death

A REALITY TV legend has been left heartbroken by a second death, just days after losing her best friend. 

This week, Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace was left heartbroken at the “sudden” death of her close friend.

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The reality star, 46, said she was unable to “breathe” after her finding out that her good pal Chanel died in concerning circumstances in Bournemouth on Friday.

Aisleyne, 46, shared throwback photos of her and her friend during holidays together.

The former Big Brother star emotionally penned: “I can’t even breath, not you… not my precious gentle kind baby girl.

“F*** it let me come where you are, the world was beautiful with you in it, I can’t even, I love you.”

Now, she’s revealed that she’s had another heartbreaking loss, just days after losing her close friend.

The star took to social media to share a photo cradling her pet dog. 

In a tragic update, Aisleyne wrote: “Now my baby is dead too, f*** this world my heart can’t take no more. 

“Rip Charlie boy mummy loves you sooooooo much.” 

The heartbroken star shared another photo of the dog’s paw resting in her hand. 

It comes after reports that a woman in her 30s had died ‘suddenly’ at an address in Bournemouth town centre.

A spokesperson for Dorset Police said: “Officers attended and carried out enquiries at the scene.

“The woman’s death is not being treated as suspicious and her family has been informed.

“Our thoughts are with the woman’s loved ones at this difficult time.”

Two ambulances, a critical care car and around three police vehicles attended the scene.

In June 2024, Aisleyne was left heartbroken following the death of her best friend, Femi. 

Alongside a photo of the pair, she wrote: “Femi, Hyper, but my big brother for 30 years… I am so broken.”

While earlier this year Aisleyne also suffered her own health scare.

She issued a stark warning after she “nearly died” when she took fake Ozempic to lose two stone.

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The rock band Foo Fighters has let go of drummer Josh Freese, according to a note from the veteran percussionist.

“The Foo Fighters called me Monday night to let me know they’ve decided ‘to go in a different direction with their drummer,’” Freese wrote on Instagram. “No reason was given. … Regardless, I enjoyed the past two years with them, both on and off stage, and I support whatever they feel is best for the band. In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I’ve never been let go from a band, so while I’m not angry — just a bit shocked and disappointed. But as most of you know I’ve always worked freelance and bounced between bands so, I’m fine.”

“Stay tuned for my ‘Top 10 possible reasons Josh got booted from the Foo Fighters’ list,” he joked.

A representative for the band confirmed the departure but declined to comment.

Freese is a session veteran who first came to prominence in the SoCal punk band the Vandals, and later went on to play in Guns N’ Roses, A Perfect Circle and Devo before joining Foo Fighters in 2023. He won the high-profile job after the death of beloved Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

The band previously celebrated Hawkins in a moving tribute concert in 2022, which included Hawkins’ then-16-year-old son Shane drumming in his dad’s place on “My Hero.” More recently, singer Dave Grohl appeared with his former Nirvana bandmate, bassist Krist Novoselic, to perform at the FireAid benefit concert in Inglewood this year.

The group has not announced a new drummer. Its next scheduled performance is in Singapore on Oct. 4.

Adam Sandler has no crocodile tears for “Happy Gilmore” co-star Morris the alligator — he has fond jokes instead.

The “Punch-Drunk Love” actor and comedian on Wednesday shared a playful tribute honoring his reptilian co-star who died Sunday of old age at a gator farm in southern Colorado. In the tribute, shared to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), Sandler remembered the alligator’s time on the set of his quirky 1996 golf comedy.

“We are all gonna miss you. You could be hard on directors, make-up artists, costumers — really anyone with arms or legs,” Sandler captioned a movie still featuring himself and Morris, “but I know you did it for the ultimate good of the film.”

Jay Young, the owner and operator of Colorado Gator Farm, announced Morris’s death in an emotional video shared to Facebook. “He started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn’t lunging at us and wasn’t taking food,” Young said, stroking the reptile’s head.

“I know it’s strange to people that we get so attached to an alligator, to all of our animals,” Young added. “He had a happy time here, and he died of old age.”

In “Happy Gilmore,” Sandler’s unlikely golf star confronts the feisty gator played by Morris after a golf ball lands in his toothy jaws. After an unsuccessful attempt, Happy dives into the golf course pond where he pummels the reptile and retrieves the ball.

Morris was best known for “Happy Gilmore,” but also appeared in numerous screen projects including “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dr. Dolittle 2” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” before he retired in 2006. He was found as an illegal pet in the backyard of a Los Angeles home and sent to the Colorado Gator Farm.

In his tribute, Sandler said he learned a “powerful lesson” from Morris on the set of their film after he refused to “come out of your trailer” without the bait of 40 heads of lettuce: “Never compromise your art.” The “Wedding Singer” and “50 First Dates” star also reminisced on totally real encounters with the gator including sharing a candy bar.

“You let me have the bigger half,” he joked. “But that’s who you were.”

According to Sandler, Morris was a Hollywood veteran with classy habits. The “Uncut Gems” star joked that the alligator, despite his character’s death in the first film, sent the “Happy Gilmore” team a “fruit basket and [a] hilarious note” ahead of the long-anticipated sequel, which premieres in July.

“I will miss the sound of your tail sliding through the tall grass, your cold, bumpy skin, but, most of all, I will miss your infectious laugh,” Sandler concluded his eulogy. “Thanks to Mr. Young for taking care of you all these years, and vaya con dios, old friend.”

Colorado Gator Farm announced on Monday that it decided to preserve Morris’ body via taxidermy “so that he can continue to scare children for years to come.”

“It’s what he would have wanted,” the farm said on Facebook.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

DOWNIEVILLE, Calif. — Patrice Miller, 71, lived by herself in a small yellow house beneath towering mountain peaks on the edge of a burbling river in this Sierra County village. She doted on her cats and her exotic orchids, and was known to neighbors for her delicious homemade bread. One fall afternoon in 2023, after Miller had failed for several days to make her customary appearance at the town market, a store clerk asked authorities to check on her.

A short time later, a sheriff’s deputy found Miller’s lifeless body in her kitchen. Her right leg and left arm had been partially gnawed off. On the floor around her were the large paw prints of a bear.

Months after her death, officials would make a stunning disclosure, revealing that an autopsy had determined that Miller had likely been killed by the animal after it broke into her home. It marked the first known instance in California history of a fatal bear attack on a human.

But amid the contentious politics around black bears and other apex predators in California, not everyone accepts the official version of how she died.

“We don’t believe the bear did it,” said Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League in the Tahoe Basin. “And I will go on record as saying that. … We’ve never had a bear kill anybody.”

The story of Miller’s grisly end — and the increasingly heated battles around predators in California — have come roaring into the state Capitol this spring. Lawmakers representing conservative rural districts in the state’s rugged northern reaches argue that their communities are under attack, and point to Miller as one example of the worst that can happen. One solution they have pushed is changing the law to allow people to set packs of hunting dogs after bears to haze them. A similar measure has been floated — for now unsuccessfully — to ward off mountain lions considered a threat.

Wildlife conservation advocates are aghast. They say turning dogs on bears is barbaric and won’t make anyone safer. They contend the proposed laws don’t reflect a scientifically backed approach to managing wild populations but instead are pro-hunting bills dressed up in the guise of public safety. The real solution, they say, is for humans living near bears to learn to safely co-exist by not leaving out food or otherwise attracting them.

“These people are using [Miller’s death] to try to start hounding bears again,” said Bryant, who maintains that Miller, who was in poor health, must have died before the bear came into her home and devoured her. “She would roll in her grave if she knew that in her death people would create a situation where people were going to mistreat bears, because she loved bears.”

In a recent report, the Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates there are now 60,000 black bears roaming California and notes a marked increase in reports of human-bear conflicts.

(John Axtell / Nevada Department of Wildlife)

Founded in 1849, Downieville, population 300, is one of California’s oldest towns, and also one of its quaintest. Colorfully painted wooden buildings sit at the junction of two rivers, beneath majestic pines and mountain peaks.

Along with tourists, who flood in in the summer for rafting and mountain biking, the town also receives frequent visits from bears and mountain lions. More recently, wolves have arrived with deadly force, snatching domesticated cattle off the open pastures that stretch across the plains on the other side of the mountains east of town.

Miller wound up here about a decade ago, at the end of a rich, complicated life. She had worked in an oil refinery, and also as a contractor. She was a master gardener, expert at transplanting Japanese maples, according to her neighbor, Patty Hall. She was a voracious reader and a skilled pianist. But she also struggled with a variety of serious ailments and substance abuse, according to neighbors and officials.

Longtime residents in the area were used to the challenges of living among wild animals. But in the summer of 2023, Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher said he started getting an overwhelming number of calls about problem bears.

“We had three or four habituated bears that were constantly here in town,” said Fisher. “They had zero fear. I would say, almost daily, we were having to go out and chase these bears away, haze them.”

But bears have a sharp sense of smell, a long memory for food sources and an incredible sense of direction. If a tourist tosses them a pizza crust or the last bits of an ice cream cone, or leaves the lid off a trash can, they will return again and again, even if they are relocated miles away.

That summer, Fisher said, no matter what he did, the bears kept lumbering back into town. It was unlike anything he had experienced, he said, and he had grown up in Downieville. “A police car with an air horn or the siren, we would push the bear up out of the community. Fifteen minutes later, they were right back downtown,” he said.

Founded in 1849, Downieville, population 300, is one of California’s oldest towns and also one of its quaintest.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

And then there were the bears harassing Miller and her neighbors.

“There were three bears,” recalled Hall, who lives just up the hill from the home Miller rented. “Twice a night they would walk up and down our [porch] stairs. The Ring cameras were constantly going off.”

Fisher said some of Miller’s neighbors complained that she was part of the lure, because she was not disposing of her garbage properly. Some also alleged she was tossing food on her porch for her cats — and that the bears were coming for it. Miller’s daughter later told sheriff’s officials that bears were “constantly trying” to get into her house, and that “her mother had physically hit one” to keep it out. One particular bear, which Miller had nicknamed “Big Bastard,” was a frequent pest.

Fifty miles from Downieville, in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the Bear League was getting calls about Miller, too. The organization, which Bryant founded more than two decades ago, seeks to protect bears by helping residents coexist with them. This includes educating people about locking down their trash and helping to haze bears away from homes.

“We got calls [from her neighbors] that told us she had been feeding the bears, tossing food out to them, and let them come into her house,” Bryant said. She added that some thought, erroneously, that the Bear League was a government organization, and “maybe we had the ability to enforce the law” against feeding bears.

Hall, Miller’s friend, told The Times that Miller was not feeding bears. Still, the problems continued.

Eventually, officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were called and told Miller she could sign a “depredation permit,” after which authorities could kill bears trying to get into her house. But Miller declined to do so, Fisher said.

In early November, Miller stopped showing up around town, prompting calls for a welfare check.

A little before 3 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2023, Deputy Malcolm Fadden approached Miller’s home, which was a short walk from the sheriff’s office. The security bars on the kitchen window had been ripped off. The window itself had been busted from the outside.

“I knocked on the door,” Fadden wrote in his report, but got no answer.

Patrice Miller was found dead in her rental cottage in November 2023. Bear advocates take issue with an autopsy report that said she probably was killed in a bear attack.

(Jessica Garrison / Los Angeles Times)

Through the window, he saw blood streaked across the living room floor. He took out his gun and burst into the house, where he was greeted by a giant pile of bear scat. He found Miller in the kitchen, her half-eaten body surrounded by food and garbage, which, Fadden wrote, had been “apparently scattered by bears.”

Fisher was horrified. Already frustrated at what he saw as the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s lackluster response to the escalating bear incursions that summer, now he wanted the bear that had fed on Miller to be trapped and killed.

He said the department told him that for the bear to be killed, “the person who lives at the house has to sign the [depredation] permit.” Fisher said he responded: “How many times do I have to tell you the person who lives at that house was eaten by the bear?”

This was the start of a long-running conflict between the sheriff and agency officials that would complicate the release of the autopsy findings about Miller’s death, and also convince Fisher that more aggressive steps were needed to protect his community.

Eventually, Fisher managed to get a depredation permit for the bear that had fed on Miller; his deputies tracked down her landlord, who as the homeowner could sign it. Wildlife officials set up a trap near Miller’s house, and in short order, a bear was caught.

But, according to Fisher, officials initially said it wasn’t the same bear. They said DNA tests showed that the bear who had eaten her was male, and the bear they had caught appeared to be female. They intended to release the bear, he said.

Fisher padlocked the cage, and threatened to call the media. In response, he said, wildlife officials sent a biologist, who determined the bear in the trap was male. It was shot that night.

At that point, few people, including Fisher, believed that the bear had actually killed Miller, as opposed to feeding on her after she died of natural causes. Though there are recorded instances of fatal black bear maulings in other U.S. states, they are rare, and there had been no reports of one in California. Fisher issued a news release saying that the death was under investigation, but that “it is believed that Patrice Miller passed away before a bear, possibly drawn by the scent or other factors, accessed the residence.”

After performing an autopsy, however, the pathologist on contract with Sierra County came to a different conclusion. She issued a report that found that Miller had “deep hemorrhage of the face and neck“ as well as “puncture injuries (consistent with claw ‘swipe’ or ‘slap’).” These injuries, she noted, were “characteristics more suggestive of a vital reaction by a living person.” In short: The pathologist found that Miller was probably killed by the bear.

Because of Fisher’s feud with Fish and Wildlife, that autopsy report, dated Jan. 4, 2024, wouldn’t become public for months.

Fisher said the state agency was refusing to provide him with copies of the DNA analysis of the bear that had been trapped in Miller’s yard. He wanted to see for himself that it matched the DNA evidence collected at her home, saying he hated the thought that a bear that had feasted on a person might still be roaming his town.

“I requested DNA from Fish and Wildlife, and they refused to provide it to me,” he said. “So I withheld the coroner’s report. We stopped talking.”

He said he verbally told department officials that the pathologist believed Miller had been killed by the bear — a seemingly noteworthy development. He said that officials responded: “I guess we’ll see when we get the report.”

In an email to The Times, state wildlife officials confirmed that Fisher had verbally shared the results of the autopsy report, but said they felt they needed to see the report to do their “due diligence before making an announcement about the first fatal bear attack in California.” The agency had sent an investigator to the scene after Miller’s death, who like Fisher and his deputies, thought the evidence suggested she had died of natural causes, said agency spokesperson Peter Tira.

By the time Fisher got the autopsy report, it was deep winter in the mountains, and bear activity decreased. Then came spring, and along with the blossoms, the bears came back to Downieville.

Bears were knocking over trash cans and breaking into cars. In May, residents on Main Street reported that a bear had broken into multiple houses, including one incursion that involved a bear standing over 82-year-old Dale Hunter as he napped on his couch.

A few days later, a bear tried to break into the cafeteria at Downieville High School while students were at school.

Fisher declared the bear a threat to public safety. Fish and Wildlife eventually issued a depredation permit, and the bear was shot.

That led to a story in the Mountain Messenger, the local paper. In it, the sheriff dropped a bombshell: “Miller was mauled to death after a black bear entered her home,” the paper reported. The story went on to say that the sheriff had made “numerous attempts” to inform Fish and Wildlife “about Miller’s death and more recent dangerous situations.”

After the story ran, state Sen. Megan Dahle, a Lassen County Republican who at the time served in the Assembly, set up a conciliatory meeting between Fish and Wildlife and Fisher. They have been meeting regularly ever since, Fisher said.

Fisher got his DNA results confirming that the bear trapped in Miller’s yard was the same bear that had eaten her. And Fish and Wildlife officials finally got a copy of the pathology report, which said Miller was probably alive when she encountered the bear.

The revelation made headlines around the state. “We’re in new territory,” Capt. Patrick Foy of Fish and Wildlife’s law enforcement division told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bryant and other bear advocates found the release of such a significant finding so long after the fact confounding.

“I absolutely do not believe it,” Bryant said. If the bear had killed her, Bryant added, “the evidence should have been so clear, like immediately.”

“We don’t believe the bear did it,” Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League, says of Patrice Miller’s death. “We’ve never had a bear kill anybody.”

(Max Whittaker / For The Times)

The Downieville saga unfolded as bears seemed to be making news all over California.

To many, it seemed there were just many more bears encroaching on human settlements. A Fish and Wildlife report released last month estimated there are now 60,000 black bears roaming the Golden State, roughly triple the figure from 1998, the last time the department issued a bear management plan. That’s the highest population estimate for anywhere in the contiguous U.S., although the report also suggests that California’s bear population has been stable for the last decade.

In the Lake Tahoe area, where 50,000 people live year-round and tens of thousands more crowd in on busy tourist weekends, bears were breaking into houses and raiding refrigerators; they were bursting into ice cream shops and strolling along packed beaches.

State and local officials went into overdrive, trying to teach residents and tourists how to avoid attracting bears. The state set money aside for distribution of bear-proof trash cans and “unwelcome mats” that deliver a jolt of electricity if bears try to break into homes.

The Bear League will loan Tahoe Basin residents “unwelcome mats” that deliver a little jolt of electricity to bears if they try to break into homes.

(Max Whittaker / For The Times)

The Bear League stepped up its efforts. From a small office on Bryant’s property, the organization’s 24-hour hotline was ringing, and volunteers were rushing out with paintball guns to haze bears and to advise people on how to bear-proof their houses.

The tensions continued to escalate, nonetheless, between people who wanted to protect bears at all costs and those who wanted some problem bears trapped and relocated — or killed. In 2024, after a homeowner in the Tahoe area fatally shot a bear he said had broken into his home, many people were outraged that the Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to file charges.

Advocates also complained that the state has fallen behind in its efforts to help people and bears coexist. In recent years, the state had hired dedicated staff to help people in bear country, but the money ran out and some of those people were laid off, said Jennifer Fearing, a wildlife advocate and lobbyist.

“We have the tools to minimize human-wildlife conflict in California,” Fearing said. “We need the state to invest in using them.”

In Sierra County, the sheriff had come to a different conclusion. “We’ve swung the pendulum too far on the environmental side on these apex predators,” Fisher said.

Earlier this year, Fisher found common cause with newly elected GOP Assemblymember Heather Hadwick. “Mountain lions, bears and wolves are my biggest issue. I get calls every day about some kind of predator, which is crazy,” said Hadwick, who represents 11 northern counties.

In February, she introduced a bill, AB 1038, that would allow hunters to sic trained dogs on bears to chase them through the woods, but not kill them. While California has a legal hunting season for bears, it is strictly regulated; the use of hounds to aid the chase has been banned since 2013.

Hadwick argued that hounding bears would increase their fear of humans, which she said some are starting to lose: “We’re keeping them in the forest, where they belong.”

Bears have a long memory for food sources and an incredible sense of direction. If a tourist tosses them a pizza crust or leaves the lid off a trash can, they will return again and again.

(California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Wildlife advocates showed up in force last month to oppose Hadwick’s bill in an Assembly committee hearing. Sending hounds after bears is cruel, they said. Plus, hounding bears in the woods would have no impact on the bears knocking over neighborhood trash cans and sneaking into ice cream stores.

Fisher testified in favor of the bill, and spoke of Miller’s death.

Lawmakers listened, some with stricken looks on their faces. But in a Legislature controlled by Democrats, Hadwick did not garner enough votes to send her bill on to the full Assembly; it became a two-year bill, meaning it could come back next year.

Fisher returned to Sierra County, where he has continued to advocate for locals to have more power to go after predators. The current situation, he said, is “out of control.”

Dennis received a 17-month suspended sentence over a car incident in Australia which killed his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.

Former Olympic cyclist and world champion Rohan Dennis received a suspended sentence over what was termed a “tragic accident” that led to the death of his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.

The 34-year-old appeared in South Australia District Court on Wednesday after an earlier charge of committing an aggravated act likely to cause harm.

Dennis was arrested after Hoskins, 32, was struck by his vehicle in front of their home at Medindie in Adelaide’s north on December 30, 2023. Hoskins suffered serious injuries in the crash and died at Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The court was told that the couple had argued over kitchen renovations before Dennis left their home and drove away. The court also heard that Hoskins had jumped onto the hood of the car during the incident.

Dennis on Wednesday was sentenced to one year, four months and 28 days in jail, to be suspended for two years. The sentence was reduced from two years and two months because of his guilty plea and he’s been placed on a two-year good behaviour bond.

His driver’s licence was also suspended for five years.

“I accept you have a sense of responsibility for all that occurred, I accept you have anguished over what could have been different if you had acted in some other way,” Judge Ian Press said Wednesday.

Dennis showed little emotion when Press sentenced him.

“Given your plea of guilty, your remorse, that you are the sole carer for your young children, and given all your other personal circumstances and the circumstances of the offending, I am satisfied that good reason exists to suspend that sentence,” the judge said.

The offence carried a maximum sentence of seven years in jail but lawyer Jane Abbey asked that her client receive a suspended sentence, which was not opposed by the prosecution.

During sentencing submissions in April, Amanda Hoskins said her daughter had loved Dennis “and I know that you would never intentionally hurt her”.

“I believe this is a tragic accident. Your temper is your downfall and needs to be addressed,” she said.

Hoskins’ funeral was held in her home city of Perth, Western Australia, and a public memorial service was held in Adelaide in February 2024. Dennis attended the service with their two children.

Hoskins competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics on the track in the team pursuit and was in the squad that won the 2015 world title. Dennis won two world titles in the road time trial, as well as silver in the team pursuit at the 2012 Olympics and bronze in the road time trial at the Tokyo Olympics.

“Selena y Los Dinos,” the latest documentary film about the life of Tejano music icon Selena Quintanilla, has been acquired by Netflix. The film is currently scheduled to begin streaming in winter 2025.

The movie, directed by Isabel Castro, features original VHS footage taken by Selena’s older sister, Suzette, and is interspersed with present-day interviews with family and friends.

Netflix announced its acquisition in a Tuesday press release.

“Through personal archive and intimate interviews with her family, the film reveals new dimensions of her journey that have never been seen before,” Castro shared in the release. “I am deeply grateful to her family for their trust and support throughout this journey, and I can’t wait for a global audience to experience the magic, heart and community that Selena gave to all of us.”

Suzette also shared her enthusiasm about the scope of the partnership with Netflix in the Tuesday announcement, stating, “Grateful to have a platform that helps bring Selena’s story to fans around the world.”

This is not the first time that the Quintanilla family has collaborated with the streaming giant. They worked with Netflix to help create “Selena: The Series” — a scripted retelling of Selena’s childhood, rise to fame and death starring Christian Serratos as the Texas singer.

It was after working as an executive producer on the Netflix series that Suzette consulted her lawyer about making her own documentary.

“There’s some things that you just want to hold on to and not share with everyone,” Suzette said at the documentary’s 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere. “I was always taking the pictures, always with the camera. And look how crazy it is, that I’m sharing it with all of you so many years later.”

The documentary surfaces footage from performances in which Selena subverts the idea of the well-manicured image that the Quintanilla family has constantly put out of the singer in the 30 years since her death. It also captures, in real time, the evolution of a bold new identity growing among Latino youth in the 1980s, encapsulated in Los Dinos’ cultural hybridity.

The film was awarded with a special jury prize for archival storytelling at the renowned movie gathering at Sundance. The jury made note of how the feature “transported us to a specific time and place, evoking themes of family, heritage, love and adolescence.”

So badly were people clamoring to view the movie that the organizers of Sundance pulled it from its online platform. The film had fallen victim to a number of copyright infringements as eager fans were uploading clips from it to social media platforms. This was the first time that Sundance had removed a feature during the festival.

De Los assistant editor Suzy Exposito and Times staff writer Mark Olsen contributed to this report.

A MAN accused of beating a florist to death has been cleared in the UK’s longest-ever miscarriage of justice.

Peter Sullivan was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years in 1987 for the murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall in Bebington, Merseyside.

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The loner, who was 29 at the time, has spent the past 38 years maintaining his innocent and is now appealing his conviction for a third time.

It comes after new tests ordered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission revealed his DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.

His lawyers said that if his conviction is quashed, he would be the longest-serving victim of a miscarriage of justice in the UK.

The Crown Prosecution Service today told the Court of Appeal the new evidence is enough to cast “sufficient” doubt on the conviction.

It also agreed the fresh clue was “reliable” and that the CPS “does not seek to argue that this evidence is not capable of undermining the safety of Mr Sullivan’s conviction”.

Duncan Atkinson KC, for the CPS, said: “The respondent considers that there is no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed, solely by reference to the DNA evidence.

“On the contrary, the DNA evidence provides a clear and uncontroverted basis to suggest that another person was responsible for both the sexual assault and the murder.

“As such, it positively undermines the circumstantial case against Mr Sullivan as identified at the time both of his trial and his 2021 appeal.”

Diane had just left her shift as a part-time barmaid at a pub in Bebington when her small blue van ran out of petrol.

She was making her way to a garage when she was beaten to death and sexually assaulted in a “frenzied” attack.

Her body was discovered partially clothed close to a grass verge.

Sullivan, who is watching the appeal from HMP Wakefield, was said to have spent the day of the murder drinking heavily.

Following his arrest in September 1986, he was quizzed 22 times and denied legal advice in the first seven interviews – despite requesting it.

Sullivan later “confessed to the murder” in an unrecorded interview a day after his arrest.

He then made a formal confession but the court was told this was “inconsistent with the facts established by the investigation“.

It also went against his earlier interviews, with Sullivan retracting the admission later that day.

Since his conviction, questions have been raised about whether he had proper legal representation during his interviews.

Evidence related to bite marks on Diane’s body has also been called into question.

At the time of the case, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests were refused.

Sullivan first went to the CCRC for help in 2008 but they did not refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.

He then launched his own appeal bid in 2019, which judges dismissed after ruling the bite mark evidence was not central to the prosecution at trial.

In 2021, Sullivan went back to the CCRC and raised concerns over police interviews, the bite mark evidence and the murder weapon.

The independent body revealed Sullivan’s DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time.

This led Merseyside Police to confirm they were “carrying out an extensive investigation in a bid to identify who the new DNA profile belongs to”.

The force revealed they had no matches on the police database but were contacting people previously identified in the original probe to request new samples.

Sullivan’s barrister Jason Pitter KC today told the court that Diane’s murder was “a grotesque offence”.

But he argued that the evidence could not now pass “the threshold with which a prosecution could take place”.

While he accepted that improvements in science and the “passage of time” had “significantly assisted” Sullivan’s position, the new DNA evidence showed the killer “was not the defendant”.

He also explained the bite mark evidence, which the prosecution claimed matched Sullivan, was no longer viewed as reliable evidence of identification in criminal cases.

Mr Pitter told the court “significant admissions” and “incriminating statements” made by Sullivan at the time of the killing were “inherently unreliable” due to his “vulnerability”.

He added: “The appellant was extremely vulnerable in an interrogative situation, because of his limited intellectual functioning, combined with his problems with self-expression, his disposition to acquiesce, to yield, to be influenced, manipulated and controlled and his internal pressure to speak without reflection and his tendency to engage in make-believe to an extreme extent.

“What he was saying was nonsense, in plain terms.”

Coronation Street’s Craig Tinker, played by actor Colson Smith, is soon leaving the ITV soap and now first-look images and a trailer may have confirmed reports he gets killed off

There could be a heartbreaking Coronation Street death on the way next week, as Craig Tinker bows out of the ITV soap after a “vicious attack”.

Actor Colson Smith was confirmed to be leaving the role after more than a decade earlier this year, having learned last autumn he was being written out. Recent reports claimed Craig would be killed off in a tragic storyline, and now new spoilers, images and a trailer have teased this could be the case.

Viewers will no doubt be hoping Craig survives and leaves Weatherfield alive, but it’s now been confirmed the fan favourite will be left seriously injured and fighting for his life. As Kit Green’s storyline with villain Mick Michaelis heats up it seems poor Craig may get caught in the crossfire, and others too.

Spoilers have teased more than one person linked to Craig could be in danger, as Mick sets out to take revenge on Kit over their past. New images show a bloodied Craig left lifeless on the Cobbles, as residents including Maria Connor and Sarah Platt rush to his aid.

READ MORE: EastEnders boss teases major return as BBC soap wins big at BAFTA Awards

Paramedic Asha Alahan is treating him at the scene, before she joins him in the hospital. In all of the images a beaten Craig is unconscious, and those around him look very concerned.

With it revealed that this is Craig’s final storyline and his “final fight”, will tragedy see the police officer lose his life? In a trailer released by the soap, his colleague DS Lisa Swain is heard emotionally saying: “If we knew today was our last day on earth, what would we do differently?” She chillingly adds: “There isn’t always more time.”

Details about what happens and whether Craig makes it are being kept under wraps, with episodes airing from Monday May 19, through to the Wednesday and Friday of that week. It’s believed it will be Colson’s final week on the show, with him teasing his excitement over his final storyline.

What can be revealed is that a “horrific” attack leaves Craig’s life hanging in the balance, and he’s rushed to hospital after being found by his neighbours. The entire week of episodes will specially focus on Craig’s story, as well as his colleague Kit’s own story following on from the flashback episode that details his and Mick’s past.

Kit finds this past coming back to haunt him, with it said his friends and family are “in grave danger”. So is Craig one of those at risk at the hands of Mick?

Craig is soon to start his placement shadowing Kit in CID, but soon a series of “climactic events” unfold on the famous cobbles leading to a horrifying and shocking incident. Whatever it is leads to Craig fighting to survive, and fighting “for every breath”.

Speaking about the scenes ahead, actor Colson said he was “proud” of the big week and said it was all “great fun”. But Will Craig pull through?

Colson said: “I can’t wait for people to see Craig’s final scenes. It is exactly the exit I wanted for him and we are all really proud of what we filmed in those final weeks. It was actually great fun. I was walking around covered in fake blood for days and I was chuffed that I got to work with so many brilliant people in this final storyline.”

The actor had revealed earlier this year he was leaving the show after being axed. He posted online: “Autumn last year I was told that Craig Tinker’s time on the Cobbles is to come to an end in 2025. I’ve LOVED every single second of my 14 year stay as a resident on the greatest street in the world.”

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Underneath the giant costumes of the characters that grew up with millennial children were real-life people, who have been involved in scandal and tragedy in life after the hit show

We all remember the four giant-sized, alien-like creatures running around in our screens causing mischief when we were little.

The Teletubbies could be considered one of the most iconic children’s TV shows in British history since they debuted in 1997. Their gibberish language and the differently shaped antennas coming out of their heads make them easily memorable.

The four Teletubbies were Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, and would be watched over by the Sun Baby and the Voice Trumpets. They all spread joy and laughter on the show to anyone who watched. However, they were quite renowned for mating so much so that they had to make a scene less X-rated, where one episode was banned.

The show originally ran from 1997 until 2001 on the BBC before being revived from 2015 to 2018. And in November 2022, Netflix launched a big comeback. But what happened to the original faces behind the masks?

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Tinky Winky

Tinky Winky was the largest and oldest Teletubby was played by three actors, Dave Thompson, Simon Shelton, and Jeremiah Krage. Dave, who was the first to play the purple giant left the series after viewers started to question Tinky Winky’s sexuality.

Hardline US evangelist Jerry Falwell once attacked the show, saying: “Tinky Winky is purple, the gay pride colour, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle: the gay pride symbol.”

The official line was that he walked due to “creative differences”, but it was later reported that the show’s production company felt the actor had misinterpreted the role by “implying” Tinky Winky was gay.

“I am proud of my work for them. I was always the one to test out the limitations of the costume. I was the first to fall off my chair and roll over. I took all the risks,” Dave said regarding his departure. Since leaving the show Dave went into the business of standup comedy and performed with the Naked Balloon dance troupe in 2014.

After Dave’s departure, Simon, who was a ballet dancer and choreographer, took over the role as the Teletubbies grew in popularity in the UK and US. “We used to receive a lot of fan mail from kind and parents, I suppose we were a bit like The Beatles or Take That of children’s television,” explained Simon.

Tinky Winky’s orientation has also been a question Simon has had to answer. “People always ask me if Tinky Winky is gay,” he said. “But the character is supposed to be a three-year-old so the question is really quite silly.”

Tragically, Simon was found dead from hypothermia in Liverpool in January 2018 at the age of just 52-years-old. He had a high concentration of booze in his system and had known to have had problems with alcohol.

Dipsy

Dipsy may have been considered the coolest of the Teletubbies, played by stand-up comedian John Simmit. Explaining how he influenced the character, John explained: “Dipsy would say, ‘Papa Come Papa Come To Po’, which was actually my take on a classic reggae rhythm track called The Whip.

“And I’d slip in Jamaican dance moves, a Bogle there and a Tatty here. People spotted my little wink to my culture and I’m proud of that.”

John never hid from the truth of how hard and sweaty it was to work in the big suit they had to wear. “We had to wear really ugly underwear like those old Western long johns, which was essentially a onesie, but it was so it could absorb the sweat,” he said.

“When we were out of costume, you’d have to turn your face the other way and speak to us at a distance because we were reeking and so sweaty you could wring us out. Huge props to our dressers for putting up with us!”

Once the show came to an end after four years, John went back to being a comic and toured the country. John once said he has never revealed on stage that he was the man behind the Dipsy costume, but he does tweet about his time on the show and replies to fans’ messages. “The stand-up circuit is pretty close-knit so people got to know that I was Dipsy – but I never mentioned it on stage,” he previously said.

Laa Laa

The third Teletubby is Laa Laa with the curly antenna, the sweetest and most supportive of the gang, and was played by trained dancer Nikky Smedley. The 53-year-old got the role of Laa Laa after replying to newspaper ads for an actor to star in a new children’s TV show and stayed for the original four-year run.

But it wasn’t all fun and games as Nikky explained that the hot and heavy suits were a nightmare as they filmed for 11 hours at a time.

Once Teletubbies came to the end of its first run in 2001, Nikky stayed working for Ragdoll Productions on other shows. As well as Boohbah, Nikky has been involved in choreographing CBeebies favourite In The Night Garden – another popular kid’s show featuring strange, colourful characters.

Po

The baby of the family was little Po, who was by far the cutest and smallest of the lot. Softly-spoken Po could be seen blowing bubbles using her circular-shaped antenna and hurting around Tubbyland on her scooter.

Actress and presenter Pui Fan Lee took on the role shortly after leaving drama school – and in one incredible picture was seen lying down fast asleep with the body of her Po costume still on.

After the show ended, Pui raised a few eyebrows by taking part in lesbian sex scenes during Channel 4 show Metrosexuality. “Yes, I was Po, but I am an actress, and the role looked interesting. I didn’t take the lesbian role to be deliberately controversial,” explained the actress.

Pui would later return to children’s TV and was one of the first ever presenters on the CBeebies channel along with Chris Jarvis, who she also hosts Show Me Show Me with. The actress also had a minor role in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and made a guest appearance in EastEnders in 2019.

The Sun Baby

The adorable Sun Baby popped up at the beginning of every episode to wake the Teletubbies up and as a signal for the end of the day. The original Sun Baby was played by Jess Smith, between 1997 and 2001, and is now in her 20s and was expecting her first child.

The child star also previously revealed that she was actually cast in the role when she was being weighed in hospital. At the time, producers let the baby Jess sit in front of a mirror and a camera while she watched her dad play with toys. Luckily, the sweet moment made baby Jess laugh so much that she was instantly cast in the coveted BBC role.

Speaking to BBC South East in 2017 about landing the role, Jess explained: “I was being weighed at the hospital. “My mum took me and it just happened to be the same time that the producer of the old series had come in and wanted the hospital to get in contact with them if they’d seen any smiley babies.

“It was just a case of sitting in front of a mirror and a camera and my dad playing with toys and race cars and that sort of thing to try and get me to laugh at the camera.” When the show was revived in 2015, a new baby called Berry took over the role and was even seen being cuddled by Jess in a cute snap.

Osvaldo Golijov’s beauteously strange “Ainadamar” has reached Los Angeles. The opera, one of this century’s most gratifying, portrays the 1936 political execution of the poet Federico Garcia Lorca during the Spanish Civil War through the final minutes of actress Margarita Xirgu’s life. She dies as she is about to go onstage in the Lorca play “Mariana Pineda,” about the heroine of an earlier Spanish revolution.

Margarita’s final minute on Earth lasts 90 flamenco-filled minutes in Golijov’s one-act opera. Lorca’s life — his spirit and loves and lust — is revealed in flashbacks, which L.A. Opera makes the most of in a flamboyant, dance-drenched production. But it is Margarita’s pain we feel, her death we experience and her life we mourn.

Lorca’s death, then, becomes a borrowed experience. He is a spirit of history. Margarita’s last act is to pass on that spirit to a young actress, Nuria, and in the process, to us. The saddest of operas, “Ainadamar” is not a tragic opera, not an opera of open-and-shut endings, but one of open-ended endings.

Life goes on. But what comes next?

A movie-length production without intermission can feel about right for a modern audience. “Ainadamar” satisfies on its own but nevertheless suggests there is something more to consider. The sheer force of Margarita’s being asks to remain in our consciousness longer.

She did remain a little longer. Following the Sunday matinee of “Ainadamar” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Los Angeles Master Chorale gave the U.S. premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s new “Dream Requiem,” which proved an ideal companion to “Ainadamar.”

Although Golijov is an introspective Argentine American composer who comes out of the classical music world, his works are infused with folk song and dance from Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Wainwright is an introspective pop star with a noted folk song pedigree who also is an opera enthusiast and composer. At the pre-concert talk Sunday, Wainwright said hearing Verdi’s Requiem as a 13-year-old changed his life.

“Ainadamar” and the 80-minute “Dream Requiem” have poets at their core. Just as Lorca embodies Lorca, Wainwright threads recitations of Lord Byron’s 1816 “Darkness,” throughout a score otherwise based on the traditional Latin requiem text.

Each work is its own fountain of tears. Ainadamar is, in fact, the Arabic term for the Fountain of Tears, the site in Granada where Lorca was shot by a firing squad, presumably for political reasons as well as for being gay. In “Dream Requiem,” we cry over the environment. Byron wrote “Darkness” as a response to the 1815 Mt. Tambora volcano eruption in Indonesia, which clouded sunlight around the world for more than a year.

The so-called 1816 “year without a summer” was also a time of revolt in Spain. Fifteen years later, the Spanish liberalist Mariana Pineda was executed. The three parts of “Ainadamar” begin with the chorus singing a ballad to her.

The magnificent performance of “Dream Requiem” — conducted by Grant Gershon and featuring, along with the Master Chorale, the impressive Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, an excellent large orchestra, the spectacular soprano Liv Redpath and a vehement Jane Fonda as the gripping narrator — proved a necessary complement to a more problematic performance of “Ainadamar.”

The opera has deep L.A. roots. A Los Angeles Philharmonic co-commission, the theatrically tentative first version of “Ainadamar” survived on its instances of musical brilliance. Under the supervision of Peter Sellars, Golijov and librettist David Henry Hwang completely rewrote “Ainadamar” for Santa Fe Opera in a sublimely moving production with gloriously grafitti-fied sets by L.A. artist Gronk.

A musically promising but uncertain opera instantly turned into an essential classic for a new century. Long Beach Opera’s tenuous local premiere of that version was followed by a powerful concert performance at the Ojai Music Festival with the Atlanta Symphony conducted by Robert Spano and starring Dawn Upshaw, the forces who made the work’s celebrated recording.

The L.A. Opera revival is a new production that has been making the rounds at Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Detroit Opera and, last fall, New York’s Metropolitan Opera. It’s the work of Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker, best known for creating the Cirque du Soleil touring show “Ovo.”

Colker treats “Ainadamar” as another drama spectacle with dazzling imagery. The flamenco dancing, choreographed by Antonio Najarro, is exciting and the dancing terrific. Resplendent video projections by Tal Rosner appear on beaded curtains that surround a circular space in the middle of the stage where most of the action takes place.

Ana Maria Martinez as Margarita Xirgu, left, and Daniela Mack as Federico Garcia Lorca in “Ainadamar.”

(Cory Weaver / LA Opera)

But all of this avoids the challenges of a magical realism where questions about the purpose of poetry, theater, political resistance, life and legacy are answerable only by dying. Golijov’s score is also unanswerable, full of electronic effects, where the sound of gunshots beat out intricate dance rhythms.

The three main characters are played by women: Margarita (Ana María Martínez), Nuria (Vanessa Becerra) and Lorca (Daniela Mack). All prove believable and their trio at the end is exquisite, even if with amplification and the dramatic limitations of the production they have limited presence. Alfredo Tejada makes a startling company debut as a ferociously frightening Ramón Ruiz Alonso, who arrests Lorca. The company’s resident conductor, Lina González-Granados, thrives on forcefully emphasized dance rhythms.

Less prominent were the opera’s wondrous lyric moments or a sense of Golijov’s inventive, multifaceted musical sources. Where the company makes up for that, though, is in its series of informative podcasts and program notes adding whatever context is lost in the staging.

Like Golijov (and like Leonard Bernstein and Mahler), Wainwright is at heart a songwriter, and he had the advantage of Gershon conveying the luxuriant lyricism in “Dream Requiem,” a work that at its heart also is operatic. He harks back to Verdi and the late 19th century but with his own unexpected turns of phrase.

Like Golijov in “Ainadamar,” Wainwright starts very quietly and slow-builds his musical architecture out of an array of materials and colors. He goes in for big effects, lots of percussion, huge climaxes and sweet melodies of which you can never, if so inclined, get enough.

Wainwright bangs out the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath) as almost all composers do in requiem masses, but he can be restrained where others tend to be loud and enthusiastic (Sanctus) and visa versa. He shows no mercy for the solo soprano part, but Redpath astounded as she scaled the heights.

Jane Fonda recites Byron’s “Darkness” in Rufus Wainwright’s “Dream Requiem” at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday.

(Jamie Pham / Los Angeles Master Chorale)

In the end, Wainwright has created a latter-day bardo, the spiritual journey that follows death. The interruptions from Byron’s poem brought chills in Fonda’s mesmerizing reading, as the text follows the breakdown of humanity in the aftermath of environmental catastrophe. She made it feel like a requiem warning for us all.

Once is not enough for “Dream Requiem.” A recording of the premiere in Paris last year has been released, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the live performance by the Master Chorale in Disney. “Dream Requiem” will be presented by several co-commissioners in Europe, as well as for the Royal Ballet in London.

Who will dare to dream big and be the first to stage “Dream Requiem” as a double bill with “Ainadamar”?

Benidorm’s flirty barman, Mateo, was played by Jake Canuso for 11 years from 2007 to 2018 and is now unrecognisable from his time on the hit ITV sitcom set in Spain

For 11 years, from 2007 to 2018, he was the charming barman in ITV’s popular sitcom Benidorm. However, actor Jake Canuso, now 55, looks vastly different from his days as heartthrob Mateo Castellanos.

Jake shared the screen with stars such as Crissy Rock – who has since revealed her childhood sexual abuse trauma – as well as Johnny Vegas, Steve Pemberton and Sherrie Hewson. He holds the record for being the longest-serving character on the show, having appeared in all 74 episodes. These days, he sports a new look with longer hair and stubble, and it appears he’s been spending some time at the gym. In a harrowing incident back in 2004, Jake narrowly escaped death during the Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day while holidaying in Ko Phra Thong, Thailand.

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After spotting the initial waves, he climbed a tree for safety but ended up trapped underwater when the tree snapped. This traumatic experience led to him developing aquaphobia, leaving him too frightened to swim for several years.

A decade ago, Jake participated in ITV’s diving show Splash!, hosted by Tom Daley, reports OK!. Since then, he’s expressed an interest in joining Strictly Come Dancing and also portrayed Alejandro, a pig farmer, in the film Fyre Rises.

Hollywood star and Spider-Man actor Eric Roberts co-starred in the film, which also featured a host of British talent including EastEnders‘ Steven Beale actor Aaron Sidwell and Marc Bannerman, who played Gianni di Marco in the soap.

Jake has recently branched out from acting, offering personalised videos on the popular celebrity messaging platform Cameo. He’s garnered numerous five-star reviews and promotes his services with the tagline: “Mateo from Benidorm at your services.” His videos start at £56 and can be delivered within 24 hours.

Last year, he encouraged his Instagram followers to purchase a video, saying: “It’s nearly Valentine’s Day. Last chance to get a cheeky Valentines message from Benidorm’s Barman Mateo. Check out the link and if you book today all messages will be done by tomorrow.”

Before his breakout role in Benidorm, Jake was a professional dancer for 18 years, sharing the stage with big names like Rozalla, the Spice Girls, Annie Lennox, and Elton John. He also featured in music videos for Alex Party’s hit 90s single Don’t Give Me Your Life, Carter USM’s Let’s Get Tattoos, 2 Unlimited’s Here I Go, and Kylie Minogue’s Give Me Just A Little More Time.

He’s made a name for himself in pantomimes, starring in Aladdin in Birmingham in 2014 and Jack and the Beanstalk in Bradford the following year. Other Benidorm actors have pursued various roles and jobs, including working as an ASDA delivery driver and appearing in Ted Lasso.

In April this year, it was rumoured that Benidorm could be making a huge comeback, eight years after it was axed. The sitcom is experiencing a resurgence in popularity, particularly on streaming platforms like Netflix.

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Filmmaker James Foley, whose directing career spanned music videos, television and film, with stars including Madonna, Al Pacino and Bruce Dern, has died.

Florent Lamy, a representative for Foley, confirmed the Brooklyn-born director’s death to The Times on Thursday. Lamy did not provide a cause of death, but according to media outlets including the Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker had been battling brain cancer. Foley was 71.

“James Foley was not only a talented director but also a dear friend,” Lamy told The Times. “He was one of my very first clients, and over time, he became someone very special in my life.”

Foley’s diverse directing career — which notably included films “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “At Close Range” and the “Fifty Shades” sequels — began in the mid-1980s. The 1984 film “Reckless” marked his directorial debut and gave him the opportunity to work alongside actors Daryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn and prolific producer-filmmaker Chris Columbus.

In the following years, Foley directed films — including 1986’s “At Close Range” (featuring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken) and 1990’s “After Dark, My Sweet” (starring Dern) — as well as music videos and other visuals for Madonna, who was en route to global pop stardom at the time. From 1985 to 1990, Foley directed music videos for Madge’s “Dress You Up” and “True Blue.” He directed both her music video “Who’s That Girl?” and her 1987 comedy of the same name.

Foley also directed music videos for rock band Deep Purple and Marky Mark, actor Mark Wahlberg’s former rap persona. He would later reunite with Wahlberg for the 1996 thriller “Fear” and 1999’s “The Corruptor,” with Chow Yun-Fat.

In 1992, Foley directed the film adaptation of playwright David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross.” One of Foley’s most popular works, the adaptation featured a star-studded cast of Pacino, Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce. Pacino received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his work on the dark comedy.

Foley’s final film credits, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” also were among his popular works. Foley took over the film franchise, based on E.L. James’ erotic novels, after “Fifty Shades of Grey” director Sam Taylor-Johnson departed over reported disputes with the author, who was also a producer. The “Fifty Shades” films starred Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.

Foley also directed episodes for series “Twin Peaks,” “Hannibal,” “House of Cards” (which reunited him with Spacey) and “Billions,” among other shows.

In a 2017 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Foley said he embraced the variety of his decades-long career. “I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,” he said.

“I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse. What’s best and what’s worst [about the industry] are almost the same to me,” he added. “Because what’s worst is you get pigeonholed and what’s best is I haven’t been. It means that I’m still making movies, despite hopping all over the place.”

Foley’s survivors include his brother Kevin, sisters Eileen and Jo Ann, and nephew Quinn, according to several reports. He was preceded in death by his other brother Gerard.

SACRAMENTO — Democratic divides over the ongoing bloody conflict in the Middle East were on display this week as gubernatorial candidates made their pitches to politically active Jewish Californians.

Five of the candidates running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run in 2026 because of term limits, overwhelmingly agreed about the horror of the Hamas attack on Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, while also lamenting the ensuing deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, notably women and children.

But there were differences in their views of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the terrorist attack, which the Jewish state’s authorities said caused the deaths of about 1,200 people, and 251 people being taken hostage, including some American citizens. The Israeli efforts have resulted in the deaths of more than 52,000 Gazans, according to the region’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa raised the terrorist attack on Israel most directly when he spoke to the Jewish Public Affairs Committee gathering in the state’s capital on Tuesday.

“For me, Oct. 7 was a day that will live in me and a day that will be seared in my memory,” he told hundreds of attendees. “To see women and children brutalized, older people, people without weapons, killed in front of their family.”

He said in an interview afterward that although he is not a Netanyahu supporter, he doesn’t believe the Israel response has gone too far.

“Look, I’m well aware of what Hamas does. Hamas puts their ammunition in hospitals. They put their rockets under apartment buildings. They built infrastructure in places, daring the Israelis to hit them back,” Villaraigosa said. “Nobody enjoys seeing the number of innocents who have been killed. But I put that mostly on Hamas.”

At the conference, former Rep. Katie Porter spoke about the rising antisemitism in the nation.

“So we have to be honest and just say that it is scary right now to be a Jewish person. It is scary to be American in many instances, because we are seeing rising hate, and that hate has been targeted in particular at the Jewish people and at Jewish institutions,” Porter said on Monday, pointing to the recent arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home.

Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, added that although she prioritizes protecting free speech, “there is a line above which you cannot go,” when speech places people in danger.

Though governors do not craft foreign policy, California’s voice is influential because of the large number of Jewish and Muslim residents who live here — the second-most of any state in the nation for both religious groups.

Additionally, the conflict and the United States’ support of Israel has roiled Democratic politics in the state and across the nation, not only among members of the two religious groups, but also with young and liberal voters.

Weeks after the terrorist attack, about 1,000 protesters shut down a California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento, calling then-President Biden “Genocide Joe.” The incident occurred days after protesters clashed with police outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

The administration’s response led to some Democrats turning against the party in the 2024 presidential election. Nearly 70% of voters in Dearborn, Mich., traditionally a Democratic stronghold that is home to the largest concentration of Muslims in the country, voted for President Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein last year.

The divide could reemerge at the state Democratic Party convention in Anaheim later this month.

This week’s appearance by five gubernatorial candidates points to the importance of Jewish voters, who tend to vote at higher rates than average Americans, according to Brandeis University. Each spoke about their ties with the Jewish community.

Former state Controller Betty Yee, whose husband is a rabbi, said she believes that the governor of California can help build bridges between the diverse communities in this state.

“I’ll just speak as someone who cares about our common humanity; as a humanitarian, I can’t stomach what’s happened,” she said in an interview, adding that Netayahu has overstepped.

Her husband’s experiences leading interfaith dialogues grew more challenging in the aftermath of the attack.

“Oct. 7 really put a lot of strain on those relationships, and it’s just now finally kind of starting to come around … to move forward together, and to understand who’s the enemy,” she said. “Well, the enemy is anybody who’s just going to be for senseless killings.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Turmond, whose family converted to Hebrew Pentecostalism when he was a child, said his agency has had to intervene in some K-12 districts about discussions of the conflict and its effect on students.

“Teachers and educators at the end of the day have to refrain from imparting their personal view to students and telling them how they should feel, and that has happened in a few cases, and that has gotten those districts in trouble,” he said in an interview.

Current events ought to be teachable moments, he said.

“We have a history of social science framework that says we should use world life events as an opportunity to teach,” Thurmond said. “But the moment that anyone starts imparting their personal view for any side, then it’s gone too far. And what it has led to has been experiences where Jewish students have felt targeted and isolated, and ultimately, some have left those districts.”

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra held the Jewish community up as a paragon for what the state ought to strive for in challenging times.

“When I visit communities across the state, I hear a very familiar worry that our politics are too broken, our systems too slow, our future too uncertain. But I don’t believe in giving in,” he said Tuesday morning. “We don’t get to choose the challenges of our times, but we do get to choose how we respond to them. The Jewish community in California has answered that question time and time again, with action, with advocacy, with hearts.”

Villaraigosa discussed his childhood in Boyle Heights, growing up alongside Latinos, Jews and Asian Americans, as well as the strong support he received from Jewish Angelenos during his campaigns. Porter touched upon her relationship with the Jewish community in Orange County, including holding her first town hall at a synagogue there.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis was scheduled to appear at the conference but had a scheduling conflict because of a family matter.

A BAYERN MUNICH star had his hat stolen amid chaotic celebrations in Paris after PSG’s win over Arsenal.

There was a fervent atmosphere in the French capital pre and post-match, with Luis Enrique‘s side beating the Gunners 2-1 (3-1 on aggregate).

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Flares were set off by supporters ahead of kick-off and riot police were called out to deal with trouble.

After the game there were further scenes of disorder as thugs and vandals descended onto the streets.

Crowds of PSG fans celebrated wildly and one yob managed to steal a Bayern player’s hat.

Full-back Sacha Boey was travelling in his car leaving the ground after watching the second leg action.

He got stuck in the crowd and was quickly surrounded by fans, many of whom filmed Boey.

One individual then reached into Boey’s convertible and whisked his cap off his head.

The Frenchman gave a death stare at the culprit but could do nothing, leaving him fuming.

However he later saw the funny side as he took a selfie without his hat.

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He shared the snap on social media alongside the caption: “Come return my hat guys 😂😂😂😂😂😂❤️”

A jury in the United States has acquitted three former police officers in the controversial beating death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old father who was killed after a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee.

On Wednesday, former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were found not guilty in a state-level case that included charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

This was their second criminal trial, after facing federal charges for Nichols’s death as well.

In that case, the three officers were also acquitted of the most serious charges they faced, though they were found guilty of witness tampering for allegedly attempting to cover up the beating.

There were five police officers in total involved in the Nichols killing, which took place on January 7, 2023. As video of the beating spread online, Nichols’s death reignited the debate over law enforcement violence and the over-policing of Black communities.

In the wake of the verdict, Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters that Nichols’s family was “devastated” and “outraged”.

“We can understand why they would be outraged, given the evidence,” Mulroy said.

“Was I surprised that there wasn’t a single guilty verdict on any of the counts or any of the lesser-included offences, given the overwhelming evidence that we presented? Yes, I was surprised,” he added. “Do I have an explanation for it? No.”

All five police officers involved in the beating were members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit, a now-defunct squad that focused on alleged crime hotspots in the city. The outcry after Nichols’s death led to it being disbanded.

On the day of his killing, Nichols was pulled over for allegedly driving recklessly, though prosecutors have cast doubt on that motive, pointing out that police body cameras show no evidence of wrongdoing.

Officers pulled Nichols from his car and tased him while he was on the ground. Nichols then attempted to flee. He ran into a residential neighbourhood not far from where his mother lived, where the five police officers wrestled him to the ground and proceeded to kick, punch and beat him with a baton.

Cameras captured Nichols crying out to his mother for help. He died three days later in hospital. An autopsy identified his cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.

Two of the police officers involved – Desmond Mills Jr and Emmitt Martin – had avoided trial by striking deals with federal prosecutors in exchange for guilty pleas. The two reportedly took plea deals related to the state charges as well.

Wednesday’s verdict was the culmination of a nine-day-long trial for the other three officers.

The defence team for the three sought to shift the blame to the other officers for the bulk of the violence. It also accused Nichols of resisting arrest and not complying with police orders, leaving the officers fearful for their safety.

“This is Emmitt Martin’s and Tyre Nichols’s doing,” said Martin Zummach, a defence lawyer for Smith, one of the three officers.

Zummach also alleged that credit and debit cards not belonging to Nichols were found in his car after his beating. That, he told the jury, could explain Nichols’s decision to flee the scene.

But prosecutors in the case argued that Nichols fled out of fear for his life. They also said the officers had a responsibility to stop the beating, which caused tears and bleeding in Nichols’s brain.

Video of the beating was also shown to the jury from different angles, as the prosecutors tried to convey the violence of Nichols’s final moments.

The trial, which saw seven days of hearings and two days of jury deliberations, took place in Hamilton County, a majority white area in Tennessee. A judge had previously ordered the court proceedings be moved away from Shelby County, where Memphis is located, for fear of that the public scrutiny could bias the jury pool.

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented the Nichols family, released a statement after Wednesday’s decision denouncing the outcome.

“Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement reads. “The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

Eileen Grimshaw will soon be departing Coronation Street, and now the character is at the centre of a death storyline on the ITV soap after her sister Julie Carp died

There was a worrying twist on Coronation Street on Wednesday night ahead of a looming exit on the ITV soap.

Eileen Grimshaw faced distressing accusations days on from the death of her sister Julie Carp. Julie, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, passed away during a trip to the lake with her sister.

After leaving messages and appearing to say her goodbyes, she asked Eileen to go to the refreshment van. But when Eileen returned she realised Julie had died.

On Wednesday night things took a turn when Eileen found herself being accused of helping Julie to end her own life. Brian Packham had made the accusation to the police and soon other residents were wondering what happened.

Suspicions were raised after Julie’s nephew Todd Grimshaw first questioned why Julie seemed to know she was going to die that day, with the videos she recorded and the fact she seemed to be saying goodbye to people. Then on Wednesday we saw Brian and Mary Taylor head to Julie and Eileen’s house.

The pair decided they would return Julie’s wheelchair and any unused painkillers to the hospital. But when they went to the house they made an alarming discovery.

READ MORE: Emmerdale summer spoilers: Dylan returns, Aidan ‘wakes up’ and sad Bear twist

He noted it as being “strange”, before confiding in others later on that Julie’s medication was all gone. He suggested there should be plenty left, and that Eileen’s own painkillers were in her bag too, while this was empty.

He said: “Julie should have had enough medication to last her a week at least. Where did it all go? Unless she took it, all of it.” As Brian was asked if he was implying Julie had taken an overdose to end her life, he said this was exactly what he thought.

He then questioned whether Eileen knew about it and maybe even helped Julie, telling the others that she had been with her sister and they were insistent no one else joined them at the lake. Soon enough Brian reported Eileen and his discovery to the police.

PC Craig Tinker then asked to speak with Eileen down at the police station leaving her mortified, and leaving her neighbours gossiping. She was questioned by DS Lisa Swain, who asked her if Julie had shared her possible intentions to end her own life.

She also asked whether Eileen had assisted her sister with her plan, whether she was directly involved or not. A tearful Eileen was horrified over the questioning, and the suggestion that she may be charged with murder.

Eileen revealed that Julie had asked her to go and get her a cup of tea, and when she returned Julie was dead. She repeated there was no indication from Julie about what might happen.

She told Lisa: “If you’re implying I helped her do it, that I’d seriously leave her on her own to die, that I wouldn’t be by her side holding hand, telling her how much she was loved.” It’s then that Lisa warned her she could face 14 years in prison if she helped Julie or gave her her painkillers knowing her intentions.

Eileen protested: “I did not kill my sister.” Back home, she told her partner George Shuttleworth: “I can’t believe she didn’t think of the consequences, she has involved me, why couldn’t she just leave another tape explaining.

“Now I’m going to get charged for her murder, for killing my own flesh and blood.” Viewers will no doubt be fearing it will lead to a heartbreaking exit for Eileen, as actress Sue Cleaver has already filmed her final scenes.

Speaking about her departure earlier this year, Sue commented: “I’ve had 25 privileged years of working on Coronation Street. The door is still firmly open but as I reached my 60th year I decided it was time to embrace change, look for new adventures and live fearlessly.”

Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITV X. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

Emmerdale star Lawrence Robb teased killer John Sugden ‘absolutely’ could kill his character Mackenzie Boyd, as spoilers tease their feud leaves lives on the line next week

One Emmerdale star has teased it could be game over for their character on the ITV soap in a brutal death twist.

Mackenzie Boyd has been teased to be killer John Sugden’s next victim for a while now, with fans convinced he’s on his hit list. Now Mack actor Lawrence Robb has had his say on whether the storyline could lead to his character’s demise, amid new spoilers teasing John will be in pursuit of Mack next week.

It seems the actor thinks like viewers that Mack could face a grim end, as he would “absolutely” be John’s next victim if he was to kill again. Lawrence told The Mirror and other press that Mack would be at the top of the “hit list” if John “spiralled”, with him suggesting Mack’s life could be in “jeopardy” thanks to “dangerous” John.

He explained: “The thing is with John, he obviously killed Nate [Robinson] but he didn’t do it intentionally. Could he go all the way with Mackenzie? I absolutely do think so.

“If John were to fall into that kind of spiral of being a serial killer, Mackenzie would be right at the top of that list. So on that basis, Mackenzie’s life is in jeopardy.” Lawrence also addressed the fan speculation over Mack’s possibly grim fate, after a flashforward teased danger.

READ MORE: Emmerdale summer spoilers: Dylan returns, Aidan ‘wakes up’ and sad Bear twist

He told us: “The audience know what John is like, so they’ll be worried for Mackenzie. I don’t think Mackenzie has seen the threat that John is, at this stage, so if there is a warning from John it’s not heeded by Mackenzie.

“If anything, it spurs him on. I don’t think anybody really knows how dangerous John is. If Mackenzie did, I think he would probably tread more carefully.”

Speaking of the flashforward scene, that shows Mack running panicked through the woods, Lawrence has confessed it still hasn’t been filmed. While he knows small details about a looming “life-changing” storyline for Mack and Aaron Dingle, the clip from the future still isn’t explained.

He teased: “We haven’t filmed that yet. I know it’s intrinsically linked to the big story about Mackenzie and Aaron, but that’s all I know at the minute.” The big story, teased by Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw to The Mirror and other press, will take place in August or September, with filming yet to begin.

Laura had also told us that Mack’s flashforward was still to air, teasing it would be linked to their huge storyline that will feature across a big week of episodes. They’re even building a special set for the episodes, no doubt sparking suspicion a stunt is on the way.

Lawrence also told us he’d love it to be Mack that lives to tell the tale and exposes killer John.

He said: “I would love that, but that’s not up to me. I guess it would be nice because from the get-go Mackenzie didn’t like John, but it’s up to the powers that be.”

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX, with an hour-long episode on Thursdays. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

More than 3,500 children below the age of five years “face imminent death by starvation”, Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) has said, adding that some 70,000 children are being hospitalised in the enclave due to severe malnutrition amid more than two months of total Israeli blockade.

“Under this systematic blockade, more than 3,500 children under the age of five face imminent death by starvation, while approximately 290,000 children are on the brink of death,” the GMO statement on Telegram said on Sunday.

“At a time when 1.1 million children daily lack the minimum nutritional requirements for survival, this crime is being perpetrated by the ‘Israeli’ occupation using starvation as a weapon, amid shameful international silence,” it added.

At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death, causing global outrage, but that has failed to convince Israel to allow entry of aid into the enclave of 2.3 million people.

A shortage of food and supplies has driven the territory towards starvation, according to aid agencies. Supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are depleted and quickly running out as documented cases of malnutrition rise.

The price of what little food is still available in the market is unaffordable for most in Gaza, where the United Nations says more than 80 percent of the population relies on aid.

Aid groups and rights campaigners have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

Israel, for its part, insists the blockade is necessary to pressure Hamas to release the captives it still holds. Of the 59 captives still in Gaza, 24 are believed to be alive.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,495 Palestinians and wounded 118,366, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The GMO updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

A BRIT mum who was brutally murdered in a French village had begun a new relationship and was planning to divorce her husband, a friend claimed.

Karen Carter, 69, died from severe blood loss after being stabbed multiple times outside her home in Trémolat on Tuesday.

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Karen’s body was discovered by her friend Jean-Francois Guerrier – who she is believed to have been in a relationship with.

The pair had spent the evening at a popular café-bar in the village, around 10 minutes drive from Karen’s home.

Jean-Francois had only left her for “10 minutes” before she was killed in the savage attack, according to Begerac prosecutor Sylvie Martin-Guedes.

A British expat pal of Karen’s confirmed her relationship with Jean-Francois and added that she was planning to divorce her husband Alan Carter.

The friend said: “I heard that she was trying to divorce her husband in South Africa but he wasn’t keen on that.

“Karen had apparently been in a relationship with Jean-Francois Guerrier for a few weeks, it was really early days.

“They worked together closely at the Cafe Village. Jean-Francois was up until a month ago the chairman of the village committee that was based at the cafe.”

She added: “By all accounts she was very happy in that new relationship but she kept it quiet and was quite modest about it.”

One of Karen’s neighbours also hinted at the new relationship.

He told how he had been watching Arsenal take on PSG in the Champions League on Tuesday night when he saw cops turn up. 

Christophe – who did not give his surname – said: “I heard no screams and no shouting.

“The first I knew something had happened was when all the blue lights from the police flashed past some time before 10:30pm on the Tuesday night.

“I’d seen her walking up the road last Friday afternoon around 5pm.

“She was walking towards her house with Jean-Francois.

“They weren’t holding hands but they looked like they were together as a couple.”

Karen was married to Alan, 65, but the couple were said to be estranged and he was away in South Africa at the time of the killing, according to investigators.

Alan, who remains at the couple’s home in East London, South Africa, expressed shock and surprise at revelations that his wife may have started a new relationship.

He insisted that the pair were simply friends and said: “There was no relationship. He was just a friend of hers.”

Karen and Alan had owned their holiday home in Trémolat for 15 years, splitting time between France and South Africa.

Speaking from their home in East London, South Africa, Alan said he learned of his wife’s death via a Facebook post read by a cousin who also lives in Trémolat.

“She phoned me… to say she’s sorry to tell me and that she thinks Karen has died. That was the first I heard about it,” he said.

“No one had got in touch with me at all to let me know what had happened. I found out through my cousin who happened to see it on a Facebook page.”

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The former London Stock Exchange worker paid tribute to his late wife, describing her as “such a decent, lovely person”.

He said his wife of 30 years was an outgoing, friendly person who “wouldn’t hurt a fly”, and said her death has been “traumatic” for his family.

Mr Carter told the BBC: “I’m an introvert, and she’s the exact opposite. She’s an extrovert, she loves people, she loves to have fun. People love her, she has a good heart.

“She’s the one who would bring home the lost dog, or cat, or whatever. She’s that sort of person. Everyone liked her. That’s why I married her. She’s just lovely.”

A number of unanswered questions still surround Karen’s mysterious death, as the cops continue their investigations.

Forensics officers returned to the crime scene on Friday morning for further examinations, arriving in a police van and an unmarked SUV.

And the cottage remains cordoned off – with a police notice taped to the front door of the property.

A team of around ten police officers were also spotted searching the nearby woodland for fresh clues on Friday afternoon.

It is thought they were looking for the murder weapon.

The team also cordoned off the road outside her home and a helicopter was seen circling the village as they reportedly reconstructed the murder scene.

The lead prosecutor on the case said the investigation continues to focus on “people who were likely have a grudge against the victim, or the couple she formed with her friend”.

Prosecutors previously investigated other possible motives – including robbery. 

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NEW YORK — President Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pope as the mourning of Pope Francis continues and just days before the conclave to elect his successor is set to begin. Trump’s action drew a rebuke from a group representing Catholic bishops in New York and among Italians.

The image, shared Friday night on Trump’s social media site and later reposted by the White House on its official X account, drew criticism on social media and at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning following Francis’ death on April 21. Catholic cardinals have been celebrating daily Masses in his memory and are due to open the conclave to elect his successor Wednesday.

The death of a pope and election of another are matters of utmost solemnity for Catholics, for whom the pope is Christ’s vicar on Earth. That is all the more true in Italy, where the papacy is held in high esteem even by nonreligious Italians.

The image featuring Trump in a white cassock and pointed miter, or bishop’s hat, was the topic of several questions during the Vatican’s daily conclave briefing Saturday. Italian and Spanish news reports lamented its poor taste and said it was offensive, given that the period of official mourning is still underway.

Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the image was shameful. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the right-wing world enjoys clowning around,” Renzi wrote on X. “Meanwhile, the U.S. economy risks recession and the dollar loses value. The sovereignists are doing damage, everywhere.”

The Vatican spokesperson, Matteo Bruni, declined to comment.

In the United States, the New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state in working with government, accused Trump of mockery.

“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” they wrote. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

Italy’s left-leaning La Repubblica featured the image on its homepage Saturday with a commentary accusing Trump of “pathological megalomania.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the backlash to the artificial-intelligence-generated image or why the president had shared it.

The episode comes after Trump joked last week about his interest in the papal vacancy. “I’d like to be pope. That would be my No. 1 choice,” the non-Catholic president, who is thrice-married and whom a jury found liable for sexual assault, told reporters.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, piled on.

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!” Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on X. “The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke. … Trump MMXXVIII!”

Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic and was one of the last foreign officials to meet with Francis before the pope died, has joked about Secretary of State Marco Rubio becoming pope, suggesting America’s top diplomat could add it to the long list of titles he holds, including national security advisor and acting archivist.

Beyond floating himself for the job, Trump also has put in a plug for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

“I have no preference. I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out in a place called New York who’s very good. So we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Dolan, 75, is one of 10 U.S. cardinals who will be voting in the conclave, but Trump’s pitch might have cost Dolan support.

The reason conclaves are held in secrecy, with cardinals sequestered for the duration, is to prevent outside secular powers from influencing their choice, as occurred in centuries past.

There is an old saying about campaigning for the job of pope or of being promoted excessively, especially by outsiders: If you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.”

While Trump attended Francis’ funeral, he and Vance have clashed with U.S. bishops in general and Francis in particular over the administration’s hard-line stance on immigration and its efforts to deport migrants en masse. Right before he was hospitalized in February for pneumonia, Francis issued a strong rebuke of the administration’s mass deportation plans and Vance’s theological justification of it.

Over 12 years as pope, Francis tried to remake the U.S. Catholic hierarchy more in his image, elevating pastors who prioritized social justice and migration issues over culture warriors who were more favored by his more doctrinaire predecessors, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. A new pope who is more conservative could reverse that effort.

Trump has nominated Brian Burch as his ambassador to the Holy See, whose Catholicvote.org has been aggressively covering the pre-conclave days at the Vatican. It was one of the main disseminators in English-speaking media of a report, flatly and officially denied by the Vatican, that Cardinal Pietro Parolin had had a health scare this past week that required medical attention.

Parolin was the secretary of state under Francis and is seen as a leading contender to be pope. He is also the main architect of the Vatican’s China policy and its controversial 2018 deal with Beijing over bishop nominations, a deal that was sharply criticized by the first Trump administration.

Winfield and Colvin write for the Associated Press and reported from New York and Vatican City, respectively.