CEUTA, Spain (AP) — When he heard the border had been breached, Abdulah Buji jumped on his motorbike and raced from his home in northern Morocco toward Ceuta, joining tens of thousands of people trying to swim into the tiny Spanish territory in North Africa.

Like many of his fellow countrymen, Buji was inspired by the thought that this collective crossing could somehow unlock his dream of reaching Spain and starting a new life in Europe.

“Spain gives you the chance to make your future, not like Morocco,” said Buji, a 21-year-old who is studying to be a teacher. “I am a talented boy. I just want a chance.”

But his elation at setting foot on Spanish soil was quickly followed by the disheartening realization that he was still far from his ultimate goal. Mainland Europe rested across the Mediterranean, and he and the new arrivals were unwanted. Spanish authorities ordered everyone to turn around and go back or face eventual expulsion.

Buji said he almost joined more than 50 people who died trying to reach Ceuta while swimming around a border fence. He made it across, but he lost his belongings and money in the crossing. When he realized that he would likely face legal limbo and detention, he turned around and headed back.

“I’ve spent perhaps 14 years studying, but there’s nothing at home, and I’d have to work 12-hour shifts for a meager wage,” Buji told The Associated Press. “That’s why I came here, but I haven’t found any opportunities here either, so I have to go back.”

A surge in migrants created a humanitarian crisis

Of the 60,000 people who crossed between Thursday and Friday morning, some 45,000 had returned to Moroccan territory within hours after many spent the night on the streets of Ceuta amid startled locals and armed Spanish police and soldiers.

The massive influx of people, which totaled 70% of Ceuta’s resident population, sparked calls by local Spanish authorities for police and the army to establish order. Locals were concerned by the thousands of mostly young men aimlessly walking the streets.

Ceuta’s residents recalled a similar but smaller migration crisis in 2021, when the Moroccan government dropped its border controls and let several thousand people from Morocco and sub-Saharan countries into Ceuta over two days. The city faced a much larger humanitarian crisis this time.

People flee out of despair and wanting to help their families

As the first reports and videos of migrants reaching Ceuta spread on social media, more people headed north in hopes of reaching European Union territory. Train stations in Morocco’s capital, Rabat, and in the country’s largest city, Casablanca, were crowded with people trying to travel to the border with Ceuta. Local media showed police officers preventing some of them from boarding trains and buses.

It isn’t clear what triggered the influx, but social media was awash with posts encouraging Moroccans to try to enter Ceuta days before it began, said Myriam Cherti, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. The posts included practical information on how to cross the border and what migrants should say to increase their chances of being allowed to stay.

Cherti said some of the migrants she interviewed over the past year had lost count of the number of times they had tried to cross the border.

“They’re doing it out of despair, they’re doing it because they’ve tried other ways to build a life and failed, they’re doing it because they feel the obligation that they want to help their families and support them,” she said. “And that’s possible if they make it to Spain and not necessarily possible if they stay” in Morocco.

Frank Skinner exits the Starbucks bathroom and sits down opposite me. His publicist brings over our drinks; he sends her back, first for milk, and then for a stick to retrieve the teabag. “Sorry, I’m not normally screaming at women to do things for me,” he jokes. “I blame Alexa. She’s got me into a bad habit. Anyway, hello.”

There’s something charmingly, transparently incorrigible about the West Bromwich-born comedian: his is a mind foraging constantly for a punchline. Everything Skinner says carries with it a sort of stealthy, amused irony – an irony that’s stuck with him through his decades-long transmogrification from football-loving, filth-mongering figurehead of Nineties “New Lad” culture to the proudly Catholic, poetry-referencing MBE recipient that sits before me today. (Really, this was a shift more in perception than reality – Skinner was a sober, Christ-worshipping arts lover back in his rowdy heyday, and still now revels in football and sex jokes.)

We start easy. How’s life, I ask. Skinner grins: “Well, Richard Madeley said to me about an hour ago that I was ‘happier than ever’. He didn’t ask me, he just looked at me and said, ‘You’re happier than ever’. He’s very superficial, I was just laughing at the time.”

In Richard Madeley’s defence – a phrase I’d never thought I’d type – it’s easy to see how he might have reached this conclusion. There’s something boyishly upbeat about Skinner, a sort of impishness you don’t necessarily expect from a 69-year-old. He doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the last decade. He’s buoyed too by his imminent stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, performing two different shows – and says he likes doing interviews like these “because I don’t have many friends”.

“You get rubbish ones,” he says. “I don’t know how this one’s going to go, but you get the ones where they start digging, looking for weak spots for their knife. But even that… I think they’re interesting.”

He grins, again. “I was doing an interview recently and the woman started by saying, ‘Do you want a cockapoo?’ And I said, ‘No, I’ve got a dog already.’ She’d actually said ‘Do you want copy approval?’ and I’d just misheard. I thought, ‘I’ve started an interview showing that I have become Grandpa Simpson.’”

Back in the late 1990s, when he hosted his own talk show on the BBC, Skinner would often ask his guests one question to break the ice: when did you last fall over? “God, it’s been a while,” he says, when I ask him this. “Now that my bones have the consistency of Aeros, I’m a bit more careful. And I think not drinking has taken a lot of the falling out of my life.”

By this metric, Skinner’s peak falling days are some four decades behind him; he got sober in the mid-Eighties, shortly before he gave up his career as an English lecturer to pursue comedy. (He was the child of a working-class upbringing, born Christopher Graham Collins; now, he’s Frank Skinner to most of the world, including his wife.)

The first of Skinner’s Edinburgh shows is a work-in-progress standup residency; the second, Crowd Work, sees him lead a series of guest comedians in an hour of unrehearsed interactions with the audience. He’s a good compere, he claims, in part because he is a “brilliant audience member”. “I really, really laugh,” he says. “In fact, I got told off by my wife for clapping too loud at the circus.”

Skinner notes that there is a strong “support network” on the night between the three comics who join him – a culture far removed from the “savage” competition for laughs on something like Mock the Week. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a trout farm,” he says. “But there, you can get this feed that you walk around with in a cup. You throw it in the water and about 200 trout literally jump out the water, fighting over it. And that’s what Mock the Week feels like.”

He’s fond of an agricultural metaphor – later on, he likens panel shows to “battery farms” as opposed to the “free range” world of standup. There is a playful cleverness to Skinner’s idiolect in general. (“I like verbal dexterity; I like feeling the words on my lips.”) For years, he was able to indulge his linguistic flights of fancy, and his love of literary esoterica, on his radio show, where “working clean” is an Ofcom-mandated necessity. (Between 2009 and 2024, he hosted a Saturday show on Absolute Radio; since its cancellation in 2024, it has effectively continued as a podcast, Frank Off the Radio.) But translating this to the more resistant world of standup comedy is a Rubicon he’s yet to cross.

“For me now, pushing the envelope means doing a joke where the punchline is the word ‘syntax’, rather than talking about masturbation or whatever,” he says. “I’d like to be able to talk about what’s funny about TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, but I’ve tried it – audiences won’t tolerate it. What usually happens is I’ll do 10 warm-up gigs in Islington and think, ‘Great! They’re laughing at [the literary] stuff.’ And then I’ll go and do it in Oldham and think, no… Andy Burnham will never level this out.” He laughs. “For all my hifalutin plans early on, I end up doing a lot more knob jokes.”

Also coming up this month is the release of Thirty Years of Dirt, a filmed version of Skinner’s previous standup show, recorded in April at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow. It’s shot in black and white, a characteristically atavistic touch inspired, Skinner says, by the look of the 1973 Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny.

Even away from comedy, Skinner says he has long been inspired by Bruce’s approach to radical, self-effacing honesty. “The last five minutes of Sunday Brunch yesterday was me talking about my career failures,” he says. “I don’t think there’s one celebrity in a thousand that would have that conversation – you know, when people say things like, ‘I’m leaving Coronation Street and I’ve got a big project lined up,’
I always think, ‘It’s a 1,000-piece jigsaw’. But I was strangely wallowing in it. I like to put salt in my own wounds.”

While there are a few wounds that might spring to mind – TV and radio series cancellations, or the aborted novel (Thunder Man and Jeff Phillips, about a superhero whose sidekick refused to change his name) that he had to return the commission for – life seems, in general, to be going swimmingly. Last year, Skinner married his long-term partner, Cath Mason, after 24 years together, in a registry office ceremony with no church, congregation, wedding dress, or rings. “We went for a walk on the day of the marriage and she said, ‘Shall we not bother?’ I think there was a bit of snobbery – we’ve been to weddings that feel a bit basic,” he says. “But I have felt some mystical warm glow inside me since we got married. And our recovery rate from arguments has accelerated.”

Plus, he says, one eye as ever on the material: “I find the rhythm and scan of gags works better with ‘wife’ than ‘partner’.”

Skinner and Mason share one son, Buzz, named after the astronaut Aldrin. Around the time Buzz was born in 2012, Skinner joked on the radio that the benefit of being an older father was that he “wouldn’t have to worry about the difficult teenage years”. Morbid kidding aside, I ask, are there anxieties around being a father to a young teenager while you’re nearly 70? “I suppose I’ve always thought I’d like to get him to university,” Skinner says. “Basically, you get to a stage where your child doesn’t necessarily want you around. I once went to a place called Kangaroo Island, off the coast of Adelaide. And there was a graveyard bit: when kangaroos knew their time was up, they instinctively went to this part of the island to die. And maybe I’ll do that when I’ve got my son into a good course.”

Much is made of the “masculinity crisis” facing boys and young men today; is this something Skinner butts up against as a father? “Well, I definitely wouldn’t want to go back to the old days,” he says. “I think at the moment, it’s at the extreme end. I’m hoping we can pick our way through the toxic masculinity stuff – but it is scary. I don’t want my son to grow up apologising for his whole life.”

He seems to mull the question for a moment. “Do I keep a real eye on what my kid is looking at on his phone? Probably not. Does that answer your question? I don’t know if it does. Were you blaming me for toxic masculinity?” I demur.

Nonetheless, he argues, there was even back in the 1990s “a lot more to the New Lads” than just “Elizabeth Hurley in her underwear on the cover of Loaded”.

“I think it was the first time I heard ordinary blokes talking about books, music, and fashion in a much more Nick Hornby-ish, thoughtful way.
So a lot of stuff came with it.”

A big part of what propelled Skinner into the thick of the New Lads stereotype was, of course, football – along with David Baddiel, he created and starred in the comedy series Fantasy Football League. (Their musical collaboration with the Lightning Seeds, “Three Lions”, is still a mainstay singalong at England matches.)

These days, he remains a football obsessive – but from a distance. “I realised that thing that no one must ever acknowledge, which is that football is much better on the telly than it is live,” he says. “Because you see stuff about four times, and someone explains it to you. There’s an old-fashioned view – it’s almost like signing on the dole – that you’re supposed to turn up. In that respect, I no longer qualify to call myself a football fan, even though I watch hours and hours of it, read about it and talk about it.”

There’s an irony, he says, in how little he actually understands the game he’s devoted so much of his life to – adding that he “longs” for “serious football analysis” on TV.

“It feels like Match of the Day, Sky, everything has to have jokes in it, has to be lighthearted… lots of bants,” he says. “I’d like to see a deep, detailed heat map looking at the commentator and co-commentator, establishing how much laughter between them was genuine and how much is just punctuation. They don’t really say anything funny, but there’s lots of ‘I don’t think you went that far up the pitch, did you?’ ‘Ha ha ha.’ It’s grotesque.”

Skinner finishes his tea, but we keep talking for a while – about his love of Laurel and Hardy and WC Fields; about his recurring daydreams (“In my head, I’m currently the player-manager of Barcelona”); and about the cuts at the BBC, Skinner’s on-again, off-again employer.

“I don’t like adverts like ‘What has the BBC ever done for me?’, as if it’s a religious institution,” he says. “But I just can’t believe the BBC would [crumble]. I can’t think of anything that’s disappeared that was so deeply ingrained in British culture. I guess the New Lads. Will there ever be a trailer that says ‘What have the New Lads done for me?’”

One final punchline – he pounces. “Actually… that could just be me in a big house in Hampstead.”

‘Crowd Work with Frank Skinner and Friends’ at the Edinburgh Fringe runs daily from 17-26 August. Tickets are on sale now

‘30 Years of Dirt’ is available on Sky and streaming service NOW from 14 August

Kathy Beale is left facing every parent’s worst nightmare in EastEnders next week when she discovers her imprisoned son Ian is sharing a prison wing with serial killer Gray Atkins.

After Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) was sentenced last week, Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth) has been determined to stay strong for her son as he begins life behind bars. But during a prison visit, Ian drops a bombshell that leaves her deeply concerned.

Trying to reassure his mum that he’s staying out of trouble, Ian explains he’s been keeping his head down for one terrifying reason, Gray Atkins (Toby-Alexander Smith) is on the very same wing.

Given Gray’s violent past, Kathy is instantly filled with dread. She knows exactly what he’s capable of, and the revelation leaves her fearing Ian could be in serious danger.

Before learning the truth, Kathy had been considering sharing some positive news with Ian. Chelsea Fox has finally admitted her guilt over Jordan’s accident and is determined to help put things right, promising to support Ian’s appeal against his conviction. Sharon believes hearing that Chelsea is fighting for him could be just the encouragement Ian needs.

However, everything changes once Kathy learns Gray is nearby.

Concerned that Ian’s priority should be staying under the radar, Kathy decides not to tell him about Chelsea after all, worried that any distraction or emotional upheaval could leave him vulnerable.

The worrying development comes after an emotional week for the Beales. Ian had been hoping Chelsea would arrive at court in time to support his case, but after she was delayed, he was forced to hear his sentence without the evidence that might have changed the outcome.

Although Kathy initially blamed Chelsea for failing to appear, she later accepted that Chelsea is genuinely trying to make amends. The pair eventually reached an understanding, with Kathy agreeing to keep quiet about where the money for Ian’s appeal is really coming from.

Meanwhile, viewers have already seen that Ian’s arrival in prison hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Gray wasted little time in approaching Ian after spotting him on the wing, making a cryptic offer that immediately raised alarm bells. With Kathy now aware they’re housed together, fears are mounting that Gray’s interest in Ian is anything but innocent.

Back in Walford, Patrick Trueman returns home, leading to an emotional reunion with Denise Fox. It doesn’t take Patrick long to sense the tension between Denise and Chelsea, and he encourages the pair to try and rebuild their fractured relationship.

Chelsea continues to believe she’s doing the right thing by allowing Sheila to spend time alone with Jordan, despite Denise repeatedly voicing her concerns. But it soon becomes clear Denise may have every reason to be worried.

While looking after Jordan, Sheila subtly tests whether he can keep a secret before taking him out and making him promise not to tell anyone where they’ve been. The pair return home without anyone suspecting a thing, allowing Sheila to discreetly put the next stage of her plan into motion.

Later, she contacts Gray in prison and confirms that everything is going according to plan.

As the week unfolds, though, their scheme begins to unravel. Jordan accidentally lets something slip, leaving Chelsea increasingly suspicious that all is not as it seems. Before she has a chance to piece everything together, an unexpected knock at the door leaves Sheila rattled.

With events threatening to spiral out of control, Sheila reaches out to Gray once again, hinting that she may have no choice but to take far more drastic action.

MORE: Are you a true fan? Test your knowledge with Metro’s weekly Soaps quiz

MORE: Ian’s horror in EastEnders as he is faced with killer Gray – and a nightmare unfolds

MORE: EastEnders exit ‘sealed’ for Ian Beale after 41 years as shocking fate is confirmed

Votes from Thursday’s by-election were counted throughout the day, with the result initially expected to be declared in the afternoon but not arriving until 11pm.

More than two million people were eligible to vote in the contest across 10 boroughs, triggered by new PM Andy Burnham’s election to Parliament last month.

Craig is currently the leader of Manchester City Council and is the member for economy, business and inclusive growth on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The Greater Manchester mayoral election went to a second round as no candidate received more than 50 per cent of the vote, with Labour’s Craig and Reform UK’s Astley, who is a Trafford Councillor, left in the running after the first round.

Reform UK candidate Sian Astley with the party’s Oldham councillors. (Image: Sian Astley for Mayor/Facebook)

Five candidates were eliminated from the contest to become Greater Manchester mayor – Geraldine Coggins (Green), Phil Eckersley (Conservative), Marcus Farmer (Independent), Richard Kilpatrick (Liberal Democrats) and Marlon West (Restore Britain).

The by-election uses a voting system called supplementary vote (SV), which sees voters mark their ballot papers with a first and second choice, and if any candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the first-choice votes, they are declared the winner.

That did not happen in Greater Manchester, so the top two candidates moved to a second round.

The ballot papers of the eliminated candidates were counted again and if there were any second-choice votes for the two remaining candidates, these were added to their first-choice totals.

The candidate with the highest overall total of first- and second-choice votes is then declared the winner.

SV was the method of voting at the 2017 and 2021 mayoral elections, but first-past-the-post was used in 2024 following a change in the law by the previous Conservative government.

The current Labour Government passed legislation earlier this year to reinstate SV for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections.

The turnout in the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election was 25.14 per cent, with 538,659 residents voting, Greater Manchester Elects said.

When Andy Burnham was re-elected in May 2024, the turnout was 32.05 per cent.

For four days during the war, it held Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and – just over a decade later – psychopathic twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

But the Tower of London, home to the Crown Jewels and scene of innumerable executions, is now adding another page or two to its infamies – albeit, on this occasion, unwittingly.

For I can disclose that a charitable event that the Tower has hosted for many years – raising thousands of pounds for the Red Cross in the process – has fallen victim to political correctness.

Formerly known as ‘Jailed & Bailed’, but now prosaically renamed ‘Escape From The Tower’, the event is philanthropy with a pantomime flourish.

It sees – or used to see – Masters of various City of London livery companies ‘arrested’ by the City of London Police, taken to the Tower and, as one of livery company notes, ‘“tortured” with sponsored champagne and a splendid lunch’ until their fellow liverymen and women secure their release by raising a ‘bail payment’, often amounting to tens of thousands of pounds, with every penny going to the Red Cross.

But this year the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers was told by the Red Cross that ‘they couldn’t take part because they represented an “unethical” industry’, explains an eminent liveryman, adding that at least one other livery company was placed on a blacklist because of ‘links with the defence industry’.

Red Cross CEO Beatrice Butsana-Sita, right, had to clarify matters and expressed being ‘deeply grateful for the livery companies’ long-standing support’

I understand that this was the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers – one of the oldest livery companies, founded in 1637. ‘They actually test the guns that the police use,’ an appalled liveryman tells me.

The Red Cross, headed by Beatrice Butsana-Sita since 2023, seemingly exacerbated matters by sending out ‘a sort of clarifying note’, stating that, while ‘deeply grateful for the livery companies’ long-standing support’, it was aware of ‘a very small number of livery companies with direct public association with, or funding from, our excluded industries’.

This couldn’t have gone down worse. ‘Pretty much all of the Masters have said, “Well, if you’re not willing to accept Masters of other companies, we’re not going to take part”,’ says a liveryman from one of the companies which, collectively, give some £81million a year to charities.

‘Previously, there’s been a lot of support for the Red Cross. But, no pun intended, they’ve really shot themselves in the foot.’

The Red Cross assures me that it ‘greatly values the long-standing partnership and generosity of London’s livery companies’, adding: ‘We do not accept donations from a very small number of specific industries.

‘We are speaking directly with livery companies to provide clarification, answer questions and reaffirm how much we value their continued support.’

What will ‘porn addict’ Ore think of his ex’s jokey sex worker snap?

Portia Jett, the ex-wife of TV presenter Ore Oduba, is seen in the red light district of Amsterdam while on a trip with Joshua Saxon

Portia was married to Ore Oduba until 2024, who has spoken about his pornography addiction

Strictly winner Ore Oduba has spoken tearfully about his addiction to pornography and become a vocal critic of the sex industry.

So the TV star, 40, may be unamused by a photograph that his estranged wife, Portia Jett, posted online.

Portia, 36, who has two young children with Ore, is pictured smiling and posing on a stool at the Museum of Prostitution in Amsterdam.

She was imitating the female sex workers who can be seen touting for business from behind windows in the city’s red-light district. Her boyfriend, the businessman Joshua Saxon, 37, who accompanied her to the Netherlands, joked in a caption: ‘Ain’t cheap this one.’

Ore, whose nine-year marriage to Portia collapsed in 2024, said of his addiction: ‘The reason that I felt like I needed to speak about this is because I wanted to be able to guide my own children when it comes to it, when it comes to them seeing stuff that is going to be there. They’re going to come across it in life, so many of life’s pitfalls, whether it’s drink, drugs, money.’

Coronets aloft! After having two daughters, the Marchioness of Blandford has given birth to a son and heir.

Camilla, 39, and her husband, the Marquess, George Spencer-Churchill, 34, have named their baby Orlando Charles Godolphin.

Orlando is in line to inherit Blenheim Palace and its 12,000-acre Oxfordshire estate one day, ahead of his elder sisters, Lady Olympia, five, and Lady Leonora, two.

A friend of George, whose father is the Duke of Marlborough, tells me that he would have been ‘very philosophical’ if Camilla had had another girl.

But perhaps the couple allowed themselves an extended celebration – which might explain why they delayed announcing Orlando’s birth until yesterday, some 14 weeks after his birth.

Moss agency sees bottom line shrink

Kate Moss attending the 2026 Met Gala, which celebrated Costume Art, at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

Kate Moss has graced the catwalk and been queen of the photoshoot for 38 years, but her star power could be in decline.

Newly published accounts for the Kate Moss Agency, which she founded in 2014, disclose a seven-figure downturn in its fortunes.

The model agency – which represents Kate, 52, and her daughter Lila, 23, among others – made its first ever loss. Its bottom line shrunk by £1.8million over the year to last July. Retained earnings fell to £3.3million from £5.1million – the equivalent of a £35,000-per-week loss. The net worth of the business, which peaked at £5.1million in 2024, previously increased annually. A source said Kate (right) set it up ‘because she was sick of paying huge commission to model agents’.

Oasis star Noel Gallagher admits his surprising taste in music leaves friends appalled.

‘I’m a huge fan of the Pet Shop Boys, which people are disgusted by,’ the rocker says of the camp synth-pop duo. ‘I was at Glastonbury, as the entire festival is walking one way to go and see Kendrick Lamar, I’m going the other way to see the Pet Shop Boys. I dragged a few people with me, and I was like, “Just be amazed at how many hits you’re going to hear”.’

The smart set’s talking about… A wedding date for Fiennes romance

Broughton Castle in Banbury, Oxfordshire, is owned by Martin Fiennes, the 22nd Lord Saye and Sele, and his family

Television producer Melanie Fall is set to marry Martin Fiennes, the 22nd Baron Saye and Sele, in September

His father, who died in 2024 aged 103, trimmed the family name from three barrels – Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes – to one, but in every other way Martin Fiennes’s inheritance remained undiminished.

Aside from a title – he’s the 22nd Lord Saye and Sele – he’s also king of Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, which has been in the family since 1447. And next month, I can disclose, he’ll be joined by his new queen – acclaimed television producer Melanie Fall. The couple resist talking about their September wedding, but a friend tells me: ‘It’s wonderful that they met.’

Fiennes, 65, whose kinsmen include actors Ralph and Joseph and explorer Sir Ranulph, has three adult sons by ex-wife Pauline Kang Chai Lian. For Mel, 58, it’s a first marriage, even though she, like twin sister Kate, ‘gatekeeper’ to David Cameron while he was PM, has attracted numerous admirers.

Phineas turns a page with new love Michaela

Franco Manca pizza heir Phineas Page was married Sabrina Percy for four years after their 2021 ceremony at Chelsea Old Church

Michaela Wrede, 33, is now said to be going out with Phineas as the two enjoyed a romantic getaway to Crete last week

Less than a year after the collapse of his marriage to society model and artist Sabrina Percy, the heir to the Franco Manca pizza fortune is cooking up a new romance.

I hear that businessman Phineas Page, 43, who was married to Sabrina, 36, for four years, is now going out with luxury lifestyle PR director Michaela Wrede, 33, right.

And things appear to be heating up fast. The couple enjoyed a romantic getaway to Crete last week, staying in a private villa overlooking the Mediterranean.

‘It’s early days, but it’s going very well,’ a friend tells me. ‘Micki is a great girl. He’s very lucky.’

(Very) modern manners

Calvin Harris has launched his own Rave Haggis in celebration of his DJ shows in Glasgow

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Usually enjoyed on Burns Night as the poetry of Robert Burns is declaimed, haggis has been given a contemporary flavour.

DJ Calvin Harris, right, has created his own version of the Scottish delicacy to celebrate his shows in Glasgow this weekend.

Called ‘Rave Haggis’, its packaging declares: ‘Heat, eat, rave, repeat.’ Dumfries-born Calvin, 42, who’s married to TV and radio presenter Vick Hope, 36, says he’s ‘buzzing’ to launch the ‘premium’ product, priced at £12.95.

His wife warns: ‘It’s all fun and games ’til you get knocked out by a tin of your own haggis hoyed at the stage at your own gig.’

JK Rowling politely turned down the offer of a peerage for her stance on gender from Kemi Badenoch – but the Tory leader hasn’t given up on wooing the Harry Potter author.

‘The Conservative Party is the Professor Snape of politics,’ Kemi purrs. ‘We’re trying to do the right thing. People think we’re the bad guys, but without us everything would go horribly wrong and in the end they will see that.’

Would former Labour donor Rowling agree? ‘I don’t think she’s as Labour as she used to be. She and I do agree very much on some subjects… I want the Conservative Party to appeal to people who are not conservative,’ Badenoch says in her best come-hither voice on Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast.

The Trump administration is packing immigration courtrooms and giving less lead-time on hearings in an effort to clear a decades-long backlog. The result is a historic rise in the number of people missing court dates and being immediately ordered deported as the system struggles to keep up, new data shows.

Dozens and often hundreds of immigrants’ cases a day are being assigned to individual judges in courthouses across the country, in what are known as “mega” master hearings, which have seen a significant increase this year. More than 1,300 such hearings were held in June alone, a nearly threefold jump from the previous June, according to data analyzed by Mobile Pathways, a nonprofit that tracks immigration court data to help immigrants, their lawyers and other organizations.

At the same time, the data shows, courts have severely cut the length of time many people are getting to prepare for complex immigration proceedings, from about six months to often just a little more than a month.

They’re subsequently missing hearings, receiving deportation orders and being told they’ve abandoned any asylum claims at unprecedented rates.

“The combination of collapsed lead times and packed hearing blocks is a schedule designed for people not to have their case heard,” said Bartlomiej Skorupa, chief operating officer of Mobile Pathways. “The data shows valid claims are closed before being adjudicated.”

Those who favor stricter immigration laws see the swift hearings as a course-correction for a longstanding problem.

“There’s no credibility in the system that never reaches an end,” Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, said.

Still, he worries that these rapid-fire hearings could affect judges’ performance.

“You don’t want to put so many cases on that the judges get burned out or that there’s a danger of denying due process to anybody,” Arthur said.

The Justice Department office that handles immigration courts said in a statement that judges were adjusting their schedules to resolve cases more quickly, while making sure all cases get handled fairly and lawfully. It said court delays harm immigrants who have valid claims, and that the public interest is served when the government deports people without legal grounds to stay.

Immigration courts are overwhelmed

Attending immigration court in Harlingen, Texas, on days where there are mega master hearings can mean waiting outside in the hot, crowded entrance for over an hour until the lobby can accommodate the next wave of people. Adults with cases often are accompanied by relatives and attorneys, and detained children are brought in with shelter case managers and legal advocates.

The courts call it a “mega” day when a judge has more than 50 cases scheduled. Although the practice is not new, it became much more frequent starting in mid-May.

On a recent day, about 90 cases were scheduled with Immigration Judge Delia Gonzalez. More than 20 people did not show up, but even so she ran out of time to hear each case and rescheduled a handful of people who had waited more than eight hours.

“There’s a real limit to how many cases a judge can hear with any care in one morning,” said former immigration judge Elizabeth Young. “When you cram that many hearings into a single docket, you’re working through a list, not holding court.”

Some immigrants requested more time before their next hearings, presenting evidence of having been defrauded by unscrupulous attorneys profiled in local news reports. Others without any attorney asked for more time to figure out the proper evidence filing procedures.

A Colombian man who submitted more than 1,500 pages as evidence in his asylum claim said he still wanted to obtain more documentation from members of the military, businesses and politicians back home.

Gonzalez declined the requests. Most cases lasted less than five minutes.

There is no leeway for no-shows

That same day in West Valley City, Utah, Immigration Judge Brock Taylor was assigned 159 cases. By noon, Taylor recited a dozen names of people from Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela who failed to show up. Without elaborating, he said each was properly notified of their hearing date and failed to appear. He ordered them removed from the United States and they would have no right to appeal.

In Chicago, attorney Peter Meinecke, a lawyer for the Resurrection Project, which runs a legal clinic for immigrants, said one of his clients was issued a removal order when he couldn’t attend a mega master hearing across the country in Seattle after a vehicle accident fractured both of his legs and confined him to a wheelchair.

At the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, about 20% of people missed scheduled immigration court hearings nationwide, according to Mobile Pathways. As hearing notice times shrunk, that no-show rate doubled to 40% by this June, the organization said. A nonprofit group that tracks and analyzes immigration court data and gives that information to immigrants and other organizations.

Deportation orders have risen alongside the no-show rates. Almost 33,000 deportation orders were issued in January 2025. This June, there were about 79,000, according to Mobile Pathways’ data. And once a deportation order is issued, an immigrant’s asylum claim is almost always considered “abandoned.”

The national rate of cases considered abandoned is now nearly five times the historical average dating back to 2009; in New York and Chicago specifically, it’s roughly six times higher, according to Mobile Pathways.

“That’s a recipe for disaster, because more people are going to be ordered removed in absentia who truly have a valid case,” said Katie Fleming, a director at Acacia Center for Justice, a network of legal service providers.

Some people have even been issued deportation orders while they were inside the building that houses the Chicago immigration court, but confused about where to go and how to get help, according to Alex McGriff, an attorney for the National Immigrant Justice Center, which runs a legal help desk there.

“The court ordered them removed despite the fact that they were not absent,” McGriff said.

The backlog is shrinking, but caseloads are not

Advocates for stricter immigration policies call the strategy a time-saver.

“It really is economizing the judge’s time,” said Arthur, the Center for Immigration Studies fellow. “It is increasing the number of final orders that are going out, so that’s decreasing the backlog entirely.”

The backlog, which grew significantly under the Biden administration, has decreased for the first time in at least 10 years. The number of pending cases with the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, decreased from 3.7 to 3.5 million in fiscal year 2025 and continued to drop this year.

“It can be a tough job when you’re doing it at scale,” Arthur said.

Attorneys representing immigrants have similar challenges keeping up as their own caseloads intensify.

Jaime Diez, a veteran immigration attorney based in Brownsville, Texas, recently had almost 20 cases called in one day, nearly 10 times his previously normal pace.

“Due process is being thrown out of the window,” Diez said standing outside the courtroom with a six-inch thick file for one client. “It’s very worrisome, I don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

___

Mayes-Osterman reported from Chicago and is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat contributed from West Valley City, Utah.

At least nine people were killed in Russian ballistic missile strikes on Ukraine, local officials said early on Saturday.

At least another 23 were injured in the attack on the capital Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Moscow has escalated deadly ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital recently, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to say interceptors are urgently needed.

The strikes came two days after a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland during a widespread attack on Ukraine that killed at least eight people, including six members of one family in a village near Kryvyih Rih.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital had come under a ballistic missile attack, with AFP reporting more than 10 explosions.

Fires broke out across the city and power outages were reported in some areas.

Klitschko said a residential building in Shevchenkivskyi was partially destroyed, trapping people inside.

The emergency services said at least seven people were killed in a strike in Darnytskyi district. Another 14 were injured, including two children, it reported.

In Solomyanskyi district, two people died and eight were injured, including two children, as a five-storey residential building was partially destroyed, officials said.

A hard-right Israeli politician has denounced a deal agreed by Hamas to hand over its weapons in return for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza as ‘unacceptable’. 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the agreement – hailed by US President Donald Trump as a ‘major milestone’ – was ‘tantamount to agreeing to Hamas organising for the next massacre’.

The deal is aimed at implementing the long-stalled second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan brokered by Trump, who pledged that it will lead to Hamas’s ‘complete disarmament’.

In a post on social media, he wrote: ‘Today, the Board of ‌Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.

‘This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY.’

The agreement was a critical step towards Gaza being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the so-called Board of Peace, Trump said. 

‘At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used ​as a base for terror attacks,’ he added.

Israel has yet to officially comment on the announcement, but a political source said ‘that there will be no withdrawal whatsoever’ from Israel ‘unless Hamas undergoes a genuine disarmament’.

Hamas said on Friday that it would not disarm prior to the withdrawal of the IDF forces (file pic)

US President Donald Trump hailed the deal as a ‘monumental step’ towards peace

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In somewhat of a stalemate, Hamas said on Friday that it would not disarm prior to the withdrawal of the IDF forces.

The weapons held by the Palestinian Islamist group have been one of the key sticking points in advancing the ceasefire deal, which has been in place since October.

The Israeli source said that ‘the issue of Gaza did not come up’ in this week’s meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

But Trump maintained on Friday that Israel was pleased about the new deal.

‘We do have an understanding with Israel. Israel’s very happy about it,’ Trump told journalists at Camp David.

Hamas said it expected mediators and Trump’s Board of Peace to ensure Israel complied with the deal’s terms, which include Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel has long insisted on Hamas’s full disarmament before its forces pull back, and before the deal was announced, the political source had listed ‘the removal of weapons from Gaza and full demilitarisation of the Strip as a precondition for any process’.

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, said the movement was making ‘concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip’.

‘Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee is the body that will undertake this task,’ he said, referring to the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG), which was established under Trump’s plan to handle day-to-day governance in Gaza.

Despite the ceasefire, violence has continued in Gaza, with Israeli strikes killing at least four people, including two children, on Thursday, according to health officials.

The new agreement calls for all sides to immediately halt military operations, and for an International Stabilization Force to separate Israeli troops from NCAG-controlled areas.

The Board of Peace confirmed in a post on X that Hamas had ‘agreed to a detailed Roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire’.

‘Our focus now turns to implementation,’ the organisation wrote, adding the NCAG will ‘soon begin a phased transition toward full authority’.

Under the roadmap, the NCAG will be responsible for internal security.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, said the deal ‘took months of very difficult negotiations’.

‘What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real,’ Mladenov wrote on X. 

‘Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.’

Hard-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir said the latest deal was ‘unacceptable’

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas welcomed the deal, but said ‘a lot needs to fall in place for this to work’.

UN chief Antonio Guterres, alluding to the Middle East war and its regional spillover, said the agreement was a rare positive development.

‘The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the US president of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza,’ he said.

Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News said on Friday that Cairo will host a meeting soon of the truce’s mediators, which also include the US, Qatar and Turkey.

Earlier, a diplomatic source said the roadmap ‘offers a balanced and pragmatic path forward, with all weapons decommissioned and a phased transition of responsibilities’ to the new authorities.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there would be ‘no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people’.

The roadmap lays out a process to decommission and store Hamas’s heavy weapons, military production sites, weapons depots and tunnels, which will be implemented by NCAG. 

The free travel is to give families a helping hand with the cost of living over the school holidays.

In Bolton and Greater Manchester, 16-year-olds will be able to activate their Our Pass one month earlier (from 1 August instead of 1 September), giving them an extra month of free bus and cheaper tram travel.

The move means that all young people in Greater Manchester will be entitled to free bus travel for the whole month, with under-5s travelling free on the Bee Network all year round.

All under-18s in Greater Manchester can travel for free on Bee Network buses this August.

Families will be able to enjoy days out for less as part of the government’s Great British Summer Savings scheme, which is also cutting costs on children’s menu meals at restaurants, children’s tickets for theatres and cinemas and tickets for everyone at attractions like adventure centres, theme parks and soft play.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “We’re giving families room to breathe from the cost of living squeeze.

“With free bus travel for 5-15 year olds and discounts on kids’ meals at restaurants, cinema tickets and theme parks, we’re helping people make the most of the time they have together for the school holidays.

“Not only are we lowering costs for the summer, the £2 bus fare cap will help all passengers get to where they need to for less.”

Rob Parkinson, Chief Executive of the Family Holiday Charity, said:“A family holiday or day out doesn’t start when we arrive at our destination, it begins with the journey. Travel should be filled with anticipation, but for many families the cost of getting out and about can make quality time together feel less accessible.

“We welcome the commitment that wherever possible children will travel for free on public transport this summer – and look forward to hearing how the Great British Summer Savings initiative has unlocked new experiences for families throughout the UK.” 

VisitEngland Director, Andrew Stokes, said: “It’s fantastic to see free bus travel for children as the summer holidays get underway, supporting families to get out and explore the outstanding attractions and destinations across England in a stress-free and environmentally friendly way.

“Whether enjoying a trip to our stunning seaside destinations, beautiful countryside or our vibrant city attractions, there is so much to discover during the summer across England. I know our tourism and hospitality businesses will be very pleased to see you.” 

To help families navigate the thousands of offers as part of Great British Summer Savings, the government has created a new interactive tool showing the best deals in postcode areas, allowing families to easily see the restaurants, theatres, museums and other attractions offering discounts over the summer.

This can be found here

A link to the list of participating bus operators and routes will be available here.

Fran Wilkinson, Customer and Growth Director at Transport for Greater Manchester, said:

“We’re pleased to be taking part in the Greater British Summer Savings scheme which will mean free bus travel on the Bee Network for everyone aged five to 15 in August. This will help make days out more affordable for families this summer.

“To complement this national scheme, we are allowing Our Pass to be activated one month early which means no young person in Greater Manchester will miss out. The Bee Network is all about making it easier and more affordable to get around Greater Manchester and this national scheme will help us do just that.”

The Daily Telegraph reports, external that Prime Minister Andy Burnham is considering plans to exempt rapists, from the government’s early release scheme from prisons in England and Wales. The paper understands that no final decision has been made, and the option is part of a list under review, ahead of an announcement early next week.

In his interview with the Times, external, Chancellor John Healey hinted at benefit cuts when he said that the UK’s “inexorably rising welfare bill must be controlled”. Healey also echoed the prime minister in declining to commit to spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, saying a “target date” will instead be set at the next spending review in 2027.

The Guardian says, external Andy Burnham has been warned he faces the first revolt of his premiership, after indicating he would support fresh drilling in the North Sea. Many Labour MPs are, according to the paper, worried about how that will sit with an electorate alarmed by this summer’s soaring temperatures, drought and wildfires. The Guardian quotes the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who warned on Friday that every new fossil fuel project makes “tomorrow’s heatwaves more dangerous”.

The Financial Times leads, external on the influx of migrants into the Spanish territory of Ceuta, saying right-wing leaders including US President Donald Trump have seized on the incident. The paper notes that the 60,000 people who crossed into the exclave is five times the daily peak set in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of refugees entered Europe via Turkey. Ministers in the UK are under pressure from the Conservatives and Reform UK to strengthen Britain’s borders, according to the Daily Mail, external. Nigel Farage is quoted saying: “This is a battle for our civilisation.” The Daily Express, external, also leading on the story, cites a Conservative MP, Katie Lam, as describing the crisis as a “wake-up call”.

The Daily Mirror reports, external that grieving families are calling for a public inquiry into the actions of a funeral director in Hull, who mistreated the remains of dozens of people. Robert Bush was jailed for 20 years. The paper’s headline is, “Never Again”.