Lawrence Shankland has been the subject of Rangers interest for a number of years and the Ibrox side are now reportedly confident they will finally land the Hearts captain

Rangers have tabled a two-year contract – with an option for a third – as they attempt to lure Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland to Ibrox for nothing. The Mirror’s sister title in Scotland, the Daily Record, reports Gers bosses are in advanced negotiations with the Scotland forward over a sensational switch to his boyhood club.

And they are rushing to trigger a clause in the 30-year-old’s deal that would enable him to depart the capital club he steered to the verge of championship success this season without Hearts pocketing a single penny. Shankland penned a three-year contract when Derek McInnes convinced him to remain at Gorgie last summer – but crucially he secured a break clause at the conclusion of the opening year that permits him to tear up his arrangement and head elsewhere.

Now Gers bosses are seeking to capitalise and remain confident they will finally capture the Jambos skipper after years of gossip and conjecture. Discussions are not yet finalised but Rangers are pushing strongly to eventually secure the signature of the devoted fan.

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The development will arrive as a devastating blow to McInnes and the Hearts support, who witnessed Shankland bag 20 goals to carry the Tynecastle outfit to within a whisker of the Premiership crown before enduring a heartbreaking final-day defeat at Parkhead to eventual champions Celtic.

It remains to be seen whether Hearts will respond with a rival bid but they won’t have long with Rangers eager to wrap up the deal swiftly before the break clause lapses. Time is also running out for Shankland, who is currently on holiday and due to link up with Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad this week ahead of Saturday’s Curacao friendly at Hampden, before the 26-man party departs for the World Cup.

Former Gers manager Russell Martin had the opportunity to snap up Shankland on a free transfer last summer but declined.

Sky Sports, HBO Max, Netflix and Disney+ with Ultimate TV package

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Sky has upgraded its Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundle to now include HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu, as well as 135 channels and full Sky coverage of the Premier League and EFL.

Sky broadcasts more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more with at least 215 live from the top flight alongside Formula 1, darts and golf.

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Now it seems new boss Danny Rohl is poised to rectify that mistake, having made Scotland’s 2024 player of the year his top target for this summer.

He appears set to be the first of several Scottish signings, with chairman Andrew Cavenagh confirming last week that the club intends to recruit more Scottish players in the coming weeks.

A woman was allegedly dragged to her death by her neighbour’s pit bulls as her partner desperately tried to stop the ‘brutal’ attack.

Jodi Cowan, 50, is understood to have been attacked as she walked her dog around the area where she lived near Cocoa, Florida, in the early hours of May 19, according to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office’s Animal Services unit.

Her partner, Donnell Smith, told local NBC affiliate WESH that he had returned home at around 1am and found that Cowan and the dog were not there.

He then claimed he heard a distant cry for help and saw the silhouette of two dogs dragging someone along the road. He ran to help her and found her lying in a pool of blood, covered in dog bites.

Smith told the outlet: ‘I pulled my knife out, you know, just swinging with it one hand and holding the blood with the other, trying to stop her from bleeding.’

He then called 911 and his partner was airlifted to hospital, where she later died.

‘It was brutal,’ Smith continued.

‘Seeing the same woman I’ve loved for the last 25-30 years just ripped apart by two animals was just… I’ll never get that image out of my mind.’

Cowan’s father, Martin, told Florida Today: ‘I’m not going to throw stones, but it’s tragic. I have lost my daughter. She was my little girl.’

One of Cowan’s neighbours, Bruce Midkiff, caught the alleged attack on his surveillance camera and handed the video over to police.

He told the Daily Mail that residents of the neighbourhood had had concerns about two pit bulls living nearby, and that multiple reports had been made to the sheriff’s office.

He claimed that in previous incidents last month, one of the dogs cornered his wife in her car and bit another neighbour.

Another neighbour, Scott Chase, told Florida Today that the dogs had made him ‘afraid to leave his house’. ‘They just keep getting loose,’ he said, adding that he had complained about the animals twice.

Smith told WESH that he thinks Cowan was attacked after the pit bulls went after the couple’s smaller dog.

He said his partner may have attempted to rescue her pet before the dogs turned on her.

An investigation into the attack is ongoing.

Owners of violent or dangerous dogs in Florida face serious penalties. If a dog that has previously been declared dangerous attacks someone unprovoked, the owner is considered to have committed a first-degree misdemeanour.

If the attack causes severe injury or death, owners may face second-degree felony charges, fines, and the euthanasia of their pet.

Metro has contacted the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office’s Animal Services unit for comment.

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Jeremy Clarkson is finally selling wine at his Cotswolds pub after relaxing a rule he’s enforced since it opened.

When the 65-year-old opened his Oxfordshire watering hole The Farmer’s Dog in August 2024, he revealed it would “serve exclusively British” items, including several own-brand food and drink products.

One item missing from the menu was wine, but that’s until now – the pub has finally introduced its own British wine range.

“There was a time when English wine was like a child’s recorder playing; you wanted to like it, but it wasn’t very good. Fortunately, that time has gone,” the pub said in a new statement.

“Thanks to warmer summers and expert farming, Britain grows excellent grapes and makes brilliant wine with them,” it continued, before announcing the arrival of Knollbury Fort, “our own range of English wines, created to champion British farming and prove that this country now produces genuinely world-class wine”.

In August 2025, the pub started selling ketchup after a Chatham-based producer made it using solely British ingredients.

Condimaniac ketchup is made of tomato passata from Isle of Wight, apple cider vinegar from Hants, Essex salt, and sugar and onions sourced from Britain.

“Making a 100 per cent British ketchup after Jeremy Clarkson alerted us to the fact there wasn’t one was very hard,” the company’s boss Kier Kemp said in an Instagram video chronicling the sauce’s creation.

“It turned out to be really hard,” he added, noting Clarkson’s Diddly Squat team requested the sauce “as soon as possible”.

Kemp said the company has made two sauces at the same time – one containing carrots and onion “used to thicken” the sauce, as there is no purely British tomato puree.

The move is a big turnaround from Clarkson, considering the former Grand Tour star became so fed up with requests that a sign was put up telling customers to stop asking for the condiment.

Speaking about the products on offer when the pub first opened its doors, Clarkson said: “The menu changes – it’s whatever we’ve got. There’s no Coca-Cola, no coffee. Other pubs do coffee. We do British food.

“Everything that you consume in here – every single thing – even the black pepper and the sugar, is grown by British farmers.”

Diddly Squat, a 1,000-acre holding, is at the centre of Clarkson’s Farm, which follows the TV presenter’s journey as a new farmer and the challenges he faces along the way.

The 64-year-old former Top Gear presenter paid less than £1m for the pub based in Asthall, which was formerly known as The Windmill.

Its opening, however, was marred by complaints surrounding the absence of prices on the menu, with many fans suspecting that this might suggest dishes would be more expensive than at other pubs in the area.

When one person joked on X/Twitter that they would need to remortgage their home to afford a round of drinks at Clarkson’s pub, the presenter bluntly responded: “It’s £5.50 a pint.”

The Premier League comes to an end on Sunday with Arsenal having already won the league, but safety and spots in Europe are still on the line.

Before the final games of the season, we want to test your knowledge of everything that has happened in the 2025-26 campaign.

Try out our quiz to see how much you can remember about this season’s Premier League.

The chaos in the aftermath of China‘s worst mine disaster in 17 years led to a revision in the death toll to 82 ​killed, local officials said at a press conference late on Saturday.

The ‌people died in a gas explosion at the Liushenyu coal mine in China’s northern province of Shanxi late on Friday.

Initially, state media reports said at least 90 people were killed.

Even ​at the lower number, the incident remains China’s deadliest mining accident since 2009, ​when a gas explosion at the Xinxing Mine in Heilongjiang province ⁠killed 108 people.

Local officials said at the press conference the initial death ​toll from state media had been tallied in error.

“After the incident, the scene was ​chaotic, the company’s count of the number of workers was not clear, which led to the initial inaccurate number,” Guo Xiaofang, the head of Shanxi’s Qinyuan county, where the mine ​is located, said.

There were 247 workers on duty underground at the time of ​the explosion.

Two people remained unaccounted for, Mr Guo said, while 128 were injured and hospitalised, and ‌35 ⁠were uninjured.

The Liushenyu mine is owned by Shanxi Tongzhou Coal Coking Group and all four of its mines have been closed and company executives detained, local officials said at the news conference.

State-run newspaper the People’s Daily published an editorial on ​the accident on ​its front page ⁠on Sunday morning, calling for greater attention to safety in production and to “completely reverse the tendency to prioritise development over ​safety”.

President Xi Jinping on Saturday had called for authorities to “spare ​no effort” ⁠in treating the injured and conducting search and rescue operations, according to Xinhua. He also ordered an investigation into the incident.

The mine has a production capacity of ⁠1.2 million ​tons of coal per year, officials said at the ​press conference.

China last year mined 4.83 billion tons of the fuel, which forms the backbone ​of its power sector.

The Agency of Change, which works with 15 to 25-year-olds from underserved communities, is celebrating 13 years of work supporting young people to create projects aimed at improving their local areas.

Over the past decade, the organisation has reached more than 41,000 people across the UK, worked with more than 900 young people and helped launch over 250 youth-led social enterprise projects.

In Bolton, The Agency works alongside the Octagon Theatre and is currently supporting several community-led initiatives developed by young people themselves.

These include Project Breakout, which recreates online games as real-life tournaments to reduce social isolation, and Manny Cutz, which teaches barbering skills to help young people build confidence and employment opportunities.

Other projects include No Blade, which delivers workshops aimed at preventing knife crime, and Newlight Networks, a youth group supporting teenagers coping with addiction while creating a public mural for the community.

The organisation has now become an independent charity, with former participants — known as “Agents” — helping to lead the organisation as trustees.

Cultural leader and author Saad Eddine Said has also been appointed as the new Chair of the Board.

Saad Eddine Said, chair of trustees (Image: OVOGALLERY)

Mr Said said: “Over the past decade, the Agency of Change has shown what happens when young people are trusted with real responsibility and supported to lead.

“The task ahead is to ensure young people’s voices and decision-making become part of the cultural infrastructure of our towns and cities.

“In 13 years’ time, we should see alumni shaping policy, leading institutions and mentoring the next generation.”

Agents talking about their ideas (Image: OVOGALLERY)

Former participant and now trustee Henrietta Imoreh said the programme had transformed her confidence and future.

She said: “Receiving funding and support gave me power for the first time — the power over my story, my project and how I wanted to create change.

“I’m now proud to serve as a trustee, helping to ensure other young people have the same chance to shape their futures and create change.”

The Agency model was originally developed in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro by Brazilian theatre-maker and activist Marcus Faustini, before being brought to the UK through partnerships with Battersea Arts Centre, Contact in Manchester and People’s Palace Projects at Queen Mary University of London.

Mr Faustini said: “The Agency was born from a belief that young people are not problems to be solved but creators of new futures.

“Seeing my idea travel across countries and cultures, and now stand as an independent movement in the UK, is a powerful reminder that creativity and courage can transform communities anywhere.”

The organisation has also recently expanded internationally, helping launch a new programme in Colima, Mexico, where young people are developing projects focused on women’s empowerment, peace-building and preserving cultural heritage.

Mixing sultry pop bangers with unfiltered aggression, Doja Cat defies expectations placed on female performers can do – while delivering an incredible show, writes Greta Simpson

Doja Cat brought the house down at Co-Op Live yesterday (May 23) with an electrifying set that proved she is far from finished pushing the boundaries of what female artists can do on stage.

The Los-Angeles born singer, rapper and producer first gained attention in 2018 with her novelty pop hit MOOO!, rapping ‘b***h I’m a cow, I’m not a cat, I don’t say meow’. This potent cocktail of irony, slight eccentricity and refusal to take herself too seriously that would follow her – and bolster her – throughout her career.

But it was pop albums Hot Pink and Planet Her that brought her commercial pop domination, spawning wildly popular tracks which practically formed the soundtrack to the internet generation during the pandemic and beyond.

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But it was precisely this pop domination that she would come to reject in hindsight. “Hot Pink and Planet Her were cash grabs and y’all fell for it,” she tweeted in May 2023. “Now I can go disappear…while y’all weep for mediocre pop.”

Her next album Scarlet was certainly a departure from her previously hyper-feminine image, instead leaning into rap, whose lyrics showed her grappling with her public persona; and whose imagery was markedly edgier and darker.

So perhaps that’s why the Vie album came as something of a surprise. Last year’s release showed Doja switching things up again, this time to all-out 80s synthpop bangers and ballads, with beautifully-costumed music videos showing the singer looking far less terrifying – in fact straight out of a Covergirl ad.

The accompanying Ma Vie tour has taken her literally all around the world on a mammoth string of dates spanning an entire year. When the star appears at 8:30pm at Co-Op Live, 50 feet above the stage in enormous pointy shoulder pads and a floor-length cape, it’s clear the scale – and the stakes – will be big from the start.

She kicks things off with an acapella rendition of Lipstain, which morphs into La Vie en Rose as she swoops dramatically down to the floor. Red lasers and smoke pulse across the stage over a swirling saxophone solo, heralding the start of the show in earnest as the star struts her way onto a raised stage to perform Cards, accompanied by backing singers and an excellent live band, all clad in shining silver.

She’s been pictured in some eye-popping outfits this tour, and tonight is no exception: blue and yellow spotted tights under a red body suit, shoulder-height blue and brown spotted gloves and a pink feather tail, that we see moving – a lot – throughout the night.

It’s high camp, pantomime-dame-esque, as is the makeup: bright blue lipstick, white eyelids studded with amber gems and, most unusual of all, a set of dentures making her teeth red and bloody.

We start with her bread and butter, pop/rap: Gorgeous, Acts of Service, Couple’s Therapy, All Mine. She flips between impressively dextrous rapping and crooning vocals, riff after delicate riff proving to us all that the mic is on, one moment sultry and vulnerable, the next moment a formidable, magnetic seductress.

There’s little let-up either, in a tightly-packed two-hour show. This woman truly has a stacked roster of anthems that get the packed arena up dancing and shouting along, especially her most viral hits like Boss B***h, Agora Hills, Woman, and Paint the Town Red, these last anthemic raps which ring around the stadium as the crowd screams back every word.

Just a few teasing seconds of Juicy and its shimmering, electronic beat draws rapturous screams from the crowd. Need to Know, a pulsating trap number breathless with sexual tension and desire, is a barnstorming highlight featuring blistering guitar solos as Doja writhes at centre stage.

Then we move on to Streets, another sultry track which she croons to her lover in dramatic silhouette against a bright red background, ending with her lying on the stage as flames and smoke surround her. But then straight away we’re into some of her most aggressive numbers, in an electric and eye-popping set.

Throughout Wet V****a, WYM Freestyle, Demons and Tia Tamera, whose beats are truly menacing, you can scarcely tear your eyes away as she becomes increasingly fervid and wild. Lasers and flares crackle and pop as she drops into splits and acrobatics, crawling and writhing around the stage as if possessed, at points biting the mic stand, singing upside down, pulling macabre faces, swinging the wire around her neck.

It’s raw physicality, using her body not just as an object but as an instrument, an art form. There are moments when she genuinely looks quite frightening.

Then before you know it, we’re back to pop, Doja sitting demurely on the edge of the stage singing heartfelt, hopeful ballads like that interlude ever happened. It’s genuinely refreshing, this flip from vulnerable sensuality into bombast, and also pretty rare, in my opinion, to see a female artist willing to get this naked, raw and messy.

Proceedings draw to an ecstatic close with bulletproof pop hits Say So and Jealous Type, whose blaring synths and soaring crescendo just can’t help but bring the house down. Confetti rains from above, and a bouquet of red roses appears from somewhere, Doja casting them aloft one by one into an adoring crowd.

Suffice it to say, I entered the arena a casual enjoyer of her music and left a card-carrying fan. This is a true artist, a true performer, completely at home on stage and seeming to revel and gain energy in every moment the camera is on her.

I might get pelters here, but with her charisma and sheer versatility, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Madonna, or David Bowie. Admittedly before my time, these were artists who truly seemed to reinvent themselves with every album, and who were constantly trying to push at and test the boundaries of what we’re comfortable with.

So many female artists today – and I don’t blame them one bit for this – maintain a vice-like grip over their image. With social media, it only takes one unflattering photo to fly around the world in seconds and be held over their heads in perpetuity.

So here is a performer who is not afraid to get a little ugly. She seems not to be constrained, as so many women are, by pressure to look palatable and perfect all the time, and she is all the more raw, mesmerising and inspiring for it.

No, the blue lipstick and bloody teeth don’t look pretty, but who cares? Doja Cat has bigger things to worry about – and so should we all.

Shoe brand, Russell & Bromley, was bought by Next for £2.5 million for the brand and intellectual property, with a further £1.3 million for the current stock.

Following the deal, the company closed down 33 stores across the UK, seeing only three saved, in Chelsea, Mayfair and Bluewater in Kent.

But now, Russell & Bromley has returned to the high street, according to Drapers.

Russell & Bromley returns to British high streets

The fashion retailer shares that the shoe brand has reopened in Richmond under new ownership.

Shoe brand Russell & Bromley was founded by George Bromley and Elizabeth Russell in 1879 and is now run by Andrew Bromley.

The brand fell into administration in January, with administrators appointed on January 21, while Next purchased the brand name, domain names, and intellectual property of the shoe retailer.

Following the deal, a statement from Next said, “This acquisition secures the future of a much-loved British footwear brand.

“Next intends to build on this legacy and provide the operational stability and expertise to support Russell & Bromley’s next chapter, allowing it to return to its core mission: the design and curation of world-class, premium footwear and accessories for many years to come.”

UK High Street Shops That No Longer Exist

Andrew Bromley, chief executive of Russell & Bromley, shared at the time, “Following a strategic review with external advisers, we have taken the difficult decision to sell the Russell & Bromley brand.

“This is the best route to secure the future for the brand, and we would like to thank our staff, suppliers, partners and customers for their support throughout our history.”

Will Wright, Interpath’s UK chief executive, said: “Across its 147-year history, Russell & Bromley has been at the forefront of contemporary style.

“We’re pleased therefore to have concluded this transaction, which will preserve the brand and the commitment to quality craftmanship that it has become so well known for.

“Our intention is to continue to trade the remaining portfolio of stores for as long as we can, while we explore the options available.”

Are you happy to see Russell & Bromley back on the high street? Let us know in the comments.

Michaela has been awarded £32,000 by police, but it is understood two other alleged victims of the same perpetrator whose evidence in the same case was also lost, received about £10,000, paid jointly by South Wales Police and Gwent Police – both forces apologised for their failures.