Focue Provides the Latest and Most Up-to-Date News, What You Focus On is What You Get.
⎯ 《 Focue • Com 》
Gareth Southgate sees a tougher test for his team at Old Trafford
Gareth Southgate sees a tougher test for his team at Old Trafford
England boss Gareth Southgate says Monday’s European Championship qualifier against North Macedonia will be a “step up” from the win over Malta. Southgate’s men conclude their season with the fixture at Old Trafford, three days after beating Malta 4-0 away to make it three victories from three matches in Group C. Southgate told a press conference on Sunday regarding North Macedonia: “They should have won the other night against Ukraine, really. “We know the quality of some of the individual players, they have some players playing at big European clubs. As a team they function well. They knocked Italy out of the last World Cup, and they pushed Portugal close in those games. “So they have got pedigree, they bring the game to you a bit more than perhaps we had the other night as well. So it isn’t just a case of rolling on from Friday, it’s a step up, it’s a step up in intensity and quality, and we have to be right in our game to be able to win the match.” Monday’s match marks England’s first game on home soil not to be staged at Wembley since they were thumped 4-0 by Hungary at Molineux a year ago, which prompted jeers from the crowd. It’s a step up in intensity and quality, and we have to be right in our game to be able to win the match Gareth Southgate When asked about that, Southgate said: “It’s for us always to bring the crowd with us. The onus is on us to give the crowd something to be excitedabout and to play well. “It’s a great crowd up here anyway. When we went to Leeds a few years ago that was an exceptional atmosphere, and I’m sure Manchester will be the same. “The fact it’s a sell-out is exciting for us, it adds an edge to the game. But of course, also our opponent will be lifted by that. They will want to put on a good display. So we have to be ready for them. “We want to play well, we want to entertain our supporters and we need to win.” Southgate said it was “possible” some of the Manchester City treble-winners in his squad would be in the starting line-up on Monday, and also spoke again about Trent Alexander-Arnold after the Liverpool man impressed in a midfield role against Malta. Asked what he made of the reaction to that performance, Southgate said: “He played exceptionally well, so he deserves all the credit he’s getting – the rest is noise, so I don’t really get too distracted by that. “It’s another option, and it’s an exciting one. We know the outstanding qualities he has. I thought he adapted really well to the role, it is different to what he’s been asked to do for his club to this point. But he was excited by that and he delivered, so great credit to him.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live England take the show on the road as Eze pushes for a start – talking points Father’s Day surprise for Andy Murray as his kids show up for Nottingham win Emma Raducanu admits to ‘being burnt a few times’ after US Open glory
2023-06-18 23:18
Delta profits jump as international travel stays strong
Delta profits jump as international travel stays strong
Delta Air Lines reported surging quarterly earnings amid persistently strong demand, while acknowledging a drag from strikes in the US...
2023-10-13 00:46
Kevin McCarthy says Trump indictment will ‘disrupt the nation’: ‘We’re not going to stand for it’
Kevin McCarthy says Trump indictment will ‘disrupt the nation’: ‘We’re not going to stand for it’
Kevin McCarthy launched an aggressive defence of Donald Trump after his indictment on 37 counts of mishandling top secret documents. “This is going to disrupt this nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all which is not being seen today,” the Republican House Speaker told Fox News on Friday. “And we're not going to stand for it.” Mr McCarthy’s comments came after the Department of Justice unsealed a 49-page indictment which laid out in extraordinary detail Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 15-month investigation into Mr Trump’s “willful defiance” of efforts to retrieve the materials. The indictment painted a damning picture of Mr Trump’s reckless storage of top secret material he took to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, and his efforts to obstruct investigators. The classified material included nuclear secrets, war plans, and vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies. Mr Trump told lawyers tasked with complying with a DOJ subpoena that he didn’t want “anyone going through my boxes”, according to the indictment. Mr McCarthy, who is struggling to hold on to the House leadership, called the indictment a “dark day for America”. “You've got a sitting president right now in the exact same situation. You have a former first lady, senator, secretary of state, that had the same situation that nothing was done to,” he told Fox News. Republicans also rushed to defend Mr Trump despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence presented in the 49-page indictment. “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye,” Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs wrote on Twitter. Elise Stefanik, the number three House Republican, tweeted that she was committed to “holding government officials accountable for their endless illegal witch hunt against President Trump”. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote: “If the people in power can jail their political opponents at will, we don’t have a republic.” And Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, said: “There is no limit to what these people will do to protect their power & destroy those who threaten it, even if it means ripping our country apart & shredding public faith in the institutions that hold our republic together.” However, the indictment comes not from political rivals or even from prosecutors but from a grand jury. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was investigated by the FBI in 2016 for her handling of classified material, who opted not to charge her after saying she had been “extremely careless”. President Joe Biden and Trump’s vice president Mike Pence were found to have retained classified materials, but complied with efforts by the National Archive to return them. Read More Trump news — latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Jonathan Turley tells Fox News the Trump indictment is ‘extremely damning’ and a ‘hit below the waterline’ Trump praised attorney for deleting Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 emails, indictment shows Trump described Pentagon ‘plan of attack’ and shared classified military map with PAC member, indictment shows Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement
2023-06-10 06:07
Who is Ryan Palmeter? Jacksonville Dollar General shooter's parents didn't want 'guns in the house'
Who is Ryan Palmeter? Jacksonville Dollar General shooter's parents didn't want 'guns in the house'
In Jacksonville, Florida, a racially motivated mass shooting carried out by 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter resulted in the tragic deaths of three individuals
2023-08-27 13:39
After the flood: The nightmare is just beginning for those left to rebuild after the Ukraine dam explosion
After the flood: The nightmare is just beginning for those left to rebuild after the Ukraine dam explosion
In a mud-soaked nightdress, the Ukrainian grandmother claws at the fetid water that has swallowed the steps down to her home in Kherson city. Frail and in shock, Antonia Shevchenko, 84 appears unaware of the futility of her attempts to try to drain the swamp drowning her house. Her daughter Svetlana, 64, marooned by the sweltering mud, tries to coax her to stop and calm down. Shelling roars in the background. It is the first time the pair have been back since they evacuated after the Nova Kakhokva dam blew up this month, unleashing the contents of one Europe’s largest reservoirs over southern Ukraine. The explosion - which Ukraine blames on Russia - sparked the worst ecological disaster on the continent in recent history and will likely impact global food security, according to the United Nations. In Kherson, the capital of the region, it killed dozens of people, submerged whole towns, drowned all the wildlife and turned this street into a canal. “We didn't even have time to get her clothes, we had to carry her in the slippers and nightie she is still wearing now,” says Svetlana in tears, as her confused mother repeats “It’s all just mud,” in the background. “It’s impossible to fix this. I feel nothing now. Everything is just empty inside. Now it’s all gone, we have nothing left," Svetlana adds. A few streets away Oksana Kuzminko, 70, who was also returning for the first time, picks her way through the devastation. “Welcome to zombie land,” she adds with a despairing shrug. Until recently the only way to navigate these streets was to steer a boat between the tops of the roofs of the submerged houses. Now the waters have receded, the terrifying scale of the damage and the work still to be done has been revealed. Sewage, mud, rubbish, dead animals, bits of masonry, and potentially land mines swirl together in the backyards of the partially collapsed houses. The area is still being pounded by Russian forces, stationed on the other side of the swollen banks of the Dnipro river. Anna Gatchecnko, 73, another elderly resident of this district, says the combination of flood waters and the war is “your worst nightmare”. “We survived the Russian occupation, the shelling and now this happened,” she says, wearing plastic bags she has tied to her feet in the toxic slush. “They took everything. My house, my belongings were the last things in this world that I had." The Kakhovka dam - essential for fresh water and irrigation in southern Ukraine - is located in a part of the Kherson region that Moscow illegally annexed in September and has occupied for the past year. The damage is so severe Ukraine has accused Russia of “ecocide” – believing Moscow’s forces blew it up in an attempt to prevent Kyiv’s troops from advancing in the south as they launched a counteroffensive. Moscow has vehemently denied the accusations and blamed Kyiv. Experts say the dam was so robustly built only an internal explosion could have caused such a catastrophic breach. The tearing floods have wiped out hundreds of towns and villages according to the United Nations, which has warned nearly a quarter of a million people have been left in need of drinking water. Downstream of the dam - towns and villages have morphed into polluted swamps where cholera has been detected. Upstream, the reservoir which once sustained swathes of agricultural land, has turned into a salty desert. Residents in those areas queue to get water from fire trucks under shelling. And the repercussions will be felt well beyond Ukraine’s borders, even potentially sparking global hunger. Ukraine - a major exporter of grains, oils and vegetables - was already struggling to export its harvest because of war. The ravages of flooding in one of the world’s most important breadbaskets will almost inevitably lead to lower grain exports, higher food prices around the world, and less to eat for millions in need. “The truth is this is only the beginning of seeing the consequences of this act,” Martin Griffiths, a United Nations aid official warned recently. It also raised fears about the stability Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which relied on the waters of the now-dry Kakhovka reservoir to function. Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s Atomic agency, which has unsuccessfully attempted to build a safety zone around the facility, was so concerned he travelled to the Russian-occupied plant. There he admitted it was "grappling with ... water-related challenges”. In Zaporzhizhia’s regional capital, Taras Tyshchenko, head of the Ministry of Health's Centre for Prevention and Disease Control, said if the Russians were capable of unleashing the waters over Kherson, they would have no qualms in taking out the nuclear power. After the dam's explosion, his health facility tests the air and waters across the region multiple times a day for radiation and contamination. So far they have detected cholera and remain on high alert for radiation. They have been through three rounds of training in the event there is a disaster at the nuclear power plant and have distributed potassium iodide tablets to those living within the danger zone. The damage from the destroyed dam is unfathomable, he says in front of the city’s main dock which is now dried out. The sweeping concrete jetty, which once hosted commercial water traffic, stoops forlornly over muddy puddles where his teams take water samples. “It could take well over a decade to fix the dam, refill the reservoirs and restore this region to normal," he adds grimly. "And that work can only really start after victory." In the interim cities, towns and villages along the Kakhovka reservoir will morph into wastelands if no solution is found. Deep fissures crisscross the cracked riverbeds where dead fish and molluscs slowly crisp in the sun. In one village, a forlorn fisherman drives a scooter across the desert scape in search of a pool of water. “Once the dam exploded we tried to build our own mini dams to try to retain some water, “ explains Vitaly Marozov, 29, who works at a 400-hectare farm producing vegetables and fruit just outside of the city of southern city Nikopol. He plays us a video of local volunteers building a makeshift barrier out of sacks and soil. “Now we are trying to dig wells but the water is salty," he adds. This is already destroying crops. Standing by a destroyed field of cabbages, dusted white with salt, he says they will be lucky if they can salvage a fifth of their total yearly yield. The damage he believes will cost their farm 22 million hryvnia, or around £500,000, and it will only get worse as the season progresses. “We are just one farm, this is the case all around this area. This will impact global food security unless someone does something drastic,” he continues. Back in the water-logged regions, volunteers deliver aid by boats to the communities now cut off from help. Others bring pumps to try to drain the pools of stagnant water from the worst-hit areas. But all it does is expose the irreparable damage done to the entire southern sweep of Ukraine. We find Olha Mosyk, 70, who was forced to swim to safety with a litter of newborn kittens, islanded by destruction in her home in the Mykolaiv region. Sodden muddy piles of dirt mark the remains of the walls of her house. “You need steel teeth to break Ukrainians. That won’t work on me,” she says, pulling up the remains of rotten potatoes from her destroyed field which is the same tyranny of blackened mud. “All we can do is try to pull ourselves together,” she adds with a pause. Back in Kherson city, Svetlana tries to comfort her mother Antonia who is on the cusp of a panic attack. “How do I feel? Crying all the time. My whole body is shaking,” the 84-year-old says faintly, her red floral nightie a flash of colour in the grey water. “It’s all flooded. My whole life is underwater.” Read More Zelensky accuses Russia of plotting ‘radiation leak’ attack at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant Ukraine's president tells other countries to act before Russia attacks nuclear plant Ukrainian soldiers rescue Russian troops left to drown after Kakhovka dam destruction Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow ‘arrests General Armageddon’ over Wagner rebellion Recapping the revolt in Russia, through the words of 4 presidents and a mutinous warlord
2023-07-03 23:15
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki writes about her years in government in 'Say More'
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki writes about her years in government in 'Say More'
Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has a two-book deal with Scribner, starting with a book reflecting on her years in government
2023-10-30 22:15
Dollar set for fifth winning week on Fed bets, PBOC supports yuan
Dollar set for fifth winning week on Fed bets, PBOC supports yuan
By Kevin Buckland TOKYO The dollar headed for a fifth winning week versus major peers, the longest streak
2023-08-18 10:56
US Tightens Entry Rules for Hungarians, Citing Security Risk
US Tightens Entry Rules for Hungarians, Citing Security Risk
The US tightened entry rules for Hungarians under its visa-waiver program, citing security concerns about a fast-track naturalization
2023-08-01 18:09
FBI and European partners seize major malware network in blow to global cybercrime
FBI and European partners seize major malware network in blow to global cybercrime
U.S. officials say the FBI and its partners in Europe infiltrated and seized control of a major malware network that was used for more than 15 years to commit a gamut of online crimes including crippling ransomware attacks
2023-08-30 04:35
Viral clip of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk discussing secrets of Bermuda Triangle sparks online scrutiny: 'This is fake'
Viral clip of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk discussing secrets of Bermuda Triangle sparks online scrutiny: 'This is fake'
In a recently viral clip, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk are heard discussing a supposed World War II-era German bunker found in the Bermuda Triangle
2023-11-25 17:57
Who is Lilah Pi? Drake pens birthday tribute for singer, calls her his 'confidant' and 'best friend'
Who is Lilah Pi? Drake pens birthday tribute for singer, calls her his 'confidant' and 'best friend'
'More life to the gyal that's impossible to duplicate. My inspo, my confidant, my best mate, my heart @lilahpi happy birthday,' Drake wrote on Instagram
2023-06-11 17:00
Megan Fox has spoken out about body dysmorphia and how it affects her life, admitting to never loving her body
Megan Fox has spoken out about body dysmorphia and how it affects her life, admitting to never loving her body
'I don't ever see myself the way other people see me. There's never a point in my life where I loved my body, never, ever,' Fox said
2023-05-18 18:19