Pyongyang has accused the US of pushing the world ‘to the brink of nuclear war’.
Published On 14 Aug 202614 Aug 2026
North Korea has denounced major United States-South Korea military drills set to start next week as a provocation that heightens tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The US-Japan-South Korea military cooperation is turning into a nuclear alliance, and North Korea will respond to a new level of threat with a new level of deterrent, a spokesperson for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, according to Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
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Pyongyang routinely denounces military drills in the south as a provocation that heightens tensions.
The drills – named “Ulchi Freedom Shield” – are due to start on August 17 and will last until August 27. They will incorporate exercises to counter drones, GPS disruption, and cyberattacks as the US and its allies adapt to North Korea’s evolving capabilities.
“The US announced that the forthcoming exercises are quite different from the ones of the past five years and intended to master the ability of fighting a war on the basis of the new aspects of modern warfare,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in the statement.
“It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent,” the statement, published by KCNA, added.
North Korea sent an estimated 12,000-15,000 soldiers to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine, and the country is now thought to be preparing the deployment of another 10,000.
Thousands died, but the deal provided North Korea with valuable battlefield experience, as well as payment in arms, energy and direct financial support, according to reports.
Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesperson for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, said this week that North Korea’s deployment to the European war had changed the threat his soldiers may face on the Korean Peninsula.
“They’ve taken those lessons they learned there and brought them back to North Korea,” he told reporters. “Our training accounts for that threat.”
Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry statement said the US-South Korea drills are being staged “at a time when military and political situation is becoming more serious with each passing day in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world”.
North Korea also said on Friday that it would further strengthen its nuclear deterrence, accusing the US of lowering its threshold for nuclear weapons usage and pushing the world “to the brink of nuclear war”.
On Wednesday, North Korea fired a ballistic missile towards the sea off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast, just six days after firing another missile.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield drills will include 18,000 South Korean soldiers and counterparts from the 28,500-strong US contingent in the country.
ROCK legend Rod Stewart has undergone heart surgery and cancelled all upcoming tour dates.
The Maggie May singer had recently pulled out of two gigs in a week as fears grew over his health.
Stewart, 81, has undergone a coronary stent procedure that was a success, his representative has said.
They added: “Doctors are pleased with his recovery, and Rod is doing very well and has returned to his normal daily activities.
“On the advice of his doctors, he will take the next four weeks to recuperate and regain full fitness before returning to the stage.
“Unfortunately, this means he will be unable to continue his current tour dates.”
Stewart canceled his Tuesday night performance at Rocket Arena in Cleveland shortly after postponing his Sunday concert in Cincinnati at Riverbend Music Center.
He also cancelled a few dates earlier this year, including two in Las Vegas and one in San Diego.
Rod was scheduled to appear through September 3 in North America, including his six-night residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and a few dates in Mexico.
In the statement the singer said: “I’m already feeling better and very much on the mend. I want to thank the doctors, nurses and everyone who has taken such wonderful care of me.
“I’m deeply disappointed to miss these shows and sorry to let my fans down, but I look forward to getting back on stage and having a good time with you all again soon.”
Back in June the hitmaker was forced to pull out of a gig in California, due to a respiratory infection that later triggered a bout of laryngitis.
Just a week later, Rod stopped midway through his Utah concert and was seen using an oxygen tank onstage after nearly passing out.
The surgery comes just days after he became a grandfather for the sixth time – with his daughter Ruby welcoming her second child with fiance Jake Kalick.
Ruby posted adorable pictures of her older son Otis meeting his sibling for the very first time to social media.
Rod has eight children in total with five different women.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
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RITA ORA’s fourth studio album is almost complete – but no one is quite sure what to expect from it.
Aside from her husband, Hollywood director Taika Waititi, that is.
Speaking to Bizarre’s Jack at a London screening to mark the 10th anniversary of his hit film, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Taika said Rita’s long-awaited album was “amazing”.
He added: “This new record is incredible. I’ve heard a lot of it.
“It was such a departure from stuff that she’s probably known mostly for. It’s a different sound.”
Taika directed the sultry video for Rita’s latest single, All Natural, and also directed and starred in the video for 2023’s Don’t Think Twice.
Getting Oscar-winner Taika to work on your project can’t come cheap, but Taika assured us with a wink that he and Rita had come to an arrangement.
He chuckled: “There is a very mates’ rates deal going on. I think it’s been free each time. It’s just fun to get to work together.
“It’s great because we’re kind of in similar industries, but they’re very different disciplines – and when you’re with someone, you want to be able to do some work together.
“I’m really amazed and surprised at what she does, but also super- confused all the time.”
Taika masterminded two of Marvel’s biggest hits – Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 and Thor: Love And Thunder in 2022.
He also plays the alien Korg in the films.
Taika admits that he’d love Marvel book bosses to sign up Rita for a role alongside him one day.
He said: “Younger me would like to see a Bond Girl Rita, but I think I’d find it more fun to see her doing a Marvel film.
“It would be great to see her as a villain.” Watch this space . . .
CHRISTMAS came early for Raye fans as she took to the stage in a sparkly red dress.
The Where Is My Husband! singer wouldn’t have looked out of place at a festive party as she headlined Brighton Pride on Saturday.
Her bill-topping set followed epic performances from Jessie J and Leigh-Anne Pinnock.
The Little Mix singer kept cool in a yellow bikini top and combat trousers – putting her growing baby bump on display.
She is expecting her third child with footballer husband Andre Gray. They had twin girls in 2021.
Brighton hosts the UK’s biggest Pride festival, but it is dwarfed by WorldPride, which took place in Amsterdam over the weekend.
Going all out to impress, organisers in the Netherlands somehow managed to land Madonna to perform.
She owned the Dutch stage in a bright purple corset and matching boots.
Taking camp to the next level, Madge was joined for her epic set by Kylie Minogue, who sang with Nick Cave at his Brighton gig on Friday.
Rumours are rife that the duo have a song together on a remix edition of Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II.
We should be so lucky . . .
TUESDAY: ALEXANDRA BURKE struts her stuff in front of a star-studded audience at the press night for I’m Every Woman: The Chaka Khan Musical at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre in West London, with Chaka herself set to attend.
WEDNESDAY: Ted Lasso is back in the dugout, three years after the last series aired, as Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham return for the fourth series on Apple TV.
THURSDAY: A weekend of festivals begin with Boardmasters in Cornwall, headlined by Kasabian, as well as Lakefest in Herts, Back 2 Festival in Leics and Deva Festival in Cheshire.
FRIDAY: Edinburgh Festival Fringe kicks off three weeks of comedy.
ARIANA GRANDE is dominating this week’s Official Chart First Look.
The One Last Time singer is on track to land three songs from her new album, Petal, inside the UK Top 20.
The album’s title track and second single, Petal, is currently at No3, while Kiss Me is at No6 and Stay sits at No11.
The album was streamed 62million times on its first day of release on Spotify, making it the platform’s 16th biggest first-day album debut by a female artist.
Ariana’s 2019 album, Thank U, Next, remains her biggest first-day debut, with 70million streams in its first 24 hours.
MUSIC guru Chris Herbert is the man who discovered the Spice Girls more than 30 years ago, and now he’s backing another feisty young act, Allegra.
She is gearing up to drop a new project called Unreleased EP on August 21 and has her sights set on collabs with top stars.
Allegra, right, said: “I’d love to work with someone like Rita Ora. We’d have so much fun. She’s got such cool style and I think we’d just have fun.”
Opening up about how she performs best, she added: “I like it when I’m feeling a bit sexy.
“I think I’m a bit angry at, like, a situationship or an ex- boyfriend, I’m looking hot in the music video and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got this’.”
DURING their heyday, One Direction were a money-making machine.
And even though the That’s What Makes You Beautiful singers split up back in 2016, the cash keeps rolling in.
New accounts for the band, made up of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and the late Liam Payne, have revealed they each made £2,636 a week last year.
And to top it off, they had to do absolutely no work for it.
Their two firms, 1D Media Ltd and PPM Music Ltd, are now worth a combined £3,814,044 – up more than £687,000 from the previous year.
It’s not a bad life, eh?
FATBOY SLIM brought the house down at Camp Bestival last night with his timeless dance classics.
Kids and adults alike were rocking away to Norman Cook’s high-energy hits Praise You and Right Here, Right Now.
He topped off an ace weekend of music at DJ Rob Da Bank’s ultimate family-friendly festival at Lulworth Cove, Dorset, where childhood innocence meets wild raving.
Packed crowds enjoyed brilliant sets from Billy Ocean, Example and Bastille. The latter even brought kids’ fave Bluey out as a surprise guest.
The highlight of the weekend for me was Self Esteem’s top performance. Unapologetically brilliant Rebecca Lucy Taylor didn’t tailor her trademark sweary songs for the young audience – and rightly so. “No one told me it’s a family-friendly festival,” she laughed.
“Not my fault you booked me,” before launching into racy sex positions track, 69.
Dashing from Mr Tumble to drum and bass bosses Fabio and Grooverider, there’s nowhere else people of all ages can sample the best of both worlds.
California’s statewide minimum wage is set to rise next year.
Starting on Jan. 1, 2027, the statewide minimum wage will rise to $17.40 an hour, an increase Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted about on Friday.
Newsom — who has been eyeing a 2028 presidential run — said in a statement that California’s fiscal policies helped turn the state into “one of the strongest economies in the world” while the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress fail to address “everyday cost pressures for working families.” The federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009.
“For years, Donald Trump and Republicans have blocked efforts to raise the federal minimum wage while handing tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations,” Newsom said. “California has chosen a different path — one that rewards work, grows the economy, and puts working families first.”
Not everyone agreed. Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton took to social media on Friday to decry the minimum wage increase as an “attack on workers” that will “crush small businesses.”
The current minimum wage in California for all employers is $16.90 an hour, though some workers must be paid more to comply with city and county rules and other state laws.
California’s minimum wage automatically increases each year to keep pace with inflation. The current system was established in 2016, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a first-in-the-nation plan to gradually boost the state’s hourly minimum wage to $15 an hour, then adjust the wage annually based on inflation starting in 2024.
“This is about economic justice, it’s about people,” Brown said during the bill signing.
The specific amount of the minimum wage increase is tied to inflation — as measured by the federal consumer price index — and capped at 3.5%, according to state law. The state director of finance is responsible for calculating the adjusted minimum wage on or before Aug. 1 each year.
California has the highest minimum wage out of all 50 states, according to the governor’s office. (Only Washington, D.C.’s, minimum wage ranks higher, at $18.40.)
The state in 2024 raised minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour. The fast-food wage requirement applies to chains with more than 60 locations nationwide.
Researchers have been split on the economic impacts of the pay increase for fast-food workers, which chains like Pizza Hut and Cinnabon have fought. (Earlier this year, a major Carl’s Jr. franchisee cited the $20 fast-food minimum wage when he applied for bankruptcy protection.)
California also has higher minimum wages for healthcare workers at large facilities as a result of a union-backed bill Newsom signed in 2023. Under the legislation, many healthcare workers’ minimum wages in July rose from $24 an hour to $25 an hour.
Some cities in California, including Emeryville and West Hollywood, have opted to impose even higher city minimum wages exceeding $20 per hour.
Most states have minimum wages above the federal minimum. Five Republican-led states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — do not have an independent state minimum wage and default to the federal minimum.
While a 2019 Pew Research Center poll found that two-thirds of Americans support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, a deep partisan split over the issue remains.
Roman Arbuzov/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Qualcomm (QCOM) said on Wednesday that it has expanded its collaboration with Samsung (SSNLF), bringing Snapdragon chips across the new Galaxy lineup, including smartphones, watches and intelligent eyewear.
The San Diego, California-based firm said that Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile
A century and a half ago, Richard Wagner was running out of cash as he was preparing to stage his four momentous nights of opera known as the “Ring Cycle” when he got a message from the Women’s Centennial Executive Committee in Philadelphia. It offered him a princely $5,000 (around $150,000 today) to write a triumphant 12-minute orchestral score to open the Centennial Exposition in Fairmont Park celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
On May 10, 1876, Theodore Thomas, perhaps America’s most famous conductor at the time (he would go on to head the New York Philharmonic and help found the Chicago Symphony), led the premiere of Wagner’s “Grosse Festmarsch” with a 150-member orchestra, its brass and percussion so impressive that the addition of cannon fire Wagner suggested was not needed. The crowd was said to number well over 100,000. President Ulysses S. Grant attended and invited Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil to join him along with members of Congress and Supreme Court justices for what remains a unique Declaration of Independence spectacle and debacle.
The “Centennial March,” as it came to be known, turned out to be dreck. Even Wagner, who carelessly tossed it off in a couple of weeks, said the best thing about the score was the fee, which he had demanded to be paid in gold. But what sounds like something AI might come up with if asked to write a pompous march in the style of Wagner began the American obsession with celebrating the Declaration of Independence, the words and deeds of our presidents, our very democracy with the assist of the symphony orchestra and opera.
One hundred years later, the country was awash with federal, state, city and philanthropic funding for a music-happy bicentennial of exceptional ambition. “With millions available in hand and more money to come,” Time Magazine wrote in 1975, “the Bicentennial is the biggest bonanza for the American composer since Hollywood discovered the musical.”
And so it was. The centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play. In addition, the NEA offered further support to 34 American orchestras for dozens more new scores.
Everyone got into the act. The New York State Council of the Arts alone sponsored 68 commissions. Orchestras everywhere came up with striking projects. The Pittsburgh Symphony, for instance, premiered L.A. composer John LaMontaine’s opera/oratorio “Be Glad Then America” that featured the folk singer Odetta as the Muse of Liberty and enlisted ROTC students to reenact the Battle of Lexington overhead the orchestra.
The National Symphony commissioned symphonies from Roy Harris and William Schuman as well as Alan Hovhaness’ “Ode to Freedom,” a lovely short violin concerto written for Yehudi Menuhin. The list goes on.
We are obviously not seeing or hearing much like that in a semiquincentennial year when our government’s green gets the most attention for promoting algae. Even so, the NEA does indeed have an “America250” project (though it does little to publicize it, let alone fund it on the scale of 50 years ago) that is promoting more than 50 artworks. In music, they range from the Montgomery Symphony’s premiere in February of Nkeiru Okoye’s oratorio “A Time for Jubilee,” commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches, to a New West Symphony premiere last weekend of Michael Christie’s “A Ronald Reagan Portrait” at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
The major East Coast orchestras are paying some attention. The New York Philharmonic premiered David Lang’s luminous “the wealth of nations.” The National Symphony got the most attention in its attempt to commission Philip Glass’ “Lincoln” Symphony, which the composer pulled in opposition to an un-Lincoln-like presidential takeover of the Kennedy Center. Glass then gave the rights to the Boston Symphony for a July 5 first performance.
The National Symphony did pull off the premiere of Peter Boyer’s “American Mosaic,” and it was to the Altadena composer that Philadelphia, this time around, entrusted its Declaration of Independence commemoration. Boyer’s multimedia oratorio, “A Hundred Years On,” was given its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra last month at the orchestra’s outdoor summer home, the Mann Center.
Upcoming will be a few repeat performances. Next month, “the wealth of nations” lands at the Aspen Festival, as does the “Lincoln” Symphony at the Cabrillo festival (with an L.A. Phil performance next season). “American Mosaic,” of which the Pacific Symphony was a co-commissioner, had its West Coast premiere in Costa Mesa last month and was scheduled to be performed at the Hollywood Bowl by the National Symphony in August, but that has now been replaced by Dvorak’s commonplace “New World Symphony.”
None of this comes close to comparing with the attempted civic zest of 1976. The NEA made it a matter of admirable policy that commissioned new works get multiple performances. Yet despite several of these being substantial works by some of our most noted and venturesome composers, few bicentennial commissions have survived. Even odder is that many of the composers did not necessarily feel compelled to explore nationalist themes. For them, American liberty implied freedom to simply write the kind of music they cared about.
The six works for the six orchestras were David del Tredici’s irresistibly over-the-top “Final Alice” (Chicago Symphony), Elliott Carter’s arrestingly impenetrable-on-first-hearing “Symphony for Three Orchestras” (New York Philharmonic), John Cage’s irrepressibly come-what-may “Renga” (Boston Symphony), Morton Subotnick’s brilliant electronic-landscaped “Before the Butterfly” (Los Angeles Philharmonic), Leslie Bassett’s introspective “Echoes From an Invisible World” and Jacob Druckman’s abstract-modernist “Chiaroscuro” (Cleveland Orchestra).
No orchestra has brought back its commission over the last half century, and only Chicago and New York recorded their commissions. No recording at all exists of L.A.’s, although Subotnick’s inventive uses of electronic music with a standard symphony orchestra went on to have considerable influence. None of these works, it appears, are likely to be heard anywhere in America this year, with one sort-of exception.
An explanation for that may be that, while 1976 was a fraught time for America — the country was recovering from the Vietnam War, we had a president and vice president who were not elected, there was runaway inflation, etc. — the music of the time represented optimism. Many works around the country explored new electronic music technology. It was the year Glass wrote “Einstein on the Beach” and Steve Reich created “Music for 18 Musicians” — the composers’ first masterpieces — demonstrating that Minimalism mattered.
That sense of liberation is clearly behind Del Tredici’s “Final Alice,” an hourlong romp around the ending of “Alice in Wonderland” for superhuman soprano and orchestra. It is so obsessively and addictively wild that its tamest moments sound like Richard Strauss on LSD. It does have a cult following although performances are few and far between.
Cage’s score is an abstract work based on the Japanese form of collective poetry known as renga, in which each poet attempts to write a line that is as distant as possible in meaning from the preceding line. Cage translates that to an independence of instrumental parts. While “Renga” can be performed alone Cage further suggests it be played along with an actual bicentennial work he wrote separately, “Apartment House 1776.” That is what Boston and the other orchestras did.
Indeed, “Apartment House” got the lion’s share of bicentennial attention and ridicule. When Zubin Mehta conducted it at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the L.A. Philharmonic did not take it seriously and many walked out on it.
The work features four vocal soloists who represent Native American, Sephardic, African American and Protestant religious traditions, along with instrumental music based on early American hymn tunes. Everything is cut up and put together through chance operations into what Cage called a Musicircus. Under the circumstances “Renga” was hardly noticed, although two decades later, “Renga” came into its own when Michael Tilson Thomas famously conducted it with the San Francisco Symphony and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead.
Still the idea that “Apartment House” need not stand alone, that our traditions and those of long-ago Japan belong together, represented for Cage a future for America. We need not act like a superpower, he noted, but merely be one nation, no more and no less, among many.
We are obviously not that nation. A half-century later, “Apartment House” tends to exist mainly in its own right. An excellent London new music ensemble calls itself Apartment House. Detroit Opera recently staged it with a 2026 need to give the singers the opportunity to select their own music rather than reflect on our heritage. If American music in 1976 represented a collective, inquisitive, inventive American spirit of discovery, the semiquincentennial in the age of social media has become more about the individual identity.
As a sign of how we think about ourselves, the Los Angeles Philharmonic begins its Hollywood Bowl season five days after the 4th with a program of American music conducted by Thomas Wilkins that opens with Valery Coleman’s “Fanfare for Uncommon Times,” which was written five years ago.
But for now, the work that stands out is Lang’s “the wealth of nations.” It balances harsh thoughts of how the promise of capitalism has failed society and how racism remains with music of stunning beauty and glory, to gently but forcefully show us, in our age of American dissatisfaction, the direction in which we might go to make us proud again. It needs many performances.
This photo, taken Tuesday, shows the trading room of Hana Bank in Seoul as South Korean stocks rose by almost one percent as investors watched for a resumption of U.S.-Iran talks. Photo by Yonhap
South Korean stocks ended nearly 1 percent higher Tuesday, led by gains in technology shares, as investors watched for a possible resumption of U.S.-Iran talks in Qatar aimed at easing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. The Korean won weakened against the U.S. dollar.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 81.83 points, or 0.97 percent, to close at 8,476.47.
Investor sentiment improved after the United States and Iran were set to resume talks in Qatar aimed at easing tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, alleviating concerns over a prolonged disruption to global oil supplies.
Overnight, Wall Street rebounded sharply as investors returned to tech stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.59 percent to close at a record high, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.07 percent and the S&P 500 advanced 1.18 percent.
Crude prices rose modestly as investors monitored implementation of the U.S.-Iran peace framework.
Trade volume was moderate at 444.61 million shares worth 41.08 trillion won (US$26.51 billion), with losers outnumbering losers 621 to 261
Institutions and individuals bought a net 2.93 trillion won and 833.45 billion won worth of shares, respectively, while foreigners sold a net 3.79 trillion won.
“Investors scooped up semiconductor shares following recent losses, while IT infrastructure and electricity stocks rose on hopes for major investment in semiconductor infrastructure in the southwestern region announced by the government and chipmakers,” said Lee Kyoung-min, an analyst at Daishin Securities.
Tech shares lifted the overall market.
Market bellwether Samsung Electronics rose 3.41 percent to 334,000 won, and chip giant SK hynix gained 0.84 percent to 1.65 million won. SK Square, the parent of SK hynix, advanced 3.48 percent to 1.69 million won.
Chip components maker Samsung Electro-Mechanics jumped 7.16 percent to 1.18 million won after announcing a 454 billion-won supply deal for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) for artificial intelligence servers to a U.S.-based customer.
Battery shares retreated on profit-taking after sharp gains the previous session.
LG Energy Solution plunged 9.61 percent to 362,000 won, and its smaller rival Samsung SDI sank 4.88 percent to 487,000 won.
The Korean won was quoted at 1,549.4 won per U.S. dollar as of 3:30 p.m., down 4.2 won from the previous session.
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THE upcoming Eden Project Morecambe has unveiled its biggest attraction yet – a £4.5million immersive experience.
Called ‘The Elder Tree’ it will guide visitors through a unique journey when it opens in 2028.
The £100million garden attraction set to be built on Morecambe Bay has revealed its centrepiece called ‘The Elder Tree’.
It has been described as “one of the most significant elements” of the attraction.
It’s being built at the cost of £4.5million, which was donated from a charity lottery.
The 65 foot tree will guide visitors on a journey from its roots to the trunk hollows in a one-of-a-kind immersive experience.
It is set to show people how to “reconnect” with and “restore nature”.
The Eden Project in Morecambe will be the newest of its kind in 25 years with the only other attraction being in Cornwall.
Inside the new attraction will be two very different experiences called The Realm of the Sun and The Realm of the Moon.
The Realm of the Sun has been described as “a bright, lush landscape of the near future — a place where humanity has rediscovered how to repair and re-engage with the broken rhythms of the natural world”.
The Realm of the Moon is as an immersive but “darker” space with a hyper-real rockpool which will have sped-up cycles of tides.
Also inside the domes will be 1.5 acres of landscaped gardens, which will open earlier than the other exhibits in 2027.
Other details that have been previously mentioned include hanging plants, mini gardens, a multi-sensory area, a waterfall and a ‘Town Square’.
Between the two realms, there is expected to be an area called Metronome, where visitors will buy their entry tickets.
There will be a 750-capacity Tidal Theatre, a 300-capacity restaurant and a shop at the attraction as well.
Once open, Eden Project Morecambe is expected to bring in around £80million to the local area.
Andy Jasper, Eden Project CEO, said: “The funding has specifically secured The Elder Tree – which will sit at the heart of the experience for visitors.
“More than a striking landmark, it will help tell the story of our changing relationship with the natural world and inspire people to imagine what an incredibly positive future could look like.”
WASHINGTON — The last time Washington, D.C., residents chose a new delegate to Congress and a new mayor in the same election, gas was $1.33 a gallon and George H.W. Bush was president.
This fall they will do it again — under starkly different circumstances.
As the city heads toward pivotal primaries this month to pick candidates for those roles, President Trump’s influence on the nation’s capital is shaping up as a major campaign issue. The fresh slate of candidates is weighing how best to approach Trump’s Republican administration and congressional control over the heavily Democratic city’s affairs.
“It’s going to be a big sea change in city politics, no matter how the elections shake out,” said Amanda Huron, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia who teaches courses on D.C. history and politics. But Washington’s lack of full autonomy brings “all sorts of peculiarities around the city’s governance.”
Since Trump returned to office last year, the National Guard is on an open-ended deployment as part of what he calls a crime-fighting mission. He is putting his personal imprint on the city’s storied landmarks. And major cuts to the federal workforce have compounded economic pressures on the capital, which has one of the country’s highest unemployment rates.
The city has long had a unique, if fraught, relationship with the federal government: While residents can vote for their local leaders, they are limited by Washington’s status as a federal district in how much influence they can actually have on the city’s affairs. That limited autonomy has been further squeezed under Trump and his federal law enforcement takeover, launched last year.
This fall, current council members Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are the frontrunners vying to replace Mayor Muriel Bowser, elected in 2014. The leading candidates in the race to succeed long-serving congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton are Robert White Jr. and Brooke Pinto, also D.C. council members.
On June 16, primaries will be held for those roles, which in an overwhelmingly Democratic city usually dictate who will take the top spot come November.
Washington, unlike other cities, does not control its fate.
What choices voters have is through a limited home rule agreement passed by Congress in 1973 that allowed residents to elect their local government leaders.
But Congress retains control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the city council. Congressional members elected by voters from thousands of miles away routinely introduce measures to impact city affairs.
That has meant local leaders must balance pressures from their constituents with the demands of Congress and the administration — an act Bowser was forced to perform repeatedly.
During Trump’s first term, she ordered the painting and naming of Black Lives Matter Plaza, just north of the White House, in 2020. Just months after Trump’s inauguration to his second term, she agreed to remove it in response to pressure from congressional Republicans.
That act, the decimation of the federal workforce by the Department of Government Efficiency and the surge by federal law enforcement and the National Guard into the city have emerged as central themes in the election season. Right now, about 3,500 troops are in the city — a number authorities say will climb to 5,000 as the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations approach.
Trump has routinely said his intervention has made Washington “one of the safest” and most beautiful cities in the country, enjoying a historic drop in crime.
George told The Associated Press that her top priority is addressing “the affordability crisis here in D.C., which the Trump administration has only made worse by unjustly firing federal employees en masse and militarizing our streets.”
McDuffie said his top priority is public safety as crime continues to be an issue. He has said he would add 1,000 police officers over four years, fully staff the 911 call center after years of chronic staffing shortages and take a public health approach to violence reduction.
“We cannot have an affordable city,” he said, “without public safety as its foundation.”
Both said they would bolster the city’s legal defenses against federal overreach and said Bowser should have been less cooperative with federal authorities as they targeted members of the city’s immigrant communities.
Alex Dodd, co-founder of Free DC, an activist group supporting city independence, said the organization endorsed George because of her willingness to be more aggressive in opposing Trump and congressional Republicans.
“When our leaders comply with this administration before being forced, they are giving this regime an enormous advantage,” he said.
Pat Wheeler, a native Washingtonian and communications consultant who served as a department head at Morgan State University, applauded Bowser for cooperating with the Trump administration on some aspects. She noted failure to do so could have sparked retribution and a loss of what little control city officials have.
“Trump can snap his finger and the whole Republican Congress will say, ‘Let’s put a federal control board over the mayor,’” she said.
The D.C. delegate position is a nonvoting one, but it grants the nearly 700,000 people of the district, who have no other representation in Congress, a voice through speechmaking on the House floor and bill introduction.
But critics said the 88-year-old Norton was diminished during the second Trump administration and not visible enough in the fight against administration and congressional overreach on the city’s autonomy. She filed paperwork to end her campaign for reelection in January.
Norton, who has served 18 terms, has had a storied career. She and her predecessor, Walter Fauntroy Jr., both had national standing coming out of the civil rights era.
“Eleanor Holmes Norton is maybe one of the last major political figures who comes out of the civil rights movement,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at The George Washington University. “It’s a real passing of the torch.”
The campaigns of candidates running to replace her have centered on local control, Trump and affordability. Frontrunners and council members Pinto and White have also engaged in personal skirmishes questioning the origins of campaign contributions and connections to Republicans.
Pinto told the AP her top priority for the city is self-governance, something that has “never been a true reality for the people of D.C.”
She said affordability for the middle-class and working families is another concern.
White’s campaign has said he’s “not willing to continue to see our tax dollars used to allow DC police to cooperate and conspire with federal agents to trample our constitutional rights and to terrorize our communities.”
Brenda Manley, a longtime resident of Ward 7, an area with a storied Black history across the Anacostia River, said the city was well managed despite the tensions with Trump. But she said she hoped all the candidates would spend more time on the campaign focusing on programs that are beneficial to all residents, like a tuition grant program championed by Norton or major strides made in education during Bowser’s tenure.
“Those type of programs matter,” Manley said.
Fields writes for the Associated Press.
