family

Aaron Rodgers recently shared photos of himself with his parents and one of his brothers on social media.

While that’s something that a lot of people do, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback is a very private person who has never even posted a photo of his wife online.

Rodgers also has been estranged from his parents and brothers for quite some time now.

Those relationships appear to be on the mend, however, after the 22-year NFL veteran took to Instagram on Monday and posted several seemingly recent family pictures — including one of him with his arm around his father Ed, another with his arm around his mother Darla and others of him interacting with older brother Luke.

“Another bonding week,” Rodgers wrote, adding the hashtag #fam.

It was only his fourth Instagram post in more than two years. Luke Rodgers responded in the comment section with two heart emojis.

Rodgers spent 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, winning Super Bowl and four league MVP awards before playing two seasons with the New York Jets. The upcoming season will be his second with the Steelers and, he has said, his final one in the NFL.

The rift with his family members was made public in 2016 when younger brother Jordan Rodgers was a contestant on “The Bachlorette.” On one episode, Jordan Rodgers told his now-wife JoJo Fletcher that his famous brother has chosen to live his life in a certain way, “I chose to stay close with my family and my parents and my [other] brother.”

On another episode featuring other members of the Rodgers family (with a conspicuous absence), Luke Rodgers said: “It pains both of us, like, not to have that relationship [with Aaron] — we miss our brother. I trust that God brings things full circle and that everything would just get back to us being a family.”

Weeks later at Packers training camp, Rodgers was asked about the subject.

“I’ve always found that it’s a little inappropriate to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m just —I’m not going to speak on those things,” Rodgers said, “but I wish him well in the competition.”

He added: “I haven’t seen the show, to be honest with you, so it hasn’t really affected me a whole lot.”

Ed Rodgers confirmed to the New York Times in 2017 that Rodgers hadn’t spoken to his family since late 2014, soon after the quarterback started dating actress Olivia Munn (the couple broke up in 2017).

In the 2024 Netflix docuseries “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma,” the 10-time Pro Bowl selection said he had never been “super duper close” with anyone in his family, except for Jordan Rodgers earlier on. He attributed the rift to a number of things, including his parents’ religious beliefs, sibling rivalries and his family’s reaction to his fame.

“I don’t wish any ill will on them at all,” Rodgers said. “It’s more like this, we’re just different steps in the timeline of our own journeys.”

The ice seemed to have started to thaw between the family members in recent years. According to the 2024 biography “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers” by Ian O’Connor, Ed Rodgers bought a ticket to a 2023 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe with the hope of possibly coming face to face with his son, who was a participant in the event, for the first time in nine years.

Rodgers saw his father in the crowd and tracked him down. The two of them embraced and said, “I love you.”

“That was a special moment,” Aaron told O’Connor.

O’Connor wrote Tuesday on X that Rodgers invited his parents to his Pleasant Valley High (Chico) Hall of Fame induction in April, then introduced them to the crowd and thanked them for their support.

ROSARIO, Argentina — Lionel Messi arrived back in Argentina on Tuesday for a few days of rest following the World Cup final loss to Spain.

Messi’s private jet landed near his hometown of Rosario from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at 6:27 a.m. Although many fans were waiting with signs and flags, he did not make a public appearance.

“The pain is immense, and this wound will take time to heal,” he posted on his Instagram account. “I cherish all the good moments, memories that will last forever — and the support of an entire nation which, combined with this group’s hard work and effort, propelled us once again into the ranks of the world’s best.”

Supporters only caught a brief glimpse of the SUV that met Messi on the tarmac to transport him and his family to the private neighborhood of Funes, roughly 185 miles north of Buenos Aires.

The Argentina captain reportedly traveled with his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, and their three children, all of whom had accompanied him throughout the tournament in North America. Waiting for him in Rosario was his 68-year-old father, Jorge, whose ongoing medical treatment for an undisclosed illness had been revealed by the family during the World Cup.

Fans had gathered at the airport as early as 3:30 a.m. hoping to catch a sight of the star. Among them were two young girls in La Albiceleste jerseys holding welcome signs, one of which read: “Messi: You’re a legend. Thank you for bringing joy to our hearts. A whole country loves you!”

Messi is expected to rejoin Inter Miami in late July or early August for the ongoing MLS season.

Fifteen members of Argentina’s 26-player World Cup roster, led by head coach Lionel Scaloni, landed at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza Airport on Monday on a chartered flight.

The squad’s arrival followed Sunday’s 1–0 extra-time loss to Spain in the World Cup final in East Rutherford, N.J., decided by a Ferran Torres goal.

“It is hard to fully appreciate our achievement right now, but this group reached two consecutive World Cup finals. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for every greeting and message,” Messi added. “I also want to congratulate Spain on winning the championship.”

The match marked Messi’s third World Cup final appearance, following 2014 and 2022. He ended the tournament as the runner-up for the Golden Boot with eight goals, two behind France’s Kylian Mbappé.

Mbappé tops the all-time World Cup goal-scoring chart with 22, one more than Messi.

Álvarez writes for the Associated Press.

Wilfredo Engalla, a 51-year-old Filipino immigrant, alleged in a medical malpractice case that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before eventually informing him he had terminal lung cancer.

He died before his complaint could be heard by an arbitrator, which his Kaiser policy required. His case prompted a withering rebuke from the California Supreme Court, which said Kaiser’s system of arbitrating legal disputes was subject to long delays and unfair to its members. The year was 1997.

Nearly three decades after the landmark decision, the HMO giant — which made a series of sweeping reforms after the ruling — is once again facing questions over whether its arbitration system is stacked against the interests of its members.

Plaintiffs attorneys, legislators and patients say Kaiser’s private and confidential process for arbitrating legal disputes over medical care still has key flaws that favor Kaiser over patients bringing malpractice cases. The company insures about 25% of Californians, including some employees of the Los Angeles Times.

“Kaiser has really lost its way,” said Assemblyman Robert Garcia (D-Rancho Cucamonga). Garcia, who is a longtime Kaiser member, recently introduced a bill to require the California attorney general to oversee arbitrations mandated by any health plan.

Kaiser defended its arbitration system, saying in a statement that it was fair for both patients and the nonprofit.

Many companies and other organizations, including some hospitals, HMOs and physician groups, require their customers or patients to take their complaints to private arbitration rather than to court.

But unlike most other companies, which send claims to large arbitration firms, Kaiser created its own system back in 1971.

Under Kaiser’s system, once a neutral arbitrator is selected, either party can opt to disqualify that person without cause. There is no limit on the number of disqualifications.

Although the health plan designed the system to be fair, patients and their lawyers have alleged that in reality Kaiser’s greater knowledge of arbitrators’ past rulings and its ability to veto arbitrators give it an advantage to pick favorable judges.

Critics such as Arlan Cohen, a physician and attorney who has brought more than two dozen cases against the health plan, say the system also provides a financial incentive to arbitrators to rule in Kaiser’s favor in order to be selected for future cases.

While Kaiser has access to all the decisions made by arbitrators in its system, the patient’s family gets a more limited disclosure of an arbitrator’s history of cases, lawyers say, adding that it’s not easy to see which arbitrators have ruled frequently for Kaiser.

Kaiser said it disagreed that the system allowed it to select favored arbitrators.

“The appointment process is not influenced by whether the arbitrator has ruled for or against KP or has a record of ruling against Kaiser Permanente,” its statement said.

“As required by law, both parties receive information about potential arbitrators and can decline to move forward with any they are not comfortable,” the statement said.

One problem is what experts call the “repeat player effect,” in which a large company appearing repeatedly before the same panel of arbitrators allegedly gains an advantage over the individual bringing a single complaint.

David Allen Larson, past chair of the American Bar Assn.’s dispute resolution section, said the repeat player effect happens because the patient will likely be choosing an arbitrator on the health plan’s system just once, while “Kaiser is selecting them every single day.”

“They know the system. They know the rules,” Larson said of Kaiser. “The entire process gives them an advantage.”

Alan Kang, a lawyer, in a recent petition filed in L.A. County Superior Court, contends that the fees the arbitrators earn from hearing cases — as much as $2,000 an hour — give them an incentive to rule in Kaiser’s favor so they are chosen to hear more cases.

“When a judge’s future income is at stake, it is impossible to be impartial,” Kang wrote in the petition.

The petition seeks to void the December decision of an arbitrator who ruled against the family of Evangelina Aquino, a Kaiser employee who died of cancer at age 40.

Kang, the Aquino family and the medical experts they hired for the case say her cancer would have been treatable if Kaiser doctors had found it with a test they said her symptoms called for. Kaiser argued it was a different kind of cancer that was aggressive and untreatable. The arbitrator agreed with Kaiser in the December decision.

After the ruling, Kang began analyzing data from Kaiser’s system.

His review of dozens of cases in the last six years found that judges overseeing the most cases nearly always ruled for Kaiser.

“The message is clear: deliver wins for Kaiser and you will get additional business,” Kang wrote in his court petition.

The Oakland-based health plan declined to answer questions about its arbitration system and Kang’s claims, but said in a statement that its “arbitration process is designed to be fair, impartial, and accessible to all members. While some arbitrators may handle multiple Kaiser Permanente-related cases, they are not employed by Kaiser Permanente, and they are selected by both parties, in accordance with the law.”

“We recognize that arbitration cases often involve difficult and deeply personal experiences for patients and families,” the statement said, “and we take all concerns raised through these processes seriously.”

Kaiser’s unique arbitration system

Arbitration can have advantages over the court system, including allowing Kaiser to save on legal costs, which otherwise would raise the price of premiums it charges to families, employers and governments.

Kaiser offers to pay the arbitrators’ fees, which can save families tens of thousands of dollars.

Arbitration may also lead to faster outcomes, possibly avoiding years of litigation. Unlike civil litigation, arbitration decisions are especially difficult to appeal.

After the criticism by the state Supreme Court in 1997, Kaiser reformed the system by creating the Office of the Independent Administrator. The office is funded by a Kaiser trust and the $150 fee each patient filing a claim must pay, said Marcella Bell, who serves as the independent administrator.

Bell said the office works independently from Kaiser.

The office selected 195 retired judges and lawyers to serve on a panel that patients and Kaiser can choose from when selecting a neutral arbitrator to oversee and decide a malpractice case.

Rules written by the independent administrator, in consultation with the health plan and an advisory board, allow Kaiser and the family to cut an arbitrator they don’t like, at multiple steps in the process.

The administrator’s office randomly selects 12 members from its panel. Both sides can each remove any four of those arbitrators. The two sides then rank the remaining arbitrators in order of preference. The administrator selects the top-ranked arbitrator to hear the case.

The two parties then still have the ability to disqualify that selection without cause.

Members of the United Nurses Assns. of California and Union of Healthcare Professionals strike outside Kaiser Permanente in Oakland on Jan. 28.

(Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle)

Last year, Kaiser’s arbitration system closed 529 arbitration cases.

The arbitrators threw out 14% of the cases, ruling in favor of Kaiser’s motion for summary judgment, and dismissed an additional 5% of cases on technical or procedural grounds.

Only 23 cases, or 4% of the total, went to a hearing. Among those, the arbitrator decided for Kaiser in 17, with the patient winning the remaining six.

Patients and their families withdrew their claim in 20% of the cases. About half of those patients did not have a lawyer and had tried to represent themselves.

The parties settled for an undisclosed sum in 57% of the cases. The settlements are confidential.

Patient safety questions

Those who have studied the use of arbitration by Kaiser and other HMOs for medical malpractice claims say the secrecy of the settlements and the closed hearings could keep safety problems from coming to light.

“The secrecy of arbitration proceedings may prevent publicity that could reveal poor doctors,” the California Research Bureau warned in a report in 2000 that analyzed Kaiser’s system. That compares with public court cases that could deter “bad behavior” in the future, the researchers wrote.

In December 2023, 53-year-old Francisco Delgadillo arrived at the Kaiser ER in Vallejo with severe chest pain. After an initial assessment, he waited eight hours for care, according to state regulators.

He died in the lobby. A state and federal investigation found multiple violations, including that Kaiser failed to have a licensed nurse monitoring the dozens of patients in the ER’s waiting room.

The Delgadillo family filed an arbitration claim. Their lawyer Jeff Mitchell said the case settled for a confidential sum and he could not discuss it.

Mitchell agreed that the secrecy raised patient safety concerns.

“They love the system, otherwise they would not be so hellbent to keep it,” Mitchell said of Kaiser’s repeated efforts to dispel criticism. “They don’t want these cases to get in front of juries.”

A licensed practical nurse attends to a patient at a Kaiser Permanente in Culver City in September.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Calls for reform

Despite the changes Kaiser made after the 1997 court decision, patients and their families have continued to complain.

According to the administrator’s 2025 annual report, the “most common” complaint the office heard last year was about the neutral arbitrator.

“Most complained that the arbitrator was biased, partisan, unjust, and in Kaiser’s favor,” the report said.

Stephen Martinez, a retired aerospace engineer from Bellflower, is leading the effort to pass the state bill introduced by Garcia.

At an April hearing in the state Assembly, Martinez spoke about how his wife had found a lump in her breast and asked for an appointment with her longtime caregiver at Kaiser to examine it. Instead she was sent to a physician assistant, who dismissed it, he said.

“The PA prescribed warm compresses, a sports bra, and limited chocolate,” Martinez testified. “We would later find that Lindalee did have breast cancer that had already spread.”

Martinez and his wife said they spent $175,000 on lawyers and medical experts to bring that arbitration case. A chief breast surgeon at Kaiser and another surgeon who had retired from that job both testified that the Kaiser physician assistant failed to follow the health system’s guidelines.

Kaiser’s expert argued that the physician assistant did an appropriate exam and that his low suspicion of breast cancer was reasonable. The neutral arbitrator concurred and ruled against the couple.

After passing the Assembly, Assembly Bill 1770 is now in the state Senate for consideration. The bill lets the attorney general decide what actions they will take to ensure health plan arbitrations are handled fairly and transparently. If the bill passes, the state would add four deputy attorneys general, a legal analyst and three legal secretaries to do that work, according to a legislative analyst’s report.

Kaiser says it has concerns about the bill, including that it would “create overlapping state oversight and duplicative reporting requirements.”

Kaiser Permanente’s corporate offices in downtown Oakland in January 2025.

(Jane Tyska / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Questions of a missed diagnosis

When Janene Fowler was 22, her body seemed to turn against her. She grew weak, pain shot through her hands and feet, her heart raced. She soon required a wheelchair.

Fowler’s medical chart detailed what could have caused her disabling problems. A test eight years before had found a deficiency of vitamin B12, according to the chart. Over the years, Kaiser doctors noted problems such as depression, unexplained pain, shortness of breath, a sore tongue and an abnormal gait — all possible symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.

In February 2022, after her family complained about her not being able to see a neurologist, she got an appointment. The specialist noted her vitamin deficiency, telling the nurse to start her on a supplement at once. But the treatment did not begin because the paperwork was lost, her medical records show.

Two weeks later, Fowler left Kaiser to see a doctor at UCLA. A doctor there quickly started injections of B12.

Her symptoms gradually got better, but her new doctors say the years-long deficiency left permanent damage. She still can’t walk without help.

The arbitrator, a retired judge, sided with Kaiser’s doctors and experts, who questioned whether Fowler’s problems were caused by a deficiency of vitamin B12. While one test showed a deficiency, he noted that a second test failed to confirm it. He wrote that Fowler and her lawyers had failed to prove that Kaiser “breached its duty of care.”

Cohen, Fowler’s lawyer, asserted that the retired judge’s decision was contrary to UCLA medical records, which detail her deficiency and treatment.

Fowler now spends most of her time at home. She can’t drive. She often falls when she tries to get around with a cane. She loves to cook, but said she burns herself when she tries.

“My hands don’t really do what I tell them,” she said.

Kaiser declined to answer questions about her case, citing patients’ privacy rights.

Fowler said she’s angry about how the health plan’s doctors and its arbitration system treated her.

“I thought I was going to die, and no one at Kaiser seemed to care,” she said. “What justice can you have in a system that is run by those you are trying to sue?”

ANOTHER family missed their flights home and were forced to spend nearly £2,000 due to massive airport queues abroad.

Matthew Wilson, his wife and their son were travelling home to Manchester from Milan back in April.

They were returning to the UK after a nine-night holiday when they got stuck huge passport queues due to the new European entry rules.

Talking to the iPaper, Matthew said that despite easily getting through security, they were then stuck in another queues for 90 minutes, in which they only moved about 10m in that time.

Frustratingly, he family were then told by ground staff that their luggage had been removed from the plane as the flight was going to depart while they still stuck in the queue.

They were then forced to wait three hours before easyJet, who the family were flying with, offered the family a flight back home – but this was six days later than the original flight.

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Rather than waiting, Matthew spent £1,969 on new flights from Barcelona, taxis, food and accommodation.

This was on top of the money they had already paid on the flight they missed which had cost £377.

Not only that, but their travel insurance provider also said they were unable to recuperate his costs.

Matthew said: “It was very stressful – we will think twice before travelling in Europe again.”

The airport operator apologised, adding that EES “requires more complex operations than before and longer processing times”.

Not only that, but it said that on the day the Wilsons were due to fly home (April 12), there were malfunctions at the automatic gates due to issues connecting to the border systems.

This resulted in “particularly long waiting times” as passengers had to be manually checked at passport control.

The Wilsons weren’t the only ones to miss their flight on this day – in fact 100 easyJet passengers were left behind in Milan Linate Airport.

The flight to Manchester had been held for nearly an hour “but it had to then depart due to crew reaching their safety regulated operating hours”, explained easyJet.

There have been warnings over wait times because of EES – and it’s only set to get worse.

Rafael Schvartzman – the vice-president for Europe at the International Air Transport Association (Iata) – warned queue times could stretch to as much as six hours this summer.

Mr Schvartzman said: “What we are seeing is a very hard risk of really challenging times or waiting times, talking about expectations of three, four, five, six hours which is unacceptable.

“We know for a fact there are many cases where people have lost flights or their connectivity.”

THE school summer holidays are upon us, with six weeks to fill to entertain the kids.

If you’re looking for fun for the whole family without breaking the bank then this bumper list is for you – we’ve scoured the country for some of the best cheap and free attractions.

Summer of Play, Various Locations – from £9

The National Trust brings back its Summer of Play programme running from July to September across the country.

The events on the schedule are free but admission fees are around £10 and under.

At Arlington Court in Devon, find activities such as archery, giant slingshots, and a water play zone – great for keeping everyone cool in a heatwave.

Gibside near Tyne & Wear is packed with experiences such as racket sports, axe throwing, and classic games like a bean bag toss.

Pokémon fans will also delight in recognising their favourite character in trails across different National Trust sites.

Expect to get involved with trading card games and collect Mega Evolution stickers.

To find a site near you visit the National Trust’s Summer of Play website. 

Free entry but admission fees into National Trust sites apply

National Racehorse Week, Various Locations – free

From 22 to 31 August during National Racehorse Week, families have a chance to grab a free ticket for over 85 behind-the-scenes events across the country.

Choose between meeting racehorses or exploring training yards to learn more about a side of British racing that is often overlooked.

To find an event near you visit the National Racehorse Week website. 

Free tickets available on the National Racehorse Week website

North of England

Starry Nights in Lake District, Cumbria – free

The Lake District in Cumbria is home to many low-light Dark Sky Discovery Sites making it the perfect place to go on a stargazing trail.

Grab your camping gear and find budget-friendly campsites for £15-£17 on pitchup.com.

Some favourites includes North Lakes Campsite in Deanscales, Blaithwaite House in Wigton, and Cardewless in Carlisle.

Find the most isolated lake of Lake District at Ennerdale Water and venture east for the darkest skies in Cumbria. Look out for free stargazing events a few times a year. 

For those looking for a nighttime walk, head to St Bees Beach on the west coast when the tide is out.

Sitting above the Bassenthwaite Lake, Whinlatter Forest offers lucky stargazers a chance to spot the Milky Way. 

Free but campsite charges apply

National Railway Museum, York – free

The National Railway Museum in York is perfect for train fanatics.

Visit the Great Hall for the gold leaf stripes of Duchess of Hamilton, the Japanese high-speed rail nicknamed ‘bullet train’ or ‘Mallard’, the world’s fastest steam locomotive. 

For something extra special, check out Wonderlab:The Bramall Gallery for an interactive experience to test your engineering skills.

Free Entry. Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery day passes start from £8.60.

Mere Sands Wood, Lancashire – free

Spot a variety of butterflies fluttering around at Mere Sands Wood in Lancashire on a guided walk through the reserve. 

Perfect for all members of the family, go on an easy two-hour walk and stop by different sites to find a range of beautiful butterflies and insects.

Alternatively if butterflies aren’t for you, go on the Tomato Soup at the Cafe Loop which is a 1.3 mile walking trail that ends with a bowl of soup.

Experiences are free but adults pay £6 for the Butterfly Walk

Manchester Museum, Manchester – free 

Manchester Museum is a great way to take the family out for a day and learn about what makes us human and how we connect with nature. 

Don’t forget to say hi to the giant T.rex, Stan, explore the lives of ancient Egyptians or marvel at archaeological objects.

This summer, discover the world of bugs from 21 July to 28 August in Bugtastic!

Take part in producing insect prints, designing comics starring superbugs, and make bug-like costumes.

Free entry although booking is advised for the Exhibition Hall. 

South and West of England

WhizzFizz 2026, Buckinghamshire – free

From 27 July to 1 August, WhizzFizz is holding a free summer festival across Buckinhamshire in Aylesbury, Chesham, and High Wycombe. 

The schedule includes an interactive board games show, collage workshops and poetry workshops for children. 

Sessions are free but participating kids are expected to be registered for the events. Adults are required to stay but don’t need a ticket. 

Free admission

Boating in Regent’s Park, London – from £3.40

Hop on a boat from now to September in Regents Park and take in the beautiful surroundings. 

A 30-minute boat journey ranges from free for toddlers to £6.50 for adults during off-peak hours.

Alternatively, the Children’s Boating Pond is £5.20 for a 20 minute session. 

Prices start from £3.40. Off peak hours are 11am-1pm on weekdays and 10am-noon on the weekends.

British Museum, London – free

The British Museum is at the heart of Central London with a large worldwide collection dating back two million years and the best part is that general admission is free.

This summer celebrate the 25th anniversary of John Constable’s birth with a free exhibition.

Explore a collection of Constable’s paintings where he depicted British landscapes from fields in East Anglia to the clouds of Hampstead Heath.

Free Admission

Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre, London – from £10

Experience 400 years of history in London’s original theatre district and transport yourself back into the time of Shakespeare. 

Enjoy classics such as Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Julius Caesar this summer for £10 if you grab a standing ticket. 

Prices start from £10

Mudchute Park and Farm, London – free

Families with animal lovers in the group will delight in this free family farm on the Isle of Dogs. 

Find over 100 animals in the 32 acre farm including goats, pigs, and even llamas.

Before leaving, stop by the Mudchute Kitchen Cafe for delicious home-cooked food, cakes and tea. 

Free Admission

Smithsonian Starstruck at the Science Museum, London – free

Experience this free virtual reality experience at the Science Museum in London.

Visitors embark on a cosmic journey discovering galaxies, constellations and watch volcanoes on an exoplanet erupt into glitter.  

Free Admission

Summer in the Square, London – free

Taking place in Portman Square Garden in Marylebone from 7th – 12th July, this free festival brings families together with a range of activities. 

Choose from Wimbledon open air screenings, wellbeing sessions, and opportunities to get creative with watercolour sessions.

Kids can get involved with workshops hosted by Marylebone Youth Theatre, opt for Fairytales in Oz or The Tempest Tale. 

Free Admission

Uber Boat Audio Guide, London – £2.50

Board on to an Uber Boat and cruise down the Thames with a funny and educational twist.

For £2.50, learn history, TV and cinema facts that you can later impress friends and family with. 

£2.50 for audio guides

Lady Vale Walk, Bodmin – free

Take the family out for a chance to spot some of their favourite characters from The Gruffalo. 

Follow the signs for the Lady Vale Walk in Cardinham Woods near Bodmin to hunt for the Gruffalo characters along the path.

Don’t forget to bring the camera and take a picture next to the sculptures as you venture deeper into the forest. 

Free admission

Brighton Beach and Pier – £1

Brighton Beach is one of England’s top beach destinations with plenty of activities for the whole family. 

The Brighton Palace Pier is a £1 admission fee and boasts its own helter skelter for £3.

Other attractions include a soft-play area and Brighton’s largest arcade with classic games such as penny pushers and air hockey. 

Take a ride on the world’s oldest operating railway, Volk’s Electric Railway, where an adult return fare is £7 and a children return is £4.40.

Visit the Fishing Museum for free and discover the history of Brighton’s fishing village.    

Prices start from free to £7

Song of the Sea Cave, Cornwall – free 

Instead of splashing out for a holiday away, visit this hidden gem for a beach holiday.

Jump into this natural tidal pool at Nanjizal Beach in St Levan, Cronwall and cool off from the hot summer.

Nicknamed “Song of the Sea Cave”, this low tide pool will make you feel as though you’ve escaped to a warmer destination surrounded by clear waters.

Dip into the mermaid pool and watch the light glimmering through the narrow arch. 

Free admission

Central and East England

Silverstone Museum, Towcester – free 

This summer until 31 August, Silverstone Museum in Towcester is offering Kids Go and Eat Free for children ages 15 and under.

Explore immersive exhibits, iconic cars and learn about racers that have shaped the history of motor sports.

Highlights include a Mixed and Virtual Reality behind the story of Alberto Ascari, racing Scaletric cards on a 25-meter long track and a collection of championship winning vehicles. 

Prices start from free to £24 for adults when booking at least 1 day in advance.

Norwich Theatre Family Festival, Norwich – free

On 4 August, Norwich Theatre brings a dramatic schedule for the whole family with free workshops and interactive experiences. 

Those interested in crafts and set design should check out workshops in puppet-making and set-art.

For the thespians and vocalists in the group, there are storytelling workshops and community singalongs.

All workshops apart from Storytelling and Sensory Stories don’t require a booking and are available to drop in. 

Free admission but Storytelling and Sensory Stories workshops require booking. 

Cambridge University’s Botanic Garden, Cambridge – free

From 25 June to 1 September, adult tickets into Botanic Garden in Cambridge will be reduced as part of the Great British Summer Savings Scheme.  

Boasting different sections, the Botanic Gardens offers visitors to explore British wild plants to exotic tropical plants to beautiful roses.

On 15 July, visit the Garden’s Main Lawn for Sounds Green 2026 and enjoy swing and jazz from The Basin Street Brawlers with a standard entry ticket. 

Don’t forget to have a tea break on the terrace of The Garden Cafe when all the walking and dancing is done.

Children under 17 go free and adult admissions are £7.60.

Tudor House Museum, Worcester – free

Step back into time at the Tudor Museum in Worcester from Wednesdays to Saturdays from 10am-4pm. 

This summer, the Tudor House Museum brings a range of family activities on Thursdays to Saturdays exploring a different historical theme each week. 

Take home a family portrait at the Victorian Parlour, write top secret messages using wartime codes or design a banquet fit for royals. 

Free admission

Scotland

Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh – free

Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh offers the chance to hike up the remains of a dormant ancient volcano for free. 

Once you get to the top of this 2,000 old hillfort, enjoy the views of St Margaret’s Loch from the summit before climbing back down. 

Free Admission

Summer Family Fun, Edinburgh – free

From 29 June – 7 August, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh is hosting Summer Family Fun on Mondays and Fridays. 

Drop in anywhere from 10am – 4pm with the family and discover weekly changing themes ranging from dinosaurs to space to ancient Egyptians for free.

Free Admission

Open Air Pool, Stonehaven, Aberdeen – free 

Jump into the UK’s only art deco, Olympic-sized lido at Stonehaven’s Open Air Pool in Aberdeen.

Now open for the summer, there is something for everyone looking to cool down from the heat.

Little ones under the age of 8 can enjoy splashing in a paddling pool (while accompanied by an adult).

If there are older kids in the group, slide down the playground of inflatables.

Catch the inflatables during the weekends from 1pm to 3pm in early and late season or all throughout the week from 3 July – 18 August. 

During the early and late season there is live music which can be enjoyed by everyone after the inflatables close. 

Day tickets start from free for under 5’s to £10.40 for adults. £1 deposit required for lockers.

Inverness Walk, Inverness – free 

If a hike up the hills at Inverness is on the itinerary, don’t forget to check out this walk around River Ness and Ness Islands. 

Explore Inverness by finding key sights of the city close to the station.

Highlights include the Inverness Cathedral designed by Alexander Ross, the Inverness Castle, and the floating Ness Islands.

On the walk, cross footbridges and spot fishermen catching salmon and birds frolicking along the river.

Free Admission

Northern Ireland

Street Art, Belfast – free

Belfast is known for its colourful streets and going on a Belfast Street Art Walking Tour may be the perfect way to learn how this creative community became so famous.

Starting from the Duke of York, go on a 2 hour walk and discover the artists who have transformed the vibrant walls of the Cathedral Quarter for £10.80.

Alternatively, download the Street Arts Cities app on your phone and go on a self-guided tour at your own pace for free. 

Prices start from free – £10.80

Ulster Museum, Belfast – free

Visit Belfast’s Botanic Gardens and drop into free workshops where kids can discover their inner fashionista or book into object handling sessions.

The interactive center offers ways to connect with creativity or learn about artefacts from different civilisations and natural wonders. 

Free Admission

17th Century Walls, Londonderry – free 

Marvel at the only walled city of Derry built in 1613-1618 and learn about the history and heritage it holds. 

Check out the impressive collection of 7 gates and cannons which have been carefully looked after and restored.

Free Admission

The Giant’s Lair, Slieve Gullion Adventure Playpark – free

Transport your little ones to the land of giants, fairies, and pixies with this free fairytale trail at Slieve Gullion Forest Park in County Armagh.

Walk the same path of mischievous Flynn the fairy and be careful not to wake the sleeping giant, Slieve Gullion.

Find fairy houses, sip on dandelion tea at the Giant’s table, pass the ladybird house and catch a glimpse of the naughty witch, Calliagh Berra. 

Free Admission

Wales

Caerphilly Cheese Festival, Caerphilly, Wales – free

Making a return, the Caerphilly Cheese Festival takes place on the 29th and 30th August at Caerphilly Town Centre and is free to attend. 

Explore the packed schedule consisting of food, drink and craft stalls, funfair attractions, street and music entertainers.

Don’t forget to gorge on cheese while you are there.

Free Admission

Cardiff Bay Barrage, Cardiff – free

For something free, families can choose to go on a stroll or an easy bike ride while enjoying the views of Cardiff Bay and the Severn Estuary.

Check out other facilities such as the children’s play area, Skate Plaza and adiZone outdoor gym. 

Free Admission

Margam Country Park, Port Talbot – free 

Near Port Talbot, there are plenty of fun activities for the whole family at this park with free entry. 

Visit the Fairytale Village and step into miniature houses with whimsical themes, play a game of giant chess and draughts, or wander through the willow cathedral. 

A unique feature is the Wood Vibrations Trail where kids have the opportunity to create music and appreciate nature.

Pass the giant musical instruments made from felled trees, grab a stick and watch them play their hearts out.

Free Admission, but car park charges apply (£8.90 for cars or £5.90 if arriving 2 hours before closing)

Holyhead Festival, Newry Beach – from free

From 23 July – 26th July, celebrate culture with the community at the Holyhead festival at Newry Beach with music, street food and craft stalls. 

There is also a programme of fun such as the Family Foam Sessions (With Peppa Pig) and fairground rides, although additional charges may apply (£5 and under) 

Free Admission. Foam Party tickets start at £2 for adults and £5 for children attending Peppa Pig sessions.

A stuggling family was given a much needed lifeline from a millionaire couple

A struggling family couldn’t hide their emotions after a wealthy couple gave them a fresh start.

They felt like they’d “won the lottery” after the wealthy pair cleared their £6,000 worth of debt and handed the father a chance to pursue his dream of breaking into property development.

The emotional moment happened during an episode of Rich House, Poor House, which originally aired in 2024. At the time, viewers were joined by Kev and Emma Wing, along with their twins Mollie and Peyton, who live in a two-bedroom rented house in Derbyshire.

Seeing how the top 1% live, they swapped lives for a week with world champion football freestyler Liv Cooke and her partner Gal Ozery, who split their time between a lavish manor house in Lower Bagthorpe, Nottinghamshire, and Los Angeles.

The two families couldn’t be more different as the Wings live on a mere £78.25 a week after bills and with money short, meanwhile enjoyed Liv and Gal enjoy the high life with a generous £2,000 budget at their fingertips.

During the swap, the Wings, who are a football-mad family, splashed nearly £1,000 on souvenirs at their beloved Derby County shop and Kev got behind the wheel of a £195,000 Lamborghini.

And his aspiring Lioness daughters received coaching from Ryan Hopper, who works with professional players including Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot.

While Liv and Gal enjoy wealth far beyond the Wings’ wildest dreams, they lack the one thing Liv yearns for most – children. Liv said: “Having a child and making our family unit is the only thing we’re missing.”

Things then took a turn when the couple were left stunned to discover that the Wings had no savings whatsoever and were £6,000 in the red.

Liv, who amassed her wealth through property development, and Gal, who heads up a company supplying private jets and luxury watches to ultra-wealthy clients, were keen to help the family so they decided to offer them a much needed lifeline.

Liv told the couple: “We’ve seen the sacrifices that you two have made for the girls and you’ve got a beautiful life. We’ve decided that we’d like to pay off that debt for you and give you that chance.”

Kev and Emma broke down in tears as Gal continued: “We hope that this makes you feel like every day when you get up, you’re excited for the day and you’re ready to build.”

Emma whipped away her tears as she replied: “I’ve got nothing to say other than thank you so much.” The generosity didn’t stop there as the millionaire pair wanted to help Kev pursue his dreams of getting on the property ladder.

Liv turned to Kev and said: “If you do want to pursue your interest in property, I’d be more than happy to train you up… we can do it slow, we can do it alongside your job so there’s no risk there but if we can get you in that market, getting on the ladder, I think that would be the real life-changing thing.”

Visibly moved said: “It does feel now like we’ve won the lottery.” His favourite part of the lifestyle swap was spending time with his family, adding: “It’s like Christmas every day.”

You can catch up on Rich House, Poor House on Channel 5.

The shy 9-year-old Nathan Negrete doesn’t naturally gravitate toward the spotlight, but as Negrete stood with Weston McKennie in front of the roaring 74,904 fans at SoFi Stadium, he smiled.

Looking back nearly a month later, the Pico Rivera resident doesn’t remember much of the U.S. men’s national team win over Paraguay, getting overwhelmed by the experience. But he remembers what McKennie told him — something Negrete decided should be kept secret despite a large smile on his face.

“The best day ever,” he said of the experience. “Because I went to the World Cup.”

Quaker and Common Goal partnered with FIFA to select children and young adults to escort teams out onto the pitch before kickoff. Negrete, who attends Rio Vista Elementary, was one of the lucky few who joined the U.S. team before its 4-1 win over Paraguay. It was a joyous start to a tournament run that would eventually end in the Round of 16.

A fan of both the U.S. and Mexico, Negrete started playing soccer at 4. His mother, Monica Ocampo, and his father, Jonathan Negrete, were both soccer fans, and they encouraged him to play as a striker. After his practices, though, Negrete would step into the goal and block his teammates’ shots. And once he strapped on the gloves officially, his parents couldn’t convince him to leave the net.

But there wasn’t anything quite like the experience of stepping out in front of the roaring crowd. Even as the city prepared to host the World Cup, as nearby restaurants hung banners to attract pedestrians and watch party notifications flooded social media, Ocampo said she wasn’t prepared for the impact of watching her child take the field with the national team.

The family held a 15-person watch party, just not for the actual game — for her son. The Telemundo broadcast zoomed in on Negrete and McKennie. For a couple of moments, Negrete scanned the stadium seriously, but then he looked up to see himself and McKennie on the SoFi Stadium video boards. So, he smiled.

“I cried,” Ocampo said. “His dad looked like he wanted to cry when he saw him.”

Messages from friends and family flooded her phone as the rest of the people who knew Negrete realized he was on the broadcast. Was that Nathan? Was that your son? Negrete took on a new nickname after his appearance: “Famous Nathan.”

As Nathan drove home with his mom, he still couldn’t believe what had happened. It took a few days for him to take it all in, and once he started talking about it, not a lot could stop him. The one priceless memory he kept with him was simple:

“‘I really want to be a professional soccer player now,’” Ocampo remembers her son saying in the car ride home. “Actually being there, seeing the field, actually living it, that’s one thing he told me that night: I really want to be a professional.”

He wouldn’t be the first. Graham Zusi, who played for the U.S. men’s national team between 2012 and 2017, participated in the 1994 World Cup opening ceremony as a 7-year-old. And even now, Negrete is using his experience to fuel his dreams of playing professionally, revisiting the YouTube video of the experience again and again.

“Hopefully one day he gets there, but wherever his life takes him, just for him to see that experience, it’s something he’s never going to forget,” Ocampo said. “Even now, sometimes we talk about him like I can’t believe he actually did that.”

Trips to waterfalls, gardens, galleries, medieval forests and prehistoric caves will make the long school holidays a lot more fun. To help families explore affordably, throughout August buses in England will be free for kids and adult fares will be capped at £3 single. Or, if you arrive somewhere by train, you could buy a PlusBus ticket, which include unlimited local bus travel. Here are six ideas for family outings by bus around England.

Great North Museum, Newcastle

Painted mummy cases, fossilised dino teeth, a stuffed wombat, a fake merman … Newcastle’s Great North Museum: Hancock is full of things kids might love – and entrance is free. Some of the impressive Roman altars are lit with colourful projections and there’s a planetarium with shows (from £2.95). This summer’s exhibition Treasure: Hidden, Lost, Found (free, until 20 Sept) involves thoughtfully curated shiny stuff, from Roman coins to Viking silver unearthed across northern England. Lots of buses stop nearby, and a bus ticket gets you 10% off in the cafe.

This summer, there’s also a Tales on the Tyne trail across Newcastle of giant Peter Rabbit sculptures and other, smaller “fluffles” to raise funds for St Oswald’s hospice. The waterfront hotel INNSiDE Newcastle, near the station, hosts a Tynetastic Peter sculpture, plus art and reading events. Its riverside restaurant has a bambino menu and under-11s get free meals until 6 September. The hotel offers family-friendly rooms (from £119 for four in August, room-only), activity hampers and a free soft-drink minibar.

In stylish Ouseburn, a short bus ride away, the Biscuit Factory gallery hosts three further fluffles, free kids’ activities, rabbit-themed food and a roof terrace. Bus 306 runs regularly all the way out to Tynemouth for an afternoon on the beach under castle-topped cliffs. Back in the city, the art deco Tyneside cinema has selected films at £5 each week and kids’ classics over the summer.

Forest fun near Hatfield, Essex

Open every day and free to enter, the National Trust’s Hatfield Forest has 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of Frisbee-ready flowering fields and shady woodland. Incongruously close to Stansted airport, the forest was once a royal hunting ground and is still home to hundreds of deer, some descended from Henry I’s original 12th-century herds. You can follow a boardwalk through twisting hornbeams, ramble across buttercup-carpeted meadows, build a den and hear yaffling woodpeckers.

Bus 509 from Bishop’s Stortford stops outside The Green Man, a short walk from the forest’s edge. Briefly follow the road signed Hatfield Forest and turn right up the path just after the bridge to find a map and gateway.

The lakeside picnic tables and alfresco cafe are a delightful mile away, past cattle-grazed pastures busy with butterflies, and 1,000-year-old trees. With no car to get back to (parking costs £9), make this a linear walk. Loop through woods to Thremhall Priory or follow the Three Forests way for 4½ miles to the village of Hatfield Broad Oak and catch bus 305 (not Sundays).

In Bishop’s Stortford itself, there’s a riverside splash pool and playgrounds near the recently revamped castle mound. South Mill arts centre has kids’ crafts for £2 and Much Hadham Forge museum has a free event on 27 August, featuring a Tudor storyteller, to celebrate 450 years since their Elizabethan murals were painted. Half-timbered Much Hadham is 20 minutes from Stortford on hourly bus 35 (not Sundays).

Cave art in Nottinghamshire

The Welbeck Estate’s walking map includes an easy-going, sculpture-dotted trail to Creswell Crags, where a bus ticket gets you free entry to the museum and 10% off in the cafe. A stroll through the limestone gorge is spectacular, past ponds and caves where prehistoric humans lived and left rock art on the walls. Bus 209 from Worksop stops every couple of hours (not Sundays) near the Dukeries garden centre and Welbeck courtyard at the start of the trail.

Welbeck has a free museum and gallery in converted outbuildings. Highlights include the pearl earring Charles I was wearing when he was beheaded and a red chalk Madonna by Michelangelo. The award-winning Harley cafe next door serves local food (kids’ soup £5, cheese on toast £6).

Half-price Harewood, West Yorkshire

Like many big country houses, Harewood usually charges adults well over £20 for a day’s worth of paintings, porcelain and landscaped gardens. But arrive on the frequent bus 36 from Leeds or Harrogate, and you get 50% off walk-up ticket prices. This gives you access to the art-filled house, the Capability Brown parkland and gardens with scented borders, waterfalls and bridges in thickets of bamboo.

For kids, there’s a wooded adventure playground with zipwire and slides, a treehouse and a willow maze. They can also borrow a nature safari bag, complete with map and compass, torch, binoculars and magnifying glass. And the summer holidays are packed with extra offers, all free with a ticket: den-building, gardening, statue-cleaning, dressing up, circus skills, and mid-August workshops by Tibetan monks.

Inside, there’s an exhibition of glamorous photos by Cecil Beaton (until 4 October). Alternatively, a 5-mile circular walk from the bus stop takes in deer, buzzards, rolling parkland and the Muddy Boots cafe. Half an hour away on the 36 bus, Leeds has the free five-storey Royal Armouries museum overlooking the dock.

Word-class art indoors and out in Norwich

Elisabeth Frink’s ostrich-like structures stalk through waterside woods. Antony Gormley’s cast iron figures stand poised on rooftops and walkways across the brutalist University of East Anglia (UEA) campus. Henry Moore’s bronze forms recline on the lawns, and angular steel beasts by Lynn Chadwick crouch under a model of Vladimir Tatlin’s tower. The free sculpture park at the Sainsbury Centre is packed with iconic names from 20th-century art and architecture and set in 140 hectares of parkland that are yours to explore, with centuries-old oaks, wild rabbits, and free family-friendly tours and trails.

Inside the Norman Foster-designed gallery (pay what you can), relaunched in 2023, the works are eclectic. You can wander from ancient Chinese tomb figures to a dynamic new installation via a work by Picasso. Kids might like the glass box you can stand in to “become a work of art” near John Davies’ hyper-realistic Bucket Man. The ambitious summer exhibitions look at the meaning of life and aspects of play. Show your bus ticket in the cafe for a 10% discount.

Bus 25 from the station or city centre runs frequently to UEA and stops close to the Sainsbury Centre. It passes the huge square keep of Norwich Castle, which reopened last year after a £27.5m renovation project. There are sound-and-light shows on the old stone walls of the Great Hall and a £2.50 twilight ticket if you visit an hour before closing time.

Wildlife watching in the Lakes

The mossy, fern-fringed waterfalls at Aira Force are 45 minutes on bus 508 from Penrith station. The route runs beside Ullswater with views across the lake to bracken-cloaked Hallin Fell. It’s one of the trips in a new book on Where to Watch Wildlife in Britain By Low-Carbon Transport, along with 100 other car-free trips to nature-rich sites across the UK.

Look out for dippers, dragonflies and red squirrels. The area offers varied and spectacular walks, such as a pushchair- and mobility scooter-friendly stroll through the woods at Pooley Bridge or a hike up Gowbarrow Fell.

THE kids will really dig fossil hunting, seal spotting and making a splash in this off-grid Dorset farm, says Art Director Laura Cunningham.

Here’s how a safari tent adventure will turn into the ultimate family staycation triumph.

THE PAD

When I break the news to my workaholic husband Barney and our kids Ellis, 10, Nate, eight, and six-year-old Violet, that we’ll be without electricity and Wi-Fi for four days, I’m met with horrified faces.

But Feather Down’s East Shilvinghampton Farm offers a wholesome family escape that means screens are fast forgotten.

The spacious safari tents have proper beds, a wood-burning stove and a well-equipped kitchen, and the kids spend hours feeding the goats and climbing trees – even walking the alpacas with farmer’s son Henry, £20 per animal.

Toasting marshmallows on the campfire and cooking pizzas, £12 each, in the communal pizza oven also creates magical memories.

WAIL OF A TIME

I drove Irish Route 66 with deserted golden beaches and pirate-like islands

TEMPTED?

Tiny ‘Bali of Europe’ town with stunning beaches, €3 cocktails and £20 flights

EXPLORE

Worth the 45-minute drive is Dorset Adventure Park and its giant 200m inflatable water course.

Adults will have just as much fun as kids, who won’t tire of launching you off the flipbag!

Tickets cost £22 each (Dorsetadventurepark.com).

We love feeding monkey nuts to the cute otters and watching penguins waddle around at nearby Sea Life Weymouth, before a round of pirate mini golf.

Combo tickets cost £27 for adults, £24 for kids (Visitsealife.com/weymouth).

And be sure to follow Weymouth’s Fossil Trail, from Alexandra Gardens to Hope Square, to hunt down fossil sculptures and learn more about the prehistoric creatures this coastline is famous for.

It easily fills an hour for us (Weareweymouth.co.uk).

At the beach itself you may be as lucky as us and spot a seal basking on the shoreline.

And if you fancy hanging out with 250 rescued primates, from gibbons to orangutans, in 65 acres of parkland, hit Monkey World.

Adult tickets cost £18, over-threes £12 (Monkeyworld.org).

REFUEL

Follow the queue of people along Weymouth’s waterfront to Rossi’s Ices.

They’re freshly made throughout the day, and we devour the hazelnut ripple and cherry flavours, £2.50 per scoop (Rossisweymouth.com).

Meanwhile, at Watch House Cafe in Bridport, we tuck into delicious crab focaccia with fennel salad and aioli, £14.50, while overlooking picturesque West Bay, AKA the cliffs made famous by Broadchurch (Watchhousecafe.co.uk).

And when hitting the golden sands of Hive beach, don’t miss the crispy chilli and lime squid, £19.50, at Hive Beach Cafe (Hivebeachcafe.co.uk).

Closer to the campsite, The Sunray pub in Osmington has a great outdoor play area and dishes including duroc pork loin served with bubble and squeak cake, scrumpy apple compote and garden sage jus, £23.75, while the kids’ sticky toffee pudding, £4, doesn’t disappoint either (Sunrayosmington.com).

BOOK IT

Safari tent stays for six at East Shilvinghampton Farm cost from £399 for four nights (Featherdown.co.uk).

A federal prosecutor in Texas has shared new details about the moments before an immigration officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo that cast doubt about the government’s claim that the man struck an ICE vehicle before he was shot.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national and longtime American resident, on July 7 as he was driving to a Houston construction job site with three co-workers, including his brother. ICE has acknowledged he was not the target of the operation.

The shooting sparked protests in the nation’s fourth-largest city, echoing Salgado Araujo’s family’s calls for transparency. The family describes him as a hardworking father who was close to obtaining legal status in the U.S. after living in the country for 35 years.

The shooting came just days before two other men were killed, in Florida and Maine, in confrontations in President Trump’s federal immigration crackdown, renewing scrutiny on the Department of Homeland Security’s law enforcement tactics.

Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said for the first time Thursday that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation. He said they were driving a van similar to the one Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed. In an earlier statement released the day Salgado Araujo was killed, Homeland Security said he was targeted in an immigration enforcement operation and he was living in the country without legal permission.

Reitz also said that the officers believed that Salgado Araujo and the passengers in his car fit the description of the Guatemalan men the agents were looking for.

Four officers driving two separate law enforcement vehicles attempted to pull over Salgado Araujo’s van using their police lights. Salgado Araujo then made a U-turn and drove over a median to evade getting pulled over, Reitz said.

Later that morning, the officers again encountered Salgado Araujo’s van and for the second time tried to pull him over, this time essentially surrounding the vehicle, Reitz said. Two of the four agents got out of their cars and told Salgado Araujo to put the vehicle in park. Just before he was shot, one of the agents was “partially inside the van or immediately next to it” when Salgado Araujo tried to reverse the van and then drive forward again, Reitz said.

An earlier Homeland Security statement accused Salgado Araujo of “weaponizing” his vehicle. The agency said he rammed his van into a law enforcement vehicle and said an officer opened fire in self-defense. The most recent statement from the U.S attorney’s office, however, didn’t mention any collision between Salgado Araujo’s van and a law enforcement vehicle. It also didn’t explicitly say that the officer feared for his life. There are no reported injuries among the officers involved.

The latest statement didn’t name the officer who killed Salgado Araujo, nor did it specify whether the officer who fired the shot was the same person who was next to, or partially inside, the van.

Reitz also said in the statement that officers “saw in plain view several small bags of a white, crystal-like substance inside the van” and that the FBI later executed a search warrant to investigate for possible illicit substances.

Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the shooting happened, has been in ICE detention since the incident. His attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.

Few photos or videos surrounding the shooting in Houston have emerged on social media, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

A mother who faked a pregnancy after suffering several miscarriages is the subject of a harrowing Netflix documentary.

Netflix’s latest docu-drama unravels an elaborate lie that saw a woman to cross an irreversible line.

Streaming giant Netflix has just unveiled an emotional trailer for a tragic docu-drama perfect for Maternal Instinct fans, that tells the story of a Mexican woman named Alejandra.

Based on real events that shook all of Mexico in 2009, the film, which features both dramatisations and real home footage, tells of how Alejandra had always wanted to be a mother. However, after suffering multiple miscarriage and noticing the distain from her family, she decided to fake a pregnancy.

The trailer features the voice of Alejandra, who says: “I felt so special. From the moment that the people close to you start treating you lovingly, expectantly, with that joy.

“The way they come up and touch your belly…Many times I wanted to say ‘This isn’t happening, I’m not pregnant’.”

Alejandra explained the tragic reasoning behind her actions, sharing: “When I got married, I felt pressured to please his family.”

Being only 25 at the time, she felt burdened by family and societal expectations and despite her efforts to conceive, she struggled numerous times.

Alejandra then recalled how she met a young woman named Mayra, who she claimed was pregnant but did not want to have the baby. Fixated on the knowledge she knew somebody who did not want to keep their baby, Alejandra began orchestrating her elaborate plan to abduct a child.

She is heard saying: “When I started gaining weight, everything started to change. I wanted someone to burst that balloon of lies.”

In June 2009, she went to the Hospital General de México, where she was employed, and left with a newborn girl, tucking the baby into a bag. Contributors offering their testimony in the film are heard saying: “This was very hard to believe. Yet, it happened.”

Reflecting on her actions, Alejandra said: “What did I do wrong? Breaking the law. Deceiving. Hurting. I think my desire to be a mum was to please others.”

Her story was told in a book by Randall Fuquay called A Child to Call My Own: A True Story of Desperate Love, a Stolen Child, and the Nine Months that Changed Everything. Now, the story has been adapted for the small screen by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Maite Alberdi.

A Child of My Own comes to Netflix on August 13

WASHINGTON — For Mary Fisher–mother, artist, philanthropist and HIV-positive woman–the moment is now.

She tries hard not to think about the future: her future, or the possibility that her children will face their future without her. When she feels the fear, it comes “in that reflective place you find yourself in at night, when you’re forced to find a quiet time,” she said.

“I allow my work and my children to fill my time, so I don’t have to think about those things on a daily or hourly basis,” she said. “I couldn’t get through the days if I did.”

Nor does Fisher dwell on her medical situation with her two young sons, who are now 6 and 4. Neither of them is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

“The best thing I can do for them is be with them, look them straight in the eye, answer their questions as best I can and be here, be involved in their lives as best I can,” she said. “They know I have a disease. I don’t know if they’re relating it to what their dad had–and I don’t know if I want them to relate to it, because I’m not sick.

“I don’t want to instill my fears–if I have them–in my children,” she added.

It has been nearly two years since Fisher, 45, seared the public consciousness with her speech before the Republican National Convention.

Standing before her fellow Republicans, she spoke in calm, gentle tones–but delivered a personal story that shocked the hall into silence.

“I think she reaches people that activists like myself can never reach, which is people who respond to maternal warmth and not to yelling,” said playwright Larry Kramer, a close friend of Fisher’s who is a founding member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).

“That’s why she is as important as we are, maybe more so,” he said. “We’re a funny pair because she’s always saying to me: ‘Larry, I wish I had some of your anger.’ And I’m always saying to her: ‘Mary, I wish I had some of your compassion.’ I see her speeches on TV and say: ‘Mary, why don’t you get angrier?’ And she says: ‘Larry, I can’t.’ But I think she’s exceedingly effective being as she is, and I don’t want her to change a decibel.”

Fisher challenged the Republican Party to confront the AIDS epidemic with candor and compassion and to make the issue its own.

Since then, she has traveled the nation, speaking in churches, schools, prisons–wherever there is an audience that can learn from her message: If it can happen to me, it can happen to you.

In many quarters, “people perceive AIDS as a depressing subject and don’t want to take personal responsibility,” Fisher said from the home she now rents in a Maryland suburb outside Washington, where she moved her family from Boca Raton, Fla., last summer.

“They try to make me an exception,” she said. “I am not unusual. I am unusual only because I am speaking out. . . . The point is, there are a lot of me’s out there, women with small children who are (HIV) positive, women who are devastated, women who are scared to talk about it. I know, because they come to me when I am traveling. It’s truly amazing.”

In some ways, Fisher is wrong–she is unusual in the framework of the AIDS epidemic: She is wealthy — the daughter of longtime GOP fund-raiser and Detroit real estate mogul Max Fisher — and she works for herself at home (she creates art using handmade paper) so she has no “workplace problem” with AIDS.

And she has enough money to keep her children sheltered, although she has not isolated them.

Moreover, she is a longtime Republican with impeccable political credentials and connections.

Fisher includes former Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George Bush and their families among her closest friends. She once worked in the Ford White House, and photographs of Ford and her two sons, Max and Zachary, adorn her living room.

But AIDS is the great leveler, so she is also right–in many ways, she is no exception at all.

Fisher was infected by her former husband, Brian Campbell, who reportedly was at one time an intravenous drug user. He has since died of AIDS. Women infected through heterosexual contact have become a rapidly growing population.

Fisher said it took a long time for her to come to grips with her infection–and to speak about it.

“The discovery that we are HIV-positive tends to divide our lives into ‘before’ and ‘after,’ ” Fisher wrote in a newly published collection of her speeches, “Sleep with the Angels,” subtitled, “a mother challenges AIDS.”

The book, she says, “is not just about AIDS, it’s about children. It’s about religion. It’s about how we as a people deal with each other, and it’s about my life, my relationships with others and the unconditional love that’s out there.”

Kramer, who is quick to criticize others involved in AIDS activities, has only praise and affection for Fisher.

“It’s impossible not to like Mary because she is so caring and loving and motherly and interested, and because she puts her arms around you and gives you wonderful hugs,” he said.

Fisher learned in July, 1991, that she was infected, but she said it took six months before she was ready to tell her story publicly.

After she did, and after she spoke to the GOP convention, Bush appointed her to the now-defunct National Commission on AIDS, replacing Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the HIV-positive retired Los Angeles Lakers star who quit over what he said was an unresponsive Administration.

Fisher also founded the Family AIDS Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising AIDS awareness nationwide.

The network, she says, plans to give “care-giver” awards this spring because “they are the people who take care of us. They are the people who do not leave this epidemic.” She also said she hopes that the organization can raise enough money for small AIDS research grants.

Currently, Fisher has no symptoms and takes no AIDS medication. “I feel really healthy, and am doing fine,” she said. “As far as I know, everything is good.”

Fisher said she intends to keep doing everything she is doing for as long as she can, speaking quietly and forcefully about the epidemic to whoever will listen.

“If we can create a dialogue and keep it going, I believe it’s the only way we can make a difference,” she said.

SCHOOL’S out for summer. And if you’re one of the many strapped-for-cash Brits who has yet to book their family getaway, listen up.

The Algarve is the cheapest holiday destination for families in 2026 offering bargain food and drinks among other holiday essentials.

The Portuguese resort was crowned the most budget-friendly of 22 European holiday destinations in The Post Office Travel Money’s annual Family Holiday Costs Barometer.

Conducted in partnership with TUI, the research looked into the average price of ten typical getaway items for a family of four in some of the most popular short-haul holiday destinations.

These items included a cup of coffee, a bottle of beer/lager, a can of cola, a glass of wine, a large bottle of water, sun cream, insect repellent, children’s pizza or pasta, a two-course lunch for two adults and a three-course family meal with wine and soft drinks.

Overall, the Algarve was shown to be the least damaging to wallets with a total cost of £139.65 for all the above items.

WAIL OF A TIME

I drove Irish Route 66 with deserted golden beaches and pirate-like islands

TEMPTED?

Tiny ‘Bali of Europe’ town with stunning beaches, €3 cocktails and £20 flights

This is a 2.7 per cent dip in overall costs from the previous year, pushing the sun-soaked region ahead of Bulgaria’s notoriously affordable Sunny Beach on the budget scale.

Sunny Beach still came in second place overall, however, despite a staggering 9.3 per cent hike in costs since 2025, with all ten holiday items coming in at a total of £142.16 — just a few quid more than the Algarve.

It is still the most affordable place for a meal out, though.

According to the research, dinner for a family of four will set the average holidaymaker back around £73, compared with £78 in the Algarve.

In general, the report looks promising for Brits who love Spain’s gorgeous costas and islands, too.

On the whole, the country was shown to be widely affordable with six destinations making it into the top ten most budget-friendly regions for 2026.

The Canary isle of Lanzarote came in third place with overall costs of £147.42.

It was shown to be the cheapest spot for both a bottle of beer (£2.18) and adult lunch (£15.73), although some items like sun cream were found to be a bit more pricey.

Menorca, the Costa Brava and Tenerife came in fourth, fifth and sixth place on the list, with overall holiday item costs of £151.28, £155.02 and £158.31 respectively.

Each of these Spanish hot spots is new to the barometer for 2026, with TUI reporting increased demand for these destinations and Western Europe on a whole this year.

In all three holiday regions, a glass of wine was shown to be under £4 on average, with tipples in the Costa Brava and Tenerife costing less than they would in the Algarve.

On the other hand, if you’re a family with multiple hungry mouths to feed, you may want to set your sights on Marmaris, which came in seventh place overall.

According to the report, this Turkish destination has the most affordable kids meals of all 22 spots, setting holidaymakers back £10.24 on average for pizza or pasta for two kids.

That’s over £3 cheaper than in the winning budget destination, the Algarve, and could make a huge difference on a week-long getaway.

Completing the top ten chart are Spain’s Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca, plus Paphos in Cyprus, coming in eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively with barometer costs of £163.17, £173.41 and £177.18.

Laura Plunkett, head of Post Office Travel Money, said: “It is more important than ever to do some research before heading off on your holiday to inform how much holiday cash you’ll need for meals, drinks and other tourist staples.

“For those families who haven’t already booked and are looking for a late deal, the low resort prices in Portugal and Spain make these countries great value for money, while Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts are strong contenders, too.”

At the opposite end of the scale, Italy’s Sorrento appeared to be the most expensive of all 22 destinations, with all ten of the holiday essentials costing £268.23 in total — almost double the price of the same items in the Algarve.

Holidaymakers visiting this Italian gem would be shelling out around £5.68 for a bottle of beer, £4.37 for a cup of coffee and a staggering £150.28 for a three-course family meal. Mamma Mia!

A woman has been arrested by Spanish police as she attempted to board a flight out of the country, having allegedly left a £2,000 hotel bill unpaid

Restaurant owners have complained that “dine and dash” offences are on the increase, with some customers ducking out on bills of hundreds of pounds. But as shocking as those losses are, they are dwarfed by a massive £2,000 bill left unpaid after one family’s 11-night holiday at an all-inclusive resort in the Canary Islands.

Officers of Spain’s National Police have arrested a foreign tourist on suspicion of fraud after she allegedly left a hotel in San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) without paying for her stay, which was valued at 2,483 euros (£2,125).

In a press release, the National Police explained that hotel managers had reported that a family of two adults and a child had left the premises after an 11-night all-inclusive stay without settling the bill.

The stay had been booked through the resort’s website, and the customers had provided a credit card number as a security deposit. However, when hotel staff attempted to process the bill at the end of the guests’ stay, they were unable to complete the transaction.

Despite making several attempts to contact the customers, no payment was received and police officers were mobilised to intercept the guest as she attempted to leave the country.

Video footage provided by the National Police shows the as-yet-unnamed suspect being arrested at Gran Canaria Airport. After her arrest, the woman was taken to the Maspalomas police station for processing and was subsequently placed at the disposal of the judicial authorities.

The National Police emphasised its commitment to protecting the Canary Islands’ tourism sector and reminded visitors that any attempt to avoid payment for goods or services will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Here in the UK, a 2018 survey found that one in 20 people had walked out without paying for a meal.

Donna Jones, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, told The Daily Mail that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of “dine and dash” offences in recent years.

While some have blamed the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, Ms Jones dismissed that suggestion, saying, “They’re driving away in their own cars.” She urged any businesses affected by crimes of this kind to “share images online … and to name and shame those individuals”.

Kate Nicholls, the CEO of the industry organisation UKHospitality, told the Guardian that while only a minority of customers behaved in this way, incidents of people avoiding paying for meals could be “a serious matter” for the bars and restaurants involved.

“These businesses operate on very tight net-profit margins – less than 4% – and often it can be quite big-spend items that people are going for,” she explained.

Adding that referring to the offences as “dine and dash” escapades trivialised what could be a very serious problem for hospitality businesses: “Let’s call it what it is,” she said. “This is theft and fraud and it should be prosecuted as such. It’s not a victimless crime. It is money that is being taken from a business for goods and services consumed – it’s exactly the same as shoplifting.”

Walk through sunflowers in Gower

At the westernmost tip of the Gower peninsula, Rhossili Bay is a gloriously wide sweep of sand, backed by dunes and licked with waves perfect for bodyboarding and surfing. Wild ponies graze on the southern headland, while walkers time their trip across to the serpent-like Worm’s Head promontory to not get cut off by the tide.

In summer there’s an added draw: 100,000 sunflowers. A 20-minute walk from the Worm’s Head National Trust car park, the flowers hit their peak from late July into August. Across the site there are pick-your-own fields, a trail to follow between wooden animal structures and giant swings (for the photo ops as much as the fun).
Entry to the sunflowers £4 weekdays, £4.50 weekends, rhossilisunflowers.co.uk

Fabulous forest play in Dorset

Deep in the woods at Moors Valley country park are giant ant nests and snake pits, huge hawks and spiders, all stars of Forestry England’s play trail. It wiggles for a mile through the trees with tunnels to crawl through, slides to whiz down and crocodile-shaped balancing beams. There’s also the inclusive beehive with double-width slide and quiet areas for those requiring less stimulation.

New for this year is Woodland Rhapsody, a musical play structure with gravel-filled rain makers and drums to bang, and the Timber area, which tells the story of a forester’s job, with pulleys to sort seeds, timber tangles to climb and a big wooden harvester with steering wheel and levers to operate.
Free (car parking charges apply), moors-valley.co.uk

A wine (and wildlife) hike in the Surrey Hills

Wine hikes, with scenic trails linking vineyards, are often associated with mainland Europe, but here’s a great English alternative, using the North Downs Way.

Start at Albury Vineyard (take the 32 bus from Guildford train station), where the self-guided wildlife walk through the vines passes bat and barn owl boxes, bug hotels, beehives, wildflower meadows and a pond. It’s then a seven-mile stomp to Denbies Wine Estate to board the vineyard “train”, the carriages hooked up to the back of a Land Rover. Other shorter walking loops start and end at Denbies Estate, passing artist James Tunnard’s wavy wooden seat, Radius, and up Denbies Hillside, which is alive with butterflies and wild orchids – the perfect picnic spot.
Albury Vineyard wildlife walk: free (suggested donation £10 a group to Surrey Wildlife Trust), alburyvineyard.com. Denbies vineyard train tour: £12.50 adults, £6.95 children, denbies.co.uk

Spot dolphins in the Moray Firth

About 200 bottlenose dolphins live in the waters north of Inverness, the most northerly colony in the world. They are a hardy bunch, hunting and swimming around the Moray Firth and beyond all year, but sightings of them throwing fish and leaping from the water are more frequent in the summer months.

The Scottish Dolphin Centre at Spey Bay is not only a good place to get the binoculars out (there are plenty to borrow – keep an eye out for ospreys, seals and otters, too), but also a hub of marine learning. Housed in a former 18th-century fishing station, there are tours of the old ice house, an interactive dolphin exhibition with live wildlife cameras, plus river rambles and nature-themed holiday clubs during the Scottish school summer holidays.
Free, holiday clubs £1.50-£3 per child, dolphincentre.whales.org

Celebrate David Hockney in West Yorkshire

The late David Hockney’s oil painting Salts Mill depicted the building’s Victorian facade glowing orange and the Yorkshire hillsides glinting emerald green. It was a present for Jonathan Silver, Hockney’s friend, who transformed this former textile mill into a cultural hub, and it hangs in the entrance to the building.

Upstairs there are more of Hockney’s works in the 20 Flowers for 2025 and Some Bigger Pictures exhibition, which runs until January 2027. It’s a free, inspiring space – perhaps pick up a sketch book and paints in the shop afterwards. Plus there are burgers and pizzas at Salts Diner for lunch, the Peace Museum (also inside the mill) to potter around, and a lovely walk along the canal to Bingley.
Free, saltsmill.org.uk

Visit the Quentin Blake centre in London

Revered illustrator Quentin Blake has been championing a museum of his craft for 20 years, and in June, aged 93, he opened the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, a permanent home for the art form in an 18th-century waterworks in Clerkenwell. Blake is most famous for his scribbly style, as seen in his illustrations for Roald Dahl’s stories, but all kinds of work is celebrated here, from comics to graphic murals. Plenty is free to wander: a library in the former Engine House, a cafe in the Boiler House, as well as the gardens.

Paid exhibitions delve into Blake’s extensive archive and spotlight contemporary illustrators. Budding artists can try out fabric painting and printmaking at the Creative Studio during the summer holidays (Wednesdays, 10.30am-12.30pm).
Exhibition: £15 adults, £6 children, under-5s free, family tickets from £23 (1 adult + 3 children), qbcentre.org.uk

Count butterflies on the Hampshire Downs

The wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation predicts it’s going to be a bumper summer, thanks in part to a massive migration of painted lady butterflies from Africa. Its Big Butterfly Count runs until 9 August – the world’s largest butterfly survey – and last year 125,000 citizen scientists each spent 15 minutes outside noting numbers of butterflies and moths.

The organisation’s Magdalen Hill Down nature reserve on a chalk hillside just outside Winchester would be a good place to count – 46 hectares of chalk grassland, wildflower meadows and woodland, which are home to butterflies such as the adonis blue, chalk hill blue and brown argus.
Free, butterfly-conservation.org

Monastic life on a Pembrokeshire island

The first monks arrived on Caldey Island off Pembrokeshire’s south coast in the sixth century. Today, the Cistercian order are as well known for their chocolate and lavender perfume-making as for their vow of nightly silence (with no unnecessary speech during the day). It’s 20 minutes by boat from Tenby to this peaceful escape, where paths wind through woodland and along cliffs to the working lighthouse, soft sands of Priory Beach and a chocolate and fudge kitchen.

This summer, there’s a new natural play area and the Monastic Story Hall, which charts the island’s history and explores monastic life, as well as highlighting the unique wildlife here, which includes red squirrels, hedgehogs, seals and Manx shearwaters.
Adults £24.95, children £12.95 (under-4s free), family (2 adults + 2 children) £64.95, caldeyislandwales.com

Watch history come to life in County Durham

Each summer, on Saturday evenings in Bishop Auckland, Boudicca battles against the Romans. Vikings invade, knights joust and a full-size steam locomotive chugs across a 7.5-acre stage as part of Kynren – An Epic Tale of England. With a 1,000-strong cast, the outdoor show whips through 2,000 years of history, and now has an equally dramatic daytime counterpart, Kynren – The Storied Lands.

The five daily shows offer a journey through time and legend, with immersive re-enactments and live-action storytelling, featuring swooping birds of prey, charging horses, ancient monsters from the deep, a Viking village and a maze-like Victorian imaginarium.
From £30 adults, £20 children, 18 July-12 September, kynren.com

A bat safari by punt in Cambridge

Bats might have their big moment at Halloween, but the best time to see them fluttering around is the height of summer, just after sunset. One of the most atmospheric ways is on a Bat Safari Punting tour along the River Cam. The trips take place every Friday and Saturday evening in summer – departure times vary depending on dusk. Run by the local wildlife trust (with 50% of ticket sales going towards its work), guides use bat detectors to listen for the clicks and squeaks from pipistrelle and Daubenton’s bats along the riverbanks of Grantchester Meadows. In late July and early August there’s a chance to see the mothers and pups in tandem flight in the night sky.
Family row for two £63, three £73, scudamores.com

Take a dip along the Thames

There has been talk of floating lidos and river swimming in London for years, and this summer a spot at Ham, in the west, became the capital’s first designated bathing water area on the Thames.

Elsewhere in London, Sea Lanes Canary Wharf opened a 50-metre six-lane pool in June, bobbing in Eden Dock and designed for swimming lengths, though over-8s who are strong swimmers are welcome. Plus, there’s a summer programme of free open-air cinema, mini golf and other fun around Canary Wharf for afterwards. For younger children, the free Royal Docks Summer Splash at Royal Victoria Dock has a paddling pool, deckchairs and sandpits.
Sea Lanes: pay-per swim £10, sealanescanarywharf.co.uk. Summer Splash: free, 24 July–16 August, royaldocks.london

Waterworld in Staffordshire

North-east of Birmingham, Cliff Lakes is part of a series of human-made lakes along the River Tame, formed from former gravel pits and sand quarries. Today, the tranquil waters are home to a host of activities: open water swimming lanes (popular with training triathletes), boating and wakeboarding, a paddleboarding school and the UK’s largest aqua park with floating assault courses. The newest challenge this summer is the X Tower, a 12-metre-tall inflatable with six slides – four with kickers to send thrill-seekers high into the air before splashdown (age 12 and over). There’s a dedicated kids park for younger water babies, while Aqua Chimp is a high ropes course suspended above the water.
£25pp (over-6s) including parking, wetsuit, aqua socks and buoyancy aid, clifflakes.co.uk

Henry Moore in London and Hertfordshire

Henry Moore and his wife, Irina, moved to rural Hertfordshire from London in 1940 after their home was damaged in the Blitz. For the next 46 years the sculptor worked at Hoglands, creating some of his best-known works. The farmhouse and outbuilding studios have been preserved as the Henry Moore Studio & Gardens, his huge works sitting, as he envisioned them, among the lawns, orchards and woodlands. This year, the Sheep Field Barn reopened as a gallery with hands-on spaces for messy monoprinting sessions and collaborative sculpture workshops.

Kew Gardens in London is having its own Moore moment, displaying 30 of his sculptures for Henry Moore: Monumental Nature (until 31 January 2027), with a family trail including prompts for sketching and games.
Henry Moore Studio & Gardens: £23 adults, £11 children, under-5s free, family tickets from £38, henry-moore.org. Kew Gardens: £24 adults, £2 children, under-4s free, kew.org

See osprey fledglings in Mid Wales

Ospreys disappeared from the UK in 1916, the victims of persecution and egg-collecting, but populations have been slowly recovering since the 1950s. In Wales there are now five breeding pairs that return each year to lay their eggs after wintering in west Africa. Telyn and Idris, one of these pairs, are now raising three chicks, which hatched at the end of May, at the Dyfi Osprey Project outside Machynlleth.

The centre’s YouTube channel has more than 20,000 subscribers following their progress. At the Cors Dyfi nature reserve, visitors get a front-row seat – the observatory tower less than 200 metres from the nest, and this summer those chicks will begin to fly, then learn to hunt for themselves.
Adults £8, children £4, dyfiospreyproject.com

Biking in Robin Hood country

Forestry England’s Sherwood Pines is an activity-filled corner of Sherwood Forest, north Nottinghamshire, more popular these days with mountain bikers than merry men. The 1,336-hectare (3,300-acre) woods has a network of trails for all abilities: advanced dirt jumps, single track downhills filled with berms and rollers, and the four-mile Maid Marion family loop for gentle off-road cycling (bike hire available). The new Pedal and Play trail allows the next generation of freeriders to learn on three loops of increasing skill, including one wide enough for adaptive bike users. King John’s Castle with its wobbly bridge, climbing tree and dungeon, is opposite for a post-pedal play.
Free (parking charges apply), forestryengland.uk/sherwood-pines

A tidal swimming pool tour on the Fife coast

In the early 20th century, tidal pools were all the rage as bathers discovered the health benefits of salt water. Up and down the coast rugged lidos were created, which fill with seawater at high tide, offering a sheltered swim away from waves and currents. The pools at St Monans, Pittenweem and Cellardyke sit on the Fife coast and have been revamped in recent years by community-driven projects. Start at boulder-edged St Monans; then at Pittenweem add a round of mini golf which funds the pool’s upkeep; and after finishing at Cellardyke have wood-fired pizza and coffee. This stretch of East Neuk is strung with pretty fishing villages (each with top-notch fish and chips) linked by the beautiful Fife Coastal Path.
Free, cellardyketidalpool.com, thewestbraes.co.uk, St Monans

Cosmic land art in Dumfries and Galloway

A 400m-long path lined with giant standing stones cuts north to south across the gently rolling hillsides of southern Scotland. This isn’t the mysterious work of Neolithic man, but of American visionary land artist Charles Jencks.

The pathway splits his Crawick Multiverse down the middle: on one side are the spiralling mounds of the Milky Way and Andromeda; on the other, a semicircle of trees, boulders and rusted scrap collide in jagged formations, representing the birth of a billion new stars as galaxies slam into each other. The 22-hectare site was an abandoned opencast mine, and Jencks turned tonnes of excavated earth and rock into an otherworldly sculptural installation.
Adults £8.50, children £5, crawickmultiverse.co.uk

Surf on a Blue Flag beach in North Shields

Each year the Blue Flag awards (or equivalent Scotland Beach awards) recognise the cleanest, safest, most environmentally well-managed stretches of coast in the UK. In 2026, 144 made the cut, from the gorgeous curve of Gyllyngvase Beach near Falmouth to the remote Sands of Breckon in Shetland.

Among them is the dune-backed, mile-long Tynemouth Longsands, the north-east’s year-round surf hub, 50 minutes from Newcastle on the metro. Both Longsands Surf School and Tynemouth Surf Co offer board hire and lessons for all ages, and in summer the swell is also dotted with kayakers and paddleboarders. Head to Longsands Fish Kitchen for fish and chips after.
Tynemouth Surf Co, kids’ lessons from £15 for 1.5 hours. Longsands Surf School, kids’ lessons from £22.50 for two hours.

Springwatch in County Fermanagh

BBC’s Springwatch had a new home this year with Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan broadcasting live for the first time in Northern Ireland at the National Trust’s Crom Estate. Set along the shores of Upper Lough Erne, this is one of Ireland’s most important nature conservation areas, with a tapestry of habitats: ancient oak-tangled woodlands, reed-fringed wetlands and flower-filled meadows.

The programme followed the estate’s red squirrels, pine martens, otters and birds of prey across its 810 hectares, and throughout the summer young wildlife watchers can borrow a tracker pack to find some of the animals themselves. For older children there are guided canoeing sessions on the lough (over-12s), or hire a rowing boat for all the family to mess about on the water.
Adults £9.50, children £4.75 (under-5s free), nationaltrust.org.uk

Thrills and red squirrels in the Cairngorms

The Cairngorms national park is great for outdoor adventures of all kinds. Head to the Landmark Forest Adventure Park near Carrbridge for action-packed attractions from a high-ropes course to a bouncy aerial net challenge, treetop trails, a water raft ride and a 10-metre climbing wall. Away from the high-tempo thrills, spot red squirrels among the Scots pines and climb the 105 steps of the forest tower to survey the Highland scenery through the telescope at the top.
Adults from £31, children from £29 (under-3s free), landmarkpark.co.uk

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told the Associated Press.

David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.

Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot and killed by Brouillette on Monday while in his car near his home in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford.

DHS, which hasn’t released the name of the officer who killed Durán Guerrero, has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

Brouillette didn’t respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense.

When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that “[w]e will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “[t]he ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use of force training.”

The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.

A new career in ICE

Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he’d been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.

Ashley Brouillette told the AP that she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call, and he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father called her Wednesday and said that he shot and killed Durán Guerrero.

David and Ashley Brouillette were high school sweethearts who got married in 2007. She said she divorced him in 2009 because he had become physically violent with her, which began after she got pregnant with their daughter.

According to Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother, Avis Collins, also recounted.

The abuse continued after she left him, she said.

David Brouillette doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Maine, as a check with the Maine Department of Public Safety returned no records for him.

But hundreds of family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters.

The ex-wife — whom the AP is not identifying because she fears retaliation — alleged that he had stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter, according to multiple requests for temporary protection orders. Brouillette tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, he dragged his daughter around the house as she cried, she said.

“Dave needs counseling or something for his PTSD & depression,” she wrote in an application for a temporary protective order on behalf of his teenage daughter that a judge granted in 2021.

In court filings, David Brouillette said that his second ex-wife had slandered him.

His oldest daughter, Madison Brouillette, said she also witnessed her dad’s volatility.

“I watched my dad struggle a lot with a lot of things,” she told the AP. She said she came home from school once and he told her he had been sitting on a tree stump with a gun to his head.

“If you don’t really, truly take care of yourself, there’s no way you can protect other people. And with my dad, he never wanted to get help,” she said.

An immediate relative of David Brouillette who spoke on the condition that their name not be used said he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child — a diagnosis that Ashley Brouillette confirmed. The immediate relative described him as “extremely mentally ill” and said he attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times.

The relative said they’d been estranged for years after they broke off contact because they feared he would harm them. He did not respond to their outreach this week, the relative added.

A military deployment and law enforcement aspirations

Growing up in Gardiner, a city of about 6,000 people roughly 60 miles northeast of Biddeford, where Monday’s shooting occurred, David Brouillette was enchanted by law enforcement and the military, his relatives said.

High school yearbook photos show he was a member of the school’s Naval Junior ROTC, and he wrote that he planned to go to college and become a police officer.

Brouillette was initially rejected by military recruiters because of his mental health diagnoses, but recruiters encouraged him to go off his medications for a year and reapply, which he did, his immediate relative said.

He was eventually able to enlist.

According to U.S. military records, Brouillette enlisted as a chemical equipment repairer in the Maine Army National Guard but then changed jobs to be a medical logistics specialist. He was in the Guard from November 2007 until January 2010, according to records provided by the Pentagon.

A 2009 article in the Kennebec Journal listed Brouillette as a private in the Maine Army National Guard’s 152nd Maintenance Company in Augusta.

In January 2010, he joined the regular Army as a human intelligence collector. Brouillette deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2013 and eventually left the Army as a sergeant in December 2015.

His immediate relative believes Brouillette’s time abroad worsened his emotional struggles: “Afghanistan destroyed him — trained him to be a killing monster, a machine. They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine.”

Life after the Army

After his discharge, Brouillette held a hodgepodge of jobs — some in or adjacent to law enforcement — and was injured in an accident while training to become a firefighter, public records and court documents show.

Brouillette worked for the Maine Correctional Center — a medium-security prison — and for the state’s Health and Human Services Department, spending less than a year at each.

In 2019, court documents show, he was a police officer at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center near the state capital, Augusta. A Veterans Affairs department spokesperson on Thursday referred questions about Brouillette’s employment to DHS.

But by the end of 2021, he wrote in a text message included in court filings, he was broke, going to school full time and making money delivering food for DoorDash.

Brouillette was enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College and was struck in the head by a steel beam while unloading a trailer at a training facility, according to a lawsuit he filed over his injury.

He sustained a concussion and post-concussive syndrome, with symptoms including impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo and light sensitivity, and was unable to complete the program, according to the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.

In recent years, court filings show, he was collecting disability pay through the VA. He also drove a truck but quit in January 2025, citing health issues.

In March 2025, Brouillette passed an exam to become a real estate sales agent. His license was active until December. In a Facebook post, Realty of Maine announced Brouillette would be working in the firm’s Bangor office.

“David lives in Maine after retiring from the United States Army,” said the post, which has since been deleted. Brouillette is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website. Messages seeking comment were left for Realty of Maine.

In March, the Maine agency that handles child support matters filed a lien against him, public records show. The filing suggests that Brouillette may have been in line for a permanent impairment or disability settlement.

‘I don’t think he sees himself as a killer’

In late 2025, around the time he joined ICE, his ex-wife Ashley said he left a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. According to the message she shared with the AP, he repeatedly called her “disgusting” and suggested that she and the other women and girls in her “bloodline” should die.

“And all of you should have your f— throats cut,” the voicemail said. “Yeah, you should. Am I threatening that I’m gonna do that? Nope. Nope. But do I think that you should have your f— throats cuts? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”

She said she broke off contact with him until Wednesday, when his picture began circulating online.

Ashley Brouillette reached out to his current wife on Facebook and they spoke on the phone for several minutes. Her ex-husband spoke with her, according to cellphone screenshots of the phone exchange she shared with the AP. He acknowledged he had fatally shot Durán Guerrero.

“He was asking if I could tell them that he was a good person and not to talk about the abuse and stuff that I had endured while with him and he said that the most important thing is his character right now,” she said.

She said he told her he is now hiding in protective custody.

“I asked him why he did it,” she said. “He said it was a justified shooting. The guy was trying to run him over with a car.”

His daughter also said he told her it was justified.

“I don’t think he sees himself as a killer,” Madison Brouillette said.

“I think he thinks that he genuinely did the right thing,” she added. “All he said was that he did what he had to do. He said that he had to protect himself.”

Brook, Sisak, Swinhart and Galofaro write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Will Weissert contributed to this report.

July 17 (UPI) — Japanese lawmakers adopted measures Friday to bolster the dwindling ranks of the country’s royal family but ignored public backing to permit female succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne in favor of allowing the family to adopt distantly related male kin.

The first major change to the law in almost 80 years legalizes the adoption of males born to former imperial branch families descended from emperors, provided they are 15 or older, as well as allowing female royals to marry outside the family without forfeiting their imperial status.

Males adopted into the imperial family will be permitted to succeed Emperor Naruhito over female members of the royal family, including his popular 24-year-old daughter, Princess Aiko, who remains excluded from the succession.

The children of female royals who marry commoners will remain forever commoners and be recorded on the Basic Resident Register in line with the majority of ordinary Japanese citizens.

The move tabled by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party coalition drew criticism from the opposition over concerns not enough parliamentary time had been allocated to debate the issues and their push to maintain a succession where only males descended from the paternal line can ascend the throne.

The revision, part of the LDP-Japan Innovation Party coalition’s manifesto, expands the three male heirs who could succeed 66-year-old Naruhito to include unmarried males of 11 former branch families who may now legally become part of the imperial family, which is down to just 16 members.

Prior to the revision, the survival of Naruhito’s line hinged on his nephew, Prince Hisahito, producing a male heir.

The other two immediate heirs to Naruhito are his brother, Crown Prince Fumihito, and his uncle — but they are aged 60 and 90-years-old, respectively.

The throne has been passed down through the male line for all of its history, said to be more than 26 centuries, although there is doubt over whether some of the earlier emperors were real; several of those whose existence has been confirmed were female.

Winning tip: a boat tour in County Fermanagh

The MV Kestrel has been taking boat tours out from Enniskillen on Lower Lough Erne for as long I can remember. We were brought out as primary schoolchildren on a geography field trip and I was recently a passenger for a civilised stag party. It’s popular for a reason: the tour (adults £15, under-12s £11) passes the old alma mater of Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett (Portora Royal School), and stops at the sixth-century monastic settlement on Devenish island. The silence out here has to be heard (or rather not heard) to be believed. The lough is beautiful regardless of the weather – and with this being Fermanagh, if you don’t like the weather just give it 10 minutes.
Tom

A fun-packed day on Glasgow’s riverside

My family loves a day trip to Glasgow’s Riverside Museum (free entry) on the north bank of the Clyde, quite near the Kelvingrove art gallery. It’s a great place for all generations to explore, and we love that it has interactive displays for children and a wealth of detail on Glasgow’s technological and industrial past for adults. Quite often there will be pop-up events, and the museum regularly runs holiday activities and workshops for families. It also has a purpose-built skateboarding spot outside and just over the Govan footbridge, there is the Maple Leaf, a newly opened artisan bakery that produces Scotland’s best croissants.
Katie

Bowled over by Bolsover in Derbyshire

I’ve lived 30 minutes from Bolsover Castle (adults from £15.38, children from £7.65, free for English Heritage members) for more than three years, but only decided to visit when trying to entertain my visiting parents and nephews (aged from two to 75). It was brilliant. The site has gardens and ruins to explore, a wall you can walk on and a castle to climb, but we also loved the interactive activities. In the basement, my nephew was wide-eyed at how his voice echoed through the chambers.
Sarah Rose

A wetland wonder in London

Not many Londoners know that there is a real treasure of a nature reserve just 20 minutes from the city centre by tube, perfect for a free family day out. The Walthamstow Wetlands is a protected area in the Lee valley, easily reached via Tottenham Hale station. I often spend a day there with my kids in spring and summer. We make up a picnic together, take a bird guide, a flask of tea and a pair of binoculars each. That, and a sense of curiosity and appreciation, is all you need for a great family day out. My teenagers especially enjoy the circular bird walk, viewing platforms and hides to enjoy unusual wildlife. There are also guided walks and talks about the wildlife.
Nigel

Inspired by a family reading of Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, we decided to follow his footsteps and have a walking day in the Cotswolds. It was brilliant. The sweet rolling hills stretching from Broadway to Bourton-on-the-Water are easy on the feet and easy on the eye for youngsters, parents and grandparents alike. The paths are well signposted and straying into little villages like the Slaughters – with their honey-coloured houses, village greens, pubs and tea rooms – is a joy. And don’t miss the National Trust’s Hidcote and Upton House for heavenly buildings, gardens and views over the Cotswolds.
Nicoletta

Be inspired by Isaac Newton in Lincolnshire

The National Trust’s Woolsthorpe Manor (adults from £15, children from £7.50), with its mix of history, science and a great picnic spot, has everything for a brilliant outing. It’s where Isaac Newton grew up and sheltered from the plague, and the house tells this story in a fascinating, family-friendly way. The gardens are a beautiful and peaceful spot to enjoy an ice-cream – next to the famous apple tree, of course. The discovery centre’s activities and experiments are brilliant for budding scientists of all ages. It’s our favourite stop off the A1 – a lovely day out which packs a punch for its small size.
Laura K

A quirky destination in the Yorkshire Dales

The Forbidden Corner (adults from £16.99, children from £14.99, pre-booked tickets only) on the Tupgill Park estate on the eastern edge of the Yorkshire Dales offers a day of mysteries and surprises. We loved exploring its maze of tunnels, secret doors, strange statues and hidden passages. It’s wonderfully quirky and just as entertaining for adults as for children. We also walked round the estate, discovering the herb garden and Fish Temple. We enjoyed a picnic, but you could eat in the cafe or restaurant.
Susanna B

A magical woodland in Gloucestershire

Puzzlewood (adults from £9.90, children from £8.50) is one of our favourite hidden gems in the UK. Within the ancient Forest of Dean, this magical woodland feels as if you’ve stepped into a fairytale. Our children loved winding through the twisting paths, clambering over mossy rocks and discovering hidden corners, while we enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere and spotting TV and film locations. There’s also a small farm, picnic areas and a cafe, making it easy to spend the whole day here. If your family enjoys outdoor adventures with a touch of magic, I can’t recommend Puzzlewood highly enough.
Susanna Callaghan

A country park in Bedfordshire

Rushmere country park in Bedfordshire is our favourite summer day out. Our boys love the woodland play areas and den-building, while the walking trails through the trees are perfect even on hot days because there is plenty of shade. We usually take a picnic and stay the whole day there without spending very much at all. There are wildlife trails, cycling routes and lots of open space for football or games. It feels miles away from everyday life, and is perfect for families wanting an affordable summer adventure.
Nicola Hart

Fruit-picking in Surrey

When my family needs an easy summer day out, we head to Crockford Bridge farm in Surrey to fill our baskets with juicy strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb before rewarding ourselves with homemade gelato from local favourites Gelateria Danieli, served in the Wilding Barn. There are up to 24 flavours – some made using fruit grown on the farm – plus excellent vegan sorbets. Afterwards, the children can burn off any remaining energy in the playground. We leave with sticky fingers, punnets of fruit and the feeling we’ve made the most of a summer afternoon.
Carrie

Kris Jenner’s mom, Mary Jo “MJ” Shannon, has died.

Jenner announced the news of Shannon’s death Thursday in an Instagram tribute. She was 91.

“Today, we said goodbye to my beautiful Mommy MJ. … There are no words that could ever capture what she has meant to me or the heartbreak of having to say goodbye. My mom was the heart of our family.”

Jenner wrote that her mother, the matriarch of the Jenner-Kardashian clan, taught her everything that “truly matters.”

“To love your family fiercely, to be kind, to show up for the people you love, and to never take a single moment together for granted,” she wrote alongside a glamour shot of Shannon. “She taught us that family is everything. She showed us how to love unconditionally and how to find joy in the little moments. She showed me how to face life’s challenges with resilience and faith.”

Jenner concluded the post with an open letter to MJ:

“Mom, thank you for every sacrifice you made, every piece of wisdom you shared, and every moment you loved us so completely. I will miss our daily talks, your smile, your laughter… Our hearts are broken, but we find comfort knowing that love like yours never truly leaves us. Your love will live on in our family, in our traditions, in every moment we are together, and in every life you touched. When I look at my kids and my grandkids, I will forever see pieces of you in all of us. There is not a part of me that isn’t shaped by you. And if I have done anything right in this world, it’s because I spent my life trying to live in a way that would make you proud. Every memory, every moment, every blessing, it was all because of you, and I will forever thank God every single day for making you my mommy. My heart is broken into a million pieces… thank you for giving me the greatest childhood and oh what a beautiful blessed life… I love you forever Mommy. Thank you for giving us everything.”

Born Mary Jo Campbell on July 26, 1934, MJ married her high school sweetheart, whom she divorced two months later. Then in 1954, she wed Jenner’s dad, Robert “Bob” True Houghton. She gave birth to Jenner the following year and Jenner’s late sister, Karen Houghton, in 1958. After seven years of marriage, MJ and Bob called it quits and she married Harry Shannon, a businessman who helped raise Jenner and her sister in San Diego, where MJ ran a children’s clothing store.

Harry Shannon died in 2003.

MJ was featured on the famous clan’s E! reality series “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and the follow-up Hulu series “The Kardashians” numerous times over the years. In a clip from the show, granddaughter Kim Kardashian detailed that her grandmother had survived colon cancer and breast cancer and, in her sunset years, struggled with sickness resulting from the cancer treatments.

In one clip from the show, MJ said she didn’t have an appetite without taking her “medication” first. Then she persuaded her daughter, Jenner, to have marijuana gummies with her. Together they lit some incense and munched on muffins and chips and guacamole.

In another clip, Jenner interviews MJ about her life, and during the sit-down, Jenner asks MJ, “What’s your biggest fear?”

MJ replies, “I try not to fear,” and then follows up asking Jenner what her biggest fear is.

Jenner starts to cry and says, “I don’t want to say it. I can’t believe I’m crying. … Just, losing someone.”

On Thursday, Kim Kardashian caught flak online when a post featuring the Skims mogul and her sister Khloe Kardashian swigging tequila from a boat on a lake published shortly after Jenner announced the news of MJ’s death.

“This post was scheduled a few days ago before we lost MJ, so its timing came right alongside her passing,” Kim wrote in the comment section of the post. “I’ve been by my mom and grandma’s side this past week, and my heart is completely with my family right now. We love and miss her so deeply, and in the days ahead, we’ll be focusing on celebrating her beautiful life.”

Kim followed up with a post celebrating her grandmother, writing, “My sweet Grandma MJ, my best friend, my gossip buddy, my forever twin … You taught all of us the importance of family, and those values are something we’ll carry with us forever!!!!! You were the woman who showed me what it meant to be a hardworking businesswoman. You gave me my very first job at your store in San Diego and taught me lessons about work ethic, strength, and confidence that I’ve carried with me ever since.

“You always believed in me, championed me, and were my safe place. You truly were the matriarch of our family, and your love is woven into all of us. I know you’re at peace now. Give Papa Harry, Aunt Karen, and my dad a hug for me. You will always be a part of me, I love you soooooo much and I will miss you forever and ever. … YOU ARE THE BEST OF US!!!”

Two weeks ago, Jenner’s bodyguard, Mason Haynes, who also worked as a close protection guard for other members of the Kardashian-Jenner family, died in a traffic accident. He was 52.

NOTHING beats the pure joy of a family summer trip to a theme park or waterpark.

Except, of course, when you can stay there overnight for cheap and continue the thrills the next day.

Waking up on the doorstep of world-class rollercoasters and giant wave pools makes a family getaway all the more magical – plus it means you can skip the drive home after a long day of fun.

From beach cabana-themed hotel rooms to seeing giraffes out of your window on safari stays, these theme parks and family resorts have fantastic accommodation options.

Here’s our pick of the best family breaks to book at the UK’s top theme parks and waterparks, with budget-friendly deals starting from an incredible £2.44 per person per night.

Alton Towers Resort, Staffordshire

Alton Towers Resort in Staffordshire is a favourite among theme park fanatics, and it’s clear to see why.

The resort boasts world-class rollercoasters like Nemesis with its relentless G-force, and The Smiler, which holds the Guinness World Record for the rollercoaster with the most inversions.

But did you know that Alton Towers has its own waterpark and multiple hotels on-site, too?

While the resort’s woodland lodges, stargazing pods and luxury treehouses offer a fairytale-style escape, a stay at their Splash Landings hotel puts you on the doorstep of the on-site waterpark.

The Caribbean-inspired Splash Landings has playfully-styled family rooms, ranging from tropical beach hut themes to a unique ice cave room, and places you mere steps from the waterpark.

The hotel’s waterpark stretches both indoors and outdoors, and has bucketloads to do for families.

Thrill-seekers will love the Master Blaster water coaster, while those with little ones can relax in the gentle ‘Bubbly Wubbly pool’.

Butlin’s

With three seaside resorts in Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness, Butlin’s is a classic choice for a UK family getaway.

Entry to each resort’s waterpark, Splash Waterworld, is included in the price of a Butlin’s break.

With a theme that ‘brings the best of the British seaside inside’, at the Bognor Regis pool you’ll find a Helter Skelter waterslide and the Stick of Rock slides.

Meanwhile at Minehead, you can whirl around a huge space bowl, shoot down the speedy Blue Comet flume, or simply drift along the relaxing lazy river.

Over in Skegness, the waterpark boasts nearly 3,000 square metres of pool and play areas, which includes outdoor river rapids and a 60ft tall Vortex fast flume.

Not to mention each site has its own fairground, where access is also included in the price of your break.

Here you’ll find classic rides like carousels and waltzers all the way up to the Super Swing at Skegness, which drops you at a 27 degree angle.

Chessington World of Adventures

Chessington World of Adventures Resort in Surrey is the ultimate choice for a high-energy family holiday.

The park is home to over 40 rides and attractions, including the hair-raising Vampire rollercoaster and the dizzying, spinning coaster Dragon’s Fury.

Exploring the World of Jumanji feels like stepping straight into a movie screen, where you can ride Mandrill Mayhem – the world’s only ‘launched wing coaster’ that rushes backwards and forwards past a giant jaguar.

The resort has two themed hotels located just a short walk from the theme park gates.

At the Safari Hotel, wake up and look out over the Wanyama Reserve, where you can watch giraffes, zebras, and ostriches roam past your window.

Over at the Azteca Hotel, families can sleep inside a mystical jungle temple, with beautifully-decorated rooms that would make any kid feel like a real explorer. Some rooms even have slides inside.

Big Blue Hotel – Blackpool Pleasure Beach Resort

Blackpool‘s seafront theme park Pleasure Beach boasts legendary coasters like the Big One, which drops brave riders from a staggering 213ft, and Aviktas, a new gyro-swing ride which opened earlier this summer.

Little ones aren’t left out either, thanks to the dedicated Nickelodeon Land, where they can ride the Rugrats Lost River and meet characters like SpongeBob SquarePants.

To turn your theme park day into a weekend stay, the four-star Big Blue Hotel sits right on the edge of the park and offers a stylish and family-friendly place to retreat to.

Many hotel rooms offer breathtaking, front-seat views of the rollercoasters swooping past.

Plus the hotel even has its own private entrance to Pleasure Beach, and offers free theme park tickets from Sundays to Fridays.

Here you’re also only 10 minutes’ walk from Sandcastle Waterpark, with 18 waterslides and a tropical climate.

Legoland Windsor Resort

Legoland is absolutely packed with immersive lands and kid-friendly rides – plus the on-site hotels and waterpark are just the cherry on top.

Soar through the air on Flight of the Sky Lion in Lego Mythica land, or race against a pal on the high-speed Minifigure Speedway coaster.

But the adventure doesn’t end when the theme park gates close, thanks to the resort’s spectacular themed hotels.

At the Legoland Resort Hotel, you can sleep inside fully immersive rooms styled around Lego Pirates, Ninjago, or Kingdom adventures.

At the luxurious Castle Hotel, choose between mystical wizard and brave knight suites.

There is also the tranquil Woodland Village, which offers a relaxed escape in cosy lodges (yes, these also fit the Lego theme) and circular camping barrels.

The resort also has several outdoor splash zones that are perfect for a sunny day.

Over in DUPLO Valley, kids can tackle Drench Towers – the largest water play structure in the UK packed with colourful slides and tipping buckets.

Splash Safari, on the other hand, has interactive water jets and large DUPLO animal figures that are perfect for little ones.

TLH Leisure Resort, Devon

While not strictly on-site, sunny Devon‘s TLH Leisure Resort has four mega hotels to pick from, and is just 10 minutes from the UK’s largest outdoor waterpark.

The TLH Derwent Hotel is the biggest, with the Starlight Lounge providing sparkling evening entertainment like cabaret and bingo nights.

The TLH Victoria Hotel is an elegant option with two large ballrooms, and it regularly hosts dance stays and evening soirées.

The TLH Carlton Hotel is home to the Aztec Spa, with multiple swimming pools, a gym, and pampering treatments like Elemis facials and deep-tissue massage.

While at the hotel you’ll have access to both indoor and outdoor pools, plus the spa with its sauna, hot tub and steam room, the waterpark here is just down the road in Paignton.

Splashdown Quaywest is the UK’s largest outdoor waterpark, and it sits next door to the golden sands of Goodrington beach.

The waterpark has adrenaline-pumping slides like the Devil’s Drop, where you plummet 65ft down into a black hole, and The Screamer, a high-speed slide that will take your breath away.

Plus kids will love clambering and climbing around Shipwreck Island – a new, giant themed play area in the water.

Jennifer Finch, the bassist for veteran LA rock act L7, has brain cancer and will not perform with the band on its farewell tour this year.

“Our beloved bandmate, sister and friend Jennifer Finch has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer,” the band wrote in a statement on its Instagram on Monday. “Following multiple surgeries and serious complications, Jennifer now requires extensive medical care, rehabilitation and professional in-home support.”

The group said that its final tour, scheduled for fall, “was planned along with Jennifer when all four of us were in good health and spirits.” Finch asked the band to continue with these performances, according to the statement.

“We will honor her request while making her care and well-being our immediate priority,” the band wrote. “We love her, and we want her to feel the full strength of the community that has loved and supported her for so many years.”

L7, a hugely influential act in the alt-rock wave of the ‘90s, was formed in 1985 by guitarists and singers Suzi Gardner and Donita Sparks, drummer Dee Plakas and Finch. Its firey singles “Pretend We’re Dead” and “Wargasm” helped kick off the riot grrl movement of the era, until they went on hiatus in 2001. The band reunited in 2014, and will begin The Last Hurrah tour in San Diego on Oct. 6.

The band also posted a GoFundMe for donations to help with her medical care . “The level of care Jennifer needs has gone beyond what friends and family can safely provide around the clock,” the band wrote. “As we face the difficult reality that Jennifer may have more good days behind her than ahead, we are asking for help to make the time she has with her friends, family, and fans as comfortable, meaningful, and full of love as possible.”