Sopal said she had wanted to learn how to dance and she has now “fulfilled that – but so much more came from that”.
She said Strictly had changed “my whole mindset, how I look at my body and what it can do for me”.
“I was just in a constant state…

Sopal said she had wanted to learn how to dance and she has now “fulfilled that – but so much more came from that”.
She said Strictly had changed “my whole mindset, how I look at my body and what it can do for me”.
“I was just in a constant state…

England are on the brink of an Ashes series defeat after Australia’s Nathan Lyon broke their resistance late on the fourth day of the third Test in Adelaide.
Off-spinner Lyon removed a reverse-sweeping Harry Brook, bowled Ben Stokes and,…

Here’s a fun fact about your DNA, only 2% of it contains actual genes!
The rest of…

Wicklow band Florence Road are set to fly the flag for Ireland at the Eurosonic Festival in the Dutch city of Groningen in January.
The four-piece of lead singer and guitarist Lily Aron, guitarist Emma Brandon, bassist…

Phil Ramsey, a lecturer in the School of Communication and Media at Ulster University, said arts councils across the UK and Ireland have “relatively small pots of money” and lots of demand.
“In Northern Ireland, we don’t have enough funding going…

Meta is fully focused on developing new AI models through its superintelligence lab, now led by Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is working on an image and video model called “Mango” and a new text-based model internally known as “Avocado.”
The tech giant plans to launch these models in the first half of 2026. The roadmap was revealed during an internal Q&A at Meta on Thursday by Wang and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox.
Wang stated that Meta aims to improve the text-based model’s coding abilities while exploring new “world models” that can understand visual information, reason, plan, and act without needing training on every possible scenario.
The push comes as Meta attempts to catch up with competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
The company’s AI division underwent significant restructuring this year, including leadership changes and aggressive recruitment of researchers from rival firms. However, retention has been an issue, with several researchers who joined Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) having already left.
In a major blow to the division, the company’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, revealed in November that he is leaving to create his own startup.
While usage figures for Meta’s AI assistants are high—boosted by integration into the search bars of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—the company has yet to launch a truly successful, standalone AI product.
This raises the stakes significantly for the first projects emerging from MSL, as Meta looks to prove it can lead the next wave of AI innovation.

For Youcef Belouazani, 20, from west Belfast, Riverdance has been part of his life ever since childhood.
“When I was younger I would watch it on tape,” he said.
“My granny and granda had it. It would be something I’d watch in the living room and…