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Adele has announced she will play in Europe for the first time since 2016, with four nights booked in Germany.

The Grammy-winning singer shared on social media that she will be performing in Munich’s Messe exhibition centre – which boasts a capacity of 80,000 – in a booking she called “a bit random”.

At the end of 2023, she was asked if she wanted to perform a summer run of shows in Germany, saying: “I’ve been content as anything with my shows in London’s Hyde Park and my residency in Vegas, so I hadn’t had any other plans.”

Adele explained however that she was “too curious to not follow up and indulge in this idea” to come back to Europe.

“A one-off, bespoke pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on? Ohh!?,” she said.

“Pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe? In Munich? That’s a bit random, but still fabulous!

“Right after the Euros? Come on England! With the Olympics next door? Go on Simone! And some of my favourite artists playing shows too? Why…YES!! I haven’t played in Europe since 2016!”

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Adele performs in North Rhine-Westphalia on December 6th, 2015 Pic: Henning Kaiser/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
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Adele performs in North Rhine-Westphalia on 6 December, 2015 Pic: Henning Kaiser/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

She signed off the post saying “Guten Tag babes,” and shared a link where fans can register for tickets.

The ‘Someone Like You’ hitmaker will perform at Munich Messe on 2, 3, 9 and 10 August.

According to setlist.fm, which tracks live performances, Adele has played in Germany just 14 times.

Her last show in the country was on 15 May 2016, at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne. Her first ever was at the Stage Club in Hamburg back in 2008.

Adele is also performing the last leg of her Las Vegas residency Weekends With Adele, which runs through to mid-June.

Ticket registration for the Munich shows is open now at Adele.com and closes on 5 February. General sale then opens to the public on 9 February.

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Erin Brockovich: ‘My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto – I said, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’

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Erin Brockovich: 'My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto - I said, I've been collecting dead frogs'

Erin Brockovich says a chance conversation about a muddy stiletto with her chiropractor led to the making of the award-winning film about her life.

The climate activist, who was played by Julia Roberts in the movie, told Sky News: “My girlfriend, who was a chiropractor, was giving me a chiropractic adjustment and asked me why I had mud on my stilettos.

“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’. She goes, ‘What is wrong with you?’ So, I started telling her what I was doing.”

Then just a junior paralegal, Brockovich was in fact pulling together evidence that would see her emerge victorious from one of the largest cases of water contamination in US history in Hinkley, California.

Her hard work would see her win a record settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric Company – $333m (£254m) – but that was all still to come.

Little did Brockovich know, but her tale of a muddy stiletto would get back to actor Danny DeVito and his Jersey Films producing partner Michael Schamburg, and through them to the film’s director Steven Soderbergh.

Brockovich says Soderbergh was “wowed” by what he heard.

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She says he realised her image “was something that Hollywood might be drawn to that I was never thinking of – the short skirt, the attitude, the big bust, the stilettos, the backcombed hair. Somehow, it came together.”

‘I was always going to be misunderstood’

Released in 2000, the powerful story of one woman’s fight for justice made Brockovich a household name, and the film won actress Julia Roberts an Oscar.

Now, 25 years on, Brockovich says she believes her legal victory was helped in part by an unlikely ally – her learning difficulty.

Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe pictured after winning Oscars for best actor and actress during the Oscars in 2001. Pic: AP/Richard Drew
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Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe win best actress and actor at
the 2001 Oscars. Pic: AP/Richard Drew

Brockovich says: “Had I not been dyslexic, I might have missed Hinkley.”

Recently named a global ambassador for charity Made By Dyslexia, she’s been aware of her learning differences since childhood and still struggles today.

She says “moments of low self-esteem” still “creep back in”, and she long ago accepted “I was always going to be misunderstood”.

But for Brockovich, recognising her dyslexic strengths while working in Hinkley proved a pivotal moment: “My observations are wickedly keen. I feel like a human radar some days… Things you might not see as a pattern, I recognise. There are things that intuitively, I absolutely know.

“It will take me some time in my visual patterns of what I’m seeing, how to organise that. And it was in Hinkley that that moment happened for me because it was so omnipresent [and] in my face. Everything that should have been normal was not.”

‘A huge perfect storm’

Brockovich paints a bleak picture of what she saw in the small town: “The trees were secreting poison, the cows were covered in tumours, the chickens had wry neck [a neurological condition that causes the head to tilt abnormally], the people were sick and unbeknown to them, I knew they were all having the exact same health patterns. To the green water, to the two-headed frog, all of that was just I was like on fire, like electricity going, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on out here?'”

She describes it as “a huge, perfect storm that came together for me in Hinkley”.

But a side effect of the movie – overnight global fame – wasn’t always easy to deal with.

Pic. Made By Dyslexia
Image:
Pic. Made By Dyslexia

Brockovich calls it “scary,” admitting, “when the film first came out the night of the premiere, I was literally shaking so bad, I was so overwhelmed, that Universal Studios said, ‘If we can’t get you to calm down, I think we need to take you home’. It was a lot”.

Brockovich says she kept grounded by staying focused on her work, her family and her three children.

With Hollywood not always renowned for its faithful adherence to fact, Brockovich says the film didn’t whitewash the facts.

“I think they really did a good job at pointing out our environmental issues. Hollywood can do that, they can tell a good story. And I’m glad it was not about fluff and glamour. I’m glad it was about a subject that oftentimes we don’t want to talk about. Water pollution, environmental damage. People being poisoned.”

‘Defend ourselves against environmental assaults’

While environmental awareness is now part of the daily conversation in a way it wasn’t a quarter of a century ago, the battle to protect the climate is far from over.

Just last month, Donald Trump laid out plans to slash over 30 climate and environmental regulations as part of an ongoing effort to boost US industries from coal to manufacturing and ramp up oil and minerals production.

In response, Brockovich says, “We’re not going to stop it, but we can defend against these environmental assaults.

“We can do better with infrastructure. We can do better on a lot of policy-making. I think there’s a moment here. We have to do that because the old coming into the new isn’t working.

“I’ve recognised the patterns for 30-plus years, we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, expecting a different result.

“For me, sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, just get your ego out of the way’. We have to accept that this might be something greater than us, but we can certainly defend ourselves and protect ourselves and prepare ourselves better so we can get through that storm.”

You can listen to Brockovich speaking about her dyslexia with Made By Dyslexia founder Kate Griggs on the first episode of the new season of the podcast Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Menendez brothers’ resentencing hearing can go ahead next week, says judge

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Menendez brothers' resentencing hearing can go ahead next week, says judge

The Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom through resentencing can continue with the hearing scheduled for Thursday, a judge has ruled.

Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, received life sentences without the possibility of parole after being convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.

Lyle was 21 at the time, Erik was 18.

Last year, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon asked a judge to change the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life. That would make them immediately eligible for parole because they committed the crime when they were younger than 26.

But Mr Gascon’s successor Nathan Hochman submitted a motion last month to withdraw the resentencing request, saying the brothers must fully acknowledge lies they told about the murder of their parents before he would support their release from prison.

Separately, Governor Gavin Newsom, who has the power to commute their sentences, has asked the parole board to consider whether the brothers would represent a public safety risk if released.

Anamaria Baralt, cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, hugs attorney Mark Geragos after a hearing in the brothers' case Friday, April 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
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Anamaria Baralt, cousin of Erik and Lyle Menendez, hugs attorney Mark Geragos. Pic: AP

In light of Mr Hochman’s opposition, Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Michael Jesic ruled on Friday that the court can move forward with the hearing.

“Everything you argued today is absolutely fair game for the resentencing hearing next Thursday,” he said.

From prison, the brothers watched through a video link and could be seen in court seated next to each other in blue.

Speaking after the hearing, the brothers’ lawyer said: “Today is a good day. Justice won over politics.”

Prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance, although their defence team argued they acted out of self-defence after years of sexual abuse by their father.

A preliminary hearing held in Beverly Hills, Calif., for Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez, was postponed Friday as their lawyers fought to keep potentially incriminating evidence out of the case, April 12, 1991. Lyle, 23, and Eric, 20, are charged in the August 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. (APP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
Image:
The brothers were convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder. Pic: AP

The brothers have maintained their parents abused them since they were first charged with the murders.

A Netflix drama series and subsequent documentary about the brothers thrust them back into the spotlight last year, and led to renewed calls for their release – including from some members of their family.

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Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive Mike Jeffries ‘unfit to stand trial due to dementia’, prosecutors and defence team say

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Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive Mike Jeffries 'unfit to stand trial due to dementia', prosecutors and defence team say

Abercrombie & Fitch’s former chief executive is not fit to stand trial on sex trafficking charges as he is suffering from dementia, both prosecutors and his lawyers have said.

Mike Jeffries has Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and the “residual effects of a traumatic brain injury”, his defence attorneys wrote in a letter filed at a federal court in Central Islip, New York.

The 80-year-old needs around-the-clock care, they added, citing evaluations by medical professionals.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers are calling for Jeffries to be placed in the custody of the federal bureau of prisons for up to four months. They say he should be admitted to hospital to have treatment that could allow his criminal case to proceed.

The business tycoon, who led fashion retailer A&F from 1992 to 2014, pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges in October, and was released on a $10m (£7.65m) bond.

A total of 15 men allege they were induced by “force, fraud and coercion” to engage in drug-fuelled sex parties.

Prosecutors have accused Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith, and the couple’s alleged “recruiter” James Jacobson, of luring men to parties in New York City, the Hamptons and other locations, by dangling the prospect of modelling for A&F advertisements.

Smith and Jacobson have also pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

‘Progressive and incurable’

In their latest letter on Jeffries’ health, his defence lawyers said at least four medical professionals had concluded his cognitive issues are “progressive and incurable”, and that he will not “regain his competency and cannot be restored to competency in the future”.

These issues “significantly impair” his ability to understand the charges against him, they wrote.

Matthew Smith leaves a federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York., on Tuesday, 3 December. Pic: AP Photo/Seth Wenig
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Jeffries’ partner Matthew Smith, pictured outside the court in December, has also pleaded not guilty. Pic: AP

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“The progressive nature of his neurocognitive disorder ensures continued decline over time, further diminishing his already limited functional capacity,” said Dr Alexander Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist, and Dr Cheryl Paradis, a forensic psychologist, following evaluations made in December.

“It is, therefore, our professional opinion, within a reasonable degree of psychological and psychiatric certainty, that Mr Jeffries is not competent to proceed in the current case and cannot be restored to competency in the future.”

Jeffries left A&F in 2014 after leading the company for more than two decades, taking the retailer from a hunting and outdoor goods store founded in 1892 to a fixture of early 2000s fashion.

His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests by the Associated Press news agency for comment. The US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York declined to comment.

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