OREM, Utah — Authorities said Thursday they have fresh leads in their massive manhunt for a college-age shooter who killed influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk with a single bullet as he spoke at a Utah college campus.
No suspects were in custody Thursday, more than 20 hours after the shooting, and officials have yet to identify the gunman. However, Robert Bohls, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Salt Lake City office, said that investigators recovered the weapon they believe was used to kill Kirk — a high-powered bolt-action rifle they found in a wooded area near the campus — as well as the suspect’s footprints and palm prints.
“We are and will continue to work nonstop until we find the person that has committed this heinous crime, and find out why they did it,” Bohls said.
A close ally of President Trump who founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, Kirk was killed Wednesday by a single shot fired from the rooftop of a nearby building as he addressed a question about mass shootings at a Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
Investigators are tracking a suspect who appeared to be college age and blended in on campus, Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, told reporters Thursday morning. They have scoured dozens of feeds from campus security cameras and collected footwear impressions, a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis.
Video of the crowd captured by an attendee shows a lone figure in black dashing across the rooftop of the Losee Center, a building about 150 yards from where Kirk was speaking.
Mason said investigators “are confident in our abilities to track” the shooter and had “good video footage” that they were not ready to release.
“We are working through some technologies and some ways to identify this individual,” he said.
After scouring camera security footage, investigators believe the shooter arrived on campus at about 11:52 am and moved through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof to the shooting location, Mason said.
“We were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building and fled off of the campus and into a neighborhood,” Mason said. “Our investigators worked through those neighborhoods, contacting anybody they can, with doorbell cameras, witnesses, and have thoroughly worked through those communities trying to identify any leads.”
Bohls said investigators recovered a high-powered, bolt-action rifle in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. A law enforcement source told The Times a Mauser 30-06 was recovered by investigators. Investigators have not said whether the rifle had been traced to an owner.
The Utah Department of Public Safety said Wednesday night its State Crime Lab is working “multiple active crime scenes” — from the site where Kirk was shot to the locations he and the suspect traveled — with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Utah County Attorney’s office, the Utah County Sheriff’s office, and the local police departments.
Hope for a speedy capture of the suspect faded Wednesday night after the F.B.I. released the man its director, Kash Patel, had said was a subject of the investigation. After thanking local and state authorities for taking into custody “the subject for the horrific shooting,” Patel announced that the man had been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.
“Our investigation continues,” Patel said.
Another man who was taken into custody a few hours earlier was later released after being booked by Utah Valley University police on suspicion of obstruction of justice.
Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday at an event commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, President Trump said he would posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk.
“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people,” Trump said.
The shooter is believed to have fired about 20 minutes after Kirk began speaking Wednesday on a grassy campus courtyard under a white canopy emblazoned with the slogan “PROVE ME WRONG.” The event, attended by about 3,000 people, was the first stop on Kirk’s American Comeback Tour of U.S. campuses.
Some experts who have seen videos believe that the assailant probably had experience with firearms, given the precision with which the single shot was fired from a considerable distance.
“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” an audience member asks.
“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responds.
Almost immediately, a shot rings out. Kirk falls back, blood gushing his neck. Video show people screaming and fleeing from the event.
The killing — the latest incident in a spate of violent attacks targeting American politicians on the left and the right — led to swift condemnation of political violence from both sides of the ideological divide. But it also led to a blame game.
After President Trump celebrated Kirk as a “patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open debate” and “martyr for truth and freedom,” he said in an evening video broadcast from the Oval Office that “‘radical left” rhetoric was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Even as the House of Representatives observed a moment of silence for Kirk Wednesday when he was still in critical condition, the floor descended into chaos when some Democrats pushed back on a Republican legislator’s request that someone lead the group in prayer.
Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a former conservative influencer and close friend of Kirk, pointed angrily at Democrats. “You all caused this,” she shouted.
Kirk, 31, was one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers.
The founder of the influential conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, Kirk had a vast online reach: 1.6 million followers on Rumble, 3.8 million subscribers on YouTube, 5.2 million followers on X and 7.3 million followers on TikTok.
During the 2024 election, he rallied his online followers to support Trump, prompting conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly to say: “It’s not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping the Republicans win back the White House and the U.S. Senate.”
Just after Trump was elected for a second time to the presidency in November, Kirk frequently posted to social media from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he had firsthand influence over which MAGA loyalists Trump named to his Cabinet.
Kirk was known for melding his conservative politics, nationalism and evangelical faith, casting the current political climate as a state of spiritual warfare between a righteous right wing and so-called godless liberals.
At a Turning Point event on the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church in 2023, he said that gun violence was worth the price of upholding the right to bear arms.
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” he said. “That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
Kirk also previously declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was “no separation of church and state.” In a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last year, he said that “the Democrat Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual battle happening all around us.”
OFCOM has launched an investigation into at least 22 porn websites over concerns about the age checks they have in place.
Adult platforms have been forced to adopt stricter age verification rules in the UK since the end of July, which require users to share their ID or a selfie to access them.
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New age checks started on July 25Credit: Getty
Sites that fail to comply with the Online Safety Act risk being slapped with hefty fines and could even be blocked from the UK.
The communications regulator is responsible for checking companies abide by the law, which is designed to protect children from easily stumbling across inappropriate content online.
Today Ofcom bosses announced an investigation into five companies that are known to collectively run at least 22 porn sites.
It’s estimated that the group receive some eight million visitors from the UK every month.
The watchdog said the sites face a “prioritised” probe because of the risk of harm they pose and their user huge numbers.
“We are now gathering and analysing evidence to determine whether any contraventions have occurred,” Ofcom said.
“If our assessment indicates compliance failures, we will issue provisional notices of contravention to providers, who can then make representations on our findings, before we make our final decisions.”
The companies include Cyberitic, LLC, Web Prime Inc, Youngtek Solutions Ltd and ZD Media s.r.o.
Bosses have also revealed that they’re expanding their probe into two companies, 8579 LLC and Itai Tech, over whether they have failed to respond adequately to Ofcom’s requests for information.
Porn site traffic plummets after age verification rules as VPN use soars
The new law triggered a surge in VPN downloads as some try to get around the block.
VPNs – which are used as legal privacy tools to disguise a person’s location – are still in the top download charts.
The regulator has admitted that there’s no way to stop people from using VPNs.
THE SHOCKING STATS
Latest figures show the scale of adult content consumption online…
Ofcom stats:
Around 8% children aged 8-14 in the UK visited an online porn site or app in a month.
15% of 13–14-year-olds accessed online porn in a month.
Boys aged 13-14 are the most likely to visit a porn service, significantly more than girls the same age (19% vs 11%).
Our research tells us that around three in ten (29%) or 13.8m UK adults use porn online.
Pornhub is the most used site in the UK – Ofcom research says 18% (8.4m) visited it in one month.
Children’s Commissioner stats:
Of the 64% who said that they had ever seen online pornography:
The average age at which children first see pornography is 13. By age nine, 10% had seen pornography, 27% had seen it by age 11 and half of children who had seen pornography had seen it by age 13.
We also find that young people are frequently exposed to violent pornography, depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts; 79% had encountered violent pornography before the age of 18.
Pornography is not confined to dedicated adult sites. We found that Twitter was the online platform where young people were most likely to have seen pornography.
ARIEL, Wash. — Music thumps. Boots stomp. Smoke swirls.
It rises like a dry mist from red-glowing cigarettes. It ebbs around an elk’s skull, five-point antlers still attached, and a muzzle loader hanging on the wall.
A potbellied stove washes its warmth over strutting men, women and children. A skinned-out bobcat dangles from the ceiling. A two-man chain saw with a 12-horsepower engine roosts on a canopy over the bar. A sign says: “This Business is Supported by Timber Dollars.”
Tab tops pop. Bartenders slide Budweiser and Rainier and Miller and Coors across the varnished bar top, 3,120 cans and bottles in all. On a wall nearby, these people have tacked up $40. The money is waiting for D.B. Cooper. If he ever shows up, they would like to buy him a drink.
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All of this is in his honor. For 11 hours, a guitar and a bass and a mandolin and a sax and a dobro and an accordion and some drums do not stop, and neither does the dancing nor the singing nor the drinking nor the joking. One husky man lifts his redheaded lady high in the air, puts her feet gently back on the floor and gives her a big kiss.
Maybe that is him. Or maybe that is her. The thought stops conversation cold. If D.B. Cooper were a woman, would she be a redhead? “Nah,” shouts Bill Partee, over the pounding of the band. He is 64 and has lived here a dozen years. He has a full, white Old Testament beard, and he wears a cap that says: Ariel Store, Home of D.B. Cooper Days. “She had dark hair when she did this thing, but by now she’s a blond.”
What D.B. Cooper did was hijack a plane. It had just taken off from Portland, Ore. At Seattle, he forced airline officials to bring him four parachutes and $200,000 in $20 bills. In the air again, somewhere around here, high over the cedars and the firs and the hemlocks that cover the Cascade Mountains, he strapped on two of the parachutes, and he jumped out. He disappeared. Vanished. No ripped rigging. No bones. Nothing.
In this undated file photo, a helicopter takes off from search headquarters to scour the area where hijacker Dan Cooper might have parachuted into in Woodland, Wash.
(Associated Press)
That was 25 years ago on Thanksgiving eve. People have found only two things in the wilderness to show that this hijacking ever happened: a placard that blew off the back door of the plane when he opened it, and money–a few bundles of $20 bills with serial numbers that match the loot. These prove that he died, some say. Others say no, he simply dropped some of the dough. Too bad, they add, not unkindly.
To many, D.B. Cooper is a folk hero. Nobody else in America has ever hijacked a commercial airliner for money and never been caught. He has become a legend, a new Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid. Books have been written about him, a play staged, a movie filmed. He is the inspiration for ballads and bumper stickers and T-shirts and coffee mugs. Saloons across the country adopt his name and invite people to “drop in on us sometime.”
Every year, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, his fans gather here at the Ariel Store and Tavern, in this mountain town of 50 people, 35 miles north of the Oregon state line. This year they are 500 strong, and they come from as far away as Brooklyn, N.Y., and Birmingham, Ala., and even Seward, Alaska. Their appraisals of D.B. Cooper and what he did offer a case study in how Americans create mythic figures and the ways in which they worship them.
Some stand and read the walls in the southeast corner of the bar, which are covered with newspaper accounts of D.B. Cooper’s exploit. They scrawl their names on a white parachute canopy spread across the front porch. They eat D.B. Cooper stew and D.B. Cooper sausages. They shake their heads at a photograph of a headstone someone put up in a front yard across the Lewis River. “Here Lies D.B. Cooper,” it says. “We spent your money wisely.”
The headstone, regardless of its attempt at humor, runs contrary to an article of faith: that D.B. Cooper is very much alive and enjoying a modest and well-deserved decadence. To his fans, the headstone shows an impertinence that borders on the unseemly. They are relieved to learn that the stone and an oval of smaller rocks outlining a faux grave were judged in bad taste and that the attempted humorist finally removed them.
Mostly, though, they party. For much of Saturday and often into Sunday they holler and dance and set off roaring fireworks. Each explosion sends clouds of white smoke billowing into a light rain and then up through the trees. They draw for prizes, mainly D.B. Cooper T-shirts, and they stage a D.B. Cooper look-alike contest. One year the winner was a basset hound in D.B. Cooper’s trademark disguise: sunglasses.
This year the contest is hard-fought. Dona Elliott, 59, owns this combination country store and saloon, built in 1929 of clapboard and shingles, uphill from the river and hard by a narrow woodland road. She holds one hand over a young man, then an older man, both in sunglasses; then a man with a $20 bill pasted on his forehead; then a couple wearing torn clothes and parachute rigging with fir twigs snagged in the straps.
By hooting and yelling and applauding, the crowd decides. Jim Rainbow, 48, a Susanville, Calif., mortician, tangled in the rigging and the twigs, is here with his wife for their 10th anniversary. He runs second. The older man in sunglasses, Eldon Heller, 70, a retired contractor from Washougal, Wash., wins by a hair. He thinks for a minute about D.B. Cooper’s current age and then smiles. “I’m just about right, huh?”
The crowd cheers again, and the band, called the Enlightened Rogues, swings through another verse about “good women who drink with the boys.” Dona Elliott is short, soft-spoken and has wavy brown hair, but she has been known to throw unruly drunks out the front door bodily and by herself. She pronounces the event a good one.
She knows that celebrating D.B. Cooper angers pilots, the airlines and especially Ralph Himmelsbach, 71, a retired FBI agent who spent the last eight years of his career trying to find him. He has written the most authoritative book about the hijacking, called “NORJAK: the Investigation of D.B. Cooper.”
Himmelsbach, who code-named the case NORJAK when he was still with the agency, spends D.B. Cooper Day at his home in Redmond, Ore. To him, Cooper is “a bastard,” nothing more than a “sleazy, rotten criminal who jeopardized the lives of more than 40 people for money.”
“That’s not heroic,” he declares, and he means it. “It’s selfish, dangerous and antisocial. I have no admiration for him at all. He’s not at all admirable. He’s just stupid and greedy.”
Elliott understands. She knows why people on the hijacked plane, for instance, might not appreciate what goes on here. But she wishes that Himmelsbach would come up anyway.
Himmelsbach, for his part, says: “I know I wouldn’t be welcome there.”
“Oh, sure he would!” Elliott responds. She chuckles. “He’s chicken.”
Thanksgiving Eve 1971
As people here tell and retell the tale of D.B. Cooper and his feat, they praise Himmelsbach’s book as the most thorough.
Folklore has entwined itself around the story like heavy brush. But from Himmelsbach’s account and news reports at the time, this much can be said:
Shortly before 2 p.m. on Nov. 24, 1971, a man stepped out of a blowing rain at the airport in Portland, Ore., and walked to the Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counter. He asked for a seat on the next flight to Seattle.
The man was middle-aged, pleasant. He stood nearly 6 feet tall. He had olive skin, dark brown eyes and dark hair. It was cut short, neatly trimmed. He wore a lightweight black raincoat and loafers, a dark business suit, a crisp white shirt, a narrow black tie and a pearl stick-pin.
He had no luggage to check. In his left hand, he carried an attache case.
Returning?
“No,” the man replied.
His name?
“Dan Cooper.”
The fare was $20. He placed a $20 bill on the counter.
Ticket in hand, he walked to Gate 52, unhindered at the time by X-ray machines or metal detectors. As he walked, he slipped on a pair of dark glasses.
Departure was scheduled for 2:50 p.m. He waited and smoked a cigarette, a filter-tip Raleigh. Finally a gate agent called Flight 305 for Seattle. Dan Cooper shuffled into line. He handed his ticket envelope to the agent, who took it and checked off his name on a boarding list, then handed back the envelope and his boarding pass.
Cooper stepped onto the plane. It was a jet, a Boeing 727. It had a pilot, a co-pilot and a flight engineer. It had three flight attendants, and it offered nearly 100 seats. But it was less than half full. Besides himself, there were only 36 passengers. He walked to an empty row in back and sat in seat 18C. But he did not take off his sunglasses or his raincoat.
The plane began to taxi. A flight attendant, Florence Schaffner, took a seat nearby. She asked him to put his attache case beneath the seat in front of him.
She settled in for the roll-out and climb.
He handed her a note.
It was Thanksgiving, and he was away from home, and she was attractive. She thought that he was proposing something indiscreet. So she paid no attention and put the note aside.
“Miss,” he said, “you’d better look at that note.”
He paused. “I have a bomb.”
To Jim Lissick, 69, of South St. Paul, Minn., who is here at the Ariel Store and Tavern to celebrate with a son and a daughter, such good manners are a sign that Cooper is a gentleman. “He was a caring person,” Lissick says, then catches himself. “Still is.”
Certainly, Lissick says, people such as D.B. Cooper can be tough and extremely demanding. But history, he says, is full of hard cases who were unfailingly polite to women and always kind to children. All of this, he adds, simply becomes part of the mythology that grows up around them.
Mike Holliday, 40, agrees. He has lived in this area since the days when loggers came to the Ariel Store and Tavern after work, hung up their wet clothes to dry and sat around the potbellied stove in their long johns drinking beer and telling stories.
To him, D.B. Cooper shows the unflappable cool of a modern Robin Hood. “But I doubt like hell that he is the kind of guy who gives money away.”
3 p.m.
Florence Schaffner glanced at the man’s note. It was neat, clear. She looked at the man’s face. He was not joking.
The note specified his demands. Take it up to the captain, he ordered, and then bring it back with his response. The man repeated: Return the note.
She hurried to the cockpit and gave the note to Captain William Scott and First Officer Bill Rataczak. They radioed that Flight 305 was being hijacked: A man with a bomb wants $200,000 in negotiable bills, a money sack and a pair of back-pack parachutes.
Part of the money that was paid to legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper in 1971 is shown during an F.B.I. news conference, Feb. 12, 1980, where it was announced that several thousand dollars was found 5 miles northwest of Vancouver, Wash., by Howard and Patricia Ingram and their 8-year-old son Brian on Feb. 10.
(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)
Schaffner returned to Dan Cooper with his note. He opened his attache case. She saw red cylinders, a battery and wires. She hurried back to the cockpit and described the contents to Scott and Rataczak. They radioed authorities on the ground: It looks like dynamite.
Cooperate, responded Northwest Airlines headquarters in Minneapolis, and try not to alarm the passengers. By now Flight 305 was over Seattle, but Cooper refused to let it land until the money and the parachutes were ready. Scott told the passengers that the plane had a mechanical problem requiring it to circle and burn off fuel. The flight attendants served drinks. Cooper had a bourbon and water. He paid with a $20 bill.
Tina Mucklow, another of the flight attendants, sat down next to him. She was easygoing, pretty and wore her hair long and flowing. They developed a rapport. He smoked another Raleigh. She lit it for him so he could keep both hands on his briefcase. “He wasn’t nervous,” she recalled later. “He seemed rather nice. He was never cruel or nasty. He was thoughtful and calm.”
Now Cooper wanted two more parachutes, for a total of four–two front packs and two backpacks. Four meant that he might jump with a hostage, and this signaled: Do not tamper with the gear. The Air Force offered two. But Cooper demanded civilian models. Civilian parachutes meant that he might free-fall away from the flight path before pulling the rip cord, and this signaled: A tail plane will be useless.
As Flight 305 circled over Seattle, airline officials, FBI agents and Seattle police scrambled to get the money that Dan Cooper was demanding. They rounded up $20 bills from several banks. Twenties would be easy to pass and would signal cooperation. It took time, but they found enough–10,000 of them. The bills weighed 21 pounds and filled a white cotton sack. The FBI microfilmed every one.
Cooper grew impatient. He ordered another bourbon and water. Then he demanded that a truck meet the plane and refill it with fuel when it landed in Seattle. He said he would release all passengers, but he wanted meals brought on board for the crew.
A skydiving school finally came up with four civilian parachutes. In a mistake that the rigger would not discover until later, they included a dummy chute that would not open.
At 5:39 p.m., a message went by radio up to Flight 305. “Everything is ready for your arrival.”
Captain Scott eased the jet onto runway 16R. He taxied to a corner of the airfield. “He says to get that stuff out here right now.”
A fuel truck drove over.
Dan Cooper sent Tina Mucklow out to get the money and the parachutes.
Then he let the passengers go.
It is commonly held in Ariel that all of this demonstrates beyond the silly doubt of any pinch-nosed naysayer exactly how brilliant D.B. Cooper really is.
“He pulls it all off pretty good,” says Steve Forney, 40, of Kelso, Wash., a biker who parks his 1979 Harley shovelhead in a special spot at the door that Dona Elliott reserves for motorcycles.
A friend, Jim Smith, 49, of Castle Rock, Wash., who pulls up on a 1987 Harley blockhead, wipes the rain off his leather jacket. He declares with approval:
“D.B. Cooper is one smart outlaw.”
6 p.m.
Arguably, ground crews were less smart. The first fuel truck they sent out to the plane had a vapor lock. The second ran dry. Finally a third topped off the tanks.
Inside the plane, Cooper announced that he wanted to go to Mexico City, and he wanted to fly in a certain way: with the landing gear down, the wing flaps down and the aft air-stairs down.
Flaps?
“Fifteen degrees,” Cooper said, with precision.
This meant that he knew the rear stairway on a 727 could be lowered in flight. It also meant that he knew flying with the gear and the flaps down would slow the plane, and he knew how far the flaps could be lowered to do it safely.
He gave another order: Stay below 10,000 feet.
This meant that he knew flying any higher with the aft door open would be risky. At 10,000 feet, the outside air had enough oxygen in it to make it safe to breathe. But any higher it did not.
First Officer Bill Rataczak figured that flying this way would burn a lot of fuel. By his calculation the plane would have a range of only 1,000 miles. Mexico City was 2,200 miles away.
This called for refueling stops on the way. Cooper agreed that one would be Reno, Nev.
A hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner is seen in this Nov. 25, 1971 file photo as it sits on a runway for refueling at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Nov. 25, 1971, Seattle.
(Associated Press)
He freed attendants Alice Hancock and Florence Schaffner but kept Tina Mucklow seated next to him. At 7:37 p.m., Flight 305 was back in the air.
Cooper told Mucklow to go up to the cockpit and pull the first-class curtain closed behind her. She glanced back once. He was cutting cord from one of the parachutes and tying the money bag to his waist.
At 7:42 p.m. Captain Scott saw a cockpit light indicating that the aft stairs were down.
The plane leveled off at 10,000 feet and cruised at 196 mph. Outside it was dark, stormy and 7 degrees below zero. Now First Officer Rataczak’s watch showed almost 8 p.m.
“Everything OK back there?” he asked on the intercom. “Anything we can do for you?”
Finally a light showed that the stairs were fully extended.
“No!” Cooper replied.
At 8:12 p.m., the nose of the plane curtsied, and its instruments showed a small bump in cabin pressure. This meant that the tail had suddenly gotten lighter and that the stairs had bounced up and into the plane and then dropped down again.
Dan Cooper had jumped.
Around the potbellied stove in Ariel, two airline employees marvel at D.B. Cooper’s knowledge.
Phil Brooks, 34, of Speedway, Ind., an aircraft dispatcher, thinks that Cooper either was involved with an airline or did his homework very well.
“He was intelligent and gutsy,” Brooks says. “That tells me he had a good background, maybe Special Forces or intelligence. He didn’t work down at the carwash. And he was a major stud; he had the guts to jump out of an airplane at night in the winter.”
Brooks proudly shows off a Cooper Vane, a device named after D.B. Cooper, which locks aft air-stairs from the outside during flight. It was installed on all 727s after the hijacking to prevent further Cooper capers. Years later, Brooks found the hijacked jet in a Mississippi scrap yard. He recovered the Cooper Vane from the Cooper plane.
With Brooks is Dan Gradwohl, 30, a first officer on 727s for Ryan International Airlines, a charter service. “Cooper knew something about the 727,” Gradwohl says, “or he had to have talked to somebody and learned about it.
“He beat the system,” Gradwohl points out, and spectacularly so. “If D.B. Cooper would have simply robbed a bank, he wouldn’t be a legend.
“But he robbed several banks, and then he parachuted out of a plane.”
When Flight 305 landed in Reno, the FBI found two parachutes, the butts of eight filter-tip Raleighs and 66 fingerprints. None matched prints in the FBI files.
The next day in Seattle, the parachute rigger realized his mistake. Cooper had jumped with a good parachute and a backup that would not open.
At one point, a reporter for United Press International spotted FBI agents at the Portland police station and asked a clerk what they were doing.
“They’re looking for a guy named Cooper,” the clerk replied. “D.B. Cooper.”
The reporter phoned in his information. While it was a fact that agents were checking out a man named D.B. Cooper, they cleared him almost immediately.
But the initials stuck.
Dan Cooper entered history–and folklore–with the wrong name.
The only significant evidence that Ralph Himmelsbach ever processed was the $5,800, found on a Columbia River sandbar by Brian Ingram, 8, of Vancouver, Wash., while he was picnicking with his family. Himmelsbach matched the $20 bills to Cooper’s loot.
Will D.B. Cooper ever be located?
“I doubt it,” Himmelsbach says.
Officially, though, the FBI case against Dan Cooper is not closed. Ray Lauer, an agency spokesman in Seattle, says:
“We’re still trying to find the guy.”
Researchers Paul Singleton, Julia Franco and Steve Tice contributed to this story.
People approaching retirement should consider whether delaying benefits is worth the monthly increase.
For 90 years, Social Security has provided millions of Americans with a financial lifeline in retirement, helping to keep many Americans above the poverty line. That’s why deciding when you want to claim benefits is such a crucial decision because it permanently affects how much you’ll be receiving in monthly benefits.
As of the end of 2024, the average monthly benefit for someone aged 70 was $2,148.12, or approximately $25,777 annually. For men, the average benefit at that age is $2,389.95, and for women, it’s $1,909.42 (the difference is due to the disparity in lifetime earnings).
Image source: Getty Images.
How claiming at 70 affects your monthly benefit
For anyone born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age (FRA) is 67. This is the age at which you can receive your full monthly benefit amount, known as your primary insurance amount (PIA). Starting at your PIA, the Social Security Administration calculates your monthly benefit based on whether you claim before or after your FRA.
By delaying benefits past your FRA, you increase your monthly benefit by 2/3 of 1% monthly, or 8% annually. You can delay benefits and receive this increase until you reach age 70; after that, your monthly benefit is no longer increased, so that’s realistically the latest age you should claim benefits.
For example, if your PIA was $2,000 at your FRA (assuming it’s 67), delaying benefits until 70 would increase your monthly amount by 24%, taking it to $2,480. This increase, along with the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), is why the average benefit is higher at 70 than at younger ages.
Annabelle Chang recommends books for a living. If you were to ask which one she finds most “criminally underrated,” she’d tell you it’s Katie Henry’s “This Will Be Funny Someday.”
“It is truly one of my favorite books I’ve ever read, not just my favorite YA books, just one of my favorite books that I think will really appeal to everyone,” Annabelle, 19, told The Times. “I read it at such an important time in my life. I was 16. The protagonist is also 16.”
“Annabelle’s love for this book actually inspired our entire family to read it,” her older sister Alexandra Brown Chang, 25, added. “I think it’s absolutely fantastic. I read it when I was 23, but I still resonate with it.”
Annabelle’s knack for recommending great young adult books led her to start an Instagram and blog during the COVID-19 pandemic. After seeing the positive response from readers of all ages, she began selling titles online and at pop-up events, including the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. At 16, she opened a brick-and-mortar store in Studio City: Annabelle’s Book Club LA, the first young adult-focused bookstore in the country.
“I actually had my heart set on this one space in West Hollywood and I was so sad when it didn’t work out. The landlord at the time said that nobody would ever come to a bookstore, which I was very sad to hear,” Annabelle said. “But it all worked out for the best and I truly could not imagine a better place for the bookstore.”
At 16, Annabelle Chang opened a brick-and-mortar store in Studio City: Annabelle’s Book Club LA, the first young adult-focused bookstore in the country.
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
On Sept. 2, Annabelle’s Book Club, which was recently featured in a scene in the film “Freakier Friday,” will host an extra special event: a launch party for her sister’s debut novel, “By Invitation Only.” Inspired by Alexandra’s own experience as a “debutante dropout,” the coming-of-age story follows two seemingly different female protagonists, Piper and Chapin, whose worlds collide at the elite La Danse des Débutantes in Paris. Together, Annabelle and Alexandra strive to amplify young adult narratives.
“Historically, YA hasn’t been taken as seriously as it should be, but I think we are at a moment where that is changing and people are really recognizing the power of these stories,” Annabelle said. “They’re impactful for readers of all ages, and they address universal themes and are just incredibly important for everyone.”
“I’ve wanted to write a young adult novel for a very long time, and I think that coming-of-age stories have pretty much proven to be evergreen because every generation seems to be finding new ways to tell them,” added Alexandra, who graduated from Stanford in 2022. “I think that we don’t really come of age once. We keep coming of age because every single new stage of life, whether it’s going to college or experiencing your 20s, it forces you to reevaluate who you are and who you want to be.”
Annabelle and Alexandra grew up in a literary household. Their mom, Amanda Brown, wrote the 2001 book “Legally Blonde,” which was later adapted into the Reese Witherspoon-starring blockbuster and a Broadway musical. The girls recall their mom and dad, technology investor Justin Chang, reading to them every night, which helped inspire their love for books and storytelling. Among Alexandra’s favorites were “Eloise,” “Madeline” and “Sweet Dream Pie.”
“I loved ‘Pinkalicious,’ which I think makes sense as the bookstore is also very pink,” Annabelle added. “It’s always been my favorite color and one of my favorite stories to this day.”
“I’ve wanted to write a young adult novel for a very long time, and I think that coming-of-age stories have pretty much proven to be evergreen because every generation seems to be finding new ways to tell them,” said Alexandra Brown Chang.
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
At 14, Alexandra started the fashion blog Alex and Ella with her close friend, and later launched her own site, the Zeitgeist, where she continued to write about fashion, art, travel and more. While in high school, she interned for designer Zac Posen in New York, an experience she called “life-changing.”
“It really allowed me to learn so much more about fashion, the business side of fashion, but also the design aspect,” Alexandra said. “And it really helped me see fashion in all of its amazing ways and as an art form.”
In “By Invitation Only,” fashion takes center stage as the girls prepare for their debutante debuts. Especially through Chapin’s character, Alexandra argues that fashion should be treated as a serious craft — similar to young adult literature.
“When all of the debutantes are wearing custom gowns, it makes sense that all of them would have an incredible amount of time and thought put into them,” she said.
Earlier this month, Alexandra took part in the festivities at Annabelle’s Book Club for Bookstore Romance Day — an annual celebration of romance books at independent bookstores across the country. In addition to hosting perfume making and lipstick reading — which is like tarot card reading, but with lipstick — the store gave away an advance copy of “By Invitation Only.”
While there are romantic elements throughout “By Invitation Only,” the heart of the story lies in the complicated relationship between Chapin and Piper. Unlikely friendships are one of Alexandra’s favorite tropes, she said.
“Piper and Chapin come from completely different backgrounds when their lives unexpectedly collide in Paris, and they really do change for the better,” Alexandra said. “And I think that’s a great message that everyone could use right now, and it certainly is true for myself and so many of my closest friends, and I really value those friendships.”
Alexandra spent about five years writing her novel and sent several early drafts to her sisters, including Annabelle; Audrey, Annabelle’s identical twin; and 15-year-old Ames. “I was really excited to get their input as the target age demographic as well,” she said of her younger siblings.
After the launch at Annabelle’s Book Club, Alexandra will head to bookstores across the country to promote her book, including Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park and Book Passage in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Annabelle is getting ready for her second year at Stanford, where she plans to major in product design and minor in creative writing. Still, she continues to juggle her responsibilities as a student and a business owner.
“It is certainly a balance. I feel incredibly lucky that we have such a wonderful team at our store, who can run the day-to-day when I can’t be there,” Annabelle said. “I find myself going back quite often for events and meetings.”
Even as they pursue their individual paths, Annabelle and Alexandra savor every opportunity they get to collaborate with each other.
“I love that we’re able to spend even more time together and that we have this common interest,” Alexandra said. “It’s really special.”
A 401(k) is a common type of retirement account that employers offer to their workforce.
The 401(k) account is one of the most common retirement savings accounts that employers offer their workers. Employees are able to contribute pre-tax dollars to these accounts and invest them tax-deferred. Only when withdrawals are made do the account holders pay taxes at their ordinary tax rate.
Employers have the option to offer some kind of matching contribution, usually up to a set percentage of each employee’s salary. Employer contributions are deductible up to a certain point.
With everyone making different salaries and employers having different policies for their 401(k) plans, it’s natural for workers to wonder how much they should save as they approach retirement. While there is no single right answer, available data can help you gauge where you stand.
Image source: Getty Images.
The average 401(k) balance for retirees age 60 and older
While several companies provide data on the average 401(k) balance, I like to use Fidelity when I can, given the company’s size and reputation in the space.
At the end of 2024, Fidelity looked at 401(k) data from 26,700 corporate defined contribution plans that included 24.5 million participants. The company found that the average 401(k) balance was $246,500 for ages 60 to 64, $251,400 for ages 65 to 69, and $250,000 for ages 70 and over.
Fidelity actually recommends saving much more than this amount. In prior articles, the company has suggested having eight times your annual salary by age 60 and 10 times your annual salary by age 67. With median annual earnings for a full-time U.S. worker above $50,000, Fidelity’s recommendation is far higher than the approximately $250,000 average balance for its plan participants near retirement.
But again, there’s always a difference between advice and reality. Retirees should also understand that an average number among tens of millions of people captures so many different scenarios. Ultimately, retirees should think about the lifestyle they want in retirement and work with a financial advisor or on their own to determine how much they need to support that lifestyle.
Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose is mourning the loss of her mother, Gina Michelle DeBose, who has died at age 57 after battling Stage 3 ovarian cancer.
The “West Side Story” actor and Broadway star announced her mother’s death Tuesday on Instagram, sharing photos of the two of them over the years — from the younger DeBose’s childhood to her historic win at the Academy Awards in 2022.
“I couldn’t be more proud of her and how she fought this insidious disease over the past 3 years,” DeBose wrote.
Ariana DeBose, 34, said in her tribute that her mother was her “favorite person, my biggest fan and toughest critic. My best friend.” The “Love Hurts” actor said her mother “fought like hell” to support her daughter’s ambitions, adding that her accolades — which include BAFTA, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe awards — belong equally to her mother.
The actor said her mother was a longtime public school teacher who devoted her life to educating young people. She was “the greatest advocate” for arts education, she said, adding that the death of the elder DeBose would deeply impact her mother’s community: “She was a force of epic proportion.”
Actors including “Abbott Elementary” star Quinta Brunson, “Insecure” alumna Yvonne Orji, former “Dancing With the Stars” pro Julianne Hough and celebrity fitness trainer Amanda Kloots rallied around DeBose in the comments section as she broke the news. In addition to paying tribute to her mother, DeBose highlightedseveralcharities where supporters could donate in her mother’s honor.
“My greatest and most proud achievement will always be to have made her proud,” DeBose wrote. “I love you mommy. Now travel amongst the seas, the winds and the angels as I know you always loved to do.”
NEW YORK — For the first time in 30 years, the American Academy of Pediatrics is substantially diverging from U.S. government vaccine recommendations.
The group’s new COVID-19 recommendations — released Tuesday — come amid a tumultuous year for public health, as vaccine skeptics have come into power in the new Trump administration and government guidance has become increasingly confusing.
This isn’t going to help, acknowledged Dr. James Campbell, vice chair of the AAP infectious diseases committee.
“It is going to be somewhat confusing. But our opinion is we need to make the right choices for children to protect them,” he added.
The AAP is strongly recommending COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years. Shots also are advised for older children if parents want their kids vaccinated, the AAP said.
That differs from guidance established under U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which doesn’t recommend the shots for healthy children of any age but says kids may get the shots in consultation with physicians.
Children ages 6 months to 2 years are at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, and it was important that recommendations continue to emphasize the need for them to get vaccinated, said Campbell, a University of Maryland infectious diseases expert.
Vaccinations also are recommended for older children who have chronic lung diseases or other conditions that put them at higher risk for severe disease, the AAP said.
In a statement, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said “the AAP is undermining national immunization policymaking with baseless political attacks.”
He accused the group of putting commercial interests ahead of public health, noting that vaccine manufacturers have been donors to the AAP’s Friends of Children Fund. The fund is currently paying for projects on a range of topics, including health equity and prevention of injuries and deaths from firearms.
The 95-year-old Itasca, Illinois-based organization has issued vaccination recommendations for children since the 1930s. In 1995, it synced its advice with recommendations made by the federal government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There have been a few small differences between AAP and CDC recommendations since then. For example, the AAP has advised that children get HPV vaccinations starting at age 9; the CDC says that’s OK but has emphasized vaccinations at ages 11 and 12.
But in 30 years, this is the first time the recommendations have differed “in a significant or substantial way,” Campbell said.
Until recently, the CDC — following recommendations by infectious disease experts — has been urging annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older.
But in May, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. A few days later, the CDC issued language that healthy children may get the shots, but that there was no longer a “should” recommendation.
The idea that healthy older kids may be able to skip COVID-19 boosters has been brewing for some time among public health experts. As the COVID-19 pandemic has waned, experts have increasingly discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older — who are among those most as risk for death and hospitalization.
A CDC expert panel in June was set to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among the options the panel was considering was whether suggest shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated.
But Kennedy bypassed the group, and also decided to dismiss the 17-member panel and appoint his own, smaller panel, that included vaccine skeptics. Kennedy also later excluded the AAP, the American Medical Association and other top medical organizations from working with the advisers to establish vaccination recommendations.
Kennedy’s new vaccine panel has yet to vote on COVID-19 shot recommendations.
The panel did endorse continuing to recommend fall flu vaccinations, but also made a decision that led to another notable difference with the AAP.
The new advisory panel voted that people should only get flu vaccines that are packaged as single doses and do not contain the preservative thimerosal.
The AAP said there is no evidence of harm from the preservative, and recommended doctors use any licensed flu vaccine product that’s appropriate for the patient.
Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Jackie Chan wielding panda bear plushies at the 89th Academy Awards. Brad Pitt serving duck face at the 92nd. Anya Taylor-Joy’s otherworldly hair flip just last year. These are some of the most iconic Glambot videos shot by director Cole Walliser, who has been operating E!’s high-speed red carpet camera, a staple of awards season, since 2016.
It was a much different entertainment landscape then, before #MeToo and #AskHerMore, the latter of which Walliser says he’s inoculated from by virtue of the slo-mo clips the Glambot generates. “For better or worse, it doesn’t allow me to ask more!” he chuckles from his Venice Beach office six weeks out from this year’s Emmys, which will be Walliser’s 10th, though he admits he’s ignorant of the nominees. “I try to stay tuned out to who’s nominated and who’s coming because I don’t want to get nervous,” he tells The Envelope.
Walliser, whose résumé includes music videos for Pink, Katy Perry and Tinashe and commercials for CoverGirl cosmetics, saw early on with Glambot that celebrity culture was poised to break out beyond red carpet telecasts and tabloid magazines: “If I look forward five years, what’s the climate going to be?” he recalls thinking. “It was very clear that it was going to be more on socials. So I thought, ‘If I start now I can be [ahead] of the curve.’”
Nor is he concerned about the growing presence of influencers in the awards space, whether in the form of now-regular campaign stops like “Hot Ones” and “Chicken Shop Date” to the red carpet itself. After all, Glambot is the ultimate short-form content, coming in at one second apiece, and helped pave the way for such successors.
“Part of what people gravitate to with the Glambot is the candid [nature of it],” Walliser says. “There’s a barrier that is broken down that people seem to enjoy.”
It took him a few years to arrive at the synergy between slow-motion clips and behind-the-scenes content that gives the Glambot a second life on social media during the six months outside of the awards season churn.
“It happened organically,” Walliser says, when he asked his assistant to be prepared to take a photo of him and Chan, whom Walliser grew up watching in Vancouver, if the opportunity arose. Ultimately, “it didn’t feel right, so I didn’t ask for a picture.” But unknown to Walliser, his assistant had been surreptitiously filming footage of Walliser directing Chan. He asked her to do it a few more times with other big celebrities. “Seeing how it works in real time was kind of interesting, so I cut it together and put it [online].
“It wasn’t until the 2020 awards season that I really dialed into what the behind-the-scenes content would be,” he continues. “Then the pandemic hit, so I was at home editing my footage and putting it on socials, and that’s when it exploded.”
Now the rise of TikTok and influencers has changed celebrities’ relationship with social media and the entertainment ecosystem at large. The Glambot remains, but it jostles for red carpet real estate alongside streamers and indeed celebs themselves, revealing their looks on Instagram or filming “Get Ready With Me” videos for fashion glossies like “Vogue” and “Elle.”
Does Walliser think the Glambot will go the way of “E! News”?
“Until celebrities are doing their at-home Glambots as good as I am on the red carpet, there’s still job security!” he says with a laugh. Still, the collaboration function on Instagram has been a godsend. “There was a switch when [celebrities] started going, ‘How do I get this? I want to post it.’”
Walliser’s employer’s flagship pop culture program was canceled last month after 32 years on the air, which he calls an “entertainment tragedy.” But whether exemplified by media companies’ pivot to video, then back to print, then back to video again, or broadcasting conglomerates’ mergers and spin-offs, Walliser believes the show, or at least the service it performs, could make a comeback.
“I think at some point we’re going to revalue these information curators that we trust and love because there’s too much content to do it on our own,” he says.
In the meantime, Walliser exudes serenity as he warms up for the Emmys before the hectic triple whammy of the Golden Globes, the Grammys and the Academy Awards in the new year: “I don’t have a life until after the Oscars.”
Until then, he’ll be hoping to capture the bold-faced names who’ve so far eluded the Glambot, including Rihanna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bradley Cooper and Beyoncé. There’s always a chance — Bey’s Christmas Day NFL halftime performance is nominated for four Emmys.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States has confirmed that one of its most famous space explorers, Jim Lovell, has died at age 97.
In a statement on Friday, Transportation Secretary and NASA administrator Sean Duffy confirmed that Lovell passed away at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Lovell is perhaps most famous for his 1968 voyage on the Apollo 8 space flight, which made history as the first voyage to take human beings past the Earth’s gravitational field and around the moon.
For that flight, which took more than six days to complete, Lovell served as command module pilot, alongside astronauts Frank Borman II and William Anders. They circled the moon 10 times before returning to Earth.
Lovell was the last surviving crew member from that flight.
He also was a key figure on the doomed 1970 Apollo 13 flight, which was meant to conduct the third lunar landing.
But the flight met disaster when its oxygen tank exploded in space, endangering all on board. It was unclear whether Lovell, the most experienced astronaut on the flight, and his two colleagues, John Swigert Jr and Fred Haise Jr, would return from the voyage alive.
As mission commander, however, Lovell helped steer their lunar module back to Earth in a death-defying splashdown. It was his last space flight, and he has been praised for his calm under pressure.
“Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success,” Duffy said.
“From a pair of pioneering Gemini missions to the successes of Apollo, Jim helped our nation forge a historic path in space that carries us forward to upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.”
We are saddened by the passing of Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13 and a four-time spaceflight veteran.
Known by the nickname Smilin’ Jim, Lovell was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 25, 1928.
He began his aviation career in the 1950s as part of the US Navy, where he completed a four-year tour of duty as a test pilot in Maryland. During his naval service, he logged more than 7,000 hours of flying time.
Then, in 1962, he was selected by NASA to be an astronaut. His first space flight took place as part of the Gemini project, a series of flights designed to improve space travel in order to pave the way for the later Apollo moon missions.
At first, Lovell was a backup pilot for Gemini 4. But he got his break with the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, which was only the 12th crewed flight the US had sent to space by that point.
He was paired with Borman, his future Apollo 8 colleague, for that launch, and together, they made a rendezvous in space with Gemini 6 — a first-time feat for two crewed flights.
Lovell was also on the spacecraft for the final mission of the project, Gemini 12, which paired him with Buzz Aldrin, then a rookie.
With the Gemini missions complete, NASA turned its attention to putting a man on the moon.
Lovell and his colleagues on Apollo 8 helped make that possible, with NASA dubbing the circumnavigation “man’s maiden voyage to the moon”.
“We could actually see the Earth start to shrink,” Lovell would later tell the TV channel CSPAN. “It reminds me of being in a car, looking out the back window, going inside a tunnel and seeing the tunnel entrance shrink as you go farther into the tunnel. It was quite a sensation to think about.”
“You had to pinch yourself: Hey, we’re really going to the moon.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell is photographed inside the Apollo 13 lunar module in April 1970 [NASA via AP]
In 1969, Apollo 11 would make good on the promise of Lovell’s mission, achieving the first successful moon landing of a crewed flight. Lovell’s former colleague Aldrin joined Neil Armstrong in being the first human beings to plant a foot on the moon.
Lovell was meant to land on the moon himself. He was 42 at the time of his flight with Apollo 13, which was likewise charged with completing a lunar landing.
But two days into the 10-day mission, the crew heard an explosion. “OK, Houston,” Lovell’s colleague Swigert radioed back to Earth, coining a famous phrase. “We’ve had a problem here.”
Lovell communicated that the spacecraft was “venting something out into” space. That turned out to be oxygen leaking out of an exploded tank. Another tank remained, but it was damaged, as were the fuel cells. That, in turn, risked leaving the astronauts without electricity.
The fate of the three astronauts on board the Apollo 13 mission, including Lovell, captured international attention.
The crew ultimately transformed their lunar module into a “lifeboat” and faced dangerous levels of carbon dioxide as they looped around the moon to boomerang back to Earth.
Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell gather for a photo on the day before launch of Apollo 13 on April 10, 1970 [NASA via AP]
Lovell ultimately co-wrote a book about his experience, Lost Moon, and the American actor Tom Hanks played him in a 1995 film adaptation, called Apollo 13.
Lovell himself made a cameo appearance opposite Hanks.
During his final days, Lovell met with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, who wrote about the meeting on social media.
“Yesterday, I was honored to meet one of my personal heroes, Navy Veteran and astronaut Jim Lovell,” Collins said. “Jim’s remarkable leadership during the historic Apollo 13 mission is an inspiration to all!”
Upon learning of Lovell’s death, Collins joined in the outpouring of condolences: “Astronaut and Navy Veteran Jim Lovell was a legend, plain and simple.”
A 14-YEAR-OLD snooker player secured the first win of his professional career on day one of the Saudi Arabia Masters.
And at the other end of the age scale, Ken Doherty won the Battle of the Baize Oldies as he eliminated Jimmy White from the Jeddah tournament.
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Michal Szubarczyk has secured the first win of his professional snooker careerCredit: Instagram @szubisnooker
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Ken Doherty won the battle of the veterans as he knocked out Jimmy WhiteCredit: Getty
Polish teenager Michal Szubarczyk hit back-to-back breaks of 68 and 56 as he celebrated a 4-2 victory over English amateur Ryan Davies.
It is a career milestone, one he will remember forever, given he only received his two-year Tour Card at the start of this season.
In round two in the desert nation, Szubarczyk will play Hungarian world No.79 Bulcsu Revesz on Saturday.
And the winner of that clash will then take on Essex cueist Stuart Bingham, who was champion of the world 10 years ago.
The Eastern European – whose highest official break is 126 – took the 2025 European Championships in Turkey by storm, winning the under-16s and under-18s events before reaching the final of the open-age event.
Mark Williams, the three-time world champion, watched that tournament live and said Szubarczyk was “one of the best 14-year-olds I’ve ever seen in my life”.
The Welsh sporting legend added: “He’s up there with Ronnie O’Sullivan at that age.
“Maybe not as good, but not far away. Every time I watched him he was knocking in 80s, 90s, 100s. It was frightening.”
In April, dad Kamil told SunSport that his son modelled his game on seven-time world champion O’Sullivan.
Kamil said: “One of Michal’s special skills is his ability to play with the audience and the cameras.
Snooker fans baffled as star who’s not won a match all year knocks in staggering 147 break
“Normal teenagers are tense and stressed. He is more motivated.
“He loves playing when he has an audience, and so I know that anything can happen during this tournament.
“From the first time Michał saw snooker on TV, his hero was Ronnie. It was also my idol. This hasn’t been changed.
“And for both of us whenever Ronnie got knocked out of a tournament, we stopped watching it.
“That man played a key role in creating Michal’s playing style. Mike was fascinated by how offensive Ronnie played all of his games. But he wants to be more than just offensive.
“Ronnie is still motivating Michal to be better and better.”
On Friday evening in the Kingdom, two veterans of the sport took to the baize, though disappointingly only a few people bothered to watch from the stands at the Green Halls.
Former world champion Doherty, 55, took on White, 63, and he prevailed 4-1, hitting a 96 break in frame two.
They had rekindled a rivalry that began in 1991 and saw them battle it out at the World Championships and Masters.
The duo, who have a combined age of 118, are nowhere near their best these days but it is commendable and shows their genuine love for the sport that they are continuing to play professionally.
Doherty, who now plays Latvian Zizins Artemijs in round two on Saturday evening, has now won 17 of their 30 meetings.
Elite players such as Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson will enter the competition – which has a £500,000 top prize – in round five on Tuesday.
List of all-time Snooker World Champions
BELOW is a list of snooker World Champions by year.
The record is for the modern era, widely considered as dating from the 1968-69 season, when the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) took control of the sport.
The first World Championships ran from 1927 – with a break from 1941-45 because of World War II and 1958-63 because of a dispute in the sport.
Joe Davis (15), Fred Davis and John Pulman (both 8) were the most successful players during that period.
State Pension (including Graduated Retirement Benefit)
Severe Disablement Allowance (transitionally protected)
Unemployability Supplement or Allowance (paid under Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes)
War Disablement Pension at State Pension age
War Widow’s Pension
Widowed Mother’s Allowance
Widowed Parent’s Allowance
Widow’s Pension
If you’re part of a married couple, in a civil partnership or live together, you’ll both get the cash bonus – as long as you both are eligible.
If you or your partner do not get one of the above qualifying benefits, then they could still get the bonus if they are over the state pension age by the end of the qualifying week.
Winter Fuel payment
The Winter Fuel Payment is made every year to help cover the cost of energy over the colder months.
It has been changed in recent months so that fewer can claim.
However, the cash boost, worth up to £300, is still valuable for those who quality – particularly those on Pension Credit.
The cash is usually paid in November and December, with some made up until the end of January the following year.
If you haven’t got your payment by then, you need to call the office that pays your benefits.
Households eligible for the payment are usually told via a letter sent in October or November each year.
If you think you meet the criteria, but don’t automatically get the winter fuel payment, you will have to apply on the government’s website.
The Child Winter Heating Assistance
If you’re based in Scotland, you could receive a child winter heating assistance payment of £255.80.
You get child winter heating payment for a child or young person under 19 who lives in Scotland and who is entitled to:
the highest rate of the care component of child disability payment (CDP) or disability living allowance (DLA), or
the enhanced rate of the daily living component of adult disability payment (ADP) or personal independence payment (PIP).
They must be entitled to the relevant disability benefit during the ‘qualifying week’, which is the week beginning on the third Monday in September (w/c Septmber 15 in 2025).
You do not have to make a claim for the payment, but it should be paid by Social Security Scotland, usually in November.
If you think you’re entitled but have not received payment by the end of December, you should contact Social Security Scotland on 0800 182 2222.
Warm Home Discount
The Warm Home Discount is an automatic £150 discount off energy bills.
As the money is a discount, there is no money paid to you, but you’ll get the payment automatically if your electricity supplier is part of the scheme and you qualify.
You’ll have to be in receipt of one of the following benefits to qualify for one of the payments:
If you don’t claim any of the above benefits, you won’t be eligible for the payment.
Cold Weather payment
Cold weather payments are dished out when temperatures are recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees or below, on average, for seven consecutive days between November 1 and March 31.
Eligible Brits are then given extra money to help heat their homes.
You get £25 for each seven-day period where the weather is below zero Celsius on average during this time frame.
You can check if your area has had a cold weather payment by popping your postcode into the government’s tool on its website.
You’ll need to be on certain benefits to qualify, which are:
Student maintenance loans are paid to university students to help cover living costs such as rent.
They are usually paid at the start of each new term, so you typically receive three payments a year.
Maintenance Loans are paid straight into your student bank account in three (almost) equal instalments throughout the year.
The amount you will receive depends on where in the UK you’re from, whether you’ll be living at home or not, your household income and how long you’re studying for.
The average Maintenance Loan is approximately £6,116 a year.
Are you missing out on benefits?
YOU can use a benefits calculator to help check that you are not missing out on money you are entitled to
Entitledto’s free calculator determines whether you qualify for various benefits, tax credit and Universal Credit.
MoneySavingExpert.com and charity StepChange both have benefits tools powered by Entitledto’s data.
You can use Policy in Practice’s calculator to determine which benefits you could receive and how much cash you’ll have left over each month after paying for housing costs.
Your exact entitlement will only be clear when you make a claim, but calculators can indicate what you might be eligible for.
CAMDEN, N.J. — Dwight Muhammad Qawi, the Hall of Fame fighter who took up boxing in prison and became a two-weight world champion, has died. He was 72.
Qawi’s sister, Wanda King, said he died Friday following a five-year battle with dementia.
Born Dwight Braxton in Baltimore, Qawi grew up in Camden, N.J. He competed in the boxing program at Rahway State Prison while serving a sentence for armed robbery, and turned professional at age 25 soon after his release in 1978.
In December 1981, Qawi — who legally changed his name in 1982 following his conversion to Islam — stopped Matthew Saad Muhammad in the 10th round to win the WBC light heavyweight belt. Qawi stopped Saad again eight months later, in six rounds.
After a loss to Michael Spinks, the 5-foot-7 Qawi — called “The Camden Buzzsaw” — moved up in weight and took the WBA cruiserweight title from Piet Crous in July 1985. Qawi lost the title to future heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield in a 15-rounder in July 1986.
Qawi later fought as a heavyweight, with George Foreman stopping him in seven rounds.
Qawi retired in 1998 at age 46 with a 41-11-1 record and 25 knockouts. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
After his retirement from the ring, he worked as a boxing trainer, youth advocate and drug and alcohol counselor.
Late in Italian writer-director Giovanni Tortorici’s pop-up book of a coming-of-age movie “Diciannove (Nineteen),” there’s a great scene in which his arrogant, neurotic protagonist, Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), a student of classical Italian literature in Siena, is visiting a cousin (Zackari Delmas) attending university in Milan. As the two commiserate over crazy adventures, the chatter turns to disagreements and griping (culture, language, kids today, drugs aren’t fun anymore) and suddenly they sound like middle-aged men bemoaning why anything ever had to change.
The cusp of 20 is a laughably unformed time to be convinced of anything, but what Tortorici’s higgledy-piggledy debut feature makes breathlessly clear is that when you’re in the middle of it, youth is a candy-colored tornado of temptations and responsibilities. You’re the star of your own solipsistic, hallucinatory epic, even if what you imagine for yourself might be a straightforward affair with a clear-cut message about the meaning of life.
“Diciannove” hums with the dissonance of repression plus expression in Leonardo’s consequential 19th year. If you notice a similarity to the playful moods and textures of Tortorici’s countryman Luca Guadagnino, there’s a reason: The “Call Me by Your Name” filmmaker produced his protégé Tortorici’s autobiographical debut feature and a lineage of tenderness and vivacity in evoking the emotional waves of adolescence is more than evident.
We meet Leonardo as a nosebleed-suffering, dreamy-eyed Palermo teen with a haranguing mom. He’s headed to business school in London, where his older sister Arianna (Vittoria Planeta) also lives. But once there, after a round of hard-partying with her friends and the sense that he’s replaced one hypercritical family member for another, he makes a last-minute decision to change the course of his educational life and enroll as a literature student back in Italy.
Cut to picturesque Siena and cue the baroque score. In this ancient Tuscan city, Leonardo is awakened by his writerly ambitions, a swoony love for medieval Italian authors like Dante and an intellectual disdain for the 20th century. But it also turns him into a lonely, rigidly neoclassicist oddball who scorns his professors, prefers books to his flighty peers and still can’t seem to take care of himself. Sealing himself off in a stuffy, antiquated notion of personal morality only makes the trappings of real life (desire, depression, cleanliness, online enticements) harder to deal with, leading his journey of self-discovery to some internally and externally messy places.
And some messy filmmaking too, even if that’s the point of this elegantly shapeless headspace travelogue. With unapologetic brio, Tortorici, cinematographer Massimiliano Kuveiller and editor Marco Costa empty out their tool kit of angles, splits, tracks, smudges, zooms, smashes, jumps, needle drops, montages and text cards. Though never disorienting or obnoxious (à la “Euphoria”), it can get tiring: a restlessness of spirit and technique that occasionally separates us from this lost antihero when we crave a closer connection to him. Especially since first-time actor Marini is stellar casting. There’s an easygoing inscrutability to his demeanor and his sad, mischievous eyes compel our curiosity — he’ll never let you think you’ve watched a thousand coming-of-age movies.
Tortorici doesn’t give his searcher a tidy ending. There’s a hilarious psychoanalysis by a wealthy aesthete (Sergio Benvenuto) who sees right through his posturing. But the night air beckons. As Leonardo walks away from us at the end after serving up a rascally smile (in a very “400 Blows”-ish freeze frame), Tortorici has him stumble briefly on the cobblestones, and somehow it feels like the wit of “Diciannove” in a split second of screen time: Youth means missteps, so why dwell on them?
‘Diciannove’
In Italian, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, July 25 at Laemmle Monica, Laemmle Glendale
Coronation Street’s Audrey Roberts, played by Sue Nicholls, recently celebrated a birthday on the soap and fans have been left shocked after realising the actress’ real age
Coronation Street viewers have been left stunned after discovering the actual age of Sue Nicholls, who portrays beloved character Audrey Roberts.
Audrey first appeared on the cobbles back in 1979 as Gail Platt’s mum (Helen Worth), and has since become an absolute favourite amongst fans, featuring in numerous major storylines.
Throughout the decades, audiences have experienced both heartache and happiness alongside Audrey, witnessing her wedding to Alf Roberts (Bryan Mosley) in 1985 and mourning his devastating passing in 1999.
Fans have also watched Audrey evolve into a great-grandmother to characters such as Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon), whilst seeing her collaborate with grandson David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) at Audrey’s hair salon.
Sue has played Audrey for decades(Image: ITV)
More recently, she was left heartbroken when daughter Gail departed the cobbles last year following 25 years on the street, embarking on a fresh chapter in France with husband Jesse Chadwick (John Thompson), reports Leicestershire Live.
During this week’s episodes, Audrey marked her 85th birthday with a special meal at The Bistro, surrounded by her family including grandchildren Sarah (Tina O’Brien) and David.
Yet fans have been absolutely flabbergasted upon learning actress Sue’s true age.
The character recently celebrated a big birthday(Image: ITV)
On a Corrie Facebook fan page, discussing character Audrey’s recent birthday festivities, one person posted: “Aw, happy 85th birthday Audrey!”.
Another fan responded: “She looks good for her age, Sue who plays her is 81 in real life.” A third viewer exclaimed: “No way!”. Meanwhile, a fourth admiring fan declared: “She’s barely aged.”
Fans have shared their shock at Sue’s real age
Before her time on Corrie, Sue had a hidden singing career and landed her first soap role in the legendary Crossroads.
In 1968, she released a track titled ‘Where Will You Be?’, which climbed to number 17 in the UK Music Charts, and it’s said that she also performed in a cabaret club in Vienna during her younger years.
She became a familiar face on our telly, featuring in ‘The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin’ alongside Leonard Rossiter from 1976-1979, and as Nadia Popov in ‘Rentaghost’ from 1981-1984.
Coronation Street airs Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX
This Morning’s Cat Deeley was left lost for words when she found out that she is in fact 15 years younger
This Morning’s Cat Deeley was left speechless as she discovered her biological age after confessing to bad sleeping habits.
During Thursday’s (July 17) episode of the ITV hit chat show, Cat, 48, and co-host Ben Shephard, 50, made a return to our screens as they presented the day’s top stories.
However it was one segment that took the pair by surprise as they took a medical test to discover what their biological age is.
Joined by longevity and biohacking expert, Dr. Alka Patel Cat asked: “Tell us, what is biohacking?” Dr Alka explained: “Biohacking is all about taking control of your health. If you split the word up, what you’re taking control of is your biology and the hacking is getting into your control centre, to really understand how you’re made.”
This Morning’s Cat Deeley was left speechless after making a discovery (Image: ITV)
Keen to find out more, Cat further asked: “So what’s the difference between your biological age and the other age.”
Dr Alka revealed: “This is super important to know is that getting older and ages are two different things and most people don’t think of it like that. Your biological age is based on the level of your cells.”
Eager to find out how old they really are, Dr Alka, 53, went first and revealed that her biological age is 20. A shocked Ben replied: “What!” as Cat jumped in: “How did you do that?”
Dr Alka admitted: “I’ve been testing for a number of years and over the years that biological age hasn’t shifted.”
Cat, 48, was left lost for words when she found out that she is in fact 15 years younger(Image: ITV)
Turning attention to Ben, he went on to say: “My chronological age, not sure I’ve told you this but I’m 50, so we’re going to find out my biological age.”
The TV star, who prides himself on living a healthy lifestyle and regularly exercises, was left unimpressed as he discovered his biological age was only 46-years old.
Turning to the camera, he shouted: “46, is that it? I’m quite surprised about that because I think I look after myself, I get a decent amount of sleep, train really hard and I feel fit and healthier than I ever have in my life. I’m really fascinated that it’s only four years younger.”
Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard presented Thursday’s show together (Image: ITV)
Moving on to Cat, she admitted that taking the test was a ‘nightmare’ as she had to take the test twice. It was clear that Cat was expecting to also have a high age as she revealed: “I’m a terrible sleeper but I am healthy.”
Cat, 48, was left lost for words when she found out that she is in fact 15 years younger, with a result of 33-years-old.
A stunned Cat replied: “I could cry” as Ben jumped in and joked: “33! I want a recount.” Cat added: “I don’t know how I’ve done it because I certainly don’t sleep, which I know is one of the most important factors.”
This Morning continues on ITV1 from 10am every weekday and is available to stream back on ITVX.
Former President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari died Sunday at the age of 82. File Photo by Felipe Trueba/EPA-EFE
July 14 (UPI) —Muhammadu Buhari, the former president of Nigeria who led the country as both a military ruler after a coup and later as the elected president, has died at the age of 82, his family said.
Buhari died Sunday afternoon at a London medical clinic, his family said in a statement through the former president’s press secretary, Garba Shehu.
“Muhammadu Buhari was the rarest of individuals to grace political life anywhere in the world: an incorruptible servant of the people,” Shehu said in a separate statement. “He was not motivated by pride or by riches — the accumulation of which repelled him. He was drawn to public service, discipline and patriotism and the unity of Nigeria as a one nation and one idea.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was elected in 2023, succeeding Buhari, described the former president as being “a patriot, a soldier, a statesman” to his very core.
“He stood firm through the most turbulent times, leading with quiet strength, profound integrity and an unshakable belief in Nigeria’s potential,” Tinubu said in a statement.
“He championed discipline in public service, confronted corruption head-on and placed the country above personal interest at every turn.”
Tinubu has directed all national flags to fly at half-staff throughout the nation for seven days. The government will provide him with full state honors, “befitting his towering contributions to our country.”
Buhari first rose to the helm of Africa’s most populous nation following the military coup of December 1983. He served as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces until August 1985, according to his official biography.
He then entered politics in 2003, after the country returned to democracy in 1999. That year, he lost the presidential election to Olusegun Obasanjo. Buhari then lost in two more presidential elections, one in 2007 and the second in 2011, before finally being elected president in 2015.
He was re-elected in 2019 and was prevented from running a third contest due to Nigeria’s two-term limit.
The U.S. Mission to Nigeria offered its “deepest condolences” in a statement to the people of Nigeria on the passing of Buhari, whom it called “a leader whose life was defined by service, discipline and a commitment to restore integrity to public office.”
“His legacy includes his efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s democratic institutions,” it said. “Our thoughts are with his family, loved ones and all Nigerians who mourn this loss.”
Julian McMahon
Australian actor Julian McMahon, a cast member in “Premonition,” arrives for the premiere of the film at the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles on March 12, 2007. The actor, known for roles in “Nip/Tuck,” “Fantastic Four” and “FBI: Most Wanted” died at the age of 56 of cancer on July 4th.
Djokovic’s fitness has been and will always be extraordinary.
He is aiming to become the oldest Grand Slam singles champion in the Open era. Ken Rosewall was 37 when he won the last of his eight major titles, while the now-retired Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were 36 when they last triumphed.
Djokovic has reached the semi-finals of all three Grand Slams this year. He has beaten players above him in the rankings, players who supposedly have the advantage of youth over him. And he looked superb at times during his Wimbledon run: the serve firing, the feet gliding into the corners.
But he has to contend with Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who will leave here having carved up the past sevenGrand Slams between them, and will inevitably recover quicker than Djokovic.
“It’s tough for me to accept because I feel like when I’m fit, I can still play really good tennis. I’ve proven that this year,” Djokovic said.
“Playing best-of-five, particularly this year, has been a real struggle for me physically. The longer the tournament goes, the worse the condition gets.
“I have to play Sinner or Alcaraz. These guys are fit, young, sharp. I feel like I’m going into the match with the tank half-empty.
“It’s just not possible to win a match like that.”
Djokovic considered withdrawing but did not – and at 3-0 up on Sinner in the third set, with a point for a double break, he would have felt vindicated.
But Sinner increased his intensity, putting more power behind his shots, and Djokovic won just one more game from then on.
The juxtaposition at the weekend was apt: one big, ugly bill in Washington and one big, garish wedding in Venice.
This is what days of Senate debate over President Trump and Republicans’ nearly 1,000-page legislation had in common with the days of revelry at the $50-million nuptials of the world’s-third-richest-man, Jeff Bezos, and ever-couture-corseted Lauren Sánchez: an exhibit of excess for a new Gilded Age, encapsulating the gulf between the have-nots and the have-yachts. (Venice’s “yacht ports” were reportedly all booked for the wedding, though not by Bezos’ own 417-foot-long “Koru.”)
The president was invited, natch, but he was a no-show. Consider his legislation his gift to the happy couple. Sánchez and Bezos have much to love in Trump’s absurdly titled “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” making its way through the Republican-run Congress. But Bezos’ Amazon employees and many of his cut-rate-shopping customers? Not so much.
This may be the most inequitable and overtly reverse-Robin Hood budget behemoth ever. It would make permanent and expand upon the deep Trump tax cuts of 2017 that disproportionately benefited the rich. The multitrillion-dollar cost would be offset by about $1 trillion in healthcare cuts, mostly to the Medicaid program that serves more than 70 million people. Other cuts would end clean-energy projects (costing jobs and ceding the alternative-energy future to China) and slash nutrition programs for the needy. Meanwhile, spending would increase roughly 15-fold for immigration enforcement, paying for purposely cruel detention centers such as Trump’s new “Alligator Alcatraz.”
This monstrosity would exacerbate what is already record income inequality in the United States. It would reverse the past decade’s decline, under Obamacare, in the number of Americans without health insurance, causing about 17 million people to lose coverage, according to the health-policy nonprofit KFF. More rural hospitals, reliant on Medicaid, would close. Forget the “minutiae of Medicaid policy,” tweeted Vice President JD Vance, supposed elegist of hillbillies and other downtrodden Americans — it’s the extra immigration crackdown cash that counts.
Healthcare threats loom even as two research papers recently reported that Obamacare and its Medicaid expansion have saved the lives of many low-income adults. One study last month found that the proposed cuts could increase preventable deaths by nearly 17,000 annually. The other, in May, concluded that as much as 20% of the well-documented disparity in the lifespans of low- and high-income Americans, with the latter living longer, is attributable to the lack of health insurance among those with lower incomes.
In other words, the supposed One Big Beautiful Bill Act would be a killer.
That, of course, would be the worst of it. But other descriptors are so damning that only Trump’s death grip on fellow Republicans can explain why they’d vote for this politically suicidal package. With polls this bad, the 2026 midterm elections can’t come soon enough to eject Republicans’ rubberstamping majority in Congress and check Trump’s madness.
“The largest upward transfer of wealth in American history,” said the Atlantic of the bill’s particulars. “The biggest cut to programs for low-income Americans ever,” according to budget guru Bobby Kogan at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “The most expensive piece of legislation probably since the 1960s,” said analyst Jessica Riedl of the conservative Manhattan Institute, “… piling trillions of new borrowing on top of deficits that are already leaping.”
That pile-up couldn’t happen at a worse time.
For decades, budget experts have warned of a coming fiscal tsunami by the 2020s that would swamp the economy as retiring boomers drew from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while federal revenues were drained by tax cuts. Yet Republican presidents and Congresses kept cutting taxes and, in league with Democrats, failed to make necessary and relatively painless adjustments to the so-called entitlement benefit programs.
And now here we are, knifing Medicaid not to make it and the overall budget more fiscally sound, but to offset the cost of more tax cuts favoring the wealthy, driving up debt.
Trump, plainly peeved at talk that he’ll break his first-term record of the most debt in a presidential term ($8.4 trillion), on Wednesday whined in a post, “Nobody wants to talk about GROWTH.”
Americans are on to this fiction that tax cuts pay for themselves. Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump 1.0 all slashed tax rates disproportionately for the rich and corporations, claiming that economic growth would help reduce deficits. They were wrong. For Trump to do it again and expect a different result, is, as the saying goes, the definition of insanity. The only recent Republican president who helped reduce deficits was George H.W. Bush because he raised taxes as part of a balanced, bipartisan package of spending cuts and tax increases — shared sacrifice, something Trump knows nothing about.
Just as the Senate was ending its vote to pass Trump’s bill on Tuesday, sending it back to the House, Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, was heard shouting to Republican senators as he exited, “Shame on you guys.”
Doesn’t he know by now that Trump and his party minions have no shame?
In Venice, Bezos the billionaire groom came in for some razzing too. A huge banner carpeted the famed Piazza San Marco before his three-day bacchanalia: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.”
Bezos could, but he won’t. We’ve gone beyond trickle-down tax politics. It’s bottoms up for Bezos, other billionaires and all the mere millionaires. We’ll all suffer the hangover, however, and none more than the most needy among us.
Mums and dads hope the financial scales will tip in their favour and they’ll no longer have to cover their child’s costs by the time they turn 30, according to a new study by digital wealth manager Moneyfarm
When it too old for parents to be paying the way for their kids?(Image: Getty Images)
Adults should stop taking their kids on holiday at 30, at least if the results of a survey are anything to go by.
After a decade of carefully planning mealtimes, noting nappy-change facility locations, forking out summer holiday rates for a resort with a kids’ club, and then another decade of ensuring teenage children don’t gain illicit access to an all-you-can-drink wristband, parents may be forgiven for deciding to go on holiday without children.
However, a significant chunk don’t. A 2023 study found that two-fifths of adults (42%) were planning holidays that year with their parents, as rising living costs squeeze families’ travel budgets. And the Starling Bank poll revealed that more than a quarter—27%—of parents who are going away with their grown-up children said they are paying for some or all of their travel expenses to help them out during the cost-of-living crisis.
Not everyone considers the set-up to be ideal. Mums and dads hope the financial scales will tip in their favour and they’ll no longer have to cover their child’s costs by the time they turn 30, according to a new study by digital wealth manager Moneyfarm.
Arguably these children won’t be able to fork out for their own holidays(Image: Getty Images)
When their child reaches 33, a majority of parents would love for their offspring to take them on a staycation or minibreak, while they aspire to be taken on a foreign holiday by the time their child reaches 36 years old.
This may be a pipe dream for most. Seven in ten (69 percent) say they still regularly buy and pay for things like clothes, holidays and even bills for their adult children, doling out an average of £324 a month.
While 79 percent say they always buy their children a birthday and Christmas present, 17 percent only receive gifts back occasionally, while one in ten (13 percent) never get one in return.
As a result, four in ten (41 percent) admit that they get annoyed about having to pay out so much for their adult kids.
Chris Rudden, head of investment consultants at digital wealth manager, Moneyfarm, said, “It is evident that many parents are quietly hoping for a financial tipping point, where the years of giving gradually give way, from the age of 30, to moments of receiving.
“While it is clear that most parents are happy to continue financially helping their children well into adulthood, there is clearly a growing desire to see that support reciprocated in meaningful ways. From small acts like an invite to dinner or a home-cooked meal to bigger gestures, if they can be afforded, these milestones reflect a shift in how families view financial inter-dependence.
“These financial milestones represent more than transactions, they are about finding joy and satisfaction in your children thriving enough to be able to give back.”
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Audrey Roberts [Played by SUE NICHOLLS]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/1753431174_594_Coronation-Street-Sue-Nicholls-real-age-leaves-fans-floored-after.jpg)
