Late Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek renewed his wedding vows with his wife, Kimberly, days before his death in an intimate ceremony

James Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly sweetly renewed their wedding vows just days before his death. The Dawson’s Creek star died aged 48 on February 11 after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

The couple reportedly had an intimate ceremony prior to his death. They were said to have been supported by friends and family. James and Kimberly share six children: Olivia, 15, Joshua, 13, Annabel, 12, Emilia, 9, Gwendolyn, 7, and Jeremiah, 4. They first tied the knot in August 2010. It’s now been said that one of the actor’s final acts was to renew their vows.

READ MORE: Tana Ramsay reveals what she said to Adam Peaty’s mum Caroline amid family feudREAD MORE: Man, 20, denies killing Towie star’s mum in crash that injured pregnant TV favourite

Advertisement

Wife Kimberly told People Magazine of the moving moment. She said: “We decided two days beforehand, and our friends got us new rings, filled our bedroom with flowers and candles, and we renewed our vows from bed.”

She went on to call the moment “simple and beautiful and moving”. She revealed loved ones were able to watch along on Zoom.

Music was provided by one of the couple’s close friends, Porangui. The last song for the service was a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Just days later, Kimberly was announcing her husband’s death. In a heartbreaking statement to her followers she said at the time: “Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning.

“He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”

It wasn’t the only move James made in the weeks before his death. He also secured his family home, with the help of famous pals. A month before he died, the actor bought a £3.5million ranch for his large family to call their own.

The property in Texas boasts 36 acres of land. The pricy purchase came after the family moved from Los Angeles to Spicewood, Texas, in 2020. At the time, they had opted to lease the property initially.

However, James was keen to call the property their own to help provide a stable environment for his family after his death. According to Realtor.com, the home was bought for $4.76 million in an off-market deal on January 9. Among it’s amenities are a number of cabins, a pool and a large back yard.

James’ final weeks were said to see the star grow weaker. Speaking to Daily Mail, a source said that despite his public optimism, James realised time was running out.

“James was on hospice for several weeks and he was rail thin when he passed,” they said. “He was mostly in bed because he was very weak, and he was not eating.”

They added his deterioration was growing increasingly harder to watch in his final days. They said: “He was in hospice, they held his hand and were there for him, of course.”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

The DWP has confirmed that it plans to complete migration of claimants on income related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) to Universal Credit by March

Advertisement

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recently confirmed its intention to complete the transition of claimants on income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) to Universal Credit by March.

Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, also stated that part of this migration process will involve ESA claimants moving to the Universal Credit Health Element.

Welfare reforms set to be implemented in April aim to address these ‘perverse incentives’ by introducing a lower Universal Credit Health Element rate of £217.26 per month for new claimants, compared to the higher rate of £429.80.

Those with the most severe, lifelong conditions, those nearing end of life, and all existing Universal Credit health claimants will continue to receive the higher rate. The change does not affect existing claimants, only new applicants.

Sir Stephen’s remarks were made in a written response to Labour MP Amanda Martin, who queried whether claimants with disabilities, receiving the Personal Independence Payment ( PIP ) and legacy work-related benefits, will be “treated as new claimants for the purposes of the proposed changes to the Health Element of Universal Credit when they are migrated”.

The Portsmouth North MP also questioned whether claimants on legacy benefits transitioning to the Universal Credit system would “see a reduction in their income as a result of these proposed changes”, reports the Daily Record.

The DWP Minister responded: “The Department plans to complete migration of ESA claimants to Universal Credit by March 2026. As part of this ESA claimants will be migrated to the Universal Credit Health Element. To protect any claimants who have not migrated by April 2026 we intend to mirror as closely as possible the changes made in Universal Credit in the ESA rates.

“Changes to the ‘support component’ and the two disability premia (severe and enhanced disability premium rates) will reflect changes to Universal Credit LCWRA ( Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity) rates for existing claimants.”

He added: “Including these commensurate measures aims to give fair treatment for all customers moving onto Universal Credit from income related ESA, regardless of their point of migration.”

The DWP has previously stated that nearly four million households will receive an annual income increase estimated at £725 under new legislation designed to reform the welfare system.

Changes outlined in the Universal Credit Act will aim to rebalance the core payment and health top-up within Universal Credit. The Act will result in the Universal Credit standard allowance rising permanently above inflation, totalling £725 by 2029/30 in cash terms for a single person aged 25 or over. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), this represents the largest permanent real terms increase to the main rate of out-of-work support since 1980.

The Universal Credit Act The DWP has announced a rebalancing of Universal Credit health and standard elements to address what it calls a ‘fundamental imbalance in the system which creates perverse incentives that drive people into dependency’. The Act recently received Royal Assent.

In addition to these changes, the DWP has introduced significant new measures, giving those receiving health and disability benefits the right to try work without fear of reassessment. This new ‘Right to Try Guarantee’ applies to individuals with a disability or health condition – such as those recovering from illness – who wish to return to work now their health has improved.

All current recipients of the Universal Credit Health Element and new customers with 12 months or less to live or who meet the Severe Conditions Criteria will also see their standard allowance combined with their Universal Credit health element rise at least in line with inflation every year from 2026/27 to 2029/30.

John Higgins is into the quarter-finals of the Players Championship after an impressive 6-1 win over Neil Robertson, a victory which has seen an incredible statistic emerge from the Wizard of Wishaw’s epic career.

The Scot knocked in breaks of 133, 84 and 70 on his way to a comfortable win, in which he was really good but the Australian struggled to find anything like his best form, seemingly having an issue with his tip.

The four-time world champion snuck into the 16-man event after Ronnie O’Sullivan decided not to take up his place in the tournament and is looking to make the most of it, taking on either Chris Wakelin or Xiao Guodong in the last eight.

That contest will, incredibly, be Higgins’ 155th ranking event quarter-final, a monumental amount of success since he turned professional in 1992.

This number sounds mammoth enough without context, but it is an even more stunning achievement when considering that there have only been 456 ranking events in snooker history.

The 1974 World Championship is deemed the first ranking event in snooker, played a year before Higgins was born.

That means the Wizard has been to at least the quarter-finals in more than a third (33.99 per cent) of ranking tournaments ever played.

Higgins has played in 339 ranking events himself, which means he has been to at least the last eight in 45.72 per cent of ranking tournaments he has competed in.

No player has appeared in as many ranking quarter-final as Higgins and he is still going strong at 50 years old, ranked number five in the world.

After comprehensively beating Robertson, he said on Channel 5: ‘Really enjoyed it, I’ve not beaten Neil the last few times we’ve played. He played below par, not the way he normally plays, but I was happy with the way I played.

‘Without a doubt, with Ronnie not turning up, it gave me a free roll. Delighted to beat Neil, I hold him in such high regard, it’s a great win for me.’

He added in a post-match press conference: ‘I try to take the positives from beating guys like [Mark] Selby at the Tour Championship, Judd [Trump] at the Masters, and then Neil, because they’re three guys that are holding such high regard in the game.’

Higgins has long been a tinkerer when it comes to equipment and technical intricacies, making a couple of tweaks ahead of his trip to Telford.

‘The last two or three days before I came down I played for two or three days with Stephen Maguire,’ he said. ‘I changed the cue diameter [to 29mm from 30mm], I went back to years ago.

‘I’m trying something as well, I’m normally really on the cue, I’m trying to be not as strong on the cue, it’s giving me more power. If you’re too rigid you can’t get through the white, I’m trying something else and it seems to be working.’

Higgins is eyeing up a 34th ranking title this week, but is also adding another string to his immense snooker bow, by stepping into punditry and commentary duties for the new-look Channel 5 coverage of the Players Championship.

‘I look forward to it,’ he said. ‘I’m getting older in the game, it’s something new, I’ll try it.

‘I’m only practicing an hour a day anyway to keep my eye in. Looking at four walls, that’s the hardest part at these events, it’s using your time wisely. I’ll enjoy it.’

Higgins will be in the commentary box on Wednesday before returning to action on Thursday afternoon against either Wakelin or Xiao.

Also on the opening afternoon of the Players Championship, Mark Allen downed Wu Yize 6-3, setting up a quarter-final against either Mark Selby or Jack Lisowski on Friday night.

MORE: Ronnie O’Sullivan comments designed to add pressure, reckons Mark Allen

MORE: The curious relationship between the Players Championship and World Snooker Championship

MORE: Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry among snooker legends to play John Virgo Trophy

The Moon crossed the Sun’s path on February 17, causing what is known as an annular solar eclipse. The Sun was not covered completely, but the Moon blocked enough of its light to leave a fiery ring. Unless you’re deep in the southern hemisphere, you won’t have noticed.

However, astrologically speaking, eclipses have effects regardless of who is watching. In astrology, an ancient tradition that lacks scientific grounding, eclipses are regarded as being powerful and politically significant celestial events. They are traditionally associated with the destiny of rulers – and some astrologers think Donald Trump is no exception.

Astrologers interpret the meaning of eclipses through horoscopes, celestial maps that locate the Sun, Moon and planets within the 12 signs of the Zodiac that encircle our solar system. During the eclipse, the Sun and Moon were at the edges of the sign Aquarius, a position astrologers associate with endings and shakeups.

This, alongside various other factors including Trump being born during a lunar eclipse in 1946, has led some astrologers to suggest that the eclipse could mark the start of a severe crisis for the US president – even his death.

Predictions like this come around fairly often, and Trump has outlasted many of them before. But these extreme forecasts follow a very old script. For thousands of years, eclipses have been treated as political events, read as omens about kingdoms and their rulers.

Bad omens

Eclipses have been connected with the fate of rulers since at least ancient Mesopotamia, around 4,000 years ago. Keen observers there, in what is now modern-day Iraq, kept lists of phenomena they believed were linked to specific outcomes.

“If a lizard gives birth in the walkway of a house, the household will fall” and “if a white partridge is seen in the city, commercial activity will diminish” are two examples. But one omen has long outlived the others: “if there is an eclipse, the king will die”.

With such high stakes, ancient astronomers invested in systematic observation, record-keeping and calculation to predict eclipses with ever-greater accuracy. This enabled the so-called “substitute king” ritual, where royals tried to avoid their fate by temporarily making someone else king until an eclipse passed.

The link between eclipses and the death of kings spread widely in the ancient world. Egyptian papyri show evidence of this belief, and Greek and Roman history is full of stories connecting eclipses with prominent deaths.

Roman historian Cassius Dio recorded a solar eclipse around the death of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, in AD14, during which “most of the sky seemed to be on fire”. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the death of Jesus is also marked by darkened Sun.

In the medieval period, when Arabic chroniclers recorded eclipses, they usually noted concurrent deaths of rulers. And in Europe, a solar eclipse in 1133 was so closely associated with the 1135 death of King Henry I of England that it became known as “King Henry’s Eclipse”.

Premodern rulers often hired astrologers to interpret their birth charts – the horoscope cast for the moment they were born. Ideally, the astrologer would pick out an aspect of the chart they could say justified the ruler’s leadership and foretold a long and prosperous reign. This was useful astrological propaganda.

But rulers were less happy when astrologers did this without authorisation – especially if they forecast illness or death. Astrologers were expelled from ancient Rome on numerous occasions for doing just that.

In his book, Lives of the Caesars, Roman historian Suetonius recounted the fate of an astrologer called Ascletarion (or Ascletario). Ascletarion’s predictions of the Emperor Domitian’s imminent downfall in the first century AD prompted the angry emperor to order his execution.

More than 1,400 years later, an astrologer in Oxford was executed for predicting the death of the reigning English monarch, Edward IV. And in 1581, Queen Elizabeth I of England made it a felony to use horoscopes to predict her death or her successor.

Similarly in France, royal pronouncements in 1560, 1579 and 1628 prohibited astrological predictions about princes, states and public affairs. Around the same time, astrologers in Italy got into serious trouble for predicting the deaths of popes.

This was not just a matter of anxiety on the part of rulers. It was also a question of maintaining public order and political stability. State powers were concerned with the ability of astrological predictions to cause general chaos and even prompt protests and rebellions.

They were right to worry. In a time when astrology was taken very seriously, predictions could cause collective panic. During the so-called wars of the three kingdoms, a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in England, Scotland and Ireland, astrologers’ radical political predictions about the fate of the English monarchy fed revolutionary sentiment.

One of these astrologers, Nicholas Culpeper, published predictions of the downfall of all European monarchies on the basis of a solar eclipse in 1652.

Advertisement

Astrology left the world of universities and political courts in the 17th century, but astrologers did not stop making political predictions. In 1790s London, an astrologer called William Gilbert predicted the death of King Gustav III of Sweden. His prophecy was fulfilled a few months later.

And after his attempted assassination in 1981, the then-US president, Ronald Reagan, asked astrologer Joan Quigley whether she could have predicted it. She said yes. Quigley worked for the Reagans for many years, and claimed that she provided advice not just on personal affairs but also on matters of the state, including the best timing to make political announcements.

Although astrology is no longer counted as a science, it remains a player in contemporary politics. Whether or not eclipse predictions come to pass is almost besides the point. Historically, what made eclipses politically dangerous was the speculation often attached to them.

Strikes have been launched by US forces on three alleged drug smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, killing 11 people.

US Southern Command posted a video on X of Monday’s operation, along with a statement that “intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations”.

The strikes are the latest in a series of controversial military operations which have brought the number of so-called “narcoterrorists” killed to at least 145 people since early September 2025.

Like most of the military’s statements on the 42 known strikes, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes.

It alleged the three boats were “operated by designated terrorist organisations”.

Two vessels carrying four people each were struck in the eastern Pacific Ocean, while a third boat with three people was hit in the Caribbean Sea.

The military posted videos showing the boats being destroyed.

Donald Trump said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

In a post on X, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth praised the strikes: “Turns out President’s Day – under President Trump – is not a good day to run drugs.”

Read more from Sky News:
Jill Biden’s ex denies murder
Jesse Jackson obituary
Actor Shia LaBeouf arrested

The military has not provided evidence that the boats or people killed on Monday were involved in drug trafficking.

In January, the US launched a direct military attack on Venezuela, extraditing Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, transporting them both to New York to face narcoterrorism and other charges, which both deny.

Born in 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson became involved in politics at an early age. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as a leader in Martin Luther King, Jr ‘s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was with King when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

The Open Iftar event is free and open to anyone to join in.

To mark Ramadan, millions of Muslims around the world will be fasting from dawn until sunset. The holy month is said to teach people about “self-discipline and reminds them of the suffering of the poor”.

In 2026, Ramadan starts on the evening of Tuesday, February 17, and will last until Wednesday, March 18. Every year, the Ramadan Tent Project runs a Ramadan Festival described as an “annual celebration of connection, learning, and shared humanity”.

The festival involves a range of community events happening across the UK, including one in Cambridge. Cambridge University will be holding a free iftar event at King’s College in collaboration with the Ramadan Tent Project on Sunday, February 22.

The Open Iftar will allow Muslims and non-Muslims to come together and enjoy a meal after sunset as well as involving prayers and a chance to spiritually reflection. Iftar is the meal that Muslims eat after sunset to break their fast during the month of Ramadan.

The event is completely free to attend and anyone is welcome to join in. The Open Iftar is free but you do not need secure your space by booking a ticket on the Ramadan Tent Project website.

Fellow Henning Grose-Ruse Khan, who initiated the partnership with Ramadan Tent Project and King’s College Cambridge, said: “Open Iftar is a wonderful opportunity for Muslims and non-Muslims from across Cambridge to gather at King’s College during Ramadan.

“Previous events have been a great success, and I’m delighted that King’s College continues to be a place that welcomes these opportunities for people of all faiths and none to gather.”

As well as King’s College, other famous venues across the UK will be holding similar events. For 2026, the Brighton Dome, the National Gallery, and AFC Wimbledon are getting involved. For the first time, the Silverstone Circuit will be hosting an Open Iftar.

Omar Salha, Founder and CEO of Ramadan Tent Project, said: “Welcoming the return of Ramadan Festival in 2026 fills me with a profound sense of hope, our chosen theme for this year. Hope is what carries communities through challenge, inspires generosity, and reminds us that renewal is always possible. It is central to Ramadan. It is the thread that connects our past to our future, and the light that guides us towards compassion, unity, and purpose.

“Entering our 13th year, it is a remarkable to witness the incredible growth of the festival across exciting new spaces, venues and landmarks that reflect the diversity and dynamism of our nation. Allowing us to bring more people together, create deeper cultural experiences, and celebrate the spirit of Ramadan in ways that are more accessible, vibrant, and inclusive than ever before. A powerful symbol of how Ramadan is part of Britain’s rich cultural ecology.”

He continued: “Ramadan teaches us to look inward with sincerity and outward with kindness. By anchoring the Ramadan Festival 2026 in the theme of Hope, we’re honouring that tradition by inviting people from all faiths and none, turning strangers into friends, to imagine and build a future rooted in empathy, connection, and shared humanity.

“We look forward to welcoming thousands of visitors and guests across the UK throughout the festival. We’re excited for what this year will bring and grateful to everyone who continues to make this festival a beacon of togetherness.”

Police taped off a road as a suspected Second World War memorabilia device was found

A bomb squad was scrambled to a residential street, as police taped off the area. Officers cordoned off a bust Stockport road after reports of a suspected Second World War device.

Police rushed to Schools Hill at around 1.30pm this afternoon (February 17), amid the reports of a suspected Second World War memorabilia device that had been discovered. The area was roped off from the general public, and residents took to social media to warn people not to use the road.

An explosive ordinance disposal unit was sent to the scene. A detonation did take place, according to the force.

Click here to prioritise Manchester news in Google from the MEN

It has not yet been confirmed if the device was viable, or if the detonation was a precautionary measure. GMP has said the area has now been made safe.

The incident occurred at around 2.30pm on Tuesday on Victoria Road in Govanhill, Glasgow.

A man has been rushed to hospital after being ‘seriously assaulted’ on a busy Glasgow street. Emergency crews rushed to Victoria Road in the Govanhill area of the city this afternoon.

An alarm was raised at around 2.30pm after receiving reports that a man had been attacked. Upon attendance, the man was blue-lighted to hospital for treatment.

His condition is currently unknown. Officers say enquiries are ongoing, reports Glasgow Live. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Around 2.30pm on Tuesday, 17 February, 2026, emergency services attended at Victoria Road, Glasgow following reports a man had been seriously assaulted.

“He has been taken to hospital for treatment. Enquiries are ongoing.”

Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources. Click HERE