In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has transformed itself into one of the most attractive destinations for entrepreneurs, startups, and international investors. What used to be primarily known as an oil-driven economy has now evolved into a diversified, innovation-focused business hub with strong global connections.

For anyone considering international expansion, relocation, or asset structuring, the UAE offers a combination of strategic advantages that are difficult to match elsewhere. From tax optimization to ease of doing business, the country continues to attract companies from Europe, Asia, and beyond.

Strategic Location and Global Connectivity

Business-Friendly Environment

If you’re exploring international expansion, understanding the process of company formation in uae is one of the first steps to unlocking these advantages.

Tax Efficiency and Financial Benefits

Free Zones vs Mainland: What Actually Matters

Reputation and Credibility

Banking and Financial Infrastructure

Scaling Opportunities

Cost Considerations

Long-Term Perspective

Final Thought

CRUZ Beckham has sent another olive branch to his estranged brother Brooklyn despite his older sibling blocking him.

The aspiring singer, 21, took to his Instagram stories to share a picture of himself as a baby with both his brothers, Brooklyn, 27, and Romeo, 23.

In the snap, the trio are seen sitting in front of one another and wearing matching white shirts.

The adorable photo of them as children saw them beaming from ear to ear as they posed for the happy moment.

This is just one of several olive branches that Cruz has extended to his brother over the last few months.

Back in December, he shared a picture of himself with his brothers and their dad David as he gushed: “Love you guys.”

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In February this year, he posted another shot of the three brothers together as children.

The trio flashed their cheeky grins for the camera as Brooklyn sat in the middle and cuddled them both.

Last month, he commemorated Brooklyn’s 27th birthday by sharing a picture of a young Brooklyn holding Cruz as a baby.

He wrote: “I love you,” alongside a party popper emoji.

Brooklyn has not publicly responded to any of Cruz’s attempt to move on from the family drama.

The aspiring chef blocked his parents and siblings on Instagram in December and stayed firm in keeping them unfollowed on his social media platform.

Cruz previously spoke out about Brooklyn’s social media snub.

It was initially thought that the Beckham family had “unfollowed” Brooklyn’s account, as The Sun on Sunday reported.

Cruz soon put things straight. Pulling no punches, he shared a post which read: “Not true.

“My mum and dad would never unfollow their son. Let’s get the facts right. “They woke up blocked  . . .  as did I.”

Brooklyn released a bombshell statement in January and suggested public image and Brand Beckham was the biggest priority to his mum and dad.

Earlier this month, matriarch Victoria was asked directly about her eldest son during a new interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The Spice Girls star said: “I think that we’ve always—we love our children so much.

“We’ve always tried to be the best parents that we can be. And you know, we’ve been in the public eye for more than 30 years right now, and all we’ve ever tried to do is protect our children and love our children.

“And you know, that’s all I really want to say about it.”

Victoria did not refer to Brooklyn by name when asked about the rift but discussed how she had only ever tried to “protect and love our children”.

Victoria and David are understood to have been left devastated over the fall out and have even recently offered to meet with Brooklyn and his wife Nicola Peltz in the presence of lawyers and therapists in an attempt to rebuild the rift.

But with Brooklyn seemingly standing strong on his statement, the family are still yet to make any movements towards a reconciliation.

WASHINGTON — Reporters assigned to travel aboard Air Force Two were told to prepare for an early morning departure on Tuesday for Islamabad until an unexplained delay — followed by a detour by Vice President JD Vance to the White House — revealed clues that something was wrong.

Iranian diplomats had not yet responded to U.S. proposals intended to form the basis of a new round of talks. Some were questioning whether they would attend at all. Had he departed as planned, Vance risked a humiliation, spending hours flying to Pakistan only to be stood up on arrival.

A crisis meeting at the White House led President Trump to announce an indefinite extension to a ceasefire deadline that had been set as a pressure tactic. Now, unable to bring the Iranians to heel, that pressure was suddenly off.

It was an early lesson for Vance in the many ways high-stakes diplomacy can veer off-course.

“There are obvious risks for Vance,” said Chester Crocker, who served as an assistant secretary of State in the Reagan administration, “being associated with failure or with a dubious deal.”

Trump’s aides are clear on the stakes in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and an end to the war. Control of the Strait of Hormuz could determine global oil prices for years. Any final deal will shape whether Americans ultimately conclude the fight was worth it — and could sway the outcome of the midterm elections.

But for America’s lead negotiator, the stakes are also personal.

Vance, a diplomatic novice, has found himself at the helm of an effort rife with political risk that has stymied seasoned diplomats ahead of an anticipated run for president.

The potential payoff is substantial, placing Vance at the center of an international stage with the power to end a historically unpopular war.

But he also may be forced to attach his name to a nuclear deal that provides Tehran access to billions of dollars in sanctions relief, in exchange for limits on its nuclear work that will ultimately expire over time, under conditional monitoring access for international inspectors — an agreement with striking echoes to a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by a Democratic administration that was disparaged by his party for over a decade.

Vance is negotiating not on his own terms, but on behalf of a mercurial president whose decisions will ultimately determine whether an agreement can be reached. And the Iranians know that Trump’s days in office are numbered, with Vance, a war skeptic, possibly in line to succeed him.

One U.S. official familiar with the negotiations said the vice president is “a pragmatist,” realistic about the prospects of a deal.

“What he has to gain is an image that he can operate effectively on the world stage on a fraught issue. Even if he will give credit to the president, he will be seen as capable of resolving really hard, security-related problems,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran diplomat on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who served in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations. “What he has to lose is that he was given the role and did not succeed.”

Failure could raise doubts about his statecraft. But even success at the negotiating table could result in an agreement that turns off Republican voters he may need in a 2028 presidential bid.

“Vance is put in an impossible position,” said Arne Westad, a professor of history at Yale.

“Any deal with the current Iranian regime will be seen as problematic by many Republicans,” Westad said. “If he fails to secure a deal, he will be attacked by those who want an end to the U.S. war — and be seen as ineffective by the president.”

Reputation ‘on the line’

Trump has publicly acknowledged that Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who has consistently opposed U.S. military engagements in the Middle East, had reservations over launching the Iran war in the first place. “He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,” the president told reporters in March. “I think he was maybe less enthusiastic.”

For that reason, according to Iranian state media reports, Vance was seen by Tehran as their preferred interlocutor in negotiations. Iranian officials expressed gratitude when, during fevered talks ahead of the initial announcement of a ceasefire, they learned that Steve Witkoff, the president’s roving negotiator, had recommended that the vice president be included in the delegation — an exceptional gesture that marked Washington’s highest-level engagement with the Islamic Republic in history.

Republican strategists said Vance’s participation is a demonstration that Trump trusts him, an essential trait for any future Republican presidential nominee and aspiring heir to the MAGA movement.

“It’s rare that a vice president has been put in the position of directly negotiating with a foreign adversary,” said Terry Nelson, a longtime Republican media strategist. “We are engaging a very senior political leader in negotiations with a country that has killed U.S. soldiers and sown chaos in the region. I do think it’s an indication of our resolution and seriousness.”

Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster who has consulted Republican senators and governors for more than three decades, said the vice president’s appointment as lead negotiator “elevates Vance as Trump’s heir-apparent even more than before.”

“Whether that becomes a plus or a minus depends on the outcome of the negotiations,” Ayres added, “and Trump’s ultimate standing with the Republican electorate, both of which are unknowns.”

Talks are currently deadlocked over long-standing demands from Tehran that its leadership has held since the early 2000s, when previously undisclosed nuclear activities first triggered international alarm over Iran’s expanding program.

Iran has periodically accepted temporary limits on its nuclear work — pausing uranium enrichment during talks and, under the 2015 deal, committing to a prolonged cap on enrichment at levels beyond any clear civilian need. But it has always insisted on a “right to enrich” on its own soil, rejecting U.S. attempts to permanently end the program as a foreign attempt to thwart Iran’s scientific progress.

Returning from the first round of ceasefire negotiations, Vance dismissed that position, articulated to him in Islamabad by the speaker of Iran’s Parliament.

“He said, ‘We refuse to give up the right to enrichment,’” Vance said. “And I thought to myself, you know what, my wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn’t jump out of an airplane, because she and I have an agreement that she’s not going to do that, because I don’t want my wife jumping out of an airplane.”

Echoes of a broken deal

The 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — negotiated by veteran, nonpolitical U.S. diplomats and nuclear scientists over two years of near-constant negotiations — removed roughly 98% of Iran’s nuclear stockpile from the country, while keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure largely in place, save for the decommissioning of a heavy-water plutonium reactor that could have provided Tehran with a second path to a nuclear bomb.

Under the agreement, Iran consented to limit its use of advanced centrifuges for 10 years, and to restrict uranium enrichment to below weapons-grade levels for 15 years. Inspectors from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency were granted unprecedented access to monitor the program, though some of these enhanced inspection measures were set to expire after roughly two decades.

In exchange, Iran regained access to tens of billions of dollars of its frozen assets, and settled a long-standing legal dispute with Washington that led the Obama administration to transfer $400 million in cash to Tehran. The episode prompted scandal on the political right, which accused Democrats of fueling terrorism through the funding of Iran’s proxy militias.

Now, after just two weeks of negotiations, the Trump administration is already acknowledging that a final deal with Iran would rely on a familiar formula: temporary caps on Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for substantial sanctions relief. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.

Iran comes to the talks with added leverage today, able and willing to disrupt the flow of 20% of the world’s energy through the Strait of Hormuz. And the United States is negotiating alone, without its former partners in the “P5+1” — Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany — at its side.

Anna Kelly, principal deputy press secretary at the White House, told The Times that “after Democrats like Joe Biden and Barack Hussein Obama weakened our country on the world stage, President Trump has effectively restored American strength with the help of Vice President Vance, who is doing a great job leading the United States in negotiations with Iran.”

“The president and his entire national security team have an incredible track record in making good deals for our country, and the American people can rest assured that the United States will not enter any agreement that does not put our national security interests first,” Kelly said.

Matt Gorman, a longtime Republican strategist and chief communications officer at Targeted Victory, said the JCPOA was viewed particularly critically because it “was negotiated in peacetime.”

“Vance would essentially be ending a war, if successful, and that allows him to make a very different argument,” Gorman said.

The vice president is currently polling as the front-runner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, ahead of Marco Rubio, who — despite serving as Trump’s secretary of State and national security advisor — is not directly involved in the Iran talks.

Vance’s role at the negotiating table could help position him as a peacemaker, Crocker noted, distinguishing him from advocates of the war entering the presidential primaries.

But Vance “has been tasked by a president incapable of staying on message, with limited stores of credibility with adversaries as well as allies and a disregard for the complexities of the issues,” said Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. “His task? A credible end to the war without clear objectives.”

“At best, this will be a faux-gilded JCPOA 2.0. Victory will be declared to no applause. On the line is not just Vance’s own reputation, but a demerit in his run for the 2028 presidency,” Bodine added. “The Iran portfolio was no gift.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: How a Trump-endorsed Republican could become California’s next governor
The deep dive: Palisades reservoir that was empty during fire is dry again. Residents aren’t happy about it
The L.A. Times Special: The Flores twins built a drug empire with El Chapo — then betrayed him

More to come,
Michael Wilner
—
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It felt like the Olympics. Crowds cheering. The American flag standing tall above the bleachers. Trainers jumping with anticipation. A swimmer staring in disbelief at the clock after his final stroke. The Jumbotron announced: Kristian Gkolomeev — 20.89 seconds. A new world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

Well, kind of.

I’ve left out some details. There was only one swimmer. The crowd? Just doctors, trainers and filmmakers. This was not in an Olympic city nor an Olympic year, but in Greensboro, N.C., in 2025. And there were no iconic rings on the banners, just “Enhanced Games.”

Yes, Gkolomeev swam faster than César Cielo, the official record holder at the time (20.91 seconds). But he did it “enhanced” — a polite way to say that he used performance-enhancing drugs. At the Enhanced Games, doping isn’t punished. It’s required.

The concept, as described by the organization: “to create the definitive scientific, cultural and sporting movement that safely evolves mankind into a new superhumanity.”

Backed by investors such as Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, the Enhanced Games embodies a techno-utopian ideal: athletes as canvases for chemical optimization, testing the limits of human health for a lot of money. Gkolomeev earned $1 million for his record.

So far, the competition has happened at one-off pop-up events. But in May, Las Vegas will host the first full-scale Enhanced Games, a four-day meet in swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. The group advertises a “potential prize purse of $7.5 million for just a single day of competition,” plus appearance fees.

Does it need to be said? Apparently yes: The Enhanced Games glorifies the risky use of enhancement drugs.

Steroids can harden arteries, elevate stroke risk, damage the liver and permanently alter hormone systems. They are not electrolyte tablets or a little preworkout creatine. If Lance Armstrong had been rewarded — rather than sanctioned — for doping, what would have happened to competitive cycling?

Fans — and especially kids — mimic their idols. As risky as the drugs are for athletes at the Enhanced Games, with its “medical commission” to give the illusion of safety, the substances are even more dangerous when used by people without medical supervision.

The games also expose the economic neglect that drives athletes toward such competition. As Benjamin Proud, the British silver medalist who recently joined the Enhanced Games, put it: “It would have taken me 13 years of winning a World Championship title in order to win what I could win in one race at these games.”

Indeed, the Enhanced Games might look like an easy way out. Only nine swimmers worldwide received prize money and performance bonuses above $75,000 in 2025, according to World Aquatics.

Investors clearly hope to make money off the games as well. The organization is moving closer to becoming a publicly traded company. The economics are not mysterious.

But the Enhanced Games are not just another sporting event. They are an arena for biomedical experimentation and should be regulated as such. The games should face limits similar to those imposed on other high-risk industries, including age restrictions and strict advertising rules.

We already know how to govern legal, profitable activities that carry serious health risks.

In the United States, that means oversight from the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission — bodies that regulate drug protocols and police misleading commercial claims. A steroid-based competition should not be treated as a sport but as a medical experiment and a marketing stunt.

Regulations on pharmaceutical advertising offer a useful model for the Enhanced Games. Prescription drugs are advertised every night on television, but only under strict rules. They require fair balance (content must present benefits and risks with comparable prominence, readability and duration) and a “major statement” of risks (most serious risks must be spoken aloud and not obscured by visuals or music).

Right now, when you play Gkolomeev’s “world-record” video on YouTube, a medical-risk warning appears for barely five seconds — then vanishes. If a cholesterol drug must audibly warn viewers of stroke risk, why shouldn’t a steroid-based competition do the same?

Enhanced Games content should be accompanied by clear warnings of the risks of performance-enhancing drugs and be clearly labeled, age-gated and distributed as high-risk content more akin to pornography than to a boxing match.

Prohibition is not the answer. Trying to shut down these games only fuels a controversy-driven brand. Just recently, the Enhanced Games sued organizations such as World Aquatics and the World Anti-Doping Agency, alleging antitrust violations and that blocking athletes from participating at the Enhanced Games is illegal. As those organizations fight back, they will be seeking to protect the integrity of mainstream sports, but they will also inadvertently be promoting the Enhanced Games.

If we want kids to admire clean athletes rather than those using banned drugs, the Las Vegas launch must not reach the world as a Super Bowl would. The Enhanced Games should not be televised or allowed to stream online to minors. Otherwise, Las Vegas, in May, risks becoming an unregulated public-health experiment mislabeled as a sporting event.

Fabricio Ramos dos Santos is a lawyer, entrepreneur and sports investor.

A woman who brutally beat her four-month-old son and left him to die in a bathtub was sentenced Thursday to life imprisonment in a child abuse case that stunned the nation.

The Suncheon branch of the Gwangju District Court ruled that the mother, in her 30s, had “cruelly” abused her child for half of his short life before ending it.

The woman was indicted for indiscriminately beating her son and leaving him in a running bathtub at their home in Yeosu, about 310 kilometers south of Seoul, on Oct. 22. The infant died of multiple fractures and internal bleeding.

The court also sentenced the child’s father to four years and six months in prison on charges of neglecting the abuse and threatening a witness in the case.

“Despite the defendants having the infinite responsibility of raising their child safely as parents, the child died 133 days after being born due to the abuse from his own parents, who should have been the world to him,” the court said.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for the mother and a 10-year term for her husband.

Investigators earlier determined that the woman had abused her child on 19 separate occasions since Aug. 24, and found multiple bruises and signs of internal bleeding on the infant’s body.

The case drew nationwide attention after footage of the abuse was aired by local broadcaster SBS’ investigative series “Unanswered Questions.”

A group of protestors staged a rally outside the court earlier in the day calling for heavy punishment.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.

“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.

As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.

Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.

The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.

1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage

A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.

But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.

Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.

2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority

As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.

Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.

3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine

Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.

Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.

4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits

One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.

The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.

5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes

A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.

If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.

When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.

Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.

6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing

While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.

As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).

Lamine Yamal pulled up injured when scoring the winning goal for Barcelona in their La Liga win against Celta Vigo.

The consensus World Cup favourite could ‌be in danger of missing its top attacking option after Spanish ⁠forward Lamine Yamal ⁠sustained an injury while playing for Barcelona on Wednesday in a La Liga match.

According to reports, club officials believe Yamal sustained a ⁠torn hamstring, though a full prognosis won’t be known until he undergoes scans on Thursday.

The 18-year-old superstar drew a foul that led to a penalty kick, ⁠which Yamal stepped up and scored in the 40th minute against visiting Celta Vigo. However, once the ball hit the net, Yamal didn’t celebrate. Instead, he went down injured, clutching his left hamstring.

“We have to wait,” Barcelona ‌coach Hansi Flick said after the game. “We have to see what it is. There is something. He felt it. After the goal, he would not leave the pitch without reason.

“So it’s something. Something happened. Hopefully it’s not so bad, but we have to wait until tomorrow.”

Midfielder Pedri, Yamal’s teammate with both Barca and the Spanish national team, said, according to ESPN: “Hopefully Lamine will only miss ⁠a few weeks. I wish him the best of luck. ⁠He needs to remain calm because he’s young and will surely recover well”.

The goal was Yamal’s 16th in 28 La Liga matches this season (his 24th in 45 games in all competitions), and ⁠led Barcelona to a 1-0 win. The result leaves Barcelona with a nine-point lead on second-place Real Madrid in ⁠the league standings, so Barca are comfortably on course ⁠to claim the league title, regardless of Yamal’s health.

The bigger question is whether the injury could impact Spain’s chances at the World Cup this summer in North America.

Spain are scheduled for Group H ‌matches on June 15 against Cape Verde and on June 21 against Saudi Arabia, both in Atlanta, then play Uruguay on June 26 in Zapopan, Mexico.

Spain won ‌UEFA ‌Euro 2024, in part due to contributions from the then-16-year-old Yamal. A sublime playmaker and finisher, Yamal has six goals in 25 career appearances for the Spanish national team.

“Storage Wars” star Darrell Sheets was found dead by police on Wednesday in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. He was 67.

According to Variety, which obtained a report from the Lake Havasu City Police Department, Sheets died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The statement said that on Wednesday around 2 a.m., officers were dispatched to Sheets’ home on Chandler Drive after reports of a deceased individual.

“Upon arrival, officers located a male subject who suffered from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The male was pronounced deceased on scene and the Lake Havasu City Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Unit was notified and responded to the scene to assume the investigation,” the statement read.

“The body was ultimately turned over to the Mohave County Medical Examiner’s office for further investigation,” the release continued.

Police said that they identified the man as Sheets and that his family had been notified. “This incident remains under active investigation, and additional information will be released as it becomes available.”

Sheets appeared across 15 seasons of the popular A&E reality show “Storage Wars” from 2010 to 2023. His son, Brandon Sheets, was also a cast member, and the father-son duo was often considered the heart of the show. Darrell would use his not-so-stealthy approach when bidding on storage lockers that he was willing to bet contained what he would describe as “wow factor” treasures.

“I’m a buyer by trade. I love buying storage sheds. It’s my addiction,” he said on the series. “I’m basically known for taking the good stuff and just getting the heck out of here.”

According to Sheets’ cast bio, the antiques enthusiast loved to brag about “four Picassos and the world’s most lucrative comic book collection” that he scored through storage auctions. He told The Times in 2015 that he once invested in a locker and discovered pieces of original artwork by Frank Gutierrez that he said appraised for about $300,000, making for the biggest take in the TV show’s then-five-year history.

Rene Nezhoda, another “Storage Wars” cast member who was often considered Sheets’ rival due to their onscreen antics, posted on Instagram after news of Sheets’ death broke and called out cyberbullies.

“Unfortunately, Darrell Sheets took his own life,” Nezhoda said. “I know a lot of you guys think we hated each other because we competed a lot on the show, and you know, we had our moments. We had our run-ins, but that’s because we were both competitors, right?

“Deep down, me and Darrell were friends. We talked every now and then. He is a very hard worker that cared more than anyone I’ve probably ever met about their family, about his son, about [his granddaughter] Zoie.”

Nezhoda said that Sheets had someone “really, really tormenting” him on social media.

The “Storage Wars” alum then addressed cyberbullies for their treatment of public figures, saying, “Just because you watch us on television doesn’t mean you know us. You never know what demons somebody faces.”

WASHINGTON — Polls show that record numbers of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Anxious voters find no shortage of corroboration. Seeming proof of national decline is everywhere–the savings-and-loan bailout, an imperial Congress, overpaid executives at the top of underperforming companies, record murder rates in cities, declining school quality, an intractable drug epidemic, spiraling health-care costs and a flat economy riddled with deep pockets of regional recession. We haven’t felt good about ourselves, our country or our future since the Gulf War.

President George Bush’s decline in the polls mirrors this trend. As long as voters were concerned about foreign policy, his high standing compensated for lower ratings on domestic affairs. The Cold War’s end has changed the issue mix of presidential races forever.

The recession is an immediate problem, but that will decline in importance when the growth most economists predict resumes this spring. But the recession masks a deeper fear that our post-Cold War inheritance is a declining standard of living, with high-paying jobs and prosperity flowing overseas. That fear will not recede quickly.

With the recession ending by spring, campaign planners will be tempted to heave sighs of relief and run a status-quo candidacy against the uncertainties of a switch to the Democrats. That would be a serious mistake.

For Bush will never have more fertile ground to lay out a new GOP agenda that addresses the deep fear voters have about the future of America. He can capitalize on the public’s thirst for certainty by laying out a set of ambitious goals–in government, in jobs, in schools and in social progress.

He can start with government. A recent Gallup poll shows 20% blame Bush for the economy’s condition, but 54% blame Congress. Support for term limits and a Trumanesque campaign to fix what’s wrong with Congress will not only pay political dividends, but give him a governing coalition for a second term. Beginning with this week’s State of the Union, Bush should challenge Congress to pass his economic recovery program within 100 days and return it to him for signature. He should also push legislation on health-care reform, education and crime by similarly challenging Congress. To dramatize the push for excellence, he might consider national middle-class merit scholarships for college.

Nor should he give up on trade, despite the Japan trip. Presidential involvement in a few trade confrontations will make his claim to fight for American jobs more credible. Where unfair trading practices are found, executive action on import relief should be swift.

By establishing his vision for the post-Cold War future, contrasting his own activism with Democratic and congressional obstruction, showing that he thinks free trade should benefit us as well as our partners and fighting hard for the middle class–in essence charting a course the country thinks takes us in the right direction and gets us off the wrong track–he’ll win not only reelection but a mandate.

It’s also important to understand this is not the 1984 reelection. Compression of the primary calendar means there are fewer days between the first Iowa caucuses, Feb. 10, and Super Tuesday, March 10, and the Democratic winner-take-all rules could give a front-runner enough momentum to be the apparent nominee by April. There is little prospect for a protracted Democratic primary battle like 1984’s between Gary Hart and Walter F. Mondale.

Because the Democrats won’t be tearing each other apart as long, Bush should engage the Democrats early. But he needs to shore up his own vulnerabilities before he begins to contrast with the Democratic nominee. He needs to sharpen his middle-class message, starting with the economy and people’s fears about the future.

This should be done well before the summer Democratic convention, when the Democratic ticket will have a solid week of national television coverage to engage in Bush-bashing.

It’s also critical to understand this is not 1988. The Democratic nominee will also have learned a lesson from Michael S. Dukakis–define your candidacy before your opponent gets a chance to define it negatively for you. It’s highly unlikely the ’92 Democratic nominee will be kept on the defensive for months as was Dukakis.

This year’s presidential election takes place in politically uncharted territory. It is the first contest of the post-Cold War era, probably the last election with a World War II veteran running for President. World events, from Eastern Europe’s velvet revolutions of 1989 to last summer’s failed Soviet coup, have irrevocably reshaped America’s political landscape.

Foreign policy and defense no longer matter much to voters. Communism’s death also buried anti-communism as an issue. With few external threats, Americans see old relationships through a new prism. They supported the post-war alliance with Japan for mutual security; without the Cold War, that same relationship looks one-sided.

To win reelection, it’s critical to understand what this dramatic shift means. The old rules are gone–now is the time for a new political order in American campaigns. For four decades, we’ve elected presidents against a Cold War backdrop. Now that we’ve won the Cold War, we need a new presidential agenda that’s relevant for the ‘90s.

ONE of the world’s biggest airlines has said they could soon increase the cost of flights due to ongoing conflict.

United Airlines has warned that fares could go up by as much as 20 per cent because of soaring jet fuel prices.

The airline flies mainly to America from a number of UK airports including Edinburgh, Manchester and London Heathrow.

According to Reuters, the airline’s CEO Scott Kirby said on Wednesday that the airline could increase flight prices by between 15 and 20 per cent to offset the surge in fuel costs.

For example, if a flight was £500 before, after the price rise it could be as much as £600.

The airline added that it has already begun raising some prices, as well as higher baggage fees – all to offset increased fuel costs.

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Kirby added that the airline has not yet seen a drop in demand, despite prices rising.

However, he also accepted that if the airline does introduce higher prices, it may test and put off travellers.

United Airlines has also already confirmed that five per cent of flights would be cancelled – or around 250 flights a month – because of rising fuel cost fears.

This news follows data released by The Transport & Environment (T&E) that disruption to jet fuel supplies has added as much as $100 (£77) per person to the price of long-haul flights from Europe.

As such, for a family of four heading on a long-haul holiday it would cost them an extra £308.

For short-haul flights within Europe, prices have increased by £25.26 per passenger – which would be more than £100 per family heading on holiday.

And a number of airlines have already raised their prices to offset the increasing cost of jet fuel.

For example, on Virgin Atlantic flights economy fares have been increased by £50.

Anyone flying in premium economy will pay an extra £180 and those in business class will pay an extra £360.

Air France and KLM, which are part of the same company, are also increasing round-trip fares by €100 (£87) on most of their long-haul flights.

Some airlines have cancelled flights as well.

For example, Lufthansa has cancelled 20,000 flights up to September, Air New Zealand and Scandinavian Airlines have cancelled around 1,000 flights, KLM has cancelled 160 flights and Cathay Pacific has cancelled two per cent of flights up to June.

In other flight news, a major airline is set to axe 20,000 flights this summer amid soaring fuel costs due to Iran war.

Plus, Brits are being warned that their summer holidays are at risk of being cancelled as jet fuel runs low and thousands of flights are axed.

April 23 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have again blocked the Democrats from curbing President Donald Trump‘s ability to wage war with Iran, as negotiators try to find a diplomatic end to the conflict during the fragile cease-fire.

The Senate voted 51-46 on Wednesday afternoon against Sen. Tammy Baldwin‘s War Powers Resolution, the fifth time since March 4 that the Senate has voted against directing the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran until authorized by Congress.

As with previous votes, Wednesday’s was mostly along party lines with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky again voting with his Democratic colleagues, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania again voting with the Republicans.

“This entire war has been unnecessary, illegal and unwise. And we need to put a check on this president before it gets even worse,” Baldwin said from the Senate floor on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the president has shown us that he did not have a plan after day one. The president said the war would be over in a matter of days; we are coming up on the two-month mark with no real end in sight. And over the course of 50-plus days we have seen nothing short of a disaster.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a veteran, vowed in a statement that the Democrats will continue to do all in their power to end the war.

“It’s infuriating that Senate Republicans keep shirking their oaths and giving Donald Trump the green light to plunge our nation even deeper into his war of choice, further endangering our troops abroad and surging prices at home,” she said.

“This wanna-be dictator keeps breaking every single promise he’s made to the American people who are sick and tired of watching Republicans duck their responsibility to stop this chaos.”

The war began Feb. 28 with the United States and Israel attacking Iran.

Since then, 13 Americans have been killed. At least 3,646 people have been killed in Iran, according to HRANA.

Gas prices have surged as Iran has restricted access to the important Strait of Hormuz energy transportation route, and the United States is enforcing a blockade of Iran’s ports, cutting it off from sea-based trade.

The vote was held as a two-week cease-fire was to end before President Donald Trump announced an indefinite extension amid negotiations. On Wednesday, Iran’s military claimed to have seized two cargo ships in the conflict over the waterway.

Since the war began, Democrats have been seeking to rein in Trump’s war powers, arguing the ongoing war with Iran violates the Constitution, which mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war.

Democrats in the Senate have pledged to use their powers to force weekly debates on the war as well as weekly votes, forcing Republicans to repeatedly and publicly state their position on the conflict.

The vote was held less than a week before the 60-day limit of the war passes. On April 28, the War Powers Act will compel Trump to seek congressional authorization for the war.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has said that Trump should have sought Congress’ authorization, and appears to be leading Republican efforts to draft legislation for the continuation of the use of military force as that deadline comes.

“My focus is on the safety of America’s armed forces and the American civilians who are on the ground in the Middle East,” she said in a statement in early March, just days after the war began.

“At this point, we have little choice but to continue the military operation to degrade and destroy Iran’s capability for nuclear weapons.”

Tamil Nadu, India – Standing on top of a customised van on a hot and humid afternoon in Tirunelveli, about 600km (373 miles) south of Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai in southern India, C Joseph Vijay tells his supporters his opponents have joined hands to stop him from becoming the state chief minister.

“My rivals might appear different from outside, but they have only one aim: that Vijay should not become the chief minister,” says the 51-year-old actor-turned-politician to a mammoth crowd that begins to chant his name, which means “victory” in Tamil, in unison.

Tamil Nadu, one of India’s most developed states with impressive human development indices, also has a long history of electing film stars as leaders, some of whom are still revered by people as demigods years after their deaths.

As Tamil Nadu votes on Thursday to elect its 234-member state legislative assembly, Vijay’s bid for power is the latest addition to the state’s trend of film star-politicians, turning a traditionally bipolar battle into a triangular contest.

‘A blessing and a curse’

Vijay entered politics with much fanfare when he launched the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party in 2024, promising to end the decades-old dominance of the governing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the main opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

Incumbent Chief Minister MK Stalin leads the DMK and its 14-party Secular Progressive Alliance, in which the Indian National Congress is a junior partner. On the other hand, opposition leader Edappadi K Palaniswami of the AIADMK heads the 10-party National Democratic Alliance, which also includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The DMK and the AIADMK identify themselves as Dravidian parties, which derive their names from a powerful political and social justice movement in Tamil Nadu that opposed caste inequalities, championed social reforms, and rejected perceived attempts by India’s more dominant north Indian parties to impose Hindi – and upper-caste Hindu values – on the non-Hindi speaking southern states.

Dravidian parties have held power in Tamil Nadu continuously since 1967, with national parties like the Congress and the BJP playing secondary roles. While the BJP is contesting 27 seats in alliance with the AIADMK, the Congress is fighting for 28 seats as part of the DMK-led coalition.

More than 87 percent of Tamil Nadu’s 72 million people are Hindu, followed by Christians at 6.1 percent and Muslims at 5.8 percent, according to the last census conducted in 2011.

Among Hindus, the so-called “backward” or less-privileged castes constitute 45.5 percent, “extremely backward” castes 23.6 percent, while Dalits are at 20.6 percent. Dalits, formerly referred to as “untouchables”, fall at the bottom of India’s complex caste hierarchy and have faced marginalisation and violence for centuries.

Vijay, son of a Christian filmmaker father and a Hindu mother who is a background singer in films, belongs to the Vellalar community, an affluent agrarian group in Tamil Nadu with both Hindu and Christian members.

Vijay started his film career as a child actor in movies directed by his father. His 1992 debut as a hero, however, in Naalaiya Theerpu (Tomorrow’s Verdict), flopped. Following the setback, his father cast him alongside popular star Vijayakanth — who later founded his own political outfit, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) — in Senthoorapandi (1993), which gave his career a new lease of life.

It was the 2004 film Ghilli (Gutsy), which carried a subtle political undertone, that catapulted Vijay to superstar status. He dropped hints about his political ambitions in the 2013 hit Thalaivaa (Leader), which was launched with the tagline “Time to Lead”.

Soon, political messaging became central to many of Vijay’s subsequent films. Even the title of his yet-to-be-released Jana Nayagan (People’s Leader) — which he claims will be his final film — alludes to his political aspirations.

Riding on personal charisma, Vijay has attracted millions of supporters to his rallies, despite allegations of poor crowd management, which caused a stampede at one such gathering in September last year, killing 42 people.

He is expected to draw a share of Dalit and minority Christian votes that would have otherwise flowed to the DMK-led coalition. He is also banking on anti-incumbency votes that could have benefitted the AIADMK alliance.

Yet analysts say Vijay’s ambition of becoming the next chief minister will not be as easy as the scripted blockbusters he has built his career on, since he faces two opponents with decades of experience in real politics.

That leads political commentator R Kannan to describe Vijay as “both a blessing and a curse” for the two Dravidian coalitions.

“When the AIADMK joined the BJP-led NDA, many predicted the Dravidian party would lose heavily, with minorities and Dalits flocking to the DMK. Vijay’s entry, however, has offered the AIADMK a ray of hope — he is expected to draw a decent share of votes that would otherwise have gone to the DMK,” he said.

“At the same time, he works in the DMK’s favour by siphoning off anti-incumbency votes that might not entirely have gone to the AIADMK. For both Dravidian parties, he is at once a blessing and a curse.”

Tamil Nadu’s tryst with stars

Vijay is aiming to follow the path of illustrious predecessors: Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, and his protege, Jayaram Jayalalithaa – Tamil Nadu’s most beloved on-screen pair.

Born into poverty, MGR’s rise to stardom was nothing short of phenomenal. He captured the imagination of Tamil Nadu’s working class, who idolised him in return. From his first superhit, Rajakumari (Princess) in 1947, his films cast him as a champion of the masses, battling oppression and corrupt authority.

MGR launched the AIADMK in 1972 after breaking away from the DMK and served as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister from 1977 to 1987. He introduced several welfare programmes, the most significant being the Puratchi Thalaivar MGR Nutritious Meal Scheme, which provided free meals to schoolchildren to eliminate malnutrition and boost school enrolment.

His political heir, Jayalalithaa, was a six-time chief minister between 1991 and 2016, when she became India’s first female state leader to die in office. She is remembered for launching several women-centric programmes, including all-women police stations and subsidised two-wheelers for working women, apart from her work in curbing female infanticide.

The DMK also has a history of film personalities, including the party’s founder, CN Annadurai, who rose to fame as a pathbreaking scriptwriter with films like Velaikkari (1949), and MGR as the party’s star campaigner and leader before he founded the AIADMK.

Soon, Muthuvel Karunanidhi emerged as another prominent writer, poet and screenwriter with films like Parasakthi (1952), meaning Supreme Power, often cited as a turning point in Tamil cinema. Directed by Krishnan-Panju and written by Karunanidhi, then 28 years old, the film fiercely attacked casteism and social inequality, while propelling the spread of the Dravidian ideology.

Karunanidhi, popularly known as Kalaignar (artist), wrote scripts for more than 75 films that resonated with the struggles of the working class, championing rationalism and social equality.

He won the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election for a record 13 terms and served as the state’s chief minister for five terms between 1969 and 2011. He died at the age of 94 in 2018, when his son, Stalin, took over as chief minister and DMK chief.

Film star-politicians who embraced Tamil identity politics flourished, while those who did not fell by the wayside.

“Successful leaders such as MGR, popularly known as Puratchi Thaalaivar [Revolutionary Leader], Jayalalithaa, who earned the monikers Puratchi Thalaivi [Revolutionary Female Leader] and Amma [Mother], embraced identity politics. Another popular film actor, Sivaji Ganesan, by contrast, could not make the same mark in politics even after he tried,” said Kannan, who has written biographies of MGR and Annadurai.

In 2005, popular actor Vijayakanth added to the starry mix by launching his DMDK party, another Dravidian political outfit. He made every attempt to position his party as an alternative to the DMK and the AIADMK, but failed. The party won just one seat in 2006 — Vijayakanth’s own — and drew a blank in 2009. Though he went on to become the leader of the opposition in the assembly in 2011, the election reverses forced him to seek alliances. The DMDK, now led by his wife Premalatha, is contesting 10 seats in alliance with the DMK.

Which is where, say analysts, Vijay’s pitch for power is unlikely to make an impact in this election. They say his TVK party does not fall in the long line of Dravidian parties that have a distinct political ideology and programme that appeals to their voters.

“Tamil Nadu is an ideologically and politically evolved state. Issues such as social justice, centre-state relations, and linguistic and cultural identity are paramount here. People will not back a politician without a clear ideology,” Ramu Manivannan, former professor of political science at the University of Madras, told Al Jazeera.

Manivannan said large crowds at Vijay’s rallies should not be mistaken for potential votes. “Film stars always attract crowds. To assume all of them will translate into votes is unfair.”

Vijay’s TVK is rooted in his fan clubs, which thrive on masculine aggression, said S Anandhi, retired professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

“Vijay’s populist rhetoric — defying all authority — appeals strongly to the youth. But he never clarifies what he will actually do in power. He frames it as all established forces being arrayed against young men, and youngsters see this as an opportunity for a new kind of collectivisation. I would call it a dangerous class,” she told Al Jazeera.

Appeal to young, female voters

Vijay appears to be banking heavily on two voter blocs: younger voters between 18 and 39 years, who number 23 million of the state’s 57 million voters, and women, who account for more than half of them.

At his rallies packed with young people and women, Vijay has alleged that Stalin’s true allies are “bribery and corruption”, framing the contest as a personal battle between himself and the chief minister.

Stalin, for his part, has largely brushed off Vijay’s attacks. “Newly-formed parties have a wrong notion that they can survive by criticising DMK,” he said in a recent interview.

Instead, Stalin has focused his attacks on the Modi government, accusing it of depriving Tamil Nadu of its share of federal funds, and framing the election as a contest between Tamil Nadu and New Delhi – a ploy that simultaneously targets the AIADMK for allying with an “adversary”, the BJP.

The AIADMK’s Palaniswami has countered by saying Stalin raises the centre-state issue only because he has “no achievements of his own to show”.

Despite their ideological differences, all parties are competing heavily on welfare promises in a state known for freebies during elections.

The DMK has pledged to double the monthly women’s allowance to 2,000 rupees ($21), offer 8,000 rupees ($85) in home appliance coupons, and build one million homes for the poor over five years. The AIADMK, also promising a monthly allowance of 2,000 rupees for women, has additionally offered free refrigerators to the poor and a one-time family grant of 10,000 rupees ($106).

Vijay’s TVK, hoping to cash in on the ongoing global fuel crisis, has promised six free LPG cylinders annually, 2,500 rupees ($26.5) monthly support for the female heads of a household, 8gm gold and a silk saree for poor women getting married, 4,000 rupees ($42.5) stipend for unemployed college graduates, and interest-free education loans of up to 2 million rupees ($21,257).

Still, Kannan feels Vijay can at best be a disruptor in the three-cornered contest.

“Vijay’s campaign gained momentum in the final lap. He turned what was a bipolar contest into a three-cornered one. But apart from his personal charisma, he lacks proper organisational machinery. Many of his party’s candidates are unknown faces,” he said.

THEY were once ‘like brothers’, touring the world together and dealing with global superstardom after being propelled into the spotlight aged just 16.

But now in their early 30s, Niall Horan and Harry Styles are “worlds apart” and living “vastly different lives”. Here, an insider tells us why the relationship has soured between the pair, and how the rest of One Direction are keeping their distance.

Fans first noticed cracks between the pair last month when Niall, 32, made barbed remarks about the cost of fame on an American podcast just days after Harry, also 32, said he found his superstardom “deeply isolating”.

Speaking on the Zach Sang show earlier this month, Niall cheerfully revealed how delighted he is to be living a “completely normal life” in London, travelling on the tube, walking his dog and going for beers with his mates in local boozers.

When asked if he minds being stopped by fans, the Irish singer remarked: “You cannot have your f***ing cake and eat it”.

Fans were quick to point out that the comment came shortly after Harry spoke about the cost of superstardom – and wondered if it was a dig in his direction.

Speaking to Runners’ World magazine for their May cover, Harry said that he found fame ‘deeply isolating’ and felt the need to withdraw from public life to protect himself.

As part of this, he moved to Italy, because it allows him to ‘live a quiet life’ and ‘reset’.

But the differing attitudes toward fame are part of reason why the pair are no longer close.

A source tells us: “The boys used to be like brothers, they were the best of friends and used to joke about what life would be like when they were old men and still hanging out together.

“Now they are about a million miles from that. They have gone their separate ways and are all living such different lives. 

“Niall is a real homebody; he loves being at their place in London with Mia and the dog, or with his family in Ireland. He’s not a kid anymore; he feels settled now, while Harry still jets all over the world and never seems to stay in one place for long.

“The pair of them hardly have anything in common now, and while Niall would never come straight out and criticise Harry, some things he says definitely make Niall’s eyes roll.”

While the Irish singer songwriter, who is worth £52 million, is completely at ease with being recognised when he’s out and about, scared Styles recently admitted all the unwanted attention left him wanting to become a recluse.

Speaking to US media, Niall claims he can live carefree in London. He says his life with long-term girlfriend Amelia Woolley – known as Mia – is not built around his work schedule and fame.

He added that he’s never minded being mobbed by One Direction’s devoted army of fans: “I don’t ever want it to be like, poor me. That was just the way it was – there were a lot of people around. 

“I just get out and do it, and people are going to come up to you and say hello. And that’s fine. 

“I used to be nearly afraid of that. I love it now. I basically live a completely normal life, really, apart from the fact that if I walk in somewhere, someone’s going to come up and say hello, that’s fine. 

“I walk the dog every day and go on the tube and go into town and go for beers. There’s nothing special.

“It’s a great thing. It’s something that when you were younger, you yearned for.

“We all want that normalcy in effect. You cannot have your f****ing cake and eat it, though, either. 

“I want to be out there doing my thing and getting up on stage. It’s the best f***ing thing in the world.”

This latest spat between the pop legends comes after we revealed Zayn Malik punched Louis Tomlinson in the face during a vicious row, cutting his head and leaving him concussed.

The former pals’ bruising clash came as they filmed a three-part road trip for a nostalgic Netflix documentary about the band, which has since been scrapped.

It emerged that Zayn had made a scathing remark about Louis’ mum, Johannah Deakin, who died of leukaemia in 2016.

Despite the frenzy of worldwide adulation, Niall says that down-to-earth fashion buyer Mia, 28, from Birmingham, keeps his feet firmly planted on the ground.

He went on: “You can sit at home and go like, it’s hard for me to do these things.

“But at times, it being uncomfortable or something can be a reason why you don’t do them. Or you can choose for that to not be a reason and you can do them anyway.

“When you shut out a lot of the things that are assumed can be negative, you also just unconsciously shut out a ton of positive things.

“We live a completely normal life outside of this.

“It’s like someone’s pressed pause on a stopwatch, and then when it clicked back in, I was just this different person. It’s really cool. It happened gradually, but when I think about it in hindsight, it felt like just night and day.

I basically live a completely normal life, if someone’s going to come up and say hello, that’s fine

Niall Horan

“My life just went from being all encompassing to having this good divide.

“I love it. I like having the balance. It’s pretty cool.

“I’ve gotten very good at. When I’m at home, I’m completely at home. I’m not doing anything. I just want to be at home.

“But I like going to work now and then being at home, I like it that way.

“Hopefully, I can keep doing that because it’s a nice little balance I’ve got going on. And it takes time to get to that.

“Amelia’s got her own life. She’s been doing her thing, and everything can’t be just surrounding me.

“It’s already weird enough that she used to fly to Amsterdam to come in on a five o’clock flight on a Friday. It can’t be like that all the time. 

“Bringing her into that is a really cool thing. And she feels that sense of pride and looks at the fans and sees the way they’re thinking and things like that. 

“It’s such a cool thing for her if I play her a song; she’s never had that before. It’s not like people were coming home in the evening from work and going, ‘Hey, I wrote you a song today.’

“That’s a new thing for her, too. The whole thing is a shock to the system, but our life is just not all about that.”

Niall previously dated Hailee Steinfeld and Ellie Goulding – resulting in Ed Sheeran writing the hit track Don’t about an apparent love triangle between the trio.

But Harry, who rented a mansion outside Rome and ran marathons using pseudonyms, feels very differently.

He explained recently: “A large part of the last couple of years has just been about, honestly, learning to like myself away from having so much of my value baked into whether other people are enjoying me or not.

“Learning that fears and feelings aren’t facts, and you can have a feeling about yourself and taking the time to be able to see what that is and see where that comes from.”

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would have barred medical marijuana dispensaries within 600 feet of homes, saying it stepped on the powers of cities and counties that already have authority to regulate pot shops.

The governor also signed 28 measures into law, making it easier for California firms to sell wine over the Internet and allowing bars to infuse alcohol with fruits and vegetables for use in cocktails.

Brown has until Oct. 9 to act on nearly 600 bills sent to him by the Legislature this year and has already wielded his veto pen several times, complaining about the state imposing too many standards on communities and families.

On the medical marijuana issue, the governor noted that he had previously signed a measure giving cities and counties clearer authority to regulate the location and operation of dispensaries.

“Decisions of this kind are best made in cities and counties, not the State Capitol,” Brown wrote in his veto message.

The bill was SB 847, by state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who said he wanted to allow cities to chose their own regulations and to protect children living near such facilities from second-hand smoke.

The governor signed a bill Wednesday allowing wine merchants without stores to obtain a special state license to sell to customers over the Internet or by telephone or direct mail. Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara) introduced AB 623 because current law provides for an alcohol wholesaler’s license but requires holders to periodically sell to other retailers, even if they only want to sell directly to customers on the Internet.

The governor also signed a measure eliminating a state prohibition against bars and restaurants providing infused alcoholic beverages, with fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices added to spirits for flavor.

Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), author of SB 32, said the restrictions were decades old and were intended to address health concerns about the infusion process. Modern methods make the practice safe, he said.

On another measure, Brown exercised his veto pen and took a swipe at its author in the process.

With budget cuts forcing many state parks to close or reduce operations, Sen. Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach) proposed that the state post details of potential park closures on a website and respond to any efforts from the private sector to help keep them open.

Brown said the idea in Harman’s bill, SB 386, was good but didn’t require a state law.

“What parks do need is sufficient funding to stay open — something I feel compelled to note the author and his colleagues refused to let the people vote on,” Brown wrote in his veto message, referring to Republican opposition to putting tax extensions on the ballot.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Zack Steffen finished with two saves and had his second shutout of the season for the Colorado Rapids in a 0-0 tie with LAFC on Wednesday night at BMO Stadium.

The Rapids (4-4-1) had 71% possession.

LAFC (5-2-2), who had lost back-to-back game for the first time in more than a calendar year, are winless in three straight.

Hugo Lloris had two saves and leads MLS with seven shutouts.

LAFC’s Mathieu Choinière hit the post with a shot from outside the area in the 56th minute.

Waving a big Catla fish in his hands, Sharadwat Mukherjee went door to door canvassing for votes before Thursday’s election to the state legislature in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

Mukherjee is a candidate from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules nationally but has never come to power in the state, which has a greater population than Germany: more than 90 million people.

When he folds his hands to greet voters, the Catla just swings with a hook in its mouth. The big question: Can the fish also swing the election’s outcome?

Bengalis’ love for fish is legendary — on both sides of the border, in India and in Bangladesh. So much so that when a student-led uprising led to the ouster of then-Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, some of the protesters who broke into her residence after she fled were seen raiding her refrigerator and walking away with fish.

But as West Bengal votes for its next government, fish has now leapt from kitchen slabs to the campaign trail, as leaders cosy up to voters in a variety of ways — and in some cases try to distance themselves from suspicions that their wins could hit the Bengali diet adversely.

What’s happening in the West Bengal election?

Nearly 68 million people in West Bengal are expected to vote for their candidate of choice on April 23 and 29, to elect 294 lawmakers to the state assembly.

The results will be declared on May 4 in the crucial state vote, which the Hindu majoritarian BJP has never governed.

A revision of the electoral list, which controversially swept away a total of 9.1 million names from the register before polling, and has been criticised for disenfranchising minorities, was among the major polling issues. Some 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsions.

Another is identity politics.

On the campaign trail, in rallies, and in interviews, the chief minister of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand, centrist regional leader — who has been sometimes touted as a contender for Modi’s job in New Delhi, if the opposition were to win — has doubled down on identity politics to corner the BJP, analysts say.

BJP-led governments in several states have imposed bans or restrictions on the sale of meat. Far-right mobs have carried out lynchings of Muslims in BJP-ruled states over accusations that they were transporting beef.

Banerjee, who is seeking a fourth consecutive term, has time and again warned that if the BJP were to come to power, they would “ban fish, meat, and even eggs” — effectively labelling them as outsiders, unaware of Bengali culture. The BJP has rejected these allegations.

Biswanath Chakraborty, a psephologist and political analyst in West Bengal who has authored several books on voting behaviour, told Al Jazeera that the whole issue surrounding fish had been “constructed by Mamata Banerjee.”

“For long, she has peddled that fish is parallel to Bengali politics,” he said. “In election campaigning, every issue is constructed, and Mamata is the champion of that.”

Chakraborty argued that by fiercely pushing back against these allegations, the BJP had ended up helping the governing party in Bengal make sure the debate over fish remained a campaign highlight with voters.

“They [the BJP] are entering, or rather trapped, into the discourse set by Mamata,” the analyst said.

Why fish, though?

“Fish is very crucial in Bengal, very crucial,” said Utsa Ray, an assistant professor at Jadavpur University, in West Bengal’s capital Kolkata. She also authored a 2015 book on Bengal’s culinary evolution in colonial India, titled Culinary Culture in Colonial India: A Cosmopolitan Platter and the Middle-Class.

“First of all, due to Bengal’s geographical location itself – along the Bay of Bengal – [and as] a place situated near rivers and streams, fish have been the most available item,” she told Al Jazeera.

Fish has also been an integral part of many rituals in Bengal on auspicious days for both Hindus and Muslims, Ray said, adding, however, that there were sects of people in Bengal who refrain from eating fish.

A 2024 study found that nearly 65 percent of people in West Bengal consume fish weekly.

Against that backdrop, Ray told Al Jazeera that Banerjee’s party was looking to leverage “regional identity or the Bengali identity”.

Banojyotsna Lahiri, a social activist and voter in West Bengal, described the BJP’s response, with candidates like Mukherjee campaigning with fish, as a “gimmick”.

“In Bengal, [the BJP] have suddenly realised that they appear as aliens with their vegetarian posturing because both fish and meat are integral to the Bengal culinary choices, caste or religion notwithstanding,” she told Al Jazeera. ”

What’s up with the BJP and food choices?

In the run-up to the voting on Thursday, the BJP rushed to find a senior leader who could eat a fish in front of the cameras. They finally managed to get Anurag Thakur, a member of parliament from Himachal Pradesh, to do that on Tuesday.

“Questions of what food people will eat, especially non-vegetarian [food], have been associated with the BJP’s politics to impose restrictions and dictate food options,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior visiting fellow at the think tank Centre for Policy Research, in Delhi.

The BJP has been dictating food choices in northern India’s Hindi-speaking belt, with its “hyper masculine, Hindutva, and vegetarianism,” said Ray. “There have been cases of lynching for eating non-vegetarian food.”

However, that falls flat in Benga.

Still, both Sircar and Ray agreed that the display of fish on the campaign trail was a novelty — even in the often-bizarre world of Indian politics.

“Creating these new images for the BJP is important,” said Sircar. “So, to create another image in voters’ minds leads to these outlandish displays.”

Washington, DC – The latest battle in United States congressional redistricting has been decided, with voters in Virginia approving redrawing the state’s electoral map.

The result of Tuesday’s referendum on Virginia redistricting is widely expected to benefit Democrats in their fight to retake control of the slimly Republican-controlled US House of Representatives in the midterm vote in November.

While redistricting is typically conducted every 10 years, following the US Census count of the country’s population, the election season has seen an unprecedented flurry of states moving to redraw their legislative maps early, initially spurred by pressure on US President Donald Trump to urge his fellow Republicans in Texas to do the same.

Democrats may be up at the moment, but several scenarios – including a redistricting push in Florida – could soon spoil those gains.

Experts, meanwhile, warn of the long-term implications of the election season’s norm-busting political manoeuvres, which they say could transform how and when electoral maps are drawn for years to come.

“Virginia’s unorthodox redistricting isn’t just a map redraw, it’s a mid-decade power play in a national arms race,” Rina Shah, a political adviser and strategist, told Al Jazeera.

“In a cycle defined by retaliation over reform, this sets a precedent: when one side bends the rules, the other follows, until courts or voters draw the final line.”

Democrats gain – for now

Trump has not been timid about his desire to redraw state congressional maps to benefit his Republican Party.

In July 2025, he confirmed the plan to reporters: “Texas would be the biggest one,” he said. “Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.”

By August, Texas’s Republican-controlled State House had passed a new map favouring Republicans, setting the party on course to secure five more seats in the US House of Representatives compared to the earlier map.

The move was soon followed by changes in Missouri, whose new maps are expected to net Republicans one additional seat, while redistricting in North Carolina and Ohio is expected to give the party two to three new Republican-dominated districts.

Democrats in several states responded in kind, pushing for redistricting in California and Utah that resulted in about six new Democrat-dominated districts. Virginia’s victory largely neutralised Republican gains, adding between two and four seats for Democrats.

“This could shift Virginia from a 6-5 split to something like 10-1 Democratic,” political adviser Shah said, referring to Virginia’s 11 congressional districts and noting this would result in “delivering up to four net seats and dramatically tightening the fight for House control in the 2026 midterms”.

This comes as Republicans are already expected to face a punishing election season, with wariness over the US-Israeli war in Iran and the stubbornly high cost of living in the US.

Democratic control of either chamber of Congress – or of both – would give the party the ability to largely curtail Trump’s agenda in the final two years of his presidency.

As of Wednesday, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a midterm predictor published by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, rated 217 Congressional districts across the country as leaning towards Democrats, with 205 leaning towards Republicans and 13 rated toss-ups.

Good for Democrats, ‘terrible’ for democracy

In the short term, Democrats are “winning” from the redistricting battle, according to Samuel Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University who runs the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

“But from a non-partisan good government standpoint, it’s just a terrible event,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

He explained the “incredible” flurry of redistricting in recent months opens the possibility of a new age of heightened gerrymandering, the process by which congressional boundaries are drawn to benefit one political group.

Prior to this election cycle, there had been just three instances of mid-decade redistricting over the last five decades. Wang described the recent spurt as a “complete busting of norms”.

“It’s bad in the sense of reducing competition. Gerrymandering on both sides, basically, removes voters from the equation everywhere it happens,” he said.

Top Democrats have largely argued their hands were forced in mirroring the Republican strategy, rather than yield to the opposing party ahead of a consequential election.

“We fought back,” Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, told the Associated Press after Virginia’s vote. “When they go low, we hit back hard.”

But some Democrats have echoed concerns over the new precedent being set.

John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who has regularly sided with Republicans, told Newsmax on Wednesday, “Whether it’s a red state or whether it’s a blue state, our democracy is degraded.”

Attention turns to Florida

To be sure, while opportunities for further redistricting are diminishing following the vote in Virginia, the final congressional maps ahead of the midterms may not yet be set.

The Virginia vote now shifts pressure on Republicans in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis is set to hold a special legislative session on April 28 to discuss possible redistricting.

A new map could add up to five Republican-dominated congressional districts in the state, but could be scuttled by strict language in Florida’s constitution related to the process.

Democrat Jeffries, in a statement on Wednesday, vowed to surge resources to the state to take down Republican incumbents if the map is redrawn. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time,” he pledged.

Several challenges to Virginia’s redistricting ballot measure are also currently being heard before the state’s Supreme Court, which could hinder the implementation of the new map.

Trump on Wednesday decried the Virginia vote as “rigged”, without providing any evidence to back up the claim.

Meanwhile, a case pending before the US Supreme Court could beckon in another slate of redistricting in the US South.

In Louisiana v Callais, the justices will determine whether the creation of two Black-majority congressional districts is in line with the Voting Rights Act, which seeks to assure minority representation in states with a history of racist election policies.

A ruling could open the door to redrawing maps in several states that would have previously been banned due to so-called “racial gerrymandering”, a process of drawing congressional lines based on racial makeup to dilute the electoral power of a minority group.

A pathway to reform?

A handful of states have created independent commissions to oversee redistricting, in an effort to assure the process remains non-partisan.

But the vast majority rely on their state legislatures to draw the maps, which can lead to outsized influence over the party in control, barring legal challenges. That largely remains true whether redistricting is conducted every decade or, as the current election season could portend, more frequently.

But amid the current cavalcade of congressional map changes, Princeton’s Wang, who is himself running in the Democratic primary for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th district, sees a rare opportunity for federal reform.

That could take the form of Congress creating independent commissions to oversee redistricting.

“Now that mid-decade redistricting is backfiring on Republicans, it creates the possibility that both parties can see clearly that gerrymandering is a zero-sum game,” Wang said.

“It opens a path for possible bipartisan action.”

Good Morning Britain shared a breaking news update about Prince Harry on the latest edition of the ITV show

Good Morning Britain has shared a breaking news update on Prince Harry live on air.

During Thursday’s (April 23) episode of the ITV show, hosts Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway returned to our TV screens as they updated viewers on the biggest news headlines from across the UK and around the world.

Not long into the show, Ranvir Singh, who was reading the headlines, announced breaking news after Prince Harry made a surprise trip to Ukraine, urging the world not to lose sight of what the country is up against.

Speaking to viewers watching at home, Ranvir went on to say: “That breaking news from Kyiv. Hello there, very good morning to you. Well, Prince Harry has arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for a two day visit.”

She continued:”He will see some of the work of the Halo Trust an organisation that specialises in clearing landmines and explosives from war torn countries, which, of course, you’ll remember his mother, Princess Diana, was a keen supporter of.

“She worked with them in Angola in 1997. Well, the Duke of Sussex has told ITV news that he wants to remind the world what Ukraine is up against in its war with Russia, our royal editor Chris Ship is in Kyiv and is the only correspondent with access to Harry on this trip.”

The show then cut to a news report from Chris, who explained: “Prince Harry arrived here at Ukraine’s main railway station. He came in on an overnight train from Poland, and yes, an unannounced visit, they always are, of course, for obvious reasons when you come to Ukraine.”

He added: “And perhaps a reminder that at a time when the world’s attention has been on Iran and the conflict there, the fight here is still going on.”

Prince Harry made the unannounced visit to Kyiv at a time when the focus of international concern has been on the war in Iran.

“It’s good to be back in Ukraine”, Prince Harry said as he arrived. He told ITV News that he wanted “to remind people back home and around the world what Ukraine is up against and to support the people and partners doing extraordinary work every hour of every day in incredibly tough conditions”.

He called Ukraine “a country bravely and successfully defending Europe’s eastern flank” and said “it matters that we don’t lose sight of the significance of that”.

His message to Ukrainians is that “the world sees you and respects you”.

Senior Western defence and government officials are gathering in the Ukrainian capital for the Kyiv Security Conference. Harry will make a speech at the conference and tell them that the battle here is more than a simple fight about territory.

He will also see the dangerous work being carried out by The Halo Trust. The Halo Trust employs 1,300 people in de-mining work in Ukraine – its largest operation anywhere in the world.

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 7am on ITV1 and ITVX

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Navy’s top civilian official, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, is leaving his job.

In a statement posted to social media, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately.”

Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao will become acting secretary of the Navy, Parnell said.

The sudden departure comes just a day after Phelan addressed a large crowd of sailors and industry professionals at the Navy’s annual conference in Washington, and spoke with reporters about his agenda.

Phelan’s departure also comes just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army’s top officer, Gen. Randy George, as well as two other top generals in the Army.

Phelan had not served in the military or had a civilian leadership role in the service before President Trump nominated him for secretary in late 2024.

Phelan was a major donor to Trump’s campaign and founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC. According to his biography, Phelan’s primary exposure to the military came from an advisory position he held on the Spirit of America, a nonprofit that supported the defense of Ukraine and the defense of Taiwan.

Toropin and Finley write for the Associated Press.

EDMONTON, Canada — Cutter Gauthier broke a tie off a rebound with 4:52 left and the Ducks beat Edmonton 6-4 on Wednesday night in Game 2 to even the first-round series, with Oilers star Connor McDavid slowed by an apparent leg injury.

McDavid appeared to catch an edge early in the second period after getting tangled up with teammate Mattias Ekholm and the Ducks’ Ian Moore. McDavid briefly left the game before returning, playing just over 24 minutes.

Game 3 is Friday night at Honda Center. Edmonton opened the series Monday night with a 4-3 victory.

Gauthier put the Ducks back in front after Josh Samanski — making his playoff debut — tied it at 4 with 6:09 to go. Ryan Poehling put it away with an empty-netter with 1:10 left, his second goal of the game. He scored shorthanded in the second.

Pavel Mintyukov, right, of the Ducks battles against Kasperi Kapanen of the Oilers in the second period.

(Codie McLachlan / Associated Press)

Gauthier also scored on a first-period power play and set up Alex Killorn’s second-period goal on a man advantage. Killorn added two assists.

Jacob Trouba added a goal, fellow defenseman Jackson LaCombe had three assists and Lukas Dostal stopped 33 shots.

Leon Draisaitl had a goal and an assist for Edmonton. He returned for Game 1 from a lower-body injury against Nashville on March 15.

Connor Murphy and Zach Hyman also scored for the Oilers, and Connor Ingram made 22 saves.