News Desk

“It Ends,” a microbudget marvel by 20-something writer-director Alexander Ullom, has a straightforward premise that expands in your imagination.

Four school pals — go-getter James (Phinehas Yoon), drop-out Tyler (Mitchell Cole), anxious Fisher (Noah Toth) and creative Day (Akira Jackson) — pile into a Jeep just after college graduation. The car turns onto a dark road that, to the youngsters’ growing unease, appears to stretch on forever through an infinite forest. There’s no safe place to pull over, no signs pointing toward escape, no assurance that their lives have a destination. Stop moving and a horde of desperate, violent strangers sprint from the woods to try to steal their car. Keep going … for how long? Is this hell, purgatory or just a cosmic punchline?

“It Ends” premiered at SXSW in the spring of 2025, over a year before audiences stormed Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms,” yet the two breakout filmmakers share a suspicion that our seemingly ordinary existence hides something very, very wrong. The scale of the peril is hard to comprehend and harder to articulate; they’re more curious to explore the crisis than find a fix. What matters is that humanity feels lost.

Everyone in the car already seems to sense it even before this particular ride goes awry. Yoon’s dour James has impressively (and depressingly) mapped out his next few money-making decades down to his eventual diminished sperm count. To him, the future “seems like it sucks ass.” Weary Tyler has resigned himself to blue-collar work. Fisher and Day can’t even secure jobs, stuck literally and metaphorically frittering away their youth in the back seat.

The first act has a visceral, terrifying sequence with panicky close-ups of extras sprinting pell-mell toward the car. (The credits list as many background actors as crew members.) Matthew Robert Cooper’s unnerving ambient score bleeds into the relentless dink-dink-dink of the Jeep’s strobing hazard lights.

For several minutes afterward, the images are so disorienting that we can’t even make out where anyone in the car is sitting. Then cinematographers Evan Draper and Jazleana Jones along with Ullom, who also edits, take a steadier hand with evocative montages that emphasize the passage of time.

With rare exception, the camera stays tethered to the vehicle. The blur outside becomes enveloping and unfathomable; the universe inside the car evolves as the friends invent tension-defusing rituals to keep from screaming at one another. The mood toggles between cozily habituated and heavy. How long have they been driving now?

Early on, I kept a running tally of the hours until that began to feel naive. The days blend together with no time stamps, although Ullom occasionally reveals how many miles the car has gone. I did some back-of-my-notepad math and realized you can drive massive distances faster than I would have guessed. Then I pictured myself in their seats. Excruciating.

Evading plot holes, “It Ends” paves over the obvious biological needs. The foursome discover they no longer need to eat or drink. Likewise, the car no longer needs gas. The characters check off every idea you want them to try in the small space of the car, plus other brilliant brainstorms. Bursting through the confinements of movie logic, “It Ends” untrains audiences out of their certainty that every crisis has a solution. Does it even matter what they do?

Dread runs through “It Ends,” yet I’m hesitant to frame it as a horror movie. Scares fall by the wayside when it shifts into a more philosophical gear, vibrating with questions about how to live a meaningful life: Should these victims accept their fate or keep struggling? At least one will leave the car, never to be seen again as Ullom shrewdly refuses to reveal whether that choice was right. I think the filmmaker has an answer for himself, but he’d rather ask how we feel about it. Keep an open mind. Your opinion may change more than once.

This car setting taps into our cultural belief that speeding ahead is progress, an opinion shared by films as varied as “The Fast and the Furious,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Two-Lane Blacktop,” and “Thelma & Louise.” Like actual religion, to continue on versus stopping becomes a question of faith. Some find comfort deciding on an answer, any answer. Others are driven by the spiritual quest itself.

The cast of unknowns is fantastic. It’s a major feat to shoulder a movie sitting still. Yoon’s prickly, unlikable James is the character many will align with, to their chagrin. Cole’s Tyler acts practically while collapsing into a black hole of cynicism. You’ve met a dozen guys like him who all claim “So what?” is the only sensible reaction. The jokers Toth and Jackson, bless them, keep things endearing and funny.

I’m bored of studios and indie financiers forcing filmmakers to stick to so-called bankable names. From “Heated Rivalry” to “Obsession,” this has been a phenomenal year for discovering fresh faces. Hopefully Hollywood won’t misunderstand the lesson in those projects’ success. It’s not to add Connor Storrie and Inde Navarrette to that stifling shortlist — it’s how much more talent there is waiting for a shot. (And it’s worth mentioning that Yoon and Cole also direct their own movies.)

Some of Ullom’s richest themes need only a casual mention, like Fisher muttering that he has fewer photos of his family on his phone than stupid memes. The friends are passingly concerned that they’ve outsourced too much of their mental stimulation to the internet. Now that they don’t have Wi-Fi, will they run out of topics to discuss? In these murmurs, Ullom wonders how much modern technology has led us astray. Obeying GPS has trapped them on this road in the first place, and may have done the same to those wretches in the woods, each so individually fixated on carjacking the Jeep that it never occurs to them to team up. A material goal devolves people into savages. At least Ullom has a slight optimism that society can turn things around.

Climbing into my car after “It Ends” felt like a sick joke. Was I really steering straight back to work? When was the last time I pulled over for an ice cream? But I kept on driving until I made it to my desk to start this review. That’s how excited I was to share the news of Ullom’s staggering debut. It’s a thrill to see his generation of filmmakers take the wheel.

EXPLAINER

At least 145 countries have reported increases in petrol prices since the attacks on Iran by the US and Israel began on February 28.

Since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran six months ago, petrol prices have risen in at least 145 countries, adding to the burden on consumers worldwide.

The figures are based on data from GlobalPetrolPrices, which tracks fuel prices in 170 countries and territories. Petrol prices in Myanmar rose the most, increasing by 56 percent from $0.77 per litre of 95-octane fuel on February 23 to $1.20 on August 17. Bhutan recorded the next-largest increase at 55 percent, followed by Cuba at 51 percent, the UAE at 50 percent and 48 percent in Nigeria.

In 25 other countries, most of them oil producers with heavily subsidised fuel, prices have either remained unchanged or fallen by single digits.

The table below lists the 145 countries where petrol prices at the pump increased over the past six months.

How higher fuel costs shrink your driving range

Before the war, the US national average for a gallon [3.78 litres] of regular petrol was $2.94. It now costs $4.09, an increase of 39 percent, according to AAA Fuel Prices, which tracks retail fuel prices for the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The extra cost directly affects how far people can travel. Before the war, $50 worth of fuel in the US could take a family sedan roughly 718 km (446 miles). Today, the same amount takes you about 536 km (333 miles) – 183 km less, a 25 percent reduction in driving distance.

That gap varies depending on where you live.

Set your country, car and budget below to see how far your money takes you. If you’re filling up in the US, you can also select a state and fuel grade.

How high oil costs drive up the price of food

Oil prices and food prices move in lockstep, with energy prices affecting every stage of the food supply chain, from the fertilisers used in the fields to the trucks that carry food from field to supermarket shelf.

Rising oil prices also directly impact shipping and the cost of transport.

“The lifeblood of the global economy is transport,” economist David McWilliams told Al Jazeera. “It’s getting stuff from A to B – it’s a logistics problem, a supply chain problem and ultimately transportation is the energy of the global economy.”

In lower-income countries, where populations spend a far greater share of their earnings on food and import large quantities of grain and fertiliser, rising oil prices could rapidly translate into food shortages.

What products are made from oil and gas?

Oil and gas are used for far more than just fuel. They are raw materials for thousands of everyday products.

Plastics, including water bottles, food packaging, phone casings and medical syringes, are all derived from crude oil.

Crude oil is also the hidden ingredient in synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which are used to make everything from sportswear to carpets. It also underpins the cosmetics industry, as it is used to make products such as petroleum jelly (Vaseline), lipsticks and concealers.

Household items also rely on oil-based ingredients, with laundry detergents, dishwashing liquids and paints all derived from petroleum products.

The global food supply is essentially built on natural gas in the form of fertilisers, used to enhance crop yields and ensure that food production can meet demand.

Talent runs in Downton Abbey star Phyllis Logan’s family as her husband is a fellow actor

Downton Abbey’s Phyllis Logan isn’t the only famous member of her family.

The 70-year-old actress is best known for playing the resolute yet compassionate housekeeper Mrs Hughes in the hit period drama.

She played the character across all six seasons of the ITV series and also returned for the subsequent feature films, including Downton Abbey (2019), Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022), and Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025).

Mrs Hughes, also known as Elsie Carson, ran the entire servant branch of Downton Abbey alongside Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier), after he replaced her husband, Charles Carson (Jim Carter), as butler.

The character was involved in a number of memorable storylines during her time in Yorkshire, including a cancer scare, and her slow-burn romance with Mr Carson.

It turns out that talent runs in actress Phyllis’s family, as her husband is also an actor who appeared in Downton Abbey. Phyllis is married to English actor and writer Kevin McNally. They met in 1994, before marrying in August 2011.

Kevin began his acting career in the BBC’s TV adaptation of I, Claudius, but is best known for playing Joshamee Gibbs in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

That’s not all, as he also shared the screen with his wife in Downton Abbey. Kevin notably played Horace Bryant in the series, who was the father of Major Charles Bryant (Daniel Pirrie).

Charles fathered a child with housemaid Ethel Parks (Amy Nuttall) before dying in the war. Horace initially refused to acknowledge or support the child, before later stepping in.

Fans have been left speechless after realising Phyllis’s real-life connection to Kevin, whose Downton Abbey character looks completely different from his role in Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Just found out that Phyllis Logan (Mrs. Hughes) is married to Kevin McNally (horrible Mr. Bryant)!!” one person wrote on Reddit. Another added: “The dude from Pirates of the Caribbean? That’s awesome,” while a third said: “I had no idea they were the same person. He looks so different in DA.”

Someone else wrote: “I had to google who Mr Bryant was as I’d forgotten and wow I didn’t recognise the actor at all,” with another similarly sharing: “The fact that so many are amazed at how different those two characters are attest to McNally’s acting skill.”

Downton Abbey is streaming for free on ITVX

Islamabad, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is traveling to Tehran on Monday for talks with senior Iranian officials, Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday.

It will be Munir’s third visit to Iran this year as Islamabad continues its push to mediate an end to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Al Jazeera that the trip would take place but declined to elaborate on its agenda.

The Pakistani military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), as well as the Foreign Ministry and Information Ministry, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment on the visit, which was unusually announced by Tehran rather than Islamabad.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the trip would build on Pakistan’s efforts to “help strengthen peace and security in the region”.

Munir will hold talks with senior Iranian officials during his stay, Baghaei told reporters in Tehran.

The visit follows two phone calls between Munir and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi within four days, on Wednesday and Saturday.

The two officials discussed “regional developments” and ways to strengthen “peace, stability and security” in West Asia, according to Iranian state media.

A third trip this year

Munir’s first visit to Tehran this year came in April, days after the Islamabad Talks, the first direct US-Iran negotiations in more than four decades, ended without a breakthrough.

He returned in May, arriving hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there had been “slight progress” in talks between Washington and Tehran.

His latest visit comes as the diplomatic track underpinning the Islamabad MoU has all but stalled, while Washington prepares a new round of sanctions.

The discussions are also expected to touch on this month’s announcement of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, which Munir attended in Mecca.

Yemen’s Houthi fighters, whose attacks on shipping lanes have repeatedly threatened to widen the conflict, are also likely to feature in his conversations with Iranian officials. The Houthis are widely believed to receive support from Tehran.

The issue carries particular weight for Islamabad.

Three Pakistani sailors were killed and several others wounded when Houthi forces struck a Tanzania-flagged commercial vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on August 11.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar called the attack a violation of international law and “strongly condemned” it at the time.

Munir is expected to meet Iran’s newly appointed senior military leadership during the visit, according to Reza Afzal Samir, an Iranian journalist tracking the talks.

“He is well positioned to meet Iran’s newer senior military leadership, the new IRGC chief, the new Chief of General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and the new Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council,” Samir told Al Jazeera, referring to Munir’s expected meetings with Major-General Ahmad Vahidi, Major-General Ali Abdollahi and Mohsen Rezaei respectively.

The officials were all appointed earlier this month.

A lapsed deal

The visit comes at a fraught moment for Pakistan’s mediation effort, which it has led after the war began six months ago.

The 60-day window set out in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed by Pakistan, Iran and the US on June 17, lapsed in mid-August without either side agreeing to extend it.

Iran has kept the Strait of Hormuz shut, insisting that Washington first lift its naval blockade, end oil sanctions, unfreeze Iranian assets abroad and halt military threats. Tehran says the US has not met those conditions.

Munir’s trip also coincides with a fresh round of US economic pressure.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due to detail on Monday what American officials have called the “toughest sanctions in history” against Iran, a package he has said is intended, alongside the continuing naval blockade, to “collapse” the government in Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called the plan “economic warfare”.

The trip also follows a month of regional realignment. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, a mutual defence pact under which an attack on one signatory would be treated as an attack on all three.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi travelled to Tehran earlier this month to revive the stalled mediation push but returned without any concrete results.

Tensions elsewhere in the region have sharpened too.

The United Arab Emirates suspended trade and financial transactions with Iran last week after saying it had come under fire from two ballistic missiles launched from Iranian territory, a claim Baghaei denied.

But Munir’s visit, analysts say, signals that key regional mediators have not given up on efforts to revive talks, either direct or indirect, between Iran and the US, even as they try to balance their own relations with Tehran and Washington.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, who, like Munir, has held recent telephone conversations with Araghchi, is scheduled to visit Tehran on Tuesday, Iran’s state-owned IRNA news agency has reported.

What leverage does Islamabad have?

Analysts remain divided on what Munir’s visit can realistically achieve, given Pakistan’s limited ability to enforce any understanding it helps broker.

“Both sides see Pakistan as a country that has helped facilitate dialogue without any personal stake in the outcome, nothing to gain for itself,” said Qamar Cheema, a political analyst and head of the Islamabad-based Sanober Institute. “That gives it a certain clarity, and the ability to offer an off-ramp to everyone involved.”

Javad Heiran-Nia, director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group in Tehran, said Pakistan’s persistence was driven partly by self-interest.

“Pakistan is concerned about escalating tensions and the outbreak of another all-out war between Iran and the United States, which would further destabilise the region,” he told Al Jazeera, pointing to Islamabad’s reliance on energy imports from the Gulf and the risk of disruption to remittances from Pakistani workers there if instability spreads.

Zahid Mehmood, a retired two-star general and Pakistani defence strategist, went further, describing Munir as still carrying Washington’s own offer to Tehran.

“Pakistan is still carrying, in effect, Washington’s off-ramp to Tehran,” he told Al Jazeera. “The country remains the most trusted conduit available.”

Not every analyst sees Pakistan’s role as this central.

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, said Qatar, not Pakistan, remained the primary channel.

“Qatar is leading the political mediation and remains the essential communication bridge between Washington and Tehran,” he told Al Jazeera.

Munir’s contribution, he said, was narrower, a “military-to-military channel into an Iranian system in which the IRGC and wider security establishment have become increasingly important to decisions about war and peace”.

What Munir can deliver, and what he can’t

Iranian journalist Samir said Pakistan had a significant role in Iran’s calculus because of what it could do.

“Why should Iran listen to Pakistan? Because Pakistan still retains the leverage to actually do something and create a real opening for peace, rather than remaining silent and doing nothing,” he said.

Samir also predicted the Munir visit could be followed quickly by movement on Hormuz negotiations. “I think the timeline for a final agreement between Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is also drawing near,” he said. “If [Munir] succeeds in bringing Iran back to the table, I anticipate a new announcement from Oman and Iran on the strait shortly after.”

Krieg was more cautious about what Munir’s visit could deliver. The most meaningful outcome, he said, would be “confirmation that Iran’s security establishment would abide by a specific Hormuz deconfliction arrangement and restrain escalation through Yemen or Iraq if Qatar can secure reciprocal American movement”.

Without that, according to Krieg, “the communication bridge remains open, but the two sides continue moving towards another coercive cycle”.

Mehmood, the retired Pakistani general, was less equivocal.

“Pakistan is really the only exit card available to either side for their off-ramp,” he told Al Jazeera.

Fast-fashion giant Shein could see its stock market valuation reach almost $27bn (£19.8bn) when its makes its debut in Hong Kong on 1 September.

The long-awaited move comes after failed attempts to list in the US and London due to regulatory challenges amid scrutiny of the firm, which has its headquarters in Singapore but was founded in China.

Since it was founded in 2008, Shein has risen to become one of the world’s biggest fast-fashion retailers, with customers in more than 150 countries.

The e-commerce giant is known for selling ultra-cheap clothes, backed by a vast network of factories in China that are able to quickly manufacture new products based on the latest trends.

Shein said in a filing on Monday, external that it will offer nearly 280 million shares for between HK$47.60 ($6.07; £4.45) and HK$49.50 each.

At the top of the range, the share sale would raise $1.77bn (£1.3bn) for the company and give it a market valuation of $26.8bn.

But that is much lower than the $100bn it was worth in 2022, reflecting weaker sales growth and higher costs.

The initial public offering (IPO) is being backed by Wall Street investment giants Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan.

The company will make its highly anticipated debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange after efforts to go public since 2023.

Hong Kong has been revived as “one of the largest IPO markets” after attracting more firms from mainland China, said economics associate professor Feng Qu from the Nanyang Technological University.

Shein is likely to command a higher valuation in Hong Kong than it would in London, where regulatory scrutiny derailed its plans to sell shares there, Feng said.

Chinese companies may also be wary of selling shares in the US as tensions between the world’s two largest economies could result in firms being de-listed, he added.

BBC Breakfast viewers were left distracted from the headlines by a major new format change.

BBC Breakfast viewers noticed a major change moments into the programme.

BBC Breakfast returned on Monday, August 24, with Ben Thompson joining Sally Nugent as he stepped in for Jon Kay.

Headlines of the day focused on the Middlesbrough crash on Saturday that left seven people, including two police officers, dead, as well as the return of the Premier League, with a tribute to Kevin Keegan during Newcastle’s match against Liverpool.

However, viewers were left distracted by a BBC Breakfast format change, with the graphics on screen given a major revamp.

Instead of the red timebox and headlines running at the bottom of the screen, the studio background graphics are in blue, while the taglines at the bottom of the screen are now also in a red to blue gradient, and highlighting what is coming up in the show.

“Can’t the producers decide on ONE colour for graphics?” one person fumed. Another said: “These captions are annoying, get rid, if I want captions I will turn the subtitles on.”

“Why have they tried to make the graphics look like a mobile phone? They look ridiculous,” a third seethed. Another replied: “That’s what I thought. And I don’t like it.”

Someone else said: “I can’t concentrate on two things at once so I’m either trying to read that extremely small text or watching the news report.”

“Someone been at the crayons.. what’s with the colour scheme?” yet another said, as someone else wrote: “So weird.”

Another viewer said they “hated” the change, as one person added: “Might just as well watch ITV now they’ve put this s**t on the screen and dumb down completely.”

Someone else called it “really rubbish”, as another fumed: “Ffs – get rid of these annoying captions! They are very distracting & totally unnecessary!”

One added: “#bbcbreakfast have obviously misjudged the demographic of their early morning viewers with this new format.”

This comes after the BBC Breakfast team celebrated National Television Award nominations, during an edition of the show last week.

As two nominations include heartfelt documentaries from the BBC Breakfast team, Jon shared how “honoured” they were.

Meanwhile, BBC Breakfast’s rivals Good Morning Britain have been nominated in the Daytime category alongside James Martin’s Saturday Morning, Loose Women, Scam Interceptors and This Morning.

BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer.

Aug. 23 (UPI) — A fast-growing wildfire in Nevada has grown to 10,000 acres since it began burning just outside Reno on Saturday, officials said.

The Hawk Fire remained uncontained as of Sunday and forced 14,000 homes to be evacuated.

Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency in Washoe County, which contains Reno, and urged residents to stay vigilant and heed warnings.

“This is an active and rapidly evolving situation, and I urge everyone in the affected areas to remain vigilant and follow the direction of local officials,” he said in a statement on X.

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve said “structures have already been burned in this fire.”

“Evacuating before the fire arrives also allows our firefighters to focus their efforts on battling the blaze,” the mayor said in a statement on X.

Truckee Meadows Fire Chief Richard Edwards said the fire is being driven by strong winds, ABC News reported.

“The wind-driven fires move very rapidly into our residential areas, creating a lot of challenges for our firefighters to save homes and protect lives,” Edwards added.

Reno’s Northwest Specialty Hospital said it was evacuating patients due to the fire.

“The safety and well-being of our rehabilitation and behavioral health patients and staff remain the highest priority and we are evacuating out of an abundance of caution,” the hospital said in a statement.

“Patients have been safely transported to appropriate locations where their care will continue without interruption ” no patients or staff remain in the building.”

In 2013, Coronation Street aired a dramatic episode which saw some of the residents take part in a Full Monty-style striptease and now one former star has revealed the lengths some actors went to on set

One former Coronation Street actor has recalled the great lengths his co-stars went to to appear in a set of scenes inspired by The Full Monty.

In 2013, the world’s longest-running TV soap aired a dramatic episode which saw the famed Rovers Return Inn go up in flames, but, as it was all going on, some of the Weatherfield lads, including Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas) and Karl Munro (John Michie), had been approached to do a striptease as a fundraiser nearby at Nick’s Bistro.

Now, Tony Hirst, who played fireman Paul Kershaw, has recalled that some of his co-stars “stopped drinking water” and hit the gym in a bid to look as in shape as possible.

“I remember doing a Full Monty style scene on Coronation Street where we had to be naked,” he began.

“Some of the younger lads purposefully didn’t drink water for two days beforehand so they wouldn’t be bloated, and others were in the gym, trying to look as buff as possible,” he told The Sun.

Just before the striptease reached its finale, Norris Cole burst in to tell everyone that the pub was on fire.

At the time, the Rovers Return was owned by Stella Price, who was played by EastEnders star Michelle Collins, and Karl was her former partner whom she had thrown out after discovering he had had an affair with Sunita Alahan (Shoba Gulati). She then struck up a relationship with Jason, and tried to frame him by setting the pub ablaze in an attempt to win Stella back.

The blaze resulted in the deaths of Sunita as well as Paul’s colleague Toni Griffiths, and Karl was later sentenced to 25 years in prison for his crimes.

Meanwhile, actor Tony Hirst was first introduced to Coronation Street during the soap’s 50th anniversary in December 2010 and was on the scene when an an explosion destroyed the viaduct and caused a tram to come crashing down onto the backstreet.

Almost a year later, he returned to help Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver) when she got her head stuck in some railings at Underworld factory and quickly became a love interest for him.

It soon transpired that he was actually married to a woman named Lesley (Judy Holt), but she had Alzheimer’s and despite Eileen’s best efforts to look after her, she electrocuted herself when she put a toaster under a running tap.

Following Lesley’s death, Paul and Eileen continued their relationship for more than a year but they called it quits in August 2013 and he departed Weatherfield for good.

Prior to his stint on Coronation Street, Tony played Mike Barnes on Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. Over the course of his career, he has appeared in Casualty, Holby City and Brassic.

Last year, he played the recurring role of Jerry in Riot Women and also narrates a host of programmes such as How It’s Made and Benefits Street. The soap star recently confirmed that he is now filming new episodes of mystery crime drama Patience for Channel 4.

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Aug. 23 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday rejected calls for wartime elections, saying the move would “destroy the country.”

Under martial law, elections have been suspended since Russia invaded the country in 2022.

Last week, ousted Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called on the president, whose five-year term ended in 2024, to allow Ukrainians to vote again.

Responding to Fedorov for the first time, Zelenky said such a move would split the country.

“I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then during such a war we can move in the selection of elections,” Zelensky told reporters on Saturday.

“I believe that during such a war, elections in general are big risks,” the president added. “Elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine.”

Zelensky said he would consider fresh elections under “specific conditions,” the Guardian reported.

Those conditions include the “participation of the military, in frontline territories, abroad, where millions of our citizens have gone, fleeing the war,” the president said.

Fedorov’s removal as defense minister in July sparked protests across Ukraine. On Tuesday, he said democracy was not a “peacetime luxury.”

“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” Fedorov said. “We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state.

“Therefore, we must find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amidst a prolonged war.”

Responding to Zelensky’s comments on Sunday, Fedorov told the BBC, “Democracy should not be the hostage of Putin.”

Zelensky last discussed open elections in December, after U.S. President Donald Trump accused him of using the war as an excuse to stay in power.

Back then, the Ukrainian president said he would hold elections so long as he could secure help from the United States and other allies to keep citizens safe when they go out to vote.

Traitors star Freddie Fraser, who found fame when he took part in the third series of the BBC hit, has been supported by fans after coming out and revealing his new relationship

Traitors star Freddie Fraser has been supported by fans after coming out and announcing his relationship. The reality star, 22, found fame when he competed on the third series of Claudia Winkleman’s BBC hit, which aired in early 2025 and was eventually won by Jake Brown Leanne Quigley.

Over the weekend, former politics student Freddie took to social media to announce that he is in a relationship with model Bailey Ramsden, and posted a black-and-white photo strip of them both.

He simply captioned the post with a heart, but several of the TV star’s followers were quick to congratulate him over the happy news. One said: “LOVEEEEE!!!! SO CUTE,” and another wrote: “Gorgeous, so happy for you.”

A third wrote: “this is the best news xx” Amanda Lovett, who appeared on the first series of The Traitors, said: “Aww I’m so happy for you,” whilst former X Factor star Jack Remmington simply left a string of heart-faced emojis.

Freddie, who before finding television fame was a top-ranked sprint hurdle athlete in the years before he signed up for The Traitors, was a Faithful on the BBC show before being recruited as a Traitor by Charlotte Berman in episode 10.

But in a shock twist, he was banished from the castle following a slip up involving Minah Shannon less than a day later, and hastily exited the castle.

When he was banished – and had to reveal he was a Traitor – he told the group it had been “the honour of my life” to take part in the TV series.

Since then, he has carved out a successful career as an influencer, with a combined following count of almost 250,000 across various social media platforms.

His new relationship comes more than a year after it was reported that he had split from Nisha Davenport, whom he had met at university, and it was claimed that his new career had made it tricky to keep things going.

A source told The Sun: “Freddie quietly split from Nisha earlier this year, shortly after a loved-up trip to Budapest. She’d been by his side throughout his Traitors fame but Freddie soon found himself living a showbiz lifestyle that he’d always dreamed of.

“They were also both incredibly aware that after university it would be more difficult than ever to keep the romance going strong. The split was very amicable and there was no drama on either side”.

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Case fatality rate climbs to nearly 48 percent in the DRC, meaning almost one in two people infected with Ebola are dying.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reached  5,515 confirmed cases of infection and killed 2,642 people, with 51 new cases detected in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, according to the latest government figures.

The update on Sunday came as Pope Leo called for ⁠international action to help contain the epidemic, which is now the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the DRC’s history.

Declared in mid-May, it is the DRC’s 17th Ebola epidemic and was designated a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), its highest alert level, also covering neighbouring Uganda.

The outbreak is now on track to surpass the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record, which was the 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people.

According to government figures, the case fatality rate in the DRC has climbed from about 20 percent in early June to nearly 48 percent now, meaning almost one in two people infected are dying.

Contact tracing, however, has improved sharply, from 30 percent in June to more than 85 percent.

The disease has also proved deadly for those fighting it. About 160 health workers have been infected, and about 45 have died, according to the WHO.

Efforts to contain the outbreak, however, have been hampered by armed conflict in the affected provinces, displacement, attacks on medical personnel and facilities, a mobile working population and a lack of critical infrastructure.

Vaccines arrive in DRC

There is no approved vaccine or treatment for this particular strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo, which is rarer than the virus type behind most past outbreaks.

The WHO has pledged 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which is licensed for Ebola and has been effective in past outbreaks. According to the global body, early data from animal trials suggest it may offer some protection against Bundibugyo.

Some 16,250 doses of the vaccine arrived in the DRC on Friday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other officials said the response in the DRC needs to be scaled up two to threefold to contain the outbreak and reach every affected area.

They also called for more support and protection for front-line health workers, including protective equipment, timely payment, and access to rapid diagnosis and high-quality supportive care if they fall ill.

Abdulsalami Nasidi, a public health consultant who helped establish the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Al Jazeera that the outbreak was “getting out of hand”.

He blamed weak infection control measures and a lack of trust between authorities and affected communities for the continued transmission.

“This is no longer just a national or regional issue; it is a global issue. If it spreads to neighbouring places with lower immunity, it will be a disaster,” Nasidi added.

The WHO currently rates the risk to the global public as low, but warns that the danger inside the DRC remains very high.

Despite the surging cases, Uganda and several health zones in DRC’s Ituri and South Kivu have interrupted transmission, which the WHO said is evidence that rapid detection, decisive leadership, and community cooperation can break the chain of transmission.

At the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Leo offered prayers for the DRC, “in light of the spread of the Ebola epidemic, which is sadly ⁠claiming many lives”.

The pontiff also called for global action to help save lives.

“I urge the international community to ⁠respond in a way that also involves local communities ⁠in prevention efforts to save ⁠as many lives as possible,” he said.

It was a television show tailor-made for Los Angeles: a highly anticipated Netflix crime drama about a team of ex-special forces operators who outsource their skills to criminals in the city.

The production was backed by a prominent indie studio and had a critically acclaimed lead actor attached. And with a budget of more than $100 million and a crew of 350, the series seemed like a shoo-in for California’s film tax and TV credit.

But last month, shortly before filming was set to begin, producers were stunned to learn the film didn’t make the cut based on a formula the state uses to rank projects by the number of jobs they produce and their spending levels. After two applications for a tax credit had been rejected, they opted to shoot the series in New Jersey, where it was much easier to qualify for film incentives.

“We were shocked,” said a producer on the project who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. “This is the birthplace of entertainment. It shouldn’t be so hard to shoot here.”

Despite improvements to the state’s tax incentive program, Los Angeles and California continue to struggle to keep movies, television series and even game shows from fleeing elsewhere. Production levels have failed to bounce back since the pandemic and the labor strikes by writers and actors, and they remain at historic lows.

Film activity in the L.A. region plummeted in the second quarter of this year, with shoot days for feature films and TV productions falling 20% and 30%, respectively, compared with already anemic levels from a year ago, according to FilmLA.

The fallout has been devastating for local film crews and businesses. L.A.’s signature industry has shed some 57,000 jobs in the past four years, while more than 80 film and television production services businesses have closed since 2022. The production crisis has even become a political flashpoint alongside affordability, crime and homelessness in the race for mayor and governor.

The story of how L.A. steadily lost much of its homegrown industry to other locales is a tale of hubris, escalating costs, political inaction and fierce competition from states and countries hungry for a piece of the Hollywood pie. California eventually adopted a very limited film tax credit plan in 2009, but even then production had already gone elsewhere.

Filmmaker Jonathan Nolan, on the set of “Fallout,” has been at the forefront of efforts to keep Hollywood at the center of the entertainment industry.

(Lorenzo Sisti / Prime Video)

This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen producers, studio executives, lawmakers and film industry veterans.

Despite warning signs that runaway production was causing an exodus of talent and jobs, many took for granted that L.A. would remain the epicenter of film and television.

Film activity in Los Angeles has plummeted to historic lows, with devastating consequences for crews and vendors. This series examines how L.A. lost its dominant perch as a film and TV destination and what can be done to bring Hollywood back home.

“I’ve been around long enough … to realize that things kind of die slowly and then they die quickly,” said Jonathan Nolan, a writer, director and producer, whose credits include the HBO series “Westworld” and “Fallout” on Amazon.

Nolan, who championed efforts to get the state to expand its tax incentives, lamented that L.A. once “stood in for everywhere. Now L.A. doesn’t even stand in for itself.”

‘The X-Files’ and the birth of Hollywood North

Like the fall of Rome and the decline of Detroit, Hollywood’s spiral did not happen in a single day, but rather unfolded over decades.

Before World War II, Los Angeles’ production hegemony was uncontested. An abundance of sunny weather and a range of landscapes, along with highly skilled artisans, from set designers to scenic painters, re-created the entire world on Hollywood soundstages and backlots.

That began to change during the late 1940s and early 1950s when studios broke with tradition and filmed abroad, attracted by Europe’s cheap labor and the desire among directors for more realism in movies.

William Wyler’s 1953 classic “Roman Holiday,” starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, was one of the first, shot entirely overseas on the streets of the Italian capital and at Cinecittà studios.

Still, as productions went on location, often for creative reasons, Hollywood remained the center of entertainment gravity.

“Roman Holiday,” starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, was one of the first big American studio films to be shot entirely overseas.

(Paramount Pictures)

In 1993, when there were four broadcast networks, cable TV relied on set-top boxes and streamers were, well, party decorations, a relatively unknown television writer named Chris Carter began pre-production on a new supernatural drama series that he had created.

For the pilot’s opening scenes, he needed a forest, one that was dark and moody. There, a terrified teenage girl would be filmed fleeing before she was consumed by a blinding flash of light and then found dead, bearing unexplained marks on her body.

“It became clear that not only were there not great forests in the ‘zone,’” said Carter, referring to the 30-mile-zone (TMZ) around L.A. that producers try to shoot within to avoid mandatory union surcharges. “But there were better forests in Vancouver.”

As it happened, during the 14-day shoot, Carter, who was working with a tight budget, discovered that Vancouver supplied numerous benefits.

The grim weather naturally provided a spooky atmospheric backdrop while the city “beautifully doubled for almost any place in the U.S. without having to pretend too much,” he said.

Carter’s pilot became “The X-Files,” the wildly popular and groundbreaking 1990s TV series that ran for nine seasons (plus two revival seasons), redefined the science fiction genre and spawned two feature films.

The success of “The X-Files” propelled Vancouver’s reputation as “Hollywood North.”

(Associated Press)

“As David Duchovny said, ‘two weeks became five years,’” quipped Carter.

While other productions such as “Wiseguy” had filmed in British Columbia years earlier, “The X-Files” unintentionally cemented Vancouver’s reputation as “Hollywood North,” fueled by Canada’s favorable exchange rates, skilled crews, lower labor costs and, eventually, tax credits.

The show’s colossal success helped create the model still in play 33 years later for outsourcing movie and television production to regions where tax incentives are higher and production costs are lower.

“It was simply a choice I made for the location, not for the financial benefit,” said Carter. “It wasn’t part of my calculus, but it ended up being a fact of life.”

Throughout the 1990s a steady stream of TV shows and movies shot in Canada. The 1994 adaptation of “Little Women” starring Winona Ryder was largely filmed in Vancouver, with a stand-in for Orchard House, Louisa May Alcott’s home in Concord, Mass., built in a local forest.

But, at the time, few saw what was happening as an existential crisis in the making.

For one thing, L.A. was in the midst of a production boom, prompting the development of the $77-million Manhattan Beach Studios, a 22-acre production facility in 1996. (The studio is now fielding offers by its bank lenders after its owner, the real estate investment firm Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on over $2 billion in mortgages on several studio facilities it had acquired in recent years.)

Losing the ‘golden goose’

Canada’s booming film business inspired other U.S. states to get in on the action. Louisiana became the first to pass a film tax incentive, enhancing it in 2002; New Mexico and Georgia followed with their own programs.

Helping to fuel the film tax credit frenzy was none other than the Motion Picture Assn. The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group for the major film studios and streamers for years aggressively lobbied lawmakers and even governors in other states to adopt their own film programs.

Eventually, nearly 40 states and some 80 countries and territories were offering film incentives in the form of transferable tax credits, grants or rebates.

“Everybody thought, ‘We are Hollywood. Why do we have to do anything?,’” said Lori Balton, a top location manager, whose list of credits spans nearly 40 years and includes such films as “Heat” and “Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood.”

“They always thought that they had the golden goose. And it was going to keep laying eggs and instead, it packed up its bags and moved.”

Earlier this year, while speaking at Burbank City Hall chambers, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) dropped some sobering data: 45% of all U.S. films and scripted television shows were shot abroad in 2025, up from 33% in 2022.

Like most filmmakers, Miles Millar would prefer to work in Los Angeles, where he lives, but he hasn’t done so for 25 years, since he was a co-producer and writer on the CBS action series “Martial Law.”

“It is not financially viable to shoot the kinds of shows we do here,” said Millar, whose work includes “Smallville” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

It was too expensive to film in Los Angeles, so the Netflix hit “Wednesday” shot its first season in Romania before relocating the show to Ireland.

(Netflix)

When Millar and his “Wednesday” co-creator and co-showrunner Alfred Gough began pre-production on the first season of the Netflix hit series about five years ago, L.A. as a location wasn’t even discussed.

They settled on Romania. Tim Burton, “Wednesday’s” executive producer and primary director, “loved the idea,” said Millar, noting that the director was predisposed to its gloomy and gothic wonders, having once visited Dracula’s castle in a Transylvanian mountain village with rocker Alice Cooper.

“We built the whole town of Jericho and six standing sets at a huge scale. There was no way you could even begin to construct the level and scale of sets that we did, in L.A.,” he said. “We’re talking about the difference of tens of millions of dollars.”

Still, the former Eastern Bloc country had its challenges. The crew didn’t speak English and its promised tax rebates never materialized.

When “Wednesday” was picked up for a second season (it is now filming its third), the show moved to Ireland, where it received more than $23 million in tax credits last year, according to the country’s Tax and Customs office.

“The last thing I want to do is shoot thousands of miles away from my family for nine months, year after year,” Millar said. But it has come down to “where do we get the most bang for the buck?”

Outsourcing scores and VFX

Other critical components of filmmaking, including visual effects and musical scoring, have also been outsourced over several years.

L.A. was once home to 18 film scoring stages that could accommodate full symphony orchestras. Today only three remain, driven away partly by high labor costs and cheaper overseas competition.

Similarly, many visual effects studios have moved elsewhere. Vancouver alone has dozens of visual effects studios, including Sony Pictures Imageworks and a major branch of Industrial Light & Magic.

“We’ve allowed that piece of the market to leave,” said Marielle Abaunza, president of the California Post Alliance, an advocacy group backing a state bill offering post-production firms their own tax breaks, similar to what New York offers.

“For 16 years, places like New York have slowly been building up their talent, their facilities, their relationships with filmmakers and their relationships with studios,” Abaunza said.

Even as other states and foreign governments invested in their own film industries and began luring away productions from California, lawmakers in Sacramento were initially skeptical of giving tax breaks to producers. Some critics saw them as little more than a handout that diverted resources from more pressing needs such as healthcare and education.

“If you’re on the outside looking in, there is this false sense that everyone who works in Hollywood has to be rich whether you’re crew or not,” said Amy Baer, a producer and former Sony executive who now runs Artists Equity, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s production company.

As production losses mounted in L.A., a coalition of labor and industry groups lobbied then governor and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to take action.

Schwarzenegger, a longtime champion of tax credits, was able to get a program passed as part of an economic stimulus provision of the state’s 2009 budget. It was dubbed “The Ugly Betty” bill, named after the ABC show that had relocated from L.A. to New York.

Though hailed as a significant step, the new film sweeteners had some key limitations. The pool of money was small — capped at $100 million annually over five years. And it couldn’t be applied to offset the cost of actors’ salaries, a key driver of budgets.

In reality, the program was too small and restrictive to compete with a growing crop of rivals that had larger tax breaks and fewer restrictions.

Chief among them was the United Kingdom, which soon began to attract a number of big-budget movies thanks to a hugely popular 25% cash rebate on production expenses, including money spent on actors’ salaries and other above-the-line costs.

In a paradigm-shifting move, Warner Bros. purchased Leavesden Studios outside of London in 2010, investing more than $160 million into the facility. Much of the blockbusters “Wonder Woman” and “Barbie” were filmed there.

Although the California program was tripled to $330 million annually starting in 2014, it did little to halt the continued exodus of film work. Marvel Studios began moving its production operations to Georgia, enticed by the state’s uncapped tax credits that could be used for actors’ salaries. Both “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War” were filmed largely at Trilith Studios in Fayetteville, Ga. Another historic town east of Atlanta attracted so many movies and TV shows it became known as “Hollywood of the South.” (Last year, Marvel shifted most of its operations to the U.K. in search of even bigger cost savings.)

Marvel Studios, which filmed blockbusters such as “Black Panther” in Georgia, has since shifted operations to the U.K.

(Film Frame / Marvel Studios)

While numerous studio facilities lay empty here, streamers and studios have built major production hubs outside of L.A. Though it still shoots dozens of productions in L.A., Netflix has spent billions to operate production hubs abroad while constructing massive facilities in places like New Jersey and New Mexico.

“Everyone kept saying, if we have more tax credits, then at least we’ll be able to bring production back,” said Monica Levinson, a veteran producer who has worked on FX’s “Love Story” and the movie “Zoolander.” “Well, that didn’t happen. And the crews got better and better out of the country.”

Rising costs

As the rest of the world courted Hollywood, L.A. did little to help itself.

Despite recent improvements to streamline and reduce costs, the city’s film approval system remains a maze of multi-layered permitting, fees and complex logistics, location managers say. The Greater L.A. area has more than 100 jurisdictions, many of which have their own rules, regulations and permitting fees for filming.

Filming in L.A. also has become more expensive compared with other film hubs due in part to higher labor costs and mandatory staffing requirements, such as paid on-set fire safety monitors, and traffic and parking controls.

What’s more, unlike New York, the city doesn’t have its own film commissioner who could advocate for the industry.

An L.A. commissioner would be “somebody that is beating the drum 365 days a year that is not aligned with a special interest other than creating more production in California, which makes our state and our people prosperous,” said Scott Budnick, a producer on the wildly successful “The Hangover” franchise who lobbied for the state’s enhanced film tax credits.

For a time, the loss of market share was masked by a surge in local TV shoots as studios spent heavily to supply content to their new streaming platforms.

But the pandemic and back-to-back strikes by actors and writers roiled the industry. Studios laid off thousands, cut back on films slates and slashed TV spending and it never rebounded. Film incentives became even more critical for those deciding where to shoot.

By the time Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan in October 2024 to more than double funding for the film and TV tax credit program, to $750 million annually (closer to New York’s annual allocation of $800 million, although it retained annual caps and doesn’t count actors’ salaries), the industry outlook was bleak.

“I think there was a tipping point between COVID and the strikes that shone a very bright light on the fact that the majority of production had fled the state,” said Baer, the producer.

There are a few bright spots, however.

The critically acclaimed HBO hit medical drama “The Pitt” is filmed almost entirely on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, and has injected tens of millions into the local economy while sustaining nearly 1,000 jobs. Two other Emmy-award winning series, Apple TV’s “The Studio” and HBO’s “Hacks,” which just ended, also shot locally.

At Jonathan Nolan‘s urging, Amazon agreed to relocate his post-apocalyptic series “Fallout” to Los Angeles in 2024 after filming its first season in New York, Utah and Namibia. The show received $67 million in California tax credits for its second and third seasons.

Walton Goggins plays the dual role of Cooper Howard and The Ghoul in Amazon’s post-apocalyptic series “Fallout.”

(Courtesy of Prime Video)

“We want to keep shooting here,” Nolan said. “I don’t want to pack my kids off to the back end of beyond just for the privilege of being able to continue doing what I’m doing.”

To build support for the expanded credits, Nolan last year allowed state lawmakers to visit the sets of “Fallout,” including at the Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita.

“I think they were struck by just how big an endeavor this is,” said Nolan, whose brother Christopher is director of “The Odyssey,” (The epic film was shot across Greece, Sicily and several other countries.) “These are hundreds or thousands of jobs on one production alone, hundreds of millions of dollars being put in the local economy.”

Nolan and others in the industry admit the California program is imperfect.

Mayor Karen Bass, who backed the tax credit program in 2009 when she was speaker of the California Assembly, has touted the success of the expanded incentives, saying they’ve created “thousands of good-paying union jobs … right here in Los Angeles, bringing direct investment to our community.”

Since the expanded program went into effect last July, 179 projects have generated $7.2 billion in direct production spending, bringing nearly 38,000 cast and crew jobs to the state, according to the California Film Commission.

“We remain committed to supporting the entertainment industry here and feel optimistic and energized by the response from the community to the program’s modernization and enhancements,” Colleen Bell, the commission’s executive director, said in a statement.

Bass, who is up for reelection, said she would redouble efforts to remove tax credit caps and further reduce film permitting fees “because this industry is core to the history, culture and economic power of Los Angeles.”

The question, however, is whether L.A. is still core to the film industry.

Earlier this year, writer and director Ryan Coogler, who won an Oscar for his “Sinners” screenplay, began filming the pilot for a reboot of “The X-Files.”

During the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Coogler called the drama “one of the most beautiful American television shows ever made” and assured fans that while he planned to put his own stamp on the seminal series, his version would pay homage to the original.

“We intend on having both monsters of the week and also the overarching conspiracy,” he said.

And like the original series, it was shot in Vancouver.

Naivasha, Kenya – For communities living around Naivasha, water is not an abstract resource. It sustains families, livestock, farms and schools.

That reality has taken on new significance after plans for a major Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria, near Lake Naivasha, stalled in May 2026 over concerns about available power capacity.

Microsoft and United Arab Emirates-based artificial intelligence company G42 announced the project in 2024 as part of a $1bn digital investment package for Kenya. The proposed facility was to run on geothermal energy and eventually scale to as much as 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The uncertainty has also prompted questions about what another major industrial user could mean for water in a region where residents already report shortages.

Microsoft and G42 said the proposed data centre campus would run entirely on renewable geothermal energy and incorporate water conservation technology. The companies did not disclose a project-specific water consumption figure in their 2024 announcement.

Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) communications director Frank David Ochieng told Al Jazeera that the data centre remains at the design stage and that he could not comment further until the project is ready to proceed.

For residents like Musa Olorkedienye, who spoke to Al Jazeera, water scarcity is already a daily concern. He says communities around Olkaria have seen changes in access to water, including the loss of reliable piped supplies that residents previously received from KenGen.

“Currently, we are relying on water vendors to get water, our animals are walking for kilometres, and we fear things could get worse as demand for water rises,” Olorkedienye says.

Pastoralist Isaac Leshishi, who also spoke to Al Jazeera, says increasingly harsh weather is adding to the pressure.

Why Olkaria?

The choice of Olkaria was closely tied to energy. The area is home to Kenya’s major geothermal operations, making it an attractive location for a power-intensive facility.

KenGen operates the Olkaria geothermal complex, while Microsoft and G42 planned to power the proposed data centre entirely with geothermal energy.

A lake under pressure

Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya’s Rift Valley whose catchment supports agriculture, tourism, livestock and domestic water use. Its basin also hosts geothermal development and other economic activity.

Grace Kimani, a patrol leader with Lake Naivasha and Oloiden, told Al Jazeera that the reservoir is under growing pressure from population growth, agriculture, water abstraction, climate variability, pollution and ecosystem degradation.

“The planned Microsoft-G42 data centre in Olkaria could bring jobs and investment, but its water demand raises concerns about adding pressure to already competing needs, particularly during dry periods,” she said.

Kimani said there is limited public information about the project’s expected water demand, source and cooling technology. She said transparency and an assessment of its cumulative impact on water resources would be important.

She also called for water-efficient or water-free cooling, water recycling and the use of treated wastewater, as well as sustainable abstraction limits and community involvement in monitoring.

Silas Wanjala of the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the region is heavily dependent on groundwater and that declining water flows are adding to the pressure.

“These industries, especially EcoCloud, which deal with data, will consume a lot of water at a time when rivers are drying, and demand for water is on the rise,” Wanjala said.

Olkaria EcoCloud Data Centre is a local partner in the G42-led development. In 2024, the Kenya News Agency reported that G42, Microsoft and EcoCloud signed a letter of intent for the wider data-centre initiative, with EcoCloud described as a local partner that had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with G42.

Wanjala points to past fluctuations in Lake Naivasha as a warning.

“This lake in 2010 nearly dried up due to over-abstraction, and this could be repeated due to high demand for water by these investors in Olkaria,” he says.

His concern comes against a wider backdrop of water scarcity in Kenya. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations says Kenya has about 527 cubic metres (527,000 litres) of freshwater available per person, below the 1,000-cubic-metre threshold for water scarcity, and estimates availability could fall to about 475 cubic metres per person by 2030.

The figures do not show what effect the proposed data centre would have on Lake Naivasha. They provide context, however, for why the prospect of another major water user is drawing scrutiny in a region where demand is already high.

How much water would it use?

The amount of water the proposed Microsoft-G42 facility itself would require remains unclear.

The project announcement provides no projected consumption figure.

Existing industrial use offers some context.

A KenGen environmental and social impact assessment records that 195,165 cubic metres of water were abstracted from Lake Naivasha in July 2023 for domestic and commercial uses at Olkaria and for operations and domestic use at Eburru.

Of that total, 153,918 cubic metres were used for commercial operations at Olkaria. The assessment records the abstraction as within Water Resources Authority (WRA) permitted levels.

Those figures relate to existing KenGen operations, not the proposed data centre.

For farmer Eskimos Kobia, who spoke to Al Jazeera, the potential competition extends beyond households and livestock. He says farmers, pastoralists, schools and investors will all face greater pressure as demand increases.

Kimani said climate variability has also led to fluctuations in lake levels, with periods of flooding followed by prolonged dry conditions.

“Water quality is affected by agricultural run-off, untreated wastewater in some areas and invasive species,” she says.

Investment versus local concerns

Not everyone in Naivasha opposes the investment.

Absolom Mukhuusi of the Naivasha Professional Association, who spoke to Al Jazeera, says the technology sector could bring jobs, infrastructure and new businesses to the area. But he says economic benefits should not come at the expense of local communities.

“Even as we welcome the investors, our biggest fear is what happens to our water bodies and communities as water is diverted to Olkaria for the heavy users,” he says.

Could technology help?

Geologist Kenyatta Otieno, who spoke to Al Jazeera, sees another potential benefit.

He recalls the pressure large flower farms once placed on the lake’s ecosystem, saying many have since left or scaled back their operations.

Otieno says the proposed centre would have included a resource centre to monitor lake levels and weather patterns. Such monitoring, he says, could help identify the highest water level over time and guide riparian land zoning.

“The centre being built with water conservation in mind would be futuristic as Naivasha is generally a water-scarce area. It would be a model for future development,” Otieno said.

Kenya already has regulators responsible for managing competing demands. The WRA regulates water abstraction and issues water-use permits, while the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) oversees environmental impact assessments under the country’s environmental regulatory framework.

Attempts by Al Jazeera to obtain comments from WRA and NEMA officials were unsuccessful. Efforts to reach Microsoft-G42 officials and Kenyan government officials for comment on the project’s status and water requirements were also unsuccessful.

For now, the project’s eventual scale, design and water requirements remain unclear, according to KenGen.

“We are now competing with the multibillion [-dollar] companies for water, and we fear that we shall be the losers in the long run,” Leshishi said.

In early August, a Pentagon official stood in front of reporters and conceded something the department almost never says out loud: the world’s best-funded military cannot out-produce a country under invasion. Travis Metz, deputy director of the Defense Innovation Unit, put a number on it. Ukraine will manufacture six to seven million small first-person-view attack drones this year — roughly 500,000 a month, built in garages, repurposed furniture factories and basements within range of Russian glide bombs. The Pentagon’s own flagship drone program, a $1.1 billion initiative branded Drone Dominance, will have ordered fewer than 200,000 drones, cumulatively, by February 2027. Metz’s response was not defensive. It was aspirational: “I see no reason why we shouldn’t… be the world champions of this as well.” The gap he was describing is not a technology gap. It is a speed gap, and speed is the one metric wartime industry cannot fake.

The instinct is to read this as a story about Ukrainian ingenuity, and it is one. But it is also the epilogue to a specific American failure. In 2023 the Pentagon launched Replicator, a program to field “multiple thousands” of autonomous systems within 24 months to counter China. By its August 2025 deadline it had delivered “hundreds,” not thousands, after burning through roughly $1 billion — undone by drones that were unfinished at selection, software that could not command large numbers of different systems at once, and a Switchblade loitering munition priced above $100,000 a unit. Washington’s answer was not to slow down and fix the model; it was to bring in the Department of Government Efficiency to override procurement rules and reclassify small drones as disposable supplies rather than regulated weapons systems. Meanwhile, Russia’s own Shahed and decoy drone output is reportedly climbing toward several hundred, and by some Ukrainian estimates up to a thousand, units a day. The war that forced Ukraine to mass-produce cheap drones is the same war exposing how slowly America still moves.

Why the gap isn’t about money

Start with unit economics, because they explain most of the gap. A Ukrainian FPV drone can be built for as little as $300 to $500 — an airframe, a camera, a battery and a warhead, assembled by hand and flown once. The Pentagon’s comparable systems have historically cost orders of magnitude more, not because the components are better but because they were designed inside an acquisition culture built for exquisite, low-volume platforms like fighter jets, where every part is sourced, tested and certified over years. Layer onto that a July 2026 rule requiring a “wholly domestic” supply chain — no Chinese-made motors, no Chinese battery packs — and the honest tension becomes visible: the policy meant to make American drone production more secure is, in the near term, also what makes it slower and more expensive to scale. Metz’s own explanation was blunt: it is “much harder to get from zero to 200,000” than to expand an existing line. Ukraine skipped that problem by never centralizing production in the first place — thousands of small, dispersed workshops that are individually replaceable and collectively enormous.

The deeper obstacle is not money but structure. Replicator had no dedicated budget line, was bounced between the Defense Innovation Unit and a newly created Defense Autonomous Warfare Group under Special Operations Command, and repeatedly selected systems that existed as concepts rather than finished products, in a rush to hit an artificial 24-month deadline. Congress, by its own research service’s account, has struggled to get basic cost and capability data out of the program. This is what forced DOGE’s intervention: not a shortage of appropriated dollars, but a procurement system engineered for careful, low-volume exquisiteness trying to behave like a wartime factory floor, and failing at both.

The strongest objection to treating this as a straightforward American failure is that the comparison is not apples to apples. Ukraine’s FPVs are disposable, short-range and built for a static front line; American planners are chasing autonomy, jamming resistance and long-range swarm coordination for a Pacific theatre defined by vast distances rather than trench lines, and that ambition costs more and takes longer to get right. That is a fair distinction — but it does not rescue the record. Years and a billion dollars into that more ambitious bet, the Pentagon still lacks software able to command mixed fleets of different drones, while Ukrainian manufacturers are already fielding AI-assisted terminal guidance on sub-$500 airframes, refined through thousands of real combat sorties a month. The ambition gap did not produce a capability lead. It produced the same failure as the cost gap: exquisite requirements colliding with a timeline the requirements were never built to meet.

Which is why the Pentagon’s actual fix looks nothing like a bigger budget. Six Ukrainian manufacturers, including F-Drones and General Cherry, are now required to form joint ventures with American companies — near Toledo, Ohio, and in New Hampshire — as a condition of future Pentagon orders. Washington is not just buying drones. It is importing the production model, and with it the tacit admission that the expertise now runs the other way.

Three ways this goes

What happens next depends on whether the joint-venture model actually transplants Ukraine’s manufacturing tempo onto US soil, or just its branding.

Base case (roughly 50 percent probability). The Ohio and New Hampshire joint ventures scale gradually. By 2027–28, US-based output climbs into the low hundreds of thousands annually — a real improvement, but still an order of magnitude below Ukraine’s current pace, held back by the domestic-sourcing rule’s cost premium. The program becomes a credible proof of concept for a future Indo-Pacific contingency rather than a fix for any current shortfall, and “Drone Dominance” quietly redefines success downward to match what it can actually deliver.

Downside case. The DOGE-driven bypass of standard testing repeats Replicator’s failure mode at greater scale: units purchased without adequate vetting turn out unreliable in the field, a GAO or inspector-general report documents it, and Congress reimposes the very procurement safeguards that were just stripped away. Combined with a Chinese-component ban that keeps unit costs well above Ukrainian levels, US output stalls again, and the gap that Metz conceded in August widens rather than closes by the time it next matters.

Upside case. The joint-venture model works as intended — not just as a purchasing arrangement but as a transplant of Ukrainian manufacturing culture, its dispersed micro-factories, rapid iteration and tolerance for combat-tested imperfection, into the American industrial base. That model, proven on drones, becomes the template for how Washington arms the next partner already fighting a war, whether Taiwan or a Baltic state: not a slow pipeline of finished stockpiles shipped from the continental United States, but manufacturing capability transplanted onto the partner’s own soil, and now, in this instance, onto America’s.

The takeaway

So: what does the mismatch reveal? Not that Ukraine builds better drones — the Pentagon never disputed that its own designs, on paper, are more capable. It reveals that capability on paper is not the same as capability in time, and that the American defense-industrial base, even backed by an executive order, a billion-dollar program and a DOGE override of its own rules, still cannot mobilize at wartime tempo on its own. The fix Washington has actually reached for is not more money. It is outsourcing the missing ingredient — speed — to the one partner that has been forced to master it under fire. That is the real admission, and it may be the more durable one: the next time the United States arms a country fighting a live war, it may look less like supplying an ally and more like apprenticing to one.

Watch for: whether the Ohio and New Hampshire joint-venture lines are shipping US-assembled drones at anything close to Ukrainian unit costs by the next Gauntlet test cycle at Fort Carson. If the “wholly domestic” sourcing rule keeps American-made units several multiples more expensive than their Ukrainian counterparts, the joint ventures will have transferred the branding of Ukraine’s drone war without transferring its speed.

Jane Hazlegrove, who is best known for playing Bernie Winter on Coronation Street, has launched a rant at a fellow actor and her co-stars have all clamoured to know who she was talking about

Jane Hazlegrove has issued a warning to fellow TV stars about their behaviour on set. The actress, 58, who currently plays Bernie Winter on ITV soap Coronation Street and previously starred as Kathleen ‘Dixie’ Dixon on Casualty, took to Instagram over the weekend to make a statement about professionalism within the industry.

She shared an image of a quote which read: “Booking the role isn’t the end of the interview. How you behave after you’re hired matters too.”

In the caption of her post: “This post makes total sense! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? As my Dad used to say, you are only as good as your last performance! Be nice! And if you can’t be nice… step away… cos people see!”

The actress, who joined the soap in the role of Bernie in 2019 but also appeared in the mid-1980s Sue Clayton and was involved in a storyline with Jack and Vera Duckworth, was inundated with comments from co-stars.

Jack P Shepherd, who plays David Platt in the soap and has appeared on the show since 2000, said: “This isn’t me is it?”

Sally Carman, who plays Abi Webster, quickly joined in as she replied with a string of laughing emojis, but Jane said: “Soz pal you don’t win this one!!! No it’s bloody not!!!” Sue Devaney, who plays Debbie Webster on Coronation Street, left a string of heart emojis.

Loose Women star Sunetra Sarker, who appeared alongside Jane on Casualty when she played Dr Hannah, said: “Never a truer word said ma’am.”

Emmerdale legend Lisa Riley, who first appeared as Mandy Dingle more than 30 years ago and went on to appear in Waterloo Road and compete on Strictly Come Dancing before making a comeback in 2019, left a string of clapping hands emojis in the comments section of the post. Michelle Hardwick, who plays Vanessa Woodfield on Emmerdale, said: “Oh I LOVE this”

But Jane, who has also appeared in other programmes like Heartbeat, Silent Witness and Holby City over the years, quickly pinned a comment to the top of her Instagram post, so she could clear up any confusion.

She said: “Just for clarification this post is NOT about anyone I am currently working with at Coronation Street. It’s a gentle reminder to be kind and professional at all times!”

When Bernie arrived on Coronation Street, she was introduced as the estranged mother of Gemma Winter (Dolly-Rose Campbell) and Paul Foreman (Peter Ash), who was later diagnosed with motor neurone disease and died in late 2024.

Bernie went on to enter into a relationship with local shopkeeper Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin) and it was later established that she was the long-lost mother of DC Kit Green (Jacob Roberts), who later turned out to be the long-lost father of Brody Michaelis (Ryan Mulvey).

Bernie, who currently works in Roy’s Rolls, went on to marry Dev towards the end of last year but was dealt with further tragedy when events that unfolded in the programme’s crossover with Emmerdale saw a crash claimed the life of her son-in-law, Billy Mayhew.

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Aug. 23 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have warned Hamas of military escalation if the Palestinians do not stop sending children’s kites into Israeli territory.

In a joint statement issued Sunday, the Israeli leaders said the Israel Defense Forces “will act to increase targeted strikes against those responsible” and “evacuate the population” from areas in Gaza used as launch sites for kites, drones and balloons.

The warning came after a “situational assessment” attended by top national security and military officials.

“There will be no return to the state of affairs prior to October 7,” Netanyahu and Katz said. “Israel will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization or any other element in the Gaza Strip to threaten our communities again and compromise our citizens’ sense of security.”

The IDF identified at least six children’s kites that crossed from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory during the past seven days, including four over the weekend, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Military sources said the kites are being sent over by teenagers who are acting on behalf others, most likely Hamas operatives.

IDF officials told Israeli media outlets that nothing suspicious was found on the kites.

However, residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, have linked them with past efforts by Palestinian militants to use such kites to carry incendiary devices into southern Israel and have demanded action to stop them.

In 2018, Palestinians sent burning kites to the Israeli territory, causing damage to thousands of acres of agriculture and nature reserves.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem dismissed the latest kites as “children’s toys” released from Gaza refugee camps.

The threats issued by Israel “are based on fabricated pretexts and are an attempt to justify the continuation of the aggression and violations against our people,” he said in a statement to The Times of Israel.

When the Booker Prize longlist was recently announced, it included a book with the memorable title “May We Feed the King.” The debut novel by British author Rebecca Perry isn’t yet available in the U.S., and when it does hit shelves, it will be coming from Transit Books, a small Bay Area publisher run by the husband-and-wife team Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy.

Cited by the Booker committee as “a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling” about a curator and a king, the book “has been an early favorite with indie booksellers,” Ashley says.

“May We Feed the King” by Rebecca Perry

(Transit)

“We knew the book was special when we acquired it,” Adam adds. “Ever since, we’ve been crossing our fingers and knocking on wood and sending up flares to the Booker gods, and sent the book to the printer a little earlier than usual just in case.”

Transit, known for publishing intelligent international fiction, began about a decade ago, when Ashley and Adam were convinced that great works of literature were being passed over by New York publishers, and that those books should have a place in America.

There were, Adam says, “really great authors who might have incredible reputations elsewhere not finding publishing houses here that are able to champion them in a way that gets them to access to a broader readership.”

The two were working full-time jobs while talking about their literary dreams over the dining room table. They had met at Columbia in New York and both worked in publishing there before moving to California, where Ashley is from.

Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy, co-publishers of the Bay Area nonprofit publisher Transit Books.

(Jennifer Baquing)

They carefully set out to connect with the international literary community and went through the slow process of launching Transit as a nonprofit. They now have a small staff, an office in Berkeley and count a Nobel Prizewinner, Jon Fosse, among their authors.

At the same time Transit was starting out in Northern California, a pair of not-married friends in Los Angeles saw the same possibilities. Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith were convinced that they could begin a publishing house, starting with international noir.

Smith, who is now a senior editor at Simon & Schuster and lives in Germany, recalled those early days for me over Zoom. “We launched it at a time when it was almost the golden age of independent, small publishing, a lot of which was translation-focused,” she says.

They jumped right in, came up with a name, Ricochet, and a logo. Then they got a cease-and-desist letter — a small poetry press was also starting as Ricochet. “We had to change names,” Heiser says. “We were literally unnamed.” That’s how they launched Unnamed Press.

“A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea G. Summers

(Unnamed Press)

“I’m very grateful to the litigious poets who forced us to change our name,” Heiser adds. Their original crime-fiction focus rapidly expanded. Science fiction? Nonfiction? Feminist cannibal fiction? Yes, yes, yes.

That last was “A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea Summers, which Smith acquired. “I really loved that it is violent and intense and so visceral,” Smith said. “The prose is incredible and it absolutely was a cut above. Not to use a cannibalistic meat pun.” To date, the 2021 novel has been Unnamed Press’ biggest seller.

Where many literary novels from small presses sell fewer than 2,500 copies, “A Certain Hunger” has sold close to 200,000. “We’re a hits-driven business, you know — you have to have a book that does well enough to keep you going,” Heiser says.

Heiser remains with Unnamed as its publisher, and continues to guide it to unpredictable destinations. In 2022, the press opened North Figueroa Bookshop in Highland Park with fellow L.A. publisher Rare Bird Books — it stocks all publishers’ titles, not just their own.

Guests gather at the North Figueroa gallery for Unnamed Press’ launch of “Four Nose Jobs a Day,” a poetry book with an accompanying vinyl album by Devendra Banhart, center.

(Hoda Mallone)

And next door is the gallery they opened late last year. In June they held a gala launch for Devendra Banhart’s new collection of poems, “Four Nose Jobs a Day” in the North Figueroa gallery, published by Unnamed as both book and record album. The party was a little livelier than your typical book launch: Heiser says it “featured a reading backed by an excellent jazz trio, ceramic noses, a scent-maker, mimes and speed therapy, among many other things.”

Where Unnamed often makes unexpected turns, Transit has stuck close to its original mission: to translate a handful of books a year, often works of translation themselves, with a certain aesthetic.

For readers in sync with Transit’s sensibility — literary, bold and with an edge that feels fresh — they offer subscriptions. Their biggest swerve was adding children’s books. “The quality of the writing is really important, first and foremost,” Ashley said on a Zoom call with Adam and their executive editor, Lizzie Davis.

“We’re really attracted to literature that takes risks on the page,” Adam said. They began publishing acclaimed Norwegian author Jon Fosse’s work three years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Transit is the American home of Fosse’s big and bold “Septology,” translated into English by Damion Searls.

“Septology 1-VII,” by Jon Fosse

(Transit Books)

Despite years of a cohort within the publishing community advocating for international literature, such as the National Book Awards’ translated literature prize being relaunched in 2018, translated works remain only 3% of the U.S. publishing market. Transit has remained committed to publishing works in translation, and has had genuine success.

Small publishers can be caught in a catch-22 when they have a sudden success. They have to pay to print books and get them distributed, then wait months before the profits (or unsold returns) come back. An author winning the Nobel Prize in literature is about as big a bonanza of demand as you can imagine.

When Fosse won the Nobel in 2023, that meant publishing a big run of his almost 700-page masterwork. “It was a bit of a cash crunch for us,” Adam admits, “but I think we were also lucky in a lot of ways.” The year before they had published “I Who Have Never Known Men” by Jacqueline Harpman, a Belgian novelist who died 20 years before — hardly a guaranteed success.

“Stories, Like Illnesses” by James Elkins

(Unnamed Press)

The publishers themselves can’t fully describe what happened — it was well-reviewed, it went viral, it kept selling, it went viral again. Now, the novel has sold more than 450,000 copies. “I feel like for a small press you really need to, not just catch a break, but catch a break every time,” Adam said, “if you want to last.” Those two pillars — the Fosse and Harpman — allowed the Levys to open their office in Oakland in 2024.

Transit recently released another Harpman book, “We Were Forbidden,” a trio of never-before translated novellas. In September, in addition to Perry’s book, they’ll also be publishing two novels by esteemed French writer Marie Darrieussecq.

Unnamed Press’ fall schedule includes James Elkins’ “Stories, Like Illnesses,” the third installment of a multivolume work called “Five Strange Languages.” Unnamed is publishing in five volumes over five years, “an epic publishing project for any publisher,” Heiser says. Luckily, the first volume got a boost when Jacob Elordi was photographed reading it during a marathon Frankenstein makeup session.

The Levys and Heiser all maintain that there was something about being in California that gave them the creative space to launch their publishing houses.

From their similar visions a decade ago, Transit and Unnamed were born separately, and have taken very different paths to sustainability. The Levys were deliberate and focused; Unnamed spontaneous and evolving. Both are flourishing and show what a little freedom can do.