More infoA Bristol-based debut author has been named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Harriet Baker was honoured with the prestigious prize for Rural Hours - hailed as "sparkling" and a "glorious surprise" by judges. It tells the story of the three different women, who were all forever changed by moving to the countryside. Founded in 1991, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award recognises the best literary work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish writer aged 35 or under. The other contenders for the award were Moses McKenzie’s sophomore novel Fast by the Horns, debut novelist Scott Preston's The Borrowed Hills and poet Ralf Webb's non-fiction debut Strange Relations.

LAST week I invited your views on Gillian Ford’s plea to make some of the Killer Su Dokus in the Books section on Saturdays slightly less Deadly, and you enthusiastically took up the invitation. “Please don’t make the Saturday Killer easier. I would have thought that by now most solvers find even the moderate level too easy.” Colin Walls’s objection is not that they are hard, but that they are ugly. “When they first came out we got handcrafted, elegant puzzles with graded progression of the solving process. Now we get puzzles where, mostly, after a few easy numbers you struggle to get the first very hard number, and then the rest is just routine.” Arthur Ray is “hooked on the

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Nearly one in ten people in England think they could have long Covid, according to analysis of national data. This showed that 4.8 per cent of people report suffering from long Covid, while a further 9.1 per cent believed they may have it but are not sure. Long Covid is a chronic condition induced by Covid-19 infection, with symptoms including fatigue, feeling short of breath, “brain fog”, and heart palpitations. The findings, published in the journal Health Expectations, show the continuing effect of the pandemic on the health of the UK. The illness is keeping tens of thousands of people out of work, impacting economic growth,

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” Churchill proclaimed. When John A. Hemingway died in Dublin on Monday at 105 — the Royal Air Force announced his death — he was the last known survivor of the “few,” nearly 3,000 pilots and crew who saved Britain in the early stages of World War II. Mr. Hemingway, who was known as Paddy, piloted Hurricane fighters in the battle, which took place in the skies above Britain between July 10 and Oct. 31, 1940. Hitler had planned a September 1940 invasion of the British Isles, known as Operation Sea Lion. However, the Blitz, Germany’s bombing of London and other British cities, extended into the spring of 1941.

Thane: An organisation representing depositors of New India Cooperative Bank, hit by alleged embezzlement of Rs 122 crore, have submitted a petition to RBI, seeking immediate measures to revive the bank and end their financial hardships. The New India Cooperative Bank Depositors' Foundation said it suspects that "deeper financial irregularities like undisclosed non-performing assets or additional frauds could be contributing to the crisis". Its president, T N Raghunatha, said many depositors have been unable to meet medical and educational expenses owing to RBI 's restrictions. The petition argued that a Rs 122-crore fraud should not have been severe enough to destabilise a bank with a deposit base of Rs 2,436 crore as of March 2024. pti

This audio is created with AI assistanceThe U.K. hopes that the U.S. will provide drones and satellite surveillance to monitor the border zone between Ukraine and Russia if a ceasefire agreement is reached, the Times reported on March 18, citing unnamed British diplomats. The U.S. military has 247 military satellites and thousands of commercial satellites, providing an "unrivaled picture" of eastern Ukraine that European forces would struggle to replicate, the Times wrote. Satellites with high-resolution imaging and thermal sensors could track troop movements, detect artillery fire, and monitor border areas for ceasefire violations. According to the Times, U.S. drones and satellites could enforce a possible buffer zone on either side of the front line to prevent hostilities from resuming. The discussions follow U.S.-led negotiations in Saudi Arabia, where Washington proposed a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

England’s leading digital nurse has said she remains optimistic about the future of technological transformation in the health service, despite the recent news that NHS England will be dissolved. Helen Balsdon, chief nursing information officer (CNIO) for the country, told Nursing Times that nurses would be key to harnessing technology to improve the health service after upcoming restructure. “It’s not just NHS England; [integrated care boards], providers – we’re all having to work in a different operating model, with some fiscal challenges. Ms Grafton, while chairing the panel, said she was “disappointed” at the way the news about NHS England was announced, and that “a lot" of people in the profession were “anxious” about what the future held. She reiterated that, in her view, “the future is bright”, although there would be “difficult decisions” in the future.

Charlotte Tilbury tops Sunday Times UK beauty rich list ByNigel TAYLOR PublishedMarch 18, 2025You’ll no doubt be aware of the annual Sunday Times Rich List, but such is its powerful and ever-growing success, there’s now a specific Beauty Rich List too. , with her now- -owned brand worth over £1 billion and her estimated personal wealth standing at £350 million. The list comprises 19 women and 14 men with 14 of them aged in their twenties or thirties. AdsIn second placed are Mark and Mo Constantine, having accumulated £249 million via their high street mass retail brand Lush. Susie Ma, the Tropic Skincare brand founder, at £73 million, and GelBottle brand founder Daisy Kalnina, at £70 million, round out the top 10.

An order compelling NHS Scotland staff to use the ‘preferred pronouns’ of male colleagues who identify as women has been dropped. Internal training material provided by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) said that staff had a legal duty “to use the correct name and pronouns” for fellow workers who claim to be women, even if they are “still producing facial hair”. But after NES was approached about the material, The Times reports, it removed the statement. He added: “It is absolutely nonsensical to demand that staff and patients ignore biological reality and participate in an enforced illusion. In May 2024, Sandie Peggie brought an action before an employment tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Upton for sexual harassment and for discrimination over her recognition of biological reality.

These are the UK’s best hotels under £150 for 2025 … with a handy map to help you plot your next trip. Details B&B doubles from £150; mains from £23 (thebullcharlbury.com)Read the hotel review in full and book a stay4. Details B&B doubles from £110; small plates from £7 (houseofgodshotel.com)Read the hotel review in full and book a stayAdvertisement7. Details B&B doubles from £129; mains from £18 (merryharriers.com)Read the hotel review in full and book a stay• 18 of the best hotels in BrightonAdvertisement19. Details B&B doubles from £150; mains from £16 (thesunfelmersham.com)Read the hotel review in full and book a stay29.

Anduril Industries, one of America's largest defence start-ups with a $1billion factory in Ohio, is looking to open a UK factory to serve as its European base. The firm, which builds drones and autonomous systems and weapons for the military and government agencies, has been highly successful in the field of AI tech. The Times reports the Ministry of Defence has already shown an interest, with the government signing a £30million contract with Anduril's UK arm to supply Ukraine with drones. The high-tech drones can remain airborne for extended periods and then fly directly into their targets and explode. A spokesman for Anduril UK, The Times reports, said: “Due to ongoing commercial sensitivities it would not be appropriate to comment on this at this time.

It’s the year 2036, the end of the first cycle of 10-year R&D budgets in the UK. It is already clear that 10-year budgets – Labour’s flagship election pledge on science – will not be adopted across the whole public R&D portfolio. ADVERTISEMENTThe identity of those areas is just one of many unanswered questions about Labour’s science funding policy. The national quantum programme is an exemplar. It has trained almost 500 PhD students, generated 49 start-ups and led to the establishment of the National Quantum Computing Centre near Oxford.

The facility was covered in “toxic ink stains,” “holes in the walls” and other damages like “active leaks,” according to the lawsuit filed in LA Supreme Court in late January. 5 The LA Times left the Olympic printing plant in “gross disrepair” andcovered in “toxic ink stains”, the lawsuit said. Obtained by NY Post5 Alameda is currently restoring the plant but is looking for at roughly$24 million. Soon-Shiong bought the newspaper in 2018, and since then, the newspaper “fell into decline,” the lawsuit said. 5 Under Soon-Shiong, the newspaper is shifting away from liberal politics and taking a more neutral editorial stance.

Write to letters@thetimes.co.ukSir, One reason why there is likely to be an overdiagnosis of common mental health conditions is that tests used for assessing patients with such problems were designed for a bygone, information-sparse age (“Labour war of words on disability benefits”, Mar 17). GPs and others often use standardised tools such as the nine-question PHQ-9 scoring sheet to assess whether patients are likely to be depressed, and the seven-question GAD-7 scoring sheet to assess whether patients may be suffering from anxiety. Although these (and other) screening sheets were tested to show they could be used to detect patients requiring further mental health assessment, they were not designed for establishing the diagnosis or determining the length of treatment of conditions. Despite this,