Merab Dvalishvili says he has gained 19lb (1st 5lb) in just five hours after weighing in for his bantamweight title fight against Petr Yan at UFC 333 on Saturday.
The Georgian weighed 135lb (9st 9lb), which was the same as Russian champion Yan, before the pair’s co-main event fight in Abu Dhabi.
Dvalishvili later uploaded a video to Instagram showing the 35-year-old stepping on scales and weighing 154lb (11st 0lb).
“I’ve been drinking water and in only five hours I gain back 19 pounds, that’s what we do, let’s go,” he said.
“Now I’m back drinking and recovering. Now I’m going to start eating. Eat food first, then tomorrow you guys already know who I’m going to eat.”
Fighters typically cut weight by shedding water in the days before a bout, before rehydrating to regain weight – a process that can provide a physical advantage inside the octagon.
The UFC has taken a number of steps to make weight cuts safer over the years, including banning IV drips, which forces fighters to hydrate in a healthier way, and building the Performance Institute, which provides guidance for its athletes from professional health experts.
UFC fighters are recommended to lose no more than 8% of their body weight during fight week.
On fight night they are recommended to stay within 10% of their weight class.
Dvalishvili is aiming to win back the title he lost against two-time champion Yan last December.
During their face-off, the pair engaged in an intense but respectful stare-down.
In the main event, champion Alexander Volkanovski and Movsar Evloev both made weight before their featherweight world title contest.
Australia’s Volkanovski is looking to earn a record ninth win in UFC featherweight title fights against Russia’s Evloev, who is undefeated in 20 bouts.
On the undercard, British flyweight Lone’er Kavanagh takes on Uzbekistan’s Ramazan Temirov.
The 27-year-old Kavanagh is aiming to bounce back from defeat by American Brandon Royval in July.
Manchester United make worst start to a season in 40 years, but Michael Carrick ‘confident’ ahead of Bournemouth game.
Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
Manchester United manager Michael Carrick mounted an impassioned defence of his leadership on Friday, accepting responsibility for the club’s collapse in form and saying he remains convinced he can lead the team out of their current crisis.
Carrick’s position is under increasing pressure after United extended their winless run to seven matches in all competitions with Wednesday’s humiliating 4-1 Champions League defeat at Como leaving them 20th in the table with three points.
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Before taking questions ahead of Sunday’s Premier League home game against Bournemouth, Carrick delivered an emotional opening statement, acknowledging supporters’ frustrations and the scale of the challenge facing him.
“Recently, we haven’t had a good time. I think that’s pretty obvious. So I totally accept what we’re going through at the moment,” he said.
“We had five months of relative success [last season] in a spell where I was happy with a lot of things I was seeing and that we were doing as a team,” he said.
“We haven’t done well enough lately. We’ve had a spell that we’re really not happy with.”
Carrick described the loss in Italy as one of the most painful nights of his tenure.
“Wednesday was a bad night. It was a bad night for a lot of reasons. It hurt a lot,” he said. “It obviously hurt me to see us play that way. As I said after the game, it was really unacceptable.”
The defeat intensified scrutiny of Carrick after captain Bruno Fernandes appeared to question United’s tactical approach in his post-match comments.
Asked whether public criticism from players suggested cracks within the dressing room, Carrick rejected any suggestion the squad was split.
He also sidestepped questions over Fernandes’ future as captain and declined to reveal whether he had held talks with the Portugal midfielder following the defeat.
Instead, he stressed that his priority was restoring an identity that has disappeared from the side in recent weeks.
“My responsibility is to get a team on the pitch that represents this football club, represents the supporters and they can be proud of it with the identity that we show,” Carrick said.
“We have gone away from that just recently in certain games, which I’m fully aware of and definitely doing something about.”
He reserved special mention for United’s fans, many of whom travelled to Como only to watch their side suffer the heaviest defeat of his reign.
“The supporters are a huge part of this football club. They have to make the effort and the time and money they spend, to feel how we all felt on Wednesday was a tough moment,” he said.
Despite growing speculation about his future, Carrick struck a defiant tone, saying he remained confident United could rediscover the energy and connection that characterised last season’s performances.
He took over in January 2026 after the sacking of Ruben Amorim and oversaw a remarkable turnaround, steering United to a top-three finish and Champions League qualification.
“For [the fans] to feel like they felt for five months at the start of the year … is something we need to get back to. We will get back to it. I fully believe that,” said Carrick.
Former Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is among the names linked with United’s managerial job, although the 57-year-old Italian said on Friday he had not had any negotiations “at an advanced stage” with any club.
Carrick acknowledged that United had lost their way but said responsibility rested squarely with him.
He ended his opening remarks by saying it was his duty to get the club back on course, describing his role as “holding the umbrella for me to get wet and everyone else to stay dry”.
United are 13th in the Premier League standings on seven points, while Bournemouth are a point behind them in 15th.
FANCY travelling through Europe in the comfort of your own private cabin rather than a cramped plane? This new sleeper train might be the answer.
Nox Mobility is launching next year as an alternative to short-haul flights – and they’re pretty cheap too.
The sleeper train will launch in March next year with its first journey between Hamburg and Munich with stops in Bremen and Augsburg.
The inaugural run will leave Hamburg at 9.22pm and arrive at 8.14am – there will go in each direction three times per week.
Tickets are affordable too with one-way fares starting from €65 (£55).
Rather than regular train carriages, inside will be Nox Suites – a private area for each passenger with a seat that opens into a lounge to work or unwind.
Inside is also a two-metre-long bed, storage, charging ports and a window to gaze out of.
There’s also no restaurant carriage on Nox Mobility, however you can pre-order meals to be served in your cabin and breakfast is available as an optional add-on.
On Nox, children under the age of four are allowed to travel for free with an adult passenger.
It also teased future rooms which are actually private cabins.
The Single Loft has a seat and desk for the day with a bed for during the night.
The Double Loft is the most spacious room with a 170cm wide bed, two seats and a panoramic window to take in the views.
The Double Vista has ‘two seats by day and two beds by night’ in a private room with a full window.
It also hopes to launch more journeys later on to cities like Stockholm, Vienna, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Barcelona all the way to Reggio di Calabria in Italy.
In fact by 2035 it aims to connect 100 European cities.
Thibault Constant, co-founder of Nox said: “Sleeping while a train gets you across Europe is a great concept. But today people have to share their cabins with strangers, beds are tight, and it’s often more expensive than air travel.
“We want to change that and make night trains an essential part of European travel.”
North Korea says it has test-fired two types of submarine-launched strategic cruise missiles off its east coast, in what appears to be the first time its bizarre Hero Kim Kun Ok submarine has been seen at sea in a publicized manner. If the vessel truly was the launch platform, the tests would mark its first confirmed weapons trials and a potential step toward operational service. Unveiled with considerable fanfare in 2023, the Hero Kim Kun Ok has been billed by Pyongyang as a centerpiece of its future nuclear-armed navy, but its operational status and actual capabilities have remained unclear.
The launches took place Wednesday, October 14, with state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reporting the activity earlier today. North Korea said the tests were intended to assess the readiness of its underwater combat systems, improve the Navy’s ability to execute strategic missions, and demonstrate the reliability of its deterrent. Along with imagery of the cruise missiles, KCNA released one photo of the Hero Kim Kun Ok underway, which you can see at the top of this story.
KCNA did not otherwise identify the submarine involved or disclose the missiles’ ranges, flight paths, or performance. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it had detected and tracked the launches from before firing through the cruise and terminal phases. A JCS spokesperson said one missile type was launched from a vertical launch system and another from a torpedo tube. This would match the imagery we are seeing, it would also match the Hero Kim Kun Ok’s unique capabilities. The South Korean military assessed that the launches came from a submarine but did not initially identify the vessel publicly.
There remains a possibility that the 3,000-ton-class Hero Kim Kun Ok was not actually involved in launching the missiles. North Korea has long used underwater platforms for test missile launches and has paired these with images of an actual submarine for propaganda purposes. However, the JCS confirming they came from a submarine would lend additional credence to the possibility Hero Kim Kun Ok did indeed launch the missiles. If this is the case, it would indicate that North Korea has begun validating weapons systems aboard the submarine ahead of deployment. At the very least, we can confirm that the Hero Kim Kun Ok is now sailing, although South Korean and U.S. intelligence would be acutely aware of its movements and it could have been in at-sea testing for years now, we just don’t know.
North Korea unveiled the submarine in September 2023, describing it as its first “tactical nuclear attack submarine” and one of the Navy’s core offensive platforms. At the launching ceremony, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying that arming the Navy with nuclear weapons “brooks no further delay.”
Nevertheless, many questions remain about the submarine’s design and operational prospects. Overall, it remains a heavily modified derivative of a Cold War-era Romeo class diesel-electric submarine — nearly an antique by today’s standards — rather than a purpose-built guided missile submarine. Previous imagery shows 10 missile launch tubes concealed in the prominent ‘turtle back’ aft of the sail, in addition to torpedo tubes, although the precise configuration, usable capacity, and operational status of those systems remain uncertain.
The absence of publicly reported weapons tests from the vessel over the following years raised questions about its development. Analyst Shin Jong-woo of South Korea’s Defense and Security Forum told Reuters that the latest launches suggested combat-system testing for operational deployment was underway. He also suggested that North Korea may have resolved technical problems and could also test a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) before the vessel enters service. North Korea has previously presented SLBMs of increasing size, but has lacked a suitable submarine to launch them from.
Missile launches while the submarine is submerged represent a more demanding and operationally relevant capability than firing from the surface.
At the same time, a missile launch of any kind demonstrates only part of the capability required for a submarine like this to be effective at all. An operational submarine must also be able to deploy reliably, remain sufficiently difficult to detect, maintain its weapons, and execute missions under realistic conditions.
A vertical launch system (VLS) can provide dedicated capacity for certain missile types — potentially much larger ones — and may enable faster launches or larger salvos than a configuration relying exclusively on torpedo tubes. Torpedo tubes offer an alternative launch method, but with different constraints on weapon dimensions, handling, and firing procedures.
The forward four tubes are larger than the rear six on the submarine’s ‘turtle back.’ This would allow the boat to carry multiple types of missiles, possibly including a mix of short-range and longer-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs).
Testing both systems would be consistent with an effort to validate multiple elements of the submarine’s weapons architecture.
North Korea has pursued submarine-launched missiles for years. In March 2023, it reported a submarine-launched cruise missile test from the older 8.24 Yongung submarine. In January 2024, Pyongyang said it had fired Pulhwasal-3-31 strategic cruise missiles from that same vessel. The earlier sub is in the 2,000-ton-class and is understood to have only one or two vertical launch tubes.
North Korea’s description of the weapons as “strategic” cruise missiles should also be treated cautiously. North Korea’s long-range cruise missile program is well established and a nuclear payload is a major part of its ambitions, but how mature or reliable a nuclear warhead is for this application at this time isn’t clear. Regardless, ground, surface, and now subsurface-launched cruise missiles are a key part of North Korea’s broader deterrent architecture.
According to reports, Wednesday’s activity was the first publicly reported underwater North Korean missile-testing event since the January 2024 launch.
Compared to the 8.24 Yongung submarine, the Hero Kim Kun Ok has a larger hull and additional vertical launch tubes, but it still uses very dated diesel-electric propulsion, which presents hugely different endurance, acoustic, and operating constraints compared with nuclear propulsion or even modern diesel-electric submarine capabilities.
As to the expectation that Pyongyang may test an SLBM from the submarine before deployment, this would be a likely milestone toward North Korea fielding a credible sea-based nuclear deterrent.
North Korea is also pursuing a separate nuclear-powered submarine project, unveiled as under construction in March 2025. Its completion and operational timeline remain uncertain. Nuclear propulsion is a much bigger challenge, but if perfected, such a boat would be of considerably greater value, especially as a second-strike capability.
The latest submarine tests come amid a broader series of North Korean weapons demonstrations, including reported hypersonic missile tests on September 20 and October 3, as well as tactical ballistic missile launches earlier in October.
The sequence is consistent with Pyongyang’s effort to diversify its delivery systems and complicate military planning for South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
The activity also carries a diplomatic message. North Korea has repeatedly insisted that it will not abandon its nuclear weapons while the United States maintains what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy. It has also rejected the suggestion that adjustments to U.S.-South Korean military exercises would be sufficient to change the underlying relationship.
The tests also follow North Korea’s rejection of an apparent diplomatic opening from U.S. President Donald Trump after Washington sought to reduce tensions surrounding a U.S.-South Korean military exercise.
A submarine able to launch missiles from less predictable locations complicates defensive planning for South Korea and the United States. The challenge extends beyond intercepting missiles after launch to detecting and tracking the submarine before it reaches a potential firing position. Even a partially capable vessel places additional demands on potential adversaries.
Were things to ‘go hot’ on the Korean Peninsula, any submarine capable of carrying strategic weapons would be at the top of the targeting list for Pyongyang’s adversaries. A submarine based on the archaic Romeo class design would be fairly easy to track from the time it leaves its berth. This is especially the case bearing in mind the sophisticated nature of South Korea’s anti-submarine capabilities.
Future submarines will become increasingly more challenging, however. That problem could intensify if future North Korean boats make more use of Russian assistance in developing their capabilities. Submarine technology is supposedly part of the payment to Pyongyang for its help in the war in Ukraine. This could become a much larger problem, even if Moscow were to provide North Korea with advanced Kilo class boats, for example.
For now, provided that the Hero Kim Kun Ok launched the missiles, which seems most likely, this would indicate that North Korea is advancing weapons integration aboard a submarine intended to expand its offensive naval capabilities. The fact that the Hero Kim Kun Ok is now at sea also signals progress toward deployment.
Whatever the ultimate operational effectiveness of the Hero Kim Kun Ok and its emerging missile armament, Pyongyang continues to demonstrate incremental improvements to its submarine forces.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
DRAKE is throwing himself a $1 million 40th birthday party in New York City, and he’s sparing no expensive, The U.S. Sun has learned.
The rapper – whose OVO record label and clothing line are a nod to his birthday month – has pulled out all the stops for his big day on Friday.
“Drake is having a massive birthday weekend in the city for his 40th,” a source told The U.S. Sun.
“He has rented out Cipriani 42nd St., which in itself is a fortune.”
It sounds like Drake is going all-out for the guests inside the iconic venuel, too.
“He has a massive, concert-level stage set up in there for special guest performances throughout the night,” the insider claimed.
And it’s not just a one-night event either.
Another insider claimed the party will continue at not-yet-open Chelsea hot spot, Lady Delilah.
Pricing for a full house at Cipriani’s 42nd St, with its capacity of 1,800 people and a cocktail-style buy-out runs approximately $1.1 million for the night.
The U.S. Sun reached out to a rep for Drake for comment.
The Canadian rapper is known for going all out for his parties.
As The U.S. Sun exclusively reported last year, a source said, “He hired out Mr Porter in Mayfair and was seen arriving around midnight,” for a monster bash after a set of London shows.
“There were loads of celebs there like Casey Affleck and Sacha Baron Cohen. Weirdly, Lily Phillips — the X-rated adult performer — was also on the guest list.
“The party went on all through the early hours of Sunday morning, with Drake finally heading home not long before 6am.
“It was a great bash and everyone who came out looked like they’d had a really good time,” the source said of the party after his set of July shows.
When he’s not throwing a rager, he’s putting out albums and digging up his ongoing beef with fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar.
Earlier this year, Drake dropped three albums, and fans believe some of the tracks were taking aim at his longtime enemy Kendrick.
On the song Make Them Pay from his album Iceman, he delivered lines that listeners quickly connected to his rival.
“Damn, who is this guy for real/ I guess a magician/ 100 million streams vanished; no one got questions,” Drake rapped.
SK Hynix and Samsung likely to boost shareholder returns as demand stays strong: BofA
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THERE are waterparks all over the world, but this one has just been crowned one of the best – and it’s just hours from the UK.
Aquashow Water Park in Portugal has been crowned Europe’s Leading Water Park 2026 at the World Travel Awards.
The waterpark has a huge seasonal outdoor pool complex which will reopen in May 2027.
It has a splash park called Aqualandia with slides and tipping buckets for little ones – but there’s plenty of high thrills rides too.
The Flash Coaster is one of the biggest rides in the park and it’s quick too at 62mph.
There are also racing slides, flumes, a wave pool and for those brave enough, try out Free Fall.
It’s the biggest free fall jump in Europe and the only one in the Algarve; there are two slides, each 32 metres high and 129 metres long.
Outside are food stalls serving up burgers, hot dogs, salads, sandwiches, ice cream, pastries and drinks.
Outdoor waterpark tickets for those between 11-64 range from €34 – €38 (£29-£32), junior and senior tickets start from €25 (£21).
When it’s the off-season and it’s a little cooler in the Algarve, make the most of the indoor pools.
There are different kinds to choose from including its wave pool, children’s pool, relax pool and spa.
Then there’s the adventure pool with a climbing wall and a circuit of suspended rings over the water.
Adventure Island is where kids can splash about with smaller slides, and water features.
There are also larger and faster flumes and racing slides too.
It’s not all water activities, the Sky Challenge is a high-ropes course, and there’s an indoor playground with soft play, trampolines and climbing walls.
Tickets for a three- hour sessions at the indoor waterpark start from €25 (£21) for children between 6-12. For adults aged 13-64 tickets are €35 (£29).
For anyone wanting to visit, the waterpark has its own on-site hotel – all its rooms have air conditioning, flat-screen TVs, and free Wi-Fi.
You’ll also find a restaurant, bar and outdoor terrace.
A family of up to six can stay for two nights at the hotel from €884.75 (£740) including breakfast.
The hotel is 2.5 miles from the Quarteira resort centre, where you’ll find shops and restaurants – the nearest beach is about 2.7 miles away.
For more on the World Travel Awards, this theme park with no rides or rollercoasters was named the best in Europe.
And these are the world’s best hotels from beachfront island resorts to mega theme park stays, and there are two in the UK.
The federal government has stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities who are investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers, state officials said in recent court filings.
Minnesota officials sued President Trump’s administration in March for access to materials they said they needed to independently investigate the shootings during Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself.
The state is still seeking the cell phones of the officers involved in both shootings and recordings of key interviews.
State prosecutors announced in July that the federal government had begun turning over evidence in the cases, including police body camera video and hard drives containing statements. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said at the time that the state expected to receive “all the evidence.”
But Minnesota investigators said in October court filings that the transfer of evidence stopped soon after the July announcement. Moriarty said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota told her on Sept. 10 that evidence sharing would be on pause indefinitely “in light of challenges with D.C.,” according to the documents.
State prosecutors have again asked a judge to order federal agencies to hand over the evidence, arguing they “have identified no legal authority or rational basis justifying their obstruction of state criminal investigations.”
In a reply filed Tuesday, attorneys for the Justice Department argued it’s within their discretion to decline to share information with state authorities. They cited the department’s rules for responding to record requests, known as the Touhy regulations, which apply only when formal legal proceedings are underway. The attorneys said there was no active court case when Minnesota made its requests.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said in a legal declaration that federal authorities still have Good’s clothing, the cell phone of the officer who killed her and interview recordings that state authorities have never been able to view.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, while she was leaving a Minneapolis protest on Jan. 7. Bystander video shows Good in the driver’s seat of an SUV, repeatedly honking the horn, when masked immigration officers order her to step out of the vehicle. She starts to pull forward, and an officer standing in front of the car fires at her windshield. The officer, now standing about an arm’s length from the open window on the driver’s side, fires twice more, according to an analysis of the videos by The Associated Press and others.
Federal officials at the time said the officer acted in self-defense.
Good’s death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was killed weeks later by a federal officer in Minneapolis, ignited nationwide protests against the Republican president’s immigration enforcement efforts.
No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the fatal shootings.
Evans said the federal government also has not shared a recorded statement from an officer who shot Pretti, the firearms used by the officers, their phones, projectiles and casings, and a gun taken from Pretti before he was shot.
Schoenbaum writes for the Associated Press.
Northern Ireland Football League CEO Gerard Lawlor has said member clubs “cannot continue doing the same things” after falling to 51st in Uefa’s association coefficient rankings.
Iberia 1999’s 1-1 draw at home to Mjallby in the Uefa Conference League on Thursday night moved Georgia’s domestic league up the standings, dropping Northern Ireland out of the crucial top 50.
While NIFL have said that their “final position remains subject to UEFA’s rankings and access arrangements”, as it stands that would mean the Irish Premiership will have only three European spots in the 2028-29 season.
Currently the Irish Premiership’s top two and Irish Cup winners automatically qualify for the next season’s Uefa competitions, while the league’s final spot is decided by an end-of-season play-off.
Lawlor called the expected loss of a European spot “a major concern and a potentially significant setback” for the game in Northern Ireland.
“The reality is that we are now facing the very real prospect of having just three clubs competing in Europe rather than four,” he said.
“European football provides vital opportunities for our clubs, players and supporters, alongside important financial investment that benefits the wider game.
“While we have witnessed some excellent individual European performances, collectively we must acknowledge that our results have not been good enough.”
Places in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League are allocated on the basis of a five-year performance ranking.
This season, Glentoran, Linfield and Coleraine all fell at the first hurdle, while Larne squandered a two-goal aggregate advantage to lose to Lincoln Red Imps when 90 minutes away from the league phase of Conference League.
Poor showings in Europe are one factor in the ongoing debate over so-called summer football in the Irish Premiership, with 75% of NIFL’s 38 member clubs required to vote in favour of a calendar change.
“We cannot continue doing the same things, in the same way, and expect different outcomes,” said Lawlor.
“This reinforces why NIFL has been challenging clubs to think differently about their future, including seasonality, investment, player development and how we create a more competitive domestic environment.
“We must ask whether our current structures give clubs the best possible opportunity to succeed in Europe. We need to stop measuring ourselves solely against each other domestically and start measuring ourselves against European standards.”
Mississippi released bodycam footage of the fatal shooting of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was in a moving car when a police officer on a shoplifting call opened fire. The officer was cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but the boy’s family says the shooting was unjustified.
Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
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Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
Former Chelsea and Napoli coach Antonio Conte said he was not in advanced negotiations to replace Manchester United manager Michael Carrick, and called reports that he had demanded full control at the club “unfounded”.
Conte, who won the Premier League with Chelsea and also managed Tottenham Hotspur in England, was responding to speculation that he had requested full control while also making financial demands of the struggling Old Trafford club.
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United sit 13th in the Premier League and 20th in the Champions League standings following Wednesday’s humiliating 4-1 thrashing by Italian side Como, increasing scrutiny on Carrick.
“My name has been linked with numerous clubs, but there are currently no negotiations at an advanced stage,” Conte said in a statement.
“Following a wonderful and successful spell in charge of Napoli, I will take the time I need to consider how and when to return to management,” he added, referring to his time in Naples where he won Serie A in the 2024-25 season.
“It will be a carefully considered decision, one I will make when I believe the conditions are right.
“I have read reports of financial demands and requests for full control that I have supposedly already made to the clubs mentioned, as well as reservations about what has been described as my ‘strong personality’.
“These reports are unfounded, as there is currently no concrete basis for such assessments.”
Conte, who last coached Napoli in the 2025-26 season, said that if a concrete opportunity arose, he would enter talks with the club involved and “jointly consider the terms of a potential agreement”, taking into account the needs of both parties.
“Until then, any assumptions about my demands and my professional future remain speculation and cannot be treated as fact,” the 57-year-old Italian added.
In an interview with The Athletic earlier this month, Conte said he would like to manage a club that has “lost sight of their history” so he can help “make it shine once more”.
Defeat against Como extended United’s winless run to seven games in all competitions, and skipper Bruno Fernandes said his team had adopted a “mood of defeat” while also questioning the tactics, with Carrick apologising for the performance.
Brighton and Hove Albion manager Fabian Hurzeler, another name linked with the United job, also distanced himself from the speculation on Friday.
The 33-year-old, England’s youngest top-flight manager, said he was focused solely on Brighton, who sit third in the Premier League after a string of impressive performances.
“I have no time to think about these rumours because we play every three days and, beside that, I have a lot of respect for Michael Carrick and what he has done with Manchester United the last season,” Hurzeler told a news conference.
“He’s a great human being, a great personality. There’s nothing more to say about that.”
Brighton’s free-scoring start to the Premier League season has seen Hurzeler touted as a possible successor should United make a mid-season managerial change for the third consecutive campaign.
The Seagulls sit third in the table, behind only Manchester City and champions Arsenal, before Sunday’s trip to Liverpool.
“I am really focused on my job here. I have no time to think about these rumours because we play every three days,” said the 33-year-old German.
Brighton’s scoring streak came to an end in a 0-0 draw at Czech side Jablonec in the Europa League on Thursday.
Despite an excellent start to the campaign, which also includes coming from 2-0 down to beat United 3-2 at Old Trafford in the League Cup last month, Hurzeler believes his side can still improve.
“There is still improvements we can do, still a lot of potential to get out of the players, and therefore I really want to work on that together with my players, together with my staff,” he said.
“I have great experts around me. I have a great group of players who support me, who give everything for this club, and we built this over the last years.
“We had tough periods, we have good periods, but I think to build these kind of relationships, you need time, you need connections, and you don’t take these things for granted.”
Catapult Books, an indie publisher that has supported authors across Southern California and beyond, has been sold.
Launched by Elizabeth Koch and Andy Hunter more than a decade ago, the independent publisher will shutter operations in just over a week, per Publisher’s Weekly, which spoke with members of the publisher’s union. The Catapult Workers Collective said the company’s sale included the assets only and that the union was notified their employment would not be rolled over to the new buyer.
According to union reps, the publisher announced plans to sell the business while staff were in the midst of a union vote. The union, which includes roughly 20 staff members across various publishing departments, told the outlet that they had filed for an election earlier in the year seeking better pay, job stability, and clearer communication from executives.
The union is now hashing out a severance package, according to Publisher’s Weekly, and it’s unclear what will happen to the 16 upcoming book titles scheduled through spring 2027.
“Catapult is intrinsic to L.A. culture and L.A. literature. So many of their writers are in this area,” Gina Frangello told The Times on Thursday. The author penned “Blow Your House Down,” published by Counterpoint Press, an imprint of Catapult.
“It’s a huge loss for L.A.,” she said. “It’s a huge loss for the West Coast.”
Frangello has been publishing books for more than 20 years, and she said she’d never had the intimate publishing experience she had with Counterpoint, specifically with Dan Smetanka. The editorial director and senior vice president of Catapult is widely known in literary circles for his meticulous and thoughtful approach to editing and for his support of the authors he works with.
“As someone who has been in indie publishing culture since the ’90s, Catapult was a holdout of an old world,” Frangello said. “Dan ran things the way they used to, in the storied, fabled days of publishing before everything went corporate.”
Susan Straight, author of “Sacrament” and winner of the L.A. Times Book Prizes’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, emailed The Times a missive on the Catapult news. She wrote that on Wednesday she attended the grand opening of Barnes & Noble’s new location in Ontario, “where more than a hundred readers were lined up outside, some having brought chairs to wait.”
“We keep hearing that Americans aren’t reading — for two hours I saw people of all ages browsing, buying books, and talking to each other,” she continued. “About fifty people came and talked to me, and bought copies ‘In the Country of Women,’ my memoir published by Catapult, and ‘Sacrament,’ my latest novel, published by Counterpoint. Both are indelibly So Cal Books, filled with Fontana, East Hollywood, Santa Ana, Los Feliz, and San Bernardino, and the readers were from all these places. …
“I lit a veladora last night, the Virgen de Guadalupe, set it next to a bouquet of California sage from my yard, because I’m a So Cal native, and whatever happens, I wanted to thank the universe for the editors like Dan Smetanka who’ve brought our stories to the rest of the world.
“Wednesday morning, I spent time talking about narrative with nurses, teachers, students, mothers, and nascent writers from all over So Cal. Americans are still reading — I see it every day in my community, which needs books by presses like Counterpoint and Catapult.”
Since Catapult’s debut in 2015, the indie outfit and its authors have been a force on the awards circuit, landing the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E. M. Forster Award in Literature, a PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, the Maine Literary Award, the Costa Novel Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Meredith Maran, the author of more than a dozen books including a novel published by Counterpoint in 2012, “A Theory of Small Earthquakes,” also mourned the publisher in a note to The Times, writing, “Counterpoint, its imprints, and its beating heart, Dan Smetanka, have been (I cannot bring myself to say ‘were’) the stuff of legends. True legends. I’ve published books with all of the big 5 houses and comparing those experiences to the Counterpoint experience, the Dan experience, is like comparing an AI-generated metaphor, to, well, this one. Counterpoint humanized publishing, revered its authors, honored and will live on in its books.”
Over the last decade, Catapult included a publishing imprint, digital magazine, and courses for budding and established writers. (The latter two were nixed in 2023.) In 2016, it merged with Counterpoint Press, which brought into the fold its own imprint, Soft Skull Press. Last fall, Catapult also acquired Hawthorne Books. In 2023, Catapult Chief Executive Koch — the daughter of billionaire industrialist and businessman Charles Koch — launched another pet project in 2021, Unlikely Collaborators, a nonprofit storytelling and experiential organization.
Bestselling author Tod Goldberg, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction this year for his novel “Only Way Out,” posted a tribute to the publisher on social media Wednesday night, crediting Smetanka and Counterpoint with taking a chance on “a book others wouldn’t touch” and with that book’s subsequent success, which changed Goldberg’s life.
“Since their founding, Counterpoint has published books that matter, has taken chances on authors and topics that others wouldn’t, and have been celebrated for this strident independence with wide critical acclaim and commercial success. From their roots in the Bay Area — where they published the likes of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Anne Lamott, Mary Robison early on — to their move south into Los Angeles, where they took on writers like myself, Natashia Deon, Karen Bender, Gina Frangello, Elizabeth Crane, Ben Ehrenreich, Dana Johnson, Vanessa Hua, Joan Silber, to name just a few, plus the late Eve Babitz.”
“Counterpoint took big risks and found big rewards. I’m confident that whomever the buyer is (and I’ve not been told, so y’all can stop texting me…) will keep these great writers in print while also continuing to publish new work from them, but what’s lost here is not merely a publishing house, but a culture of excellence, of risk taking, plus a dash of punk rock.”
Volvo's dismal Q3 results lead to more job cuts, business consolidation
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Bath and Bristol
Dyrham Park
Avebury
Birmingham and West Midlands
Wightwick Manor Gardens
Clent Hills
Coventry Charterhouse
Cambridgeshire
Peckover House and Garden – closed on Sunday 25th, reopens Monday 26th
Cornwall
Lanhyrdrock
Trelissick – also closed on Saturday 24th
Cotehele
Godolphin – also closed on Saturday 24th
Trerice – also closed on Saturday 24th
Trengwainton – also closed on Saturday 24th, Sunday 25th and Monday 26th
Glendurgan Garden – closed until Saturday 24th
Pentire – cafe and toilets are closed today
Devon
Killerton – The Parkland, Garden, Chapel and Chapel Grounds are closed today. The house, cafés and shop are open.
Arlington Court and the National Trust Carriage Museum – also closed on Saturday 24th
Castle Drogo
Knightshayes
Coleton Fishacre
Saltram
Buckland Abbey – also closed on Saturday 24th
Greenway
Lydford Gorge
A la Ronde
Finch Foundry
Dorset
Kingston Lacy – The Woodland Walk is closed but the house, garden, shop and cafe are open. The Pikachu Art Adventure Trail will be affected by the woodland closure.
Corfe Castle
Brownsea Island – also closed on Saturday 24th
Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire
Hatfield Forest
Paycocke’s House and Garden – also closed on Sunday 25th
Gloucestershire and the Cotswalds
Hidcote
Woodchester Park – the Trust10 is also cancelled on Sunday 25th
Snowshill Manor and Garden
Hampshire
Mottisfont
The Vyne
Hinton Ampner
Sandham Memorial Chapel
Lake District
Hill Top and Hawkshead – closed on Sunday 25th
Aira Force and Gowbarrow Park – closed on Sunday 25th
Historic Steam Yacht Gondola- Sailing is cancelled on Saturday 24th
Leicestershire and Northamptonshire
Lyveden
Liverpool and Lancashire
Speke Hall – also closed on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th
London
Ham House and Garden
Osterley Park and House
Morden Hall Park – also closed on Saturday 24th, Sunday 25th and Monday 26th
Runnymede and Ankerwycke
North East
Wallington – closed until 11am on Monday 26th
Oxfordshire
Stowe Gardens – the gardens are closed but New Inn, including the café and shop, are open.
Hughenden
Basildon Park
Cliveden
The Peak District and Derbyshire
Kedleston Hall – closed from 3pm today. The hall is open 11am to 4pm daily with last entry at 3.15pm
Shropshire and Staffordshire –
Attingham Park – The Mile Walk, Walled Garden, Field of Play and Deer Park are closed but the Mansion and Stables (cafe, shop, bookshop) are open
Ironbridge Gorge – The Miners walk, Canal Side and the Adventure Playground are closed and will reopen on Monday 26th. All other areas remain open as normal
Shugborough Estate
Wightwick Manor and Gardens
Dudmaston Estate Comer Woods – The Cafe In Comer and visitor facilities are closed
Somerset
Montacute House
Dunster Castle and Watermill
Barrington Court
Lytes Cary Manor
Fyne Court – also closed on Saturday 24th
Prior Park Landscape Garden
Brean Down
Suffolk
Sutton Hoo – closing at 4pm on Friday 23, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October. Tales by Torchlight is cancelled on 23 and 24. Ticket holders have been contacted via email and will be automatically refunded.
Flatford
Surrey
Polesden Lacey
Hatchlands Park
Winkworth Arboretum
Box Hill
Claremont Landscape Garden
Runnymede and Ankerwycke
Sussex
Nymans
Sheffield Park and Garden
Petworth
Bodiam Castle
Standen House and Garden
Bateman’s
Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters – Café, Shop & toilets will be closed on Friday 23rd October
Alfriston Clergy House – closed from 3.30pm today
Monk’s House
Warwickshire
Charlecote Park – some areas closed but The House, Wood Yard Cafe and Service Courtyard all remain open
Packwood House – The Mystical and Magical Woodland Trail is closed and other partial closures are in place across the site
Baddesley Clinton – some areas of the site are partially closed
Upton House and Gardens
Coventry Charterhouse – The garden is closed all day but the house and café remain open
Wiltshire
Stourhead
Mompesson House
The Courts Garden
Worcestshire and Herefordshire
Berrington Hall
Brockhampton
Croft Castle and Parkland
The Weir Garden
Croome
Hanbury Hall
Tyntesfield
Yorkshrie
Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden – Fountains by Floodlight is cancelled on Saturday evening and the whole estate will be closed on Sunday 25th
Goddards – closed on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th
Treasurer’s House, York – the gardens at Treasurer’s House will be closed on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th. The house will remain open as usual, by guided tour only
WASHINGTON — President Trump has alleged that elections, public benefit programs and federal grants to nonprofits are rife with fraud. Now, he is increasingly focusing on fraud in his effort to detain and deport more immigrants.
Recent, high-profile flash points include 28 lawful permanent residents accused this week of illegally voting in California and the federal investigation into Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
The broader crusade takes many forms, including allegations of fraud in immigration applications, illegal voting by noncitizens and misuse of federal benefits by immigrants who don’t qualify.
“This administration has purposefully mischaracterized immigrants and asylum seekers as fraudsters,” said Royce Murray, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration. That, she said, “serves a narrative that immigrants are not to be trusted and are here to take something rather than contribute, with an end goal of trying to make Americans less welcoming and more comfortable with a mass deportation agenda.”
On Tuesday, Trump and Vice President JD Vance announced a $25-million program under the Justice Department to encourage the public to report suspected fraud in the U.S. government.
This administration has purposefully mischaracterized immigrants and asylum seekers as fraudsters
— Royce Murray, former Department of Homeland Security official
The White House said the first check, for $10,000, will go to right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, who posted a video last year alleging that Somali residents in Minnesota were running fake child-care centers to collect federal subsidies. Dozens of people were convicted in connection with a sprawling, $250-million children’s food assistance scheme that predated this administration, though more charges have been announced in recent months.
Also Tuesday, administration officials launched another nationwide anti-fraud crackdown, this time targeting immigrants who they allege have illegally collected SNAP benefits. Homeland Security highlighted the arrests of five people, calling them “the opening salvo in a sustained, large-scale ICE operation.”
“From day one of my administration, we’ve waged an unprecedented war on corruption and fraud, and will not let our country be looted and plundered by thieves and pirates and foreign fraudsters and basically scum,” Trump said during a news conference announcing the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program.
Earlier this year, the White House created a task force to eliminate fraud and the Department of Justice created a fraud enforcement division, in part, to target immigration-related offenses. Prosecutors have put aside thousands of other cases to zero in on immigration enforcement.
The focus on fraud has noticeably accelerated in the weeks leading up to the election.
In California, some of the green card holders arrested this week over voter fraud said they didn’t remember registering to vote. The daughter of one defendant, Omar Muñoz, 72, of Belize, said she wondered whether her father had been confused with his U.S.-born son of the same name, who is a registered voter.
California officials pounced on the small number of people alleged to have cast illegal ballots. Illegal voting by immigrants “is so rare that the Trump admin is parading around town about .0001% of California voters,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office wrote on X.
In the last seven weeks alone, the State Department said, 112 noncitizens across 20 states have been charged with illegal voting and registration offenses. Overall, since Trump returned to the White House, 155 people have been charged with voting fraud-related offenses.
Mullin and Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said earlier this month that Homeland Security agents had secured 10 convictions and detained 100 others for civil immigration violations since August.
During the Biden administration, voter fraud charges were brought in just 13 cases, Blanche added.
Studies and audits of state voter rolls have repeatedly found that voting by noncitizens is rare and hasn’t swayed any elections.
Ballot machines at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder in Norwalk this week. Early voting has started for the 2026 midterm election.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Last week, with mail-in voting already underway, the Justice Department sued California, asking a federal court to bar the state from counting the ballots of 20,000 voters who were flagged by federal officials as “likely noncitizens.” Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of 200 of those voter registrations and found that nearly 40% indicated they were born in the U.S.
That number of flagged ballots — 20,000 — is a substantial reduction from the 190,000 noncitizens the administration alleged were on state voter rolls earlier this year, though federal authorities this week said they had found a “separate batch of 17,000 voting records potentially tied to noncitizens.”
California leaders pointed to other states, such as Nevada, where similar accusations have proved meritless.
Murray, the former Homeland Security official, said she believes the administration is “trying to sow the seeds of doubt that the midterm outcomes will be trustworthy, so that if the Republican Party loses as badly as they’re predicted to, they can characterize it as due to fraud.”
Murray said the Trump administration has largely misconstrued what it means to commit fraud.
“Fraud is a very specific thing — it’s essentially lying,” she said. “Because you don’t get asylum does not mean you committed fraud, it just means you were ineligible.”
In September, a Homeland Security whistleblower told Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) that hundreds of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees had been tasked with quickly reviewing the voter information of thousands of people in search of suspected noncitizen voters, and were given a quota of investigating 40 subjects per day.
On Wednesday, a federal judge restricted Homeland Security agents from carrying out sweeping field operations aimed at rooting out voter fraud in nine states, including California.
It is against federal law for immigrants who are not naturalized citizens to vote or register to do so. Penalties can include fines, jail time and even deportation, though authorities rarely pursued that option.
Eric Balliet, a former special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, the criminal investigative arm of ICE, said he takes no issue with investigating fraud, but the timing of this operation and significant resources dedicated show it is “highly politically charged.”
Balliet worked for various administrations, including Trump’s first, before retiring in 2024. Homeland Security Investigations agents typically focused on transnational criminal investigations such as drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Instead of initiating investigations based on tips or specific information, agents are now taking aggregated data and using algorithms to produce suspect lists, Balliet said. That’s not how law enforcement should operate, he said, calling it a massive privacy overreach against millions of law-abiding citizens.
“It’s the epitome of Big Brother,” he said.
Beyond the allegations of voter fraud, the Trump administration has also increasingly targeted immigrants on suspicion of lying to obtain a visa, green card or citizenship.
Omar’s family fled civil war in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 when she was 12. After agents searched her residence this month looking for evidence that her immigration paperwork contained falsehoods, she called the allegations baseless.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Muillin suggested the outcome of the investigation could be deportation. Years ago, the agency declined to move forward with a probe based on similar allegations against Omar, according to the Washington Post.
The congresswoman is not alone.
Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias, 56, who died of unknown causes last week at an ICE facility in Texas, was arrested because the agency alleged he had fraudulently obtained his green card. ICE sought to deport him, saying he had failed to disclose a 2004 arrest for theft, but his daughter told the Texas Tribune that he did bring up his criminal record during the application process for his permanent residency.
Immigration lawyers say their clients are facing more intense scrutiny and that some have battled false accusations of fraud after applying for a green card or citizenship.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler blamed the Biden administration for lax vetting that allowed bad actors to exploit immigration programs.
“These abuses are not harmless,” he wrote in a statement. “Meritless claims clog the system, drain limited resources, and delay relief for legitimate victims of crime. USCIS is taking aggressive action to identify, expose, and eliminate fraud.”
Erin O’Neil, an attorney based in Connecticut, said some of her clients are now in deportation proceedings triggered by allegations of fraud over minor inconsistencies that have no bearing on the case. In one case that resulted in a denial based on fraud, she said, the allegation was simply that her client failed to disclose a two-week work assignment in another state.
“In the past, the worst that would happen is your citizenship application would be denied,” O’Neil said. “Now we have seen through several of my clients that, not only is the citizenship application denied, but they are placed into removal proceedings.”
With England’s points difference currently 92 worse than Ben Gardiner’s Samoa team in a combined Pool B and C table, they will almost certainly also need to defeat Papua New Guinea on Friday, 30 October (09:05 GMT), to have any chance of reaching the last four.
The format of this tournament features an unbalanced group stage, which has not helped England’s prospects.
Pool A has four teams – Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands – fighting for two semi-final places in a round-robin format.
But Pools B and C are combined into one six-team league, from which only the top two will make the semi-finals. England, drawn in Pool B, are playing the three Pool C teams – Tonga, France and Papua New Guinea.
Tonga are currently in pole position to make the knockout stages after adding to their win over England with a 36-0 victory over Lebanon on Friday.
Sione Katoa and Jojo Fifita scored two tries each against a spirited Lebanon side who had chances themselves before fading in the final 20 minutes.
Lebanon might reflect on a key moment towards the first half when, trailing 10-0 and chasing a try to bring them back into the match, Alex Conti tried to kick towards the corner for Jason Saab, who was unable to collect and only batted it back for Tonga centre Tolutau Koula to run the length of the field and score at the other end.
Paul Alamoti and Leka Halasima scored the other Tonga tries against opponents playing only their third game since the previous World Cup and with only a couple of a youthful squad that lost to Italy in 2025 still involved.
“We had 12 debutants last week, so we just need more footy,” said Lebanon coach Michael Cheika.
“We tried to get a warm-up game here. We weren’t allowed, but I don’t know who [which governing body] it was [that stopped us]. We need to have a warm-up game.
“We can prepare and start to get ready. It’s not easy for us. We haven’t played a game since the last World Cup.
“Last year we tried to get the spot against the team who had the bye in the second tier of the Pacific Championships, so either a Papua New Guinea or [someone of that ilk] another. They put a line through it.
“They said: We’re lining it up with the teams individually. They put a line through it. I don’t even know why. We never got an answer. So it’s really out of our hands.”
No confirmation from Russia or Ukraine as White House says ‘localised’ ceasefire to take effect in Russian-occupied Oleshky.
Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026
The White House has said First Lady Melania Trump has “secured a ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine in the southern Ukrainian city of Oleshky.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine immediately confirmed the statement on Friday, which comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has renewed diplomacy aimed at ending the war.
The approach has included upping pressure on Ukraine and handing several recent concessions to Russia.
“The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster,” Melania Trump said in a statement released by the White House.
“The people of Oleshky have limited electricity, live amid mined roads, and endure regular military attacks. It was abundantly clear that without my intervention, the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible,” she said.
The First Lady added that her representatives worked directly with “Russian and Ukrainian leadership to define the terms of the localized ceasefire” and that civilian leaders from both countries will work together to grant humanitarian access to civilians in the city.
This is a developing story.
More than 400 people are expected to gather outside the United States embassy in London on October 31 in the latest act of mass defiance against the British government’s ban on the Palestine Action group.
Protesters plan to hold placards reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” and campaign group Defend Our Juries said a parallel action will take place outside the US consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland.
list of 3 itemsend of list
More than 3,850 people have been arrested for publicly backing Palestine Action since the United Kingdom’s government proscribed it as a “terrorist” organisation in July 2025, Defend Our Juries said.
The timing of the demonstrations is calculated. In June, the Court of Appeal sided with the government and overturned a High Court ruling that had found the proscription unlawful.
On November 4 and 5, the UK Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Palestine Action cofounder Huda Ammori.
Among those Al Jazeera spoke to at the group’s previous action outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court was Teresa, a former teacher-turned-activist who has been arrested multiple times for protesting against the proscription.
“It’s a badge of honour, to be able to do this for Gaza” she told Al Jazeera.
She is not alone. Those arrested at recent actions include Massive Attack’s Rob del Naja, 94-year-old human rights barrister Margaret Owen, former government adviser Jonathan Porritt and the Reverend Sue Parfitt.
Organisers want to raise the possibility that the UK move to ban Palestine Action came under pressure from US President Donald Trump.
The proscription followed an incident in which activists spray-painted Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland. The US president labelled the action “terrorism” on his Truth Social platform and praised then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s response.
During the legal challenge, it emerged that Trump and Starmer had spoken by phone twice about Palestine Action in March 2025. Starmer had requested updates from Police Scotland on the arrests and briefed Trump on developments.
The US president’s son Eric Trump also met Scottish First Minister John Swinney before the ban was announced, and documents released under the Freedom of Information Act showed the Turnberry protest was discussed.
The Halloween protests will also come three days after a hearing in the trial of the Turnberry protesters at the High Court in Glasgow. Prosecutors are now seeking to have the seven defendants sentenced as “terrorists”, a move critics called “completely disproportionate”.
The same week that the prosecutors made that call, Washington designated Palestine Action a “terrorist organisation”.
Defend Our Juries said the resulting sanctions have blocked Ammori from crowdfunding for her Supreme Court challenge.
This week, actors Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley and Susan Sarandon along with broadcaster Gary Lineker signed a letter published on the cover of the New Statesman magazine urging Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government to drop the “draconian” legislation.
Campaigners said the ban on the group has also in effect halted UK sales of books by the Irish novelist Sally Rooney, a Palestine Action supporter.
However, when author Sarah Helm, wife of National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, publicly declared her support for Palestine Action, the Metropolitan Police took no action. Defend Our Juries said that exposes a ban that cannot be enforced evenly.
Shami Chakrabarti, a senior figure in the ruling Labour Party, has urged the home secretary to lift the ban.
Speaking to the LBC radio station, the former shadow attorney general said it “makes a mockery” of counterterrorism law and the power to proscribe should be exceptional and kept under constant review.
“I’d better be careful what I say, or I’ll be arrested,” she added.
The government argued that Palestine Action’s campaign of break-ins and criminal damage at defence sites, including those linked to Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems, meets the legal threshold for proscription. The Court of Appeal described it as a covert organisation operating through secret cells.
Defend Our Juries insisted its own protests are entirely peaceful.
“This mass defiance and the mass arrests expected to follow will lay bare the fundamental rights to free expression at stake in the Supreme Court hearing just days later,” a spokesperson said.
CAMILA Cabello accidentally poured water over her dancer before throwing the bottle in her FACE live on stage during a performance.
The awkward moment happened as the Havana songstress, 29, was doing her thing while singing her 2024 tune June Gloom.
Camila looked incredible as she performed the song, which is from her fourth studio album, C,XOXO, while sitting on a rotating carousel.
The star wowed in an all-white outfit and matching knee high boots.
Half way through she started to pour water over herself.
While she showed off her sexy dance moves, one of her dancers was on the floor pushing the carousel around with her arms.
After Camila had finished with all the water in her bottle, she accidentally threw it into her dancer’s face.
But like a true professional, the dancer carried on as if nothing had happened.
Shortly after the tune ended, the pair pointed at each other and smiled as the dancer walked off stage.
The fan captioned the post: “The poor dancer taking a bottle accidentally from Camila lol.”
The superstar has had a pretty successful career since shooting to fame as part of Fifth Harmony on The X Factor USA in 2012.
The girl group, which consisted of Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jaurengui and Normani, ended up placing third on the second series of the singing competition.
Fifth Harmony released songs such as Worth It, Work from Home and That’s My Girl, and have won various awards.
The band were together until 2018 and reunited last year.
But Camila decided to go solo and left the group in 2016.
Her most popular songs include Havana, Senorita, Band Things, Never Ben The Same and My Oh My.
She dated singer Shawn Mendes between 2019 and 2021, and for a few months in 2023.
Like the rest of the sector and other industries heavily dependent on fuel, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) faces pressure on its bottom line that will be only partially offset by higher passenger spending.
Simply put, operating expenses will grow faster
14:08, 23 Oct 2026Updated 14:24, 23 Oct 2026
HMPO issued a social media alert on Friday(Image: clubfoto via Getty Images)
HM Passport Office has moved to explain a two-year rule some people may not know about.
Whether you’re applying for a new passport for a child or an adult, it’s likely you’ll need someone to confirm your identity. This is also the case if you’re replacing a lost, stolen, or damaged passport, renewing a child’s passport, or if your appearance has changed significantly. In a new alert on X, formerly Twitter, HMPO moved to explain the rules for ‘referees’.
Part of the post clarifies that “a referee must have known the person applying for at least 2 years and confirm their identity”. Additional guidance on GOV.UK outlines who is eligible to verify a person’s identity.
To qualify, a referee must be 18 years of age or older, reside in the UK, and currently hold a British or Irish passport. They must also have been acquainted with the applicant for a minimum of two years (this refers to the adult submitting the application if the passport is for a child under 16), and must know the applicant as a friend, neighbour or colleague, rather than someone they know purely in a professional capacity.
Referees must also be employed in, or retired from, a “recognised profession”. These include:
You cannot confirm someone’s identity if:
The U.S. government seems to be coming for California (again). Big surprise.
But scratch the surface of the recent Department of Justice voter fraud blitz and the ugly truth peeks through — this is an attack on immigrants of color, no different than accusing the Haitians of Ohio of eating cats and dogs or the aggressive escalation of detaining and deporting Black and brown people with no criminal record.
It’s meant to excite and appease the Christian nationalist contingent of MAGA voters — including Trump advisor Stephen Miller — who make no secret of their belief that even some naturalized citizens should be forced out of the country if they aren’t white.
Just a few days ago, the White House posted on social media that “If you import the third world, you become the third world.” Not be be outdone, the fine Americans at the Department of Homeland Security responded with what seems to be a problematic mission statement that may wind up in court documents: “Reject the third world. Export the third world.” So far in President Trump’s second term, only 20% of the nearly 1 million people deported had a criminal record, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Speaking of court documents, wow, do we have a lot to go through. Turns out not a lot of judges are into voter suppression.
After First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the son of Lebanese immigrants and the first Muslim to serve in the California Legislature, announced charges against 28 Californians — all immigrants — who allegedly registered or voted illegally, the legal battles went into overdrive.
There’s the U.S. Justice Department case claiming California is somehow stopping the feds from enforcing federal voting laws, despite those 28 cases. There’s a ruling in a different case that prevents the Department of Homeland Security from going door-to-door in California and other places checking on immigration status and voter registration — a terrifying overreach of power meant to intimidate legal voters.
And there’s the ongoing lawsuit from the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in a Washington courtroom — a case that could take the lead in protecting the midterms.
Here’s what you need to know about all three, and what comes next.
Starting around August, Homeland Security began knocking on the doors of residents in California and eight other states in what it dubbed a “surge” in investigations on voter fraud.
These in-person checks were based on lists of folks the government thought might not be legally allowed to cast a ballot — and focused on naturalized citizens, according to court documents. They were also, according to the court, unreliable and included “instances where DHS simply did not have data to determine that the individual did not engage in voter fraud,” the California judge in the case wrote, meaning it was a giant fishing expedition.
In addition, Homeland Security was apparently investigating nonprofits and other organizations that help get out the vote, including interrogating the staff and covertly infiltrating their operations, according to court documents.
That’s McCarthyism-level scary. The California Nurses Assn. and its parent union, National Nurses United, filed a lawsuit to stop the Homeland Security surge, arguing in part that one of their core missions is political organizing and turning out voters, and that the operation directly harmed them by scaring their members away from that work.
They also have a lot of members who are naturalized citizens. Four union members told the court that they didn’t want to participate in the union’s election work because they were afraid of being targeted by the government, citizens or not.
The court found that fear “objectively reasonable” and ordered Homeland Security to stop the door-knocking until after the election. The judge then stayed that order until Friday to give the government time to appeal. So far, the government hasn’t filed that objection.
“So many people in the United States are suffering under Trump’s corrupt and cruel policies on behalf of the billionaire class that he knows cannot hold onto power in these upcoming elections without illegally suppressing our vote through outright harassment, intimidation, and even detention,” said Puneet Maharaj, executive director of the two nurses groups.
At the same time, the Department of Justice this week filed a suit against California seeking an emergency order to force the state to segregate 20,000 ballots of folks it claims may not be citizens — an unprecedented ask in furtherance of the long-running conspiracy theory that immigrants who lack legal status are in a scheme with Democrats to vote en masse.
State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has asked the court to throw out the case, in part because the federal government can’t prove it’s actually being harmed in any way by state law. The feds have already filed charges in those 28 cases claiming voter fraud, so it’s hard to argue that state law is preventing them from going after illegal voters.
But the feds are arguing that the state is aiding and abetting illegal voting by not segregating those ballots, even though there is no proof they are in the hands of noncitizens. A review by the Los Angeles County registrar’s office found that about 40% of those on the list were born in the United States.
Trump even threatened that election officials could be jailed for not bending to his will.
Attorneys general from other states filed a friend of the court brief siding with California, arguing that the Justice Department is basically trying to create a new law where “the executive branch can invent new election requirements, unmoored from any constitutional or statutory authority, and demand that States enforce them in the middle of an election.”
The court will rule on that next week.
Our final case takes us to Washington, where the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, are asking for their own temporary restraining order — this one stopping the government from carrying out its ballot segregation scheme and from using its flawed, janky methods for supposedly identifying noncitizen voters.
I’ve written about this lawsuit before, and how the Voting Rights Project beat back Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s attempt to snatch ballots. The court will probably make a ruling in that one next week as well.
But election day is less than two weeks away, and many have already voted. So what does it all mean?
It means we’re in for a rough ride. The Trump administration is not dumb. Midterms might not go the way Republicans would like, potentially even giving control of both the House and Senate to Democrats. Some experts and legislators are concerned that all these ballot drama is posturing for that midterm loss — creating a reason to potentially question results or even refuse to seat newly elected Democrats when the time comes.
That would be unthinkable, unprecedented, a constitutional crisis. But impossible? Nope.
And almost certainly, no matter what voters decide, Trump will spin it back to that white nationalism — the idea that “true” Americans are being replaced through fraud, violence and vote stealing, a trio of conspiracies glued together by the sticky, tricky manipulations of a man who will do anything for power.
What else you should be reading:
The must-read: How Meta struck a deal to keep Mark Zuckerberg in California despite looming billionaire tax
The California angle: As companies leave California, is the state’s $4.25-trillion economy really in trouble?
The L.A. Times Special: In Trumpworld, dogs who commit voter fraud aren’t as bad as immigrants
Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria
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