New research has shown a 28% growth in shops selling vape products in Scottish towns and cities.
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Why are there so many vape shops on our high streets?
How well do you know your garden bees?
Can you tell your average buff-tailed bumblebee from its murderous cuckoo relative? Do you know which bees can sting and which can’t, or which are likely to live in a bee hotel or make their nests underground?
In the run-up to World Bee Day (on May 20), which aims to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators for food security, biodiversity, and ecosystem health, perhaps it’s time to observe the bees that visit your garden more closely and consider planting some of their favourite plants.
Anyone who doesn’t really know what they’re looking for may want to bag a copy of The Bee Spotter’s Guide by bee expert Dave Goulson, founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and professor of biology at Sussex University.
Bees live in burrows, holes in trees and even empty snail shells. They have favourite flowers. Some even sleep curled up in the blooms, Goulson explains.
“Quite a lot do that, because the males don’t typically have a nest. Flowers provide a bivouac for the night. The males of all bees are pretty useless creatures. Their only job is mating. They don’t gather food for the nest. In the daytime they often sit on flowers, having a bit of a drink to fuel their next search for a mate.”
Here are some of the bees you may spot in your garden at this time of year.
1. Buff-tailed bumblebee
This is our most common bumblebee, found throughout the UK right up to the north coast of Scotland.
“It’s one of our biggest bumblebees, on the wing from late February right through to summer. It has two yellow stripes and a slightly brownish bottom, hence the name ‘buff-tailed’,” says Goulson.
The queen comes out of hibernation in early spring, feeding on spring flowers and then looks for a nest in a hole in the ground, so can often be seen flying low to the ground.
Plants they like: Lavender, catmint and borage, although they will feed on many other plants.
2. Southern cuckoo bumblebee
“As the name suggests, it’s a bit like the bird – it specialises in attacking nests of buff-tailed bumblebees. The female comes out of hibernation a little bit later, when the buff-tailed bumblebees have already built their nest and got their first batch of workers, and the southern cuckoo bumblebees try to sniff out a buff-tailed bumblebee nest.
“If they find one, they murder the queen. They are big, strong insects with a thicker skin and a longer sting than normal bumblebees, and kill the queen, then they basically enslave her worker bees into their own workforce.
“They show no interest in people. They are quite common, with broadly the same yellow stripes as the buff-tailed bumblebee, but they have an extra bit of yellow next to the white on the tail.”
Plants they like: The males are particularly fond of brambles.
3. Red mason bee
“This is one of our most common solitary bees. People think of bees as living in a hive, the social creatures of queen and workers, but it’s only the honey bee and the 20-plus bumblebee species that are social.
“In the UK we have about 270 species of bee, so roughly 250 of them are solitary insects which means that the female makes a nest on her own and there are no workers. She just rears sons and daughters.”
The females have distinctive inward curved horns, used to gather, carry and mould balls of damp soil that are used to construct cells for their brood.
The red mason bee is the most common occupant of bee hotels, made of horizontal tunnels such as bamboo canes and other hollow stems. They also nest in holes in walls or trees with holes in them and are only on the wing in April and May.
“They are quite small, red and fluffy, and are called mason bees because the female bee nests in holes. They cannot sting humans. The stings of most solitary bees species are too weak to penetrate human flesh.”
Plants they like: Apples and pears. You may also see them on forget-me-nots, grape hyacinths, rosemary and pulmonaria.
4. Hairy-footed flower bee
One of Goulson’s favourite bees, the male is a fluffy brown, emerging in early spring, followed a week or two later by the jet-black female, which has orange hind legs.
“They are about the size of a small bumblebee, so they are quite big solitary bees. The name comes from the fact that the male’s midlegs have long hair protruding from the feet.
“When he’s courting the female bee he brushes her face with his hairy feet. It seems to work. The females nest in holes, but they burrow into clay banks usually and they are on the wing at this time of year.”
They have a distinctive hovering and darting flight pattern different to most other bees.
Plants they like: Their favourites are comfrey and lungwort, he says.
5. Wool carder bee
“This is a striking British solitary bee with bright yellow spots along the sides of its abdomen. It’s called the wool carder bee because the females collect hairs from hairy-leaved flowers and use them to build a nest which looks like it’s made out of cotton wool.”
The male is really aggressive, Goulson notes. “They look for a patch of lamb’s ear and defend it against any other bee, not just their own species but any other insect, in fact, that comes into the patch (but not humans).
“They’ll fly at it and have these big pointy bumps on the underside of their body which they’ll stab at any insect that dares to enter their territory and crush it. They do that because basically they’re defending a resource that the female needs.”
Wool carder bees, which are on the wing from late May to early August and are common in southern England and south Wales, nest in cavities and will take any man-made opportunity, Goulson says.
“I’ve got some drill holes in my wooden picnic table in the garden at the moment. They are coming out on the wing now and a bit later into the summer.
Plants they like: Lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina) for building nests. They feed mainly on woundworts and legumes like bird’s-foot trefoil.
The Bee Spotter’s Guide by Dave Goulson is published by National Trust Books, priced £9.99. Available now
Prasidh Krishna’s Bengaluru Home: A look at the cricketer’s stylish private retreat
The home reflects family values and cultural roots. Prasidh and his family celebrate festivities in traditional style by dining on banana leaves. His house also features spaces for rituals and a balcony with panoramic views of Bengaluru’s greenery. These details make the house feel warm and personal, not only just luxurious.
Prasidh Krishna’s Bengaluru home stands out as more than just a luxury bungalow. It is a space that combines elegance, privacy, tradition and comfort in a way that matches his life as a top-level cricketer. It is not just a luxurious space, but a calm and private retreat where he can relax, recharge and stay connected to his roots.
Image Credit: Instagram/ rachana_krishna
‘Not in our hands’: Guardiola says Man City have lost control of title race
Man City’s 3-3 draw at Everton has left them five points adrift of leaders Arsenal albeit with a game in hand.
Published On 5 May 2026
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted that the Premier League title race has slipped out of his team’s control after they were held to a chaotic 3-3 draw at Everton.
“It’s now not in our hands; before it was, now no,” Guardiola said after the match on Monday.
“Four games we have [remaining] in the Premier League. They will be quite similar, and we’ll see what happens.”
City had the chance to draw level on points with leaders Arsenal with victories over Everton on Monday and Brentford five days later.
Instead, they find themselves five points adrift, albeit with a game in hand, and needing a wobble from Arsenal.
Guardiola was left to reflect on a point salvaged rather than three secured at Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool.
“It’s better than losing,” he said. “We’d rather win. We play for that, and we just showed what a team we are. We tried everything. The players were aggressive.”
Winger Jeremy Doku struck the dramatic equaliser in the 97th minute to complete a double on the night and echoed his manager’s frustration while insisting City had not abandoned belief with four league games still to play.
“It’s painful now, but there’s still a lot of games to go, and anything can happen,” Doku said. “We’ll keep on fighting. We owe it to ourselves and our fans.”
City striker Erling Haaland, who scored in the 83rd minute, could be heard saying, “We’re still in it,” as he shook hands with his teammates after the final whistle.
Following Saturday’s game against Brentford, City face Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, and Aston Villa in their final three league games.
Arsenal have the far easier schedule, at least on paper, with games against relegation-threatened West Ham United, already-relegated Burnley, and Palace.
While their hopes of winning the league suffered a huge blow, City are technically still in the running for a domestic treble. They beat Arsenal to win the League Cup in March and meet Chelsea in the FA Cup final on May 16.
‘I went undercover to expose dangerous advice given to parents’
Alison Scott-Wright, also known as ‘The Magic Sleep Fairy’ has appeared on TV giving advice around improving the sleep of babies.
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Pen pal programs have evolved, but old-fashioned letter writing could be coming back
CONCORD, N.H. — In 1985, a 13-year-old girl in New Zealand spotted a pair of purple, lip-shaped sunglasses in “Young Miss” magazine. In March, I traveled 9,000 miles from New Hampshire to deliver them to her, finally fulfilling my pen pal’s decades-old request.
International Youth Service, the agency that matched us up 40 years ago, has long since folded, but other pen pal programs have survived — or even began during — the internet age. And even though New Zealand’s postal system has reduced home delivery days, Denmark has stopped delivering letters altogether and Canada is moving in that direction, some see signs of a letter-writing resurgence.
“The hunger is there,” said Rachel Syme, a writer for The New Yorker magazine who created a pen pal program during the COVID-19 pandemic and later published a book encouraging others to take up handwritten correspondence.
More than 15,000 people signed up for Syme’s Penpalooza project in 2020, and she still gets hundreds of takers when she coordinates a new round of matchmaking every few months. She also gets requests for pen pals at book signings for “Syme’s Letter Writer – A Guide to Modern Correspondence,” and the stationery stores she frequents in New York City are always crowded with customers.
“People are very interested in physical, analog things right now,” she said. “I think it really has an appeal especially to a younger generation who grew up with a phone glued to their hand, to do something that’s more tactile, slower, more intentional, more mindful, but also just disconnected from the internet in every way.”
I was still 10 years away from connecting to the internet when I opened my first aerogramme from New Zealand, a sheet of pale blue paper that served as both writing surface and envelope adorned with a 45-cent stamp. That missive ended with a formal “Yours (hopefully) Molly Nunns,” but within a year, she was signing off with “Lots and lots of love” or “Your friend forever.”
In letter after letter, Molly drew little hearts on the tails of y’s in both of our first names, asked for updates on my middle school crushes and shared stories about her classmates and family. I could clearly picture her life, though it was hard in snowy New Hampshire to imagine celebrating Christmas during the summer.
“I am thinking of you heaps and I wonder what you are doing because you’re a SUPER pen friend and I hope that we never stop writing to each other and that one day we will get to meet each other,” she wrote in early 1986.
Julie Delbridge, 65, fostered similar friendships after joining International Pen Friends as a teenager in 1979. Writing to pen pals in more than a dozen countries from her home in Australia was such a positive experience that she began working for the organization as an adult and took over as its president in 2001. While she loved sharing photos, postcards and treats with her pen friends, it also was a therapeutic experience at a time when her parents were going through a bitter divorce.
“It was a pastime that I totally immersed myself into in a positive way and gained a lot of enjoyment from,” she said. “There was an abundance of non-judgmental friendship, fun and different perspectives.”
Over its 59-year history, IPF has provided pen pals to more than 2 million people ages 8 to 80+, she said. Membership peaked in the late 1990s but surged again during the pandemic, and this year, there’s been an increase in people ages 21-26 joining.
In 2021, the U.S. Postal Service sent cards and envelopes to 25,000 elementary school classrooms for a pen pal project, but older students also are putting pen to paper.
In Texas, a group of medical students created an anonymous pen pal program to promote peer support and personal reflection. At Villanova University, professor Kamran Javadizadeh requires students to send letters to each other as part of a literature class called “Letters, Texts, Twitter” that examines different forms of epistolary communication in literature.
“I make them put pieces of paper in envelopes and take them to the post office and send them to each other even though they could just as easily hand it to the person in class,” he said. “Something is lost when you have instantaneous communication. So I’m interested in the relationship between synchronous kinds of intimacy and asynchronous forms of intimacy.”
Gordon Alley-Young, dean of communications at New York’s Kingsborough Community College, believes letters are like vinyl records — they’re coming back into fashion as young people explore a tangible medium from the past. He has both studied the history of letter writing and used it to teach students empathy.
In an interpersonal communication class, he noticed that students analyzing case studies about relationship problems offered matter-of-fact, almost insensitive diagnoses. But when he re-wrote the case studies in the form of letters from friends and had students respond in kind, they began sharing their own feelings and offering more open-ended advice.
“We really want students to connect to what they’re looking at,” he said. “And letter writing encourages that.”
An app called Slowly seeks to combine modern technology with the old-fashioned anticipation inherent to the pen pal relationship. Users send messages digitally, but delivery is delayed from an hour to several days to mimic snail mail.
“This delay naturally encourages longer, more thoughtful messages because you wouldn’t just say ‘hi’ if you know you have to wait days for a reply,” said cofounder JoJo Chan.
Since 2017, the app has gained 10 million users in more than 160 countries, most in their 20s and 30s. One user said he was curious about pen pals after hearing about them from his grandparents, Chan said.
“Slowly offers a convenient way and a modern way for them to try that experience,” she said.
Syme, however, is all about the tangible aspects of letter writing. Her book includes advice on paper and pens plus all kinds of goodies that can be tucked into envelopes.
“There is joy to be had once you fully embrace the medium’s outdated extravagance,” she writes.
But letter writing, she said in an interview, is like a swimming pool, both shiny and deep. The frippery and embellishments don’t matter in comparison to what you actually put on the page.
“That’s where I think it can get very real, very quickly,” she said.
Molly and I had been writing for 15 years by the time we met in person, spending a day together in New York when she toured the U.S. in May 2000. We crossed paths in London a few years later, and in 2018, she and her family visited New Hampshire.
“Who would have thought when we started writing in 1985 that one day you’d be sitting here? It’s quite amazing,” she said during my recent visit. “We’ll always have a special connection, I’m sure.”
In addition to the sunglasses, I also gave Molly a bound book of 200 pages of her letters that I scanned and printed. At age 13, I never could have imagined that someday I’d have searchable PDFs of our teenage scribblings that could be summarized in 10 seconds by artificial intelligence. But what amazes me more is the depth of the connection I felt during our tearful airport goodbye.
We will for sure meet again. Until then, lots and lots of love, Holly.
US strikes Iranian fast boats as Iran attacks UAE oil facility
Shipping company Maersk says one of its US-flagged commercial vessels has successfully exited the Strait of Hormuz under US military protection.
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Explosion at a fireworks plant in China kills at least 21 people, injures dozens more: report
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An explosion at a fireworks factory in a central Chinese province killed at least 21 people and injured 61 others, according to state media.
The blast happened at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, a city administered by Changsha in Hunan province, on Monday afternoon, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported.
The plant was operated by Liuyang Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co. in Liuyang, which is under the jurisdiction of Hunan’s capital, Changsha. Liuyang is home to a hub for fireworks manufacturing, state media China Daily reported.
MASSIVE FIRE DESTROYS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA LABORATORY BUILDING: ‘TOTAL LOSS’
Fire crews work to put out a fire after an explosion at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
Aerial footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed white smoke still billowing on Tuesday in parts of the area, with facilities collapsed or damaged and debris scattered around.
Nearly 500 firefighters, rescuers and medical personnel responded to the scene, according to the South China Morning Post. People in danger zones were evacuated because of what authorities described as high risks posed by two black powder warehouses at the site.
An explosion at a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China, killed at least 21 people and injured 61 others. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts” to save injured victims and to search for people who remain unaccounted for, Xinhua reported. He called on authorities to probe the cause and pursue serious accountability. Xi also ordered effective risk screening and hazard control in key industries and the strengthening of public safety management.
Xi often issues “important instructions” to local officials after deadly accidents and disasters, according to reports.
CREWS RESPOND TO MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS AT FIREWORKS FACILITY IN CALIFORNIA
Fire rescue forces carry out rescue operations after an explosion at a fireworks plant in Liuyang, Hunan Province of China. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
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Authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the blast, and unspecified “control measures” were taken against those in charge of the company.
In an effort to avoid additional accidents during the search for survivors, rescuers adopted measures such as spraying and humidification to eliminate potential hazards. Robots were also used to assist with the search and rescue operation.
British pubs closing at a rate of almost two per day in 2026
The British Beer and Pub Association says 161 pubs have closed in the first three months of this year.
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Lauren Sánchez disappoints fans with ‘basic’ and ‘tacky’ Met Gala outfit
Lauren Sánchez Bezos is facing a wave of online criticism over her 2026 Met Gala look, which many have found “boring” and “disappointing.”
The 56-year-old journalist, who is sponsoring this year’s event alongside her billionaire husband Jeff Bezos, arrived Monday at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in a midnight-blue mermaid dress with a heart-shaped neckline and beaded straps.
This year’s dress code, “Fashion is Art,” encourages guests to think about how they can use their bodies as a blank canvas.
Speaking to host La La Anthony about how her dress embodied the theme, Bezos said it was designed by Schiaparelli as a tribute to John Singer Sargent’s 1884 painting Madame X.
“It’s a painting that’s actually in the Met,” Sánchez Bezos said. Praising her team of stylists for doing an “incredible job,” Sánchez Bezos said she was “so grateful to them.”
While Sánchez Bezos’s look was intended to pay homage to a classic masterpiece, numerous people slammed its simplicity.
“Sooo basic,” one person wrote on X. “They hosted this so she could have done anything. This is a disgusting disappointment.”
“What a miss!” a second agreed. “This is giving nothing!”
“Looks like she’s going to the prom in 1992,” a third added. “So tacky.”
“Lauren Sánchez Bezos at the 2026 Met Gala with all that money she couldn’t buy creativity,” a fourth quipped.
“Fashion is Art event and where is the ‘art?’” another questioned.
“Lauren Sanchez paid so much to be here but she couldn’t even commit to the Madame X reference,” another argued. “The dress isn’t even the same color or fabric.”
In the original portrait, the subject appears to be wearing a black evening gown, featuring a heart-shaped velvet bodice and a long skirt made of either satin or a similar silk.
This year’s event, dubbed “The Bezos Met Gala” by protestors, has faced backlash following the announcement that the tech mogul and his wife would be the lead sponsors.
The Bezos’s involvement in this year’s event has led to a boycott campaign from the political activist group Everyone Hates Elon, which has distributed flyers across New York City that read “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala” in the lead-up to the ball. The sponsorship has primarily sparked outrage due to accusations that the Amazon mogul and his wife are buying up influence in popular culture, media and politics.
Vogue’s former editor-in-chief Anna Wintour previously attempted to quell the backlash over the couple’s involvement. She told CNN in November: “I think Lauren is going to be a wonderful asset to the museum and to the event. I’m very grateful for her incredible generosity, and she’s a great lover of costume and obviously of fashion, so we’re thrilled she’s part of the night.”