Month: June 2025

Scotland suffered a surprise last-ball defeat by Nepal in a nailbiting World Cup League 2 one-day international in Dundee.

Chasing the home side’s 296-7, Nepal’s last pair levelled the scores with one ball of the final over to spare.

And, when left-arm spinner Mark Watt’s delivery down the leg side was signalled as a wide to hand Nepal victory, it sparked a pitch invasion from passionate Nepal fans.

Nepal, who sit second bottom of the eight-team qualifying section, had lost to a second-string Scotland A side in a warm-up match on Thursday.

With Scotland asked to bat first, it looked like opener Charlie Tear’s 80, with Finlay McCreath pitching in with 55, had set a healthy target for the visitors.

Although Nepal opener Khushal Bhurtel scored 55, they slumped from 152-2 to 192-7 before all-rounder Karan KC, coming in at nine, did the damage with an unbeaten 65 from 41 balls, including four sixes.

Nepal went into the final over on 290-8 after Karan had plundered 18 from the 49th, but George Munsey caught Sandeep Lamichhane off Watt’s first delivery.

However, a wide from Watt and a single from last man Rijan Dhakal left Karan on strike with five needed for victory from three deliveries.

Karan hit two twos before Watt’s second wide of the over sealed an unlikely victory.

It looked like the fateful delivery may have come off Karan’s pad, but any protests were to no avail as Nepal took the points against a Scotland side sitting fourth in the table and four places above the visitors in the world rankings.

The ODI tri-series continues on Wednesday at the same venue, with Nepal taking on the Netherlands.

Coming into the French Open, Norrie said he had been playing some of his best tennis, describing his level as similar to when he was a top-10 player back in 2022.

It raised eyebrows – but he proved to be right.

A memorable five-set win over former world number one Medvedev set the tone, followed by victories against Argentine qualifier Federico Gomez and fellow Scot Jacob Fearnley, who replaced him as British number two earlier this year.

Facing Djokovic was a different proposition.

Norrie had lost all five of his previous meetings with the three-time French Open champion, including a three-set defeat in the Geneva Open 10 days ago.

He was quickly outmanoeuvred in the first set and, after Djokovic needed medical treatment on foot blisters, the British number three could not maintain an early break in the second.

Crucially, Norrie could not convert more chances, with Djokovic saving break points in lengthy service games at 2-2 and 3-3.

The former world number one then raced away with the final set, breaking early and reeling off five games in a row before serving out victory.

Despite not being able to end his miserable run against Djokovic, Norrie said it has been “a really enjoyable” clay-court swing.

Earlier this year he had been in danger of tumbling out of the world’s top 100 after a difficult couple of years struggling for form and fitness.

But a reinvigorated Norrie will now move back into the top 60 when he starts the grass-court season back in the UK.

“I played 20 clay-court matches, and for me that’s huge,” he said.

“The way for me to take confidence is playing and then actually getting through some tough matches.”

Pan Am 103 produced the largest crime scene in UK history, covering 845 square miles just over the border as debris and human remains fells out of the sky

New BBC drama series, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, has stunned viewers with its depiction of the shocking events of December 21 1988 and the devastating aftermath.

The deadliest terrorist incident to have occurred on British soil hit Lockerbie when a bomb exploded in the cargo area of the plane. All 259 people aboard the plane died and 11 on the ground lost their lives on December 21. The debris covered 845 square miles- more than 2,000 square km, spread over the border into Northumbria creating the largest crime scene in UK history.

Boeing 747 Clipper Maid Of The Seas had taken off from Heathrow and was less than two hours into its flight to New York and Detroit when passengers perished within seconds of the blast over Lockerbie, which is located in Dumfries and Galloway, south-western Scotland.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 dramatizes the Scots-US investigation into the attack, the effect it had on victims’ families and how it impacted Lockerbie’s locals.

The six part series also highlights that lobbying by UK and US-based family groups resulted in “key reforms, from strengthening travel warning systems and tighter baggage screening, to people-centred responses to major disasters”.

So what happened that fateful a day when residents of a small Scottish town prepared for the holiday time with loved ones, while Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the skies above them?

READ MORE: Sex Education star’s horror over terrorist attack that killed 270 people

That evening at around 7.10 pm, resident Donald Bogie heard a sound that became so loud that he said it became “almost unbearable”. Then suddenly it went eerily quiet. He ran out of his house and saw flames. The streets were on fire, lawns were on fire, homes were on fire. Bodies lay everywhere.

Over in a field lay the body of a young man who was only wearing his underpants because the rest of his clothes had been torn off during the fall. Beside him was an undamaged bottle of Chivas Regal.

Farmer Kate Anderson told the Mirror how the cockpit of Pan Am flight 103, landed 50 yards from her remote cottage. The bodies of Captain James Bruce MacQuarrie, his copilot and the flight engineer were found still strapped into their seats. There were 98 bodies that rained on her land that evening.

Speaking in 2018 on how she and other locals tried to help in the horrifying aftermath she said: “It felt like you were living in a film. Your human resources kicked in. You did what you could to help.

“There were families who were devastated. The poor soldiers who spend Christmas day picking up bits of bodies – many of them suffered afterwards,”

Recalling the start of the nightmare, she described how it was ferociously windy: “It was blowing a hoolie that night. We heard an explosion. We later realised it was the sound of the plane hitting Lockerbie, ” she remembers.

“We could hear the bang from three miles away and could see the mushroom from the explosion. We knew it was fuel. I thought it might have been a petrol station. We could hear something whistling, so we went inside.

“There was another bang, and the electricity went off. We could see something white in our field when we went back outside. It was the cockpit, and it was about 50 yards from our house.”

Kate and her husband Kevin approached the shattered plane. She said: “It was silent. There was no sign of life. We looked inside, and there were several bodies in there, but you just knew that none of them were alive.

“There were bodies all over our farm. We later found out 98 bodies landed in our farm that night.”

Local police officer Michael Gordon was on the phone chatting to a friend when he heard a strange rumbling sound outside.

In a 2003 television interview, Michael recalled: “The weather that night was a bit wild, there was a strong wind. From my window, I could see Lockerbie as my house sits up on a hill and I heard this noise above the noise of the wind..”

He at first assumed it was a jet fighter plane as the military were known to practice in the area. He then described how he saw objects falling from the sky before seeing a fireball hurtling straight towards Lockerbie.

“When it hit, I could hear the most horrendous explosion, and I could hear the tiles on the roof of my house lifting. “

The explosion cut all telephone lines and the water supply. The fire department was able to put out all the fires within seven and a half hours using milk wagons, which were quickly filled with water and driven to the many burning pieces of wreckage.

Michael went out to help find survivors. He recalled: “Everything was on fire. I was jumping around – it was difficult to move without feeling my trousers burning.”

In the morning light, the full horror of what happened could be seen clearly. On the southern edge of the town was a huge crater with 1500 tonnes of rock and earth that had been blasted out of the ground.

Several houses on the ground in the direct path of the fireball Michael saw had been vaporised. The main plane wreckage fell on Lockerbie – both wings and its midsection – 150 tonnes of machine descending up to 500 knots speed to create the crater.

Around it, there was debris and human remains. Elsewhere In the ruins of homes, people searched for the bodies that fell out of the sky.

One shellshocked resident told one of the many TV crews that descended onto the quiet town that her street “looked like a scene out of hell.” The mid-section of the Boeing 747 fell from the sky onto Ella Ramsden’s home in Park Place. In astonishing luck the 60-year-old survived the crash – as she ran carrying her Jack Russell to the kitchen – the only part of her home that remained standing.

Ella’s dog Cara, her budgie, and even her pet goldfish survived. Ella and Cara were pulled out of the window in her kitchen door that she had broken with a frying pan. The next day, the budgie was found fluttering about the ruins and the goldfish were still swimming in their tank amid the rubble.

Ella had been tidying up after a visit by her son and two young grandsons when she heard a deafening noise and flashes of red. Speaking to the Mirror in 1998 on the ten-year anniversary of the tragedy Ella said: “The house started to come in over me. Suddenly the stars were above me. I smashed a window in the kitchen and screamed for help. People ran round to the front, but there was no front any more.

“For me, it was only losing a house. For so many others it was a loss beyond imagination.”

Ella’s family was grateful she lived for another 22 years after Lockerbie. She died in 2010. Over 60 bodies were reportedly recovered from Ella’s house and garden. It was reported that among them was US passenger Lorraine Buser – who was found sat strapped to plane seat 35C on the remains of the roof.

Lorraine, who was pregnant, was one of three members of an American family who died. There were 12 children under the age of 10 who perished that night. The youngest fatality was nine weeks old.

Normally, only four policemen worked in the Lockerbie region, but by Thursday morning there were 1,100 working alongside 1,000 soldiers, firemen and volunteers.

The youngest police officer, Colin Dorrance, then 18, saw a farmer driving a pick-up truck carrying debris from Pan Am 103 and, in the front seat, was the body of a young girl.

“It was the body of a child he’d found in a field at the back of his farm, ” he recalled in a 2018 interview.

“It was a young child under the age of five. It looked as though they were asleep; it wasn’t obviously injured, and it was just a shock to realise it was a passenger from Pan Am 103.

“At the time it all happened so fast. There were hundreds of passengers brought into the town hall.” The retired police officer later discovered it was a child by the name of Bryony Owen who was 20 months old. Bryony was travelling to the United States with her mother Yvonne Owen from Wales, to spend Christmas in Boston.

The first bodies were brought to the town hall, but people then started bringing them to the ice rink because it was the only place big and cold enough to store so many bodies.

Reportedly, more than half of those living in Lockerbie and the surrounding areas at the time who witnessed the terrible events and aftermath suffer from PTSD.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the bombing. The former Libyan intelligence officer was found guilty of mass murder in 2001.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 continues tonight on BBC1 at 9pm

TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa’s new mayor on Sunday proposed a $100 million private trust as part of a reparations plan to give descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre scholarships and housing help in a city-backed bid to make amends for one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.

The plan by Mayor Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Oklahoma’s second-largest city, would not provide direct cash payments to descendants or the last two centenarian survivors of the attack that killed as many as 300 Black people. He made the announcement at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the once-thriving district of North Tulsa that was destroyed by a white mob.

Nichols said he does not use the term reparations, which he calls politically charged, characterizing his sweeping plan instead as a “road to repair.”

“For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city’s history,” Nichols said Sunday after receiving a standing ovation from several hundred people. “The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

“Now it’s time to take the next big steps to restore.”

Nichols said the proposal wouldn’t require city council approval, although the council would need to authorize the transfer of any city property to the trust, something he said was highly likely.

The private charitable trust would be created with a goal to secure $105 million in assets, with most of the funding either secured or committed by June 1, 2026. Although details would be developed over the next year by an executive director and a board of managers, the plan calls for the bulk of the funding, $60 million, to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing the city’s north side.

“The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,” Nichols said in a telephone interview. “So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.”

Nichols’ proposal follows an executive order he signed earlier this year recognizing June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official city holiday. Events Sunday in the Greenwood District included a picnic for families, worship services and an evening candlelight vigil.

Nichols also realizes the current national political climate, particularly President Trump’s sweeping assault on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, poses challenging political crosswinds.

“The fact that this lines up with a broader national conversation is a tough environment,” Nichols admitted, “but it doesn’t change the work we have to do.”

Jacqueline Weary, is a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that were destroyed. She acknowledged the political difficulty of giving cash payments to descendants. But at the same time, she wondered how much of her family’s wealth was lost in the violence.

“If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,” said Weary, 65. “It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally taken away.”

Tulsa is not the first U.S. city to explore reparations. The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, was the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination, offering qualifying households $25,000 for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city. The funding for the program came from taxes on the sale of recreational marijuana.

Other communities and organizations that have considered providing reparations range from the state of California to cities including Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; and Iowa City, Iowa; religious denominations like the Episcopal Church; and prominent colleges like Georgetown University in Washington.

In Tulsa, there are only two living survivors of the Race Massacre, both of whom are 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher. The women, both of whom were in attendance on Sunday, received direct financial compensation from both a Tulsa-based nonprofit and a New York-based philanthropic organization, but have not received any recompense from the city or state.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the survivors and the founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, said earlier this year that any reparations plan should include direct payments to Randle and Fletcher and a victims’ compensation fund for outstanding claims.

A lawsuit filed by Solomon-Simmons on behalf of the survivors was rejected by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial justice advocates’ hopes that the city would ever make financial amends.

Murphy writes for the Associated Press.

LA28 announced Honda its automotive partner for the L.A. Olympics on Monday, securing a major founding-level partnership that will help the private organizing committee cover its estimated $7 billion budget.

Honda, which opened its U.S. headquarters in L.A. in 1959 and is now based in Torrance, will work with LA28 on an accessible vehicle fleet that maximizes electric vehicles for the Games to help move athletes and officials around Southern California. The partnership will support U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and the Summer Games in 2028.

Financial terms of the top-tier partnership were not announced. Honda joins Delta and Comcast as LA28’s founding partners expected to lead the way in covering the estimated $2.5 billion in corporate sponsorship needed to stage the first Summer Games held in the United States since 1996.

“As a privately funded games, our mandate is to generate the revenue we need to produce these Games,” LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said in an interview with The Times. “The biggest line item of that is sponsorship revenue. To be able to announce another big partner with a really spectacular brand who has been invested in Southern California for a long time is both [financially] important but also, in many ways, strategically important. It’s another brand that sees the power of our Olympic platform to tell their story in a community that’s very important to that industry that they’ve been invested in for a long time.”

Honda enters the Olympic and Paralympic arena after Toyota ended its long-running partnership with the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee after the 2024 Games. The Olympic Partners (TOP) program lost several major Japanese sponsors after the Paris Olympics, including Panasonic and Bridgestone, sending shockwaves through the Olympic and Paralympic movements. The TOP program accounts for roughly 30% of the IOC’s revenue — the largest share after broadcast rights — and a portion of the money from the top sponsors contributes to the budget of the national organizing committee’s plan to deliver the Games.

With three years before the Games, LA28 has announced several sponsorship deals in recent weeks. Aviation company Archer will provide air taxis to help alleviate traffic concerns. Saatva signed as the Games’ official mattress sponsor. Snowflake, a cloud-based data storage company, will assist athletes with training data and provide information on fan engagement.

The latest deal puts LA28 on pace to hit its goal of $2 billion in sponsorships by the end of 2025, Wasserman said. IOC contributions, ticket sales and merchandise are among the revenue streams that will help balance the budget. If LA28 goes over budget, Los Angeles city government has agreed to cover the first $270 million in debt with the state of California absorbing up to $270 million.

June 1 (UPI) — Ahead of South Korea’s snap presidential elections on Tuesday, the nation’s diplomatic relations with North Korea and China have risen to the fore — and officials are investigating voting irregularities.

“The relations between South Korea and China have become the worst ever,” Lee Jae-myung, the left-leaning presidential candidate leading public opinion polls, said in remarks to The New York Times. “I will stabilize and manage the relations.”

The already historically low diplomatic relations between South Korea and North Korea, as well as its relations with China, further soured after then-South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was removed from office over imposing martial law in April, a move that was short-lived.

The bellicose North Korea has distance itself from South Korea following the failed 2019 Hanoi summit between Korean Korean Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump, which continued during Yoon’s conservative administration.

Pyongyang last year ended its founding goal of reunification and named South Korea its “principal enemy.”

The Yoon administration also shook a delicate diplomatic balance between Washington and Beijing. China was South Korea’s biggest post-Cold War trading partner, but the United States was its main military ally.

Early voter turnout was strong, but poll watchers expressed concern over irregularities. In past elections, the National Election Commission dismissed the irregularities as “simple mistakes” or “minor mistakes.”

The NEC has pushed back on claims of polling irregularities.

South Korean independent presidential candidate Hwang Kyo-ahn said on Sunday he is withdrawing from the race to support People Power Party’s Kim Moon-soo, local media reported.

“I will withdraw my efforts to supporting Kim Moon-soo to protect the government,” he said. My final task is to prevent election fraud. Fortunately, Kim has pledged to address election irregularities.”

Polling places are scheduled to receive ballots from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, which is a holiday because of the election.

“We are at a critical juncture,” Lee said on social media Sunday, “and it is in the hands of each and every one of you that we can return this country to its people, halt the retreat of democracy, and create a truly great Korea.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o loved to dance. He loved it more than anything else – even more than writing. Well into his 80s, his body slowed by increasingly disabling kidney failure, Ngugi would get up and start dancing merely at the thought of music, never mind the sound of it. Rhythm flowed through his feet the way words flowed through his hands and onto the page.

It is how I will always remember Ngugi – dancing. He passed away on May 28 at the age of 87, leaving behind not only a Nobel-worthy literary legacy but a combination of deeply innovative craft and piercingly original criticism that joyfully calls on all of us to do better and push harder – as writers, activists, teachers and people – against the colonial foundations that sustain all our societies. As for me, he pushed me to go far deeper up river to Kakuma refugee camp, where the free association of so many vernacular tongues and cultures made possible the freedom to think and speak “from the heart” – something he would always describe as writing’s greatest gift.

Ngugi had long been a charter member of the African literary canon and a perennial Nobel favourite by the time I first met him in 2005. Getting to know him, it quickly became clear to me that his writing was inseparable from his teaching, which in turn was umbilically tied to his political commitments and long service as one of Africa’s most formidable public intellectuals.

Ngugi’s cheerfulness and indefatigable smile and laugh hid a deep-seated anger, reflecting the scars of violence on his body and soul as a child, young man and adult victimised by successive and deeply intertwined systems of criminalised rule.

The murder of his deaf brother, killed by the British because he did not hear and obey soldiers’ orders to stop at a checkpoint, and the Mau Mau revolt that divided his other brothers on opposite sides of the colonial order during the final decade of British rule, imbued in him the foundational reality of violence and divisiveness as the twin engines of permanent coloniality even after independence formally severed the connection to the metropole.

More than half a century after these events, nothing would arouse Ngugi’s animated ire more than bringing up in a discussion the transitional moment from British to Kenyan rule, and the fact that colonialism didn’t leave with the British, but rather dug in and reenforced itself with Kenya’s new, Kenyan rulers.

As he became a writer and playwright, Ngugi also became a militant, one devoted to using language to reconnect the complex African identities – local, tribal, national and cosmopolitan – that the “cultural bomb” of British rule had “annihilated” over the previous seven decades.

After his first play, The Black Hermit, premiered in Kampala in 1962, he was quickly declared a voice who “speaks for the Continent”. Two years later, Weep Not Child, his first novel and the first English-language novel by an East African writer, came out.

As he rose to prominence, Ngugi decided to renounce the English language and start writing in his native Gikuyu.

The (re)turn to his native tongue radically altered the trajectory not just of his career, but of his life, as the ability of his clear-eyed critique of postcolonial rule to reach his compatriots in their own language (rather than English or the national language of Swahili) was too much for Kenya’s new rulers to tolerate, and so he was imprisoned for a year without trial in 1977.

What Ngugi had realised when he began writing in Gikuyu, and even more so in prison, was the reality of neocolonialism as the primary mechanism of postcolonial rule. This wasn’t the standard “neocolonialism” that anti- and post-colonial activists used to describe the ongoing power of former colonial rulers by other means after formal independence, but rather the willing adoption of colonial technologies and discourses of rule by newly independent leaders, many of whom – like Jomo Kenyatta, Ngugi liked to point out – themselves suffered imprisonment and torture under the British rule.

Thus, true decolonisation could only occur when people’s minds were freed from foreign control, which required first and perhaps foremost the freedom to write in one’s native language.

Although rarely acknowledged, Ngugi’s concept of neocolonialism, which owed much, he’d regularly explain, to the writings of Kwame Nkrumah and other African anti-colonial intellectuals-turned-political leaders, anticipated the rise of the now ubiquitous “decolonial” and “Indigenous” turns in the academy and progressive cultural production by almost a generation.

Indeed, Ngugi has long been placed together with Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak as the founding generation of postcolonial thought and criticism. But he and Said, whom he’d frequently discuss as a brother-in-arms and fellow admirer of Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad, shared a similar all-encompassing focus on language, even as Said wrote his prose mostly in English rather than Arabic.

For Said and Ngugi, colonialism had not yet passed, but was very much still an ongoing, viscerally and violently lived reality – for the former through the ever more violent and ultimately annihilatory settler colonialism, for the latter through the violence of successive governments.

Ngugi saw his link with Said in their common experience growing up under British rule. As he explained in his afterword to a recently published anthology of Egyptian prison writings since 2011, “The performance of authority was central to the colonial culture of silence and fear,” and disrupting that authority and ending the silence could only come first through language.

For Said, the swirl of Arabic and English in his mind since childhood created what he called a “primal instability”, one that could be calmed fully when he was in Palestine, which he returned to multiple times in the last decade of his life. For Ngugi, even as Gikuyu enabled him to “imagine another world, a flight to freedom, like a bird you see from the [prison] window,” he could not make a final return home in his last years.

Still, from his home in Orange County, California in the United States, he would never tire of urging students and younger colleagues to “write dangerously”, to use language to resist whatever oppressive order in which they found themselves. The bird would always take flight, he would say, if you could write without fear.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

MABEL scrapped an entire album before making her new self-titled mixtape – after being “crippled” by the expectations.

The singer, whose previous album About Last Night came out in 2022, said she felt pressure to live up to her debut, High Expectations.

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It won her a Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist.

Mabel said on TikTok: “I did scrap an album.

“I kept waiting for this moment like, ‘Now’s the time to put out an album’, but inevitably you change, you grow, and the music you made last year or the year before, you’ve kind of outgrown it.”

She added: “People expect you to do certain things and get certain accolades again like it’s easy.

“But that has been crippling, mentally and creatively, for me for years.”

Cardi’s love boat

CARDI B put the boot into her ex-husband Offset by going Instagram official with American football player Stefon Diggs.

The WAP rapper has been rowing with the Migos musician for weeks, with him seeking spousal support from her in their divorce, which she is arguing against.

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But Cardi made it clear he’s the last thing on her mind as she confirmed her romance with Stefon in sexy snaps on a yacht.

Good for her.

SAM IN THE KIT PARADE

SAM FENDER is out on the Toon as the star of an ad to launch Newcastle United’s new third kit.

I revealed last week how the Geordie singer had signed a massive deal with Adidas, as part of a tie-in with his beloved Magpies.

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My exclusive pictures show Sam on set at the Tyneside Irish Centre, just over the road from St James’ Park, as he filmed the new ad with more than 100 extras.

My source said: “As well as the Adidas ad tying in to Sam’s massive People Watching tour which kicks off in London on Friday, it will be used to launch Newcastle’s new third kit.

“He arrived at 3pm and filmed for five hours with loads of extras. Sam was decked out head to toe in Adidas and played his guitar. He was on top form and everyone who met him said he was absolutely lovely.

“It was a long shoot but everyone who took part got to take home a pair of brand new trainers as a treat.

“Sam is really pleased with how the ad looks and so are the big cheeses at Newcastle United.”

Since his debut album Hypersonic Missiles, which went straight to No1 in 2019, Sam has been on the most incredible rise.

I’ve no doubt the journey is going to get even more exciting for Sam in the years to come.

And now he’s got some lovely new clobber to wear while he’s doing it.

MILEY CYRUS is battling it out with Garbage to score her third No1 album on Friday.

Her album Something Beautiful is in the lead to top the charts.

But just behind her is Garbage’s new record Let All That We Imagine Be The Light.

They may face opposition from Taylor Swift, whose album Reputation is at No8 in midweek figures.

NADINE TO TELL ALL IN MEMOIR

NADINE COYLE has risked falling out with her Girls Aloud mates again with a memoir that promises to “tell all” on their career, including notorious “bust-ups”.

She reunited with Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh last summer for a successful UK tour after patching up their differences.

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But I imagine they might be more than a little worried about what Nadine has written in the book, called Loud: Diary Of A Derry Girl.

It is due to be released in time for Christmas, with details about it leaking online after Amazon put up a pre-order link early, seemingly by accident.

A description said it will be “an intimate tell-all account” of her life.
It added: “This is her story, a story full of friendships, a lot of laughs,

some bust-ups and just a whole lot of pop.”

It’s also likely to touch on her close friendship with bandmate Sarah Harding, who died from cancer in 2021, so I’m sure it will be an emotional read.

RADIO 2 In The Park is heading to Chelmsford, Essex, for three days from September 5-7.

The annual music festival will take place in Hylands Park, with tickets going on sale at 8.30am tomorrow.

That will follow the line-up announcement during Scott Mills’ breakfast show this morning.

JOJO: HEAD OVER HEELS FOR CHRIS

JOJO SIWA has finally confirmed her romance with reality no-mark Chris Hughes, two months after meeting in the Celebrity Big Brother house.

Jojo split with her partner hours after leaving the ITV show in April.

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She said in a new interview: “It’s not platonic any more.

“It’s been a beautiful development, a beautiful connection, and I’m absolutely head over heels for him and he’s the same way.”

Hitting back at critics, she added: “Anyone who suggests the relationship is a PR stunt is only telling on themselves.

“Clearly, you’ve never been around us.

“I won’t ever speak for him, but for me personally, the happiness in my life just radiates off of me right now.”

Alexandra vamps it up

ALEXANDRA BURKE looks incredible as she prepares to take on the role of Morticia in The Addams Family musical comedy.

She got into character ahead of the UK tour which starts in Birmingham on July 10.

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The production will tour other spots including Leicester, Salford, Canterbury and Blackpool.

But while Alexandra has made a name for herself as a stage actress, she will return to music.

On taking a break to have her two children, Alexandra said: “Babies happened. One planned. Another baby happened . . .  wasn’t planned.

“But the plan is music. I’m hopefully coming back, I promise.”

Alexandra, whose last album The Truth Is came out in 2018, added: “Life just happened and I’m so grateful for my gorgeous children. It’s slowed me down, it’s made me realise the most important things in life.”

A MAN who fought to free his mum from jail after she murdered his dad has spoken out about how he forgave her for the brutal killing.

David Challen, 38, campaigned relentlessly to free his mum Sally from prison in 2019, nine years after she killed his dad Richard – her husband – by bludgeoning him with a hammer.

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Despite Sally having suffered decades of coercive control by her husband, David says Richard was “not a monster”, adding that he was “deeply complex”.

In August 2010, Sally, a 56-year-old housewife, brutally murdered Richard, her 61-year-old husband of 31 years, at their home in Claygate, Surrey.

Sally was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, before her murder conviction was quashed and she was released from jail in 2019.

Now, ahead of the release of a new book David has written on his family’s ordeal, the 38-year-old has recalled his battle to free his mum.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, David said reading about the decades-long abuse of Gisèle Pelicot by her husband and dozens of other men gave him flashbacks to the own suffering his mum experienced.

He explained: “It highlighted the normality of these men in our society.

“My dad was not a monster. He was deeply complex.

“If society labels them monsters, it’s washing its hands of how they are created.”

After Sally was jailed, David began to unearth chilling details about how his dad had subjected Sally to decades of domestic abuse – keeping it hidden from him and his brother James.

They discovered how their mum had been dragged down stairs, been raped by Richard on a family holiday to Los Angeles, and had attempted suicide at age 21.

Sally had been subject to coercive control – a pattern of abuse where someone is made to feel dependent, isolated, or scared.

She was even forced to hand over her salary throughout her painful ordeal.

These discoveries prompted David to begin years of ardent campaigning, eventually leading to an appeal which reduced her conviction to manslaughter.

Helped by a law passed in 2015 which recognised psychological manipulation as a form of domestic abuse, Sally walked free from HMP Send, Surrey, in 2019.

The landmark case saw Sally’s murder conviction quashed due to new psychiatric evidence, with her final sentencing acknowledging the impact that years of controlling abuse had on her.

As a result, roughly three thousands murder convictions are being reassessed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to factor in examples of coercive control – with at least five cases having been reopened.

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In his new book, The Unthinkable: A Story of Control, Violence and My Mother, due to be released on Thursday, David showcases his struggle to come to terms with his father’s abuse, and how it’s affecting his life even now.

David also highlights how more needs to be done to protect victims of coercive control.

Speaking on the BBC show Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg about how his dad’s abuse had become “normalised” in their family home, David explained how he “couldn’t understand” at first how his mum had murdered Richard.

He said: “She’d done the worst act anyone possibly could do. [She] took away my father.”

Following the change in the law regarding coercive control, David, now a domestic abuse campaigner, said he finally had a way to describe the “insidious nature” of his dad.

David added that not having a name for the abuse had “robbed us of our right to have an ability to protect ourselves.”

He explained that he had to dig up his past in order to “find the child” he had left behind.

David continued: “But I knew I was born into this world with a gut feeling that [there was] something inherently bad about my father, and I never knew why.

“I normalised the coercion and control in my home, this life of servitude that my mother lived under… sexual violence was routine.”

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Published on 02/06/2025 – 19:11 GMT+2•Updated
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EU trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will meet his US counterpart Ambassador Jamieson Greer on Wednesday on the sidelines of an OECD meeting in Paris following a high-level gathering of EU and US experts in Washington on Tuesday against rising tensions over US customs duties.

The Commission is hoping to rekindle negotiation with the US a week after EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US president Donald Trump spoke on the phone, despite Trump’s subsequent decision on 30 May to slap 50% tariffs on EU steel and aluminium.

“The EU in good faith paused its countermeasures on 14 April, to create space for continued negotiations, and following the call between president Ursula von der Leyen and president Donald Trump both sides agreed to accelerate the pace of talks,” Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said on Monday, acknowledging however that Trump’s last announcement on steel and aluminium undermined the Commission’s “ongoing efforts to reach a negotiated solution with the US”.

The Commission has suspended until 14 July a list of countermeasures targeting US products after Trump decided on a 90-Day pause in the trade dispute he launched against his partners across the globe. But the Commission could decide to move forward with those countermeasures, it said.

A second list of US product is also open to consultation from industry until 10 June, when EU member states will adopt them.

“If no mutually acceptable solution is reached, both the existing and the possible additional measures will automatically take effect on 14 July or earlier if circumstances require,“ Gill said.

Šefčovič has already travelled to Washington three times to meet with his US counterparts, but his efforts have so far failed to break the deadlock.

The US and the EU exchanged proposals to begin negotiations, but both sides have dismissed the other’s offers. It wasn’t until EU and US leaders spoke by phone that talks were able to move forward—until President Trump announced new tariffs on steel and aluminium at the end of last week, putting the negotiations at risk once again.

The US currently imposes 25% tariffs on EU steel and aluminium, 25% on cars and 10% on all EU imports. Several investigations in pharma, semiconductors or aircrafts could also lead to more US tariffs on EU goods.

In April, Nandy said the 68-year-old sports media rights executive was the “outstanding candidate” to fill the position, despite not being on the original three-person shortlist.

She has now removed herself from the final decision, delegating responsibility to the Sports Minister.

Last month, Kogan told MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMS) during a pre-appointment hearing that he was being “utterly transparent” by declaring his donations.

The committee endorsed Kogan, but said he must work to “reassure the football community that he will act impartially and in a politically neutral way”. Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage warned that Kogan’s “past donations to the Labour Party will inevitably leave him open to charges of political bias in a job where independence is paramount”.

Kogan said he had donated “very small sums” to the campaigns, as well as thousands of pounds to Labour MPs and candidates in recent years, but had “total personal independence from all of them” and pledged “total political impartiality” if appointed.

A DCMS spokesperson said: “We have received the letter from the Commissioner for Public Appointments and we look forward to co-operating fully with his office.

“The appointment is in the process of being ratified in the usual way.”

Kogan declined to comment.

It has also emerged that Nandy has written to the CMS Committee and told them: “I heard clearly the Committee’s comments regarding David’s transparency and candour regarding previous political donations that he had made and the need for him to take concrete steps to avoid the perception of any bias or lack of independence from government.

“As a first step to avoid any risk of this, I am writing to inform you that I have delegated the final decision on the chair’s appointment to the Minister for Sport.”

Conservative shadow sports minister Louie French has previously said the failure to disclose the donations when first put forward for the role was “a clear breach of the governance code on public appointments”.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister added Kogan had been appointed through a “fair and open competition”, and the BBC has been told his donations were below the threshold that requires declaring.

The Football Governance Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament after being reintroduced by the Labour government in October, will establish a first independent regulator for the professional men’s game in England.

The legislation will hand power to a body independent from government and football authorities to oversee clubs in England’s top five divisions.

Kogan – a former BBC journalist who also previously advised the Premier League, EFL and other leagues on broadcast rights – said he wants to put “fans at the heart of the regulator” and help the football pyramid.

Critics, including US officials, are calling for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s new mission to fail, with twelve volunteers, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on board. The flotilla is trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

In a significant retrenchment, media mogul Byron Allen has retained investment banking firm Moelis & Co. to sell his network-affiliate television stations after spending more than $1 billion to scoop up outlets in smaller markets.

The Allen Media Group announced the news Monday morning. It owns nearly two dozen stations, including in Northern California near Redding, as well as Honolulu; Flint, Mich.; Madison, Wis.; and Tupelo, Miss.

The company needs to pay down debt, Allen said in a statement.

Allen’s firm declined to provide details on its finances.

The Los Angeles firm has spent big bucks during the last six years buying stations with a goal of becoming the largest independent television operator in the U.S. Many of Allen’s stations have standing in their markets with programming from one of the Big Four broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

“We have received numerous inquiries and written offers for most of our television stations and now is the time to explore getting a return on this phenomenal investment,” Allen, chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We are going to use this opportunity to take a serious look at the offers, and the sale proceeds will be used to significantly reduce our debt.”

Allen Media Group, which was founded by Allen in 1993, also owns a dozen television channels, including the Weather Channel.

The Los Angeles entrepreneur and former stand-up comedian had been steadily expanding his empire for more than a decade.

However, the television advertising market has become increasingly challenged in recent years as media buyers shift their budgets to digital platforms where they are more likely to find younger consumers. The television advertising market has become more strained with the addition of streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+ competing with legacy stations for dollars.

A decade ago, Allen brought a high-profile $20-billion lawsuit against two of the nation’s largest pay-TV distributors, Comcast and Charter Communications, alleging that racism was the reason his small TV channels were not being carried on those services.

The case ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court and was legally significant because it relied on the historic Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was enacted a year after the Civil War ended and mandated that Black citizens “shall have the same right … to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.”

But the Supreme Court struck down many of Allen’s arguments. In a 9-0 decision in March 2020, the high court said it was not enough for a civil rights plaintiff to assert that his race was one of several factors that motivated a company to refuse to do business with him. Instead, the person must show race was the crucial and deciding factor.

Last month, CBS picked up his show “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen” to run at 12:35 a.m.

HUGE plans to create the UK’s first garden city in a century are underway.

The ambitious proposals will transform unused land into a bustling green city and are slated to be finished in the next decade.

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The idea for Ebbsfleet Garden City was born in 2015 following soaring demand for more houses in Kent.

Costing almost £4 billion, the plans aim to create the first garden city in 100 years across 2,500 acres of brownfield land on the Kent Thames Riverside.

Ebbsfleet will feature a staggering 15,000 new homes with 50 new parks and open spaces.

Green and blue space will comprise 40% of the city by 2035, which is when the project is expected to be finished.

It will, according to developers, become a place for Brits to “grow a family, build a business, socialise, and enjoy a unique city-country lifestyle on the edge of London and Kent.”

The planning application is expected to be submitted later this year.

It will be made up of a collection of brownfield development sites within Dartford and Gravesham Boroughs.

Three major projects comprise the Ebbsfleet Garden City: Ebbsfleet Central, Northfleet Embankment and Community buildings and spaces.

Ebbsfleet Central will be a mixed-use residential and commercial area and will feature around 2,100 homes, of which 35 per cent are Affordable Housing.

It will also include up to 100,000 square metres of office floor space and 10,000 square metres of retail floor space.

This will be for restaurants, bars, cafes and supermarkets.

A great option for commuters, Ebbsfleet Central is just 17 minutes from Central London.

It is hoped that the revamped area will become a “magnet for inclusive economic growth” and a “destination of choice for investment and innovation”.

Ebbsfleet Development Corporation submitted the outline of the plans for the first phase of new development in Ebbsfleet Central in 2022.

This includes building new leisure facilities, a new school and more open spaces for future residents.

It also involves building the Eastgate Community Building in the middle of Springhead Park.

This will be a church and a local community centre.

It comes after Britain’s newest town – built next to a major motorway – was set to cost a whopping £2.5billion with restaurants, shops and sports facilities.

The Elms Park development, located in the north of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was approved by local authorities yesterday.

Councils have given the go-ahead to the massive new town serving almost 9,000 people.

It will be situated on the outskirts of the Cotswolds, just off junction 10 of the M5, and will feature roughly 60 acres for employment land.

Tewkesbury Borough Council described the approval of the 4,115 homes as the “biggest decision” it had ever made.

The plans include a 25-acre business park, a hotel, shops, cafes, new schools, healthcare facilities and a transport hub.

Elms Park Consortium, led by house builders Bloor Homes and Persimmon, claims that the project will create as many as 8,000 jobs in the area.

It estimates that the development will provide 1,000 affordable homes while generating up to £300m for the local economy each year.

Rob White, agent for the applicant, said: “Approximately £25m will be spent on community infrastructure.

“It will contribute £300 million a year into the sub-regional economy, creating and supporting over 8,000 new jobs, with 30 apprenticeships a year during construction over 20 years.

“Over 4000 new homes will be built, providing for a new community of around 9,000 residents, many of whom will already be living in the area.

“Approximately £50 million pounds will be spent on providing new schools, including a secondary school and two primary schools on site.

“A sports hub containing new facilities for cricket, football, tennis, and an all-weather 3G pitch will be provided on site along with significant contributions to local rugby and hockey clubs.

“They are committed to bringing forward Elms Park as a well-designed, sustainable and healthy place where the new community can thrive.”

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Chad Rivera gingerly makes his way to the edge of what looks like an emptied out swimming pool, a lime-green skateboard in one hand, a white cane in the other. At 58, he’s legally blind, but he’s been skateboarding since he was 5, so what’s about to happen is part muscle memory, part “trust fall.”

Deathracer Chad Rivera is 58 and blind, but says he’ll never give up skateboarding.

Dozens of other skateboarders — mostly men in their 50s and 60s decked out in skating gear — roll along the periphery, watching on, at Encinitas Skate Park near San Diego. It’s not yet 11 a.m., but punk music blasts from the speakers, punctuated by the rumbling and clanking of skateboard wheels on concrete.

Standing at the deep end, Rivera considers the pool bowl’s nine-foot concrete walls. He sets down his white cane and secures the tail of his board on the pool’s rim with one foot, the rest of the board hanging in the air, like a mini diving board. He then steps onto the front of the board with his other foot and throws his body weight forward, “dropping in.”

He races down and around the sides of the walls before flipping around and landing back up on the pool deck.

It’s a frightening move to watch, but Rivera now beams, triumphant, eyes shining.

“Woo! Feel it and kill it,” says Rivera, a retired grape grower who’s suffered from a rare optic nerve disease since he was 22. “It always feels good, so I keep doing it. I’ll never stop, no matter how old I get.”

Rivera is a member of Deathracer413, a group of older skateboarders who believe that skateboarding is their key to longevity. They grew up amid the ’70s and ’80s skate scene and are as passionate about the sport as when they were teens. Many of them are now retired and the joy they get from skateboarding, the sense of community and the health benefits, such as core strength and balance, keep them young, they say. The inherent danger gives them an adrenaline rush that, they argue, keeps their brains sharp.

“Our slogan is: Keep dropping in or you’ll be dropping out,” says the group’s founder, Doug Marker, a former professional skateboarder and retired construction worker who’s lived in San Diego his entire life. Marker, who also surfs, plays guitar and rides motorcycles, is 63 going on 16, with silver hair and a skate-park suntan. On this Saturday morning, he’s wearing baggy shorts, Vans sneakers and a graphic T-shirt featuring “Death Racer” in heavy metal band-like typography.

“Knowing you can get hurt keeps you ultra-focused,” Marker says. “And trusting that you can do it — believing in yourself — is hugely empowering. I keep dropping in, I keep going. It’s put me into a bubble where I never feel like I’m getting older.”

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Marker founded Deathracer413 in 2011 to draw like-minded people who are “living life to the fullest,” he says. The name Deathracer reminded him of a motorcycle club and 413 are his initials, numerically. It was just a loose social affiliation at first, but in 2020 Marker launched the Deathracer413 Road Show, an invitation to join him in skating a different skate park every Saturday.

Deathracer413 now includes former and current pro skateboarders doing tricks alongside average enthusiasts and late-life skating newbies. There are a handful of women in the group as well as a few children honing their skills with the masters.

Marker estimates there are about 1,300 members of the group internationally, though typically only about 20-30 locals attend on any given Saturday. He welcomes anyone into the club and mails them a “welcome letter” and custom Deathracer413 patch that he designed. Hundreds of recipients remain members from afar, kindred spirits who share a “full throttle” outlook on life and participate via social media. Others have trekked from Australia, Germany, Belgium and the UK to skate with Deathracer413.

“’Cause now everybody’s retired and can travel,” Marker says. “They’re finding destinations to come and skateboard and San Diego’s a top one. So they come.”

‘I’ll stop when my body tells me to stop’

The deathracers catch up with one another, fist bumping and drinking beers, as one of them drops into the pool bowl.

As Deathracer413 celebrates its 200th skating session, the vibe is affectionate and rambunctious, jovial retiree backyard barbecue meets heavily tattooed skater meetup. More than 50 members — many with bushy gray beards, paunchy bellies and caps reading “The Goonies: Never Say Die” or “Independent” — mingle on the pool deck, cracking open beers, fist-bumping one another and catching up on life as the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated” fades into Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” on the sound system.

The skaters drop into the pool one after another — swirling and swooshing around, “carving” and “grinding,” before popping back up — in such tight succession it feels choreographed. It’s as if we’re inside a pinball machine, with tiny objects orbiting around one another maniacally, wheels spinning, helmets twisting, boards whizzing by or flying into the air before crashing back down. Every so often someone wipes out, sliding across the pool bottom, sparking cheers of encouragement.

“I feel like the older I get the more I worry about getting hurt — because it lasts longer,” admits skateboarding legend Steve Caballero, 60. “If you think about it, it’s kind of a scary sport. You can get really hurt.”

Caballero has been a pro skateboarder since he was 15 and fear doesn’t stop him today — “I’ll stop when my body tells me to stop,” he says. He performs one of his signature moves, sliding along the rim of the pool on the skateboard truck instead of the wheels. No small feat for a body that’s endured more than 45 years of extreme athletics. A documentary about his life, “Steve Caballero: The Legend of the Dragon,” debuts this November.

Legendary skateboarder and deathracer Steve Caballero, 60, has been pro since he was 15.

“It definitely keeps me in shape,” he says. “It keeps me youthful-thinking, staying creative and being challenged. I think when people get older they quit doing these things because they feel like they should. I’m trying to show people, hey, even in your older age you can still have fun and challenge yourself.”

The feeling of freedom, the thrill of sailing through the air, is worth the risk to Barry Blumenthal, 60, a retired stockbroker.

“I’m more worried about crashing my car. I mean, I wear gear in here,” Blumenthal says. “Skating is just extreme fun where you can’t help but grin. It’s kid-like. It’s a fountain of youth experience. You’re chasing stoke.”

Pushing the boundaries of skating

Wiping out is part of the process, the Deathracers say. It’s still “kid-like” fun, “a fountain of youth experience.”

No doubt “dropping in” and “chasing stoke” for eternity would be “rad.” But is there any validity to Deathracer413’s claims that skateboarding promotes health and longevity?

“I’d worry about fractures,” says Dr. Jeremy Swisher, a UCLA sports medicine physician. “As you get older, it takes the body longer to heal. But it comes down to a risk-benefit analysis. The endorphins, the adrenaline — the joy of it — as well as the new challenges that stress the mind in a good way would be very mentally stimulating. You’re forming new neural pathways as you’re trying new moves. It would help keep the brain young and fresh.”

“I race cars for a hobby, and I know what that does for my aging,” adds Dr. Eric Verdin, president and chief executive of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Northern California. “Finding a thing that you’re passionate about, having a sense of community, not to mention the balance and motor coordination — skateboarding is extremely physical — all of that is part of healthy aging.”

Deathracer413 also has an important place in the trajectory of skateboarding.

Skateboarding has been around in California since the 1950s — a way to recreate surfing, but on dry land. “Vertical skateboarding,” which the Deathracers partake in, grew out of SoCal kids commandeering emptied backyard swimming pools. It was especially prevalent during the 1976-77 drought, when residents had to drain their pools and kids began performing elaborate airborne tricks. Skate parks emerged and “vert skating,” as it was dubbed, became a phenomenon.

Doug Marker, founder of Deathracer413, shows off the ring and patch he designed, bearing the group’s name.

The first park in California opened in Carlsbad in 1976 and the San Diego area is still considered a central hub for the sport. So today there’s a critical mass of ’70s and ’80s-era skateboarding devotees who still live nearby. That’s why Deathracer413 — the only club of its kind in the area, Marker says — has so many active members.

“There hasn’t ever been 60-year-plus [vert skaters] before,” Marker says. “The sport’s not that old. So that’s kind of our thing — we’re just gonna keep pushing the bar.”

In that sense, Deathracer413 is more than a subcultural vestige — its members present a sports medicine study of sorts, says Michael Burnett, editor in chief of “Thrasher Magazine,” a longtime skateboarding publication.

“A lot of people here are older than me,” says John Preston Brooks, 56.

“There were a few old-guy outliers, but this is the first generation of older skaters,” Burnett says. “We’re now witnessing how long someone can physically skateboard for — this is the test. It’s uncharted territory.”

Still, many of the Deathracers have modifed their skating techniques as they’ve aged. Marker says he now skates within 80-85% of his ability range to be safe. Others admit that the inevitable — death — is on their minds.

“As an older adult, you can get into your head about, oh, how much time do I have left?” says John Preston Brooks, 56. “But a lot of people here are older than me and it just makes me realize I got a lot more time to do the things I love and make the best of life.”

David Skinner, 60, a retired school teacher, says he’s realistic about his physical limits.

“A lot of us have health issues,” he says. “We’re not necessarily trying to cheat death, but we’re definitely trying to stay ahead. We know it’s coming, but we wanna keep dropping in and having fun, and this gives us a venue to do it.

A brotherhood, even if you no longer skate

As the day grinds on, the skate session morphs into an actual barbecue. Marker fires up the grill, tossing on an assortment of meat: burgers, bratwursts, hot dogs. Plumes of aromatic smoke float over the pool bowl, which is still getting some action.

Lance Smith, 74, stands off to the side of the bowl, a Coors Light in one hand, a Nikon camera in the other. With his dark sunglasses, soul patch of facial hair above his chin and trucker hat that reads “Old Bro,” he appears like someone’s cool great-uncle. He can’t skate anymore due to three replacements — two hip, one knee — after years of skateboarding injuries. (“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he says.) But Smith, who documented the SoCal skateboarding scene in the ’70s and photo edited the book “Tracker: Forty Years of Skateboard History,” still attends Deathracer413 events nearly every Saturday. He photographs club members in action.

Doug Marker mans the grill as the afternoon skate session morphs into a barbecue.

“It’s the community,” Smith says, stretching out his arm and snapping a passing skater. “I get enjoyment out of shooting pictures and seeing my friends skateboard. And, yeah, drinking a Coors Light.”

Deathracer413 is both a brotherhood and a sisterhood, says Tuli Lam, 31, a physical therapy student and one of the only women skaters in attendance today. “When I’m here, I’m just one of the guys. We’re bonded by skating.”

That camaraderie is evident when the group presents Marker with a gift of thanks.

“OK, gather round! Bring it in!” yells Lansing Pope, 58.

The skaters crowd around, stretching their necks to see what’s in the wrapped box Marker is tearing open.

“It’s a knee brace!” someone yells.

“It’s a crutch!” says another.

“Something for his prostate?” jokes a third.

“Whoa, super dope,” Marker says. (It’s a leather Deathracer413 bedroll for his motorcycle.) “I’m super stoked.”

The skateboarders presented Doug Marker with a gift, a custom Deathracer413 bedroll for his motorcycle.

“Till your wheels fall off!” several guys scream in unison, fists in the air.

Then, as if on cue, the skaters disperse around the pool bowl, streaming in and out of it, the sound of rattling wheels and screeching metal on concrete filling the space.

Tye Donnelly, 54, surveys the scene from a nearby picnic table, an electric guitar on his lap. He noodles on it, playing a mix of Black Sabbath and reggae.

“When I was 18, I never thought I’d be the old age of 20 and still skateboarding,” he says. “At 54, I thought I’d have a hat on, a suit, with a newspaper. But it turns out you can skateboard your whole life. And I’m thankful for this group — because it wasn’t like this back in the day.”

Caballero sums up senior skateboarding best: “This is the new bingo.”

June 2 (UPI) — Senate Republicans seek to make President Donald Trump‘s 2017 tax cuts permanent while Democrats push for a ruling from the Senate Parliamentarian as the chamber weigh’s Trump’s legislative agenda bill.

The Senate returned Monday to Capitol Hill after its Memorial Day recess with the sweeping agenda bill as its top priority. As it mulls changes to the bill, Republicans hope to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act without an end date while not counting its financial impact toward the national debt.

To stop the Republican plan from coming to fruition, Democrats want the Parliamentarian of the United States, a nonpartisan body that interprets the rules of the Senate’s process, to weigh in.

Democrats argued that extending the 2017 tax cuts permanently would violate the Senate’s Byrd Rule, a rule that limits what can be considered in a budget reconciliation bill. This is significant because a budget reconciliation bill can be passed with a simple majority, or 51 votes, rather than the 60-vote threshold which is subject to filibuster rules.

Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

The Byrd Rule prohibits any provisions deemed extraneous from being included in a budget reconciliation bill. Among the characteristics that meet the criteria of an “extraneous” provision is a provision that increases the federal deficit beyond the budget window, which is typically 10 years.

Democrats say a permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts would do just that.

Democrats also say going around the Parliamentarian would undermine the Senate’s filibuster rules, alleging that Republicans already did this when they voted to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate in May.

Senate Republicans invoked the Congressional Review Act to overturn the electric vehicle mandate without going through the Parliamentarian.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., called on a series of votes to clarify whether the mandate was a rule that was being violated and thus able to be overturned under the Congressional Review Act.

Senate Republicans have set a goal to pass the legislative agenda bill by July 4. The 1,116-page bill passed the House before the break and needs Senate approval to advance to the president’s desk.

Some Republicans also have expressed their support for making changes to Trump’s legislative agenda bill. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has shared concerns about how it will add to the national debt if it is passed as is.

“If I vote for the $5 trillion debt, who’s left in Washington that cares about the debt?” Paul said in an interview on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday. “The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this.”

Paul opposes a provision in the bill that would raise the debt ceiling.

Changes to Medicaid are also a source of concern for some Republican Senators.

“I’ve said that if there are deep cuts in Medicaid that would endanger healthcare for low-income families, for disabled children, for other vulnerable populations, and for our rural hospitals, I’m simply not going to support that,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said last week when meeting with constituents in Clinton, Maine, according to Maine Public Radio.

Karol Nawrocki, Poland’s right-wing opposition candidate, narrowly won the second round of voting in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, according to the National Electoral Commission (NEC).

Here is all you need to know about the results:

Who won the presidential election in Poland?

Nawrocki won with 50.89 percent of the votes, the NEC website updated early on Monday.

He defeated liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who secured 49.11 percent of the vote.

The outcome was a surprise because exit polls had projected a narrow loss for Nawrocki.

What happened in the first round of the election?

The first round took place on May 18, where, as expected, none of the 13 presidential candidates could manage to reach a 50 percent threshold.

Trzaskowski won 31.4 percent of the vote, while Nawrocki got 29.5 percent. As the top two candidates, Nawrocki and Trzaskowski proceeded to the run-off.

Who is Karol Nawrocki, Poland’s new president?

Nawrocki, 42, is a conservative historian and amateur boxer.

He contested as an independent candidate, backed by the outgoing president, Andrzej Duda’s Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party.

The newly elected president’s academic work, as a historian, centred on anti-communist resistance. At the moment, he runs the Institute of National Remembrance, a Warsaw-based government-funded research institute that studies the history of Poland during World War II and the period of communism until 1990.

At the institute, Nawrocki has removed Soviet memorials, upsetting Russia.

He administered the Museum of the Second World War in the Polish city of Gdansk from 2017 to 2021.

Nawrocki has had his share of controversies. In 2018, he published a book about a notorious gangster under the pseudonym “Tadeusz Batyr”. In public comments, Nawrocki and Batyr praised each other, without revealing they were the same person.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration threw its weight behind Nawrocki in the Polish election. The US group Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held its first meeting in Poland on May 27. “We need you to elect the right leader,” US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during the CPAC event.

Calling Trzaskowski “an absolute train wreck of a leader”, Noem said, “I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen: he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?”

How did Nawrocki win?

Experts say the consistency of Nawrocki’s messaging on the campaign trail may have earned him his win.

“People choose someone they see as strong, clear, and consistent,” Liliana Smiech, chairwoman of the Foundation Council at Warsaw Institute, a Polish nonprofit think tank specialising in geopolitics and international affairs, told Al Jazeera.

“Even with the accusations against him, voters preferred his firmness over Trzaskowski’s constant rebranding. Trzaskowski tried to be everything to everyone and ended up convincing no one. Nawrocki looks like someone who can handle pressure. He became the president for difficult times.”

Unlike Trzaskowski, Smiech said, Nawrocki “didn’t try to please everyone”.

Yet he managed to please enough voters to win.

What is the significance of Nawrocki’s win?

Most of the power in Poland rests in the hands of the prime minister. The incumbent, Donald Tusk, leads a centre-right coalition government, and Trzaskowski was the ruling alliance’s candidate.

Nawrocki has been deeply critical of the Tusk administration. The president has the ability to veto legislation and influence military and foreign policy decisions.

On the campaign trail, Nawrocki promised to lower taxes and pull Poland out of the European Union’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, an agreement on new rules for managing migration and setting a common asylum system; and the European Green Deal, which sets benchmarks for environmental protection for the EU, such as the complete cessation of net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

Like other candidates, including Trzaskowski, Nawrocki called for Poland to spend up to 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. Poland spent 3.8 percent of its GDP on military expenditure in 2023, according to World Bank data.

“Some expected a wave of support for the left or liberal side, especially among young people. That didn’t happen. Nawrocki won in the 18-39 age group,” Smiech said.

“It’s a clear message: people still care about sovereignty, tradition, and strong leadership. Even younger voters are not buying into the idea of a ‘new progressive Poland’.”

What were the key issues in the Polish election?

The Russia-Ukraine war, which began in February 2022, is a concerning issue for the Poles, who are fearful of a spillover of Russian aggression to Poland due to its proximity to Ukraine.

While Poland initially threw its full support behind Ukraine, tensions have grown between Poland and Ukraine.

Nawrocki is opposed to Ukraine joining NATO and the EU.

Yet, at the same time, Poland and Nawrocki remain deeply suspicious of Russia.

On May 12, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said an investigation had revealed that Russian intelligence agencies had orchestrated a massive fire at a shopping centre in Warsaw in May 2024. This is why multiple candidates in this election proposed raising the defence budget to 5 percent of the GDP.

Abortion is a key issue in Poland, which has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. In August 2024, Prime Minister Tusk acknowledged that he did not have enough backing from parliament to deliver on one of his key campaign promises and change the abortion law. PiS, which backed Nawrocki, is opposed to any legalisation of abortion.

Other issues included economic concerns about taxes, housing costs and the state of public transport.

What’s next?

Nawrocki is expected to be sworn in on August 6.

Smeich said Nawrocki will need to prove that he is not just good at campaigning, but also at governing.

“Expectations are high. People want someone who will defend Poland’s interests, stay firm under pressure, and not give in to media or foreign influence. He’s starting his term in a tough moment — exactly the kind of moment he was elected for.”

In this Monday’s Mirror Daily Digest, we’ve pulled together the biggest stories of the day from an volcanic eruption at a tourist hotspot, to an update in the search for Madeleine McCann

Welcome to the Mirror’s Daily Digest, where we pull together all the best stories of the day from our News, Showbiz, Sport teams and more. This Monday, we’re taking a look at Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz breaking their silence on their ongoing family feud, to the health risks of the eruption of Mount Etna.

Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola break silence in first interview since family feud exploded

This afternoon, our Showbiz team reported that Brooklyn Beckham and his wife Nicola Peltz have spoken out for the first time since reports of the Beckhams’ family feud broke.

Brooklyn Beckham snubbed parents David and Victoria Beckham in a revealing new interview about his marriage. The eldest of the Beckham kids, who is currently embroiled in a family feud, said he has been ‘captivated’ by wife Nicola Peltz and wanted to marry her within days of their meeting.

As the sad rift in the Beckham clan continues to rumble on, Brooklyn has broken his silence in a gushing interview all about his new wife in which he calls her his ‘best friend.’

Read the full story here.

Mount Etna eruption health risks from exposure to volcanic gases – key symptoms

Earlier today, our News team reported that Mount Etna, which is on the coast of Sicily, had turned black. Our Health team then did a deep dive on possible health risks of the eruption, some of which could potentially be serious.

Even if fire, lava and magma are unlikely to make an appearance, volcanic eruptions can pose a major health risk to people in the surrounding areas. This could mainly affect the eyes, lungs and skin through the acidic gases and ash released into the atmosphere.

The International Volcanic Health Hazard Network notes that being exposed to volcanic gases can have a range of effects depending on how concentrated it is and the length of time a person is exposed to it. This can include suffocation and death if the CO2 or H2S is concentrated enough.

Read the full story here.

Madeleine McCann updates: Cops launch major land search near top suspect’s house

Since 2007, the case of missing girl Madeleine McCann has been ongoing. Our World News team earlier reported some updates in the case, focusing on an upcoming search near the house of the case’s top suspect.

Fresh police searches are due to start tomorrow near the spot where Madeleine McCann was last seen.

German police have requested the searches, expected to take place between Praia da Luz where the three-year-old vanished on May 3, 2007 and a house near the holiday resort where principal suspect Christian Brueckner used to live.

A well-placed Portuguese source confirmed this week’s operation was scheduled get underway tomorrow but said some preparation work may take place beforehand. He said: “They will be land searches only. The main objective is to look for any signs of Madeleine’s body.”

Read the full story here.

Exact date Spanish scorcher sends UK mercury soaring to 31C as maps turn dark red

Our News team have reported that Britain is set to be hit by a 400 mile-wide ‘Spanish scorcher’ as temperatures finally top 30C. After the record spring sizzle, summer is beginning with drizzle and a cooldown this week, with disappointing 16-20C highs over the next few days and soggy spells.

But hot air blowing from melting Spain – which has ushered in 40C early summer temperatures across the Iberian peninsula – is due to blow to Britain after the weekend, according to weather maps. BBC Weather has predicted that the mercury will nudge 27C by next Wednesday and other weather forecasters have said 31C will follow, beating the 29.3C hottest day of the year recorded on May 1.

Read the full story here.

Holidaymakers told to wear masks and get jabs as cases of ‘new Covid’ soar

A big story from our Travel team today is reported warnings from a popular holiday spot to be wary of the latest Covid variant.

The Thai government has urged people to wear masks, wash their hands, get vaccinated and avoid activity that could spread Covid as a new variant sends cases rocketing, The World Health Organisation has issued a warning over the new variant, NB.1.8.1, which has seen cases soar in countries including Egypt, the Maldives and Thailand.

The new strain, which is said to be more infectious than previous variants, has also been found in the US and the UK. Now the government in Thailand has issued a warning after 257,280 cases of Covid and 52 deaths.

Read the full story here.