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In 1570, a Frenchman was arrested for smuggling clandestine correspondence between France and England. A passing comment in his interrogation document reveals that he also happened to be carrying a leather bag “in which there were three or four dozen balls of wool for playing tennis”.

Public support for reforming the UK’s first past the post electoral system has risen markedly of late. So is there any serious chance that such reform could actually happen?

The government has promised to make major concessions to its universal credit and personal independence payment bill after a large-scale and very public rebellion by Labour MPs threatened to derail a vote due on July 1.

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the 4 billion years of our history.

Donald Trump’s latest forthright outburst was made as part of his attempts to create a peace deal with Iran and Israel. “I’m not happy with Israel,” he told reporters on June 24. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know…

Financial products are becoming increasingly sophisticated – as are the frauds associated with things like crypto, hacking and digital robbery. Many people are already overwhelmed by financial matters, and being unable to manage money can lead to mental health problems.

Rich British aristocratic families with a legacy of owning colonial slave plantations are often accused by campaigners that their wealth solely originates from these plantations. One frequent target of this criticism has been the Drax family of Dorset, which is headed by Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, who was the Conservative MP…

George Orwell had a traumatic relationship with the sea. In August 1947, while he was writing Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) on the island of Jura in the Scottish Hebrides, he went on a fishing trip with his young son, nephew and niece.

Jaws turns 50 on June 20. Last year, Quentin Tarantino called Stephen Spielberg’s film “possibly the greatest movie ever made”. Though he was quick to add that it isn’t the best film in terms of script, cinematography or acting, he was convinced that its overall quality as a movie remains…

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden has won the 2025 Women’s prize. It revisits a dark, under-explored chapter of Dutch history. It asks what happened to all the possessions that Jews who were forced to flee or were taken to camps during the second world war had to leave…

The presenter and children’s author tells Lisa Salmon how important it is to inspire a love of reading in kids, and suggests how to do it.