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Viewers couldn’t look away from their screens

A chilling documentary about one of the world’s most infamous serial killers is streaming now.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer was originally released in 2003 and it is still captivating viewers over 20 years on. The film dives into American murderer Aileen Wuornos’ crimes and trial, which ended in her execution in 2002.

A synopsis teases: “British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990.

“Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind — and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos’ trial.”

The documentary is now available to watch on Channel 4, along with the director’s original 1992 film, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Those without access to Channel 4 can alternatively stream the movie on STV Player.

Both critics and casual viewers have shared glowing reviews of the film, with Rotten Tomatoes pundits giving it an impressive 85% score.

But fans have confessed they were deeply disturbed by Wuornos’ dark story and execution. One person posted: “Very bizarre and quite chilling documentary. It affected me and disturbed me in equal measure.”

Someone else agreed: “Ultimately this is a sad documentation of one woman’s mental demise on death row and one can’t help but feel empathetic towards Aileen and what her life amounted to.”

A third viewer added: “A deeply disturbing documentary of the iconic serial killer Aileen Wuornos from the most acclaimed documentary film maker in the U.K, Nic Broomfield. The documentary goes much deeper, much further than anybody could have anticipated.”

Yet another fan chimed in: “Chilling really sad story. This is one of those films that make you question your own humanity.”

Others were completely captivated by the film, with one sharing: “Really fantastic I did not regret watching it,” and another adding: “I was completely glued to the screen watching this documentary.”

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer is available to stream on Channel 4 and STV Player.

Coronation Street fans are worried for Brody Michaelis amid his dodgy dealings with Idris Nazir after a violent scene on Wednesday, with fans predicting a sad fate for the teen

Fans fear a death twist is on the way for one Coronation Street teen, after they crossed baddie Idris Nazir on Wednesday.

After some dodgy dealings with Idris over recent weeks, Brody Michaelis exposed Idris to his love interest Leanne Battersby. Revealing all about the poker night and the fact he’d risked her money in the process, Brody left Idris furious.

Idris had hosted a poker night at Leanne’s restaurant in secret. He then used the £5,000 she leant him, which he claimed was a loan for something, on the poker game. With the help of Ollie Driscoll, Idris fixed the poker game so that Ollie won, and dodgy businesswoman Fiona lost.

With Ollie winning thousands of pounds, most of it went to Idris. But the fact he’d chosen Ollie for this task and not Brody, who is keen to impress his boss, left Brody upset, and he got drunk.

As Brody confronted his boss about Ollie, Idris realised he’d had alcohol. Idris called Brody “sloppy” and a “bad liar”, saying this is why he chose Ollie. A rejected Brody then took his revenge.

As Leanne showed up at the restaurant after the clean-up, Brody dropped Idris in it by confirming the poker night. He told Leanne about the winnings too, making it clear that Idris had used her money.

A furious Leanne told Idris not to bother joining her later before storming out. As Brody laughed, Idris went over to him and attacked him. Pinning him against a wall, he grabbed him before slapping and then grabbing his face.

Idris said: “Think you’re a big man, do you? I don’t care who your dad is. If you ever cross me like that again, you’ll regret it.” He then threw Brody over, telling him to get out.

Fans watching the scenes were worried it was a hint of what is to come for the characters. With Brody tipped to take some time away later this year, as actor Ryan Mulvey works on another project, fans are fearing he could be killed off.

While his exit is only thought to be temporary, fans believe Idris’ true colours have been shown, and Brody could get caught up in dark scenes. A fan said: “I think Idris will kill Brody.”

Another viewer theorised: “I think Brodie’s going to end up asking too many questions or double crossing Idris and that’s how he leaves.” Another fan thought he’d live, but still be facing trouble thanks to Idris.

The comment read: “I can see him going to prison for a while, if the actor is leaving.”

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

If you were once a child dragged to the British coastline, seemingly regardless of the time of year or weather, then you too will know how beautiful but also bleak it can be

Bleak or beautiful? When it comes to the UK coastline, it can be difficult to know what you’re going to get.

Camber Sands, Morecambe and Cromer are all picture-perfect places that belong on a postcard when the sun is shining and the chippy fryers are bubbling away.

But, when the clouds roll in and the temperatures drop, leaving the prom deserted but for the hopeless sound of ignored arcade machines, such beauty is replaced by a bleakness.

If you were once a child dragged to the British coastline, seemingly regardless of the time of year or weather, then you too will feel this particular brand of wist deep within yourself.

Inarguably, the bleak jewel in the Dungeness crown is its twin nuclear power plants, which once whipped a patch of nearby sea into a whirlpool but have lain dormant and decommissioned for the past 19 years.

The unique feel of the place has been best captured by artist, filmmaker, gay rights activist, and gardener Derek Jarman, who turned his home into Prospect Cottage—a point of pilgrimage for his fans and those who love the way he carefully manicured the garden into a concentrated miniature form of Dungeness.

But not everyone is a fan. In fact, many are left cold by Dungeness’ charms.

“Bleak is an understatement,” one detractor of the place recently wrote on Reddit. Another added: “Bleak to Dungeness is like ‘a wee bit cold’ in Antarctica. The missus loved it though…” A third wrote: “I find it dismal down there. Old nuclear power station for a view.”

Others love Dungeness and how different it feels from other parts of the UK.

The science writer Ben Goldacre recalled his experience of riding through Dungeness on the small railway that takes day-trippers down the coastline.

“The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a strange, dreamlike existence, on the border between fantasy and reality. You leave toytown in a cute miniature train, surrounded by excited children. But Disney, this is not. Suddenly, you’re riding through real life: past clothes lines, collapsing breezeblock walls, an abandoned washing machine in a back garden, chuffing along behind a miniature steam train. Finally, you’re ferried across a beautiful, windswept shingle peninsula, spotted with railway carriage houses and abandoned shipping containers. Then you are delivered to the foot of a nuclear power station,” Ben wrote.

“This meeting of toy train sets and grim industrial purpose is what makes the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway so perfect.”

Ben is not alone. Dungeness was named the seventh-best beach town in the UK in Which?’s survey of the British public last year. The consumer organisation surveyed more than 3,800 people about their experiences of UK seaside destinations and their opinions on beaches, scenery, food and drink offerings, accommodation, tourist attractions, and value for money.

The elevation of Dungeness into the top ten is a major scoop for the Kentish settlement, which languished in 35th place the year before.

Comedian and podcaster Christina Pazsitzky just dropped the “divorce episode” of “Your Mom’s House” and addressed her split from Tom Segura after 20 years as a couple: “Mom’s drinkin’ and smokin’ on this episode.”

Pazsitzky told guest host Duncan Trussell that she wanted to formally address the news after word got out that the comedy power couple had separated this year. “Yes, Tom and I are divorcing, and it is extremely sad,” she said, beginning to cry.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to cry this soon. It is very sad. That being said, we have tried to work it out for several years for the sake of our children and our family, and we gave it all we could, but we just couldn’t work things out. We are no longer a couple.”

Pazsitzky said the former couple were trying to make their two children a priority as they navigated the split.

“Look, we had 20 amazing years together, and that’s a really good run, I think, in a marriage,” she said, noting that the two had built their comedy careers, podcasting empire and a family over the course of their relationship.

“I wanted to address the audience specifically because we’ve been through a lot together — for those of you that have listened to us since the very beginning — we’ve been through Tom and I getting married and living in Silver Lake and being two broke comics. We’ve been through births and deaths, tragic accidents, cancer, COVID, all the things, and I want you to know that I’m still your mom, and I’m still here, and we will survive.”

The comedian reassured listeners that she and Segura were amicable and that there was no need to take sides. “This is not an ugly divorce,” she continued. “Like, we’re cool, dude.”

The two became a couple in their 20s while working as stand-ups on the Los Angeles comedy scene. Pazsitzky said the two were “kids” and that people change over the course of multiple decades. She looked back on the “wild ride” of being poor together, living in Silver Lake and getting married with $200 between the two of them.

“Cancer couldn’t kill me, you think a dude’s gonna f— take me out?”

JESSIE J has announced she’s parted ways from her baby daddy Chanan Colman three years after the birth of their son.

The singer took to Instagram to share the news with fans and revealed they broke up “some time ago.”

In 1913, Antonino Alati left southern Italy to find a better life in a land where many people regarded him as little better than scum.

He joined millions of his fellow countrymen in the United States, where the press vilified Italians as poor, dirty, violent Catholics who had too many babies, refused to assimilate and could never possibly be considered “white.”

Politicians were already working to shut the door on them. A congressional report released two years before Alati’s arrival cited southern Italians as evidence that “the new immigration as a class is far less intelligent than the old.” They came to the U.S., the report asserted, “with the intention of profiting, in a pecuniary way, by the superior advantages of the new world and then returning to the old country.”

Alati wouldn’t let bigotry win. He soon sent for his wife and children, including his infant son Salvatore. Alati turned to Alito, Salvatore became Samuel. A generation later, the family had a Supreme Court justice in Samuel A. Alito Jr. — the second Italian American, after Antonin Scalia, to sit on the highest court in the land.

During his 2005 confirmation hearings, Alito praised his father as an “extraordinary man who came to the United States as a young child and overcame many difficulties” to ensure a better life for him and his sister. By then, Italian Americans were established as an essential part of this country’s fabric, from music to politics to food.

It’s the most American of tales — which is why it’s so surprising, yet not, to read Alito’s blistering dissent in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision rejecting President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship.

If there’s one constant in this country besides death and taxes, it’s how quickly descendants of immigrants, and sometimes immigrants themselves, forget how loathed their ethnic group was and how they proved the haters wrong. Too many become uncharitable to the policies that helped them and the immigrants who followed.

But Alito’s stance against birthright citizenship goes beyond just forgetting his roots. His 39-page opinion describes the supposed impact of undocumented migrants on the U.S., using words — “overran,” “soared,” “exploded,” “massive,” “a stream,” “huge” — that read like the same invective used against Italians in his grandfather and father’s time.

The justice channels anti-Italian conspiracies of the past by casting doubt on the national allegiances of the U.S.-born children of Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants — the same patriotism test that Italian Americans faced generations ago when xenophobes questioned their Catholicism. Alito claims without evidence that millions of agricultural workers were able to apply for American citizenship after President Reagan’s 1986 amnesty “at least in part because of fraud” — a charge also leveled against Italians who sought to naturalize back in the day.

And so it goes, each passage a jumbled argument dressed up in judicial interpretations largely rejected by his fellow Catholic Supreme Court justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. Coney Barrett signed on to the majority opinion that Roberts wrote, and Kavanaugh concurred.

Rev. William Barber II speaks during a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1 while justices heard oral arguments on birthright citizenship.

(Al Drago / Getty Images)

I know how quickly families forget their own immigrant histories. Yet I look at people like Alito and wonder how they ended up thinking the way they do, because I could never imagine doing the same.

My maternal grandmother was born in Arizona to parents who fled their home country during the Mexican Revolution, becoming an American citizen by birthright. My father, who crossed the border in the trunk of a Chevy, legalized his status in an era when it was far easier to do so.

Like Alito’s paisanes, my Mexican family was also demonized for supposedly being insufficiently American and posing a threat to national unity. They also sacrificed their own dreams so their children and grandchildren could achieve theirs.

And just like Alito, some members of my family have forgotten our history and support Trump or favor some of his immigration policies, dismissing new arrivals as criminals or lazy. That’s why I will always side with undocumented people and welcome anyone who gives birth in this country with the hope that their newborn finds a better life.

It seems from his dissent that Alito somewhat agrees with me. He posits that millions of Americans who were born in this country to parents without papers “have a strong moral claim to be able to remain in the land where they grew up.” Congress “can and should address their situation,” he writes.

The justice blasts birth tourism, where women from China and other countries travel to the U.S. to have a baby, then return home, benefiting from our generosity and offering nothing in return.

I agree that’s a mockery of what being an American should be and ruins it for people who want to contribute to building a better nation. But Alito throws out the baby with the bathwater by failing to recognize that Trump’s attempt to erase birthright citizenship via executive order is presidential overreach based on bigotry, not rule of law. He’d rather cut up the Constitution to spite something he doesn’t like. Thank God his side lost, yet it’s sad that Trump’s pathetic attempt to define who can be an American went as far as it did.

Alito concludes by stating that the court’s decision to uphold the 14th Amendment is “a mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”

What new immigrants might inflict on this country is the perpetual worry of immigration restrictionists — and yet history keeps proving them wrong. Alito’s family did; so did mine. Only in these United States can the progeny of people once portrayed as parasites and invaders side with those making the same argument about the latest batch of newcomers.

History will see Alito’s vote for what it is: a forsaking of the promise his family once fulfilled, to support the people who never wanted them here in the first place.

Call the Midwife favourite Judy Parfitt appeared on ITV’s Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh

A Call the Midwife legend has opened up about their emotional exit from the BBC drama.

Judy Parfitt is best known for playing Sister Monica Joan in the long-running series. Viewers were therefore left heartbroken when the cherished nun passed away peacefully in her bed at Nonnatus House in the season 15 finale.

During her final moments, Sister Monica Joan was emotionally reunited with Sister Evangelina (played by Pam Ferris), who unexpectedly died during the season five finale from a suspected stroke.

Actress Judy Parfitt appeared on ITV’s Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh on Sunday (June 7), where she was joined by Brian Conley, Freddie Fox, Julian Ovenden and Honeysuckle Weeks.

After being shown an “enormously sad” clip of Sister Monica Joan being reunited with Sister Evangelina, Alan said: “I can’t watch that,” with Judy admitting: “Neither can I!”

She added: “Showing me at my best, I see. Also, [I] had a cap and it had the thing [go] round, so all the wrinkles were pushed up. So, [you think], ‘God, do I look as bad as that?’ And the top lighting, it looked like the Grand Canyon!”

On being reunited with Pam Ferris, Judy went on: “It was absolutely wonderful, because, I think, Pam left after four years, and we used to sit together quite a lot during the time she was there, swapping recipes and everything – it was wonderful.

“I hadn’t seen her, we only phoned a couple of times after she left, and it was so wonderful to do that scene with her, because it’s like you’ve found your teammate, sort of [like] tennis or something, and she was throwing the ball back.

“It was just a lovely atmosphere, and we’ve kept in touch ever since then – it was lovely.”

Judy then looked back on being part of the drama for so many years, sharing: “It was like a family, and that’s what I miss terribly. We’d seen each other through marriages, births, deaths, divorce – everything. And we helped each other.

“It was lovely because it was mostly women. Sorry guys, but it was wonderful to be in a show where instead [of there being] 13 men and two women – one young one and one old one – you have a show with all these women. There was no jealousy, no rivalry or anything. It was wonderful.”

BBC viewers will be pleased to learn that they haven’t seen the last of Sister Monica Joan.

Following the latest season of Call the Midwife, the show will rewind the clock to World War II with a prequel series, titled Sisters in Arms, which will be set in Poplar during the London Blitz.

Creator and writer Heidi Thomas revealed that it will include younger incarnations of Sister Monica Joan, as well as Sister Evangelina and Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter).

The returning Sisters will also be joined by three new young midwifes, who are new to the East End.

Call the Midwife is available to watch on BBC iPlayer, while Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh is streaming on ITVX