News Desk

Kovalam and Mumbai, India – When Sugar Shanti Banarse and Kamali Moorthy entered their first surfing event in 2022, the girls could scarcely have imagined they would end up representing India at the Asian Games within a few years.

Though the competition at the Covelong Classic in Kovalam, about an hour’s drive from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, southern India, featured just seven women among about 50 competitors, the possibility of winning was an afterthought. Their intention was to simply get a taste of competition.

At 12, Moorthy was the youngest of the lot, thrilled to surf alongside some of the senior girls. She failed to catch a single wave, but the experience stayed with her. She vowed to train harder and return stronger.

Finishing second was a decisive moment for Banarse, then aged 16. A recreational surfer until then, she loved the competitive aspect of the sport. In that moment, she knew she wanted to be a professional.

The duo has come a long way since then. Alongside their male counterparts Kishore Kumar and Sivaraj Babu, they will take on the best continental talent at September’s Asian Games in Japan, where surfing makes its debut and runs from Friday until Tuesday.

“We’ve been putting in the work over the last couple of years and made good progress. It’s our time to shine now,” Banarse told Al Jazeera.

Even though India has thousands of miles of coastline and breaks of different kinds, it’s taken a while for surfing to catch on.

India’s team coach Samai Reboul comes from the first generation of Indian surfers, who had few resources at their disposal. He would watch holidaymakers surf near his home in Auroville, Tamil Nadu in the late 1990s and had a go when they lent him a board. He was soon hooked.

“I grew up at a time when there were no coaches, no access to training material and no surfboards. [It was] really frustrating,” he told Al Jazeera.

Surf schools started cropping up along the coast over the next few years. This is how Banarse, now 20, got her first opportunity back home in Mandrem in Goa, when she decided to accompany a friend. Moorthy, now 16, was luckier – her uncle is a surf instructor who gave her the first lesson off the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.

Kumar, 18, and Babu, 22, hail from families who fish for a living in Kovalam and Mahabalipuram, respectively. They started out by jumping into the sea on hot summer days, then body surfing, before finally hopping onto a board.

“A local school in Mahabalipuram would let us use surfboards in exchange for chores. There were a few boards and many boys, so a lot of fights once the patience ran thin,” Babu told Al Jazeera.

Though their lives revolved around the sea, it was difficult to get their families to understand what they were chasing.

A beating awaited Kumar when his family discovered he was sneaking away to surf – they considered it a waste of his time.

Babu was expected to help his father with his fishing, as his elder brother had done.

Moorthy’s mother, who runs a beach shack, knew what the harsh sun could do to her daughter’s complexion and asked her to stay out of the water.

“She was worried I would get [too dark], but at the back of her mind, she knew I was enjoying surfing and that it would reach a point of no return. And here I am today,” Moorthy says, laughing.

More importantly, the sport lacked structure. Though the Surfing Federation of India (SFI) was launched in 2011, there were no regular competitions, and participants had to fend for themselves when it came to travel and accommodation. Babu doubled up as an instructor and banked on community support to make money to compete. He once had to camp in a forest during an event in Mangaluru.

“My family didn’t quite understand the scope of what I was doing. But I had some imagination of what I wanted to achieve and persisted against their wishes,” Babu says.

Turning point

Circumstances improved after Arun Vasu took over as the president of the SFI in 2020. As chairman and managing director of the prominent Indian conglomerate TT Group, he secured money from the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility funds to support a handful of athletes. The older surfers were encouraged to pursue their coaching and judging licences to improve the level of domestic competitions.

Meanwhile, Vasu worked towards getting the SFI recognised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. That moment arrived in March 2025, and changed the trajectory of the sport. Besides the injection of funds through the government-run Sports Authority of India, it brought stability for the SFI. Its members could now focus all their energy on growing the sport.

“The first generation of Indian surfers worked really hard without much support. They’ve brought us to this point where we are enjoying the benefits,” Moorthy says.

The goal was to prepare the athletes for the Asian Games. Reboul started monitoring the team and refining their technique during camps. A sports psychologist worked on the mental aspect of competition, while other staff focused on improving physical conditioning.

“Besides quality equipment, what really changed was access to cameras and software for video analysis. Even outside of camp, they could send across videos through which I could offer feedback,” Reboul said.

Over the last few years, the SFI has hosted prestigious competitions such as the World Surf League series and the Asian Surfing Championships, which have allowed Indians to rub shoulders with top international surfers. Trips across Asia have given them a feel for different conditions as well as elite competitions.

“It’s very different from a few years ago when we had limited opportunities to train systematically,” Banarse says.

The Olympic dream

Their performances have shown promise. Ramesh Budihal took bronze at the Asian Surfing Championships in August 2025, and a few months later, Kumar won silver at the Asian ProAm Surf Series.

“At the Asian Championships last year, [Kumar] beat Ikko Watanabe of Japan, a country that is up there [with the best]. So we know it’s possible [to compete],” Reboul says.

The focus is also on developing the next generation of surfers. SFI has joined the Asian Surf Ecosystem’s Grom Patrol – youth surf training camps and competitions – and runs three age group contests (under-12s, under-14s and under-16s), with the winners qualifying for the final in Bali.

Besides the talent that usually comes from fishing communities along the coast, it has attracted young surfers from cities such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai. And more importantly, girls who are ready to test the waters.

“We’ve struggled to find women surfers, so it was really encouraging to see 15-odd girls in every competition,” Vasu says. “Parents see a future, and these kids are hungry to learn. It makes us realise we are doing something right.”

Indian surfers still face a number of challenges. The monsoon season means surfers need to constantly shuttle between the two coasts or travel abroad to train year-round, which requires resources. There is also a need to create a deeper pool of skilled coaches to work with young athletes.

“More of the older surfers are getting into training. This year, we brought down an experienced coach, Ivan Villalba, to conduct a programme for them,” Reboul said.

“Good training and a competitive surf culture is what is required to put India on the map, rather than get a particular athlete to win.”

In the world of Asian surfing, India is still a young nation compared to the likes of Indonesia and Japan. Competing at the Asian Games will be valuable exposure for the current crop, especially ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

“A lot has happened for Indian surfing in the recent past. Some of the guys I’ll be competing against are my idols and I know I can put up a good fight for the podium,” Kumar says.

“The dream is to represent India at the Olympics.”

Acting United States Navy Secretary Hung Cao has confirmed that there have been “eight suicide attempts” by personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group posted in the Middle East – at least two by jumping overboard – during their deployment there.

In a letter to US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday, Cao wrote about quality of life on the fleet and morale among personnel. He was responding on behalf of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to her questions about reports of crew members attempting to harm themselves.

While Cao said no service members had died by suicide during the deployment, there had been attempts to jump overboard.

“This includes the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier airwing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons,” the letter read.

Here’s what we know:

What is the USS Abraham Lincoln?

It is a nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that the Navy has referred to as one of the “largest warships in the world”. Nimitz-class vessels include 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the US arsenal.

The carrier, which set off from California in November 2025 for a routine deployment to the South China Sea, was rerouted in January to the US Central Command (CENTCOM) region in the Middle East because of escalating tensions with Iran.

Since the US-Israel war on Iran broke out at the end of February, the USS Abraham Lincoln has engaged in combat efforts and helped enforce the US naval blockade on Iranian ports.

The roughly 5,000-strong crew on board the Lincoln were at sea for 286 days before finally disembarking in Thailand on September 1, setting a record for the longest deployment. Besides one short port stop last December, the crew had no land breaks in that time.

US media reports have tied ship supply shortages to Iranian attacks on US military sites in the Middle East, notably the heavy damage inflicted on the naval base in Bahrain in the early days of the war. The navy was reportedly forced to use the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia instead as its main supply hub, some 3,540km (2,200 miles) from where the USS Lincoln was operating in the Gulf.

According to its website, Naval Support Activity Bahrain provided “services and support to ships at sea, remote sites throughout the region, and military and civilian personnel living in Bahrain”.

Last month, experts told Al Jazeera that the lack of port stops during the ongoing conflict was a major issue for the carrier.

“Ships need maintenance, particularly ships that are extremely complicated with very advanced weapon systems such as nuclear-powered carriers with very advanced systems, and there are things that you cannot do in terms of maintenance under way,” Harlan Ullman, a retired senior naval officer and chairman of the strategic advisory firm Killowen Group, said.

Extended deployments “erode the readiness and capability of that ship the longer it’s at sea, and it lacks the ability to repair and extend maintenance”, he added.

Following media reports of poor levels of morale on board, the USS George Washington was diverted from the Pacific to replace the carrier last month.

What does Cao’s letter say?

“Since the beginning of Lincoln’s deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group,” Cao wrote.

In particular, he said one sailor assigned to the air wing jumped overboard in early August but was “quickly recovered”, treated by the medical department and “transferred off ship for follow-on care”.

“Additionally, one sailor attempted to go overboard in March and was stopped by his shipmates. That sailor was also provided with immediate medical care and subsequently returned to homeport,” the letter added.

Cao said the carrier had been deployed with various mental health resources, including one psychologist, three behavioural health technicians, one clinical social worker, one embedded integrated prevention counsellor, one facility dog, and five chaplains.

Cao also acknowledged resupply limitations, however, as the vessel was participating in “major combat operations”, which meant that the number of main course options served during meal times was reduced from two to one.

He said the Navy prioritised the delivery of “hygiene products, fresh provisions and critical repair parts”, adding that while the ship experienced plumbing issues earlier in its deployment, the shipboard engineering team had completed repairs and “portable water supply remains safe and tested daily”.

The Navy chief added that a biparitsan Congressional Delegation was in the “planning stages” of an on-board visit to the carrier once it returns to the US.

Have there been previous reports on the conditions on board the carrier?

Yes.

Before Cao’s letter, a crew member on board the carrier told CNN that morale on the vessel was very low, with suicidal ideation repeatedly heard among crew members.

Last month, the Navy Times, which covers US military news, spoke to the wife of a sailor who, she said, had attempted to jump off the vessel, saying he was “burnt out”.

According to the US news outlet, MSNOW, families of sailors had also attended a meeting with Cao the same month to express their concerns over the sailors’ mental health, exhaustion, and safety on board.

It also reported separately that families told it, on condition of anonymity, that their relatives and spouses on board had described mouldy showers and no hot water for showering for weeks.

Stars and Stripes, a US military news organisation, also reported last month that a spouse told the meeting with Cao that she had received a message from her husband saying “he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.”

The same month – and following that reporting – the Pentagon fired the Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief and its Middle East reporter.

Since beginning his second term in January 2025, US President Donald Trump has accused news outlets of publishing and broadcasting “fake news”.

Last week, he announced that CNN, Politico and MSNOW would be banned from reporting from the White House.

On Thursday, US federal judge Timothy Kelly ordered the Trump administration to reinstate press passes after finding that the revocation was done without “constitutionally adequate due process”.

What has been the response to reports on the situation of sailors on board?

Following reports of burnout and struggling mental health on the USS Abraham Lincoln, CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper visited the sailors on the ship last month.

Cooper said in a statement afterwards that the team were “standing tall with immense, justified pride”, adding that “history will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era.”

Last month, Hegseth said reports about low morale and poor conditions on the ship had been “completely misrepresented”.

“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and ⁠I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody,” Hegseth told reporters during a visit to Panama.

Trump also dismissed reports and said last month that the ship was “beautifully maintained”, saying reports of poor conditions were a “CNN fake news report”.

In a statement on Wednesday to CNN following the letter from Cao, Gillibrand said that what Trump and Hegseth had dismissed as “fake news” was in fact “serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members”.

“Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect. That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable.”

Something’s in the air this fall — and it’s not just the autumnal chill. For some reason, survival thrillers are all the rage; there are even two featuring a man and his dog. First, we had Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars” with Jacob Elordi and a Belgian Malinois traversing a postapocalyptic landscape.

The latest is “Heart of the Beast,” an Alaskan-set story about two combat veterans — one human, one canine — who set out for a post-retirement camping trip and find themselves in a perilous situation after the human, retired Special Forces officer James (Brad Pitt), suffers a heart attack while piloting his seaplane. James and his combat dog Odin survive the crash, just barely, but they’re stranded deep in the wilderness, miles from civilization.

The film is directed by David Ayer, a purveyor of wild action flicks and ballads of masculinity; the screenplay is the debut effort of Cameron Alexander. Their intent is to deliver something muscle-bound and emotional — if a man can’t cry about an Army dog, what can he cry about? But until the last two minutes of the film, “Heart of the Beast” is essentially “Homeward Bound” for adults. You know, the 1993 kids adventure film featuring a golden retriever, a bulldog and a cat named Sassy who have to make their way home through the wild. Marry the structure of that film with a Jack London-inspired milieu, add some blood, gore and rather cheesy Iraq war flashbacks, and you have “Heart of the Beast.”

We watch James as he’s rained on, chewed on, pulls trunks out of an icy lake, falls off a log, breaks his arm, faces down a bear, fights off wolves, sustains many head injuries and inexplicably keeps going, in hopes of saving if not himself his dog, the most important creature in his life.

And oh, is Odin worth it. Played by four different dogs named Uber, Seeka, Ryker and Hondo, the performance that these dogs collectively deliver is worthy company to an Oscar winner — the dogs may even eclipse Pitt for sheer screen presence. With every whimper, sigh, howl, bark and head tilt, these dogs create an empathetic portrayal of a highly intelligent creature that has been through battle and has the scars (and nightmares) to prove it. Odin is a bionic dog, with titanium teeth and a prosthetic foot from injuries sustained during wartime, but nothing slows him down, not even a plane crash. However, the film does have its limitations when it comes to the other wildlife, all digitally created and the CGI isn’t convincing in the slightest.

“Heart of the Beast” is an onslaught of danger and misery, alleviated only by the pleasure of watching James’ survival skills and ingenuity. This man makes a lot of mistakes on this journey (he’s constantly calling himself “stupid” and “dumb”), but he’s also kind of a MacGyver. He starts a fire with cotton balls and Neosporin. He carries an alarming number of knives. He splints his own arm. If anything, it’s an excellent lesson on carrying the right gear and always taking medical supplies on a camping trip — if you ever go camping again after this.

Pitt typically excels when there’s a little (or a lot) of levity for him to exercise his loose-limbed charms and there’s precisely none of that in “Heart of the Beast.” Ayer pushes the emotional and physical extremes and it feels like a dirge: a forced march through the muddy Alaskan wilderness with plenty of body horror on top. The one moment of camaraderie comes in the beginning, when James shares a beer with a mysterious stranger (J.K. Simmons) who happens upon his camp and might even be an apparition of an old miner. James does share moments of affection and victory with Odin but there’s nothing to relieve the constant danger, even though structurally, the film has already sapped its potential suspense.

“Heart of the Beast” has its highs and lows but cinematically, it’s a mixed bag — entirely predictable and just not great. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that the star of the movie is indeed Odin and he’s a very, very good boy.

Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Australian authorities have raised the alarm after OpenAI-powered models hacked into a government health data system in June, slipping past its digital defences and accessing files without authorisation.

This is the first publicly known case of artificial intelligence (AI) “agents” – AI-powered software systems that can carry out tasks autonomously – breaking into a government website, and the latest of several AI breaches of external systems.

The disclosure comes as top AI firms warn of the risk of humans losing control of AI, calling for its development to slow to a pace that allows it to be safely regulated. Global powers must cooperate to ensure this, they have said.

A research scientist at AI firm Anthropic, Evan Hubinger, went so far as to say he believes there is a greater than 10 percent chance AI could “kill all humans” within a decade.

Addressing the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said there is a risk of AI moving “so fast that people can no longer follow what’s happening or intervene when needed”.

“This would obviously be terrible,” he said. “And we should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we will be able to keep under human control.”

What do we know about the AI breach in Australia?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed the breach on Wednesday, saying an OpenAI agent had made its way into the public-facing medical statistics portal of Medicare, the country’s universal health insurance system, on July 18.

When OpenAI accessed the government portal while conducting research on public medical spending, Albanese said the AI agent circumvented “blocks” that should have prevented it from breaking into the portal.

“The AI agent found a way around those blocks – didn’t accept no for an answer,” said Albanese.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the information the OpenAI agent accessed was “not particularly sensitive” and was later publicly released.

Still, Albanese called the situation “obviously unacceptable” and said Australia had relayed its “extreme concern” to OpenAI, which had failed to notify the government of the breach until September 10.

Albanese also said several other government websites may have been affected by rogue OpenAI agents, though he did not confirm any other breaches.

He added that an inquiry into the breach would look at how Australian security agencies missed it initially and whether criminal charges could be brought against OpenAI.

How has OpenAI responded?

In a statement, OpenAI said it had “identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers” and “took actions we did not intend”.

The company said the incident occurred as its models searched for statistics on medical spending, and that they are not believed to have obtained personal medical records.

OpenAI learned of the incident in August only as it conducted a review of “misaligned model activity”, it added.

Last week, OpenAI said it had put in place a new system to monitor, probe and disclose cases of “misalignment”. That includes instances of AI models that operate “without authorisation, coordinate with other models, or evade oversight”, it said.

Have there been previous AI breaches?

Yes. The Australia data breach is the latest of several instances in which AI agents belonging to OpenAI, Google or Anthropic have accessed external systems without authorisation.

In July, OpenAI reported that two of its most advanced AI models had broken out of a controlled test and hacked another AI company, Hugging Face. OpenAI later said it had detected its AI models communicating with each other and gaining internet access without authorisation months before that hack occurred.

In August, rival Meta AI said its AI model had hacked another company during cybersecurity testing. It said the model made changes to the internal systems of the hacked company, which it did not name, after accessing the public internet because of an error in the setup of its testing environment.

What does this mean for AI safety?

Maurice Chiodo, an Australian mathematician who works at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, told the Reuters news agency the breach appeared to be “a significant escalation in seriousness from similar incidents we have ‌seen ‌in recent months”.

Experts say the Australia data breach highlights the growing dangers AI poses to cybersecurity as well as possible gaps in monitoring and disclosure capabilities.

“The important matter here is not what OpenAI says its agent can do, it is what the agent actually does when it hits a barrier,” Niusha Shafiabady, a professor of computational intelligence and head of the IT discipline at the Australian Catholic University, said in comments published by science news portal Scimex.

“The deeper technical risk is that autonomous AI does not always know when it is wrong, and humans may not be able to see why it made a decision,” added Shafiabady. “Without strong verification and hard boundaries, probabilistic errors can quietly become operational failures.”

Raffaele Fabio Ciriello, a senior lecturer in business information systems at the University of Sydney Business School, said OpenAI’s delay in reporting the breach was “concerning”.

“The incident occurred in June and only came to light months later,” said Ciriello. “Even if OpenAI did not detect the activity immediately, that still points to weaknesses in detection, escalation, and external notification.”

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez took to the stage yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City to deliver a rather bland speech, in which she thanked United States President Donald Trump for resuming “diplomatic relations and cooperation” with Venezuela.

This was a different vibe, to be sure, than the one she opted for at the same venue in September 2019, when, as vice president under Nicolas Maduro, she accused the US of perpetrating “economic terrorism” that did not require the use of bombs “but rather through banks and insurance companies”.

Denouncing the global superpower’s militarisation of international relations and punishment of millions of innocent people “in order to apply regime change doctrines and steal other nations’ resources”, the Rodriguez of 2019 went on to cite Venezuelan economic losses to the tune of $130bn between 2015 and 2018 alone on account of US sanctions.

She additionally offered her opinion that the domination of the US political system by “plutocratic minorities” made the country unqualified to impose its model on other countries.

Seven years later, US plutocracy is going strong with Trump at the helm – the same Trump alongside whom a grinning Rodriguez appeared in a photograph taken in New York on Tuesday, less than nine months after he oversaw regime change in Venezuela by kidnapping Maduro.

The kidnapped president is now also in New York, albeit in jail, and is scheduled to stand trial in June 2027. This despite his attempts to remind everyone that, as a sitting head of state, his prosecution in a foreign court contravenes international law.

Then again, abducting other countries’ presidents is also pretty glaringly illegal. But Trump has made it clear that he alone is in charge of deciding what is and is not permissible on any given day.

The abduction took place on January 3, when the US military launched air attacks on Venezuela, killing some 100 people and whisking Maduro and his wife away.

He is accused of an array of misdeeds, including being the leader of the “Cartel of the Suns” – which, mind you, does not actually exist – and engaging in “conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices”.

This is quite the accusation coming from the country that just used all manner of destructive devices to bomb Venezuela and kill a bunch of people.

Anyway, bald-faced hypocrisy is nothing new in the land of the “plutocratic minorities”.

Now, the waning corporate media interest in Maduro’s fate amounts to another coup for US impunity, as folks go about more or less forgetting that there is a foreign head of state sitting in a Brooklyn prison.

But Maduro’s disappearance works out well for Rodriguez, as she goes about enabling the very theft of resources she once decried.

Rodriguez took the stage at the UN the day after Trump, who used the platform to pat himself on the back for the trampling of Venezuelan sovereignty that conveniently culminated in last month’s announcement from the White House of the “biggest oil deal in world history”, securing US majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves.

Speaking to his international audience, Trump boasted: “To the victor belong the spoils. You’ve all heard that.”

Never mind that you’re not technically supposed to admit that you attacked a country just to get its oil. (You’re also not, in polite company, supposed to threaten to annihilate Iran – another of Trump’s UN talking points.)

Since January, the US has lifted many coercive economic measures against Venezuela (including against Rodriguez herself), easing the brutal sanctions regime that as of 2020 was estimated to have already killed 100,000 Venezuelans, according to former UN independent expert Alfred-Maurice de Zayas.

But trading sanctions for de facto colonialism isn’t a great deal, either.

Meanwhile, Trump’s continued manic bombing of vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, which a recent UN report warned may constitute crimes against humanity, suggests the US is nowhere near to kicking its old habit of terrorism – and is all the more reason that Rodriguez might have refrained from thanking the US leader for his “cooperation”.

As Gregory Wilpert, founder of the Venezuelanalysis website and author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, diplomatically put it to me: “One cannot help but wonder whether Delcy Rodriguez is over-complying with Trump in some aspects of her negotiations with him.”

Noting that Rodriguez is “in a highly vulnerable position”, Wilpert ran through a few of the options she faces, such as “the possibility that the Trump administration could treat her as it treated Maduro – by attempting to kidnap her – or as it treated Iran, by targeting the country’s highest levels of government”.

Or, Wilpert said, there is always the Cuba approach, which would entail “the kind of economic siege” that is undertaken “with the aim of starving an entire country”.

In her UN address, Rodriguez promised that Venezuela would hold elections at some unspecified point in time – not that the US, for its part, really cares about democracy as long as the right people are in power.

And although it’s still too early to tell, Rodriguez might just be one of those people.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

OASIS are warning fans to be wary of ticket scams ahead of the band’s huge ‘Live ’27’ world tour.

Genuine access codes for the highly anticipated shows are due to start dropping in email inboxes from today, September 24.

In a statement posted on social media, the band warned fans to remain vigilant over the next few days.

They said: “Important: We have been made aware of possible Oasis ticket scams.

“As ticket information and unique codes are about to be distributed, please remain vigilant. 

“Scammers may attempt to impersonate Oasis, our mailing list or our ticketing partners.”

DON’T LOOK BACK

Why you haven’t got an Oasis tour ticket code yet – and when one might come

SOME MIGHT PAY

Oasis announce TWO further UK 2027 tour dates due to ‘phenomenal demand’

The band stressed that anyone promising a code which has not been sent directly by Oasis is “not genuine”, and said legitimate emails will come only from oasis@openstageit.com.

“Any codes that are offered for sale are fraudulent and will not enable you to buy tickets,” they added.

Oasis also clarified that code emails will only be sent to fans between today and Sunday, September 27.

Fans who have been randomly selected will receive an email using the same name and email address with which they registered. 

It will contain a unique, personal and non-transferable code and will direct them exclusively to Ticketmaster.

The warning comes as the band add extra dates to the tour, including additional concerts in the UK, Munich, Rome and Paris.

Two additional Knebworth shows have been confirmed for September 25 and 26. This takes the band’s run at the historic site to six nights.

Islamabad, Pakistan — The motorway linking Pakistan’s capital with Peshawar, about 180km (110 miles) to the northwest, has been closed to all traffic until further notice, according to a police notification.

So have the highway towards Dera Ismail Khan, the Hazara motorway and the Grand Trunk Road at Attock.

Each carries traffic between Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province governed by the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose supporters plan to march on the capital on Sunday, September 27, demanding his release.

The motorway from Lahore, about 375km (235 miles) to the southeast, remains open.

Inside Islamabad, workers have welded shipping containers together and filled them with gravel and sand so they cannot be pushed aside. Several schools and colleges have been told to shut so police brought in from Punjab and Sindh can be housed there.

Police expect the march to draw between 20,000 and 25,000 people, according to local media reports.

While two of the country’s main opposition parties announced marches on the capital this month, only Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has faced measures on this scale.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a religious party, also set out for Islamabad last week to protest against rising fuel prices. On Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif telephoned its leader, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, and by Tuesday afternoon JI had postponed its march, pending a meeting between the two men.

PTI leaders have received no such call.

Instead, Khan’s three sisters, all over the age of 65, have been detained in Lahore and at least six of the party’s legislators in Islamabad, all under a 1960 public order law that allows preventive detention without charge.

PTI says the true figure of those arrested is higher, and that one lawmaker taken from the parliament lodges has not been traced since.

Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and remains Pakistan’s most prominent opposition figure. But his party enters the final stretch before the protest weakened, with no major demonstration outside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since November 2024, by its own account.

Yet, say analysts, the Pakistani government appears to be treating the protest march as a far bigger threat than a regular political event would warrant.

“While this is undoubtedly a difficult moment for PTI, it is equally exposing the government’s own frustration,” Habib Akram, a Lahore-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

“In fact, the government’s conduct suggests something more. It isn’t just afraid of this protest; it has turned this protest into a matter of its own survival.”

A capital behind containers

More than 2,000 containers have been placed across Islamabad and at Attock Bridge, the main crossing between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, according to media reports, with 19,000 police officers on their way from Punjab and Sindh, and thousands more deployed at Attock.

Dawn, the country’s leading English-language newspaper, said in an editorial that the government appeared to be preparing “not for a political event but an invasion”.

Talal Chaudhry, the junior interior minister, rejected the suggestion that the government was shutting down the capital itself.

“Normal life in Islamabad is continuing. Hospitals, offices and essential services are functioning. The containers and security arrangements are precautionary measures, not a shutdown,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rana Ihsaan Afzal, a coordinator to the prime minister and a government spokesperson, was more candid.

“In trying to counter the rhetoric PTI has adopted, we do have to take certain measures, and yes, those measures carry their own consequences too, but we have to look at the bigger picture,” he told Al Jazeera.

It is all being mounted during one of the deadliest weeks for Pakistan’s security forces this year.

An attack on a police compound in Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed more than 20 people on September 18, and six soldiers were killed in a gunfight in nearby Hangu two days later.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi set those losses against the march in Lahore on Monday.

“The situation in KP [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] over the past 10 days is before everyone. There was a suicide attack on a mosque, and two or three other attacks. Our captain was killed, our soldiers were killed, our policemen were killed, and these people are preparing to storm a city,” he said.

The government’s case

Government ministers have seized on a remark by Junaid Akbar, PTI’s chief in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who said protesters would turn Islamabad into Somnath, a Hindu temple in India sacked by Mehmood of Ghazni, an 11th-century invader, to try to paint the upcoming protest as a major law and order threat.

“Peaceful people do not leave their homes carrying nail-studded sticks,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in Kohat on Monday.

But the PTI’s Sohail Afridi, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who will lead the September 27 march, answered Tarar in Peshawar on Monday.

“We will go there on nothing but two hands and two feet. There will be nothing else in our hands,” he said.

In a September 18 judgement, the Islamabad High Court ruled that no party could block roads into the capital, and barred provincial governments from using state resources for the march.

Days later came the arrests of Imran Khan’s sisters. Aleema Khan was detained in Lahore on Sunday, and her sisters, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, were taken in a predawn raid on their homes the next day, according to a family statement on September 22.

The Lahore High Court has reserved its decision on whether a petition challenging Aleema’s detention is admissible, after the family’s lawyer argued that the order was issued after the arrest.

Chaudhry said the sisters faced several cases, had led confrontational protests in the past, and were being held as a preventive measure.

PTI says the arrests reach far wider, listing five members of the National Assembly, a senator, provincial legislators and more than 1,500 workers.

“We were peaceful, we are peaceful, and we will remain peaceful. We are being punished for being peaceful,” Gohar Ali Khan, the PTI chairman, said in Peshawar on Monday, noting that four women from Khan’s family, including his wife Bushra Bibi, are now in jail.

‘Long march’ vs ‘permanent plan of action’

But Interior Minister Naqvi suggested that the government is bracing for a confrontation.

“I think this time we will draw up a permanent plan of action. We will not go halfway,” Naqvi said in Lahore on Monday, adding that the matter would be settled “once and for all”.

What he ruled out was a long sit-in of the kind PTI has staged before.

“This time, it will not happen that they come, and the country is shut down for 10 or 20 days. That possibility does not exist,” he said.

Afridi has signalled that he has exactly that in mind.

“The long march is not a T20, it will be a Test match,” he said on Monday, a reference to cricket’s five-day format.

If Naqvi’s comments sound ominous, they also carry a history with them.

On May 9, 2023, after Imran Khan was briefly arrested, his supporters attacked military installations across the country, including burning down a senior commander’s official residence in Lahore. That led to a major crackdown on the PTI’s supporters and leaders, with hundreds placed under arrest for days, and party leaders pressured to leave the group.

Then, on November 26, 2024, a PTI march on Islamabad ended in an overnight crackdown by security forces, in which the party says at least 12 of its supporters were killed. The government denies that, and says four security personnel died — even though Al Jazeera met families of some of the PTI supporters killed.

A contested mandate

PTI was stripped of its electoral symbol before the February 2024 general election, forcing its candidates to run as independents.

They still won 93 seats, more than any other party, but could not form a coalition, and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz took power with other major parties.

A Commonwealth observer group, in its report on the polls released a year later, found that decisions by key institutions had “consistently limited the ability of one particular party” to contest the vote, in a reference to the PTI.

While the Election Commission of Pakistan rejected allegations of rigging, two and a half years on, the popularity scale remains tilted in favour of PTI.

Bilal Gilani, executive director of the pollster Gallup Pakistan, said its unpublished Public Opinion Pulse surveys showed a landscape broadly similar to 2024.

“PTI continues to lead nationally, but faces strong competition from PML-N in Punjab and PPP in Sindh,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that Khan remained the country’s most popular leader.

For Akram, that unresolved argument — over the lack of legitimacy of the 2024 election in the eyes of Pakistanis — is what keeps the pressure on.

“You can hold as much power as you want, but that question never fully goes away. It continues to haunt you, and it continues to be a source of anxiety for the government,” Akram said.

The ‘hard state’

In March 2025, army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, who now also serves as Pakistan’s chief of defence forces, told a parliamentary security committee that the country must stop acting as a “soft state”.

“How long will we continue to sacrifice countless lives in a manner of a soft state?” he asked, according to state broadcaster PTV.

For Ahmed Ijaz, an Islamabad-based political analyst, the response to the September 27 march is a response to that thinking, rather than the PTI’s strength.

“Behind that confidence lies the thinking of a hard state, one that has decided no one will be granted an unconditional right to protest going forward,” he said.

Akram, however, said that a different factor might also be worrying the government and the military behind it.

The war in the Middle East has pushed petrol to 393.75 rupees ($1.42) a litre ($5.37 per gallon), up about 51 rupees ($0.18) since the start of September. That is what Jamaat-e-Islami was marching against, and it has warned that it will resume its march in October if the prime minister offers no relief.

Akram said the government’s real worry is multiple issues of antigovernment anger — price rises and Imran Khan’s continued incarceration — coming together.

“That merging could then pull other groups out onto the streets too, and that is precisely what worries the government,” he said.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes to his feet at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York later on Thursday, he does so at a critical point in both his political career and in his country’s long and fractious relationship with the international body.

Israel has faced repeated accusations of genocide at the UN, as well as systematic war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Those criticisms continue to shape the country’s fractious relationship with the body.

For Netanyahu, appearing in front of the UNGA for the 15th time, the stakes have rarely been higher. Addressing a domestic Israeli audience that polls show to be losing faith in him and his Likud party ahead of crucial elections later this year, Netanyahu has already pitched himself as Israel’s primary voice on the international stage.

Nevertheless, analysts say Netanyahu’s address could prove a pivotal moment domestically, amplified by international criticism of Israel and expected to dominate headlines and be carried live across the country’s television networks.

“This is a regular fixture for him,” former Israeli consul general in New York and ex-government adviser Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera. “It’s his way of being seen in Israel as standing up against the world and of telling members that he will never give up or surrender. He’s also turned the event into some kind of national holiday in Israel, with everyone sitting down to watch the address on television. He’s brainwashed people in Israel into believing his speech is somehow an announcement of policy, stated in defiance of the [rest of the world] who don’t believe a word he says.”

A history of hostility

Israeli leaders have long framed their stance towards the UN as one of defiance in the face of hostility. The UN has long been a platform for critics of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and repeated attacks on its neighbours. It has included attempts to censure Israel over what UN investigators have described as apartheid in the West Bank, as well as accusations of genocide and pogroms across the occupied Palestinian territory since October 2023.

There have been numerous UNGA resolutions criticising Israel’s conduct — nearly all dismissed by Israeli lawmakers as evidence of institutional bias — culminating in Israel declaring UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non grata and severely restricting the operations of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“Generally speaking, many Israelis tend to see the UN as anti-Israeli,” Nimrod Goren, the president of the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policy, Mitvim, said.

Against that background, criticism from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani — already cast as anti-Israel in the Israeli press — has drawn greater public attention to the event. Underscoring the sense of hostility towards Israel are stories within the country’s media suggesting that Netanyahu’s visit to New York has been curtailed due to unspecified security concerns, with the Israeli premier expected to fly out of New York on the same day as his arrival.

In response, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, who has repeatedly accused the organisation of waging “diplomatic terrorism” against the state called for Mamdani’s arrest for what he said was the mayor’s incitement against New York’s Jewish community ahead of Netanyahu’s visit.

“Netanyahu is going into his UNGA speech with not one but both eyes focused firmly on the upcoming Israeli election,” Goren said. “The speech is usually treated in Israel as a major event, receiving broad coverage and dominating the news cycle. Netanyahu will likely try to leverage this to bolster his image as a close ally of the US and to talk up the threat posed by Iran.”

US backing

Some have interpreted US President Donald Trump’s apparent lack of availability to meet Netanyahu during this trip as a sign of waning support. But US backing for Israel at the UN has remained steadfast since the October 7 attack and has contributed to growing frustration within the UN over what they see as Israel’s ability to resist international censure.

Alongside the creation of the Board of Peace, which shifted significant responsibility for Gaza’s future from the UN to the Trump-founded organisation, Washington has repeatedly used its veto at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from resolutions it opposes. The US has vetoed at least six UN Security Council resolutions on Gaza since October 2023, most of them demanding an immediate ceasefire.

“There seems to be genuine frustration within the UN General Assembly over the body’s failure to play a significant political role in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in its failure to protect its own staff and agencies,” Chatham House Associate Fellow Zizette Darkazally, who previously worked with the UN, said.

“However, it’s worth remembering the context the UN operates within in the occupied territories and the important humanitarian role it plays. The UN continues to get aid and medical support into Gaza and the West Bank, which are both areas where Israel has absolute control over access,” she said. “It’s also worth remembering that the UN is only as strong as the commitment of its member states.”

“That, combined with a system of veto that’s more than 80 years old, has left the organisation weaker now than it had ever been,” she said of the confrontations between the UN and Israel. “And we’re seeing the effects of that, not just in Palestine, but in Yemen, Sudan and Iran, where the UN is playing next to no political role.”

YouTube is holding onto its exclusive livestream deal with Coachella.

The tech giant in San Bruno, Calif., has renewed its partnership with festival promoter Goldenvoice, keeping exclusive livestream rights to the three-day desert festival through 2030. The next edition, in April 2027, will mark 15 years of Coachella on YouTube.

“We’re excited to bring the energy of the desert to millions of music fans around the world,” Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief executive officer, said at its Made On YouTube event in New York City on Wednesday morning.

This year’s Coachella, headlined by Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G, drew the most concurrent viewers in the history of Coachella on YouTube, according to the company. Bieber, who was discovered on YouTube, even included a nostalgic homage to the platform into his set.

Over the years, the livestream has become an essential part of the Coachella experience, especially for fans who can’t make it to the desert. What started as a single feed has evolved into live coverage of every stage across both weekends.

Beyond Coachella, YouTube doubled down on livestreaming during its presentation, unveiling a slew of new live and AI-powered tools. In August, more than 600 million logged-in viewers watched live content on the platform each day on average, according to YouTube. The new live features include a new co-hosting function in which two creators can appear on the same stream together, and a live auto-dubbing tool that automatically translates speech in real time. Several of the updates are slated to roll out in early 2027.

“Whether it’s a music festival or a creator’s livestream, fandom is no longer a spectator sport,” added Mohan. “Just look at the sheer scale of the live communities we’re seeing today.”

YouTube isn’t the only streamer leaning into live. Netflix has spent the last few years buliding out its own live business, which now includes NFL and MLB games.

United States President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping are set to meet in Washington, DC on Thursday for a summit that is expected to cover trade, artificial intelligence (AI), Taiwan and the US-Israel war on Iran.

In advance of the talks, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington had proposed an AI “notification mechanism” with China – effectively a hotline to alert each other when AI incidents threaten national security.

The meeting comes as leading AI companies warn about the technology’s risks, while both superpowers push to accelerate their AI race. In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera compares the US and China’s AI strength in computing power, AI models, spending and research.

Who has more computing power?

Training and running AI requires enormous amounts of computing power. The more powerful chips and computers a country has, the faster it can build and improve AI models, making computing power one of the biggest advantages in the AI race.

Computing power is measured in FLOP/s (floating-point operations per second) – or how many calculations a computer can perform in one second.

Adding up the computing power of all the AI chips a country has gives a sense of its total AI capacity. By that measure, the US is well ahead, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the world’s total AI computing power, while China holds just more than 14 percent, according to Epoch AI, an AI research institute.

The US lead comes largely from its access to the most advanced chips. US company Nvidia accounts for more than 60 percent of global AI computing capacity among major chip designers, while China’s Huawei holds a much smaller, but growing share, according to Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index.

Those chips also need somewhere to run. The US has more than 5,400 data centres – the large buildings which house thousands of computers – about 10 times as many as any other country. It also leads in dedicated AI data centres, with 84, more than the next eight countries combined.

Whose AI models are people using?

Frontier models are the most advanced AI systems, such as OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude and DeepSeek’s models in China. They are trained using vast amounts of data and computing power to write, reason and code.

The US has led the development of these models, but Chinese models are gaining ground.

As of March 2026, US and Chinese AI models were closely matched on Arena, a leaderboard where users compare two anonymous models and vote for the better answer. US companies Anthropic, xAI, Google and OpenAI ranked near the top, alongside China’s Alibaba and DeepSeek.

On OpenRouter, a platform that ranks AI models by real-world use, Chinese models dominate the leaderboard. Models from Chinese companies DeepSeek, Z.ai and Tencent hold the top three spots on OpenRouter by tokens processed, the units of text that AI models read and generate.

This is partly because Chinese models are cheaper to use. Many are also open-weight, meaning developers can download, adapt and run them themselves.

Chinese models can now compete with US ones in many real-world tasks, with Chinese AI models “months, not years, behind US frontier models”, according to a July analysis by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

In May, the US government’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) estimated that DeepSeek V4 Pro, released in April, was about eight months behind leading US models.

Who is spending more?

The US is spending far more than China on the infrastructure needed to build AI, giving its tech companies a significant advantage in the race for computing power.

Goldman Sachs estimates that US hyperscalers, the giant tech companies that run large-scale cloud computing and data centres, will spend about $764bn in 2026. That includes Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle. By comparison, China’s Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and ByteDance are expected to spend $102bn.

But China’s spending is increasing faster. TrendForce, a market research firm, expects China’s four hyperscalers’ capital expenditure to rise by more than 80 percent in 2026, compared with a projected growth of 76 percent for US hyperscalers, according to the news agency Reuters.

The spending gap reflects the scale of the US tech sector, whose companies have larger revenues to reinvest in chips, data centres and talent.

Who is leading in AI research and talent?

China is producing more AI research and training more technical talent, but the US remains a magnet for the world’s top AI researchers.

China accounted for more than 27 percent of global AI publications in 2024, including journal articles, conference papers, working papers and preprints compared with 12 percent from the US, according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technology. The figures only cover publications with an English-language title or abstract.

China also trains more top researchers. According to a study by MacroPolo, 47 percent of the world’s top 20 percent of AI researchers completed their undergraduate studies in China in 2022, up from 29 percent in 2019. The study also found that 72 percent of the top AI researchers educated in China were working in the US.

Taiwan has provided the first public look at its new 105mm 8×8 mobile gun system in action, with the domestically developed vehicle engaging moving and stationary targets during a live-fire demonstration in southern Taiwan. The vehicle is being developed as Taiwan continues to modernize its ground forces in response to the growing capabilities and increasingly frequent military activity of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) around the island.

Defense ministry showcases 105mm mobile gun system

During the demonstration, held by the Republic of China Army (ROCA) at a training area in Tainan today, the vehicle reportedly engaged a moving target at approximately 0.75 miles and a stationary target at around 0.6 miles. It also fired against targets positioned 90 degrees to the side of the vehicle while operating on a gentle slope, demonstrating the gun system’s ability to engage targets while the vehicle is positioned on uneven terrain.

The vehicle subsequently fired its 7.62mm coaxial machine gun simultaneously with its main gun as part of a scenario intended to demonstrate engagement of multiple targets, including simulated amphibious assault vehicles.

An apparent weapon malfunction was also recorded during the demonstration. One of the 105mm rounds initially failed to fire, according to reports. The crew waited approximately two minutes in accordance with safety procedures before reloading the weapon, after which the vehicle fired normally. Maj. Gen. Chen Chien-chung, head of Taiwan’s Arsenal 202, the Production and Manufacturing Center of the Armament Bureau, said an investigation would be conducted into the misfire.

Despite the incident, the demonstration provided an important look at a vehicle that Taiwan is developing specifically around the country’s geography and battlefield requirements, including a potential amphibious invasion by the Chinese PLA.

A new direct fire support variant of the Clouded Leopard 8×8 infantry fighting vehicle was first publicly displayed at the Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition in 2023. It passed initial combat readiness testing with the ROCA in October 2023, and it was authorized for mass production in April 2024.

The production configuration has undergone significant changes since then.

Its height has been reduced by approximately 12 inches, bringing the overall vehicle height to below 9 feet 10 inches. Its turning radius has also been reduced from 36 feet to 26 feet. The reduction in turning radius was achieved by providing steering to three pairs of wheels, rather than two pairs on the earlier configuration.

Those changes are especially relevant to Taiwan, where large sections of the island feature restrictive terrain, dense urban development, narrow roads, drainage channels, and other obstacles that can limit the movement of heavy armored vehicles.

Taiwanese officials specifically highlighted the system’s suitability for culverts and urban areas, as well as the challenging terrain of Hualien and Taitung on the island’s mountainous east coast.

The vehicle’s principal weapon is a 105mm gun. The weapon can fire the general-purpose ammunition already developed for tank guns, in addition to ammunition developed specifically for the new system. The ROCA displayed armor-piercing, anti-personnel, and training ammunition during the demonstration. The gun also offers useful ammunition commonality with Taiwan’s older, but sill active M60A3 and CM11 tanks.

That compatibility potentially gives the vehicle access to an existing ammunition ecosystem while allowing Taiwan to develop specialized rounds for its particular requirements.

Against a PLA assault, the 105mm system would provide mobile direct firepower against amphibious vehicles, armored personnel carriers, fortifications, and other ground targets, complementing Taiwan’s heavier tanks and other anti-armor weapons. Its wheeled configuration also allows the vehicle to rapidly reposition along Taiwan’s road network, giving commanders a mobile source of direct firepower that could respond to amphibious landings and reinforce threatened sectors.

The system falls into the same broad category as other modern 8×8 mobile gun systems, including Italy’s Centauro family and Japan’s Type 16 Mobile Combat Vehicle.

Less successful was a mobile gun system version of the U.S. Army Stryker, also with a 105mm gun, but the service divested that in 2021 because of problems with its dated cannon and autoloader. The U.S. Army then received the M10 Booker Combat Vehicle. Armed with a 105mm main gun, the Booker is a tracked vehicle with a much higher degree of armor protection and off-road mobility, but this, too, was canceled in 2025, amid cost and weight increases.

A wheeled 105mm gun system can provide substantial direct-fire capability while offering advantages in road mobility and potentially lower logistical demands. It also lacks the combination of protection, cross-country mobility, and heavy armament associated with a tracked main battle tank.

For Taiwan, this kind of vehicle provides a comparatively compact armored platform able to move rapidly between positions and bring heavy direct firepower to areas where larger vehicles could face mobility constraints.

If fighting reaches Taiwan’s cities, the ROCA regularly trains for the challenges of urban warfare. The service has also demonstrated unusual measures to conceal and protect its armored vehicles, including disguising tanks and other vehicles as scrap piles or civilian construction equipment to complicate PLA targeting.

The vehicle’s development is also being influenced by the threat of battlefield drones. Taiwanese military officials say the system is expected to receive additional counter-drone capabilities before entering mass production. One planned modification is an anti-drone cage around the vehicle.

More ambitious changes could involve the installation of a larger-caliber automatic weapon. Reportedly, the vehicle could eventually receive another machine gun or larger-caliber automatic cannon, with the 30mm M230 chain gun identified as one possible option. The proposed weapon could use canister-type ammunition designed to disperse numerous fragments against small drones.

Adding dedicated counter-drone equipment to the mobile gun system would therefore give the vehicle another role beyond direct engagement of conventional ground targets.

The prominence of counter-drone measures in the planning of the vehicle also reflects the increasingly contested environment in which Taiwan’s armored forces would have to operate. In a conflict with China, armored units have to operate under the threat of persistent surveillance and attacks from a wide range of uncrewed systems, making concealment, mobility, dispersion, and organic counter-drone capabilities very important to any change of survival. Questioning just how long any armor would last in a full-on invasion scenario is absolutely relevant. As we have seen in Ukraine, the drone threat alone has sidelined even the most capable armor. At the same time, Taiwan is working toward its own drone-heavy battlefield doctrine, part of a broader plan to turn the island into a “hellscape” for any invading force.

Overall, the September 23 demonstration offered a useful glimpse into the thinking behind Taiwan’s indigenous armored vehicle program.

As part of a wider modernization of ROCA armor, the service has also received 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks, broadly equivalent to the M1A2 SEPv3 version — or System Enhancement Package version 3 — which you can read more about here.

With production of 178 series examples of the new vehicle scheduled to begin in 2027, Taiwan’s new 105mm mobile gun system is moving toward becoming a significant component of the island’s domestically produced armored fleet.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

What’s better than two Taylor Lautners?

On Wednesday, Taylor Lautner and his wife Tay Lautner (née Dome) announced the arrival of their first child in a shared Instagram post, a baby girl they named … drumroll please … Lennon Taylor Lautner.

“One week loving our sweet little Lenny,” the couple wrote in the Instagram caption. Lennon arrived Sept. 16, according to the social media post, which showed a partial image of the infant.

The new parents have been married since 2022 and met through the 34-year-old “Twilight” actor’s younger sister, Makena Moore.

They announced the pregnancy in March on their Instagram accounts, hinting that the future baby could share a matching name, with the photo carousel’s caption: “What’s better than two Taylor Lautners?”

A “weight lifted” off her shoulders when she shared the news, Tay said in April on her podcast “The Squeeze.” She was afraid the news would leak when she went among the public.

“It was really exciting that Taylor and I got to do that on our own terms,” Tay continued.

In June, the two revealed the baby‘s sex in an emotional Instagram Reel, with the “Twilight” actor later writing on his personal Instagram stories that his dream “has always been to become a girl dad,” according to People.

“All I wanted was a healthy baby but deep down this moment is what I was dreaming of. The weight that was lifted off my shoulders in this moment knowing that dream came true was unlike anything I’ve felt,” the actor wrote.

In her third trimester, Tay, a 29-year-old registered nurse who has been open about mental health, expressed her thoughts and feelings about pregnancy, sharing in an Aug. 12 episode of “The Squeeze” that she gained 50 pounds, experienced swelling and had stretch marks.

“Women don’t get enough credit for what we put our bodies through because it is truly just insane,” she said in the podcast. “Let the pregnant women live a little more. We need to just applaud them, praise them and give them a little more respect.”

Media reports say US withholds army chief’s visa to pressure him into accepting a 90-day truce in Sudan’s civil war.

Sudanese activists and journalists have criticised the United States over reports that Washington has withheld a visa from army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan before the United Nations General Assembly in an apparent bid to pressure him into accepting a ceasefire proposal.

Activists took to social media on Wednesday to slam the reported move as “political pressure”, arguing that access to the UN should not be used to influence Khartoum’s position on Sudan’s three-year civil war.

Neither the Sudanese government nor the US Department of State has commented on the reports.

General al-Burhan, whose army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, was scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday in New York. The army chief has spoken at the assembly twice since the war began.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and caused the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

The Reuters news agency, citing Sudanese sources, reported on Tuesday that the US was withholding al-Burhan’s visa and had made its issuance contingent on him agreeing to a 90-day ceasefire proposed by Massad Boulos, US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs.

The AFP news agency, quoting two diplomatic sources, also reported that Washington refused to issue the visa. One source called the move a “clear violation of the UN’s agreement with the US” while another said the visa had been “conditioned” on al-Burhan accepting the three-month truce.

‘Political pressure’

Sudan’s UN ambassador, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith, wrote to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to request the UN’s “immediate intervention” with US authorities, according to Reuters.

Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres, said the UN chief was “deeply concerned” that the visa had reportedly not been issued. He told the AFP that the UN Secretariat has urged the US, as host country, to ensure visas were issued in accordance with its obligations under the UN Headquarters Agreement and in time for al-Burhan to participate in the General Assembly.

Sudanese activist Mamoun al-Sheikh denounced the US move in a post on Facebook, saying: “Even if the visa is withheld, it will not silence Sudan’s voice.”

Another activist, Sayed Al-Mazaj, described linking the visa to a proposed 90-day ceasefire as “a tool for political pressure”. And in a video posted on X, Sudanese journalist Diaa Al-Din Bilal said barring al-Burhan from New York would not force him to accept the US position and could instead boost his popularity and rally support around him.

Another X user, @Atifazhri, also denounced the US move, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Gaza, had been granted a visa.

“The issue is double standards – when visas become instruments of political coercion against a sovereign state while far more serious cases are treated differently. International law and justice cannot be applied selectively,” the user wrote.

US questions al-Burhan’s legitimacy

The State Department issued a statement on Tuesday that did not directly address al-Burhan’s visa but called into question his legitimacy. Its spokesman Tommy Pigott said neither the Sudanese army nor the RSF “nor their respective leaders, represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan”.

He added the US would “seek to raise the cost of continued conflict on all belligerents”.

Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hit back on Wednesday, calling on the US to engage positively with the country’s government. Any peace initiative, it said, must “be grounded in respect for Sudan’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and legitimate national institutions”.

“It must also address the root causes of the war’s continuation — foremost among them, negative foreign interference,” the ministry added.

Al-Burhan has been Sudan’s de facto leader since 2019 although the African Union and Western powers withdrew recognition after a 2021 coup that he led with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF’s leader, against the civilian leadership.

He has rejected externally imposed ceasefires, arguing that earlier pauses in the fighting benefitted the paramilitary group.

The US has also refused visas to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and some members of Iran’s delegation to the UN.

The last A-10 Thunderbolt II assigned to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, left the installation on September 22. The departure marks the end of nearly five decades of Warthog operations, including tactics development and testing, at the Air Force’s most high-profile fighter base. It also reflects a broader shift in which close air support expertise and some associated missions are supposedly being distributed among the F-15, F-16, and F-35 communities, although the move is controversial, to say the least.

Nearly 70 airmen assigned to Nellis gathered along the flight line to salute the aircraft as it departed. The final takeoff closes a chapter that began in 1977, when the first A-10 arrived at the base, which subsequently became a major center for developing and refining the aircraft’s operational employment.

Over the decades, Nellis-based units worked on the A-10’s software, avionics, and precision weapons capabilities, while the U.S. Air Force Weapons School’s 66th Weapons Squadron trained more than 300 A-10 weapons officers through approximately 100 classes. Many of the tactics in the A-10’s playbook emanated from the base.

The A-10’s departure consequently represents more than the retirement of another aircraft from a Nellis ramp. It also marks the end of a dedicated training and institutional ecosystem that developed around an aircraft specifically designed for close air support.

Earlier this year, Jamie Hunter of TWZ visited the U.S. Air Force A-10 Weapons Instructor Course as it was in the process of closing down, as documented in these exclusive videos:

A-10 Cockpit And Walk-Around Tour With A Warthog Weapons Instructor

The Last Days Of The A-10 Warthog Weapons School

The Air Force is now attempting to carry at least some of that expertise into a force built around multirole fourth- and fifth-generation fighters.

“We are maintaining the culture of the A-10 by involving as many other fighter communities involved in the close air support mission,” Lt. Col. Ridge Flick, commander of the 66th Weapons Squadron, said. “We are also training F-15 Eagle, F-35 Lightning II and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots to take on some roles we have had in combat search and rescue.”

The A-10 was developed specifically for close air support, with its design emphasizing survivability at relatively low altitude, weapons employment against ground targets, and the ability to persist in the vicinity of friendly forces. In contrast, the F-16C/D and F-15E/EX were developed primarily as multirole fighters, while the F-35 combines strike, air-to-air, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and networking capabilities with a low-observable design.

Rather than replacing the A-10 with a single successor, the Air Force is therefore distributing elements of its former mission set across several aircraft and communities. The service insists its close air-support capability is not being reduced as the Warthog fleet retires, but at the very least the transition does represent a significant change in how that capability is generated and employed.

Regardless, the USAF’s claim that the impact of losing the heart of the A-10’s braintrust will not dramatically impact key mission sets in a negative manner has been viewed with extreme skepticism by some. It’s not uncommon for subject matter experts to believe the close air support and ‘Sandy’ aircrew recovery mission braintrust that the Warthog community represents is a far bigger loss than the aircraft itself, and that the USAF is not prepared to preserve this critical expertise, regardless of the service’s stated intentions.

The end of A-10 operations at Nellis also put what may be the final nail in the A-10’s coffin, as reconstituting these operations would be very challenging and costly. All this points to the Warthog being on its final glide path to retirement, once and for all.

You can read all about this controversy in our past special feature linked here.

Beyond the redistribution of Nellis’s A-10 pilots, the transition is also affecting the maintainers who supported the base’s A-10 fleet. Airmen assigned to the 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s Thunder Aircraft Maintenance Unit are being reassigned to other squadrons and airframes, including the F-35 and F-16. The Air Force is consequently moving not only personnel, but also decades of experience maintaining an aging and structurally demanding aircraft into programs supporting newer fighters.

For Staff Sgt. Eva Kehn, a weapons load crew chief with the 757th AMXS, the end of the A-10 era has an especially personal dimension because of her family’s connection to the aircraft and to aviation.

“Working on the A-10 is meaningful to me because that is something that I share with my grandfather,” Kehn said. “I’m very excited to have that new chapter and bond over that again with my grandfather.”

Kehn is transferring to an F-35 unit at Nellis, where that connection will continue in a different form. Her grandfather is now a civilian F-35 instructor, giving the two an opportunity to remain professionally connected even as the A-10 disappears from the installation.

Master Sgt. Aaron Edmonds, an aircraft section chief with the 757th AMXS, is also moving on from the Warthog after spending the past five years maintaining the aircraft. Edmonds previously worked on the F-16 earlier in his career and will now return to the Viper community.

“It’s a bittersweet moment,” Edmonds said. “I enjoyed my time with the A-10, but I’m excited because this departure marks the closing of one chapter and the start of another.”

Edmonds said the experience gained on the A-10 should be carried into the next aircraft rather than left behind with the airframe. “The advice I would give airmen who are transitioning from one airframe to another is to be open-minded, willing to learn and carry on the great work ethic from your previous aircraft over to your new one,” he said.

With the A-10 no longer present at Nellis, at least some of the expertise attached to it is being incorporated into a fighter force in which other aircraft types can contribute to the close air support mission in very different ways. An F-35, for example, can use its sensors and networking capabilities to identify and share information about targets and the battlespace, and it can go where other fighters can’t. An F-15 can contribute heavier weapons and longer endurance, among other capabilities, depending on the mission. This is not exactly new, either, as all types of aircraft provided CAS during the Global War on Terror-era, although the masters of exactly how to do it and how to execute the critical airborne forward air control (FAC-A) mission existed in the A-10 community. Still, the resulting force will be considerably different from the one centered on the Warthog, even where the underlying requirement to support troops on the ground remains.

As noted, the A-10’s retirement now looks to be gathering pace, despite repeated efforts to keep the A-10 in service and recent employment in combat operations in the Middle East. The Pentagon has granted three Warthog squadrons a reprieve to continue operating through 2030. In July, a bipartisan group of Congressmen introduced a bill that, if passed and signed into law, would require the Air Force to keep flying the jets through Fiscal Year 2033. Still, the aircraft’s eventual fate appears increasingly clear, with growing numbers heading to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) boneyard in Arizona for storage, including the last one from Nellis.

The ongoing retirement of the A-10 is bringing a fundamental change in how the Air Force organizes and executes the missions for which the Warthog became synonymous. Nellis will remain an important center for developing those capabilities, even though the aircraft around which that expertise was built is no longer part of the equation.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

IT was written all over Katie Holmes’s face as she arrived at the Calvin Klein show at this month’s New York Fashion Week. 

The reason for the actress’s mega-watt smile? The man on her arm, artist Jason Bard Yarmosky, whom Holmes, 47, has been dating since the start of the summer – and helped her get over the trauma of her doomed marriage to Tom Cruise. 

Holmes and her new man, 39,  attended four major fashion week events together, each time carefully co-ordinating their outfits – which in Hollywood terms says far more about relationship status than you might think. 

Their romance has been the talk of New York society this summer, since they were first spotted in the Hamptons together in early July. 

Handsome Jason is something of a name himself, building 40,000 followers on Instagram where he shares his work. 

A source tells The Sun that he and Holmes have fallen for one another – fast – and that engagement may well be the next move. 

“They have become close very quickly,” says the source.

“Something about Jason’s sense of self and passion for what he does really pulled Katie into his orbit and they’ve become inseparable. They are very much in love.”

They reportedly first met at a Tribeca Festival dinner in June, where Yarmosky had been selected for the festival’s Artist Awards Programme which was presented by Chanel. 

They immediately bonded, says a source, over their “shared creativity”, with Holmes impressed by his work and his “quietly confident” energy. 

Yarmosky is certainly cool, becoming something of a power player on the New York art scene, recently creating work for a special exhibition at iconic department store Bergdorf Goodman. 

His website describes his paintings and drawings as centring around “themes of aging, time and memory” with a lot of his recent work inspired by his grandparents. 

They made their relationship Instagram official this month, and shared sizzling photos from a trip they took to Lake Como in Italy as a collab post, the ultimate new power couple move. 

Our source said that the trip was a huge step for them, and their electric connection was plain to see in the series of bikini photos as they enjoyed a boat trip on the lake.

Her friend Amy Astley, the former Vogue editor, commented that she was “glowing”. 

“For Katie to make this romance so public is very telling,” said one friend. 

“She has deliberately kept her romantic life under wraps for decades.” 

Indeed, Holmes’s only long term relationship since her high-profile divorce from Tom Cruise, after almost six years of marriage, was with Jamie Foxx. 

They were said to have dated for five years and in that time they were photographed together out in public only a handful of times. 

In 2019, there were two – very rare – public appearances, first at the Clive Davis and Recording Academy Pre-Grammy Gala, then at the Met Gala. 

A few months later, the romance was said to be over – and Holmes hasn’t found a great love again, until now, despite being linked fleetingly to chef Emilio Vitolo Jr. in 2020 and musician Bobby Wooten III in 2022.

“Things feel very different for Katie now,” said the source. 

“For the first time since splitting from Tom, she wants to show the world how in love she is.”

And she certainly is – so much so that rumours are circulating that the pair could even be heading for engagement. 

“It’s been a complete whirlwind,” said one Hollywood source.

“Katie’s friends and – most importantly – her parents Martin and Kathleen, all approve of the relationship. It is a big deal that they are together so publicly, it says a lot about where they are at.”

Holmes has been notoriously private about every aspect of her life since her extremely high profile marriage, and subsequent divorce from Tom Cruise – something which left her feeling “shaken” and “cautious about living in the spotlight” said sources at the time. 

It has been almost twenty years since the pair married in a lavish Italian wedding, at Bracciano’s 15th-century Odescalchi Castle – a celebration that reportedly cost them upwards of $3 million and included a performance by Andrea Bocelli. 

Their relationship had been a whirlwind, from meeting in 2004, to getting engaged in 2005 and having their only child Suri in April 2006, just seven months prior to the wedding, the pair became a Hollywood power couple – known as TomKat – in record time. 

She told W magazine, “I’ve found the man of my dreams”.

But their downfall was almost as dramatic as the couch-jumping which defined the start of the romance. 

Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise in 2012 after nearly six years of marriage through a carefully planned, covert exit from the relationship. 

The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that the couple had been at loggerheads about Scientology, the controversial religion of which Cruise has been a prominent member for over 40 years, calling it a “beautiful religion”. 

He said in 2016, “It’s something that has helped me incredibly in my life.” 

He added, “It’s something, you know, without it, I wouldn’t be where I am. So it’s a beautiful religion. I’m incredibly proud.”

Reports revealed that Holmes and Cruise had disagreements over how the couple’s daughter, Suri, would be raised, with Holmes wanting to raise Suri away from Scientology. 

During a court case in 2013, Cruise confirmed that it was “one of the assertions” made by his ex-wife which led to their split. 

Following the split, Holmes was granted custody of Suri and they set up home in New York where they lived an exceptionally quiet life. 

Cruise was last photographed with his daughter, now 20 and attending Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Mellon University, in 2012 and she is said to have dropped his last name going instead by Suri Noelle, her mother’s middle name, in a recent Edinburgh Festival performance. 

“They don’t have any kind of relationship,” a source has said of Suri and Cruise. “She was raised by Katie. They are incredibly close.”

Prior to her marriage Holmes had been riding high in her career which started with hit teen show Dawson’s Creek, and had just starred in Batman Begins in 2005. 

Following their dramatic split, however, Holmes found herself somewhat “iced out of Hollywood”, says one industry insider. 

Two years ago Holmes admitted: “Do I have 20 scripts at my door, all with the green light? No. Would that make life easier? Yes.” 

Her most notable role in the post-Cruise years was as Jaqueline Kennedy in the TV miniseries The Kennedys, but the big blockbuster offers dried up. 

Two years ago, she made a splash on Broadway with director Kenny Leon’s revival of Our Town. 

Since then Holmes has been busy stepping back into the spotlight. 

She has written and directed new romcom Happy Hours, in which she also stars alongside her former Dawson’s Creek co-star – and ex-boyfriend – Joshua Jackson. 

She said earlier this year that “working with Josh again was a dream.”

Their friendship, which has been renewed in recent years after going no-contact while Holmes was married to Cruise, has been a huge part of Holmes’s “finding herself” again, our source tells us.

“With Josh, Katie can be herself,” they revealed. “He’s known her since they were kids. He’s encouraged her to find her voice artistically and also lean into being in the spotlight once again.”

And Holmes is certainly doing that, with more public appearances with her new man this year than we’ve seen since she was with Cruise, and a renewed spotlight on her life and career which she appears to be enjoying. 

“Katie is happy and confident in who she is in a way that felt impossible even ten years ago,” said our source. 

“Going through such a high profile divorce from someone who is so powerful, like Tom Cruise, was a life-shattering thing for her. It’s taken time but Katie feels free – and Jason is a big part of that.” 

As Holmes said two years ago: “I’m adamant about having a life and not letting this industry dictate decisions as simple as what I wear or as complicated as what I do.” 

She added, “You don’t want to be afraid of anything, right?” 

It looks like Katie Holmes is really living by those words.

Strikes carried out in southeastern province of Khost cause no casualties, governor’s office says.

Pakistan says it has carried out air strikes on 10 locations in Afghanistan used to store and launch drones, some of which were used in cross-border attacks.

The air strikes on Thursday were carried out as tensions grow between the former allies over attacks by armed groups in Pakistan, which triggered their worst fighting in years in February.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters who stage cross-border attacks, but Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies harbouring anti-Pakistani armed groups and says the attacks are Pakistan’s internal problem.

The air strikes were “deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate, and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan”, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar wrote on X.

He condemned a “deliberate and unlawful incursion into Pakistan by drones” on Wednesday.

“This constitutes a blatant violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and is a grave and unacceptable act of aggression,” he said.

The Pakistani air strikes were conducted in several areas of Khost province in southeastern Afghanistan, Mustaghfir Gurbaz, spokesperson for the Khost governor, said.

There were no casualties, ⁠he said.

An attack on a police facility in northwestern Pakistan last week that killed at least 21 people has reignited ⁠fighting between the countries after nearly three months of ⁠relative calm. A Pakistan Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the blast and subsequent gun battle.

On Monday, air strikes targeting three locations in northeastern Afghanistan killed three civilians in the Nurgal district of Kunar province, Afghan officials said. Islamabad said it killed 28 “terrorists”.

The escalation threatens mediation efforts by China, Turkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between the two neighbours.

Relations between the former allies have been strained since the fighting in February, the worst for years.

“Home Improvement” teen heartthrob of yore Jonathan Taylor Thomas spent the night in jail for allegedly getting unruly with police after a night of drinking.

The 45-year-old actor was detained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and taken to the Malibu/Lost Hills station in Agoura Hills shortly after midnight on Monday, according to Sheriff’s Department booking records.

Thomas’ trip to the slammer stemmed from a traffic stop that went awry in Westlake Village. He was the passenger in the car and exited the vehicle after a police officer told him to stay inside, according to TMZ. The outlet reported that Thomas was allegedly inebriated, refused the officer’s instructions and did not cooperate.

Arrest records show that the “Lion King” star was booked at the station on a felony-level charge, with total bail set at $0, which can be a temporary holding classification used during the initial intake before a prosecutor or district attorney formally evaluates the case.

Thomas spent the night in jail, but police let him go Tuesday afternoon, with records indicating that no formal criminal complaint was filed and the incident was reclassified as a detention only, rather than an arrest, which should wipe the arrest from the actor’s official record.

Thomas, perhaps best known for starring in the beloved 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement” opposite Tim Allen, also voiced Simba in Disney’s “The Lion King” and starred in other ’90s family films, including “Man of the House” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

After a decade of starring roles and magazine covers, Thomas stepped away from the limelight to focus on school, and attended Harvard, Columbia and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told People in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”

Many of the front pages focus on the Conservative party’s promise to prevent long-term jobless benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and betting. The Daily Mail’s headline is “Kemi’s ruthless crackdown on benefits street”, external. The Daily Telegraph says the Tories want to stop joblessness being what is referred to as a “lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered”, external.

The front page of the Daily Mirror carries a photograph of the moment two RAF pilots ejected from a jet before it crashed on Anglesey in North Wales, external. They were taking part in a training exercise when they were forced to parachute from the plane – which, the paper reports, then “plummeted nose-first into a field” and caused a “huge fireball”. The paper’s headline is “Miracle no one was killed”.

According to the Daily Telegraph, talks about the future of the Elgin marbles have collapsed, external. Greece reopened negotiations with the British Museum in 2021 as part of efforts to repatriate the ancient sculptures. But the paper says “it is understood negotiations are effectively over” as Greek representatives are frustrated by a lack of progress.

The Times says mounted cavalry might have an advantage in modern warfare, external, a century on after tanks replaced horses on the battlefield. Last year, a Ukrainian infantry company in Donetsk reported that Russian forces had started to use horses and donkeys to carry soldiers and supplies to avoid detection by drones. And the paper says the UK’s Household Mounted Cavalry regiment conducted trials over the summer, with officials saying in some situations, such as woodland, there’s a better chance of getting from A to B with a horse, than with a Challenger 2 tank.

And the boss of Timpsons says his company has seen a 680% increase in people asking for extra holes in their belts this year,, external reports the Daily Mail. He believes the demand is down to the popularity of weight loss jabs.

Hayley Williams is speaking out days after her ex-husband, Chad Gilbert, the founding guitarist of pop-punk band New Found Glory, died at 45 following a battle with cancer.

Williams posted the statement on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, writing that she hasn’t known what to say or “if it’s appropriate” but that she wants to address her former husband’s death because “life is made of the paths we cross and the reasons we cross them are infinite.”

“Chad is indeed a legend in the scene and my time connected to him taught me a lot,” she wrote. “He introduced me to people that continue to shape my life in beautiful ways, and to music and culture that has made life a lot richer.

“There isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about what he contributed to the musical world a lot of us grew up in. His influence and attitude guided the genre forward. His passion for fostering the community was inspiring and sticks with me.

“I will forever be grateful that from him I gained a deeper understanding and a reverence for the community and the culture of hardcore.”

Musician Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory and singer Hayley Williams of Paramore arrive at the 2010 People’s Choice Awards.

(Christopher Polk / Getty Images for PCA)

Williams concluded her statement by sending her love and sympathies to Gilbert’s family, friends and his New Found Glory bandmates Jordan Pundik, Cyrus Bolooki and Ian Grushka.

Gilbert died Sunday morning “peacefully in his sleep,” the band and his wife, musician Lisa Cimorelli, announced on social media. No cause of death was given, but the musician had been candid about his battle with cancer in recent years.

“He left this world surrounded by friends and family and took his final breaths with his wife and mother by his side, just as he wished,” the joint statement posted Sunday to Instagram read.

Williams and Gilbert were married in February 2016 after nearly a decade of dating but split the following year in July 2017, saying at the time that marriage wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Gilbert later married Cimorelli in October 2020, and the two welcomed a daughter, Lily, in 2021.

Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive groves near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank weeks before the annual harvest.

Israeli army bulldozers have ploughed through rows of olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, just as Palestinian farmers were preparing to begin their annual harvest, residents told the Reuters news agency.

Palestinian farmer and landowner Abd Alfattah Tamimi said the army had destroyed the olive trees planted on his family’s land as well as his neighbours’.

The demolition in the village of Deir Nidham started on Monday and continued on Tuesday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

“They don’t care about anyone, but God is up there, and we are steadfast here with our souls,” he said. “They are uprooting, and we will plant again with the help of God,” he said.

Another farmer, Nather Tamimi, told Reuters the timing of the demolition was designed to inflict maximum damage ahead of harvest season, which traditionally begins in October.

He said that his family produced about 120 drums of olive oil from the land each year.

The Israeli army also “uprooted all kinds of trees even from between the houses”, Nather Tamimi said.

Israel’s military said it was checking Reuters’ request for comment but had not responded by Wednesday evening.

In the past, Israel has cited the need to clear land of olive trees to prevent security threats or ambushes on troops.

Palestinian human rights groups reject this, saying the destruction in effect deprives Palestinian farmers of income from the sale of olives and olive oil, while uprooting trees ‌they view ⁠as a symbol of their connection to the land.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli attacks on agricultural land in August affected 21,508 trees, including 19,375 olive trees.

They estimated this year’s olive production at 21,000 tonnes, compared with local demand of about 15,000 tonnes.