battle

As a wave of cheap Chinese imports has flooded the EU in recent years, Brussels is now facing a new challenge: new import routes passing through Morocco and Turkey, the EU’s neighbouring countries, where Beijing can leverage tariff-free trade agreements with the bloc.

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By investing heavily in those countries, China is seeking to circumvent the EU’s trade barriers, including the extra duties imposed by the EU on products such as electric vehicles, and channel its industrial overcapacity into the European market.

European policymakers are now bracing for a surge in low-cost Chinese goods entering duty-free through these gateway countries, thanks to an association agreement that liberalises trade with Morocco and a customs union linking Turkey to the EU.

The European Commission launched negotiations with Beijing in June in a bid to rebalance a trade relationship that has left the EU with a €1 billion deficit. However, it is not guaranteed to reach concrete results by October — the deadline set by Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič.

Brussels has already made clear it is prepared to deploy new unilateral trade defence measures. But Beijing is becoming increasingly adept at getting around the EU’s traditional trade tools, particularly trade defence tariffs.

Its circumvention strategy is now to go through Morocco and Turkey, which are becoming the new front line in the EU’s trade battle with China.

Billions in investments

Over the last four years, these investments have reached a record $6 billion in Morocco and $2 billion in Turkey, according to Rhodium Group, an independent research provider.

Cairo is also attracting Chinese money, with $6 billion invested in 2025 alone. But Chinese products made in Egypt are mainly exported to the US and Gulf countries.

In Morocco, Beijing has been investing in an entire electric vehicles (EV) manufacturing ecosystem. “There is a genuine long-term trend that began after COVID-19. We are seeing Chinese companies setting up operations in the country to manufacture high-value-added goods,” Armand Meyer, an expert at Rhodium Group, told Euronews.

Chinese battery producer Gotion is settling in the country, along with BTR, Tinci and Huayou, which produce battery materials, APG, an automotive brake manufacturer, and Sentury Tire, a tyre maker. All will soon have factories in Morocco.

The EU, which hit Chinese EVs with anti-subsidy duties in 2024, is concerned about China’s move into neighbouring countries.

In Turkey, part of the investment targets the local market, while Chinese export plans also threaten European producers. China’s EV giant BYD was granted preferential access to the Turkish market to build a factory, although the project has been suspended for now.

“The idea was to build a mega-factory in exchange for an exemption from Turkish import duties, as Turkey imposes tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles,” Meyer said. Chinese home appliance maker Haier is also investing in the country, as is Astronergy, which manufactures solar panels.

China’s manufacturing push in those countries spans multiple sectors, exploiting trade agreements with the EU that cover a wide range of products.

“The free trade agreements with Morocco and Turkey cover almost all goods. So it’s complicated to counter the Chinese export strategy,” Thomas Grjebine, an economist at the French Centre for Research and Expertise on the World Economy, told Euronews.

Grjebine added that China has understood these countries can serve as “a staging ground”, with investments rising year after year.

“Investments in these gateway countries account for about a quarter of China’s total investment in Europe and the Maghreb,” he said.

Reducing Morocco and Turkey’s access to the EU market

However, in March, the Commission proposed a landmark bill called the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) which aims to protect the EU market from foreign competitors — provoking anger from China.

The IAA creates a European preference for access to public procurement and EU public funding schemes, ruling out non-EU countries under certain conditions. China was targeted in particular, leading to threats of retaliation from Beijing.

All foreign countries are now lobbying EU lawmakers, who are discussing the bill, to be considered trusted partners, allowing their products to qualify as “Made in Europe”.

Industries with parts of their value chains outside the EU are also urging MEPs to include those countries. Euronews has learnt that ACEA, for instance, which represents European carmakers in Brussels, has been lobbying EU lawmakers to include Morocco, where many European manufacturers have production plants.

Paradoxically, if Morocco and Turkey — where European carmakers are also established — were considered trusted partners whose products could be labelled “Made in Europe”, it would also serve Beijing’s interests — despite fierce competition with the EU in the automotive sector — as China is building factories there.

“The Chinese know full well that a number of companies have located part of their value chain in those countries and are lobbying hard to ensure that Morocco and Turkey are not excluded from what is considered ‘Made in Europe’,” French socialist MEP Pierre Jouvet told Euronews.

“This is part of Beijing’s investment and tariff circumvention strategy,” he said.

The MEP is campaigning to exclude Morocco and Turkey from the scope of the IAA unless both countries open their public procurement markets to EU companies.

That position is backed by French liberal MEP Christophe Grudler and German Green MEP Anna Cavazzini, who, along with Jouvet, are expected to present a report on the issue to fellow MEPs in September.

EU trade defence instruments lack effectiveness

Without such a bill, the EU’s trade defence instruments remain modest compared with the scale of the coming wave of cheap Chinese products manufactured in those neighbouring countries.

The EU can only tackle Chinese dumping — where a product is sold below its normal value — on a product-by-product basis, as well as tariff circumvention when parts of the goods come from China and have only been assembled in Morocco or Turkey. The Commission usually assesses the value added generated in those countries before deciding whether to sanction Chinese companies with duties.

“For years, it was mostly a matter of transhipment through these countries, with Chinese exporters simply changing the certificate of origin, but defending the EU market has now become far more challenging,” Laurent Ruessmann, partner at law firm RB Legal, told Euronews.

Ruessmann has represented European glass fibre producers — whose products are used as reinforcement materials — in their fight against cheap Chinese imports. Eventually, glass fibre from China and from Chinese companies located in Egypt was hit with EU anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties in 2020.

But the Commission then had to open new cases involving glass fibre fabrics — used in wind turbine blades — imported from Morocco and Turkey. In 2022, it found that they were made using Chinese glass fibre already subject to EU anti-dumping duties imposed in 2020, a textbook case of tariff circumvention.

More recently, in 2025, the Commission also slapped countervailing duties on aluminium road wheels made in Morocco after concluding China had unfairly subsidised them.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Chinese companies receive up to eight times more subsidies than Western firms.

With recent investments in Morocco and Turkey, the EU executive is facing a new challenge: Chinese companies are setting up factories abroad, generating more added value in those countries than in China.

“In those cases, the Commission can no longer rely on anti-circumvention rules and has to launch a fresh investigation. The challenge is that it is much more difficult to prove dumping or unfair subsidies, making it far harder to impose duties high enough to protect the European market,” Victor Crochet of law firm Nishimura & Asahi told Euronews.

Looking at recent judgments by the Court of Justice of the European Union, however, the lawyer believes EU judges will progressively allow the Commission to be “more aggressive” towards Chinese operations located in the EU’s neighbouring countries.

“The Commission will have to come up with new instruments. It will try to push the boundaries of the concept of circumvention to keep pace with the times, even when the raw materials no longer come from China,” Crochet said.

Maasai Mara, Kenya – The Maasai Mara, Kenya’s most famous wildlife reserve, is one of Africa’s best-known safari destinations. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to the reserve, generating millions of dollars for Kenya’s economy and supporting jobs, businesses and local communities.

But as luxury camps and lodges spread across the reserve, concerns are growing over the environmental cost of tourism. Conservationists warn that unchecked development is damaging wildlife habitats and threatening one of the world’s greatest natural spectacles, the annual migration of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles between Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.

The debate has now reached Kenya’s courts.

A legal battle over the Mara

The future of the Maasai Mara is increasingly being contested in court. Conservation groups have filed several cases challenging the construction and expansion of tourist camps inside and around the reserve, arguing that some developments were approved without adequate environmental safeguards.

The latest petition, filed by the East Africa Law Society, Natural Justice, JustAct and the Africa Centre for Peace and Human Rights, seeks conservatory orders to halt the construction and expansion of accommodation facilities in the Maasai Mara National Reserve pending the hearing of the case.

The petition names the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Marriott International, Lazizi Mara Limited, the Narok County government, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the attorney general, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), The Safari Collection Ltd and Minor Hotels Ltd.

Court documents filed by advocate Gichohi Waweru challenge the construction and operation of the Ritz-Carlton Maasai Mara Safari Camp, alleging that it was built in a protected ecological zone despite a 2023 moratorium on new tourism accommodation in sensitive areas of the reserve under the Maasai Mara Management Plan 2023-32.

The petition also claims that the camp lacks a valid environmental impact assessment licence and sits along a key wildebeest migration corridor.

The petitioners are seeking an audit of all lodges in protected zones, warning that continued development could cause irreversible damage to the Mara ecosystem.

The legal battle has become a test of whether Kenya can balance conservation with tourism, one of the country’s most important economic sectors.

Kelvin Kubai, an advocate at the High Court of Kenya, told Al Jazeera that tourism should never come at the expense of wildlife and the environment.

“When the interests of wildlife and nature conflict with tourism, the rights of nature are supreme. Any interaction between tourists, wild animals and the environment should not come at the expense of the animals. The rights of human beings in the Mara are not above those of animals and nature,” he said.

The disappearing migration

Every year, more than a million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles move between the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara in search of fresh grazing land. The migration sustains predators, attracts visitors from around the world and plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem.

Kenya has, however, seen a significant decline in the number of wildebeest making the journey into the Maasai Mara. Conservationists say that construction, vehicle traffic and human activity near migration routes are disrupting animal movements and placing additional pressure on wildlife already affected by climate change.

According to a Kenyan government wildlife survey whose findings were released after fieldwork conducted between June 2024 and August 2025, populations of several species, including lions, buffalo, hirola antelope and wildebeest, have fallen sharply. Wildebeest numbers declined from 58,000 to 34,200 between 2023 and 2025.

Scientific data released in early 2026 showed that the number of wildebeest using one of the key migration routes in the Greater Mara ecosystem had fallen by almost 90 percent in just five years.

The pressure from tourism development has become a central concern. Despite the 2023 moratorium on new tourism accommodation in sensitive parts of the reserve, conservationists say new camps have continued to emerge while existing facilities have sought to expand.

The moratorium was introduced to curb overdevelopment, reduce pressure on wildlife habitats and protect migration corridors, but conservationists argue that enforcement has been weak.

Samwel Odhiambo, a climate activist and founder of the Climate Awareness Defenders community-based organisation, told Al Jazeera that conservation must take precedence over commercial interests.

“The government must rein in investors who do not really care about conservation because everyone has a responsibility to the environment and the animals. What we are seeing today is a result of developments that are profit-driven, to the point where lodges are built on riverbanks, too close to animals, and on migration routes, affecting especially female animals as they lose their habitats for nurturing and delivering their babies.”

Odhiambo argued that the same level of environmental protection applied along Kenya’s coast should be extended to the Mara.

“Kenya’s coast at times generates more tourism revenue than the Maasai Mara, but you will not find developers building on the beach or in the waters,” he said.

Maps published in December 2025 by ecologists at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in the Atlas of Ungulate Migration showed that migration routes supporting more than 100,000 wildebeest as recently as 2020 now support fewer than 30,000.

The report estimated that the wildebeest population, which numbered between 120,000 and 150,000 in the 1970s, had fallen to about 26,700 by 2024. Settlement and fencing across the Loita Plains and northern Mara Plains have severely restricted migration, confining surviving herds to a patchwork of conservancies surrounding the reserve.

Although these figures come from different wildlife surveys and migration studies, they all point to a sharp decline in wildebeest numbers and movements across the Greater Mara ecosystem.

When tourism threatens itself

For decades, the Maasai Mara has been Kenya’s premier tourism destination, earning billions of shillings annually and supporting thousands of jobs, from safari guides and hotel workers to transport operators, craft sellers and Maasai communities.

But conservationists and tourism analysts warn that overdevelopment could begin undermining the very industry that depends on the reserve’s wildlife and wilderness.

Tourism operators say overcrowding, rising park fees and increasing competition from other regional destinations have made the safari market more competitive. Conservation groups argue that continued habitat loss and pressure on wildlife corridors could further erode the Mara’s appeal to visitors seeking intact wilderness and abundant wildlife.

Al Jazeera contacted Marriott International, Lazizi Mara Limited, the Narok County Government, NEMA and KWS for comment. Marriott and Lazizi have previously said the Ritz-Carlton Maasai Mara Safari Camp received the necessary approvals and complied with Kenyan environmental and planning requirements, while Kenyan authorities have defended the project as being located in a designated tourism investment zone under the Maasai Mara Management Plan 2023-32.

Wangari Kebuchi, an economist and managing director of Expertise Global, told Al Jazeera that the conservancy model offered the most viable path forward, provided it was accompanied by stronger oversight.

“The Maasai Mara is one of Kenya’s biggest economic assets and a major source of foreign exchange, but Narok County depends too heavily on it for revenue. If wildlife numbers decline because of overdevelopment, tourism demand will eventually fall. The conservancy model will help by protecting wildlife corridors and limiting visitor numbers, but it needs stronger oversight. Future tourism growth should be guided by ecological limits, not commercial demand, so the Mara remains both environmentally healthy and economically sustainable,” Kebuchi said.

For conservationists, the court cases are about far more than a single luxury camp. They could determine whether Kenya is willing to enforce ecological limits in one of Africa’s most celebrated landscapes.

As the legal battle unfolds, the question is whether the Maasai Mara can remain both a thriving wildlife ecosystem and a sustainable source of livelihoods and tourism revenue.

“Future tourism growth should be guided by ecological limits, not commercial demand, so the Mara remains both environmentally healthy and economically sustainable,” Kebuchi said.

A British tourist in the Canary Islands has captured the chaos of her hotel’s sunbed wars, but she admits that rather than being annoyed, there’s one reason why she found the whole scene ‘funny’

A Brit staying in Tenerife was unimpressed by her fellow holidaymakers after she spotted sunbed wars erupting before the hotel had even opened up the breakfast bar.

Chenaiyah Bernard, 21, from Leeds captured the video of holidaymakers rushing early in the morning to snag their favourite sunbeds, even staking their claim on parasols in an attempt to get the best spot.

She was staying in the popular resort town of Playa de las Américas, and captured the scenes from her balcony last Friday (July 24).

The primary school play worker says she was relaxing on her balcony at 7.45am, and saw a group of people hanging around the pool area, looking to nab their loungers for the day before breakfast had even opened.

Chenaiyah’s video, set to the Mario Kart theme tune, shows Brits patiently waiting around for the cleaners to finish, standing next to parasols to stake out the area they want before they can grab sunbeds for the day, reports creatorzine.com.

Chenaiyah said: “I woke up early to stand outside of my hotel room balcony and witnessed a bunch of British people all stood around the cleaners waiting for them to finish so they could then occupy a sunbed and then head off to breakfast. I doubt they will all be wanting to sunbathe at 7.45am since it’s not that warm. People began to occupy parasols with their towels, which I found funny.”

Once the pool area is open, the Brits are shown taking sunbeds out and throwing their towels over them to mark their territory, before casually strolling away.

Chenaiyah was left bemused by the scenes, which ultimately proved pointless; she claims she had no trouble finding a poolside sunbed when she went down to relax later that morning, meaning the early birds’ rush may have been completely unnecessary.

She said: “I don’t care to wake up early for a sunbed but other people can do what they want.” She added that although it didn’t seem overtly “competitive or aggressive” adding that “it was just funny watching people wake up early just to claim a sunbed way earlier than they actually will need it, and I assume some people probably want to hog the sunbeds all day and not allow people who also want to sunbathe to use one.”

Chenaiyah said she doesn’t judge those taking part in the sunbed scramble, saying: “I don’t think it’s that serious in my opinion to go downstairs that early to claim a sunbed, to have your towel sat there when you aren’t always going to be with. Like, get out of the resort and explore, but people can honestly do what they want.”

But she pointed out there was plenty to do even if you don’t sit by the pool: “People who sleep in probably aren’t bothered about claiming a sunbed at the crack of dawn and feel they have better things to do, like exploring the area or going to the beach.”

Chenaiyah’s video has since been viewed over 160,000 times on TikTok with over 5,000 likes, and it’s safe to say most of the comments were on her side. One said: “Why oh why do people do this you are on holiday for god’s sake.”

Others claimed these kinds of videos influenced the kind of breaks they’d book in future. One said: “Why would you go on this type of holiday, that’s hell.”, while another joked: “all inclusive about as much fun as an MRI scan.”

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

In a sign of how high school football practices in Southern California have changed over the last 20 years, Crespi athletic director Brian Bilek was holding a beeping device on Monday to determine what modifications might be needed to practice in heat.

It was 100 degrees in Encino, but the reading from the wet-bulb device measuring heat and humidity gave out a number that allowed for practice to take place with precautionary measures.

Southern Section players were in shorts and wearing helmets around the Southland. City Section teams began five days of mandatory acclimation periods to get players into shape.

It’s an annual ritual that once had programs practicing twice or even three times a day. CIF rules that restrict tackling to two days per week and a maximum of 45 to 90 minutes a day were adopted in an effort to protect players from concussions and injuries.

By the weekend, when the shoulder pads come on, coaches will be breaking out in smiles watching their freshmen players trying to figure out the routine for the first time.

Crespi coach Brad Vonnahme grew up in the Central Valley and coached at Fresno State. He described the weather from those days as “toasty.” Monday’s environment, though, was probably the hottest opening day in his four seasons at Crespi.

It’s a big year for the Celts. They’ve improved each season after Vonnahme was put in charge of a rebuilding project following Crespi’s 0-10 season in 2022. The Celts have responded with records of 2-8 and 5-6 before their 10-1 mark last season.

This year, they’ve upgraded their schedule, adding rival Sherman Oaks Notre Dame for a season-opening nonleague game Aug. 21.

Asked if his team can continue to climb, Vonnahme said, “I think we can. But most importantly, we have to try. Everybody wants us to continue to elevate.”

Crespi’s Russell White carries the ball during a game against St. John Bosco on Nov. 7, 1986.

(John McCoy / Los Angeles Times)

This season marks 40 years since Crespi’s greatest team, led by running back Russell White, won the Division 1 championship over St. John Bosco in 1986. It remains the only San Fernando Valley team to win a Division 1 football title. Many of the players are expected to attend the Notre Dame game for a recognition ceremony.

Crespi returns a number of players who were standouts as sophomores, led by quarterback Chase Curren. They’ll need to be bigger, faster and stronger. If all goes well, they will play Salesian on Oct. 30 to decide the Del Rey League title.

A strong group of teams will be traveling to Hawaii next month, so they’ll be getting ready a little faster for football and surfing. Chaminade, Edison, Beaumont, San Clemente, San Juan Hills, Newport Harbor, El Camino Real and Villa Park are among the teams with Hawaii trips.

Athletic directors are back from vacation and will be busy trying to clear players who transferred. Making sure paperwork is correct is one of the most important tasks, because one mistake can lead to forfeits.

Wildfires in southwestern France are continuing to burn near the city of Bordeaux. Tens of thousands have been evacuated from surrounding regions, and across the southwest of France a total of around 220,000 have been evacuated.

Reporting from Sacramento — A war between a healthcare union and the dialysis industry it wants to organize has morphed into one of the most expensive ballot measure campaigns in California history.

Proposition 8, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers, would shrink the profits of hundreds of dialysis clinics across California. If enacted by voters, the measure would require clinics to provide rebates to insurers and pay a penalty to the state on business revenues that exceed 115% of certain costs to deliver care.

A coalition led by DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care, the two companies that control a combined 72% of the dialysis market in California, has given $110 million to a campaign to beat the measure — contributing to the most money raised for such a campaign in state history.

Opponents view Proposition 8 as an existential threat to the dialysis industry and its patients, and say the 95,000-member SEIU-UHW is using the ballot measure to deliver an ultimatum to its foes: Acquiesce to the union’s demands or pay for an expensive campaign.

“Proposition 8 puts California patients at risk in an effort to force unionization of employees,” DaVita Chief Executive Kent Thiry said in a statement. “There is an established and accepted process for employees to vote a union up or down. Instead of following that process, SEIU-UHW is pursuing a dangerous initiative that puts patients at grave risk.”

Thiry’s group warns that dialysis clinics may open for fewer hours, or would shutter altogether if the measure becomes law.

Dave Regan, head of SEIU-UHW, says his union wants to rein in a dialysis industry he says is “predatory.” The union has raised $18.8 million for the Proposition 8 campaign.

DaVita and Fresenius reported billions in operating income last year and have been accused by critics of various tactics to increase profitability, such as steering patients to private insurance or not giving employees enough time to adequately clean stations.

DaVita has been ordered to pay damages and settled lawsuits for more than $1 billion in the last five years, including $253.5 million in damages awarded in June to the families of two patients who died of cardiac arrest after receiving care at its California clinics. The company has said it would appeal that decision.

“The reason Prop. 8 is on the ballot is because they have a terrible business model and they’re gouging patients and insurers,” Regan said.

After years of expensive squabbles in the Capitol, Regan traveled to Denver, home to DaVita headquarters, to meet with Thiry for the first time on the eve of the June deadline to withdraw ballot initiatives this year.

Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced), the leader of a moderate bloc of Democrats in the Legislature, acted as intermediary. Gray said he spent weeks trying to bring the two sides together in hopes of breaking a stalemate and finding common ground.

But the eleventh-hour conversation over dinner came too late to negotiate a cease-fire and call off the proposal.

Regan initially described the visit as a “social meeting” he attended at Gray’s request. He later said the timing was coincidental and he never intended to strike a deal with Thiry to pull Proposition 8 from the ballot.

“Nothing consequential even came up,” Regan said. “Nothing was proposed. There was no kind of an agreement of any sort and it was a social discussion.”

Thiry said it “was definitely not a social meeting,” but declined to elaborate.

Now voters are left to decide the fate of the 80,000 patients who receive dialysis treatment at nearly 600 licensed clinics each month in California, according to figures from the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

SEIU-UHW argues its measure will provide an incentive to dialysis companies so they invest more money into patient care. Under the measure, clinics could keep more of their profits if they increase costs for care.

Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the opposition campaign, said the industry believes that voter approval of Proposition 8 would force most clinics in California to operate in the red.

“You can’t keep doing that week after week, month after month, year after year,” she said. “This is going to devastate the clinics in California and, by extension, all the patients.”

An analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor, said reducing revenues would make for-profit clinics “less profitable or could even be unprofitable.”

Proposition 8 excludes the salaries of managerial staff and some overhead charges from the cost calculation for patient care, which would further reduce profits.

“This to me is classic labor trying to, not just regulate a business, but affect how they operate,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant who is not involved in the Proposition 8 campaign.

Scrutiny of dialysis clinics sparked a legislative proposal to establish staff-to-patient ratios in the industry for the first time. The bill, sponsored by SEIU-UHW, stalled in the state Legislature last year.

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed another bill this year aimed to halt an alleged dialysis industry practice of encouraging patients to sign up for private insurance and funneling money to nonprofits to help patients pay off premiums. Dialysis corporations make most of their profits off group or individual insurance plans, which are billed much more than Medi-Cal or Medicare for the same services.

“Right now they have every financial incentive to keep staffing and other direct patient services at a bare minimum because then they reap every dollar in profit margin,” Regan said.

SEIU-UHW has a history of turning to the ballot amid labor disputes.

Regan called off a pair of ballot initiatives in 2012 to limit charges for care at private hospitals and require nonprofits to spend at least 5% of revenues on charity care after the California Hospital Assn. agreed to a partnership that could help the union’s organizing efforts.

The partnership soured and the union filed two measures the next year to limit prices for care at private hospitals and executive salaries at nonprofit hospitals.

The union pulled the initiatives back in 2014 as part of a new agreement with the hospitals to campaign together to raise Medi-Cal reimbursement rates in exchange for an easier path to organizing thousands of potential union members, among other provisions.

A Sacramento judge shot down another SEIU-UHW ballot initiative to cap hospital executive pay in 2016. That same year, the union pushed a ballot initiative to increase pay for workers, which helped spark a legislative deal to raise California’s minimum wage.

This year alone, the union filed 11 ballot initiatives in California — seven at the local level and four statewide initiatives. Most of the initiatives failed to qualify or the union abandoned its effort.

One of the local measures would have placed revenue caps on the Watsonville Community Hospital. The union withdrew the initiative after it reached a collective bargaining agreement with the hospital, said Duane Dauner, the former chief executive of the California Hospital Assn. and a leader of the campaigns against the local initiatives. The hospital also agreed to form a committee to monitor and control pricing, said Sean Wherley, a spokesman for SEIU-UHW.

SEIU-UHW also sponsored five local initiatives in cities with Stanford Health Care community clinics. Measure F in Palo Alto and Measure U in Livermore, the only two to appear on the Nov. 6 ballot, would limit the amount of money hospitals can charge for patient care. Stanford claims the union pushed the measures to pressure its hospitals to make it easier to unionize.

Wherley said the union is not organizing at Stanford’s healthcare facilities.

“He thinks initiatives are the solutions to bypass ordinary labor relations activity and tries to literally force the hospitals, doctors, dentists and others into unionization or he will proceed,” Dauner said of Regan.

Gray, the state legislator, pointed to several state policy battles this year, including a ban on soda taxes and a deal on consumer privacy protections, as examples of other special interests using the ballot as leverage.

“I support direct democracy, but I certainly think the initiative process, by everybody, has been used in ways that certainly weren’t intended,” Gray said.

Regan said SEIU-UHW didn’t qualify Proposition 8 to pressure the dialysis industry to strike a deal. He said the union wants to improve healthcare, and ballot initiatives are an effective way to make important policy changes.

He pointed to 17 minimum wage and Medicaid expansion initiatives the union supported in other states since 2016 that he said were not linked to organizing efforts.

“Most of the stuff that we do is in pursuit of the common good, whether it’s the minimum wage or Medicaid expansion,” Regan said. “The dialysis industry should be required to do more than criticize the union because they don’t want to talk about their business models or profits.”

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taryn.luna@latimes.com

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A fertiliser explosion at a farm in Essex triggered a major incident. Dozens of firefighters worked to contain the large industrial fire and protect nearby homes.

WASHINGTON — With Whitewater investigations likely to continue well into next year’s presidential campaign, the White House has decided on a hard-line legal and public relations counterattack that carries serious political risks for President Clinton.

On the legal front, the White House is relying on executive privilege as well as lawyer-client confidentiality to justify withholding notes on a November 1993 meeting at which the president’s lawyers and aides discussed Whitewater.

The notes have been subpoenaed by the Senate Whitewater investigative committee, and White House aides fear that they will be demanded by special counsel Kenneth W. Starr as well. Today the committee will vote to enforce the panel’s subpoena for the notes. Panel Chairman Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) said that the full Senate would vote on the matter before adjourning later this month and that he plans to seek an expedited court review.

Republicans have suggested that the 1993 meeting, which occurred when several federal agencies were investigating the activities of Clinton associates in Arkansas, may have dealt with ways to cover up damaging facts and obstruct justice.

And such charges, whatever their substantive merits, create a politically dangerous problem for an already embattled president going into an election year.

Some sources who have seen the documents insist that they contain no incriminating revelations. They say that the president is invoking executive privilege because waiving it would open the administration to a massive fishing expedition by partisan investigators. Executive privilege is the constitutional principle that a chief executive can maintain the confidentiality of internal communication involving the legal pursuit of his duties.

Yet even if the meeting notes are innocuous and the White House is holding them back only to protect a larger principle, the failure to make full disclosure can raise voters’ suspicions. Already, political opponents and some newspaper editorial writers are using such Watergate-isms as “stonewalling” to describe Clinton’s reaction.

Said a former Clinton White House official knowledgeable about Whitewater: “The problem here is that the courts might ultimately sustain the president but politically it’s a loser.

“In cases like these, the political dimension quickly overwhelms the legal dimension,” said this source. He predicted that Clinton eventually would find a way to release the documents in some form while continuing to assert that they are protected by either attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

The Senate panel revealed Wednesday that in addition to the notes of the Nov. 5, 1993, meeting, the White House has not turned over four other Whitewater-related documents:

* A draft chronology of the Whitewater saga prepared by the Clintons’ personal lawyer, David E. Kendall. It was drafted five days after the Nov. 5 meeting.

* A letter written Jan. 4, 1994, to the president from Washington attorney James Hamilton, who has represented the family of the late Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster and who worked for the 1992 campaign.

* A New York Times article from Dec. 20, 1993, with notations Clinton wrote in the margin.

* Undated notes of White House aide Joel Klein.

Democrats said that the Clintons have every right to invoke privilege in this matter, and they suggested that the Republicans should try to negotiate a compromise rather than move toward a court battle. D’Amato described the Clintons’ position as “extraordinary and troublesome.” Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, accused D’Amato of trying to provoke a confrontation for political reasons.

The White House is more concerned that waiving confidentiality would open the door for Starr to seek notes and testimony from Clinton’s attorneys.

Lawyers, including White House Counsel Jack Quinn, have advised Clinton that he cannot waive the privilege for only one meeting. If he waives it once, he cannot reassert it on another Whitewater issue.

While the White House public relations campaign is aimed at explaining Clinton’s case and marshaling support for it, it also is designed to discredit D’Amato as a political enemy with ethical problems of his own–a ploy guaranteed to stir more controversy and criticism of the president.

Times staff writers John M. Broder and Sara Fritz contributed to this story.

For more than a quarter-century, a lawsuit settlement from a case brought in Los Angeles federal court has dictated conditions for children held in immigration detention.

But now, the long-standing settlement — which set minimum standards for housing, education and medical care for migrant kids in federal custody, while strictly limiting how long they can remain there — hangs in the balance in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after a challenge by the Trump administration.

At the same time, the federal judge in L.A. who presides over the agreement appears poised to appoint a powerful new enforcer to uphold it.

President Trump has long sought to scrap the Flores settlement, which dates back to the Clinton era. In recent months, the Trump administration has waged a legal battle to cancel the agreement, while also pleading with the district court not to order an independent monitor to boost its compliance.

“[Flores] is the only thing standing between them and indefinite detention of families,” said Leecia Welch, chief legal director at Children’s Rights, a plaintiff in the case.

Last month, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate pressed the 9th Circuit court to give the administration “the thumbs-up or thumbs-down” on its bid to tear up the settlement and end what he called “judicial micromanagement” of federal immigration policy.

“The Flores consent decree is an agreement which goes well above the constitutional floor,” Shumate told the court during oral arguments in June. “We’re asking that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] compliance with the law be assessed based on the law, not a 30-year-old settlement agreement.”

The three-judge panel sharply questioned the Justice Department’s legal claims, saying little had changed since the government last petitioned the court to have the agreement dissolved in 2020 — a request that was rejected.

The judges also pressed Trump administration lawyers to respond to evidence from scores of declarations filed in district court since last summer, in which detainees describe struggling to sleep in freezing, brightly lit rooms, vomiting from eating spoiled food, and begging for diapers, baby formula and asthma inhalers.

“You’ve said a lot of the reason you’re doing this is to discourage families from coming in the first place, so you’re basically punishing children because their parents brought them here,” Judge Marsha S. Berzon said.

Berzon, a Clinton appointee who issued a fiery dissent last year in a case that challenged the administration’s use of armed troops in immigration enforcement operations, asked: “You’re saying there’s no constitutional problem there?”

“I understand the detention of children at the border is a controversial policy issue, but that’s a policy decision,” Shumate said.

Just a day earlier, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee scolded a pair of government attorneys from her bench in Los Angeles, signaling she would probably appoint a new special master to force compliance with the settlement agreement.

“We’re talking about 11 years of this,” Gee said during the June 1 status conference. “None of these issues are new to me. These are all issues on which I have issued orders. I am very displeased about the fact that my orders are being disregarded and are not being complied with, not in good faith.”

“Both sides seem to be operating in different planes of reality,” Gee said.

The disputed settlement emerged from a 1985 lawsuit over the fate of 15-year-old Jenny Flores, a Salvadoran refugee who was picked up by federal immigration enforcement and left to languish in detention in Pasadena. At the time, there was little awareness that children were among the tens of thousands of migrants fleeing civil war and state collapse in Central America — with virtually no U.S. government infrastructure to protect them.

“It was a surprise,” said Benjamin Roth, a professor at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work and an expert on the agreement. “There was no thought then that there were kids in this mix.”

The current court fight centers on an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas, run by the private prison company CoreCivic, where the vast majority of children and families in immigration custody are held.

In court filings earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has “maintained core Flores-related services” at Dilley and argued its length-of-stay numbers were skewed by a small number of families it was forced to keep because they are considered “national security risks.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection likewise boasted its July 1 report “shows our highest level of compliance to date.”

Immigrant rights advocates called those claims “a fiction.”

“We see the same sorts of problems and concerns and misery that we’ve been seeing for the last 15 months,” said Welch, the Children’s Rights attorney.

In dozens of declarations collected as part of the court record, detainees recounted broccoli full of worms, diapers doled out one at a time, and staff tearing up children’s drawings.

One mother said medical staff laughed off her 8-year-old’s broken arm. Another said she was denied treatment for hepatitis B, even after doctors told her she could develop liver cancer and pass the infection on to her unborn daughter.

Still others described unexplained rashes, outbreaks of diarrhea and infestations of lice, among a host of other maladies for which many said they were offered only Tylenol or allergy medication. Even Christmas brought misery in the form of an ICE agent dressed up as Santa, who shoved away children trying to hug him, according to the detainee declarations submitted to the court.

“What happened on Christmas Day can only be described as an atrocity,” one mother recalled. Children “dropped everything, ran up to him, begged for candy and wanted to take pictures. Some children even cried and begged him for their freedom. Santa himself acted very indifferent.”

The Department of Justice argued that immigrant kids could still sue over poor conditions if the Flores settlement is unwound. But experts say existing protections would collapse without the legal architecture of the consent decree to support them.

“[Under the settlement], the federal government has built out a very efficient system to provide temporary care for kids,” Roth said. “If Flores is dissolved, it’s not going to be easy to stand up this same set of programs.”

If the Trump administration loses before the 9th Circuit, the fight over Flores could soon escalate to the Supreme Court.

“I’d be shocked if the 9th Circuit rules for the government, and I’d be shocked if the Trump administration doesn’t appeal,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the high court.

But consent decrees are legally and politically complicated, and the treatment of migrant children further tangles the situation. Given the legal and political complexity, the Supreme Court could rule to keep the settlement in place, or decline to take the case at all, experts said.

“It’s more likely than not the court would stay away from this,” Segall said.

For now, both the district judge and the 9th Circuit panel appear fed up.

“I think my patience has come to an end,” Gee said during the recent hearing in her Los Angeles courtroom.

Two siblings went on the BBC show in the hope of recovering never before seen home movies

A brother and sister battled tears as they said an emotional fix on The Repair Shop had given them “peace” after the family experienced a trauma.

Siblings Zaff and Nasari went on the BBC show with a broken projector that had been used to film home movies they’d never been able to see.

Their dad had recorded footage of them as children with their relatives during their childhood in Uganda, but after they were forced to flee the country in the 1970s under Idi Amin’s rule, it was packed up and not touched.

Both of their parents had since died, and Zaff and Nasari told experts Dominic Chinea and Mark Stuckey that they hoped fixing the projector would mean they would get to see them “walking around” again.

Discussing their childhood, Zaff said: “It was, yeah, very, very fun times, but the trauma that came after, with leaving Africa. Dictatorship. Idi Amin. We had 90 days to leave the country, and we weren’t allowed to take anything with us.”

The show explained that after staging a coup in 1971, military dictator Amin seized control of Uganda in East Africa. Accusing the country’s Asians of exploiting the economy, he ordered the expulsion of their entire population, forcing over 70,000 people to flee.

The family ended up leaving and starting “from scratch”, building a new life in the UK.

The siblings’ mum died at 45 and their dad died soon afterwards aged 50. The projector was “locked away” for 40 or 50 years, with the pair trying to fix it a few times but having no luck.

When they left the barn, Mark set about restoring the precious heirloom and was thrilled to get it working. Recovered footage showed Zaff and Nasari playing in Uganda as children, while their grandfather were also seen.

Both looked tearful as they viewed the films, with Zaff saying it was “astonishing” and Nasari saying: “I just feel my dad touching it. I feel like he’s here and he’s putting it on.”

“It brought me peace, seeing my mum and dad and how we were, and my grandfather, how much time we spent together,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “It’s my dad. Everything about it is my dad.”

She went on: “After them passing away, it’s been that long, you forget who they were and how they looked, and the feeling came back again. It made me feel at peace.”

The Repair Shop airs on BBC One.

KISUMU, Kenya — As U.S. antiabortion groups’ campaign to restrict abortion access at home and abroad has gained strength since President Trump returned to office, his administration is delivering new global momentum to the movement by exporting its view of “family values” to nations overseas.

At the annual March for Life demonstration in January in Washington, Vice President JD Vance announced sweeping new restrictions on U.S. funding for nongovernmental organizations, foreign governments and U.N. agencies that promote access to abortion, gender-affirming care and diversity initiatives overseas. “We’re going to start blocking every international NGO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of U.S. money,” he told the crowd.

That effort has been particularly active in Africa, where doctors and advocates now describe an environment of rising harassment, arbitrary detentions and deadly backstreet abortions, with often deadly results for women across the continent.

The expanded restrictions build on the antiabortion advocacy work carried out by conservative U.S. nonprofits abroad — especially in Africa, where healthcare is highly dependent on foreign aid. The region has the world’s highest estimated proportion of unsafe abortions and highest maternal mortality rates — including the highest number of maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions.

The new rules represent a radical expansion of earlier U.S. policy that cut assistance to overseas groups providing abortion-related services. Experts say at least $30 billion in U.S. aid could be affected, reshaping health policies worldwide.

“We’re seeing opportunity here to have a consistently pro-life ethic,” Nicole Hunt of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian evangelical group, told the Associated Press. “We’ve been influencing health policies for a long time with our foreign aid. This is just a new direction.”

In the crosshairs is an international convention signed by African countries two decades ago declaring safe abortion a human right. Known as the Maputo Protocol, it obliges signatory nations to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal malformation or risk to a woman’s health.

But implementation has been spotty, forcing women to seek illicit procedures. Every year, sub-Saharan Africa records over 6 million unsafe abortions, according to the African Institute for Development Policy.

Emboldened by Trump’s policies, U.S. antiabortion groups now aim to overturn even this limited access to safe abortion.

In Nairobi, Nardos Hagos of the International Planned Parenthood Federation said she is deeply worried for the future.

“We’ve now moved into a new era where we are the ones who are in opposition because the most powerful and influential supporters of reproductive health — the U.S. and a lot of Europe — are now more aligned with anti-rights groups,” she said.

“We’re gonna see more women dying from unsafe abortions.”

Africa is the focus

It’s difficult to track the full scope of the funding U.S. antiabortion charitable groups send to Africa.

Publicly available information from nonprofit tax filings of 17 such groups show money sent to Africa jumped 50% between 2019 and 2022, to over $16 million, according to an analysis by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, a research group.

And the funding kept growing: The organizations spent almost $9.4 million in Africa during 2023 and 2024, previously unreported data analyzed by the institute show.

That’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” said the institute’s Claire Provost.

“What we’re seeing here is just a fraction of what the real investment on the continent is,” Provost said, noting that unlike other tax-exempt charitable organizations, U.S.-based churches and some religious groups are not required to complete annual financial disclosures detailing revenue, contributions and expenses.

It’s not possible to see “even limited information” about how much money the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among others, funnel to Africa, she said.

Widely known as the Mormon church, the Salt Lake City-based church is ”increasingly active on the continent, including opposing sexual and reproductive rights issues,” Provost said. With over 1 million followers in Africa, it has held “Strengthening Families” conferences across Africa over the last eight years.

Sean E.R. Donnelly, the church’s communications manager for Africa, said in an AP interview that about a quarter of the $1.5 billion the church spent overseas last year was in Africa, for development projects “with the goal of helping people, especially families,” including in healthcare, education and emergency relief.

Asked about women’s reproductive rights and abortion, he said the church was “not really active” in those areas, but noted the issues may be discussed by its African partners during church-sponsored conferences.

“We have the deputy prime minister, we have the ministries of gender, we have all the ministers who are relevant to family, and we’re helping them … as they craft policy and strategy to make sure that we protect the family,” Donnelly said of the conferences.

Asked about the church’s position on abortion, he sent a statement outlining that it generally opposes elective abortion in most cases but allows exceptions for rape, incest or danger to a woman’s health in counseling its members. He said via email that the church conducts no activities related to abortion and reproductive rights.

Last year’s church-sponsored conference took place in Sierra Leone at a time when the country was close to decriminalizing abortion. But pressure from local religious lobbies stalled the process, local rights groups said.

Activists and rights groups have raised the alarm over the influence of local religious groups, whose strategies mirror those of some conservative U.S. Christian groups. In response to AP’s questions about the conference and any pressures around abortion and other reproductive rights issues, Donnelly said, “This is not how the church operates in Africa or globally.”

He also referred AP to the church’s Caring Report, which outlines its humanitarian work globally and does not mention the conference.

It’s tricky to determine how the U.S. money is spent once it reaches Africa because of loose requirements on disclosing financial data in African countries.

Focus on the Family spent $370,000 in Africa between 2019 and 2023, according to the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, which says that probably does not fully capture the scope of the group’s influence or work. Focus on the Family’s Hunt said its mission is “to change hearts and minds on abortion” globally, but she declined to provide details of activities in Africa.

Harassment of reproductive rights groups

Hannah Ruguru vowed to help women get abortions safely after losing her sister to a backstreet procedure. But her work at a reproductive health clinic in Kisumu in rural western Kenya has proved increasingly hazardous.

She’s been screamed at by protesters and encountered so much abuse on Facebook that she deleted her account, she said.

“Sometimes you can get scared,” Ruguru said. But “at the end of the day, I’m helping women.”

Marie Stopes International, which runs the clinic where Ruguru works, said in a 2024 report that staff in several African countries described online and legal attacks from U.S.-based groups and U.S.-funded local organizations. In Congo, it said, health workers have been detained for days for providing legally permissible services before being released without charge.

“The extent of the opposition has made abortion providers fearful of coming into work,” the report said.

In Ethiopia, the group said, the head of the local office of U.S.-based Family Watch International has “targeted and trolled members of our senior leadership team on social media,” and released YouTube videos promoting antiabortion misinformation.

In Kenya, the names and addresses of staff at reproductive rights organizations have been published online, accusing them of murder.

The owner of a private abortion clinic in Nairobi said staff members have been harassed by police and detained. Officials demand bribes, threatening charges if they don’t pay up, the owner said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

Musoba Kitui, regional director of Ipas Africa Alliance, which promotes reproductive rights and access to safe abortion care, said the changes in U.S. foreign aid policy combined with “this advancing American interest in ideology in Africa is really concerning.”

“We think the consequences are going to be dire,” Kitui said, especially for women and marginalized communities such as LGBTQ+ people.

‘It’s a culture war’

Last year, antiabortion Christian groups from the U.S., Europe and Africa and high-ranking Kenyan officials gathered in Nairobi for a conference on “Promoting and Protecting Family Values in Challenging Times.” Poland-based antiabortion group Ordo Iuris handed out a guide in four languages, including Swahili, with tips on lobbying international organizations, including the United Nations, European Union and African Union.

Travis Weber, vice president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based evangelical group active in antiabortion advocacy, said he traveled to Nairobi to “defend the family as God designed it.”

Charles Kanjama, vice chairman of African Christian Professionals Forum, the conference organizer, said that, previously, international aid often supported reproductive rights — but times have changed.

“We are hoping that … we can start attracting money from people who think like us,” said Kanjama, among Africa’s most prominent antiabortion figures. “It’s a culture war, really.”

Indeed, the antiabortion agenda is gaining momentum. In June, representatives of 20 African countries finalized a draft charter at a conference in Ghana that calls for rejecting sexual and reproductive health rights. It will be voted on by the African Union next year. Family Watch International’s co-founder, Sharon Slater, was among those fundraising for the charter’s passage at the European Parliament in Brussels this year.

Legal gray area

In Kenya, one of Africa’s richest countries, seven women die every day on average from complications of unsafe abortions, according to the African Population and Health Research Center.

The 2010 Kenyan Constitution permits abortion when a woman’s health or life is threatened. Subsequent court decisions have also allowed abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious threat to a woman’s mental health.

But there’s a major legal gray area. Kenya’s penal code, which dates to the colonial era, continues to criminalize abortion providers and women seeking the procedure, who can face up to 14 years in prison.

Most public hospitals don’t perform abortions, leaving women the option of pricey private clinic procedures or risky illicit methods, healthcare officials said.

In May, an appeals court in Kenya overturned a ruling that affirmed access to abortion as a fundamental right — a case led by Kanjama, who said the decision “restored constitutional balance.”

The Kenyan Health Ministry, Justice Ministry and the government spokesperson’s office did not reply to repeated AP requests for comment, including detailed questions sent via email.

The U.S. State Department, in response to an AP request for comment on the Trump administration’s new rules governing American aid overseas, said: “The American people expect their tax dollars to support programs that save lives … and reflect American values, not fund abortion-related activities, left-wing social agendas, or wasteful overseas bureaucracies.”

“U.S. assistance continues to support a wide range of maternal and child health services as part of the America First Global Health Strategy,” it said in a statement.

The toll of unsafe abortions

In Kenya, doctors are obligated to treat women suffering from post-abortion complications, often from underground procedures, including bleeding, infections and the loss of their wombs — and it’s those cases that often end up in public hospitals.

“By the time the women come, we are often dealing with a life-threatening situation,” said Dominic Omollo, the reproductive health coordinator in Bondo, western Kenya.

Even as the stated aim of U.S., international and Africa-based antiabortion groups is to protect life, activists and healthcare providers say that, in reality, the result is more unsafe abortions and more women dying.

In Karabok, a village in rural Kenya, two trees were planted at the site where Mary Olouch is buried, just feet from where the 25-year-old bled to death after an illicit abortion.

“She did not open up to anyone,” said Loice Ochieng, a community health volunteer in charge of family planning in the village.

Olouch already had a young child when she realized she was pregnant. She didn’t tell her husband. When he came home one evening, he found her bleeding and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late.

Olouch did not qualify for an abortion in a public hospital and couldn’t afford a private clinic on her meager income selling fish. Abortion carries enormous stigma in rural communities, and husbands often don’t allow women to use contraceptives, Ochieng said.

After Olouch’s death, women started to talk more openly about abortion in Karabok, where, for many, even uttering the word had been taboo, Ochieng said.

Now, she said, if women “have a problem, they come to me, they ask. Because they have seen that this thing can cause death.”

Pronczuk and Beaty write for the Associated Press and reported from Kisumu and New York, respectively. AP writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi and Caitlin Kelly in Freetown, Sierra Leone, contributed to this report.

It is the latest wildfire call out for the Scottish fire service during the recent stretch of warm, dry weather.

Hundreds of firefighters, two helicopters and specialist resources were sent to the Cairngorms National Park where a blaze has been ongoing for four days.

Six square kilometres of land had been affected resulting in homes and businesses, including campsites and a ski resort in the Glenmore Forest Park area, being evacuated as a safety precaution.

A high volume pump has been used to draw water from Loch Morlich to support firefighting efforts.

On Sunday, fire crews said the fire was now “surrounded” and police began escorting residents and campers back to properties and campsites to collect personal belongings.

Ferran Torres scores the only goal of the game as Spain win their second World Cup.

Ferran Torres scored ‌in the 106th minute to lift Spain to their second World Cup title with ⁠a 1-0 win ⁠in extra-time over 10-man Argentina in the final.

Torres’ deserved winner on Sunday came 16 years and eight days after Andres Iniesta also scored in extra time ⁠to lift the Spaniards to their first World Championship with a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands.

It came on La Roja’s 20th shot on the contest against a defending champion Argentina ⁠that failed to manage any to that point and struggled to wrest possession away from their superior Iberian opponents.

That was true at even strength and became more difficult when La Albiceleste’s numbers were reduced when Enzo Fernandez’s late challenge of Pau Cubarsi left referee Slavko Vincic no ‌choice but to produce a second caution just before the end of normal time.

Spain remain the only nation ever to win a European Championship and World Cup in successive tournaments, having now done so a second time. They are also the first World Cup champion ever to concede only once across an entire tournament.

Lionel Messi’s Argentina failed to earn a title for the first time in three major tournaments, having also captured the ⁠2021 and 2024 Copa Americas either side of their 2022 World ⁠Cup triumph.

The 39-year-old, eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi finished the competition with eight goals and four assists, but had little time on the ball until Spain finally took the lead and never seriously looked like lifting his ⁠side to another great moment as he has so many times in the last two World Cup cycles.

Emi Martinez made 11 ⁠saves for La Albiceleste, who fell short in their ⁠bid to be the first consecutive World Cup champions since Brazil won the 1958 and 1962 titles.

What had felt so difficult for the first 105 minutes suddenly looked easy after 37 seconds of play in the second period of ‌extra time.

Pedro Porro curled in an outswinging cross from the left to the back post, Nico Williams won the header and nodded it back into space, and Torres hammered a ‌half-volley ‌at last past the flailing Martinez.

It was his only goal of the tournament, making him the seventh player to score during a tournament in which his side never trailed.

Asked about his goal, Torres said after the game: “Honestly, I didn’t think too much. I just saw the ball coming to me, and I just shot with the power of all the Spanish people.”

The win made Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, at 65, the oldest coach ever to lead a team to the World Cup title.

“We are world champions,” de la Fuente said. “It was together we reached this stage.”

There was some pushing and shoving after the final whistle, which was quickly cleaned up and Spain commenced its celebration as most Argentina players sat on the turf in disbelief.

Cooler heads prevailed, and Spain’s players lined up minutes later to form an honour guard of sorts for Argentina’s squad to walk through on their way to the stage for the runner-up medals.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni admitted Spain were the better team.

“They were the better side – that’s the truth – but I’ll cherish the memory of them [his side], of what they achieved, and of the value of making it this far,” Scaloni said.

“We have to place immense value on this because it takes so much effort.”

L7 BASSIST, vocalist and songwriter Jennifer Finch has died aged 59, it has been announced.

Finch passed away after battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, according to a statement.

Her former group has paid a moving tribute to their late bandmate.

They wrote in a statement: “With a very heavy heart we announce that our beloved bandmate, friend, and fellow troublemaker Jennifer Finch has passed away today.

“She had a long courageous fight with brain cancer and was loved by many wonderful friends, musical peers and fans worldwide.

“We love you Jennifer.”

‘LEAVES A VOID’

Digital Underground member dies as band pay tribute to 90s hip-hop star

ROCKER DEAD

90s punk rockstar lead singer of band Amen dies aged 59 as tributes pour in

L7 recently shared the news that Finch had been diagnosed with cancer and would be missing their upcoming Last Hurrah Tour in October.

She had suffered serious complications and required extensive treatment and in-home support, the band said.

Posting to Finch’s own Instagram, the band described her as a “true original who lived entirely on her own terms”.

“The impact she made on music, art and everyone lucky enough to know her cannot be measured”, the post added.

Finch helped power L7 through the 90s alternative-rock boom.

She played base alongside guitarists Donita Sparks, Suzi Gardner and Dee Plakas and helped define L7’s place at the intersection of punk, metal and grunge.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1985, L7 became known for break-out tracks including “Pretend We’re Dead,” “Shove,” “Andres” and “Fuel My Fire.” 

But Finch’s creative work spanned far beyond the stage.

She was also a photographer, writer and visual artist.

The statement announcing her death also acknowledged “the extraordinary outpouring of love and support” shown to Finch.

It comes after another popular 90s band cancelled their entire UK tour following the tragic death of a band member.

The band said in a post online: “We are completely heartbroken over the tragic and untimely loss of our bandmate, brother-in-arms, and friend for 30 years, Justin Cary.

“We were looking forward to connecting with new and old fans around the world this summer and fall, but for now we need time to be still and grieve.”

Heartbroken by the loss, the band added: “Hundreds of pictures. Thousands of memories, 30 years worth. Thank you, Justin.”

The performer died at the age of 50 after suffering a stroke on June 18.

The Kiss Me musician had been receiving treatment at Albany Medical Center in New York.

He underwent two surgeries following the stroke and was placed in intensive care.

More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online

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Coronation Street star Tracy Shaw, who was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, has enjoyed an afternoon out with a fellow soap legend from the ITV show

Tracy Shaw has enjoyed a leisurely afternoon with Sally Ann Matthews amid her cancer battle. The actress, 52, who played Maxine Peacock on Coronation Street from 1995 until 2003, announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and has been keeping fans up to date ever since.

On Friday afternoon, Tracy shared a photo of herself and Sally Ann, 55, who played Jenny Bradley on the ITV soap on and off for almost 40 years, onto Instagram after they spent the afternoon catching up. Whilst the pair’s Weatherfield alter-egos never crossed paths on screen, the actresses met when they both starred in a tour of the play Mum’s The Word in 2010.

She wrote: “Never stopped laughing #sallyannmatthews. Meet for an hr Brunch led to lunch 3 hrs of glorious laughter. Homemade ginger biscuits, and sunflowers , I was spoilt. We met on tour years ago and we haven’t stopped laughing since. Love you Sal.”

Tracy then shared the picture to her Instagram Story, and in the background , she added the Cyndi Lauper classic Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

“Good morning everyone. I’ve put some makeup on because I’m going to meet a friend who is going to collect me and we’re gonna go for a drink. I wanna share about how when you are at home and then you go out…do you remember the COVID days?

Earlier in the day, Tracy became emotional as she said she was getting ready to go out with a friend and it struck her just how how it felt to be leaving the house after so long indoors.

She said: “All of a sudden we started going out in the world…that’s how it feels and I feel really emotional about meeting my friend because I haven’t seen her for so long and I’ve just spent some time putting makeup on but I’ll probably cry so that’ll come off and I do feel like a painted doll! But anyway, I can’t wait to show you more and tell you more. Have a beautiful morning!”

Tracy, who also enjoyed a brief pop career with a cover of the Lonnie Gordon track Happenin’ All Over Again before going on to appear in Casualty, Doctors and a string of theatre productions over the years, previously told her followers that she was “all over the place” thanks to all the side effects of chemotherapy, and various things stopped her venturing far from home.

“Because of all the medications, thrush, and shingles, I’m all over the place. The smallest things can affect us and this, setting myself, starting the day, listening to the birds and seeing the sunrise and be amongst nature at its best.

“Also, it’s really hot and I have to get the dogs out and I’ve been really locked in the chemo land of not being able to go out because there isn’t a toilet that can actually take what I need now. That’s a bit frank but that’s the truth.

“So, today, we’ve gone to their favourite park and that will be them for the day, and me for the day. I just wanna say hello to everyone. Stay cool.”

If you have been affected by this story, advice and support can be found at Breast Cancer Support.

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Paramount Skydance’s top antitrust attorney told a judge Friday that David Ellison’s company would voluntarily delay its proposed $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery at least until mid-August amid a legal challenge brought by 12 state attorneys general.

The states, led by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, have asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order that would prevent Paramount from finalizing its deal as the court battle ramps up. Paramount made the pledge in hopes of avoiding such a ruling that would tie its hands — and give the states an early win in the litigation.

Federal District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said she would decide by Wednesday whether to issue a restraining order.

Tech scion David Ellison has been a regular in Washington D.C. this year as he races to consolidate Warner Bros. Discovery — less than a year after his family bought Paramount.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Friday’s hearing in Oakland opened the first chapter in the fight over the blockbuster deal that both sides agree would dramatically reshape Hollywood. Two century-old film studios — with rights to Harry Potter, Batman, “Top Gun,” “The Big Bang Theory” and “Game of Thrones” — would be combined, and HBO and CNN would come under new ownership.

Antitrust attorney James H. Weingarten, of the Washington law firm Milbank, represents California and the other states. He told the judge it would be impossible to untangle the two companies if they are allowed to combine.

“If this merger is allowed to close … the harms begin,” Weingarten said. “The job losses, the synergies — that’s the fancy word for ‘we’re going to save money and there might be job cuts.’ All of that process starts rolling.”

Bonta filed the suit Monday, alleging the proposed merger — the largest in Hollywood in decades — would violate the U.S. Clayton Antitrust Act, a 112-year-old law to prevent mergers that weaken competition and raise costs for consumers.

The lawsuit alleges antitrust violations in three markets where the two companies currently compete: wide-release films, potential blockbuster movies and cable television, where the combined entity would own more than 50 cable channels.

Paramount shares fell 4.3% to $8.75 on Friday. Warner stock slipped 1.5% to $26.87 — below Paramount’s offer of $31 a share.

More than two dozen lawyers attended Friday’s hearing, including from Colorado, Oregon, Washington and New York who came to support California, which is leading the case.

Paramount, represented by antitrust lawyer Jeffrey L. Kessler, argued a temporary restraining order was not necessary. The two sides should instead focus on the next big step — whether the judge issues a preliminary injunction, he said. Such a ruling could delay the deal for months.

Kessler said Paramount should be allowed a hearing to defend against a preliminary injunction by the end of August. The company wants to wrap up the litigation by late September to avoid a higher payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders.

In a show of confidence earlier this year, Paramount offered Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders a “ticking fee” of 25 cents for every quarter after Sept. 30 — until the deal was done. Such payments would cost Paramount more than $7 million a day, which Kessler called a “massive injury.”

California Atty Gen. Rob Bonta is leading a coalition of 12 state attorneys general to try to halt Hollywood’s biggest merger in decades.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Paramount would also have to pay Warner a $7-billion breakup fee should the deal fall apart.

Kessler argued the states had not made a sufficient case that competition would be harmed. “We don’t think they’ve come close to jumping through that hurdle,” Kessler said.

Earlier this year, Kessler represented the state attorney generals in their winning case against Live Nation Entertainment. A jury found that Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, operated as a monopoly. This time, Kessler is representing corporate interests.

Prominent Los Angeles litigator Daniel Petrocelli is representing Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount hired attorney Jeffrey Kessler to lead its antitrust defense.

(Noah Berger / Associated Press)

The case was assigned to Martínez-Olguín Wednesday after Paramount requested an earlier judge be removed because he formerly worked as a labor attorney.

Martínez-Olguín said she inherited the case because she was already overseeing another lawsuit dealing with the merger — not because Paramount had agitated for a change.

IT was seen as total madness by many and a charade by others.

But pop duo Wham!’s 1985 trip to China for two special concerts in the newly opened communist state turned out to be a stroke of genius.

The gruelling ten-day trip saw Wham! become the first Western band to perform in Communist China, and helped fast-track school pals George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, now 63, to superstardom.

During their illustrious time together they sold more than 25 million records worldwide and clocked up five UK No1 singles including Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, I’m Your Man and Last Christmas.

Crucially the trip helped the duo crack America and, armed with their catalogue of hits and flanked by a camera crew, it was filmed for what would have been a gritty documentary about the band leading a Western revolution in the country.

Speaking in the documentary, George, who died on Christmas Day 2016, recalls: “It was historic. There were only a few things that you can do as a pop band that haven’t been done before.

“It was a great privilege being the first people to play real Western pop music to those people.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. It’s just that it was a pretty hard couple of weeks.”

Wham!’s manager, Simon Napier-Bell, initially believed that getting renowned British director Lindsay Anderson on board to make the film was a massive coup which would add credibility.

But, it quickly became apparent they had completely different visions for the documentary.

George and Andrew just wanted to make a glossy concert film, while Lindsay, who openly criticised the group, was focused on a hard-hitting documentary about the westernization and opening up of Communist China.

And due to these creative differences the documentary was never shown and the tapes were archived.

Now, for the first time, the incredible footage has been unearthed and the historic trip is told in George and Andrew’s own words in the 90-minute film, Wham! 10 Days In China.

While often unpredictable, the late singer was by all accounts far better at playing the media game than his bandmate.

At a VIP screening at Soho House in London, Andrew told The Sun: “Frankly, I behaved like a bit of a t**t, honestly.

“We were relatively young, but we had also had a good two or three years worth of experience with the press.

“We knew the game. We knew what was at stake. We knew how to behave and how not to — but I just chose not to.”

The band had formed just four years earlier, releasing their debut single Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do) in June 1982.

Andrew knew going to China was a “risky” move for the famous duo, who had experienced phenomenal success but were yet to reach the international stardom they eventually went on to achieve.

He adds in the film: “Wham! In China . . .  I was cynical. Untried. Untested. Risky.

“I didn’t really like it. Landing in China, I felt we were there on false pretences. It was a circus. Wham! in China was more than just the shows.

“A show had to be made of Wham! in China and that meant official events, interacting with our hosts. It was just part and parcel of being there.

“Being dragged around to contrived scenes was not something either of us was particularly comfortable with.”

However they took the risk, determined to break the US market as quickly as possible.

Andrew continued: “To break the States was a huge ambition for any act — and George’s ambition overrode everything.

“However, he had suffered with his voice breaking down.

“He had undiagnosed polyps on his vocal cords at that point and so he didn’t want to spend months touring small venues. We wanted to fast-track Wham! straight to the top. Something was going to have to be done.”

Run like a royal tour, as well as the two concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou, the trip included a number of photo opportunities and government-organised events.

The whole tour was masterminded by Napier-Bell, who saw the opening of China as a way to make history and fast-track the boys to the top.

In return, China got foreign investment.

Alongside the more obvious choices, such as a trip to the Great Wall of China, Wham! were guests of honour at a State Dinner and a garden party at the Ambassador’s house inside the British Embassy.

Publicly, the pair put on a great show, making small talk and mingling with dignitaries.

But amusing new footage reveals the stars oscillated from finding the whole thing hilarious to being sick to death of being wheeled out to all and sundry.

During the dinner, they were presented with an intricate tapestry, prompting George to whisper to the camera like a naughty schoolboy: “It’s a bath mat. We will cut it down the middle. My mum can have one half and Andrew’s mum can have the other half.”

The long, drawn-out trip to the Ambassador’s house almost pushed them too far.

Andrew recalls: “Our schedule was such that we were being pulled in a variety of different directions.

“The Ambassador’s residence was a bit of 1930s Blighty transported into Peking. They seemed to exist in this colonial microcosm. It’s quite strange.

“There was nowhere to hide in there. I thought I would be polite and play the game, but Yog [George’s nickname] didn’t feel the same way. He thought it was an utter charade.”

George was so fed up with parts of the trip that he upped sticks and left Andrew in the middle of a cassette signing with fans.

His bemused bandmate was forced to make up excuses that George was feeling sick and needed a lie-down to cover up the fact the star had simply had enough.

In historic footage of the moment, seen for the first time, a baffled Andrew says: “He’s left me in the lurch before, but once bitten, twice aware — or twice as aware.”

Grilled as to how he would describe his partnership with George, he added: “Stormy, but mostly on the fair side. He’s a nice enough chap.”

While the band split in 1986, the pair went way back before fame, having known each other since 1973, after meeting on their first day at Bushey Meads School, Herts.

Asked if he found watching footage of his late friend difficult, Andrew added to The Sun: “Sometimes it catches me out.

“The moments that really appeal to me are scenes like the one where we are bickering in the back of the car — just two youngsters, two friends.

“They are the ones where you can see the essence of real friendship. They are the things I miss, as we are unable to share them now.

“Anyone who had his company and his friendship for an extended period of time will know he was a deeply caring chap, and we all miss him. To have lost the best friend I have ever had is difficult, as they are irreplaceable. A childhood friend who you have spent all those years with.”

The trip wasn’t without drama.

During an internal flight, one of the band’s trumpet players suffered a breakdown — stabbing himself in the stomach and forcing his way into the cockpit.

For the first time, backing singer Shirlie Kemp — who went on to become one half of Pepsi & Shirlie along with Helen DeMacque — speaks about how she was left terrified and covered in her bandmate’s blood.

Shirlie said: “It was one of the most scary experiences of my life.”

Despite the mile-high terror, Wham!’s trip was hailed a success, both in terms of winning over the Chinese with their music and cracking America.

Chatting to The Sun, Andrew says he believes his late pal would be most proud of the fact the gigs helped inspire a generation of children in China to get into music, many of whom had never even danced in public before attending the Wham! gig.

Andrew told us: “I think George would feel very much the same way as I, in that the legacy that exists for the Chinese people who were at the show is the most meaningful and substantial of all the legacies.

“It achieved what it was supposed to. The trip was designed to raise our profile in the US, as we didn’t want to do a long tour. Yog didn’t like being away from home for extended periods.

“He would find the fact that there are Chinese artists whose careers may exist only because they saw Wham! incredible.”

• Wham! 10 Days In China will be in cinemas from July 28 and will then air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in August.

MOST young mothers cannot fathom the agony of losing custody of their babies, but for British model Lucia Bartoli, an unimaginable nightmare has taken a dark and twisted turn after a ‘social media ban’.

The 30-year-old Luton-born mum has spent the last year fighting a desperate, David-and-Goliath legal battle against her ex-boyfriend, the £700million German fashion designer Philipp Plein.

Now, in a devastating new blow, Lucia has been silenced after a bizarre move wiped her only lifeline – her Instagram account – off the internet, leaving her isolated and on the brink of homelessness in a foreign country.

Her devoted fans have expressed concern about her internet disappearance.

With celebrity supporters such as actress Alice Evans posting: “Lucia you are SO STRONG. No mother should have to go through this. We are all here for you. Don’t break. We have a collective voice and we can speak for you.. Silence is violence.”

Since her bitter split from Philipp in 2023, Lucia had bravely used her Instagram account to document the destruction of her family and rally support from more than 300,000 followers.

The platform became a crucial tool, helping her raise over £50,000 through GoFundMe to pay her mounting legal bills in her fight to be reunited with her two young sons.

But days after a crushing blow was dealt on June 30, when her Instagram profile appeared to have disappeared.

Friends of the model claim the account was abruptly suspended after five of her own personal family posts, dating back to 2019, 2023, and 2024, were hit by copyright claims.

It is not known who is reporting the young mum’s social media accounts.

A friend of the distraught mother told The Sun: “Lucia is devastated. She is alone in Switzerland and, she has a few good friends there but her main support network is either at home in the UK or online. Losing the account has therefore been a huge blow.”

The digital wipeout has left the young mother feeling completely bewildered and targeted.

Her pal continued: “This came out of nowhere, and Lucia is very confused as to why old content that had been online for years was suddenly flagged for copyright.

“She is desperate to get the account back and has been following all the official steps to try and appeal.”

Lucia’s erasure from the internet has even followed her to other apps, according to pals, who say she has had difficulty posting on TikTok.

The timing of this high-tech silencing campaign could not be worse for the desperate mother.

Lucia was recently evicted from an apartment owned by her billionaire ex and is now rapidly running out of funds.

She has been living in a temporary Airbnb in Lugano, Switzerland, to stay near the jurisdiction where her children reside, but that lifeline is about to be cut.

Revealing the terrifying reality of her living situation, her friend said: “Lucia won’t be able to afford to live in Switzerland for much longer.

“Right now, she is living in a temporary Airbnb where the booking runs out in the next 10 days and she is unable to fund another place with ongoing legal costs.

“She is financially dependent on strangers’ kind donations through her GoFundMe, and she is worried that she may have to fly back to the UK.”

Without her Instagram platform to share her story, those vital donations are at risk of drying up completely, threatening to physically separate her from her boys while her ex pushes ahead with an application to permanently relocate the children to the United States.

At the heart of this digital warfare is a very human tragedy: a mother fighting simply to see her children.

The estranged couple faced each other in court in Lugano, Switzerland again in June for a new hearing, but no settlement was reached.

Consequently, matters relating to custody and residency of the children remain undecided, and Lucia’s court-ordered custody arrangement has not changed.

She continues to endure the pain of having absolutely no visitation or contact with her eldest child – a heartbreaking reality she has faced for nearly a year.

While her contact with her youngest child remains restricted.

The emotional toll of fighting on multiple fronts is becoming unbearable. Her friend admitted: “Dealing with her account suspension, on top of preparing for the next stage of her custody battle, has been exhausting for Lucia, and it has been almost impossible for her to stay positive.”

Philipp, 48, who is dubbed the “King of Bling” for his jewel-encrusted and extravagant designs, won temporary full-time custody last year.

While Lucia battles to restore her Instagram account and faces the very real prospect of homelessness, Philipp has previously maintained that he never wanted the legal fight.

In a prior statement to The Sun, a spokesman for the designer: “Mr Plein always believed, with pure heart and total integrity, in the Swiss judicial system and defended his rights and those of his children in procedures that were not started by him, that he did not want and that he tried everything he could to avoid and prevent.

“He is now facing the big challenge of protecting his children, himself, his family and his business.

“He will continue this fight to achieve respect and protection for his children.”

For Lucia, however, the fight is simply about survival and a mother’s desperate hope to hold her children again.

But with her funds drying up, her legal options narrowing, and her voice systematically erased online, the odds against this British mum have never looked so terrifyingly steep.

PHOENIX — Election officials in Arizona’s most populous county reached an agreement this week on how to jointly oversee the vote, ending a prolonged legal battle.

Republican Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap sued the predominantly GOP board of supervisors in June 2025, alleging it illegally took control of certain aspects of election administration. The board called the lawsuit frivolous and said Heap was wasting taxpayer money.

They reached a settlement this week to resolve the lawsuit after mediated negotiations, and the board approved it.

“This deal gets us out of the courtroom,” board Chair Kate Brophy McGee, said after Tuesday’s vote. “I’m sick of drama. We are done with being on the front page going forward.”

Heap said his objective was simple: to ensure his office’s statutory responsibilities are carried out lawfully.

“I am pleased we have reached an agreement that, when implemented, will restore those responsibilities and establish a clear framework for administering elections moving forward,” Heap said in a statement jointly released with the board.

Under the agreement, an interim plan proposed by Heap and approved by the Arizona Supreme Court will govern the July 21 primary. Early voting began in late June.

Heap will oversee much of early voting, selection of ballot drop box locations and other duties. The board will handle other areas, including Election Day voting, ballot tabulation and voting location equipment maintenance. The board also will fund a new $15 million information technology system and related positions for the recorder.

Heap was backed in the lawsuit by America First Legal, a conservative public interest group founded by Stephen Miller, a deputy chief of staff in the White House. Heap had claimed the board transferred funding, IT staff and some key functions — including management of drop boxes and establishment of early voting sites — away from his office through an agreement negotiated with his predecessor.

Heap defeated incumbent recorder Stephen Richer, in a GOP primary, and won the 2024 general election.

The two were at odds over election administration in Maricopa County. In the past, Heap has stopped short of repeating false claims that the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen. But he has said voters don’t trust the state’s voting system and that it is poorly run. Richer, also a Republican, relentlessly defended the legitimacy of the vote.

Supervisor Steve Gallardo, a Democrat, did not vote to approve the settlement and criticized Heap during Tuesday’s board meeting.

“Honestly, I don’t think he wants to have an election that is conducted transparent or even an election that’s not compromised,” Gallardo said. “Now, with this, he owns it.”

Kelety writes for the Associated Press.

BUSTED’s Matt Willis has penned an emotional book about his life on and off the stage.

The musician says he hopes the project will help others who are currently battling addiction issues.

Speaking about Mending: Busted, Breaking and Getting Better, out on October 8, Matt said: “For a long time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to tell this story, or even if I should.

“But over the last few years, I’ve realised that talking honestly about addiction, recovery, family and everything I’ve learned along the way might help someone else.

“This isn’t a book about having all the answers. I definitely don’t.

“It’s about learning that recovery isn’t a finish line, life doesn’t suddenly become perfect, and that we’re all still figuring things out as we go.

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“Writing it has been one of the hardest and most rewarding things I’ve ever done, and I honestly can’t wait for you to read it.”

Just four weeks before his marriage to Emma Willis in 2008, Matt checked into rehab, and despite a relapse in 2016, he’s now been sober for almost nine years.

He’s a brave man, and I’m looking forward to reading his book.

WANT A BLUE PETER BADGE LIKE HARRY? YOU JUST HAVE TO ASK

HARRY STYLES said it was one of his proudest achievements when he was given a Gold Blue Peter Badge to mark his record-breaking run of 12 shows at Wembley .

But I can reveal that the Beeb has now resorted to giving the famous accolade away on freebie websites in a desperate bid to keep the younger generation tuning in.

Once a prized possession, Blue Peter badges used to be given out strictly on merit.

However, an online listing reads: “The BBC are giving away free Blue Peter badges to anyone aged between five and 15.

“The badge allows you to gain free entry to over 200 attractions. Just send Blue Peter a letter explaining why you’d like one. That’s all.”

I understand it’s a sign of the times, but it seems a bit bleak to give it away for next to nothing.

BRITAIN’S Got Talent winner Sydnie Christmas joined American legend Gloria Gaynor for an unlikely collaboration on her 1979 hit I Will Survive at Boogie- town Festival in Surrey at the weekend.

Sydnie said: “I didn’t want it to end. Her love and passion consumes you.

“In that moment, nothing else mattered but the love of music.”

PUB MICK: IT’S CRAWL OVER NOW

SIR MICK JAGGER has revealed how he ended up singing in a pub in Oxford last month.

The global rock icon, whose band The Rolling Stones are on course for their 15th No1 album on Friday with Foreign Tongues, joined an Irish folk group at The Half Moon pub where he sang Handsome Molly with them.

Explaining how it happened, he told the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast: “I had dinner at an Oxford college and then one of the students who I was talking with said, ‘I play mandolin. I’m going down the road to play with an Irish band. Do you want to come?’.

“I said, ‘Sure’, and I took a couple of people I was with and the provost of the college, who took his gown off.

“The band was doing fiddle pieces and the guy joined in with his mandolin, but no one was singing so I thought, ‘Well, here’s an opening. This is my chance for pub crawl singing’.”

I don’t think you’ll ever have to revert to that, Mick.

Kerry’s all gold

KERRY WASHINGTON was going for gold as she hit the red carpet.

The actress wore this quirky metallic gown at the opening of stage production The Whoopi Monologues in New York.

Things really are going swimmingly for US star Kerry, who appears in the show penned by Sister Act’s Whoopi Goldberg.

The one-woman comedy turn debuted on Broadway in 1984, starring Whoopi herself, pictured with Kerry at the opening.

Speaking on US TV’s The View about the original hit, Kerry said: “Whoopi has been such a groundbreaker – a trailblazer and an inspiration for so many of us.

“Throughout my career, this show became a bonding place with other actresses. I would meet them and we would talk about how it impacted us and our idea of what was possible.”

SET FOR A MAIDEN VOYAGE

IRON MAIDEN have sold a stake in their publishing and master music rights, name and image to the Pophouse Entertainment company run by Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus, with massive plans to expand their legacy.

The big-money deal with Bruce Dickinson and the group was announced yesterday and comes after the firm partnered with other acts including Tina Turner and Kiss.

It will mean the band can pursue new creative ventures, including the filming of their Run For Your Lives tour for a “major cinematic project” as well as “developing a digital universe centered around” their mascot Eddie.

It’s exciting news for fans of the band, given Pophouse is the founding investor in Abba Voyage.

Perhaps Iron Maiden will be returning to a stage, in digital form, soon.

Kim’s heart is racing

KIM KARDASHIAN and Lewis Hamilton’s romance is motoring.

She shared this cute selfie with the F1 legend and her daughter Chicago, taken on a family getaway to Idaho.

Kim captioned the post on Instagram: “Summers at the lake with my favourite people.”

I first revealed in February that Lewis and Kim were dating, before they were pictured at the Super Bowl.

Since then, they’ve jetted all over the world on a series of dates, with Kim recently supporting her man at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Judging by the smile on her daughter’s face, Kim isn’t the only one who’s been won over by Lewis.

The high school football season is more than a month away, but fans seeking an early preview of teams with top quarterbacks, top receivers and top defensive backs have come to appreciate the annual Edison Battle at the Beach seven-on-seven passing tournament that is taking place on Saturday.

It’s the unofficial kickoff to teams getting serious because so many quality teams compete from 9 a.m. through the early afternoon in Huntington Beach, with food, music and lots of banter among parents. You know how much players like to rise up against players with better “star” rankings than them, and this is the tournament to see it play out.

It’s not about wins and losses — it’s about players testing themselves against great competition. This tournament has built credibility by showcasing teams competing at a high level, then shaking hands afterward.

Mission Viejo has won the last two tournaments at Edison, but the Diablos are spending the summer trying to figure out who will start at quarterback. Sophomore Brett Burnor and senior Nash McElree, a transfer from Texas, are competing. Could coach Chad Johnson really alternate quarterbacks like he did two years ago with Luke Fahey and Drai Trudeau?

“You never know,” he said.

The Trinity League is represented by St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita, Orange Lutheran, JSerra and Servite. Corona Centennial and its new quarterback, Jaden Jefferson, a transfer from L.A. Cathedral, is entered, along with San Diego’s likely No. 1 team, Cathedral Catholic, which boasts the No. 1 player in the state in USC commit Honor Fa’alave-Johnson. His appearance alone should attract plenty of Trojans fans, particularly for the 10:30 a.m. game against the likely No. 1 team in California, St. John Bosco.

Palos Verdes has four-year starter Ryan Rakowski at quarterback and standout defensive back Jalen Flowers. Rancho Cucamonga gets to show off many of its top skill-position players.

One interesting trend is that this tournament will feature some very good tight ends, a position that has become increasingly important in college football and the NFL but not so much in high school football in the era of spread offenses.

Mission Viejo’s Johnson said he has three tight ends with college offers, another rarity. He could join the Rams with his three-tight-end formation. He intends to use them against defenses that use odd-number fronts this fall. One of his most improved players is tight end Luke Karby, a Duke commit. Another is Arizona commit Max Markofski, who is 6 feet 4 and 228 pounds. Santa Margarita has tight end Luke Gazzaniga, a Kansas commit. Jaylin Smalls of Rancho Cucamonga is 6-4, 230 pounds and moving up recruiting boards.

This is the first opportunity for early clues as to how first-year coaches are doing at JSerra, Los Alamitos, Servite, Orange Lutheran, Long Beach Poly and Oaks Christian.

One of the always-interesting scenes is Edison coach Jeff Grady refusing to take the easy road when making the bracket, so he scheduled his team to open up against St. John Bosco at 9 a.m., perhaps hoping the Braves show up a little sleepy. Running back Maliq Allen has returned to the Braves after spending the spring at Inglewood.

Ocean View also is hosting a 32-team passing tournament in Huntington Beach on Saturday. San Clemente, San Juan Hills, Huntington Beach, Downey and Carson are the teams to watch.

Fearsome duo

Long Beach Poly might have the most decorated cornerback duo in JuJu Johnson, a UCLA commit, and Donte Wright, a Miami commit. Just watching them cover receivers on Saturday at Edison should be a highlight in itself. Johnson was injured last season, but few have raised their profile in the offseason more than him.

Poly is in Pool C and the duo gets to take on receivers from Capistrano Valley, San Diego Lincoln, Servite and Santa Margarita.

King/Drew fearing no one

King/Drew players participating in the Simi Valley tournament.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

This has been a fruitful summer for King/Drew of the City Section. The Golden Eagles have been driving around willing to play seven-on-seven against top Southern Section opponents, including visits to West Hills and Simi Valley.

It’s the same strategy Carson and Birmingham have taken to prepare for City Section play during the regular season. If you can compete with Southern Section teams, then you’ll do just fine against City Section opponents.

Makeo Smith, a 6-4, 265-pound sophomore lineman, figures to receive lots of attention after contributing as a freshman.

Jacob Bethell hits an unbeaten 76 as England recover from 1-2 to chase down 191 to beat India by four wickets in the second T20 at Old Trafford and take a 1-0 lead in the five match series.

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