British actor Julian Sands spoke about the experience of seeing human remains while mountain climbing in an interview which has been published just days after his death was confirmed.
Human remains were found last week in the Mount Baldy area of the San Gabriel mountains in southern California – five months after the 65-year-old went missing.
The latest edition of the Radio Times has an interview with Sands which took place months before his death.
Reflecting on his experience of hiking, he told the magazine: “I’ve found spooky things on mountains, when you know you’re in a place where many people have lost their lives, whether it be on the Eiger or in the Andes.
“You may be confronted with human remains and that can be chilling. It’s not necessarily supernatural, it’s possibly all too natural – what I would call hypernatural.
“You’re in the presence of big nature and big nature is revealing itself in all its power. It can take us over a threshold of hypersensitivity into a realm of natural forces.”
Searches by local authorities had been unsuccessful in the search for Sands, with poor weather conditions hampering efforts since March, until his remains were found by civilian hikers last month.
The actor was best-known for his breakout role in the 1985 romantic period drama A Room With A View, in which he starred alongside Helena Bonham Carter.
Sands later moved to the horror genre, with appearances in films including Gothic, Warlock and Arachnophobia.
The actor was also a keen climber and described the activity as “solace and a sort of existentialist self-negation, but equally a self-affirmation”.
“If you can deal with dangerous mountains, you can certainly deal with life as an actor – the two are quite complementary,” he added.
Image: Julian Sands, Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith in A Room With A View
In the interview, Sands dismissed the suggestion that he was too old to climb, but said that friends who used to join him had stopped in part due to age.
He also noted that climate change had made certain rock faces more unstable.
Sands said: “If you don’t really have the desire, the focus for climbing a route, if you’re not absolutely committed, it becomes much more dangerous and it’s a much more deflating experience.
“Finding folk whose company I enjoy in such stressful and intimate conditions is not easy.
“The thing about climbing is, you’re always making plans and looking at routes – maybe you end up getting to 5% of all the things you plan to do.”
Sands was considered an experienced and competent mountaineer by his friends, with his hiking partner and fellow actor Kevin Ryan previously telling the PA news agency that he was “the most advanced hiker I know”.
Kanye West’s Yeezy online shopping platform has been taken down after selling T-shirts featuring a swastika.
The rapper, also known as Ye, used a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday to send people to his website to buy the clothing emblazoned with the Nazi symbol – an image often used by the extreme-right.
The ecommerce platform Shopify, which hosts many online shops and businesses, has deactivated his site and his domain name yeez.com is being sold for $98,999 (£79,692).
Shopify said in an emailed statement to Sky News’ sister channel NBC News: “All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms so we removed them from Shopify.”
West’s representative is yet to respond to a request from NBC for comment.
The white T-shirts featured a black swastika on the front and were the only items for sale on the front page of yeezy.com.
No text or explanation accompanied the item, just the letters “HH-01.” They were available for $20 (£16).
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Initially, West’s site showed a notice from Shopify which said the store was “unavailable”.
Image: yeez.com was taken offline by Shopify, the e-commerce platform which was hosting his shop
But the site now redirects to the registrar GoDaddy, the platform which manages yeez.com, where a page shows the domain name is for sale.
GoDaddy has not yet responded to questions about the sale and whether it was enforced by the company or initiated by West.
Image: The domain name yeez.com can be bought for $98,999 (£79,692)
The decision to sell the T-shirt triggered widespread criticism, including from the Anti-Defamation League (ADF) which posted a statement on X on Monday, describing the shirt sales as further proof of West’s antisemitism.
The organisation, formed to combat anti-Jewish bigotry and discrimination, explained that the swastika was adopted by Hitler and “continues to threaten and instil fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy”.
The ADF also said the T-shirt was labelled on Kanye’s website as ‘HH-01’ – suggesting this was code for “Heil Hitler”.
West has in recent days been posting antisemitic messages on X, as well as writing “I love Hitler” and “I’m a Nazi”. His account then had a “sensitive content warning” added to it before he posted a final message.
“I’m logging out of Twitter,” he wrote. “I appreciate [X owner] Elon [Musk] for allowing me to vent.”
After his account was deactivated on Monday, his spokesperson Milo Yiannopoulos issued an explanation.
“Ye is an intergenerational artist and icon who continues to redefine the limits of creativity and free expression. He has deactivated his X account for the time being,” he said in a statement.
One of the most successful figures in hop-hip, West built up a fashion brand called Yeezy which began as a collaboration with Adidas. But the German sportswear giant cut ties with him in 2022 over his antisemitic remarks and eventually reached a settlement in October.
Lisa Riley has reacted to reports that Peter Kay likened a heckler to her, insisting she’s “not offended”.
The Bolton comedian was performing his Manchester gig on Saturday night when a woman was removed by security guards after shouting “We love you Peter”. Kay is said to have likened her to Riley as she was being taken out.
The audience member has said she is “annoyed and upset” about the comments.
“To go to a show and feel like you’re having the mick taken out of you because of your weight, I was just a bit shocked,” she told the Manchester Evening News.
“The whole arena was laughing, I think they thought it was part of the show but there was a nastiness to his voice. It was like he was trying to get the crowd against me – it just wasn’t nice, to be honest.”
Riley, 48, is best known for playing Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale and also fronted You’ve Been Framed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Appearing to respond to her impromptu mention during the show, Riley posted a picture on Instagram on Monday which read: “Keep calm and laugh”. She added the message: “It’s a laugh, it’s funny!!!”
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She then followed it up on Tuesday with a post on Instagram which said: “Please draw a line under this now. I am not offended, never was offended. I love Peter Kay to pieces. Laughter is my favourite medicine”.
Kay was also understood to have thrown two men out of the same gig after one repeatedly shouted “garlic bread,” which is one of Kay’s catchphrases.
Kay told ITV’s Good Morning Britain he had taken action against hecklers as they were ruining the show for others, and it was “no longer fair” to the other audience members.
In response to his likening of one audience member to Riley, he said in a statement to the show: “I didn’t realise it was an insult. She did look remarkably like Lisa Riley, I didn’t realise that was an insult”.
One audience member told the Manchester Evening News that Kay had “shouted” at the hecklers for “a good three to five minutes” during the show.
They said the audience was mixed in their reaction: “Some couldn’t believe it and were obviously annoyed and others were laughing, either thinking it was part of the show or going along with it.”
Kay, 51, who has been performing his record-breaking Better Late Than Never Again tour since 2022, recently performed his 100th show at the AO Arena – the same venue the three hecklers were expelled from.
Tickets to watch the show start at £35, but go up to about £350 for top-notch seats.
Sky News has contacted representatives for Kay for comment.
Kay is currently scheduled to perform his tour into spring 2026.
A pilot has died after a private jet owned by Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil crashed into another plane at an airport in Arizona.
Neil was not on board at the time of the collision, which happened off the runway at Scottsdale Airport on Monday afternoon.
Neil’s girlfriend Rain Andreani and her friend suffered injuries which are not thought to be life-threatening.
They were taken to hospital with the jet’s co-pilot, who was also injured.
Image: Emergency responders work on Vince Neil’s plane after the collision. Pic: AP
“While details are still emerging, our hearts go out to the families of both the pilot who lost his life and the passengers who suffered injuries,” Motley Crue said in a statement.
“Motley Crue will announce a way to help support the family of the deceased pilot – stand by for an announcement very soon”.
Rain Andreani broke five ribs in the crash and the dogs the women were travelling with survived, TMZ reports.