Police were locked in negotiations Tuesday night with a man holding hostages inside a building that houses a Chase bank branch and school district office in the Southern California city of Bakersfield, officials said.

Officers responding to a call of a bomb threat arrived at the scene around 1 p.m. at the Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield, and discovered a man had barricaded himself inside “with several community members,” the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement.

Through negotiations, two of the hostages were released and the rest are in “good health,” city police Sgt. Eric Celedon said.

“We have every single resource at our disposal out here to bring this to the safest resolution possible,” he said.

Nearby buildings were evacuated, including city hall and the police headquarters, and some roads were temporarily closed, according to officials. Officers established a perimeter around the building and nearby businesses, authorities said.

Celedon warned the public to stay out of the area, explaining that this is still a very active situation.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said its branch is on the ground floor of the building and is currently empty. The company is working with authorities.

The department’s crisis negotiation team was in contact with the suspect by telephone.

About a dozen police cars were on scene along with one tactical vehicle and multiple emergency responders, and FBI agents were on the scene.

Jacob Davidson, a livestreamer known as Dad’s Gone Live, was a block from the bank at his family’s tattoo shop when he started getting calls from his subscribers alerting him to the bomb threat.

“I went into the bank’s parking garage and watched the cops enter the back of the bank. This is the biggest police presence I’ve ever seen in this town,” Davidson said. “Now I’m watching them set up the trauma tents with the green, red and yellow tags, and black tags too, along with a command center about a block away.”

By Tuesday night, his livestream captured through a window in the building a woman rocking back and forth before crouching further down below the window. Later, two hands could be seen waving.

Law enforcement agencies often protectively set up trauma tents — which are color-coded to help sort people based on the severity of injuries — just in case they become needed during an emergency situation.

Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh said she is closely monitoring the situation.

“The best way the public can help at this time is by avoiding the area and allowing law enforcement officers, negotiators, and other trained professionals the space and opportunity to safely carry out their duties,” she said in a statement.

___

Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

“I couldn’t be happier to continue this journey with Scuderia Ferrari HP,” he said.

“It has always been so much more than just a team to me. It’s the team I’ve loved and dreamt of being part of since I was a child, and after all these years it has become a second family.

“Together we’ve shared incredible moments and some tougher ones, but I believe in this team more than ever, and I’m deeply grateful that we will keep pushing side by side toward our shared goal of bringing the World Championship back to Maranello.

“Being a Ferrari driver is a dream, but it’s also a responsibility I never take for granted.

“I’ll continue to give absolutely everything I have to bring this team back to where it belongs, at the very top, for everyone in Maranello, and above all for the tifosi, whose passion is the heartbeat of this Scuderia.”

Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur Giorgio Locatelli is set to join the judging panel of Celebrity MasterChef, bringing his rigorous culinary standards to the BBC spin-off programme.

The 63-year-old, renowned for his role on the Italian version of the amateur cooking show, will now sit alongside restaurant critic Grace Dent.

Locatelli, whose appearance in the upcoming 21st series has already been filmed, announced the news on the podcast Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware. He described his judging approach, stating: “I think I was a bad cop. I’m strict. Strict about cleanliness and organisation. Those little skills that you teach them slowly.”

Reflecting on the celebrity contestants, he noted the unique dynamic compared to aspiring professional chefs. “We’re working with celebrities which is different from working with people who wanted to be a chef, but still, you can really see them growing in what they do, and so this is the thing that interests me more on the whole experience.”

He hinted that one star particularly impressed him, adding: “There was somebody who really surprised me a few times in the positive.”

The chef also observed a distinct difference in performance based on the celebrities’ professional backgrounds. “The people who worked in entertainment found it so difficult to cook to the time. The sportspeople always hit the time. Their life is run by time. While the other people are all about creativity.”

Locatelli’s arrival follows significant changes to the judging line-up.

He joins after TV presenter John Torode was dismissed from the BBC following allegations of using racist language, which were upheld as part of the Lewis Silkin report.

Torode had appeared in the most recent series alongside Dent, who herself replaced TV presenter Gregg Wallace after his sacking due to a series of misconduct allegations during his time on the show.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day

New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.

Advertisement

Try for free

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 day

New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.

Try for free

ADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Advertisement

The spin-off series challenges celebrities to test their culinary skills under the watchful eyes of the judges, culminating in one star claiming the Celebrity MasterChef trophy.

Previous winners include professional dancer and choreographer Vito Coppola in 2024, and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner Ginger Johnson, whose real name is Donald Marshall, in 2025.

In Ann Patchett’s 11th novel Whistler, a former stepfather and stepdaughter, Eddie and Daphne, meet again by chance after 44 years. They rekindle their bond (before long, Eddie is introducing Daphne as “my daughter”) and revisit the events that prompted Eddie’s abrupt departure from her life when she was nine.

Eddie is a fiction editor beloved by everyone – his name “a bass note called again and again”. Daphne is a private school English teacher “safely past 50”, who describes her post-Eddie childhood as a period of “estrangement”. Both had (unrealised) ambitions to be novelists.

We meet them in the present, in New York’s Met Museum on a spring day, and leave them in their past, “hand in hand” in an ambulance, in Massachusetts in the snow.

Their reunion brings together a handful of wealthy, white-collar, middle-aged and elderly people who are related either by blood, marriage or former marriage. They all reflect, gently, on their lives and relationships. Forgotten family stories are brought tenderly into the light.

There are characters called Trip and Buddy and Candy and Dr Ocean. Despite broken marriages, closeted sexuality and at least one long-term affair, everyone gets along pretty well.

They visit each other’s homes, eat brunch, and occasionally drink slightly too much. They give each other lifts, and take each other to hospital appointments. They bring each other glasses of water, and offer up the guest room. They are forgiving of each other:

I remembered she was a person who had lived her own autonomous life full of mistakes and disappointments and judgements and thwarted love.

The novel’s characters are thoughtful about the past and how to approach it. “Let me know when I cross the line,” Daphne says to Eddie, as they probe the origins of the lifelong affair he has had with his married best friend.

Despite occasional gestures to interpersonal conflicts, everyone is just quite nice to each other. Patchett’s gathering cliches to describe these disputes (the odd “whiff of betrayal” or knowledge of “something fishy going on”) undermine any tension.

Eddie is gay. This is the reason Daphne’s mother divorced him – but there’s no bad blood between them. Their reunion is oddly affectless, as described by Daphne:

“Look at you,” Eddie said when we came through the door. He went right to our mother, took her in his arms. “Look at my beautiful ex-wife.”

Whistler is full of doomed marriages – deaths, divorces and stepparents abound – but none are framed as tragic or traumatising. Rather, the lingering dead – a roguish father; a wife whose main character trait is collecting rabbit paintings; even a curmudgeonly stepfather whose contribution to American letters is a book series called Positivity! – are spoken of with warmth by those whose new unions their deaths have occasioned.

The dissolution of parental relationships and the formation of new ones are received by turns with delight, equanimity or, at worst, indifference.

Health crises – a car accident, a fall from a horse, appendicitis, leukemia – are not catastrophes. Rather, they occur in the context of high-quality healthcare (“Every patient had their own pod with frosted-glass dividers and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city”) and bring characters together in service of the novel’s central theme: the endurance of familial love, in its multifaceted iterations.

Whistler is a chestnut mare, and the central figure in an unwritten book-within-the-book that editor Eddie “tried for years” to acquire.

It’s a slightly hokey parable about a near-death experience that reads like a pitch for a Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) novel. Stranded on a remote hillside, “badly hurt and alone”, Whistler’s rider is benignly visited by her dead dog, son, father and best friend, before the horse returns to save her life.

Like several of Whistler’s key plot points (a broken ankle; the protagonists’ novelistic ambitions; a sister who is a therapist and can therefore unpack any narrative complexities the reader may have overlooked), Patchett offers this story knowingly. Whistler is a novel that knows it’s a novel.

Its metafictionality is sometimes subtle, but it collapses under its own weight in the closing pages, when Eddie suggests that Daphne write “it all down”. In the proposed book, Eddie, who has leukemia, suggests: “I don’t die. In the book, we’re sitting on this bench, talking about a book about the two of us, and then the story stops.” Reading this felt like learning it had all been a dream.

Whistler reminded me of William Stafford’s poem The Magic Mountain, which begins:

A book opens. People come out, bend
this way and talk, ponder, love, wander around
while pages turn. Where did the plot go?

And yet, there is something compelling about it. Whistler is even, strangely, a pacy read, partly because it’s heavy on dialogue. It doesn’t always work – Patchett’s prose is placid, and there is a lot of exposition.

But it’s interesting to read a novel that so relentlessly engages the idea of niceness, especially among the kind of wealthy people – people who own boats or live in apartments with doormen – who are more often found, in literary and popular fiction, stabbing each other in the back. As Eddie says to nine-year-old Daphne: “I swear to you, it’s mostly good people out there.”

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

The incident took place on the evening of May 27

Police have launched a major incident public portal as part of their investigation after a man was “stabbed in the chest” in Carrickfergus.

Emergency services attended the Rodgers Quay area at around 7.30pm on Wednesday, May 27, after reports of a stabbing incident. A man was hospitalised after allegedly being stabbed in the chest during the incident, with a suspect reportedly fleeing the scene on a motorcycle.

A 37-year-old man was arrested on Monday, June 1, on suspicion of attempted murder and has since been released on bail to allow for further enquiries.

A 41-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of attempted murder on Saturday, May 30, and has since been released on bail.

Issuing a further appeal for information, police have launched a major incident public portal to allow the public to submit information directly.

A PSNI spokesperson said any photos or footage, including CCTV, mobile phone, or dash cam footage can be shared with police through the portal. This can be accessed by clicking here, or by scanning the QR code.

A spokesperson for the PSNI added: “Detectives investigating a stabbing incident in the Rodgers Quay area of Carrickfergus at around 7.30pm on Wednesday 27th May, continue to appeal for information.

“Information can also be shared with the Crimestoppers charity anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

National Rail said a safety inspection of the track between Darlington, Yarm and York means that trains have to run at a reduced speed on the line towards the city.

Recommended reading:

A spokesperson for the train operator information group said as a result, trains may be cancelled, delayed by up to 30 minutes or revised.

Meanwhile, York-based LNER is reporting that none of its services can depart south of York while a safety inspection is carried out between York and Doncaster.

⚠️#LNERUpdate There is disruption between #York and #Doncaster due to a safety inspection of the track.

Currently no services can depart south of York while the inspection is being carried out.

For the latest travel advice, please visit Travel Alerts: https://t.co/o0hAZZ3XYh pic.twitter.com/YM2TU3dHNt

— London North Eastern Railway (@LNER) June 3, 2026

Advertisement

The company is advising its passengers that tickets may be used on the following services at no extra cost:

• CrossCountry between York and Leeds
• Northern between York and Leeds
• TransPennine Express between York and Leeds

Passengers can then board the next LNER service to London Kings Cross up on arrival at Leeds.

Passengers can check before travel using National Rail’s real-time Journey Planner – www.nationalrail.co.uk/journey-planner.

The Press will update this story here with more information as we receive it.

The Former South Scotland MSP has been charged with drink-driving, excessive speed and causing a series of collisions on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

Former Labour MSP Colin Smyth is expected to appear in court on charges of drink-driving and causing crashes on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Smyth, who represented South Scotland before the last election, is due to appear at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday.

He has been charged with driving at excessive speed when he mounted the pavement and narrowly missed a pedestrian on November 2, 2025.

Smyth is said to have collided with a parked car and electric bollards outside the city chambers on the same day.

The offences are alleged to have taken place on the High Street in Edinburgh last year.

He is further charged with being more than twice the legal alcohol limit.

Smyth, 53, was first elected as an MSP in 2016 and returned to Holyrood again at the 2021 election.

Scottish Labour withdrew the whip from him in August last year.

Get Daily Record Premium for just £1 per month in exclusive offer to celebrate the world cup. Click HERE.

Donald Trump has not been seen in public since May 27 as speculation mounts over the US President’s health, despite a medical report declaring him in ‘excellent health’

Advertisement

Questions are mounting regarding Donald Trump’s wellbeing after the US president hasn’t been spotted in public for six days.

On Tuesday, May 26, Trump had a medical check-up at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center – his fourth publicly acknowledged medical assessment at the facility since taking office. Presidents typically attend once annually.

Folk on social media have been questioning Trump’s health following his most recent public outing, reports the Express.

One social media user posted on X: “Trump has no public events on his schedule again today. The last time he was seen publicly for something other than a pre-taped interview was six days ago — Wednesday, May 27 — for his cabinet meeting. (He went to Walter Reed the day before.)”

Another remarked: “Regular citizens are expected to show up to their jobs every single day without excuses, so why should the President be any different?”

A third posted: “Six days between public appearances feels like a long time for a president. Wonder if something is up or if this is just how his schedule works now.”

Trump, though, apparently played golf on Sunday, May 31, two days after medical results from his Walter Reed appointment declared the 79 year old in “excellent health” and “fully fit”.

Trump’s doctor released a copy of the president’s most recent medical assessment late on Friday, May 30. The report from Dr Sean Barbabella stated: “President Trump remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.

“His demanding daily schedule, including multiple high-level meetings, public engagements, and regular physical activity, continues to support his overall well-being.

“Cognitive and physical performance are excellent,” Barbabella noted.

“He is fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State.”

Ensure our latest stories always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as your Preferred Source in your Google search settings.

In Backrooms, the latest horror film from production company A24, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark – a failed architect who accidentally slips out of reality. He ends up trapped in an endless labyrinth of yellow-tinted rooms, humming fluorescent lights and eerie, disembodied sounds – the “Backrooms”.

The film is an adaptation of a popular internet horror concept and urban legend, about an impossibly large, alternate-reality maze of claustrophobic spaces with architecture that appears uncannily familiar but menacingly alien.

Yet the film also plays upon a deeper source of modern anxiety: the experience of trying to survive in an economy that fails to deliver on our vision for the future.

Movie audiences will (hopefully) never find themselves trapped in a nauseatingly jaundiced and never-ending labyrinth. But they may recognise Clark’s experience of living among failed promises, diminishing aspirations, precarity, social isolation and the growing fear of becoming obsolete.

À lire aussi :
Inside the Backrooms: the internet horror world built by its users

Many may also appreciate – if not fully empathise with – Clark’s creeping resentment, sense of entitlement and vitriolic blaming of others for his loneliness and stagnation. The film’s most profound insight emerges through the suggestion that the real nightmare began long before Clark entered the Backrooms.

Trapped before the Backrooms

Clark finds himself ever more adrift from the life he expected to lead. Instead of designing skyscrapers, he runs a struggling discount furniture store at a strip mall. His business is in terminal decline. Customers are scarce, bills are mounting and, unable to afford anything better, Clark sleeps on one of the display beds at his store, waking up to resume work ad nauseam. His life appears to become ever more closed and contracted.

For decades, education, hard work and ambition were upheld as routes to stable careers, a sense of purpose and upward mobility. Increasingly, however, scores of people find themselves highly qualified but underemployed, unable to afford accommodation and locked out of the professions they trained for.

Clark’s tragedy reflects a social experience described by the social theorist Steve Redhead as “claustropolitanism”. It’s the feeling of being “locked citizens” – hostage to circumstances that cannot be changed, dreams that are thwarted before they can be pursued and futures that appear even worse than the present.

Putting aside personal ambitions to take jobs that offer little fulfilment, and enduring difficult working conditions simply to make a living, are increasingly familiar realities in today’s crowded, high-pressure economy. For Redhead, such experiences are symptomatic of “a contemporary cultural condition where we are starting to feel ‘foreclosed’, almost claustrophobic, wanting to stop the planet so we can get off”.

Cut off from stable social ties, Clark’s growing resentment over his limited economic mobility further holds him back and creates tension between him and the people around him.

When exploring the mysterious Backrooms, Clark ropes his low-wage store employees into a dangerous situation, treating them as largely expendable. He resents his estranged wife’s desire to leave work in pursuit of higher education, a grievance that reveals a malignant sense of entitlement. He uses his therapist (Renate Reinsve), who is dealing with her own difficulties, as an emotional punching bag.

This reflects a significant feature of the claustropolitan experience. In today’s heightened state of economic insecurity, social atomisation and perceived loss of options, where everyday life is marked by existential uncertainty and a diminished sense of control, frustration is often redirected away from structural causes and projected onto vulnerable groups.

The biggest threat to Clark becomes his misplaced anger that attempts to devour anyone who tries to help him. As the world itself feels like it is closing in on him, Clark is revealed as both a victim and participant in this nightmare.

The real horror of the Backrooms

The Backrooms, as a concept, offers an important means of thinking about personal and economic anxieties as a tangible environment – anxieties that are reflected not only through enclosure, but by an irregular experience of movement and stasis. In the film, nobody stops moving through nightmarish monotony, yet nobody seems to really get anywhere either.

Characters drift with varying degrees of desperation through an endlessly expanding maze of corridors under the repetitive drone of overhead fluorescent lights. But they never find anything better. There is a primal urge to run away from it all but – just as all options are found to be foreclosed in a claustropolitan economy – all exits are blocked.

The Backrooms film, perhaps even more than the internet legend it’s based on, offers a cautionary reflection on what it feels like to move through a society hemmed in by insecurity, limited opportunities and shrinking possibilities. Its ultimate message is that perhaps the most frightening labyrinth is the one we already inhabit.

My kids tell me this is the BEST toad in the hole ever. They preferred it with cheddar sprinkled over the top rather than Stilton, but you could use either, or indeed any similar cheese (just not Parmesan types, that’s too hard).

You can make this in a roasting tin or ovenproof pan, and serve at the table straight from the vessel. Choose good-quality sausages for the best result.

Requires at least 30 minutes of resting time