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Former Army General Condemns Trumps Comments On Allies

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Former Army General Condemns Trumps Comments On Allies

A former US Army general has hit out at Donald Trump’s “repulsive” comments about America’s allies over the war in Iran.

The president is putting pressure on other countries, including the UK, to send ships to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open as the conflict goes on.

Speaking on Monday, he said: “They should be in here very happily helping us,” he said. “They should be jumping to help us because we’ve helped them for years.”

Lieutenant General Hodges, the former commander of the US Army in Europe, told Radio 4′s Today programme: “This is embarrassing for me as an American to hear any American president showing such disdain for any ally, and we are going to regret in the long run as … nations lose confidence in us, lose trust in us and start finding other ways to look after their strategic interests.”

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Taking aim specifically at the prime minister, Trump said: “Keir Starmer yesterday told me, ‘I’m meeting with my team to make a determination’.

“I said, ‘you don’t need to meet your team, you’re the prime minister, you can make your own decision.’”

But Lt Gen Hodges said: “Many of the problems that we’re having in the United States right now are because the president has gotten rid of the normal national security staff and he’s put in place people who are sycophants.

“Any leader worth his or her salt depends on a team, so I find this repulsive to say the prime minister or the German chancellor or the president of any other country doesn’t need to speak to his or her team.”

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Three Cancers Are On The Rise In The UK

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Three Cancers Are On The Rise In The UK

Some good news: in the UK, cancer death rates have reached their lowest-ever levels on record, Cancer UK reported. They’re down 29% from their 1989 peak.

Cervical cancer is an especially notable example. There’s been a 75% decrease in death rates in the last 50 years, thanks in part to the HSV vaccine.

Reacting to that news, Dr Jiri Kubes, radiation oncologist and medical director at the Proton Therapy Centre, said, “Overall cancer survival has improved significantly over recent decades, which is extremely encouraging.

“However, we are also seeing concerning increases in certain cancers, and in some cases these are appearing more frequently in younger adults.”

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1) Bowel cancer

Recent research found that 45% of bowel cancer cases are in under-65s. England has experienced a 3.6% yearly rise in early-onset bowel cancer, the highest in Europe.

Some scientists have noticed that younger people’s bowels might be more “stiff” than older people’s, which could increase their risk.

Dr Kubes added that envirionmental and lifestyle changes might have a role to play, too.

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“Modern diets that are high in processed foods and low in fibre can influence gut health and long-term inflammation, which may increase cancer risk,” he said.

“At the same time, many people are spending more time sitting and less time being physically active than previous generations.”

2) Pancreatic cancer

In the UK, pancreatic cancer rates have risen by 20% since the ’90s. We’re projected to see 5% more cases between 2023-2025 and 2038-2040.

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It’s still relatively rare, however – it’s the 10th most common cancer in the UK, and accounts for 3% of all new cancer cases.

“Symptoms often appear late, which makes early diagnosis challenging,” Dr Kubes explained.

“That is why awareness of persistent symptoms such as unexplained weight loss, abdominal pain or ongoing digestive problems is so important.”

Pancreatic cancer can also make the whites of your eyes or your skin turn yellow (jaundice).

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3) Liver cancer

Since the early ’90s, liver cancer incidence has increased by a remarkable 180% in the UK. This is slightly higher for men than it is for women.

Rates are expected to rise by 6% between 2023-2025 and 2038-2040.

Liver cancer is strongly linked to deprivation: rates among women are 78% higher in the most deprived areas than the least deprived ones, and for men, it’s 89%.

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Dr Kubes added, “Conditions such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease have become more common, and these can significantly increase the risk of certain cancers.”

Still, cancer treatment has progressed overall

None of this is to say cancer outcomes have not improved – they have.

“Earlier diagnosis, more precise radiotherapy techniques and improved systemic treatments are helping many more patients live longer,” Dr Kubes said.

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“But prevention and early detection remain some of the most powerful tools we have to reduce cancer risk in the future.”

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UEFA could lose its tax privileges for failing to sanction Israel

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UEFA could lose its tax privileges for failing to sanction Israel

UEFA is facing mounting political pressure in Switzerland following a parliamentary move that could threaten its tax privileges after failing to impose any sanctions on Israel.

The French newspaper L’Équipe revealed that a group of left-wing members of parliament in the Swiss canton of Vaud submitted a draft resolution questioning whether the conditions for UEFA’s tax exemption are still met.

If the draft resolution passes, UEFA will be summoned to justify why it hasn’t sanctioned Israel, especially since the Swiss federal government has previously linked tax privileges for international sports federations to their role in promoting peace through sport.

The initiators of the proposal believe UEFA is no longer fulfilling its role, which could open the door to a review of its tax status in Switzerland, where its headquarters are located.

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According to internal estimates within UEFA, canceling the tax exemption could cost the organisation about €30 million annually (£26 million). Tax authorities may also demand clarification on how its annual revenues, estimated at about €5 billion (£4 billion), are distributed.

The cantonal parliament is scheduled to debate the draft resolution on 24 March. A close vote is expected in the 150-member assembly, where left-wing parties hold only 64 seats, leaving the outcome uncertain.

UEFA’s president must call for a vote

This pressure comes at a time of escalating international campaign led by the campaign group, Game Over Israel, which wants global sports organisations to boycott Israel, similarly to what happened with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Former Manchester United player, Eric Cantona, reignited the debate when he highlighted the disparity in treatment of both countries at a solidarity event in London last year.

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According to sources within UEFA, communications and pressure from federations, sponsors and sports media have continued unabated in recent months, indicating how prominent this issue has become within European football.

Any decision to suspend Israel’s participation in European competitions requires a vote within UEFA’s 21-member executive committee, including its president, Aleksander Čeferin, who is the only person authorised to call for such a vote.

Internal sources indicate a number of committee members are inclined to support a ban. However, Čeferin —known for his meticulous calculations — only calls for a vote when he is certain of a clear majority.

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The Israeli Football Association, on the other hand, categorically denied the existence of any upcoming vote to suspend its membership, describing the circulating reports as “fake news” and affirming its commitment to all FIFA and UEFA regulations.

Mounting pressure

But the pressure is no longer solely political or moral; it has also extended to the financial sphere. Several European federations have incurred significant losses during matches played by their national teams against Israel due to the stringent security measures and low attendance.

For example, the 2024 France-Israel match at the 80,000 capacity Stade de France attracted only about 16,000 spectators. Security costs for the Europa League match between VfB Stuttgart and Maccabi Tel Aviv last December were estimated at about €10 million (£9 million).

As pressure mounts from parliaments, players and national federations, European football appears to be facing a new political test that could determine not only Israel’s participation in continental tournaments but also the boundaries of the relationship between sport and politics in Europe.

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Andrew Gilligan: The problems Cameron and Osborne made for Conservatives by being the ‘heirs to Blair’

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Andrew Gilligan: The problems Cameron and Osborne made for Conservatives by being the 'heirs to Blair'

Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.

Since I wrote last month that our failure in government has deep roots in the Cameron/Osborne era as well as in the nine years which followed it, a couple of people have asked me to expand on what I meant.

One aspect of the last Conservative government’s failure was, of course, that it failed in most ways to make Britain more conservative. And the main reason for that was that many of its most important members didn’t want to. Yes, the blob was also partly to blame; and yes, latterly our own disorganisation and incompetence, in tackling the blob and in other ways, were partly to blame.

But the fact is that Osborne and Cameron positioned themselves as the “heirs to Blair.” Cameron never said this publicly, but did say words to that effect at private events with journalists, including one with me, before he became PM. As shadow chancellor, Osborne publicly criticised Gordon Brown for “challenging the key elements of the Blair settlement.

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He meant on the reform of public services, but it also extended into full support for the Blairite social settlement and way of doing politics. I remember a senior Tory strategist complaining to me at the time that Osborne was slavishly following the Blair playbook.

There were many areas of policy failure.

Some were explicitly meant to show continuity Blairism, such as spending 0.7 per cent of gross national income on aid. (As they ran out of things to spend it on, they found themselves subsidising holidays for British teenagers.) Domestically, much larger amounts of money were moved to the wrong people. The triple lock, one of the things we most need to dismantle, was created by George Osborne.

Austerity is the left’s biggest criticism of Cameron/Osborne.

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But aid and the triple lock show the true, rather different, problem with the policy: that the money was spent in many of the wrong places and the cuts were made in many of the wrong places. The cuts to the courts, prisons and police took a few years to work through, but are now manifest in the effective impunity in many places for crimes such as shoplifting; in the victims waiting four years for a trial; and in the decline of the prisons towards American levels of decency and safety.

The state of the armed forces, and the disastrous defence review of 2010, is probably the single most dangerous legacy of the Cameron/Osborne austerity cuts, though to be fair this collapse has been underway for decades. Capital spending followed the same approach: what money there was (arguably too little in an era of low interest rates) often went on the wrong things, such as HS2.

Cameron’s successors also had mixed views about conservatism. May was personally more socially conservative, but ended up trying to impress activists with policies like transgender self-identification. Boris was at base a metropolitan liberal estranged from his tribe by Brexit (it was quite a job to get him off self-ID, for instance.)

All three also fell into a trap, which I might write about more in future, of accepting the centrist answer to a challenge as the challenge. So if you question HS2 – by any objective measure, a very poor way to help the North –  you’re branded an enemy of helping the North.

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If you question net zero, you’re deemed to question the very existence of man-made climate change, or the importance of tackling it. Actually, however, many net zero policies have almost no chance of tackling climate change. Because even in the most willing parts of the world, broadly Western Europe, there will never be enough political willingness to implement them. The lightbulb moment for me on this was when the then co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay MP, opposed new electricity pylons through his Suffolk constituency, needed to carry the electricity produced by North Sea windfarms to London.

If even the leader of the Green Party won’t support even one of the less politically difficult aspects of net zero, then much of net zero is surely dead. We need to start thinking quite urgently about doing other things to stop climate change, or to dampen its effects, such as mitigation or geoengineering – as well as carrying on with the bits of net zero which are politically tenable.

The reason I say all this is that I slightly feel that Tory centrism might at some point be due a comeback. It is the obvious gap in the market. But unless it learns from these and its other mistakes, it ain’t happening.

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Sultana slams Telegraph writers Israel lobby links

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Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has slapped down Telegraph political editor Camilla Turner for a scurrilous smear by appearing to link Turner’s position – and political views – to “mummy and daddy” being directors of notorious Israel lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).

Turner wrote an article claiming that Sultana “could” – emphasis on the ‘could’:

face an investigation by the parliamentary watchdog after being accused of peddling an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

At the very end of the article, Turner admits that the Standards Authority doesn’t actually seem to be investigating the nonsense:

Ms Sultana’s spokesman said on Saturday that she had not heard from the commissioner on this matter.

Sultana’s supposed “anti-Semitic [sic] conspiracy theory” was a comment on X that:

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Zionism is one of the greatest threats to humanity.

and:

[Israeli soldiers] love killing kids.

Where’s the lie?

Sultana speaks out

Supposedly, a complaint has been submitted to Parliament alleging these comments are antisemitic “blood libel” – hardly the first time the Israel lobby has wheeled out that tired claim to deflect from its crimes. The complaint was submitted by the disgraced Israel lobby group ‘Labour against Antisemitism’ (LAAS). You know, the LAAS whose non-Jewish director made up a Jewish-sounding name to submit complaints of ‘Labour antisemitism’.

But a comment has to be untrue to be libel – and both of Sultana’s are reality, not theory.

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Since their illegal occupation of a land that doesn’t belong to them by violently expelling 700,000 Palestinians, Zionists have:

bombed a US ship to try to trigger a war
bombed their own people in Egypt to try to force them to go to Israel
constantly slaughtered more Palestinians and stolen more land
stolen US secrets and uranium to build illegal atomic weapons
broken every ceasefire they’ve ever agreed
blown up their own buildings in London to trigger persecution of Palestinians
maimed and killed Palestinians attempting peaceful resistance in the ‘First Intifada’
killed journalists trying to report on peaceful resistance
tried to get the US to invade Iran every year for more than three decades by claiming Iranian nuclear weapons were imminent
armed and treated ISIS fighters to ruin Syria.

And all that’s from way before they started their ongoing genocide in Gaza (which has killed hundreds of thousands of children), their terrorist pager-bomb attacks and ongoing bombings in Lebanon (which killed and maimed children), and their murders of peace negotiators and civilian scientists.

And, of course, their two disastrous wars on Iran that have murdered more children, seen Israeli cities devastated in retaliation, and brought the world to the brink of global economic collapse.

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It’s not theory, it’s empirical: Zionism and its adherents – many of whom are not Jewish – are indeed one of the “greatest threats to humanity”.

So Zarah Sultana hit back:

UKLFI

So, back to ‘mummy and daddy’. Jonathan Turner is CEO of UKFLI. He appalled the decent world in 2025 by suggesting that Israel’s starvation blockade of Gaza was a good thing, as it would help Palestinians lose weight. He didn’t use that word, of course, since to Zionists the Palestinians don’t exist:

The [Lancet] letter also ignored factors that may increase average life expectancy in Gaza, bearing in mind that one of the biggest health issues in Gaza prior to the current war was obesity.

Mummy Caroline Turner is a fellow UKLFI director. She is currently the subject of a complaint from the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) for her and UKLFI’s:

(alleged) breaches of the SRA’s Principles and Code of Conduct, including the use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), which are lawsuits intended to limit freedom of expression on matters of public interest. Additionally, we are calling for an investigation into whether UKLFI is operating as an unregulated law firm…

…UKLFI, established in 2011, describes its mission as countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and what it calls the “delegitimisation of Israel”.

The complaint includes eight threatening letters sent by UKLFI to individuals and organisations between January 2022 and May 2025 which demonstrate a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts.

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UKLFI is being investigated by the solicitors’ regulator for repeated “vexatious” actions. Among its most notorious, it has:

tried eleven times so far to strip British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah of his medical licence after Abu-Sittah exposed Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
∙ bullied a hospital into removing a display of plates painted by Palestinian children
∙ tried to browbeat the British Museum into removing the words ‘Palestine’ and ‘Palestinian’ from displays
∙ forced a gallery to terminate an artist’s hit exhibition, and
∙ even attacked Netflix for not being pro-Israel enough.

Small wonder that human rights group CAGE describes it and fellow Israel lobby group CAA as Britain’s “apartheid apologists”.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Whether or not she owes her position and politics to ma and pa, Camilla Turner’s own views are no less appalling. One social media user points out a few recent examples:

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Going a bit further back, she condemned British Muslims for not believing that Palestinian resistance groups “committed murder and rape”. They are right and she is wrong: the UN and even Israel’s chief prosecutor found no evidence of rapes. Israel killed hundreds of its own people on 7 October 2023 in repeated, day-long ‘Hannibal’ attacks – a fact admitted by Israeli media, the IDF and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant even wished his forces had killed more.

And the Islamic Human Rights Commission felt compelled to respond to her attempts to smear it for condemning fascist rioters. It also felt it had to correct her smearing of UK Jews as uniformly supporting Israel’s crimes.

Sultana is right. At the very least, Turner should be declaring her links to mummy and daddy and their Israel-lobby attack vehicle. After all, a judge recently ordered one lobby group to declare its activities every time it tries a bit of “SLAAP” or lawfare.

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But since the Telegraph is now owned by ultra-Zionists, she’s unlikely to get into trouble for not mentioning it.

Featured image via the Canary

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Tina Fey To Front Saturday Night Live UK As First Guest Hosts Are Confirmed

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The regular cast of Saturday Night Live UK

Saturday Night Live UK will finally be hitting our screens this weekend – with the show’s first guest hosts and musical performers having now been announced.

Ahead of the series’ premiere on Saturday night, Sky has confirmed that SNL legend Tina Fey will be the UK spin-off’s very first presenter.

The premiere is in safe hands, as Tina worked as the head writer on the American version of SNL between 1997 and 2006. She has since gone on to host the US show six more times.

She will be joined by Brit Award winners Wet Leg as SNL UK’s inaugural musical guest.

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Following Tina’s appearance as host, Fifty Shades Of Grey actor Jamie Dornan will be hosting the second episode, with Brit Award winners Wolf Alice joining him as the musical act.

Episode three will then be hosted by Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed, with Kasabian serving as musical guests.

Lorne Michaels, who created SNL in 1975, will also work as the UK show’s executive producer, along with a team of 20 writers and a regular cast of 11 comedians, which includes Taskmaster alum Emma Sidi and Ania Magliano, Black Ops star Hammed Animashaun and TikTok fave Jack Shep.

SNL UK will follow the same format as the long-running American version, in which a new host each week performs sketches alongside the regular cast in front of a live studio audience.

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Written the week of the filming, all 75-minute episodes will feature an opening monologue from the host, sketches, live performances from the musical act and a British take on SNL’s satirical news segment, Weekend Update.

The regular cast of Saturday Night Live UK
The regular cast of Saturday Night Live UK

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Show, one of the show’s producers, James Longman, said he hoped to offer some joy to viewers during “rough times”.

“It’s a perfect time for this kind of show. The world is rough out there at the moment, so it’s a really good time to laugh,” James said this morning, hinting that the show would feature plenty of topical and satirical laughs. “There’s so many things to be funny about, and so it’s just finding the right angle for us. The key for us is to be funny.”

SNL UK is due to begin this Saturday (March 21) on Sky and Now TV, and will run for six episodes.

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Bob Vylan call out Met police for nonsense investigation

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Bob Vylan call out Met police for nonsense investigation

Duo Bob Vylan have mocked Metropolitan police chief Mark Rowley for the force’s decision to ‘investigate’ them – again – for repeating the now infamous death, death to the IDF” chant at the Al Quds Day 2026 protest.

Rowley and co already looked at the chant by Vylan rapper, real name Pascal Robinson-Foster – in 2025 when it was first made. It decided no further action was appropriate. So did the Avon and Somerset force, which has jurisdiction in Glastonbury, where the rap duo first used the chant.

In a widely liked and shared X post that drew hundreds of supportive comments, Bob Vylan took to social media to say:

But the ‘investigation’ will not be binned with the contempt it deserves, at least not yet. No self-humiliation or spinelessness is too great for the UK state apparatus when Israel demands action to intensify the ‘lawfare’ war against anti-genocide speech.

Featured image via the Canary

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BBC dodging questions on Israel broke the law, regulator finds

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BBC dodging questions on Israel broke the law, regulator finds

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ruled that the BBC’s decision to dodge a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request for details of calls between top executives and the Israeli embassy broke the law.

The broadcaster was asked to provide records of any calls that then-director-general Tim Davie, board member Robbie Gibb, then-News CEO Deborah Turness, and chair Samir Shah placed to the embassy or any of its personnel – or come up with a lawful reason not to do so. So far, the BBC has farcically told the unnamed civil servant who placed the FOI request – because he was concerned at the BBC’s outrageously biased coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – that it didn’t hold any relevant records.

That bias has been so extreme that even BBC staff have written publicly to bosses to condemn it and the culture of intimidation that keeps journalists in line. Davie and Furness were subsequently toppled from their BBC roles – for not being biased enough in favour of Israel.

BBC breached rules

The ICO found that the BBC breached Section 10 of the FOI Act by failing to provide a substantive response and has ordered the broadcaster to provide one within thirty days or be in contempt. The problem is that the ICO is generally toothless. While it has the power to impose huge fines, it almost never does so – especially when politics and Israel is involved.

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The FOI applicant said that:

If these calls exist, they represent a serious breakdown of the BBC’s Charter of Impartiality and a potential violation by the Israeli embassy of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

The BBC’s management is known to dread calls from a displeased Israeli embassy, so there is no realistic doubt that its executives consult routinely with the Israeli embassy on how to avoid its displeasure. Nor is that spineless collusion limited to the BBC. The Crown Prosecution Service is known to have consulted with the embassy about which anti-genocide activists it should prosecute in its war on pro-Palestine speech.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations bans diplomats from interfering in the internal affairs of their host nation – a ban that Israel ignores with impunity, expecting and receiving farcical cover-ups from UK governments.

While the BBC’s failure to respond properly is unlawful, for it to destroy, conceal or edit the evidence of the calls would be a much graver offence.

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Richard Osman’s House Of Games Unveils Michael Sheen As New Host

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Richard Osman on the set of House Of Games

An A-list replacement for House Of Games has been announced after Richard Osman announced he was stepping down as the host of the popular quiz.

On Monday, it was revealed that Michael Sheen is set to host the BBC Two game show, after Richard shared he was stepping down after nine years and 800 episodes.

This marks the first time Michael, who has appeared in films like The Queen, Underworld and The Damned United, has hosted a quiz show. The Good Omens actor’s closest experience with his new role came when he played Chris Tarrant in Quiz, the ITV drama about the coughing scandal on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

“Quite literally very large shoes to fill but as a huge fan of the show I’m incredibly excited to be able to move into the House and at long last see my silhouette on a fondue set,” Michael said about his new role.

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Richard has also given the news his personal seal of approval, writing on his Instagram: “Beyond thrilled to be handing the House Of Games keys over to the one and only Michael Sheen. I promise to put the hoover round before he arrives.”

“Best of luck Michael, you’re such a great choice, and I know you, and the viewers, will have an amazing time,” the Thursday Murder Club author added.

Richard Osman on the set of House Of Games
Richard Osman on the set of House Of Games

BBC/Remarkable TV/Graeme Hunter

Tamara Gilder, the Managing Director for production company Remarkable Entertainment, also enthused: “We are thrilled to be handing Michael Sheen the keys to House of Games.

“The show has always been a love letter to those who adore quizzes – and we have a new host who loves them as much as we do. We can’t wait to start filming.”

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BBC commissioner Caroline O’Neill added: “Michael’s charisma and passion for playfulness will be a joy for audiences and we’ve no doubt he’ll relish throwing himself into a fiercely fought Answer Smash.”

Although Michael is still acting, in recent years, he has moved back to Wales and is concentrating on his activism in the community.

Earlier this year, it was announced that he is also set to present a new BBC investigation series, which will see him explore claims of chemical contamination near where he grew up in South Wales.

Watch Richard Osman’s final episodes of House Of Games on BBC Two every weeknight at 6pm.

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5 things to watch in Tuesday's Illinois primaries

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5 things to watch in Tuesday's Illinois primaries

The Illinois primaries have seen gobs of spending, both in the highly-watched Senate race and further down the ballot in competitive open House seats.

Groups affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have poured millions of dollars into key contests, potential 2028er and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker has found himself at odds with several prominent Black leaders in the state, and generational fights continue to plague the Democratic Party post-2024.

Here’s what POLITICO is watching today.

Can AIPAC avoid another fumble?

AIPAC faced backlash from moderate Democrats last month after inadvertently boosting a progressive candidate in New Jersey who said Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza. It’s hoping not to make the same mistake again.

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The group is facing a major test of its political muscle in Illinois as Democrats increasingly scrutinize Israel and AIPAC itself. It’s spending heavily in several House races, most notably in the contest to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the 9th district.

But Democratic strategists have warned that the group’s attacks on Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss — the grandson of a Holocaust survivor who has criticized Israel — have created a late opening for progressive insurgent Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American who’s an even more vocal critic, rather than effectively boosting the AIPAC-preferred candidate, state Sen. Laura Fine. AIPAC has made a sharp pivot in the final stretch of the campaign, turning its focus squarely on Abughazaleh instead.

“There’s been a strategy shift,” said a person directly familiar with AIPAC’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “Our primary goal in Illinois is to prevent potential ‘Squad’ members from being elected to Congress.”

The big question for Tuesday will be whether that change in strategy happened too late to avoid another embarrassment for AIPAC.

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Will JB’s involvement help or hurt him?

Pritzker has been vocally supporting, and heavily funding, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s campaign for Senate against Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly. That move has rankled some prominent Black leaders.

“A sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, whose caucus is supporting Kelly, told Punchbowl earlier this month. “Quite frankly, his behavior in this race won’t soon be forgotten.”

The worry from Black Democrats is that Kelly and Stratton — both Black women — could end up splitting the Black vote, with Pritzker’s endorsement driving that wedge further. That may help Krishamoorthi win the race and kill their chances of electing a Black woman to the Senate this cycle.

Krishnamoorthi has led most public polls of the race and had a big cash advantage early on, allowing him to get up on TV earlier than his opponents. Pritzker’s money has helped Stratton close the gap, while Kelly sits in third in most public polls.

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“People are conflicted as to whether or not they should go with the best candidate who they like, or do they go with what the polls are saying as the most viable candidate,” former Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who supports Kelly, said in an interview last week. “That’s the tension and the conflict that I’m hearing kind of across the board, but particularly among Black Illinoisans.”

What do all the races say about the future of the Democratic Party?

Both the Israel debate and racial tensions — as well as the growing generational divide in the Democratic Party — have dominated Illinois’ primary contests.

Tuesday’s results will be another early test, following Texas earlier this month, for where the party is headed as it still grapples with across-the-board losses to Republicans in 2024.

How do the outside influences fare?

More than $35 million has been poured into TV ads on Illinois races, according to AdImpact, with tech interests leading the way: pro-AI and pro-Crypto industry groups have combined to spend more than $15 million. It’s a dizzying sum that has shocked many veteran Illinois political strategists who are long accustomed to bruising campaigns.

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Some candidates have openly courted — and practically begged for — support from these groups. Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who is running to reclaim the IL-02 seat he once held — used AI in an ad to enhance former Rep. Bobby Rush’s voice (D-Ill.) after it was damaged from treatment he underwent to battle throat cancer.

The groups’ huge spending to get allies in Congress could shape the heated policy debate over how to regulate two fast-growing industries. How well their chosen candidates fare will help guide their future spending later this year.

Who turns out?

Turnout among Hispanic voters was a strong point for Democrats in the Texas primary, not to mention several special elections in recent months, driven by backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement along with continued economic uncertainty.

We will see whether that continues in Tuesday’s primaries, particularly in Chicagoland — which was shaken by a deportation blitz of its own last fall but where most of the primaries are for safe blue seats.

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There’s also the question of turnout in primaries where support for Israel has been a major issue. A Senate primary should bring voters to the polls across the state, but POLITICO will be watching for how much higher turnout is in the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th districts to gauge how much Democrats’ intraparty disagreements about the issue — and the flood of outside money that has come with that — uniquely drives voting.

Alec Hernández and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.

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Zendaya Has Some Fun With Tom Holland Wedding Speculation

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Zendaya Has Some Fun With Tom Holland Wedding Speculation

Zendaya had a unique way of shrugging off speculation that she and her long-term partner Tom Holland had recently married in private.

For the last few weeks, Zendaya and Tom have been at the centre of rumours that they had tied the knot in secret, following comments made by the Euphoria star’s famous stylist Law Roach.

During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night, the host brought up the wave of new stories suggesting that “you might actually be married to Tom”, to which she joked: “Really? I haven’t any of that…”

Jimmy then mentioned that fans have been using generative AI to create “very realistic” fake wedding photos “of you guys together”, to which she responded: “Many people have been fooled by them! While I was out and about in real life, people were like, ‘oh my god your wedding photos are gorgeous’. And I was like, ‘babe, they’re AI’.”

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She added that “many people” she actually knows were duped by these fake photos, with some even voicing their upset that they weren’t invited to her wedding after seeing the AI-generated images.

Having some fun of her own, Zendaya claimed she’d brought along “a little something to just clear the confusion”, which turned out to be a wedding scene from her new movie The Drama, with Tom’s face pasted over her co-star Robert Pattinson’s.

“It was a beautiful day,” she quipped. “That was real footage. That was real! I was there!”

See the moment for yourself from around the 5:26 mark in the video below:

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Zendaya and Tom met on the set of the film Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Although it’s not known exactly how long they’ve been an item, they went public with their romance in 2021, and last year sparked speculation that they were engaged when she began sporting a diamond ring on her left hand.

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