Thorpe Park is closing a beloved outdoor water attraction after 35 years – and, in its place, introducing a brand new ‘recharge’ zone where thrillseekers can rest. 

Amity Beach – a family-friendly spot known for its fake sandy shores, fountains, paddling pool and four-lane water slide – will not reopen for 2026, the theme park has confirmed.

Opened in 1991, the seasonal attraction has long served as a popular spot for families and children to cool down during hot summer days.

However, in a social media post, the theme park announced the main beach area is being removed to make way for a ‘refuel’ zone named ‘The Launchpad.’

It wrote: ‘We’re thrilled to share a first look at the concept art for The Launchpad! As we say goodbye to Amity Beach and get ready for this next exciting chapter, we’re proud to reveal what’s coming next!

‘The Launchpad will be a recharge zone, designed for thrillseekers to rest, reset and refuel between adrenaline hits.

‘As the UK’s Most Thrilling Theme Park, we recognise how important it is to recharge between our exhilarating rides, and this space will be the perfect place to do that.’

Amity Beach, a beloved outdoor attraction at Thorpe Park, will not reopen for the 2026 season

Thorpe Park announced on social media that the main beach area will be removed to make way for a ‘refuel’ zone named ‘The Launchpad’ (pictured) 

On its Instagram page, Thorpe Park released first-look photos of The Launchpad, an open-plan space that features colourful rubber flooring, seating areas, shaded spots, kiosks, flower boxes and planted trees.

While Amity Beach is characterised by its exhilarating Depth Charge waterslide, which features thrilling dinghy rides, the attraction’s future remains up in the air as it doesn’t appear in photos of the new area.   

Thorpe Park recently released a nostalgic collection of photos highlighting the history – and popularity – of Amity Beach, which includes visits from members of the Royal family and high-profile celebrities. 

In April 1992, Princess Diana – who was known to visit the park multiple times as a ‘regular guest’ in the ’90s – was famously photographed with a young Prince Harry taking on the Depth Charge water slide. 

Amity Beach also hosted themed events, such as Love Island Lates, which gave fans the opportunity to meet with cast members from the show. 

Thorpe Park released a number of throwback photos highlighting Amity Beach’s history since 1991

Meanwhile, in Blackpool, a £1 million children’s attraction has closed down after just three years.

Peter Rabbit Explore and Play was a venture by Merlin Entertainments, a company which operates major theme parks across the country including Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.

The family attraction first opened back in 2022 and brought visitors into a ‘rabbit-sized world’.

It was a multi-sensory and interactive experience for little ones and their families to enjoy, based on the beloved Peter Rabbit animated TV series.

The adventure lasted 45 minutes and took visitors through a series of challenges and themed zones, all the way to the Secret Treehouse Club.

Located along the Promenade, standard entry for children aged one to 14 years old cost £9.50, and an adult ticket was priced from £4.50.

However, despite the wholesome Beatrix Potter-inspired attraction costing £1 million, it closed its doors back in November 2025 and has not reopened since, The Blackpool Gazette reports.

By OLIVIA ALLHUSEN, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER

Published: 10:19 EST, 24 February 2026 | Updated: 11:34 EST, 24 February 2026

Two British cousins have been charged with attempted murder after a man was stabbed in the neck during a Valentine’s Day row in Venice.

The pair, aged 19 and 20, allegedly followed a young woman between bars near the Rialto Bridge after the older cousin contacted her on Instagram, before an argument later escalated into violence.

When a 22-year-old Venetian man stepped in between the cousins and the woman, the older cousin allegedly pulled out a 10cm switchblade and passed it to his relative. 

In seconds, the younger suspect is said to have grabbed the knife and stabbed the local man in the neck as he turned to walk away following the exchange.

He was rushed into emergency surgery with a damaged artery.

According to local media reports, the confrontation began with a tense exchange in English.  

Witnesses said one of the British men declared: ‘She’s my girlfriend, I love her. The problem is, unfortunately, she doesn’t love me.’ 

The Venetian is said to have replied: ‘You are in Italy, my home.’

Those present said the British man then whispered something to his cousin before a blade was snapped open and the Venetian was stabbed in the neck. 

Two British cousins have been charged with attempted murder after a man was stabbed in the neck during a Valentine’s Day row in Venice

The pair, aged 19 and 20, allegedly trailed a young woman between bars near the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal after one of them became infatuated with her on Instagram. Pictured: Police divers are continuing to search the Grand Canal for the knife

When a 21-year-old Venetian man stepped in between the cousins and the woman, the older cousin allegedly pulled out a 10cm switchblade and passed it to his relative

Local outlets described scenes of panic, with screams and people fleeing as emergency services were called to the bar area near Campo Bella Vienna in the early hours of February 14. 

The attack, dubbed by Italian media as the ‘attempted murder of San Valentino’, is said to have been witnessed by several members of the victim’s group, including the young woman at the centre of the dispute. 

She told investigators she had been in contact via Instagram with one of the suspects, who introduced himself as ‘Adam’, and that they had been messaging for some time before arranging to meet. 

He had told her he was staying in the Venice area with his cousin for about a month, having arrived on January 30 with a return ticket to London dated February 28, according to reports. 

Local media said prosecutors believe the switchblade was passed between the cousins moments before the stabbing – an exchange allegedly seen by those present and captured on security cameras.

After the attack, the two suspects fled, reports said. Local reports said the wounded Venetian pulled the blade from his neck before collapsing. 

Then, amid the confusion of the rescue efforts, one of the two Englishmen returned to retrieve the weapon, abandoned on the floor of the bar. 

Prosecutors believe he returned to retrieve the weapon in an apparent attempt to cover his tracks, unaware he was being filmed on surveillance cameras, local media reported.

Local media said the two cousins were tracked down by officers from Venice’s Flying Squad, supported by police from San Marco, at an apartment in the historic centre.

The pair were arrested and brought before prosecutors. British officials were notified of their detention. 

After a court hearing to confirm the arrests, they were remanded in pre-trial custody. 

Police divers are continuing to search the Grand Canal for the knife.

Reports said the two had travelled to Venice for a holiday, arriving at the end of January and were due to return to England in the coming days on a pre-booked flight. 

Kelly Osbourne has responded to online body shamers after being mercilessly attacked over her weight loss. 

Osbourne’s attendance at a variety of public events over recent months has prompted genuine concern for her health and wellbeing, notably during a front row appearance at London Fashion Week on Sunday. 

The singer and TV personality, who denies using weight loss jabs, looked considerably slimmer while attending Ascot Millinery Collective’s latest catwalk presentation at Mayfair’s Claridge’s. 

She has since called out her online abusers for subjecting her to a torrent of vile comments, among them an unsavoury remark about her late father, Ozzy, who passed away last July. 

Taking to Instagram, Osbourne, 41, shared a screenshot of the distasteful message, which read: ‘Looks like a dead body… she’s too thin and fragile… looks like she’s going to see her dad soon,’ followed by a string of laughing emojis. 

Commenting on Monday, the mother-of-one, who also shared a handful of appalled responses to the post, wrote: ‘Literally can’t believe how disgusting some human beings are! No one deserves this sort of abuse!’ 

Kelly Osbourne has responded to online body shamers after being mercilessly attacked over her weight loss 

On Monday, she called out her online abusers for subjecting her to a torrent of vile comments, among them an unsavoury remark about her late father, Ozzy, who passed away last July

Sharing a second post, she added: ‘This too shall pass, but like, holy f**k.’ 

Osbourne has been forced to repeatedly defend herself over her physical appearance following the sudden death of her father at his Buckinghamshire home last summer. 

Over the years, the British TV personality has been open about her insecurities around weight, which dates back to her teen years while starring in her family’s reality show, The Osbournes.

‘I got pulled into the head of the agency’s office and he … gave me a whole speech about how I was too fat for TV and I needed to lose weight, and that if I lost weight, I would look better,’ she revealed on The Osbournes podcast last year.

‘And he was just saying, “You’re not a movie star, but you could be one if you lost weight.”‘

Since then, Osbourne’s weight journey has been a rollercoaster.

She underwent gastric sleeve surgery in 2018, calling it ‘the best thing I have ever done,’ and credited a combination of surgery, strict diet and high-intensity interval training for shedding 85lbs.

But pregnancy added another twist. When she was expecting son Sidney in 2022, Osbourne gained around 100lbs and developed gestational diabetes, later admitting she avoided the spotlight because of it.

The singer and TV personality shared two posts after suffering another wave of criticism regarding her weight 

Osbourne has been forced to repeatedly defend herself over her physical appearance following the sudden death of her father at his Buckinghamshire home last summer

The singer and TV personality, who denies using weight loss jabs, looked considerably slimmer while attending Ascot Millinery Collective’s latest catwalk presentation (pictured)

Osbourne with her late father, Black Sabbath legend Ozzy, at the Grammy Awards in 2020

‘She has told people that she got skinnier for her kid. She wants to be around for her kid and play and be with her kid for a long time, and now that she lost her dad, she sees that being something even more important,’ our second source said.

‘She doesn’t want to be the weight she used to be and she is going to do whatever she needs to do to stay skinny.’

Osbourne has repeatedly fended off critics who scrutinize her dramatic transformation, most notably denying Ozempic rumours.

‘I know everybody thinks I took Ozempic. I did not take Ozempic. I don’t know where that came from. My mom took Ozempic,’ she previously told Extra.

But those close to Kelly are keeping a watchful eye, with a source telling the Daily Mail that ‘nobody near her is looking to provide an intervention, but people have noticed and are monitoring it’.

‘Kelly is definitely not concerned with how she looks and would tell anyone that would bring it up to her to go screw off, but she does get upset over people talking about it,’ the source added.

‘She is very skinny. She has been working on her weight her entire life and the stress of her dad passing away has been a major struggle to deal with that is taking a toll on her look and health.’

Lindsey Vonn has finally left hospital after her horrific leg break but the American skiing great has a very long road to recovery ahead of her.

In a lengthy post to Instagram on Monday morning, the 41-year-old revealed the devastating extent of her injuries and that doctors saved her from losing her leg after crashing at the Winter Olympics in Italy.

Vonn said she is in a wheelchair and will be for the foreseeable future. She fought back tears at times in a video where she explained how much pain she has already had to overcome.

‘I had a complex tibia fracture, I also fractured my fibia head and the reason it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome,’ Vonn explained. ‘Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area that there is too much blood and it gets stuck. It basically crushes everything – muscles, nerves, tendons, it dies.

‘Dr Tom Hackett saved my leg from being amputated. He did what is called a fasciotomy, he cut open both sides of my leg and let it breathe and he saved me. 

‘It will take around a year for all of the bones to heal and then I will decide if I want to take out all the metal or not, and then go back into surgery and finally fix my ACL. Life is life, we have to take the punches as they come.’ 

Lindsey Vonn is out of hospital but is only at the start of her recovery from a broken leg

Vonn, 41, says she is immobile and in a wheelchair while her leg begins to heal

Vonn tore her ACL in a crash before the Winter Olympics, something she said was actually a good thing because if that hadn’t happened, Dr Hackett would not have been on hand to help her.

‘If I hadn’t torn my ACL, which I would have done anyways in this crash, Doctor Tom Hackett wouldn’t have been there,’ Vonn said. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to save my leg.

‘He saved my leg from being amputated. I always talk about everything happening for a reason… I feel very lucky and grateful for him, for this six-hour surgery.’

Vonn revealed she also broke her ankle in the crash and that she needed a vital blood transfusion after one of her fifth surgery to combat low haemoglobin.

‘I was in the hospital a little longer than I hoped because I had very low haemogloin from the blood loss from all the surgeries,’ Vonn added. ‘I was really struggling, the pain was a little bit out of control and I had to have a blood transfusion.

‘That helped me a lot and I turned the corner and now I am out. I am in a wheelchar right now, I am very much immobile and I will be in a wheelchair for a while because I also broke my right ankle.

‘I hope I can be on crutches in a little bit but we will see.’ 

Vonn crashed during the women’s downhill final on February 8 and was airlifted to hospital by helicopter.

Lindsey Vonn has undergone five surgeries since hurting her leg at the Winter Olympics

Remarkably, Vonn once again insisted that she has no regrets over her comeback 

Vonn added as a caption to her video: ‘I hope I explained my injury well enough. I’m not a doctor so if I don’t explain something perfectly please forgive me. 

‘When the injury happened the situation was quite challenging in many ways but in the end, the situation was brought back into control. Again, thank you Dr Tom Hackett.

‘It will be a long road but I’ll get there. At least I’m out of the hospital. Love you all.’ 

Last week, Vonn shared an astonishing X-ray showing dozens of metal pins placed inside her leg to hold it together. 

‘I’m bionic for real now,’ she joked. 

Vonn’s race-torn body already contained titanium implants after she underwent a reconstruction in her right knee back in 2024. 

She launched her second career comeback shortly after the reconstruction, ending a five-year retirement, which reaped its reward in the form of victory at the 2025-2026 FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in December. 

The 41-year-old shared an X-ray of her surgically-repaired leg to social media on Friday 

Medical crews arrived to tend to Vonn after she remained down on the piste 

Vonn looked to add to that win with a gold at the Winter Olympics but disaster struck just one week before the Games began when she tore her ACL in a crash at Crans-Montana in Switzerland. 

Despite clear medical concerns, Vonn attempted to compete on the torn ligament at the Games but crashed just 13 seconds into her downhill final run. 

She lost control over the opening traverse after cutting the line too tight and clipping the gate and was spun around in the air.

Vonn was heard screaming after the crash as she was surrounded by medical personnel before she was strapped to a gurney and flown away.

Nancy Guthrie’s family has said they do not recognize the terrifying masked figure caught on camera outside her home as investigators started combing through bushes near her daughter Annie’s home.

Federal officers finally released doorbell camera footage from the home of Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother on Tuesday, after ten days without any leads into the 84-year-old’s disappearance. 

The images show an armed figure clad in a ski mask and carrying a backpack, wearing black latex gloves. The suspect can also be seen tampering with the mother-of-three’s Nest doorbell camera.

In the footage, the suspect rips the camera from its holder on the door frame. The device was missing by the time sheriff’s deputies arrived that morning.

The individual also attempts to cover the lens with a clenched fist, then searches the area around the door before ripping a bunch of flowers from the entranceway and waving them at the camera.

Nancy’s three children have since said they do not recognize the suspect in the video and are pleading with the public for help catching the kidnapper, NBC News reports.

‘We believe she is still alive,’ Today Show host Savannah Guthrie wrote as she shared the images to Instagram. ‘Bring her home.’ 

Just hours after the disturbing footage was released, officers were seen going door-to-door in the neighborhood around Annie Guthrie and her husband Tommaso Cioni’s home, also asking nearby businesses for surveillance footage. 

Nancy Guthrie’s family has said they do not recognize the masked man who was seen tampering with her Nest doorbell camera the night of her disappearance. The 84 year old is the mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie

A masked figure was seen on Nancy Guthrie’s doorstep in the early hours of February 1

The individual stares right into the lens while holding some plants ripped from outside the Arizona home, seemingly to cover the Nest doorbell camera

Other agents were seen searching a junkyard, bushes behind Annie and Tommaso’s home as well as another house at the far end of their street. 

Neighbor John Grove even told the Daily Mail that investigators asked to search a dry river bed on his property.

‘The cops wanted to know if they could go through that wash next to my house – I said they could,’ he recounted. ‘I asked if it was related to the kidnapping and they said “We can’t tell you that.”

‘They’re playing their cards close to their chest,’ Grove added.

‘I just hope she didn’t get into any difficulties around here – it’s very harsh terrain,’ he said. ‘We had a guy the other day who just moved here and got lost and died.

‘For someone like her, well, it wouldn’t end well.’ 

Annie and Tommaso were the last people to see Nany before her disappearance on January 31, after she went to their house for dinner.

Tommaso then dropped her back off at her house at around 9.48pm and her garage door closed at approximately 9.50pm, according to police.

By 1.47am, Nancy’s doorbell camera was disconnected, with the newly released footage showing the suspect ripping the camera from its holder on the door frame.

Officers from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department searched through desert land as the investigation into Nancy’s disappearance continued

Officers were seen surveilling the land and speaking to Annie’s neighbors

Investigators are pictured going through Annie Guthrie’s neighborhood

Another video released by officials showed the individual attempting to cover the lens with a clenched fist, then searching the area around the door, ripping a bunch of flowers from the entranceway, and waving them at the camera. 

Another clip shared by the FBI showed the individual hunched over as they made their first approach to the door, bowing their head. 

The terrifying footage was finally recovered on Tuesday after FBI agents and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department conducted a deep dive into Nest’s backend systems, as Nancy did not have a Nest subscription – which would have automatically uploaded the images and saved them to a cloud storage platform. 

Savannah Guthrie has since shared the haunting stills on Instagram, saying: ‘We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.’ 

Nancy was reported missing after failing to attend a virtual church service with friends, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said.

Since then, law enforcement has continued to comb over the home, which sits on a large lot on a street with no lights, while Guthrie and her two siblings, Annie and Camron, plead for help in finding their mother. 

The figure raises their fist while wearing latex gloves, with apparent facial hair also visible, moments before the individual apparently removed the camera

Moments before the individual apparently removes the camera outside Nancy’s home

Annie and Tomaso have said they realized Nancy was missing around 11.10am last Sunday, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office said.

They reported her disappearance to police at 12.15pm. Her phone, wallet, vital daily medications and car were still at her Catalina Foothills home. 

Cioni said he saw his mother-in-law enter her home through the garage before driving off the night before at around 9:45pm MT.

Investigators found drops of blood on Nancy’s front porch that were later confirmed to be hers and that her doorbell camera was disconnected at around 1.45am. 

Less than 30 minutes later, her security camera detected movement. Her pacemaker stopped transmitting data to her Apple Watch and phone shortly afterwards, suggesting she had been taken out of the devices’ range. 

Nancy requires medication every 24 hours and it is unclear if whoever abducted her has ensured she has access to her medication. 

Guthrie and her two siblings, Camron and Annie, in a video they shared online asking for help 

A ransom note sent to multiple news outlets last week set an initial deadline of Thursday evening and a final deadline of Monday evening. 

The notes are said to have made specific reference to damage to Nancy’s home and the placement of a possession, both details that have not been shared with the public.

It is unclear if those specific pieces of information were accurate. 

Guthrie said she and her family were taking the demands seriously but there has been no official update on whether the notes’ contents have been verified and if their senders really are holding Nancy captive. 

Efforts to negotiate with the alleged captors also stalled, as a digital wallet referenced in the first letter for a potential transaction remained empty, according to TMZ, which was sent a copy of the note.

Once the payment was made, the alleged kidnappers claimed they would return Nancy to Tucson within 12 hours, the outlet reported. 

After Monday’s deadline passed, the FBI said it ‘is not aware of any continued communication between the Guthrie family and suspected kidnappers.’ 

The bureau is now leading all elements of the investigation in connection with Nancy’s kidnapping, including alleged ransom notes.