Australian singer Vanessa Amorosi has broken down while speaking to Natalie Barr and David Koch about the death of beloved entertainer Olivia Newton-John.
Amorosi was in Birmingham, having just performed for an international audience at the Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony when she learned of the devastating news.
Watch: The moment Vanessa Amorosi’s interview is halted
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“I just literally had one of the highest endorphins that just happened out there, to being extremely sad by coming offstage and checking my phone,” Amorosi said on Sunrise.
Vanessa Amorosi performs at the Birmingham 2022 Closing Ceremony, just before learning of Olivia Newton-John’s death. Credit: DARREN ENGLAND/AAPAmorosi said she went from the high of performing to an international audience to the low of learning of Newton-John’s passing. Credit: Alastair Grant/AP
The singer was part of the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony alongside Newton-John and Tina Arena.
Olivia Newton-John, Vanessa Amorosi and Tina Arena share a joke at a press conference to announce the performers at the opening ceremony for Sydney 2000 in Melbourne. Credit: Darrin Braybrook/Getty Images/Files
“Both of these women are women I’ve looked up to since (I) was a kid.”
“I’m actually very sad about Olivia, to be honest.”
Vanessa Amorosi speaks to Natalie Barr and David Koch on Sunrise. Credit: Sunrise
Seeing that Amorosi was unable to continue with the interview, hosts Barr and Koch ended the interview by saying they felt for the singer.
Watch: Olivia Newtown John’s final interview
Watch: Olivia Newtown John’s final interview
Sydney 2000
Amorosi was still new on the music scene when the then 19-year-old was selected to perform the song Heroes Live Forever at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Vanessa Amorosi performs at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Credit: DAVE HUNT/AAP
Newton-John also performed at the event, singing Dare To Dream with her friend John Farnham before an estimated worldwide audience of 3.7 billion people.
John Williamson, Julie Anthony, John Farnham, Olivia Newton-John, Vanessa Amorosi and Tina Arena celebrate the launch of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Credit: JULIAN SMITH/AAPIMAGE/FILE
Amorosi went on to perform at several fundraisers for Newton-John’s charities in the years since.
The greatest hits of Olivia Newton-John.
The greatest hits of Olivia Newton-John.
Massive lightning strike kills two outside White House.
Massive lightning strike kills two outside White House.
Diving stalwart Melissa Wu carried the Australian flag at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony in Birmingham.
Wu was given the honor after competing at her fifth Commonwealth Games.
The 30-year-old is a triple gold medalist – her latest gold came in Birmingham on the synchronized 10m platform with 14-year-old Charli Petrov, the youngest member of Australia’s team.
Wu was the sole flagbearer at Monday night’s ceremony and led about 250 Australian athletes and officials into Alexander Stadium.
The final day in Birmingham ended in seventh heaven for Australia’s men’s hockey players.
Australia finished atop the medal tally – but only just.
England was two medals behind, with 176.
The 178 won by Australian athletes comprised of 67 Gold, 57 Silver and 54 Bronze.
The 1994 Games in Victoria, Canada, remain Australia’s best Commonwealth Games in terms of gold medals – 87. And overall, the 221 medals in 2006 in Melbourne remain the nation’s benchmark.
But the team chief cautioned against measuring Australia’s Birmingham team purely on numbers.
“They have been great ambassadors for Australia,” Ms Thomas said.
“Regardless of whether they won medals or not, we are just super-proud of everyone.
“The special part of it is, regardless of the outcome, it’s the spirit with which they compete.
“They never give up. They compete as hard as they possibly can. And at the end of the day, that is all we can ever ask of them.
“They conduct themselves in an exemplary way.”
The wonder from Wollongong, Emma McKeon, was the unrivaled star of these Games.
The swimmer collected six golds, a silver and a bronze. If she was a country, she would have finished 14th on the medal table.
McKeon swam through uncharted waters, setting historic marks.
She now has 20 medals in her glittering commonwealth career, more than any other athlete. And 14 are gold. Again, more than anyone.
Australia has plenty of other champions to be proud of, with the tally showing our athletes medaled in all but two of the 19 different sports.
Badminton and squash were our weak points.
Here’s a quick round up of our achievements on the final day in Britain.
Kookaburras win seven straight
The Kookaburras won a seventh consecutive Commonwealth Games gold to catapult leader Eddie Ockenden into rare air hockey.
Monday night’s 7-0 annihilation of India was a fourth title for Birmingham flag bearer Ockenden, drawing the modest champion level with Kookaburras legend Mark Knowles on the Games medal tally.
The victorious Australian team celebrates its seventh consecutive men’s hockey gold in Birmingham on Monday. Photo: AAP
A potentially testing examination between the Tokyo Olympic silver and bronze medalists quickly became a celebration of Australia’s hockey entertainers on the Games’ final day.
They exploded out of their semi-final slumber – a 3-2 defeat of England on Saturday being a rare vulnerable moment – to score five first-half goals and all but order team staff to place the champagne on ice.
No gold but nine-medal Lay still smiling
All things come to those who wait – and Jian Fang Lay’s golden smile in her latest Commonwealth Games table tennis near-miss suggests she may not be quite finished yet.
In her 50th year and on the final day of her sixth Games, the queen of Australian table tennis grabbed the ninth Commonwealth medal of her distinguished career on Monday.
Only one problem. Once again, for Melbourne’s try-try-and-try again 49-year-old mum of two, it was of the wrong hue.
Striving to at last strike that elusive gold after 20 years of perseverance, Lay and her partner Minhyung Jee were comprehensively beaten 11-1 11-8 11-8 by the brilliant Singapore pairing of Tianwei Feng and Jian Zeng in the women’s doubles final.
But was Lay, who now owns a remarkable five silvers to go with her four bronze, disheartened that she’d enhanced her frustrating record of being the most bemedalled Games athlete without a gold?
Not a bit of it.
”No, it’s unbelievable! After 20 years I still keep my level – to get a silver, that’s unbelievable,” she said.
”Of course, I’m jinxed for gold, but the opponents are so strong, you know. We just tried the best.”
Asked if she felt she was an inspiration to other women of the same age, she burst into laughter, ”I didn’t think I was 49 years old out there – but at the finish, I know my age!”
Mixed synchro divers snare Games silver
Despite scant practice together, Australian divers Maddison Keeney and Shixin Li have won a silver medal in the mixed synchronized three-metre springboard at the Commonwealth Games.
Keeny and Li only started training together a week before arriving in Birmingham.
”It was our first time diving together (in competition),” Keeney said.
”We haven’t been really practicing together a lot and we have also got very different styles.
”We had our first session a week before we came over here.
”It was a last-minute decision to enter into mixed synchro and Shixin has always wanted to have a go at it with me so I was like ‘Yeah, why not’.
”It was difficult, but we had a lot of fun.”
Despite the limited preparation, Keeney and Li almost grabbed gold – they finished just 1.98 points behind Scotland’s James Heatley and Grace Reid.
Australia’s Domonic Bedggood and Anabelle Smith finished fifth.
In the synchronized mixed 10m platform final, Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau and Emily Boyd finished fifth and compatriots Bedggood and Melissa Wu placed eighth.
Cassiel Rousseau and Emily Boyd add one last bronze to make it a total of 10 diving medals at #B2022 👏 pic.twitter.com/4XHgpZeP1r
PINGTUNG, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan warned Tuesday that Chinese military drills aren’t just a rehearsal for an invasion of the self-governing island but also reflect ambitions to control large swaths of the western Pacific, as Taipei conducted its own exercises to underscore it’s ready to defend itself.
Angered by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan, China has sent military ships and plans across the midline that separates the two sides in the Taiwan Strait and launched missiles into waters surrounding the island. The drills, which began Thursday, have disrupted flights and shipping in one of the busiest zones for global trade.
Ignoring calls to calm tensions, Beijing instead extended the exercises without announcing when they will end.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that beyond aiming to annex the island democracy, which split with the mainland amid civil war in 1949, China wants to establish its dominance in the western Pacific. That would include controlling of the East and South China Seas via the Taiwan Strait and imposing a blockade to prevent the US and its allies from aiding Taiwan in the event of an attack, he told a news conference in Taipei.
The exercises show China’s “geostrategic ambition beyond Taiwan,” which Beijing claims as its own territory, Wu said.
“China has no right to interfere in or alter” Taiwan’s democracy or its interactions with other nations, he added.
Wu’s assessment of China’s maneuvers was grimmer than that of other observers but echoed widespread concerns that Beijing is seeking to expand its influence in the Pacific, where the US has military bases and extensive treaty partnerships.
China has said its drills were prompted by Pelosi’s visit, but Wu said Beijing was using her trip as a pretext for intimidating moves long in the works. China also banned some Taiwanese food imports after the visit and cut off dialogue with the US on a range of issues from military contacts to combating transnational crime and climate change.
Pelosi also dismissed China’s outrage as a public stunt, noting on NBC’s “Today” show that “nobody said a word” about a Senate delegation a few visit months ago. Later on the MSNBC news network, she said Chinese President Xi Jinping was acting like a “scared bully.”
“I don’t think the president of China should control the schedules of members of Congress,” she said.
Through its maneuvers, China has pushed closer to Taiwan’s borders and may be seeking to establish a new normal in which it could eventually control access to the island’s ports and airspace. But that would likely elicit a strong response from the military on the island, whose people strongly favor the status quo of de-facto independence.
The US, Taipei’s main backer, has also shown itself to be willing to face down Beijing’s threats. Washington has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in deference to Beijing, but is legally bound to ensure the island can defend itself and to treat all threats against it as matters of grave concern.
That leaves open the question of whether Washington would dispatch forces if China attacked Taiwan. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the US is bound to do so — but staff members have quickly walked back those comments.
Beyond the geopolitical risks, an extended crisis in the Taiwan Strait, a significant thoroughfare for global trade, could have major implications for international supply chains at a time when the world is already facing disruptions and uncertainty in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In particular, Taiwan is a crucial provider of computer chips for the global economy, including China’s high-tech sectors.
In response to the drills, Taiwan has put its forces on alert, but has so far refrained from taking active counter measures.
On Tuesday, its military held live-fire artillery drills in Pingtung County on its southeastern coast.
The army will continue to train and accumulate strength to deal with the threat from China, said Maj. Gen. Lou Woei-jye, spokesperson for Taiwan’s 8th Army Command. “No matter what the situation is… this is the best way to defend our country.”
Taiwan, once a Japanese colony, had only loose connections to imperial China and then split with the mainland in 1949. Despite never having governed the island, China’s ruling Communist Party regards it as its own territory and has sought to isolate it diplomatically and economically in addition to ratcheting up military threats.
Washington has insisted Pelosi’s visit did not change its “one China policy,” which holds that the United States has no position on the status of the two sides but wants their dispute settled peacefully.
___
Associated Press writer Ashraf Khalil in Washington contributed to this report.
Google has launched a website for its Read Along app to encourage young children to practice reading. The website, which is introduced as a public beta, works with Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers on Desktop and Android, with support for iOS and more browsers such as Safari coming soon.
The concept of the website is similar to the app: children can learn to speak languages like English, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Urdu by reading stories using Google’s speech recognition and text-to- speechtext. A virtual assistant named Diya helps the children pronounce words if it detects they are struggling. Children can also ask Diya for help in speaking unknown words.
The company claimed that just like the app, all the speech recognition process takes place on the browser locally and no data is sent to its servers to protect children’s privacy. Plus, the whole experience is ad-free.
While the app had the advantage of offline usage, the website can help people who have low storage on the phone or schools that have desktop computers. One of the other major differentiators between the website and the app is that the latter works without any sign-in. The new website mandates Google account sign-ins on the same device to keep track of the progress of different children.
Google first launched the app as Bolo in India in 2019 with support for Hindi and English and renamed it Read Along with additional language support for a wider audience in 2020. The search giant noted that since its launch the app has helped more than 30 million kids read over 120 million stories.
The company said it’s partnering with new content providers to add more stories to the platform.
“In addition to the website launch, we are also adding some brand-new stories. We have partnered with two well-known YouTube content creators, ChuChu TV, and USP Studios, to adapt some of their popular videos into a storybook format,” it said in a statement.
The firm is also working India-based Kutuki learning app to adopt their English and Hindi alphabet books and phonics books for kids as stories in the Read Along app, which will be available later this year.
TV legend Denise Drysdale, 73, speaks openly about her rare and debilitating brain condition: ‘It was a nightmare’
By Caleb Taylor For Daily Mail Australia
Published: | Updated:
TV legend Denise Drysdale, 73, has revealed shocking health issues dealing with the painful painful facial condition trigeminal neuralgia (TN).
According to the Mayo Clinic the condition affects the trigeminal nerve, which carries searing pain to the face.
Denise told Now to Love on Tuesday it is great to be ‘laughing again’ after dealing with the pain for the past year.
TV legend Denise Drysdale, 73, (pictured) spoke openly about her rare and debilitating brain condition during an interview with Now To Love on Tuesday
‘It’s great to be laughing again. I haven’t really laughed in over a year – my life had become a nightmare of agonizing pain and fear,’ she told the publication.
The two-time Gold Logie winner said she was crippled by a deep depression due to the debilitating condition.
‘I feared the crippling pain was going to be my life. That I couldn’t go out, couldn’t have fun with friends, couldn’t smile, couldn’t cuddle my grandkids or go to work.’
‘It’s great to be laughing again. I haven’t really laughed in over a year – my life had become a nightmare of agonizing pain and fear,’ she told the publication
In the last couple of years Denise has gone through a knee replacement, detached retina, blood clot in the leg and a Staph infection.
Denise went public with the condition in September last year during a segment on Studio Ten.
Showbiz reporter and Denise’s good friend Craig Bennett broke the news on the show.
‘Why you’ve not seen her on the show for a little bit is because of this reason: last week [Denise] was taken to hospital after suffering “unspeakable agony”,’ he said.
Craig recalled how Denise had told him the pain was the equivalent of ‘being struck by a lightning bolt’ or touched with ‘a white hot poker’.
Denise was taken to hospital following her diagnosis with the nerve disorder. She said it felt as if she had been struck by lightning
‘It turns out she’s suffering from a rare nerve disorder that affects the face, trigeminal neuralgia,’ he explained.
‘Trigeminal is the name of the nerve that stretches through the brain and spreads across the face. Neuralgia, of course, is nerve pain,’ he added.
Craig said he was in regular contact with Denise, who ‘is slowly on the mend’.
What is trigeminal neuralgia?
Trigeminal neuralgia is a chronic pain condition that affects the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from your face to your brain.
If you have trigeminal neuralgia, even mild stimulation of your face – such as from brushing your teeth or putting on makeup – can trigger a jolt of excruciating pain.
You may initially experience short, mild attacks. But trigeminal neuralgia can progress and cause longer, more frequent bouts of searing pain.
Trigeminal neuralgia affects women more often than men, and it’s more likely to occur in people who are older than 50.
Because of the variety of treatment options available, having trigeminal neuralgia doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doomed to a life of pain.
Doctors usually can effectively manage trigeminal neuralgia with medications, injections or surgery.
Source: Mayo Clinic
‘I know we all share in wishing our Denise Drysdale the speediest of recoveries,’ he concluded.
‘We need our regular dose of Ding Dong. We absolutely do.’
Craig added that Denise was joined by her family in hospital and had the nurses ‘in stitches’ during her stay in the hospital.
Denise has been a regular on Channel Ten and Studio Ten. Seen here on the show
Carlton’s one-wood this season has been their brutal dominance in clearance and contested ball situations.
That has been largely thanks to the trio of Patrick Cripps, George Hewett and Matt Kennedy.
Well… the Blues will be 0/3 when they face Melbourne on Saturday night.
Cripps failed to overturn his two-match ban at the Tribunal, while Kennedy and Hewett remain sidelined with injuries.
So what do they do now?
Sam Walsh and Adam Cerra remain from the first-choice on-ball unit and will be forced to carry a heavy load.
Paddy Dow was poor in his second game of the year against Brisbane, but simply must keep his spot and take on that third spot in the starting midfield rotation.
Zac Fisher will also likely continue to rotate through as he has done this year.
Beyond that? How do the Blues compete with the size and power of Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney?
Ed Curnow would be nice, but he suffered a hamstring setback in the VFL. David Cuningham also remains sidelined as he returns from a torn ACL.
Could the Blues finally unleash Liam Stocker and/or Brodie Kemp on-ball as intended on draft night?
Stocker’s availability is unknown coming off a concussion a fortnight ago, but he has the size and was initially billed as an inside midfielder.
Will Setterfield is another who came to the club as an inside midfielder, but has played almost exclusively on the wing because their hasn’t been a spot available.
He will surely receive his chance on the inside if he retains his spot on the side.
Mid-season draftee Will Hayes has impressed in the VFL at stages on-ball, Jack Carroll has received a few AFL opportunities this year and Lachie Fogarty is another option.
Do the Blues get creative with someone like Kemp or potentially Jack Silvagni as a pure on-baller?
I did tag Nathan Fyfe earlier in his career. Is this the opportunity to try him on Oliver? James Aish did so successfully recently.
Carlton needs to win one more game to make the eight. They will have to do so without their fearless leader and half their starting midfield … and at least 14 unavailable players pending this week’s medical report.
A trio of House Democrats from New York and New Jersey have said that they’ll support the massive spending plan their party forced through the Senate over the weekend — despite their earlier insistence that any such bill lift the cap on state and local tax (SALT ) deductions.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer insisted that the $740 billion so-called Inflation Reduction Act would not raise taxes on individuals, despite a recent analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation that found levies would jump by $16.7 billion on American taxpayers making less than $200,000 in 2023, while those who make between $200,000 and $500,000 would have to pay $14.1 billion more.
SALT deductions were limited to $10,000 as part of former President Donald Trump’s tax reform plan in 2017, hurting residents of high-tax states like New York and New Jersey.
Late last year, all three lawmakers insisted that President Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar Build Back Better package increase the SALT caps, with Suozzi embracing the mantra: “No SALT, no deal.
”The Long Island rep told The Post Monday that he would support the package “because it is good for my constituents, good for America, and great for the environment.”
The lawmakers previously insisted that any spending plan lift the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images“If someone tries to change the tax rates on families in my District, I will insist that we restore the State and Local Tax Deduction,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer vowed.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“Regarding SALT, the Inflation Reduction Act does not increase personal income taxes and ‘No SALT, no deal’ does not apply,” Suozzi added. “If any change is proposed in the personal income tax rate, I will insist that we restore the State and Local Tax Deduction.”
“The bill is fully paid for, in part, with provisions that go after tax cheats. It will also help pay down the debt — a fiscally-responsible way to get inflation down,” Gottheimer said Sunday after Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
“As for SALT, my line in the sand remains the same. If someone tries to change the tax rates on families in my District, I will insist that we restore the State and Local Tax Deduction,” he continued. “This legislation doesn’t raise taxes on families in my District — it reduces the financial burden on them. For that reason, and for its strong support of the climate, lower prescription drug prices, and job creation, I’ll be voting for it.”
Rep. Mikie Sherrill said she would vote for the legislation because it “does not raise taxes on families in my district.”Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Sherrill also expressed her commitment to reforming SALT, but noted that “[b]Because this legislation does not raise taxes on families in my district, but in fact significantly lowers their costs, I will be voting for it.”
The measure passed by the Senate does out $369 billion on environmental programs, including tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles and rebates for low-income Americans to install renewable energy sources in their homes.
The legislation also includes provisions allowing Medicare to directly negotiate the prices of certain drugs and capping out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 annually. The bill also extends expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2025, allowing people earning up to 150% of the federal poverty level to get health insurance for free.
Rep. Tom Suozzi previously embraced the “No SALT, no deal” mantra.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
A $35-per-month cap on what private insurers can charge out-of-pocket for insulin failed to survive the hours-long vote-a-rama that preceded the final vote, falling three “ayes” short of the 60 needed to make the legislation.
The House is expected to reconvene to debate and vote on the measure on Friday. It is expected to pass and be sent to Biden’s desk with all 210 of the chamber’s Republicans voting “nay.”
Google’s cloud gaming service, Stadia, has been receiving consistent updates, but even then, there are rumors of it shutting down due to the low number of total users. All the rumors were slashed when the official Twitter account of Stadia tweeted that it’s not shutting down but rather been worked on to bring more games and updates.
@BlueFireDemon44 Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro. Let us know if you have other questions.
@BlueFireDemon44 Stadia is not shutting down. Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro. Let us know if you have other questions.
A new update will soon be rolled out to improve the quality of life and the YouTube streaming feature. Currently, to stream through this platform on YouTube, users can only stream one game, and if they wish to switch to another game, they will have to end the stream entirely and start a new one, which is a nuisance. But that has changed.
The latest update to Google Stadia is a godsend to streamers
YouTube streaming on Google Stadia will be much easier and better once the update is rolled out to everyone. It will allow users to pause their live stream, switch games, and click on “Resume livestream” to continue streaming. This will help streamers retain their viewers as they switch games, which would not have been possible without this update.
Moreover, users can also change the device on which the gameplay is being streamed. For example, users can switch from their desktop to mobile devices on the same stream without ending it.
Another great feature coming out with the update is called Party Stream, which allows players to stream their gameplay to others in the Stadia party. The party can support up to 10 players where there is no limit on how many members of the party can stream their gameplay while others can be viewers.
This means that nine players can stream in the party with one viewer, or one with nine viewers, although only one stream can be watched at a time.
Also Read Story Continues below
The Party Stream feature also has party chat elements like voice chat so that while spectating or streaming, users can continue to chat with everyone at the party, send messages and react with emojis while the streamer will see on-screen notifications of friends entering or leaving the stream, new messages, and the latest reactions.
Google’s cloud streaming service has been receiving important updates, and since its launch, its integrated YouTube streaming feature has added support for 4K and HDR. The new update will be rolled out to all users on all platforms within the week.
It’s that time of the year again — you’ve done your Premier League fantasy draft and are now checking which picks have worked out and which have let you down. If you selected any Manchester United players, it might already be a good time to move them on.
The painful reality for United supporters and fantasy managers alike right now is that no members of Erik ten Hag’s squad would come anywhere near to making a Premier League Best XI. And that won’t change if United are successful in completing one of the most surprising transfers of the summer — any summer — by signing journeyman forward Marko Arnautovic from Bologna.
Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford against Brighton & Hove Albion was a disastrous start for Ten Hag in his first competitive game as United manager. The former Ajax coach will have known that he was taking on a big challenge when, earlier this summer, he became the fifth permanent managerial appointment since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, but the manner of the Brighton defeat will have been a jolting reality check .
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Ten Hag saw first-hand that teams such as Brighton, without even half of the financial might and historical power of United, can outsmart and outplay a club with such apparent riches simply by being astute and strategic on and off the pitch. But with United, it always gets back to the players because they simply aren’t good enough, and that decline in quality stems back to before Ferguson stepped down.
That said, when Ferguson retired after guiding United to a 20th league title, more than half of his team would have made it into a best Premier League XI. Manchester City and Chelsea would have had a couple of players each, too, but the likes of David de Gea, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Michael Carrick, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie would all have earned a place among the outstanding Premier League team of the 2012-13 season.
Throughout the first 20 years of the Premier League, it would have been a similar story. United may not always have dominated the best XI, but they would at least have had two or three players in it. If you were to repeat this exercise now, how many teams would you have to pick before a United player would be selected? The best Premier League XI of 2022-23 would be dominated by City and Liverpool players. You could make a case for Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane being the one outsider, but the England captain might have to accept a place in the second XI due to the claims of Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah.
The second XI would again be made up by those City and Liverpool players who didn’t make the first XI, with maybe Kane and Son Heung-Min added to it.
The third XI? Probably full of Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal players, with West Ham United’s Declan Rice anchoring the midfield as a rare selection from outside the so-called Big Six.
Which takes us to the fourth-best Premier League XI, and probably where Bruno Fernandes or Christian Eriksen — and maybe even Cristiano Ronaldo — would find a place alongside those City and Liverpool players who didn’t make the first three teams. De Gea’s decline in goal since 2013 would see him nowhere near any of the top 10 best XIs, while the rest of Ten Hag’s squad are either so low on confidence — Harry Maguire, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho — or lacking in top- level quality — Scott McTominay, Fred, Diogo Dalot — that they wouldn’t be in contention either.
This is obviously a fantasy exercise based purely on opinion and everyone will have a different view, but what is clear is that Manchester United no longer have the best players. They are stacked with mediocrity and struggle even to get rid of those who are no longer good enough, such as Phil Jones, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Eric Bailly. It’s probably a statement of the obvious considering the club’s performances and lack of trophies in recent years, but it is also an important point about how the team has been run in the post-Ferguson era.
United would always challenge to sign the best players. They wouldn’t always get them, with Alan Shearer, Ronaldinho and Eden Hazard being three of the most high-profile players to reject a move to Old Trafford, but they had the ambition to pursue them and, more often than not, they beat a big rival to sign a Ferdinand, a Rooney or a Van Persie.
Romelu Lukaku was probably the last high-profile player that United signed ahead of a Big Six rival, with the Everton forward rejecting Chelsea to move to Old Trafford in 2017. Since then, a failure to close the deal has been seen United miss out on the likes of Haaland, Jude Bellingham, Darwin Nunez and, potentially this summer, Frenkie de Jong.
Joining United is now seen as a risky move by the best players. Why go to Old Trafford when the club is in such a state of flux, with fans protesting against the owners and the trophy cabinet beginning to gather dust?
That is the challenge facing Ten Hag. He not only has to build a winning team, but make the club an attractive proposition for new players to join. But it is a long way back, and it’s difficult to predict when United will have a player in the Premier League Best XI again.
Former President Donald Trump once complained to his White House chief of staff that his generals weren’t “totally loyal” like Adolf Hitler’s during World War II, according to a book excerpt published Monday.
“You f—ing generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump asked then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, according to an excerpt of “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” co-written by New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser and New York Times correspondent Peter Baker.
When Kelly asked Trump for clarification, the president reportedly replied by specifying, “The German generals in World War II.”
Kelly, a retired Marine general, then asked Trump whether he knew that those generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.”
According to the excerpt, Trump dismissed Kelly’s historically accurate description, insisting, “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him.”
The New Yorker published the excerpt Monday.
The exchange was described in the excerpt as “typical” of Trump’s expectation of fealty from his military officers.
The authors wrote that on another occasion, during the summer of 2017, Trump told Kelly that he wanted to hold a military parade and said: “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade. This doesn’t look good for me.”
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly reportedly protested.
NBC News has asked Kelly and a Trump spokesman for comment.
Kelly joined the Trump administration in 2017 as homeland security secretary and later became White House chief of staff. I have left about midway through Trump’s presidency.
Other parts of the book excerpt focused on Gen. Mark Milley, who has been the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since October 2019. The coming book includes a resignation letter Milley drafted after the violent clearing of Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1, 2020. Milley wrote in the draft letter, which he didn’t submit, that he worried that Trump was “doing great and irreparable harm” to the country and that he had concerns about the president’s “concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military.”
Milley’s letter also described how he didn’t think Trump understood a generation that “fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism,” adding, “It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order.”
“In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that,” Milley added.
According to the excerpt, Milley also feared Trump’s “Hitler-like” spouse of election lies.
NBC News has asked the Defense Department for comment.
Zoë Richards is the evening politics reporter for NBC News.
