Derretimento do mercado de ações provoca perdas nas fortunas de bilionários
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A nova dor de cabeça de Patrícia Poeta e da Globo com caso Vitória
Entrevista com o pai da vítima no 'Encontro' gerou críticas nas redes sociais e pode render processo na Justiça
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Ibovespa acompanha exterior e cai de olho em tarifas comerciais; dólar recua
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South Korean singer Wheesung found dead at Seoul home aged 43
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Toby Greene opens up on nightmare 2024 semi-final loss to Brisbane in Seven’s new show Unfiltered
‘I’ve never had that feeling ever before in my life.’
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Donald Trump rules out steel and aluminium tariff exemption for Australia
The Albanese Government has failed in its efforts to dodge the tariffs, but says the fight isn’t over yet.
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Commons Speaker’s 250k splurge of YOUR cash on luxury trips is hideous in current climate – but there’s an easy solution
A FORMER aide to Margaret Thatcher recalls the time she collared the civil servant in charge of furnishing government offices.
Pointing to an armchair, she thundered: “It’s just been upholstered and cost £1,200. I phoned John Lewis and was told they could have done it for £180!”
Whatever your view of Maggie’s politics, it’s undeniable that we could do with a little more of her prudent housekeeping mentality in today’s politics.
Which brings me to Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s vastly extravagant expenses bills footed by the taxpayer.
At first, his office insisted that “all expenses and costs are processed and published in line with rules”, but yesterday it admitted to a simple “admin error” over one of the trips.
Either way, the huge sums spent globetrotting on our behalf by a man that 90 per cent of people wouldn’t recognise in the street are so jaw-dropping that the damage is done.
It’s been reported that, since October 2022, he’s spent more than £250k on 19 trips abroad.
And more than £180k of that was spent on first and business class flights alone as, splutter, he won’t fly economy.
We also paid for his limousines, luxury hotel stays and dining experiences in some of the world’s finest restaurants.
On top of all that, it seems that his wife, Lady Catherine Hoyle, has accompanied her husband on many of the supposedly business trips.
A plumber wouldn’t take his/her other half to watch them fit someone’s bathroom, so why the hell does a politician’s wife go along for the ride?
The Hoyles say her expenses are covered by them personally, but when it comes to hotels and restaurants, are the bills really painstakingly separated?
“My wife had the bread basket, not me.” Yeah, right.
One of the trips they took — to LA — was so he could give a talk to politics students at the University of California.
Seriously? Of what use is that to the British taxpayer?
The university should have footed the bill and, if not, he could easily have been beamed in via Zoom and saved us a fortune.
Instead, on top of the flights, he spent £3k on limos and another £3k on accommodation.
With the UK’s social care funding in the toilet, it’s obscene expenditure more in keeping with a tinpot dictatorship.
On top of that, he billed nearly £16k for four trips to Gibraltar.
Business class
On one jaunt there, he claimed £2k for business class flights, £1,320 for accommodation and £700 for food and drink — saying it was for him and three staff members.
Business class to Gibraltar? The flight’s under three hours, for god’s sake.
If they were going there on holiday, would they fork out two grand for the privilege of a slightly wider seat and a better quality bread roll? Doubt it.
When it comes to ‘other people’s money’ (i.e. ours) it seems that Sir Lindsay adopts the spend, spend, spend mentality
An economy flight to Gibraltar on easyJet this very morning would cost you £63.99 outbound and as low as £12.99 to return a week later.
But when it comes to “other people’s money” (i.e. ours) it seems that Sir Lindsay adopts the spend, spend, spend mentality.
Few would take issue with the PM and senior Cabinet ministers flying business class long haul while representing the UK abroad.
But the Speaker should be sticking to his job of, among other things, being MP for Chorley, Lancashire, and correcting MPs (oh the irony) if they have misled the House of Commons.
And in his spare time, he could perhaps pop into the John Lewis sale and pick up some bargain scatter cushions for some of those bum-numbingly long parliamentary sessions.
HIDER FINE A FARCE
WHEN Adrian and Joanne Fenton returned from a trip to France and found a Sudanese man hiding in the bike rack of their motorhome, their first instinct was to call the police.
The result? The couple, from Heybridge in Essex, were issued with a £1,500 fine from the Home Office for failing to “check no clandestine entrant was concealed” in their vehicle.
Er, isn’t that what the Border Force is for?
Meanwhile, the illegal migrant – who, natch, told police he was “16” – was taken away, no doubt to a hotel at the taxpayer’s expense.
The Fentons warn their story will deter other people from “doing the right thing” and they’re damned right.
I’ll bet they wish they’d just given him £20 for food and waved him off into the night.
SIZING UP ‘FAT’ ROLES
NOT much was sagging at the recent SAG awards in Hollywood, thanks to the obvious fondness of certain attendees for weight-loss jabs.
And it’s the same story at the Oscars, Brits and any other awards ceremony you care to mention.
Of course, there’s long been a terrible pressure on female stars in particular to stay slim and wrinkle-free unless they want to be cast as the mother of a male lead the same age as them.
So you can perhaps understand the trend.
But the good news for anyone who bucks it is that they’ll clean up with roles that Hollywood might describe as the “fat friend” but the rest of us regard as entirely normal in size.
MUSK MAMAS PUZZLE
RECENTLY, I wrote about Elon Musk’s alleged 13 children.
Since then, Shivon Zilis, who has three-year-old twins Strider and Azure and one-year-old Arcadia with Musk, has tweeted: “Discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia’s birthday, we felt it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son Seldon Lycurgus.”
You can get an ointment for that.
So the alleged count is now at 14.
Musk is a pronatalist in favour of high birth rates, so that perhaps explains his fondness for offspring whose lives he appears to drift in and out of when it suits him.
But why his “baby mamas” (yuck) take part in this arrangement is anyone’s guess.
WHEN SIT HITS THE FAN
AN employment tribunal has ruled that asking a senior member of staff to sit somewhere deemed to be an area for junior employees could be construed as a demotion.
The judgment was made following the case of Hertfordshire-based estate agent Nicholas Walker who, as branch manager, expected to sit at a “symbolically significant” desk at the rear of the office and became ‘upset’ when told a junior colleague had taken it.
He resigned and cited constructive unfair dismissal. When his boss at the agency’s HQ heard about the row, he said he couldn’t believe “a man of his age” was “making a fuss” about a desk.
In this day and age, perhaps he should be grateful that Mr Walker wanted to attend the office at all.
WILL AND KATE’S CLASSY DISPLAY OF AFFECTION
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – aka William and Kate – have never been ones for packing on the PDA.
But since her cancer diagnosis, there’s been a subtle shift.
She’s still not hanging off his arm or gazing adoringly at his every utterance (copyright: Meghan Markle) but this brief, loving glance shared at the Commonwealth Day Service tells you all you need to know about their mutual adoration and respect for each other.
Sidney Cooke freedom bid
KILLER paedophile Sidney Cooke is awaiting his 12th parole hearing.
The Parole Board says: “Decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released.”
Some might argue that, at 97, he’s of no danger to anyone and should live out his final years in freedom.
But he and his paedophile gang were suspected of abducting and killing 17 young boys back in the 70s and 80s.
And as his victims never got the chance to live their lives, why the hell should he?
Horror moment bomb drone blows up enemy truck…but this ISN’T Ukraine: Vid shows warring cartels Trump wants to crush
THIS is the horror moment an attack drone loaded with a deadly bomb strikes an enemy truck during a clash between two Mexican drug cartels.
Footage shows the drone hovering above the white pickup truck before hitting the vehicle and exploding inside.
The clash seen in the footage is reportedly between Mexico’s El Tena group striking an armored vehicle operated by the dangerous Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNC) cartel.
The drones were understood to be loaded with C4, an explosive reserved for military use, with additional ammunition of pellets to cause further damage.
There has been a stark increase in the use of drones to fight rival cartel groups in Mexico.
It comes as the leader of CNJC Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, is said to be “preparing” the cartel to face Trump.
CNJC was founded in 2009, and its ruthless rise to global dominance has left bodies and screams in its wake – ripping out victims’ hearts, dissolving their bodies in barrels of acid, and even targeting pregnant women.
The cartel’s drug trafficking empire now reaches all corners of the globe, despite ferocious competition from other cartels in Mexico and increasingly desperate efforts from international authorities to hold them back.
The gangsters are now buying high-caliber weapons, according to journalist and podcaster Anabel Hernández as they prepare to face down the US military.
One of the first executive orders that Trump signed included designating gangs from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and El Salvador as foreign terrorist organisations.
It could give his government more powers to go after the criminal organisations with military strikes or to forcefully remove their members from the US.
Hernández said: “After Trump announced his war against the Mexican cartels, it [CJNG] is the organization that is preparing itself the fastest with powerful weapons to fight.
“Although the leader of the CJNG claims to have arrangements with the Government of Mexico, he does not rule out that there may be covert operations by the Trump administration.”
Hernández claimed that the CJNG is now monitoring Mexican airports, cities, and even US consulates in the country.
Inside Mexico's bloody cartel group
Drug-related violence in Mexico has increased massively in recent years with murders now commonplace.
Mexico’s history of its drug cartels is one of splits and constant fighting between themselves as they battle for supremacy.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel sprang up in around 2009 when an earlier gang, Milenio Cartel, split apart.
Current leader of the CJNG is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as ‘El Mencho’ who is one of Mexico’s most wanted drug lords.
The gang are currently caught fight an increasingly bloody and violent drug war with a number of gangs.
They are currently fighting La Nueva Plaza for control of Guadalajara, Los Viagras for the state of Michoacan and bitter rivals Los Zetas for the city of Puebla.
They are also battling the Sinaloa cartel in Tijuana and Baja California as well as the Cartel de Juarez in Ciudad Juarez.
Then they are also fighting La Resistencia for control of Jalisco.
The cartel appears to be worried that US military special forces could be deployed in Mexico as Trump tries to crush the gangs.
There is also a $15 million (£12 million) bounty on the head of El Mencho and legal proceedings open against him in Washington DC.
Security expert Professor Anthony Glees told The Sun that Trump may launch airstrikes in Mexico to “wage a war” against the lethal cartels that pose a threat to his “Fortress America”.
The largest cartels are based in Mexico and Colombia and according to a US Congress report, pose the “greatest organized crime threat” to America.
Glees said America’s enemies “will tremble at what he is able to do”, in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia or El Salvador, where the most prominent gangs conduct far-reaching drug operations.
Previously, footage emerged showing dozens of uniformed gunmen posing with military-grade weapons near armoured pickup trucks emblazoned with the initials of the Jalisco drug cartel.
In the two-minute clip, members of the fearsome CJNG stand in fatigues alongside a seemingly endless procession of armored vehicles
Prince William gives racism the red card as he joins referee course aimed at improving diversity in football
WILLIAM gave racism the red card as he helped at a referee course aimed at improving diversity in football.
The Prince of Wales, 42, joked he “broke the record for the number of high fives in ten minutes” after meeting eager fans at Sporting Khalsa FC, an amateur club in Willenhall, West Midlands.
The Aston Villa fan had earlier made a private visit to wish the team good luck ahead of tonight’s vital Champions League knockout tie.
When William finally made it onto the pitch near Wolverhampton, he told the club’s directors Manjit Gill and Inder Grewal: “Sorry to keep you guys waiting. I just broke the record for the number of high fives in ten minutes.”
Remarking that the six-year-old all-weather pitch was “in good nick”, the prince asked: “What is attracting people to play at the moment from different backgrounds? How are you bringing them in?”
The prince, who is patron of the Football Association, was visiting the club which was established in 1991 to hear about a referee training course designed to improve diversity in the sport.
The FA aims to recruit 1,000 people from Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage into refereeing roles as part of its Reflective and Representative campaign.
Now two years into its three-year programme, the FA has already exceeded the original target and is looking to grow the numbers further.
It comes nearly five years after a 53-page diversity report compiled by the Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Referee Support Group alleged that some FA observers made racist comments about referees, effectively blocking them from being promoted to the higher leagues.
Sporting Khalsa FC is one of several clubs across the country that is running courses to teach Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage people over the age of 14 how to become match officials.
On the pitch he was given a crash course in becoming a referee and where he was taught about different whistle tones and flag signals.
But jogging up and down he was told at one point that he didn’t need to blow the whistle.
Then joined a mini kickabout to referee students participating in the course.
Levi Gray, a lieutenant in the British Army and a professional referee, who was part of the officiating team for the 2024 Women’s FA Cup at Wembley Stadium, said afterwards: “We spoke about improving diversity in football and how at the grassroots it can be quite a vulnerable place for people because you don’t have the protection that you have in the professional game so it’s how communities like this [in Walsall] are helping people.”
Raj Randhawa, the FA’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion delivery manager, said afterwards: “For him to come and visit and take time out of his day and meet some of the participants starting their referee journey, it will live long in the memories for them but personally for me as well.”
Villa Park hosts the last 16 tie with Villa taking a 3-1 lead from the first leg away against Club Brugge.