Jack Bennett pleaded guilty to the offence, which targeted the Birmingham Yardley MP and two other people.

TUI Airways has confirmed it is cancelling flights from the UK to three popular long-haul destinations.

From spring, the travel company will stop direct flights from London Gatwick to Costa Rica and Saint Lucia. As of next winter, the direct service from Birmingham to Florida’s Melbourne Orlando International Airport will also be scrapped.

Tui has been running winter flights to Costa Rica since Covid restrictions were lifted. Around 2.5 million tourists visit the Central American country each year, 50,000 of them from the UK.

But from April, Brits will no longer be able to take a direct 10-hour flight to Costa Rica’s Liberia Airport, which provides easy access to the country’s coastal resorts.

Instead, winter sunseekers will have to book a connecting flight, increasing travel time to up to 18 hours.

The only other airline operating direct flights to Costa Rica is British Airways, which flies three times a week non-stop from Gatwick to San Jose — but only in high season, between November and March.

Meanwhile, sunworshippers travelling to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia will only have until May to catch a direct flight from Gatwick.

However, a TUI spokesperson confirmed they will continue to offer holiday packages using other airlines.

After speaking with TUI, Saint Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA) is confident the shake-up won’t cause a drop in tourist numbers.

SLTA Director UK & Europe Patricia Charlery-Leon said she is confident that flight coverage from British Airways and Virgin Atlantic from major UK airports will keep travellers coming.

She said: ‘With daily flights to the island with British Airways (six in the summer) from Gatwick airport and three flights a week on Virgin Atlantic from London Heathrow, Saint Lucia will remain well served from the UK market.’

Finally, there have been rumours of TUI’s direct flight from Birmingham to Melbourne Orlando being dropped in October.

Currently, the airline has not confirmed the axe. Rather, Travel Gossip noted TUI’s website only shows the route to be available via packages with indirect flights on third-party airlines.

This comes after Ryanair revealed it will be axing many European routes this year to reduce taxes and surcharges incurred for operating at airports across the continent.

The low-budget airline will no longer be offering flights to 12 popular Spanish hotspots, including Jerez, Zaragoza and Santander.

Plus, flights to popular holiday destinations like Italy, Denmark and France will also be impacted.

Retro gaming is getting unexpectedly popular with younger generations, with 74% of Britons saying they play old school games to relax.

It’s not going to be long until the entire concept of video games that come on a disc or cartridge is consigned to the history books. It’s already an unfamiliar concept to many younger gamers and yet Gen Z (those currently aged 13 to 28) is apparently getting nostalgic for an era they’ve barely even known.

According to a new survey of 2,000 Britons, 66% have bought retro tech of some kind in the last two years, with 24% of Gen Z now owning a retro games console.

Of those polled, 89% of gamers said that retro games give them a break from the internet and 74% agreed that ‘nostalgic games’ are more relaxing. 77% said they keep retro tech for sentimental value, which suggests that 23% are buying them despite having never owned them when they were new.

The report was commissioned by Pringles, who were initially promoting a Retro Console Clinic in London, offering free repairs for retro handheld and home consoles. Although it was only open for two days.

According to the survey, 30% of Britons claim they’re considering swapping their smartphones for old school flip phones, while 61% are convinced that cassette tapes are on the verge of a vinyl style comeback.

Even relatively more recent technology is coming back into vogue, with DVD players accounting for 20% of retro hardware sales and digital camera another 23% – with 55% of Gen Z claiming they’d rather take photos with a digital camera than a smartphone.

This has coincided with a general interest in 90s and 00s fashion and music, as the fascination with the 80s gradually migrates into more recent decades.

Although there are multiple reasons for the fascination with older tech, much of it is based on nostalgia. The youngest in Gen Z would’ve been born in 2012 – the year the ill-fated Wii U was released – while the oldest were born in 1997, the year the N64 launched in the UK.

It’s Generation Alpha and beyond that are going to grow up with little or no concept of physical media (unless they play their relative’s newly bought retro consoles) so it’s going to be interesting to see what they think of all this.

Perhaps they will also see the appeal in lower tech device, as 78% of those polled suggested that the other reason they like using retro gadgets is because it means they’re not using their smartphone, which many now seem desperate to get away from – at least for a time.

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