Amy Odell’s book about the controversial actor and Goop founder is brimming with stories – from Madonna giving her advice as a teenager to her disappointment at boyfriend Brad Pitt’s understanding of caviar

When the author Amy Odell approached Gwyneth Paltrow’s publicist about her plans for a biography of the actor, Goop founder and wellness pioneer, she was told that Paltrow would be glad to participate – if she was allowed to “factcheck” the book.

Odell didn’t agree. Her line to Paltrow eventually fell silent, and her book, Gwyneth, has just been published to much buzz, without the star’s participation. Paltrow, a source claimed to Odell, “invented ghosting”.

What’s most important about hearing health how it helps people stay engaged, say experts – here’s how to support it

A recent study examined the potential link between hearing loss and dementia, suggesting that treating hearing loss can help the brain. Although the possible connection is still being untangled, study co-author and audiologist Nicholas Reed advises prioritizing hearing health regardless.

“There are already more than enough established benefits related to hearing care,” says Reed, a faculty member of the NYU Langone Health Optimal Aging Institute.

PGMO puts its officials through their paces on the Costa Blanca and offers an insight into what goes on off the pitch

“Three, two, one,” comes the countdown from Francis Bunce, a senior sports scientist at the referees’ body Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO), before he blows the whistle to kick off the much-anticipated maximal aerobic speed (Mas) test. It is 8.53am at the La Finca resort on the Costa Blanca, about 30C and the warm-up has very much been and gone. This a six-minute all-out run. “They call it Mas because at the end you’re just praying for it to finish,” says a smiling Keith Hill, one of the referee coaches observing the session with Howard Webb, the chief refereeing officer.

Part of Webb wishes he had a time machine, so he could teleport here a minibus of referees at their peak in 2003, when he joined the Premier League list, to witness the evolution of training. Now they run approximately 12km a game and use technology such as Playermaker, straps that attach to boots and can read running gaits, track how quickly officials change direction and identify injuries. Scott Ledger, who has been an assistant referee on more than 500 Premier League games, is wearing boots fit for the occasion, Adidas Copa Mundials decorated with the Spanish flag. This is day three of a five-day pre-season camp but the Mas is the main event from a physical perspective.

Neeson plays the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt Frank Drebin, appearing opposite Pamela Anderson in this enjoyable, at times very bizarre, spoof of 80s LA action movies

Here is Liam Neeson doing a rumbly-menacing voice even sillier than the one he did in Taken – and he now presumably must decide whether, like Leslie Nielsen before him, he will pivot to spoof comedy full-time. To be fair, Neeson has more career capital to lose than Nielsen did. He deadpans it impeccably, but perhaps doesn’t quite have Nielsen’s eerie innocence. In any case, it doesn’t stop this reboot of the Naked Gun franchise from being a lot of fun: amiably ridiculous, refreshingly shallow, entirely pointless and guilelessly crass. It is a life-support system for some outrageous gags, including sensational riffs on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sex and the City, and one showstopping are-they-really-gonna-do-it reference to OJ Simpson, who featured in the original films.

David Zucker, co-creator of those and the Airplane! films, is reportedly dissatisfied with this new version from the team of director Akiva Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. A spoof of a spoof is always going to be a potential problem, but Schaffer et al canter entertainingly through their succession of absurdist scenarios – and at one stage contrive a classic Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker homage: a moment of mayhem followed by a wide-shot of people queueing up obediently for violence, like Airplane!’s line of (hitherto unseen) passengers.

After a string of flops, Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps showed signs of life in the superhero genre once again. But what’s next?

Maybe it’s true what they say about real life-or-death stakes not applying to superheroes. The past couple of years have looked pretty deadly for the once-ubiquitous American superhero movie, with just two such films placing on the list of 2024’s top-grossing movies in the US, and three in 2023. (2022 had as many as both of those years combined on its own list, and the top four of 2021 were all superhero-led.) More than the lack of hits – Deadpool & Wolverine certainly made enough on its own to encourage another decade of team-ups – the genre has been threatened by a growing number of flops. Sequels to blockbusters like Joker and Aquaman nosedived from their predecessors. Would-be franchise starters like The Flash, Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter failed to spark any interest. Even a Marvel movie literally called The Marvels underperformed.

2025 seemed to follow this trend line, with Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts both underwhelming at the box office. Even reviews, so often prone to giving MCU entries a pass and conferring upon them a sense of unearned prestige, didn’t seem to move the needle much: Thunderbolts got much better notices, and that plus a plum summer-kickoff release date were good for … well, slightly less money than the terrible Captain America sequel. But this July, things have been looking up. Specifically, up in the sky: DC kicked off their new cinematic universe with a Superman movie, just as it did in 2013 with Man of Steel, only this time, audiences and critics seem to actually like it as their signature hero flies past $500m worldwide in less than 20 days. Meanwhile, another reboot of the cursed-seeming Fantastic Four didn’t seem like a sure thing. But Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is hitting numbers similar to Superman. It will probably pass both of its corporate siblings within a couple of weeks.

Born with cystic fibrosis, Yvonne Hughes was lucky to survive her teens. She definitely didn’t expect to make it into her 50s. The comedian talks about the years she spent struggling to breathe – and the ‘miracle’ drug that turned her life around

Yvonne Hughes was 19, and attending the funeral of a friend with cystic fibrosis, when she realised: “Oh shit, I’m going to die of this.” She had met him during shared hospital stays in childhood, and although Hughes had always known she had CF, she had never understood her illness as terminal until that day in 1992, when she stood at the back of the crowded chapel in Glasgow. For three days afterwards, she couldn’t stop crying. “I had a kind of meltdown. That’s probably the first time I thought that this thing I had was going to kill me.”

Over the next few months, Hughes, who was studying at the University of Glasgow, listened to her mum, dad and older sister chatting during family meals as if she was a ghost at the table. “I pulled back from them. I deliberately didn’t talk or include myself,” she says. “I wanted them to get used to sitting and chatting without me, so that when I died, they wouldn’t notice I wasn’t there.”

Judge says ban on direct action group could have ‘chilling effect’ on legitimate political speech

The co-founder of Palestine Action can bring an unprecedented legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, a high court judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Chamberlain said the proscription order against the direct action group risked “considerable harm to the public interest” because of a potential “chilling effect” on legitimate political speech.

System restored after Nats limited flights due to technical problems that raised fears of repeat of chaos in August 2023

The head of the UK’s air traffic control company is facing calls to resign after the second disruption to flights in two years due to technical problems.

Hundreds of flights were delayed after the air traffic control (ATC) system went down for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.

Exclusive: Health secretary says Labour will not meet union’s pay demands but both sides can ‘win the peace’

• Wes Streeting: My message to doctors, after five days of strikes? Work with us – if you go to war with us, you’ll lose

The doctors union “will lose a war with this government”, Wes Streeting has said, adding that the NHS is ready to tough out a prolonged series of strikes by the British Medical Association (BMA).

In his most outspoken comments so far about the dispute involving resident doctors in England, the health secretary vowed that Labour would never give in to their demand for a 29% pay rise.

Accused the BMA of causing “damage” to the NHS through its “reckless” long walkout.

Claimed it deliberately sought to ruin through strikes the NHS’s effort to cut its 7.4m-strong backlog of care, which Labour has pledged to eradicate by 2029.

Said the BMA’s 29% demand and strike had left other NHS staff “dismayed and appalled”.

Humanitarian workers say airdrops and corridors to allow trucks into region have done little to stop the rising death toll

Aid workers have said Israel’s new measures – meant to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza – fall far short of what is needed and aid access continues to be blocked amid the population’s spiralling famine.

The new measures, which came into effect on Sunday and include daily humanitarian pauses, as well as airdropped aid and humanitarian corridors for UN aid trucks, were announced by Israel as international pressure mounted to alleviate the hunger crisis.