ECB pushing for more free-to-air coverage – with ITV open to showing Test cricket

With the war in Iran driving up fuel prices, diesel is now nearly $5.60 a gallon, affecting school districts at the start of the year.

It’s hard to beat back charges that MPs are ‘all the same’ when they have accepted £400k in freebies this year – £100k up on last year How has your summer been? Done anything nice? As MPs prepare to head back to parliament next week, you’ll be relieved to hear that some of the most prominent figures in British politics have been enjoying the season’s cultural highlights – and without paying a penny. MPs throughout the Commons have received £400,000 of “freebies” to concerts, sports matches and other events so far this year, according to the most recent disclosures. Over the summer alone, Wes Streeting, now the defence secretary, enjoyed the Chelsea flower show thanks to Lloyds Banking Group covering the £1,839 cost, as did the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride. Lucy Powell, who has since become deputy leader of the Labour party and education secretary, accepted £858-worth of tickets to a Harry Styles concert at Wembley from the PRS for Music industry group. Meanwhile, the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, nabbed seats at Wimbledon worth £1,360 from the All England Club...

Straight women loved her, so did Eminem. Even Donald Trump found something nice to say. Her allure had no boundaries and was truly unique I was at the National Theatre in London on Tuesday night, at a production of Pride, which tells the story of the unlikely alliance between gay activists and Welsh miners during the 1984 miners’ strike, when news broke of Dolly Parton’s death. Well. Against the sadness, one couldn’t help smiling. At a very gay production, attended by a majority gay audience, I half expected them to stop the show or call out a team from St John Ambulance bearing stretchers. In the script for Pride, references to Judy Garland and Ethel Merman serve as shorthand for gay sensibilities, but it could just as easily have been Dolly Parton. The queen of country and crossover pop was beloved by so many communities – many antagonistic to each other – but it was perhaps her gay fans who claimed her most vociferously and publicly. When we got home my friends and I danced around to 9 to 5, and on Wednesday morning it was Here You Come, Again (“looking better than a body has a right to” – oh, Dolly) on a loop, along with her 1971 hit Coat of Many Colors...