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While women hold just 10% of the pilot licences given out in the UK, they could actually be more adept than men at handling high-pressure situations in the cockpit

Female pilots may be better than their male counterparts at handling pressure during flight situations, a new study has revealed. The researchers, from the University of Waterloo in Canada, used a flight simulator to study 20 experienced pilots as they went through different scenarios.

The pilots wore eye-tracking glasses, which allowed the team of scientists to record where the participants were looking and how they responded. The flight tasks included unexpected engine failures and landing challenges, which were designed to test the pilots’ reactions under pressure.

“These findings are exciting because they push us to rethink how we evaluate pilots,” Naila Ayala, the study’s lead author, said.

She added: “We can’t assume that because two pilots are looking at the same things, they will react the same way. Our study shows that women may be better at keeping control and making decisions in stressful flight scenarios.”

The research found that female pilots tended to make fewer flight control errors when stress levels increased. This means that women were more consistent and accurate in how they responded to the information presented to them.

Suzanne Kearns, associate professor and director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics, said: “Understanding how different people perform under pressure helps us build better training programs for everyone, safer cockpits, and more inclusive aviation systems.

“At a time when the industry is facing a pilot shortage, tapping into the full potential of all pilots, regardless of gender, is more important than ever.”

The team hopes that the research, published in the Proceedings of the 2025 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, will help shape future pilot training.

According to the study, the women demonstrated more stable landing approaches, completed tasks faster in the emergency scenario, and had higher situation awareness ratings.

It explains: “These preliminary findings suggest that female pilots may manage task demands effectively under pressure and have important implications for addressing gender-based assumptions in training and recruitment.”

Last July, it was announced that there had been a 26% increase in the number of pilot licenses issued to women between 2019 and 2023.

Data from the UK Civil Aviation Authority showed that 239 pilot licences were issued to women in 2019, while this number rose to 301 four years later.

However, licences for women are still comparatively low as they make up just 10% of the total number given out. Bronwyn Fraser, the secretary of the British Women Pilots’ Association, said: “Women pilots bring diverse perspectives and skills.

But aviation is so much more than just flying. We have brilliant women engineers, air traffic controllers, and sustainability experts pushing the boundaries of innovation, developing new technologies and unlocking the full potential of our airspace.” Fraser explained that the UK needs “more young women in aviation”.

A woman will umpire a major league game for the first time Saturday when Jen Pawol works the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and visiting Miami Marlins at Truist Park.

For Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, that announcement Wednesday brought one response: It’s about time.

“That’s great. I’ll be watching,” he said of Pawol, who will work behind the plate Sunday. “It’s good for the game. It’s fantastic.”

The NHL is the only major U.S. professional sport that hasn’t used female officials. The NBA was the first league to break the gender barrier, with Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner calling games in 1997. MLS followed a year later with Sandra Hunter and Nancy Lay-McCormick refereeing separate games on the same day.

The NFL’s first woman official was line judge Shannon Eastin, who made her debut in 2012.

Pawol, 48, was an all-state soccer and softball player in high school in New Jersey. She went on to play Division I softball at Hofstra, then played for the women’s national baseball team. She began umpiring NCAA softball games in 2010 and five years later enrolled in the minor league umpire training academy in Vero Beach, Fla., the first step toward a career in professional baseball.

That earned her a job in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. By 2023, she had worked her way up to triple A, the highest rung on the minor league ladder. Last year she became the third woman, after Pam Postema, in 1988, and Ria Cortesio, in 2007, to umpire major league spring training games.

The careers of both women were later blocked by senior male umpires who, according to colleagues, colluded against them. Postema later filed a federal discrimination suit against the National and American leagues, triple A clubs and the office of umpire development, claiming sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The suit was settled out of court.

Pawol, conversely, said she has received nothing but support, saying the coaches and players have gone out of their way to acknowledge her example as a trailblazer for their daughters.

On Wednesday, Roberts added his name to that list.

“Congratulations to her,” he said. “Baseball has done a great job of being completely inclusive. “

Megan Romano announced as first female competitor at 2026 debut of Olympic-style Enhanced Games in Las Vegas.

The Olympic-style sport venture that will run an event next year with no drug testing signed world-champion swimmer Megan Romano as its first female and first US athlete.

The Enhanced Games will debut next May in Las Vegas, featuring swimming, track and weightlifting competitions in an event that will allow athletes to use performance enhancers.

Romano calls competing in the event “an opportunity to push the boundaries of human performance in a transparent and scientifically-backed environment, and to compete on a stage where female athletes are valued and compensated fairly. equally. I believe this is the future of sport.”

The Enhanced Games will offer a prize purse of $500,000 for each event, with $1m bonuses going to anyone who breaks a world record in the 100-metre sprint (track) and 50-metre freestyle (swimming).

Those marks would not count as “official”, because world records need to be ratified by international federations, which require record-breakers to pass doping tests.

The International Olympic Committee has condemned the concept of the Enhanced Games, saying, “If you want to destroy any concept of fair play and fair competition in sport, this would be a good way to do it.”

But the games have built some momentum and raised money in the “double-digit millions,” according to founder Aron D’Souza.

Four male swimmers, including Olympic medallist James Magnussen of Australia, have committed to the games.

Romano, a standout swimmer at Georgia in college, anchored the US 4×100 freestyle relay team to a gold medal at world championships in 2013.

April 3, 2005. It’s 02:00 in Washington.

Stephan Weiler is woken by a “dreaded call”. A voice said: “Is Becky Zerlentes your wife?’

“I said ‘yes’, and the official from Denver Health Medical Center and Hospital told me I need to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Her condition was deteriorating.”

Up until that day, a female boxer in the United States had never died in a sanctioned fight.

In succumbing to that devastating blow, Zerlentes – who three years previously won a regional boxing title – had rewritten history.

While the tales of fighters like Johnny Owen and Jimmy Doyle, external are enshrined in history, the impact of Zerlentes’ death on the community in Denver and on those who loved her has remained private.

Zerlentes’ love affair with combat sports defined her life, an overwhelming rush every time she stepped inside the confines of a boxing ring or MMA cage.

Like most amateur fighters, 34-year-old Zerlentes embraced a career away from the ropes, working as a geography and economics professor at Front Range Community College’s Larimer County campus, earning a master’s and PhD.

The buzz she enjoyed inside the classroom was complemented by her love of sport, especially in combat.

On that fight night, Weiler remained in the capital of the US, continuing his three-year stay at the Federal Reserve, the country’s central banking system.

He had constantly been asked by Zerlentes to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he soon would.

Facing Heather Schmitz, Zerlentes was taking part in the Colorado State Boxing Senior Female Championships at the Denver Coliseum in Colorado, a venue that has crammed more than 10,000 people in when the Rolling Stones or Rage Against the Machine have been in town. Both women wore protective headgear.

For two rounds Zerlentes worked, trading punches with Schmitz until the third.

With a blow to the head, just above her left eye, Zerlentes staggered forward, struck the canvas and fell unconscious – a state she would remain in until her death the following morning.

“The doctor in the ring said her pupils were fixed and dilated when he saw her first and already there was a chance that brain damage had occurred,” Weiler, now a professor, said.

By 06:30 Weiler was on a flight to Denver and immediately made his way to the hospital. There he saw Zerlentes.

“The amount of damage to Becky’s brain was remarkable given that it was a fairly glancing blow,” he said.

“It was not a hard hit… but the brain had become bruised to such an extent that it could no longer operate.”

The life support Zerlentes had been placed on was beginning to fail, and that “clinically she was probably already dead in the ring”, Weiler recalled.

And then he had to make a choice.

“At about noon that morning, the decision was made, knowing that her condition was deteriorating, I made the choice that it was time,” he said.

The reaction to her death was immediate.

Tributes flooded in across Denver. Colleagues, students and others who knew Zerlentes described the warmth and tenacity of one of the college and community’s pillars.

In a letter seen by BBC Sport, Boardman warned: “This behaviour is abhorrent and unacceptable in any context, but it is especially disheartening given the progress we have made in championing women and girls in sport.

“Through Sport England and National Lottery investment, we have committed hundreds of millions of pounds to increase participation, visibility and opportunity for women and girls in sport.”

In October 2023, the Online Safety Act became law, ensuring social media platforms have a duty to protect users from content such as racism, with Ofcom responsible for enforcing the legislation, and developing codes of practice to guide tech companies. However, some anti-racism campaigners believe there needs to be more urgency.

“The Online Safety Act 2023 provides a framework to address illegal and harmful content, including hate speech and misogynistic abuse,” wrote Boardman.

“We are particularly interested in how the new codes can be used to address the kind of targeted abuse we are seeing. We understand that Ofcom has also issued draft guidance on improving online safety for women and girls, and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss how these measures can be strengthened and enforced.

“For too long, internet trolls have been given free rein by the big tech companies to spread bile and misery, and this cannot be allowed to continue.

“Could you please advise what further steps can be taken within the current regulatory framework to tackle misogyny and racism online?”

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Sport that social media companies and Ofcom “need to do more”.

“I think the act will continue to be tested every time a problem surfaces and it’s incumbent on those such as Ofcom and social media platforms to be proactive in rooting this out,” she said.

“We brought in the Online Harms Act this year to make sure there are sanctions for companies that don’t take this content down and we are doing a lot of work in schools to educate young people about the impact of online abuse but it’s incumbent on all of us to call this out.

“It’s absolutely disgraceful what [Jess Carter] has had to put up with and we are completely behind her and the Lionesses.”

Ofcom has been approached for comment.

Footballer and model Catarina Pita is reportedly set to enter Love Island as a late bombshell – as tensions continue to explode in the villa following Movie Night

Professional footballer and part-time model Catarina Pita could soon be swapping boots for bikinis as she’s reportedly lined up to join Love Island as a late bombshell – just as the villa falls into even more emotional chaos.

The Portuguese defender, who currently plays for Atlético London, has built an impressive career in women’s football, previously playing for clubs including West Ham United, QPR, Millwall Lionesses, and Porto FC. But now, show insiders say she’s on Love Island producers’ radar to make a dramatic entrance during the latter half of this season.

“Cat has been busy in pre-season training but is on ITV2’s list as a late bombshell. As always, the cast are pulled into suit storylines to create maximum drama. Bosses loved the idea of having a female footballer on the show during the Women’s Euros,” a source told The Sun.

With the villa still in shambles following the explosive Movie Night, the timing for a fresh arrival in the form of brunette bombshell Cat couldn’t be more perfect, as her entrance into the villa could turn heads and cause even more drama for the girls.

On Friday’s episode, the annual Movie Night twist caused chaos as Islanders were shown clips of secret moments from Casa Amor and the unexpected ‘Sleepover’.

Meg and Dejon’s relationship, once seen as one of the villa’s most stable, is now hanging by a thread after damning footage exposed Dejon’s flirty behaviour with both Andrada, Malisha, and Caprice.

Meg, clearly stunned by what she saw, said: “F***ing hell, any more flirting?” Her anger grew as Dejon tried to defend himself, while Andrada, pulled into the confrontation, stood her ground. “I’m going to stand my ground,” she said firmly after the explosive clips were shown.

Later, Meg took Dejon aside to speak in private, accusing him of humiliating her. “I feel violated in front of all of the girls,” she said, holding back tears. Dejon, who looked visibly flustered after the drama, then admitted to feeling lost as he said: “I didn’t know if I was truly being honest, with Meg or myself.”

Naturally, social media lit up with opinions as some viewers empathised with Meg, while others questioned her reaction and insisted that she was being far too possessive over Dejon.

“Meg was WAY too calm for what she just saw. If I were her? Explosions. Nuclear. #LoveIsland,” wrote one viewer on X.

Another posted: “Dejon fumbled Meg for a Casa flirt and a laugh? Make it make sense.” Others pointed out the misdirected blame. “I actually think Meg was more mad at Andrada than Dejon?? Redirect that anger, babe.”

With the next recoupling on the horizon, Catarina’s rumoured arrival might be just the spark producers need to throw the villa into even deeper drama and chaos.

Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV and ITVX.

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READ MORE: Maura Higgins swears by this Sol de Janeiro body oil for her glowy holiday skin

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons to lead the impoverished Latin American country through crisis before oil wealth arrives.

Suriname has elected Jennifer Geerlings-Simons as its first female president, with parliament backing the 71-year-old physician and lawmaker to lead the crisis-hit South American nation.

Her election came after a coalition deal was struck in the National Assembly, which voted by a two-thirds majority on Sunday.

The move followed inconclusive May polls and mounting pressure to replace outgoing President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, whose tenure was marred by corruption scandals and harsh austerity.

Geerlings-Simons, leader of the National Democratic Party, ran unopposed and will take office on July 16.

“I am aware that the heavy task I have taken on is further aggravated by the fact that I am the first woman to serve the country in this position,” she said after her confirmation.

She will be joined by running mate Gregory Rusland, as the pair inherit a country struggling under the weight of economic hardship, reduced subsidies, and widespread frustration. While Santokhi’s government managed to restructure debt and restore macroeconomic stability with IMF backing, it also triggered mass protests over deep cuts.

With Suriname expected to begin producing offshore oil in 2028, Geerlings-Simons has promised to focus on stabilising state finances. She has previously pledged to boost revenues by tightening tax collection, including from small-scale gold miners.

Economists warn she faces a rocky road ahead. Winston Ramautarsingh, former head of the national economists’ association, said Suriname must repay about $400m annually in debt servicing.

“Suriname does not have that money,” he said. “The previous government rescheduled the debts, but that was only a postponement.”

Geerlings-Simons will now be tasked with steering the Dutch-speaking country of 646,000 people through a fragile period, balancing public discontent with the promise of future oil wealth.

As Suriname prepares to mark 50 years since gaining independence from the Netherlands this November, the small South American country is pinning its hopes on a new era driven by oil wealth and deepening ties with China.

In 2019, it joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, becoming one of the first Latin American states to sign on to the vast infrastructure project.

Suriname is one of the continent’s poorest nations, despite its rich ethnic tapestry that includes descendants of Africans, Indigenous groups, Indians, Indonesians, Chinese, and Dutch settlers.

July 7 (UPI) — Suriname’s parliament has elected its first female president, voting doctor and former parliamentary speaker Jennifer Simons to lead the South American country.

Thirty-four of 50 parliamentarians voted for Simons on Sunday to helm Suriname for a five-year term, the National Assembly confirmed in a release.

The 71-year-old is set to be inaugurated July 16.

“In 2030, we must hand over a country that is better off than it is now,” she said in a statement following her election. “Economically, administratively and socially, there must be clear signs of progress. This is not a task for one person or a few ministers. Everyone is needed to rebuild Suriname.”

Gregory Russia also received the support of 34 parliamentarians for vice president.

“My task is clear,” Russia said, “I will act as a bridge between policy and implementation, between president and society, between government and opposition, between city and district, between present and future.”

Simons’ election comes after the May 25 general election resulted in a divided parliament, leading to a coalition-led government and the election of the country’s first female president.

Simons is the leader of the National Democratic Party.

It also comes as the developing country prepares to handle a potential massive influx of wealth as multiple discoveries of offshore oil deposits are expected to begin production in 2028.

According to United Nations data, some 113 countries have never had a woman as the head of state.

Leave it to Megan Abbott to tap into the American zeitgeist and play on her readers’ fears like a conductor leading a doomsday orchestra. As high school and college graduates across the country celebrate the completion of a major milestone, they — and their nervous parents — are looking ahead to a future marked by political uncertainty and economic insecurity.

In an eerie echo, Abbott begins “El Dorado Drive,” her 11th novel, with a graduation party at the beginning of the Great Recession. Though the party is not a lavish affair — just a gathering for friends and family in the backyard of a rental property on El Dorado Drive in Grosse Pointe, Mich. — it’s more than Pam Bishop can afford, and every one of her guests knows it.

Any party, no matter how modest, reminds Pam and her two older sisters, Debra and Harper, of all that they’ve lost. Born into a world of wealth and privilege thanks to Detroit’s automotive-fueled postwar prosperity, the Bishop sisters — along with their parents, their peers and their children — watched it all disappear during the decline of the American automobile industry.

Pam’s ramshackle rental on El Dorado Drive, though several steps down from the home she grew up in or the mansion she moved into when she got married, is a symbol of the reckless pursuit of wealth that destroys those who can’t see through the illusion.

“When you grow up in comfort and it all falls away — and your parents with it — money isn’t about money,” Abbott writes. “It’s about security, freedom, independence, a promise of wholeness. All those fantasies, illusions. Money was rarely about money.”

For Pam’s ex-husband, Doug Sullivan, money is a game to be played in order to get what he wants, and he will stop at nothing to get it. But when Pam is brutally murdered in the opening pages, he emerges as a prime suspect. The first half of the novel backtracks from the discovery of Pam’s body to the graduation party nine months prior, when each Bishop sister is struggling with serious financial hardship.

Locked in an acrimonious divorce with no end in sight, Pam doesn’t know how she’s going to pay her son’s college tuition or handle her rebellious teenage daughter alone. The oldest sister, Debra, is buried under a mountain of medical bills while her husband suffers through another round of chemotherapy and her son slips away in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Harper, the middle child, struggles to make ends meet while rebounding from a relationship that ended in heartbreak.

The solution to their money problems arrives in the form of a secret investment club called the Wheel. Run for and by women who have fallen on hard times, the program is simple but sketchy. It costs $5,000 to join, but once the new members recruit five new participants, they are “gifted” five times their initial buy-in.

If this sounds too good to be true, you have more sense than the Bishop sisters. Such is their desperation they don’t quite allow themselves to see this is a fairly basic pyramid scheme that depends on fresh blood — and their bank accounts — to keep the Wheel turning.

The novel follows Harper, the outsider in the family, due to the fact that she’s never married nor had children. She’s not part of the community, either, because she’s recently returned to Grosse Pointe after time away to mend her broken heart. The first half of the novel concerns the Bishops’ dynamics and their found family in the Wheel, which operates like a combination of a cult and a recovery group for women who’ve lost everything.

At a moment of vulnerability, Harper is buttonholed by an old classmate named Sue. “It’s called the Wheel because it never stops moving,” Sue said. Twice a month, we meet. A different member hosts each time, and the meetings were just parties, really. And at these parties, they took turns giving and receiving gifts to one another. To lift one another up. As women should, as they must.”

Behind the rhetoric of sisterhood lurks avarice and greed. When Harper asks Pam if anyone ever left the group after just one turn of the Wheel, Pam — a true believer — can’t fathom backing out of the group. “Why would anyone do that?” she asks.

The answer proves to be her undoing, and the second half of “El Dorado Drive” follows Harper as she tries to solve her sister’s murder. It’s a classic whodunit story with Harper — who has plenty of secrets of her own — playing the role of the reluctant detective.

Despite the book’s suggestive title, the landscape is anything but illusory for Abbott, who grew up in Grosse Pointe and spent the first 18 years of her life there. Evoking a rich setting has never been a weakness of Abbott’s stories. Her novels have a hyperreal quality and are often populated by characters churning with desires they cannot manage.

Abbott is especially adept at rendering the hot, messy inner lives of young people and at making a book’s backstory as suspenseful as the narrative engine that drives the plot. In “El Dorado Drive,” however, the focus is on adults, and the past mostly stays in the past. The result is a novel in which the story is straightforward and the stakes are low. Nevertheless, true to her penchant for shocking violence, Abbott delivers a revolting revelation that sets up a series of twists that propels the story to its inevitable, but no less satisfying, conclusion.

But then there’s the matter of the Wheel. When we watch a video of people in a boat who are drinking, carrying on and disobeying the rules of the road, we don’t feel badly for them when they end up in the water, no matter how spectacular the crash, because they brought it on themselves.

The same logic applies to the participants in the Wheel. We can empathize with the calamities that prompted these characters to take such foolish chances, but we would never make those choices ourselves.

Or would we?

One could argue that our era will be defined not by whether the American dream lives or dies but by the questionable choices of our political leaders and, by extension, the people who elected them. We may not know where we’ll be tomorrow, but Abbott knows wagering that the wheel of grift, greed and corruption will keep on turning is always a safe bet.

Ruland is the author of the novel “Make It Stop” and the weekly Substack Message from the Underworld.

Fire changes whatever it encounters. Burns it, melts it, sometimes makes it stronger. Once fire tears through a place, nothing is left the same. Kelly Ramsey wasn’t thinking of this when she joined the U.S. Forest Service firefighting crew known as the Rowdy River Hotshots — she just thought fighting fires would be a great job.

But fire changed her too.

In her memoir, “Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West,” Ramsey takes us through two years of fighting wilderness fires in the mountains of Northern California. She wrote the book before January’s deadly Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, and what she encountered in the summers of 2020 and 2021 was mostly forests burning, not city neighborhoods. But at the time, the fires she and her fellow crewmen fought (and they were all men that first year) were the hottest, fastest, biggest fires California had ever experienced.

“My first real year in fire had been a doozy, not just for me but my beloved California: 4.2 million acres burned,” she writes, in the “worst season the state had endured in over a hundred years.” That included the state’s first gigafire — more than 1 million acres burned in Northern California.

The job proved to be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but something about fire compelled her. “At the sight of a smoke column, most people feel a healthy hitch in their breath and want to run the other way,” she writes. “But all I wanted to do was run toward the fire.”

Ramsey’s memoir covers a lot of ground, skillfully. She learns that being in good shape isn’t enough — she has to be in incredible shape. She learns how to work with a group of men who are younger, stronger and more experienced than she is, and she figures out how to find that line between never complaining and standing up for herself in the face of inappropriate behavior.

She also writes about the changes in her own life during that time: coming to terms with her alcoholic, homeless father; pondering her lousy record for romantic relationships; searching for an independence and peace she had never known.

“It wasn’t fire that was hard; it was ordinary life,” she concludes.

Sometimes her struggles with ordinary life threaten to take over the narrative, but while they humanize her, they are not the most interesting part of this book. What resonates instead is fire and all that it entails — the burning forest and the hard, mind-numbing work of the Hotshots. They work 14 days on, two days off, all summer and fall, sometimes 24-hour shifts when things are bad. They sleep rough, dig ditches, build firebreaks, set controlled burns, take down dead trees and, in between, experience moments of terrifying danger.

Readers of John Vaillant’s harrowing 2023 book “Fire Weather” — an account of the destruction of the Canadian forest town of Fort McMurray — might consider Ramsey’s book a companion to the earlier book. “Wildfire Days” is not as sweeping or scientific; it’s more personal and entertaining. It’s the other side of the story, the story of the people who fight the blaze.

Ramsey’s gender is an important part of this book; as a woman, she faces obstacles men do not. It’s harder to find a discreet place to relieve herself; she must deal with monthly periods; and, at first, she is the weakest and slowest of the Hotshots. “Thought you trained this winter,” one of the guys tells her after an arduous training hike leaves her gasping for breath. “I did,” she said.

“Thinking you shoulda trained a little harder, huh,” he said.

But over time she grows stronger, more capable, and more accepted. In the second year, when another woman joins the crew, Ramsey is torn between finally being “one of the guys” and supporting, in solidarity, a woman — but a woman whose work is substandard and whose attitude is whiny.

“Was I only interested in ‘diversity’ on the crew if it looked like me?” she asks herself. “Had I clawed out a place for myself, only to pull up the ladder behind me?”

But competence is crucial in this dangerous job, and substandard work can mean deadly accidents.

For centuries, natural wildfires burned dead trees and undergrowth in California, keeping huge fires in check. White settlers threw things out of whack.

“The Indigenous people of California were (and still are) expert fire keepers,” Ramsey writes. “Native burning mimicked and augmented natural fire, keeping the land park like and open.”

But in the 20th century, humans suppressed fires and forests became overgrown. “Cut to today,” she writes. “Dense forests are primed to burn hotter and faster than ever before.”

Ramsey’s descriptions of the work and the fires are the strongest parts of the book.

“We could hear the howl — like the roar of a thousand lions, like a fleet of jet engines passing overhead — the sound of fire devouring everything,“ Ramsey writes.

Later, she drives through a part of the forest that burned the year before to see “mile upon mile of carbonized trees and denuded earth, a now-familiar scene of extinguished life.”

But she also notes that the burned areas are already beginning to green up. “New life tended to spring from bitterest ash,” she writes.

“The forest wouldn’t grow back the same, but it wouldn’t stop growing,” she observes earlier.

There is a metaphor here. Ramsey’s memoir is a moving, sometimes funny story about destruction, change and rebirth, told by a woman tempered by fire.

Hertzel’s second memoir, “Ghosts of Fourth Street,” will be published in 2026. She teaches in the MFA in Narrative Nonfiction program at the University of Georgia and lives in Minnesota.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer harassed and retaliated against a high-ranking female prosecutor in his office after she raised concerns about his conduct and tried to protect other prosecutors who were sexually harassed by another superior, according to a jury verdict Thursday.

The jury, which heard the case in San Diego County to avoid potential conflicts, found Spitzer acted with malice against Tracy Miller, who was at one point the highest-ranking woman in the prosecutor’s office.

The jury also found that the county did not take reasonable steps to prevent workplace harassment, and took “adverse employment action” against Miller.

“Tracy Miller had the fortitude to resist the most powerful law enforcement person in the county, and she prevailed,” John Barnett, Miller’s attorney, said after the verdict was read. “It took a lot of courage, and the jury saw that she was right.”

The county declined to comment on the verdict.

The jury found the county, Spitzer and former Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Shawn Nelson liable for $3 million in damages, including $1.5 million for past emotional distress.

Late Thursday, the jury also ruled Spitzer would be liable for an additional $25,000 in punitive damages.

In a statement to The Times, Spitzer said he accepted “full responsibility for any and all actions which occur in my administration, including my own actions and the actions of my former Chief Assistant District Attorney Shawn Nelson.”

Spitzer, in the statement, made no mention of the allegations of retaliation or harassment made by Miller in the lawsuit but said he had “set a very high standard which I expected all my employees to meet, and Ms. Miller was overseeing extremely important assignments.”

“It is no secret that there was a lot of frustration on my part with her lack of performance in handling these very serious matters,” Spitzer said in the statement after the jury returned with their verdict. “I respect the jury’s decision, and I am heartbroken over the fact that any of my actions could have been interpreted as anything other than a good faith effort to clean up the public corruption in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, and to create a work ethic that adheres to what Orange County residents demand of its District Attorney.”

Unlike criminal trials, civil trials in California do not require a unanimous verdict. In this civil case, juror decisions ranged from 12 to 0 to 9 to 3 for the various claims upheld against the defendants. The jury voted 10 to 2 to award punitive damages against Spitzer.

Miller accused Orange County, Spitzer and Nelson of retaliation and forcing Miller out after she objected to Spitzer’s actions while heading the office. Miller alleged she tried to protect female prosecutors from being retaliated against after they alleged they were sexually harassed by Gary LoGalbo, a former supervisor who was also friends with Spitzer.

Former and current prosecutors in the office described a “challenging” and “demanding” environment inside the prosecutors office, but some said they faced threats of being fired or demoted.

In her testimony, Miller said Spitzer and Nelson used “gender-based slurs,” disrespected her and undermined her authority in the office.

According to her suit, Miller alleged she had raised concerns that Spitzer had violated the Racial Justice Act by bringing up questions about race while determining whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, and that Spitzer used race in case assignments.

Miller said in court that Spitzer, in retaliation, had threatened to fire her close friends in the office and dismantle programs she had spearheaded.

But much of the trial centered on what occurred shortly after several female prosecutors alleged they were sexually harassed by LoGalbo, a former police officer and the best man at Spitzer’s wedding.

When an internal county investigation confirmed the women were harassed, the report identified Miller and her testimony by describing her position and gender. Afterward, Miller testified, Spitzer targeted her and criticized her for writing notes during executive meetings.

“You could see anytime a subject came up, Tracy was taking notes about our meetings,” Spitzer testified. “There was a point of time where it was very curious to me, why do you seem to be memorializing everything we’re doing?”

Spitzer, who testified on multiple days during the trial, denied the accusations of harassment and retaliation. He acknowledged deep tensions within the office after he assumed the role in 2018 but attributed the opposition to employees who supported the previous district attorney, Tony Rackauckas.

“I knew it was going to be miserable, and it was miserable,” Spitzer said in testimony, at one point wiping away tears.

He said that was part of the reason he chose Nelson, now a county Superior Court judge, as chief assistant district attorney when he first took office.

“I picked him because I was going into battle, in the lions’ den,” Spitzer said.

But Miller testified Nelson’s actions also raised problems in the district attorney’s office after the allegations of sexual harassment were made. For example, prosecutors testified that during a sexual harassment training session for managers, Nelson stood up and said there were “no victims.”

On Thursday, one of the attorneys representing Miller urged jurors to seek punitive damages against Spitzer, arguing that the acts of retaliation and harassment against Miller were not isolated events.

“This wasn’t just a single incident,” he told jurors. “It wasn’t negligence. This was intentional. It was a long-term, long series of events.”

In his statement Thursday, Spitzer apologized while also criticizing Miller’s work performance during her time in the office.

“In hindsight, I realize that I was not as sensitive to the issues Ms. Miller was facing at the time as I should have been, and for that I am truly sorry,” the statement read.

Tracy Kennedy, an attorney representing the county, told jurors that there was no need to seek additional punitive damages against Spitzer, and that the $3 million sent a message to the district attorney about his behavior in office.

“He’s heard it, he understands,” she said. “He has been punished.”

The county still faces eight sexual harassment lawsuits involving allegations that were made against LoGalbo.

“It’s very important for the public to know what happened,” said Barnett, Miller’s attorney. “I was confident that our case was strong and we were right.”

Scottish referee Hollie Davidson will become the first female to take charge of a European Professional Club Rugby final when she officiates Bath v Lyon in the Challenge Cup final at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on 23 May.

Davidson has been part of on-pitch officiating teams in the past two Six Nations championships and the 2024 Rugby Championship.

She will also be the first Scot to referee an EPCR final since Jim Fleming in 1998, which Bath won against Brive in Bordeaux.

And in July, Davidson will take charge of South Africa v Italy in Pretoria.

“European rugby is the pinnacle of the professional game, and to be named as the Challenge Cup final referee is something that I never thought was possible when I was starting out,” Davidson told Scottish Rugby.

“It has been a long time since a Scot has done a final, so I am just absolutely over the moon to be named as the referee for such a big game.”

A TOP British jockey has been tipped for a spot on Strictly Come Dancing.

The female sports star, 35, retired just this week – and speculation is mounting that BBC bosses will “make a move.”

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Now Rachael Blackmore has been tipped with odds of 4/1 by bookies Ladbrokes to compete for the Glitterball Trophy.

On Monday, the Grand National-winning rider announced on her social media that she was bringing her glittering 16-year career to an end.

She became the first female jockey to win the Grand National in 2021 when riding Minella Times home at Aintree for long-time boss Henry De Bromhead.

The Irish sports star became the first female to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup on A Plus Tard in 2022, one of 18 winners at the Cheltenham Festival.

Now Alex Apati of Ladbrokes has told us: “She’s used to silks, but not with sequins…

“We’d be amazed if Strictly chiefs didn’t make a move for one of racing’s greatest later this year.”

Rachael became the first female to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup on A Plus Tard in 2022, one of 18 winners at the Cheltenham Festival.

On Monday, she released an emotional statement on her retirement.

In it, she said: “My days of being a jockey have come to an end.

“I feel the time is right. I’m sad but I’m also incredibly grateful for what my life has been for the past 16 years.

“I just feel so lucky, to have been legged up on the horses I have, and to have experienced success I never even dreamt could be possible.

“It is daunting, not being able to say that I am a jockey anymore… who even am I now! But I feel so incredibly lucky to have had the career I’ve had.

“To have been in the right place at the right time with the right people, and to have gotten on the right horses – because it doesn’t matter how good you are without them.

“They have given me the best days of my life and to them I am most grateful.”

All your Strictly Come Dancing winners

Strictly first kicked off back in 2004, and over the years has crowned 21 winners.

Rachael would follow in the footsteps of fellow jockey Richard Dunwoody if she scooped the Strictly gig, after his stint in sequins in 2009.

He previously told how he earned £9K in nine minutes when winning the Grand National – yet bagged a bigger pay cheque on the BBC One series.

Recently, The Sun reported how the Queen Camilla Parker Bowles’ son, Tom, is said to be in talks to compete on the BBC dancing competition.

Tom, 50, is a food writer and restaurant critic and has made regular appearances on MasterChef as a judge.

A source said: “Top of their wishlist is MasterChef star Tom. His name was also sounded-out last year but never materialised. Bosses hope they’ll have better luck this year.

“It would be a coup to sign someone with such a strong royal link. Maybe we could see Camilla and Charles in the audience?”

Made In Chelsea star and I’m A Celebrity winner Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo is also on the dance show’s radar.

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A ‘wonderfully varied’ path to politics