death

A TEENAGER who stabbed a 16-year-old boy to death in a street attack can now be pictured for the first time.

L’Avian Peniston was just 14 when he killed 16-year-old Kennie Carter by stabbing him in the chest in Stretford, Greater Manchester, just over three years ago.

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The teen was found guilty in July last year for the “act of revenge” that killed Kennie.

Manchester Crown Court handed Peniston the equivalent of a life sentence, required to serve a minimum of 17 years in prison.

The boy could not be named due reporting restrictions at the time of the murder case as he was still 16.

However, as he has now turned 18, Peniston can be named for the first time.

This is despite applications to lift reporting restrictions following his conviction, which was rejected by the judge.

Young Kennie was walking home while on the phone to his older brother when Peniston – who was with a group of boys – pounced on him.

The boys had travelled three miles ‘looking for revenge’ after an argument with Kennie’s friends the day before.

Four teens reportedly travelled by tram to the block of flats they knew Kennie and his friends typically hang out.

They stole three bikes, where a witness heard them shout: “This is revenge.”

Kennie was inside the block of flats and headed home after hearing the boys were nearby, but passed by them on the road.

One of the boys in the group was heard shouting to Kennie: “You’re the one who had backed that pole innit.”

“Nah nah it weren’t me bro,” Kennie was heard to reply.

Peniston then killed the 16-year-old boy with a single stab wound to the chest, before running away from the scene with the group.

They did not give Kennie medical assistance or call an ambulance, and later abandoned the stolen bikes.

Kennie was found lying face down at 7pm after calling his brother to say: “Oh, they’ve stabbed me in the heart bro.”

Paramedics raced Kennie to Manchester Royal Infirmary but he was pronounced dead at 8.27pm on January 22, 2022.

During the sentencing last year, the judge Mr Justice Goose, said: “This was yet another killing of a young person with a knife against the backdrop of gang violence.

“Young males carrying knives in public in readiness to threaten and kill others is becoming all too common in our cities.

“The tragedy is that not only does it destroy the lives of the victims and their families, but also those who commit the offence.”

Kennie’s mum Joan said she had seen the boy “laugh and smirk” throughout a court hearing.

She said: “This shows me he had absolutely no remorse and broke my heart even more.

“No penalty or what the court can award will ever be enough in my eyes.

A heartbreaking statement was also read out on Joan’s behalf by her sister in court: “My son was chased down in the street and killed on his way home.

“At the time of his death he was just 16.

“For the last seven weeks we have had to listen to evidence of what happened to our son in graphic detail.

“How can we put into words how his death and the last two and a half years has affected us?”

“It is not just Kennie that died on 22 January 2022.

“Our whole family has been destroyed by this mindless violence.”

She added: “They have taken away our Kennie from his loving family and our lives are destroyed forever.”

Three other teens were also jailed after being found guilty of manslaughter.

Latif Ferguson, who already turned 18 but was 15 at the time, was sentenced to five years’ detention in a young offenders’ institution.

Two 16-year-olds were sentenced to four years’ detention following a lengthy trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Six other teenagers, then aged between 15 and 19, were found not guilty of charges related to Kennie’s death

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With his starting place no longer assured, left-back Robertson had chosen to stay on at Anfield before Jota’s death and explained he felt a strong responsibility to help others as an experienced member of the squad.

“It’s the toughest thing we’ll ever go through,” he added. “Losing one of your closest mates for me was hugely difficult and it’s something we’ll probably never get over but it’s just something that we have to carry with us.

“We have to carry the memories we’ve got with us and as long as we continue to do that, then it’ll always be in our thoughts. He will always be in our hearts.

“It didn’t influence my decision. The decision was already made before the tragedy but I knew in that moment that the club needed me.

“I know I am one of the leaders in the team and I have obviously been made vice-captain now.

“It’s going to take a lot this season. I know football was irrelevant but if you take the football out of it, even as lads in the changing room, we are all going to need help during the season.

“We’ve already had difficult moments in terms of the first time in front of fans, having to go to your team-mate’s funeral which is absolute madness to even say, and everything else that followed.

“I know the leaders in that changing room have got a big job to do in terms of trying to help everyone as a club and even Diogo’s family through this massively difficult moment.

“It won’t get easier but maybe we can numb the pain a little bit as time goes on. It’s up to as leaders to try and guide us guide us through that.”

A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired “Walking Tall,” a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime, killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities said last week.

Authorities acknowledged that the finding will probably shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans after watching “Walking Tall,” which immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The 1973 movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th Judicial District.

There is enough evidence that if Pusser, a McNairy County sheriff who died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death, were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser, Davidson said. Investigators also uncovered signs that she suffered from domestic violence, he said.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said in a news conference streamed online. “The truth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later. Pauline deserves both.”

Evidence does not back up sheriff’s story

The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got a call in the early-morning hours about a disturbance. He reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him as he responded. The sheriff said that shortly after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, a car pulled up and fired several times into the vehicle, killing Pauline and injuring him. He spent 18 days in the hospital and required several surgeries to recover. The case was built largely on his own statement and closed quickly, Rausch said.

During the reexamination of the case, Dr. Michael Revelle, an emergency medicine physical and medical examiner, studied postmortem photographs, crime scene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’s statements. He concluded that Pauline was more likely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.

He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline didn’t match crime scene photographs of the car’s interior. Blood spatter on the hood outside the car contradicted Buford Pusser’s statements. The gunshot wound on his cheek was in fact a close-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as she sheriff had described, and was probably self-inflicted, Revelle concluded.

Pauline’s autopsy revealed she had a broken nose that had healed before her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion that she was a victim of domestic violence.

Brother says investigation gave him closure

Pauline’s younger brother, Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recorded video played at the news conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened to Pauline, and he is grateful he will die knowing.

“You would fall in love with her because she was a people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they had an issue or they needed some advice, and she was always there for them,” he said. “She was just a sweet person. I loved her with all my heart.”

Mullins said he knew there was some trouble in Pauline’s marriage, but she wasn’t one to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said, he was “not totally shocked” to learn of the investigators’ findings.

Asked about the murder weapon and whether it matched autopsy findings, Rausch recommended reading the case file for specifics.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation plans to make the entire file, which exceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finishes with redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database for the case. Until then, members of the public can make appointments to review it in person or can purchase a copy, said university Chancellor Yancy Freeman Sr.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is offering military funeral honors for Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was killed at 35 by an officer in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Babbitt was a U.S. Air Force veteran from California who was shot dead wearing a Trump campaign flag wrapped around her shoulders while attempting to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol.

Offering military honors to one of the Capitol rioters is part of President Trump’s attempts to rewrite that chapter after the 2020 election as a patriotic stand, given he still denies he lost that election. Babbitt has gained martyr status among Republicans, and the Trump administration agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that her family filed over her shooting.

Matthew Lohmeier, an undersecretary of the Air Force, said on X that the decision was “long overdue,” and shared a post from a conservative legal group that was advocating for Babbitt’s family. The group, Judicial Watch, said the family had requested military honors from former President Biden’s administration and had been denied.

In a statement, a U.S. Air Force spokesperson said that “after reviewing the circumstances” of Babbitt’s death, military funeral honors were offered to the family. Babbitt was a senior airman.

The post shared by Lohmeier included a link to a letter the Air Force under secretary wrote to Babbitt’s family, inviting them to meet him at the Pentagon.

“After reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect,” the Aug. 15 letter read.

The afternoon sun glimmered off the ocean as I drove down MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach to fulfill a promise.

This September marks five years since I debuted as a columnist for The Times. My first dispatch was from the mausoleum niche at Pacific View Memorial Park that holds the cremains of one of my predecessors, Ruben Salazar.

Exactly 55 years ago, Salazar was killed in an East Los Angeles bar by a tear gas canister launched by an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy that tore through his head. He was one of three people who died that day during the Chicano Moratorium, a rally against the Vietnam War that out-of-control cops turned into a melee.

Salazar was only eight months into his columnist gig. He was a well-respected Times veteran who had done stints covering immigration, as a foreign correspondent and Metro reporter for the paper. Once he got a Friday slot on the op-ed page at the start of 1970, the journalist became a must-read chronicler of the Chicano experience.

In death, Salazar became immortal. Murals of him sprang up around the Southwest. Wearing a suit jacket and tie, with a full head of hair and a confident look on his face, he symbolized the potential and peril of being a Mexican American in the United States. Even as the decades passed, and his clips were relegated to archives and the memories of those who had read him in real time, Salazar has thankfully yet to fade from L.A.’s physical and spiritual landscape.

A high school is named after him in Pico Rivera, as are Salazar Park in East L.A. and Salazar Hall at Cal State L.A. The U.S. Postal Service sells stamps with his likeness.

United Teachers Los Angeles gives out a scholarship in his name, just like the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists. The nonprofit CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California honors reporters who cover Latinos with the annual Ruben Salazar Awards, handing out medallions bearing his image.

When I visited Salazar’s final resting place in 2020, I brought a bottle of Manzanilla to toast the hard-charging bon vivant’s memory and ask for his blessing in my new role. I promised to visit and offer an update about my career every year near the anniversary of his death … but, well, the job got in the way.

A historic pandemic. The storming of the U.S. Capitol. A racist audio leak scandal that upended L.A. City Hall. Corrupt politicians. Increasing poverty. The rise, fall and return of Donald Trump. Horrible fires. A cruel deportation deluge. I’ve barely had time to spend with friends and family, let alone an afternoon driving to a far-off cemetery for a few minutes with a long-gone man I had never met.

For 2025, there would be no excuses. Because in a year that seems to get worse by the day, we need to remember Salazar more than ever.

A painting of former Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar and a copy of his last column, published on Aug. 28, 1970, the day before he died, are on display inside Ruben Salazar Hall on the campus of Cal State Los Angeles.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Every time my Times colleagues report from a protest, I invoke Salazar’s name in my prayers to God that He watch over them. Our profession faces existential threats — and I’m not just talking finances.

The Trump administration has pursued scorched-earth campaigns against news organizations it doesn’t like with lawsuits and funding cuts, while limiting access to mainstream reporters in favor of sycophantic press coverage. Journalists have suffered injuries at the hands of LAPD officers while covering this summer’s anti-migra protests, from being struck with less-lethal projectiles to getting smacked with batons.

The climate against my profession is so ugly that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion this month requiring the Sheriff’s Department to send them a report about what training, if any, deputies receive on allowing reporters to do their jobs during protests. Supervisor Hilda Solis, who authored the motion, cited Salazar as an impetus, calling his killing “one of the most painful chapters in Los Angeles County history.”

She also described him as “a crucial voice for the Latino community, dedicated to covering stories that mainstream outlets often ignored” — a legacy that all Latino reporters at The Times must try and live up to. So every time I open my laptop to start my next columna, I ask myself:

What would Ruben write?

That Salazar died in the course of doing his job has sadly eclipsed what he actually wrote, so I always encourage people to read his columns. The Times republished them online for the 50th anniversary of his death, so there’s no excuse not to familiarize yourself with his work. It would have seamlessly fit into this hell year — the 1970 in his columnas reads eerily similar to what we’re going through right now.

Immigration raids were terrorizing Los Angeles. Democrats were still lost after suffering a historic beatdown from a once-defeated Republican presidential candidate. Young progressives were disgusted with their moderate Democratic elders and tiring of the party altogether. Latinos were pushing for more political power. A redistricting battle in California was about to explode. The rise of computers was upending life. Politicians were going after nonprofits they accused of fomenting wokosos.

And there was Salazar, covering every development and hero and villain with crisp columns that got better with every month. All of this at just 42, four years younger than I am today.

I think he would have been thrilled to see regular people filming the cruelties of la migra as a counternarrative to the lies of the Trump administration. He would have urged young reporters who believe in so-called movement journalism — unapologetically leftist, with talking to the other side considered unnecessary and even immoral — to not let their biases get in the way of a good story.

I know he wouldn’t have been lionized the way he is today. In a June 19, 1970 columna, he antagonized the left by describing the pachucos of a previous generation as “anarchistic.” In the same column, he angered the right, arguing that because of programs such as Head Start and Chicano studies, gang members were “experiencing a social revolution and so is learning and liking political power.”

And that’s what makes Salazar more important today than ever.

He wanted Chicanos to better themselves, so he wasn’t afraid to call out their failures. He was skeptical of our legal system but wanted it to succeed — “A Beautiful Sight: the System Working the Way It Should” was the title of a July 24, 1970, column about the federal grand jury indictment of seven Los Angeles Police Department officers in the deaths of two unarmed Mexican immigrants.

As an immigrant himself, he loved a United States he had no problem criticizing. For his sole Fourth of July column, he urged people to tone down their pomp and circumstance and to relate to their fellow Americans rather than “to fixed ideas that apparently are not working.”

To paraphrase a 2014 PBS documentary about his life, Salazar was a man in the middle. His business was truth-telling for the greater cause of a just society. He literally lost his life for it. The least we can do is follow his example.

A bronze marker hangs outside the niche that holds the cremains of former L.A. Times columnist Ruben Salazar, who was killed in East L.A. on Aug. 29, 1970, while reporting on the Chicano Moratorium, a protest against the involvement of Chicanos in the Vietnam War.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angles Times)

No one was around when I finally got to Salazar’s niche, in a section of the cemetery called the Alcove of Time. A simple bronze plaque included the accent over the “e” in “Rubén,” which his Times byline never had. Instead of Spanish wine, I brought a flask of mezcal — I don’t think he would have minded the stiffer drink in this 2025.

I thanked Salazar again for his work — I learn more from it every time I read it. I told him about some of the columnas I’ve published and those I want to do. I shared how there are far more Latino reporters at The Times and beyond, but still not nearly enough. I apologized for not visiting more often and swore to never stop talking about him and his words.

“To you, Ruben,” I quietly said. I hoisted my flask in the air, took a small swig and splashed some in front of where he rested.

I made the sign of the cross, offered a short prayer, then drove back home. Another columna loomed. I’m sure Salazar would have understood and hopefully would have been proud.

The Torrance Police Department and the California Attorney General’s Office have entered into an “enforceable agreement” meant to reform the troubled agency following a scandal that led prosecutors to toss dozens of criminal cases linked to officers who sent racist text messages, officials said.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced the reforms — which will include changes to the agency’s use-of-force and internal affairs practices, along with attempts to curtail biased policing — during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday morning.

Bonta credited former Torrance Police Chief Jeremiah Hart with approaching him after the scandal first erupted in 2021, leading to collaborative reform efforts.

“The Torrance Police Department has demonstrated a commitment to self reflection to looking inward … to address systemic challenges,” Bonta said Thursday.

The California Attorney General’s Office announced its Torrance investigation in December 2021, the same day a Times investigation first revealed the contents of the text messages and the names of most of the officers involved. Court records and documents obtained by The Times showed the officers made offensive comments about a wide range of groups. They joked about “gassing” Jewish people, attacking members of the LGBTQ community and using violence against suspects.

The worst comments were saved for Black men and women, who the officers repeatedly called “savages” or referred to with variations of the N-word. One officer shared instructions on how to a tie a noose and posted a picture of a stuffed animal being hung inside police headquarters. Another message referred to the relatives of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, a Black man shot to death by Torrance police in 2018, as “all those [N-word] family members,” according to court records.

Sometimes, the officers blatantly fantasized about the deaths of Black men, women and even kids.

One officer shared pictures of tiny coffins intended to house the bodies of Black children they would “put down.” Another imagined executing Black suspects.

“Lucky I wasn’t out and about,” one officer wrote in response to a text about Black men allegedly involved in a Torrance robbery, according to records reviewed by The Times in 2022. “D.A. shoot team asking me why they are all hung by a noose and shot in the back of the head 8 times each.”

The officers also suggested a political allegiance in their hate-filled text thread. In a conversation about needlessly beating a female suspect, Sgt. Brian Kawamoto said he wanted to “make Torrance great again,” a play on President Trump’s ubiquitous campaign slogan.

The texts were sent between May 2018 and February 2022, according to investigative reports made public by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Bonta said Thursday that roughly a dozen officers were involved in the thread. At least seven of those officers are no longer employed by the agency, according to court records and a POST database.

The group of officers that The Times linked to the texts has been involved in at least seven serious use-of-force incidents in Torrance and Long Beach, including three killings of Black and Latino men, according to police use-of-force records and court filings.

The officers actions were initially found to be justified in each case, though prosecutors later revisited Mitchell’s death and indicted Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez on manslaughter charges.

While Concannon and Chavez were investigated as part of the scandal, The Times has never seen evidence that they sent racist text messages. In the past, authorities have said, some officers under investigation were aware of the texts but did not send any hateful messages themselves.

David Chandler is also awaiting trial on assault charges for shooting a Black man in the back in 2018. In total, five officers linked to the text thread have been charged with crimes.

The scandal may not have come to light if not for the actions of former officers Cody Weldin and Michael Tomsic, who were charged with spray painting a swastika inside of a vehicle that was towed from a crime scene in 2021. That incident prompted former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón to launch an investigation into possible hate crime charges. While a hate enhancement was never charged in the vandalism case, it led to the execution of warrants on the officers’ cellphones that unveiled the texts.

Tomsic and Weldin pleaded guilty to vandalism earlier this year and gave up their right to be police officers in California. Disciplinary records made public earlier this year identified Weldin as the “owner” of the group text in which many of the racist remarks were found. The group was dubbed “The Boys,” records show.

By engaging in “collaborative reform,” Bonta chose the least forceful method of reform in Torrance. Often, the attorney general’s office will seek court-mandated reform through a settlement, as it has with the Los Angeles County sheriff’s and probation departments, so that it may ask a judge to force change if a police agency doesn’t comply.

Bonta is now seeking to take over the county’s juvenile halls after the probation department failed to honor its settlement with the state.

In 2021, Hart personally approached Bonta’s office, seeking to work together on reform, which may have led the attorney general to use a softer method. Interim Police Chief Bob Dunn, who came to Torrance in 2023 after a long career with the Anaheim Police Department, said he believes Hart’s actions should show the department is committed to reform in the wake of the ugly scandal.

“It was the department that identified the behavior, the department that did the investigation and the department that took the case for criminal filing on the initially involved officers,” Dunn said of the city’s reaction to the revelation of the text messages in 2021.

In recent years, Dunn said, the department has taken steps to improve its use-of-force and police pursuit review processes by deploying sergeants to respond to any force incident. The hope, Dunn said, is to collect better information from individual cases that can be used to train officers in deescalation. Hart also created a Chief’s Advisory Panel to collect greater community input on issues facing the department, including bias allegations, according to Dunn.

The Namnai River has become a graveyard. Where an old bridge once carried farmers, traders, and travellers across with ease, fragile boats now wobble under desperate crowds. Each crossing is a risk, and for three members of Badaru Badawi’s family, that risk ended in death.

That evening on July 25, Bara’atu Bala, Yusuf Badawi, a heavily pregnant Aisha Rilwanu, two other relatives of theirs, alongside other travellers, paid ₦500 each to board a locally made boat at the Namnai river bank in Gassol Local Government Area, Taraba State, in northeastern Nigeria. 

Midway across, the boat capsized. Some passengers struggled to get ashore, but Bara’atu, Yusuf, and Aisha never made it. They drowned in the river. 

For Badaru, the grief is unrelenting. All three were close to him: Yusuf, his son; Bara’atu, his elder sister; and Aisha, his sister-in-law. 

His wife and mother survived the accident by swimming to safety. But his family’s search for the missing three lasted all night, combing the waters by canoe. By dawn, they recovered only Bara’atu’s body. To this day, Yusuf and Aisha remain unaccounted for.

“Even if they were destined to die that day, it shouldn’t have been through such a means,” he told HumAngle. 

Their loss is part of a wider tragedy that began a year earlier, when the Namnai bridge collapsed after torrential flooding. Since then, the community has been forced to rely on makeshift ferries, canoes, and fragile boats. Accidents have become routine, claiming lives and wrecking livelihoods.

HumAngle learnt that these crossings have led to recurring mishaps, claiming lives and destroying property valued in the hundreds of thousands of naira.

“Most of the mishaps were due to overcrowding in the boats. Apart from the properties that were lost, people also lost their lives,” Ibrahim Isa, a boat operator in the community, said. 

A vital link broken

Until August 2024, the Namnai bridge was a major transit route connecting Taraba to other parts of the North East, North Central, and the country’s South. Farmers used it to reach their fields, traders to sell their goods, and commuters to travel for work and family. Its sudden collapse severed all of that. 

“We have a waterfall around the area, which usually empties itself into the river. I think the water flow was so intense that day, and coupled with the flood, the river could not contain it, so the bridge broke,” Ibrahim recounted. “When the bridge broke, livelihood came to a standstill because people could no longer access their farms or the market for days.”

In the days that followed, residents were stranded. Those with canoes on the River Benue quickly brought them to Namnai, offering a temporary solution. But demand soon overwhelmed supply. With only two motorboats and a handful of canoes available, passengers waited anxiously, scrambled for places, or boarded the overcrowded ones.

Ibrahim had started working as a boat operator since the collapse of the bridge, drawing on his experience in rowing. “We started using the canoes to help people and their belongings cross to the other side before one member from the house of representatives representing our constituents brought a boat, and a week later, a senator deployed another boat to the riverbank,” he said.   

“Boats and canoes were never designed to carry large crowds or heavy loads, but people were desperate to access farm lands, markets, and places of work,” Ibrahim noted. 

He further explained that as the mishaps reoccurred, people started abandoning their farms due to fear. Traders could no longer cross to the other side to buy and sell, and the flow of goods into Namnai slowed. 

“The situation impacted the community and its environs negatively, especially traders and farmers,” Ibrahim emphasised, adding that the prices of food items in the community have gone up since then. 

Unfulfilled promises

In November 2024, after the floodwaters receded, Agbu Kefas, the Taraba State governor, visited the site to assess the damage. 

“He assured us that they were going to fix the bridge. He even promised to expand the bridge, saying that money would be approved soon,” Ibrahim said. 

But nearly a year later, nothing has changed. Commuters continue to take the risk through fragile canoes and small boats to reach their destination. 

For others, it is an opportunity to make money, as commercial boat operators have deployed locally-made ferries that carry both vehicles and passengers at the riverbank. 

“They charge between ₦3,000 and ₦4,000 per car, depending on its size, and ₦500 per passenger,” Ibrahim said. This means anyone crossing with a vehicle pays a total of ₦6,000 to ₦8,000 for a round trip. 

As one of the boat operators, he said they sometimes take pity on residents who cannot afford the full fare, accepting as little as ₦300 or even ₦200.

In April 2025, Uba Maigari, Minister of State for Regional Development, announced that the federal government had listed the Namnai bridge among eleven slated for repair in the North East, assuring that “in a week” the bridge will be fixed. 

Residents’ hopes were briefly reignited, but work has yet to begin. 

Meanwhile, each rainy season makes crossings deadlier. Cars ferried across, sometimes sinking into the swollen waters.

‘We are waiting’

On Aug. 18, tragedy struck again. A commercial bus operated by the Adamawa Express transport agency plunged into the Namnai River while attempting to cross the collapsed bridge. Several lives and properties were lost, reinforcing fears that the broken crossing remains a constant danger.

For Badaru, whose family is still grieving, the government’s inaction is unbearable. “I  don’t think I have to call on the government. They swore an oath after assuming office to cater to the people, so I’m sure they know their duties to the people. I don’t think we have to beg them when it comes to matters like this,” he said, sounding frustrated. 

Ibrahim, too, is losing faith. “People from [nearby] Ardo Karla used to farm in Namnai, but since the bridge broke, some people abandoned their farms. I know someone who vowed never to set foot on his farm since the bridge broke because of the tussle of going back and forth on water that is unsafe,” Ibrahim said, adding that the community recently learnt that the Federal Executive Council has approved the repair of the bridge.

 “We are still waiting for it to commence,” he said.  

As residents wait for bulldozers and builders, Badaru continues to search for the bodies of his son and sister-in-law. He admits, however, that he may one day have to surrender to fate.

President Trump declared Tuesday that federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., should seek the death penalty for murders committed in the capital, claiming without explanation that “we have no choice.”

“That’s a very strong preventative,” he said of his decision. “I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country, but we have it.”

Trump’s pronouncement is about much more than deterring killings, though. With speed and brazenness, Trump seems intent on creating a new, federal arrest and detention system outside of existing norms, aimed at everyday citizens and controlled by his whims. The death penalty is part of it, but stomping on civil rights is at the heart of it — ruthlessly exploiting anxiety about crime to aim repression at whatever displeases him, from immigration protesters to murderers.

This administration “is using the words of crime and criminals to get themselves a permission structure to erode civil rights and due processes across our criminal, legal and immigration systems in ways that I think should have everyone alarmed,” Rena Karefa-Johnson told me. She’s a former public defender who now works with Fwd.us, a bipartisan criminal justice advocacy group.

Authoritarians love the death penalty, and have long used it to repress not crime, but dissent. It is, after all, both the ultimate power and the ultimate fear, that the ruler of the state holds the lives of his people in his hands.

Though we are far from such atrocities, Spain’s purge of “communists” and other dissenters under Francisco Franco, Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers in the Philippines (though the death penalty remains illegal there) and the routine executions, even of journalists, under the repressive rulers in Saudi Arabia are chilling examples.

What each of those regimes shares in common with this moment in America is the rhetoric of making a better society — often by purging perceived threats to order — even if that requires force, or the loss of rights.

Suddenly, violent criminals become no different than petty criminals, and petty criminals become no different than immigrants or protesters. They are all a threat to a nostalgic lost glory of the homeland that must be restored at any cost, animals that only understand force.

“We have no choice.”

The result is that the people become, if not accustomed to masked agents and the military on our streets, too scared to protest it, fearful they will become the criminal target, the hunted animal.

Already, the National Guard in D.C. is carrying live weapons. With great respect to the women and men who serve in the Guard, and who no doubt individually serve with honor, they are not trained for domestic law enforcement. Forget the legalities, the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act, which should prevent troops from policing American citizens, and does prevent them from making arrests.

Who do we want these soldiers to shoot? Who have they been told to shoot? A kid with a can of spray paint? A pickpocket? A drug dealer? A flag burner? A sandwich thrower?

We don’t even know what their orders are. What choices they will have to make.

But we do know that police do not walk around openly holding their guns, and certainly do not stroll with rifles. For civilian law enforcement, their guns are defensive weapons, and they are trained to use them as such.

Few walking by these troops, even the most law abiding, can fail to feel the power of those weapons at the ready. It is a visceral knowledge that to provoke them could mean death. That is a powerful form of repression, meant to stop dissent through fear of repercussion.

It is a power that Trump is building on multiple fronts. After declaring his “crime emergency” in D.C., Trump mandated a serious change in the mission of the National Guard.

President Trump with members of law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington on Aug. 21, 2025.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

He ordered every state to train soldiers on “quelling civil disturbances,” and to have soldiers ready to rapidly mobilize in case of protests. That same executive order also creates a National Guard force ready to deploy nationwide at the president’s command — presumably taking away states’ rights to decide when to utilize their troops, as happened in California.

Trump has already announced his intention to send them to Chicago, called Baltimore a “hellhole” that also may be in need and falsely claimed that, “in California, you would’ve not had the Olympics had I not sent in the troops” because “there wouldn’t be anything left” without their intervention.

Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, a former acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, told ABC that “the administration is trying to desensitize the American people to get used to American armed soldiers in combat vehicles patrolling the streets of America. “

Manner called the move “extremely disturbing.”

Add to that Trump’s desire to imprison opponents. In recent days, the FBI raided the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton, a Republican who has criticized Trump, especially on his policy toward Ukraine. Then Trump attempted to fire Lisa D. Cook, a Biden appointee to the Federal Reserve board, after accusing her of mortgage fraud in another apparent attempt to bend that independent agency to his will on the economy.

On Wednesday, Trump wrote on social media that progressive billionaire George Soros and his son Alex should be charged under federal racketeering laws for “their support of Violent Protests.”

“We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to “BREATHE,” and be FREE,” Trump wrote. “Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country! That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you!”

Consider yourselves threatened, West Coast friends.

But of course, we are already living under that thunder. Dozens of average citizens are facing serious charges in places including Los Angeles for their participation in immigration protests.

Whether they are found guilty or not, their lives are upended by the anxiety and expense of facing such prosecutions. And thousands are being rounded up and deported, at times seemingly grabbed solely for the color of their skin, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguably the most Trump-loyal law enforcement agency, sees its budget balloon to $45 billion, enough to keep 100,000 people detained at a time.

Despite Trump’s maelstrom of dread-inducing moves, resistance is alive, well and far from futile.

A new Quinnipiac University national poll found that 56% of voters disapprove of the National Guard being deployed in D.C.

This week, the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. for a second time failed to convince a grand jury to indict a man who threw a submarine sandwich at federal officers — proof that average citizens not only are sane, but willing to stand up for what is right.

That comes after a grand jury three times rejected the same kind of charge against a woman who was arrested after being shoved against a wall by an immigration agent.

Californians will decide this in November whether to redraw their electoral maps to put more Democrats in Congress. Latino leaders in Chicago are protesting possible troops there. People are refusing to allow fear to define their actions.

Turns out, we do have a choice.

EMMERDALE has been hit by hundreds of Ofcom complaints regarding a ‘violent and tasteless’ soap death.

Viewers were left heartbroken when killer John Sugden claimed his latest victim.

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The August 21 episode saw Mackenzie Boyd shot in the back with an arrow.

The mechanic had worked out that John had killed Nate Robinson months ago.

Mackenzie fled into the woods, but John prevented his escape by firing an arrow at his back.

A final flashback saw John throw a heavy rock down at a helpless Mackenzie.

Viewers later saw blood stains in John’s van and a body covered by a sheet – seemingly confirming Mackenzie’s death.

The latest data shows Ofcom received 158 complaints following the grisly scenes.

After John’s brutal actions played out, fans soon took to X to complain.

One wrote: “Love emmerdale but this all seemed a bit much with the violence and the crossbow seemed in bad taste what with the recent real life tragedies.”

Another added: “@ofcom complaints incoming and this time you take action.”

A third said: “The writers have really crossed line bow and arrow after crossbow killings not right.”

A fourth chimed in: “Isn’t this a tad violent for early evening.”

While a fifth remarked: “A bit distasteful isn’t it having a serial killer kill someone with a bow and arrow havent you got any compassion for a presenter who lost his entire family by a bow and Arrow in real life.”

It came after the real life murder of three people by crossbow killer Kyle Clifford in July of last year.

 The Sun previously revealed that Lawrence Robb, who played Mackenzie, had filmed devastating murder scenes for his character.

A source said at the time: “The scenes are going to be really harrowing for fans to watch.

“Mackenzie has been in so many scrapes and dangerous positions but this time it looks like he’s bitten off more than he can chew. 

“Viewers will be on the edges of their seats watching what happens.”

Some fans believe Mackenzie may still be alive – as his corpse was not directly shown.

Emmerdale airs on ITV1 and ITVX.

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United States President Donald Trump has announced his government will seek the death penalty in every murder case that unfolds in Washington, DC, as part of his crackdown on crime in the country’s capital.

Trump made the announcement in the midst of a Labor Day-themed meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday as he discussed a range of issues, from weapons sales to the rising cost of living.

“Anybody murders something in the capital: capital punishment. Capital capital punishment,” Trump said, seeming to relish the wordplay.

“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, DC, we’re going to be seeking the death penalty. And that’s a very strong preventative, and everybody that’s heard it agrees with it.”

Trump then acknowledged that the policy would likely be controversial, but he pledged to forge onwards.

“I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country, but we have no choice,” Trump said. “States are gonna have to make their own decision.”

Federal prosecutions in DC

Washington, DC, occupies a unique position in the US. The US Constitution defined the capital as a federal district as opposed to a state or a city within a surrounding state.

Elsewhere in the country, most murder cases are prosecuted by state or local authorities unless they rise to the level of a federal crime.

But in Washington, DC, the US Attorney’s Office – a federal prosecutor’s office under the Department of Justice – prosecutes nearly all violent crimes.

The administration of former President Joe Biden had backed away from the death penalty. Under the Democrat’s leadership, the Justice Department ordered a moratorium that paused capital punishment as it reviewed its policies.

Biden himself campaigned on the promise that he would “eliminate the death penalty”, arguing that more than 160 people who were executed from 1973 to 2020 were later exonerated.

“Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example,” Biden’s team wrote on his 2020 campaign website.

While Biden ultimately did not eliminate the federal death penalty, in one of his final acts as president, he commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.

In a statement in December, he anticipated that a second Trump administration would pursue the death penalty for federal cases.

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” Biden wrote.

A reversal of policy

But when Trump took office for a second term on January 20, one of his first executive orders was to “restore” the death penalty.

“Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” Trump wrote in the order.

“Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil.”

The Republican leader had campaigned for re-election on a platform that promised a crackdown on crime and immigration, sometimes conflating the two despite evidence that undocumented people commit fewer crimes than US-born citizens.

In the days leading up to his inauguration, Trump doubled down on that pledge, denouncing Biden for his decision to commute the majority of incarcerated people on federal death row.

“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”

Trump has repeatedly pushed for the increased use of the death penalty in the seven months since, including during an address to a joint session of Congress in March.

In that speech, he called on Congress to pass a law to make the death penalty a mandatory sentence for the murder of a law enforcement officer in the US.

During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump gained a reputation for accelerating the use of capital punishment on the federal level.

While federal executions are rare, the first Trump administration conducted 13 of the 16 executions that have taken place since 1976, the year the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

The only other president to carry out capital punishment during that time was a fellow Republican, George W Bush. His administration oversaw three federal executions.

Critics fear a similar uptick in death penalty cases during Trump’s second term.

Public support for capital punishment has been steadily declining over the past decade, according to surveys. The research firm Gallup found that, as of 2024, a narrow majority of Americans – 53 percent – were in favour of the death penalty, down from 63 percent a decade earlier.

A DC crime crackdown?

Trump’s call to apply the death penalty to all murder cases in Washington, DC, coincides with his controversial push to crack down on crime in the capital city.

That comes despite data from the Metropolitan Police Department that show violent crime in the capital hit a 30-year low in 2024, a statistic shared by the Justice Department in a statement in January.

Homicides, it added, were down by 32 percent over the previous year.

But Trump has maintained that crime fell only when he deployed more than 2,000 armed National Guard troops to patrol the city this month.

“Crime in DC was the worst ever in history. And now over the last 13 days, we’ve worked so hard and we’ve taken so many – and there are many left – but we’ve taken so many criminals. Over a thousand,” Trump said at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.

He also claimed – without evidence – that the local government in Washington, DC, gave “false numbers” in its crime reporting.

“What they did is they issued numbers: ‘It’s the best in 30 years.’ Not the best. It’s the worst. It’s the worst,” Trump said. “And they gave phoney numbers.”

Just a day before, Trump signed an executive order to develop a new unit within the National Guard “to ensure public safety and order in the Nation’s capital”.

But under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the federal government is largely prohibited from using military forces for domestic law enforcement except in cases of disasters or major public emergencies.

Trump has described crime in Washington, DC, as a national emergency although local leaders have disputed that assertion.

At several points during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, he defended his strong-arm approach to law enforcement as necessary, even if it earns him criticisms for being a “dictator”.

“The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’ But I’m not a dictator. I just know to stop crime,” Trump said.

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Australian video platform Kick over the death of a content creator during a livestream.

Raphaël Graven – also known as Jean Pormanove – was found dead in a residence near the city of Nice last week.

He was known for videos in which he endured apparent violence and humiliation.

The Paris prosecutor said the investigation would look into whether Kick knowingly broadcast “videos of deliberate attacks on personal integrity”.

The BBC has approached Kick for comment. A spokesperson for the platform previously said the company was “urgently reviewing” the circumstances around Mr Graven’s death.

The prosecutor’s investigation will also seek to determine whether Kick complied with the European Union’s Digital Services Act, and the obligation on platforms to notify the authorities if the life or safety of individuals is in question.

In a separate announcement, France’s minister for digital affairs, Clara Chappaz, said the government would sue the platform for “negligence” over its failure to block “dangerous content”, according to the AFP news agency.

Mr Graven was found dead on 18 August.

Local media reported the 46-year-old had been subject to bouts of violence and sleep deprivation during streams, and died in his sleep during a live broadcast.

In a post on X the next day Chappaz, described his death as an “absolute horror”, and said he had been humiliated and mistreated on the platform for months.

A postmortem carried out later that week revealed Mr Graven’s death was not the result of trauma or the actions of a third party.

Local police have seized videos and interviewed a number of people they say were present when he died.

They also disclosed Mr Graven had previously been spoken to by detectives and had “firmly denied” being a victim of violence, saying the acts he was involved in were staged to “create a buzz” and make money.

Kick is a platform similar to Twitch on which users can broadcast content and interact with other users in real time.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Jean Pormanove and extend our condolences to his family, friends and community,” said Kick in its previous statement.

The platform’s community guidelines were “designed to protect creators” and Kick was “committed to upholding these standards across our platform”, its spokesperson added.

We’re a week away from Labor Day weekend and we have one movie slotted in as a best picture Oscar nominee.

That leaves nine spots and whole lot of sharp elbows as we begin the fall film festival circuit next week in Venice and Telluride.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Worst freeway in Southern California? There is only one correct answer, but it’s not the one in our rankings. And that answer is just another reason why, like Sal Saperstein, we dread going anywhere near LAX.

Fall festivals preview

In case you were wondering — but I think you already know — the movie already assured a best picture nomination is Ryan Coogler’s exuberant horror hit, “Sinners,” a film as entertaining and provocative as anything I’ve seen in a theater in the last couple of years. It was my favorite summer movie, even if it did come out in April. Watching it in Imax 70mm felt like an event, the kind of blockbuster moviegoing experience I’ll remember years from now.

The Venice Film Festival starts Wednesday. On Thursday, I’ll be flying to Telluride. The 50th Toronto International Film Festival begins the following week. Dozens of movies will be premiering at these festivals. Standing ovations will be meticulously — and ridiculously — timed. And when the smoke clears, we’ll have the makings of a slate of contenders that we’ll be covering and debating for the next six months.

Here are some of the world premieres at each festival that I’ll be watching most closely, movies that could be made — or broken — by the next time you hear from me.

Venice

Haute couture. Water taxis. Endless Aperol spritzes.

“Frankenstein”: For Guillermo del Toro, Pinocchio and Frankenstein have always been two sides of the same coin, creations made by an uncaring father, released into the world without much care. Del Toro tackled Pinocchio with his last film, which won the Oscar for animated feature. And now he’s adapting the Mary Shellley classic, promising to include parts of the tragic story never before seen on screen. If anyone can make us shout “it’s alive” again, it’s Del Toro.

“A House of Dynamite”: A new political thriller from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is an event, particularly because it’s her first film since “Detroit” eight years ago. “Dynamite” deals with U.S. leaders scrambling for a response after a missile attack. I’m hoping to embark on a two-hour ride firmly fixed in the fetal position.

“Jay Kelly”: Famous actor (George Clooney) and his devoted manager (Adam Sandler) travel through Europe, pondering regrets (they’ve had a few) and the times they’ve loved, laughed and cried. Noah Baumbach directs from a script he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer. His last movie, 2019’s “Marriage Story,” earned six Oscar nominations, with Laura Dern winning supporting actress. Time for the Sandman to finally get an invitation to the party?

“No Other Choice”: Park Chan-wook adapts the provocative Donald Westlake thriller “The Ax,” which Costa-Gavras adapted in 2005 — but Park apparently wasn’t aware of that movie when he decided to make his own film. Park has been working on it for years, calling it his “lifetime project,” the movie he wanted to stand as his “masterpiece.” He has made some great films — “The Handmaiden” and “Decision to Leave” among them — so it’s hard not be intrigued.

“The Smashing Machine”: I have seen the trailer for this Benny Safdie drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr so many times that I feel like I have already seen the movie. The blend of Safdie grittiness and Dwayne Johnson star power is sure to generate buzz, but there are whispers that the film simply isn’t all that good. From that trailer, I’m inclined to believe them … but hope to be proved wrong.

Telluride

High altitude, fleece pullovers, repeated discussions about hydration. Lineup not officially announced until Thursday. These are just “rumors.”

“Ballad of a Small Player”: Edward Berger premiered “Conclave” at Telluride last year and it worked out fine, going on to earn eight Oscar nominations and emerging as a viable, sillier alternative for those looking to vote for something other than “Anora.” Berger’s latest is about a high-stakes gambler (Colin Farrell) holed up in China, desperate for a way out of his debts and past sins. As awards voters loved “Conclave” and Berger’s misbegotten “All Quiet on the Western Front,” attention must be paid.

“Hamnet”: Paul Mescal is everywhere. And now he’s playing William Shakespeare in a drama about the Bard and his wife rediscovering each other after the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Why not? Especially when the film is directed by Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and has the brilliant Jessie Buckley on board as Shakespeare’s better half.

“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”: Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce! Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen as he goes lo-fi making his acclaimed album “Nebraska.” History tells us that actors starring in music biopics are rewarded handsomely, and, given what we’ve seen of White on “The Bear,” he seems a perfect choice to play a brooding Bruce.

Toronto

Weather that veers between spring, summer and fall in the course of a week. Poutine. Splashy premieres of movies that have already played at other festivals.

“Christy”: Sydney Sweeney has been in the news lately. Maybe you’ve heard? But she’s about to make a serious awards-season play in this sports biopic about boundary-shattering boxer Christy Martin, a young gay woman fighting to establish an identity that runs counter to her conservative upbringing. Will the work be good enough to rise above the noise around the actor?

“The Lost Bus”: Paul Greengrass, like Bigelow, has been absent from the conversation for a bit. His last movie, the fine western “News of the World,” was swallowed by the pandemic. Now he’s back with a survival drama, one with California roots, as a father (Matthew McConaughey) and a teacher (America Ferrera) try to bring a bus full of school children to safety during the deadly 2018 Camp fire.

Brent Hinds, who sang and played guitar in the Grammy-winning metal band Mastodon until he left the group this year, died Wednesday night in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta. He was 51.

His death was reported by Atlanta’s WANF, which cited a police report that said Hinds was riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle when he was struck by an SUV whose driver had failed to yield while making a turn. Hinds was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

In an Instagram post, Hinds’ former bandmates said they were “in a state of unfathomable sadness and grief” and that they were “still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many.”

Known for its complicated riffs and its high-concept storytelling, Mastodon built a large and devoted audience with intricately plotted albums about illness, suicide and “Moby-Dick.” The band’s music drew clear inspiration from Black Sabbath and Slayer and influenced subsequent metal acts like Baroness and Pallbearer.

Yet Bill Kelliher, Mastodon’s other guitarist, said, “We’re not really a metal band,” during an interview with The Times in 2017. “I feel we’re more like a really heavy, groovy rock band with some prog elements and some pretty deep emotional lyrics. They’re loosely based on tragedy and things that really shake up human beings in real life.”

Mastodon formed in 2000 and made two albums for the respected indie label Relapse Records — including 2004’s “Moby-Dick”-steeped “Leviathan,” which Hinds told the New York Times allegorized “the struggle between man and music” — before signing to the Warner Music imprint Reprise for 2006’s “Blood Mountain,” which earned a Grammy nomination for best metal performance.

The band — in which Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Dailor took turns as lead singer — made five more LPs for Reprise; “Sultan’s Curse,” from 2017’s “Emperor of Sand,” won a Grammy for best metal performance. Mastodon’s most recent album, “Hushed and Grim,” came out in 2021.

Hinds grew up in Birmingham, Ala., where he learned to play the banjo before turning to guitar. In a 2009 interview with the Guardian, he described his younger self as “a total hellion” and said he was “very dysfunctional at school.” He added that he would “take LSD and come to class still tripping. I was too creative, never doing my homework, just filling my notepad up with drawings of skulls.”

He met Sanders when the latter came to Birmingham to play with an earlier band; Hinds soon moved to Atlanta to make music with Sanders, then the two formed Mastodon with Kelliher and Dailor. In 2009, Mastodon played the Coachella festival and toured with Metallica; six years later, Hinds appeared as an extra in an episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

In March, Mastodon announced that Hinds had left the band in a statement that said they’d “mutually decided to part ways.” Yet Hinds later wrote on Instagram that his former bandmates, whom he called “horrible humans,” had fired him “for embarrassing them for being who I am.” He went on to accuse them of using Auto-Tune in the studio and said he had “never met three people that were so full of themselves.”

Information on Hinds’ survivors wasn’t immediately available.

A “DEVOTED” dad-of-two was crushed to death by a car in a freak accident, an inquest heard.

Mechanic Daniel Burton, 27, was repairing his partner’s dad’s Audi A3 when an axle stand slipped.

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His neighbours desperately tried to free him after he was discovered trapped under the vehicle in Port Talbot, South Wales.

Tragically, Daniel couldn’t be saved, with his cause of death given as traumatic asphyxiation – also known as “crush asphyxiation”.

An inquest heard the dad-of-two’s partner Abbie had begged him not to do work on the car himself as it was a “big job” and dark outside.

But Daniel, who was about to pass his MOT testers course, decided to do the work on the Audi himself.

He was later spotted by a passer-by lying on his back with his torso and head under the car and his legs stuck out.

The onlooker thought the car looked unsafe but decided not to say anything as she did not think the mechanic would appreciate her opinion, the court heard.

Another woman then stopped to ask Daniel if he had seen her stolen car but when he did not respond she raised the alarm.

A neighbour rushed over and tried to use a jack to lift the car before emergency crews arrived.

Daniel was sadly declared dead at the scene in January this year.

Police launched a probe and discovered a jack and one axle stand lying on its side underneath the car.

Another axle stand was still in its box, the court was told.

Coroner Colin Phillips recorded a conclusion of accidental death at the inquest in Swansea.

He said qualified mechanic Daniel was working on his car when the axle slipped due to the sloped street.

After it tipped on its side, the mechanic was trapped underneath the vehicle.

Paying his condolences to Daniel’s family, Mr Phillips added: “He was very much loved and will be sorely missed and I hope you get a degree of closure now.”

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Emmerdale’s Mackenzie Boyd flees for his life in a new preview ahead of Thursday’s episode of the ITV soap, after he discovers killer John Sugden’s dark secrets

It’s the moment Emmerdale fans have been trying to unravel for months, as Mackenzie Boyd’s mystery flashforward is finally explained. With that, Mack is left in grave danger it seems as he flees into the woods for his life, running from killer John Sugden.

Amid reports the character is set to be killed off, actor Lawrence Robb has finally addressed the mystery clip that aired in December, ahead of the scene finally airing in full on Thursday. In the initial clip he was shown running through the woods as if he was being chased, or was running towards something.

Fans have spent months speculating over what it could be linked to, even more so after Lawrence teased “life-changing” scenes a few months back. Thursday’s episode will see Mack’s run through the woods play out in real-time, and now new details have been confirmed about the tense twist.

It’s now been confirmed that it follows the moment Mack finally uncovers killer John’s dark secrets. Wednesday’s dramatic cliffhanger saw the moment Mack found a scrap book containing photos of John and his army pals.

READ MORE: Emmerdale reveals what clue Mack finds about John that exposes ITV soap killerREAD MORE: Is Mack leaving Emmerdale, does he die and who is Ben? John Sugden twist explained

One of the photos exposed his secret friendship with newcomer Ben, the removal man who collected Nate Robinson’s belongings months earlier claiming Nate has ordered his services. But the photo on Wednesday made Mack, who had met Ben that same day, seemingly realise that there was a chance John was linked to Nate’s murder.

After all, Nate had not ordered the removal service given he was already dead so chances are, it was his killer. Finding out that Ben and John are close, it seemed to hit him that John was hiding something, and that he could well have been the killer after all.

Now a first look for Thursday has teased the dramatic and tense fallout of this moment, as John realises Mack is onto him. It’s been teased Mack faces a battle for survival in that he runs for his life – but will John catch up with him?

We know John will go to any means necessary to cover his tracks, and now that Mack may know the truth it puts him in serious peril. A picture for Thursday shows the moment Mack races through the woods, seemingly running away from John.

Spoilers tease his life depends on him getting away, with a trailer hinting that a chase ensues. In the trailer already released, he faces a terrifying moment with killer John but his fate remains unclear.

But can Mack escape and will John be exposed? Actor Lawrence addressed the big moment, and discussed fans finally getting to see the flashforward scene he filmed last year.

He shared: “Last New Year we saw a handful of flashbacks and the one of Mack running has not been seen in an episode yet…. We actually filmed that flashback last October and we finally will be seeing it within the show. In the original flashback the audience members didn’t know why Mackenzie was running.

“Was he chasing someone or was he running away from someone or something? At last all will be revealed. The flashback scene was filmed last October and at the time we didn’t know when it was going to play out within 2025 – so just in case there could be a future issue with hair continuity – as potentially I could have grown a mullet by the end of the year – we decided to stick a beanie hat on Mack.

“But this choice didn’t help with the heat as this time we were filming this episode in the height of summer. And for all the filming I had to have this beanie on. So I was very, very warm. But I’m excited for the audience to finally see it unfold and how it fits into Mack’s storyline.”

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 .

A passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.

The death toll from a bus crash in western Afghanistan has risen to 79, after two survivors died from their injuries, an interim Taliban administration official said.

The incident occurred late on Tuesday in Herat province’s Guzara district, when a passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.

At least 19 children were among those killed, Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interim Interior Ministry, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday.

Mohammad Janan Moqadas, chief physician at the military hospital, said many bodies were too badly burned to be identified.

A journalist with the AFP news agency reported that cleanup crews were working on Wednesday to remove the burned-out bus and the twisted wreckage of the other vehicles.

“There was a lot of fire… There was a lot of screaming, but we couldn’t even get within 50 metres to rescue anyone,” witness Akbar Tawakoli, 34, told AFP. “Only three people were saved from the bus. They were also on fire and their clothes were burned.”

Abdullah, 25, another witness, told AFP, “I was very saddened that most of the passengers on the bus were children and women.”

The bus was transporting Afghans recently expelled from Iran to the capital, Kabul, provincial spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi said. The central government has ordered an investigation.

“It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of numerous Afghan lives and the injuries sustained in a tragic bus collision and subsequent fire in Herat province last night,” it said in a statement.

More than 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year alone, according to the United Nations migration agency, as both countries step up deportations after decades of hosting Afghan refugees. Many arrive with little means and face dire conditions in a country battling poverty and mass unemployment.

The state-run Bakhtar News Agency described the incident as one of Afghanistan’s deadliest accidents in recent years.

In December 2023, two separate bus crashes involving tankers killed 52 people, while in March 2024, another 20 died in a collision in Helmand province. In late 2022, a tanker overturned in the Salang Pass, igniting a fire that killed 31.

When I heard about the killing of Mohammed Noufal and his colleagues from Al Jazeera, my first thoughts were with his sister, Janat. I knew her vaguely in university; she is a polite girl with a beautiful smile, who was studying digital media at the Islamic University of Gaza and ran an online shop where she sold girls’ accessories.

She had already lost several members of her family when she received the news of her brother’s martyrdom. I thought of her and the devastating pain she must be in. I thought of how her story reflects the fate of so many Palestinian families who, over the past almost two years, have faced slow death, member by member.

On October 30, 2023, just three weeks after the start of the war, a missile struck Janat’s family house in Jabalia. She and her sisters and brothers survived, although Mohammed had serious injuries. Their aunt and uncle were killed.

A year later, on October 7, 2024, Omar, Janat’s eldest brother, was martyred while he was trying to rescue the injured from a bombed house; the Israeli army hit the same spot again, killing him.

Then, on June 22 of this year, her mother, Muneera, passed away. She was visiting relatives when the Israeli army bombarded the area. Muneera was hit by shrapnel; she arrived at the hospital still alive but passed away 39 hours later.

On August 10, Israel bombed a media tent near al-Shifa Hospital, killing Janat’s brother Mohammed and six other journalists.

Now, Janat has only her father Riyad, her brother Ibrahim and her sisters Ola, Hadeel, Hanan left.

“[When] my older brother Omar passed away, we heard our father groan and say, “You’ve broken my back, oh God,” Janat told me when I reached out to her.

“When we lost my mother Muneera, my father said in a hoarse voice, ‘We have been struck down’,” she continued.

“When my brother Mohammed, the journalist, was martyred, he said nothing. He didn’t scream, he didn’t cry, he didn’t utter a word. And that’s when fear began to creep into my heart … I feared that his silence might break him forever. I feared his stillness more than I feared his grief.”

After Mohammed was martyred, Janat tried to convince her brother Ibrahim to leave his work as a journalist, because she was afraid for him. He was the last one left to support her, their father, and her sisters. But he refused, saying that nothing would befall them except what God had written for them. He told her that he wanted to follow the legacy of their martyred brother and his colleagues.

For Janat, the pain of losing her loved ones has become unbearable. “Whenever we thought we could breathe a little, the next loss would bring us back to the same darkness. Fear is no longer a passing feeling, but a constant companion, watching us from every corner of our lives. Loss has become part of our existence, and grief has settled into the details of daily life, in every paused smile and every prolonged silence,” she told me.

Her words echo the suffering of so many families here in Gaza.

According to the Government Media Office, as of March this year, 2,200 Palestinian families were completely wiped out from the civil registry, all of their members killed. More than 5,120 families had only one member left.

Palestinian families are constantly under the threat of extinction with each wave of bombing.

My own relatives have also been erased from the civil registry. My father, Ghassan, had eight cousins – Mohammed, Omar, Ismail, Firas, Khaled, Abdullah, Ali, and Marah – who formed a large branch of our extended family. After the outbreak of war, we began losing them one after another. Each loss left a new void, as if we were being pulled into a spiral of recurring grief.

Only the wives of Omar and Ismail and their two children remain now. My father carries this immense pain quietly, holding his sorrow deep inside.

Today, we face another Israeli offensive on northern Gaza. Last year, the Israeli onslaught killed tens of thousands. Those who defied forced displacement to the south paid a heavy price.

Many of us who have lost loved ones do not want to live through the horror again. Last year, my family stayed in the north, but we are now exhausted. We are worn out from the bombing, death, and terror we experienced. We will leave this time. Janat’s family, who proudly held on to their half-destroyed home in Jabalia, will also leave.

We have experienced atrocities that no human being can endure. We cannot take any more death.

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

RAFAH, Egypt — Hamas said Monday it has accepted a new proposal from Arab mediators for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as Israel indicated its positions haven’t changed, while Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from 22 months of war has passed 62,000.

U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on the long-running negotiations that Washington has mediated as well. “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” he posted on social media.

Israel announced plans to reoccupy Gaza City and other heavily populated areas after ceasefire talks appeared to break down last month, raising the possibility of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which experts say is sliding into famine.

Plans to expand the offensive, in part aimed at pressuring Hamas, have sparked international outrage and infuriated many Israelis who fear for the remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. Hundreds of thousands took part in mass protests on Sunday calling for their return.

Egypt says Witkoff invited to join talks

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said mediators are “exerting extensive efforts” to revive a U.S. proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, during which some of the remaining 50 hostages would be released and the sides would negotiate a lasting ceasefire and the return of the rest.

Abdelatty told the Associated Press they are inviting U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to join the ceasefire talks.

Abdelatty spoke to journalists during a visit to Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza, which has not functioned since Israel seized the Palestinian side in May 2024. He was accompanied by Mohammad Mustafa, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, which has been largely sidelined since the war began.

Abdelatty said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani had joined the talks, which include senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, who arrived in Cairo last week. Abdelatty said they are open to other ideas, including for a comprehensive deal that would release all the hostages at once.

Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP that the militant group had accepted the proposal introduced by the mediators, without elaborating.

An Egyptian official, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said the proposal includes changes to Israel’s pullback of its forces and guarantees for negotiations on a lasting ceasefire during the initial truce. The official said it is almost identical to an earlier proposal accepted by Israel, which has not yet joined the latest talks.

Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egypt State Information Service, told the AP that Egypt and Qatar have sent the Hamas-accepted proposal to Israel.

An Israeli official said Israel’s positions, including on the release of all hostages, had not changed from previous rounds of talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas has been disarmed, and to maintain lasting security control over Gaza. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

Netanyahu said in a video addressing the Israeli public that reports of Hamas’ acceptance of the proposal showed that it is “under massive pressure.”

Palestinian death toll surpasses 62,000

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians, in the attack that ignited the war. Around 20 of the hostages still in Gaza are believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the Palestinian death toll from the war had climbed to 62,004, with another 156,230 people wounded. It does not say how many were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up around half the dead.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own.

The ministry said 1,965 people have been killed while seeking humanitarian aid since May, either in the chaos around U.N. convoys or while heading to sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed American contractor.

Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired toward crowds seeking aid. Israel says it has only fired warning shots at people who approached its forces. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on rare occasions to prevent deadly crowding.

More deaths linked to malnutrition

Experts have warned that Israel’s ongoing offensive is pushing Gaza toward famine, even after it eased a complete two-and-a-half-month blockade on the territory in May. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that five more people, including two children, died of malnutrition-related causes.

It says at least 112 children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war began, and 151 adults have died since the ministry started tracking adult malnutrition deaths in June.

Amnesty International on Monday accused Israel of “carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation.”

Israel has rejected such allegations, saying it allows in enough food and accusing the U.N. of failing to promptly deliver it. U.N. agencies say they are hindered by Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in the territory, around three-quarters of which is now controlled by Israel.

Eastwood, Magdy and Lidman write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo and Lidman from Tel Aviv. AP writer Rod McGuirk contributed from Canberra, Australia.

What’s the one thing from your childhood that your mom threw away that haunts you to this day?

Ben Stiller has one, a souvenir from what today would be called a riot but back in the 1970s registered as perfectly normal behavior.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope newsletter and the guy still holding out hope that those baseball cards are going to turn up in a box someday.

In this week’s newsletter, let’s look at what our Envelope cover star Ben Stiller misses.

Cover story: Ben Stiller has no time to waste

(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)

For this week’s cover story, Stiller and I talked a lot about his love for the New York Knicks, a passion kindled early and one that became an “addiction” this year as the team tried to win its first NBA championship since 1973. His dad, Jerry Stiller, took him to lot of games as a kid. Two of Jerry’s friends, Stanley Asofsky and Carnegie Deli co-owner Fred Klein, had season tickets, and they knew all the players and refs and would introduce them to Ben.

Jerry also took his son to baseball games, both the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees were Ben’s favorite — though his commitment to them was nowhere near his love for the Knicks — and when they won the American League championship series in 1978, Stiller ran out onto the field with his friend Jonathan Harris, as one did in New York. (Or, really, anywhere else … but especially New York.) He even scooped up a chunk of the right-field turf and took it home with him on the D train.

“I had it in my room for two years,” Stiller says.

“And then,” I guessed, “your mom threw it away.”

“My mom threw it away,” Stiller affirms. To be fair to Anne Meara, the sod was old and crumbling and probably had bugs in it. And yet …

“It was a prized possession,” Stiller says. “I had it on a piece of tinfoil on a shelf. Maybe if I had been really lucky and had picked up a base, my mom wouldn’t have made me get rid of that.”

Stiller told me he wouldn’t be directing any episodes of “Severance’s” upcoming third season to free him up to make a feature film, a World War II survival story about a downed airman in occupied France who becomes involved with the French Resistance. Stiller has spent most of this year helping prep the third season and wants to be clear that the show is “a real priority.” But after a long break, he’s ready to return to feature filmmaking.

“Severance” star Adam Scott understands, though he finds it hard to imagine the set without Stiller. Scott remembers exactly what he told Stiller when they were shooting the jaw-dropping, mood-shifting Season 2 finale.

“I was just like, ‘Dude, this is our ‘Temple of Doom,’” Scott told me, referencing the second “Indiana Jones” movie. “And I was in absolute paradise the entire time, not just because ‘Temple of Doom’ is my favorite movie, but because we were getting to do it all. There’s the marching band. There’s a fight scene. There’s the running in the hall. We had the big scene where Mark talks to Outie.”

“And when we finished it, we were all so tired,” Scott continues. “But I could see how happy Ben was. It was such a showcase for him.”

And now, he’ll be returning to making movies — the one thing as a kid he always wanted to do.

Well, that and snag third base at Yankee Stadium.

Read more coverage of ‘Severance’