News Desk

Sir Paul McCartney has been opening up about his career and personal life as a new documentary about him nears release, and a biopic about The Beatles begins filming

Musician Sir Paul McCartney has made a heartbreaking admission about his time in the spotlight. For around six decades, Paul McCartney has been beloved worldwide thanks to his work as part of The Beatles, as a solo artist, and with his former band, Wings.

Reflecting on his career in an interview with director Morgan Neville Paul, 83, spoke about how he feels when criticised by people.

Making the comments in a new documentary about the musician called Man On The Run, Sir Paul talked about how he bought into some of the criticism.

He remarked: “Whenever I hear someone damning Paul McCartney, I tend to agree with them. So when everyone was saying I broke up the Beatles and I was just overbearing and all of that, I kind of bought into it.”

This isn’t the only time Sir Paul has become emotional when talking about the documentary, as he admitted he felt “emotional” upon seeing his late wife Linda McCartney in the programme.

Linda, who died in 1998, shared four children with Sir Paul including Heather, 63, who was adopted, Mary, 56, Stella, 53, and James, 48.

At a screening of the documentary at London’s Ham Yard Hotel, Sir Paul said the film triggered some powerful memories of Linda, who Sir Paul said helped him deal with the tumultuous time he faced following the break up of The Beatles.

He said: “Seeing me and Linda interacting is very special because, you know, she is not here anymore. Me and Linda, the kids. The music. Me and John [Lennon].

“These memories, it is like a life flashing in front of you. There are so many cool things. Even though there are some embarrassing moments, I come out of it thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m OK’.

“All the stuff with the kids and Linda is lovely to see. Obviously it’s emotional because she looks so beautiful. She’s so cool.”

Sir Paul also has another daughter, 23-year-old Beatrice, with his second wife Heather Mills, who he was married to between 2002 and 2008 when their divorce was finalised.

Sir Paul is currently married to Nancy Shevell, with the pair tying the knot in 2011.

The documentary is set to be released on February 27 as filming continues on four individual biopics about each member of the Beatles, in which Paul Mescal, 30, will play Sir Paul. The films will be directed by Sir Sam Mendes.

SEOUL, Feb. 20 (UPI) — South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index continues to set records, driven by strong corporate performances, including semiconductor giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.

The index more than doubled over the past year to surpass 5,800 points Friday. Also fueling the bullish rally are Mirae Asset Securities and SK Telecom, which have invested in promising U.S. firms expected to list in the near future.

The share price of Mirae Asset Securities, South Korea’s leading brokerage house, more than tripled this year, buoyed by strong earnings. It reported $1.1 billion in net profit for 2025, up 72% from a year earlier.

In addition, observers point out the company’s investment in SpaceX, which is expected to go public this summer with a market capitalization of around $1.25 trillion, has also underpinned its stock.

In 2022 and 2023, Mirae Asset Group reportedly channeled $278 million into SpaceX, and roughly half of that came from Mirae Asset Securities, although It does not confirm the detailed figures. A listing could deliver significant windfalls for the brokerage.

Yuanta Securities analyst Woo Do-hung said that Mirae Asset Securities is likely to remain strong through SpaceX’s IPO.

SpaceX is the world’s top private aerospace manufacturer, while xAI is an artificial intelligence startup founded by Elon Musk. Earlier this month, the former acquired the latter in an all-stock deal.

“Following its merger with xAI, SpaceX’s current valuation is estimated at around $1 trillion,” Woo said in a report, expecting the figure to rise to as much as $1.5 trillion after listing, further supporting Mirae Asset Securities on the Seoul bourse.

Reflecting confidence in its long-term upside potential, Mirae Asset Securities also plans to keep holding stakes in innovative companies like SpaceX before they go public.

“We are not yet considering an exit strategy, as our investments in innovative companies remain unlisted,” CFO Lee Kang-hyuk told a conference call earlier this month.

“We aim to pursue exits at the most optimal timing and then reinvest the recovered funds into high-growth assets or use them for M&A, thus establishing a stable virtuous cycle,” he added.

Another beneficiary in the Korean stock market is SK Telecom, the country’s largest mobile carrier, which made a strategic equity investment of $100 million in Anthropic in mid-2023 through its venture arm.

Known for its Claude family of artificial intelligence models, Anthropic is also projected to go public in the coming years.

With its valuation estimated at about $380 billion, the value of SK Telecom’s stake has jumped several-fold to more than $2 billion, or nearly 20% of the company’s market capitalization.

The successful investment has bolstered its share price, which surged over 50% this year.

“The value of SK Telecom’s stake in Anthropic is estimated at around $2.1 billion,” Korea Investment & Securities analyst Kim Jeong-chan said in a report. “It has lifted SK Telecom’s valuation.”

He expected that AI-related revenue, including AI data centers and AI transformation, could put the firm on track to approach $1.4 billion in 2026 operating profit from $740 million last year.

Against this backdrop, industry watchers note that an increasing number of Korean corporations are likely to pursue long-term investments in promising startups from the advanced markets.

“As predicting the future has become increasingly difficult, companies are more often building portfolios of smaller investments rather than making large bets on a handful of prominent firms,” economic commentator Kim Kyeong-joon, formerly vice chairman at Deloitte Consulting Korea, told UPI.

“In the past, they might have made major investments in around five companies, but now it’s common to spread smaller investments across 30 firms. Even if only a few succeed, that is considered a success,” he said.

Kim noted that such a trend would accelerate across the country’s corporations with the advent of the AI era, when the future becomes even more challenging.

News of Eric Dane’s death Thursday was met with an outpouring of grief by celebrities, who expressed their admiration for the TV star’s mischievous on-screen charisma and his advocacy efforts during his battle against ALS.

Dane is best known for his role as Dr. Mark Sloan, or “McSteamy,” on “Grey’s Anatomy” and recently portrayed the dark and secretive father Cal Jacobs in HBO’s “Euphoria.” He died at age 53, less than a year after publicly announcing his diagnosis with the neurodegenerative disease.

Alyssa Milano, who was Dane’s romantic co-star on “Charmed,” shared a heartfelt message on Instagram praising his cheeky, yet tender spirit and deep love for his daughters.

“I can’t stop seeing that spark in Eric’s eye right before he’d say something that would either make you spit out your drink or rethink your entire perspective,” said Milano. “He had a razor-sharp sense of humor. He loved the absurdity of things.”

HBO Max shared a statement on Instagram, lauding Dane’s talent and saying the network was “fortunate to have worked with him on three seasons of Euphoria.” The show’s creator, Sam Levinson, shared a statement with Variety saying he’s heartbroken by the loss of a dear friend.

“Working with him was an honor,” Levinson said. “Being his friend was a gift. Eric’s family is in our prayers. May his memory be for a blessing.”

Former “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunner Krista Vernoff shared an Instagram post fondly reminiscing about when Dane returned to the set in 2021 to film a dream sequence featuring his character, who died in Season 9. Although it was shot during the pandemic, he “broke the rules” and gave her a huge hug.

“The thing I will remember most about Eric Dane are his hugs,” Vernoff wrote. “The best hugs. Oh my friend. I wish you peace.”

Dane was preparing to publish his memoir, “Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” later this year with Maria Shriver’s publishing imprint, the Open Field.

Shriver said Dane was heroic in the way he handled his disease and used his platform to raise awareness about ALS.

“He told me he wanted his family to know how much he loved them, and he wanted to leave them a story they could be proud of,” she said in a statement on X. “My love goes out to his family, and to all those battling this cruel disease, as well as all those caring for someone battling it.”

In 2025, Dane drew on his personal experiences with the condition to portray a firefighter living with ALS on “Brilliant Minds” and advocated for legislation to provide funding for ALS research and give patients early access to treatments.

He worked closely with the nonprofit organization I Am ALS to raise money to research new treatments for the disease, which currently has no cure.

“Eric brought humility, humor, and visibility to ALS and reminded the world that progress is possible when we refuse to remain silent,” the organization said in a statement. “Eric was more than a supporter of our mission — he was part of our family.”

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive disease that damages nerve cells controlling voluntary muscles, typically causing death two to five years after diagnosis.

Nina Dobrev, Dane’s co-star in the western romance movie “Redeeming Love,” wrote on her Instagram story that she was heartbroken by his death.

“He was warm, generous, prepared, and so passionate about what he did,” she said. “He led with kindness and made everyone on our set feel seen.”

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report

Ukraine expressed frustration with its ongoing peace talks with Russia and the United States this week, saying US pressure was too one-sided against it.

“As of today, we cannot say that the outcome is sufficient,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainians in a Wednesday evening video address.

Before Wednesday’s talks in Geneva had begun, Zelenskyy told Axios news service that ceding the remaining one-fifth of the eastern Donetsk region that Russia doesn’t control, as Moscow has demanded, would not be accepted by Ukrainians.

“Emotionally, people will never forgive this. Never. They will not forgive … me, they will not forgive [the US],” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukrainians “can’t understand why” they would be asked to give up additional land.

Russia currently controls about 19 percent of Ukraine, down from 26 percent in March 2022.

Last month, 54 percent of surveyed Ukrainians told the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology they categorically reject transferring the whole of the Donetsk region to Russian control, even in return for strong security guarantees, with only 39 percent accepting the proposal.

Two-thirds of respondents also said they did not believe the current US-sponsored peace negotiations would lead to lasting peace.

Instead of ceding land now, Zelenskyy favours freezing the current line of contact as a pretext for a ceasefire and territorial negotiations.

“I think that if we will put in the document … that we stay where we stay on the contact line, I think that people will support this [in a] referendum. That is my opinion,” he told Axios.

Blaming Ukraine

US President Donald Trump told Reuters last month that Ukraine, not Russia, was holding up a peace deal.

But Zelenskyy said it was “not fair” that Trump was putting public pressure on Ukraine to accept Russian terms, adding, “I hope it is just his tactics.”

US senators visiting Odesa last week agreed with him, saying they want their government to put more pressure on Russia.

“Nobody, literally nobody, believes that Russia is acting in good faith in the negotiations with our government and with the Ukrainians. And so pressure becomes the key,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Russia unleashed a barrage of 396 attack drones and 29 missiles on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on the day of the Geneva talks, its second large-scale blow in six days. On February 12, another attack had left 100,000 families without electricity, and 3,500 apartment buildings without heat in Kyiv alone.

“Russia greets with a strike even the very day new formats begin in Geneva – trilateral and bilateral with the United States,” said Zelenskyy in a video address. “This very clearly shows what Russia wants and what it is truly intent on.”

Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked Western allies to stop Russian energy sales that circumvent sanctions, and to stop exporting components to third countries, which re-export them to Russia’s armaments industry.

Russia is believed to be using a shadow fleet estimated at between 400 and 1,000 oil tankers to carry and sell its crude oil. France has seized two of those tankers, and the US seized a second tanker on Monday.

The US Senate has held off voting on a sanctions bill that has 85 percent support because of opposition from Trump. The bill would impose secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil – notably India and China.

Can Russia take Donetsk anyway?

Russia has fought since 2014 to seize the two eastern regions of Ukraine, which triggered its invasion – Luhansk and Donetsk – where it claimed a Russian-speaking population was being persecuted by the government in Kyiv.

Late last year, Russia managed to seize all of Luhansk, but analysts believe it is doubtful that it could take the remainder of Donetsk without serious losses, because Ukraine has heavily fortified a series of cities in the western part of the region.

That task has now become even harder, according to observers, since Russia this month lost access to Starlink terminals, which helped it communicate, fly its drones and coordinate accurate counter-battery fire.

As Russian ground assaults have faltered, Ukraine has seized the initiative to make gains in Dnipropetrovsk, said Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets.

Ukrainian forces gained 201sq km of territory from Russian occupation forces between February 11 and 15, according to observers, reportedly their fastest advance since a 2023 counteroffensive.

Russia has been trying to replace Starlink using stratospheric balloons, reported Ukrainian Defence Ministry adviser Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov.

Russia would likely take six months to replace Starlink, said a Ukrainian unmanned systems commander, offering Ukrainian forces a window to roll back Russian advances.

It also suffered 31,680 casualties in January, estimated Ukraine’s General Staff – a sustainable number given Russian recruitment levels of about 40,000 a month. But those numbers would rise in the event of a major assault on the remainder of Donetsk, experts say.

“Our goal is to have at least 50,000 confirmed enemy losses every month,” said Ukrainian Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov on February 12, echoing a goal set by Zelenskyy last month.

Fedorov has set out to increase the production of remote-control FPV drones used on the front lines, which Ukraine says are now responsible for 60 percent of all Russian casualties.

As part of that effort, joint drone production facilities are planned in several European countries. The first started operating on February 13 in Germany, Zelenskyy told the Munich Security Conference, and nine more are planned.

In addition, Ukraine’s European allies pledged 38 billion euros ($44.7bn) in military aid this year during a Ramstein format meeting – the alliance of more than 50 countries which plans military aid for Ukraine – including 2.5 billion euros ($2.9bn) for Ukrainian drones – “one of the most successful ‘Ramsteins’,” Fedorov said.

The European Union has additionally voted to borrow 90 billion euros ($106bn) to give to Ukraine in financial aid this year and next.

The US stopped being a donor of military and financial aid to Ukraine after Trump was sworn in as president in January 2025.

Against Trump’s wishes, the US Senate voted to spend $400m in each of the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays US companies for weapons for Ukraine’s military. Europeans have pledged to spend at least 5 billion euros ($5.8bn) on US weapons this year.

Europe would also be the main contributor to a “reassurance force” policing the line of contact after a ceasefire, and on Ukraine’s insistence, US representatives also met with British, French, German, Italian and Swiss representatives before the talks in Geneva.

What looks to be a new 155mm naval gun has been installed on a Chinese weapons trials ship. This is larger than any gun currently found on People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships. The weapon could offer a boost in naval gunfire support capability to aid in future amphibious operations, as well as additional firepower for use against enemy ships and aerial threats, including possibly incoming missiles.

A picture showing what appears to be a Type 910 test vessel with a very large caliber gun mounted in a turret on the bow began circulating online yesterday, but it is unknown when exactly it was taken. The location is readily identifiable as Liaoning Shipyard, also known as Dalian Liaoning South Shipyard. This yard, which is situated adjacent to the PLAN’s Lushun Naval Base, has been involved in other advanced naval developments in the past, including the testing of a stealthy Chinese corvette or light frigate.

Though it is a relatively low-quality image, what is visible of the weapon and its turret aligns with what has emerged in the past year or so about a new 155mm naval gun under development in China.

Specific details about the 155mm gun remain limited, but a picture of a data plate that previously appeared online indicates that it weighs 21,800 kilograms (roughly 48,060 pounds) and is capable of firing guided projectiles. There have also been reports that the Inner Mongolia Northern Heavy Industries Group division of the state-run China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO) has been responsible for the design. NORINCO is a heavy industrial conglomerate involved in a wide variety of military and commercial enterprises, including the development and production of ground-based 155mm howitzers and other large caliber guns.

The largest caliber gun in active PLAN service today is a single-barrel 130mm (roughly 5-inch) type known variously as the H/PJ-38 and the H/PJ-45. The design was reverse-engineered from the Soviet-era AK-130, a twin-barrel weapon. The H/PJ-38 / H/PJ-45 first appeared on the Type 052D destroyer in the early 2000s and is also now found on newer Type 055 destroyers.

Though the maximum range of the H/PJ-38 / H/PJ-45 is unclear, the AK-130 is said to have a maximum range of around 14 miles (23 kilometers). One would expect, then, that the new 155mm naval gun would have greater reach.

The larger 155mm caliber could also open the door to more novel ammunition types in line with other developments globally. The U.S. Army, for instance, has been actively pursuing ramjet-powered 155mm rounds for ground-based howitzers in recent years. The Army, as well as the U.S. Navy, have also been supporting work on a 155mm gun-launched glide munition from General Atomics called the Long Range Maneuvering Projectile (LRMP). Hypervelocity projectiles that could be fired from howitzers on the ground and naval guns on ships, and be used to engage land, sea, and aerial targets, have been another area of active development in the United States.

Long-Range Maneuvering Projectile

Other known 155mm naval gun developments elsewhere in the world have historically focused primarily on meeting requirements for naval gunfire support for amphibious operations. China has uniquely relevant needs to be able to bombard targets ashore, especially in the context of any future intervention against Taiwan, as well as operations in the hotly contested South China Sea and other littorals it may seek to control.

The PLAN has been making other major investments in recent years to expand its amphibious warfare capabilities, overall. This has included the construction of the new supersized Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan, as well as the continued expansion of its fleet of smaller Type 075s. China has also been acquiring a fleet of barges with jack-up legs that could be used to establish temporary piers after beachheads are secured.

Chinese PLA Navy’s First Type 076 Amphibious Assault Ship “Sichuan” Conducts First Sea Trial

1/x New lengthy & detailed footage (2nd & 3rd videos) of the 🇨🇳Chinese Shuiqiao-type landing barges (self-propelled amphibious landing platform utility vessels) during some trials with civilian cars
(via wb/齐天的孙猴子) pic.twitter.com/ajphn4m0mu

— Jesus Roman (@jesusfroman) June 15, 2025

A long-range naval gun capable of firing hypervelocity projectiles, as well as other ammunition types, could offer new cost and flexibility advantages over missiles in certain scenarios against other types of targets, as well. The U.S. military has previously demonstrated the ability of a 155mm howitzer to down incoming subsonic cruise missiles when firing hypervelocity rounds that could cost $100,000 or less when produced at scale.

At the same time, the reach of any gun is still likely to be relatively short in the context of modern naval warfare, which is dominated today by missiles, another area where the PLAN has been making major investments. As such, there are still questions about the utility of a new longer-ranged gun in any naval context, given what it might take to get a ship armed with one within range of relevant targets. TWZ explored exactly these issues in detail when U.S. President Donald Trump made his first comments about plans for a new class of “battleships” for the U.S. Navy last year.

This is all reflective of a larger debate over the value, or lack thereof, of naval gunfire support globally. This played a notably central role in the development of the Zumwalt class stealth destroyers for the U.S. Navy. A pair of 155mm guns that would sit fully concealed with their turrets when not in use, and that would fire long-range guided rounds, was central to the original Zumwalt design. The Navy subsequently balked at the cost of the Long-Range Land Attack Projectiles (LRLAP), the unit price of which was pegged at approximately $800,000. That, in turn, threw the future of the guns into limbo. The U.S. Navy is now refitting its Zumwalt class ships with new vertical launch system cells for hypersonic missiles in place of the guns.

BAE Systems – 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) [480p]

The Trump class “battleship” design that has now emerged does feature an electromagnetic railgun, as well as multiple 5-inch guns, but also various types of missiles and laser directed energy weapons. The U.S. Navy had shelved previous work on railguns in the early 2020s, despite having seen promising progress, due to significant technological impediments.

China has also been developing railguns for naval use. A prototype design mounted in a large turret emerged on a PLAN ship in 2018, but the current status of that program is unclear. It is possible that Chinese work now on a traditional 155mm naval gun could be, at least in part, a hedge against issues with the railgun effort.

Other countries are also pursuing railguns for naval use, with Japan notably having now conducted multiple at-sea tests of a prototype design, as you can read more about here.

How the development of the new Chinese 155mm naval gun proceeds is still to be seen, but the project does look to be advancing now toward at least initial at-sea testing.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Nisreen Nassar and her family, like many other Palestinians, continue to live in schools and makeshift shelters.

Just before sunset on Thursday, Nisreen Nassar crouched over her makeshift oven, burning wood and scraps of plastic to bake bread for her family so they could break their fast.

Four months after the United States-brokered “ceasefire” came into effect in October, and as US President Donald Trump convened the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Thursday, she wasn’t expecting to be sheltering with her family in an abandoned school and cooking on an open fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“Our preparations and expectations for Ramadan this month were that it would be better than previous ones during the war. Unfortunately, it is worse,” Nassar told Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.

Nassar’s family is one of many still living in schools and makeshift shelters throughout northern Gaza, relying on humanitarian aid for their basic needs and barely able to prepare a meal to break their fast, known as Iftar, due to gas shortages.

Nassar, her husband Thaer, and their seven children lived in Beit Hanoon, in the northeast, before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, which has killed more than 72,000 people, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health statistics.

They have since been displaced several times, from Beit Hanoon to Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.

The Nassar family is still waiting for a decision that would allow them to return home – or to what remains of it. This marks the third Ramadan that they have been living in a school, which, apart from the concrete walls, offers little shelter.

The children sleep not in beds, but directly on a classroom floor. The Nassar family’s only possessions comprise a few bags of clothes and some thin blankets.

Thaer said his children are afraid to go outside due to Israeli gunfire, in violation of the “ceasefire” agreement.

“My children live in fear, whether they go out into the street or stay here in the shelter. In the past, in better days, they had better times, playing ball, going to school, and then returning home.”

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” came into effect.

While Palestinians have had little respite this Ramadan, Mahmoud said Palestinians remain steadfast.

“For many of the Palestinians sheltering inside this school, Iftar is a celebration of spiritual resilience, unbroken by Israel’s genocide and a future that is far from certain.”

A UN fact-finding body says mass killings by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in El Fasher carry the hallmarks of genocide, with thousands reported killed. Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan breaks down the findings, which accuse the RSF of rape, torture, and extortion.

RUTH LANGSFORD has said her split from husband Eamonn Holmes was a “huge shock” and left her “devastated”.

The much-loved telly couple announced their separation in May 2024 after 14 years of marriage and 27 years of being together.

Opening up about the split, she told Daily Mail: “I had a very happy marriage. Of course you question yourself, ‘did I miss something, was I not aware, was I too busy?’ But there’s no point playing the blame game.

“I just didn’t think I’d find myself here, and I wasn’t strong at the start. I was broken. Broken heart. Broken dreams. We all have an image of how we think our life and future is going to be.

“This wasn’t mine. I was devastated. We had gone from being a couple, traversing the usual ups and downs of a marriage, to an abrupt end. It was a huge shock.”

South Korean stocks topped the 5,800-point mark for the first time Friday to end at a fresh record high amid expectations that upcoming investor-friendly measures will help lift market valuations. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 131.28 points, or 2.31 percent, to close at an all-time high of 5,803.53.

Trade volume was heavy at 1.73 billion shares worth 32.74 trillion won (US$22.64 billion), with winners outnumbering losers 543 to 340.

Institutions scooped up a net 1.61 trillion won worth of shares, while foreign and retail investors sold a net 745.06 billion won and 986.12 billion won worth of shares, respectively, for profit-taking.

After a three-day Lunar New Year holiday break, the index surged Thursday to top the 5,600 level, with experts saying pent-up demand accumulated during the holiday continued to flow into the stock market.

The KOSPI has been on a bull run recently, surpassing the 5,000 mark for the first time ever on Jan. 27 and the 5,500 level on Feb. 12.

“Geopolitical tensions have heightened after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled the possibility of military action against Iran following a 10-day negotiation deadline, and some analysts suggest the risk of a full-scale conflict is not negligible,” Kim Seok-hwan, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, said.

“But investors have maintained expectations for a series of measures by the government and companies to boost shareholder returns and overall market valuations,” he added.

U.S. shares lost ground Thursday (U.S. time) amid concerns about the U.S.-Iran situation and risks linked to massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI), as the U.S. private market and alternative assets manager Blue Owl Capital announced it is going to tighten investor liquidity.

Most large-cap shares finished higher, with chip and defense shares leading the market advance.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics edged up 0.05 percent to 190,100 won, and chip giant SK hynix surged 6.15 percent to 949,000 won.

Carmakers traded mixed. Top automaker Hyundai Motor went down 0.78 percent to 509,000 won, while its sister affiliate Kia soared 1.06 percent to 171,800 won.

Leading battery maker LG Energy Solution fell 0.5 percent to 401,500 won, but AI investment firm SK Square advanced 2.47 percent to 580,000 won.

Nuclear power plant builder Doosan Enerbility surged 5.18 percent to 103,500 won, and defense giant Hanwha Aerospace spiked 8.09 percent to 1,242,000 won.

Leading shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy jumped 4.88 percent to 602,000 won, and its rival Hanwha Ocean shot up 6.61 percent to 149,900 won.

Pharmaceutical giant Samsung Biologics went up 0.93 percent to 1,736,000 won, while Celltrion dipped 1.02 percent to 242,000 won.

Financials gathered ground. KB Financial added 1.38 percent to 168,800 won, and Shinhan Financial grew 1.69 percent to 102,000 won.

Samsung Life Insurance climbed 4.78 percent to 219,000 won, and Mirae Asset Securities rose 0.57 percent to 70,900 won.

The Korean won was quoted at 1,446.65 won against the U.S. dollar at 3:30 p.m., down 1.15 won from the previous session.

Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed higher. The yield on three-year Treasurys lost 3.5 basis points to 3.143 percent, and the return on the benchmark five-year government bonds also shed 3.5 basis points to 3.391 percent.

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A beloved children’s programme is now available to watch for free on a streaming service.

A classic children’s programme is streaming for free from today on ITVX.

Captain Pugwash first aired on British television in 1957 as a black-and-white stop-motion show, before the full colour version of the series was first broadcast from 1974-75.

The series is based on the much loved children’s comic strips and books created by Josh Ryan.

It follows Captain Horatio Pugwash as he sails the high seas in his ship, the Black Pig, ably assisted by Tom the captain boy, pirates Willy and Barnabas and Master Mate.

Along their adventures, they’re battling against his mortal enemy, Cut-Throat Jake, captain of the Flying Dustman.

The children’s animation was written, illustrated and produced by John Ryan, before Peter Hawkins voiced all the characters, bringing them to life.

Captain Pugwash originally ran from 1957 to 1966 before being revived in colour in the 70s, and again in 1997.

The synopsis teases on ITVX: “The bumbling 50s kids TV star is back on screen. Join him aboard the Black Pig & meet cabin boy Tom, pirates Willy & Barnabas, & Master Mate. Beware of the enemy Cut-Throat Jake.”

Viewers have been left reminiscing on the iconic childhood series, with one writing on Reddit : “Love Pugwash – have complete set of DVDs.”

Another said: “I can hear the theme tune in my head right now,” as a third elsewhere wrote: “Ooh wow, that brings back memories, brilliant.”

This comes as ITV has added a variety of returning and new programmes to the streaming service, with more yet to come this year.

In a press release announced earlier this year, the broadcaster shared: “ITV will ring in the new year with a raft of brand new dramas, exclusive entertainment shows, much loved juggernauts and big name reality.

“Jing Lusi, Michelle Keegan, Martin Compston, Natalie Dormer, Shaun Evans, Romala Garai, Eve Myles, Gemma Arterton, Rafe Spall, Dominic Cooper, Luke Evans, David Morrissey, Douglas Booth, Sophie Rundle, Philip Glenister, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Rishi Nair, Robson Green, Aimée-Ffion Edwards, Daniel Mays, Ben Miller, John Simm, Richie Campbell and Omid Djalili are just some of the names appearing in ITV dramas over the next twelve months.”

Drama includes Michelle Keegan’s The Blame, The Party, based on the acclaimed novel by Elizabeth Day, Gemma Arterton leading a stellar cast in Secret Service, and new scandalous drama Adultery.

Elsewhere in entertainment, Graham Norton hosts a street-sized reality game, The Neighbourhood, Rob Brydon is fronting new gameshow The Floor and Gary Lineker is hosting The Box. Ben Shephard ’s The Summit has already begun, and I’m A Celebrity All Stars will return alongside Britain’s Got Talent, Ant & Dec’s Limitless Win and The 1% Club.

Captain Pugwash is available to watch on ITVX.

Feb. 20 (UPI) — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger has been tapped to give the Democratic response next week to President Donald Trump‘s State of the Union, the party’s leaders said.

Spanberger was announced as the Democratic speaker Thursday in a joint statement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York.

“Gov. Spanberger has always put service over politics — defending our national security and delivering real results for working families,” Schumer said.

“She knows real results for working families. She knows Americans want lower costs, safer communities and a stronger democracy — not chaos and corruption.”

Spanberger is a rising star in the Democratic Party. A former CIA officer, Spanberger ousted a Republican incumbent to win a U.S. House seat for her state in 2018.

After three terms in the chamber, she was elected in November as the first female governor of Virginia. Democrats are hoping her win flipping the governor’s mansion blue will help cement Virginia’s status as a Democratic-led state come the midterm elections.

Jeffries on Thursday praised the 46-year-old for standing “in stark contract to Donald Trump, who will lie, deflect and blame everyone but himself for his failed presidency on Tuesday evening,” which is when the president is scheduled to speak to a joint session of Congress.

“As our nation marks its 250th anniversary this summer, Gov. Spanberger embodies the best of America as a mother, community leader and dedicated public servant.”

The Democratic leaders also announced Thursday that Sen. Alex Padilla of California would deliver the Democratic response in Spanish.

“Americans don’t need another speech from Donald Trump pretending everything is fine when their bills are too high, paychecks are too low and masked and militarized federal agents are roaming our communities violating constitutional rights on a daily basis,” Padilla said in a statement Thursday on his selection to give the Democratic rebuttal.

“We refuse to accept his failed economic agenda that makes billionaires richer while middle class Americans see their healthcare costs rise. We refuse to accept a federal government that weaponizes enforcement agencies against immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. And we refuse to accept attacks on the right to vote.”

Padilla said “there is a better path” and that’s what his Tuesday speech will be about.

Trump’s address is to be held Tuesday, but at least 12 Democratic members of Congress are planning to boycott the speech and attend a competing rally organized by progressive organizations MoveOn and MeidasTouch.

The U.K. is blocking U.S. use of two key bases for an attack on Iran, according to a report by The Times. Both Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, and RAF Fairford, a base in the U.K., would be important to any American plans to use long-range bombers in a sustained campaign against Iran.

The move reportedly stems from British legal concerns about an Iran attack as well as a dispute between U.S. President Donald Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the ultimate disposition of Diego Garcia. We will discuss that more later in this story.

We have yet to see any bombers moving to Diego Garcia and, to a lesser degree, Fairford, which would be likely to happen in advance of a sustained aerial bombardment campaign. The decision by the U.K., if the report is accurate, could be a primary reason why these movements haven’t occurred.

As we have frequently reported, Diego Garcia has long been a highly strategic operating location for the U.S. military. Beyond its large airfield that sits in the center of the Indian Ocean, it plays many roles for the Department of Defense, including hosting Space Force operations, serving as a key port for U.S. Navy vessels, including nuclear submarines, and its lagoon provides shelter for a Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron. 

The island outpost drew particular attention last year after an unusually large force of six B-2 Spirit stealth bombers began arriving in March in a clear show of force aimed primarily at Iran. This is precisely the type of deployment we would have expected to have occurred during the present crisis, but it has not. The B-2s subsequently conducted strikes on Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen and were ultimately replaced by B-52 bombers.

RAF Fairford is the home of the only U.S. bomber forward operating location in the U.K., where American strategic aircraft are frequently forward deployed for Bomber Task Force missions. Major bomber operations have been staged out of the base in the past, including major strikes against Iraq.

Last June, when the U.S. launched the Operation Midnight Hammer attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the B-2 bombers flew roundtrip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. However, that was a one-night operation. Trump is now considering what is likely to be a week’s long campaign against Iranian leadership, nuclear infrastructure, missile launch sites and associated industry, and other military installations and command and control nodes. 

It would be extremely helpful for the U.S. to use Diego Garcia, and possibly RAF Fairford, to stage, rearm and maintain the B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers that could be used to strike Iran.

It is about 2,300 miles from Diego Garcia to the eastern border of Iran and about 2,500 miles from RAF Fairford to the western border. By contrast, Whiteman AFB, one of many bases in the U.S. housing strategic aircraft, is located about 6,500 miles from Iran’s western border. Having access to the two U.K. bases would allow the U.S. Air Force to increase the generation of bomber sorties, especially important in the opening of a campaign. It would also help reduce wear and tear on the aircraft and crews.

Though the U.S. has not deployed any bombers to Diego Garcia, we have been reporting that America is transiting scores of fighters, electronic warfare jets, radar planes, aerial refueling tankers and other aviation assets from RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath to that region. It is unclear if that will change if the fighting starts. Traditionally, these types of limitations are focused on actual combat sorties, not aircraft transiting through in order to get to another destination.

That being said, the U.S. does have other basing options, even for its sensitive B-2 Spirit bomber force. The Air Force has put a high priority on training to operate even these notoriously finicky jets out of unfamiliar and somewhat austere locations. Deployments to the Azores, Iceland and Wake Island, among others, are evidence of this. The B-52s and B-1s are even more flexible and have operated out of multiple allies’ airfields in recent years. But operating from a forward locale in a limited fashion is different than flying from an installation that is pre-equipped with all the amenities needed to keep sortie rates up during a conflict. Regardless, any other country would have to approve the use of bombers based on its soil to attack Iran.

A similar situation involving permission for the use of Diego Garcia took place shortly before Midnight Hammer. The U.K. government said it would have to sign off on the U.S. use of its Diego Garcia base in any bombing raid on Iran, The Guardian reported at the time. Britain was informed of the U.S. military strikes on Iran ahead of time, but did not receive any U.S. request for use of Diego Garcia for that mission, according to Reuters.

The impetus behind this latest move, according to The Times, is a dispute over control of Diego Garcia, which is part of the Chagos Islands. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is pushing for a deal to seek a 99-year lease of the island from Mauritius, which claims rights to this chain. Trump, who has previously backed the plan, on Wednesday blasted it, widening a growing rift between the two allies over the issue.

“I have been telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease with whoever it is that is ‘claiming’ Right, Title, and Interest to Diego Garcia, strategically located in the Indian Ocean,” Trump proclaimed Wednesday on his Truth Social site. “Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”

In his Truth Social post, Trump pointed to the strategic importance of both Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in any campaign against Iran.

“Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime — An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries,” the U.S. president posited. “Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease. This land should not be taken away from the U.K. and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the U.K., but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them. DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”

In its story on Thursday, The Times claimed that Trump pulled his support for Starmer’s lease deal after the U.K. refused to allow its bases to be used to strike Iran.

“The White House is drawing up detailed military plans for a strike against Iran involving the use of both Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which is home to America’s fleet of heavy bombers in Europe,” The Times stated. “Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases can only be used for military operations that have been agreed in advance with the government.”

The Times “understands that the UK is yet to give permission for the US to use the bases in the event that Trump orders a strike on Iran, owing to concerns that it would be a breach of international law which makes no distinction between a state carrying out the attack and those in support if the latter have ‘knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act,’” the publication proffered. “The president spoke to the prime minister on Tuesday night, and the two men discussed Trump’s ultimatum to Iran over its nuclear program. The following day, Trump made his statement attacking the Chagos deal.”

The U.K. MoD Defense Ministry (MoD) declined to talk about operational details, but did declare its support for Trump’s push to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran.

“There is a political process ongoing between the US and Iran, which the UK supports,” the U.K. MoD told us in a statement. “Iran must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon, and our priority is security in the region.”

A White House official told us that “President Trump’s first instinct is always diplomacy, and he has been clear that the Iranian regime should make a deal. Of course, the President ultimately has all options at his disposal, and he demonstrated with Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Absolute Resolve that he means what he says.”

We have reached out to the White House, the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command, U.S. IndoPacific Command and the U.K. Ministry of Defense for more details.

Despite the controversy over Diego Garcia, the U.S. buildup of forces continues unabated. For instance, just this morning, another flight of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters left Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, most likely bound for Mildenhall or Lakenheath. You can read more about the massive influx of forces to the Middle East in our story here.

Whether the U.K. will end up fully enforcing restrictions against the U.S. use of its bases in a kinetic operation against Iran, only time will tell. In the meantime, how this is impacting U.S. war planning isn’t clear, but if it sticks, it will certainly alter those plans and reduce the magnitude of U.S. bombers’ role in a conflict.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

DAISY Lowe looked stunning in a sheer lace dress, as she made her first public outing since announcing her second pregnancy.

The model, 37, showed off her growing baby bump, just a week after she announced her and husband Jordan Saul’s happy news.

The soon-to-be mum-of-two, who already shares daughter Ivy, two, with Jordan, 31, looked incredible as she stepped out for London’s Fashion Week.

The Strictly Come Dancing star looked every inch the yummy mummy as she showed off her growing baby bump.

Daisy pulled out all the stops in the daring sheer outfit which revealed her black lingerie.

The pregnant star looked happy and relaxed as she posed for the photos in her stunning outfit.

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She wore her long black hair loose and her make-up was glowing.

Daisy thrilled fans when she revealed her and husband Jordan were set to welcome their second child.

She wrote: “Heading home from our honeymoon with an extra stowaway.

“Little bump is growing FAST & Ivy is so excited to meet *her* baby.”

Daisy and property developer Jordan married just seven months ago.

The model, whose dad is Bush rocker Gavin Rossdale, wed her new husband Jordan exactly five years after they met in June 2020.

The happy couple had a chance encounter while out walking their dogs on London’s Hampstead Heath.

After a whirlwind romance, Daisy announced her first pregnancy in October 2022, a month after getting engaged.

Daisy said at the time: “I wanted to share some news with you. Jordan and I are having a baby.

“We are absolutely bursting at the seams with happiness. I’m oscillating wildly between excitement & nervousness with a dash of morning sickness thrown in for good measure! Big love to all of you.”

Daisy then gave birth to their daughter Ivy the following year.

But now she is expanding her brood by another bundle of joy.

The United States administration is intensifying its build-up of a vast array of military assets in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump says Iran has “10 to 15 days at most” to agree a deal over its nuclear programme and stock of ballistic missiles.

As well as the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, which is reportedly joining the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea, key force multipliers such as E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft have been deployed.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council, Iran said that while the country does not seek “tension or war and will not initiate a war”, any US aggression will be responded to “decisively and proportionately”.

“The United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences,” it said.

Here is what we know about the recent US deployment of military assets in the Middle East – which has also led to a dispute with the United Kingdom over the use of its joint military base in Diego Garcia.

What air power assets has the US deployed to the Middle East?

According to open-source intelligence analysts and military flight-tracking data, the US appears to have deployed more than 120 aircraft to the region within the past few days – the largest surge in US airpower in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq war.

The reported deployments include E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, F-35 stealth strike fighters and F-22 air superiority jets, alongside F-15s and F-16s. Flight-tracking data shows many departing bases in the US and Europe, supported by cargo aircraft and aerial refuelling tankers, a sign of sustained operational planning rather than routine rotations.

F-22s and F-35s previously escorted B-2 stealth bombers during Operation Midnight Hammer, the US military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites Trump ordered in June 2025 during the 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel.

“Watch any movement by B-2s. That would indicate a possible replay of ‘Midnight Hammer’,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Al Jazeera.

This latest wave was preceded several weeks ago by the arrival of Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles. US Central Command said on social media at the time that the fighter jet “enhances combat readiness and promotes regional security and stability”.

What role could Diego Garcia and the UK play?

Attention has also focused on Diego Garcia, the joint UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean’s Chagos Islands, which is capable of hosting long-range US strategic bombers, including B-2 aircraft.

The remote base has historically served as a launch point for major US air campaigns in the region.

However, Diego Garcia is a British sovereign territory leased to Washington, meaning London must approve its use for offensive operations. According to reports in UK media, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has indicated to Trump that the US cannot use British airbases – including Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in the UK, which is home to the US’s heavy bomber fleet in Europe – for strikes on Iran, as this would be in breach of international law.

Trump retaliated by withdrawing US support for the UK’s decision to transfer the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, announced last year.

On Wednesday, the US president said Starmer was “making a big mistake” in the agreement to transfer sovereignty of the archipelago.

“DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, saying the base could be called upon in any future military operation to counter a potential attack from Iran.

What do we know about US warships in the Arabian Sea?

The USS Gerald R Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is currently being redeployed from the Caribbean to the Middle East.

The carrier and its accompanying strike group are expected to arrive in the region in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, it briefly transmitted its location off the coast of Morocco, suggesting it is transiting the Atlantic towards the Strait of Gibraltar and will then go into the Mediterranean.

This is the same vessel that previously supported US military operations in Venezuela, including missions conducted under Operation Southern Spear.

The USS Gerald R Ford will join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which recent satellite imagery shows is operating in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman, positioning US naval power within striking distance of Iran.

The US Navy also has multiple guided-missile destroyers in the region equipped with advanced air defence and ballistic missile interception systems. These multi-role vessels can carry and launch Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking land targets deep inside Iran, alongside their anti-submarine and fleet defence missions.

How is Iran responding?

Iran has publicly warned that it will view any military strike by the US as a serious provocation.

Tehran has also moved ahead with its own planned military activities. It announced and began joint naval exercises with Russia in the Sea of Oman and northern Indian Ocean on Thursday. These are intended to enhance maritime cooperation and signal deterrence amid rising US pressure.

As part of these manoeuvres, Iranian authorities issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) for rocket launches over southern Iran on Thursday from 03:30 to 13:30 GMT and temporarily closed parts of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically vital shipping route, during live-fire drills.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned that a US strike on Iran would have serious repercussions, underscoring the risk of escalation if hostilities spread.

Satellite images published by the Reuters news agency on Thursday showed that Iran has recently built a concrete shield over a new facility at a sensitive military site and covered it in soil, experts say, advancing work at a location reportedly bombed by Israel in 2024.

Images also show that Iran has buried tunnel entrances at a nuclear site bombed by the US during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last year, fortified tunnel entrances near another, and has repaired missile bases struck in the conflict.

Analytical reports also suggest that Iran has built a multilayered defence centred on mines, missiles, submarines and drones with the intent of slowing down the US forces.

Some analysts say Iran may seek to avoid an immediate full-scale confrontation, but this may be difficult.

“The Iranians have, over the past six months, quietly taken additional steps to move critical assets further underground,” Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said during a roundtable discussion hosted by the CSIS Middle East Program this week

“They are going to be unpredictable,” he said. “But I think they could go big at the beginning, or they might want to drag the United States into a protracted situation.

“You hit a tanker, or you hit an oil facility, or you hit an American ship, and then it’s up to President Trump to decide whether to escalate further. And it can go beyond that.

“We are in a scenario where this might get out of control very quickly,” Nasr added.

Is the US likely to attack Iran?

According to experts, it is a very real possibility.

“The United States is doing all the things that it would do if it were going to conduct some sort of attack,” Cancian told Al Jazeera. “It has moved aircraft into the area, two aircraft carriers, plus enablers like AWACS.”

Barbara Slavi, distinguished fellow at Stimson Center, agreed with this assessment. “It seems that the Trump administration has decided that it is going to attack Iran again, and I presume in conjunction with the Israelis,” she said.

“What the objectives are, we have yet to see. Can it be contained? Will others be drawn in? These are all really important questions, and we don’t have answers.”

Is this a similar situation to what we saw earlier this year in Venezuela?

A build-up of US military assets in the Caribbean, close to Venezuela, which began in September 2025, led to multiple strikes on Venezuelan boats that the US claimed – without proof – were carrying drugs. It culminated in the dramatic January 3 raid on Caracas by US forces and the abduction of then-President Nicolas Maduro, who now faces trial on guns and drugs charges in New York.

“The build-up [in the Arabian Sea] has similarities, but one key difference is the strategic context,” Cancian said.

“Unlike the Venezuela raid, there hasn’t been a large deployment of Special Operations Forces, and Iran’s geography, far inland and heavily defended, makes a quick ground raid unlikely.

“If there are strikes, I would expect long-range missile attacks against security forces such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Strikes against nuclear facilities are also possible, but missiles like Tomahawk can only damage above-ground facilities,” he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly planning to travel to Israel on February 28 to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a State Department official said.

Last summer, the US carried out air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities even as senior American diplomats were scheduled to meet with their Iranian counterparts in ongoing talks.

Finalists and honorees for the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday.

Writer-curator Ekow Eshun is among the biography finalists for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries. Contenders in the fiction categories ranged from seasoned novelists like Michael Connelly to breakouts including Saou Ichikawa, whose debut novel, “Hunchback,” was longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Many selected books evoke the greatest anxieties of our time, from government-sanctioned historical revisionism to the ongoing proliferation of AI.

“The Joy Luck Club” author Amy Tan will be honored with this year’s Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Nonprofit We Need Diverse Books and novelist Adam Ross will receive the Innovator’s Award and Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, respectively.

Winners in the remaining categories will be revealed at the 46th L.A. Times Book Prizes on April 17 at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The ceremony is a prelude to the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books, which this year runs April 18-19.

The Oakland-born Tan will be given the marquee Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her highly awarded body of work exploring multicultural identity and its complex effects on familial bonds.

“Throughout her extraordinary career, Amy Tan has transformed American literature by shining a light on the emotional complexities of family, identity and cultural inheritance,” said Times senior editor for Books Sophia Kercher. “Her work confronts the social and cultural legacies of the American West with rich details of the immigrant experience.”

Tan’s 1989 debut novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” which interweaves the stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters in San Francisco, is a staple of the modern literary canon and was previously a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. “The Joy Luck Club,” along with the essays, memoirs and novels Tan has since penned — most recently 2024’s “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” — have also led her to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and earned her a National Humanities Medal from President Biden.

We Need Diverse Books, a viral 2014 Twitter campaign turned nonprofit, is being honored with the Innovator’s Award for its efforts toward promoting diversity and inclusion in children’s and young adult publishing.

According to the WNDB website, upon the nonprofit’s launch more than a decade ago, only 8% of children’s books published in the U.S. were written by authors of color. In 2023, that figure rose to 47%, in no small part due to WNDB’s grants, library partnerships and other advocacy work, per the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We Need Diverse Books has played an important role in publishing by championing stories that reflect our world, and opening doors for writers and readers,” said Times Executive Editor Terry Tang. “We are thrilled to recognize them with this year’s Innovator’s Award, honoring their unwavering commitment to access and representation in literature.”

Ross rounds out the L.A. Times Book Prize honorees as the winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York that is described as “less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation.”

In addition to the achievement awards, the Book Prizes recognize titles in 13 categories: audiobooks, autobiographical prose (the Christopher Isherwood Prize), biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), graphic novel/comics, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science fiction, science and technology and young adult literature. Each category’s finalists and winners are chosen by panels of writers specializing in that genre.

For more information about the Book Prizes, including the complete list of finalists, visit latimes.com/BookPrizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel”

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel”

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them”

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America”

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel”

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection”

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City”

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive”

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness”

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel”

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI”

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince”

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

It is no longer possible to interpret the Yemeni landscape solely through the lens of politics. The developments witnessed in the southern Yemeni governorates under government control in recent months clearly indicate that security and military affairs have become the decisive factor in determining the course of power on the ground. Any governmental or political arrangements will be unsustainable unless the issue of security control and the unification of military command are resolved.

Nor can the escalating Saudi–Emirati rift between two allies who have militarily, politically and economically shaped southern Yemen in recent years be overlooked, given its direct impact on the balance of power and stability.

Over the past years, a complex security structure has taken shape across the southern governorates, comprising official units and others that emerged during the war. Some of these units are linked to state institutions, while others were established with Emirati support, such as the Southern Transitional Council’s forces, which number in the tens of thousands, or through local arrangements shaped by the circumstances of the conflict.

Although recent months have seen moves to restructure this landscape following the defeat of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which declared its dissolution in Hadhramaut and al-Mahra on January 3, 2026, security control remains uneven from one governorate to another. Furthermore, the STC’s security and military formations have not disappeared entirely; some have been redeployed, while the fate of others remains unknown.

In Aden, the temporary capital, security agencies operate within a complex structure. Some units formerly affiliated with the STC have seen their personnel and weapons disappear, while others have been renamed or redeployed. However, longstanding networks of influence remain, and the transfer of leadership or redeployment of camps reflects attempts to rebalance power rather than a definitive resolution of the situation.

The same applies, to varying degrees, to Lahij, Abyan, Dhale, Shabwah and Hadhramaut, where the state’s ability to assert effective authority varies, as does the level of coordination between official security forces and the formations that emerged during the war.

The most sensitive issue at this stage is the integration of military and security formations into the Ministries of Defence and Interior. The state seeks to end parallel security authority, but the process faces complex challenges, including differing sources of funding for some units, varying political loyalties, fears among some commanders of losing local influence, and considerations related to the composition of these forces. As a result, integration appears gradual, relying more on redeployment and restructuring than on decisive measures that could risk triggering confrontation.

The government now based in Aden, southern Yemen, finds itself facing a delicate equation: it must impose its security authority without plunging the country into renewed internal conflict.

The transition from multiple armed groups to a state monopoly on the use of force requires political consensus, regional support and international backing. Any hasty move could reignite internal clashes, particularly given existing political and regional sensitivities, as well as fears that the Saudi–Emirati dispute could once again trigger confrontation on the ground.

For this reason, government efforts are focused first on establishing a stable security environment.

This trajectory cannot be understood without considering the regional dimension. Saudi Arabia views Yemen as a direct strategic depth for its national security and seeks the emergence of a stable state along its southern border.

The dispute between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, particularly after Yemen requested the withdrawal of Emirati forces from its territory, has become a significant factor shaping the course of the crisis, especially amid Saudi accusations that Abu Dhabi continues to support the STC and consolidate its influence on the ground.

Yemen today is part of a broader regional landscape, intertwined with Red Sea dynamics and maritime routes, competition for influence in the Horn of Africa, and tensions stretching from Sudan to Somalia to the Gulf. For this reason, international actors — particularly the United States — are keen to keep the situation in Yemen under control, fearing that a security collapse could trigger intra-Gulf conflict, threaten international shipping, create space for a new wave of armed groups, or allow the Houthis to exploit the situation.

In the next phase, the government is likely to continue efforts to consolidate security control in Aden and other southern governorates, including Hadhramaut, which borders Saudi Arabia, while gradually integrating military units and maintaining political balances to prevent renewed conflict.

The success of these efforts will determine whether the country is moving towards gradual stability or another round of reshaping power centres. Given this reality, the central question remains: who truly possesses the ability to impose security on the ground, particularly as some actors continue to push the Southern Transitional Council towards escalation that could reignite the conflict?

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

The U.S. Navy is exploring options for a new long-range anti-radiation missile designed to home in on radars to help neutralize enemy air defense networks. The capabilities the service wants for this Advanced Emission Suppression Missile (AESM) sound curiously similar to the ones it is already working to acquire through the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER). There is one crucial difference: the AESM needs to be able to engage targets in the air, as well as on the ground. This would give the Navy a single missile it could use to attack critical airborne early warning and control planes, as well as potentially other aerial targets, and air defenses down below.

Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons (PEO U&W) recently put out a contracting notice regarding the AESM.

NAVAIR is “conducting market research to identify potential sources capable of providing an advanced, anti-radiation guided missile weapon system, or key subsystems thereof, with a longer range than existing in the Navy’s current inventory, including associated engineering, manufacturing, testing, and logistics support,” the notice explains. “This All Up Round (AUR) must be compatible with existing launch platforms (e.g. F-18, F-35) and infrastructure currently supporting the Navy and Air Force’s existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles.”

The notice later elaborates that AESM needs to be compatible, at least, with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is unclear whether “existing inventory of anti-radiation guided missiles” includes the AARGM-ER, which is a substantial new evolution of the AGM-88 design and is still under development. TWZ has reached out to NAVAIR for more information.

“NAVAIR is seeking to enhance its capabilities to suppress and neutralize enemy air defenses in contested environments,” the AESM notice adds. “This effort aims to identify and potentially acquire a weapon system that provides similar or improved capabilities compared to its current weapons inventory, focusing on extended range, advanced targeting, counter-countermeasures, and integration with existing and future platforms.”

No specific range requirement is included in the notice beyond that AESM needs to be capable of “engaging targets at significant standoff distances.” The missile also needs to have an “advanced anti-radiation seeker with broad frequency coverage,” the “ability to target modern and advanced radar systems,” a “precision navigation and guidance system (e.g., GPS/INS with anti-jamming capabilities),” and the “potential for pre-emptive targeting capabilities.”

Much of this sounds, at least in broad strokes, like the requirements for the AGM-88G. “The AARGM-ER incorporates hardware and software modifications to improve AGM-88E AARGM capabilities to include extended range, survivability and effectiveness against future threats,” according to NAVAIR’s own website.

However, as noted, the requirements laid out in the AESM notice notably differ from those for AARGM-ER in one key respect: the explicit call for anti-air engagement capability. Prospective offers are required to “describe ability to engage air-to-air and air-to-ground targets.”

AESM also needs to have “robust ECCM [electronic counter-countermeasures] capabilities to defeat enemy countermeasures, including chaff, flares, jamming and anti-ARM [anti-radiation missile] techniques.” This might also point further to emphasis on the air-to-air role. Radar blinding chaff and infrared decoy flares are countermeasures typically associated with the air and naval domains.

U.S. military interest in very-long-range air-to-air capable anti-radiation missiles traces all the way back to the Cold War, primarily as a means for engaging enemy airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) planes. Anti-air weapons designed around this role are often colloquially referred to as ‘AWACS killers,’ a reference to the U.S. E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. A very-long-range air-to-air missile could be used against other aerial targets, as well.

This is also not the first time the Navy, as well as the U.S. Air Force, has pursued an air-launched weapon that would blend together traditional anti-radiation and air-to-air capabilities. Starting in the mid-2000s, the two services worked together on a single missile to replace the AGM-88 and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) dubbed the Joint Dual-Role Air Dominance Missile (JDRADM), which then evolved into the Next Generation Missile (NGM). The NGM effort came to an end, at least publicly, in 2013, ostensibly over high costs. A more secretive parallel development effort, called the Triple Target Terminator (T-3), continued for at least some time afterward. A possible successor to T-3, called the Long Range Engagement Weapon (LREW), emerged in 2017. How far the LREW effort subsequently progressed, and what its current status might be, are unclear.

All that being said, the value of an ‘AWACS killer’ missile is clear-cut. AEW&C are critical surveillance and battle management assets. Shooting them down deprives an opponent of those capabilities, inherently reducing their ability to effectively maneuver air assets and share important information, including with other nodes on the ground or at sea, as well as in the air. Knocking out these flying radar stations, which can be especially well-suited to spotting lower flying threats from their high perches, just hampers an enemy’s overall situational awareness.

The issue, of course, is that AEW&C planes typically orbit well behind the front edges of a conflict, creating additional challenges for targeting them. This is where something like AESM could come into play. A weapon of this type could engage other aerial targets by zeroing in on the radiofrequency emissions they pump out. This could include electronic warfare aircraft, and potentially other aerial targets. AESM might be able to take on a more general anti-air role with the addition of an active radar and/or imaging infrared seeker, as well as datalinks allowing for the use of networked targeting data. AARGM and AARGM-ER both feature an active millimeter-wave radar seeker to enable them to hit fleeing ground targets, but a similar concept could be adapted for air-to-air use.

AARGM F-18

For the Navy, as well as other branches of the U.S. military, this is all particularly relevant in the context of a potential future high-end fight with China, which has made major investments in its fleets of AEW&C and electronic warfare planes. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also been pursuing ever-longer-ranged anti-air missiles, including types that could be used to target American AEW&C platforms, as well as other key support aircraft.

TWZ has previously highlighted much of this in a past feature discussing the use cases for the Navy’s new AIM-174B air-launched version of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), which was officially unveiled in 2024. Navy officials have previously hinted at further long-range air-to-air capabilities to come when talking about the AIM-174B.

How The Navy’s New Very Long-Range AIM-174 Will Pierce China’s Anti-Access Bubble

“Clearly we recognize that we’ve got to find opportunities to increase reach and range for our weapons,” Navy Rear Adm. Michael “Buzz” Donnelly, then director of the Air Warfare Division (N98) within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space symposium in April 2025. “We’re doing it in air-to-air. We just recently fielded the air-launched SM-6, or the AIM-174, that we’re capable of carrying off the F-18 Super Hornet. And we’ll look at increasing range and incrementing beyond that.”

“That’s [the AIM-174B] an operational capability. And, as you can see, that one being revealed and shown into the area, there are many more behind [it], things that we’re doing there, making sure that we are staying ahead of the conflict, making sure that we’re prepared for the fight that’s going on,” Navy Rear Adm. Keith Hash, head of NAVAIR’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), also said during a panel discussion at the WEST 2025 conference in January 2025. “And those activities and that development is active and strong.”

In addition, the Navy is now working together with the U.S. Air Force on the development of the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile. The AIM-260 is intended as a longer-range and otherwise more capable direct successor to the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).

As described now, AESM would also offer air-to-surface capabilities in line with a traditional anti-radiation missile in the same package. Even in a future missile ecosystem that also includes the AGM-88G, AIM-174B, and AIM-260, having a single hybrid anti-air/anti-radiation missile would offer extremely useful additional flexibility, especially for addressing threats that might appear unexpectedly in the course of a mission.

One missile capable of being used in those disparate roles could also offer valuable magazine depth benefits, particularly if it has a form factor that allows it to be carried internally by various stealthy crewed aircraft, such as the F-35, and/or advanced combat drones. There had been some speculation that the aforementioned LREW effort, and possibly one or more of its predecessors, had been aiming for a missile that could serve in the anti-radiation and air-to-air roles, and fit inside F-22 and F-35 weapon bays. At the same time, a missile designed to be carried externally could help maximize range, which would be an important consideration for AESM. As an aside, scalable missile concepts have been raised in the past as a way to readily adapt a core design for internal or external carriage.

Altgoether, there is a possibility that AESM requirements could be met by a further variation on the AARGM-ER design. The U.S. Air Force is also already acquiring a more general high-speed strike derivative of that missile called the Stand-In Attack Weapon (SiAW). Prime contractor Northrop Grumman has also proposed a surface-to-surface version called the Advanced Reactive Strike Missile (AReS).

The “market research” the Navy is doing now is intended to see what other options might be available. The AESM contracting also highlights the possibility of a weapon that could be further exported to allies and partners. Additional customers could help defray development and acquisition costs, and support production at scale.

Much is still to be learned about the Navy’s plans for AESM, but the Navy certainly seems to have kicked off a new hunt for an ‘AWACS killer’ type missile that could also be used against other targets in the air and on the surface.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com