There’s an emerging winner in the 2024 presidential contest: television broadcasters. Spending on political advertising is estimated to

The blockbuster falls foul of authorities over its portrayal of social values.

The organization that runs the Holiday Bowl has filed a lawsuit against the Pac-12 Conference and the University of California Regents for UCLA backing out of the 2021 game due to COVID-19 concerns

The office of US Senator Dianne Feinstein has confirmed that the California Democrat was suffering worse health complications from a recent shingles case than she had previously claimed. A spokesperson for Sen Feinstein, 89, told CNN Ms Feinstein, the Senate’s oldest lawmaker, experienced Ramsay Hunt syndrome and encephalitis as part of the diagnosis. “While the encephalitis resolved itself shortly after she was released from the hospital in March, she continues to have complications from Ramsay Hunt syndrome,” the spokesperson said on Thursday. Ramsay Hunt syndrome can occur when a case of shingles affects the facial nerve close to the eye, sometimes causing facial paralysis and hearing loss, according to the Mayo Clinic. Earlier in the day, Sen Feinstein claimed to CNN she didn’t have encephalitis, saying, “It was really a bad flu.” The California senator’s health and mental fitness have long been subjects of scrutiny. Some of her colleagues have called on her to resign. She returned to the Senate last week after being absent for 10 weeks as she recovered from shingles. Upon returning to the Senate, Sen Feinstein told reporters that she had never left. “No, I haven’t been gone,” she said to LA Times’s Ben Oreskes when asked how her Senate colleagues have responded to her return, reported Slate. Mr Oreskes then asked her whether she had been working from home. “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please, you either know or don’t know.” The absence of Sen Feinstein halted the work of the Senate judiciary committee, where Republicans demanded the California Democrat either return to work or resign from the Senate, rather than allow a temporary replacement. The infighting halted the confirmation of federal judges, one of the main ways Democrats can cement their influence in a divided Congress. As The Independent has reported, Sen Feinstein is part of a generation of elderly leaders at the top of the US political system, leading critics to argue more should be done to make elected office accessible to young people. The present Congress contains the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in US history. Generationally, the US population fits roughly into four, equal-sized blocks of about 20 to 25 per cent: ages 0 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55-plus. The composition of Congress, meanwhile, is drastically tipped toward the elder part of that range, with the median House member aged 57.9 and the median senator aged 65.3. According to Professor Munger, Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Pennsylvania State University, author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture, the age of America’s most senior politicians – Sen Chuck Schumer is 71, Sen Mitch McConnell is 81 – often means that issues that matter to other generations don’t get top billing, leading both to disaffection and to bigger-picture existential issues, like a lack of serious climate legislation or the impending funding crisis of social security. “It’s been clear that because of the size of the boomer generation, at a certain point, we were either going to have to raise taxes on the workforce or cut the benefits,” he said. “We didn’t do either of those things. Sometime in the 2030s, it’s going to run out. They’re not going to cut benefits to boomers. Instead, younger generations are going to have to fully fund this obvious 30-year shortfall.” In the case of social security in particular, many of the leaders deciding on the issue are current recipients, while those younger generations who will likely pay more or get less in the future aren’t represented in office. A similar problem arises with climate change: the leaders holding up urgent action on the climate likely will not be alive to see the very worst impacts of their inaction. “The issues that matter to younger generations don’t get on the agenda at all,” Prof Munger added. Read More Dianne Feinstein’s decline is heartbreaking and difficult to discuss — but we can’t avoid it Democrats have behaved shamefully around Dianne Feinstein and Republicans are taking advantage The danger of America’s ageing politicians Diane Feinstein denies she was ever absent from US Senate California lawmakers block bill allowing people to sue oil companies over health problems Feinstein's office details previously unknown complications from shingles illness

Halle Berry channeled her inner Barbie for her 57th birthday.

Jehad Adwan scribbles the names and ages of his wife’s relatives in blue ink on a scrap of white paper

'It was terrible and there's so many people out there that have gone through the same thing,' said Gwen Stefani

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 13, 2023--

Two police officers in New Haven, Connecticut, have been fired for what authorities call their reckless actions and lack of compassion in handling prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he became paralyzed in the back of a police van last year

A new poll out from JL Partners underscores major weaknesses for the three men most likely to be sworn in as president on 20 January 2025, with little good news to soften the blow. With the GOP primary now in full swing, Americans are getting a good look at the alternatives the Republican Party will present to the re-election of President Joe Biden, who was already the oldest president ever to take office when he did so in 2021. But the top contenders in the GOP, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, each have debilitating labels to overcome if they have any shot of picking up ground with a general election audience, according to the survey. For Mr Trump, voters were most likely to describe him in one word as a “criminal”; others were even less flattering, such as “disgusting”, “liar”, “evil” and “dangerous” (though “patriot” also made a top-10 appearance). The Florida governor got off arguably worse. The top two responses from voters describing Mr DeSantis were “fascist” and “unsure”, the latter indicating possible unfamiliarity with his political record or a lack of name recognition. And while Mr Biden fares better than either of his would-be opponents, the incumbent president nevertheless remains chained to concerns about his age, which dominated the minds of the most voters asked for their one-word summation of him. Altogether, the poll results signaled that Americans are largely unsatisfied with the options they have for leadership over the next half decade. To be sure, those three men are not the only candidates running, but no other Republican is polling at a numerically significant level at present and Mr Biden’s party is highly unlikely to facilitate a primary challenge against an incumbent president. The poll, conducted on behalf of the Daily Mail, most likely outlines the kind of attacks that voters can expect to see in a general election scenario; concerns about Mr Biden’s age and supposed feebleness will be front and centre, as will discussion of Mr Trump’s multiple criminal investigations or Mr DeSantis’s record of support for hard-right conservative legislation in his home state of Florida should either of them be the GOP nominee. JL Partners’ survey included responses from 1,000 likely general election voters between 12-15 June. The margin of error was 3.1 per cent. Read More Attorney General Garland keeps poker face as firestorm erupts after Trump charges Miami's Francis Suarez looks to become first sitting mayor to be president Biden warns union members that Republicans are ‘coming for your jobs’ in 2024 campaign speech in Philadelphia Trump is incredibly guilty: that doesn’t mean he’ll get the prison time he deserves Trump says ‘Long live the King’ in rant about Fox a day after Biden said ‘God save the Queen’ DeSantis quiet on Trump indictment as he faces conservatives in Trump country

A mother who says she experienced “hell on earth” was among the British tourists forced to flee Rhodes this weekend as fierce wildfires continue to rip through the Greek holiday island. Officials on the island, which sits southwest of Turkey in the Aegean Sea, launched Greece’s biggest-ever evacuation operation as the blaze tore through vast swathes of land, threatening resorts popular with holidaymakers. Tourists were forced to shelter in schools, sports stadiums, airports and alternative hotels as firefighters desperately fought to contain the flames, which officials fear may worsen on Monday as wind speeds more than double on the island. As Britons rushed to book seats on packed flights home after the evacuations, holiday firms including Jet2, the UK’s biggest tour operator, announced they would be cancelling services to Rhodes and would be sending empty planes to bring stranded tourists home. Around 19,000 people in total are reported to have been evacuated from Rhodes, the largest of Greece’s Dodecanese islands, which has a local population of about 115,000. Becky Mulligan, a 29-year-old training manager from Leicester, was staying at the Princess Sun Hotel in the Kiotari resort on Rhodes’s southeast coast when she, her five-year-old daughter, and sister, 20, were forced to quickly pack their bags and flee as the sky turned “orange”. “Smoke started coming up against the window of the hotel so we decided to run,” she told The Independent. “There were helicopters hovering above making the whole building shake. “We ended up legging it down a dirt track as the smoke came up around our legs. I thought I was going to die. It was like hell on earth.” Ms Mulligan and her family were forced to seek refuge on the beach as they waited for coaches to come and pick them up, which she described as the “most scary point”. She said hundreds of people were waiting to be evacuated with grown adults “basically trampling on children to get to the buses”. The trio was then taken to Gennadi Grande resort and from there bussed to another location, where they were forced to spend the Saturday night on the floor of a hotel room. On Sunday morning they managed to escape safely, sharing a taxi with another family to the airport where their flight back to the UK was due to depart after 11pm. Dan Jones, a sports teacher from Torquay, Devon, said he had to climb onto a fishing trawler with his sons on Saturday night, describing it as “the scariest moment in my entire life”, adding: “What brave boys.” Ian Wakefield told Times Radio he spent the night in a school playground in Faliraki after being evacuated from his hotel in Pefki. He said: “It didn’t really feel real – being in imminent danger of being burned to death. Between midnight and around 5am this morning we were going through an evacuation which was pretty chaotic. “There were a lot of upset people and children who were understandably quite hysterical. It was all very confusing – the instructions from the hotel manager were unclear. “You had to make your own choice in the end. I’ve had to leave quite a lot of luggage in the hotel.” As fire crews struggled to contain the blazes and thick black smoke continued billowing into the sky, British holiday firms began cancelling flights to Rhodes, although some planes touched down on the island on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning despite the emergency. Jet2 Holidays cancelled all flights to the island until 30 July and said it would send empty planes to bring stranded Britons home, while Tui said it would cancel all flights and holidays until Tuesday. Thomas Cook later announced it had cancelled all holidays to Kiotari and Lardos – the areas of the island most at risk – until 31 July and would be in touch with customers to arrange “swift refunds”. It has also offered full refunds to customers due to depart for other parts of the island on Sunday and Monday who wish to cancel their trip. But some holidaymakers suggested that operators should have cancelled flights to the island sooner. Lowri Jones from Crymych, Pembrokeshire, Wales, described scenes of “chaos” at Rhodes Airport when she arrived there on Saturday night. The mother of three, 52, travelled to the Greek island with her thirteen year-old-daughter for a holiday. “It was absolute pandemonium at the airport, with long queues of people trying to find out what coach they were,” she told The Independent. “We booked with Tui and there has been very little communication from them. “We had been due to stay at the Atlantica Dreams hotel in Gennadi but were driven - without warning - to a completely different resort in the north of the island due to the wildfires.” She added: “Me and my daughter ended up spending the night on the floor with other people in a room with no air conditioning in sweltering heat - it was horrible. “To be honest, I don’t think we should have even been there in the first place. The flight was delayed because the pilot had to do a risk assessment to see if it was safe to land because of the fires. “Tui should have told us it wasn’t safe and given us a refund - at least that way I could have made a decision about booking somewhere else. Now I’m stranded in Rhodes and having to look at booking flights home.” A spokesperson for Tui said it is continuing to monitor the wildfires and appreciated the “distressing and difficult” situation for its customers. Anyone who remains in Rhodes is urged “follow the advice of the local authorities who are managing tourist movements in impacted areas,” they said. Britain’s ambassador to Greece said the Foreign Office had sent a "rapid deployment team" to help UK tourists who were among thousands forced to flee for their lives on Saturday as the wildfire spread. Read More Holidays and flights to Greek island ravaged by fire cancelled UK airlines still selling tickets to Rhodes despite wildfire inferno Greece: Smoke turns Rhodes sky grey and hazy as wildfires continue to rage CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here's what you need to see and know today Jet2 and Tui scrap Rhodes flights as tourists fleeing island describe ‘hell on earth’ Decision not to refund Rhodes tourists would be ‘unconscionable’, charity says

Ronald Acuña Jr. made even more enemies with simply delightful Philadelphia Phillies fans by liking a tweet that says he and the Atlanta Braves' accomplishments have been far more impressive than Philly's.