Transform your garden into a ‘tropical paradise’ with a large fan palm tree that’s now 40% less

Elevate your garden with a tropical twist this summer, as this large Mexican fan palm tree has had its price slashed by a whopping 40% for a limited time

Fan palm tree that transforms garden into ‘tropical paradise’ has mega 40% off(Image: Wowcher)

Fancy stepping up your outside space with an exotic flair, without breaking the bank? Now’s your chance. This Mexican Fan Palm Plant is currently up for grabs with a major discount. The Washingtonia Robusta is set to “transform your garden into a tropical paradise”, as this striking plant is celebrated for its towering height (up to 4 feet) and massive fan-shaped leaves that sway gracefully in the breeze.

This palm tree, which will transform your patio or garden into a tropical haven, would normally cost £32.98, but thanks to this Wowcher deal, it is currently available for £19.99.

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3-4ft Mexican Fan Palm Tree - Washingtonia Robusta
This 3-4ft Mexican Fan Palm Tree – Washingtonia Robusta was £32.98 and is now £19.99(Image: Wowcher)

Sure to become a stunning focal point of your outdoor area, this Skyduster palm reaches 3-4ft, making it the perfect addition for gardens, patios, or decks. Touted as hardy and resilient, this palm tree thrives in UK climates, even as temperatures drop to -8°C, making it ideal for sunny, well-drained spots all year round.

Offering a vibrant, exotic touch, whether indoors or outdoors, this palm tree originated in Mexico and has become famed as the Hollywood palm in California. It adds an LA vibe to your outdoor area, regardless of where you live.

The main perk is that this tree is super easy to grow and requires minimal care and maintenance, so you can plant this beauty and sit back, relax and enjoy this plant’s tropical aesthetic.

Preferring sunnier spaces and set to thrive in fast-draining soil, this palm tree will transport you and your garden to the sun-drenched landscape of South America, without costing a fortune.

That said, the best time to plant this palm to be rewarded with the results of its tropical look is during the springtime. But that shouldn’t stop you planting in the summer months, as it’s recommended to pop this gem in the ground when there’s no risk of frost.

Green-thumbed shoppers who have taken advantage of this deal have left glowing testimonials. One happy customer shares: “This Fan Palm Tree arrived on time and well packed. It is healthy, strong, and already settled in its new pot. This tree was suitably moist, and hopefully, it will start sprouting new growth very soon.”

Another writes: “Lovely plants. Looks good on the patio.”

Further praise comes from this buyer, who beams: “Delivery was faster than expected, as in only a few days, and was delivered upright. The great thing was that it was bigger than I expected. I am so pleased I ordered this beautiful addition and would definitely order more.”

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Another shopper shares the same sentiment, saying: “Really happy with this. It’s a really healthy plant, Bigger than I expected it to be too. Definitely recommend.”

Meghan Markle makes veiled dig at royals about ‘truth’ in explosive new interview

Meghan Markle has opened up about how she would rewrite her public narrative given the chance in a brand new podcast inerview – and appeared to take aim at the royals

Meghan has appeared on the podcast Aspire with Emma Grede (Image: Emma Grede/Youtube)

Meghan Markle has appeared to make a subtle dig at the Royal Family in her latest explosive podcast interview. The Duchess of Sussex was quizzed on her public image in an appearance on the Aspire by Emma Grede podcast, where she also discussed setting up her own As Ever lifestyle brand, as well as what drives her career goals.

At one point during the hour-and-a-half sit-down chat, Emma, the co-founder of jeans brand Good American with Khloe Kardashian, asks Meghan about how her fame makes her instantly recognisable.

She tells the Duchess: “I wanted to ask you a little bit about the public narrative, because when you sign up to be an actress, you know that people are going to start recognising you, they’re going to start speaking to you on the street. But that’s very different from what you have now.

Meghan chats to Emma Grede
Meghan chats to Emma Grede (Image: Emma Grede/Youtube)

And Meghan replies: “It is, Emma! It’s very different” before laughing. Emma follows up with: “If you could rewrite your public narrative from scratch, is there anything that you would do differently?”

To which Meghan says: “Yes, I would ask people to tell the truth.” She adds: “You go through those chapters and you do a lot of work. You do a lot of selfwork and go, what’s the why? It’s happening for a reason.” She adds: “My dear friend Serena, who I’m sure you know.. she says a lie can’t live forever. Eight years is a long time but not forever.”

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Her comment about telling the truth comes after Meghan has previously accused the palace of “perpetuating falsehoods” about her during her time as a working royal. In her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, the chat show host asked her: “How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?”

And Meghan said: “I don’t know how they could expect that, after all of this time, we would still just be silent if there is an active role that The Firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us.”

Meghan and Harry in their interview with Oprah Winfrey
Meghan and Harry in their interview with Oprah Winfrey (Image: CBS)

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the podcast, Meghan broke her silence on her controversial twerking video with a defiant response. The Duchess of Sussex raised eyebrows when she shared a clip of her and Prince Harry dancing around a hospital room in a bid to bring on labour while Meghan was in the later stages of pregnancy with Princess Lilibet.

The candid video, which runs for more than a minute, features the song ‘Baby Mamma’ and sees Harry beckoned in by Meghan as the pair dance together, with the duke appearing at the end with the hood of his grey hoodie up as he continues his dance moves.

Meghan, wearing a black maternity dress, cradles her large bump as she dances, as well as lifting her skirt above her knees, raising her hands in the air and wiggling low with her hands on her hips and legs.

The Duchess had not addressed the reaction to the now-viral clip – until now. Meghan tells Emma about being authentic to be successful, before asking the host: “Did you see my ‘Baby Momma’ dance?”

Meghan in a video she shared of herself dancing before giving birth
Meghan in a video she shared of herself dancing before giving birth(Image: Meghan/Instagram)

Emma, who is also a founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s successful brand Skims, revealed: “We maybe watched it like 20 times yesterday, and I was like, is that, is that her? Is that Prince Harry there with the fingers…I was like, okay…good on Harry, let’s go. But that’s you, right? Like that’s you in a way that we kind of haven’t been able to see you before.”

“And I did like a little secret cheer, cause I was like, well, that’s what I kind of want to see from you. Like I wanna see that happiness and that honesty and that ‘I don’t give a f***’ kind of thing.”

And breaking her silence on the clip, Meghan explained: “That was four years ago. So it’s also a really great reminder that with all the noise or whatever people do, there’s still a whole life — a real, authentic, fun life — that’s happening behind the scenes.”

“I’m just grateful that now, being back on social as well, I have a place where I can share it on my own terms.”

The newpodcast interview comes after Meghan took to social media just yesterday to share a heartfelt Father’s Day tribute to her husband, featuring rare never-before-seen footage of the couple’s two children.

Meghan posted a video to Instagram showing Harry alongside Archie and Lilibet, set to the song Have It All by Jason Mraz. “The best,” she captioned her post. “Happy Father’s Day to our favorite guy.”

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The compilation showed photos and videos of Harry laughing, dancing and spending quality time with his children through the years. The Duchess made her social media return in early 2025 and regularly shares personal milestones and professional updates through her Instagram account.

Van Poortvliet called up to train with Lions as cover for Gibson-Park

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Leicester scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet has been called up to train with the British and Irish Lions after Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park suffered a minor glute strain.

Van Poortvliet will fly to Dublin on Tuesday morning to help the team prepare for their match against Argentina on Friday.

Gibson-Park, England’s Alex Mitchell and Wales’ Tomos Williams are the three scrum-halves named in head coach Andy Farrell’s original squad.

Farrell has called up several players to help the Lions prepare for their warm-up match against the Pumas, with England front-rowers Jamie George and Asher Opoku-Fordjour filling in, in the absence of players involved in the Premiership and United Rugby Championship finals last weekend, before returning home.

Van Poortvliet was England’s first-choice nine before the 2023 Rugby World Cup but sustained an ankle injury, which forced him to withdraw from the tournament and gave Mitchell an opportunity to stake his claim.

Gibson-Park, widely assumed to be the leading contender to start at nine in the three-Test series against Australia this summer, pulled out of Leinster’s URC final against the Bulls on the morning of Saturday’s match.

He is part of a contingent of Leinster players who arrive for Lions duty carrying injuries, with tight-head prop Tadhg Furlong and full-back Hugo Keenan reporting calf complaints.

Furlong has made just nine appearances for his province and Ireland this season and is a particular concern with Scotland’s Zander Fagerson already pulling out of the tour with injury.

Finlay Bealham and England’s Will Stuart are the other tight-head options in the squad, with Opoku-Fordjour, who can play on both sides of the scrum, seemingly on stand-by after his role in camp last week.

Van Poortvliet’s call-up to the Lions leaves England a scrum-half short as they prepare for their match against a France XV at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium on Saturday.

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‘Disrespect to US’: Ukraine slams Russia’s ‘horrific’ bombardment of Kyiv

Waves of Russian missile and drone strikes have killed at least 15 people and injured 116 others, with most of the casualties in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have reported.

The massive aerial assault overnight into Tuesday struck 27 locations in the Ukrainian capital, damaging residential buildings and critical infrastructure, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

Ukrainian officials were quick to call for international attention on the attacks as Kyiv pushes diplomatic efforts to raise pressure on Moscow to agree a ceasefire.

“Today, the enemy spared neither drones nor missiles,” Klymenko said, describing the attack as one of the largest against Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block, and emergency services were searching through the rubble for possible survivors, Klymenko added.

People were injured in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts, and fires broke out in two other parts of the city, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

‘Total disrespect’

Klitschko also noted that a United States citizen died from shrapnel wounds.

The Russian strikes, which lasted throughout the night, came as world leaders met in Canada for the Group of Seven (G7) summit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to attend the talks on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump, left, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, on June 16, 2025 [Reuters]

Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha suggested the “massive and brutal strike” against Kyiv was deliberately timed, in particular painting it as an insult to US President Donald Trump.

“Putin does this on purpose, just during the G7 summit. He sends a signal of total disrespect to the United States and other partners who have called for an end to the killing,” he wrote on social media.

Zelenskyy is seeking to persuade Trump to extend support to Ukraine and put additional pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree a ceasefire.

Sybiha suggested the Russian president wanted to make G7 leaders “appear weak”.

“Only strong steps and real pressure on Moscow can prove him wrong,” the diplomat added.

Zelenskyy called the overnight strikes “one of the most horrific attacks” carried out by Moscow and declared that Putin “does this solely because he can afford to continue the war”.

Little progress

Pressed by Trump, Russia and Ukraine have held two rounds of direct talks over a truce but have made little progress with the exception of agreeing prisoner exchanges and the return of bodies.

In the meantime, Russia has increased its bombardments since a daring operation by Ukraine deep inside Russia on June 1 destroyed much of Moscow’s heavy bomber fleet.

In its latest attacks, Russia used 175 drones and more than 14 cruise missiles, Kyiv’s authorities said on Telegram.

Officials in Odesa said 13 people had been injured in further attacks on the Black Sea port city.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that its air defence units had intercepted and destroyed 147 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.

While Ukraine is pressing for support from the West to help it maintain its air defences, Russia is suspected of sourcing arms from China, Iran and North Korea.

Reflecting Moscow’s growing ties with Pyongyang, Putin’s top security adviser, Sergei Shoigu, was reported by Russian state media to have arrived in the North Korean capital on Tuesday for talks with leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea is suspected of supplying Russia with ballistic missiles, antitank rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition while thousands of its soldiers are reported to have died during operations to oust occupying Ukrainian troops from Russia’s border region of Kursk.

Most Americans now get their news from social media, report finds

Social media and video platforms have eclipsed traditional media as news sources in the United States for the first time, a report has found.

Fifth-four percent of surveyed Americans used platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok for news during the previous week, up from 27 percent in 2013, the report by the Reuters Institute showed on Tuesday.

Only 50 percent relied on TV, while 48 percent looked at news websites or apps, according to the 2025 Digital News Report.

Young people drove the shift, with 54 percent of Americans aged 18-24 and half of those aged 25-34 choosing social media and video platforms as their “main” source of news.

The move towards social media was strongest in the US and Brazil, where 34 percent and 35 percent of respondents, respectively, described it as their “main” source of news, followed by the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Japan.

Individual online influencers, most of them right-leaning, are also reaching large numbers of news consumers, the report found.

More than one-fifth of US respondents said they had seen podcaster Joe Rogan discuss the news during the week following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, while 12-14 percent encountered Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro, according to the report.

Political commentator Tucker Carlson attends Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025 [Shawn Thew/Pool via Reuters]

The report also found that the so-called “Trump bump” experienced by news platforms in 2016 has not carried over into his second presidency, with only social media and video platforms seeing their audiences rise.

Across nearly 50 countries surveyed, four in 10 respondents said they trusted most news “most of the time,” a figure that has been stable for the past three years, according to the report.

Trust was highest in Nigeria, where 68 percent expressed confidence, followed by Finland, Kenya, Denmark, South Africa and Thailand.

Respondents in Greece and Hungary had the least trust, with just 22 percent believing the news, followed by those in Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Nic Newman, the report’s author, said the declining influence of traditional media has been a boon for politicians, who are “increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favour of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’, and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions”.

“These trends are increasingly pronounced in the United States under Donald Trump, as well as parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, but are moving more slowly elsewhere, especially where news brands maintain a strong connection with audiences,” Newman said in an overview of the report.

“In countries where press freedom is under threat, alternative ecosystems also offer opportunities, at their best, to bring fresh perspectives and challenge repressive governments,” Newman said.

Ben Wiggins – son of Sir Bradley – targets Olympic glory of his own

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Cyclist Ben Wiggins, son of five-time Olympic champion and Tour de France winner Sir Bradley, has opened up on the good and bad of being related to a legend of the sport.

The 20-year-old from Ormskirk is currently competing at the Under-23 Giro D’Italia, also known as Giro Next Gen, and has admitted the Wiggins surname carries a hefty weight of expectation.

“I definitely see it partly as an advantage but, trust me, there’s an awful lot of things that come with it that aren’t as easy,” Wiggins told BBC Radio Lancashire.

“There’s a lot of benefits that come with it that people would expect, but then there’s more things that come with it that aren’t as good.

“I’m incredibly proud of him and what he did. Sometimes, when they do team presentations before the race, I’d be brought on stage and introduced as Bradley Wiggins’ son before my name is even mentioned.

“I’m also compared to the standards of a five-time Olympic champion and Tour de France winner.

Wiggins began his cycling career in 2022 when he signed as a junior rider for the Fensham Howes-MAS Design team.

After winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Championships in the men’s junior individual time trial, Wiggins joined United States-based Hagens Berman Jayco, managed by Axel Merckx – the son of five-time Tour de France champion Eddy Merckx.

Wiggins says his and Merckx’s similar stories played a big role in deciding which team to ride for.

“As a junior, I was second in the World Championships in Glasgow and I had the choice of many different places to go,” he explained.

Team GB's Ben Wiggins in actionGetty Images

A rugby and football fanatic from an early age, Wiggins says he was 15 before he wanted to become a cyclist, despite his father’s influence on the sport.

“I played rugby and football predominantly up until when Covid hit and we couldn’t play team sports. At school, there was that banter around cycling. It’s not fancy, it’s not cool,” he said.

Wiggins also has his eyes on representing his country at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles but says he has a lot of work to do if he is to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“My ambition is to be an Olympic Champion in LA,” Wiggins added.

“There’s plenty more things on the table for me to achieve but it’s a dream of mine so that’s definitely the mid to long-term goal, on the track or on the road.

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