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D66 party says no time to waste as begins challenge of finding three coalition partners on fractious centre-ground.

Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten has claimed victory in a cliffhanger election dominated by immigration and housing after seeing off far-right contender Geert Wilders, saying his win proved populism can be beaten.

The 38-year-old head of the D66 party, which won the most votes in this week’s general election, is now set to become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister of the European Union’s fifth-largest economy.

“I think we’ve now shown to the rest of Europe and the world that it is possible to beat the populist movements if you campaign with a positive message for your country,” he said on Friday, as tallying from news agency ANP showed he was on course to win.

The pro-EU, liberal D66 tripled its seat count with an upbeat campaign and a surge in advertising spending, while Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party lost a large part of the support that had propelled him to a shock victory at the previous poll in 2023.

D66, which currently has 26 seats but could gain one more when every vote is counted, is now expected to lead talks to form a coalition government, a process that usually takes months.

The party will need to find at least three coalition partners to reach a simple majority in the 150-seat lower chamber of parliament, with the centre-right CDA (18 seats), the liberal VVD (22) and the left-wing Green/Labour group (20) viewed as contenders.

But there are questions about whether the VVD and Green/Labour will work together. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said before the election an alliance with Green/Labour “would not work” and she wanted a centre-right coalition.

On Monday, the Green/Labour group will elect a new leader after former EU Vice President Frans Timmermans stepped down.

On Friday, Jetten urged mainstream parties from the left to the right to unite. “We want to find a majority that will eagerly work on issues such as the housing market, migration, climate and the economy,” he said.

‘Serious challenges’

Reporting from Amsterdam, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said Jetten faced “serious challenges” as informal coalition talks got under way, given that his party holds a razor-thin lead of only thousands of votes over Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party.

Jetten, an enthusiastic athlete who once ran as a pacemaker to Olympic champion Sifan Hassan, had said there was no time to waste “because the Dutch people are asking us to get to work”.

Wilders said Jetten was jumping the gun, pointing out that the results would only become official once the Electoral Council, rather than ANP – which collects the results from all municipalities in the Netherlands – had decided.

“How arrogant not to wait,” he wrote on X.

Although all mainstream parties had already ruled out working with him, Wilders had said he would demand to have a first crack at forming a coalition if his party was confirmed to have the most votes.

Although he saw support collapse, other far-right parties like the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a nationalist party that wants to withdraw from the EU’s Schengen system of open borders, performed well.

Confirmation of the result will come on Monday, when mail ballots cast by Dutch residents living abroad are counted.

Party leaders will discuss the next steps on Tuesday.

The United Kingdom’s King Charles III has stripped his brother, Andrew, of the title of prince and ordered him to leave his lavish residence near Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Observers say the Palace is finally taking decisive action over Andrew’s connections to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations that the two men sexually abused Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager.

Andrew, 65, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth and younger brother of King Charles, has faced growing scrutiny over his personal conduct and ties to Epstein. Earlier this month, he was pressured into giving up his title of Duke of York.

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life,” Andrew said at the time. He also said he “vigorously den[ies] the accusations” against him.

Buckingham Palace hopes to be seen as taking a decisive step, drawing a line after years of compromising scandals. In 2022, Andrew was removed from numerous royal duties due to his connections to Epstein.

How did Andrew’s ties to Epstein come to light?

Born in 1960, Andrew was once one of the more popular members of the British royal family, known for his military service as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War in 1982.

For years, however, Andrew’s personal antics have generated embarrassing headlines, testing the patience of the royal family. In 2024, for instance, court documents revealed that a close adviser on Andrew’s business affairs was a suspected Chinese spy.

But it was Andrew’s persistent ties to Jeffrey Epstein that ultimately forced King Charles’s hand and led to Andrew stepping down from his royal duties in 2019. Epstein died by suicide in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In 2021, Virginia Giuffre – one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein – filed a lawsuit alleging rape and sexual abuse against then-Prince Andrew. She claimed she had been forced to have sex with him on multiple occasions when she was 17, a minor under US law.

Prince Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations, even insisting that a now-infamous photograph that appeared to show them together had been doctored. But in 2022, he agreed to settle the lawsuit, costing him as much as $16m.

Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. She was 41 years old.

Earlier this month, British newspapers reported that Andrew had emailed Epstein in February 2011 – more than two months after the prince told the BBC he had severed all ties with his former associate.

The email was sent at a time of heightened media coverage of the Epstein scandal, with Andrew telling Epstein they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it”.

These disclosures ultimately prompted Buckingham Palace’s response on Thursday.

What has Buckingham Palace said?

In a statement released on Thursday night, Buckingham Palace said the King’s brother is now to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

He will no longer be styled “Prince” or “His Royal Highness (HRH)” and he has lost his dukedom, earldom, barony, military ranks and royal patronages.

It also announced that he is to be evicted from his residence, the sprawling Royal Lodge that was once home to the Queen Mother, near Windsor Castle, west of London.

“His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation,” the palace statement said.

“These censures are deemed necessary… Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” it added.

A palace source said the decision was taken by King Charles, but that he had the support of the wider family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William, in a bid to limit reputational risks to the monarchy.

Elsewhere, culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Question Time programme that the king’s latest decision was a “truly brave, important, and correct step”, sending a “powerful message” to survivors of sexual abuse.

Why has Andrew been evicted from Royal Lodge?

In recent weeks, the British press has been rife with speculation about Andrew’s finances after The Times newspaper reported on October 21 that he had not paid rent on his 30-room mansion – known as Royal Lodge – for two decades.

It was revealed that he had a lease on the property stipulating a “peppercorn rent”: In return for carrying out renovations and maintaining the mansion, Andrew was paying a rent of “one peppercorn” each year.

In a rare political intervention, a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday questioned whether Andrew should still be living in the house, which is owned by the monarch and located 5km (3 miles) south of Windsor Castle.

On October 28, the BBC also revealed that Prince Andrew had hosted Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s associate, later jailed for sex trafficking – and Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer convicted of rape, at Royal Lodge.

The three visited Andrew’s home in 2006 to celebrate his daughter’s 18th birthday, just two months after a United States arrest warrant had been issued for Epstein over the sexual assault of a minor.

Where will Andrew live now?

It is understood that Andrew will move to a property on the private Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which will be privately funded by his brother, the king.

The wider Sandringham Estate covers approximately 8,100 hectares (20,000 acres) with 240 hectares (600 acres) of gardens, and the Palace has not stipulated which property he will stay in.

It is also understood that Andrew’s move to Sandringham will take place “as soon as practicable”.

His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson – who still lives at Royal Lodge with him – will also move out of Royal Lodge and make her own living arrangements.

Have other royals in the UK been stripped of their titles in the past?

The stripping of Prince Andrew’s royal titles by King Charles III is unusual in modern British history.

Other royals have relinquished titles voluntarily – such as Princess Diana giving up HRH following her divorce from King Charles – and King Edward VIII, who abdicated from the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been divorced twice.

Others have lost their privileges for political reasons – such as Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for siding with Germany in World War I – but there has not been a case of a reigning monarch or immediate family being stripped of their status for scandal-related reasons.

In that sense, Andrew’s case is the most serious demotion of a senior British royal in recent memory.

The Derbyshire Peak District villages of Ashopton and Derwent were lost forever when they were submerged as part of the Derwent Valley scheme to create Ladybower Reservoir

“People come up to me and say isn’t it beautiful around here. But it’s nothing to what it was. It’s all man-made now.”

Those are the words of Morris Cottrill, whose family lived in the village of Derwent before it was lost to the water.

Along with nearby Ashopton, the beautiful Peak District village of Derwent found itself deliberately subsumed on March 18, 1943, when great torrents were unleashed.

As the water level rose higher, buildings that had stood since the 17th century slowly disappeared. Once the 6,310 million gallons of water had flowed in, only the spire of Derwent’s St John and St James church could be seen above the surface.

The church had held its final service the day before the Chairman of the Derwent Valley Water Board, Alderman Sir Albert Atkey, closed the outlet valve and triggered the deluge.

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The villages had been full of life and history before their demolition. The impressive Derwent Hall dated back to 1672 and was, at one point, owned by the Duke of Norfolk. Ashopton was larger and busier than Derwent and boasted a coaching inn, a post office, shop, a chapel and a garage as well as houses and farms.

Despite the furious protests of locals, the buildings of Derwent and Ashopton were purchased compulsorily by the Derwent Valley Water Board between 1935 and 1945. The villagers were moved out and rehoused in an estate at Yorkshire Bridge, in 62 houses built at a cost of £65,758.

“The last church service must have been incredibly sad,” said Kathleen Greenan, Chair of Bamford History Group. “Those villagers gave up a whole way of life. Most of them were rehoused in an estate. Everything must have been completely different for them – they would have been self-sufficient until then.”

Before the water swept over the villages many of the buildings were demolished and bodies were exhumed from the churchyards.

The one remaining visible monument to the lost villages, the spire, was demolished in 1947 over safety concerns. Too many people had been risking their lives by swimming out to the strange shape in the water.

Several years after the Ladybower Reservoir began providing water to the people of the Peak District, the River Noe was diverted into it to meet the rising demands of the thirsty locals, further subsuming Derwent and Ashopton.

Despite this, the villages have been seen again. In fact, they are reappearing with increased regularity.

During periods of drought, when the water level falls, the crumbled remains of the villages can once again be seen.

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The remarkably depleted water levels in 2018 attracted a record-breaking number of visitors down onto the reservoir beds and to the ruins.

Charles Hanson, proprietor of Hansons Auctioneers who sold a collection of postcards taken in the village in the 1930s, said: “It’s hard to believe in today’s world, where conservation is so important, that the government would allow a fine 17th century hall, a Victorian steepled church built on the site of a 14th century chapel, a toll cottage, a Georgian coaching inn and two picturesque villages full of cottages to be submerged under water.

“The history books tell us that there was strong opposition to the move but the authorities insisted more water was needed to serve Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield. Consequently, construction of the dam got underway in 1901.

“How would people feel today if the Government passed an Act of Parliament to put their home under a reservoir?”

As well as the prospect of spying Derbyshire’s answer to Atlantis, tourists are drawn to Ladybower by another intriguing feature.

A giant ‘plughole’ sits at the southern end of the dam. Two fishermen recently caused a stir when they were filmed sailing perilously close to the hole, which sucks water down in a great vortex.

While people joked online that it provides a direct route to Australia, Severn Trent Water, which owns the reservoir, did not see the funny side of the near miss with the spillways.

“If somebody fell in, they would very seriously hurt themselves,” a spokeswoman said. “They would also find themselves stuck because access to the river has a grille, so they would need a professional rescue team to get them out.”

The village was once a rival to London and an important medieval hub. But a series of unfortunate storms meant much of it was lost to the sea and now lies under the water

A tiny village that was once a medieval port and considered the capital of East Anglia is the perfect day out for history buffs or those who love quiet, windswept beaches.

In Anglo-Saxon times, Dunwich on the Suffolk coast was the heart of what was then called the Kingdom of the East Angles. Its international port was considered a rival to London, and the Domesday Book of 1086 revealed it had a population of over 3,000 people. This was a time when London’s population was just 18,000.

However, the town’s fortunes changed in 1286 when a storm surge hit the area, followed by two large weather fronts the next year. This caused major coastal erosion, which led to large parts of the town being submerged underwater. In 1347, it’s thought that 400 homes were swept into the sea, with most of the remains of the town destroyed in 1362 in Saint Marcellus’s flood. Around 25,000 people across Europe lost their lives in the tragic event.

Because of its unique past, Dunwich is often dubbed the ‘lost city of England’ and draws comparisons to the legendary island of Atlantis, which, according to myths, sank under the sea.

Dunwich Museum is a great way to learn about life before the floods. Researchers have mapped out where the old homes and buildings used to stand before they were lost to the sea, and you can see these maps at the museum. There are also many interesting displays about medieval life and artefacts from the time.

Only a few ruins remain from medieval times. One of the most complete buildings is the Greyfriars monastery. This was built around half a mile inland, after the original monastery closer to the coast was lost. The ruins include the grand entrance to the monastery and part of the refectory where the monks would eat.

National Trust’s Dunwich Heath and Beach is an unspoilt spot with some beautiful walking trails. The Heath is full of rare wildlife and birds, and you may be able to spot red deer and otters on your stroll. Dunwich’s wide shingle beach is a popular spot for fishing and paddling in the sea.

Not all ships en route to Dunwich made it safely, and researchers have worked to uncover a large number of shipwrecks off the coast. According to the East Anglian Daily Times, there could be as many as hundreds of ships in a shipwreck graveyard off the coast, many of which sank during World War I when shipping routes were attacked.

Once you’re finished exploring, visit Flora Tea Rooms, a traditional fish and chip restaurant on the beach that also serves British classics such as afternoon tea. The village has one pub, The Ship at Dunwich, a cosy spot with a beer garden and beautiful countryside views. It also has 16 rooms if you decide to stay and enjoy this peaceful village for longer.

Dunwich is also close to the RSPB Minsmere, a coastal nature reserve that includes areas of woodland, reedbeds, grassland, and heathland. Among the unspoilt landscape, you can spot wildlife, from a vast array of coastal birds to Water Voles.

June Lockhart, the perennial TV mom who consoled her son Timmy and his faithful pet collie in “Lassie” and explained the unfolding galaxy to her children in the kitschy prime-time sci-fi show “Lost in Space,” has died.

Active in Hollywood well into her 90s, Lockhart died Thursday in Santa Monica of natural causes, with daughter June Elizabeth and granddaughter Christianna by her side, said her publicist, Harlan Boll.

She was 100.

Upbeat and bubbly, Lockhart happily accepted playing second-fiddle to children, animals and even a robot. In “Lassie,” she was most often seen teaching her son small life lessons extracted from his misadventures, often saved from peril by his faithful dog. In “Lost in Space,” she was a biochemist who seemed to spend most of her time prepping meals in the galley or tending to the children as the “Swiss Family Robinson”-like clan drifted randomly in space.

“Motherhood has been a pretty good dodge for me,” Lockhart told The Times, years after the shows went off the air. “I seem to have outlasted most of my colleagues because of it.”

Cast members of the TV show “Lost in Space” pose in costume in this 1965 publicity photo. Seated is Marta Kristen; standing, from left, is Mark Goddard, June Lockhart and Guy Williams.

(AP / CBS)

June Kathleen Lockhart was born on June 25, 1925, in New York City and grew up in a family steeped in the arts. Her father was a Broadway actor and her mother a singer. For years the family staged a seasonal production of “A Christmas Carol” in their home, inviting neighbors, friends and relatives to attend.

In 1938, the family went a step further and took their by now well-polished version of the Charles Dickens classic to film with a young Lockhart cast as Belinda Cratchit. The movie was all of one hour and nine minutes long.

Lockhart attended the Westlake School for Girls after the family moved to Los Angeles, where her father hoped to find a career as a film actor. But it was Lockhart who cracked Hollywood by landing modest but frequent roles on popular television shows such as “Wagon Train,” “Gunsmoke” and “Rawhide.”

In 1958, she was cast as Ruth Martin, the patient and good-natured mother on “Lassie,” a role that earned her an Emmy nomination. The show ran for 17 seasons, making it one of the longest-running prime-time shows on television. Lockhart left the series in 1964 to pursue other opportunities.

Lockhart realized the show had its limitations. “It was a fairy tale about people on a farm in which the dog solves all the problems in 22 minutes, just in time for the last commercial,” she told The Times.

The scripts were only slightly more challenging in “Lost in Space,” which followed the adventures of a family aboard a saucer-shaped spaceship headed to an Earth-like planet circling a faraway star. She left the show after three years and joined the cast of “Petticoat Junction” as a medical doctor who sets up practice in a worse-for-wear hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Earlier in life, Lockhart had been a regular on the news quiz show “Who Said That?” in which contestants were read a quote and asked to guess who said it. Lockhart had been absorbed by journalism and newsmakers since childhood, when she started a neighborhood newspaper. As an adult she subscribed to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, reading them from beginning to end.

To prep for the show, she began cutting out quotes from the newspapers and memorizing them. One of the panelists on the show, a White House reporter for United Press International, was so impressed with Lockhart‘s grasp of politics that he invited her to a White House briefing.

Lockhart went on to become an unofficial member of the White House press corps, attending briefings, traveling with the Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy entourages during their presidential showdown and hitting the campaign trail with Ronald Reagan.

June Lockhart in 1965.

(CBS via Getty Images)

During her years as an informal White House correspondent, she was called on only once to ask a question during a presidential briefing, asking President George W. Bush for the name of the veterinarian who cared for the first family’s dog, Barney. Bush chuckled and said it was top secret.

Though she never had another prime-time role as big as in “Lassie” or “Lost in Space,” her career was remarkably long. She was the kindergarten teacher on “Full House,” James Caan’s mother on “Las Vegas,” a mother once again on “The Drew Carey Show” and a hospice worker on “Grey’s Anatomy.” For years she hosted coverage of the Rose Parade on CBS.

Her final credit arrived in 2018, when she voiced a radio communications officer in the “Lost in Space” reboot on Netflix. Twice married and divorced, Lockhart is survived by daughters June Elizabeth and Anne, as well as four grandchildren, said longtime family friend, Lyle Gregory.

The service will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Actors Fund, ProPublica and International Hearing Dog Inc.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

BECKLEY, W.VA. — At a somber memorial for 29 coal miners Sunday, President Obama said it was a moral imperative for the U.S. to prevent the sort of underground explosion that triggered the worst mine disaster in four decades.

The president said he had been flooded with messages since the April 5 tragedy at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine, with people imploring him, “Don’t let this happen again.”

“How can we fail them?” Obama told about 2,800 mourners at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center. “How can a nation that relies on its miners not do everything in its power to protect them? How can we let anyone in this country put their lives at risk by simply showing up to work, by simply pursuing the American dream?”

He added: “Our task, here on Earth, is to save lives from being lost in another such tragedy. To do what we must do, individually and collectively, to assure safe conditions underground. To treat our miners like they treat each other, like a family. Because we are all family and we are all Americans.”

Obama’s eulogy came toward the end of a service that was an emotional testament to the human toll of unsafe mining conditions. The cause of the blast that killed the miners is under investigation, but high levels of methane are suspected. The explosive gas had to be vented from the mine and neutralized with nitrogen to allow rescue and recovery teams to enter.

At Sunday’s memorial, speakers described the fallen miners as NASCAR fans, hunters, fishermen, motorcycle enthusiasts – and football fans.

Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke before Obama, said, “They hated the way [college football] Coach [Rick] Rodriguez left West Virginia for Michigan.”

The service opened with a video tribute to the dead. Gayle Manchin, wife of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, read the name of each victim, whose picture was displayed for a full minute on a pair of oversized screens. The audience stood and clapped as each name was called.

At the base of the stage was a row of 29 crosses. Outside the hall, posters of each man were arranged in a corridor. Attached were small cards penned by family and friends.

Carl Acord, 52, was shown proudly displaying a fish he had caught. Others were pictured standing and smiling, relaxing in chairs or on beds, or posing in their best suits.

A card written for Edward Dean Jones, 50, read, “I am a coal miner’s daughter and granddaughter, and I love all miners for their work.”

Another for Joe Marcum, 57: “I love you more than words can express. Our whole world and lives have been changed and will never be the same.”

Those who attended cited a long, sad history of mining tragedies and called upon Obama to prevent more loss of life.

“I went to school with that boy right there,” Teresa Perdue, 51, said before the service, pointing to a picture of James “Eddie” Mooney. Perdue said she had family who worked in the mines. When she got word of the explosion, she said, she nervously made calls to see whether her relatives were among the casualties.

“I’m sorry, this should not have happened,” she said.

Asked about Obama’s presence, Perdue said: “It means a lot, and I think he’ll be the one who does something. I really do. I hope he does.”

Sitting in the audience was Don L. Blankenship, head of Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine. The White House said the president did not speak with him Sunday but did meet privately with family members of the victims.

Massey has been cited repeatedly over the mine. In 2009 alone, the Mine Safety and Health Administration issued 48 orders that workers be removed from parts of the mine for “repeated significant and substantial violations” constituting a hazard.

Two weeks ago, after Obama received a scathing report about the mine, he described Massey as a safety violator that should be held accountable. The report said the mine’s rate for such violations was nearly 19 times the national rate.

Massey, the nation’s sixth-largest coal mining firm, says it has a better-than-average safety record and has received safety awards during Obama’s tenure.

On Sunday, Biden said in his eulogy that the service wasn’t the right moment to talk about how to improve mine safety. But he promised that day would come.

“Certainly, nobody should have to sacrifice their life for their livelihood,” Biden said. “But as the governor and Sen. [Jay] Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said, we’ll have that conversation later.”

For now, Obama wanted to celebrate “lives lived,” not lost. He described the gritty reality of a miner’s work.

“Most days, they would emerge from the dark mine squinting at the light. Most days, they would emerge sweaty and dirty and dusted with coal. Most days, they would come home,” he said. “But not that day.”

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The United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew on Friday announced that he would give up the title of the Duke of York days before the publication of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, who had accused him of raping her after being trafficked by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Effective immediately, Prince Andrew will no longer sign off as the “Duke of York” or append “KG” – denoting Knight of the Garter – after his name. And the other titles will become inactive as well, like the His Royal Highness (HRH) honorific.

Giuffre, who died by suicide in April at the age of 41, had accused Andrew of forcing her to have sex on three occasions, including when she was underage. Though the disgraced UK prince denied Giuffre’s claims, he paid millions of dollars to settle a civil sexual assault case with her in 2022.

The 65-year-old was stripped of most of his titles and removed from royal duties in 2022 due to his connections to Epstein, who died by suicide in a United States prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His title decision came as he hit the headlines again in the wake of new revelations about his links to Epstein.

So, why has he “given up” his titles? What does it mean for the UK’s Royal Family? And what are his ties with US child sex offender Epstein?

What has the disgraced prince said?

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life,” Andrew added in the statement.

“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,” he said, adding that the continued accusations against him “distracted” the royal family.

He also used the statement, released via the Royal Family’s channels, to “vigorously deny the accusations” against him, as he has maintained.

What difference does it make to him?

Andrew had moved back to a largely private life in recent years, even though he remains part of the family, even if ceremonially, as brother of King Charles and uncle to Prince William and Prince Harry.

He has been shunned from using other titles given to him on his wedding day – the Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh. Theoretically, Andrew will retain the dukedom – that can only be removed by an act of parliament – but he will not use it.

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and Andrew’s ex-wife, would also not use her title. The titles of their two daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, will remain unaffected.

The couple will continue to live in the 30-room Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor, a Grade II-listed property.

However, the property has been leased from the Crown Estate, meaning he cannot sell it – as he did with Sunninghill Park home in 2007 for 15 million pounds ($20m) to Timor Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the then-president of Kazakhstan.

The 12-bedroom house near Windsor Castle was given to the disgraced prince as a wedding present from Queen Elizabeth.

What to know about Andrew?

Prince Andrew, earlier the Duke of York, is the second son and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip – making him the younger brother of King Charles III.

Born in 1960, he was once one of the more popular members of the British royal family, known for his military service as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot during the Falklands War in 1982.

But in recent years, Andrew has largely withdrawn from public life following intense scrutiny over frequent scandals. His ties to the convicted sex offender Epstein – which pushed him to step down from his royal duties in 2019 – has resurfaced after the release of new Epstein files in September.

Andrew was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages in 2022 after a US judge allowed a civil sexual abuse case against him to move to trial. He was also stripped of his role as the Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, one of the oldest regiments in the British army, by the queen.

Widely believed to be the late queen’s “favourite” child, other titles held by the disgraced royal will be rendered dormant – leaving “prince” as his only remaining title, one that cannot be stripped since he was born the son of a queen.

What are the accusations against Andrew?

In 2021, Giuffre, one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein, filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew in a US court, alleging that he had sexually abused her on multiple occasions, including when she was 17 years old – a minor under US law.

She claimed she was trafficked by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, and forced to have sex with the prince in London, New York, and the US Virgin Islands.

Prince Andrew has denied all allegations – even insisting that a now-infamous photograph that appeared to show them together was doctored.

The case was settled out of court in early 2022, with Andrew reportedly paying about 12 million pounds ($16m) – then causing widespread backlash over whether UK taxpayers’ money was used for the payout.

In April this year, Giuffre was found dead at her home near Perth, Australia. Her family confirmed the death as a suicide, attributing it to the emotional toll of her past abuse and ongoing personal struggles.

Last Friday, the US House Oversight Committee also released documents from Epstein’s estate showing “Prince Andrew” listed as a passenger on the convicted sex offender’s private jet, the Lolita Express, from Luton to Edinburgh in 2006.

What does Giuffre’s posthumous memoir say?

On Tuesday, Giuffre’s posthumous memoir goes on sale, where she details her time with the prince and Epstein. In the excerpts published by several media organisations, Giuffre wrote that Andrew believed sex with her was his “birthright”.

In the book, Nobody’s Girl, Giuffre describes her meetings with the prince – and also recounts what unfolded in London during their meet-up.

“Back at the house, [Ghislaine] Maxwell and Epstein said goodnight and headed upstairs, signalling it was time that I take care of the prince. In the years since, I’ve thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.

“He seemed in a rush to have intercourse. Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour,” she writes in her memoir.

“The next morning, Maxwell told me: ‘You did well. The prince had fun.’ Epstein would give me $15,000 for servicing the man the tabloids called ‘Randy Andy’.”

Giuffre’s family has lauded the decision of Andrew being forced to relinquish his titles as “vindication for Virginia”.

“We, the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, believe that Prince Andrew’s decision to give up his titles is vindication for our sister and survivors everywhere,” they said in a statement.

“Further, we believe it is appropriate for King Charles to remove the title of Prince.”

What were Andrew’s ties with US sex offender Epstein?

Prince Andrew is reported to have had a longstanding association with Epstein, a convicted child sex offender and financier from the US.

The relationship reportedly began in the 1990s, with Andrew socialising with Epstein in elite social circles in both the UK and the US. He is reported to have stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, his private Caribbean island, and flown on Epstein’s private jet on multiple occasions. Andrew was also listed on another flight to West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2000.

Epstein’s close associate, British socialite Maxwell, facilitated introductions between Andrew and other prominent figures, drawing him further into Epstein’s network. Maxwell is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.

The association came to public scrutiny after Giuffre in 2021 accused Andrew of sexual abuse.

In an infamous 2019 interview with BBC Newsnight, Andrew said he broke off his friendship with Epstein in December 2010.

But the release of new documents last month shows Andrew reportedly sent a mail three months after the interview. In the email, Andrew appeared to tell Epstein “we are in this together” after the two men were photographed together strolling in New York.

In 2008, Epstein had pleaded guilty to charges of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, for which he served 13 months in jail.

Epstein was found dead in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan in August 2019, awaiting a trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.

Has the prince been part of other scandals?

Andrew has been mired in a number of other scandals, including an instance of his “close confidant” being banned from the UK over allegations he was a Chinese spy.

Andrew reportedly held meetings in 2018 and 2019 with Cai Qi, a member of China’s ruling political bureau.

Cai was suspected by the UK government of being the recipient of sensitive information allegedly passed to China by two British nationals accused of spying for Beijing.

The nervy win in Dublin moves the Republic of Ireland up to third in Group F, a point behind Hungary, who boosted their chances of securing a play-off place with a dramatic late draw against Portugal.

The group is delicately poised with two games remaining. If Hungary beat Armenia in their next game, the Republic of Ireland must earn at least a point to take the battle for second place into their trip to Budapest on 16 November.

The Republic of Ireland’s chances have twice been hit by late goals during this window, having conceded a 91st-minute Ruben Neves goal in Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Portugal in Lisbon.

However, Azaz hopes the Irish players can build on that performance and Tuesday’s crucial win in their quest to upset Cristiano Ronaldo and co in Dublin on 13 November.

“We know it’s going to be tough, but we’ll take confidence from last week and this game and we’ll be confident we can do something special,” Azaz added.

“It’s going to be a big occasion, we saw the last game we can compete and they’re top players, but we have to be able to compete and no doubt we’ll be right up for it.”

Armenia boss Yegishe Melikyan said Barseghyan apologised to his team-mates after the game.

“Of course, the red card changed the game. It was a mistake,” said Melikyan.

“He took responsibility. He said sorry to the whole dressing room. But, if a player makes a mistake, it is also my mistake and for that I apologise.

“If there was no red card and we played 11 v 11, I think we could have got a good result. I thought we could have won, but we must go forward and I think we can get good results in the near future.”

Words don’t mean much for Kacey Musgraves and Carín León as Texas meets Sonora in the music video for their latest single, “Lost in Translation.”

The song, which dropped in August, is about how intimate connections between people can transcend languages and borders.

The newly-released video shows the pair gallivanting across the streets of the vibrant and not-so-tourist-filled streets of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Interspersed between scenes of the two musicians dancing and longing for each other are standalone shots of young Vallartenses donning colorful outfits and interacting with wildlife, while older men play card games and young adults perform dance routines.

In a press release for the single, Musgraves expressed how essential Mexican music has been in her own musical journey and formation.

“Growing up singing traditional country and western music, I’ve always loved exploring the borders of country and where it blends with other styles like Norteño and some regional Mexican sounds I heard a lot of in Texas,” she said.

The recording session for the song came about when the duo warmed up by singing one of León’s favorite songs: Juan Gabriel and Rocío Dúrcal’s “Fue Un Placer Conocerte.”

The collaboration isn’t León’s first bilingual rodeo; he collaborated with country singer Kane Brown for the 2024 single “The One (Pero No Como Yo)” and teamed with Leon Bridges for 2024’s “It Was Always You (Siempre Fuiste Tú).”

Last month, it was announced that León would be the first Latino artist to headline Las Vegas’ Sphere next year. The Mexican singer is set to perform three concerts as part of the city’s Mexican Independence Day celebrations, which are scheduled for Sept. 11, 12 and 13, 2026.

Musgraves has long been a champion for Mexican music. At a recent show in Mexico City, Musgraves performed a rendition of the ranchera classic “Tú, Solo Tú” alongside Mariachi Oro de América.

“Mucho respeto to the Mexican community. This is a tribute to your endless passion, hard work and valiance. (I could literally cry right now as I’m typing this bc I love y’all so much),” Musgraves wrote in an Oct. 4 Instagram post. “I am forever inspired by you and the Ranchera spirit. See y’all at the carne asada?”

Back in 2019, the “High Horse” artist sang a cover of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez’s hit “Como La Flor” at the Houston Rodeo.

“I love the queen Selena just as much as you do,” she told the crowd at Houston’s NRG Stadium. “This is our chance to honor her, by singing as loud as we can together.”

Comedian and TV star Paul O’Grady was set to be the host of Britain’s Got Talent and even have the show named after him until things got very heated behind the scenes

Former Britain’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan has revealed Paul O’Grady was meant to be the host for the hit talent show, until things went very wrong. The controversial broadcaster was part of the original line up on Simon Cowell’s talent show back in 2007.

Music mogul Simon was inspired by former talent shows including Opportunity Knocks and New Faces as he wanted to create a competition for people of any age and location to enter. He wanted a range of personalities on the judging panel with him, and first settled on Piers and Fern Britton.

Simon set his sights on comedian Paul as host and even planned to name the show, Paul O’Grady’s Got Talent. He met with Piers for lunch in Kensington, London to get him on board.

READ MORE: Britain’s Got Talent’s scramble to film auditions after Simon Cowell’s illnessREAD MORE: Simon Cowell’s real reason for pulling out of Britain’s Got Talent after head injury

Piers admitted: “I owe him a lot actually because I would not have had any career in America without him. He has been great for me. He said ‘I am going to bring back an old all-round talent show like New Faces, Opportunity Knocks and The Gong Show in America. It can be any talent’.”

The broadcaster explained: “We did a pilot at ITV. Paul O’Grady was the host. The judging panel was Simon Cowell, me, and Fern Britton. It was about to be greenlit as a prime-time ITV show.”

Piers said he was ready “to get back in the game” but things quickly took a turn and the production was halted. He said: “Then Paul O’Grady had a massive falling out with ITV, told them to shove it and went to Channel 4.”

At the time, the Paul O’Grady Show moved over to Channel 4 and ITV stopped him being able to rent their studios. Paul decided to refuse all work with the network following the row.

He explained years later: “I did the pilot for Britain’s Got Talent – which was originally going to be called Paul O’Grady’s Got Talent. But I told the producers they were having a joke if they thought I would front a show with that title.

“The original panel of judges was going to be Simon Cowell, Fern Britton and Piers Morgan. I was the host. Then when I had the row with ITV I was banned from the studios.

“I remember I rang Simon and told him he had a huge hit on his hands, but there was no way I could do it. I said, if I am banned I have to be banned from everything. I can’t be a hypocrite and come in and do this. I had to bow out.”

Paul added: “I don’t regret what I did. Not in the slightest. Good luck to them.” He did also manage to patch things up with ITV and returned years later with Paul O’Grady Live!.

Paul’s decision to boycott ITV meant Britain’s Got Talent was hit with a huge delay and Simon decided to kick off with America’s Got Talent first. Simon enlisted Piers again as he wanted “someone who is judgmental, opinionated, obnoxious and arrogant” as him.

Britain’s Got Talent hit screens a year later with Simon, Piers and Amanda Holden as judges and Ant and Dec as hosts. Piers said on The Overlap and Betfair’s Stick to Cricket show: “He had literally come up with the entire concept of Got Talent on a napkin at the Ivy in Kensington.

“Bring back a talent show. Have a tough mean judge, a mother hen figure, a funny person and any talent goes. Now the Got Talent franchise is in more than 60 countries around the world. It changed my life.”

READ MORE: Shoppers ditch cheap tights for pair that ‘feel soft, warm and comfortable’

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Ruhi Çenet, a Turkish YouTuber who’s gained a reputation for visiting some of the planet’s most hard-to-reach destinations, travelled to a place where temperatures can drop to below -60°C

An intrepid travel vlogger, who has visited the coldest inhabited place on Earth, almost lost his nose to the elements in just 15 minutes. Ruhi Çenet, a Turkish YouTuber and travel vlogger who’s gained a reputation for visiting some of the planet’s most hard-to-reach destinations, travelled to Oymyakon, in Sakha Republic, Russia, where temperatures can drop to -67.7°C, the lowest ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.

Oymyakon, also home of the lowest temperature recorded outside Antarctica, has (as of reports from 2024) roughly 2,000 inhabitants and lies in the Oymyakon plateau, situated in what the Guardian describes as a “bowl-shaped depression” with a dry, frosty climate.

In the video, titled The Coldest Village on Earth: Oymyakon, Ruhi flew east from Moscow over seven hours and then travelled 900km to the Siberian settlement, where a thermometer displayed an icy -60.5°C upon arrival at 2am.

Ruhi was later filmed donning more than 20 layers of clothing “just to stay alive”, including reindeer fur boots, trousers, and a coat, as he prepared to step out from a 30°C home and take on the icy elements.

In words spoken by a narrator, the vlogger, who had ice crystals forming on his eyelashes and stinging skin within seconds of being outside, explained how the settlement is so cold that mobile phones stop working, and any cars left exposed to the cold freeze in just a few hours.

Ruhi held his thumb up to the camera, showing a large, yellow blister forming on his skin, and, in two striking shots, he was also filmed holding up the frozen corpses of a wolf and what appeared to be a rabbit.

Later on in the video, in a segment covering the working day of a local cattle farmer named Yevdokiya, Ruhi’s face suddenly went numb.

In words spoken by the narrator: “I couldn’t move the muscle on the left side, like I was having facial paralysis. When my nose started freezing. Yevdokiya noticed right away.”

Next, the camera filmed a close-up of Ruhi’s nose, which, after staying outside for “just over 15 minutes”, had started to turn white along the tip in patches, an unmistakable sign of a serious condition. He asked: “Is it frostbite?”, to which the answer was a resounding, “Yeah”.

The narrator continued: “The cold shrinks the blood vessels and eventually reduces blood circulation. Without enough warmth, water inside each cell freezes into ice crystals, causing the cells to rupture and triggering a stabbing pain and tissue to die.”

Ruhi was quickly advised to cover his face and be careful or it “might turn black”. As the team rushed back to a group of buildings, it was detailed how, from that point onwards, Ruhi wasn’t able to spend more than 10 minutes at a time outside, or he would risk the frostbite getting worse.

Fortunately, Yevdokiya presented what she described as a “cure” for the condition. She held what appeared to be a medicine bottle containing aloe and alcohol, and proceeded to dip a swab in the mixture and hand it to Ruhi.

According to the narrator (who translated), she said: “You soak it like this and apply it to the area that’s frozen and don’t rub it, okay? Otherwise, you’ll damage the vessels and the capillaries and it’ll lead to sores.”

Ruhi, who proceeded to hold the swab to his nose (and filming then continued), appeared to be unscathed by his brush with frostbite by the end of the video.

Recently, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that US support for “everything that the Israeli government is doing” limits the EU’s leverage to change the situation on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

Subsequently, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, proposed sanctions to Israeli ministers and partial suspension of Israel trade deal. On Wednesday, the EU Commission’s review discovered – after 21 months of mass atrocities in Gaza and violent pogroms in the West Bank – that actions taken by the Israeli government in the Palestinian-occupied territories represent a ‘breach of essential elements relating to respect for human rights and democratic principles,’ which permits the EU to suspend the agreement unilaterally.

Recently, these sentiments were reinforced with the recognition of the state of Palestine by U.S. allies – the UK, Canada and Australia – and more recently by France. 

Observers of Brussels declared that the EU had become tough on genocide. In reality, it was a last-minute effort by the two EU leaders to fuse rising outrage against EU’s Gaza policies and charges they were complicit in Israel’s atrocities.

How Kallas emboldened Israel in Gaza

Addressing the annual EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) conference in Brussels, Kajas said that US backing of Israel undermines EU leverage to stop the “Gaza war.” Yet, the United States has supported Israel for more than half a century.

“We are struggling because 27 member states have different positions,” on the issue, Kallas explained. “Europe can only use full force when it acts together.” In this way, accessorial complicity is first deflected to Washington and then attributed to the absence of European unity, which Kallas has long called for, to confront Russia. In other words, the EU Gaza apology was a thinly-veiled effort for a plea to unity Kallas hoped to turn against Russia in Ukraine.

When asked about “double-standard” accusations towards the bloc on its Gaza policy, Kallas said it is not true that the EU is inactive on Gaza. Yet, previously she had opposed intervention in Gaza. In mid-July, Kallas and the foreign ministers of the EU member states chose not to take any action against Israel over alleged war crimes in the Gaza war and settler violence in the West Bank.

The then-proposed sanctions against Israel would have included suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, suspending visa-free travel, and blocking imports from Israeli settlements. This decision emboldened the Netanyahu cabinet, which saw the EU’s decision not to impose sanctions on Israel as a diplomatic victory. It also led UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese to conclude that EU officials like Kallas were complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, accounting for a third of Israel’s total trade in goods with the world in 2024, whereas Israel is only the EU’s 31^st largest trading partner. Consequently, the EU could easily have sanctioned Israeli trade right after the first genocidal atrocities in late 2023, yet it chose not to. Why?

How von der Leyen undermined EU’s credibility

Von der Leyen has a track-record of intimate relations with Israel. It was a source of controversy already before the Gaza catastrophe. On the 75^th anniversary of Israel’s independence, half a year before October 7, 2023, she referred to Israel as a “vibrant democracy” in the Middle East that made “the desert bloom.” These remarks were criticized as racist by the foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority because they erased the history of Palestinians in what is today Israel.

After the Hamas offensive, von der Leyen was criticized by EU lawmakers and diplomats for supporting Israel and not calling for a ceasefire. A week after October 7, she rushed to visit Israel to express solidarity, even as the Netanyahu cabinet spoke openly on the coming destruction of Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Then-EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized her for the pro-Israeli stance which “had a high geopolitical cost for Europe.”

The visit and the rhetoric also sparked furor among 841 EU staff who signed a letter to von der Leyen criticizing her stance on the conflict. In their view, the commission was giving “a free hand to the acceleration and the legitimacy of a war crime in the Gaza Strip” and warned that the EU was “losing all credibility and the position as a fair, equitable and humanist broker.”

In reality, that credibility has eroded for years. By the early 2020s, more than 800 European financial institutions, including Europe’s most luminous financial giants, had financial relationships with over 50 businesses that were actively involved with Israeli settlements.

Why the belated moral outrage

Recently, the European Commission presented a proposal for tougher measures against Israel to the European Union, which featured suspending parts of the EU-Israel trade agreement and sanctioning Israeli far-right ministers and some West Bank settlers, along with Hamas leadership. These measures are very much in line with the EC chief’s previous warning. But why do they come only now – after 21 months of genocidal atrocities, the obliteration of Gaza and a quarter of a million killed or injured Palestinians?

A qualified majority vote among EU governments will still be required to pass the measures, with the support of at least 15 of the 27 EU members representing two-thirds of the EU population.

Moreover, von der Leyden’s Gaza criticism was carefully calculated to limit the scope of possible sanctions. “Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war,” she said. “For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity – this must stop.”

Yet, Israel’s weaponized famines did not start few weeks ago. They date from the 2006 Palestine democratic election, which was won by Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank. It led to Israel’s blockade, which was supported by the U.S. and the EU, and the Israeli-manufactured famine, designed to starve Gaza. The blockade paved the way to almost two decades of impoverishment, hunger, unemployment and thus to October 7, 2023. But it did not trigger condemnations by von der Leyden or the then-EU leaders.

Worse, the world witnessed the first starving victims in Gaza already in spring 2024. Yet, neither von Der Leyden nor other European leaders demanded the end to Israel’s actions at the time. And by the turn of 2023/24, still another famine way ensued, with similar silence in Brussels. It was only the third wave of famine in mid-2025 that changed their views. But why?

“What is happening in Gaza,” von der Leyden said, “has shaken the conscience of the world… These images are simply catastrophic.” That was the difference: not the realities of weaponized famines, which the world had witnessed for almost two decades in Gaza, but the images.

As those photos of starved bodies, particularly of children and babies, could no longer be halted or sidelined in international media, EU politicians, pushed by their constituencies, were compelled to act.

What European leaders chose not to do

It was when the European leaders were charged for accessorial complicity that von der Leyden and Kallas reacted. What the former proposed was “a package of measures” against Israel over its ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza. Or as she put it – and let’s italicize the key terms – “We will propose sanctions on the extremist ministers and on violent settlers. And we will also propose a partial suspension of the Association Agreement on trade-related matters.”

The EU would not use its full arsenal to change Israel’s conduct. It would only go after a few ministers of the Netanyahu cabinet, but not the cabinet itself, even though most of its members had been complicit to the Gaza catastrophe with some supporting even harsher measures, including “nuking” Gaza.

Similarly, the EU would only go after a few token settlers, not the illegal settlements that now house up to 750,000 Jewish settlers. Nor would the EU go after hardline Israeli politicians and civil administrators who have been preparing the incorporation of the West Bank into the pre-1967 Israel since their electoral triumph in late 2022.

The ties between Israel and the United States have expanded from hedging and strategic partnership into a virtual symbiosis. Since 1950, Israel has received more than $120 billion in U.S. aid, most of it in military aid; after October 7, this aid has soared up to $23 billion. But Washington is not Israel’s only ally. In the past half a decade, only three countries—the US (66% of Israel’s total arms imports), Germany (33%) and Italy (1%) —have supplied most of Israel’s arms.

Several other European countries have supplied vital military components, ammunition and services, including the UK, France and Spain. Meanwhile, small EU members like the tiny Finland are increasingly reliant on Israeli arms imports.

The elevated arms transfers reflect the contested European shift toward rearmament, at the expense of welfare and social services – despite the soaring challenges of aging demographics and climate change.

Genocide investigation against von der Leyen

Both Washington and Brussels are complicit to mass atrocities, due to their arms exports to Israel and financing through military aid, not to mention diplomatic and intelligence support. Article 3 of the Genocide Convention defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention, and these crimes include complicity.

In May 2024, the Geneva International Peace Research Institute (GIPRI), an NGO with UN consultative status, requested an investigation against the EC president, Ursula von der Leyen, for complicity in war crimes and genocide against Palestinian civilians. Her complicity was attributed to “violations of Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute by her positive actions (military, political, diplomatic support to Israel) and by her failure to take timely action on behalf of the European Commission to help prevent genocide as required by the 1948 Genocide Convention.”

According to Professor William Schabas, perhaps the leading scholar of genocide, ”von der Leyen is clearly reflecting a position taken by many EU-governments, which is one of very unconditional support of Israel, and they’re doing this flying in the face of public information suggesting that Israel is committing terrible crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.”

The issue with too many European leaders is no longer only the crime of complicity, but also the concerted effort to deny that Israel’s crimes and atrocities against Palestinians constitute genocide. Such denials should be seen as a form of “incitement” to hatred and violence, condemned by the Genocide Convention.

Legal efforts to go after genocide complicity entered a new stage recently, when a group of lawyers filed a criminal complaint against German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, key government officials and arms trade executives on Friday. A dozen high-ranking officials of the former and current German government and CEOs of arms manufacturers were accused of aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, by the European Legal Support Center (ELSC). “Given the undeniable, genocidal consequences of this support, we seek to hold them accountable,” said Nadija Samour, ELSC’s senior legal officer.

Recently, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez noted that “what we’re now witnessing in Gaza is perhaps one of the darkest episodes of international relations in the 21^st century.”

Tragically, the European leaders share full accessorial complicity in the decimation of Gaza and the genocide of its residents, plus the incorporation of the West Bank – that is, the massive moral collapse that is likely to cast a long, dark shadow over the 21^st century because what has happened in Gaza is likely to be replicated elsewhere, with even more lethal results.

Author’s note: Building on The Obliteration Doctrine, the original commentary was published by Antiwar.com on September 23, 2025.

VLADIMIR Putin has revealed the moment he had a dice with death while riding a motorbike.

The ageing Russian tyrant shared an anecdote of how he almost died as he tried to fire up the engine.

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Speaking to defence minister Andrei Belousov, he said the incident was a time when he “dodged” death.

But Putin did not reveal when or where the moment happened in his story.

The 72-year-old despot said: “I once got on a motorcycle, revved it.

“And it went into a spin and flipped over.

“I just dodged it at the last second. It fell right next to me.”

Putin has long sought to cultivate an image as a macho tough guy as part of his domestic persona.

He has frequently been pictured shirtless doing outdoors activities and sports to reinforce his personality cult.

The tyrant shared the motorbike anecdote dressed in military fatigues – despite being hundreds of miles from the war zone.

He spoke last week at the culmination of anti-Western war games involving Russia and Belarus.

In the past, Putin has appeared with the Night Wolves motorcycle club to help foster his macho image.

The Russian President was photographed riding a Russian-made Ural motorcycle with a sidecar in 2019.

It comes as the warmongering despot’s brutal attacks against Ukraine continue to intensify.

The Kremlin’s forces have launched devastating strikes on Ukraine over the past days.

Yesterday, The Sun reported that Russia had launched 580 drones and 40 cruise and ballistic missiles overnight.

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At least three people were killed and 13 others injured in the savage attacks.

And earlier this week, Russian jets violated NATO airspace over Estonia.

Three MiG-31 jets flew over Vaindloo Island and stayed there for nearly 12 minutes.

NATO allies scrambled Italian F-35s to repel the planes – which had their transponders turned off.

Security expert Will Geddes told The Sun: “What we’re increasingly seeing is incursions into NATO country airspace, whether that be Poland, quite recently on September 10, with drones, whether it be Romania, or now Estonia.

“This is becoming increasingly concerning, as NATO has a joint agreement in terms of protecting their airspace.”

He added: “I think what it really comes down to is the fact that Russia is testing NATO countries, and testing their aerial defence measures.”

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Noorgal, Kunar, Afghanistan – Four months ago, Nawab Din returned to his home village of Wadir, high in the mountains of Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, after eight years as a refugee in Pakistan.

Today, he lives in a tent on his own farmland. His house was destroyed nearly three weeks ago by the earthquake that has shattered the lives of thousands of others in this region.

“We are living in tent camps now,” the 55-year-old farmer said, speaking at his cousin’s shop in the nearby village of Noorgal. “Our houses were old, and none were left standing … They were all destroyed by big boulders falling from the mountain during the earthquake.”

Din’s struggle captures the double disaster facing a huge number of Afghans. He is among more than four million people who have returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The August 31 earthquake killed about 2,200 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes, compounding a widespread economic crisis.

“We lost everything we have worked for in Pakistan, and now we lost everything here,” Din adds.

Until four months ago, he had been living in Daska, a city in Pakistan’s Sialkot District, for eight years after fleeing his village in Afghanistan when ISIL (ISIS) fighters told him to join them or leave.

“I refused to join ISIL and I was forced to migrate to Pakistan,” he explains.

His exile ended abruptly this year as the Pakistani government continues its nationwide crackdown on undocumented foreign nationals.

He describes how Pakistani police raided his house, taking him and his family to a camp to be processed for deportation. “I returned from Pakistan as we were told our time there was finished and we had to leave,” he says.

“We had to spend two nights at Torkham border crossing until we were registered by Afghan authorities, before we could return to our village.”

This struggle is echoed across Kunar. Some 12km from Noorgal, in the village of Barabat, 58-year-old Sadat Khan sits next to the rubble of the home he had been renting until the earthquake struck.

Khan returned from Pakistan willingly as his health was failing and he could no longer find work to support his wife and seven children. Now, the earthquake has taken what little he had left.

“I was poor in Pakistan as well. I was the only one working and my entire family was depending on me,” he tells Al Jazeera. “We don’t know where the next meal will come from. There is no work here. And I have problems with my lungs. I have trouble breathing if I do more effort.”

He says his request to local authorities for a tent for his family has so far gone unanswered.

“I went to the authorities to request a tent to install here,” he says. “We haven’t received anything, so I asked someone to give me a room for a while, for my children. My uncle had mercy on me and let me stay in one room in his house, now that the winter is coming.”

One crisis out of many

The earthquake is only the most visible of the crises that returnees from Iran and Pakistan are facing.

“Our land is barren, and we have no stream or river close to the village,” says Din. “Our farming and our life depend entirely on rainfall, and we haven’t seen much of it lately. Other people wonder how can we live there with such severe water shortage.”

Dr Farida Safi, a nutritionist working at a field hospital set up by Islamic Relief in Diwa Gul valley after the quake, says malnutrition is becoming a major problem.

“Most of the people affected by the quake that come to us have food deficiency, mostly due to the poor diet and the lack of proper nutrition they had access to in their village,” she explains. “We have to treat many malnourished children.”

Kunar’s Governor, Mawlawi Qudratullah, told Al Jazeera that the Kunar authorities have started building a new town that will include 382 residential plots, according to the plan.

This initiative in Khas Kunar district is part of the national programmes directed by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, with an objective of providing permanent housing for Afghan returnees. However, it is unclear how long it will take to build these new homes or if farmland will also be given to returnees.

“It will be for those people who don’t have any land or house in this province,” Qudratullah said. “And this project has already started, separate from the crisis response to the earthquake.”

But for those living in or next to the ruins of their old homes, such promises feel distant. Back in Noorgal, Nawab Din is consumed by the immediate fear of aftershocks from the earthquake and the uncertainty of what comes next.

“I don’t know if the government will relocate us down in the plains or if they will help us rebuild,” he says, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “But I fear we might be forced to continue to live in a camp, even as aftershocks continue to hit, sometimes so powerful that the tents shake.”

Disasters are real — also, these days, frighteningly common, be they epic confluences of nature and negligence or the murderous and preventable kind. And when it comes to disaster movies, it’s hard to know what the acceptable level of exploitation is.

Of course, director Paul Greengrass could never be confused with the unseriousness of producer Irwin Allen (“The Towering Inferno”) or filmmaker Roland Emmerich (“The Day After Tomorrow”), ringmasters who preferred heaping helpings of A-listers on slick, expensive calamities. Rather, when Greengrass, coming from documentaries, tackles dark days of mass casualty, they tend to be true stories like “United 93” and “Bloody Sunday.” His stripped-down, jagged style, absent marquee names and focused on such issues as terrorism and community, brings intelligent urgency to the unfathomable.

With his new film “The Lost Bus,” however, starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, about the real-life effort to save a busload of schoolchildren from the 2018 Camp fire, a wildfire that would destroy most of Paradise, Calif., Greengrass is trying to merge the two sensibilities. This time he mixes star heroism with you-are-there spectacle and the results can be galvanizing if awkwardly framed.

“The Lost Bus” is not as potent as Greengrass’ “Captain Phillips,” in which Tom Hanks anchored a re-created reality no less pulse-pounding than any action blockbuster. Instead the director seems to be in a programmatic mode. There are scenes of nerve-jangling terror that weld you to your seat, but they’re sandwiched in between a lot that feels very much sculpted for three-act character arc effect by Greengrass and co-writer Brad Ingelsby.

McConaughey plays Paradise bus driver Kevin McKay, whose life is almost comically scripted to come off as especially challenged before one lick of flame gets near it: strapped for cash, dying dog, recently dead father (no love lost), sullen teenage son (love lost), ex-wife (also unhappy) and a memory-ailing mother. But on the afternoon of Nov. 18 as the fires reach eastern Paradise, Kevin’s is the only bus that can meet a request from his dispatcher (Ashlie Atkinson): Pick up stranded elementary schoolkids and evacuate them to safety.

A failed dad feeling the weight of sudden responsibility, Kevin corrals as co-chaperone a schoolteacher (America Ferrera). Though Mary is a mother eager to get to her own child, she’s willing to help. The occasional cut to Yul Vazquez as the fire chief spearheading rescue efforts, however, is this movie’s barometer of increasingly bad news. As smoke quickly darkens the day and the unstoppable, town-hopping fire hems in the bus, cutting off routes, the journey takes a dystopian turn, raising the stakes and alarm levels to unimaginable heights. (Eaton and Palisades survivors, fair warning — you were never going to watch this anyway.)

McConaughey is solid casting, his unshowy working-class fortitude slightly tinged with fear. In his and Ferrera’s sturdy presence and in the serrated frenzy of Greengrass’ editing style, a shorter, tighter “The Lost Bus” would still hold plenty of dread and dramatic resilience. The fire sequences alone, captured in the hellish fuzz of Pål Ulvik Rokseth’s cinematography, are pinnacles of this practical-meets-digital-effects discipline. But Kevin’s dippy redemption arc, doled out midperil in tortured glances and forced dialogue, drags us out of the intensity.

It’s also odd that the activist-minded Greengrass didn’t do more with so corporate a villain: legally responsible utility PG&E, represented in the movie by an ineffectual suit who is briefly yelled at. Forget that redemption story — Greengrass could have leaned even more into those action tropes and, as a final touch, had McConaughey punch PG&E in the jaw.

A TEENAGER who was mauled by a shark recalled the terrifying moment she “raised her arm out of the water and saw she had no hand”.

Lulu Gribbin, 15, was enjoying a beach day in Florida last summer when she lost her arm and leg in the brutal attack.

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She and her family had heard speculation that a shark was in the sea by the beach they were at in Walton County, northwest Florida.

But it wasn’t until the teen saw “a shadow” in the water that panic set in.

She told ABC News: “I never saw a tail or a fin. I never saw its eyes.”

After spotting a “glimpse” of the shark’s body, she initially started swimming as fast as she could.

But after recalling advice she had heard in a movie, she stopped – thinking her frantic movements would encourage the shark to chase her.

It was then that her life would drastically change forever.

She said: “I told everyone to just calm down…and the next thing I know is that I raised my hand out of the water and there just was no hand there.”

Lulu was rushed to the shore where her twin sister, Ellie, sat by her side, keeping her calm and ensuring she remained conscious until paramedics arrived.

Meanwhile, doctors on the beach wrapped a tourniquet around Lulu’s injuries.

Her mom, Ann Blair Gribbin, said she rushed to the beach when her daughter didn’t pick up her phone.

Comparing her child’s injuries to something out of a movie, she said she found her “lifeless” with her “eyes closed, and her mouth white and pale”.

She said: “All I could say was, ‘Just keep breathing. Please keep breathing. God, please let her keep breathing.

“We didn’t know anything, no idea if she was alive.”

The teen was then airlifted to a Pensacola hospital where she underwent multiple surgeries leading to her leg and arm being amputated.

Doctors said she had also lost around two-thirds of the blood in her body.

Following the horror incident, her mom paid tribute to the doctors who saved Lulu’s life.

She also described her daughter as a “miracle” admitting the family’s life will “be forever changed”.

Ann said: “At this point, we will have multiple surgeries in the days to come and our lives will be forever changed.

“She is truly a miracle.  We have a long road ahead and our journey is just beginning!”

MULTIPLE ATTACKS

Lulu wasn’t the only victim that day.

According to the teen, there was another shark attack just 90 minutes before just a few miles down the coast.

She said: “If I wouldn’t known about this, I wouldn’t have been in the water”.

Lulu’s friend McCray was also bitten on her foot, and officials suspect the same beast attacked three other people.

This spate of maulings were the first in the county for three years, with the last fatality recorded in Walton County in 2005.

Cops in the area, however, stressed that sharks are always present in the Gulf.

Officers previously said: “Swimmers and beachgoers should be cautious when swimming and stay aware of their surroundings”.

Her brutal attack comes as a little boy was mercilessly savaged off the Florida coast by a blacktip shark earlier this month.

The blacktip shark rushed Richard Burrows, his sister Rose, and his dad, David, as they snorkeled at Horseshoe Reef, about four miles off Key Largo, at around 3 pm on September 1.

Richard was bitten above his right knee and on his arm, leaving him gushing blood in the water as his dad and sister scrambled to help.

David quickly applied a tourniquet to Richard’s leg to stop the bleeding, which doctors later said helped to save his life.

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Sarah McLachlan’s singing voice is one of the wonders of the pop music world.

It has alternately belted out and whispered hit songs (“Adia,” “Building a Mystery”) as well as the most devastating Disney song of all time (Randy Newman’s “When She Loved Me” from “Toy Story 2”) and is a pristine musical instrument. It can elegantly vault octaves, scoop notes without a croaky glottal fry and crack words into multi-note, velvety yodels. It can be breathy and ethereal or a searing flamethrower — and she transforms into an angelic chorus of one when she tracks layers of her own harmonies.

So it was downright terrifying when McLachlan almost lost this voice last November, when a viral infection silenced it while she was preparing for the Canadian leg of her “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” anniversary tour. She had already finished recording the vocals for her new album, “Better Broken” — out Friday — and she was uncharacteristically proud of the results.

“It was this whole last winter of, like, ‘OK, I love this record so much, and I might not be able to sing it,’” says McLachlan, 57. “I might never be able to sing like that again.”

“Better Broken” is McLachlan’s first record of new songs in 11 years. She’s spent the past decade, not in exile, but just living a normal life in West Vancouver, raising her two daughters; India is 23, Taja is 18. “I was a very busy parent,” she says. “My little one is a big dancer, so I was full-on dance mom.”

Sitting casually in an office space in Century City, the veteran songstress had just dropped her youngest at college 24 hours earlier. (“I’m still OK,” she insists. “When I have to fly home, I’m gonna be a mess — but right now I’m good.”)

The two girls are “wildly different, they’re night and day,” McLachlan says. Both sing with her on a fiery feminist anthem, “One in a Long Line,” on the new record. “They’re both beautiful and strong and fierce in their own ways, and I’m still amazed that they came out as well as they did. I tried so hard to be the opposite of my mother. And it turns out I was a lot like her in so many ways, in the end.”

She has also been busy as a maternal figure (and until recently, principal fundraiser) for the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, a free after-school program with three locations in Canada. She launched the foundation that begat her school in 2002 with some of the funds she earned from Lilith Fair — the all-female music festival, also her brainchild — as a way to keep the spirit of that phenomenon going.

McLachlan had already donated much of the profits of Lilith Fair to women’s charities, and “I wanted that energy to be transferred to something,” she says, “and to be able to create that same kind of safe space where everybody has a voice, everybody is seen, heard and valued, and they all have agency in what they’re doing and how they’re creating.”

A new Hulu documentary, “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery,” will premiere Sept. 21. McLachlan was interviewed alongside Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Natalie Merchant and many others who were involved or inspired by the late ’90s movement — which was somewhat rebuked in the early 2000s by a wave of plasticky, image-based corporate pop, but which more or less prophesied our current musical moment dominated by soul-baring women singer-songwriters.

McLachlan is an admitted Swiftie (“Folklore” and “Evermore” are her favorites), and it’s impossible not to see her own influence on the likes of Swift, Brandi Carlile, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish. When I interviewed Eilish about her song “What Was I Made For” in 2023, I suggested that her gossamer vocals reminded me of McLachlan’s.

“I love, love, love Sarah McLachlan,” Eilish said, beaming. “I always have.”

So, plenty of talented acolytes filled the void McLachlan left during her lengthy hiatus, and “it was really an easy shift for me to step out of the limelight,” she admits. “I’ve never liked being famous.”

Sarah McLaughlin.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Growing up in Nova Scotia, the third child (all adopted) of an unhappy marriage, McLachlan found her voice and her confidence in music. Her mother was a voice of discouragement and defeatism, and McLachlan feels she was “raised by wolves”: “I left the house at 9 a.m. and didn’t come home until I absolutely had to, and I was on my own. I had to pick myself up and figure out how to soothe myself — and thank god for music, because that was the thing that got me through. Music was my mother, really.”

Throughout her childhood, she formally studied piano and guitar and had years of classical voice training. But “honestly, I just faked it,” she says of the voice lessons. “I could pretend to sing opera. I can mimic anything.” She didn’t much care for classical vocal music, but her golden voice won her a record contract at 19, which took her out to Vancouver. During those early album sessions, where she was also learning how to write songs, she kept blowing out her voice “because I didn’t really know how to control it.”

She contacted a local singing coach, who told McLachlan to run around the block as fast as she could. “I came back panting, and she goes, ‘Lie on the floor. Now breathe for me. Do you recognize that feeling? That’s your diaphragm actually working. Now sing me something with that feeling in mind.’”

Initially, McLachlan styled her singing after Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, which most reviews of her debut album (1988’s “Touch”) pointed out. With her sophomore album, “Solace,” she “purposely made a concerted effort to move away from that,” McLachlan says, “because I wanted to know what I sounded like.”

She gives credit to her longtime Canadian producer, Pierre Marchand, “who was instrumental in creating that foundation for me. Because at the beginning of the second record, he’s like, ‘I know you can do all that flowery stuff. I want to hear what you sound like. I want you to sing low.’ So he forced me to sing way lower than I normally do, and that’s kind of where my natural register came up.”

With Marchand, McLachlan climbed the charts of ’90s pop; “Aida” and “Angel” were top 10 mainstays, and the albums “Surfacing” (1997) and “Afterglow” (2003) both went platinum.

“Afterglow” — which featured such addictive bops as “World on Fire” and “Train Wreck” — was made right as she started her journey as a mother. “I tried to get as much of it done while I was pregnant,” she says, “knowing that life was going to completely change.” Nine months after giving birth and “starting to feel human again,” she returned to a studio in Los Feliz to finish it, while renting Dan Aykroyd’s house in the Hollywood Hills — “and punctuated by, you know, I have to go home and breastfeed.”

“Better Broken” is a bookend to that moment, coming out right as her children are emptying the nest. It, too, was made in Los Angeles — but this time without Marchand.

“I wanted to be put out of my comfort zone,” she says. “I wanted to be challenged. Pierre and I worked beautifully together, but we have our complacencies and our habits, and I wanted to be pushed out of that, and try something new. It’s like dating! I felt a little bit like I was cheating on him … but he gave me his blessing.”

She turned to Tony Berg and Will Maclellan, two California-based producers who have shaped albums by Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, boygenius and other young stars.

“I went in with a ton of trepidation,” she says, “and a ton of, not insecurity, but just like: Well, I think these are really good songs, but it’s been so long since I made a record…”

“Three days in, I’m like: Oh, this is going to be great.”

And she has discovered new parts of herself.

The years away from making new music and the experiences of life, both joyful and scarring, have refined her voice like a barrel-aged wine. The new songs are diary entries about an unpleasant breakup (“Wilderness”), loving a teenage daughter who is filled with rage (“Gravity”) and surrendering at the apocalypse (“If This is the End…”). Berg and company wrapped lo-fi textures, warm and wobbly, around McLachlan’s vocals (and piano, and guitar) in a way that simultaneously feels very much like 2025 and an old, unearthed vinyl.

The title track, which McLachlan started writing 13 years ago, is an instantly unforgettable melody; the chorus (“Let it be / all it is / small and still…”) has her incrementally climbing, climbing — then athletically pirouetting in midair on the line “and better left alone.”

She says she writes her songs through exploration, just playing piano and making sounds with her voice: “And because I have a relatively versatile instrument in my voice, I just try things and see where it goes. Melodies often appear with a couple of chord progressions, and that’s usually the start of things. It’s melody long before lyrics — you sort of say random things, and it’s about how vowels and consonants roll off your tongue.”

“I don’t know how to be any other way,” she adds. “I like to see what my voice can do and where it can go, and push it to the edges of pretty, and make it sound gruff and unpleasant and ‘how ugly can I make that with it still sounding kind of cool?’”

Leaving the limelight, getting broken and finding new love — and then almost losing her voice — Sarah McLachlan found new depths and heights in her priceless voice. It was worth the wait.

OPENING up her bank account, Grace Parkin can hardly believe how healthy her balance is – and it’s all thanks to Mounjaro.

The mum-of-one says the weight-loss jab has not only helped her slim down to a size 12 from 26, dropping 9st – but it’s stopped her £1k-a-month “boredom spending” sprees.

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The estate manager, from Sheffield, had been looking into weight loss surgery but decided to try Mounjaro in May 2024 as a less invasive way to shed the pounds.

Grace, 34, was 17st 9lbs before starting the weekly injections and has now lost 9st 4lbs, making her a slender 10st 7lbs and a size 12.

But she credits the drug, which she is still taking, with not only helping her control her diet but also her out-of-control spending habits.

Previously, the mum-of-one was blowing up to £1,000 a month on luxuries including clothes, eating out and alcohol.

She told The Sun: “I was an impulsive spender before.

“I was spending between £600 and £1,000 a month on recreational things. I’d just be buying shoes – trainers, Uggs, boots.

“Then it would be buying loads of jumpers and holiday clothes, even when I’d not booked a holiday.”

Grace said at her worst, she could spend up to £300 while sat on the sofa.

She explains: “I wasn’t getting into debt, but if I was bored in an evening – I’d buy from Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing, Shein – any brands that did plus-sized clothes.”

Meanwhile, Grace impulsively went on shopping trips several times a week purely for the thrill.

She said: “Two or three times a week, I’d be in my local shopping centre and would come out with bags of stuff. I’d go to Primark and pick up five or six tracksuits for my son.

“I was void-filling – looking for that adrenaline. If I could spend money and it could give that rush – I’d do it.”

Despite being in a well-paid job and always paying her bills, Grace said by the end of the month her wages would be gone.

But since being on Mounjaro, Grace had cut her spending down and now saves £600 each month.

She said: “Now if I need something, I buy it, but I no longer buy things due to boredom. I’m saving in excess of £600 a month.”

“”I am sure my Uber Eats driver probs think I’ve died.

“My Evri driver asked, ‘Is everything alright?'”

My spending diet plan – and how I stay on track

SAVVY saver Karen Powell keeps her spending on a strict diet plan to save her hundreds of pounds every year.

Karen, from Surrey Hills, has budgets for different outgoings and checks her bank statements each week to make sure she’s on track with her money.

The 63-year-old, who runs the time management and organisation skills company The Organising Lady, said: “It’s so important to slim down your spending for your mental health, relationships, and family.

“There’s nothing worse than worrying about money.

“Spending can be addictive if you’re not careful – it’s a dopamine hit going shopping.”

To keep her finances on track, Karen limits her spending.

“I try and stick to £100 a week on food.

“We’re careful with holidays, and will only have two ‘splurge meals’ out while we’re away.

“Me and my sister set a £20 limit on birthday and Christmas presents.

“And me and my husband don’t buy gifts for each other.”

She makes sure to never throw away any food by bulk cooking and freezing – which she reckons saves her £600 a year at least.

She also puts time in her diary each week to monitor her finances.

“Once a week, I’ll look at my bank account to make sure I haven’t splurged and so I can keep track of what I’ve spent.”

She also has “treat” days where she’ll buy affordable things for herself to avoid overspending on big shopping trips.

“I’m human and I love clothes – I just make sure I choose well now, and stick to the rule of one in, one out and sell my unwanted clothes on sites like Vinted.”

Some users of the weight-loss jab have reported a secondary side effect that has helped them to curb impulsive spending.

It’s thought the drug – and other GLP-1 medicines – can not only help to intercept brain signals associated with food cravings but for shopping splurges as well.

We previously revealed how the drug helped another user who was struggling with a cocaine and gambling addiction.

Binge drink and gorge on takeaways

Grace has struggled with her weight for years.

She previously got a gastric balloon in 2009 – when she was just aged 18  – but she only lost three stone and found it didn’t help with her eating habits.

She was never a “big eater” but would find herself gorging during the weekend.

Grace would stick to a strict healthy diet during the week, but it would all go out the window at the weekend when she would binge drink and gorge on takeaways and bacon butties.

She said: “I’d think, ‘It’s the weekend – I can treat myself to a takeaway’.”

She would often go out drinking on a Friday or a Saturday and eat a pizza on her way home.

To mop up her hangover the next day, she would tuck into a bacon sandwich and a takeaway.

She says: “By Monday, I’d hate myself and be back on the diet.”

But when she realised her diet wasn’t working she started to look into surgery options, before trying Mounjaro as a last ditch attempt to shift the pounds.

Grace said: “It’s been incredible. It turns the food noise off.”

She added it has stopped her cravings to gorge on fast food and while she might still occasionally have a takeaway, she’ll opt for a smaller meal.

She explained: “It removes the guilt from food.”

The only bad side effects she has experienced are feeling cold and nauseous and stomach discomfort.

She said: “I had sulphur burps for one day, but I’d take that every day.”

Grace has also seen the mindset shift help with other aspects of her life – including her spending habits.

How you can slim down your spending

ANDREW Hagger, founder of MoneyComms, shares his top tips to slash your spend and avoid piling on the pounds.

Slim down your direct debits

Check your last few bank statements to see if there are any regular payments or subscriptions you can do without.

Cancel any non-essential direct debits to give your bank balance a breather.

Slash your lunchtime spend

Take a few minutes to make sandwiches for the next day to save a packet compared to shop bought lunches.

Dine out on switching bonuses

Switching your bank account could help you to bag a cash lump sum.

You could earn £100 or more by swapping banks, which can give your balance a big boost.

Shed costly credit card balances

You may be able to save hundreds of pounds by switching to a 0% credit card if your credit score is good.

You can transfer your balance to a 0% credit card for up to 34 months without needing to pay interest.

Drop your overdraft

You could save money by ditching your overdraft and paying with a credit card instead.

Doing so could slash your interest rate from 40% to 24.9%.

But if you pay off your card in full each month then it won’t cost you a penny.

Previously, she would splash out on clothes, holidays, eating out and alcohol without so much as a second thought.

But now she only buys what she needs – and credits the control the drug has given her.

“I didn’t try to curb my spending – it just naturally happened,” she said.

“I had money left after the first month on Mounjaro and thought I’d missed a bill.”

Grace doesn’t usually do a weekly food shop but estimates that if she did it would have been £160 before and now would be around £50.

“Before I’d go looking for tea and pick up 20 other things. Without realising I’d spend £50,” she said.

“Now I don’t go in and look at crisps and puddings.”

Grace says she has seen some harsh comments about those choosing to take the jabs.

But she said: “Why would you want to be miserable?

“When I say I have battled obesity and used medication people say ‘you’ve cheated’.

“I’ve tried it the hard way. This has been life-changing. It’s saved my life.”

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