Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead when giving a talk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday in the latest example of ‘political violence’ in the US. President Trump ordered flags to fly at half-mast for the controversial 31-year-old.
Chris Hughes took to Instagram to update fans after breaking his finger. The former Love Islander and Celebrity Big Brother housemate posted to his Instagram stories to share his relief that the injury wasn’t worse.
The star posted a picture of an x-ray showing where his finger had broken and captioned the post: “I’ve been strolling around for 5 weeks playing golf with a broken finger.”
He clarified that he was aware of an injury but didn’t realise it was a break, and instead thought it was worse. “Thought it was ligaments when it happened, so just took painkillers each time cus it was brutal pain,” he wrote. “But today finally got ultrasound.”
Chris was relieved to find his finger was broken, as a ligament injury would have been worse. While a break will often heal cleanly with the right care, torn ligaments are less likely to do so because of their poor blood supply. They are also slower to heal. As such, Chris’ golfing hobby would have been impacted more severely had it been a ligament injury, so he called the break a “good result”.
“Anyway a fracture is better than ligament damage so all in all, a good result,” he said. He also joked that people should “watch out for the injured golfer” and said his golfing skills were at their peak.
“My golf is the best place it’s ever been,” he continued. “So as they say, ‘watch out for the injured golfer’.”
Golf is not the only sport Chris posts about online. Since leaving the Big Brother house in April, he has posted about Soccer Aid, horse racing and cricket. Since 2021, Chris has been a presenter for the BBC’s coverage of cricket tournament The Hundred but was dropped in August ahead of this year’s competition, in favour of Rick Edwards from Radio Five Live.
During his time presenting The Hundred, Chris caused controversy after telling female cricketer Maitlan Brown she was “like a little Barbie”.
He also spent six years as part of ITV Racing’s presenting team but was dropped in April over a pay dispute.
Outside of his sports posts, Chris’s Instagram is mostly filled with pictures of himself and his girlfriend, Jojo Siwa. The pair met on Celebrity Big Brother and a reportedly hinting at marriage in the near future.
Danny Wilson is joining Wales as part of Steve Tandy’s management team.
The 49-year-old worked with the national team as forward coach during their summer tour to Japan but has now left Harlequins for a permanent role.
The former Wales Under-20s head coach, who was Scotland assistant between 2018 and 2020, is Tandy’s first appointment since taking charge and will take responsibility for the line-out and contact areas.
Wilson has previously coached in Welsh rugby with Dragons, Scarlets and Cardiff, and will now try to help turn around the country’s Test fortunes having helped halt a record 18-Test losing run in Japan.
“Having the opportunity to experience international rugby again for the interim period with Wales this summer in Japan was a huge honour,” he said.
“I’m delighted to be able to return on a permanent basis and to be able to work again with Steve and this exciting group of young players.”
Tandy started his role as Wales head coach on 1 September and worked closely with Wilson during their shared time in Scottish rugby.
Wilson joined Harlequins in the summer of 2023 and led the club to the Champions Cup semi-finals in his first campaign.
He said he was “hugely proud” of blooding young talent and will lead Quins for the last time in Friday’s opening game of the season at Newcastle Red Bulls in the Prem Rugby Cup.
Harlequins have confirmed the coaching group of Nick Evans, Jason Gilmore, Gerard Mullen and, another potential Wales target, Adam Jones will take charge for the “short-term” alongside general manager Andy Sanger.
Chief executive Laurie Dalrymple said: “Whilst we recognise we are close to start of the new Prem campaign, we are confident in our coaching team’s ability to step up and deliver, and we are excited to kick off our season.
Wilson’s appointment comes at a time of major uncertainty over the future of the elite game in Wales with the WRU proposing to cut the current four professional men’s clubs – Cardiff, Dragons, Scarlets, Ospreys – to just two.
A final decision is due at the end of October, before Tandy and Wilson link up with their players for the autumn Tests against Argentina, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa in November.
Earlier this summer WRU director of rugby Dave Reddin ruled out any coaches combining club and country duties by insists Wales was not a part-time job and hailed Wilson as a “perfect fit”.
Spanish Sports Minister Pilar Alegria has said Israeli teams should be banned from sport in the same way that Russian sides broadly were in 2022 after the country invaded Ukraine, highlighting a “double standard”.
The presence of a team named Israel-Premier Tech at the Vuelta a Espana cycling grand tour has led to huge protests in Spain. The Spanish government has described Israel’s offensive in Gaza as “a genocide”.
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Israel-Premier Tech is a private outfit owned by billionaire Israeli-Canadian property developer Sylvan Adams, not a state team, but has been hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to quit the Vuelta despite vehement protests.
“It is difficult to explain and understand that there is a double standard,” Alegria told Spanish radio station Cadena SER.
“Given that there has been such a massacre, a genocide, such an absolutely terrible situation we are living through day-by-day, I would agree that the international federations and committees should take the same decision as in 2022,” she added.
“No team, no club from Russia participated in an international competition, and when the individuals participated, they did it under a neutral flag and without a national anthem.”
Alegria said she would like Vuelta organisers to block Israel-Premier Tech from competing, but accepted that such a decision could only be taken by the cycling world governing body, UCI.
Various stages of the Vuelta have been affected by protests, with stages 11 and 16 shortened during racing, while Thursday’s stage 18 time trial has also been cut short in advance for security reasons.
Alegria said she hopes the race can be completed, with Sunday’s final stage heading into Madrid expected to be targeted by various protests.
“It would not be good news if the race cannot finish,” said Alegria.
“However, what we’re seeing these days with the protests is, in my opinion, logical,” she added.
“[The protests] are a clear representation of what the people feel, sport cannot be distanced from the world that surrounds it.”
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government has taken one of Europe’s strongest pro-Palestinian stances, straining ties with Israel.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for an unprecedented cross-border attack led by the Palestinian group Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of 1,139 people, most of whom were civilians.
Israel’s bombardment has killed at least 64,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza.
“[Israeli forces] have killed more than 60,000 people; children, babies [are] starving to death, hospitals destroyed,” added Alegria.
A-list award show afterparties have a reputation for being rowdy, but this year’s National Television Awards had celebrities on their best behaviour. As the show – which saw surprising winners such as Gary Lineker and Molly-Mae Hague – wrapped up, I joined the flurry of stars making their way to the exclusive after party.
However, many chose to skip out on the celebrations, including Maura Higgins and Danny Jones, who appear to have sworn off afterparties following their BRIT Awards scandal earlier this year. The awkward pair weren’t the only ones who didn’t turn up, with Molly-Mae, Olivia Attwood, Ben Shepherd, Helen Flanagan, Maya Jama and many others heading home after the show.
For those that did go along, there was a set of strict rules for entry to the notriously private event, with a ticket to the main show not quite cutting it.
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Guests queued up before arriving to the heavily-manned doors, where they traded afterparty tickets for satin wristbands before being allowed entry.
Inside, rows of prosecco, wine and beer were lined up across the several bars, complimentary for the guests to take. No one in the room went hungry either, with waiters first circling the room with canape trays before coming out with fish and chips, chicken burgers, and plenty of boxed food for guests.
The party had a surprisingly tame atmosphere, a contrast to what I’ve seen at previous NTA afterparties – which weren’t short of arguing, drama, and secret rendez vous. Showbiz veterans looked at home at the bash, with soap stars such as Bobby Brazier chatting to guests and mingling.
Sam Thompson and Pete Wicks stuck together near the bar as they politely mingled with fellow guests, but kept it far from rowdy as they lay low on the drinks.
Ukraine reclaimed 62sq km (24sq miles) of territory last month, its commander in chief revealed on Monday, contradicting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent claim to be advancing “in all directions”.
“The month in which the occupiers hoped for their breakthroughs and made maximum efforts for this became the month with comparatively the smallest territorial gains by the enemy in recent times,” Oleksandr Syrskii, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, claimed on his Telegram messaging service channel.
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Most of the gains were in Donetsk, Ukraine’s eastern region, where fighting has been intense for most of the war.
Russian forces there have been gunning for the towns of Dobropillia and Pokrovsk, but lost ground in both directions.
Towards Dobropillia, Russia captured 13.5sq km (5.21sq miles), but lost 25.5sq km (10sq miles), said Syrskii. “In the Pokrovsk direction, their gain was 5sq km (1.9sq miles), while our troops regained control over 26sq km (10sq miles),” Syrskii said.
He added that Ukrainian troops gained another 4sq km (1.5sq miles) on other sectors of the front.
Across the entire front, Russia made estimated gains of 499sq km (190sq miles) in August, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, but its losses contradict Putin’s recent claim in Beijing that all Russian troops in Ukraine were “advancing successfully, at different speeds”.
“Despite spreading propaganda … the Russians suffered blows,” said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.
Dnipro Group of forces spokesman Oleksiy Belskyi, whose unit is defending Pokrovsk, said on Saturday that Russia was concentrating armoured vehicles and drones, and redeploying experienced units in preparation for a new offensive.
Although Russian advances have picked up some speed since the spring, last week Russia claimed to have captured only one village, Novoselivka in Dnipropetrovsk.
It also claimed to have “neutralised” a Ukrainian attempt to land reconnaissance troops on an island in the Dnipro River Delta.
Russian assaults have come at great cost.
Syrskii estimated Russian casualties since the beginning of the year at 299,210.
He described Ukrainian tactics as “containing the enemy and inflicting the maximum possible losses on them”.
Unable to win the war with ground assaults, Russia has sought to break Ukraine’s morale with long-range drone attacks on its rear cities. During the week of September 4-10, it unleashed a total of 1,811 drones and 63 missiles. Ukraine said it downed 87 percent of the drones and half the missiles.
Russia escalated this tactic overnight on Sunday with the largest such attack of the war, when 810 drones and decoys targeted Kyiv, along with 13 missiles.
Ukrainian Premier Yulia Svyrydenko said the cabinet offices had been struck for the first time, and photographed herself in front of the smouldering ruin.
“For the first time, the government building – its roof and upper floors – has been damaged due to a hostile attack,” she wrote on Telegram.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed to have targeted its biggest ever drone attack against drone manufacturing sites in and around Kyiv, “where long-range drones had been manufactured, assembled, repaired, stocked, and launched”, as well as “airbases in the central, southern, and eastern parts of Ukraine”.
Russia denies targeting civilians and claims to be aiming at military targets, even if those are sometimes nestled in urban spaces.
One of its attacks on Tuesday killed 24 retirees who were queueing up to collect their monthly pensions in the town of Yarova in Donetsk.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday told Ukrainians that nearly half the drones in the Kyiv strike were decoys sent “to complicate the situation” in air defence, and called the shooting down of several ballistic missiles “a significant achievement”.
Ukraine’s military intelligence has estimated for some time now that the Russian drone production – already at 90 a day – aims to deliver strike packages of more than 1,000 drones and missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian defences, and has been strategising on how to counter the threat.
On September 4, Zelenskyy referred cryptically to “a certain format” of air defence that he and French President Emmanuel Macron had discussed for the first time.
“If we receive a positive signal from the United States, since technically much in this format of air defence depends on them – if we receive that positive signal, we will be glad to share this information,” Zelenkyy said.
A Ukrainian think tank, Price of Freedom, has proposed an air defence plan whereby 120 European aircraft would patrol Ukraine’s western skies, allowing its air force to focus more effectively on defensive and offensive operations in the contested eastern airspace. It was unclear if Zelenskyy was referring to this plan.
That same day, Syrskii said, “We are creating a layered system to counter enemy ‘Shaheds’ and ‘Gerans’,” referring to Russia’s kamikaze and decoy drones, respectively. “Our joint task is to form more such crews, train more fighter operators, and provide them with more effective means of destruction and radars.”
That new air defence “format” received renewed importance on Wednesday, when an estimated 19 drones crossed over into Polish airspace, forcing NATO to mobilise Polish F-16s, Dutch F-35s and Italian airborne early warning and control (AWACS) planes for the first time to shoot them down.
For the first time, also, NATO’s Article 4 was invoked in the context of the Ukraine war by Polish Premier Donald Tusk. The article says “Parties will consult together, whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said the airspace violation was “an act of aggression that created a real threat to the security of our citizens”, and called it “unprecedented”.
Russian opposition newspaper Verstka recorded six occasions when a drone strayed into Polish airspace during the war. “It is unlikely that such a number of drones could have all entered into Polish airspace by accident or as a result of a technical or operator error,” said the ISW.
Ukraine has been developing long-range strike capabilities as a means of leverage to bring Russia to the negotiating table.
On Friday, Ukrainian drones hit the Ryazan refinery, one of Russia’s four largest, putting its primary processing unit out of action. The same refinery was struck on August 2 and August 28.
Ukraine also claimed to have struck two S-300 air defence vehicles in the Kaluga region.
On Sunday, drones struck an oil pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region, near Naitopovichi. “The facility is of strategic importance for transporting oil products from Belarusian refineries to the Russian Federation,” said Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.
On the same day, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) said they had struck the Ilsky refinery on the Russian border territory of Krasnodar Krai and destroyed its primary oil-refining complex.
Brovdi said drones also struck and severely damaged Transneft’s Vtorovo oil pumping station in Penkino, in the Vladimir region.
Two days later, Ukraine’s military intelligence said two oil and two gas pipelines had been damaged, also in the Penkino area.
Ukraine has been conducting many of these strikes with domestically built drones, which carry small payloads of less than 100kg (220lb).
Last month, it unveiled mass production of the Flamingo, a 3,000km- (1,900-mile-)range cruise missile carrying a warhead of more than a tonne, and may have begun testing it on the battlefield.
On September 4, the Flamingo’s manufacturer, Fire Point, also revealed two ballistic missiles under development – the FP-7 with a 200km (124-mile) range and 150kg warhead, and the FP-9 with a 855km (1,860-mile) range and 800kg payload.
Ukraine’s allies have already entered into joint production of drones.
On September 3, Denmark said Fire Point would build a rocket fuel plant for the Flamingo near the Danish Air Force base at Skrydstrup.
On Tuesday, UK Defence Secretary John Healy said he would fund the production of “thousands of long-range drones” in the UK for Ukraine, and German defence minister Boris Pistorius said he was allocating $350m to launch a new deep strike initiative by purchasing long-range drones from Ukrainian companies and giving them to Ukraine’s armed forces – a model of assistance pioneered by Denmark.
Twenty-six of Ukraine’s allies on September 4 committed military resources to a peacekeeping force that would operate behind Ukrainian front lines after a ceasefire.
Zelenskyy described it as a “security system”.
“We are preparing strength – on the ground, in the air, and at sea,” he said.