President Donald Trump on Friday claimed to have “banned” three of the country’s most prominent news outlets from the White House, taking a page from authoritarian leaders by attempting to limit coverage of his administration by legitimate journalists as his and his party’s popularity continue to crumble as the midterm elections approach.

Writing on Truth Social, the president said he would “effective immediately” be “banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW … and Politico … from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.”

“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,” he added.

All of the outlets mentioned by the president are legitimate and reputable news organizations with long histories of aggressive and independent reporting under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

It’s unclear what, if anything, specifically led to the president’s outburst, but Trump has had a years-long feud with CNN dating back to his first campaign for the presidency and his first term in the White House. And in an unrelated Oval Office press availability, he doubled down shortly after.

The president launched into a lengthy rant in the Oval Office in which he repeated a bogus claim that Politico had received a subsidy from the Biden administration — actually subscription revenues from government agencies — and suggested that other outlets could also face similar fates if they do not write positive stories about his administration.

“Something is wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” the president said. “If they want to write them, that’s fine. I don’t have to let them into the people’s house.

“They purposely write negative news, and they do that because want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,” he continued. “And honestly, we’ve done a fantastic job.

“Look at the numbers. Look at the economic numbers. We have more money coming into our country today than ever before, we have the highest employment that we’ve ever had in history … we have the best poverty rate, the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country, and people are making more money today than they ever had.”

The president does not actually possess the authority to arbitrarily ban entire outlets from the White House based on the content those outlets publish.

Not only does the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protect the right of journalists to report without government interference, but a 1977 District of Columbia Circuit Court case, Sherill v. Knight, states that “bona fide journalists” cannot be denied access to White House press facilities except in cases when a journalist seeking a press credential to enter the White House “presents a potential source of physical danger to the President and/or his immediate family so serious as to justify his exclusion.”

That decades-old precedent was upheld during Trump’s first term after he attempted to revoke the credentials of CNN’s then-chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and later a columnist for Playboy, Brian Karem, for behavior the White House considered to be inappropriate.

In both cases, the DC Circuit Court upheld lower court orders directing the White House to restore both journalists’ White House press passes.

“If President Trump means to expel these news organizations from the White House press pool, his action is doubly unconstitutional because the press pool is a ‘public forum’ under the First Amendment, which means the president can’t exclude journalists from it on the basis of their viewpoints,” Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told the New York Times.

Trump has nonetheless pushed to punish news outlets by restricting their access to the White House during his second term.

Last year, his administration seized control of the press pool that had for decades been organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association in order to punish the Associated Press for refusing to change its’ widely used style guide to reflect his administration’s attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

His handpicked Pentagon boss, ex-Fox News presenter turned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has instituted sweeping restrictions on the Pentagon’s own press corps that led nearly every legitimate media outlet covering the Defense Department to turn in their credentials.

It is not clear whether anyone from the White House has attempted to enforce the president’s purported “ban” on CNN, MSNOW and Politico.

As of Friday afternoon, CNN’s press workspace was fully staffed and multiple camera and sound technicians from the network were present on the White House campus.

“CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting. We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government,” the network said in a statement.

“Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

CNN star Jake Tapper took to X on Friday evening and slammed Trump for the ban attempt.

“Less than an hour after @KristenhCNN did this report about the WH announcement of lower drug prices, President Trump complained CNN would never cover such a thing and banned us from the White House. In addition to being unconstitutional, it’s so ill-informed,” he wrote.”

In a statement, Politico said it “will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them. The claims that POLITICO received government subsidies are false and have been thoroughly debunked.”

Asked how he could justify attempting to ban news outlets when he has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, Trump replied: “Because they’re fake news, and you get so tired of reading and seeing fake news.”

Very little of what the president said was actually accurate. For one, the highest-ever recorded U.S. employment rate was 64.7 percent, 26 years ago in April 2000.

Asked about his prior attempts to ban individual reporters, Trump suggested a different judge would have been more amenable to his authoritarian push to restrict a free press.

“To be honest with you, I don’t think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day, I think that somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time,” he said.

He continued complaining that the coverage of his administration by legitimate news organizations is not fawning in the manner practiced by Breitbart News and other partisan outlets.

When a reporter attempted to ask Sanders — who was actually in the Oval Office for the event in her new role as Governor of Arkansas — whether she agreed with Trump’s push to ban entire news organizations, he interjected and repeated himself.

“I don’t think somebody should be allowed to come in and write fake stories, fake news, and that’s why they have no credibility,” he said.

“They never write a good story … it’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house.”

He also complained that two of the nation’s largest papers — The New York Times and The Washington Post — were “fake” and “disgusting,” but he did not indicate that he would attempt to bar their reporters from the White House.

Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement: “A ban like this would be flatly unconstitutional. The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can’t ban others because it doesn’t like their reporting.”

Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents Association, also addressed the ban.

“The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a “ban on the free press.” The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.

“This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office. The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and Politico who are being singled out for doing their jobs.”

Charles Spencer accused the King of making a comment about Diana after her death

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Earl Spencer has defended his comments in the memoir about his sister, saying he is “telling the truth”.

Charles Spencer, the brother of late Princess Diana, made a damning allegation in the memoir about his sister. He claimed the King had said “we’ll forget her soon enough” when Diana died.

The memoir prompted an “unprecedented” response from Buckingham Palace, which said that the “pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.

But in an extract of an interview with the BBC, Earl Spencer questioned whether the official response showed if the King was furious or embarrassed by the claim.

Speaking about an alleged row over Diana’s funeral arrangements involving her sons, the earl said: “(The King) went ballistic, would be the right term, and started really going for my family as a whole, about their sense of duty, not being adequate enough, and ranted for a while, I have no idea how long, but it was a significant period, and I just listened.

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“And then he stopped, and I thought, ‘Oh now he’s going to pull himself together and say something more appropriate’.

“And then he said, ‘We’ll forget her soon enough’.” Earl Spencer was questioned by broadcaster Laura Kuenssberg, who asked what he was thinking at that moment.

Diana’s brother replied: “I really was so stunned, and I just, after a stunned silence, I said, ‘I cannot believe you just said that’, and I hung up on him.”

Charles is said to have made the comments about his ex-wife in a row with the earl over whether the then Prince William and Prince Harry should follow Diana’s funeral cortege.

The earl says in his book – Swan Song: Diana, My Sister – he insisted to the then Prince of Wales that his sister would not have wanted her boys to make the difficult public walk behind her coffin, it is claimed.

The memoir is being serialised in the Daily Mail which says the book has been written to correct “untruths” told about his older sister, who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997.

During the telephone conversation, Charles told the earl he had walked in the funeral procession of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, it is claimed.

But the King “went nuts” when the earl pointed out that Charles had been 30 at the time of Lord Mountbatten’s funeral in 1979, it is alleged.

In response to the claims made in the memoir a Buckingham Palace spokesman said on Wednesday: “While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”

Asked about Buckingham Palace’s response to his claims, Earl Spencer told the BBC: “Is he (the King) furious, or is he embarrassed? Because I can tell you, here and now, those are exactly the words he said.

“I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life.

“I was hyper-alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words he said, and I promise that to you now, genuinely, that is what he said.”

Asked whether he has “evidence” of the King’s comments, the earl told the BBC: “I told friends and family straight away, close friends and family, about what had been said, because it was so monstrous.”

He added: “I’m telling the truth.”

In the latest serialisation extract of the book Diana’s brother describes the day of her funeral, writing: “I could not get over how tiny, and slight, and bereft, Harry looked.

“Too small to be doing this, I thought, and wondered how on earth this heartbroken child could bear the ordeal of that moment, or how he could possibly be expected to deal with the agony that the day ahead would insist upon.”

In a 2017 interview with Newsweek Harry said about Diana’s funeral: “My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television.

“I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.” The memoir also claims the King sounded “giddily elated… like a lottery winner” when he rang the earl following Diana’s death.

In other passages of the book, the earl spoke of how his sister drove “more than once” to the cliffs at Beachy Head in East Sussex and was “contemplating ending it all”, adding that “her love for her sons stopped her from going further”.

The excerpt later goes on to claim that Diana told her brother “my husband is in love with his valet” after telling him she was going to get divorced.

The full interview with Laura Kuenssberg will be on BBC iPlayer on Sunday from 4pm and on BBC One at 6.30pm.

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The red-brick cottage where my mum and dad grew old stands alone in fields at the point where the Cheshire Plain thinks about rising towards the Peak District. 

A clump of oaks loiters to the west in the middle-distance. The River Dean burbles busily beyond the confines of the cottage’s little walled garden.

A lifetime ago, before my son was born, my wife and I would make the journey up from London and stop the car at the end of the driveway so my daughters could race down to the front door, ring the bell and squeal with delight when my parents feigned astonishment that their two angels had appeared out of nowhere.

My dad died during the Covid pandemic and at the end of 2024, my mum, who played Emily Nugent, later Emily Bishop, in Coronation Street for 56 years, moved to a home for retired actors, actresses, directors, producers and musicians on the north-west outskirts of London. 

She is happy there. She will be 95 next month.

The week after I drove her away from Kennel Cottage, I went back to deal with what was left behind. My parents were hoarders. 

They reached the stage where my dad refused to throw away aluminium foil bottle tops from pints of milk and my mum was seized with anxiety whenever I visited lest I tried to throw away some of the old newspapers that stood in solemn piles, like sentries, at every turn in every room.

Eileen Derbyshire as Emily Bishop (L) and Betty Driver as Betty Turpin (R) in Coronation Street

Oliver Holt and his mother in her cottage a few years ago

The house was stuffed with the story of our lives. I found all my old exercise books from King’s School, Macclesfield, all my old football jerseys.

I opened a suitcase and found cuttings of every article I had ever written for The Times, The Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail. 

Mum had snipped them all out with her trusty pair of big silver scissors.

Even though my kids had grown up, my parents had never dismantled the brightly coloured toy house that sat in one corner of their dining room and had provided hours and hours of joy as an imaginary cafe from which my daughters served imaginary lunches.

My younger daughter had drawn a picture of the globe on a page of Coronation Street script paper, and written on it: ‘Best Cafe in the World’ and it had been stuck to the kitchen door with a piece of Sellotape for nearly 20 years.

I located The Beatles autographs that John, Paul, George and Ringo signed when Mum met them at Granada TV when their superstardom was in its infancy. Mum kept them in a concealed drawer that could only be opened by reaching into another drawer and pressing a hidden lever.

There was a lot of brown furniture. An auctioneer arrived. He told me no one buys brown furniture any more. I hired skip after skip after skip for it and for the mountains of bedding, clothing, papers, books and bric-a-brac that spilled from the cottage’s every pore. For a few months, I became Cheshire Demolition’s best customer.

It sounds melodramatic, I know, but there were times when I stood by the side of one of those skips, holding a well-thumbed road atlas that had been my dad’s bible or my mum’s old dressing gown or the place mats we had laid out on our dining room table during my childhood, the ones with impressionist paintings of Montmartre and Notre-Dame on them, and froze.

They were time machines that transported me back 50 years. I am an only child and I was holding things my parents had treasured in my hands. 

Now I was betraying them. I apologised out loud to my dead father and my absent mother for what I was about to do. ‘Sorry Dad, sorry Mum,’ I said, as I hurled something else they had loved into the bright yellow abyss.

I opened armies of albums and gazed at battalions of faded black-and-white photographs of relatives I did not recognise and family friends I did not know and wondered if another human being would ever look upon their faces again.

Eileen cut out and kept every article Oliver had ever written for The Times, The Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail

The Coronation Street girls visit Majorca: Top Row: Betty Turpin (Betty Driver), Annie Walker (Doris Speed),Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander) Bottom Row: Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire), Deirdre Hunt (Anne Kirkbride), Mavis Riley (Thelma Barlow),Rita Littlewood (Barbara Knox)

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The thing that haunted me most was my dad’s handsome old desk. We always called it ‘Karl’s Desk’ as it had been bequeathed him by a Swiss friend and Dad had, somehow, managed to strap it to his Land Rover in the 1950s and shepherd it back from Interlaken to Stockport. 

In my mind, this feat had assumed such epic proportions that I imagined it as a scene from the epic movie Fitzcarraldo.

But I didn’t have any space for Karl’s Desk at home. I felt I was being dreadfully disloyal to my dad when I persuaded the auctioneer to take it away. I felt like I had let him down one last time. It sold in the Macclesfield branch of the auction house for £50.

It was when I moved into the garage that I found the Coronation Street scripts. They were crammed tightly into cardboard boxes that had been brought with us from house to house over the years. 

There were reams and reams and reams of them. Some were typed on pages of light blue, some on pages of off-white.

The later ones had ‘Eileen Derbyshire’ printed in capitals across every page. Derbyshire was my mum’s maiden name and her stage name. The dialogue and stage directions leapt up at me. They read like the transcript of my mum’s life.

She brought Emily home through her good times and bad times, too. In January 1978, when I was 11, Emily’s husband, Ernest Bishop, was shot and killed in a wages snatch at Baldwin’s Casuals.

Now, suddenly, I found myself staring at a blue page dated 20.12.77, the script for the episode that dealt with Emily’s grief in the aftermath of the murder. I turned the page over. 

‘Emily is coming downstairs,’ the direction said. ‘Her face is a mask. She moves woodenly, mechanically. As she reaches the hall, a couple of letters, circulars drop through the letter box.’ I moved on to the first page of dialogue.

Bet Lynch is in the bar of the Rovers Return, talking to Fred Gee. ‘Come on, cock,’ she says. ‘Get them crates up, eh?’

I was uneasy with my mum’s fame. I have always been very proud of her and everything she stands for but when I was a kid, I was embarrassed by her celebrity. When Ernie was shot, a lot of the older kids at my school had a field day. 

They’d come up to me, heads bowed in faux solemnity. ‘So sorry to hear about your dad,’ they’d say. ‘My sincere condolences.’

A few times, Mum took me to the Granada studios, where the show was filmed. I’m biased, of course, but she was unfailingly kind and generous and everybody loved her. And so the make-up girls made a fuss of me, too, and the people in the wardrobe department treated me like a little prince and the rest of the cast greeted me like an old buddy.

I went into the Rovers and sat in a corner while a scene was being filmed. Julie Goodyear, who played Bet Lynch, came over to give me a hug. She was wearing one of her leopard-print outfits with a plunging neckline.

I was a shy seven-year-old. I didn’t know where to look. But, mainly, I thought being on set was a bit boring. They went through take after take until the director was satisfied. It took for ever.

At Christmas, there was always a present under the tree for me from Betty Driver, who played Betty Turpin, and her sister Freda. 

Sometimes, we’d drive over the Pennines to Shipley to have lunch with Bryan Mosley, who played Alf Roberts, and his family. But Mum was emphatically not a party person. As she grew older, she withdrew from anything approaching public life.

So we tended not to go on fancy holidays or city breaks where there were lots of people. Mainly, we went to the Scottish Highlands, where we could take our dogs on long walks through the bracken. 

My mum was a serial pet rescuer. By the time I was in my early teens, we had five dogs, including a three-legged Afghan hound, and seven cats.

People who cared for animals, my mum thought, were the best of people. When I go to visit her now, I take our dog, Meryl, with us. 

Meryl is named after Meryl Streep. She is a greyhound-whippet cross who was left in a bucket on a doorstep with the rest of the litter and rescued by the RSPCA. Mum very much approves of Meryl.

Pictured: After finding out that a very ill Emily (Eileen Derbyshire) is home alone, Richard (Brian Capron) goes to visit. She falls asleep while he is there – will he decide to solve all he financial worries and kill her, in this episode of Coronation Street

Mum was nothing like strait-laced Emily, whose default expression was a worried frown and whose character was defined by jilting Mr Swindley at the altar, losing Ernie and marrying a bigamist called Arnold Swain.

Mum was warm and loving and funny. She was a brilliant mimic. She made sure I knew how much I was loved and she has been unfailingly generous to me and my wife and her grandchildren. I owe her and my dad everything.

I kept going back to the cottage and hiring more skips. I found more boxes with more scripts packed inside. Some were in the rafters, some concealed under musty blankets, or crammed into a battered wardrobe.

Some kept close company with the old Strepsils tins, full of thousands and thousands of rusted nuts and bolts and screws that my dad had saved for a day that never came.

I knew I couldn’t add the scripts to the skip list. They were too precious. An idea started to form in my mind.

There were other mementos, too. I found a shoe box full of postcards sent to me by Margot Bryant, the actress who played Minnie Caldwell, when I was a child. 

Margot was one of my mum’s best friends in the show and she sent me a card wherever she travelled. Pictures of Venice and Nice and Paris and Lisbon emerged from that box with Margot’s neat, copper-plate writing on the back of every one.

There were invitations to Coronation Street’s 30th and 40th anniversary parties. My mum kept the invitations but never attended the parties.

There was a sweatshirt with ‘Free the Weatherfield One’ printed on the front, a relic of a storyline in which Anne Kirkbride’s character, Deirdre Rachid, was wrongly imprisoned.

Hidden away in a careworn trunk with broken hinges, a green Post-it note affixed to a clear plastic bag with a garment inside said: ‘Coat worn by Miss Nugent in early days of the Street.’

My younger daughter and I teased it gingerly out of that bag last week and held it up to the light. It was knee-length and charcoal grey and the label said Aquascutum. I half expected it to fall apart but it remained intact.

And finally, there were the letters. Bags and bags of fan mail, forwarded on by Granada and put away until Mum could answer them.

Author Mel Hutchwright (Sir Ian McKellen) moves in with Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) and Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden) in this episode of Corrie

My mum was like Superwoman to me. She worked in Coronation Street, she looked after me, she and my dad looked after my grandma when she fell ill, she made my meals, she came to my school parents’ evenings, she was the bread-winner in our family. The fan letters, asking for an autographed photo, were the only thing that defeated her.

She wanted to find the time to answer them, but instead they sat there reproaching her. I knew that the guilt of not replying to them tormented her so I took a bag of those letters home with me and thought I’d try to fix it. I found some photos that my mum had autographed and began to reply to those letters that had included stamp-addressed envelopes.

Many of them were 20 years old. Some of them were from people who wanted an autograph for a sick relative. Some were from ardent schoolkids. It tore at me just like it had torn at my mum. Many of the people who sent the letters would have moved by now. Some of them would have died.

But it was worth a try. Mum did everything for me and I have done very little for her. She was pleased when I told her what I had done but I still have no idea if anyone received those replies they had been waiting decades for.

Then there was the other idea: the pages and pages of script. What about giving some of those away? I didn’t want to do anything on a large scale that might upset ITV, which had always treated Mum with great respect. 

I didn’t want to make any money out of the scripts. I just wanted to help Mum get rid of the regret she felt about not answering more of those letters.

So I put a post on X explaining what I wanted to do and said I’d send out a couple of pages of script to each of the first five people who replied. I was inundated. It was beautiful to be inundated. Ten years after she left Coronation Street, it was a joy to be reminded there is still an awful lot of love for my mum out there.

I learnt a long time ago that Coronation Street Twitter is a kinder, gentler place than football Twitter. In my job as a sports writer, much of what I post on X is met with a stream of invective and abuse. Coronation Street Twitter is an island of peace and love on social media.

I got more than five replies. I got hundreds, some inquiring warmly after my mum, some containing lovely recollections from former cast members, some asking to take me up on the offer of a couple of pages of script and telling the story of their devotion, either to my mum in particular or the programme in general.

I bought a job-lot of hard-backed envelopes, asked my respondents to message me their addresses, gathered sheets of different scripts from different eras and sent a couple of pages to as many people as I could. It didn’t take long and it didn’t cost much. It was a small thing.

After the pages of scripts arrived at their destinations, I received a series of lovely acknowledgements.

Some people said they were going to get them framed and give them to their mum for Christmas, one man said they were to be a gift for his dying father, others said that the scripts and the dialogue took them back to their own childhoods, sitting in front of the television with their families, back to what seem now like more simple times.

I enjoyed the next time I went to the care home. I took some old pictures of the Coronation Street cast with me and we talked about old times and Mum’s old friends and colleagues. Meryl came, too, of course. She takes on the role of celebrity visitor when we visit now.

Mum and I talked about my teenage son and how he had played Don Lockwood in a production of Singin’ In The Rain and how he had performed in a play at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I reminded her the family acting gene had skipped a generation with me but that she has passed it on to him.

Then I told Mum about the scripts and the outpouring of love for her and a smile creased her face.

I told her about the people who said they were going to get their scripts framed and how much it had meant to them and how keen they were to send their best wishes to her.

Then someone came to take her to lunch and led her past the pictures of Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier that hang on the wall, next to the old theatre programmes and lampoons.

And when I got home, I delved into one of those boxes of scripts myself, picked out one with Emily Bishop’s name on it, and began to read.

With Oasis set to come to Scotland, it’s worth remembering this

Police Scotland has some much-needed advice for anyone buying concert tickets in the UK – and it’s worth heeding, with major artists like Oasis and Harry Styles set to tour next year.

Because of this, fans are being warned to stay alert as ticket scams could catch people out without them realising until they’re at the venue. In a blog post, Police Scotland warns that concerts, festivals and sporting events are prime targets for scammers.

It explains that ticket fraud can occur when people buy from fake websites, touts, or social media. Fans are being urged never to purchase tickets via social media for this reason – no matter how much they want to see their favourite artist – as it could mean handing over money and receiving nothing in return.

Directing people to Cyber Fraud Centre, it explains “common tactics” include:

• Advertising on social media, messaging apps, email, text messages or fake websites.
• Using URLs that look similar to real vendor sites but are in fact fake copied sites.
• Claiming to be a “fan” or “friend” reselling spare tickets.
• Requesting payment via bank transfer or unconventional methods.
• Offering to have a “representative” meet in-person to deliver tickets.

Other precautions include:

• Never transfer money directly to an individual’s account via a bank transfer.
• If paying via Paypal, don’t be talked into using the ‘friends and family’ option, removing buyer protection and the option of a refund.
• If an option, use a credit card for extra purchase protection.
• Check website security features like https:// and site contact details for clues on website legitimacy.
• Be wary of offers for sold-out events at drastically reduced prices.
• Research unfamiliar resellers and check their online reviews.

I’ve bought tickets and I think it’s a scam

If you suspect you have been a victim of fraud, report it immediately to Police Scotland by calling 101 and contact your bank to prevent further unauthorised transactions.

If you arrive at the event and your tickets are rejected as fraudulent, do not attempt to use them, as it could cause further issues. Calmly explain the situation to venue staff and request that they document the issue and take possession of the fake tickets.

After this, the Cyber Fraud Centre suggest:

• Report any fraud to Police Scotland by calling 101.
• Gather all documentation like emails, messages sent, phone numbers, receipts, and fake tickets.
• Contact your bank and initiate a fraud claim for any losses if paid via bank or credit card.
• Report the scam website or seller to the appropriate hosting platforms.

When does Oasis come to Glasgow?

Oasis Live ‘27 will see the iconic band play 38 shows, with Scottish fans getting five nights in Glasgow. They will play in Celtic Park on May 21, 23, 25, 28 and 29.

If you can’t get tickets in Scotland, they will also play Manchester’s Etihad Stadium on June 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 25 and 26. You can find out more about Oasis in Glasgow here.

Other major artists set to play in the UK include Harry Styles, with the singer set to play in London’s Wembley Stadium on August 25, 27 and 28 next year. Tickets for Harry Styles are now on sale.

Scam support

Police Scotland notes that you can get support from other organisations:

Owen Cork, 25, send naked photos of himself to what appeared to be children under 16 years old

A paedophile who was found with indecent images and sent naked photos of himself to what appeared to be children told police he had been hacked when they came to arrest him.

Owen Cork, 25, of Newport, was visited by the police on October 15 last year at the home he shared with his partner and young child, after intelligence was received that a Snapchat account linked to him had uploaded indecent images of children.

A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday heard a search was conducted of the house and a mobile phone was seized.

The defendant told police: “I know my account has been hacked but I never thought anything like this was going on.” Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here

Two further tablets were seized, including a Samsung tablet from his child’s bedroom.

Prosecutor Sophie Keegan said that when Cork was taken into custody, a secure folder protected by a pin was discovered but the defendant claimed to have no knowledge of it.

Another secure folder was was detected and was found to contain indecent images of children, including a boy aged between eight and 10 years old being raped.

The Samsung tablet was also discovered and found to contain child abuse images.

Ms Keegan said the total amount of images found included 451 category A images, 260 category B images and 90 category C images.

Also on the Samsung tablets were three conversations Cork had taken part in with what appeared to be children under 16-years-old.

One conversation, with what appeared to be a 15-year-old boy, involved the defendant sending photographs of himself and saying to the boy “You’re so hot”.

In the second conversation, Cork asked a boy “do you send”, in reference to nude photographs.

He also appeared to be talking to a 14-year-old girl, asking her if she was a “lesbian” and sent naked photos of himself, saying “Hope you don’t mind I’m naked.

There was also extreme pornography on the tablet, and the defendant told another adult: “I like them young, send me young.”

Ms Keegan said Cork also distributed two category A images over the Telegram app, including a girl aged between eight and 10-years-old being raped.

Cork, of Eastmoor Road, later pleaded guilty to making and distributing indecent images and attempting to engage in sexual conversation with a child.

The court heard he is of previous good character.

In mitigation, Charles Archer said his client hopes to have contact with his child in the future, and expresses remorse for his actions.

The barrister said the defendant had not committed any “contact offences” and has taken voluntary steps to address his behaviour.

Judge Jeremy Jenkins sentenced Cork to 24 months imprisonment.

The defendant was also made subject to sex offender notification requirements for 10 years and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for five years.

Former Top Gear presenter and car enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson is selling three of his prized posessions – here’s how you could be in with a chance of owning them

Jeremy Clarkson is selling three of his cars used in the TV show The Grand Tour.

The personally owned motors from the Amazon Prime series include the Lancia Montecarlo Spider driven by Clarkson in the final ever episode of The Grand Tour, alongside his Alfa Romeo GTV6 and Lincoln Continental Mark V.

The 1982 Lancia, finished in Lotus Blue, was the presenter’s choice for The Grand Tour: One for the Road, the final episode featuring Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May together as lead presenters.

The programme took the trio across Zimbabwe and into Botswana, where Clarkson was unexpectedly reunited with the Lancia Beta Coupé he had driven in the 2007 Top Gear Botswana Special.

The 1983 Alfa Romeo was driven by Clarkson around Scotland’s North Coast 500 road trip route alongside Hammond’s Fiat X1/9 and May’s Lancia Gamma Coupé. Clarkson kept the car after filming, and today it has covered just 28,315 miles.

The 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V featured in the Covid-era Scottish special ‘The Grand Tour Presents: Lochdown’.

Modified during the programme with nitrous injection, the 6.6-litre car still retains NOS equipment, as well as a set of bagpipes in the boot and a Cartier clock that particularly caught Clarkson’s attention on screen.

Iconic Auctioneers said: “Why Clarkson has decided to part with them will apparently become clear in the forthcoming season of Clarkson’s Farm. For now, that particular explanation remains with Clarkson himself.”

Jeremy Clarkson said: “I rarely get a chance these days to drive or enjoy these very special and quite famous cars so it’s probably for the best if they end up with someone who can.”

Harry Whale, car specialist at Iconic Auctioneers, said: “These cars have a connection with Jeremy Clarkson that goes well beyond simply appearing on television. He chose each of them for The Grand Tour, then liked them enough to keep them afterwards.

“The Lancia is particularly significant as the last car he drove in the programme, but all three will be immediately familiar to fans. They are genuine pieces of modern motoring television history, complete with the details and modifications viewers will remember.”

Instagram users took to the comments to share their thoughts, one wrote: “He’s always been so precious over the Alfa, I’m really surprised he’s selling it,” another said: “Very cool. Clarksons ownership definitely adds a premium.”

The vehicles, offered with no estimates, will be featureat Iconic Auctioneers’ Iconic Sale at the NEC Classic Motor Show on November 14.

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1) Get morning sunlight if you can…

2) …And fake morning light if you can’t go outside

4) Maintain a regular sleep pattern

5) Limit screen time before bed

6) Exercise and eat well

7) Seek help for persistent sleep disruption

The Government’s plans to house more than 1,200 male migrants in Piddington are ‘ambiguous’ and pose ‘avoidable’ risks, the council has said.

Cherwell District Council in Oxfordshire has formally objected to Home Office proposals to house 1,256 male asylum seekers at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Bicester site near Piddington.

The proposal has sparked anger in the village, which has a population of around 350, driving residents to vote to leave the UK in a symbolic independence ‘referendum’ on Wednesday.

In its response to the Government’s planning application, the district council hit out at what it called ‘unresolved ambiguity’ in its plans for the site.

It accused the Government of having submitted a ‘concept’ rather than a ‘sufficiently defined full development’, with several elements missing from its application, including a proposed layout.

‘The absence of evidence is not automatically proof of harm,’ the council said, ‘but where the applicant bears the burden of describing the proposal and demonstrating acceptable effects, unresolved ambiguity cannot be treated as a neutral factor.’

It added: ‘The claimed urgency does not justify an avoidable risk to occupiers, local communities or the environment.’

The council pointed to several potential problems with the site, which is a former defence storage and distribution centre.

A sign is displayed on a fence surrounding a former military base that will be used to house asylum seekers

It raised concerns about wastewater provisions, surface-water flooding, the ecological impact of the site, access arrangements and the impact on the local community.

The council called for an assessment of the former military site, which it said could house ‘asbestos-containing materials’ and unexploded ordnance.

Piddington parish councillor Mike Nixon previously said the site has no pedestrian access areas, and the Government has suggested issuing asylum seekers with high-visibility jackets to keep them safe while walking along a busy road, the B4011.

In planning documents, the Government described the site as having ‘limited’ pedestrian access, with travel on foot ‘not recommended’, adding shuttle buses may be provided as an alternative.

The district council said: ‘Advice, high-visibility vests and encouragement to use a shuttle are not a safe pedestrian network and are considered to be a meaningless exercise that will not deviate natural behaviour and curiosity.’

Included in the council’s objection is a draft response from Thames Valley Police.

The force warned the entrance to the site could become ‘a focus for protest activity, creating potential conflict with construction traffic, staff and other site users’.

Police also raised concerns about residents’ privacy, adding the site’s proximity to the B4011 could increase the risk of ‘observation, filming, harassment, hostile attention or protest’.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp and shadow minister for women and equalities Joy Morrissey (left) speak with residents of Piddington

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The council said it acknowledged the ‘national importance and asserted urgency’ of providing asylum accommodation and emphasised it is not objecting because of ‘the identity or status of future residents’.

Rather, it said, its objection is based on the ‘land-use acceptability’ of the proposed site and the ‘level of detail’ submitted in the Government’s application.

Approval for the application rests with Housing Secretary Angela Rayner.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: ‘The Government is closing every asylum hotel, saving taxpayers over £1 billion on asylum support since the election.

‘We are working to fairly house asylum seekers across the country, moving asylum seekers into alternative accommodation, including former military sites which are designed to be self-contained to reduce impact on the local community.

‘As part of the process, we engage with local authorities and police forces to ensure the safety and security of those in the surrounding area.’

The hardest secondary schools to get into have been revealed as the window opens for parents and carers to decide where their children will study

The hardest secondary schools to get into in Cambridgeshire have been revealed as parents and carers decide where their children will study next year. The window for applications for pupils starting year 7 in September 2027 opened earlier this month and will run until October 31.

Last year, 7,050 students found out where they’d be heading with 96.7 per cent securing a place at one of their first, second or third preference schools.

The hardest school to get into was Chesterton Community College, with enough places for just 60 per cent of children who put it down as their first preference. Earlier this year, the school was listed as the top performing school in the county – with 83.7 per cent of pupils achieving a Grade 5 or higher in their English and maths GCSEs.

In its latest Ofsted report, the school was rated outstanding in every category, with the inspector finding it has an “extremely high level of ambition for all pupils” which is matched by the pupils’ “own determination to succeed”.

St Bede’s Inter-Church School in Cambridge was the second hardest to get into with 190 places for 301 first-place preferences – a success rate of 63 per cent.

Soham Village College was ranked third with 78 per cent of pupils successfully admitted to 270 places from 247 first-place preferences.

Parents and carers of children about to enter secondary school can submit their applications for places on the county council website.

They have until the national closing date of October 31, after which late applications will be considered once all on-time applications are determined.

A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesperson said: “This year in Cambridgeshire 96.6 per cent of children were offered a place at either their first, second or third preference schools, this is above national benchmarks. Notably, both this year and last year, 5 per cent more children in Cambridgeshire received an offer from their first preference school than did nationally.

“We’re committed to providing the best possible start in life for young people in our county and access to high quality education close to home is key. With population centres changing over time around our growing county, the council’s Education team work hard, in partnership with schools and with careful reference to pupil forecasting figures, to try and ensure we can offer the right numbers of school places, in the right areas, when they are needed.”