Navigating the airport with kids can be a pre-holiday headache, but many parents may not realise that certain airports have made it a little easier for families to get through

If you ask parents which part of the airport experience is the worst, many will answer that it’s the security scanners. Not only do you have to deal with long queues, but getting the kids to take off their backpacks and shoes can be a massive pain.

Some parents fork out for express lane access, as this means a shorter queue and fewer people around to stare at any toddler tantrums; however, if you live near certain family-friendly airports, you may not need to pay this fee.

The express lane at the airport can often cost from £4 to £12 per person, cheaper if booked in advance rather than paying on arrival. With many airports charging for both adults and children, the cost soon gets pricey when you need to pay for four or five passes.

A small number of UK airports now offer dedicated family lanes through security or will allow parents of kids through the assistance lanes, meaning you aren’t stuck with toddlers or young kids in the main line.

Manchester Airport is one example. It offers a family and assisted travel lane, so those with kids can pass through faster. It also advises against booking FastTrack security if you have a young child, saying: “The express lane is unsuitable for passengers requiring Assisted Travel, those travelling with pushchairs and car seats, or infants under three years old. You will be automatically directed to the assistance lane at security, so you do not need to book FastTrack or TimeSlot.”

London-Heathrow and Gatwick have family lanes for families of up to 12, while other airports don’t specify whether they have family lanes outright, but may wave families to the front of the queue. Policies vary, but parents of younger children or babies tend to be given priority. Cardiff Airport doesn’t have dedicated security lanes for families, although a recent change means kids over 120cm tall can use passport eGates to save some time.

If the airport you fly from doesn’t have dedicated family lanes, it may offer express lanes with free or reduced tickets for kids. For example, Birmingham Airport has an express lane that costs £7 per person, but is free for children aged four and under travelling with a paying adult.

It’s worth checking your departure airport’s official website or social media pages to learn about airport policies before you go, so you can decide whether you need FastTrack security.

Parents going through security should also think about what they need to take in their hand luggage. They can take enough milk for their child’s journey, even if it’s over 100ml and the airport still uses the old rules, but this is usually scanned separately. It will need to be taken out of the bag and placed in a separate tray. Luckily, wet wipes are one essential not classed as a liquid.

Pushchairs need to be folded and go through the security scanner, so keep that in mind when you travel with a baby. Many parents opt for a cheap, easy-to-fold stroller rather than taking their entire travel system.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

“There is a risk therefore that serious concerns raised by parents, staff or governors may trigger an inconsistent response across sectors.”

There are “weaknesses and inconsistencies” in arrangements for safeguarding how Northern Ireland’s school system spends public funds, an Audit Office report has found.

The report by Comptroller and Auditor General Dorinnia Carville said that a “coherent, modernised governance framework is urgently required”.

Her report has examined governance and accountability arrangements in Northern Ireland’s education system, focusing on the Voluntary Grammar (VG) and Grant-Maintained Integrated (GMI) schools sectors. Funding of £392 million was given to VG and GMI schools in 2024-25.

The report said: “Northern Ireland’s education system is large, complex and historically fragmented, comprising more than 1,000 schools across controlled, maintained, VG, integrated, Irish-medium and special school sectors.

“This complexity is rooted in long-standing differences in ownership and management. Controlled schools are state owned, while voluntary schools – including VG schools – retain private ownership and management arrangements.”

The report said this has resulted in differing arrangements between the VG/GMI sectors and other schools for ensuring good governance in the way public money is spent.

It said the inconsistencies are “partly attributable to a lack of clarity in the legislative framework”.

It said: “This structural distinction has created differing accountability, oversight and intervention arrangements across the system.

“There is a risk therefore that serious concerns raised by parents, staff or governors may trigger an inconsistent response across sectors.”

The report said reliance is placed on information submitted by schools and on the work of auditors and boards of governors.

However, it raised concern that not all schools are submitting information to the Education Authority (EA), and there is “limited scrutiny of this information by the EA to identify emerging risks and give assurance that public money is being spent properly”.

The report also identified “uncertainty” regarding the roles and powers of the Department of Education and the EA for oversight and intervention where risks are identified.

It said: “Our findings confirm that a coherent, modernised governance framework is urgently required.

“Without clearer legislation, updated guidance along with robust consistent oversight arrangements across all sectors, the department and the EA cannot provide the level of assurance needed to safeguard significant amounts of public money or ensure that strong governance standards are applied effectively across the school system.”

The report found “contradictory views” between the department and the EA on the extent of intervention powers in VG and GMI schools should a problem arise.

Ms Carville said: “It is important that effective arrangements operate over the use of significant public funds by schools.

“This report highlights various inconsistencies and areas of uncertainty, which could potentially result in serious risks or concerns failing to be properly identified and adequately addressed.

“We recognise the challenges presented by the current legislative framework. Addressing these challenges will take time.

“However, there is a need in the shorter-term for proactive action by the department and EA to provide assurance to pupils, parents and taxpayers.

“This includes clarifying and ensuring understanding of oversight and intervention powers, strengthening scrutiny of schools’ financial and governance information, and putting in place consistent processes for escalating and managing risks.”

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

Police and paramedics have been spotted still at the scene of the crash in Crawley, with motorists on the M23 experiencing delays in the wake of a serious crash on the motorway in the early hours of this morning.

AA Roadwatch logs indicate first calls about the crash on the southbound motorway came in shortly after midnight.

For decades, cancer has been thought of as a purely human disease – rogue cells multiplying out of control, with no room for anything else in the picture. But a growing body of research suggests that isn’t quite right. Some tumours, it turns out, come with company: communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi living on, between and even inside the cancer cells themselves.

The trouble is that nobody has been entirely sure which cancers actually have this so-called microbiome, and which don’t. The field has been dogged by contradictory claims, competing methods and – in one particularly damaging case – a retraction, after results from a high-profile study could not be replicated.

Since then, the field has been left without a clear way forward. Every research group has used its own methods and level of rigour, and there has been no agreed-upon benchmark to check new findings against. That matters because the stakes are high.

If microbes really are helping some cancers grow, resist treatment or spread, they could become new targets for screening and drug development. But chasing signals that turn out to be false wastes time, money and precious patient samples.

Our team set out to settle the question properly, using the largest collection of cancer genetic data in the world – Genomics England’s 100,000 Genomes Project, which includes DNA from more than 16,000 tumours. We built what we believe is the most rigorous analysis pipeline yet developed for this kind of work, designed to strip out every source of error we could identify, then applied it to the entire dataset.

Our latest research found that most cancers – including those of the brain, breast and kidneys – lack a microbiome that is distinguishable from background. This suggests that earlier studies that had picked up microbial signals in these tumours may have been affected by contamination: stray DNA from laboratory equipment or even the scientists handling the samples.

But some cancers were different. Tumours of the mouth, oesophagus, stomach and bowel showed clear, consistent evidence of microbial life. And it wasn’t just bacteria. We found viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms similar to bacteria but genetically distinct) living within these tumours.

In some cases, we detected trichomonas, a single-celled protozoan parasite. The particular mix of species varied depending on where in the digestive tract the cancer was and was linked to features such as the cancer’s subtype and how many genetic mutations it carried.

Telling real microbes from contamination

Working out which of these microbial signals were genuine and which were laboratory contamination was the hardest part of the project. Sequencing a tumour means reading every strand of DNA in the sample, human and non-human alike.

Most cancer researchers simply ignore the non-human portion. We did the opposite. We discarded the human DNA and matched everything left over against known microbial genomes to see what was hiding there.

However, this approach can run into problems fast. There’s no single, definitive human genome to measure against – everyone’s DNA differs slightly, and even the best reference genomes have gaps. Any leftover human sequence that happens to resemble microbial DNA can be wrongly flagged as a hit.

Then there are errors in the microbial reference libraries themselves – occasionally the wrong species ends up catalogued, or DNA from a lab technician’s skin ends up mixed in with a sample. And however carefully a lab operates, some contamination during tumour preparation is almost unavoidable.

We tackled each of these problems in turn. We filtered aggressively against multiple versions of the human genome, stripping out anything ambiguous or repetitive. We used the most up-to-date DNA-matching software against carefully curated microbial databases.

To catch contamination, we compared which microbes turned up across different cancer types: species that appeared everywhere were almost certainly picked up in the lab, while species confined to just one or two cancer types were more likely to be real.

Sure enough, several of the culprits we filtered out were common skin bacteria found in every cancer type – probably from the researchers who had handled the samples.

This kind of large-scale, painstaking filtering was only possible because of the sheer size and quality of the Genomics England dataset. Smaller studies simply don’t have enough samples or resolution to distinguish a genuine biological pattern from a one-off contamination event.

We’ve now made our data freely available as downloadable software, along with a list of the microbial species we’re confident are genuinely present in these tumours, so other researchers can apply the same rigorous approach to their own data.

The hope is that this draws a line under years of conflicting claims. Scientists can then focus their efforts where the evidence is strongest. That means tracking how these microbial communities in mouth, throat, stomach and bowel cancers might influence how tumours develop and how well they respond to treatment. Ultimately, it could help these cancers be diagnosed and treated earlier.

The Wednesday letters page thinks that the Xbox is regressing back to being a ShooterBox, as a reader is very upset at the layoffs at id Software.

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

Thick as thieves
I know that Sony has already changed how its factory works but I really can’t see them getting away with this all-digital push without a U-turn. I don’t even understand why they’re doing it now. If the PlayStation 6 was digital-only I don’t think many people would be surprised and while they wouldn’t like it, you can’t say much if it never had the option.

But the PlayStation 5 is in its last couple of years, what’s the point of changing anything now? Unless you love bad publicity. I put the blame squarely on Rockstar Games who I suspect put Sony up to this. They want 100% of the profits from GTA 6 and they’re big enough that they can make that happen.

Kudos to the memes and people posting against Sony on Twitter and elsewhere. If you keep it up, I think they will U-turn, for the PlayStation 5 only. Except I bet there’s one exception… for GTA 6.
Zeiss

Exec Unit 3021-6
Kudos to that Bungie dev that called execs ‘stupid detached money grubbing idiots’ you can’t get a better description than that without using harsh language. These people are all the same and everyone’s already noticed that Asha Sharma speaks exactly the same as Phil Spencer.

They probably both got ChatGPT to print off their scripts and give them their opinions. I’m beginning to think that the only reason we never hear from Sony nowadays is because they don’t want to make it obvious that they talk the same way. They’re all just robots who couldn’t give a damn about video games.
Spender

Final Doom
Really disappointed that id Software have been hit by layoffs, with some suggesting that the bulk of their development team have been let go. As game developers they gave us a truly excellent modern Doom trilogy where each game was unique, rather than a minor evolution on what came before.

Doom Eternal, in particular, is a wonderful game that will stand the test of time. Additionally, as technical specialists they have developed proprietary, incredibly scalable game engines that other studios leveraged to give us experiences like Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. My condolences to everyone who has been affected but as a huge id Software fan that news really stung.
Magnumstache

GC: You’re right, including about Doom Eternal being great.

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

Saw it coming
All in all, that seems to have worked out quite well for the likes of Tim Schafer and Guillaume Provost. I’m guessing in the desperation during Xbox One, Microsoft paid them a decent amount of money to buy Double Fine and Compulsion. They then got the freedom to work on what they wanted for almost a decade and at the end Microsoft has seemingly just handed the studios and all the IP back to them.

So essentially they’re just back where they were at the beginning, just a lot richer.

A lot of people say Microsoft only cares about money. But Xbox seems far better at giving it away to people than actually making any.
Tim

GC: It’s been suggested that Double Fine had a carefully constructed contract that planned for just this sort of eventuality.

Over the top
I wonder what the first big game to launch after GTA 6 will be? I see Sega’s Stranger Than Heaven will be out on January 15, but I’m not sure how big I’d say that was going to be. After that it’s the Tomb Raider remake in February, which seems to be the first big one we know about at the moment.

Although I have read rumours saying that God Of War Laufey is going to be out very early next year, so maybe Sony has struck some kind of deal that they’ll be the first to make a move, and Rockstar won’t try to counter them with too much marketing at the time.

If it is out early next year that kind of hints that Interstellar: The Heretic Prophet will be the big Christmas game for Sony. I hope it gets an unveil at The Game Awards in December because I really want to know what it’s like, but that may be a bit early if it’s not out for so long.
Rizzo

ShooterBox Pro
One glance at the studios Xbox has left and it’s obvious what their game plan is. As you said, they just haven’t got the talent any more to make anything other than Halo, Gears Of War, and Forza. So they’re right back to be being the ShooterBox, targeting young American men and nobody else.

This was their main problem with the Xbox 360 and the reason they never went further than that, in my opinion. I think the main reason Phil Spencer bought companies like Double Fine and Compulsion is that he wanted to expand things, do more arty games, but it never really worked out. It took too long for the games to be made and in the end they weren’t really that great.

I think he thought they were going to be award-winning darlings, but it never happened, and instead they just ended up looking like weird double-A games that nobody played even when they were free on Game Pass.

Resetting the clock back to the Xbox 360 era might see a small increase in Xbox’s popularity but it’s also admitting they haven’t moved a step forward in 15 years. Personally, I think Team Xbox should call it a day, they haven’t got anywhere to go now and it’s only going to get more embarrassing from here.
Korbie

Just try it
I will laugh so hard if Microsoft try to make The Elder Scrolls 6 an Xbox console exclusive. If you thought the upset about physical media was bad just imagine if Microsoft try and force you to buy an Xbox to play the sequel to Skyrim. Something we will have all been waiting for close to 20 years by the time it comes out.

I honestly want to see them try because the U-turn will be so swift it’s going to take some heads off. Personally I give it a 50/50 chance that they’ll try it.
Cubby

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Hidden costs
While going digital-only eliminates the second-hand market, there are additional benefits from the perspective of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The most obvious is that they cut out the so-called middleman, the retailer, and thereby retain all the profits if, as is typically the case, they can sell digital versions at the same price as physical copies sell for in stores.

But there’s another important factor here, that if no physical commodity is produced, scenarios like that of Atari, when surplus stocks of E.T. were buried in the Arizona desert, no longer occur. With digital it is impossible to over produce, thereby eliminating the problem of building inventories, which then have to be stored at physical sites that incur additional costs, and whose value if not quickly sold decreases.

Companies still risk considerable amounts of money when investing in game development but eliminate risks concerning the quantity of games, that would otherwise have to be produced in physical form in anticipation of potential but not necessarily realised demand. By selling games in digital format only the manufacturing costs incurred in the production of physical games is eliminated.

Furthermore, as we have seen with day one patches, the turnaround time from investing in game development to point of sale is also greatly reduced, even though in many instances the game releases onto the market effectively broken.

The end of physical games has been a long time coming. The incentives for companies going digital-only are so great that sooner or later this was bound to happen. Sony isn’t going to back down, history is on their side, but you can be sure that as soon as it is expedient Nintendo will gladly follow suit.

When you factor in all the jobs lost in retail, manufacturing, transportation, storage facilities, and so forth, the layoffs at multiple game developers are only the most visible tip of a far greater invisible iceberg.

In the final analysis, digital or otherwise, none of this resolves the current crisis engulfing the video game industry or lessens the impact of the cost of living crisis affecting many gamers and their ability to pursue their hobby.
Ciara

Inbox also-rans
OK Asha, hear me out. You want more Halo, and Bungie just let go all their Destiny 2 staff. Why not sub them in as contractors and make the Destiny 3 that everyone wants… but it’s Halo?
ArmandxUltra (gamertag)

Given what’s happening with Double Fine I went and tried to play Kiln on Game Pass. Emphasis on the tried, because I couldn’t find anyone to play with and it’s only a month or so old! I checked on Steam and it has an all-time peak of 193 people. I’m kind of starting to see Microsoft’s point here…
Dougal

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

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.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE: Games Inbox: Is the Xbox doomed to failure?

MORE: Games Inbox: Is Nintendo Switch 2 and PC the perfect combination?

MORE: Games Inbox: Giving up consoles because of PS5 going digital-only

There was one ruse in particular of which Nigel James was fond when he was trying to teach his children – budding footballers all in Reece, Joshua and Lauren – how to behave.

He would be driving from their family home in Mortlake near Richmond, south-west London, to wherever they were training or playing that day, with the siblings squeezed together in the back. Then the call would come through once he had his captive audience right where he wanted them.

‘If I really wanted to get a message across without being overpowering, I would sometimes set up a conversation with a friend, to have him call me while we were in the car,’ Nigel tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘We’d be talking about a player, and he’d tell me about that player, saying something like: “He’s signed with a club but he’s got no future. The gaffer doesn’t fancy him because he’s lazy and he’s not sociable and he’s like this and like that…”’

Except, this player did not exist. It was all subtly staged; a theatrical tactic so his children knew how they had to be if they wanted to forge a career in professional football. It worked. Reece is now Chelsea captain with 26 England caps. Lauren, 24, has played for Arsenal, Manchester United and now Chelsea, has 40 England caps of her own and won the Euros in 2025. 

‘They’re little things that they picked up over the years,’ Nigel continues. ‘They heard the success which works and they heard the failures which don’t work. Then it’s down to choices. Choices that they had to make. Which path they wanted to go down.

‘Every manager that Reece and Lauren have played under, they’ve got really close to the manager, for that manager to feel they’re one of their special players. You’re showing your ability, but you’ve also got to have that something where someone likes you and your personality.’

Reece is pushing to be fit for England’s World Cup quarter-final against Norway on Saturday

Reece, Nigel and Lauren together at Stamford Bridge – both children now play for Chelsea

Thomas Tuchel is a fan of Reece’s, we know that. After working together at Chelsea, Tuchel called him up for his first World Cup with England, remaining in touch with the 26-year-old towards the end of last season when he was nursing his 10th hamstring injury since December 2020.

‘My fingers were crossed, hoping he was going to get through that,’ Nigel says of that issue between March and May, and now, a nation is crossing its fingers, too.

James Jnr is pushing to prove he is fit enough to feature in this Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final against Norway, with the right back position having proven problematic for Tuchel.

He started the first two group games versus Croatia (a 4-2 win) and Ghana (a 0-0 draw), only to report tightness in his hamstring to England’s medical team and for a scan to show he would miss their next two matches ‘at least’. It sparked immediate scrutiny of Tuchel’s decision to replace the injured Tino Livramento with a central defender in Trevoh Chalobah rather than a natural full back, such as Real Madrid’s Trent Alexander-Arnold.

In James’ absence, Tuchel started Jarell Quansah at right back against Panama (a 2-0 win), then Djed Spence with a cameo from Declan Rice against DR Congo (a 2-1 win). For Mexico (a 3-2 win, as if anyone needed reminding), Tuchel reverted to Quansah, though his red card means he will miss Norway, unless the FA try to use their Trump card.

James made the bench for that Mexico victory, and maybe it was the adrenaline, but the England right back appeared surprisingly spry amid the celebrations at the Azteca in his sprinting and jigging.

If brought back in to the starting lineup for Norway, Nigel will have full faith that his son’s mind is in the proper place. It is considered one of Reece’s biggest attributes – the ability to bounce back after a blip. You are not named Chelsea captain by luck. It takes an elite mentality. Nigel helped mould that, and not only through fake calls in the car.

‘You make lots of decisions to get them where they are,’ Nigel says. ‘When they’re young, they’re looking to you to guide them, so as a parent, you make the decisions. Thank God, I got those decisions right. There have been many talented players where maybe some parents – or some agents – haven’t got it right. There’s talent, but talent doesn’t take you all the way through.    

Thomas Tuchel is a huge fan of James’, having worked with him at Chelsea when he was manager there

James started England’s first two group games versus Croatia and Ghana, only to report tightness in his hamstring to the medical team

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James has suffered 10 hamstring injuries in the last five and a half years

‘Growing up, they were always surrounded. There was a variety of ages of friends in and out of the house, and we had a good-sized garden, but the most impressive thing in Mortlake was you had the fields which were literally at the back of our house, the size of two football pitches.’

Nigel’s coaching background was beneficial as they had all the equipment they needed. His children could head to that field with a bag of 25 balls, with Reece crossing for Joshua to head or volley, one after another. 

There was a little tough love from Nigel, though he never wanted to be seen as a pushy parent, as he adds: ‘Instead of me being too demanding, and there was a demand, there were times that I pulled myself away and set a challenge to them all – and the winner got 20p.’

Keepie-uppies, around-the-worlds, crossbar challenges, one-v-ones, whatever it was. It was fun, but competitive, neither of the two brothers ever letting their little sister win. Lauren had to work if she wanted her reward, with Nigel regularly having to nip out to change a £20 note into 20p coins, just to stay on top of paying up.

‘Reece was the one out of the three of them that, from a very young age, loved money,’ Nigel remembers, chuckling. ‘He loved to save. He loved new boots. In his spare time, he used to go in goal, and he used to want to buy the best goalie gloves. 

‘He loved cricket. His passion, when he saved his money, was to get new goalie gloves and cricket bats. So from a very young age, he knew how to own a contract!’

Nigel is a trusted mentor within football – Chelsea have asked him to help with Dastan Satpayev, their exciting new arrival from Kazakhstan who turns 18 next month, for example – and he had to overcome his own challenges in his younger years. If nothing else, he has been able to pass down those experiences to the fledglings he now works with, and also Reece, Joshua and Lauren.    

‘I gave up playing,’ he explains. ‘I had a motorbike accident, came back, had a manager at Aldershot, and he wasn’t particularly nice. With the setbacks I’d had, and when your mind is fragile, he sort of broke me.’

Nigel now has his own academy, Nigel James Elite Coaching. While he insists enjoyment is essential, standards also need setting

Sadly, James, 24, is no stranger to the medical department having suffered various injuries during his career

But he seemed in good shape when he joined in the celebrations after England’s victory over Mexico

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That was a catalyst for Nigel moving into coaching. He now has his own academy – Nigel James Elite Coaching – and is supporting a national campaign called Play Their Way. While he insists enjoyment is essential, standards also need setting.

‘I want to set a discipline with it, because without having strong discipline, you’re going to create problems for yourself,’ Nigel says, giving an example: ‘If we start training at 6 o’clock, it’s not “turn up at 6 o’clock”.’

Reece was heartbroken to miss the last World Cup in Qatar. He believed he had overcome his knee issue in time, but Gareth Southgate did not want to take the risk. Tuchel has done, and there has been a setback, yet his return could solve England’s right back conundrum. If England are to reach the final, they would play Saturday, Wednesday, Sunday. That could be a testing schedule on the hamstring, but it is suspected Reece would be willing to take the risk if allowed. 

‘He’s waited a long time for it,’ Nigel says of Reece and this first World Cup. Let’s hope he’s able to resume it on Saturday.

Nigel James is supporting Play Their Way, a national campaign funded by Sport England, which is calling on coaches to adopt child-first coaching to give children more positive and enjoyable experiences of sport. 

Ants act as a natural pest control, as they feed on harmful insects, and dig tunnels through the soil to help aerate it for your plants.

However, if they create a nest underneath your plants’ roots or in gaps underneath your patio slabs, they can become a problem for outdoor gatherings.

Ants will be drawn to food from things like barbecues, which increases the likelihood of them coming into your house and causing an infestation.

How to get rid of ant nests?

Melinda Martin shared a simple and cheap way of getting rid of ant nests in a video on Instagram.

Melinda showed how the best way to get rid of an ant nest is by using boiling water from a kettle.

The energy required to boil a fuel kettle costs around 5p, making this an inexpensive hack to prevent an ant infestation.

You simply have to pour the boiled kettle over the ant nest and repeat this a few times.

In the video, she said: “I’m going to show you my favourite at-home, easy, don’t have to buy anything way to kill an ant pile.

“This method does work, but you have to be consistent, and you have to do it multiple times.

“I’m going to take this in, I’m going to refill it, and I’m probably going to do it six to eight times.

“I’m also going to poke holes in [the nest] after I do it a few times to make sure we get down to the bottom, where the queen is.”

You should repeat this process for two consecutive days to guarantee that all of the ants are gone.

This hack is highly effective but should only be used in spots where you have nothing else growing, like on your driveway or patio.

Will you be trying out this hack to get rid of ants in your home? Let us know in the comments.

By BEN NAGLE, US SPORTS EDITOR and DANIEL MATTHEWS IN SEATTLE

Published: 23:14 BST, 7 July 2026 | Updated: 04:41 BST, 8 July 2026

Two senior members of the USA’s World Cup staff were absent for the defeat against Belgium after being quietly suspended by FIFA ahead of the game, it has emerged.

In the latest off-field drama surrounding the host nation, team manager Sam Zapatka and security VP Frank Pannell were both banned from being with the team for the last-16 clash.

FIFA quietly published the news on its website but no reason for the suspension was given, though the Daily Mail understands it was unrelated to the Folarin Balogun controversy.

The incident that led to the suspension is believed to have occurred during the previous round against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and ensured both men were unable to fulfil their usual roles in Seattle on Monday night.

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A spokesperson for US Soccer directed the Daily Mail’s request for comment to FIFA, which is yet to respond. 

The US were dumped out of the World Cup in a 4-1 thrashing by Belgium, but their final days in the competition were marred by a huge controversy surrounding star man Balogun and his suspension.

Mauricio Pochettino was without two key members of his USA staff for the Belgium game

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Folarin Balogun’s suspension – eventually overturned – dominated the build-up to the game

The Monaco striker was sent off against Bosnia, leading to an automatic one-game ban for the Belgium game – until the astonishing intervention of Donald Trump.

The president weighed in to lobby FIFA chief Gianni Infantino to overturn the decision, and soon after the governing body revealed it had suspended Balogun’s one-game ban until after the conclusion of the World Cup.

The shock ruling left Belgium furious, but their appeal fell on deaf ears and Balogun was given the green light to play in the last-16 clash – though in the end it made little difference to the result.

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In Seattle, Charles De Ketelaere scored twice – either side of a Malik Tillman free-kick – to put the European giants in control, before a horror goalkeeping error from Matt Freese allowed Hans Vanaken to add a third goal.

Donald Trump intervened to ask FIFA president Gianni Infantino to overturn the one-game ban

In the end it didn’t matter as Romelu Lukaku and his team put four past the United States

In stoppage time at the end of the game, Romelu Lukaku added insult to injury with a fourth, sealing the end of the USA’s World Cup adventure.

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Fox revealed on Tuesday that its audience for the game was the largest in US soccer history, with nearly 37 million people watching at the peak of the broadcast.

Unfortunately for the US national team, that peak came just as Freese committed his blunder to allow the Belgians to score a third goal at the Seattle Stadium. 

These viewership numbers only reflect the audience on Fox and do not include the numbers from Telemundo, which has the rights for Spanish-language broadcasts. 

It’s likely that once those are included, the average viewership will top 40million total viewers.

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“The U.S. strikes are in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz”

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The USA has launched ‘powerful strikes’ in Iran after commercial ships were targeted.

On Tuesday night, July 7, US Central Command spokesperson said: “U.S. Central Command forces have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.

“The U.S. strikes are in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire.”

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Three tankers were struck by projectiles on Tuesday in the Strait of Hormuz, the Press Association reported, in the latest attacks targeting vessels moving through the waterway that is central to negotiations seeking a permanent end to the war between the US and Iran.

Hours later, the US revoked the 60-day licence issued last month by the Treasury that waived sanctions on Iranian oil.

A US official said the licence was revoked because Iran’s actions in the strait were unacceptable and needed to be met with consequences.

The new assaults in the strait were the most in a single day since late April, according to UN International Maritime Organisation figures. The fresh attacks threatened to choke off the flow of traffic in the strait just as countries hoped to restore normal shipping practices and ease the global economic strain of the war.

One tanker was travelling off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault.

The other two ships sustained some damage, but no one was injured, and both continued on their way, the UK maritime agency said.

Tehran, which has repeatedly declared that only its approved route through the strait is safe, is suspected of attacking other ships that have used another route close to the Omani shore.

Location details provided by the UK agency show all three attacks occurred off the coast of Oman or the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, making it likely that the ships were using the route near Oman.

The US is eager to press ahead with negotiations with Iran aimed at fully reopening the strait, rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme and reaching a permanent end to the war launched on February 28. An interim deal has been strained.

Previous attacks in the strait have sparked retaliatory strikes by the US. Iran then attacked Gulf Arab states.

In peacetime, a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the channel.

Meanwhile, talks between Iran and the US appeared to be on hold until after the burial of Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the beginning of the war. Mourners at his funeral have called for the death of US President Donald Trump.

Authorities flew Mr Khamenei’s body to the Shiite seminary city of Qom, where mourners honoured him on Tuesday.

One tanker was carrying liquid natural gas south through the strait near Limah, Oman, when a projectile hit the left-side engine room and sparked a fire, the UKMTO said.

Iranian state TV, quoting anonymous sources, implied that Tehran carried out the assault on a tanker it said was carrying natural gas from Qatar. However, there was no official claim from the Islamic Republic for the attack.

Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said the Qatari tanker Al Rekayyat was targeted in an “unacceptable attack” on international navigation and global energy security. He called it a “serious and explicit violation” of international law.

In a post on X, he said Qatar holds Iran “fully legally responsible” for the attack.

Later Tuesday, the UK maritime agency reported that an oil tanker was hit on its left side as it exited the strait near the Omani-Emirati border. A third tanker was struck by a drone off Oman, the agency said.

Iran’s joint military command warned last Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the strait must use its approved routes. It also said that interference by US forces in the strait “will be met with a rapid and decisive reaction”.

But the Joint Maritime Information Centre, a multinational body overseen by the US navy, told shippers on Monday that the route around Oman “has been expanded and remains available for all traffic”.

Ships going to the north on the Iranian route must register with Tehran. Those going south work with Oman and the US.

Speaking om Monday at the White House, Mr Trump warned Iran that it would need to “make a deal, or we’re going to finish the job”.

“I’d rather make a deal, because I don’t want to affect 91 million people,” Mr Trump said. “We can knock down their bridges in one hour. We can knock out their energy supply.”

Iran and the United States agreed as part of an interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the vessels’ routes and later charge fees for passage, which would upend decades of practice in the waterway.

The US and many Gulf Arab states say they will not agree to Iran charging for passage through the strait. An effort by Oman and the UN to launch a new route near Oman’s shore earlier sparked attacks across the Middle East.

Data firm Kpler reported that over last weekend at least 108 ships crossed through the strait using various routes.

Iranian state television aired live images on Tuesday of hundreds of thousands of people walking towards the Jamkaran Mosque, just south of Qom, for a funeral service for Mr Khamenei.

Images of Mr Khamenei and his son, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, were displayed on banners and posters held by mourners.

Mr Khamenei’s son has yet to make an appearance at the funeral ceremonies, which are unfolding over several days. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the air strike that killed his father.

Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which began on Saturday.

The government-run IRNA news agency reported that Mr Khamenei’s body was taken on Tuesday night to Najaf, Iraq.

Processions are planned for Wednesday in Najaf and Karbala.

Mr Khamenei, who was 86, will then be returned to Iran to be buried on Thursday at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that was the worst speeding offence on a 30mph road and in a 20mph zone a driver was clocked going above 50mph.

Neither of the locations where the speeding offences happened were disclosed.

The RAC found that seven-in-10 police forces caught drivers travelling at twice the speed limit or more on 30mph roads last year, new data analysed by the RAC has found.

One driver was caught at 89mph on a 20mph stretch of the B5129 in Deeside, north Wales; another at 114mph on a 30mph road in Aylestone, Leicestershire – the latter close to a primary school, although the driver was caught in the middle of the night.

Other shocking examples of truly excessive speeds on 20mph roads in the daytime included someone clocked at 64mph at around 10.45am in Halifax, West Yorkshire, a 60mph speed recorded in Southport in Merseyside, and a driver logged at 48mph in Alderley Edge in Cheshire around 3pm.

Even faster speeds were recorded in the middle of the night by forces in other parts of the country, including 72mph in Holland Park in London and 68mph on the B3122 in south Bristol.

In total, across 33 UK police force areas, 271,341 drivers were caught driving at 40mph or more on 30mph roads – speeds of at least 33 per cent higher than the posted limit – while across 28 forces 32,548 drivers were caught at 30mph or more on 20mph roads.

When it comes to the highest overall speeds last year, vehicles were recorded travelling at 161mph by police forces on the A5 in Bayston Hill, Shropshire and on the M6 southbound between Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford.

Other drivers were caught at 160mph on the M6 in Cheshire, 158mph on the A14 in Suffolk and 155mph on the A38 Sutton Coldfield bypass in the West Midlands.

Speed has for a long time been one of the main factors in fatal collisions on Great Britain’s roads.

The Bolton News has previously reported that Bolton has among some of the highest numbers of injury collisions on the roads, including fatal crashes.

Work is being done to reduce the number of crashes by all the emergency services, including dramatic d emonstrations of what they face when called to a crash.

RAC senior policy officer Rod Dennis said: “Our analysis shows some of the frankly chilling speeds some people are prepared to drive at – and these are just the cases the police are aware of.

“The fact that some were recorded in residential areas, even near schools, in daytime hours when others might well have been using the roads, underlines just how dangerous this kind of behaviour is.

“Such roads will almost certainly be well used by pedestrians and cyclists, so it doesn’t bear thinking about what travelling at such high speeds could have led to.

“There is a lot of work to be done.

“Despite drivers and riders exceeding speed limits being a factor in an increasing number of fatal road collisions, it’s clear that some people remain oblivious to the incredibly severe risk that driving too fast poses.

“The latest official data shows there were more than 300 fatal collisions in just one year where speeding was a factor – tragedies which are, on the whole, entirely avoidable given speeding is a choice the driver makes.

“We very much look forward to the Government’s response to its consultations on the Road Safety Strategy.

“New casualty reduction targets and an update to councils on setting local speeds are welcome, but a greater focus tackling the problem of excessive speeding and repeat offending is also desperately needed.

“Together with the Stop Excessive Speeders campaign, we therefore strongly urge the Government to introduce Intervening Intelligent Speed Assistance technology – which can prevent a vehicle from exceeding the limit – to reduce the number of drivers on our roads that puts all of us at risk.”

National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for roads policing Chief Constable Jo Shiner said: “The fact that a majority of drivers now believe there is a culture where speeding is acceptable reflects a deeply embedded issue in driver behaviour.

“We must reset expectations and make it clear that safe, lawful driving is a shared responsibility.”