England’s men’s and women’s teams were beaten in their opening games of the FIH Hockey Pro League in Dublin.
The men lost 4-1 to Germany while the women were defeated 3-0 by Belgium in a disappointing start to proceedings.
Nick Bandurak put the men level against Germany after conceding early but they had no response once Justus Weigand restored the German lead.
And in very windy conditions, the women were on the back foot after Stephanie Vanden Borre fired Belgium ahead.
England were still in contention in the final quarter, and substituted their goalkeeper to force a way back, but Belgium’s Charlotte Englebert slammed into an empty net to put the result beyond doubt.
EastEnders legend Anita Dobson has revealed that Queen won’t tour again – but an ABBA-style avatar show is on the cards.
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Anita Dobson with her husband Sir Brian May(Image: Getty Images)
Anita Dobson, 76, has just celebrated her silver wedding anniversary with Queen guitarist Brian May, 78. She told The Mirror: “They will do little bits and bobs, but they won’t do those big tours. We are all getting old.” The news comes a few weeks after drummer Roger Taylor, 76, confirmed: “We are resting at the moment.”
Pressed further on whether Queen would be “resting forever,” he added: “At one point we will be.” Meanwhile Brian, who had a minor stroke last year, also said last week that Queen weren’t talking about touring, adding: “I’ve done 50 years of it.” He said he was enjoying pursuing his interests in astrophysics and animal rights, as well as spending time with his grandchildren and his animals. But, to put fans’ minds at rest, he made it clear he was still making music, saying: “I love to play. Everybody knows I love to play.”
READ MORE: Brian May’s wife Anita Dobson’s brutal realisation after quitting London
Anita’s bombshell revelations also come as singer Adam Lambert, who stepped into Freddie Mercury’s shoes – has been diversifying into musical theatre – giving critically acclaimed performances in Cabaret and Jesus Christ Superstar. But Anita, who rose to fame playing Angie Watts, landlady of The Queen Vic, in EastEnders, says fans may soon see the band performing Bohemian Rhapsody and other hits as they have never seen them before – as avatars.
Asked if they would be having an avatar show, like Abba’s Voyage – the highly successful virtual concert – she said: “Yeah talk has been happening. Of course it would work.” But she is not 100% sold on avatars, adding: “I have seen the ABBA show, except that it is a hologram. After a while, you are absolutely certain it is a hologram and I do miss seeing the people.
“There is no spontaneity, they can’t do anything different. What would Freddie [Mercury] make of it? Well, technology is getting more and more clever and futuristic.” But Anita has genuine doubts about AI technology.
“I don’t know how I feel about technology and AI,” she says. “In some ways it is wonderful for medical research, but in other ways I think it has taken away the desire for people to want to talk to each other.” And she fears that the lack of human interaction could damage our society. You see people glued to their phones. If we are not sociable then we are not a society anymore,” she said.
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“I think it is killing a lot of interaction. I see children sitting next to each other on the sofa and texting each other and not talking. What is that about?”
READ MORE: Anita Dobson admits ‘it was overwhelming’ in first TV interview after receiving OBE
Rocketed to overnight fame by their 1997 hit Slam Dunk (Da Funk), the next four years brought a whirlwind of success and scandal for Five’s Abz Love, Ritchie Neville, Jason ‘J’ Brown, Sean Conlon and Scott Robinson – but then things went badly wrong…
Boyband Five are a numbers game. Members Abz Love, Ritchie Neville, Jason ‘J’ Brown, Sean Conlon and Scott Robinson are fresh off the back of a 25-date reunion tour, playing to more than 250,000 fans. Put together and signed to RCA records in 1997, the popstars shot to success and enjoyed eleven top 10 singles, four top 10 albums and a BRIT Award. They released hits When The Lights Go Out, Keep On Movin’, Everybody Get Up and many more in super quick succession, followed by the intense white hot spotlight of fame. ‘It was a hot, fast, rocket that took off. It ended abruptly, and proceeded for the next two decades to completely affect our lives,” says Richie, now 46. Indeed, at the start J was 20, Abz, Richie and Scott were 17, and Sean was just 15. By 2001 the band had burned out, with some suffering various mental health issues. 24 years in the wilderness followed as they individaully tried to piece their lives back together after.
READ MORE: ‘Liam Payne’s death is an absolute tragedy,’ says star of Simon Cowell boyband Five
J says: “It’s better this time around in all respects. We’re all in a different headspace, individually and collectively. We’re older and crucially we all 100% actually want to be in it this time. We’ve got brilliant people around us. “The first time around we were fending for ourselves a lot. We were young kids. We didn’t have any idea about where we were. We were thrust into fame, taken out of our lives, put in a house together and thrown into this crazy thing. We were given half an hour’s media training above a pub in Primrose Hill with [TV presenter] Kate Thornton.”
Sean interjects: “I was 15 years old, straight from school. To go from that to instant fame, with no space away from it or days off was wild.” Richie agrees, saying: “Problems were going to arise, someone was going to crack. Or go nuts.” Having too much of everything too soon, J feels they were destined to implode. Unlike bands like Boyzone, who at least did school tours and slowly built a fan base, they had no warm up, according to Scott.
He says: “We signed our record deal, did a Radio One Roadshow as our first ever gig, and then the very next gig we did was the Smash Hits Pollwinners Party, which we won. We were playing arenas from the get-go, it was just mental. I left the band at 21, still a baby, I’d travelled the world and had a breakdown. No wonder it took us so long to get us back onto the stage. We had to fix our broken minds for 20 years. Piece ourselves back together.”
But they have clearly healed and their strong performances are matched by a strong mental outlook. J says: “The first time around it felt like one big fight, the five of us against each other sometimes.” The reunion has helped Richie to make sense of the past. He says: “My memories of Five would have always had a jagged edge if we hadn’t got back together. I’d have always thought, ‘what was that and why did it happen to me?’ Now it makes sense.”
And it has helped to Abz to appreciate their talent. He says: “I am starting to truly believe that we are the best band ever. We rock, we’re so good.” But their wilderness years saw them take quite diverse paths. J threw himself into archaeological studies, Richie opened a restaurant, and the others remained in the music industry, writing and performing as solo artists – although Abz was the only one to release a solo album.
Scott says: “I always thought it was my fault we had broken up, I carried that for years. I spent a long time afterwards trying to get the band back together. But it was never the right time. It would never have worked.” They did get back together briefly in 2013 – although without J – for the Big Reunion Tour, which also featured nostalgic bands 911, Atomic Kitten, Honeyz, Liberty X, Blue, and B*Witched. J says: “I never thought I’d do anything like this again. I’ve spent 25 years going in probably the furthest direction anyone could ever imagine from Five. I was so tainted against the music industry. I was disgusted by it and hated what it had done to me and my friends.”
Meanwhile, Richie spiralled into a drink problem when Five split. He says: “I was enjoying a lot of drinking. Then I got depressed. Then I drank every day to forget. Three years I did that for. I’d sit and think, ‘what are you going to do next?’ Like J, I didn’t want to get back into the music industry. Simon Cowell rang and said he wanted me. I just couldn’t do it. It was the wilderness years. I was completely and utterly lost. My partner at the time said to me, ‘Rich, I have never seen anyone as lost as you’.”
When Five announced their return back in February, with all five members on board, fans went wild. They were not disappointed, with the band’s 2025 tour winning five star reviews. Sean says: “The songs have stood the test of time. People love them now.” He also thinks the band members are now better equipped to appreciate each other. “When we met up for the first time, I instantly felt this magic,” he says. “We appreciate each other now. In the 90s we couldn’t, we were so young. Rabbits trapped in the headlights. Our management definitely made mistakes in the past, but one thing they got right was putting us together. We’ll always thank them for that.”
Now 46, Scott tells The Mirror: “Liam Payne is an absolute tragedy.” Liam died, aged 31, on 16 October 2024, after falling from a fourth floor hotel balcony in Argentina. Richie, also 46, adds: “It did resonate. And I think it affected us slightly differently than perhaps it would somebody ‘normal’, because we’re in a band – and it was in a hotel room.”
They certainly understand how easily partying can tip over into alcohol abuse, as the pressures of fame saw Five (also known as 5ive) earn a reputation for wild behaviour off-stage. Richie and J, now 49, were arrested and charged after a drunken brawl in Dublin and they once attacked each other with baseball bats and took mentor Simon Cowell’s car for a joyride.
In 2001, with over 20 million records sold, the band split, after “serious mental health issues” for Sean, now 44, while Scott “had a breakdown”. But today they are very grown-up versions of their former selves.
Scott who instigated the reunion in late 2024, recalls: “I phoned Abz [now 46]. And the five of us met up to speak as friends. Too much time had passed, where I would look at Abz or J’s number on my phone and think, ‘Why haven’t I called? Once upon a time they were my brothers’.” Richie adds: “It was 24 years since we’d all been in the same room at the same time.”
And there is no danger of them being silenced any time soon. On Sunday, they were the surprise guests at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball at London’s O2 Arena, while this weekend they will perform on Strictly Come Dancing. Richie adds: “We enjoy each show like it’s the last one we’ll ever do. Because it could all end. The first time around I didn’t ever consider that.”
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Sean adds: “But nobody anticipated what our songs would mean to people so many years on. The industry got that wrong.” Some of their most loyal fans have grown up with Five. Scott says: “We once gave a group of girls some yellow blankets outside a hotel, because they were freezing and in the rain – and they came back to see us this year. They were 16 then – this time they brought their kids. It’s crazy.”
And Richie says: “This tour has healed us all, in every way. The way I see it, we made a lot of people happy… and nobody got headbutted.”
READ MORE: Simon Cowell recalls calling Liam Payne’s parents after heartbreaking death
The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, where President Donald Trump has been threatening military action for the last several months.
The news outlets Reuters and Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the US Coast Guard led an operation to commandeer the vessel, but no details have been released about its name and location. Trump confirmed the news shortly after.
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“We’ve just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela — large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump said during an event at the White House. “And other things are happening. So you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”
The Trump administration has ramped up threats against Venezuela, deploying considerable military forces to the Caribbean region. That includes the deployment of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, and its strike group to the southern Caribbean.
Under Trump, the US has also carried out a campaign of lethal strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, with the Trump administration identifying Venezuela as the origin point for some of the vessels. At least 22 boats have been attacked, and an estimated 87 people have been killed.
Trump has repeated threatened to continue the bombing campaign by pursuing strikes on land as well.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that the US is seeking to topple his government.
He has responded with his own military build-up along Venezuela’s coast and indicated his country’s armed forces would resist a military attack from the US.
Oil exports are a key source of revenue for the South American country, which exported more than 900,000 barrels per day last month. Oil futures rose following the seizure.
Al Jazeera correspondent Mike Hanna noted that information about the tanker seizure remains scarce.
“There aren’t many details about the seizure of this tanker, apart from the president’s confirmation,” said Hanna.
But, Hanna added, the seizure is likely to escalate an already volatile situation in the Caribbean.
“This does mark a massive escalation in terms of US action against Venezuela. It has been reported that President Trump has been pondering for weeks now what kind of action to take in Venezuela and has been very clear that he is contemplating regime change,” he said.
But the US has taken action to seize high-value materials linked to Venezuela in the past. In February 2024, under then-President Joe Biden, the US seized a cargo plane Iran allegedly sold to Venezuela, claiming it violated sanctions on Tehran.
Then, a year later, the Trump administration seized a Dassault Falcon 2000EX jet linked to a state-run oil company in Venezuela, also claiming sanctions violations, this time against restrictions on the South American country.
The Maduro government denounced that seizure as “brazen theft”.
Trump also recently declared Venezuelan airspace closed to travel, prompting foreign airlines to pause their flights to the country.
Trump’s rivalry with Maduro stretches back to the Republican leader’s first term in office, when he imposed a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Venezuela.
The latest spike in tensions, however, has been met with domestic and international condemnation.
Just this month, two United Nations experts issued a joint statement expressing “deep concern about mounting pressure from the United States on Venezuela”.
Polls in the US also show disapproval over the escalating tensions. A November poll from The Economist and YouGov found that only 17 percent of US adults support using military force to overthrow the Venezuelan government, with 45 percent opposed.
And on Wednesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 48 percent of respondents expressed opposition to the administration’s targeting of alleged drug vessels, widely considered illegal under international law.
The Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, has vowed to continue dancing, saying it does not in any way interfere with his duties as governor.
Adeleke is well known for his energetic dancing moves, which have earned him the nickname “the dancing governor.” His love for dancing has often attracted criticism from political opponents who question his seriousness in office.
But Adeleke, who is seeking re-election in 2026 on the platform of the Accord Party, insists that his dancing will have no impact on his political fortunes.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, the governor said, “I will keep dancing because I love to dance, I love to praise my God, and that doesn’t change anything. So, I will still dance, praise my God, and do my work.”
Scientists have uncovered the oldest-known evidence of deliberate fire-making by prehistoric humans in Suffolk, Britain – revealing it happened some 350,000 years earlier than experts previously believed.
The site, a former clay pit near the village of Barnham, contains a hearth made by Neanderthals about 415,000 years ago.
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Until now, the earliest known evidence of humans making fire dated to around 50,000 years ago at a site in northern France, also linked to Neanderthals.
Researchers identified the remains of a repeatedly used campfire, including heated clay, flint tools shattered by intense heat and two pieces of iron pyrite – a mineral that sparks when struck against flint to ignite tinder.
“We think humans brought pyrite to the site with the intention of making fire. And this has huge implications, pushing back the earliest fire-making,” said archaeologist Nick Ashton, curator of Palaeolithic Collections at the British Museum in London.
While there are even older signs of humans using naturally occurring wildfires in Africa, this is the earliest proof that people knew how to start their own fires.
Fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution. Controlled flames allowed ancient hunter-gatherers to live in colder environments, cook food, and protect themselves from predators. Cooking also helped our ancestors get more energy from meat, roots and tubers, fuelling the growth of larger brains and enabling communities to support more people.
Scientists say fire likely transformed social life as well. It brought people together at night to share warmth, food and conversation, possibly encouraging storytelling, language and cultural beliefs.
“The campfire becomes a social hub,” British Museum archaeologist and study co-author Rob Davis said. “We’re a species who have used fire to really shape the world around us – and now we know this is something Neanderthals were doing far earlier than we thought, just like us.”
The evidence at Barnham suggests repeated fire use at temperatures above 700 degrees Celsius (1,292 degrees Fahrenheit), pointing to deliberate fire-starting rather than reliance on natural flames. The team spent four years testing the materials to confirm the hearth’s age and human origin.
