Silent retreats are all the rage; hotel guests are embracing ‘hushpitatility’. But won’t this leave us more isolated?

Are we becoming too quiet? As a joyless, intolerant shrew, my kneejerk answer is a predictable “if only” (writing this on a train full of happy holidaymakers isn’t helping). But am I wrong? I find myself confronted with evidence that people are taking the expression “say less” literally. A study recently reported in the Atlantic found that daily spoken word counts declined by around 300 every year between 2005 and 2019. A sample group of 2,197 participants, aged between 10 and 94, wore devices that randomly recorded them as they went about their lives; each year, they spoke on average 338 fewer words than the year before. For under-25s, the decline was even steeper: 451 fewer words.

Even I can see that’s worrying. Spending time with other people is good for our brains, health and mood, while, as the US surgeon general put it so starkly in 2023, “lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day”.

I’ve started writing to my sister, my mum, my friends … Not everyone writes back, but when we connect it’s on a deeper level than any group chat

Last January, I received a letter. Most of my post was predictably boring – a statement from the water company, my credit card bill, the occasional update about my pension contributions – but this letter was different. The envelope felt heavier than the run-of-the-mill ones I was used to. It was postmarked Paris, a place I had little connection to, and, most strikingly, it was addressed in messy handwriting – my own.

I had completely forgotten I’d written it until it turned up on my doorstep. On a trip to Paris the year before, I had visited a letter-writing cafe. The idea was simple: you wrote a letter (usually to yourself), the cafe kept it safe and sent it a year later. So, alongside trying escargots for the first time, I wrote a letter filled with questions about my not-so-distant future and addressed it to my home, in London. What will you be doing? Where will you be living? Do you have a boyfriend?

Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, near death on Welsh beach in 2023, is thriving in Houston despite lingering pneumonia

A Kemp’s ridley sea turtle native to the Gulf of Mexico is largely thriving after he was found nearly dead on a beach in Wales in late 2023, nursed back to health and then flown to Houston recently to continue recovering – though scans revealed signs that the creature has been grappling with lingering pneumonia, according to his caretakers.

Rhossi’s condition was detailed in a blogpost on Friday from the Houston zoo, whose veterinary team was tasked with caring for the creature – believed to be no older than age four – and giving him the best chance possible at an eventual, successful return to the wild.

The president was forced to hide in a catering truck amid the Iran war, in an encapsulation of the conflict’s failures

For decades, Donald Trump cultivated a public image based on strength and dominance. He was a brash New York real estate mogul; a reality TV star who deployed his signature phrase: “You’re fired!” to eliminate contestants from The Apprentice; and eventually US president and undisputed leader of the Republican party.

In recent months, Trump has taken his boastfulness to an extreme, reportedly telling confidants that he’s “the most powerful person to ever live” and comparing himself with some of history’s most feared leaders, including Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

American Doctor follows three volunteer doctors as they try to save lives on the frontline and then return to the US to become advocates in congress

When she wanted to confront Americans about the consequences of their actions – or inactions – in Gaza, Poh Si Teng reached for a genre with mass popular appeal: the medical drama.

“Whether it’s The Pitt, Grey’s Anatomy, House, ER, even a comedy like Scrubs, you name it,” the documentary film-maker says via Zoom from her New York apartment. “I thought to myself, there’s something about medical dramas and doctors and human mortality in this space so let’s make The Pitt. The difference is it’s real and it’s set in Gaza and maybe this is the way to bring Palestine back to the United States.”

With a soulful sound and soul-baring lyrics, the Afghan Whigs rode the post-Nirvana boom to the big leagues. Their frontman explains his exploration of the male ego – and how Usher got the band back together

The Afghan Whigs were always heavier than their grunge-era brethren. Not musically – their turbulent, sophisticated rock was rooted in soul and funk, and frontman Greg Dulli says the group only embraced distortion in order to be heard over the volume of metalhead drummer Steve Earle’s playing. “Any kind of jangle wasn’t gonna work.” But Dulli’s lyrics, inspired by the likes of Motown bards Holland/Dozier/Holland, were pitch-black, depicting lovers in co-dependent cycles of betrayal and recrimination. Afghan Whigs songs take place in a world where sin is irresistible, punishment inevitable and some kind of judgment inescapable.

“My songs acknowledge consequence, more than they deal in judgment,” Dulli says, between sips of water in the bar of a London hotel. Forty years on from their formation, the Whigs are resurgent. Their new album, Soft Control, ably holds its own with earlier dark masterpieces such as their 1993 breakthrough Gentlemen, and its bleakly funky conceptual follow-up, 1996’s Black Love – records that affirmed their frontman as alt-rock’s poet of arch romantic dysfunction. “I understood sorrow and loss and loneliness from an early age,” he says. His dad was the youngest of 14; several of Dulli’s uncles died when he was young. “I had been there, so why wouldn’t I explore it?”

If he wasn’t biting toes or fouling the bath, he’d be flailing around on his back, waiting for someone to flip him over. He was even picky about his lettuce …

We adopted Darwin, a 21-year-old Greek tortoise, on a whim. It was 2024. His original owners were no longer able to provide proper care, so a concerned family member (and friend of ours) brought this football-sized wriggling reptile down on the train from Glasgow to London in a bucket.

The friend offered Darwin to my then boyfriend, Jacob, who knew nothing about tortoises and everything about spontaneity. I agreed to help foster him, begrudgingly, as long as Jacob would do “all the work”. I also didn’t think “all the work” would be that much work. How high-maintenance could a tortoise really be?

LUIK (ANP/BELGA) - Duitse en Noorse helikopters helpen vanaf maandag bij het blussen van de grote brand in het Belgische natuurgebied de Hoge Venen. Dat meldt de minister van Binnenlandse Zaken, Bernard Quintin. Het is de grootste natuurbrand ooit voor België.

Er is ongeveer 3000 hectare aan veengebied verwoest, wat overeenkomt met bijna 4200 voetbalvelden. De brand is nog niet onder controle, maar breidt niet verder uit naar Duitsland.

Ook Nederland helpt bij het blussen. Dat gebeurt maandag met één Chinook-helikopter. Een tweede heeft sinds zondagavond last van pech. Daarnaast zijn sinds het weekend twee Zweedse blusvliegtuigen actief in het gebied.

Minister van Defensie Theo Francken schrijft op X dat hij Chinooks wil kopen. "Maar, maar, maar ze zijn Amerikaans. En voor sommige partijen, waaronder alle linkse oppositiepartijen die nu zo luid roepen, is alles wat Amerikaans is, vals en slecht", aldus Francken.