Author: BBC

Families are expected to get cheaper access to theme parks, zoos and museums as well as kids’ meals as a temporary VAT cut comes in to force on Thursday for the school summer holidays.Ticket prices at various attractions are among the activities where VAT will be reduced from 20% to 5% in what the goverment said would help with the cost of living.The cut begins on 25 June, in time for schools breaking up in Scotland at the end of this month, followed by Northern Ireland, England and Wales in July, until 1 September.But families, charities and firms said the…

Google’s YouTube has settled a social media addiction case brought by a 15-year-old in Florida, in a fresh legal blow for online platforms accused of fuelling a mental health crisis among children.The teenager, who used the initials R.K.C. in court documents, alleged that YouTube and other social media firms had designed their platforms to be addictive.”This matter has been amicably resolved and our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on that promise,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement to the BBC.R.K.C. is also suing Instagram-parent Meta, TikTok, and Snap Inc in a trial…

Lead researcher Keith Diaz told BBC News that most adults now spend three-quarters of their waking day sedentary. While general advice to “sit less and move more” is correct, people need to know what dose, he added. “The good news is that a walk break every hour for five minutes is enough to improve mood and lower fatigue. And people found this realistic and attainable,” Diaz said.The study by Columbia University surveyed more than 11,000 US employees – most of them in office jobs and working eight- to nine-hour shifts. For the first week, they went about their usual routine…

US President Donald Trump has said he has ordered an investigation into major energy companies, accusing them of “gouging” customers by not cutting petrol prices after wholesale oil costs fell on global markets.Trump wrote on social media that he has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to “immediately start looking into this”, adding he had expected to see petrol prices fall “a lot faster than what I’m seeing.” He did not name any oil firms in the post.His remarks come after the price of oil fell from peaks seen during the US-Israel war with Iran but remain higher than before…

The attackers had demanded €160,000 (£138,000; $183,000) in bitcoin, but a national decision was taken not to pay.At hospitals still offline, IT teams raced to restore systems from backups.Most had relatively recent copies of their data – a key lesson. Regular backups allow organisations to recover more quickly.Within five days, most hospitals were back online and operating close to normal, with no reported deaths or serious harm to patients.It would take weeks longer to input all the new information recorded on paper during the outage. Some data was lost forever.Police are not commenting on their investigation into who was behind…

Available for over a yearAre ADHD-like symptoms during perimenopause just down to hormonal changes or could they actually be revealing undiagnosed ADHD? Brain fog can be a key symptom of both, which means it’s not always easy to tell the difference, leaving women unsure. ‘Scummy Mummies’ podcaster Helen Thorn shares her experience, while Claudia Hammond unpicks the evidence with Dr Jessica Agnew-Blais. And Kerry explains the impact of getting an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood. And Catherine Loveday, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Westminster, discusses the difficulties of accurate cognitive tests to measure brain fog. Plus, brand-new research…

As temperatures increase significantly over the next few days, these are your rights.

For Ayesha Omar, the argument is not theoretical. The actress, who has worked in Pakistan’s film and television industry for more than 20 years, says her own images were stolen and circulated long before social media made such exposure commonplace. Photographs taken on a holiday over a decade ago in Thailand with a female friend, on a beach, where she wore a one-piece swimsuit and shorts, were taken from a laptop without her knowledge and posted online.

From the autumn a new Water Safety Forum is being introduced to primary and secondary schools.

The airline described the latest bid approach from Castlelake as “highly opportunistic”.