Kris Kristofferson was always modest about his talent. He disliked being called a poet and preferred it when other people performed his songs. “I sing like a bullfrog,” he once told record producer Fred Foster. “Yeah,” Foster replied, “but a bullfrog who communicates.” Kristofferson’s plainspoken vocals may have lacked range but they carried something more…

“Would you like a large drink?” A visit to Dame Jilly Cooper’s house in the Cotswolds is everything you would hope it would be. It’s just after midday, as displayed on the numerous clocks on the packed walls of her hall and living rooms. Almost every surface inch is taken up with art, family photos,…

England’s health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), is looking into “information of concern” at clinics run by one of TV’s best-known menopause doctors. Dr Louise Newson has also lost her British Menopause Society accreditation, over the prescribing of high doses of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), BBC Panorama has learned. More than a dozen patients…

Warning: Readers may find some of the details within this report upsetting “Higher,” the little girl demands, her eyes bright with excitement. “Higher, higher.” Zeina’s being pushed on a swing in a small playground in the suburbs of the northern Italian city of Padua. A normal scene anywhere in the world. But Zeina, two, can’t…

For Daniel Guerra, an aspiring Brazilian sailor keen to travel the world, the job ad was a dream come true. A British yacht owner was seeking two deck-hands to help sail his boat from Brazil across the Atlantic, one of the great ocean journeys. There would be no salary, but all expenses paid – and,…

“It almost looked like she was walking on clouds that day,” says Maren Sheldon, twin sister of the late breast cancer campaigner, Kris Hallenga. Maren is remembering the “living FUNeral” her sister had organised last year in Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. For the occasion, Kris wore a sequinned top with “YODO” on the back –…