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Congressional Democrats on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of trying to hijack plans to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary and using the nonprofit National Park Foundation to solicit money from private donors for some of the president’s pet projects, including the massive arch he wants to build in the nation’s capital.

During a hearing on the 250th anniversary commemoration, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman said President Donald Trump and his allies are attempting to use the celebration to “promote an alternate reality.”

The California Democrat accused Republican members of the committee of letting the administration “hijack the country’s 250th anniversary and sell access, hide his donors and rewrite history. You let him clean house and put loyalists on the board of the National Park Foundation, open the door to foreign, dark money donors to buy influence with zero oversight.”

Democratic Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon voiced concern that a White House-led initiative, called Freedom 250, is using public money earmarked for a separate, congressionally chartered commission, America250, and is co-mingling it with private donations.

Dexter said the structure of the organization created by the White House makes it difficult to tell who is donating to it.

“This leaves us all guessing which one of Donald Trump’s billionaire buddies and which foreign interests are buying access,” she said.

Danielle Alvarez, spokeswoman for Freedom 250, said it has received no funding from foreign donors. The park foundation, which typically raises money to help the national parks, must grant anonymity if a donor asks for it, the foundation’s president and CEO, Jeff Reinbold, said when asked during the hearing.

Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, responded to the hearing by saying the president wants to ensure that the country gets “the spectacular birthday it deserves.

“The celebration of America’s 250th anniversary is going to display great patriotism in our nation’s capital and throughout the country,” he said in a statement. “President Trump’s bold vision will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and be felt by generations to come.”

Democrats raise concerns about history being erased

The three-hour hearing, before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources, was promoted as an explanation of public and private partnerships supporting America’s 250th anniversary on public lands, but it veered into an airing of numerous Democratic concerns.

Democrats raised questions about national park sites where exhibits and displays have been sanitized or removed altogether as part of the administration’s efforts to quash diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as questions over funding and transparency. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina gave an impassioned address about seeing the darker parts of U.S. history as part of the nation’s strength.

Alan Spears, senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association, testified that when “you begin picking at words to soften and sanitize, to erase the history, that is a dangerous precipice to be on. Because I think the quickest way that you can disappear people is to disappear their story or to soften it.”

‘We deserve to know where our money is going’

In 2016, Congress formed America250, the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, to lead planning for the anniversary that commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

The commission was initially expecting to receive $100 million of the $150 million appropriated for the anniversary in the Republicans’ tax and spending bill, which they called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The money went to the U.S. Department of the Interior and was intended for activities surrounding the commemoration.

A source familiar with the funding for America250, who was not authorized to speak publicly about it, said that the anticipated amount dropped to $50 million and that so far the organization has received just $25 million. Federal funding cuts last year already had led some communities to begin scaling back their plans for celebrating the anniversary.

Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, testified that the funding question is tantamount.

“The American people are paying for this commemoration. We deserve to know where our money is going,” he said, adding that he sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum seeking answers.

A spokeswoman with the Interior Department said in a recent email that a portion of the funding was being provided to the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission through an interagency agreement with the National Park Service. The Interior Department did not respond to requests after the hearing for comment on the distribution of federal money to America250.

One celebration, two entities putting it on

Republicans were relatively silent in responding to the Democrats’ lines of questioning, except North Carolina Rep. Addison McDowell, who defended the celebration being planned as a reminder of how far the nation has come.

“As I sat here and listened to the other side’s remarks, what I heard was a deeply misguided and dark vision of America,” he said. “If you didn’t know any better, you might believe from their remarks that the United States is not the greatest experiment in human history, but an ongoing crime scene.”

Rep. Val Hoyle, an Oregon Democrat, countered immediately: “Yes, we need to celebrate how far America has come, but how the hell do we know how far we’ve come if we erase the history? How is that patriotic?”

America250 is focused on commemorations around the country, including a national volunteer effort and creating an audio-visual archive of stories from everyday Americans. One initiative, “America’s Field Trip,” asks students from around the country to share stories on what America means to them, with a chance to get field trips to historic sites and landmarks. One initiative, America Gives, aims to significantly increase the number of Americans who volunteer with nonprofits with support from companies like Walmart and Coca-Cola and nonprofits like Points of Light.

So far, the organization has said it has had enough money, including from donations, to continue with its original programming.

Much of the programming from the White House group has so far appeared to focus on splashy events, including a planned UFC fighting competition at the White House, athletic events involving high school athletes it’s calling The Patriot Games and a “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall. Freedom 250 was responsible for the striking birthday lighting of the Washington Monument coming into the New Year.

___ Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.

___

AP reporter Thalia Beaty contributed to this report.

All 55 people on board a passenger plane were safely evacuated after the aircraft overran the runway and ended up in shallow waters during an emergency landing in Somalia.

No one was injured in the incident which happened near the country’s main airport on Tuesday.

The Starsky Aviation aircraft had taken off from Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle International Airport and was bound for the northern city of Gaalkacyo when it developed a technical problem about 15 minutes into its flight.

The pilot then turned back and made an emergency landing but he overshot the tarmac, veered off and finished at the shoreline of a beach in the Indian Ocean.

All 50 passengers and five crew members safely left the plane, a Fokker 50.

Everyone on board was accounted for by a rescue team, transportation minister Mohamed Farah Nuh said.

The aircraft was damaged and the cause of the crash will be investigated.

Pictures showed the plane with at least one wing snapped but otherwise intact on the shoreline.

Starsky Aviation chief executive Ahmed Nur said “the aircraft overran on the runway” before coming to a rest on the shore of the Indian Ocean near the airport.

He added: “No injuries, no deaths.”

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The Somali Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that at 1.17pm local time (10.17am UK time) “an aircraft with registration number 60-YAS, an F50, was involved in a runway overrun at Mogadishu Aden Abdulle International Airport”.

“The aircraft was carrying 55 people on board. All occupants survived the incident and were promptly transported to a nearby hospital for medical evaluation and care.

“No fatalities have been reported.”

There has been a lot of noise around Sandro Tonali this season and increasing speculation about a future away from Newcastle United but the Italy international has not been dropped because of that.

Tonali is not starting against Tottenham because he has looked out of form for months and in need of a rest. Others have attracted more criticism, but the drop off in performance levels from Tonali, compared to last season, has been dramatic.

It is still a brave call from manager Eddie Howe to leave him out, just as it is to pick Anthony Gordon at centre forward rather than either of his expensive summer signings Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade. 

Wissa does not look fit and Woltemade looks like a bad fit but Gordon is still a winger not a centre forward.

But Tonali has not been playing well and Newcastle’s midfield has been far too easy to play through recently. It will, of course, lead to more suggestions that the former AC Milan star does not want to be on Tyneside much longer.

Newcastle, though, are surprisingly relaxed about all the transfer talk about the midfielder, who was supposedly offered to Arsenal in January and who has since been linked with a summer move to Manchester City, Manchester United and Juventus.

The player’s agent has publicly cranked up the pressure by hinting the 25-year-old would be interested in a move if Newcastle do not qualify for the Champions League. It has felt like a summer transfer saga has been well signposted.

Yet, the main power brokers at St James’ Park have shrugged it all off, almost dismissively, in private. They have pointed out that the player has not told anyone at Newcastle that he would like a move and, in fact, stressed to both sporting director Ross Wilson and Howe last week that he is extremely happy at the club.

It has also been pointed out that if Tonali wants a big money move in the summer – he is effectively under contract until 2030 – he needs to be playing a lot better than he is at the moment for anyone to be willing to make a bid that could tempt Newcastle to sell a player who cost them £55m in 2023.

Supermarket shelves can look full despite the food systems underneath them being under strain. Fruit may be stacked neatly, chilled meat may be in place. It appears that supply chains are functioning well. But appearances can be deceiving.

Today, food moves through supply chains because it is recognised by databases, platforms and automated approval systems. If a digital system cannot confirm a shipment, the food cannot be released, insured, sold, or legally distributed. In practical terms, food that cannot be “seen” digitally becomes unusable.

This affects the resilience of the UK food system , and is increasingly identified as a critical vulnerability.

Look at the consequences, for example, when recent cyberattacks on grocery and food distribution networks disrupted operations at multiple major US grocery chains. This took online ordering and other digital systems down and delayed deliveries even though physical stocks were available.

Part of the problem here is that key decisions are made by automated or opaque systems that cannot be easily explained or challenged. Manual backups are also being removed in the name of efficiency.

À lire aussi :
The UK’s food supply is more fragile than you might think – here’s why it should be a national priority

This digital shift is happening around the world, in supermarkets and in farming, and has delivered efficiency gains, but it has also intensified structural pressures across logistics and transport, particularly in supply chains which are set up to deliver at the last minute.

Using AI

AI and data-driven systems now shape decisions across agriculture and food delivery. They are used to forecast demand, optimise planting, prioritise shipments, and manage inventories. Official reviews of the use of AI across production, processing, and distribution show that these tools are now embedded across most stages of the UK food system. But there are risks.

When decisions about food allocation cannot be explained or reviewed, authority shifts away from human judgment and into software rules. Put simply, businesses are choosing automation over humans to save time and cut costs. As a result, decisions about food movement and access are increasingly made by systems that people cannot easily question or override.

This has already started to happen. During the 2021 ransomware attack on JBS Foods, meat processing facilities halted operations despite animals, staff, and infrastructure being present. Although some Australian farmers were able to override the systems, there were widespread problems. More recently, disruptions affecting large distributors have shown how system failures can interrupt deliveries to shops even if goods are available.

Getting rid of humans

A significant issue is fewer people managing these issues, and staff training. Manual procedures are classified as costly and gradually abandoned. Staff are no longer trained for overrides they are never expected to perform. When failure occurs, the skills required to intervene may no longer exist.

This vulnerability is compounded by persistent workforce and skills shortages, which affect transport, warehousing and public health inspection. Even when digital systems recover, the human ability to restart flows may be limited.

The risk is not only that systems fail, but that when they do, disruption spreads quickly. This can be understood as a stress test rather than a prediction. Authorisation systems may freeze. Trucks are loaded, but release codes fail. Drivers wait. Food is present, but movement is not approved.

Based on previous incidents within days digital records and physical reality can begin to diverge. Inventory systems no longer match what is on shelves. After about 72 hours, manual intervention is required. Yet paper procedures have often been removed, and staff are not trained to use them.

These patterns are consistent with evidence from UK food system vulnerability analyses, which emphasise that resilience failures are often organisational rather than agricultural.

Food security is often framed as a question of supply. But there is also a question of authorisation. If a digital manifest is corrupted, shipments may not be released.

This matters in a country like the UK that relies heavily on imports and complex logistics. Resilience depends not only on trade flows, but on the governance of data and decision-making in food systems, research on food security suggests.

Who is in control?

AI can strengthen food security. Precision agriculture (using data to make decisions about when to plant or water, for instance) and early-warning systems have helped reduce losses and improve yields. The issue is not whether AI is used, but who is watching it, and who manages it.

Food systems need humans to be in the loop, with trained staff and regular drills on how to override systems if they go wrong. Algorithms used in food allocation and logistics must be transparent enough to be audited. Commercial secrecy cannot outweigh public safety. Communities and farmers must retain control over their data and knowledge.

This is not a risk for the future. It already explains why warehouses full of food can become inaccessible or ignored.

The question is not whether digital systems will fail, but whether we will build a system that can survive its failure.

Menopause is a key period in a woman’s life. This transition is often accompanied by wide-ranging physical and psychological symptoms — some of which can be debilitating and affect daily life. Menopause has also been linked to cognitive problems — such as memory, attention and language deficits.

To mitigate the effects of menopause — including hot flashes, depressive symptoms and sleep problems — many women turn to hormone replacement therapy (HRT). In England, an estimated 15% of women are prescribed HRT for menopause symptoms. In Europe, this number is even higher – varying between 18% in Spain to 55% in France.

But there’s limited understanding of the effects of menopause and subsequent HRT use on the brain, cognition and mental health. To address this, we analysed data from nearly 125,000 women from the UK Biobank (a large database containing genetic and health data from about 500,000 people).

We placed participants into three groups: pre-menopausal, post-menopausal and post-menopausal with HRT. The average age of menopause was around 49 years old. Women who used HRT typically began treatment around the same age.

In short, we found that menopause was associated with poorer sleep, increased mental health problems and even changes within the brain itself.

Post-menopausal women were more likely than pre-menopausal women to report symptoms of anxiety and depression. They were also more likely to seek help from a GP or psychiatrist and to be prescribed antidepressants.

Sleep disturbances were more common after menopause, as well. Post-menopausal women reported higher rates of insomnia, shorter sleep duration and increased fatigue.

Brain imaging analyses also revealed significant reductions in grey matter volume following menopause. Grey matter is an important component of the central nervous system which is composed mainly of brain cells. These reductions were most pronounced in regions critical for learning and memory (namely the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex) and areas key in emotional regulation and attention (termed the anterior cingulate cortex).

Notably, the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are among the earliest affected in Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.

The changes we observed in our study could suggest that menopause-related brain changes may contribute to increased vulnerability to Alzheimer’s disease later in life. This could help explain why there’s a higher prevalence of dementia observed in women.

We also investigated whether taking HRT post-menopause had any effect on health outcomes. Notably, HRT did not improve the reduction in brain grey matter.

In addition, we found that women using HRT showed higher levels of anxiety and depression compared to post-menopausal women who had never used HRT. However, further analyses indicated that these differences were already present. This suggested that pre-existing mental health problems may have influenced the decision to begin using HRT rather than these symptoms being caused by the medication itself.

One potential benefit of HRT use was noted in cognitive performance – particularly for psychomotor speed. Psychomotor slowing is a hallmark feature of ageing.

Post-menopausal women who had never used HRT showed slower reaction times compared with both pre-menopausal women and post-menopausal women who had used HRT. This indicates that HRT helps to slow the menopause-related declines in psychomotor speed.

HRT and menopause

There’s still much we don’t know about HRT – and more evidence on its benefits and risks are still needed.

Some studies report that those taking HRT have an increased dementia risk, while others suggest a decreased risk of dementia.

More research is also needed to understand the effects of HRT and how the different routes and dosages affect menopause symptoms. But according to one UK Biobank study of 538 women, the effects don’t appear to differ – regardless of factors such as the formulation, route of administration and duration of use.

Importantly, however, it’s difficult to establish whether women are actually receiving an effective dose. One in four women using the highest licensed dose of HRT still had low levels of estradiol (oestrogen) – around 200 picomoles per litre. Older women and HRT patch users were more likely to have lower levels.

Optimal plasma levels to relieve menopause symptoms are between 220-550 picomoles per litre. This means that for 25% of the women in the study, HRT would not have had optimal benefit for menopause symptoms.

Considering that most women go through the menopause, it’s important to resolve the question of whether HRT is beneficial – including preventing brain grey matter volume reductions and reducing the risk of dementia. It will also be important to know what the best dose and route of administration are.

There is evidence to suggest healthy lifestyle habits may mitigate these menopause-related changes in brain health.

Our work and that of other research groups shows that a number of lifestyle habits can improve brain health, cognition and wellbeing, thereby reducing the risk of cognitive decline associated with ageing and dementia. This includes regular exercise, engaging in cognitively challenging activities (such as learning a new language or playing chess), having a nutritious and balanced diet, getting the right amount of good-quality sleep and having strong social connections.

Research also shows regular physical activity can increase the size of the hippocampus, which may help mitigate some of the menopause-related reductions observed in this region.

Sleep is also critically important as it supports the consolidation of memories and helps clear toxic waste byproducts from the brain – processes that are essential for memory, brain health and immune function.

Having a healthy lifestyle may offer an accessible and effective strategy to promote brain health, cognitive reserve and resilience to stress during and after the menopause transition.

The Wednesday letters page is excited about Santa Monica Studio revealing a new game, as one reader ponders the future of Final Fantasy.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Bridging the gap
I’m very interested in this idea that The Witcher 3 will be getting new DLC, nearly a decade since the last lot. It’s obvious it will be a story link between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4, but I wonder if it will also involve the death of Geralt. I doubt they’d make a new playable character just for DLC but killing off the old character to make way for the new would be a really neat idea, I think.

I know the voice actor is working on the new game, but it could easily be a flashback or as a ghost or something. That’s my guess anyway, but I hope whatever it is it’s something substantial and worthwhile, not just a glorified ad for the new game. The rumours mentioned a new map area, so that sounds very promising.

If this is successful, I really hope other games copy the same idea. Publishers don’t like single-player games because they don’t keep making money all the time, but this could change that. It could be like episodic content but from within an existing game.
Austin

Ancillary media
All the talk of God Of War/Santa Monica Studio at the State of Play on Thursday has got me really excited. I realise it’s going to be the most boring option that will be shown (the Metroidvania by a different developer) but the fact remains that Santa Monica Studio hasn’t announced a new game yet and Sony clearly has something special planned for this week.

I really hope it’s a new IP and I think there’s a good chance, as Sony are a lot better at giving them a chance than most other publishers. I think they understand better than most that games can be used for many other things, as you see from all their movies and TV shows. The Twisted Metal series has been dead for years now but somehow they made a really good series out of it.

Konami did the same with Castlevania, now I come to think of it, so making a popular game doesn’t have to be the one and only thing you do with an idea. We’re at the point now where something might not be popular as a game but could still be a hit as a show. They were going to make a Days Gone movie at one point, so Sony obviously gets it.
Klem

Science bit
I wouldn’t be surprised if a portion of the State of Play is dedicated to the PSSR update that is coming to PS5 Pro this year. If it can provide similar quality upscaling to FSR 4.0, without greatly increasing the burden on the CPU, it could suddenly make the PS5 Pro a more worthwhile proposition. The Switch 2 has shown what can be achieved with a good machine-learning upscaler and it’ll be the norm going forward for all new consoles.

On a related note, the new mobile chips from Intel seem really promising. The handheld PC space has stagnated a wee bit since most of the hardware is based around an aging AMD chipset. A bit of competition from Intel wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Magnumstache

GC: You may well be right about PSSR being in the State of Play.

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

All that remains
There’s a lot of talk about physical vs. digital lately on GC.

After downloading all of my old Switch games (I sold my original Switch three years ago, by the way) from my Nintendo online account onto my new Switch 2 I’ve noticed that Horizon Chase Turbo is missing but the downloadable content is still on there. Any ideas on why this has happened GC?

I’m just glad it was an £18 game and not a £60 one, not that I ever buy non-physical full price games.
Adams6legend
PS: I have tried re-downloading it but it wants me to pay again.

GC: We’re not sure, have you tried contacting the publisher?

Feverish pricing
Just out of curiosity I wonder why you felt Mario Tennis Fever’s price was egregious enough to mark it out as a con.

The RRP price of £58.99 digital/£66.99 physical (it’s actually £55 from many places, like Amazon) puts it on with par with other first party Switch 2 games and a bit cheaper than new first party PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X/S games.

The review also said Fever was the most comprehensive entry and stacked with content. It sounds like you’ll get a decent amount of milage for the money.

I don’t care about Fever personally. But if a new Virtua Tennis released that content rich I’d happily pay £60.
Simundo

GC: £67 seemed like a lot of money to us, kudos if it doesn’t to you.

Two extremes
It’s really funny to think that the two most wished for games of the last decade – Shenmue 3 and a Final Fantasy 7 remake – both turned out to flops. Shenmue 3 was a complete disaster but while I’m sure Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth made some of its money back it was obviously not enough, given this permanent price decrease and going multiformat.

It’s a real shame because I think they did a great job with the remakes and I’m really looking forward to the third one. I think they’re much better games than Final Fantasy 16 but given that didn’t do great either I’m not sure what direction Square Enix is going to go next, if neither nostalgia or something completely different worked.

I know Square Enix talked to the team that made Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so the hope is whatever they’re doing next is going to be like that, and turn-based, but I don’t know. I just can’t imagine making a massive budget turn-based role-player in this day and age.

If they do then I’ll be over the moon, but perhaps they’ll also make it more of a mid-budget game. I would be absolutely fine with that. I’d prefer it to be honest, if it means they can afford to get weird and experiment.
They clearly don’t know what woks at the moment, and I doubt anyone does, so trying a few idea out relatively cheaply seems like the perfect solution to me.
Minilla

Panic over
Please don’t worry about the future of the Like A Dragon series. Their main projects are Stranger Than Heaven and the new Virtua Fighter.

The numbered series has been released every four years for quite some time. Pirates last year or Yakuza Kiwami 3 this year are side projects with smaller budgets. Thank you.
Lucas

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Original name
People have been saying all the Overwatch women look the same for years, so I guess this new one was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I don’t really care about that, but I was shocked to find out that they’ve stopped calling the game Overwatch 2 and just knocked the ‘2’ off the name. What a disaster.

The rush to try and get a live service hit reminds me very much of movie companies all trying to make their own cinematic universe, despite the fact that only one of them has worked and there’s no guarantee any others will.

There is at least more than one successful live service game, so I suppose you’ve got that, but it’s still only a tiny percentage that are ever a major hit.

Just as importantly, even the successful ones often don’t seem to know what they’re doing. Just as the MCU has come off the hinges, Overwatch was doing live service stuff before the term even existed and now look at it. The game’s a laughing stock and I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled the plug when this new update (and rename!) doesn’t work out.

At some point companies are going to have to accept that nothing lasts forever. We’ve already forgotten how close Fortnite came to disaster a couple of years, but it will definitely happen again.
Cankle

Inbox also-rans
I agree that the art style in Mewgenics is completely off-putting. I was really liking the sound of it, from reading your review, but seeing it in action, I’m just not interested.
Ivor

So what’s the betting for exactly how dumb the name for the next gen Xbox is going to be? Xbox Zero is my guess, but I can think of a lot worse (zero is for the number of customers, obviously).
Wotan

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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MORE: Games Inbox: What games will be in Thursday’s PS5 State of Play?

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There’s going to be a HUGE clamour for tickets for this one – as Take That star Robbie makes an unexpected return to the city this month as part of BRITs Week

Pop superstar Robbie Williams is to make a surprise return to Manchester later this month – for an intimate charity gig that has just been announced.

Robbie will play Manchester’s Aviva Studios on Friday, February 27 as part of the big BRITs Week series of gigs being held in the run-up to the music awards night taking place in Manchester for the first time this year.

The BRITS Week gigs are raising money for the War Child charity, and is being billed as “the biggest artists play the smallest shows”. It will also see pop star Olivia Dean play at Manchester’s Albert Hall and The K’s perform at Gorilla.

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Chart-topping star Robbie has just finished a run of UK shows in celebration of his 16th studio album, BRITPOP, that soared straight to Number One on release this year. It became his 16th chart-topping album – seeing Robbie beat the record formerly held by The Beatles for most number one albums ever.

Robbie is now confirmed to join the 2026 lineup for The BRITs week run of gigs, in what is set to be the hottest of hot tickets to see him back in the city where it all started. The 18 x BRIT Awards winner will be playing the recently-built Aviva Studios in Manchester city centre for the first time.

He will be joined by Leighs own The Lottery Winners, who Robbie has become pals with ever since asking them to join his mega arena tour across last summer.

Robbie will be performing tracks from his debut album Life Thru a Lens, which became his first number one solo album after he left Take That, as well as songs from his newest chart-topper BRITPOP on the night. So fans can expect to hear the likes of Robbie anthems Angels, Let Me Entertain You and Lazy Days from the 90s, as well as his newies like Rocket and Morrissey, his ode to the Manc music legend.

All proceeds from the shows go towards War Child’s essential work providing aid, education, specialist mental health support, and more while standing up for the rights of children whose lives have been devastatingly affected by war.

BRITs Week will take place around The BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard, taking place on Saturday 28th February in Manchester at Co-op Live.

With the awards leaving the capital for the first time in its nearly 50-year history, organisers say BRITs Week 26 is expanding into a new era with artists playing in Newcastle, London, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Brighton and Manchester, giving more fans across the country the chance to see their favourite artists in the lead-up to the UK’s biggest night in music.

Through BRITs Week, some of the biggest names in music, including Fatboy Slim, Myles Smith and Katherine Jenkins, perform in the series of very special, intimate shows to help save lives around the world in raising funds for War Child.

Fans will be able to get tickets by either entering a raffle with a charity donation, or a limited amount of tickets will go on general sale with details all below.

How to get tickets

As Robbie at Aviva Studios is a special charity gig, it will be a different way of getting tickets for fans than a normal show.

Music fans can enter the official War Child prize draw to win a pair of tickets to see Robbie, or indeed any of the BRITs Week gigs, for just a £10 per entry donation to War Child. The entry system is on Crowdfunder here.

For the best chance of getting tickets, you can sign up for the pre-sale with War Child by clicking here. The pre-sale sign-up closes on 5pm Wednesday 11th February, and the pre-sale begins 10am Thursday 12th February.

A limited number of tickets will also be available on general sale from Friday, February 13 at 10am from the War Child website here.

Michael Carrick joked the viral fan hoping for a long-awaited haircut will not be making it into his team talk as Manchester United head to West Ham looking for a fifth straight Premier League win.

Frank Ilett has racked up more than two million social media followers since pledging in October 2024 to grow his hair until the Red Devils secured five victories in a row.

Erik ten Hag was in charge at the start of a challenge that could end after nearly 500 days if Carrick can continue his winning record since succeeding Ruben Amorim by beating his former club West Ham on Tuesday.

The former midfielder has not been keeping a close eye on the viral stunt but learned about “The United Strand” through his children.

“I can say I’m aware of it, yeah,” Carrick said with a smile. “My kids have made me aware of it, if anything, but it certainly won’t go into the team talk from a professional level.

“I can understand what’s going on with it and it does make me smile but it won’t have an impact ultimately in the end.”

Opportunity knocks for United, who can move eight points clear of sixth-place Liverpool with victory at the London Stadium. Arne Slot’s team face a stringent test at Sunderland tomorrow night, without a specialist right-back to select from.

Man Utd have lost each of their last three league games at West Ham though, while Nuno Espirito Santo also boasts a very respectable record against them. Across 11 league matches in charge of Wolves, Nottingham Forest and West Ham against United, Nuno has only lost three.

West Ham have won three of their last four games, and in the one game they lost in that run they raced into a 2-0 lead at Stamford Bridge. A front four of Crysencio Summerville, Taty Castellanos, Pablo and Jarrod Bowen has been causing problems; let’s see if they stick with that front-footed approach against a United team who look potent.

Full team news on the way shortly.

For obvious reasons, the secretive world of intelligence agencies and the people who revolve in its orbit remains opaque. So much so, that some of those people may not even be aware of any involvement in the secret world.

The Epstein papers have thrown up speculation about whether the late financier and sex offender might have performed services for one or another of the big intelligence agencies. And in the wake of that speculation, it has been noted that the father of Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the late Robert Maxwell, well-known as a larger than life publisher and newspaper proprietor in the UK from the 1950s to the early 90s. He, too, was the subject of much speculation that he might have been involved in intelligence work.

Epstein is now better known for his sex trafficking network and Maxwell for stealing from his employees’ pension funds. But their examples point to how intelligence, high finance and influence work.

Generally speaking there are three main classes of people involved in state intelligence gathering. “Officers” are full-time employees of state intelligence agencies such as MI6. They run their groups of “agents”, who are not formally employed by the state but who deliberately and knowingly gather intelligence and perform tasks for intelligence officers. And there are what is known as “intelligencers” (or sometimes assets) who may not even know they are providing information to a spy agency.

The currency of human intelligence is access, knowledge and often the ability to compromise officials and influential people.

We often think that intelligence agencies and their agent runners seek to directly recruit people with the access and motivation to pass on state secrets. While this is undeniably the case – and the examples of the American Aldrich Ames and the Briton Melita Norwood provide good evidence of this – intelligence agencies are equally interested in recruiting what’s known as “access agents”.

Access agents

The value of an access agent is not the secrets they have access to, but the social and professional access they provide to people who do. People in high-end society, scientific research, banking, politics and culture make excellent targets for access agents. And from an agency’s point of view, the best thing is that these agents are deniable and under the radar.

Intelligence officers and their operatives require funding, mobility and a credible back story (known as a legend). Businessmen like Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein had plenty of all three, making them excellent candidates to theoretically serve the needs of intelligence agencies.

But rather than indulging in speculation about Epstein and Maxwell, which is unlikely ever to be conclusively confirmed or denied, it’s more instructive to look at what we know about access agents. They are often business people, sometimes academics or journalists with a reason to travel and the opportunity to meet people in influential circles in the course of their legitimate business.

It’s worth remembering that Kim Philby, the most notorious of the Cambridge spy ring, cut his teeth as a reporter in Spain during the civil war, before embarking on a career as an MI6 officer (and Soviet double agent). Australian journalist, Richard Hughes – who appeared lightly disguised in novels by Ian Fleming and John le Carre – was believed by many to be an agent for British intelligence, working in southeast Asia during the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.

Perhaps the most famous businessman-agent was Cyril Bertram Mills who combined being the director of the Bertram Mills Circus with a four-decade career spanning the years before and after the second world war with British intelligence. Travelling widely in Europe, ostensibly to seek out circus acts, he provided his spymasters with evidence of German rearmament in the 1930s. He also recruited Garbo, one of the most successful double agents, who was instrumental in convincing Germany that the D-Day landings would be in Calais, not Normandy.

An access agent is trained “to be the friend the informant doesn’t have”. They can provide what their contact needs and cannot get hold of: whether that’s useful inside information of some kind, an introduction to someone important, a sexual partner or finance for one of their ventures.

MI5 is quite open about this on its website: “Agents operate by exploiting trusted relationships and positions to obtain sensitive information. They may also look for vulnerabilities among those handling secrets.

Secrets and lies

Determining truth in intelligence is complicated. Very rarely do we see a single piece of incontrovertible evidence that proves someone’s intelligence status or the ethics or efficacy of their actions. But then as we know, all of this is shrouded in secrecy and supposition.

In Maxwell’s case, historical scholarship and TV documentaries have provided unverified hints. In Epstein’s we have indicators such as the claim by former US attorney, Alexander Acosta that he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”, when he negotiated his plea deal. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth about either.