Viewers of Good Morning Britain were left feeling frustrated during the latest live show, after hosts made a series of comments about Scottish football fans and the King-proved World Cup bank holiday

Viewers of Good Morning Britain were left feeling frustrated during the latest live show, after hosts made a series of comments about Scottish football fans and the King-proved World Cup bank holiday
Viewers of Good Morning Britain were left feeling exasperated during the latest live broadcast. Presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls returned to the ITV studio to bring audiences the day's most significant headlines from across the UK and beyond.
They were accompanied by regular panellists Gillian Keegan and the Mirror's Kevin Maguire. Later in the programme, the stars discussed the King's decision to grant a bank holiday in Scotland so football supporters could enjoy Scotland's inaugural World Cup fixture.
"A lot of people are outraged this morning [over] the bank holiday in Scotland for their first World Cup opening game. King Charles has proved a new, one-off bank holiday to allow fans to watch the late-night World Cup clash. So, they get next Monday off," Susanna began.
"Now, anyone watching might think, 'Is that because the game is late on a Sunday, or early on a Monday morning?' No!", reports the Mirror.
Ed then said: "This morning, in our five o'clock meeting, Susanna said, 'I can't believe this, the game's on the Sunday morning, and they get bank holiday [more than] 24 hours later.' I said, 'What?' I couldn't believe it. It never occurred to me that that was going on."
The fixture in question is against Haiti at the Gilette Stadium in Boston. Kick-off is at 9pm local time, with supporters expected to stay awake until 2am UK time to watch the match. Susanna read out a series of split fan comments, before stating: "It's really outrageous. I mean, how long does it take Scots to get over the fact that they've played their first match?"
Kevin chimed in: "It's 2am. You can have a lie-in Sunday morning and sleep it off!" with Gillian observing: "It sets a terrible precedent."
Ed then queried: "How hungover do they get?" Susanna remarked: "Is that the unspoken acknowledgement is that it is about alcohol?" with Kevin responding: "Yeah, I think it's going to be shown in thousands of pubs in Scotland at 2am. You can imagine the state of people."
However, viewers weren't pleased with the stars' remarks, with many expressing their annoyance on X (formerly Twitter).
"Very condescending attitude from all the presenters participating in that debate! Extremely anti Scottish. Not everyone is getting it and not everyone wants it. I don't even like football but thought your comments were uncalled for!" one individual wrote.
Another added: "I thought the presenters also focused heavily on stereotypes, portraying Scots as heavy drinkers. Do better Good Morning Britain. Your presenters owe some of your audience an ology."
A third stated: "The presenters talking about Scots [was] unacceptable. Very condescending attitude, extremely anti Scottish comments. Uncalled for."
Someone else noted: "Not everyone in Scotland gets it either," while a fifth viewer fumed: "It's dispointing that your programme is again taking an anti Scottish view."

Source: The daily Star

Published: June 9, 2026 11:57 AM

Original URL:

Read Original Article

Increased driving in the US over the summer, intensified by the global football tournament, will put a huge demand on fuel supplies. | ITV National News

Travel needs for the World Cup could lead to jet fuel shortages in the UK as an increased numbers of drivers in the United States cause demand for gasoline to rise, experts have warned.
The US is already proaching "driving season" — a period of increased car use — which will be intensified by the tournament, Eleanor Budds, director of research in oil markets at S&P Global Energy, said during the World Air Transport Summit in Brazil this week.
Gasoline stocks, which are usually built up in preparation for the period, have fallen below the five-year average due to the reduced cacity of the Strait of Hormuz.
Subscribe for free to our weekly newsletter for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.
"This means that refiners will have to pivot some of the extra jet fuel effort they've been making, they will have to at some point pivot back to gasoline," Budds said during a panel in Rio de Janeiro.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil usually passes, has been almost entirely closed by the conflict in the Middle East, which began after joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.
This has caused the UK to become a major importer of US fuel, which has so far protected the nation from shortages for the time being.
Budds also stated that she expects fuel prices to get worse before they get better, despite the price of Brent Crude oil pearing to stabilise in recent weeks.
"We think prices could rise again. The reason for that is the markets made some small adjustments, but (as seen in) the stock levels and the exports, US refiners who have plugging a lot of the g can't necessarily keep doing so for jet fuel," Budds said.
"Which suggests to us that gasoline prices will rise again, crude prices will rise again and jet fuel prices will rise again, before there's some more stability after the summer season, when demand falls back down again from the peak.
"That will allow stocks to start to rebuild and some normalisation of the situation."
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said they did not agree with Budds' assessment and that there was no indication that jet fuel supply would further be impacted in the UK.
"We do not agree with these claims, which pear to have no analysis behind them," they said. "UK airlines are clear that they are not currently seeing a shortage of jet fuel and holidays are taking off as planned."
"We continue to work with fuel suppliers, airports, airlines and international counterparts to keep flights operating."
Millions of football fans are expected to watch World Cup games across the US, Mexico and Canada this summer, which kicks off on June 11.
The tournament has faced controversy for high ticket prices, restrictions on fans bringing water bottles and the Trump administration's immigration policies, which have seen a referee denied entry to the country.

Source: ITV News

Published: June 9, 2026 12:12 PM

Original URL:

Read Original Article

Biggest news websites in 2026 (any language). Exclusive top-50 ranking based on Similarweb data including: South Korea, Jan, UK and US.

The BBC is the most-visited news website in the world in any language, according to Press Gazette’s new ranking of the world’s top online newsbrands.
The UK broadcaster saw 894.7 million visits in May 2026 according to Similarweb, ranking it ahead of Jan’s Yahoo News with 815.4 million visits.
The BBC has overtaken several publishers in the ranking since Press Gazette’s coverage in May 2025.
The US has the most news sites in the top 50, with 13 entries featuring. Its highest-ranking site was The New York Times, which listed in fourth place with 592.6 million visits in May 2026.
The US was followed by India, with eight, and then Jan with four.
Poland, Germany and the UK all have three news sites to feature in the top 50.
Most news sites lost traffic year on year in May 2026, with 37 recording declines in visits (compared to 34 in 2025). Some 15 sites saw visits fall by at least 20% year on year.
India’s Hindustan Times posted the biggest drop, down 54% to 122.2 million visits. It was followed by Poland-based Onet, said to be the largest online news source in the country, which was down 41% to 176.8 million.
Indian Express posted the third-biggest decline in traffic year on year, down 40% to 88.9 million.
Eight of the 13 US sites in the top 50 saw traffic decline both month on month and year on year. Google traffic has declined at a faster rate in the US compared to European publishers as AI Mode and AI Overviews were rolled out earlier there, causing the effects to pear sooner.
Qatar’s 24-hour news network Al Jazeera saw the biggest increase in traffic year on year, up 69% to 86.7 million. As seen repeatedly in Press Gazette’s top 50 monthly ranking of news sites, Al Jazeera has sustained year-on-year traffic growth in recent months, a reflection of increased interest in Middle East news after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February.
Some 30 of 50 sites saw traffic decline month on month, with Al Jazeera’s traffic dropping the fastest (down 38%), followed by India’s ABP Live (down 22% to 101.3 million) and CNN (down 22% to 357.7 million).
Several major newsbrands from other countries missed the top 50 altogether: France’s daily newsper Le Figaro fell short by around three million visits, ranking 52nd with 80.3 million, while Le Monde ranked in 71st place with 70 million visits in May. Finnish tabloid per Iltalehti trailed just behind Le Monde with 69.5 million visits.
More Press Gazette website rankings:
Top 50 news websites in the UK
Top 50 news websites in the USA
Top 50 English-language news websites in the world
Similarweb generates its traffic data by plying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and ps that choose to share first-party with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and ps. The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less journalistic focus.

Source: Press Gazette

Published: June 9, 2026 9:24 AM

Read Original Article