Month: March 2026

More and more Gen Zs and Millennials are hiring UK holiday homes in order to dress up together, away from the scrutiny of their parents, partners and society at large

“It’s difficult playing at your house. You’re trying to get in the mood to slay a vampire, and then someone’s boyfriend comes in to get a snack.”

It’s a problem we’ve all had. Or at least, those of us who are among the growing number of British Dungeons and Dragons players who are swapping sunbeds in Lanzarote for a cottage in the Lake District, and trading their piña colada for a couple of D4s and an orc costume.

Driven by “cosy crime” hits such as The Traitors and Agatha Christie adaptations, one in four Brits and half of Gen Z have booked a staycation specifically to host a murder mystery, games night, or TV-themed weekend with friends or family, according to an exclusive cottages.com study.

An early adopter of this trend is young Millennial Georgia Johnson, who has just celebrated a decade of leaving the boyfriends behind in London and heading to somewhere secluded to roll dice.

“We’ve been to Valencia twice, a place in Kent, a friend’s house in Bath and up to the Lake District,” the North London DnD player explained.

For Georgia and her costume-clad pals, getting away from it all really helps to set the mood.

“One time, we knew we were going to have a fortune telling, so we put out loads of tarot cards and dice and had a candlelit session,” she explained.

“Cottages.com has spooky castles and chapels you can stay in, and a button that shows you a nearby pub. Generally, you get up, DnD, have lunch at a pub, come back, more DnD, then around midnight it can get a bit silly and hazy. At the moment, we are playing Curse of Strahd, which is modelled on Dracula. We are hoping to go to Whitby to finish the game. We want candles lit and spooky music.”

For the uninitiated, it’d be easy to overlook the ubiquity of role-playing games like DnD, or consign them to the ‘80s fad bin’ only recently revived by a starring role in Stranger Things.

In fact, they’ve been growing in popularity for years and continue to reach new peaks. 52 years after its invention, DnD has 13.7 million active players. One study suggests that interest in tabletop role-playing games has increased by roughly 85% since 2020. This purple patch extends to Nottingham-based Warhammer, which was worth £4.7bn at the end of 2024.

For many gentler souls, such games are a fantastic way of expressing oneself creatively. Among Georgia’s clan is Ben, an office worker during the week who dons a moustache and becomes “officer of the post” Derbert Clifton-Brown at the weekend.

He is joined by creative Kash, who has purchased ears specifically designed for people of colour, and Oliver, who likes to paint himself green.

Before the crew started travelling to play, Georgia’s mum walked in on them in the act. “She said she would’ve rather found us having an orgy,” the 33-year-old said.

Another great RPG lover is James Mackenzie-Thorpe. Not only has he travelled across the UK to enjoy weekend sessions with his friends, but he has also brought dozens of DnDers to a unique tourist attraction.

“My first day working at Kents Caverns I heard some colleagues talking DnD. I asked if I could play, but there was no work group. Later on, I woke up from a dream and thought I should write an adventure set in the caves. So I wrote it and played it with a group of five, in the caves. It went really well. Then another group. Then we decided to do it for the public. Now, for three years, I’ve run DnD in the cave for the general public,” James explained.

Kents Caverns are a network of prehistoric caves in Torquay, Devon, that lie beneath the hotel that inspired Fawlty Towers. James takes tours by day and hosts quests by night.

And he puts a lot of effort into it, paying for maps to be professionally painted and bringing rechargeable lanterns to light up the skull-lined caves.

“It’s been a tremendous amount of fun. You never know what you’re going to get with each group. We’ve had people travelling from Cornwall and Somerset. One group had been playing with each other online during Covid. They had never met in real life before they came and played with me in the caves. They booked an Airbnb and stayed together,” he said.

For James, the real joy of DnD comes in seeing people express themselves freely, which traveling to a cottage or heading underground can help some do.

“We have a young member who has been four or five times to play in the caves. They’re non-binary and are just starting to come to terms with that. To see everyone really take that person in hand, to really help that person come out of their shell, it makes me really proud,” he said.

WALTHAM, Mass. — “Throughout my public career,” President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant and a member of my party, in that order always and only.”

In the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedies, Americans have shown their patriotic colors. But, as Johnson made clear, patriotism does not require us always to put our national identity first when considering the various roles we play in the world. Our commitment to country is always stronger when it complements and builds upon other commitments. In the 21st century, we should expand Johnson’s list to include our role as citizens of the world.

Americans, after all, are not only Americans. We also belong to a global community.

Americans tend to shy away from thinking of themselves as global citizens. For all our bravado, we are insecure about the depth and the power of our national identity. We worry that something essential to the American character will be lost if we dilute our national feeling with too much commitment to the international.

Global citizenship and patriotism need not compete. Indeed, the one is bound to enrich the other. If we think deeply about the United States and its place in the world, we are bound to think more creatively and more deeply about which aspects of our country matter most to us.

Here are four ways in which we might begin.

First, we can recognize that the sense of suffering, grief and fear we’ve felt so intensely in recent weeks is not uncommon around the globe. Violence on a catastrophic scale is a new experience for most Americans alive today, but it is all too familiar to many people around the world. We miss a vital opportunity for establishing strong bonds across oceans when we neglect to think of our losses as a part of a larger contemporary human tragedy.

Second, we might extend this sense of connection with the fears and passions of others by toning down the constant–and very public–celebration of our national destiny and greatness. It was natural for us to react in the immediate aftermath of tragedy with the swollen rhetoric of injured pride: Our enemies attacked us because we are so strong and so good, we will triumph because no national spirit matches our own, and other similar sentiments.

The time has come to scale back our self-righteousness. Our enemies never bought our assertions of American greatness. Our friends, however, even our closest allies, are beginning to resent our self-importance. Efforts to build a global coalition are bound to be more fruitful if we approach potential partners, not as a swaggering savior, but as fellow citizens of a world in peril.

Third, thinking of ourselves as global citizens can dissuade us from making the glib assumption, underlying one leading edge of patriotic fervor, that “American values” represent the pinnacle of political and cultural ideals. I agree with those who believe that freedom and equality have flourished in the United States to a much greater degree than they have in most other parts of the world. But since we argue among ourselves about the meaning, the priority and the implementation of these ideals at home, we should expect and welcome vigorous debates about the goals of human society in an international context. And we should respect the international organizations and institutions that embody those contested universal ideals. International courts have already played a significant role in helping the world come to terms with atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. Americans have been reluctant to support a strong international justice system, but without one, we now lack a crucial element in the struggle against terrorism.

Fourth, and most important, we must recall the essential duty of any patriot: the task of careful, penetrating national self-criticism. This not a matter of tolerating dissent, which we already do reasonably well.

I am speaking of something grander than permitting expressions of outrage: I mean to suggest a collective effort to use the perspective of global identity to reflect on our values, our language and our actions. A consistent effort to see ourselves from outside ourselves paves the way for actions that are considered and collaborative.

The patriotism that emerges from this dialogue will not just be about flags and parades. If we take an active role in making and remaking American ideals and aspirations, if we talk candidly about our nation’s weaknesses, as well as its strengths, we will find it easier to persuade our friends abroad to join with us in causes that matter, and we will find it easier to sustain strong national feeling across the widest spectrum of the American public. That patriotism will flourish, because it is not something static, not something that has simply been handed to us. Global commitment will make America stronger, precisely because it will make us humbler.

ATLANTA — Belgium blew out the United States 5-2 on Saturday in a World Cup warmup that exposed the Americans’ defensive difficulties, rallying from a late first-half deficit on two goals by Dodi Lukébakio and one each from Zeno Debast, Amadou Onana and Charles De Ketelaere.

Weston McKennie put the U.S. ahead in the 39th minute with his 12th international goal, his first in three years, but Debast and Onana began Belgium’s rally with their first international goals on a frustrating afternoon for Matt Turner, the former No. 1 American goalkeeper who made his first appearance since last June.

Debast scored in the 45th, Onana put the Red Devils ahead in the 53rd and De Ketelaere converted a penalty kick in the 59th after a hand ball by U.S. captain Tim Ream.

Lukébakio entered in the 62nd minute and beat Turner from long range in the 68th and 82nd minutes to build a 5-1 lead before a disappointed largely pro-American crowd of 66,867 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, site of a World Cup semifinal in July.

Patrick Agyemang scored for the U.S. in the 87th after Ricardo Pepi took advantage of defensive misplay.

The U.S. lost a home game by three goals in which it scored the opening goal for the first time since an 8-1 defeat to England in 1959, according to Opta.

Belgium extended its unbeaten streak to 10 games and has won six straight against the U.S. since losing to the Americans at the initial World Cup in 1930.

The U.S. had entered with a five-game unbeaten streak that created optimism but was missing several injured regulars.

McKennie put the Americans ahead when he took advantage of Johnny Cardoso’s pick to cut in front of Nicolas Raskin and volley Antonee Robinson’s corner kick past Senne Lammens.

American players debuted jerseys with red and white stripes that resemble a waving flag.

With the roof closed in an air-conditioned stadium, fans booed the water breaks in the middle of each half — which will take place at each World Cup match.

Belgium was missing striker Romelu Lukaku, midfielders Leandro Trossard and Hans Vanaken and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois because of injuries and fitness issues. The Red Devils play Mexico in Chicago on Tuesday.

March 28 (UPI) — Bank of America reached a settlement with a survivor of deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein that will distribute $72.5 million to his victims.

The survivor, named in the case as “BOA Jane Doe,” and her attorneys told a federal judge on Friday that a settlement had been reached with the bank on a proposed class-action suit over Epstein’s decades of abuse and trafficking of women and teenage girls, The Charlotte Observer reported.

The suit alleged that the bank ignored signals of Epstein’s crimes by continuing to do business with him while he was committing his crimes.

Doe’s attorneys said they are aware of at least 60 women who were abused or trafficked by Epstein, however the settlement covers all women who experienced either at Epstein’s hands or those “connected to or otherwise associated” with him between June 30, 2008, and July 6, 2019, NBC News reported.

Bank of America, which is the largest bank in the United States, denied liability or wrongdoing in providing Epstein banking services but settled in order to avoid a trial.

“While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” the bank told The Observer and NBC in a statement.

With the settlement filed, a judge will still have to approve it at a hearing, which is scheduled for April 2.

Bank of America now joins JPMorgan, which settled for $290 million, and Deutsche Bank, which settled for $75 million, in paying what is thought to be more than 1,000 women that Epstein abused in his years-long scheme.

Yemen’s Houthis have attacked Israel for the first time, a month after US and Israeli forces began striking Iran, opening up a new front in a rapidly escalating conflict that has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and rattled the global economy.

The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, entered the fray on Saturday with two missile and drone attacks on Israel in the space of fewer than 24 hours. The Israeli army said the attacks were intercepted, but the Iran-aligned group pledged to continue fighting in support of “resistance fronts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran”.

The Houthis had sat out of the hostilities until now, in contrast with their stance during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, when their attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea upended commercial traffic worth about $1 trillion a year.

Their widely anticipated involvement in the latest conflict comes just as Iran has throttled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s oil, raising fears that the Yemeni group will again disrupt Red Sea traffic by blocking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Reporting from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry described Bab al-Mandeb as the group’s “ace”.

“They want to make Israel pay economically. They want to disrupt their trade routes. They want to disrupt the imports and exports in and out of Israel,” he said.

‘Civilians bearing brunt of war’

The Houthi attacks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington expected to conclude its military operations against Iran within weeks, even as a new deployment of US Marines has begun to arrive in the region, so US President Donald Trump would have “maximum” flexibility to adjust the strategy as needed.

With no immediate diplomatic breakthrough in sight as both the US and Iran harden their positions, many fear that the US-Israel war on Iran, which started on February 28 and has since engulfed the region, will spiral out of control.

The US and Israel continued their bombardment over the past 24 hours, with the Israeli military claiming it had struck an Iranian research facility for naval weapons, while a series of loud explosions rattled Tehran as night fell on Saturday.

Iranian media said at least five people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential unit in the northwestern city of Zanjan. In Tehran, authorities said the University of Science and Technology was the latest educational facility to be struck, prompting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to issue a threat against Israeli and US universities in the region.

Separately, Iran’s Fars news agency said a water reservoir in the city of Haftgel, located in western Khuzestan province, had also been attacked.

The Iranian Ministry of Health announced that 1,937 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, including 230 children. Iran’s Red Crescent Society said US-Israeli strikes had damaged more than 93,000 civilian properties.

“Civilians are bearing the brunt of this war,” Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said.

Devastation in Lebanon

Meanwhile, Israel’s devastation of Lebanon continued apace, as the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that 1,189 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2.

The death toll has been mounting as Israeli troops have pushed further into the south, advancing towards the Litani River in their stated bid to wipe out Hezbollah and carve out a buffer zone along the lines of the “Gaza model”.

Among Saturday’s killings, an Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon. In parallel, the Health Ministry announced that Israel had also killed nine paramedics, bringing the death toll among healthcare workers in the latest war to 51.

Lebanon’s Public Health Emergency Operations Centre said an Israeli attack on the town of al-Haniyah, in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, killed at least seven people, including one child.

An Israeli air raid on the southern Lebanese town of Deir al-Zahrani killed a Lebanese soldier, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

Hezbollah, which attacked Israel amid a ceasefire that Israel kept violating in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, claimed dozens of operations against Israeli forces in the past 24 hours.

Mixed messages

Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Tehran does not fully open the Strait of Hormuz. But he has extended the deadline he had imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond.

With the US midterm elections coming up in November, the increasingly unpopular war is weighing heavily on the president’s Republican Party.

Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Friday that he believed Tehran would hold talks with Washington in the coming days. “We have a 15-point plan on the table. We expect the Iranians to respond. It could solve it all,” Witkoff said.

Pakistan, which has been a go-between between US and Iranian officials, will host foreign ministers from regional powers Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt in Islamabad for talks on the crisis.

Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, late on Saturday, urging “an end to all attacks and hostilities” in the region.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Dar had told Araghchi that Pakistan remains committed to supporting efforts aimed at restoring regional peace and stability.

Dar also announced that Iran had agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a meaningful step towards easing one of the worst energy crises in modern history.

The former EastEnders star has been cast in the reboot of The X Files, which has been greenlit by American streaming powerhouse Hulu

Former EastEnders star Himesh Patel has landed a significant role in the highly anticipated reboot of The X Files.

The 35-year-old, who first captured the nation’s hearts as a youngster on the popular BBC soap portraying Tamwar Masood in Albert Square, is now setting off on a completely different adventure.

He has been cast in Ryan Coogler’s reboot pilot of The X Files, which American streaming giant Hulu gave the go-ahead to last month. Himesh will appear alongside BAFTA-nominated actress Danielle Deadwyler, playing two ‘vastly different’ FBI agents.

Danielle, 43, boasts an impressive array of accolades, particularly for her compelling portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley in Till. She was nominated for the Best Actress in a Leading Role award at the 2023 BAFTA Film and TV awards, reports OK!.

According to a logline by Variety, the reboot focuses on: “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents (Deadwyler, Patel) form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”

The publication also confirms that both stars will portray entirely new characters, rather than reimagined versions of Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully, according to the Daily Mail. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson brought those iconic roles to life across 11 series.

Original creator Chris Carter is returning as executive producer, while Jennifer Yale (The Copenhagen Test) has been appointed as showrunner. Meanwhile, Coogler is scheduled to write, direct and produce, drawing inspiration from his mother’s fondness for the original series.

This marks another collaboration between Himesh and Danielle, having previously worked together on the 2021 miniseries Station Eleven.

Himesh left EastEnders in 2016 after his character ran away with then-girlfriend Nancy Carter. Two years later, he shot to international fame by securing the lead role in Yesterday, which became his breakthrough film.

In 2024, Himesh disclosed that struggling with acne while working on EastEnders as a teenager ‘felt like the worst thing in the world‘.

Speaking openly to British GQ Hype, the actor looked back on his remarkable career journey, including his early years on the legendary soap.

He told the publication: “I’ve been doing this since I was 16, When you’re a teenager and you have acne, it’s the worst thing in the world.

“But then when you’ve got acne in front of millions of people every week in EastEnders, it’s a whole other thing. ‘It was rough. You just kind of feel defective because you’re surrounded by actors. Everyone gets spots, but I just felt the pressure.”

The X-Files is available to stream on Disney+.

Do newspaper endorsements for president still matter? Certainly not as much as they once did, but that doesn’t stop most newspapers (including this one) from exercising their 1st Amendment right to spout off about their choice of candidate, and it doesn’t stop the presidential campaigns from breathlessly reporting each and every endorsement as if it were handed down by the Oracle of Delphi.

So who’s winning the endorsement race?

That all depends on how you look at it.

According to Editor & Publisher, the longtime bible of the newspaper business, the tally as of Saturday was 112 for Republican Mitt Romney and 84 for President Obama. That list didn’t include papers from Sunday, when many delivered their endorsements, but it suggested a shift from 2008, when E&P;’s final tally showed daily newspapers — which historically have skewed Republican — endorsing Obama over Republican John McCain by a better than 3-2 margin, 296 to 180

The American Presidency Project at UC Santa Barbara has also been tracking endorsements, but it limits its list to the 100 largest newspapers. On average, they tend to have more liberal editorial pages, presumably reflecting their locations in Democratic-leaning big cities. As of Sunday, the project showed 33 endorsements for Obama and 27 for Romney. (Although most newspapers have issued their endorsements by now, a significant number are apparently waiting for the final week of the campaign.)

The tally reflects some notable gains for the GOP, however. According to the American Presidency Project, nine of the 100 top newspapers have switched sides from Obama to Romney since 2008, whereas only one went the other direction.

Among those abandoning the president was his Arlington Heights, Il., Daily Herald in his home state, which cast its lot — albeit a bit hesitantly– with Romney on Sunday.

“We believe that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are good and decent men who care about the country,” the newspaper wrote. “We believe each possesses extraordinary skills and talent. But, philosophically, it is clear that one trusts government too much; the other appears to trust it too little.” The editorial went on to criticize “the tone of Obama’s relentless insinuations that wealthy Americans refuse to pay their fair share. That tone is divisive and damaging for the nation and for our economy. It creates villains and victims, and unfairly so.” That, it said, was, “ultimately, the point where we must break with him.”

The San Antonio Express-News was the only one of the big papers to go the other way. It had endorsed McCain in 2008. This year, it said that while Obama has “had his failings,” such as a failure to pursue immigration reform and to tackle the debt crisis, “These shortcomings … don’t justify a change in leadership, particularly when many of Mitt Romney’s proposals — such as an across-the-board 20 percent cut in taxes and the elimination of unspecified itemized deductions — invite skepticism.”

Concluded the Express-News: “No candidate has all the right policies — that includes Barack Obama. But having weathered the challenges of the last four years, we believe he is in a better position to guide the nation over the next four years — and has earned from voters the privilege to do so.”

It is probably in the nature of newspaper editorials to stop short of adulation and unbridled enthusiasm. That certainly is the case with virtually all the endorsements of Obama and Romney, very few of which are wholehearted.

The Chicago Tribune (owned by the Tribune Co., which also owns The Times) endorsed Obama, but its editorial page editors said, “On questions of economics and limited government, the Chicago Tribune has forged principles that put us closer to the challenger in this race, Republican Mitt Romney. We write with those principles clearly in our minds. Romney advocates less spending, less borrowing — overall, a less costly and less intrusive role for government in the lives of the governed.” So why not just endorse Romney? The Trib concluded that he had been “astonishingly willing to bend his views to the politics of the moment: on abortion, on immigration, on gun laws and, most famously, on healthcare.”

And several newspapers that did endorse Romney expressed the hope that, if elected, he would turn out to be the moderate Romney, not the “severe” conservative he presented himself to be in the Republican primaries.

“Let us stipulate,” said the Houston Chronicle, the largest newspaper to switch from Obama in 2008 to Romney this year. “The Mitt Romney we are endorsing is the Massachusetts moderate who worked successfully alongside an 88 percent Democratic majority in the state Legislature to produce what the Obama administration says became its model for national healthcare reform.”

Not everyone was so equivocal. The New York Post, never known for mincing words, did not choose this occasion to begin.

“Four frustratingly long years ago, a war-weary and economically battered America took a flier on a savior,” the Post wrote.

Next paragraph, in full: “It didn’t work out.”

Some newspapers that endorsed candidates in 2008 decided not to pick anyone this year. The Oregonian, in Portland, supported Obama four years ago, during a campaign in which he held one of his largest rallies in that city. The paper sounded a bit miffed this year when it said it wasn’t endorsing anyone this time around because the candidates hadn’t campaigned in Oregon. “The access and close observation that inform our endorsements for state and local offices and Congress do not apply in a national race; our CNN-level view of the presidential race is similar to everyone else’s,” the paper said.

The New York Times was the largest of the nation’s newspapers to endorse a candidate. It concluded Saturday that Obama “has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless.” Romney, it said, “has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas.”

The two largest newspapers in the country, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, do not usually issue formal endorsements, although the Journal has made no secret of its strong preference for Romney.

The Los Angels Times, for what it’s worth, endorsed Obama and followed up with an explanation from Editorial Page Editor Nick Goldberg of why the newspaper endorses anyone at all, given its mandate to be nonpartisan and unbiased in its news articles. The article contained one reminder of the historically less-than-awesome power wielded by newspaper endorsements: The Times’ first endorsement, in 1884, was for Republican James G. Blaine.

Remember him?

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATlands

This week began with Orange Lutheran having played in only four baseball games while others had played in 10 or more. The Lancers were saving their best to come and it certainly showed when they won four consecutive games to capture the National High School Invitational on Saturday in Cary, N.C.

After needing consecutive walk-off hits to win in the quarterfinals and semifinals, Orange Lutheran (7-1) had more nerve-racking moments before knocking off defending champion Venice (Fla.) 7-6. In the bottom of the seventh, Venice put two runners on with two outs before Anthony Tomminelli got a strikeout to secure the win.

Orange Lutheran started fast with a two-run triple by CJ Weinstein in the first inning. Eric Zdunek finished with two hits and two RBIs while Brady Murrietta added two hits. The Lancers have about 24 hours to celebrate because next week they face St. John Bosco in a critical three-game series in the Trinity League.

Harvard-Westlake 10, Arizona Casteel 8: Jake Kim flexed his muscles for the second consecutive game, hitting a home run and double to finish with three RBIs. Ethan Price had a two-run double. Freshman Nate Englander had two hits and three RBIs.

Jacksonville (Fla.) Trinity Christian 5, St. John Bosco 0: The Braves return home from North Carolina with a 9-2 record and set to face Orange Lutheran this week in a three-game Trinity League series. Jack Champlin had two hits in the loss.

Aquinas 4, Gloucester 0: Eli Martinez threw the shutout with seven strikeouts.

Ex-paramilitary group, set up to fight ISIL, but now integrated in Iraqi forces, blames US and Israel.

Air strikes targeting Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have killed three fighters and two Iraqi police, as the US-Israeli war on Iran continued to spill over Iraq’s eastern border.

An Iraqi security source told Al Jazeera that Saturday’s double-bombing of the PMF’s headquarters near northern Iraq’s Kirkuk Airport also wounded two other fighters and six Iraqi soldiers.

A statement from the ex-paramilitary coalition, which is now integrated into the regular Iraqi army, blamed the United States and Israel, saying that those killed had been “subjected to a treacherous Zionist-American” attack.

Separately, the Reuters news agency quoted security sources as saying that two members of the Iraqi police were killed in an air strike targeting the PMF in Mosul, about 105 miles (170km) northwest of Kirkuk.

Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said that Iraq was turning into an “expanding battleground” in the crisis, which began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran and now threatens to engulf the region in a protracted conflict.

Since the war broke out, pro-Iran armed groups within the PMF, which was formed on the orders of Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in 2014 to fight ISIL (ISIS), have claimed responsibility for attacks on US interests in Iraq and beyond and have themselves been targeted.

Haque said the PMF takes its orders from Baghdad, but some factions are loyal to Tehran.

“That makes it very difficult for Baghdad to hold all of this together. Up until the war, the government successfully brought everybody around the table [and] was able to manage the different factions,” he said.

But as the war expands into Iraq, Baghdad has found itself “on a tightrope” between the US and Iran, said Haque.

“They can’t afford to turn their back on their biggest neighbour, Iran. Nor can they afford to turn their back on the United States,” he said, noting the economic and security ties between Baghdad and both countries.

Saturday also saw two drones targeting an airbase serving as a hub for US and coalition forces near Erbil airport in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Haque said the US C-RAM air defence system was activated and intercepted the drones.

Iraq attacks ‘a worrying development’: Macron

In parallel, Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported a drone attack on the house of Nechirvan Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, in the western town of Duhok.

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, condemned “in the strongest terms” the assault.

“Once again, we call on the federal government to act on its responsibility, bring these outlaw criminals to justice, and curb the continued terrorist attacks carried out by these groups,” he said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that he had spoken to Barzani, calling increased attacks in Iraq a “worrying development”.

In other developments, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that a drone had crashed into the southern Majnoon oilfield “without detonating, causing no damage or injuries”.

Antiwar protesters rally in Tel Aviv and US cities, as attacks kill a family of four in Iran’s Bushehr province and damage a water facility in Khuzestan.

Paul McCartney sauntered onto the stage of the Fonda Theatre, took in the 1,200 faces before him — “I can see the whites of your eyes,” he said — then offered up a brief history lesson about where we’d gathered Friday night.

The Fonda, he told us, opened 100 years ago; back then, he added, it was called the Music Box.

“Cool little place, innit?”

At 83, McCartney is well into his cool-little-place era.

Last year the rock legend played a string of concerts at New York’s tiny Bowery Ballroom while in town for “Saturday Night Live’s” 50th anniversary; a few months after that, he hit the Santa Barbara Bowl as a kind of warm-up for the latest leg of his Got Back world tour.

Paul McCartney and his band during sound check for Friday’s show.

(MJ Kim)

Friday’s underplay — the first of two instant sell-outs at the Fonda — came as McCartney is drumming up interest in a new studio album he’ll release in May. Outside the venue, a double-decker bus was parked with signage advertising the LP, which is called “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” after a road in his Liverpool hometown.

But that hardly seemed like the purpose of the show itself, which lasted about an hour and 40 minutes and didn’t even include a performance of the album’s lead single. The truth is that Sir Paul genuinely appears to get a kick out of these intimate gigs — out of standing right in front of a crowd and doing the magic trick that is a song like “Get Back” or “Jet” or “Got to Get You Into My Life.”

And why wouldn’t he?

If a Paul McCartney concert in an arena or a stadium is a finely honed spectacle of boomer nostalgia and industrial-strength charm, one of his shows in a club or a theater is a chance to play music, which after six and a half decades still clearly turns his wheels.

You wouldn’t say the shows remind McCartney that he’s a regular guy. (Those six and a half decades have made him anything but.) What they might do, though, is remind him why he became so widely adored — valuable self-knowledge for an artist whose great subject has always been the transformative power of love.

Here, as in Santa Barbara, he and his seven-piece band (which featured three horn players) did a pared-down version of the most recent Got Back set, opening with a killer one-two punch — “Help!” into “Coming Up” — that alone said plenty about McCartney’s range and endurance.

“Let Me Roll It” had a funky swagger, while “Getting Better” chugged with cheerful insistence; “I’ve Just Seen a Face” showed off the group’s crisp harmonies and “Lady Madonna” its tight rhythmic interplay. After “Let ’Em In,” McCartney asked his band member Brian Ray to show off the song’s all-important bass line: a single note plucked over and over and over again.

Friday’s show was the first of two at the Fonda.

(MJ Kim)

He did a few other comic bits, including a memory of Tony Bennett singing without a microphone as a way to demonstrate the excellent acoustics of a concert hall — the punch line was that he later saw Bennett do the same thing at the Beverly Hilton — and some gentle ribbing of the folks sitting up in the “posh seats” of the Fonda’s balcony. Among them, McCartney pointed out, was Morgan Neville, director of the recent “Man on the Run” documentary about McCartney’s life in the aftermath of the Beatles’ breakup.

He also noted that his wife, Nancy Shevell, was in the house and dedicated “My Valentine” to her; truth be told, that one was a bit dreary, as was “Now and Then,” the so-called last Beatles song released in 2023 using machine learning to complete a scratchy demo left behind by John Lennon.

“Thank you, John, for writing that lovely song,” McCartney said afterward, which made it a little harder not to like.

In any event, there were more classics to come, not least a buoyant “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and a “Let It Be”/“Hey Jude” twofer that inspired such a lusty singalong that McCartney probably could’ve gotten away with lip-syncing if he’d wanted to.

But of course he didn’t want to — that was kind of the whole point.

CHANNEL Springwatch and immerse yourself in a nature reserve, says writer Mia Lyndon.

THE PAD

You’ll be able to call kingfishers, cranes and thousands of other beautiful birds your neighbours here.

Tucked inside Slimbridge Wetland Centre, just half an hour’s drive south of Gloucester, are five shepherd’s huts, each with their own pond and mini wetland, and sleeping between two and four people.

We spotted rabbits and foxes from our snug digs among the 100 acres of lush landscape, plus every hut is kitted out with a vintage-style oven, waterfall shower (with excellent water pressure, FYI) and spacious decking.

Owl-shaped curtain hooks and a cuddly mallard doorstop only add to the charm.

EXPLORE

Make the most of your unlimited access to the wetland centre and feed wildfowl on Swan Lake, before bobbing along on an hour-long canoe tour, £10 per person, to get closer to diving ducks and water voles.

HUT STUFF

The luxe Oxfordshire glamping site with a Scandi-inspired spa and nearby vineyard

HOBBIT HOLE

Live like a Hobbit in this cosy glamping lodge

Or hunt down egrets, stalks and grass snakes with the help of friendly driver Chris on a Wildlife Safari – £5 per adult, £3.50 per child (wwt.org.uk).

Find yet more stunning views at Miserden Gardens and wander past elegant topiary, lush fruit trees and herds of roaming deer in this exquisite 17th-century walled garden. Entry costs £12 and under-16s are free (Miserden.org).

Meanwhile, thronging with vibrant indie stores, quaint Stroud is a short drive away.

Pop into the buzzy Malthouse Collective for two storeys of vintage clothes, hand-poured candles and fab local art (Themalthousecollective.co.uk), then hit Made In Stroud for pretty pottery and jewellery (Madeinstroud.co.uk).

Alongside a sweet miniature railway, Stroud’s Stratford Park is home to the Museum In The Park – check out local artefacts, oil paintings and even a Gloucestershire Stegosaur fossil. Entry is free (Museuminthepark.org.uk).

REFUEL

Hunker down with a tasty (and very generous) Full Monty English brekkie, £13, at The Tudor Arms, which sits beside the Gloucester And Sharpness Canal and is just a 10-minute stroll from your bed (Thetudorarms.co.uk).

For a laid-back yet impressive dinner, hike over to The George Inn for dishes such as succulent venison steak with chocolate and red wine sauce, £25, followed by tangy home-made blackcurrant and orange cheesecake, £7 (Quality-inns.co.uk).

Or gaze across rolling valleys at The Bell Inn at Selsley, while tucking into fluffy smoked Hereford cheese croquette, £19, and warming cinnamon milk pie, £9.

Don’t miss the Romanian Calusari white, £6.50 a glass – it’s zippy, fresh and absolutely delicious (Thebellinnselsley.com).

Elsewhere, there are cosy cafes aplenty in Stroud, but the irresistible ginger and date crumble cake, £3.90, at buzzy Woodruffs helps it reign supreme (Woodruffsorganiccafe.co.uk).

Book it

Stays for two at Warblers’ Meadow, Slimbridge, cost from £150 per night (wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/slimbridge).

A record wave of early voting promises to cut crowding on election day, but the trend has also front-loaded this year’s election with problems — long lines at early-voting stations, missing absentee ballots and controversy over retooled rules for early balloting.

Analysts and opinion surveys project that more than 26 million of an estimated 120 million voters might cast their ballots before the traditional start of polling — at midnight on election eve in Dixville Notch, N.H.

Despite hopes that early voting would reduce anxiety after a highly contentious 2000 election, a recent survey found that 40% of Americans believe that most of the problems exposed in that election have not been corrected. And nearly half of Americans in another survey said they think this year’s results will be challenged in court.

Many local election officials share those fears. Already overtaxed by voting that now lasts for weeks, some doubt that their work will be finished Tuesday.

“It will not be over on Nov. 2, and you can put that on the record,” said Susan Miller, elections director for Colorado’s Jefferson County. “We have 12 days to certify provisional ballots. In Colorado, there is more than likely to be a recount.”

Miller says she has already been told about four or five groups that might file lawsuits to challenge results in her county, which includes the town of Golden. She worries that “another Florida” — with its 36-day recount and disputed ballots — could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“We’ve been working six-day weeks, 12-, 14-hour days for a month,” Miller said. “When the public calls and says they don’t trust us, it breaks my heart…. We’re at the point where we don’t care who wins. We just want him to win by a landslide. Then we don’t have to recount the ballots.”

The Washington-based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate has projected turnout as high as 60% this year (compared with 54% in 2000), which would mean voting by more than 120 million Americans. Twenty-two percent of them, or more than 26 million, planned to cast votes before Tuesday, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey.

That trend has been evident across the country, in states where the presidential election is close and where it is not, such as California.

In Palm Beach County, Fla., requests for absentee ballots have more than doubled, and retirees and others have waited as long as two hours in line at satellite voting stations. Iowa has seen a nearly 55% jump in absentee ballot requests. New Mexico’s secretary of state expects half of her votes to be cast before Tuesday. The number of residents on the Hawaiian island of Oahu asking for mail-in ballots has spiked by nearly 82%.

In California, an enormous jump in absentees has been led by Orange County, with an increase of 200,000 to about 450,000. Los Angeles County has seen a more modest 18% increase, to 740,000, said Conny McCormack, the county’s registrar-recorder.

Officials nationwide say the deluge of early voting has them in effect running two elections — requiring extra staffing and long shifts to handle absentees and then a second push to prepare election day polling places.

“It’s time-consuming and tiring,” McCormack said.

Most of those voting by mail will avoid such a crunch and should have their ballots counted without glitches, experts said. But there already have been some trouble spots.

In Broward County, north of Miami, officials have been deluged with hundreds of complaints from voters who say they never received their absentee ballots. U.S. Postal Service investigators were trying to find an undetermined number of the 60,000 ballots the county mailed out Oct. 7 and 8.

“That is something beyond our control,” said the county’s deputy supervisor of elections, Gisela Salas. “We really have no idea what’s going on.” Salas advised voters who did not receive their ballots to go to the county’s early-voting stations.

But Florida’s voting stations — at libraries, city halls and other civic buildings — have not necessarily made balloting easier.

In Del Rey Beach, Judy Sternberg nearly fainted after a two-hour wait in the sun. Paramedics came to her aid, but Sternberg, 69, was not about to go home.

“They really wanted me to come back a day later,” said Sternberg, who voted for President Bush. “I said, ‘I am not coming back. I am voting.’ ”

Attempts to clarify rules since the 2000 election have not eliminated disputes, particularly over how mail-in ballots should be treated. One of the most emotional and politically charged disagreements has been over military ballots from overseas.

Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has been pressuring Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell to accept ballots from military personnel up to 15 days after the election.

Rendell has declined, saying he had already attended to the issue by making special accommodations for two counties, Venango and Huntingdon, which have presented evidence that military personnel got their ballots late. Those service members got new absentee ballots by express mail, with prepaid express mail envelopes in which to send their completed ballots back.

A federal judge last week backed Rendell, saying that overseas military voters should cast their ballots by Tuesday.

But other states, including Arkansas, Colorado and Florida — will allow absentee ballots from overseas to arrive at elections offices as much as 10 days after the election, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.

Another group that has complained about access to absentee ballots is college students. Although well over half of collegians this year plan to vote absentee, according to a Harvard University study, six states have laws that can make that difficult. In Louisiana, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Nevada and West Virginia, voters must cast their first ballot in person, according to election watchers at Rock the Vote.

That means young people from those states who attend out-of-state universities may not get to vote, said Hans Riemer, Washington director for Rock the Vote.

“This is really made to disenfranchise college students,” Riemer said.

An additional concern could be presented to students in New Hampshire, who are warned on the secretary of state’s website that establishing their residence in the Granite State could affect insurance and some types of financial aid.

“This is a totally outrageous, preposterous, outlandish intimidation of young people,” Riemer said of state restrictions that affect students.

Not surprisingly, supporters of both Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have claimed their side is getting the best of the early voting.

In most jurisdictions it is impossible to tell who is right. But a few states record the party affiliation of those voting absentee or at early voting locations.

In Polk County, the most populous in hard-fought Iowa, Democrats had a nearly 2-to-1 edge in early ballots cast — 32,924 to 17,340.

In Los Angeles, McCormack was crossing her fingers that voters were prepared for a long ballot, jammed with state propositions. If not, she predicted, “it could be really ugly.”

Gary Smith, the Forsyth County, Ga., director of elections, said many of his colleagues had taken to reciting what he called the “night-before prayer”:

“Dear God, don’t let this election be close.”

Around 16,000 fans packed into the Manchester arena bought into the Itauma buzz, greeting him with a warm roar as he was walked to the ring by British rapper Meekz.

Itauma – the prodigy who was sparring seasoned professionals while still at school – was in wonderful form from the first bell, using his speed and variation to send Franklin backtracking.

In truth, the knockout felt inevitable even when 32-year-old Franklin managed to recover from a third-round right hand that sent him crashing to the floor.

Working behind a jab and picking his shots wisely, Itauma avoided anything reckless. “It’s a breakdown job,” trainer Ben Davison aptly told him between rounds.

This was another night that thrilled and told us a little more about the rising heavyweight.

Itauma’s devastating power is undeniable, once again on display as he dispatched a seasoned opponent inside the first half of the fight.

But the bigger questions remain.

His chin has yet to be properly tested. Franklin landed a right in the fourth, and Itauma just smiled, but he will face bigger punches in the future.

And while the knockouts keep coming, he is still unproven beyond six rounds, with his engine and endurance untested at the highest level.

Promoter Warren expects Itauma to fight for a world title this year.

Within boxing circles, that talk may be slightly premature but Itauma is keeping pace with two-time world champion Anthony Joshua.

At the same stage of his career, Joshua beat Gary Cornish to register a 14th stoppage and was selling out the O2 Arena. Itauma is on a similar trajectory, almost filling the Co-op Live Arena – and arguably facing higher-level opponents along the way.

The key step-up for Joshua came in his 15th fight: a win over Dillian Whyte for the British title, which developed his resolve and enhanced his profile.

By his 17th, he was world champion after defeating Charles Martin.

One month after US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the conflict has escalated across the Middle East. From leadership assassinations to economic disruption, the war is reshaping the region and destabilising the global economy.

For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country.

The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race.

During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer at the top of the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election.

The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees.

But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote.

It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll.

That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent.

Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy.

But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party.

Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box.

Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low.

The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump.

While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028.

That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican.

Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran.

Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025.

Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office.

But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party.

In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently topped the CPAC straw polls.

Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition.

Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still topped the straw poll in 2021, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024.

Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised.

The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent.

TOMMY Fury has risked pregnant Molly-Mae’s wrath after announcing a huge fight the day after her due date.

Last month, the Love Island icon, 26, thrilled fans when she announced that she and Tommy Fury, also 26, were expecting their second child together.

Tommy has now taken to Instagram to announce that he is taking on Eddie Hall on June 13 at the AO Arena Manchester.

Tickets go on sale Sunday and it will be shown live exclusively on DAZN.

The post has received over 130k likes and almost 1500 comments as fans eagerly await the outcome of the fight.

One boxing fan wrote: “Let’s Go!”

PAY PAL

EastEnders legend admits flash holidays to Ibiza and Dubai are paid for by mates

building bridges

Tommy Fury proves feud with Molly-Mae’s sister and her husband is over

Another said: “This is wild!”

While a third said: “I’m here for this.”

However, a fan asked Molly-Mae: “Does this mean Tommy is missing the birth of your second child?”

Since revealing the couple’s big news last month, where Molly-Mae said she was already six months pregnant, she has been teasing fans with little snippets and clues about her unborn baby.

In her latest Instagram post called “bits and bobs” she shared a slew of snaps of her second pregnancy journey.

This included pics with her and Tommy’s first child, Bambi, three, plus stunning baby bump photos.

But it was the photo of her baby scan that really stood out and revealed her due date.

In the sweet snap, the scan had been flashed up on the big screen in their movie room, with Molly and Tommy’s daughter pointing to it.

But if you look closely at the photo, it gives away when the influencer’s baby will be born.

The picture revealed she was 24 weeks and 6 days pregnant when she had the scan on February 26.

This therefore means her due date is June 12 which is only one day before Tommy’s big fight.

Molly-Mae recently raised concerns when she visited Ash End House Children’s Farm with Bambi where she shared a photo of the “three days old” lambs

As she showed off some young lambs on her Instagram stories, it sparked worry as there is a risk of contracting disease from animals who’ve recently given birth.

.The Children’s Farm has a section on its website dedicated to safety and measures pregnant women can take to reduce the risk of infection.

Her farm trip comes after she revealed she’s having trouble breathing during her pregnancy and is concerned it might lead to her becoming addicted to nasal sprays.

Molly went on to admit she is not suffering from a cold or any illness but still finds herself feeling as though she cannot breathe in the morning – leading to her reaching for the sprays every day.

She said: “I don’t have a cold. I don’t feel ill but I wake up and I can’t breathe.”

But she assured fans she was feeling well within herself and her pregnancy as she nears her due date.

Minnesota public universities can continue to offer in-state tuition and scholarships to some immigrants in the country without legal status, a federal judge ruled Friday, dismissing a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department last summer that attempted to halt the programs.

The decision follows a series of clashes between the federal government and Minnesota officials over immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez said in her decision that the federal government failed to prove that programs offering in-state tuition for immigrants without legal status discriminated against U.S. citizens.

The federal lawsuit named Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic state Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison as defendants, along with the state’s Office of Higher Education. It said Minnesota law discriminates against U.S. citizens because it provides in-state tuition and scholarships to students living in the U.S. illegally if they attended a Minnesota high school for three years, and U.S. citizens who attended schools outside of the state cannot receive the same benefits. States generally set higher tuition rates for out-of-state students.

The federal government said those state statutes “flagrantly” violate a federal law that prevents states from providing preferential benefits to immigrants in the U.S. illegally regardless of whether or not they meet residency requirements.

“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed last year.

Menendez said the Justice Department misinterpreted the law, enacted during the Clinton administration, because anyone who attended a Minnesota high school for at least three years are granted the same public benefits, regardless of their U.S. residency or immigration status.

She also said the federal government didn’t have standing to sue the state attorney general or governor since neither has the power to change the state laws that determine tuition eligibility.

Ellison celebrated the decision in a statement Friday.

“Today, we defeated another one of Donald Trump’s efforts to misconstrue federal law to force Minnesota to abandon duly passed state laws and become a colder, less caring state,” he wrote.

The funding for immigrants without legal status represents an “investment for our state to do everything we can to encourage a more educated workforce,” Ellison wrote.

The U.S. Justice Department didn’t respond to an email request for comment Friday.

The department has filed similar lawsuits this month against policies in Kentucky and Texas. Last week, a federal judge in Texas blocked that state’s law giving a tuition break to students living in the U.S. illegally after the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, said he supported the legal challenge.

In discussing the Texas case last year, Bondi suggested more lawsuits might be coming.

Florida ended in-state tuition eligibility for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. At least 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies granting the in-state benefit, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Those states include Democratic-led California and New York, but also Republican states including Kansas and Nebraska.

According to the center, at least 13 states in addition to Minnesota allow immigrant students without legal status to receive financial aid and scholarships on top of in-state tuition.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

The NBA gave Luka Doncic one mulligan. The league wouldn’t grant the Lakers superstar a second.

Doncic will serve a one-game suspension because of technical foul accumulation, the NBA announced Saturday, sidelining him for Monday’s game against the Washington Wizards after he picked up his 16th technical foul of the season in the Lakers’ win over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday.

Doncic said he was trying to get away from Brooklyn’s Ziaire Williams when he pushed the Nets forward aside with 5:12 remaining in the third quarter. Doncic had just been called for an offensive foul while the Lakers were attempting to inbound the ball. Williams was shouting in Doncic’s direction. Doncic attempted to move past Williams and the 24-year-old from Lancaster then waved his arm behind him and slapped Doncic in the throat. Both were given technical fouls.

Doncic said referees told him his push was “exaggerated.”

“Which was obviously [not the case],” said Doncic, who scored 41 points with eight rebounds and three assists in the win.

This is the second time in a week that Doncic has faced the mandatory suspension after getting his 16th technical foul, but he avoided the fate after the NBA rescinded a technical he picked up against Orlando on March 21. The reversal kept Doncic available for the Lakers’ matchup with Eastern Conference-leading Detroit on March 23 in which Doncic scored 32 points, but missed the potential game-tying three at the buzzer of a tense 113-110 Lakers loss that ended a nine-game winning streak.

Monday’s game will likely not have the same drama.

The Wizards (17-56) have lost 17 of their last 18 games. The only win came against the Utah Jazz, another team that’s attempting to position itself for the lottery more than the playoffs. Washington will be without Trae Young (quad) and Anthony Davis (finger), the team’s two major midseason acquisitions.

With another bottom-feeding team coming to Crypto.com Arena, Doncic and the Lakers might actually benefit from resting the superstar. He played through left hamstring soreness Friday, and the Lakers (48-26) host the playoff-bound Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday. The days between Friday’s win and Monday’s game will be the Lakers’ first two-day break since the All-Star Game.

Doncic, the NBA’s leading scorer, has charged into the most valuable player conversation by helping lift the Lakers into third place in the Western Conference. He has scored 30 or more points in 12 consecutive games, the longest such streak for his career.

The Lakers have won 15 of their last 20 games with Doncic averaging 35.5 points per game during the span. With 102 steals on the season, including three against the Nets, Doncic also became the first Laker since Kobe Bryant in 2012-13 averaging 30 or more points per game with 100 or more total steals.

The Lakers could also be without guard Marcus Smart, who has missed the last three games because of a right ankle contusion. He also suffered a hip injury in a separate fall against Orlando, but he is showing improvement and remains day-to-day, Lakers coach JJ Redick said Friday.

March 28 (UPI) — Nepal’s former prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday for crackdowns during protests last year, which more than 70 people being shot by police.

Former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak was also arrested for the response to the so-called Gen Z protests, which started after the government shutdown access to social media sites and inspired larger protests across the country over government corruption and a faltering economy.

Oli, whose administration deployed the Nepali Army after violence as police employed brutal tactics to quell the initial rallies, including shooting people in their teens and early 20s, resigned as a result of the protests.

Oli and his attorneys have accused the new government of Balendra Shah and his cabinet has said that the arrests were unnecessary and illegal because neither is likely to flee the country.

“No one is above the law,” new Home Minister Sudan Gurung wrote on Instagram, The Guardian reported.

“We have taken former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak under control,” said Gurung, who was a significant figure in the protests. “This is not revenge against anyone, just the beginning of Justice.”

Shah, a former hip hop artist, ran partially on promises of holding former government officials accountable for the crackdowns and allowing police to shoot protesters, The BBC reported.

The day after police shot protesters at the youth-led rallies, the protests spread, with government offices set on fire, even more protesters killed and Oli’s resignation.

A government panel that investigated the protests recommended that Oli, Lekhak and other officials be tried for their roles in the deaths.

Although the panel’s report does not show that police were ordered to fire on protesters, it said that “no effort was made to stop or control the firing and, due to their negligent conduct, even minors lost their lives.”

If convicted, the men face up to 10 years in prison.

Iranian opposition leader calls on Trump administration to ‘stay the course’ as the US and Israel continue to wage war on Iran.

Amid questions about the future of Iran’s government, the son of the former shah has pitched himself to a right-wing summit in the United States and received a raucous welcome.

Reza Pahlavi spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas on Saturday, urging US President Donald Trump not to cut a deal with Iran and instead seek regime change.

“Can you imagine Iran going from ‘Death to America’ to ‘God Bless America’?” the self-styled crown prince asked his audience in Grapevine, Texas.

“President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again,” he added, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

His remarks came on the one-month anniversary of the US and Israel’s decision to launch a war against Iran. As the conflict enters its second month, at least 1,937 people in Iran have been killed, and tens of thousands more injured, with no end to the fighting in sight.

Pahlavi has become a central opposition figure in the Iranian diaspora, with a loyal base of supporters who often carry his image, along with Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag, at protests around the world.

During his speech, some in the audience chanted, “Long live the king!”

While some in the Iranian diaspora have expressed reservations about the US-Israeli attacks and their effect on the future of Iran, Pahlavi has emerged as an outspoken supporter of Trump, aligned with the administration’s most hawkish figures.

“This regime in its entirety must go,” he said on Saturday.

Analysts have warned that the Iranian government is not likely to collapse and could emerge from the conflict more hardened than before. Some exiles, meanwhile, have been criticised for lending their voices to support the US-Israeli war despite the heavy toll on Iranian civilians.

Trump has himself previously downplayed the possibility that the son of the former shah, who was expelled from Iran during the country’s 1979 revolution, could play a central role in Iran if the current government were to collapse.

Earlier this month, Trump said that Pahlavi “looks like a very nice person“, but indicated that the shah’s son lacks popularity in Iran.

“It would seem to me that somebody from within, maybe, would be more appropriate,” Trump had said.

Divides within the US right over the war in Iran were also in evidence at CPAC. Polls suggest that, while the war is widely unpopular among US voters, Republicans support it by large margins.

In a Pew Research Center poll, for instance, 71 percent of Republican voters felt the US had made the right decision to attack Iran. Overall, among voters regardless of party, 59 percent opposed the initial strikes.

Still, a handful of influential voices on the US right, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have emerged as vocal critics of the war. Younger activists have also expressed frustration with what they see as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to avoid military adventures overseas.

“We did not want to see more wars. We wanted actual America First policies, and Trump was very explicit about that,” Benjamin Williams, a 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty, told The Associated Press. “It does feel like a betrayal, for sure.”