Ian McKellen is “in good spirits” and expected to make “a speedy and full recovery” after a fall during Monday evening’s performance of Player Kings, a spokesperson for the Noël Coward theatre in London has said.

McKellen was taken to hospital after the fall. The audience was evacuated from the West End theatre and informed that the evening show was cancelled.

McKellen, 85, who plays John Falstaff, was in a battle scene involving the Prince of Wales and Henry Percy when he fell off the front of the stage.

As the house lights came up, the actor cried out in pain and staff rushed to help, the BBC reported.

Paul Nero, a writer and broadcaster, wrote on X: “Audience shocked by Sir Ian McKellen’s fall off stage tonight at Noel Coward theatre. Staff working hard to help him. Thoughts with him, cast and crew.”

An audience member, Paul Critchley, a Methodist minister from Norfolk, told the PA news agency: “Sir Ian seemed to trip as he moved downstage to take a more active part in the scene.

“He picked up momentum as he moved downstage which resulted in him falling off the stage directly in front of the audience.

“The house lights came up very quickly as the stage management and front of house team dealt with the incident. We were evacuated immediately so that Sir Ian could be treated in privacy.

“An announcement was made by theatre management that the show had been cancelled, that Sir Ian was receiving treatment and an ambulance had been called.

“It was a shock to witness his fall and I wish him a speedy recovery. My thoughts are also with his fellow cast members, stage crew and front of house team at the Noel Coward Theatre.”

Another member of the audience, Sandro Trapani, told the BBC the incident was “very shocking”.

“I really hope that he is going to be all right,” she said. “As far as I saw, he was conscious because he was asking for assistance.”

Player Kings is a production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts I and II, and started its 12-week West End run in April.

The play, adapted and directed by Robert Icke, is due to move to the Bristol Hippodrome in July and will also be staged in Birmingham, Norwich and Newcastle.

McKellen’s career has spanned more than six decades. On screen he is best known for playing Magneto in the X-Men films and Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s fantasy trilogy, based on the books by JRR Tolkien.

On the stage he has played Shakespearean characters including Richard II, Macbeth, Coriolanus and King Lear.

His many acting credits have led to a number of accolades over the years including several Olivier Awards.

A Texas evangelical pastor and former spiritual adviser to Donald Trump has confessed to sexually assaulting a young girl in his past.

Robert Morris, a founding pastor of Dallas-based Gateway megachurch, was accused by an Oklahoma woman of sexual abuse in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 and continuing until the age of 16.

Morris confirmed the allegations to a religious publication, the Christian Post.

In a statement to the Christian Post, Morris said: “When I was in my early 20s, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying.”

In her own statement to the Christian Post, the victim of the assault said she was “appalled” at the description of her as a “young lady” and said the repeated abuse had taken decades for her to process. She said her family had threatened Morris with the police and later considered filing a lawsuit.

Other churches where Morris has ministered, such as Shady Grove church in Grand Prairie, were allegedly aware of his abusive history, but Morris told the Christian Post he received counseling and had since “walked in purity and accountability in this area”.

Shady Grove church became the Gateway church’s Grand Prairie campus in 2013.

Morris told the Christian Post: “In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did.”

Despite his admission, Morris will continue to be a primary speaker at the church on weekends and his son, James Morris, will assume his father’s senior pastor duties next year.

Morris was never criminally charged and by the time his accuser decided to explore legal action, she was advised the statute of limitations for criminal or civil action had probably expired.

In a statement to the local Dallas news outlet WFAA, Gateway church said the “35-year-old matter” had been resolved: “Pastor Robert has been open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago when he was in his 20s and prior to him starting Gateway church. He has shared publicly from the pulpit the proper Biblical steps he took in his lengthy restoration process.

“The two-year restoration process was closely administered by the Elders at Shady Grove Church and included him stepping out of the ministry during that period while receiving professional counseling and freedom ministry counseling. Since the resolution of the 35-year-old matter, there have been no other moral failures.”

Morris’s accuser said while she had forgiven him for the sexual abuse, she did not believe he should have returned to ministry.

Morris was appointed to Trump’s evangelical advisory board for his 2016 presidential campaign.

And in a 2020 roundtable discussion with faith leaders in Texas, then-president Trump thanked two pastors, one of whom was Morris, for attending the event.

“They’re great people. Great people with a great reputation. I have to say that,” Trump said. “Great reputation. And Gateway church – the team has been incredible in hosting us.”

A US military veteran who died earlier this month came out as gay in an obituary published after his death.

The obituary in the Albany Times-Union tells the story of Colonel Edward Thomas Ryan, a decorated army officer who served in the Vietnam war and was also a fireman in his hometown, Rensselaer, New York. He died on 1 June at the age 85.

In the obituary, Ryan added a note written in the first person just before his death: “I must tell you one more thing. I was Gay all my life: thru grade school, thru High School, thru College, thru Life.”

Ryan, or “Uncle Ed”, as he was known to some, admitted to being “in a loving and caring relationship with Paul Cavagnaro of North Greenbush”.

“He was the love of my life. We had 25 great years together. Paul died in 1994 from a medical Procedure gone wrong … I’m sorry for not having the courage to come out as Gay.”

Ryan said he did not come out sooner because he “was afraid of being ostracized: by Family, Friends, and Co-Workers”.

“Seeing how people like me were treated, I just could not do it,” he said.

The New York Times reported that Ryan showed the obituary to his niece Linda Sargent and her husband, Edward Sargent, a month before he died.

“Linda and I knew, you know what I mean? We never sat down and talked about it prior to that because my uncle was a private person. So we never broke that boundary. We knew, but we didn’t say anything,” Edward Sargent told the newspaper.

The revelation was met with a wave of support, with people from all over the world commenting on Ryan’s obituary.

One person wrote: “Many condolences and may you and Paul find eternal happiness together. Thank you for your service. I’m sorry you could never fully be yourself. Rest easy.”

“Rest in pride and power, Col. Ryan,” another person wrote.

Ryan is survived “by many nieces and nephews” and will be buried in Kinderhook, New York, next to his partner, Cavagnaro.

“Now that my secret is known, I’ll forever Rest in Peace,” Ryan said.

Male mountaineers should be more mindful of women’s concerns about their personal safety in remote areas and avoid patronising them by questioning their map-reading abilities, a climbing expert has said.

The advice comes in response to female hillwalkers and mountaineers saying sceptical attitudes towards their skills and unwanted attention are discouraging women from taking up the sport.

Writing in the latest edition of Scottish Mountaineering, Richard Tiplady, a Scottish Mountaineering member, made several recommendations based on “horror stories” from women.

These include that men abstain from asking women about their route, do not push invitations to walk together or pitch tents in close proximity, and avoid giving condescending or unsolicited advice or greeting them with dated language such as “darling” or “sweetheart”.

He added: “Never ever say to a woman: ‘I’ll walk with you to keep you safe’ (this rings major alarm bells).”

Tiplady wrote: “It’s rather simple. Respect people’s boundaries. Be friendly but don’t try to be friends. Treat someone as they would like to be treated. Then clear off and leave them alone.”

Tiplady said he was motivated to write the advice after learning from female friends that “men don’t realise how much women feel patronised by men on the hills”.

“This is just life, it’s not just the hills – but the hills are not necessarily different to anywhere else,” he said, adding that he had learned “I’ve got to handle myself in a way that makes [women] feel safe and secure, but in a way that doesn’t make [them] feel patronised.”

Keri Wallace, a mountain leader in the Scottish highlands who co-founded Girls On Hills eight years ago to encourage more women to enter the sport, said she saw the advice as “an extension of the women’s personal safety issue we already see in the streets,” particularly in relation to being catcalled or harassed while running.

She previously surveyed female walkers about barriers and found over 50% had concerns, including around going to the toilet outdoors and venturing out in all-male groups.

She feels that there is a lingering effect on women’s confidence and sense of belonging from historical attitudes that “frowned upon” women going out in the mountains, believing them to be too delicate and weak.

These remained as “perceived or soft barriers, almost as a byproduct of the culture we still have around women’s abilities relative to men”.

In Wallace’s own excursions, she is regularly questioned by men about whether she knows how far away the summit is, prompting comments such as “surely you’re not going the whole way”, as well as expressions of surprise that she is a mountain leader, which she said could make you “feel like you don’t really belong there or you’re not competent”.

Wallace said these issues were primarily about confidence rather than safety, since assaults in the mountains are virtually unheard of. But she acknowledged that women carried over valid safety concerns from cities into wild areas, discouraging them from wild camping or staying in Scotland’s remote unlocked refuges, bothies.

She said men being mindful of this and giving women space when they encountered them alone could help women feel more comfortable, as it showed a level of consideration.

Ian Sherrington, the head of training at Glenmore Lodge who takes part in the Mountain Safety Group network, said he was not aware of formal discussions around women’s comfort and safety but he felt this was “very worthy of further investigation”.

“I would dig deeper first – [it] could be by approaching groups represented that have a concern,” he said. “I believe trained and qualified mountain leaders already played a positive part in supporting individual confidence in the mountains. Further learning in the best way to do that is always welcomed.”

Oasis Academy South Bank in Waterloo sits in a densely built-up corner of south London – so densely that the only space found for the school was in a recommissioned office block. There is no playground, no sports pitch, nowhere to play football at break time.

Steve Chalke is the founder of Oasis Charitable Trust, the organisation that runs the school, one of 54 in their charge across England. He admits it is a challenging environment.

“We are in an old 1960s office block. Kids have to be indoors at breaktime. We do have table tennis but for other sports there is no space. We hire the local park but it’s hard locally to hire sports pitches. It costs a lot because we are in central London and they aren’t always available.”

The land around the academy is hot property. Within walking distance, at Elephant & Castle station, cranes and diggers are a permanent fixture, building thousands of expensive private homes on land that was once council property.

One of the parents, Kathy, whose 12-year-old daughter – “high-energy, fidgety’’ – is a pupil at Oasis South Bank, says: “The lack of outdoor space is a downside, but I’m grateful we have a school in this area, because until 10 years ago we didn’t.”

The school is hugely oversubscribed. “We turn away many more children than we take,” says Chalke.

And Kathy and her daughter have some outside space – a shared garden for their flat and an allotment. “It’s not just about space, it’s about green as well,” she says. “Not everyone around here has that.”

Another parent, Sarah, says that it is the wider context that matters: “We are lucky to live near one of London’s last adventure playgrounds, so my son can head there after school, but I walk through many estates round here and see ‘No ballgames’ signs everywhere. That, for me, is more of a problem than what happens in school.”

Chalke and his team are busy looking for land they can use as city farms or specialist spaces for “the children we know can’t cope in the classroom”. They already have a city farm in Waterloo.

And he has concerns about the decisions that local authorities are making. “Down the road from us there is a former primary school – a Victorian building that will outlive any school building put up today. If we ran it we could have had six forms of entry – it had fantastic playgrounds.

“Instead the council sold it off in the 1980s. It’s now expensive apartments and those playgrounds are now private gardens and car parking space. So when we needed a new school in this area, all that was affordable was an office block.”

He warns that London boroughs are not keeping hold of enough land for children to live and breathe in.

“Councils are turning land into housing but leaving local schools without enough space. I’m seeing very cramped new schools where staff tell me: ‘You can’t swing a cat here’.

“Local authorities are not thinking of the next generation when they build too much housing. Once the space is gone, it’s gone for ever. Children need green space for their mental health and we neglect this to our long-term regret.”

In California, state of sunshine and palm trees, a small group of men are locked in a big legal fight over the money made by a US company selling Covid tests to the British government. The founder of Innova Medical Group says his business collected $2bn (£1.6bn) in profits, one of the largest fortunes banked by any medical supplier during the scramble for lifesaving equipment in the early months of the pandemic.

In a storm of claims and counter-claims, Innova’s boss, Charles Huang, is accused by former associates of “squandering” or moving $1bn of those profits, spending lavishly on luxury aircraft, an $18m house in Los Angeles and “homes for his mistresses”.

The previously little-known Chinese-American businessman’s fortune was transformed by the British taxpayer through 11 government contracts worth approximately £4.3bn for lateral flow tests (LFTs) made in China and sold by Innova. The government fast-tracked the company after its British representatives sent a direct email to Dominic Cummings, the chief adviser to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, in July 2020. And, a Guardian investigation has found, the fast-tracking of Innova was supported by the then chancellor Rishi Sunak’s team at the Treasury.

Innova became for a period of at least four critical months the only company authorised to supply rapid Covid tests in the UK, despite scores of others developing similar kits. At the time, the government spending watchdog raised concerns, saying the lack of competition posed “risks to value for money”.

In his evidence to the Covid inquiry last October, Cummings told how he had pushed through the first Innova contract with backing from Sunak’s team. The intention was to allow the economy to reopen by providing enough kits for up to 10 million people a day to test for the disease. The mass daily testing plan, labelled “moonshot”, was met with scepticism by scientists, including Jonathan Van Tam, the then deputy chief medical officer, who has told the inquiry that he had “real doubts about whether it was workable”. The moonshot plan became part of NHS test and trace, known as the mass testing programme.

“In the autumn [of 2020],” Cummings said in his written statement, “Sunak’s team supported me with the mass testing team as we tried to overcome horrific Whitehall bureaucracy, secretly buy hundreds of millions of fast tests before other countries realised their value and there was a PPE-like panic.”

The UK Health Security Agency has confirmed in response to a freedom of information request that the “secret” buying of tests was the first contract awarded to Innova. Agreed in September 2020, it was worth £103m. The government went on to spend billions more with the company.

The information raises further questions about the UK government’s widely criticised decision-making during the pandemic, and the huge sums of public money spent after normal procurement processes were suspended. The apparent support of Sunak’s team also raises questions about how far the Treasury was involved in the government expenditure of billions of pounds on test and trace and personal protective equipment. Sunak has repeatedly presented his work during the pandemic as a landmark success, telling workers at an event on the first day of the 2024 general election campaign: “You know you can trust me when it comes to the economy: I got our country through Covid.”

‘Risks to value for money’

For Innova, landing any UK government contracts at all was an extraordinary bonanza. The company was only formed in March 2020 by Huang’s California-based financial vehicle Pasaca Capital Inc, said by some of its own investors in the legal claims to have had little money behind it. Huang, a serial entrepreneur, had limited evident success in his track record, according to the legal claims against him.

After the pandemic hit, everything changed. Another investor in Pasaca had a connection with a company in China, Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology, which like many others around the world, including some in the same city of Xiamen, was beginning to manufacture LFT kits.

Kimberley Thonger, Innova’s UK representative, who had previously worked in marketing for a series of shoe companies including Dr Martens, emailed Cummings in Downing Street in July 2020. In that email, published following a freedom of information request by the Good Law Project, Thonger promised that the tests were “a true gamechanger”. Cummings told the Covid inquiry he saw the rapid tests as key to the proposed mass daily testing that he believed could enable “superspreaders” to be isolated and so “allow most of the country to operate as normal”. He immediately referred Thonger to another Downing Street adviser who replied within an hour to tell him “we are very keen”, and introduced him to a leading civil servant. In September 2020, Innova was awarded the first UK government contract, although its test was still not evaluated. It was authorised for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) three months later, in December 2020.

The authorisation was based on tests carried out at the government’s high-security Porton Down laboratory, which had been asked to evaluate a number of LFTs and indicated that it had prioritised Innova’s product because contracts had already been awarded to the company. The Department of Health and Social Care identified Innova at that time as the only supplier with a validated test that could produce the large volumes needed and work flexibly.

By March 2021, Innova had already been awarded contracts worth £3.2bn, according to a critical National Audit Office report published in June of that year. The public spending watchdog noted that Innova was still “the only supplier of LFDs [lateral flow devices] for self-test approved by the MHRA”. The report warned that there were “risks to value for money due to a lack of competition and normal regulatory processes”.

Cummings said the government needed to buy these tests secretly, “without alerting the rest of the world”. But countries across Europe were already evaluating rapid tests, and Italy was using them in ports and airports from the summer of 2020. In September 2020, the World Health Organization issued guidance, noting that nearly 100 companies were developing or manufacturing rapid tests. It announced a “global partnership” to supply 120m kits to poorer countries, made by companies in the US and South Korea. In February 2021, the EU published a list of 82 different suppliers, but not including Innova or Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology.

Innova did offer to sell to other countries, but does not appear to have done so in large quantities. In a scathing report published after Innova first distributed them in the US without authorisation, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the tests should be thrown away or returned to the company. It has repeatedly barred attempts to import the tests.

An FDA spokesperson said: “Covid-19 antigen tests produced by Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology Company are being refused admission into the US.”

Innova was included in a later edition of the EU’s approved list, among many other manufacturers, as a “B” supplier; member states were advised to use tests from the “A” list.

The UK government is said to have ordered 1.8bn tests from Innova altogether, paying the company approximately £4.3bn. In one of the legal claims against Huang, the former Innova executive Robert Kasprzak states: “Innova’s UK contracts generated substantially all [sic] of the revenue for Pasaca Group.”

In 2022, Huang was featured in a film, Asian Inspirations, saying Innova had made a profit of $2bn after tax from its Covid contracts. Huang is now contesting legal claims over those profits, from Kasprzak and Innova’s UK representatives, Thonger and Charles Palmer, claiming they should have been paid more.

Kasprzak accuses Huang of having a chequered career and few achievements of substance before Innova’s remarkable fortunes in the pandemic.

Huang is accused in the claim of being “a high-end con artist” who squandered or moved for his own use due to “incompetence, power and greed … more than $1bn of … assets generated from UK sales”. He is alleged to have lavished some of the proceeds on luxury purchases including private jets for $70m, the $18m luxury home with a swimming pool in LA known as “the CEO house”, and “homes for his mistresses”, as well as poor investments in “flailing businesses”.

Kasprzak also claims Huang was trying to secure a knighthood and working on having a film made about himself, titled Overnight Billionaire. He alleges Huang promised to buy out his shares for $75m but never did, and ultimately fired him from the company. Huang has responded by denying the claims and alleging that Kasprzak and the former Innova chief executive Daniel Elliott “stole” millions from the company. Kasprzak and Elliott deny those allegations.

The UK representatives, Thonger and Palmer, are also suing Innova in California, claiming that their company, Disruptive Nanotechnology, was due 10% commission on all UK contracts, and so they should have been paid $500m. They accuse Kasprzak and Elliott of duping them out of that commission and pocketing the money themselves. Instead of the saved commissions being used for the promised purpose, “to keep the price of Innova’s Covid-19 tests competitive”, the claim alleges, Elliott “spent tens of millions of dollars to purchase lavish properties, expensive cars, a private jet, and other luxury items”. They both deny those claims.

The disputes are all ongoing. Whatever the merits of their arguments, this fight on the US west coast is over extraordinarily large amounts of British taxpayers’ money, spent during the pandemic, with one newly formed company, for vast quantities of rapid Covid tests that it was able to deliver.

A spokesperson for Innova and Huang dismissed the allegations against him as “baseless”. Pointing to Innova’s success in being awarded the contracts and having its tests officially validated, the spokesperson said: “We were the largest supplier to the UK of Covid 19 tests for these reasons; we were cost effective – the average price of each test we provided went down on every subsequent contract and we met the significant shipping expenses to the UK ourselves each time – delivered on time and at all times met the urgent requirements of the UK government at a critically important period for the country.”

Mark Holscher, a Los Angeles attorney representing Elliott, said he “categorically denies” any claims against him, and “did not receive any improper compensation” from anybody.

“These tests saved thousands of British lives and prevented many more hospitalisations,” Holscher said, adding that it was “one of the very best performing tests that could be immediately produced and delivered at the massive scale required by the United Kingdom. Providing these tests required herculean and unmatched logistical efforts. Mr Elliott takes great pride in this accomplishment and has been lauded by the UK government for his efforts.”

An attorney representing Kasprzak said he “stands by” his legal claims, and added: “None of these US proceedings has called into question the efficacy of the tests or the UK government process. The tests saved thousands of British lives, as recognised by the UK government itself, and Mr Kasprzak is extremely proud of his role in delivering these tests to the UK.”

A spokesperson for Disruptive Nanotechnology said: “We cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

Cummings did not respond to requests for comment.

A government spokesperson said in a statement given before the general election was called: “We have always said there are lessons to be learned from the pandemic and we are committed to learning from the Covid inquiry’s findings which will play a key role in informing the government’s planning and preparations for the future. While the inquiry is ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment.”

The Covid inquiry is due in the spring to turn its attention to the government’s multibillion-pound spending on medical supplies, including lateral flow tests, in the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.

Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the Israeli war cabinet that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza, rebuffing his far-right allies who had been seeking seats, and apparently moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

The prime minister announced the move to ministers, saying the war cabinet had been established as part of an agreement in which the moderate politician Benny Gantz and his National Unity party joined an emergency coalition last year.

The disbanding of the war cabinet was confirmed by Israeli officials briefing anonymously, against a backdrop of mounting discontent over the conduct of the war in Gaza and calls from anti-government groups for a week of daily protests.

Netanyahu reportedly told ministers that the war cabinet was no longer needed following Gantz’s resignation a week ago. Gantz, one of the members of the war cabinet, quit the coalition along with Gadi Eisenkot, one of the three observers in the body.

Netanyahu is now expected to hold consultations about the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and the strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, who had been in the war cabinet.

The dissolution of the war cabinet is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the conflict – decision-making will move back to the security cabinet – but the political ramifications may be more significant.

The move appears to be a deliberate snub to Netanyahu’s far-right allies in the coalition, including the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had been angling for a seat in the war cabinet since Gantz’s departure after complaining he had been sidelined for key decisions.

Reports in the Hebrew-language media suggested Netanyahu intends to make key decisions in meetings with his own advisers, excluding Ben-Gvir, before presenting them to the security cabinet.

The move comes amid divisions of opinion between Netanyahu and senior Israel Defense Forces commanders.

According to reports in the Israeli media on Monday, Netanyahu told the regular Sunday meeting of the full cabinet that “in order to reach the goal of eliminating the capabilities of Hamas, [he had] made decisions that were not always acceptable to the military echelon”, but added: “We have a country with an army and not an army with a country.”

Netanyahu’s moves suggest an increasing confidence as the prime minister’s poll numbers have improved since the departure of Gantz, which has caused the latter’s polling to decline markedly.

While Netanyahu had been under pressure from the Biden administration to maintain the war cabinet, which was viewed as a more moderate forum, some analysts saw the move as preserving the Israeli prime minister’s desire to continue with the conflict, even as he sidelined Ben-Gvir and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.

The small war cabinet had been the source of friction between Netanyahu and other members, including over the issue of hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas and other groups.

However, the war cabinet had also worked effectively, meeting numerous times since Hamas’s surprise attack on southern Israel’s Gaza border communities on 7 October.

In the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the war cabinet, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth speculated that some key decisions would now go to an expanded cabinet, sometimes numbering 50 participants, where more hawkish voices dominate, giving Netanyahu more political cover for the continuing conflict.

When Caitlin Clark was on the receiving end of a hard foul from Angel Reese on Sunday, the sound and fury around the Indiana Fever rookie intensified once again. She has been the focus of a number of controversies lately.

After Clark was left off the USA women’s basketball Olympic team earlier this month, I raised an eyebrow myself. She’s a phenomenal player and athlete and someone who should hold the lion’s share of the credit for the WNBA’s massive increase in popularity. But, as is often the case in sports discourse, multiple things can be true at once. Clark is also an inexperienced rookie, who, aside from a few standout performances (including Sunday’s win over the Chicago Sky), has had a rocky start to her WNBA career – she leads the league in turnovers per game. And when it comes to adding her to the Olympic roster, the US selection committee would have had to alter the roles of skilled guards like Diana Taurasi and Sabrina Ionescu.

Sure, some level of head-scratching was justified. But when you look at the full picture, it’s clear why Clark was left off the Olympic roster, and any further uproar about the situation is a waste of breath. Unfortunately though, we live in a political culture that loves to waste breath.

Politicians, pundits, and fans from across the right decried the decision. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley took to X, as did the official account for the House Judiciary GOP, further inflaming a conversation around Clark that was already chaotic. ESPN’s Pat McAfee even invoked Clark’s race when he argued that she deserved more credit than the rest of the WNBA’s (mostly Black) rookie class for helping to popularize the sport. “Nah, just call it for what it is – there’s one white bitch for the Indiana team who is a superstar,” he said (and later apologized saying in that manner). McAfee was countering some who argued that Clark’s whiteness makes her a little more marketable than her equally talented Black peers.

And that’s not the first time race contributed to a fraught dialogue around Clark. The optics of her mostly white Iowa team facing off against Reese’s mostly Black LSU team in the 2024 Women’s NCAA basketball tournament lit a fire of racial allegiances, even prompting then-LSU star Hailey Van Lith (who is white) to speak out. “In my opinion, I know for a fact that people see us differently because we do have a lot of Black women on our team who have an attitude and like to talk trash and people feel a way about it,” said Van Lith.

But the striking thing about the strife around Caitlin Clark is that she has done nothing to provoke the controversy herself. An inherently uncontroversial figure, Clark is the personification of far-right pundit Laura Ingraham’s infamous “shut up and dribble” sentiment, which echoes a long-standing belief on the right that athletes – or the ones they disagree with anyway – should leave politics out of sports. And yet, it is those very same people who are attempting to draw Clark away from neutrality. Indiana congressman Jim Banks, for example, sent a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert asking her to discipline Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter for knocking Clark down during a game earlier this month. Like Reese’s hit on Sunday, it was a hard foul, but the idea that it needed to be escalated by an elected official is just as ridiculous as when Louisiana governor Jeff Landry proposed stripping the scholarships of LSU women’s basketball players who were not present during the national anthem at the start of one of their games. As LSU coach Kim Mulkey explained, the players only happened to miss the anthem because of a pre-game routine, but no explanation will ever be good enough for conservatives who weaponize innocuous events to make a name for themselves. Republicans are experts at opposition because it’s kind of the point of their party: to conserve or even regress on the issues that matter most to Americans. Without a sense of progress, they have resorted to self-serving stances that are increasingly desperate.

Clark appears to want to do little more than win basketball games, but she remains in the eye of the kind of political hurricane we’ve seen with activism-driven athletes like Megan Rapinoe and Colin Kaepernick. When those two kneeled during the national anthem to protest against social injustice, for example, the storm that followed was expected, even if it was unwarranted.

Clark, on the other hand, has inspired waves of bombast without actually offering much in the way of political or social opinions. She responded to being left off the Olympic roster the way any self-respecting athlete would, by essentially saying that she’d been underestimated, and expressing excitement about the prospect of making it on to the 2028 squad. And after taking a non-stance on people who have used her name to denigrate other WNBA players in racist, misogynistic, and homophobic ways, she came around later that day to speak out about the charged discourse. “People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable,” she told reporters.

It’s clear that Clark wants nothing to do with anything outside of scoring a bucket. And while that is an understandable position for a 22-year-old who suddenly finds herself one of the most famous people in America, she will hopefully learn over time how to be a more conscious role model, by understanding the power she wields as a superstar athlete. But the fact that she has been at the center of so many conservative talking points speaks to a political environment on the right that is willing to make anything and everything into an issue.

Gone are the days where such controversies were born out of actual controversy. Clark lives in a country whose conservative party has simply moved on from good faith and open-mindedness. Today, political divisiveness is spread not just by media content that is incentivized to bait its audience, but also by a former President and Republican politicians who employ discord as a means to posture to their constituents and potential voters. But whatever they have to say about Clark should be taken as seriously as their takes on the Fever’s perimeter defense.

David Littleproud has claimed Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms” like the planned offshore zone south of Sydney, adding the Coalition will “cap” federal government investment into renewable energy if elected.

The Nationals leader visited Wollongong on Monday, where he promised the opposition would instead offer a “calm” and “methodical” energy pathway to net zero by 2050.

Littleproud offered no details of the Coalition energy plan, only conceding “it will take a little longer to get there”.

The Albanese government on Saturday gave the green light to a 1,022 sq km area, 20-km off the Illawarra coast, in the next stage to become the country’s fourth dedicated windfarm zone.

While the development over the weekend was welcomed by a number of groups, some in the community have continued to oppose offshore windfarms due to potential environmental, economic and social impacts.

The Coalition is yet to detail its full energy plan, which will include a mix of nuclear, coal, gas and renewables. Littleproud said a Coalition government would result in “no windfarm” for the Illawarra.

“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them,” he said.

“The Coalition isn’t against renewables, but renewables should be in an environment they can’t destroy. Why don’t we give priority to where they can make a difference and give energy independence to businesses and households, which is on rooftops where the concentration of power and population is?”

Asked why the Nationals supported an offshore windfarm in Victoria’s Gippsland, but not in the Illawarra, Littleproud said: “They are fixed in Gippsland, this is floating.”

He said, unlike the Illawarra zone, few people lived near the Gippsland site, “and the transmission lines that are required aren’t as necessary”.

Earlier on Monday , Littleproud told ABC radio the Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore”.

“From what you’ll see in our energy mix, we won’t need large-scale industrial renewable projects. So that’s in essence where we’ll get to and be very clear and upfront and we are committed to that pathway. But it won’t be a linear pathway that you’re experiencing at the moment,” he said.

“It’d be one that’ll invest in the technology that’s zero emissions and it will take a little longer to get there.”

Guardian Australia has contacted the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien, and the member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, for comment.

The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, defended the Illawarra’s windfarm announcement on Monday, saying three other areas around the country had also been marked as wind energy hubs.

“It’s very energy-rich, it’s very windy off our coast, and it’s windy constantly,” he said.

“Unlike onshore wind, which is windy some of the time and not some of the time, offshore wind is pretty much always windy. During the night, during the day, all the time.”

The Clean Energy Council’s chief executive, Kane Thornton, said his group were certain Illawarra residents would prefer “wind turbines that are 20 kilometres offshore, as opposed to a nuclear reactor on their doorstep”.

“It is disappointing that the Coalition has chosen to oppose sensible policy developments such as offshore wind and instead focus on stoking division in regional communities,” he said.

“This will undermine investor confidence in infrastructure projects right across Australia.”

In a statement to Guardian Australia, Littleproud clarified the Nationals are not against renewables but preferred “common sense and sensible options”, such as solar on rooftops.

“While the Gippsland project is smaller in size, the offshore wind farm in the Illawarra will still be 1,022 square kilometres and just 20 kilometres from the coast.”

Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, has said the Coalition is looking at six or seven nuclear power sites around the country but their locations will only be revealed “at a time of our choosing”.

Dutton has also backed away from Labor’s legislated 43% emissions reduction target by 2030 as part of Australia’s commitments to the 2050 net zero agreement, warning it would “harm Australian families and businesses in the interim”.

Beavers reintroduced to a Scottish rainforest 15 years ago may have created the right habitat for the area’s endangered water voles to flourish.

The voles, once abundant in Scotland but now one of the country’s most threatened native animals, could thrive in the “complex boundary between water and land” that beavers have created in Knapdale in Argyll and Bute since their reintroduction there in 2009.

The beavers’ dam-building in the forest has led to the creation of a new habitat along the banks of watercourses, where water voles can dig burrows hidden from predatory mink.

John Taylor, the west region area wildlife manager for Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), which manages the Knapdale forests, said: “Aside from flooding a few places, the biggest impact we’ve seen from the beavers is creating a new habitat along watercourses. They’ve increased what we call edge habitat: instead of a harsh change from water to land, the edges along the burns and lochs are softened and seasonally flooded.

“This more complex boundary between water and land could be excellent for water voles.”

He added: “One of water voles’ main predators is mink. If you have a very simple burn or loch, it’s easy for mink to find the water voles’ burrows – and the female mink is small enough to get right inside. The Knapdale beavers have blurred the boundaries between water and land, which means more places for water voles to hide and hopefully flourish.”

Pete Creech, a wildlife ranger at the Heart of Argyll Wildlife Organisation, which is working with the FLS in the initial stage of the reintroduction of water voles, said beavers were better engineers than humans when it came to creating wetlands.

“The human creation of wetlands is an extremely costly undertaking and, frankly, we’re not as good at it as beavers.” He added that water voles were themselves “eco-engineers” that could in turn create conditions for wildflowers to flourish.

“Water voles and beavers are complementary species and, in their own way, the voles are as busy eco-engineers as their bigger cousins. Their nibbling of sedges and grasses provides space for a greater diversity of wildflowers, while their burrowing shifts soil nutrients to the surface, increasing their accessibility for plant growth.”

Beavers were hunted to extinction in the 16th century before being reintroduced.