CNN host Jake Tapper has said it was “deranged” and “dangerous” of President Donald Trump to accuse the network and New York Times reporter David Sanger of “treason” over their Iran war coverage, which pointed out still-functional facets of Iran’s military.

“The New York Times has not reported that the Iranians are ‘doing well militarily,’ nor has CNN,” said Tapper. “The New York Times and CNN have reported, as is accurate, that despite devastating US and Israeli blows … the Iranians continue to have some military abilities.”

Trump went off on Sanger during a two-minute rant Friday aboard Air Force One, calling him a “fake guy” and claiming the US “had a total military victory” in Iran, only for “fake news” outlets like the Times and CNN to “write about it incorrectly.”

“I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write, but you and The New York Times and CNN, you should be ashamed of this,” Trump told the White House and national security correspondent. “I actually think it’s treason when you write like they’re doing well militarily.”

Tapper noted on “The Lead” that the allegation is “all part of a Trump campaign.”

He explained: “Here’s a Truth Social post from earlier this week: ’When the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Military, against us, it’s virtual TREASON in that it is such a false, and even preposterous, statement. They are aiding and abetting the enemy!”

The Times on Tuesday reported that US intelligence itself shows Iran still has “operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz,” through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, contradicting Trump’s claims of complete US dominance over Iran.

Tapper said CNN similarly cited US intelligence in April when reporting, “Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal,” and noted Friday, “All of what the Times and CNN have reported is 100% true.”

“This is what the intelligence run by Trump administration agencies is assessing,” he said. “Now the second point, reporting these facts isn’t treason and it’s deranged for any president to say such a thing — and potentially dangerous for the reporters he’s accusing of treason.”

Tapper noted that the Constitution clearly defines treason as “levying war” against the U.S. or “adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” He said the courts have similarly long defined treason as “concrete actions with traitorous intent, not reporting facts.”

“The president’s real issue here is not with us,” Tapper said Friday. “It is with the facts that we are reporting and with the intelligence reports that contradict his claims. His real issue is the fact that the war isn’t over.”

He concluded, “And it seems his real issue is that there are still some of us willing to tell the American people these facts despite his best efforts.”

More larger-than-life characters have joined the cast of season two of Rivals, making things even more complicated for the scheming Rutshire residents played by the likes of Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner and David Tennant.

Set in the Thatcherite late 80s, against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside and the backstabbing world of British television, Rivals’ latest outing sees the return of the star-studded cast of the first series – alongside some brand new faces you may well recognise.

Here is a guide to the latest additions to series two of Rivals – and where you might have seen them before…

Hayley Atwell joins the cast of Rivals as Rupert Campbell Black’s frustrated ex-wife, and the mother of his children, Helen Gordon.

The British star has been a recognisable face to film and TV fans since she first found fame in 2008’s Brideshead Revisited alongside Ben Whishaw, and The Duchess with Keira Knightley.

Well-known for her work in period dramas, Hayley reached a whole new audience when she began playing Peggy Carter in Captain America, and other Marvel films, as well as portraying Grace in the most recent two Mission: Impossible movies.

On TV, she won acclaim for her work in 2010’s The Pillars Of The Earth, the Channel 4 adaptation of Any Human Heart and the 2017 adaptation of Howards End.

More recently, Hayley played Aunt Diane in Heartstopper, and appeared on stage as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing alongside Tom Hiddleston.

You may also recognise her dulcet tones as she has recently voiced Lara Croft in video games and in Netflix’s animated Tomb Raider series.

Rupert Everett feels like an obvious fit for Rutshire and the world of Rivals. He joins the cast as Helen’s new partner, and Rupert’s old polo coach, Malise Gordon.

Having been in the public eye since the 80s, Rupert first found fame when he played a student at a 1930s public school in 1984’s Another Country, a role that earned him his first Bafta nomination.

Following this, he would receive further recognition for his role in 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding alongside Julia Roberts, and for 1999’s An Ideal Husband, where he plays a government minister with a complicated past.

His other stand-out work includes voicing the slimy Prince Charming in the Shrek films, his joint roles as Camilla Fritton and Carnaby Fritton in the St. Trinians movies, the Harry Styles-led romance My Policeman and the ill-fated The Next Best Thing, which he starred in with his friend Madonna, who he would later describe as an “old, whiny barmaid”.

Maxim Ays appears in the cast of season two of the Jilly Cooper adaptation as one half of the polo-playing twins – which promises to be his biggest, and certainly most revealing, role to date.

He made his on-screen debut in 2021, starring in 12 episodes of the CBBC sitcom Still So Awkward, before appearing the following year in six episodes of the Regency-era drama Sanditon.

Following this, he landed a part in another cosy period drama, playing Reverend Candy in the second series of comedy drama The Larkins, alongside Joanna Scanlan and Bradley Walsh.

Maxim’s other TV credits include the privileged Felix in BBC’s boarding school drama Boarders and Lord Galpin in the Bridgerton-inspired episode of Doctor Who, Rogue.

Playing the other half of the polo twins alongside Maxim Ays is Bobby Lockwood.

Bobby’s breakout came in 2011, when he played Mick Campbell in Nickelodeon’s House Of Anubis.

Since then, he has starred in three series of the fantasy show Wolfblood as Rhydian Morris, alongside Sex Education’s Kedar Williams-Stirling, and has racked up credits in the ITV crime drama Unforgotten, Netflix’s political drama The Diplomat and Gemma Whelan police procedural The Tower. He also appeared alongside his Rivals co-star Emily Atack in her self-titled ITV2 comedy show.

On the big screen, Bobby has had minor roles in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, Will Ferrell’s Eurovision comedy and the cyberpunk action flick Outside The Wire.

Back in 2014, he also won the short-lived BBC celebrity gymnastics series Tumble, ahead of runners up Sarah Harding and Ian “H” Watkins.

Jonny joins the ensemble of Rivals as a new character called Ian, who is involved in the cut-throat world of British television.

Before Rivals, Jonny was best known for portraying Emma’s well-meaning boyfriend Ian in Netflix’s adaptation of One Day.

He has also had credits in House Of The Dragon, where he played Samwell, Sky comedy-drama Brassic and the BBC’s Beyond Paradise.

Eliot Salt plays a character called Muffy in season two of Rivals. She is best known to TV watchers for her roles as Joanna in Normal People and Sarah Dunn in the third season of Slow Horses.

She made her TV debut in Roisin Conaty’s 2019 sitcom Gamechangers and also appeared alongside Nick Mohammed in Sky comedy Intelligence, played Terra Harvey in Fate: The Winx Saga and had a minor appearance in the 2023 adaptation of Dalgliesh.

You may have recently seen her in Industry, playing Caedi McFarlane, the former assistant to Kit Harington’s Henry Muck.

Holly has been touted as one of the most exciting up-and-coming British actors thanks to her role in Rivals, as well as her recent turn in Young Sherlock.

Before landing the role of Sir Bucephalus Hodge’s unassuming assistant with a secret, Edie in Young Sherlock, she had minor credits in Sky drama COBRA, the BBC’s Mr Loverman and Channel 5’s Dalgliesh.

Amanda Lawrence plays Sally Menzies-Scott in season two, a character involved in the television broadcasting world of Corinium.

She is already a recognisable face on British TV, thanks to her guest appearances in pretty much any show you can think of, from Doctor Who to Casualty.

Her first regular TV credit was playing D.C. Joan Faulkland in Above Suspicion, before landing a regular role in Mr Selfridge, and starring in TV movies The Enfield Haunting, White House Farm and Chloe.

Amanda also has a successful career on the big screen, portraying Commander D’Acy in the Star Wars film The Last Jedi and its sequel, The Rise Of Skywalker. Her recent film credits include roles as the Cook in Matilda the Musical and appearing in the dark thriller Club Zero.

Olive joins her real-life dad, David Tennant, in Rivals as his character Tony’s on-screen daughter.

She follows in her family’s footsteps as an actor, as her mother, Georgia Tennant, and grandfather, Peter Davidson, are also in the business.

This isn’t Olive’s first credit, despite only just turning 15. She starred alongside her dad and Lucy Punch in the rom-com You, Me And Him, and had roles in the Oscar-nominated Belfast and the Romesh Ranganathan comedy Avoidance.

Olive isn’t the only famous offspring to join the cast of Rivals, though.

Judi Dench’s great nephew, Oliver Dench, was also added to the bonkbuster’s ensemble. Oliver made his theatre debut in 2012 and has since had multiple credits on stage and screen.

His TV debut came in 2016, when he landed the starring role in the Canadian Nickelodeon show, Ride. He later played the lead in Pandora, a short-lived science fiction show and starred as Lucien in Hotel Portofino.

Oliver also had minor appearances in Noughts + Crosses, the historical drama Domina, and, most recently, the cosy mystery Sister Boniface Mysteries.

Amelie Child-Villiers plays Olive Tennant’s on-screen sibling, Beatrice, in the second series of the popular adaptation.

She previously played a young Galadriel in the Amazon Prime prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, as well as a younger version of Rebecca Ferguson’s lead character, Juliette Nichols, in the Apple TV+ science fiction adaptation of Silo.

In 2023, Amelie also played Tatiana in the comedy-action film The Machine, alongside Mark Hamill.

The first three episodes of Rivals will premiere on 15 May 2026, on Disney +, followed by one a week until 5 June. The second half of the season will premiere later in 2026.

If the promise of more David Tennant supervillainary, Danny Dyer’s homegrown moustache and thrusting bum cheeks aplenty isn’t enough to get your juices flowing for Rivals series two, perhaps those unanimously glowing reviews will do it.

The TV adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles is back for a second go, and with Disney+ building anticipation with a staggered release this time round, fans might be wondering what to expect from the new drop.

All the usual suspects like Lord Baddingham, Freddie Jones, Rupert Campbell-Black, Declan O’Hara and Cameron Cook are back for more scheming and shagging in the new instalments, and with Rivals building on the success of its first series, it’s probably no great surprise that filming for the new season was a largely no-holds-barred affair.

Here are 11 behind-the-scenes facts you may not have known about how season two of Rivals came to be…

When Rivals first hit our screens in October 2024, Disney+ served up all eight episodes up front.

Proving the UK’s eternal appetite for a bit of well done smut, it quickly became the streamer’s most successful general entertainment premiere to date, as well as picking up Bafta and International Emmy Award nods.

Because of this, Rivals’ second season earned the right to go even bigger, with an extra four episodes being added to the slate for what Deadline referred to at the time as a “rare” 12-episode run.

According to director Elliot Hegarty, such was the success of season one that for the follow-up, they had actors actively pitching themselves for a role.

One such actor is My Best Friend’s Wedding star Rupert Everett, who managed to land himself the role of Malise Gordon, Rupert Campbell-Black’s former show-jumping mentor and new husband to his ex, Helen, played by fellow newbie Hayley Atwell.

According to Deadline, Rupert was so impressed by Rivals that he got in touch directly to ask if he could be in the next series.

The confident move paid off, with director Elliot teasing that the My Best Friend’s Wedding actor “brings just the right amount of twinkle” to series two.

Like the thrill of a dog getting loose in the school playground, there’s a universal excitement to a TV set cropping up in your local area.

Season two was filmed across locations in Bristol, Corsham in Wiltshire and Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, with West of England spots standing in for the Cotswolds and London.

According to Corsham Town Council, there’s been a “definite upturn in footfall” at the market town thanks to people wanting to visit the Rivals location, proving the adage that sex sells.

Meanwhile, the money raised from the show’s presence at Berkeley Castle will help with its repairs.

The cast and crew fully committed when filming series two’s bonfire scene, shooting it on a freezing November evening at Chavenage House in Gloucestershire – forcing Danny Dyer to take drastic measures.

“You got to put them heat pads in your trotters,” he explained. “I’ve got two double ones for me toes. And Long Johns, obviously.”

The battle between Lord Baddingham’s TV company Corinium and Declan O’Hara’s rival studio Venturer rages on in season two.

For the new episodes, production designer Dominic Hyman wanted to level up the Corinium set so that it mirrored Lord Baddingham’s wild ego, opting for suitably indulgent colours.

“I wanted to be darker and bolder with more contrasting and clashing colours within the Corinium studio sets,” he told Condé Nast Traveller.

“This year we leaned into rich purples and mauves, which contrasted really nicely with the established oranges, golds and blacks of Corinium. I hope people will notice how Tony Baddingham’s desperate, out-of-control ego drives the scale and ambition of the set designs at Corinium.”

He added: “The sets get bigger, gaudier and more and more extreme. This is the opposite of Venturer’s approach, which is about filming in the community, where people are the real subjects, not expensive and gaudy studio sets.”

Danny’s Rivals character Freddie has been dubbed a “wholesome sex symbol”, so it was perhaps only a matter of time before he was granted a nude scene for the follow-up series.

Anyone expecting to see “full Danny” may be surprised to learn that a lot of thought went into the scene to ensure that it didn’t cross the line.

“Let’s just say there’s a lot of strategically placed bubbles from a bubble bath! So it’s not…full Danny!” executive producer Dominic Treadwell Collins told The Sun.

“We’ve been really cautious about not being gratuitous. All the way through there’s a line with the show where you could be watching it and feel a bit uncomfortable. A bit like you are intruding.

“The whole point is you are with our characters. You are in the bedroom with them. We’re very careful in the edit, if suddenly the scene goes too far or gets too explicit, we pull back.”

EastEnders legend Pam St Clement wouldn’t have been in our first hundred guesses for celebrity cameos in Rivals season two, but it turns out the show’s executive producer boss Dominic knew her from his days as a story editor on the soap.

“There was this little cameo part and I miss Pam, we’ve stayed in contact since we both left EastEnders,” he explained.

Dominic didn’t stop at Pam, and shared that series two is packed with little easter eggs and cameos to keep fans guessing.

“It felt like the perfect little cameo treat for our audience and we drop them all the way through the show,” he revealed.

“Little treats to keep you on your toes!”

One of the most memorable scenes in series two takes place when Sarah Stratton and her husband, Paul, throw a dinner party for nefarious reasons.

In a comedy of errors that gives The Bard himself a run for his money, it’s 10 glorious minutes full of mishaps, near run-ins and deliciously catty comments, and the team filmed it all in a single take.

Emily explained: “It was a really surreal moment in my life. I’ve never done a scene like that, ever… Adrenaline’s so high, everyone’s just feeding off each other’s energies. You cannot put a foot wrong, though – then it all crumbles down.”

Apparently Queen Camilla and Dame Jilly Cooper went way back, so much so that the royal visited the Rivals set in Bristol during the filming of season two, to get shown around and meet the cast and crew.

One cast member who was present for the visit was Alex Hassell, with Dame Jilly previously revealing his character Rupert is partially based on Queen Camilla’s ex-husband Andrew Parker-Bowles.

Dame Jilly died suddenly in October 2025 after a fall, but with the scripts already approved by the author and production for series two underway at the time of her death, her stamp of approval is safely printed on the follow-up season.

In fact, Lisa McGrillis, who plays Valerie in the series, shared how the cast all gathered for a garden party at Dame Jilly’s house just weeks before she died.

“She was still so full of life and mischief, and she was so excited about the second series,” Lisa told the BBC. “She was completely across it. She read every single episode, signed it all off.”

Rivals series two is streaming now on Disney+.

Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham has said he would ban Video Assistant Referees (VAR) in football if he could.

The would-be prime minister said the controversial review system was “killing spontaneity [and] it’s not getting decisions right.”

Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, plans to challenge Keir Starmer if he wins next month’s crucial Makerfield by-election.

He has been cleared by Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) to stand to be the party’s candidate in the seat.

Sitting Labour MP Josh Simons, who won with a 5,399 majority at the 2024 general election, announced on Thursday that he was standing down to make way for Burnham.

In an interview with ITV on Saturday, football fan Burnham was asked what he thought of VAR.

He said: “Gone. Get rid. I’ll tell you why. It’s killing spontaneity in the ground. I’m a season ticket holder at Everton. Killing spontaneity. You can’t celebrate a goal because you think someone somewhere in an industrial unit is going to rule it out.

“So that’s a bad thing. But number two, it doesn’t get decisions right. You could put up with it if it then got decisions right, but it doesn’t get the decisions right and it’s not consistent.

“It takes a decision one week for one favoured team and then doesn’t do the same thing the next.

“So it’s killing spontaneity, it’s not getting decisions right. Get rid.”

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Whether it’s a halved melon rind or a pan full of water, there are plenty of unexpected household objects that can make keeping your garden happy easier.

And if you’re hoping to keep your plants safe from grazing deer, the British Deer Society said that a humble bar of soap might help.

Wrapping it in a mesh bag or sock can make hanging it much easier, Martha Stewart’s site added.

“Fragrant soap will help to deter deer from garden beds because the scent is out of the ordinary and seems to trick them into thinking something is off,” orchard programme manager C.J. Walke told Martha Stewart previously.

Some gardeners try to add the pungent item to their flower beds by grating it onto the surface. But experts caution against that approach, pointing out that such small pieces of soap are likely to disappear much faster than a full bar.

“While it may still be effective, it would require more frequent replacement,” Walke stated.

Instead, the British Deer Society said, “Hanging bars of heavily scented soap amongst plants is thought by some to be effective. A benefit is that soap does not need to be replaced until it has completely dissolved.”

To ensure your soap stays put, place it in a sock or mesh bag and hang it from branches or your garden fence. Or, you could drill a hole through it and tie a string through to provide a kind of handle.

The smellier, the better.

And one study found that soap which contains tallow seems to be better at deterring deer than other kinds.

Still, in their paper, both tallow and non-tallow soap placed near a plot of corn led to “significantly reduced browsing compared with untreated plots”.

However, they also noted that voles tended to damage the trunks of freshly-planted apple trees that had been protected from deer by hanging bars of soap. So, they recommended keeping an eye on your trees if you try the trick.

You should also reapply soap every four to six weeks so it doesn’t lose its scent.

Though some research has recorded good results, the British Deer Society said there are caveats.

“Evidence comes from a limited number of uncontrolled trials and suggests variable success,” they shared.

And over time, deer can become used to the new smell, which is why it’s important to move your soap around from time to time if you’re planning to stick to the method for a long period of time.

Rotating deterrants, like loud noise and/or scarecrows, can help too.