burns

Celebrity Traitors stars Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns could be about to come to blows in the latest episode of the hit BBC show, a body language expert has predicted

Celebrity Traitors stars Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns could be set for fiery scenes in the upcoming episode of the hit BBC show.

The talk show legend, 64, and viral TikTok singer Cat, 25, are both taking part in the hit reality series in which a host of famous faces live in a castle and have to work out which of them is one of the titular Traitors, all guided by Strictly Come Dancing‘s Claudia Winkleman.

Both Jonathan and Cat are in fact Traitors, as is comedian Alan Carr but the other contestants are all Faithfuls, and now body language expert Judi James has explored the ‘subtle but revealing’ signs that things were not right between them during last night’s episode.

Normally, during the part in the show where the Traitors remove their hoods, there is often fits of laughter between them. But explaining what was different this time, Judi explained: “Last night’s meet-up was different though because, for Jonathan and Cat, the masks never came off. They surveyed each other without any signals of relief.”

READ MORE: Claudia Winkleman’s A-list new role after ‘blindsiding’ the BBC revealedREAD MORE: Are the Celebrity Traitors really the ‘worst Faithfuls ever’?

She added: “Their body language was subtle but revealing, proving they, both now recognise they are enemies. Last night’s meet-up was different though because, for Jonathan and Cat, the masks never came off. They surveyed each other without any signals of relief.

“We saw them ignore Alan to stare at each other, and Jonathan performed a thin ‘smile’ of recognition, which was returned by Cat. There was no pretence between them, but no open declarations of war. Jonathan let Cat know he knew what she was doing and she stared him back to let him know she intends to carry on doing it.”

Jonathan adopted a dominant, alpha pose, leaning his weight onto his hands that clutched the rail in front, leaning forward in a way that could be seen as an attempt to to silently ‘threaten’ Cat. What’s more, the singer smiled when she looked at Alan but the smile quickly faded when she clapped eyes on Jonathan.

It’s also been noted that Cat moved her ‘weight from one foot to the other,’ and this can imply a ‘fight or flight’ stance when coming face-to-face with an enemy.

But the body expert also explained how Cat held her own, adding: “Cat even showed higher status to Jonathan, raising her chin and her brows when she spoke to him and looking down her nose while he bowed his head down low.”

At the end of last night’s episode, Stephen Fry was banished from the castle despite being a Faitful. Speaking to his fellow celebrities, Stephen said he had the “best fun for years” and called the group “an extraordinary and wonderful bunch of people”.

Insisting he would hold “no hard feelings” over his banishment, he said that being involved had been a “privilege and an honour” that had filled him with “deep delight”.

On spin-off, Uncloacked, Stephen said he thought Cat, Joe and David were the Traitors, but he got the shock of his life when he found out the truth…

“Jonathan?! FFS!” he said. “Oh he played a blinder, we knew he was a superfan, but he convinced me he wanted to be Faithful!”

“Alan?! What will Paloma say? Wow does he want to end the realtionship?! Alan Carr, I don’t believe it! Two big dogs, and one small Cat!”

The Celebrity Traitors continues on 29 October at 9pm on BBC One.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

Ukraine and Gaza. China and North Korea. Iran and Russia. There was so much to address Tuesday when 800 generals, admirals and their senior enlisted leaders in the U.S. military were ordered into one location from around the world on short notice.

The sudden meeting in Quantico, Va., was called by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And it was an unprecedented event for unprecedented times, but not in the way that anyone imagined. Hegseth took aim at the packed room’s waistlines, proclaiming that he no longer wanted to see “fat generals and admirals,” or overweight troops.

“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he said to the 800 likely stunned souls in the room. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world.”

Flanked by a portly President Trump, he proclaimed, “It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”

President Trump joined his Defense secretary in urging his top military brass to shape up.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

Like a sugary doughnut, the hypocrisy was too tempting to pass up. California Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s X account posted, “I guess the Commander in Chief needs to go!” Newsom also juxtaposed a clip of Hegseth’s speech with a photo of Trump in a McDonald’s restaurant, the president’s stomach protruding over the belt line of his slacks.

The former Fox News personality turned secretary of Defense initially gave no reason last month when he summoned leaders stationed across the globe to attend the meeting, causing concern and conjecture among military and congressional officials about the purpose of the gathering. Trump told NBC that they would deliver a “good message” about “being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things.”

That new “positive” messaging? Terminating restrictions on hazing for boot-camp recruits, toughening grooming standards (no more “beardos”), doing away with racial quotas and raising physical standards for everyone in uniform to a “male level.”

“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat-arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best,” Hegseth said Tuesday.

He added that troops will have to meet “gender-neutral, age-normed, male standard, scored 70% ” fitness levels. “If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it,” he said. But all will be fat-shamed on an equal basis.

“Today, at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required to take a PT [physical training] test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service,” he said.

Hegseth’s obsession with appearing ripped and manly is nothing new. The 45-year-old has challenged 71-year-old Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to fitness tests in which the men do 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in 10 minutes or less.

The “Pete and Bobby Challenge,” as Hegseth calls it, was posted on the official HHS YouTube account and circulated widely on social media.

Hegseth’s deep message to the troops keeping America safe: “It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.”

Hegseth has repeatedly emphasized that the updated fitness requirements for troops are part of a larger effort to achieve a “warrior ethos” in the U.S. military. Uncle Sam wants YOU! But not until you drop that BMI below 24.9.

Democrats, despite their hypersensitive, bleeding-heart reputation, can be harsh. Ruthless, even.

When it comes to picking their presidential nominee, it’s often one and done. Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were embraced and then, after leading their party to disappointing defeat, cast off like so many wads of wet tissue.

Compare that with Republicans, who not only believe in second chances but, more often than not, seem to prefer their presidential candidates recycled. Over the last half century, all but a few of the GOP’s nominees have had at least one failed White House bid on their resume.

The roster of retreads includes the current occupant of the Oval Office, who is only the second president in U.S. history to regain the perch after losing it four years prior.

Why the difference? It would take a psychologist or geneticist to determine if there’s something in the minds or molecular makeup of party faithful, which could explain their varied treatment of those humbled and vanquished.

Regardless, it suggests the blowback facing Kamala Harris and the campaign diary she published last week is happening right on cue.

And it doesn’t portend well for another try at the White House in 2028, should the former vice president and U.S. senator from California pursue that path.

The criticism has come in assorted flavors.

Joe Biden loyalists — many of whom were never great fans of Harris — have bristled at her relatively mild criticisms of the obviously aged and physically declining president. (She leaves it to her husband, former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, to vent about the “impossible, s— jobs” Harris was given and, in spite of that, the failure of the president and first lady to defend Harris during her low points.)

The notable lack of self-blame has rankled other Democrats. Aside from some couldas and shouldas, Harris largely ascribes her defeat to insufficient time to make her case to voters — just 107 days, the title of her book — which hardly sits well with those who feel Harris squandered the time she did have.

More generally, some Democrats fault the former vice president for resurfacing, period, rather than slinking off and disappearing forever into some deep, dark hole. It’s a familiar gripe each time the party struggles to move past a presidential defeat; Hillary Clinton faced a similar backlash when she published her inside account after losing to Donald Trump in 2016.

That critique assumes great masses of voters devour campaign memoirs with the same voracious appetite as those who surrender their Sundays to the Beltway chat shows, or mainline political news like a continuous IV drip.

They do not.

Let the record show Democrats won the White House in 2020 even though Clinton bobbed back up in 2017 and, for a short while, thwarted the party’s fervent desire to “turn the page.”

But there are those avid consumers of campaigns and elections, and for the political fiends among us Harris offers plenty of fizz, much of it involving her party peers and prospective 2028 rivals.

Pete Buttigieg, the meteoric star of the 2020 campaign, was her heartfelt choice for vice president, but Harris said she feared the combination of a Black woman and gay running mate would exceed the load-bearing capacity of the electorate. (News to me, Buttigieg said after Harris revealed her thinking, and an underestimation of the American people.)

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the runner-up to Harris’ ultimate vice presidential pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, comes across as unseemly salivating and greedily lusting after the job. (He fired back by suggesting Harris has some splainin’ to do about what she knew of Biden’s infirmities and when she knew it.)

Harris implies Govs. JB Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer of Illinois and Michigan, respectively, were insufficiently gung-ho after Biden stepped aside and she became the Democratic nominee-in-waiting.

But for California readers, the most toothsome morsel involves Harris’ longtime frenemy, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The two, who rose to political power in the early 2000s on parallel tracks in San Francisco, have long had a complicated relationship, mixing mutual aid with jealousy and jostling.

In her book, Harris recounts the hours after Biden’s sudden withdrawal, when she began telephoning top Democrats around the country to lock in their support. In contrast to the enthusiasm many displayed, Newsom responded tersely with a text message: “Hiking. Will call back.”

He never did, Harris noted, pointedly, though Newsom did issue a full-throated endorsement within hours, which the former vice president failed to mention.

It’s small-bore stuff. But the fact Harris chose to include that anecdote speaks to the tetchiness underlying the warmth and fuzziness that California’s two most prominent Democrats put on public display.

Will the two face off in 2028?

Riding the promotional circuit, Harris has repeatedly sidestepped the inevitable questions about another presidential bid.

“That’s not my focus right now,” she told Rachel Maddow, in a standard-issue non-denial denial. For his part, Newsom is obviously running, though he won’t say so.

There would be something operatic, or at least soap-operatic, about the two longtime competitors openly vying for the country’s ultimate political prize — though it’s hard to see Democrats, with their persistent hunger for novelty, turning to Harris or her left-coast political doppelganger as their savior.

Meantime, the two are back on parallel tracks, though seemingly headed in opposite directions.

While Newsom is looking to build Democratic bridges, Harris is burning hers down.

An experiment intended to rid “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum Brandi Glanville of a facial parasite left the former reality TV star with chemical burns.

In a short video posted to TikTok on Sunday that is a little startling and also a little painful-looking, Glanville, 52, said that she decided to use Nair to try to eradicate the parasite. However, the popular hair removal product aggravated her skin, leaving her with apparent chemical burns.

“I know I look attractive,” she joked. “Good news, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on peels and lasers anymore.”

During the clip, she referred to the parasite as “Caroline,” a possible reference to her “Real Housewives” rival Caroline Manzo. In January 2023, Manzo accused Glanville of sexual assault during filming. This led to both of them departing the Morocco set of “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip.” That was also where Glanville previously said she might have contracted the parasite.

Glanville has denied all claims Manzo has made against her, calling them absurd, Page Six reports.

In her TikTok video, Glanville claims the Nair successfully moved the parasite (“Caroline”) to a different part of her face upon application.

“Nair is the fountain of youth, I figured it out,” she said. “But I overdid it … seven minutes, don’t do it.”

The first time Glanville shared information regarding the parasite, she claimed that she had consulted “every doctor under the sun” but to no avail. The mysterious condition was said to have left her with frequent facial swelling and missing teeth.

She told ET in December 2024 that she’d suspected a parasite had made its way into her system after the filming in Morocco.

“We had food sitting out for hours on end, and some of it was meat,” she said, adding that medical complications began six months later.

Glanville claimed that she had since spent more than $70,000 on noninvasive procedures to pinpoint exactly what was going on. Notably, she was on IV antibiotics that alleviated swelling but proved to be too expensive.

“I’ve been on meds this whole year. I don’t socialize. I don’t go out,” she said at the time.

About 50 to 80 other structures also destroyed as two wildfires burn at or near the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona.

Wildfires have engulfed a historic lodge, destroying it and dozens of other structures along the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in the state of Arizona in the southwestern United States, park officials say.

Rangers were forced to close access to that part of the Grand Canyon National Park on Sunday. Superintendent Ed Keable said the Grand Canyon Lodge was consumed by flames.

He said a park visitor centre, petrol station, wastewater treatment plant, administrative building and employee housing were also among the 50 to 80 structures lost.

Two wildfires are burning at or near the North Rim. They are known as the White Sage Fire and the Dragon Bravo Fire. The latter is the one that destroyed the lodge and other structures.

Started by lightning on July 4, the Dragon Bravo Fire was initially managed by authorities with a “confine and contain” strategy. However, due to hot temperatures, low humidity and strong winds, it grew to 20 square kilometres (7.8 square miles), fire officials said.

No injuries have been reported so far.

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs urged the federal government late on Sunday to investigate the National Park Service’s response to the wildfire.

“They must first take aggressive action to end the wildfire and prevent further damage,” she said in a post on X. “But Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park.”

I am incredibly saddened by the destruction of the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, and my heart goes out to every person impacted by the Dragon Bravo Fire near the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

Thank you to every firefighter and first responder taking action to combat the flames.

— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) July 14, 2025

Millions of people visit the park annually with most going to the South Rim. The North Rim is open seasonally. It was evacuated on Thursday because of the wildfire and will remain closed for the rest of the season, the park said in a statement.

The Grand Canyon Lodge was often the first prominent feature that visitors would see, even before viewing the canyon.

“It just feels like you’re a pioneer when you walk through [the lodge],” said Tim Allen, an Arizona resident and yearly visitor to the Grand Canyon. “It really felt like you were in a time gone by.”

Caren Carney, another visitor to the park evacuated with her family, said she was heartbroken to hear that such a “magical place” had burned down.

Firefighters at the North Rim and hikers in the inner canyon were also evacuated on Saturday and Sunday. The park said that beside the fire risk, they could also potentially be exposed to chlorine gas after the treatment plant burned.

Aramark, the company that operated the lodge, said all employees and guests were safely evacuated. “As stewards of some of our country’s most beloved national treasures, we are devastated by the loss,” spokesperson Debbie Albert said.

One of the greatest wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River eating away at layers of red sandstone and other rock for millions of years, leaving a gash up to 30km (18 miles) wide and more than 1.6km (1 mile) deep.

Last year, almost five million people visited the site.

July 11 (UPI) — The Kurdish militant group PKK took its first step toward peace with Turkey as it burned weapons after 40 years of conflict.

The group of 30 PKK members went to a cave near Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, and put their weapons into a fire. It was the first ceremony of its kind for the organization, and more are expected to happen all summer. The Turkish government has said the ceremony is crossing a “critical threshold” toward a “terror-free Turkey.”

PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and others. It formed as a response to poor treatment of Kurds in Turkey and demanded an independent Kurdistan, Kurdish language education and more.

More than 40,000 people have died in the four decades-long conflict.

“We voluntarily destroy our weapons, before your presence, as a step of goodwill and determination,” the PKK said in a statement. The group included 15 men and 15 women.

Witnesses included officials from Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, Iraqi officials, security forces and officials from Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, members of the Turkish People’s Democratic Party (Dem), and some from non-governmental organizations.

PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, long imprisoned by Turkey, said it was “a voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law.”

Ocalan has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali near Istanbul since 1999. He’s been kept in solitary confinement.

Devlet Bahceli, a nationalist leader in Turkey and ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, started working to create a “terror-free Turkey” in October 2024. He pushed Ocalan to call for the dissolution of the PKK. The Turkish government began negotiations with Ocalan with the help of the Dem party, which is pro-Kurd. In February, Ocalan appealed to the group to disband in a letter that two Dem MPs read out after visiting the prison.

“All groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself,” Ocalan’s letter said.

Former UFC champion Randy Couture suffered severe burns and other injuries Tuesday when he crashed the car he was driving during practice rides at a racetrack near Kansas City, Mo.

The 62-year-old retired fighter and former Army drill sergeant was airlifted to a burn center and remained there as of Wednesday morning. He is expected to recover.

“If you know anything about Randy — he’s a freak of nature and will survive this like everything else,” Couture’s longtime manager and attorney Samuel Spira said in an email Wednesday afternoon.

No further updates on Couture’s condition will be issued until Thursday, Spira said.

TMZ was the first to report about Couture’s crash and his injuries, which include first- and second-degree burns, trauma injuries and smoke inhalation. The car he was driving was completely wrecked, TMZ reported, and it is unclear what caused the accident.

A state champion wrestler at Lynnwood High School in Washington state, Couture continued in the sport while in the Army in 1982-88 and at Oklahoma State, finishing second in the NCAA Division I championships in 1991 and 1992. He was an alternate for the U.S. Olympic team three times (1988, 1992 and 1996) and a semifinalist at the 2000 Olympic Trials.

Couture went on to become a mixed martial arts superstar, becoming a six-time UFC champion in the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions and was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2006.

More recently, Couture has become involved with hot rod racing. Scag Racing announced in April that Couture would drive for the team in the NHRA’s Pro Mod program starting later this year.

Soggy conditions changed the dynamic of the course but not the difficulty as Burns and Spaun traded blows in the final group.

Both are winners on the PGA Tour but they also share play-off defeats this season – Spaun at The Players Championship by Rory McIlroy in March and Burns only last week on the fourth play-off hole as Ryan Fox won the Canadian Open.

The two briefly swapped places at the beginning of the round but were level for the majority of Saturday and both picked up birdies on the 17th to move clear of Scott on four under.

But Spaun, who still boasts the only bogey-free round of the week on Thursday, hit an erratic tee shot at the 18th. That led to a bogey and cost him a place in Sunday’s final group.

That spot alongside Burns will be filled by Scott, who is making his 96th consecutive appearance at a major championship.

His second shot at the 14th was sublime, landing a foot from the pin, and his fist-pump celebration to raucous cheers after making birdie on 17 showed his heart – and popularity – remain undimmed.

On Friday, Scott said a second major title would “go a long way” in fulfilling himself. He is well placed to make that happen on Sunday and has the added bonus of being the only player in contention to have contested the 2007 and 2016 US Opens at Oakmont.

“I was less overwhelmed coming to Oakmont this time, and that’s not a knock on the golf course, but maybe just a couple trips around the U.S. Open here, I knew what to expect,” said Scott, who missed the cut in 2007 and finished joint 18th in 2016.

And do not discount Hovland, who despite coming within inches of hitting his opening drive out of bounds, retained his composure to produce a typically swashbuckling round that featured three birdies and three bogeys.

“I’m well aware that I’ve got a chance, and if I shoot a low round of golf then anything can happen,” he said of his chances of winning a first major on Sunday.

OAKMONT, Pa. — Sam Burns only wobbled twice on a soggy Oakmont course Saturday and held his nerve with a great lag from just inside 60 feet on the final hole for a one-under 69, leaving him one round away from a U.S. Open title and no margin for error.

Burns, who has never contended in his 20 previous majors, next takes on the Sunday pressure of golf’s most stringent test alongside Adam Scott, the 44-year-old Australian and the only player among the top 10 with experience winning a major.

Scott, whose lone major was 12 years ago at the Masters, didn’t make a mistake since a soft bogey on the opening hole and looked far younger than his 44 years down the stretch with brilliant iron play and enough putts for a 67, leaving him one shot behind.

This was shaping up to be a wild chase to the finish, with only four players under par. That starts with Burns at four-under 206. He has five PGA Tour titles, the last one more than two years ago. He is coming off a playoff loss last week in the Canadian Open.

J.J. Spaun, who lost in a playoff at The Players Championship in March, kept pace with Burns throughout the back nine until the end, when he couldn’t save par from a bunker and shot 69. He joined Scott a shot behind.

“It seemed like we were kind of back and forth,” Spaun said. “He would take the lead, I would take the lead, I would fall back, whatever. But it was fun. You can’t really play against your opponent; you got to play this course. There’s just so much on demand with every shot.”

The other survivor to par was Viktor Hovland, who has been smiling as much as anyone on a course that has been exasperating to so many all week. Hovland salvaged a bogey from an opening tee shot into the bushes and an exquisite shot off the muddy cart path.

But he hit the pin on the uphill ninth hole for birdie and hit an amazing wedge from the cabbage left of the 17th green for a tap-in birdie. He closed with a bogey from the rain-soaked rough on the 18th for a 70 and was three behind.

“I’m well aware that I’ve got a chance tomorrow, and if I shoot a low round of golf tomorrow then anything can happen,” Hovland said. “But there’s a lot of good players around me. Adam Scott played a brilliant round today, just didn’t really miss a shot. That forces me to play some really good golf tomorrow.”

Carlos Ortiz turned in one of the most remarkable performances by going bogey-free for 30 consecutive holes. The streak ended on the 18th, but the Mexican still had a 67 and was very much in range at even-par 210.

Missing from the mix was Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player who had won three of his last four tournaments coming into the U.S. Open. Scheffler never found any momentum, with one critical stretch coming right before the turn.

After holing a 20-foot birdie putt on the sixth, Scheffler saved par after driving into the rough on No. 7 and hitting wedge to 3 feet. But then what looked like a tap-in par on the long par-three eighth turned into a shocking miss.

He wound up with a 70, moving him from a tie for 23rd to just outside the top 10. But he was eight shots behind Burns, his best friend on tour with whom he shares a house at the majors.

“I put myself in this position,” Scheffler said. “It’s not the position I want to be in, but I’ve done a good job of hanging in there and staying in the tournament.”

The best news for this U.S. Open was that it finished the third round without weather getting in the way. Oakmont received an inch of rain from when play ended on Friday evening. The USGA offered to refund tickets to spectators who didn’t want to traipse through the muck.

Divots taken from the fairways looked like pelts, and the greens were noticeably softer and more receptive. There was one spell midway through the round when umbrellas were out and the sun was shining.

Everyone plodded along, trying desperately to avoid rough that hasn’t been cut and greens that never seem to lose their speed.

Burns, a 28-year-old from Louisiana, had the look of someone determined to add his list to young Americans ready to capture a major. He took a most unusual route on the tough third hole with a drive well to the left, over the church pew bunkers and into the adjacent fourth fairway, allowing him to avoid a blind shot.

He picked up birdies with a wedge from the fairway to a back pin on No. 5 and a tee shot to 7 feet on the accessible par-three 13th. Equally important were the three times he saved par from the fairway after getting out of position off the tee

Then came the closing stretch. He clipped a wedge that raced toward a back pin and checked up a foot away on the short par-four 17th. And he caught a break on the 18th when his drive into the rough caught a good lie, a rarity at Oakmont, allowing him to reach the back of the green nearly 60 feet away. He gently rolled the putt down to 4 feet for one last par and the lead.

Ferguson writes for the Associated Press.

OAKMONT, Pa. — Sam Burns avoided a meltdown that ruined his opening round at the U.S. Open and wound up with a big par save on his last hole for a five-under 65 and the 36-hole lead. Best of all, he was long gone before the real calamity arrived late Friday afternoon at Oakmont.

Rory McIlroy threw a club in disgust and smashed a tee marker. For punishment, he gets to come back for two more rounds because he birdied the 18th to make the cut.

Shane Lowry absent-mindedly picked up his golf ball on the 14th green without marking it.

Thriston Lawrence became the only player to reach six-under par. He promptly made six bogeys and a double bogey over his next nine holes. Thomas Detry can appreciate the suffering. He was challenging for the lead until three double bogeys in a three-hole stretch.

And then there was Phil Mickelson, in what likely is his 34th and final U.S. Open. He was just outside the top 20 until two double bogeys in his last four holes for a 74 to miss the cut.

The cut might not be official until Saturday morning. If the second round wasn’t brutal enough, play was halted by bad weather just as Lawrence had a four-foot putt on the last hole to finish a wild round that was approaching six hours. The day ended with rain pounding the course.

Scottie Scheffler, coming off three wins in his last four starts, had his sixth straight round over par in the U.S. Open with a game that didn’t look familiar. He still scratched out a 71 and was seven shots behind.

“Today was, I think with the way I was hitting it, easily a day I could have been going home,” Scheffler said. “And battled pretty hard to stay in there. I’m four over. We’ll see what the lead is after today, but around this golf course I don’t think by any means I’m out of the tournament.”

Burns was a regular birdie machine — at Oakmont, no less — playing in the morning under cloud cover and little wind and flushing his irons so well that all six of his birdies were inside 10 feet.

He was at three-under 137, one shot ahead of J.J. Spaun, who fell out of a share of the lead with a bogey on the 18th, his sixth in his round of 72.

Burns and Viktor Hovland (68) each have 11 sub-par holes over 36 holes, the most in three U.S. Opens at Oakmont since it switched to a par 70 in 2007. Hovland was two shots behind.

Only three players remained under par, the fewest in seven years at the U.S. Open.

Burns can only imagine where he would be if not for a shocker of a finish Thursday, when he was one shot out of the lead and then played his last four holes in five-over par.

“I played really well yesterday other than the finishing holes. So I think today was just kind of getting mentally ready to come out and try to put a good round together,” Burns said.

“It was unfortunate, but there was too much good to focus on the little bit of bad.”

Hovland twice holed 50-foot shots from off the green — a putter from the collar on No. 10 when he started his round, and chipping in for eagle on the reachable par-four 17th. He also chopped up the second hole for a double bogey. But he was happy to be done.

“Definitely tired, exhausted because you’re just focusing so much on every single shot,” he said. “I’m very pleased with two-under par, but also I know that I was four under at some point. So it’s like very pleased, but also, ‘Man, that could have been a little bit lower.’ But we’re in a really nice spot after two days, so I’m just kind of happy.”

Adam Scott, playing in his 96th consecutive major, had another 70 and joined Ben Griffin (71) at even-par 140.

Burns is among the top putters on the PGA Tour, though he did miss a five-foot putt to win a playoff in the Canadian Open last week and three-putted the fourth playoff hole to lose. This was more about staying in position and eliminating as much stress as possible on a course that can be relentless.

No putt was more important than his 20-foot par putt up the ridge on No. 9 to finish off a great round the right way. He tugged his drive to the left on the tough par-four ninth into a ditch, took a penalty drop, hit safely on the green and made the putt.

“That putt was, I don’t know, six feet of break,” he said. “Yeah, it was a nice one to make for sure.”

Scheffler was among those who had little room left for mistakes. He opened with a birdie on No. 10, but then didn’t find another fairway until he came up just short of the green on the 17th, 50 feet away for eagle. Four putts later, he had a bogey.

It was a grind all the way, battling his swing and the rough, making a number of key par putts that kept the round from getting worse.

“Mentally, this was as tough as I’ve battled for the whole day. There was a lot of stuff going on out there that was not going in my favor necessarily,” Scheffler said. “Overall, definitely not out of the tournament.”

Neither is Brooks Koepka, who had a 74 but was only five behind.

Jon Rahm went from red numbers to red in the face with a 75, leaving him in the same spot as Scheffler. Rahm, who took 35 putts, was asked if his score could illustrate how tough Oakmont was playing.

“Honestly, too annoyed and too mad right now to think about any perspective,” he said. “Very frustrated. Very few rounds of golf I played in my life where I think I hit good putts and they didn’t sniff the hole. So it’s frustrating.”

That’s not just Oakmont. That’s most U.S. Opens. In that respect, Hovland was a curious contender. He has been all over the place with his swing, his expectations, his confidence. He won during the Florida swing and is making progress. Perhaps no expectations helped him.

“For some reason I’ve just been in a really nice mental state this week,” Hovland said. “Both my rounds have been very up and down. I feel like a couple times if it would have happened at another tournament, for example, I could have potentially lost my mind there a little bit. But I felt like I kept things together very well.”

Ferguson writes for the Associated Press.

Two-time US Open champion Brooks Koepka has shown glimpses of his impressive major-winning credentials but was scrappy in a round of 74 to drop to two over par.

Two shots further behind, the 2021 champion Jon Rahm saw his challenge falter, having impressed on day one.

Starting the round three off the lead, he followed three bogeys on his first nine with a penal double bogey at the 12th to drop to four over par, with his sole birdie arriving at the fourth.

To compound his frustration, he saw a series of birdie chances slide by during his closing holes before a bogey at the last left him seven shots off the lead.

“I’m too mad to put it into perspective,” he said afterwards.

At least Rahm made the cut.

DeChambeau was a shadow of the player who stormed to victory at Pinehurst last June as his title defence faded with a whimper.

Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg and England’s Tommy Fleetwood are also heading home, finishing at eight over and nine over respectively.

And Ireland’s Shane Lowry closed on 17 over par, after a round which featured a penalty shot for picking up his ball without marking it on the 14th green.

“Maybe my mind was somewhere else,” laughed Lowry when recounting the bizarre incident to BBC Sport. “It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve done.”

Six-time runner-up Phil Mickelson, who suggested this may be his last US Open, missed a birdie putt on the last to to end up on the wrong side of the cut line.

Meanwhile, France’s Victor Perez had a hole-in-one at the par-three sixth and a triple-bogey eight in a level-par 70 that kept him at one over and inside the top 10.

Jordan Thomas didn’t want to just research and write about fire, he wanted to see it up close, and he has turned that experience into the exceptional new book, “When It All Burns.” A specialist in the cultural forces that shape fire, Thomas joined the Los Padres Hotshots, a crew that might be viewed as the Navy SEALs of firefighting. He spent 2021 battling wildfires extreme and treacherous even by the standards of these globally warmed times.

A first-person account would be compelling enough, especially given Thomas’ gift for terse, layered expository writing. But Thomas has more on his mind here. He alternates sequences of harrowing action and macho team-building with deep dives into the ecology, science, economics and, most important, Indigenous cultural practices related to fire. In Thomas’ hands these subjects are interconnected, and his writing brings new heat to an ubiquitous subject.

If you live anywhere near Los Angeles, you may very well prefer not to read “When It All Burns.” But you should. Just this last January, a series of wildfires ravaged the region, fed by gusting Santa Ana winds, drought conditions and low humidity. Projected damage from the fires had ballooned to more than $250 billion in damages in January, The Times reported. At least 30 people were killed in the fires, with economic ramifications expected to stretch into the unforeseeable future. “When It All Burns” was written well before any of this happened, and it sometimes carries the force of prophecy. The fire next time has already burned, though there will surely be more.

Thomas sets the table early on: “In the past two decades, wildfires have been doing things not even computer models can predict, environmental events that have scientists racking their brains for appropriately Dystopian technology: firenados, gigafires, megafires. Scientists recently invented the term ‘megafire’ to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction.”

In other words, it’s only going to get worse. As a member of the Hotshots crew, Thomas hacked away at undergrowth with a chainsaw as the firefighters made their advance, and he found himself fascinated by the subculture of people, mostly men, assigned to combat these otherworldly infernos. But the education and knowledge he carries also makes him deeply ambivalent about the very nature of fire suppression.

Author Jordan Thomas.

(Sari Blum)

For centuries, Indigenous peoples the world over have used controlled fires, or “cultural burning,” for any number of purposes, from agriculture to reducing the risk of uncontrolled fires. But such practices didn’t jibe with increasingly modern economies, and colonialists, especially in North America, saw burning as both barbaric and a threat to industrialized capitalism. Fire surpression was more than a byproduct of Native American genocide, it was part of the master plan: “In California, fire had always connected people to their food, and Americans set about its suppression with unprecedented brutality.” Researchers who tried to bring this history to light often had their work suppressed like one more controlled fire. And as the practice declined, wildfires entered the breach.

As you might expect, life as a Hotshot is fraught with medical risk: Hotshots tend to work sick and injured, loathe to pass up the overtime and hazard pay on which they depend. As Thomas writes, “The precarious lives of Hotshots are one flashpoint in an expanding field of self-reinforcing social and environmental crises. Scientists call this a sacrifice zone — a place where low-income people shoulder the burden of industrial misconduct.”

Every time “When It All Burns” threatens to get dry, like a combustible piece of brush, Thomas brings it back to his own firefighting travails, and the cast of Hotshot characters who showed him the ropes, berated him and bailed him out.

The two Los Padres leaders are Edgar, a stern drill sergeant-type who rides everyone with equal venom, and Aoki, just as demanding but with more of a shaman-warrior demeanor. Aoki conducts Thomas’ job interview as the two men hike a steep hill; Thomas eventually has to decide between asking questions, which takes up oxygen, or concentrating on the task at hand.

“At a certain level of physical suffering, the pain becomes almost comedic,” he notes, as he assesses his condition before hiking a mountain to carry an injured firefighter back downhill. “My feet were torn and oozing within my elk leather boots, and every inch of my skin was a rash of poison oak. Hours before I had been incapacitated by muscle cramps.” And moments later: “The only antidote to the discomfort was to return to the level of exhaustion where the body becomes numb.”

“When It All Burns” is one of those books that immerses the reader in the nuances of a world most of us know only through the lens of tragedy and destruction. Thomas’ visceral, crystalline prose only adds fuel to the fire.

Vognar is a freelance culture writer.