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Get you up to speed: UAE ministry of defence responds to missile threats following Iranian attacks
The UAE’s Ministry of Defence claimed that Iran launched an attack involving a dozen ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones. Melody Ann Thomas, an influencer based in Dubai, reported receiving five emergency alerts following these incidents.
The UAE’s Ministry of Defence stated that Iran launched an attack involving a dozen ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles, and four drones. Melody Ann Thomas, an influencer living in Dubai, noted that the recent alerts have changed people’s perspectives, saying, “there’s definitely an underlying tension that didn’t exist before.”
The UAE is currently responding to further ‘missile threats’ following attacks that occurred recently, including a series of emergency alerts received by residents such as Melody Ann Thomas. Despite the tensions, Thomas maintains she feels safe in Dubai and views it as her home.
Dubai influencer thought UAE strikes were ‘one-off’ in ‘safest place’ | News World
Melody Ann Thomas has lived in the UAE for more than six years. (Picture: TikTok/@allthingsmelodyx)
An influencer living in the UAE insists it’s still the ‘safest place’ following a spate of strikes on the nation.
The country’s Ministry of Defence accused Iran of launching an attack featuring a dozen ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones on yesterday.
The country is now responding to further ‘missile threats’.
Melody Ann Thomas lives and works in Dubai and shares glimpses of her life there on social media.
She told WTX: ‘On May 4, we received [an alert] again for the first time since the ceasefire, and that completely caught me off guard.
‘I was sitting in my office on a high floor surrounded by glass windows, and I just froze. I was hoping it would be a one-off.’
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Smoke rises in the port area of Dubai following an Iranian drone strike on March 1, 2026. (Picture: AP)
But it wasn’t. Last night, Thomas received five more alerts. ‘There’s definitely an underlying tension that didn’t exist before. It has shifted people’s perspective,’ she added.
She said: ‘Regardless of how you feel about it, these are the facts. Missiles, drones, all of this, is not a normal situation, and it’s always better safe than sorry.’
The 32-year-old, originally from Virginia in the US, started posting to the social media platform about her life in the UAE during strikes on the country earlier this year.
A fire near Dubai International Airport on March 16, 2026. (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
She added: ‘I was getting bombarded with messages from friends and family back home. It felt like a good way to share what was actually happening on the ground and give a more realistic perspective.
‘When debris from an intercepted drone hit a residential building in Dubai Marina, it made the situation feel much more real.
‘That was the point where my family was no longer comfortable with me staying. Thankfully, some flights had started to become available, and I booked a one-way ticket to Thailand.
‘I ended up staying for about five weeks until things calmed down. When the ceasefire was announced, it felt like a collective sense of relief and a return to normalcy.’
Thomas says she still feels safe after receiving five emergency alerts in one evening. (Picture: TikTok/@allthingsmelodyx)
Monday’s attacks are the first on the UAE since Iran’s ceasefire deal with the US was reached on April 8.
Despite this, Thomas says she still feels safe and doesn’t ‘really associate the UAE’ with the ‘kind of disruption’ it has experienced over the last few months.
‘To be transparent, I ended up choosing Dubai because I couldn’t get a work visa in the UK. London was the goal.
‘Looking back, it all worked out the way it was meant to. I love Dubai for its safety and sunshine 360 days a year.
‘For me, feeling safe comes down to clear communication and transparency. When people are informed and understand what’s happening, it helps reduce uncertainty and panic.
‘Ultimately, Dubai has become my home by choice, and I genuinely love living here. Day-to-day, it’s still one of the safest places I’ve ever lived.
‘But that doesn’t erase the fact that earlier this year, missiles were being intercepted overhead daily.’
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October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
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@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
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Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
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To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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