THERE aren’t many moments in your life where you are surrounded by heaps of gold and mummified cats – but in a new experience, Egypt has been brought to the UK.

Ancient Egypt is probably something we all learnt about in school focusing on the Pyramids and Tutankhamun.

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But The Ramses & the Pharaohs’ Gold exhibition at NEON at Battersea Power Station in London allows visitors to explore the life and death of the Pharaoh Ramses II (also known as Ramses the Great).

While you might not know who he is, he was the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty but is often thought to be one of the most powerful rulers of the Egyptian Empire.

Upon entering the experience, a short film presentation sprawled across giant screens revealing details of Ramses the Great and how he reigned for 67 years.

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He built more monuments and statues than any other pharaoh including Abu Simbel, a 20-metre-tall statue of himself carved into a sandstone cliff.

He lived to about 90 years old, which was pretty impressive for someone of the Bronze Age.

But perhaps even more surprising is that he had over 200 wives and more than 100 children…

As the video ended, a set of doors swung open to reveal a statue at the entrance of the exhibition – I was about to step into ancient Egypt myself.

The room was dark with statues and objects subtly lit, allowing them to glimmer.

For the first half of the exhibition, I wove through stone statues, monoliths and intricate ornaments.

In fact, across the whole experience there are more than 180 Egyptian artifacts estimated to be worth over £100million and for many of them, it is their first time out of Egypt.

Though, one issue I found was that it is rather like seeing the Crown Jewels at points, where long lines of people steadily move past exhibits to get a glimpse of the artifacts.

At the mid-point, there is a clever 3D projection that recreates the Battle of Kadesh – where Ramses II used propaganda to achieve victory.

The second part of the experience turns to the Gold of the Pharaohs where it really does feel like you are entering the depths of a tomb, with the walls becoming sandy stone and the lighting lowering to feel like a dimly lit cave.

Throughout this part, I explored more artifacts from the era and since Ramses’ own tomb was looted, many of the gold items on display come from the Royal Tombs of Tanis.

My favourite part was definitely seeing the delicately mummified animals including several cats, a lion cub and even crocodiles.

Intricate jewellery glimmers and silver coffins stand tall, all before you reach the showstopper of the experience – Ramses II’s coffin.

Even though his gold was stolen, his wooden sarcophagus which protected his mummy for thousands of years, is considered to be one of the most significant artifacts in Egyptian history.

While Ramses II himself is not at the exhibition (to see his body you’ll have to head to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in Cairo) a large screen recreates what he would have looked like at different stages of his life and shows his body as it was discovered.

Fun fact – in 1976, Ramses II’s mummy was actually issued a modern Egyptian passport to travel to Paris, France, for fungal treatment and this meant his passport photo was of course, his deceased self with his occupation listed as ‘King (deceased)’.

Leaving the experience, you’ll enter a large shop where you can pick up souvenirs, such as your own Egyptian papyrus with your name written on it in hieroglyphs by a robot, for £10.

If you have worked up an appetite, there is also a cafe, as well as a VR Experience you’ll also find that at the end of the experience.

Popping on a headset, I flew through the temples of Abu Simbel and the tomb of Queen Nefertari.

In total, it lasts about 10 minutes and you sit on a golden-egg motion chain.

Though, it is definitely not one for those who easily get motion sick…

The exhibition is running until the end of August and tickets cost from around £24.55 per adult and £19.55 per child.

The VR experience costs an additional £14 per person.

The exhibition is recommended for children aged five and older, though I would say children under the age of 10 may get bored as there is a lot of reading involved in the exhibit and little interaction.

Also, as someone who knows a bit about Ancient Egypt already, at times the historical descriptions are complicated as they have a lot of information to take in.

The VR experience is great for children though and recommended for those aged eight-years-old and above.

If going as just adults, I would definitely recommend the audio guide which is narrated by celebrity historian Dan Snow.

It costs £5 per person.

In other attraction news, London’s ‘best family attraction’ is about to get even better – with huge new outdoor play area and cafe next month.

Plus, one of the UK’s most popular free attractions reveals £350million expansion – its biggest in 200 years.

The casualty rate for Russian soldiers in Ukraine increased to a new monthly high in March, according to Ukraine’s armed forces. They say drone production enabled a record number of strikes.

Ukraine tallied Russian casualties at 35,351 last month, with drones causing 96 per cent of them while artillery and small arms fire accounted for the rest. That casualty rate was a 29 per cent increase on February, said Ukraine’s commander in chief.

“These are clearly confirmed losses: we have video footage of each such strike in our system,” said Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

The losses are slightly above a previous record set in December, and appear to confirm Ukraine’s claim that Russian casualty rates are rising inexorably this year. Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Colonel Pavlo Palisa told RBC-Ukraine that Russia had suffered 316 casualties for every square kilometre it captured in the first three months of 2026, compared with 120 casualties per square kilometre last year.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said Russia has been unable to replace all of the losses since December. Russia aimed to recruit 409,000 contract soldiers this year, Ukraine’s armed forces said in January.

That means a daily average recruitment rate of 1,120. But Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative, which provides communication channels for Russian soldiers wishing to surrender, said Russia recruited 940 troops a day in the first quarter.

If sustained, that meant Russian recruitment was on track for a 65,000-man shortfall this year. Ukraine now sees manpower shortages as a Russian strategic weakness it can exploit. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, set a goal of 50,000 Russian casualties a month in January, which he called the “optimal level” to ensure Russian forces weaken irrecoverably.

“We are confidently moving towards our strategic goal – 50,000+ eliminated occupiers per month,” said the Ukrainian defence ministry.

The territory Russia is capturing for its mounting losses is also in long-term decline, according to estimates by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Russian forces captured an average of 5.5sq km a day this year, compared to 10.66sq km a day in the middle of last year and 14.9sq km a day at the end of 2024, said the ISW.

Zelenskyy said the stark reality of manpower weakness lay behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire demand that Ukraine hand over the heavily fortified quarter of the eastern Donetsk region it held last August.

“They believe that if we retreat, they won’t lose hundreds of thousands of people,” Zelenskyy told the Associated Press in an interview this week.

Drones are the key

Ukrainian officials credit drone production and training for their armed forces’ growing lethality. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said the armed forces struck 151,207 targets in March using drones, a 50 per cent increase on February. That’s the result of 11,000 drone sorties a day.

“This is all a historical maximum,” Syrskii said.

Palisa said that’s because Ukraine’s drone manufacturing had managed to outpace Russia’s to achieve a 1.3:1 overall ratio in First Person View drones on the frontlines.

Other reports suggested Ukraine was raising drone production. Fedorov said Ukrainian interceptor drones shot down a record 33,000 Russian UAVs of various types in March – twice as many as in the previous month.

His deputy, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov said he was working with interceptor drone manufacturers to develop the next generation of interceptors capable of flying at 400-550km/h to counter the jet-powered Shahed drones to which Russia was gradually converting.

Fire Point, Ukraine’s biggest manufacturer of long-range drones used in the majority of strikes deep inside Russia, told Reuters that it had designed two ballistic missiles of 300km and 850km range, which were approaching the deployment stage.

The longer-range type is capable of reaching Moscow.

Ukraine gains defensive ‘strategic initiative’

Syrskii thinks that Ukraine’s forces, although still ceding small amounts of territory, have now gained “the strategic initiative” because they “do not allow Russian troops to resume a large-scale offensive.”

He said an increase in mid-range strikes against logistics, warehouses, command posts and oil depots 30-120 km into the Russian rear had been particularly effective in hamstringing Russian assaults – one of the top operational priorities.

Syrskii said on April 5 that fighting was most intense in Dnipropetrovsk, where Ukraine’s forces have recaptured eight settlements and 480sq km of territory.

Ukraine’s leadership has long believed that Russia harbours territorial ambitions to seize the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions to control Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coastline, and to carve out a buffer zone across northern Ukraine.

Palisa told RBK-Ukraine on April 8 that Russia also planned to create a southern buffer zone in Ukraine’s southwestern Vinnytsia region next to Moldova’s Russian-speaking territory of Transnistria.

That was the first time a Ukrainian official has suggested such an ambition. “I am 100 per cent convinced that the Russians want to completely occupy us,” Zelenskyy told the AP.

A NEW multi-million pound train station has finally been approved – 24 years after it was first proposed.

Construction of the East London station has been plagued by delays since plans were initially drawn up in 2002.

It took until just last week for the Housing Secretary officially to announce ‘a new Beam Park rail station could be accommodated within the existing rail network’.

The station will be built along the c2c line, running between Dagenham Dock and Rainham.

From there, the train will take just 20 minutes to reach London Fenchurch Street.

Developers have already committed a staggering £42 million to the project, but if delays continue, costs are expected to rise.

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This comes as part of an ongoing redevelopment in the area – where 20,000 new homes are expected to be built by 2030.

So far, more than 1,100 homes have been completed and a further 1,200 are under construction.

Beam Park residents officially moved into the area five years ago, but have had to rely on local buses for transport.

The Greater London Authority, London Borough of Havering, and Transport for London said they will partner together to make the station a reality.

Ray Morgon, Havering Council Leader, added: “We have always said that we would do all we can to ensure Beam Park Station is built. 

“The station is much needed for Beam Park and neighbouring Dagenham, which will enable housing and business growth in this key area.”

El-Shenawy was incensed ‌after Al-Ahly’s ​appeal for a penalty following ​a handball in stoppage time was denied.

Al-Ahly goalkeeper ⁠Mohamed El-Shenawy ⁠has been handed a four-match ban after striking a referee on ⁠the head following a 1-1 draw with Ceramica Cleopatra, the ⁠Egyptian Pro League said on Thursday.

The Egypt international, who was on the bench for Tuesday’s game, was incensed ‌after Al-Ahly’s appeal for a penalty following a handball in stoppage time was denied.

“He handed a four-match ban and fined 50,000 Egyptian pounds [$942] for assaulting the ⁠referee by pushing or ⁠pulling,” the league said in a statement.

The ban means ⁠El-Shenawy, who is expected to be Egypt’s starting ⁠goalkeeper at the World ⁠Cup in North America, will be sidelined until the final week of the league ‌playoffs.

Al-Ahly are third on 41 points, five points behind leaders Zamalek.

Sabrina Carpenter famously works late, so it might come as a surprise to some that “Espresso” songstress’ headlining set at Coachella 2026 is comparatively early in the night at 9 p.m.

But that shouldn’t be an issue to music festival fans enjoying the festivities from home on Coachella’s YouTube livestream.

“Couchella,” as it’s affectionately called, is back this year to beam some of the biggest performances, including Sabrina Carpenter and Anyma on the Main Stage, Dijon, Turnstile and Disclosure at the Outdoor Theatre, and Bini, Devo and Blood Orange at the Mojave.

You can also watch via Coachella’s livestream app on iOS and Android.

Here’s who you can watch on Friday’s livestream feeds (times presented in PDT):

Main Stage

5:30 p.m. Teddy Swims; 7 p.m. The xx; 9:05 p.m. Sabrina Carpenter; 12:00 a.m. Anyma

Outdoor Theatre

4 p.m. Dabeulll; 5:20 p.m. Lykke Li; 6:40 p.m. Dijon; 8:05 p.m. Turnstile; 10:35 p.m. Disclosure; 11:55 p.m. “Bonus Set from Do LaB”

Sahara

4:00 p.m. Youna; 4:50 p.m. Hugel; 6:15 p.m. Marion Hofstadt; 8 p.m. Katseye; 9:15 p.m. Levity; 10:50 p.m. Swae Lee; 12:05 a.m. Sexyy Redd

Mojave

4:15 p.m. Bini; 5:30 p.m. Central Cee; 6:45 p.m. Devo; 8:10 p.m. Moby; 9:20 p.m. Slayyyter; 10:35 p.m. Ethel Cain; 11:55 p.m. Blood Orange

Gobi

4 p.m. Bob Baker Marionettes; 4:45 p.m. NewDad; 5:30 p.m. Joyce Manor; 6:15 p.m. CMAT; 7:20 p.m. Fakemink; 8:25 p.m. Holly Humberstone; 9:50 p.m. Joost; 11:05 p.m. Creepy Nuts

Sonora

4 p.m. Wednesday; 4:50 p.m. Fleshwater; 6 p.m. The Two Lips; 7:10 p.m. Ninajirachi; 8:25 p.m. Cachirula & Loojan; 9:15 p.m. February; 10:00 p.m. Hot Mulligan; 10:55 p.m. Carolina Durante; 11:50 p.m. Not For Radio

Quasar

5 p.m. Tiga; 7 p.m. Deep Dish; 9 p.m. Pawsa; 11 p.m. Disco Lines

Note that there have been livestream delays in past years, so don’t worry if your favorite artist is a few minutes late.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — As Republicans vie for their best shot to win the California governor’s office in two decades, the fight between the most prominent candidates to win over the party of President Trump has switched from subdued to vicious.

Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, at their first one-on-one debate in Rancho Mirage earlier this month, accused rival Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco of coddling illegal immigrants and called him “wishy-washy.” The law enforcement chief called Hilton, a British immigrant, a “fraud” and heartless for denying others the same pathway to U.S. citizenship he received.

“What an outrageous and offensive insult that Chad just made to every legal immigrant in this state and in this country,” Hilton fumed.

The heated exchange took place days before the California Republican Party weighs making an endorsement in the 2026 race for California governor. Hundreds of party delegates will gather in San Diego this weekend to decide, though it’s unclear if either candidate will be able to win the 60% vote threshold to receive the official party nod.

Most polls have shown the two Republicans as the top candidates in the race, despite registered Democratic voters outnumbering Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California.

Bianco and Hilton are competing against eight heavyweight Democrats who are splintering their party’s votes in the election to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Under California’s unique primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary will move on to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.

The prospect has alarmed state Democratic leaders, who unsuccessfully urged struggling candidates to drop out to avoid their party being shut out of the November election.

Still, a lot can happen before the June 2 primary to stir up the race. President Trump endorsed Hilton late Sunday, which could significantly influence the state’s GOP voters. More than 6 million Californians voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, though he was trounced by Vice President Kamala Harris, one of the state’s top Democrats.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, and Kate Monroe, chief executive of VETCOMM, talk with a woman lying on the sidewalk on Skid Row in Los Angeles in January.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

On the campaign trail, Bianco and Hilton have frequently raised the prospect of a Republican being elected governor as the result of failed Democratic rule of the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

“For the first time in probably our lifetimes, really since Ronald Reagan … every legitimate poll has either shown me or Steve Hilton at the top two Republicans at the top of [every] statewide poll,” for the last six months, Bianco recently told about 100 attendees at a Valley Unity Republican Women luncheon at the Woodland Hills County Club overlooking verdant fairways.

Hilton, who has participated in more gubernatorial forums and debates than Bianco, said polling that shows him besting Democratic rivals proves that Californians are fed up with 15 years of one-party rule.

“I tell you right now, there is not a single one of them who represents to the slightest degree the change we need in California,” he told a few hundred people at Big Bear’s Calvary Chapel. “We are going to do it this year.”

From afar, Bianco appears to be out of central casting for a GOP candidate for governor: an armed lawman, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and close-cropped hair who has dedicated his life to protecting the vulnerable and locking up criminals.

Bianco, echoing independent pollsters as well as political strategists in both parties, said having “Riverside County Sheriff” next to his name on the official state ballot will be a major boon to his campaign.

“I will tell you this, if we took the names and the party off of the ballot and simply went up with resume — we made you all read a resume of who you’re going to put as your next governor — I would win this election 100% to nothing,” Bianco told the GOP women’s group.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton greets a member of the Big Bear Valley Republican Assembly before speaking at a town hall at Calvary Chapel in Big Bear in March.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

But Bianco’s badge hasn’t shielded him from Hilton’s blistering attacks about the sheriff’s past statements about immigration, pandemic mask mandates and Black Lives Matter protests — which is disqualifying for some GOP voters.

Bianco opposes “sanctuary city” laws, calls for the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and says the border must be secured. But he has also supported a pathway to citizenship for lawful, working undocumented people and told his constituents that his deputies were not taking part in ICE raids.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bianco ordered county residents to wear masks or face punishment, though he later pushed back at Newsom’s stay-at-home orders.

That same year, he and his deputies were photographed kneeling and speaking with protesters in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, an action he has since recast as praying.

Bianco’s wife, Denise, on Thursday accused Hilton of endangering her husband by sending mailers to voters that featured Bianco’s face surrounded by circles that she described as a “bullseye target.”

“We have all watched way too much political violence directed at law enforcement officers in recent years. I never imagined it would come from a political candidate directed at my husband,” she said in an Instagram post. “Steve, why on God’s earth would you think it’s acceptable to put my husband’s face, a dedicated sheriff, on a shooting target?”

Election security has also highlighted differences in the candidates’ views.

Hilton and Bianco echoed Trump’s call to make GOP voter turnout “too big to rig.” But their statements about alleged malfeasance differed.

Hilton decried “total corruption in the voting system in California.”

“I’ve said for the longest possible time that I don’t understand why we can’t do things the way that most places do it, which is vote on one day, count on one day, get the results on one day,” he said.

Asked by a voter about electoral fraud in California in March, Bianco replied that he was confident that law enforcement in California ensures that such fraud is “not happening here,” while agreeing that such “cheating” occurred in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.

But the same month, he seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November election as part of an investigation to determine if they were fraudulently counted.

Bianco put the investigation on hold shortly before the California Supreme Court halted it pending further review.

California voters have not elected a Republican as governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006. Two Republicans on the ballot in the June 2 primary election hope to change that.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Hilton has sought to capitalize on these positions, labeling Bianco the “shifty sheriff,” an attack that resonates with some voters.

“The man lies. The man is not honest about taking a knee to BLM, which is unacceptable,” said Agnes Gibboney, 71, of Rancho Cucamonga. “And coming up with three, four different excuses is unacceptable. And then to get mad at the voters for asking the question.”

Bianco has labeled Hilton as a shape-shifting opportunist, pointing to him championing a climate change agenda while advising British Prime Minister David Cameron and expressing support for views expressed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential election, and posting a picture of Hilton hugging Newsom on social media.

“Steve is a fraud. He’s a liar, and I’m not going to sit by and just let him do it anymore,” Bianco said after the Rancho Mirage debate. “When he starts attacking me, he starts attacking my deputies, my profession, I’m not gonna let it happen anymore.”

“He remade himself just for this governor election, and everyone is starting to see through it,” Bianco said.

The son of Hungarians who emigrated to Britain, Hilton served as an advisor to Cameron before becoming an American citizen. At campaign events, supporters have gifted Hilton with a Kézimunka, a traditional Hungarian embroidered cloth, which was stitched with a heart, as well as stars-and-stripes bathing trunks.

“My parents are Hungarian refugees from communism,” Hilton said. “I am fighting to make sure that this state that I love does not turn into the country that I left …. I have renounced my U.K. citizenship. I’m all in for California and America.”

Of the two candidates, Hilton has been more publicly visible, and benefits from GOP voters seeing him speak on Fox News for several years.

Both men argue one-party Democratic rule of California has destroyed a state once viewed as the epitome of the American dream.

Hilton describes state leaders as “far-left lunatics.” They’ve ruined the most amazing, the most beautiful place on earth,” and tweaked a popular Texas slight about someone being all hat and no cattle to describe Newsom.

“He’s all hair, nothing there. Don’t you think it’s time in California we have a governor with less hair?” said Hilton, who sports a smooth crown.

Bianco calls the state’s Democratic leaders “far-left psychopaths” who have enacted policies, taxes and fees that are forcing Californians to flee the state.

“We all know government has completely failed and we’re ready to take our state back,” he said, later adding, “They don’t want our lives better. I do …. No one leaves California because they want to. It’s government agenda and policy that is harming California and making it bad.”

Most of the candidates’ pledges, such as tackling unaffordability, reducing gas prices, increasing capacity in state prisons, protecting gun owners’ rights and keeping trans athletes out of girls’ locker rooms, are nearly identical.

They both promise to slash California’s vehicle registration fees, a proposal that echoes former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pledge to repeal the car tax during the 2003 recall election that was immortalized by his campaign dropping a wrecking ball on an Oldsmobile in Costa Mesa.

Schwarzenegger was elected governor soon after.

No candidate in either party can match Schwarzenegger’s global appeal, or voters’ familiarity with the state’s most recent Democratic governors — including Jerry Brown, the scion of a storied political family — or Newsom’s charisma, added GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, a former Schwarzenegger advisor who is not aligned with any candidate in the 2026 race.

“Voters are finding this to be an uninspiring list of candidates. And in fact, the impressive list would be those that chose not to run, right?” he said, referring to Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta. “So it’s not a surprise that there isn’t much interest.”

Though Hilton and Bianco were previously cordial in person, such as when they crossed paths at September’s state GOP convention, their public criticism of each other has ratcheted up in recent weeks, which could sway the many undecided GOP voters in the race.

“My main contention is looking to see whether or not they’re gonna follow the will of the Lord. So I’m paying attention to what they say and what they do,” said retired Air Force IT specialist David Solomon, 42, after seeing Hilton speak in Big Bear. “It really just comes down to who’s gonna be able to enact their plan.”

Jane Price, a 77-year-old Sherman Oaks resident, said she worried that Republicans failing to unite behind a candidate would give Democrats an edge in the governor’s race.

“We don’t want to split, right? That’s a problem,” the charter member of the woman’s GOP group said after seeing Bianco speak. “The state of California is at stake. We were thriving here in California. But now, it has been nothing but a downhill slide. We need people who appreciate what California is all about.”

Debbie Dawtrey moved from Cambridgeshire to south-western France in 2023 and opened a hotel, but she’s found that one of the most significant problems has been difficult to overcome

Many of us dream about relocating to some idyllic corner of Europe to soak up the sun and embrace the advantages of Mediterranean living. However, beyond the complications of European red tape – and the considerable cost – there’s another significant obstacle that numerous people fail to consider.

Debbie Dawtrey, who relocated from Buckden in Cambridgeshire to south-western France in 2023, reveals that one of the most substantial challenges she’s faced is feeling socially cut off.

Debbie, 64, established a boutique hotel in the Charente, situated in the charming village of Confolens, and explains that while she remains extremely occupied throughout the tourist season, the colder months can prove incredibly isolating.

She told The Times: “I didn’t know anyone in the area and while the summers are busy with guests, contacts are transient and the winters are especially hard as people hunker down and close the shutters.”

Debbie, who is unmarried, explains she’s discovered a method of reconstructing her social connections by arranging a monthly supper club for fellow expats: “Every month we’d take turns in hosting a dinner and had lots of fun,” she explains, “it helped broaden our social circle.”

Debbie emphasises that becoming isolated is remarkably easy when relocating far from relatives and friends, and recommends “you have to really make an effort to put yourself out there”.

Even when you’ve attempted to master the native tongue, the capacity to initiate spontaneous conversations can prove far more challenging than forming friendships back in Britain.

While some individuals might frequent a neighbourhood pub, or perhaps become members of a fitness centre, these are more readily available in bigger towns and cities. Establishing a fresh existence in the French countryside – or indeed in a remote UK community, can prove quite demanding.

Even those working with substantial financial resources can find themselves yearning for what they’ve left behind. Earlier this year, Kate Ferdinand spoke candidly about her homesickness following her relocation to Dubai with her footballer husband Rio.

On her ‘Blended’ podcast in February, Kate became emotional and confessed she was pining for her family and friends back home. Kate and Rio relocated to the UAE last August and while her husband is “loving” his new existence there, matters aren’t quite as positive for Kate.

“I am enjoying it, but I miss home quite a lot,” she acknowledged. “I can’t talk about it because I get upset. I feel like we’ve opened our eyes to a different world. But I love London. I do feel happy in Dubai, but I’m just missing a part of me.”

A source close to the pair told The Mirror that the Dubai move hasn’t turned out as Kate had anticipated, and she considers the gleaming Middle Eastern metropolis “soulless.”

They revealed: “She’s struggling. She’s really missing home. She’s not enjoying it. And even though she’s got the kids and she’s got Rio there, she’s homesick. She can’t stop it and it’s very difficult. It’s just not home.” Kate is also feeling the absence of her stepsons. While Rio’s daughter Tia, 14, made the transition to the UAE alongside the family, his elder sons Lorenz, 19, and Tate, 17, stayed behind in the UK to pursue their promising football careers – a decision that has caused Kate considerable heartache.

Opening up on her podcast, she admitted: “I miss the big boys a lot and I’m struggling with that. I know this decision is right for my younger children and as a family we are settled there, but the boys are following their football careers. So they’re doing what they want to do, otherwise they’d be with us.”

She went on to say: “But it’s very hard because we’ve been through so much as a family and we’ve always been together and that’s a huge adjustment.”

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Today, we remember a Dodgers icon.

Sad news in Dodgersland this week as Davey Lopes, member of the famed Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey infield, died at the age of 80.

“Even though Davey may have been the less visible of the famous long-running Dodger infield with Cey, Russell and Garvey, his impact on the team’s success was huge,” former Dodgers owner and president Peter O’Malley told The Times. “All Dodger fans will always remember the excitement he gave us on the basepaths and I admire his commitment to the game managing, coaching and instructing after his playing days.”

Lopes was born May 3, 1945, in East Providence, R.I. He did not remember his father, who died when Lopes was 2. His mother, Mary Rose, supported Lopes and his nine siblings on the meager salary she earned as a maid. Lopes found solace in baseball.

“If it hadn’t been for sports, there’s no telling what I’d be or where I’d be,” Lopes told former Times baseball columnist Ross Newhan in 1973. “I had one glove until I got to high school. I guess I can admit now that I confiscated more than a few bats and balls.”

Lopes found a mentor in baseball coach Michael Sarkesian, who usually coached the team Lopes was playing against while growing up. Sarkesian remembers Lopes, though, and brought him to Iowa Wesleyan when Sarkesian became the athletic director there.

“Whatever I missed by not really having had a father, Sarkesian provided,” Lopes told Newhan. “He could relate to my problems, my environment. The drive, the determination, not to give in to the ghetto, to make something of my life, stems from my relations with him.”

Lopes was an NAIA All-American at Wesleyan and then followed Sarkesian to Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. He hit .380 and was selected by the San Francisco Giants in the seventh round of the 1967 MLB draft. He turned them down, then signed with the Dodgers when they chose him in the second round of the secondary phase of the 1968 draft.

He played his first two seasons at Class A Daytona Beach, hitting .247 with 26 steals in 82 games in 1968, then hitting .280 with 32 steals in 72 games in 1969.

Davey Lopes steals second while Reds shortstop Davey Concepcion awaits the throw in a 1980 game.

(Joe Kennedy / Los Angeles Times)

Lopes was promoted to triple-A Spokane in 1970, and it was there that he met Tommy Lasorda, who was managing Spokane, and where the Dodgers converted Lopes from an outfielder to a second baseman under the tutelage of Monty Basgall. He was focused on learning a new position and stole only 11 bases, but rebounded in 1971 to hit .306 with 27 steals.

After another standout year in 1972, the Dodgers called him up to the majors for the first time for the final two weeks of the season. He stole four bases in four attempts.

At spring training in 1973, Lopes battled with Lee Lacy for the second base job and lost. But Lacy got off to a terrible start and Walter Alston made Lopes the starting second baseman on April 22. And he remained the starting second baseman until the 1982 season.

Eventually, Bill Russell, Ron Cey and Steve Garvey found their way into the starting lineup and on June 23, 1973, the foursome started together for the first time and stayed together for nine seasons, the longest-running infield in MLB history.

Lopes was the spark plug atop the lineup, becoming one of the best base stealers in the game. “I realize that when I’m running and stealing bases, I’m setting the momentum and getting the adrenaline going for the rest of the lineup,” Lopes told Newhan in 1974. “And until someone proves he can stop me, or the situation dictates I don’t run, I’m going to be stealing all the time.”

Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench once called Lopes the best base stealer in the game.

Beginning in 1975, Lopes racked up some impressive stolen base numbers:

1975*: 77 steals, 12 caught stealing, 86.5% success rate.
1976*: 63 steals, 10 caught stealing, 86.3%
1977: 47 steals, 12 caught stealing, 79.7%
1978: 45 steals, four caught stealing, 91.8%
1979: 44 steals, four caught stealing, 91.7%

*-Led league in steals.

In those five seasons, he stole 276 bases and was caught only 42 times, an amazing 86.8% success rate. He is the best base stealer in Dodger history. Maury Wills stole more often, but Lopes was more successful.

In 1975, Lopes stole 38 bases in a row from June 10 to August 24 to break Max Carey’s mark of 36 in a row set during the 1922-23 seasons. He was finally thrown out by Montreal’s Gary Carter in the 12th inning of a game.

In postseason play for the Dodgers, Lopes hit .241 with six home runs, 22 RBIs, 28 runs scored and 20 steals in 50 games, as the Dodgers lost in the World Series to Oakland (1974) and the Yankees twice (1977-78) before finally breaking through against the Yankees in 1981.

Lopes’ mentor with the Dodgers was Jim Gilliam. One day after the Dodgers won the 1978 NLCS, Gilliam died, leaving Lopes distraught. He channeled his emotions into an incredible Game 1 of the World Series, hitting two home runs and driving in five in an 11-5 rout. After his first homer, Lopes pointed to the sky to acknowledge Gilliam. A couple of years later, “The Bronx Zoo” by Yankees reliever Sparky Lyle was published. In it, he wrote about Lopes, saying, and I’m paraphrasing here, that it was bush league for Lopes to put up “We’re No. 1” while circling the bases, that the Dodgers had no class and that the Red Sox were better than the Dodgers. He had missed the point completely.

“They can do anything they want with us now,” Lopes said after the 1981 World Series victory. “I’ve got the ring. They can’t take that away from me.”

From left, Ron Cey, Bill Russell, Davey Lopes and Steve Garvey reunite in 2013.

(Los Angeles Times)

His comments contained a bit of foreshadowing. Lopes had his worst season in 1981, hitting .206 in 58 games of a strike-interrupted season (though he still stole 20 bases while being caught only twice). The Dodgers had prized prospect Steve Sax waiting in the wings. So, on Feb. 8, 1982, the Dodgers traded Lopes to Oakland for Lance Hudson. If you’ve never heard of Hudson, that’s OK, because he never made it to the majors. In essence, the Dodgers gave Lopes away for nothing.

Lopes was far from through, though. He hit .242 with the A’s in 1982 and .277 with 17 homers and 22 steals in 1983. Oakland sent him to the Chicago Cubs near the end of the 1984 season for pitcher Chuck Rainey. And in 1985, Lopes had a season for the ages, or at least, aged. At the age of 40, he stole 47 bases and was caught only four times while hitting .284/.383/.444 with 11 homers and 44 RBIs in 99 games. It is still the record for most stolen bases at age 40. Rickey Henderson is next with 37 in 1999.

Lopes finished his career with two seasons with the Astros, retiring after the 1987 season. He then began a long career as coach and manager, including a stint as first base coach for the Dodgers from 2011-15. Then GM Ned Colletti made it his mission to bring Lopes back as a coach.

Colletti had this to say after learning of Lopes’ death: “Davey Lopes transformed coaching at first base. His situational awareness and intricacy of coaching first base was the best I have ever watched. He changed a coaching position and how it was executed — base running, secondary leads, pitch tipping, cutting your steps from first to third.

“His contract has expired in Philadelphia [after the 2010 season] and I went and recruited him back. He helped players and, therefore, teams, get better. He could find any advantage and he was a great teacher. He was one of my favorite people.”

Former Dodgers reliever Tom Niedenfuer, who played with Lopes on the 1981 championship team, had this to say: “Davey was 15 years older than me and he was quiet with us new guys. But he treated us as equals and was helpful. It had to be tough seeing Sax come up and knowing his days were numbered.”

Among the 112 players with at least 350 stolen bases, Lopes is fifth in stolen base percentage:

1. Tim Raines, 808 steals, 146 caught, 84.7%
2. Willie Wilson, 668-134, 83.3%
3. Barry Larkin, 379-77, 83.11%
4. Tony Womack, 363-74, 83.07%
5. Davey Lopes, 557-114, 83%
6. Jimmy Rollins, 470-105, 81.7%
7. Carl Crawford, 480-109, 81.5%
8. Ichiro Suzuki, 509-117, 81.3%
9. Joe Morgan, 689-162, 81%
10. Vince Coleman, 752-177, 80.9%

Rickey Henderson is 11th with an 80.8% success rate. Maury Wills is 42nd at 73.8%. Steve Sax 49th at 71.4%. Ty Cobb 81st at 64.3%.

How was Lopes so successful? In an interview with Ross Porter, he said, “Well, it’s just not running by chance. I studied the pitchers. I tried to look for idiosyncrasies in their bodies that tell me when they go to first base compared to going home. Try to pick that up, react to it as quickly as I possibly can.”

He also told Porter his favorite moment of his career: “Actually, the first time I ran on the field. It was like I had reached a goal I set as a kid — to be a Dodger. I always wanted to be a Brooklyn Dodger, but for some reason, they left Brooklyn. We won’t get into that. But to do it as a Dodger — that meant everything. It was kind of like second best, but it was like I arrived.”

As a leadoff hitter, Lopes would often bat after the pitcher. I always enjoyed watching Lopes stall for time when the pitcher had to run hard during his at-bat. To give the pitcher ample time to rest in the dugout, especially if there were two out, Lopes had a variety of delay tactics before getting to the batter’s box. He’d give a couple of extra swings in the on-deck circle. He’d walk to the plate, then stop and go back to the on-deck circle to get some extra pine tar. He’d “have trouble” getting the weighted circle off his bat. He’d take the first pitch and then call time. It was a master class in looking at the big picture.

Our best wishes to Lopes’ family, friends and former teammates. He will be missed.

More sad news

Miguel Rojas was all set to play Tuesday against Toronto when he learned that his father had passed away in Venezuela.

“There’s nothing I could do being this far,” Rojas told reporters Wednesday. “Just support my family, and trying to understand a little bit of what’s going on. I found out that my dad, on the way to the hospital, passed away. He couldn’t live through the heart attack that he had. So it was suddenly that he passed away; he was feeling good. Really hard to understand. I’m still trying to process the whole thing.”

Micky Rojas’ funeral was Wednesday. “That’s how they do things in Venezuela,” Miguel Rojas said. “It happens quick because they have to. They don’t have many places to hold these funerals.”

Rojas played Wednesday and wanted to play Tuesday until a couple of Dodgers talked him out of it. He said later he was glad that Dave Roberts and Freddie Freeman took that decision out of his hands. But Rojas was adamant about playing Wednesday.

“It’s going to be emotional, yes, for me, I understand that,” Rojas said. “But I’ve been through moments like this before with my mom, my grandparents. I know what they want me to do is play baseball. They raised me up and they gave up everything in their life for me to be a baseball player. This is what they want me to do. They know how much pride I take in showing up every day, and not letting my teammates down.”

We send out best wishes to Rojas and his family. You can read more about the situation in this story by Maddie Lee.

What about the team?

We will discuss the team in detail starting next week. It has been a strange two weeks with Charley Steiner, Lopes and Rojas, and sometimes life is more important that baseball. I received over 500 emails about Steiner, and some of them will appear in a special edition of this newsletter in the next couple of weeks.

Up next

Friday: Texas (Kumar Rocker, 0-1, 3.60 ERA) at Dodgers (Tyler Glasnow, 1-0, 3.00 ERA), 7:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Saturday: Texas (Jack Leiter, 1-0, 2.45 ERA) at Dodgers (Emmet Sheehan, 1-0, 8.00 ERA), 6:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Sunday: Texas (Jacob deGrom, 0-0, 3.72 ERA) at Dodgers (Roki Sasaki, 0-1, 7.00 ERA), 1:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Tough day for Dodgers and Miguel Rojas following the death of his father

Davey Lopes, part of Dodgers’ historic infield and World Series winner, dies at age 80

These Canadian kids absolutely torched Freddie Freeman — and all for a good cause

Shohei Ohtani matches Ichiro’s on-base mark and adds to another impressive streak

Shaikin: Yoshinobu Yamamoto winning a Cy Young doesn’t mesh with a Dodgers three-peat

Shaikin: Dodgers continue to be the evil American mercenaries Toronto fans love to hate

Dodgers’ Andy Pages scorching start at the plate turning heads. ‘I really like his work’

Mookie Betts offers no specific timeline on when he’ll return from injury

And finally

Davey Lopes hits two home runs in Game 1 of the 1978 World Series. Watch and listen here.

Until next time….

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

THE UK is home to some of the world’s most stunning coastlines, but a stay at a “big name” resort can end up costing you more than a week in the Med.

Not to worry, we’ve unearthed the seaside spots which offer an unforgettable staycation without spending a fortune.

Follow The Sun’s award-winning travel team on Instagram and Tiktok for top holiday tips and inspiration

Whether you’re after a classic bucket-and-spade stay with a nostalgic promenade, or looking for those off the beaten path hiking spots, we’ve got you covered.

Best of all, we’ve found 2026 staycation deals starting from as little as £49 – meaning your next seaside escape could cost less than going out for dinner.

Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire

Often overshadowed by Skegness, Cleethorpes is an underrated seaside town on the east Lincolnshire coast.

This family-friendly resort town boasts miles of unspoilt soft sands, with a traditional pier and promenade.

In the central promenade area you’ll find an abundance of activities such as bowling, crazy golf and seaside amusements.

The Lollipop Land Train is a big hit with kids, taking you on a scenic ride along the seafront for just £2 each way – plus kids come away with a lollipop!

You’ll also find the 19th-century Ross Castle, as well as the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway, which offers two-mile trips along the coast in a steam or diesel locomotive, costing £5.75 per adult or £5.25 per child for a return.

That’s not all – a full day can easily be spent at the Light Railway as the site also hosts a tearoom, crazy golf course and toy shop.

Plus halfway along the line you’ll find Lakeside, where a vintage railway building has been transformed into a miniature pub called The Signal Box Inn, often hailed as the smallest pub on the planet.

When you want to explore a little further, a 10-minute drive takes you to Grimsby, home to the award-winning attraction the Fishing Heritage Centre. Here you’ll be transported back to a 1950’s fishing port, and visit the famous trawler Ross Tiger.

Haven Cleethorpes Beach is a mega holiday park with its own on-site Wetherspoons, as well as a massive, action-packed Adventure Village.

You can book a four-night stay at Cleethorpes Beach in a four-bed saver caravan from just £49 with a Haven Hideaway deal.

Mersea Island, Essex

Mersea Island is a seaside gem accessible via a causeway that disappears under the tide twice a day, with stunning landscapes and a laid-back vibe that feels worlds away from the flashy piers of Southend.

The island is known for its unique beaches, marshland wildlife and delicious oysters.

West Mersea Beach is an old-fashioned spot backed by pastel-coloured beach huts, whilst Monkey Beach is a lesser-known spot likely named after the monkey steps leading down to its shores.

You can spend a free afternoon crabbing off the West Mersea pontoon, or exploring the Cudmore Grove Country Park, a Green Flag spot with a wooden play area and pretty meadows made for dog walks.

A 20-minute drive (at low tide) takes you to Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded town, where you can visit its impressive castle or take a Roman and Medieval walking tour (£9 per adult and kids go free).

Coopers Beach Holiday Park offers direct beach access, plenty of sports courts and outdoor activities, and family restaurants with sea views.

Parkdean Resorts offer a four-night stay in a Bronze caravan which sleeps six from £99.

Pwllheli, North Wales

While the holiday crowds flocks to nearby Abersoch, savvy travellers head to the bustling market town of Pwllheli to enjoy the same stunning shores for a fraction of the cost.

The town’s two massive beaches are perfect for bucket-and-spade days as a family, plus the nearby Plas Heli sailing centre offer sailing, kayaking and stand up paddle-boarding lessons.

It’s also a brilliant base for exploring the rest of the Llŷn Peninsula. For a historical afternoon out, an 18-minute drive leads to Criccieth Castle, where 13th-century ruins overlook Cardigan Bay.

Or to soak up the sights by foot, you can walk the coastal path to reach the art galleries and sheltered bay of Llanbedrog.

Plus if you’re really up for a hiking challenge, Snowdonia is only a 30-minute drive away.

With an indoor pool and water park, lazy river, four-lane waterslide and its own lake for pedalo hire, Hafan y Mor is the place to stay in Pwllheli.

You can book a four-night stay in a two-bed apartment at Hafan y Mor from just £79.

Filey, North Yorkshire

Sat between Scarborough and Bridlington, Filey is a charming seaside town where visiting feels like stepping back in time.

There’s a five-mile stretch of golden sands, perfect for setting up a spot to play beach games and build sandcastles.

You can spend a totally free afternoon exploring the dramatic Filey Brigg – a mile-long rocky peninsula built for birdwatching and spectacular sea views.

Or wander through the peaceful Glen Gardens, where you can visit the open air boating lake, burn off energy in the play park or set up a picnic on its scenic grounds.

When you fancy a change of pace, an 18-minute drive takes you to Scarborough, where you can enjoy a classic day out of spending loose change in the arcades or tackling the rides of Luna Park.

If you travel 22 minutes in the opposite direction it will take you to Bridlington, where Brid Spa hosts fantastic, family-friendly theatre productions. Head up further along the coast to Bempton Cliffs to spot adorable puffins.

Plus, Filey is significantly easier on the pocket than its busier neighbours, with top-tier holiday parks for affordable prices.

Hoseasons offer a 7-night stay in a two-bedroom saver caravan for just £125 at Blue Dolphin holiday park.

Bembridge, Isle of Wight

If you want an Isle of Wight trip that feels more like a relaxing private getaway than a tourist trap, Bembridge is the place.

Skip the business of Sandown and head to this sprawling coastal gem. As one of England‘s largest villages, everything here is spaced out and relaxed, with plenty of room to wander without pushing through crowds.

You can spend a free morning visiting the historic Bembridge Windmill -the only windmill left on the island, dating back to 1700.

Or wander the dramatic 200-metre seaside pier, where the Lifeboat Station sits perched at the end overlooking the water.

When you want to explore further, less than 30 minutes’ drive south lands you in the trendy, hilly streets of Ventnor.

Charles Dickens once described the town as “The prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad”, and it’s clear to see why. This artsy town has colourful buildings, beautiful botanical gardens and pebbled shores that zig-zag down to the seafront.

Or you could drive 10 minutes to Culver Down, for impressive chalk cliffs that offer a panoramic view of the English Channel.

Hoseasons offer a four-night stay in a two-bedroom chalet at the perfectly-positioned Whitecliff Bay Holiday Park from £84.

Morecambe, Lancashire

With the bustle of Blackpool nearby, Morecambe offers a more relaxed, retro feel with five miles of promenade to stroll.

Kids will love Happy Mount Park, home to a soft play, adventure golf, a massive splash park, tennis courts and more – perfect for a family day out no matter the weather.

For something more unique, head to the Stone Jetty to find the Tern Project: an interactive art trail with bird-themed pavement games, mazes, and puzzles along the way.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can join a guided group (from £15) to trek across the famous sands of the Cross Bay Walks at low tide – just don’t try it alone!

Lancaster is a 15-minute drive away, where you can explore its hilltop medieval castle, while you can reach Blackpool for an exciting day out in 45 minutes.

Whether you explore the thrills of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, or explore Madame Tussauds or the Blackpool Dungeons within the tower, you’re sure to have an action-packed day out – with a quieter change of scenery to return home to.

Parkdean Resorts offer a two-night stay in a two-bedroom silver caravan at Morecambe’s Ocean Edge from £99.

Wemyss Bay, Scotland

While most tourists charge straight past to the inner isles, the charming village of Wemyss Bay is the perfect place to enjoy the dramatic Firth of Clyde landscapes.

To soak up the best of the local scenery, wander the coastal paths that look out over the isle of Bute. Walk down to the rocky shoreline at low tide to go beachcombing for sea glass – Wemyss Bay is a prime spot.

Or head to Kelly Burn to see the pretty woodland stream that marks the border between Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, leading you through lush greenery to hidden waterfalls.

Wemyss Bay Woods is also fantastic for nature walks, with a network of forest trails with mountain views.

Train enthusiasts will love visiting the award-winning Wemyss Bay Station, regularly hailed as one of the most beautiful railway stations in the UK thanks to its stunning glass canopy.

To explore further afield, you can hop on a ferry over to Rothesay to visit its castle and explore the isle (£8.70 adult return, kids £4.40).

And for the ideal indoor family attraction, 15 minutes by car or bus will take you to the traditional seaside town of Largs to visit the Vikingar! museum.

This interactive centre has a replica 8th century Viking house, character storytelling, an indoor swimming pool and more. Tickets cost £9.20 per adult and £6.30 per child.

The clifftop Wemyss Bay Holiday Park offers an affordable place to stay with striking views of the mountains across the water.

Hoseasons offer a four-night stay in a two-bedroom Bronze caravan from £99.

Flamborough, East Yorkshire

Flamborough is one of East Yorkshire’s most picturesque seaside spots, with some of the UK’s most spectacular coastal walks and views.

Head to this rugged peninsula to explore North Landing – a sheltered cove dotted with traditional fishing boats, where you can explore its caves for free.

Flamborough is also home to the Living Seas Centre, which puts on family-friendly events such as fossil hunts, boat trips and rockpool safaris.

You can also drive just six minutes to Sewerby Hall and Gardens, with woodland walks and beautiful walled and rose gardens. Entering the hall to see its stately rooms costs £4.50 per adult and £3.50 per child.

Head up to Thornwick Bay to find crystal clear waters protected by chalk cliffs, which open up dozens of fascinating rockpools at low tide.

But don’t just stick to the main beaches – head to Selwicks Bay at low tide to see the “Drinking Dinosaur” rock formation – a massive natural arch that’s the perfect backdrop for a family photo to remember your holiday.

Thornwick Bay Holiday Village is an unbeatable budget base, with activities ranging from water sports at the Boathouse to indoor arts and crafts at the Activity Barn.

Hoseasons offer a four-night stay in a two-bedroom saver caravan from £69.

Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk

If you want the golden sands of the Norfolk coast without the price tag of the posh towns like Burnham Market or Holkham, Hopton-on-Sea is your best bet.

Perched on the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, this quiet village has a pristine beach that’s far less crowded than its noisy neighbours.

Here you’re perfectly placed between two major seaside resorts: Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

A 15-minute drive north takes you to Yarmouth for some old-school pier fun and theme park Pleasure Beach, whilst the same time driving south lands you in Lowestoft, with its award-winning Blue Flag beaches.

Plus Hopton itself is a beautiful village worth exploring. Take a walk along its scenic grass-topped cliffs, or wander down to the water for a quiet spot to sunbathe.

Hopton Holiday Village is a bargain holiday park with direct beach access, and you can have a four-night break for less than the cost of one night in a seaside hotel.

Haven offer a four-night stay in a bronze caravan sleeping up to six at Hopton Holiday Village from £89.

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said Friday the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz still remains largely blocked despite a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, pledging that South Korea would continue to seek alternative shipping lanes.

Speaking at a press briefing at Cheong Wa Dae, Wi stressed that the government will continue efforts to secure alternative supplies of crude oil and naphtha amid concerns over Iran’s continued restrictions on traffic through the vital waterway.

“Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted,” Wi said. “Uncertainty in the supply chains is likely to continue for the time being.”

Wi noted that the number of vessels crossing the strait has not increased significantly since the ceasefire was agreed to on Tuesday (U.S. time).

“If around 2,000 vessels trapped in the strait attempt to leave all at once, it can take time, and securing safe shipping routes may also pose a challenge,” he said.

The government will continue to communicate with relevant countries to ensure the safety of all vessels and crew members, including 26 Korean-flagged ships that remain stranded in the Strait of Hormuz.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

United States President Donald Trump’s disdain for NATO allies dates back to even before he became president the first time. From anger over their relatively low defence spending to — more recently — threats to take over Greenland, the territory of fellow NATO member Denmark, the American leader has long left the alliance on edge.

But the decision of NATO allies not to join Trump’s war on Iran has deepened the fracture to unseen levels, say analysts. This week, Trump called their lack of support a stain on the alliance “that will never disappear”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany put it even more bluntly, hours later: The conflict “has become a trans-Atlantic stress test”.

That back and forth underscores a central question exposed by the Middle East crisis that experts say NATO can no longer put off: can the transatlantic alliance survive, especially if the US pulls out?

“There will be no return to business as usual in NATO, during neither this US administration nor the next one,” said Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “We are closer to a break than we have ever been.”

Trump can’t pull the US out of the alliance on a whim.

To formally do so, he needs a two-thirds majority in the US Senate or an act of Congress — scenarios that are unlikely to come to pass any time soon, with NATO still enjoying broad support among many legislators in both major American parties.

But there are other things Trump can do. The US has no obligation to come to the aid of allies should they come under attack. The treaty’s Article 5 states members’ collective‑defence obligation, but it does not automatically force a military response — and there is scepticism among allies over whether Washington would ever come to help.

The US can also move the about 84,000 American troops spread across Europe out of the continent. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Trump was considering moving some US bases from countries deemed unhelpful during the Iran war and transferring them to more supportive countries. He could close down US military bases and cease military coordination with allies.

Since US security guarantees to Europe have undergirded NATO since its founding, such disengagement would do enough damage.

“He doesn’t need to leave NATO to undermine it; by just saying he might, he has already eroded its credibility as an effective alliance,” said Stefano Stefanini, former Italian ambassador to NATO from 2007 to 2010 and former senior adviser to the Italian Presidency.

Still, allies are not helpless. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the weakened state of European defence industries and their deep reliance on the US. That, coupled with the numerous diplomatic crises in the US-NATO partnership – including Trump’s threat to take control of Greenland – has pushed European allies to invest more in defence capabilities. Between 2020 and 2025, member states’ defence expenditure increased by more than 62 percent.

However, areas where Europe suffers from overdependence on the US include the ability to strike deep into enemy territory, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, space-based capabilities such as satellite intelligence, logistics and integrated air and missile defence, according to a report by the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS).

These challenges remain considerable. It will take the next decade or more to fill them and about $1 trillion to replace key elements of the US conventional military capabilities. Europe’s defence industries are struggling to ramp up production quickly, and many European armies can’t hit their recruitment and retention targets, the IISS report said.

Still, some experts believe a European NATO is possible. Minna Alander, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, says NATO has, over the years, become a structure for military cooperation between European countries.

“NATO can therefore survive the Iran war — and even a US withdrawal — as European members have an incentive to maintain it, even if in a radically different form,” Alander said.

For some, the deadline is 2029. That is when Russia may have reconstituted its forces sufficiently to attack NATO territory, according to estimates by Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer. “But they can start testing us much sooner,” Breuer said in May last year, ordering the German military to be fully equipped with weapons and other material by then. Others estimate that Moscow could pose that threat as early as 2027.

And what about the US — would it do better without NATO?

According to Stefanelli, the former ambassador, the debate about NATO is often “twisted” to portray the alliance’s raison d’être as solely in function of protecting Europe from Russia, as a US favour to the continent.

NATO was a network of alliances born at the onset of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. For decades, the US fought to attract into the alliance as many countries as possible, treating those that refused as friends of the enemy.

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, NATO invoked for the first and only time Article 5 to rally behind Washington and sent troops to fight in Afghanistan. Thousands of servicemen died there, including nearly 500 from the United Kingdom, and dozens from France, Denmark, Italy and other countries.

And during the war in Iran, European bases were beneficial staging sites for the US military — even if many countries publicly distanced themselves from the conflict.

“NATO served US interests and Trump comfortably overlooks these aspects,” Farinelli, the former ambassador, said. “Europe has its own responsibility by not investing in defence and creating strong dependence, but thinking that NATO serves only European strategic interests is simply not true.”

THERE was a time a while back when, whenever the gossip mags wrote about Jennifer Aniston, they’d always preface her name with ‘Sad’.

Sad Jen Aniston – it was like one of those three-part names like Sarah Jessica Parker or Sarah Michelle Gellar, and call me a cynic, but I’m convinced we haven’t seen the last of her.

For someone who was allegedly one of the most desirable women on earth, this must have been extremely annoying, especially when a quick roll-call inevitably followed, ticking off the regiment of men it took to award Aniston, 57, her nickname; Brad Pitt, John Mayer and Justin Theroux, for starters.

But now she is apparently planning to marry someone called Jim Curtis who she has been dating since 2025; celeb-years are like dog-years when it comes to relationships, so this is like a decade for the rest of us.

He looks like one of those men who habitually whispers ‘Rock Star’ at his reflection every morning.

He appears to have the aw-shucks charm of Pitt, the narcissism of Mayer and the pretentiousness of Theroux – without apparently having the independently successful careers of all of these, having only come to public notice when Aniston fell for his charms.

To be fair, she has rarely looked lovelier, and Curtis, 50, is wolfishly handsome.

But ‘wellness coach’ Mr Curtis – who has reportedly encouraged Aniston to ‘look inward (unfortunate suggestions of a colonoscopy there) – has a distinct whiff of snake oil about him, or rather, of woo-woo.

As a friend says: “They’ve done intensive regression therapy together, and Jen and Jim believe they met in a past life.

“They feel their souls were destined to find each other again in this timeline to complete their journey. It’s all very woo-woo and spiritual, but it absolutely works for them.”

What is woo-woo? Boiled down to its sticky residue, it’s extreme silliness masquerading as spirituality.

Woo-woo is especially attractive to disappointed women of a certain age; crystals, Goddess workshops and having a shaman on Skype speed-dial.

Gong baths, forest baths, any bath that doesn’t feature water; meditation, mindfulness, manifestation, and ‘cacao ceremonies’ where menopausal women pay other menopausal women to make them a hot chocolate in a flask while they watch the sun rise; call it a cacao ceremony and pay a hundred quid for the privilege.

Past-life regression: a couple I knew told everyone they met that in a past life, and that the woman was apparently the husband’s mother in Ancient Rome.

Their ageing whippet was also with them in Rome, which explained why, at 8,000 years old, he sometimes struggled on his daily walk.

Curtis himself was ‘regressed’ on a television talk show as a youngster and discovered that he was a Native American who was murdered.

The Wonder Of You

It’s funny how regressions bring up such dramatic results – no one’s ever just a bank clerk bored with their daily commute.

Until she saw sense and started showing off what her mama gave her again on Traitors, the most flagrantly silly face of homeland woo-woo was probably Charlotte Church, who in 2022 turned her very big house in the country into a ‘wellness retreat’ complete with a shower which the singer described as akin to a ‘very large and unusual-shaped vagina’, and a ‘womb room’.

According to planning documents, Church aimed to create ‘a system of non-hierarchical participatory democracy’ inside the property.

‘The Dreaming’ was due to open in 2022 – but was postponed due to a problem with too much sewage, which unkind souls might say is the overriding impression that one got from the whole daft enterprise.

But one can see why high-maintenance women might go for men like Mr Curtis.

After the parade of go-getting career-driven arch-narcissists Aniston has been left high and dry by, it might be refreshing to look into the limpid eyes of some smooth-talking guru who only wants to talk about The Wonder Of You.

The only Woo Woo I’ve got time for is this one: ‘Mix vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, and garnish with a lime wedge’

On the other hand, knowing how prevalent stealth-narcissists are on the dodgy borderline where self-care meets self-advancement, there’s an equal chance that Dr Love is simply staring into your eyes in order to see his own reflection.

Falling for a snake-oil smoothie is the modern equivalent of those women who used to fall for vicars, and hang around making themselves useful in church in the hope that earthly love might eventually get a look-in.

Perhaps in a decade’s time, all this meditation, mindfulness and manifestation will be seen for what it is – old-fashioned eccentricity with a self-improving spin.

Personally, the only Woo Woo I’ve got time for is this one: ‘Mix vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, and garnish with a lime wedge’.

A war for the soul of the world is happening right now that’s straight out of the Bible — and I’m not just talking about the Middle East.

In one corner are President Trump and his minions, who insist that everything they do is divinely mandated. They have consistently invoked a violent version of God as they deport undocumented immigrants, try to make the United States whiter, rip up long-standing treaties with allies, rain down bombs like a biblical plague on supposed narco boats and choke nations they deem a threat or whose resources they covet.

They’re the ones who lecture religious leaders on what Jesus stood for, demanding blessings for Trump’s actions — or else.

Just check out the recent allegations in The Free Press that senior defense officials dressed down the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. in January over Pope Leo XIV’s lack of enthusiasm for Trump’s imperialist ambitions. Or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he of the tattoos hailing the blood thirst of the Crusades (another Middle Eastern forever war that the “civilized” side lost), who compared the rescue of a downed American aviator in Iran over Easter weekend to the resurrection of Jesus.

It’s a playbook straight out of the Book of Revelations, which describes a Beast in the End Times with “a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies” in its quest to hold dominion over the earth.

In the other corner of this existential fight is an actual man of God: Pope Leo XIV.

Rather than cower before a despot who makes the Pharaoh in the Old Testament seem as stable and kind as St. Francis, the first American pope has resisted Trump like a protester at a “No Kings” rally. He has yet to denounce by name anyone in the president’s sordid orbit — but Pope Leo has returned to their actions again and again in his first year as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

He began his papacy by greeting a cheering crowd with “Peace be with you all” — what Jesus told his disciples after his Resurrection and a brilliant, biblical way to telegraph where he stands in our bellicose times.

On Palm Sunday a few weeks ago, the pontiff proclaimed during Mass in St. Peter’s Square that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war” — a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hegseth, who prayed shortly after the U.S. launched the Iran war for “every round [to] find its mark” and for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

For his first Easter message, Pope Leo wrote, “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue!”

Meanwhile, President Trump told a reporter that God supports the destruction he’s inflicting on Iran because “God is good. God wants to see people taken care of.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters at the Pentagon, July 16, 2025, in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

According to the Free Press article, the Vatican declined an invitation from Vice President JD Vance for Pope Leo to visit the U.S., for fear that Trump would use him as a political pawn. Instead, the man born in Chicago as Robert Prevost plans to spend July 4 — America’s 250th birthday — on a Mediterranean island that has long served as a gateway for migrants trying to make it to Europe.

Critics will accuse Pope Leo of Trump Derangement Syndrome and call him particularly short-sighted, since he stands athwart the desires of many American Catholics.

Though he isn’t Catholic, Trump has favored Catholicism far above any other mainline Christian denomination, from acknowledging feast days to packing his administration and the Supreme Court with adherents in a way that even Joe Biden — a lifelong Catholic — never did.

About 55% of Catholics voted for Trump in 2024, per the Pew Research Center. A survey last year by The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America found “a clear generational shift away from liberal self-identification” among younger priests. Dioceses across the country are reporting the highest amount of converts in decades, many of them drawn in by orthodox Catholic influencers.

But Trump’s embrace of Catholicism, like everything else in his life, has been conditional on fealty to him. His administration pulled tens of millions of federal funds from Catholic charities because they assisted migrants regardless of legal status — something the American Catholic church has done for over a century. Vance, himself a Catholic convert, accused bishops of being “worried about their bottom line” for daring to criticize the move and his boss’ deportation Leviathan.

The Free Press also reported that Trump’s lackeys invoked the Avignon Papacy — when 14th century French kings exiled a succession of popes from the Vatican and made them their puppets — during their browbeating of the Vatican ambassador.

Re-litigating history is an obsession of the Trump regime, so bringing up a medieval episode amounted to a threat to Leo to shape up — or else.

That’s what makes Pope Leo’s stance against a modern-day Babylon even braver. A pope’s main role is to bear witness to the words of Christ, who said far more about taking care of the meek and turning the other cheek than he did about waging war.

The best popes, from John XXIII to John Paul II, know that their words stand as a challenge for all people, believers and not, to create a better world that paves the way for the world to come. Trump wages war for himself; Pope Leo urges us to stand for something other than ourselves.

At this point in his reign, Trump is a dead ringer for the Antichrist, described in the Second Book of Thessalonians as a “man of sin … the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all.”

Pope Leo would never characterize his opposition to Trump in such apocalyptic terms, of course. But his stance against the president’s tyranny is a call to action in the same vein as John Paul II’s exhortation to the free world to oppose the Soviet empire.

“Let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power,” Pope Leo stated on Easter, “and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil.”

Amen, amen, amen.

THE first manufactured caravan for neurodivergent guests has been created in the UK.

It has been designed by My Safe Place Southern, run by Karen and James Mason who have decades of experience in both the holiday park sector and construction and design.

Government figures last year suggested that one in five people in the UK are neurodivergent – which includes conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia.

The first project of My Safe Place Southern was working with Verdant Parks and Sunseeker Holiday Homes.

The new caravan is now installed at Riverside Holiday Park in Northumberland.

They hope that the creation of them will encourage the UK holiday park sector to find ways to make accommodation more suitable for neurodivergent guests.

Karen set up the business after talking to her brother who has three neurodivergent children.

She said: “Wouldn’t it be great if all holiday parks were places where every family, whatever their needs, could relax, connect, and make lasting memories.

“He told me he can’t travel abroad with his kids and both his experiences at UK caravan parks were so stressful he decided never to book another holiday park again.”

“The stark reality is that for many neurodivergent individuals, holidays can be filled with overwhelming sensory triggers, confusing environments, and unprepared staff.

“What should be a chance to relax and connect too often turns into an ordeal. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way.”

The new caravans and lodges will be kitted out with bespoke sensory equipment and important safety features.

They have also created affordable retrofit packages, which allows existing holiday accommodation to be adapted instead of having to install entire new ones.

My Safe Place Southern also provides training to help holiday staff be able to support neurodivergent families.

Daly, 33, recently agreed a new deal to stay with Saracens until the end of the 2027-28 campaign.

This is the second time he has fractured an arm within the space of 10 months, having suffered the same injury during a warm-up game for the British and Irish Lions last July which ruled him out of the rest of their tour of Australia.

For Onyeama-Christie, 27, this is also the latest in a series of injuries he has had in recent seasons, having twice previously broken his arm and also fracturing and dislocating his ankle.

He has played in 19 games for the London club this campaign and, like Daly, also agreed new terms to extend his stay in February.

Saracens return to Prem action on 19 April away at Sale, with six games of the regular season to go.

They have, however, been boosted by the return of prop Alec Clarey, who has been out since November with injury.

Flanker Max Eke is also “nearing availability for selection” having not featured since February 2025, while fellow back row Toby Knight is also returning to training from a long-term knee injury, a club statement said.

THE Iran crisis is continuing to affect travel with airlines having to stop flights to the Middle East.

British Airways is scheduled to start flying back to the likes of Dubai and Doha in July – but has announced it will drop one service completely.

BA will drop its service from London Heathrow to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia permanently from April 24, 2026.

The airline had been operating a four flights a week service since November 2024.

But a shift in demand, due to the conflict in the Middle East, has led to the airline terminating the service.

However, British Airways is set to resume flying to the Middle East next month with flights to Riyadh restarting in mid-May.

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It is also scheduled to start flying to Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv on July 1 at the earliest.

But these services will be reduced from what they were before the conflict began.

Flights to Dubai will go from three each day to one daily flight while services to Doha, Tel Aviv and Riyadh will drop from two flights to just one a day.

Flights to the city of Larnaca in Cyprus are scheduled to resume on May 22.

Meanwhile, services to Bahrain and the city of Amman in Jordan, are paused until October 25.

British Airways said: “Due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East, we have made further changes to our flying schedule to provide greater clarity for our customers.

“We’re keeping the situation under constant review and are directly in touch with affected customers to offer them a range of options.”

Due to its reduced flight schedule, BA has said it will use its freed up aircraft to head to other destinations like India and Kenya.

It will begin daily flights to Bengaluru in India and Nairobi in Africa during the summer season until late October.

It will operate a third daily service from London Heathrow to Delhi until May 31.

The airline will add its third daily flight from London Heathrow to Mumbai from May 15 to 31.

Here’s more on another major airline that has axed hundreds of flights until end of summer amid fuel cost crisis.

And one domestic airline has cancelled its London flights for rest of the season due to ongoing fuel crisis.

Reddit users claiming to be cruise ship crew members have shared wild behind-the-scenes stories ranging from shooting incidents and man overboard emergencies to fake kidnapping scams and lifestyle cruises

As temperatures across Europe gradually begin to rise, cruise season is almost upon us – and with it come the horror stories.

From tales involving enormous vessels, crew members, alcohol, rowdy passengers, mechanical breakdowns and behind-the-scenes crises, sailing season brings all of this and considerably more besides.

While passengers are almost always guaranteed a fantastic time on a cruise, for those working onboard, life at sea can be equally colourful and chaotic.

And that’s precisely what some viral Reddit threads are bringing to light.

Offering a candid glimpse into life working aboard a cruise ship, Reddit users claiming to be both current and former crew members are lifting the lid on industry secrets, spilling the details across various online forums.

The stories shared on these no-holds-barred subreddit threads range from utterly outrageous to downright deadly, painting a vivid picture of how life on the high seas can bring its fair share of turbulent waters, reports the Express.

On the subreddit AskReddit, one user posed the question: “Cruise Ship workers of reddit, what was the biggest “oh s***” moment on the boat, that luckily, passengers didn’t find out about at all?”

With the slate wiped clean (pun intended), one Reddit user recounted their tale: “Water pipe burst in a store room and soaked ALL of the spare toilet paper. This was on day 2 of a 14 day voyage to Antarctica. The cabin stewards had to swap around rolls of paper between “low use” and “high use” guest cabins and it came right down the wire. None of the guests found out or realized. Now toilet paper is hidden in every cabin instead of a centralized location.”

Another Redditor remembered a frightening incident on board: “Somebody shot at the navigation bridge of the ship from the shore on my last ship, the bullet bounced off and hit my colleague on the hand (no real damage but it scares the hell out of her, ended up going home for a few weeks).

“While we waited for the local police to come on and investigate and take statements, guests were told we were delaying the departure to take on fresh water. I’m still shocked that never leaked out.”

One former cruise ship employee took a trip down memory lane as they recalled a chilling ‘man overboard’ incident: “I used to be a crew member, and one time a guy working at the front desk jumped overboard after a crew party.

“He was found a few hours later by the coast guard, and everybody was asked to be discrete in order to keep the cruise running smooth, and everything was fine until the captain came on the PA and said we were delayed because a crew member jumped overboard.

“Then the madness begins, rumors appear out of nowhere, and the rest of the cruise was pretty much guests asking what happened the whole time.”

The very same user then recounted another harrowing tale, writing: “A lot of s*** happens onboard, I could write a book, maybe even more than one.

“Another time a guy committed suicide in his cabin, and his family was onboard, including a little girl, but this time it didn’t leak to the guests. I saw the family as they were being escorted to the security office, felt so bad for them.”

The same person also revealed a rather outrageous incident involving a colleague who was dismissed after taking his drinking far too far: “A friend of mine got fired for getting wasted, got p***** and starting peeing all over his cabin while the security guys were there to take care of him.

“He spent the night in the little jail onboard [brig] before being dumped the next day in whatever port we were in.”

Throwing fuel on the fire, one Redditor commented on the now-viral thread: “There are small fires in places like the kitchens that happen somewhat regularly. Most of the time they’re controlled quickly and no one even knows they happened.

“People drop dead all the time, especially on some of the nicer lines that are basically floating retirement homes. Ironically it’s when there’s a survivable medical emergency that guests become aware of it, when they need to do an emergency evacuation either by tender boat or helicopter.”

The user went on to recount a jaw-dropping incident from their time working onboard, describing it as the “worst accident”.

They explained: “Probably the worst accident that happened during my tenure was when a kid literally put his eye out on a ball valve handle on one of the open decks. Pretty sure word spread quickly on that one though.”

It turns out that life on the open water isn’t quite the plain sailing experience many might expect.

In a separate subreddit named Cruise, another user put forward the question: “What’s the craziest story a crew member has told you?”

The responses got increasingly outrageous, with one Reddit user recalling: “A CD [Cruise Director] told a story about a DJ that got drunk and got on the ship’s intercom at like 3am and announced an abandon ship order to everyone. Pandemonium ensued.

:They now limit who has access to that system. He said the captain got on and tried to calm people down but a lot of people chose to sleep on the lido deck that night with their life jackets. The DJ was thrown into the brig [tiny cruise ship jail] and was met on shore by the authorities. (Not sure what agency).”

Another user cast their mind back to their very first cruise in the 90s, sharing the scam they were almost certainly subjected to: “We had a cabin attendant on our first cruise in the 90s tell us how his family was being held hostage and he needed tips to pay off the people….. he would leave extra tip envelopes every day on our beds.

“Every day he would update us on what the kidnappers were telling him and made us promise not to tell anyone because he could get fired. I knew he was scamming but I still tipped cause I was going to anyway. I felt bad he obviously was hard up enough to do that.

“My mom was a sad wreck the whole week worrying over his family. I remember telling mom that he was spending most of the tips on phone calls since he had so much information to relay to us each day about the ‘kidnappers'”

In an unexpected revelation for one cruise passenger, their perspective was transformed regarding an entirely different style of voyage: “We were on a ship the week after a “Lifestyle/clothing optional” theme cruise. We got into several conversations with different workers about the details of what was allowed and what was normal.

“(Clothes required in dining room, not many other places). We thought the clothing optional cruise was pretty interesting. Until a crew member explained what a true lifestyle cruise is.

“It’s for swingers. Some of the rules include you have to bring a partner with you on the ship. No solo cruisers. The kids play rooms are converted into adult play rooms for the week and mattresses cover the floors. You have to be invited to join someone on a mattress, you can’t just join in any current activity.”

The passenger continued, explaining they’d enquired with their waiter about how evening meals operated on these ‘Lifestyle Cruises’, with the waiter clarifying: “They [the guests] usually came to dinner the first night with whomever they brought with them. Every night after that it was usually someone new.

“I’m not sure how much was exaggeration but I don’t think much. Google lifestyle or swingers cruisers and there are some interesting cruises/cruisers out there.”

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Friday the resumption of tourist rail service to the border with North Korea is a “small” starting point for establishing peace with Pyongyang, as Seoul reopened a long-closed border rail station.

Earlier in the day, South Korea resumed tourist rail service to and from its northernmost Dorasan Station in the border city of Paju, which is a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation that once connected the two Koreas.

“The resumption of train service is a small starting point toward establishing everyday peace, allowing people to experience it in their daily lives,” Chung said in a ceremony marking the event.

“When tourists can visit, see and experience the site of peace at Dorasan Station, peace will finally become an everyday language that breathes in our lives, rather than grand discourse,” he said.

The station, the northern endpoint of South Korea’s rail network just south of the inter-Korean border, was established after the then South and North Korean leaders agreed to connect their railways at a 2000 summit held amid a period of reconciliation between the two Koreas.

Freight trains once ran through Dorasan Station between the two Koreas, carrying materials and finished goods to and from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a jointly operated factory park in North Korea that was shut down amid inter-Korean tensions in 2016.

Since then, the station had served tourist trains carrying passengers in South Korea to border areas, before closing completely in late 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The resumption of the border station comes as Seoul continues efforts to resume dialogue and engagement with North Korea to reduce military tensions and establish peace, despite Pyongyang’s repeated rebuffs.

“Only peace and coexistence, as well as reconciliation and cooperation, are the path to mutual prosperity for the South and the North, not worthless animosity and confrontation,” Chung also noted.

He said he believes the two Koreas can surely establish new relations that accommodate the changing international situation and their respective national interests, expressing hope that their railways could be reconnected in the future.

The resumption of rail service to the station will allow tourists to travel by train beyond the Civilian Control Line, which restricts public access near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.

The train, named “DMZ Peace Link,” departs from Seoul Station and stops at Unjeong and Imjingang before reaching Dorasan Station, where tourists can visit a nearby observation post and a tourist village.

It runs once on the second and fourth Fridays each month till May, before expanding to every Friday from June.

Going forward, the government, municipalities and the rail agency plan to add more tourist destinations near the border station to provide various programs aimed at promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Taipei, Taiwan – Opposition leader Cheng Li-wun and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met in Beijing, where both leaders stated their opposition to Taiwan independence and expressed a desire for a “peaceful” resolution to the long-running dispute over the island’s future.

They posed for photos at the Great Hall of the People and exchanged public remarks, in addition to holding their closed-door meeting.

Cheng is the highest-ranking Taiwanese leader to meet Xi since President Ma Ying-jeou talked with the Chinese leader in Singapore in 2015. They met again in China two years ago when Ma was a private citizen.

Both Cheng and Ma are members of the Kuomintang, the conservative-leaning Taiwanese political party that advocates for greater engagement with China by Taiwan’s self-ruled democratic government.

During her public remarks, Cheng stressed that Chinese and Taiwanese leaders should work to “transcend political confrontation and mutual hostility”.

“Through the unremitting efforts of our two parties, we hope the Taiwan Strait will no longer become a potential flashpoint of conflict, nor a chessboard for external powers,” Cheng said, according to an English translation.

“Instead, it should become a strait that connects family ties, civilisation and hope – a symbol of peace jointly safeguarded by Chinese people on both sides,” she said.

Cheng’s remarks were sprinkled with well-known Chinese Communist Party talking points, praising its success in eradicating absolute poverty to its goal of achieving the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

“During their open-door meeting, Xi also emphasised Taiwan and China’s shared history and culture, stating that “people of all ethnic groups, including Taiwanese compatriots,” had “jointly written the glorious history of China.”

“All sons and daughters of China share the same Chinese roots and the same Chinese spirit. This originates from blood ties and is deeply embedded in our history – it cannot be forgotten and cannot be erased,” Xi said.

He added that together with the KMT and other members of Taiwanese society, Beijing was ready to “work for peace” across the Taiwan Strait.

Both leaders said they oppose “foreign meddling” in Taiwan-China relations – a reference to US interference – while Cheng suggested that she would slow Taiwan’s military build up, according to Wen-ti Sung, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

“She talked about the ‘institutional arrangement for war prevention,’ which was a euphemism for saying that under her leadership, the KMT would not be seeking a defence and deterrence-oriented approach to war prevention,” he told Al Jazeera.

The message, in short, was that “Taiwan ought to slow down on defence buildup and buying US arms,” Sung said.

Taiwan’s military expansion has been a hotly debated issue in the legislature, where the KMT has for months blocked a $40bn special budget to acquire US weapons. The opposition party alleges that the defence bill is too large and too vague. It offered a smaller $12bn alternative instead.

Writing on Facebook ahead of the meeting, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wrote that the KMT continues to “deliberately avoid cross-party negotiations” while delaying approval of the special defence budget.

Lai said that his government also supports peace, but not “unrealistic fantasies”. Despite promises of peace from Xi, China has steadily ramped up its military presence in the waters and airspace around Taiwan in recent years. Since 2022, China’s armed forces have had six rounds of multi-day live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait, the 180-kilometre wide waterway dividing Taiwan from mainland Asia.

“History tells us that compromising with authoritarian regimes only sacrifices sovereignty and democracy; it will not bring freedom, nor will it bring peace,” Lai wrote on Facebook.

China accuses the ruling DPP’s leadership of pushing a “separatist” agenda. The DPP advocates for a distinct Taiwanese identity and, over the past decade, has tried to raise Taiwan’s profile on the world stage — which has provoked anger in Beijing.

The Chinese leadership cut off formal contact with Taipei shortly after the DPP came to power in 2016, although it continues to communicate through different groups, including the KMT.

That is partly why Cheng’s trip to China has been viewed with scepticism in some corners of Taiwan, particularly among the ruling DPP.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Cheng sidestepped questions of whether she supported Taiwanese and Chinese unification, but said her main goal was to seek “reconciliation” based on shared history and culture.

However, the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party have not always got along.

They fought a bloody civil war from the 1920s to the 1940s during China’s republican era, only pausing to fight the Japanese during the Second World War.

The KMT-led Republic of China government later retreated to Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, in the late 1940s, vowing to one day return to China. The conflict was never fully resolved. The CCP continues to claim Taiwan as a province, and remains committed to annexing it one day, peacefully or by force.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council – which sets Taiwan’s policy towards China – said this week that Cheng’s talking point that Taiwan and China are “one family” mischaracterises Taiwan’s sovereignty dispute as an internal disagreement rather than one between two governments.

While still formally known as the Republic of China, Taiwan has undergone a cultural and political sea change since democratisation in the 1990s, accompanied by a rise in Taiwanese nationalism.

In 2025, a national identity survey by the National Chengchi University in Taiwan found that 62 per cent of respondents identified as “Taiwanese”, up from 17.6 per cent in 1992, the first year of the survey.

The percentage of respondents who identify as “Taiwanese and Chinese” has fallen from 46.4 per cent to 31.7 per cent over the same period, while respondents identifying as “Chinese” fell from 25.5 to 2.5 per cent.

First Dates returns to Channel 4 tonight with more hopeful singles looking for love

One First Dates star opened up on her incurable condition that left her living in fear of illness.

A First Dates star was informed she wouldn’t survive beyond the age of 16 following a diagnosis with an “isolating condition”.

The BAFTA-winning dating programme is scheduled to return for a brand new series tonight (Friday, 10th April), tracking singletons searching for romance as they embark on their first date at an upmarket restaurant in Bath.

Making its comeback to Channel 4 with its opening episode tonight at 10pm, the optimistic singles remain unaware of who their prospective match might be as they meet for the first time at the restaurant, overseen by French maître d’ Fred Sirieix and his team.

Featuring awkward encounters and flourishing romantic connections, the programme has become enormously popular with audiences since it initially premiered in 2013.

This evening’s episode will feature a yoga teacher meeting a mindfulness coach, alongside a former Lioness turned firefighter, reports OK!.

A synopsis states: “First Dates returns with a brand new series as Fred and the team match hopeful singles looking for love. From a yoga Instructor and a mindfulness coach navigating an age gap to a returning dater hoping for a better chance, sparks are flying.”

It continues: “A former lioness meets a cat lover, and a doctor faces her nerves with a self confessed geek searching for the one.”

During the episode, one First Dates star revealed details about a degenerative condition which led her parents to be told she wouldn’t survive past 16. Briefly pausing her date, 27 year old Nicole from East Sussex informed 24 year old Matthew she needed to take some medication before revealing: “I actually have cystic fibrosis. It’s a life long condition, you’re born with it, there’s no cure.”

Nicole continued to explain she had been a healthy child until the age of seven before experiencing a chest infection that persisted for three years, while being admitted to hospital every three months.

Characterising it as an “isolating condition”, the 27 year old said she would consume 30 tablets daily, living with the anxiety of contracting an illness.

Speaking to producers, the First Dates star revealed: “My parents were told that I would only live until I was 16. I think I have mentally blocked it out as a way of coping.”

Nevertheless, in encouraging news, Nicole shared with her date: “In 2020 this brand new modulator therapy came about and it was a big turning point to me, touch wood I have been pretty well ever since. Last year I started paying into a pension.”

Meanwhile, one Lioness-turned-firefighter became emotional during her date. Abbie, 32, from Manchester, was matched with 27 year old dental nurse Charlotte as they quickly began discussing their professions.

Abbie disclosed she had been a firefighter for one year, but previously had been a footballer for Manchester City, Manchester United and Leicester – even representing England.

However, she became tearful as she revealed that a tragic accident, which resulted in her breaking her leg, marked the end of her football career. She confided to producers: “It ended my career, which was heartbreaking. I’m going to get upset now… sorry.”

First Dates returns to Channel 4 tonight at 10pm.