As Moscow’s conflict with Ukraine drags on, which could give President Vladimir Putin a reason to call for the end of the conflict, Russia’s once resilient war economy is struggling. Alex Kozul-Wright of Al Jazeera explains.
Dani Dyer’s husband Jarrod Bowen has opened up about his wife’s upcoming appearance on Strictly Come Dancing and rated her chances of winning the Glitterball trophy
Dani Dyer’s husband Jarrod Bowen breaks silence on her Strictly Come Dancing stint(Image: Instagram/danidyerxx)
Dani Dyer’s husband Jarrod Bowen has revealed how her training for Strictly Come Dancing is going and rated her chances of lifting the Glitterball trophy later this year.
The professional footballer, who married Dani in May, admits he knew about his spouse’s Strictly stint for a few months before it was officially announced and struggled to keep the secret under wraps.
West Ham striker Jarrod, who shares two children with the former Love Island star, teases that his wife has a competitive streak and reveals the one celebrity his partner needs to last longer than in the competition.
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(Image: Getty Images)
Dani’s place on the BBC show’s 2025 line-up was revealed on The One Show earlier this month, with Doctor Who actress Alex Kingston and retired footballer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink unveiled alongside her.
Speaking about his wife’s new project on West Ham’s YouTube channel, Jarrod says: “It was something she said a couple months ago. It was in the pipeline. So, and then, you know, the rumours start coming out and I was under strict instructions: ‘Don’t tell anyone’. People were asking me and I was like, ‘I don’t know’. But I’m a bad liar as well.”
Showing his support for Dani, Jarrod pledges: “I’m sure my weekend’s after a game, it’ll be going over there and and watching. She’s already come back and said she had her first day not long ago.
“Um she’s like, ‘Oh, can we do the dances together?’ And I told you these hips, mate, they ain’t like them they like them professionals that can do it. So I was like, “You can have your dance and I’ll just come and watch.”
Asked if the aim is for Dani to get further in the competition than West Ham fan Tom Skinner, Jarrod admitted: “Yeah, she’s she’s always one of those that’s deep down she’s competitive. At start she’s like, ‘I just want to do it. I don’t want to go out in the first week and stuff’, but deep down she’ll be wanting to win it and I’ll be pushing her the whole way because I know that she’s got that drive.
BREAKING DANI DYER FOR STRICTLY
Quizzed on Dani’s dancing skills, Jarrod quipped: “I don’t know. I’ve only ever seen her after a few tequilas, so I am too sure. I don’t know. It’s not like I’m there going, you know, spinning her around over. I don’t It’s a different type of dance as well, you know.
“Got to be a do the tango in that. I’m struggling on that. I’m not doing that at home. So, I don’t know. I think she’ll be good though. I think when she puts her mind into it, she’ll uh Yeah, she’ll love it.”
Speaking from The One Show studio after her reveal, former Love Island winner Dani said: “It’s such a fun magical show – to be asked to do it is such an honour. I just can’t wait to be able to wear (the costumes) – it’s going to be so much fun.”
In July, the BBC announced that two “incredible” new professional dancers, US-born Alexis Warr and Australian dancer Julian Caillon, would be joining the show, which starts this autumn.
Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman are back to present with Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Anton Du Beke and Shirley Ballas returning as judges.
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Strictly will return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer for its new series this September.
Add to the legal hazard that his administration faces in a tight election season by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the United States by releasing four indictments against a senior associate of New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, her son Glenn Martin II, and seven other defendants were charged on Thursday with what the prosecutor’s office described as a “wide-range series of bribery conspiracies.”
Lewis-Martin, who was previously referred to as the “Lioness of City Hall,” was Adams’ chief adviser. However, as a result of a corruption investigation, she resigned in December.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Lewis-Martin of ignoring the needs of New York City residents over her personal interests in a statement.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin allegedly conspired against the law in a classic bribery plot that had a significant and broad impact on the city government, according to Bragg in the statement.
Lewis-Martin consistently outperformed public servants’ abilities so she could afford her own expenses. Every other New Yorker allegedly lost out, despite receiving more than $75, 000 in bribes and a TV appearance.
The mayoral residence in New York City’s Gracie Mansion was recently roiled by the indictments on Thursday.
Former police officer Adams, who took office in 2022, has had a series of scandals that have eroded his standing in the public.
As Adams campaigns for re-election in the 2025 mayoral election, which is scheduled for November, that has turned out to be fodder for his rivals.
The Democratic Party’s support for Adams and the opposition to Zohran Mamdani’s nomination as the winner are seen as decisive tests for the party, according to Republican president Donald Trump.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the then-chief adviser, and Eric Adams speak at a press conference on November 14, 2023. [Mike Segar/Reuters]
Inside the scandals
In response to corruption scandals, Lewis-Martin is one of several senior Adams aides who have since resigned.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office initially indicted her and her son, a music producer who works under the name Suave Luciano, shortly after she left the Adams administration in December.
It claimed they “traded on the access and influence of her position” from real estate developers for more than $100 000 in checks and cash.
Lewis-Martin and her son were charged with accepting the payment in exchange for assisting with rejected application submissions and obtaining construction permits sooner.
According to the indictment, those decisions were made “without regard to safety considerations or the Department of Buildings’ expertise.”
Lewis-Martin and Martin II are both facing similar bribery charges in the most recent indictments. In one instance, the district attorney accuses them of quickly implementing a Department of Buildings residential renovation plan in exchange for free catering, including salmon and crab cakes.
In another instance, Lewis-Martin is accused of “interfering” with the owners of a nearby company that provides services for TV and film productions in an effort to please the Department of Transportation’s plans to install bike lanes on a boulevard in New York City.
The production company’s owners allegedly gave Lewis-Martin a speaking role on the TV series Godfather of Harlem in exchange for money and catering services.
According to a third indictment, Lewis-Martin is accused of working to “steer contracts” between associates’ “preferred property owners” for asylum seekers’ shelters.
Lewis-Martin and her son have previously refuted the accusations leveled against them, and their attorneys have argued that the accusations are politically motivated.
The addition of the indictments comes in response to another scandal involving Winnie Greco, one of Adams’ close friends, earlier this week.
Greco was later suspended from Adams’ campaign after giving an article to The City that appeared to be hidden in an envelope of money.
The incumbent mayor’s campaign material claims that Eduardo Munoz “never leaves” [Eduardo Munoz/Reuters]
Adams in the limelight
Adams has been charged with bribery and campaign finance fraud.
The US Department of Justice released a criminal indictment against the then-president of New York City in September 2024, making him the first city mayor to face federal charges at the time.
Adams allegedly took bribes and solicited illegal campaign contributions, according to the prosecution. He was accused of “using his position as this City’s highest elected official.”
In one case, the prosecution claimed that Adams had pressured the New York City Fire Department to allow the Turkish consulate to open an office in a neighborhood high rise without conducting a fire inspection in order to prepare it for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit.
Adams allegedly received free or reduced-cost airline travel, luxury hotel accommodations, and free food and entertainment while traveling in Turkey.
Adams was also accused of making “straw” donations for his election campaign by passing money through someone else instead of himself.
Adams has defended his innocence and accused the prosecution of trying to thwart his re-election hopes.
He endorsed President Trump as a Republican in the presidential election of 2021, but he has since changed his mind and become more of an independent.
In the run-up to Trump’s inauguration in January, Adams has met with the soon-to-be president several times, including with Tom Homan, the border czar.
Reversal of an indictment
The Justice Department of Trump’s administration immediately imposed a federal court order removing Adams’ charges. In protest, a number of career prosecutors resigned.
When Hagan Scotten left, one of those prosecutors wrote a lengthy letter to his ex. I anticipate that you will eventually locate someone who can make your motion or is sufficiently foolish. However, I never imagined it would be me.
In April, a judge in New York granted the motion because he could not compel prosecutors to take legal action.
However, the Justice Department’s decision to drop its case was skepticismized by that judge, Dale Ho.
In his decision, Ho remarked, “Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Relations between Trump and Adams have gotten more strained since that controversy, particularly in the wake of the contentious immigration arrests at New York City courthouses.
Trump has remained vocal about his opposition to Mamdani, Adams’ main rival in the mayoral election of 2025.
A classified Israeli military database shows the vast majority of Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, + 972 Magazine, and Local Call.
Figures reviewed by the outlets revealed on Thursday indicate that, as of May 2025 – 19 months into Israel’s war on Gaza – Israeli military intelligence had listed 8, 900 fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as confirmed or “probably” dead.
Over the same period, Gaza’s health authorities recorded at least 53, 000 deaths from Israeli attacks, meaning that named fighters accounted for just 17 percent of those killed, with civilians at about about 83 percent of the total death toll.
Conflict researchers say that ratio is almost unparalleled in modern warfare. Only the Rwandan genocide, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and Russia’s 2022 siege of Mariupol recorded a higher civilian death rate, the authors noted.
Rights groups and genocide scholars argue the findings further support claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, pointing to mass civilian deaths alongside deliberate starvation.
When asked to comment by The Guardian, + 972 Magazine, and Local Call, the Israeli military did not deny the existence of the intelligence database or the listed figures for Hamas and PIJ casualties.
Instead, a spokesperson said “figures presented in the article are incorrect”, but did not clarify which numbers were disputed. The statement also claimed the data does “not reflect the data available in the]Israeli military’s] systems”, without explaining what those systems contained.
Israeli politicians and military leaders have long inflated fighter death tolls, at times claiming as many as 20, 000 fighters killed or insisting on a civilian-to-combatant ratio of 1: 1 – figures that the report notes they do not believe in private.
Meanwhile, Israeli rhetoric has increasingly mirrored genocidal language.
In leaked audio recordings aired on Israel’s Channel 12, Aharon Haliva, the former head of military intelligence, claimed, “The fact that there are already 50, 000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations”.
He went further, saying: “For each]victim] on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die … There’s no choice, they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the consequences”. The Nakba, or “catastrophe”, refers to the killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 to make way for the creation of Israel.
By March, Gaza’s death toll had reached 50, 000, it has since risen to beyond 62, 000, according to the enclave’s health ministry. The total number of wounded has now exceeded 157, 000.
Venue: Salford Community Stadium Date: Saturday, 23 August Kick-off: 14:45 BST
Co-captain Kate Williams says Wales are ready to prove a point when they take on Scotland at the Rugby World Cup.
Wales again came away with the Wooden Spoon at this year’s Women’s Six Nations, losing all five games for the first time in their history.
But after a full pre-season and a drawn two-Test tour of Australia under head coach Sean Lynn, Williams says her side are ready to show what they can do on the biggest stage of all.
“We want to be a hard team to beat, we want the opposition to think ‘we’ve got Wales next, that’s going to be a massive test for us’.
Scotland have won their last three meetings against Wales, the most recent a nail-biting 24-21 victory in Edinburgh.
“I know that the recent results have proven that Scotland have had the upper hand over us, but if we take context into it, we only had two days with Lynny before we were playing in the Six Nations. I think we’re a different team now,” said Williams.
The 25-year-old credits a higher intensity in training for their progress, which included a historic win against Australia in Brisbane last month.
“It’s not just two hand touch, we’re putting in shots, we’re doing full contact in those sessions, a full 15 on 15,” she said.
“It’s where we can really test our attack, test our defence and it’s where we’re drawing massive confidence from.
Lynn welcomes the competitiveness in his 32-player squad, admitting he had some selection headaches before naming his team for Saturday’s opener.
“That’s where we’re at at the moment. It’s really nice, the competitiveness that we’ve got in the squad,” he said.
“Today it got a little bit spicy in training and that’s how I think it should be.
“We’re in a World Cup and it’s the biggest World Cup, so it’s really exciting and the girls are just thriving on it.”
While Lynn said there is still more to come from his side, he believes they have made progress in the collision area over the summer, with Ben Flower coming into his backroom staff.
“We’re on the right track. I set targets after the Six Nations to the players. They went away and have come back in better shape,” Lynn said.
“The big emphasis is making sure that we can play with the intensity that I want us to.
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