Aug. 10 (UPI) — Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump‘s former personal attorney, was sworn in as U.S. attorney general on Monday, making the role he’s held for several months official.

Blanche succeeds Pam Bondi, who was fired by Trump in April. He took over as acting attorney general and was officially confirmed in the role by the U.S. Senate, which voted 50-49 to confirm him early Saturday.

“I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation’s 88th attorney general,” Blanche wrote on social media Saturday after the vote. “I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to finish the process.”

The vote was largely along party lines, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voting with every Democrat against Blanche. While other Republicans, including Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Bill Cassidy, R-La., had expressed concerns about Blanche’s independence and earlier actions, they voted for him anyway.

Blanche was Trump’s personal defense lawyer and represented him in a New York hush-money case and other criminal matters, The Guardian reported. He became a deputy attorney general in early 2025.

As acting attorney general, Blanche approved Trump’s $1,776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” and a deal that promises the Internal Revenue Service will not investigate Trump’s tax returns or those of his family members. Blanche rescinded the order establishing the fund last week.

As acting attorney general, he has overseen the departure of more than 200 prosecutors and agents who worked on Trump-related investigations and dealt with controversy from the handling of the Epstein files, The Guardian reported. Lawmakers continue to seek the full release of the records.

Epstein survivors and family members had called on the Senate to block Blanche’s nomination, as had more than 1,200 former Justice Department employees.

Dhaka Seeks a New Start

Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman told India’s envoy on Monday that the two countries needed to create a “conducive environment” to strengthen bilateral ties, as Dhaka continues to press New Delhi over the politically sensitive issue of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s exile in India.

Rahman’s remarks highlight his six-month-old government’s efforts to stabilise relations with its largest neighbour while seeking progress on issues that have remained major sources of tension since Hasina was ousted in August 2024.

While Rahman has sought closer relations with India since taking office, Monday’s comments were his first to explicitly stress the need to improve the broader environment for bilateral engagement.

Hasina’s Extradition Remains a Key Dispute

Rahman made the remarks during his first meeting with India’s new High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi.

Rahman “emphasized the need to create a conducive environment to further advance the bilateral relations between the two countries”, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement following the meeting.

Bangladesh also urged India to expedite Hasina’s extradition.

Hasina, who has remained in India since the collapse of her government, is facing legal proceedings in Bangladesh and was sentenced to death in November.

Hasina’s Return Raises Fresh Tensions

The extradition request came days after Hasina interacted with the media for the first time since fleeing Bangladesh.

During an online audio conference, she reiterated that she would return to Bangladesh in December, drawing renewed attention to her continued presence and political activities in India.

Bangladesh’s foreign ministry strongly criticised the event, saying that India’s decision to allow Hasina to participate was deeply hurtful and that Bangladesh was outraged.

India has said it is examining Bangladesh’s extradition request in accordance with its legal and judicial procedures.

India Signals Willingness to Engage

In a post on X, the Indian High Commission said Trivedi reiterated India’s commitment to working with Bangladesh in a “positive, constructive and forward-looking manner”.

The exchange reflects the delicate balancing act facing both governments as they attempt to preserve bilateral ties while disagreements over Hasina’s future continue to complicate relations.

Can the Relationship Move Beyond Hasina?

For Dhaka, securing Hasina’s extradition remains a politically sensitive issue, while for New Delhi, any decision on the request carries broader implications for its relationship with Bangladesh and the country’s evolving political landscape.

Rahman’s call for a “conducive environment” suggests that Dhaka is seeking to prevent the dispute from overwhelming wider bilateral relations.

For India and Bangladesh, cooperation on broader areas of mutual interest will increasingly depend on whether the two sides can manage the Hasina issue without allowing it to become a permanent obstacle to engagement.

With information from Reuters.

Davina McCall was visibly moved on Long Lost Family as she made a life-changing discovery

Davina McCall struggled to keep her emotions under control during the latest epsidoe of the heartwarming ITV series.

The beloved TV presenter fought back tears during an emotional episode of Long Lost Family which aired on Monday (August 10 ) after revealing to 76-year-old Christine that the search for her biological family had uncovered her birth certificate and an unknown brother.

Christine left in a train carriage at Waterloo station in 1949. She was discovered and taken into care, beginning a life in which the identity of her birth parents remained one of the greatest unanswered questions she carried with her.

She has spent much of her life wondering about her biological family and where she had come from. Although she had always questioned whether she would ever discover the truth, she admitted she never expected the moment to actually happen.

Away from the cameras, Davina had already broken the heartbreaking news that Christine’s birth parents had been found but had sadly died.

Speaking to Christine, Davina asked: “How are you?” Christine replied: “It was a bit of a shock. Oh, my gosh. It’s actually happening.” She explained that she had been struggling to process everything, saying that her mind had been “addled” since learning what the Long Lost Family team had discovered.

Christine admitted that she had never really expected to find her birth mother alive. She said: “I didn’t think my mother would be alive now. I’m 76 this year, but there’s always been that question. ‘Who’s my family?’” But Davina then revealed something that made the emotional moment even more poignant.

The presenter was visibly moved as she told Christine: “I want to show you something today. It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to do this for someone. I have a birth certificate.”

Christine was visibly overwhelmed by the discovery. “Oh, goodness. So my birth was registered,” she said. Davina, visibly emotional herself, confirmed that it was. She explained that Christine’s birth mother, Joyce, was just 22 years old when she gave birth to her.

For Christine, the information was difficult to absorb. “It is a lot to take in. Oh, my goodness. So I was born in Portsmouth,” she said.

Davina confirmed that Christine had been born in hospital. The discovery appeared to answer some of the questions Christine had carried with her for decades.

Christine began trying to piece together what may have happened to her young mother. She reflected: “So, she’s looked after, and I was looked after. She must have left the hospital and gone straight up to Waterloo. But it doesn’t have the father. Probably couldn’t look after me on her own.”

Then Christine asked the question that would lead to another extraordinary discovery. “Did she have any more children?” Davina replied simply: “She did.” Christine immediately reacted with shock. “Oh, my gosh. This just gets better,” she said.

Davina then revealed that Christine had a brother named Barry — and that he had been born just one year before her. Christine wanted to know what had happened to him and asked whether Barry had stayed with their mother.

But Davina revealed that Barry had also been fostered. Davina explained: “Barry has got a birth certificate and that’s what your birth mother’s name is on it. He was the key to everything.”

Later on in the show Christine finally reunited with brother Barry. The reunion was particularly poignant given that Christine had already learned the heart breaking news that her biological parents had both died.

Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace is available to stream on ITVX

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is expected to lose her leadership role on the L.A. City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, which she has chaired since 2023, according to people familiar with the situation.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is planning to announce this week that the committee will be split into a housing committee and a homelessness committee — neither of which will be led by Raman, the people said.

Harris-Dawson is a close ally of Mayor Karen Bass, whom Raman is challenging for re-election. He declined to comment.

“It’s hard to imagine that it’s not related to politics. The timing of it would be too much of a coincidence,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles City Councilmember and Los Angeles County supervisor who now serves as chair of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Raman’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the impending shakeup, which was reported earlier by the California Post.

The move comes at a pivotal moment in the mayor’s race on homelessness.

The city’s unsheltered homeless population increased this year after two straight years of decreases, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported last month.

While the citywide number has increased, the number of homeless people living on the street in Raman’s district decreased by 49%, a fact she has touted as she challenges Bass.

Raman and Bass have presented starkly different takes regarding the situation citywide and in Raman’s district.

The mayor has posited that her signature program, Inside Safe, which addresses homeless encampments by moving homeless individuals into temporary housing, was largely responsible for the drop in Raman’s district and that federal and state budget cuts partially led to the increase citywide.

She also attacked Raman’s performance as the chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee.

“While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, ignoring the fact that she’s the Chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for ALL of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect,” said Bass’ campaign spokesperson Alex Stack in a statement last month about the homeless numbers.

Raman claimed that there have only been three Inside Safe operations in her district and that her committee has been stifled by inaction from the mayor.

“Council can pass legislation… move motions forward, but it is the mayor that has charge of the implementation and outcomes, she said at a press conference last month.

“So close to glory.”

That’s how Iván Barton described the moment he heard his last name called during the 2026 World Cup referee assignment meeting. It wasn’t to ask a question or to correct some administrative detail.

The next sentence changed his career forever: “Barton, your match is France vs. Spain. … After that, I didn’t hear anything else. I didn’t even know who my assistant referees would be.” The World Cup semifinal — one of the biggest matches a referee can officiate — had just been entrusted to the Salvadoran.

“It’s like going into shock, but a good kind of shock. ‘This is happening — it’s really happening.’ Reaching a semifinal is coming within a hair’s breadth of glory, because after a World Cup final, there’s nothing left,” Barton said.

Referee Iván Barton issues a yellow card to France’s Adrien Rabiot during a World Cup semifinal match against Spain on July 14 in Arlington, Texas.

(Lars Baron / Getty Images)

There’s one detail in that scene that captures the magnitude of the moment. While waiting for the meeting to begin, Barton was checking the airline’s app on his phone. His ticket was still scheduled for a return flight to El Salvador the next day. He had already started packing, convinced that his World Cup was over.

“I was already mentally preparing to fly back to El Salvador the next day,” Barton recalled. “When I heard ‘Barton,’ I thought, ‘What happened?’ Then they said, ‘Spain vs. France, semifinal.’ I didn’t even hear the names of my assistants.”

The first thing he did after that was call his wife.

“That’s when the tears of joy came,” he said. “It was also a moment to thank God for what was happening and immediately start preparing for the match.”

For the first time, both World Cup semifinal matches were officiated by CONCACAF referees. Barton officiated the France-Spain match, while American Ismail Elfath refereed the England-Argentina match. The confederation described both appointments as an unprecedented event for the region.

Barton said he fulfilled a dream working during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but he and other CONCACAF referees were determined to show their ability to call the most important games.

“Qatar meant making a dream come true. Making it to 2026 was a huge challenge because the bar had been set very high,” Barton said. “There were high expectations. We approached it with a great sense of responsibility and humility.”

When the tournament ended, the feeling was different from that of his first World Cup.

“I feel happy, very proud to have placed our little El Salvador flag practically at the very top of world soccer,” he said. “That’s what fills me with the most pride. We continue to open doors not only for my country, but also for the entire region and for CONCACAF refereeing.”

The red card that made history

Among the four matches Barton officiated, the Turkey-Paraguay game went down in history at the 45+3-minute mark.

During a confrontation between Miguel Almirón and Turkey’s Mert Muldur, the Paraguayan star covered his mouth while speaking aggressively to his opponent.

Barton had to review the play via VAR, and as stipulated by the new amendment to Law 12, the incident resulted in a red card, since the situation had elements of confrontation and the gesture served to conceal provocative, derogatory or inflammatory communication.

The review confirmed his interpretation.

Referee Iván Barton issues a red card to Miguel Almirón for covering his mouth while confronting another player during a World Cup match.

(Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images)

Almirón became the first player sent off in a World Cup under this new provision.

For Barton, however, the story isn’t simply about a player covering his mouth.

“People get confused. It’s not just the act of doing it; it’s doing it in a confrontational situation against an opponent. That’s what changes the picture,” Barton explained.

Clarity is important.

The amendment aims to prevent players from hiding insults or other abuse — including discriminatory remarks — behind their hand, arm or jersey.

In Almirón’s case, Barton believed the conditions were met.

“In that match, it was clear that it had occurred during a confrontational situation in which the players were facing off,” Barton explained. “Seeing it on the VAR footage was clear. It was evident, and at no point was there any doubt about the decision that had to be made.”

The incident occurred shortly before halftime, when Paraguay was leading 1-0. The red card left Paraguay with 10 players for the entire second half, but the team went on to win the match 1-0.

For Barton, the red card illustrates something he believes the public still misunderstands: VAR does not eliminate the need for the referee to interpret the rules.

“VAR isn’t there to eliminate 100% of errors,” he said. “Errors will always be part of soccer because there are many issues open to interpretation, and that’s what the referee is there for — to interpret them.”

Breaks that changed the pace of the matches

There was another major change fans protested during the World Cup — the hydration breaks.

FIFA decided that during the 2026 World Cup, there would be a three-minute break midway through each half, regardless of the temperature or stadium conditions. The referee was required to stop the match around the 22nd minute of each half.

The decision was motivated by concerns about player welfare in some of the hottest venues and a committee agreed it would be best to use the breaks universally rather than whenever the weather conditions required it to assure no teams were hampered by not getting breaks, but the debate did not go away.

In some cases, the breaks interrupted the flow of the game just as a team was starting to take control.

Barton understands that criticism, but he also doesn’t believe the break necessarily has a favorable or unfavorable effect on a team.

“Team A is attacking, attacking, attacking Team B. Obviously, it won’t be beneficial for Team A because they’re at their peak. For Team B, it will be,” he said.

The scenario can change in the second half.

“And what if, in the second half, the roles are reversed and it’s Team B that’s attacking Team A? For Team A, it’ll be beneficial. It’s very relative. I don’t think you can generalize whether it’s positive or not because it depends on the circumstances of the game.”

There’s also a difference between analyzing the break from the spectator’s perspective and doing so from the field.

As a referee, Barton found an immediate benefit.

“For us as referees, it’s beneficial because having a break to rest a bit, regain our strength and get feedback from our colleagues to see if anything needs adjusting — well, of course that’s positive,” said Barton. “In the United States, summers are extreme and it often becomes very difficult to say, ‘In this game, yes; in this game, no,’ because that undermines the consistency that the application of a rule must have.”

The stars’ last names don’t change the rule

What happens when the player who needs to be disciplined is named Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal or James Rodríguez?

In a stadium, those names carry weight. On the lineup sheet, according to Barton, they don’t.

“As a referee — contrary to what many people might think — you detach yourself from many situations, from the noise, from the pressure,” he said.

That doesn’t mean the referee is unaware of who’s on the field. According to him, it means he can’t let a player’s name influence his decision.

“On the field, there are no big names, no big teams. You see 11 players against 11 players,” Barton said.

The Salvadoran had already officiated games featuring Messi during his career in various tournaments and at the 2026 World Cup, he faced some of the most renowned soccer players on the planet.

“At no point do we think, ‘I’m not going to speak to him firmly or show him a card because it’s this player.’ No, absolutely not,” Barton stated.

The rules must apply equally to everyone.

“If you see an incident, a foul or something someone did, you make a decision regardless of who it is,” Barton said.

Barton explains the relationship in a way that makes it clear it’s not about ignoring the players’ status in the sport. It’s about understanding that, for those 90 minutes, roles are clearly defined.

“Obviously, we respect them for what they’ve achieved, for what they represent in soccer, but when it comes to applying the rules of the game, we see 11 players against 11 players — and that’s it,” he said.

Taking El Salvador to the biggest stage

Barton speaks little about himself and a lot about his country. Every assignment, he explains, ceases to be an individual endeavor.

“The higher you climb a mountain, the stronger the wind blows. The harder it is to maintain your balance,” he said.

His philosophy has changed little since he began his career.

“I haven’t achieved these things on my own. There’s a huge team behind me. … My family, CONCACAF, FIFA, the people who have always supported me,” Barton said.

The Salvadoran acknowledges that, during international competitions, he often finds that there are still people who don’t even know where El Salvador is located.

“When you get to competitions at this level, there are people who can’t even locate our country on a map,” Barton noted. “Serving as a means for others to learn about El Salvador and ensuring that representation is dignified is one of my greatest responsibilities.”

There’s a common perception among fans that FIFA assigns the matches each referee will officiate from the very beginning of the tournament.

Instead, each assignment depends on the performance shown during the previous match.

France captain Kylian Mbappe and Spain captain Rodri pose with referee Iván Barton and match officials before a World Cup semifinal.

(Florencia Tan Jun / Getty Images)

“First, you have to earn a spot in the World Cup. Then you have to earn the privilege of officiating a match. And after that, it depends entirely on how you perform in that match,” Barton said. “It’s just like the teams. No one is guaranteed to advance. Game by game, you prove whether you deserve to stay in the competition.”

After each match, there are technical sessions during which every major match decision is analyzed.

“We have debriefing sessions to review what we did well and what we need to improve,” he said. “We also work with a technical staff that conducts tactical analyses of the teams to prepare for the different scenarios a match might present.”

Although the semifinal against France and Spain holds a special place in his heart, Barton recalls other World Cup moments that will likely stay with him forever.

“The four walkouts before the matches were impressive. Hearing the World Cup anthem and walking out of the tunnel was always special,” he said.

“When the final whistle blew in the semifinal, I felt like I’d written my name into soccer history by representing my country. It was one of the most sublime moments of my career.”

Unlike many public figures, Barton decided to stay virtually off social media before and during the World Cup.

“Our minds are what we choose to feed them. If we feed them garbage, we’ll end up thinking that way,” he said.

Barton only opened official accounts after the tournament — and, according to him, not out of personal interest.

“There were too many fake profiles impersonating me,” Barton said. “I’m not swayed by flattery, just as I’m not affected by insults. … I’ve faced the most attacks in my own country, not abroad,” Barton confessed.

Even so, he insists on always responding with the same message.

“Behind the referee is a human being. There’s a father, a husband, a son,” he said. “It’s fine to criticize the work, but don’t cross the line into personal attacks.”

Aug. 10 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s main opposition People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok sharply criticized President Lee Jae Myung’s government Monday, accusing it of pursuing policies opposed by the public.

Jang called the administration a “government that has given up on the people” as he attacked policies ranging from housing and the stock market to proposals addressing housing for young adults.

“The president said that policies that harm people’s lives are worse than doing nothing, yet he continues rolling out policies that people oppose, that only hurt them and that would be better left undone,” Jang said at a meeting of the party’s Supreme Council at the National Assembly in Seoul.

Jang called for the dismissal of presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom and demanded a parliamentary investigation and special counsel investigation into single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds.

He also criticized a recent proposal by Democratic Party lawmaker Hwang Hee to convert decommissioned buses into temporary housing for young adults.

“They say we should regard the proposal to create youth housing from discarded buses as an episode, but is that something to casually say to young people who feel they have to give up on their future?” Jang said.

Rather than telling young people to live in discarded buses, Jang said, “I hope they move the Democratic Party headquarters and Democratic lawmakers’ offices into discarded buses first.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260810010003058

Drones of an unknown origin were reportedly sighted over the remote joint U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia installation located deep in the Indian Ocean. As we have frequently reported, this island base has long been a highly strategic operating location for the U.S. military. Beyond its large airfield that has been an epicenter of bomber operations over the decades, it plays many roles for the Pentagon. These include hosting Space Force operations, serving as a key port for U.S. Navy vessels, including nuclear submarines, and its lagoon provides shelter for a Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron.

The installation was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles during the Epic Fury operation, but the threat posed by drones is even more plausible for the island outpost, especially at this extremely tense time as the standoff between the U.S. and Iran grinds on.

The issue of reported drones over Diego Garcia highlights a plausible threat of sea-launched drones that TWZ has been drawing attention to for years now. It also again raises concerns about the danger to critical infrastructure and aircraft parked in the open at Diego Garcia and many other U.S. installations. This is another issue TWZ has been highlighting for years.

“We are aware of reported sightings of drones (UAS) over Diego Garcia,” the U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) told us Monday morning. “We are unable to provide any details about a situation which may affect the security or operation of the joint U.K.-U.S. base on Diego Garcia.”

“The U.S. and U.K. Commanding Officers on Diego Garcia consider and implement appropriate measures to ensure the security and safety of the base and the safety of the personnel on the island,” MoD added.

U.S. officials were less forthcoming.

“As a matter of operational security, we do not discuss specific force protection measures or security procedures at U.S. military installations,” an official from U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) told us on Friday. “We remain vigilant in protecting U.S. personnel and facilities.”

Neither MoD nor PACOM would say what kinds of drones were sighted, when they were sighted, who was operating them or what, if any, defensive measures were taken as a result. Both military organizations were responding to our questions about an Aug. 7 posting on the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, an unofficial social media channel that posts about service topics.

“Inbox: ‘Diego Garcia. Drones spotted near fuel farm. Base on 0700 to 1900 curfew until further notice’ Note: message us if you have further information, thanks,” the post read.

On Sunday, the page published a second post on the topic titled “Diego Garcia Curfew reportedly due to Drone Threats.” The post displayed what the page purported to be an official listing of curfew times for various locations around the installation.

We cannot independently confirm the accuracy of these posts and have reached out to MoD and PACOM for details. MoD did not specify who reported the drone sightings over Diego Garcia, so we have asked for clarification. Making this an even more unusual event, Diego Garcia is essentially a closed island with no significant general population or tourists around to be operating drones on a recreational basis. So seeing one or more over the base would certainly raise alarms.

Though Diego Garcia is about 1,000 miles from Sri Lanka, the nearest large landmass, its remote location does not rule out the possibility of drone incursions by an adversary.

During the run-up to the launch of the Epic Fury operation against Iran, the FBI sent out an alert warning about the possibility of an Iranian drone attack on targets in California using uncrewed aircraft launched from ships off the coast. Though the alert was based on raw, unverified intelligence, and was sent out of an abundance of caution rather than any fears of an imminent action, the overall threat of drone attacks from ships is very real. You can read our feature about this very real threat vector and its relation to that questionable intelligence release here.

Generally speaking, there are long-standing concerns that Iran and/or other actors operating on its behalf could seek to launch asymmetric attacks on targets in the United States, as well as elsewhere outside of the Middle East, in retaliation for large-scale strikes or even in an unprovoked manner. The risks of Iranians deciding to take such action have historically been seen as especially high in any scenario where there might be an existential threat to the regime in Tehran.

There were enough concerns about an Iranian attack on Diego Garcia that F-16s were deployed there in February, before the war erupted, for protection primarily against one-way attack drones and cruise missiles. F-15Es were first deployed to Diego Garcia for this same purpose last year, in what appeared to be a first of its kind force protection change. As noted earlier, Iran clearly sees the installation as a top target, as it has long been something of a refuge for U.S. forces to fallback from the Middle East from, if need be. Iran subsequently launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia during Epic Fury; however, neither struck the base.

The threat from drones launched by ships is not just limited to Iran. Russia is suspected of sending drones over key European military installations from vessels.

Long-range one-way attack drones with endurance measured in many hundreds of miles, if not more than a thousand miles, are increasingly a staple in military arsenals globally, and have also been proliferating to non-state actors. Yet the drone threat isn’t just limited to these kinds of weapons for remote locales like islands. Ukraine has carried out devastating attacks on Russian radars and other targets on Crimea and elsewhere using short-range aerial drones launched by uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). This same capability set is proliferating around the globe, allowing for the USV to work as a relatively low-cost delivery system for highly precise and relatively inexpensive short-range drones that can then execute near-field attacks. The U.S. and others are also developing similar capabilities for its submarines and future uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), which could even more easily sneak into close proximity to targets ashore before launching their deadly drone munitions.

The following video shows a Ukrainian USV launching drones against Russian targets:

Trewley-Precious opened up about the pressure she felt to stay in her marriage because of her culture, admitting she was left feeling ashamed after walking away

A Channel 4 star has opened up about her love life.

The Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives star broke down in tears as she said that she felt like a “failure” after leaving her marriage. Trewley-Precious made a return to our TV screens tonight (August 10) for another episode of her Channel 4 reality show, as she yet again allows cameras into her family life.

She attempts to forge a career online, while balancing the expectations of her traditional Traveller family. During a heartfelt moment, the reality star revealed she married at just 19 and left her husband three years later, admitting she felt a huge amount of shame because of the expectations placed on her within her culture.

In some Traveller communities, traditional expectations can place a strong emphasis on women marrying young, settling down and having children.

Trewley was discussing her life with a friend when she was asked how her family felt about her being a “rule breaker”, with her friend pointing out that, “realistically”, she should probably have been married with three children by now.

Speaking to the camera, Trewley explained: “Yeah, I’ve done one of those things. I was in a relationship for four years, I was a wife. To be married in our culture means that you’ve been given to a man without church and you’re set for life.”

The star went on to reveal that she had married her husband when she was just 19. “I got married to him when I was 19 and then I left him when I was 22,” she said. “I got out of there, it just wasn’t good, it wasn’t the nicest thing.” But despite leaving a relationship she says was not good for her, Trewley admitted she struggled emotionally with her decision.

“I felt a lot of shame when I left him, just because it felt like I had failed,” she said. Later, back in bed with her friend, Trewley became visibly emotional as she reflected on how long she had remained in the marriage. To think I was in such a bad place being in that marriage for so long,” she said. “I should have left that two years prior to everything and I didn’t because it was a shame.”

Fighting back tears, Trewley explained that the experience had fundamentally changed the way she viewed relationships and, most importantly, herself.

“It taught me that the only thing we had in common at that time is that we both didn’t love me and now I do,” she said. “I’d never be in something like that ever, ever, ever, ever again.”

Trewley went on to discuss the expectations she had grown up with about marriage and standing by a husband “through thick and thin”.

“I’ve seen a lot of women survive their marriages, survive this and that but I’m not doing that,” she said. “I’ve just been raised that you stand by a man through thick and thin but now that I’m older, I’ve also realised you show a man that you’ll go through anything with him, they’ll put you through everything.”

Her comments appeared to bring up painful memories of her own family, with Trewley becoming overwhelmed as she questioned how her mum had endured so much.

“How could my mum put up with so much, do so much, I can’t,” she said through tears. “In my head, I just couldn’t do what my mum did. So I failed.”

But her friend immediately reassured her that leaving an unhappy marriage did not mean she had failed. “No you haven’t failed. You know your worth,” her friend told her. Trewley admitted that learning her own worth had taken time. “I didn’t for a long time but it took me ages to get it back,” she said.

And it appears the experience has completely changed what she wants from a future relationship. “The next person I will be with, they will tick, tick, tick,” Trewley said.

You can catch up on Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives on Channel 4.

Two outcomes that scream failure on a baseball diamond are striking out and making an error. Jacob Wilson avoids both.

The third-year Athletics shortstop played his 111th consecutive game without an error Sunday, setting a major league record at his position.

Wilson, 24, also ranks among the top 5% of MLB players most difficult to strike out, making contact in more than 90% of his at-bats during his three-year career. The shortstop was a first-round draft pick out of Grand Canyon University in 2023 and played for Thousand Oaks High.

Failure is even more infrequent when he puts on his glove. Wilson surpassed Mike Bordick’s 2002 mark with the Baltimore Orioles for consecutive games played at shortstop without an error.

No wonder the A’s signed him to a seven-year, $70 million contract before the season.

Wilson, whose last error occurred July 6, 2025, credits his dad with prioritizing defense. Jack Wilson was a shortstop with elite range and a powerful arm during a 12-year MLB career from 2001-12, yet he never played a full season with fewer than 10 errors.

“He’s a very defensive-first guy for me growing up by teaching me defense first before the hitting side of things and making sure you’re always prepared to play defense every day,” Wilson told reporters after the Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox 4-3 on Sunday at Fenway Park.

Based on advanced metrics, Jacob doesn’t have the range of his father, but so far he has been more consistent. He made only eight errors in 124 games last season and none in 27 games after being called up from the minors in 2024. That’s a total of eight errors in 216 career games and 1,899 innings at shortstop.

“He definitely has the consistency side of things down pat,” fellow A’s infielder Tommy White told reporters. “The stats don’t lie. He really takes in the second half of the play. Everyone sees the glove, but it’s the accuracy of the arm.”

Putting the bat on the ball is also a Wilson trademark. He was the toughest player to strike out in NCAA Division I, whiffing just 12 times in 438 at-bats as a Grand Canyon sophomore and junior. At Thousand Oaks High, where his dad was head coach, Jacob struck out a mere five times in 343 plate appearances.

Likely out of reach is the MLB record for consecutive games without an error at any position, held by outfielder Robbie Grossman at 440 games, a streak that ended in 2022.

Meanwhile, Wilson plans to focus on staying healthy: He missed a month earlier this season with a dislocated left shoulder after diving for a ball, and missed a few more games when the shoulder flared up again in late June.

Making plays and putting the bat on the ball should continue as long as he’s on the field. Wilson was an American League All-Star last season and finished second in voting for Rookie of the Year to teammate Nick Kurtz after batting .311 and striking out only 39 times in 523 plate appearances.

Before this season, Wilson told Foul Territory that his focus was on improving areas he considered deficient — a quicker first step toward the ball on defense and putting on 10 pounds of muscle to increase his power at the plate.

As for avoiding errors and strikeouts, that should continue to come naturally.

“I know how to stay in my lane, do what I do and help this team win,” he said.

Aug. 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children.

At the signing of the executive order, Trump shared claims that childhood vaccines are linked to an increase in autism diagnoses without evidence. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was present for the signing, has maintained this stance as well.

Scientific research into potential links between vaccines and autism have consistently found no connection.

Trump’s executive order also advises breaking up MMR vaccines for the mumps, measles and rubella, a vaccine Trump called “quite lethal,” into three separate vaccines. In the more than 50 years since the MMR vaccine was developed there has been no evidence that it is deadly.

“Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing,” Trump said.

Vaccine advocates and researchers have warned that reducing the distribution of childhood vaccines will make children more vulnerable to disease. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is a medical doctor, posted on social media that the executive order “is wrong.”

“The President does not have the expertise to make these changes,” Cassidy wrote. “Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism. Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.”

Trump acknowledged the increased burden of breaking up vaccines when addressing reporters after the signing.

“It’s inconvenient. It’s five stops but it’s something that I think will have a huge impact on autism,” Trump said.

The pro-Kremlin nationalist party Rodina accused Yabloko of receiving undeclared campaign support, notably from Western sources – an allegation Yabloko denied.

Russia‘s Supreme Court has barred the only officially registered party opposing Moscow’s war in Ukraine from running in next month’s parliamentary elections.

The court upheld a suit on Monday brought by the small pro-Kremlin nationalist party Rodina to annul the registration of Yabloko, stripping voters of the chance to express their discontent with the four-and-a-half-year conflict at the ballot box.

Last month, the Central Election Commission had initially allowed Yabloko on the ballot along with 10 other parties.

“The claims seeking to annul the registration of the federal list of candidates for the State Duma of the ninth convocation, nominated by the Yabloko political party, were granted,” Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov said.

Rodina alleged that Yabloko had received undeclared campaign support, including from Western sources, among other accusations.

During a day-long hearing, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov said there was no evidence to support the allegations and described the case as an unconstitutional attack on freedom of thought by political opponents seeking to clear the field of rivals.

About 100 supporters, mostly young people, gathered outside the courthouse as police stood by, chanting “Shame! Shame!” after the ruling was delivered. Some carried apples to display their affiliation with Yabloko, which means “apple” in Russian.

Addressing them after the hearing, Rybakov said the party would appeal the decision.

“We have a long way ahead, and we have a big and important task: to stop deaths and bring the peace back,” he said. “Everything we do should be dedicated to that.”

With most of President Vladimir Putin’s opponents jailed, exiled or dead, Yabloko is the only liberal party still operating in Russia.

The party has received the backing of several exiled opposition figures, including Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Both are listed as “extremists” in Russia.

A poll conducted earlier this year showed Yabloko at just three percent support – short of the five-percent threshold needed to enter Russia’s lower house.

With the Kremlin tightening its control over elections, Yabloko has failed to win seats in the State Duma since 2003.

Since then, every parliamentary vote has been won by the ruling United Russia party, which backs Putin.

Efforts to end the Ukraine war through diplomacy have so far failed, with Putin pushing hardline territorial demands to end the fighting and ruling out talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Independent polls show most Russians favour peace negotiations with Kyiv.

Coronation Street fans have predicted that a shock reunion is on the cards for Sarah and Gary after they became wrapped up in the murder of Theo Silverton earlier this year

Sarah Platt broke up with Kit Green on Monday night’s episode of Coronation Street – and fans think they know exactly why.

The legendary soap character, who has been played by Tina O’Brien since 1999, was revealed to have killed evil Theo Silverton earlier this year by hitting him over the head with a pipe, marking the end of a vicious cycle of abuse he had inflicted on her best friend Todd Grimshaw.

She chose not to inform Kit when everything unfolded on that dramatic night, for fear of what it could do for his career, and instead called Gary Windass (Mikey North), whom she had a relationship with almost a decade ago, to help her. He helped cover everything up and hid the murder weapon but Sarah couldn’t take the guilt in the months that followed and eventually confessed all to Kit.

Currently in prison having been charged with murder, Kit is doing everything he can to try make sure Sarah gets away with her crimes, and he recently pressured Gary into confessing that he had a hand in it. To make matters worse, Gary’s wife Maria (Samia Longchambon) initially lied to the police to give Gary a false alibi before she even knew of his involvement, and even she was hauled in for questioning on the latest episode of the ITV soap.

Whilst at the station, incompetent copper DS Lisa Swain, who usually puts innocent people in prison, started to plant a seed in Maria’s head. She said: “He must really care about her, though. To risk everything for her like that. You wouldn’t just do that for anybody, would you?

“Only someone who means a lot to you… or you were in love with. I mean, does that not bother you? Not only that, but by getting you to give him a false alibi, it seems like he’s quite happy to risk you getting arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Maria was let go due to lack of evidence, but was furious when she got back home to Gary, as she raged: “Even Lisa said that for you to have done what you did, covering up for her, you must still have feelings for her.”

Meanwhile, Sarah instructed Kit to come to the prison rather than speak to him in person. Almost on the verge of tears, she told him: “I love you. I love you so much. I do. But I can’t watch you jeopardise everything that you’ve worked for, and I can’t watch you do this to yourself. He’s hardly what I’d call a keeper, your Gary, now, is he?”

“You never used to be jealous. Ever. And now you don’t trust me. I can see it in your eyes when you look at me and anything I ever say, or whatever I tell you, you’re never gonna believe a word I say.

“I’m not having a go, because I get it. I know it’s my fault. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch you throw your career away because of me. You know as well as I do if I get sent down for us, you’re not gonna be able to stay on in the police force.

“A copper with a convicted murderer for a partner – that’s not gonna work! No, it’s over. Okay? You need to forget about me and move on.” Kit looked on in disbelief but viewers were quick to suggest that, despite Sarah’s protests, she does in fact still love Gary and this will lead to them getting back together.

Reacting to the emotional scenes, one fan wrote on X: “After all this, sarah and gary have to end up together, right? I mean, Gary’s risked his livelihood for sarah and she keeps trying to protect him.”

Another said: “Gary & Sarah have been protecting each other over & over for real crimes while hurting their actual partners. All I’m seeing is Gary & Sarah endgame“

A third wrote: “I would’ve understood if Sarah had been convicted but all the things she’s mentioning are only relevant if she gets sent down. She’s giving up on Kit so easily while gladly going to prison for longer just so Gary doesn’t have to for committing a crime to protect her.”

Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X.

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COPS are warning beachgoers not to dig holes “deeper than the knees” due to the risk of serious injury or even death.

Police have said that while the activity might be good fun, families should be wary of digging too deep and trapping people or pets in the sand.

In a statement on Monday, cops said: “Digging on the beach is part of the fun, but large, deep holes in soft sand can be incredibly dangerous.

“A hole can collapse without warning, trapping anyone inside under heavy sand in seconds.”

They added that even “fit and healthy adults” can get buried and struggle to escape, as they advised the public to “keep holes shallow”.

The update continued: “Deep holes also pose a serious trip hazard for children, beachgoers, and emergency services responding to incidents.

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“What takes minutes to dig can take seconds to turn tragic.”

Filling in holes before leaving is essential for ensuring the beach stays safe, they added.

It follows an incident at Skegness in Lincolnshire on Saturday, where a large hole ranging approximately three to four feet wide and 12 to 15 feet deep was discovered.

HM Coastguard Skegness said at the time: “Whoever dug this hole was incredibly lucky that it didn’t collapse in on them.

“Sand is surprisingly heavy and can give way without warning, especially in deep holes.”

It added: “A collapse can trap someone beneath the sand and may lead to serious injury or even death.

“Deep holes can also be a hazard to other beach users who may not see them.”

It is not the first time holidaymakers in Lincolnshire have caused mischief on the beach.

Last year, a team of three coastguards had to fill in a hole on Sandilands Beach that was over two metres deep.

Elsewhere in Cleethorpes, sunseekers at the popular seaside town were warned in April not to dig holes in the wet sand, due to the “avalanche effect”.

Coastguards deputy station manager Shaun Lee said the sand can keep “collapsing” and end up burying people.

“We don’t want to be the fun police – just be aware of what you are doing if you are digging holes,” he said.

Dodgers lose to Arizona

From Maddie Lee: It’s no secret that the Dodgers haven’t played their best baseball over the last nine days. But during their 4-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday, they exacerbated the trend.

Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski remained in a rut, giving up four runs (three earned) in 3⅓ innings. The two-run homer he surrendered to Diamondbacks switch hitter Ketel Marte in the first inning was the ninth home run he has given up in three starts.

Before his recent struggles, Wrobleski hadn’t surrendered more than three homers in a three-game span this season.

He left a fastball belt-high to Marte, who entered Sunday with a .913 OPS against left-handed pitchers. Marte lined it into the Diamondbacks’ bullpen in the left-field corner.

After Wrobleski’s last start, manager Dave Roberts said the Dodgers (70-48) would look into whether the left-hander might be tipping pitches, but he said before the game Sunday that those suspicions seemed “unfounded.”

“I’m just not good enough right now,” Wrobleski said. “It’s kind of what it comes down to. It’s really frustrating. Execution just hasn’t been as good. I feel like [Sunday] just wasn’t good enough. And, again, I’ve got to be better. … I’m not the type to give up. So I’m ready to bear down. This is kind of where you can go two ways, and I’m excited to keep working, and I’m excited for my next one.”

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Shaikin: The Shohei Ohtani Economy: A two-mile ride to Dodger Stadium, for $85

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels routed by Marlins

Kyle Stowers tripled, singled and drove in two runs before exiting because of left hamstring discomfort in the fifth inning, and the Miami Marlins beat the Angels 12-3 on Sunday.

Griffin Conine homered twice and Javier Sanoja had two singles and three RBIs for the Marlins. Miami’s Otto López had two infield singles, giving him 46 multi-hit games.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Davante Adams focuses on improving Rams

From Gary Klein: A few hours after their season-ending defeat in the NFC championship game last January, the Rams boarded a plane for their flight home from Seattle.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford was seated a row in front of veteran receiver Davante Adams, who once again had fallen just short of finally reaching the Super Bowl.

“He’s turning around, he’s looking at me, like, ‘I’m sorry, man, I wanted that for you so bad,’” Adams recalled. “Not for him, but he wanted it for me.”

Adams, 33, is expected to get another shot at playing on the NFL’s biggest stage.

The star-studded Rams are favored to not only play in but win Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium.

Since the Green Bay Packers selected him out of Fresno State in the second round of the 2014 draft, Adams has played in and lost five NFC championship games, including last season’s 31-27 defeat by the eventual Super Bowl-champion Seahawks.

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Speedy rookie Brenen Thompson could spark Chargers

From Joaquin Ruiz: Chargers rookie wide receiver Brenen Thompson said he doesn’t love zipping around.

“To be fair, I really hate running,” Thompson, a former track star, said. “But I’m really good at it.”

Thompson has proven that so far in Chargers training camp, sprinting around defenders and maximizing his 5-foot-9, 170-pound frame in passing drills.

His speed and do-it-all attitude have made him one of Justin Herbert’s favorite targets, including on deeper routes, over the last two weeks.

“He’s going to be very good,” Herbert said of Thompson. “We saw it early on that he was going to be. He’s skilled. He’s fast. He’s going to make a lot of plays for us. So, I’m really excited about him.”

Added Thompson: “I know my speed is pretty much unmatched when I step on the field, and that’s something I take strong confidence in.”

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USC’s Gary Patterson has some things to prove

From Ryan Kartje: As an aspiring young quarterback at Muleshoe High in the early 2000s, Lincoln Riley attended a football camp at Texas Christian University, run by a coach known even then as a mastermind of defense, a man whose ideas and 4-2-5 scheme would one day be disseminated across college football.

Gary Patterson had just been elevated from defensive coordinator to head coach at TCU, a job he would occupy for the next two decades. Around the same time, his staff saw something in Riley. They talked briefly about giving him a shot at safety on Patterson’s vaunted TCU defense.

“Needless to say,” Riley told The Oklahoman in 2018, “it didn’t turn out.”

But a quarter-century after first crossing paths at that camp, it’s now the young quarterback giving the old ball coach a chance to prove himself.

When USC announced it was hiring Patterson as Riley’s defensive coordinator in January, ears perked up across college football. On one hand, Patterson, 66, is a freshly minted College Football Hall of Famer and one of the great defensive minds of the modern era. On the other hand, he hasn’t led a college football team since 2021, when he was forced out at TCU, and a lot has changed in the sport since. Not to mention it’s been more than 25 years since Patterson last served as a coordinator.

Those were fair concerns, considering all that’s riding on Riley getting it right with Patterson, his third defensive coordinator in five seasons. But after seven months with him on the job, you won’t find anyone at USC — players, coaches or administrators alike — with an ounce of distress over Patterson’s stamina.

“I think I would have had more reservations had I not known him,” Riley said. “But that fire still burns very, very hot.”

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Sparks lose to Golden State

From Marisa Ingemi: Coming off their best win of the season in Minnesota on Thursday, the Sparks didn’t have much of that same energy to start their first home game since the trade deadline.

The fourth quarter, though, looked a lot like the best basketball they’ve played all season.

The Sparks came out flat and gave up 29 first-quarter points from the Golden State Valkyries in an 84-78 loss Sunday, their eighth in the last 10 games. They made it a game in the fourth with a 16-5 run but were too far back and it took just a couple of Valkyries shots to put the game out of reach.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

Angel City draws with Seattle

The Seattle Reign and Angel City played to a 2-2 draw after visiting Angel City (7-7-4) rallied late in the second half Sunday.

With Angel City down 2-1 in the 72nd minute, Evelyn Shores — who entered as a substitute in the 69th — played a long ball to Prisca Chilufya, who also entered in the 69th. Chilufya finished with ease.

The Reign (7-7-4) fell behind in the 32nd minute when 20-year-old Angel City defender Gisele Thompson got around Seattle’s defense and slotted a shot past goalkeeper Claudia Dickey.

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Angel City summary

NWSL standings

This day in sports history

1900 — The first Davis Cup is held with the United States beating Britain, 3-0.

1949 — Ezzard Charles knocks out Gus Lesnovich in the eighth round at Yankee Stadium in his first world heavyweight title defense.

1975 — Jack Nicklaus wins the PGA Championship for the fourth time with a two-stroke victory over Bruce Crampton and Tom Weiskopf.

1980 — Jack Nicklaus wins his fifth PGA Championship with a record score of 274, seven strokes ahead of Andy Bean.

1984 — The US beats Spain 96-65 to win the men’s basketball gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics; future ‘dream team’ members Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin star.

1984 — The much anticipated matchup between American world champion Mary Decker and South African Zola Budd in the women’s 3000-meter race at the Los Angeles Olympics ends in controversy. Just past the midpoint of the race, Decker steps on Budd’s heel, causing Budd to stumble and Decker to trip over Budd. Budd gets back into the race and Decker goes down with an injured thigh. Romania’s Maricica Puica, who had set the fastest time in 1984, wins the race and Budd finishes seventh.

1995 — Michael Bradley, a third-year pro without a tour victory, shoots a record-tying 63 in his first PGA round to lead the PGA Championship.

1996 — Cigar’s bid for a 17th straight victory ends when longshot Dare and Go passes the super horse in the upper stretch and pulls away to win the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Cigar, 3 1-2 lengths behind Dare and Go, fails to break a tie with Citation for the record winning streak by a North American-based horse this century.

2008 — In Beijing, Michael Phelps begins his long march toward eight gold medals by winning the 400-meter individual medley in 4:03.84 — smashing his own world record. The U.S. women’s 400-meter freestyle relay team, anchored by 41-year-old Dara Torres, takes the silver behind the Netherlands’ Olympic record effort. It’s the 10th medal of Torres’ career.

2008 — Ireland’s Padraig Harrington rallies from three shots behind to win the PGA Championship, closing with a 4-under 66 at Oakland Hills to become the fourth player to win the British Open and PGA in the same year. Harrington, the first European to win consecutive majors, closes out Sergio Garcia with a 15-foot par on the 18th for a two-shot victory.

2012 — The United States wins the women’s 4×100-meter track relay in a world-record time of 40.82 seconds to give the Americans their first Olympic victory in the event since 1996. Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight and Carmelita Jeter combine for a perfect trip around the track that ends a string of disappointments for the U.S. in the marquee relay.

2012 — Maurice Purify catches a record seven touchdown passes and the Arizona Rattlers win the Arena Bowl with a 72-54 win over the Philadelphia Soul.

2014 — Rory McIlroy wins his second straight major championship and fourth of his young career, rallying on the back nine in the PGA Championship. The tournament finishes in near-darkness at Valhalla Golf Club, with the final two groups essentially morphing into a foursome as they race to beat nightfall. McIlroy rallies from a three-shot deficit at the turn, to shoot a 3-under 68 to beat Phil Mickelson by one stroke. McIlroy finishes at 16-under 268.

2016 — Daryl Homer becomes the first American to win an Olympic silver medal in men’s individual sabre in 112 years.

2016 — Kristin Armstrong wins the road cycling individual time trial, finishing with a time of 44:26.42 for her third consecutive gold in the Olympic event.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1901 — Frank Isbell of the Chicago White Sox set an AL record by stranding 11 teammates on the basepaths.

1944 — Charles “Red” Barrett of the Boston Braves threw only 58 pitches to beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-0 in a nine-inning game.

1957 — Mickey Mantle became the first player to clear the center-field hedge at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium when his 460-foot homer hit the base of the scoreboard. The Yankees beat the Orioles, 6-3.

1969 — Cesar Tovar of Minnesota broke up the second no-hit bid against the Twins by a Baltimore pitcher. Tovar singled with no out in the ninth off Mike Cuellar. Earlier in the year, Tovar singled with one out in the ninth to spoil Dave McNally’s bid.

1971 — Harmon Killebrew of the Minnesota Twins hit his 500th home run in the first inning off Baltimore’s Mike Cuellar to become the 10th player to hit 500 or more in a career. Killebrew also hit No. 501 off Cuellar but the Orioles won 4-3.

1981 — Major league baseball resumed play after a two-month strike. In the St. Louis Cards-Phillies game at Philadelphia, attended by 60,561 fans, Pete Rose broke Stan Musial’s NL hit record when he singled for his 3,631st hit. It came off Mark Littell in the eighth inning.

1987 — Philadelphia’s Kevin Gross was ejected in the fifth inning after umpires discovered a strip of sandpaper glued to the heel of his glove to scuff balls. The Phillies had a 4-2 lead over the Chicago Cubs. Gross would be suspended for 10 games the next day.

1995 — Ball Night at Dodger Stadium turned into the first forfeit in the majors in 16 years. The Dodgers forfeited a game to the St. Louis Cardinals after fans threw souvenir baseballs onto the field three times. The game was called with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

2003 — Atlanta Braves shortstop Rafael Furcal turned the 12th unassisted triple play in major league history against the St. Louis Cardinals. With runners on first and second in the fifth inning, Furcal made a leaping grab of pitcher Woody Williams’ liner. The runners were going, and Furcal stepped on second base to double up Mike Matheny before tagging out Orlando Palmeiro.

2004 — Barry Bonds became the first player in major league history to hit 30 home runs in 13 consecutive seasons, hitting a solo shot off John Grabow in the seventh inning of San Francisco’s 8-7 loss to Pittsburgh. Bonds has now hit 30 homers in 14 seasons, one shy of Hank Aaron’s record.

2006 — Boston’s Curt Schilling tied the AL record by allowing 10 extra-base hits in a 5-4 loss to Kansas City. Schilling gave up nine doubles and a home run, matching the mark set by Washington’s Dale Gear in 1901 and equaled by Cleveland’s Luis Tiant in 1969.

2009 — Troy Tulowitzki had five hits, hit for the cycle and had a career-high seven RBIs to help Colorado beat the Chicago Cubs 11-5.

2018 — Kole Calhoun and Justin Upton hit two-run homers, Albert Pujols reached another milestone and the Angels rallied past Oakland for 4-3 win. With a single in the sixth inning, Pujols recorded his 1,000th hit with the Angels. He became the ninth player all-time with at least 1,000 hits in each league after getting 2,073 with St. Louis.

2018 — The Orioles’ awful season continues as they blow an early 8-3 lead against Boston to lose, 19-12. This puts them 46 1/2 games back of the division-leading Red Sox, with 46 games remaining, meaning they are mathematically eliminated. It matches the earliest date this has happened in baseball history, set by the 1932 Red Sox and copied by the 1962 Mets, two notoriously awful teams, and the 46 games left to play at the time of elimination is a new record in the divisional era.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Aug. 10 (UPI) — Police in Jharkhand, India used tear gas and water cannons on demonstrators who were demanding investigations into recruitment for government jobs on Monday.

Thousands of protesters were met with police wielding batons as they marched to the state legislature building. Protesters pushed past some police barricades and there were injuries on both sides.

The protest was sparked by allegations of irregularities in recruitment drives for government jobs. Protesters called for India’s Central Bureau of Investigations to probe the allegations.

Young adults in Jharkhand, the poorest state in India, have taken to the streets in an outcry over allegations that they are not being given a fair chance to compete for highly coveted government roles.

Demonstrators say there have been grading errors and financial irregularities in recruitment exams. They have also called for the cancellation of three recruitment exams, which the Jharkhand government agreed to on Sunday.

The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, a political party in the state, also agreed to speed up the investigations that demonstrators asked for.

Government jobs are highly sought after in India. Recruitment for job listings can result in hundreds of thousands of applications for 500 to around 2,000 openings.

One recruitment push for 2,025 jobs received about 640,000 applications. Another drive for 510 jobs received 322,000 applications.

In May, India scrapped the results of its medical college-entrance exam, a test that requires students to spend years studying. The exam was scrapped after its question papers were leaked, which has happened multiple times throughout the country.

In July, protests erupted in the capital city New Delhi with demonstrators marching on Parliament and calling for the resignation of India’s top education chief. Law enforcement activity heightened as a result, leading to allegations of police brutality.

Caracas, August 10, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan business sector representative Luigi Pisella has urged the privatization of public assets in a string of recent appearances on state-affiliated media.

“Our main goal is to create an efficient state, one that retains only strategic assets while opening them to private capital and technology,” Pisella said in an interview on Friday with La Iguana, a media outlet founded and owned by current Communications Minister Miguel Pérez Pirela.

He added that privatized state-owned companies would “create wealth, create jobs, and pay taxes.”

The former president of major pro-business lobby CONINDUSTRIA, Pisella was chosen by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez to represent the private sector in a commission tasked with evaluating state-owned assets, with companies, landed estates, and other properties deemed “non-strategic” set to be privatized or liquidated.

Other commission members include Economic Sector Vice President Calixto Ortega, Finance Minister Anabel Pereira, and Communes Minister Ángel Prado.

In his interview, Pisella went on to claim that the commission had an opportunity to “fix past mistakes,” in reference to nationalizations under former President Hugo Chávez, who sought to impose state control over sectors such as telecommunications, electricity, and the basic industries.

“We have to create conditions for foreign corporations, the former owners, to return,” he vowed. “And if it is not possible, find investors that will purchase these [state-owned] companies.” The private sector spokesman added that privatizations will help shrink the public sector payroll, which he placed at 3.1 million workers.

Pisella has featured prominently both in public and private news outlets to speak on the Rodríguez administration’s economic policy goals.

In an August 2 appearance on state broadcaster VTV, he pledged that the government’s economic agenda aims to make the country “more competitive” and is “on the right track.”

“The laws that we are adjusting and updating, alongside the commission to evaluate state assets, have the same goal of attracting foreign investment,” Pisella underscored.

Following the January 3 US bombing and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the acting Rodríguez government has fast-tracked legislative reforms offering new concession models, tax breaks, and legal assurances to private corporations in key formerly state-run sectors including energy, mining, and electricity. 

In the wake of the June 24 double earthquake, the National Assembly likewise approved a new law aimed at “encouraging” property owners to rent out houses and apartments. The bill establishes conditions for lease agreements and mediation mechanisms for landlord-tenant disputes while also facilitating evictions.

Since January, the Trump administration has seized control over Venezuelan export revenues, especially from crude sales, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisting that Venezuelan authorities must submit a “budget request” to access the funds. 

Neither Washington nor Caracas have disclosed any figures, with the Financial Times estimating that more than US $13 billion from Venezuelan oil exports has been deposited at a specially designated US Treasury account.

In a radio interview, Pisella stated that the Trump White House has deducted the cost of its “military mobilization,” which he placed at $4.7 billion. According to the business lobbyist, there are also imports from US manufacturers and debt payments to Chevron to be deducted, leaving around $7 billion to be transferred directly to private sector importers via foreign exchange tables run by public and private banks.

Pisella’s claims have yet to be confirmed or denied by the acting Rodríguez government. In recent months, an official “rapid response” social media account has been quick to dismiss news Caracas deems to be “fake.”

For his part, Trump has recurrently boasted that his administration has recouped the cost of the January 3 military operation “many times over.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.

Whitney Houston is the latest addition to the world of Barbie.

The El Segundo-based toy company is honoring the late pop star with a new Barbie Signature doll. The toy, which debuted over the weekend in Atlanta, is wearing the recognizable look from Houston’s 1987 hit music video, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” The Houston doll wears a lilac-hued tank dress, colorful drop earrings and vibrant eye makeup, and comes with a microphone stand. The collectible costs around $60.

Houston’s estate worked closely with Mattel to create a doll that captures the late singer’s essence and glamour. The release lands about 40 years after the New Jersey-raised musician appeared in the music video for the popular song.

“Whitney Houston’s music has been the soundtrack to countless moments for fans around the world. Barbie is proud to honor her extraordinary legacy with the latest addition to the Barbie Signature Series,” Mattel Vice President and Head of Barbie Nathan Baynard said in a statement. “We hope it gives fans a meaningful way to celebrate the artist whose voice and influence continue to resonate around the world.”

The doll arrives at an uneasy moment for the brand it’s built on. In second-quarter results reported Aug. 4, Mattel’s worldwide gross billings for dolls fell 5% to $318 million, driven primarily by a decline in the Barbie brand — the same story as the first quarter, when doll billings dropped 8%, and as 2025, when the category slid 7% for the full year on Barbie declines. In March, Mattel laid off 65 employees, roughly a year after cutting 120 jobs to reduce costs. Shares of Mattel hovered around $14.72 midday, down 0.5%.

Mattel hopes to appeal to adult collectors and fans of Houston with its latest release.

Throughout her career, Houston earned the nickname of “The Voice” because of her unparalleled vocal abilities. Some of her biggest hits include “Saving All My Love For You,” “I Have Nothing,” and her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” To this day, Houston holds the Guinness World Record for the most awards won by a female artist, with more than 400 prizes, including six Grammys. The singer died unexpectedly at age 48 in 2012.

Houston is joining other iconic female musicians as Barbie dolls. In recent years, Mattel released dolls that resemble Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Gloria Estefan and Mariah Carey. Mattel’s Signature Series appeals to collectors of all kinds, as the company releases dolls of athletes such as LeBron James and Angel Reese, fictional characters such as Cher from the 1995 feature film “Clueless,” Supergirl and historical figures such as Ida B. Wells.

“The new Whitney Houston Barbie honors a woman whose voice, grace, beauty, and spirit inspired generations around the world,” Pat Houston, the executor of Houston’s estate, said.

“May this doll remind every child and every collector that dreams have no limits, excellence leaves a lasting imprint, and true greatness never goes out of style.”

CUMMING, Iowa — The hardened boys who came of age in this dirt-poor farm hamlet during the 1950s had no illusions about their place in the world. Their extended Irish families taught them a reality as cold and brutal as a Midwest winter’s morning. They faced life at the bottom of the heap.

Within the Harkin clan, whose numbers teemed through the countryside, Tom Harkin and his family had it worst of all. His mother had died when he was 10 years old. An older half-brother was deaf. Tom was packed off on a lonely odyssey to live first with one half-sister, then another. When he returned four years later, his father, a struggling miner-turned-handyman, offered little solace. “If you’re waiting for somebody to give you something,” Patrick Harkin said, “you’re gonna be sitting in a rocking chair all your life.”

Beyond Cumming–a blur of weathered trailers and clapboard houses 20 miles south of Des Moines–lay hostile country. Norwalk, the nearest town, was resented, a symbol of everything Cumming was not. Norwalk’s farmers, Methodists and Republicans, prospered. Cumming, an enclave of Irish Catholics and Democrats, seemed locked in perpetual decline.

Only on Halloween nights did Cumming exact a measure of vengeance. Its teen-age sons stole into Norwalk, waiting until the streets were deserted. Then they tipped over outhouses. They blocked roads with bales of hay. They took wagons apart and reassembled them atop grain elevators. When the boys from Cumming swaggered home, Tom Harkin was often among them.

The victories were brief; adolescent pranks that are now faint memories. But Harkin’s Halloween nights served as a rudimentary political awakening, the first taste of what it was like to get even with his betters.

His harsh rites of passage in American Gothic country shaped a career that has taken him from a victory in a 1974 congressional race to a U.S. Senate seat and has now propelled him into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Those formative years continue to cast a shadow, having left Harkin with a class-conscious mind-set and a deep well of ambition, searing him with the belief that conflict breeds opportunity.

“Life was a struggle,” he says, echoing his father’s homespun philosophy. “You worked hard, you didn’t agonize over your situation. And when things didn’t turn out, well, then you carried on until you got another chance.”

That ethos–and Harkin’s stubborn triumph as a self-made man–might seem a blueprint for the making of a conservative. But coming to adulthood amid the John F. Kennedy generation, Harkin emerged an unabashed liberal. He seeks change through partisan combat, maintaining an abiding faith in the corn-belt populist causes he has championed all his life. And he tempers his idealism with a gut instinct for electoral survival.

As a presidential campaigner, Harkin flaunts heartland roots and hardball tactics that unnerve opponents. In the presidential race, he has been a scornful rhetorician, sarcastically damning President Bush as “George Herbert Hoover Bush” and primary foes as “microwave Democrats.” His voice trembles when he is on an emotional roll, eerily reminiscent of Hubert H. Humphrey’s excitable quaver. Quoting the Bible (Corinthians), Harkin likens himself to a trumpeter, insisting his message–a beneficent federal government combined with hard-eyed leadership–will produce “a strong, certain sound” to lead his party into battle.

“He’s got a raging forest fire in his belly,” says Roger Jepsen, a Bush Administration official who lost his Senate seat to Harkin in 1984.

Harkin decided to run for the White House early last year, telling intimates during the Gulf War that Bush’s soaring popularity ratings would not last and that a worsening recession was the best chance for an “old-fashioned Democrat” to compete and win.

“I don’t have deep pockets,” he says. “I don’t have a famous name . . . but I’ve got some pretty deep feelings and beliefs, and it seems to me this is a good time to see if other people have them, too.”

Clings to the Past

In an era when many Democrats are trying to forge a new synthesis to retake the White House, Harkin embraces the past. He cherishes the party’s whistle-stop vestiges, quotes dead presidents, mines ideas in the successes of past administrations. Just this past Friday night, on a nationally televised debate, he called for “a new New Deal.”

Harkin also politicizes his own past, using stories about his family’s hard luck to etch human faces on issues important to him. But in his eagerness to draw parallels, some critics say, Harkin has stretched and distorted details of his life and accomplishments. The examples, they contend, range from his record as a Vietnam-era airman to the importance of the role he plays in Congress.

Such questions about Harkin’s credibility reflect deeper concerns about the kind of leader he would make. Detractors say his combativeness and preoccupation with old ideas would be liabilities in a president.

Supporters counter that Harkin’s unshakable commitment to the verities of Democratic liberalism and his willingness to defend that philosophy tooth-and-nail have been his strengths, making him a formidable candidate and an effective legislator; in essence, a liberal’s Ronald Reagan.

A stern, flinty vision out of a Matthew Brady plate, Harkin, 52, insists his passion is mistaken for anger, yet he is loath to dwell on inner motivation. He is most at ease in his Colonial-style suburban Virginia home with his wife, a Washington lawyer, their two daughters and a small circle of friends and advisers. “I’m not one,” he says, “to sit and stew day after day about who and what I am.”

The portrait that emerges from Harkin’s own words, as well as from dozens of friends, associates and enemies, is of a man whose roots cradle, anchor and imprison him. As Harkin surveys the American landscape of the 1990s, it is always through Cumming’s black-and-white lens.

Heart of the Heartland

Southwest Iowa is the heart of the heart of the country.

It is a place of flat fields and grain silos, manure-stained work shoes and bib overalls, turkey hunts and steak frys. In summer, the air is alive with the buzz of combines. In winter, the machines lay idle in frozen corn stubble. Painter Grant Wood used area farmers–taciturn men with worn faces–as models for his Depression-era American portraits.

Scattered along the farmland’s fringe are ghostly earthen reminders that the region also once had an industrial base–coal mines, most of them sealed for decades, where miners toiled in black dust. In Cumming, it was the Orilla mine that lured outsiders.

Cumming has changed little over the years. Most of its 150 residents scrape by on low-paying jobs or on relief. A stunted water tower, barely higher than jack pines, marks the town for passersby. Visitors to American Legion Post 562 are warned: “Parking for Irish only. All others will be towed.”

That attitude “sounds mean and parochial,” says Robert W. Pratt, a Des Moines lawyer and Harkin intimate, “but it makes life more manageable for the people on the bottom. That’s where Tom comes from.”

It is how Patrick Harkin and his wife, Frances Bercic, dealt with the world. They met in Cumming in the late 1920s. He was a gaunt Irish miner at Orilla, she a Slovenian emigre whose first husband died, leaving two girls and a boy. The pair married in 1927, moving into a cramped one-story bungalow where they had three more boys. Thomas Richard Harkin, the youngest, was born on Nov. 19, 1939.

Weeks after his birth, the infant was scalded as his mother sterilized fruit jars. While he howled in pain, his frantic parents tried to decide what to do. There was no doctor in Cumming, and on the father’s pittance of a paycheck, a trip to a Des Moines hospital was out of the question.

“His two older sisters carried him around for days on a pillow so his raw skin wouldn’t touch anything,” recalls first cousin Martin Harkin. “That’s how poor they were.”

As a young child, Tom Harkin filtered out his poverty. The rest of the family was less sheltered. Frank, his deaf half-brother, had to be sent to a school for the disabled. Then the mine closed. All Patrick Harkin had to show for his years underground were frequent bouts of pneumonia. It was the start of black lung disease that would eventually kill him.

The father is described by neighbors as an austere man who wore wire-rim spectacles, argued during poker hands and brewed potent, illegal beer in his basement. “He felt the same way we all did,” says Joseph Kirvin, a longtime neighbor. “It was the Irish against the world.”

Frances Harkin, a willowy woman with a cleft chin inherited by her sons, pushed her brood to study hard. One fall day in 1950, she came in from gathering eggs, lay down on the couch and passed out, dying two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her husband and the older siblings decided Tom should move into his sister’s home in Rock Springs, Wyo.

“Dad felt Tom needed someone to mother him and his sister could do it best,” says John Harkin, an older brother. Tom Harkin prefers not to dwell on what he felt inside.

In Rock Springs–another bleak mining town–folks rarely got along with their neighbors, least of all the miners’ children. Harkin, new in town, was fresh prey. “I just remember kids picking on me all the time and, by God, I had to stick up for myself and fight back,” he says.

Returning after three years in Rock Springs and a year with another sister in Dexter, Iowa, Tom Harkin was no longer the family’s baby. His father, now in his 60s, eked out a living from odd jobs. The boy had to pay his own way. Working after school and during summers, Harkin pruned weeds from bean fields, baled hay, hammered railroad ties, sweated under the sun with highway crews.

On school days, he caught long rides to Dowling High, a weathered brick Catholic school in Des Moines. Dowling’s pupils divided into a pecking order. At the top were affluent Irish kids from the westside of Des Moines. Then came poorer Italians. At the bottom were the country boys. Harkin was rarely taunted, but his sense of exclusion, already seeded by Cumming’s rivalry with Norwalk, intensified at Dowling.

“Some of the priests were always buttering up the rich kids,” says Chuck Hanrahan, a boyhood friend. “They wouldn’t give us the time of day. That kind of thing just burned Tom up.” Says Harkin: “They treated us like hicks.”

In class, he kept his resentment hidden. Like his older brothers, Harkin, an honor student, planned to study civil engineering, and after his senior year he followed them to Iowa State University on an ROTC scholarship.

“Politics,” he recalls, “was the furthest thing from my mind.”

The telescopic lens of a surveyor’s level gave Harkin his first sense of the world beyond Iowa. Using the instrument for a college class one day in September, 1959, he sighted a crowd, then the squat figure of Nikita S. Khrushchev. Harkin had been only dimly aware that the Soviet leader had come to the campus as part of a whirlwind U.S. tour. “They seemed to be having a lot more excitement than I was,” he recalls.

Kennedy Attraction

But it took the lure of military life and the election of John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential race to jolt Harkin into abandoning his somnolent path toward an engineering degree. He returned from a summer on a Navy air base in Florida determined to become a fighter pilot. And after Kennedy’s election, “any of us (Catholics) who had ever tasted prejudice had to feel that the last barrier was gone.”

Harkin fell in with a group of students close to history professor E. B. Smith, an intellectual Democrat in the Adlai E. Stevenson II mold. When Smith ran for Iowa governor in 1962, Harkin volunteered. It was a lost cause, but he came away from a half-year of barnstorming smitten with campaign work.

“It was seat-of-the-pants politics.” says John Fitzpatrick, the strategist for Harkin’s presidential campaign and a former political science professor. “He had just got his flying license, and here he was, flying Smith into these small-town airports. It had to be intoxicating.”

Graduating with a government degree, Harkin’s military commitment kept him from using his new political connections. He was sent to Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and put on flight duty, shadowing Soviet MIGs. From 1965 to 1967, he served at Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan, testing and flying repaired aircraft damaged in Vietnam. He flew F-8s, the Navy’s nimble greyhounds, and learned to handle F-4s, fast, but lethally sluggish at high speeds.

Plaudits as Pilot

Harkin mastered both planes and won loyalty from his enlisted crew. “He was the best pilot I flew with over there,” says Charles Hart, a Los Angeles aircraft firm employee who spent four years as a navigator at Atsugi. “He had great reactions and judgment . . . and he took great care of his troops. When he says he’s for the working man, he’s for real.”

During Harkin’s two years at Atsugi, Hart says, the young pilot made at least 15 trips to the war zone. “We usually stayed a few hours,” Hart says. “Just long enough to catch a flight out.” Harkin’s brief stays, mostly in Da Nang, became an issue years later when political rivals claimed he exaggerated his Vietnam experience on his resume.

Hart and James Glavin, a former Atsugi pilot now living in Kansas City, insist that though Harkin was never under fire, his war years were anything but cushy. The test flights to determine whether the repaired jets were battle-worthy, Glavin says, “were damned necessary for the war effort.”

On one F-4 flight at 45,000 feet, both engines stalled out. Harkin calmly waited until he could reignite, taking the plane down safely, Hart recalls. Another time, assigned to ferry an F-8 to the Philippines, Harkin was grounded because of a bad cold. The pilot who replaced him stopped in Okinawa to refuel. On liftoff, Hart says, the plane malfunctioned. Its fuel tank ripped away and was sucked into an engine. The ensuing fireball killed the pilot.

Allure of Sailing

“Anyone who thinks we had it easy is fooling himself,” Harkin says flatly.

Still, Harkin had enough leave time to sail a catamaran he and another pilot ordered from a Japanese boat builder with visions of sailing around the world. (Harkin now keeps a sailboat in a Bahamas vacation cabin he built several years ago and, at home, drives a white Corvette.)

His ambitious sailing plans were interrupted by budding romance. On a weekend trip to Tokyo, he met and pursued a Minnesota woman after hearing her flat Midwest accent. Ruth Raduenz, a strong-willed farm child with a literature degree, was on vacation from her job running an enlisted men’s club in Korea. Outside the Buddhist temple where they met, Harkin pressed her for a date. They married in Iowa a year later, in 1968.

Now an attorney, Ruth Harkin juggles mothering two daughters, Amy, 15, and Jenny, 10, and a career as a lobbyist with the influential Washington law firm once headed by political insider–and now Moscow ambassador–Robert S. Strauss. She is her husband’s closest adviser. John Frew, Harkin’s former Senate campaign manager, calls her “the smartest political spouse in the country. She’s lawyerly and gives timely, savvy advice.”

The couple spoke nothing of politics on their first dates. “He’d do so many funny little things,” his wife recalls. “On our second date, he made all these elaborate plans (for both of them) to climb Mt. Fuji. And I barely knew the guy.”

They stayed in touch by letter after she returned to Korea. She found a thoughtful, keen mind behind the airman’s Top Gun swagger. He began confiding doubts about the war. Harkin still supported its aims, but fellow pilots’ tales of botched operations and sorties over civilian targets had made him cynical about its progress.

“We all had anger about the way the war was being run,” Chuck Hart recalls.

Vietnam became the central focus of Harkin’s fledgling political career, the source of his first major controversy and the dominant issue of his early campaigns.

Moves to Capital

After a series of unfulfilled political jobs in Iowa, Harkin decided he needed Washington experience. Moving there with his wife in 1970, he was hired as an aide to Rep. Neal Smith (D-Iowa), whom Harkin had worked for during an earlier reelection campaign. Smith, known for his quiet influence in the House, then found Harkin a job as a staffer with a House committee studying the Vietnam War. Flying to Saigon that June with the committee, Harkin and two other congressmen went to the town of Con Son, where the government ran a prison for political opponents. The party talked their way into the compound and found 500 emaciated inmates shackled inside five-foot high “tiger cages.”

Recording the squalid scene by camera and on tape, Harkin gave the evidence to Smith. But on the plane back, Harkin wrote later in the Progressive magazine, he learned that the committee planned to make only a minor reference to the prison. In Washington, Harkin confronted Smith in the House parking lot and “grabbed the film and tape” from the congressman’s car trunk. Fired by the committee for insubordination after calling its report a “whitewash,” Harkin sold his photographs to Life magazine for $10,000, using the money to attend Catholic University law school.

Harkin’s friends and foes agree the incident was a telling one, an indicator of the aggressive conduct that continues to divide those who know him into opposing camps. Admirers paint him as a principled loner who identifies with underdogs and takes on political Goliaths.

“He’s able to relate to people who feel they don’t have any worth, who need someone to stand up for them,” says Rep. Lane Evans, (D-Ind.), who works with Harkin in the Populist Caucus, an affiliation of liberal Midwest Democratic congressmen.

‘Inch Deep, Mile Wide’

Harkin’s critics–not only GOP opponents, but some Democratic colleagues–say he is an ineffectual legislator given to grandstanding and motivated by publicity. “Beyond his farm-belt circle, he’s just not a key player in Congress,” says a former Democratic House member who requested anonymity. Says William Scherle, Harkin’s first GOP congressional conquest: “Tom Harkin is like the Platte River. He’s an inch deep and a mile wide.”

Harkin tested the waters to run against Scherle when he returned to Iowa in 1972 and became a lobbyist for a Des Moines Legal Aid office. Robert Pratt, who worked there, says Harkin sewed up support on the “rubber chicken” political dinner circuit and appeared at peace rallies–a stern figure in pyramid sideburns and wide ties, totally opposed to the war.

Scherle beat Harkin that year (though the challenger’s 45% total was considered respectable amid Richard M. Nixon’s landslide). Harkin blames his loss on trying to sound like a Kennedy clone. “I tried to be urbane and highbrow and intellectual and it didn’t work,” he says.

The night he lost, Harkin ranted for more than an hour at campaign workers, blaming them for failing to get out the vote, says Pratt, one of his volunteers. Intimates say Harkin is often easily angered, but rarely holds grudges. “He had every right to bitch,” Pratt says. “Those people didn’t do their jobs.”

Two years later, it was Scherle who raged. Harkin was among 75 Democrats first elected in 1974 as a national backlash to the Watergate scandal. Harkin credits his victory to “being myself,” learning farmers’ concerns and simplifying his approach. He now often shows up at small town events in jeans, flannel shirts and work boots.

The campaign was a model for later battles. Harkin criss-crossed the district and was miserly with campaign funds. Former press spokesman Phil Roeder recalls Harkin dawdling for a half-hour at a pharmacy jewelry rack before replacing a broken watch with a new $9 model.

Early in the ’74 campaign against Scherle, Harkin alleged that the incumbent had committed election infractions. They included the charge that Scherle had violated federal “franking” laws–regulations governing congressional mailings–by sending out overly large postcards to constituents. This was not the kind of restrained behavior GOP politicians in Iowa expected from Democrats, known for fielding intellectual moralists. Harkin fought. Hard.

“Anyone who goes into a campaign with him expecting any civility or rules is in for trouble,” says Jepsen, the Republican who lost his Senate seat to Harkin in 1984 and is now chairman of the National Credit Union Administration.

He Strikes First

When Harkin took on Jepsen in 1984, his campaign was again marked by preemptive strikes. Harkin, who had consistently voted as a congressman for social programs spurned by the Reagan Administration, expected the incumbent to use his record as an issue. So Harkin struck first, using television ads to label Jepsen as “Red Ink Roger” for his votes to raise the defense budget–a move Jepsen now acknowledges blunted his use of the spending issue.

The abortion issue also threatened to paint Harkin, a pro-choice advocate, into a corner. For much of the campaign against Jepsen, he was tailed by pro-life demonstrators. Convinced Jepsen was behind the protests, Harkin’s campaign sent out a blizzard of mailers the day before the election, making the spurious claim that the incumbent believed rape victims who had abortions “should be put to death.”

Harkin has no regrets. “It just frustrated the hell out of them,” he says, satisfied.

Tom Synhorst, a political consultant who ran the Senate campaign of Rep. Tom Tauke, Harkin’s most recent GOP victim in 1990, says that the two campaigns showed that Harkin “has a real knack for muddying the debate.”

His greatest flaw, foes say, is his selective exaggeration of his own past. Among a litany of complaints, they single out his military resume as his most grievous distortion. Scherle claims Harkin often told college audiences in 1972 that he was a “fighter pilot. He would describe skirmishes and everything else. Hell, he wasn’t in combat.”

Harkin was quoted in a book by Washington Post political writer David Broder as telling a congressional Vietnam Veterans’ Caucus in 1979 that “one year I was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaissance support missions.” And in an April 1, 1980, statement carried in the Congressional Record, Harkin identified himself as a “Vietnam veteran in Congress.”

A Troubling Issue

Denying that he tries to mislead, Harkin has been scrupulous during the presidential race about his tour of duty. But he has been less than forthright on other matters. He has often cited the layoff of his deaf half-brother, Frank, as an example of how American workers too often are left “on the trash heap.” In emotional speeches that never fail to hush audiences, Harkin recounts how a union-busting campaign in the mid-1970s cost Frank Harkin his machinist’s job despite 23 years’ seniority. In the story’s climax, Harkin tells how his half-brother was reduced to taking a night job cleaning toilets in a shopping mall.

Harkin leaves the impression that his half-brother never rebounded from his job loss. In fact, Harkin helped Frank find a government job as a sorter at the Des Moines Post Office, getting him to apply under a hiring program for the disabled. Frank Harkin retired with a full pension in 1988. “I knew about the program and got him involved in it,” Harkin allows.

Similarly, in stump speeches, Harkin has described his father as a “yellow dog Democrat” and implied that his childhood home was a strong party household. But Harkin’s brother, John, recalls few family political discussions–”We didn’t talk about politics around the dinner table,” he says–and adds that Patrick Harkin was not an active party member. Even Tom Harkin acknowledges that his father was as much a supporter of Catholic demagogue Father Charles Coughlin and Communist-baiter Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy as he was a Franklin D. Roosevelt man.

Harkin dismisses doubts about his credibility as “all politics” and suggests that the press is “suckered” into reporting on the matter.

“These Republicans, they love to stick it to you and run dirty campaigns,” Harkin says. “But once you do it to them, oh my goodness, their skins are as thin as a piece of paper.”

Harkin’s partisan battles extend into his legislative career. As a senator, Harkin has consistently opposed Reagan and Bush administration bills. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action group rates his record on their agenda second only to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Last September, Harkin tried to play legislative Robin Hood with Bush’s defense budget, proposing to transfer $3 billion in military funding to social programs. Although the move would have breached the deficit-reduction compromise previously agreed to by both houses of Congress, Harkin insists that “the money was just sitting there. And I said, ‘Let’s take it out of defense and put it to good use.’ ”

The measure lost by a 69-28 vote.

A tireless crusader on foreign human rights issues, Harkin has traveled on several high profile fact-finding trips to Latin America–brushing aside Republican criticism that he is a meddler. On a trip to Chile to look into allegations that opponents of the military government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet were being murdered and imprisoned, Harkin wound up in “yelling matches” with a Chilean air force general, said former Rep. Toby Moffett of Connecticut, who also went.

“This was at a time when bodies are floating in the river,” said an admiring Moffett. “Tom kept saying, ‘Where are all the missing people?’ Maybe he wasn’t diplomatic, but someone had to speak up for those people.”

Among his legislative accomplishments, Harkin is proudest of his shepherding of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, a bill he pushed as chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Subcommittee. The act mandated sweeping new legal protections and public access for the disabled, winning Harkin a reputation as their voice in the Senate. He even gave part of his final floor speech in sign language.

“He held the coalition together,” says Patrisha Wright, executive director of the Disability Rights, Education and Defense Fund. “And he didn’t get on the bandwagon at the last minute. He’s always been there.”

Yet despite Harkin’s identification with the bill, both Wright and Senate sources say that Sen. Kennedy was just as instrumental in getting consensus for the bill and guiding it to passage. And when the legislation was first introduced in 1988, congressional sources note, the original Senate sponsor was former Connecticut Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.–not Harkin.

“If you listen to him, he’s the father of it,” a knowledgeable Democrat says. “He takes credit for it in public, but the rest of us had to keep it alive in private. He was an emotional catalyst, sure, but that hurt us as much as helped us.”

Harkin’s maverick stands have alienated legislators on both sides of the aisle. Early last year, he introduced a resolution requiring congressional authorization for the Gulf War–against the wishes of ranking Senate Democrats who wanted to take a more cautious route during a period when President Bush had overwhelming popular support.

Harkin acknowledges that Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) was “a little bit” annoyed at his public show of mutiny. But he says “no punishment came from it.”

Sticks With Causes

His willingness to stick with issues long after they have become lost causes is also a hallmark of Harkin’s legislative style. Aides in both parties say he is effective in wearing down opponents by offering up minor amendments and stalling late-night hearings when other legislators are impatient to adjourn–though they add that Harkin has muted this style a bit since ascending to prominent roles on several Senate committees.

Critics point to his legislative track record as evidence that Harkin is too much the ideologue to make an effective national leader. “He’s totally pragmatic in trying to get elected,” Jepsen says. “But looking at him as a (member of Congress), you wonder whether he’d be able to work with people.”

Harkin’s supporters minimize that portrait as one-dimensional, insisting Harkin has matured over the years. “He can be persistent,” says former Michigan Rep. William Brodhead. “In that sense, he’s our Reagan. But he’s shown that he can be practical when he needs to be.”

In his office, Harkin keeps a rubber stamp marked, “Bullshit,” a reminder of the petty concerns that have obstructed him during his career. Early in the presidential race, he used the word frequently as a graphic symbol of his–and voters’–frustration with the American scene. But Harkin toned down its use after audiences–often, elderly voters–were offended.

“I guess I can hit people in the face sometimes,” he says, only slightly ruefully.

Lately, on the campaign trail, he has been hitting again. Mired deep in the polls, yet publicly unruffled by his standings, Harkin has taken on opponents as if the mere act of being ornery might win him the presidency.

He realizes it will take a profound political shift not only among Democrats, but among American voters, for his campaign to succeed. But with a faltering economy, he says, “the timing is right for a Harry S. Truman-type of a populist to get through to the American people.”

After a dozen years of Republican rule, he banks on the assumption that the country is ripe for a return to the vision put forth by his holy trinity of Democrats–Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy. As the self-proclaimed messenger of that vision, Harkin sees little need to tailor it for what many in his own party see as a different era.

His role, as he has seen it throughout his 18 years in elected office, is to nudge that vision forward through the tough, partisan conflict he relishes.

And then?

“I’ve always believed that people vote first with their hearts and then, if you’re lucky, with their minds,” he says. “But you’ve got to reach their hearts first. That’s what I’m trying to do–talk to people on a gut level.

“Once you’ve done that,” he says, “the rest should follow.”

A Candidacy Shaped by Early Struggles

Background

Born: Nov. 19, 1939, Cumming, Iowa.

Education: Iowa State University (1962). Catholic University of America Law School (1972).

Military Service: U.S. Navy pilot, 1962-1967, stationed in Cuba and Japan.

Family: Married since 1968 to the former Ruth Raduenz. Two daughters, Amy, 15, and Jenny, 10.

Career: Elected 5th District Iowa congressman, 1974. Served five terms. Elected Iowa senator, 1984, and reelected, 1990.

Campaign Themes

Short Term:

* Support legislation requiring companies to adopt policies providing up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave for childbirth, adoption or serious illness.

* Increase funding for the Head Start program.

* Support legislation giving workers the right to strike without fear of losing their jobs.

* Oppose “fast-track” consideration of U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement.

* Push legislation instructing U.S. members of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to oppose aid for countries spending more on their militaries than on development.

Long Term:

* Eliminate the trade deficit within four years.

* Provide college education for any American who agrees to serve a stint in a new national volunteer force.

* Order defense cuts that would save $420 billion over the next decade, investing much of it in economic rebuilding and renewal of the nation’s infrastructure.

* Reduce the number of American troops stationed in Europe to 25,000 from 280,000.

* Cut the number of strategic nuclear warheads to 1,000 from 12,000 (contingent on agreement of a similar reduction by Russia).

* Create a national health care plan by June, 1993, guaranteeing affordable coverage for all Americans. Specifics of the plan have not yet been provided.

Reports citing judicial sources say former commercial banker also indicted over alleged financial crimes.

Lebanon has indicted ⁠former central bank Governor Riad Salameh and a former commercial banker over accusations of financial crimes, including embezzlement and illicit enrichment.

A judge accused Salameh and Samir Hanna, the former head of Lebanon’s Bank Audi, of embezzling tens of millions in funds ‌from the Banque du Liban or Lebanese central bank, the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported on Monday, citing judicial sources.

Salameh, who headed the central bank for three decades, has already been indicted and arrested in Lebanon over other alleged financial crimes committed during his tenure. He has denied any wrongdoing, insisting he is being made a “scapegoat” for the country’s economic crisis.

This is the first time a commercial banker has been indicted in a financial crimes case related to Salameh, showing that Lebanese investigations into the former governor are expanding to the private sector, the source told Reuters.

The source added that the file includes accusations that Hanna bribed Salameh while he was central bank governor.

Salameh, 76, headed the central bank from 1993 to July 2023. He was placed in custody last month after missing a hearing over the case, ⁠but is currently under medical supervision at a government hospital outside Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

Hanna, 88, paid a $1m bail and is not in custody as financial investigations continue, according to the reports.

In January, Lebanon’s current central ⁠bank governor Karim Souaid told reporters that the central bank had filed a criminal complaint against an unnamed former official of the central bank, ⁠a former banker and a lawyer over alleged illicit enrichment ⁠through misuse of public funds. He said the operations were carried out through four offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands that he did not name.

Salameh was detained for about 13 months over alleged ‌financial crimes ‌committed during his tenure, but was released in September after paying a record bail of more than $14m.

He also faces investigations abroad, including in France, Switzerland and Germany.