‘I kept my alcoholism secret on Mission: Impossible set,’ Simon Pegg reveals

The actor, now recovered, tells BBC’s Desert Island Discs he became ‘very sneaky’ about his drinking in the early 2000s

Simon Pegg faced his own mission impossible, tackling both his addiction and eventual recovery, while working on the major Hollywood film franchise alongside Tom Cruise, he will explain in a revealing radio interview on Sunday morning.

Speaking of a secret reliance upon alcohol that he hid while working on film sets in the early 2000s, Pegg admits: “You become very sneaky when you have something like that in your life.”

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Eurovision 2023: Sweden wins the 2023 Eurovision song contest with Tattoo by Loreen – as it happened

Loreen becomes only second person to win contest twice as Sweden claims seventh victory overall

The scandal though is that Georgia were robbed of a place in the final. Robbed, I tell you. A dramatic gothic ballad type affair with lots of creepy hands in the background on the screen reaching out for Iru, the song Echo would have been a great addition to tonight’s show. Don’t blame me, I voted for it.

This tweet summed it up really.

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Ukraine aims for repeat victory in most political Eurovision in years

Four-hour broadcast will feature taunts at Putin and a singalong of a Liverpool anthem

There will be rockets, soldiers and moustachioed men in their underpants lampooning Vladimir Putin as a “crocodile psychopath” – and that’s just the Croatian act.

One of the most stridently political Eurovision grand finals in years takes place in Liverpool on Saturday night against a backdrop of a war in Ukraine that shows little sign of ending.

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Jamie Foxx released from hospital and ‘recuperating’, says daughter

Corinne Foxx shares update after criticising media for running ‘wild’ with rumours actor was taking a turn for the worse

Jamie Foxx is out of hospital after an unknown “medical complication”.

The Oscar-winning actor and singer’s daughter Corinne Foxx shared an update on Instagram after unsubstantiated reports that the 55-year-old’s condition had worsened.

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Sunak and Starmer criticise decision to deny Zelenskiy a Eurovision speech

Producers of event refuse Ukraine president’s request to speak over fears of politicising contest

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have voiced their disapproval of a decision to prevent Volodymyr Zelenskiy from being able to address this year’s Eurovision.

The prime minister and the Labour leader were united in criticising the decision to block the Ukrainian president’s request to speak at Saturday evening’s grand final. They were joined in their opposition by the former prime minister Boris Johnson.

PA Media contributed to this report

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Jeremy Strong to follow Succession with a return to Broadway

The actor will head up an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play An Enemy of the People once the hit HBO drama has ended

Jeremy Strong is going from a corporate boardroom on TV to a whistleblower on Broadway.

The actor who plays Kendall Roy in the HBO television series Succession has signed on to play a man who tries to expose water contamination in a Norwegian spa town in Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play An Enemy of the People.

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No regrets: Fran Kelly says she understands as ABC fails to renew her talkshow for second season

Exclusive: Host expresses gratitude to national broadcaster and reflects on delivering a ‘fun, warm and intelligent’ run

High-profile ABC host Fran Kelly says she has no regrets, despite her Friday night talkshow Frankly not being commissioned for a second season.

Kelly told Guardian Australia she was grateful the national broadcaster gave her the opportunity to try something different and she understood there were competing interests to juggle.

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Sorry, Swifties: BTS revealed as authors of mystery book that intrigued the internet

Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS will be out on 9 July, ending feverish speculation that the previously untitled book was a Taylor Swift memoir

The guessing game began this week when a mysteriously untitled book, scheduled for publication in July and known only as “4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023”, appeared. It quickly became a bestseller when Taylor Swift fans began feverishly speculating that it was her surprise memoir.

But the mystery has been solved, with publishing house Flatiron Books bringing forward their announcement by a month to reveal the book is actually by another musical powerhouse: the K-pop boyband BTS.

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Eurovision organisers rebuff Zelenskiy request to give video speech at final

European Broadcasting Union, which oversees song contest, says appearance by Ukrainian president could politicise the event

The owners of the Eurovision song contest have turned down a request from Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a video appearance during the final on Saturday in Liverpool.

The Ukrainian president had hoped to appeal to the global audience of about 160 million people to continue their support for his country in the war with Russia.

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Country star Jimmie Allen accused of sexual assault by former manager

Grammy-nominated musician, 37, accused of a ‘torrential cycle’ of abuse and harassment, which Allen denies

The country star Jimmie Allen is being sued by his former manager for sexual assault.

The woman, known as “Jane Doe”, has alleged that the singer repeatedly raped and harassed her over an 18-month period, referring to it as a “torrential cycle” of abuse. According to Variety, a lawsuit was filed this week in federal court in Tennessee, accusing Allen, 37, of sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, sex trafficking and emotional distress.

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‘Man of 1,000 faces’ wins Deutsche Börse photography prize

Samuel Fosso scoops £30,000 award for performative self-portraits of historical figures including Angela Davis and Mao Zedong

One of Africa’s most important living photographers and contemporary artists, who photographs himself in the style of leading historical figures including Martin Luther King and Angela Davis, has won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize 2023.

The Cameroonian-born Nigerian photographer Samuel Fosso was awarded the £30,000 prize – one of the most prestigious in the industry – at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on Thursday.

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Actor Stephen Tompkinson found not guilty of grievous bodily harm

DCI Banks lead actor was accused of punching drunk man making noise outside his house

The actor Stephen Tompkinson has been found not guilty of inflicting grievous bodily harm by punching a drunk man who was making noise outside his house.

The DCI Banks lead actor had been accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Karl Poole on 30 May 2021.

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Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella to close on Broadway

The musical will close on 4 June, after receiving mixed reviews from US critics and failing to receive a nomination at the Tony awards

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella is to close on Broadway just over 10 weeks after its official opening night. The show, which did not receive any nominations at this year’s Tony awards, has announced that “the ball must come to an end” and that it will bow out at New York’s Imperial theatre on 4 June. Ticket sales have dipped despite a low average price for a big Broadway musical ($54 for last week). It will have played 33 previews and 85 performances.

The musical is a retooled version of Cinderella, which ran for just under a year (including a Covid-related break in performances) and suffered heavy losses at London’s Gillian Lynne theatre. Lloyd Webber was criticised for the manner in which some current and future Cinderella cast members learned of its closure in 2022 via social media and for his suggestion, in a letter read out at its final night, that opening a new musical during the pandemic “might have been a costly mistake”. (He later issued a statement saying his words had been misunderstood and that he was proud of the show.)

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Risk of cyber-attack is main Eurovision worry, says BBC executive

Cybersecurity experts drafted in to help thwart any sabotage attempt as UK stands in as host for Ukraine

The risk of a cyber-attack by pro-Russian hackers is the “main worry” for broadcasters staging the Eurovision song contest on behalf of war-torn Ukraine, a BBC executive has said.

Experts from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre have been drafted in to help thwart any attempts to sabotage the competition’s public vote on Saturday.

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Rita Lee, Brazil’s undisputed Queen of Rock, dies aged 75

Tributes pour in for founder of Os Mutantes, who sardonically named her tumour after far-right president Jair Bolsonaro

Rita Lee, the legendary Brazilian musician, composer and founder of the trailblazing band Os Mutantes, has died at 75, prompting emotional tributes to Brazil’s undisputed “Queen of Rock”.

Rita Lee was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021, memorably nicknaming her tumour “Jair” – a sardonic reference to Brazil’s widely loathed then president, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Auction of £120m of jewels to go ahead despite Jewish groups’ concerns

Critics say collection derives from fortune made by buying businesses from Jews who were forced to sell in Nazi Germany

Christie’s, the famed British auction house, has said it will go ahead with an auction of £120m of jewels on Wednesday despite calls from Jewish groups to stop the sale over concerns the collection belonged to a German billionaire who made a fortune buying businesses from Jews who were forced to sell in Nazi Germany.

The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif), the American Jewish Committee and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, have demanded that Christie’s halt the auction of the jewellery collection of the Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten.

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Zimbabwe author Tsitsi Dangarembga has conviction for protest overturned

Harare high court quashes suspended sentence and fine handed down to Booker-longlisted writer last year

Zimbabwean author and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga has had her conviction for inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest overturned.

The critically acclaimed writer was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars (£170) in September 2022 for staging a protest calling for political reform. During the 2020 protest, alongside fellow activist Julie Barnes, Dangarembga held a placard inscribed: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”

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Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, JR Moehringer, says pair bonded over media intrusion

Author says paparazzi and reporters began to follow him in his car and snoop around his home

Prince Harry’s ghostwriter has said he bonded with his subject over the “callousness” of paparazzi and media after the “frenzied mob” around the book Spare led to photographers and journalists invading his own privacy.

In a first-person piece for the New Yorker, JR Moehringer, the celebrated ghostwriter behind Spare said he agreed to write Harry’s memoir because he “just liked the dude” and had recently lost his own mother.

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Second homes ‘destroying’ Welsh-speaking areas, say campaigners

More than 1,000 people gather at Caernarfon Castle to demand new law to regulate market and protect communities

More than 1,000 people gathered outside Caernarfon Castle in north Wales for a rally protesting against second homes, which they say are “destroying” Welsh language strongholds.

Members of Cymdeithas yr Iaith (the Welsh Language Society) are calling for a new Property Act to protect communities in language heartlands such as Gwynedd in the north and Pembrokeshire in the south-west.

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Take That, Katy Perry and more entertain 20,000 at coronation concert

Prince of Wales also appears on stage, saying to King Charles III: ‘Pa, we are all so proud of you’

Thousands danced and waved their flags underneath Windsor Castle in the first concert ever held in the grounds to celebrate King Charles’s coronation.

Stars including Katy Perry, who sang Roar and Firework, and Lionel Richie, who played Easy and All Night Long, entertained the 20,000-strong audience, including the royal family, and millions at home on Sunday. Take That provided a rousing finale, drawing the night to a close with Never Forget, featuring an intro from the choristers of Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

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