intensifies

TAYLOR Swift and Blake Lively’s feud has taken a new turn with the latter ‘threatening to release intimate texts’.

The pair’s friendship had seemingly started to unravel in the last few years and came to a head when Blake was left off Taylor and Travis Kelce’s Superbowl guest list.

Back in 2024, Blake made an appearance alongside the singer in a VIP suite for the Superbowl. 

Clips from the night went viral but when the Kansas City Chiefs returned for the championship game in 2025, Blake was nowhere to be seen. 

It’s now been claimed that the actress was left ‘livid’ and ‘humiliated’ by being left off the guest list. 

Sources have reported to The Daily Mail, that Blake allegedly demanded through her legal team that Taylor create a post on social media detailing how much she regretted that Blake couldn’t join her. 

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The message was reportedly to read along the lines of: “So sad, my bestie couldn’t come to the Super Bowl”.

This was to give the impression that there was no ongoing feud between the pair and to explain away Blake’s absence.  

After the songstress refused a ‘threat’ was allegedly made by the Gossip Girl alum that she would expose ‘ten years’ worth of private and intimate messages to the public.

The conversations touch on Taylor’s high profile romances and other personal exchanges.

“It was the ultimate blow to their friendship,” the source said. 

“The threat to expose Taylor’s most intimate confidences unless she posted something to explain why Blake was missing at the Super Bowl was outrageous.

“There was no going back from that.”

Michael Gottlieb, Lively’s attorney, denied that any threat occurred, stating: “This is categorically false. We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.”

The BFFs’ close bond took a hit in 2024 after Taylor got dragged into Blake’s lawsuit against her It Ends with Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni.

Blake alleged that Justin, 41, sexually harassed her on the set of the film, in which they played love interests, and pushed for a retaliatory smear campaign.

However, the legal drama didn’t just remain between the former co-stars, as numerous other big names were pulled into their messy beef.

Taylor couldn’t escape the court battle, as Justin allegedly accused Blake of using her friendship with the billionaire performer to exert control over the film.

In January, texts between Taylor and Blake were unsealed, in which they discussed the toll the film took on the Gossip Girl alum and how it affected their friendship.

The pair became friends in 2015 and Blake’s children James, Inez and Betty have even provided a voice cameo for Taylor’s song Gorgeous. 

But as their fallout has continued Taylor, who is the children’s godmother, has had to allegedly ‘remove herself’ from the role.

Sources to The Daily Mail had said that: “It was one of the toughest decisions she’s ever had to make”

“It was very emotional because she loves the girls. It hurt her heart, but she had no choice given the circumstances.”

The decision was reportedly made a few months ago considering there was no written agreement about being the girls’ godmother.

July 20 (UPI) — The average price of a gallon of regular grade gasoline in the United States has again reached $4 on Monday with renewed fighting in Iran.

AAA reported a 13-cent hike in the average gas price over the past week, bringing an end to declining prices. The latest surge comes on the back of the peace deal between the United States and Iran falling apart with both sides reigniting attacks.

The lowest gas prices in the United States on Monday can be found in Indiana, where a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.35. California has the highest average price per gallon at $5.49 and Washington and Hawaii are above $5 per gallon.

The average price of a gallon of gas was $2.98 before the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb.28. Prices climbed quickly after that due to Iran effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint in the Middle East oil trade. The average gas price in the United States topped $4.50 in May, marking a four-year high.

Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, surpassed $90 per barrel on Monday for the first time since early June. The price of Brent crude oil has climbed by 16% in the past week.

The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil has increased by $12 in July, hitting $82 per barrel.

Aggressions between the United States and Iran have brought the return of the U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces are again targeting any ships using Iranian ports.

U.S. economic data showed improvement beginning in June as talks of a peace agreement heated up. The White House welcomed a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics last week that showed consumer prices falling in June.

“Prices are coming way down, and we’re doing a great job,” President Donald Trump told reporters last week. “And remember that for the midterms.”

The decline in consumer prices was largely attributed to falling gas and energy prices. Those prices were also the catalyst for prices surging over the past five months.

Published on
20/07/2026 – 10:53 GMT+2

Oil prices jumped in early trading as the US announced further attacks for a ninth consecutive night. Iran has responded to the strikes by targeting US allies across the Middle East.

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Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 3.2% to $90.95 per barrel, while US benchmark crude climbed 2.8% to $84.04 per barrel.

“The US and Iran continue to exchange strikes, which are proving to be deadly for both sides,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary on Monday.

“If this escalation goes unchecked, we could return to an environment of widespread attacks across the Persian Gulf,” they added.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil transport, has nearly ground to a halt, adding to pressure on supplies, they noted.

Elsewhere, AI-related shares including chipmaking stocks declined on Friday, pulling world markets lower. Pledges of huge spending on AI are fuelling worries the sector may be in a bubble, and many investors have opted to sell to lock in profits from recent big gains.

“The return to war in the Strait of Hormuz may start to weigh more heavily on financial markets before too long, especially if even strong tech earnings reports continue to be met with scepticism,” Jonas Goltermann, chief markets economist at Capital Economics wrote in a note Monday.

Markets were also shaken by the rollout of another powerful Chinese AI model, this time by Beijing-based Moonshot AI.

The impact of the new Kimi K3 open-source AI model was similar to when China’s “ DeepSeek moment” rattled world markets in early 2025. It was viewed as another sign of how lower-cost, capable Chinese AI models are increasingly challenging rivals like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT.

Additional sources • AP

A protest by India’s youth-led Cockroach Janta Party has intensified after activist Sonam Wangchuk was forcibly moved to a hospital on the 21st day of his hunger strike. Party founder Abhijeet Dipke was splashed with ink after beginning a fast in solidarity.

Iranian state media report explosions in port cities pof Bandar Abbas, Sirik and Jask, as well as Qeshm Island.

Published on 16/06/2026 – 14:21 GMT+2•Updated
14:25

SpaceX is pushing deeper into AI with its largest acquisition yet, striking a $60 billion (€51.7bn) all-stock agreement to buy Anysphere, the developer of the AI coding assistant Cursor.

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The purchase, announced on Tuesday, is intended to strengthen SpaceX’s position in the enterprise AI market, where rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic have found early commercial traction.

Anysphere is a San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate large parts of software development, and its Cursor tool is widely used by programmers.

According to a regulatory filing, the two sides signed a merger agreement under which a SpaceX subsidiary, X67 Inc., will merge into Anysphere, leaving Cursor as a wholly owned subsidiary.

The merger is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval.

The deal lands barely a week after Elon Musk’s company completed a blockbuster listing, and marks an aggressive move beyond rockets and satellites into enterprise AI software.

At the time of writing, SpaceX shares were trading a few cents below $200 in premarket trading, up more than 4% from Monday’s close and roughly 50% higher than its IPO price of $135.

Tuesday’s rally could see SpaceX overtake Amazon by market capitalisation if gains hold through the session.

The acquisition follows an option SpaceX secured in April, when it agreed to either acquire Cursor for $60 billion (€51.7bn) later in the year or pay $10 billion (€8.6bn) for a narrower partnership to provide compute.

Founded in 2022, Cursor has grown quickly, reporting roughly $2.6 billion (€2.2bn) in annualised business-to-business revenue, according to company data shared with Reuters this month.

The firm had previously raised more than $3 billion (€2.5bn) from backers including Nvidia and OpenAI.

SpaceX merged with Musk’s chatbot venture xAI in February, and this new deal could hand xAI a stronger position in AI-assisted coding, an area where it has trailed competitors, while giving Cursor access to far greater computing power.

June 3 (UPI) — Kuwait closed its main airport in Kuwait City on Wednesday after Iranian missile and drone strikes injured several people and caused “significant damage” to its main terminal building as renewed hostilities between the Iran and the United States escalated.

The airport activated its emergency plan, suspending all flights indefinitely after its Terminal 1 building was the target of “Iranian aggression, resulting in significant damage to several airport facilities, in addition to recording human injuries,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said in an update on X.

DGCA spokesman Abdullah Al-Rajhi said it has been decided to suspend air traffic and divert flights to alternative airports until further notice pending the completion of repair work to enable the airport to resume operations, saying that inspection and comprehensive assessment by technical and specialized teams was already underway.

Kuwait International Airport only fully reopened on Monday after being closed on and off since the start of the war on Feb. 28.

The attack came hours after Iran and the United States and Iran exchanged fire across the region Tuesday with Iranian forces attacking its Gulf neighbors and the American military striking a vessel attempting to evade its naval blockade and launching “self-defense” strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island.

The airport was hit in the early hours, shortly after U.S. Central Command said a series of Iranian missiles and drones directed at its regional neighbors had either failed to reach their targets or been repelled by U.S. forces, including two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait that “fell short or broke apart enroute,” and three others launched at Bahrain that were intercepted by U.S. and Bahrain air defense forces.

CENTCOM said later that an additional wave of Iranian drones targeting U.S. forces in Kuwait was downed by air defenses with no American personnel or assets harmed and dismissed as fake Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claims they struck U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and a U.S. air base in the region with missiles and drones.

No U.S. personnel were harmed. CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted Iranian aggression during the ongoing ceasefire.

Moments earlier, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces shot down three one-way attack drones launched by Iran toward civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters. American forces also conducted self-defense strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island.

The American military also downed three attack drones launched by Iran toward civilian mariners that CENTCOM said were sailing legitimately in regional waters and struck on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island.

“No U.S. personnel were harmed. CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted Iranian aggression during the ongoing cease-fire,” it said.

CENTCOM also released footage of a U.S. warplane firing a Hellcat missile at an empty Iran-bound oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz that it said ignored warnings to stop.

“U.S. Central Command enforced blockade measures against Botswana-flagged M/T Lexie as it transited international waters toward Kharg Island. The ship’s crew ignored repeated warnings, failing to comply with directions from U.S. forces multiple times over a 24-hour period. A U.S. aircraft ultimately disabled the vessel by firing a Hellfire missile into the ship’s engine room, preventing the tanker from reaching Iran,” CENTCOM said.