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What you need to know as Tupac Shakur murder trial begins

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, allegedly orchestrated the killing of the rapper back in 1996.

It is the first time anyone has gone on trial in connection with the infamous drive-by shooting.

Everything we know so far

• Prosecutors allege that Davis did not fire the gun himself, but did mastermind the killing.
• He is a former gang leader and uncle of the man long suspected of shooting Tupac.
• Davis has pleaded not guilty and denies the allegations.
• The trial is expected to last up to six weeks and may feature testimony from one of the other passengers of the car.

What happened on the night

There were witnesses to the murder who could put together a timeline of events, though police have never arrested a suspected killer.

• On 7 September, 1996, Tupac went to watch a Mike Tyson boxing match on the Las Vegas strip.
• He and Marion “Suge” Knight, the head of his record label, got into a fight with Orlando Anderson, Duane Davis’s nephew and a suspected member of the South Side Compton Crips gang.
• Leaving the match with Suge, Tupac was shot four times in a drive-by shooting from the back of a white Cadillac.
• Six days later, on 13 September, he died in hospital. He was 25 years old.

What have the lawyers said?

Prosecutor Binu Palal told the jury: “Let’s be clear, Duane Davis did not pull the trigger. But he did plan the shooting in retaliation of the beating of his nephew.”

Meanwhile, Davis’s attorneys questioned “what facts do they have after 30 years?” and labelled the allegations “fiction”.

Wetherspoons bans playing music or taking calls on speaker

JD Wetherspoon founder and CEO Sir Tim Martin said “we are kindly asking phone users to pipe down” while in his pubs.

It joins widespread calls for measures to tackle antisocial phone use in public.

What you need to know

The pub chain said it had taken the decision across all of its 792 sites “following complaints from customers, who are being driven nuts by other people’s videos and amplified phone conversations”.

It requested that customers “switch their phones to silent” or “use earphones” rather than disturb others.

• The Liberal Democrats have previously called for fines of up to £1,000 for “headphone dodgers” who play music out loud on buses and trains.
• A YouGov poll published in 2025 suggested 62 per cent of people would back the move.
• In London, Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan rolled out a campaign last year encouraging people to use headphones when playing music on the city’s transport network.

The best and worst supermarkets for shelf life – ranked

New secret shopper market research by consumer champion Which? found “a striking difference” in how each shop delivery performed.

The official ranking

Each supermarket home delivery was tested by 12 different shoppers across 29 standard items.

Here is every supermarket delivery ranked according to average perishable shelf life from best to worst:

• – 10.4 days
• – 10.4 days
• – 10.2 days
• – 8.8 days
• – 7.7 days

Asda performed the best, with an average 11-day period to use up perishables. This was more than three days better than the worst average time.

Which? noted Ocado, which came in joint second, also delivered on longevity, with two packs of honey roast ham arriving with more than 20 days left on the packet.

Waitrose had the shortest average shelf life across all six supermarkets tested. Some of the shoppers even had packs of meat arrive with just one day before the use-by date.

The shop said this was partly due to removing preservatives from certain items “in response to increasing customer demand”. Its pickers are “trained to choose the longest dated products they can”.

How top album releases are linked to rise in fatal crashes

A Harvard study has found new releases by the most popular artists are linked to a notable rise in car crash deaths in the US, thought to be linked to distracted driving.

What did the study find?

• Researchers looked at the release of 10 of the most streamed new albums between 2017 and 2022.
• They found new release days had a 15 per cent higher number of fatal crashes compared to the days either side of it.
• This is equivalent to 182 excess deaths in the US between those 10 albums.
• Albums included Taylor Swift’s Drake’s and Harry Styles’ .

Vishal Patel, lead author of the study, said searching for the new music likely distracts drivers. “You unlock the phone, open the app, find the release, read down a tracklist, tap the right song. That’s several seconds of looking at a screen,” he said.

Researchers also found the rise in deaths was more prominent among younger drivers, male drivers and those driving alone.

Areas in England have been ranked by friendliness, according to government data from the community life survey.

The survey takes into account sense of loneliness, local pride, participation in the local community and friendliness with neighbours.

• 1The Isles of Scilly, a tiny archipelago off the coast of Cornwall.
• 2, Devon. On the coast just south of Dartmoor National Park.
• 3. Bordering South Hams to the north, encompassing much of wild Dartmoor.
• 4, including Bakewell, Ashbourne and parts of the Peak District.
• 5Richmond upon Thames in southwest London.

Barking and Dagenham in east London placed as the least friendly part of England. The other lowest-ranking areas were Stoke-on-Trent, Ashfield, Mansfield and Ipswich.

The index was collated by National Conversation, a commission to better understand British cohesion and tackle division. It has launched its own survey people can take to give their view on their own area.

British couple on honeymoon killed in helicopter crash in Greece

Greek police believe a mechanical fault may have caused a helicopter to crash before it was due to land on the island of Sifnos.

The crash on Monday evening killed a British couple on honeymoon and the pilot.

• London-based couple Marie Ebert, 30, and Alexander Cromie, 31, died in the incident. They were celebrating their honeymoon.
• The pilot, Giorgos Raikos, 53, was a former air force officer and was “extremely experienced”. He also died in the crash.
• “The focus of the inquiry is now on the helicopter and possible engine failure. What has happened is nothing short of a tragedy,” a source told The Guardian.

How the crash unfolded

The private helicopter crashed just metres from a landing pad. CCTV footage showed the aircraft spinning out of control before plummeting to the ground and igniting a fireball. A thick plume of dark smoke was seen billowing into the sky from the site of the crash.

A closer look at what may have gone wrong

People in the area have testified hearing the helicopter making a noise, a strange noise, probably a mechanical fault in the air and because the propeller was doing something strange.

Manolis Fountolakis, deputy mayor of Sifnos

Tribute paid to couple

• Asset management firm Blackstone, where Cromie worked, said it was “shocked” by the couple’s death.
• “We are shocked by the tragic passing of three people including our colleague Alex Cromie and his wife Marie Ebert, who were celebrating their honeymoon,” the firm said.
• “Alex was beloved by everyone who knew and worked with him at Blackstone, and our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones.”