The government’s independent ethics adviser suggested a formal investigation was not necessary
The letting agent which rented out Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ family home has apologised for an “oversight” which led to a failure to obtain the correct licence.
Gareth Martin, owner of Harvey & Wheeler, said the company’s previous property manager had offered to apply for a “selective” rental licence on behalf of their client – but this never happened as the individual resigned before the tenancy began.
He added: “We deeply regret the issue caused to our clients as they would have been under the impression that a licence had been applied for.”
Reeves has apologised for the “inadvertent mistake” but said she accepts “full responsibility”.
Downing Street has spent the day defending the chancellor, with a spokesman insisting the prime minister has “full confidence” in her.
Reeves put her four-bedroom south London home up for rent in July 2024, when Labour won the general election and she moved into 11 Downing Street.
The house falls in area where Southwark Council requires private landlords to obtain a selective licence at a cost of £945.
The chancellor said she first became aware that her property did not have the correct licence on Wednesday when the Daily Mail, who first reported the story, contacted her.
Reeves or her letting agent could face an unlimited fine if Southwark Council takes the matter to court.
The revelations come at a politically awkward time for Reeves, who is preparing for a Budget at the end of the month amidst speculation the government is planning to break a manifesto commitment not to raise income tax.
Reeves’ economic responsibility was a hallmark of Labour’s pre-election argument that they could be trusted with the nation’s finances.
But since then, questions about her personal judgement were raised after she accepted free concert tickets as well as thousands of pounds in donations for clothing.
Her political judgement was criticised after she imposed – and then reversed – cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
Errors in her CV further undermined her standing.
Now this adds to a growing list of charges at the chancellor’s door, and it is yet another day when the government completely lost control of the news agenda.
While the letting agent has taken responsibility, Sir Laurie Magnus, the ethics adviser whose findings have felled two previous Labour ministers, is now re-examining her case.
Sir Laurie was said to have been satisfied with Reeves’ explanation, but Downing Street has refused to say whether Magnus believed the chancellor broke the ministerial code.
He is now reviewing emails about the rental arrangements that were sent and received by the chancellor’s husband.
No 10 will be hoping the latest developments – and the apology from the letting agency used by Reeves and her husband – will bring this saga to an end.
Downing Street will still be worried this evening about how this all looks to voters.
In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday evening, she said “we were not aware that a licence was necessary”.
“As soon as it was brought to my attention, we took immediate action and have applied for the licence,” she wrote.
However, in a second letter to the PM on Thursday, Reeves said she had found correspondence confirming that the letting agent had told her husband a licence would be required and that the agency would apply for this on their behalf.
“They have also confirmed today they did not take the application forward, in part due to a member of staff leaving the organisation,” she wrote.
“Nevertheless, as I said yesterday, I accept it was our responsibility to secure the licence. I also take responsibility for not finding this information yesterday and bringing it to your attention.
“As I said to you today, I am sorry about this matter and accept full responsibility for it.”
Reeves has published the emails, which confirm the letting agent agreed to apply for the licence once the new tenant moved in.
In a statement, Mr Martin, the agency’s owner, said: “We alert all our clients to the need for a licence.
“In an effort to be helpful our previous property manager offered to apply for a licence on these clients’ behalf, as shown in the correspondence.
“That property manager suddenly resigned on the Friday before the tenancy began on the following Monday.
“Unfortunately, the lack of application was not picked up by us as we do not normally apply for licences on behalf of our clients; the onus is on them to apply. We have apologised to the owners for this oversight.
“At the time the tenancy began, all the relevant certificates were in place and if the licence had been applied for, we have no doubt it would have been granted.”
The Conservatives have said the prime minister needs to “grow a backbone and start a proper investigation”.
Speaking on LBC, party leader Kemi Badenoch said “maybe it is the letting agents’ fault but it’s this the funny thing with Labour, it’s always somebody else’s fault.”
“Keir Starmer said law makers shouldn’t be lawbreakers, and he was very happy to chase every fixed penalty notice that occurred under the Conservatives,” she said.
“What Rachel Reeves looks like she has done is a criminal offence.
“They didn’t say it was about the seriousness of the offence. They said if the law has been broken, the law has been broken. I’m only holding them to their standards.”
“They spent five years pretending they were the most perfect people and now they had resignation after scandal after resignation, so let the ethics advisor investigate.”
Celebrity Traitors star Jonathan Ross has revealed that show bosses sent out a list of banned topics to cast after contestants began letting slip behind-the-scenes details
23:18, 27 Oct 2025Updated 23:18, 27 Oct 2025
Celeb Traitors stars have been warned about sharing spoilers(Image: BBC)
Celebrity Traitors star Jonathan Ross has revealed that the show’s cast have received a warning from bosses about leaking behind-the-scenes details on social media. Speaking on his podcast Reel Talk, the TV presenter admitted that he let slip details that he later learnt were banned from being discussed.
Last week, the broadcaster called for the BBC to air footage of Alan Carr that was cut from the series. Speaking about how hilarious the Chatty Man had been on the show, he said: “There are so many funny things he did and said which I know already should have been in the first episode which weren’t, should’ve been in the second episode.
“There’s something that happens later on which should be in, but isn’t in,” Jonathan added. “It’s like there’s this Alan Carr gold waiting out there to be spun into something.”
Now, the 64-year-old has revealed that the stars were recently reminded of spoiler rules by show bosses. “It’s nerve-wracking watching it for me,” he said on his podcast, which he hosts with daughter Honey Kinny Ross.
“The round tables of course,” he added. “Because a lot of stuff is edited out and I’m not allowed- I didn’t realise but I’m not allowed to talk about the stuff that’s edited out, which I can understand why.
“When I started talking about it last week, they sent us all a kind of list saying, ‘Just to remind you these are the things in your contracts you’re not allowed to talk about.'”
He continued by saying that he would try to “skirt around it” as much as possible to avoid breaking rules. “There’s a fairly comprehensive list, and most of it I can see is to protect the integrity of the game as a viewing experience for people, so it makes perfect sense.”
At the weekend, body language expert Judi James revealed that Jonathan Ross and fellow Traitor Cat Burns were now ‘enemies’ based on their behaviour. “Their body language was subtle but revealing, proving they, both now recognise they are enemies. Last night’s meet-up was different though because, for Jonathan and Cat, the masks never came off,” she said after Thursday’s episode.
“They surveyed each other without any signals of relief. We saw them ignore Alan to stare at each other, and Jonathan performed a thin ‘smile’ of recognition, which was returned by Cat.
“There was no pretence between them, but no open declarations of war. Jonathan let Cat know he knew what she was doing and she stared him back to let him know she intends to carry on doing it.”
Last week, Celebrity Traitors aired an unprecedented twist when the results of the latest roundtable were tied between actor Mark Bonnar and historian David Olusoga. After the two received the same number of votes to be banished after two rounds of voting, Claudia revealed that the banishment would be left up to fate.
After they were randomly given a Chest of Chance each – with one of them containing an immunity shield – Mark was ultimately banished from the game after opening with chest with nothing in it. Later on, it was revealed that Joe Wilkinson had been murdered by the Traitors, while at the end of the episode, the group banished Stephen Fry.
Celebrity Traitors continues on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
PORTLAND, Maine — Australian scientists tested the strength of bite-resistant wetsuits by allowing sharks to chomp the materials at sea and found that the suits can help keep swimmers safe.
Fatal shark bites are vanishingly rare, with less than 50 unprovoked shark bites on humans worldwide in 2024, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. But increased sightings of large sharks in some parts of the world have swimmers, surfers and divers looking for new ways to stay safe.
Scientists with Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, tested four bite-resistant materials and found they all reduced the amount of damage from shark bites. They performed the work by dragging samples of the materials behind boats and allowing white and tiger sharks to bite the samples.
The bites from such large sharks can still cause internal and crushing injuries, but the materials showed effectiveness beyond a standard neoprene wetsuit, the scientists said. The research found that the bite-resistant materials “can reduce injuries sustained from shark encounters,” said Flinders professor Charlie Huveneers, a member of the Southern Shark Ecology Group at Flinders and a study co-author.
“Bite-resistant material do not prevent shark bites, but can reduce injuries from shark bites and can be worn by surfers and divers,” Huveneers said.
There were small differences between the four tested materials, but they all “reduced the amount of substantial and critical damage, which would typically be associated with severe hemorrhaging and tissue or limb loss,” said Tom Clarke, a researcher with the science and engineering college at Flinders and a study co-author.
Chainmail suits to resist shark bites have existed for decades, but lack in flexibility for aquatic activities like surfing and diving, the scientists said in research published in the journal Wildlife Research on Thursday. Newer wetsuits can be designed to provide flexibility as well as protection.
The scientists tested the efficacy of wetsuit materials Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTX-S and Brewster. The scientists said in their paper that they found that all of the materials “offer an improved level of protection that can reduce severe wounds and blood loss, and should be considered as part of the toolbox and measures available to reduce shark-bite risk and resulting injuries.”
The promise of effective shark resistant wetsuits is encouraging for people who spend a lot of time in areas where there are large sharks, said Nick Whitney, a senior scientist and chair of the Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies Program at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life in Boston. That includes surfers and spearfishers, he said.
Whitney, who was not involved in the study, said it’s also encouraging that the materials are unlikely to make a person “feel invincible” and engage in risky behaviors around sharks.
“I also like it because it’s not relying on any impact on the shark’s behavior,” Whitney said. “It’s basically very, very simple. In the extremely rare event that you get bitten by a shark, this material will hopefully make you bleed less than you would if you were not wearing this.”
The researchers said the suits do not eliminate all risks from sharks, and precautions still need to be taken around the animals.
They are hopeful their research will help the public “make appropriate decisions about the suitability of using these products,” Huveneers said.
The lack of incisiveness in Martin’s team is remarkable for a set of players put together for a relative king’s ransom.
We’re told that Rangers’ net spend this summer has been £21m, including transfer fees and loan payments. You could put a dot between the 2 and the 1 and still wonder if they’ve got value.
They had Youssef Chermiti up front, a 21-year-old brought in from Everton at a cost of £8m.
It’s easy to bash the young striker, but he didn’t lack hunger or work-rate. What he lacked was a modicum of a chance, a sniff at goal. Just one.
The life of a Rangers centre-forward is a lonely existence right now. Isolated and joyless. They’re on their own up there. Sink or sink would appear to be the range of their options.
Diomande’s moment of madness was the last thing Martin needed, but it was Martin who picked him and it was Martin who picked others who struggled to make passes.
It was Martin, again, whose management of this team produced very little threat while giving up big chances even when it was 11 versus 11.
His midfielder let him down on Thursday, and on other days and nights it was others who let him down, didn’t show enough leadership, failed to make a difference.
The cast of characters on that front is long and thunderously unimpressive.
Martin gets filleted but the Rangers players can’t escape censure here. A lot of this mess is down to the manager, but not all of it.
He said the red changed the game and he was correct, but there’s always something – players being anxious, a red card, a penalty not given, another decision given in error. There’s a fatalism about all of this.
And on Sunday they have a trip to Livingston. Plastic pitch, canny manager, physical team motivated to the high heavens. A gauntlet awaits this meek Rangers outfit.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Many fled when wildfires devastated Los Angeles earlier this year, but Guillermo del Toro rushed back in, determined to save his lifelong collection of horror memorabilia.
It’s the same loyalty that finds him making another tough decision to protect the items he loves like family: letting some of them go.
Del Toro partnered with Heritage Auctions for a three-part auction to sell a fraction of a collection that is bursting at the seams. Online bidding for the first part on Sept. 26 started Thursday and includes over a hundred items, with more headed to the auction block next year.
“This one hurts. The next one, I’m going to be bleeding,” Del Toro, 60, said of the auction series. “If you love somebody, you have estate planning, you know, and this is me estate planning for a family that has been with me since I was a kid.”
Del Toro is one of the industry’s most respected filmmakers, whose fascination with monsters and visual style will shape generations to come. But at his core, the Mexican-born horror buff is a collector. The Oscar winner has long doubled as the sole caretaker of the “Bleak House” — which stretches across two and a half Santa Monica homes nearly overflowing with thousands of ghoulish creatures, iconic comic drawings and paintings, books and movie props.
The houses function not just as museums, but as libraries and workspaces where his imagination bounces off the oxblood-painted walls.
“I love what I have because I live with it. I actually am a little nuts, because I say hi to some of the life-size figures when I turn on the light,” Del Toro told The Associated Press, sitting in the dining room of one of the houses, now a sanctuary for “Haunted Mansion” memorabilia. “This is curated. This is not a casual collection.”
The auction includes behind-the-scene drawings and one-of-a-kind props from Del Toro’s own classics, as well as iconic works like Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations for “Frankenstein” and Mike Mignola’s pinup artwork for “Hellraiser.”
A race to save horror history
In January, Del Toro had only a couple hours, his car and a few helping hands to save key pieces from the fires. Out of the over 5,000 items in his collection, he managed to move only about 120 objects. It wasn’t the first time, as fires had come dangerously close to Bleak House twice before.
The houses were spared, but fear consumed him. If a fire or earthquake swallowed them, he thought, “What came out of it? You collected insurance? And what happened to that little segment of Richard Corben’s life, or Jack Kirby’s craft, or Bernie Wrightson’s life?”
An auction, Del Toro said, gives him peace of mind, as it ensures the items will land in the hands of another collector who will protect the items as he has. These are not just props or trinkets, he said, but “historical artifacts. They’re pieces of audiovisual history for humanity.” And his life’s mission has been to protect as much of this history as he can.
“Look, this is in reaction to the fires. This is in reaction to loving this thing,” Del Toro told the AP.
The initial auction uncovers who Del Toro is as a collector, he said. Upcoming parts will expose how the filmmaker thinks, which he called a much more personal endeavor. The auction isn’t just a “piece of business,” for him, but rather a love letter to collectors everywhere, and encouragement to think beyond a movie and “learn to read and write film design in a different way. That’s my hope.”
A house full of ‘unruly kids’
Caring for the Bleak House collection feels like being on “a bus with 160 kids that are very unruly, and I’m driving for nine hours,” Del Toro said. “I gotta take a rest.”
The auction will give the filmmaker some breathing room from the collection’s arduous maintenance. The houses must stay at a certain temperature, without direct sunlight — all of which is monitored solely by Del Toro, who often spends most of his day there.
He selects the picture frame for every drawing, dusts all the artifacts and arranges every bookshelf mostly himself, having learned his lesson from the handful of times he allowed outside help. One time, Del Toro said, he found someone “cleaning an oil painting with Windex, and I almost had a heart attack.”
“It’s very hard to have someone come in and know why that trinket is important,” he said. “It’s sort of a very bubbled existence. But you know, that’s what you do with strange animals — you put them in small environments where they can survive. That’s me.”
Each room is organized by theme, with one room dedicated to each of his major works, from “Hellboy” to “Pacific Rim.” Del Toro typically spends his entire work day at one of the houses, which he picks depending on the task at hand. The “Haunted Mansion” dining room, for instance, is an excellent writing space.
“If I could, I would live in the Haunted Mansion,” he said. “So, this is the second best.”
Building a mini Bleak House
In selecting which items to sell, Del Toro said he “wanted somebody to be able to re-create a mini version of Bleak House.”
Auction items include concept sketches and props from Del Toro’s 1992 debut film, “Cronos,” all the way to his more recent works, like 2021’s “Nightmare Alley.”
The starting bids vary, from a couple thousand dollars up to hundreds of thousands. One of Wrightson’s drawings for a 1983 illustrated version of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is the highest priced item, starting at $200,000.
The auction also includes art from legends like Richard Corben, Jack Kirby and H.R. Giger, whose work Del Toro wrote in the catalog “represent the pinnacle of comic book art in the last quarter of the twentieth century.”
Other cultural touchstones in illustration that are represented in the auction include rare images from the 1914 short film “Gertie the Dinosaur,” one of the earliest animated films, and original art for Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” by Eyvind Earle and Kay Nielsen.
“As collectors, you are basically keeping pieces of culture for generations to come. They’re not yours,” Del Toro said. “We don’t know which of the pieces you’re holding is going to be culturally significant … 100 years from now, 50 years from now. So that’s part of the weight.”
Sabrina Claudio is not the same person she was a year ago — much less eight years ago, when she first introduced herself with a shimmering neo-soul EP, titled “Confidently Lost.”
Now, having amassed millions of fans with sultry, golden-hour slow jams and trips down melancholy lane, she’s presenting her most earnest songwriting yet in her newest album, “Fall In Love With Her,” released June 9 on San Francisco indie label Empire.
“I think in the past couple years, people in my life that I love have helped me get out of my shell and shown me how important vulnerability is,” she says. “Now I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna tell y’all everything, how about that?”
For her fifth studio LP, Claudio steered her R&B sound into a less-traveled, alternative direction that showcases her deft pen and ethereal vocals in a novel guise. Her longtime producer, Ajay “Stint” Bhattacharyya, cited shoegaze bands like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive as influences that came up during recording sessions. For Claudio, wading into those uncharted waters became part of a larger shift in her career.
Until recently, the Cuban and Puerto Rican singer-songwriter — who in 2023, earned a Grammy for traditional R&B performance as a songwriter on Beyoncé’s slick “Renaissance” cut, “Plastic Off the Sofa” — preferred to toil in privacy, channeling her expression into songwriting more than social media. But this year, she’s inviting the outside world to experience her personality with a new interview series on YouTube titled “Fall In Love With…”
To hear her tell it, she’s eager for the effort to help fans and listeners see the person she is behind the music. “I hope that people can listen to [the album] knowing that, yes, [I’m singing about what] I experienced, but I just pray that they are able to interpret it and relate it to their own life however they possibly can,” she says.
Sabrina Claudio presents her most earnest songwriting yet in her newest album, released June 9.
(Baylee Kiesselbach)
Come July, she’ll embark on a U.S. tour with rappers Russ and Big Sean; soon after, she’ll make her acting debut in a short film directed by filmmaker and best friend Jazmin Garcia-Larracuente, who was inspired by early drafts of songs off “Fall In Love With Her” to write a script. “I’m very proud of myself,” Claudio says. “I think I killed it, and I’m excited for everybody to see it.”
In her latest interview with The Times, she spoke of the intimacy required in songwriting with others, the possibility of an all-Spanish EP and her approach to storytelling.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
After releasing your last album, 2022’s “Based on a Feeling,” you focused on writing for other artists. Is that usually how it goes between albums for you? Typically [after] I finish an album, I always go through the phase [when] I need to take a break because creatively I’m worn out. I wouldn’t do anything, which actually only emphasized the lack of motivation to continue and make more music. But this time around, I wanted to remain creative, and the best way to do that was to get in rooms with other creatives to help them get into their world, rather than always having to focus on mine.
I thought it was going to be difficult for me, because I’m not a natural collaborator. Before I was very anti-having songwriters in my room. It was a whole ego thing for me … but I loved it so much that I ended up doing it for much longer than I was anticipating. I find so much inspiration being in rooms with artists for other projects.
On this album you worked on some of the tracks with a songwriter, Nasri Atweh. I’m curious if there was hesitation to share your own process with someone else? There was a time in my life when I [felt] obligated to have writers in my room. My guard was up. It’s not because I don’t think that these songwriters were amazing, because they were. Some of my favorite songs I wrote with another person, like “Problem With You” off [my album] “Truth Is.” But for some reason, my brain would say if I didn’t do it 100%, then it’s not mine. And that’s so not the reality of making art.
With Nasri, he’s my manager’s brother. I met Nasri 10 years ago. I’m glad that it happened when it did. Being the songwriter in the room for other people put things into perspective, because I realized how important collaboration was. Nasri was able to eject things from me that I didn’t even know existed. I’m on a different wavelength now.
Working with a songwriter is like an intimate therapy session. I’m an extremely private person. I think the past couple years, people in my life have helped me to get out of my shell and have shown me how important vulnerability is. I didn’t even want to expose myself, which is why I tend to write from experiences that I technically didn’t experience, or from conversations with others, or movies. It was a protective layer. But now I’m like, you know what? I’m gonna tell y’all everything, how about that? [laughs] And it’s worked out!
You’ve said that when it comes to songwriting, you usually let yourself be led by the music, then the lyrics. Can you tell me more about “One Word” and how that track came to be? It’s one of the most powerful songs on the album. I wrote that during a heartbreak. I wanted to talk about an experience I had with a person I felt very deeply for, [who] essentially didn’t fight for me to stay. But it was the biggest act of love that he could have done for me.
I worked with my producer Stint, [who] I work with all the time, and Heavy Mellow. He was heavy on this project, no pun intended. I was venting,; I was really heartbroken. I was finding comfort in these men that I’ve known and trying to get their perspective on things.
Another song is “Worse Than Me,” which sounds completely different from the rest of the tracks. It’s a little more assertive and seductive, with trip-hop-inspired drums. How did that come to be? Before I discovered the new sound [of] the album, I still was gravitating towards my typical R&B, neo-soul-type vibes. I was just trying to get back in the groove of Sabrina Claudio, quote-unquote, because I was just coming out of writing for everybody else. I was trying to tap back into my own world.
And I think I needed one sassy song. [laughs] That’s kind of what I’m known for: the sass, the crying, or the sexy. And I just felt like if I didn’t have the sexy, I at least needed to have the sassy.
This is the first time you’ve really worked with a more alternative sound — did you find yourself accessing parts of yourself that the traditional R&B sound didn’t? Oh, absolutely! I love working with Stint and all of my producers because they have such a wide palette when it comes to music. Genres I never grew up listening to — all these sounds are new. It pulls different things out of me that I wouldn’t be able to get if it was my traditional R&B sound. And naturally, I’m always going to do that because that’s just how I am, but it was interesting to hear where my R&B and soul brain goes over these more alternative rock/indie vibes.
“My fans are able to see who I am as a person and how deeply I love, how loyal I am,” Claudio said of her interview series, “Fall in Love With…”
(Baylee Kiesselbach)
For example, “Detoxing” — I wrote that song with Nasri, but we didn’t have the outro. So I took it to Stint, and he pulled up all these references of bands [like Radiohead], and he was teaching me so much. And then he [said], “You know what, at the end I want to do something really big and really rock. I want to break it down. But then I want people to be shocked. I want you to belt, and I want you to say something, and I want you to purge, and I want you to take the concept of the song and really just yell it like you’re just trying to get rid of something.” I listened back, and I’m even shocked at some of the things that I was able to tap into. I don’t belt! [laughs] I didn’t even know I could do that!
You have the song “Mi Luz” on the album, which is the first time you’ve included a Spanish song in an LP. What made you feel this was the right time to finally do that? First of all, I don’t understand why I’ve never added a Spanish record to any of my albums. I listen to a lot of Spanish music in my daily life, a lot of reggaetón. You’d be surprised, my music is so calm and emotional … and then I’m twerking in my car listening to reggaetón. [laughs] So I felt in the sense of wanting to evolve, I feel now’s the time. And the process is really interesting, because my brain doesn’t actually think in Spanish, especially when it comes to songwriting.
Any Spanish record [of mine] you’ve heard, I’ve done with Alejandra Alberti, who is also Cuban. She’s from Miami, she’s a Virgo, so we connected on all those things. I tell her what I want to say, and she just computes it in her brain and she translates it in a way that has taught me. “Mi Luz” [was] the first time I contributed lyrically in Spanish. And it was always something that I was afraid of doing, because I’m always afraid of sounding dumb. I don’t know why, but I have that fear. But I felt very comfortable, very safe with Ale.
Would you release an EP of Spanish tracks? I think I would! If I have Ale, I think we could probably knock out an EP very quickly. I’d be down.
You said in your recent Genius video that you really want reciprocal love because there’s only so much self-love you can give yourself. Is there any difference in your work depending on how your personal life is going, or do you manage to block out the noise? I get very consumed by whatever I’m most passionate about in the moment. When I’m talking to somebody or I’m dating somebody, I do have the tendency to revolve my world around whatever we’re building. So when I’m dealing with that, I do find that I put my career second. Because I crave love very badly — which is toxic for me — I’m willing to nurture.
I’m pretty confident in my career. It’s the one thing I have control over. Everything’s amazing, and I get to make music whenever I want. But I don’t necessarily have control over the relationship that I’m trying to build, so I get very consumed and I put that first. But I’m hoping that if I get into something else that’s much healthier and not destroying our mental health, then I can do both at the same time! I just have to find that person first.
You’ve acknowledged that you’re a private artist, but I really like what I’ve seen so far from your new interview series, “Fall In Love With…” Can you tell me how the idea of doing that came about? I have to say I was anti-miniseries, but my manager, Alyce, told me in the beginning stages of [making] this album, “The music, as vulnerable as it is — nobody’s going to relate to it or feel the depth of it if they don’t know who you are as a human.” She said, “Nobody knows that you’re funny; nobody knows that you’re outgoing. You’re not this mysterious person that you think you are, and you need to show people that.”
So at first, it annoyed me, because I was like, ugh, not me having to do things online. [laughs] I think doing this type of content was uncomfortable for me. I said, “If you guys want me to do this, I don’t want to be doing 20 episodes. I want four episodes, and I want it to be with people I know and I love and I will be comfortable with.”
And it turned into “Fall In Love With…” and I just thought it was special. I love to give credit to the people who have loved me through every stage of my life. And in the midst of it, my fans are able to see who I am as a person and how deeply I love, how loyal I am. And that opened the door to just so many other things. I just became so much more open-minded.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul for the second time in a month on June 2 to explore the possibility of a ceasefire. The talks lasted just over an hour and, once again, produced no meaningful progress. As with the May 16 negotiations, both sides claimed they had laid the groundwork for prisoner exchanges. But despite Ukraine’s offer to hold another meeting before the end of June, a deep and unbridgeable divide remains between Kyiv and Moscow.
More meetings are unlikely to change that. Russia continues to demand Kyiv’s capitulation to the full list of conditions President Vladimir Putin set at the war’s outset: Ukrainian neutrality, a government reshaped to suit Moscow’s interests, and the surrender of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Between the two rounds of talks, Putin even raised the stakes, adding a demand for a “buffer zone” in northern Ukraine.
Kyiv, meanwhile, remains resolute. It refuses to cede any territory and maintains that a full ceasefire along all fronts is a non-negotiable precondition for serious negotiations.
Still, both sides appear prepared to continue the diplomatic charade.
That’s because these talks are not truly about achieving peace or securing a lasting bilateral agreement. Neither side is genuinely negotiating with the other. Instead, both are using the forum to send messages to the United States – and to Donald Trump, in particular.
This dynamic persists despite Trump’s recent efforts to distance himself from the war he once claimed he could end within 24 hours of returning to the White House. That shift in rhetoric has been echoed by key figures in his administration. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who just six months ago represented opposite ends of the Republican spectrum on Ukraine – with Vance nearly endorsing surrender to Putin, and Rubio among the Senate’s most vocal Ukraine hawks – have both signalled that Trump’s White House is no longer interested in mediating the conflict. Reflecting that disengagement, there was no high-level prenegotiation meeting between US and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye ahead of the latest talks, unlike those held in May.
Yet despite Rubio’s apparent reversal – likely intended to align with Trump – Ukraine still enjoys broad support in the US Senate, including from senior Republicans. A bipartisan bill aimed at codifying existing sanctions on Russia and imposing new ones – thereby limiting Trump’s power to roll them back – has garnered 81 Senate co-sponsors. The bill’s authors, Senators Lindsey Graham (R–South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), recently travelled to Kyiv to reaffirm their backing. Graham has suggested the bill could move forward in the coming weeks.
Still, Ukraine knows the bill stands little chance in the House of Representatives without Trump’s blessing. Despite Trump’s enduring animosity towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyiv has recently adopted a more deferential posture, particularly after their disastrous February meeting in Washington. The Ukrainian government quickly signed and ratified the so-called “minerals deal” that Trump demanded last month. A subsequent meeting between the two leaders – held on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral – was notably more productive.
So far, Kyiv’s strategy of appeasement has yielded little change in Trump’s approach. While Trump has occasionally hinted at taking a tougher stance on Putin – usually in response to particularly egregious Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians – he consistently deflects when asked for specifics. For months, he has promised to reveal his plan for Ukraine “in about two weeks,” a vague assurance that remains unfulfilled. A new sanctions package reportedly prepared by his own team over a month ago still sits untouched.
Hoping that mounting battlefield violence or bipartisan pressure from the US Senate might force Trump to act, Kyiv presses on with negotiations. Just one day before the Istanbul talks, Russia launched a record-setting overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 430 missiles and drones. Ukraine responded forcefully: on June 1, it conducted a large-scale drone strike deep inside Russia, destroying dozens of military aircraft, including airborne command platforms and nuclear-capable bombers.
Yet these high-profile losses have done little to shift Putin’s strategy. He continues to use the negotiation process as a smokescreen, providing Trump with political cover for his inaction. Meanwhile, Russian forces are advancing, making incremental gains in northern Ukraine’s Sumy region – where they hope to establish a “buffer zone” – and pushing forward on the southwestern Donetsk front.
Ultimately, Ukraine’s ability to strike deep inside Russian territory, including potentially vulnerable targets like oil infrastructure, may have more bearing on the war’s trajectory than any outcome from the Istanbul talks. Yet neither military escalation nor stalled diplomacy seems likely to bring a swift end to the conflict.
Trump says he abhors the civilian toll of this war, even if he stops short of blaming Putin for starting it. But it is Trump’s lack of strategy – his hesitation, his mixed signals, his refusal to lead – that is prolonging the conflict, escalating its brutality and compounding its risks for global stability.
Trump’s advisers may call it “peace through strength,” but what we are witnessing is paralysis through posturing. Russia’s delegation in Istanbul was never a step towards resolution – it was a diplomatic decoy, shielding a brutal military advance. If Trump refuses to back a serious escalation in pressure on Moscow – through expanded sanctions and renewed military aid to Kyiv – he won’t just fail to end the war. He will become complicit in prolonging it. The choice before him is clear: lead with resolve, or let history record that under his watch, weakness spoke louder than peace.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Bitcoin Hyper is building something real and powerful. It is a Layer 2 solution created specifically for the Bitcoin blockchain. The platform’s core mission is to make BTC faster, cheaper, and more useful.
Bitcoin Hyper uses a custom-built Canonical Bridge that lets users deposit their BTC into the Layer 2 network. Once deposited, an equivalent amount of BTC is minted on Bitcoin Hyper’s sidechain in a trustless and verifiable way. This BTC is now fully usable on the Layer 2 network with near-instant transaction speeds.
All of this is powered by the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM). Solana is known for its speed, and Bitcoin Hyper integrates the same engine to process transactions at high throughput. Users can send and receive BTC, interact with DeFi platforms, use apps, and stake their assets without waiting for long confirmations or paying high fees.
And it doesn’t stop there. Bitcoin Hyper regularly compresses and commits its data back to Bitcoin’s main chain, using zero-knowledge proofs to ensure full security and consistency. That way, you’re always getting the speed of Layer 2 with the security of Layer 1.
The $HYPER token is the native token of the ecosystem. This token does a lot. It’s the fuel for transaction fees, it powers staking rewards, it’s used for governance decisions, and it’s also how developers and early adopters are rewarded.
Holding $HYPER gives users access to network services, special features, early launches, and staking rewards.
Cutting-Edge Technology With Real Use Cases
Bitcoin Hyper is built with real performance and sustainability in mind. The platform runs a proof-of-stake system, which is far more energy-efficient than traditional mining. It processes transactions using batch settlements and smart contract execution that’s both fast and eco-friendly.
Its architecture combines Bitcoin’s security with Solana’s performance. The Canonical Bridge ensures seamless BTC transfers in and out of Layer 2. And the SPL-compatible token standard opens the door to all kinds of DeFi tools, NFT platforms, and web3 applications.
On top of that, Bitcoin Hyper supports everything from high-speed payments to gaming and mobile interfaces. Developers get access to SDKs and APIs, while users enjoy low fees and a fast, fluid experience.
Unique Staking System With High Rewards
Instead of waiting until launch, users can stake $HYPER during the presale itself. The earlier you get in, the more you earn.
The dynamic APY system is designed to reward early participation, with rewards adjusting downward as more people stake. This helps the system remain sustainable over the long run while still giving newcomers plenty of incentive to join.
Staking rewards are tied to network activity and real value creation. These can help the token see lasting adoption.
Tokenomics Designed for Growth
Bitcoin Hyper’s tokenomics are crafted to balance growth, innovation, and community rewards. Here’s how the allocation breaks down:
30% goes to ongoing development, making sure the tech continues to improve.
25% is set aside for treasury and business development.
20% is dedicated to marketing and getting the word out globally.
15% is reserved for rewards, including staking, giveaways, and events.
10% is allocated for listings on major exchanges.
This setup ensures that the platform grows steadily while still rewarding the community along the way.
Roadmap: From Launch to Long-Term Vision
Bitcoin Hyper’s roadmap is detailed and focused. It’s rolling out in multiple phases:
Phase 1 (Q2 2025) kicked off with the website and branding, community growth on platforms like X and Discord, and the release of technical documentation.
Phase 2 (Q2–Q3 2025) is where we are now. This phase is all about the presale and staking. Participants can buy and stake $HYPER right now. Security audits are ongoing, and the team is forming partnerships.
Phase 3 (Q3 2025) will mark the launch of the mainnet, activation of the Canonical Bridge, and deployment of the Solana Virtual Machine. This is when dApps will start going live.
Phase 4 (Q4 2025) will focus on expanding the ecosystem. Developer tools will be released, more partnerships in DeFi, gaming, and NFTs will be announced, and $HYPER is expected to hit major exchanges.
Phase 5 (Q1 2026) will move into decentralization with the launch of a DAO, incentives for node operators, and full community governance.
How to Join the Presale and Start Earning
If you already have crypto in your wallet, head to the project’s website and click “Buy” or “Connect Wallet.” You can choose to buy $HYPER and stake it in the same transaction. This lets you start earning rewards right away.
For those using a card, just connect a browser wallet like MetaMask or a mobile wallet like Trust Wallet. After this, select the card option on the website and follow the steps.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide financial advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and the market can be unpredictable. Always perform thorough research before making any cryptocurrency-related decisions.
