Category News

Kate Middleton-loved Aspinal of London just slashed £255 off its work-ready tote bag

By in Entertainment News, News

One of Kate Middleton’s go-to handbag brands, Aspinal of London, has launched a huge summer sale that sees its work-appropriate tote bag slashed from £425 to £170

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The Regent Tote Bag is now £225 off(Image: Aspinal of London)

A stylish and practical handbag is a staple in all of Kate Middleton ’s outfits, whether she’s off duty or attending a formal Royal function, and one of her favourite brands to carry is Aspinal of London. One of her most-carried bags is the Aspinal of London Midi Mayfair Bag, which retails for £625.

The brand is known for its luxury handbags which often come with a higher price point to reflect the quality, which is why when it announced its summer sale, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on a bargain or two. One that immediately caught our eye was the Regent Tote, which has been reduced from £425 to £170, marking a huge £255 discount.

READ MORE: ‘Excellent quality’ Radley handbag that fits a laptop for work has almost £200 off

READ MORE: Antler’s stylish ‘Ryanair-approved’ carry-on tote becomes an unlikely hit with celebs at Wimbledon

The bag is the perfect investment piece for your wardrobe thanks to its timeless, classic design. It has a simple rectangular silhouette with two top straps that can be easily carried over your shoulder, on your elbow or in your hand.

Aspinal of London Regent Tote Bag
The bag is the perfect practical size for work(Image: Aspinal of London)

Its large, roomy size also means this is the perfect bag to take with you to the office, or if you want to carry something a little more sophisticated than a standard tote bag while running errands. It’s been designed to comfortably fit a 14 inch laptop inside, and has a spacious interior that still gives you plenty of room for other items.

The Regent Tote is made from full-grain leather which looks luxurious and elegant, not to mention makes it hard wearing and durable enough to be toted around constantly so you can get plenty of wear out of it. You can choose from either black or burgundy colourways – both are on sale for the same price – not to mention if you want to pay a little extra, you can get personalisation done to make it truly unique.

Aspinal of London Regent Tote Bag
You can also shop it in burgundy(Image: Aspinal of London)

Other brands have also launched summer sales, offering great savings. In the Amazon Prime Day sale, the Radley London Henrietta Place Tote Bag has been reduced from £259 to £79, saving you £180. Kate Spade has also reduced the price of its Do It All Large Tote from £295 to £149, saving you 49% on three of its five colourways.

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However neither offer as big a saving as the Aspinal of London Regent Tote , which will save you £225. And considering Princess Kate is such a huge fan of the brand, we think this is the perfect opportunity to get your hands on a Royal-approved accessory without breaking the bank.

Lions call up Ireland’s Osborne as cover for Kinghorn

By in News, Sports News
Getty Images
Mike Henson
BBC Sport rugby union news reporter
  • 41 Comments

Ireland’s Jamie Osborne will join the British and Irish Lions squad as back-up to Blair Kinghorn despite the Scotland full-back receiving “positive news” from a scan on a knee injury.

Kinghorn sustained the injury in Wednesday’s win over the ACT Brumbies, stretching the tourists’ resources at full-back with Hugo Keenan’s game time having been restricted by illness and injury.

Osborne, who is described as “training cover” for Kinghorn, will arrive at the Lions camp on Saturday from Portugal, where he has been training with Ireland.

Kinghorn is recently back from a separate knee injury sustained on club duty for Toulouse.

The Lions play their final pre-series tour game against an Australia/New Zealand invitational side on Saturday, before taking on the Wallabies in the first Test on 19 July.

Toulouse’s progress to the Top 14 final delayed Kinghorn’s arrival on tour, and he lasted only 24 minutes on his Lions debut against the Brumbies before being replaced.

England’s Marcus Smith, whose ability to cover both fly-half and full-back was key to his selection in the squad, has played the most minutes at 15, with Tommy Freeman, Mack Hansen and Huw Jones also able to fill in if the Lions find themselves short.

Lions head coach Andy Farrell gave Osborne the first of his eight Test caps at full-back against South Africa last summer, but the 23-year-old is more used to playing in midfield.

Related topics

  • British & Irish Lions
  • Rugby Union

Lions call up Osborne as cover for Kinghorn

By in News, Sports News
Getty Images
Mike Henson
BBC Sport rugby union news reporter
  • 41 Comments

Ireland’s Jamie Osborne will join the British and Irish Lions squad as back-up to Blair Kinghorn despite the Scotland full-back receiving “positive news” from a scan on a knee injury.

Kinghorn sustained the injury in Wednesday’s win over the ACT Brumbies, stretching the tourists’ resources at full-back with Hugo Keenan’s game time having been restricted by illness and injury.

Osborne, who is described as “training cover” for Kinghorn, will arrive at the Lions camp on Saturday from Portugal, where he has been training with Ireland.

Kinghorn is recently back from a separate knee injury sustained on club duty for Toulouse.

The Lions play their final pre-series tour game against an Australia/New Zealand invitational side on Saturday, before taking on the Wallabies in the first Test on 19 July.

Toulouse’s progress to the Top 14 final delayed Kinghorn’s arrival on tour, and he lasted only 24 minutes on his Lions debut against the Brumbies before being replaced.

England’s Marcus Smith, whose ability to cover both fly-half and full-back was key to his selection in the squad, has played the most minutes at 15, with Tommy Freeman, Mack Hansen and Huw Jones also able to fill in if the Lions find themselves short.

Lions head coach Andy Farrell gave Osborne the first of his eight Test caps at full-back against South Africa last summer, but the 23-year-old is more used to playing in midfield.

Related topics

  • British & Irish Lions
  • Rugby Union

Glen Michael dead: Beloved STV legend dies as family pay tribute to Cartoon Cavalcade star

By in Entertainment News, News

Children’s TV presenter and entertainer Glen Michael has been remembered as an “STV legend”, as the broadcaster announced his death at the age of 99.

The TV star was known to millions as the face and writer of Cartoon Cavalcade each Sunday on the network between 1966 and 1992. The legendary star died at his cottage in Ayrshire, where he had lived alone since the death of his wife, Beryl, ten years ago.

His child, Yonnie, 74, now a guide at King Charles’ home, Dumfries House, said: “Dad died peacefully at home, and not in hospital, which is what he wanted. He had people beside him, and he just literally took a deep breath and passed away.

“Dad had been determined to make it to 100, as he wanted his telegram from the King, but sadly it wasn’t to be. But he was still driving until six weeks before falling ill and had also filmed a video for the Veterans charity Erskine in his back garden, which he did in one take. He was a performer to the end.”






Glen was known to millions throughout his career
(
DAILY RECORD)

Reflecting on the performer’s passing, Bobby Hain, STV’s Managing Director of Audience, expressed: “We are deeply saddened to hear that Glen Michael has passed away. Glen was a wonderful performer and personality, and we know that many viewers will have very fond memories of him.

“He was an STV legend, with Glen Michael’s Cavalcade a particular favourite for children across Scotland during its 26-year run. Our thoughts are with his family at this time, and we send them our deepest condolences.”

The Devon-born entertainer, initially named Cecil Buckland, found his stage name from his admiration for bandleader Glen Millar. Before becoming an RAF serviceman himself, Michael had started out entertaining British forces during the war with his wife, Beryl.






He has been remembered as a 'legend'


He has been remembered as a ‘legend’
(
DAILY RECORD)

His career saw him performing alongside big names like Ricki Fulton and Jack Milroy and featuring in an array of STV’s programmes and dramas.

When Scottish graphic novelist Mark Millar drafted him for a bit part in the 2010 movie Kick Ass, Hollywood beckoned, though his scene was eventually omitted from the final film. Despite this, attending the premiere made Michael feel like a genuine celebrity.

Throughout his extensive career in stage, radio, and TV, Michael collaborated with numerous big names in show business, including Jack Milroy, Rikki Fulton, Stanley Baxter, Jimmy Logan, Billy Connolly, Alan Cumming, Phil McCall, Duncan McCrae, Una McLean, Craig Ferguson and Johnnie Beattie.

He was also one of the original presenters on Radio Clyde in 1974. He is survived by his two adult children, former journalist Yonnie, 74, and award-winning film editor son Chris Buckland, 66, who has worked on high-profile shows including Outlander.

Funeral plans are yet to be decided. The family have expressed their heartfelt gratitude to all the medical professionals for his care and his at-home carers, who they said “were simply amazing”.

Tributes have since poured in on social media, with one person writing: “Sad times. Grew up watching Paladdin and the Cavalcade.” “A big part of my childhood memories, RIP Glen,” added a second.

Meanwhile, a third typed: “National Hero. Rest easy Glen.” This was our weekly fix of cartoons long before cartoon network and various other channels. RIP Glen,” said another.

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Estée Lauder’s ‘unique and longlasting’ perfume reduced from £45 to £18 in limited-time deal

By in Entertainment News, News

Amazon has slashed the price of a ‘unique’ Estée Lauder fragrance that shoppers say is ‘exotic and longlasting’ by 59% in a limited-time deal

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

Amazon has slashed Estée Lauder’s ‘unique and longlasting’ perfume from £45 to £17 (Image: Estée Lauder)

If you’ve been wanting to treat yourself to a new luxury perfume without breaking the bank, you’re in luck as Amazon is running an amazing offer on a shopper-loved Estée Lauder fragrance.

Originally priced at £45 on Amazon, but £60 currently on the Estée Lauder website, Youth-Dew has been slashed by 59% bringing the price down to £18.24.

Launched in 1953, Youth-Dew by Estée Lauder is an iconic fragrance that fans have been wearing for years. It features notes of lavender, spices, patchouli, and amber and has been branded as “one of the sexiest fragrances ever created.” Even after 70 years, its timeless scent is still adored by many.

Not to mention, the stunning bottle featuring the sweet gold bow detailing looks amazing propped up on your dressing table or nightstand.

READ MORE: ‘I’m a shopping writer and this is the streak-free fake tan I’m stocking up on this Prime Day’

READ MORE: 31 best Amazon Prime Day deals on tried-and-tested products our shopping experts love

Estee Lauder Youth Dew EDP
Shoppers have praised its long lasting wear and nostalgic smell(Image: Amazon)

With over 12,000 reviews and an average 4.7-star rating, shoppers can’t get enough of this spicy scent, praising its long-lasting wear and nostalgic smell. One happy shopper wrote: “I love the smell of youth dew. I have worn this perfume for decades and never grown tired of it. I often get complimented when walking or in shops about the beautiful smell.”

A second added, “A traditional, long-lasting scent. This perfume has a strong, exotic aroma, with nostalgic overtones, bringing back memories of my mother, who also wore it. I love this perfume and wear it regularly. It is a traditional scent that people comment favourably on.”

Not all shoppers were impressed, however, with a few noting that it didn’t smell as strongly as they’d hoped. One customer wrote, “It is okay but didn’t smell as strong as I like it.”

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If you’re looking for even more deals this week, check out our head of beauty’s best haircare, skincare and make-up deals as an editor with 12 years of experience.

Trump didn’t start the war on the poor – but he’s taking it to new extremes

By in News, World News

“A budget is a moral document,” as numerous human rights activists have said over the decades. If that is true, then the so‑called “One Big, Beautiful Bill” represents a grotesque example of the immorality of US leadership in 2025.

It is a budget that slashes Medicare and Medicaid by $930bn over the next decade and could leave as many as 17 million without healthcare insurance. The cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – a food aid scheme for Americans living in deep poverty – will render about 1 million vulnerable people ineligible for the basic human right of not starving. The US social welfare system – one that President Franklin D Roosevelt and Congress introduced with the Social Security Act of 1935 and President Lyndon B Johnson extended with Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 – is on its way to an emergency room.

This is one of the steepest rollbacks of social welfare programmes in the US since their inception in 1935. Many will attribute it to Project 2025. But the disdain for social welfare in the US has always been present – because the US cannot be the US without millions of Americans who must work on the cheap, so that a select few can hoard wealth and power, and mega-corporations can hoard resources.

That the US has had a mediocre and begrudging social welfare system for the past 90 years is nothing short of a miracle. While much of the Western world and other major empires either established or modernised their social welfare systems in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the US persisted with limited government intervention for citizens. Only radicals within the US labour movement typically advocated a national social welfare policy. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, only individual states – not the federal government – provided limited economic relief to unemployed people or their families.

US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins played a critical role in persuading Roosevelt to pursue what would become the Social Security Act of 1935. Once enacted, this provided the elderly, the unemployed, disabled workers, and single mothers with federal assistance for the first time. But both of the bill’s champions were aware that there would be opposition to the federal government assuming responsibility for providing benefits to Americans, even with unemployment at 25 percent.

Leading business tycoons such as Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford expressed their disdain for federal social welfare. “No government can guarantee security. It can only tax production, distribution, and service and gradually crush the poor to pay taxes,” Ford said. Alf Landon, a millionaire oilman who served as Republican governor of Kansas and ran against Roosevelt in 1936, also opposed the Social Security Act, on the grounds that the tax burden would further impoverish workers. “I am not exaggerating the folly of this legislation. The saving it forces on our workers is a cruel hoax,” Landon stated in a 1936 speech, also fearing that the federal government would eventually dip into Social Security funds to pay for other projects.

Even when Congress enacted the Social Security Act in August 1935, the compromises made served to racialise, feminise, and further limit social welfare provision. The bill excluded agricultural workers like sharecroppers (two‑thirds white and one‑third African American, who were overrepresented in this work), domestic workers (in which Black women were overrepresented), nonprofit and government workers, and some waiters and waitresses from welfare benefits. It took amendments in the 1950s to rectify some of the racial, gender, and class discrimination embedded in the original legislation.

Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1964-65 prompted resistance and helped catalyse a new conservative movement. Johnson sought to add Medicare and Medicaid to the Social Security regime, provide food assistance via programmes such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and SNAP (originally Food Stamps), and expand Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Republican and future US President George HW Bush ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Texas in 1964 against a pro‑Medicare Democrat, calling Johnson’s plan “socialised medicine” – a Cold War‑era slur equating it with communism. Racial segregationist Strom Thurmond remarked of social welfare programmes, in general – and Johnson’s Medicare and Medicaid plans, specifically – “You had [the poor] back in the days of Jesus Christ, you have got some now, and you will have some in the future,” a pitiful excuse for refusing to reduce poverty or extend federal assistance.

The entire conservative pushback against what Republicans termed “entitlements” grew from the expansion of the welfare state under Johnson. So much so that when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, “his administration slashed Medicaid expenditures by more than 18 percent and cut the overall Department of Health and Human Services budget by 25 percent”. Those and other austerity measures in the 1980s resulted in one million fewer children eligible for free or reduced‑price school lunches, 600,000 fewer people on Medicaid, and one million fewer accessing SNAP – according to one study.

I can speak to the effect of such cuts directly. As a teenage recipient of AFDC and SNAP during the Reagan years – the second eldest of six children (four under the age of five in 1984) in the New York City area – I can say that the $16,000 in annual state and federal assistance between 1983 and 1987 felt like a cruel joke. It barely covered housing, offered minimal healthcare via underfunded public clinics, and still left us without food for a week every month. If this is what they call “entitlements”, then I was clearly entitled to almost nothing.

In the past 30 years, leaders who opposed the federal social welfare apparatus have celebrated their victories with disturbing heartlessness. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole declared gleefully in 1995 that he “was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare… because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965”. During his 2008 presidential campaign, the late Republican senator John McCain proposed $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, along with a huge “overhaul” of Social Security to balance the federal budget. Fiscal conservative Grover Norquist infamously said he wanted to “get it [social‑welfare programmes] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”. US Speaker Mike Johnson claimed last week that Trump’s budget would usher in “a new golden age”. Budget priorities that ultimately harm those in poverty, restrict access to healthcare, and force people to work for food aid or medical care are nothing short of monstrous.

Ninety years – and 44 years of tax breaks later – the greed and callousness of conservatives and the far right have precipitated yet another round of tax cuts favouring the uber wealthy and mega-corporations. It is only a matter of time before those whose grandparents once benefitted from Social Security and New Deal‑era welfare will seek to gut what remains of America’s Swiss‑cheese safety net.