Residents have been evacuated from their homes in Abergwnyfi, Neath Port Talbot, after police received a report of illegal weapons found within a property. A 51-year-old man has been arrested.

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Residents have been forced to evacuate their homes in a quiet Welsh village after police deployed a bomb disposal unit to the scene.

Officers descended on a street in Abergwynfi, Neath Port Talbot, following reports that a substantial quantity of illegal weapons had been discovered inside a property. Emergency services have urged the public to avoid the area whilst they manage the ongoing situation.

South Wales Police confirmed a 51-year-old man was taken into custody on Sunday evening, after the alarm was raised at approximately 9.30pm. Stunned residents revealed they were ordered to leave their homes just before 6am this morning.

A substantial multi-agency operation has been witnessed, comprising police officers, paramedics and a bomb disposal robot.

According to official government guidance, bomb disposal robots – formally known as Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) robots – are remotely controlled devices engineered to detect and safely disable explosive hazards whilst maintaining personnel at a secure distance, reports Wales Online.

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A force spokesperson stated: “Officers attended an address on Commercial Street, Abergwynfi, Neath Port Talbot following a report at around 9.30pm yesterday (Sunday, February 15) of a significant number of illegal weapons having been found within the property.

“A 51-year-old man from Blaengwynfi has been arrested. A scene is currently being held at the property whilst searches are carried out with multi-agency support. An increased policing presence will be seen in the area whilst an investigation is ongoing.

“Residents of nearby properties have been evacuated where possible as a safety precaution. Trained partnership agencies are supporting this process. Please avoid the area to allow the emergency services access.”

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Traffic monitoring data from the AA indicates congestion on High Street, the principal route leading to Commercial Street, where the cordon has been established.

Ethan Rowley was serving time for serious sexual offences when he attacked a fellow prisoner with boiling water

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A teenage prisoner who is already serving a 21-year sentence has had his time behind bars extended after throwing boiling hot water on the groin of another inmate.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how the victim was attacked by Ethan Rowley, then 19, in the shower block at HMP Nottingham on November 8, 2024.

At the time, the teen was on remand awaiting trial for serious sexual offences, which Derby Crown Court handed to him as 21 years in summer last year, reports Nottinghamshire Live.

Now, he will serve an additional nine months for the seemingly motiveless attack which left his victim with burns over his body and skin hanging off his genitalia and legs.

Judge Michael Auty KC said: “You are currently serving a sentence of 21 years which for someone of your age is exceptional.

“The circumstances surrounding this offence are that while serving at HMP Nottingham in the shower block you threw scalding, if not boiling, water over the victim.

“It caused his skin to blister, some of the skin was left hanging off his legs and groin area and caused damage to his genitalia.

“It is not entirely clear what the overall effects were because, as often happens with prisoners, he did not comply with the prison or give a victim personal statement.”

Samantha Warner, prosecuting, said the victim entered the shower block where Rowley was already in a cubicle.

The prosecutor said the defendant got out, dried, dressed and left before returning a short while later.

Miss Warner said: “The victim was in the shower and saw the defendant was holding a blue mop bucket.

“There had been no interaction between them until this point.

“The defendant then threw the contents of the mop bucket towards the victim which landed mostly on his groin and leg area and rendered him in immediate and excruciating pain.

“Bits of skin were falling off and he began blistering.

“He left but other prisoners brought him back to the shower and drenched him in cold water while the defendant was pulled from the netting over the landing.

“The victim was taken to the QMC for treatment where he had suffered burns to his chest, thighs, right arm and blistering to his genitalia.”

Rowley, now 20 and of HMP Swinfen Hall, and from where he appeared over a video-link into court, pleaded guilty to a charge of throwing a destructive substance with intent to burn, maim, disfigure, disable and do grievous bodily harm.

In July last year he was handed the 21-year sentence for raping two different women in Derbyshire and has two other previous convictions for violence.

Gregor Purcell, mitigating, said: “I have no doubt it would have been pretty unpleasant blistering and it is undoubtedly painful and deliberate harm caused by him.

“He is a young man who is already facing an extremely long period inside for someone of his age.”

The horror brawl erupted aboard a Jet2 plane flying between Turkey and Manchester last week, and one passenger has now revealed how the chaotic scenes took shape

A “shocking and frightening” brawl that broke out aboard a Jet2 flight started when a bald man asked passengers a bizarre question, one person on the plane has claimed.

In a now viral video shared last week, people were seen trading punches in an all-out brawl aboard a flight travelling from Antalya, Turkey to Manchester, with one passenger seen allegedly hurling racist insults at someone recording the altercation on their phone. The dramatic exchange, during which two people were seen grabbing at the phone and another passenger’s face culminated in airline bans for two of the people involved.

Another passenger has explained what the scuffle – which eventually drew in an entire crowd, including a woman who rose from her seat, and shouts of “get back” from others – began with one man’s drunken question.

READ MORE: Teen girls brawl outside McDonald’s as locals fear notorious ‘Bra Boys’ style gangsREAD MORE: Mass 50 people brawl outside Bristol pub ‘involving groups with differing views’

An insider told the Daily Mail the chaos was started by a bald man, who appeared to have recently undergone a hair transplant. The 21-year-old said he had loudly started asking passengers whether they wanted to listen to music, describing both his and a fellow traveller’s behaviour as not “normal” as it appeared they had been drinking.

They said: “Some people said yes because he was already being so loud. I think him and another bloke had definitely been drinking before or on the flight because their behaviour just wasn’t normal.”

The source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the man eventually became so disruptive that cabin crew were forced to step in and ask him to turn the music down. They added the man failed to stop when asked however, and shouted back at the Jet2 staffer.

They said he ended up “swearing and shouting”, adding: “She went and got her supervisor but he was being so rude, just swearing and shouting at her, I’ve not seen anything like it.”

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A taste of the foul language can be seen in the video, which shows the man calling someone behind a phone camera a “Muslim mug” and a “f***ing mug” some time after the initial incident, when the same man allegedly swore at the cameraman’s mum. He told the Mail the disruptive passenger had “kept on asking me if I wanted to fight”, adding: “But then he called me a Muslim mug.”

The insider added the fighting started soon after, with fellow passengers accusing the man of “being racist” as others pulled out their own phones to film the chaos.

He said: “This is when everyone began shouting and fighting, some more people were filming now and people were just asking him: ‘Why are you being racist?’” The video captures other passengers intervening, with one pushing the man away, and and another placing his companion in a headlock.

The disruption only ended, he said, when the plane was forced to divert and land in Brussels, with police taking 20 minutes to board and detain the man and another male passenger.

The Daily Mirror has approached Jet2 for comment.

Sunday was a dramatic day in the three-way battle for the Scottish Premiership title.

First up, Celtic came from two goals down to snatch a 3-2 victory at Kilmarnock – with Julian Araujo scoring the winner in the seventh minute of stoppage time.

Then there was a six-pointer between Rangers and Hearts at Ibrox. Twice the away side took the lead, only for a Youssef Chermiti hat-trick to transform the game and give Danny Rohl’s side a 4-2 win.

It left the three teams separated by just three points: Hearts on 57, Rangers on 55 and Celtic on 54.

Celtic have a game in hand, away at Aberdeen on 4 March, which could leave the trio within two points of each other.

There are several close two-team title races across Europe.

In France, there is just one point between Lens and Paris St-Germain.

And in Spain, Real Madrid are two points behind Barcelona with a game in hand.

But in both those leagues there is a sizeable gap to third place.

Can any other European league rival the drama of Scotland? BBC Sport has picked out the five closest title battles.

Izzy Hammond was involved in a high-speed crash at the Formula E Evo Series influencer event in Saudi Arabia

Izzy Hammond thinks she may have sustained a concussion following her terrifying crash at the Formula E Evo Series influencer event in Saudi Arabia. The 25 year old lost collided sideways with a barrier in Jeddah.

The high-speed impact obliterated her car, scattering wreckage across the circuit. The frightening episode came two decades after her father Richard’s Top Gear accident, when his 288mph jet-powered dragster crashed, leaving him in a medically induced coma for a fortnight.

Thankfully, Izzy was able to emerge from her accident relatively unharmed. The influencer even managed to provide health updates herself to her 284,000 social media followers. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter

Following the collision, Izzy indicated she needed to “sleep off a concussion” whilst also mentioning she had a “sore neck.”

She said: “Hi guys. I don’t know if you saw but I crashed the f*** out of my car.

“Yeah, massive apologies to my team, Lola. They’ve been so amazing and I returned the favour by putting their car into the wall sideways and destroying it. So that’s not great.

“How did I do it? I don’t think I had enough heat in my tyres so I was trying to break, and I was trying to turn, with no heated tyres and it all just went, a little bit, t**s up and I hit the wall at 24Gs.

“My neck hurts a little bit, but I am absolutely fine so thank you for everyone that’s concerned. I’m fine, this stuff happens.

“Now I can say I am a proper racing driver. I have had a monumental crash. I’m going to bed now and sleep off my concussion, but bye.”

In a follow-up video, she provided further details about how the incident unfolded. Izzy explained: “I crashed in quite dramatic fashion and I’m really sorry. I want to officially state, on the record, that I am so sorry Lola, I really didn’t mean to ruin your car.

“When I was sat at the wall, I looked to my left and I saw a bit of car on the track. I did not even know what part of the car it was.

“I’m really, really sorry. My bad. I didn’t think I got enough heat in my tyres in my warm-up lap. So what I would normally do on that corner just did not work for me basically.

“I was breaking and I was turning at the same time and I was only going in one direction and that was the wall, unfortunately. In qualifying I had the best time, qualifying was great.

“At no point did I think I was going to put it into the wall, I was pretty confident and then it all went a little bit wrong. But, I’m alive, the car is less alive, but I had a great time.

“Yeah the boys on my team are ridiculously good. They are like, actually, properly good at racing. So, that’s fine, they’ve won it, I was just here for fun, for the drama.”

Amazon has knocked 20% off select Samsung Galaxy smartphones ahead of the Galaxy S26 Unpacked event on February 25

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Samsung is preparing to launch its latest Galaxy smartphones later this month and retailers have already begun cutting prices on existing models. In anticipation of Galaxy Unpacked, Amazon is offering 20% off select models including the Samsung Galaxy S25.

Normally priced at £799, the 128GB model is now available for £639.20 – a discount of £159.80. The same offer applies to the more advanced Galaxy S25 Ultra, which has dropped from £1,249 to £999.20, slashing £249.80 off the 256GB version.

Additional deals include the Galaxy S25 Edge at £874.71 (was £1,099) and Galaxy Z Flip 7 at £839.20 (was £1,049). Amazon has set a February 24 deadline for these offers, but it says they ‘may be withdrawn or amended without notice’.

READ MORE:

These price cuts arrive ahead of Samsung’s annual Galaxy Unpacked event on February 25, where the firm is anticipated to reveal its Galaxy S26 lineup. Tech fan can register their interest at Samsung.com ahead of the 6pm GMT livestream.

Registration provides a £30 voucher for selected Galaxy products, double storage when pre-ordering from the new range, and an opportunity to win a £500 Samsung voucher. Leading up to the event, the S25 range has seen significant price reductions at multiple retailers, including Sky Mobile, reports the Express.

Amazon’s Samsung Galaxy S25 deal

£799

£639.20

Amazon

Get the deal here

Amazon customers can get a 20% discount on the Samsung Galaxy S25, saving more than £150

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Sky is now offering £432 off the Galaxy S25 Ultra for customers preferring monthly payments, reducing the cost from £43 to £31. The standard Galaxy S25 is available for £26, with models also requiring a £12 upfront payment.

One downside here is that it only includes a 100MB data allowance, which many users will burn through within minutes. Bigger data packages are available for an extra charge, including 50GB for an additional £12.

David Snelling, Technology Editor at the Daily Express, gave the Galaxy S25 Ultra a 4.5-star rating in his full review last year. He called it a ‘spectacularly good smartphone’.

“Samsung has done it again and produced another spectacularly good smartphone,” he said. “The Galaxy S25 Ultra looks great, features a stunning 6.9-inch screen, brilliant camera, long battery life, and that supremely quick Snapdragon 8 Elite processor.

“It also gets all of those Galaxy AI upgrades that can organise your life, retouch your photos, chat to you like a human and bring live football scores straight to the home screen. It’s all clever stuff, but for some, it might just be a bit too smart.”

David continued: “There’s so much Artificial Intelligence now included it can all feel slightly overwhelming and only power users (and true AI geeks) are going to get close to scratching the surface of what this device can really do. That doesn’t make this a bad phone.

“In fact, it’s very good. It just feels like all of Samsung’s development is going into the software rather than boosting the hardware.”

New evidence claims a man who has served 23 years in prison for murder may have been wrongly convicted following claims that police pressured witnesses to lie.

Allegations that witnesses, including drug addicts, were pushed to give false statements have been made as part of a BBC Panorama investigation into the case of Omar Benguit.

Benguit was convicted in January 2005 of murdering South Korean language student Jong-Ok Shin, known as Oki, in Bournemouth three years earlier.

The broadcaster claims that 13 prosecution witnesses say they were pushed to embellish their statements or lie in court, and that there is CCTV evidence that may cast doubt on an account given by a key witness.

A woman known as ‘BB’ said she went to a garage before picking up Benguit, and two other men, and driving to a crack den on the night of the killing, but police could not find CCTV images to back up the claims, the BBC reports.

There are other CCTV images of an unidentified man who could be Benguit using a phone box at a different location, the broadcaster said, which would suggest he did not go to the crack den.

Dorset Police has said its investigation was “thorough, detailed and very complex”, and that Benguit has already had two appeals against his conviction rejected.

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Benguit was convicted at his third trial in January 2005. He appealed his conviction in July that year, but this was rejected by appeal judges.

His lawyers then applied to legal review body, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in May 2010, after which his case was again referred to the Court of Appeal.

The court upheld his conviction in 2014.

A second application has since been made to the CCRC, which reviews potential miscarriages of justice, and this is currently being assessed.

A CCRC spokesperson said: “Mr Benguit first applied to the CCRC in May 2010. Following a review, the CCRC referred the conviction in December 2012.

“The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2014.

“A second application has been received and a review into this application is ongoing.

“It would be inappropriate for us to discuss the case or make any further comment while the application is being reviewed.”

Dorset Police said concerns over Benguit’s conviction are a matter for the CCRC and the Court of Appeal.

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A spokesperson said: “Our investigation into Oki’s murder was thorough, detailed and very complex.

“We submitted our evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, which considered there to be sufficient evidence to charge Omar Benguit with Oki’s murder and proceeded with the prosecution.

“Omar Benguit was unanimously convicted in January 2005 by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of the murder of Jong-Ok Shin. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

“Benguit appealed against his conviction, but this appeal was dismissed in July 2005 by judges at the Court of Appeal.

“The case was reviewed by the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) and referred to the Court of Appeal for a second time on the basis of the reliability of a prosecution witness and the suggestion of a possible alternative suspect.

“The appeal was dismissed in April 2014.

“This case has been through a series of reviews and any matter surrounding concerns regarding this conviction is ultimately a matter for the CCRC and the Court of Appeal.

“Dorset Police would follow the direction and instigate investigations if directed by the courts and responsible authorities.

“As always, our thoughts are with Oki’s family and friends who remain devastated by their loss.”

Stephen McCullagh, who is 35 and from Woodland Gardens in Lisburn, has been accused of and has denied murdering Ms McNally.

A jury was today (Monday) sworn to preside in a trial concerning the murder of Lurgan woman Natalie McNally.

The 32-year old – who was 15 weeks pregnant – was killed in her Silverwood Green home in December 2022.

Stephen McCullagh, who is 35 and from Woodland Gardens in Lisburn, has been accused of and has denied murdering Ms McNally.

The trial process commenced at Belfast Crown Court today when a jury consisting of six men and six women was sworn.

Addressing the 12 jurors, Mr Justice Kinney said Ms McNally was murdered in her home on the evening of December 18, 2022.

As her family sat in the public gallery, they heard the Judge tell the jurors that she studied law at Queen’s University and worked for Translink.

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The senior judge said the man accused of her murder worked part-time in the Belfast Telegraph.

Mr Justice Kinney said McCullagh was known as a YouTuber who used the profile ‘VoteSaxon’ and who was primarily known for reviewing Dr Who products and merchandise.

The 12 jurors heard the trial is expected to last five weeks and were told by the Judge: “Part of the evidence in the case will involve being shown photographs of the murder scene.

“It is not anticipated you will be shown any photographs which will involve the deceased.”

The Crown is due to open its case against McCullagh on Tuesday morning and before they left court for the day, Mr Justice Kinney warned the jurors not to carry out any research on the case or discuss it with anyone else.

He said: “Your task will be to decide the case only on the evidence you will see and hear in this court and nothing else.”

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Both teams are unchanged. Italy captain Wayne Madsen, who dislocated his shoulder against Scotland, is still unavailable but may return for the final group game against West Indies.

England Salt, Buttler (wk), Bethell, Banton, Brook (c), Curran, Jacks, Overton, Dawson, Archer, Rashid.

Italy J Mosca, A Mosca, Smuts, H Manenti (c), B Manenti, Campopiano, Stewart, Meade (wk), Jaspreet, Kalugamage, Hasan.

Liberal Democrat councillor Barbara Brodigan has been replaced as the chair of the children and families overview and scrutiny committee in a reshuffle prompted by the loss of the Conservatives and Independents group’s majority on the authority.

Councillors voted for Councillor Caroline Goodrick, a member of the Tory-led controlling group, to replace her.

Liberal Democrat leaders claim Conservative and Labour councillors worked together to remove Cllr Brodigan from the role after she had asked the scrutiny committee to examine the council’s controversial home-to-school transport policy change.

Cllr Brodigan has held the position since 2022 and Liberal Democrats say chairs of scrutiny committees usually stay in the role for a full council term.

Councillor Peter Lacey, leader of the Lib Dem group, said: “We see this as a cynical political move.

“Barbara has done an excellent job in holding the council to account and listening to the concerns of parents and residents.

“If there is blame for a loss of trust between the council and parents over home-to-school transport, it does not lie with Barbara but with members on the Tory and Labour benches who have voted to get rid of her.”

Cllr Brodigan, councillor for the Ure Bank and Spa division in Ripon, added: “We accept that the policy battle is, for now, lost, but it is unthinkable that some children still don’t know if they’ll have the company of their peer group as they make what is probably their most significant transition in their education journey.

“Equally concerning to them and their parents will be the possibility that they will be expected to make unsuitable and potentially hazardous journeys to school.”

In response, Councillor Carl Les, leader of the authority, said: “As ever, the Lib Dems are spouting nonsense to suit their narrative — they see conspiracies everywhere.”

Cllr Les said there had previously been “numerous” changes of committee chairs during the course of a council.

He added: “This is a change that has come about because of one councillor leaving the Conservative group and going, we know not where, so changes had to be made.

“I reached out to all the group leaders and asked for their thoughts and then reacted appropriately.

“This is nothing to do with the individual. This is to do with the fact that we believe that the children and families scrutiny committee is a very important one — it’s the only one which is attended by two executive members — and so we decided that it was a good time to make a change.”

Labour spokesperson, Councillor John Ritchie, said it was “completely untrue” that his group had worked with the Conservatives to remove the committee chair.

“They’re imagining conspiracies that simply don’t exist,” he added.

The council has faced criticism over a change to home-to-school transport, which has seen children only allowed free transport to their catchment school if it is also their nearest school.

Parents say the change is causing a host of issues, including financial hardship and disruption to peer groups, but council chiefs say the move was necessary to cut an annual school transport bill of more than £50m.