Latest news with #Independent
The Independent
7 hours ago
- Climate
- The Independent
Moment ‘tornado' swirls over West Yorkshire skies
A "tornado" was filmed swirling through West Yorkshire skies on Monday evening (21 July). Footage posted on social media in Marsden, near Huddersfield, showed a narrow tunnel of clouds stretching up towards the sky. A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that reaches between the base of a storm cloud and the Earth's surface; they form as part of severe thunderstorms. A spokesperson for the Met Office told the Yorkshire Post: 'It certainly looks like it could be a tornado but without seeing it touch the ground it isn't possible to confirm it isn't a funnel cloud. It is only a tornado if it touches the ground.' The Independent has reached out to the Met Office.
Buzz Feed
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Stephen Colbert Issues Donald Trump Warning On Late Show
Last week, people everywhere were shocked to hear that CBS had made the decision to cancel The Late Show, hosted by Stephen Colbert, and that the final episode will air in May 2026. The network insisted that the reason they were bringing the long-running show to an end is due to 'financial decisions.' However, there is rampant speculation that it is actually a result of President Donald Trump's personal dislike for the show and Stephen. In fact, multiple CBS staffers told the Independent that they think the decision was made as part of the 'Trump shakedown' that began with the network's parent company Paramount's $16 million settlement with Trump over Kamala Harris's appearance on 60 Minutes, which he claimed was 'election interference.'Interestingly, Stephen's abrupt announcement about his show being cancelled came just days after he'd criticized this settlement on the show, calling it a 'big, fat bribe.' Needless to say, the whole situation has been met with uproar from big name celebrities as well as viewers, with Jimmy Kimmel leading the charge against CBS when he posted: 'Love you, Stephen. Fuck you and all your Sheldons, CBS,' seemingly referring to the network's many Big Bang Theory spin-offs about the character Sheldon. Trump, however, had quite the opposite reaction. After the news broke, he took to Truth Social to laud CBS for the decision, writing: 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.' 'I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,' Trump went on. 'Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.'And Stephen hit back at the president with a simple three-word response when he returned to air for Monday's episode of The Late Show. Responding to the post, Stephen said: 'How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?' an onscreen frame then appeared around the host, captioned 'Eloquence Cam.' Stephen looked directly into the camera and pointedly said: 'Go fuck yourself.' He then referenced Trump's comment about Jimmy Kimmel, saying: 'Nope, no, no. Absolutely not. Kimmel, I am the martyr — there's only room for one on this cross!" Stephen vowed to spend the last season of his show speaking 'unvarnished truth to power,' telling viewers: 'Over the weekend, it sunk in that they're killing off our show, but they made one mistake: They left me alive. And now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off.' "I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now,' he went on. 'I don't care for him. Doesn't have the skillset to be president. Not a good fit, that's all.'He also questioned CBS's insistence that the cancellation is simply due to the network's finances, asking: 'How could it be purely be a financial decision if The Late Show is number one in ratings?'Stephen was supported by his celebrity friends on Monday's show, with fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Andy Cohen, John Oliver, Anderson Cooper, and Jon Stewart joining him for the episode. And later on, Stephen spoofed the recent viral Coldplay jumbotron video by having "Weird Al" Yankovic and Lin-Manuel Miranda perform Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida' as celebrity pairings were shown on screen. It then cut to an animation of Trump embracing the Paramount logo before panicking and sheepishly diving to the floor when he realized they were on screen. "Guys, stop!" Stephen then shouted. "I'm sorry, I just got this note from corporate... Your song has been cancelled... It says here it's a purely financial decision." Also on Monday, Jon Stewart lashed out at Paramount for the cancellation over on his show, the Daily Show, which airs under the same parent company. He said: 'I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake, but understand this, truly, the shows you now seek to cancel, censor, and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from these fucking shows. That's what made you that money." 'Shows that say something, shows that take a stand, shows that are unafraid. Believe me, this is not a 'We speak truth to power.' We don't. We speak opinions to television cameras, but we try. We fucking try, every night,' Jon went on. 'If you believe as corporations or as networks you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king's radar. Why will anyone watch you? You are fucking wrong.""If you're trying to figure out why Stephen's show is ending, I don't think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives or in CBS' QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night,' he continued. "I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment, institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair drooling Commander in Chief. This is not the moment to give in. I'm not giving in, I'm not going anywhere, I think."Jon then echoed Stephen's own monologue, concluding: "If you're afraid and you protect your bottom line, I've got but one thing to say: 'Go fuck yourself.'" You can watch Stephen's full opening monologue below. What do you make of this whole situation? Let me know in the comments!
Daily Record
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Donald Trump slammed by music legend with brutal three word remark
Donald Trump has come under fire from another musician, just months after Bruce Springsteen publicly criticised the American President Donald Trump's opinion on the arts has come under fire from a music legend who declares: "It can't go on like this for four more years." Russell Mael, 76, one half of the iconic duo behind This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both Of Us, hitmakers Sparks, was asked in an interview about what it's like living in California under Trump's administration, considering the state's reputation as a haven for creativity and artistic freedom. Russell and his brother and bandmate Ron, 79, were both born in California and have spent their entire lives there, aside from a short period living in London during the 1970s, the Express reports. "It's absolutely terrible," he said. "There is no upside to that, once someone starts determining what people should or should not be reading or should or should not be seeing performed. It's so damaging to people especially in the arts, but in all sorts of areas too. It's incomprehensible that this is happening." "The art is an individual spirit and you should be free to express yourself in any kind of way," he continued. "And if artists change what they do because of Trump that is giving in to something bad. Hopefully the people are going to rally against this, in some sort of way. It can't go on like this for four more years," he reflected whilst speaking to the Sunday Independent. Mael and his brother have released 28 albums over their five-decade-long career. They recently wrapped up the UK leg of their tour promoting their latest chart-topping album, Mad! As part of their setlist, they performed a track from their 2020 album titled Please Don't F** My World*, which Mael noted feels more relevant now than ever. Mael is not the first artist to criticise Trump's policies and their impact on the arts. Back in 2017, during Trump's first term as President, Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro warned that his immigration policies could shut out talented individuals from entering the country. While accepting the Film Society of Lincoln Centre's Chaplin Award, he told the audience that the award's namesake, Charlie Chaplin, was "an immigrant who probably wouldn't pass today's 'extreme vetting'." "I hope we're not keeping out the next Chaplin," De Niro told the crowd. Born in London, Chaplin was exiled from the US in 1952 for supposedly supporting communism during the McCarthy-era witch hunts. De Niro also criticised the Trump administration for making what he called "mean-spirited" cuts to arts programs, accusing them of doing so "for their own divisive political purposes." Just last week, both the Senate and the House agreed to the Trump administration's request to cut $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports TV networks like NPR and PBS. The cut was approved in a 51-to-48 vote and now awaits Trump's signature. PBS is known for airing the long-running children's educational show Sesame Street.
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Ireland's smallest trade partner revealed, after ‘confidentiality' clause lifted
The 'winner' is Guinea-Bissau, a small country in west Africa, from which Ireland imported just €11.95 worth of produce last year. This represented just 0.00000001pc of the total value of our imports. By volume, it was 0.0005 tonnes, or 500g, the equivalent of a loaf of bread or a carton of butter. The detail was supplied by the Department of the Taoiseach in response to a Dáil question posed by Independent TD Carol Nolan. When Ms Nolan first asked for a list of the 20 countries from which Ireland received the least imports by value, the department said that 'for confidentiality reasons', the countries and territories from which Ireland buys less than €1m worth of goods were being aggregated into one group. There were 114 in the group. Last week, the Independent TD resubmitted the question, asking why confidentiality was being applied to the countries. 'A lot of parliamentary questions are not being answered,' she told the Irish Independent. 'I was curious to get the full details in the context of tariffs, which makes these trade questions topical.' Mary Butler, the Government Chief Whip, said the previous answer had 'incorrectly referred to a confidentiality designation relating to countries from which Ireland imported less than €1m. No confidentiality designation applies to this information.' She added that the Central Statistics Office, which compiles the information, sincerely apologised for the error. In second place on the list of the countries and territories with which Ireland does the least foreign trade was Mayotte, a small archipelago under French control between Madagascar and the east coast of Africa. Ireland bought €104 worth of produce from Mayotte last year, weighing one kilogram. In fifth place on the list was Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, an external territory of Australia and among the remotest places on Earth, which shot to international fame in April when Mr Trump imposed a 10pc tariff on it. In response, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said: 'Nowhere on Earth is safe.' Ireland imported €473.80 worth of goods from the islands last year, according to the information supplied by the department. Other remote and underpopulated islands in the top 10 include Pitcairn, Kiribati, the Falklands and St Lucia. In terms of bigger countries, we import the least from war-torn South Sudan, from which we bought just €2,824.28 worth of produce last year. This was only slightly behind the trade levels with Libya, also beset by internal conflicts, from which we imported just under €4,000 worth of produce. The value of all Irish imports last year came to €134bn, amounting to 45 million tonnes of produce.
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Johnny Ward shares message Barry Keoghan sent before DWTS final
Actor Johnny Ward has revealed Barry Keoghan sent him a video message the night before the Dancing With The Stars final. The pair worked together on Love/Hate, which saw Keoghan launch into international stardom. But Johnny said the pair occasionally keep in touch, with the Dubliner revealing the sweet message the Banshees of Inisherin star sent him before the final of Dancing With The Stars in 2019. He said: 'I thought that was so lovely. He hasn't forgotten who he is and his background." They co-starred in the 2016 film Mammal, directed by Rebecca Daly. Ward remembers filming with Keghan in Luxembourg for the 2016 movie Mammal and being keenly aware of the Dubliner's star potential. "I remember looking at him and going, 'This guy' - it's like a disease, but in the best way possible, because there's no way someone can be, without any effort, just so talented. I was sitting going over lines, wondering, 'What emotion can I do here?' whereas he would just do it - he's absolutely phenomenal,' he told Sunday Independent's Life magazine. The Dubliner also opens up dealing with grief since the death of his father John, who passed away from cancer in 2019. After Ward completed RTÉ's Ultimate Hell Week in 2022, the first person he called was his dad, getting through to the answer phone before the realisation hit him. Recently, he was in a shopping centre and Coldplay's Viva la Vida came on. "I hear that and the music will give me shivers because, oh God, we were doing a routine, and I'll just think of my dad and what stage of death he was at. "You get those little things, and it's normal," he added. "But I know that if my dad was alive, he'd be saying, 'Look after your mother, and that's what I'm doing." Ward splits his time between living and caring for his mum in Walkinstown, Dublin, and his home with his wife, Brenda, in Kilcullen, Co Kildare. "It's kind of half and half, and then at the weekends we'll all come together," he said, adding that he sees it as a chance to try and repay all the support his mum gave him growing up. "She's the reason I'm sitting here," he says emphatically. "Without her, I definitely would have given up acting a long time ago. I wouldn't have stuck to it." Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
