Leah McDonald is a site-responsive artist working between Motherwell and Glasgow. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, she explores themes of class, identity, and disruption of place.

A Motherwell artist is set to host her first solo exhibition.

Leah McDonald is a site-responsive artist working between Motherwell and Glasgow.

Working primarily in sculpture and installation, she explores themes of class, identity, and disruption of place.

Through her practice she is committed to diversifying the art world and expanding its accessibility. She uses her work to challenge who art is for and where it belongs, often placing works in transitional spaces and documenting their unpredictable engagements.

Leah will be showcasing her work at the C’mere Generator Project in Dundee from March 31 to May 3.

C’MERE brings together a series of existing works alongside newly commissioned pieces grounded in Motherwell and Dundee. The exhibition invites visitors into the gallery, only to redirect attention outward, prompting reflection on place, surroundings, and who public space belongs to.

Activated through sculptural interventions, often in purposely unassumed public arrangements, the works create moments of tension, connection, and reflection.

They prompt thought and discussion around class, identity, and space, while also questioning where art, the environment and our permission to engage with it exists.

The wider programme features an artist talk with Leah, as well as a live invitation to engage with one of McDonald’s site-specific interventions during the run of the exhibition.

READ MORE: North Lanarkshire Council will host two full time officers to tackle illegal tobacco trade

Generator Projects is a dynamic, vibrant exhibition and events space in the heart of Dundee.

Founded in 1996, more than 25 years later Generator still operates in the tradition of ARIs (Artist Run Initiatives): non-profit, collaborative, grassroots, membership-based spaces that exist to foster and sustain creativity and participation in the arts.

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The Trump administration is marking a holiday meant to honor the nation’s first chief executive with social media messaging intended to compare the current president to the “father of the country” and the martyred president who led the U.S. through the Civil War.

On Monday, the Pentagon’s official social media account (which uses the administration’s preferred but unofficial name for the Defense Department, the “Department of War,” posted an image to X showing President Donald Trump with legendary presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln arrayed behind him, with the accompanying all-caps text: “HAPPY PRESIDENTS DAY.”

The glaring image of the 47th president appears to be taken from the official White House portrait taken ahead of his inauguration by Daniel Torok, the ex-music video director turned chief White House photographer.

But not to be outdone, the Department of Health and Human Services also issued a Presidents Day message putting Trump in the same pantheon as Washington and Lincoln, this time with what appeared to be an AI-generated graphic showing all three side by side.

It wrote: “This Presidents Day, we honor the leaders who shaped our nation and reaffirm our commitment to serving the health and well-being of every American.”

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The Treasury Department got in on the action with yet another Trump-centric Presidents Day post, this time showing Trump gesturing in profile during remarks in the East Room, with the image cropped so the incumbent president is portrayed alongside the life-sized portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart.

The 97-inch-tall painting, which is a copy Stuart made of a 1796 portrait commissioned by Pennsylvania Senator William Bingham as a gift for then-British prime minister Lord Lansdowne, has hung in the East Room for 226 years and was famously saved from destruction by then-first lady Dolley Madison before British troops under Major General Robert Ross set the White House ablaze during the War of 1812.

The department’s post actively promoted Trump, writing that he is “setting the stage for the next 250 years of American excellence” with “tax deals, trade deals and peace deals.”

open image in gallery

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Not every cabinet department chose to specifically feature Trump in a post marking the annual holiday.

The Department of Agriculture, which is led by former America First Policy Institute boss Brooke Rollins, said it was commemorating the day by giving “ode to our founding fathers, especially our first president George Washington and USDA’s founder Abraham Lincoln.”

But the USDA has previously chosen to elevate Trump alongside Lincoln in an even more visible way, with a pair of massive banners that were hung outside the building since last year, depicting Trump and Lincoln respectively, to mark the department’s 163rd anniversary.

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Trump has compared himself to the first and 16th presidents on multiple occasions, most recently in October when he delivered a rambling speech in the Rose Garden in which he complained that a television commentator had rated him only the “third-best president” behind Washington and Lincoln.

“Hey, they didn’t put out eight wars, nine coming,” he said. “We put out eight wars, and the ninth is coming, believe it or not.”

He also told Fox News’ Bret Bair last February that he did not think Washington and Lincoln could defeat him in a hypothetical election if they ran on a hypothetical ticket together.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose classic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the first two “Godfather” movies and the over-the-hill country music singer in “Tender Mercies,” has died at age 95.

Duvall died “peacefully” at his home Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, according to an announcement from his publicist and from a statement posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Luciana Duvall.

“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented.”

The bald, wiry Duvall didn’t have leading man looks, but few “character actors” enjoyed such a long, rewarding and unpredictable career, in leading and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin. Beginning with his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals. They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the best actor prize for “Tender Mercies,” which came out in 1983. He also won four Golden Globes, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” a role he often cited as his favorite.

In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts.

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He had been acting for some 20 years when “The Godfather,” released in 1972, established him as one of the most in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a previous film, “The Rain People,” with Francis Coppola, and the director chose him to play Tom Hagen in the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando among others. Duvall was a master of subtlety as an Irishman among Italians, rarely at the center of a scene, but often listening and advising in the background, an irreplaceable thread through the saga of the Corleone crime family.

“Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of ‘The Godfather?’”

In another Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now,” Duvall was wildly out front, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigor enjoyed surfing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the most famous passages in movie history, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body.

“The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like — victory.”

Coppola once commented about Duvall: “Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby’s hot after one or two takes.”

Honored, but still hungry

He was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now,” but a dispute over money led him to turn down the third Godfather epic, a loss deeply felt by critics, fans and “Godfather” colleagues. Duvall would complain publicly about being offered less than his co-stars.

Fellow actors marveled at Duvall’s studious research and planning, and his coiled energy. Michael Caine, who co-starred with him in the 2003 “Secondhand Lions,” once told The Associated Press: “Before a big scene, Bobby just sits there, absolutely quiet; you know when not to talk to him.” Anyone who disturbed him would suffer the well-known Duvall temper, famously on display during the filming of the John Wayne Western “True Grit,” when Duvall seethed at director Henry Hathaway’s advice to “tense up” before a scene.

Duvall was awarded an Oscar in 1984 for his leading role as the troubled singer and songwriter Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies,” a prize he accepted while clad in a cowboy tuxedo with Western tie. In 1998, he was nominated for best actor in “The Apostle,” a drama about a wayward Southern evangelist which he wrote, directed, starred in, produced and largely financed. With customary thoroughness, he visited dozens of country churches and spent 12 years writing the script and trying to get it made.

Among other notable roles: the outlaw gang leader who gets ambushed by John Wayne in “True Grit”; Jesse James in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”; the pious and beleaguered Frank Burns in “M-A-S-H”; the TV hatchet man in “Network”; Dr. Watson in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”; and the sadistic father in “The Great Santini.”

“When I was doing ‘Colors’ in 1988 with Sean Penn, someone asked me how I do it all these years, keep it fresh. Well, if you don’t overwork, have some hobbies, you can do it and stay hungry even if you’re not really hungry,” Duvall told The Associated Press in 1990.

In his mid-80s, he received a supporting Oscar nomination as the title character of the 2014 release “The Judge,” in which he is accused of causing a death in a hit-and-run accident. More recent films included “Widows” and “12 Mighty Orphans.”

Ungifted in school, gifted on stage

Robert Selden Duvall grew up in the Navy towns of Annapolis and the San Diego area, where he was born in 1931. He spent time in other cities as his father, who rose to be an admiral, was assigned to various duties.

The boy’s experience helped in his adult profession as he learned the nuances of regional speech and observed the psyche of military men, which he would portray in several films.

Duvall reportedly used his Navy officer father as the basis for his portrayal of the explosive militarist in “The Great Santini,” based on the Pat Conroy novel. He commented in 2003: “My dad was a gentleman but a seether, a stern, blustery guy, and away a lot of the time.” Bobby took after his mother, an amateur actress, in playing a guitar and performing. He was a wrestler like his father and enjoyed besting kids older than himself.

He lacked the concentration for schoolwork and nearly flunked out of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. His despairing parents decided he needed something to keep him in college so he wouldn’t be drafted for the Korean War. “They recommended acting as an expedient thing to get through,” he recalled. “I’m glad they did.” He flourished in drama classes.

“Way back when I was in college,” Duvall told the AP in 1990, “there was a wonderful man named Frank Parker, who had been a dancer in World War I. We did a full-length mime play and I played a Harlequin clown. I really liked that.

“Then, I played an older guy in ‘All My Sons,’ and at one point I had this emotional moment, where this emotion was pouring out. Parker said at that moment he didn’t think acting can be carried any further than that. And this guy was a very critical guy. So I thought, at that moment at least, this is what I wanted to do.”

After two years in the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to finance his studies at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, hanging out with such other young hopefuls as Robert Morse, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. After a one-night performance in “A View From the Bridge,” Duvall began getting offers for work in TV series, among them “The Naked City” and “The Defenders.”

Between his high-paying jobs in major productions, Duvall devoted himself to directing personal projects: a documentary about a prairie family, “We’re Not the Jet Set”; a film about gypsies, “Angelo, My Love”; and “Assassination Tango,” in which he also starred.

Duvall had been a tango dancer since seeing the musical “Tango Argentina” in the 1980s and visited in Argentina dozens of times to study the dance and the culture. The result was the 2003 release about a hit man with a passion for tango.

His co-star was Luciana Pedraza, 42 years his junior, whom he married in 2005. Duvall’s three previous marriages — to Barbara Benjamin, Gail Youngs and Sharon Brophy — ended in divorce.

—-

Former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent Bob Thomas, who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary

League One side Mansfield Town will host 14-time winners Arsenal in the FA Cup fifth round.

The Stags defeated Premier League stragglers Burnley 2-1 on Saturday afternoon, producing a remarkable second-half comeback at Turf Moor.

Elsewhere, Manchester City will visit Newcastle in one of two all-Premier League ties, in a repeat of one of this season’s League Cup semi-finals.

Non-league Macclesfield could be in line to face a third top-flight opponent in a row – either the Silkmen or Brentford will head to West Ham in round five after Monday night’s tie.

Sunderland face a second successive away trip in the competition as they were drawn against Port Vale or Bristol City – that fourth-round tie was postponed until Tuesday, 3 March (19:45 GMT) because of a waterlogged pitch.

Meanwhile Championship promotion chasers Wrexham welcome eight-time winners Chelsea.

The matches will be played across the weekend of 7-8 March.

The fifth-round draw of the FA Cup has taken place, with 18 teams discovering their fates for the round of 16. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool were among those in the hat, and were joined by the likes of Premier League rivals West Ham, Fulham, Newcastle, Sunderland, Wolves and Leeds.

Emergency services raced to the scene

A dramatic car fire broke out and left a street smothered in smoke in Oldham on Monday afternoon (February 16). Emergency crews were called to the blaze on Milnrow Road at around 4.25pm.

The red vehicle, parked beside an off licence, became engulfed in flames. Fire engines arrived on blue lights and cordoned off the area and part of the road, causing significant traffic throughout the afternoon.

Dramatic videos shared on social media show thick smoke plumes smothering the street. The blaze took around 45 minutes to get under control, the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service confirmed in a statement.

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It is thought that no injuries were reported in the incident. The cause of the blaze has also not yet been confirmed.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said: “At around 4.25pm this afternoon (Monday 16 February), one fire engine from Oldham Community Fire Station was called to attend a car fire on Milnrow Road in Oldham.

“Crews arrived quickly and used one hose reel and one breathing apparatus to extinguish the fire. Firefighters worked to make the area safe before departing after approximately 45 minutes at the scene.”

The two-storey Thornaby facility, which will include a five-lane swimming pool, gym, and sauna, forms part of the £23.9 million Thornaby Town Deal, set to bring long-term change and investment to the town.

Councillor Richard Eglington, cabinet member for regeneration and housing at StocktonCouncil, said: “A new leisure centre in Thornaby Town Centre will not only provide state-of-the-art sports facilities on people’s doorsteps, it will also bring footfall and add vibrancy to the town centre.

“With this addition and the removal of the Golden Eagle, we’re bringing life to a site that has been vacant for a number of years, a key priority for the Town Deal Board.

“The improvements to Thornaby’s cycle network will also help connect the town centre with other key assets in the area, making it easier to commute, get around and support healthier lifestyles.”

The centre will be connected to the existing Thornaby Pavilion by a first-floor link bridge and will include a new entrance and car park with 46 additional spaces.

Improvements will also be made to the internal layout and fitness areas of the current pavilion.

The swimming pool, to be operated by Tees Active, will expand learn-to-swim opportunities and support school swimming partnerships.

The centre is being built on the former Phoenix House site, which was purchased and demolished using Town Deal funding after standing vacant for several years.

Additional funding for the project has been provided by Stockton Council and Sport England.

The centre is expected to open in summer 2027, with construction set to take around a year.

Work to demolish the nearby Golden Eagle building, including asbestos removal, is also underway and will continue over the coming months.

Meanwhile, a connected network of new and improved cycle routes across Thornaby is set to be built.

The project will enhance access to the town centre and link with existing cycling infrastructure to the north and south.

Cycle route improvements will include Redcar Road (Humber Road to Baysdale Road), Millbank Lane (Fullerton Way to Trenchard Avenue), Mitchell Avenue (Trenchard Avenue to Chadderton Drive), Thornaby Road (A174 to Kintyre Drive), and Trenchard Avenue (Mitchell Avenue to Thornaby Road).

A segment covering Allison Trainer Park, east of Clarendon Road and west of Baysdale Road, is still subject to planning approval.

The cycle network will feature segregated lanes, shared walking and cycling paths, on-road routes, safer crossings, and additional signage.

All elements of the project are being delivered with the support of the Thornaby Town Deal Board, which includes local councillors and MPs.

Mark White CBE DL, chair of the Thornaby Town Deal Board, said: “Thornaby’s new leisure centre is an exciting project for the Town Deal Board and one we were very passionate about bringing forward.

“The benefits of an improved cycle network are also significant as it better connects the area with employment sites and helps to support sustainable and active travel.

“When these projects are complete, they will be amazing assets for Thornaby, and I am looking forward to seeing the work progress.”

A man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school should be held responsible for providing the weapon despite warnings about alleged threats his son made, a prosecutor said Monday.

The trial of Colin Gray began Monday in one of several cases around the country where prosecutors are trying to hold parents responsible after their children are accused in fatal shootings.

Gray faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of involuntary manslaughter and numerous counts of second-degree cruelty to children related to the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder.

“This is not a case about holding parents accountable for what their children do,” Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said in his opening statement. “This case is about this defendant and his actions in allowing a child that he has custody over access to a firearm and ammunition after being warned that that child was going to harm others.”

Prosecutors argue that amounts to cruelty to children, and second-degree murder is defined in Georgia law as causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children.

Investigators have said Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time, carefully planned the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school northeast of Atlanta that is attended by 1,900 students.

But Brian Hobbs, an attorney for Colin Gray, said the shooting’s planning and timing “were hidden by Colt Gray from his father. That’s the difference between tragedy and criminal liability. You cannot hold someone criminally responsible for failing to predict what was intentionally hidden from them.”

With a semiautomatic rifle in his book bag, the barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board, Colt Gray boarded the school bus, investigators said. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the gun and then shot people in a classroom and hallways, they said.

Smith told the jury that Colin Gray’s daughter was in lockdown at her middle school and texted her father that there had been a shooting at the high school. When law enforcement arrived at Gray’s home, he met them in the garage and “without any prompting, he blurts out, ‘I knew it,’” Smith said.

Smith said that in September 2021, Colt Gray used a school computer to search the phrase, “how to kill your dad.” School resource officers were then sent to the home, but it was determined to be a “misunderstanding,” Smith said.

Sixteen months before the shooting, in May 2023, law enforcement acted on a tip from the FBI after a shooting threat was made online concerning an elementary school. The threat was traced to a computer at Gray’s home, Smith said.

Colin Gray was told about the threat and was asked whether his son had access to guns. Gray replied that he and his son “take this school shooting stuff very seriously,” according to Smith. Colt Gray denied that he made the threat and said that his online account had been hacked, Smith said.

That Christmas, Colin Gray gave his son the gun as a gift and continued to buy accessories after that, including “a lot of ammunition,” Smith said.

Colin Gray knew his son was obsessed with school shooters, even having a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prosecutors have said. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent had testified that the teen’s parents had discussed their son’s fascination with school shooters but decided that it was in a joking context and not a serious issue.

Three weeks before the shooting, Gray received a chilling text from his son: “Whenever something happens, just know the blood is on your hands,” according to Smith.

Colin Gray was also aware his son’s mental health had deteriorated and had sought help from a counseling service weeks before the shooting, an investigator testified.

“We have had a very difficult past couple of years and he needs help. Anger, anxiety, quick to be volatile. I don’t know what to do,” Colin Gray wrote about his son.

But Smith said Colin Gray never followed through on concerns about getting his son admitted to an in-patient facility.

The trial is being held in Winder, in Barrow County, where the shooting happened. The defense asked for a change of venue because of pretrial publicity, and prosecutors agreed. The judge kept the trial in Winder but decided to bring in jurors from nearby Hall County to hear the case. Jurors were selected last week.

___

Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

The pair briefly split in 2007

Kate Middleton issued an ‘ultimatum’ to Prince William after an ’embarrassing’ incident before their brief breakup, it has been revealed in a new book.

The couple met at St Andrews University in 2001 while they were studying history of art. They moved into a shared house with two other friends in 2002 and reportedly became a couple around Christmas 2003.

However, four years later the pair briefly split, reportedly because of the strain caused by William’s military career, but also came amid intense media pressure since they met.

The Mirror’s Royal Editor, Russell Myers writes in his new book, William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, which is being serialised by the Mirror, has opened up about the split, with sources claiming that at the time, William and Kate’s relationship had ‘soured beyond repair’.

He writes: “In March 2007, William and Catherine who had barely seen each other since Christmas, were pictured decked out in matching tweed, appearing frosty with each other at the Cheltenham horse racing festival. Sources claimed the relationship had ‘soured beyond repair’.

“Days later, William heaped further embarrassment on Catherine when he was pictured appearing to grope an 18-year-old Brazilian student he met on the dancefloor of Elements nightclub in Bournemouth. Looking wide-eyed, sweaty and clutching a pint of beer as he stood between two young women, William seemed to have temporarily abandoned his senses. Was this the normality he craved?

“Or was he simply a young man letting off some steam after finishing a tank commander course, while continuing to exist in a pressure-cooker situation? Catherine was upset and admonished him for his behaviour, questioning whether the light of their four-year relationship was about to be extinguished forever.”

And this is where her ‘ultimatum’ came in. Russell writes: “In the days after the Cheltenham Festival, deeply unhappy and at a loss to describe how their relationship had faltered, Catherine delivered an ultimatum to William. While she did not explicitly demand an engagement or even a promise of marriage, she did break free from the gentle and arguably submissive persona that had typified her relationship with the future king.

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“A long-standing friend who she confided in at the time said, ‘Catherine was distressed. She was miserable, but she certainly wasn’t desperate. She felt as though she had nothing to lose and for the first time she probably relayed her true feelings to William. She wasn’t demanding an engagement, but she wanted a commitment, and if he couldn’t deliver that, well, then she left him in no doubt that it was best they go their separate ways.’

“On many levels, the conversation was the clearest sign of the changing dynamic of their relationship. Catherine was no longer a shy student finding her way in the world, nor was she willing to be portrayed as the long-suffering girlfriend of a prince who had other priorities. Either they were a team, or they weren’t.”

But, things didn’t seem to better from there. “In a shock move, William personally instructed Clarence House to confirm the news that he and Catherine were no longer together,” Russell continues. “But, behind the scenes, there was much going on that suggested this was more than just a difference of opinion. It’s telling that William confided to one senior courtier that, ‘at least she is free.’

“This was perhaps the most significant moment in his life since his mother had passed. William revealed a deep distress and anxiety over what a relationship with him represented in the real world. The attention, the constant pressure and expectation. He held these things responsible for contributing to the breakdown of his previous relationships, but now, when it mattered the most, he wondered if he was taking the right course of action, for Catherine or himself.”

In the end, it appears the late Queen Elizabeth II was the one who had a role in bringing the couple, who have now been married for more than 10 years and share three children, back together. “The Queen had witnessed at first hand the toxicity that spilled over from Charles and Diana’s relationship and the devastating effect of the Princess of Wales’s tragic death on both William and Harry,” Russell writes.

“And she knew that William was hurting from the attempt to reconcile so many competing expectations, demands and desires. During those initial days of hopelessness after the tragedy of Diana’s death, Elizabeth’s first reaction had been that of a grandmother, not a monarch. She refused to bow to pressure from the press and instead dedicated herself to comforting her suffering grandchildren. Now she would do the same.

“Sensing William was struggling, the Queen invited him to Sunday lunch to judge his mood. William was more than just crestfallen and worried about whether he was throwing away the one constant in his life. He was, according to one well-placed source, ‘completely broken’.

“‘In that moment, the Queen advised her grandson that the only certain path is the one supported by faith. It was all she had to say,’ they said.”

William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, published on 26 February by Ebury, Penguin Random House, is available to pre-order now

An air-raid siren accompanied 36-year-old Makhmudov’s arrival before a suited-up Fury strolled to the stage, smiling broadly.

“He’s back,” announced Fury, who flew in overnight from a training camp in Thailand.

“I feel fresh. I feel good,” he said. “If I was on the decline I would say it. I’d be the first to say.”

Fury has not fought in Britain since December 2022, when he stopped Derek Chisora at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to retain the WBC title.

He boasts 34 wins from 37 fights, including 24 knockouts, alongside two defeats by Usyk and a draw with Deontay Wilder.

“I bring a circus. I bring an entourage. I bring entertainment. I bring action. I bring cameras,” Fury added, insisting he was still in his “prime”.

Asked for a prediction, the Gypsy King forecast a sixth-round knockout with his “right hand”.

Makhmudov, meanwhile, kept it respectful and would not be drawn into insults or predictions.

He has won 21 of his 23 professional contests, with 19 victories by knockout. His most recent outing was a win over Briton Dave Allen in October 2025.

Nicknamed The Lion, Makhmudov recalled meeting Fury in Canada about a decade ago and described him as a “legend”, but said he is now focused on building his own “legacy”.

The face-off was good-natured. “You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” Fury said with a grin, and the pair closed it out with a handshake.