Xavi Simons to make Spurs debut against struggling West Ham

West Ham host Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League’s late kick off today with the aim of improving their standing in the top flight table.

A rocky start to the season saw Graham Potter’s side lose their opening two matches, against Sunderland and Chelsea, to an aggregate scoreline of 8-1 before they picked up a much-needed victory in a 3-0 hammering of Nottingham Forest before the international break.

Potter’s men were given the confidence boost they needed to jump out of the relegation zone but face a solid outfit in Thomas Frank’s Spurs who begin life after Daniel Levy following the chairman’s exit from the club.

Tottenham won their opening two games, including a 2-0 victory over Man City, but slipped to a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth last time out and Frank will hope to get back to winning ways as he drives his team closer to the top of the table.

Follow all the build-up, team news and updates with The Independent’s live blog below:

All Blacks suffer record defeat as Springboks dismantle New Zealand

The All Blacks suffered their heaviest-ever defeat as South Africa ran rampant in a 43-10 dismantling to reignite their Rugby Championship title hopes.

The Springboks hit back in some style, having been edged out at Eden Park a week ago, producing 36 unanswered second-half points to power out of sight in a statement showing from the world champions.

In the process, the records tumbled, with a 33-point margin of victory surpassing the previous worst result in New Zealand’s history – exceeding their own 35-7 win in a World Cup warm-up at Twickenham in 2023.

The All Blacks had been hoping to seize control of the tournament with two matches against Australia, beaten by Argentina earlier, to come, but the manner of their humiliation in Wellington will again raise scrutiny on head coach Scott Robertson.

A strong showing a week ago had quietened a few critics of Robertson’s uneven tenure so far, yet the Springboks proved their champion qualities at Sky Stadium despite significant injury disruption.

Rassie Erasmus lost lock Lood de Jager, fly half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and full-back Aphelele Fassi to first-half injuries but saw his side produce an inspired showing, with Siya Kolisi talismanic and all of Damian Willemse, Manie Libbok and Cheslin Kolbe outstanding.“We knew it was going to come,” said inside centre Willemse, who moved to full-back after Fassi’s injury.

“It was just a very good week from us. Credit to the boys, they stepped up and played a fantastic game of rugby.”

The Springboks move to second spot in the Rugby Championship table, one point behind Australia, and level with the All Blacks with Argentina just a point back after their win in Sydney earlier on Saturday.

After a weekend off, the destination of the title will be decided by back-to-back Bledisloe Cup clashes and meetings between South Africa and the Pumas, the second of which takes place at Twickenham on 3 October.

“We’ve got to be really, extremely honest with each other,” Robertson said. “We thought we had a really good week but obviously it wasn’t deep enough preparation.”

Celebrated Pretty Things drummer Viv Prince dies aged 84

The Pretty Things drummer Viv Prince has died at the age of 84.

Known for his rowdy and eccentric on-stage behaviour, Prince enjoyed a controversial 18-month stint in the rock group from 1964 to 1965, and is said to have influenced Keith Moon, The Who’s legendary drummer.

News of Prince’s death was shared on Instagram by the White Stripes frontman Jack White, who described the late musician as “wild and full of abandon”.

“I’ve received word through my friend John Baker, who knew the man well, that the great Viv Prince has just passed on,” he wrote.

“Viv was an incredible drummer, wild and full of abandon. He played for the band the Pretty Things, and he influenced many other musicians like Keith Moon.”

Continuing his tribute, White wrote that he had met Prince personally “some years ago” while the drummer was working on his farm in Portugal.

“He was an inspired and eccentric rock and roller, and maybe I’ll have to put together a team to work on a documentary about this man one day,” White added.

“Safe travels into the sweet beyond Viv, you were one of the real ones.”

Born in Loughborough in 1941, Prince started as a jazz drummer, performing in several local groups throughout the early 1960s.

He also worked as a session musician and earned a burgeoning reputation for his distinctive and charismatic drumming style.

Having joined the Pretty Things in 1964, Prince recorded two albums with the counter-cultural rock group: 1965’sThe Pretty Things and Get the Picture?

The drummer’s unruly antics became the focus of much of the media coverage of the band. He would engage in brazen pranks onstage, such as laying carpeting during other artists’ performances. Prince was expelled from the band towards the end of 1965.

In the years after his work with Pretty Things, Prince performed with artists such as the Honeycombs, the Who, and Hawkwind, and recorded with artists including Chris Barber.

Later in life, he reportedly joined the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, only to be ejected for misbehaviour.

In 1999, the Pretty Things recorded a song called “Vivian Prince” as a tribute to their former bandmate, included on the album Rage Before Beauty.

Ellen DeGeneres accused of causing California car crash in new lawsuit

Ellen DeGeneres is accused of causing a 2023 car collision in California, according to a new lawsuit.

The former talk show host, who moved to the British countryside last year, is being sued for negligence.

In court documents obtained by multiple outlets, a woman claims that on October 16, 2023, DeGeneres, 67, ran through a stop sign while driving in Santa Barbara County and “t-boned” her car.

DeGeneres’s lawyer did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, seen by People magazine, the “intersection [where the incident occurred] is controlled by stop signs in all directions.”

The plaintiff claims she stopped at the intersection and “made sure there were no other vehicles” before driving forward; however, she claims DeGeneres then “suddenly and without any warning” collided into her vehicle.

“Ellen DeGeneres entered the intersection without stopping at the stop sign,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit further accuses the comedian of exhibiting “negligent conduct [that] fell below the standard of care of a reasonable person,” adding that DeGeneres “negligently caused, or contributed to causing plaintiff’s vehicle to be collided with by the defendants’ vehicle.”

The woman says she has suffered “multiple serious personal injuries and damages” as a result.

The woman says she has lost wages and incurred hospital and medical expenses, in addition to “loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and anxiety.” She is suing DeGeneres for general negligence and seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory damages.

After her long-running eponymous talk show ended in 2022 following allegations of a toxic workplace environment, DeGeneres went on a final comedy tour around the U.S., which ended in August that year. Shortly after that, she and her wife, Portia de Rossi, bought what DeGeneres described as a “part-time house” in the Cotswolds, where they intended to spend around four months a year.

However, the couple made the move permanent in November last year, around the time Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election.

In July, DeGeneres confirmed their decision was influenced by Trump’s victory. “Yes. We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here,’” she said.

“We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty,” she added of her new life in rural England. “The villages and the towns and the architecture — everything you see is charming, and it’s just a simpler way of life. It’s clean. Everything here is just better — the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.”

Huge magnitude-7.4 quake rocks Russia’s east coast

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck near the east coast of Russia‘s Kamchatka peninsula on Saturday, according to the US Geological Survey.

The US Tsunami warning system issued a threat following the quake, but it was later called off.

The quake comes after a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake, the sixth strongest ever recorded, hit the region in July.

The USGS reported that the latest quake’s epicentre was 111.7km (69.3 miles) east of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and at a depth of about 39km (24 miles).

It is an aftershock of the M8.8 earthquake that struck on 29 July, and the largest one following the 8.8 “mainshock”, according to the American agency.

The M8.8 quake itself was preceded by several foreshocks that struck the region in previous months.

Earthquakes occur when the planet’s rocky tectonic plates, floating on magma, rub against each other, releasing massive amounts of energy.

As stress builds up due to tectonic plate movement, the built-up energy is released as seismic waves in what’s called a faulting mechanism.

The latest quake is a case of reverse faulting in which the upper block of rock, above the fault plane, moved up and over the lower block.

“The earthquake’s location and faulting mechanism are consistent with faulting along the subduction zone plate interface of the Kuril-Kamchatka arc,” the USGS said.

“At the earthquake’s location, the Pacific Plate is moving west-northwest relative to the North American Plate at a rate of approximately 80 millimetres per year,” the American agency said.

Earthquakes of this size, according to the USGS, typically involve rupture dimensions of about 70km (44 miles) in length and 35km (22 miles) in width.

“The aftershock resulted from shallow reverse faulting,” the agency said.

However, there has been no immediate reports of injuries or major damage, and the number of people living in and around the region is also “limited”, according to the USGS.

There has been no tsunami warning issued in Japan, to the southwest of the Kamchatka Peninsula, broadcaster NHK reported, citing the Japan Meteorological Agency.

I wish my mum had contacted Macmillan Cancer Support

I wasn’t at my mum’s side when she learned she had breast cancer, but that made me determined to be there the day she was getting the all-clear 18-months later. However, things didn’t go to plan that day.

Mum’s cancer journey started over a decade ago, a few months after a routine mammogram – when she developed “a pain”. She told herself it was probably nothing, because the scan she’d just had was fine. When she mentioned it to her GP – a small lump that didn’t feel quite right – she convinced herself that she was just being silly. The biopsy begged to differ.

In the list you keep in your head of the cancers you worry your mum might get, breast wasn’t that high on mine. Yes, it’s long been the number one cancer affecting women, with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that about 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year  – the risk factor only increasing with age. But my mum had other health concerns to contend with.

As a schoolgirl in swinging London, she’d been a back-of-the-bikeshed smoker, which had graduated into a lifelong habit. Lung cancer seemed like a possibility.

Mum’s also the biggest sun worshipper I know. Long before any of us had heard of SPF, she would think nothing of spending an afternoon in the garden, stretched out on a blanket, slathered in baby oil. So, given what we know now about UV radiation, I wondered about skin cancer too.

Mum went on to have a series of lumpectomies to get rid of three spots of malignant tissue. She would also have lymph nodes removed as a precaution, as well as undergo extensive chemotherapy.

For me, her diagnosis was as though a stopwatch had been started. How long might she have left? She did her best to be stoic. Which was just as well, given what government austerity measures at the time were doing to the NHS: budget cuts, hapless reorganisations, and an end to the “gold-standard” two-week referral from detection to the start of treatment.

All mum could do was wait for the brown envelopes to drop on the doormat detailing appointments at unfamiliar hospitals many miles away, sometimes after the appointment had been and gone.

If she felt let down by the bureaucracy of our health service, the same could not be said for the army of individuals involved in her care. On a human level, she found her nurses and doctors to be uniquely composed and compassionate throughout her treatment.

When the day finally came for her oncologist to tell her that all the signs of her cancer had gone, I was invited along to hold her hand. “The scans are back,” he began. “And I need to discuss your options for the next course of action.” It seemed the cancer hadn’t quite gone after all. She had fought so hard to get to this point, she was expecting good news, and was unprepared for the knockback.

But she did go on to beat cancer – and has been in remission for more than five years, which we couldn’t be more grateful for. However, should it ever come back, there’s one thing we’d do differently from the off: make a call to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Only with hindsight, did we realise how much help Macmillan would have been. Someone to provide her with a calming companion for the journey, someone to help with the cancer admin – the appointments, the prescriptions, the test results – and someone to explain what all the scans and tests were for, what the results might mean, and what to expect next.

I couldn’t always be around while mum was living with cancer, and that’s where Macmillan steps in. Now, enjoying a slice of cake at a Coffee Morning, which is raising money to fund the work they do, seems like the least I can do.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

Lawyer for Air India families says one key theory has emerged

A lawyer representing families of those killed in June’s devastating Air India crash has dismissed claims that the pilots may have deliberately or mistakenly shut off fuel controls before the aircraft plunged into a building, killing 260 people.

Mike Andrews, who is pursuing lawsuits against Boeing on behalf of more than 100 families, said in an interview with The Independent that the suggestion of “self-sabotage” or gross pilot error is not only unsupported by evidence but also unjust to the dead.

Flight AI171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operated by Air India, took off from Ahmedabad on 12 June bound for London. Less than two minutes into the journey, the aircraft lost power, veered off course and struck a medical college building near the runway.

All 229 passengers, 12 crew members and 19 people on the ground were killed. Among the victims were 52 British citizens. Only one man, Leicester resident Vishwashkumar Ramesh, survived after being thrown clear of the fuselage.

It was the first fatal crash involving the Dreamliner, Boeing’s flagship long-haul aircraft introduced in 2011 and hailed for its fuel efficiency and modern design. The carbon-fibre twin-engined 787 was designed partly as a replacement for Boeing’s veteran 767 – but also to introduce passenger-friendly benefits such as larger windows and higher cabin pressure.

The Dreamliner was also friendly to airlines’ bottom lines, burning about 20 per cent less fuel than the 767, and allowed airlines’ network planners to dream of ultra-long routes.

But Mr Andrews argues that the aircraft had been dogged by technical concerns, particularly involving its potable water system – that supplies safe, drinkable water for passengers and crew – and its proximity to sensitive electronics.

He pointed to a trail of Boeing bulletins to airlines dating back years and recent regulatory warnings from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), all raising alarms over water leaks.

“Going back to 2016, 2017 and 2018 there were bulletins to air carriers in the United States to perform waterproofing maintenance,” Mr Andrews said.

“In particular, it speaks to couplings that join water lines underneath lavatories and galley areas. I’ve purchased some of these couplings myself – they’re simple clamshell devices that hold two lines together.

“But the way the final shroud is fitted can loosen the latch, and over time that leads to leaks. We know from FAA notices and directives that water has been found on 787s leaking into equipment bays, and in some cases equipment had to be replaced.”

The compartment he refers to is the aircraft’s electronics equipment bay, or EE bay. It sits beneath the cabin floor and houses the computers that control almost every aspect of the flight, including the full authority digital engine control, known as Fadec.

The Fadec is essentially the aircraft’s engine brain. Unlike older jets, where pilots manually controlled fuel flow, modern engines depend on this computer to regulate thrust, fuel injection and performance.

Fadec is a sophisticated digital computer system in aircraft that automatically controls all aspects of engine performance by receiving data from sensors, calculating optimal settings, and adjusting fuel flow and other engine parameters to maximise efficiency and performance while ensuring safety.

According to the FAA, “if the Fadec fails, the engine fails”.

Mr Andrews said a water leak does not have to destroy equipment outright to be dangerous. “Even if it doesn’t ruin the component, it can trigger a reset. And that cascade can initiate an engine shutdown. In Ahmedabad, we saw both engines shut down or lose thrust within seconds – that is extraordinarily unlikely without a common cause. Water reaching those systems is one plausible explanation.”

The FAA itself highlighted the risk only weeks before the crash.

On 14 May, the regulator issued an Airworthiness Directive – an order that requires mandatory checks – warning that “water leakage from the potable water system due to improperly installed waterline couplings” had been reported, and that such leaks could cause “equipment in the EE bays to become wet resulting in an electrical short and potential loss of system functions essential for safe flight”.

The directive ordered inspections of Dreamliners for missing sealant and moisture barriers.

Yet Mr Andrews said the directive lacked urgency.

“My understanding is that this directive wasn’t due to take effect until about six days after our crash. Obviously there’s insufficient urgency when something has apparently been known by Boeing for years. Aviation safety affects everyone.

“And one concern is that the FAA has authority inside the United States, but outside the US things often lose urgency, whether it’s political protection or simply a breakdown in communication.”

The Independent has reached out to Boeing seeking a response on the allegations.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has floated a different possibility.

A preliminary report, published in July, said both of the plane’s fuel switches moved to the “cut-off” position “immediately” after take-off, stopping fuel supply to the engine.

“In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cut-off. The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report read.

That has fuelled theories of self-sabotage by pilots, or that one of them mistakenly switched the fuel supply off.

Mr Andrews cautioned against drawing such a conclusion.

“We don’t know what that exchange refers to. If there has been a reset of the Fadec or the electrical bus – essentially the main breaker system – then in that moment one pilot’s panel could shut down. Is it possible he was saying, ‘Why did you turn it off?’ about his own controls? We don’t know. That’s the point. It is premature conjecture to solely blame the pilots when we don’t yet have all the data.”

He said such insinuations are deeply damaging for victims’ families.

“The way the preliminary report was issued, the way it leaves out critical data, the way it insinuates rather than calls out what happened, has caused our clients to all question transparency.

“They are not convinced by the pilot error narrative. And I have cautioned them all to be patient, because it is just as wrong to blame the pilots without information as it would be for me to unequivocally blame Boeing without data. What we are saying is: wait for the full evidence.”

Part of that evidence may come from whistleblowers. Mr Andrews confirmed that four individuals with what he described as “vital technical and engineering information” have contacted his team since the crash.

While he declined to identify their backgrounds, he said they included individuals from “different layers of the aerospace industry”.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean they are inside Boeing,” he said. “The aviation industry has layers – subcontractors, maintenance engineers, suppliers. We’ve been contacted by people who’ve done their own analysis as well as people with direct aerospace experience. What’s important is to keep our field of view broad so we don’t miss something by focusing too early on one theory.”

While Mr Andrews confirmed that they have not yet filed a lawsuit in court, his legal team is gathering evidence and has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the United States to obtain data from the flight recorders.

The Indian authorities have so far said they intend to keep the analysis within India.

There are also other concerns. Mr Andrews said his team is curious about whether leaks could have affected the lithium-ion batteries located in the tail section of the Dreamliner.

Those batteries, already known for their susceptibility to “thermal runaway” – an uncontrollable heating event – could pose additional hazards if exposed to moisture. “We’re curious whether water leaking into that area could trigger problems,” he said.

The sole survivor’s account has also shaped Mr Andrews’ thinking. In an interview with the BBC, he said that lights inside the aircraft “started flickering” moments after take off. Within five to 10 seconds of being airborne, it felt like the plane was “stuck in the air”.

“The lights started flickering green and white…suddenly [we] slammed into a building and exploded,” he said.

Mr Andrews said the accounts of lights flashing and changing colour “are all data points suggesting electrical issues”.

“Once we receive the timeline for why the ram air turbine deployed – a small emergency windmill that only comes out in certain electrical failures – we’ll be in a better position to know what precipitated this.”

For families, the legal battle is about more than money.

Mr Andrews said they have two overriding goals: “One is to learn what happened, why it happened, how it happened. The second is to prevent this from ever happening again. Every client has told us that. They want transparency and accountability. They want to know whether this tragedy could have been avoided.”

Some are also facing frustration regarding compensation from Air India. Mr Andrews said disputes within families over entitlements, combined with delays, have left some with “no answers, no compensation, no nothing – just a loss”.

As lawsuits take shape, Mr Andrews said manufacturers must not be allowed to push blame downstream. “If a coupling is defective, that’s on the subcomponent maker. If Boeing sells a completed aircraft that allows water to drip into flight computers, that’s on Boeing. What they cannot do is release defective equipment and expect airlines to engineer their way around it. That is not right.”

He said reforms will depend on the eventual findings, but the broader issue is oversight. The Dreamliner, like other US aircraft, was partly certified under a system known as ODA, where Boeing itself had authority to approve designs on the FAA’s behalf.

“A big question is whether this should have been caught during certification,” Mr Andrews said asking, if Boeing knew of leaks, “why wasn’t there more urgency about water dripping into flight computers? That to me is a serious issue.”

The Independent put these concerns to Boeing in a detailed questionnaire. The airline said it would “defer to the AAIB to provide information about [Flight] AI171”, citing international protocols around crashes.

For now, families are still waiting. Mr Andrews said their patience is not infinite. “They’ve earned the right to know what happened here and each of them… wants to prevent this from ever happening to any other family.”