News Desk

DOLLY Parton’s late husband’s will has revealed clues into how the music icon will divide up her massive $650 million fortune in the months after her death.

In Carl Dean’s last will and testament obtained by The U.S. Sun, he set out his wishes for his property, including what should happen to Dolly’s estate.

Carl died on March 3, 2025, just 18 months before Dolly’s death.

Carl’s will claimed Dolly would have trusted him with her estate should she have died first, so his will appears to have been done in coordination with the music legend.

In his 2013 will, Carl set out a directive specifically about Dolly’s personal effects relating to her “music and entertainment career.”

Carl said that if Dolly does not survive him, all of her career artifacts “including…pictures, costumes, jewelry, musical instruments and equipment and souvenirs” are to be distributed according to the terms of the Carl Thomas Dean Trust.

FINAL POSE

Dolly Parton looked upbeat in final photos just weeks before her death

The actual terms of that trust, however, are not public.

Carl then directed that for the rest of his belongings, in the event that Dolly died before him, should be distributed among their nieces and nephews.

At the time of his will, which was updated in 2013, Carl acknowledged five of his own nieces and nephews, and then another 14 on Dolly’s side, who are named to be beneficiaries of the estate.

Dolly and Carl had no children together.

Despite online rumors that Dolly left all royalties relating to her song Jolene to her goddaughter Miley Cyrus, there was no mention of the pop star in Carl’s filings.

The philanthropist’s husband also set out a specific clause for the allocation of money to charity.

Under a section titled Payment of Debts and Administration Expenses, Carl authorized his executor to make decisions to pay out any “unpaid charitable pledges” at their sole discretion.

Carl essentially was leaving the door open for his executor to pay any charity that may have had an outstanding donation promise from his and Dolly’s estate.

As The U.S. Sun exclusively reported, Dolly was quietly getting her affairs squared away during her final months.

Public records show that her expansive Willow Lake Plantation property was transferred to the DP Dean Trust on April 21 of this year for $0.

A county clerk noted that the estate was previously held under the DP Spousal Trust before being shifted into the DP Dean Trust.

Since Dolly served as the trustee for the spousal trust, it seems clear she was actively rearranging her real estate holdings just four months before her passing.

Recent 2025 tax records assessed her main home in Brentwood, Tennessee, at $10,700,400, while her neighboring property was appraised at $1,282,800.

Dolly was the sole beneficiary of the Carl Thomas Dean Trust.

As The U.S. Sun previously exclusively revealed, her personal real estate holdings in Tennessee alone were valued at a minimum of $180 million.

Forbes estimated her net worth at roughly $450 million in 2025.

Much of that fortune stemmed from her 50 percent ownership of the Dollywood theme park, alongside a prized music catalog featuring over 3,000 songs—including massive hits like 9 to 5 and I Will Always Love You —which was valued at around $120 million.

Beyond her music and business ventures, she also founded Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a beloved charity that mails free books to young children across five countries.

The icon passed away at 80 years old following a brief battle with cancer.

Aug. 27 (UPI) — More than 100 bone fragments and about 30 teeth were found in El Arenal, a rural community in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco.

The remains were discovered Wednesday at a suspected clandestine extermination site during a search conducted by members of a group named after Vicente Suástegui Muñoz, an activist who disappeared five years ago.

The discovery coincided with the observance of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, which seeks to draw attention to people whose whereabouts remain unknown and demand action to resolve disappearance cases, Infobae reported.

The search occurred in an area considered a priority by families searching for missing relatives because of reports and testimony linked to disappearances in different parts of the region.

Samantha Colón Morales, president of the search collective and Suástegui’s wife, said an anonymous caller alerted her to the presence of bone fragments in the eastern part of Acapulco, local newspaper El Sur reported.

Colón said the site where the remains were found is accessible by dirt roads and is about 40 minutes from the federal highway. Lipsticks, belt buckles and rings were also among the items recovered at the site, she said.

Colón said she believes the property may have been used as an extermination site because of the number of remains and the conditions in which they were found, Quadratín Guerrero reported.

She said that for families of the missing, each piece of evidence recovered could help advance an investigation and eventually establish the identity of a missing person.

Colón explained authorities will analyze the remains to determine how many people they belong to and seek to establish their identities.

More than 115,000 people are listed as missing in Mexico, according to the country’s National Registry of Missing and Disappeared Persons.

Mexico’s disappearance crisis is closely linked to organized crime violence, institutional complicity or inaction and high levels of impunity, which have overwhelmed the country’s forensic services.

Amid limited government resources, hundreds of search collectives have emerged across Mexico. Made up primarily of mothers and other relatives of missing people, their members often risk their lives searching clandestine graves and suspected extermination sites in an effort to find their loved ones.

Netflix viewers have been gifted an exclusive first look at Grand Theft Auto VI

Netflix viewers have issued the same complaint just seconds into the new GTA 6 stream.

Gamers have been waiting patiently for the new Grand Theft Auto VI extended teaser, which was shown exclusively on the streaming giant on Thursday evening (August 27).

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, Rockstar Games gave Netflix viewers an early glimpse at the gameplay months before its launch this November. The new game will see main characters Jason and Lucia forced to rely on each other “more than ever”.

A synopsis teases: “Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida – forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.”

While fans were counting down the days until the extended look finally dropped, many were left baffled when Netflix crashed just as they were trying to tune in.

Upon clicking on the 26-minute episode, viewers immediately received an error message that read “something went wrong”.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, one fan complained: “NETFLIX WHAT THE F***, ITS NOT EVEN BEEN 1 SECOND.”

Another added: “Why was Netflix not ready for this?? They should’ve known that GTA would crash their app.”

Someone else chimed in with: “What’s up #Netflix? We are up for #gtavi extended look but you’re down!”

But other gamers have been more struck by just how “gorgeous” the gameplay looks. One fan confessed: “Nah I’m blown away. #gta6.”

Someone else shared their excitement, commenting: “There isn’t another game in existence that looks graphically as good as #GTAVI #GTA6. Wow.”

And a final fan raved: “I’m literally smiling ear to ear right now. #GTAVI #ExtendedLook.”

The sixth GTA iteration comes 13 years after Grand Theft Auto V debuted, making it a hugely anticipated launch. Grand Theft Auto VI is set to arrive for PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S on November 19.

Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look is available to stream on Netflix

Last season’s runners-up, Arsenal, will play the likes of Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Lille in the league phase.

Two-time defending champions Paris Saint-Germain were handed meetings with Barcelona, Manchester City and Aston Villa, among their eight matches in the league phase of this season’s Champions League, when the draw took place on Thursday.

PSG, who beat Arsenal on penalties in Budapest in May to retain the trophy, will play Barcelona, Roma, Turkish champions Galatasaray and Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia at home.

Luis Enrique’s team will travel to England twice to face City and Villa. They beat both teams on the way to winning their first Champions League title in 2025, and also defeated the latter in the UEFA Super Cup in Austria earlier this month.

The French champions will also go to Spain to play Villarreal and Italy to take on a Como side coached by Cesc Fabregas.

“I can’t say anything bad about the Champions League, but I won’t be watching the draw. I will be relaxing and going out on my bike, then we’ll take a look at the menu. But I would sign up for the same result as in the last two years,” Luis Enrique told reporters earlier Thursday.

PSG are aiming to become European champions for a third straight year, something only the Real Madrid of 2016 to 2018 have achieved in the last 50 years.

The first matches in this season’s league phase will be played between Tuesday, September 8 and Thursday, September 10, with the final games in late January. UEFA is expected to announce the full fixture schedule on Saturday.

Last season’s runners-up, Arsenal, the Premier League champions, will notably host Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Lille, as well as Sabah, the club from Azerbaijan who came through four two-legged qualifying ties to reach the league phase for the first time.

The Gunners have a tough list of away ties against Bayern Munich, Real Betis, Napoli and Slavia Prague.

Fenerbahce back, Viking in

Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool will be at home to Atletico Madrid, Porto, Villarreal and Lens, while playing Inter Milan, Club Brugge, Fenerbahce and Austrian league phase debutants LASK away.

Manchester United, who were not in the first pot of seeds, have home games against Bayern, Roma, RB Leipzig and Sabah, and also a series of difficult away fixtures against Atletico, Sporting of Portugal, Villarreal and Como.

Other notable games include Manchester City visiting Barcelona and Real Madrid entertaining Inter, while last season’s Europa League winners, Villa, must go to Barcelona and play Dortmund at home. Unai Emery’s team will also tackle Istanbul giants Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.

The latter are appearing in the Champions League proper for the first time since 2008/09 after beating Lyon in the playoffs this week.

New names in this season’s competition are Como, who have upset the traditional order in Serie A, and Sabah, while LASK made it to this stage for the first time after a stunning comeback win over Celtic in the playoffs.

Last year’s Norwegian champions Viking, from the city of Stavanger, have reached the Champions League proper for the first time, too, and they have a glamorous fixture schedule that includes Bayern, Atletico, Villa and Napoli.

This is the third season since the introduction of the new format for the Champions League, with 36 teams now all pooled together in one giant league and each playing games against eight different opponents.

This season’s final will be played at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid on June 5, 2027.

Europe is entering an interesting, and potentially highly consequential, period in the development of beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air weapons. While the public emergence of new U.S. weapons in this class has unsurprisingly grabbed the headlines in recent months, Europe is meanwhile working on several projects that ultimately seek to field its next generation of far-reaching air-to-air missiles.

As in the United States, the immediate catalyst is the rapid evolution of Chinese air-to-air missiles, particularly the PL-15 and newer systems that are emerging around it. The India-Pakistan air combat experience from last year has brought the issue into sharper focus, demonstrating the operational consequences of underestimating an opponent’s long-range air-to-air capabilities. However, while Pakistan said its Chinese-made fighters and missiles shot down several Indian aircraft, the precise circumstances, numbers, and tactics involved remain the subject of competing claims and outside analysis.

For Europe, the MBDA Meteor is currently the state of the art in terms of BVR air-to-air missiles, and its unique set of capabilites is something we have discussed in depth in the past. The question is increasingly not simply how to improve the Meteor, but what should come after it, and what kind of weapons architecture (or ‘kill chain’) will be needed for the next generation of crewed and uncrewed combat aircraft and their weapons.

One of the most intriguing current developments is France’s Comet program, which appears to be led by the French side of the pan-European MBDA consortium. Very little is publicly known about the weapon, and its exact specifications remain unclear. It nevertheless appears to represent an effort to provide a significant step beyond the current MICA family, offering greater range and speed. If the apparent timeline of around 2030 is correct, Comet could be viewed as a relatively near-term response to an increasingly demanding threat environment.

Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) research institute in London, told TWZ that Comet looks like “a response to the exchanges between the Pakistanis and the Indians, where, on day one, the Indians underestimated how aggressive the Pakistanis were going to be, particularly with PL-15. It seems coincidental at the very least that this kind of thing has just popped up onto the horizon.”

That would distinguish Comet from the U.K.’s Future Air Superiority Effectors, or FASE, program which appears to be associated much more closely with the longer-term requirements of the U.K.’s Future Combat Air System and GCAP/Tempest.

Talking to TWZ, Justin Bronk, a research fellow for airpower at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), explained that FASE “is likely aimed at providing significantly better combat capabilities by the early-mid 2030s than a mid-life upgrade of the Meteor missile would be able to offer within the bounds of its basic layout and size.”

Creating an interesting overlap with FASE and Comet is a joint Franco-British study looking at what comes after Meteor. In April, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding launching the 12-month effort that will assess future air-combat threats and potential next-generation missile concepts. The study is intended to identify the technologies required for a successor weapon and establish a development roadmap. While the two countries are at least formally examining the same post-Meteor problem, their longer-term combat air priorities appear to be diverging.

Beyond Meteor

Meteor remains one of Europe’s most capable air-to-air weapons. Its ramjet propulsion system gives it an important advantage over conventional solid-rocket missiles by allowing it to retain propulsion and energy much further into an engagement.

However, the threat environment that Meteor was designed against is changing. Meteor’s requirements were established in an environment dominated by the Soviet/Russian air-to-air missile threat. Today’s planning increasingly has to account for Chinese weapons such as the PL-15 and newer systems that may combine very long range with substantially greater speed.

“Since the Meteor is still more than a match for current Russian air-to-air missiles in air-to-air engagements, it is likely that the capability goals for the FASE program will use far more capable Chinese air-to-air missiles, aircraft, and sensors as pacing threats,” Bronk ​​​​added.

That raises the uncomfortable question of what happens when both sides can launch extremely capable BVR weapons against each other?

Simply put, higher speed now matters more, because it reduces the target’s reaction time and can make the terminal engagement substantially more demanding. One of Meteor’s advantages is the considerable energy it retains when it reaches the terminal phase, but the tradeoff is a slower average speed across the entirety of its flight envelope.

Meteor

Barrie explained: “Meteor’s fly-out speed is somewhere between Mach 3.5 and somewhere below Mach 4. If you launch a PL-15 off a J-20, which is doing Mach 2, that weapon probably stays above Mach 5 for an awfully long time, which is one of the issues. It’s that risk of a mutual kill. Obviously, if the weapon against the J-20 is coming out at Mach 3.5 to Mach 4, then you have a bit an issue there.”

At the same time, a missile’s effectiveness depends on many other factors, including launch conditions, flight profile, midcourse guidance, seeker performance, electronic warfare environment, and target maneuvering.

However, the nature of the threat may push the next generation of European weapons toward a combination of greater range, substantially higher speed and greater terminal energy rather than simply another incremental improvement to Meteor. Indeed, the United Kingdom has dropped its plans for a Meteor mid-life upgrade, presumably to focus its efforts on an altogether more ambitious and capable successor, or successors.

Does the next weapon need a ramjet?

The Meteor was designed around a ramjet motor, especially since it was expected to face a ramjet version of the Russian R-77 (AA-12 Adder) missile. This was never fielded, and, as far as we know, China doesn’t have a weapon in this class either. A Meteor successor therefore won’t necessarily use the same kind of propulsion.

Meteor demonstrated the advantages of air-breathing propulsion, but there are trade-offs involved in using a ramjet or another air-breathing system. Achieving very high speeds while maintaining useful range and maneuverability can become increasingly difficult, and propulsion complexity adds cost and potentially consumes valuable internal volume.

The performance being attributed in open sources to Chinese solid-propellant weapons like the PL-15 suggests that another approach is possible.

Barrie would not be surprised if the ramjet is dropped. “The issue with a ramjet is it’s not impossible to get above Mach 5, but it’s difficult, and there are lots of compromises you probably have to make … I wonder if they may just look at energetic solids.”

A future European missile could therefore use a substantially larger solid-propellant motor, potentially coupled with a different boost and sustain architecture, to achieve the required combination of speed and range. Using more than one stage, or a multi-pulse solid rocket motor could be other solutions to the issue.

The size problem

Perhaps the biggest opportunity for a new European BVR weapon comes from the aircraft that will carry it.

Meteor was developed within the physical constraints imposed by existing fighter aircraft and their weapons-carriage arrangements, including internal carriage in the F-35. A future combat aircraft such as Tempest is expected to have significantly greater internal volume available for weapons.

“One of the drivers for Tempest is internal carriage, obviously, but lots of it,” Barrie continued. “A big main bay, and then probably sizeable side bays as well. That lets you carry a considerably larger weapon mass internally than an F-35. If you look at size of the platform in terms of what they’ve released, it’s a big aircraft, and one would assume it has a very significant internal weapons bay.”

A larger missile can carry more propellant, potentially support a more powerful propulsion system, accommodate a larger or more capable seeker, and provide additional volume for electronics and other subsystems.

As we have explained in the past:

There are different ways of increasing the range of an air-to-air missile, but this process is always easier if the weapon can be made larger. Bigger dimensions can translate to a bigger engine, more fuel, multi-stage rocket motors, and air-breathing engines, like the ramjet used in the Meteor. Other range-extending options that the United States has examined include throttleable “multi-pulse solid rocket motors” and more exotic “propellants, grain configurations, cases, and liners,” all of which would also be able to ensure greater range — as well as higher speed — compared to existing weapons.

The result could be a weapon that is considerably larger than Meteor but still fully compatible with the aircraft for which it was designed.

This realuty, and the use of the plural effectors in the U.K.’s FASE terminology raises the possibility that the future European BVR requirement may not be for one missile, but for a family of weapons — at least as far as the British are concerned.

Why “effectors” may matter

If FASE ultimately refers to multiple effectors rather than a single missile, that could point to the broader direction of future air combat, involving crewed aircraft as well as various uncrewed wingmen.

Tempest is expected to operate as a so-called quarterback, supported by a number of uncrewed combat aircraft, remote carriers, or other systems operating considerably farther forward. Those uncrewed systems will have different size, payload and weapons-carriage constraints from the crewed aircraft.

This means that not every platform will need the same BVR weapon, or even be able to accommodate them, when it comes to the larger missiles.

Instead, a future force might require something resembling a family:

• A large, long-range, high-speed weapon for the crewed Tempest aircraft, optimized for the highest-end air-superiority engagements.
• A medium-sized weapon suitable for existing fighters and potentially future aircraft with more constrained weapons carriage.
• A smaller weapon optimized for CCAs or other uncrewed systems where internal bay dimensions, payload and cost are more restrictive.

A modular missile could possibly cover two of these categories at once. More broadly, these weapons could share technologies without necessarily being identical missiles. Common seekers, electronics, datalinks, software, guidance technologies or other subsystems could potentially be reused across the family.

The result would be a fundamentally different approach from simply developing a single Meteor replacement.

The seeker may be as important as the motor

The front end of a future European BVR weapon is another area where significant change is likely.

An active electronically scanned array (AESA) seeker would seem a logical baseline for a next-generation weapon. The United Kingdom’s previous work with Japan on the Joint New Air-to-Air Missile program, or JNAAM effort was particularly interesting in this regard, given Japan’s experience with active electronically scanned air-to-air seekers.

A future weapon could also incorporate a passive radio-frequency capability alongside its active radar. That would provide another means of detecting or tracking emitting targets and could increase the weapon’s resilience in a heavily contested electromagnetic environment.

For its PL-17 ultra-long-range air-to-air missile, China appears to have chosen a combination of active and passive seekers, although, as Barrie points out, it also appears to have been designed around a very specific target set: E-7 Wedgetail, E-2 Hawkeye, other airborne early warning and control platforms, and support assets, like tankers and strategic electronic surveillance and attack aircraft.

Whether such a capability is worth the additional cost and complexity is another question. A highly sophisticated multimode missile will inevitably be expensive, however, the same technologies could potentially provide utility against a broader range of targets than conventional fighter-on-fighter engagements. An air-to-surface capability should also not be ruled out, with a passive seeker potentially bestowing an anti-radiation missile (ARM) capability on the weapon.

Another passive seeker alternative could be based on an imaging infrared (IIR) sensor. This could provide an interesting complement to an active-radar seeker, making use of the same kind of two-way datalinked midcourse guidance system already included in Meteor. It could be esepcially relevant for engaging small or low-signature (stealthy) targets and in a heavily contested electromagnetic environment.

The weapon is becoming part of the network

Perhaps the biggest change will be the extent to which future BVR missiles exploit the wider kill chain, becoming much more than weapons guided by the aircraft that launches them.

The key requirement is for the missile to be track-source agnostic. This means a future long-range air-to-air missile could receive targeting information from a CCA, an airborne early warning aircraft, another fighter, a naval platform, or potentially space-based sensors.

For example, with Tempest operating alongside forward-deployed CCAs, the sensor that initially detects a target could be the CCA. The launching aircraft could then receive the track, launch a weapon, and continue receiving updates from multiple platforms.

Alternatively, a CCA could launch the weapon using targeting information generated by the crewed aircraft or another sensor elsewhere in the force, provided it is on the network.

Two-way datalinks, midcourse guidance, electronic warfare resilience, and the ability to accept high-quality third-party targeting information become central requirements. Some of this functionality is available, to varying extents, on some current air-to-air missiles, but it will be even more important as air combat becomes increasingly reliant on distributed sensor networks and crewed/uncrewed aircraft teaming.

If it can rely on offboard sensors, the missile’s engagement range no longer needs to be constrained by the organic sensor range of the launching fighter. Faced increasingly by the realities of an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environment, this could enable weapons that fly far beyond what the launch platform could independently detect and engage. The A2/AD threat is alreayd pushing research into much farther-reaching air defese missiles, potentially with a range of up to 1,000 miles.

This also opens the door to more exotic propulsion concepts, including multi-stage weapons designed to combine very high-speed boost with a separate sustain or terminal stage.

The next generation of long-range air-to-air missile may therefore be defined as much by the kill chain they plug into as by the architecture and performance of the missile itself.

What happens to Meteor?

Meteor is one of Europe’s strongest examples of a successful multinational defense program. Six European nations participated in its development, and the program eventually produced a weapon that is widely regarded as a highly capable system.

Now, however, the countries that developed Meteor do not necessarily have identical requirements for the next generation.

The United Kingdom is moving toward GCAP/Tempest with Japan and Italy. Its future combat air requirements will increasingly be shaped by that program and by the threat assessment driving it.

The United Kingdom appears to want a very large, very high-performance weapon optimized for Tempest and the future air-superiority mission, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. Japan likely needs very much the same.

Meanwhile, other Meteor users may prioritize a weapon that can be integrated onto existing fighters and remain affordable in larger numbers.

France’s Comet effort could meet that requirement, since it appears to be a comparatively rapid response to the emerging threat. With that in mind, France could eventually find itself with a near-term weapon, a future clean-sheet requirement, and a continuing relationship with the Meteor family, all while pursuing its own future combat air requirements.

Overall, it is far from clear whether the Meteor consortium will survive for another generation, at least in its current form.

Could Japan become part of the answer?

Given that it’s a partner in GCAP/Tempest, and based on its previous air-to-air missile studies with the British, Japan is particularly interesting in this context.

Japan faces a threat environment in which long-range air combat is of obvious importance, and Japan has already demonstrated advanced capabilities in active electronically scanned air-to-air seekers. The Japanese-developed Mitsubishi AAM-4B became the first air-to-air missile to feature an AESA seeker.

Although earlier air-to-air missile cooperation between Japan and the United Kingdom did not evolve into an operational program, the two countries are now developing a combat aircraft together through GCAP.

With Britain and Japan designing the future combat aircraft together, they could eventually develop some of its principal weapons together as well, although Italy’s requirements are likely very different.

Thinking beyond the missile

Europe can almost certainly build a faster missile than Meteor, but there are plenty more questions about what kind of air combat system that missile — or missiles — will fit into.

A future BVR weapon will have to operate from multiple types of platforms (crewed and uncrewed), receive targeting data from offboard sensors, communicate with CCAs, function in a highly contested electromagnetic environment, engage maneuvering targets at extreme range, and retain enough energy to remain dangerous in the terminal phase.

Increasingly, it seems that, rather than a single weapon, a family of effectors will be the solution.

For the United Kingdom, FASE may become one of the most important programs to watch because it could reveal how Britain intends to bridge the gap between Meteor and the weapons of the GCAP/Tempest era. At this stage, FASE appears to be ‘for U.K. eyes only,’ although Japan and Italy would appear to be likely beneficiaries, due to their teaming on GCAP.

Elsewhere, Comet could provide an early indication of how France intends to respond to the emerging long-range missile threat while maintaining flexibility for a future system.

And for the wider Meteor consortium, it remains to be seen whether the program’s success can be carried forward into another multinational weapon, or whether the emergence of GCAP/Tempest and increasingly divergent national requirements marks the beginning of the end for the Meteor model.

Either way, the next generation of European BVR weapons is likely to be larger, faster, more networked, and more deeply integrated with the combat air system around it. At the same time, the need to create a family of effectors designed around a distributed force of crewed aircraft, CCAs, and offboard sensors will bring some formidable challenges.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Emmerdale fans will remember John Barton’s dramatic exit following a romantic reunion with his wife Moira

Emmerdale icon James Thornton has a very famous wife who sitcom fans will instantly recognise.

It’s been 17 years since James Thornton arrived in the Dales as dashing John Barton, and alongside his wife, Moira (Natalie J Robb), he became the new owner of Butlers Farm.

The farmer took over the agricultural business from the iconic Sugden family, kick-starting a new dynasty on the ITV soap and a long-standing feud between the two families.

John and Moira were childhood sweethearts, and the parents of Matty and Holly Barton, and James was also the adoptive dad of Adam Barton, though his biological father was James Barton.

Before his arrival, series producer Gavin Blyth described James’ character, John, as “a very charismatic and modern farmer”.

However, despite the Bartons initially appearing as the perfect, hardworking family unit, cracks began to show in John and Moira’s marriage.

John’s kiss with Eve Jenson (Suzanne Shaw) and Moira’s subsequent affair with Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) tested their relationship. Despite struggling to forgive Moira for her infidelity, John eventually realised he couldn’t live without her.

When the couple reconciled in February 2012, their happiness was short-lived when a harrowing incident saw John and Moira’s car crash following a skid on ice, leading to a tragic plunge off a ravine. John died in the incident, leaving Moira heartbroken.

Speaking to Digital Spy in 2012 about his dramatic Emmerdale exit, James thought the storyline was “brilliant” and said: “As I learned more, I discovered that the scale of John’s departure was going to be huge, and that the amount of money they were spending was massive.

“So I was really, really pleased. As an actor, you always want to do something that’s going to grab the audience’s attention.”

Famous wife

James married Welsh actress Joanna Page, famous for her role as Stacey in the BBC hit Gavin & Stacey, in December 2003, four years after they both starred in the two-part BBC drama David Copperfield – he was Ham Peggotty, and she was Dora Spenlow.

The couple share four children – Eva, Kit, Noah, and the youngest, Boe, who was born in 2021.

It was having children that, Joanna says, completely changed their relationship. She told Woman magazine: “It completely changes you. You’re really close and a unit, then you have kids, and it kind of completely splits you because they’re now the focus.

“We know that romance is going to be on the back burner for now and life is exhausting and hectic, but in 15 years’ time it’s just going to be and him and then we’re going to get to go travelling around the world.”

Road accident

In February 2010, James was hit by a motorist in London and received medical treatment for leg injuries. Emmerdale producers rewrote scenes involving his character. At the time, an Emmerdale source told the Daily Star the entire cast was shocked.

James now works as a voice artist and has narrated several documentaries, including BBC series This Farming Life. He has narrated and appeared in the documentary Benefits By the Sea: Jaywick (2015–2016), narrated the Channel 5 series The Motorway, and has been the voice of Talk TV.

He also narrates ad campaigns for high-profile brands like Ford, Amazon, Shell, and BP.

Emmerdale airs weekdays on ITV and ITVX

Ratko Mladic, a war criminal convicted over the first genocide on European soil since the second world war, has died prison in The Hague at the age of 84.

Earlier this year, Serbia requested that Mladic be allowed to receive medical treatment outside prison, saying his health condition was “serious” and that he “required serious medical treatment”.

The United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said that Mladic was receiving adequate medical care while in detention.

Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic was one of the best-known and most notorious military commanders of the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

International courts convicted him of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was sentenced to life in prison

The most notorious part of his criminal legacy is linked to the genocide in Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Serbia.

Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic’s command seized Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the UN declaring the municipality a “safe area”. After the enclave fell, more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed by Mladic’s forces in the days that followed.

Some of the civilians were captured and executed at locations in and around Srebrenica. Others were killed after attempting to flee through the forests towards territory controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The bodies of victims were later discovered in numerous mass graves, while many were identified years after the war. The remains of around 1,000 victims are still being sought. International courts established that the killings constituted genocide.

Srebrenica has remained a symbol of one of the gravest crimes committed in Europe since the second world war.

From the Yugoslav army to commander of the army of Republika Srpska

Mladic was born in the village of Bozanovici near Kalinovik, about 40km (25 miles) south of Sarajevo.

He began his military career in the Yugoslav People’s army and gradually rose through the military’s command structure.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in the spring of 1992, following Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnian Serbs established their own political and military structures and proclaimed Republika Srpska, which controlled territory covering roughly half of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time.

In May 1992, Mladic was appointed commander of the Republika Srpska’s army. Over the next three and a half years, he sought to seize parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the capital Sarajevo, devastating areas in his path. However, his forces failed to achieve major territorial gains in several key areas.

The political and military leadership of Republika Srpska sought to separate Serb-controlled territories from Bosnia and Herzegovina and create a separate, territorially contiguous Serb state within the country. Republika Srpska would formally become one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two entities under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

Mladic’s forces were involved in a large number of atrocities across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to the Srebrenica genocide, international courts found Mladic responsible for a campaign of terror against Sarajevo’s civilian population, the hostage-taking of UN peacekeepers and other crimes.

The Siege of Sarajevo

Sarajevo was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces for almost 44 months. From positions on the surrounding hills, they shelled the city and used snipers against its residents.

More than 11,500 people from all ethnic groups were killed, while many others were wounded or displaced.

The Sarajevo Siege, which Mladic directed, became one of the defining episodes of the Bosnian war and one of the longest sieges of a capital city in modern history.

After the war ended in 1995, Mladic evaded arrest and spent almost 16 years in hiding. He became one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives accused of war crimes.

He was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 in the village of Lazarevo, near Zrenjanin, at the home of a relative. Several days later, he was transferred to The Hague, where his trial began before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

His arrest was one of the key conditions set by the international community for Serbia’s progress towards closer relations with the European Union. Belgrade faced political and financial pressure from Western countries to cooperate with the tribunal and transfer Mladic to The Hague.

In 2017, the tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. The courts established his individual criminal responsibility for a number of crimes.

Mladic in Serbia

Although his convictions were final, Mladic continues to have support among sections of the Serbian public and political circles in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Banja Luka, Belgrade and other areas with predominantly Serb populations, murals depicting him can still be seen. Some members of the public continue to portray him as a military hero rather than a convicted war criminal.

That attitude towards Mladic is part of a broader problem of confronting the legacy of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While international courts have established facts concerning the genocide and other crimes, political and social divisions over the country’s wartime past remain deeply entrenched.

Denial of the Srebrenica genocide and the glorification of convicted war criminals remain serious problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to data from the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, 149 cases of public denial of the Srebrenica genocide were recorded during the first quarter of 2026, including statements by public figures. That represents an increase compared with 2025, when 99 such cases were recorded.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in May 2024 establishing July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.

The resolution was intended to preserve the memory of the victims and promote a culture of remembrance, while also reaffirming the importance of confronting genocide denial and preventing the recurrence of such crimes.

Voting from home

California’s mail-in voting system has also become a particular target for Trump.

Voting by mail surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, California passed a law to automatically mail a ballot to every registered voter.

More than 80 percent of the state’s voters cast a mail-in ballot in 2024 alone.

Moreles, the Santa Clara registrar, said his county has an even higher rate. More than 90 percent of voters in his jurisdiction use mail-in ballots to vote.

His county processed more mail-in ballots in the last general election than the entire state of Texas did. While Texas accepted roughly 342,000 mail-in votes, Santa Clara County sent out more than a million.

That widespread use suggests that voters do not share Trump’s scepticism of the mail-in system, according to Moreles. “They like the accessibility of it. They must believe it’s secure as well,” he said.

But mail-in ballots can continue to trickle in after the election ends, causing vote tallies to fluctuate in the days and weeks after polling stations close. In California, all mailed ballots are valid so long as they are postmarked by election day, and must also be received no later than seven days after.

Trump has pointed to those long vote counts and shifting tallies as evidence of fraud.

Even some Democrats have pushed for the process to be faster. By law, elections must be certified within 30 days of the election. But Moreles argued that not rushing can have its virtues, too.

“For the folks who are living here and are used to it, it makes sense and, to a lot of people, is reassuring,” Moreles said. “Taking the time to get it right is something that intuitively makes sense to people.”

Still, on August 24, the Supreme Court opened the door to additional uncertainty surrounding mail-in ballots.

In a six-to-three ruling, the court’s conservative majority allowed the Trump administration to begin implementing a March executive order that would impose new restrictions on mail-in voting.

The order could impact both the design of mail-in ballots and who is eligible to receive one.

But state officials have questioned the feasibility of redesigning and reprinting ballots with so little time before the midterm elections. Early voting in some states starts as early as September.

Others have speculated about whether the legal wrangling with cause confusion or discourage voters who rely on mail-in ballots.

On Wednesday, California announced it was co-leading a group of 24 state attorneys general in filing a new lawsuit to see the executive order blocked.

“Donald Trump does not run elections. States do. And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become,” the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement accompanying the suit.

“California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us.”

A second court order pausing part of Trump’s plan for mail-in ballots remains in effect.

Where are Big Brother stars Saskia Howard-Clarke and Maxwell Ward now after they defied critics with their romance off screen?

It’s hard to believe, but it is officially 21 years since the sixth season of Big Brother – and arguably one of the most iconic in history – graced our screens.

The competition, which aired in 2005, saw romances galore as winner Anthony Hutton enjoyed a memorable night in the jacuzzi with Makosi Musambasi – which almost led to the first ever Big Brother baby – while Kinga Karolczak got up close and personal with a wine bottle…

Viewers also had a front-row seat to the blossoming bond between Saskia Howard-Clarke and Maxwell Ward, who fell in love in front of the cameras and kept things going long after Davina McCall bid them farewell.

The promotions girl, 23, and the maintenance engineer, 24, both entered the infamous house on the first day, and sparks soon flew. However, while they quickly became besotted, their romance left viewers – and their castmates – divided.

Kemal Shah called the pair out for their closeness in the bedroom, prompting Maxwell to pour water over him, which earned the engineer a stern warning from Big Brother bosses.

However, in scenes slightly reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, they were forced to face off against each other in a Big Brother first after receiving the most nominations from their fellow housemates, meaning they were both up for eviction.

Their romance was briefly put on pause when Saskia axed on day 36, after receiving 71% of the public vote. But it wasn’t long before they were reunited, as her beau was booted out the following week.

The pair dated for over a year, and even purchased a home together, before their relationship came crashing down. Maxwell confirmed their split in an episode of After They Were Housemates in 2007, announcing he was moving out.

Three years later, he appeared to take a swipe at his former flame in a chat with Heat Magazine, claiming that he could have won the show if they had remained single.

“I’m not blowing my own trumpet, but if I hadn’t got with you [Saskia], I would’ve won the show hands down,” he said, via the Sun.

“If I had the time again, and I’m sure you’d say the same thing, I wouldn’t have got with you and you wouldn’t have got with me.”

Touching on his time in the house in an interview in 2020, he said: “You’re going to be propelled to the best looking bird with a massive pair of, you know…

“She was the best of a bad bunch. We were [an item for a white], we bought a house together. When you’re on Big Brother and you meet someone like that, I was insecure. There’s 12million people watching that series.”

While Maxwell has remained out of the spotlight since the show, Saskia embraced the fame and has since worked as a glamour model.

She initially stepped back from the public eye when she became a mum to her son, Phoenix, with her ex-husband, but has since turned to OnlyFans. In a rare 2023 interview, she also revealed that she had found love again on Tinder.

Unpacking her TV romance with Maxwell with the Sun, she said: “He laughed me into bed, that’s the best way to describe it. “He’s a really nice, funny guy and very persistent, I’ll give him that, but time in there is slow, right? I think I was in there for five or six weeks and you’ve been away hiding for two weeks before with no contact with your family, it’s a long time. Then to get close to somebody…

“It happened organically but, listen, if I’d met him on the outside, I don’t mean to be horrible, but he wouldn’t have been my type at all.”

Reflecting on their split, she explained that she found the reaction from the public more difficult than their romance ending for good, adding: “What was frustrating for me was more the ‘told you so. I knew she wouldn’t be with him,’ and I felt bad for him because he had a lot of stick saying that he was punching, which is not nice.”

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Violence has eased since the US-Iran MoU and Israel-Lebanon framework, but Beirut still reports attacks and demolitions.

A Lebanese woman has been killed, and several other people injured by Israeli strikes on the town of Arab Salim, in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh district.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said six people were wounded in the attacks on Thursday, including a child, a woman and two elderly people, while the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that the woman who died “had been married for 48 hours”.

The newlywed woman’s house was also destroyed in the attack, NNA said.

Lebanese security sources said at least 10 Israeli strikes had been carried out in the wider Nabatieh area. NNA also reported artillery shelling targeting the outskirts of the town of Rashaf in the Bint Jbeil district.

The Israeli military claimed it was targeting Hezbollah after the Iran-backed group struck its soldiers in the south overnight. The army said it struck Hezbollah “weapon storage facilities”.

“Israel targeted the town of Arab Salim in the Nabatieh governorate. It targeted a residential area,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut about the deadly strike.

“The Israeli army says it is hitting infrastructure, and that this is in retaliation for Hezbollah launching armed drones at its forces in the Ali al-Taher ridge overnight.

“It’s not the first time the Israeli army accuses Hezbollah of targeting its forces in this area, which overlooks the city of Nabatieh’s strategic high ground, which really remains contested territory. We know that the Israeli army wants Hezbollah to vacate this area, so we’re seeing this increase in military pressure,” she said.

According to Israel, Iran-backed fighters “launched two explosive drones” towards Israeli soldiers operating in the Ali al-Taher ridge, but there were no casualties.

Israel has stepped up its strikes on south Lebanon in recent days, following an August 15 wave of strikes that Lebanon said killed 11 people, including several children. Israel’s military said the raids were retaliation for a Hezbollah attack.

Al Jazeera’s Khodr said that while “there has been a reduction in the violence in recent days, we have also witnessed an escalation by the Israeli army”.

“There is growing concern that the [Israeli] army may broaden this offensive, and it may become even more intense,” she added.

Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have been escalating since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in 2023. Lebanon was dragged into the conflict on March 2, days after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. Hezbollah struck Israel in support of Tehran. This was followed by massive Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion that Lebanese authorities say have killed more than 4,300 people.

The continued strikes have renewed debate in Beirut over the “framework” agreement Lebanon signed with Israel in June, which envisages a phased Israeli withdrawal in exchange for the deployment of the Lebanese army and the disarmament of armed groups, a reference to Hezbollah.

KASABIAN’S Leeds Festival headlining slot is under threat as bosses have sent an urgent warning to “take cover”.

The annual festival kicked off it’s four-day extravaganza today, with revellers expected to turn up in their thousands to see their favourite acts perform live.

Iconic rock band Kasabian, which consists of members Sergio Pizzorno, Chris Edwards, Ian Matthews and Tim Carter, are set to perform tonight at on The Grid stage from 9:20 to 10:50pm.

However, it’s been revealed that a thunderstorm is going to happen in Leeds and it could derail the highly-anticipated performance.

The organisers took to Instagram to share a statement for those attending the festival today.

They penned: “Weather update. There will be a thunderstorm in Leeds today.

STAGE EXIT

Reading Festival axes iconic stage after 18 YEARS – as new programme announced

SINGING IN THE RAIN

Soaked revellers brave rain & mud as Reading & Leeds Festival begins

“Please take cover where you can including in your camping tents and avoid sheltering under trees.”

Festival-goers took to the comments section to share their thoughts as they urged bosses not to cancel acts because of the weather.

One person wrote: “I better see no acts cancelled because of this weather.”

Another reveller commented: “Is this a joke.”

Somebody else said: “Please don’t do what you did last time and shut the stages down. Hopefully the stages aren’t affected much.”

Yet another joked: “It wouldn’t be Leeds Festival without rain!!”

The iconic event began at 10am this morning and will be running until Sunday evening.

Other stars set to perform over the next few days are Charli XCX, Chase and Status, Dave, Florence + The Machine and Raye.

As well as this, sombr, Skepta, Jade and Declan McKenna will also be crooning to some of their biggest tracks.

The iconic event is taking place at Bramham Park, which is located between Leeds and York.

European football’s governing body considers making a criminal complaint ​against Infantino over World Cup selloff plans.

UEFA has asked ⁠a US ⁠federal court for permission to obtain testimony and documents from FIFA entities in ⁠Florida for use in a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland against FIFA President ⁠Gianni Infantino, according to a court filing.

In an ex parte application filed under US law, European football’s governing body said it is considering ‌criminal proceedings against Infantino and potentially other FIFA officials and advisers over a now-abandoned plan to transfer commercial rights linked to men’s and women’s World Cups and the Club World Cup into a new ⁠subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE).

“UEFA is actively considering legal action arising out of and in connection with the … plan proposed by FIFA,” read the legal document filed in a Florida court in the United States, according to the AFP news agency.

“More specifically, UEFA and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other FIFA officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement under Article 158 of the Swiss Criminal Code.”

UEFA ⁠alleges Infantino developed the proposal in secret with a small group of advisers and investors, bypassing FIFA’s normal ⁠governance processes and failing to consult the FIFA Council, regional confederations ⁠or member associations.

The filing asks ⁠a US court to authorise discovery from FIFA (AMERICAS), Inc. and FWC2026 US, Inc., two Florida-based FIFA entities. UEFA ‌said the organisations may possess documents and witnesses relevant to how the FFE transaction ‌was ‌conceived, structured, valued and approved.

Meta has agreed to a landmark $18bn settlement in a major US federal case accusing it of endangering children, the terms of which will force the social media giant to introduce new safety features to platforms including Instagram and Facebook.

The social media giant has faced an avalanche of legal cases against it this year, mostly arguing that it deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive and that they have harmed children. It has already lost two of these and been forced to pay damages.

Under the agreement, child users under the age of 18 will see a slew of changes to their Facebook and Instagram accounts, ranging from night curfews to two-hour usage limits, which Meta must implement as part of the settlement reached on Wednesday with 48 US states.

The agreement could have a global ripple effect as several countries around the world are already taking regulatory action against Meta and other social media companies over their platforms.

So, what is in the settlement Meta has reached in the United States, and how will Instagram and Facebook change for users?

What was the lawsuit about?

Twenty-nine US states sued Meta, accusing it of designing its platforms in ways that “encourage addictive behaviour, fail to verify users’ ages, encourage adolescents to bypass parental controls, and inadequately safeguard against harmful content and/or intentionally amplify harmful and exploitative content”, according to filings at the Court of Appeal in California.

The first four of the states that originally filed their federal lawsuit against Meta in 2023 – California, Kentucky, Colorado and New Jersey – began their cases in a California federal trial last week.

The attorneys general bringing the case also asked the court to order that changes be made to Meta’s platforms to protect young social media users. In particular, they demanded that Meta introduce a process of parental verification for teenage users; change its “dopamine-manipulating” algorithms; remove image filters for users’ personal images; forbid the creation of multiple accounts; and end “disappearing” messages and posts.

The lawsuit also alleged Meta had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting, ⁠retaining and using personal data from children under 13 without proper parental consent.

In February this year, Meta lost a multimillion-dollar case brought on similar grounds by a young woman referred to as KGM in Los Angeles, over platform features linked to addiction in younger users.

In March, a US jury ordered Meta to pay $375m for endangering children in a case brought by the state of New Mexico.

Last month, a judge in New Mexico also ordered Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to pay a further $567m in a second phase of the trial.

Meta denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle after evidence was heard that Meta knew its products harmed children’s mental health. The total payout – to be paid over 10 years – is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201bn.

The company, which was originally founded as Facebook in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, agreed to make maximum payments totalling $16.7bn to 47 US states as well as Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; American Samoa; and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Among those, California could receive a $2.2bn payout, while New York could receive $1.1bn. Texas reached a separate settlement worth more than $1bn. Some states will deposit funds they receive in general accounts, while others will earmark portions to address children’s mental health services.

The settlement does not require Meta to discontinue personalised recommendations or targeted advertising.

It also does not address some content researchers found particularly problematic, including posts that made Instagram users uncomfortable with their body image.

“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” Meta said in a blog post. “We want to get this right for parents and teens.”

What changes will be seen on Instagram and Facebook?

Under the agreement, children under 18 using Meta platforms will be restricted to two hours’ use per day, with a night curfew in place from midnight to 6am. Meta will limit “social comparison” features by hiding likes and reactions to children’s accounts, and will ban “cosmetic procedure filters” that alter the appearance of a user’s image, as a default setting. These settings will only be able to be overruled by parental consent.

The company also agreed to disable the majority of push notifications from the platforms during school hours – 8am to 3pm – for teenage users.

It will also facilitate much closer parental supervision of social media accounts by giving designated adults the ability to more extensively monitor and change settings on a social media account.

Parents and guardians will be able to receive information about time spent on platform apps, and usernames of social connections and accounts sending messages to children.

Supervising parents will also receive daily notifications from Meta any time the teen account messages an adult account for the first time, as well as a link to the adult’s account. Parental accounts will also be notified any time the teen account searches for keywords related to suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.

Meta also agreed to improve the technology used to check children’s ages, using its own as well as third-party tools, with regular outside audits on how well this monitoring is working. This measure is particularly notable because Australia banned under-16s from using social media platforms in December last year. However, the Australian internet watchdog, eSafety, found in August this year that more than eight in 10 young Australian teens and preteens continue to use them – largely because age-check procedures are ineffective.

So far, Meta has only agreed to pay 70 percent of the settlement, or roughly $12.7bn, over the next 10 years. It will only pay the remaining amount, about $5bn, if its rivals – including Snapchat, TikTok and Alphabet-owned YouTube – adopt similar measures and agree to pay the same. It also said it would reduce time restrictions to one hour per day if other platforms do the same.

These changes would be phased over time. Once the court approves the settlement, non-personalised feeds would be introduced within four months; broader compliance measures within six months; and major age-assurance requirements within one year.

While these changes will apply to users in the US, it is unclear if Meta plans to introduce them worldwide. However, Meta is already under rising regulatory pressure in European Union countries and those elsewhere to implement similar changes.

How much difference will these changes make?

Critics and child safety advocates have acknowledged that this settlement has forced landmark changes by Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, each of which has more than two to three billion monthly active users.

However, critics say the central plank of Meta’s latest settlement deal is the move to restrict teens to two hours per day on platforms, rather than fundamentally changing their addictive algorithms.

Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, which campaigns for youth safety online, said the deal is a “historic settlement that will have a lasting impact, but we cannot truly protect all children and teens until these protections are required on every platform and are permanent – that’s something only Congress can do”.

Ella Bradshaw, policy officer for child safety online at the NSPCC, a UK children’s charity, welcomed moves to rein in “addictive” design features like personalised algorithms and likes. “These are the things that we know keep children hooked and feeling out of control of their screen time, so action here is necessary and welcome. However, important gaps remain,” she told Al Jazeera.  

Bradshaw described the settlement as taking “piecemeal action” on tackling risky features and addictive design choices which drive harm of children.

“This means features like disappearing messages, infinite scroll, the ability to gift and livestreaming remain unaddressed. Similarly, little has been announced on how Meta’s AI chatbots will be made safer – better guardrails are needed, particularly when children raise safeguarding concerns.”

Bradshaw also called for stronger protections for younger children as well as protections that “don’t suddenly drop away the moment a teenager turns 18.”   

Furthermore, she said: “Not all children have families they can rely on to oversee their online worlds and help them to stay safe. We know that the issue of patchy online protections extends across the online world.

“This settlement must spur governments and regulators to go further faster; taking stronger action across the online ecosystem including private messaging, AI tools and online gaming. Without that wider shift, children will continue to face avoidable harm.”

What action are other countries taking against Meta?

While action against social media giants in the US is mostly taking the form of lawsuits, elsewhere it is regulators who are leading the charge.

In the European Union, regulators are pursuing several legal and regulatory cases against Meta, covering antitrust rules for artificial intelligence (AI) on WhatsApp, as well as child safety protections and addictive platform features under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The EU specifically accused the group of designing Facebook and Instagram to be “addictive”, adding that Meta has failed to adequately assess the danger its products pose to users’ physical and mental health.

On Thursday, a European Commission spokesperson said it is waiting on Meta to present changes to limit the addictive designs of its social networks.

“We have been very clear … Meta knows what we are expecting from them. … the ball is in Meta’s court,” Thomas Regnier said. “Now it is for the company to offer these commitments in the European Union to protect our kids here, too.”

In June, the UK government also announced a sweeping ban on social media for those below 16 to come into force next year, following a global trend after Australia pioneered it. The UK is also considering overnight curfews and ways to prevent infinite scrolling for those under 18.

In Brazil, a prominent consumer rights organisation, the Collective Defence Institute, filed twin lawsuits for three billion reais ($525m) in damages against the Brazilian subsidiaries of Meta, TikTok and Kwai in October 2024.

Those lawsuits also accuse the groups of failing to implement safeguards against addiction and use by children and adolescents. Since March this year, platforms have been required to link the accounts of children below 16 to legal guardians under Brazil’s Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents.

South Korea’s media regulator also reacted on Thursday to Meta’s settlement, calling for better protections for young users to be ideally applied worldwide, rather than just in specific markets.

The competition will air live on the streaming platform and there is a huge cash prize at stake.

Fans of tense competitions are in for a treat as Netflix has announced a new show with a life-changing cash prize.

Netflix has unveiled an intense competition that could see one person win £501,000, with none other than Richard Osman and Gary Lineker at the helm. The show is a “high-stakes” darts competition that will see amateurs go up against the world number one, Luke Littler.

Beat Luke Littler is the name of the Netflix show in question, and it offers people one chance to win one perfect leg of 501, earning them the £501,000 prize if they are able to beat the 19-year-old champion.

A nationwide hunt to find the 20 competitors brave enough to take on the challenge has opened, with regional heats due to be held in Manchester and London in September. The show will air live on Netflix on October 30, with Lineker as host and Osman as the expert analyst.

Darts prodigy Luke ‘The Nuke became the youngest world champion in the sport’s history at just 17 years old. A two-time PDC player of the year, he was recently named in TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026 list. He featured in the Netflix sports documentary series Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen and appeared as a guest on The Rest Is Football.

The show marks Lineker’s return to live sport following his departure from the BBC last year. He shared in a statement: “I am delighted to be deepening my relationship with Netflix after such a brilliant experience with The Rest Is Football at the World Cup, and Beat Luke Littler feels like exactly the kind of unpredictable, live event television that gets me excited – I cannot wait to see who fancies their chances.”

Osman, who will star in a role similar to that on Pointless, said: “As a huge darts fan, and proud owner of a signed photo of Jocky Wilson, I couldn’t be more excited to join the amazing Beat Luke Littler live show.

“He’s the greatest player in the world. But 20 legs in a row? I honestly think someone is going to win that £501k. It’s going to be an incredible night.” Littler will be asked to play 20 separate legs against the 20 different opponents, meaning each qualifier only needs one successful leg to beat him.

However, this will still be a huge challenge given the level Littler has reached in 2026. The 19-year-old has won every PDC major staged so far this year, according to dartsnews.com, retaining both the World Championship and World Matchplay, and his Blackpool title came with a record-breaking 111.04 tournament average.

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He teased to Netflix’s Tudum: “Everyone thinks they can beat me. Now they get a chance to prove it.” Fans have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to share their thoughts on the concept and the interesting choice of experts. One joked: “That classic darts expert… Richard Osman.” Another quipped: “So Lineker buys a dartboard for the Rest Is Football studio and is now hosting darts shows? Come on.”

To watch Beat Luke Littler, viewers just need an active Netflix subscription. Once signed in, they will just need to select the Beat Luke Littler stream to tune in.

Beat Luke Littler arrives on Netflix on October 30

Aug. 27 (UPI) — The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden wrote the European Commission urging it to kickstart a stalled plan to use Russian assets frozen in Europe’s banks and clearing houses to plug a $26.8 billion gap in Ukraine’s defense funding.

The letter to the EU’s top foreign policy chief on Thursday calling for another look at ways to tap into the $244.5 billion of assets came ahead of an informal meeting of foreign ministers being hosted by Ireland on Sept. 1-2, according to Politico, The Kyiv Independent and The Financial Times.

“Ukraine needs more financial support in both the short and long term. We believe now is the time to revert to the issue of how we can make further use of Russia’s immobilized assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” reads the letter, which was addessed to Kaja Kallas and Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee.

The call comes three months after the Netherlands raised the issue at a closed-door meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, arguing that a deal agreed in December for a conditional $105 billion loan over 18 months, would not be enough to keep Ukraine afloat for long.

Efforts back then to leverage frozen Russian assets — the largest portion of which are held in Belgium — were sidelined amid objections from the Belgian government and other EU member states.

The so-called “reparations loan” option, where the assets would be used as surety in the event Russia failed to pay war reparations to Ukraine required to recoup the loan, lacked the votes for the required two-thirds majority of EU states.

What the bloc ultimately finalized in April, was a back-up proposal under which the EU would use its budget to borrow in the international debt markets — with skeptics Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic backing the measure only on condition they would not be on the hook financially.

Wednesday’s letter acknowledges the complexity of the issue but urges policy experts in Brussels to look at alternate solutions that “ensure that the risk rests with all EU Member States and where no Member State holds a disproportionate burden.”

“Now is the time to start a new discussion about how we can make further use of Russia’s frozen assets for Ukraine’s, and our, benefit,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told the Financial Times.

Four people claiming familiarity with the letter said it requested the commission revist the issue of the frozen assets and sought an uddate on the formulation of legal and technical tools to get around the veto wielded by Belgium.

Last time around, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said his opposition was due to Russian legal and economic threats against Belgium, and him personally, and that he needed guarantees that other EU states would share the risks Belgium could be exposed to.

A person familiar with the matter said the Belgian government’s concerns over possible retaliation through the courts and erosion of trust financial markets had not diminished.

In a speech Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the EU to accelerate the pace of loan tranche transfers, saying that even with the money the country was facing a $26.8 deficit in 2026.

That prompted the EU to point to an additional $25.7 billion already approved, $16.8 billion of which had been provided, and call on other Western partners to follow its lead.

Poland has asked the European Commission to impose a €250 million ($291.3 million) fine on Meta, accusing the social media company of failing to adequately tackle fraudulent advertisements and scams on its platforms.

Polish Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said on Wednesday that Meta had failed to respond effectively despite repeated warnings from Polish authorities and cybersecurity teams.

“Despite repeated reports from the relevant Polish authorities and teams responsible for cybersecurity, Meta still does not provide an effective and adequate response to fraudulent advertisements,” Gawkowski said in a post on X.

Poland’s Cybersecurity Tests Raise Concerns

The request followed tests conducted by CERT Polska, Poland’s national cybersecurity incident response team. The team identified 122 advertisements that were classified as fraudulent.

According to Gawkowski, Meta decided not to remove 106 of those advertisements, representing 86.8% of the cases. Only 10 advertisements were removed, while authorities received no response in six cases.

The Polish minister called on Meta to introduce more effective tools to identify and remove scams, false advertising and promotions for illegal applications.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The dispute adds to broader regulatory and legal pressure on Meta over the content and safety of its platforms.

The company has faced criticism over allegations that its products can harm children and that it has misled the public about their safety. In Poland, Meta has also faced criticism over fraudulent advertisements and a lawsuit filed by billionaire Rafal Brzoska over fake advertisements using his identity.

In April 2026, a Warsaw appellate court ruled that Meta was responsible for advertisements hosted on its platforms. Meta has argued that it should not be held responsible for fraudulent actions carried out by its users.

Poland’s request places the issue within the broader European debate over the responsibility of major technology platforms for illegal and deceptive content. The European Commission now faces a decision over whether the evidence provided by Polish authorities warrants further enforcement action.

Analysis

The dispute highlights a growing regulatory challenge for social media companies: whether platforms can continue treating fraudulent advertising primarily as user generated content or must take greater responsibility for what they distribute.

For Poland, the requested €250 million penalty is not only about individual scam advertisements. It is also a test of whether existing European digital regulations can compel major platforms to respond more effectively when national authorities identify systemic failures.

If the European Commission takes action, it could increase pressure on Meta to strengthen its advertising verification and content moderation systems across Europe. It could also establish a broader precedent for holding technology companies accountable when their platforms repeatedly facilitate fraudulent advertising.

With information from Reuters.

Production services vendor Quixote stunned Hollywood in April when it said it was winding down most of its Los Angeles soundstage business, delivering another blow to an industry already buffeted by steep losses in film and TV production.

Now, one of those facilities is attempting to stage a comeback.

Film and TV producer Manny Halley said he has taken over a 125,000-square-foot former Quixote North Valley complex on Montague Street in Pacoima under a 25-year lease with an option to buy, and plans to reopen it this fall under the name Imani Studio. The land is owned by Rexford Industrial Realty, which is not a party to the production business.

Halley’s credits include the “True to the Game” film trilogy that featured Vivica A. Fox, and the BET reality TV series “Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is,” which ran on BET from 2006 to 2008.

In an interview, Halley declined to disclose the price he paid, but said the lease is worth more than $25 million and that the cost to build the facility three years ago was about $19 million. The deal was financed with capital from his Imani Media Group.

“Right now is a unique time for independent producers because we don’t have to sit back and wait for a studio,” he said. “And in order for us to build a library and keep going, we have to keep costs down. So having your own stage is going to keep costs down.”

Producer Manny Halley has taken over ownership of one of the former Quixote North Valley studio facilities in Pacoima.

(Dae Howerton and Dallas J. Logan)

Halley said he was also motivated by the ongoing production crisis in L.A. and the continued loss of industry jobs. His company has shot 18 productions in California, 14 of which received a state production incentive.

“Somebody’s got to believe in Hollywood,” Halley said. “It’s a sad industry right now, and I want to change it.”

He is making a long bet on a market a much larger company has struggled with. Former owner Hudson Pacific announced it was shutting down most of its L.A. soundstages as well as operations in Atlanta as part of a cost-reduction move.

The Los Angeles-based real estate company bought Quixote in 2022 for $360 million, saying at the time that the acquisition would address the growing demand for soundstage space. Quixote was originally founded in 1995.

Though L.A. area soundstages had average occupancy rates of about 90% from 2016 to 2022, their business plunged in 2023 amid the work stoppages of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, according to data from the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks on-location shoot days in the Greater L.A. area. In 2024, the average occupancy rate was 63%.

“Keeping production infrastructure active and investing in California’s capacity to support film and television is essential to our long-term competitiveness,” California Film Commission Executive Director Colleen Bell said in a statement. “Facilities like this help keep productions here, sustain good-paying jobs, and support the thousands of businesses and workers that make up our entertainment economy.”

Halley said he plans to invest $2 million to $6 million into the facility, including additional staff and LED volume walls. He retained three employees to help run operations and hopes to hire others who previously worked there.

He said he plans to use the facility, which has four soundstages, to shoot his own shows and movies, but also intends to rent out space to other productions, including student projects.

“I just want to give everybody their opportunity to shine,” he said. “I want to give them their own playing field to create and make their visions come to life with affordable stages.”

But even if outside productions don’t rent the space, he said the facility could sustain itself on his company’s projects. Imani Media Group has a distribution arm that has worked with Amazon, Tubi and the major theater chains.

By late September, Halley said he intends to start shooting a “True to the Game” TV series at the Pacoima facility, as well as the BET comedy “Lot Patrol,” which the network recently picked up for an additional five episodes.

“Supporting Black ownership and entrepreneurship across the entertainment industry remains deeply important to BET,” Brian Rikuda, BET’s executive vice president of enterprise growth strategy, business operations, and programming strategy, said in a statement. “As Manny Halley expands Imani Studios into a 125,000-square-foot production home, we’re proud to continue our partnership rooted in a shared vision to create culturally impactful entertainment and expand opportunity in our industry.”

Aug. 26 (UPI) — On Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced its approval of Rasonque, a new treatment option for people with advanced pancreatic cancer.

A tablet taken once a day, the medication targets forms of a protein called RAS, which is a key driver of tumor growth in many patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the most common form of the cancer, the FDA said. This form of cancer develops in cells lining the ducts of the pancreas.

“Today’s approval provides a critical new option for patients facing an extraordinarily difficult and historically hard-to-treat cancer,” said Kyle Diamantas, acting commissioner of the FDA. “It is our fundamental duty to deliver more cures and meaningful treatments to patients as quickly as possible.”

A press release from the FDA said the approval demonstrates the agency’s “commitment to moving with urgency, reducing unnecessary delays and advancing innovative treatments.”

Rasonque has been approved for adults who have metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have received at one least one prior systemic therapy or those who are not candidates for multiagent systemic therapy.

About 90% to 95% of the new cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed in the United States each year are this form, the FDA said, citing the National Cancer Institute. Johns Hopkins Medicine also said “the vast majority” of pancreatic cancer diagnoses are this form.

In a clinical trial, the new treatment improved median overall survival to 13.2 months from 6.7 months with standard chemotherapy, the FDA said.

“This drug showed unprecedented results in an area of high unmet need,” said Angelo de Claro, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence.

The agency granted this approval to Revolution Medicines Inc.

The firm said it only became aware of the hack on Tuesday and quickly prevented the hackers gaining any more access, and notified affected customers.

“We immediately contained the risk and have been working with specialist advisors and taking appropriate steps to protect our customers and systems,” MAG said.

“We have informed and are working with the relevant authorities.”

The airport group said the e-mail addresses obtained by the hackers came from passengers signing up to the airports’ on-site wifi.

More detailed data, including vehicle registrations, came from people booking car-park spaces, arranging access to lounges, and booking fast-track.

Customers are urged to remain vigilant about suspicious emails, text messages or phone calls and avoid opening attachments from unknown contacts.

The identity of the hackers was known, MAG said, and the relevant authorities had been informed.

TIKTOK star Baylen Dupree broke down in tears as she married her fiance and accidentally called him ‘the greatest d**k of my life’ in a sneak peek of her big day.

The social media favourite, 24, and Colin Dooley, 26, tied the knot back in May this year at the Airlie estate in Warrenton, Virginia.

The loved-up pair filmed the whole thing as part of her TLC show Baylen Out Loud – and the two-part special concluded on August 25.

Baylen couldn’t control her emotions as they came face to face at the aisle.

Fighting back the tears, she said: “Oh God, everyone bear with me.”

Baylen, who has Tourette syndrome, went on to say: “Three years ago, what started as a simple swipe became the greatest d**k… god damn!”

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As their guests laughed, she continued: “The greatest blessing God has ever given me.

“You came into my life in some of the darkest moments and without even realising it you became my medicine.

“When I was hurting you loved me gently, when I felt lost you reminded me of who I was.

“God used your heart, patience and your love to pull me out of places that I thought I would never escape.”

Baylen and Colin started dating in 2022.

The pair got engaged in February last year.

Baylen Out Loud hit our screens last year on American channel TLC.

“Following the journey of Baylen Dupree, a young woman living with an extreme case of Tourette Syndrome.

“Despite her challenges, Baylen and her family are not afraid to laugh and embrace the chaos,” Apple TV’s synopsis reads.

The first season aired in January, followed by a second in October, and a third in May this year.

Baylen shot to fame in lockdown on TikTok and now boasts an incredible 13m followers on the platform.