A person was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries after a horror collision involving a lorry and multiple cars on the M56 on Monday (May 18). Police, fire crews and paramedics, as well as an air ambulance, raced to the scene near Warrington at around 5pm.

The eastbound carriageway was completely closed off and all traffic held in the closure while emergency services responded. Cheshire Police said a HGV and two cars were involved in the crash between junction 10 for Stretton, and junction 9, for the M6 Interchange.

Police said the closure would remain in place for ‘several hours’ into the evening for investigation works to take place. Five causalities in total were treated at the scene by paramedics. One person was cut free from a car involved which had its roof removed.

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A 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck south China’s Guangxi region early Monday, killing two people, toppling buildings and triggering the evacuations of thousands, state media reported.

Four others were injured, while more than 7,000 residents were evacuated from Liuzhou city.

The search for several missing residents wrapped up around midday Monday, after the last trapped person, a 91-year-old man, was found alive in good condition, authorities said.

Images aired by state broadcaster CCTV showed excavators clearing debris. At least 13 buildings collapsed, while landslides triggered by the quake blocked roads to the area, according to CCTV.

Train services around Liuzhou were canceled or delayed.

Earthquakes occasionally strike south China, with more intense ones usually occurring toward the mountainous west or the east, toward Taiwan. The most devastating recent earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 occurred in the southwestern Sichuan province in 2008, leaving more than 87,000 dead or missing.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — After the two Navy jets collided in midair, the planes sandwiched together, all four crew members were able to eject and deploy their parachutes, floating down to safety as the aircraft careened into a field, exploding into a fireball.

The collision happened Sunday during the “Gunfighter Skies” air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base some 57 miles (92 kilometers) southwest of Boise.

Here are some things to know about the crash.

Just one crew member was injured

Only one of the four crew members on the two planes was injured and was being treated at a hospital, Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Monday. The injury was not life-threatening.

The fact that all four were able to safely eject and make it down without landing in the wreckage is “truly remarkable,” said Billie Flynn, a former F-35 senior test pilot and demonstration expert.

“It is astonishing considering the way the airplanes impacted each other — incomprehensible even,” Flynn said.

The two U.S. Navy EA18-G Growlers were from the Electronic Attack Squadron 129 in Whidbey Island, Washington. Each held two crew members.

The EA-18G Growler, measuring just over 60 feet (18.5 meters) long, made its first flight in August 2006 and was the first newly designed electronic warfare aircraft produced in more than 35 years, according to the Navy.

The planes appeared sandwiched together before falling

Videos taken by spectators show one of the jets was slightly behind the other before impact, and the two aircraft then appeared to become sandwiched together, with the belly of one jet just behind and to the side of the top of the other jet.

The jets then twisted and rocked together, pointing straight up for a moment before turning downward and diving to the ground. The impact resulted in a fireball and sent black smoke skyward.

The crew members ejected quickly, their parachutes opening just as the jets were pivoting toward the ground.

The cause of the crash is not yet known

Videos of the collision suggest human error is to blame, Flynn said. Before colliding, Flynn said the video shows they were trying to line up closely — wing tip to wing tip — but failed to safely rejoin in formation, a routine maneuver.

Officials have not yet released any information about what may have contributed to the crash. Umayam said the investigation is ongoing amid efforts to recover the damaged aircraft.

“Our priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of our personnel, as well as security of the aircraft during the recovery,” Umayam told The Associated Press in an email.

The skills used in air show performances are different from those used in day-to-day routine flying or flying in combat, Flynn said. He calls it “the difference between showmanship and airmanship.”

That’s why most military air show crews are assigned to just do display flights during the show season, he said.

The Growler display flight crews are all flight instructors from Whidbey Island. Their core duties generally include training pilots and electronic warfare officers from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Ejecting is a complicated process

Ejection seats use a complex system of motors and parachutes to propel crew members away from a plane in an emergency. First the canopy is pushed away from the aircraft with a blast so it poses no danger to the crew. Then the seat is launched upward and out of the plane, using solid rocket motors, before the parachute deploys and the seat drops away as the crew member descends to the ground.

“You’ve got to have enough altitude, you’ve got to be clear of any obstacles and then even after all that’s successful, you can injure your back,” said aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti. “Just the massive, propulsive force of the ejection seat can compress the spine, or your limbs may flail.”

Guzzetti said ejections are sometimes not possible during midair collisions because the damage to aircraft can be too extensive. But the way the two Navy planes came together may have allowed the opportunity to eject, he said.

“If they had hit each other at a faster speed, they would have done structural damage and the airplane would have come apart,” he said.

The two Growlers were using a seat manufactured by the U.K-based company Martin-Baker, the company said. Martin-Baker described itself as the leading manufacturer of ejection seats, including seats used by the Navy since 1958. The company says its seats have saved the lives of more than 2,000 Navy crew members since then.

The explosiveness of an ejection puts tremendous force on the crew member — as much as 20 times the force of gravity, said Michael O’Donnell, a former Federal Aviation Administration official who also worked on ejection seats in the Air Force. That’s enough force to temporarily make a person up to an inch shorter after ejection, he said

“A really, really bad roller coaster ride is not even close to that,” O’Donnell said.

The Growlers are irreplaceable

The plane remains the Navy’s most advanced airborne electronic attack tool, according to the Electronic Attack Squadron (VAZ) 129’s website. The squadron is stationed at the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where it maintains 55 of the specialized planes.

But Boeing stopped building new Growlers several years ago.

“These are invaluable national assets,” Flynn said. “There is no newer version of these — they are a very special, very powerful electronic warfare platform, and there’s never enough of them. And now we’ve lost two.”

Air shows are inherently dangerous

Pilots who perform at air shows are among the best, but there is little room for error, said aviation safety expert John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

“Air show flying is demanding. It has very little tolerance,” Cox said. “The people who do it are very good and it’s a small margin for error. I’m glad everybody was able to get out.”

The air show industry has been working to improve safety for years at the roughly 200 events held annually in the U.S. The last fatal crashes at an air show came in 2024 when two people were killed in separate accidents at different events.

“And that means he can get the best of both worlds of the surgical treatment of his aneurysm – the best possible, durable cure for his aneurysm while cutting down on the drawbacks of having surgery including big cuts and scars, big incisions on the head and also the morbidity of going through the brain and retracting the brain – all that is completely taken away by this minimal access surgery.”

Beyond the high drama surrounding the Makerfield by-election and the contest to be the UK prime minister lies a more fundamental battle. It is the struggle between the incremental pragmatism of mainstream politics and the magical thinking of populism.

The great catchword of recent UK politics has been “change”. Brexit, it was said, would change the country’s declining position in the world. Boris Johnson said after his landslide electoral victory in 2019 that he was going to take on “the problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before”.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, entitled “Change”, declared that a Starmer-led government would “stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country”.

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But people have different ideas of what change means and how fast it can happen.
In a world full of entrenched, unequal social structures and complex, intractable
global problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to be in the business of long-term evaluation.

Similarly, they are not impressed by graphs showing that the UK economy is currently the fastest-growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment in England are at their lowest level in more than three years.

There are undoubtedly better ways of communicating long-term change and
identifying quick wins than the current government has adopted. However, the real battle is not between rival tellers of the mainstream narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. Remembering this will be crucial for Andy Burnham when he takes on Reform UK in the Makerfield by-election in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party and his job as prime minister.

Feelings over facts

Populist leaders are successful not because they have more convincing policies for house-building, ending child poverty or realising energy security. The change they offer appeals to visceral feelings rather than material needs. “Imagine how you will feel on the day that we come to power,” they say. “Think of how shattered all of those people who have ignored you, talked down to you, taken your jobs and pushed ahead of you in the queue for services will feel.”

Populists such as Reform UK (according to current polls the most likely party to win the next UK general election) are less interested in setting out a policy programme than in connecting with voters’ raw nerves.

That is why the most crucial lesson for Labour from the 2026 local elections
was not their devastating defeat, but the unstoppable surge of Reform’s appeal to
voters that threatened to leave them in the margins in the next general election.
Labour’s reflex response was to look at deposing its leader. And possibly at least one of Starmer’s rivals for the job would be more effective at taking on this new form of political opposition.

More important, however, is to be clear what is involved in taking on
populism. A new prime minister will be faced with exactly the same challenges as
the current one and will not be able to deliver transformative change simply by force of an appealing personality.

Europe will still be involved in its longest war since 1945. The US will continue to be an unreliable partner. The climate emergency will go on wreaking havoc. Social care for an ageing population will remain a massive challenge. National debt will still limit the capacity for public investment. Regional disparities and indefensible social inequalities will still exist.

All of these challenges and more will result in sections of the electorate feeling alienated and disappointed – the very sentiments upon which populism depends.

The big question for whoever is going to be prime minister in the next three years is not just about policy and delivery (although it is also very much about that), but about offering an alternative to the psychic appeal of populism. That will entail adopting a three-point strategy.

First, politicians need to acknowledge the depth of disappointment felt by people whose parents and grandparents had once believed that the government was there to look after them in times of need. The prime minister should declare an urgent mission to build an infrastructure of cradle-to-grave care, which exists not to tell people how they should be feeling, but to be democratically accountable to their needs and priorities as individuals and communities.

Second, there is a need for a complete overhaul of political language, led by the prime minister’s example, eschewing the lexicon of technocratic cliche and adopting the conversational tone of speaking with rather than speaking at people.

Third, there is a need for boldness in calling out the ugly sentiments of populism and appealing explicitly to the more generous, positive feelings and beliefs of the majority that are too often excluded from the domain of hardheaded politics.

A new prime minister will need to be imaginative in demonstrating that populists are not the only ones who can appeal to people’s deepest apprehensions and desires. And they will have to show that politics can be more like an inclusive conversation than a PowerPoint presentation. In that case, then perhaps the recent soap opera will not be as inconsequential as many people perceive it to be.

Wes Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last week, signalled he wanted to see Britain return to the EU as he announced on Saturday he would stand in any Labour leadership contest.

Supporters of Andy Burnham are reportedly furious with Mr Streeting, according to the Times, as they believe it is a deliberate attempt to raise the issue of Brexit in leave-voting Makerfield, where the Greater Manchester Mayor hopes to stand as a parliamentary candidate.

Mr Burnham sought to play down his own support for rejoining the trade bloc as he took part in a media blitz across the weekend.

Andy Burnham is seen as a Labour leadership contender (Image: Newsquest)

He insisted there was a “long-term case” for advocating to join the EU, but insisted he was not campaigning on that issue in the by-election.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy rebuked her former colleague, Mr Streeting, for making Europe a centre-point of his campaign to succeed Sir Keir, describing it as “odd”.

“If rejoining the EU is the answer, then essentially what we’re saying to people is, ‘life was fine in 2015, we just need to go back there’,” added Ms Nandy, who is seen as an ally to the Greater Manchester Mayor.

Reform UK, which is the second-placed party in Makerfield, plans to make hay out of Mr Burnham’s previous support for rejoining the EU as it knocks on doors in the constituency.

Several media outlets reported that Nigel Farage branded the Greater Manchester Mayor “open borders Burnham”, indicating the Reform leader plans to campaign on the impact future EU membership could have on inward migration to the UK.

“Andy Burnham’s position raises serious questions.

“At a time when millions of voters are demanding control of our borders, he continues to advocate re-joining a European project built around the free movement of 500 million people,” Mr Farage told the Daily Express.

Sir Keir Starmer, who reportedly spent the weekend at his Chequers country estate, is said to be privately considering whether he will contest challenges to his leadership, despite having publicly insisted he will fight them.

Ms Nandy appeared to veer away from the government line that Sir Keir would stand against his rivals as she spoke to broadcasters on Sunday morning, telling the BBC: “It’s a very personal decision for him.”

She later added: “So, I wouldn’t write off the Prime Minister, but I would just say that this is a very personal decision.

“He’s got to make that decision himself.”

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of lying during testimony at the OJ Simpson murder trial, has died. He was 74.

Fuhrman was one of the first two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. He reported finding a bloody glove at Simpson’s home but his credibility came under attack during the trial as the defense raised the prospect of racial bias.

Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade, but a recording made by an aspiring screenwriter showed he had done so repeatedly.

Lynn Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said that Fuhrman died May 12. The county does not release the cause of death as a rule.

Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal. He subsequently moved to Idaho with his wife Caroline and their young daughter and son and set up a 20-acre (eight-hectare) farm, raising chickens, goats, sheep and llamas.

In 1996, Fuhrman was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest. He later became a TV and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.

A criminal-court jury found Simpson not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to relatives of Brown and Goldman. He served nine years in prison on unrelated charges and died in Las Vegas of prostate cancer in 2024 at the age of 76.

____

Golden reported from Seattle.

The incident happened in Walmgate at 12.15am on Sunday (April 26).

North Yorkshire Police say four people received minor injuries and one required hospital treatment for concussion.

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A force spokesperson said: “A man was trying the car doors of a white vehicle parked in Walmgate.

“The man then assaulted and verbally abused people who have gone on to challenge him.”

A man in his 20s was arrested in connection with the incident but has since been bailed while police enquiries continue.

Officers have released images of the man they would like to speak to about the incident.

A force spokesperson added: “Please email nicola.russell@northyorkshire.police.uk if you recognise the man pictured, or have any information that could help our investigation.

“Alternatively, you can call North Yorkshire Police on 101.

“If you would prefer to remain anonymous, you can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or make an online report.

“Please quote reference 12260074715 when passing on information.”

The new Discover the Magic show skates into NI this December

Disney On Ice returns to Belfast with a brand-new magical adventure this festive season.

Discover the Magic will bring unforgettable memories to guests through dynamic moments on the ice and in the air, delivering compelling storytelling through multi-levelled production numbers.

Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and friends from the Disney Kingdom come together to bring timeless tales to life from Thursday, December 3 to Sunday, December 6 at The SSE Arena.

The first phase release of tickets will go on sale this Friday, May 22 from Ticketmaster.

A spokesperson said: “Join Mickey Mouse and his friends at Disney On Ice presents Discover the Magic, an adventure filled with world-class skating, high-flying acrobatics and unexpected stunts!

“Look for clues in the search for Tinker Bell through immersive, fantastic worlds. Explore the colorful spirit realm of Coco, sail away with Moana as she bravely saves her island, see Belle in the sky as the enchanted chandelier comes to life, and sing along with Elsa in the icy world of Frozen. Watch Stitch crash the action with mischievous surprises.

“Make memories during Aladdin, Toy Story and The Little Mermaid as the search party becomes an all-out celebration!

“The production will skate into Belfast from Thursday 3rd December to Sunday 6th December 2026.”

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