Category News

Strictly Come Dancing’s Amy Dowden backs new breast health app to help save lives

By in Entertainment News, News

A woman who used her own devastating cancer diagnosis to help others has now had the backing of Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden – as she makes a postive impact on other’s lives

A woman who was diagnosed with stage 3 breast chemotherapy has developed a life-changing app for women to check their bodies, with the backing of Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden MBE.

When Gemma Ainger received the devastating diagnosis, she put her energy into creating something that could make a real difference, and positively impact people’s lives – all while going through surgery, radiotherapy, and in remission.

The marketing professional from Gurnsey was diagnosed with breast cancer at 42 after she noticed something unusual in the shower, although she rarely checked herself, feeling healthy and had no family history.

Now her new app, called My Breast Friend, has launched with a mission to help people check in with their bodies – quite literally.

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Gemma’s cancer was quite advanced, and because she wasn’t checking regularly, she didn’t find it at an earlier stage. This was the inspiration for her app, as if she had caught it sooner, her treatment could have been easier and her outcome more positive.

Her cancer was sitting there waiting to be found, but because she wasn’t checking often, she didn’t spot it. So she wanted others to have that chance and built My Breast Friend, designed to make monthly self-checks quick, easy, and completely normal, creating positive reinforcement around breast health, and embed a really important routine.

As a fellow breast cancer survivor, Amy knows the importance of early detection of breast cancer and has since been using her public platform to promote this message.

“When Gemma told me about her plans for My Breast Friend it was exactly what I had been looking for – something simple and positive people can do to remind them to check monthly, know their bodies, and act early,” Amy said.

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“I immediately wanted to collaborate with her to make the app the best it can be and reach as many people as possible. I know how vital it is that breast cancer is detected early and if you’re not checking your chest then who is? It doesn’t matter how old you are, there’s no reason not to download this app, it could literally save your life.”

The app was built by Gemma with medical input from leading breast specialists, legal guidance from Appleby Global Law Firm, and the technical expertise of digital agency, Indulge Media, ensuring that it’s medically responsible, empowering and safe to use.

“It’s not about fear or cancer,” Gemma said. “It’s about self-care, awareness and confidence. We should all know what’s normal for our own bodies and we should all be proactively looking after ourselves – it’s one of the simplest ways we can protect our health.”

Gemma said she’s “so excited” for Amy to join her in the launch of her app, and said her breast cancer journey has been similar to the stars. “Through first-hand experience coupled with so much enthusiasm and drive for breast health awareness, I truly believe that together, we can make a huge difference. We’re on a mission to make self-checks normal by turning the My Breast Friend reminders into a lifelong routine!”

My Breast Friend is a free app that sends a monthly reminder to perform a self-check and lets users log any changes quickly and privately. The tone is warm, positive and stigma-free – because checking your boobs, chest or pecs shouldn’t feel scary or clinical.

It comes as one in seven women are likely to develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and nearly half of women in the UK admit they don’t check regularly, so My Breast Friend aims to make self-exams as routine as brushing your teeth.

“Not all breast cancer can be spotted from a self-exam but wouldn’t you prefer to be in a position to know your normal and act fast? I see this as a superpower that we should all have,” Gemma added. “Starting in our twenties, if more people get into the habit of checking through their lifetime, we can catch more cases early, resulting in better, more positive outcomes”.

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My Breast Friend is free to download now on the App Store and Google Play.

Is JD Vance right in blaming left for political violence in the US?

By in News, World News

Following the September assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, United States President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have shaped their political agenda by blaming the left for political violence.

“Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left,” Vance said while guest-hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast on October 15 in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing. About a minute later, he added, “Right now that violent impulse is a bigger problem on the left than the right.”

A Vance spokesperson did not answer our questions. When referring to left-wing violence, a White House spokesperson recently pointed to a September 28 Axios article about a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonprofit policy research organisation.

The study found that “2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right”. The study also showed that for the 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing violence.

“The rise in left-wing attacks merits increased attention, but the fall in right-wing attacks is probably temporary, and it too requires a government response,” the authors wrote in the study.

Vance’s statement oversimplified political violence and drew from part of one study of a six-month period. The federal government has no single, official definition of “political violence”, and ascribing ideologies such as the left wing and the right wing is sometimes complicated. There is no agreed upon number of left- or right-wing politically violent attacks.

Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

Trump has used the administration’s statements about rising left-wing violence to label antifa as a domestic “terrorist threat”, and administration officials also said they will investigate what they call left-wing groups that fund violence.

Although political violence is a small subset of violent crime in the US, it “has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarisation”, sociology professors at the University of Dayton, Arthur Jipson and Paul J Becker, wrote in September after Kirk’s assassination.

In an email interview with PolitiFact, Becker said the report in question “indicates there MAY be a shift occurring from the Right being more violent but 5 vs 1 incidents in 6 months isn’t enough to completely erase years of data and reports from multiple sources showing the opposite or to dictate new policies”.

Study examined three decades of political violence

The CSIS, a national security and defence think tank, published a September report examining 750 “terrorist” attacks and plots in the US between 1994 and July 4, 2025.

The report defined “terrorism” as the use or threat of violence “with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact”.

The authors wrote that it is difficult to pinpoint some perpetrators’ ideologies, which in some cases are more of what former FBI Director Christopher Wray called a “salad bar of ideologies”. For example, Thomas Crooks, who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump in 2024, searched the internet more than 60 times for Trump and then-President Joe Biden in the month before the attack.

The full CSIS report gave a more complete picture of politically motivated violence:

  • Left-wing violence has risen from low levels since 2016. “It has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
  • Right-wing attacks sharply declined in 2025, perhaps because right-wing extremist grievances such as opposition to abortion, hostility to immigration and suspicion of government agencies are “embraced by President Trump and his administration”. The report quotes Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader pardoned by Trump, who said, “Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”
  • Left-wing attacks have been less deadly than right-wing attacks. In the past decade, left-wing attacks have killed 13 people, compared with 112 by right-wing attackers. The report cited several reasons, including that left-wing attackers often choose targets that are protected, such as government or law enforcement facilities, and target specific individuals.
  • The number of incidents by the left is small. A graphic in the report showing the rise in left-wing attacks in 2025 as of July 4 is visually striking. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

Studies have not uniformly agreed on some attackers’ ideological classifications. The libertarian Cato Institute categorised the person charged in the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy staffers in May 2025 as “left-wing”, while the CSIS study described the motivation as “ethnonationalist”. Ethnonationalism is a political ideology based on heritage, such as ethnic identity, which can create clashes with other groups. The Cato study counted only deaths, while the CSIS analysis was not limited to deaths.

“While Vance’s statement has a factual anchor for that limited timespan, it selectively emphasises one short-term slice rather than the broader trend,” Jipson, of the University of Dayton, told PolitiFact. “In that sense, it can be misleading: It may give the impression that left-wing violence is generally now more dangerous or prevalent, which is not borne out by the longer view of the data.”

The Cato analysis, published after Kirk’s death, said 3,597 people were killed in politically motivated US “terrorist” attacks from January 1, 1975, through September 10, 2025.

Cato found right-wing attacks were more common than left-wing violence. This research has been highlighted by some House Democrats.

Cato wrote that during that period, “terrorists” inspired by what it called “Islamist ideology” were responsible for 87 percent of people killed in attacks on US soil, while right-wing attackers accounted for 11 percent and left-wing “terrorists” accounted for about 2 percent. Excluding the September 11, 2001 attacks showed right-wing attackers were responsible for a majority of deaths. Measuring homicides since 2020 also showed a larger number by the right than the left.

Our ruling

Vance said, “Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left.”

He did not point to a source, but a White House spokesperson separately cited an article about a study that examined political violence from 1994 to July 4, 2025. It found that, in the first six months of 2025, left-wing attacks outnumbered those by the right. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

The study also showed that for 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing attacks.

The study detailed that the left wing “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers”. Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

The statement contains an element of truth because left-wing violence rose in the first six months of 2025. However, it ignores that right-wing violence was higher for a much longer period of time.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

Emily Maitlis reveals ‘horrid’ question Prince Andrew

By in Entertainment News, News

Prince Andrew’s removal from his royal titles and honors was “unavoidable,” according to Emily Maitlis, who also expressed her happiness over the Met Police’s investigation of the shamed prince.

Former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis has shared that she is ‘glad’ is ‘glad’ the Metropolitan Police are looking into claims that disgraced royal Prince Andrew tried to get officers to dig up dirt for a smear campaign against his sexual assault accuser.

Following her infamous interview with the shamed brother of King Charles on her BBC show in 2019, the host of The News Agents podcast believes Andrew’s demise was “unavoidable.”

Before the cameras started rolling for the official interview, an Amazon series based on the car-crash interview suggested that Andrew had already posed some very awkward questions to Maitlis.

A Very Royal Scandal, which first aired last year, chronicles the tense conversation that saw Andrew address his ties to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, refute any encounters with Virginia Giuffre, and offer bizarre explanations involving sweat, the Falklands conflict, and Pizza Express.

Maitlis was the show’s executive producer when she confronted Andrew in the actual interview. In the program, Andrew asks the journalist (portrayed by Ruth Wilson) on whether any of the presenters had been victims of abuse or whether their judgment on the situation may have been influenced by their own experiences.

Michael Sheen’s Andrew leans in and asks, “Have any of you ever been victims of abuse?” While MacLean and McAlister, who appear uneasy, confirm they have not, Wilson’s Maitlis responds, “Nothing that bears comparison,” while McLean’s Maitlis, who is taken aback by the inquiry, replies, “Nothing that bears comparison.”

“So your judgment wouldn’t be affected by anything at all”? confirms Amanda Thirsk, who is portrayed by Joanna Scanlan, to which Maitlis’ character replies, “No at all.”

Although it hasn’t been confirmed whether Andrew actually posed the question, it has been said repeatedly that A Very Royal Scandal was based on numerous interviews with those involved in the real-life events.

In the days leading up to the publication of his sex accuser Ms. Giuffre’s book, there has been a sharpening focus on his connections to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and Andrew announced on Friday that he has abandoned using his royal titles and honors.

The prince vehemently refutes the claims that Ms. Giuffre was forced to have sex with him three times as a result of her involvement with Epstein. In April of this year, Ms. Giuffre passed away.

The shamed prince attempted to contact the Met Police to discredit her claims by providing them with her confidential social security number, something that the force is currently looking into. Hours later, it was revealed that Andrew had made the formal announcement that he would no longer be able to hold the title of Duke of York.

Maitlis said: “I would like to see justice done if there were people trying to make her life even more intolerable than it was,” in a statement made to Victoria Derbyshire on the BBC Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show.

Maitlis said in an interview about Andrew’s emails to paedophile Epstein: “Signing off, let’s play some more soon does not suggest that he had ever ended that friendship with Epstein,” adding: “It does not suggest that he had ever broken off with him.

You’re left to wonder why he said that, whether the conversation ever happened, and how much more there is in that interview that we must now revisit and re-examine.

She continued, “It seems like it’s been a long time coming this, this,” in response to Andrew’s decision to renounce his title. In fact, he gave up on many of his royal duties, many of his public duties, many of his charities, and many of his patronages after the interview was conducted nearly six years ago.

Continue reading the article.

“But there has been this particular drip-effect, and we have all had to do the same. He’s going to Sandringham, right? Will he be visiting Santa Claus with the family? Will he be permitted to attend the jubilee or the coronation, whichever comes first?

And in some ways, I believe that the palace was going to end up there pretty soon, I mean, just as soon as we realized what he meant. So, yes, I believe it has taken a long time for this to arrive.

Paris’s Louvre Museum reopens after $102m jewel heist

By in News, World News
by news organizations

Three days after a spectacular daytime robbery, the Louvre has since reopened its doors to visitors.

The most well-known museum in Paris will reopen on Wednesday just before its director is scheduled to be quizzed by French senators about how site thieves stole an estimated 88 million euros ($102m) in jewels.

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After two French museums were impacted by thefts last month, the heist has reopened security controls in them.

Numerous investigators are trying to identify the perpetrators, with the idea that it was an organized crime organization that climbed up a ladder to enter the museum.

Eight pieces, including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, are dotted with nearly 2, 000 diamonds, were taken from the thieves. As they fled, the thieves dropped a crown decorated with diamonds.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez stated in the local media on Wednesday that “more than 100 investigators” had been mobilized and that “an investigation is progressing.”

According to a government spokeswoman, President Emmanuel Macron “sped up” the Louvre’s security measures at a meeting of cabinet ministers.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the greater harm was to France’s historical heritage, calling the financial loss “extraordinary.”

Beccuau reported that four people have been identified as being present at the scene, that 100 investigators are tracing the crew and any of their associates, and that there are ongoing expert analyses.

Last week, a basket lift was seen in Paris’ Louvre museum.

In the days following the theft, disgruntled tourists were turned away at the Louvre entrance in Paris.

However, museumgoers flocked to the museum on Wednesday for the 9am (07:00 GMT) opening, despite the Apollo Gallery’s closure.

Nine million people toured the museum’s extensive hallways and galleries last year, making it the world’s most visited museum, which has a large Mona Lisa collection.

The Apollo Gallery, home to the royal collection of gems, is likely to be questioned by museum director Laurence des Cars, who became the first woman to lead the Louvre in 2021.

Arsenal’s Gyokeres ‘Hungry’ To Build On Champions League Double

By in News, sport-news

Following Tuesday’s impressive performance against Atletico Madrid, Viktor Gyokeres says he is eager to respond to manager Mikel Arteta’s request to bring his goal-scoring momentum into the Premier League.

In Arsenal’s 4-0 victory over Atletico in the Champions League at the Emirates Stadium, attacker Gyokeres scored twice to end a seven-game losing streak with a goal.

Following his £58 million ($77 million) transfer from Sporting Lisbon, where he scored 97 goals in 102 appearances, the 27-year-old scored five goals for the Gunners.

With Arsenal back in domestic action against London rivals Crystal Palace at the Emirates on Sunday, Gunners boss Arteta vowed to keep the goals coming.

Gyokeres claimed, “I’m more hungry now.” You always want to contribute with work rates and other things, but it’s a little special when you also score goals. Therefore, I have a strong desire to do that.

The spirit of the group and the spirit of the group are very special and unique.

When you deliver these performances in victories, it instills confidence in the team. Although the belief must always exist, it does so naturally. We simply want this to continue.

As many clean sheets have Arsenal managed to collect in their three European games so far this season.

In their first 12 games, they have conceded just three goals, just one of which came from open play, to champions Liverpool and Newcastle at home and Manchester City at home.

David Raya, the goalkeeper for Arsenal, said: “I give clean sheets the same credit as goals.

It will make games easier to win if we keep clean sheets. Being extremely strong and not giving away too many chances is really, really important for the entire team.

“The depth of the squad is incredible. Numerous players can play two, three, or four positions, which is a good thing.

The manager has a variety of options when it comes to playing as a striker (versus Atletico), and he is using it to his advantage.

Everyone is in favor of that, and it gives us an extra level in both in training and in games because if we don’t practice, we can lose our seats.

Premier League leaders Arsenal will lead Manchester City by three points heading into this weekend’s group of matches.

Liverpool are a further point in the opposite direction.