kills

EastEnders’ Mark Fowler has resorted to desperate tactics to clear his debt to gangster Delaney, but fans think there’s a further twist on the way that will be fatal for one character

EastEnders fans are convinced Mark Fowler’s latest desperate antics will prove fatal for one character. In Thursday’s episode, airing on 14 May, Mark learned that his debt to gangster Russell Delaney had been doubled after his father, Grant Mitchell, threatened the drug lord. In his panic, his aunt Sam, managed to convince him to do something drastic.

Sam told Mark that he needed Lauren Beale to start working with him on stealing cars and selling them on her car lot. Lauren refused to do that before but Sam suggested that if Mark made it so that she had no choice but to turn to him, then he could get his money. As such, they took a car Lauren was due to sell and set fire to it.

READ MORE: EastEnders’ Cindy’s real plan for Max ‘uncovered’ by fans after Ian commentREAD MORE: Emmerdale villain Patsy Kensit makes bombshell return as Sadie King after 20 years

Fans noticed that just before this scene, Bea Pollard, who had been kicked out of Honey and Billy Mitchell’s home after stealing Honey’s identity, was sleeping rough on some bin bags. Some thought she might be too close to the fire and die as a result, as the character is thought to be leaving soon.

“I think Bea was bedding down in one of the lock ups by the car,” one fan said. “Hopefully that will be her leaving scene.” Another added: “Was that Bea asleep on the ground when Mark threw petrol all over the car and put a lighter to it?” A third said: “I thought the same thing. Near the car – bet she saw it all.”

But others pointed out that it looked more like Bea was in McClunky’s, the chicken shop where she works. One wrote: “Bea camping out at mcklunky’s on a bin bag…”

Another said: “Sure she was in the chicken shop.” A third added: “She was in the chicken shop, you could see counter in the background.”

This comes as Bea’s actions left Honey hospitalised. When it was revealed that Bea used Honey’s identity to open a credit card account, which landed her friend in £5,000 debt, Bea tried to convince Honey that it was all a misunderstanding.

When that didn’t work, she said she only did it so that she could buy things for people and make them like her. It was close to persuading Honey to let her stay, until Honey’s husband Billy came home.

Billy threw Bea out on her ear. In a fit of rage, Bea flipped the safety lever on his ladder, so that when he went up to clear the drains, he would fall.

But in a sick twist, it was Honey who went up the ladder. She fell from the ladder and couldn’t be roused by Billy, as Bea watched on from the shadows.

Honey was rushed to hospital, where she eventually woke up. But despite convincing everyone that she wasn’t responsible for Honey’s fall, Bea was not allowed to stay with them in Walford and was told to leave.

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

US president says Tehran’s response to US peace proposal ‘unacceptable’, as the Iranian military warns it is ready if war resumes.

A 15-year-old boy, Mahmoud Sahweil, was killed when Israel struck a Gaza police station.

His aunt says he was out selling bread to support his 15-member family. Israel has killed at least 830 Palestinians in Gaza since the October 2025 “ceasefire”.

May 5 (UPI) — An explosion at a fireworks factory in China’s Hunan Province has killed 26 people and injured dozens more, state media reported Tuesday, prompting Chinese President Xi Jinping to call for those responsible to be held accountable.

The blast occurred Monday afternoon at the Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display plant in the southern city of Liuyang, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Authorities said 26 people were killed and 61 injured at a press conference Tuesday.

Five rescue teams totaling nearly 500 personnel were dispatched to the scene, while an area with a radius of nearly two miles was evacuated due to the risk of further explosions.

Rescuers set up firebreaks and sprayed water over the site to “prevent secondary accidents during the rescue,” Xinhua said.

Mayor Chen Bozhang of provincial capital Changsha told reporters Tuesday that search and rescue operations were largely complete, adding that real-time air and water monitoring showed no signs of environmental contamination.

The person in charge of the fireworks company has been taken into custody, Chen said.

Aerial footage from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed widespread damage, with smoldering factory buildings leveled across a wide area.

Xi on Tuesday ordered a prompt investigation into the accident and said “those responsible must be held accountable,” state media reported. He also called for stronger risk screening and hazard controls in key sectors, along with enhanced public safety management.

The blast follows other deadly fireworks-related accidents in China in recent years. Ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations in February, an explosion and fire at a fireworks store in Jiangsu Province killed eight, prompting officials to call for increased safety checks on pyrotechnics.

In 2019, another fireworks factory explosion in Liuyang killed 13 people. The city is the hub of China’s fireworks manufacturing industry, accounting for about 60% of the domestic market and roughly 70% of exports, according to state media.

The attack, the second in a week, follows months of relative calm in the city after government forces regained control last year.

A drone strike carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed five civilians in Khartoum, according to an NGO.

The attack, which Emergency Lawyers, an independent legal group supporting victims of human rights violations in Sudan, reported on Saturday, is the second to take place in the capital within a week. It follows months of relative calm in the city after government forces regained control last year.

The NGO said it holds the RSF fully responsible for the strike, accusing the group of breaching international humanitarian law.

Emergency Lawyers said the incident forms part of an ongoing pattern of attacks on civilians. Nearly 700 civilians were killed in drone strikes in the first three months of this year, according to UN figures.

‘Completely free’

On Tuesday, a drone struck a hospital in the Jebel Awliya area, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of central Khartoum, a security source and eyewitnesses told the AFP news agency. It was the first such attack in the area in months.

The Sudanese army, which now enjoys a solid grip in the north and east, launched a rapid counteroffensive last year that pushed the paramilitary forces out of the capital.

Following intense fighting around the capital last year, Sudan’s military government declared the Khartoum region “completely free” of RSF.

Since then, the RSF has largely concentrated on expanding its control in its stronghold in the western Darfur region and pushing into neighbouring areas, capturing valuable oil-producing assets.

Violence has also spread to southeastern Blue Nile state near the border with Ethiopia, raising fears of a more prolonged and fragmented conflict.

The RSF carried out a series of drone strikes on Khartoum last year, largely targeting military sites, power stations and water infrastructure.

In recent months, however, the capital has seen relative calm. More than 1.8 million displaced residents have returned, and the airport has resumed domestic flights. That said, much of the city remains without electricity or basic services.

The conflict between the Sudanese government and the RSF – a former ally – began in April 2023. Since then, around 14 million people have been displaced and two-thirds of the population are in urgent need of humanitarian support, according to the United Nations.

US president says Iran has reached out and asked Washington to lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports.

April 27 (UPI) — The U.S. military has killed another three men in its latest attack targeting suspected drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific, U.S. Southern Command announced late Sunday.

It was the 54th strike in the Trump administration’s violent anti-drug smuggling campaign that has killed at least 185 people since early September, according to UPI’s tally of publicly released data. At least 57 boats have been destroyed in the attacks in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean.

SOUTHCOM has announced each strike on social media, accompanied by a short black-and-white aerial video of the attack, showing the boat erupting in flames.

As with the previous strikes, SOUTHCOM said in a statement that the boat it attacked Sunday “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

The Trump administration claims the vessels are operated by 10 drug cartels and gangs that President Donald Trump has designated as terrorist organizations since returning to office, but has yet to provide evidence.

Trump argues the use of deadly force is warranted as the United States is in “armed conflict” with those organizations, but his administration has come under mounting accusations of conducting extrajudicial killings.

The strikes have been repeatedly condemned and their legality questioned by Democrats and human rights organizations, who accuse the Trump administration of violating international and maritime law by using the military to conduct law enforcement drug operations.

Ben Saul, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, chastised the Trump administration last month for “responding with lawless violence that flagrantly violates human rights, in its phony war on so-called narco-terrorism.”

The attacks are not permissible law enforcement action in self-defense, authorized under the law of the sea, in national self-defense or under international humanitarian law, he said.

On Thursday, 125 humanitarian, human rights, peacebuilding and other related organizations from around the world called on all states to “immediately cease or refrain from supporting U.S. extrajudicial killings.”

The letter warned that states could be held legally responsible for aiding or assisting the United States by sharing intelligence as well as providing access to military bases and logistical support with the U.S. military.

The groups argue that the consequences of these killings are being felt throughout the hemisphere.

“Families awaiting the return of their loved ones may never know what happened to them and have no access to recourse,” the organizations said in their open letter.

“Coastal communities have witnessed human remains washing up on shore and fear for their lives when they trade and fish, sowing psychological trauma and undermining livelihoods.”

A highway bomb attack in southwestern Colombia has killed 19 people and injured at least 38, the latest spate of violence ahead of next month’s presidential election.

Buses and vans were left mangled in the blast Saturday on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive southwestern Cauca department.

Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion and a large crater was blown out of the roadway.

The department’s governor on Saturday evening provided a death toll of 14, with more than 38 injured, but the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences said Sunday morning it had begun the examination of 19 bodies.

Military chief Hugo Lopez told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb had exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle.

The attack comes just over one month ahead of national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to President Gustavo Petro.

Petro blamed the bombing on Ivan Mordisco, the South American country’s most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

The violence came after a bomb attack on Friday on a military base in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, injured two people and set off a string of attacks in the Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments.

According to Lopez, 26 attacks have been recorded in the two departments over the past two days.

Authorities have boosted military and police presence in the areas, Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

Security is one of the central issues of the May 31 presidential election. Political violence was brought into sharp focus last June, when young conservative presidential frontrunner Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in broad daylight while campaigning in the capital Bogota and later died from his wounds.

Leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda, an architect of Petro’s controversial policy of negotiating with armed groups, is ahead in polls.

He is trailed by right-wing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, both of whom have pledged to take a hard line against rebel groups.

All three have reported receiving death threats and are campaigning under heavy security.

Authorities in Cauca region demand ‘decisive’ government action after deadly explosion on Pan-American Highway.

At least seven people were killed, and 20 were wounded following a suspected explosive attack in the southwestern province of Cauca, Colombia, according to regional authorities.

Governor Octavio Guzman said that an explosive was detonated on the Pan-American Highway in the El Tunel sector of Cajibio on Saturday. He condemned what he called an “indiscriminate attack” against the civilian population.

“There are not sufficient words for the pain we feel,” Guzman said in a social media post, demanding a “decisive, sustained” response from the government against the “terrorist escalation”.

A video shared by the governor appeared to show the aftermath of the bombing, with ambulances on site and mangled vehicles and debris covering the road.

“Cauca cannot continue facing this barbarity alone,” he added, stating that other actions had also been carried out in El Tambo, Caloto, Popayan, Guachene, Mercaderes, and Miranda.

The deadly incident comes after a series of attacks on Friday, attributed to criminal groups formed by dissident members of the FARC rebel group, who split with the group following a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016.

On Saturday, Minister of Defence Pedro Sanchez was convening a security council in Cali to assess the regional security situation when the latest attack occurred.

President Gustavo Petro responded to the deadly explosion by saying that powerful criminal groups are seeking to control the population through fear.

While details of the attack are still emerging, Petro appeared to blame a drug trafficker and FARC dissident leader known by the alias Ivan Mordisco.

“I want the maximum worldwide pursuit against this narco-terrorist group,” Petro said.

Hamas says the Israeli escalation represents the failure of the international community to uphold the truce in Gaza.

Israeli forces have killed 12 Palestinians in attacks throughout Gaza, medical sources in the enclave tell Al Jazeera, as Israel continues its daily violations of the ceasefire struck last year.

An Israeli attack on a police vehicle on Friday killed at least eight people, including three civilian bystanders, in Khan Younis. A separate attack in Gaza City also killed two police officers.

Two other people were killed in the bombing of a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior called on the international community on Friday to intervene and end the Israeli targeting of local police forces working to restore security in civilian areas.

It said the attack in Khan Younis came after security forces intervened to break up a fight in the area.

“The continued silence of international organisations … regarding the targeting of civilian police officers constitutes complicity with the Israeli occupation, encouraging it to commit further crimes against a civilian institution protected under international law,” the ministry said.

“We emphasise that the police force provides services to citizens in the Gaza Strip across various aspects of daily life. There is absolutely no justification for targeting it or killing its personnel.”

Israel has been systemically killing police officers in Gaza, as it allies itself with criminal gangs in the occupied territory.

During its genocidal war on Gaza, which started in October 2023, the Israeli military regularly targeted officers securing aid convoys, which led to intensified looting. That, in turn, deepened the hunger crisis that Israel imposed on the territory.

A ceasefire, brokered by United States President Donald Trump, came into effect in October of last year. That decreased the intensity of the Israeli bombardment.

But Israel has nevertheless continued its attacks on the territory, killing at least 984 people and injuring 2,235 others since the truce was announced, according to health authorities.

Just this week, Israeli strikes killed five people, including three children, on Wednesday.

The overall death toll in the war has surpassed 72,500, with more than 172,000 others injured. Thousands of missing people are believed to be dead and buried under the destroyed buildings.

The number of confirmed casualties represents more than 7 percent of the enclave’s population of two million people. The Israeli assault also turned most of Gaza’s structures into piles of rubble.

Leading rights groups and United Nations investigators have concluded that the Israeli military campaign amounts to genocide: an effort to destroy the Palestinian people.

Under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has continued to bomb Gaza as it simultaneously attacks south Lebanon, in violation of a separate truce with Hezbollah.

Hamas on Friday called the deadly attacks in Gaza part of the Israeli government’s “unprecedented bloody, fascist approach”.

“This escalation … by the government of the war criminal Netanyahu represents a clear failure of the role of the mediators and guarantors [of the ceasefire] and the international community to quell the barbaric Zionist killing machine,” it said.

More than six months into the ceasefire, Trump has struggled to implement the 12-point plan on which the truce was based.

Israel continues to occupy most of Gaza. Reconstruction in the territory has not begun. An international security force envisioned by the agreement has not been formed.

In February, Trump convened his so-called Board of Peace that is supposed to govern Gaza through a council of Palestinian technocrats, but it is not clear when or how these forces will take over government agencies in the territory.

Israel has killed journalist Amal Khalil and injured her colleague Zeinab Faraj in a ‘double-tap’ attack in southern Lebanon. Repeated strikes on the reporters and paramedics delayed rescue efforts for hours, according to Lebanon’s Al Akhbar News.

April 20 (UPI) — The U.S. military announced late Sunday that it has killed three men in its latest strike targeting a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean.

Seventeen people have been killed in six strikes the U.S. Southern Command has carried out in little over a week, marking one of the deadliest publicly announced stretches of the Trump administration’s monthslong anti-drug smuggling operation.

As in previous strike announcements, SOUTHCOM released little information.

The attack occurred Sunday, targeting a boat operated by a designated terrorist organization in the Caribbean, SOUTHCOM said in a statement, without naming the organization or providing evidence.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” it said.

A 12-second, black-and-white clip of the strike posted to SOUTHCOM’s social media shows a boat moving across the ocean before disappearing in a large fiery explosion.

Since the first strike on Sept. 2, the U.S. military has killed at least 180 people, according to UPI’s tally of publicly released data. Fifty-five boats have been destroyed in the more than 50 strikes.

President Donald Trump argues that the use of deadly military force is warranted as the United States is in “armed conflict” with the 10 drug cartels and gangs he has designated as terrorist organizations since returning to the White House in January 2025.

The operation comes as the Trump administration seeks to expand its influence in the Western Hemisphere, including by using its military to dismantle what Trump has called “narco-terrorist networks.”

The strikes have been repeatedly condemned and their legality questioned by Democrats, rights groups, critics and United Nations experts, who accuse the Trump administration of violating international and maritime law over the use of the military to conduct law enforcement drug operations.

Last month, Ben Saul, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, lambasted the Trump administration over “its phony war on so-called narco-terrorism.”

“These serial extrajudicial killings gravely violate the right to life, which applies extraterritorially,” he said on March 13.

“The attacks were not in national self-defense, since the vessels were not engaged in any armed attack on the U.S. Drug trafficking is crime, not war.”

On Wednesday, the same day the U.S. military killed three people in a strike in the eastern Pacific, a group of Democrats, led by Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, filed six articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with one of the articles accusing him of violating the law of armed conflict over the strikes.

Larson accused Hegseth of abusing his position by ordering “our armed forces to strike boats in the Caribbean,” he said in a statement.

April 17 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1421, the sea broke the dikes at Dort, Holland, drowning an estimated 100,000 people.

In 1521, the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Martin Luther after he refused to admit to charges of heresy.

In 1790, U.S. statesman, printer, scientist and writer Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84.

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

In 1912, the sister ship of the doomed RMS Titanic, the Olympic, radioed in that survivors of the ocean liner sinking were rescued and safely on board the RMS Carpathia.

In 1961, a force of anti-Castro rebels began the Bay of Pigs Invasion in an attempt to overthrow Cuba’s new communist government.

In 1964, Jerrie Mock of Columbus, Ohio, became the first woman to complete a solo flight around the world.

In 1969, a jury found Sirhan B. Sirhan guilty of first-degree murder for the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

File Photo by Ron Bennett/UPI

In 1970, with the world anxiously watching on television, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that sustained a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returned to Earth.

In 1989, the Polish labor union Solidarity was granted legal status after nearly a decade of struggle and suppression — clearing the way for the downfall of the country’s Communist Party.

In 1993, a federal jury convicted two Los Angeles police officers and acquitted two others of violating the civil rights of Rodney King during his 1991 arrest and beating.

In 2004, the Israeli army confirmed it had killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Hamas co-founder and its leader in Gaza, in a missile strike. Two others also died with Rantisi, who had opposed any compromise with Israel.

In 2012, U.S. investor Warren Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest people, said he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

File Photo by Molly Riley/UPI

In 2013, an explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant killed 15 people, injured dozens and caused massive property damage in the community.

In 2018, former first lady Barbara Bush died at the age of 92 after refusing medical treatment for her failing health. Her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, died less than one year later.

In 2024, Russian missile strikes targeting the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv killed more than a dozen people and injured scores more.

File Photo by State Emergency Service/EPA-EFE

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Kyiv’s mayor says the attacks hit Podilskyi and Obolonsky districts, causing large fires and damage to residential buildings.

Russian forces have bombed the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, killing a 12-year-old child and wounding at least 10 people, including several doctors, according to the city’s mayor.

The child was killed early on Thursday in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, where rocket fragments hit a 16-storey building and caused a fire at a residential building, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko wrote in a post on Telegram.

He said rescuers have pulled another child and her mother were pulled from the rubble in Podilskyi.

The attack also hit Kyiv’s Obolonsky district, with falling rocket debris causing a large fire at a non-residential building. “Cars are also on fire,” Klitschko wrote.

More soon…