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THERE’S nothing like a lovely relaxing autumnal dog walk, but there are plenty of hidden dangers pet owners need to look out for, it turns out.

This comes as new research from dog walking insurance providers, Protectivity, reveals that the majority of pet insurance claims are linked to dog walking.

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Since these hazards can end up not only being dangerous for your pet, but costly when the vet bill arrives, it’s good to know what to avoid.

Luckily, Protectivity has partnered with three certified canine experts to share practical tips and advice to safeguard dogs on their autumn walk.

Ingesting slugs or snails 

The damp weather that autumn brings can lead to an increase in slugs and snails that can carry lungworm larvae, a potentially fatal issue if left untreated.

Sadie Geoghegan-Dann, Canine Welfare Expert & Dog Trainer at Nervous Rex warned: “Having personally lost one of my own dogs to lungworm, I can’t emphasise enough how dangerous it is to let your dog play around with slugs and risk eating one.”

The expert added that lungworm can take hold very fast and can be fatal in no time if not spotted.

Terry Cuyler, Certified Dog Trainer and owner of Pawsitive Results Dog Training added: “My default solution to this problem is to train a good “drop it” command.

“Occasionally, despite our best intentions, a dog will grab something while we’re not able to intercept them. An effective ‘drop it’ guarantees that they’ll drop the object at once, and this can be a life-saver.”

Fallen fruits from apples, pears and plum trees

As autumn rolls around, fruit trees start to shed their sweet-smelling fruit and while it may seem enticing to dogs, fallen fruit can cause severe stomach upsets and present a choking hazard. 

Dog owner, Shakira Sacks, from Leeds, explained how her four year old cocker spaniel, Autumn, had to receive medical treatment after ingesting a fallen plum on a walk.

Shakira said: “Being a cocker spaniel, Autumn is forever eating things she shouldn’t. Over the years, we’ve implemented lots of training commands but on a recent walk in our local park, she ate a fallen plum, including the stone. 

“After speaking to our vet, they asked us to bring her in immediately and two hours of induced vomiting and a £350 bill later, Autumn was her happy self again.

“It was, however, a very scary experience and has made me even more hyper-vigilant of hazards that I wasn’t aware of previously. I had no idea that although plums are usually safe for dogs to eat, the stones can be toxic, as can the flesh when it’s mouldy.” 

Acorns on the ground 

The phrase ‘are acorns poisonous to dogs’ has been searched 7,000 times on Google in the UK in the last month alone, revealing the very real concern owners have. 

Terry warned: “In my experience, one of autumn’s most underappreciated perils is the abundance of acorns. I have worked with dogs who have come to significant injury from eating them.”

Acorns contain tannins, the dog pro explained, which can cause stomach issues and even kidney damage in dogs. For smaller breeds they also pose as a chocking risk.

Fallen conkers

Conkers are another highly toxic risk for dogs on autumnal walks, with severe cases costing up to £2,000 in veterinary treatment. 

Terry said: “I see this process repeat itself time and time again during autumnal walks. Dogs have an instinct to be attracted to conkers, acorns, and fallen fruits, as these trigger their hidden foraging instinct and carry scents of wild animals to them.”

He recommended looking out for key warning signs, like over-sniffing at ground level, sudden stops during walks, and that familiar head-down posture showing keen interest in something to eat.

But mostly, pet owners should be aware of the “freeze and stare” posture just before their strike and correct immediately with a high-reward treat and a ‘leave it’ command.”

Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations was one of the clearest expositions of the way he sees the world, his ideology in its rawest form.

To his supporters, it will be seen as Trumpism unplugged; to his critics, Trumpism unhinged.

Over almost an hour, he took aim at his opponents and their ideas, picking them off one by one as he toured the world. He began at home, praising the United States and himself. He said the US was living through a golden age and repeated his much-disputed claim that he had personally ended seven wars, something he argued merited a Nobel Peace Prize.

But then the president laid into his hosts. The UN, he said, had not helped his peace-making. He questioned the organisation’s purpose, saying it had tremendous potential but was not living up to that. All it did, he claimed, was write strongly worded letters that it did not follow up. Empty words, he said, did not end wars.

He also attacked the UN for the aid it gave to asylum seekers hoping to enter the US, saying “The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them.” The president even attacked the UN for a broken escalator and teleprompter that disrupted his visit and speech.

On one level, he has a point. Many analysts question the effectiveness of the UN in resolving conflict these days, pointing in particular to gridlock in the Security Council and the body’s unresponsive bureaucracy.

But on another level Trump can be seen himself a cause and symptom of the UN’s lack of effectiveness; for he believes global crises are best resolved by powerful men like him getting together and hammering out a deal, not using multilateral bodies like the UN to work out collective solutions. Under Trump, the US has withdrawn much of its UN funding, leaving the body forced to cut its humanitarian work around the world.

Trump saved perhaps his biggest criticism for his European allies, attacking the continent for investing in renewable energy, and opening its borders to migration.

“Europe is in serious trouble. They have been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody has ever seen before… Both the immigration and suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe,” he said.

Climate change, he claimed to audible gasps, was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and was lumbering European countries with expensive energy costs compared to fossil fuels. He criticised in particular the UK government for imposing new taxes on North Sea oil.

“If you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail,” he said.

“I love Europe. I love the people of Europe. And I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake… you want to be politically correct and you are destroying your heritage.”

Note that last point. It echoes what the president said during his state visit to the UK last week when he spoke of the importance of defending the values of what he called “the English-speaking world”.

There is a cultural edge to Mr Trump’s criticism of Europe, a sense that he believes uncontrolled immigration is threatening Europe’s heritage. Not for nothing is Trump the leader of an administration that wears its religion firmly on its sleeve. “Let us protect religious liberty,” he told the UN, “including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today – it’s called Christianity.”

On a specific point of policy, the most substantive warning Trump gave related to Russia’s war on Ukraine. He said President Putin’s refusal to end the conflict was “not making Russia look good”. He said the US was prepared “to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs” to end the bloodshed. But he said European nations had to stop buying Russian energy, claiming he only found out two weeks ago that some were doing so.

In practice, Hungary and Slovakia are the only substantive European buyers of Russian oil. Diplomats say Mr Trump is hiding behind this so he does not have to impose secondary sanctions on India and China which are both buying huge amounts of cheap Russian energy, both of whom were cited by Trump.

Perhaps more important than his speech was Trump’s social media post a short while later where he asserted for the first time Ukraine could be in a position to win back all of its territory.

His dismissal of Russia as a “paper tiger” and not a “real military power” will hurt President Putin, who is sensitive to any suggestion his country is not a global player. Diplomats said this was the latest example of Mr Trump’s journey towards a position that is more critical of Russia.

But one should always treat Trump’s words with a pinch of salt. He was being optimistic only moments after meeting Ukraine’s President Zelensky at the UN.

And he said Ukraine could win back territory with EU and Nato support; there was no mention of the US involvement. All the evidence of the last few years is that this is a war of slow attrition and Ukraine would not retake land from Russia without massive US military support.

So this was undiluted Trump; a defence of America and the nation state, an assault on multilateralism and globalism, a stream of consciousness with questionable assertions.

Six years ago Trump’s audience at the UN laughed at his at times unfactual assertions; this year they listened largely in silence.

“I am really good at this stuff,” he told world leaders. “Your countries are going to hell.”

The fierce war of words between President Trump and ABC’s “The View” has long been a staple of the daytime talk show known for its spirited discussions about politics and pop culture.

But the signature “Hot Topics” segment that frequently blasts Trump has suddenly gone cold as speculation escalates that the Trump administration is considering taking action against “The View.”

Show host Whoopi Goldberg and her all-female panel has been conspicuously silent on ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the wake of blistering backlash over Kimmel’s comments about slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The late-night host said during the monologue on his show Monday that the “MAGA gang” was characterizing Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, “as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has indicated that “The View” might be investigated to see whether it qualifies as “a bona fide news program,” which would exempt it from the agency’s equal time rule.

The absence of commentary since the news about Kimmel broke on Wednesday has been particularly glaring after late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart criticized the decision by the Walt Disney Co.-owned network on their respective programs Thursday night. The network’s action has been largely condemned in entertainment circles, sparking major protests outside Disney headquarters and Kimmel’s Hollywood Boulevard studio.

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace on Thursday called out the silence of “The View” during her “Deadline: White House” show, noting Walt Disney Co. had previously pledged $15 million to Trump’s library to resolve a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate statements about Trump by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

“Those women are fearless, and the story didn’t come up,” Wallace said. “It’s obviously being felt and acted upon at ABC more broadly.”

Trump’s bitter campaign against “The View” and his desire to cancel it was highlighted last July after co-host Joy Behar declared that Trump was “so jealous” of former President Obama.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers fired back in a statement sent to entertainment venues calling Behar “an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome … She should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.”

In sharp contrast to the current hush about the president, Goldberg and her co-hosts unleashed a vicious attack on Trump after he blasted the show during a campaign rally last year.

“So I watched that stupid ‘View’ where you have these really dumb people,” Trump told the large crowd, which responded with boos.

Saying that “politics can do strange things to demented people,” he relayed how he had hired Goldberg as a comedian before his political career, “and her mouth was so foul. She was filthy dirty, disgusting … I said I would never hire her again.”

The opening segment of “The View” the following day showed the hosts entering as Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” played.

Addressing Trump, Goldberg said, “As a matter of fact, I was filthy, and I stand on that … How dumb are you? You hired me four times … and you didn’t know what you were getting? How dumb are you?”

Co-host and senior ABC News legal correspondent and analyst Sunny Hostin weighed in: “Donald Trump, I want to thank you for personally (sic) telling so many lies and committing so many alleged crimes and providing us with material on a daily basis. You help us do our jobs, and I am so appreciative.”

Noting that she was a former prosecutor, she added, “I admit, I may not have spent as much time in a courtroom as you have … And like Madam Vice President Kamala Harris, I’ve had a history of prosecuting sex offenders, so thank you for keeping people like us in business.”

Hostin concluded with an invitation to Trump to come on “The View: “I’ll even give you a free ‘View’ mug — not to be confused with a mug shot. Because that’s your area.”

Long Beach resident Ashley Likins was pages away from finishing “Onyx Storm,” the third installment in Rebecca Yarros’ fantasy book series, when a long-haired black kitten hopped into her lap.

Given the foster name Soup Enhancements, the cat was one of the rescues boarding at Cool Cat Collective, a cat-themed boutique at the eastern end of Long Beach’s Fourth Street Corridor. The store, which offers all manner of cat-themed merchandise from kitty treats to cat-printed coasters, doubles as a shelter for cats rescued by TippedEars, a local trap-neuter-return, or TNR, nonprofit.

These resident kittens at Cool Cat Collective spend most of their time in a luxury “catio” in the back corner of the boutique, but twice a month, they are released to roam about during after-hours fundraising events. A popular silent reading party, co-hosted by reading club LB Bookworms, mimics a cat cafe, and according to the book club’s founder, Martha Esquivias, the event has sold out nearly every month since its debut last November.

Deb Escobar reads a book as foster kitten Poolboy creeps around her during a silent reading night at Cool Cat Collective.

It was during the silent reading event in early August that Likins sat, second-guessing the decision she’d made a few days prior to adopt Soup Enhancements. She adored the cat; still, she worried she’d been impulsive and wasn’t truly ready for the responsibility of pet ownership.

But as she watched the kitten nod off in her lap, she glimpsed the future in which the pair would do this routine a thousand times over with Likins devouring a book and the cat sleeping soundly below.

“I’m not just in a kitten craze,” Likins recalled thinking to herself. “This is my cat.”

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It’s that kind of moment Jena Carr, 39, had dreamed of when she and her husband, Matt, 40, opened Cool Cat Collective last year.

Former Washington, D.C., restaurateurs, the Carrs moved to Long Beach in 2022 to be closer to Jena Carr’s family. Once they settled in, Carr threw herself into kitten rescue, a longtime interest. She started as a foster owner and kitten rescue volunteer before assisting TippedEars with its work tracking and capturing cats in Compton.

“Once you start realizing the extent of the cat overpopulation problem, you quickly realize that we can’t foster or adopt our way out of it,” Carr said, calling TNR “the solution that gets to the root of the problem.”

One day during peak kitten season, Carr was out with TippedEars co-founder Renae Woith when she was struck by the number of sick and injured cats on the streets and the challenges of understaffed rescues working to home them.

“It kind of got her wheels working, like, ‘What can I do as a business?’” Woith said.

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1. Foster kittens Bisque, Poolboy and Chauffeur play together during a silent reading night. 2. Foster kitten Sesame walks around a display in the store.

Almost a year later, Cool Cat Collective was born.

It was still warm outside on an early September evening as the last of the daytime visitors left the cat boutique. Once they were gone, Carr made her final touches for the night’s silent reading party: laying cushions in store corners and scattering toy mice across the floor.

In the catio, Poolboy, a domestic shorthair, licked a Churu treat from a visiting reader’s hand. When he and his siblings — all named after blue-collar jobs — arrived in late July, they were timid. But at this silent reading party, they bounded about the room, crawling on attendees’ laps between wrestling matches.

“It makes me so happy when the shy ones become social,” Carr said.

A sign hanging outside the catio tallied good news: 93 adoptions since July 2024. TippedEars co-founder Vita Manzoli said that’s about double the numbers the rescue used to see before the boutique opened.

TippedEars’ partnership with Cool Cat Collective has been a boon for the nonprofit, which receives 100% of the proceeds from the cat boutique’s “First Thursday” silent reading parties and “Third Thursday” doodle nights, which both cost $15 to attend. But it’s not only the financial support that has made a difference for TippedEars cats.

“We’ve gotten volunteers from them — donors, adopters, obviously, but the byproduct of that is really just educating people about the cat overpopulation crisis, what TNR is and how they can help,” Woith said.

Placing rescues at Cool Cat Collective, where they are comfortable and their personalities are on full display, has also allowed TippedEars to give them a better chance at being adopted.

“The cat they may not have looked twice at online, they now are the one [adopters are] taking home, because they actually got to meet them,” Woith said.

“This is a beautiful marrying of my interests,” silent reading party attendee Regan Rudman said of the event. “It also provides a great third space that we’re really missing nowadays.”

Carr has a spreadsheet of potential resident kittens always on her mind, so she’s eager to facilitate adoptions. But everyone is welcome at Cool Cat Collective, whether they’re looking to adopt or not.

“You don’t even have to be shopping,” Carr said. “That was part of our goal: to create a space with a really low barrier to access for people who are cat-curious or just need a little moment of cat joy in their day.”

Regan Rudman, a recent Long Beach transplant, can’t have a cat of her own for health reasons. Still, she visits Cool Cat Collective every month. She tried for three months to snag a ticket to the store’s silent reading night before she secured a spot for the September event.

“Getting to actually interact with cats in an environment that they feel comfortable in just makes my heart so happy,” Rudman said.

Rudman, who works at a publishing company, made an effort to focus on her book during the silent reading hour, but she also hoped her ruffled leg warmers would entice a curious kitten to come over.

“I think everyone is a little distracted by the cats,” said silent reading party attendee Mathilde Hernandez, who befriended foster cat Gumball.

Other attendees, lounging on cushions throughout the boutique, gazed down at their e-readers but peeked as cats bounced around like pinballs in their periphery.

Poolboy and sibling Chauffer, who would find their forever home together that weekend, were particularly rowdy. On the other hand, Bisque — from a litter Carr called “the Soups” — hid in a cardboard house for an hour before she finally stretched a paw out, like a jazz hand through the “front door.”

“There’s always some antic happening,” Carr said. “People are reading, but they also have one eye on the cats as they’re reading. I’d be curious asking people, like, how far into their book they actually get.”

Attendee Lien Nguyen, whose love for the kittens overrode her cat allergy, admitted she’d drop her book the second a cat came into her vicinity. But no matter how hard they tried, scarcely an attendee could successfully attract a kitten. The cats chose their company, not the other way around.

“Part of our goal was to create a space with a really low barrier to access for people who are cat-curious or, you know, just need a little moment of cat joy in their day,” said Jena Carr, co-founder of Cool Cat Collective.

“It was like rejection therapy whenever they went away,” Nguyen said.

That’s why Likins was so touched when Soup Enhancements found her at the August silent reading party. She nearly burst into tears, she said.

Later that evening, she was moved even more when her boyfriend, Max Mineer, bonded with his feline soulmate, Handyman. Happily, Handyman happened to be the only cat Soup Enhancements tolerated.

Now, the two cats live together in Likins and Mineer’s Long Beach apartment. They sleep together, clean each other and, despite being from different litters, generally behave like siblings.

The day Likins brought the cats home, staffers at Cool Cat Collective and TippedEars gave her every resource imaginable, including a 20% off coupon for Chewy products and scratch post recommendations. And there was an easy out: If anything went wrong, the couple could bring the cats back, no questions asked.

“It really made me trust them more to know that they were thinking to the future about these cats,” Likins said. “It wasn’t just a process of making sure that a cat got a home. It was making sure that a cat got a life.”

FROM their sultry connection in the jungle to bitter legal feuds, Katie Price and Peter Andre’s fiery war of words has spanned 16 years.

And, as their recent explosive row has proved, it shows no signs of ending soon – but one person who has so far remained silent is their 20-year-old son Junior Andre.

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While his 18-year-old sister Princess is currently taking centre stage with her ITV documentary, The Princess Diaries, Junior prefers to keep out of all drama. 

According to a source, when it comes to his feuding parents, the aspiring singer is firmly on dad Peter’s side, and is “embarrassed” by former glamour model Katie.

A source told Fabulous: “Junior is on his dad’s side 100 per cent.

“He has no time for his mum as harsh as that sounds. 

“She represents negativity and sadness in his life and he has been trying to move away from that and heal for a long time.

“He hates how his mum is a laughing stock and tries to disassociate himself as much as he can without starting World War 3.”

Junior’s Instagram page, where he boasts 555,000 followers, rarely features his reality star mum.

The glamour model, 47, who is currently dating Married at First Sight’s JJ Slater, 32, hardly features in any of his posts, unlike his dad, 52, and Princess, whom he regularly posts pics and videos with.

The insider added: “He posts a happy birthday message to her to keep up appearances and to not ruin her day but they don’t hang out much at all.

“As far as Junior is concerned, he’s his dad’s son.

“His dad has brought him up and raised him to be the man he is today – he knows he wouldn’t be anywhere today without his dad’s love and support.”

Junior moved out of Katie’s infamous “Mucky Mansion” ten years ago to live full-time with Peter and stepmum and NHS doctor Emily MacDonagh, 36, in their Surrey mansion.

The pair also have their own three kids, Amelia, 11, Theo, eight, and one year-old Arabella, who they typically keep out of the spotlight.

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Emily, who has been married to Peter for ten years, features heavily in Princess’ new show – while Katie was allegedly banned from filming by bosses for being “too trashy”.

And insiders say that Emily has been “more of a conventional mum” to Junior over the years.

They added: “Junior wasn’t lacking anything and so he had no need to see Katie.”

Junior is said to have made the decision to avoid the notorious nine-bedroom Sussex pad – which has now been sold – as it was “so horrific.”

BOMBSHELL STATEMENT

The source claimed: “Junior hasn’t had much to do with his mum in recent years. 

“He totally avoided visiting her at the Mucky Mansion. He didn’t want to live in squalor.

“It was constantly chaotic and the house was always full of people and this revolving door of men – and Katie’s dramas.”

After he left, they say Junior rarely went back to visit Katie and as she wasn’t welcome at Pete’s house “they didn’t see each other much” and now “he rarely visits her”, despite her moving out of the squalid home.

Junior was later joined by sister Princess, and it has been revealed the family courts issued a legally binding order for the living arrangement in 2019.

Mysterious Girl singer Peter claimed in a bombshell statement that the pair were placed in his care “for their safety”.

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The outburst came after Katie claimed Peter and his management wouldn’t allow her to do any publicity with Princess. 

“Unfortunately, the management team and Pete won’t allow me to be near her,” she ranted earlier this month.

“They have made it clear, they won’t allow Princess to do photoshoots with me, they won’t allow me to go to any events with Princess – because they think I am trash basically.”

Peter then hit back at Katie’s claims, slamming her in a furious Instagram statement.

Peter wrote: “For sixteen years I have stayed silent in the face of repeated lies from my ex-wife and her family, out of respect for my children and loved ones, but staying silence has been incredibly frustrating.”

He continued: “That ends today.”

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This outburst is said to be out of character for Peter, who allegedly “never bad mouths Katie in front of the children”.

However, Junior, who the source claims is an “exceptionally bright young man”, has “seen it all and come to his own conclusions”.

The insider claimed that Junior was “shocked” that Peter spoke out but “doesn’t blame him”.

However, they added: “He’s really sad to see his mum and dad’s feud playing out in public again. 

“Obviously he’s read a lot about it over the years – he’s old enough to read Google.”

PRIVATE LIFE

While Katie famously courts the spotlight, and his sister is doing her new documentary, the 20-year-old is said to prefer a “quiet life at home with his girlfriend”.

Junior has been dating his girlfriend Jasmine Orr, 24, since last April, with their relationship going from strength-to-strength.

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The couple have now opened up about a huge step they have taken together, while talking about the possibility of getting wed.

Revealing their huge milestone to OK! Magazine in a new interview, Junior explained how he and Jasmine, who previously appeared on Celebs Go Dating in 2023, now have a place of their own.

“Yes, we’ve moved into our own little flat together,” he told the magazine.

He then detailed their one-bedroom abode in Surrey, and spoke about how they are currently decorating it.

Junior then gushed about wanting to spend “every day” with his girlfriend and said that they felt “ready” for the next step.

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Growing up, Junior is said to have “hated” being featured in Katie’s photoshoots and TV shows. 

The insider added: “He was just a young boy finding his way in life and wanted to focus on his hobbies and friends. 

“He grew up embarrassed of his mum and it’s hard to shake that.”

Pete paid for Princess and Junior to have a private school so they have had the very best education and they are incredibly bright. 

The youngsters have capitalised on that schooling, with Junior releasing a No1 single and Princess signing a huge beauty deal and launching her own brand.

The source added: “Junior has protected his energy and spirit and Pete is very proud – and relieved – that he hasn’t turned out to be anything like his mum.”

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MOVING ON

In recent months he had been impressed by Katie making changes and was looking after herself.

However, the recent feud has left Junior with a “bad taste in his mouth”, according to the source.

They claimed: “Now, he feels more sorry for her.

“He’s sad about it all. 

“He wants to get on with his life and explore his own path, but he feels like his mum is constantly in the background casting negativity over everything. 

“He thinks she just needs to get over it [not being with his dad] and move on now so everyone can get on with their lives in peace.”

Katie Price’s love life

We take a look back at the highs and lows of Katie Price’s relationship history.

1996-1998: Katie got engaged to Gladiators star Warren Furman – aka Ace – with a £3,000 ring. But their relationship didn’t make it as far as ‘I do’.

1998-2000: Katie described Dane Bowers as ‘the love of her life’ but she broke up with the singer when he allegedly cheated on her.

2001: Footballer Dwight Yorke is the father of Katie’s eldest child Harvey. He has had very little to do with Harvey throughout his life.

2002: Rebounding from Dwight, Katie famously had one night of passion with Pop Idol star Gareth Gates, allegedly taking his virginity.

2002-2004: Katie was dating Scott Sullivan when she entered the jungle for I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!. He threatened to “punch Peter’s lights out” when chemistry blossomed between her and Peter Andre.

2004-2009: The jungle romance resulted in Katie marrying Aussie pop star Peter. They had two kids, Junior and Princess, before their bitter split in 2009.

2010-2011: Fresh from her break-up with Peter, Katie enjoyed a whirlwind relationship and marriage with cage fighter Alex Reid. They split 20 months after their Las Vegas wedding.

2011: Katie briefly dated model Danny Cipriani… but it ended as quickly as it begun.

2011-2012: They didn’t speak the same language, but Katie got engaged to Argentinian model Leandro Penna in 2011. He later fled home to South America.

2012-2018: Wedding bells rang once more after Katie met Kieran Hayler in 2013. They had two kids together, Jett and Bunny, before their break-up and divorce.

2018-2019: Katie moved on quickly with Kris Boyson. They had an on-off romance for one year and even got engaged. They split for good in 2019.

2019: Katie was linked to Charles Drury during her on-off relationship with Kris. Charles, who also dated Lauren Goodger, has always denied being in “official relationship” with her.

2020-2023: Car salesman Carl Woods took a shining to Katie in 2020. Their relationship was up and down for three years. They broke up for a final time last year.

2024-present: After weeks of rumours, Katie confirmed her relationship with Married At First Sight star JJ Slater in February this year.

British tourists heading over to one of the most popular cities in Europe have been warned over sly tactics many restaurants use to make foreigners spend more money

UK holidaymakers have been urged to watch out for sneaky fees that could end up wreaking havoc on their finances. Last year, a whopping 48.7 million tourists flocked to the French city of Paris and its surrounding areas – marking a two per cent increase compared to 2023. Unable to resist the charm of strolling along the Seine, watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle, and eating their body weight in pastries and cheese – the iconic city is expecting an even stronger tourism rebound this year.

As romantic and enchanting as Paris may be, there’s no denying it’s an expensive city – one that can easily break the bank if you’re not careful. Of course, avoiding fancy restaurants and luxury hotels may help keep the price down.

READ MORE: Spanish hotspot’s brutal 2-word warning as Brits threatened with £648 fine

However, there’s also a secret tourist tax that’s recently been unearthed. It comes after one local pretended to be a visitor from the United States to see whether dining out is really a set price for all.

Local media outlet Le Parisien sent two journalists to a well-known eatery in the city to see whether they’d be charged the same for their identical order. It comes after the publication spotted a slew of complaints from international tourists online, arguing that waiters use sly tactics to get them to pay more.

Writer Mathiew Hennequin was disguised as an American tourist, donned in a baseball cap and an Eiffel Tower t-shirt, while Marc (who uses the alias Radin Malin, pretended to be a domestic tourist. The pair requested the same order: a lasagna, soda, and water.

The ‘American tourist’ was offered Coke in ‘Medium’ or ‘Large’ size, but after choosing ‘Medium’ was given a huge pint of Coke for €9.50. He was also charged €6 for a bottle of water. However, the French guinea pig received a can of Coke for just €6.50 and was provided with a free carafe of water, paying €9.50 less than the fake Yankee.

In the same restaurant, the server offered the reporters ‘garlic bread’ without specifying that it was extra – but ended up charging the American €6 for the privilege. In another restaurant, the ‘American’ was told that service wasn’t included as part of the bill – which Franck Trouet of hotel and restaurant group GHR claims is ‘obviously false’.

The boss branded the findings a ‘disgrace’, adding: “You can’t even call these people waiters. You should know that in France, water and bread are free. One can refuse a bottle of water. The tip is to express thanks for the service if one is very satisfied: above all, it is not compulsory. This is not the United States.”

In both cases, the bill for the fake American tourist was 50 per cent more than that of the French customer. While this investigation didn’t use any reporters pretending to be British, it’s worth being careful when ordering food and drinks in the city to make sure you’re not being overcharged.

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Since late 2019, families fleeing relentless violence in eastern Sokoto in Nigeria’s northwestern region have poured into the Guidan Roumdji Department of the Republic of Niger, carrying little more than the trauma of survival. Sabon Birni, a once-thriving community built on agriculture and livestock trading, has now become synonymous with terrorist raids, extortions, displacement, and despair.

“On the fateful day of May 27, 2020, our community came under brutal attack by armed groups,” recalled Malam Sani Manomi, a refugee from the community. “Many were killed, and the rest of us fled to neighbouring communities of Guidan Roumdji, Niger Republic.”

Sabon Birni Local Government Area (LGA), bordered to the north by the Republic of Niger and flanked by Isa LGA to the east, has devolved into a conflict hotspot. Once known for its Gobirawa heritage and cross-border kinship with Nigerien communities, the area is now fractured by fear. Armed groups and terrorists, operating with impunity, have rendered nine of the LGAs’ ten wards inaccessible.

Just across the border, Guidan Roumdji, an arrondissement in Niger’s Maradi Region, has served as a sanctuary. Its deep ethnic and historical ties to Sabon Birni, especially among the Gobirawa, have made it a natural destination for fleeing families from not only Sabon Birni but also other areas of Sokoto, Zamfara, and Katsina States.

“Guidan Roumdji is like a continuation of Sabon Birni,” said a local chief who asked not to be named. “The same people, the same roots, divided only by a line on the map.”

From peace to panic

Sabon Birni’s slide into chaos has been swift and brutal. Proximity to Zamfara, a notorious hub for non-state armed groups, has exposed it to the spillover of violence. Between 2019 and 2025, communities have endured waves of killings, mass abductions, sexual violence, and the destruction of schools, clinics, and farms.

Extortion has become a daily reality. “Bandits impose ‘life’ and ‘farming’ taxes,” said one resident. “If you don’t pay, you can’t live or work.”

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that between May 2023 and April 2024, a staggering ₦1.2 trillion was paid in ransom from the North-West region. In Sabon Birni alone, reports from the Gobir Development Association indicate that over ₦160 billion was paid in ransom and protection levies between 2019 and 2024. An estimated 600,000 cattle and five million small ruminants have been rustled, while vast areas of farmland remain inaccessible.

Earlier, in July 2024, armed assailants stormed the Tsamaye community, killing people and abducting 20 others, including children. “They killed two persons and kidnapped 18 women and 2 men,” said the village head of Tsamaye.

In December, the Dan Tudu and Kwaren Gamba communities were targeted in a violent attack that left many people dead. Several men and women were abducted during the incident. 

“They rustle our livestock, rape our wives, abduct our children, and threaten anyone who speaks to the authorities,” an eyewitness of Kwaren Gamba attack said. “We live in silence, or we die.”

As attacks continue in the North West, communities remain displaced. Fearing attacks or oppressive demands from armed actors, thousands of Sabon Birni residents continue to flee to safer communities in Guidan Roumdji, leaving behind homes and livelihoods. 

Migration as survival

What began as a trickle of desperate families in 2019 has become a steady, tragic flow. By mid-2020, the UNHCR and Niger’s National Eligibility Commission had biometrically registered over 40,000 refugees in Guidan Roumdji. Tens of thousands more remain unregistered, spread across Niger’s southern regions.

“There are more Nigerians here than those officially registered,” said Hamidou, a resident of Tibiri. “They’ve scattered across communes, many are undocumented, unseen by any government.”

A turning point came on May 27, 2020, when coordinated attacks on Garki, Dan-Aduwa, Masawa, Katuma, and Kuzari districts left 74 dead and thousands displaced. The refugee population in Guidan Roumdji surged, with many settling in Tudun Sunnah village.

Describing the harrowing journey to safety, Manomi said they travelled on foot through informal routes, including Maiwa, Garin Bage, Son Allah, and the Burkusuma forest. Along the way, they learnt that similar assaults had been carried out on other communities. “While fleeing through the forest, we crossed paths with residents of Dan-Aduwa, Masawa, Katuma, and Kuzari, all desperate to survive,” he said.

Manomi’s wife, Kulu, described the journey as tragic and defined by sheer luck.

“On that day, we had no choice but to leave Garki. They burned houses and killed without mercy. We fled with nothing but the clothes on our backs, leaving our farmland behind. We trekked for hours through the bush, avoiding the roads for fear of ambush. My children cried from hunger and fear. There were moments when we thought we wouldn’t survive.”

The trend reflects the growing humanitarian crisis in many rural communities of northwestern Nigeria.

According to Manomi, their arrival in Tudun Sunnah village of Guidan Roumdji brought no relief, as they encountered scores of displaced people from rural areas of Zamfara, Katsina, and the Isa LGA of Sokoto State. “It was terrible,” he said. “People were pouring in from everywhere, escaping the violence that had consumed their villages.”

Hardship and hope in exile

Life in exile is marked by struggle. Refugees live in makeshift huts or open fields, surviving on meagre incomes from blacksmithing, petty trade, or subsistence labour. Healthcare is scarce, and disease outbreaks, including cholera, are common.

“Even here, life is tough,” said Sama’ila Mamadou, 61, who fled Dankware. “But it’s better than being killed back home.”

“When we finally reached Tudun Sunnah, we found hundreds of other refugees,” Kulu recalled. “We had no shelter, no food; only our lives. Now, we live in a makeshift camp in a nearby hamlet, sharing cramped conditions with many others who fled like us. Every day is a struggle. My husband now works as a manual labourer just to keep us going. But at least we are alive. I pray for peace, so we can return home.”

Local officials describe the living conditions as “pathetic.” Aminu Boza, a lawmaker from Sabon Birni, says he has distributed food and basic supplies out of his own pocket. “No shelter, no medicine, no toilets—an epidemic is just one rainstorm away,” he warned.

A patchwork of relief

While conditions remain harsh, there have been glimmers of support. The Nigerien government, in collaboration with UNHCR, Nigeria’s NEMA, and authorities in Sokoto, established “villages of opportunity,” — Dan Dadji Makaou, Garin Kaka, and Chadakori, for registered refugees from across the northwestern states. These camps in the aforementioned communities offer better security and more structured aid.

Yet most displaced persons remain outside this system. In towns like Tsouloulou, grassroots generosity by host communities sustains the newcomers. “People gave the little they have, such as clothes, maize, millet,” said Hussaini Shuaibu, a civil servant.

Wealthy individuals have also stepped in. Alhaji Umar Ajiya Isa donated trailers of food; Alhaji Mukhtar Shehu Shagari distributed rice and essentials.

“Since we arrived here in Tudun Sunnah, no institution or individual has given us any form of assistance,” said Manomi.

Resilience in ruins

Despite the hardship, many refugees are rebuilding. Women run food stalls, men farm on borrowed land, and youth repair phones or sell tailoring services. “We may not have much,” said Sama’ila Mamadou, a migrant from the Dankware community, “but we have each other. And we are trying.”

Back home, the attacks continue. In July 2024, Sarkin Gobir of Gatawa District, Alhaji Isa Bawa, was kidnapped and later died in captivity. The following days saw the abduction of over 150 residents. Between August and December, assaults intensified across Dan Tudu, Kwaren Gamba, and other villages.

A witness described one harrowing night: “Gunmen stormed our village, and a bride and her bridesmaids were kidnapped. We couldn’t stop them, we were helpless.”

By May 2025, attacks by the infamous Bello Turji drove thousands more from Gatawa District. Return is no longer a viable option.

“They tell us, ‘We cannot go back to a place where human life is worthless,’” said Ibrahim Maigari, a chief in Guidan Roumdji.

Future in Limbo

Most Sabon Birni refugees in Niger are unregistered, without access to education, healthcare, or legal protection. Insecurity, hunger, and disease continue to stalk them.

Calls for intervention are growing louder. “We need more than emergency aid,” said Boza. “We need security, justice, and a path back home.”

For now, however, hope clings to the resilience of the displaced.

WASHINGTON — President Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it “famous.”

But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent about a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country he leads again.

No words about it from his lips, on paper or through his social media site.

Asked whether Trump would commemorate Juneteenth in any way, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today. I know this is a federal holiday. I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

Asked in a follow-up question whether Trump might recognize the occasion another way or on another day, Leavitt said, “I just answered that question for you.”

Trump’s silence was a sharp contrast from his prior acknowledgment of the holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States by commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas. Their freedom came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.

Trump’s quiet on the issue also deviated from White House guidance that Trump planned to sign a Juneteenth proclamation. Leavitt didn’t explain the change. Trump held no public events Thursday, but he shared statements about Iran, the TikTok app and Fed chairman Jerome Powell on his social media site.

He had more to say about Juneteenth in yearly statements in his first term.

In 2017, Trump invoked the “soulful festivities and emotional rejoicing” that swept through the Galveston crowd when a major general delivered the news that all enslaved people were free.

He told the Galveston story in each of the next three years. “Together, we honor the unbreakable spirit and countless contributions of generations of African Americans to the story of American greatness,” he added in his 2018 statement.

In 2019: “Across our country, the contributions of African Americans continue to enrich every facet of American life.”

In 2020: “June reminds us of both the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation. It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness.”

In 2020, after suspending his campaign rallies because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump chose Tulsa, Okla., as the place to resume his public gatherings, and scheduled a rally for June 19. But the decision met with such fierce criticism that Trump postponed the event by a day.

Black leaders had said it was offensive for Trump to choose June 19 and Tulsa for a campaign event, given the significance of Juneteenth and Tulsa being the place where, in 1921, a white mob looted and burned that city’s Greenwood district, an economically thriving area referred to as Black Wall Street. As many as 300 Black Tulsans were killed, and thousands were temporarily held in internment camps overseen by the National Guard.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal days before the rally, Trump tried to put a positive spin on the situation by claiming that he had made Juneteenth “famous.” He said he changed the rally date out of respect for two African American friends and supporters.

“I did something good. I made it famous. I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump said. “It’s actually an important event, it’s an important time. But nobody had heard of it. Very few people have heard of it.”

Generations of Black Americans celebrated Juneteenth long before it became a federal holiday in 2021 with the stroke of former President Joe Biden’s pen.

Later in 2020, Trump sought to woo Black voters with a series of campaign promises, including establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

He lost the election, and that made it possible for Biden to sign the legislation establishing Juneteenth as the newest federal holiday.

Last year, Biden spoke briefly at a holiday concert on the South Lawn that featured performances by Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle. Former Vice President Kamala Harris danced onstage with gospel singer Kirk Franklin.

Biden was spending this year’s holiday in Galveston, Texas, where he was set to speak at a historic African Methodist Episcopal church.

Superville writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Calvin Woodward contributed to this report.

Why is it always the women who stand up first?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course. But it’s one that has a basis in fact because girl power is real.

From Joan of Arc to Cassidy Hutchinson, whenever men have proven too cautious, cowardly or complacent to act, women have had the courage to do the right thing. The latest example of this feminine fearlessness came last Saturday, after federal immigration agents launched a series of raids throughout the Southland targeting everyone from schoolchildren to elderly churchgoers.

Within hours of the first arrests, Angel City, a women’s soccer club, became the first local sports franchise to issue a statement, recognizing the “fear and uncertainty” the raids had provoked. A day later LAFC, Angel City’s roommate at BMO Stadium, released a statement of its own.

That was a week and a half ago. But Angel City didn’t stop there. While the collective silence from the Dodgers, the Galaxy, the Lakers, Kings and other teams has been deafening, Angel City has grown defiant, dressing its players and new coach Alexander Straus in T-shirts that renamed the team “Immigrant City Football Club.” On the back the slogan “Los Angeles Is For Everyone /Los Angeles Es Para Todos” was repeated six times.

“The statement was the beginning,” said Chris Fajardo, Angel City’s vice-president of community. “The statement was our way of making sure that our fans, our players, our staff felt seen in that moment.

“The next piece was, I think, true to Angel City. Not just talking the talk but walking the walk.”

Angel City, the most valuable franchise in women’s sports history, has been walking that walk since it launched five years ago with the help of A-list Hollywood investors, including Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera and Jennifer Garner.

Angel City coach Alexander Straus wears a shirt with the words, “Immigrant City Football Club” before Saturday’s match.

(Jen Flores / Angel City FC)

It has used its riches and its unique platform to provide more than 2.3 million meals and more than 33,000 hours for youth and adult education throughout Southern California; to provide equipment and staff for soccer camps for the children of migrants trapped at the U.S.-Mexico border; and to funnel $4.1 million into other community programs in Los Angeles.

But while much of that has happened quietly, last Saturday’s actions were provocative, boldly and publicly taking place in a city still under siege from thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of U.S. Marines.

“We always talk about how we wanted to build a club that was representative of our community. But we built a club where we are part of the community,” said Julie Uhrman, who co-founded the team she now leads as president.

“In moments like this it’s how do we use our platform to drive attention for what’s happening, to create a sense of community and tell our community that we’re there for them.

“Our supporters wanted to do more,” Uhrman added. “And we wanted to support them.”

Angel City’s Sydney Leroux poses for photo before a match against North Carolina on Saturday.

(Ian Maule / NWSL via Getty Images)

So Fajardo reached out to the team’s staff and supporters. What would that next step look like this time?

“We knew we wanted to do shirts but like, is this the right move?” Fajardo said. “Also, let’s talk about language. It had to resonate and it had to be something they felt was true.

“And so it was through conversation that we landed on the Immigrant City Football Club and everybody belongs in L.A.”

That was late Wednesday afternoon. Fajardo needed more than 10,000 shirts to hand out to players and fans by Saturday morning. That led him to Andrew Leigh, president of Jerry Leigh of California, a family-owned clothing manufacturer based in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to be a part of it,” Leigh said. “These were definitely a priority as we believe in the cause and what Angel City stands for.”

That first run of T-shirts was just the start, though. Leigh’s company has made thousands more for the team to sell on its website, with the net proceeds going to Camino Immigration Services, helping fund what the team feels is a pressing need.

The campaign has resounded with the players, many of whom were drawn to Angel City by the club’s commitment to community service and many of whom see this moment as especially personal.

“My mom’s parents came here from China, and it wasn’t easy for them,” captain Ali Riley told the team website. “They had to find a way to make a life here. My dad is first-generation American. Being from Los Angeles, everything we do, everything we play, everything we eat, this is a city of immigrants.”

“It feels so uncertain right now,” she continued, “but to look around the stadium and see these shirts everywhere, it’s like we’re saying, ‘this is our home, we know who we are, and we know what we believe in.”

It has resonated with the supporters as well.

“It is great that they showed support and put it into action,” said Lauren Stribling, a playwright from Santa Clarita and an Angel City season-ticket holder from the club’s inception. “They really showed an empathy for the community they serve.

Shirts with the words “Los Angeles Is For Everyone” in English and Spanish were handed out to fans before Angel City’s game against North Carolina at BMO Stadium on Saturday.

(Jen Flores / Angel City FC)

“They stand up. It makes me proud of the team and makes me a bigger fan.”

And it makes the Dodgers, the Galaxy and the other Southern California franchises who have remained silent look smaller. On the same night Angel City was stepping up, seven miles away the Dodgers were once again stepping back, warning singer Nezza, the daughter of Dominican immigrants, to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in English, not Spanish.

“I didn’t think I would be met with any sort of like, ‘no,’ especially because we’re in L.A. and with everything happening,” said Nezza, whose real name is Vanessa Hernández. “I just felt like I needed to do it.”

So she sang in Spanish. Of course she sang in Spanish.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

As part of their Pride Night celebration, a Dodgers official received a commemorative scroll from Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath before the team opened its three-game series against the San Francisco Giants.

“It is truly my pleasure to be celebrating Pride with the Dodgers,” Horvath said. “Especially a time like this to have the Dodgers look at our community and see all of us, and celebrate everyone, especially our LGBTQ community, it is just so incredibly special.”

In almost any other time, Horvath’s presentation would have inspired, well, pride — specifically, pride in how the Dodgers started celebrating Pride Nights when they weren’t commonplace in sports.

On Friday night, however, with many parts of Los Angeles terrorized by large-scale immigration sweeps, the county supervisor’s words evoked an entirely different range of emotions.

Demonstrations against the federal raids have been staged in downtown for more than a week, but the Dodgers have remained silent. Angel City FC and LAFC released statements sympathizing with the residents experiencing “fear and uncertainty,” but the Dodgers have remained silent.

If the Dodgers really see everyone, as Horvath suggested, they’re ignoring what’s happening right in front of them.

Literally.

The Dodgers boast that more than 40% of their fan base is Latino, but they can’t even be bothered to offer the shaken community any words of comfort.

A protestor wearing a Dodgers cap is detained and carried by law enforcement after helping close the 101 Freeway on June. 8.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

How ungrateful. How disrespectful. How cowardly.

Don’t expect this to change.

“We’re not going to comment,” Dodgers executive vice president and chief marketing officer Lon Rosen said.

Considering what’s happened in the last week, do the Dodgers regret visiting President Donald Trump at the White House earlier this season?

“We’re not going to comment on anything,” Rosen said.

When the Dodgers announced they accepted Trump’s White House invitation, team president Stan Kasten claimed the decision had “nothing to do with politics.” Kasten sounded as if he was counting on the fans to give the team a pass for visiting an aspiring tyrant, either because their love of the Dodgers overwhelmed their disgust for Trump or because they lacked the intellectual faculties to connect Trump’s racist rhetoric to real-life consequences.

But what were once abstract concepts proposed by Trump and other right-wing extremists are now realities, and these realities have struck Los Angeles particularly hard.

The detention of working immigrants outside of Home Depots. The breaking up of families. The racial profiling that has resulted in law enforcement harassing American citizens. The propaganda campaign to portray the largely-peaceful demonstrations as an insurrection. The invasion of federal troops. The general feeling of unease that has swept over the city.

The team had said nothing about any of this. Manager Dave Roberts, the franchise’s designated public-relations meat shield, was the only person to acknowledge the situation.

“I just hope that we can be a positive distraction for what people are going through in Los Angeles right now,” Roberts said on Monday in San Diego.

The Dodgers are once again asking a significant portion of their fans to look the other way, but how can they look the other way when these developments affect many of them directly?

Dodgers fans honor Fernando Valenzuela at a memorial outside Dodger Stadium on Oct. 24, 2024.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

All because the Dodgers are afraid of offending the 32% of Los Angeles County voters who cast their ballots for Trump in the most recent presidential election, many of whom don’t expect ICE agents to ever show up at their workplace.

The Dodgers have abdicated their social responsibilities, and in doing so, they have once again let down many of their most loyal fans — the fans who made the Dodgers a part of their family because of Fernando Valenzuela, the fans who passed down the love of the team to their children and grandchildren, the fans who wear their merchandise around town.

That won’t stop the likes of Kasten and Rosen from reaching into their pockets, of course. A couple of hours before their team’s 6-2 loss to the Giants on Friday night, a commercial featuring an upcoming promotion was shown on the Dodger Stadium video scoreboard.

The promotion: Valenzuela’s bobblehead night.

On December 15, 2024, a powerful storm swept through the Black Sea. Two Russian oil tankers were wrecked in the Kerch Strait, spilling vast quantities of fuel oil into the surrounding waters. Within days, the thick black substance reached the shores of Russia’s Krasnodar region, annexed Crimea, and the Sea of Azov.

Evening reports from Greenpeace warned that the incident could mark one of the worst environmental disasters in decades. Yet, over six months later, key questions remain unanswered: how much fuel oil was on board, how much has spilled, and how much continues to leak? Russia has released no official data, and the opacity surrounding the incident has alarmed environmental observers across the region.

Scientists fear the worst. In the absence of containment, oil residues may soon reach the coastlines of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Varna, Bulgaria, has been monitoring the situation closely. While no immediate threat has been detected in Bulgarian waters, local experts are cautious. The pollution zone, they say, could expand rapidly with changing winds and currents.

The Ukrainian Scientific Centre for Marine Ecology has published several projections showing the slow eastward spread of the slick through the Black Sea. Ukrainian Greenpeace confirms that oil traces have already reached the Odessa region and are approaching Romanian maritime boundaries.

Meanwhile, Russia’s official response — or lack thereof — has drawn sharp criticism. Unlike the Norilsk diesel spill in 2020, when a federal emergency was declared and Norilsk Nickel was fined billions, the Black Sea disaster has triggered no significant federal action. It is worth noting, however, that in the Norilsk case, the company went on to carry out extensive remediation, including full-scale river cleanup and contaminated soil removal.

In contrast, in 2025, volunteers are still collecting fuel oil from Russian beaches by hand. The companies responsible continue to dispute their liability in court. No fines, no cleanup mandate, no transparency. Only silence.

Most of us don’t even know that carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the prominent causes of workplace poisoning and the resulting fatalities globally. Our industries are filled with machinery and processes that emit carbon monoxide, the silent killer. To prevent this silent killer, whose small amount can also be fatal, our industries should employ a Carbon Monoxide (CO) Gas Detector.

What is carbon monoxide? Remember this: it is a highly poisonous, colorless, and odorless byproduct that human beings can’t detect without actually getting poisoned. A carbon monoxide gas detector helps humans identify a potential CO gas leak so we can take necessary preventative actions.

So how does a carbon monoxide gas detector actually “know” when CO is present? Most industrial-grade CO detectors use what’s called an electrochemical sensor. Inside the sensor, there’s a small chamber with two electrodes and an electrolyte. When carbon monoxide gas enters the chamber, it reacts with the chemicals inside and causes a small electric current to flow.

Electrochemical CO sensor cross-section, illustrating electrodes, electrolyte, and gas diffusion layer. Current output is proportional to CO concentration. Image credit: gasdog.com

Here’s the smart part: the strength of that current is directly proportional to the amount of CO in the air. So the more CO you have, the stronger the signal gets. The detector reads this signal in real time, and if it crosses a preset safety threshold, it triggers the alarm. This type of sensor is highly accurate, reliable over time, and doesn’t produce false alarms easily, which makes it ideal for use in busy, high-risk industrial environments.

To know the intensity of the damage this silent killer can cause, know that even a small amount can inflict irreversible brain damage or sudden death. Yes, death! Read on to know why you need to install a CO gas detector in your industry.

Reason 1 – This Threat Is Invisible And Demands Vigilance

Carbon monoxide (CO) gas detectors are necessary in industrial zones because of the basic nature of this gas. Can’t be seen! This hidden peril is dominating the poisonous gas market because it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, like air. You will think that you are breathing fresh air, but it can be the lethal CO gas that damages your health within seconds.

Human senses are without any doubt incapable of seeing through this looming danger as it goes undetected. Our industry workers are focused on their work in the sounds and smells of various industrial processes. Not a single employee can notice this gas that is invisible in such a busy setting. They won’t get any sensory cues and will be breathing lethal levels of CO.

We are not just saying out of the blue, we have read a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that:

“Because it is colorless, odorless, and non-irritating, people can be exposed to CO without warning.”

This invisibility is the main reason it begins to poison you without you even realizing it. Workers inhale it, which gets mixed up with hemoglobin in their red blood cells. This forms carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) in your body. This means oxygen won’t get transported throughout the body.

Initially, a person won’t understand what is happening to their bodies. They will consider the poison symptoms as common ailments. These common symptoms include flu, fatigue, headache, nausea, etc. As the person doesn’t understand, staying in this state for a bit longer worsens symptoms. In the worst-case scenario, the person will suffer severe incapacitating symptoms such as confusion, loss of coordination, chest pain, and even loss of consciousness.

But this works faster than we think, and before you understand, you are about to collapse. Given the lack of detectability, industrial settings must have a Carbon Monoxide (CO) Gas Detector.

Reason 2 – Almost Every Industry Produces CO Risks

Reason 3 – Early Detection To Prevent Severe Health Consequences

For example, it will detect the CO gas levels. Many companies, including Gas Dog, have developed upgraded CO gas detectors designed specifically for industrial environments where early detection can save lives.

These detectors use electrochemical sensors, which are known for their high accuracy and low false alarm rates, making them ideal for noisy, high-interference settings like warehouses or factories. They can detect carbon monoxide concentrations from 0 up to 1000 ppm, with a fine sensitivity of just 1 ppm—so even small leaks won’t go unnoticed. What sets these devices apart isn’t just detection, but smart functionality. Most models come with built-in data logging, which helps safety teams monitor exposure levels over time and analyze trends after an event.

And when danger strikes, they respond fast. With audible alarms, visual warning lights, These devices have pre-determined safety thresholds that, upon breaching, the alarm goes on. And, these thresholds have sensory triggers that turn on the alert mode with loud alarm sounds, loud enough to wake even the sleeping workers in every nook and corner. The alarm makes a sound around 85 decibels that is louder than normal industrial noise levels. Once the alarm is on, the entire setting is evacuated to identify the source of the leak and take necessary steps to make the setting gas-free.

Reason 4 – Legal Responsibility Mandate Action As Per Regulations

Conclusion