Two years ago, I stood at the back of a conference room in Manchester Hall, sipping a coffee and watching Andy Burnham unveil his vision for transforming technical education in Greater Manchester.

Todd x Timex

Todd Snyder’s new take on the bestselling Timex Marlin features a mesh bracelet and colors inspired by the “cool blues of the Mediterranean and warm sunset hues”

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Published Jul 28, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

The latest Star Wars novel answers a mystery that's been around since 2019

Star Wars finally solves a major lingering mystery from Rise of Skywalker

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Star Wars sequel trilogy is not known for being particularly cohesive. Disney seemingly had far too many cooks in the kitchen and overreacted to angry fan feedback. By the time The Rise of Skywalker was released in 2019, the biggest question wasn't what would come next from that galaxy far away, but how a trilogy that started so promisingly ended up going so wrong.

The market for AI-generated voice models is massive. Creative use cases require AI voice models to be more expressive, while enterprises looking to automate customer support and sales ops need them to be more steerable.

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'The climate alarm is blaring, from every direction,' UN climate chief warns

Damian Carrington

Environment editor

The costs of the climate crisis are now reaching national emergency levels, the UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell said on Tuesday.

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The White House fired back at pop star Katy Perry after she said she was “appalled and angry” by the use of her song “Firework” in a TikTok video boasting about military strikes, posting another video that uses her song “Part of Me” after the singer’s rebuke.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is leading a high-level delegation to Turkiye, in his first visit to the neighbouring country since taking office in May.

Accompanied by ministers and senior officials, al-Zaidi’s visit on Tuesday will focus on “strategic cooperation” between the two countries, as well as issues related to security, water and the economy, according to government spokesman Haider al-Aboudi.