The Know Daily - Friday 17 April 2026

_{Read in 5m 08s ∙ Listening to Carly Rae Jepsen ∙}

I'm feeling super spoiled today because I’m off on holiday next week and I’m very much looking forward to some R+R (but obviously I can’t wait to get back to our lil’ The Know community)! You might not be jetting off for sun, sea and sand, but I hope you can find a little pocket of your own sunshine this weekend – whether that’s going for a walk with loved ones to enjoy a bit of blue sky (🤞), baking something delicious to devour over a cuppa, getting stuck into a good book you’ve been meaning to start for ages, pottering around a local market, or even just putting your phone on silent and doing absolutely nothing for a while.

With that being said, enjoy our roundup of this week’s headlines and some recs to see you through the weekend. Have a fab one!

Hannah
Editor

UK NEWS

👩‍⚕️ The women’s health strategy has been relaunched by health secretary Wes Streeting who hopes to tackle “medical misogyny”. 

🗞️ A British daily newspaper is set to be taken over by the German media group Axel Springer after the UK government gave the deal a green light.

🍻The National Pub & Bar Awards shortlist has been revealed – has your local made the list?

GLOBAL AFFAIRS

🤝 Lebanon and Israel have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, and both countries' leaders have been invited to the White House for further talks.

🗳️ An early transfer of power has been requested by the Hungarian prime minister-elect Péter Magyar, following his landslide victory that ended Viktor Orbán's 16 years in office.

📖 French president Emmanuel Macron is calling for teenagers to ditch screens for reading, proposing a monthly “no screens day” alongside a social media ban for under-15s.

CULTURE

🎶 125 years of Black music-making in Britain is being celebrated at the V&A’s east London outpost. 

🗻 A 30-day stay in Japan is being offered by a new company behind a co-living community house just for trail runners. This is how you apply. 

🎟️ Timothée Chalamet has been credited with inadvertently boosting the UK’s Royal Ballet and Opera ticket sales following his viral moment discussing the industry last month.

WORK & INNOVATION

💻 “Back button hijacking" (when a website interferes with a browser so the back button no longer takes them to the previous page) is to be cracked down on by Google as part of their expanding policies. 

🗣️ Discussing politics at work – as long as it’s a supportive environment – can improve employees’ wellbeing, a new study has shown.

👩‍🔬 Car battery acid and plastic waste can be converted into clean hydrogen after researchers developed a solar-powered reactor, hoping it will address the global plastic waste problem.

UPLIFTING STUFF

📖 Over 315,000 kids in Chicago have now been granted immediate access to books after their student IDs were automatically turned into library cards. 

🌊 The Ocean Conservancy’s new Wildlife Impact Calculator lets you enter the plastic you’ve picked up and instantly shows how many marine animals you’ve helped protect. 

💕 The Bridget Jones statue has been granted permanent residence in Leicester Square, despite initially being intended as a 3-year fixture. Renee Zellweger has even said she hopes fans might rub her tummy for luck!

🗞 Read: I’m constantly walking into a room and forgetting why I went in there in the first place. But I can of course remember every lyric of Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe – make it make sense 😂. It’s definitely made me realise that our memory is a muscle so I sought out some tips and this piece outlines five really useful ones. (No prizes for guessing what the first one is…).

🎧 Listen: The Bieberchella set has made me incredibly nostalgic for old school JB so this album has been playing on repeat since the weekend. 

📺 Watch: I was a bit late to the party discovering Beef but the clever comedy has just come out with a second season. As a big fan of the book, I’ve been very excited for Margo’s Got Money Troubles to come out – also, Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer? Definitely a duo I never knew I needed in my life. And if anyone’s in the market for ultimate comfort watching, a new David Attenborough documentary dropped today. 

🧑‍🍳 Cook: This one slightly blows my mind but did you know that if you add milk to mashed up oreos and put it in the microwave you can make a cake? Don’t worry, I had to try it to believe it too…

⭐ Get clicking - this tells our partners that readers are interested in The Know. Let’s get started with this one!

⭐ Donate to The Know - to make sure we can continue to publish throughout 2025. You can make a one-off or monthly contribution. We’d be very grateful ❣️

⭐ Add us to your contacts or primary inbox - this makes sure we reach your inbox (and everyone else’s) each morning.

The Know is on a mission to help everyone start their day feeling informed and hopeful. We only recommend things we genuinely love but sometimes we make money from the links and content we share. This directly supports keeping our journalism free for all.

How did you find today’s email?
😍 Loved it! | 😕 Could be better…

Need fewer emails? Click here to hear from us once a week.