Now a popular tourist attraction, this abandoned ‘ghost town’ was once home to a bustling community – but it was only 15 years before most of the members vanished

This town has been abandoned for nearly 130 years. That hasn’t stopped visitors from flocking over the years to take in the eerie “ghost town” that was, for a brief period, home to a bustling community filled with optimism for their future – before their collective dream rapidly collapsed in just 15 years.

Something about abandoned places has long captured people’s imagination. From urban explorers venturing to long-forgotten theme parks and hotels, to tourists taking trips to visit ghost towns like this one, there’s something that really draws people towards a forgotten space.

This ghost town is especially poignant due to the nature of its inception. With a new industry opening up the possibility of wealth and prosperity for anyone who was adventurous enough to come and work hard to make it happen, only for those who took the plunge to be left disappointed, and forced to give up their home nearly as quickly as they had settled in.

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Custer in Idaho is located in the stunning scenery of the state’s Challis National Forest and was once a gold mining town, where at one stage 600 people lived and worked, hoping to strike on the precious metal and secure their fortunes. Some of the structures there date all the way back to 1879, and by 1896, the community was the largest it would ever be.

The fortunes of the gold mining in Custer swiftly turned, and it was nearly totally abandoned just a few years later, with only two families reportedly daring to remain by 1911. Many people in the gold mining town had been employed at a large stamp mill, and when the business collapsed, they had no choice but to abandon ship and leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

Most of the once bustling community stands exactly as it did over a century ago, when it was in use, from the eight saloons where people would meet to relax, a shoe store, and a place of worship, as well as a very small Chinatown, which also provided laundry services. Part of the National Register of Historic Places, perhaps part of the draw of tourists to Custer is how emblematic it is of the so-called American Dream, which offered immigrants a chance at new prosperity. Even if the town was not a long-term success story, its former residents may have hoped for.

Seasonally, tours throughout the historic town are offered, and the former school has been restored and turned into a museum filled with artefacts regarding the area’s history. Nearby, there is another draw, not just the stunning hikes and immaculate scenery: the area plays home to natural hot springs, which are well worth a visit.

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WASHINGTON — In the waning days of his presidency, Bill Clinton promised to use his clemency powers to help low-level drug offenders languishing in prison. When Carlos Vignali walked out of prison on Jan. 20 and returned home to his family in Los Angeles, he appeared to fit the broad outlines of that profile.

But the 30-year-old Vignali, who had served six years of a 15-year sentence for federal narcotics violations, fit another profile entirely. No small-time offender, he was the central player in a cocaine ring that stretched from California to Minnesota. Far from disadvantaged, he owned a $240,000 condominium in Encino and made his way as the son of affluent Los Angeles entrepreneur Horacio Vignali. The doting father became a large-scale political donor in the years after his son’s arrest, donating more than $160,000 to state and federal officeholders–including Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis–as he pressed for his son’s freedom.

The grateful father called the sudden commutation of his son’s sentence by Clinton “a Hail Mary and a miracle.”

The improbability that such a criminal would be granted presidential clemency, as well as the younger Vignali’s claim that he alone steered a pardon application that caught the president’s attention and won his approval, has sparked disbelief and outrage from nearly everyone involved in his case.

“It’s not plausible; it makes no sense at all,” said Margaret Love, the pardon attorney who oversaw all Justice Department reviews of presidential clemency applications from 1990 to 1997. “Somebody had to help him. There is no way that case could have possibly succeeded in the Department of Justice.”

Because it is a hard-edged criminal case, Vignali’s commutation adds another dimension to the wave of eleventh-hour Clinton clemencies and raises new questions about the influence of political donors and officials on different stages of the process.

As criminal justice authorities in Minnesota learned of Vignali’s sudden freedom, they reacted with the same indignation that has greeted several other beneficiaries of the 140 pardons and 36 commutations Clinton granted in his last hours as president.

The Vignali case also illustrates the secrecy that enshrouds the clemency process.

A federal prosecutor who had urged Justice Department superiors to reject clemency for Vignali demanded an official explanation–only to be denied information from his own department. The judge who sentenced Vignali is openly aghast at the decision, which was made without his knowledge. And they all–from defense attorneys to street detectives to former pardon attorney Love–scoffed that Vignali could have walked free without the intervention of politically connected helpers.

Key details of the case remain a mystery. Did political officials and other authoritative figures appeal for Vignali’s freedom to the president or high-ranking Justice Department officials? What action, if any, did the Justice Department recommend to the White House?

Vignali could not be reached for comment. But his father strongly denied that he or anyone else in the family asked politicians to press their case with Clinton.

“I didn’t write him a letter, I didn’t do anything,” Horacio Vignali said. “But I thank God, and I thank the president every day.”

For now, the Vignali case is a curious tale of how an inmate buried deep in the federal penal system won presidential help while others in more desperate straits remained behind.

“Go figure,” said an exasperated Craig Cascarano, the lawyer for one of Vignali’s 30 co-defendants, many of them poor and black. “How is it that Carlos Vignali is out eating a nice dinner while my client is still in prison eating bologna sandwiches?”

Clinton Concerned About Drug Sentences

Clinton and his White House staff have not fully explained why he granted certain clemencies, including the highly controversial pardon of fugitive commodities broker Marc Rich.

But in recent months, the president had expressed concern about mandatory federal sentences imposed on some small-time drug offenders.

“The sentences in many cases are too long for nonviolent offenders,” Clinton said in a November interview with Rolling Stone magazine. “. . . I think this whole thing needs to be reexamined.”

His comments prompted a flurry of last-minute clemency requests to the White House, said the former president’s spokesman, Jake Siewert, particularly since Clinton believed that Justice was not moving fast enough in making clemency recommendations to the White House.

“Most of the drug cases involved people with a sentence that the prosecutor or the sentencing judge felt was excessive,” Siewert said, “but were necessitated by mandatory-minimum guidelines.

“So in most of the drug cases, either a prosecutor or a sentencing judge or some advocate identified people who were relatively minor players or who had gotten a disproportionate sentence.”

Siewert, asked about cases such as Vignali’s, said he did not remember any specific cases but added: “We tried to make a judgment on the merits.”

Although Vignali family members themselves may not have tried to influence the process directly, others weighed in early on. After Carlos was convicted, and during the legal appeals process, Minnesota authorities were deluged with phone calls and letters from California political figures inquiring about the case and urging leniency, they said.

“There was a lot of influence, oh yes,” said Andrew Dunne, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Vignali in Minnesota. “We would receive periodic calls from state representatives in California calling on behalf of Carlos after the sentencing.

Dunne, who said he interpreted some of the more persistent calls as “perhaps improper influence,” said he could not remember whether the California politicians were based in Sacramento or Washington. But “they wanted to know: Is there anything that could be done to help reduce the sentence?”

Horacio Vignali said he did not know who made such calls and had “no idea why they did that.”

In a two-year investigation, state and federal law enforcement authorities used wiretaps and raids to break a drug ring that transported more than 800 pounds of cocaine from California to Minnesota, where it was converted to crack for sale on the street.

Detectives learned that Vignali, a rapper wannabe who called himself “C-Low,” played a central role in the enterprise. He provided the money to buy the cocaine in Los Angeles, where it was then shipped to Minnesota by mail.

Tony Adams, one of the police detectives who worked on the case, said Vignali “was making big money” from the ring. “Let me put it like this,” he said, citing wiretaps: “This kid went to Las Vegas and would lose $200,000 at Caesar’s Palace and it was no big deal.

“He had a condo in Encino worth over $240,000. And yet his tax records showed he was only making $30,000 at his dad’s auto body shop.”

Most of the defendants pleaded guilty and received prison sentences, but Vignali and two Minneapolis men went on trial.

The senior Vignali sat through the entire trial and at one point, according to Cascarano, testified as a character witness on his son’s behalf. In his statement, the lawyer said, Vignali alluded to his wealth by saying that he had spent $9 million on a palatial Southern California home that once belonged to actor Sylvester Stallone.

A jury convicted Carlos Vignali in 1994 on three counts: conspiring to manufacture, possess and distribute cocaine; aiding and abetting the use of a facility in interstate commerce with the intent to distribute cocaine; and aiding and abetting the use of communication facilities for the commission of felonies.

He drew a 15-year prison sentence and wound up as an inmate in the Federal Correctional Institution in Safford, Ariz.

Todd Hopson, one of the men tried with Vignali, was sentenced to more than 23 years, said his lawyer, Cascarano. The lawyer described Hopson as “an uneducated black kid with a noticeable stutter” and a middle-level figure whose role in the Minneapolis drug ring “was nothing compared to Vignali.”

But under mandatory federal guidelines, Hopson’s conviction required a stiffer sentence because he had been involved in converting the cocaine into rocks of crack, Cascarano said.

A Big Jump in Contributions

Political contribution records indicate that Horacio Vignali also apparently owned interests in used car lots and auto body shops in Los Angeles and Malibu. And, according to Cascarano and to media reports dating from the mid-1990s, Vignali also grew wealthy on commercial real estate interests that included a prime tract across from the Los Angeles Convention Center.

But when contacted by The Times, the father said only, “I run a taco stand and a parking lot.”

Through 1994, the year his son was convicted, Horacio Vignali made a few small federal and state campaign contributions, usually less than $1,000, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance records. But in October 1994, just before the start of his son’s seven-week trial, Vignali stepped up his contributions, donating $53,000 to state officeholders.

By last year, he had become a large-scale contributor. Vignali has given at least $47,000 to Gov. Gray Davis. He gave $32,000 to former Gov. Pete Wilson during his last term. He made two $5,000 donations to a political action committee operated by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles). And last August, while the Democrats were holding their national convention in Los Angeles, he contributed $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

Asked about his donations, the senior Vignali said only, “I’m a Democrat.”

As he was becoming a major contributor, the senior Vignali also hired more attorneys to appeal his son’s conviction. But by 1996, he had exhausted the appeals process.

He then turned to Danny Davis, the Los Angeles lawyer who had helped represent the young man at trial, with another request: to pursue a presidential commutation for his son.

Davis declined, telling the father his chances were “like a snowball in Hades.” Davis criticized the political nature of the clemency process but suggested that the family was smart enough to realize that Clinton could be contacted through political channels.

Still, Davis said Carlos Vignali deserves credit for successfully handling his own application for clemency.

It is unclear when Carlos Vignali filed his application, but by February 1999, it would have seemed quite dead.

That was when Dunne received an inquiry from the Justice Department asking for a recommendation on the Vignali pardon application. Dunne and his boss, then-U.S. Atty. Todd Jones, wrote a scathing letter sharply opposing any break for Vignali.

They pointed out how deeply Vignali was involved in the drug ring and how he had never acknowledged responsibility or shown any remorse.

After sending the letter, Dunne said, “I never thought this had a chance of happening. As far as we were concerned, this was a dead issue.”

Jones also remembered being vehemently against a commutation. “I can’t tell you how strongly we registered our objection,” he said.

Love, the former pardon attorney, said that, without approval from prosecutors, any such clemency request usually is denied.

Told of Vignali’s freedom, she said: “What you’re telling me is absolutely mind-boggling.”

Vignali’s trial judge, U.S. District Judge David Doty, said he was not contacted by the Justice Department. Had he been, he said, he would have joined the prosecution in arguing against special treatment for Vignali.

Doty said Vignali never acknowledged his crime after his conviction nor showed any remorse.

“He was non-repentant,” the judge said. “Even after I sentenced him, he claimed he had been railroaded.”

However, Doty did write Clinton on behalf of drug defendants in two other cases, both involving disadvantaged individuals who had been subjected to harsh sentences for minor drug offenses.

Clinton commuted the sentences on his last day in office.

Doty said that those were worthwhile commutations–noting that both defendants were sorrowful and had completed most of their prison time.

The pardon attorney’s office refused to release any information about Vignali’s commutation to The Times.

Horacio Vignali said he learned that his son was out on Jan. 20, the day Clinton left the White House and George W. Bush became president. “My son called the house and he said, ‘They’re turning me loose! They’re turning me loose! I’m a free man! I’m a free man!’ ”

The father insisted that his son put together the pardon request with minimal help from Los Angeles attorney Don Re. (Re did not return phone calls for comment.)

Ron Meshbesher, a Minneapolis defense attorney who also represented the son during his trial, said that several days after the commutation the Vignalis called him at his office.

The son came on the line “all excited,” Meshbesher recalled. The stunned lawyer asked: “How’d you get out?” Vignali told him that the “word around prison was that it was the right time to approach the president.” The son insisted he had written the application himself.

In an interview with The Times, Horacio Vignali insisted that Clinton’s commutation was not payback for his Democratic Party contributions. He said that he met Clinton only once, in 1994, around the time of his son’s conviction. Vignali said he shook the president’s hand in a rope line at a fund-raiser.

Although he insisted that he had not orchestrated his son’s freedom, the senior Vignali conceded that others may have helped.

“I guess some people wrote on his behalf,” he said. “I have no idea who they are. I just don’t know.”

*

Times researcher John Beckham in Chicago contributed to this report.

Go Ahead Eagles striker Victor Edvardsen has been fined for mocking the appearance of an opponent born with a cleft lip.

Edvardsen made gestures about Stuttgart midfielder Angelo Stiller’s nose during their Europa League match on Thursday.

A cleft lip, which can also affect the shape of the nose, occurs when parts of the baby’s face do not join together properly during development in the womb.

Edvardsen, who said he went into the Stuttgart dressing room after the game to apologise to Germany international Stiller, has been fined 500 euros (£432) by Go Ahead Eagles, who will donate the money to their social services fund.

“I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my behaviour,” said 29-year-old Edvardsen, who has one cap for Sweden.

“Things were said and done between us that have no place on a football pitch. I’m a role model and I have to act accordingly.”

Go Ahead Eagles general manager Jan Willem van Dop said: “As a club, we are completely dissatisfied with Victor’s behavior and distance ourselves from it.

“It’s good that he apologised afterwards, but it remains a stain on the evening.”

German side Stuttgart secured a 4-0 win away at Go Ahead Eagles in the Netherlands.

Activist Greta Thunberg and the UN’s Francesca Albanese joined hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters in Genoa on Friday, as nationwide strikes took place across Italy over Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s proposed military spending and support for Israel.

“Tiny Chef needs your help.”

That was the title of a YouTube clip shared by the creators of the small, green, 7-inch animated favorite nicknamed “Cheffie,” which showed the miniature culinary whiz crying as he announced the cancellation of his Nickelodeon series “The Tiny Chef Show.” The stop-motion series, created by Rachel Larsen and Ozlem Akturk, appears to have been axed in the process of the $8-billion merger between Nickelodeon’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media. (Representatives for Nickelodeon did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.)

“It was a phone call and zero explanation,” Larsen says. “In a way, we didn’t expect that because the show was doing really well.

“We were a year away from the last season by the time we got the phone call that they weren’t going to pick up another season. So we were basically in production purgatory,” she adds. “We often didn’t have a salary, but we kept working just to keep the socials alive.”

In an Instagram post on June 24, the creators asked the series’ fans, known as Cheffers, to contribute to a crowdfunding effort to keep “The Tiny Chef Show” alive. With $130,000 (and counting) in one-time donations, the launch of a fan club with 10,500 recurring monthly members, a line of merchandise including tote bags, plush toys and mugs and a number of brand partnerships in the works, Larsen, Azturk and their 20-person team have remained afloat — but it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s our second family,” Akturk says. “We’re just trying to figure out how to make this sustainable long term.”

In that, the artists behind “The Tiny Chef Show” join the legions of creators navigating the choppy waters of a media landscape seemingly constantly in flux, where awards — the series has two Children’s and Family Emmys to its name — and strong ratings don’t always translate into stability. “When it first aired, it was performing really well with older kids too, so they were putting it on Nickelodeon and Nick Jr.,” Larsen says. “Every report we got was that it did really well, it was popular, and the retention rate from the previous show that kids were watching was 90-something percent.”

Tiny Chef reacts to the cancellation of “The Tiny Chef Show.”

(Rachel Larsen)

It was, for a time, a rollicking trajectory. Larsen and Akturk met in 2016 on the set of Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” and by 2018 had launched the web- and Instagram-based, stop-motion animation concept based on a tiny vegetarian chef.

“Back in 2018, we funded it ourselves,” says Akturk. “I was freelancing, Rachel was working on [animated series] ‘Kiri and Lou,’ and we just put our own money into it. Then we put it out on social media … It was more of a test, like, ‘What can two people do without a crew, and without money?’”

A book deal with Penguin Random House allowed the pair to move from New Zealand to the U.S. and film more material, which in turn attracted the interest of Imagine Entertainment and Kristen Bell, among others: “On the Hollywood side, enough inquiries were coming in that convinced us, ‘This is something,’” Akturk says.

By 2020, Nickelodeon had given the green light to a season of eight 22-minute episodes, which premiered on Sept. 9, 2022. Another order, this time for expanded 30-minute episodes, soon followed.

“The hilarious thing is, we thought everything was solved at that point, and we were going to be financially taken care of, and it would be all uphill from there,” Larsen says. “And it just wasn’t.”

In this respect, “The Tiny Chef Show” is a microcosm of the uncertainty that’s plagued both the Hollywood and the broader economy during a series of protracted challenges, from the COVID-19 pandemic and the writers’ and actors’ strikes to the decline of linear television viewership and the rise of artificial intelligence. For example, “The Tiny Chef Show” began streaming on Netflix late last year, a move that had previously saved shows such as “Cobra Kai” from cancellation. But thus far, Larsen and Akturk are in the dark about the deal, which hasn’t led to any immediate prospects of revival. “The Tiny Chef Show” is a labor of love, which adds to the challenge of making it independently. As Larsen, who directs each episode, explains, “A minute of content takes probably three to four weeks to produce, just from conception, writing the script, getting it recorded, having an audio edit, getting it animated, going into postproduction, then being ready. We’re a smaller operation, so we don’t get economy of scale in that way.” Nor is living and working in L.A. cheap. At the end of 2024, the pair downsized to a smaller studio.

Still, striking out on one’s own has its perks, and Larsen and Akturk remain committed to keeping Tiny Chef cooking as long as they can. “We work best when we’re free agents, and we can do whatever we want,” Larsen says. “And, you know, the way we started it is how we want to keep doing this.”

Many people know how well certain professional athletes are paid. But it may come as a surprise to know that now, college athletes are also earning income. Due to the name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules and a revenue-sharing settlement, college athletes are bringing home paychecks. This is changing the world of college sports.

Name, Image, and Likeness Profitability

On July 1, 2021, the NCAA enacted a policy that allows college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). NIL is an athlete’s personal brand for which they can be paid by third parties. This policy came about from the Supreme Court’s decision in NCAA v. Alston, which stated that the NCAA cannot restrict athletes from profiting from their name, image, or likeness.

Now, according to NCAA policy, athletes can endorse products, sign sponsorship deals, engage in commercial opportunities, monetize their social media presence, and take advantage of other sources of revenue generation.

To remain compliant with the policy and be eligible to continue playing sports, players must track expenses, maintain earning records, and file taxes as they would on other income.

While the NIL ruling allows athletes to profit nationwide, state laws play a role in how athletes can earn income, too. Some states restrict profiting from gambling and alcohol deals. Others are less strict. As a result of this patchwork legislation, state NIL laws have become an important factor in how families and athletes decide what school to attend.

Revenue Sharing for Athletes

The settlement of the House v. NCAA lawsuit in June 2025 resulted in another big change in college sports. The court determined that Division I schools can share up to 22% of profits with athletes, determined as the average of media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships earned by a Power Five School. The cap is $20.5 million in 2025, which will increase by approximately 4% every year.

This greatly impacts school athletic budgets, requiring changes to contracts and reorganization of finances to ensure revenue-sharing can be met. The changes have also led to the creation of an oversight body, the College Sports Commission, which will be responsible for compliance.

Actual Impact

The NIL and revenue-sharing opportunities are already reshaping how college sports are conducted, viewed, organized internally, and how players make school decisions.

For example, NiJaree Canady, a softball pitcher for Texas Tech, joined the school after signing a $1 million NIL deal in 2024 with Texas Tech’s NIL collective, the Matador Club. In 2025, she signed another $1 million-plus deal to remain with Texas Tech.

“Nija Canady is the most electrifying player in softball. She’s box office and she goes out every day and competes,” her manager, Derrick Shelby of Prestige Management, told ESPN. “The decision to stay at Tech was not difficult. This program has taken care of her. They have showed how much she is appreciated. The entire staff, her teammates, the school in general have been great.”

As a portion of schools’ earnings will now go to athletes, colleges are looking for ways to bring in additional revenue streams. This puts a massive strain on school budgets, and especially on smaller schools’ athletic programs.

Schools are already being savvy and turning to other sources of revenue like stadium concerts or facility rentals. For example, Coldplay performed at Stanford University.

How Athletes Can Navigate the NIL Landscape

Here are a few tips for how student athletes can navigate NIL opportunities:

• Stay on top of taxes: Track all of your income and expenses, create business structures that benefit you, and maintain a budget.
• Build your brand early: You’re selling a version of yourself, so focus on your strengths, such as athletic skills, academics, your online presence, and social work.
• Understand your school’s legal jurisdiction: Know the NIL rules in your state. These will shape the deals you make. Work with your NIL compliance office.
• Use collectives carefully: A NIL collective is an independent entity that isn’t run by the school. Ensure there’s transparency, fairness, and compliance with Title IX.
• Rely on school resources: Check the types of resources your school has to guide you through this process, including counseling, workshops, and deal support.

Future Trends and Financial Implications

NIL and revenue-sharing mean certain students have become semi-professional athletes. That status can involve wealth, fame, and the pressure that comes with being in the spotlight. Significant financial investments in student athletes can lead to a lot of stress and mental health challenges for young adults.

Additionally, as the big sports schools expand to attract top-tier athletes, smaller institutions and Olympic sports will need to reposition themselves to remain competitive.

The Bottom Line

College athletes now perform under a new set of rules that allow them to make money, sign deals, and build their brands, all before graduating. With NIL and revenue-sharing, they have stepped into semi-professional roles that offer financial opportunities and fame, and all of the pressure that comes with it.

While big-name sports schools are well-positioned to attract top talent, smaller schools might struggle to keep up. This could have an array of impacts on attendance levels and budgeting. As this new period evolves, students, schools, and lawmakers will have to adapt.

For tens of millions of Americans on Saturday, a great tension broke.

A tension that had tightened in the chest and temples through four years of watching their nation, in their view, become meaner and more hateful, unable to see plain truths and human decency. A nation spinning down rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, praising white supremacists as “fine people,” putting children in cages.

President-elect Joe Biden’s victory brought tears of not just joy, but relief — a hissing purge of all that anxiety that had not relented, through so many tweets and outrages and, ultimately, to the possibility that for the first time in American history, a president might refuse to step down.

That prospect still hung in the air Saturday but felt vastly deflated — like many saw President Trump himself — as his attorneys made their unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud, inexplicably, in front of a landscaping shop on the industrial edge of Philadelphia.

People raise bottles of champagne as they celebrate near the White House in Washington, DC on Saturday.

(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

Spontaneous celebration erupted around the nation, even amid its worst pandemic in a century. Revelers, for the most part wearing masks, danced and chanted “You’re fired!” Horns honked, flags flew, pots banged, champagne flowed with abandon, from the Bronx to Puerto Rico, Atlanta to Minneapolis, Seattle to South Pasadena.

In Manhattan, thousands poured into the streets, the noise of jubilation thundering through skyscraper canyons.

“We finally have a country back where it’s safe for the children again!” Greg Shlotthauer shouted in Times Square. “A country where we are not ashamed of the man in the White House!”

In Brooklyn, a rabbi’s son blew a shofar ram’s horn from his window. On Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Angeles, a bagpiper played on a street corner as someone else rang a cowbell, and a cardboard sign that read “It’s Over” was pinned to a tree.

In Washington, where protestors were tear-gassed just months ago so Trump could pose with a Bible in front of a church, the mood was festive. Crowds danced. A man sang “Sweet Caroline” in front of the boarded-up Department of Veterans Affairs.

People gathered on the grass at McPherson Square, a few blocks from the White House, to wait for Biden’s acceptance speech. They brought signs that read “Stop tweeting and start packing” and “Grab him by the BALLOTS.”

In Philadelphia, outside the convention center where election workers were finishing the ballot count, celebrants danced to Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” and the Village People’s “YMCA,” — which had been a favorite Trump campaign song.

People react to the election news near Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Saturday morning.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

“Philadelphia saved the world,” said Andrew Phillips, a 49-year-old property manager carrying an “Elections Have Consequences” sign. “We haven’t been this relevant since the 1780s.”

But in a country no less divided than it was before the election, the counterweight to all that exhilaration was anger, resignation and, in the streets, defiance — fueled by the president’s refusal to concede even as his favorite Fox News called the election for Biden and did not run with his baseless fraud claims.

In Philadelphia, dozens of police officers on bike patrol kept revelers apart from Trump supporters, who were demanding to stop the vote counting.

Jim Eberhardt, a 63-year-old school bus driver, drove to Philadelphia from his home in Rockland County, N.Y., to show his opposition to what he says is vote fraud taking place inside the convention center, based on the false claims by Trump.

The president, who has complained that mail ballots were being tallied after election day, on Saturday pledged to continue his fight to overturn the election.

“I felt it was the least I could do to come down,” said Eberhardt, his Trump flag hoisted on his shoulder. “I think the election’s been stolen, obviously.”

Similar scenes played out across the country.

“This isn’t over,” said Lisa Kathryn, at the Michigan state Capitol, still holding her red Trump 2020 sign.

A Trump supporter shouts down counter-protesters during a demonstration Saturday over ballot counting outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing.

(John Moore / Getty Images)

“Democrats think they’re going to steal an election? This country will not head into socialism,” Kathryn said, mirroring Republicans’ false claims that the moderate Biden is a radical.

Kathryn, who voted for Trump in 2016 and again this election, said she came to show her support for the president and spend an afternoon with like-minded voters. Dozens of Trump supporters packed in front of the Capitol building, some outfitted in camouflage and openly carrying firearms.

“This is our country,” yelled a man with a megaphone and a Glock 9mm holstered on his right hip. “Freedom!” shouted a woman walking past and offering him a high-five.

Kathryn grinned. “We all love this country just like any other American,” she said. “We are here to speak our minds and stand by President Trump.”

For much of the country, this fervid support made for a bittersweet catharsis, the exhilaration dampened by knowing at least 70 million Americans have doubled down on the Trumpist view of the world, and still mourning all that occurred on his watch.

The author and commentator Van Jones put that emotion in searing terms when he learned of the victory on CNN.

“It’s easier to be a parent this morning. It’s easier to be a dad. It’s easier to tell your kids character matters. It matters. Telling the truth matters. Being a good person matters.”

He choked up, trying to hold back sobs, talking of Muslims who no longer “have a president that doesn’t want you here,” of undocumented immigrants who don’t have to worry about being separated from their children.

“This is a vindication for a lot of people who have really suffered. You know, ‘I can’t breathe.’ You know that wasn’t just George Floyd. That was a lot of people that felt they couldn’t breathe,” Jones said. “Every day you’re waking up and you’re getting these tweets and … you’re going to the store and people who have been afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier to you. And you’re worried about your kids and you’re worried about your sister, and can she just go to Walmart and get back into her car without someone saying something to her?

“And you spent so much of your life energy just trying to hold it together.”

Many Biden supporters felt the racism Trump unleashed in America could never be put back in a bottle.

“There’s a Black woman at the second highest position in the country,” Adriana Holt of Decatur, Ga., said of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “That’s wild. And to know that I had a part in this.”

(Jenny Jarvie/Los Angeles Times)

In Decatur, Ga., Adriana Holt’s elation was weighed down by that reality. But it wasn’t going to stop the party. The 28-year-old Black social media manager and her sister, Alexandria, a sports service representative, piled into a Nissan Juke, switched on “My President” by Young Jeezy and headed into Atlanta.

All over the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, which had been home to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., cars honked horns and blasted the anthem “F— Donald Trump” out of their windows.

Some walked the streets with raised fists. Others smoked cigars or popped open champagne bottles.

“Now there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Alexandria Holt said as the sisters snapped photos in front of a mural of George Floyd. Adriana nodded.

“Today, I almost feel the first sigh of relief since the day Trump got elected,” she said.

When she woke up four years ago to learn that Trump had been elected president, she felt that America had told her that, as a Black person, a woman, a survivor of sexual assault, she didn’t matter.

“There’s no going back to how it was,” Adriana Holt said. “You know, Trump just made it OK to be racist. So, it’s like the people I knew beforehand, now I know: I can’t be your friend anymore. This is permanent.”

Still, she could feel change. She was born just a month before Georgia voted for its last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and now her home state was tilting blue for the first time she could remember.

“There’s a Black woman at the second highest position in the country,” she said. “That’s wild. And to know that I had a part in this.”

Flashbacks to four years ago still tormented some of the most vulnerable.

Hernan Hernandez-Vela, 31, began to weep as he talked about the racism that many people have endured since Trump took office.

The Las Vegas resident recalled the time someone ran him off the road while he was in the car with his young son. He talked about parents whose children were told to “go back to Mexico.”

“The last four years, our community has been criminalized,” said Hernandez-Vela, who works for La Pulga de Las Vegas, a community organization that helps Latinos. “We just want our kids to feel safe on the playground, to feel safe at school.”

His organization heard from Latinos who weren’t paid for work and were threatened with ICE when they spoke up.

When he was a child, Hernandez-Vela would read about Martin Luther King and the racial issues that divided the country. He felt like King brought it to light and laws were changed.

“But Trump came and brought all that back. He single-handedly targeted the Hispanic community,” he said. For Hernandez-Vela, whose parents were immigrants from Mexico, Biden’s win meant everything.

“We feel like we’re human again,” he said. “With Biden winning, we feel like we finally have a voice. We have somebody in office who cares about our community, who cares about our families.

“He shows that racism isn’t right, that hatred isn’t right,” he said.

Janet Pulido, 19, in small-town Siler City, N.C., remembered watching classmates come to school wearing Trump gear to celebrate.

“Everybody’s racism came out,” she said. For Pulido, it hit hard. Her family immigrated from Veracruz, Mexico, in 1999, and some still lacked legal status.

On Saturday, when she went to Walmart, a sense of joy washed over her as she noted that the Trump hats and shirts she normally saw on customers were conspicuously absent.

“As the day goes on, it’s starting to hit me more,” she said. “Come Jan. 20, he’s gone. That’s it. The nightmare’s over.”

The stakes of this election were the starkest for those on the margins.

In Austin, Texas, Marco Jaramillo said Biden’s election meant the end of living under the cloud of deportation. His legal status in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was under threat as Trump fought to end the Obama-era program.

“It means a lot of hope, because Biden has already said he’s going to make it permanent,” he said.

Jaramillo, 32, was brought from Mexico to the U.S. as a child by his parents and runs a local cleaning business.

He said he spent the past four years “living in fear of deportation.”

He joined Saturday’s crowd in celebrating with handmade signs that said, “Love over hate” and “We are all Dreamers” in Spanish.

Friend and fellow DACA recipient Raul Armenta said he was tired of spending years listening to the president demonize Mexican immigrants

“We’re not criminals,” Armenta said. “I feel content now that they can’t make us leave.”

In a spontaneous crowd outside the Palacio del Sol in Las Vegas, Mayra Aguirre, 38, felt “mega feliz,” she said — super happy — because it felt like democracy was rescued.

The last four years had felt like a weight, she said. “I felt like the country was broken, like I was drowning,” Mayra said. She felt the racism in the community. Over the past three days, she hasn’t slept. And when she did, it was only for two hours.

“Today, when I heard the news, I felt like I could breathe,” she said. “I feel like the country is coming together again … we’re going back to the country we were before Trump got into the White House.”

Her family grouped together and sang a spin on a song by the Miami group Los 3 de la Habana. The original version went “voy a votar por Donald Trump.” (“I’m going to vote for Donald Trump.”)

They sang a new version: “Que alegre soy, voy a botar a Donald Trump — fuera de La Casa Blanca.” (“I’m so happy, I’m going to kick out Donald Trump out of the White House.”)

In other cities, the tug-of-war between celebrants and Trump supporters was more fraught.

In Austin, several hundred Trump supporters waving flags and signs reading “Stop the Steal” and “Fraud” chanted and shouted at a smaller crowd of Biden supporters across the street. More than a dozen bicycle police pedaled between the two sides, intervening when Trump supporters crossed the street.

At least one Trump supporter was carrying an AR-15 rifle slung across his chest. A pickup truck slowed as it passed the Trump crowd and the driver shouted, “The nonsense is over!”

A bicycle food delivery worker pedaled in his wake, calmly adding, “It’s over, guys.”

Trump supporter Elizabeth Brumbaugh, 62, disagreed. “It’s not over!” she shouted, holding her Trump 2020 sign aloft “Count the legal votes, not the illegal!”

“You lost — take it like a man!” Natalie Roberts, 43, shouted at the occupants of a pickup truck with a Trump sign in the back, who grew livid. Roberts, a single mother who runs an Austin social media marketing company, voted for Biden but hadn’t joined a protest until she saw the pro-Trump crowd Saturday.

Christian Rico, 20, a student at Concordia University, took turns with a friend chanting through a bullhorn at Trump supporters: “You guys lost!”

A Biden supporter began blasting Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” And on it went.

People celebrate in Orlando, Saturday, after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become 46th president of the United States.

(Melissa Gomez/Los Angeles Times)

As an event in downtown Orlando came to a close, 61-year-old retiree Don Luellen happily held a homemade “Biden Harris 2020” sign but worried about the future.

“Trump has done nothing but divide our country for the last four years,” he said. He fears the president won’t stop.

“My greatest fear is that even though Biden is president, that Trump will not be quiet and will keep on drumming up hatred and division,” he said. “I’m scared to death of them and militias.”

“But I’m hoping that when Biden starts to get into the presidency, that a lot of people that feel that way will start to calm down.”

WITH the temperatures dropping, the thought of being cosy couldn’t be more appealing – and there’s an English holiday cottage that’s the ideal place for just that.

Located in Weston-under-Lizard in Shropshire, you will find a little cottage called Hansa.

Looking as if it has been ripped from the pages of Hansel and Gretel, the cottage sits off-grid within 200 acres of Shropshire woodland.

This Victorian gothic lodge was built to originally host lunches for the Earl of Bradford, but now is somewhere you can stay.

And according to Unique Stays, it has a ” fairytale otherworldliness”.

It is surrounded by woodland with lots of wildlife and views over a vast lake.

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Guests enter the lodge through a small porch with benches and twisting tree branches.

On the inside, the original dark wood panels from 1856 cover the walls and above you rests a chandelier covered in metal ivy.

There are then two green velvet chairs and a plush double bed complete with a green throw.

The green colour palette is continued in the small kitchen with a four-ring hob, gas oven, fridge, small freezer and a Nespresso machine and there is a sleek, paler green tiled bathroom with a walk-in rainfall shower as well.

Inside the main bedroom area, there is also a table and chairs, a desk and a woodburner.

Guests can park on a gravel drive and then the cottage can be reached via a woodland track.

In addition, guests get a welcome hamper full of local treats to enjoy during their stay.

And you will also get marshmallows for the fire, logs and kindling, a BBQ Grill Egg with a pizza stone, smart TV, Bluetooth speaker, Wi-Fi, iPad, two vintage-style bicycles, his and her Hunter wellies and a rowing boat to use during your stay.

Just outside of the lodge, there is another table and chairs for outdoor dining and a woodfired hot tub.

Babes in arms are welcome with cots available on request, as are up to two dogs which will be charged at £60 each, per week.

The cottage sleeps up to two people and costs from £1,450 per week or £1,095 per short break.

One recent visitor said: “Hansa was a brilliant home to stay in and I can’t sing the owner’s praises enough.

“The cupboards were stocked with everything you could possibly need, there were fresh eggs, milk, bread and even a hamper of goodies from both sweet treats to a full on cheese board with something bubbly to wash it down with.

“They really thought of everything!”

Another visitor said: “Hansa is a special place, we couldn’t have chosen a better calming little house to chill.

“Thank you for letting us stay in this fairy-style house, where it was warm, cosy, we had everything we needed.”

For things to do nearby, the cottage sits in a sprawling 26-acre estate that has seen battles of the 1642 civil war and even former King Charles II shelter in The Royal Oak of Boscobel House parkland after he fled the Roundheads.

In Weston-under-Lizard itself, guests will find Weston House – a 17th century manor house with a vast art collection and restaurant.

The site also hosts a number of events throughout the year.

Tickets to the house cost £11 per person.

Just a 30 minute drive away you could head to Dudmaston Estate in Quatt – a 17th century National Trust house with a Modern Art collection, pretty gardens, play areas and a second-hand bookshop.

Alternatively, also 30 minutes away, is The Bear Inn, in Hodnet, located inside a former 16th century coaching inn.

The friendly pub serves comfort dishes such as monkfish with mushroom, chicken wing, leek and madeira for £28, rose veal, ox cheek tart with carrot, ale and jus for £29 and goats cheese gnocchi with beetroot, chestnut and broccoli for £22.

It takes just an hour to drive from Birmingham to Hansa lodge.

For more holiday cottage and lodge inspo, here is the secluded English cottage where your garden is the beach and people say it ‘doesn’t even look real’.

Plus, stunning cottage is crowned ‘Best for Beaches’ in UK and you can book for £27 per person, per night.

A new trainline proposal could see 39 major European cities linked, potentially cutting carbon emissions for travellers and slashing journey times exponentially

Say goodbye to short-haul flights. A new trainline system has been proposed that could see 39 major European holiday destinations linked for the first time, in what has been dubbed the ‘European Tube’. The proposal has been made by 21st Europe – a think-tank based in Copenhagen – and the ‘Starline’ system could revolutionise travel across the European continent, slashing carbon emissions exponentially, and offering much faster journey times than the trains currently in place.

The 39-stop system has been noted to be similar to the ‘Welsh Tube’ that has been proposed, which will see 105 miles of South Wales linked by tram-style trains. The Welsh offering has been in the works for over a decade and is reportedly set to cost a whopping £1,000,000,000 to complete.

But the designers of Starline are dreaming so much bigger than that with their Euro tube proposal, not just hoping to make travel itself easier, getting rid of the need for carbon-heavy, short-haul flights, but to create a sense of cohesion and connection across Europe itself. Something that they say is currently sorely missing with the existing infrastructure, which they say lacks a “unifying vision”.

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The proposal could cut carbon emissions by an incredible 95 per cent, massively increasing the continent’s chances of actually reaching net zero, by providing new links in Europe all the way from Turkey, the UK, to Ukraine, with a visually striking network of deep blue trains.

For sustainably savvy travellers, the proposal is likely to be music to their ears, with there being some major drawbacks when it comes to interrailing in the current set-up. Some of these issues, the think tank points out, include “complex ticketing, inconsistent service, and outdated stations [which] make rail feel fragmented.

In 2023, a whopping eight billion people chose to opt for a high-speed train journey, but only a small fraction of these – nine per cent – saw passengers actually cross an international border, something this proposal is hoping to resolve.

Five lines have been proposed to range across the vast continent, one going from Naples to Helsinki, another from Lisbon to Kyiv, a third from Madrid to Istanbul, one from Dublin to Kyiv and, finally, a line from Milan to Oslo. Much like the London Underground, this would see passengers able to make swift changes to navigate the continent at major stations.

No detail has been too small in this proposal, which has renewable energy at its heart. From the blue trains and yellow interiors mirroring the European flag, the think tank has called it an exercise in “identity making” as much as a provision of easy-to-use, low-carbon travel.

READ MORE: Lego McLaren model that ‘looks awesome’ is £72 off but goes away forever soon

In any given year there are more than 500,000 American boys playing on almost 20,000 high school basketball teams, and fewer than 2% of them will make it to March Madness. Only 60 young men get drafted by an NBA team each summer, and in the most recent draft a third of those spots went to international players.

The numbers suggest the funnel from the Amateur Athletic Union into the NBA is one of the narrowest in all of sports. And we used to talk about the game with the reverence that exclusivity implies. The numbers are how we decide who is an All Star or a Hall of Famer. The numbers are how we determine — or debate — the greatest.

Gambling and cheating scandals are not the only threats to sports. Because of the economic gravity of fantasy sports leagues and legal gambling, the numbers most of us hear about these days have more to do with bettors making money than with players making shots.

Bill James — the godfather of baseball analytics, who coined the phrase sabermetric in the late 1970s — did not revolutionize the way the sports industry looked at data so we could have more prop bets. The first fantasy baseball league was not started in a New York restaurant back in 1980 to beat Las Vegas. The numbers were initially about the love of the game. But ever since sports media personalities decided to embrace faux debates for ratings — at the expense of pure fandom — disingenuous hot takes have set programming agendas, and the numbers that used to tell us something about players are cynically used to win vacuous arguments. And after states began to legalize sports betting, athletes went from being the focus to being props for parlays.

That’s not to say gambling wasn’t there before. In fact, while James and others were revolutionizing the way fans — and front offices — evaluated players, the Boston College point-shaving scandal was unfolding in the shadows. The current gambling scandal surrounding Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, who this week pleaded not guilty to charges alleging a role in a poker-fixing scheme, is not unprecedented. It’s just recent.

What’s new is how we talk about the numbers.

The whole idea of fantasy sports leagues was to enable fans to be their own general managers — not to make money, but because we cared about the game so much. At the risk of sounding more pious than I am: When every game, every half, every quarter and even every shot is attached to gambling odds, good old-fashioned storytelling gets choked out. Instead of learning about players and using numbers to describe them, we hear numbers the way private equity firms see a target’s holdings.

Nothing personal, just the data.

The whole point about loving sports used to be that it was personal. Our favorite players weren’t just about outcomes. They were 1 out of 500,000 guys who made it. Each had a backstory, and the way they got there was a big part of the connection we felt with them.

This is why the Billups saga hits the NBA community emotionally. Drafted in 1997, the Colorado native played for four teams in his first five years before becoming an All Star and a Finals MVP. His numbers aren’t what defined him — even though those numbers were good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. It was the resilience and character he demonstrated while trying to make it that fans admired. In his early-career struggles, we were reminded that making it in the NBA is hard and that everyone in the league beat the odds. It’s something we all know … but when broadcasters come out of commercial breaks showing the betting lines before the score, it’s easy to forget.

Thanksgiving is a big sports weekend and thus gambling weekend. Go ahead, eat irresponsibly … it’s the other vice that worries me.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

In the Philippines, a massive corruption scandal is triggering street protests and putting pressure on the government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The population’s increasing exposure to typhoons, floods and rising sea-levels has seen the government allocate $9.5bn of taxpayer funds to more than 9,800 flood-control projects in the last three years.

But recent audits reveal widespread cases of structures being grossly incomplete or non-existent.

Multiple government officials are accused of pocketing huge kickbacks, funding lavish lifestyles.

101 East investigates how the most vulnerable are being flooded by corruption in the Philippines.

ASEAN is attempting to secure a foothold in the global semiconductor and electric-vehicle battery industries. Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand have each announced concrete industrial commitments that signal an ambition to move deeper into high-value manufacturing. These efforts carry strategic implications because semiconductors, power electronics, and batteries are essential inputs for artificial intelligence, renewable energy systems, and modern defense industries. The region now faces a growing set of geopolitical and engineering pressures that directly affect planned projects, cost structures, and national industrial strategies.

This piece documents the most significant national developments in 2024 and 2025, outlines precise vulnerabilities, and provides realistic mitigation measures for decision makers.

Strategic Context

In October 2025 China announced additional controls on rare-earth exports and related processing technologies. This decision briefly tightened the market for rare earth magnets and separated oxides that are crucial for EV motors and semiconductor equipment. Although Beijing later delayed parts of the policy’s implementation, the message was clear. Critical inputs can be restricted with little warning.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies have continued to adjust export controls on chip-making equipment. Any further tightening directly affects the cost and feasibility of new packaging and test facilities across ASEAN. The strategic environment surrounding high technology has therefore become volatile and has placed pressure on firms hoping to expand into advanced electronics production.

Malaysia: Penang’s Advanced Packaging Ambitions

Malaysia is pursuing one of the most aggressive semiconductor upgrade strategies in Southeast Asia. Penang’s “Silicon Island” project and the new Green Tech Park represent a deliberate shift from assembly to higher-value packaging and design. Approved semiconductor-related investments reportedly exceeded RM 70 billion between January 2024 and June 2025. Investments include Infineon’s silicon carbide expansion and Carsem’s advanced packaging facilities for AI-related chips.

Advanced packaging and testing lines in Malaysia’s semiconductor clusters still depend on specialized lithography subsystems, ultra-high-purity precursor chemicals, and precision metrology equipment. These imports are increasingly vulnerable because Malaysia’s new export-control regime now requires notifications for high-performance AI chips and equipment, creating possible bottlenecks and compliance burdens. For example, Malaysia’s July 2025 directive made exporters notify authorities at least 30 days in advance when shipping U.S.-origin high-performance AI chips, signaling that regulatory headwinds may also apply upstream in tool and component supply chains. Without expedited import lanes, delays in receiving critical equipment would postpone factory commissioning in locations such as Penang, driving up capital costs through extended financing periods.

The Malaysian government must fast-track customs and import lanes for critical equipment, co-finance spare-parts pools for fabs, and invest in infrastructure near semiconductor clusters such as high-quality water, power reliability, and waste treatment. In parallel, public-private training centers should train large numbers of precision-manufacturing engineers.

Indonesia: Nickel Dominance and Downstream Battery Production

Indonesia has used its dominant nickel reserves to pull in major EV battery investments. The flagship project is the nearly USD 6 billion joint venture between Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) and Indonesia Battery Corporation in West Java. According to a June 2025 Reuters report, the facility is scheduled to begin operations by late 2026 with a starting capacity of 6.9 GWh, with an expansion path toward 15 GWh or more. This scale demonstrates Indonesia’s ambition to anchor the region’s battery ecosystem, but it also highlights the limits of upstream advantage.

Despite controlling the raw material, Indonesia’s battery value chain is not yet integrated. The CATL–IBC project will still depend heavily on imported precursor chemicals, cathode active materials, and high-precision manufacturing equipment. Reuters noted that while Indonesia has rapidly expanded nickel processing, the country has not built the full suite of midstream capabilities required for stable cell production. Critical reagents and machinery remain tied to suppliers in China, South Korea, and Japan.

This dependency introduces substantial strategic risk. A February 2025 C4ADS report found that Chinese companies control roughly 75 percent of Indonesia’s nickel-refining capacity. That concentration means that although production occurs on Indonesian soil, operational control, technology flows, and strategic decisions often originate in external corporate or policy environments. Any shift in Chinese domestic policy, export priorities, or commercial strategy could ripple through Indonesia’s downstream battery plans and disrupt cell production timelines.

Given these vulnerabilities, Indonesia must accelerate the development of domestic precursor and cathode material facilities to reduce exposure to foreign suppliers. Battery-plant construction should also be sequenced with upgrades to grid capacity, wastewater management, and environmental controls, since these engineering systems remain bottlenecks in several industrial zones. Finally, manufacturers should design production lines with modularity so they can switch battery chemistries if global markets or reagent availability changes.

Thailand: Converting an Automotive Giant into an EV Hub

Thailand is moving quickly to convert its dominant automotive industry into an electric-vehicle hub. The Board of Investment’s EV 3.5 package, announced in 2025, offers tax incentives, consumer subsidies, and import-duty relief through 2027 for manufacturers that commit to local production. This policy has already shifted investment patterns. BYD opened a USD 490 million plant in Rayong in mid-2025 with capacity for 150,000 EVs annually, marking one of the largest EV manufacturing commitments in Southeast Asia. Domestic EV registrations also surged to roughly 70,000 units in 2024, up from fewer than 10,000 in 2021.

Despite these gains, Thailand’s EV ecosystem remains dependent on imported battery cells, semiconductor components, and rare-earth magnets. ASEAN Briefing’s September 2025 assessment found that Thailand still lacks mid-stream capabilities such as cathode production, electrolyte processing, and advanced battery-testing facilities. This dependence exposes the sector to the same vulnerabilities faced by regional semiconductor clusters.

These components also move through logistics systems designed for traditional automotive supply chains. Laem Chabang Port remains optimized for bulk auto parts rather than high-value lithium-ion cells. EV assemblers reported delays in 2025 due to congestion and manual customs checks on sensitive components during peak export periods. Even minor slowdowns disrupt just-in-time assembly and raise operational costs.

To protect its emerging EV advantage, Thailand must expand bonded logistics zones for battery components, accelerate port digitization, and cooperate with ASEAN partners to harmonize battery standards. Without these measures, Thailand’s EV ambitions will remain vulnerable to supply-chain friction and regulatory fragmentation.

Regional Risk Map

1. Material-concentration risk. China’s export controls on rare earths and magnets create leverage points. ASEAN must map critical-element dependencies and invest in regional recycling and stockpiles.
2. Equipment-and-technology risk. Restrictive export regimes on chip-making tools raise project execution risk. ASEAN governments should establish pooled spare-parts procurement, trusted procurement corridors, and diplomatic waiver channels.
3. Infrastructure-and-skills risk. All three countries face co-investment requirements in power, water, waste, and vocational training aligned with advanced manufacturing. ASEAN-level funding mechanisms and mutual recognition of professional certifications would reduce friction.

ASEAN stands at a pivotal moment. The opportunities to capture semiconductor back-end, EV battery manufacturing, and higher-value electronics are real. Malaysia’s move into advanced packaging, Indonesia’s downstream battery strategy, and Thailand’s EV pivot are promising. They are also fragile. Each depends on imported tools, materials, and specialized skills that can be disrupted by geopolitical shifts.

The region’s success will depend on how quickly leaders can reduce those vulnerabilities through strategic infrastructure investment, targeted industrial policy, regional standardization, and coordinated risk management. Without these measures, factories across ASEAN will remain profitable in calm markets but exposed during periods of geopolitical tension.

Apple TV has launched a rare Black Friday deal that sees the subscription cost cut in half for six months.

Apple TV has unveiled a rare Black Friday deal that’s slashed its subscription cost by half. Across this Black Friday weekend, new and eligible returning subscribers can join Apple TV for £4.99 per month for six months.

This marks a 50% discount from the usual £9.99 and grants full access to series such as Slow Horses, Severance, Ted Lasso and The Studio, all while saving a cool £30. However, Apple TV has issued a ‘last chance’ warning to claim the deal before it expires on Monday, December 1.

It makes Apple TV the most affordable major streaming service when compared to the basic plans of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video, which all now cost £5.99. After the six-month promotional period, Apple TV will revert to its usual price of £9.99 per month unless cancelled.

Those who take advantage of this offer will be able to stream every episode of titles including Pluribus, the new sci-fi drama from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. Emma Thompson’s mystery thriller Down Cemetery Road, based on Slow Horses author Mick Herron’s debut novel, is also streaming now.

Coming to Apple TV soon are Brad Pitt’s F1 (December 12), Hijack season two (January 14), and Godzilla series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season two (February 27). It comes as Apple’s streaming service quietly underwent a significant change in October, dropping the ‘+’ from its name and rebranding simply as Apple TV, reports Wales Online.

Get Apple TV half price for Black Friday

£9.99

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Apple TV+

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TV fans can get Apple TV half price for six months as it drops from £9.99 to £4.99 until December 1.

The Apple TV half price deal is also available for Sky customers when subscribing via the Apple TV app, as part of Sky’s Black Friday sale. The provider has cut several TV packages to their ‘lowest ever price’, offering free Netflix subscriptions and more than 100 channels with options like the Essential TV and 500Mbps Full Fibre Broadband bundle (£35).

Apple TV has had a record-breaking year for its original content, with season two of Severance surpassing Ted Lasso to become the platform’s most-watched series ever. It also dominated the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, bagging a total of 22 wins for Severance, Slow Horses and The Studio.

The latter made Emmys history by scooping 13 awards – the highest ever for a comedy series – including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor for Seth Rogen. However, while Apple TV’s library is brimming with original content, it doesn’t offer the endless blockbusters and classic films found on rivals like Netflix or major Disney+ franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel.

What it does provide are exclusive titles featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey, as well as legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese. Customers can enjoy 50% off Apple TV when signing up by December 1.

The Trump administration is promising an even tougher anti-immigration agenda after an Afghan national was charged this week in the shooting of two National Guard members, with new restrictions targeting the tens of thousands of Afghans resettled in the U.S. and those seeking to come, many of whom served alongside American soldiers in the two-decade war.

But those still waiting to come were already facing stricter measures as part of President Trump’s sweeping crackdown on legal and illegal migration that began when he started his second term in January. And the Afghan immigrants living in the U.S. and now in the administration’s crosshairs were among the most extensively vetted, often undergoing years of security screening, experts and advocates say.

In its latest move, the Trump administration announced Friday that it will pause issuing visas for anyone traveling on an Afghan passport.

The suspected shooter, who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, “was vetted both before he landed, probably once he landed, once he applied for asylum,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute. “But more importantly, he was almost certainly vetted extensively and much more by the CIA.”

Haris Tarin, a former U.S. official who worked on the Biden-era program that resettled Afghans, predicted that “as the investigation unfolds, you will see that this is not a failure of screening. This is a failure of us not being able to integrate — not just foreign intelligence and military personnel — but our own veterans, over the past 25 years.”

The program, Operations Allies Welcome, initially brought about 76,000 Afghans to the United States, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. The initiative was in place for around a year before shifting to a longer-term program called Operation Enduring Welcome. Almost 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under the programs.

Among those brought to the U.S. under the program was the suspected shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 20-year-old Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom. The other National Guard member who was shot, 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains in critical condition.

Those resettlements are now on hold. The State Department has temporarily stopped issuing visas for all people traveling on Afghan passports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced late Friday on X.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric

Trump and his allies have seized on the shooting to criticize gaps in the U.S. vetting process and the speed of admissions, even though some Republicans spent the months and years after the 2021 withdrawal criticizing the Biden administration for not moving fast enough to approve some applications from Afghan allies.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal “should have never been allowed to come here.” Trump called lax migration policies “the single greatest national security threat facing our nation,” and Vice President JD Vance said Biden’s policy was “opening the floodgate to unvetted Afghan refugees.”

That rhetoric quickly turned into policy announcements, with Trump saying he would “permanently pause all migration” from a list of nearly 20 countries, “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions,” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” Many of these changes had already been set in motion through a series of executive orders over the last 10 months, including most recently in June.

“They are highlighting practices that were already going into place,” said Andrea Flores, a lawyer who was an immigration policy advisor in the Obama and Biden administrations.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his request was approved in April of this year — under the Trump administration — after undergoing a thorough vetting, according to #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the war.

Flores said the system has worked across administrations: “You may hear people say, ‘Well, he was granted asylum under Trump. This is Trump’s problem.’ That’s not how our immigration system works. It relies on the same bedding. No asylum laws have really been changed by Congress.”

Afghans in the U.S. fearful for their status

Trump and other U.S. officials have used the attack to demand a reexamination of everyone who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, a country he called “a hellhole on Earth” on Thursday.

“These policies were already creating widespread disruption and fear among lawfully admitted families. What’s new and deeply troubling is the attempt to retroactively tie all of this to one act of violence in a way that casts suspicion on entire nationalities, including Afghan allies who risked their lives to protect our troops,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday.

This has left the nearly 200,000 Afghans living across the U.S. in deep fear and shame over actions attributed to one person. Those in the U.S. are now worrying about their legal status being revoked, while others in the immigration pipeline here and abroad are waiting in limbo.

Nesar, a 22-year-old Afghan who arrived in the U.S. weeks after the fall of Kabul, said he had just begun to assimilate into life in the U.S. when the attack happened Wednesday. He agreed to speak to the Associated Press on condition that only his first name be used for fear of reprisals or targeting by immigration officials.

“Life was finally getting easier for me. I’ve learned to speak English. I found a better job,” he said. “But after this happened two days ago, I honestly went to the grocery store this morning, and I was feeling so uncomfortable among all of those people. I was like, maybe they’re now looking at me the same way as the shooter.”

Two days before the shooting, Nesar and his father, who worked for the Afghan president during the war, had received an interview date of Dec. 13 for their green card application, a moment he said they had been working toward for four years. He says it is now unclear if their application will move forward or whether their interview will take place.

Another Afghan national, who also spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said that after fearing for his life under Taliban rule, he felt a sense of peace and hope when he finally received a special immigrant visa to come to the U.S. two years ago.

He said he thought he could use his experience working as a defense attorney in Afghanistan to contribute to American society. But now, he said, he and other Afghans will once again face scrutiny because of the actions of an “extremist who, despite benefiting from the safety and livelihood provided by this country, ungratefully attacked two American soldiers.”

“It seems that whenever a terrorist commits a crime, its shadow falls upon me simply because I am from Afghanistan,” he added.

Cappelletti and Amiri write for the Associated Press. AP writer Renata Brito contributed to this report.

Speaking prior to the news of Wood’s injury, former Australia fast bowler Jason Gillespie said he was “concerned about the robustness” of England’s attack.

“Do they have enough work in the bank to be fit and strong enough to bowl consistently high pace across the course of a whole match and then back it up in subsequent matches?” Gillespie told Stumped on BBC World Service.

“That is the big question mark for me.”

Wood’s absence would be keenly felt by England in the day-night conditions at the Gabba – a ground where they have not won since 1986.

England have a poor record in floodlit Tests, having won only two of their previous seven, including three defeats in Australia.

Australia have won 13 of their 14 day-night matches and, in Mitchell Starc, have the best pink-ball bowler in the world.

The pink ball does not behave differently to its red counterpart, but can be harder to see under lights.

Part of Starc’s success in pink-ball matches is the number of deliveries he bowls over 87mph and Wood, England’s fastest option, took nine wickets when he last played a day-night Test against Australia in Hobart in 2022.

Speaking on the For The Love of Cricket podcast, former England seamer Stuart Broad said: “There’s something about the pink ball, you just can’t pick it up quite as well. You get no clues as well, so the seam is black against the pink background, whereas with a red ball and white seam you might see Mitchell Starc’s in-swinger coming back into the stumps or scrambling around.

“It’s just the lights are reflecting off the pink ball so it’s almost like a big planet coming flying towards you.

“It means you’re just judging it from the movement off the surface or reading off the movement of the ball, but at such pace it’s quite difficult to do.”

Nov. 28 (UPI) — Russia has designated Human Rights Watch as an “undesirable foreign organization,” the nation’s Ministry of Justice announced Friday.

This decision means the organization, which was founded in 1978, is banned from operating in Russia. HRW is in 78 nations.

“Designating rights groups undesirable is brazen and cynical,” Philippe Bolopion, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release. “It only redoubles our determination to document the Russian authorities’ human rights violations and war crimes, and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”

HRW has documented human rights violations in Russia and the military committing war crimes in Ukraine.

“For over three decades, Human Rights Watch’s work on post-Soviet Russia has pressed the government to uphold human rights and freedoms,” Bolopion said. “Our work hasn’t changed, but what’s changed, dramatically, is the government’s full-throttled embrace of dictatorial policies, its staggering rise in repression, and the scope of the war crimes its forces are committing in Ukraine.”

In 2015, Russia introduced the “undesirable” law to silence independent media, opposition groups and foreign organizations.

Russian authorities have designated at least 280 organizations as “undesirable,” including the Moscow Times. Courts have issued administrative and criminal sentences, including in their absence, against several hundred people, HRW said.

“Undesirable” organizations, as determined by the Prosecutor’s Office, undermine Russia’s security, defense or constitutional order.

The Prosecutor General’s Office banned HRW on Nov. 10.

Those who continue to engage with these organizations, in Russia or abroad, may face administrative and criminal penalties, including a maximum six-year prison sentence. The authorities interpret “engagement” widely and arbitrarily, HRW said.

The organization leaders risk up to six years, according to Russian law.

In 2021, Andrei Pivovarov, a political activist, was sentenced to four years in prison for social media posts, which the authorities said promoted Open Russia, a political opposition movement designated “undesirable.” Russian authorities released and expelled him from the country in 2024 as part of a prisoner exchange with Western nations.

In May 2025, a Moscow court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants, a prominent Russian rights defender and election monitor, to five years in prison after authorities wrongly equated the Russian election monitoring group Golos with the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, which were designated “undesirable” in 2021.

After the initial full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, HRW was among several international organizations and non-government organizations with offices shut down in Moscow.

HRW had operated in Russia since 1992 with the breakup of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, HRW began working there in 1978.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a rapporteur for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe, have criticized the legislation.

Major Israeli offensive has also destroyed roads, water networks and private property.

Israeli forces have wounded more than 200 Palestinians in raids on the West Bank governorate of Tubas, as a major offensive on northern parts of the occupied territory that began on Wednesday continues to inflict widespread destruction.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) told Al Jazeera that 78 of the people wounded in Israeli attacks on Tubas since Wednesday required treatment in hospital.

After withdrawing from Tammun and Far’a refugee camp on Friday, Israeli soldiers have shifted the focus of raids to the city of Tubas, as well as the nearby villages of Aqqaba and Tayaseer.

Local officials said Israeli forces have detained nearly 200 Palestinians in the past four days. Most were interrogated on site and let go, but at least eight people were arrested and taken to Israeli military jails.

At least nine Palestinians were detained in other military raids in Qalqilya, Jenin and Nablus. The Wafa news agency quoted local sources as saying on Saturday that two children and a woman were among five arrested at dawn in Qalqilya.

Violent raids by Israeli soldiers and attacks by armed settlers have escalated since October 2023, with 47 army incursions taking place on average every day across the occupied West Bank in November.

The mayor of Tammun told Al Jazeera that while the town in the Tubas governorate was subject to dozens of raids in the past couple of years, the ones this week were the worst in terms of scale, destruction and violence.

He said that more than 1.5km (one mile) of roads have been torn up, water networks destroyed, private property vandalised and people severely beaten, repeating the pattern of other major Israeli military attacks across the occupied West Bank.

In the Jenin refugee camp, where Israeli soldiers have been advancing in a major offensive launched in January, Israeli bulldozers are making way for the demolition of at least 23 more Palestinian homes.

This comes several days after they issued notices claiming that the demolitions were necessary to ensure “freedom of movement” for the Israeli forces within the camp – even though the area remains largely empty as most families have been displaced.

The condemned buildings were home to 340 Palestinians. Only 47 of them, mostly women, were allowed to retrieve their belongings on Thursday.

A member of the Jenin Refugee Camp Services Committee told Al Jazeera that residents were given two hours to collect possessions, and some could not even recognise their homes due to the level of destruction after the Israeli assault.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Friday its fighters carried out a series of attacks on Israeli soldiers during raids in Jenin and Tubas.

The group said its fighters in Tubas targeted an Israeli foot patrol with an antipersonnel explosive device in the Wadi al-Tayaseer area. Fighters detonated explosives against Israeli military vehicles in the al-Ziyoud and al-Bir areas of the town of Silat al-Harithiya in Jenin, it added.

Since October 2023, Israeli soldiers have killed at least 1,086 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, including 223 children. At least 251 were killed in 2025.

At least 10,662 Palestinians have also been wounded since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, with more than 20,500 rounded up. As of the beginning of November, there were 9,204 Palestinians in Israeli jails, 3,368 of whom are detained without charges.

Palestinian deaths have also surged in the custody of both the Israeli army and the Israel Prison Service, with at least 94 deaths documented since October 2023.

A nepo baby with two very famous actor parents has bagged herself a role in the new Peaky Blinders movie – can you guess who her mum and dad are?

Ruby, 27, has followed in her parents footsteps as an actor and according to IMDB, she’s set to star as Agnes Shelby in the upcoming film, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.

The highly-anticipated project is a direct continuation of the BBC One television series and has an epic cast.

Cillian Murphy is back in the role of Thomas Shelby alongside Stephen Graham, Sophie Rundle, Ned Dennehy, Packy Lee and Ian Peck.

Ruby joins other actors who are new to the Peaky Blinders world, including Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth, Jay Lycurgo and Barry Keoghan.

Her actor and filmmaker father is best known for his motion capture roles working with animation and voice work for computer generated characters.

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He’s starred in massive Hollywood films including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong and the Planet of the Apes reboot series.

His work has garnered him several BAFTA awards, a Daytime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe nomination.

Meanwhile, his wife also has an impressive resume, having appeared in massive shows including The Crown, Bridgerton and Grantchester.

And she most recently entertained fans in the BBC drama Riot Women, written by Happy Valley’s Sally Wainwright.

Have you guessed who Ruby’s famous parents are?

That’s right, it’s none other than Gollum actor Andy Serkis and his wife Lorraine Ashbourne.

As well as the projects previously mentioned, Andy has starred in other big projects including Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Batman and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

The couple got married back in 2002 and live in London with their three children, Ruby, Sonny and Louis.

Ruby Ashbourne Serkis has already starred in some big productions, having bagged small roles in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies thanks to her dad.

She’s since carved out her own career with projects such as drama comedy film La Cha Cha and most recently, Netflix film Steve, alongside Cillian.

Ruby is also set to appear on stage at The Hampstead Theatre in Indian Ink, alongside Felicity Kendal and Gavi Singh Chera.

A synopsis for the play reads: “Satirising the self-importance of both academia and the ruling class, Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink is an evocative meditation on art and love, exploring how creativity can bridge even the most profound cultural barriers.”

Both of Ruby’s brothers, Sonny and Louis, have also bagged the nepo tag and ran with it, and are also acting.

Sonny has appeared in mini series Masters of the Air, The Witcher, The War Below and Young Wallander.

While Louis is best-known for his role as Alex in the 2019 fantasy adventure film The Kid Who Would Be King.

Back in 2017, Andy directed the film Breathe, which is a true story about the love between Robin and Diana Cavendish.

Many fans thought the film was inspired by Andy and Lorraine’s own love story, having been married for 23 years.

However, Andy has clarified the project was inspired by the Cavendish’s story and the power of their love to overcome adversity.