broke

SPIDER-MAN star Tom Holland broke down in tears at his wedding when he saw bride Zendaya walk down the aisle.

The pair — spotted in a vintage green Jag in London three days after their wedding — got hitched at the Beaverbrook country estate, in ­Surrey, on Tuesday.

A close source told The Sun on Sunday the actor, 30, welled up because the big day was so “charged with emotion”.

It had been claimed by Law Roach, a long-time stylist for the actress, 29, the ceremony was a celebration of the pair’s secret wedding in March.

But we can reveal Tuesday was their wedding day.

The source said: “All the guests were left in no doubt that the wedding and the ceremony were the real deal.

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“All the rumours before were just encouraged to keep people off the scent and make sure the day was just about them and their closest friends and family.

“At first they [the couple] were annoyed that Law Roach had said that, but then they embraced it.

“They laugh about it now and he was actually at the wedding this week and they were all loving life.

“It was an incredible day full of love and charged with emotion.”

Meanwhile, Tom was seen driving the Jag, with Zendaya his passenger, in South West London on Friday — suggesting the motor may have been a wedding gift.

MEGAN McKenna was violently attacked in her own home by three machete wielding thugs who tore her jewellery off her hand as she begged them not to kill her.

The three men left the TV star fleeing the UK for Germany with her now husband, Union Berlin footballer Oliver Burke.

Megan, who is mum to 22-month-old Landon, reveals she confronted the robbers after they used a baseball bat to break into her locked bedroom and pleaded with them to leave.

Speaking on Jamie Laing’s Good Company podcast, Megan said: “I was robbed really badly in my own home.”

The incident happened in 2024, with the men going on trial last year.

Opening up about the robbery, Megan said to sleep alone in her home in London while Oliver was away in Germany.

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Megan, 33, explained: “I must have fallen asleep within the first 15 minutes.

“I woke up to my whole house shaking. I was such a disorientated mess.

“They were inside my house, but I lock my bedroom door every night because I always worry about something happening to me when I’m on my own.

“The next thing I know, my mirror has come off my wall, and they’re hacking a hole through my wall with a baseball bat.

“They’re three masked men with machetes and baseball bats, and they managed to hack a hole in my wall because it was a fake wall going onto my dressing room, linked to my bedroom

“ And if my door wasn’t locked, actually, they probably would have woken me up and probably killed my dog.”

Megan immediately called the police who told her not to speak to the masked raiders.

But fearing for her dog, Megan said she confronted them.

She added: I went over to them. I was naked.

“I was talking to this man in a balaclava, and he grabbed my hand and he took jewelry off of me.

“Like I actually was holding hands with the robber, and they had a conversation outside the wall, and they made a phone call.

“I was shaking. I’d cut my foot. There was blood everywhere. It was like a bloody murder scene.

“And then I’m standing naked, and they just left with nothing, with nothing else.”

Megan said she believes the men had always planned to attack her.

She said: “It was obviously targeted.

“[The police] wanted me to go on trial.

“And I just said to them, like, I actually can’t physically do that. Go through it.”

Despite the men being jailed, Megan said she was horrified to learn they had been released not long after being locked up.

Megan explained: “They got caught, and then they went on trial, and then a year later, they just got let out.

“They’re just roaming the roads.”

Megan, who found fame on Towie and Celebrity Big Brother before pursuing a career as a singer, said she will now not stay in the UK alone.

She added: “It scared me so much to be in the UK and to live in the UK on my own, because obviously Ollie’s in Germany.”

SLUMPED in a chair in his hotel room, eyes blood-shot and his mood low, comedian Mo Gilligan is a shadow of his normal self.

His mission — to eat only fried chicken for 28 days in a bid to discover what it does to our bodies — had at first sounded like a fast-food dream come true.

But the challenge quickly took its toll, piling weight on the happy-go-lucky entertainer, sending him into a depression, increasing his chances of developing diabetes and leaving him barely able to recognise himself in the mirror.

Addressing the camera in his dimly lit room, a visibly broken Mo says: “I’m eating this food and I don’t feel like myself.

“I look in the mirror and I don’t look like myself. I feel so low.”

Mo, 38, has teamed up with Netflix for a new special, Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy, which echoes Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me, in which he munched only McDonald’s grub for a month.

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In one harrowing scene from Mo’s documentary, he breaks down in tears as he struggles with the physical and emotional effects of his diet.

During the show, he travels to visit so-called food deserts where grub is limited and pop-up takeaways are the only option.

Chicken is often seen as a healthier alternative to a burger. But in reality, more and more natural and artificial flavourings and preservatives are being added to fried poultry, which can lead to dire health consequences.

Some has even been found to contain dimethylpolysiloxane — an ingredient used in kids’ silly putty and the manufacturing of condoms.
Mo tells the film: “I’ve met a lot of experts over the last couple of days.

“You know, one of the ingredients, they also put it in condoms for lubrication. Who knew that went into a burger? So many things go into it that are artificially engineered to give you a better experience and get you to come back for more.”

Speaking exclusively to The Sun ahead of the show’s release on Wednesday, Mo said he felt it was crucial for viewers to see how far the TV experiment pushed him — even when he desperately wanted to switch the cameras off.

He explained: “Being paid to eat fried chicken sounds like the dream. In my head I was like, ‘Well, I like eating fried chicken, I want to know more about it’.

“But it quickly turned into a nightmare.”

Mo — who is a judge on ITV’s The Masked Singer with regulars Maya Jama, Jonathan Ross and Davina McCall — continued: “Look, I do a job that’s very front-facing and in the public eye. I’d be lying if I said I don’t care about my image, especially if I’m eating fried chicken every day.

“Eating the food was something that I was a bit self-conscious of, but also knowing that in the space of a few days, I went from a large in my T-shirt size to an extra large because of what I’m eating.”

Mo underwent a medical assessment before and after the TV experiment.

Over the 28 days, he gained 1½in around his stomach, felt his mood skydive and saw his chances of developing diabetes increase. But despite no longer fitting into some of his clothes, Mo insists he will not use fat jabs as a quick slimming fix.

Shockingly, one spicy chicken sandwich from US chain Popeyes, which came to the UK in 2021, contains a massive 142 ingredients.

Health Professor Laura Schmidt said: “These companies are doing everything they can to make it cheap, make it convenient and to make it taste irresistible. If you see 45 ingredients and they are chemicals you don’t recognise, it is ­probably ultra-processed.”

She added: “Natural and artificial flavours. That’s the question mark, as it’s a bunch of chemicals they don’t have to list and those chemicals may not be regulated as there is a loophole in the federal regulation in the US. Even in Europe, when they go to regulate a chemical additive, they ask the company to prove it’s safe. In the US they don’t. The companies decide what is safe. These foods promote chronic disease. This is the big concern for our health.”

Mo, who has been touring America, insists that if anything, doing the documentary has made him more committed to his fitness.

But the comic — who played football when he was younger and now enjoys running — stressed that, regardless of your diet, nobody needs to go to extremes to benefit their health.

He reveals: “I do love my fitness, man. I love it, especially because I travel a lot on tour.

“All I need is a gym, some equipment and some gym shoes. I think when it comes to exercise, people think you must be doing a 5k. But you don’t have to be totally extreme to lose weight. As I learned, a ten-minute walk can burn calories.”

Sales of fried chicken have exploded since the 1960s.

In the UK, we spend an incredible £12million on it every day.

Britain now boasts more than 6,000 fried chicken shops, with London Road in South London ­having some 20.

In comparison, Tesco has 3,010 stores and Sainsbury’s has 1,485. In the doc, Mo says: “I only remember one chicken shop growing up.

“Now, one road alone has more than 20.

“In central London, you have your more gourmet ones, something from the US. Then the further you go out, they don’t even have names any more.

“DFC, MFC, we know the FC is fried chicken, but what is the M?

“PFC. What is that? Perfect Fried Chicken? . . . I have no idea.

“This bird is big business.”

Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy has been created by documentary maker Louis Theroux’s team.

And Mo is proud of showing his emotions on film.

He said: “I think men do need to be more comfortable speaking about how we feel in the moment as well with our other friends, other guys.

“It will definitely break the silence. As men, we need to speak up and be like, ‘I feel low in myself’ or, ‘I don’t look how I want to look’ or, ‘I don’t feel how I want to feel’.

“It’s really important for me to be my authentic self on camera.”

Last week, Mo was confirmed for series eight of The Masked Singer.

And he insists he is not making a concerted effort to crack America.

He says: “When I think of America, I always say they are great at exporting entertainment and fast food. I’m quite fortunate that I’ve had three Netflix specials and they go all around the world.

“So if it lands me in America, I’m here for that. But if it takes me to Australia or Africa, it’s equally good for me.

“I’m really fortunate I’ve been able to tick off doing all the things I wanted to do and some of the things I never thought I would be able to do as well.

“Now, being in this space and making hopefully an impactful documentary . . . 

“I really enjoy this subject and seeing where it goes and telling it to the rest of the world.”

Meanwhile, away from this serious project, Strictly Come Dancing and I’m A Celebrity regularly try to recruit Mo as a contestant.

He said: “They do come knocking. Yeah . . . not just yet. But never say never.”

LEIGH-ANNE Pinnock has come under fire for telling fans they can pay to ‘follow her pregnancy’ by signing up to a paywall site.

It comes despite the former Little Mix singer, who is currently expecting her third child with her footballer husband Andre Gray, having an estimated net worth of around £5.9 million.

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Leigh-Anne explained to fans that she had set up a Patreon page where she will be sharing ‘pregnancy, bump updates, everyday life and all of the things in between’.

Fans can pay £5 per month to access the content.

Leigh-Anne, who already shares twins with Andre, wrote in her Patreon bio: “Hey It’s Leigh-Anne here!

“As some of you may know by now I’m pregnant with my third child and wanted to create a space for you all to get a deeper insight into my world, my pregnancy journey and general life as a mother, singer, wife and woman who’s trying her best.

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“Excited to see where this journey takes us and can’t wait to show you all the things I get up to along the way.”

Patreon is a platform used by influencers and creators to share exclusive content.

Following the page’s release, some fans were confused as to why the multi-millionaire singer is charging for her content.

One fan branded the move ‘out of touch’ as they said: “Genuinely this is extremly weird for someone as big of a name to start a patreon to… show a pregnancy? Tbh it feels a bit out of touch for my taste.”

Another asked: “Are you broke?”

A third slammed: “Wow.. she really needs that money eh?”

However, some were on board with the idea and have already signed up.

“Just signed up to follow your journey, can’t wait to see what it all brings!,” wrote a fan.

Another defended: “The Patreon is strictly for the fans that want to follow her pregnancy journey a little more closer. She doesn’t have to show anything at all but she’s choosing to on her terms. That’s the difference from posting publicly.”

On her Patreon page, Leigh-Anne urged fans to keep the content she shares exclusively for there and not share it elsewhere online.

There is a free option on Patreon which allows you to watch some videos, but not the subscription-only posts.

Alongside her ultra-successful run with Little Mix, Leigh-Anne has had a booming solo career since 2023.

Her husband, Andre, has played for football clubs such as Brentford, Burnley, Watford and Port Vale.

Love Island’s Ellie Chadwick has spoken out after quitting the show shortly after a series of explosive scenes played out on the dating series following her doomed romance with Finley Maddock

Love Island’s Ellie Chadwick has spoken out after dramatically quitting the show. The real estate videographer, 24, had been taking part in the hit ITV2 reality dating series and was enjoying a blossoming romance with Finley Maddock, but it all started to go wrong when he fell for a bombshell who entered the villa.

In explosive scenes that aired on Thursday night, Ellie stormed out of the villa for good, having decided to leave when Finley was voted out by the other Islanders, and has now insisted that everything stated to kick off after bombshell Elicia set her sights on Finley during a recoupling.

She said: “When Elicia chose Fin at the recoupling, all hell broke loose. I was angry. As all the girls were saying, I just lost my cool. There had already been a little bit of back and forth. I more or less knew what was coming, but it had been back and forth and I just lost it. I had too much emotion in me to let out. I’d laid my cards out.

“I couldn’t do any more. I was just hurt. It wasn’t like she had done anything wrong. She had a job to do,she was a Bombshell. I was just feeling a type of way about it, and that was okay. Everyone in that situation was feeling a type of way, mine just came out in a louder way than everyone else’s.”

The reality star then admitted that she had hoped to remain in a couple with Finley and then accused of him of dealing with the situation in such a “poor” way to begin with, but ultimately thinks she has grown from her experience on the dating programme.

She said: “Obviously, seeing Finley up there was hard because it was a recent event and he hadn’t been in the bottom before. Then, when we got told about the second dumping and that we had to choose, I already kind of knew in my gut that it wasn’t going to go the way I was hoping, which was for me and Finley to stay there and continue to grow. There were no ifs, buts or maybes, or what ifs, or how could this play out.

“Finley knows fine well that I feel like he navigated it very poorly. I made that very vocal and I will stand on that. I always will. I think the communication was poor.

“A lot of the things that happened were not relayed to me in a proper way, which I would have appreciated. I’m big enough to take the truth on the chest.

“I’m happy with that. I’m a very direct, upfront person. I just think the communication was poor and the way he handled it wasn’t great. I understand he was confused. I was understanding the whole time, but there was only so much understanding I could do.

“There are definitely ways it could have been better, but we live and we learn. That’s what Love Island is. It’s about living and learning. I’ve learned a lot about myself there and I’ve got to give him grace on that.

“It doesn’t mean the grafting boots are off because we’re out now, those boots are still on. I believed in the connection we had so much. I just knew in my heart that it was going to work, regardless of what was going on.

Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX

Following the passing of Qatar’s Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani on Sunday, his solidarity with the Palestinian people remains one of the defining legacies of his leadership. He is being remembered not only as a regional statesman, but also as a steadfast ally of the Palestinian people and the only Arab leader to physically break the crippling siege on the Gaza Strip.

In October 2012, Sheikh Hamad visited the embattled Gaza Strip, six years after Israel imposed its crippling international blockade on the territory, following the 2006 Palestinian elections.

Accompanied by his wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and a high-level delegation, the emir bypassed the political isolation imposed on the enclave by Western powers and regional actors, leading to a massive official and popular reception.

The head of Hamas’s diaspora office, Khaled Meshaal, told Al Jazeera that the visit to the Strip means that “Jerusalem, Gaza and Palestine mourn him.”

“He was the first Arab and Muslim leader to visit Gaza, standing by its side with chivalry and magnanimity, as if officially announcing the breaking of the siege in its darkest circumstances,” Meshaal told Al Jazeera. “He was intelligent, brave and a man of principles.”

Ahmed al-Sheikh, a senior journalist, Arab affairs commentator and former news director at Al Jazeera Arabic Channel, said the Father Emir had ”a special kind of love for Palestine”.

“Has any other leader in the Arab world done that [visit to Gaza], except Hamad bin Khalifa?” al-Sheikh reflected in a recent interview.

”Why did he go to Gaza? It’s because he saw that everyone around Gaza is neglecting it”, he added.

During that landmark visit, Sheikh Hamad announced an increase in Qatar’s reconstruction grant to the enclave from $254m to $400m, laying the foundation for vital housing, infrastructure and healthcare projects that benefited thousands of Palestinians.

Addressing crowds at the Islamic University of Gaza – which awarded him and Sheikha Moza honorary doctorates for their humanitarian efforts – he praised the resilience of the Palestinian people, while criticising the international community’s double standards.

Personal pain and the ‘spearhead’ of liberation

His commitment to the Palestinian cause predated the blockade on Gaza. In 1999, Sheikh Hamad became the first Gulf leader to visit the Palestinian territories since 1967, meeting with the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat during a critical political impasse.

According to al-Sheikh, the emir viewed the Palestinian struggle through a deeply personal lens. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon besieged Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, the emir was profoundly pained. He told his aides that when Sharon attacked the Muqata’a, it felt as though he was attacking Qatar itself.

His connection to Palestine was coupled with a regret that he had never visited Jerusalem before its occupation in 1967, According to al-Sheikh, that prompted him to commission an extensive three-hour documentary on the holy city to capture its history and identity.

Rather than relying solely on international intervention, he believed in the agency of the Palestinian people and that they were the essential spearhead of their movement. “You will do the primary action and without this action there can be no liberation,” the emir once told al-Sheikh.

Defying regional consensus

This stance put him frequently at odds with the regional consensus. During Israel’s devastating 2008–2009 war on Gaza, deep divisions emerged among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members over how to respond to the crisis.

Sheikh Hamad called for an emergency Arab summit in Doha, proposing a $250m reconstruction fund and a maritime corridor to bypass the blockade. He famously expressed his disappointment on live television about the lack of an Arab quorum for the emergency meeting. “God is sufficient for us and he is the best disposer of affairs.”

Some of Gaza’s most vital infrastructure projects before the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023 were the result of financial pledges made by Sheikh Hamad.

Qatar funded the rehabilitation of vital highways and the flagship Sheikh Hamad City in Khan Younis—a $58m public housing project with 53 modern apartment buildings for thousands of low-income families.

Additionally, the Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, which officially opened in April 2019, became the territory’s premier facility for amputees and children with hearing impairments.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has systematically erased much of the infrastructure Qatar helped finance during Sheikh Hamad’s leadership. Satellite imagery from May this year confirms that Hamad City and other areas in southern Gaza have been wiped from the map.

The Sheikh Hamad Hospital managed to resume its vital services last December, despite suffering direct attacks, severe shortages and the broader collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Operating the only CT scanner in northern Gaza, the hospital has even opened a new branch in the south to cope with a 225 percent increase in amputation cases.

Sheikh Hamad Hospital’s continued operations during the ongoing genocide in Gaza remain a tangible remnant of the late emir’s unprecedented efforts in the besieged enclave. His support for Gaza will remain for generations to come.

Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater have reportedly ended their relationship after almost three years together.

According to multiple outlets, the former couple — who met on the set of the 2024 musical blockbuster “Wicked” — quietly called it quits several months ago.

“It’s amicable, they gave lots of time and careful consideration and decided to go their separate ways,” a source told People. “They are still friends and very supportive of one another. They have been quietly broken up for several months.”

The “Thank U, Next” singer, 32, and “SpongeBob SquarePants” actor, 34, had been linked since 2023. They made their relationship Instagram-official in 2024 in the lead-up to the release of “Wicked,” in which Grande starred as G(a)linda the Good while Slater portrayed Munchkin and future-Tin Man Boq.

Their dating rumors were scrutinized at the time because Grande and Slater both had highly publicized splits from former spouses around the same time. Grande was previously married to real estate agent Dalton Gomez, while Slater had been married to psychologist Lilly Jay, his high-school sweetheart with whom he shares a child.

In March, Slater wrapped the off-Broadway run of “Marcel on the Run.” In addition to co-writing the play with Marshall Pailet, Slater portrayed mime artist Marcel Marceau.

Grande, meanwhile, embarked on her Eternal Sunshine tour in Oakland on Saturday. This marks the “Hate That I Made You Love Me” singer’s first tour since 2019. Grande is slated for five shows in Los Angeles beginning June 13.

This might be the last time fans can catch Grande at a live concert — at least for a while. In November, she mentioned these shows might be her “last hurrah” as a touring pop star.

“I’m very excited to do this small tour, but I think it might not happen again for a long, long, long, long time,” she said on the “Good Hang With Amy Poehler” podcast. “So I’m going to give it my all, and it’s going to be beautiful, and I think that’s why I’m doing it, because it’s like, one last hurrah.”

Grande’s next album, “Petal,” will be released July 31.

Ever since leading pro-Israel lobby financier Sheldon Adelson intervened in the 2016 election heavily in favour of Donald Trump, the now-president’s Middle East policies (if you can even call them that) have become more and more openly in favour of the Zionist state.

To call casino tycoon Adelson an “Israel first” financier is misleading, as it implies that he has second, third and fourth priorities. With a net worth of almost $34 billion at his disposal, though, his one and only cause is Israel, so “Israel only” financier would be a more accurate description.

Adelson has ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into funding anti-Palestinian groups. He has, for example, donated a reported $410 million to Birthright Israel, a pro-Israel propaganda organisation which takes young Jews on brainwashing tours to occupied Palestine, inculcating in them the idea that the country forms part of their “birthright”.

Although nobody should delude themselves that such a huge amount of money does not have the intended effect on many impressionable young people, money isn’t everything and, thankfully, largely left-wing and liberal Jews are increasingly rejecting Israel. Last year, media outlets reported a number of walk-outs from Birthright tours, with participants reacting against the heavy-handed propaganda that always forms the basis of such trips.

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Left-wing and anti-Zionist Jews have for many years now been organising against Birthright, even putting on a “Birthwrong” tour celebrating diasporic Jewish life in ancestral Jewish homelands, such as Spain, France, Brazil, Germany, the USA and Britain.

Such efforts are now paying off. Birthright walk-outs are part of a broader trend in which Israel is haemorrhaging support from the base of the Democratic Party in the US. Once upon a time, Sheldon Adelson funded the Democrats. However, in a 2012 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (the in-house organ of America’s billionaire business class), Adelson explained: “I didn’t leave the Democrats. They left me.” In that article it emerged that the main, if not the only, reason he switched his substantial financial support from the Democrats to the Republicans was that the Democrats’ base is now largely hostile to Israeli war crimes and apartheid.

Since then, Adelson has apparently made it his mission in life to fund the worst of the worst right-wing Republicans. As the late, lamented website Gawker reported, “In 2012 he spent $20 million supporting Newt Gingrich, nearly derailing [Mitt] Romney’s primary run.”

President Donald Trump answers questions during a meeting with military leaders in the Cabinet Room on 23 October, 2018 in Washington [Win McNamee/Getty Images]

During the course of the race for the 2016 White House, every Republican candidate did their best to net Adelson’s support and, of course, his money. Marco Rubio was reportedly calling Adelson every other week at one stage, and “when Jeb Bush hired a foreign policy advisor who was critical of Israel’s diplomatic actions, Adelson forced Bush to issue an apology.”

With President Donald Trump now leading the most anti-Palestinian White House of all time, it’s easy to forget that at one stage, his non-interventionist instincts in matters of foreign policy seemed, for a brief moment, to extend even to Palestine. That’s when Adelson started to plough cash onto the Trump bandwagon and ended up being Trump’s number-one backer. The White House is now more pro-Israel than ever, with each new advisor seemingly more fanatically Zionist than the last.

READ: Media hypocrisy puts pressure on Arabs but not Israeli activists

The Trump-appointed US Ambassador to Israel not only tolerates illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, for example, but also actively funds them out of his own money. Trump has also followed through on a promise to Adelson to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the face of international law, which still considers the latter to be an occupied city, the annexation of which by Israel is illegal.

While the pro-Israel lobby seems to have the White House sewn up for now, its propagandists look at the new crop of progressive and left-wing Democrats in Congress with some trepidation, for Israel no longer has the universal, bipartisan support in the House and Senate that it once had. This week, news emerged that its lobby has even had to establish a new group, aiming to shore up its floundering support among Democrats.

“Democratic Majority for Israel” is supposedly set to make the “progressive case for Israel”. The fact that such a move has had to be made now is a serious indication of how much US support for Israel has slipped. Indeed, in the secretly filmed words of Eric Gallagher, a leading “liberal” pro-Israel lobbyist when he referred to the lobby’s flagship organisation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: “The foundation that AIPAC sat on is rotting… There used to be actual widespread public support for Israel in the United States. So I don’t think that AIPAC is going to remain as influential as it is.”

READ: How AIPAC-Israel agenda became US priority

One establishment policy wonk conceded this week that the passage of a bill through the Senate targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, while seemingly a victory for Israel, was “actually a pretty significant loss. Because only one serious presidential candidate voted for it.”

Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, two corporate Democrats who have thrown their hats into the presidential ring for 2020, both failed to show up for the vote, despite speaking at previous AIPAC policy conferences. Even they don’t want to enrage their support base, much of which is likely to opt for Bernie Sanders should he decide to run again.

With the situation in Congress changing rapidly, the pro-Israel lobby is going for broke to take advantage of its position in the White House while it lasts.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

A plane passenger has shared their shock after getting a mouthful for reclining their seat during a long-haul flight – sparking a heated debate over airline etiquette

A plane passenger sparked a debate after reclining their seat without a second thought on a long-haul flight – leaving them questioning whether they had done anything wrong. The traveller took to social media to share the awkward encounter, which unfolded during a nine-hour economy flight aboard a Boeing 747-400.

Like many passengers on long journeys, they decided to get comfortable after the meal service had finished and prepared to recline their seat before trying to get some sleep. However, what happened next was the last thing they expected. As they pushed their seat backwards, they suddenly heard somebody shouting: “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

At first, they assumed the noise was coming from the TV show they were watching on their tablet and carried on as normal.

But moments later, a passenger sitting behind them tapped on their seat and delivered a stern warning.

The traveller explained the man claimed they had almost hit his young daughter in the head when reclining their seat.

According to the passenger, the dad then told them they needed to notify him every time they wanted to recline so he could make sure the child was out of the way.

The unexpected confrontation left the traveller completely stunned.

They admitted they hadn’t even realised a child was sitting behind them until the man pointed it out.

When they later caught sight of her, they estimated she was somewhere between three and five years old.

Reflecting on the incident, they questioned how the child had managed to be in the path of a reclining seat in the first place.

The passenger wrote: “I am still absolutely baffled by this.”

Not wanting to risk an argument in the middle of the flight, they immediately returned their seat to the upright position and decided not to recline it again for the remainder of the journey.

While they felt guilty after being accused of almost hurting a child, they couldn’t shake the feeling the situation wasn’t entirely their fault.

Their partner believed the parents should have simply treated the incident as an accident and encouraged their daughter to sit properly in her own seat.

Meanwhile, their mother-in-law took an even firmer stance, arguing that if the family wanted extra room for the child to move around, they should have paid for seats with more space.

The incident has since sparked a wider discussion online about airline etiquette, with many travellers divided over who is responsible when it comes to reclining seats.

One user said: “A bit like reversing in a car, always good to take a quick look and make sure the coast is clear.”

Another user added: “He didn’t say you couldn’t recline your seat, he asked you to warn them. Three to five-year-olds aren’t known for being super cooperative.

“Maybe her head was down and her tray was out or something. Would you prefer he physically restrain her in her seat and she screamed the whole time?”

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center and blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

“The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said Friday the institution is “confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center.” She said the decision would be reviewed “carefully.”

“Though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

Cooper held hearings in late April for parallel lawsuits challenging the project. One was filed by a group of cultural and historic preservation organizations. The other was brought Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves as an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. He ruled in favor of Beatty’s request but rejected the other challenge.

Justice Department attorneys said renovation plans for the building are limited in scope and well within the board’s authority to make without needing outside approvals.

The plaintiffs worry the president and his board allies will flout preservation rules designed to maintain the building’s historic fabric. In earlier statements in court hearings, attorneys for Beatty and the preservation groups raised doubts about the limited scope of the project, pointing to Trump’s statements that he would “fully expose” the building’s steel skeleton. Beatty has said she was “very fearful that we’ll see what happened with the East Wing and what happened with the Rose Garden” if the center is closed and the renovations allowed unsupervised, referring to major changes the president has made at the White House.

Trump, a Republican, has taken a keen interest in the Kennedy Center’s operations since he returned to White House last year. He installed a handpicked board that named him chairman. His name was added to the facade of a building that is considered a living monument to President John F. Kennedy.

The Kennedy Center has kept up performances ahead of the closure, though at a much slower pace than in previous years. Trump attended the premiere of the musical “Chicago” in March and other shows, including “Moulin Rouge” are slated for June.

Bill Maher, the comedian who has had an up and down relationship with Trump, is expected to be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on June 28, an event that was anticipated to be one of the final big moments at the Kennedy Center before the closure.

Cooper was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Obama.

Kunzelman and Sloan write for the Associated Press.