Month: June 2025

Flash floods and roof collapses over past 36 hours have claimed 19 lives, increasing total toll to 32, authorities say.

Heavy rain and flash flooding across Pakistan have killed 32 people since the start of the monsoon season earlier this week, according to the disaster management officials.

Flash floods and roof collapses over the past 36 hours have claimed the lives of 19 people, eight of them children, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial disaster management authority said in a statement on Saturday.

Of the total deaths, 13 were reported in the Swat Valley.

At least 13 people have been killed in the eastern province of Punjab since Wednesday, the area’s disaster management authority said.

Eight of the deaths were children, who died when walls and roofs collapsed during heavy rain.

Flash flood risk remains

Flooding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also damaged 56 houses, six of which were destroyed, the disaster authority said.

The national meteorological service warned that the risk of heavy rain and possible flash floods will remain high until at least Tuesday.

Last month, at least 32 people were killed in severe storms in the South Asian nation, which experienced several extreme weather events in the spring, including strong hailstorms.

Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, and its 240 million inhabitants are facing extreme weather events with increasing frequency.

X Factor icon Rowetta looks unrecognisable 19 years on as she stuns in a tartan miniskirt and thigh-high boots, proving her bold style is still going strong at 57

X Factor fans might do a double-take after seeing one of the show’s original stars looking completely different nearly two decades after finding fame.

Rowetta Satchell, or simply Rowetta, as she was known to millions, was one of the standout acts on the very first series of The X Factor back in 2004. The powerhouse soul singer wowed judges with her unforgettable take on Lady Marmalade, and her bold vocals and big personality quickly made her a fan favourite.

Already known from her days with legendary band Happy Mondays, Rowetta made it all the way to the quarter-finals of the ITV talent show, finishing fourth overall and becoming the last woman left standing, without ever facing the dreaded sing-off.

READ MORE: Happy Mondays icon Rowetta abruptly quits band after over three decades

Fast-forward 19 years, and the 57-year-old is still commanding attention. Rowetta recently turned heads as she posed in a tartan miniskirt and leopard-print thigh-high boots on her way to an Indie Reunion event. She paired the look with a statement tee reading, “The ravers united will never be defeated.” She told fans she was “on my way.”

Simon Cowell once famously described her as “amazing but barking bloody mad”, and it’s fair to say her bold style and fearless energy haven’t faded one bit.

In an interview with Metro.co.uk, the singer opened up about her journey on the ITV competition, her music career, and why she never returned to reality TV despite being flooded with offers.

According to Rowetta, after The X Factor propelled her to TV fame in 2004, she turned down shows like Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity, only making exceptions for Children in Need and BBC Music Day.

Rowetta’s journey began in Leeds when Kate Thornton introduced her to the judges before live auditions were part of the show’s format. Her renditions of Lady Marmalade and Circle of Life wowed Simon and Sharon from the get-go.

She said she was grateful not to win because she and Simon Cowell had a difference of opinion on the final single.

Adding: “I think it would have been a disaster to win it, and then have to bring out songs like that. I love funky stuff. I don’t want to be doing Somewhere Over The Rainbow for the rest of my life.”

Rowetta said her reason for doing the show was her grandma, who encouraged her to be on TV like the singers she watched. Her career since has included collaborations with the likes of Solardo, Todd Terry, Oliver Heldens and Shed Seven.

A proud Mancunian, Rowetta loves being a role model on her local music scene, often performing at Manchester Pride. She said that when she was growing up, “there was no one to look up to from Manchester that was Black and female.”

Last year, in December 2024, it was announced that Rowetta would be leaving the band. The announcement came amidst speculation about past feuds with band member Shaun Ryder. In February this year, MailOnline reported Rowetta sharing that she has allegedly been physically abused by Shaun.

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READ MORE: This white bedding set looks just like The White Company’s but costs over £85 less

Southern Europe struggles with soaring heat as temperatures hit 40C, sparking fears of wildfires and health risks.

Europeans are braced for the first heatwave of the Northern Hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world’s fastest-warming continent further into the red.

With temperatures expected to rise to 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Italian capital, Rome, on Saturday, the Eternal City’s many tourists and Catholic pilgrims to the Vatican alike have been converging around the Italian capital’s 2,500 public fountains for refreshment.

In France, with residents of the southern port city of Marseille expected to have to cope with temperatures flirting with 40C (104F), authorities ordered public swimming pools to be made free of charge to help residents beat the Mediterranean heat.

Two-thirds of Portugal will be on high alert on Sunday for extreme heat and forest fires with 42C (108F) expected in the capital, Lisbon.

Meanwhile, visitors to – and protesters against – Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos’s Friday wedding in Venice were likewise sweltering under the summer sun.

“I try not to think about it, but I drink a lot of water and never stay still, because that’s when you get sunstroke,” Sriane Mina, an Italian student, told AFP news agency on Friday in Venice.

Meanwhile, Spain, which has in past years seen a series of deadly summer blazes ravaging the Iberian peninsula, is expecting peak temperatures in excess of 40C (104F) across most of the country from Sunday.

Scientists have long warned that humanity’s burning of fossil fuels is heating up the world with disastrous consequences for the environment, with Europe’s ever-hotter and increasingly common blistering summer heatwaves a result of the long-term warming.

With peaks of 39C (102F) expected in the cities of Naples and Palermo, Sicily has ordered a ban on outdoor work in the hottest hours of the day, as has the Liguria region in northern Italy.

The country’s trade unions are campaigning to extend the measure to other parts of the country.

In Greece, the first heatwave of the summer arrived on Thursday when a fast-moving wildfire engulfed holiday homes and forest land on a section of the Greek coastline just 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, Athens.

More than 100 firefighters, supported by two dozen firefighting aircraft, battled the wildfire that tore across the coastal area of Palaia Fokaia. The flames were whipped up by high winds as temperatures approached 40C (104F).

The heatwave comes hot on the heels of a series of tumbling records for extreme heat, including Europe’s hottest March ever, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitor.

As a result of the planet’s warming, extreme weather events including hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves like this weekend’s have become more frequent and intense, scientists warn.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Monday again made it harder for Death Row inmates and other criminals to challenge their convictions in a federal court by claiming their constitutional rights were violated by state courts.

The pair of 6-3 rulings, including one in a California case, could speed the pace of executions around the nation. Many inmates have kept their legal cases–and themselves–alive by contesting their convictions in prolonged battles in federal courts.

In one decision, the justices reinstated a death sentence against a Sonoma County man who in 1975 shot and killed his wife. The second ruling involved a Virginia case.

Together, the rulings send a now-familiar message: Convicted criminals should not routinely get a second chance to contest their cases in a federal court.

About 95% of criminal cases nationwide are handled in the state courts. During the 1960s and ‘70s, however, the Supreme Court encouraged federal judges to closely review state cases to make sure that a defendant’s rights under the U.S. Constitution were protected. Inmates took advantage of this protection by filing a petition of habeas corpus to transfer their cases from a state to a federal court.

But under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the high court has stressed the opposite. Federal judges should not casually meddle in state court matters, the conservative majority has said.

The California case concerned whether an inmate should get a second chance to contend that he was unfairly induced to incriminate himself.

The defendant in the case, Owen Duane Nunnemaker, was sentenced to death for the 1975 slaying of his estranged wife, Alice. Nunnemaker went to her home in Sebastopol, Calif., shot her at close range and cut a phone cord to prevent her children from calling for help. She died of her wounds.

He later claimed he loved her, but was temporarily deranged. Prosecutors, however, sent a police psychiatrist to interview Nunnemaker, who found him calm and rational. During the trial, the psychiatrist gave damaging testimony against the defendant, who was convicted and sentenced to death.

In his appeal in state courts, Nunnemaker said his Miranda rights were violated because the psychiatrist never warned him his statements could be used against him. The California appellate courts ruled that it was too late for Nunnemaker to raise this Miranda issue. His lawyer should have objected during the trial, the judges said.

Without giving a reason, the California Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal.

But he fared better in the federal courts. Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit of Court Appeals ruled that Nunnemaker was entitled to a hearing before a federal judge to see whether his constitutional rights had been violated.

The Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit erred in the case, Ylst vs. Nunnemaker, 90-68. The majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the federal appeals court should have presumed that the California courts declined to hear Nunnemaker’s appeal for procedural reasons, and the federal courts have no power to second-guess those procedural rules.

In their dissent from the ruling, Justices Harry A. Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens said, “The Court today continues its crusade to erect petty procedural barriers” to raising constitutional claims in the federal courts.

Monday’s other death penalty case ruling was written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, herself a former state judge. She rejected the claim of a Virginia Death Row inmate that his initial appeal of his conviction still should be considered by that state’s court system, even though his lawyer was three days late in filing it.

The case “concerns the respect the federal courts owe the states,” O’Connor said. Because the state rules forbid the consideration of a late appeal, the federal courts must do the same, she said in Coleman vs. Thompson, 89-7662.

Law enforcement spokesmen praised the rulings for upholding valid criminal convictions. The decisions mean that an old legal challenge “cannot be resuscitated by some sympathetic federal judge,” said Charles Hobson of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. But Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), whose House subcommittee is considering the federal habeas corpus laws, lambasted the court. The decisions “force innocent prisoners to pay the ultimate price for the errors of their lawyers in a state court,” Edwards said.

A flawed start and a worrying amount of possession and opportunity for the Force gave way to a strong win in the end for the Lions.

McCarthy was a compelling force up front as the Lions backline eventually ran amok.

They will sweat on what looked like a hamstring injury for Williams, who had been playing like a thoroughbred.

Jamison Gibson-Park has not yet played for these Lions, although he is expected to be available for midweek in Brisbane. It is a worry for coach Andy Farrell.

The Lions got off to a flyer on the night after a sustained bout of possession when Russell dipped into his box of tricks with a sumptuous cross-kick to Sheehan on the right wing.

Sheehan tapped to James Lowe, who gave it back to his captain for the score. The creator banged over the conversion.

A blistering beginning, but there was trouble ahead. Just as the Lions scored with their first attack, so too did the Force.

Again it was a slow turning of the screw before White sprung from the bottom of a ruck just short the line. Ben Donaldson was good with the conversion.

The Force were heavy underdogs but for 40 minutes they played with a confidence that belied their poor season in Super Rugby. They repeatedly got into the Lions 22 and time and again the tourists got pinged.

The Lions conceded five penalties in 80 minutes against the Pumas in Dublin. They conceded four in 10 minutes in Perth. Sheehan was warned about the ill discipline of his team as early as the 11th minute. This is not how it was supposed to be.

If the Force had been more accurate they would have capitalised on all those entries into the Lions 22.

They won a penalty and went for touch on the right, but nothing came of it. They won another penalty and went for touch on the left, but nothing came of that either.

Credit the tenacity of the Lions defence too, but they were doing much of it. When they got ball in hand, they were the polar opposite of the Force.

It must have been a sickener for the hosts when the visitors lifted the siege in their own territory only to score straight away.

A break from Ireland’s Josh van der Flier, a big burst from England’s Pollock and a support line from Wales’ Williams and over they went. Ruthless. More Force wastefulness followed and soon another Lions try arrived.

Like the first, it was Russell at the root of it, his tap penalty, break and offload putting Daly over. A minor scuffle broke out in the aftermath.

The Force’s angst carried on. Once more they had a close-range lineout – and a one-man advantage after Pollock saw yellow at breakdown – but they could not execute.

All-white outfits, lush green courts, strawberries and cream, and glittering champions’ trophies at the end of two weeks.

Players and fans are gearing up for a fortnight of much-awaited tennis action as the Wimbledon Championships 2025 get under way on Monday.

From top players to unique quirks, here’s what you need to know about the tournament:

When is Wimbledon 2025 starting, and when are the finals?

The main round of the championships begins on Monday, June 30 with the men’s and women’s singles first-round matches. Here are the key dates for the men’s and women’s singles matches at the Grand Slam:

• First to fourth round: June 30 to July 7
• Quarterfinals: July 8 and 9
• Women’s singles semifinals: July 10
• Men’s singles semifinals: July 11
• Women’s singles final: July 12
• Men’s singles final: July 13

Where is Wimbledon played, and what’s SW19?

The third and the oldest tennis Grand Slam of the year, and the only one played on grass, attracts thousands of visitors to its famed courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Club (AELTC) in the southwest of London, the United Kingdom.

The venue is also known as SW19, shortened from its postcode of SW19 5AG.

During the two weeks of the tournament’s main rounds, the town is bathed in the purple and green colours of the event, with shops, cafes and restaurants sporting tennis-themed decorations.

Who are the favourites to win Wimbledon 2025?

Carlos Alcaraz: The two-time champion is favourite to defend his title after winning this year’s French Open, as well as Queen’s Club Championship, a pre-Wimbledon tournament in London considered a dress rehearsal for the Slam.

Jannik Sinner: The world number one has yet to grab the Wimbledon trophy, but his rise through the rankings in the past two years and wins at two of the last three Slams make him Alcaraz’s main contemporary.

Aryna Sabalenka: The world number one may not have played a Wimbledon final yet, but has dominated the women’s rankings since October 2024 and has played in the finals of the last three Grand Slams. She won the Australian and US Open in 2024 and after losing in Roland-Garros, the Belarusian will be looking to add Wimbledon to her list of majors titles.

Marketa Vondrousova: The most in-form grass-court player and 2023 Wimbledon champion has made a swift rise in the women’s rankings over the past few weeks. Vondrusova won the Berlin Open, where she beat the likes of Sabalenka, Ons Jabeur and Madison Keys to the title. While the Czech player’s 2023 Wimbledon triumph may have been a surprise, the 25-year-old will be the one to watch in 2025.

Who are the top seeds?

Men’s:

1. Jannik Sinner
2. Carlos Alcaraz
3. Alexander Zverev
4. Jack Draper
5. Taylor Fritz
6. Novak Djokovic
7. Lorenzo Musetti
8. Holger Rune
9. Daniil Medvedev
10. Ben Shelton

Women’s:

1. Aryna Sabalenka
2. Coco Gauff
3. Jessica Pegula
4. Jasmine Paolini
5. Qinwen Zheng
6. Madison Keys
7. Mirra Andreeva
8. Iga Swiatek
9. Paula Badosa
10. Emma Navarro

Is there a dress code for players and spectators at Wimbledon?

Yes. All players must be dressed in white – not off-white or cream – when they step on the court for their matches. Not only should the clothes and shoes be all white, but any caps, headbands and wristbands by a player can also only be white in colour. Male players’ undergarments must also be entirely white. The organisers are more tolerant of colourful attire on practice courts.

While there is no strict dress code for the spectators, they are encouraged to dress smartly while attending matches on the Centre Court or Court Number One.

For those invited to watch a match from the Royal Box, a smart dress attire is mandatory.

The championship is often considered an unofficial fashion showpiece, especially when celebrities and dignitaries frequent the courts on the last few days.

What’s new at Wimbledon 2025?

The tournament has joined the Australian Open and US Open in replacing on-court line judges with a live electronic calling system.

Organisers say its 80 former officials will be employed this year as match assistants, with two on each court offering support to the umpire, while they will also provide backup should the electronic system fail.

What is ‘strawberries and cream’ and why is Wimbledon famous for it?

In stark contrast to the various fast food items consumed at sports stadiums around the world, Wimbledon offers its attendees a unique delicacy: strawberries and cream.

True to its name, the SW19 specialty is nothing more than juicy red British strawberries dipped in fresh cream, but the treat’s distinct combination and mass consumption year after year has made it a Wimbledon novelty.

According to the organisers, at least 7,000 litres (1,850 gallons) of cream and 28,000kg (62,000lb) of strawberries – grown specially for the tournament at a farm in Kent – are consumed during the fortnight of the championship.

Who has won the most Wimbledon titles?

Czech-American tennis great Martina Navratilova has won the women’s singles title on nine occasions and has an astonishing overall 20 Wimbledon titles to her name, including seven women’s and four mixed doubles from 1976 to 2003.

Switzerland’s Roger Federer, often regarded as the greatest men’s grass-court player, has won eight Wimbledon titles between 2003 and 2017.

How to buy tickets or join the queue for Wimbledon 2025?

The Wimbledon public ballot, held in the closing months of the preceding year, is the fans’ first and easiest means of buying tickets for the following year’s championship.

Failing that, fans have the opportunity to buy tickets on the day for the two weeks of the tournament by joining the famous Wimbledon queue.

Starting from the metal gates of the AELTC grounds, the queue snakes around Church Road and well into the public parks opposite the venue.

Fans begin queuing from late evening for the following day’s entry, which can bring them tickets for one of the main show courts or simply entry to the tournament’s premises. Tents are pitched, snacks and drinks are shared, and the long hours waiting for a chance to enter the venue are spent following the scores online or by snoozing while in queue.

“Tickets are sold on a best available, one per person queuing basis and are non-transferable,” according to the organisers, and once the capacity limit is reached, entry is only possible as people leave.

How much is the prize money for Wimbledon 2025?

The tournament’s prize money has increased by seven percent to a record pot of $72.6m in a bid to ease off pressure from the players for a bigger share of Grand Slam profits.

The winners of the men’s and women’s singles titles will each receive $4.08m, an increase of more than 11 percent on 2024, while a main draw spot is worth a minimum of $89,683, up 10 percent.

How to follow and live stream Wimbledon 2025?

The tournament will be aired to over 220 territories around the world via satellite, terrestrial and digital broadcasters.

Al Jazeera Sport will cover the men’s and women’s singles finals with its comprehensive live text and photo commentary stream.

One day closer 😏#Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/0fyL0ntM0p

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 24, 2025

A state funeral has been held in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with Israel.

Coffins draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders, were flanked by crowds near Tehran’s Enghelab Square.

The conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in Iran.

Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed.

Ahead of the event, a media campaign urged people to participate, with authorities providing free bus and metro rides. Government offices were shut for the day.

Among those laid to rest on Saturday was Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces.

Bagheri was to be buried with his wife and daughter, who were killed in an Israeli strike. In total, Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran. Israeli officials said 28 people were killed in Israel following missile attacks by Iran.

Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and nuclear scientists including Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi – head of Azad University in Tehran – were also among those laid to rest.

The funeral was attended by prominent figures including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani – an advisor to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – state television showed. Shamkhani was injured in an Israeli strike earlier this month.

It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again.

Responding to a question from the BBC’s Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would “without question” attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Trump has also repeated his assertions that Iran was “decimated”, writing: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie.”

Trump also claimed to have known “exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered”, saying he “would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

“I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, ‘thank-you, president Trump!'”, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making “disrespectful” comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved “nothing significant”.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on X.

“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”

Araghchi has admitted that “excessive and serious” damage was done to Iran’s nuclear sites by the recent bombings.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it is still not known how much of Iran’s nuclear capabilities – including highly-enriched uranium and the centrifuges needed to purify the metal – have been destroyed or moved.

The agency’s director general Rafael Grossi also said that stopping Iran from being able to build nuclear weapons would not be achieved through military attacks.

“You are not going to solve this in a definitive way militarily, you are going to have an agreement,” he told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On social media, Trump claimed that in recent days he had been “working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

But he said Khamenei’s comments had deterred him, declaring: “Instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more.”

Rich people suck.

The message was loud and clear when Netflix‘s Korean thriller “Squid Game” arrived in 2021. Imagining wealth and class disparity at the heart of a high-stakes competition, it featured cash-strapped contestants playing a series of children’s games to the death while uber-wealthy spectators bet on their odds of survival. The show’s masked elites watched the carnage from a luxe, concealed spectator box, chomping on cigars and chortling as player after player met a gruesome death. The Korean-language show became the streamer’s most watched series ever.

Comeuppance for the hideously affluent seemed imminent and likely at the hands of protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). The winner of Season 1’s “Squid Game” deserved vengeance after surviving a series of horrific scenarios — a hopscotch-type match played on a fragile glass bridge above a deadly chasm, a red light-green light contest where players who moved at the wrong time were “eliminated” by machine gun fire. He watched as good people were killed by pink guards, other contestants and their own stupid actions.

But no. The last six “Squid Game” episodes, now streaming on Netflix, did something entirely unsatisfying. They veered from the prospect of timely, eat-the-rich vengeance porn to unflattering commentary about the rest of us, the other 99% who aren’t Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. What did we ever do to deserve a lethal game of double dutch with two giant mechanical children swinging a 10-ton metal rod in place of a jump rope? A lot, apparently.

“Squid Game” shows that under the right circumstances, regular folks are just as greedy and morally corrupt as the obscenely prosperous, no matter if their money problems stem from unforeseen medical bills, wanton gambling or generational poverty. Press the little guy or gal hard enough and they’re just as ruthless as the mogul that’s suppressing them.

The VIPs in “Squid Game” Season 3, who watch as the contestants trample one another.

(Dong-won Han / NohJu Han / Netflix)

Season 3 picks up exactly where 2 left off. Gi-hun, who’d found his way back in the clandestine gaming complex (situated inside a mountain on a remote island), is Player 456 again among a new round of contestants. He’d planned to infiltrate the operation from inside, staging a coup against the VIPs and Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) who run the games. But now it’s clear he’s failed. He’s cornered by guards, the players who fought alongside him are dead, and he’s thrown back in with the remaining players, many of whom survived because they’re the most craven of the group.

Free and fair elections are at the heart of every democracy, or so “Squid Game” reminds us each time the bedraggled players are asked for their vote regarding the next round: Continue to compete and thin the herd for a larger reward or stop and split their winnings with their fellow contestants? Majority rules, and each time the group opt to sacrifice their lives — and everyone else’s — in pursuit of money. Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has spoken about his dwindling faith in humanity as it relates to his concerns about South Korea’s democracy, and you’ll hear him loud and clear in Season 3: Voting is power, but look what happens when the population increasingly puts its own self-interest above that of the greater good. It’s a scenario that should be recognizable to Americans by now.

“Squid Game” Season 3 takes that idea to the extreme, and quite fearlessly, Hwang puts the series to bed without punishing the rich. Instead he dares to lay bare a truth that’s become all too apparent of late: Wealth wins over morality and money trumps accountability. Nice guys not only finish last, they wind up pulverized like everyone else below a certain tax bracket, no matter their dedication toward humanity.

The Korean show’s run has ended, but not before a finale that alludes to a Hollywood sequel. The episode, set in Los Angeles, shows a familiar scene. A down-and-out man is approached by a mysterious, well-dressed figure who uses a simple kid’s game to test his want of money against his tolerance for pain and humiliation.

Those who’ve watched “Squid Game” will recognize it as the beginning of Gi-hun’s journey, which ended with a sliver of redemption in an abyss of darkness. The mysterious figure appears to be a recruiter for a new, English-language “Squid Game.” She’s played by an A-list celebrity — Cate Blanchett — operating in a city renowned for its self-involvement and privilege. “Squid Game” has a whole new playing field.

As Canada pushes ahead with a new digital services tax on foreign and domestic technology companies, United States President Donald Trump has retaliated by ending all trade talks and threatened to impose additional tariffs on exports from Ottawa.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump called the new Canadian tax structure a “direct and blatant attack on our country”, adding that Canada is “a very difficult country to trade with”.

“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote. He added that he would announce new tariffs of his own for Canada in a matter of days.

US companies such as Amazon, Meta, Google and Uber face an estimated $2bn in bills under the new tax.

Trump’s decision marks a sharp return to trade tensions between the two countries, abruptly ending a more cooperative phase since Mark Carney’s election as Canada’s prime minister in March.

It also marks a further escalation in the trade-as-pressure tactic under Trump’s second term in Washington.

The US is Canada’s largest trading partner by far, with more than 80 percent of Canadian exports destined for the US. In 2024, total bilateral goods trade exceeded US$762bn, with Canada exporting $412.7bn and importing $349.4bn – leaving the US, which counts Canada as its second-largest trading partner, with a goods deficit of $63.3bn.

A disruption due to tariffs on products like automobiles, minerals, energy or aluminium could have large ripple effects across both economies.

So, what is Canada’s digital tax? Why is Carney facing domestic pushback on the taxes? And how is Washington responding?

What is Canada’s digital services tax?

Canada’s Digital Services Tax Act (DSTA) came into force in June last year. It is a levy on tech revenues generated from Canadian users – even if providers do not have a physical presence in the country.

The DSTA was first proposed during the 2019 federal election under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and received approval in Canada on June 20, 2024. It came into force a week later, on June 28. The first payments of this tax are due on Monday, June 30, 2025.

Large technology firms with global revenues exceeding $820m and Canadian revenues of more than $14.7m must pay a 3 percent levy on certain digital services revenues earned in Canada. Unlike traditional corporate taxes based on profits, this tax targets gross revenue linked to Canadian user engagement.

Digital services the levy will apply to include: Online marketplaces, social media platforms, digital advertising and the sale or licensing of user data.

One of the most contentious parts of the new framework for businesses is its retroactive nature, which demands payments on revenues dating back to January 1, 2022.

Why is Trump suspending trade talks over the new tax?

On June 11, 21 US Congress members sent a letter to President Trump, urging him to pressure Canada to eliminate or pause its Digital Services Tax. “If Canada decides to move forward with this unprecedented, retroactive tax, it will set a terrible precedent that will have long-lasting impacts on global tax and trade practices,” they wrote.

Then, in a Truth Social post on Friday this week, Trump said Canada had confirmed it would continue with its new digital services tax “on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country”.

He added that the US would be “terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately” and that he would be levying new tariffs of his own on Canada within seven days.

“They have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products,” Trump said, adding, “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

Later, at the Oval Office, Trump doubled down, saying: “We have all the cards. We have every single one.” He noted that the US holds “such power over Canada [economically]”. “We’d rather not use it,” Trump said, adding: “It’s not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.

“Most of their business is with us, and when you have that circumstance, you treat people better.”

Trump also said he would order a Section 301 investigation under the Trade Act to assess the DSTA’s effect on US commerce, which could potentially lead to other punitive measures.

On Friday, White House National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, told the  Fox Business Friday programme: “They’re taxing American companies who don’t necessarily even have a presence in Canada.”

Calling the tax “almost criminal”, he said: “They’re going to have to remove it. And I think they know that.”

How has Canada responded?

Relations had seemed friendlier between the two North American neighbours in recent months as they continue with trade talks. Trump and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had clashed previously – with Trump calling Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak” during the 2018 G7 talks in Canada.

But newly elected Carney enjoyed a cordial visit with Trump in May at the White House, while Trump travelled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta on June 16 and 17. Carney said at the summit that the two had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks.

In a brief statement on Friday, Prime Minister Carney’s office said of Trump’s new threats to suspend trade talks over the digital tax: “The Canadian government will continue to engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses.”

Last week, Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told reporters that the digital tax could be negotiated as part of the broader, ongoing US-Canada trade discussions. “Obviously, all of that is something that we’re considering as part of broader discussions that you may have,” he had said.

Those discussions had been expected to result in a trade deal in July. However, they are now in limbo.

What do Canadian business leaders say?

Carney has been facing pressure from domestic businesses as well, which have lobbied the government to pause the digital services tax, underlining that the new framework would increase their costs for providing services and warning against retaliation from the US.

The Business Council of Canada, a nonprofit organisation representing CEOs and leaders of major Canadian companies, said in a statement that, for years, it “has warned that the implementation of a unilateral digital services tax could risk undermining Canada’s economic relationship with its most important trading partner, the United States”.

“That unfortunate development has now come to pass,” the statement noted. “In an effort to get trade negotiations back on track, Canada should put forward an immediate proposal to eliminate the DST in exchange for the elimination of tariffs from the United States.”

Has Trump used tariffs to pressure Canada before?

Yes. Prior to the DSTA, Trump has used tariffs to pressure Canada over what he says is its role in the flow of the addictive drug, fentanyl, and undocumented migration into the US, as well as broader trade and economic issues.

On January 20, in his inaugural address, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy resources. Trump claimed that Canada has a “growing footprint” in fentanyl production, and alleged that Mexican cartels operate fentanyl labs in Canada, particularly in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

These tariffs were paused for 30 days following assurances from Canada that appropriate action would be taken to curb the flow of fentanyl, and then re-imposed in early March.

Do other countries levy a similar digital tax?

Yes, several countries around the world have introduced digital services taxes (DSTs) similar to Canada’s. France was one of the first to introduce a DST in 2019, eliciting an angry response from Trump who was serving his first term as president. The French tax is a 3 percent levy on revenues from online advertising, digital platforms and sales of user data.

The UK followed with a 2 percent tax on revenues from social media platforms and search engines. Spain, Italy, and Austria have also implemented similar taxes, with rates ranging from 3 to 5 percent. Turkiye has one of the highest DST rates at 7.5 percent, covering a wide range of digital services such as content streaming and advertising.

Outside Europe, India has a 2 percent “equalisation levy” on foreign e-commerce operators which earn revenues from Indian users. Kenya and Indonesia have also created their own digital tax systems, though they’re structured slightly differently – Indonesia, for instance, applies Value Added Tax (VAT) – or sales tax – on foreign digital services, rather than a DST.

The US government has strongly opposed these taxes; some of these disputes have been paused as part of ongoing negotiations led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organisation made up of 38 member countries, which is working on a global agreement for taxing digital companies fairly.

Canada held off on implementing its DST until 2024 to give time for the OECD talks. But when progress stalled, it went ahead with the 3 percent tax that applies retroactively since January 2022.

Should the EU be worried about this?

The European Union is likely to be watching this situation closely as digital tax is likely to be a key concern during its own trade talks with the US.

Trump has repeatedly warned that similar tax measures from other allies, including EU countries, could face severe retaliation.

Trump’s administration has previously objected to digital taxes introduced by EU member states like France, Italy, and Spain. In 2020, the US Trade Representative investigated these taxes under Section 301 and threatened retaliatory tariffs, though those were paused pending OECD-led global tax negotiations.

The European Commission has confirmed that digital taxation remains on the agenda, especially if a global deal under the OECD fails to materialise. President Ursula von der Leyen said on June 26 that “all options remain on the table” in trade discussions with the US, including enforcement mechanisms against discriminatory US measures.

The high-stakes trade negotiations ongoing between the US and the EU have a deadline for July 9 – the date that Trump’s 90-day pause on global reciprocal tariffs is due to expire. Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs of up to 50 percent on key European exports, including cars and steel, if a deal is not reached.

In response to these threats, the EU has prepared a list of retaliatory tariffs worth up to 95 billion euros ($111.4bn), which would target a broad range of US exports, from agricultural products to Boeing aircraft. EU leaders have signalled that they will defend the bloc’s tax sovereignty, while remaining open to negotiation.

California’s fight to rein in President Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles hinges on a 19th century law with a a blood-soaked origin and a name that seems pulled from a Spaghetti Western.

In a pivotal ruling this week, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered the federal government to hand over evidence to state authorities seeking to prove that the actions of troops in Southern California violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which forbids soldiers from enforcing civilian laws.

“How President Trump has used and is using the federalized National Guard and the Marines since deploying them at the beginning of June is plainly relevant to the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote Wednesday in his order authorizing “limited expedited discovery.”

The Trump administration objected to the move and has already once gotten a sweeping Breyer ruling that would’ve limited White House authority over the troops overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

This time, the Northern District of California judge made clear he would “only allow discovery as to the Posse Comitatus Act” — signaling what could be the state’s last stand battle to prevent Marines and National Guard forces from participating in immigration enforcement.

The Posse Comitatus Act dates back to the aftermath of the Civil War when the American government faced violent resistance to its efforts to rebuild Southern state governments and enforce federal law following the abolition of slavery.

The text of the law itself is slight, its relevant section barely more than 60 words. Yet when it was enacted, it served as the legal epitaph to Reconstruction — and a preface to Jim Crow.

“It has these very ignoble beginnings,” said Mark P. Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University and one of the country’s foremost experts on the statute.

Before the Civil War, the U.S. military was kept small, in part to avoid the kinds of abuses American colonists suffered under the British.

Authorities back then could marshal a crew of civilians, called a posse comitatus, to assist them, as sometimes happened in California during the Gold Rush. States also had militias that could be called up by the president to pad out the army in wartime.

But law enforcement by the U.S. military was rare and deeply unpopular. Historians have said the use of soldiers to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act — which saw escaped slaves hunted down and returned to the South — helped spark the Civil War.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has used constitutional maneuvers invented to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act to justify using troops to round up immigrants. Experts said leaders from the antebellum South demanded similar enforcement of the law.

“The South was all for posse comitatus when it came to the Fugitive Slave Act,” said Josh Dubbert, a historian at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library in Ohio.

But by the time Congress sent federal troops to begin Reconstruction in earnest in 1867, the landscape was very different.

After white rioters razed Black neighborhoods in Memphis and mobs of ex-Confederate soldiers massacred Black demonstrators in New Orleans in the spring of 1866, “most of the South [was] turned into military districts,” said Jacob Calhoun, a professor of American history at Wabash College and an expert on Reconstruction.

“Most scholars, let alone the American public, do not understand the scale of racial violence during Reconstruction,” Calhoun said. “They only send these troops in after unimaginable levels of violence.”

At the polls, Black voters were met by white gangs seeking to prevent them from casting ballots.

“For most of American history, the idea of an American army intervening in elections is a nightmare,” Calhoun said. “[Posse Comitatus] is reemphasizing this longstanding belief but for more nefarious purposes.”

The Posse Comitatus language was tucked into an appropriations bill by Southern Democrats after their party won control of Congress in the election of 1876 — “possibly the most violent election in American history_,” Calhoun said.

Historians say white lawmakers in the post-war South sought to enshrine their ability to keep Black men from voting by barring federal forces from bolstering the local militias that protected them.

“Once they’re in control of Congress, they want to cut the appropriations for the army,” Dubbert said. “They attach this amendment to [their appropriations bill] which is the Posse Comitatus Act.”

The bill won support from some Republicans, who resented the use of federalized troops to put down the Railroad Strike of 1877 — the first national labor strike in the U.S.

“It is a moment in which white Northern congressmen surrender the South back to ex-Confederates,” Calhoun said. “With the Posse Comitatus Act, racial violence becomes the norm.”

Yet the statute itself largely vanished from memory, little used for most of the next century.

“The Posse Comitatus Act was forgotten for about 75 years, from after Reconstruction to basically the 1950s, when a defense lawyer made a challenge to a piece of evidence that the Army had obtained,” Nevitt said. “The case law is [all] after World War II.”

Those cases have largely turned on troops who arrest, search, seize or detain civilians — “the normal thing the LAPD does on a daily basis,” Nevitt said. The courts have stood by the bedrock principle that military personnel should not be used to enforce the law against civilians, he said, except in times of rebellion or other extreme scenarios.

“Our nation was forged in large part because the British military was violating the civil rights of colonists in New England,” Nevitt said. “I really can’t think of a more important question than the military’s ability to use force against Americans.”

Yet, the law is full of loopholes, scholars said — notably in relation to use of the National Guard.

Department of Justice has argued Posse Comitatus does not apply to the military’s current actions in Southern California — and even if it did, the soldiers deployed there haven’t violated the law. It also claimed the 9th Circuit decision endorsing Trump’s authority to call up troops rendered the Posse Comitatus issue moot.

Some experts feel California’s case is strong.

“You literally have military roaming the streets of Los Angeles with civilian law enforcement,” said Shilpi Agarwal, legal director of the ACLU of Northern California, “That’s exactly what the [act] is designed to prevent.”

But Nevitt was more doubtful. Even if Breyer ultimately rules that Trump’s troops are violating the law and grants the injunction California is seeking, the 9th Circuit will almost certainly strike it down, he said.

“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” the attorney said. “And if they find a way to get to the Supreme Court, I see the Supreme Court siding with Trump as well.”

The Lakers and Clippers put in the work during the NBA’s two-day draft that was completed Thursday night and now they will turn their attention to shaping their rosters.

The first key dates are Sunday, when LeBron James and Dorian Finney-Smith have to inform the Lakers and when James Harden has to inform the Clippers of their decisions to opt in or out of their contracts, and Monday, when the NBA free-agency period begins.

James has a player option for $52.6 million and Finney-Smith has one for $15.3 million.

“At that point, we’ll know the tools we have to go out into free agency and fill out the roster with the draft ending tonight,” Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, told Spectrum SportsNet after the second round of the draft Thursday. “The work for that has already begun, but the focus now will turn from draft focus to free agency and we won’t rest until we get it right.”

Harden, who has a player option of $36.3 million, also has the same day to let the Clippers know his desires.

“He’s our No. 1 priority,” Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations, told the media after the first round of the draft Wednesday night. “We’re super hopeful that James is here and he’s here for a long time. He has a player-option, so he can opt-in … or he can opt-out and hopefully we can do a deal that makes sense for both sides. But James, as you guys know, was phenomenal and we hope to continue to see his play.”

The Lakers were able to add an athletic wing player when they acquired Adou Thiero in a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who picked him with the 36th pick of the second round.

The most pressing need for the Lakers remains a center, and they’ll have to look into free agency or via trade to acquire one.

The top big men are Indiana’s Myles Turner, Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez and Atlanta’s Clint Capela.

Turner, who made $19.9 million last season, is probably headed back to the Pacers and will do so at a price the Lakers can’t offer him. The Lakers have the taxpayer mid-level exception of about $5.65 million to spend.

“As I said at the end of the year, we know one of the things we have to address is the center position and that’s clearly going to be one of our focuses as we begin the free-agency period,” Pelinka said on the Lakers’ TV show. “And that’s right around the corner.

“So, we’re looking forward to just putting in the hard work and making sure we take care of all the needs on the roster to give [Lakers coach] JJ [Redick] the tools he needs for this team to be great next season.”

Though the Clippers drafted a center in the first round with the 30th pick, getting Yanic Konan Niederhausher of Penn State, Frank said his team “probably will have at least three centers.”

The Clippers can use their non-taxpayer mid-level exception that’s projected to be about $14.1 million on a player or two, and perhaps even find a center.

They will also perform due diligence by calling other teams to see about trade opportunities.

“You’re always in constant contact with all the teams,” Frank said. “You have a good sense of the things that you can be involved with and other things that you’re not.”

Free agency begins Monday at 3 p.m. PDT, but players can’t sign contracts until July 6.

Also, Clippers wing Norman Powell is eligible for a contract extension. He has one year left on his deal that pays him $20.4 million next season.

“At the appropriate time, we’ll sit with Norm and his representatives to talk about what kind of an extension and what it would look like and how it would fit in the bigger picture,” Frank said.

Spain’s Ballon d’Or holder, Aitana Bonmati, is hospitalised with meningitis two weeks before the Euro 2025 championships.

Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmati, the two-time Ballon d’Or holder, has been hospitalised with viral meningitis less than a week before the Women’s European football championship begins.

Spain coach Montse Tome said late on Friday that her star player had felt ill and was taken to a hospital in Madrid where she tested positive for meningitis.

Spain’s team is set to travel to Switzerland on Sunday for the tournament. Its first game is against Portugal on Thursday in Bern. It will also face Belgium and Italy in Group B at Euro 2025.

“Aitana is a very important player for us and we will wait for her,” Tome said after Bonmati missed Friday’s friendly against Japan in the Spanish capital when Spain beat the visitors 3-1.

Tome said that Bonmati started feeling bad with a fever during practice early on Friday.

“She has authorised me to say that she has viral meningitis,” Tome said. “The word is scary, but the doctor tells me that she is under control. She will remain in the hospital and we don’t know for how long.”

The 27-year-old Bonmati has won the top individual award for women for the past two years. The Barcelona player was key in Spain winning the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Bonmati’s vision, dribbling skills, passing and goals have also been vital to Barcelona reaching five consecutive Champions League finals, with the Catalan club winning three titles.

Her absence would put more pressure on Alexia Putellas, herself a two-time Ballon d’Or winner, and fellow Barcelona midfielder Patricia Guijarro, to lead Spain. Against Japan, Tome started 18-year-old Vicky Lopez in place of Bonmati.

Three years ago, Putellas tore her ACL three days before starting the 2022 European Championship. Spain was eliminated in the quarterfinals without its then-top player.

Spain should still be favoured in its opener against Portugal, a team it beat twice in April – including a 7-1 home victory – in the Nations League.

During the first meeting of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s recently downsized vaccine panel, the group voted to stop recommending flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a vaccine preservative.

In a lengthy June 24 X post that preceded the meeting, Kennedy, who spent two decades as an anti-vaccine movement leader, described thimerosal using terms such as “toxic” and said hundreds of studies identify it as a carcinogenic “potent neurotoxin”. He also said there are high doses of mercury in flu shots recommended to pregnant women and children.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices’ (ACIP) two-day meeting on June 25 and 26 included discussion of vaccines containing thimerosal before its vote on flu vaccines.

ACIP is an independent group which provides vaccine recommendations the CDC director reviews and decides whether to formally adopt. Earlier in June, Kennedy dismissed 17 ACIP members, replacing them with seven new members, including people who’ve expressed doubt about vaccine efficacy and promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods.

Doctors and scientists who study vaccines have been researching thimerosal’s use for decades. Here’s what we know about the vaccine preservative and its removal from flu vaccines.

What is thimerosal? 

Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used in some vaccines.

Many people – particularly those who are pregnant or breastfeeding – encounter warnings about consuming mercury, such as in seafood. But those warnings are about methylmercury, which is found in certain kinds of fish and is known to be toxic to people when consumed at high levels.

Thimerosal contains ethylmercury – a single-letter difference that might not sound significant, but is.

Human bodies can break down and excrete ethylmercury quickly, meaning it is less likely to cause harm. By contrast, methylmercury is more likely to accumulate in the body and cause harm.

In vaccines, thimerosal is added to prevent harmful microbes such as bacteria and fungi from growing in vaccine vials.

“Introduction of bacteria and fungi has the potential to occur when a syringe needle enters a vial as a vaccine is being prepared for administration,” the CDC’s website said. “Contamination by germs in a vaccine could cause severe local reactions, serious illness or death. In some vaccines, preservatives, including thimerosal, are added during the manufacturing process to prevent germ growth.”

Thimerosal has been at the heart of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism for 20 years.

In 2005, Kennedy wrote an article co-published by Rolling Stone and Salon that alleged leading health agencies including the CDC and US Food and Drug Administration had colluded with vaccine manufacturers to conceal a study that found thimerosal “may have caused autism in thousands of kids”. Scientists and researchers said Kennedy’s argument was inaccurate and misleading. Continued research has found no link between thimerosal and autism. Kennedy’s article was removed from Rolling Stone, and Salon retracted it in 2011.

In 2015, Kennedy wrote a book opposing thimerosal’s use in vaccines.

Which vaccines use thimerosal? 

Thimerosal is not used in the vast majority of vaccines.

All vaccines the CDC routinely recommends for children age six or younger are available without thimerosal.

Children receiving the routine paediatric vaccine schedule “can get completely immunised without any thimerosal-containing vaccines”, said Dr Mark Sawyer, a paediatrics professor at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and a paediatric infectious disease physician.

Some childhood vaccines have never contained thimerosal. These include the measles, mumps and rubella – or MMR – vaccine, the varicella or chickenpox vaccine, the inactivated polio vaccine and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.

Thimerosal was removed from most vaccines – including all childhood vaccines – as of 2001, the CDC said.

Thimerosal is still used in vaccines today, but not as widely.

The preservative is in only a small fraction of influenza vaccine vials, specifically the multi-dose vials that constitute a small portion of the US flu shot supply, Dr Jake Scott told PolitiFact. Scott is a Stanford University School of Medicine infectious disease specialist.

The FDA said thimerosal use has declined as vaccine manufacturers have developed more single-dose vaccines that do not require preservatives.

Scott said the CDC lists 12 influenza vaccine formulations for the 2024 to 2025 flu season, which will also cover the 2025 to 2026 season because no new flu vaccines have been licensed. Of those 12 vaccines, just three are multi-dose vaccines that contain thimerosal at 25 micrograms – equal to 25 millionths of a gram – per dose, he said.

CDC’s supply data shows single-dose, thimerosal-free syringes make up about 96 percent of the US flu vaccine supply, leaving roughly 4 percent as multi-dose vials, Scott said.

“Single-dose syringes are the default for paediatrics and prenatal care, so real-world exposure is even lower,” he said.

Because flu vaccines with thimerosal constitute a small portion of the influenza vaccine supply, public health experts told The Washington Post the committee’s vote to stop recommending them would have a limited impact, although it could make flu shots more expensive and less accessible in some parts of the US.

What does research show about thimerosal?

Because anti-vaccine activists’ focus has centred on whether thimerosal causes autism, numerous scientific studies have investigated a potential link and found no causal relationship between the preservative and autism.

When scientists evaluated thimerosal’s potential impacts and risks they found:

• Giving infants vaccines containing thimerosal “does not seem to raise blood concentrations of mercury above safe values in infants” as the ethylmercury “seems to be eliminated from blood rapidly via the stools” after vaccination.
• Three controlled and two uncontrolled observational studies “consistently provided evidence of no association” between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.
• “No scientific evidence exists that thimerosal-containing vaccines are a cause of adverse events among children born to women who received influenza vaccine during pregnancy.”

Vaccine researchers told PolitiFact that thimerosal was removed from vaccines out of an abundance of caution, not because research proved that thimerosal was unsafe.

Thimerosal was removed from vaccines because people thought it might cause problems, said Rachel Roper, a microbiology and immunology professor at East Carolina University. But ultimately, “studies were done and it was shown to be safe”.

There’s no evidence to date that thimerosal “causes any harm whatsoever”, Sawyer said.

Michelle Ryan has been spotted back filming on the EastEnders set for the first time just weeks after her character Zoe Slater made a surprise return to the soap

Michelle Ryan has been spotted back on the set of EastEnders for the first time since making her surprise return to the BBC soap just weeks ago.

Viewers were left in shock when Zoe made her return to the soap after 20 years, although she scarpered once again after a close run in with her mother Kat. During her brief stint earlier this month, Zoe was seen away from the Square in Stacey Slater’s (Lacey Turner‘s) flat as Alfie Moon (Shane Richie) came to help.

Zoe then fled to Barcelona after a close run in with her mother Kat, as she revealed she was hiding a big secret that everyone would “hate her” for if they found out. Currently, Alfie is in Barcelona to try and bring Zoe back. It’s known Zoe will be returning to the Square later this year, with the first pictures of the star on set released.

In the pictures, Michelle could be seen filming on set with Sonny Kendall, who plays Kat Slater’s (Jessie Wallace) son, Tommy Moon. Zoe has never met her half-brother Tommy, but from the pictures, it looks like their first meeting could be happening very soon. As well as Tommy, Zoe also has half brothers Bert and Ernie, who she’s also yet to meet.

Fans can expect drama to go down when Zoe eventually does reunite with her mum Kat. The pair had a turbulent relationship, with which included revelations about Kat’s past and the truth about Zoe’s parentage. Despite a reconciliation, the pair’s relationship became fractured again and they now remained estranged.

However, Alfie hopes to bring the two back together by bringing Zoe back from Barcelona, although we could see dramatic scenes if his plan backfires. Keeping Zoe’s return a secret from his wife, Alfie told Kat he was off to Australia, as his brother Spencer needed help.

Kat is already becoming suspicious, as she was heard telling Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) that she hadn’t spoken to Alfie since he left – and Spencer had been acting weird when she called.

Prior to Alfie leaving, Kat was heard telling him that their relationship would be over for good if she found out he was lying about his whereabouts. Will Kat be able to forgive him? And how will her reunion with her daughter Zoe go down?

Zoe’s return marked the first episode for new Executive producer Ben Wadey, but it’s not the only legendary return we’ll be seeing. This week, it was announced that Karen Henthorn would be reprising her role as Julie Bates, as Nigel’s dementia gets progressively worse.

Speaking on Michelle Ryan’s return to the soap, Wadey said: “Before I even stepped into the role, Zoe Slater was on my wish-list of returnees as although we haven’t seen her on screen for twenty years, her character has transcended time due to her popular storylines.

“I was absolutely delighted when Michelle agreed to return, and I’m thrilled to welcome her back to Walford. Whilst I can’t say too much at this stage, Zoe’s return is just one of the many exciting storylines we have planned.”

EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads .

Southern California Edison’s admission that its equipment may have ignited the Hurst fire in the San Fernando Valley on Jan. 7 is being seized on by lawyers suing the utility company for another fire in the same area nearly six years earlier.

Both the Saddleridge fire in 2019 and the Hurst fire this year started beneath an Edison high-voltage transmission line in Sylmar. The lawyers say faulty equipment on the line ignited both blazes in the same way.

“The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner as the fire that started the Saddleridge fire,” the lawyers wrote of the Hurst fire in a June 9 filing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The lawyers said the January wildfire is “further evidence” that a transmission pylon known as Tower 2-5 “is improperly grounded.”

Edison told the state Public Utilities Commission in February that “absent additional evidence, SCE believes its equipment may be associated with the ignition of the Hurst Fire.” But the company denies claims that its equipment sparked the 2019 fire, which tore through Sylmar, Porter Ranch and Granada Hills — all suburbs of Los Angeles — burning 8,799 acres.

“We will continue to focus on facts and evidence — not on preposterous and sensational theories that only serve to harm the real victims,” said Edison spokesman David Eisenhauer. He declined further comment on the case.

The Saddleridge wildfire destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes and other structures, according to Cal Fire, and caused at least one death when resident Aiman El Sabbagh suffered a cardiac arrest.

Edison is being sued by insurance companies, including State Farm and USAA, to recoup the cost of damages paid to their policyholders. Homeowners and other victims are also seeking damages. A jury trial for the consolidated cases is set for Nov. 4.

In their June 9 filing, the plaintiffs’ lawyers also claimed Edison wasn’t transparent with officials looking into the cause of the 2019 fire. One fire official characterized the utility’s action as “deceptive,” the filing said.

Edison discovered a fault on its system at 8:57 p.m. — just three minutes before the blaze at the base of its transmission tower was reported to the Fire Department by Sylmar resident Robert Delgado, according to the court filing.

But Edison didn’t tell the Los Angeles city Fire Department about the fault it recorded, the filing said. Instead the fire department’s investigation team discovered the failure on Edison’s transmission lines through dash cam footage recorded by a motorist driving on the 210 Freeway nearby, the filing said.

When Timothy Halloran, a city Fire Department investigator, went to the location of the flash shown on the motorist’s camera, he found “evidence of a failure on SCE’s equipment,” the filing said.

Halloran said in a deposition that employees of the business located where the evidence was found told him that Edison employees “attempted to purchase” footage from the company’s security camera on the night of the fire, the filing said.

“The video footage shows a large flash emanating from the direction of SCE Transmission Tower 5-2,” the filing said.

Halloran testified in his deposition that he believed Edison was trying to be “deceptive” for attempting to purchase the security camera footage and not reporting the system fault to the Fire Department, the lawyers said.

Halloran didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Edison’s maintenance of its transmission lines is now being scrutinized as it faces dozens of lawsuits from victims of the devastating Eaton fire, which also ignited on Jan. 7.

Videos showed that fire, which killed 18 people and destroyed thousands of homes, starting under a transmission tower in Eaton Canyon. The investigation into the cause of the fire is continuing.

Victims of the 2019 fire say they’ve become disheartened as Edison has repeatedly asked for delays in the court case.

“Many plaintiffs have not yet been able to rebuild their homes” because of the delays, wrote Mara Burnett, a lawyer representing the family of the man who died.

Burnett noted that Aiman El Sabbagh was 54 when he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest during the incident. His children, Tala and Adnan El Sabbagh, “feel they were robbed of things they treasured and worked hard for with no apparent recompense in sight.”

Both the Saddleridge and Hurst fires included a similar chain of events where a failure of equipment on one tower resulted in two or more fires igniting under different towers elsewhere on the line, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Edison designed and constructed the towers that run through Sylmar in 1970. They hold up two transmission lines: the Gould-Sylmar 220 kV circuit and the Eagle Rock-Sylmar 220 kV circuit.

In the case of the Saddleridge fire, investigators from the Los Angeles Fire Department and the California Public Utilities Commission found that at 8:57 pm on Oct. 10, 2019, a Y-shaped steel part holding up a transmission line failed, causing the line to fall on a steel arm.

The failure caused a massive electrical fault, lawyers for the plaintiffs say, that sparked fires at two transmission towers that were more than two miles away.

State and city fire investigators say the Saddleridge fire began under one of those towers. And they found unusual burning at the footing of the other tower, according to a report by an investigator at the utilities commission.

The utilities commission investigator said in the report that he found that Edison had violated five state regulations by not properly maintaining or designing its transmission equipment.

This year’s Hurst fire ignited not far away on Jan. 7 at 10:10 p.m. It also began under one of Edison’s transmission towers.

According to Edison’s Feb. 6 report to the utilities commission, the company found that its hardware failed, resulting in equipment falling to the ground at the base of a tower.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs say that they now have more evidence of the fire’s start. They say that investigators found that the hardware failure set off an event — similar to the 2019 fire — that resulted in five fires at five separate transmission tower bases on the same line.

One of those fires spread in high winds to become the Hurst fire. Officials ordered 44,000 people to evacuate. Air tankers and 300 firefighters contained the fire before it reached any homes.

He was replaced by Mexican reserve Luis Carrera for the remainder of the round, with their combined score counting towards their team Smash GC’s score.

LIV said Koepka can return for the second and third rounds but his score would contribute only to his team’s.

Players compete individually and for teams at LIV events.

They tee off at the same time on different holes, known as a shotgun start.

Koepka, who has won five times on the LIV tour, missed the cut at the Masters in April and the US PGA Championship in May, and finished tied for 12th at this month’s US Open.

Speaking about his form after the first round of the US Open, he said: “I would say from the first weekend in April until about last week, you didn’t want to be around me.

“It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven’t been happy. It’s been very irritating.”

The former world number one won the most recent of his majors in 2023 at the US PGA.

June 27 (UPI) — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the nation is launching an investigation into the impacts of debris from debris that landed in the country after SpaceX rocket exploded in Texas.

Sheinbaum said in a press conference Wednesday that there “is indeed contamination” and Mexico is launching a general review of the impact of the debris.

SpaceX is denying that debris from the explosion of one of its rockets has damaged the environment in Mexico.

“We are reviewing everything related to the launching of rockets that are very close to our border,” Sheinbaum said, adding that Mexico would “file any necessary claims” if it found SpaceX violated international laws.

The SpaceX Starship exploded on June 19 during a preflight procedure for its 10th test flight from Starbase, Texas, with previous flights also exploding in the air after launch and scattering material in the surrounding areas.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the time called the incident “just a scratch,” as no one was injured, although Mexico alleges the explosion sent debris along the shoreline of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

The company, however, denied the claims in a post on X on Thursday.

“As previously stated, there are no hazards to the surrounding area,” SpaceX said. “Previous independent tests conducted on materials inside Starship, including toxicity analyses, confirm they pose no chemical, biological, or toxicological risks.”

Environmental activists have alleged that debris from the incident has caused a die-off of marine life, such as dolphins, sea turtles and fish, while residents of the city of Matamoros have ostensibly found canisters and metal pieces on the beaches there as well.

The nonprofit environmental organization Conibio Global A.C. posted to its social media platform Monday that Sheinbaum responded to their complaint in regard to SpaceX debris and sent a crew of technicians, scientists and biologists among other specialists to investigate hunks of metal, rubber and plastic, as well as combustion tanks that purportedly fell from the Starship explosion into an area that includes the Río Bravo River.

“Within the inspections they took samples of water from the river and the beach, soil, sand, burnt plants, among others,” the post said, and also showed photos that allegedly show pieces of Starship wreckage and damage to trees.

Another post from last week purportedly shows a large piece of Starship that fell into an area of communal farmland known as La Burrita.

The group also posted video from Bagdad Beach in Matamoros that allegedly shows Starship pieces, one of which is clearly labeled “SpaceX.”

In the Thursday X post from SpaceX, the company says it has made attempts to recover debris from the explosion, and that it has “requested local and federal assistance from the government of Mexico in the recovery of anomaly related debris, offered resources and assistance in the clean-up, and have sought validation of SpaceX’s right to conduct recovery operations.”

“SpaceX looks forward to working with the Mexican government and local authorities for the return of the debris as soon as possible,” the post concluded.

A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into an army convoy in Khbyer Pakhtunkhwa province, officials say.

More than a dozen soldiers have been killed and dozens of people were wounded in a suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said.

Saturday’s attack was carried out in Khadi Market, Mir Ali, North Waziristan, according to a local media outlet, Khyber Chronicles, which quoted security sources.

Security officials said the attacker detonated explosives near a bomb disposal unit vehicle, killing 13 people.

At least 24 personnel, including 14 civilians, were also injured in the attack, the report said.

“A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a military convoy,” a local government official in North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province told the AFP news agency separately.

Children among the injured

“The explosion also caused the roofs of two houses to collapse, injuring six children,” a police officer posted in the district told AFP.

It was one of the deadliest single-day attacks on security forces in recent months in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani military.

The attack was claimed by the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, a faction of the Pakistan Taliban, or TPP.

Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbour of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan – a claim the Taliban denies.

About 290 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, according to an AFP tally.

A woman was left almost crying as she was told she may not be able to make her journey to Paris as there was something wrong with her passport – but she had no idea there was a problem

A woman was left almost sobbing as she realised she’d made a big passport mistake when she was travelling from Sydney to Paris. Jane Lu was trying to board her flight with a passport she’d recently used on two trips to America when she was told that she may not be able to fly due to there being something wrong with it.

Over the top of the video, she wrote: “Help?! Has anyone ever had this happen?” as she explained the situation to her followers. Jane explained that she couldn’t get onto her flight because staff told her her passport was invalid due to “water damage”.

“They’re saying that I’m flying by China, and they might not let me through, and Paris might not let me through, but I’ve already flown twice with this passport to the US,” she seethed, almost in tears.

She said that because she’d gone to America twice on the passport when it was damaged, she “didn’t think it would be a problem”.

In a follow-up video, Jane explained that she had to “sign a waiver” that said if she got turned away in Paris, she’d have to make the journey back to Australia, so she was nervous about what would happen, because she had an over-24-hour journey ahead of her.

She said that she hoped they’d be “super chill” as she arrived in Paris, and it turned out they were, as she managed to get in and could complete her business trip successfully.

In the comments, someone wrote: “I think the people at the check-in in Australia are just way too thorough. This happened to my sister. They told her she had to board the flight at her own risk as her passport had a water stain. But when we landed in Singapore, they did not even notice”.

Another defended the airport, however, saying “border security is paramount”. A woman warned her to “apply for a new passport” and to ensure she “keeps it perfect,” rather than allowing it to get water-damaged.

“What I wanna know, how do SO many people get water damage on their passports? Are ya’all taking them for a swim?” someone fumed.

A travel agent shared her advice, penning: “Travel agent here – a passport is a legal document, so, therefore, it must not have any damage. If an airline sends you to a place and you are denied entry, they receive a massive fine.

“Also, you can be detained on arrival for having a damaged passport. Much better to be denied here than to be put in jail or be turned around at the other end. If it’s damaged, it needs to be replaced.

“Some countries take this pretty seriously. I had a customer detained when their family went overseas and their kid spilt water on their passport and risked it. It’s not about intention, it’s about being safe”.

According to My British Passport, if a passport is too damaged, then the owner of the passport may not be able to fly. They share that the extent of the damage determines whether it can still be used.

Minor wear and tear might be acceptable, but if the passport cannot be read or the chip is damaged, boarding may be denied.

According to the Post Office, the HM Passport Office classifies a passport as damaged if the following conditions are met: the details are indecipherable, the laminate has lifted enough to allow the possibility of photo substitution and the bio-data page is discoloured.