Culture

Three weekends, US$2.022 billion. Only Avengers: Endgame got there faster, and no Spider-Man film had ever reached the mark.

Hayden Panettiere, the actor who became a household name playing an indestructible cheerleader on Heroes and later a hard-living country star on Nashville, has died at 36. Her publicist Kasey Kitchen confirmed the death and said an investigation is ongoing. No cause of death has been released.

The first thing you notice is the curtains. Hung inside a fully furnished living room visible from the traffic crawling along Sunset Boulevard, they belong to a room with no door to the outside world.

Two days after releasing her eighth studio album, Ariana Grande pulled out of one of the most anticipated West End productions in years. Empire Street Productions confirmed on 2 August 2026 that Grande will no longer appear in the Barbican's revival of Sunday in the Park With George.

Kath Pettingill, the woman police knew as Granny Evil and her family called Nanna Kath, died at a nursing home in Venus Bay, Victoria, aged 91. She had been living with dementia in her final years.

The stretch of Lower Road between Tinkers Hill and Rugged Lane is quiet at the best of times. Shortly before 4:30 am on 29 July 2026, it became the place where Irish music lost one of its most enduring figures.

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey delivered $52 million from IMAX screens across its opening weekend, representing 20 per cent of the film's total global debut.

Warner Bros released the first trailer for Digger on 13 July 2026, and the first thing audiences noticed was what they could not see: Tom Cruise.