dragon after having such a “really lovely time” shooting his character’s arc, and praised the fantastic work of his colleagues across all departments.

He also claimed: “In a way, Ormund wouldn’t have been so delicious were he to have survived. I don’t think the show would have allowed me to be as brave and courageous and given me such license to be as playful because that type of character can tire, probably. There’s less places for him to go.

“It was inevitable, I imagine. The way his character was developed and allowed to be big and breathe, taking risks only happened because they knew he was not going to survive. So it was a blessing and a curse. It’ll be weird when they go back to shoot the next season and I won’t be there. But I’m so grateful that I got to come in and have this big showy moment and ludicrous memorable death…”

Besides Ormund, Phia Saban’s Helaena Targaryen also met her end in the latest House Of The Dragon finale, describing her character’s demise as an “honour”.

House Of The Dragon’s fourth and final season is likely to premiere in 2028. Before then, there’s plenty more to look forward to from the Game Of Thrones universe.

Nigel Farage has slapped down Zia Yusuf after he described a former Tory cabinet minister who served in the Army “a traitor to Britain”.

The Reform UK leader said his home affairs spokesman’s comments about Ben Wallace were “over the top”.

Farage told The Sun: “That is too strong a language. I shall give him a ticking off, don’t worry.

“I’ll speak to him today, but it’s over the top.”

His comments come after a senior Reform figure said Yusuf’s remarks were “inappropriate and counter-productive”.

Tim Montgomerie – a leading political commentator who quit the Tories to join Reform – said Yusuf’s language “isn’t acceptable”.

Yusuf hit out at Ben Wallace after he criticised Reform’s plan to fix the shortage of prison spaces by sending foreign criminals abroad.

Writing on X, he said: “Incredible that this moron was defence secretary.

“Our policy today is in direct response to your government’s failures.

“If their home countries won’t take back, their citizens that are languishing in our jails, we are renting spaces in countries like El Salvador to put them.

“They will serve their full jail terms there, and will be banned from ever coming back to Britain.

“They may well include some of the thousands of Afghans you imported, including those who had not been vetted properly and including Taliban fighters (!).

“You know, the ones you took a super injunction out to keep secret from the British people? That’s why I call you a traitor to Britain. You fit the dictionary definition.”

Yusuf’s tweet remains up on his X feed, as does a poll in which he asks if Wallace should be “prosecuted for treason”.

The row once again highlights the tensions at the top of Reform, which has seen its poll lead over Labour disappear in recent weeks.

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Jason Isaacs has shared his take on the controversy surrounding the source material for his film The Salt Path.

Last year, the White Lotus star shared the screen with Gillian Anderson in the big-screen adaptation of Raynor Winn’s book of the same name.

However, months after its release, The Salt Path faced scrutiny in the media after The Observer published a piece casting doubt on some of the claims in the book, which had been marketed as a memoir.

Last week, Jason was a guest on the podcast Kermode On Film, where he was asked about the movie’s impending US release.

“It’s going to be interesting doing publicity for The Salt Path now that there’s been [renewed scrutiny],” the always-candid British actor claimed.

He went as far as questioning whether the team behind the film’s US release actually wanted him to do any promotion for it, to which they responded: “Absolutely.”

“I went, ‘OK, yeah, fine’,” he claimed, maintaining that The Salt Path is a “beautiful film” and that “much of it is still completely valid”.

“Obviously, some of the things have been questioned,” he added, conceding that promoting it will no doubt be an “interesting experience”.

Just days later, Gillian also spoke about the Salt Path backlash for the first time, calling the debacle “very unfortunate”.

“The film was doing really well in the UK – beyond my expectations,” she told Radio Times. “I think we were about to sign with Sony Classics for the United States the week when the article came out, so it sucked, and continues to suck.”

Like Jason, she claimed that the film is “special in its own right”, insisting: “I hope people are able to experience it as its own entity, separate from what may or may not be true or whatever controversy there is.”

In Raynor Winn’s first Salt Path book, she claimed that she and her husband Moth had walked the 600-mile length of the South West Coast Path after being made homeless.

She also discussed Moth’s struggles with the neurodegenerative disease corticobasal degeneration (CBD), which he was diagnosed with shortly before the couple lost their home, in her writing.

However, The Observer’s piece raised questions about a number of parts in the book, including exactly what led to the couple being made homeless, and specific parts of Moth’s illness.

At the time, the writer’s legal team provided a statement to The Observer, which read: “The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.”

The Telegraph also published a longer version of this statement, which added: “[The] Observer article is highly misleading. We are taking legal advice and won’t be making any further comment at this time.”

Parts of the UK are right on the brink of their sixth heatwave, and brown grass carpets much of the south. (Luckily, that doesn’t mean your lawn’s died).

Still, that, alongside hosepipe bans, has had a knock-on effect on gardeners. Writing to Reddit’s r/GardeningUK forum, posters shared their “heatwave casualties” and outright deaths.

But other Redditors were surprised to see that certain species, like lavender, seemed to thrive.

We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how to drought- and heatwave-proof your garden for 2027.

If you’re looking for specific species, however, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) conducted an Extreme Heat Survey this July, “painting a clear picture that even established, formerly healthy plants could not cope with the searing temperatures, which reached well above 30°C.”

They received responses from over 8,000 UK gardeners who’d just been battling with weeks of unprecedented dry weather and drought.

Per the RHS’ data, the “losers” in extreme heat were:

1. Hydrangea
2. Acer
3. Fuchsia
4. Astilbe
5. Roses
6. Anemone
7. Ferns
8. Heuchera
9. Phlox
10. Crocosmia.

However, while crocosmia might show damage early on, that doesn’t mean it’ll be hurt in the long run.

Leigh Hunt, the RHS’ principal horticultural advisor, said: “As temperatures become more extreme don’t replace like for like – if a plant is struggling in your garden you can plant something better suited to the space.”

The RHS also ran a separate (unexpected) trial in their own Wisley garden.

The area went without rain for almost six weeks, and gardeners took note of what survived.

1. Persian roses
2. Baptista
3. Wild carrots
4. Crape myrtles.

Other drought-tolerant plants include lavender, rosemary, and grasses like Festuca arundinacea.

BBC Gardeners’ World said geums, hardy geraniums, bearded irises, nepeta, sea hollies, and sedums can flourish in dry weather too.