Kate Smith, a teen from Lisburn Rangers, has been named in the Northern Ireland squad for the upcoming Women’s Nations League games against Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Smith, 18, will make his first senior international call-up in the wake of Maddy Harvey-Clifford’s injury-related resumption.
On Friday at 5:00 BST, Northern Ireland will host unbeaten group leaders Poland, followed by a trip to Zenica to face third-placed Bosnia-Herzegovina four days later (18:00 BST).
Kate is a young player that we have been keeping an eye on for some time. She received a good workout when she first joined the squad for our final training camp, and she deserves to play in these two games, according to Northern Ireland manager Tanya Oxtoby.
Before making final preparations for the League B Group 1 match in Belfast, the Northern Ireland squad met at their training facility in Leicester on Monday.
Oxtoby continued, “It’s great to bring the players back together.” The place is in a positive mood.
To get ready for the games against two top-notch teams in Poland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, “we know we need to put the work in here over the next few days.”
The “Green and White Army” is a group of players who are all eager to participate, and we are aware of how crucial they can be in ensuring a positive performance.
With only two games left, Northern Ireland is three points clear of the Poles in their group.
Northern Ireland squad
Goalkeepers: Abbie Smith (Manchester City Women), Kate Smith (Lisburn Rangers), and Jackie Burns (Calgary Wild).
Defenders: Abi Sweetlove (Linfield Women), Rebecca Holloway, Rebecca McKenna, and Ellie Mason (all Birmingham City Women), Laura Rafferty (Rangers Women), and Rachel Dugdale (Blackburn Rovers Women).
Louise McDaniel and Brenna McPartlan (both women from Burnley), Nadene Caldwell and Aimee Kerr (both women from Glentoran), Megan Bell (Hearts Women), Connie Scofield (Sheffield United Women, on loan from London City Lionesses), and Rachel Furness (Newcastle United Women) are the midfielders.
Alan Yentob, a BBC executive and documentary maker, passed away at the age of 78 over the weekend in tribute to former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson.
Jeremy Clarkson, a former Top Gear host, was fired by the BBC in 2015.
Jeremy Clarkson has paid tribute to former BBC boss, Alan Yentob, despite accusing the documentary maker of ‘ending his career’. The long-serving BBC arts broadcaster, who was also the former controller of BBC One and Two, died aged 78 at the weekend, and his survived by his wife, Philippa, and the couple’s children, Jacob and Bella.
Yentob famously sacked Clarkson, 65, from Top Gear following a bout of bad behaviour from the Clarkson’s Farm star, which saw the petrolhead punch the show’s then producer Oisin Tymon, leaving him with a bloodied lip. However, despite the drama, Clarkson praised Yentob for being a “great man” as he recounted how they dined together just days after his controversial exit from the BBC.
READ MORE: Farewell to the ‘visionary’ who gave us Ab Fab, Wallace and Gromit and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy
BBC executive and documentary maker, Alan Yentob, who died aged 78 at the weekend(Image: Getty Images)
Before leaving the Beeb, Alan Yentob, the man who called to end my career at Top Gear, he hinted to X and said that it wasn’t as it appeared. However, he was aware of what was actually happening, and we had dinner two days later. a great man. adored and comprehended television. My devotion to Philippa.
Director-general of the BBC, Tony Hall, made the announcement in 2015 that Jeremy’s contract had expired immediately, effectively removing him from Top Gear. Yentob reportedly backed it at the time.
The announcement came after an internal investigation in to what the BBC labelled as a “fracas” between the presenter and a producer on the show, Oisin Tymon.
Continue reading the article.
Initially, Clarkson was suspended by the BBC after a late night row at the Simonstone Hall hotel in North Yorkshire, where the programme team had travelled for a location shoot.
According to reports, Clarkson and Tymon “lost it” because there was no food left over after a long day of Top Gear filming.
The Grand Tour star, however, was later identified as having “an unprovoked physical and verbal attack” on the producer, which left him “swelled and bleeding his lip”
Yentob, the presenter’s former boss, started out as a trainee at the World Service in 1968 and rose up the ranks to become the BBC One and BBC Two’s controller, television director, and head of music and art.
The father-of-two’s wife, Philippa Walker, said: “For Jacob, Bella, and I every day with Alan held the promise of something unexpected. He and I both had exciting lives.
He had a curiosity, a funny, a late-night, and a creative soul throughout his entire body. He was a profoundly moral and kind man, but more than that, he was. A mile-long trail of love is left in his wake.
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BBC Director-General Tim Davie also paid tribute, praising Alan Yentob for his contributions to British broadcasting and the arts. He was a creative force and cultural visionary who helped shape decades of BBC and other programming while also having a passion for telling stories and providing public service that left a lasting legacy.
“Alan has fought for almost 60 years for originality, risk-taking, and artistic ambition.” His influence is woven into the fabric of British cultural life from Arena to Imagine, from commissioning groundbreaking drama to providing a platform for emerging voices.
Courteney Cox battled a terrifying and exhausting battle to become a mother, just like Monica Geller from her Friends movie.
Courteney Cox hid her painful ordeal to keep Friends fans laughing(Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
It’s 30 years since Friends first launched and became iconic TV viewing. With its relatable plotlines and quick wit, the show remains as popular now as it was then.
But behind the jokes and camaraderie, it has since emerged that several of the stars were battling their own, personal demons. The late Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing, was in the throes of drink and drug addiction – an affliction that would cause his tragic death in 2023.
Rachel Green actress Jennifer Aniston has since shared that she was struggling to have a baby with then-husband Brad Pitt, who met his future wife, Angelina Jolie, before Friends finished filming.
Courteney suffered a tragic miscarriage in real life as Jennifer Aniston’s character gave birth(Image: NBC via Getty Images)
And the same was true for her on-and-off screen best friend Courteney Cox, who was also battling to start a family with husband David Arquette.
Her character, Monica Geller, attempted to have a baby with husband Chandler for two seasons, but nothing came. They eventually discovered that his sperm had “low motility” and she had an “inhospitable womb.”
Continue reading the article.
Life was mirrored art as Courteney battled through a “bunch of miscarriages,” one of which occurred as Rachel gave birth to her daughter Emma.
Monica and Chandler struggled with infertility on Friends and eventually adopted(Image: NBC via Getty Images)
READ MORE: Friends got one thing majorly wrong on show – and no one realised for 25 years
She described the emotional moments that caused her to fall apart as “that was hard” to NBC in 2004. “Sometimes, as I recall, I just had a miscarriage while Rachel was giving birth. It passed the same way. Oh my goodness, being funny was awful.
When she married David Arquette in 1999, Courteney, now 60, had no reason to suspect they would struggle to conceive.
“Well it was really weird because everyone in my family has kids. I mean, they pop out like it’s nobody’s business. No one in my family has a problem. So to me, I just thought this would not be a problem at all,” she said. “I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time keeping them.”
Courteney and David endured a painful journey to get their daughter Coco(Image: WireImage)
She decided to go through two rounds of IVF, the second of which brought her daughter Coco in June 2004, just two days before her 40th birthday, after being told that her body produced an anti-body that attacked the fetus.
So I now made the decision to perform in vitro twice. Then, every day, take heparin, which is a blood thinner. She advised taking a baby aspirin.
Years later, she was able to identify the exact cause of her miscarriage after being diagnosed with a MTHFR gene mutation, which alters the body’s methylation process and raises the risk of miscarriage-causing blood clots.
Continue reading the article.
Coco is now 20 and Courteney has previously spoken about wanting to try for a second child with fiancé Johnny McDaid.
Beirut, Lebanon – As southern Lebanon continues to suffer from sporadic Israeli attacks despite a ceasefire signed in November between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, establishment parties have emerged as the biggest winners of municipal elections.
Voting took place over four weeks, starting in Mount Lebanon – north of the capital, Beirut – followed by the country’s northern districts, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, and concluding on Saturday in southern Lebanon.
While Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group, suffered setbacks to its political influence and military capabilities during 14 months of war with Israel, the group’s voter base was still intact and handed it and Amal, its closest political ally, victories across dozens of municipalities.
“The Hezbollah-Amal alliance has held firm and support among the Shia base has not experienced any dramatic erosion,” Imad Salamey, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, told Al Jazeera.
Despite establishment parties winning the majority of seats across the country, candidates running on campaigns of political reform and opposition to the political establishment also made inroads in some parts of the country, even winning seats in municipalities in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah historically has enjoyed strong support.
In Lebanon, there is no unified bloc of reformists although political actors and groups that emerged during the 2019 antigovernment protests over the economic crisis are referred to locally as “el-tagheyereen”, or change makers.
“Alternative Shia candidates in some localities were able to run without facing significant intimidation, signalling a limited but growing space for dissent within the community,” Salamey said.
The fact the elections were held at all will be seen as a boon to the pro-reform government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who came to power in January, say analysts. The polls, initially set for 2022, were delayed three times due to parliamentary elections, funding issues and the war with Israel, which started in October 2023.
Critics, however, argued the elections favoured established parties because the uncertainty over when they would be held meant candidates waited to build their campaigns. As recently as March, there were still proposals to delay the elections until September to give candidates a chance to prepare their platforms after Lebanon suffered through the war and a two-month intensification by Israel from September to November, which left the country needing $11bn for recovery and reconstruction, according to the World Bank.
Lebanon needs about $11bn for reconstruction and recovery, according to the World Bank [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]
The war left Hezbollah politically and militarily battered after Israel killed much of its leadership, including longtime Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor Hachem Safieddine.
The war reordered the power balance in Lebanon, diminishing Hezbollah’s influence. Many villages in southern Lebanon are still inaccessible, and Israel continues to occupy five points of Lebanese territory that it has refused to withdraw from after the ceasefire. It also continues to attack other parts of the south, where it claims Hezbollah still has weapons.
With their villages still destroyed or too dangerous to access, many southerners cast ballots in Nabatieh or Tyre, an act that recalls the 18-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000. During the occupation, elections for southern regions under Israeli control were also held in other cities still under Lebanese sovereignty.
Hezbollah has given up the majority of its sites in the south to the Lebanese army, a senior western diplomat told Al Jazeera and local media has reported.
The recent post-war period also brought to power a new president, army commander Joseph Aoun, and the reform camp’s choice for prime minister, Salam, former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Hezbollah remains ‘strong’
Municipal elections are not seen as an indicator of the country’s popular sentiment due to low voter interest and local political dynamics differing from those at the national level. Some analysts dismissed the results, calling them “insignificant” and added that next year’s parliamentary elections would more accurately reflect which direction the country is headed.
Voter turnout was lower in almost every part of the country compared with 2016, the last time municipal elections took place. The places it fell included southern Lebanon, where 37 percent of the population voted. In 2016, 48 percent of its voters cast ballots. This was also true in most of the Bekaa Valley, an area that also was hit hard during the war and where Hezbollah tends to be the most popular party. In the north, voter turnout dropped from 45 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2025. In Beirut, the turnout was marginally higher – 21 percent in 2025 compared with 20 percent in 2016.
Many people in southern Lebanon are still living through the war as Israel continues to carry out attacks on areas like Nabatieh. While some in and from the south have questioned Hezbollah’s standing and decision to enter into a war with Israel on behalf of Gaza when they fired rockets on the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms territory on October 8, 2023, others still cling to their fervent support for the group.
A woman holds up a picture of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike last year, at a public funeral in Beirut on February 23, 2025 [Mohammed Yassin/Reuters]
“The municipal elections confirmed that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain strong,” Qassem Kassir, a journalist and political analyst believed to be close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera. “The forces of change are weak, and their role has declined. The party [Hezbollah] maintains its relationship with the people.”
Although reform forces did win some seats, including in Lebanon’s third largest city, Sidon, they were largely at a disadvantage due to a lack of name familiarity, the short campaign time and misinformation circulated by politically affiliated media.
Claims of corruption and contested election results marred voting in parts of the north, where many candidates from traditional political parties dominated.
In Beirut, forces for change were dealt a heavy blow. After receiving about 40 percent of the vote in 2016, which still was not enough to earn them a municipal seat, the reformist Beirut Madinati (Beirut My City) list won less than 10 percent of this year’s vote.
The defeat took place despite the worsening living conditions in the capital, which critics blamed on establishment parties, including those running the municipality.
“The municipality lives on another planet, completely detached from the concerns of the people,” Sarah Mahmoud, a Beirut Madinati candidate, told Al Jazeera on May 18 on the streets of Beirut as people went out to vote.
Since an economic crisis took hold in 2019, electricity cuts have become more common, and diesel generators have plugged the gap. These generators contribute to air pollution, which has been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory ailments in Beirut and carries cancer risks.
Despite the criticisms and degraded living situation in the city, a list of candidates backed by establishment figures and major parties, including Hezbollah and Amal, but also their major ideological opponents, including the Lebanese Forces and the right-wing Kataeb Party, won 23 out of 24 seats.
This list ran on a platform that stoked fears of sectarian disenfranchisement and promised sectarian parity.
Municipalities, unlike Lebanon’s parliament, do not have sectarian quotas.
Smoke rises from an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Toul on May 22, 2025[Ali Hankir/Reuters]
‘What are you fighting for?’
The unlikely coalition of establishment parties, which was similar to the successful list in 2016 that aligned establishment parties against reform candidates, puzzled some in the capital. In separate incidents, television reporters confronted representatives from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, drawing angry and confrontational reactions from them but little clarification as to why they’d align with an avowed enemy.
Bernard Bridi, a media adviser for the list, said its priority was to bring in a foreign consultancy that would advise the municipality on how to manage Beirut like other major international capitals. She added that the opposing parties decided to unify because the stakes are so high this year after years of economic suffering, particularly since the war.
Critics, however, accused the establishment parties of trying to keep power concentrated among themselves rather than let it fall to reformists who could threaten the system that has consolidated power in the hands of a few key figures and groups in the post-civil war era.
“The question is what are you fighting for,” Karim Safieddine, a political organiser with Beirut Madinati, said, referring to the establishment list. “And if they can tell me what they’re fighting for, I’d be grateful.”
Now the nation’s eyes will turn to May next year as parties and movements are already preparing their candidates and platforms for parliamentary elections.
In 2022, just more than a dozen reform candidates emerged from Lebanon’s economic crisis and subsequent popular uprising. Some speculated that the reform spirit has subsided since thousands of Lebanese have emigrated abroad – close to 200,000 from 2018 to 2021 alone – and others have grown disillusioned at a perceived lack of immediate change or disagreements among reform-minded figures.
Many Lebanese will also have last year’s struggles during the war and need for reconstruction in mind when heading to the polls next year.
Some have started to question or challenge Hezbollah’s longtime dominance after seeing the group so badly weakened by Israel. Others are doubling down on their support due to what they said is neglect by the new government and their belief that Hezbollah is the only group working in their interests.
“Taken together, these developments imply a future trajectory where Shia political support for Hezbollah remains solid but increasingly isolated,” Salamey explained, “while its broader cross-sectarian coalition continues to shrink, potentially reducing Hezbollah’s influence in future parliamentary elections to that of a more pronounced minority bloc.”
People watch the sky anxiously during an Israeli drone strike after moving away from buildings in Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 29, 2024 [Murat Şengul/Anadolu Agency]
Who makes his Premier League team of the year? Troy Deeney has been choosing his team of the week for 2024-2025.
His choices are as follows. Are you in agreement? Use the comments section to share your thoughts with us.
Matz Sels (Nottingham Forest): Sels ended up with David Raya of Arsenal for the Premier League title, but I don’t believe he gets the vote for the season that Forest has had. Yes, the Forest front players have been exceptional, but he has hardly ever made a big save. The Forest keeper has been better when you compare the teams Sels and Raya have in front of him.
Three outstanding centre-backs and leaders, William Saliba (Arsenal), Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa), and Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool), not necessarily from a defensive standpoint, are chosen. These three players’ defense will determine their future success. Van Dijk, who has a new contract with Liverpool, is undoubtedly a champion. He is, in my opinion, the best center-back in world football. Konsa is developing as a top center-back, week by week, and month by month. He is on the verge of becoming England’s trusted centre-back. When he and Gabriel are playing, it works well when Saliba has had a brief season that has caused me to doubt him. To become the Rolls Royce, he needs an aggressive partner. At Forest, thank you to Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic.
The most straightforward one is Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool). There haven’t been any solid right-backs who have played consistently and without getting injured in the Premier League this season. Aaron Wan-Bissaka received an honorable mention at West Ham, but Alexander-Arnold is given the honorable mention because Liverpool won the league.
Both Declan Rice (Arsenal) and Bruno Guimaraes (Newcastle) have significantly improved their game this year. With his three goals, Rice has now surpassed the top three holding midfielders in the world. Without the ball, he excels in running, pressing, and dominating games. He is now expanding his options for ball play. His game has been upgraded with this. He just needs to begin collecting awards.
I have no words to say about Salah, Mohamed Salah (Liverpool). His speedy ability to assist and score is outstanding. There is no one on the market who can do what he can, despite Liverpool’s offering him the deal he desired. They would need to purchase two or three players. He excelled and had a wonderful time. I long for that to continue. He’s still a great player, I’m happy he’s playing in the Premier League.
Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford): Mbeumo finished with 20 Premier League goals, making him one of those players Brentford might need to sell in order to move on to other players. How he performs at Manchester United would be really intriguing to me. If they change formation, he can grow into that shirt and carry it out. He is capable of taking penalties and free kicks.
Arne Slot (Liverpool): In his first season, he won the title for the club. With Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah, and Virgil van Dijk, he handled everything with excellent handling, and it appears as though he is already on a roll with the next job he’ll take on. He also handled the media well.
Yorkshire defeated Notts by 163 runs in the match (up 19 points).
Nottinghamshire improved to a fourth win in seven games, this one against Yorkshire at Headingley just before tea on day four, to improve to seventh place in the Division One championship’s top division.
In the third afternoon, Yorkshire’s struggling team had a 463-run lead and came away with a score of 176-5. They also lost four of those wickets in the evening session, including one against Pennington in the day’s final over.
Top-scorer Matthew Revis and George Hill shared a 54-run partnership to help Yorkshire avoid a fourth defeat in seven games, which was a strong start to the fourth day. However, they were in desperate need and were later bowled out for 299 in 121 overs, slipping to a 163-run defeat.
Shortly before the new ball, Freddie McCann’s part-time spin made a breakthrough by bowling Hill with the first ball of a one-over. After lunch, Pennington then defeated Revis for 45 before posting an impressive 5-106 from the previous 31 overs.
Nottinghamshire won 19 points from Yorkshire’s three, placing them halfway through the four-day campaign and well-positioned to win their first Championship since 2010.
They have won only five Championship games at Headingley since 2011 and none of them have come to that conclusion.
In easing batting conditions, Pennington took three of his wickets on Monday, keeping Yorkshire at the bottom of the table.
Revis and Hill, a 26-year veteran of the new England Lions, managed to survive the first 85 minutes of a gloomy and chilly day comfortably.
In his fourth appearance, the former made his season-highest score by playing confidently through the off-side off front foot and back on the cusp of the season’s best score.
You believed success would come, but All Notts had to do was be patient. Even if it initially arrived via the least expected route, it did.
The penultimate over, which was bowled by McCann, was brought into the attack because of his off-spin, which prevented the new ball from being due.
Hill’s eyes lit up as he dragged his first ball down. The delivery scooped through and downrooted the middle stump, giving the score of 230-6.
With the score of 244 and Revis’ return coming seven balls into the afternoon, Pennington forced Revis to fall back to South African Kyle Verreyne.
Dom Bess, Yorkshire’s stand-in captain, received 21 and Ben Coad, the other, for five, respectively.
The game’s outcome was all but certain by that point, with a score of 277-9.
Last pair Jack White and Jordan Thompson fought back for more than an hour and almost 20 overs before putting an end to that theory as light rain started to fall.
However, Verreynne, who caught White first in the innings and ninth in the match, put White in the lead.
Anthony McGrath, Yorkshire’s head coach:
We were always behind after the first day because we didn’t get a reward for our efforts.
Even though we had opportunities, “we just never managed to take that much further and then take any control in the game.” That has been a problem year-round.
“We have to look in ourselves, not just the players, but also the coaches,” he said. We must find some solutions because it’s all about performance, just like we talk and everything else.
Our supporters and followers, who follow us and have a lot of support, don’t care about ifs and buts; they want to see results.
Dillon Pennington, of Nottinghamshire:
We discuss simply doing whatever it takes for the team to win, and I, Mo (Abbas) and Brett (Hutton) all did so.
“It was a little difficult for me to get started in this game, but I felt good.” Despite a few run leaks, I had a good rhythm.
We made an effort to ball in the right places as much as we could without having to think about the weather. It was about stacking and just trusting that we would eventually get the wickets as the pitch improved.
