The trial of a man from Bridgend who killed his wife is entering its fifth day on Friday. Michael Davies, 57, is on trial at Newport Crown Court accused of murdering his wife Tracey Davies, 48, at their home at Bryn Terrace, Cefn Cribwr, near Bridgend, on April 18 last year.

He denies murder but accepts that he killed her, and has told police he did so by strangling her between 7.30am and 8am that morning.

On the fourth day of the trial, the court heard details of his police interview in which Davies outlined how he killed his wife.

Davies told officers he didn’t have control of what he was doing, saying: “I loved her to bits but I didn’t seem to have any understanding over my hands. I’m not sure what I was even doing. I just wanted to keep strangling her.”

Tracey was found dead on a bed in one of the bedrooms. The defendant had cuts to his throat and leg and was found slumped behind the bedroom door.

In the police interview, the defendant told officers that after Ms Davies came into the bedroom he put his hands on her neck and started squeezing. He said he kept the pressure on her neck but he didn’t understand what was going on, and he said he kept trying to squeeze her neck and wanted to keep strangling her.

He told officers he then had “an overwhelming feeling” to get a knife from the kitchen and said he had a feeling to put the knife into himself. He then said he couldn’t remember anything else until he woke up in the UHW.

When asked whether he had intended to kill his wife, he replied, “not at all”. Davies said his mind was so broken he didn’t know what his intention was.

So far, the jury has heard the distressing account he gave police of how he took her life, as well as evidence from the accused’s daughter and healthcare professionals.

Davies, of Cefn Road in Bridgend, denies murdering his wife, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The trial continues.

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Mr Hockney, who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1937, passed away peacefully at his home on June 11, just weeks before what would have been his 89th birthday.

The artist’s publicist described him as “one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries”.

A statement said: “The celebrated British artist David Hockney, one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries, passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday.”

RIP David Hockney 🎨🕊️⁠ ⁠

The legendary British artist David Hockney has died aged 88, a representative has confirmed.⁠ ⁠

Hockney, who was due to turn 89 next month, died peacefully at his home in London on June 11th, 2026.⁠ ⁠

A spokesperson sadly confirmed, “The… pic.twitter.com/qMhMnz46kH

— Far Out Magazine (@FarOutMag) June 12, 2026

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The life of David Hockney

Mr Hockney began his training at the Bradford School of Art before moving on to the Royal College of Art in London, where he emerged as a prominent figure in the British pop art movement.

He was best known for his vibrant, sunlit paintings, particularly his iconic Los Angeles swimming pool scenes.

His wide-ranging body of work included photography, printmaking, stage design, and later, digital art.

His career spanned more than 70 years and was defined by an unrelenting sense of optimism and experimentation.

Much of his work drew on influences from the Renaissance and the abstract expressionist movement, but he remained resolutely individual in his approach, often rejecting artistic trends in favour of his own vision.

Mr Hockney’s formative years in Bradford left a long-lasting impression on his art.

He grew up in a working-class family and began drawing at an early age, despite little encouragement at Bradford Grammar School.

Sorry to hear of the death of the artist David Hockney. His self-portrait, aged 17 in 1954, hangs in the David Hockney Gallery at Cartwright Hall, Bradford, one of Yorkshire’s less-well known galleries, but a gem. pic.twitter.com/cDvkgiS2ff

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) June 12, 2026

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With the backing of his parents, he enrolled at art college and later the Royal College of Art, where he was known as a rebellious student.

He was warned that he could not graduate – in part because he had not done enough life drawings – to which he responded by painting Life Painting for a Diploma – a bold, unconventional piece that ultimately earned him the college’s gold medal in painting.

A breakthrough came in 1961, when Mr Hockney was featured in the Young Contemporaries exhibition alongside other rising stars of British pop art.

Although associated with the pop art movement, his work also contained strong expressionist influences.

His artistic direction changed dramatically after moving to Los Angeles in 1964.

He was captivated by the Californian light and lifestyle, which became central themes in his work.

Using bold colours and acrylic paints, he created his iconic swimming pool series, including the renowned A Bigger Splash.

Iconic David Hockney https://t.co/eupjjib2fC pic.twitter.com/PRjv2AEnnt

— jen (@JenCarsonTaylor) June 12, 2026

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Mr Hockney also gained recognition for his portraits, such as Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, and his innovative photo-collages like Pearblossom Highway.

He continued to push boundaries in later years, embracing new technology and producing art on iPads and other digital devices.

In the 1990s, Mr Hockney returned regularly to Yorkshire and began painting the local landscapes.

He eventually moved back full-time, settling in Bridlington and creating works inspired by the region’s countryside.

One of his major pieces from this period, Bigger Trees Near Warter, is a 12-metre-wide oil painting made up of 50 panels.

His Yorkshire landscapes were featured in the Royal Academy’s 2012 exhibition, A Bigger Picture, which attracted 600,000 visitors.

Despite his decades-long residence in the US, Mr Hockney always considered himself “very English.”

He declined the chance to paint Queen Elizabeth II, stating he was “too busy” painting England.

He did, however, design a stained glass window for Westminster Abbey in her honour, depicting hawthorn blossom from his native Yorkshire.

Following the loss of his hearing, he continued to paint for up to six hours a day, stating that the impairment allowed him to “see space clearer.”

Throughout his life, Mr Hockney remained a committed smoker, often wearing badges that read “End bossiness soon.”

Even in his final years, he found joy in the routine of painting, once saying: “I’m happiest when I’m painting.

“If I can paint every day I don’t care about anything else.”

Are you a fan of David Hockney’s works? Let us know in the comments.

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Thousands of music fans are heading to Cardiff this summer to enjoy live music.

With Take That and Metallica taking the stage at the Principality Stadium, as well as the return of Blackweir Live featuring Lewis Capaldi and Pitbull, and a packed summer of events at Cardiff Castle, Transport for Wales has advised that train services are expected to be significantly busier than usual throughout June and July.

TfW has strengthened capacity on key routes and scheduled later services to accommodate attendees.

Post-event queuing systems will be in place at both Cardiff Central and Cardiff Queen Street stations.

The following station arrangements will be in place:

• Principality Stadium concerts (Take That & Metallica): Passengers heading to the Valleys or to the Vale of Glamorgan will be directed to Cardiff Queen Street, while a mainline queueing system will be at Cardiff Central. Queueing will start from 9.45pm at both stations.
• Blackweir Live and Cardiff Castle concerts: While services will still be busy, Valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan passengers can use either station for their journey home.
• For all Blackweir Live concerts, Cathays station and the station bridge will close at 10pm. Passengers will be directed to either Cardiff Central or Cardiff Queen Street stations.

Pierre Gasly has been returned to third place in the Monaco Grand Prix after his Alpine team successfully appealed against a penalty for pit-lane speeding.

The Frenchman was demoted to seventh place after the race by a five-second penalty for exceeding the pit lane speed limit by 0.1km/h.

He was one of five drivers to be penalised for this during the race, an unusually high number.

A ‘right of review’ hearing requested by Alpine established that cars could legally drive a shorter distance in the pit lane than officials had used in their calculations.

The stewards accepted Alpine’s argument, backed up by data, that Gasly had never exceeded the 60km/h limit.

The decision is a blow to Mercedes driver George Russell, who was given a drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding which dropped him from third place at the time to 13th at the finish.

Russell’s Mercedes team, as well as the teams of the other drivers who were penalised, did not object to the decisions, even though they believed their drivers had not exceeded the limit.

Gasly committed two ‘offences’. The other drivers in addition to Russell were McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Gasly’s team-mate Franco Colapinto.

Hamilton’s penalty did not affect his second place as Ferrari managed to serve it in a way that did not penalise him in terms of track position during a safety-car period.

Piastri, who has been dropped to fifth by Gasly’s reinstatement, lost three places in serving his penalty.

The verdict published by the stewards into the right of review hearing said that they had questioned the number of penalties for speeding when the third one occurred.

The statement said: “Race control promptly came back to the stewards stating it had made enquiries of the official timekeepers and was told that there was no issue and that the data was therefore accurate.”

The pit-lane speed limit is measured by using a series of timing loops and the time taken to travel a specific distance along the pit lane.

The report said that changes to the pit lane this year had meant that the shortest possible route between the loops was 77 centimetres less than the distance used to calculate the limit.

Five of the six offences were by cars calculated to be doing 0.1km/h over the limit. The other was 0.4km/h over.

As a result the stewards decided Gasly had not exceeded the pit-lane speed limit.

More to follow.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Independents have grown increasingly unhappy with President Donald Trump during his second term, a new AP-NORC polling analysis finds, particularly those without a college degree.

The analysis from researchers at The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that while about half of independents without a college education had a positive view of Trump around the 2024 election, his approval with that group fell to about one-quarter this spring. That shift has erased the large education gap that existed among independents in the months before Trump took office for his second term, with independents now holding similarly negative views of the president regardless of their level of education.

The analysis was conducted by aggregating nearly two dozen AP-NORC polls conducted between July 2024 and April 2026, allowing for a deeper look at how support for Trump changed during several distinct periods, including the last six months of 2024, the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, the summer of 2025 when the Big Beautiful Bill passed, last fall’s government shutdown and the beginning of the Iran war.

The compiled polling shows a steady decline among independents throughout Trump’s second term. His standing has also dropped among several small but important groups that moved toward him in the 2024 presidential election, including Black and Hispanic independents.

More Americans than ever consider themselves independents, and they are among the groups that shifted toward Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Any erosion in that support could signal trouble for Trump and Republicans headed into the midterm elections, which are often seen as reflection of how voters feel about their governing party.

Tafari Torres, a senior research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis, noted that while Democrats’ and Republicans’ views of Trump have held largely steady in his second term, independents’ opinions are still moving. “Independents are, broadly, the people who are reacting to the events and dropping in their support,” he said.

Dramatic declines during Trump’s first 100 days

Trump’s return to the White House was fueled, in part, by independent voters who saw him as the stronger candidate on key issues like the economy. The new analysis, which looks at Trump’s favorability and presidential approval ratings, shows that once he took the helm, their views soured quickly.

Independents without a college degree had a much more positive view of Trump than college-educated independents did during and just after the 2024 election, but that shifted in the first few months of his term. Positive views of Trump among independents without a college degree fell from 48% in the months before he returned to office to 31% in polling conducted during Trump’s first 100 days back in office. Those warm views declined even further, to about one-quarter, during the government shutdown and the early months of 2026.

Only about 3 in 10 college-educated independents, by contrast, had a positive view of Trump before he returned to office, making their drop to about one-quarter much less dramatic.

“The decline among no-college independents was steeper and it was greater than the slight decline in college independents,” said Sean Collins, a research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis. “That was surprising, especially given, when you think of Trump’s coalitions, those without college degrees is usually one of the ones that that stands out.”

Hispanic, younger independents grow disenchanted

Americans without a college degree have long been a key part of Trump’s coalition. But Trump also won in 2024 by making gains among groups that tend to support Democrats, including Hispanic adults.

About 4 in 10 independent voters — 42% — voted for Trump in 2024, up from 37% in the 2020 presidential election. Independent voters without a college degree were a little more likely to back Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election, according to AP VoteCast, and Hispanic independents were about evenly split between the two.

The picture looks much bleaker for the president now.

Nearly half of Hispanic independents — 46% — saw Trump favorably in the polling conducted around the presidential election. His approval among these adults dropped quickly in his second term, falling as low as 15% during last fall’s government shutdown before landing around one-quarter in the spring.

Younger independents also became less supportive of the president, while independents age 60 and older remained mostly stable. Other AP-NORC polling has pointed to Trump losing ground among younger Republicans over inflation concerns and Hispanic Americans growing increasingly discontented.

“The gains Trump appeared to make during the election, I don’t know if they’re sticking around. He’s experienced some significant shifts among those people,” Torres said. ”From our research, they don’t appear to be permanent gains.”

The economy is frustrating many independents

Polling suggests that the economy as at the root of many Americans’ frustrations with Trump, including independents.

About half of independents who supported Trump in 2024 said inflation was the single most important factor for their vote, AP VoteCast found, and most expressed high levels of concern about the cost of food and gas.

More than a year into Trump’s second term, inflation remains high, fueled by gas prices that remain elevated as the Iran war continues. An AP-NORC poll conducted in April found that about 3 in 10 independents were “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford groceries in the last few months, and a similar share were worried about being able to afford gas.

The analysis found that Americans’ views of the U.S. economy tend to align with their view of the president. Those with negative views of the country’s economy tended to have negative views of Trump, and about 8 in 10 independents described the U.S. economy this spring as poor.

The latest AP-NORC polling from May found that only about 3 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, in line with the roughly 3 in 10 who said that at the beginning of his second term. The April poll found only about 1 in 10 independents — 12% — approved of how Trump was handling the cost of living.

——

This AP-NORC analysis of 4,836 independents was conducted over 21 AP-NORC surveys, blocked into five time periods before and during President Donald Trump’s second term. Independents are classified as panelists who do not select that they identify with or lean toward either the Democratic or Republican Party.

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Liam Anelay had been in the country for three weeks before he died in a tragic accident

A British man died in a “tragic accident” while travelling in Thailand with a group of friends. Liam Anelay, from Liverpool, is understood to have been approximately three weeks into a trip around the Asian country with friends when he passed away on January 28 this year.

An inquest into his death, held at Gerard Marjella Courthouse in Liverpool on Tuesday, June 11, heard how the 28-year-old had been riding a moped to meet his friends in Phuket when a car performed a u-turn in the road. It was heard how the driver is believed to have been unaware of Liam approaching on the vehicle before performing the manoeuvre.

The driver remained at the scene and “cradled” Liam until emergency services arrived. Liam was subsequently rushed to Chalong Hospital, where he was pronounced dead that afternoon.

The court heard how he sustained multiple fractures throughout his body, including to his skull, ribs and legs. His cause of death was recorded as multiple injuries as a result of a road traffic collision, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Area coroner Helen Rimmer told the court: “Liam died on the 28 January, 2026, in Thailand. Liam was travelling on a moped in Thailand when he was hit by a car that was completing a u-turn.

“The driver of the car remained with Liam until emergency services arrived. Liam suffered multiple injuries as a result of the road traffic collision.”

The coroner concluded that Liam’s death was the result of a road traffic collision. Ms Rimmer told the court: “I would be grateful if my condolences could be forwarded to all of Liam’s family after the tragic accident that led to his death.”

At the time of his death, Liam had been residing south of the city centre and was employed as a production line operator.

In a heartbreaking tribute posted on social media, his mother Christina wrote: “How the hell can this even be possible me writing this but my baby boy, my heart is so badly shattered into a million pieces, it still can’t sink in to my brain that I have lost you.

“My life will never be the same ever, I realy don’t know how I can do this Liam.

“My baby boy please keep shining down on me, untill we meet again my beautiful gorgeous smiling boy, I love you so much and my heart will ache for you untill I see you again, keep looking after Shaun please love. My beautiful boy.”

Liam’s cousin, Jason Ding, also paid tribute on social media following Liam’s passing earlier this year. He said: “R.I.P little Liam, I will always remember your cheeky smile as kid, all the way to you becoming a gentleman.

“You’re a credit to the whole family and especially your mum and dad. We will meet again mate. Our Shaun will take care of your mum, dad and the rest of the family. Fly high my little curious cousin.”

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The vaccination offers protection against serious illness such as IMD, meningitis, and sepsis

Teenagers in Northern Ireland will be offered a one-off Meningococcal B (MenB) vaccine next month, in line with announcements across the UK.

The announcement comes after multiple cases of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) were identified in South East England earlier this year. The Men-B vaccination offers protection against serious illness, such as IMD, meningitis and sepsis.

From mid-late July, a targeted programme, aimed at protecting those who are considered to be at the highest risk of Men-B, will be rolled out. The Department of Health said further details on how the programme will be delivered will be announced in due course.

The eligible cohorts include:

• All of the current school year 14 age group (i.e. those currently aged 17-18 with a date of birth between 2 July 2007 to 1 July 2008); and
• Anyone, up to 25 years of age, who will be attending Higher Education or a Residential Further Education Institution for the first time in autumn 2026 (including international students).

Everyone with a date of birth between July 2, 2007, and July 1, 2008, will be invited for vaccination, while those aged up to 25 years of age attending Higher Education or a Residential Further Education Institution for the first time in autumn 2026, will be encouraged to seek vaccination.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said: “MenB is a serious illness and can cause serious health implications amongst young people. The vaccination offers good protection and will help prevent serious harm among those who are most vulnerable.

“I strongly recommend those young people who are eligible to take up the offer of a vaccination, particularly those planning to go to Higher Education or a Residential Further Education Institution for the first time this autumn. I also would ask that parents and guardians speak with their teenagers and young adults to encourage them to take up the offer of a vaccination to help protect them from MenB.

“It is expected that this programme will be introduced by mid to late July to ensure those at highest risk from this disease have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated before going to University or other residential higher education for the first time.”

Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Michael McBride added: “As we have seen in recent outbreaks elsewhere in the UK, MenB can have a devastating and disruptive impact. Immunisation is one of the most effective ways of preventing illness from infectious disease. This vaccination programme will have significant public health benefits for young people who receive the vaccine, and the wider population. Put simply, if you are not vaccinated, you are not protected.”

Dr Joanne McClean, Director of Public Health at the Public Health Agency (PHA), said: “We welcome this announcement and are working with health service colleagues on the delivery of the programme during the summer. I encourage everyone who is eligible to take this opportunity to help protect themselves against this disease.”

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