The first official trailer of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 was released last week. The trailer continues the adventures of the Enterprise before Captain Kirk takes over in TOS. The show has been positively received by fans and critics alike since its first season, with many comparing it to the heyday of the […]
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KEVIN DE BRUYNE broke Wales hearts on a night of World Cup qualifying chaos in Belgium.
The out-going Manchester City star scored an 88th-minute winner to inflict Craig Bellamy’s first defeat as Dragons boss and dent their automatic qualification hopes.
But where do you start to sum up this seven-goal thriller – which included an epic three-goal comeback by Wales – which was dominated by several poor refereeing decisions and lengthy VAR checks?
There were two first-half penalties awarded by referee Irfan Peljto – one for each side and both looked harsh – before Romelu Lukaku had an 80th-minute goal ruled out following a five-minute VAR check because the ball went out of play in the build-up.
On a night of mayhem in Brussels, the Dragons fell 3-0 down inside 27 minutes through goals by Lukaku from the penalty spot, Youri Tielemans and Jeremy Doku as the hosts ran riot in the first half.
Spirited Wales came roaring back through goals from Harry Wilson, Sorba Thomas and Brennan Johnson.
Yet De Bruyne had the final say with a classy finish when the star midfielder was left unmarked at the back post.
It left the visitors floored as Bellamy tasted a loss for the first time in ten matches since he became boss last July.
Wales now trail North Macedonia by a point in Group J in their quest to reach the finals in USA, Mexico and Canada next summer with the Belgians only three points behind with two games in hand.
To compound Bellamy’s frustrations, the 45-year-old, who spent two years at Anderlecht, is due to return to Belgium for a friend’s wedding later this week.
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Pre-match, Bellamy had hailed his first 12 months in the Wales job as the “best year” of his life.
But, after Spurs legend Jan Vertonghen received a heartfelt farewell from the Belgian public, Bellamy’s Dragons were left furious by the award of Lukaku’s 15th-minute penalty.
De Bruyne’s shot hit the arm of Brennan Johnson from a short distance but Bosnian ref Peljto pointed to the spot.
A lengthy VAR check did not overturn what looked to be a harsh decision and Napoli striker Lukaku slotted home his 89th international goal.
Wales were rocked and failed to recover as Belgium cut them to ribbons in a dangerous attacking display.
Tielemans doubled the hosts’ lead on 19 minutes when the Aston Villa midfielder, captain for the night, hit the top corner with a side-footed finish.
It was a slick team move from Rudi Garcia’s men with De Bruyne, Leandro Trossard and Maxim de Cuyper involved before Tielemans was left unmarked to beat Karl Darlow.
Youri Tielemans doubles the hosts' lead
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) June 9, 2025Belgium 2-0 Wales
Live on @BBCOne, @S4C, @BBCiPlayer, @BBCRadioWales and @BBCChwaraeonRC, the @BBCSport website and app, plus live text commentary.#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/ci7bdLrb2o
A third goal for Belgium, as Jérémy Doku scores
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) June 9, 2025
Wales are right back in this game, as Sorba Thomas gets another one back
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) June 9, 2025
It's 3-3!
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) June 9, 2025
Kevin De Bruyne puts Belgium back in front
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) June 9, 2025
Wales almost halved the deficit instantly but David Brooks missed a glorious chance before Ben Davies forced Nottingham Forest keeper Matz Sels into a scrambling save.
De Bruyne rolled an effort past the post but Manchester City wideman Doku made no mistake when he cut in on his left foot and fired past Darlow despite the Leeds stopper getting a hand to his shot.
Wales, who had never won on Belgian soil, were handed a lifeline on the stroke of half-time when Sels was deemed to foul Chris Mepham when he clattered into the defender trying to punch a high ball away.
It appeared another harsh call by ref Peljto and Wilson scored from the spot by sending Sels the wrong way for his 14th Dragons goal.
Trossard and Lukaku wasted chances to put the game to bed and Wales netted a second on 51 minutes when Wilson set up Thomas to slot home.
Wales were in dreamland when Johnson headed home from Thomas’ centre before De Bruyne scored his 31st Belgium goal in his final act before he was substituted to crush Bellamy and Co.
A COP who weighed down laptop keys to make it look like he was working from home was barred from policing.
PC Liam Reakes’s actions cost his force more than 100 hours.
Concerns were raised about his efforts before a September 2024 audit of keystrokes flagged his total as much higher than others doing similar jobs.
Reakes would have been sacked had he not quit in Yeovil, Somerset.
A panel found he committed gross misconduct.
Reakes did not attend the hearing.
He admitted opening a blank Word document and holding down the Z key for long periods.
He denyied this was to give a false impression he was working from home.
Det Supt Larisa Hunt said: “PC Reakes was the subject of an action plan and was allocated a tutor due to concerns over his performance prior to the keyboard audit being carried out.
“The use of any device or system to replicate keyboard activity is wholly wrong and deceptive and the public will be rightly outraged at this behaviour.
“Not only has he let down those he made a commitment to serve and protect but he’s also let down his colleagues, who are continuing to deal with significant pressure and workloads.”
FOR a kid so determined to escape his brother’s shadow that he refuses to wear his surname on his shirt, it seems a strange career move.
But Jobe Bellingham’s transfer to Borussia Dortmund — the club where brother Jude emerged as a world-class talent — is intriguing.
Dortmund have clearly seen enough in the younger Bellingham to shell out the second-highest transfer fee in the club’s history. This is no ordinary Jobe.
A fee of up to £33million is a serious investment for a 19-year-old who has never played top-flight football.
And given that Dortmund are certainly no mugs when it comes to player recruitment, we can be assured that there is no sentimentality attached to it.
This thing has not been designed to be season two of a reality show called ‘The Bellinghams’.
The younger Bellingham — who has worn ‘Jobe’ on his back ever since joining Sunderland from Birmingham two years ago — is a serious prospect who played a major role in securing the Black Cats’ return to the Premier League following an eight-year absence.
And after sealing his move to the Westfalenstadion, he is heading straight to the Club World Cup in the United States, where he might end up playing against Jude and Real Madrid.
It is natural that Jobe should wish to forge his own path. After all, who wants to go through life being known as their big brother’s little brother?
But with the Bellinghams, there are far too many similarities to make that prospect a realistic one.
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Jude was the youngest debutant in Birmingham’s history, aged 16. Jobe became the second-youngest, just a couple of months older than his brother had been.
Jude was the Championship’s Young Player of the Year in 2020. Five years on, Jobe has won the same accolade.
And now both have moved to Borussia Dortmund as teenagers.
There are differences, too.
While Jude started off as a more defensive midfielder and has advanced to play as No 10 or a ‘false nine’, Jobe began as an attacking midfield player and has settled back into a box-to-box role.
It is therefore possible, perhaps even as soon as next year’s World Cup, to envisage the two Bellinghams playing together for England.
Since the start of the 20th Century, only two pairs of brothers have represented England at senior level.
Those are Bobby and Jack Charlton, who won the World Cup together in 1966; and Gary and Phil Neville, wonderfully referred to in Jaap Stam’s autobiography as “busy c***s . . . who never stop whingeing”.
So this would be quite some company for the Bellingham family to share.
Not that the duo’s father, Mark, needs any convincing that his family are something special.
Having one Bellingham in the England squad has its problems. Having two might be a real struggle.
There are already special measures in place for Jude, the finest English talent of his generation, when it comes to his lack of media interviews on England duty.
More significantly, there are times when he can be a law unto himself around the squad.
This is not ideal for Thomas Tuchel and might affect Jobe’s prospects of promotion from the Under-21s.
Still, should he hit the ground running at the Club World Cup and then flourish in the Bundesliga, Jobe will thrust himself into serious England contention.
Tuchel is not well blessed with central midfielders, to such an extent that 34-year-old Jordan Henderson — a close confidant of Jude — is back in a starting berth.
Dortmund has become a finishing school for young English talent, from Jadon Sancho to Jude Bellingham to Chelsea target Jamie Gittens and now to Jobe.
And while Sancho’s career prospects continue to nosedive after a poor loan spell at Chelsea, it is worth remembering the trailblazing nature of his move to Dortmund as a 17-year-old in 2017.
And that Sancho returned there for a decent loan move last season and started in the Champions League final at Wembley.
It was Sancho, and his representatives, who spotted a career path largely untrodden by English kids — the idea that, with Premier League clubs stockpiling global talent, their best chance of breaking into regular top-flight football was to move abroad.
What seemed revolutionary then is becoming increasingly common.
For Sancho, and then for Jude Bellingham, becoming a star player at one of European football’s greatest stadiums in the Bundesliga was far preferable to struggling for game time at a Premier League club.
So it should be little surprise that Jobe has followed suit.
His family name will be a help, rather than a hindrance, when it comes to winning over those fanatical supporters who make up Dortmund’s Yellow Wall.
Whether he decides to wear that name on his back is a different matter.
HOW will we know if England can defend before next year’s World Cup?
Thomas Tuchel’s men haven’t had to do much defending during his first three matches.
And they are not scheduled to face any elite opposition before the tournament in America — the clash with Senegal and a Wembley date with Wales are the only friendlies currently slated.
With Gareth Southgate’s defensive stalwarts either going or gone, most of what’s left doesn’t look world class.
Watching Dan Burn struggling against Andorra, then witnessing Portugal, Spain and France’s attacking quality in the Nations League, made Tuchel’s aim of ‘putting another star’ on England’s shirt — by winning the World Cup — sound distinctly silly.
THIS column’s new favourite referee has to be Bobby Madley, after the EFL official broke ranks and admitted he “hates” VAR for taking the emotion out of football.
Madley was axed as a top-flight ref for online silliness in 2018 and so maybe has less of a vested interest than other refs when he speaks about using tech in decision-making.
Many other refs agree with Madley, yet they are duty-bound to pretend VAR is a force for good — as it is also a “jobs for the boys” scheme, allowing more refs to earn more money from the game.
BIG ANGE POSTECOGLOU may have been the last of the “Big” men to manage in the English game.
And at least the big Aussie, like Big Sam Allardyce and Big Jack Charlton before him, was actually big.
I’ve met Big Ron Atkinson and Alex “Big Eck” McLeish and they are not really very big at all.
And as for former Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe “Big Phil” Scolari, he was barely even medium-sized.
Given that the job spec for the Spurs hotseat must now say “do not prioritise cup competitions”, it’s no shock Thomas Frank is set to succeed Europa League winner Ange Postecoglou.
Since reaching the top flight in 2021, Frank’s Brentford have won just one FA Cup tie.
THERE will be another celebrity ‘Soccer Aid’ football match on TV next weekend — and you won’t find many better causes than Unicef.
But these games are so awful to watch that many of us would rather make big donations in order to guarantee they don’t show it on TV.
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves last night faced calls to apologise for putting nine million people through winter fuel misery.
In a screeching U-turn yesterday, she restored the payment to pensioners with an annual income of £35,000 or less.
She couldn’t say how she’ll pay, with tax rises feared.
Tories called it a “humiliation” as she was accused of creating her own financial black hole.
It marked the culmination of one of the biggest political U-turns in modern history following fury at the mass benefit snatching last July.
Handing back the £200-£300 sum to three quarters of pensioners will cost the Treasury £1.25billion, and only saves £450million from when it was universal.
This humiliating U-turn will come as scant comfort to the pensioners forced to choose between heating and eating last winter.
Kemi Badenoch
But Ms Reeves could not say yesterday how the U-turn would be funded, saying there was still “work to do to ensure the sums add up”.
She axed the universal payment last July in a bid to save £1.5billion — after claiming the Tories had left a £22billion financial black hole.
Yesterday Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride hit back: “Rachel Reeves has created her own black hole and now she’s scrambling to fill it with borrowed money or likely tax rises.”
By Jack Elsom, Political Editor
AS political u-turns go, Rachel Reeves’ retreat on winter fuel payments will surely go down as one of the biggest – and messiest – in history.
Her first act as Chancellor to snatch the cold weather cash from 10million pensioners has today been spectacularly dumped.
Nine million OAPs will now get the benefit, meaning all but the richest will claw back the £200-£300 sum.
With a price tag of £1.25billion, this whole palaver has only saved the Treasury £450million.
It’s chicken feed in the grand scheme of things, and a tenth of the annual migrant hotel bill.
But the political cost has been devastating.
Labour insiders trace their spanking at last month’s local elections back to Ms Reeves’ toxic decision in the weeks after the election.
That the winter fuel policy was still coming up on doorsteps 10 months later was a sign it was destined for the shredder.
Yet rather than ripping off the plaster cleanly, the past few weeks have seen an agonising u-turn mired in chaos and confusion.
And the Government is still not clear how it will be funded.
Four years is a long time until the next general election, and Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves will be hoping voters would have since moved on.
But – even with today’s backing down – the winter fuel debacle is likely to live long in the memory of the electorate and haunt Labour for a while to come.
Ms Reeves, asked to rule out tax rises, said: “We will set out all of the policies in the Budget.
“But we wanted to announce today the level at which the winter fuel payment will be paid because that means we can put the processes in place.”
No 10 insisted it is committed not to raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT.
The decision to means-test winter fuel payments at just £11,000 was one of the first decisions made by the new Labour Government and proved toxic with voters.
The move led to months of pressure until last month when PM Sir Keir Starmer vowed to revise the threshold.
It followed a Labour drubbing in the local elections.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said yesterday: “This humiliating U-turn will come as scant comfort to the pensioners forced to choose between heating and eating last winter.
“The Prime Minister should apologise for his terrible judgment.”
Ms Reeves was still in the crosshairs last night as experts questioned how the payments would be funded.
Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned it will lead to additional taxes or possibly welfare cuts.
He rubbished Labour’s claims to have acted because the economy has improved, saying it “flies in the face of reality”.
Mr Stride said the about-turn raised more questions than it answers.
He added: “They already spent the savings from this policy on inflation-busting pay deals for the unions.
“So where is the £1.25billion needed to pay for this U-turn going to come from?”
Reform UK’s Nigel Farage said Labour were in a “blind panic”, adding: “This U-turn would never have happened without Reform UK.”
Yesterday Ms Reeves declined to apologise when she met pensioners at Castlehaven Horticulture hub in Camden, North London.
She insisted: “The irresponsible thing to have done last year was to allow the public finances to carry on on an unsustainable footing.
“That would have resulted in interest rates going up, costing more in mortgages and rents.
“I’m always going to put stability in our economy first.”
The winter fuel payment will be £200 per household or £300 where someone is over the age of 80. They will receive it automatically.
YOU can start your application up to four months before you reach state pension age.
Applications for pension credit can be made on the government website or by ringing the pension credit claim line on 0800 99 1234.
You can get a friend or family member to ring for you, but you’ll need to be with them when they do.
You’ll need the following information about you and your partner if you have one:
You can also check your eligibility online by visiting www.gov.uk/pension-credit first.
If you claim after you reach pension age, you can backdate your claim for up to three months.
For those above the threshold it will be clawed back by HMRC.
Around two million of the richest pensioners in England and Wales miss out.
The £450million saved by withholding the payment from the richest is less than ten per cent of the annual spend to keep migrants in hotels and look after them.
Meanwhile, pensions minister Torsten Bell indicated that the Government could end the two-child benefit cap following a review.
He said huge percentages of families are in poverty which can’t carry on.
He added: “All levers to reduce child poverty are on the table.
“The child poverty strategy will be published in the autumn.”
Campaigners say lifting the cap would take 500,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade but cost £4.5billion.
RACHEL Reeves and Yvette Cooper last night finally reached a breakthrough in their budget negotiations.
The Chancellor’s review was said to be settled as the Home Secretary agreed to her funding package after weeks of haggling.
Tomorrow, Ms Reeves will reveal how much cash goes to each department.
The Defence and Health departments will receive the biggest boost, with others squeezed.
Ms Cooper was the last to settle in a row over potential cuts to police, who will now get a real-terms increase.
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman yesterday said: “The spending review is settled.
“We will be focused on investing in Britain’s renewal so all working people are better off.”
