Why did critics split so sharply on The Whisper Man?
Netflix's Robert De Niro thriller drew harsh pans from the Guardian and Roger Ebert, but Variety and Empire called it solidly entertaining.
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Lane Kiffin's $91m move to LSU divides US college football
Lane Kiffin left a playoff-bound Ole Miss for LSU's $91 million deal, and student season tickets sold out in five hours.
A style guide settles a newsroom's arguments before they start
A newsroom's style guide fixes spelling, capitals and terms in advance, so writers stop arguing mid-deadline and readers see one voice.
How a VPN works, and who still gets to watch you
A VPN encrypts your traffic and routes it through a company's server, so the question is which watcher you trust more, not whether one exists.
Creatine near a workout might help. The evidence is still thin
A 2022 review found no settled answer on when to take creatine. The case for dosing near a workout rests on blood flow and timing theory, not trials.
Lebensborn's children are tracing the families the Nazis hid
Adults born under the Nazi Lebensborn programme are opening old files and childhood homes to find the parents its secrecy hid from them.
Europe's only banned theatre company still performs, from exile
Belarus Free Theatre is the only company in Europe prohibited on political grounds. Its members left Minsk for London, and kept staging work from there.
Recipe sites disagree on air fryer chicken breast times
Air fryer recipes disagree on chicken breast times by nearly 20 minutes. Breast size, thickness and the air fryer model explain the spread.
India's electric car sales cross the 5% mark
Electric cars now take more than 5% of India's car sales, pushed by rising fuel prices and a tougher emissions rule due in April 2027.
Arthur C. Clarke's 1945 satellite idea took 19 years to fly
In 1945 Arthur C. Clarke proposed relay satellites in geostationary orbit. The first reached that orbit in 1964, and he never tried to patent it.
Bosnia's presidency chair passes hands every eight months
Bosnia's head of state is three people, not one. The chair rotates between a Serb, a Bosniak and a Croat every eight months.
Giles Gilbert Scott's red phone box, which he wanted silver
Architect Giles Gilbert Scott won a 1924 competition to design Britain's standard phone box, and originally wanted it painted silver.
UK National Cinema Day came back in 2026 as a £4 weekend
After a year off in 2025, the UK's National Cinema Day returned on 5 and 6 September 2026 as a two-day weekend of £4 tickets. Here is why it changed.
Why a star vanishes at once when the Moon passes in front
The Moon has a very thin atmosphere and a star is tiny, so an occultation ends its light at once. A star that vanishes in stages in a graze is a hidden pair.
Office conversions crowd the UK's 2026 reuse awards shortlist
So many office conversions entered the AJ Retrofit & Reuse Awards 2026 that the category split in two. The V&A East Storehouse leads the mixed-use list.
Newsrooms take bystander video apart to test rival accounts
Newsrooms sync bystander clips frame by frame. In Minneapolis that showed the car turned away from the ICE agent. On Gaza, teams reached clashing verdicts.
The two kinds of hyperhidrosis, and what causes each
Most heavy sweating is a normal response to heat or stress. Primary hyperhidrosis has no known cause. The secondary kind is a symptom of another illness.
A Florence harpsichord maker is credited with the piano
Bartolomeo Cristofori is credited with swapping the harpsichord's plucked strings for hammers. A harder press played louder, so he named it col piano e forte.
Wheel of Fortune fires announcer Jim Thornton
Sony Pictures Television fired Wheel of Fortune announcer Jim Thornton after a passenger complaint on a May flight and photos said to show a lewd chat room.
Amazon MGM has yet to cast a new James Bond
No actor has been named as the next James Bond. The Guardian put Amazon MGM's control deal at $1 billion, and the BBC at $20 million on top of $8.5 billion.
Why a heat dome set all-time records in Montana and Utah
Billings reached 111F and Salt Lake City 109F in July 2026. A heat dome is high pressure that stalls for days, pushing air down until it warms.
Passive house is a measured standard, not a style
Passive house caps air leakage at 0.6 changes an hour, tested by fan. It costs 5 to 10% more to build. A Los Angeles house on its lines outlasted a wildfire.
The body shuts down in stages before death
Doctors can describe dying stage by stage, from appetite loss to the last breath. Christians and Muslims expect judgement, and Hindus and Buddhists rebirth.
Montessori classrooms let the child choose the work
A Montessori classroom drops the timetable, the blackboard and the teacher's desk. A South Carolina study found its public pupils ahead in English and maths.