News Desk

When/where: Nov. 22, Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena; Nov. 23, McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, Palm Desert; Dec. 20, the Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles; and Dec. 21, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd.

Price: Starting at $35
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The vote is taking place in a highly polarised climate, with the US backing the right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura.

Hondurans are heading to the polls to elect a new president in a tightly contested race that is taking place amid concerns over voter fraud in the impoverished Central American country.

Polls opened on Sunday at 7am local time (13:00 GMT) for 10 hours of voting, with the first results expected late Sunday night.

Most polls show a virtual tie between three of the five contenders: former Defence Minister Rixi Moncada of the governing leftist Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) party; former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura of the right-wing National Party; and television host Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal Party.

The elections, in which the 128 members of Congress, hundreds of mayors, and thousands of other public officials will also be chosen, are taking place in a highly polarised climate, with the three top candidates accusing each other of plotting fraud. Moncada has suggested that she will not recognise the official results.

Incumbent President Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE party is limited by law to one term in office.

Honduras’s Attorney General’s Office, aligned with the ruling party, has accused the opposition parties of planning to commit voter fraud, a claim they deny.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into audio recordings that allegedly show a high-ranking National Party politician discussing plans with an unidentified military officer to influence the election.

The alleged recordings, which the National Party says were created using artificial intelligence, have become central to Moncada’s campaign.

Public distrust

Political tensions have contributed to a growing public distrust of the electoral authorities and the electoral process in general. There have also been delays in the provision of voting materials.

“We are hoping that there will be no fraud and that the elections will be peaceful,” said Jennifer Lopez, a 22-year-old law student in Tegucigalpa. “This would be a huge step forward for democracy in our country.”

Amid the heated atmosphere, 6.5 million Hondurans will decide between continuing with Castro’s left-wing social and economic agenda or shifting towards a conservative agenda by supporting the Liberal or National parties.

Castro, the first woman to govern Honduras, has increased public investment and social spending. The economy has grown moderately, and poverty and inequality have decreased, although both remain high. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has praised her government’s prudent fiscal management.

The country’s homicide rate has also fallen to its lowest level in recent history, but violence persists.

US stance

The Organization of American States has expressed concerns about the electoral process, and the majority of its members in an extraordinary session this week called for the government to conduct elections free of intimidation, fraud and political interference.

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also warned on X that the United States will respond “swiftly and decisively to anyone who undermines the integrity of the democratic process in Honduras”.

US President Donald Trump has backed Asfura, posting on social media that “if he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad”.

Honduras, where six out of every 10 citizens live in poverty, experienced a coup in 2009 when an alliance of right-wing military figures, politicians and businessmen overthrew Manuel Zelaya, the husband of the current president.

In 2021, Honduran voters gave Castro a landslide victory, ending decades of rule by the National and Liberal parties.

On Friday, Israel killed at least 13 people, including two children, in the Damascus countryside town of Beit Jinn.

The latest air raids came after locals tried to repel an Israeli military incursion into Beit Jinn, leading to clashes.

Israel claimed it was going after members of the Jamaa al-Islamiya, Lebanon’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, rubbishing the Israeli claim, the group said it was not active outside Lebanon.

Here’s everything you need to know about the attack in Beit Jinn and the context behind it.

What happened?

The Israeli army’s 55th Reserve Brigade raided Beit Jinn in the early hours of Friday morning, ostensibly to take three Syrians who live there, claiming they were members of Jamaa al-Islamiya and that they posed a “danger to Israel”.

However, the incursion did not go to plan. Locals resisted, and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the resulting clashes, three of them seriously, according to the Israeli army.

Israel then sent in its warplanes.

“We were asleep when we were woken up at three in the morning by gunfire,” Iyad Daher, a wounded resident, told the AFP news agency from al-Mouwasat Hospital in Damascus.

“We went outside to see what was happening and saw the Israeli army in the village, soldiers and tanks,” Daher said. “Then they withdrew, the air force came – and the shells started falling.”

This was the deadliest of Israel’s more than 1,000 strikes on Syria since the fall of the Assad regime

Why were Israeli forces in Syria?

This was not the first time Israel raided Syrian territory.

Israeli officials and government-aligned media say Israel can no longer respect its enemies’ borders or allow “hostile” groups along its borders after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel has sought to use force in other countries to create buffer zones around itself, in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon.

Since the fall of the Assad regime last December, Israel has launched frequent air raids across Syria and ground incursions in its south. It set up numerous checkpoints in Syria and detained and disappeared Syrian citizens from Syrian territory, holding them illegally in Israel.

It invaded the buffer zone that separated the two countries since they signed the 1974 disengagement agreement, setting up outposts around Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon in English).

The new Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, said it would abide by the 1974 agreement.

Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. A demilitarised zone was later established, but when President Bashar al-Assad was ousted, and his army was in shambles, Israel invaded to take outposts on Syrian-controlled land.

What did the Syrian government say?

That the attack is a war crime.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, condemning “the criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime.”

What is Israel claiming?

Israel’s public broadcaster said the operation was an “arrest raid” targeting Jamaa al-Islamiya members.

An Israeli army spokesperson said three people linked to the group were “arrested”.

Israel claims the group is operating in southern Syria to “recruit terrorists” and plays a role in what it calls the “northern front” – Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid reported from Syria that Israel has yet to offer any proof of the claim that the people it was after were involved with the group.

What is Jamaa al-Islamiya?

The group is the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was founded in 1956 and has a stable presence in Lebanon, though it has never been as popular as some of its regional counterparts.

It has one member of parliament and was historically aligned with the Future Movement, founded by former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

However, the group moved closer to Iran and Hezbollah politically in recent years. Its armed wing, the Fajr Forces, took part in some operations against Israel in 2023-24.

After Israel’s claims that it was involved in southern Syria, the group released a statement on Friday stating that it was “surprised” Israeli media had involved it in what happened in Beit Jinn.

Denouncing the attack, it said it conducts “no activities outside Lebanon”.

The group added that it has abided by and committed to the ceasefire agreement from November 2024 between Lebanon and Israel.

Has Israel claimed it was attacking this group before?

Yes.

In March 2024, Israel attacked al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon, killing seven emergency relief volunteers.

It claimed the attack targeted a member of the group, calling him a “significant terrorist”.

However, the alleged target was never named, the director of the Lebanese Emergency and Relief Corps’ Ambulance Association told Al Jazeera.

After some shocking revelations in Mayor of Kingstown season four, actor Lennie James has teased even more surprises from mobster Frank Moses

Mayor of Kingstown star Lennie James has revealed his journey as Detroit mobster Frank Moses is headed in some very unexpected directions.

Following Mike McClusky’s (played by Jeremy Renner) feud with Russian crime lord Milo Sunter (Aiden Gillan), Frank has entered the fray in season four to fill the power vacuum.

After developing a shaky alliance with Kingstown’s ‘mayor’, Frank has since revealed his true colours as potentially an even greater threat in the Paramount+ crime saga.

In episode six, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, Mike’s closest confidant on the streets, Deverin ‘Bunny’ Washington (Tobi Bamtefa), is taken to hospital after suffering gunshot wounds from an attacker named Lamar (Zuri James).

However, Mike soon discovers that Lamar is actually working for Frank, who betrayed both his and Bunny’s trust to take over operations in Kingstown.

Mike brings him in and attempts to get him arrested, but a member of the Cartel tries to take Frank out. By the end of the episode, Mike and Frank’s working relationship seems to be completely dissolved.

Throughout the series, Frank has affected a calm demeanour even while under intense pressure, which James exclusively told Reach could be a façade that’s about to slip.

“It’s gonna be tested, but it’s not going to be tested where you expect it to be tested,” James teased.

“When it drops, it’s not gonna be for the reason that everybody thinks it might be. When he goes gangster, it’s not in the direction that is expected.

“That’s one of the things I think the writer’s room liked writing for Frank, because all things were possible, because he’s a unicorn.”

Frank’s history in Detroit has served him well so far as he’s able to rise to the challenges presented by the crime-ridden Kingstown with years of experience handling rival gangsters and cops.

At the very start of the series, he’s introduced just minutes after decapitating several Russian mobsters on a train track to announce his arrival, but he’s not had to get his hands dirty again since.

Line of Duty star James explains that he’s able to stay chillingly calm because “there isn’t much he hasn’t seen”. Even so, his power struggle with Mike could test him beyond his limits.

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The actor also hints the series could go back a little more to his roots in Detroit, confirming: “Yeah, you will. You’ll find out more.

“You won’t find out everything, but you’ll find out more, much more.”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to confirm whether or not Frank will be back in season five, which has yet to be confirmed by Paramount.

Still, he’s already proven a formidable threat and a popular new addition amongst fans, so there’s every chance of following in his predecessor Sunter and lasting for at least a couple of more seasons.

Mayor of Kingstown continues Sundays on Paramount+.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested a formal pardon from President Isaac Herzog in his long-running corruption cases, for the sake of ‘national unity’. Israel’s opposition says Netanyahu must admit guilt and resign.

At least two areas of the country’s worst-affected Sumatra island are still unreachable, as authorities struggle to deliver aid.

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in Indonesia has risen to 442, according to a tally published by the national disaster agency, as desperate people hunt for food and water.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) on Sunday said 402 others were still missing as authorities raced to reach parts of hardest-hit Sumatra island, where thousands of people were stranded without critical supplies.

Another 402 people are missing in Indonesia’s three provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh, according to the agency.

At least 600 people have died across Southeast Asia as heavy monsoon rains overwhelm swathes of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. The deluges also triggered landslides, damaged roads, and downed communication lines.

The floods in Indonesia displaced thousands of people, with at least two cities on Sumatra island still unreachable on Sunday. Authorities said they deployed two warships from Jakarta to deliver aid.

“There are two cities that require full attention due to being isolated, namely Central Tapanuli and Sibolga,” BNPB head Suharyanto said in a statement.

The ships were expected in Sibolga on Monday, he said.

Desperate situation

The challenging weather conditions and the lack of heavy equipment also hampered rescue efforts.

Aid has been slow to reach the hardest-hit city of Sibolga and the Central Tapanuli district in North Sumatra.

Videos on social media show people scrambling past crumbling barricades, flooded roads and broken glass to get their hands on food, medicine and gas.

Some even waded through waist-deep floodwaters to reach damaged convenience stores.

The annual monsoon season, typically between June and September, often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.

A tropical storm has exacerbated conditions, and the flooding tolls in Indonesia and Thailand rank among the highest in those countries in recent years.

Climate change has affected storm patterns, including the duration and intensity of the season, leading to heavier rainfall, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts.

JACK Fincham was due at on/off girlfriend Chloe Brockett’s birthday when he spent the night snogging MAFS star Leisha Lightbody.

Ex-Towie star Chloe and Jack recently rekindled for the eighth time and she invited him to her glitzy bash. 

But after rowing, she’d told him not to bother. 

The Love Island champ turned boxer then went to a Sussex tourist attraction, Tulleys Christmas night, where he hooked up with Leisha – who is Chloe’s lookalike. 

A source said: “Chloe and Jack have been back on recently but they fell out on so she said he could f**k off and not bother going to her party. 

“They’re not officially back together but it’s still outrageous he then went out and snogged someone else, on her birthday!”

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The Sun has contacted representatives for Chloe and Jack for comment.

Leisha and Jack could be seen passionately kissing against a wooden gate in our exclusive video.

A source said: “Jack and Leisha were all over each other for the whole night and didn’t seem to care who was watching.”

Leisha appeared on the most recent UK series of Married at First Sight and was paired with Reiss Boyce.

The couple split just weeks after their emotional final vows, with the distance between Essex-based Reiss, 33, and 31-year-old Leisha, who lives in Scotland, proving too much for them. 

Boxer Jack recently revealed he’s lost a £1m since his heady Love Island days, which saw him win with the nation’s sweetheart Dani Dyer.

The 34-year-old has had a tough year which saw him narrowly avoid prison after being arrested while serving a suspended sentence at the time.

In a candid Instagram post, Jack wrote: “I’ve been quiet for a long time — maybe too long. Truth is, I haven’t known what to say.

“I lost over £1 million chasing the wrong things — and in the process, I lost over a million followers too. That hurt. But I get it.

“I wasn’t myself. I was lost, struggling, and making the kind of mistakes that feel impossible to come back from.

“But I’ve learned this — you don’t need millions of followers to find your voice again. You just need to tell the truth.”

Explaining more, Jack said: “I took a lot of bad advice over the years and had a lot of the wrong people around me.

“I’ve made some massive mistakes. I’ve learnt some really, really proper painful, really painful lessons over the years. Every mistake that I’ve made, I own them all.”

When fire alarms failed, this woman livestreamed her escape from the Hong Kong apartment inferno to warn other residents. The live-in nanny rescued her employer’s baby as she raced down 23 flights of stairs at the Wang Fuk Court complex, where at least 146 people lost their lives.

Amid the fusillade of terrible headlines this year, one pierced my nerdy heart.

“Enjoying this headline? You’re a rarity: Reading for pleasure is declining …” was the topper to a story by my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts in August. Pleasure reading among American adults fell more than 40% in two decades — a continuation of a trend going back to the 1940s.

I get it. We don’t want to read for fun when we’re trying to wade through the sewer of information we find online and make sense of our terrible political times. But as Tyrion Lannister, the wily hero of George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones” series, said, “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

So for my annual holiday columna recommending great books about Southern California, I’m sticking to formats that lend themselves to easier reading — bite-size jewels of intellect, if you will. Through essays, short stories, poems and pictures, each of my suggestions will bring solace through the beauty of where we live and offer inspiration about how to double down on resisting the bad guys.

“California Southern: Writing From the Road, 1992-2025” by LAist reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez’s warm voice has informed Angelenos about arts, politics and education for 25 years on what was long called KPCC and now goes by LAist 89.3. What most listeners might not know is that the Mexico City native first earned acclaim as a founder of Taco Shop Poets, an influential San Diego collective that highlighted Chicano writers in a city that didn’t seem to care for them.

Guzman-Lopez lets others delve into that history in the intro and forerward to “California Southern: Writings from the Road, 1992-2025.” Reading the short anthology, it quickly becomes clear why his audio dispatches have always had a prose-like quality often lacking among public radio reporters, whose delivery tends to be as dry as Death Valley.

In mostly English but sometimes Spanish and Spanglish, Guzman-Lopez takes readers from the U.S.-Mexico border to L.A., employing the type of lyrical bank shots only a poet can get away with. I especially loved his description of Silver Lake as “two tax brackets away/From Salvatrucha Echo Park.” Another highlight is contained in “Trucks,” where Guzman-Lopez praises the immigrant entrepreneurs from around the world who come to L.A. and name their businesses after their hometowns.

“Say these names to praise the soil,” he writes. “Say these names to document the passage. Say these names to remember the trek.”

Guzman-Lopez has been doing readings recently with Lisa Alvarez, who published her first book, “Some Final Beauty and Other Stories,” after decades of teaching English — including to my wife back in the 1990s! — at Irvine Valley College.

The L.A. native did the impossible for someone who rarely delves into made-up stories because the real world is fantastical enough: She made me not just read fiction but enjoy it.

Alvarez’s debut is a loosely tied collection centered on progressive activists in Southern California, spanning a seismic sendoff for someone who fought during the Spanish Civil War and a resident of O.C.’s canyon country tipping off the FBI about her neighbor’s participation in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

Author, activist and Irvine Valley College professor Lisa Alvarez holds a copy of her short story collection “Some Final Beauty and Other Stories.”

(Don Leach / Daily Pilot)

Most of the protagonists are women, brought to life through Alvarez’s taut, shining sentences. Memories play a key role — people loved and lost, places missed and reviled. A nephew remembers how his uncle landed in an FBI subversives file after attending a Paul Robeson speech in South L.A. shortly after serving in the Navy in World War II. An L.A. mayor who seems like a stand-in for Antonio Villaraigoisa considers himself “the crafty and cool voice of one who sees his past and future in terms of chapters in a best-selling book” as he tries to convince a faded movie star to come down from a tree during a protest.

To paraphrase William Faulkner about the South, the past is never dead in Southern California — it isn’t even past.

While Alvarez is a first-time author, D.J. Waldie has written many books. The Livy of Lakewood, who has penned important essays about L.A. history and geography for decades, has gathered some of his recent efforts in “Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire.”

A lot of his subjects — L.A.’s mother tree, pioneering preacher Aimee Semple McPherson, the first Hass avocado — are tried-and-true terrain for Southern California writers. But few of us can turn a phrase like Waldie. On legendary Dodger broadcasters Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrín, he writes, “The twin cities of Los Angeles and Los Ángeles, evoked by [their] voices … may seem to be incommensurate places to the unhearing, but the borders of the two cities are porous. Sound travels.”

Man, I wish I would have written that.

“Elements of Los Angeles” is worth the purchase, if only to read “Taken by the Flood,” Waldie’s account of the 1928 St. Francis Dam disaster that killed at least 431 people — mostly Latinos — and destroyed the career of L.A.’s water godfather, William Mulholland. The author’s slow burn of the tragic chronology, from Mulholland’s famous “There it is. Take it” quote when he unleashed water from the Owens Valley in 1913 to slake the city’s thirst, to how L.A. quickly forgot the disaster, compounds hubris upon hubris.

But then, Waldie concludes by citing a Spanish-language corrido about the disaster: “Friends, I leave you/with this sad song/and with a plea to heaven/For those taken by the flood.”

The ultimate victims, Waldie argues, are not the dead from the St. Francis Dam but all Angelenos for buying into the fatal folly of Mullholland’s L.A.

“Elements of Los Angeles” was published by Angel City Press, a wing of the Los Angeles Public Library that also released “Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles.”

Cal State Long Beach sociology professor Oliver Wang offers a powerhouse of a coffee table book by taking what could have easily sold as a scrapbook of cool images and grounding it in the history of a community that has seen the promise and pain of Southern California like few others.

We see Japanese Americans posing in front of souped-up imports, reveling in SoCal’s kustom kulture scene of the 1960s, standing in front of a car at a World War II-era incarceration camp and loading up their gardening trucks at a time when they dominated the landscaping industry.

“One can read entire histories of American car culture and find no mention of Japanese or Asian American involvement,” Wang writes — but that’s about as pedantic as “Cruising J-Town” gets.

The rest is a delight that zooms by like the rest of my recs. Drop the doomscrolling for a day, make the time to read them all and become a better Southern Californian in the process. Enjoy!

A huge fireball exploded at a waste facility in an Australian suburb in western Sydney, sending flames 100 metres into the sky. Authorities are investigating the fire’s cause, but say a chemical tank exploded in the blaze, sending concrete debris flying and causing damage to nearby buildings.

The way humans refuse to reflect is most ironic. Everyone immediately blamed the heavens for the events of November 2025, when massive floods swept across Sumatra (Indonesia), submerged southern Thailand, and turned Malaysian roads into rivers. It was as if humans were passive victims swept away by something beyond their control, and rain was the sole factor.  This elegant narrative is perpetuated to shield us from guilt and responsibility, making us reluctant to acknowledge that these ‘natural’ disasters have actually been engineered by human choices and negligence over a long period of time. The greatest tragedy lies in the audacity to ignore the damage we have wrought upon ourselves, not the water falling from the sky.

What happened at the end of November was not just extreme weather. Reuters stated that heavy rains were the main cause of flooding and landslides, which are estimated to have killed at least 129 people in Southeast Asia before and after 25 November 2025.  However, blaming the rain as the sole cause is like blaming a match when your entire house is on fire, even though you were the one who spilled the petrol (Reuters, 2025). The rain is not the problem. Rain is a common climatic event. What is unusual is how vulnerable our countries are to something that should have been anticipated.

For years, Green Theory has reminded us that environmental damage is the result of development and political and economic practices that prioritize growth over sustainability. Theoretically, disasters are political rather than natural occurrences. According to this viewpoint, structural power disparities and policy decisions that favor capital accumulation are the main causes of society’s susceptibility to natural disasters. And what happened in November 2025 shows that current politics prioritizes short-term profits, land exploitation, and dependence on destructive industries over maintaining the ecological balance that enables human life.

For example, flooding in Sumatra is caused by the loss of millions of hectares of forest over the past twenty years. The loss of forests has eliminated the absorption and soil retention systems that previously functioned as a ‘natural brake’ on water flow. FAO data shows that Indonesia’s deforestation rate has been one of the fastest in the world for years and that the damage has not disappeared without a trace (FAO, 2023). When the roots are gone, the soil and water lose their bond. Disaster becomes inevitable when the rains fall.

The same pattern was found in cases in Thailand and Malaysia.  Development that destroyed hillsides, settlements that crept up into landslide-prone areas, and concretization that eliminated absorption spaces have made these areas an inevitable ecological hazard. There were no truly ‘sudden’ floods and landslides that struck southern Thailand in the same week reported by AP News (AP News, 2025).  What remained suddenly was our realization that the rain was testing the consequences of years of neglect.

Ironically, politicians, mainstream media, and most of the public are more comfortable blaming the heavens.  Although terms such as ‘extreme rainfall,’ ‘climate anomalies,’ and ‘unpredictable weather’ are meteorologically accurate, they are also ethically and politically misleading. Blaming the weather is an elegant way to avoid more uncomfortable questions: who cut down the forests? Who issued the plantation and mining permits? Who built cities without drainage systems? Who turned a blind eye to disorderly spatial planning? And who chose not to learn from the same tragedies of last year, the year before, and the year before that?

Green Theory emphasizes that states and markets often collaborate to cause environmental/ecological damage while covering up their political activities with stories of ‘unpredictable nature.’ The disaster that occurred in November 2025 provided an important lesson that these stories are not only misleading but also dangerous.  To avoid responsibility, attention is shifted from human actors to an abstract entity called ‘the weather.’ It transforms meteorological chaos into structural chaos.  Thus, the sky becomes the most convenient scapegoat for all parties who benefit from the current situation.

We often forget that rain has been with us throughout human history.  It is not the sky that has changed; rather, it is the earth beneath our feet that has been altered, divided, and sold without consideration for its ecological limits. The IPCC has repeatedly warned that although climate change increases rainfall in certain areas, its effects are highly dependent on land use, ecosystem health, and human-controlled environmental carrying capacity (IPCC, 2023).  In other words, rain may be natural, but its disasters are not.

 According to a UNEP report, modern disaster risk consists of a combination of hazards and vulnerability, and it is vulnerability that is most often created by humans (UNEP, 2022).  We are the ones who cut down forests, destroy riverbanks, and build cities without considering hydrological logic. We are responsible for turning floodplains into residential areas.  Yet we blame the rain for being the culprit simply because the water returns to its source.

This is why November 2025 is not just a date of disaster; it is a date of remembrance. A reminder that we live in an age where environmental damage is caused by human activity, not the weather. A reminder that contemporary disasters are the result of poor decisions.  And our hands will remain clean in the story we write as long as we continue to point to the sky, but the ground beneath us will continue to crumble.

 If we want to break out of this cycle, we must stop pointing to the sky and start dismantling the political, economic, and vested interests that make communities vulnerable every time it rains. Disasters must be seen as a reflection of failed environmental governance, not as ‘inevitable’ natural events. This necessitates the establishment of political accountability mechanisms for officials who disregard ecological warnings, independent environmental audits for significant projects, and strict spatial planning reform. We must also understand that change will not come from the heavens; it must come from the very people who have been destroying, if they are finally willing to reform themselves.

The rain will continue to be blamed until that day.  And humans will continue to try to save their own reputations by pointing upwards so that they do not see the damage happening beneath their feet.  However, the sky is never to blame, as will be clearly recorded in history.  The rain simply falls.  It is humans who cause the destruction.  This is the greatest irony of modern civilization: the more power humans feel they have, the more they enjoy washing their hands of the consequences of that power. Humans who destroy mountains for quick profits from mining, build cities without adequate drainage, and pour concrete into rivers, and then feign surprise when everything comes back to haunt them. Rain is merely the trigger; humans prepare the ingredients for the explosion.

It is not the weather that must change, but our morals.  No technical mitigation can replace a political culture that continues to trade forests for capital, mortgaging the future for growth charts, or romanticizing ‘development’ that never produces anything but risk.  We can keep praying for favorable weather, but those prayers will only echo in the void as long as the Earth is treated as a victim.  Because we are the ones who need to live on Earth.  Earth is the source of our life.  And as long as people continue to deny that, disasters will become timely consequences, not mere warnings.

Bradley Walsh got tongues wagging when he rocked up at the Strictly Come Dancing studio after hosts, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkelman sensationally announced they’re quitting the show

Bradley Walsh has added fuel to rumours he’ll host Strictly after he was seen backstage with the show’s crew over the weekend. The presenter, 65, is odds-on favourite to replace Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman as hosts of Strictly when they step down at the end of the current series.

Gladiators host, Bradley, is reportedly in final talks to host the primetime programme after dynamic duo, Tess and Claudia, sensationally announced they were quitting in October.

Bradley headed to the BBC studio during a break in filming ITV’s The Chase, where he posed for a selfie with the crew from the dance show. Both The Chase and Strictly are filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

READ MORE: New Strictly Come Dancing host ‘revealed’ as top presenter seen on setREAD MORE: Strictly spoiler leaves fans ‘absolutely devastated’ as they demand second opinion

Head dressmaker Theresa Hewlett shared a photograph with star on X, formerly Twitter, with a smile a mile wide, posing alongside her colleagues ahead of Saturday’s live show.

She captioned the post: “The Chase is filmed next door and he popped in to say hi. What a lovely man Bradley Walsh is!”

Meanwhile a source told The Sun: “Bradley’s appearance in the studio has certainly set tongues wagging. Bosses are keen for Bradley to take over. He is a real pro and has brilliant experience hosting live shows.

“Producers need a safe pair of hands to steady the ship amid so much damage. Of course, he’d have a female alongside him as part of a duo.

And that female, is reported to be The One Show’s Alex Jones, who took part in Strictly in 2011. A source told the publication: “Alex and Bradley are both the favourites to take over from Tess and Claudia… they have been in the BBC’s sights for some time.”

“Alex is a massive fan of Strictly, too, so this would be the dream gig for her.”

The insider clarified that “nothing is set in stone yet”, but said discussions involving the pair had been “moving in a really positive direction” so far.

Tess and Claudia stunned Strictly fans when they posted a joint video in October, announcing they were calling it quits.

Addressing viewers, they said: “We have loved working as a duo, and hosting Strictly has been an absolute dream. We were always going to leave together, and now feels like the right time. We will have the greatest rest of this amazing series and just want to say an enormous thank you to the BBC and every single person who works on the show.

“They’re the most brilliant team, and we’ll miss them every day. We will cry when we say the last ‘keep dancing,’ but we will continue to say it to each other – just possibly in tracksuit bottoms at home while holding some pizza.”

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Goalscorers Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo help Barcelona fight back against Alaves and return to top of La Liga table.

Barcelona recovered from an early setback to secure a 3-1 victory over Alaves in La Liga on Saturday, with first-half goals from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo and a late second for the latter sealing the win at the Nou Camp.

The triumph lifts last year’s champions to the top of the standings on 34 points, two ahead of second-placed Real Madrid, who have a game in hand at Girona on Sunday.

In their second match back at the partially renovated Nou Camp after two and a half years of redevelopment, Barcelona overcame a shaky start amid uncharacteristic scenes of long pre-match ticketing delays that left the stadium half-empty at kickoff.

According to the club, the problems were caused by technical difficulties that left thousands of fans unable to access their tickets through the club’s mobile app, creating long lines at the fan support office and forcing the match to begin with swaths of empty seats.

Alaves stunned the hosts in the first minute when Pablo Ibanez struck from close range. Barcelona defender Marc Bernal misjudged a corner, allowing Ibanez to pounce on the loose ball inside the six-yard box and neatly slot it into the net with his first touch.

However, Barcelona hit back just seven minutes later. Alejandro Balde darted down the left flank before feeding Raphinha, who delivered a low cross into the box. The 18-year-old Yamal met the ball at the far post with a powerful one-touch finish into the top corner to level the score at 1-1.

Raphinha was instrumental again in the 26th with another assist, this time for Olmo, who expertly curled the ball home first-time from inside the box as the Blaugrana went ahead.

Yamal was inches away from doubling his tally in the 44th minute after receiving a brilliant pass from Robert Lewandowski, but his effort hit the post with the goal gaping.

Alaves nearly found an equaliser just before the break, when Lucas Boye fired narrowly wide following a swift counterattack.

Olmo seals Barca comeback

Barcelona dominated the second half, with Lewandowski denied by a spectacular reflex save from Alaves keeper Antonio Sivera in the 56th minute. Boye squandered another chance for the visitors in the 77th minute, missing wide from inside the box.

Olmo put the result beyond doubt in added time, finishing off a smooth one-two with Yamal, whose through ball left him free inside the box to slot home with composure.

The match also marked the return of 23-year-old midfielder Pedri, who made his first appearance in more than a month following a muscle injury.

He came on in the second half to give Barcelona a much-needed boost before Tuesday’s crucial clash against Atletico Madrid.

Fourth in the La Liga standings with 28 points, Diego Simeone’s side have not lost in the league since their opening fixture in August.

They have a game in hand and will host last-placed Oviedo later on Saturday, aiming to extend a six-game winning run in all competitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested presidential pardon amid ongoing corruption cases.

The Israeli president’s office on Sunday said Netanyahu submitted a request for pardon to President Isaac Herzog.

Netanyahu is up against three separate cases of corruption filed in 2019, which include allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. He denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

“The Office of the President is aware that this is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications. After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request,” Herzog’s office said in a statement.

Netanyahu’s request comes as US President Donald Trump pushes Herzog to pardon Netanyahu in the cases in question. Herzog also received a letter from Trump earlier in November, urging him to consider the pardon.

During Trump’s visit to Israel in October, he had also urged Herzog to pardon Netanyahu in an address to the Israeli parliament.

The Israeli prime minister is also wanted by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israeli history to stand trial, after being charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases accusing him of exchanging favors with wealthy political supporters.

The graft cases against him include allegations of receiving nearly 700,000 shekels ($211,832) in gifts from businessmen.

Despite the largely ceremonial role of the Israeli presidency, Herzog has the authority to pardon convicted criminals under unusual circumstances.

However, Netanyahu’s trial, which began in 2020, has yet to be concluded.

In a videotaped statement, Netanyahu said the trial has divided the country and that a pardon would help restore national unity. He also said the requirement that he appear in court three times a week is a distraction that makes it difficult for him to lead the country.