News Desk

AFC orders judicial reviews for allegation FIFA President Gianni Infantino used AFC Congress for political purposes.

Jordan Football Association chief Prince Ali bin Hussein said he will cooperate with any Asian Football Confederation (AFC) judicial review after he accused FIFA President Gianni Infantino of taking over last week’s AFC Congress for political purposes.

AFC President Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa had endorsed Infantino for re-election at the continental body’s extraordinary congress in Tokyo.

Following the meeting, Prince Ali alleged delegates had not been allowed to speak, question or debate matters and described the final day of the congress as “pure politics at the behest of Gianni Infantino”.

The AFC said on Tuesday that neither Prince Ali nor any other member association’s representatives had requested to speak and that allegations involving coercion, threats or bribery should be supported by credible evidence.

It added that it would refer Prince Ali’s statements to its judicial bodies.

“I respect the AFC and its judicial bodies and will cooperate fully with any process,” Prince Ali said in a post on X late on Wednesday.

“As the FIFA Statutes provide, the Jordan Football Association will cast its vote in the FIFA presidential election independently.”

He said his earlier post about the congress was intended to explain the FIFA presidential voting process and highlight the importance of transparency in football governance.

“Its final sentence states a principle the whole football family shares: no election should be open to coercion, threats or bribery. I stand by that principle. It was a statement of principle, not an allegation against any person,” he said.

“Where concerns arise, the proper place for them is the competent bodies.”

Prince Ali, who has been a vocal critic of FIFA’s leadership, said he would make no further comment while the matter remained under consideration.

Infantino, who has led FIFA since 2016, is seeking re-election in March after apologising for his abandoned proposal to sell a stake in FIFA competitions.

The AFC’s endorsement marked a sharp shift from its position three months earlier, when it accused FIFA of a “fundamental breach of trust” over the abandoned proposal.

It tells the remarkable true story of a resistance hero and his courage in the face of terror during World War Two

There is no shortage of films about the Second World War, but this “masterpiece”, now streaming on Netflix, tells the long-forgotten tale of one man’s extraordinary bravery in the face of unimaginable terror.

The Norwegian film draws on the real-life experiences of resistance fighter Gunnar Sønsteby during the conflict. Starring Sjur Vatne Brean in the lead role and helmed by director John Andreas Andersen, Number 24 charts Sønsteby’s journey from 1940 through to the end of the Second World War.

Taking its title from Sønsteby’s most frequently used code name, Number 24 delves into how the Oslo Group carried out sabotage operations and assassinations throughout the war. The film is narrated by an elderly Sønsteby as he recounts his remarkable experiences to a group of students.

Both film fans and critics alike are utterly captivated by this raw and gritty war film, which currently holds a perfect score on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes.

One critic wrote: “Based on the real-life story of Norwegian hero Gunnar Sønsteby, director John Andreas Andersen delivers a gripping, often violent thriller that highlights the best and worst of humankind.”, reports Wales Online.

Another said: “This biopic about Gunnar Sønsteby, the most highly decorated citizen in Norway, explores the moral grey areas during war under brutal invading forces. Switching between the past and the present, the film sensitively contrasts justice and necessity.”

Meanwhile a third added: “The director crafts a mostly patriotic picture of a man solely dedicated to duty. It’s an uncompromising approach that often makes for a stirring watch even through a narrow lens.”

Fans were equally effusive in their praise. One wrote: “The lead actor is phenomenal. As a man of laser focus and few words, Gunnar commands the screen through the smallest, most restrained expressions and every one of them lands. It’s a masterclass in subtlety, and he delivers a gripping, believable performance.”

Another said: “Well worth watching! Makes me want to go and learn more about this incredible person. You will need a tissue at the ending. You will also need to use your pause button to read the subtitles at the end – they do contain useful information.”

While a third contributed: “Important WWII story of resistance in Norway. Thought provoking and moving. Different points of view from being in different positions when war comes into your life, your family and your country.”

And another wrote: “WOW! WOW! ! . Fantastic in every way My wife and I loved this. So realistic and well acted, directed,etc. Watch,enjoy and respect the Norwegian patriots.”

Number 24 is streaming now on Netflix.

Former Brazil captain Neymar sanctioned by sports tribunal for actions after his red card in match against Bahia.

Santos captain Neymar has been handed a two-match suspension for covering his mouth while arguing with an opponent during Saturday’s 1-1 Brazilian Serie A draw with Bahia, Brazil’s Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) said.

The 34-year-old was sent off following an altercation with Bahia midfielder Rodrigo Nestor, and the sports tribunal found him guilty of violating the Vinicius Junior rule that forbids players from covering their mouths during on-field confrontations.

The STJD said the referee’s report also noted that Neymar, after being sent off, ran towards the visitors’ bench to confront his opponent and had to be restrained by teammates.

The suspension means Neymar will miss Santos’ next three matches. He is already banned for Wednesday’s league game against Palmeiras after accumulating three yellow cards and will serve two additional matches for the protocol violation.

Neymar and Santos can appeal the ruling.

The latest suspension comes three months after Neymar became the first player in Brazil’s top flight to be temporarily removed from the field under a new rule being tested in the league to curb time-wasting by goalkeepers.

The former Brazil captain is not expected to return to action until late November.

Rule against covering mouths

In April, the International Football Association ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌Board (IFAB) unanimously approved a rule whereby a red card would be given to football players who covered their mouths during a confrontation with an opponent or any other player on the pitch.

The FIFA-approved amendment was passed to address inappropriate behaviour before the World Cup.

It followed a UEFA Champions League match ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌where Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni made racially abusive comments directed at Vinicius Jr while pulling his jersey up over his mouth to hide what he was saying.

During the World Cup, Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron was given a one-match suspension after he became the first player to be sent off at the tournament for covering his mouth.

A new independent report argues that increased access to better-protected airfields is as important, if not more so, than buying advanced tanker aircraft when it comes to meeting future U.S. aerial refueling demands. The authors, in part, call for the U.S. military to invest in new hardened shelters that are large enough for tankers to fit inside. Top U.S. Air Force officials have continued to downplay any need for more physical hardening of bases, even now with the experiences from the war with Iran, which have only underscored the already glaring dangers posed to planes sitting out in the open on flightlines.

Hardened shelters and other efforts to “boost surface infrastructure resilience” form one of three main themes in a report the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., published yesterday. It also says that the Air Force should work to “incorporate adaptive mission systems” into existing tanker fleets, including new communications and self-protection capabilities, as well as pursue acquisition of a next-generation tanker with a blended wing body (BWB) design. Hudson’s latest analysis, which is titled Resilient Reach: Redesigning Aerial Refueling for Contested Global Operations, builds on a previous report it published in 2021. Last year, the Institute published an additional report warning more generally about the vulnerabilities created by a lack of hardened infrastructure at U.S. bases worldwide.

“Aerial refueling is an unmatched United States military advantage, but it currently depends on vulnerable forward bases and medium-range tankers that could be neutralized,” Hudson’s report states as its number one finding. “Suppression of this critical capability could collapse US air operations and heavily contribute to US defeat in a war against the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”

Though not necessarily to the degree that the Hudson Institute is arguing for, the Air Force has been working in recent years to increase the networking architecture available on the KC-135 and KC-46 tankers it has now, as well as field new defensive systems. The service is also still exploring a wide range of next-generation aerial refueling concepts, including new stealthy and/or uncrewed tankers, under what is now called the Advanced Tanker Systems (ATS) program.

Base resiliency and aerial refueling capacity

The base resiliency aspects of Hudson’s new aerial refueling report are a particular standout, especially as this is an area where the Air Force has been dragging its feet, if not actively pushing back.

“Aerial refueling surface infrastructure is the ‘network of airfields, maintenance facilities, and bulk fuel storage and distribution facilities and systems necessary to enable tanker operations,’” Hudson’s new report states, citing the Institute’s past work from 2021. “‘Enhancing the capacity and resilience of its surface architecture should be a top priority for the US Air Force – even if it comes at the cost of tanker procurement – because it will yield a greater increase in the number of employable tankers’ and receiver aircraft supported.”

With this in mind, “the department [of the Air Force] should first pursue access to more airfields, including large commercial ones, and nurture its invaluable relationships with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other allies that provide access to tanker airfields,” per the report. “Second, it should improve bulk fuel storage and distribution by constructing lower-capacity hardened fuel stores rather than higher-capacity but vulnerable aboveground storage tanks, fielding airfield and over-the-shore fuel distribution systems, and securing access to more maritime tankers, including by levying higher working capital fund rates to fund bulk fuel resilience initiatives.”

On top of all this, “the Air Force will need to fund passive defenses (such as personnel and equipment bunkers, reconstitution equipment and units, redundant capabilities, the aforementioned fuel infrastructure hardening, more hardened large aircraft shelters, and tanker decoys) and active counter-command, control, communications, computing, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (C5ISRT) and air and missile defenses to defeat threats,” the report adds. “As witnessed at Prince Sultan Air Base, dispersion alone is insufficient to avoid attack in an era of persistent surveillance and precision targeting.”

Five Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tankers were damaged on the ground in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March, just weeks after the start of hostilities with Iran. That same attack destroyed one of the service’s prized E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar planes. Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry, head of Air Force Materiel Command, confirmed just last week that repairs are still ongoing on some of the KC-135s that were damaged, reinforcing that attacks that do not outright destroy friendly aircraft on the ground can still have significant impacts.

Iran was also reportedly able to damage F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10 Warthog ground attack jets on the ground at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan during another more recent attack on the night of September 9-10.

“Historically, aerial refueling aircraft operated from sanctuary on the ground and in the air. However, as Iran’s attacks on Prince Sultan Air Base demonstrated, adversaries can target tankers on the ramp,” Hudson’s report notes. “The [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) ability to attack airfields and aircraft at them dramatically exceeds the range, quality, and quantity of Iranian systems.”

By Hudson’s assessment, “in 2025 the PLA could already deliver thousands of PLA Air Force and PLA Rocket Force munitions per day against targets near its territory and around 400 munitions per day against targets in the Second Island Chain, the Middle East, and Central Asia. It could even strike Alaska and Western Europe with small numbers of weapons,” the report explains. “By 2035, the threat will be far more severe; the PLA may be capable of delivering even more munitions and striking targets throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas. This assessment does not account for additional attacks by the PLA Navy, PLA special forces in Operation Spiderweb–style attacks, or other threats.”

Ukraine’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb involved near-simultaneous near-field drone attacks on air bases across Russia, which resulted in the destruction of at least 10 Russian bombers, as well as a variety of other aircraft. All of those planes were notably parked on open flightlines.

This particular threat vector, among others, was further highlighted by the Air Force’s sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, an airbase in the United Kingdom, earlier this month. As TWZ noted at the time, it also put a spotlight on the U.S. military’s continued lack of investment in hardened aircraft shelters and other fortified air base infrastructure.

To go back to the Pacific scenario, “given the PLA’s focus on systems destruction warfare and nodal analysis, tanker airfields would likely be prime targets. Tankers require bulk fuel stores, long runways, and ample ramp space,” Hudson assesses in its new report. “All of these resources would be easier to suppress and more difficult to reconstitute than operations for other assets, such as fighter aircraft or runway-independent Edge Force units. There are also currently few hardened large aircraft shelters suitable for tankers, which makes them vulnerable to observation and attack on the ramp.”

“Although large hardened aircraft shelters suitable for tankers can be expensive (ranging from $30–$150 million depending on scope and location), they can shield aircraft from observation and inclement weather, force adversaries to employ more numerous unitary weapons (rather than a small number of submunition-armed weapons) and protect tankers that cannot get airborne upon warning of an incoming attack,” Hudson’s report adds.

Hudson’s report recommends the construction of at least 60 large hardened aircraft shelters spread between an array of bases globally, at a total cost of $3.06 billion.

“The costing for this estimate assumes a conservative average Area Cost Factor of 1.87, a 10-year construction program, and 10 percent portfolio efficiencies from replicating similar projects at multiple sites, potentially using the same prime contractor or a set of contractors under a consortium,” per a footnote. “Large aircraft hardened aircraft shelters are assumed to be similar to the Andersen Air Force Base Air Expeditionary Force Forward Operating Location Aircraft Maintenance Hangar.”

With this in mind, the report also notes that these same shelters could be used for other larger aircraft beyond tankers, like bombers. It’s also important to note that shelters with a lower, but still useful degree of hardening, or ones that are just meant to conceal what is inside, would be cheaper to construct. We will come back to this in a moment.

The base hardening debate

TWZ has highlighted all of these points and more in our prior reporting on the ongoing debate within the U.S. military about the value of constructing new hardened (and unhardened) aircraft shelters and other passive defenses. As we wrote after the withdrawal of the B-1s from Fairford:

“It is fair to point out that typical above-ground hardened aircraft shelters are not invulnerable, especially to attacks involving ballistic, cruise, and certain air-launched threats. There are also substantial cost and other factors to consider when it comes to any major military construction effort.”

“That being said, having more hardened infrastructure also imposes costs and complexities on opponents, who have to dedicate more advanced and costly munitions and other resources to ensure targets are neutralized. Shelters have the knock-on benefit of complicating the targeting process for an enemy by obscuring where aircraft are or are not positioned, to begin with. An opponent has to treat shelters like they are full even if they are empty.”

“When thinking about hardened aircraft shelters, stereotypical Cold War-era reinforced concrete structures typically come to mind. However, they do not all have to be built to a one-size-fits-all standard with the same degree of hardening across the board to be useful. Shorter-range drone attacks are typically carried out by platforms carrying small explosive charges or that are designed to drop small bomblets. Even longer-range one-way-attack drones generally have smaller warheads than traditional missiles, they also hit with less kinetic energy.”

“A structure that shields against smaller blasts and shrapnel, also including from cluster munitions that can be readily scattered across wide areas, is one that then has to be addressed by more capable weapons. This could even include mobile or otherwise temporary shelters that offer sufficient concealment and protection.”

“Eliminating, or at least substantially mitigating, the lowest rung of threats creates a dilemma for opponents, who then have to decide whether it is even worthwhile to attempt certain types of attacks. There is clear value in narrowing the available options for the enemy and pushing them toward having to expend higher-end, more expensive munitions, that are available in smaller quantities, and that traditional active defenses may be better optimized to handle. As an example, it may be more viable to shoot down a small barrage of incoming cruise missiles than a swarm of dozens of drones.”

This is a diverse threat ecosystem that extends globally, too. This was highlighted in August by an attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian An-124 at an airport in Germany, which authorities in that country subsequently blamed on Russia.  This has been a growing point of concern in Europe more broadly in recent years, as well.

Drones, in particular, present increasing dangers to key U.S. military bases and critical infrastructure within the U.S. homeland, as well as in waters just off America’s coastlines. Serious incidents at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia in 2023 and Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana just earlier this year have reinforced that these threats are no longer limited to facilities and assets overseas.

No ‘silver bullets’ for safeguarding tankers

To be clear, hardening U.S. bases cannot address current or future threat ecosystems by itself, and needs to be part of a larger defensive architecture that incorporates a range of capabilities including surface-to-air missiles, electronic warfare systems, and directed energy weapons, as well as tactical jets in the air. Furthermore, to reiterate, the view of “surface infrastructure resilience” outlined in Hudson’s report extends beyond defensive measures entirely, and does not discount the value of distributed and dispersed operations within the larger context. When it comes to aerial refueling, more broadly, the authors do also still argue for the continued upgrading of the Air Force’s existing tankers, as well as the acquisition of next-generation aircraft.

At the same time, as mentioned, physical hardening is the area where the Air Force continues to push back.

“I think that I don’t want to spend a lot of money on hardening shelters. Unless you’re going to send something 100 feet or more underground, we can blow it up, and so can they,” Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said in an interview with Breaking Defense in July. “So, the economics of building a shelter that is impervious to a strike doesn’t work.”

“I think the economics favor defending your airspace, defending your ground space with systems that can defeat the incoming rounds, versus building a shelter,” he added. “Some people would argue, well, you should do both. Well, that’s even more expensive. And the other thing is, the shelter doesn’t go anywhere.”

Wilsbach was responding here to a direct question about whether his position on this topic had changed since 2023.

“I’m not a big fan of hardening infrastructure,” Wilsbach, then commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), had said at a roundtable at the Air and Space Forces Association’s main annual symposium that year. “The reason is because of the advent of precision-guided weapons … you saw what we did to the Iraqi Air Force and their hardened aircraft shelters. They’re not so hard when you put a 2,000-pound bomb right through the roof.”

As pointed out earlier, there are different degrees of hardening, not all of which have to rely on permanent infrastructure, and that can add defensive value balanced against cost. Shelters for concealment and to protect against attacks involving drones or submunitions, as well as nearby detonations for strikes by weapons with larger unitary warheads, can be built for far lower cost while still complicating the enemy’s ability to neuter airpower on the ground.

Gen. Wilsbach’s comments, and similar remarks from other U.S. officials, also stand in stark contrast to a very visible global trend when it comes to the construction of new aircraft shelters, hardened and not, including in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Even before Operation Spiderweb, expanding Ukrainian drone and missile attacks had notably prompted Russia to kick off a large-scale push to build new hardened shelters at various bases, especially on the occupied Crimean Peninsula. These efforts now include the construction of huge shelters big enough for bombers, something the country has never done before

“It’s probably most contentious to assert that tanker aircraft should also be under consideration for hardened aircraft shelters, or at least hangars that can cover them from observation,” Timothy Walton, a Senior Fellow at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology and one of the report’s authors, told Breaking Defense for a piece that outlet published yesterday. “But I think in light of what we’ve seen from Operation Epic Fury, it’s necessary.”

Hudson’s latest report certainly underscores how the Air Force’s ability to provide adequate aerial refueling capability in the future requires ensuring the enemy cannot neutralize those critical assets before they can even get off the ground.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

CHRISTINA Aguilera was branded a “smokeshow” as she stripped completely naked for a sizzling bath selfie showing off her rock hard abs.

The popstar flaunted her recent weight loss as she perched in her cream standalone tub, with her blonde hair brushed over her eyes.

American hitmaker Christina, who has undergone a huge transformation in recent years and shed almost three stone in weight, gave a nod to spooky season with her upload.

She covered her modesty with two ghost icons on her boobs and added the words: “Last looks before xtinaween”.

One fan was quick to reply: “She’s the moment she’s an icon she’s a star”.

A second put: “Smokeshow”.

read more christina aguilera

RUB-A-DUB

Christina Aguilera strips naked for bubble bath in steamy new ad for lube brand

SO DIRRTY

Christina Aguilera reveals hottest sex confessions including mile high moment

A third then wrote: “OMG!!!”

The 45-year-old singer, who had her first hit with Genie in the Bottle in 1999, is no stranger to posing starkers in the suds.

Earlier this month she stripped for a bubble bath to promote a new lube brand.

Christina launched her sexual wellness brand Playground back in 2022.

It initially debuted with a line of four water-based, plant-infused lubricants.

Christina lost more than 40 pounds before her Las Vegas residency in 2024, with fans still in awe of her more slender look.

At the time, an insider told Life & Style that the singer had restricted her calorie intake to 1,600 calories per day.

The source added that Christina had been working out “rigorously” every day of the week.

“Christina didn’t feel as energetic with extra weight,” they said.

“Some are concerned she’ll gain the weight back but she loves all the attention she’s getting.”

Although looking smaller than ever, Christina previously claimed she didn’t want to be as thin as she was when she was younger.

Stephen Curry scored 44 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and the Golden State Warriors escaped with a 119-114 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.

Yaxel Lendeborg added 26 points in Wednesday night’s match for Golden State, which won its second straight game after losing its first three contests of the season. Brandon Williams chipped in 11 points off the bench.

Jonathan Kuminga scored 20 points against his former team to lead Minnesota, which dropped its second game in a row after a 3-0 start. Jaden McDaniels and Terrence Shannon Jr each finished with 19 points, and Ayo Dosunmu contributed 17.

The Timberwolves outscored the Warriors 66-55 in the second half but could not complete the comeback attempt. Bones Hyland made a bank shot to trim the deficit to three points in the final seconds, but Curry ended the scoring with two free throws.

The Warriors led 93-81 at the end of the third quarter.

Golden State increased its lead to as many as 24 points midway through the second half. Curry converted a three-point play to give the Warriors a 78-54 lead.

Minnesota closed the third quarter on a 27-15 run to cut the deficit to 12. Hyland came off the bench and made a pair of 3-pointers to help the Timberwolves draw closer.

Golden State led 64-48 at the half.

The Warriors closed the first quarter on a 21-9 run to grab a 30-23 advantage. De’Anthony Melton knocked down a pair of 3-pointers during the run, and Lendeborg added a driving layup and a 3-pointer.

Another layup by Lendeborg gave Golden State its first double-digit lead of the game at 48-38 with 6:29 left in the half.

Golden State scored seven of the final nine points of the first half to go ahead by 16. Lendeborg made a 3-pointer and Will Richard and Curry made two free throws apiece.

Simons fuels fourth-quarter flurry as 76ers power past Pacers

Tyrese Maxey led a balanced attack with 27 points, and Anfernee Simons ignited a deficit-erasing, fourth-quarter run, as the Philadelphia 76ers overtook the Indiana Pacers for a 114-109 victory in Indianapolis.

Simons finished with 20 points off the bench, while Joel Embiid had 21 points and 11 rebounds, Jaylen Brown 20 points and 10 rebounds and LeBron James had 13 points and 10 assists for the 76ers.

Pascal Siakam totalled 26 points to complement 11 rebounds and Andrew Nembhard chipped in with an 18-point, 14-assist double-double for the Pacers.

In a game that featured a 37-point explosion by the 76ers in the second quarter and two Pacers bursts during a 36-point response in the third period, Philadelphia found itself down 88-75 before dominating the final 12 minutes.

Simons buried a 3-pointer 18 seconds into the fourth quarter and the 76ers didn’t slow down until they had run off 26 of the period’s first 34 points to go up 101-96 with 4:24 to go. He had another 3-pointer in the run, James added one and Embiid contributed a three-point play.

Consecutive hoops by Siakam and Nembhard got the hosts within one with 3:07 to play, and it remained a one-score game into the final 90 seconds until Maxey secured Philadelphia’s fourth win in five games with a pair of 3-pointers in the final 1:10.

The 76ers outscored the Pacers 39-21 in the final period.

Indiana had taken its second-half lead with 17-0 and 13-2 third-quarter flurries, the latter helping put the 76ers in a 13-point hole entering the final 12 minutes.

Aaron Nesmith had 18 points, Kelly Oubre Jr had 15 and Obi Toppin had 13 for the Pacers, who lost their second straight.

Cavaliers spoil AJ Dybantsa’s Wizards debut

Evan Mobley scored 24 points and Peyton Watson had a season-high 22 points as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the visiting Washington Wizards 121-111, spoiling the NBA debut of top overall draft pick AJ Dybantsa.

Dybantsa had a team-high 19 points in 27 minutes, making 8 of 12 field goal attempts with two rebounds and two assists.

Mobley, who scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, also grabbed 12 rebounds as Cleveland rallied from a 13-point deficit. Donovan Mitchell posted 19 points and seven assists, and Jarrett Allen had eight points, 12 rebounds and three blocks.

Anthony Davis and Alex Sarr each scored 18 points for the Wizards, while Kyshawn George had eight points and a career-high 11 assists. Trae Young added 14 points and eight assists, and Bilal Coulibaly made 8 of 9 shots and scored 17 off the bench.

The Cavaliers went in front for the first time since the first quarter at 94-92 on Mobley’s slam to begin the fourth. Dybantsa put Washington back ahead 105-104, but Cleveland scored the next nine points in completing a perfect three-game homestand.

Dybantsa drove the lane two minutes into the third to extend the Wizards’ lead to 76-63, but Cleveland ended the period on a 29-16 run. Mitchell made two free throws to tie it at 92-92 going into the fourth.

Coulibaly scored 14 points without a miss in the first half as Washington carried a 69-59 advantage into the break. Dybantsa had 11 points in 14 minutes and Young had seven points and six assists, while Watson had 16 for the Cavaliers.

Sarr scored 13 points in the first, his season high for a game, as the Wizards built a 42-34 lead. Dybantsa, Mitchell and Mobley all had nine points apiece as the teams combined to make 9 of 13 3-point attempts and go 15 of 16 at the foul line.

Dybantsa attacked the basket on the opening possession, drawing a foul and making two free throws 16 seconds in.

El Salvador troops to support rescue mission to find four UN-backed soldiers who disappeared after ambush.

El Salvador plans to send more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to search for four missing Salvadoran aviation technicians and fight armed gangs, as the Caribbean country postpones its elections again.

El Salvador‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the deployment on Wednesday, the same day Haiti’s electoral authorities moved the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections from December 13 to July 18, 2027.

The delay is another setback to restoring elected government in a country where gang violence has made preparations for voting dangerous.

The four Salvadorans disappeared on October 18 after armed men ambushed their vehicle in Croix-des-Bouquets, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

They were serving with an international security mission supporting Haitian police.

President Nayib Bukele has already sent troops to help find them.

In an October 21 post on X, written in Haitian Creole, he threatened to destroy Haiti’s gangs if they did not release the missing personnel.

Bukele spoke by telephone with Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime on Wednesday.

Fils-Aime’s office said they had agreed to strengthen cooperation on rescue efforts and security operations.

It remains unclear whether the additional Salvadoran troops will join the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, a multinational mission assisting Haitian police against gangs, or operate separately.

Foreign troops have served in Haiti under UN-backed security arrangements since 2024, partly to create safer conditions for elections.

Haiti’s nine-member Provisional Electoral Council, which organises elections, also scheduled a second round of voting and local polls for October 4, 2027.

It extended deadlines for candidates to register and introduced online voter registration.

Fewer than 900,000 people had registered by Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported, out of 6.5 million Haitians holding the identification cards needed to enrol.

Gang-controlled roads make it difficult to reach registration centres, while violence has forced many people from their homes.

Haiti has held no elections since 2016 and its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021. Successive transitional authorities have delayed a return to voting, citing insecurity.

An international food security assessment released on Wednesday found that 5.94 million Haitians face acute hunger, including 1.8 million in emergency conditions, as violence disrupts farming and food deliveries.

The number facing acute hunger is projected to rise to 6.35 million by mid-2027.

The story of “Small Prophets” — the gentle, magical, nostalgic British comedy streaming on Apple TV — begins and ends in a garden shed. The show’s creator, writer and director, Mackenzie Crook, and the animator Ainslie Henderson have been friends for at least 20 years. One day, Henderson went to visit Crook in the shed at the end of his garden.

It’s “a big mess of a creative little place,” Henderson said, where Crook makes things. He writes in there, but it’s a workshop too: he illustrates and he crafts. He made many of the props in the show by hand. Both the shed and his house are peppered with his “beautiful little objects.” “If I’ve got a whole day with no other interruptions, that’s where I am,” Crook said.

When Henderson walked into the shed that day, a weird, white, papier-mâché creature on the shelf caught his eye. It was, as Crook told Henderson, a homunculus: one of a set of tiny prophets, or magical spirits, who lived in glass jars full of water. They could answer any question, and they had to answer truthfully.

“Small Prophets” follows Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley), who works in a DIY store (a British term for a home improvement store), visits his dad Brian (Michael Palin) in a retirement home, and yearns for his girlfriend Clea to come home. Clea vanished seven years ago, and Michael’s dad suggests that the homunculi — which he learned about from an Italian alchemist in Egypt — might be able to tell him what happened to her.

The show premiered on BBC Two in February, when it quickly became the BBC’s biggest new scripted launch of the year. (It was renewed for a second season in September, this time on BBC One.) In the U.K., Crook is well-known for playing Gareth Keenan in the original British version of “The Office” (Gareth’s an analogue to Dwight Schrute in the U.S. version) — and for writing, directing and starring in “Detectorists,” which won the 2015 BAFTA for television scripted comedy.

“Detectorists” and “Small Prophets” share a singular comedic sensibility, which arose from Crook’s realization that some shows at that time, like “The Office” or “The Inbetweeners,” were drawing humor from cruelty, embarrassment and awkwardness. This is how he stumbled upon his genre: gentle comedy.

“I didn’t like the word ‘gentle’ at first,” Crook said on a video call earlier this month from Leeds, Yorkshire, where he’s directing his first feature film. “It’s taken me a while to make my peace with that. But now I realize that it’s something to do with being uncynical, being optimistic, but hopefully that doesn’t mean bland or unfunny. … It’s sort of a surprise to find that this is what I do, and this is what I’ve become known for. But I’m thankful for it, as well, because I think this world does need more optimism and hope than it presently has.”

He worries that “gentle” might suggest something not particularly funny or challenging, and would like to clarify that was not his intent. It wasn’t the outcome, either: “Small Prophets” is about some of the most challenging subject matter — grief and loss — while remaining genuinely funny and rather extraordinary.

Mackenzie Crook, who created “Small Prophets,” plays Gordon, Michael’s boss at the DIY store. (Apple)

Michael (Pearce Quigley) befriends Kacey (Lauren Patel), his co-worker at the store. (Apple)

Michael has the epitome of an ordinary life, living a mundane existence in a suburban cul-de-sac, dutifully eating his Malted Squares cereal each morning, and evading his boss at the DIY store (played by a ponytailed, bespectacled Crook). He befriends Kacey (Lauren Patel) at work, a May-December friendship somewhat based on Patel and Quigley’s own (they met working on a radio play). But somehow, Michael is simultaneously “a magnet for beautiful, crazy things,” Crook said.

When oil spills from his dusty, beat-up blue car, it pools into the shape of a big, black rabbit. A shooting star, or rather a meteor, may or may not have landed somewhere inside his house. A room inside is frozen in time, forever decorated for an ‘80s-themed Christmas — a surprise that Clea never got to see. And then there are the homunculi.

The inspiration came from a short passage in “Clea,” the fourth book in Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet,” which references the creatures. “It just fascinated me that he put it in this novel apropos of nothing else,” Crook said. “It didn’t add to the plot.” He squirreled the idea away until he knew what to do with it. Crook is a big fan of David Lynch, and referenced an old trick of his: To make a movie, first come up with 70 ideas.

The homunculi were one of those seed ideas for “Small Prophets.” Crook knew he wanted to set the show in modern-day suburbia, in a cul-de-sac. He knew he wanted to work with Quigley, who plays Michael. And he knew he wanted to work with Henderson, his animator friend, on those homunculi. (In the early stages of design, Crook made illustrations of what the prophets might look like. “They’re like Francis Bacon paintings,” Henderson said. “They’re mad-looking things.”)

Henderson worked on the show with Will Anderson, the former as a stop-motion animator, the latter on digital animation, 2-D animation, compositing and finishing shots. (Glen Southern designed and sculpted the creatures themselves, and they collaborated with Mackinnon & Saunders, a puppet fabricator that has worked on Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio,” Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride.” There were seven total puppets for three homunculi.)

As much as possible, Crook wanted this world to feel tangible; to achieve it, the team used in-camera effects and props as much as possible, rather than CGI. “It feels a bit more authentic … when it’s stop-motion. You can see the mark of the maker in every movement,” said Anderson in a video call with Henderson. The prophet puppets float “behind this warped glass, which is slightly abstracted and a bit more magical, and separates you from them in a really interesting way with reflections and inks.”

It’s almost as if the flesh-colored prophet puppets were actors, and Henderson directed them, Anderson said, manipulating their silicon bodies into position over and over again. In this analogy, Anderson would be ironing out logistics like camera angles or lighting. He made their garments, like the queen’s billowing cape (“ethereal clothes,” Henderson called them), digitally after the fact.

Crook knew that he wanted the homunculi to be almost still, as if someone had fallen into icy water, their cold, wet clothes clinging to them, barely wanting to move. Near-stillness is one of the hardest things to animate, Anderson pointed out. But “when it’s done well, it really binds, because they are thinking, alive things; they are. That’s our job to animate.”

For many, stop-motion holds a real nostalgia, Henderson said — another theme of the show, dovetailing with Michael’s yearning. Production designer Lucy Spink wove nostalgia into “Small Prophets,” especially in the Christmas room. She texted her sisters pictures of wallpaper options. “Which one makes you cry more?” she asked. “Or makes you feel like you remember being there?”

From a production angle, creating gentle comedy is “a tonal thing,” Spink said on a video call from the Yorkshire Dales. “You know how far to take it. That it isn’t extreme fantasy, but you’re pulling somewhere back from that. And it was a visual serendipity, is what I felt was what we tried to do, which was like the world was saying there’s a little something strange going on.”

If someone described this show as magical realism, Crook would “find that a compliment.” The first time he heard the phrase was about the 1992 Mexican romantic drama “Like Water for Chocolate,” which really struck him. “I just thought, wow, OK, you can do stuff like that, impossible stuff” — like a crocheted bedspread flying in a swirl of colors for a kilometer behind a carriage — “and ask people to believe it.”

“Like Water for Chocolate” is based on Laura Esquivel’s 1989 novel by the same name, which folds recipes into its story. One is for quail in rose petal sauce, which Crook made for his girlfriend at the time, whose name was Clea. She cried because she found the tiny bird so sad.

Kacey (Lauren Patel) gazes at one of the homunculi in a scene from the series.

(Apple)

There’s a quote from “Justine,” the first novel in the “Alexandria Quartet,” that I shared with Crook. It reminded me of how he had spoken about wanting to believe in the unexplained: “We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.”

“I’d not even picked up on that, but that’s it,” Crook said. “I’ve never believed in ghosts, but I would love to see one. And if I did, it would flip my world upside down. I’d have to reevaluate everything, and that would be an exciting thing. And I think ‘Small Prophets’ is a lot about that.”

The “Small Prophets” finale, dropping on Apple TV Nov. 4, channels that essence of storytelling — inexplicable but undeniably real — back into a garden shed. This time it’s Michael’s, engulfed by his wild garden, built with the exact same footprint as Crook’s own.

“That spirit that’s in the show: that gentle, warm funniness — that’s what he’s like to be with,” Henderson said. “Will and I went and stayed in his house, and he made us dinner, and we sat ‘round and drank wine and had a fun time storyboarding. That’s cool. That’s how life should be when you’re making stuff with people.”

After a 1-1 draw in normal time, Liverpool win 6-5 to edge a narrow win after penalties in last-16 match at Liverpool.

Liverpool beat Chelsea 6-5 in a dramatic penalty shootout to reach the English League Cup quarterfinals.

In a clash between childhood friends Andoni Iraola and Xabi Alonso, it was the Liverpool manager who took the bragging rights in the last-16 tie at Anfield on Wednesday.

A 1-1 draw in normal time set the stage for the shoot-out as Chelsea’s Morgan Rogers netted from the spot, only for Cody Gakpo to equalise with a penalty of his own just before half-time.

Chelsea’s Valentin Barco hit the post in the shootout before Liverpool’s Kostas Tsimikas wasted a chance to win it when he blazed over.

Ryan Gravenberch was denied by Chelsea keeper Mike Penders, but Giorgi Mamardashvili saved Emmanuel Emegha’s kick to keep Liverpool alive.

After Joe Gomez scored for Liverpool, Blues defender Wesley Fofana miscued into the Kop as the hosts advanced.

It was former Liverpool midfielder Alonso’s third defeat in his three visits to Anfield as a manager, following losses with Bayer Leverkusen in 2024 and Real Madrid in 2025.

In their debut campaigns at Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot both reached the League Cup final, and Iraola is on course to follow in their footsteps with the 10-time winners of the competition.

“We are really happy. Three wins at home in a row is very important. We were struggling at home in the league but now we go against Arsenal on Sunday,” said Iraola, who will face his former club Bournemouth in the last eight.

Alonso added: “Every time you reach the penalties, someone will feel it is harsh to go out of the competition.

“We were showing a good level and this is what it takes to come to these stadiums. The Premier League is the main focus.”

Alonso made just four changes to the Chelsea side that lost 2-0 at home to Tottenham on Saturday, while Iraola made seven changes from Liverpool’s 2-0 win against Brighton on Sunday.

Rogers put Chelsea in front with a 40th-minute penalty after Gravenberch clattered into Moises Caicedo.

But Liverpool were level three minutes later with a penalty of their own as Gakpo converted from the spot following Fofana’s handball.

Student protests that began in September in France have spread to more than 11 European countries as anger rises over high rents and fuel prices and cuts to public services.

Many young protesters said they no longer expect to be better off than their parents, and household wealth data show a wide gap between generations.

Across the eurozone and two other European countries, households headed by someone under 35 have a median net wealth of about 25,000 euros ($27,870) while those headed by 55- to 64-year-olds are worth about 208,000 euros ($231,882), more than eight times as much, according to the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) 2023 Household Finance and Consumption Survey.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera compares wealth by age groups across 22 European countries and looks at how much more expensive life has become since 2000.

Where is the wealth gap widest?

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey, run by the ECB and national central banks since 2010, tracks household wealth and debt in the eurozone, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

It measures net wealth, which includes property, cars, valuables and savings, minus debts. Under-35s hold just 2.8 percent of all household wealth in the 22 countries while 55- to 64-year-olds hold the largest share at 24 percent.

In Finland, under-35s hold 0.8 percent of household wealth, the lowest share of any country surveyed, while over-55s hold more than 71 percent. Young people’s shares are also small in Ireland (1.4 percent), Austria (1.6 percent), Greece (1.8 percent) and Germany (2 percent).

Rising housing costs mean many young people cannot afford what their parents or grandparents could.

Wealth is more evenly spread in Central and Eastern Europe. In Lithuania, under-35s hold 13.2 percent, against 15.9 percent for 55- to 64-year-olds. Their share is 12.3 percent in Croatia, 10.1 percent in Slovakia and 9.8 percent in Estonia. Malta, at 11.1 percent, is the exception outside the two regions.

The graphic below shows how household wealth is split between age groups in each country surveyed.

“What we’ve seen is actually a very strong increase in housing prices both in terms of the rental market as well as the ownership market,” Evelyn Astor of the European Social Observatory told Al Jazeera’s Counting the Cost programme.

“All of this is also reinforcing a sense of inequality because ultimately ordinary families are struggling to pay their rents or be able to purchase their homes whereas wealthy people with capital are able to make rather significant investments in the European housing market,” she said.

How much more expensive is it than 2000?

Prices of everyday goods and services, such as food, energy, transport and household bills, have risen by 67.2 percent in the eurozone, Hungary and the Czech Republic since 2000.

Of the countries in our chart, Hungary has seen the steepest rise with prices more than tripling, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. Its harmonised index of consumer prices is the EU’s official measure of how much everyday goods and services cost.

The chart below shows how consumer prices have changed in each country since 2000 with prices in 2000 set at 100 on the index.

Eastern European countries have seen the sharpest increases – particularly since 2022 when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began – because many relied heavily on Russian energy supplies.

Prices rose by about 2 percent a year on average until 2022 when annual inflation in the EU hit 9.2 percent.

The surge was driven mainly by energy costs. Inflation has since eased, but the price rises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have not reversed.

Emmerdale fans were left questioning how Dr Liam Cavanagh and newcomer Dave knew each other, after a link was teased in an episode that also a wedding date confirmed

How does Liam on Emmerdale know new character Dave?

A link is clear, given Dave, who said his name was David Thistlethwaite, clearly knew Liam from his past. Dave commented how he’d seen him before but that he didn’t know anyone by the surname Cavanagh, which is Liam’s surname.

When Dave asked Liam about where he was from and how they knew each other, Liam shut it down. The thing is, he didn’t recognise Dave or his name, so he doesn’t seem to know him.

But it’s when Dave started probing about where he grew up and that he’d seen him close to where he was from at some point, that Liam started to panic.

Dave had been drafted in to take part in a murder mystery organised by Chas Dingle, Liam’s fiancée. At first it seemed Dave was an actual criminal, and he had hijacked the murder game to get revenge on Dylan Penders.

Everyone played along until the end, when Liam unlocked a safe, only to find a piece of paper. On the paper, the date January 29th was written down.

As Liam asked what this meant, they all dropped the act, including Dave, as Chas admitted it was all to announce their wedding date. Dave was actually new at the brewery, helping Chas with deliveries at the pub.

Liam thanked him for taking part, calling him a good sport. It was clear he didn’t know Dave, but it’s then that Dave made a point of knowing where Liam was originally from.

Dave told him: “You do seem quite familiar, although I’m not sure I knew an Cavanaghs.” Liam told him, nervously: “No, it wouldn’t have been me.”

Dave replied: “Are you sure? You do seem very familiar.” Liam started stuttering, trying to suggest he wasn’t there for long before Dave interrupted.

Liam interrupted back though, and bluntly told him: “It wasn’t me.” Dave apologised for asking, and later, we saw an anxious Liam staring at Dave from afar.

Fans began speculating how the men knew each other, and what Liam was hiding about his past. They were convinced that Liam had done something or was running away from something.

Another theory was that he wasn’t he who said he was or had perhaps changed his name. Dave clearly knew Liam by a different surname, and Liam is clearly trying to cover up this link.

One fan said: “I think Liam killed his 1st wife,” as a second said: “I wonder if Liam has a secret family?” A third fan said: “Ooh, who is Liam really?”

Another theory read: “Bigamy so he cant marry Chas,” as one said: “I think it’s going to turn out all this time he has been a bigamist and still has a wife down south.” A final post said: “Wonder if he’s changed his name for some reason ie medical misconduct or immunity from something.”

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

The United States midterm elections appear stacked against the ruling Republicans, with polls suggesting the Democrats average an eight-point lead in the House of Representatives and the Senate. But if Democrats take one or both houses, could they affect upcoming elections in Europe?

Not fundamentally, analysts and observers have told Al Jazeera, but besides a welcome improvement in transatlantic relations, they point to two potentially adverse effects.

First, a Democratic Congress might produce complacency among Europeans regarding their own far-right movements.

Second, it might spur US President Donald Trump to raise pressure on Ukraine to make a deal it doesn’t want to make with Russia.

“If the Democrats win the House, let alone both houses, it will be read as, ‘you see democracies bounce back,’” said Catherine Fieschi, a nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe, specialising in European far-right politics. It would introduce “the idea that these things don’t mean the advent of a fascist regime”, she said.

From her vantage point in Paris, Fieschi said she imagines a Democratic win leading to “a whole discussion about whether we should fear a Marine Le Pen election as much as some people say we should, or whether, in fact, it’s swings and roundabouts and, at some point, if people are really bad and really incompetent, then elections right the way,” she said.

French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen is currently leading the field in polling for presidential elections scheduled for April 18, with surveys indicating she has about 34 percent of the popular vote.

There is a precedent for the complacency Fieschi alludes to. In June 2025, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank, polled Europeans following Trump’s first six months in office. Clear majorities in Western Europe said the US political system was broken. In Eastern Europe, majorities said it was working well – though they were weighted towards right-wing voters.

Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris warned against giving too much credit to the US for what Europeans think and do, however.

He said he believes European public opinion hardened against asylum and economic migration independently, but the US marked the shift by expressing it more violently, with military deportation flights and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sweeping American cities.

“I think there was a European about-turn on migration. We saw this in Germany, which had a welcoming attitude [to refugees] for many years, and they went to a more controlled policy. All northern European governments saw societies change,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But the US provided a change in tone, from induction and integration and benefaction to deterrence, border protection, increased returns and consequences if asylum is denied. I do think that pivot played a role in Europe,” Plevris added.

The fallout for Ukraine

Should French voters decide that the only way out is through electing Le Pen – “like some kind of strong medicine that would wake us up to what we might lose”, as Fieschi put it – they would have to contend with three controversial propositions – cutting French financial contributions to the European Union’s federal budget to pay for earlier retirement, cutting military aid to Ukraine and possibly leaving the single currency, the euro, in favour of a devalued franc.

Any one of those policy moves would be a major setback for the European project, which has coalesced around trade, money and now security. A cut in assistance to Ukraine would remove 3.5 percent of its foreign military aid, according to the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker, which other allies would have to make up.

At the same time, “we could end up in a situation where Trump is basically clinching deals with Putin as fast as he can,” said Fieschi, referring to the US-Russian strategy to coerce Ukraine into a peace agreement that involves sacrificing its eastern Donbas region – something Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said would be a strategic error leading to renewed war, and which a majority of Ukrainians are against.

Trump has already leveraged US early warning on incoming ballistics and Starlink satellite navigation against Ukraine. He has twice echoed Russian calls for Zelenskyy to be replaced.

Compounding this renewed pressure from a beleaguered White House, Russia could intensify its “all-domain war”, which many European governments believe it is already waging against them, said Victoria Vdovychenko, a Ukraine expert at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics.

“Cognitive warfare never stopped on the European continent, and Russians are already using existing vulnerabilities to the utmost,” she told Al Jazeera. “I hope that the European partners will be staying very strong.”

What Europeans think

Trump’s abandonment of the world order the US and Europe established after World War II, his disregard for democracy and human rights, and his betrayal of Ukraine have already transformed European public opinion, observers say.

Only 31 percent of Europeans see the US as Europe’s “most trustworthy ally”, down from 51 percent in 2024, when Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was in office, according to a poll for the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Seventy-three percent of Europeans across all age groups say Europe should “go its own way” rather than continue a close cooperation with the US, up from 63 percent in 2024, and that figure includes a clear majority among those on the centre-right and right.

In this year’s Spring Eurobarometer, a regular pulse-taking conducted by the European Commission, 68 percent of respondents wanted the EU’s role in protecting Europeans from global crises and security risks to increase, while 39 percent wanted it to be a top priority.

In a June poll for the European Council on Foreign Relations, the description of the US as an “ally” fell from 22 percent in November 2024 to 11 percent across all territories polled in Eastern and Western Europe.

In a June poll for the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank, 76 percent of people polled in 36 countries, of which nine were EU members, expressed no confidence in Trump, and 57 percent expressed unfavourable views of the US.

It would appear that such shifts against the US and especially Republicans, formed over two Trump terms, would be difficult to reverse in a single congressional election, especially with a Russian war ongoing in Europe.

Trump administration issues more than 100 subpoenas across 13 states as search for alleged noncitizen voters ramps up.

A United States judge has rejected a Department of Justice request to temporarily halt California from counting mail ballots from a list of 20,000 alleged noncitizens just six days before the country’s midterm elections.

US District Judge David Carter’s ruling on Wednesday came as US President Donald Trump expands efforts to search for alleged noncitizen voters, with subpoenas issued in at least 13 states.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote on Wednesday.

The judge, a 1998 appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the Justice Department’s last-minute request to exclude more than 20,000 ballots ran afoul of “longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections”.

The Justice Department swiftly appealed the decision to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals and did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the Reuters news agency.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit on October 15, a rare intervention in the voting process weeks before Tuesday’s election, when voters will choose which party controls Congress as well as their state and local representatives.

Escalating efforts from Trump

The decision marks the latest setback in Trump’s effort to expand the federal government’s role in elections ahead of the legislative midterms, as his Republican Party fights to retain control of both houses of Congress.

The Trump administration issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding records on tens of thousands of voters in at least 13 states, both Republican- and Democratic-leaning.

Most of the subpoenas Reuters documented were issued to state and local election officials in the past three months, though some date to the start of the year. Many were previously unreported, revealing a federal effort to identify potential noncitizen voters that is broader than publicly known.

It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in US federal elections. Legal experts say the records could be used to contest close midterm results, despite scant evidence that noncitizen voting is widespread.

‘Deeply flawed process’

Also on Wednesday, Democracy Docket, a US media platform that tracks election litigation, reported that the Department of Justice list of alleged noncitizen voters “appears to have been created using a deeply flawed process” that could disenfranchise US citizen voters beyond California.

In a court filing, a government whistleblower revealed that voters were being scrutinised nationwide, not just in California, as part of the federal government’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative” investigation, the group reported. The whistleblower warned that “the current process is knowingly sweeping known US citizens in as potentially ‘unlawful voters’”.

California has said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust. It said the Justice Department’s assertions relied on “suspect data” and that complying with its demands would risk disenfranchising eligible voters. Democracy Docket reported that in Los Angeles County, one in four voters on the “noncitizen” list were born in the US.

PRINCESS Andre has been given another major career boost after landing a FOURTH series of her hit show in less than two years.

The TV star is quickly becoming an ITV fan-favourite thanks to her reality TV show, The Princess Diaries.

Now, The Sun can exclusively reveal that the programme is coming back for a fourth series.

Our insiders revealed that filming for the next edition is already underway with Princess and everyone around her delighted that the show will be coming back again.

A source told us: “Everyone’s thrilled Princess is doing another series, it’s been so successful for ITV.”

With filming already underway, it is expected that new episodes could land early next year.

DAUGHTER BANTS

Princess Andre left laughing as she pulls hilarious prank on mum Katie Price

AMERICAN BEAUTY

Inside Princess Andre’s plan to be ‘British Kylie Jenner’ and conquer US

So far, three series of The Princess Diaries have aired since the programme launched in summer 2025.

It originally followed Princess as she turned 18 and entered into adulthood and stepped outside of the shadows of her parents, Peter Andre and Katie Price.

Mum Katie was originally banned from appearing in the show in series one but dad Peter made several appearances.

Both her parents were then absent for the second series before Katie’s ban was overturned for the third series where she began filming for the first time.

Peter also made a return to the series around this time as well.

Her own show isn’t the only TV appearance the young influencer has going on with the star currently appearing in Celebrity Race Across The World with her brother Junior.

In a surprising development, Ethiopia has taken receipt of 12 Russian-made Su-35 multirole fighters, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced, adding a significant new capability to the Ethiopian Air Force. The agreement also calls for four batteries of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system, although their delivery schedule remains unclear.

Abiy said the fighters arrived a year ahead of schedule under an agreement with Moscow and thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for facilitating the accelerated delivery. The financial terms of the deal, the aircraft’s basing locations, and whether additional fighters are included in the agreement have not been disclosed. The Ethiopian leader announced the development on his X account, also posting photos and a video showing himself and other Ethiopian and Russian officials alongside two of the jets. The location appears to have been the third Russia-Africa Summit, taking place in Moscow on October 28-29.

The acquisition comes as Ethiopia seeks to strengthen its military capabilities amid persistent domestic security challenges and tensions across the Horn of Africa.

The Su-35 is a heavily modernized derivative of the Soviet-era Su-27, known by NATO as the Flanker. It combines twin thrust-vectoring engines for a high degree of maneuverability, advanced radar and other sensors, and the ability to carry a range of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons.

Its radar and long-range air-to-air missile capabilities, in particular, represent a notable improvement for Ethiopia’s ability to detect and engage hostile aircraft, while its multirole design allows it to perform a wide range of strike missions.

Su-35 Multirole supermaneuverable fighter / AERO INDIA 2021

Ethiopia already operates Russian-designed Su-27 fighters, providing a considerable degree of familiarity with the Flanker family. The current fleet comprises around 10 (and perhaps as many as 15) secondhand Su-27s, including two-seaters, supplemented in 2024 by a pair of Su-30Ks. The latter were originally produced for India as interim equipment, and then ended up in storage in Belarus before being refurbished and delivered to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Flankers saw action against Eritrean opposition in the 1990s, and there have also been a handful of non-combat attrition losses.

However, introducing the Su-35 will still require specialized pilot training, additional maintenance infrastructure, weapons integration, and a dependable supply of spare parts. The latter, in particular, is something that Moscow has not always been able to guarantee in practice.

The planned acquisition of four S-400 batteries could prove equally significant.

The S-400 is a mobile air-defense system designed to engage aircraft, cruise missiles, and certain ballistic missile threats.

If delivered, the systems would considerably strengthen Ethiopia’s ability to protect military installations, critical infrastructure, and other strategic sites against aerial attack.

Ethiopia occupies a strategically important position in the Horn of Africa, bordering Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Its security environment includes various unresolved regional tensions, longstanding border disputes, and internal armed conflicts.

Ethiopia’s relationship with Eritrea remains particularly relevant given their history of war and continuing tensions. Relations with Egypt and Sudan are also shaped by disputes over the Nile.

Abiy has presented the acquisition as a means of deterring aggression and strengthening national sovereignty.

At the same time, the delivery reinforces Russia’s position as a supplier of advanced military equipment to African countries. Russian exports to the continent have included combat aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles, and ground-based air-defense systems.

Su-35s, specifically, have previously been delivered to Algeria, a long-term recipient of Russian military equipment on the African continent, as you can read about here.

Interesting report indicating Algeria has purchased at least some of the Russian Su-35s originally built for Egypt and later reported to be sought by Iran.https://t.co/0soV9aOopn

— John Hardie (@JohnH105) April 9, 2025

The Algerian jets are understood to have originated in a batch of Su-35s built for Egypt, which had ordered 24. However, the planned transfer to Egypt fell through, under the threat of U.S. sanctions and a teased offer of F-15s. In particular, Washington had said it would put sanctions on Cairo under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

CAATSA includes provisions for sanctions against parties found to have knowingly engaged in significant transactions with Russia’s defense or intelligence sectors. Washington previously invoked the provision against China over its acquisition of Su-35 fighters and S-400-related equipment, although any action against Ethiopia would depend on a separate U.S. determination.

The Su-35s built for Egypt were repeatedly connected with a sale to Iran, but this also never materialized.

Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN announced on Friday that Iran has finalized buying #Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia.

Here is what Iran has purchased: pic.twitter.com/aw7EVkc18N

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) March 11, 2023

Potentially, the 12 jets for Ethiopia could also have been left over from the abandoned Egyptian deal.

For Moscow, the deal provides a prominent example of continued defense cooperation with an important country in the Horn of Africa. The transfer also comes amid broader efforts by Russia and African governments to deepen political, economic, and military ties.

The agreement’s cost and financing arrangements have not been made public, leaving questions about the long-term expense of operating the fighters and maintaining their supporting infrastructure.

The deal also needs to be seen in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent international sanctions, have hampered efforts to secure sales for any kind of military equipment, other than to a handful of selected close allies, with little prospect that this will change any time soon. Amid those same sanctions, as well as Moscow’s increasing pariah status, any kind of export success will be very welcome for Moscow, even if it involves jets previously built for another customer.

At the same time, the ability of the Russian defense industry to provide in-service support for these jets, once they are delivered, is even more questionable than it was in the past. Since the invasion, Moscow’s need to prioritize its own forces, combined with Western sanctions restricting access to key components, has further complicated the situation. For Ethiopia, any disruption to parts deliveries or maintenance support could have an outsized impact on operational readiness, and this is compounded by the requirement of Russian industry to support Moscow’s own Su-35S jets, its primary fighter.

Ultimately, the acquisition represents a substantial reported addition to Ethiopia’s combat aircraft fleet. The planned S-400 systems could extend that modernization into ground-based air defense, and further influence the military balance in the Horn of Africa region.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Actor Barbara Barrie, best known for films in which she elevated the role of Mom — including her Oscar-nominated turn in “Breaking Away” (1979) — died Wednesday in her Manhattan home. She was 95.

Barrie’s death was confirmed to the L.A. Times by the actor’s representatives, who said it was medically assisted. Her daughter, Jane Harnick, told the New York Times that her mother’s death followed a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Barrie’s representatives said in a statement to the L.A. Times that the actor was a proponent and advocate of New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act, a law that took effect on Aug. 5.

Born Barbara Berman in Chicago in 1931, Barrie and her family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, where she attended Del Mar College. She would later transfer to the University of Texas, where she received multiple awards for drama.

After graduation, she took her acting dreams to the Big Apple, where she made her Broadway debut in the 1955 play “The Wooden Dish.” Throughout her career, Barrie starred in various Broadway productions, among them “The Selling of the President” (1972), “California Suite” (1976) and, most notably, the 1970 musical “Company,” by Stephen Sondheim, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for featured actress in a musical.

Her last Broadway stint was in 2017 in the original role of Helene Berman in the Joshua Harmon play “Significant Other.”

Barrie extended her acting expertise beyond the stage, however, making her first television appearance on “Kraft Television Theater” in 1955. A year later, she made her film debut, albeit uncredited, in the western epic “Giant” while she was in Texas visiting her family.

With more than 120 credits to her name, Barrie began appearing in popular TV shows in the 1950s and ’60s, such as “Naked City,” “The Twilight Zone,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “The Nurses” and more. Later TV credits included “Barney Miller” and “Suddenly Susan,” where she played an on-screen grandmother to Brooke Shields.

Her first major film role came in 1964, when she played divorcée Julie Cullen Richards in “One Potato, Two Potato.” She portrayed a white woman who falls in love with a Black man, Frank Richards (played by Bernie Hamilton). The film was released during a time when interracial marriage was not yet legalized nationwide. Barrie earned a Cannes Film Festival Award for the performance.

The actor went on to star as the mom Evelyn Stroller in the 1979 coming-of-age comedy-drama “Breaking Away,” which earned her an Academy Award nomination for supporting actress, and later an Emmy nomination when she reprised the role for the 1980 television series.

Other film credits include 1980’s “Private Benjamin,” 1997’s “Hercules” (where she voiced Alcmene, Hercules’ mortal mother) and 1999’s “Judy Berlin.” According to her IMDb profile, her last credit was in 2025 for the queer romantic comedy “Things Like This.”

In 1994, Barrie was diagnosed with rectal cancer, prompting her to raise awareness about the disease. She published two books on the matter, including “Second Act,” a 1997 memoir about resolute optimism and acceptance, and “Don’t Die of Embarrassment: Life After Colostomy and Other Adventures,” a 1999 memoir where she dives deep into her diagnosis and experience with a colostomy procedure.

Barrie married actor, director and producer Jay Harnick in 1964. He died in 2007. The two are survived by their children, Jane and Aaron.

Government says Salim Said ‘hit the jackpot’ in a scheme claiming to feed needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A 37-year-old man who played a key role in defrauding a United States food programme in the state of Minnesota during the COVID-19 pandemic has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, in a case that has drawn intense national scrutiny and political pressure from President Donald Trump.

The widespread scheme in Minnesota, which resulted in dozens of convictions, has repeatedly drawn attacks from Trump, who ridiculed the Democratic governor for failing to stop the scheme and cited it as grounds for an immigration crackdown in the state’s largest cities.

Salim Said, who operated Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis, was accused of vastly overstating the number of meals when seeking payment for providing food to needy children. The government said he was responsible for $44 million in fraud, some of which was committed by others he recruited.

“You took more than taxpayers’ dollars to enrich yourself. You took the reputation of our state down with you,” US District Judge Nancy Brasel said.

Said was claiming a “ridiculous daily distribution of 6,000 meals” while FBI cameras showed 40 people a day collecting food, prosecutors said in a court filing.

“The defendant and his sites did not serve thousands of children; he served a calculated, lucrative lie,” prosecutors said.

Said, who was born in Somalia, denied the allegations while testifying at his 2025 trial, saying many meals were delivered off site. But he changed course and expressed remorse at his sentencing on Wednesday.

Defence lawyer Barry Zone, who had asked for a 12-year prison sentence, disputed the government’s claim that Said was the “architect”.

COVID-19 brought changes to a federal programme that typically fed children through schools. Restaurants could participate, and food distribution was extended to places outside schools.

“For 21 consecutive months, Said made thousands of fraudulent reimbursement claims,” prosecutors said. “Each submission represented meals purportedly provided to underprivileged children, yet the listed children themselves were entirely fictitious.”

The government said Said hit the jackpot, using the stolen funds to buy a $1.2 million home, commercial real estate and an $87,000 pickup truck.

Said was convicted in 2025 alongside Aimee Bock, leader of the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future, who is serving a 42-year prison sentence for devising the scheme and was ordered to repay $242 million.

State auditors found that Minnesota’s education department received numerous complaints about Feeding Our Future but often told the group to police itself. Following relentless criticism from Trump over theft in federally funded programmes, Governor Tim Walz announced in January that he would not run for re-election.

Video footage posted online showed several men, some of them armed, beating Nathaniel and Andrey X.

Russian activist Adele Shoko has said that Israeli settlers attacked her alongside two of her colleagues in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank, according to social media posts.

Shoko said on social media platform X that she, US journalist Jasper Nathaniel, and Israeli-Russian activist Andrey X were beaten and threatened by armed settlers who stole equipment and personal items.

“Jasper and I were also beaten. Jasper was then pepper-sprayed and arrested,” Shoko wrote, adding that Nathaniel was taken away by Israeli forces.

Shoko said Andrey X suffered a concussion and lost consciousness multiple times during the incident before being detained by authorities.

“Andrey was severely beaten and lost consciousness several times in front of police. Despite this, he was denied hospital treatment. He was put in an ambulance – but instead of being taken to hospital, he was taken to a police station. He is still there, arrested and being denied medical care,” she wrote.

Video footage Shoko posted online showed several men, some of them armed, beating Nathaniel and Andrey X. Further video showed Israeli authorities leading away Nathaniel while he shouted that he had just been beaten up.

The assault follows an October 16 incident in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, where masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives, setting trees on fire and throwing stones using slingshots.

Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was covering the attack, was beaten, robbed, and hospitalised, while a Palestinian man was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene and fired live ammunition and tear gas.

Levine, who was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS”, said settlers repeatedly kicked and beat her on the ground before stealing her passport, phone, and camera equipment. Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray condemned the “unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job”, while several US lawmakers called for an investigation and an end to settler violence in the region.

Summer Strallen, who is best known for her career in the West End and is currently starring in Beetlejuice, has addressed her stint in Hollyoaks that acted as a publicity stunt almost 20 years ago

West End star Summer Strallen has admitted she is “embarrassed” by her role in Hollyoaks – almost two decades after she left the Channel 4 soap.

The actress, 40, has had a hugely successful stage career and in the late 2000s, she was cast in the leading role of Maria von Trapp in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of The Sound of Music, acting as a replacement for Connie Fisher, who had won the part on the BBC reality show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?

In an attempt to drum up more publicity for the musical, Summer was cast as aspiring actress Summer Shaw in Hollyoaks, and the storyline was designed around her fictional counterpart also landing the role made famous by Dame Julie Andrews. The publicity stunt also served as the exit for long-running character Sam “O.B.” O’Brien (Darren Jeffries) who left the fictional village to be with Summer when she moved to London.

Speaking about the odd plotline almost 20 years on, she said: “I did The Sound of Music for Andrew Lloyd Weber and did that whole Hollyoaks thing where I don’t know if I should [mention it]… It was like a publicity stunt where I went into Hollyoaks for five months and then I got the part of Maria on Hollyoaks.

“So it was around the programmes. Connie Fisher had done the first one, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and they were basically…they needed another bump of publicity for the new person coming in so they had this idea that I’d go into Hollyoaks for five months. I had a proper role, they called me Summer Shaw.

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“They called me Summer in it. And it was mad. I moved up to Liverpool and everything to do it and then went into The Sound of Music. It was hilarious. And Andrew was in it, we did scenes where be offered me the part of Maria and me and OB, who was my boyfriend, moved to London. I took OB with me, he was a massive part in Hollyoaks, and he left with me.”

Summer, who is the niece of West End legend Bonnie Langford, was chatting to fellow West End actress and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Amber Davies on her Call to Stage podcast when she addressed her soap stint. When the ex-Love Island winner said she was going to dig out some clips on YouTube, Summer said: “It’s embarrassing!”

But the star, who also had a small role in Wicked: For Good opposite Ariana Grande and also appeared in BBC soap Doctors, is also thankful for the experience that working in television gave her at the time.

She added: “But it was good because I It meant that I did that. It was like in baptism of fire. for TV. So then when I did other TV jobs was great because I knew how to hit my mark. I knew not to drink, stuff like that. It’s totally different and so it really set me up.”

The late 2000s marked a time of using television to heavily publicise theatre and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria was the first in a series of four BBC casting shows. It was followed by Any Dream Will Do, in which Lee Mead won the part of Joseph before going on to star in other West End shows and enjoy a stint in Casualty.

I’d Do Anything launched the acting career of Jodie Prenger, who won the part of Nancy in Oliver! and now plays Glenda Shuttleworth in Coronation Street whilst Jessie Buckley finished in second place in the years before she became an Academy Award winner.

In 2010, Over the Rainbow found Danielle Hope to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and also launched the career of Stephanie Davis, who is best known for her own Hollyoaks role and for appearing on Celebrity Big Brother. The talent searches were all headed up by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and hosted by Graham Norton.

Various celebrities like stage actress Denise Van Outen, Loose Women panellist Zoe Tyler as well as Doctor Who actor John Barrowman, singer Charlotte Church and EastEnders star John Partridge all served as judges over the years.

Since her Hollyoaks stint, Summer, whose sisters are Zizi and Scarlett are also West End actresses and are known for the respective performances in Wicked and Mary Poppins, has mostly focused on theatre as well and is currently starring in the musical adaptation of Beetlejuice.

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