Shanahan missed the chance for a second chunk of metal in the last race of the night as she competed in the 4x100m mixed relay team who finished fifth, though they did set a new Scottish record.

Part of the team was, surprisingly, poster boy Scott.

He received a hero’s welcome as he returned, racing second after Evan Jones and before Evie Davies, but ultimately the field was too strong.

Earlier in the evening, Sean McCann finished eighth in the men’s 400m freestyle final, Lucy Grieve was seventh in the women’s 50m butterfly final and Matthew Ward broke the men’s 50m backstroke Scottish record on his way to seventh in that final.

The US military has released footage it says shows forces boarding one tanker and disabling another accused of attempting to breach its naval blockade of Iran. CENTCOM says 12 commercial vessels have been redirected and two disabled for failing to comply.

Tehran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen have fired missiles and drones at two of Saudi Arabia’s most strategically important oil facilities on the Red Sea, in a major escalation of the latest simmering regional conflict to be reignited by the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.

But the skies over the country at the epicentre of the widening war were quiet for a second successive night, with no new US attacks on Iran reported by Sunday morning.

Iran had been pounded by 13 consecutive waves of overnight US air strikes since July 11, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked tankers trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. As hostilities escalated, both sides declared that an interim peace agreement signed in June was dead, and a second phase of talks to finalise a comprehensive peace deal appeared doomed.

But there have been no US air strikes since Friday, and tentative signs are emerging that Washington and Tehran are still talking via mediators and might return to more meaningful discussions.

Even if another fragile truce is agreed, however, the cascade of consequences unleashed by the war is still stoking conflict and confrontation elsewhere.

Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have put a stranglehold on exports of oil and raw materials for fertiliser, sending energy prices soaring and raising the risk of a food security crisis in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries.

In March, in response to attacks on Iran, the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon resumed missile attacks on Israel, which then launched a devastating invasion of southern Lebanon that has displaced 1.2 million people.

Now, another smouldering regional conflict has erupted again, between US-allied Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement which controls most of northern and western Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies joined a brutal civil war against the Houthis in 2015, until a truce was agreed in 2022.

Risk of global crisis

The truce collapsed this month after an attack on Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing provoked the Houthis to fire ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia. Last Monday, the Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, and late on Friday the Saudis launched air strikes on the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah.

In retaliation, Houthi forces launched Sunday’s attacks on facilities belonging to Saudi state oil giant Aramco in the coastal cities of Jizan and Yanbu, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said.

There has been no comment from Saudi Arabia on the extent of any damage to Aramco’s refinery in Jizan, but a large column of smoke was seen rising after the attack.

In Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s principal west coast export gateway, two ballistic missiles aimed at oil installations were intercepted by a Patriot battery operated in Saudi Arabia by the Greek military under an agreement ‌with Riyadh.

The escalating conflict has raised fears that the Houthis could block the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. If both the Bab al-Mandeb and Hormuz straits were blocked, the resulting supply chain crisis would cause major economic damage across the world.

Entangled wars

Besides spreading to the Red Sea, the US-Iran war has become entangled with the deadliest active conflict in the world – Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine.

A long-range strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday caused an explosion that killed one sailor and wounded another, according to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which blamed the attack on Ukraine and summoned Kyiv’s charge d’affaires in Tehran to convey its condemnation of the “hostile and criminal” act.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that Kyiv had achieved “very strong results” with long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea, hitting “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship”.

Zelenskyy claimed in further comments on X on Saturday that since the start of July, Kyiv had detected “active Russian satellite ⁠surveillance of the Gulf states and US military facilities located there”. He said the satellite images were passed to Tehran to help the IRGC identify targets for ballistic missile and drone attacks.

US President Donald Trump has not given a reason for the sudden cessation in air strikes on Iran, but a senior administration official told the Reuters news agency that Trump “has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way”.

Trump said on Friday that there was still some communication with Iran.

“They are talking to us right now; they’d love to make a deal,” he said. “I don’t think they’re ready to … but I’m willing to listen.”

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Iranian officials had confirmed the two sides were exchanging messages.

“There have been proposals conveyed by the mediators, and Tehran is still reviewing them,” Serdar said, adding there was “not much progress yet” due to “fundamental differences” in their positions and deep mistrust.

Holby City Hospital will see an explosive “high-stales major incident” that will have viewers on the edges of their seat as Casualty gear up for the 40th anniversary episode

Casualty has dropped a first look at its explosive 40th anniversary episodes, with Holby City Hospital thrown into chaos after a devastating blast.

The BBC released a teaser trailer ahead of the landmark special, which will air in September, giving fans a glimpse of the high-stakes drama facing the emergency department.

The anniversary story will be told across a two-part special centred on fan favourites including Dr Dylan Keogh and Flynn Byron.

The trailer opens with a huge explosion as emergency medicine consultant Flynn Byron, played by Olly Rix, looks on in shock. As the scenes unfold, a haunting chorus of children singing Happy Birthday Dear Dad plays over the footage while members of the emergency department, including clinical lead Dr Dylan Keogh (William Beck), gather outside the hospital.

Viewers also get a glimpse of familiar faces including paramedic Jan Jenning (Di Botcher) and consultant Stevie Nash (Elinor Lawless).

A map of Holby quickly fills with emergency incident alerts before the hospital is plunged into turmoil. The trailer shows a fight breaking out inside the hospital, while a visibly emotional Dr Keogh is seen in tears.

Elsewhere, ambulances line up outside with blue lights flashing as patients are rushed through the hospital on stretchers. A firefighter is also seen making their way through a room filled with exposed wires as sparks fly around them.

The preview keeps many details under wraps, ending with what appears to be armed police officers approaching Holby City Hospital.

According to the BBC, the anniversary episodes centre on a “high-stakes major incident that throws Holby into chaos”, leaving lives hanging in the balance as the emergency department team are pushed to their limits.

The special will also feature a major rescue operation, while Dr Keogh faces a personal tragedy during what the BBC describes as the team’s “darkest hour”. Stevie Nash and Flynn Byron will also find themselves fighting for survival in a race against time.

The episodes celebrate 40 years of the world’s longest-running medical drama while marking what the BBC has described as an “exciting new chapter” for the series.

First airing in 1986, the BAFTA-winning drama later spawned spin-off series Holby City. Since 2011, Casualty has been filmed at BBC Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff and is expected to move to a new fictional hospital in Wales next year.

The Casualty 40th anniversary episodes air on September 5 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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Another dramatic and emotional night in Anthony Joshua’s boxing career ultimately ended as just about everyone expected it would – with the countdown under way to a super-fight against Tyson Fury later in the year.

Joshua, 36, improved his record to 30-4, but he was almost on the end of one of the biggest shocks in his sport’s history when he was knocked down twice by little-known Albanian Kristian Prenga inside the first round.

The Briton regrouped in the second round to land a flurry of hard right hands, sending Prenga crashing to the canvas and getting the win he came to Jeddah for.

BBC Sport has selected some of the best pictures from the fight, which came seven months on from the car crash in Nigeria in which Joshua was injured and two of his closest friends died.

Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe wants to move beyond being a supplier of raw minerals and build industries that process and manufacture from its own resources. But as the government tightens restrictions on unprocessed mineral exports, smaller miners are asking whether they will share in that transformation or be left behind.

The government has restricted exports of unprocessed strategic minerals, including lithium, as part of a broader drive to increase domestic beneficiation. Authorities argue that Zimbabwe should capture more value from its mineral wealth instead of exporting raw materials and allowing other countries to profit from refining and manufacturing.

The policy has attracted more than $1bn in investment into Zimbabwe’s lithium value chain, according to government officials and industry representatives. But smaller miners warn that the cost of building processing facilities, unreliable electricity supplies and limited access to finance could make it difficult for them to participate in the country’s industrial ambitions.

Speaking during a technical media tour of Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East, on 17 July, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Polite Kambamura said Zimbabwe’s 2022 ban on exports of unbeneficiated lithium ore had encouraged companies to invest in domestic beneficiation.

“The construction of the first lithium sulphate plant in Africa is behind me, and this was done in Zimbabwe,” Kambamura said.

He said Zimbabwe’s ambitions extended beyond lithium sulphate and lithium carbonate production, with a long-term goal of developing industries capable of manufacturing lithium batteries and solar panels locally.

Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, owned by China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, said its lithium carbonate plant was about 90 percent complete.

PLZ public relations officer Patience Mushore said Huayou’s investments had generated more than $1.1bn in foreign exchange for Zimbabwe while expanding the country’s lithium value chain.

Policy shift

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s export restrictions argue that the country can no longer remain a supplier of raw minerals while other nations capture greater profits through refining and manufacturing.

Public policy expert Tedious Ncube said Zimbabwe’s lithium sector demonstrated why the government had prioritised beneficiation.

He pointed to investments at Arcadia Mine and Bikita Minerals as examples of companies expanding Zimbabwe’s lithium sector.

Ncube said domestic processing could create skilled jobs, strengthen local suppliers and allow Zimbabwe to retain a greater share of the income generated from its mineral resources.

“The success of Zimbabwe’s lithium industry shows that the right policy can attract investment that builds industries, creates jobs and leaves a bigger share of mineral wealth in Zimbabwe,” he said.

Mining concerns

For smaller producers, the debate is not whether Zimbabwe should process its minerals locally, but whether they will have the infrastructure, finance, and market access needed to participate.

Shelton Lucas, business development director at Naivo Mining, said the company operates chrome, antimony and tungsten projects in Mashava, Ngezi and Kadoma but faces challenges accessing affordable processing options.

Lucas said smaller producers were struggling to access processing capacity, particularly in the chrome sector.

“For our raw chrome, we are now forced to sell to local Chinese smelters where they underpay us. For antimony, I have the resources to build the value-addition plant, but for chrome I cannot because the plant is very expensive,” he said.

He said he supported domestic processing but warned that smaller miners could be excluded if new requirements were introduced without support mechanisms.

Lucas proposed a toll-smelting system, where public institutions or industry bodies invest in shared processing facilities that miners can access at transparent rates while retaining ownership of their minerals.

“The challenge is not only building processing plants, but also ensuring smaller producers can access capacity on fair terms,” he said.

Without such measures, he warned that a small number of companies could end up controlling processing capacity and market access.

“If these companies also hold export rights, they could dictate prices to small-scale miners, creating what could become a predatory market that undermines the very people the mining sector is meant to empower,” he said.

Economic constraints

Economists say Zimbabwe’s processing ambitions will depend on whether the country can overcome longstanding challenges affecting mining and manufacturing.

United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean economist Chenayi Mutambasere told Al Jazeera that the policy faced obstacles including power shortages, expensive financing, weak transport infrastructure, foreign exchange constraints and limited access to processing technology.

“The ban should be more than a political slogan; it should be an industrial practical strategy,” she said.

Mutambasere said the government needed to support the policy with reliable electricity, investor incentives, skills development and clear implementation timelines.

She warned that restrictions introduced before the necessary support systems were in place could create unintended consequences.

“An abrupt ban where companies have invested in the sector may push the mining sector further underground, which could increase mineral leakage,” she said.

Government vision

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana told Al Jazeera that the policy was intended to ensure Zimbabwe gains more from its finite mineral resources.

“The government is implementing this beneficiation policy in our minerals for the growth of our economy and to create a lasting legacy that will be witnessed by future generations,” Mangwana said.

He said the policy applied not only to lithium but also to other strategic minerals, including platinum group metals such as palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium.

Zimbabwe’s push reflects a wider debate among resource-rich countries: whether restricting raw exports can build domestic industries without concentrating opportunities among a few large companies.

For smaller miners, the success of the strategy will depend not only on how much mineral processing takes place inside the country, but whether beneficiation creates broader participation or leaves only the biggest players able to compete.

Lucas said the goal should be to ensure that local processing expands opportunities across the mining sector rather than creating new barriers for smaller producers.

“Beneficiation should not become a barrier to participation. It should be an enabler of inclusive growth, industrial development and sustainable economic transformation,” Lucas said.

The Sunday Times says, external Prime Minister Andy Burnham will give England’s metropolitan mayors a share of income tax to spend in their cities, in devolution plans to be announced next week. It says the policy will be driven from the new Number 10 North office in Manchester.

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, external about his government’s priorities, Burnham says “if I’ve learnt anything from my time in politics, it’s that ‘it can’t be done’ is usually just another way of saying ‘we’ve stopped trying’.” In an article justifying policy decisions that have been taken so far, he adds, “our job will only be done when people aren’t just living, they’re living well.”

The Sunday Telegraph claims, external that the new Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, has offered in a call with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, to collaborate on a global effort to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. The paper says a conference may be held in London to bring together representatives from more than 40 countries to discuss the issue. It describes the efforts as an attempt to “turn the page” on the divergence between the US and UK over the Iran war.

The wildfires raging across Europe feature on the front page of the Observer, external. It carries a stark full page image of a bather walking into the sea, with billowing smoke causing the sky to blacken. The headline reads: “Baptism of Fire.”

The Sun on Sunday reports, external that a group of migrants who arrived in the UK this week may include suspects wanted for questioning in connection with the fatal stabbing of another migrant. The incident is alleged to have happened in the seaside resort of Berck-sur-Mer in northern France on Thursday.

The Sunday Express claims, external that Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, is close to agreeing to a deal with broadcasters for a documentary series about her life. It says Netflix is one of the broadcasters she has been negotiating with. Those negotiating on behalf of Ferguson have stipulated that her contributions would have to be filmed outside the US because of the risk of being subpoenaed by the Congressional House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the crimes of her former husband’s friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

There are many dedicated figures devoted to Chicano empowerment in America. But in the arts, playwright-director-impresario Luis Valdez — the migrant farmworkers’ son behind the defiantly consciousness-raising El Teatro Campesino and the historic hits “Zoot Suit” and “La Bamba” — holds a singular place, achieved with remarkable perseverance. It’s a trajectory that the immensely appealing, rollicking documentary “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez” tracks with a vitality and purpose befitting its subject.

Anchored by Valdez himself, now in his 80s and filling the camera frame like a grandfatherly lion, the film supplements his vivid biographical details with rich archival footage and testimonials from family members, collaborators and peers. There’s also the bold but sneakily effective narrator choice in Edward James Olmos, reviving his snarling, star-making El Pachuco growl from “Zoot Suit” to remind us of one of Valdez’s essential contributions to the theatrical canon. (Olmos is also an interviewee, as is Cheech Marin, Taylor Hackford, Lou Diamond Philips and labor leader Dolores Huerta.)

Born in Delano, Calif., and drawn to literature and language as a way to combat racist assumptions about a Mexican American’s destiny, Valdez found his gifts sharpened by puppet shows, school plays and finally, the union movement in his hometown. Valdez saw that pointed, raw satire was not only necessary but a recruitment tool for the fight. We hear the underdog aesthetic term rasquachismo used to describe these early impromptu performances: essentially a colorful funkiness, “so funky that nothing can undermine you,” Valdez says. As if something earthier and stronger had been harvested in the fields with all those valuable grapes.

After the labor battles of the Vietnam War era, Valdez took El Teatro Campesino’s mission nationwide. Excerpts from a televised adaptation of his play “Los Vendidos (The Sellouts)” — about a shop selling automatons representing Chicano stereotypes — underscore the continuing tensions of assimilation, a trap disguised as acceptance. But the piece also reflected feelings Valdez had about his long-estranged brother Frank, an engineer whose alienating efforts to deny his own background and fit in formed a heavy undercurrent in Valdez’s life.

“Zoot Suit,” an ambitious, musicalized, slang-flavored staging of the violent injustice behind L.A.’s notorious 1943 Zoot Suit riots, became a smash in 1978 (its narrow-minded New York reception notwithstanding). The story of how the Ritchie Valens biopic “La Bamba” came to be — a delicate mix of legacy tending and savvy casting — is similarly rousing and illuminating, even if it seems like an omission not to dig into why, after such a big hit, more movies didn’t follow. (Although, since this is Hollywood, we can guess the reasons.)

There’s so much to chew on in David Alvarado’s portrait of life, art and activism that “American Pachuco” plays like a joyful challenge to those searching for their own voice or meaning. As engaging a chronicler of his own life as Valdez is, his lessons in how to be seen and heard — and how to stay that way — feel especially timely. In our demonizing present, the story of such a pioneering truth-teller speaks powerfully to the needs of our blended American future.

CHICAGO — Jonquel Jones had 22 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, helping Caitlin Clark and Team Spoon outlast Marina Mabrey and Team Coop 129-122 in the WNBA All-Star Game on Saturday night.

Dominique Malonga had a first-half dunk for Team Coop, but Team Spoon had eight players score in double figures in an All-Star Game that featured 127 three-point attempts and very little defense. Allisha Gray had 19 points for Team Spoon, and Clark finished with 17.

The WNBA celebrated its 30th season by holding its first All-Star Game in Chicago since 2022. This time, the marquee event was played in front of a record crowd of 19,783 at the United Center instead of the smaller Wintrust Arena in downtown Chicago, a sign of how much the league has grown.

Jones, a 32-year-old center for the New York Liberty, was named MVP. Nneka Ogwumike scored 11 points for Team Spoon while passing Maya Moore (119) for the most career points in All-Star Game history.

Kelsey Mitchell had 28 points for Team Coop, and Mabrey scored all of her 23 points during a red-hot first half. Malonga finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

WNBA greats Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon drafted the All-Star teams from players that were either voted as starters by fans, media and fellow players or chosen as reserves by the league’s coaches. Las Vegas’ Becky Hammon coached Cooper’s team, and Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve was in charge of Weatherspoon’s squad.

Clark went 5 for 15 from beyond the arc and had five assists in her return to the All-Star game. The Indiana Fever guard missed last year’s event in Indianapolis because of a groin injury.

The 24-year-old Clark came out firing, connecting from 33 feet and 37 feet on her way to 11 points in the first 2 1/2 minutes. She buried another three early in the second quarter off a slick no-look pass from Minnesota Lynx guard Olivia Miles, the only rookie selected for the game.

Clark and Mabrey each put on an offensive show, but Malonga got the biggest cheer of the night. The 6-foot-6 center from the Seattle Storm ran down the lane, got a pass from Angel Reese and threw down a right-handed jam with 6:24 left in the first half.

Reese jumped up and down as Malonga finished the play, and the two exchanged a mid-air chest bump on their way back down the court.

It was the first dunk in a WNBA All-Star Game since Sylvia Fowles in 2022. Lisa Leslie (2005), Jones (2017), Brittney Griner (2019) also have accomplished the feat.

Leslie was on hand for the festivities, along with South Carolina coach and former WNBA guard Dawn Staley. Former NBA star Dwyane Wade also was courtside.

Cohen writes for the Associated Press.

Protest group says at least 200 demonstrated in Israeli capital a day after major escalation of West Bank violence.

Israeli police have arrested nine people at a Tel Aviv demonstration decrying settler violence in the occupied West Bank, according to media reports and protest organisers.

Hundreds of people gathered on Kaplan Street on Saturday to demonstrate against the settler violence and Israeli military rule in the occupied Palestinian territory, according to Israeli media. The protest was organised by the left-wing Hadash party and its allies.

The Mothers Against Violence protest group said more than 200 people took part in the demonstration, and accused police of using force against demonstrators, including the nine they confirmed were arrested.

Israeli police said demonstrations had gone ahead without authorisation and had begun to “disrupt public order and block the roadway”, according to local media.

The protest came a day after Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians in the town of Tal, near Nablus, during a settler incursion on their land. Two Israelis were also killed in the confrontation.

On Friday, about 30 settlers entered Tal, next to the illegal Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad, and tried to break into two houses on Friday, said Essam Saifi, a local Fatah official. Residents confronted them, and the settlers opened fire.

A video shows a Palestinian man seizing a rifle from a settler and shooting him before soldiers shot him dead. Three others were killed and four wounded.

Ubai al-Aboudi, a rights activist in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera that one week prior, settlers set fire to a home in Tal with the family still inside. “It was a miracle that the residents of Tal were able to get that family out of the house before they were burned alive,” he said.

In retaliation for Friday’s shooting incident, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a wide-scale military operation across the West Bank, and Israeli forces arrested nearly 50 Palestinians in Tal while raiding about 70 homes.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said at least 80 Palestinians were held across the West Bank the day after the incident, calling it “collective punishment”.

Funerals for the four killed were held before dawn under restrictions on attendance.

Political analyst Ori Goldberg said video of the attack on Tal had made denial impossible for the Israeli public.

“They saw the Jewish terrorist come into the villages and they saw the response … I’m not expecting the public to rise in protest in response, but I do expect this might revivify the last dregs of liberal Zionism in protest,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This may be a threshold moment in what Israelis have previously termed as ‘settler violence’ in an attempt to distance it from themselves,” Goldberg added.

At least 1,182 Palestinians have been killed, 13,000 wounded and nearly 24,000 arrested in the occupied West Bank since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, according to official Palestinian figures.

Flavio Bolsonaro, son of disgraced former Brazilian President Jair, has launched his bid to unseat President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Flavio is vowing to carry forward his father’s legacy and has won right wing support from Argentina’s President Milei.

He said the quiet part out loud. As the artistic director of New York’s Public Theater and one of the art form’s most prominent leaders, Oskar Eustis is known to do that. And as always, he got the art world talking.

When Eustis, 67, announced Wednesday that he would step down from his role at the Public in 2028 — after 23 years — he said in a New York Times interview that “the American nonprofit theater movement is over.” This has been whispered about and lamented since the COVID-19 pandemic led to temporary theater closures across the country that have since become permanent, but it is rare to hear it expressed so candidly.

Did Eustis, one of the key players in that vaunted movement — the man who helped foster “Hamilton” — really mean what he said? And if so, how does theater move on in the face of obstacles that at times feel as though they are scattered across an increasingly difficult course? In a wide-ranging follow-up interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eustis addressed the path forward.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Phillipa Soo portray Alexander and Eliza Hamilton in “Hamilton.” The megahit premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater under Oskar Eustis in 2015.

(Disney+)

It’s not an easy one, but Los Angeles theater leaders working in the trenches, including Tarell Alvin McCraney at Geffen Playhouse, Danny Feldman at Pasadena Playhouse and Snehal Desai at Center Theatre Group, already knew that. They talked with the Los Angeles Times about their plans at the crossroads reached by American theater in light of Eustis’ imminent exit.

Eustis traces the rise of the American nonprofit theater movement to the late 1950s when W. McNeil “Mac” Lowry, director of the arts and humanities program at the Ford Foundation in New York, began organizing existing regional theaters into a national movement.

“What happened during that period was that a consensus emerged,” Eustis said, noting that it was expressed in the form of national endowments, state arts agencies, public policy institutes and corporate philanthropic departments. “An idea of the common good was held throughout the country, and there were many stakeholders. And part of that idea of the common good was a broadly held belief that Americans deserved serious, non-market-driven performing arts.”

With no feudal background, America lacked a capital city like London or Paris designed to showcase the arts, so the idea spread across all 50 states. This led to the proliferation of the regional theater movement, said Eustis, as well as that of symphony orchestras and ballet companies.

“The explosion of the regional theater movement is actually, in retrospect, astonishing,” Eustis said. “From a few scattered theaters in the 1950s, by the early ‘70s, there were over 400 professional nonprofit theaters in every state of the union. Tens of thousands of people were employed. Millions and millions of audience members every year. That’s the field that I walked into in the early ‘70s.”

Fifty years later, those stakeholders have “absolutely zero consensus on whether theater should exist as a nonprofit performing arts field or whether we should exist at all,” Eustis said. “It’s gone.”

“We’ve kind of been living, in a way, off inertia of this old idea,” he added.

The great pandemic pause, along with the racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the continued fracturing of a shared reality under President Trump, served to reveal how fragile that consensus was, Eustis said, and, “It’s not coming back.”

Where does that leave American theater in 2026?

“We’re faced with the need to prove to the people in our individual communities that we matter enough to them that they should support us,” Eustis said. “Now, that’s not a very bad demand to put on an art form.”

Except, as every theater that has lately dared put on a show created by new, experimental or unknown artists knows, it can feel like an insurmountable task.

Danny Feldman, artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse, said that the days of theaters underpaying talent are over.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Smaller theaters across the country, including many in L.A., have shuttered with staggering regularity in the last six years, which puts even greater pressure on the city’s most prominent nonprofits to shine a light on a sustainable model moving forward.

Feldman, Pasadena Playhouse’s artistic director, noted that Eustis represents the second generation of leaders of the “first chapter” of the nonprofit regional theater movement. “And that to me is what is now undeniably at the end.”

He said he and Eustis have discussed the subject at length. “We are now in a very different era. And the things that got us to this point are not the things that are going to get us to the next chapter.”

McCraney, Geffen Playhouse’s artistic director, said forging a path forward in nonprofit theater without succumbing to commercial pressure to produce only guaranteed hits requires the delicate balance of surfing.

“And there’s no better place to surf than in L.A.,” McCraney said over the phone from the Public, where he was meeting with Eustis and other theater leaders to share ideas. “I feel very connected to a bunch of folks who recognize that the regional theater model has always had to have radical vision, and that those radical visions need revision, because our most practical job is to make sure that communities have stories.”

Tarell Alvin McCraney, artistic director of Geffen Playhouse, compared the balancing act theater leaders must perform to surfing.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

It’s not just the way theater tells — and funds — stories that must evolve. It’s the entire business model, the leaders note.

The beauty and the founding of the original regional movement, said Feldman, was artists saying, “New York is not just where it’s at. We’re going to go to our communities. We’re going to make things with and for them, and really build these ecosystems that are deeply entrenched in these local communities around the country. … And I think the underbelly of that — that maybe has not been discussed as much — was always an element of subsidized labor involved.”

In L.A. and elsewhere that meant a lot of artists in the front and back of the house working for incredibly low wages. The pandemic effectively put an end to that, and as workers demanded fair compensation, the cost of producing shows skyrocketed. Most theater leaders agree that part is as it should be. Eustis points to the recent unionization of the Public’s production department as a case in point.

“For the first time in history, everybody who’s swinging a hammer on our productions has health insurance,” he said. “They have it through the union. That’s a good thing. And it’s put a shock wave through the whole industry, but you know what? We figured out how to pay development directors. We should figure out how to pay carpenters. That’s part of growing up.”

Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Snehal Desai said Oskar Eustis’ departure from New York’s Public Theater represents a “pass the mantle” moment.

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Desai, CTG’s artistic director, said he views Eustis’ decision to step down as a “pass the mantle moment.”

“Oskar has been a huge mentor to so many of us,” Desai said. “It’s up to us, the next generation of leaders, to figure it out, just as his generation did in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s when they built these institutions for us.”

At CTG that means exploring a new way of doing things including touring shows, intensive work in various communities and site-specific productions, all of which “can change the financials and the model of how we’re doing business.”

As for Eustis? He plans to leave the Public in the best possible shape for the next generation of artists, and never wavers from its core mission. “This is a theater of democracy that believes that the culture belongs to everybody,” he said.

This text examines the historical significance of the 26 July revolution anniversary in Cuba, focusing on the early efforts to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. It details how Batista seized power through a military coup in 1952, subsequently stripping citizens of their political freedoms. In response, Fidel Castro orchestrated an armed assault on the Moncada army garrison in 1953 to ignite a national uprising. Although the mission was a tactical failure resulting in numerous deaths and prison sentences, it served as the foundational spark for the successful revolutionary movement. The article concludes by noting how the date became the namesake for Castro’s political organization and remains a pivota … 

SAN FRANCISCO — Rafael Devers and Jung Hoo Lee hit three-run homers, Robbie Ray pitched six shutout innings and the San Francisco Giants beat the Angels 9-2 on Saturday.

Devers and Casey Schmitt opened the scoring with RBI singles in the third before Lee lined a sweeper 365 feet into the right-field stands to extend the Giants’ lead to 5-0.

Luis Arraez added a one-run single in the fourth, and Devers extended the lead to 9-0 with his team-leading 22nd homer of the season. The homer was Devers’ third since the All-Star break and second in as many days.

Ray (9-6) struck out five and gave up six hits on just 80 pitches before being lifted. Over his last seven games, the 34-year-old left-hander has thrown 43⅓ innings with a 1.04 ERA and a 4-0 record.

Ryan Johnson (2-5) gave up eight runs on eight hits in 3⅓ innings for the Angels. Catcher Tyler Heineman pitched a hitless inning of relief.

Mike Trout drove in Los Angeles’ first run with a bases-loaded, RBI double play in the seventh. Trout, Zach Neto and Jo Adell were all pulled because of the score. Jose Siri was walked in the ninth inning, capping the scoring.

Up next: Angels’ RHP José Soriano (8-6, 3.43 ERA) faces Giants’ LHP Carson Whisenhunt (2-0, 3.38 ERA) in the series finale Sunday.

July 25 (UPI) — A federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration cannot implement tighter rules for mail-in voting in the mid-term elections this November.

The ruling, handed down by the First U.S. Circuit of Appeals on Saturday, will prevent his administration from creating a list of eligible voters and from requiring the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to deliver ballots to people who are not on the list, The Hill and Bloomberg News reported.

The three-judge panel rejected the administration’s appeal of lower court rulings in late June and early July that an executive order issued in April to expand the federal government’s role in managing elections could not be put into effect.

The April 1 executive order was condemned by critics at the time as an attempt by President Donald Trump and the administration to interfere with the mid-term elections, and led to 23 states and the District of Columbia to file suit to stop it.

The appeals court said in its ruling that the federal government failed to make its case for lifting the federal government’s injunction, which was partially based on the lower court preventing the executive order from going into effect.

“To be sure, the injunction prevents the federal Defendants from enforcing the EO in the Plaintiff states’ upcoming primary and general federal elections in September and November,” the judges wrote.

Trump, who continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election, signed the order under the guise of election integrity based on his also false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The fraud allegations center on ineligible people casting mail-in ballots, of which Trump and his administration have not shown happened in significant numbers during the 2020 election.

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a state citizenship list based on federal date, to send the lists to state elections officials to verify mail-in ballots go to eligible voters and for the USPS not to send out absentee or mail-in ballots to people who do not appear on the lists.

Yemen’s Houthis say they have targeted oil facilities in Saudi Arabia owned by Aramco, in the latest escalation between the two sides. Saudi authorities say they intercepted the missile and drone attacks. Yousef Mowry has more details from Sanaa.

KATIE Price has shared a sweet snap from a day out with her boys after Princess broke her silence on the former glamour model’s truce with their dad Peter Andre.

Katie, 48, Junior and Harvey looked as though they were having the best time as they soaked up the sun.

The trio appeared to be spending some quality time together at the stables amid Katie’s rocky relationship with conman Lee Andrews.

Podcast host Katie posed resting her arm affectionately on Harvey’s shoulder as they smiled at the camera.

Junior, who is following in his dad’s footsteps as a musician, was seen grinning ear-to-ear in the background of the pic posted on Instagram.

Harvey, 24, recently moved back in with Katie after “hating” living in his own flat.

ready to lee-ve

Katie Price ditches wedding ring from Lee Andrews after lies are exposed

PRICEY’S POV

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She confessed her son was “happiest” living at home and that certainly rang true as he enjoyed the fresh air with his family.

Katie captioned the sweet post: “Summer,” followed by a horse emoji, sun emoji and a yellow love heart.

This comes as it was revealed that both Katie and Peter are set to appear on their daughter’s reality show The Princess Diaries.

The formerly warring pair – who were married between 2005 and 2009 – called a truce earlier this year for the sake of their kids.

They announced the new chapter in a bombshell joint statement on Instagram back in February.

It said they’d reached an “understanding” and they wanted to focus on “creating a calm and supportive environment” for Junior and ­Princess.

Katie will appear in the first episode of Princess’ show, taking a glamping trip with her children to celebrate her birthday.

But, we are some way off ever seeing the former glamour model and her singer ex on screen together.

Princess said: “To be honest, I don’t think that would happen anyway. I don’t think divorced parents would sit in a room and have a conversation, but it’s not to say it would never happen.”

Junior, 21, went on: “The main thing is, it’s amicable. They’ve got a truce, but they’re not best friends and they don’t need to be.

“The fact that they’re both in it is great because it’s our parents. We love them, and want everyone to be involved. But yeah, they don’t need to cross paths.”

Princess told how she values ­having her loved ones on the show, adding: “It is way more fun for me . . . because I like having my family there.

“I guess it shows people they are calm — that yes, they’re not best friends but they don’t need to be.”

NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani’s throwing program has stalled, with the Dodgers star canceling a bullpen session the team had tentatively scheduled for Saturday.

“Just doesn’t feel 100%,” manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani’s left knee. “And because I think that the last ‘pen that he had, there was a little bit of regression. So we want to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.”

It was going to be Ohtani’s second bullpen since receiving an orthovisc injection in his knee on July 12. He threw a roughly 30-pitch side session on Wednesday.

It’s unclear when he’ll throw off the mound next. But Roberts said he’s still optimistic that Ohtani will return to the rotation sometime in August.

“It was obviously not ideal, him throwing his last bullpen and going backwards, essentially,” Roberts said. “So obviously that’s disappointing because you throw a bullpen to continue to build up. So that was disappointing. But as far as worry, concern, we don’t have any of that.”

Roberts described a “fluid” process, with plenty of input from Ohtani, as he and Dodgers continue to navigate the knee issue. Because only pitching seems to be aggravating the injury, Ohtani will continue to play at designated hitter.

“From his words, the hitting, the running, as he has done the last couple nights, doesn’t affect him,” Roberts said. “So I can only go by what he and the training staff are telling me. So, unless I hear otherwise, that hitting compromises his health, then I’m going to keep putting him in the lineup.”

The Dodgers had initially hoped the injection and time off leading up to the All-Star break would allow him to get past the discomfort in his knee and not have to worry about managing it for the rest of the season.

Though Ohtani feels better than he did before the break, according to Roberts, the team wasn’t envisioning this kind of start-and-stop buildup.

The schedule does the Dodgers some favors. The off day Monday allows them to get through this coming week without filling Ohtani’s spot in the rotation. But in order to keep all their starters on a six- to seven-day rotation, they’ll have to find a replacement — whether that be a bullpen day or another starter — by the first week of August.

Starting pitcher Blake Snell (arthroscopic elbow surgery) is on track to be close to a return from the injured list by then. In his second rehab start this month, he threw 2⅔ innings (49 pitches) for triple-A Oklahoma City on Friday.

He’ll be targeting four innings in his next start, according to Roberts. When asked if he’d need another rehab outing after that, Roberts said: “Let’s just get through that next one. Get through four innings and kind of read and react from there.”

Injury updates

Dodgers teammates Kiké Hernández, left, and Shohei Ohtani laugh after a win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium on May 29.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers are set to welcome back utility player Kiké Hernández (strained left oblique) and closer Edwin Díaz (arthroscopic elbow surgery) from the injured list early in next week’s homestand.

Hernández is set to be activated Tuesday, as the Dodgers open a three-game series against the Seattle Mariners, Roberts said. And Díaz likely will return Wednesday, sliding back into the closer role that Tanner Scott has held in his absence.

Tyler Glasnow (back spasms) threw about 25 pitches in a one-inning live batting practice session Friday, Roberts said. He’s scheduled to throw to batters again next week.

Right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro attracts foreign support, but struggles in polls ahead of matchup with President Lula.

Flavio Bolsonaro has inaugurated the official beginning of his Brazilian presidential campaign, touting support from right-wing figures such as Argentinian President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and long considered the presumptive candidate of Brazil’s political right, launched his formal bid challenging President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday.

“This is more than a party convention,” Bolsonaro said in remarks to his father’s Liberal Party.

“This is the beginning of the toughest battles of our life. A fight between good and evil.”

Recent polls have shown Bolsonaro trailing the left-wing Lula, as his bid for the presidency struggles to right itself after a number of setbacks and scandals.

While Saturday’s event included endorsement remarks from right-wing heavyweights such as Milei and Netanyahu, few prominent Brazilian politicians were in attendance.

Centre-right parties have largely kept their distance, and Flavio’s father – currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for a coup attempt following his loss to Lula in 2022 – was present at the convention only in the form of a video made with AI.

Milei delivered ‌a fiery speech criticising Lula and declaring that Bolsonaro can “save” Brazil from socialism.

The Argentinian president flew to Brazil the night before the event and met on Saturday with Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas.

“We will continue offering our testimony everywhere against the lies of socialism,” Milei said.

Netanyahu offered support via a short video message.

“Flavio, my friend, I want to congratulate you on the official launching of your campaign,” Netanyahu said in the recording, according to the Brazilian outlet Metropoles. “You’re a great champion of Brazil, you’re a great champion of the friendship between our peoples.”

Lula’s Workers Party is set to hold its own convention on August 2, confirming the 80-year-old president’s re-election bid.

Bolsonaro and his allies have also suffered from criticisms that they have tried to use their ties to the administration of US President Donald Trump to boost his campaign, inviting US intervention in a variety of issues that many Brazilians see as a form of foreign meddling.

Like his father, Flavio has also raised alarm by repeating false claims about the reliability of Brazil’s election infrastructure, seen as a pretext for possible efforts to deny the legitimacy of the voting process in the event of a loss to Lula.

The AFP news agency reported on Saturday that Brazil had denied visas to a pair of Trump administration officials who sought to meet with the country’s election authorities to discuss “freedom of expression related to the elections”.

The U.S. Navy is pumping $70 million into the development of a ground-launched version of CoAspire’s Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile-Extended Range (RAACM-ER) cruise missile. RAACM-ER was unveiled just earlier this year. Continued work on the design will now be done under a program aimed primarily at giving U.S. allies and partners a new, lower-cost way to strike moving targets at sea and on land.

CoAspire announced today that it had received what is known as an Other Transactional Agreement (OTA) in support of the Navy’s Coalition Heterogenous Affordable Offensive Strike (CHAOS) program. The OTA process is a contracting mechanism that U.S. government agencies use to help speed up advanced research and development and prototype efforts.

“Under a $70m Prototype Other Transactional Agreement (OTA) with CMG Networks on behalf of Naval Aviation Systems Consortium, CoAspire will design, build, test, and deliver to Program Acquisition Executive for Munitions and its program office, PMX-201, an affordable, ground-launched, mid-range, cruise missile system that can attack both land-based and moving maritime targets,” according to a press release from CoAspire. “The end-use Foreign Military Sale (FMS) customers are allies and coalition partners needing an affordable yet highly effective maritime strike weapon that can be easily manufactured at scale.”

Whether or not the Navy has also selected other companies to move ahead with their designs under CHAOS is unknown, and TWZ has reached out to the service for more information.

RAACM-ER is a turbojet-powered cruise missile. It has a body with a trapezoidal shape that is reminiscent, in very broad strokes, of Lockheed Martin’s stealthy AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and derivatives thereof.

“Physics is physics,” Doug Denneny, founder, CEO, and owner at CoAspire, told TWZ‘s Jamie Hunter at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exhibition earlier this year. “When people look at shapes, they look similar, but just like an Airbus looks like a Boeing, but what they have different inside is really what matters, and that’s how we differ in many ways.”

CoAspire’s missile has a GPS-assisted navigation system and a long-wave infrared seeker in the nose. The guidance package allows for the engagement of moving targets, as well as static ones based on fixed target coordinates. Passive infrared seekers are immune to radiofrequency countermeasures, such as jammers or decoys. They also do not pump out signals that could alert a target to the incoming danger. All of this creates advantages over active radars for terminal homing.

When RAACM-ER made its public debut, the company said the design could be fired from ground-based launchers or ones on ships, as well as be employed by aircraft. However, an air-launched version was the only one on display. Surface launch requires the addition of a rocket booster to the tail of the missile, as seen on the model in the picture at the top of this story. That booster falls away after launch.

As an aside, CoAspire is also now developing what it says is a separate surface-launched version of RAACM-ER, called GHOST, for the U.S. military’s Low-Cost Containerized Missiles (LCCM) program. The core RAACM-ER design also evolved conceptually from an earlier missile simply called RAACM, but they are entirely different. The original RAACM was developed under a U.S. Air Force program called the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM), which has also been aimed primarily at supporting allies and partners, starting first with Ukraine.

When designing RAACM-ER, “our engineers came to us and said, ‘Hey, if we’re going to make a bigger one, should we make it look just the same?’ I mentioned earlier that RAACM was made that shape just to ease integration,” Denneny also told Jamie Hunter at Sea-Air-Space. “We’re an engineering company, so we said, ‘Let’s optimize fuel volume, let’s optimize survivability features, let’s optimize physics so that this thing can go as far as possible and take the sensors needed. That’s why it’s in this slightly different shape.”

How far RAACM-ER, now described as a “mid-range” missile, can go in any of its configurations is unclear. When it was first unveiled, the missile looked to be well suited for the Family of Affordable Mass Missiles-Beyond Adversary’s Reach (FAMM-BAR) effort, which is seeking lower-cost designs with maximum ranges of 1,000 nautical miles or more. This is roughly the same reach as is offered today by variants of the surface-launched Tomahawk cruise missile.

However, at Sea-Air-Space, Denneny separately told Naval News that RAACM-ER had roughly twice the reach of the original RAACM, which would be around 485 nautical miles (900 kilometers) based on previously stated ERAM program requirements. This would put the design more in the category, at least range-wise, of the air-launched AGM-158B JASSM-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) land-attack cruise missile. An extended-range version of the JASSM’s Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) cousin that is now in development is expected to have similar reach.

“CoAspire hasn’t discussed range capabilities of our products, so any assumptions/estimations would be speculation,” a representative for the company told TWZ today when asked for further clarification.

Even with a range of 485 nautical miles, RAACM-ER would offer a notable boost in capability over many other anti-ship cruise missiles in service today with U.S. allies and partners, as well as the U.S. military itself. For example, the reported maximum reach of extended-range variants of the Harpoon is in the 150-mile realm. Current-generation versions of the increasingly popular Naval Strike Missile (NSM) have a stated range of at least 162 miles.

In more general terms, extended reach expands the total area that a single launch platform can hold at risk, while also keeping it further away from potential threats. Longer-range munitions also offer additional flexibility to respond to targets that might emerge suddenly or other changing developments in the battlespace.

How large a warhead RAACM-ER carries is unclear. Trading warhead weight and bulk for fuel, as well as reducing total payload weight, would help extend range. A smaller warhead would have impacts on the missile’s effectiveness. At the same time, certain targets would also not necessarily require something like the 1,000-pound-class warheads found on many Tomahawk variants to achieve the desired effect. When it comes to ships, especially, destroying or even just severely damaging key systems on a ship can achieve a mission kill that substantially reduces the vessel’s combat effectiveness or might even force it back into port for a protracted period of time.

See Tomahawk missile strike a ship

Providing increased capability at a cheaper price point is also a key aspect of the CHAOS program. It was also top of mind for CoAspire in the development of RAACM-ER, though an estimated unit price for the missile has yet to be released. Current-generation Harpoons can range in price from $1.4 to $2.25 million, depending on variant, based on publicly available cost data. NSMs are also in the roughly $2 million price range. The latest versions of the Tomahawk are even more expensive.

“The most important thing is affordable mass. [This] means keeping the cost down, so that the nation and our allies can purchase these at scale. That’s number one,” CoAspire’s Denneny told us at Sea-Air-Space. “Number two is to use as many commercial off-the-shelf parts, so that we are not locked into a single supplier for anything. The final thing is to have something that can survive enemy countermeasures, and also hit the target, whether it’s stationary or moving. Those are the main requirements.”

“An additive approach also allows for rapid modifications and a reduction in tooling and touch labor that results in cost reductions and program improvements without breaking a production line for re-tooling,” CoAspire’s press release today also notes. “It also allows for the development of new variants in months compared to years needed by other missile manufacturing methods.”

Providing new standoff strike weapons in mass to allies and partners would have knock-on benefits for the U.S. military in future coalition operations. This would distribute an additional tier of capability across more friendly forces, helping to reduce reliance on American forces and foreign militaries that field higher-end munitions.

All of this could make the ground-launched version of RAACM-ER, and any other missiles developed under the Navy’s CHAOS program, attractive to the U.S. military, as well. As already noted, the GHOST version of RAACM-ER is already under development now as part of the LCCM program, which is a U.S. Army effort.

As TWZ regularly draws attention to, munitions expenditures in recent operations against Iran and other conflicts globally in the past few years have underscored the increasingly critical need for new designs that are both cheaper and easier to produce. This is vital for ensuring sufficient stockpiles of key munitions, including stand-off strike weapons, at the start of a conflict and making sure that the arsenal can be replenished as fighting continues. It is important to note that lower-cost types are not expected to supplant more expensive and exquisite capabilities now or in the future, but instead complement them.

Just in the past few months, the U.S. military has moved to lay the groundwork for the acquisition of tens of thousands of new, lower-cost stand-off munitions over the next three to five years. CoAspire is one of several companies to have received framework deals as part of these efforts. These agreements cover surface and air-launched designs being developed in support of the aforementioned LCCM and FAMM programs, respectively. It’s also worth noting here that the ERAM program, which was also foreign-focused at the outset, has already been feeding into FAMM.

With all this in mind, today’s announcement regarding CHAOS is another important win for CoAspire. This also underscores U.S. military-wide efforts to reduce reliance on traditional prime contractors and do more to leverage small and non-traditional firms for new major weapon system programs.

With the new vote of confidence from the Navy, along with the previous LCCM framework deal, CoAspire’s RAACM-ER continues to emerge as a particularly notable development for the U.S. military and its allies and partners.

Update: 2:25 PM ET –

The U.S. Navy has now provided TWZ with some additional details regarding today’s announcement about the CHAOS program.

The Navy awarded an Other Transaction Authority agreement to CoAspire for Phases 1 and 2 of the Coalition Heterogenous Affordable Offensive Strike (CHAOS) prototype effort, July 17, marking PAE Munitions’ direct investment in the emerging low-cost cruise missile market,” according to a Navy spokesperson. “The award is a significant milestone in developing an affordable maritime strike capability for security assistance partners while expanding the defense industrial base through competition and accelerating a new entrant into the Navy’s precision strike portfolio.”

“The Navy has requested appropriated funds to begin integration of this low-cost maritime capability on Navy platforms as part of the FY27 budget request,” they added. “PAE Munitions expect[s] at least one more industry agreement on CHAOS as part of its competitive strategy.”

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The BBC aired a special tribute to Bonnie Tyler on Saturday, July 25, just weeks after the Welsh singer’s death at the age of 75, leaving fans in floods of tears

BBC viewers have been left devastated and in floods of tears following a heartfelt tribute to Bonnie Tyler.

The iconic Welsh singer died aged 75 on July 8 at a hospital in Portugal, with a statement from her family and team saying they were “heartbroken” to announce her “unexpected” death, reports Wales Online.

The star, who split her time between South Wales and her home in Faro, Portugal, had been due to embark on a European tour later this year but was hospitalised in May.

Bonnie was initially said to be stable and recovering well from her surgery, but less than 24 hours later, she was placed into an induced coma.

In the wake of her passing, the BBC announced a special tribute programme would broadcast on Saturday, July 25. It showcased highlights from her 50 year career, including interview segments and electrifying performances.

Tuning in to the show on BBC Two, viewers were moved to tears. One fan wrote: “What a distinctive voice Bonnie Tyler had. It’s a heartache is a banger. Even if I can only hear it’s a hard egg.”

Another said: “Bonnie Tyler was brilliant.” A third wrote: “Crying at Bonnie Tyler at the BBC, RIP Queen.”

The BBC had earlier announced: “This special tribute compilation celebrates the great Bonnie Tyler’s incredible 50 year career, as fans come to terms with the sad news of her death earlier this month.

“The only Welsh performer to have a US Number 1, Bonnie’s distinctive husky vocals and powerful performances made her one of Britain’s best-loved and most enduring artists.

“This collection from the BBC archive showcases some of her biggest and very best moments from over the decades.”

Bonnie Tyler’s funeral and celebration of live service will also be available for fans to watch in an online broadcast. The service will be held at St Mary’s Church in Swansea on August 17, and will be streamed on the singer’s website.

Bonnie Tyler at the BBC is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.