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A UNIQUE hotel just steps from one of the UK’s busiest high streets, The BoTree is a must when visiting London.

Here is everything you need to know about staying at the hotel.

Where is The BoTree?

Just steps off the main streets of Oxford Circus, BoTree is a welcome respite from the bustle of the city.

But it is also right by Bond Street, which takes you straight to London Heathrow Airport too.

You even get free fizz when you check in, with the lobby decked out in green plants.

What are the rooms like?

I was wowed by my room as soon as I stepped in, with chic gold glass doors dividing my entrance from the main living space.

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Simple marble counters contrasted with a euphony of colour in the form of multicoloured patterned wallpaper and accents.

It has everything you’d expect, from a tea and coffee station to a fully stocked minibar.

But it’s the little touches – the fleece lined dressing gown, the complimentary steamer – that set it above other London hotels.

Despite its central location, my room was blissfully quiet, with little trouble falling asleep in the huge king-size bed.

Options range from King Premium rooms or the suites which sleep up to four.

Rooms start from £283. See hilton.com.

What is there to eat and drink?

On the ground floor of the hotel is Lavo, which makes you feel like you are world’s away from the busy high street just outside.

Start off at the bar which has a great cocktail menu which offers a twist on the classics – my tomato martini was the perfect start, alongside a fantastic DJ set.

Otherwise come to the restaurant with an empty stomach to fully enjoy the fresh Italian dishes and fantastic portion sizes.

My tuna tartare starter was piled high, while my penne a la vodka was rich and hearty.

I was tempted by the build-you-own cannoli but thought it would be remiss not to try the tiramisu, which was one of the best I’d eaten (outside of Italy, of course).

I was excited to return for breakfast, with a great spread from hot counters to pastries.

Need to grab something to go? Try Ground, the wellness cafe for a huge range of smoothies and healthy snacks.

What else is there?

Also at the hotel is triplebond, a wellness members club with spa, gym and rooftop pool.

Suite guests get access or you can book a day pass for £95.

Otherwise get your comfy shoes on and head out to Oxford Circus for a day of shopping, with all the top high street brands on offer.

Is it family friendly?

The hotel has connecting rooms for families while cots and high chairs can be requested.

The restaurant has a kids menu too.

Is the hotel accessible?

The hotel is wheelchair accessible, which includes to reception, the bar and restaurant.

There are 21 accessible guest rooms, with amenities including with roll-in showers and emergency call systems

Saira Hayati and her daughter wanted a ‘better lifestyle’

A British mum moved abroad to afford a better lifestyle and said she saves £2,141 a month as well as enjoying weekly £20 massages, polo lessons, a cleaner and a pool.

Saira Hayati, 50, from Gravesend, Kent, relocated in 2024 after years of navigating financial uncertainty and learning to prepare for economic downturns. The mum-of-five said her monthly household budget in the UK was around £3,612 to £3,929 and stretched to the rare massage, a gym membership and access to a lake in the summer.

She now estimates she spends £1,788 to £1,874 a month in Melaka, Malaysia, and gets more luxuries – including a weekly massage and a cleaner. Her plan was originally to retire, but she has found work doing social media and doesn’t stress about inconsistent earnings as she doesn’t “need” it.

Saira, a content creator and entrepreneur, said: “The problem is in England no matter how much you earn it’s not enough. I’m swimming, juicing, enjoying the sunshine. I feel healthier, happier, and more relaxed. My kids have said they noticed a difference.”

About more than money

The move has been more than just money saving for Saira, who is now embracing a new chapter with her youngest child while working to rebuild connections with her older children after spending most of her time focused on her career. Her other children are still living and working in England.

After a 22-year marriage ended, she found love again in Malaysia and remarried four months ago. The former director of a national mortgage brokerage says the lower cost of living has given her more freedom to enjoy everyday luxuries without the same financial pressure she experienced in England.

She said: “Over here for me to have a two-hour massage is £20. So I go for massages every week.”

Her Malaysian monthly budget includes £150 for a cleaner, £300 for her daughter’s online tuition and £87 for weekly massages. She pays £20 a month in local charges, compared with £280 in UK council tax, while her electricity costs around £100 a month – three times less than her gas and electricity in England.

Her water bill is just £5 a month, compared with £150 in the UK, while her mobile phone costs £10, rather than £50. Saira spends around £639 a month on eating out and takeaways in Malaysia, covering breakfast and dinner for three every day rather than food shops.

In England takeaways and eating out was a treat, at £100 to £200 per month. Buying her 3,700sqft five-bedroom, six-bathroom, home outright in Malaysia cost her £165,000 and Saira benefited from a better exchange rate in December 2023. In Kent, her monthly mortgage was £1,400 a month for a four-bedroom detached house.

How Saira’s outlook was shaped

Saira’s financial outlook was shaped by experiencing four major recessions and the impact of the 2008 crash on her property management business. At the time, she was working as a director of a property management agency and had a professional portfolio of 350 properties, alongside around ten properties in her personal portfolio. She spoke about the fear of falling into negative equity and having to “tighten the purse strings” on her family’s finances during the credit crunch, including pulling her children out of private school.

She said: “The cost of living is making people squeezed from every angle. The burden is heavier now than it was and people just aren’t in a position to do what they strive to.”

She said the pressure facing households in England had become increasingly difficult, regardless of how much people earned. Saira began selling properties from her personal portfolio before leaving the UK, eventually putting more than £100,000 into a Singapore vault with gold to give her family a financial safety net.

The fund means she no longer feels compelled to keep earning more money simply to feel secure. She said the £100,000 was enough to protect her family for years in an emergency living in Malaysia.

She said: “I’m comfortable in the sense that I don’t need any more emergency fund and I don’t need to earn any more than I need.”

For Saira, moving abroad was not just about cutting bills, but about finding somewhere she could enjoy a better quality of life and spend more time with her family without constantly worrying about money.

She said: “I’ve positioned myself somewhere that I know I can have a decent lifestyle that isn’t going to cost me a lot of money. That’s the kind of guidance I’m giving people having done it myself.”

Saira’s costs

Mortgage/rent

UK: £1,400

Malaysia: £0 – home owned outright

Council tax/local collection charge

UK: £280

Malaysia: £20

Service charge: grounds, pool and gym

UK: Not included

Malaysia: £30

Gas and electricity

UK: £300

Malaysia: £100 – electricity only

Water

UK: £150

Malaysia: £5

Internet

UK: £50

Malaysia: £50

Mobile phone

UK: £50

Malaysia: £10

Groceries

UK: £650 to £867

Malaysia: £80 – fruit, juicing supplies, and toiletries

Eating out/takeaways

UK: £100 to £200

Malaysia: £639 – breakfast and dinner for three daily

Fuel

UK: £217

Malaysia: £87 to £173

Car costs: insurance, tax, service, repairs

UK: £200

Malaysia: £110

Home insurance

UK: £75 – buildings and contents

Malaysia: £20 – buildings

Cleaner

UK: Not included

Malaysia: £150

Child tuition

UK: £0

Malaysia: £300

Gym

UK: £40

Malaysia: Included in service charge

Clothes, toiletries, haircuts and dental

UK: £100

Malaysia: Toiletries above; other costs not totalled

Weekly massages

UK: Not included

Malaysia: £87

Monthly totals

UK: £3,612 to £3,929

Malaysia: £1,788 to £1,874

Annual totals

UK: £43,344 to £47,148

Malaysia: £21,456 to £22,488

Investec Champions Cup

Pau (17) 41

Tries: Marta 2, Zabala, Grandidier Nkanang, Brau-Boirie Cons: Desperes 5 Pens: Desperes 2

Leicester Tigers (10) 17

Tries: Chessum, Van der Flier Cons: Searle 2 Pen: Searle

Leicester Tigers began their Champions Cup campaign with a 41-17 defeat by French club Pau.

Portugal international Rodrigo Marta crossed for two of the home side’s five tries, with a late burst helping them earn a bonus point from their Pool One opener.

Despite falling behind to an early Pau penalty, Leicester did well in the early exchanges, their tactical kicking game keeping them camped in their opponents’ territory.

Billy Searle’s 50-22 put the Tigers in superb field position and they capitalised through captain Ollie Chessum, who was making his first appearance of the season after recovering from a foot injury.

Pau fought back well, however, showing their quality with three tries in a 20-minute spell either side of half-time.

They had already seen a Sacha Zegueur try ruled out for a knock-on before Marta, the leading try-scorer in this season’s Top 14 with six in five appearances, and prop Jon Zebala touched down late in the first half.

Centre Marta raced in again from 30 metres to extend Pau’s lead after the interval.

Archie van der Flier powered over in the corner to move Leicester back within seven points, but that would be the final time Leicester would be within range of a losing bonus point, as Pau scored 17 points without reply.

Fly-half Axel Desperes added a further penalty, Theo Attissogbe sent winger Aaron Grandidier Nkanang over unchallenged in the corner and Fabien Brau-Boirie intercepted a Leicester pass to complete the scoring.

Leicester’s remaining Pool One matches are against Clermont Auvergne, Glasgow Warriors and Leinster.

Oct. 10, 2026 7:06 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of President Trump last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday.

Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate U.S. law. “The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,” she said.

The announcement came after the television pool of five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after the administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House because of coverage Trump disliked.

Messages were sent late Saturday to the five outlets seeking comment: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC.

The White House press pool, which is a rotating cast of news outlets that covers the president, has become a proxy for the wider fight over whether the president, or anyone, can control the content of news reports — a type of free speech, a pillar of American democracy.

Last month’s developments marked an extraordinary escalation in Trump’s efforts to restrict news reporters and outlets that he finds insufficiently supportive.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued over the days-long ban. It was lifted after a judge handed the three news organizations a reprieve, which is in place until Tuesday.

Television pool coverage of the White House has also resumed.

Jose Zamora, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ regional director of the Americas, on Saturday criticized the administration’s decision to investigate.

“The government should not use antitrust investigations to intimidate news outlets defending press access,” Zamora said on X. “The public’s right to know depends on that access.”

Durkin Richer and Taxin write for the Associated Press. Taxin reported from Santa Ana.

NO signal, no all-you-can-eat buffet and your bed is next to hundreds of shipping containers – it’s certainly not your average cruise.

Yet this didn’t stop passenger Pieter Stroop Van Renen from shelling out £850 to travel for a week on board the shipping boat.

Pieter, 59,said he was stunned to realise you could pay to travel onboard the ships that are usually for cargo rather than leisure.

Talking to The Sun, he said he jumped at the chance to go on one and loved the idea of being the “only passenger onboard.”

Paying around €1,000 (£848) to travel aboard the Elbcarrier, the 140m-long vessel sailing was from Rotterdam to Dublin and back again.

It’s safe to say that the ship is the opposite of a luxury liner – there’s no infinity pool, no cocktail-fuelled small talk with fellow tourists and no breakfast buffet.

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The first major difference from a commercial cruise was before the journey even began – as nobody could tell Pieter exactly when the ship would leave.

Even in the week before his holiday, he did not know whether he would depart on the Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Pieter eventually boarded the Elbcarrier at 4pm on Saturday – but the ship did not set sail until 12 hours later, at four in the morning.

As he waited, confined to his cabin while loading was completed, the reality of spending several days aboard a working cargo ship began to sink in.

Peter said: “I thought, will I get bored, or will I get seasick, or what happens there? Where can I walk? Who are these guys, and do they know I’m coming?”

But that wasn’t a problem for Pieter, who instead spent hours on the bridge watching the captain and officers navigate, studying the ship’s radar screens, chatting to the crew and touring the engine room.

Pieter continued: “The bridge was beautiful at night. They keep the lights off, so it’s pitch black outside and all you can see are the navigation lights and the equipment glowing in the darkness. It was magical.”

At the invitation of the captain, Pieter had one of the best seats in the house as the vessel headed out towards the North Sea.

The journey to Dublin usually takes at least 48 hours by sea, but Pieter’s crossing lasted around 52 hours.

Pieter also couldn’t wander about as he pleased on deck – passengers aren’t allowed to walk between the stacks of containers, which can tower four or five containers high.

Pieter explained: “If something happens [and one falls], then you’re crushed and you’re dead.”

Mealtimes gave him another taste of life aboard a working ship.

Pieter’s ticket included three hot meals a day – there were fried eggs for breakfast and hearty dinners of meat and vegetables in the evening.

What Pieter had not prepared for was getting peckish between meals – but luckily the captain sold chocolate bars and cans of beer.

Sleeping was another challenge altogether because while daytime conditions were relatively calm, it’s a different story at night.

Pieter explained: “You’re just rolling in your bed from left to right continuously. I didn’t get seasick. But I didn’t sleep at all at night.”

He warned that anyone particularly prone to seasickness should think carefully before following his lead – especially as there’s no getting off the boat for excursions like on a usual cruise.

Anyone expecting to spend the voyage scrolling TikTok will also be disappointed as on the Irish Sea, there’s no connection whatsoever.

Pieter had to wait until he was back on dry land before posting about his experience on social media – where clips from the trip unexpectedly took off.

While the internet is impressed with his thirst for adventure, his family, however, were less enthusiastic about joining him on board a working ship.

He said: “I couldn’t get them to come. They would never do this. So, time for myself.”

To see more of Pieter’s container ship holiday, head here.

WASHINGTON — A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Trump.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.

Hearn’s lawyers say Trump administration officials have continued to falsely accuse the Maryland resident of vandalizing the reflecting pool despite Pirro’s decision to drop the case on July 31. Trump responded by saying Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”

In a court filing in July, Pirro said new evidence produced by the Interior Department showed Hearn wasn’t responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. Pirro’s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.

Pirro’s admission was an embarrassing setback for the White House. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.

Hearn has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it.

Hearn was charged with one count of property destruction, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

Trump, a Republican, appointed Pirro, a former Fox News host, to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia. Edelman was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Hearn’s attorneys said the ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice” and allows Hearn to “move forward with his life as he deserves.”

“This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted,” the lawyers said in a statement.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.