immediately

Apple TV, the streaming service known for series such as “Ted Lasso” and “Severance,” is raising its prices, effective immediately.

A monthly subscription will cost $14.99, up $2. The annual plan climbs by $20 to $119.99. This marks the tech giant’s fourth price bump in the last four years.

Other Apple bundle plans are seeing price increases as well. Apple One’s individual plan, which includes access to Apple Music, Apple Arcade, cloud storage and other features, is going up $2 to $21.95 per month.

The Cupertino-based tech giant does not offer an ad-tier, unlike some of its competitors that use ad-supported subscriptions as a lower-cost option for consumers.

Apple TV is the latest streamer to increase prices. The industry has sought to bolster bottom lines against the rising cost of programming.

Earlier this month, Peacock bumped its pricing, ahead of the new NBA and NFL season. The NBCUniversal-owned streaming service’s ad-tier will now cost $12.99 monthly, up from $10.99, while its most expansive plan will be $19.99 per month, up $3.

ESPN is also raising its streaming prices in September. The Disney-owned sports giant’s unlimited plan will rise from $29.99 to $31.99 a month. The annual cost is also rising — from $299.99 to $319.99.

Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube Premium also hiked prices earlier this year.

Apple TV+ launched in 2019 at $4.99 a month and was a low-cost perk for Apple users. The tech company still offers a free three-month trial to customers who purchase a new Apple device.

Over the last several years, Apple TV has sought to distinguish itself from competitors by offering premium, original series. It’s home to over 300 original movies and TV shows, including “Ted Lasso,” which returned for its fourth season earlier this month. Many of its shows have also attracted award show attention. Last year, Seth Rogen’s “The Studio” took home 13 Emmys. This year, the streamer’s shows “Widow’s Bay” and “Pluribus” are up for 19 and 18 awards, respectively.

Apple TV also recently secured the rights to Formula One races in the U.S, and offers Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer games.

The Channel 4 challenge has said goodbye to two more celebrities

Two ‘gutted’ Celebrity Hunted stars have been forced to leave the hit show.

A new season of the Channel 4 programme is well underway, challenging a fresh group of stars to go on the run and hide from expert hunters.

The team of hunters is led by Ray Howard and they have a mixture of police and military backgrounds at their disposal. Ray’s agents are also allowed to use everything from CCTV to helicopters in their hunt for the famous faces.

Several contestants have already been captured, including stand-up comedian Jen Brister and actor Laura Smyth, as well as Love Island duo Chris Taylor and Toby Aromolaran.

And the hunters added two more victims to their list just minutes into Monday’s (August 24) episode. They caught disability advocates JJ Chalmers and Sophie Morgan following a heated car chase.

The duo originally tried to evade the hunters by driving away, but they eventually accepted defeat. Following their capture, Sophie admitted that she was “sad” but still spoke highly of her experience.

Sophie said: “I’m gutted we got caught. We did really well and we just slipped up at the end. Not because of our disabilities.

“If anything, I think it aided us at times. I think it’s been a really lovely experience to just feel [like] disability doesn’t always get in the way.”

JJ also reflected on the challenge fondly, adding: “What I take away from this, more than anything, will just be the kindness of strangers. If you ever doubted that there was goodness in the world, there is more good in this place than there is bad.”

But viewers at home have been left divided by the pair’s eviction.

Some felt they gave up too easily, with one X user posting: “Why didn’t JJ Chalmers and Sophie Morgan just lock the car doors and stay inside the car when the hunter reached the car door? They could have avoided capture yet. #CelebrityHunted.”

Meanwhile, others praised their decision to forfeit: “Sensible decision by JJ and Sophie. They weren’t going to win in a car chase. Well played though. Lovely people. #Hunted #CelebrityHunted.”

Following the latest capture, there are five fugitives still at large including father-daughter duo Brian and Lucy Conley, Strictly’s Amy Dowden MBE and Carlos Gu, as well as lone wolf Scarlette Douglas.

Celebrity Hunted is available to stream on Channel 4.

Minutes into the new series of Granite Harbour, viewers were left thrilled after spotting two stars reuniting.

BBC viewers have been left rejoicing as an iconic duo reunited 20 years later.

Granite Harbour returned for a third series on Friday, July 24, starring Romario Simpson as DC Davis Lindo and Hannah Donaldson as DS Lara ‘Bart’ Bartlett.

Alongside them, the Aberdeen drama saw Dawn Steele reprising her role as DCI Cora Macmillan.

The actress is perhaps best known for her role as Lexie Macdonald in Monarch of the Glen, which ran for seven series between 2000 and 2005.

The comedy drama followed young restaurateur Archie MacDonald attempting to restore his childhood home in the Scottish highlands.

Loosely based on Compton Mackenzie’s Highland Novels, Dawn starred alongside Alastair Mackenzie, Richard Briers and Susan Hampshire, and Alastair has now joined her in Granite Harbour.

The actor is playing Richard Loughty in the crime drama, an affable and highly-regarded landowner who appears to be remarkably generous to those around him, including the local traveller community residing on his property.

But cracks soon begin to form as his apparent charm falls aside and the truth emerges.

Alastair teased, regarding his new role: “Cracks begin to appear in this charming veneer of his when sketchy things start happening on his estate and, without giving to much away, things go from bad to worse for him. Maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

Monarch of the Glen fans were thrilled to see the duo reunite, with one writing: “How cool is it to see Alastair Mackenzie and Dawn Steele reunited in #GraniteHarbour . Absolutely love that #MonarchoftheGlen.”

Another said: “Watching the first episode of the new series #GraniteHarbour and immediately spot the Monarch of the Glen reunion between Alastair MacKenzie and Dawn Steele.”

Ahead of the new season of Granite Harbour, Shetland actress Dawn said: “Cora faces a personal health scare, and I loved having the chance to show a more vulnerable side to her. At the same time, she’s under immense pressure to solve the case while also dealing with the SPIS investigation into Malik’s dismissal from last series.”

The new series follows the Major Investigations Team focused on a complicated murder investigation after bodies are found, as they discover long-buried secrets that could divide communities.

Granite Harbour is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

SEATTLE — President Trump fired the new top U.S. prosecutor in Seattle on Wednesday less than an hour after the attorney was unanimously appointed by the federal judges in the district, highlighting tensions between the courts and the president over the powerful positions.

Roger Rogoff, a former judge and veteran state and federal prosecutor, was sworn in as U.S. attorney before 8 a.m. at the U.S. courthouse in downtown Seattle. In a phone interview, he said he then went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, whose 120-day interim term in the position ended in February.

As he waited in a lobby, Rogoff said, he received an email from the Trump administration informing him he’d been removed. He is consulting with other lawyers about suing over his firing, he said.

Presidents normally appoint U.S. attorneys, the top federal prosecutor in each judicial district. The positions require Senate confirmation, except in temporary appointments. When temporary appointments expire before a nominee is confirmed, the judges in a judicial district can name a U.S. attorney.

But under Trump, the Justice Department has sought to leave unconfirmed prosecutors in their positions indefinitely, often through novel personnel maneuvers.

“District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them,” Acting U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said in a social media post Wednesday. He added that the judges who appointed Rogoff “abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration so that the selected U.S. Attorney is qualified to serve in the administration.”

Trump named Floyd, who previously served as an immigration judge, interim U.S. attorney last October but never forwarded his nomination to the Senate. When Floyd’s time as interim U.S. attorney expired, Trump simply shifted his title, a tactic the administration has also tried in other federal judicial districts: It named him first assistant U.S. attorney, while leaving the top post empty.

In May, a U.S. appeals court panel expressed skepticism that the maneuver was legal. The federal judges in the city decided to take applications for the position, and it appointed a bipartisan panel to review the applications.

On Wednesday morning the court — comprising 17 active and senior judges appointed by five presidents — issued its unanimous order naming Rogoff the U.S. attorney for western Washington.

Democratic Washington U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, who had opposed Floyd for the U.S. attorney job, blasted Rogoff’s quick firing.

“Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to public service, and he was appointed legally by the federal judges in the Western District of Washington,” the senator said in a written statement. “This administration doesn’t want to deal with advice and consent—they just want to install cronies to carry out a corrupt political agenda.”

In December, Alina Habbaresigned as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey after an appeals court said she had been serving in the post unlawfully.

Lindsey Halligan, who pursued indictments against a pair of Trump’s adversaries, left her position as an acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded her appointment was unlawful and that indictments she brought against James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.

The judges there named James Hundley, who had handled criminal and civil cases for more than 30 years, but the administration fired him. It also fired a court-appointed U.S. attorney in northern New York.

Rogoff, who spent 20 years as a state prosecutor and six as a federal prosecutor before becoming a state judge, said he knew the administration might fire him immediately. But he said he had no qualms about the potential conflict he was walking into. Being U.S. attorney is “the best job there is” for a prosecutor, he said.

“I’m really proud of my career,” Rogoff said. “The fact that the judges of this district — most of whom I’ve spent my career appearing in front of, or trying cases against, or working with — believed that I was the right person to do this work is just really humbling and amazing.”

Johnson writes for the Associated Press.

June 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that work will begin “immediately” to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, blaming vandalism for problems at the newly renovated Washington, D.C. landmark.

Trump repeatedly claimed over the weekend on social media that there had been arrests in connection with vandalism at the Reflecting Pool, which has been plagued by issues since undergoing a $15 million restoration ordered by the president.

From algae blooms to blue coating peeling off its bottom, the Reflecting Pool has been a target of criticism of the Trump administration, which has defended the restoration as necessary while blaming vandals for at least some of the damage.

In a social media statement on Sunday, Trump said he inspected the Reflecting Pool and was in disbelief at what he saw.

“I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing? SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE!” he said.

It was unclear exactly what damage Trump was attributing to vandalism.

In a Saturday post, Trump referenced the need to drain the pool in order to conduct vandalism-related repairs, which was in addition to alleged vandalism to landscaping.

“They took some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence and money to build and complete,” he said.

“They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.”

Trump first commented on the pool Saturday evening, saying in a statement that U.S. Park Police had arrested “multiple individuals for vandalizing our Nations magnificent Reflecting Pool.”

He then said hours later that “many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool.”

UPI has asked U.S. Park Police for confirmation of arrests and damage to the pool caused by vandalism.

Trump first announced plans to restore the pool in November. Atlantic Industrial Coatings Limited was awarded $6.89 million in April to paint the bottom of the pool. The broader restoration has since been reported to cost about $15 million.

He announced June 6 that work on the pool was complete ahead of celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the United States to be held alongside Trump’s 80th birthday.

But within days of the completion, the pool began experiencing issues. Videos posted online show the pool’s surface green with algae, while others show individuals reaching into the pool to handle the peeling blue paint.

On Friday, three-time U.S. Olympian David Hearn was arrested for allegedly damaging the pool. He has claimed in interviews with multiple news organizations that he only touched the edge of hardened paint that was peeling off the pool’s floor.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” he said.

Volker Turk, the high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations, has issued some of his harshest criticism yet of the recent sanctions the United States has imposed on Cuba.

On Monday, Turk drew a line between the increasing restrictions on the Cuban economy and reports of heightened death rates, particularly among children.

“The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable,” Turk said in a statement.

“Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable.”

Such “severe sanctions”, he added, run contrary to the “basic principles of international human rights law”. He called for them to be “lifted immediately”.

Turk’s comments are a direct response to the suite of actions taken under US President Donald Trump to tighten pressure on Cuba, a Caribbean island that has already weathered a decades-long US trade embargo.

Starting in January, the Trump administration moved to cut off Cuba’s foreign oil supply, a linchpin for its ageing energy grid.

First, it severed supplies of oil and funds from Venezuela. Then, on January 29, Trump issued an executive order declaring Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security. As such, he said, any country that supplied it with oil would be subject to steep tariffs.

In the months since, the Trump administration has continued to layer sanctions on Cuba. In May, for instance, penalties were announced against Cuba’s Interior Ministry, its National Police and its Directorate of Intelligence.

Those were followed this month by sanctions targeting Cuba’s president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, as well as members of his family.

The sanctions are designed to penalise those “responsible for repression” in Cuba, an island whose communist government has been accused of stifling dissent, as well as imprisoning and torturing activists.

Turk on Monday acknowledged Cuba’s human rights record and called on the country to “release all those arbitrarily detained”.

But he also pointed to the mounting death toll associated with the US sanctions, which have isolated the island country from much of the world.

The sanctions freeze any US-based assets the target may have, but they also prohibit entities from conducting business with the sanctioned parties. That can result in difficulties accessing global financial systems and other international platforms.

The de facto oil blockade has also resulted in the increasing frequency of power outages, and essential services like public transportation and medical care have faced reductions. Turk pointed to those downstream effects in his remarks.

“Cuba faces increasing isolation,” he said. “Companies are leaving. Fewer airlines fly to the country. It is almost disconnected from international payment systems.”

Turk’s office has also highlighted the human costs of the sanctions. According to the statistics it cited, infant death rates have doubled, reaching 9.9 for every 1,000 births. The survival rate for childhood cancer, meanwhile, has declined from 85 to 65 percent.

In March, the Cuban government also warned of medical needs going unanswered as a result of the energy shortage. It estimated that there was a backlog of 96,387 people awaiting surgery, 11,193 of whom were minors.

It also underscored that 16,000 patients needed radiotherapy, and another 2,888 required dialysis, two treatments that depend on steady electrical supplies.

Turk’s remarks also pointed to the risks posed by the Atlantic hurricane season and other natural disasters. Within hours of his remarks, western Cuba was rattled by a powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake. Summer heat alone could cost lives, he explained.

“Rising summer temperatures risk increasing the spread of vector borne and waterborne diseases,” Turk said.

“The hurricane season further increases exposure. This creates a perfect storm for social and economic deterioration and suffering for the Cuban people.”

Trump has repeatedly suggested that he is considering military action in Cuba to remove its leadership after the US-Israel war on Iran reaches an end.

Since January, only one Russian oil tanker has been allowed to reach the island, leaving its foreign fuel supplies largely depleted.

Important message for anyone with a package holiday booked

Travel expert Simon Calder has shared important advice for anyone with a package holiday booked, as people are being urged to act ‘as soon as possible’. His message comes ahead of the peak travel season, and as new research by Citizens Advice has revealed that four million people have faced issues with their package holiday over the last year.

On today’s (June 8) episode of ITV’s Good Morning Britain, TV host Kate Garraway spoke to correspondent Nick Dixon about the findings. He said: “The complaints that we’ve been hearing about were involving all-inclusive holidays, with many saying they just didn’t ultimately match up to the glossy brochures we see online, or indeed at the travel agents.

“Citizens Advice say that they found 33% of holiday-related complaints ultimately were about things like poor quality hotels, bad food, facilities being unavailable as well – 19% down to customer service.” He added: “Things like long waits on the phone, complaints ignored and administration errors, and 25% of complaints ultimately led to stress, anxiety or upset.

“And if your dream holiday does turn into a wee bit of a nightmare, there are steps you can take… Many of us with these kinds of complaints about our holidays end up trying to fight for compensation, which is why it is so important to keep a record of everything just in case to have any chance of getting money back.”

British travel journalist and broadcaster Simon Calder then spoke to viewers, sharing a crucial message for those with a package holiday, especially if they encounter problems during their trip. He urged holidaymakers to act ‘immediately’.

He said: “If you get to your destination and things aren’t right, maybe there’s a problem with your room, maybe the facilities are simply not as described, then you have to give the travel company immediate notice and allow them the opportunity to sort things out.”

How can I claim compensation for a holiday?

Reporting a problem right away is a legal concept called “mitigating your losses”. If you don’t allow the travel provider to address the room or facilities issue while you’re there, you could really hurt your chances of receiving a full refund or compensation.

Citizens Advice says: “If you’re still on holiday, tell the company or travel agent about the problem as soon as possible. You might be able to get it sorted quicker – like if there’s a problem with the room. If you don’t say anything until you get home, you might get less compensation or none at all.”

The person you need to contact depends on how you arranged your holiday. If you went for a package holiday, reach out to the customer service team of the tour operator you chose.

However, if you organised it yourself or set up a linked travel arrangement, you should contact the accommodation or service provider directly, such as the hotel or the company offering excursions. Make sure you include:

• your booking reference
• clear details of what went wrong
• copies any evidence you have – like photos
• copies of receipts
• how much compensation you want

Citizens Advice adds: “It’s a good idea to send the letter by registered post and keep a copy, so you have proof that the holiday company received it. You can also email them – some of them have online forms. Keep a copy of what you send. If the company makes you an offer that you think is too low, you can ask for more. They might come back to you with a higher offer.”