President Biden dared Americans to stop electing Republicans if the government careens into shutdown next weekend.

‘Funding the government is one of the most basic, fundamental responsibilities of the Congress and if Republicans in the House don’t start doing their job, we should stop electing them,’ Biden said in remarks at the White House. 

The government will run out of money on September 30 if the House and Senate do not agree on spending legislation to send to the president’s desk.  

The president pointed to the debt ceiling deal he made with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which set funding caps for fiscal year 2024.

But the deal roiled some House conservatives who demanded McCarthy write up 12 separate spending bills at caps lower than those agreed to in the debt ceiling legislation. 

‘Now, a small group of extreme House Republicans, they don’t want to live up to that deal and everyone in America could be faced with paying a price for that,’ he said. ‘We made a deal. We shook hands. We said this is what we’re going to do and now they’re reneging on the deal, which is not much of a surprise these days.’ 

Democrats have launched an all-out campaign to lay blame on Republicans for a government shutdown. 

Earlier the Biden campaign accused House Republicans of ‘gleefully letting Donald Trump function as their chief political strategist at the expense of American families.’

Five days before a government shutdown, it’s not clear the House is any closer to passing a spending deal than it was last week. 

Last week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned shutdowns ‘have always been a loser for Republicans politically’ and that they’ve ‘never produced a policy change.’

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is expected to take yet another gamble with a rule vote that would advance four separate spending bills on Tuesday, though it’s far from clear the rule would pass. 

The speaker would need to flip five Republican holdouts who voted ‘no’ on a rule vote for the defense spending bill last week, a rule vote that failed twice in 48 hours. 

The rule vote that tees up debate on spending bills typically passes with support from almost everyone in the majority party. But the House GOP has struggled to push through a rule vote three times this year. 

The rule vote for the military, the Department of Homeland Security, State and agriculture on Tuesday night will take the temperature for how the rest of the week could play out for House Republicans.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has already said she is a ‘hard no’ on the rule because it includes ‘blood money’ for Ukraine.

McCarthy had said he would strip $300 million to train Ukrainian soldiers from the defense spending bill and hold a separate vote on it on Friday. But he did an about-face and decided to leave the money in their as he realized it would be too difficult to strip that and the Ukraine funding in the bill for State Department funding.  

The other GOP ‘no’ votes include Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and Dan Bishop (N.C.) and it’s not clear if any of them have changed their mind this week. 

Even if they are able to begin debate on the bills, it’s far from clear they could actually pass them.  

And if all 12 appropriations bills were passed by the House, a daunting feat in itself, the government would still shut down because the Senate would never take up and pass those bills by Saturday night. 

Meanwhile, McCarthy is pushing forward with a Republican-only continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government open and give his conference more time to push through spending bills. 

The Senate, meanwhile, is prepping a bill that could advance a Democrat-led CR  and put pressure on McCarthy to put it on the floor. 

And House moderates have begun to prep their own bipartisan CR plans and look at ways to advance them without the blessing of leadership. Some moderate Republicans have said they would join with Democrats on a discharge petition, meaning they could force a CR vote on the floor if five Republicans and all Democrats agree to it. 

McCarthy has urged his colleagues to fight against a shutdown, even as some seem open to closing the government to get what they want. Trump urged Republicans on Truth Social Sunday: ‘UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!’ 

‘You have to keep the government open. I mean, if people want to close the government — only makes them weaker,’ McCarthy said. 

‘Why would they want to stop paying the troops or stop paying the border agents or the Coast Guard? I don’t understand how that makes you stronger. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.’ 

People being revived after near-death experiences could still have memories and understand what’s happening around them up to an hour after their hearts stopped, a study suggests. 

The first-of-its-kind study, which followed cardiac arrest survivors, found that nearly 40 percent of people undergoing CPR had memories, dreamlike experiences, or some perception of what’s happening around them. 

Researchers have long been working to understand what happens after death. This study provides insight into the little-understood world of near-death experiences.

These processes may open access to ‘new dimensions of reality,’ the researchers wrote, and ‘opens the door to a systematic exploration of what happens when a person dies.’ 

Additionally, the findings could inspire new treatments for restarting the heart and preventing brain injuries. 

Dr Sam Parnia, senior study author and critical care physician at NYU Langone in New York City, said: ‘Although doctors have long thought that the brain suffers permanent damage about 10 minutes after the heart stops supplying it with oxygen, our work found that the brain can show signs of electrical recovery long into ongoing CPR.’

‘This is the first large study to show that these recollections and brain wave changes may be signs of universal, shared elements of so-called near-death experiences.’

The study, published Thursday in the journal Resuscitation, examined 567 patients at 25 hospitals in the US and UK who were being revived after suffering cardiac arrests between May 2017 and March 2020. However, only fewer than 10 percent survived. 

Of those 53 survivors, the researchers interviewed 28 of them. 

Researchers looked at brain wave activity and tested if participants could recall certain sights and sounds. During resuscitation, they placed headphones on patients and played three words- apple, pear, and banana- while using a tablet to display 10 images.

Only one of the 28 participants correctly remembered the sequence of words, and none could recall the images. 

Eleven survivors reported having memories or perceptions that suggested they were at least somewhat conscious while being revived. They had at least some mental function based on measured brain oxygen and activity levels. 

Some patients recalled dreamlike experiences, like being chased by police or caught in the rain. 

One patient recalled: ‘I [went to a house where I shouldn’t have been]. [The police] caught me… [I was thinking how to explain what I was doing in the house]. Then, I walked into a puddle… When I got out of the puddle, I was not wet, and I sort of melded into the pavement… There was a fisherman singing a sea shanty over me, and it was raining.” 

Others remembered their medical treatment, such as pain, pressure, or hearing doctors. 

‘I remember when I came back, and they were putting those two electrodes to my chest, and I remember the shock,’ one participant said.

Another said: ‘I could feel someone doing something on my chest. I couldn’t feel the actual compressions, but I could feel someone rubbing quite hard. It was quite painful.”

Several participants saw certain loved ones. ‘I remember seeing my dad,’ one said.

Another recalled: ‘I thought I heard my grandma [who is passed] saying “you need to go back.”‘ 

And others even saw more stereotypical imagery, like bright, white lights. 

‘I do remember a being of light … standing near me. It was looming over me like a great tower of strength, yet radiating only warmth and love … I caught glimpses of my life and felt pride, love, joy, and sadness, all pouring into me,’ a patient said.

‘Each image was of me, but from the standpoint of a being standing with me or looking on… I was shown the consequences of my life, thousands of people that I’d interacted with and felt what they felt about me, saw their life and how I had impacted them.’

‘Next I saw the consequences of my life and the influence of my actions.’

The researchers wrote that the findings ‘may also guide the design of new ways to restart the heart or prevent brain injuries and hold implications for transplantation.’

The team plans to conduct further studies on near-death experiences and the long-term effects of being revived after cardiac arrest. 

Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine ‘is just the beginning’ and ‘the war will not stop there’, a Russian general recently promoted by the Kremlin has warned.

Colonel General Andrey Mordviche also said he expects future conflicts with European countries during an appearance on the state-run TV channel Russia-1.

The Russian president’s invasion in February 2022 raised fears of a wider global conflict, with some warning it was a precursor to a third world war, pitting Russia and its allies against NATO and the West.

While Ukraine has managed to pin Moscow‘s armies back in the east, Russian commentators have intensified their anti-NATO rhetoric, regularly calling for Putin and his generals to launch strikes on other European nations while spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda to the Russian people, as well as neighbouring countries.

Mordvichev’s comments provide some insight into what plans are being shared with Moscow’s high-ranking military officials, hinting that Putin intends on continuing his war for years to come, and possibly even push further West.

When asked on Russia-1 if Ukraine was just a ‘stepping stone,’ Mordvichev – who is the commander of the Russian Central Military District – said last year’s invasion was just the beginning of Russia’s military ambitions.

‘I think there’s still plenty of time to spend,’ he said. 

‘It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to, of course then it will be longer. 

‘It is only the beginning. The war will not stop here,’ he added.

‘I think that all kinds of ideologists and instigators of this war will not stop here.’

Mordvichev, whose comments came in a video of him speaking to a Russian reporter while walking through forests and riding in a tank – seemingly in Ukraine, was promoted last week to the rank of colonel general. 

The top commander is well-placed, in charge of the Central Military District, and a close ally of Vladimir Putin crony Ramzan Kadyrov, the warlord leader of Chechnya.

Kadyrov has labelled the general Russia’s ‘best commander’.

As such, Mordvichev is in a position to know Kremlin thinking on the war.

Some pro-democracy advocates fear Putin is working to widen his political sphere of influence to eventually make a move against the West beyond Ukraine’s borders.

The Russian despot has outlined his vision to reunify territories that once fell under the now-defunct Russian empire and the Soviet Union, while claiming – in his attempts to justify his brutal invasion – that Ukraine should not have independence.

He also claims Russia is working to ‘denazify’ Ukraine and to protect Russian-speakers in the country from ‘genocide’. There is no evidence to support Moscow’s claims that Ukraine is a Nazi state, or committing any form of genocide.

Some of Putin’s most outspoken supporters, particularly on his propaganda-spreading TV channels, have even called for the Russian president to also launch assaults on NATO countries, including Poland and others in Eastern Europe.

They have done so while Russia’s official line claims the invasion of Ukraine was done for defensive reasons, citing the expansion of NATO.

NATO and its members say Putin’s invasion is nothing but an imperialistic land grab and an attempt to overthrow a pro-Western, democratically elected government.

Were Russia to attack any NATO member, the alliance’s Article 5 would be triggered.

The article states that if any NATO ally ‘is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members.’

In such an event, NATO would ‘take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked,’ the article states.

This would mean 31 armies – including those belonging to Britain, the United States, France and Germany – would be brought against Putin’s forces.

While Russia’s army was once considered among the world’s most advanced, Putin’s faltering invasion of Ukraine has highlighted its many weaknesses.

Ukraine’s smaller military, albeit heavily backed by modern Western weaponry and equipment, is currently carrying out a counteroffensive in the east of the country, working to push Russia’s armies back.

While progress in this year’s counteroffensive is proving slow, last year Kyiv’s forces were able to push Putin’s armies back from the capital before liberating vast swathes of land in both the north and south.

If Putin does want to launch an invasion beyond Ukraine’s borders, he’ll first have to find a way of defeating Kyiv’s armies that are inching closer to his own land.

The war has sown devastation across swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, killed or injured hundreds of thousands and triggered the biggest rupture in Russia’s ties with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Russia controls about 18% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014 and a swathe of eastern and southern Ukraine which it took control of in 2022 when it first invaded.

For several months, Ukraine has been battling to try to regain some of that territory and has retaken some villages but not yet made significant territorial breakthroughs against heavily fortified Russian lines which are strewn with thousands of landmines.

Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its land. The West says it wants to help Ukraine defeat Russia – an aim Kremlin officials say is an unrealistic pipedream.

Speaking on Tuesday, Putin said that Ukraine was only likely to start peace talks when it ran out of resources and would use any potential cessation of hostilities to rearm again with Western help.

During an appearance at an economic forum in Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok, he said Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces had so far failed and that the Ukrainian army had sustained heavy losses.

‘I have the impression that they want to bite off as much as they can and then, when their resources are close to zero, to achieve a cessation of hostilities and start negotiations in order to replenish their resources and restore combat capability.’

Putin said many potential mediators had asked him if Russia was ready to stop fighting, but he said that Russia could hardly stop fighting when it was facing a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

For there to be any chance of talks, said Putin, Ukraine would first have to cancel its self-imposed legal ban on peace talks and explain what it wanted.

‘Then we shall see,’ Putin said.

He also said that the West’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions was a crime, but that while such supplies might prolong the war they would not change its ultimate outcome.

He also criticised the West’s decision to supply Ukraine with F-16 jets.

Asked if Russia needed to introduce a new compulsory mobilisation, Putin said that 1,000 – 1,500 Russians were signing voluntary contracts to join the military daily.

Over the past six or seven months, 270,000 people had signed voluntary contracts, Putin said – a figure slightly lower than the 280,000 that former president Dmitry Medvedev stated earlier this month. 

Disposable vapes are set to be axed to prevent children from becoming addicted to the devices under new Government plans. 

Campaigners have long called for much tougher regulations on marketing to children and a tax on disposable vapes, which are most popular among teens. 

But concerns have mounted in recent weeks with ministers urged to ban predatory firms selling vapes in brightly-coloured packaging and in kid-friendly favours like bubblegum. 

While sales of e-cigarettes to under-18s are banned, latest data suggests 11.6 per cent of 11 to 17-year-olds in the UK have already tried vaping. 

The proposals — which follow in the footsteps of countries including France and New Zealand — could be unveiled as early as next week, reports suggest.  

A senior Whitehall source told The Telegraph today: ‘Disposable vapes are almost entirely aimed at kids and they are environmentally damaging. 

‘There is a wide consensus emerging on the need to act.’ 

But ministers are understood to have stopped short of a ban on all vaping without a prescription, with e-cigarettes still seen as a good alternative to help smokers quit. 

Earlier today science and technology secretary Michelle Donelan did also not deny the reports.

She told Sky News: ‘We have been looking into this and have been doing a review because this is a very worrying trend that we’re seeing of young children taking up vaping that had never smoked before, and it is extremely dangerous to their health and their wellbeing.

‘It’s something that we do need to act on and, as a Government, what we’re trying to do is recognise what are the key challenges and grip them.’

Asked whether the Government will be banning single-use vapes next week, she said: ‘We’ll be making further announcements on that.’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘We are concerned about the rise in youth vaping and the environmental impacts of disposable vapes.

‘That is why we launched a call for evidence to identify opportunities to reduce the number of children accessing and using vaping products – and explore where the Government can go further.

‘We will set out our response in due course.’

Last week the French government vowed to push ahead with its own plans to ban disposable e-cigarettes over claims they encourage smoking among young people.

Both Germany and Ireland have outlined their own plans to place restrictions on vapes, with the German government currently considering an outright ban on disposable e-cigarettes.

Separately, Australia has put in place measures to make vapes available only to those who have prescriptions.

Meanwhile, New Zealand has also put in place restrictions that ban vape shops from being within 300 metres of a school and which ensure all vapes must have removable batteries.

Colourful displays of the gadgets, sold for as little as £5, currently litter high streets across the UK. 

Predatory manufacturers lure kids in with flavours such as bubblegum and cotton candy and some shops even sell the devices next to sweets.

Other experts have also demanded a total ban on disposable vapes such as Elf bars, popular with teenagers. 

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics last week revealed that the number of young women who have tried e-cigarettes has surged to one in eight.

The data, labelled ‘worrying’ by experts found a 3.5-fold increase in 16 to 24-year-old females taking up the habit. 

Some 15.5 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds vaped daily or occasionally, up from 11.1 per cent in 2021. 

Around 4.5million Brits were also found to have vaped daily or occasionally — a rise of some 500,000 in just 12 months. 

NHS figures also show a rise in the number of children admitted to hospital due to vaping.

Forty children and young people were admitted to hospital in England last year due to ‘vaping-related disorders’, which could include lung damage or worsening asthma symptoms, up from 11 two years earlier, the NHS said.

E-cigs allow people to inhale nicotine in a vapour — which is produced by heating a liquid, which typically contains propylene glycol, glycerine, flavourings, and other chemicals.

Unlike traditional cigarettes, they do not contain tobacco, nor do they produce tar or carbon — two of the most dangerous elements.

Although widely viewed as safer than smoking, the long-term effects of vaping still remain a mystery.

Doctors have expressed fear there could be a wave of lung disease, dental issues and even cancer in the coming decades in people who took up the habit at a young age.

Earlier this year leading paediatricians also warned children were being hospitalised with vaping-induced breathing difficulties amid a ‘disturbing’ youth vaping epidemic.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) warned that e-cigarettes ‘are not a risk-free product and can be just as addictive, if not more so than traditional cigarettes’.

It called for urgent action to protect youngsters, saying experts agree that longer-term data is needed on the effects of vaping, particularly in regard to cardiovascular disease.

Under an anti-smoking push, health minister Neil O’Brien revealed in May that a £3million taskforce would be established to enforce the current rules of selling of vapes.

But one million cigarette addicts will also get e-cigarette ‘starter kits’ as part of a ‘swap to stop’ scheme.

The free kits are set to be offered to almost one in five of all smokers in England at an estimated cost of £45million over two years. 

Health chiefs hope the world-first policy will make England smoke-free.

It comes as MailOnline revealed in June that e-cigarettes have been linked to five deaths in Britain.

None of the fatalities, which have all occurred since 2010, are proven to have been caused directly by vaping. No ages were mentioned for any of the deaths.

But health chiefs tasked with policing the safety of e-cigs admit there is ‘a suspicion’ the gadgets may have been to blame.

Two were put down to heart disorders, including one cardiac arrest.

Respiratory complications were blamed for the other three deaths, with one caused by inhalation of fat — a known potential consequence of vaping.

Almost 1,000 serious adverse reactions to e-cigs have also been logged by Britain’s health watchdog including blood, nervous system and respiratory disorders, as well as cancer and injuries such as burns. 

Locals are battling to stop John Lewis‘ plan to replace Waitrose supermarket with huge 20-storey tower blocks. 

A ‘Stop the Towers’ campaign has been organised by residents of west Ealing who are against the plans for almost 430 homes. 

Campaigners say John Lewis has ‘ignored’ public opinion and local planning guidance.

The public consultation on the controversial plans opened on August 10 and closes on August 31 – a move objectors say is a ‘deliberate attempt’ to avoid scrutiny, as many residents will be on holiday and won’t have time to respond. 

In February this year, Ealing Council leader Peter Mason said the plans were ‘disappointing to say the least’. 

He added that it felt like the ‘big institution’ was trying to ‘twist arms and bully through a scheme’. 

Cllr Mason questioned the height of the four proposed tower blocks, with the tallest reaching 20-storeys. 

Subject to ‘ongoing discussions’ with the Labour-led council, 35 per cent of the homes will be affordable – although the documents do suggest this could drop to 20 per cent. 

Co-chairs of the campaign, Denise Colliver and Justine Sullivan stated: ‘The arrogance of JLPs development team is breath-taking. 

‘They’ve ignored both the weight of public opinion and also the Local Plan site-specific guidance.’

They added: ‘No one objects to appropriate, proportionate development that will genuinely benefit local communities. But yet again we are seeing developers trying to ride roughshod over local people’s wishes and needs, ignoring democratically implemented local plans, just to make a fast buck.’ 

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group at the council, Gary Malcolm, said: ‘There have been too many tall towers built over the past fiver to ten years. 

‘A huge amount of housing is needed but it’s better to have lower density schemes,  that are good for families.’ 

Cllr Malcolm added that John Lewis is going against one of the council’s policies which was brought in last year to crack down on tall buildings.

John Lewis has said residents will have until the date of the planning committee to submit their views on the major development.  

The plans also include a café, a Waitrose and ‘public realm improvements’ on Alexandria Road. 

A planning statement submitted by Savills on behalf of the retailer says it is ‘an exciting and significant opportunity to optimise a well-connected, heavily under-utilised, brownfield site’.

The Conservative group said: ‘We are listening to residents’ stated concerns about the proposed height of the development, the amount of parking proposed, the potential strain on local infrastructure, and the provision of retail. All of these questions need to be addressed.’

The department store giant is hoping to build 1,000 new flats on sites of old Waitrose stores as part of a £500 million deal, with its flagship scheme in Bromley in addition to a site in Mill Lane, Reading.

A spokesperson for John Lewis said: ‘As the housing crisis continues, we have the opportunity to make better use of a supermarket and car park site to deliver much-needed homes for the local area, as well as improved community facilities, new commercial space and a new Waitrose shop. 

‘We’ve set out our ambition to maximise the delivery of affordable housing to ensure good availability of quality, rental homes for local people, including nurses, teachers and other key workers. 

‘This is an ongoing process where we’ve been working closely with a range of stakeholders and will continue to do so while the application is considered. 

‘The plans have been submitted to Ealing and the local authority will now consider the application in line with all relevant planning policies. 

‘We are confident that Ealing will welcome feedback from local residents between now and determination of the application as has always been the case with other major applications in the borough.’

When you look at photos of yourself, do you like what you see — or do you wish you knew how to look more like your best self? 

Photo editing apps have come a long way since the dog ears filter made its appearance on Snapchat – but we all know natural is best.

So use our quick guide to make yourself instantly more photogenic:  

Before we get to the basics, there are a few quirky techniques that will improve how you look on camera. 

Forget ‘say cheese’ – words that end in an ‘uh’ sound can put your mouth into a more natural smile shape.

Try ‘data’, ‘yoga’ or ‘mocha’ next time someone is taking your photo. It’ll bring the corners of your mouth up naturally.

If that doesn’t work for you, try to think of something funny. 

Fake it: A fake smile can look really strange. A fake laugh, though, almost always turns into a real one and you’ll end up with a true smile. 

Another odd trick that works is pushing your tongue against the back of your teeth. This relaxes your face and slims your jawline.

Another bizarre method that works is taking advantage of a rainy day. The filtered light of a cloudy day is super flattering. Head outside to snap your new dating app pic.

Below, I go into detail about some of the fundamentals when it comes to being more photogenic. 

Bye-bye, ‘turkey neck’

It’s not just you. Cameras exaggerate certain features and give you a different appearance than what you see in the mirror. You need to be strategic when you pose.

Think about what is closest and farthest from the camera. Say you put your foot out and lean back: Your foot will look larger since it’s closer to the camera.

You can use this know-how to your advantage. To minimize neck fat and extra skin, jut your head forward slightly so it’s closer to the camera.

At the same time, elongate your neck and tip your chin down a little bit. Imagine holding a piece of fruit between your chin and neck.

In person, it looks a little weird. On camera, it looks great. If you feel silly, practice with your front-facing camera. You can delete the pictures.

Let there be light

Bad lighting can make even the best-looking person resemble a villain in a horror movie. Here are a few simple rules of thumb to remember.

● Direct light can create harsh shadows that make your skin look bad. Never stand right under a light source.

● Find soft, natural light instead whenever possible. It hides blemishes and smooths out imperfections.

● Face a light source so it illuminates your features and draws attention to your eyes. If there’s a light fixture nearby, point your eyes toward it and widen them just a bit.

● If you’re outside, face the sun to take advantage of the natural light.

● If the bright sun is casting dark shadows or causing you to squint, turn away or find a patch of shade.

Bonus tech tip: You’re on a video call and your room is too dark, so you look shadowy. Open up a new blank document in your browser or with your word processing program. Make it fill as much of the screen as you can. The reflection will brighten you up.

Find your best angle

Taking a photo of your face with the camera below you is very rarely unflattering. So, how do you determine the best angle for you?

Instagram influencer Vi Luong says you should take a series of nine selfies from different angles. 

Hold your smartphone and look at it head-on. Then, take three pictures: One with the camera right in front of your face, one above and one below.

Now it’s time to angle your face. Turn to the right for the following three pictures and keep your head still. 

Now, take one photo of yourself with the camera at face level, one where the camera is high, and one is lower.

Then tilt your face to the left. Keep your head still and snap three pictures (face level, above and below) at this new angle.

It’s a lot of pictures, but it’s worth it. Once you get these nine options, compare them to see which angle suits you best. Ask a friend or family member you trust if you can’t decide.

Make full-body pics better, too

Standing straight toward the camera isn’t flattering. Instead of facing the camera with your feet planted under your hips, slightly tilt your body to one side. Angle your torso away from the camera to look slimmer, too.

Here’s a trick especially for ladies: Put your weight on your back hip. This makes your front leg, closest to the camera, look leaner.

Wondering what to do with your arms? There’s a reason putting a hand on your hip is a classic: It makes your arm look slimmer than keeping it pressed against your body.

Keep it real

We all feel pressure to look as happy as possible in pictures, which can look unnatural. Make sure your smile is genuine. Tell a joke or think about something that always makes you laugh.

Other times, a mysterious Mona Lisa smile is the way to go. Think about turning up the corners of your mouth, or even one side, without doing a full smile. Part your lips just a bit to avoid grimacing.

This is the satisfying moment Mallorcan ‘sunbed police’ took revenge on hotel guests who had reserved loungers.

A staff member appears fed up as he swiftly removes towels and inflatables used to hog beds by the pool at the Viva resort on the Spanish island.

Dubbed the ‘towel police’ by TikToker John McGowan, the worker can be seen shoving holidaymakers’ belongings into plastic bags.

He even walks around the pool area with a stopwatch and clipboard to time how long each sunbed has been reserved for, Mr McGowan explained. 

If the hogger has not returned within 30 minutes, their items are removed from the beds.

It is generally accepted in Spanish resorts that a towel left on a sunbed is claimed by its owner for the entire day. The origin of this rule is not known, though it is thought to be a German invention.

One commenter quipped: ‘Well done to this resort. Hope others take note. It might make people’s hols less stressful if the towel dash doesn’t happen anymore.’

Sunbed wars have long been a common start to the mornings of British holidaymakers’ trips abroad. 

Although not all hotels allow this rule, when in place it can create heated competition between holidaymakers desperate to enjoy themselves more than their neighbours.

Hilarious footage of guests at the four-star Spring Hotel Bitacora, Playa de las Américas in Tenerife, shows crowds of desperate tourists waiting next to their resort’s swimming pools and descending en masse to grab the best spots at the earliest possible time.

Brits armed with swimming togs and sun cream raced past rival holidaymakers with a grim determination to secure their place in the sun for a day.

Some were reported to queue for 90 minutes first thing in the morning – waiting for some unknown signal before stampeding past opposing tourists towards the sun loungers.

Meanwhile at the Camp de Mar in Majorca a holidaymaker was shocked to see next-level towel reservation after sunbed hogs puts their towels down on the floor at the entrance to the pool area.

Photos show beach bags and towels placed in an orderly queue leading to the closed-off pool area so hotel guests can secure their sun bed the moment that it opens.

Holidaymaker Geoff said: ‘In an effort to control the sunbed madness, the door from the hotel to the pool area was kept locked until 8am.

‘So people were lining their towels up on the floor in a queue order by the door before it opened. I must add this wasn’t youngsters, but mostly elderly and middle-aged people,’ he told the Mirror.

Discussing the behaviour of the other guests at a four-star hotel in Camp de Mar, he said: ‘The towel line actually went back much further (than the picture shows) and the owners were seated on the sofas just out of sight, ready to fly outside when the door was unlocked.

‘I don’t know what time they started, but we were up at 6.30am one morning to grab breakfast before an excursion, and there was already an established towel queue forming at the door. Crazy behaviour!’

Meanwhile, a holiday hero spoke out earlier this year against some ‘entitled’ tourists who reserved sun loungers for nine hours while he and his wife were on holiday in Bali.

Newlyweds Thom Aspland and Lisa were honeymooning at Bali’s Grand Barong Resort where they were met by unfurled towels on sun loungers at 6.30am.

After returning at 1pm and seeing the chairs untouched, the couple waited for a further hour of no movement, before finally ditching the reserving towels and taking the spot themselves.

They were met at 3.30pm by the shocked pair of ‘entitled’ tourists ‘iPads and books in hand’. 

The couple were even sure to teach their competitors a lesson by ushering other tourists in their place as they left.

Speaking to Yahoo News, Thom said: ‘We definitely thought they were entitled, but were surprised they didn’t confront us.’

He assumed that the lack of confrontation was down to the fact that ‘they knew what they had done’. 

Thom also noted the hilarious extent of the couple’s pettiness in getting on the beds in the first place.

‘We didn’t even want the beds,’ he said, but the compulsion to prove a point was too strong.

‘Many places here have an hour rule, so we just made sure we gave them an hour once we got in the pool,’ he added.

He revealed that he and Lisa had been looking on from the bar for two hours before making their move.

He also gave comical detail about the approach of the pair who thought they would get away with the nine-hour reservation, saying that ‘they quickly walked towards the chairs, then stopped and looked at each other to pause’. 

‘They then frantically looked for their two personal towels’ before departing to their hotel room never to be seen again,’ he said.

The happy couple made absolutely certain that they proved their point when they left by passing the beds on to a mother and daughter after telling them the whole story.

Thom shared the ‘petty’ revenge story online with droves of followers agreeing that leaving towels on seats all day was ‘sun hogging’ and disrespectful.

‘Am I the only one hoping there’s a day two to this situation,’ one person said.

Another wrote: ‘Proof that not all heroes wear a cape.

‘Would shout you both a Bintang if I were there.’

‘I would’ve done the same except I wouldn’t have waited – if they weren’t there using them its free for all,’ a third added.

Some also commended the couple for waiting the hour that they did.

Thom then posted an update of the empty poolside chairs on the following morning as a sign of victory.

‘Free all morning,’ he declared.

In August, the hilarious moment a holidaymaker bagged five sun loungers by sprinting towards them before throwing his towels on the best pool-side spots was posted on TikTok by a guest who filmed the chaotic scene from her balcony at the Paradise Park Hotel in Los Cristianos, Tenerife.

The video shows a large pool surrounded by a decked terrace, moments before several people emerge and start running towards the sunbeds.

One man dressed in yellow can be seen sprinting towards the loungers with several towels on his arm. He skipped past rows of other chairs until he reached the ones in the prime pool-side spot.

While the other guests made their way towards the loungers, he took a shortcut to arrive there first and threw his towels down to claim the seats at an impressive speed.

This wasn’t the first time the man was on the hunt, as another video showed him in a black T-shirt securing the best spot.

Jess Clarke, who filmed the crowd, captioned her video: ‘Day Three Sunbed Wars’.

It quickly gained more than 11,000 likes and hundreds of comments were left by viewers saying, ‘Love it, so funny’ or remarking, ‘I’ve never seen sunbed wars that bad’.

Another commented: ‘Guy in yellow put in a proper shift.’

A fourth said: ‘9am sunbed wars paradise park Tenerife what a sight.’

One user recognised the man from Ms Clarke’s previous video titled ‘Day 1’.

The hotel is known for sunbed reservation races and similar scenes were captured on camera last year.

A viral TikTok video from July shows tourists at the Tenerife hotel making a shameless dash for the best poolside spot.

Footage shows a crowd of holidaymakers show up at a pool at Paradise Park just as it opens.

They then drop their towels on the hotspot’s best loungers – with some even glancing around guiltily as they do it.

TikTok user Sarah, whose clip has already garnered more than five million views in just one day, simply captioned it: ‘The Sunbed Race’.

Paradise Park spokesman Rafael Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo told MailOnline last year: ‘We were amused to see it – considering that our hotel has five swimming pools and areas with space and sunbeds for everyone.

‘Although we see quite a bit of talent among our guests for obstacle races.’

Weeks before, in June last year, sunbed-blockers had their towels taken away by hotel staff at another resort in Tenerife.

Holidaymaker Amanda Proctor filmed the moment the workers picked up dozens of towels that guests had laid out on empty sun loungers in a bid to reserve the best seats next to the pool at the five star Gran Costa Adeje Hotel in southern Tenerife.

Ms Proctor said that the staff at the hotel, which features four pools, took the guests’ bags and towels and left a note on the chairs telling them where to collect their belongings.

The holidaymaker said there was a sign at the hotel saying guests were not allowed to reserve sunbeds before 10am.

A spokesman at the hotel told MailOnline: ‘At GF Gran Costa Adeje, we defend the right of all our guests to enjoy our pools and we ask everyone to respect our policy.

‘All guests will have their space in our solarium. In this situation, our colleague, like the entire GF Gran Costa Adeje team, is a hero without a cape. We are very happy with the reaction to the video and from our customers.’

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence after abandoning his armed uprising on Saturday evening, insisting that he marched on Moscow to stop the Kremlin taking control of his mercenary army and denying a plot to overthrow Vladimir Putin.

Speaking in an 11-minute audio clip posted on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels, Prigozhin claimed the armed uprising was a ‘master class’ on how Russia’s assault on Kyiv should have looked.

He said he only called off his group’s surge for the Russian capital to avoid spilling Russian blood, adding that the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin described his Wagner mercenary fighters as ‘perhaps the most experienced and combat effective unit in Russia, possibly in the world’, and said his private military company had done ‘an enormous amount of work in the interests of Russia’. 

He also claimed he launched the uprising to ‘prevent the destruction of the Wagner group’, noting that they had been ordered to hand over their weapons to the Russian military and had suffered casualties in air strikes at the hands of Russia’s air force.  

‘The purpose of the campaign was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner PMC and to bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation,’ Prigozhin said.

‘We went to demonstrate our protest, and not to overthrow the government in the country.’ 

Prigozhin, who did not reveal from where he was speaking, bragged that the ease with which it had advanced on Moscow exposes ‘serious security problems’. 

It comes despite reports from news website Meduza that claimed the mercenary leader frantically called Putin en route to Moscow having realised he’d made a mistake, only for the Russian leader to ignore his call and serve a chilling reminder of who remains in charge.

Prigozhin also claimed that despite not showing any aggression towards Russian forces, the Russian air force launched an aerial bombardments on his troops, killing 30 people.

This, he said, ‘was the trigger’ that motivated him to order Wagner mercenaries to seize Russian soil.

He said: ‘We covered 780 kilometres in a day. Not a single soldier on the ground was killed. We regret that we were forced to strike at [Russian] air assets, but they dropped bombs and launched missile strikes.’

Up to 15 Russian air force pilots are believed to have been killed by Wagner forces amid the attacks. 

Prigozhin added: ‘When we walked past Russian cities on June 23-24, civilians greeted us with Russian flags and with the emblems and flags of the Wagner PMC. They were all happy when we passed by. Many of them are still writing words of support, and some are disappointed that we stopped, because in the “march of justice”, in addition to our struggle for existence, they saw support for the fight against bureaucracy and other ills that exist in our country today.

‘We started our march because of injustice. On the way, we didn’t kill a single soldier on the ground. In one day they reached a point just 200 kilometres from Moscow, (and) they took complete control of the city of Rostov.

‘We gave a master class in how it should have been done on February 24, 2022 (when Russia sent troops into Ukraine). We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government.’

Prigozhin concluded his statement by saying that he ordered troops to stop their surge some 200km outside Moscow in the recognition that any further progress would’ve resulted in armed conflict and many deaths. 

‘We stopped at the moment when the first assault detachment, which approached 200 kilometres to Moscow, reconnoitered the area and it was obvious that at that moment a lot of blood would be shed. 

‘Therefore, we felt that the demonstration of what we were going to do, it is sufficient.’

The Wagner leader also confirmed that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was instrumental in helping carve out a deal between the Kremlin and Prigozhin that would see the latter escape punishment for organising the uprising.

Lukashenko is said to have offered Prigozhin refuge in Minsk in turn for his safety and amnesty for any Wagner troops that participated in seizing the southern city of Rosotv-on-Don and marching for Moscow.

However, several Russian media outlets reported that a criminal investigation against Prigozhin remained open, with some legislators calling for serious punishment after Putin on Saturday declared he would ‘punish the traitors who betray Russia’. 

Though Wagner’s armed uprising on Russian soil came as a surprise to most, Prigozhin’s hatred for Russia’s military command has long been established. 

Before the uprising, he had condemned Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian army chief General Valery Gerasimov with expletive-ridden insults for months, attacking them for failing to provide his troops with enough ammunition during the fight for the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.

Putin praised the nation on Monday for unity after the armed rebellion and thanked Wagner mercenary fighters and commanders who had stood down to avoid bloodshed.

He said he would honour his promise to allow Wagner fighters to relocate to Belarus if they wanted, or to sign a contract with the Defence Ministry or simply return to their families. He made no mention of Prigozhin.

Earlier in the day he held calls with the leaders of Iran and Qatar, the Kremlin said, and addressed a forum of youth engineers in a recorded video message that contained no mention of the uprising.

It is not yet clear what the fissures opened by the 24-hour rebellion will mean for the war in Ukraine, where western officials say Russia’s troops suffer low morale. Wagner’s forces were key to Russia’s only land victory in months, in Bakhmut.

Fighting continued in Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces claimed new victories in their battle to evict Russian troops from the east and south of the country, but in the Russian capital authorities stood down their enhanced security regime.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, was at pains to stress that there had been a return to normal, having announced at the weekend that Prigozhin would be permitted to seek exile in Belarus and that there would be a general amnesty for his troops.

Putin himself did not directly address the dramatic events, but made a video speech to a youth forum dubbed the ‘Engineers of the future’ and praised companies for overcoming ‘severe external challenges’.

Wagner headquarters in Saint Petersburg said it remained open for business, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the firm would continue to operate in Mali and the Central African Republic.

Putin, his office said, had spoken to Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi by phone and had received Tehran’s ‘full support’.

He also received a call from Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who also expressed his backing.

Defence minister Shoigu appeared in more pre-recorded footage on state television, apparently visiting troops in Ukraine, but it was not clear when the piece was filmed.

Officials in Moscow and in the Voronezh region south of the capital lifted ‘anti-terrorist’ emergency security measures imposed to protect the capital from rebel assault.

Ukrainian military leaders, meanwhile, insisted they were making progress in the south and east of the country, and President Volodymyr Zelensky made a morale-boosting trip to troops fighting Russian forces near the city of Bakhmut.

‘We are knocking the enemy out of its positions on the flanks of the city of Bakhmut,’ eastern ground force commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said. ‘Ukraine is regaining its territory. We are moving forward.’

Deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar said Ukraine had recaptured the rural settlement of Rivnopil, on the southern front in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian residents in the frontline town of Druzhkivka, near Bakhmut, also in Donetsk, told AFP that four explosions rocked a residential district overnight.

The blasts severed water and sewage pipes, shattered windows and threw up stones that hit yards and roofs, but municipal authorities said no one was hurt.

‘It was a ‘fun’ night, we haven’t had this for a long time, it’s been quiet for a month or so,’ said 66-year-old Lyubov, showing off the new hole in her cement-shingled roof.

The wine-growing and salt-mining city of Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas, was captured in May by Russian forces led by Prighozin’s private army.

The victory was short-lived, however.

With the Wagner chief feuding with Shoigu and Gerasimov, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive.

The Western allies backing Ukraine with weaponry and cash see Putin’s grip on power weakened by both Wagner’s revolt and the operation in Ukraine.

NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, visiting Lithuania ahead of the alliance’s Vilnius summit next month, said Putin’s Ukraine campaign had weakened his own position at home.

Germany, meanwhile, boosted Europe’s defences on its eastern flank facing Russia, announcing it would station a powerful 4,000-strong army brigade in Lithuania.

FDA tells 180 stores to stop selling Elf Bar vapes after report showed illegal e-cig device is a best-seller and is poisoning children

By Luke Andrews Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 15:44 EDT, 23 June 2023