Israeli forces destroyed homes in the occupied West Bank and killed dozens in Gaza as Palestinians marked 77 years since the Nakba. Israel’s ‘brutality’ has displaced 85-year-old Nakba survivor Mohammed once again, but he says this time it’s worse.
Watch Sportscene highlights of Hearts v St Johnstone
Owner Adam Webb has backed “visionary coach” Simo Valakari to “return St Johnstone to its glory days” following their Scottish Premiership relegation.
Defeat by Hearts on Wednesday, combined with Ross County drawing at Dundee, consigned the Perth side to a bottom-placed finish with one game left.
It ended a 16-year top-flight stay that included several top-half finishes, two Scottish Cup wins, a League Cup triumph and European adventures.
Those successes were waning by the time American lawyer Webb took control in July 2024 and the club parted with Craig Levein two months later following four straight losses.
“Relegation certainly wasn’t part of our plan for St Johnstone,” said Webb in an open letter to fans. “We will need your support next season more than ever before.
“First and foremost, we will back Simo. We have a visionary coach and a solid core group of players who will be staying with us for next season.
“Simo is just getting started on the project to return St Johnstone to its glory days. We have seen Simo’s tireless work ethic, as well as his aspirations and passion.”
Webb expects the Championship to be “gritty and challenging” and urged fans to turn out in numbers home and away, while admitting they “deserved much better”.
“This is not the time to slacken in our resolve,” he added.
“Our budgeting shows that our club will lose nearly £2m in revenue. This is simply the natural order when a club drops from the Premiership.
“We will never take your support for granted and are well aware that our standards must be higher in the seasons to come. We embrace this challenge.
The numbers illustrate why St Johnstone have dropped out of the top flight.
They have struggled to get going in games and often left themselves with too much to do later on.
They have conceded 35 first-half goals in 37 games, the worst in the Premiership. In addition, they have failed to score a first-half goal in 26 of those matches. Again, bottom of the charts.
A fair few of those goals have been avoidable, too, with 10 leading from errors – the top flight’s joint-worst record along with Dundee.
And too often, they concede when they shouldn’t.
Their cumulative expected-goals (xG) against is 54, but they have shipped 12 more than that, suggesting they are susceptible to letting soft goals.
Given St Johnstone’s fortunes in the Premiership in recent seasons, should we be too surprised?
It was 2020/21 when they created history by winning both major cup competitions and finishing fifth in the Premiership. All looked to be rosy, with a squad full of Scottish talent who knew how to win games.
But the warning signs were there early on the following season. Despite gallant away performances against Galatasaray and LASK, their European campaign was over by the end of August.
A run of eight straight defeats in the league between the start of December and the end of January saw the club plummet towards the bottom end of the table.
Although they reached the semi-finals of the League Cup, losing 1-0 to Celtic, there was huge disappointment when they fell at the first hurdle in their defence of the Scottish Cup at Kelty Hearts.
Premiership survival was only achieved after play-off success over two legs against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
The following seasons in the league were marginally better with ninth and 10th-placed finishes. But again there were early exits in both cup competitions.
Despite some brave performances this term, including a home win over champions Celtic, they were unable to avoid the drop.
Valakari said “there were no excuses” and the team were simply “not good enough”.
He stressed “things need to change” if they are to bounce back at the first time of asking.
Dunc: Not a lot you can say about the way it has all ended. Radical surgery required, and Valakari must be allowed at least one window going forward.
Gutted, but we knew it was coming. The last three seasons were a shambles. We would, at times, have been hard pressed to beat a Sunday League pub team.
Gordy: Again, the simple answer is that Valakari should not be allowed to continue in the Championship. His team selection could at best be described as eccentric, and playing out from the back has been a notable failure and tested to destruction.
Beyond that, the 3981 miles between Atlanta, Georgia and Perth has been allowed to become too great structurally by the new owners. They have not committed enough attention to the executive dimension of the club.
Although in mitigation, the deterioration reaches back into the later days of the Brown regime. Relegation has been at least four seasons in the making.
Euan: There’s never been a better time to remember the 2021 cup double and reflect on how good a month May has been to us recently, what a fantastic high to measure the lows against.
Paul: I hope Simo stays, he brings positivity and a clear way of playing, we just need to overhaul the squad and start building for a promotion campaign.
John: We have the right man in place. A busy few days ahead weeding out the unwanted players and keeping the ones we’ll need. Hopefully, plans are already in place for a few much-needed signings. The Saints will rise again.
Donald: This is down to Craig Levein, playing inexperienced goalkeepers, whose mistakes at the start of the season probably cost six points. Also loss of two key central defenders left that part of the team decimated.
Prince Harry has made several explosive claims about his brother over the years, but one allegation sparked significant debate.
While promoting his highly anticipated autobiography Spare, the Duke of Sussex sat down with Anderson Cooper on CBS’s flagship 60 Minutes to open up about his life, struggles, and family tensions. During the interview, Harry sharply criticised Prince William for various reasons, including a bizarre claim that his brother attempted to ban him from having a beard at his own wedding.
Harry also accused William and his sister-in-law, Kate, the Princess of Wales, of “stereotyping” his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and not getting along with her “from the get-go.” However, one of the most controversial moments came when Harry took aim at his brother for allegedly refusing to speak out about issues at school, a remark that has left many divided over the deeper implications of their relationship.
READ MORE: Prince William trying to shed his ‘work shy’ image as he prepares for ‘job he doesn’t want’
Harry had begun the interview by saying that he loves William and that he never deliberately tried to hurt him.
“My brother and I love each other. I love him deeply,” he told Cooper.
“There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. Umm… None of anything that I’ve written, anything I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family.”
“But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.”
While discussing his school days, Harry then claimed that William made a rather scathing remark when he first attended Eton.
Harry said William wanted them to “pretend” they didn’t know each other while they were at school.
“Even when you were in the same school, in high school,” Cooper said to Harry, “Your brother told you, ‘Pretend we don’t know each other.'”
Harry replied: “Yeah, and at the time it hurt. I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school’.
“Like, ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other.’ And I took that personally.
“But yes, you’re absolutely right, you hit the nail on the head. Like, we had a very similar traumatic experience, and then we— we dealt with it two very different ways.”
Many viewers took to Twitter to claim this is just standard behaviour for siblings at school.
“That made me laugh… because my daughters went to the same school and my eldest daughter would tell the younger that at school they don’t know each other….. That is normal behaviour with siblings,” wrote one person.
Another added: “My older brothers told me not to never approach them in the playground in front of their mates and if I did they wouldn’t give me a ride home on the handlebars of their bike. I’m still waiting for my 60 minutes interview to flesh that out.”
However, some people came to Harry’s defence and suggested the circumstances were very different to most.
“Did you also live in a [boarding] school without any family after losing a parent? It’s not the same thing,” asked one viewer.
A fourth tweeted: “They were two young boys still dealing with the death of their mother. Harry just wanted to hang out with his older brother, his only family member, in boarding school. Although I don’t think William’s action was malicious. But he just didn’t realise how much Harry needed him.”
Harry went on to speak about the shared traumatic experience the brothers had – the death of their mother.
The Duke of Sussex claimed William did make efforts to speak about Princess Diana, but Harry didn’t know how to discuss his mother’s passing.
“William had tried to talk to you occasionally about your mom,” Cooper said to Harry, “but you, as a child you could not— you couldn’t respond.”
“For me, it was never a case of, ‘I— I don’t want to talk about it with you,'” Harry said. “I just don’t know how to talk about it. I never ever thought that maybe talking about it with my brother or with anybody else at that point would be therapeutic.”
Buckingham and Kensington Palaces have refused to content on the contents of the book.
READ MORE: Dermatologist approved skincare brand from Yorkshire that ‘clears skin in a week’
Ruben Amorim believes the best preparation for Manchester United ahead of the Europa League final would be to shock Chelsea in Friday’s Premier League clash rather than resting his key players.
United sit 16th in the English top flight, just outside the relegation zone, after their worst ever Premier League season by some distance.
Amorim has won just six of his 25 league games since taking charge in November.
However, the Europa League offers the chance of salvation with a place in next season’s lucrative Champions League on offer for the winner as well as a major European trophy.
READ ALSO: Haaland Eyes FA Cup To Save Face After Man City’s ‘Horrific’ Season
“We cannot spend eight days, nine days without a game. That is a bad thing for the final,” said Amorim.
“The best way is to face the game like we should face the game — it is to win the game. We need to perform, we need to win points in the Premier League and that is the feeling.
“The players have to understand that if you play or don’t play against Chelsea, it means nothing to the final. That is important.
“I am just preparing the game of Chelsea. That is my focus and we want to win and to perform.”
Defenders Diogo Dalot, Matthijs de Ligt and Leny Yoro are all expected to miss the trip to London with their participation in the final in doubt.
Chelsea must win at Stamford Bridge to keep their hopes of Champions League qualification via a top-five finish in their own hands.
Ahead of Manchester City facing Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final on Saturday, BBC Sport looks back at the last time the pair played each other in the competition, with a brilliant free-kick from Yaya Toure sealing a 3-0 win for the Blues in 2017.
We might not all be gardening experts, but there’s one person we can rely on to get things in shape: Monty Don. Rather than going in blind, it’s handy to have someone around to lead you in the right direction – and Monty’s latest tip is super simple and could save your plants from a painful death.
As you might know, May is a massive month for gardening. As the weather changes, many plants and flowers can move location or even be planted for the first time, and it’s a good chance to get ready in advance to make sure that your garden is thriving by summer.
One thing you’re probably thinking about at the moment is sprucing up your garden space with annual plants – meaning the type that can’t be planted year-round and won’t last in the garden forever.
However, BBC star Monty warns not to be too hasty, and advises that a simple step can stop plants from dying off after being moved outside.
On his website, the Gardeners’ World presenter explains that the middle of May is the ideal time to plant ‘tender annuals’, including sunflowers, zinnias, and tobacco plants. For the most part, these can all happily go outside now unless your garden is particularly cold.
The key thing to ensure their health and growth, however, is ‘hardening them off’ for a week or more. In short, this means giving the plants a bit of time to acclimatise to the outside world before putting them straight in the soil.
Monty explains: “Hardening off is important and will mean much faster growing and longer-lasting flowers – so if you buy any of these annuals from a garden centre over the coming weeks, do not plant them out immediately but put them in a sheltered place for a week to acclimatise to your garden, as they will probably have been kept sheltered for best retail display.”
So, you’ve completed the hardening off period, but you might still be a bit unsure exactly how or where to plant the tender annuals. Thankfully, Monty also has some advice for that.
In his own garden, the expert prefers to focus on aesthetics, grouping them around to break up the bedding and add a bit more diversity. For planting, he suggests to “space them about 12 – 18 inches apart in a sunny situation that is sheltered from strong winds and water them in well.”
Alongside tender annuals, you might also want to get some use out of your garden in way of food – and May is also a great time for that. The Mirror recently revealed which fruits are best to plant now if you want to be able to pluck a snack directly from your garden by summer.