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Justin Bieber’s Friday night in Los Angeles took an unexpected turn from a dinner date with wife Hailey Bieber to a more laid-back, and slightly rebellious moment.

The 31-year-old pop star was seen arriving at celebrity hotspot Giorgio Baldi alongside his 28-year-old model wife, dressed in a blue sweatshirt, black leather jacket, light-wash jeans, a cap, and dark sunglasses. The couple enjoyed a quiet dinner before stepping outside, where Bieber decided to unwind in his own style.

After the meal, the father-of-one, whose nearly one-year-old son Jack Blues appears in his latest music video, shed his jacket and cap, swapping his layered look for a loose white T-shirt.

Perched on the hood of his car, Bieber lit up a cigarette and chatted with what appeared to be a parking attendant. Sporting a short haircut and a scruffy beard, the Canadian superstar looked relaxed and unfazed by onlookers.

The casual scene was followed by a more daring display the next day. On Saturday, Bieber shared multiple posts to Instagram for his 294 million followers. Among the uploads were photos of him in white briefs, grabbing his crotch, and a video of him emerging soaking wet from a lake — still wearing the underwear and a pair of work boots.

“I knew you went in with the boots,” a friend can be heard laughing in the clip, calling the stunt “outrageous behavior.” The footage appeared to come from a recent getaway with friends, where Bieber also showed off his tattooed torso and playful side.

In recent days, Bieber has been steadily posting snippets of his life, from target shooting in the woods with music producer Carter Lang to sharing candid moments from road trips with friends.

The proud dad also gave fans a rare glimpse of his son Jack Blues, posting affectionate photos of the golden-haired toddler, including one shot of Jack’s tiny feet.

Hailey Bieber recently opened up about Jack’s birth in an interview with Vogue, describing her 18-hour labour and postpartum challenges, including a haemorrhage. She admitted her body has changed since becoming a mother, saying she’s learned to “give herself grace” and embrace her new figure.

The author of a new book about Prince Andrew has called for “more accountability from the Royal Family and more transparency” after encountering what he claims was considerable secrecy while researching his book.

Andrew Lownie has spent four years working on Entitled: The Rise And Fall Of The House Of York – a book unauthorised by Prince Andrew – and submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information requests to government departments.

However, he has revealed to Sky News that all of his applications for information about Prince Andrew and his official work were knocked back.

The royal household and the royal archive are already exempt from FOI requests.

Speaking ahead of the book’s publication, which has already attracted considerable attention because of more lurid claims about the duke, Mr Lownie told Sky News: “Clearly there are details that people have picked up on and run with. And you know, that’s inevitable in these sort of books.”

But he added: “If they’re to earn our trust and support, they have to show that they are not hiding things – that they are behaving well.”

Mr Lownie said he was given a catalogue of reasons by the likes of the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade as to why they couldn’t help with information about Prince Andrew’s public work as a trade envoy in the 2000s.

Sky News was shown a selection of those response letters.

“They blame everything from security reasons, to cost and man hours, to data protection, to my questions being too broad,” the author said.

But Mr Lownie believes it’s in the interest of the Windsors to be more open if they want to guarantee long-term backing from the public, and he hopes his book may trigger more calls for greater transparency.

Read more UK news:
Met Police make ‘most arrests in a decade’ at protest
Major incident as crews battle wildfire near Bournemouth

It comes as a new YouGov report found that Prince Andrew remains the most unpopular royal in the country, with 87% of people having a negative view of him. According to the survey, just 5% of people have a favourable view of the Duke of York.

The poll also found the royals are less popular with a younger audience.

Only 36% of 18 to 24-years-olds believe the monarchy is good for the country, compared with about 60% of Britons overall.

The generational difference is underlined given 81% of over-65s think Britain should continue to have a monarchy, but this falls with each age group to just 41% of 18 to 24s.

Stories about Prince Andrew continue to attract a huge amount of attention and regularly still make him a difficult distraction for the Royal Family.

Mr Lownie says he got no sense of any appetite to reintroduce him into public life while doing his research.

“I don’t think he has any public future. I would say his private future is pretty limited too. I mean, he lives in Royal Lodge [on the Windsor Estate], he plays golf, watches TV, and presumably sees his grandchildren … he’s living the life of a retired man.”

But according to one member of staff, the removal of his royal and military titles has stung more than Prince Andrew has publicly shown.

“What most annoys him is his lack of a royal status,” Mr Lownie added. “That’s what really sort of gave him his whole sense of identity. And that’s, you know, it’s not being able to put on his uniforms and strut around and being self-important.”

Buckingham Palace has not made any comments on the book as the Duke of York is no longer a working royal.

Sky News approached the Duke of York’s office but received no response.

Heart Lamp
By Banu Mushtaq
Translated by Deepa Bhasthi
ISBN: 978-0143464471
Penguin Random House India
224pp.

Banu Mushtaq isn’t a household name in South Asia’s literary circles, but she should be.

A writer, lawyer and activist from Karnataka in India, Mushtaq wrote at a time and place where Muslim women’s voices were rarely heard, let alone amplified. She started writing in the 1970s during the Bandaya Sahitya movement, a protest against caste and communal injustices. Mushtaq’s stories are unapologetically feminist, deeply political and often achingly personal.

The stories in Heart Lamp have been translated from Kannada to English by Deepa Bhasthi, who has done a fine job keeping the emotions and rhythm of the original alive. Bhasthi, also a writer and critic, has translated other Kannada works, but this one is particularly special — it won her the English PEN Translates award in 2024.

The collection features 12 stories, each touching upon themes such as gender, faith, desire, loss, domesticity and power. Mushtaq writes about Muslim women, mothers, daughters, wives and students, through a sharp, empathetic lens. The characters don’t just speak; they confess, confront and resist.

Let’s talk about some of the stand-out stories. ‘Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal’ starts as a sweet, domestic tale about couples but quickly becomes a gut-punch. Shaista is a vibrant woman, mother of six, with hopes for her daughter Asifa’s future. But Shaista’s husband’s betrayal after her death lands hard. It’s a story about love, and what men do in its name.

The winner of the International Booker Prize this year is a collection of powerful short stories about Muslim women written in Kannada, whose English translation keeps the emotions and rhythms of the original alive

‘Fire Rain’ revolves around property, family rights and inheritance, and how women, even sisters, are forced to fight for what’s already theirs. It shows how men weaponise religion and tradition to hoard power and how women, quietly or not, push back.

‘Black Cobras’ deals with domestic abuse and how women are conditioned to normalise it. The metaphor of cobras slithering into a home isn’t just poetic, it’s chillingly accurate.

‘Red Lungi’ is more humorous, built around rumours and a mysterious man in a red lungi [loincloth] who disrupts a conservative neighbourhood. But it’s also about paranoia and how society polices women’s behaviour under the guise of morality.

‘The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri’ is hilarious and insightful. It plays on stereotypes of religion, class and food, using humour to make deeper points about human connection.

‘Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord!’ is a cry from the heart. It reads like a prayer, a complaint, and a scream rolled into one. The title says it all. What would happen if God had to live one day as a woman?

Mushtaq’s writing style is deceptively simple. Her characters talk like real people. There are no heavy-handed metaphors or complex monologues. The humour is dry, the sarcasm pointed, and the sadness understated. She slips in social commentary without slowing down the narrative. Her best moments are when you feel like she’s letting you into someone’s home, only to realise the furniture is broken and the roof’s about to collapse.

Two characters really stood out for me. One is Shaista, from the first story. She’s kind, warm, cheeky and full of life. She doesn’t just host guests; she runs her home like a queen — truly what we call a homemaker. When she dies and is quickly replaced, her absence hits you like a slap. The other is Jameela, the sister asking for her rightful property share in ‘Fire Rain.’ Her persistence, despite the discomfort she causes, stays with you.

For women, these stories will hit home. Replace Mysuru with Multan, and many of these houses could be ours. ‘Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal’, for example, feels eerily familiar: how quickly widows are forgotten, how daughters stop being educated to help their mothers, and how men mask control as affection. Similarly, ‘Fire Rain’ resonates deeply in a country where inheritance battles between brothers and sisters often break families apart.

Heart Lamp won the Booker International Prize 2025 and, while awards don’t always reflect readability, this one makes sense. It’s rare to find fiction about South Asian Muslim women that’s not exoticised or simplified. These women aren’t symbols. They are messy, flawed, loving, angry and real.

So how does the translation hold up? Pretty well. Bhasthi resists the temptation to polish things for Western readers. She retains colloquialisms, the essence of the original, and the cultural references. There are moments where one might wish for a glossary, but it’s better this way. Let the reader do some work. If anything, the translation adds a fresh rhythm to the prose and, in parts, the English version feels even more biting than it probably was in Kannada.

That said, the stories do sometimes overlap in tone. A few start to feel similar: young wife, conservative husband, extended family politics. But perhaps that’s the point. These stories aren’t trying to shock. Instead, they’re trying to show how routine this oppression has become.

Still, this isn’t a sad book. It’s a powerful, honest one. It respects its characters, even when it’s angry at their choices. Mushtaq doesn’t offer grand solutions, just a gentle nudge to look again at the lives of the women around us.

Heart Lamp is the kind of book you pass around to friends. Not because it’s trendy, but because it matters. It says what so many women want to say, loudly, clearly and beautifully.

The reviewer is a content lead at a communications agency.

She can be reached at sara.amj@hotmail.co.uk

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 10th, 2025