aged

Harimoto, whose record 3,085 career hits still stands, was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.

Japanese baseball legend Isao Harimoto, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and became the first player from his country to reach 3,000 hits, has died aged 86, reports said.

Born to Korean parents in Japan, Harimoto learned to play left-handed when an accident at the age of four left him with severe burns and limited mobility in his right hand.

He survived the atomic bombing as a five-year-old, his mother jumping in front of him and his sister to shield them from the blast.

He went on to rack up 3,085 career hits, which still stand as a record in Nippon Professional Baseball.

He played for several teams in Japan, including the all-powerful Yomiuri Giants, and earned himself the nickname “Hit Machine” for his batting prowess.

He retired in 1981 after 23 professional seasons and worked as a TV commentator.

Harimoto was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.

Graeme Souness is one of ten celebrity contestants on Gary Lineker’s new ITV game show The Box

Graeme Souness is appearing in new ITV show The Box on Saturday night.

The Scottish former professional football player, manager and television pundit, 73, is one of ten celebrity contestants on Gary Lineker’s new game show. Also joining the line-up are Danny Aarons, Ellie Taylor, Joey Essex, JB Gill, Jenny Ryan, John Bercow, Ranvir Singh, Sara Davies and Shakira Khan on the new ITV show.

It comes as The Box crew were forced to fly a drone to find a ‘missing’ star during filming and The Chase’s Jenny, 44, admitted she felt ‘guilty’ over brutal decisions in the new ITV show.

Away from the ITV show, Graeme has spoken candidly about his health over the years after he was diagnosed with a heart condition aged just 38, which left him asking ‘how can this happen to me’.

Graeme shared his experience with the British Heart Foundation (BHF), revealing what life was like following his diagnosis and treatment for heart disease as a young, physically fit man.

While managing Liverpool in 1991, the Scot was struggling to sleep and experiencing chest pains in bed. With a family history of heart disease, alarm bells were ringing. He underwent an electrocardiogram (ECG) – a straightforward test used to assess the heart’s rhythm and electrical activity.

Following the results, he was referred for an angiogram, a specialised X-ray procedure used to examine blood vessels. Despite displaying no obvious symptoms, Graeme was diagnosed with three blocked arteries and coronary heart disease. Just five days later, he was facing open heart surgery.

Speaking on the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) podcast, the Ticker Tapes in 2021, he said at the time: “At the time I was training like the professional football players and was only 38-years-old. I kept thinking ‘how can this happen to me?’

“I looked after myself in terms what I ate and drank and had trained from the age of 15 – I trained as vigorously as a professional athlete. I didn’t carry any weight, I never had done. How had this happened to me?

“I didn’t have the obvious symptoms that there was something badly wrong with my heart so I’m so glad I got checked when I did. It’s because of this that I’m here 30 years later.

“If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. At that time I was a very fit, young man. If you’re concerned about your family history, go and get checked. You must get yourself checked.”

In 2015, Graeme suffered a heart attack and has since become a British Heart Foundation (BHF) ambassador, throwing himself into numerous campaigns and events, as well as making visits to BHF research laboratories.

Graeme said of the terrifying health scare: “My heart attack was very scary but I’m still here, able to talk about it thank goodness. Fortunately, it hasn’t caused me any lasting problem.

“It’s so important to go to your doctor and get yourself diagnosed if you’re at all concerned. You owe it to yourself and those close to you – your wife, your children and your grandchildren. They want you around as long as possible.”

The Box launches on Saturday 5th September, with Episode 2 airing on Sunday 6th September, on ITV1, ITVX, STV & STV Player.

 GRAMMY-WINNING 90s singer Cassandra Wilson has died aged 70.

The jazz singer died surrounded by family and friends on Wednesday.

The award-winning jazz vocalist from Jackson, Mississippi, worked with the Roots and co-founded the M-Base Collective.

Her manager of 20 years Robert Torre told WBGO: “It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning and legendary jazz artist.

“Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager.”

Cassandra blended blues, country and folk music into her work.

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The singer was nominated for four Grammys, and won two in the Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Cassandra won for her 1997 album New Moon Daughter and for her 2007 album Loverly.

She was described by critic Gary Giddins as “a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack who has expanded the playing field”.

Cassandra was named as a Jazz Master in 2022 by the National Endowment of the Arts.

Tributes flooded in for the star, with fellow NEA Jazz Master Dorthaan Kirk saying she is “devastated” by the loss.

She said they were like family and Cassandra called her “Mother Kirk”.

Dorthaan said: “I’m just devastated. Cassandra completely related to me because she looked up to me as an elder and somebody that was in the business.”

Cassandra took up piano at six, guitar at 12 and launched her career as a vocalist in the 70s, moving to the Big Apple the next decade where she became one of the founding members of the M-Base Collective.

She later signed with Blue Note Records in 1992 and released her seminal album titled Blue Light ‘Till Dawn.

The singer collaborated on albums with Coleman, Greg Osby, and Wynton Marsalis.

Cassandra sang as the character Leona in Marsalis’ recording of his Blood on the Fields oratorio, which became the first jazz composition to win a Pulitzer Prize.

She was a guest vocalist on the Roots’ Silent Treatment and One Shine.

And star collaborators on her own work included Elvis Costello, John Legend, Jon Batiste and Ravi Coltrane.

She told The New York Times in 1994: “I continue to choose the path I take musically,

“And it’s not motivated by becoming famous or having a lot money, or any other pop motivation.”

Aug. 28 (UPI) — King Harald V of Norway died early Friday in an Oslo hospital where he was undergoing treatment for a rare blood disorder. He was 89 years old.

He passed peacefully at 6:35 a.m. local time, according to the Royal Palace, which said the royal flag was flying at half mast on the palace roof.

Family were called to his bedside after his condition worsened on Thursday at the national hospital, 10 days after he was admitted suffering from complications from haemolytic anaemia, a rare blood condition that depletes the number of red blood cells, causing fatigue and shortness of breath.

Harald leaves behind his wife Queen Sonja, also 89, the new king, Haakon, their daughter Princess Märtha Louise and six grandchildren.

King Haakon, 53, was due to hold an extraordinary council of state with the government later on Friday.

Harald’s cousin, King Charles, was among the first to pay their respects in a message in which he also wished Haakon, to whom he is godfather, “success and good fortune” as he assumes the monarchy.

In a statement on X, Charles and Queen Camilla said they were profoundly sad to hear his “dear cousin,” had died, extending their “deepest and most heartfelt condolences” to Queen Sonja and all her family, and saying Britain shared Norway’s grief at what he said was a time of “such heartbreaking loss.”

He said Britain and Norway shared a particularly close relationship dating back more than 120 years, with London one of the first capitals to recognize it following independence from Sweden in 1905 and that the allies’ bond was further strengthened by their shared “dreadful trials” during World War II.

Born in 1937, Harald’s mother brought him and his siblings to Sweden when the Nazis occupied Norway in 1940 and when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered them refuge, moved to Washington for the remainder of the war, returning to Norway in 1945.

After becoming crown prince at the age of 20, Harald served in the military and went up to Oxford University in 1962 where he studied studied social science, history and economics at Balliol College.

He broke with royal tradition in the face of the opposition of his father, King Olav V, by marrying the then-Sonja Haraldsen, the daughter of a businessman, in 1968, instead of a scion of one the European royal families.

Harald stepped up as regent in 1990 after Olav became ill and ascended the throne in 1991 after his father died on Jan. 17 of that year.

DOWNTON Abbey and Harry Potter star Dame Maggie Smith left a £16million fortune to her two actor sons, probate records published nearly two years after her death reveal.

The double Oscar winner, who died at a London hospital in September 2024 at the age of 89, left a net estate valued at £15,977,325.

Her will divides the bulk of that fortune equally between her sons Christopher Stephens, who works under the stage name Chris Larkin, and Toby Stephens.

She also left her West Sussex farmhouse, Douglas Lake Farm at Fittleworth, to a family trust she had set up with the two brothers in 2019.

The five-bedroom house, where she raised her sons and lived for more than 40 years, sits on a secluded plot with barns, a stable and a vineyard.

Born Margaret Natalie Smith in Ilford, Essex, in 1934, she was brought up in Oxford and made her stage debut at the Oxford Playhouse aged 17.

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She won her first Oscar in 1970 for playing the teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and a second in 1979 for California Suite.

She was made a Dame in 1990 and her other films included A Room with a View, Sister Act, Gosford Park and The Lady in the Van.

A generation of children knew her as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, a role she played across a decade from 2001 to 2011.

Her role as the acid-tongued Violet Crawley in six series of ITV’s Downton Abbey from 2010 won her three Emmy awards and a fresh television audience around the world.

In all she won two Oscars, seven Baftas, four Emmys, three Golden Globes and a Tony award, and was appointed a Companion of Honour by the late Queen in 2014.

King Charles and Queen Camilla also paid tribute, saying: “As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit that shone through both off and on the stage.”

Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe, said: “I will always consider myself amazingly lucky to have been able to work with her, and to spend time around her on set. The word legend is overused but if it applies to anyone in our industry then it applies to her. Thank you Maggie.”

Hugh Bonneville, who played her son in Downton Abbey, said: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent.

“She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances.”

Her sons announced her death in a statement issued through her publicist, in which they thanked hospital staff for their care during her final days.

They said: “An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

She married the actor Robert Stephens in 1967, the father of her two sons, and after their divorce married the playwright Beverley Cross in the mid-1970s.

Mr Cross wrote the musical Half a Sixpence and the screenplays for the fantasy adventure films Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.

Her will directs that any copyright, royalties and unpublished works she inherited from him after his death in 1998 should be shared out separately.

The proceeds are split equally between his daughter Philippa Maughan, his son Shaun Cross and her own two sons.

She signed the will in September 1996, when Mr Cross was still alive and named as her main beneficiary, but he died 18 months later.

The full value of everything she owned came to £16,003,613, with debts and expenses of just over £26,000 taken off to reach the final figure.

Speaking in a magazine interview in 2019, she was dismissive of the two roles that had made her famous to a new generation of viewers.

She said: “It wasn’t what you’d call satisfying. I didn’t really feel I was acting.”

She added that she was grateful for both jobs, which between them introduced her to millions of filmgoers who had never seen her on stage.

Dame Maggie once summed her life up by saying: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.”

Celebrated artist Sliman Mansour, one of the founding figures of contemporary Palestinian art, has died at the age of 79 after a long illness, his family announced on Monday.

Born in Birzeit, near Ramallah, in 1947, Mansour rose to prominence in the 1970s as part of a generation of Palestinian artists, writers and poets seeking to rebuild a threatened identity through symbols rooted in land and memory. Over more than five decades, his paintings came to embody the story of Palestine: the farmer clinging to his soil, the stone house on a hill, the embroidered thobe and the smile of a young girl carrying the hope of return.

Mansour studied art in Beirut and Washington and went on to exhibit extensively, both in solo shows and group exhibitions across the Arab world and internationally. His works are held in museums and private collections worldwide, and he received numerous awards in recognition of his contribution to Arab and Palestinian culture.

His visual language drew deeply from the region’s ancient civilisations – Canaanite, Pharaonic and Assyrian – as well as Islamic and Arab art, particularly calligraphy and geometric motifs. At the same time, his upbringing in Birzeit anchored his work in the everyday life of Palestinian villages: the landscape, peasants, traditional homes and clothing. Mansour also absorbed influences from global art that carried messages of freedom and resistance, blending local forms with a universal appeal.

During the first Intifada, he helped found the New Vision group with fellow artists, turning to mud, straw, wood, leather, henna and natural dyes after Palestinian artists boycotted Israeli-made supplies. This shift, he later said, forged a vital link between post-Nakba art and the work of younger generations.

For many Palestinians, Mansour’s canvases were more than images; they were a visual archive of the cause itself. His brush, critics and admirers agree, carried the homeland.

Al Jazeera looks at some of his famous paintings.

Oscar winner Sir Anthony Hopkins has reflected on his mortality, his Welsh roots, his new Life Is A Dream album and his battle with alcoholism. in a ITV News special which airs today

Music is his first love but it’s taken Sir Anthony Hopkins 88 years to land a record deal.

The Welsh star tells ITV News Arts Editor Nina NannarIt his latest project is “is beyond his belief” in an exclusive interview in LA, the place he’s called home for five decades.

His album, Life is a Dream, is being released by Decca Classics, and it reflects where he is in his life right now – remembering his Welsh roots, his parents, the streets where he grew up, the cinema in Port Talbot where he discovered the movies.

Hopkins arrived for the interview accompanied by his wife, Stella Arroyave, and his niece, Tara, both of whom inspired tracks on the album. “Hello Nina,” he says. “You were born in Scunthorpe, weren’t you?.

It is later revealed that Scunthorpe means a lot to him because it was where his actress friend Joan Plowright, the wife of Laurence Olivier, was also born.

Although he appears a little physically frail, he is bright, funny, perky even and his memory of dates and his acting history going back to the early days in repertory theatre, is truly impressive.

Anthony started playing the piano at the age of four, on an instrument his mother got for him, but he had no technical training then. He just knew he loved it.

Even in the early 60s, when an actor at the Liverpool Playhouse, he would spend downtime in the Green Room backstage, playing the piano, and a couple of the tracks that started there have made it onto his new album.

Life Is A Dream has six decades of compositions, all brought together and performed by acclaimed conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Its origins lie in a gesture Hopkins never saw coming. Without telling her husband, his wife Stella sent one of his compositions, And The Waltz Goes On, to the Dutch violinist and conductor Andre Rieu.

He orchestrated it, and it too is on the album with 10 other compositions by the actor. Beginning a collaboration that ultimately helped bring Hopkins’ music to a wider audience.

For Hopkins, the album is also an act of remembrance. Born and raised in the Margam area of Port Talbot, South Wales, he describes a childhood shaped by modest beginnings as the son of a baker. At school, he struggled academically and recalls being labelled a “dunce” with little prospect of success.

Today, he rejects the idea that academic achievement alone defines a person’s potential. He credits a determination to prove doubters wrong, including his father, as a powerful motivation throughout his life and career.

Several tracks on the album, including Bracken Road and My Fatherland – all about the streets where he lived, pay tribute to the landscapes and communities that shaped him. Hopkins says he regularly uses Google Maps Street View to revisit the streets of Margam, retracing the roads of his childhood and reconnecting with memories of a young boy who often felt like an outsider.

Full interview can be seen on ITV News YouTube channel with an extended edit on ITV Evening News at 6:30pm on Friday, August 21