A community charity says it was pushed to the brink of insolvency after being mistakenly sued by the daughter of M*A*S*H star Sally Kellerman in a dispute that began when a cafe declined to admit her dog.

Claire Kellerman, a US-born 62-year-old whose late aunt and adoptive mother played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the original 1970s M*A*S*H film, brought taxpayer-funded legal action against the Great Bernera Community Development Trust (GBCDT) in the Outer Hebrides.

Ms Kellerman, whose outspoken role on the island of Great Bernera has divided opinion locally, sought to pursue the organisation connected to a community cafe after staff allegedly refused entry to her dog, which she maintains is a service animal.

However, solicitors acting on her behalf served the legal papers on GBCDT rather than Bernera Community Association, the volunteer-run group responsible for the cafe’s day-to-day operations.

GBCDT, a non-profit established to support the island’s economic and social wellbeing, has now told the Daily Mail it was left in a precarious financial position after spending thousands of pounds defending the claim before it was eventually withdrawn ahead of a hearing.

Ms Kellerman, who locals accused of ‘bullying’ staff at the cafe, is understood to have been banned from the site over her behaviour before launching legal action claiming volunteers had refused access to her service dog.

GBCDT director Mark Bryant told the Mail how his organisation was wrongly served with a writ despite board members repeatedly attempting to contact Ms Kellerman, and her lawyers, to inform them of the error.

They also informed the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) of the mistake before its decision to fund Ms Kellerman’s case, he said, but the board chose to do so anyway. 

GBCDT is completely separate from the island’s community cafe and has no role whatsoever in its running or organisation.

But after emails and phone calls went unanswered, the non-profit had to spend some £7,000 on lawyers of their own before those acting for Ms Kellerman finally admitted their mistake.

‘The cafe and the community centre have nothing to do with our business. We’re baffled by their [Ms Kellerman’s legal firm’s] incompetence in prosecuting the trust,’ Mr Bryant said.

To make matters worse for the trust, it has been told it cannot recoup any of its costs due to Ms Kellerman having been granted legal aid by the Scottish government.

Mr Bryant said: ‘We can’t get our money back through the court process. It is just wrong. 

‘The only way the trust has avoided having zero cash is because private individuals have stepped up to support the trust through this difficult period.’ 

He added: ‘If she didn’t have legal aid she wouldn’t have a platform to do this. They waste taxpayers’ money supporting vexatious writs but they fill the courts with these actions that shouldn’t be there.’

Lawyers for Ms Kellerman, who grew up in California, have been acting via Glasgow’s publicly-funded Ethnic Minorities Law Centre (EMLC).

They have now amended their claim to sue the cafe’s actual voluntary operators, Bernera Community Association, for £10,000 – a claim which the charity said will all but bankrupt them if legal costs continue to mount.

It is already having to rely on a fundraiser to aggregate money to fund legal representation in the year-long dispute. 

Ms Kellerman is claiming the charity’s cafe refused to let her service dog inside due to them preparing food on the premises. 

But locals have told the Daily Mail she only sued after she was banned from the site over her behaviour, not due to the presence of her dog.

They have alleged the animal, which she insists aids her with an undisclosed disability, has been seen harassing livestock and chasing wild animals on the island.

One source even claimed it had defecated on a public bus, which Ms Kellerman then did not clean up.

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They added she had shown ‘consistent behaviour’ in which she ‘bullies staff, reduces staff to tears’.

They accused her of ‘weaponising’ her dog and taking part in disputes in cafes across the island.

‘She wants the confrontation,’ the source told the Mail. ‘She shouts loudly, reduces people to tears. It’s a very consistent MO and everybody is petrified to say it.’

Ms Kellerman, who arrived in Lewis around four years ago, is meanwhile still pursuing the case against Bernera Community Association, with a hearing set for December.

Online, Ms Kellerman speaks of the alleged ‘normalisation of abuses’ on Great Bernera, writing: ‘I am grateful to be encouraged by the many resilient individuals who’ve been harmed the past decade on Bernera, and for the opportunity to end the BCA’s unbridled abuses.’

She accused the BCA and cafe of ‘exclusion, collective harassment, shaming, ostracisation, wrongful blaming, illegal discrimination and victimization’.

She went on to cite ‘an illegal sign’ she said had hung in the cafe reading: ‘No dogs allowed in centre.’ 

Ms Kellerman added: ‘They act self-righteously abusing, harassing, targeting and illegally discriminating against incomers.’

She described the environment the charity had created for those who are disabled with assistance dogs as ‘vile’ with ‘intentional, targeted hostility’, blaming this on their ‘ignorance, and unwillingness to welcome all equally’.

The case has caused shock throughout the small community, which Mr Bryant described as ‘a very different world’ which prides itself on coming together to help those in need.

Labour MSP Donald Mackinnon has written to SLAB urging it to ‘urgently review’ its funding of the case because of the potential damage to its reputation.

He said it ‘raises broader concerns about the safeguards applied when public funds are used to support litigation’.

Under Scottish legislation, parties cannot typically recoup any costs from a party who has been assisted by legal aid. 

A spokesman for GBCDT said: ‘The GBCDT has suffered significant cost, stress and wasted time being wrongly sued by Claire Kellerman, supported by the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre (EMLC) and Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB). 

‘The GBCDT has been punished. It has nothing to do with the matters raised in the writ. EMLC & SLAB were clearly informed that GBCDT were not the right Defender in the writ. The Scottish Government should review funding for EMLC and SLAB.’

A spokesman for Bernera Community Association said: ‘We can confirm that legal proceedings have been raised against the Bernera Community Association. As the matter is now before the court, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further on the allegations or issues in dispute. 

‘The Association remains focused on serving the local community and appreciates the support it has received.’

A spokesman for the SLAB said it was bound by strict confidentiality requirements regarding individual cases.

They added: ‘SLAB’s role is to assess whether the statutory tests for legal aid are met based on the information available at the time of application and throughout the life of a case. Decisions are made in accordance with legal aid legislation, regulations and guidance.

‘We are satisfied that our decision-making in this matter was, and remains, thorough, appropriate and fully consistent with the legal aid framework. Granting legal aid does not mean that SLAB supports a particular case or is financing a firm of solicitors; it means that the statutory tests for legal aid have been met.

‘Questions about the merits of a case, legal issues arising within a case or the conduct of proceedings – including whether or not an action is vexatious and whether such a finding should be reflected in awards of expenses – are matters for the courts, not SLAB.

‘We note that the case was called recently and the court allowed the action to continue. On that basis, there does not appear to have been any further change in circumstances that would require us to revisit the grant of legal aid.’

Ms Kellerman was approached for comment. 

Morale aboard the USS George Washington is reportedly strong as the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier arrives in the Arabian Sea, positioning near the strategically crucial Strait of Hormuz and close to Iran.

The carrier, CVN 73, has taken over duties from the USS Abraham Lincoln. Just three weeks after a port visit to Vietnam, the massive floating airfield is now carrying roughly 5,000 sailors and hosting about nine operational squadrons, including advanced strike fighters, electronic attack aircraft and helicopter units. Senior officers say the crew is prepared and motivated for its latest assignment.

“Morale aboard USS George Washington remains high among our sailors,” Capt. Nicholas DeLeo, the ship’s Commanding Officer, told News Media. He added “I see this as I walk the deck plates, seeing them take pride in their work — whether conducting flight operations, maintaining our systems or supporting one another on the ship. The dedication and teamwork I see across the ship is outstanding, and that spirit keeps us ready and resilient.”

The USS George Washington, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, serves as the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 5. It is reportedly operating alongside multiple U.S. warships, including the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls (CG 62) and the guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86).

Commander of Carrier Strike Group Five, Rear Adm. Jeff Heames, told News Media “The teams aboard USS George Washington and Carrier Strike Group Five are ready, determined, and resourced for sustained operations. Our Sailors understand the importance of the mission and continue to execute with precision and professionalism every day.”

With the carrier group now operating in the Middle East, it falls under US Central Command (CENTCOM). The command’s former Commander, Gen. Joseph Votel, (Ret.), recently told Fox News’ America Reports about the George Washington’s expected mission, saying “Being able to continue to have credible military capability in the Middle East is really important, so the arrival of the George Washington is I think a good example of that.”

Votel continued, “We’re going to have to be prepared, because this is probably going to take some time, to continue to bring forces into the region, we want them to be at a high level of readiness.”

Flight operations continue, both day and night. Launching into the skies off Iran from the George Washington, aircraft based on board are reported to be F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multirole strike fighters, F-35C Lightning II fifth-generation stealth multirole fighters, EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft and E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early warning and control.

Also onboard are said to be MH-60S Seahawk & MH-60R Seahawkmulti-mission helicopters for anti-submarine warfare and search-and-rescue.

This past week, a historic landing on the George Washington. Navy Lt. Steven Frazier, a pilot from Strike Fighter Squadron 147, the Argonauts, made the 200,000th trap – landing on the ship in an F-35C Lightning II fighter jet, with his stealth fighter caught by a thick, steel arresting gear cable with the jet’s tail hook.

In a laid-back understatement that could have come straight out of the movie ‘Top Gun’, Lt. Frazier said, “It’s a good feeling for me to know that once I leave, I can come back to the aircraft carrier and trap”. The carrier can land one aircraft on deck per minute, and typically lands 70 aircraft a day.

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Attention to mission is evident throughout the ship. On the bridge, Assistant Navigator Elizabeth Wayne told the ship’s communication team, “all of the time when we are navigating, we are focused outside of the ship on anything that could pose a hazard or a threat to the ship.”

Wayne continued, “When we are in special evolution, when we are conducting flight operations, the most important thing is to ensure we are lock step with (the) airboss, the captain, the command duty officer underway, everybody needs to be on the same page to execute that safely.”

As it arrived in the Middle East, Russia tried to suggest the food on the carrier was not good. Russia Today (RT) posted what are believed to be AI-generated photos of poor rations on board. However, from the videos seen by News Media of great food and even a café below decks, the truth appears to be very different. Victoria Marc, Culinary Specialist 2nd Class, talked to the communications team on the carrier, noting that “throughout the day and into the night, our sailors have all sorts of food and drink options available to them.”

Marc added, “Sailors have the opportunity to eat three meals a day, plus the night rations. Our 150 cooks work 24 hours to prepare and serve 15,000 meals a day to ensure our sailors are well-fed. From the mess deck throughout the day, there’s always something there where people feel fueled and ready for the fight.”

And the Navy intends keeping it this way. Earlier this week, CENTCOM published images of the George Washington being replenished at sea. Navy images show the ship being resupplied twice in four days this past week, an average of 2,000 pallets of supplies including fresh food and ammunition winched by helicopter from a nearby supply ship.

Fuel for the carrier’s aircraft is also transferred ship-to-ship. The carrier is nuclear-powered, so the ship itself will not need refueling at sea.

More history this week – under the headline “Shoutout to our Shipbuilders!!”, the ship’s communications team posted “40 years ago on August 25, 1986, the keel for USS George Washington was laid.”

Today in the Arabian Sea, that keel supports the 5,000 men and women and their array of air firepower, as they stand at the coalface of the Middle East conflict, ready – and willing – to carry out their mission.

An ex-convict wanted by the FBI in connection with two deadly New York City robberies had an unusual message for the public after NYPD officers arrested him Saturday.

“God is good, God is great,” 31-year-old parolee Jesus Acosta said as he was led in handcuffs to Bronx Criminal Court to face charges tied to the fatal incidents.

Acosta had been the focus of a joint FBI and NYPD manhunt after authorities said he fatally shot a married father of two who worked at a wings restaurant in Brooklyn on Aug. 23, then later fired a fatal shot at a customer inside a Bronx deli.

Investigators have not indicated that either killing stemmed from anything other than robbery, police said.

Police said officers with the NYPD arrested Acosta at a Bronx park over the weekend.

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Acosta was still on parole after being released from state prison April 23 following 10 years behind bars on assault and felony gun possession charges, according to online records.

His deadly killing spree began when he shot beloved hard-working wings-eatery employee MD Yousef, 44, in the head during a heist. Yousef died at the hospital, police said.

Within 48 hours, Acosta pulled off another armed robbery at a bodega on 149th Street, where he shot and killed 33-year-old Tayvon Shuler, cops said..

The FBI posted a $25,000 reward for the accused career criminal, while United Bodegas of America, a Big Apple-based advocacy group for small food retailers, put up another $10,000, and Acosta was nabbed in the park Saturday.

He was led out of the 43rd Precinct in The Bronx in cuffs hours later, ignoring questions from reporters outside the stationhouse before he blurted out his bizarre first public comments.

A heartbroken British husband searching for his new wife in Nepal has shared the last message she sent before the deadly flood swept through the region: “I love you so much.”

Pramod Poudel, 34, who was born in Nepal, has returned to the disaster-hit country in a desperate effort to find his 25-year-old wife, Sumitra, who has not been seen since Wednesday.

The newlyweds had spoken just hours before a glacier collapse unleashed torrents of water down the mountainside and into nearby villages, leaving devastation across the Nepal-Tibet border area.

Authorities have so far confirmed 734 deaths, while another 2,498 people remain missing. Among the 48 British nationals believed to be unaccounted for are two teenagers: a 13-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy.

Pramod, who runs a food truck business, flew to Nepal on Friday to search not only for Sumitra but also for his mother, brother and uncle, all of whom vanished after their entire village was wiped out.

Mr Poudel and his wife only married in June. She had been staying with his family in the village of Sole as he returned home for work. 

He told The Sun: ‘When I last spoke to her, she said to me, ‘how are you? I love you so much’.

‘I have not had contact with her since then. It’s devastating – I don’t even know how to explain how I’m feeling right now. 

‘I’m so worried about her and all my family. I work so hard for them and they are my world.’ 

Pramod, from Uckfield, East Sussex, moved to Britain when he was 18 after being raised in Nepal.

He is one of many Brits who have been left in agony as a result of the Asian country’s ‘tsunami from the sky’.  

The monster mudslide swept away roads, bridges and homes in seconds, while also knocking out power lines and mobile phone masts.

The discovery of a group of 31 tourists, none of whom are British, alive in the district of Rasuwa, raised hopes that all is not lost.

But the death toll this morning rose to 734, with the families of those who remain unaccounted for desperately jetting to Nepal to begin a search for them.  

Among them is the wife of 54-year-old Pravin Atmakur, who was leading a group of 77 pilgrims to Mount Kailash in Tibet when the floods struck.

Manjula Atmakur arrived in Kathmandu on Friday morning after travelling from Britain to search for her husband, who has not been heard from since the disaster.

The couple both work as consultant psychiatrists for the NHS, while their son studies at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Mrs Atmakur told the Telegraph in Nepal: ‘I am emotionally broken. I don’t know how my husband is. In which situation. I want him back.’

She added: ‘I came here with the only agenda that I want to take Pravin back home alive.’ 

Mrs Atmakur last spoke to her husband on August 15, when he began the pilgrimage.

She believes he had completed the pilgrimage and was returning from Tibet into Nepal when the floods struck at around 9am on Wednesday.

Nepal is now facing what officials described as a scene of ‘devastation beyond imagination’ after a glacier collapse unleashed a ‘tsunami from the sky’, sending torrents of water crashing through villages and tourist hotspots.

Footage showed the mudslide racing down the Trishuli River valley and through Gyirong Port, a major border crossing between Nepal and Tibet used by thousands of pilgrims travelling to Mount Kailash each year.

Mrs Atmakur learnt of the disaster from her brother-in-law and immediately began preparing to travel to Nepal.

Her 19-year-old son Nalin, who studies engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, was travelling at the time. She waited for him to return so they could fly out together.

She reached Kathmandu on Friday and went directly to the British embassy, but said she had received little help.

Mrs Atmakur said her husband had devoted much of his life to helping others and that she now wanted authorities to help bring him home.

A millionaire family-of-four from Surrey including a former Mrs India UK are also among Britons missing in Nepal.

Ex-banker and beauty pageant winner Surabhi Sahu, 44, her businessman husband Santosh, 46, their son Spandan, 18, and daughter Syna, 13, had been on an adventure trek across the Nepal-China border.

Mr and Mrs Sahu ran a successful technology company in London together before he set up a thriving pharmaceutical business. The family live in a £1.3million six-bedroom house in Cobham, Surrey. 

They travelled to India last week and then on to the Nepalese-Tibetan trek. They were due to return in ten days before the start of the new school year.

A poignant final photograph of the family with their tour group, mostly made up of Britons, shows them smiling beside their bus against the peaks of the Himalayas.

The Alpine Eco Tours group was last heard from as they crossed the frontier from Nepal into Tibet, around the time on Wednesday that a horrifying torrent of ice, mud and rocks engulfed the Gyirong border crossing.

CCTV footage showed people running for their lives as the disaster struck.

Tour organisers have been frantically trying to reach the group ever since. There are hopes the tourists are alive and waiting to be rescued, but phone lines are down and the military has struggled to reach the mountainous area.

The Sahu family were well-travelled and on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a religious site for Hindus and Buddhists in Tibet.

Mrs Sahu is a chemistry graduate from Mumbai who became a banker before moving to Ireland to work for Dell Computers.

Her husband Santosh is an Irish citizen, and the family moved to Surrey where they became beacons of their community.

In 2018, Mrs Sahu won the Mrs India UK beauty contest – after being encouraged to enter it by her family – which she described as ‘a dream come true’.

She added it showcased ‘the best in women… not just in respect of physical beauty but in the many other capacities in which they are not always acknowledged or appreciated’.

As well as her successful business career, Mrs Sahu is an avid reader who promotes literature to her legion of Instagram followers. She has posted photos of herself visiting favourite spots of England, including the Cotswolds.

Her former banker husband Santosh has gone from strength to strength and is the founder and chief executive of Charac, a digital platform helping pharmacies improve deliveries to patients.

Their son Spandan is due to start a law degree at Durham University.

A former grammar school pupil and her NHS worker mother are also among those missing after travelling to the region on a pilgrimage.

Nelly Chhetri, 18, and her mother Yashika Basnet, 56, had joined a tour group and have not been heard from since.

Nepalese authorities have declared them missing, and their worried family said they have received no contact from the UK Foreign Office.

Nelly, an ‘ambitious’ former pupil of the Invicta Grammar School for girls, in Maidstone, Kent, hopes to go to university next year, her cousin Nickie Chhetri told the Daily Mail.

She has just completed a sixth-form course in health and social care at Uxbridge College, in London.

Sunil Amin, from Croydon, described the ‘horrible, horrible feeling’ of repeatedly trying to phone his wife, Hema Amin, 63, who was on a pilgrimage with Alpine Eco trek from Nepal to Tibet with her sister.  

‘I keep trying to call her. I’ve been trying, trying, trying,’ he said. ‘It just rings out or doesn’t get through. I’m devastated.’

Sarada Simkhada, 55, was also on a pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of thousands of other Hindus up Mount Kailash.

The mountain is a sacred site for both Hindus and Buddhists, and is believed to be the cosmic home of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati.

Sarada, a senior nurse who lives in Dartford, had travelled to Nepal on Saturday before she joined other pilgrims.

Her childhood friend Rajendra Pudasaini said she is known for taking part in the community and always ‘working incredibly hard’ at Darent Valley Hospital.

Sarada trained as a nurse in Kathmandu, before moving to London. Her relatives were last in contact with her when she was staying at the Kailash Hotel in Timure on the Nepal-China border, where she was waiting for Chinese customs officers to approve her visa.

Roshan Panday, owner of Fishtail Tours and Travels Group, had a tour group of 27 including Briton Leena Bector, 53, from Slough, and he said ‘no one is answering their phones’.

He said they had sent a video just nine minutes before the disaster struck, adding: ‘Absolutely everything’s under the mud. We tried calling the drivers. We tried calling the guides. We tried calling them all, but no one was answering.’

Ms Bector’s husband, Bhupesh Bector, told The Times he was frantically checking his iPhone to check her location but it had not changed for more than seven hours.

He flew out last night, saying: ‘I know that she’s in Nepal for sure, so even if they find her today or tomorrow, I need to be there.’ 

Another missing Briton is Nabhi Das, from Streatham in south London, family members confirmed. The University of Kent graduate, originally from Kenya and thought to work in finance, has not been heard from.

The flooding was likely caused by a huge chunk of a glacier that broke off and temporarily dammed a river, according to preliminary investigations by scientists.

That may have led to the backed-up water surging downstream with enormous force a few hours later, they suggested.

Scientists are still piecing together information from satellite and ground-level data to figure out exactly what happened to cause the flood.

The US Geological Survey on Wednesday reported a magnitude 5.2 glacier collapse that sent debris flowing downstream with catastrophic impact on communities.

Nepal’s Chitwan district became the site of mass burials for dozens of unidentified victims on the weekend. 

Authorities have dug hundreds of graves at the site – around 200 kilometres from where the floods began – though many bodies are said to be too badly decomposed to be identified.  

‘We were left with no other option and had to take this step. Our concern was the risk to public health posed by the rapid decomposition of the bodies,’ said Ganesh Arya, chief district officer of Baratpur, Chitwan.

Authorities buried 96 unidentified bodies in the forest on Saturday and planned to bury more than 100 others on Sunday, as recovery teams continue to retrieve victims from rivers and piles of debris.