After some shocking revelations in Mayor of Kingstown season four, actor Lennie James has teased even more surprises from mobster Frank Moses
Mayor of Kingstown star Lennie James has revealed his journey as Detroit mobster Frank Moses is headed in some very unexpected directions.
Following Mike McClusky’s (played by Jeremy Renner) feud with Russian crime lord Milo Sunter (Aiden Gillan), Frank has entered the fray in season four to fill the power vacuum.
After developing a shaky alliance with Kingstown’s ‘mayor’, Frank has since revealed his true colours as potentially an even greater threat in the Paramount+ crime saga.
In episode six, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, Mike’s closest confidant on the streets, Deverin ‘Bunny’ Washington (Tobi Bamtefa), is taken to hospital after suffering gunshot wounds from an attacker named Lamar (Zuri James).
However, Mike soon discovers that Lamar is actually working for Frank, who betrayed both his and Bunny’s trust to take over operations in Kingstown.
Mike brings him in and attempts to get him arrested, but a member of the Cartel tries to take Frank out. By the end of the episode, Mike and Frank’s working relationship seems to be completely dissolved.
Throughout the series, Frank has affected a calm demeanour even while under intense pressure, which James exclusively told Reach could be a façade that’s about to slip.
“It’s gonna be tested, but it’s not going to be tested where you expect it to be tested,” James teased.
“When it drops, it’s not gonna be for the reason that everybody thinks it might be. When he goes gangster, it’s not in the direction that is expected.
“That’s one of the things I think the writer’s room liked writing for Frank, because all things were possible, because he’s a unicorn.”
Frank’s history in Detroit has served him well so far as he’s able to rise to the challenges presented by the crime-ridden Kingstown with years of experience handling rival gangsters and cops.
At the very start of the series, he’s introduced just minutes after decapitating several Russian mobsters on a train track to announce his arrival, but he’s not had to get his hands dirty again since.
Line of Duty star James explains that he’s able to stay chillingly calm because “there isn’t much he hasn’t seen”. Even so, his power struggle with Mike could test him beyond his limits.
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The actor also hints the series could go back a little more to his roots in Detroit, confirming: “Yeah, you will. You’ll find out more.
“You won’t find out everything, but you’ll find out more, much more.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to confirm whether or not Frank will be back in season five, which has yet to be confirmed by Paramount.
Still, he’s already proven a formidable threat and a popular new addition amongst fans, so there’s every chance of following in his predecessor Sunter and lasting for at least a couple of more seasons.
Mayor of Kingstown continues Sundays on Paramount+.
The Foreign Office has issued a warning to Brits who are planning on heading to a popular European winter holiday spot in the coming weeks, as they could be at risk of hospitalisation or even death
British travellers could be at risk of spending thousands on rescue and medical costs(Image: Getty Images)
British holidaymakers planning their dream winter getaway in the coming weeks face potential hospitalisation or even death, according to Foreign Office warnings. More than 20 million people flock to the European destination each year, with over one million of those being UK travellers.
Renowned for its tranquil landscapes and stunning mountain views, Switzerland remains a favoured destination for those keen on winter sports, including skiing, snowboarding, and hiking. However, the Foreign Office has warned that some Brits may be engaging in ‘risky’ activities that might not be covered by their insurance policies.
Being inadequately prepared could result in serious consequences for both your well-being and your finances, particularly if you haven’t been careful about selecting the right insurance cover for your trip. In certain circumstances, you might find yourself liable for more than £3,000 if you lack proper travel insurance protection, and that’s excluding medical expenses and hospital bills.
Foreign Office guidance warns: “Adventure sports can be risky. British nationals in the Swiss Alps have been involved in accidents and have been hospitalised or died. Check the company you are using is well-established and that your travel insurance covers any specific activity.
“For sports activities like skiing, potholing and mountaineering, and for sports classed as particularly dangerous (for example, off-piste skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paragliding or BASE jumping), you could get into difficulty and need emergency rescue. Adventure sports can be risky. British nationals in the Swiss Alps have been involved in accidents and have been hospitalised or died.
“Check the company you are using is well-established and that your travel insurance covers any specific activity. For sports activities like skiing, potholing and mountaineering, and for sports classed as particularly dangerous (for example, off-piste skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paragliding or BASE jumping), you could get into difficulty and need emergency rescue.”
Making sure you’ve got the right cover for your winter holiday
If you’re planning a trip to a ski resort this winter, it’s crucial to make sure any activities you intend to participate in are covered by your travel insurance. When sorting out your policy, ensure you’re fully clued up on any exclusions included in the policy and when you won’t be protected.
It’s also vital to consider medical costs, and when your insurance policy will foot the bill for you, especially if you plan on using rental gear, as this likely won’t be covered. Moreover, those hitting the slopes off-piste without a guide may not typically be covered by their insurance.
According to SOS 144, a helicopter rescue in the Swiss Alps can cost as much as 3,500 CHF (£3,293).
WILLOWS — As hospital staff carted away medical equipment from abandoned patient rooms, Theresa McNabb, 74, roused herself and painstakingly applied make-up for the first time in weeks, finishing with a mauve lipstick that made her eyes pop.
“I feel a little anxiety,” McNabb said. She was still taking multiple intravenous antibiotics for the massive infection that had almost killed her, was unsteady on her feet and was unsure how she was going to manage shopping and cooking food for herself once she returned to her apartment after six weeks in the hospital.
But she couldn’t stay at Glenn Medical Center. It was closing.
The hospital — which for more than seven decades has treated residents of its small farm town about 75 miles north of Sacramento, along with countless victims of car crashes on nearby Interstate 5 and a surprising number of crop-duster pilots wounded in accidents — shut its doors on October 21.
McNabb was the last patient.
Registered nurse Ronald Loewen, 74, checks on one of the last few patients. Loewen, a resident of Glenn County and a former Mennonite school teacher, said the hospital closing is “a piece of our history gone.”
Nurses and other hospital workers gathered at her room to ceremonially push her wheelchair outside and into the doors of a medical transport van. Then they stood on the lawn, looking bereft.
They had all just lost their jobs. Their town had just lost one of its largest employers. And the residents — many of whom are poor— had lost their access to emergency medical care. What would happen to all of them now? Would local residents’ health grow worse? Would some of them die preventable deaths?
These are questions that elected officials and policymakers may soon be confronting in rural communities across California and the nation. Cuts to Medicaid funding and the Affordable Care Act are likely rolling down from Washington D.C. and hitting small hospitals already teetering at the brink of financial collapse. Even before these cuts hit, a 2022 study found that half of the hospitals in California were operating in the red. Already this fall: Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe filed for bankruptcy and Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine sought emergency funds.
But things could get far worse: A June analysis released by four Democrats in the U.S. Senate found that many more hospitals in California could be at risk of closure in the face of federal healthcare cuts.
“It’s like the beginning of a tidal wave,” said Peggy Wheeler, vice president of policy of the California Hospital Association. “I’m concerned we will lose a number of rural hospitals, and then the whole system may be at risk.”
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1.Medical assistant Kylee Lutz, 26, right, hugs activities coordinator Rita Robledo on closing day. Lutz, who will continue to work in the clinic that remains open, said through tears, “It’s not going to be the same without you ladies.”2.Rose Mary Wampler, 88, sees physician assistant Chris Pilaczynski at the clinic. Wampler, who lives alone across the street from Glenn Medical Center, said, “Old people can’t drive far away. I’m all by myself, I would just dial 9-1-1.”
Glenn Medical’s financing did not collapse because of the new federal cuts. Rather, the hospital was done in by a federal decision this year to strip the hospital’s “Critical Access” designation, which enabled it to receive increased federal reimbursement. The hospital, though it is the only one in Glenn County, is just 32 miles from the nearest neighboring hospital under a route mapped by federal officials — less than the 35 miles required under the law. Though that distance hasn’t changed, the federal government has now decided to enforce its rules.
Local elected officials and hospital administrators fought for months to convince the federal government to grant them an exception. Now, with the doors closed, policy experts and residents of Willows said they are terrified by the potential consequences.
“People are going to die,” predicted Glenn County Supervisor Monica Rossman. She said she feared that older people in her community without access to transportation will put off seeking care until it is too late, while people of all ages facing emergency situations won’t be able to get help in time.
Kellie Amaru, a licensed vocational nurse who has worked at Glenn Medical Center for four years, reacts after watching a co-worker leave after working their final shift at the hospital.
But even for people who don’t face a life or death consequence, the hospital’s closure is still a body blow, said Willows Vice Mayor Rick Thomas. He and others predicted many people will put off routine medical care, worsening their health. And then there’s the economic health of the town.
Willows, which sits just east of I-5 in the center of the Sacramento Valley, has a proud history stretching back nearly 150 years in a farm region that now grows rice, almonds and walnuts. About 6,000 people live in the town, which has an economic development webpage featuring images of a tractor, a duck and a pair of hunters standing in the tall grass.
“We’ve lost 150 jobs already from the hospital [closing],” Thomas said. “I’m very worried about what it means. A hospital is good for new business. And it’s been hard enough to attract new business to the town.”
Dismantling ‘a legacy of rural healthcare’
From the day it started taking patients on Nov. 21,1950, Glenn General Hospital (as it was then called) was celebrated not just for its role in bringing medical care to the little farm town, but also for its role in helping Willows grow and prosper.
“It was quite state-of-the-art back in 1950,” said Lauren Still, the hospital’s chief administrative officer.
When the hospital’s first baby was born a few days later — little Glenda May Nieheus clocked in at a robust 8 pounds, 11 ounces — the arrival was celebrated on the front page of the Willows Daily Journal.
But as a small hospital in a small town, the institution struggled almost immediately. Within a few years, according to a 1957 story in the local newspaper, the hospital was already grappling with the problem of nurses leaving in droves for higher-paying positions elsewhere. A story the following year revealed that hospital administrators were forcing a maintenance worker to step in as an ambulance driver on weekends — without the requisite chauffeur’s license — to save money.
In a sign of how small the town is, that driver was Still’s boyfriend’s grandfather.
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1.A customer walks into Willows Hardware store.2.Cheerleaders perform during Willows High School’s Homecoming JV football game against Durham at Willows High School.3.The press box at Willows High School’s football field is decorated with previous Northern Section CIF Championship wins.
Still, the institution endured, its grassy campus and low-slung wings perched proudly on the east end of town. Generations of the town’s babies were born there. As they grew up, they went into the emergency room for X-rays, stitches and treatment for fevers and infections. Their parents and grandparents convalesced there and sometimes died there, cared for by nurses who were part of the community.
“They saved my brother’s life. They saved my dad’s life,” said Keith Long, 34, who works at Red 88, an Asian fusion restaurant in downtown Willows that is a popular lunch spot for hospital staff.
Glenn Medical’s finances, however, often faltered. Experts in healthcare economics say rural hospitals like Glenn Medical generally have fewer patients than suburban and urban communities, and those patients tend to be older and sicker, meaning they are more expensive to treat. What’s more, a higher share of those patients are low-income and enrolled in Medi-Cal and Medicare, which generally has lower reimbursement rates than private insurance. Smaller hospitals also cannot take advantage of economies of scale the way bigger institutions can, nor can they bring the same muscle to negotiations for higher rates with private insurance companies.
Across California, in the first decades of the 20th century, rural hospitals were running out of money and closing their doors.
T-Ann Pearce, who has worked at Glenn Medical Center for six years, sits in the medical surgical unit during one of her last shifts with only a few remaining patients left to care.
In 2000, Glenn Medical went bankrupt, but was saved when it was awarded the “Critical Access” designation by the federal government that allowed it to receive higher reimbursement rates, Still said.
But by late 2017, the hospital was in trouble again.
A private for-profit company, American Advanced Management, swooped to the rescue of Glenn Medical and a nearby hospital in Colusa County, buying them and keeping them open. The Modesto-based company specializes in buying distressed rural hospitals and now operates 14 hospitals in California, Utah and Texas.
The hospital set about building back its staff and improving its reputation for patient care in the community, which had been tarnished in part by the 2013 death of a young mother and her unborn baby.
“We’ve been on an upswing,” Still said, noting that indicators of quality of care and patient satisfaction have risen dramatically in recent years.
Then came the letter from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. On April 23, the federal agency wrote Glenn Medical’s management company with bad news: A recent review had found that Glenn Medical was “in noncompliance” with “distance requirements.” In plain English, federal officials had looked at a map and determined that Glenn Medical was not 35 miles from the nearest hospital by so-called main roads as required by law — it was just 32. Nor was it 15 miles by secondary roads. The hospital was going to lose its Critical Access designation. The hit to the hospital’s budget would be about 40% of its $28 million in net revenue. It could not survive that cut.
At first, hospital officials said they weren’t too worried.
“We thought, there’s no way they’re going to close down hospitals” over a few miles of road, Still, the hospital’s chief executive, said.
Especially, Still said, because it appeared there were numerous California hospitals in the same pickle. A 2013 federal Inspector General Report found that a majority of the 1,300 Critical Access hospitals in the country do not meet the distance requirement. That includes dozens in California.
Still and other hospital officials flew to Washington D.C. to make their case, sure that when they explained that one of the so-called main roads that connects Glenn Medical to its nearest hospital wasn’t actually one at all, and often flooded in the winter, the problem would be solved. The route everyone actually used, she said, was 35.7 miles.
“No roads have changed. No facilities have moved,” administrators wrote to federal officials. “And yet this CMS decision now threatens to dismantle a legacy of rural health care stability.”
Without it, the administrator wrote, “lives will be lost for certain.”
But, Still said, their protestations fell on deaf ears.
In August came the final blow: Glenn Medical would lose its Critical Access funding by April 2026.
The news set off a panic not just in Glenn County but at hospitals around the state.
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1.A bicyclist passes by Glenn Medical Center. First opened to patients on November 21, 1950, the center was called Glenn General Hospital then.2.A member of the staff signs a farewell board on closing day at Glenn Medical Center on October 21, 2025.
At least three other hospitals got letters from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid saying their Critical Access status was under review, Wheeler said: Bear Valley Community Hospital in Big Bear Lake, George L. Mee Memorial in Monterey County and Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital in Solvang. The hospitals in Monterey and Big Bear Lake provided data demonstrating they met the requirements for the status.
Cottage Hospital, however, did not, despite showing that access in and out of the area where the hospital is located was sometimes blocked by wildfires or rockslides.
Cottage Hospital officials did not respond to questions about what that might mean for their facility.
Asked about these situations, officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid said the law does not give the agency flexibility to consider factors such as weather, for example, in designating a critical assess hospital. They added the hospital must demonstrate there is no driving route that would make it ineligible based on driving distances included in the statute.
Jeff Griffiths, a county supervisor in Inyo County who is also the president of the California Assn. of Counties, said he has been following the grim hospital financing news around the state with mounting worry.
The hospital in his county, Southern Inyo, came close to running out of money earlier this year, he said, and with more federal cuts looming, “I don’t know how you can expect these hospitals to survive.”
“It’s terrifying for our area,” Griffiths said, noting that Inyo County, which sits on the eastern side of the Sierra, has no easy access to any medical care on the other side of the giant mountain peaks.
‘This is the final call’
In Willows, once word got out that the hospital would lose its funding, nurses began looking for new jobs.
By late summer, so many people had left that administrators realized they had no choice but to shutter the emergency room, which closed Sept. 30.
Helena Griffith, 62, one of the last patients, waves goodbye as patient transport Jolene Guerra pushes her wheelchair down the hallway on October 20, 2025.
Through it all, McNabb, the 74-year-old patient receiving intravenous antibiotics, remained in her bed, getting to know the nurses who buzzed around her.
She became aware that when they weren’t caring for her, many of them were trying to figure out what they would do with their lives once they lost their jobs.
On the hospital’s last day, nurse Amanda Shelton gifted McNabb a new sweater to wear home.
When McNabb gushed over the sweetness of the gesture, Shelton teared up. “It’s not every day that it will be the last patient I’ll ever have,” she told her.
As McNabb continued to gather her things, Shelton retreated to the hospital’s recreation room, where patients used to gather for games or conversation.
With all the patients save McNabb gone, Shelton and some other hospital staff took up a game of dominoes, the trash talk of the game peppered with bittersweet remembrances of their time working in the creaky old building.
Registered nurse Ronald Loewen, 74, looks out the window on closing day at Glenn Medical Center on October 21, 2025. Loewen, who grew up and attended school in Willows, had four children delivered at Glenn Medical, two of them survived, and took care of former classmates at this hospital, says the hospital closing is, “a piece of our history gone.”
Shelton said she is not sure what is next for her. She loved Glenn Medical, she said, because of its community feel. Many people came for long stays or were frequent patients, and the staff was able to get to know them — and to feel like they were healing them.
“You got to know people. You got to know their family, or if they didn’t have any family,” you knew that too, she said. She added that in many hospitals, being a nurse can feel like being an extension of a computer. But at Glenn Medical, she said, “you actually got to look in someone’s eyes.”
The building itself was in dire shape, she noted. Nothing was up to modern code. It didn’t have central air conditioning, and it was heated by an old-fashioned boiler. “I mean, I have never even heard of a boiler room” before coming to work there, she said.
And yet within the walls, she said, “It’s community.”
Bradley Ford, the emergency room manager, said he felt the same way and was determined to pay tribute to all the people who had made it so.
At 7 p.m. on the emergency room’s last night of service, Ford picked up his microphone and beamed his voice out to the hospital and to all the ambulances, fire trucks and others tuned to the signal.
He had practiced his speech enough times that he thought he could get through it without crying — although during his rehearsals he had never yet managed it.
“This is the final call,” Ford said. “‘After 76 years of dedicated service, the doors are closing. Service is ending. On behalf of all the physicians, nurses and staff who have walked these halls, it is with heavy hearts that we mark the end of this chapter.”
Nurses and other staff members recorded a video of Ford making his announcement, and passed it among themselves, tearing up every time they listened to it.
In an interview after the hospital had closed, Ford said he was one of the lucky ones: He had found a new job.
It was close enough to his home in Willows that he could commute — although Ford said he wasn’t sure how long he would remain in his beloved little town without access to emergency medical care there.
Rose Mary Wampler, 88, waits to have blood drawn at the lab beside a cordoning off, signaling the closure of the hospital side of Glenn Medical Center, on October 22, 2025. Wampler lives alone across the street from the hospital.
Rose Mary Wampler, 88, has lived in Willows since 1954 and now resides in a little house across the street from the hospital. Her three children were born at Glenn Medical, and Wampler herself was a patient there for two months last year, when she was stricken with pneumonia and internal bleeding. She said she was fearful of the idea of driving more than 30 miles for healthcare elsewhere.
She looked out her window on a recent afternoon at the now-shuttered hospital.
“It looks like somebody just shut off the whole city, there’s nowhere to go get help,” she said.
Glenn Medical Center patient Richard Putnam, 86, closes the window in his hospital room. A month shy of it’s 75th year, the hospital closed on Oct 21, 2025.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Times photographer Christina House contributed to this report.
Travel may be disrupted across a destination popular with Brits(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has changed its travel guidance for a destination popular with British travellers. People are being warned airports and other transport operators could be affected amid industrial action.
In a new alert on Wednesday, November 19, the FCDO said: “Strikes are planned for Monday 24, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 November. This is expected to affect airports, public transport and some public services, including schools.
“Public transport will be affected from 10pm on Sunday 23 November. A demonstration is planned for central Brussels on Wednesday 26 November. Strike action is an ongoing issue that can cause travel disruption.
“General strikes took place on 31 March, 29 April and 14 October. Strike action may be announced at short notice. Monitor local news and check with your provider regarding potential delays and closures.”
Hundreds of thousands of people from the UK travel to Belgium each year. Further FCDO advice reads: “Strike action is an ongoing issue that can cause severe travel disruption across the country and affect international travel.
“For regular updates on any disruption, check local news and follow advice given by your travel provider.”
According to The Bulletin, this industrial action is “the latest and largest in a series of actions in response to the new federal government’s planned austerity measures, which unions say threaten Belgium’s social safety net”. Action will begin with a 72-hour rail transport strike, commencing at 11pm on November 23.
On 25 November, the movement “will spread to public administrations: municipalities, hospitals, administrative services, as well as the education sector, which has been invited to join the strike”.
Dan Bowes had no known allergies when he boarded his outbound flight to Turkey. But he suddenly experienced a “severe” allergic reaction – and it meant he was prevented from boarding the aircraft at the end of his holiday
Dan Bowes has said he was given conflicting information from the airline, which turned his enjoyable holiday into a ‘nightmare’(Image: Dan Bowes/Chronicle Live)
A holiday-maker has claimed he was left stranded after he was refused boarding on his return flight because of an allergic reaction.
Dan Bowes had no known allergies when boarding the outbound flight to Dalaman, Turkey. But he says he suddenly experienced a “severe” allergic reaction, with his throat swelling, breathing difficulties and itchy, puffy eyes. The cabin crew were “fantastic” and acted swiftly to get the 32-year-old the care he needed. But, on the way home, he claims he was “refused” boarding by the same airline, Jet2, over a missing piece of paperwork.
“I instantly panicked,” the business owner, from Consett, County Durham, told NeedToKnow. “I made over 18 calls to Jet2’s emergency line, following different and conflicting advice each time. “I rushed to the local hospital, had the form completed and it was sent to the airline that afternoon.
“At the airport, staff accepted the paperwork, checked me in and took photos of the form. But just five minutes before boarding, I received a call saying the form had been rejected.”
Dan claims the paperwork, a medical information form (MEDIF), was refused since the doctor had missed his name on the second page and wrote ‘N/A’ in medical history. As a result, Dan was escorted out of Dalaman Airport on 17 July 2025 and his luggage was removed. He said: “I was dumped outside the airport main entrance at midnight with no help, no hotel and no guidance.
“I was later told I could’ve flown with another airline without the form, despite being told all day it was mandatory across all carriers. By that point, though, every flight to the UK had gone.”
Dan, and his friend Clair Maskery, 33, were left having to fork out £400 for emergency accommodation, food, and transport back to Marmaris. Thankfully, the next day, they were allowed home on the last Jet2 flight that night after resending a new MEDIF form through.
But Dan said it was the conflicting information from the airline that turned his enjoyable holiday into a “nightmare”. He explained: “After we arrived, a letter was left under my hotel room door asking me to meet a Jet2 rep. She handed me a MEDIF form and said I needed to see the hotel doctor, as well as obtain a Fit to Fly certificate.
“I immediately went to the doctor, though he said I had a throat infection. I was issued the Fit to Fly, though I was told the MEDIF form wasn’t required.
“I returned to the rep, handed her my certificate and she reassured me that would be enough. So, naturally, I assumed I was cleared to travel. But when checking out of the hotel, she told me I couldn’t fly.”
Dan filed a formal complaint and later obtained their internal records. He claims there were multiple errors, including different medications administered and false information, such as him “refusing” to fill in a MEDIF.
He also alleges that the airline hasn’t yet provided a full list of onboard meals and ingredients – despite repeated requests -since his doctors need this information to determine his allergy, which could be life-threatening.
Dan added: “I did everything Jet2’s own rep and doctor advised. I followed every instruction I was given, double-checked twice and was told everything was fine.
“Their failure to communicate properly and process information correctly led to me being stranded abroad, financially out of pocket and mentally exhausted.
“This isn’t about me refusing paperwork, it’s about a company failing in its duty of care, giving contradictory information and abandoning paying customers in a foreign country.”
A spokesperson for Jet2 said: “Due to Mr Bowes falling ill on his outbound flight, our team followed standard procedure and advised him that he would need a Medical Information Form (MEDIF) to be completed by a doctor for his return flight home.
“As the form was not completed, Mr Bowes was regrettably informed that he would not be able to travel on his inbound flight. The health and safety of our customers will always be our number one priority. Following receipt of Mr Bowes’ completed form, we are pleased to confirm he was able to travel with us the following day.”
Bethany Clarke and her best friend Simone White were backpacking together around Southeast Asia when they drank bootleg shots laced with methanol – and it proved tragically fatal for Simone
Bethany and Simone were on a backpacking adventure when tragedy struck(Image: Bethany Clarke / SWNS)
A woman has died after unknowingly drinking shots laced with methanol.
Bethany Clarke, 28, from Orpington, southeast London, went backpacking around Southeast Asia with her best friend, Simone White, 28, last year.
Both the women drank the bootleg alcohol, and tragically it proved fatal for Simone.
Bethany and Simone started their backpacking in Cambodia and went from there to Laos. They had spent the day tubing down the river – a popular tourist activity – before returning to their hostel for a night of drinking.
Bethany said: “We had methanol-laced shots. We had five or six each, just mixing them with Sprite.
“The next morning, we didn’t feel right, but we just assumed it was a hangover. It was strange though – unlike any hangover I’d had before.
“It felt like being drunk but in a way where you couldn’t enjoy it. Something was just off.”
Despite their condition, they continued on with their plans, heading to the Blue Lagoon and kayaking down the river again.
Bethany added: “We were just lying on the backs of the kayaks, too weak to paddle. Simone was being sick off one of them. Neither of us wanted to swim or eat – which, we later learned, are early signs of methanol poisoning.”
It wasn’t until hours later, after they’d boarded a bus to their next destination, that things worsened, with Bethany fainting and Simone continuing to vomit.
Eventually, they were taken to a local hospital – one that Bethany described as “very poor”.
She said: “They had no idea what was wrong, they talked about food poisoning, but we hadn’t eaten the same things. It didn’t make sense.”
Still confused and deteriorating, the women made it to a private hospital. But by then it was too late.
Bethany said: “They told me they’d do all they could to save her. She was having seizures during dialysis.”
When Simone’s condition worsened, her mother, Sue White, flew out to Laos, arriving just as her daughter was being wheeled into emergency brain surgery.
Bethany said: “Her brain had started to swell, and they had to shave her head. The surgery relieved the pressure but caused bleeding and the other side started swelling.”
The results confirming methanol poisoning wouldn’t arrive until two weeks later. By then, Simone had died.
Bethany said: “On an emotional level, it’s been a lot to process. Sometimes I still think, ‘Why don’t you reach out to Simone for that?’ and then I remember I can’t.”
Bethany has channeled her grief into campaigning for change and awareness. She said: “People still aren’t aware and don’t know the signs to look for.
“The government aren’t doing enough to educate British citizens about the signs of methanol poisoning.
“In Australia, where I live now, they have a big TikTok campaign and signs in all the airports.
“There’s a lot more work to be done in the UK – we’re behind. Anywhere there is organised crime, the opportunity exists – even in the UK.
Bethany also reckons there will be more deaths until people become more aware.”It’s highly likely we’ll see more deaths unless the UK government acts in a more radical way,” she said.
“It has to be in people’s heads – stick to canned drinks. But bottles can be more risky because the cap could have been replaced.
“Any spirits can be a risk. I say ‘steer clear, drink beer’ which rolls off the tongue.”
Just recently, the Foreign Office added eight further countries to the risk list for methanol poisoning due to risks associated with counterfeit or tainted alcoholic drinks.
The list already covered Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey, Costa Rica and Fiji.
Ecuador, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Russia and Uganda were now included in the list following incidents.
Methanol poisoning results from methanol being added to drinks such as cocktails and spirits to up the volume and cut costs.
Signs of the poisoning include nausea, vomiting, dizziness and confusion – and more distinctive symptoms, such as vision issues, can develop between 12 and 48 hours after consumption.
