What happens when a leader suddenly disappears? In politics, business and other human organisations, leadership transitions can trigger intense power struggles. Rivals compete for control, alliances shift and institutions can become unstable.

Similar dynamics occur throughout the animal kingdom. Our new research on tropical paper wasps, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, shows just how chaotic leadership struggles can be – but also how societies can remain stable even while conflict rages.

Many animal societies revolve around a single dominant breeder. In cooperative paper wasps, as in many other social wasp species, dozens or even hundreds of females live together in a colony. But reproduction is usually controlled by one dominant individual: the queen. The other females help raise her offspring by foraging for food, feeding larvae and defending the nest.

Unlike in honeybee, yellowjacket wasp or ant colonies, however, these helpers are not sterile. If the queen disappears, any of them could potentially take over and become the next breeder. Often there is a queue – ladies-in-waiting, hoping to be queen. But succession isn’t always predetermined, and in some cases, it can become a contest.

How is the contest settled?

It was in a derelict building in Panama that we found the answer to this question. We experimentally removed queens from 19 wild colonies of the tropical paper wasp, Polistes canadensis, and watched to see what happened next.

The effects were immediate. Aggressive interactions between females increased sharply as several of them competed for dominance. The colony’s usual patterns of behaviour broke down and its dominance hierarchies rapidly became unstable. Rather than a smooth transfer of power, succession turned into a period of widespread conflict involving many members of the colony.

At first glance, this kind of turmoil looks risky. Fighting takes time and energy, and wasps distracted by conflict might neglect essential tasks such as foraging for prey, feeding larvae and maintaining nest structure and hygiene. Violent fights over leadership have been reported in other paper wasps, resulting in societal collapse.

But that wasn’t what we observed.

Despite the chaos, the colonies continued functioning. While some wasps fought to be queen, others avoided the conflict and instead stepped up their investment in foraging and brood care. They ignored the conflict and kept the colony running.

Cooperation didn’t disappear – it was redistributed.

One surprising finding was that the peaceful wasps didn’t appear biologically different from the fighters. In many animal societies, traits such as body size, age or position in the hierarchy help predict who will compete for leadership. For example, in meerkats the largest and oldest females are most likely to inherit the dominant breeding role. In naked mole rats, females already high in the hierarchy fight hardest when the queen dies.

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Of mice and matriarchs: the female-led societies of the animal kingdom

But in our wasp colonies we found no clear differences in body size, age or previous status between individuals that fought and those that stepped back.

This suggests the behaviour may reflect strategic decisions rather than fixed roles. Some wasps may judge that competing for dominance offers them a good chance of producing their own young, while others may gain more by assuring the survival of the brood, which are typically the wasps’ siblings. Investing in the survival of your close relatives is an alternative reproductive strategy and explains the evolution of helping behaviour in animal societies.

Cooperation during conflict

Social insects are often portrayed as perfectly organised societies with rigid rules. Honeybee and ant colonies, for example, typically have sterile workers, leaving little competition over who becomes the next queen. But paper wasps are different. Workers retain the ability to reproduce, and in the tropical species we studied there appears to be no “next in line” when the queen disappears.

Aggression-driven succession might seem too costly for a society to tolerate. Yet our results show it can work, so long as some animals compensate for the disruption by maintaining essential tasks. Even during intense leadership battles, cooperation can persist if some members adjust their behaviour to keep the system functioning.

The balance the wasps in our study maintained may be a common feature of social systems more broadly. When power struggles intensify, stability depends upon those who keep crucial work going in the background.

It’s easy to get distracted when political rivals are fighting it out, but, perhaps we should be shining a light on the unsung heroes who quietly keep things ticking over.

It was only a couple of weeks after beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley that Palace were hit with a devastating sucker-punch.

It was early July and south London was eagerly anticipating the prospect of Selhurst Park hosting Europa League football for the first time.

But after Uefa deemed Palace to have breached its multi-club ownership rules – with American businessman John Textor holding stakes in both the Eagles and French side Lyon, who had also qualified for the Europa League – Glasner’s team were demoted to the Conference League.

The shock verdict threatened to suck the life out of Palace’s success before the new season had even began, with Parish describing it as “probably one of the greatest injustices that has ever happened in European football” before an ultimately unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

After a 120-year wait for a first major trophy, however, it was going to take more than that to dampen Palace’s spirits.

The Eagles showed no signs of feeling sorry for themselves when starting the new season by defeating Premier League champions Liverpool in the Community Shield in the now-familiar surroundings of Wembley.

But the turbulence continued with the departure of talisman Eberechi Eze, who left for a record fee to join Arsenal after five years at Selhurst Park.

And they nearly also have had to cope with the loss of star defender and captain Marc Guehi had Glasner not intervened.

The England international was all set to rubber-stamp a move to Liverpool until Palace pulled the plug late on deadline day after a move for his intended replacement – Brighton’s Igor Julio – failed to materialise.

After Guehi’s move to fell through – which would have brought Palace a fee in excess of £35m for a player in the final 12 months of his contract – the lines between Glasner and Parish appeared to blur.

It was reported that the Austrian manager, also in the final year of his deal at Selhurst Park, had threatened to quit if Parish had sanctioned Guehi’s move to Merseyside.

Glasner was left frustrated that Palace, preparing for their debut European campaign – which would include at least six additional games in the league phase of the competition – seemed willing to sanction departures rather than retain and strengthen the squad they already had.

It was clear tensions were rising behind the scenes at Selhurst Park.

The wide-ranging prosecution of those involved in the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry has come to a close with the sentencing of his personal assistant, the last of the five people who pleaded guilty to playing various roles in supplying the actor with ketamine, the drug that killed him at age 54 on October 28, 2023.

Here’s a look at each defendant.

Kenneth Iwamasa

Perry’s 60-year-old live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa was intimately involved in the actor’s illegal ketamine use, acting as his drug messenger and personally giving him injections — six to eight per day in the last days of his life — according to his plea agreement.

Iwamasa, a longtime friend, was hired for the $150,000-a-year job because those surrounding Perry trusted him to help with the actor’s sobriety. But he ended up being the actor’s chief enabler.

“Shoot me up with a big one,” Iwamasa told authorities Perry said to him on the last day of his life. After several injections, Iwamasa left him at his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and returned to find Perry dead in his hot tub. An autopsy found the primary cause of death was the acute effects of ketamine, with drowning as a secondary cause.

Iwamasa made nearly all of the illegal drug buys on Perry’s behalf, working in coordination with his co-defendants. One of them, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, taught him how to give Perry the injections.

Iwamasa at first lied about his role and destroyed evidence, but months later became the first to reach a plea deal and became prosecutors’ most important informant.

PLEADED GUILTY TO: One count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.

SENTENCE: Three years and five months in prison.

WHAT THEY SAID: “Kenny at all times acted at the direction of Mr. Perry. Obtained ketamine at the direction of Mr. Perry. Administered ketamine to Mr. Perry at his direction,” defense lawyer Alan Eisner said after sentencing. “And as his employee, Kenny wishes he could have had the strength to push back and say no.”

Jasveen Sangha

Prosecutors say she was known as “The Ketamine Queen,” because of her jet-setting, drug-dealing lifestyle. Her lawyers say authorities made up that nickname to feed a media frenzy.

Jasveen Sangha admitted to running a significant drug operation, selling Perry the dose of ketamine that he took on the day he died, and causing the death of another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, in 2019.

Like the other defendants, Sangha had no previous convictions.

But, prosecutors said, and a judge agreed, that unlike the other defendants whose actions were atypical, she had been dealing drugs including ketamine, methamphetamine and cocaine for at least five years from her home.

Sangha, 42, was born in Britain, raised in the United States and has dual citizenship. Her social media accounts showed her in posh spaces alongside rich-and-famous faces in Spain, Japan and Dubai, London and Los Angeles.

She went to high school in Calabasas, California — perhaps best known as home to the Kardashians — and went to college at the University of California, Irvine, graduating in 2005 and going to work at Merrill Lynch. She later got an MBA from the Hult International Business School in London.

Her lawyers presented that personal history as evidence that she was an otherwise upstanding citizen, but prosecutors used the same facts to argue she didn’t need to sell drugs but did so for greed and glamour.

PLEADED GUILTY TO: Three counts of distribution of ketamine, one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury, and one count of using her home for drug distribution.

SENTENCE: 15 years in prison, more than all the other defendants combined.

WHAT THEY SAID: “These were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions,” Sangha said at sentencing, adding that her choices had “shattered people’s lives and the lives of their family and friends.”

Erik Fleming

Fleming, 56, was working as a drug addiction counselor when a mutual friend he had with Perry told him that the actor was seeking ketamine, according to filings from prosecutors.

He was a former television and film producer whose career had been ravaged by substance abuse, and that after gaining hard-won sobriety, he became a counselor.

But he had badly relapsed when approached about Perry, and connected the actor with Sangha to buy her product.

In all, prosecutors say, Fleming delivered 50 vials of Sangha’s ketamine for Perry’s use, marking up the price to make a profit, including 25 vials sold for $6,000 to the actor four days before his death.

Authorities found him fairly early in the investigation using information from Iwamasa. He cooperated with prosecutors, giving up Sangha and becoming the first to appear in court and enter a guilty plea.

PLEADED GUILTY TO: One count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

SENTENCE: Two years in prison.

WHAT THEY SAID: “This grievous failure will haunt me forever,” Fleming wrote in a letter to the court. After he was sentenced, he said: “I want to do everything I can to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again. I don’t want anyone to die from ketamine.”

Dr. Salvador Plasencia

“I wonder how much this moron will pay?”

That was a text message Plasencia sent to a fellow doctor when he learned Perry was looking for illegal, off-the-books ketamine, according to a plea agreement where the doctor admitted to selling 20 vials of the drug to the actor in the weeks before his death.

Plasencia, a 44-year-old Los Angeles-area doctor known to patients as “Dr. P,” was one of the main targets of the prosecution and had been headed for a joint trial with Sangha when he reached the plea agreement last year.

Perry was connected to Plasencia through another patient. The actor had been getting ketamine legally from his regular doctor as treatment for depression, an off-label but increasingly common use of the surgical anesthetic. But he wanted more than that doctor would prescribe.

Plasencia admitted to injecting Perry with some of the initial vials he provided, and left more for Iwamasa to inject, despite the fact that Perry froze up and his blood pressure spiked after a dose.

Plasencia graduated from UCLA’s medical school in 2010 and had not been subject to any medical disciplinary actions before the Perry case. He voluntarily gave up his medical license before any action was taken against.

PLEADED GUILTY TO: Four counts of distribution of ketamine.

SENTENCE: 2 1/2 years in prison.

WHAT THEY SAID: Plasencia cried at his sentencing as he imagined the day he would have to tell his 2-year-old son “about the time I didn’t protect another mother’s son. It hurts me so much.”

Dr. Mark Chavez

Chavez, a San Diego doctor who ran a ketamine clinic, was the source of the doses that Plasencia sold to Perry.

Chavez admitted to obtaining the ketamine from a wholesale distributor on false pretenses and passing it along.

Chavez, 55, graduated from UCLA’s medical school in 2004. He has surrendered his medical license.

CHARGE: One count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.

SENTENCE: Eight months of home confinement.

WHAT THEY SAID: “I just want to say my heart goes out to the Perry family,” Chavez said at sentencing.

___

Versions of this story previously ran on Aug. 15, 2024, Sept. 3, 2025 and May 13, 2026.

Greater Manchester Police said officers arrested a man in his 40s on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and a public order offence following an incident at Terminal 2 on Wednesday, May 27.

The incident led to the closure of the Terminal 2 drop-off area for several hours, with passengers facing delays and being redirected to JetParks 1.

In a statement issued this afternoon, GMP said: “Following an incident at Manchester Airport Terminal 2 today (Wednesday 27 May 2026) that has now been resolved, we have arrested a man in his 40s on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and a public order offence.

“He has been taken into custody to be questioned by officers.”

Police were first called to the airport at around 8am.

Earlier in the day, it was understood officers were dealing with a welfare-related incident. Although this was not the case.

Manchester Airport warned passengers to allow extra time when travelling through the airport while the Terminal 2 drop-off remained closed.

Other terminals were unaffected and there is not believed to have been any wider threat linked to the incident.

Emergency services are continuing to search a river in Swanscombe, Kent, where a young man is believed to have vanished.

The search operation is understood to involve Kent Police, volunteers from Kent Search and Rescue, team from South East Coast Ambulance Service and specialist water rescue teams.

Thermal drone operators are also reportedly being used.

Greater Manchester Police, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) and North West Ambulance Service have reportedly been in attendance since around 11pm last night, with specialist negotiators understood to be involved.

The incident is centred around the multi-storey car park at the junction of Rochdale Road and Derby Way.

A spokesperson for GMFRS said: “At around 10.55pm last night ( 26 May), fire crews were called to the rescue of a person at The Rock in Bury.

“Two fire engines from Bury and Whitefield stations alongside the aerial ladder platform from Bolton Central, the hydraulic platform from Manchester Central and the Technical Response Unit from Leigh quickly attended the scene.

“Working alongside Greater Manchester Police and North West Ambulance Service, firefighters implemented appropriate safety measures and remained on standby while the incident was managed by partner agencies. Crews remain in attendance.”

The incident comes just days after emergency services were called to a separate welfare concern at the same car park earlier this month on May 23 and May 19.

Emergency services at the scene earlier this month (Image: Dan Dougherty)

As of around 9:45pm on Wednesday evening, emergency services were still at the scene with a small cordon in place around part of the car park area.

Witnesses reported seeing multiple police vehicles, fire engines and ambulances parked along Rochdale Road throughout the day.

One eyewitness said: “Fire appliances are still here and the rest of the emergency services. They have cordoned off the rear of the car park.”

Incident commanders were involved (Image: Phil Taylor)

Another witness confirmed an individual remained on the top floor of the car park during the incident.

A GMP spokesperson earlier confirmed officers were “dealing with a welfare incident there today”, although police have not yet confirmed whether the situation has been resolved.

Despite the large emergency service presence, no roads were closed and traffic in the area remained only moderately affected throughout the day.

Taking place at Bents Park on Sunday, August 2, the concert will be headlined by DJ Judge Jules, who will deliver a high-energy set of dance classics supported by a live band and singers.

The line-up also includes electronic music duo Phats and Small, known for their infectious dance anthems, and UK garage act Sweet Female Attitude.

Councillor Stan Wildhirt, Mayor of South Tyneside, said: “The addition of two fantastic acts means this is shaping up to be a truly standout finale to the Sunday Concerts.

“Phats and Small are a huge crowd favourite and bring a brilliant party atmosphere, while we’re delighted to welcome Sweet Female Attitude to the festival for the first time.

(Image: South Tyneside Council)

“With Judge Jules headlining, it promises to be an amazing afternoon, packed with feel-good favourites that audiences of all ages can enjoy.”

Ultrabeat and yet-to-be-announced local performers will also take to the stage, rounding off the festival’s signature concert series.

The Sunday Concert series begins on July 19 with a hometown performance by Joe McElderry, supported by singer Sonia and local artists Shelley Stevens and Channy.

The following week, on July 26, 1980s icons ABC will perform some of their biggest hits, including The Look of Love, Poison Arrow, and When Smokey Sings.

Chesney Hawkes, best known for his 90s hit The One and Only, will also perform, alongside Nuromantica, who will bring a selection of synth-pop favourites from the era.

Chesney Hawkes (Image: South Tyneside Council)

This year’s concerts are fully ticketed, with pricing aimed at keeping the events accessible to all.

General admission tickets purchased in person cost £5 for those aged 17 to 65, while tickets are £2 for those aged 11 to 16 or 66 and over.

Entry is free for children aged ten and under.

Tickets can be purchased from visitsouthtyneside.co.uk and will be emailed for scanning on entry.

“For generations this iconic family business has been part of the fabric of our town”

A Ballymena institution is preparing to serve up its final scoops this weekend.

McGroggan’s on William Street is one of the Co Antrim town’s most popular family-run businesses – with their vanilla ice-cream with special raspberry sauce having been a family favourite in many a local home.

Last weekend, the 103-year-old ice cream shop announced that it would be shutting its doors on Saturday, May 30 and thanked the town for its custom for over a century.

Founded by Hugh and Annie McGroggan in 1922, their traditional homemade ice cream has won countless awards in its long history in Ballymena town centre.

Taking to social media, the McGroggan family said: “After a remarkable 103-year journey, it is with a heavy heart that we announce McGroggan’s will be closing its doors on May 30th, 2026.

“Our family is immensely grateful for the incredible community that has supported us.

“Thank you to all of our wonderful customers for your loyalty, memories, and support throughout the years”.

After news broke of the closure, many locals have made they journey to William Street to have a final cone that McGroggans ran out of ice cream.

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Announcing a preorder system, they said: “Folks it has been so busy since we announced our closure we are running out of Ice cream,

“We’re making more as fast as we can, but we can’t quite keep up with your amazing demand. Thanks for keeping us so busy!”

North Antrim MLA Jon Burrows said he was “saddened” to hear the news of McGroggan’s closure.

He said: “For generations this iconic family business has been part of the fabric of our town creating memories for local families, visitors and children enjoying what many would call ‘the best ice cream in the country.’ “Its closure is not just the loss of a shop. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and our communities, yet too many are under relentless pressure from rising costs, online competition, rates burdens and declining footfall.”

“Our high streets matter. They are about more than commerce -they are about community, identity and pride of place,” he continued. “Thank you to everyone at McGroggan’s for the memories, the service and the contribution you made to Ballymena over so many years.”

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Two days before registered Republicans voted in the party’s primary election in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District on May 20, Donald Trump called the incumbent representative, Thomas Massie, “the worst Republican congressman in history”.

Massie subsequently lost the primary to a political newcomer with no prior office-holding experience. Ed Gallrein’s not-so-secret weapon was that he had the backing of the US president.

Just over a week later, Texas voters were asked to decide whether 22-year Senate veteran John Cornyn should be ousted in favour of the state’s attorney-general, Ken Paxton – who was also endorsed by Trump. Despite all the baggage Paxton carried into the race: an indictment for fraud (charges were later dropped) and an impeachment for bribery, which he denied before being acquitted in the state senate. He has also gone through an acrimonious divorce accompanied by accusations of adultery (which he has also denied), Paxton won the May 26 primary handsomely with more than 60% of the vote.

Trump has long threatened to “primary” – back a rival candidate in the upcoming primary election – Republicans who displease him in some way. But with the midterm elections looming in November, we’re seeing this put into practice. And it’s making the conservative “old Republican” wing of his party very nervous.

America’s high-profile November elections involve straightforward contests between the nominees of the main parties. But before a candidate can represent their party, they must first win an internal election. These primaries are open to registered party voters (and, in some states, independents)

American political parties have no centralised power to simply appoint or protect their candidates. The process is genuinely competitive and, as the current cycle is demonstrating, potentially dangerous for incumbents.

For the president to mount a primary challenge is to use a particularly powerful weapon in American political life – it can end a career without the opposing party winning a single vote. On one level, the 2026 GOP primaries are rolling out in the usual manner. However, who is orchestrating them, and why, is worthy of note.

According to the Brookings Institute, Thomas Massie drew Trump’s ire not for any ideological deviation from the GOP line, but for opposing a short-term funding bill and for joining a Democrat in calling for the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

The Texas case has a similar logic. Prior to his decades in the Senate, John Cornyn served as Texas attorney general and sat on the Texas Supreme Court. He is a stalwart conservative by any conventional measure. However, he was associated with a bipartisan gun safety bill in 2022, and he has at times been willing to work across the aisle. His challenger, Ken Paxton, is a Maga true believer who survived a bipartisan impeachment attempt in the Texas senate, largely on the strength of Trump’s support.

The pattern extends well beyond these two cases. In one state alone, Trump endorsed challengers to eight GOP state senators who had voted against a redistricting bill, with his allies spending millions in an effort to remove them. The message is clear: vote against the president’s wishes, and he will come for your seat.

Electoral gamble

This strategy is inevitably unnerving for the more traditional wing of the Republican Party. Democrats are confident, and Republicans concerned, that a Paxton nomination in Texas will make it harder for Republicans to hold the seat in November. The Democratic nominee, state representative James Talarico, raised a staggering US$27 million (£21 million) in the first three months of the year alone.

There is some Trumpian precedent for all of this. In 2017, the 45th president endorsed Luther Strange in an Alabama senate primary. Strange lost to Roy Moore, who then lost the general election to Democrat candidate Doug Jones. The lesson that a rock-solid Republican seat can be lost was clear, although apparently unlearned.

Republicans are defending slim majorities in both the House and Senate in 2026. They can afford few losses. Replacing electable incumbents with ideologically pure but extreme and therefore electorally risky challengers, is a strategy that appears to prioritise control over the party above control of Congress.

The effect on Capitol Hill

Even where Trump’s candidates win, the consequences may be destabilising. Some Republicans have acknowledged that Trump’s aggressive involvement in primaries could create complications, not least for members who are no longer worried about reelection. Senators in their final term, for example, might be emboldened to act independently knowing there is no electoral sword hanging over them.

But the more immediate effect is silence. Had Massie or Cornyn survived their primary challenge, more members of Congress might have been willing to vote against Trump’s interests. Their defeat sends the reverse signal. When a solid incumbent with a strong conservative record can be unseated for insufficient loyalty, other Republicans in Congress will be watching and calculating.

This is how party discipline can slide into something more troubling. It is one thing for a party leader to want to manage unwieldy factions but enforcing one’s authority via electoral intimidation is another matter.

What is being challenged in these primaries are the remnants of what the Republican Party once was. This included a coalition of business conservatives, foreign policy hawks, libertarian-leaning figures and traditional social conservatives. Massie represented one strand of that tradition. Cornyn represented another. They have now been treated as enemies of the Maga agenda.

Historically, US election scholarship has suggested there may be a tendency in primaries to swing towards the party’s base, and then back in the direction of the median voter for the general election. In this new incarnation of the GOP, the pendulum appears stuck to the right.

During primary season, this may be an attractive Maga trait. But come November, not every GOP voter may cast their ballot for a cult of loyalty.

Police Scotland have now confirmed they will support the event.

The annual Edinburgh Taxi Outing for sick children looks set to go ahead after police agreed support for the event.

On Monday, it was announced that the outing had been “reluctantly” cancelled after organisers said a policy change left police officers unable to escort the cabs.

The annual event, organised and funded by taxi drivers, gives children with special needs, life-limiting conditions and terminal illnesses a day out where they are driven around the city in colourfully decorated taxis.

It was due to be held for the 78th time on June 9, but outing committee secretary Keith Bell had said that organisers had “no option” but to cancel.

However, a statement by Police Scotland on Wednesday appears to confirm that the outing can go ahead as planned.

Superintendent Neil Wilson said: “Our focus throughout has been to support the Edinburgh Taxi Outing as we have done for many years.

“We have held constructive discussions today with the event organiser and have agreed an outline plan which allows the event to run safely on its original route.

“Further discussions will take place in the coming days to finalise the police operation to support the event and ensure the children enjoy their day.”

Mr Bell previously said that a policy change meant officers would no longer escort such events through the streets of Edinburgh and East Lothian and that the taxi outing did not meet the new criteria for a police escort.

He had raised concerns about proposals for static support at key places, saying the children involved in the outing had “a variety of needs and some will not manage to cope with sitting stationary for who knows how long waiting for the taxis at the back to catch up”.

A final decision is expected to be confirmed during a meeting between the police, taxi drivers and the City of Edinburgh Council on Thursday.

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