Alex South used to work in some of the most brutal prisons in the United Kingdom. With 10 years of service under her belt at some of the toughest institutions in the country, Alex worked at HMP Whitemoor, HMP Wormwood Scrubs, and HMP Belmarsh as an officer, senior officer, and custodial manager.

Alex, who’s also trained to be a riot commander and hostage negotiator, saw some pretty serious incidents during her career.

Now, sitting down with LADbible for our Minutes With series, Alex has revealed the creative ways in which prisoners hide drugs and phones while incarcerated, as well as the ongoing issue of dealing class A drugs and using food to make weapons to harm other prisoners with.

As well as that, Alex revealed what it was like when she visited America’s infamous death row and how that influenced her leaving the prison service.

In particular, it was her asking American prison guards what the ‘worst’ thing about their job was that saw her call time on her career working in prisons.

“When I first joined the job at Whitemoor, there was an officer who sat down with me and he was giving me really good advice. He said things like, ‘don’t do too much overtime, always take your holiday, keep your friends outside, don’t just make your social circle only officers’,” Alex told LADbible.

“And he gave me really good advice; he said the job will change you. And I remember thinking, ‘I don’t think it has but you know, he knows what he’s talking about’. And he told me that there was a time when he had been in the job a long time and he hadn’t realised how much it had begun to affect him. And then he drove to work one day and he couldn’t get out of the car and he said he couldn’t make his legs work.”

This came back to the forefront of Alex’s mind when she visited death row in Texas, officially known as the Allan B. Polunsky Unit.

She added: “One of the prisons we went to was death row, the Polunsky Unit. So we went on to the actual death row unit and then the death chamber itself,” she said.

“And I was speaking to the correctional officers whose job it was to walk the condemned prisoner from their final cell to the death chamber. And I said, ‘what’s the hardest part of your job?’.

“I kind of thought I knew what they were going to say because it seems obvious. And I remember they said that you have three scenarios when you are walking those prisoners. And the first one is that they fight and you have to physically restrain them in order to get them to the gurney.

“The second one is when they’re passive and they just walk. And they said the worst bit is the third scenario when they are apologetic, but they have to be carried because they say ‘I can’t make my legs work’. And I remembered that because obviously it mirrored what that officer had said.”

For Alex, it was a situation that became all too close to home years later.

She explained: “I think I’d been at Belmarsh about three or four years and we’d had a couple of deaths, and instances that weren’t more violent than others really, but it was obviously starting to have an impact on me.

“And I drove home, I lived in a nice little street in South London at the time and I pulled up outside my flat and I just stayed in the car for three hours. And it was cold, but I just stayed in the car. And I remember thinking ‘I can’t make my legs work’. I can’t get in. So I think I’d been telling myself for a long time this will get better.

“Like, it will go back to what it used to be. I will feel safe, I will enjoy work again. I will have that energy and that rhythm and I’ll feel productive.

“And then I just think that was my body’s way of saying like, ‘you have to go now, it’s not going to change’. So I think that was the moment I realised it was time for me to finish.”

But it turns out that this isn’t the first time that the 78-year-old has broached the subject, as he made a series of remarks about it way before he came to verbal blows with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The world leaders wrangled over a minerals deal, security guarantees and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last Friday (28 February), making for one of the most shocking meetings in the Oval Office in history.

“With us, you have the cards,” Trump said. “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people! You’re gambling with World War III! What you’re doing is very disrespectful to this country.”

Russian figures rallied behind the US commander-in-chief, saying Trump ‘is right’ about Zelenskyy risking an international conflict.

Interestingly, footage of Trump vowing to ‘prevent’ a devastating global war unfolding in September last year has now resurfaced – and in the words of one viewer, it’s ‘aged like spoiled milk’.

Ahead of the presidential elections in November 2024, the Republican was hitting the campaign trail in the hopes of bolstering his support.

Along the way, he made a lot of bold – and controversial – promises about what he would do when he returned to office.

During a speech at a rally in the US state of Georgia in September last year, Trump told the crowd of his plans to play peacemaker across the world.

“I will settle the war in Ukraine and I will end the chaos in the Middle East and I will prevent something that nobody else will be able to do,” he said in the clip. “I will prevent World War III. And you are very close to World War III.

“Biden and Kamala got us into this war in Ukraine and now they can’t get us out. They can’t get us out. I watched [Biden] – ‘We will win, we will win’.

“He’s been saying that for three years,” Trump continued. “Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion.

“I think he’s the greatest salesman on Earth. But we’re stuck in that war, unless I’m President. I’ll get it done, I’ll get it negotiated, I’ll get out. We got to get out.”

One person said of Trump’s speech: “Aged like f***ing spoiled milk,” as another added: “The king of chaos is going to do all that? Yeah right.”

And a third wrote: “He’s starting [World War III], not preventing it.”

The evening before he took office on 20 January this year, Trump reiterated these comments at a rally in Washington DC in an almost identical speech.

“I will end the war in Ukraine,” the President said. “I will stop the chaos in the Middle East and I will prevent World War III from happening. And you have no idea how close we are.”

Despite these pledges, it seems that in Trump’s eyes, the world is continuing to teeter even closer to a global conflict.

For some of us, the question of life after death is only something we will be able to answer when it actually happens.

But according to Dr Hugh Ross, 79, there are already five clues out there that we ought to be paying attention to.

“I see five or six lines of evidence for the existence of a transcendent realm beyond,” he told the Daily Mail.

“In other words, the biblical ‘heaven’, God’s spiritual realm of existence.”

A limit to what we can see

The first clue is that we don’t know the exact size of the universe.

Because of limitations caused by the speed of light, the part we can see is about 93 billion light-years across.

And the entire universe could be infinite or at least much larger than the observable part.

“Given that mass exists in the universe and that general relativity reliably describes the movements of massive bodies in the universe, these theorems establish the necessity of a causal agent (aka Creator) beyond space and time,” Dr Ross, a founder of Californian non-profit Reasons to Believe, said.

“[The Creator is] responsible for creating space and time and all the matter and energy that comprises the cosmos.”

‘Proven reliability’ of the Bible

“While the Bible certainly is (and often has been) subject to misinterpretation, reasonably defensible interpretations do show that what the Bible records about history, science, and geography proves correct,” he added.

The astronomer pointed out that the Big Bang theory consists of two fundamental properties – a transcendent cosmic beginning and a universe undergoing a continual expansion.

And he claims that in Isaiah 42:5 both of these properties were alluded to, which ‘is what the Lord says’.

“He who created the heavens and stretched them out,” Dr Ross said.

“Such consistent predictive power provides evidence that the Bible’s message comes not from a human source but, rather, from a Source who transcends the universe.”

UFOs

Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been reported worldwide for years and years.

Just between 1947 and 1969, the US Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigated 12,618 UFO reports.

“The existence of non-physical reality stands as evidence for the existence of a realm beyond the dimensions of the universe,” he said.

NDEs

Those who have experienced a near death experience (NDE) often talk about ‘seeing heaven’.

“Some NDE claims may be explained by oxygen deprivation in the brain,” Dr Ross said.

“However, many others remain firmly established, as cardiologist Michael Sabom – a former NDE skeptic – has documented in his books.”

Praying

“People who are prayed for by believers in the Christian God experience measurably more rapid and complete recovery from surgeries or medically confirmed ailments than do people for whom no such prayer is offered,” he added.

But if you fancy finding out what goes down after dark on the seabed without actually heading underwater yourself, you’re in luck.

Scuba diver and filmmaker Barny Dillarstone took his camera along with him as he explored the depths of the ocean in Amed, Bali, in November last year.

Still, it’s not like him having his recording equipment on his person was a rare occurrence, as the content creator regularly shares videos of him ‘dropping baited camera into remote reefs around the Indo-Pacific’.

As a self-proclaimed ‘lover of all things that swim’, Barny is constantly hunting for ‘crazy ocean creatures’.

But footage of his dive in Amed under the cover of darkness has managed to ‘terrify’ and amaze a host of his subscribers, thanks to the series of unusual marine animals he bumped into along the way.

Barny explained that he headed out at midnight in the hopes of finding out what weird and wonderful creatures emerge at the witching hour.

“It’s so fun just looking out into the darkness at night, because there could be anything out there,” he told the camera. “We’re going to go crawling around to see what’s lurking on the reef when the lights go out.”

The YouTuber stumbled into species which a lot of people have never even heard of, as well as the usual ocean dwellers such as blue-spotted stingrays, cornetfish with ‘crazy colours’ and an ‘absolutely monstrous’ lionfish.

Although he enjoyed seeing the incredible sights, Barny did admit that ‘being down here alone at midnight is pretty creepy’, while saying that he could chillingly see ‘shadows drifting past him in the distance’.

At one point, Barny ran into a venomous tasseled scorpionfish, also known as scorpaenopsis oxycephalus, which have the ability to paralyse or even kill humans.

“Super camouflaged, I barely even saw him,” the scuba diver said of the sea creature. “He is a big boy… you would not wanna get stung by him. That is one big, grumpy scorpionfish.

“Oh, and right next to him, we’ve got a surgeonfish and a parrotfish underneath this table coral. They’re just resting up, trying to avoid the sharks like me.”

The video showed Barny then head out on his second dive 24 hours later, but this time he was in search of a boat wreck as well as some interesting underwater characters.

“I think it’s out here somewhere, but if I’m honest, it’s completely black and I’ve got no idea,” he said of the ruins. “And, I’m surrounded by stingrays.”

He found the wreckage quite quickly while seeing some ‘fantastic’ things along the way, including a ‘disco clam’, which he explained are ‘famous for their ability to produce a flashing light display’.

Things soon turned more dangerous, as Barny’s next guest really took viewers by surprise.

A honeycomb moray eel – which get their name from the black spots which cover their white-yellow body, resembling honeycomb – emerged from the skeleton of the ship which lay on the ocean floor.

These are known for being both nocturnal and solitary, as well as having a powerful bite, so it’s no wonder one took Barny by surprise when it suddenly burst out of the small crevice.

The final sea creature which stunned guests was the coconut octopus – which also has a venomous bite that can quickly paralyse its prey.

However, it was the ‘famous skill’ that the ‘fascinating species’ showed off which managed to leave people’s mouths wide open, rather than its fear factor.

These marine animals have the bizarre capability of ‘running along the bottom’ of the ocean floor, which really is a sight to behold, and even Barny remarked: “How weird!”

Viewers were left stunned by the footage, as well as being taken aback by Barny’s ‘bravery’ for heading underwater so late at night.

One commented: “You have to be really brave to do this because that is absolutely terrifying.”

Another wrote: “What a spooky video! Being down there solo at night must be a crazy experience, thanks for sharing that with us. I’d probably be freaked out half the time.”

A third added: “Diving solo? You’re game mate! Coconut octopus are cool, no doubt.”

A fourth said: “Literally all my phobias in one video.”

And a fifth chimed in: “This is astounding.”

Fans of the hit legal drama have been desperate to know what the Duchess of Sussex – who starred in seven seasons of the show – thinks of its resurgence.

Stephen Amell is at the forefront of the new series titled Suits: LA, which centres around his character – Ted Black.

The former federal prosecutor moves his powerful practice from New York to Los Angeles – and he must work out how to navigate a rocky period as his firm is plunged into crisis.

Black is forced to take on a role he has despised throughout his career for the sake of survival, all while dealing with ghosts from his past who have come back to haunt him.

The series premiered on 23 February on NBC, and fans in the States can also stream Suits: LA on Peacock.

Producer Aaron Korsh created both of the series, and he informed fans he wasn’t ‘trying to replace the beloved’ original cast before its debut a few weeks ago.

“This cast is great, in my opinion,” he said in a post on X back in January. “Not trying to replace our beloved originals. Just a new crew working in a different city handling different kinds of cases.”

It seems that Markle is in agreement with Korsh, if her comments in her new interview with People are anything to go by.

The mother-of-two, 43, provided a short and sweet response when she was asked what she thought of Suits: LA.

“I love that it gets a new breath of fresh air,” Markle said, revealing that she still treasures a souvenir she took from the very first episode of Suits.

The actress, who played paralegal Rachel Zane in the show, added: “It’s a time capsule for me – I still have the pencil skirt from the first episode! That’s the one thing I kept.”

Her former Suits co-stars and Korsh have discussed the prospect of her returning to the series, which she departed at the end of season seven.

Everyone said they’d have Markle back in a heartbeat, although they weren’t sure whether the Duchess would fancy dusting off her acting skills.

Korsh told People last month that she has an ‘open invitation’ to reprise her role somehow, but he’s unsure whether it ‘would be too much of an explosion of the fourth wall’.

“We have thought about whether it be Meghan or any of the other cast members coming on and playing themselves as an actor,” the Suits creator said.

“I think, for me, that’s a little… my brain blows up at the thought of that. Obviously, if Meghan wants to come back under any circumstances, Meghan can come back.”

Patrick J Adams, who played Markle’s on-screen love interest Mike Ross, also said Suits – and the entire entertainment industry for that matter – would be ‘lucky to have her back’.

“Sure. Mike and Rachel in Seattle,” the actor said. “They gotta come down to LA, they gotta fix some stuff.

“If we got the phone call, if I got the phone call, I’m ready to suit up again. I love the show, I love the character and I loved working with all these people.”

Eleni Vrettos has told how she sprinted to her property in Cicero, Chicago, ‘in her wedding dress’ alongside her husband Tom Davis after they heard about the blast.

Chillingly, police have now revealed that a guest who the pair had invited to their wedding is the person responsible for the shocking incident.

The ferocious flames which consumed the pad also caused a neighbouring building to catch fire, while another sustained some damage, according to officials.

“We weren’t sure if it was us, obviously, either way we were devastated to know it was near us,” the bride previously told WGNTV. “My niece left the church, she confirmed that, yes, it was our house.

“I ran here in my wedding dress, like down the alley, and was watching from a neighbour’s yard. Everything was just smoke at that point.”

Davis also added to ABC 7 Chicago: “Once we realised that there was nothing we could do, we returned to the reception where we could at least be around people that loved and cared about us.”

Initial reports suggested that no one was inside the building at the time of the blast, however, police later announced that a man’s body had been found among the debris.

The deceased was then identified by authorities as Anthony Avila-Puebla, 31, on Saturday (1 March).

Investigators said that it had emerged that Avila-Puebla had a relationship with one of the people who lived in the property, who was at Vrettos’ and Davis’ wedding at the time of the blast.

Police said that video footage had captured the late 31-year-old parking his car a short distance away from the house, before carrying multiple containers filled with a flammable liquid into the building.

Avila-Puebla made at least three of these trips, according to CBS News.

Police said he set fire to the home and never came back out, however, his motives currently remain unclear.

The bride had believed that her home – which has been in the family for almost 40 years – was empty at the time of the explosion, suggesting that she thought Avila-Puebla was still at her wedding.

It is believed that he snuck off during the ceremony to carry out the explosion.

“It’s difficult,” she said two days after the incident. “He had medication that he needed in the home too, so that’s hard.”

Tragically, Vrettos six cats – Bambi, Tucker, Reya, Graham, Old Boy, and Grey – were killed in the blast, while she also revealed that her home was not insured.

Speaking of her pets, the newlywed said: “They were the perfect little bunch, like they all got along. I thought I would have them for years, they were all much younger, and they were my home I would say.

“So now I don’t have a home and on top of it, I don’t have them as my home. That’s the most devastating, because they’re the ones that give me the comfort through that darkness.

“My dad passed away a few years ago so we don’t have the home as a remembrance of him, too. It’s a lot to grieve.”

A GoFundMe set up for her and Davis has raised more than $57,000 for the pair in just a matter of weeks.

It explains that the newlyweds were ‘in the process of remodelling’ and were ‘transferring home insurance’, ‘meaning they have no coverage to help them recover from this devastating loss’.

Police are continuing to investigate Avila-Puebla’s motives for the blast.

They certainly aren’t exactly the kind of things most parents would give their child a free pass to do.

So, with an age rating of 18, Danny Dyer ended up casting his real son Arty in his upcoming film Marching Powder, because ‘no other kid would to it’.

As you might have guessed, the C-word isn’t the only thing flying about in this football hooliganism-filled romcom, as the actor reunited with The Football Factory director Nick Love.

Marching Powder follows Dyer as Jack, a middle-aged dad given six weeks to turn his life around and pack in the fighting at football, kick his drug habit, and save his marriage.

Involved from the beginning, he’s the perfect person to play the character, with Stephanie Leonidas cast as wife Dani. But it was much harder to find someone to play their son JJ, as he’s ‘obviously so young and Nick writes a certain way’.

“So the casting director said, ‘Look, you might have to drop this part, because we’re not going to be able to get a child to do this. They just won’t allow it,’” Dyer tells LADbible.

Despite his son never having considered acting and having ‘no desire to be an actor’, Love asked the star to see if Arty would be up for it.

If anything, his son was up for one big part of it in particular.

“Now, he had a little monologue, and at the end of it, he says the C-word, which he was very excited about,” the dad-of-three explains. “I didn’t know if he could even learn dialogue. So I gave him this chunk and I said, ‘learn that, and then I’ll see if you can do it’.

“And he came back to me, he learnt it within five minutes, just because he rushed the first few sentences, so he could get to say the C-word just because he’s allowed to say it.”

Assuring that it’s ‘all done in a very light-hearted way’, Dyer explains it’s important for JJ to ‘speak the way he does’ as it’s a reflection of him picking things up from his dad.

And 11-year-old Arty’s performance in the film was a ‘revelation’ to Dyer and he cast, as he was ‘so up for it’ despite not really being bothered about acting.

Leonidas says he was ‘so chilled’ on set and ‘loved’ working with him.

“He came, he did it, and he left – he’s not fussed,” Dyer sums up.

“It was meant to be, my son just happened to be the age of JJ, and it worked out well. It would have been a shame to have lost that character.”

The star does get why it was a difficult one to cast though as he adds: “I also understand parents not wanting their child to say certain dialogs and stuff – I get it.

“But, you know, he’s my son. He’s been brought up around the word – how’d you wanna be?”

The Duchess of Sussex, 43, has opened up about her personal life ahead of the release of her new Netflix series, With Love, Meghan.

Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, 40, share Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, together.

This comes after the pair announced their decision to step back as senior members of the British royal family on 8 January 2020, and officially stopped working for the royals on 31 March 31 2020.

Following their move to Montecito, California, Meghan says she and her children now go by the last name ‘Sussex’.

“It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognised how meaningful that would be to me until we had children,” she told People.

“I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me.”

She claims the Sussex name ‘is part of our love story’.

Her new reality series has been filmed in Montecito, and shows Meghan in her ‘kitchen, garden’, where she will ‘host friends both old and new’.

According to Netflix’s Tudum, guests include ‘Roy Choi, Mindy Kaling, Alice Waters, with additional acclaimed chefs and special friends’.

The programme was due to come out in January, but was delayed due to the ongoing devastation caused by the Los Angeles wildfires.

“I’m thankful to my partners at Netflix for supporting me in delaying the launch, as we focus on the needs of those impacted by the wildfires in my home state of California,” Meghan said.

On the series, she added: “When your children get to a certain age — when you’re not just playing in the sandbox with them but almost playing in your own sandbox again — it’s super joyful.

“As a woman, a mom and a wife, to be able to find yourself again — in a way that was always present but that you maybe couldn’t put as much attention on as you now can when your kids are a little bit older — is a wonderful feeling.”

In 2017, Meghan stopped posting on her food and lifestyle blog ‘The Tig’, which she made back in the Suits days in 2014.

“Well, I loved The Tig, but I certainly love my husband more,” she admitted. “So that was a choice I made at the time, and I wouldn’t change that for a second.”

Malfunctioning equipment can be dangerous in most sports; but when you’re jumping out of a plane, a mistake could prove to be fatal.

This is the exact situation that instructor David Hartsock found himself in, when a tangled parachute meant he had to make a terrifying decision.

While the thought of something going horribly wrong is likely at the forefront of a person’s mind before skydiving, it’s worth noting that fatal parachute accidents are rare, with law firm Stewarts reporting 39 fatalities in the UK between 2001 and 2020.

The firm added that there was an injury risk of 0.5 per 1,000 jumps.

However, the unthinkable can, and does, happen, with Hartsock’s story being a harrowing reminder of how dangerous extreme sports can be.

In 2009, Hartsock had been working as a skydiving instructor in Texas and had finished for the day when he was asked to take 54-year-old grandmother and first time jumper Shirley Dygert for a tandem jump from 5,000 feet.

Recalling the decision to take Dygert for her skydiving session on 1 August, he recalled in an interview with Inside Edition: “I was done. But one quick jump, it’s easy.”

Things would go horribly wrong for the pair once Hartsock pulled to release their parachute, with the canopy being completely twisted upon release.

After being unable to correct the malfunction in the air Hartsock was left with making a terrifying the decision on what to do next — and decided to do everything in his power to make sure that Dygert survived the accident.

Even if it meant at the expense of his own life.

“I figured we were both dead anyways, but we might as well try this,” he explained. “At least one of us might survive.

“I’m thinking about trying to save her from dying in-front of her family.”

Upon hitting the ground, Hartsock being unable to feel his right arm after Dygert asked if they could stand up before passing out. “That’s the last thing I could remember,” he said.

Dygert would survive the accident with a partial loss of function to the left kidney, later needing various spinal fusions over the years.

However Hartsock would suffer dislocated arms, collapsed lungs and numerous blood clots after taking the full force of the impact. He would also break the C4 and C5 vertebrae in his neck, leaving him paralysed for life.

“I found out later… apparently I died three times and they brought me back,” he added.

Despite the extensive injuries, Hartsock doesn’t regret his decision and has kept in contact with Dygert over the years.

“He saved me. I would be dead it wasn’t for Dave,” Dygert said in a 2010 interview with MailOnline. “I would be dead it wasn’t for Dave. I had only known him for a few hours but what he did for me is unbelievable. I will never forget it. Never.”