By LAWRENCE BOOTH, CRICKET CORRESPONDENT

Published: 20:37 BST, 27 August 2026 | Updated: 23:20 BST, 27 August 2026

Thunderstorm warning has been extended to midnight on Thursday, August 27

A weather alert for thunderstorms as been extended by the Met Office as heavy rain continues to batter parts of Greater Manchester.

The yellow warning for thunderstorms was initially issued from 3am to 10pm on Wednesday (August 26), across much of England including London and the South East, the Midlands, East Anglia, and parts of the North West, South West, as well as eastern parts of Wales. It also covers parts of Greater Manchester, including Stockport, Oldham and Tameside.

The warning has since been extended, with forecasters predicting the storms to continue until midnight tonight (August 27).

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They have advised for those in affected areas to expect a chance of delays and cancellations to train and bus services where flooding occurs, spray and sudden flooding which could lead to difficult driving conditions and some road closures, and potential power cuts.

Providing further detail on their website, the Met Office said: “A broad band of thunderstorms and heavy rain will move north across England and Wales on Thursday, perhaps becoming slow moving at times. Accumulations of 20-30 mm in an hour is possible locally, while 30 to 40 mm can be expected fairly widely and up to 50 mm in a 12 hour period in places.

“There is a small chance that some places may see more than 50 mm in three hours and more than 75 mm through 12 hours. Lightning and large hail will also be hazards.”

Forecasters have provided advice for those worried about the weather conditions. On their website they penned: “Consider if your location is at risk of flash flooding. If so, consider preparing a flood plan and an emergency flood kit.

“Give yourself the best chance of avoiding delays by checking road conditions if driving, or bus and train timetables, amending your travel plans if necessary.”

The weather service said there is a “small chance of fast-flowing or deep floodwater causing danger to life”. It added there was also a small chance that homes and businesses could be flooded quickly, with damage to some buildings from floodwater, lightning strikes, hail or strong winds.

Met Office Chief Forecaster Steve Willington said: “On Thursday, slow-moving heavy and thundery rain may bring prolonged rainfall to some areas, increasing the risk of localised impacts.

“There remains some uncertainty around where the heaviest rain will fall, so it is important to keep up to date with the latest forecast and warnings.”

The raids were carried out last month by the Information Commissioner’s Office in Bolton, Burnley, Liverpool, London and Swansea across residential and business premises.

The ICO said this came after more than 12M complaints about motor finance nuisance texts since September last year, with up to 100,000 being received by the watchdog every day.

This week the ICO announced it had fined a company £190,000 for bombarding elderly people with nuisance calls while claiming to be selling devices designed to block unwanted calls.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said Elderly Aids Limited (EAL) had deliberately targeted elderly people.

The investigation centres around alleged nuisance text messages (Image: Newsquest)

They said it made nearly 760,000 cold calls to those registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) between May 2024 and February last year to promote call-blocking devices.

The ICO said complaints revealed EAL callers were, “aggressive, misleading, and often failed to identify themselves”.

One complainant reported their elderly father had been persuaded by EAL to sign up to a call-blocker service, paying £139 upfront and a monthly fee of £6.99, according to the ICO.

The TPS allows people and businesses to opt out of unsolicited sales and marketing calls.

It is illegal to make a live marketing call to anyone registered with the TPS, unless they have given permission to be contacted by a specific organisation.

EAL repeatedly ignored requests from the ICO for information and continued to make nuisance calls during the investigation, according to the ICO.

It also tried to strike itself off the Companies House register amid the probe, the ICO said.

ICO head of investigations Andy Curry said: “Not only did this company target vulnerable people who had explicitly asked not to be called – they harassed them to sell call-blocking devices.

“EAL showed a complete disregard for the law and the people they were hounding.

“This penalty should serve as a clear warning to any business that thinks the law does not apply to them, we will hold them to account for both exploiting people in this way and trying to avoid accountability.”

As well as the financial penalty, the ICO said it has issued an enforcement notice ordering EAL to stop making illegal marketing calls and to meet caller identification rules.

Data & Marketing Association director of preference services Russell Roach, said: “People register with the Telephone Preference Service because they want greater control over who can contact them.

“Cases like this demonstrate why those protections are so important.

“Anyone making live marketing calls must respect the choices people have made about their privacy.

“When organisations ignore those preferences and contact individuals who have explicitly opted out of receiving unsolicited sales calls, particularly those who are most vulnerable, they undermine consumer trust and risk causing significant nuisance and distress.”

The Aughamullen native was part of Vinny Corey’s backroom team for two campaigns before replacing him in September of 2024 and managing Monaghan for two seasons

Monaghan are on the lookout for a new senior football manager following the shock resignation of Gabriel Bannigan after two years in charge.

The Aughamullen native was part of Vinny Corey’s backroom team for two seasons before replacing him in September of 2024.

His own backroom team last season included Andy Moran, who would lead Mayo to All-Ireland glory this year.

With Scotstown’s extended club campaign running into 2026 and a crippling injury list to contend with, Monaghan were relegated from Division One earlier this season.

However, they enjoyed a fruitful Championship campaign with Jack McCarron’s stunning sideline helping them claim a memorable Ulster semi-final win over Derry while they were denied in the provincial decider after extra-time by Armagh .

Their injury woes would return later in the summer with rising star Bobby McCaul suffering an ACL injury against Mayo in Clones – a game the Farney lost by one point having trailed by 12 at one stage.

They went on to topple Connacht champions Roscommon and Leinster winners Westmeath in St Tiernach’s Park but the absence of Rory Beggan and Karl Gallagher was keenly felt when they bowed out to Louth in the All-Ireland quarter-final at Croke Park.

In a statement confirming his departure from the role, Bannigan claimed the “goalposts have moved” and expressed his disappointment at leaving his position.

“I am very disappointed to announce that I am stepping down as manager of the Monaghan senior football team,” said Bannigan.

“When I was appointed two years ago, I accepted the challenge of leading the Monaghan team through an inevitable period of transition and it has been an absolute privilege to do so.

“On taking the role I promised to mould a Monaghan team that would reflect the values I grew up with in Monaghan GAA, honesty, humility, hard work and never say die spirit, I think it is fair to say this Monaghan team has delivered on that promise and the culture created provides a very strong platform to build on in the months and years ahead.

“I am very proud of the progress that Monaghan GAA has made, in 2025 we won the NFL Division two title and were very competitive in championship, losing narrowly to Donegal in Ulster and again in the All-Ireland quarter final (QF).

“In 2026 we were ravaged with injuries during a disappointing league campaign, but had a thrilling championship run, beating Cavan and Derry before losing out to Armagh after extra-time in the Ulster Final.

“In the All-Ireland series we lost by one point to eventual All-Ireland champions Mayo, before defeating both Roscommon (Connaught champions) and Westmeath (Leinster champions) to earn our place in the All-Ireland QF.

“Unfortunately, we were missing both Rory Beggan and Karl Gallagher for our QF and we lost out narrowly to Louth. We had already lost Louis Kelly, Gary Mohan and Bobby McCaul through injury. I have never made excuses for results during my tenure, but I think it is fair to say that with even the slightest better fortune, this Monaghan team would have been in an All-Ireland semi-final at the very least, but enough said.

“I have always been 100 per cent honest with the Monaghan people since I was given the honour of managing our senior footballers, I did not want to walk away from this project that I have put so much into.

“When you consider the split season, I’ve only had 16 months in total to oversee this transition and evolve a new team. In this period, we have brought so many young players through, handing out 16 NFL debuts and 10 championship debuts in 2026 alone. I have been very clear about the ambitions I had with this team, I believe the ceiling is high with all the young players we have brought through and more talent coming on stream.”

He continued: “Over the last number of weeks, I worked hard on my plans for 2027 to build on the excellent foundations now in place, including strengthening my backroom team, as I was mandated to do.

“During this period, I have come to realise that the goalposts have moved, and the conditions are not right for me to continue and therefore I believe a new management team and fresh voices are now required to take Monaghan football forward. I wish my successor and everyone involved with Monaghan GAA the very best of luck in 2027 and beyond.

“I want to thank so many people who have given me so much support over the last two years. To each and every one of you I say a heartfelt thank you, it has been an absolute privilege to manage the Monaghan senior footballers.”

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Dolly Parton has sung disco, pop, bluegrass and even metal – but for all her genre-hopping, she has always come back to country. From the disco bop of Baby I’m Burnin’ to the metal-influenced Bygones, featuring Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, Parton’s career has repeatedly pushed beyond country’s boundaries while remaining firmly rooted in it.

Although some of her country fan-base waned as she became a pop star, Parton ultimately belonged to country music. She had 25 number one singles in the Billboard’s country music charts, ten Academy of Country Music Awards and her 1999 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame to prove it.

Country music has had something of a revival in recent years. This has been accompanied by a revaluation of its cultural contributions, partly driven by the popularity of artists such as Parton. But country music can be a hard sell. The oft-repeated response of “anything except rap or country” to questions of musical taste speak to how it has appeared as an example of bad music, widely disliked outside a core audience. If everyone loves Parton, it does not follow that everyone loves country music.

Frequently conservative in its aesthetics and politics, country music is associated with particular people, tropes and values. Many of these associations can be traced to the early years of its invention. What would come to be called country music (the term came into use in the 1940s) had its origins in a racially segregated music industry, where record companies directed “old-time”, “cowboy” or “mountain” music toward white consumers.

Often trading in nostalgic and romantic ideas of the simplicities of rural life, these records were framed as belonging to an authentic tradition the US south. Country’s cultural associations have endured efforts to make it more mainstream, including the emergence of the Nashville Sound in the 1950s: a style of music production that smooths out the “rougher” edges of country performance by incorporating some of pop’s conventions.

Parton, with her rhinestones and wigs, her Tennessee twang, her Appalachian rags-to-riches life story and her all-American patriotism, fits with many ideals of who country music is by and for. Country’s musical markers – uncomplicated melodies, instrumentation such as banjos, fiddles, guitars and mandolins, adept storytelling about everyday life, and lyrical themes of love, work, family, religion and death – can all be found across her prolific catalogue of “little simple songs” (to borrow Parton’s understated description of one of her most successful compositions, I Will Always Love You).

At the same time, Parton reshaped country music in her own image. As journalist Natalie Weiner has pointed out, when Parton first signed to Monument records in 1965 at the age of 19, her high-pitched voice was considered incompatible with country.

Early releases from this time, such as her 60s girl group style Busy Signal, were part of efforts to market Parton as a pop singer. The problem wasn’t just her voice. Parton was having success as a country songwriter in Nashville, but during this time country music and its industry were male-dominated fields, and commercially successful women singer-songwriters were few and far between. Notable exceptions include Loretta Lynn, whose 1966 hit single You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take my Man) is a rather less mannered counterpart to Parton’s Jolene.

Benefitting from the groundwork of figures like Lynn, Parton’s musical talent won out, and in 1967 her first album Hello, I’m Dolly, announced her arrival as a country singer and songwriter.

Subverting country

Country has often traded in reductive gendered tropes, with women frequently appearing in songs as either as loving angels or wayward seductresses. But Parton was a key contributor to a body of songs that offered a richer and more complex account of womanhood.

Just Because I’m a Woman, for example, asserts equality in the right to make (sexual) “mistakes”, while Your Ole Handy Man expresses frustration at having to do all the work around the home for a man that behaves as if he is “as helpless as a baby”. Some of these songs, however, proved too much for country music’s institutions. Her gothic ballad The Bridge, narrating the desperation of an abandoned pregnant woman, and Down from Dover, a song about out-of-wedlock pregnancy loss, were both banned by radio stations.

In other instances, Parton has taken up country’s tropes only to refigure them – 9 to 5, for example, belongs to country music’s tradition of (anti)work songs. What was at stake, however, was not the country’s typical work imaginary of factories, mining or trucks but the feminised, white-collar grind of typewriters and toxic office politics. The sentiment landed. In 1981 9 to 5 spent two weeks at number one in Billboard’s Top 100 chart.

In 1997, Parton dissolved her fan club, which, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame, had previously been one of the staunchest in country music, due to falling numbers among her core country fan base. Although her success exceeded it and distanced some original fans, Parton often returned to country music.

After dissolving her fan club, Parton released her critically acclaimed bluegrass trilogy – The Grass is Blue (1999), Little Sparrow (2001) and Halo & Horns (2002). 2008’s Backwoods Barbie and 2014’s Blue Smoke (the 44th of her 49 studio albums) were grounded in her distinctive blend of country pop.

Parton’s skilful negotiation the demands of the genre, while remaining resolute in doing country her own way, deserves recognition among her many achievements.

Three staff members from the Stars and Stripes military news outlet are suing to challenge their recent firings by the Pentagon, accusing the Trump administration of violating their First Amendment free speech rights to speak out against government interference in their work.

Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte are named as plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Washington, D.C.

The Pentagon, which partially funds the news outlet, fired them last week. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the suit’s allegations.

Slavin says he was dismissed for insubordination after giving an interview to CBS News in which he objected to potential censorship by the U.S. military. Korte participated in the same interview. Their lawsuit says they were punished in retaliation for publishing a report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

“Stripes’ historical editorial independence is critical to its core mission of gathering and providing unbiased, credible journalism to the U.S. military community, particularly servicemembers and their families stationed overseas,” the suit says.

Lederer was dismissed shortly after announcing his impending retirement, effective at the end of September. He said the Pentagon had installed a new deputy publisher, an active duty service member, under him at the newspaper without his prior knowledge.

The suit’s plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers for Good Government, Government Accountability Project and a Yale Law School clinic.

The Defense Department and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are among the named defendants.

GTA 6 has made its Netflix debut, with over 20 minutes of raw gameplay footage and dozens of amazing little details you may not have noticed.

You get an idea of exactly how big GTA 6 is going to be when the debut of 26 minutes of only lightly edited gameplay footage manages to crash Netflix. It was only down for a few minutes, when the extended look went live on Thursday evening, but it immediately gave a sense that the whole world was watching.

As leaked beforehand, the video is 26 minutes long and surprisingly it is nothing but raw gameplay, with no voiceovers explaining the features, no talking heads waxing lyrical about Rockstar Games, and only a brief flash of a logo.

It’s the first time a video game has ever been promoted in this way and because there was so little context given for anything it was very easy to miss little details and hints at gameplay features that haven’t yet been confirmed. So here’s what we noticed, but do let us know what we missed because there’s bound to be much more.

Authentic clothing – weirdly, the first thing to make us go wow was the way the T-shirt Jason was wearing at the start moved as he did, with incredibly realistic looking cloth physics.

So many people – it goes without saying but the graphics were amazing throughout. However, the thing that really stands out is just how many people are in almost every scene, with dozens of highly-detailed character models just hanging around and adding to the atmosphere.

Such a pretty face – everything about the graphics seems almost photorealistic but it’s the facial animation that stands out as truly exceptional. Although it’s not just the technology itself but the acting performances, with Lucia’s actress being particularly good, with some very subtle facial acting.

No instructions – this is something that Rockstar may have been purposefully hiding for the sake of the video but there didn’t seem to be any object prompts on screen, telling you what to do next. Red Dead Redemption 2 often went overboard with these, making it seem like you were just following the developer’s stage directions, so it’s good to see them dial back on that.

Press D to drink – what you could see in several scenes though were button prompts for various mundane activities, like taking a sip of a drink at a club or holding Jason’s hand. These didn’t seem to be vital gameplay actions but instead just small interactions to add to the mood.

Off the wall – during the opening drug bust scene you see one of the drug dealers push a police officer straight through a wall. This may have been a one-off gag, but it does suggest that perhaps the game feature a fair amount of destructible scenery, but there wasn’t an obvious way to tell in any of the other scenes.

Prêt à porter – all modern GTA games allow you to change your clothes but the video went out of its way to make this clear, not just because Jason and Lucia were talking about it but because Lucia in particular looks completely different from scene to scene, especially when she’s wearing a wig.

Satire is not dead – Dan Houser said that satire was impossible in a post-Trump world and now that he’s left Rockstar, as head writer, it was possible there’d be a shift in tone for GTA 6. That wasn’t really evident from any of the footage though, which set some time aside to show some fake TV ads poking fun at American consumerism in very much the traditional GTA manner.

Knight Rider – if there was one disappointment from the video it’s that Rockstar hasn’t found any way to make car conversations seem more dynamic. Even in the video there were long segments of driving down a road while the car seemed to be talking to itself. Some sort of insert to show who’s talking, or a 70s style split screen effect, would surely have been better but conversations on the move seem to work exactly the same as GTA 5.

Text message – the above is all the more disappointing because the way texts are displayed was very visual and clever, with big glowing text bubbles appear next to the character, to show what they were saying and reading.

Doing crimes – not that it’s much of a revelation but Jason and Lucia take part in an awful lot of robberies, including what seems to be the one from the very first trailer. This appears to be more than just optional side missions and instead their main way of making money, at least at the start of the game.

Shoot the tyres – the other thing the game seems to have a lot of is car chases where Jason is hanging out the back shooting at a seemingly infinite supply of police cars and helicopters. It looks great though, especially the bit where a fellow bank robber jumps in the back of their car and asks for help.

Switching sides – another thing that seems to work exactly the same as GTA 5 is how you switch characters. At one point the point of view zooms out and refocus from Lucia to Jason, just as it worked in the last game. However, it’s not clear if you can switch more quickly when the pair are near each other. You do seem to change characters during one of the chases but it seems to be the game switching it, not the player.

Welcome to the party – the sequence at the end, with Jason and Lucia acting as bodyguards in a skyscraper overrun by terrorists was very reminiscent of Die Hard, especially when Jason gets hold of a walkie talkie and dumps a dead bad guy in the lift. Movie homages have always been a big part of GTA and that doesn’t seem to have changed for the new game.

Bullet time – it’s impossible to tell how much the gunplay has improved from just watching a video but it certainly seemed very slick and John Wick-inspired. It’s also clear that there’s a slow motion affect available, although how exactly you activate it remains to be seen.

A world of adventure – there was a ton of other activities, many of which have been hinted at by previous trailers and screenshots, but which were only shown for a second, so here’s what stuck out to us:

• Piloting airboats in a swamp
• Basketball
• Suba diving
• Weightlifting
• Swimming
• Jet-skiing
• Using binoculars to spy on someone using VR
• Kayaking
• Visiting a strip club
• Some form of motorsport
• Sunbathing
• Shooting gallery
• Motorcross
• Base jumping
• Flying a seaplane
• Piloting various boats on the ocean

There was also a part where there’s a car chase going on and it’s being livestreamed, with fake comments appearing on the left. Whether that’s a one-off or something that can happen with multiple activities isn’t yet clear.

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Eddie Copley-Farnell, who runs The Curious Coffee Company, spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) about his plans to open a new café in Clifton.

The business owner said he was hopeful the new venue would prove popular, adding it was set to open in November with works set to begin in the coming weeks.

It comes after a planning application to convert the vacant Boots pharmacy, which closed in February 2024, into the new café was approved on Wednesday, August 26.

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The Curious Coffee Company café planned for Clifton would seat up to 40 people.

The company already has branches in Haxby and Easingwold, which opened 10 and 13 years ago respectively, along with a bakery in Brandsby.

Mr Copley-Farnell told LDRS he hoped the Clifton café would be as busy as the business’ other two sites once they get established there.

The business owner said: “I used to live in the area until I was 18 so this is quite important to me.

“My wife used to be a pharmacist so it’s nice that we’re taking this space on to do what we do now.

“It’s a bit of a case of us sticking our finger in the air but I think it’ll be a food location and I’m hopeful it’ll work a treat and we’ll have people queuing for miles.

A drink being served at a Curious Coffee Company café (Image: The Curious Coffee Company/Facebook)

“We’ll serve coffees and baked goods during the day and I’m hoping that we can do pizzas on some of the evenings.

“I’m hoping to spend a bit of time in Clifton, at least in the beginning.

“We’ve got a fantastic team, some of which will come with us, but if we’re as busy as I’m hoping to be we could bring 10 or 15 jobs to Clifton.

“It’ll be nice to bring that building back to life because it’s been empty for a while and be part of what’s going on at Clifton Green which is great.”

Plans approved by City of York Council on Wednesday are set to see new hanging and facia signs installed as part of the conversion.

It would open from 7.30am to 5pm on Monday and Tuesday, until 10pm from Wednesday to Friday, from 8.30am to 11pm on Saturday and from 9am to 9pm on Sunday and bank holidays.

An application to licence the unit for alcohol sales has also been lodged and is open for public comments until Wednesday, September 23.

The Lindsay Clancy trial, an unfathomable story of family, murder and alleged postpartum psychosis, has played out in a Massachusetts courtroom and held a global audience in thrall over the last six and a half weeks.

Clancy, who once spent her summers vacationing on Cape Cod with her husband and three young children, has spent much of this July and August in a courtroom, standing trial for the first-degree murder of her five-year-old daughter Cora, three-year-old son Dawson and eight-month-old son Callan. 

If convicted, she faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.  

Clancy’s team do not dispute that the former labor and delivery nurse killed her children but argue that she cannot be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

But according to several legal experts who spoke with the Daily Mail, while many are asking whether the jury will deliver a verdict of guilty or not guilty, there’s a very real possibility that this high profile, tumultuous trial is heading towards a third outcome: a mistrial. 

That, said criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark Bederow, bluntly would be a ‘disaster.’

Bederow told the Daily Mail: ‘There’s no way the Plymouth DA is going to reverse course,’ the former prosecutor said. ‘They’re so dug in they almost have no choice, politically, but to dig in deeper.’ 

‘Can you imagine a case like this being retried?’ he asked. ‘It would be a horrible thing.’ 

Clancy is standing trial for the first-degree murder of her five-year-old daughter Cora, three-year-old son Dawson and eight-month-old son Callan

Clancy had sent her then-husband Patrick out to pick up dinner and when he returned to their coastal Duxbury home, he discovered that his wife had strangled their three children

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If convicted, she faces life in prison without the possibility of parole

Dozens of witnesses have testified to the horror that met Clancy’s then-husband, Patrick, on January 24, 2023. Clancy had sent him out to pick up dinner and when he returned to their coastal Duxbury home, he discovered that his wife had strangled their three children with exercise resistance bands. 

She then slit her wrists and neck and jumped from a window on the top floor of the house.

Now paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair bound as a result, the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse has cast a pitiful figure at the defendant’s table.

James Gagliano, a retired FBI supervisory special agent and law enforcement expert, is also fearful that it could come down to a hung jury. He said he sensed that there will be one or two jurors who may hold out to hang the jury, which would force the state to try the case again.

‘The prosecution was better today and it will resonate in juror’s minds,’ Gagliano tweeted after both sides finished their closing arguments on Thursday.

‘The last thing the jury takes away (closing arguments today) might very well be what makes the case. Still fear a hung jury. But now feel conviction on a lesser charge than Murder One (at the very least) will be the order of the day. Time will tell.’

The Plymouth District Attorney’s office has asked the jury not to view the trial as a public debate on maternal health. But former judge Carol Erskine told the Daily Mail that would be hard to avoid. 

Witness after witness told the court that they knew Clancy had suicidal thoughts and called a crisis hotline more than once, and still, could not admit her for hospitalization because there was no suicide plan in place.

‘I’ve seen suicides in my courtrooms,’ Erskine said. ‘Not one case that I ever saw was anything other than impulsive. The notion that there has to be a plan in Massachusetts in order to get the degree of help you need is outrageous and needs to change.’

The fact that this is a case that came to trial at all is a source of outrage to some. But Bederow told the Daily Mail that it was one prosecutors had no choice but to bring, however difficult. Yet, while he defended the decision to prosecute, he had harsh words for the way in which the case has been argued.

‘This is a very clunky, choppy, disjointed case put together by a prosecution team who just doesn’t seem to appreciate the intricacies and nuances of these kinds of cases.’

Bederow, who has represented clients struggling with mental health, said it has been ‘shocking’ to watch prosecutors portray Clancy as a ‘selfish’ mother who ‘calculated’ the murder of her children and faked her own suicide.

He described the prosecution’s approach to mental health as ‘very antiquated,’ expecting a defendant who is claiming an insanity defense to be ‘standing in a corner, staring at the wall, rocking back and forth, talking nonsense.’

In Massachusetts, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution when a defendant makes an insanity defense, meaning the defendant only has to prove they were insane at the time of the killing. Meanwhile, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant could not conform her actions to the tenets of the law.

Her lawyers and her ex-husband, who has now remarried and says he has forgiven her, claim that her actions were contaminated by more than a dozen medications that she had been prescribed for her worsening psychiatric condition and suicidal thoughts. Clancy is suing her medical providers for failing to properly diagnose and treat her.

The heart-wrenching trial, which is being televised, has seen a swell in public interest, and Clancy has garnered support both online and in-person.

The case, which has renewed criticisms over how the mental health system treats women, has not only sparked conspiracy theories on social media, but drawn hundreds of women to Plymouth, where they have stood outside the courthouse in pink clothing, protested at the state hospital where Clancy is being held and raised more than $1 million for family through a GoFundMe.

Clancy has also received support from Russell ‘Rusty’ Yates, the ex-husband of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001. After being convicted of five counts of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison, Andrea’s verdict was overturned and she was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

‘If someone driving a car lost control because of a sudden heart attack and the car ran over and killed a pedestrian would you convict the driver of murder?’ asked Yates’s attorney, Wendell Odom, Jr, who wrote on the subject for the Daily Mail. ‘The answer is obvious.’

For his part, Bederow said he’ll ‘never understand’ why prosecutors didn’t try to get ahead of Clancy’s mental health struggles by acknowledging them – a move that could have helped them gain credibility and trust with the jury.

Instead, he said, the DA’s office likely ‘pissed off’ jurors with their ‘wooden’ treatment of Clancy’s ex-husband Patrick and their ‘inappropriate’ ‘stunt’ of asking Clancy’s former mother-in-law Susan about whether her Catholic faith led her to consider murder as ‘a mortal sin.’

‘That’s a dog whistle for the jury,’ Bederow said of the Catholicism question. ‘I can’t fathom that was an accident.’

On Monday, religion was raised again by a state witness, prompting the defense to move for a mistrial.

Judge William Sullivan denied the motion but instructed the jury to disregard the statement from the prosecution’s psychologist, who testified that he had asked Clancy if she knew suicide was a ‘mortal sin.’

‘Raising Catholicism or religion is a violation under Massachusetts General Rules of Evidence,’ Erskine said. ‘It’s expressly barred.’

The heart wrenching trial, which is being livestreamed, has seen a swell in public interest, and Clancy has garnered support both online and in-person

Her lawyers claim that her actions were contaminated by more than a dozen medications that she had been prescribed for her worsening psychiatric condition and suicidal thoughts

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The case has renewed criticisms over how the mental health system treats women and has drawn hundreds of women to Plymouth, where they have stood outside the courthouse in pink clothing

Clancy has also received support from Russell ‘Rusty’ Yates, the ex-husband of Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001

She called the question that was asked of Susan, ‘one of the most egregious mistakes I’ve ever seen by a prosecutor.’ Although the DA’s office called it an accident, the retired Massachusetts judge said it seemed ‘intentional’ because it would be shocking for a prosecutor not to know that rule.

When Erskine first learned that the case was going to trial and that Clancy was being charged with first-degree murder, she wasn’t surprised. But she noted that those charges came ‘very quickly,’ before there was any investigation into Clancy’s mental health issues.

‘The issue of criminal responsibility is something the Commonwealth may have underestimated,’ Erskine said.

For her part, Erskine said: ‘There’s really no way to assume that a juror is thinking one way or another, and in particular by any facial expressions or anything else that you can see. 

‘I never ascribe to the believe that anybody can read what a juror is thinking based on watching them, taking notes or changing their facial expressions.’

‘As a judge, my job was to oversee the trial and make sure that it proceeded fairly and that the rights of the defendants were protected. But beyond that, my philosophy has always been that it’s up to 12 people to make that decision.’

British pair Amy Hunt and Georgia Hunter Bell had to settle for fifth and third respectively in strong fields at Thursday’s Diamond League meeting in Zurich.

Hunt, who won four gold medals at the European Championships earlier this month, clocked 11.04 seconds in a 100 metres won by Olympic champion Julien Alfred in 10.70sec.

Hunter Bell could not match Audrey Werro, who lowered her personal best to win the women’s 800m in one minute 53.70sec, just 0.42 seconds short of the world record.

Two other world records were broken on an eventful evening. Brazil’s Alison dos Santos set a new best of 45.80 in the men’s 400m hurdles and American Masai Russell lowered the women’s 100m hurdles to 12.09.

Hunt faced a formidable test as she looked to take her continental dominance onto the world stage.

Alfred, unbeaten over the distance in almost two years, was highly impressive as she pushed world champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden into second place. American Sha’Carri Richardson was third with Hunt finishing behind Jamaica’s Tina Clayton.

“I was coming in here and not thinking too much about the time,” Hunt told the BBC. “To come fifth in that line-up – I think I had the slowest season’s best coming in and obviously very, very tired legs – I’m really happy with that.”

Despite the absence of Keely Hodgkinson, the women’s 800m boasted a world-class field and home favourite Werro powered to victory ahead of Femke Broeders-Bol. Hunter Bell ran a season’s best of 1:55.03.

Dos Santos smashed Karsten Warholm’s previous world record of 45.94 and beat the Norwegian in the process. Russell’s time eclipsed the 12.12 run by Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan in 2012.

Mondo Duplantis missed out on another world record in the men’s pole vault as both he and Greek rival Emmanouil Karalis went agonisingly close to clearing 6.32m.

That would have beaten Duplantis’ previous best by a single centimetre but the Swede still triumphed with a vault of 6.25m. Karalis settled for second and a personal best 6.20m.