Feel The Ferocious Heat!

The BBC have announced that principal photography on the eleventh series of Doctor Who, starring yer actual Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor, was completed earlier this week. The series is due to be broadcast later this year. You knew that, right?

It has been five years since he last wrote for he series, but Neil Gaiman is apparently pure dead keen to return to Doctor Who for a new adventure. Speaking to the Digital Spy website, the author and scriptwriter confirmed that he would 'love' to follow up his two previous stories – 2011's really bloody brilliant The Doctor's Wife and 2013's hugely disappointing Nightmare in Silver – with a new script for yer actual Jodie Whittaker. 'If you examine my DNA and you go in deep enough, with a good enough microscope, you're gonna see a TARDIS, with a little light blinking on the top!' Gaiman claimed. 'So the idea of writing for Jodie, or for her successor, whoever she/he/they happen to be, is ... yeah, it's Doctor Who! You can't say no.' Gaiman's absence from the BBC's popular long-running family SF drama over the past five years hasn't been for lack of trying. He claims to have been 'in discussions' with former-showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) to write a story for Peter Capaldi's Doctor, only for 'scheduling issues' to get in the way and bugger up such plans. 'I was so frustrated over the last four years because I didn't get to write for Peter Capaldi,' he said. 'I even had a planned episode and did not get to do it, because I've been making Good Omens and that's been my life.'

The BBC is continuing its attempt to get the US courts to force computer firms to release details identifying the naughty individual who naughtily leaked a short section from the upcoming series of Doctor Who. In June, a fifty three-second clip was released unofficially online. If you missed it dear blog reader, it was very good. The latest BBC action confirms what everyone who saw the thing had guessed, that this was from episode one of the new series. Last month it was reported that the BBC had asked a California court to force the online platform Tapatalk to 'produce information allowing the identification of the source of the leak.' On 2 August, BBC Worldwide Limited filed a request in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington State, under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The act, introduced in 1998, is designed to enable copyright holders to learn the identities of suspected infringers of their copyright material. So that they can, you know, 'have a word with them.' Or, kick their bollocks. Or something equally eye-watering. The subpoena asks Microsoft to disclose details of the owner of the OneDrive account on which the stolen clip was stored. The subpoena does not need to be approved by a judge. Once drafted, it is simply checked by a court clerk for completeness, before being issued to the service provider, who is then required to hand over any relevant identification, including the name, e-mail and other information collected.

An award of some sort for 'the most hilariously over-the-top speculative article based on nothing which made the media site reporting it look like foolish fools in their damn foolishness' is due to the Digital Spy website. Actually, such an award is due to the Digital Spy website most weeks, but this week in particular. Earlier this week, they published a piece which claimed that a new series of Sherlock 'could' be in the offing, only to be required to hastily change the story a few hours later when Mark Gatiss slapped them down with withering disdain and told then that they were, you know, talking a right load of old crap. 'In what could be fantastic news for everyone who's missing seeing Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman teaming up on screen, a rumour has emerged that a fifth series is actually more imminent than we'd all thought,' the website suggested. Because, of course, 'rumours' are always so reliable. 'The surprise hint,' they added, had been 'dropped by Chris Georgiou, whose business Speedy's Cafe has become a bit of a star since it started featuring as the neighbour of 221B Baker Street ... Georgiou has hinted that they've already received the call, telling Time Out: "I probably shouldn't be saying this, but I've heard they'll be coming back for a fifth season."' No, you probably shouldn't be saying it, Chris. Gatiss soon 'downplayed the credibility' of Georgiou's comments, dismissing talk of the popular drama returning any time soon as 'utter nonsense.'

So, Sherlock isn't coming back. At least, not for the foreseeable future. But, someone is. Sir Patrick Stewart his very self is, if you will, boldly going exactly where he has been before - by reprising the Star Trek: The Next Generation role of Jean-Luc Picard. The character will feature in a new CBS All Access series chronicling his life after he left the Enterprise. The actor announced the news in a surprise appearance at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas on Saturday, after months of speculation. Sir Patrick played Picard in one hundred and seventy eight episodes of the SF television series between 1987 and 1994 and in four spin-off movies (three of them quite good). 'I will always be very proud to have been a part of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, but when we wrapped that final movie in the spring of 2002, I truly felt my time with Star Trek had run its natural course,' said the actor, who lives in New York City. 'It is an unexpected but delightful surprise to find myself excited and invigorated to be returning to Jean-Luc Picard and to explore new dimensions with him.' Alex Kurtzman, the executive producer on the new yet-to-be-named show, said: 'It's a privilege to welcome Sir Patrick Stewart back into the Star Trek fold. For over twenty years, fans have hoped for the return of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and that day is finally here. We can't wait to forge new ground, surprise people and honour generations both new and old,' Kurtzman added.

Former EastEnders actor Khali Best has been cast in series six of ITV's Endeavour judging by location photos released this week.

This very week has also seen the first released images of the forthcoming fifth - and final - series of From The North favourite Gotham. And, very tasty they look, too. Particularly Erin Richards' new 'even-more-badass-than-usual' look!

Another long-term From The North favourite yer actual Gillian Anderson her very self turned fifty on Friday of this week. Still a fine lookin' lady, the Divine Gillian is (as well as, obviously, a world class, award-winning actress of outstanding ability. He said, quickly, remembering his responsibilities as a man in the Twenty First Century).

Now, dear blog reader, would you like to see a location image from the filming of the next series of Victoria featuring yer actual Jenna Coleman wearing a Victorian bathing costume whilst checking her mobile phone in front of a sign which asks 'have you paid and displayed'? You know, for a laugh. Of course you would.

There was another terrifically weird episode of current From The North favourite Picnic At Hanging Rock broadcast this week on Beeb2 - the penultimate one if you're taking notes; particularly impressive was director Michael Rymer's trippy camerawork during Hester's (several) guilt and brandy-induced nightmares. All Vertigo-influences weird angles and queasy 'everything's the wrong way up'-type malarkey. Very disturbing.

Coronation Street is adding Maureen Lipman to the list of acclaimed actors joining its ranks - she will play 'outspoken battleaxe' Evelyn Plummer, the grandmother of the character Tyrone Dobbs. Her character comes into Tyrone's life when he researches his family history after the death of his mother, Jackie. She will 'ruffle a few feathers on the Street,' according to ITV, much to the dismay of Tyrone's girlfriend Fiz. The show's producer Iain MacLeod said that he was 'beyond thrilled.' He described Evelyn as a 'great new character' saying he was 'so pleased' she would be 'played by someone of Maureen's pedigree. Evelyn is eye-wateringly withering and will add a fresh dollop of Northern humour to the show as she turns Tyrone and Fiz's lives upside down,' he added. Lipman is currently appearing in new a one-woman show at Edinburgh Festival Fringe called Up For It. Her late husband, Jack Rosenthal who died in 2004, wrote and produced over two hundred and fifty episodes of Coronation Street. Lipman told BBC's Breakfast that she wasn't sure at first if she would be able to fit a soap role in alongside her Edinburgh show. 'I got the call from Coronation Street and I thought "I can't do this because I've got a show,"' she said. 'I've got a picture of my late husband, a triptych and there are lights above it. And I was saying "I don't think I can do it" and then the light came on - above his picture! So I thought okay and I am now a character in the Street - and a pretty nasty one at that. I'm playing a monster.' She is among several big names to have appeared on the long-running ITV soap, including Sir Ian McKellen, Andrew Sachs, Rula Lenska, Stephanie Beacham, Nigel Havers and Noddy Holder. The show also featured Sir Ben Kingsley, Martin Shaw and Joanna Lumley early in their careers. Lipman, who previously appeared in the soap in 2002 as a relief manageress at the Rovers, will return to the cobbles in September.

EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City are getting a new boss, with Kate Oates joining as senior executive producer for all three BBC dramas. The former Emmerdale and Coronation Street executive producer will be taking over the Walford soap from John Yorke - who stepped in to run EastEnders on a temporary basis last year. Speaking about her new appointment, Kate said: 'Working across EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City is an amazing opportunity for me to have creative input into three of the UK's leading dramas. I'm excited about meeting the teams and talent behind each show and can't wait to get stuck in and tell some unmissable stories.' Oates will report in to BBC Studios' Head of Continuing Drama Series, Oliver Kent and begins her role in October. Mark Linsey, CCO of BBC Studios, said: 'Kate is a dynamic, passionate and creative storyteller and I couldn't be more thrilled that she's joining BBC Studios to work with our fantastic teams. At EastEnders, she will be taking the baton from John Yorke, who stepped in to run the show on a temporary basis in June 2017. I'd like to personally thank him for the great job he's done during this interim period. John will continue to work together with Kate to ensure a smooth handover until the end of the year and we will be announcing his next role with us in the coming weeks.' Director of BBC Content Charlotte Moore added: 'Kate Oates is a really thrilling appointment; she has a real passion for soaps and I have no doubt that her experience, creative flair and dynamism will excite the next generation of BBC soap fans. I would like to thank John Yorke for everything he has done over the last year on EastEnders and I look forward to seeing Kate take over the creative baton.' Oates joined Emmerdale in 2010 where she rose from story editor to series producer, before moving to produce Coronation Street in 2016.

Freeview has reportedly 'enjoyed a record spike in interest' as disgruntled Virgin Media customers seek ways to watch channels such as Dave and Drama which have been pulled from its pay-TV service in a dispute with UKTV. As the increasingly acrimonious dispute enters its third week, the damage from the blackout mounts, with Virgin Media customers looking to defect to rival TV services and UKTV – which has ten pay-TV and free channels – losing about a million smackers a week as channels record a viewing slump of as much as a fifth. Freeview, which offers UKTV's five free channels Dave, Drama, Home, Really and Yesterday, is preparing a TV advert targeting Virgin Media customers which will run as part of its fifteen million knicker campaign to woo more customers to the free TV service. Freeview, which has also been mounting a social media campaign aimed at disgruntled Virgin Media customers, is the main TV provider in more than eleven million homes. However, Freeview is available in nineteen million households because every new TV set sold over the last couple of years has a Freeview tuner built into it. Many Virgin Media pay-TV households probably have access to Freeview without even realising it. Since the UKTV channel blackout began - on 22 July - Freeview's channel checker, which allows prospective customers to see what they can receive at their address, has had its biggest rise in usage this year. This was followed by web traffic to the company's 'How to set up my Freeview TV' trebling. 'This suggests Virgin Media customers were itching to continue to receive those UKTV channels which had fallen off their service,' an alleged - though suspiciously anonymous - spokesman for Freeview allegedly told the Gruniad Morning Star. Sky's sales team have also made a concerted effort to attract unhappy Virgin Media customers on social media, with some staff claiming their best sales days of the year so far. However, Jeremy Darroch, Sky's chief executive, said that overall Sky had 'yet to see a significant increase' in new customer signings. While talks between the two sides continue, UKTV is feeling the pain to the tune of almost a million smackers per week in the loss of advertising revenue and fees from Virgin Media. On the Monday and Tuesday after UKTV's channels were pulled, the prime-time audience to Dave plummeted twenty per cent, Gold twenty two per cent and Eden fell thirty four per cent. ITV used the dispute to pressure Virgin Media in its own negotiations, sending a letter with an ultimatum that it could also pull its channels, which resulted in a deal being struck days later. 'Some observers argue that ITV's opportunistic move to strong-arm a better commercial arrangement from Virgin Media may have cost it funds that may have been used to come to better terms with UKTV,' said some trouble-making shite of no importance at the Gruniad. 'The cut in fees that Virgin is seeking to pay UKTV is now partly going to be viewed as a way to fund its new deal with ITV,' one alleged - although, again, anonymous and, therefore, probably fictitious - senior TV industry executive allegedly said. Virgin Media is seeking to cut the fees it pays for UKTV's channels by about fifty per cent, arguing that it needs more video-on-demand rights to BBC shows on the service. The BBC, which jointly owns UKTV with the pay-TV company Discovery, holds back the video-on-demand rights to shows such as Top Gear and, instead, sells them separately to rivals including Netflix and Amazon. As is their right to commercially exploit the products that they develop and make. Virgin Media, which is not receiving fees from the channels it has temporarily replaced UKTV's portfolio with, has started a process to potentially auction off the slots to rivals permanently.

The use of commercial video streaming services has surged ahead in Great Britain, according to official figures. Close to half of all adults said that they had watched Netflix, Now TV, Amazon Prime Video or a similar Internet-based service over the past three months. That compares to less than a third of respondents in 2016, the last time the figure was given. The data is contained in the Office for National Statistics' annual Internet Access and Use report. The study also indicates that the percentage of households with 'some kind of Internet access' has not changed since last year, remaining at ninety per cent. But it does suggest that usage has increased, with eighty six per cent of over-sixteens reporting that they use the web 'daily or almost every day.' The previous year, the figure was eighty per cent. In addition, for the first time the survey says that one hundred per cent of households with children living in them have Internet access. Sending and receiving e-mails remains the most popular task, with eighty four per cent of adults saying that they had done this over the past quarter. But the activities that saw the biggest gains over the past two years were watching video-on-demand from commercial services - forty six per cent had done so over the last three months, up from twenty nine per cent in 2016; watching videos from YouTube and similar platforms - sixty two per cent, up from forty seven per cent; listening to net-streamed music - fifty eight per cent, up from forty nine per cent. One media industry analyst said that the growing popularity of online TV had meant providers were having to adapt their offerings. #If you look at the breakdown of who is using these services, it's starting to bleed outside the younger tech-savvy audiences and getting traction among older groups as well,' commented Tom Harrington from Enders Analysis. 'You can see that reflected in the types of programming being made available, with Netflix and others commissioning original shows pitched at more mature audiences.' He added, however, that the market was 'set to become more competitive.' Sky is due to make all its content available online; Apple is expected to launch a TV subscription service soon and Disney may expand the content available via its DisneyLife app following the takeover of Twenty First Century FOX.

An Australian TV network has said it was 'wrong' to interview a far-right figure with a criminal past, after the segment set off a widespread backlash. No shit? Blair Cottrell appeared in a studio interview on Sky News Australia on Sunday to speak about immigration. Viewers lost little time in pointing out that Cottrell was last year convicted of inciting contempt of Muslims and that he has previously called for schools to display pictures of Adolf Hitler. Sky News Australia responded on Sunday. 'It was wrong to have Blair Cottrell on Sky News Australia,' said News Director Greg Byrnes. 'His views do not reflect ours. The interview has been removed from repeat timeslots and online platforms.' Cottrell is the former leader of anti-immigration group United Patriots Front. He was interviewed by Adam Giles, a programme host and former chief minister of the Northern Territory. Other presenters at the network were among those to criticise the interview. 'Blair Cottrell is a far right-wing fascist who is a self confessed Hitler fan. He has boasted about using "violence and terror" to manipulate women,' tweeted one host, Laura Jayes. A regular commentator and former Australian government minister, Craig Emerson, said that it was 'another step in a journey to normalising racism and bigotry in our country.' He said that he would not appear on the network again. Cottrell used the interview to call on Australia to reduce immigration, protect itself from 'foreign ideologies' and to 'reclaim our traditional identity.' He said later that Sky News Australia had 'succumbed to pressure' to 'silence' him. Unfortunately, they didn't do it before his poisonous bile was forced on their viewers. Last year, Cottrell was one of three men found extremely guilty by a magistrate of inciting contempt of Muslims, after the men staged a mock beheading to protest against the building of a mosque. He was previously convicted of other offences, including arson and burglary. Last year another Australian broadcaster, Channel Seven, was also criticised for showing a live interview with Cottrell without disclosing his background. Subsequently, it was reported that a number of brands - including American Express, Huggies and Specsavers - had pulled advertising with Sky News Australia over this malarkey. And, the former Labour minister Craig Emerson quit as a commentator for Sky News. 'My father fought Nazis in WWII and was interred in a German POW camp,' he wrote on Twitter. The decision to put Cottrell on Sky News was 'another step in a journey to normalising racism and bigotry in our country,' Emerson added.

Wor geet canny Ant and/or Dec have postponed next year's series of Saturday Night Takeaway, with the show not set to return until 2020. Dec Donnelly will also front November's I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Boat-Race Back On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible (I'll Even Eat Worms If You Want) alone, whilst convicted dangerous driver Ant McPartlin continues to 'take a break from all TV presenting.' The duo claimed that it was 'a joint decision' to postpone a new series of Takeaway. Ant stepped down from his TV work in March following his arrest. He was very fined eighty six grand and given a twenty-month driving ban after pleading extremely guilty to drink driving and announced he would immediately be taking time out from presenting and seeking treatment for addiction. He pulled out of the last two episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway and didn't present the live shows of Britain's Got Toilets this year. In a statement Ant claimed his recovery is 'going very well' and 'for that to continue, having spoken to Dec and ITV, I have made the decision to take the rest of the year off.' He added: 'I'd like to thank both Dec and ITV for their continued support and I look forward to getting back to work in the new year.' Production and filming for Saturday Night Takeaway next year would normally have already started, so they said that the decision was made because 'neither Ant and/or Dec nor ITV wanted to compromise the quality of the show.' Dec said that he was 'obviously sad' at the thought of being without his 'best friend' in Australia this year for I'm A Z-List Former Celebrity Desperate To Get My Boat-Race Back On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible (I'll Even Eat Worms If You Want) but that he understood Ant's decision. 'I am proud of the work Ant has been doing privately and I am fully supportive of his decision. I'm looking forward to us both being reunited on screen in 2019.'

The White Hotel has become known as one of the great unadaptable works of modern literature - almost, but never quite, made by film-makers including Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Pedro Almodóvar and Emir Kusturica. Now DM Thomas's sprawling and controversial novel has been taken on by the BBC – albeit, for the radio rather than the screen. Radio 4 announced what will be a world premiere dramatisation, using a screenplay written nearly thirty years ago by the late Dennis Potter. The adapted version of The White Hotel centres on the sexual fantasies of Lisa and her premonitions of what it emerges are the horrors of The Holocaust and the Babi Yar massacre in 1941 in Nazi-controlled Ukraine. Jeremy Howe, Radio 4's commissioning editor for drama, called it 'a disturbing, upsetting, heart-rending and sometimes shocking tale' of pre-second World War central Europe. 'It is a brilliant screenplay of a novel that shouts out to be made,' he said. It has been directed by the Los Angeles-based Jon Amiel, who directed Potter's acclaimed 1986 television serial The Singing Detective and stars Anne-Marie Duff as Lisa and Bill Paterson as her psychoanalyst, Probst. Amiel recalled reading The White Hotel nearly thirty years ago and said that it still haunted him. The fact the script had been adapted from Potter made it 'an exceptional opportunity,' he said. 'Dennis was a man I really and uniquely loved in terms of my collaborations with writers. People don't talk about loving Dennis Potter that much, he was not considered lovable. I truly loved him when we worked together and I think that deep affection was reflected in the work I did on The Singing Detective. As much as this is an adaptation of a DM Thomas novel, Dennis's voice is so alive in this script and his personality is all through it. It's a rather magical feeling for me to be so close to my old friend again.' Various attempts at a movie using Potter's script have been made with a number of directors and actors – including Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Isabella Rossellini, Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Fiennes - attached to various proposed projects which never made it over the line. Writing in the Gruniad Morning Star in 2004, Thomas said: 'There is scarcely a star of either sex in Hollywood or elsewhere who has not appeared in the imagined movie. Boy-actors, once considered to play Lisa's stepson Kolya, are now too old for any part.' Amiel said that the radio adaptation - scheduled for September - clearly was not normal commercial Hollywood fodder. 'It is a difficult story under any circumstances both to read and to listen to and to make it as a movie is exceptionally tricky,' he said. 'I also think a movie is almost always a diminution of a great novel and The White Hotel is a great novel. Movies always turn great novels into small novellas essentially. Average novels, small novels can make great movies. But I do think this makes an extraordinary radio play. In its scale and ambition it is quite unlike any radio play I've heard.' The White Hotel was shortlisted for the 1981 Man Booker prize, losing out to Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

Wor geet canny Lauren Laverne is to replace Shaun Keaveny on BBC 6Music's Breakfast Show, it has been announced. The Sunderland-born presenter, formerly singer in the 1990s band Kenickie, will make the move in January 2019, the station said.

A recorded interview with the late Sid James has been recovered after forty two years sitting in a loft. It is the last-known recording of the comedy legend and thought to have been recorded days before he died on stage in Sunderland during a UK theatre tour in 1976. The lost interview was found on an unlabelled reel belonging to former BBC radio presenter Jeff Link. Which, incidentally, is the best name for a radio presenter imaginable and one which would, one is sure, have given Sid an excuse to use his trademark filthy laugh when the pair were introduced. It was found during the making of a radio documentary to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Carry On films. The conversation reveals James's thoughts on his work with Tony Hancock, his many popular appearances in the Carry On series and his quest to maintain a new fitness regime. He looks ahead to a seventh series of the hit ITV sitcom Bless This House - a series which was never made as a result of James's death. He can also be heard joking about the many members of the public who don't realise he isn't a Cockney. 'They are surprised when they hear that I'm a South African.' Reina James, the actor's daughter, said: 'It is a very special interview for me personally, as I saw him when he was doing The Mating Season, not knowing it would be the last time I'd ever see him. To hear him talking just before he's about to die, there's something hugely moving about that.' His other daughter, Sue James, added that it was 'a lovely and sympathetic interview.' Link presented the mid-morning show for BBC Radio Solent in the 1970s and interviewed James in Bournemouth on 22 March 1976, while he was touring in a production of The Mating Season, which was billed at the time as 'an uproarious family comedy.' A few weeks later, on 26 April, James collapsed shortly after the start of the show on its opening night at the Sunderland Empire. Link recalled the entertainer being in good spirits, adding: 'He invited me to see the show, which I did at the Bournemouth Pavilion. He looked so well and he even demonstrated his fitness regime, which was doing skipping without a skipping rope. He seemed in good health so I was so shocked and surprised when I heard the sad news [of his death],' Link added Since 1976, the recording has been in a box in Link's loft, moving from house to house as the presenter changed jobs within the BBC. It was not labelled, but Link recalled making an effort to keep the reel as he was pleased with the interview. 'We normally kept tapes for a week, they had to be recycled because it was reel-to-reel. There was also a shortage of magnetic tape due to an oil crisis. It's one of the few tapes I still have.' BBC documentary producer Richard Latto said it was 'a remarkable discovery. This is a very special recording as you very rarely hear interviews with Sid and it is especially candid with what I call the "local-radio cuddle factor", which brings out a very relaxed conversation.' After recovering the interview and certifying its authenticity, Latto located Sid's two surviving daughters. 'To be able to safely reunite the recording with his family was very pleasing as they were incredibly grateful and it felt like they should hear their father's words before we considered how best to present the interview in our special documentary.' James's biographer Robert Ross said: 'Sid didn't give that many interviews and very few survive. He sounds really good and is even doing his own Carry On laugh. It's such a shame because there are so many shows you saw in the late 1970s and early 1980s where you thought Sid could have done that.' James was known to millions after many successful stints in a multitude of iconic British shows. On the radio - and then, later, on TV - he was the sparring partner of Tony Hancock in more than one hundred episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. When the show transferred to television so did James and Hancock, although Hancock did the last series alone to avoid becoming part of a perceived double-act with James. Unlike Hancock, James was already a star of many cinematic feature films, including The Lavender Hill Mob and The Titfield Thunderbolt. In 1960, the producers of Carry On Constable cast James in the role of Sergeant Frank Wilkins. His association with the series would last more than a decade and he starred in a total of nineteen of the Carry On movies. James also starred in several of his own TV series - Taxi!, George & The Dragon, Two In Clover and Bless This House - while juggling many appearances at theatres across the world. When he died he was sixty two years old. The full interview will be broadcast in Carry On Up The Archive on BBC Local Radio over the Christmas period.

Matthew Perry is reportedly 'on the mend' after undergoing emergency surgery. A spokesperson for the actor appealed for privacy on his behalf on Tuesday as Perry 'begins the long road to recovery' from a gastrointestinal perforation, according to People magazine. 'Matthew Perry recently underwent surgery in a Los Angeles hospital to repair a gastrointestinal perforation,' his representative said. 'He is grateful for the concern and asks for continued privacy as he heals.' The gastrointestinal perforation is often symptomised by severe abdominal pain and is more commonly referred to by doctors as 'a ruptured bowel.' It can also originate from the throat, stomach or intestine. Prior to his recent health struggles, Perry had been busy following the surprising cancellation of his CBS series The Odd Couple after three series in the spring of 2017. He recently reprised his The Good Wife role of Mike Kresteva in CBS All Access spin-off The Good Fight, in addition to executive producing and starring in the historical mini-series The Kennedys After Camelot. Matthew also brought his dark comedy play The End Of Longing to the off-Broadway stage in 2017, after premiering it on the West End the year previously.

Food giants KFC and Kellogg's have been told to remove adverts which promoted junk food to children, by the UK's advertising watchdog. The Advertising Standards Authority says that both broke strict rules on advertising high fat, sugar or salt products to children. The ASA found Kellogg's promoted a Coco Pops product during a Mister Bean cartoon, 'likely to have been seen by children.' Although this blogger begs to differ on that score since he doesn't believe children are stupid enough to be watching a Mister Bean cartoon. It also ruled that KFC advertised a Mars product on a phone box near to a school. KFC said that the appearance of the advert close to a school was 'a simple human error' and it had taken the advert down promptly, once it had been alerted. The human who erred has also had his or her naughty bits thrashed with a wet plimsoll until they promised never to do it again. Probably. Kellogg's said that it was 'disappointed with the decision' as it had 'only meant to promote the healthier Coco Pops Granola product,' rather than the original version. The one that, due to a design flaw turns any milk you add to the cereal a shitty brown colour. An undisclosed number of members of the public - so, that'll be one, probably - complained to the ASA, triggering the investigations. Presumably because the undisclosed number of members of the public didn't have anything more important or constructive to do with their time. The ASA was alerted to a poster advert for KFC's Mars Krushems drink which was seen on a phone box outside a school. Because it was displayed close to the entrance to a primary school, children under the age of sixteen made up 'a much higher proportion' of the advert's potential audience. Advertising for children is allowed in general but the ASA says there are 'factors' which must be considered. The ASA considered it was 'highly likely' those younger children comprised significantly more than twenty five per cent of the audience of the advert and that it, therefore, broke the rules. The Coco Pops Granola advert appeared between episodes of the Mister Bean cartoon, during a section of programming specifically directed at children under sixteen. The ASA said that, although Coco Pops Granola was not a high fat, sugar or salt product, because the Coco Pops branding was 'synonymous' with Coco Pops original cereal - with its really fucking annoying jingle - and with the Coco Pops range, it concluded the advert had 'effectively promoted the range.' Two other adverts by McDonald's, which had also been whinged about, were deemed not to have broken rules. Jess Tye from the ASA said, 'obviously advertising has an effect' otherwise companies 'wouldn't be bothering with adverts.' She said: 'We do know that ads play a small part in food preferences for children and it's really important that we act as a regulator to make sure that advertisers are being really responsible in the way that they are promoting these products.' Steven Woodford, chief executive of the Advertising Association which represents the advertising industry, said that the KFC breach had been 'inadvertent.' He said: 'Rules are there to protect children. That's what the industry is trying to do.'

The Los Angeles house featured on the US sitcom The Brady Bunch has been bought by cable TV network HGTV, its parent company has announced. The network, which specialises in home improvement and gardening shows, will 'restore the home to its 1970s glory,' Discovery said. The property's exteriors were featured on every episode of the programme, which ran from 1969 to 1974. Only the exterior of the house in Studio City appeared on the show. Indoor scenes were shot in a studio. Pop star Lance Bass (no, me neither) who also bid for the home, congratulated the TV channel on Tuesday. The former NSYNC member posted on social media on Saturday that he was 'heartbroken' to learn that his bid had been rejected. He had told fans he had bid 'way over' the asking price of $1.88m and had planned to renovate the interior to make it 'resemble the set of the TV programme.' After the buyer was revealed he changed his tune, saying he knew HGTV would 'do the right thing.' Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady on the show, tweeted her congratulations over the weekend. Discovery's acquisition was announced by its chief executive David Zaslav during a quarterly 'profit call' with investors. HGTV representatives later confirmed the sale to the BBC News website. 'I'm excited to share that HGTV is the winning bidder and we'll restore the home to its 1970s glory as only HGTV can,' he said. 'More detail to come over the next few months but we'll bring all the resources to bear to tell safe, fun stories about this beloved piece of American TV history,' he said. The house at 11222 Dilling Street - less than two miles from the CBS studios - went on the market for the first time in forty five years a few weeks ago. An advert said it was 'the second-most photographed home in the United States' after The White House. The home, which has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, was built in 1959.

England completed a crushing innings and one hundred and fifty nine run victory over India at Lord's on Sunday to take a two-nil lead in the five test series. James Anderson took four for twenty three to finish with nine wickets in the match and Stuart Broad shone with four for forty four, including a spell of four for seven, as India were bowled out for one hundred and thirty. The hosts had declared earlier in the day on three hundred and ninety six for seven, with Chris Woakes finishing undefeated on one hundred and thirty seven, before Anderson reduced India to seventeen for two. Rain delayed proceedings twice during the day - albeit, given earlier predictions of a virtual complete washout, surprisingly little play was lost - but India lost wickets at regular intervals and Woakes fittingly took the final scalp to secure an emphatic win. England enjoyed the better of the bowling conditions in the match but India produced two horribly piss-poor batting performances. Ravichandran Ashwin and Hardik Pandya's fifty five-run partnership for the seventh wicket in the second innings was India's only real consequential stand of the match and the tourists never looked even remotely comfortable under grey and leaden skies at Lord's. Only once has a team come back to overturn a two-nil deficit to win a test series - that was an Australia side which contained Donald Bradman in the 1936-37 Ashes. Almost nothing went right for India in this test, although some of their woes were self-inflicted. They lost the toss and were dismissed for one hundred and seven between showers on Friday after being inserted in the first innings in conditions made for swing bowling, before England batted in the best weather of the match on Saturday. After the competitiveness of the first test at Edgbaston, this was a real let-down for India, with their batsmen unable to resist England's bowlers and the decision to play wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav over seamer Umesh Yadav not working out. There are also concerns for India over the fitness of captain Virat Kohli, who received treatment on the field for a sore back after missing much of the morning session. Questions still remain over England's top order - they were struggling at eighty nine for four on Saturday - but Woakes' all-round performance was a promising sign for the hosts, as was Jonny Bairstow's hard hitting ninety three and another bright innings from Sam Curran. They will also take confidence from effectively winning the test in just over two days of actual play, after the first day was entirely washed out and two of the subsequent three days suffered from a number of frustrating interruptions due to the rain. Anderson leaves Lord's having taken the most wickets against India in tests, with ninety nine wickets in twenty four matches. He found movement straight away, taking his one hundredth wicket at Lord's with an angled delivery that took the inside edge of Murali Vijay's bat to leave India nought for one. KL Rahul was undone in similar fashion, pinned on the crease by Anderson, before Broad's afternoon spell disrupted the middle order to leave them sixty one for six. Anderson returned in the evening with light rain falling and bowled Kuldeep for a duck before trapping Mohammad Shami LBW to put England on the brink of victory. He now has five hundred and fifty three test wickets and is just ten behind Australian Glenn McGrath's record for the most wickets taken by a seamer in test cricket. In a terrific afternoon spell, Broad ran through India's middle order to put England in the ascendancy. Cheteshwar Pujara, who played patiently for his seventeen, was bowled off the pad by Broad, before England changed up their tactics to stop Kohli scoring. With the India captain hampered by his back, Broad forced him onto the back foot and kept him playing and missing outside off stump, before Kohli gloved the ball onto his hip and the catch was taken by debutant Ollie Pope at leg slip. Broad struck with his next delivery as he pinned Dinesh Karthik LBW, barely turning to appeal as the ball clattered into the wicketkeeper on the knee roll, but the hat-trick ball swung prodigiously down the leg-side for four byes. It was a collapse preceded by Ajinkya Rahane, who threw away his wicket after a quiet post-lunch session with a loose shot at a wide ball from Broad. India looked to have learned little from their first innings performance - and they now head to Trent Bridge, where England have won six of their past eight tests.

Archaeologists in Cologne believe they have uncovered the foundations of the oldest known library in Germany, dating back to the Second Century. A team from the city's Roman-Germanic Museum discovered the library remains while excavating the site of a Protestant church. The building likely housed up to twenty thousand scrolls, according to Doctor Dirk Schmitz, a researcher on the expedition. He described the find as 'truly spectacular.' Cologne was founded by the Romans under the name Colonia in 50AD. The former library is thought to have had a size of around twenty metres by nine and was two storeys high. 'At first we thought they were the remains of a space for public gatherings,' Marcus Trier, director of the city's Romano-Germanic Museum said, but the walls had 'unusual, cavernous structures.' After intensive research and comparison with ancient buildings such as The Ephesus in Turkey, the archaeologists were 'confident' they had found the remains of a library. 'It took us some time to match up the parallels - we could see the niches were too small to bear statues inside,' said Doctor Schmitz. 'They are very particular to libraries - you can see the same ones in the library at Ephesus.' The historic ruins have also revealed niches and cases, which likely stored an incredible number of parchment and papyrus rolls. The Western German city on the Rhine River is over two thousand years old - so stumbling upon ancient ruins is not unusual. The foundations are now to be integrated as a significant part into the new protestant church and will be open to the public. Other remains of the newly found library will be left for further archaeological examinations.

Vandals have reportedly attacked the family home of prominent Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg. Which is, obviously, very sad. The incident happened overnight on 1 August at the politician's three-story mansion at West Harptree in Somerset, when the Rees-Mogg family were on holiday in America. Police said that graffiti was 'sprayed on a building and on a car' and damage 'was caused to a garden.' According to a report in the Scum Mail Online, the words 'posh scum' were written on windows of the house. Rees-Mogg's office confirmed that the attack took place but declined to comment further. The MP's Seventeenth Century country home, called Gournay Court, is a Grade Two listed building. He also owns a five million knicker gaff in Westminster. Avon and Somerset Police said that officers 'were investigating a report of criminal damage.'

It is not uncommon to run up some hefty bills whilst on holiday, but one British tourist will be feeling particularly glum this week. The unidentified man reportedly 'racked up tens of thousands of pounds in traffic fines in less than four hours' after he rented a luxury supercar in Dubai. He is said to have broken the speed limit 'on one of the city's busiest roads dozens of times in the early hours of Tuesday.' The total cost of the fines came to one hundred and seventy five thousand dirhams which equates to around thirty six grand. The fines were issued after the tourist 'triggered every speed camera on the Sheikh Zayed Road' and reached a top speed of two hundred and forty kilometres per hour, according to state-owned newspaper The National. The owners of the dealership where the man rented the Lamborghini Huracán told the newspaper that the driver had left his passport as a guarantee. They say they haven't yet claimed the car back because they, rather than the tourist, may be liable to pay the fines. 'We can't pay this amount should the car be taken into impound, it is still with the tourist, parked at his hotel and I won't be trying to take it back,' dealership partner Faris Mohammed Iqbal said. 'Then who pays the money for the impound? We shouldn't do so for sure, it's his fault and he should pay that amount,' he added. According to local media, the fines were issued against the car's registered owner because the driver was a tourist. This means he could be free to leave the country, although his lack of a passport will likely make that difficult. 'I was fearing that he may go to his embassy claiming that he lost his passport in order to get a new one then leave the country,' Iqbal told The National.

A police car overturned while officers were chasing a moped believed to have been 'involved in a 'series of offences.' Officers in a marked vehicle reportedly followed the moped rider and pillion passenger for about half-a-mile from Hyde Park Corner in Central London in the early hours of Monday morning. The moped then crashed at high speed - or, at least, as high a speed as a moped can achieve - with a second marked police car travelling in the opposite direction which then overturned. A seventeen-year-old boy was taken to hospital with serious leg injuries. He has since been arrested on suspicion of a number of motoring offences and hauled off down the cop-shop for a jolly good talking to, the Met Police said. Officers said that the second person on the moped 'fled the scene of the crash' in Grosvenor Place and efforts to trace him or her are currently ongoing. No police officers were seriously injured or required medical treatment, the Met added although the car got smashed right up. The crash has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed.

From The North's headline of the week award goes to the Gruniad Morning Star for I Masturbate A Dozen Times A Day. Am I Addicted? No. Just happy.

A man who hacked off his victim's ears in an 'horrific' gangland assault has been extremely jailed, along with an accomplice. Kisa Kasambara carried out the attack on Karl Warrilow over a two thousand notes debt after Michael Huxley had lured Warrilow into a car in Liverpool. Kasambara and Huxley were very jailed for fifteen and twelve years respectively for kidnap and wounding with intent. Nicholas Thompson, the man behind the attack, called Warrilow afterwards asking: 'How's life with no ears?' Kasambara's and Huxley's trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard how Warrilow had been asked to collect two grand by Thompson, who was then serving a prison sentence. Warrilow was kidnapped in West Derby in March 2017 after spending the money instead of passing it on. The court heard that a dog chain was placed around his neck before he was driven to a disused railway siding where the attack took place. Thompson and another man, Kenneth Dean, were jailed in March for eighteen years and fifteen years respectively at Liverpool Crown Court after being found guilty of kidnap and wounding with intent. Judge Neil Flewitt QC said that Huxley had 'played a subordinate role' and 'showed remorse' after the attack, but had tricked Warrilow into his car and 'served him up on a plate for the others.' The judge described Kasambara as 'a dangerous offender' and said that he 'would continue to pose a risk to the public.' Detective Chief Inspector John Webster said: 'This was a brutal and planned attack. The injuries sustained were horrific, including severed ears, and as a result he will face permanent facial disfigurement in addition to the devastating psychological impact this will have undoubtedly caused.'

German holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck has been very sentenced to two-and-a-half years in The Big House after the country's highest court ruled that denying the mass murder of Jews during the Nazi era is not covered by the right to free speech and 'threatens public peace.' Haverbeck, who is popularly known as 'The Nazi-Grandma', was convicted last May for publishing a series of articles in which she insisted that the Holocaust and murder of Jews at Auschwitz concentration camp in German occupied Poland are 'not historically proven.' Which, you know, it is. In Germany, denying the Holocaust constitutes a crime of 'incitement to hatred' and carries a prison sentence of up to five years. The eighty nine-year old went to Germany's constitutional court to appeal her sentence, claiming that her statements fall under the country's right to free speech, which is protected by law. But in their ruling, the judges found that the right to free speech does not protect the denial of the Holocaust. 'The dissemination of untrue and deliberately false statements of fact can not contribute to the development of public opinion and thus do not fall in the remits of protection for free speech,' the judges wrote in a statement. 'The denial of the Nazi genocide goes beyond the limits of the peacefulness of public debate and threatens public peace,' they added. Haverbeck has a long history of support for the former Nazi regime and co-founded a now-banned right wing 'education centre' called Collegium Humanum with her late husband Werner Georg Haverbeck, a former Nazi party member and very naughty man. Her articles denying the Holocaust were published in right-wing magazine Stimme Des Reiches. Haverbeck has previously received several convictions from a range of German courts for her claims that the systematic mass murder of millions of Jews - and other persecuted groups - during Germany's Nazi regime did not take place. On one occasion she was convicted for calling the Holocaust 'the biggest and longest-lasting lie in history.'

A woman arrested after speeding through a stop sign asked police to let her off because she is 'a clean, thoroughbred white girl,' officers say. The arresting officer detailed in his official report how Lauren Cutshaw appealed to him for 'special treatment' based on her race. When asked why, Cutshaw replied: 'You're a cop; you should know what that means,' the report states. She was extremely arrested on Saturday night and also charged with drug possession. Cutshaw was pulled over after she drove through a stop sign at sixty miles per hour in Bluffton, South Carolina. As officers began investigating, she argued that she should not be arrested. Cutshaw told officers she had 'perfect grades' her whole life, was a cheerleader and sorority girl, had graduated from a 'high accredited university' and that her partner was a police officer, according to a law enforcement report viewed by local news site The Island Packet. The officer's report stated: 'Making statements such as these as a means to justify not being arrested are unusual in my experience as a law enforcement officer and I believe further demonstrate the suspect's level of intoxication.' When she was pulled over, Cutshaw's blood alcohol level registered at 0.18 per cent - above the legal limit - and she also failed sobriety tests. Her eyes were reported to be 'bloodshot and glassy' and she was 'slurring her words,' police say. She reportedly told officers that she only drank two glasses of wine 'at an upmarket restaurant,' saying: 'I mean, I was celebrating my birthday.' Police also found marijuana and 'related paraphernalia' in her car. According to the report, Cutshaw claimed that she 'may have' smoked some dynamite ganja earlier that evening. She was very charged at the Beaufort County Detention Centre with drink-driving, speeding and marijuana possession.

Devon Firefighters dealt with a fire at the John May butcher's shop in South Molton. Two crews from Barnstaple and crew from South Molton managed to contain the blaze to a storeroom at the rear of the property. It was understood that staff had been frying pork scratchings and that the hot oil had ignited causing all manner of kerfufflement and discombobulation in the process. Barnstaple station manager Dean Hastie said that firefighters had used a hose reel jet to stop the fire from spreading to the ceiling. He added that one woman was being treated for smoke inhalation. Crews remained at the scene for some time after the fire was extinguished 'checking for hot spots' using a thermal imaging camera.

An Indian sailor who was stranded aboard a ship moored at Great Yarmouth for eighteen months is preparing to return home after a legal stalemate was broken. Nikesh Rastogi is the captain of the offshore supply vessel Malaviya Twenty, whose owners fell into liquidation, leading to a complex series of legal disputes around unpaid crew wages and port dues. Nikesh said that he and his three crew mates had received no wages since last year and had feared they would not get paid if they left the ship as it would be 'considered a derelict which means anybody can take it over.' Lawyers acting for the crew made representations to the Admiralty Marshal at the High Court in July and the ship has now been arrested, meaning the court can arrange its sale and use the money raised to pay those owed, including the crew. Captain Rastogi, from Mumbai, said that he hopes to take a flight home with his crew 'within weeks.' 'It is like a weight being lifted because there was a point of no hope,' he said. 'There was a period where things were really bad mentally.' Paul Haworth, a director at the law firm Birketts which represented the crew, said that a surveyor instructed by the court will value the ship and the sale process should conclude in September. Paul Keenan, inspector with the International Transport Workers' Federation, said the ship could sell for seven to eight hundred grand. Haworth said this should be enough to pay those involved in the wrangle, including the Admiralty Marshal's costs, port dues, the crew's unpaid wages and lawyers. He said that a court order would be needed to sell the ship for less than its valuation price. The Malaviya Twenty has been stuck in Great Yarmouth since June 2016. Rastogi said that he was contracted by an agency in February 2017 as part of a thirteen-strong replacement crew, after the ship's owners fell into liquidation. All of his original crew returned to India last year and three new crew members joined him in September 2017 on six-month contracts. Rastogi said his employers withdrew in January 2018 after new contracts failed to materialise and that he and his crewmates have not been paid since last year. He said the situation had been 'difficult' but that he 'felt responsible' for his crew, adding 'you can't sit and mope over it, you just slide into the role.' The crew spent much of their time doing routine maintenance and performing drills and kept in touch with family at home on WhatsApp. Rastogi said they looked out for 'markers for depression' and he read books to keep busy. 'Your mind needs to be like a shark in that sense because if you stop then you sink and you start thinking about the situation and then there's no hope,' he said. He said he would continue to work at sea despite the ordeal, adding 'lightning doesn't strike twice.' Asked about his plans when he returned home, he said: I think I'm going to have lots of Indian food. I'm going to start with curries from breakfast to dinner.'

Taylor Hamlin reportedly 'dreamed' of winning The Maine Lobster Festival's prestigious Maine Sea Goddess pageant since she was a little girl, but two social media photos deemed 'inappropriate' by competition officials would cause the eighteen year old to be stripped of the title just twenty four hours after she was crowned. Hamlin told People magazine that one snapshot showed the teenager with a marijuana cigarette whilst another depicted her holding a juuling device (an e-cigarette). Both surfaced the day after Hamlin's coronation ceremony. The executive board of directors and the coronation committee of the Maine Lobster Festival then made the announcement that Hamlin would no longer represent the seventy-year-old celebration, saying the images 'were not in keeping with the behaviour and image of the Maine Sea Goddess.' 'I was really upset,' Hamlin told the magazine. 'It's been tough. I never thought that this would happen. They told me it was disgusting and they're disappointed. The whole thing made me feel really terrible about myself.' Hamlin says that the photo of her with the vape pen was taken after she was eighteen, making her of legal age. However, the picture of her with marijuana - recreational and medical use of which is legal in Maine for people over eighteen - was taken last year when she was underage. At the time, she posted it to a private Instagram account. 'I had deleted it a while ago so someone must have had it and saved it,' claimed Hamlin, who said she 'isn't certain' how the photographs came to the attention of the festival. Although it hardly takes a genius to work out that she was either snitched up by some filthy stinkin' Coopers Nark or that the festival decided to check out her online history for themselves and did a bit more digging than she was expecting. Though one does wonder why they didn't think about doing that before they awarded her the title in the first place. 'It's only my exclusive friends on this private account, so it had to be one of my friends or their parents [who shared it]. It's frustrating. I don't know who it is and at this point and I don't care.' In a statement released on Friday, organisers claimed that Taylor 'decided to resign her position,' adding that Crown Princess, Erin Dugan, will assume the Sea Goddess duties. 'We wish all the best to Taylor Hamlin in her future endeavours,' the statement read. 'This is a terrible situation for everyone involved. We hope that everyone will enjoy the rest of the festival that over thirteen hundred volunteers have worked so hard to put on to support our local community and the lobster industry.' But Hamlin claims she was forced out. 'They're telling everyone that it's a mutual agreement and that I resigned and that's not true,' she said. 'They didn't give me an option. They told me, "Several of our community members have complained about you." I told them, "What other choice do I have?" And the lady shrugged her shoulders and didn't say anything.' Hamlin says that her parents were 'supportive' and have been 'livid' at the festival, but even they couldn't get officials to change their mind. 'My parents asked them, "What are we supposed to do with our daughter now? She's devastated." [The coordinator] just said, "I'm not your counsellor."'

A woman who sold her young son to paedophiles on The Dark Net has been jailed for twelve years and six months by a court in Southern Germany. The Freiburg court also jailed her partner, the boy's stepfather, for twelve years. The boy was nine when the trial began in June. The German nationals had sexually abused the boy themselves for at least two years. The Dark Net is an Internet area beyond the reach of mainstream search engines peopled by terrorists, naughty men and women and shits. Apparently. On Monday, the court also jailed a Spanish man for ten years for sexually abusing the boy repeatedly. Five other men have been prosecuted in connection with the abuse related to the case. The couple were found extremely guilty of rape, aggravated sexual assault of children, forced prostitution and distribution of child pornography. The boy is now living with foster parents. The couple must pay forty two thousand Euros in damages to the boy and to a three-year-old girl, who was also abused by them. What happened to the boy, who is now aged ten, shocked even experienced investigators. Prosecutors say that the boy was subjected to more than sixty serious sex attacks, many of which were filmed. The case has horrified Germany, not least because the authorities - who knew that the mother's partner was a previously convicted paedophile - missed opportunities to rescue the boy. On Tuesday the judge told the boy's mother that she had carried out one of the most brutal sexual attacks.The trial has also raised concerns that officials might sometimes wrongly presume that a woman is incapable of abusing her own child. German media report that child welfare authorities in Baden-Württemberg state have been heavily criticised for failing to stop the couple's abuse. The boy had been removed from the couple temporarily by social workers, but was then handed back to them. Spiegel news website reports that welfare officers had not exchanged information about the case that could have led them to the couple's sick and wretched crimes. According to case psychiatrist Hartmut Pleines, quoted by Spiegel, the mother's claim that she was 'in thrall' to her partner when she committed the abuse was entirely false. She did not explain her actions, but her partner did speak a lot in court during the two-month trial, Spiegel reported.

Two men disagreed about politics on Facebook. Nothing so unusual in that, you might think, it goes on all the time - though, not on yer actual Keith Telly Topping's Facebook page as this blogger with brook no crapulence of that sort on his own little Fortress of Solitude. That's what Facebook's excellent 'block' facility is for, after all. Anyway, in this particular instance, when things got heated, one of them men showed up with a Glock and an AR-15 and shot the other in the thigh and the buttocks, police said. A somewhat extreme example of 'unfriending' one could suggested. It happened on Monday night in Tampa, leading to the arrest of Brian Sebring on charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed firearm. Only in America, dear blog reader. Alex Stephens was the victim, police said, though he may have had a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric. Sebring claimed to officers that Stephens had threatened him. 'After receiving several explicit messages and threats, the defendant responded to the victim's home to confront him reference the messages,' a police account said. When Sebring arrived - wearing the Glock in a holster on his waistband - he honked his horn and waited by his truck for Stephens to appear. Stephens came out of the home and charged toward Sebring, police said and that's when Sebring fired two shots with the Glock. 'The victim ran away and the defendant fled the scene,' police said. The nature of the political dispute on Facebook was not described in detail.

A South Yorkshire woman has been jailed for over two years for engaging in sexual activity with a teenage boy she also supplied a 'disinhibiting' drug to. Jamie Garrett, was extremely jailed for twenty nine months months after she admitted to one count of sexual activity with a child under the age of sixteen and to another count of supplying a controlled Class C drug. During the hearing, Sheffield Crown Court was told how Garrett carried out both offences against a fourteen-year-old boy on 29 August 2016, when she was twenty two-years-old. Prior to the sexual activity taking place, Garrett gave the boy a tablet of the anti-anxiety medication, Xanax, said Ian Goldsack, prosecuting. Xanax, which is also called Alprazolam, is a controlled drug of Class C when supplied to another, despite it being legally available via prescription. Commenting on her supplying her victim with Xanax, the Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, said: 'I take into account there was the use of drugs to disinhibit the boy.' He added: 'You engaged in a variety of sexual acts with the boy.' Through a victim personal statement read out in court, the boy's mother described how he was 'acutely embarrassed' by what had happened. Goldsack said that Garrett told police on the night of her naughty offending, she had taken five or six Xanax herself, had drunk a variety of alcoholic drinks and also smoked some cannabis. Garrett also told officers that she had been prescribed Xanax for her anxiety by her doctor. Defending, Katherine Goddard, told the court that Garrett had suffered from learning difficulties and described the psychological abuse she suffered as a child as a 'pervasive' influence on her life. 'My Lord has described hers as a "baleful" life and that's probably right because there hasn't been one bright spot in the defendant's life so far, save for her relationship with her grandfather. And, that came at a price when she became a carer,' claimed Goddard, adding that Garrett's grandfather had now died, leaving Garrett 'completely isolated'. In addition to jailing Garrett, Judge Richardson also placed her on the sex offenders' register for a period of ten years.

A row over leftover Chinese food led a Sarasota woman to throw a knife at a man she accused of eating it, deputies said. If it had been someone scoffing yer actual Keith Telly Topping's king prawn curry chow mein, he would have shoved the knife straight up the recidivist's Gary Glitter and twisted it, personally. Hard. But, hey, that's just this blogger, others may look upon such a sick and sordid crime differently. According to WWSB ABC7 in Sarasota, Michele Sedlak argued with the unnamed man on 27 July inside a North Port home over who ate her leftover Chinese food which had been stored in the refrigerator. Hopefully, in a suitably robust Tupperware container to avoid any potential drippage. Deputies say that the man told Sedlak - in a loud voice - that he never touched her food. Sedlak,seemingly, did not believe his denials and went totally bat-shit in response. Officers say that she then ran to the kitchen to grab a knife, which she threw at the still-protesting man. The knife, fortunately, didn't hit him but, according to deputies, she told the man 'If I wanted to hit you, I would have.' Sedlak was later very arrested and charged by the North Port Police Department with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, according to court records.

Harassing a bison isn't just disrespectful to wildlife, it's also extremely dangerous. A man whom authorities say is the person seen in a viral video 'taunting' a bison in Yellowstone National Park has been extremely arrested. The video, posted on Facebook by a bystander, Lindsey Jones on Wednesday, shows a man standing in the middle of a road, waving his arms and running back and forth in an apparent attempt to get the attention of a bison mere feet away. The animal at first appeared disinterested but, eventually, the man got its attention and it, briefly, chased him before walking away. Park rangers say that they identified the man in the video as Raymond Reinke. He was arrested Thursday at a Montana hotel, according to a statement from the National Park Service. The arrest was the culmination of a series of incidents involving Reinke at national parks. He had been arrested days earlier, on 28 July, in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park over alleged drunk and disorderly conduct. He was then released on bond and headed to nearby Yellowstone National Park. The bond conditions required him to 'follow the law and avoid alcohol,' according to The Associated Press. On Tuesday, Yellowstone rangers cited Reinke for not wearing a seatbelt, noting that he seemed 'intoxicated and argumentative.' They believe the run-in with the bison happened shortly after that stop. Even before the video of Reinke and the bison surfaced, the incident prompted multiple complaints about the man harassing the wild animal, according to the Park Service. Those complaints resulted in a citation for Reinke, mandating that he appear in court. After the video went viral and rangers learned about Reinke's previous bond conditions, an assistant US attorney requested that the bond be revoked. The request was granted, meaning that rangers had a warrant for Reinke's arrest, the Park Service said. On Thursday, rangers from Glacier National Park - several hours Northwest of Yellowstone - arrested him at a local hotel after a report that he and another guest were 'creating a disturbance in the dining room.'

Marion County sheriff's deputies arrested 'a wine-bottle-toting woman' on Tuesday afternoon after a juvenile reported being chased and hit from behind at an Ocala apartment complex. When deputies arrived, they encountered twenty eight-year-old Jessica Lee Hunter, 'who seemed to be very intoxicated,' an officer's report states. Hunter told deputies that a group of women 'she does not really know' jumped her in front of the apartment complex's office. She said that she was 'acting in self-defence' a story which was corroborated by her sister. But, the juvenile and another witness told deputies a completely different story. The juvenile stated that Hunter was apparently upset because 'someone' had called the Florida Department of Children and Families to report her. The juvenile told deputies that Hunter chased her around the apartment complex with a wine bottle in her hand 'whilst cursing and screaming.' She said that Hunter caught up with her in front of one of the apartments and hit her from behind in the right side of her jaw. The juvenile claimed that Hunter then grabbed her by both arms and tried to throw her to the ground. At that point, the juvenile said, she hit Hunter in the mouth, adding that Hunter then hit her several times in her face and head before other people broke up the escalating brawl. The juvenile also claimed that the incident was unprovoked. A witness at the scene 'with no personal interest in either party' confirmed the juvenile's story, reiterating that Hunter attacked her from behind and 'threw the first punch.' Deputies noted that injuries observed on the juvenile's chest, face and arms also appeared to corroborate her story. Hunter, who had a bloody lip when she was arrested and was medically cleared, was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail. She was charged with battery (second or subsequent offence).

A 'suspected sex offender' reportedly hid 'items including McDonald's cherry pies' under a women's car tires 'for sexual kicks.' Kurt M Fulton allegedly placed the desserts 'and other items' – including VHS cassettes and laptops – beneath female drivers' cars so that they could not see them, it has been claimed. Then, when they reversed over the objects and got out of their cars to investigate, he would use a set of binoculars to watch them bend over to check what had happened, Mlive reported. Fulton, who has past convictions for stalking women in parking lots and has, according to the website, 'a history of ogling,' was named as a suspect in the crime by Saginaw County Sheriff Bill Federspiel on Thursday. The Michigan sheriff said: 'It's disturbing because of the nature of this. It's very creepy, unacceptable behaviour. That's the best way to describe it. It's just creepy.' Sheriff Federspiel added: 'Basically, what we have are victims who called us to report that they felt they were being stalked, creeped out This individual was placing items underneath the tires of women's vehicles, stalking them in parking lots, watching them, picking out victims.'

An Oklahoma mother and her daughter were witnesses to a miniature pony allegedly being 'sexually violated' by a naked man. Yeah, that sort of thing it said to be pretty typical for Oklahoma where the cowshit doth lie thick. Authorities allege that Tyler Schlosser was forty minutes from his Pryor, Oklahoma, on Wednesday - and on the clock for a local utility company - when he pulled his company truck over in the town of Inola. There, in the horse pen off the road, the parent and her child started videotaping the utility worker allegedly 'standing behind the pony, full nude' and engaging in 'what looked like he was having sex with the animal,' according to a Rogers County Sheriff's Office affidavit obtained by Newsweek. When they began to record him with cell phones, Schlosser, the affidavit states, 'stopped what he was doing and started walking towards them.' When deputies subsequently arrived the daughter supplied them with the recording. The married utility worker was taken into custody and charged with bestiality and indecent exposure. Schlosser's step-grandfather, James Hester, told Newsweek that the young man has 'no memory' of what occurred and he suspects that he was drugged. 'Well, the only thing we can figure out is someone had drugged him,' Hester said. Before allegedly being caught in with the pony, Hester said that Schlosser bought a soda and 'became ill' after a few sips. 'I think somebody put something in a bottle of pop he had,' he claimed. 'He got sick after he bought that pop and he just lost it.' Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton confirmed that Schlosser 'exhibited strange behaviour' - as if buggering a horse isn't strange enough as it is - which suggested he was heavily inebriated. 'By all appearances, this guy was really under the influence of something,' Walton said. 'When he saw the mother and her daughter he walked toward them and calling on them and then he ran away from them. What he was experiencing in his mind I don't know.' Walton said that he is 'not ruling out the possibility' that Schlosser's soda could have been spiked. 'If there was something put into a beverage for whatever reason, we're certainly going to listen,' Walton told Newsweek. Lab tests are currently being run to determine if drugs or other substances were in Schlosser's system. The sheriff added, 'We're working with [Schlosser's] defence attorney on a blood drawing to figure it out.' His step-grandfather said that Schlosser is back at his home recovering. 'I spoke to him and he don't know anything about what happened,' Hester claimed. 'He's feeling better now. He come around.' Hester stressed that Schlosser is 'a hardworking husband' who is faithful to his wife and his religion. Wednesday's episode was 'just some unexplainable aberration' in his character. 'Tyler's not that kind of guy,' Hester claimed. 'He's a good Christian boy. He's not the kind of person who would do something like that.'

An 'evil' Russian woman (at least, according to the Sun) has been very sent to The Big House after undercover police discovered an attempt to sell her friend's underage daughter's virginity to the highest bidder. Alina Kukanova was found extremely guilty and jailed for three-and-a-half years for trying to sell the thirteen year-old girl to a wealthy Emirati for the night. Kukanova was reportedly 'inspired' to auction off the young girl by Irina Gladkikh, the girl's mother. Gladkikh, from the city of Chelyabinsk in Western Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast region, allegedly 'encouraged' her friend to search for buyers online. A 'major deal' was almost reached with a man from the United Arab Emirates who offered eighteen grand for a night with the teen. The deal ultimately fell through, but Kukanova told her friend that she had found another buyer in Moscow. However, this buyer was actually an undercover officer.

A woman who bit and spat at British Transport Police officers in a 'revolting' assault at York Station has been extremely jailed for four months. Natalie Petrie, from Middlesbrough, pleaded very guilty to being drunk and disorderly and four counts of assaulting a police officer at York Magistrates' Court. Officers were called to meet a train travelling from Liverpool to Newcastle on 24 March after 'concerns were raised for the welfare of a passenger,' who was said to be 'heavily intoxicated.' When the officers got on the train and began speaking to the women, she 'became very abusive.' They helped her off the train and she then 'became aggressive, shouting and swearing at police.' Officers arrested Petrie for being drunk and disorderly and as they tried to get her in the police van, she lashed out. She kicked and spat at them and bit two officers on the arms and legs. Investigating officer PC Nick Storey said: 'Petrie's behaviour was violent, unpleasant and aggressive towards officers who were initially trying to help her. Luckily the officers only received minor cuts and scrapes despite being kicked, hit and bitten by her. She also spat in the face of two officers; this is a really disgusting form of assault which is not only revolting but also known to spread infection. Petrie initially failed to appear at court for sentencing but handed herself in a week later.'

A Chinese man who drove his Land Rover SUV into a river in order to save twenty Yuan on a car wash, recently learned the hard way that sometimes being cheap can cost you a lot more than you were trying to save. According to a report from the Fire Services Department in Dujiangyan, China's Sichuan Province, last week, a local man had to be rescued from a nearby river after driving his SUV into the water to wash it and getting stranded on a small islet. The man told rescuers that he simply wanted to wash his car so he wouldn't have to go to the car wash and pay the fee, but he didn't expect the flood gates of an upstream dam to be opened causing the water level to rise almost instantly. Before the driver could get back into his car and drive away, the waters of the swollen river reached the SUV's engine and threatened to wash him away. Fortunately, he was able to reach a nearby islet, but he became stranded with nothing else to do but sit and hope that the strong currents didn't wash away his car. Eventually, bystanders called the Fire Services and a team managed to rescue both the driver and his vehicle. A video of the ordeal was later posted on social media, where it quickly went viral. 'The car is absolutely clean now,' one person jokingly commented on Weibo.

A KFC in Dover, Delaware, had been closed for more than an hour on Sunday when a Florida man showed no regard for its hours of operation. Police told WDEL that Antonio Stevens, of Orlando, had tried to force a KFC employee to reopen the restaurant at gunpoint. The employee, a thirty eight-year old woman, was outside the restaurant around 11:15pm. She was waiting for a ride when the suspect approached and demanded entry. Well, you know what it's like when you've got right a hankering for some tasty popcorn chicken or you're quite partial to a portion spicy buffalo wings? When the woman told Stevens that she couldn't reopen the store - because it was, you know, closed - he moved on to demanding her personal belongings. He pointed what appeared to be a handgun at her. After a struggle, the suspect left the scene, hurriedly, on foot with nothing to show for his efforts. Officers arrived and soon manage to track the dodgy rascal down. They took him into custody after what was described as 'another brief struggle.' Stevens faces charges for first-degree robbery, wearing a disguise during the commission of a felony and resisting arrest.

A woman who claims that she is 'in love with [a] ghost' has revealed they have discussed having children together. Mind you, this is according to the Metro so it's probably a load of old crap. Amethyst Realm - who is definitely not mental nor nothing - 'became a household name in Australia last year,' the paper reports, when she claimed she had slept with fifteen ghosts since breaking up with her fiancé twelve years ago. She claims that she has 'gone off men completely' and prefers the company of ghosts as she can communicate, feel and have sex with them. Now she has revealed that she and her new, if you will, ghostfriend are thinking about having 'ghost babies.' Well, it wouldn't be the worlds first phantom pregnancy. Nah, lissun ... She told New Idea (no, me neither): 'One day, while I was walking through the bush, enjoying nature, I suddenly felt this incredible energy. I knew a new lover had arrived. It's pretty serious. In fact, we've even been thinking about having a ghost baby.' Ralm - who, just to repeat is definitely not mental - added: 'I know that sounds crazy.' Yeah, pretty much. 'I've been looking into it and I don't think it's totally out of the question.' She also has said that her sexual encounters with ghosts 'always end in an orgasm' for her. Although, she didn't reveal what the ghost got out of it. The twenty nine-year-old appeared on This Morning last December and 'shocked and stunned' the presenters with her candidness about having The Sex to ghosts. Although, it's not difficult to shock and stun Phillip Schofield and Holly Whatsherface as they have the the mental age of a sodding hamster at the best of times.

A man has been charged with walking a pig along a busy city street in Norwich without a lead. Which is 'a thing', apparently. Norfolk Police - who, obviously didn't have any real crimes to investigate that day - were reportedly called to Prince of Wales Road on Wednesday and found the untethered pig 'running around' with a dog, which promptly bit one of the officers. Really hard. The man was very arrested and later charged with highways and public order offences and 'having a dangerously out-of-control dog.' Whether the pig was dangerous and out of control we just don't know. The pig was taken away by the RSPCA. It was later spotted in a local supermarket in a packet of bacon. Probably. Officers were called to reports - from, no doubt, 'concerned' members of the public - of a man 'being abusive to members of the public.' He was charged under Section One Hundred and Fifty Five of the Highways Act 1980 with 'having a pig untethered and loose on a public highway,' a police spokeswoman confirmed. An officer who took a photograph of the pig said he was 'lost for words.' As, presumably, was the pig.

A 'dangerous fantasist' who posed as a nurse at the Blenheim Palace Horse Trials has been jailed for four years. Cassandra Grant, of Bristol, was involved in injecting an injured rider at the Oxfordshire event on 13 September last year. Oxford Crown Court heard how she repeatedly lied about having medical and mental health qualifications. Judge Peter Ross said that it made his 'blood run cold' to think of Grant 'getting her hands on a patient.' She pleaded guilty to fraud and common assault. The court heard that Grant had previous fraud convictions for impersonating a doctor in order to prescribe herself treatments. She also started a Facebook group claiming she was terminally ill and needed donations towards hospice care, the court was told. Michael Roques, prosecuting, said that Grant put herself forward as an A&E nurse at an information day ahead of the Blenheim event and her qualifications were never checked. He said that on the day of the trials she was involved in 'a number of different medical situations,' including a person having a heart attack. On that occasion she caused concern among the genuine medical staff by shouting 'cardiac arrest' loudly and had to be told to stop, Roques said. She also was present when morphine and anti-sickness medication were injected into an injured rider who had fallen off her horse, though someone else actually administered the drugs. Anne-Marie Critchley, defending, claimed that Grant had been diagnosed with factitious disorder - a condition in which a person falsely claims to have a physical or mental illness. Judge Ross said that although no one was harmed, Grant was a 'dangerous fantasist' who had put members of the public at risk. 'A life-saving opportunity might well have been missed on the assumption by your colleagues that you were qualified to deal with it,' he said. The judge added that it was 'a matter of some surprise that the most basic of checks, such as were you on the nursing register, were not made.' A spokesperson from Blenheim Horse Trials said that as soon as organisers were made aware Grant was not a medical professional they told the police.

An acclaimed Chinese novelist who murdered four people and used the killings as inspiration for his stories was sentenced to death this week, twenty three years after committing the killings. Liu Yongbiao and his accomplice, Wang Mouming, robbed and killed a family of three and a lodger in a guest house over two decades ago. Between the murders and present day, Liu rose to prominence as an award-winning author. On Monday, the Huzhou Intermediate People's Court, in the Zhejiang Province, found Liu and Wang extremely guilty of robbery and homicide after they admitted to the grizzly crimes. They were both sentenced to death. In an interview with CCTV last August, Liu revealed that although the killings had inspired his novels, he never based any of the characters on the real people he had murdered. The author also said that the memory of the murders haunted him and felt 'worse than dying.' In November 1995, Liu and Wang tied up a couple in the guesthouse they owned their grandson and a lodger, before murdering the quartet with clubs and hammers. Unfortunately for authorities at the time, the guesthouse did not have surveillance cameras and did not keep information about their guests. As a result, the case went unsolved for twenty two years. Last June, police discovered Liu's DNA on a cigarette butt found at the scene after they reopened the case in light of new genetic testing technology. Authorities then visited fifteen Chinese provinces in a bid to locate the suspect linked to the DNA. After comparing the sample with over sixty thousand people, they found a match to a clan, surnamed Liu, who were in Anhui Province. There, they spoke to the clan and were able to narrow down the suspect to Liu Yongbiao. A few months later, undercover police tricked Liu into believing they were researching into his family tree so he would hand over a sample of his saliva. Two days later, on 11 August, police arrested Liu at his home in Nanling after they found a match between his DNA and that on the cigarette butt. Shortly afterwards, Wang was also arrested at his home in Shanghai. Speaking to CCTV, Liu admitted that they killed the lodger because he 'appeared to be wealthy.' However, they only managed to loot a watch, a ring and the equivalent of a dollar from him. Liu also said that the murders were 'so cruel' he deserved to 'die one hundred times' for committing them.

A bungling burglar who targeted the home of his ex girlfriend's mother in 'a revenge attack' was very caught after his DNA was found on a block of cheese. Jilted Jamie Simmonds left a trail of cheese crumbs when he stole a block of Red Leicester from the Cardiff home. The city's crown court heard that victim Lynn Patterson awoke to find broken glass and cheese on the floor. Simmonds, from Cardiff, admitted burglary and was sentenced to sixteen months in Pokey. Prosecutor Rachel Knight described the raid as a 'revenge attack' because Simmonds was 'not getting the attention he wanted' from his former girlfriend, Molly Patterson. 'There is an element of targeting, of planning and he was in dispute with the family at the time,' she claimed. In a victim statement, Molly Patterson said: 'I feel guilty because I think he did this to get back at me. I feel like it's my fault. I'm sorry this has happened to my mother.' Peter Wormald, defending, described the offence as 'crude and unsophisticated.' Sentencing, Judge Eleri Rees handed Simmonds a restraining order preventing him from contacting the victim's family. Addressing the defendant, she said: 'You have an awful record and you have become a petty thief.'

A woman from Mississippi is reported to be suing after she allegedly contracted salmonella allegedly after eating Goldfish and was treated in two Alabama hospitals. Bailey Finch, of Columbus, filed a federal lawsuit against Goldfish manufacturer Pepperidge Farms and Associated Milk Producers. According to her complaint, AMPI manufactures a dry whey powder used to season certain types of Goldfish. On 23 July, Pepperidge Farms recalled four flavors of Goldfish - the Flavor [sic] Blasted Xtra Cheddar, Flavor [sic] Blasted Sour Cream and Onion Baked with Whole Grain Xtra Cheddar and Mix Xtra Cheddar and Pretzel - because the company was 'notified' by AMPI a whey powder ingredient 'could have been contaminated with salmonella.' Two days later, AMPI recalled 'certain batches' of the whey powder. No illnesses had been reported when the recall was issued, Pepperidge Farms said in a statement. According to Finch's lawsuit, her mother bought Goldfish from a grocery store in Mississippi on 18 July, before the recall. The next day, twenty six-year-old Finch ate the Flavor [sic] Blasted Xtra Cheddar crackers and hours later became 'extremely ill with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea,' the complaint states. There is no indication as to whether it was explosive diarrhoea. On 24 July, Finch was taken to DCH Regional Medical Centre in Tuscaloosa and then transported by ambulance to UAB Hospital. She was tested for salmonella and lab results confirmed that she did have the bacteria. Finch was hospitalised for four days because of 'severe complications', a press release stated.

A Florida woman was reportedly arrested for running naked through a public park because she thought 'a giant spider' was on her person. WFTS reported that police in Saint Petersburg (Florida, not Russia, where it's somewhat colder) said Danielle Teeples was 'acting erratically and rubbing her hair and breasts while screaming and running between two trees.' The area was busy at the time, with numerous people in the park and heavy traffic on a neighbouring street. Police said that Teeples admitted to 'recently using drugs' such as crack cocaine, spice and crystal meth and she believed a giant spider was on her and she had to get away from it, according to WFTS. Teeple was charged with exposure of her sexual organs.

Ohio police arrested two women after one admitted to trying to sell sugar as cocaine and the other had real cocaine in her purse. An officer pulled over a silver Ford ZX2 on State Route Fifty Seven after the driver did not come to a complete stop at an intersection. The driver, Roxanne Streets, apologised for the traffic stop, according to police. She told the officer that she was going to a friend's house, but they weren't answering their phone. The officer said that Streets 'appeared to be very nervous' and was 'visibly shaking.' Streets was asked to step out of the car. While patting her down, the officer said he felt a small, round, squeezable item inside her shorts pocket. When asked what it was, she said, 'It's not cocaine, it's actually just sugar in a baggie,' according to the police report. When the officer removed the plastic baggie with white powder, the police report said that Streets was asked again what was inside the baggie. She said, 'It's just sugar. We were going to sell it to a crackhead as if it was crack.' The passenger in the car, Elizabeth Hamilton, was also asked to step out of the car. According to police, Hamilton said, 'I'm going to be honest with you, I have two pipes inside of my purse.' While looking through her purse, the officer also found a plastic baggie with 0.1 grammes of white rocks that, subsequently, tested positive for cocaine. Police said when the officer asked Streets if she had anything illegal in the car, she said, 'No. Go ahead and search it.' Streets was arrested for counterfeit controlled substance and Hamilton was arrested for possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

A Santa Teresa woman is facing criminal charges for allegedly attacking her boyfriend with a fork and biting him. Jazmine Ortega was charged on 6 August in Doña Ana County Magistrate Court with two counts of 'aggravated assault against a household member with a deadly weapon,' a third-degree felony, according to court records. Ortega and her boyfriend were reportedly arguing throughout the evening of 5 August, according to court records. They had gone to Dave & Buster's restaurant in El Paso 'to watch a televised fight.' Afterward, the two went to their apartment complex, where a party on behalf of Ortega's boss was being hosted at a neighbour's home. The two began arguing and the boyfriend left the party to 'avoid fighting in front of other people,' court records state. He reportedly locked himself in the couple's bedroom because he thought Ortega had attack him, by scratching him. But Ortega then 'broke down the door to the bedroom to get him' and the victim to begin videoing the incident. The man told investigators that he was trying to get away from Ortega and he begged her not to hit him. But, she responded by saying that she was 'going to hit him,' according to court documents. And, she did. Really hard. At one point, Ortega grabbed an item from the floor that the victim initially thought was a knife. It turned out later to be a metal fork. Quite a sharp one, though. Ortega allegedly hit her boyfriend about ten times with the hand holding the fork, according to investigators. She also allegedly grabbed him and began biting him. The boyfriend said he pushed Ortega off 'with a lot of force' and then left the apartment. Ortega called nine-one-one, prompting deputies to arrive. Before the incident, Ortega had made a call to the neighbour who was hosting the party, asking her to go to the couple's apartment. The neighbour did so, arriving just in time to see them 'hitting each other' and she told authorities that she saw a Ortega holding a silver object that she 'used to strike the victim,' court records state. The neighbour, according to court documents, thought Ortega was 'punching more than she was hitting [her boyfriend] with the object.' The neighbour said that she tried to hold Ortega back, but Ortega yelled to let her go. The boyfriend had 'abrasions to the right side of his face, both legs, his back, the right side of his torso and his chest,' according to DASO detectives. The bedroom door in the couple's apartment also showed damage, authorities said.

NASA is set to launch one of the most ambitious missions in its history. It is sending a satellite called The Parker Solar Probe into the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona. Scheduled for launch on Saturday, the spacecraft promises to crack some longstanding mysteries about our star's behaviour.

A planet over twelve times more massive than Jupiter has been found 'drifting alone' through space around twenty light years away from Earth. The 'rogue' object is not attached to any star and is the first of its kind to be discovered using a radio telescope from Earth. Both its mass and the enormous strength of its magnetic field challenge what scientists know about the variety of astronomical objects found in the depths of space. 'This object is right at the boundary between a planet and a brown dwarf, or "failed star" and is giving us some surprises that can potentially help us understand magnetic processes on both stars and planets,' said Doctor Melodie Kao, an astronomer at Arizona State University. Brown dwarves are difficult objects to categorise - they are both too huge to be considered planets and not big enough to be considered stars. Originally detected in 2016 using the Very Large Array telescope in New Mexico, the newly identified planet was initially considered a brown dwarf. Much still remains unknown about these astronomical bodies - with the first one only observed in 1995 - and the scientists behind the discovery were trying to understand more about the magnetic fields and radio emissions of five brown dwarves. However, when another team looked at the brown dwarf data they realised that one of the objects, dubbed SIMP J01365663+0933473, was far younger than the others. Its age meant that instead of a failed star, they had found a free-floating planet. Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Called Rho Oph by astronomers, it is one of the closest star-forming regions to our own solar system. Located near the constellations Scorpius and Ophiuchus, the nebula is about four hundred and seven light years away from Earth. The boundary often used to distinguish a massive gas giant plant from a brown dwarf is the 'deuterium-burning limit' - the mass below which the element deuterium stops being fused in the objects core. This limit is around thirteen Jupiter masses, so at 12.7 the newly identified planet was brushing right up against it. As this was being established, Doctor Kao had been conducting measurements of this distant object's magnetic field - the first such measurements for a planetary mass object outside our solar system. 'When it was announced that SIMP J01365663+0933473 had a mass near the deuterium-burning limit, I had just finished analysing its newest VLA data,' she said. Similar to the aurora borealis, this planet and some brown dwarves are known to have auroras of their own - despite lacking the solar winds that are known to drive them. It is the radio signature of these auroras that allowed the researchers to detect these distant objects in the first place, but it is still unclear how they are being formed. However, the research team's analysis showed the planet's magnetic field is incredibly strong, around two hundred times stronger than Jupiter's and this could help explain why it also has a strong aurora. “This particular object is exciting because studying its magnetic dynamo mechanisms can give us new insights on how the same type of mechanisms can operate in extrasolar planets - planets beyond our solar system,' explained Kao. 'We think these mechanisms can work not only in brown dwarfs, but also in both gas giant and terrestrial planets,' she said. Their research was published in The Astrophysical Journal. The scientists said their study shows that auroral radio emissions can be used to discover more planets beyond our solar system, including more rogue ones not attached to stars.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Cardiff as Wales officially welcomed home Tour De France winner Geraint Thomas. The thirty two-year-old was congratulated by First Minister Carwyn Jones at the Senedd in front of more than three thousand people in Cardiff Bay. Thomas became just the third Briton and the first Welshman to win the gruelling twenty one-stage race which culminated in Paris. He has been 'blown away' by support as eight thousand fans lined Cardiff's streets. 'I'm used to racing in front of thousands of people but to walk out to this, this is bonkers,' Thomas said.

The entertainer Barry Chuckle, one half of the comedy duo The Chuckle Brothers, has died aged seventy three. 'It is with great sadness that the family announce that Barry passed away peacefully at his home surrounded by his wife Ann and all his family,' his manager Phil Dale said in a statement. Chuckle, whose real surname was Elliott, came from a family of entertainers and rose to national prominence with his brother Paul in the late 1980s, becoming synonymous with the phrase 'to me, to you.' He died at home surrounded by his family, including his wife Ann. Following Barry's death Paul said: 'I've not just lost my brother, I've lost my theatrical partner of many, many years and my very best friend.' The brothers had recently filmed a new series, Chuckle Time, for Channel Five. Elliott had been unwell toward the end of the filming and summer work was cancelled while he rested at his doctor's request, but his health reportedly deteriorated. Born in Rotherham to Amy and James Patton Elliott in 1944, Barry and his four siblings grew up in a showbusiness family. Their father, a whistling comedian and dancer, toured India and Myanmar with the nineteen-year-old Peter Sellers in The Gang Show. Their mother was also a dancer. The eldest brothers Jimmy and Brian went on to form The Patton Brothers while Barry and Paul formed their own duo. The younger brothers got their first break by winning the ITV talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and, by the 1970s, they were regulars on another popular talent show, New Faces. The 1980s spawned both The ChuckleHounds and then their hit BBC show ChuckleVision, which ran in various incarnations for twenty two years. They also presented the 1990s game show To Me ... To You ..., though the latter was shit. The brothers were also regulars on the pantomime circuit and by 2015 had performed in panto for forty eight consecutive years. They were awarded a BAFTA Special Award for their contribution to children's television in 2008. 'It's like a pat on the back from the business that we've been working in all these years. It's a really nice, warm feeling,' they said of the award. They also collaborated with Tinchy Stryder in 2014 on the rap song 'To Me, To You (Bruv)', which referenced their famous catchphrase. On Sunday the rapper tweeted: 'Funny, down to Earth, super cool, talented, humble legend. Rest in peace Barry Chuckle!' The brothers made a comeback to television this year almost ten years after ChuckleVision ended. Their Channel Five series, which premiered on 16 June and was to consist of twelve hour-long episodes, had them performing sketches and introducing humorous online videos from members of the public. Dale said: 'The family would like to express their thanks to the many people who have been fans of The Chuckle Brothers and they know that they will share in part the great, great loss they feel.' A family statement said: 'There will be no further comment at the moment and it would be much appreciated if the privacy of Barry's family is respected at this most difficult time.' It said that he had left 'fifty years of laughter as his legacy, which is something very special.'