Adam Spivey, from Southend Dog Training, has been teaching owners how to correct or manage their pet’s behaviour through in-person training alongside his ‘non-nonsense’ videos

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A dog trainer issued an urgent warning to keep your distance if you come across animals being walked with a certain colour, as they may be ‘unpredictable’. Adam Spivey, from Southend Dog Training, has been instructing owners on how to address or manage their pet’s behaviour through face-to-face sessions alongside his “non-nonsense” videos on social media.

As part of his work, he cautioned people to steer clear of dogs being exercised on yellow leads while out in public – regardless of whether you’re accompanied by your own dog or not. In a video, he said: “If you see a dog with a yellow lead, this normally represents they’re nervous.

“Please do not make your dog approach them. Allowing your dog to run over to them does them no favours. Simply calling you dog back will make a massive difference.”

Building on this message, Sarah, from My Anxious Dog, explained how her animal, Bella, began to show progress in all areas after she started outfitting her in yellow.

She subsequently launched her own enterprise selling a range of dog accessories in yellow in a bid to help owners better control their anxious pets while out and about.

On her website, she said: “The more people know that a dog wearing yellow needs space, the less stressful life becomes for anxious dogs and their humans.

“A dog might be wearing yellow for a number of reasons. They could be reactive, fearful, elderly, recovering from an accident, illness or an operation.

“The last thing they need is to be approached or jumped on by other dogs who wants to play.”

Alongside other animal enthusiasts, Adam and Sarah have independently been working to promote awareness about ‘dogs in yellow’ while recognising some owners may employ different colours to indicate their dog’s anxieties or other behavioural issues.

Responding to this, one user said: “Didn’t know about this. Are there any other colours we should know about?”

Another user added: “Thank you for posting this, more people need to know. I have so much trouble walking my rescue around Canvey, feel like I am getting no where.”

A third user said: “I have a yellow lead that says nervous down it and people never listen it’s so disrespectful especially when my dog barks and the other owner has a go.”

Someone else added: “We have a red one for no dogs along with a matching harness and it says it across it but people still let their dogs come up to him.”

Hitting out at the “unjust and unjustified conflict which is taking place in the Middle East”, Mr Swinney told MSPs during First Minister’s Questions: “If I was to prevent flights from entering Scotland by the appropriate steps that would be necessary, I would need to exercise national security, aviation, air transport, defence and foreign affairs powers.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — ABC has scrubbed the upcoming season of “The Bachelorette,” starring Taylor Frankie Paul, three days before its planned premiere, citing a newly released video from 2023 in which she appears to punch, kick and throw chairs at her former partner as her young daughter watched and cried.

Thursday’s cancellation of the already filmed 22nd season of the reality show is unprecedented. While ABC parent company Disney cited the older video, the move comes amid a current domestic violence investigation involving Paul and Dakota Mortensen, father to a son who is the youngest of her three children.

“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” a statement from Disney Entertainment Television said.

A Paul representative responded that she has been abused for years while remaining silent about it.

In 2023 video published by TMZ Thursday, Mortensen is apparently trying to stave off Paul with one hand while he shoots phone video. She is shown punching him, kicking him then throwing three chairs at him while repeatedly screaming “You did this!”

“The only thing you know how to do is hurt me,” Mortensen says, while repeatedly pleading with Paul and reminding her that her daughter was watching. A child can be heard sobbing, screaming and shouting “mommy!” Paul’s daughter would have been about 5 at the time.

The video was consistent with Paul’s arrest in 2023, when she was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge; the other counts were dismissed.

A spokesman for Paul said in a statement Thursday that she is “very grateful for ABC’s support as she prioritizes her family’s safety and security. After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation, Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm.”

The statement said “Taylor has remained silent out of fear of further abuse, retaliation, and public shaming” and that she is now “exploring all of her options, seeking support, and preparing to own and share her story.”

Mortensen denied wrongdoing.

“As anyone who has seen the video will understand, this is a deeply upsetting situation. I am, unfortunately, used to these baseless claims about me and our relationship, which I categorically deny. I am focusing on our son and his safety, and hope that Taylor will do the same,” his statement said.

A police spokesperson in Draper City, Utah, told People magazine earlier this week that there was an open domestic violence investigation of Paul and Mortensen, and that both have made allegations.

Mortensen’s representatives didn’t immediately answer requests for comment.

ABC will air an “American Idol” rerun Sunday instead.

Paul was promoting “The Bachelorette” as recently as Wednesday on “Good Morning America” and on the red carpet before Sunday’s Oscars.

She was an unusual choice to helm “The Bachelorette,” the reality TV institution that started in 2003. Most leads are cast from previous runners-up from “The Bachelor.”

Her selection instead offered synergy with “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” on Hulu, also owned by Disney. In a statement confirming her “Bachelorette” casting in October, ABC credited Paul with “igniting ‘MomTok’ and going viral for pulling back the curtain on Salt Lake’s soft-swinging scene.”

Paul became known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sharing their lives on TikTok. She made news when she announced, in 2022, that she had “stepped out” of an agreement with her husband on relationships with other couples and they were getting divorced.

Season 4 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” was released last week. Filming of Season 5 has been put on pause.

“It was a decision that all of us girls came up with,” Paul’s co-star Mikayla Matthews said Wednesday on Instagram. “We didn’t feel comfortable filming with everything that was happening.”

Paul posted on Instagram in December that filming had wrapped on “The Bachelorette.”

Her casting was essentially an experiment gone wrong, said Kate Casey, a former crisis communications specialist who has covered unscripted television in more than 1,500 episodes of her podcast “Reality Life with Kate Casey.”

“I think they were trying to shake things up, and it makes sense because the ecosystem is saturated with dating shows like ‘F-Boy Island’ and ‘Love Island’ that push the boundaries and ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette’ historically have been saccharine,” said Casey.

Casey says network executives probably believed casting Paul would also tap into her 6.1 million-strong TikTok following.

“The thinking was probably, ‘We’re going to get a new audience’ and the new audience is really the most coveted in all of entertainment,” she said.

___

Rancilio reported from Detroit.

– Louise Jones-Roberts, who owns Club Chemistry, told PA: “I’m really pleased, I’m over the moon there are more vaccines. I’d like to see it given to all under-25s though. It needs to be looked at right across the country. As for reopening the club, there will come a time when it feels OK to open and we will know when the time is right, but it’s definitely not going to be this weekend.”

Operation Epic Fury unleashed overwhelming firepower on Iran and a Trump broadside against Britain’s prime minister. The president belittled Keir Starmer as being no comparison to Winston Churchill, raged against caveated British support and placed Britain’s standing as America’s “greatest ally” firmly in the past tense.

Starmer refused the bait. His government is privately contemptuous of the Trump administration. But he still needs to deal with the US president and how he should do that following the recent vitriol is a very live question.

Winston Churchill appropriated the term special relationship after the second world war to refer to the myriad Anglo-American connections. Some were government-to-government, spanning privileged diplomatic, economic, military, nuclear and intelligence cooperation. Others were historical and cultural, from which evolved a sentimental myth of special relations based on uniquely entwined histories, a common language, similar values and so forth.

For 80 years, Britain and the US stood shoulder-to-shoulder in defence of a liberal international order they fashioned from the ruins of war. The US became a hyperpower. Post-imperial Britain settled as a leading medium-sized power. But the song remained the same – at least until the Trump administration’s discordant note.

Brexit made Britain even more dependent on US power. Starmer, therefore, followed almost every prime minister since the second world war in seeking close personal relations with US presidents and the preservation of Britain’s standing as America’s foremost ally.

In fairness, of all the national leaders aspiring to be a “Trump whisperer”, Starmer has been one of the more successful. Routine extensive government-to-government dialogue has been combined with carefully choreographed leveraging of cultural connections to massage the president’s ego. Particularly noteworthy has been recruitment of British royalty to the cause, including the president’s historic second state visit in September 2025.

Still, Trump’s personality and his administration’s policies remain challenging. Starmer risks association with Trump’s political toxicity if he gets too close and will be questioned about whether any rewards from such courtship outweigh the costs.

Fidelity above all else

The Trump administration is anomalous. Unlike previous administrations, it does not consistently work with the British government to put a positive face on Anglo-American relations. The feel-good sentiment generated by the second state visit, for example, dissipated rapidly once Trump carelessly attacked British policies shortly afterwards in the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Trump’s prioritises fidelity above competence and centralises power in his White House. These tendencies, and his suspicion of expertise within the “deep state” weaken Britain’s ability to feed into the American foreign policymaking process.

Trump’s inconsistency, preference for diplomacy by social media, and frequently provocative and erroneous statements often trap Starmer between trying to smooth consequent tensions (in which case he appears as a Trump apologist) or rebutting the president. This was clear when Trump threatened Canadian sovereignty, when he repeatedly implied he would invade Greenland and when he attacked the commitment of British troops in Afghanistan.

Finally, and most importantly, the Trump administration is undermining the liberal international order, casting its anti-liberal, anti-modernist and anti-globalist tendencies against Britain’s preferences for international law, multilateral institutions, collective security and international free trade.

What should Starmer do now?

On balance, Starmer’s best option for now is to hope, hedge and wait. In the short term, Downing Street will hope that US mid-terms return a Congress less pliant to Trump’s ambitions and that legal actions through American courts continue their disruption.

In the longer term, the next three years will constitute a damage-limitation exercise while the world waits for Trump’s successor to arrive. The hope will be that whoever the next president is, Anglo-American relations will improve simply from being liberated from the personal and organisational chaos wrought by Trump.

During this interim, Starmer will routinely align Britain with the US provided doing so neither overly compromises British interests nor further weakens the liberal international order. He will also probably swallow bile and continue to woo Trump. That will potentially include leveraging the 250th anniversary celebrations of American independence. Even this, however, will need balancing against the risk of inferred endorsement of Trump ahead of the midterms.

Meanwhile, the British government will de-emphasise the significance of personalities to the robustness of Anglo-American relations and hedge against over-reliance on the US. This means building ever closer relations with Europe, continuing cautious engagement with China and outreach to other centres of economic power.

Starmer should also seek stronger relations with Canada’s Mark Carney, who has emerged as the most capable leader of the world’s medium-ranking powers and who most shares Britain’s conundrum of needing close but not over-dependent relations with Washington.

One final cautionary note. Trump dominates headlines, but he is merely an awkward symptom of the biggest challenge to the special relationship since its inception. The international order is in flux. How it is reshaped will determine whether Britain and the US remain shoulder to shoulder or return to being the distant cousins of the interwar period.

The latter is a scenario that ought to cause British officials sleeplessness. A US retreat to a neo-isolationism that broadly embraces the Maga logic would pass the mantle of principal guardianship of the liberal international order to the European Union. Britannia would then face a not-so-splendid isolation, self-exiled from the union and powerless to prevent retreat of the Atlantic shoreland.

Strictly Come Dancing is on the hunt for two new presenters to replace Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman

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A British daytime television host has been tipped to become one of the new faces of Strictly Come Dancing.

It is believed that Rylan Clark, host of This Morning, would be “a ratings winner” for the BBC programme. The show is on the hunt for two new presenters to replace Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman after the duo left at the end of the last series.

Tess and Claudia served 21-year and 15-year stints on Strictly Come Dancing respectively, and speculation has swirled about their replacements, The Mirror reported.

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Rylan, 37, is thought likely to succeed one of their roles, having enjoyed a successful career in presenting since 2013 when he had is first role on This Morning.

A source said: “He has so many loyal fans. If he gets the job they will most certainly tune in to Strictly. He will be a ratings winner and the BBC know it.”

Rylan could team up with The One Show host Angela Scanlon, who we reported is also set to have an audition for one of the show’s openings. Insiders believe the pair would have strong chemistry and give the show an exciting revamp.

Rylan already anchored Eurovision coverage for the BBC and is said to be “very keen” to be paired with Angela, who was a contestant on Strictly in 2023.

“Rylan has a long-standing association with the show, and Angela has been a contestant. The main thing is they’d be a totally new pairing – no baggage, no former shows, uniquely Strictly,” one insider told the Daily Mail.

“On top of that, they want to be sure that an all-female presenting line-up isn’t replaced by an old-fashioned male-female duo where the man takes on a dominant role.”

Another source told the outlet that the role on Strictly Come Dancing would be “his dream job.”

It is believed Rylan still faces screen tests in April for producers to assess his chemistry with any possible co-stars, including Angela.

But other names in the frame are One Show host Alex Jones, Zoe Ball and Bradley Walsh, presenter of The Chase. Speculation has already linked the current professional dancer Johannes Radebe to the presenting gig.

The popular Canary Islands hotspot was hit by orange weather warnings just days before Easter getaways

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A beloved British holiday destination famed for its year-round warmth has been transformed into a winter wonderland just days ahead of the Easter break.

The Canary Islands were placed under an orange weather alert following days of torrential rain and gale-force winds, with forecasters warning the miserable conditions could persist for at least another five days – potentially disrupting the plans of countless holidaymakers. Astonishing footage from Tenerife showed the popular resort island blanketed in snow, with icicles forming in various locations.

Bewildered tourists captured videos of the whiteout at Teide National Park, where several roads were forced to close due to the unexpected conditions. Further snowfall is anticipated across areas of the island above 1,800-2,000 metres.

Storm Therese has battered the archipelago with severe rainfall, triggering flash floods and landslides across multiple regions. Meteorological authorities issued warnings on Wednesday (March 18) for the Canary Islands covering various extreme weather phenomena, including storms, flooding, powerful winds, heavy downpours and dangerous sea conditions, reports the Mirror.

Wind speeds have astonishingly surpassed 74 miles per hour in certain areas, with the glorious sunshine British visitors typically anticipate conspicuously absent from forecasts for the coming days. The dreadful weather has also sparked travel disruption, with no fewer than seven flights to the Canary Islands cancelled or diverted on Thursday – following 36 cancellations the previous day.

Friday is set to see a worsening of conditions, potentially marking the most severe phase of Storm Therese. Orange rain warnings have been issued for Tenerife, El Hierro, La Palma and La Gomera, as reported by Canarian Weekly.

The popular holiday destination is bracing for up to 11mm of rainfall within a mere 12-hour period. An amber rain alert has been declared for Gran Canaria, where 80mm of rain is anticipated.

Weather experts are also forecasting perilous sea conditions between Tenerife and Gran Canaria, with waves predicted to reach up to six metres and winds of up to force eight.

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Hungary is blocking the European Union from providing Ukraine with a loan to help its war effort.

Viktor Orban, the right-wing prime minister in Budapest, has been a constant critic of the bloc’s commitment to supporting Kyiv and is seen as one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies in Europe.

His country is a member of the EU, and he has been accused of undermining the bloc’s position on the war.

Brussels agreed a deal worth €90bn in December to help Kyiv keep fighting for up to two more years, but Mr Orban is blocking the money from being provided.

Speaking after a summit on Thursday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz accused him of an act of “gross disloyalty”, while the European Council’s president, Antonio Costa, said his opposition constituted “blackmail”.

How is Orban blocking the money?

The implementation of the interest-free loan requires unanimity among the EU’s 27 member states.

Ukraine’s allies within the bloc had been keen to show they’re serious about stumping up big money to help due to America’s waning support under Donald Trump. The US had been a major provider of aid under Joe Biden.

Mr Orban has justified blocking the €90bn package by citing a dispute over a pipeline damaged by the war. It carries Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia.

Kyiv and Brussels say a Russian attack in January was the cause of the damage, and it will take another six weeks to repair. Hungary claims it’s already functional and accuses Kyiv of withholding the oil.

Mr Orban posted on X following the Thursday summit: “As long as Zelensky ‌does not lift the oil blockade, they will not receive any money from Brussels.”

Read more from Sky News:
Angela Rayner under fire
Nicola Sturgeon’s farewell advice

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Was Zelenskyy’s UK visit a success?

What happens now?

Some in the EU hope Hungary will change its position once the pipeline is repaired, or following the country’s election next month.

Mr Orban has been prime minister since 2010 and is seeking another term in office. Mr Trump has endorsed him.

But Germany’s Mr Merz has suggested the European Commission look into whether the loan can be implemented without relying on Budapest, which has already been excluded from even having to contribute towards the costs.

Zelenskyy says loan is ‘critical’

EU officials have warned Kyiv could run short of cash within weeks without the loan. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the money was “critical” for his country’s war effort.

“It is a resource ​to protect lives,” he told EU leaders in a video address.

Without foreign aid, Ukraine’s government would likely have to start cutting spending on things like pensions, public sector wages, and welfare in order to keep funding defence.

Bad weather, tourism protests, and war conflicts have had drastic financial implications for holidaygoers worldwide.

But where is it safe to travel to in Europe at the moment?

Hi Lisa, Cyprus is not under FCDO advice against travel, so your holiday is planned to go ahead as normal, and customers in resort are continuing to enjoy their time away 🙂 ^Jo

— tuiuk (@TUIUK) March 17, 2026

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Which European countries may currently be at risk due to conflict or safety concerns?

Jason Margulies, a personal injury lawyer, maritime, cruise ship and resort/vacation injury lawyer at Lipcon , Margulies & Winkleman, said: “Risk can vary drastically by country and region, and understanding what those risks are is key to trip planning.”

Amid Do Not Travel warnings for Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, he also highlighted how France, Belgium, and Germany also have elevated terror concerns, especially for public areas, tourist hotspots, and transit hubs.

He added: “Some areas, like Cyprus and Turkey, have seen recent incidents related to the conflicts, and those may also give you pause for travel.

“Even when the risk is low, it should come down to your own comfort level for the risk you want to take on.”

The Royal Navy’s radar in the sky🚁

🚨Merlin helicopters provide airborne early warning for the UK’s aircraft carriers — detecting aircraft, missiles and drones from miles away

One has recently been deployed to Cyprus amid rising tensions in the region pic.twitter.com/4Q7NblrRNG

— BFBS Forces News (@ForcesNews) March 12, 2026

What factors contribute to elevated risk in these destinations?

Margulies continued: “The current advisories for Western Europe are elevated due to terrorism, and attacks can happen with little warning in areas frequented by tourists, from markets and train stations to hotels, restaurants, and major events.

“Proximity to active conflict areas elevates the risk for travelling into these areas, though travellers shouldn’t forget that the usual crime-related risks that tourists face are always around.

“As for those going on cruises, check your itinerary to decide if you feel comfortable sailing to European ports that are close to the conflict zones, particularly Izmit, Turkey.

“While it is concerning, it’s not a crisis, and awareness, along with travel insurance in the event you want to cancel or change plans, is the best focus for any of these destinations.”

Tenerife and Lanzarote placed on warning list for tourists

The Canary Islands have been placed on the Fodor ‘No List’ amid anti-tourism protests, environmental concerns and pollution impacting beaches.

Fodor provides travel guides and online tourism information for English-speaking tourists.

During the first six months of 2025, the Canary Islands welcomed more than 7.8 million tourists and more than 27 million airport passengers.

But residents have protested in the streets of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Lanzarote over the past two years against the usual influx of travellers to the sunny, hot islands.