Tom Hanks was concerned about Austin Butler suffering from "emotional whiplash" after filming Elvis, so he offered him a role in his Apple TV+ miniseries 'Masters of the Air'.

They would have called him Jonah in a past life… When lobster diver Michael Packard found himself being swallowed up by a humpback whale he was convinced his time had come. But just as he was having what he assumed to be his final thoughts, the whale decided against it and spat him out. Packard was able to swim to safety after the incident, which was in June 2021. Since then, he has given a series of interviews about the death-defying episode. “[I was] trapped for about 30-40 seconds. Yes, I was almost convinced I was going to die that day,” he said in a Reddit Ask Me Anything. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” he said in a separate interview with the Cape Cod Times. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth,” Packard was 56 at the time, and initially thought he was inside a great white shark. However, he couldn’t feel any teeth and he hadn’t suffered any obvious wounds, and it dawned on him that the situation was far more biblical than that. “I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.” Experts think the incident was likely a freak accident, and that the humpback whales are not aggressive towards humans. (That puts them in a different category to orcas, which have spent the first half of 2023 exacting their revenge on humankind.) Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said: “Based on what was described, this would have to be a mistake and an accident on the part of the humpback.” When a humpback opens its mouth to feed, it billows out like a parachute, blocking the animal’s forward vision, which is why so many become entangled in fishing gear in their mouth and jaws, said Robbins. It isn’t even Packard’s first brush with death. The diver also managed to survive a plane crash in Costa Rica in 2001 in miraculous circumstances. The crash, which killed three people, saw Packard sustain “severe facial injuries and multiple broken long bones in his arms and legs”, according to a Cape Cod Times dispatch in 2001. A doctor who treated the survivors told the Associated Press: "They would not have survived another night at that site." As for the whale escape? Packard didn’t sustain any serious injuries, telling Reddit he was left with “soft tissue damage, nothing serious”. A close shave indeed. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Ariana Grande has candidly opened up about how she used to 'hide' herself with cosmetic procedures, before falling in love with her lines and previous insecurities. “Full transparency, as a beauty person, as I do my lips, [I’ve] had a ton of lip filler over the years and Botox. I stopped in 2018 because I just felt so… [it was] too much. I just felt like hiding, you know,” she said in the video, welling up. “For a long time, beauty was about hiding for me, and now I feel like maybe it’s not since I stopped." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Tarik Skubal had a season-high 10 strikeouts in seven strong innings for his fourth consecutive win, and the Detroit Tigers handed the Athletics their eighth consecutive loss, beating Oakland 7-3

Lisa Tesch, accused of killing grandchild Eleanor Campbell, was previously charged with reckless driving, running from police, and drug possession

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 20, 2023--

Kremlin critics like Oleg Orlov are facing jail terms for criticising Russia's war in Ukraine.

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Michael O’Neill said his Northern Ireland players were “angry and upset” after teenage debutant Callum Marshall saw a stoppage-time equaliser ruled out by VAR for a marginal decision in Friday’s 1-0 Euro 2024 qualifying defeat to Denmark. Marshall had only been on the pitch for a few minutes when the West Ham youngster flicked on Jonny Evans’ header to find the corner of the net, cancelling out Jonas Wind’s 47th-minute strike and sparking huge celebrations amongst the 1,700 travelling fans. But hearts sank as referee Daniel Stefanski signalled a VAR check that would last a full five minutes, with Tomasz Kwiatkowski taking an age to review the footage before determining that Evans had been fractionally offside when the free-kick was sent into the box. “I thought it was all about ‘clear and obvious’ and the different terminology that we have in different situations,” O’Neil said. “If it takes that long to disallow a goal why would they disallow it in that situation? I don’t know whose call that is. “The referee obviously doesn’t go to the monitor to look at it so whoever is looking at it has to take that decision. But I’m baffled that it took so long, and clearly the margin was so minimal. For me it’s not how the technology should be used.” Jordan Thompson had sent in a free-kick from 40 yards out on the right, with Evans heading it goalwards and Marshall’s flick beating Kasper Schmeichel. “By the time Jonny heads it Jonny is clearly onside so we’re looking pre-the delivery of the ball,” O’Neill said. “Did he gain any advantage? The referee said to me something about 30 centimetres. I don’t know where he gets that from. I'm baffled that it took so long, and clearly the margin was so minimal. For me it's not how the technology should be used. Michael O'Neill “I’m not really sure where we gain an advantage. We won’t get a satisfactory explanation, I know that, so it’s done and we have to move on.” Asked if he wanted his players to use a sense of injustice as fuel going forward, O’Neill added: “I don’t think we need it. We don’t need that to turn around our team to be ready to play on Monday night (at home to Kazakhstan). “We’ll be playing in front of a vociferous crowd who will be proud of how we played tonight. We’re angry and we’re upset but we don’t need that.” O’Neill was seen with a consoling arm around Marshall’s shoulder as the players went to applaud the travelling support. “We’ve put him on because he’s got a lot of potential,” he said. “He’s come on, scored a goal and he’s had the fairytale start to his international career taken away from him. “I put my arm around him and told him there’ll be plenty more goals. He’s a young player with massive potential but it’s heartbreaking to have that taken away from you in that type of scenario.” For all the frustration at the end, O’Neill was proud of the way his young Northern Ireland side had handled the toughest fixture in Group H. An injury to Craig Cathcart took the number of senior players missing to 10, with O’Neill forced to rely on inexperienced players including four teenagers. “It was a tough game but we did very well in the first half to contain them and we managed the game well,” he said. “I felt the second half with the goal got a bit ragged and we should have done better out of possession but our reaction to going a goal down was excellent. At that point you have to stay in the game, it would be easy here to concede again but we didn’t do that. “We knew we could get a bit of play in the last 15-20 minutes and on the basis of the last 15 minutes we deserved to get something from the game and we feel pretty aggrieved that we didn’t.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Wales’ Euro 2024 qualifying defeat to Armenia a necessary ‘slap’ – boss Rob Page Sam Curran claims five as Surrey beat Somerset in top-of-the-table showdown Matt Fitzpatrick keeps US Open defence alive with first professional ace