details

IN LESS than five years the UK is set to get a new theme park that’s the only one of its kind in Europe.

Universal United Kingdom Resort, as it is officially known, will be located in Bedfordshire and is set to open in 2031.

Universal has always been at the forefront of new theme park upgrades, from letting guests use wands to cast spells in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter to interactive dragon robots at How To Train Your Dragon – Isle Of Berk.

Now the company has applied for FOUR new patents, giving fans a sneak peek at what to expect at their theme parks in the future.

These include a hybrid ride vehicle that can transition between being suspended from a track – as if it is floating through the air – to floating on the water.

Images show that the boat-style car would connect to an overhead arm and then when it enters the water it would detach from the arm and float like a normal boat.

EAT IT UP

First look at Universal’s new Halloween Horror Nights’ ‘devilish’ food menu

ALL CHANGE

The UK’s ‘coolest’ city that could have been home to new Universal theme park

Another patent reveals an AI guide – an audio tour that would be able to see your surroundings and then talk to you.

It isn’t clear yet what the AI guide would be used for by Universal, but it sounds like it could be along the lines of a Google Lens or Pokemon Go experience.

It is also unclear whether these patents are specifically for the UK park or all parks.

What we do know though, is that this week the Universal United Kingdom Resort announced the 23 contractors, engineers and architects that will be used for the project.

Contractors include the team behind the 2012 London Olympic Stadium as well as The Eden Project in Cornwall, the O2 Arena, a number of airport expansions and Battersea Power Station.

Previously announced details about the first Universal destination in Europe include that it will be located on a site in Kempston Hardwick, Bedfordshire – about 45 miles from London.

The park will spread across 476 acres and feature the theme park as well as hotels, restaurants, shops and even room for possible future expansion.

The theme park will be split into four “zones” – the Core Zone, Lake Zone, West Gateway Zone and the East Gateway Zone.

Accommodation and business hotels will be in the Lake Zone, as well as an entertainment complex and a convention centre.

West Gateway Zone and the East Gateway Zone will be where guests arrive by train and car, with restaurants and hotels.

This is also likely to be where the Entry Plaza area will be, as well as parking and a 500-room hotel.

When it comes to what will actually be inside the theme park itself, there are plenty of rumours flying around.

What we do know is that there will be indoor and outdoor rides, as well as areas for shows and entertainment.

The plans state: “[Guests will] experience blockbuster attractions, adrenaline-pumping coasters, and mind-blowing spectaculars.

“They’ll come face-to-face with incredible creatures, heroes, and villains.

“They’ll discover great food, new laughs, new ways to play, and step into immersive worlds they’ve only ever dreamed of.”

There will also be a maximum height of anything in the theme park of 115metres – which if this were to be a rollercoaster, it would take over from Red Force at Ferrari Land (part of PortAventura World) in Salou, Spain, as the tallest in Europe.

Despite Universal not confirming the park map or rides that will feature, industry speculation expects the attraction to focus on its British roots with much-loved franchise Harry Potter featuring.

Other famous films set to play a part in the theme park include Paddington Bear and James Bond.

There are also rumours that Jurassic World, How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me/Minions and Shrek could also feature.

Rail lines near the theme park will also get upgraded with a new station on the East West Rail and Midland Main (Thameslink) Line.

It is expected to cost £5billion to bring to life.

There is a lost EastEnders Christmas special which showed groundbreaking gay character Barry Clark come out to his homophobic dad.

In 1986, bosses on the BBC drama cast the first ever gay couple on the soap with Michael Cashman and Gary Hailes playing Colin Russell and Barry.

The two characters were the first openly gay couple to share a kiss in a British soap. Gary Webster joined EastEnders in 1987 playing Barry’s protective older brother Graham Clark who accepted his sibling was a homosexual man.

Former Minder star Webster has now revealed that an entire Christmas episode was filmed in 1987 around Barry emotionally revealing his sexuality to their father, who hated homosexuals.

Webster insists the unique episode was in the can and due to air on Christmas Eve but when he sat down to watch it, bosses had lost their nerve and left it on the cutting room floor instead airing an episode forcing on Pauline and Arthur Fowler’s broken oven and Sharon Watts coping with Christmas with her parents Angie and Den separated.

None of the scenes were ever shown on the soap.

Webster said: “I was very proud to be a part of that storyline, absolutely. “That was really groundbreaking writing. Not only having Colin and Barry’s relationship out there, accepted or not accepted. It wasn’t for effect it was a reflection of what was happening to people in those relationships.

“It was fantastic writing, the idea that his brother would be fully accepting of it as well, when everyone thought the brother would find it unacceptable. At that time they could have gone further. I remember we shot a whole Christmas episode of the father of Barry and Graham – my character – finding out his son was gay, and he wasn’t accepting of it. It had all been building to that culmination of the father coming into the pub.

“We filmed 15 scenes and it was a whole episode at Christmas. I sat down to watch it at Christmas and they had pulled it and had shot something else. I think they just lost their bottle a little bit at that time.

“No, never broadcast. I don’t what happened to it. All I know is that my parents were sitting down with my aunt and uncle, my current girlfriend at the time was sitting down with her parents on Christmas Eve. I’d told them I’m featured in this episode a lot, this is going to be a big episode. I was sat down on my own, I saw the opening scene and I suddenly realised, ‘Oh my god! This has changed. This is not the episode that we shot.’

“Back in those days if you got an episode on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day it was the pinnacle of your career. Then I thought, ‘I just look like I’m a big liar. Now I’m going to have to take the flak of people going, ‘Right, so you were going to be in a big episode?’ Everyone doubted me for years afterwards.”

Webster – who stars in new independent British horror movie Harbinger – believes the episode was dropped because bosses on EastEnders feared the British public weren’t ready for it.

Despite that history-making episode never making it to television screens, Webster says being a part of the Colin and Barry story is one of the proudest acting jobs of his long career.

He said: “To be a part of that storyline, to work with Gary Hailes and Michael Cashman who played Barry and Colin – I still keep in contact with them both – I look back on that and I am proud of my part of that storyline. It was EastEnders at its very best. “What everyone forgets, people in my industry and in that London scene, we probably lived in a bit of a bubble than what was going on in the rest of the country.

“I felt that maybe people at that time weren’t ready for that yet. But I think people are ready for it at any time. You have to have more faith in the public.”

Webster made a return to EastEnders in 2016 as new character Neville Peacock. The actor still watches the soap and insists it is vital it remains on screens as it is a hotbed of new talent.

He said: “EastEnders is in a battle but I still think the basics and foundations are great, the same with Coronation Street and all the soaps. They are a great breeding ground for great talent whether it’s in front of the camera or behind the camera. People still like that regularity of storyline and characters they now and love. It’s just getting it out there, because there are so many other platforms.

“I did about four episodes of EastEnders as a different character in 2016. There was some hope that I might return. Hope is one thing, reality is another. It doesn’t bother me if something doesn’t quite work out, that’s just the nature of the business we’re in.

“If they called me again I would be thrilled and honoured to be in the show. “I still think there is a lot of value to the soap operas. In this country we do them extremely well. It’s a hot bed for new talent, discovery of new talent across the board that we would lose at our peril. If we allow that to just slip away I think the industry would suffer across the board. I’m a great advocate of retaining all those returning dramas.”

The BBC declined to comment but a soap source said EastEnders had “a rich history of championing LGBTQA+ storylines and characters over its 41-year tenure”.

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

After LAPD recruitment officers were accused of making racist, sexist and homophobic comments — some of which were caught on tape — department leaders promised to look into whether they improperly disqualified any police applicants.

More than a year and a half later, the city is still waiting on the report.

But the contents of a separate LAPD internal affairs file reviewed by The Times has shed new light on the unit at the center of the scandal and how its officers responded to investigators who were looking into the matter.

No clear explanation has been given for the delay in publicly addressing the scandal’s effect on recruitment efforts.

In response to a records request from The Times, the city’s personnel department, which is conducting the inquiry, said it had not yet finished its review and had no timeline for doing so.

Last month, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman charged Daniel Flores, the LAPD whistleblower who secretly recorded his colleagues, with 16 felonies, alleging he violated a state eavesdropping law. But, after criticism from Mayor Karen Bass and others, the district attorney downgraded the counts to misdemeanors with a diversion agreement that will probably allow Flores to avoid any time behind bars.

Flores’ recordings captured Los Angeles Police Department recruitment officers referring to Black people as “monkeys,” describing a female job applicant as “rapeable,” and saying “F—ing deport them, call ICE” during a conversation about Latinos, among a long list of other offensive remarks.

Asked about the pending LAPD report into the fallout from the tapes, Bass said in a statement that the review “has gone on too long.” The mayor said she had directed the personnel department to “complete the report and release it without further delay.”

Flores alleged in a complaint he filed with the LAPD in January 2025 that some recruits had been improperly rejected, adding to ongoing concerns about the department’s struggle to replenish its ranks.

As of last week, the LAPD had 8,507 sworn personnel — its lowest total since October 1995.

Even after efforts under Bass to streamline hiring and boost recruitment, Chief Jim McDonnell has warned that the department may not be adequately staffed in time for the 2028 Olympics.

McDonnell said after Flores’ allegations were made public in early 2025 that the personnel department would conduct a “biopsy” to examine “any adverse impacts” of the scandal on recruitment.

In a brief statement, the department said that it wouldn’t comment on what discipline, if any, had been meted out to the officers involved, citing state privacy law.

“The Department takes allegations of discriminatory or biased conduct seriously,” the statement read. “We are committed to ensuring the workplace is professional, respectful and free from misconduct.”

The Police Commission said in a statement that it is still waiting on the report, adding that “fair and equitable hiring of sworn and civilian employees remains a priority.”

The LAPD internal affairs investigative file reviewed by The Times described a frat-like office atmosphere in the Hiring and Evaluation Section in which Flores worked.

According to the internal affairs report, Flores claimed that at least one colleague, Shirley Burgos, had inappropriately disqualified candidates based on their appearance.

The report said that Burgos was captured in several recordings making fun of overweight candidates who were “ugly, creepy” people.

Another officer, Ayron McKay, told internal affairs investigators about an instance in which the unit’s officers were discussing a candidate who they believed was overweight.

Burgos then looked up the woman’s driver’s license picture on the DMV database, which several officers told internal affairs probably violated department policy, according to the report.

Burgos and McKay did not respond to inquiries to their work email accounts.

The internal affairs file said Flores recorded another officer saying he wanted to go to Big Bear, a popular winter sports destination in the San Bernardino National Forest, and roll the candidate down the ski slope. Meanwhile, according to the report, McKay asked the others how much they would pay to sleep with the woman, and referred to her as “Jabba the Hut.”

When asked about the conversation by internal affairs, the report said, McKay told investigators that the conversation started with Burgos venting about an applicant, but acknowledged that it should not have been allowed to continue.

In one recording made on Nov. 13, 2024, the report said, Burgos told her colleagues that she had released information about disqualified candidates to a friend of hers at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, which is against LAPD policy.

The officers were all required to sign a confidentiality agreement that barred them from discussing candidates’ personal information with anyone outside the office.

During her internal affairs interviews, Burgos denied providing information to other agencies, saying it was clear from her laughter on the recording that she was joking.

Burgos told investigators that the only time she’d ever discussed a candidate with someone outside the department was during a conversation with an unnamed background investigator with the Sheriff’s Department or Santa Monica police — and said that was only to confirm that the candidate had in fact applied to the LAPD, according to the report.

The LAPD investigation noted that she and the other involved officers all denied that their office conversations had ever caused them to inappropriately disqualify a candidate.

The internal affairs report quoted the unit’s supervisor, Sgt. Denny Jong, a 20-year-department veteran, as describing his relationship with the officers under his command as friendly and professional; none of them had ever expressed discomfort about their work environment, he reportedly said.

Jong did not respond to emailed questions from The Times.

Several officers told investigators that they used gallows humor as a way to deal with the stress of working long hours in a small, windowless basement office.

According to the report, some officers, including Jong and McKay, acknowledged that the office banter sometimes crossed the line, but they denied that there was anything malicious about their comments. They also contended that the unit had little authority about which applicants advanced in the recruitment process — decisions, they said, that had to go through several layers of review.

During his internal affairs interviews, Jong often told investigators that he didn’t recall making certain inappropriate comments. The report said he also denied ever making any of the inappropriate comments that were contained in Flores’ complaint.

When he was confronted with audio of comments in which he referred to a candidate of Chinese descent as a terrorist, Jong said he was joking.

“He explained that this was based on current news stories at the time, which involved concerns over Chinese nationals attempting to infiltrate the country,” the internal affairs report said. “Jong was not serious and did not believe the candidate was a terrorist, but admitted the remark was an off-color joke and inappropriate for the workplace.”

As its defense against Russia grinds on and with the future of foreign military assistance never assured, Ukraine is ramping up procurement of its new, domestically produced “Equalizer” aerial glide bomb, according to the Ukrainian military. Brave1, the Ukrainian defense technology incubator, on Tuesday provided us with some new details about this weapon, which extends the range and accuracy of so-called dumb bombs by adding guidance kits and pop-out wings.

Also known by its Ukrainian name “Vyrivniuvach,” this bomb first broke cover in May, which you can read more about in our initial story on the topic here. It was developed by the Ukrainian company DG Industry with the Brave1’s support.

While glide bombs have been used to great effect by both sides, Kyiv has had to rely on donated weapons like the U.S.-made Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range munition (JDAM-ER) and the French-made AASM-250 Hammer bomb. The Ukrainian Air Force also makes extensive use of the U.S.-supplied Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), which is smaller and also has pop-out wings.

The Ukrainian Air Force began launching JDAM-ERs in March 2023 and SDBs that November, though the use of the latter wasn’t officially confirmed until May 2024. The weapons became critical for striking Russian targets over the front lines because they allowed Ukrainian jets to release them from standoff distances and better avoid Russian air defenses.

Russia, meanwhile, produced its own crude glide bomb earlier in the war and it has become a highly problematic and deadly threat for Ukraine to contend with since. Now Ukraine is building its own.

As we noted in our earlier piece, the weapon had cleared trials and is ready for combat, giving Ukraine a domestically produced standoff munition that could augment its current arsenal of donated ones and provide a more secure supply chain given the uncertain nature of foreign assistance. One of our outstanding questions at the time was whether the Equalizer would have independent propulsion, a modification that provides this class of munition with a significant boost in range beyond the “dozens of kilometers,” Brave1 claims it can reach. By comparison, the stated JDAM-ER range is more definitive, able to hit targets about 45 miles away.

Russia last year introduced a small turbojet engine to its glide bombs, with claims that this has boosted range to at least 60 miles. Ukraine says it is developing that capability as well, with the goal of reaching targets as far as 125 miles away.

It’s worth noting that Ukraine’s French-supplied Hammer precision-guided bombs also feature a rocket booster. This feature is of unique utility for Ukraine, which often slings its glide bombs via pop-up launch profiles from low level executed by its fighter and attack aircraft. This is due to the extremely heavy air defenses near the front lines.

You can see a Ukrainian MiG-29 launch two Hammers in the following video.

The Equalizer “has no motor,” Brave1 spokesman Yurii Voronkov told us.

“A major challenge was the lack of an engine, as navigation and control rely entirely on the bomb’s own inertia and aerodynamics,” he explained. “Naturally, this demands precise calculations, structural balancing, and extensive testing.”

“The main difficulty lay in combining several critical factors: speed, high g-forces, and aircraft integration,” the Brave1 spokesman added. “This is precisely the type of system where even millimeters are critical, and choosing the right components directly impacts the structure’s effectiveness and resilience.” 

“The weapon was designed with high-precision targeting and compatibility with current Ukrainian aircraft and systems,” Voronkov stated. While designed for Ukrainian Su-24, Su-27, and MiG-29 jets, it can also be used with donated F-16 and Mirage fighters, though it “has to receive additional certification for usage on F-16s and Mirages.”

“The bomb also has modern guidance algorithms that promote better targeting and accuracy,” he noted, without providing additional details.

“Structurally speaking, the product differs from both Russian and foreign counterparts,” Voronkov added. “During development, the developers researched existing systems, incorporating real combat experience and feedback from the military. As a result, the product integrates all the advantages of existing solutions while addressing their shortcomings.”

Voronkov declined to elaborate, but highlighted that “everything—from the wings to the flight controller software—was developed in Ukraine, with the exception of the chips and microcircuits. In terms of the component base, approximately 90% consists of Ukrainian, European, and American parts. Overall, the company managed to avoid critical dependence on foreign components.”

Ukraine began developing the Equalizer two years ago over concerns about the future flow of arms into the country, Voronkov said. Given that with the war dragging on, the U.S. has stopped donating weapons to Ukraine and other nations, like the Netherlands, have as well, it was not an academic exercise.

“In 2024, a team of developers asked themselves a practical question: what happens if foreign arms supplies stop?” Voronokov proffered. “Ukraine needed its own capabilities to help its military carry out combat missions independently. That marked the beginning of their mission to develop a domestic guided aerial bomb.”

“By May 2025, following a series of successful tests, the team proved the concept was viable and decided to move forward,” the Brave1 spokesman added. “They transitioned to producing the initial prototypes and scaling up manufacturing. Naturally, it was a gradual process—the team continued refining the product and fine-tuning specific technical solutions, work that remains ongoing to this day.” 

“Brave1 supported this project from its inception in 2024,” Voronkov stated. “We aim to back innovations right from the start because it gives teams a real shot at success. We recognized the chance that the project would reach completion and prove its capabilities quickly, but we were equally aware it might take much longer. In the end, going from concept to the first working prototype took 17 months.”

DG Industry is one of “at least eight manufacturers working on glide bombs altogether,” Voronkov noted.

“The guided aerial bomb itself isn’t just a single product—it represents a technology that has now emerged in our country,” Yaroslav Vinnytskyi, Head of Defense Technologies at Brave1, told us. “It will continue to evolve, and its application can be scaled across various types and sizes. Mastering this technology is a major milestone, providing additional capabilities for both manufacturers and the armed forces.”

Beyond seeking supply independence, by developing its own weapons like Equalizer, Ukraine won’t have to worry about preclusions placed on their use by foreign donors, something that happened with several weapons systems, though the limits ebbed and flowed.

As we noted earlier in this story, the Equalizer “is already being officially purchased for supply to the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Colonel Vladyslav Voloshyn, head of the Central Department of Innovation Activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told the Ukrainian Ukrinform media outlet.

Voloshyn noted that Russia has increased its daily use of glide bombs from about 180 last year to more than 300 this year. It remains unknown when the Equalizer will arrive on the battlefield for Ukraine at scale, or when the other options will either.

Given what these weapons can bring to the table if they truly work as advertised, for Kyiv they cannot come soon enough.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com