“From a galaxy far, far away, everyone at Lucasfilm sends massive congratulations to Destin, Tom, everyone at Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios and the entire team behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day on setting a new domestic box office record and taking the crown from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Will Ponter seriously injured himself on holiday in Turkey

The family of a British man left paralysed in a horror accident in Turkey has issued a message thanking the public for support after he was flown home.

Will Ponter was seriously injured after diving into a swimming pool on the final night of his trip. His family said his girlfriend Becky pulled him from the water before he was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment.

The 24-year-old then underwent a 13-hour emergency surgery for a broken neck in Antalya. Doctors said as a result of his injuries he would be paralysed from the neck down.

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His devastated loved ones faced the desperate challenge of getting him back to the UK while also covering the costs of his medical bills in Turkey. A fundraiser was set up with a £150,000 target to help cover his medical care, repatriation and future needs.

The target has now been reached and Will, who was raised in Holme, Cumbria, and now lives in Carnforth, Lancashire, was flown back to Britain by the UK aeroplane ambulance charity Lia’s Wings, as reported by NeedToKnow. He was flown in a specialist air ambulance.

A spokesman for Lia’s Wings said: “After being contacted by Will’s family, Lia’s Wings arranged a specialist air ambulance to bring him safely back to the UK. Will arrived home on Sunday and is now in the care of specialist clinicians.

“This has been an extremely distressing time for his family, and we will continue to provide ongoing support for as long as they need us. We’re also deeply moved by the community support that has helped make his journey support possible.”

Charlotte Young, chief operating officer at Lia’s Wings, said: “Will, and his friends and family, have shown true bravery, and the kindness shown by the public continues to be truly life-changing for this family. We are glad Lia’s Wings could play our part in Will’s journey and will stay with his family for as long as they need us.”

Will’s girlfriend Becky Francey said everyone who donated ‘really restored my faith in humanity.’ She said Will was stable in hospital in Lancaster after ‘a really long 10 days trying to get him back’ and will be transferred to the Royal Preston Hospital for further treatment.

She said the visiting hours were better here so they can see him a lot more of him. The family still ‘don’t know’ what the future holds until he is no longer sedated and comes off ventilation so ‘they can assess the damage he’s done.’ “The doctors at Lancaster are amazing at keeping us informed,” Becky said.

“Now we can just concentrate on letting the doctors do what they need to do.” She added: “It is definitely a relief to be back in England but it’s also tough being home, I haven’t spent much time at our house because he’s not there. While he’s intubated, he can’t talk to me and I miss him so much.”

The fundraising page launched by Will’s family raised £152,452.

The exciting discovery was made during building work at the site over the summer holidays

Roman ruins have been discovered beneath a school in Newport during building work. Experts believe they have found a parade ground wall and road from thousands of years ago beneath Caerleon Comprehensive School over the summer.

Archaeologists from Heneb, the Trust for Welsh Archaeology, are now carrying out a full excavation while carefully recording all the material which is being found. The discovery was made during building works for a new full-size sports hall, upgraded changing facilities and modern teaching spaces at the school, Newport City Council said.

Archaeologists have uncovered what is believed to be a parade ground wall, along with a road system approximately seven metres wide.

The discovery was said to be a somewhat of a surprise, despite the area’s rich Roman history. Caerleon is home to a Roman amphitheatre, built to serve the Roman legionary fortress of Isca nearly 2,000 years ago.

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The stone structure was uncovered in 1926, after 30,000 tonnes of soil was removed from the surface. It has since become a protected historical landmark alongside the Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths nearby.

Michael Tuck, site supervisor for Heneb at Caerleon Comprehensive School, said: “What started as a watching brief has become a full-scale excavation due to the archaeology that has been found. We started to find deposits of stone, which eventually turned into what we have around us now.”

He said while the excavation is a work in progress, all the material being uncovered appears to be Roman. It’s hoped that the finds could provide more insight into how the people of Caerleon lived thousands of years ago.

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The largest finds so far have been the parade wall, along with the road system. Never miss a Newport story by subscribing to our newsletter here

Mr Tuck said: “What we have done in this excavation so far is extended our knowledge of that road from the Broadway playing fields heading towards the school, where this material might continue.”

The site is being recorded and preserved through photography, written records, drone photography, and scale drawings, following standard archaeological procedures.

Mr Tuck said archaeologists will then go back to work that was done on Caerleon’s Roman history in the 1950s and 1960s to see if there is any link between what was found then and what has been uncovered at the school.

Labour ward councillors Steve Cocks and Jason Hughes, along with Cllr Emma Corten, cabinet member for culture, attended the site over the summer to see the finds and to hear directly from the archaeologists on site.

Newport Labour said: “We’re incredibly lucky to have some of the finest Roman archeology finds in the world here in Newport, so with a rich Roman history such as ours, it should come as no surprise that when work began on the building at Caerleon Comp that the contractors came across something.

“But it was a surprise! What’s believed to be a Parade Wall has been uncovered, along with some excellent examples of Roman engineering and some small finds that give us more clues as to how the population of Caerleon lived at that time.”

Newport city council said it was grateful to Heneb for the archaeologists’ work so far. It added it is looking forward to continuing to build the site’s future.

The King is at war with Princess Diana‘s brother over Earl Spencer‘s bombshell claim Charles declared ‘rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough’.

Buckingham Palace issued an extraordinary statement in response to the explosive new book by Earl Spencer about a devastating row he had with then Prince Charles in the days after Diana died.

In a riposte that sent shockwaves through Royal circles, King Charles’s aides acidly suggested that grief can ‘cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory’ – in what was seen as a barbed echo of the late Queen’s famous ‘recollections may vary’ retort to Harry and Meghan.

The unprecedented slap-down by Buckingham Palace on Earl Spencer came after the Daily Mail revealed the first details from his searing new memoir – the first extract of which will be published on dailymail.com at 5pm today.

The Daily Mail’s sensational revelations are splitting society with rival camps backing either side.

Last night one senior establishment figure – a household name – told friends Earl Spencer ‘should be horse-whipped across town.’

The Palace’s remarkable statement disputing Earl Spencer’s claims reveals the depth of the King’s anger, according to experts.

Former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said Charles is ‘clearly absolutely incandescent’ over the allegations he said Diana would be quickly forgotten.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams described Earl Spencer’s allegations as ‘destructive’ and ‘driven by hatred’, adding: ‘There is no question that the King, and rightly so, is absolutely furious.’

Editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward said: ‘I think Diana would be horrified that her brother has revealed this remark by Charles.

‘When I last met her, six weeks before her death, she was adamant that she and Charles really loved each other. It was so important to her that their children knew that.

‘So she would be horrified that he has shared a comment that could appear to show so much malice. I am sure it was not meant like that. But at the time, the Spencers and the Royal Family were at loggerheads.’

Julian Payne, the King’s communications secretary between 2016 and 2021, said the ‘highly unusual’ statement from the Palace displayed the ‘strength of feeling that there must have been for them to feel that they needed to go out there and correct it’. 

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The King’s unprecedented response reveals that has been outraged by Earl Spencer’s claims, experts have said

Charles and Diana on their last official trip together to South Korea in November 1992

In Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the earl tells how in 1997 he clashed with Charles over the idea of Princes William and Harry walking in their mother’s funeral procession. 

Spencer said he insisted Diana would not have wanted William, then aged 15, and Harry, 12, to endure such a public ordeal, telling the then heir to the throne: ‘That’s not going to happen.’

But he claims furious Charles ‘went nuts’ and responded with a ‘stream of anger’ including telling him, just days after the death of the princess that shook the world, that ‘rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough’.

The first full part of the serialisation of the memoir will be published on dailymail.com at 5pm UK time today.

Last night Buckingham Palace took the highly unusual step of issuing a withering put-down to the incendiary claims about the King.

A Royal spokesman said: ‘While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.’

The caustic response is being compared to the late Queen Elizabeth’s celebrated remark that ‘recollections may vary’ about Harry and Meghan’s outlandish claims in their Oprah Winfrey interview attacking the Royal Family.

A source close to the King said the comment he is alleged to have made about Diana was ‘just not in his nature and it certainly wasn’t in his nature at that time, when he was a man absolutely grief-stricken’.

They pointed out that the then Prince of Wales was the person who overruled Royal protocol to insist that Diana should have a full state-style ceremonial funeral.

The rebuke was issued by the palace shortly after the Mail revealed claims made by Earl Spencer in his book.

Earl Spencer, 62, says he has written the memoir to correct ‘untruths’ told about his older sister.

The astonishing account of the King’s alleged outburst, almost 30 years ago, is described by the earl over several pages.

He says that one of Queen Elizabeth’s most senior aides had told him, in the days before the funeral, that William and Harry would take part in the procession, which is when he responded that this was not what his sister would have wanted and was ‘not going to happen’.

Minutes later, he recalls, he received a phone call from Prince Charles who questioned the Spencer family’s sense of duty and insisted that, 18 years earlier, he had walked in the funeral procession of Lord Mountbatten, his great-uncle.

The memoir describes how Charles ‘went nuts’ after the earl pointed out that the prince had been 30 at the time of Lord Mountbatten’s funeral in 1979.

In one of the book’s most extraordinary passages, Earl Spencer writes: ‘Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.

‘I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. ‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, “we’ll forget her soon enough!”.’

Julian Payne, the King’s former communications secretary between 2016 and 2021, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I just don’t recognise the way the King is characterised in those remarks.

‘I personally was working for him during the 20th anniversary of the late princess’s death in 2017 and naturally we ended up discussing her several times during that summer because the media interest was so intense.

‘What I remember was he was very clear that there was never to be any criticism, never to be any pushback on the narratives that were usually highly critical of him – but he was absolutely emphatic that we were to respect her memory and not undermine it in any way.

‘So it seems to me very odd that in the moment itself with the grief of his family and his own shock that he would choose that moment to use those words. It’s just not language that I recognise.’

BBC royal correspondent Sean Coughlan said the Palace see the allegation against Charles as ‘being entirely out of character for a man with a deeply compassionate nature, who at the time was dealing with his own grief and that of their two sons’.

Royal expert Phil Dampier described the palace statement as ‘extraordinary’, adding: ‘The days of never complain never explain have gone… not surprisingly.’

Commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told GB News: ‘I think it is something that the Royal Family obviously have taken very seriously with an extraordinary statement.’

He added that royal observers will now be considering whether the Duke of Sussex will also respond to the book’s contents.

Mr Fitzwilliams said: ‘People will be asking what did Prince Harry know about this book and what its contents are. Will he in fact be speaking about this? Will he be reacting? I sincerely hope so because it’s a scandalous thing to accept to say that his father made these statements.

‘Here you’ve got a situation where it will be interesting to see what Prince Harry says, if anything, about this because he’s been speaking about so many topics linked to the royal family since they’ve stepped down as senior working royals.

The Earl, Diana and Charles at the Earl’s 21st birthday party in 1985 at the Mirabelle restaurant in London

From left, the Earl, Prince William, Prince Harry and Charles at Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997

Earl Spencer said that he was ‘so stunned’ by the alleged remarks that he took a few seconds to reply.

‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ I said flatly, before hanging up,’ he writes.

Diana’s death on August 31, 1997, aged 36, sparked a global outpouring of grief.

On September 6, 1997, six days after Diana’s death, Earl Spencer delivered a defiant eulogy at her funeral that was later named one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.

His raw oration in Westminster Abbey was delivered after he walked alongside William and Harry, as well as Prince Charles and Prince Philip, behind Diana’s coffin in a funeral procession through central London.

The new book includes a string of further extraordinary claims about Diana’s failed marriage to Charles and the tumultuous aftermath of her tragic death in a car crash in Paris.

The revelations are set to plunge Buckingham Palace into a fresh storm just weeks after the return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children to the UK from California.

The exclusive serialisation will begin on dailymail.com later today.

Described as ‘historic’, Swan Song is due to be published worldwide next Tuesday – in the UK by Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House.

Police in the Netherlands are still investigating what publishing sources say is the ‘extremely suspicious’ overnight theft of four copies of the book from the back of a parked lorry earlier this week.

Extracted from Swan Song: Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer, to be published by Michael Joseph on September 22, £28. © Charles Spencer 2026. To order a copy for £23.80 (offer valid to 10/10/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. 

Below-par showings were forgiven last season as Celtic simply just had to get by to stay in touch at the top before eventually leapfrogging Heart of Midlothian on the final day with a seventh successive league victory.

That Premiership-winning streak has been extended to 13 games following six straight victories to start the campaign, but concerns about performance level remain. Four of those six wins have been by a one-goal margin.

Twelve goals over three wins at Kilmarnock, Dundee United and in the first leg of the Champions League play-off against LASK sent an ominous warning to Celtic’s domestic rivals amid a period of high spending, particularly in forward areas.

Camilo Duran has been the standout summer recruit so far with six goals and three assists in 10 appearances, while record signing Kasper Hogh and fellow big-money arrival Haissem Hassan are yet to fully settle.

Sutton said his old club have been “flat-track bullies” by “beating the teams you expect them to beat”, but the collapse in Austria, plus Sunday’s bruising loss, has highlighted glaring deficiencies.

Even captain Callum McGregor lamented Celtic’s “team of individuals” after the weekend defeat at Ibrox.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, former striker Sutton also expressed his “great concerns” for O’Neill’s men and said they have “big issues” after a “lightweight” midfield was “run all over” by Rangers.

Celtic have struggled to build up play against coherent pressing teams, which results in opposition sides being offered too much encouragement when the ball turns over.

They faced a whopping 60 shots across both legs with LASK. Forty of them came in a mess of a second leg. In the Premiership alone this season, they have faced 64 attempts, the same number as Hearts and six more than Rangers.

Over just six games, that tally already makes up almost a quarter of the total they faced in the entirety of the 2024-25 league-winning campaign under Brendan Rodgers.

That said, in comparison to last term, which was overseen by Rodgers, Nancy and O’Neill, Celtic’s Premiership numbers show they are currently averaging a far better goal concession rate while scoring and shooting more.

Come Sunday, though, the most crucial statistic could be in the points column.

With a rapid rematch against Rangers offering the chance to move eight points clear of their city rivals after a test against European-level opposition, the next four days will at least be mood-shifting.

Whether that is to O’Neill’s benefit remains unclear.

The conflict between Iran and the US appears to have reached a stalemate. The US navy continues to prevent Iranian vessels or others transiting to or from Iranian ports. Iran, meanwhile, threatens shipping moving in or out of the Persian Gulf region via the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has also recently said it will establish a new “restricted zone” stretching into the Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz – although details remain sketchy.

Less frequently discussed is the network of undersea cables across the Persian Gulf which connect the region with the outside world. On August 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian government was considering attacks on that network. In the Gulf’s relatively shallow waters, threats to this critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) pose a credible risk to the Gulf States and the wider world.

These cables form a largely unseen foundation of the global economy, carrying more than 95% of international data traffic. Their role extends far beyond everyday internet and call usage. They support financial transactions, government communications and the increasingly data-intensive operations of the global technology sector.

Major technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are investing heavily in subsea connectivity as they expand data-centre networks and seek to meet the growing demands of AI. For the Gulf States, where hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in AI as part of efforts to diversify economies away from fossil fuels, disruption to this infrastructure could therefore have consequences far beyond communications. Cutting these CUI cables threatens a key element of their broader economic ambitions.

To demonstrate the scale of this risk, the key cable networks include the Fibre in Gulf submarine cable system, which connects Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE. There is also the Falcon Network, which connects Bahrain, Egypt, India, Iraq, Kuwait, Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Yemen. The Asia-Africa-Europe1 (AEE1) network, with landing sites in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE, linking southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt. And the Gulf Bridge International, which links Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and has onward connectivity to India and Europe.

With that web of connections funnelled through the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway that has long been of strategic importance for oil and gas has taken on a new significance as a choke point for global undersea infrastructure.

What makes the Strait of Hormuz and the rest of the Gulf region particularly vulnerable to an attack on the CUI is the shallow water. With an average depth of 50 metres and a maximum depth of less than 100 metres, those who might wish to attack the CUI network do not need the sort of high-end capabilities of Russia’s Gugi agency. Gugi, which is the Russian acronym for the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, is responsible for underwater sabotage and espionage.

Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) with working depths of thousands of metres are commonplace in the oil and gas industry. There are growing numbers of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) with similar operating parameters in that field. Both can be repurposed and used for offensive operations.

Iran has already debuted its own mine clearance ROV, and there may be other capabilities which it has not chosen to publicise. The shallowness of the Persian Gulf puts most of it well within the depths military divers are able to operate at. We could also see the sort of blunt threat posed by a ship “accidentally” dragging its anchor to cut cables in the manner we have witnessed in the Baltic.

So it’s entirely feasible that Iran could conduct attacks against the CUI network. And the threat has already affected planned extensions or new elements of this undersea infrastructure. Several projects have been put on hold after their owners or contractors declared they can’t safely operate in the Gulf.

This neatly illustrates the impact of conflict on the ability to maintain and extend the cables carrying so much of the world’s trade and communication. In the context of the Middle East, that will have a direct impact on the ambitions of Gulf States to become AI-enabled economies.

Iran clearly appreciates the strategic and operational significance of the regional CUI network and will have put significant effort into mapping it. It is also reasonable to assume that it will have a trained force of divers able to operate at depths that would enable them to reach the cables across the Persian Gulf seabed.

We know that they have an ROV designed for mine clearance operations – and it’s highly likely operate other assets in support of a well-developed offshore oil industry.

How far would Iran go?

The most important question is what would the Iranians be prepared to do? An attack on the cable network could create a very significant impact on trade and communications across the Middle East, with global ramifications. Such an attack would need to be targeted and limited if Iran wished to avoid global condemnation. But it’s a risk they may be willing to take given their current isolation.

That “maybe-they-would” doubt leads us to consider a new form of deterrence – of one nation’s ability to affect either CUI of another, or of broader networks.

It’s something of an extension of Nixon’s madman theory of nuclear deterrence. A nation that is desperate enough could be willing to take extreme action in the CUI domain – with what might appear to a rational observer to be disproportionate regional and potentially global consequences – in order to deter more traditional military strikes against it.

To a certain extent this should come as no surprise. The CUI network is the cyber age equivalent of the roads, bridges and rail systems which have long been targets for military planners seeking to disrupt an opponents’ ability and willingness to fight. Iran’s capacity and desire to conduct this sort of operation may be uncertain – but that very ambiguity may prove enough to have a significant impact on the region.

Greater Manchester Police and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service attended the incident in Moss Bank Way at around 9.20pm.

The incident involved a black SUV, with an eyewitness account also confirming that the ambulance service was at the scene.

Greater Manchester Police have confirmed that two vehicles were involved in the incident, with the drivers not sustaining any injuries.

The collision shut the road at the junction with Crompton Way, opposite the ASDA Superstore.

North Yorkshire Police said officers were called to a property on Stockton Lane at 2.49am on Tuesday, September 15, following a report from the resident.

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A force spokesperson said the man made off immediately on being discovered.

“It is believed the intruder gained entry via an insecure door to the property, and we are warning residents to remain vigilant and ensure they secure doors and windows overnight,” the police spokesperson added.

A North Yorkshire Police description of the man is a white male, short, in his forties, with balding dark hair, clean shaven and wearing a dark top and trousers.

Anyone with information is asked to contact DC Sarah Scott at sarah.scott@northyorkshire.police.uk or call 101, quoting incident reference 12260181024.

The summer window has been and gone, but Premier League clubs remain active in the transfer market with Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham still exploring potential deals ahead of January. Arsenal are believed to be closing in on the signing of Vincent Joseph – a young striker from Liverpool – and remain interested in Kenan Yildiz and Eli Junior Kroupi, amid shock links Rio Ngumoha.

By EVE SIMMONS HEALTH EDITOR

Published: 07:55 BST, 17 September 2026 | Updated: 07:59 BST, 17 September 2026