First-time buyers turn from rural areas to Britain’s regional cities

With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.The location to record the most significant jump in first-time buyer inquiries over that period is Dundee, Scotland’s fourth-largest city and, it is said, its sunniest.Some will be surprised to learn that homebuyers’ love affair with cities has intensified, bearing in mind that the pandemic apparently prompted many to think about a new life on the coast or in the countryside.The data was crunched by the property website Rightmove, which looked at Great Britain’s 50 largest cities, excluding London, and 50 of the most popular coastal areas

Crumbs! Biscuit museum’s Jaffa Cake display reignites old debate

It could be described as a storm in a teacup but the humble Jaffa Cake is once again at the centre of controversy after McVitie’s asked a biscuit museum to pull the snack from a display.The manufacturer took issue with the orangey treat being showcased in a museum devoted to biscuits because, for VAT purposes anyway, it is officially a cake. This fact was settled long ago in a legal battle with the taxman.The David and Goliath-style row – which some suggested had been orchestrated by McVitie’s to boost sales – has reignited the debate.Days after the biscuit museum in Bermondsey, south London, unveiled the display, McVitie’s sent it a cease-and-desist-style letter requesting “the immediate removal of Jaffa Cakes from your biscuit exhibit”

Skirting the issue: Designer dress goes missing from Bezos-Sánchez wedding

Lauren Sánchez packed 27 designer dresses for her wedding to the billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, in Venice last week, but left with only 26 after one went missing.The couple, who are now honeymooning in Taormina, Sicily, were wed during a star-studded three-day celebration in the lagoon city.They left Venice on Sunday, but mystery over the missing dress has generated chatter in Venice, with Corriere della Sera claiming that it was stolen, possibly by someone who evaded security and gatecrashed a party on the tiny island of San Giorgio, where the couple exchanged rings, on Friday. The newspaper said the number of gatecrashers to the event was such that officers from the local unit of Italy’s anti-terrorism squad, Digos, were called to the island.The newspaper also alleged a vintage Dolce & Gabbana-designed dress, either worn by the bride or wedding guest Ivanka Trump, was torn and caught fire during another party

Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories

A decision by Elon Musk’s X social media platform to enlist artificial intelligence chatbots to draft factchecks risks increasing the promotion of “lies and conspiracy theories”, a former UK technology minister has warned.Damian Collins accused Musk’s firm of “leaving it to bots to edit the news” after X announced on Tuesday that it would allow large language models to write community notes to clarify or correct contentious posts, before users approve them for publication. The notes have previously been written by humans.X said using AI to write factchecking notes – which sit beneath some X posts – “advances the state of the art in improving information quality on the internet”.Keith Coleman, the vice-president of product at X, said humans would review AI-generated notes and the note would appear only if people with a variety of viewpoints found it useful

‘We’ll find another way’: England still believe they can fight back to defeat India

England may have dragged themselves from the field at the end of day two 510 runs behind, but they also ended it declaring their absolute belief that this is still a game they can win.Under Ben Stokes’s captaincy England have won all three matches when their opposition has scored 500 or more runs in an innings – something that had happened only six times in the previous 145 years – and Jeetan Patel, the team’s assistant coach, insisted the feeling in the dressing room is “100%” that this is a daunting but potentially also a winning position – and that nobody was so much as contemplating a draw.“I just think we’ll find another way to do it,” Patel said. “We’ll just find another way to get over the line. And I think that’s the beauty of the team that we have, and the players we have and the belief they have in how they want to play the game

Wimbledon 2025: Draper loses to Cilic, Swiatek beats McNally – as it happened

Finally, here’s Paul MacInnes’ report of Marin Cilic’s fantastic win over Jack Draper.But otherwise, join us again tomorrow for more of the same … but different. Peace out people.Righto, that’s almost us, so let’s go around the courts one last time:Ben Shelton leads Rinky Hijikata 6-2 5-5Gaël Monfisl leads Marton Fucsovics 4-6 6-1 6-4 5-6And Daria Kasatkina has just beaten Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2 4-6 6-1Basilashvili gave it everything, but Sonego gets it done. Next for him it’s Brandon Nakashima