South Africa were important opponents in shaping the career of Paul O’Connell.

Specifically, the year 2009 was vital. It pitched the legendary lock into action against the Springboks four times. He led the Lions in three Tests against South Africa, including the ageless, brutal second match that clinched the series for South Africa.

It was a gruelling tour for the captain, who commanded widespread respect from coaches and players, but whose leadership was subjected to lingering focus from parts of the media once the series was lost.

Four months after that tour came one of the signal triumphs of his playing career in Ireland colours.

It was a night of freezing fog in Croke Park on Saturday, November 28 that year. And it was second only to the England game in 2007 as rugby’s greatest 80 minutes in the home of the GAA.

Ireland won the game 15-10, thanks to five penalties from Johnny Sexton; he was winning his second cap for his country.

But the game became famous for the extent of O’Connell’s preparation. It emerged afterwards that he had asked Gert Smal, the South African who was Ireland’s forwards’ coach at the time, to teach him to count to ten in Afrikaans. This helped him to decode the opposition line-out calls, and so the best set-piece in the world, led by the mighty Victor Matfield and captain John Smit, came apart.

You wonder late on Saturday night in Nantes, with the crowd now fully dissipated and management urging the Irish players to conclude their media chat and get on the bus home, if O’Connell misses being a player in a week like this one.

His response begins with a deep laugh.

‘No, not any more, not any more,’ he says. ‘I enjoy what I do. This is a different group. They’re kind of different to us, they do things differently so I enjoy where I am.

‘I try not to think about playing too much.’

Coaching is a consolation that allows him to pursue the standards that led him to captaining the Lions. And so given his meticulousness and the expectations created by the Andy Farrell regime generally, the line-out creakiness of recent Tests must have been a frustration.

It could have descended into a much more serious state if it hadn’t come right against Tonga, because it is an aspect of the game with a two-fold significance next Saturday.

Firstly, Ireland’s attacking game makes fruitful use of the line-out, both from mauls and as a way of starting wider attacks. And secondly, South Africa go after the opposition throw with frenzied relish. If there is any weakness, they’ll exploit it and Irish ambitions will be in a vulnerable state.

To see Ireland repair theirs as an attacking weapon in Nantes was important.

‘It was something the lads identified,’ explains O’Connell, ‘that Tonga stay down in a lot of their defence, and they hit you quite hard at the start, so we just transferred it.

‘And we had Bundee in there as well adding a little bit of weight to the maul. It’s always great.

‘It’s hard to score maul tries in international rugby. It’s a tricky thing to do. To be able to go to the corner and be able to grab one of those in a game is always excellent.

‘You’re building generally when you end up five meters from the line. It’s on the back of a penalty already. You’ve already created something, so to be able to go to the corner and score something is great.’

The presence of Aki was significant in the try scored by Caelan Doris on the night. It seems obvious to add such a powerful presence, but it’s also characteristic of the clever moves that have characterised Ireland’s attack.

‘Sometimes you don’t know exactly how it’s going to go, those little trick plays, but we drilled it well all week and it worked, so we’re happy enough with that,’ says James Ryan.

‘There was good variation as well. We had a couple of drives and peel, and obviously played off the top as well. It was good, so we’re happy enough with it.’

Ronan Kelleher was accomplished with his throwing, succeeding with 11 of 12, while Ireland’s overall return, with Rob Herring playing the second half, was 21 from 23.

‘We’ve just been working on a few little tweaks here and there,’ says Kelleher, who had an outstanding game in the loose as well. He must be in strong contention to start in the Stade de France, especially if there is any concern that Dan Sheehan is not ready to go from six weeks on the sideline to the incomparable challenge of taking on the Boks.

‘Not that we’ve been bad, but we’ve been really trying to focus on ourselves,’ he says. ‘Yeah, it was good to see that, all that work kind of pay off. The forwards did the job to make sure they were drilled each time. It made our job a lot easier as hookers.’

Then it’s suggested to Ryan that the entire challenge Ireland faces, in every facet of play, goes up this week. ‘We’re happy with that,’ he instantly replies.

South Africa are world champions, and an enormous obstacle.

But they are now peers for this Ireland generation. This is not a group that cowers before reputations, or that is stooped by history’s miserable burden.

They play and beat the best teams in the world, not because of luck or cosmic flukes, but because of talent, preparation and belief.

‘It was one of our better performances for a while,’ says Ryan. ‘I think it will give us confidence, but it’s a whole different level next week. We’ll get excited about it now as well.

‘The support tonight was just crazy, wasn’t it? Crazy stuff. The colour as well, walking around. I mean, the expectation and level of support next week is going to be unbelievable. So, we’ll get excited about that as well, but obviously we know it’s a huge step up.’

They are relishing the colour and noise inside the Stade de France. Unlike the past two weeks, when the only support for the opposition came from locals picking the underdogs, there will be a vast South African support.

Given the number of South African ex-pats living in the UK, expect two shades of green to flood the French capital.

‘Yeah it doesn’t get any better,’ smiles Ryan, quietly excellent on Saturday.

‘Well, maybe it does but it’s going to be hard to beat. The World Cup, in Paris, against the champions: it’s pretty cool alright.’

And you know and he knows how it could get better, but talk like that must wait. Saturday governs everything now.

A rising Republican star tipped by many to be Donald Trump‘s running mate should he win the presidential nomination has been involved in a clandestine affair for years, multiple sources tell DailyMail.com.

Married South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, 51 – who stresses her belief in ‘family values’ – and Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who is also married, began carrying on in 2019, if not before.

Now news of the relationship threatens to wreck Noem’s chances of joining Trump’s ticket in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden.

Neither denied the affair when asked by DailyMail.com. The Governor issued a statement attacking us for the timing of the article, while Lewandowski did not respond to a request for comment

However, after the initial publication of the article, Noem’s spokesman Ian Fury vehemently insisted the pair had never had an affair.

The two met up on Friday last week when Lewandowski traveled with Trump to Rapid City, South Dakota, for a campaign rally. But the pair – who were made aware of a pending story about their relationship – were careful to have no public interaction in contrast to previous occasions, as DailyMail.com’s exclusive photos show.

Glamorous Noem – who served four terms as her state’s only member of the US House of Representatives – won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have ‘long embraced’.

Defending ‘traditional marriage’, which she defined as ‘a special, God-given union between one man and one woman’, was particularly important to her.

It was the foundation for her beliefs, policy priorities and the ideals she lives by, said Noem, who has a son and two daughters with her husband Bryon who she married in 1992.

She has long been linked with Lewandowski, 49, who has been pushing hard for Trump to add her to his ticket.

‘He may not be very smart, but it takes big balls to lobby to have your mistress named one of the most powerful people in the country,’ one GOP operative told DailyMail.com. 

The far-right website American Greatness claimed in 2021 the two had been romantically involved, although it gave no details.

At the time she scornfully dismissed the story as ‘total garbage and a disgusting lie’, and said she loved her husband and was ‘proud of the God-fearing family’ they had raised, and the story quickly died.

But a DailyMail.com investigation has uncovered extensive evidence of the couple’s romantic relationship: Dozens of trips that mixed business with pleasure, flights on donors’ private planes, and stays at luxury resorts where their intimacy was observed and noted.

Former Trump operative Charles Johnson wrote in a Substack post that he had seen them acting ‘in a very flirtatious manner’ at the August 2020 meeting of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) at The Cloister resort on Sea Island, Georgia.

Johnson told DailyMail.com he had seen Noem discreetly take Lewandowski’s hand and put it in her lap. Lewandowski put his arm on her back at the same time.

The pair ‘seemed to be dating despite being married to other people’, Johnson wrote on Substack.

Two other sources who were at the RAGA event were surprised by the obvious affection between Noem and Lewandowski. 

‘A lot of people were talking about it,’ says one, a conservative political strategist who saw the two as they were headed off for a long walk on the beach.

Event organizers were happy to have Noem on hand because of her star quality, but her presence was unexpected as South Dakota’s then-attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, was there to represent the state.

Noem and Lewandowski have often traveled together – frequently on private planes provided by Republican power brokers.

‘We often had no idea where she was, or even if she was in state or out of state, she would simply disappear,’ one staffer in Pierre, the South Dakota capital, told DailyMail.com.

Fury, the governor’s spokesman said in his initial statement: ‘This is so predictable that you would attack Governor Noem less than a week after she endorsed Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States.

‘As Governor Noem said during that endorsement speech: “Yes, I will be attacked for speaking the truth to all of you tonight. Yes, I expect Joe Biden, these candidates, their political operatives, and the media will perpetuate ugly, hateful misinformation in an attempt to destroy me and my family because of my opinions. 

‘It’s nothing new. I’m getting used to it honestly.” ‘

Lewandowski, who married 9/11 widow Alison Hardy in 2005 and has four children, did not respond to requests for comment.

He allegedly had an affair with campaign press secretary Hope Hicks, and in the run-up to the 2016 election he was arrested for manhandling Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields at a press conference in Florida. Charges were later dropped.

After Trump’s election, Lewandowski gained a reputation for being a loose cannon. 

‘Corey was always running his mouth off, and after a few drinks you could see the pin starting to fall out of the grenade,’ a defense contractor who knew him said.

Following a party at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, singer Joy Villa filed a police report against Lewandowski for sexual assault, saying he ‘smacked my ass really hard’, and that it was ‘almost violent in nature’.

By 2019 he was a key advisor to Noem and the pair went on a deep-sea fishing trip hosted by the late conservative billionaire and GOP mega-donor Foster Friess, who along with his wife, Lynn, ranked among Noem’s top political and financial supporters.

In October 2019, when her state was blanketed by an early snowstorm, the governor, accompanied by Lewandowski, embarked on at least a week of travel that included stops at three political events.

Noem’s appearance at these affairs doesn’t seem to have been essential, especially as she had been in office for only 10 months at that point and was already drawing criticism over the time and money she was spending on out-of-state travel.

On October 5, the duo attended the Denim & Diamonds Gala fundraiser in Carmel, Indiana, which raises money for the agricultural industry.

Four days later, they were at another fundraiser, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for a conservative website called The Hayride. 

From there they traveled to AmpFest, a regular gathering of the MAGA hard core held at a Trump property in Miami.

Noem’s appearance at AmpFest, which stretched over parts of at least two days, seems particularly superfluous.

Her presence wasn’t even announced and a source who was also there reported she spent much of her time leisurely accompanying Lewandowski on his rounds and sharing food, drink and other VIP perks.

‘It was not an A-tier event,’ says the source, a Trump Administration official. ‘It was weird to see a governor from the other side of the country be there.’

The two spent so much time at AmpFest cozily secluded, the official concluded that they were a couple happily in love.

He spotted them several times when he drove a golf cart to a remote building on the property where Lewandowski and other VIPs were lodged. 

‘I had met Corey a few times, but that was the first time I saw Kristi,’ he recalled. ‘I told Corey it was nice to meet his wife.

‘He looked at me and said, ‘That’s not my wife’.’

In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Noem and Lewandowski became virtually inseparable companions on the Trump campaign trail.

By then, their relationship was an open secret at the White House and among high-level GOP lobbyists and political consultants.

‘It became a joke,’ says the Trump Administration employee who had first seen them at AMPFest.

‘Every time someone said something about how Kristi would be a savior to the conservative movement, someone else would say, ‘Right, the savior that’s f**king Corey Lewandowski’.’

In summer 2021, Noem and Lewandowski were at the Republican Governors Association event at the St. Regis in Aspen, Colorado.

According to sources on hand or who heard directly about what transpired from multiple people that were, Noem missed several events she was expected to attend.

The reason, said one, was she was ‘holed up’ with her companion, who had been given a room at the nearby Hotel Jerome, much to Noem’s annoyance.

‘She raised a stink about it with event organizers and succeeded in getting Lewandowski transferred to a room at the St. Regis near hers,’ another source said.

In September that year Lewandowski and Noem were off again, this time to a Las Vegas fundraiser for an organization that fights substance abuse.

Noem was the keynote speaker at the event, which was held at a Benihana restaurant – Lewandowski officially attended in his capacity as head of the super-PAC Trump had appointed him to the prior year.

According to published accounts, after quickly getting drunk, Lewandowski was escorted to a banquet table where he joined dignitaries including Trashelle Odom, wife of a major Trump donor, construction executive John Odom.

Lewandowski propositioned Odom after disclosing that he had once stabbed two people to death, that his penis was way longer than normal, and showed her his hotel key.

In a complaint to police, Odom said Lewandowski’s ‘statements, demeanor and aggressive behavior’ made her ‘intimidated and frightened and fearful for my safety and that of my family members.’

When Odom tried to change the subject by asking Lewandowski about his wife, he told her he satisfied his sexual needs ‘elsewhere’.

He also shared that he found Governor Noem ‘hot’.

Odom fled the table after Lewandowski touched her behind, but he chased after her, threw a drink at her, and called her ‘stupid’.

Trump immediately fired him from his super-PAC post and Noem announced she was axing him too from his role as her senior political advisor.

Yet Noem didn’t sever the relationship. 

In fact, the morning after the Benihana incident, the two flew on a private plane, provided by a donor, to Santa Barbara, California, where Noem spoke at a Young America’s Foundation event at Rancho del Cielo, President Reagan’s vacation home.

‘When Las Vegas happened, she fired him without really firing him,’ a source revealed. ‘He never left.’

Noem didn’t want word to leak that Lewandowski was still working for her and that they continued to spend after-hours time together, especially to her family. 

‘Her husband would have lost his mind,’ the source said, so Noem ‘only told staffers that needed to know’.

The source described Lewandowski’s Las Vegas clownery as par for the course at the governor’s office as well.

He’d make comments about Noem’s appearance – ‘that she was hot or had a nice ass’, said the source.

‘Kristi would make excuses for his behavior and apologize to staffers for him.’

Six months after the Vegas incident, Noem and Lewandowski made plans to book a hotel room together in Seattle while there for an event to raise money for Republican candidate Jesse Jensen, an informed source said.

Then in April 2022 they went together to a Houston fundraiser for GOP candidate Greg Travis.

Travis posted a photograph on Twitter of himself and his wife standing with the couple. Lewandowski was beaming. Noem did not look so happy.The following month, Politico reported that the governor had officially brought Lewandowski back as a political adviser.

Noem then implemented additional procedures – including instructing staffers not to share her private schedule with her husband – in hopes of minimizing more information seeping out about the scope of his role or their personal relationship, two former staffers told DailyMail.com.

They continued to travel together when she was promoting her memoir in July 2022.

Last week when Lewandowski traveled to South Dakota, Noem greeted the arrivals on the tarmac, but she and Lewandowski were careful to have zero interaction in public. 

The presence of Noem’s husband Bryon – who is said to ‘detest’ the operative – and her mother Corinne Arnold may have contributed to the apparent snub.

‘The governor and her husband welcomed everyone as they disembarked in Rapid City – first Secret Service and then other members of the team who had traveled with the former President,’ said one onlooker.

‘When Lewandowski began coming down the stairs Noem was looking in the other direction. He clearly registered her and almost immediately he looked away and off to the left. 

‘As he did Noem looked over towards him before she too immediately looked the other way.’

‘But unlike other members of Trump’s party, Lewandowski walked straight past the state’s first couple. ‘He can hardly have had time to say ‘Hi’,’ said the witness.

One political operative told DailyMail.com the ethics and propriety of a  romance between Noem and Lewandowski is in some ways in the eye of the beholder.

‘I’m a cynical political consultant, so I assume everybody is f**king somebody,’ he said, and in his personal case, he wasn’t surprised or bothered by the idea that Noem would have an extramarital affair while simultaneously promoting her brand as a conservative Christian.

‘But,’ he concluded, ‘if I put on my normal-person hat, especially in a state like South Dakota, where family values are important, yes, I think a lot of people would be mind-blowingly angry.’

As news of a South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s secret affair with Corey Lewandowski came to light, questions have swirled about the state’s First Gentleman.

Bryon Noem, who says ‘marrying Kristi was the best decision he ever made,’ has stayed silent amid the explosive revelations.

Bryon has often loomed in the shadows as Noem ascended through politics – eventually taking the helm of South Dakota as their 33rd governor in 2018 when she promised to uphold the wholesome family values the state has ‘long embraced.’

According to the governor’s website, The 33rd First Gentleman grew up on a farm near Bryant where he says his love of small towns began. 

Bryon is an American businessman, rancher and insurer but is best known for his role as Noem’s second half.

Graduating from Northern State University with a degree in business and finance Bryon worked on the family farm, coached basketball and eventually moved into the world of insurance.

He met Noem in high school when she had aspirations of becoming a farmer and rancher. 

Together the pair operated a farm and ranch, opened an ice cream store helped manage a family restaurant, and pursued numerous other business ventures together.

While photographs of the couple show them beaming as they embrace and in front of the cameras, at least, showing a united front.

The pair had three children which they describe as their ‘greatest accomplishment’ –  Kassidy, Kennedy, and Booker.

As the glamorous Noem takes center stage, most recently endorsing Trump at a party fundraiser in Rapid City, Bryon continues to operate an insurance agency in Bryant and Watertown and coaches basketball.

His focus as First Gentleman of South Dakota has always been to keep small towns thriving given his personal history.

‘I am proud to be from rural South Dakota. It’s where I learned the values of hard work and self-reliance, where Kristi and I chose to raise our kids, where we started an insurance business and hunting lodge, and where my family has farmed and ranched for a century,’ he explained on his bio.

‘But many small towns like ours are struggling today. Class sizes are dropping. Businesses can’t afford to stay open. And fewer kids are coming home to farm or ranch. 

‘While South Dakota has grown by more than 100,000 people since 2000, rural populations have decreased. 

He added that seeing the larger communities flourish is ‘exciting’ but didn’t want to ‘lose South Dakota’s rural culture.’

‘I want to remind people that these are some of the best places to raise a family or start a business,’ he said.

‘I want to show that our way of life here is worth celebrating and promoting. I want to listen to peoples’ stories and learn from their experiences, then share them with others.’

News of the affair between Married Noem and Lewandowski, who is also married, broke on Friday.

The clandestine relationship could threaten to wreck Noem’s chances of joining Trump’s ticket in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden.

Neither denied the affair when asked by DailyMail.com. The Governor issued a statement questioning the timing of the article, while Lewandowski did not respond to a request for comment. 

However, after the initial publication of the article, Noem’s spokesman Ian Fury vehemently insisted the pair had never had an affair. 

The two met up on Friday last week when Lewandowski traveled with Trump to Rapid City, South Dakota, for a campaign rally. 

But the pair – who were made aware of a pending story about their relationship – were careful to have no public interaction in contrast to previous occasions, as DailyMail.com’s exclusive photos show.

Glamorous Noem – who served four terms as her state’s only member of the US House of Representatives – won the governorship in 2018 promising to uphold the wholesome family values that she said South Dakotans have ‘long embraced’.

Defending ‘traditional marriage,’ which she defined as ‘a special, God-given union between one man and one woman’, was particularly important to her.

It was the foundation for her beliefs, policy priorities and the ideals she lives by, said Noem, who has a son and two daughters with her husband Bryon who she married in 1992.

She has long been linked with Lewandowski, 49, who has been pushing hard for Trump to add her to his ticket.

The far-right website American Greatness claimed in 2021 the two had been romantically involved, although it gave no details.

At the time she scornfully dismissed the story as ‘total garbage and a disgusting lie’, and said she loved her husband and was ‘proud of the God-fearing family’ they had raised, and the story quickly died.

But a DailyMail.com investigation has uncovered extensive evidence of the couple’s romantic relationship: Dozens of trips that mixed business with pleasure, flights on donors’ private planes, and stays at luxury resorts where their intimacy was observed and noted.

Lewandowski, who married 9/11 widow Alison Hardy in 2005 and has four children, did not respond to requests for comment.

He allegedly had an affair with campaign press secretary Hope Hicks, and in the run-up to the 2016 election he was arrested for manhandling Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields at a press conference in Florida. Charges were later dropped.

Manie Libbok’s no-look pass to set up Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try for South Africa leaves fans blown away during win over Scotland as they hail the ‘outstanding’ Springboks star

By Ash Rose For Mailonline

Published: 14:03 EDT, 10 September 2023 | Updated: 14:46 EDT, 10 September 2023

Donald Trump was in South Dakota on Friday night for a party fundraiser that doubled as an opportunity for the state’s governor, Kristi Noem, to showcase herself as a potential vice presidential pick.

Trump joined the South Dakota Republican Party for a ‘Monumental Leaders Rally’ in Rapid City. 

Noem appeared alongside the former president and endorsed him, creating an image of the pair that Noem’s allies hope make her look like vice presidential material. 

Sources have told the New York Times that she has her eye on a vice presidential spot. 

Noem, 51, has been touted as a future presidential candidate – with a spell in the White House certain to bring her to national prominence and help turbocharge any future presidential ambitions. 

Trump’s decision to headline the event underscores his dominance in the Republican race even as he faces four separate indictments and 91 felony counts.

South Dakota holds a late primary and isn’t competitive in a general election. 

With a huge lead in the polls, Trump is skipping much of the traditional primary campaign.

Instead of large-scale rallies, he is relying on state party events that offer large, friendly audiences at no cost to his campaign, while his political organization pays millions of dollars in legal expenses.

Friday’s visit by Trump was something of an audition for Noem. 

She planned the event as a way to both offer her endorsement and maximize face time with Trump as he considers potential 2024 running mates and cabinet members, according to one of the Republicans who spoke anonymously. A spokesman for the governor has declined to comment.

Noem will be term-limited in 2026 and, after declining to run for president this year, is eyeing her next move to maintain prominence in the GOP.

‘I think Donald Trump has a 50-50 shot of getting elected at this point, so why not hitch your wagon to him if you can?’ said Michael Card, a longtime observer of South Dakota politics who suggested Noem might also make a future National Rifle Association president or conservative commentator.

Voting won’t begin for several months and Trump’s indictments and upcoming criminal trials create an unprecedented situation that many strategists argue could influence the race in unexpected ways. 

That hasn’t stopped those who are keen to be considered as Trump’s running mate from openly jockeying for the position and trying to curry favor with him and his aides.

Aides caution it is far too early for serious discussions, but Trump has indicated in conversations that he is interested in selecting a woman this time around, having fallen out with his former Vice President Mike Pence.

Aides say Trump has little interest in choosing a VP and views the role as a largely ceremonial one that’s vastly inferior to that of the president, according to the outlet.

But prospective candidates like Noem realize that it could still be used as a stepping stone to the top job. 

Joe Biden and George HW Bush are among nine former vice presidents who later became presidents.

Among the other names that have been floated: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds and Sen. Tim Scott have also been mentioned.

Trump will be in Iowa, the first state on the GOP nomination calendar, on Saturday to attend the college football game between Iowa and Iowa State.

‘What we’re focused on is just locking up this primary and pivoting towards the general election,’ said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.

Noem was long considered a potential White House contender in her own right and had told The New York Times in November that she didn’t believe Trump offered ‘the best chance’ for the party in 2024. 

She has since said she saw no point in joining the crowded field running for the nomination given Trump’s dominant position.

‘I would in a heartbeat,’ she told Newsmax when asked this week about whether she would consider joining a potential Trump ticket if asked. 

‘President Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House, and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck, but also having a wife, mom and a grandma isn’t bad either.’

It will be Trump’s first visit to South Dakota since the summer of 2020, when he headlined a Fourth of July fireworks celebration at Mount Rushmore on the eve of Independence Day. 

The then-president had been looking for a venue to turn the page after a summer of pandemic lockdowns and racial justice protests. 

Noem’s event at Mount Rushmore was notably devoid of pandemic restrictions.

She also gifted him a miniature replica of Mount Rushmore with his likeness carved alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Trump said Thursday when asked if Noem will endorse him. ‘But I am going. I like her a lot. I think she’s great. Kristi’s done a great job.’ 

He has often praised her handling of the pandemic, saying again on Thursday she had done ‘a fantastic job.’

A former member of Congress, Noem in 2018 squeezed out a surprisingly close win over a Democratic challenger to become South Dakota’s first female governor. 

She rose to national prominence with a mostly hands-off approach to the pandemic and tacked closely to the urgings of Trump to return to life as normal.

She handily won reelection last year, even as she performed worse than other Republicans on the ballot.

Despite not running for president, Noem has continued to position herself nationally.

She has been an outspoken champion for the National Rifle Association, even bragging at a spring convention for the gun-rights group that her one-year-old granddaughter ‘already has’ firearms. 

She has also defended South Dakota’s abortion ban and will appear at a Michigan fundraiser later this month to support Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers.

During the first GOP presidential debate, she appeared in an ad to encourage businesses and families to move to what she calls ‘the freest state in America.’

Friday’s event is expected to draw protesters targeting both Trump and Noem, said Annie Bachand, CEO of the South Dakota-based group Liberty & Justice for All.

‘The reason that we show up is to demonstrate to other people that we’re not alone,’ Bachand said. 

‘Kristi Noem has spent more time out campaigning for I don’t know what than she has in South Dakota. She has more interest in her own self-interest than she does in taking care of the people of South Dakota.’

South Dakota GOP chair John Wiik said he expects about 7,000 people to attend the sold-out fundraiser. 

The event was first planned as a Lincoln Day-style fundraising dinner commonly held by local Republican groups, Wiik said, but it later ballooned into a rally with proceeds going to the state party.

‘I did get a lot of questions at first,’ Wiik said about Trump’s decision to travel to his state just as the primary season kicks into its traditional post-Labor Day overdrive.

‘But the more you look at it, Trump is a media event wherever he lands,’ Wiik said. 

‘He could do a rally on the moon and he’d spread his word and get just as many people, so I’m just glad he chose South Dakota.’

The Royal Naval College is bathed in sunlight as we arrive in Dartmouth, the port from which Crusaders set sail in 1190, to reclaim the Holy Land.

My own mission is less elevated and certainly more enjoyable. As a feeble-footed walker with a scrambled sense of direction, I am to be passed, like a baton in a relay race, from friend to concerned friend on a four-day walk along a modest 30-mile section of the South West Coast Path. It will take me from Dartmouth to Hope Cove, sampling Devon’s fresh-and-local culinary scene along the way.

The path, all 630 miles, is the longest trail in England and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Our chosen stretch is rich in motivation: the prospect of all that fish, crab and lobster, and the abundance of boutique dairies, wineries and distilleries garnering awards in this part of the world.

Sailing boats bob in the sparkling estuary, as Friend No 1 and I make for a waterfront watering hole, Embankment, to toast the start of our trip. This curious building was a railway station until 1972. It is, possibly, the only station in the world where you needed to cross a river to reach the train.

Our 14th Century lodgings, Bayards Cove Inn, offers an excellent dinner of smoked haddock fishcakes. Through these leaded windows 400 years ago, I might have watched the Pilgrims board the Mayflower at the cobbled quayside a few steps away.

Armed with an Ordnance Survey we set off next morning, first reaching 12th Century St Petrox Church, whose graveyard has views over the Dart Estuary.

It’s an easy walk along country lanes, flanked by drystone walls speckled with lichens. We descend to Blackpool Sands in time for lunch: cod and chips on a pristine Blue Flag beach. Families shelter behind stripy, 1950s-style wind-breaks – the scene is pure Beryl Cook.

Fortified, we continue through emerald velvet fields of unshorn sheep to Slapton Sands, where rehearsals took place for the D-Day Landings. The shingle is hard going but the sea air is invigorating.

At Torcross, a decision has to be made: do we take a short cut via the coast and risk being stranded by the tide or attempt the longer, forest route over the cliffs? No 1 advises caution and, by the time we reach The Cricket Inn at the fishing village of Beesands, parched, the only sensible antidote is a large Salcombe gin on the sea wall.

Dinner is a feast of fat whitebait, scallops and sea bream. I sleep well, the beam from distant Start Point lighthouse winking away.

The next morning, after breakfast (kippers), Friend No 2 and I make for the ghost village of Hallsands, which collapsed into the sea and is now inhabited by kittiwakes.

Rounding the point where seals bask on rocks, we persevere to East Prawle. This stretch to Gara Rock is dramatic and terrifying. The path narrows to 8 inches along cliffs carpeted in foxgloves, bluebells, vetch and acres of red campion.

No 2, it turns out, has got the short straw. She has to coax me over rocks as I try not to look down, fearing a plunge into those turquoise waters. To judge by memorial stones we pass, not everyone survived this rugged beauty.

I’m longing for concrete under foot. With huge relief we limp into Salcombe, that yachtie haven, and make for the Harbour Hotel. Never has a dinner of local cheese souffle and hake with crab herb crust, accompanied by a crisp Sharpham wine, been so well-deserved, – nor a bed seemed more inviting.

Thankfully, our schedule here is more a digestive than physical work-out, starting with the Salcombe Dairy chocolate factory, where Peruvian beans are hand-crafted into dark delights. Next door, I visit the Salcombe Distillery for a rum-making class, where we select spices and fruits to distil our own creation.

Then it is a short skip to Fish Quay for lunch at the wonderful, rough-and-ready Crab Shed.

It is when we are almost blown off a cliff near Bolt Head (tip: do not wear loose clothing) that Friend No 3 and I decide to cheat and taxi two miles to my last hotel, Soar Mill Cove. The afternoon is spent ambling down to the beach, where tired feet are cooled in crystal waters.

The final day dawns for our last leg: over grassy headlands to the fishing village of Hope Cove. We perch outside at the Lobster Pod for lunch of perfect simplicity: calamari, scallops and, of course, lobster – locally caught and fresh as can be. We clink celebratory glasses and agree: there’s nothing like good food as incentive for a healthy walk.

Moment President Xi’s translator gets body-slammed up against a wall by South African security guards ‘for looking suspicious’

• Xi Jinping’s aide ran towards the Chinese president before security intervened

By Elena Salvoni

Updated: 11:49 EDT, 24 August 2023

Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the moon in Greek mythology. 

NASA has chosen her to personify its path back to the moon, which will see astronauts return to the lunar surface by 2025 –  including the first woman and the next man.

Artemis 1, formerly Exploration Mission-1, is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the moon and Mars. 

Artemis 1 will be the first integrated flight test of NASA’s deep space exploration system: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.  

Artemis 1 will be an uncrewed flight that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the moon and beyond. 

During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown.

It will travel 280,000 miles (450,600 km) from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the moon over the course of about a three-week mission. 

Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before. 

With this first exploration mission, NASA is leading the next steps of human exploration into deep space where astronauts will build and begin testing the systems near the moon needed for lunar surface missions and exploration to other destinations farther from Earth, including Mars. 

The will take crew on a different trajectory and test Orion’s critical systems with humans aboard. 

Together, Orion, SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy will be able to meet the most challenging crew and cargo mission needs in deep space.

Eventually NASA seeks to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by 2028 as a result of the Artemis mission.

The space agency hopes this colony will uncover new scientific discoveries, demonstrate new technological advancements and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy. 

Who is Victor Glover? The man set to become NASA’s first black astronaut to orbit the moon

NASA is set to send the first-ever black astronaut to the moon.

Victor Glover, 46, was selected to take part in the space agency’s Artemis II mission — the US’ first lunar mission in a half-century.

The Pomona, California, native will be the first person of color to travel into deep space, hundreds of thousands of miles beyond the low-Earth orbiting International Space Station (ISS).

NASA officials say the diverse crew assignments signify the cultural shifts that have taken place since the original Apollo missions, which ended in 1972, at a time when white men dominated space exploration.

Glover was also the first black man to ever live on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 and is among 15 African Americans to be selected as an astronaut.

In his esteemed career since being selected as an astronaut in 2013, Mr Glover has logged over 3,000 flight hours in 40 different aircraft.

Artemis II – which will launch in November 2024 – will see the four-man crew orbit the moon in the Orion spacecraft but not land.

Their goal is to test new technology, including heat shields that protects Orion as it travels 24,500 mph in 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its way back.

If successful, NASA plans to launch an expedition to land on the moon titled Artemis III. Another success would spell out a trip to Mars for NASA. 

‘I wanna thank God for this Amazing opportunity,’ Mr Glover said during a new conference Monday.

‘This is a big day. We have a lot to celebrate. It’s so much more than the four names that have been announced. We need to celebrate this moment in human history.

‘Artermis II is more than a mission to the Moon and back. It’s more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the moon. It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars.

‘This crew will never forget that.’

Mr Glover was born in 1976 in Pomona, around 30 miles east of Los Angeles.

The city is far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, known for its high poverty rate and relatively high crime. 

He said his parents and teachers served as mentors as him growing up.

‘Early on in life it had to be my parents; they encouraged me and challenged me and held me to high standards. Outside of home, I had teachers that did the same,’ he told USA Today in 2017.

‘They all challenged me, and they encouraged me.’

Mr Glover continued that his teachers and parents urged him to go the engineering school and eventually become a test pilot — leading to him becoming an astronaut. 

He graduated from Southern California’s Ontario High School in 1994, and went on to attend California Polytechnic State University, before completing his graduate education at Air University and the US Naval Academy.

‘I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college, and being at graduation with my mom and my dad and my stepdad and my little brothers and my grandparents,’ he said to USA Today.

‘That was unreal, that was cool and it was special for me.’

In 1999 he was commissioned as part of the US Navy. After completing flight training in Corpus Christy, Texas, he was ‘given his wings’ and awarded the title of pilot in 2001.

He then moved to San Diego to learn to fly the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, known as one of the Navy’s more versatile aircraft.

After spending the next two years training in Florida and Virginia, he was deployed to Iraq in 2004 for six months.

Mr Glover was working in the office of the late Sen John McCain as a legislative fellow when he was selected by NASA to become an astronaut in 2013.

NASA only selects a handful of the thousands of people that apply to be a member of the nation’s astronaut corps each year. Only 15 black astronauts have ever been selected out of 348.

A vast majority of the 41 current astronauts have a military background, like Mr Glover.

He completed his astronaut training in 2015. Three years later, he was selected to be a part of the first ever operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, a reusable aircraft designed by the firm Elon Musk found in 2002.

As part of that mission, he would live on the ISS from November 17, 2020 to May 2, 2021.

The nearly six-month-long stay on the station makes him the first black astronaut to inhabit it.

Jeanette Epps, 52, who was selected to be an astronaut in 2009 is set to become the second African American, and first black woman, to live on the ISS after the launch of Boeing Starliner-1 in 2024 or later.

In 2020, Mr Glover said it was an honor to be the first black person selected to the ISS.

‘It is something to be celebrated once we accomplish it, and I am honored to be in this position and to be a part of this great and experienced crew,’ he said during a news conference. 

‘I look forward to getting up there and doing my best to make sure, you know, we are worthy of all the work that’s been put into setting us up for this mission.’

In an interview with The Christian Chronicle later that year, he said there were qualified black astronauts that should have earned the honor before him.

‘I’ve had some amazing colleagues before me that really could have done it, and there are some amazing folks that will go behind me,’ he said. 

‘I wish it would have already been done, but I try not to draw too much attention to it.’ 

Who is Christina Koch? The first female NASA astronaut set to orbit the moon

Christina Koch is set to become the first woman to go around the moon when NASA‘s Artemis II mission takes off next year.

The Grand Rapids, Michigan native, 44, is already the record-holder for the longest amount of time a woman has spent in space, 328 days, and for taking part in the first all-female spacewalk in 2019.

Selected to become an astronaut in 2013, Ms Koch said she has not followed a ‘checklist’ in order to become an astronaut — but instead chased her passions whether this be rock climbing, sailing or even learning to surf in her 40s.

She said in 2020: ‘I really don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an astronaut. 

‘For me, I learned that if I was going to be an astronaut, it was because my passions had turned me into someone that could contribute the most as someone contributing to human space flight.’

While she’s exploring space, her husband Robert will be left taking care of housework and the couple’s puppy, LBD. It is not believed that they have children.

‘Am I excited? Absolutely!’ she said at a news conference at the crew’s announcement Monday.

‘The one thing I’m most excited about is that we will carry your excitement,your aspirations, your dreams, on this mission.’

She also said: ‘We are going to launch from Kennedy space center, we are going to here the words “go for launch” on top of the most powerful rocket NASA’s ever made.’

NASA has sent a total of 355 people to space so far, of which some 55 have been women — or 15 percent. It has also sent 24 people to orbit the moon and 12 to walk on the lunar surface who were all men.

Russian Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to ever leave the earth’s atmosphere — setting off in 1937. American women did not get sent to space until 1983.

Ms Koch, however, will make history on the Artemis II mission when she completes her long-awaited trip around the moon.

She revealed her love of space in a video when she was announced as a member of the Artemis I team in 2020.

The astronaut said: ‘I am someone who has loved exploration on the frontier since I was little. 

‘I used to be inspired by the night sky and throughout my career,  it’s been this balance between engineering for space science missions and doing science in really remote places all over the world.

‘I loved things that made me feel small, things that made me ponder the size of the universe, my place in it and everything that was out there to explore.’

She added: ‘I didn’t necessarily live my life following check boxes of how you could become an astronaut.

‘But I followed those passions and one day I looked at what I had become and the skills I had gathered and I asked “could I sit across from a table and present myself as someone who could do this well?”. And I thought, I’m going to give this a shot.’ 

She went to North Carolina State University in Raleigh to get a bachelor’s and a master’s in Electrical Engineering.

She then became an Electrical Engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, before becoming a research associate for the United States Antarctic Program — living an entire year in the Arctic.

Ms Koch was one of eight selected as part of NASA’s 21st class of astronauts in 2013. After two years of training, she became a full-fledged astronaut.

Her first space flight came in 2019 when she was sent to the International Space Station (ISS) to work as a flight engineer.

She stayed up there for 328 days, taking the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman. The previous record holder, Peggy Whitson, was in space for 288 days.

While in space she also took the record for the first all-women space walk — when an astronaut gets out of a vehicle while in space — with Jessica Meir.

The pair spent seven hours and 17 minutes on the side of the ISS as they worked to replace a power controller. The walk also included a brief call with President Trump.

Upon her return to Earth in 2020, Ms Koch said she felt ‘like a baby’ who was two weeks old and working hard to hold up its head.

Back on Earth, she lives in Galveston, Texas, just outside of the Houston area.

Among her interests are backpacking, running, yoga, photography and travel.

Now she will be a part of a groundbreaking mission in NASA’s goal towards putting a man on Mars. 

The Artemis II mission marks NASA’s first trip to the moon in half a century. It says it will be performed to help test kit in preparation for getting humans onto Mars.

The agency sent an empty Orion capsule around the moon last year before it returned to Earth in a long-awaited dress rehearsal.

If this latest mission goes well, then another flight to land people on the moon will be sent in 2025 — as part of tests ahead of getting people onto Mars.

Wales 16-52 South Africa: Welsh rookies taught tough lesson in World Cup warm up by defending champions as Jesse Kriel and Canan Moodie both bag a brace in eight-try romp

By Press Association

Published: 12:15 EDT, 19 August 2023 | Updated: 12:15 EDT, 19 August 2023

A British parent has described the ‘hell’ of the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea, revealing how children fainted, had to face ‘huge mosquitoes’ and had snakes under their beds before the disastrous event was scrapped.

Olaf Clayton said his daughter Gabriela, 16, was ‘absolutely devastated’ when UK Scouts announced it was evacuating its 4,500 members on Friday but that the hygiene levels and blistering heat were getting worse as they left.

Gabriela had travelled from the family’s home in Madrid, Spain, with British Scouting Overseas to join the jamboree. Now, in the days after she and the Brits were pulled out, officials have called the whole event off due to an incoming typhoon.

The teenager, who even learned Korean phrases and studied its culture, had spent 18 months fundraising through bake sales, teaching English and working in catering while the 1st British Scouts Madrid ran events for her to save money to attend.

Her father Mr Clayton – like many others, including the head of UK Scouts – has blasted the experience faced by more than 40,000 children.

‘By the time they were leaving it was hell – kids were fainting waiting for the buses to arrive,’ he said. ‘There was no shade, all activities were cancelled and there were huge mosquitoes.

‘Gabriela is quite a tough cookie but she said there were ‘funny things’ coming out of the ground. There was a snake under her bed – thankfully the Bangladeshi scouts knew just how to deal with snakes.’

He said he and his wife had had no problems about their daughter travelling to South Korea, a ‘massive scouting nation and a first world country known for its organisation’.

‘Gabriela will have war stories and learned a lot from it, so there are positives but not so much for South Korea and its reputation for hosting this kind of thing,’ he added.

It comes after Matt Hyde, the chief executive of UK Scouts, criticised the organisers behind a disastrous jamboree plagued by multiple issues.

Officials in the country are preparing to evacuate tens of thousands of teenagers from the coastal camp ahead of an incoming tropical storm.

The jamboree has already been marred by hot temperatures which forced many – including more than 4,000 British scouts – off the site and into hotels at the cost of £1million.

Mr Hyde said the group had been ‘let down by the organisers’ and described the huge camp in the south-western county of Buan as having dirty toilets and a general lack of hygiene, while one parent of a teenager at the event said his daughter found a snake under her bed.

Hundreds of participants have been treated for heat-related ailments since the jamboree started on Wednesday, with 2,500 falling sick with ailments including bug bites, skin rashes and heat exhaustion. There has also reportedly been an outbreak of Covid-19.

Now, as Tropical Storm Khanun bears down on the camp, the World Organization of the Scout Movement said it will be evacuating all participants, bringing an end to the event.

That means using buses to move some 36,000 scouts – mostly teenagers – from 158 countries out of the storm’s path and to safer locations.

Khanun is expected to hit the country by Thursday morning, bringing winds of up to 95mph (153kph).

Large swathes of the country’s south, including Buan, could be affected by the storm as early as Wednesday, the agency said. 

The storm has caused one death and 70 injuries on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, according to the country’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. 

Due to the forecast, Japanese rail bosses said ‘Shinkansen’ bullet train services could be suspended from Wednesday night to Thursday morning. 

South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol has called for ‘contingency’ plans, which could include relocating scouts to hotels in the capital, Seoul, and other cities.

Long before the event started, critics raised concerns about bringing such large numbers of young people to a vast, treeless area lacking protection from the summer heat. 

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Hyde said his organisation had brought their concerns to the event’s organisers, and described the dire conditions at the camp.

‘We are both disappointed and feel let down by the organisers because we repeatedly raised some of these concerns before we went. 

‘We were promised things were going to be put in place.

‘If you can imagine, toilets that are being used by thousands and thousands of people are not being cleaned with the regularity you would expect, you can imagine the sort of things that people were seeing.

‘It wasn’t just that, it was actually the lack of soap as well, so again it’s the compounding impact of all these things together but like all of these things, when you’re put in a position where you have to make difficult decisions there are choices.’

He added: ‘We have at this point had to make the difficult choice of investing our money to ensure that young people are safe. That is the right thing to do and the board took that decision and stand by it 100 per cent and unanimously.’

No details have been given on where the participants will stay until they return home. However Choi Chang-haeng, secretary-general of the jamboree’s organising committee, said they have secured more than 340 evacuation venues, including community centres and gyms, in regions near Buan.

About 40,000 scouts, mostly teenagers, from 158 countries came to the Jamboree at a campsite built on land reclaimed from the sea.

About 4,500 were from the U.K., representing the largest national contingent, while 1,000 were from the United States.

Those from the UK and the US were moved into hotels over the weekend. 

In a separate video posted to the Scout’s Instagram, Mr Hyde again hit out at the organisers, expressing his disappointment while praising the efforts of young scouts and the adult volunteers for continuing their ‘jamboree journey’ in Seoul.

He added: ‘The reason why we’ve taken [the decision to move] is because we were concerned about young people and adult volunteers’ safety.

‘The first [reason] is that we were particularly concerned about sanitation and the cleanliness of toilets that were causing severe concerns for us from a health and safety point of view. In addition to that, we were worried about food and those with dietary requirements in particular, and the amount of food that was available.

‘We were concerned also about the heat. It’s punishingly hot here in Korea, it’s an unprecedented heatwave, but we were concerned about the heat relief measures that were being put in place.

‘And finally, we were concerned about medical services. Those four areas gave us concerns about whether young people and our adult volunteers were safe and that’s why we’ve relocated our jamboree journey to here in Seoul.’

He added: ‘We are disappointed in the organisers and the organisation and we do feel let down.’

Praising Seoul as a ‘remarkable city’, Mr Hyde continued: ‘Last night a local football team reached out, offered us 4,000 tickets for our participants to go and watch a game of football, and I am truly inspired by the response of our adult volunteers and our young people.

‘When I arrived upstairs in a hall yesterday as young people were arriving, it was so inspiring just to see their response. They were singing campfire songs, there was someone on the piano, they are a credit to scouting and a credit to the UK.’

MailOnline revealed over the weekend how volunteers have been left ‘incandescent at the lack of leadership’ amid the chaos at the jamboree.

Before news of the incoming storm, the World Organisation of the Scout Movement called for the event to be shelved and asked South Korean organisers to ‘consider alternative options to end the event earlier than scheduled’.

But the South Korean government conducted spot inspections on Saturday and found conditions were no longer as dire as has been claimed, prime minister Han Duck-soo said.

Former jamboree leaders and volunteers have blasted the UK contingent for preventing youngsters and leaders from exposing ‘the true scale of the mess’, while one parent said their child thought ‘they were going to die’ amid the blistering heat. 

A volunteer, who wished to remain anonymous, told MailOnline: ‘I am absolutely incandescent with the lack of leadership at the very top.’ 

She added that the chaos was being masked by leaders – and several volunteers believe that ‘had the true position come to light earlier, the situation may have been much better’.

Scouts UK said it was ‘unaware’ of any form of censoring going on. 

Temperatures hit 35C (95F) in Saemangeum, near the city of Buan on South Korea’s west coast, where 43,000 participants were camping as of Friday.

Other parts of South Korea have topped 38C (100.4F), forcing the government to issue the highest heat warning in four years.

Among those in attendance is adventurer Bear Grylls – the UK’s chief scout since 2009 – who was filmed dripping in sweat as he delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. He urged people to remain calm before the UK pulled members out.

Saturday saw thousands of British children, aged 14 to 17, packing their bags at the campsite. The first wave of children arrived at hotels in Seoul – where they were met by Gareth Weir – the British deputy ambassador to South Korea. 

British scouts continued to evacuate to hotels across the weekend.