Massive strike by Putin’s forces leaves Ukraine facing widespread power cuts

Ukraine will face nationwide power cuts of eight to 16 hours today after Russian strikes left parts of the country’s energy system in ruins, officials said.

State-owned energy company Tsentrenergo said the attacks were one of the largest on its facilities since the start of the war in February 2022, and that it had halted operations at its plants in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.

Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles targeting energy infrastructure between Friday and Saturday, killing at least seven people.

An overnight drone attack by Ukraine temporarily disrupted power and heating supplies in the southwestern Russia city of Voronezh, governor Alexander Gusev said on the Telegram messaging app.

Meanwhile, work is under way to prepare proposals for a Russian nuclear test, Moscow has said, in what would be its first test of a nuclear weapon in 35 years.

The order was made in response to Donald Trump’s surprise announcement last week that the US would resume testing.

More than 1,500 US flights cancelled and 6,500 delayed as government shutdown continues

More than 1,500 flights were canceled Saturday, and thousands more were delayed, as the Federal Aviation Administration reduced air traffic at terminals across the country due to the government shutdown, creating chaos for travelers.

The shutdown has dragged on for a record 39 days, meaning air traffic controllers have not been paid for over a month.

To reduce the “immense strain and fatigue” on the federal workers as some of the busiest holiday travel days approach, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday that 40 airports would be forced to cut flight capacity. Flights were reduced by 4 percent Friday. Airports are bracing for next week, when the FAA said reductions will ramp up to 6 percent by November 11, 8 percent by November 13, and 10 percent by November 14.

On Saturday, travelers were already scrambling. More than 8,000 flights in the U.S. faced disruptions, according to FlightAware, as ground stops and delays plagued travel hubs. Though some of the delays were likely to due to weather or other issues.

“I will EMPLOY EVERY TACTIC to keep the flying public safe,” Duffy wrote on X Friday. “Flights will be delayed, and trips will get canceled. But the skies will remain safe.”

Even after the government shutdown ends, Duffy warned it could take time before operations will return to normal. He predicted it would be “days, if not a week, before we get back to full-force flights,” he said Saturday to Fox News.

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had the highest number of canceled flights, with 192 cancellations Saturday alone. Also hitting high numbers were Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, which saw 85 cancellations, and North Carolina’s Charlotte Douglas Airport, which had 74.

The disruptions have led to angry passengers.

“Everyone is saying this is the new America,” Marietta Hamilton, who was planning on traveling from Charlotte to Houston, told the Charlotte Observer. “We have to adjust and who knows what to expect next. It’s very inconvenient for the American people. We have enough stress with everything that’s going on, and these types of things just add to our stress and mental health.”

Gino Carr repeatedly checked his emails throughout the night before heading to the airport Friday morning to head to a Mexico and Bahamas cruise. “Every time I got a ding, I was a little worried that they were canceling my flight,” he told the Charlotte Observer.

“It’s kind of terrible that the government can’t get its act together and open it up,” he said. “All of these [federal workers] are basically working for free, and now there are plenty of people who are going to be stranded.”

An hour-long ground stop at the Charlotte airport Saturday also added to the mayhem. The afternoon saw ground stops at Nashville International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey due to staffing shortages.

The FAA also issued ground delays at several travel hubs across the country due to staffing issues.. San Francisco International Airport, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, New York’s LaGuardia Airport, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport were among the impacted hubs.

Jade Vardi was forced to rebook her canceled flight from Milwaukee to O’Hare. “I’m frustrated,” the 29-year-old told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Despite her irritation, she expressed sympathy for the air traffic controllers: “If I wasn’t getting paid, I wouldn’t want to work either.”

The sentiment is a common one.

Jill Hess, who was traveling from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to New York, told CBS12: “There’s no reason for the military, the federal police, the air traffic controllers not to be paid. They should not pay Congress and maybe things would get done.”

“The hope is that our airplane will be somewhat on time and get us to where we need to go, which is Westchester,” Hess said.

“Inconvenience, yes, irritation, no. I tend to go with the flow. I don’t get upset about things I have no control over and I have no control over this,” Hess added.

Along with commercial aircraft, private jets have also been reduced, Duffy said.

“We’ve reduced their volume at high traffic airports — instead having private jets utilize smaller airports or airfields so busy controllers can focus on commercial aviation. That’s only fair,” he said in a Saturday social media post.

“Jets used for medical transports, emergencies and law enforcement will be prioritized,” the Transportation Secretary added.

Meanwhile, Hawaii’s Department of Transportation wrote Duffy a letter asking for that the state be exempt from flight cuts, citing its “unique reliance on air travel” for access to medical services, cargo movement and food security, national defense and military family support, as well as economic stability.

Zohran Mamdani has paved the way for AOC to run for president

Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York on Tuesday night goes back to something simple. Voters don’t want to be told change is happening – they want to feel it, fast. It’s why you can watch the same neighbourhood vote Republican one cycle and Democrat the next without breaking a sweat. They are not developing a crush on either party but auditioning table-flippers.

And that’s why, whether he knows it or not, Mamdani may have just laid the groundwork for the left’s poster candidate – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC to her friends on the progressive side of US politics.

Rewind to summer 2024, and I’m in the watch room for Joe Biden’s first debate against Trump. My heart was bleeding as our campaign nosedived with every answer from our candidate drifting into waffle.

It was brutal to watch but impossible to ignore.

Biden did a heck of a lot in the White House – genuinely more than most presidents manage in two terms – and I remain incredibly proud to have stood by him and the party’s subsequent nominee, Kamala Harris, who would have made a fantastic president.

But the truth is that everything came too slowly and too invisibly for a public hammered by prices, failing healthcare, and creaking services. So people went shopping for the ‘other’ change – in the form of Donald Trump.

That doesn’t make them racist or sexist; it makes them so frustrated with life that they were willing to cover their eyes and ears over parts of his platform in the hope he might “flip the f***ing table”.

The country was not asking for calming words. It was asking to feel some seismic change.

On Kamala’s campaign, we learned the same lesson, the hard way. Voters do not buy vibes – we had plenty of those. They buy change, preferably instant change. If the offer cannot be touched within six months, it becomes theory, which loses to anyone promising something bolder and sooner.

Here is where AOC comes in. Mamdani didn’t just assemble a left coalition – he just laid the groundwork for her to scale up nationally.

Three takeaways for an AOC run. Boldness without delivery collapses. We had days where rhetoric outran rollout – the public can smell that. Have three day-one promises that pay off within six months – things people will feel immediately.

Message discipline beats message volume. On election day, Democrats were knocking on hundreds of doors per minute, but a single crisp line on how Biden-Harris capped the crippling cost of insulin from over $600 to $25 beat five workshopped lines on “opportunity for all.”

Pick a villain and move their money. Mamdani named landlords, price-gougers and wasteful contracts – receipts over rhetoric.

The switching between Republican and Democrat is not ideological whiplash – it is practical hunger. Parts of New York that began leaning towards Trump in 2024 swung back to Mamdani on Tuesday night.

Suburbs that once felt nailed down now move like swing doors because families are buying food, paying rent and queueing for appointments, not reading manifestos.

If Republicans look like the only ones moving the furniture, they get a chance. If Democrats show they will move it faster and in your direction, they will get a chance. Loyalty follows delivery, not the other way round.

So could AOC run for president on the same current Mamdani just rode? The current exists.

A renters-first, bilingual, small-donor campaign built around three quick proofs is not a fantasy – it is the only kind of campaign I have seen cut through in the last two years. The attacks will come. But “socialist” only stings if the bus still costs the same and your rent still rises. Make life cheaper and quicker, and the label loses heat.

That is the heart of it. Voters are not in love – they are impatient. If AOC can make change tangible on a six-month clock, the path is there. The table will be flipped by someone, and a young, articulate, working-class woman from the Bronx seems like a decent bet to me.

Pablo O’Hana is a senior political advisor and campaign strategist who worked on Kamala Harris’s bid for the White House

‘I am much happier here’: Ghislaine Maxwell letters show mindset in new Texas prison

Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell says she’s “much happier” at the Texas prison camp she was transferred to after meeting with Trump officials, she revealed to friends and family.

“I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass,” Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and associate, wrote in an email obtained by NBC News. “I am much much happier here and more importantly safe.”

She sent the emails shortly after she was transferred in August from a low-security federal prison in Florida to the minimum-security Bryan Federal Prison Camp. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in a sex-trafficking scheme with Epstein.

In some of the emails, Maxwell touted the prison camp’s cleanliness and orderliness.

“The institution is run in an orderly fashion which makes for a safer more comfortable environment for all people concerned, inmates and guards alike,” she wrote in one email.

“The kitchen looks clean too — no possums falling from the celling to fry unfortunately on ovens, and become mingled with the food being served,” she wrote in another, comparing it to her previous prison arrangement.

Maxwell also told loved ones that the food is improved at the prison camp compared to the Tallahassee prison.

“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff responsive and polite – I haven’t seen or heard the usual foul language or screaming accompanied by threats leveled at inmates by anyone. I have not seen a single fight, drug deal, passed out person or naked inmate running around or several of them congregating in a shower!” she wrote.

Maxwell even gave a shoutout to prison camp warden Tanisha Hall, whom she hailed as a “true professional.”

NBC News obtained the emails from the House Judiciary Committee after its top Democrat Jamie Raskin asked Hall in a letter last month about Maxwell’s “VIP treatment,” citing the Wall Street Journal’s report about the 63-year-old’s “unusually favorable treatment” that has sparked resentment from fellow inmates.

“Now, shocking new reports reveal that Ms. Maxwell is not only receiving VIP treatment at FPC Bryan—including private meetings with mysterious visitors, meal delivery to her dormitory, and other special perks—but that you and other prison officials have retaliated against inmates who dared to speak out about her fawning preferential treatment,” the Maryland Congressman wrote.

Maxwell was moved to the prison camp days after meeting with Justice Department officials for two days in July as part of the investigation into the so-called Epstein files. Former prison staffers said such a transfer was “unheard of” and others said it reeked of “special preference.”

“It’s not a very uncommon thing,” President Donald Trump told reporters at the time. He has not ruled out a pardon for the British socialite.

The prison camp is dubbed “club fed” for its relatively relaxed conditions that boasts dormitory-style cells, no barbed wire, and opportunities to take classes outside of work. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah are also housed there.

David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, told NBC News that “there’s nothing journalistic about publishing a prisoner’s private emails, including ones with her lawyers.”

“That’s tabloid behavior, not responsible reporting,” Markus told the outlet. “Anyone still interested in that kind of gossip reveals far more about themselves than about Ghislaine. It’s time to get over the fact that she is in a safer facility. We should want that for everyone.”

Her brother, Ian Maxwell, similarly expressed disapproval of republishing her emails, telling NBC News that the messages were “personal and private by their very nature.”

Maxwell is at the center of the controversy surrounding the Epstein Files, which have plagued the second Trump administration. The public and politicians on both sides of the aisle called for greater transparency around the records after the Justice Department released a memo in July stating that Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 and said no further investigation was warranted.

Attorney General Pam Bondi informed President Trump in May that his name appeared in the documents, the Wall Street Journal reported. A mention in the files does not imply wrongdoing, and dozens of other high-profile names were also mentioned. The president has never been formally accused of wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

In August, the DOJ released the transcripts and audio recordings from Maxwell’s two-day meeting with top Justice Department officials. In the wide-ranging interview, Maxwell said she “absolutely never” saw Trump behaving inappropriately with anyone in Epstein’s circle.

“I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects,” she told officials.

Maxwell also alluded to her experience at the Tallahassee prison when telling officials that she didn’t believe Epstein died by suicide.

“In prison, where I am, they will kill you or they will pay – somebody can pay a prisoner to kill you for $25 worth of commissary,” she said. “That’s about the going rate for a hit with a lock today.”

Lawnmower drones and homegrown missiles: Ukraine’s weapons industry is rising from the ashes

Naive, self-sabotaging and riddled with Moscow’s agents, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and an arms industry that produced a third of the Soviet Union’s supply, trusted the West and the Kremlin to protect it, and was left fighting for its life.

Now, 30 years on, the start-up nation redefining how war is fought has been forced into a bodge-and-make-do world of arms production, fusing old technology with IT know-how to break the bonds its allies tied to make Kyiv fight one-handed.

The latest innovation is a cruise missile with a range of 3,000km, a maximum speed of 900kmph and a payload of over a tonne, which has been used in strikes deep into Russian territory.

The FP-5 “Flamingo” missile is powered by a rocket and a Soviet-era turbofan jet engine bolted on top. Some of those engines have been dug out of landfill dumps.

It’s got twice the range of the US Tomahawk, carries twice as much explosive and costs about the same.

But its main advantage is that it is entirely under the control of Ukraine’s forces. The UK and France restricted the use of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Russian targets inside Ukraine for many months.

The US reduced the ability of Ukraine to use American ATACM missiles against Russian targets in Russia and has not yet decided on whether to allow access to Tomahawks, that would be paid for by European allies.

In contrast, Kyiv can fire the Flamingo at any target it wants. It is not restricted by what Ukraine’s “allies” say it can and cannot do when fighting Russia’s invading forces.

Prototypes were painted pink to make them easier to retrieve from test flights. They strike deep inside Russia and are designed to destroy Moscow’s capacity to wage war in Ukraine.

Targeting oil refineries has had a measurable effect. Russia has at times lost about 20 per cent of its fuel capacity and pump prices have soared by 10 per cent.

Ukraine’s focus has been on the Fluid Catalytic Cracking plants inside refineries – they’re mostly imported from the West and Russia is banned from buying any more.

With arms supplies from the West so uncertain, Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine now makes about 60 per cent of its own weapons.

“When you have a gun being pointed towards your head, you don’t think about standards, you think that ‘this should be working’,” says Iyna Terech, the chief technology officer of Fire Point, which makes Flamingos among other munitions.

“And the huge achievement of the Ukrainian government is to downgrade the bureaucracy pressure as much as possible so that technology can thrive.

“And that is what happened to our company. We didn’t care that we meet Nato standards.

“We only cared that our weapons would be effective on the front line, not on some paperwork. We could, as a result, make a very effective weapon.”

As well as Flamingos, Fire Point also produces the shorter-range Shahed-style drones FP1 and FP2. The former have been used frequently to attack Russia as far as Moscow.

The latter, which carry a payload of 150kg, have been mistaken for long-range American missiles because of their explosive power.

Their value lies in that they’re cheap and fast to make. It takes a couple of hours to make the wings and 30 minutes to fashion the fuselage from a mix of plastic and carbon.

The lightweight machines are glued together with carbon printers, use lawnmower engines and rely on open source navigation systems.

No money is spared, Terech insists, on the electronics of the weapons as they’re designed to evade Russian jamming systems.

Ukraine shoots down about 90 per cent of Russia’s incoming Shahed-type drones. So a similar “kill rate” of Ukrainian drones must be assumed. They have to be clever and cheap to make if they’re going to get through.

FP1s and 2s cost about $50,000 each. Ukrainian officials estimate that modern Shaheds may be as much as $250,000 each. Independent estimates put the Russian-made drones at closer to $80,000.

For Ukraine, price competition is important. The European Union, Kyiv biggest backer, is an economic bloc at least nine times the size of Russia’s economy with four times its spending power.

Ukraine’s allies can outspend Russia, if they choose to, but so far they have not.

The war is now mostly a grinding stalemate. It balances Russia’s superior manpower resources with Ukraine’s motivation and innovation, although that latter edge risks being eroded as Moscow has moved quickly to learn from earlier bloody mistakes on the battlefield.

Russia has had years to prepare for its invasion of Ukraine. With hindsight, it was aided by the collapse of Ukraine’s arms industry after its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Back then, Ukraine had the third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile. It produced 30 per cent of the Soviet Union’s weapons.

Ukraine produced some of the Kremlin’s most terrifying weapons –intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) like the SS-18 “Satan”.

Kyiv still has a factory where the company Antonov made many of its aircraft, and the capital was also the centre of production for anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine produced tanks and boasted 40 universities and educational institutions, which churned out scientists who made rockets for sale worldwide.

But in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nukes in return for an agreement from the US, UK, and Russia to guarantee its security.

Later, China and France signed up, but only Ukraine believed the memos were worth the ink spent on setting them down.

Ten years later, it had let its arms industry collapse from one that employed three million to less than a third of that.

A mouldy military faced Russia’s first invasion in 2014, and the country was saved mostly by private volunteer militia.

Now it is reliant on start-ups like companies such as Fire Point and General Cherry – the latter producing thousands of interceptor drones a week to take on Russia’s Shaheds and protect troops on the front lines, where combat has turned from trench warfare to a churning horror for infantry individually hunted by tiny deadly drones.

In production, 3-D printers whir day and night in secret locations across Ukraine. In cubicles across the nation, drills scream and solder burns and circuits are laid for semi-autonomous quadcopters to be flown into incoming missiles every night.

Ukraine’s weapons industry is now worth only $1bn, but it is growing very fast. Taking off like one of the Ukrainian GC’s “bullet” drones, which erupt from the ground and can hit over 200kmph in a vertical climb to take on Russian Shaheds.

Midway through what is a long war, there’s an air of growing confidence in Ukraine’s arms industry.

It’s bred off fast growth and battlefield success.

But also the realisation that, already, Ukraine has the most powerful army in western Europe and that the lessons learned from battleground to workshop here will mean Kyiv may be a dominant force in Europe’s future.

“We all have to grow up and build our own security with our own hands,” says Terech.

This means ending reliance on America.

”What we learn from working in Ukraine is that you have to diversify and you have to rely on yourself. You have to count on your own resources, and that’s what Europe has to do.”

What is tacit knowledge – could your work skills spark a new career?

Whether it’s solving a logistical problem, navigating a tricky client meeting or being able to design, craft or build, we all have certain skills that feel straightforward to us yet can seem out of reach to others. A big part of this is tacit knowledge, the personal ‘know-how’ that individuals possess, built up over time. In a work context, this tacit knowledge can open interesting doors to potential new career paths, in which this real-world experience can be shared with the next generation of workers.

Understanding the concept of tacit knowledge is perhaps easiest when compared to its counterpart: explicit knowledge. “Explicit knowledge is something you can fully articulate linguistically and can be understood without context while tacit knowledge is something that can’t be described in the same way and needs its context to be appreciated,” Dr Neil Gascoigne, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London and co-author of Tacit Knowledge, explains.

Gascoigne gives the example of the famous physics equation of E=mc^2. This formula is considered a piece of explicit knowledge, as words can be used to explain the idea. However, the average person wouldn’t know how to use this formula. This is where tacit knowledge comes in. You would need to have studied physics, put your knowledge into practice and learned first-hand how to use formulas effectively in order to make the most of the explicit knowledge given.

In the workplace, a company handbook might explicitly set out the business’ practice for a certain task. However, you would need some tacit knowledge gained through work experience or time in the company to complete this task most successfully and efficiently.

As tacit knowledge is harder to explain with words, it often has a mysterious quality to it. However, as Gascoigne points out, this is only to the untrained eye. “Tacit knowledge often seems obscure to people unless they possess similar skills themselves. Without them, it doesn’t become apparent what expertise is exactly on display,” he elaborates.

“For instance, say I am watching a Grand Slam tennis match. I know there’s an astonishing kind of athleticism, but if I don’t play tennis or am not a committed tennis fan, I might not be able to tell the difference between a really great shot and a more average shot,” Gascoigne says.

This same idea applies in the workplace. Tacit knowledge is gained through experience and consequently, while we all have tacit knowledge, the areas we have it in differ. What’s more, it can even seem quite mysterious to ourselves. When we have worked in a certain industry for a period of time, we aren’t always aware of the tacit knowledge we have gained. While explicit knowledge relates to aspects of our job that we might have had to sit down and learn, our tacit knowledge is obtained in a practical way over time, by doing tasks again and again and subtly learning and improving as we go along.

After a while, we know exactly how to tackle projects or solve problems, almost without thinking. For instance, in the construction industry, this tacit knowledge would help you judge site safety or develop practical skills like site excavation, land levelling or brick laying. If you work in social care, it is only with time and experience that you can pick up on subtle emotional cues or manage crisis situations effectively. While in engineering, years spent tackling complex technical issues allow you to troubleshoot effectively, and draw on a myriad of possible solutions from projects past.

Whatever sector you work in, the knowledge needed to succeed is always a mixture of explicit and tacit, and the latter – this know-how built from personal experience, intuition, and practice – is incredibly valuable when it comes to judging real-world situations, solving complex problems and having an edge over competitors.

And while by definition, not explicit, that doesn’t mean that tacit knowledge can’t be shared. Indeed with time, attention and training, you can drill down on years-honed skills and information, and share it with others through teaching.

In fact, it is at the core of sharing your craft – and that’s far more than a simple list of instructions. “To learn how to do something, you really need to follow the example of somebody who already knows how to do it,” says Gascoigne. “These people have learnt the rules, internalised them and use tacit knowledge to know when they apply and when they don’t.”

Tacit knowledge is particularly valuable when it comes to Further Education teaching (defined as any education for people aged 16 and over who aren’t studying for a degree). This is because the focus is on preparing students for employment, and teachers need to draw on tacit knowledge to share how things really work in their industry. This ensures that students complete their qualifications not only with theoretical competence but also practical and employable skills.

This is why this type of practical learning that further education teachers specialise in can be so valuable. Workshop-style teaching and skills-led mentoring allows for those with experience to share the vital tacit knowledge they have built up over time in real-world scenarios. Meanwhile, those learning from them can see these nuggets of knowledge in action and have a chance to put them in practice as they learn.

If you’re passionate about your industry and interested in sharing your own tacit knowledge,  becoming a Further Education teacher can be a really rewarding and valuable career move. Further Education covers a huge range of industry sectors including construction, law, engineering, digital, hospitality, tourism, beauty and more. This includes BTECs (Business and Technology Education Council qualifications), T Levels, NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) or City & Guilds Qualifications.

Teaching in a mixture of colleges (often General Further Education Colleges or Sixth Form Colleges) and Adult and Community Learning Centres as well as workplace and apprenticeship settings, Further Education teachers share their years of real world industry  skills with people of all ages and backgrounds from those straight out of school aged sixteen to those making career switches later in life.

You don’t always need an academic degree or prior teaching qualifications to start teaching in Further Education. You can undertake teacher training on the job, often funded by your employer, so you can start earning straight away. Furthermore, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing option. Further Education offers flexible opportunities – so you could teach part time alongside your other commitments. This means you could have a best of both worlds set-up, where you are still working in your chosen industry and teaching alongside it at a time that suits your schedule.

Whether it’s shifting your career fully or adding teaching into the mix, becoming a Further Education teacher can be a life-changing decision. One that taps into your well of tacit knowledge and creates a sense of fulfillment from helping shape the next generation of workers in your field.

Why not consider sharing your tacit knowledge where it matters most – helping inspire the next generation of workers in the field you love? Visit Further Education to find out more

Lorraine Kelly sends ‘all her love’ to Davina McCall after show helped star discover breast cancer

Lorraine Kelly has shared a message of support for Davina McCall after the presenter revealed that a Lorraine campaign had helped her spot early signs of breast cancer.

McCall, 58, underwent surgery in October after discovering a lump in her breast.

In an Instagram video shared on Saturday (8 November), the TV presenter told followers that she had caught the lump “very, very early, which is incredibly lucky”.

She also revealed that she had been inspired to get the lump checked by doctors when she was working on a new series of ITV’s The Masked Singer and spotted posters that had been put up as part of a campaign spearheaded by Kelly’s morning show Lorraine.

“I found a lump a few weeks ago, and it came and went, but then I was working on The Masked Singer and Lorraine had put signs on the back of all the doors saying, ‘check your breasts,’” McCall explained.

“And every time I went for a wee, I did that, and it was still there. And then one morning, I saw it in the mirror and I thought, ‘I’m going to get that looked at.’”

After undergoing a biopsy, McCall was diagnosed with breast cancer, then had a lumpectomy “nearly three weeks ago”. Afterwards, she was told by doctors that “the margins are clear”.

McCall’s diagnosis comes after she underwent surgery last year to remove a benign brain tumour, known as a colloid cyst.

Kelly said that she was “so glad” that McCall had been influenced by her show’s Change+Check campaign and hailed her as “such a terrific woman”.

“I’m so glad Davina saw our Change+Check sticker and the cancer was caught early,” she said.

“That’s the whole point of the campaign, to raise awareness and save lives. I’m sending Davina all my love. She’s been through such a lot, and she’s such a terrific woman.”

A statement from the Lorraine team added: “Davina found her lump after seeing our Change+Check awareness sticker and thankfully caught the cancer before it had spread.

“As Davina says, remember to check your boobs regularly and “never ignore a niggle”.

McCall is set to undergo five days of radiotherapy treatment in January “as a kind of insurance policy” and said she is embarking on a “journey to try and stop it ever coming back”.

“I was very angry when I found out, but I let go of that, and I feel in a much more positive place now,” she said, before urging others to “check yourself regularly” and make sure to prioritise mammogram appointments.

Philippines evacuates 900,000 and braces for ‘catastrophic impact’ ahead of super-typhoon landfall

The Philippines has evacuated almost a million people as Super Typhoon Fung-wong intensified ahead of landfall, bringing winds of up to 230kmph (143mph), torrential rain, and dangerous storm surges.

The country’s weather bureau raised the highest storm alert over southeastern Luzon, including Catanduanes and parts of Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur.

Authorities said the storm, known locally as Uwan, was expected to make landfall in Aurora province by Sunday night. It will later head towards Taiwan. Defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr, who oversees the country’s disaster response agencies and the military, warned about the potentially catastrophic impact of Fung-wong in televised remarks on Saturday.

Power outages were reported in parts of Eastern Visayas, and footage from the Philippine Coast Guard showed residents in Camarines Sur boarding trucks during mass evacuations. More than 300 domestic and international flights were cancelled.

The storm comes just days after Typhoon Kalmaegi killed 204 people in the Philippines before striking Vietnam, where it left five more dead and wrecked hundreds of coastal farms and fishing boats.