Rangers to pursue Moore return – gossip
Danny Rohl has confirmed that Rangers will work on re-signing Mikey Moore from Tottenham Hotspur this summer. (talkSPORT), external
The Rangers manager also insists striker Youssef Chermiti will be a key player next season after reports linking the 21-year-old to Porto. (Daily Record – subscription required), external
Celtic face strong competition for Bodo/Glimt striker Kasper Hogh this summer, with a host of clubs across Europe keen on the 25-year-old. (Football Insider), external
Falkirk have received “fair offers from two or three clubs” for striker Barney Stewart, with manager John McGlynn saying any fee for the 22-year-old will go towards a grass pitch and training facilities. (Falkirk Herald), external
Middlesbrough and Scotland forward Tommy Conway has been ruled out of the World Cup with an ankle injury. (Keith Downie on X), external
Aston Villa may consider selling captain and Scotland star John McGinn to Everton if they can land Wales midfielder Harry Wilson, who is leaving Fulham as a free agent. (Sun), external
India’s Tata and Dutch giant ASML sign semiconductor deal during Modi visit | International Trade News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his talks with the Dutch PM also focused on expanding cooperation in defence and security.
Published On 17 May 2026
India’s Tata Electronics has signed a deal with Dutch technology giant ASML to build a major semiconductor plant in western India, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Netherlands during his European tour.
The agreement, announced on Saturday, will support the development of Tata’s semiconductor facility in Dholera, Gujarat – Modi’s home state.
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ASML, Europe’s largest technology company by market value, manufactures advanced lithography machines used to produce high-end microchips found in products ranging from mobile phones to cars.
The Dutch company said it would help “establish and ramp up” production at the plant by supplying its cutting-edge chipmaking tools.
Tata Electronics plans to invest $11bn in the facility, which is expected to manufacture chips for artificial intelligence, the automotive industry and other sectors.
ASML chief executive Christophe Fouquet said the company saw “many compelling opportunities” in India’s growing semiconductor industry.
“We are committed to establishing long-term partnerships in the region,” Fouquet said in a statement.
The deal comes as India and the Netherlands move to deepen economic ties, with New Delhi seeking foreign technology and investment to boost manufacturing and create jobs.
The European Union has increasingly viewed India – the world’s most populous country and one of its fastest-growing economies – as a key future market.
During his visit, Modi held talks with Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten and met King Willem-Alexander.
“My conversations with Prime Minister Rob Jetten were extensive and covered a wide range of topics,” Modi wrote on X.
“One of them was defense and security. I spoke about the possibility of drawing up an action plan for the defense industry as quickly as possible. We can also collaborate in sectors such as space travel, maritime systems, and maritime security.”
Modi also addressed members of the Indian diaspora and is expected to inspect centuries-old Chola copper plates being returned to India by Leiden University.
Indian and Dutch officials are also discussing a more flexible visa arrangement for Indian students and workers in the Netherlands.
Modi will next travel to Sweden for talks with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson focused on trade, innovation and green technology cooperation. The visit marks his second trip to the country since attending the first India-Nordic summit in 2018.
After the Iran War: Seven Dynamics That Will Define the New Middle East
Every major war in the Middle East has left the region permanently altered in ways that nobody fully anticipated at the time. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war created a refugee crisis whose consequences are still being negotiated seventy-eight years later. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran reorganized the entire regional security architecture around a new fault line that nobody had planned for. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq created a vacuum that Iran filled faster and more effectively than anyone in Washington had anticipated, reshaping the balance of power across the Levant in ways that took a decade to fully understand.
The 2026 Iran war belongs in that category. Not because the outcome is clear, it is not, and the ceasefire that is currently holding is fragile enough that anyone claiming certainty about what comes next is not paying close enough attention. But because the war has already crossed several thresholds that cannot be uncrossed, set several precedents that will shape behavior for years, and broken several assumptions that the regional order was quietly depending on without anyone fully acknowledging it.
Here are seven dynamics that will define the Middle East that emerges from this war, whenever the shooting finally stops for good.
1. Iran Survives, But the Rules It Played By Are Gone
The Tehran regime is still standing. That matters, and it is worth saying plainly before anything else, because a significant part of the war’s logic, the publicly unstated part, was the hope that Operation Epic Fury would produce regime collapse or at minimum regime change. It did not. The Islamic Republic absorbed the largest US-Israeli military campaign in the region’s modern history, lost its Supreme Leader, saw its nuclear facilities damaged and its military degraded, and is still there.
What has changed is the calculation the regime makes about its own survival. Iran’s leadership watched the same sequence of events that every other government in the region watched: a country that was in active nuclear negotiations got bombed twice during those negotiations. The deterrence lesson available from that sequence is not subtle. Iran’s longstanding policy of maintaining a threshold nuclear capability, staying close to the bomb without building one, using ambiguity as leverage has been tested and found insufficient. The regime that emerges from this war is going to look at that record and draw conclusions about what kind of deterrence actually works. North Korea tested a weapon and got personal summits with an American president. Iran negotiated in good faith and got bombed. Those two data points are now sitting side by side in every serious strategic conversation happening in Tehran.
The regime will also be more paranoid domestically. The war followed the January 2026 protests in which security forces killed at least 30,000 people. A weakened regime with depleted military resources and a traumatized population is not a stable combination. The survival instinct will dominate everything else in the near term, including any serious diplomatic engagement, which is part of why the Islamabad nuclear talks failed and why any future negotiations will start from an even lower baseline of trust than the ones that preceded the war.
2. The Gulf Has Been Permanently Unsettled
The Gulf Cooperation Council states did not start this war. They absorbed it anyway. Bahrain depleted 87% of its Patriot interceptor stocks. Kuwait and the UAE spent roughly 75% of theirs. Saudi Arabia’s critical east-west pipeline was struck directly. Abu Dhabi’s main gas complex caught fire. Fujairah’s oil refinery burned. More than 60 combined drone and missile attacks hit Kuwait and the UAE in a single day during the Project Freedom escalation. The Gulf’s carefully constructed image as a zone of stability, safety, and economic transformation, the image that had attracted trillions in foreign investment and tens of millions of expatriate workers, was shattered in a way that will take years to rebuild, if it can be rebuilt at all.
The Middle East Council on Global Affairs described the war as having “irreversibly shaken” the region’s image, exposing deep-seated fragility beneath the facade of the Gulf’s rapid economic transformation. The word “irreversibly” is doing real work in that sentence. Previous crises, the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the 2019 Aramco attacks, were absorbed and the narrative of Gulf stability recovered relatively quickly. This war lasted over seventy days, struck civilian infrastructure repeatedly, disrupted food supplies across countries that import the vast majority of their calories, and demonstrated that the bilateral security relationships with Washington that Gulf states had invested so heavily in did not prevent them from becoming targets.
The UAE’s decision to leave OPEC on May 1 is one visible expression of the strategic rethink underway. The Gulf states are going to emerge from this war less willing to subordinate their security architecture to any single patron and more interested in building the kind of integrated regional defense capacity that would give them options Washington cannot or will not provide. The differences among the six GCC states will make a NATO-style collective defense treaty unlikely, but closer integration is no longer aspirational. It is a necessity that the war has made impossible to defer.
3. The Normalization Project Is Frozen
Before February 28, the Abraham Accords logic seemed to be holding. The UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco had normalized relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia was the prize, and the conversations about a potential Saudi-Israeli normalization — in exchange for a US defense pact and civilian nuclear cooperation — were genuinely advanced. The underlying premise was that Arab publics had moved far enough past the Palestinian cause that their governments could afford to formalize what was already functionally a security alignment.
The Iran war destroyed that premise in full view of everyone. Arab public opinion, which was already running at 87% opposition to normalization in the Arab Opinion Index before the war, has hardened further after watching Israel conduct sustained bombing campaigns across Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran simultaneously over more than seventy days. For many Arab observers, the war is not an isolated conflict. It is the latest chapter in a broader Israeli military dominance project that encompasses Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and now Iran, enabled throughout by American military and diplomatic support.
Any Arab leader who signs a normalization deal with Israel in the current environment faces a domestic political cost that no US security guarantee or economic package can fully offset. The Saudi normalization conversation is not dead permanently, the strategic logic that made it attractive for Riyadh has not entirely disappeared but it is frozen for long enough that the entire US regional architecture that depended on it as a centerpiece needs to be rethought. Washington’s ability to build a US-Israel-Gulf security framework against Iran was the strategic bet the war was supposed to vindicate. The war has made that framework harder to assemble, not easier.
4. The US-Israel Relationship Has a New Fracture
American support for Israel has been the most durable constant in US Middle East policy across administrations since 1948. It has survived Israeli settlement expansion, military operations in Gaza that generated international condemnation, and political disputes that have occasionally grown heated. The 2026 Iran war has introduced a new variable into that relationship that previous strains did not: the growing belief among a significant portion of the American public that Israel drew the United States into a war it did not want and cannot easily end.
More than 60% of Americans disapprove of the Iran war. Trump’s approval ratings sank to record lows partly on the back of rising energy prices and cost of living impacts that are directly attributable to the Hormuz closure. The war’s unpopularity has given political traction to positions that were previously confined to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: conditioning military assistance on specific Israeli behavior, demanding accountability for civilian casualties in Lebanon and Iran, and subjecting the strategic value of the bilateral relationship to the kind of cost-benefit scrutiny it has historically been shielded from.
None of this means the alliance is breaking. It is not. But the domestic political foundation that made unconditional US support for Israel possible regardless of what Israel did has developed a crack that the Iran war has widened. Future US administrations will face a political environment in which the Israel relationship is a genuine electoral liability in ways it simply was not before, and Israeli policymakers who have operated on the assumption that US support is structurally guaranteed regardless of circumstances will need to update that assumption.
5. China Emerged as the Indispensable Power
Beijing did not fire a shot. It did not spend significant diplomatic capital publicly. It did not take on any formal mediation role. What it did was position itself, with considerable patience and skill, as the actor that both Washington and Tehran needed more than either wanted to admit, and then collect the diplomatic credit when the ceasefire materialized.
China helped bring Iran to the Islamabad table, according to Trump’s own public statements. Wang Yi hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi in Beijing days before the Trump-Xi summit, called for Hormuz to reopen, and generated the impression of Chinese diplomatic activism at exactly the moment when Washington needed Beijing’s cooperation and was prepared to pay for it. China invoked its blocking rule against US sanctions on Chinese refiners buying Iranian crude — the first time that tool had ever been used — demonstrating that it had economic instruments available to defend its interests that it had not previously deployed. And it arrived at the Beijing summit as the power that had something Trump badly needed, which is a considerably stronger negotiating position than the one it occupied at Busan in October.
The 2023 Saudi-Iran normalization deal established China as a capable Middle East diplomatic actor. The 2026 Iran war established it as an indispensable one. The distinction matters. Capable means you can play a role when conditions are right. Indispensable means the outcome changes if you are not involved. Beijing has crossed that threshold, and it has done so without making any of the military commitments, incurring any of the costs, or absorbing any of the domestic political blowback that Washington’s Middle East involvement routinely generates.
6. The Nuclear Domino Is Now Spinning
Iran was bombed twice during active nuclear negotiations. That sequence of events is now permanently part of the strategic record, and every government that has been quietly calculating its own nuclear options has updated its spreadsheet accordingly.
Saudi Arabia has been the most explicit. Mohammed bin Salman said before the war that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would pursue one too. The war has moved that conversation from hypothetical to urgent. Riyadh has been building civilian nuclear infrastructure with American assistance and insisting on retaining enrichment rights in any cooperation agreement. The Islamabad talks’ collapse on the nuclear issue, Iran refusing to permanently renounce enrichment in exchange for promises from a government that had bombed it twice during negotiations, has removed any expectation that a clean nonproliferation settlement is achievable in the near term.
Turkey, South Korea, and Japan are all running versions of the same calculation at different registers. The Iran war gave each of them new data points. US Pacific munitions were depleted to feed the Iran campaign. THAAD components were pulled from South Korea. US allies in Asia were publicly rebuked for declining to join the coalition. The message received in Seoul, Tokyo, and Ankara was not the one Washington intended to send, and the conclusions being drawn in those capitals about the reliability of American security guarantees will shape nuclear policy decisions that play out over the next decade.
The nonproliferation architecture was already under serious strain before February 28. The Iran war has accelerated the deterioration of a regime that depended on the belief that non-nuclear states were better off without weapons than with them. That belief is harder to sustain after a country was bombed during the negotiations designed to preserve it.
7. The Gulf’s Self-Image Is Broken, and Rebuilding It Will Take a Generation
There is a dimension of what the Iran war changed that resists purely strategic analysis, and it is worth naming directly. The Gulf states spent the past two decades building a narrative about themselves: modern, open, economically dynamic, safely removed from the instability that characterized other parts of the Middle East. Dubai and Abu Dhabi positioned themselves as global hubs. Riyadh launched Vision 2030. Doha hosted the World Cup. The region was selling itself as a destination, not a danger zone.
The war shattered that narrative in ways that will outlast the ceasefire. The conflict was described by one analyst as marking the “end of the narrative” that the Gulf is a permanently safe destination for expatriates, immigrants, and tourists. The psychological impact on the tens of millions of people who live and work in the Gulf, who sheltered from missile alerts, watched refineries burn, and scrambled to find formula and medicine during the food import disruption, is not something that press releases about ceasefire agreements can quickly undo.
Foreign investment into Gulf real estate and infrastructure had been tracking the region’s stability narrative for years. That narrative is now complicated by the demonstrated reality that the Gulf can be struck repeatedly during a regional conflict in ways that its air defenses cannot fully absorb. Rebuilding the confidence that underwrites that investment will require not just a ceasefire but a durable regional security architecture that the current situation is nowhere near producing.
The Middle East that emerges from the 2026 Iran war will be defined by the space between what was promised and what was delivered; by US security guarantees that did not prevent the Gulf from being struck, by Israeli military operations whose strategic gains remain unclear, by an Iranian regime that survived when the operational logic suggested it might not, by a ceasefire that is holding without resolving anything, and by a regional order that has been disrupted deeply enough that the shape of what replaces it is genuinely unknown.
That uncertainty is not a failure of analysis, but it is the honest description of where the region actually is.
Alan Titchmarsh addresses ‘dramatic change’ with wife and says ‘I’m getting over it’
BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Alan Titchmarsh has opened up about the “drastic change” of swapping his Hampshire home for a new property in Surrey with wife Alison
Alan Titchmarsh has opened up about a ‘dramatic change’ with his wife Alison(Image: Getty)
Alan Titchmarsh has opened up about a “drastic change” in his life, revealing he’s gradually “getting over it”. The 77-year-old gardening guru and his wife Alison have recently traded their stunning Grade II-listed Hampshire abode for fresh digs in Surrey.
For Alan, this marks just the fourth house move in half a century of married life. The decision to “downsize” came naturally as their daughters have now flown the nest.
Penning his thoughts in Gardeners’ World, Alan ranked moving house among the “three most traumatic events” one can face, alongside death and divorce. “I’m getting over it,” the presenter confessed.
The gardening legend has also been mulling over the “planting scheme” for his new outdoor space, which currently boasts a Mediterranean vibe. Alan acknowledges that when tackling a new garden, it’s tempting to opt for minor “tweaks” rather than bold transformations.
Yet the horticultural expert concedes that occasionally it’s “good for us all” to recognise when your plot demands more substantial intervention.
He elaborated: “It’s all too easy, as a gardener schooled in the vital attributes of patience, to value the slowly developing scene in front of one and to resist dramatic changes preferring, instead to do a little tweak here, and adjustment to the planting scheme there. But every now and then it does us good to make a more dramatic change.”
Alan quipped that he wasn’t telling readers to up sticks and relocate, but rather to tackle those neglected corners of their gardens that, “in their heart of hearts” they know they “turn a blind eye to”.
While these spots may no longer “give you joy,” Alan acknowledges it’s tempting to “turn a blind eye” and put things off, reports the Express.
The former Gardeners’ World host has previously likened his plot to a “classic English cottage garden” brimming with “nooks and crannies and beds and borders”. Though he described the woodland encircling the property as being “like a jungle”.
In a past issue of BBC Gardeners’ World magazine, Alan wrote: “Having just taken on an acre of woodland on acid soil, I have the daunting task of rejuvenating a plantation that was established some 50 years ago and which, for perhaps the last 10 years, has ‘got away’.
“Lovely express that: the implication that the plants have yielded to no one in their ability to romp ever upwards to the light, elbowing weaker specimens out of the way. The result? An impenetrable thicket.”
Alan nevertheless confessed he was “excited” to tackle the “once-attractive woodland garden”. Beyond the trees, it boasts an artificial stream bed and a pond “half-filled with water, leaves and that rampant coloniser of damp earth”.
The beloved TV presenter is back on our screens from 9.30am today on ITV One with Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Weekend. Joining him will be actor Neil Stuke and actress-singer Marisha Wallace, while florist Jonathan Moseley will be celebrating the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
‘We travelled Australia and New Zealand for years and barely spent on accommodation’
UK couple Mike Lucas and Emily Gillingham have been travelling around New Zealand and Australia for the past four years
Mike Lucas and Emily Gillingham(Image: Mike Lucas/SWNS)
A British couple have revealed how they slashed £20,000 from hotel costs while travelling.
Mike Lucas, 33, and his partner Emily Gillingham, 32, have spent the last four years discovering New Zealand and Australia, barely spending anything on accommodation. To achieve this, the resourceful pair house-sat for people – occasionally for months on end – which meant they avoided paying for hotels and Airbnbs.
They utilised the platform Trusted House Sitters, a site where property and pet owners seek individuals to care for their homes and animals while they’re away. The duo, originally from Edinburgh in Scotland and Southwell, Nottinghamshire, resided in 13 properties across both nations during their initial 18-month journey and still rely on the service for weekend getaways.
Mike said: “It was a game-changer for us because when we first arrived in New Zealand, we didn’t know how long we were going to stay. It allowed us to maximise our budget and made our travels more fruitful, fun and sustainable.
“We have looked after all kinds of pets, including dogs, cats and chickens. It also made the country feel more accessible and slowed down the pace of travel. You see and do things you wouldn’t if you were to stay in a hotel.”
The pair have been house-sitting since November 2022, when they first touched down in New Zealand after leaving their well-paid positions as a client accountant and research director. They discovered the website Trusted House Sitters through Emily’s parents, who rely on the service to ensure their dog, Monty, is well cared for whenever they head away.
Mike said: “We had a strict budget and were looking at ways to save money so we could make it last as long as possible and extend our stay.”
Mike explained that they got in touch with a dog owner on the website and, as luck would have it, the couple agreed to let them stay in their two-bed detached house in Waikanae, north of Wellington, for three weeks over the Christmas period – provided they looked after their two-year-old Boxer-cross.
The keen traveller said: “How it works is you have to send a cover letter, almost like a job application saying why you would be a good fit for the house and giving a little bit of detail about yourself. The owner will then read it and reach out to you if they are interested.
“For this particular house, they asked if we could jump on a video call so they could meet us. Then the day before they left for America, we stayed over at the house with them, and they talked us through the dogs’ routine and if there was anything we needed to know about the property. And that was it, they gave us the keys, and we were left with this lovely house.”
From there, the pair ventured across the country, taking in Auckland and Tauranga — spending a remarkable three months in the beach suburb of Sumner, in Christchurch. Throughout the journey, the couple enjoyed free accommodation for 328 days and, according to Mike, this saved them roughly £20,000 compared to what they would have spent on one-bed Airbnbs over the same period.
They continue house-sitting to this day, having since relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where they rent a flat, yet still take on pet-sitting arrangements to explore the country during weekend getaways. The couple also revealed the experience helped them identify what their “ideal” home would look like, drawing small touches of inspiration from every property they stayed in.
They also make use of house-sitting when heading back to the UK to see family. Though Mike stresses that living in somebody else’s home is nothing like a hotel or Airbnb — you must treat it with “respect”.
He said: “It isn’t the same as a hotel, as it is someone’s personal living space. I have heard some horror stories from previous people we have stayed with, as I guess some people forget that boundary.
“They are putting a lot of trust in you to look after their pet and home. Luckily nothing has ever gone wrong in the houses we have stayed in – the worst we have done is break a glass, but we just told them and made sure to replace it. In the days before we leave, we always give the house a deep clean, leaving it spotless for the owner.”
When they couldn’t find a new property to move into once their stay had come to an end, Mike explained they would crash in Airbnbs, camp, or bunk down in hostels until they secured a new sit that fitted their schedule. Mike acknowledged that landing stays can be tough at times, noting that you’re up against at least three other applicants, with even stiffer competition depending on the location or the appeal of the property.
He said: “A key part is balancing timing and detail. The earlier you are to apply, the higher the chance you’ll have of securing the sit.
“However, tailoring the application to the individual is equally as important to stand out from the crowd. I couldn’t recommend it enough.
“At some of the houses we stayed at for over a month we felt we became part of the community and got to know people. We have also stayed friends with a number of the people we house-sat for and they now come to us and ask if we can come back to sit again, which is really nice.”
Looking ahead, the couple say they hope to travel around Europe, America and beyond using the platform.
Gabriel Pec helps Galaxy earn road win over Sounders
SEATTLE — Gabriel Pec had a goal and an assist to back goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski and the Galaxy beat Seattle 2-0 on Saturday night, ending the Sounders’ 22-match unbeaten streak at home as well as a nine-match unbeaten run this season.
Greg Vanney led Los Angeles to its first victory in Seattle since July 9, 2016 — Bruce Arena’s final season as the Galaxy’s coach.
Pec used assists from Marco Reus and defender Miki Yamane in the 23rd minute to score his fifth goal of the season, giving the Galaxy a 1-0 lead that stood through halftime. It was his fourth goal in the last three matches and his 27th in 75 career appearances.
Reus’ assist was his fifth this season, while Yamane collected his first.
Pec and Edwin Cerrillo set up Matheus Nascimento’s first goal this season two minutes into stoppage time to clinch the victory. Cerrillo entered in the 89th minute before snagging his first assist and Pec’s helper was his fourth.
Marcinkowski stopped six shots for the Galaxy (5-5-4). It was his first clean sheet in his 10th start this season.
Andrew Thomas finished without a save for Seattle (7-2-3), whose only other loss came in its road opener at Real Salt Lake on Feb. 28.
The Galaxy extended the league’s longest current streak with at least one goal scored to 23.
Seattle was the last team to shut out the Galaxy, doing so with a 4-0 road win on Aug. 10 last season.
The Sounders were coming off a 3-2 victory over Arena’s San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday, while the Galaxy lost to Sporting Kansas City — whose only other victory to that point came against the Galaxy on the road.
The Galaxy lead the all-time series with the Sounders 16-11-15, including a 5-8-8 record in Seattle.
The Sounders fall to 4-1-1 at home and the Galaxy improve to 3-3-2 on the road.
Up next
Galaxy: Host the Houston Dynamo on Saturday.
Seattle: Visits LAFC on May 24.
Families issued warning ahead of summer holidays
The warning comes as millions of Brits prepare for peak holiday season
HM Passport Office has issued a new alert to households(Image: SolStock via Getty Images)
British families arranging summer holidays are being advised to double-check this before travelling or face last-minute disruptions that could jeopardise their plans.
HM Passport Office has issued a new alert to households submitting passport applications together, warning that a straightforward error when posting documents could delay the procedure. In guidance published online, the body stated families and couples should submit all supporting paperwork in one envelope when making multiple applications. Authorities emphasised this is especially vital where identical documentation – such as birth or marriage certificates – is required for more than one person.
The department said: “Linking the right documents for multiple applications can help avoid delays.”
Straightforward measure that could prevent weeks of waiting
According to the official guidance, applicants should place all paperwork in a sturdy envelope and clearly mark each application reference number on the front, above the address.
Families are also informed they can post their documents to any of the addresses supplied, even if individual applicants received different submission instructions.
However, there is one critical condition: if anyone in the group requires their identity verified, documents must not be dispatched until this stage is completed. Applicants will receive an email confirming when the Passport Office is prepared to accept paperwork.
Why this is important right now
The alert comes as millions of Britons gear up for the peak holiday season, when demand for passports typically rockets.
Official government guidance states that standard UK passport applications usually take up to three weeks, though this can take longer if documents are missing or incorrectly submitted.
The UK Government advises travellers to apply well in advance of any planned trips and to check passport validity rules for their destination, particularly for travel to the EU, where stricter expiry and issue-date requirements apply post-Brexit.
The risk of expensive travel chaos
Failing to follow the correct procedure could mean applications are separated or delayed while officials attempt to match documents to the right person.
This, in turn, risks passports failing to arrive on time, potentially resulting in missed flights, cancelled holidays and hefty rebooking charges.
With overseas travel continuing to bounce back strongly, officials are urging families not to leave anything to chance.
The Passport Office said planning ahead and following the correct steps allows travellers to “plan ahead with confidence” – and avoid unnecessary stress just weeks before departure. Further details can be found here.
Algeria’s USM Alger beat Egypt’s Zamalek to win CAF Cup | Football
Fans celebrated across Algiers after USM Alger beat Zamalek 8-7 on penalties in Cairo, claiming their second CAF Confederation Cup after a 1-1 aggregate draw. The Algerian club first won the trophy in 2023.
Published On 17 May 2026
‘Timmy’ the rescued humpback whale confirmed dead | Environment News
Authorities have confirmed ‘Timmy’ the whale, whose rescue drew global attention, has been found dead off the coast of Denmark. The news comes two weeks after his complicated rescue off Germany’s Baltic coast and release into the North Sea.
Published On 17 May 2026
Reality star Maura Higgins asks former Strictly Come Dancing pro to help her train for US version of show
REALITY star Maura Higgins has asked former Strictly Come Dancing pro Karen Hauer to help her train for the US version of the show.
The Love Islander will start filming for Dancing with the Stars in America in July.
But she has already begun training in London with Karen, 44, who was axed from the BBC1 show this year.
An insider said: “Maura is a complete novice when it comes to dancing so Karen has kindly offered to show her the ropes and teach her the basics.
“Maura is determined not to be the first voted off so is giving it her all.
“She has her sights set on becoming a huge star in America.”
READ MORE ON MAURA HIGGINS
Earlier this year Maura, 35, lost out in the final of the US version of The Traitors.
We revealed this week how Maura is walking away from Love Island USA.
She revealed that she’s ready for a fresh start after three years.
Speaking to Vulture about whether fans would see her back on screens this summer, she said: “You won’t. I’ve done it for three years, and they’ll always be family to me, but I think it’s time to try something different.
“I’ve got amazing opportunities coming in the door.
“I think it’s time to say good-bye. But you know what? I won’t say forever.”
Casemiro: Brazilian prepares to say farewell to Man Utd and Old Trafford
It took three months of hard work to change Amorim’s mind.
On 6 March 2025, he started the first leg of the Europa League last-16 draw with Real Sociedad. He kept his place for the league game against Arsenal and, from that point, has started every major game United have played.
“Football changes. Life changes,” Casemiro said in his recent interview with former United captain Ferdinand.
“For me, [with] the best players in the world, it’s about the mentality. I might not play good – I’m not a robot and I know. But the next [game], I give everything on the pitch. The mentality is next, next, next.”
It is a mentality that has brought Casemiro back into the Brazil squad – he is expected to be Carlo Ancelotti’s captain at this summer’s tournament.
This season, the 34-year-old’s influence has noticeably increased.
Of all the players in Michael Carrick’s squad, it is widely accepted if Casemiro had been injured in February, after the transfer deadline had closed, his absence would have been the hardest to cover in the ultimately successful quest for Champions League qualification.
“He has been an absolute pleasure to work with,” Carrick says in his programme notes for the Forest game.
“He will always have a special connection with Manchester United.”
Carrick has felt the early clarity around Casemiro’s exit – announced on 22 January, days after the manager’s own return as Amorim’s temporary replacement – has been beneficial for player and club.
Aside from the mentality aspect, the player’s influence at Old Trafford should extend far longer than his physical presence.
When Casemiro arrived from Real Madrid in 2022 in a deal worth up to £70m, Kobbie Mainoo, then aged 17, felt he would learn huge amounts from one of the most decorated players in the game.
Amid the Brazilian’s collapse in form, Mainoo ended up battling for a start with Casemiro, which wasn’t a situation he envisaged.
The clear by-product of Amorim’s exit has been the partnership between the pair, who have played alongside each other in 13 of Carrick’s 15 matches in charge – a one-match absence for both players because of minor injuries the only reason it was not 15 out of 15.
“Kobbie is my friend,” Casemiro explained earlier this month in a separate interview with the respected United We Stand fanzine.
“I have an excellent relationship with him. We are always joking – in English because he doesn’t speak Portuguese.
“He is a complete player, the present and the future of Manchester.
“Why? Because he has already taught us that he can play to a high level for his club and country. The one thing he needs to improve is to play more with the ball, to touch the ball more, because he has so much quality.
“Then it’s the decision-making which comes with experience. That improves with age.”
Keiko Fujimori, Roberto Sánchez advance to Peru presidential runoff
Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori gained the largest percentage of votes in the first round of the presidential election in Peru. Photo by Paolo Aguilar/EPA
May 15 (UPI) — Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes finalized the official vote count Friday after 33 days of scrutiny and legal challenges, confirming that right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist candidate Roberto Sánchez will compete in a presidential runoff June 7.
The final tally of the mid-April voting placed Fujimori first with 17.18% of valid votes.
The main battle centered on second place, where Sánchez secured 12.03% and narrowly overtook conservative candidate Rafael López Aliaga, who finished third with 11.90%, trailing by just 21,210 votes.
“The race for the runoff produced a scenario similar to 2021, with a contest between the left and the right,” electoral law expert José Tello told RPP Noticias.
The dispute over second place shifted dramatically as vote counting progressed in Peru’s remote regions. Early results favored López Aliaga, whose strongest support came from Lima, the capital and largest urban voting bloc.
However, after more than 90% of ballots had been processed, returns from rural and highland regions in southern Peru boosted Sánchez’s candidacy, repeating voting patterns seen in the 2021 election, when then-little-known rural teacher Pedro Castillo advanced to the runoff and later won the presidency.
The final outcome depended on Peru’s Special Electoral Juries, which reviewed 653 disputed and challenged voting records before electoral authorities could release the definitive results.
After the official figures were announced, López Aliaga led a protest outside the headquarters of Peru’s National Jury of Elections, rejecting the outcome, alleging fraud and demanding an international audit, according to Diario Gestión.
With the official count completed, Peru’s National Jury of Elections is expected to formally certify the runoff candidates Sunday ahead of the second-round vote that will determine who governs the country for the 2026-2031 constitutional term.
Ronda Rousey vs Gina Carano fight: Rousey wins with a 17-second submission | Mixed Martial Arts News
Rousey won the fight with her signature armbar lock, forcing Carano into submission just 17 seconds into the bout.
Published On 17 May 2026
Mixed martial arts (MMA) star Ronda Rousey has re-retired after demolishing fellow combat sports trailblazer Gina Carano in their long-awaited non-title comeback bout in Los Angeles, defeating her rival by armbar after just 17 seconds.
After a hype-filled build-up, the bout on Saturday was a jarring anti-climax, with Rousey flooring Carano almost immediately before wrestling her into an armbar to end the fight.
American stars Rousey, 39, and Carano, 44, are widely regarded as two of the most important female fighters in the history of MMA, helping to take the sport into the mainstream during their fighting heydays more than a decade ago.
Carano had parlayed her success into a Hollywood career, appearing in several action movie roles, but had not fought since 2009 before her appearance in Saturday’s featherweight bout.
Rousey, a 2008 Olympics judo bronze medallist who subsequently found huge success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), retired from the sport in 2016 after suffering back-to-back defeats against Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm.
The fighters were lured back into the cage for Saturday’s card at the Intuit Dome with the promise of a bumper payday that will reportedly see each fighter earn several million dollars from the streaming giant.
Rousey (13-2-0 MMA) secured her 10th submission win, returning to the cage following an exit from MMA in December 2016.
She insisted afterwards her return to the ring was a one-off and ruled out the possibility of fighting again after paying tribute to Carano.
“Gina is the only person who could have brought me back into MMA – she’s my hero,” Rousey said. “She changed my world, and we changed the world, and I’ll never ever forget that or be able to pay that back enough.
“I’m so glad we finally got to share this moment.”
Asked about possibly extending her comeback, Rousey added: “There’s no way I could have ended it better than this. I want to have some more babies, got to get cooking.”
Carano (7-2-0 MMA) had been inactive in the sport since August 2009, returning to MMA after a conversation last year at Rousey’s encouragement. She admitted the fight was too fast for her, regretting what more she could have done in a short timeframe.
“I feel great,” Carano said after the loss. “I wanted to fight, and I didn’t get that. But she trained. She had her game plan. I have so much love and respect for her, and this was a victory in my life. She changed it. I woke up at 3am every morning thinking about her. I fell back in love with mixed martial arts. There’s so many things to think about here. It’s just [that] the fight didn’t go my way.
“I wanted that to last longer – I felt like I was so ready, I felt so good,” she said. “But I haven’t been here for 17 years. I wanted to hit her.”
Carano, 44, is unsure whether she’ll return to MMA, choosing to keep the door open.
Carano said the mere fact of getting in shape for her return – she revealed before the bout she had shed more than 100 pounds (45kg) in the two years leading up to the contest – was a victory.
“Right now, just getting in the cage was a victory, getting here after 17 years is a victory. Fighting a legend was a victory. I feel great, I just wanted to fight, and I didn’t get to do that.”
Love Island All Stars couple SPLIT after five months after struggling to keep up their long-distance romance
LOVE Island stars Whitney Adebayo and Yamen Sanders have split after five months.
The pair found love in the ITV All Stars villa in South Africa in January – finishing in fifth place.
However, rumours have swirled of their break-up after the couple were navigating a long-distance relationship.
Whitney was based in the UK while American footballer Yamen was in the US.
A source told me: “Whitney and Yamen did try and put everything into their relationship.
“But it has inevitably been tough to keep up their romance long-distance.
“Whitney has been spending more time with her girls and has been leaning on them while navigating her break-up.”
Earlier this week, Whitney was spotted on TikTok with fellow Love Island star Millie Court having a girly night in.
The pair were seen in their pyjamas clinking glasses of red wine together with the audio ‘so we’re going to heal’ playing.
Sounds like Whitney has a hot girl summer pending.
Some in GOP want ballots to be counted by hand, not machines
CONCORD, N.H. — A growing effort to raise suspicion about the security of voting systems has kindled a back-to-the-future moment among conservatives in some parts of the U.S.
Republican lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation that would require all election ballots to be counted by hand instead of electronic tabulators. Similar proposals have been floated within some local governments, including about a dozen New Hampshire towns and Washoe County in the presidential battleground state of Nevada.
The push for hand-counting ballots comes amid mistrust of elections stoked by many Republicans who advance the false narrative that widespread fraud cost former President Trump reelection in the 2020 contest.
Despite no evidence of widespread fraud or major irregularities, conspiracy theories have proliferated among his allies that voting systems were somehow manipulated to favor Democrat Joe Biden. That has prompted calls to ban electronic tabulators used to scan ballots, record votes and compile race tallies.
“It’s our responsibility, and it should be our desire, to count every vote and to imbue confidence in our citizenry that our elections are fair and free, and that their vote is being counted,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Alliegro, sponsor of a hand-counting bill that is similar to ones proposed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Washington and West Virginia.
Alliegro said he was motivated by his analysis of recounts in nearly 50 New Hampshire state legislative races, not by the 2020 presidential election.
But some of the bill’s supporters reference the 2020 election to explain why they argue his hand-count legislation is needed. They cite a belief — despite evidence disproving it — that Trump actually won a landslide victory and that cheating is the only way to explain how New Hampshire voters elected a Republican governor and GOP majorities in the Legislature, but then backed Democrats for federal office.
Critics of the proposals to ditch electronic ballot tabulators and return to hand-counting are blunt about what they see as the motivation.
“It’s coming from conspiracy theories and lies,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for expanded voter access. “It’s attempting to lower people’s confidence in elections.”
Albert and others said it’s unrealistic to think election officials can count millions of ballots by hand and report results quickly, given that ballots often include dozens of races. The partisan review last summer of the 2 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Ariz., which included a hand count, took several months and hundreds of people to complete.
“If you have a jurisdiction with 500 voters, you might be OK. But if you have a jurisdiction with thousands of voters, tens of thousands of voters, hundreds of thousands of voters, it’s just not going to work,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former elections clerk in Colorado and Utah who now advises state and local election officials.
Even in New Hampshire’s small towns, hand-counting is a complicated, lengthy process when a typical ballot might include 50 questions, said Milford Town Clerk Joan Dargie, who spoke against the proposed legislation on behalf of the New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Assn. She estimates her town would have to boost election workers from 200 to 350, and said many of her fellow clerks have said they will quit if they have to tabulate every ballot by hand. “People who are asking to get rid of machines obviously haven’t worked in an election,” she said.
As one example, Cobb County, Ga., performed a hand tally ordered by the state after the 2020 election. It took hundreds of people five days to count just the votes for president on roughly 397,000 ballots, said Janine Eveler, elections director for the county in metro Atlanta. She estimates it would have taken 100 days to count every race on each ballot using the same procedures.
Counting by machine isn’t just faster. Multiple studies have shown it’s also more accurate, said Charles Stewart, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first research on the topic was done almost two decades ago, comparing recounts of New Hampshire races that were originally tabulated by hand with those tabulated by machines. In that study and subsequent research, the machines won, he said.
“Counting votes is very tedious. Human beings are bad doing tedious things, and computers are very good at doing tedious things,” Stewart said.
Most states also conduct postelection audits that are designed to identify any irregularities with ballot scanning and counting. But with many Republicans believing Biden was not legitimately elected, election machines have become a popular target.
In Nevada, a Republican county commissioner is pushing a proposal that would require hand-counting of all ballots, along with a return to primarily in-person voting and beefing up uniformed security at polling places.
“I’m 82 years old, and I’ve been through a lot of elections,” said Washoe County Commissioner Jeanne Herman. “I know that something is not right.”
The proposal has drawn opposition from other commissioners, the biggest labor union in the state and a rare front-page editorial in the largest newspaper in northern Nevada, which said the measure could cost taxpayers “millions of dollars to chase down Facebook rumors of illusory election fraud.”
In West Virginia, a bill to repeal the state law governing tabulation machines died in committee earlier this month. In Missouri, lawmakers have not yet acted on a proposal that would ban electronic voting machines and tabulation equipment and require hand-counting to be livestreamed and recorded.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Mitch Boggs Jr., said he has no proof elections have been manipulated but is responding to constituent concerns.
“You file what the constituents are asking for,” Boggs said. “But at the end of the day, what they’re really wanting is just the transparency. They want to know that our elections are secure.”
Republican state Rep. Petty McGaugh said the legislation would delay election results and likely undermine their accuracy. When she became clerk of rural Carroll County in 1995, election staff were still hand-counting ballots by marking tallies in blocks of five on paper. She noticed multiple errors and eventually switched the county to an electronic tabulation system.
“I don’t really think that in this day and age we need to go back to hand-counting where it’s so susceptible to human error,” she said. “We’ve got to start trusting electronics and computers.”
In New Hampshire, that message seems to have gotten through. Last week, a state House committee unanimously recommended killing the hand-counting legislation and voters in nine towns where the question was on the ballot in local elections rejected it.
Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and more Dodgers help rout Angels
All the Dodgers had to do was stay patient.
In a 15-2 win Saturday against the Angels in Anaheim, the Dodgers offense wasn’t able to gain much of a lead until the sixth inning. Then six consecutive free passes spurred an offensive explosion that put the game away.
In fact, Will Smith’s first-inning sacrifice fly scored the only run for either team through the first five innings, as the starting pitchers — Dodgers lefty Justin Wrobleski and Angels right-hander José Soriano — dueled.
Though the Dodgers scored first, Soriano avoided traffic on the bases more effectively than Wrobleski. That is, until Soriano lost command in the sixth.
Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski throws to the plate during a win over the Angels Saturday at Angel Stadium.
(Mark J. Terrill / Ap Photo/mark J. Terrill)
With one out in the sixth inning, Mookie Betts got the Dodgers’ rally started by drawing a five-pitch walk. Freddie Freeman followed suit and Smith wore a curveball to load the bases.
Soriano, who had only allowed one hit, didn’t regain his footing. He walked in two runs before being lifted. And then his replacement, Angels reliever Chase Silseth, hit Teoscar Hernández to bring in a third run for the Dodgers before they logged a hit in the inning.
Alex Call, the eighth Dodgers hitter to step up to the plate in the sixth, finally delivered the only knock of the rally, a two-run single on a ground ball through the left side of the infield.
The strong Dodgers fan presence at a sold-out Angel Stadium made itself known in the eighth inning when Shohei Ohtani drove a two-run triple into the right-field corner, raced to third as it bounced up and off the netting and then scored on a throwing error.
“MVP” chants broke out from the fans clad in blue.
They let out a roar shortly after, when Betts launched a solo homer to left.
The Dodgers continued the barrage in the ninth, scoring on pitcher Alek Manoah’s errant throw that past second base, Hernández’ sharp single up the third-base line and Ohtani’s bases-clearing double into the right-field corner.
That earned more “MVP” chants.
The Dodgers, one day removed from scratching left-hander Blake Snell and pivoting to a bullpen game on Friday, needed Wrobleski to give their relievers a breather.
The Dodgers’ bats ultimately helped take pressure off all the team’s pitchers.
Can new Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions lead to another border clash? | Pakistan Taliban News
Both sides target each other despite a pause in fighting mediated in March.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been tense since the Taliban took power in 2021.
On Monday, Pakistan summoned a senior Afghan diplomat after an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TPP. The group said it carried out two more attacks since, mostly against security forces.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of backing the fighters, which it denies.
The latest violence started with a major border skirmish in February. Mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkiye and China led to a pause in the fighting.
But the two sides have continued to target each other. This includes a Pakistani strike on a drug rehabilitation centre that killed more than 250 people.
Will these breaches lead to a resumption of hostilities? And is lasting peace possible between the neighbours?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Masood Khan – Former permanent representative of Pakistan, United Nations
Michael Kugelman – Senior fellow, Atlantic Council
Obaidullah Baheer – Adjunct lecturer, American University of Afghanistan
Published On 16 May 2026
Overnight trains to UK’s third busiest airport are officially rolled out
TRAINS will run through the night to one of the UK’s busiest airports from today.
Commuters will be able to catch eight new timetabled services that offer more reliable journeys.
All-night rail services between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport will run from today, in a major new boost to the city’s nighttime economy.
TransPennine Express has scheduled trains to run hourly through the night, every day of the week, with eight new overnight services included.
Greater Manchester residents have shared their excitement, with one saying it is “good to see these services reinstated after all these years,” and others calling it “unbelievable.”
The new schedule hopes to improve airport access, as well as offering better commuting services for hospitality workers and passengers travelling in the early hours of the morning.
Trains from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport are generally faster than driving, with the journey taking between 15 and 20 minutes, and a drive taking up to 30 minutes.
This schedule adds to the already simplified train travel system in Manchester, which only sells anytime or off-peak tickets, making services more affordable.
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “We’re proud of our thriving night-time economy, and we’re looking to back it with transport that matches how people live and work.
“These all-night trains will help people get to where they need to be – whether that’s catching an early flight, getting home after a late shift, or travelling into town to enjoy everything our night-time economy has to offer.
Nicola Buckley, people director at TransPennine Express, echoed Burnham: “These all‑night services are about supporting the people and businesses that keep Greater Manchester going 24 hours a day.
“By improving overnight connections to Manchester Airport, we’re making rail a more practical option for workers and passengers alike, while helping to strengthen the region’s night‑time economy.”
Iran war live: Tehran plans tolls in Hormuz; Trump warns of ‘very bad time’ | US-Israel war on Iran News
Live updatesLive updates,
Iran to reveal its plan for Strait of Hormuz soon as Israel attacks Lebanon and Gaza, killing and wounding dozens.
Published On 17 May 2026
Eurovision 2026 LIVE: Bulgaria crowned winner but UK humiliated with just 1 point
The singer, whose real name is Darina Yotova, said at a press conference after her win: “I want to thank my husband, because he was the one to push me to come to Eurovision.
Because in the beginning I was not sure if I want to come or not, because I had anxiety and doubt with myself, and he was the one that he just pushed me, and he was like, ‘you need to go right now to Eurovision, right now, pick up your phone tell them you’re going’.”
Qantas flight forced to divert after ‘passenger bites flight attendant’
The plane was forced to be diverted and ended up at its target destination several hours behind schedule after refuelling in Tahiti
(Image: Wolter Peeters / The Sydney Morning Herald via Getty Images)
A Qantas flight bound for Dallas was forced to make an emergency diversion to Tahiti after a passenger allegedly bit a cabin crew member mid-flight.
The dramatic incident unfolded aboard QF21, which had departed Melbourne for the gruelling 18-hour journey to the US.
Crew members and passengers reportedly stepped in to assist the flight attendant after the alleged attack took place in the air.
The aircraft was diverted to Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, where local police boarded the plane and removed the passenger.
Qantas confirmed the man has since been banned from flying with the airline.
A spokesperson for the carrier said: “We have zero tolerance for disruptive or threatening behaviour on our flights.”
After refuelling in Tahiti, the aircraft resumed its journey to Dallas but arrived several hours behind schedule.
It is not yet known what sparked the alleged altercation onboard.
It comes after a weekend of flight chaos.
Airports in Japan, China, India, the UAE, Singapore and Thailand have all been impacted, with airlines cancelling 366 flights and delaying a further 2,949 services, according to aviation tracking data reported by Travel and Tour World.
Major airlines affected include China Eastern Airlines, IndiGo, AirAsia and Etihad Airways, with disruption concentrated around major transit hubs including Tokyo Haneda Airport, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, Kempegowda International Airport, Singapore Changi Airport and Zayed International Airport.
Industry analysts say the disruption is being driven by a combination of heavy storms across parts of Asia, congestion at key airports and the continuing impact of Middle East airspace restrictions, which have forced airlines to reroute aircraft and absorb significantly higher fuel costs.
The wider aviation sector is also dealing with fallout from geopolitical tensions linked to the conflict involving Iran, which has led to airspace closures and longer flight times on major Europe-Asia routes.
It has been reported this week that several carriers have already begun scaling back international schedules because of soaring operating costs.
Sen. Cassidy ousted in Louisiana GOP primary, as two rivals advance to runoff
BATON ROUGE, La. — Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican who has occasionally asserted his independence from President Trump, failed to advance in Saturday’s GOP primary runoff in Louisiana, as a Trump-backed foe and another candidate finished in the top two spots.
U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won the most votes, capitalizing on the power of Trump’s endorsement in his latest attempt to purge his party of people he views as disloyal. State Treasurer John Fleming came in second to join her in the next round of voting.
Trump supported Letlow over Cassidy, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy, a doctor, has also clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, even though he provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.
By receiving less than 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming, a former U.S. House member and Trump administration official, were unable to avoid the runoff, which will take place June 27. The winner will almost certainly take the November general election because of the state’s Republican leanings.
The Louisiana primary comes in the middle of a month of campaigns by Trump to exact retribution on politicians he views as having crossed him. On May 5 he helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his partisan gerrymander plan.
Next Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky will face a Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein, in another Republican primary. Massie angered Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation over concerns about the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran.
The president leveled insults at Cassidy on Saturday morning, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. In the evening he followed up with: “Congratulations to Congresswoman Julia Letlow on a fantastic race, beating an Incumbent Senator by Record Setting Numbers.”
Jeanelle Chachere, a 66-year-old nurse, said she considers Cassidy “a phony” and voted for Letlow solely because Trump endorsed her.
“I’m going by what he says, because I like what he does,” she said.
Election changes stir concern
The election was scrambled by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision focused on Louisiana gutting a part of the Voting Rights Act that affects how congressional maps are drawn. Although the Senate primary is moving forward, Louisiana leaders decided to delay House primaries until a future date to allow them to redo district lines ahead of time, a shift that threatened to cause confusion for voters Saturday.
Mary-Patricia Wray, who has consulted for Republican and Democratic candidates in Louisiana, said before the vote that the change could weigh against Cassidy by dampening turnout among voters who are less fervently pro-Trump.
“Suspending the congressional primaries hurts Cassidy,” she said. “Some people believe the Senate primary is canceled.”
Cassidy also complained that a new primary system enacted last year confused voters by requiring them to ask for a partisan ballot instead of the all-party primary previously in place. He said some called his office to say they had been unable to vote for him.
“The process that was set up was destined to be confusing,” Cassidy told reporters Friday.
Dadrius Lanus, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said his team fielded hundreds of calls from voters statewide who said the changes undermined their ability vote as they planned.
“A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said. “It’s literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”
A costly primary
Cassidy waged an aggressive campaign to convince voters he should not be counted out. Wray was among the political consultants who, as election day neared, gave the senator a chance of pulling off an upset.
The senator’s campaign was expected to have spent roughly $9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting him, was on track to spend $12.3 million.
By comparison, Letlow’s campaign, which launched Jan. 20, spent roughly $3.9 million, while a super PAC backing her, the Accountability Project, spent about $6 million.
Fleming’s campaign spent about $1.5 million.
Cassidy and Louisiana Freedom Fund ran ads attacking Letlow within days of her entering the race for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which Trump has tried to root out of the federal government.
Letlow, a college administrator before her election to the House, said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020.
The ads, an attempt to characterize Letlow as a progressive trying to pass as a conservative, were one way Cassidy tried to flip the script in a race where he was on the outs with Trump.
Trump’s campaign
The senator’s vote in favor of convicting Trump after his 2021 impeachment has shadowed Cassidy throughout his second Senate term.
John Martin, a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana, said he would vote for Letlow because he was still upset by Cassidy’s decision. He waved a flier from Letlow’s campaign showing her standing alongside the president.
“I know a lot more about Cassidy than I do about her,” Martin said. “But if she’s endorsed by Trump, I’m going to believe that.”
Cassidy steered clear of Trump’s ire last year, supporting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite his public reservations about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views.
Mark Workman, a 75-year-old retired infectious disease physician in the New Orleans suburbs, said he backs Fleming. Had Cassidy “stood up and blocked RFK,” Workman said, he would have supported the senator for taking a strong and courageous stance.
“He had the ability to stop him,” Workman said, “and he was too weak to do that.”
As chair of the Senate Health Committee, Cassidy has been more publicly critical of Kennedy, including over funding cuts for vaccine development.
Trump blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of his second choice for surgeon general, Casey Means, who raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B, a practice Cassidy supports. Trump withdrew the Means nomination and decried Cassidy.
Challenger waited for Trump’s backing
Letlow considered running last year but only entered the race after Trump announced his endorsement in January.
By that time Fleming, who was elected state treasurer in 2023, was already in the race as a Trump devotee. But Landry was looking for a better-known challenger, and he suggested Letlow to the president.
Letlow had an unconventional and tragic entry into politics.
In 2020, while she was a college administrator, her husband, Luke, was elected to the U.S. House but died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. Letlow ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special election and was reelected in 2022 and 2024.
Beaumont and Brook write for the Associated Press and reported from Des Moines and Baton Rouge, respectively