By ELIANA SILVER, SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER

Published: 14:28 BST, 11 September 2026 | Updated: 14:33 BST, 11 September 2026

Norway’s Princess Astrid, an older sister of the late King Harald, died on Friday at the age of 94, the royal palace said in a statement.

Astrid’s brother Harald died last month, aged 89, after more than 35 years on the throne, and the princess made her last public appearance at his funeral on Wednesday.

‘Throughout her long life, Princess Astrid represented the Royal House in a warm and dutiful manner,’ King Haakon VIII said in the statement.

Norway’s Harald V died on August 28 was laid to rest on September 9 in a memorial service that evoked profound displays of raw and unfiltered emotion from typically stoic royals.

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Harald was Europe’s oldest reigning sovereign after Queen Elizabeth II, ruling over Norway for over 35 years.

Harald was being treated for haemolytic anaemia, a disorder that causes red blood cells to be destroyed at an abnormally fast rate. 

Following news of his death, countless mourners descended on the palace in Oslo on Friday in an outpouring of grief – laying flowers and Norwegian flags in his honor.

Harald is succeeded by his son, Haakon VIII, who addressed the nation for the first time since his father’s passing on Saturday.

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Princess Astrid attending the state funeral of King Harald

Princess Astrid attending the state funeral of King Harald

Following Harald’s death, the palace said his health had ‘deteriorated’ after he contracted an infection.

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‘It is with deep grief that we announce that His Majesty King Harald has passed away,’ Norway’s Royal Court said in a statement.

‘King Harald died peacefully at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet, Friday, August 28 at 6.35am.’

King Charles said he had extended his ‘deepest and most heartfelt condolences’ to the Norwegian Royal Family following the death of his ‘dear cousin’.

The pair were second cousins once removed, sharing great-great-grandparents Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark.

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‘As Norway mourns the loss of so towering a figure, my whole family join in remembering a much-loved kinsman and friend whose kindness, compassion and deep sense of duty echoed from across the sea and across the decades,’ King Charles III said.

‘The Queen and I extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Queen Sonja and all her family, as Britain shares in Norway’s grief at this time of such heartbreaking loss.’

 

 

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This is a breaking news story. More to follow. 

By KATRINA SCHOLLENBERGER, US HEAD OF LIVE NEWS

Updated: 14:20 BST, 11 September 2026

Memorial tributes flood in today as the nation remembers the harrowing 9/11 attacks from twenty five years ago.

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes, flying two of them into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Passengers and crew on the fourth plane fought back against the hijackers and crashed the aircraft into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

At least 2,977 died as a result. 

This week, New York City honored the victims of the tragic attacks by recreating the Twin Towers with 2,977 illuminated drones.

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The memorial was developed in collaboration with survivors, victims’ family members and first responders to the scene.

President Trump delivered a speech on Tuesday honoring first responders at the White House at the time of the attacks. 

He recounted a story about how he headed to Ground Zero shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and claimed he was pulled from an unstable building by firefighters. 

Follow the Daily Mail for more updates… 

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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania listen to the national anthem at the Pentagon

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump listen to the national anthem during the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11 attacks at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

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Fire Department of New York (FDNY) firefighters meet next to the reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial

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US politicians come together to honor the fallen

Joe Biden, Laura Bush, George Bush, Michael Bloomberg, JD Vance, US Coast Guard member Matthew Palazzo and Rudy Giuliani honor lives lost during the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum today.

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Joe and Jill Biden in attendance at 9/11 memorial ceremony

Former first lady Jill Biden and former Democratic president Joe Biden look solemn during the September 11 memorial service.

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WATCH: America remembers 9/11

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Former US President George W Bush speaks with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during the memorial service

Bush was in office at the time the attacks happened in 2001.

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Former Democratic presidents seen paying their respects

Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama were all seen paying their respects at the US marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

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Barack and Michelle Obama arrive at NYC’s commemorative memorial service for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

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On 9/11, as America was under attack, the order came: Get every goddamn plane out of the sky. Thirty-eight landed at an obscure airport in Newfoundland. What followed was humanity at its best…

On September 11, 2001, Virgin Airlines flight 75 from Manchester to Orlando, Florida, was taking a very special group of passengers across the Atlantic. Ninety of them were terminally ill children who were fulfilling a lifetime ambition to visit Disney World through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

When they touched down however, the youngsters would have been shocked to look out of their windows and find not Mickey and Minnie waiting to greet them but a squad of grim-faced police surrounding the plane. The officers were taking no chances over who might be on board.

That day – 25 years ago – the Virgin aircraft was the first of 38 packed passenger jets to land at the remote airport of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, as I did this week.

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First responders and mourners arrive at the 9/11 memorial before a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the attacks

Trump lashes out over claim he made up 9/11 rescue story: ‘She’s unattractive inside and out’

Donald Trump is lashing out at critics, saying a personal tale he told about his own experience after 9/11 at Ground Zero is ‘fake.’

The President delivered a speech on Tuesday honoring first responders at the White House. He recounted a story about how he headed to Ground Zero shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and claimed he was pulled from an unstable building by firefighters.

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Critics like California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly labeled the story a ‘lie,’ Rachel Maddow said his story was ‘dubious’ and many online claimed that Trump faked the story.

Trump then took to Truth Social to blast that narrative, and specifically New York Magazine, which published a story claiming that the President told a ‘weird lie about where he was on 9/11.’

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Sat alone on Parliament Square, nervously waiting for the vote, is widower James Marment.

He is clutching a handwritten cardboard sign, which says: ‘My wife died in pain and anxiety in July. She should have had the right to decide how she died.”

His voice cracks with emotion as he tells The Mirror the way his wife Suzie, which he described as her ‘worst nightmare’ – she had been ‘locked in’ her body unable to move, speak or even blink.

He explained how Susie, a radiographer for the NHS for 40 years, from Battersea died of a very rare neurological disease called PML, a virus in the brain which causes ‘every faculty’ to fail.

“Her worst nightmare was to be locked in, being unable to hear and see what was happening and not being able to express herself and that’s what happened to her,” he said.

“She was given tremendous support and care at the Royal Trinity Hospice on Clapham Common but there is nothing they can do with a patient who is losing control over every faculty.

“She was such a caring person, who fundraised for McMillan, and she did not want her family to see her suffer in a way that caused them pain and anxiety. She was always thinking of other people. She was unable to move, to speak or even blink her eyes. We did not wish her to die like that.

“It was very distressing indeed, which is why I am here today. To try and help other people not to have to go through that.

“We knew she wanted to go months before but there was no way she could.

“I was beside her bed with her daughter when she finally died and it was a blessed relief for her and for us.

“She was a magnificent woman, one of life’s lovely people. She should not have had to suffer in that way.”

William Langley’s van crashed into decathlete Brad McStravick – who took part in two Olympic Games in the 1980s – as he road his bike in North Yorkshire.

Just hours earlier Mr McStravick had been told he had overcome cancer after years of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatment, a family statement said.

He was to have travelled to his niece’s wedding the next day.

Kathryn Walters, prosecuting, said the collision happened on a straight road and Langley would have had 16 seconds to see the cyclist but didn’t react.

The B6165 looking in the direction of Burnt Yates (Image: Google Street View)

Mr McStravick was cycling uphill on the B6165 towards Burnt Yates near Harrogate just after 6pm on August 20, 2024 on a route he knew well and had cycled many times.

Langley was behind him in a Ford Transit van and told police he didn’t see Mc McStravick until “he heard a big bang and saw a cyclist come up and over the bonnet,” she said.

A jogger behind the two heard the bang and saw Mr McStravick in the ditch and Langley stop the van and get out.

Mr McStravick was taken to Leeds General Infirmary and died of multiple injuries, ten minutes after his partner of 47 years arrived at his bedside, said Ms Walters.

A forensic collision investigator said the van was unroadworthy, but none of its defects contributed to the collision.

Langley’s solicitor Martin Townend said: “The sun was in his eyes. He just didn’t see the cyclist. The low sun in his eyes is the reason why he didn’t see the cyclist.”

Deputy district judge Nicholas Hayles told Langley the sun in his eyes meant he should have slowed down or stopped.

“You need to see where you are going and clearly Mr McStravick was there to be seen. Maybe it was difficult to see him, but you were driving a van with a responsibility to see where you were going,” he said.

Langley, 38, who lives on a road above Pateley Bridge, pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving. He was given a 26-week prison sentence suspended for two years, fined £500 and ordered to pay a £154 statutory surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.  He was banned from driving for two years.

As he left court, he said his advice to any driver with the sun in their eyes was to: “Slow down and stop.” He said he had sent a letter of apology to Mr McStravick’s family to the court and had nothing more to say.

Mr Townend said Langley had himself been a cyclist but had given up because of the collision.

“He has thought about it everyday since it happened,” he said.

He had neurodivergent issues and was being treated by his GP for depression and anxiety.

He had no previous convictions and the collision had been the result of a momentary lapse.  There was no suggestion he had been speeding or on his mobile phone at the time of the collision.

Mr McStravick was 68 when he died.  As a decathlete, he was part of the Great Britain team at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games, and the Scottish team at the 1982 and 1986 Commonwealth Games. After retiring from competition he coached young athletes, including York Olympian and 400m runner Richard Buck.

Figures in the North Yorkshire Council post-implementation review show that Settle College’s Year 7 cohort fell from 93 pupils in 2025/26 to 67 in 2026/27 — a reduction of 26 pupils, or around 28 per cent.

Following the publication of the review this week, the school’s governing body has announced that it will fund transport for eligible pupils from communities including Bentham, Ingleton, Burton in Lonsdale and surrounding catchment areas.

The scheme will apply to pupils starting in September 2027 whose applications are submitted by October 31, and will continue for future intakes.

The college has also said eligible families of pupils who joined Year 7 this month and are currently paying transport costs will be reimbursed.

Headteacher Gareth Whitaker said governors had acted because any changes resulting from the council review would not take effect in time for September 2027 admissions.

“We want families to be able to choose their local school without transport costs becoming a deciding factor,” he said.

The council review found that the proportion of the school’s Year 7 pupils eligible for free home-to-school transport had fallen from 63.8 per cent in 2023/24 to 47.8 per cent in 2026/27.

At the same time, the proportion of transported Year 7 pupils using paid travel arrangements rose from 1.4 per cent in June 2025 to 18.6 per cent in May 2026.

Mr Whitaker is due to address councillors when the post-implementation review is considered next week to explain the impact on schools and rural communities.

The college will also explain the new transport offer at its open evening on Thursday, October 1, from 6pm to 8pm.

The review says Settle was the exception among four secondary-school case studies, with cohort sizes at the other schools remaining broadly stable.

It adds that the fall at Settle could be linked to greater awareness of the new transport policy in its second year, although it stresses that other admissions factors may also be involved and says further monitoring is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.

The report also suggests the policy may be influencing parental choice.

The proportion of Settle College’s Year 7 cohort choosing the school when it was their catchment school but not their nearest school fell from 31.9 per cent in 2024/25 to 17.2 per cent in 2025/26 and 13.4 per cent in 2026/27.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani shook hands with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani as families, mourners and politicians gathered at the site of the September 11 attacks, 25 years after the devastation.

Mamdani, who was 9 years old and in his fourth grade classroom on the Upper West Side when the World Trade Center was hit, has faced an avalanche of anti-Muslim rhetoric and pleas from right-wing critics, including Giuliani, to avoid this week’s 9/11 ceremonies.

They could be seen briefly chatting and shaking hands before they each parted ways at the solemn ceremony in lower Manhattan.

The city’s first Muslim mayor has steered this week’s commemorative events to ensure focus remains on the families, victims, first responders and the city’s recovery, and his office released thousands of never-before-seen documents that appeared to reveal that Giuliani’s administration and subsequent mayors knew the dangers of the toxic aftermath despite assuring the public of lower Manhattan’s safety.

Giuliani, once seen as “America’s mayor” in the wake of the attacks, has spent the last several years in courtrooms across the country battling criminal indictments, bankruptcy and a defamation lawsuit surrounding the 2020 presidential election as he became consumed by baseless conspiracy theories.

The 82-year-old former mayor joined pleas from right-wing figures calling on Mamdani to avoid Friday’s memorial. Giuliani has said his presence “offends” him and claimed Mamdani is “disturbing the people who are the most important people at that celebration.”

“He stands in direct support of the movement that killed their children,” Giuliani said. “You’d have to be a fool to resist that.”

Twenty-five years ago, a commercial airliner hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, the first of four attacks on September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people and set in motion a series of profoundly world-changing events.

Mourning Americans are gathering across the country and at the site of the attacks for a familiar annual ritual: reading the names of the people who were killed at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania.

A ceremony at the site of the Twin Towers began with a tolling bell and a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, hit the 96th floor of the skyscraper.

More moments of silence will follow to recognize the moment a second plane struck the building when the towers collapsed, when the Pentagon was hit, and when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back against the plane’s hijackers.

All living former presidents will attend the Manhattan ceremony, along with Vice President JD Vance.

President Donald Trump, however, will not attend, purportedly because he is not allowed to deliver remarks. The president will attend a ceremony at the Pentagon.

But for the first time, the ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum will hold a seventh moment of silence to honor people who died from illnesses related to the attacks.

This week, more than 170,000 pages of newly released records, never before shown to the public, revealed that New York City officials knew of potential dangers from exposure to Ground Zero toxins despite repeated assurances to the public that the air was safe to breathe.

Over the two decades that followed, thousands of first responders and other New Yorkers developed lung disease, neurological illnesses and cancers linked to expansive recovery efforts and their lives in the shadow of the attack, as clouds of chemicals, cement dust, asbestos and other toxic debris lingered in the air and in buildings.

According to the World Trade Center Health Program, more than 9,000 people have died from 9/11-related illnesses, including 600 firefighters — exceeding the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks themselves and the more than 300 firefighters who died in the rescue efforts.

In Shanksville, mourners will read the names of the passengers and crew members of Flight 93, on which passengers fought back against four hijackers and forced the plane away from Washington, D.C., averting what was expected to be another devastating attack on the nation’s capital.

Elliot Anderson opted to sign for Manchester City over Manchester United this summer and then lit the blue touch paper ahead of the first derby of the season.

Not content with making his preference for a move to the Etihad over Old Trafford clear this summer, Elliot Anderson opted to stir the pot on arrival at Manchester City and ensure the reception he receives on the first derby day of the season will be more than a little spicy.

Anderson was United’s top target for a midfield vacancy this summer and he was admired on his last visit to Old Trafford, when he shone for Nottingham Forest towards the end of last season. But his £116million fee proved too steep in a summer when United had to rebuild their midfield and the England international wanted to move to City anyway.

Keen to win over new friends at the Etihad, he used an interview on the club’s official website to take a potshot at United, which is always a sure-fire winner amongst City supporters and staff. He called his new club the “kings of Manchester,” a remark which didn’t go unnoticed at United.

Anderson was pointing out that City had held the whip hand in this fixture “for as long as I’ve known”, which isn’t exactly inaccurate but will also fan the flames ahead of Sunday’s Old Trafford showdown.

It was a remark that United head coach Michael Carrick was never going to agree with. Carrick won his first game in charge against Pep Guardiola’s City in January, but he is aware the tide has turned since his playing days, when he won 17 of his 31 derbies, losing just three.

“I’m definitely not using that phrase at all, no,” said Carrick, when Anderson’s jibe was put to him, but he did go on to deliver a more balanced appraisal of how United are trying to claw their way back up towards clubs like their cross-town rivals.

“I understand it, and I think going into the Champions League game and talking about the expectation there, I think it’s a really good thing that it’s shifted in a way, and all of a sudden there are different things asked of us now to maybe what was a few months ago, and we’re in the Champions League.

“That in itself shows the steps we’ve made, and we need to be in the later stages of that, and then the expectations around that. We know that, and we’re humble enough and realistic enough to know where we’ve come from in recent history, and we need to, and we want to be better, and we want to be challenging more. So that’s where we’re at.

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t and we won’t. It means we still hope, we believe, and we expect that we can be and we should be, but I understand the bigger picture.”

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A Singaporean chief executive has failed in his bid to recover thousands of dollars that he spent on luxury gifts for his ex-girlfriend during their relationship.

Chander Agarwal sued his ex-girlfriend Felicia Lee to recover $370,000 he spent on luxury gifts from brands such as Hermes, Dior and Prada to first class flight tickets.

Mr Agarwal, who is the chief executive of listed logistics company TCI Express, met Ms Lee during a flight in 2019. Ms Lee is a former flight attendant and later worked as an insurance agent and medical sales officer, the court was told.

The pair were in a relationship from September 2022 to December 2023. The couple parted ways after Mr Agarwal suspected Ms Lee of infidelity.

Mr Agarwal filed the lawsuit in March 2024, arguing that the gifts were loans that had to be repaid.

The Singapore High Court this week dismissed the case, saying that most of the sums were gifts that Mr Agarwal had “willingly” given to Ms Lee and couldn’t be considered loans.

Mr Agarwal said he paid S$206,000 ($162,491) on credit card bills, S$129,000 ($101,754) on foreign trips, S$20,000 ($15,775) on her annual life insurance premium, a university programme and S$17,000 ($13,409)on a feng shui master to “spiritually harmonise” Ms Lee’s flat, the court heard.

Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin said Mr Agarwal “displayed a consistent pattern of showering [Lee] with lavish gifts” even before they were involved in a romantic relationship and assured her that he did not expect repayment.

Ms Lee argued that the gifts were given to her “out of love and affection” and not as loans.

Mr Agarwal produced a handwritten agreement with both of their signature to support his claim, which Ms Lee denied signing.

The judge said Mr Agarwal’s case lacked documentary evidence as he could not produce any proof that Ms Lee had acknowledged receipt of the loans she allegedly requested.

“It is incredible that for a relationship that lasted for more than a year with so many WhatsApp messages exchanged between them, the claimant could not point to any written evidence to support his case,” the judge said.

“The evidence before me clearly shows that the claimant, smitten by the defendant, had showered her with expensive gifts during their relationship,” the judge added.

“Unfortunately, when their relationship ended on a sour note, [Mr Agarwal] became embittered and was determined to extract a price from her.”

The judge also noted that Mr Agarwal was “clearly a man of ample means who has expensive tastes”, in contrast to Ms Lee.

“It is also inherently incredible that the defendant, with her relatively modest salary, would repeatedly borrow such significant sums to spend on luxury items,” the judge added.

In the judgement, the judge quoted the famous The Mourning Bride: “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.”

He said: “This case shows that such emotion is not the sole province of one gender.”

In 2023, another Singaporean man had filed two lawsuits to recover S$3m ($2.3m) from a woman who rejected his romantic advances, BBC reported.

National Rail has provided advice on people travelling on CrossCountry, Greater Anglia and Great Northern trains.

Advice for CrossCountry customers:

Tickets will be accepted on:

• The two CrossCountry services operating before and after your cancelled service
• Thameslink services between Peterborough and Hitchin connecting in to Great Northern services between Hitchin and Cambridge
• EMR services between Ely and Peterborough
• Greater Anglia services between Ely and Stansted Airport

Advice for Greater Anglia customers:

• Trains are unable to run between Thetford and Cambridge North;
• Trains between Ipswich and Peterborough have been suspended.

For people travelling between Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Peterborough, they are told to travel to Cambridge, change on a Thameslink train to Stevenage and then board a train at Stevenage to Peterborough.

Advice for Great Northern customers:

All lines are blocked between Cambridge and Kings Lynn. National Rail “strongly advises” delayed journeys between these stations until late.

Tickets will be accepted on the following services:

• Thameslink and Great Northern services between London stations, Cambridge, and Ely
• Greater Anglia services between London Liverpool Street, Cambridge, and Ely
• London Underground services between London Terminals