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Oliver Brendon, travel expert and CEO of AttractionTickets.com, has shared his top five tips for saving money ahead of Black Friday, which takes place on November 28, 2025

A travel expert has shared a top tip for saving money before Black Friday comes around.

Oliver Brendon, travel expert and CEO of AttractionTickets.com, says that knowing how and where to look can be the difference between a good deal and a great one when the big shopping day arrives on November 28.

Brendon warns that “logging on early is no longer enough to get a great travel deal. To make the most of the biggest sale of the year you’ll want to navigate price algorithms, leverage loyalty perks, and utilise more clever hacks that many buyers overlook.”

If you really want to save the big bucks, then putting in some time now to sign up to the best loyalty schemes is key.

“Brands are almost always going to reward their loyal customers first and, because of this, the very best deals often never reach the main sale. By signing up for loyalty programmes and email marketing opt-ins ahead of Black Friday, you may get early access to pre-sale discounts, exclusive codes, or even bonus rewards. If the particular booking you’re after is likely to sell out, signing-up to these is the best way to know you’re one of the first customers to access the sale,” Brendan said.

Here are his other top tips:

1. Outsmart Price Algorithms

“Before you start comparing prices, you need to clear your cookies or switch to an incognito browser window. Some airlines and booking platforms can adjust fares based on your browsing behaviour, so if you’ve been researching Disney tickets for months hoping for a great deal, you might not be shown the best price.”

2. Flex Your Dates and Group Size to Unlock Hidden Deals

“Flexibility is your best friend when it comes to travel savings. Flying midweek, especially Tuesday to Thursday, or opting for early-morning departures can cut costs dramatically, but you won’t get shown these deals if you have specific date and time filters in use. Ensure when browsing that you have the most flexible option selected, and that includes your group size too. Don’t assume group bookings are always cheaper as sometimes two single tickets cost less than one multi-traveller fare.”

3. Use Filters and Comparison Tools Smartly

“When comparing travel options, choosing a ‘low to high’ filter may not actually be showing you the lowest prices first. Some travel websites order their low-to-high offerings by the price of the just accommodation. Instead, where possible, use filters for ‘lowest total price’ to make sure you’re seeing the full cost including travel, taxes, luggage, and other hidden fees.”

4. Turn Cashback Into Holiday Spending Money

“Cashback rewards is another easy win that many people overlook. Banks, credit cards, and even cashback-specific companies often offer cashback on travel bookings as well as retail purchases. Those savings can quickly add up, and if you activate these schemes before Black Friday, you’ll have extra spending money for your holiday or even a discount on your next trip.”

The burst of energy was likely triggered when an unusually large star wandered too close to the black hole.

Scientists have documented the most energetic flare ever observed emanating from a supermassive black hole, a cataclysmic event that briefly shone with the light of 10 trillion suns.

The new findings were published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Astronomy, with astronomer Matthew Graham of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) leading the study.

The phenomenal burst of energy was likely triggered when an unusually large star wandered too close to the black hole and was violently shredded and swallowed.

“However it happened, the star wandered close enough to the supermassive black hole that it was ‘spaghettified’ – that is, stretched out to become long and thin, due to the gravity of the supermassive black hole strengthening as you get very close to it. That material then spiralled around the supermassive black hole as it fell in,” said astronomer and study co-author KE Saavik Ford.

The supermassive black hole was unleashed by a black hole roughly 300 million times the mass of the sun residing inside a faraway galaxy, about 11 billion light years from Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

The star, estimated to be between 30 and 200 times the mass of the sun, was turned into a stream of gas that heated up and shined intensely as it spiralled into oblivion.

Almost every large galaxy, including our Milky Way, has a supermassive black hole at its centre. But scientists still aren’t sure how they form.

First spotted in 2018 by the Palomar Observatory, operated by the Caltech, the flare took about three months to reach its peak brightness, becoming roughly 30 times more luminous than any previously recorded event of its kind. It is still ongoing, but diminishing in luminosity, with the entire process expected to take about 11 years to complete.

Because of how far away the black hole is located, observing the flash gives scientists a rare glimpse into the universe’s early epoch. Studying these immense, distant black holes helps researchers better understand how they form, how they influence their local stellar neighbourhoods, and the fundamental interactions that shaped the cosmos we know today.

BLACK Friday is just around the corner, with deals from food and gifts to holidays and flights.

So we’ve rounded up all of the Black Friday deals at some of the UK’s top theme parks, including free park tickets and cheap annual passes.

This year, Black Friday is on November 28, although many brands offer deals in the weeks before.

Here are some of the theme park deals in the UK – although be quick as you have to book this month.

Alton Towers

The UK’s biggest theme park is letting kids both stay and swim for free in a Black Friday deal.

This means that there are Free Child Places for any overnight stays.

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And the packages also include free entry to Alton Towers‘ waterpark.

A free buffet breakfast and nine holes at crazy gold are also included.

The Black Friday deal is valid when booked for stays between January 23 and March 12 next year.

You need to book by December 1, when the deal will expire.

Legoland

You can get a free day at the park in Legoland‘s Black Friday deal, with a complimentary second day.

Starting from £69pp, it means you don’t have to rush your first day and can make the most of your return.

The deal applies for 2026 short breaks, with the deal ending on December 1, 2025.

Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park is offering free Fasttrack passes for holidays in 2026 in this year’s Black Friday.

The deal includes six Coasters Fasttrack passes when you stay in the on-site Thorpe Shark Cabins.

The six big rollercoasters included are the new Hyperia, as well as Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, SAW – The Ride, Stealth and The Swarm.

The package deal also includes two-day park entry, buffet breakfast, free parking and first hour Fastrack on the second day.

The deal is for all stays from March 27 to June 20 next year ,although the deal ends on December 2, 2025.

Paultons Park

You can get a second free day at Paultons Park in this year’s Black Friday sale.

This even includes trips booked this year, such as this month or for Christmas.

The packages include an overnight stay at a hotel, as well as the second free day pass alongside breakfast and parking.

There are also savings up to £40 on Paultons Park breaks.

The deal expires on December 2.

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TRAFFIC CARNAGE

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Drayton Manor

Drayton Manor is yet to reveal any Black Friday deals.

Chessington World of Adventures

Chessington World of Adventures is yet to reveal any Black Friday deals.

For the first time, Sikorsky’s optionally-piloted UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter performed parachute drops, hovered on its own while sling loads were attached, and flew a simulated medical evacuation mission at the direction of an untrained individual onboard. This all took place at an exercise earlier this year, which also marked the first instance in which a member of the U.S. military had full control over the Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV) Black Hawk. Sikorsky has been steadily expanding the OPV’s flight envelope and capabilities for years now, work that is now also feeding into its plan for its fully uncrewed U-Hawk drone.

Sikorsky, currently a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, brought the OPV Black Hawk to Exercise Northern Strike 25-2 back in August, but details about how the helicopter was utilized are only being shared now. The OPV’s participation in the event came through a partnership with the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Each year, the Michigan National Guard’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) hosts multiple iterations of Northern Strike, which features air, as well as ground and maritime components.

Flight testing of the OPV Black Hawk first started in 2019, and it flew for the first time without anyone on board three years later. At the core of the OPV is a fly-by-wire control system coupled with the MATRIX autonomy flight control software package. Development of MATRIX stretches back more than a decade now, and DARPA supported it early on through the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program.

At present, the semi-autonomous OPV is capable of flying along preset routes, which can be planned in advance of a sortie or on the fly in the field, all via a touch-screen interface on a tablet-like device. The helicopter has a degree of automated obstacle avoidance capability, and routes can also be manually altered by an operator while it is in flight. The pilot-optional Black Hawk does not require constant contact with a human operator to perform a mission, and it can act on instructions from multiple individuals at different points in a sortie. In addition, the control system allows for the performance of certain specific tasks, such as ordering the helicopter to go to a point and hold a hover there at a designated altitude. Just starting up and shutting down the OPV is done at the touch of a button, as well.

“Events like Northern Strike give us the opportunity to take user feedback and roll that into [MATRIX] software improvements as part of a continuous spiral of software loads,” Mike Baran, chief engineer at Sikorsky Innovations, told TWZ in an interview ahead of today’s announcements. “So over the past year, it’s [continued work on the OPV] been largely in the software area, and it enabled a lot of these missions that we performed successfully out at Northern Strike.”

It is important to note the OPV flew all of its sorties at Northern Strike 25-2 with a safety pilot on board. This is something that was dictated by the parameters of the exercise, which occurred within domestic U.S. airspace managed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). There are strict regulations around where and when fully uncrewed aircraft can fly within the United States. In general, having a human pilot onboard also provides an additional margin of safety.

At Northern Strike 25-2, “a U.S. Army National Guard Sergeant First Class, trained in less than an hour, became the first soldier to independently plan, command, and execute OPV Black Hawk missions using the system’s handheld tablet,” according to a press release from Lockheed Martin today. “He directed the payload to a location 70 nautical miles away and commanded multiple precision airborne drops, marking the first time OPV Black Hawk operated fully under the control of an actual warfighter, instead of a trained test pilot or engineer.”

The Sergeant First Class in question, who has not been named, was also notably not a military aviator, which Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky say underscores the ease of training individuals to operate the OPV.

“The level of autonomy that the team has with the MATRIX technology and how that’s put into the [OPV] aircraft, it really takes an operator, not a pilot,” Ramsey Bentley, Sikorsky Advanced Programs Business Development Director, also told TWZ while speaking alongside chief engineer Baran.

For the precision parachute drops during Northern Strike 25-2, the OPV had first been directed to fly racetrack patterns over Lake Huron. Soldiers on board were responsible for actually releasing the payloads from the helicopter. Lockheed Martin’s press release also notes that this particular sortie was planned and executed while the operator was aboard a U.S. Coast Guard boat on the lake.

In addition, the “OPV Black Hawk completed its first-ever autonomous hookup of an external load while airborne,” according to the release. “Using its hover stability capabilities, the aircraft held position while soldiers quickly and efficiently attached a 2,900-pound water tank [trailer; also known colloquially as a water buffalo] without pilot intervention. The demonstration showed that a MATRIX-equipped aircraft can perform complex aerial resupply missions in the field.”

The OPV also carried Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Family of Munitions (MFOM) ammunition ‘pods’ slung underneath multiple times during the exercise. Tracked M270 MLRS and the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launch vehicles both fire various munitions via standardized MFOM pods.

Sling load operations, including hooking and unhooking payloads, as well as flying to a destination with a large object swinging below, can be complex and challenging.

“The amount of experience that a pilot has, especially doing sling load operations and hookups – it takes really years to develop that capability, and that additional sense, or that ‘air sense,’ if you would,” Bentley said. “It’s not very easy, hovering over a point that you can’t see underneath to do these hookups and things like that.”

“One of the things that we’ve heard from operators on the ground is that the MATRIX capability and the autonomy [on the OPV] actually provides a much more stable platform than with a human pilot on board,” he added. “When you bring the aircraft in through the tablet interface and you ask it to hold a 10-foot hover, it holds a 10-foot hover.”

“You’re not relying on a crew chief that’s frankly hanging out of a window or hanging out the back of the aircraft, kind of upside down,” to help keep the helicopter in the proper position, he further noted. With the OPV, “the operator himself kind of has that third-person viewpoint.”

Lastly, at Northern Strike 25-2, “a soldier then used OPV Black Hawk to conduct a simulated personnel recovery, including a tail-to-tail patient transfer to a piloted Black Hawk at an unimproved landing site,” according to Lockheed Martin’s release. “This was the first time an untrained soldier commanded an autonomous MEDEVAC [medical evacuation] recovery from inside the OPV Black Hawk aircraft.”

All of this underscores the potential benefits and flexibility that optionally piloted Black Hawks might offer, especially due to the reduced crewing requirements. Being able to perform missions, or just pre-position helicopters, without the need for a pilot would be a boon in many scenarios, while also helping to reduce physical and mental strain on aviators, particularly during high-tempo operations. DARPA’s aforementioned ALIAS program was focused heavily just on increasing safety margins by scaling back the workload for human pilots, as you can read more about here. Not needing to have any humans on board for certain missions would help reduce risk, which could open up new operational opportunities in or around more contested environments, as well.

In speaking with TWZ, Sikorsky’s Bentley offered a more complete vignette for how OPVs might be utilized in future operations.

“Think about contested logistics, where, at the load point, you’ve got soldiers on the ground … The aircraft runs through all the preflight checks and everything, just like a human pilot would,” he explained. So, with “the ability of the aircraft to be sitting there at a field site, a non-pilot operator walks up, cranks the aircraft, loads in his mission, the aircraft picks up, it hovers over, or it does its internal load operations, and then it takes off and departs along on the mission [route], avoiding obstacles, etc.”

“Then, once the aircraft gets to the destination, another operator can take command of the aircraft, and execute the load out or the drop of the load,” he continued. “Or the aircraft will land and the operator can shut it down, or whatever they need to do.”

“You know the key thing there is that that’s really a customer decision,” Bentley also said when asked specifically about whether there might be plans to demonstrate the ability of OPV to conduct air drops with personnel in the main cabin, but no one in the cockpit. “Obviously, we are very comfortable with the autonomy capability of the aircraft, … but when it comes to employment of the capability and technology, that’s really a customer decision on how they want to employ the asset.”

He added that the OPV’s capabilities, and that of the underlying MATRIX software, are expanding and evolving with a constant eye toward being scalable to meet individual customer demands, which will be based in part on “their permissions, their authorizations,” and what they learn as they “develop their individual techniques, tactics, and procedures.”

Work on the OPV is also now feeding into a larger vision of crewed, pilot-option, and/or fully uncrewed variations of the Black Hawk operating collaboratively together. Bentley noted that Sikorsky has previously envisioned OPVs flying out ahead of crewed Black Hawks with soldiers onboard to perform various tasks as part of a larger mission.

“Now you’ve got [fully uncrewed] U-Hawks out there in front, and that U-Hawk is delivering launched effects UASs [uncrewed aerial systems] ahead of the ground force, and then that U-Hawk lands in the landing zone and dispatches UGVs, uncrewed ground vehicles, ahead of the soldiers,” he said. “And now we’re doing that autonomy, uncrewed, both air and ground teaming, in the soldiers’ hands, setting the conditions before the soldiers ever arrive at the landing zone.”

Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin are also heavily pitching U-Hawk as a way to squeeze new capability out of older UH-60L model Black Hawks, which the U.S. Army is notably in the process of retiring. Converting L variants in U-Hawks has been presented as a relatively economical option that is able to leverage well-established global sustainment chains, as well.

“We think about the Black Hawk as an enduring platform. The Army’s said that it’s going to be around for another 50-plus years,” Bentley said when asked about any potential plans now for offering an OPV-type conversion option. “So our ability to take MATRIX technology and put that on enduring platforms is critical to developing new capability, and, frankly, doing it at a different price point.”

The exact difference in the price point between the U-Hawk and OPV configurations is unclear, but Sikorsky has noted in the past that the OPV has additional systems requirements because it is still rated for crewed flight. There are then distinct costs associated with meeting those demands.

Non-military customers for OPV Black Hawks, as well as U-Hawks, could also be in the wings. The current operator base for crewed Black Hawks already extends beyond armed forces. Sikorsky has already demonstrated the OPV’s ability to conduct a wildfire-fighting mission, which also involved working with a third party to develop unique additions to the MATRIX software for that role.

“So we were out in California in April of this year, working with a company called Rain. And Rain went in and developed a kind of a wildfire suppression algorithm and autonomy capability, where it uses the sensors on board OPV Hawk to spot the wildfire,” Bentley said. “And we were able to demonstrate autonomous wildfire suppression to include OPV going [and] finding the pool or the fill site for the Bambi Bucket.”

“And then once it filled up the Bambi Bucket with water, then the system [on] the aircraft would take off, and it would go toward a general area that the team designated as an area of interest,” he continued. “The sensors on board the aircraft … then would identify the fire through a FLIR [forward-looking infrared] camera. And then the Rain autonomy [package] would figure out the hot spot, figure out the approach path, and the dispersion of the water, and then it would command the OPV aircraft to fly the flight route. And then it commanded the water release also.”

Altogether, as the details about what happened at Northern Strike 25-2 have now further underscored, Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin continue to steadily build out the OPV Black Hawk’s capabilities, which could also now have implications for U-Hawk.

Contact the author: [email protected]

At the center of the sprawling legal battle over President Trump’s domestic military deployments is a single word: rebellion.

To justify sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and other cities over the outcry of local leaders, the Trump administration has cited an obscure and little-used law empowering presidents to federalize soldiers to “suppress” a rebellion, or the threat of one.

But the statute does not define the word on which it turns. That’s where Bryan A. Garner comes in.

For decades, Garner has defined the words that make up the law. The landmark legal reference book he edits, Black’s Law Dictionary, is as much a fixture of American courts as black robes, rosewood gavels and brass scales of justice.

The dictionary is Garner’s magnum opus, as essential to attorneys as Gray’s Anatomy is to physicians.

Now, Black’s definition of rebellion is at the center of two critical pending decisions in cases from Portland, Ore., and Chicago — one currently being reheard by the 9th Circuit and the other on the emergency docket at the Supreme Court — that could unleash a flood of armed soldiers into American streets.

That a dictionary could influence a court case at all owes in part to Garner’s seminal book on textualism, a conserative legal doctrine that dictates a page-bound interpretation of the law. His co-author was Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice whose strict originalist readings of the Constitution paved the way for the court’s recent reversal of precedents on abortion, voting rights and gun laws.

On a recent weekday, the country’s leading legal lexicographer was ensconced among the 4,500 some-odd dictionaries that fill his Dallas home, revising the entry for the adjective “calculated” ahead of Black’s 13th Edition.

But, despite his best efforts not to dwell on the stakes of his work, the noun “rebellion” was never far from his mind.

Federal authorities stand guard at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., that has been the site of protests against the Trump administration.

(Sean Bascom / Anadolu via Getty Images)

“One of the very first cases citing my book sent a man to his capital punishment,” he explained of an earlier dictionary. “They cited me, the guy was put to death. I was very disturbed by that at first.”

He managed his distress by doubling down on his craft. In its first 100 years, Black’s Law Dictionary was revised and reissued six times. From 1999 to 2024, Garner produced six new editions.

“I work on it virtually every day,” he said.

Most mornings, he rises before dawn, settling behind a desk in one of his three home libraries around 4 a.m. to begin the day’s defining.

That fastidiousness has not stopped the lexical war over his work in recent months, as judges across the country read opposite meanings into “rebellion.”

The Department of Justice and the attorneys general of California, Oregon and Illinois have likewise sparred over the word.

In making their case, virtually all have invoked Black’s definition — one Garner has personally penned for the last 30 years. He began editing the 124-year-old reference book in 1995.

“The word ‘rebellion’ has been stable in its three basic meanings in Black’s since I took over,” he said.

“Ooo! So at some point I added, ‘usually through violence,’” he amended himself.

This change comes from the definition’s first sense: 1. Open, organized, and armed resistance to an established government or ruler; esp., an organized attempt to change the government or leader of a country, usu. through violence.

States have touted this meaning to argue the word rebellion cannot possibly apply to torched Waymos in Los Angeles or naked bicyclists in Portland.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has leaned on the second and third senses to say the opposite.

The California Department of Justice wrote in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Illinois case that federal authorities argue rebellion means any form of “resistance or opposition to authority or tradition,” including disobeying “a legal command or summons.”

“But it is not remotely plausible to think that Congress intended to adopt that expansive definition,” the state said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth walks onstage to deliver remarks as part of the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary celebration at Camp Pendleton on Oct. 18.

(Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images)

Although the scope and the stakes of the rebellion fight make it unique, the debate over definitions is nothing new, experts say.

The use of legal dictionaries to solve judicial problems has surged in recent years, with the rise of Scalia-style textualism and the growing sense in certain segments of the public that judges simply make the law up as they go along.

By 2018, the Supreme Court was citing dictionary definitions in half of its opinions, up dramatically from prior years, according to Mark A. Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School.

Splitting hairs over what makes a rebellion is a new level of absurdity, he said. “This is an unfortunate consequence of the Supreme Court’s obsession with dictionaries.”

“Reducing the meaning of a statute to one (of the many) dictionary definitions is unlikely to give you a useful answer,” he said. “What it gives you is a means of manipulating the definition to achieve the result you want.”

Garner has publicly acknowledged the limits of his work. Ultimately, it’s up to judges to decide cases based on precedents, evidence, and the relevant law. Dictionaries are an adjunct.

Still, he and other textualists see the turn to dictionaries as an important corrective to interpretive excesses of the past.

“The words are law,” Garner said.

Law enforcement officers watch from a ledge of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility as a protester stands outside in an inflatable frog costume on Oct. 21 in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

Judges who cite dictionaries are “not ceding power to lexicographers,” he argued, but simply giving appropriate heft to the text enacted by Congress.

Others call the dictionary a fig leaf for the interpretive excesses of jurists bent on reading the law to suit a political agenda.

“Judges don’t want to take personal responsibility for saying ‘Yes, there’s a rebellion’ or ‘no, there isn’t,’ so they say ‘the dictionary made me do it.’” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. “No, it didn’t.”

Though he agreed with Black’s definition of rebellion, Segall rejected the idea it could shape jurisprudence: “That’s not how our legal system works,” he said.

The great challenge in the troops cases, legal scholars agree, is that they turn on a vague, century-old text with no relevant case law to help define it.

Unlike past presidents, who invoked the Insurrection Act to combat violent crises, Trump deployed an obscure subsection of the U.S. code to wrest command of National Guard troops from state governors and surge military forces into American cities.

Before Trump deployed troops to L.A. in June, the law had been used only once in its 103-year history.

With little interpretation to oppose it, the Justice Department has wielded its novel reading of the statute to justify the use of federalized troops to support immigration arrests and put down demonstrations.

Administration attorneys say the president’s decision to send soldiers to Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago is “unreviewable” by courts, and that troops can remain in federal service in perpetuity once called up, regardless of how conditions change.

Border Patrol official Greg Bovino marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Judges have so far rejected these claims. But they have split on the thornier issues of whether community efforts to disrupt immigration enforcement leave Trump “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws” — another trigger for the statute — and if sporadic violence at protests adds up to rebellion.

As of this week, appellate courts also remain sharply divided on the evidence.

On Oct 23, Oregon claimed the Department of Justice inflated the number of federal protective personnel it said were detailed to Portland in response to protests to more than triple its actual size — a mistake the department called an “unintended ambiguity.”

The inflated number was repeatedly cited in oral arguments before the 9th Circuit and more than a dozen times in the court’s Oct. 20 decision allowing the federalization of Oregon’s troops — an order the court reversed Tuesday while it is reviewed.

The 7th Circuit noted similar falsehoods, leading that court to block the Chicago deployment.

“The [U.S. District] court found that all three of the federal government’s declarations from those with firsthand knowledge were unreliable to the extent they omitted material information or were undermined by independent, objective evidence,” the panel wrote in its Oct 11 decision.

A Supreme Court decision expected in that case will probably define Trump’s power to deploy troops throughout the Midwest — and potentially across the country.

For Garner, that decision means more work.

In addition to his dictionaries, he is also the author of numerous other works, including a memoir about his friendship with Scalia. In his spare time, he travels the country teaching legal writing.

The editor credits his prodigious output to strict discipline. As an undergrad at the University of Texas, he swore off weekly Longhorns games and eschewed his beloved Dallas Cowboys to concentrate on writing, a practice he has maintained with Calvinist devotion ever since.

“I haven’t seen a game for the last 46 years,” the lexicographer said, though he makes a biannual exception for the second halves of the Super Bowl and college football’s national championship game.

As for the political football with Black’s “rebellion,” he’s waiting to see how the Illinois Guard case plays out.

“I will be looking very closely at what the Supreme Court says,” Garner said. “If it writes anything about the meaning of the word rebellion, that might well affect the next edition of Black’s Law Dictionary.”

MODEL Emily Ratajkowski looks a real treasure at an exhibition to celebrate the Swarovski jewellery brand.

The US star, 34, wore a revealing black coat and glittering crystal necklace at the Los Angeles event marking the Austrian company’s links to Hollywood.

Reality TV sisters Sarah Jane Nader, 23, and Brooks Nader, 28, also sparkled on the red carpet.

They are appearing in the Disney+ show Love Thy Nader, which follows their attempts to make it as models in New York.

Brooks said: “I’m shocked because I know that we’re just psychos at heart.”

It comes as Emily last week bared her soul about how she suffered from self-doubt.

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She revealed how writing her 2021 memoir My Body had sparked feelings of inadequacy.

The best-selling author, whose memoir has sold millions of copies, recently teamed up with Lena Dunham, 39, creator of TV series Girls, for a brand new show. 

Talking to Beyond Noise magazine, Emily said: “I’ve had a real journey related to imposter syndrome. I wrote my book literally on my phone.” 

She added: “That was five years ago.

“Now I have a desk. I have my bookshelf. I have a proper computer.

“I’ve really embraced it, but I loved how I could trick myself into thinking what I was doing wasn’t important.” 

To put Sunderland’s start into context, it’s worth remembering how the Black Cats defied expectations to reach the top-flight again.

Regis le Bris’ side finished 24 points behind Burnley and Leeds in the automatic promotion spots and managed just 58 goals in their 46 games.

They required an injury-time winner to edge past Coventry in the play-off semi-finals and they were clear underdogs going into the final at Wembley against Sheffield United, who finished 14 points ahead of the Black Cats.

But Sunderland showed their resilience again, coming from behind in the final and scoring another injury-time winner through Tom Watson to regain top-flight status for the first time in eight years.

It makes this season’s start all the more impressive.

The 17 points Sunderland have accumulated from their nine matches so far is the Black Cats’ equal best start in the Premier League, matching the tally from the 1999-00 season.

Only five newly promoted teams have earned more points from their opening nine matches than Sunderland have managed this season.

All five of those teams, as well as Sunderland in 2000, managed to survive relegation.

“Anyone who is honest enough will say that they never expected Sunderland to start this well, so full credit to them,” Michael Carrick told BBC Radio 5 Live after the win at Chelsea.

“The amount of points they have accumulated already has given them an unbelievable start and that’s something they will want to build on.

“They looked quite comfortable and calm for long periods, but also looked dangerous. They just kept that belief to get the win.

“It’s a textbook away win at an, arguably, bigger team.”

WHEN it comes to a real-life paradise, the closest you’ll probably get to it is the Caribbean.

And there’s one destination that’s seeing more tourists than ever which is developing new hotels so visitors can enjoy the hot weather and beautiful beaches.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is the fastest-growing tourism destination in the Caribbean with 17.3 percent more visitors in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

Jamaica and Barbados are the Caribbean islands most visited by Brits – but St Vincent and the Grenadines has the potential to be your next holiday spot.

You can get there by flying to Argyle International Airport on St Vincent – and then, from there you can explore the 32 islands and cays.

The country’s capital is Kingstown in St Vincent, where visitors explore historical sites like Fort Charlotte and the Gothic cathedrals.

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The capital has Botanical Gardens, waterfalls, and plenty of opportunities to try out water activities like boat tours, snorkelling, and diving.

The waters have plenty of marine life like whales, dolphins, green sea turtles and lots of reef fish.

Of course being an island, St Vincent has some incredible beaches from Indian Bay, Villa Beach and Mt. Wynne Beach – which has volcanic black sand.

St Vincent is home to the country’s largest volcano called La Soufrière.

It’s active too, with the last explosive events happening in 2021.

The island has rainforests as well and visitors can hike through the Vermont Nature Trail and the Cumberland Forest Reserve.

The island country is a great for fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise which was filmed across its beaches and rainforest.

It was even rumoured that St Vincent would open a theme park to honour the films.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is one of the best spots for winter sun, as throughout the whole year the temperature averages between 24-27C.

The rainy season runs from June through November, with the wettest months typically being October and November.

The island country consists of eight other inhabited islands; Young Island, Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Union Island, Mayreau, Petit St Vincent and Palm Island.

To get to the other most popular islands, visitors can use ferries or take regional flights.

Here you’ll find white-sand beaches and plenty more swimming spots in the bright blue Caribbean sea.

To accommodate the increasing number of visitors in St Vincent and the Grenadines, there are four new projects across the islands and all are set to open by 2027.

The first is called Peter’s Hope Resort Development Project, which is a 280-room beachfront Marriott Autograph Collection hotel.

Another is the Beaches St. Vincent and the Grenadines which will be a 360-room resort focusing on families that will be built at Mt. Wynne.

The Palm Island Development is a new project with phase one scheduled to open in December 2026.

And the Cumberland Bay Resort Development Project will be a 150-room beachfront resort set to have pretty overwater bungalows, cottages, a hotel and small marina. 

Virgin Atlantic connects St. Vincent with a stopover at the neighbouring island of Barbados taking around 11 hours.

You can fly from London Heathrow to St Vincent with return fares from £574.92.

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This island in St Vincent and the Grenadines is known as ‘turtle island’…

CANOUAN sits between St Vincent and Grenada, and it’s one of the smallest measuring at three square miles and has a population of around 2,000.

Known for its abundance of turtles, tortoises and beautiful beaches, the little-known island doesn’t get many tourists, which means it’s a hotspot for celebs.

Thanks to it being lesser-known, the island of Canouan has been known to be a popular Caribbean spot for celebrities.

Due to its privacy, the likes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., and Cindy Crawford have all been seen there.

Another reason for its popularity amongst the famous is the amount of luxury resorts there – and the fact that they all allow use of the ‘invisible key’, which means you can use facilities across all of them.

The island is known for being peaceful and quiet, but is rising in popularity amongst travellers.

It has a nickname too, Canouan is sometimes referred to as ‘Turtle Island’.

As you might have guessed this is because the island is a natural sanctuary for green sea turtles which swim off the coast.

During the months of May and October, the turtles hatch along the beach, so if you stick around until dawn, you might spot tiny hatchlings make their way from the sand to the sea.

Here’s another Caribbean island that only a few thousand Brits visit is getting a new airport – with UK flights.

Plus, Caribbean’s safest island is ‘back on map’ as 2025 holiday spot – thanks to stunning beaches and region’s longest pool.

Oct. 23 (UPI) — New data released by Harvard University’s undergraduate school showed a decline for the class of 2029 in both Hispanic and Black students, with a spike in its Asian student population.

Massachusetts-based Harvard College stated its 2029 class makeup showed Black students comprised 11.5%, with Hispanics at 11% and Asian-American students at 41%, according to newly released data.

However, the university did not release demographics and data on its White student population.

The data release followed the U.S. Supreme Court‘s recent ruling that struck down affirmative action practices in America’s higher learning institutions.

Prior to the high court’s decision, the Harvard student population had been made up of about 18% of Black students.

But Harvard’s total number of Hispanic students went up following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

According to data, roughly 21% of Harvards 2029 graduating class were eligible for federal Pell Grants. It added 45% were tuition free and 26% on an entirely free program.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump instructed the Department of Education to inform U.S. educational institutions on the receiving end of federal funds to officially end affirmative action policies in a number of school-related practices.

Meanwhile, a Yale professor and expert on affirmative action history called the decline an example how the high court’s “disastrous decision from 2023 continues to cause Black enrollment rates to decline at many of the nation’s premier universities.”

“I fear that Harvard’s plummeting trend lines over the last two years offers an unattractive preview of the future in American higher education,” Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, told The New York Times.

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) visited three Black churches in Los Angeles on Sunday morning to campaign for California’s redistricting effort, which could add five or six Democratic representatives to his ranks.

Amid a congressional deadlock over healthcare subsidies that has left the government shut down for more than two weeks, the minority leader returned to the Golden State to campaign for Proposition 50. The ballot measure would give his party more power against Republicans, who Jeffries said have refused to negotiate in the shutdown and otherwise.

“This is trouble all around us,” Jeffries told the congregation at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in West Adams — after poking fun at President Trump’s 2016 gaffe misspronouncing a book of the Bible. “Folks in the government who would rather shut the government down than give healthcare to everyday Americans. Wickedness in high places. And now they want to gerrymander the congressional maps all across the country to try to rig the midterm elections.”

The packed congregation — most wearing pink to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month — were receptive to his message.

“This is a way of trying to keep things equal,” said Kim Balogun, who was in Sunday’s crowd. “A level playing field.”

For many of its members, First AME is more than just a church. As the city’s oldest African American congregation, it has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights since its founding in 1872.

“This is family,” said Toni Scott, a retired special-education teacher who has been with First AME for 52 years. “As one of the church’s previous ministers used to say, ‘This is a hospital. People are sick; we come to be healed,’” she said.

When news reached L.A. that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, South African immigrants and anti-apartheid activists flocked to the church, anxiously awaiting the first sights of Mandela walking free. During the 1992 riots, First AME was a bastion of hope amid a sea of chaos.

“We thank you, God, for bringing us through dark times and chaotic times,” the Rev. Charolyn Jones said to the congregation on Sunday, “knowing that our church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was born out of protest.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, left, greets parishioners at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50,” Jeffries said.

(Ethan Swope / For The Times)

For Jeffries, the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress, the West Coast trip amid a congressional impasse was important.

“The African American churchgoing community has always been the foundation of the Black experience in the United States of America,” Jeffries said, who also visited the congregations of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in South L.A. and Resurrection Church of Los Angeles in Carson. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50.”

The state’s redistricting effort, Proposition 50, is part of a national fight over control of the U.S. House of Representatives, instigated by President Trump. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, but in June, Trump began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to yield five more likely GOP seats.

In response, Newsom proposed California temporarily depose of its independent redistricting commission, led by 14 citizens, to redraw the state’s maps and add five Democratic seats, effectively canceling out Texas’s move.

The Democratic-controlled state Legislature quickly produced redrawn maps and scheduled a Nov. 4 special election to put them up for a vote. Mail-in ballots are already in the hands of voters.

California Republicans, including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have slammed the initiative as a “big scam.” Schwarzenegger called Democrats hypocritical, arguing that while they call Trump a “threat to democracy,” they want to “tear up the Constitution of California” and “take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians.”

Jeffries noted that California was letting its citizens ultimately decide — unlike some Republican-led states.

“We said from the very beginning that we want to find bipartisan common ground whenever possible, but unfortunately, Republicans, from the beginning of this presidency, have adopted a take-it-or-leave-it, go-at-it-alone strategy,” he said, which is part of why, he added, Proposition 50 is so important.

In the current shutdown, Democrats said they will not vote for a funding bill unless it extends tax credits in the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire for many Americans at the end of the year and reverses cuts to Medicaid that Republicans passed in July’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

If the ACA credits expire, premiums would on average more than double for Americans on the enhanced tax credit, one health policy research firm found. But Republicans point out they come with a price: The Congressional Budget Office estimates they would cost the government $350 billion over the next decade.

The bill, which is now law, will cut Medicaid spending by $793 billion, the CBO estimated, and lead to 7.8 million Americans losing their insurance.

On the government shutdown, Richard Balogun, a member of Sunday’s First AME congregation, thinks fighting for healthcare is a worthwhile cause.

“Isn’t it amazing that in England, Australia … you can have national healthcare? Maybe you don’t get treated within the first hour, but you get treated,” he said. In America, “you have to ask yourself sometimes, if I’m going to the emergency room, can I afford that thousands of dollars I’m going to have to pay? That should not be the case in this country.”

A government shutdown has consequences: 2.3 million civilian federal employees are going without pay — roughly 750,000 of whom are furloughed. When the employees are back-paid after the government reopens, that’ll correspond to roughly $400 million of taxpayer money spent every day of the shutdown to pay employees who were not working, the CBO estimates.

Beyond National Park closures and air travel delays, food programs for low-income families could run dry without a funding bill. The Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) can see effects as soon as one week after a shutdown, the CEO of the National WIC Assn. said. Meanwhile, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) could also run out of funding further down the line.

Republicans blame Democrats for shutting down the government over their healthcare concerns, but Jeffries pinned it on Republicans, who’ve refused to negotiate.

To Scott, the pink her congregation was wearing to support breast cancer survivors only emphasized the importance of access to healthcare. (Jeffries sported a pink tie.)

“More people need to know what’s going on, so just having him go from church to church, mostly in the Black neighborhoods — that’s where we have the most people: in our churches,” Scott said. “Some may hear the word, see something on fake news, but we know in the church you’re going to hear truth.”

The Spanish town of Terrassa in north-eastern Catalonia has temporarily banned the adoption of black cats from animal shelters to prevent potentially sinister “rituals” during Halloween.

All requests for the fostering or adoption of the felines will be denied from 6 October to 10 November to protect them from being hurt or used as props, said the local animal welfare service.

Deputy Mayor Noel Duque told broadcaster RTVE that adoption requests for black cats usually increase around Halloween.

While black cats are often associated with witchcraft and seen as bad luck in Western culture, many other cultures, including Japan and Egypt, see them as symbols of prosperity and fortune.

Terassa’s city council said there had been no record of cruelty towards black cats in the town, however there have been incidents in other areas and the decision was taken after warnings from animal welfare groups.

“We try to prevent people from adopting because it’s trendy or impulsively. And in cases like these, which we know exist, to prevent any macabre practices,” Duque said.

Terrassa is home to more than 9,800 cats, according to local authorities, and the town’s adoption centre houses around 100 felines, 12 of which are black, the Catalan News Agency reported.

The city council emphasised that the measure is “temporary and exceptional” and represents an extra precaution for animal welfare, but did not rule out repeating the ban in the future.

Exceptions during the ban period will be assessed individually by the adoption centre and normal fostering requests will resume after Halloween.

Sikorsky has unveiled a new, fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter with a completely transformed front end that swaps out the cockpit for clamshell doors. Depending on how it is configured, what has been dubbed the U-Hawk can move thousands of pounds of outsized cargo internally and slung underneath, deploy uncrewed ground vehicles, and fire dozens of “launched effects” like surveillance and reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions.

A U-Hawk demonstrator, converted from an ex-U.S. Army UH-60L, is on display at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference in Washington, D.C., which opened today and at which TWZ is in attendance. Sikorsky, now a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, also refers to the design as the S-70 Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), with S-70 being the company’s internal model number for H-60 variants.

The U-Hawk leverages the company’s past work on a Pilot Optional Vehicle (OPV) version of the Black Hawk, which has been flying for years, as well as its MATRIX autonomy flight control software. Development of MATRIX first began more than a decade ago and was buoyed early on by support from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program.

“A lot of our customers said, hey, I need to be able to move things into theater, and I need to be able to move them in mass. And a lot of the drones out there may be able to carry 100 pounds, may be able to carry 500 pounds,” Rich Benton, Sikorsky Vice President and General Manager, told TWZ and other outlets during a press call earlier this month. “We look introspectively, what do we have? Well, we actually have an autonomous Black Hawk today, our OPV, optionally piloted. But why couldn’t we just take the cockpit out of that and make that a UAS?”

“We conceived this idea [the U-Hawk], believe it not, at the last AUSA, talking to some of the folks from the Army and other services,” Igor Cherepinsky, Sikorsky Innovations Director, also told TWZ and other outlets during a separate call ahead of the opening of today’s conference. “We procured the [underlying UH-60L] aircraft towards the beginning of this year.”

It took Sikorsky roughly 10 months to go from “concept to reality,” according to a company press release. The goal is for it to take flight for the first time next year. The U-Hawk has, so far, been an internally funded effort.

The U-Hawk adaptation of the Black Hawk does do much more than simply remove the pilots and offers significantly greater capability than crewed versions for certain missions. The design also features a different hardware backend for the MATRIX autonomy package and a revised fly-by-wire control system compared to the previous OPV Black Hawk, which we will come back to later on.

Still, the most eye-catching features of the new uncrewed version are its new front section and revised internal arrangement.

“We have completely removed the cockpit, the pilot, and also the crew chief stations of the aircraft,” Ramsey Bentley, Sikorsky Advanced Programs Business Development Director, explained while speaking alongside Cherepinsky. “This gives us the entire cabin and cockpit area for either a logistics operation or mission support operations.”

Sikorsky says the U-Hawk will also be able to “self-deploy” out to a range of 1,600 nautical miles and have a total unrefueled endurance of 14 hours. The press release today also says the uncrewed Black Hawk can “carry internal fuel tanks for increased range or extended time on station,” but it is unclear if this is required to meet the stated range and endurance figures, although that seems likely. Increased range while carrying a useful payload still opens up significant new opportunities, especially for operations across the broad expanses of the Pacific, but also elsewhere.

Payload-wise, Sikorsky expects the uncrewed Black Hawk to be able to carry up to 7,000 pounds internally or 9,000 pounds slung underneath, or a mix of both up to a maximum rating of 10,000 pounds. The company says this is roughly in line with the payload capacity, by weight, of a standard crewed UH-60L. For helicopters, in general, the maximum allowable payload on any particular sortie is also heavily dependent on environmental factors like altitude and temperature.

The U-Hawk’s revised configuration gives it approximately 25 percent more physical space inside for cargo and/or other payloads compared to existing UH-60 variants. This is important as payloads often have dimensional restrictions, as well as weight-based ones. Some cargoes that would have been previously slung underneath could be carried internally, which would drastically increase the range at which they could be delivered.

“The payload, I think, is what really distinguishes this from competitors. … So one can start to imagine the missions that that U-Hawk can begin to solve,” Beth Parcella, Sikorsky Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, noted while speaking together with Vice President and General Manager Benton. “Everything from delivering swarms of drones, from launched effects ‘quivers,’ carrying cargo in a contested logistics environment, driving on and off uncrewed ground vehicles, operating in a counter-UAS function, [and] roll-on and roll-off of supplies.”

“So there’s a tremendous amount of flexibility with this aircraft,” she added.

When it comes to “launched effects,” or LEs, this is a catch-all term that the U.S. military currently uses to refer to uncrewed aerial systems that can be fired from other aerial platforms, as well as ones on the ground or at sea. Sikorsky and its parent company, Lockheed Martin, are currently using the Army’s requirements for three tiers of short, medium, and long-range launched effects as a baseline for the development of the launch ‘quivers’ and what gets loaded in them. LEs in all three categories could be configured to perform surveillance and reconnaissance and electronic warfare missions, as well as be employed as loitering munitions or act as decoys.

“What this quiver does is, depending upon the size of the launched effect, it’s able to hold 24 to 50 different launched effects in the back of the aircraft,” Bentley said. “The quiver is actually designed for what would be the Army short-range and medium-range-sized LEs. The long-range [ones] probably ends up going out on the [stub] wing, like you’ve probably seen [in] some other demonstrations.”

Bentley also noted that the quivers will be able to carry mixed loads of different types of LEs at once, including types developed by other companies.

Parcella did not elaborate on the potential “counter-UAS function” for the U-Hawk, but indicated that it could be tied to its launched effects capabilities. The U-Hawk might be able to carry other types of weaponry, as well as electronic warfare systems, that could be employed against hostile drones, as well as other targets.

As noted, general cargo-carrying is also envisioned as a key role for the uncrewed Black Hawk. Sikorsky says the U-Hawk will be able to carry up to four U.S. military-standard Joint Modular Intermodal Containers (JMIC), spread between the main cabin and slung underneath, compared to the two that existing Black Hawk variants can lug around today. It will also be able to carry a single one of the standard ammunition ‘pods’ used in the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), as well as a pair of Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) in their launch canisters, according to today’s press release. The Army operates both the M270 and M142. The Marine Corps has HIMARSs, as well, and is also fielding NSM in a ground-launched configuration.

The U-Hawk’s clamshell doors allow for the loading and unloading of cargo even while the rotors are still turning. There is also a folding ramp to help ease the process, as well as allow for the deployment of UGVs.

All of “this is designed to do direct support of the maneuver commander. So, as the Army is conducting an air assault, you would envision the U-Hawk flying ahead of the soldiers,” Bentley explained. “As the U-Hawk comes into the landing zone area, first it dispenses launched effects out of the sides of the aircraft, out of our launched effects quiver. And then it lands, it disembarks the UGV, and then the aircraft departs. And this is done ahead of any soldiers putting boots on the ground.”

“You’ve probably heard about Gen. [James] Rainey, the AFC [Army Futures Command] commander, talking about metal-on-metal first contact,” Bentley said. “This is Sikorsky focused on that commander’s need, the soldiers’ need, to put these launched effects, UGVs, and UAS in the battle space, ahead of us, putting soldiers in harm’s way.”

The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps are also both especially interested in using vertical takeoff and landing-capable uncrewed aircraft for logistics missions, including the resupply of forces in higher-threat areas. The Marines are already pursuing a multi-tier family of Aerial Logistics Connector (ALC) platforms, and have started to field drones to meet the lowest-end Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System (TRUAS) requirement. 

Bentley also said the company envisions U-Hawks performing non-military missions, including supporting wildfire fighting and disaster relief operations. A number of civilian operators already fly crewed H-60 variants in these roles.

Regardless of the missions it is configured for, Sikorsky is designing the U-Hawk to provide all of its capabilities with minimal training and sustainment requirements. Sikorsky says individuals without aviation-specific skill sets can be readily trained to operate the uncrewed Black Hawk via touchscreen tablet-like devices. The MATRIX system has a demonstrated ability to get platforms like the OPV Black Hawk between set waypoints in a highly autonomous manner.

“Upshot of this is that you can operate this aircraft with a minimally trained operator, and a tablet, if that’s what you want. We [are] obviously also providing a way to be integrated into [a] bigger airspace picture, be it civil or military airspace, where one can exercise more control over the aircraft,” Cherepinsky explained. “If you tell it to go from airport A to airport B, for example, and it knows it’s in civil airspace, it will take the right routes, follow the right civil procedures. If it knows it’s a military airspace, it will do what it thinks is right for the military airspace.”

“In some cases, [it] may not be what exactly — what you want. So, we’re providing this level of adjustable autonomy where you can have a local operator on the ground, for example, operating the aircraft as a crane, right, moving around the field, moving things around the field, loading the aircraft,” he added. “You can hand it off to a more central UAS command, where they have a lot more fine detail over … speeds, altitudes, and whatnot. It’s really, really up to our customer how they want to operate these vehicles.”

Sikorsky is also presenting U-Hawk as a very cost-effective option, even compared to what it previously demonstrated with the OPV Black Hawk.

“Our S-70 OPV aircraft has been flying for a number of years,” Cherepinsky said. “It’s optionally piloted. It’s [a] human-rated fly-by-wire system. It’s our autonomy system. It comes at a certain price point.”

He pointed out that many of the systems of the OPV demonstrator utilized available components sourced from existing suppliers rather than ones designed with that aircraft specifically in mind. This included the hardware used to run the MATRIX system, which he described as being more than what Sikorsky necessarily wanted or needed for that application. As he mentioned, the systems also had to meet standards for an aircraft designed to carry humans, which is not something U-Hawk has to take into account at present.

“On the U-Hawk, we actually did a lot more vertical integration,” according to Cherepinsky. “We designed our own vehicle management computers, our actuation, and the price point of the entire system, not just the aircraft, is much, much lower. As an example, our vehicle management computers are 10s of 1000s of dollars, not hundreds, as they are on a human-rated aircraft.”

The current cost proposition for the U-Hawks also includes savings from reusing existing UH-60L airframes. The U.S. Army has been steadily retiring these versions and selling them off as it acquires newer, more capable M variants. The Army had been working to bring some 760 L models up to an improved standard called the UH-60V, but axed plans for further conversions last year as part of a larger shakeup in the service’s aviation priorities. As such, hundreds more UH-60Ls are expected to become available in the coming years. Other older H-60s that could be turned into uncrewed versions might become available as other operators around the world begin upgrading their fleets, as well.

“We certainly can [build all-new U-Hawks]. It all depends on the economics and price point,” Cherepinsky said.

It is worth noting that the U.S. Army is currently envisioning future air assaults, especially in the context of a potential future high-end fight with China in the Pacific, stretching over distances beyond what the U-Hawk could cover. The ongoing war in Ukraine also continues to offer particularly good examples of how growing threat ecosystems are increasingly imposing significant operational limitations on the use of crewed helicopters. The pursuit of launched effects within the Army and elsewhere across the U.S. military directly reflects increasingly more capable and long-range adversary anti-air capabilities. The Army also notably canceled plans to acquire a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), which was set to be a crewed helicopter of some kind, last year, citing threat concerns and plans to focus more on uncrewed platforms.

“So, I’ll tell you up front, I can’t be specific on the things we’re doing to address survivability. And survivability has been an issue for aviation, for vertical aviation, for a long time,” Benton said during the previous press call in response to a direct question from this author about what might be in the works to help uncrewed and crewed Black Hawks address growing threats going forward. “We are leveraging the entire power of Lockheed Martin … what is [sic] the technologies that Lockheed Martin has and can bring to bear to provide survivability on those aircraft. Those are the things we’re continuing to look at.”

At the same time, crewed helicopters are not going away, and tradeoffs will have to be made. For many missions, the U-Hawk removes the biggest risk factor in terms of combat losses, a human crew, while also offering a significant boost in some capabilities. The uncrewed Black Hawk also proposes a way to do all of that at a lower cost that also leverages extremely well-established logistics and sustainment chains. This is particularly significant for the U.S. Army, which expects to continue flying H-60s on some level through at least 2070.

U-Hawks could also take over certain missions in lower-threat environments from crewed platforms, presenting the potential for additional operational flexibility and cost benefits. Being able to autonomously move even a few hundred pounds of critical cargo, such as spare parts, between far flung and remote locations separated by many hundreds of miles, without the need for a fully qualified aircrew, could be a boon even in lower threat areas. The fact that it can move much larger loads internally, without the range penalties of sling loading, is an even bigger sell. All this could be done without adding a new type to the Army’s shrinking helicopter fleet and leveraging the H-60/S-70’s global supply chain is also a very attractive factor, as well. Those same attributes underscore the sales potential of the uncrewed Black Hawk to non-military operators, too.

“We’re really excited. And honestly, some of us are thinking, gosh, why didn’t we think about this five years ago?” Parcella said on the press call earlier this month.

Update:

We got a walk-around tour of the U-Hawk on the floor of the Army Association’s symposium, check it out here.

Contact the author: [email protected]

It’s clear from the existence and execution of “Black Phone 2” that Universal and Blumhouse never expected 2021’s “The Black Phone” to be a hit. If there was ever an inkling that the first film might have been more than a quick and dirty ’70s-style riff on a boogeyman tale, there’s no way those in charge would have let their big baddie, the Grabber, be killed off at the end of the movie.

But a hit it was and so, for a sequel, supernatural elements must be spun out and ’80s slasher classics consulted, especially since it’s now four years later, in 1982. Masked serial killer the Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke (we never really see his face, though we do hear his voice), continues to haunt, torment and maim children, despite the inconvenience of death.

Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill co-wrote both films, with Derrickson behind the camera as director. The first was based on a short story by Joe Hill (the son of Stephen King) and is set in 1978 Denver, where plucky Finney Blake (Mason Thames) had to escape the clutches of kidnapper the Grabber while fielding phone calls from the ghosts of his previous victims, offering tips and tricks. What distinguished “The Black Phone” was its shocking approach to violence with its young characters, who all sported entertainingly profane potty mouths. While it was daring in its hard-R riskiness and played on our basest fears, it didn’t reinvent the wheel, or even try to. However, the film’s phone conceit played well enough and young star Thames was outstanding.

In “Black Phone 2,” Finney’s now a high school student, drowning his trauma in weed and schoolyard fights, sometimes the bully himself. He’s protective of his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who has the gift of psychic sight, but mostly he just wants to check out from his own brain. The sequel is primarily Gwen’s movie. She starts lucid dreaming and sleepwalking, receiving phone calls from beyond — like from their dead mother when she was a teenager beyond.

The messages bring Gwen, Finney and her crush, Ernesto (Miguel Mora), to a winter retreat for Christian youth, Camp Alpine, now run by Mando (Demián Bichir) and his niece, Mustang (Arianna Rivas). As it turns out, this camp is rife with the ghosts of young dead boys — the phone keeps ringing and it won’t stop until Finney picks it up.

If “The Black Phone” dabbles in crimes that are taboo and is even unforgivable in its depiction of brutality against innocent children, “Black Phone 2” commits its own unforgivable crime of being dreadfully boring. This movie is a snooze, not just because all of the action takes place entirely during Gwen’s dreams.

The film can’t shake its lingering scent of “Stranger Things,” but the filmmakers have also turned for inspiration to another iconic ’80s-set property: The whole movie is a “Nightmare on Elm Street” ripoff, with a disfigured killer stalking his prey through their subconscious. Those sequences are fine, action-packed if not entirely scary, but at least it’s something more rousing than the awake scenes, where the characters stand in one place and make speeches to each other about their trauma and backstories. The entire affair is monotonously one-note and dour, with only a few pops of unintentional humor.

You realize almost immediately what the deal is with these ghost boys, but the film takes its sweet time explaining it all. It’s a fairly simple story, so you do understand why Derrickson gussies it up with grainy dream sequences and shaky 8mm flashbacks, and a pretty terrific electronic score composed by his son, Atticus Derrickson.

It’s also a bit surprising that “Black Phone 2” turns out to be so pious and deeply Christian, which is a bit of an odd mix. For a film about Jesus and the power of prayer, it also features a scene in which a kid’s face gets sliced in half by a windowpane. Then again, horror’s trend toward the faith-based isn’t a surprise when you take a look at the success of the Bible-thumping “Conjuring” franchise.

However, it seems like this might be the Grabber’s last hurrah. You’ll root for the characters to vanquish him only because then the drudgery might finally end. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a hit and they’ll figure out another way to reanimate this utterly uninspiring horror villain. Personally, I’ve had my fill of the Grabber’s grabbing.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

BROOKS Nader has showcased her bare breasts in an entirely see-through top while leaving a talk show appearance in New York City.

Photos obtained by The U.S. Sun captured the reality star donning the sexy ensemble.

Brooks, 28, paused to acknowledge the cameras, showing off her sheer black top, exposing her boobs, and a short black skirt.

She completed the look with a black blazer, pointed-toe black high heels, and her blonde hair flowing straight down.

The pictures were taken outside of Sherri Shepherd’s talk show, where Brooks is a guest on Wednesday’s show.

The TV star regularly rocks daring outfits and wore a very similar ensemble last week while attending Paris Fashion Week.

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Brooks Nader reveals her breasts in sheer top as she hits the streets of Paris

Photos again captured the star wearing no bra and putting her breasts on display in a sheer top and miniskirt.

She was seen departing the famed Siena party hours after wearing an even more revealing number at the Grand Palais party with her sister, Sarah Jane.

Brooks rocked a form-fitting gold dress, zipped in the front, which proved dangerous as she kept falling out of it.

She also experienced an unexpected moment when a big gust of wind came, revealing she’d gone commando that night.

The week before, the Hulu star wore another sexy dress with an extremely low-cut neckline while at Milan Fashion Week.

Brooks became a household name after winning the Sports Illustrated Swim Search competition in 2019, which skyrocketed her modeling career.

Dancing With The Stars fans would also remember her from last season, when she competed with her partner, Gleb Savchenko.

The pair were eliminated after reaching ninth place, but their names continued to circulate in the media due to the romance that blossomed during their partnership.

However, their relationship ended not long after when Brooks accused Gleb of cheating on her, which he vehemently denied.

Brooks is now romantically linked to Spanish professional tennis player Carlos Alcaraz.

In addition to her modeling career and stint on DWTS, Brooks stars on the new reality TV series, Love Thy Nader, which premiered on Hulu earlier this year.

The show follows Brooks and her sisters —Mary Holland, Grace Ann, and Sarah Jane —as they navigate building careers in the Big Apple.

There’s been no word on whether a Season 2 of the series is on the horizon, as per this writing.

Beauty fans, do you need to stock up your make-up bag?

The Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday sale is your moment to snap up those cult favourites for less.

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In previous years, the brand has run up to 30% off across selected makeup deals, skincare deals and bundles — with savings on icons like Pillow Talk lipstick, Hollywood Flawless Filter and Charlotte’s Magic Cream — so similar deals are likely on the cards for 2025.

We’ll be updating this guide all month with the most significant price drops, bundle steals and limited-time codes, so you can move fast when the best offers hit.

When is Black Friday 2025?

Black Friday 2025 lands on Friday, November 28 — pop it in your calendar if you’re planning a pre-Christmas haul.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving in the US, which is why retailers ramp up offers across the long Black Friday weekend.

If you’re eyeing Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday drops, that timeline usually means early-bird bundles and sitewide codes ahead of the big day.

We’ll keep this page updated throughout November with the standout offers as they appear, so you can move fast and nail your wishlist in time for December.

There’s also more meaning behind Black Friday than just sales and savings, and our explainer covers everything you need to know.

Live deals on Charlotte Tilbury

• Charlotte’s Magic Cream & Setting Spray Duo, £94.35 (was £111) – buy here
• Charlotte’s Award-Winning Complexion Trio, £60.90 (was £87) – buy here
• The Airbrush Bronzing Kit, £68.85 (was £81) – buy here
• The Pillow Talk Eye & Blush Duo, £68.85 (was £81) – buy here
• Bronzed, Blushing Beauty Kit, £67.20 (was £84) – buy here
• Flawless, Poreless Skin Secrets, £62.40 (was £78) – buy here
• Beautiful Skin Complexion Kit, £53.60 (was £67) – buy here
• Pillow Talk Collagen Lip Bath Kit, £41.65 (was £49) – buy here
• Charlotte’s Magic Hydration Revival Duo, £23.20 (was £29) at Cult Beauty – buy here
• Love Effect Lipstick – Love Talk, £23.20 (was £29) at Cult Beauty – buy here
• Fire Rose Luxury Palette, £36.80 (was £46) at Cult Beauty – buy here
• Lip Cheat Bad Romance, £17.60 (was £22) at Cult Beauty – buy here

Is Charlotte Tilbury taking part in Black Friday this year?

Charlotte Tilbury has some of the best Black Friday deals in beauty, and all signs point to the brand taking part again in 2025.

In recent events, Charlotte Tilbury has run up to 30% off across selected edits and bundles, plus tiered “the more you shop, the more you save” offers on its own site.

It’s also worth checking major stockists, as many mirror or add their own discounts alongside the brand’s offers. You can also check out our pick of the best Charlotte Tilbury dupes, if you’re feeling extra-thrifty.

We’ll update this page as soon as the first deals drop so you can compare bundles and bag the best prices.

Here are some of the best sites to buy the brand’s products:

What deals to expect from Charlotte Tilbury’s Black Friday sale 2025?

In 2024, we also saw limited-time kits up to 40% off, as well as the buzzed-about mystery boxes, which tended to sell out quickly.

Deals typically build across Cyber Weekend, with fresh offers landing over the long weekend — 2024’s sale went live on Black Friday and kept momentum with limited-time picks that sold fast.

If you’re chasing hero products, past discounts have included Magic Cream, Beautiful Skin Foundation, Airbrush Bronzer and Exaggereyes Volume Mascara, so keep those on your watchlist.

When is Cyber Monday 2025 and is Charlotte Tilbury taking part?

Cyber Monday 2025 falls on Monday, December 1, making it the online finale to the Black Friday weekend and a prime time to snag any beauty buys you missed the first time around.

Expect a fresh wave of online-only offers and flash deals to land on the day, often with slightly lower discounts than Black Friday but solid savings on bestsellers and bundles all the same.

As for Charlotte Tilbury, the brand typically maintains momentum going into Cyber Monday, so we’re expecting more edits, bundle drops, and sitewide codes to carry through the Monday rush.

Keep an eye on CharlotteTilbury.com as well as major stockists, as retailers often mirror the brand’s promos or throw in their own perks like freebies or extra cashback.

Our advice? If you see a good price on your wishlist items, pounce—sell-outs are common once the weekend wraps.

How much does Charlotte Tilbury’s shipping cost?

Standard delivery is free when you spend £49 or more, and it’s also free for Silver and Rose Gold Loyalty Members.

If your basket is under £49, Standard costs £2.95 and usually arrives in 2–5 working days.

Express delivery is free on orders over £185 and for Rose Gold Loyalty Members; otherwise it’s £5.95.

Order by 10:30pm Monday–Friday for next‑day delivery; placed after 10:30pm or over the weekend, it’ll arrive in 1–2 working days.

You can add gift wrapping from £1.95 (free on orders over £150).

For the full list of options, including click and collect, head to the Charlotte Tilbury shipping page.

Delivery promos often appear around Black Friday, so it’s worth checking during November.

As ever, prices and timeframes can change—double‑check at checkout before you buy.

Does Charlotte Tilbury offer any other discounts?

Yes! Beyond the big Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday rush, there are a few year-round ways to save.

Keep an eye out for gift-with-purchase promos: recent offers have included a FREE Unreal makeup bag when you buy three products, automatically added at checkout while stocks last.

The brand also runs rotating freebies (think surprise full-size treats when you hit a spend threshold), plus you can choose two complimentary samples with every order to test new formulas before you commit. 

Charlotte Tilbury’s site regularly features promo codes, curated kits and ‘magical savings’ edits with built‑in discounts, so it’s worth checking the offers hub before you check out.

Students and key workers can often access partner discounts via platforms like UNiDAYS and Health Service Discounts—availability can vary—while makeup artists can apply to the Pro Program for exclusive pro-only pricing and perks.

Tip: sign up for emails and app alerts ahead of November—delivery perks, early-bird bundles and limited-time codes tend to land around Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday.

Is Charlotte Tilbury cruelty-free?

Yes, Charlotte Tilbury is officially cruelty‑free.

The brand has the Leaping Bunny seal of approval by Cruelty Free International, a certification it announced in 2021 and continues to hold.

Leaping Bunny is the globally recognised “gold standard” for cruelty‑free beauty, meaning brands must meet strict, supply‑chain‑wide criteria and agree to ongoing independent checks to keep their status.

You’ll also spot the Leaping Bunny logo across Charlotte Tilbury’s communications and packaging as a quick reassurance while you shop.

For the latest wording direct from the brand, Charlotte Tilbury’s help centre confirms its Leaping Bunny approval and cruelty‑free position..

Who is Charlotte Tilbury?

Charlotte Tilbury is the British makeup artist turned beauty entrepreneur behind the eponymous brand.

She’s an MBE and the founder, chair and chief creative officer of Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, which she launched in 2013 after years of shaping red‑carpet and runway looks.

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Charlotte Tilbury sits at a premium price point, but the payoff is there on the brand’s biggest hitters.

Our writers highly rate the textures, flattering shades, and long-wear finishes.

Sun Shopping writer, Maisie Bovingdon, put the Pillow Talk Plumpgasm lip gloss to the test and shared: “The formula is not tacky or sticky, but silky smooth like a nourishing lip oil should be, but the best part and a non-negotiable for me is the product doesn’t slip.”

While our writer, Harriet Flook, tried the Charlotte Tilbury Unreal Skin Foundation Stick and loved it so much, she now “won’t use anything else.”

It’s the same story with icons like Hollywood Flawless Filter, Airbrush powders and setting spray, and Charlotte’s Magic Cream—once they’re in your kit, they’re hard to swap out.

The brand also has a cult following, including beauty influencers, pros, and celebrities such as Kate Moss, Gigi Hadid, and Jourdan Dunn.

That said, it’s still worth matching formulas to your skin type and testing shades where you can—minis, samples and curated kits help you dial in the right fit.

If you’re value-minded, keep an eye on bundle edits, loyalty perks and, of course, Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday, when you’ll often see sitewide codes or set savings that make the splurge smarter.

What are Charlotte Tilbury’s most popular products?

Charlotte Tilbury’s icons are the ones shoppers talk about for a reason.

Charlotte’s Magic Cream is the glow-boosting moisturiser makeup artists reach for to prep and plump skin before foundation.

Hollywood Flawless Filter is the radiance hero you can wear alone or mix with base for that soft-focus sheen fans love.

Pillow Talk stays the brand’s most famous pink‑nude across lipstick and liner, with Lip Cheat in Iconic Nude, another everyday liner favourite.

For a smooth, airbrushed finish that lasts, the Airbrush Flawless Finish powder and Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray are repeat buys.

If you’re building an easy soft‑glam eye, the Luxury Palette quads are always a safe bet.

Keep these on your radar for Charlotte Tilbury Black Friday—they’re the first to fly.

‘The people’s champion” is how Benjamin Zephaniah is fondly remembered in his home town of Handsworth, Birmingham. The words, spray-painted in fiery-red ballooned letters, leap out of a colourful mural that wraps around one side of a local Sons of Rest building, a place where retired war veterans once met and socialised. To the side looms an image of the late poet and writer, his face full of expression and thought. For a moment, it feels as if he’s there with you.

A couple of years earlier, and he may well have been. “Seriously, you could come into Handsworth Park and he’d just be walking through, just leisurely. Benjamin, he’d sit with you, he had time for you,” says Marcia Dunkley, one of the founders of the organisation Black Heritage Walks Network, which commissioned the mural.

It’s a chalky blue-skied August day in Birmingham, and while many of the city’s residents have flocked to the centre for the annual Caribbean music and food festival, I’m on a walking tour in Handsworth, the neighbourhood where much of the creative legacy of Birmingham’s Caribbean population was first felt.

The tour, launched in 2018 by the Black Heritage Walks Network, explores the history and legacy of the influx of Caribbean migrants who settled in Handsworth after the second world war.

The walk largely takes place along Handsworth’s Soho Road, a bustling high street north-west of the city centre where elaborate saris and glistening wedding jewellery spill out of shops and on to pavements. Fifty years ago, the high street, now dominated by south Asian traders, wore a different face.

“Black-owned, Black-owned, Black-owned,” says Dunkley, pointing at an array of mismatched buildings that were once the nightclubs, restaurants, law firms and banks that made up the Black economy in Birmingham, after thousands migrated to the neighbourhood from the Caribbean in the 1950s and 60s.

On any given day, they are buildings that might not warrant a second glance. Take Garvey House – a neglected and disused Victorian house, with a faded white painted front and boarded-up windows. Named after Jamaica’s national hero Marcus Garvey, the space once brimmed with life, offering temporary accommodation to waves of migrants arriving for the first time in the city. The only remnant of its past life is a faint sign above the door.

Black Heritage Walking Network was born out of the ambition of three history buffs, frustrated by Birmingham’s lack of recognition as a city steeped in Black history and heritage. Since creating the Madiba tour in Handsworth, named after Nelson Mandela’s famous visit to the area (Madiba was his Xhosa clan name) the company has developed a plethora of walks, exhibitions, and educational workshops that highlight the history and legacy of the African-Caribbean community in Birmingham.

“People who want to know about Bob Marley and Malcolm X and so on, if you don’t tell them, then they’ll just go to London to find it … People are used to the culture in London and having access to all of that at their fingertips, which means they don’t want to come to Birmingham,” says Dawn Carr, who co-founded the network.

Along Soho Road, unkempt and derelict buildings are contrasted with an array of colourful murals, commissioned over the years, to highlight the neighbourhood’s diverse and evolving identity. On Soho Bridge, a hand-painted mural shows Strikers in Saris to commemorate a group of south Asian women who famously protested poor working conditions at the Grunwick film processing factory in the late 1970s.

Close to the mural of Benjamin Zephaniah in Handsworth Park, is a brightly painted tribute of 13 Birmingham-born reggae artists that Dunkley brings to life by playing Steel Pulse’s Handsworth Revolution and UB40’s Food for Thought out of a portable speaker.

Where the rich cultural history of Handsworth escapes its outward appearance, Dunkley’s evocative storytelling brings it to life. Her passion for uncovering the lost history of Birmingham streets pours out in theatrical re-enactments and poised reflections on the ways we are taught the past.

While narrating the rich cultural and economic life of old Handsworth, Dunkley is careful not to gloss over the more painful realities of the racism and brutality that marked many residents’ lives.

Remembering that the Black and Irish communities ran 24-hour blues parties hosted in the interlinked cellars of houses along Soho Road known as shebeens, she’s quick to remind us that this was often the only nightlife available to residents, who risked returning “blue and beaten” if they ventured into the city centre.

In the same vein, we are frequently reminded of the strength and resilience of the community. “What you had were elders of the community … who would literally stand vigilante along here,” says Marcia at the edge of a road leading to the city centre.

“They stopped the youths from going down there. But they also stopped the neo-Nazis, the skinheads, coming up here, because that’s what was happening. Big clashes there. It was murderous. It was brutal.”

Some of the most painful accounts of the difficult reality for Handsworth residents are discussed outside the austere redbrick building with tall, narrow windows and stone lintels that was once the local police station. Then called Thornhill Road police station, Dunkley recalls a passage from Benjamin Zephaniah’s autobiography, where he describes a room with dreadlocks pinned to the wall, kept by police as trophies after alleged brutality.

Walking tours can at times feel like lectures, only with heavier legs and a burgeoning craving to sit down. On this tour, Marcia keeps us alert by making us work. At every twist and turn in the narrative, she interrogates the group for answers, sparking debate and conversation.

The tour ends at Handsworth leisure centre, the unexpected site of a visit from Nelson Mandela in October 1993. When news spread of his visit, residents of Handsworth flocked in droves to the sports hall– some even camping out the night before – to hear him speak. According to Dunkley, it was a visit city leaders fervently tried to block, fearing it might spark unrest in the part of Birmingham they referred to as the “ghetto”.

“But where’s the statue? Where’s the narration board?” says Dunkley, voicing her frustration at the lack of any physical commemoration to mark the event, a theme she reflects on throughout the tour. “Where’s the celebration?”

Black Heritage Walks Network offers guided tours all year round, weather permitting. Tickets can be bought through its website and start from £17 for adults and £5 for children under 12

MANCHESTER UNITED are weighing up a cash-spinning mid-season friendly in Saudi Arabia.

A trip to the Middle East could reunite the Red Devils with Cristiano Ronaldo, who left Old Trafford on bitter terms to join Al-Nassr in 2022.

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United are holding early-stage talks with stakeholders while looking into possible dates and opponents.

But a face-off with CR7 would be the most lucrative prospect at a time when they’re crying out for funds.

United could stage midweek friendlies this season after failing to qualify for any European competition.

Losing May’s Europa League final to Tottenham meant a £100million reward fell by the wayside.

And with roughly £750m worth of debt weighing on Sir Jim Ratcliffe‘s shoulders, United are being forced to get creative.

Their schedule thinned out even more with defeat to Grimsby Town in round two of the Carabao Cup.

SunSport exclusively revealed last month that AC Milan, RB Leipzig, Lazio and Sevilla – four big clubs who missed out on Europe – have also been scouted out as potential friendly opponents.

United’s new plan comes after they scrapped the idea of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, which could have earned them millions.

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And Ruben Amorim could be sold on a trip to the Middle East if it doubles up as a warm weather training camp in the winter months.

Ratcliffe has sacked up to 450 United employees as part of his ruthless efforts to get finances back on track.

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But he insists the issue had to be tackled head-on, telling the BBC in March: “We can’t put our head in the sand.

“We have to deal with the problem. And it’s a big problem, not a small problem.

“We are in the process of change and it’s an uncomfortable period and disruptive and I do feel sympathy with the fans.”

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Coronation Street star Denise Black, whose character is best remembered for her relationship with Ken Barlow, has joined Waterloo Road, more than 30 years on from her cobbles debut

Coronation Street legend Denise Black has joined the cast of Waterloo Road. The actress, 67, is best known for starring as hairdresser Denise Osbourne on ITV’s flagship soap, who is best known for her relationship with Ken Barlow (William Roache) in the 1990s.

The actress initially appeared on Coronation Street from 1992 until 1997. Her relationship with Ken resulted in the birth of their son Daniel Osbourne, but it all ended in tears when it emerged she had been having an affair with Brian Dunkley (Benny Young), and she was not heard from for a decade.

In 2007, Denise made a brief appearance to reintroduce Ken to Daniel after his adoptive daughter Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford) was sent to prison for the murder of Charlie Stubbs. She tried to make a pass as him but he opted to return to Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride), and it would almost another 10 years before she was seen again. In 2016, Daniel, now played by Rob Mallard, arrived back on the scene after his father suffered a stroke and has been a fixture on the programme ever since. But Denise made a return with him and was last seen offering her condolences to Ken over the death of Deirdre.

READ MORE: Blue Lights star reveals Coronation Street legend’s secret role in new seriesREAD MORE: Coronation Street’s William Roache reveals two-year feud with legendary co-star

She followed her various stints on the cobbles with a role on fellow ITV show Emmerdale, and played Joanie Dingle, the adoptive grandmother of Amy Wyatt’s on-screen son Kyle from 2013 until 2017. Her character had an affair with Zak Dingle (Steve Halliwell) and they later married but it all ended in tragedy when Joanie died of a heart attack in January 2017.

But now, Denise has swapped soap for drama and she has joined the cast of the BBC’s flagship school drama, which was revived in 2023 after nearly a decade off air. In the sixth episode of the latest series, Denise plays the grandmother of Liam Scholes’ character Noel McManus. In explosive scenes, Denise’s new character, Mo McManus, gets caught up in a confrontation for the police.

Waterloo Road first aired on the BBC in 2007, and launched the TV careers of Hollyoaks actress Chelsee Healey, former Strictly Come Dancing star Adam Thomas, and Katie McGlynn amongst a host of others. Stars like Louis Tomlinson, Jodie Comer and Jack O’Connell also began their careers as students of the troubled Manchester comprehensive school before going on to global success.

Over the course of its first nine series, the programme dealt with tough issues like teenage pregnancy, murder and addiction and featured a stellar cast of TV favourites, with ex-EastEnders star Jill Halfpenny as drama teacher Izzie Redpath, Loose Women favourite Denise Welch as hapless French teacher Steph Haydock and Silent Witness actress Amanda Burton as headmistress Karen Fisher.

It was revived in 2023 after streaming of the original series proved popular, but bosses recently admitted that the reboot has surpassed all of their expectations.

The show’s executive producer, Cameron Roach, said: “When the BBC commissioned the reboot of we had hoped it might run for a few seasons.

“To be commissioned for further series, bringing the total episodes since relaunch to seventy hours, is a huge achievement and a reflection of the incredible creative teams in front of and behind the camera.

“As well as continuing to celebrate emerging talent, the show is fast gaining a reputation for working with the best comedy talent, as Jon Richardson joins the cast this season.

“As a team we’re incredibly proud that a very British show can be such an enduring success for the BBC and continue to bring in new generations of viewers.”

Waterloo Road is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Join The Mirror’s WhatsApp Community or follow us on Google News , Flipboard , Apple News, TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads – or visit The Mirror homepage.

The expression “stay woke” started out as an affirmation for African Americans.

In the last decade it has been used by some Republicans — and some Democrats — as a pejorative for people thought to be too “politically correct,” another term that took on negative connotations as it gained wider use.

“Woke” has come up in cultural and political firestorms. Eight months into his second term, President Trump pledged to review content at the Smithsonian Institution for being “WOKE” and where “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was.” At the beginning of this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared in his State of the State address that government would keep “woke agendas” out of universities and K-12 schools, including “woke gender ideologies.”

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was ending the “woke” culture in the military, saying the service has been hamstrung by political correctness. He referenced diversity efforts, transgender troops, environmental policies and other disciplinary rules.

“America is no longer woke under President Trump’s leadership. The word ‘woke’ represents radical ideologies that are used [to] divide the American people and harm our country,” Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.

Here’s where “woke” came from, and how its meaning has evolved:

The history of ‘woke’

“Wokeness” originated decades ago as African American cultural slang for having awareness and enlightenment around racism, injustice, privilege or threats of white supremacist violence.

Several historians trace the idea to a 1923 compilation of speeches and articles by Jamaican-born Black nationalist Marcus Garvey. In one essay, Garvey writes “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” Another reference appears in 1938 in the song “Scottsboro Boys,” by blues artist Lead Belly, whose real name was Huddie Ledbetter. The tune follows the true story of four Black youths unjustly convicted by an all-white jury of the rape of two white women (they were later freed). The lyrics warn Black listeners to be careful and “stay woke. Keep your eyes open.”

Gerald McWorter, a professor emeritus of African American studies and of information sciences at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says “woke” was about having a voice after hundreds of years of Black suffering going back to the African slave trade.

The phrase also popped up in a 1962 essay by novelist William Melvin Kelley for the New York Times. The headline — “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.” Kelley’s widow and daughter believe he heard the term while walking around their Harlem neighborhood, said Elijah Watson, a pop culture writer and editor who has written about Kelley, who died in 2017.

‘Woke’ reawakening

In the 21st century, singer-songwriter Erykah Badu is often credited with reviving the term “woke.” Her song “Master Teacher” on her 2008 album, “New Amerykah: Part One,” includes the refrain “I stay woke.” Badu picked up the phrase from co-writer and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow, who heard it from a saxophone player she collaborated with — Lakecia Benjamin.

The 2014 fatal shooting by a white police officer of 18-year-old Michael Brown — who was Black and unarmed — in Ferguson, Mo., made “woke” and “stay woke” galvanizing pledges in the growing Black Lives Matter movement.

The movement drew support from other racial groups. “Woke” also became popularized by white liberals who wanted to show they were allies.

The war on woke

The backlash against “woke” and “wokeness” bubbled up in the 2010s, amid discussions about including more Black history in American history lessons. Many people said that bringing “critical race theory” to schools was meant to program children to feel guilty for being white.

This argument became front and center in 2022 when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” into law. It banned teaching or business practices on race and gender. (The law is now on hold after a federal judge deemed it unconstitutional).

For George Pearson, a former chair of the Illinois Black Republican Coalition, “woke” is a hollow word.

Democratic politicians who purport to be “champions” of wokeness and DEI have done little for Black people, he said. So, “woke” has no sway as a rallying cry. He also thinks it’s unfair that those who do not support “woke-ism” are told “’you’re racist. You’re a homophobe. You’re a bigot.”

Even among liberal Black Americans, there is a debate whether the intention of “woke” does more harm than good.

Who says woke now?

In Watson’s experience, “woke” is no longer part of Black vernacular. If he hears it from anyone in his social circles, it’s almost always said “in jest.”

Some progressives are trying to take the word back. Academy Award-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda brought up being “woke” while receiving the Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award in front of an A-list audience.

“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people,” Fonda said.

Seena Hodges started her own business as a DEI strategist for individuals and groups in 2018 and called it the Woke Coach. She and her team consult on everything from workplace interactions to best recruiting practices. She touches on inclusion for groups from people of color to breastfeeding mothers.

The “bastardization” of “woke” and DEI as words akin to slurs doesn’t bother her, she said. To her, at its core being “woke” is about awareness.

“What it really boils down to is helping people develop a more acute level of emotional intelligence,” she said.

Tang writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christopher Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

The Black Arrow, also known as the Small Cruise Missile (SCM), flew for more than 400 nautical miles in a test earlier this summer. Leidos disclosed the milestone to TWZ and also raised the possibility of eventually integrating the missile with the MQ-9 Reaper drone and the OA-1K Skyraider II light attack aircraft. As we have discussed in the past, the size and weight of Black Arrow render it suitable for carriage by a wide range of platforms, including drones, while its demonstrated range puts it very much in a class of its own.

Discussing the Black Arrow program with TWZ at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Mark Miller, senior vice president for Missile and Aviation Systems at Leidos, stated that the 400-nautical-mile barrier had been broken in late July, during an envelope-expansion test for the missile carried out from a version of the C-130 transport. Just for context, although wildly different in basic features, that is just under double the range of the original AGM-158 JASSM air-launched cruise missile, and about 70 percent as long as the new extended-range JASSM-ER model. It’s also roughly 10 times the range of an unpowered Small Diameter Bomb.

Back in 2021, when U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) issued a contracting notice regarding a Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program Cruise Missile, outlining interest in a weapon of this type, the specifications included a range of between 200 and 400 nautical miles (around 230 and 460 miles).

As well as demonstrating its range performance, the July Black Arrow test saw the missile “navigate several thousands of feet of altitude change,” expanding the envelope compared to prior testing.

Prior testing includes launch from an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship in November of last year, something you can read more about here.

“Key performance metrics included maneuverability, climbing and descent performance, waypoint guidance, navigation accuracy, and — very important —integration with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Battle Management System,” Miller added.

The roughly 200-pound munition has, so far, been tested from C-130 variants but offers the kinds of capabilities that SOCOM is increasingly looking at harnessing. Miller confirmed that the company was now looking at integrating it on different special operations aircraft, including the MQ-9 and OA-1K. Adding standoff strike capabilities to aircraft like these is seen as a critical way to ensure their relevance, especially in more contested airspace.

Notably, adding the Black Arrow to the MQ-9 or OA-1K would create a true standoff weapons delivery platform, meaning that strikes could be launched outside the range of even long-range enemy air defenses.

“Between the modularity, between the relevant testing we’ve done to date, to include integration with a battle management system, we think there’s a pathway to [integrating Black Arrow on] multiple platforms, and we look forward to proliferating it,” Miller said.

Miller said that the fact that the Black Arrow is already being tested “on a government range, on a government aircraft, integrated into a government battle management system” should provide an advantage over other affordable cruise missile designs that are currently proliferating.

So far, the Black Arrow tests have involved “various iterations” of launch tubes on the C-130’s ramp, but future integration on the MQ-9 and OA-1K would require a different launch method. Miller said there is a “clear pathway to multiple different kinds of [launch] configurations, whether it’s pallets, bomb rack units, etc., those are all part of the future discussions for this capability.”

As for pallets, Miller confirmed that the company is working on several concepts, including a modularized container, as well as “other kinds of palletized options … that will obviously vary across platforms as well.”

Miller was not willing to provide a specific timeline update on the program but told TWZ that the Black Arrow is “moving along according to an aggressive schedule.”

Meanwhile, Col. T. Justin Bronder, program executive officer-fixed wing at SOCOM, told TWZ that “There’s certainly a need for sort of this type of long-range capability across the spectrum of both SOF and service platforms.” He added: “We’re certainly looking at all options.”

Bronder also reflected upon the specific need to modernize the air-launched weapons available to Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) platforms:

“If you look at the suite of munitions in my fixed-wing portfolio, battle-proven munitions in service with the Special Operations community, they’re largely optimized around the type of fight Special Operations have been in for the past 20 years. Fairly benign environments, uncontested, closer ranges. As we look at how to maintain and adapt to keep the Special Operations Forces relevant in these future, contested, and denied environments, something like greater standoff is obviously a key attribute to consider. There’s obviously a number of programs across the department looking at longer-range affordable munitions just for that purpose.”

At the Air, Space & Cyber Conference today, TWZ also spoke to Lt. Gen. Michael E. Conley, the AFSOC commander, for his thoughts on arming the OA-1K with the Black Arrow specifically:

“The beauty of the OA-1K is that it’s modular, it’s adaptable, and for a relatively small aircraft can carry a lot of payload. And so in a perfect world, in a resource-unconstrained world, I want to be able to have as big a menu as possible of things that I could hang from a hardpoint on there, or attach as a sensor. So I absolutely see a desire to have [Black Arrow], but not just with OA-1Ks. I’d love to be able to use long-range standoff mission munitions on multiple airframes.”

Conley added that the Black Arrow is, at this point, “the biggest effort we have going right now.”

The Black Arrow also arrives on the scene at a time when the Pentagon is increasingly looking at the potential of lower-cost weapons that can be readily produced at scale to meet the likely demands of future conflicts.

The Collaborative Research and Development (CRADA) program for the Black Arrow, then known as the Small Cruise Missile, began in 2022 under an agreement between Leidos, SOCOM, and AFSOC.

Two years later, SOCOM was publicly stating that the Black Arrow was one of its top priorities and could be launched from the MC-130J Commando II special operations tanker/transport aircraft, as well as the AC-130J, and potentially other platforms.

Now, it seems, we might well be seeing the Black Arrow in the future on the MQ-9 and OA-1K. At the same time, should it prove successful, it’s hard to imagine it won’t migrate to other, more traditional platforms, such as bombers and even fighters.

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