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Offensive lineman Lane Johnson is a Philadelphia Eagles legend.

He has won two Super Bowls and is a six-time Pro Bowl selection.

Four games into his 14th NFL season — all spent with the team that selected him with the fourth overall pick in the 2013 draft — Johnson has decided that he’s done.

“I deeply wanted to gut it out for one more year; to take the field with my brothers for one last season,” Johnson said in a statement posted Tuesday on social media.

“But after a lot of reflection, I’ve realized that my personal and family priorities in my life have changed. Right now, it is critical that I focus on my mental health. I owe it to my teammates, coaches, the organization and the fans to have my head and heart 100 percent in the game. And right now my heart is telling me that it’s time to say goodbye to football.

“At this time, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to retire from the National Football League.”

Johnson took a three-game leave of absence during the 2021 season as he battled anxiety and depression and has said he considered retirement during the offseason after a foot injury caused him to miss the Eagles’ final eight games last year. He was a late scratch for last Sunday’s game against the Rams for personal reasons.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, coach Nick Sirianni said Johnson was a “phenomenal player” and much more.

“I love Lane. I’ll miss him dearly and I wish him the best,” Siranni said. “Just want him to be his best. Like I said, love him and everything that he stood for and everything he is.”

Rookie Markel Bell started in Johnson’s place on Sunday, and Sirianni suggested the third-round pick will remain in the spot vacated by Johnson.

“I’m really excited for Markel’s opportunity,” Sirianni said. “Thought under the circumstances of last week that he handled that really well. And I’m excited about the growth that he’s going to be able to have this year. I’m excited for him.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, team owner Jeffrey Lurie called Johnson “an all-time Eagle and one of the best players ever to play his position in NFL history.”

“His combination of talent, strength, athleticism and intelligence made him a truly unique player in this league, and there is no doubt in my mind that one day he will be named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame,” Lurie said.

“Beyond his on-field accomplishments, Lane has done a tremendous amount to give back to the community through his numerous charitable endeavors. The courage he has shown using his own personal experiences to advocate for mental health awareness has undoubtedly saved lives.”

Retired Eagles center Jason Kelce, who played 11 seasons with Johnson, wrote a lengthy tribute to his former teammate on X.

“For the past decade, Lane has been the best Right tackle in the NFL,” Kelce wrote. “His athleticism, technique, strength, and size, combined to make him a player few could get around. His pass set and movements looked more like an art than someone who punched people for a living. It was a pure joy to watch him play for all these years, but even more so, it was a pure joy to be his friend.”

Kelce added: “Congratulations on retirement, I loved every second of watching you play, and am proud that I got to share the field with you.”

Tight end Zach Ertz, who recently re-signed with the Eagles after playing for them from 2013 to 2021, posted several pictures of himself and Johnson on X and wrote “every step of the way.”

Left tackle Jordan Mailata told WIP-FM (94.1) in Philadelphia he was “still kinda shocked” by Johnson’s decision.

“I just think about how much I’m going to miss him going forward,” Mailata said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mayor Karen Bass called the training that LAPD officers receive for handling mental health calls “woefully inadequate” and ordered an outside review of the department’s policies Thursday, saying recent shootings highlight continued shortcomings in how police deal with people in crisis.

Bass is particularly concerned by the relative lack of specialized intervention training for patrol officers who respond to the vast majority of service calls. While the SWAT team and other units receive such training, it is not standard across the Los Angeles Police Department.

“After the academy, they have spot training that is essentially videos that are played at roll calls,” Bass said in an interview week with The Times.

The mayor’s directive comes as she’s locked in a reelection fight with progressive challenger Nithya Raman, who, like Bass, has criticized the LAPD over shootings of mentally ill people.

“The ability of the city to respond to someone’s pleas for help is incredibly important in ensuring that we maintain the trust of the public,” Raman recently told The Times. “And right now, there is no alternative system besides LAPD to respond to many of the calls that are coming into 911 besides, of course, Fire Department calls.”

Polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, shows Raman is favored by 39% of likely L.A. voters, compared to 28% support for Bass — with 33% still undecided.

LAPD officers have fired their weapons at people 16 times this year — down from 34 shootings in 2025, but recent incidents have highlighted how officers continue to turn to their guns when confronting individuals with mental illnesses. In years past, department statistics showed at least a third of all police shootings involved someone with obvious signs of emotional distress.

Bass was particularly disturbed by a July 29 incident in the Olympic patrol area in which police fatally shot a man who approached them with an aluminum bat.

Body-camera video captured officers approaching 33-year-old Alejandro Garcia as he was walking through traffic on Normandie Avenue underneath the 10 Freeway overpass. Officers ordered him to drop the bat, although it’s unclear whether he heard them. While Garcia could be seen holding the bat with both hands, the footage appeared to contradict an early LAPD account suggesting he swung at them.

The shooting could have been avoided if “the officers were trained differently or better,” Bass said, noting that one of the officers had been on the job for roughly five months.

The LAPD has yet to identify the officer or officers who opened fire.

Bass said it would have been appropriate for the department to deploy a unit that sends a social worker out with officers when responding to calls involving a person in crisis.

“You knew before that he had a bat and he was going around smashing cars,” she said.

About a week later, two officers shot and killed Canas Zimran, 44, in Boyle Heights after, department officials say, he approached officers with what was later determined to be a tree trimmer.

The shootings occurred despite policies that prioritize deescalation techniques and the use of “less-lethal” alternatives, such as bean bag rounds meant to subdue people without resorting to firearms.

Bass said the killings reflect, in part, a broader failure of the mental health system to get people the care they need. Also of concern, the mayor said, was the lack of training for officers on how to distinguish between symptoms caused by mental illness, physical and cognitive disabilities and drugs such as phencyclidine, or PCP, which seems to be having a resurgence on city streets.

Bass said her review would be a top-down evaluation that also scrutinizes the roles of dispatchers, supervisors and others involved in responding to reports of people behaving erratically.

She said the audit will examine calls from the last five years involving people with “with known histories of mental or behavioral health conditions” in which police officers avoided using force. The goal, Bass said, is to “identify common themes or best practices that successfully de-escalated the incident or allowed officers to gain compliance.”

Bass added that it’s also important to consider the needs of LAPD officers and ensure they “receive appropriate assistance” to cope with stress. She was struck by the willingness of younger officers to openly talk about the mental toll of the job, recalling a recent visit to a roll call in which an officer described feeling a lack of support after being involved in an on-duty shooting.

LAPD officials have said the department has made numerous changes in recent years to curb police shootings, including adopting deescalation training focused on slowing down volatile situations, particularly those involving people who may be mentally ill. Still, the agency’s critics pack police commission meetings each week to argue for removing police from such calls, saying that officers are too quick to fire on people — particularly those wielding knives.

Although the city has experimented with programs that send specialists to help deescalate such encounters, LAPD policy still requires armed patrol officers to clear a scene of any potential threats beforehand.

Bass said she always has been a proponent of approaches that don’t involve police, some of which are employed by her Office of Community Safety. But she said stabbings and other incidents that pose an immediate danger to the public still require a police response.

Beyond looking at how to avoid police shootings, Bass’ directive calls for further assessment of the department’s training for handling people who’ve been booked into jails and detention facilities, including how they are restrained and transferred to medical facilities.

Bass wanted to ensure the review was done by an outside body, hinting at her frustration with the inaction of department leaders and the police commission on addressing the issue.

“Much more needs to be done,” Bass said.

This city is a favourite among trendy, wealthy people – but I don’t see the charm.

I have been lucky enough to see a fair amount of the world not only in my role as a travel reporter, but also in my own time. However, after spending a long weekend in this popular European city I have finally discovered a place I will never return to.

Berlin is beloved by trendy east Londoners who pretend they don’t have a double barrelled surname and a trust fund. The city is full of even trendier Berliners who pretend they don’t have any interest in being cool, whilst still trying as hard as possible to appear so.

I have visited before and found the city grey, utilitarian, dirty and ugly. At the time I had a friend living there who told me the city would “eat you alive” if you let it – and I believed him.

I spent a weekend there and over those two days I stood in human faeces whilst walking through a park, watched people urinate in the U-Bahn, saw one man vomit and another man sit in it.

I was hounded by wasps for every hour of the day, and shady characters for every hour of the night.

I didn’t get eaten alive, but by the time I flew out of the city morale was low. I spent the next seven years vowing I would never return – but a twist of circumstance saw me packing my bags last Friday to spend another long weekend in Berlin.

My friends were visiting Europe from New Zealand, and the only weekend I had free time to see them was the weekend they were in Berlin, so I decided I’d give it another go. I was hoping my initial impression of the city had been wrong, and that my return trip would show me the real side of the city

Whether real or not, the side I saw was not to my liking.

The city was still as utilitarian and grey as I remembered. We stayed in Neukölln, a trendy artistic neighbourhood with plenty of coffee shops, späti (like off-licences but with seats outside to sit and enjoy a beer) and vintage shops. These are all my favourite things, but Berlin’s version of them was tinted with the greasy pallid feeling you get after a night out that has gone on several hours too long.

My least favourite thing about Berlin however, is the wasps. In late summer, they have reached peak population and ruin the city’s outdoor spaces. Sitting outside to enjoy a brunch, coffee or a pint becomes a feat of endurance as these angry insects swarm you, fall inside your pints, try to crawl inside your nose and mouth and generally make a nuisance of themselves. It’s also illegal to kill them, as they are protected under the Wildlife Act.

Over the three days I was there I had two of them die in my beer, and four of them make my £7 donut inedible.

My Berlin weekend was not all bad. I did find an amazing coffee shop near our accommodation called Leuchtstoff Kaffeebar. The coffee was delicious – perhaps the best I’ve had since I left New Zealand two years ago, and I enjoyed a Bircher Muesli that set me up perfectly for my day of wandering the city.

The café also serves pastries, and had a very cool mezzanine that you could climb up to via a ladder.

I also visited the Jewish Museum in Kreuzberg. Admission is free, and the building is truly something to behold. It uses architecture and art installations to create a feeling of absence and highlight the huge loss felt by the community as a result of the millions murdered during the Holocaust.

A large section of the building is below ground, with multi-media installations and plenty of information about the history of Judaism and their persecution in Germany. It was a sombre afternoon, but definitely worth a visit if you are in the city,

Despite finding a few things I liked about Berlin, overall my sense of the city was that it is without whimsy. I won’t say it’s soulless – but the soul it possesses is not one I care to find out more about.

Tempting Fortune got off to a dramatic start as a contestant left her group scrambling to protect their £300,000 prize pot

Tempting Fortune descended into chaos just minutes into its return.

Contestant Sarah fell ill in the Malaysian jungle, leaving her fellow Fortune Seekers facing a huge £30,000 decision. The Channel 4 hit show returned tonight (September 22) for a brand-new series, with comedian Rob Beckett taking over as host from Paddy McGuinness.

The latest series sees 12 strangers attempt a gruelling 13-day trek through the Malaysian jungle while trying to protect a shared £300,000 prize pot.

But the contestants quickly discovered just how difficult the challenge would be when Sarah began struggling with the harsh conditions on only the second day of the trek.

The group had spent the previous night in a basic camp and had been surviving on simple rations, including rice and beans. Sarah admitted she wasn’t feeling well and appeared particularly affected by the food.

She said: “Just thinking of them now. I feel like I want to be sick. Oh, they’re the most disgusting thing I’ve ever met.” One of her fellow contestants expressed concern for her, while another pointed out that Sarah needed to eat more.

But things soon became more serious when the group continued their trek through the jungle. Sarah suddenly stopped walking and told the others: “I feel really sick and dizzy. And just so hot.”

The contestants had travelled less than a kilometre when Sarah was forced to stop. The rest of the group gathered around her as she sat down on the jungle floor.

Sarah admitted she was struggling with the experience, saying: “I feel like shit. It’s just… I knew it was going to be tough, but… I didn’t prepare for it. It’s just so bad.”

With Sarah’s condition worsening, a medic stepped in to assess her. The situation left Sarah facing a huge decision – whether to continue with the challenge or leave Tempting Fortune altogether and return home to the UK.

But quitting would have had major consequences for everyone else. If Sarah decided to leave, the group would lose £30,000 from their potential winnings.

Instead, the group was presented with another option. They could spend £2,000 from the shared prize pot on a taxi to take Sarah to the next checkpoint, allowing her to rest and giving her the chance to recover without having to abandon the competition.

After discussing the options, the group agreed to spend the £2,000. The decision meant Sarah could be driven to the next camp rather than being forced to walk through the jungle while feeling unwell.

For the group, the maths was simple – spending £2,000 was better than losing £30,000 if Sarah was forced to quit. Sarah was then chauffeur-driven to the next camp while her fellow Fortune Seekers continued their gruelling trek on foot.

The dramatic start comes as Tempting Fortune enters its third series with a new host and a fresh group of contestants. The format sees the Fortune Seekers start with a £300,000 prize pot, but throughout their journey they are offered tempting luxuries, with every pound spent coming directly out of the shared winnings.

This series also sees the contestants split into two groups from the outset, adding another layer of pressure as they attempt to trust strangers while protecting their share of the cash.

You can stream Tempting Fortune on Channel 4

KATIE Price has begged her terminally ill mum Amy to “find the strength to stay” in an emotional Instagram post.

The 48-year-old star said she’s never loved anyone as much as seriously ill Amy, 74, who is living lung condition Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

She wrote: “Mum please don’t leave me, please find the strength to stay
with me longer on this earth your my EVERYTHING.

“And you know I’ve turned everything around and your so proud of me.
Your my eyes, my voice, my strength, my absolute Everything.

“You’re a warrior and I’m your baby girl always and you love me through everything and held my hand. I can’t lose yo, u not n, ow not EVE”R.”

Just days ago, Katie revealed on her podcast with sister Sophie that their mum Amy is in hospital and “very poorly”.

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Amy was diagnosed with IPF in 2017 and the chronic condition causes irreversible scarring of the lung’s air sacs making it difficult to breathe.

She had a lifesaving lung transplant in 2023 after drifting into a coma and being days away from death.

In July, Katie said she feared Amy might die while filming her recent autobiographical Sky documentary.

“There were so many times we thought we were gonna lose mum through the filming,” admitted Katie.

Sophie agreed, saying she didn’t think Amy was “going to make it.”

Katie went on: “She just keeps battling through and I never thought she’d make the BAFTAs [in February], none of us did.”