Netflix reported a strong finish to its fiscal year on Tuesday, with revenue climbing 18% in the fourth quarter to just over $12 billion compared to a year ago.

The streaming giant’s profits during the same period reached $2.4 billion, or 56 cents a share, up from $1.87 billion, or 43 cents a share, a year earlier, the company reported.

The results were slightly ahead of Wall Street estimates and driven by growth in the company’s advertising business, higher prices and increases in paid memberships, which surpassed the 325 million mark, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

Netflix said total engagement on its platform, meaning the amount of time its users spent watching content, rose 2% in the second half of the year.

Netflix got a big boost in the quarter from the final season of its hit series “Stranger Things,” among other popular shows, documentaries and movies, including Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.”

For the year, the Los Gatos-based company reported revenues of $45.2 billion, up 16% from 2024.

The latest earnings report follows news earlier Tuesday that Netflix modified its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, making it an all-cash bid. The companies agreed on the deal, valued at $82.7 billion, in December.

Rival bidder Paramount has made clear it will continue its hostile takeover attempt for Warner Bros., despite some setbacks. It has given the company’s shareholders a Jan. 21 deadline to tender their shares. It remains to be seen whether Paramount opts to extend that deadline.

Warner Bros. has rejected Paramount’s overtures multiple times in recent months, while expressing its preference for its deal with Netflix.

The results were released after markets closed. Netflix shares closed at $87.05, down 1% on Tuesday.

For much of the last decade, chavismo has been described either as a regime surviving on inertia or as a system permanently on the verge of collapse. Both readings assume a level of rigidity that no longer fits the evidence. What Venezuela is living under today is neither chaos nor grand design, but something more flexible and more dangerous: an authoritarian system that has learned how to improvise.

This distinction matters. Regime learning does not mean the end of improvisation. On the contrary, it means knowing when to improvise, when to retreat, and when to pretend there was a plan all along. In Venezuela, the regime’s advantage has never been strategic sophistication, but adaptive resilience.

Every effective political actor operating under existential pressure must be able to solve problems on the fly. The Venezuelan regime has done this repeatedly. Faced with mass protests, electoral shocks, international sanctions, or diplomatic isolation, it has shown a consistent ability to regroup, recalibrate, and re-enter the field. This improvisational capacity is not accidental. It is enabled by structural advantages the opposition does not possess: control over territory, weapons, institutions, and the coercive apparatus of the state. Perhaps most importantly, what these assets buy: time. As with almost everything else in Venezuela, time is not democratic.

Of course, the regime would prefer a decisive victory. But over the last several years, neither decisive victory nor ideological closure has been necessary. For chavismo, tactical retreat does not imply strategic defeat. It only needs to survive the next shock. A misstep can be absorbed, reframed, or quietly undone. Improvisation works best when failure does not threaten survival. The same is rarely true for the opposition, where failure often carries near-fatal consequences.

Opposition movements, by contrast, have tended to think systematically. They rely on roadmaps, timelines, and narratives that make sense not only domestically but internationally. This has brought real benefits: legitimacy, recognition, and sustained external support. But it has also imposed constraints. Slogans harden into commitments, commitments into expectations, and expectations narrow the room for maneuver. La Salida, the National Assembly of 2015, “cese de la usurpación, gobierno de transición, elecciones libres,” and more recently hasta el final were not merely rhetorical devices. They were frameworks that structured behavior and raised the cost of deviation. Corners are useful defensively. They are far less forgiving when you paint yourself into one and need to move.

Opposition strategies shift from ambiguity to high-risk bets, swings taken not because the odds are favorable but because the stakes are existential (…) The opposition often plays under sudden-death conditions.

Recent opposition leadership has shown greater awareness of these traps. María Corina Machado, in particular, has so far navigated the terrain with more sophistication than her predecessors. Strategic ambiguity has functioned as a way to preserve optionality in an environment that punishes premature clarity. In this context, ambiguity is not indecision but insurance. Yet insurance premiums rise over time. Strategic ambiguity works best when no single actor controls the clock, which in Venezuela belongs entirely to the regime. External allies, domestic supporters, and internal rivals eventually demand definition. What begins as flexibility risks being recast as hesitation, or worse, as accumulated opportunity cost.

I have argued before that strategic ambiguity can create unexpected openings for the opposition. What matters now is how the regime has learned to anticipate and narrow those openings.

At certain moments, like the one Venezuela is now entering, optionality collapses. Delay becomes indistinguishable from defeat. Opposition strategies shift from ambiguity to high-risk bets, swings taken not because the odds are favorable but because the stakes are existential. These moments expose the core asymmetry: the regime can lose a round and remain in the game. The opposition often plays under sudden-death conditions. Improvisation under those circumstances looks less like adaptability than desperation, and Venezuelan voters tend to punish desperation. This means opposition actors learn under harsher constraints.

While opposition debates play out publicly, the regime has been adjusting more quietly. Under Delcy Rodríguez, the relationship with the United States has been reclassified. Washington no longer needs to function exclusively as an existential enemy in a revolutionary script. It can serve instead as a transactional counterpart, engaged or antagonized as conditions require.

This shift has been accompanied by a rapid change in political aesthetics. Senior regime figures have returned to X. Diosdado Cabello appears in a suit shaking the hands of European diplomats before justifying the steps the regime has been taking in its rapprochements towards the United States. Revolutionary excess has given way to bureaucratic normality. Performing confrontation has become less useful than performing administration.

Even symbols have life cycles. The regime will continue to invoke Maduro’s “captivity” and mourn those who fell defending him. But the narrative of Nicolás Maduro as a kidnapped or persecuted president awaiting redemption continues to fade, not because it was disproven, but because it outlived its usefulness. As Orwell understood, in authoritarian systems, leaders can always be repurposed.

The regime absorbs failure without discarding experience. The opposition, by contrast, renews itself through rupture.

Recent economic and social measures follow the same logic. Policy adjustments signal pragmatism and stability to external actors while leaving the internal balance of power untouched. Liberalization is selective. Repression is backgrounded, not removed. The loaded gun remains on the table, conveniently covered.

The moral asymmetry in Venezuela is absolute. An authoritarian regime that imprisons, tortures, and kills cannot be meaningfully compared to a democratic opposition struggling, often heroically, under conditions designed to break it.

Yet politics is not decided by moral standing alone. What has allowed chavismo to survive repeated crises is not ideological coherence but organizational learning. The regime absorbs failure without discarding experience. The opposition, by contrast, renews itself through rupture. Leaders are consumed by disappointment and replaced, taking with them whatever institutional memory they accumulated. Each cycle leaves the movement cleaner in principle, but poorer in adaptive capacity.

Regime learning in Venezuela is not about brilliance. It is about survivability. The regime can afford to improvise because time works in its favor, because failure is absorbable, and because retreat is not existential. The opposition operates under permanent endgame conditions. Every bet is final and every pause carries a cost.

This is why the regime’s turn toward normality matters. Not because it reflects genuine reform, but because it reshapes the criteria by which politics is judged. The longer chavismo is allowed to fail without consequence and return intact, the narrower the space for disruption becomes. In Venezuelan politics, the decisive advantage is not moral clarity or strategic daring, but the ability to lose, reset, and come back, while your adversary cannot.

WASHINGTON — An unconstrained U.S. president has sided with Russia in its war of conquest in Europe, seized Venezuela’s dictator from his bed in an attempt to take control of that country’s oil, threatened military strikes against America’s closest neighbors and sent tariffs soaring on its friends.

Donald Trump has gotten away with it all — but his threats to annex Greenland, risking destruction of the Western alliance in its current form, may prove a breaking point in a global order that has benefited the United States for over 75 years.

Canada’s prime minister said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s boorish behavior marks a “rupture,” not merely a transition, in the international system, away from a world where the United States could be relied upon as a force for good. American cardinals in the Catholic Church warned over the weekend that U.S. foreign policy had gone “morally adrift.” France’s president said that Europe now represents a rare refuge where predictability, loyalty, and rule of law still trump the “brutality” of “bullies.”

Trump’s effort to coax allies to his will on Greenland through another round of tariff hikes prompted panic in U.S. markets. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 900 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 2%, and the NASDAQ fell over 500 points. U.S. 30-year Treasury yields spiked. The price of gold hit an all-time high.

“The transatlantic alliance is over,” Kirill Dmitriev, a top confidant to Russian President Vladimir Putin, celebrated on social media.

Trump was set to leave for Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday night for a summit of foreign leaders suddenly fixated on the fate of Greenland, the world’s largest island, which has been under Danish rule since the 18th century.

Top government officials in Denmark and Greenland have warned that any U.S. attempt to annex the territory by force would amount to an act of war and mark the end of the NATO alliance, comments echoed by other leaders across Europe. But Trump has only escalated his threats in recent days, warning of his ambitions over the holiday weekend, “there can be no going back.”

In a news conference at the White House on Tuesday, Trump acknowledged the existential risk posed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in his bid to take over Danish territory.

Whether his Greenland effort could break up the alliance is a “very interesting” question, Trump told a reporter, adding: “I think something is going to happen that’s going to be very good for everybody.”

“I think we will work something out,” he added. “NATO is going to be very happy and we are going to be very happy.”

Trump dismissed that Greenlanders don’t want to be part of the United States.

“When I speak to them they will be thrilled,” Trump said.

President Trump speaks during a press briefing Tuesday at the White House.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

In his own news conference earlier Tuesday, Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, warned the island population to prepare for the unlikely possibility of a U.S. invasion. “A military conflict cannot be ruled out,” he said.

Any acquisition of U.S. land, by agreement or by force, has to be approved by Congress, where bipartisan skepticism began firming up this week.

Several prominent Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump’s threats to seize the island, and to punish European countries that defend Denmark’s Arctic territory. But no substantive steps have been taken thus far to preemptively block the president’s actions.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) have both joined Democrats in their respective chambers to introduce legislation that would prevent Trump from using Defense Department funds to seize the territory of a NATO country or territory, such as Greenland. But no other GOP lawmakers had joined their cause as of Tuesday.

In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald last week, Bacon went as far as to say that if Trump were to follow through with his threats to acquire Greenland, it would be “the end of his presidency.”

“And [Trump] needs to know: The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off,” Bacon told the Nebraska newspaper. “He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”

Republican lawmakers, while critical of Trump’s tactics in recent days, have stopped short of committing to congressional action to stop Trump’s purported plans in Greenland.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said that imposing tariffs on allies for sending troops to Greenland is “bad for America, bad for American businesses and bad for America’s allies” — but in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday he said he was “not going to go to impeachment” on the matter.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week that an attempt to seize the Arctic territory would “shatter the trust of allies” and be “disastrous” for Trump’s legacy.

An address Tuesday by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to the British Parliament showed the fine line Republicans are toeing when it comes to appeasing Trump and allies abroad, as he told them that he was there to help “calm the waters” between the United States and Europe.

“We have always been able to work through our differences calmly as friends,” Johnson said. “We will continue to do that. I want to assure you this morning that that is still the case.”

In his speech to the Davos economic forum, Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, described Trump’s bid for Greenland as a stark example of the global order collapsing in real time.

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,” Carney said. “This fiction was useful. An American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security.

“We know the old order is not coming back,” Carney added. “We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

A trespassing charge against Minnesota Vikings receiver Jordan Addison has been dismissed a little more than a week after the former USC star was arrested for allegedly refusing to leave a Tampa, Fla., restaurant after being asked multiple times to do so.

Susan S. Lopez, the state attorney for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida, filed a notice of termination of prosecution Tuesday in Hillsborough County Court, indicating that the case against Addison has been closed after a review of the criminal report affidavit.

Addison had been charged with misdemeanor trespass in an occupied structure or conveyance.

According to the criminal report affidavit, the alleged incident happened at approximately 3:42 a.m. on Jan. 12 at a noodle bar inside the Seminole Hard Rock Casino. Addison was asked to leave several times by casino security but refused, the affidavit states, and had to be redirected several times toward the exit while being escorted out. He was taken into custody for trespass after warning, the report says.

No other details have been released about the alleged incident.

“All I can tell you is he did nothing wrong,” Addison’s attorney Brian Pakett told The Times on Tuesday.

In a Jan. 13 post on X, Addison’s agent Tim Younger suggested that the charge against his client might not hold up.

“On Jordan’s behalf, his legal team has already initiated the investigation, identified witnesses, and we are reviewing the viability of a claim for false arrest,” Younger wrote. “He looks forward to the legal process and upon full investigation, we are confident Mr. Addison will be exonerated.”

Addison played two years at Pittsburgh, winning the Fred Biletnikoff Award for best receiver in the country in 2021, and one season at USC. He was selected by Minnesota at No. 23 overall in the 2023 draft and has 175 catches for 2,396 yards and 22 touchdowns in three seasons with the Vikings.

In July 2024, Addison was arrested when a California Highway Patrol officer found him sleeping behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce that was blocking traffic near Los Angeles International Airport. He pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor drunk-driving charges in December 2024.

Those charges were dismissed in July after Addison entered a no-contest plea to the lesser charge of “wet reckless driving upon a highway.” He was suspended by the NFL for the first three games of 2025 for violating the league’s personal conduct policy.

In July 2023, Addison was caught driving 140 mph in a 55-mph zone in St. Paul, Minn. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, paid a fine and lost his license for six months.

Jan. 20 (UPI) — At a White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, a reporter asked President Donald Trump how far he’s willing to go to acquire Greenland: “You’ll find out,” he responded.

Trump spoke to a packed White House press room for two-and-a-half hours, mostly boasting about his accomplishments in the past year, immigration, the Nobel Peace Prize, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrests and former President Joe Biden. At the end of the press conference, he took questions.

A reporter said that taking Greenland could mean the breakup of NATO and asked “Is that the price you’re willing to pay?”

“I think something’s going to happen that’s going to be very good for everybody,” Trump said. “Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have, as I said before, in every way. Getting them to go up to 5% of GDP was something nobody thought was possible. And pay. At 2% they weren’t paying. At 5% they are paying,” he said, referencing his push to get NATO members to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.

“They are buying a lot of things from us, and I guess giving them to Ukraine,” apparently talking about military assets.

“I think that we will work something out that NATO is going to be very happy, and we’re going to be very happy. We need [Greenland] for security purposes, national security and world security,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron jabbed at Trump in his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, though he didn’t mention the president specifically.

Near the end of his economy-heavy address, Macron told the audience, “It’s not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism. This is a time of cooperation in order to fix these three global challenges for our fellow citizens. We do prefer respect to bullies,” Macron concluded. “And we do prefer rule of law to brutality.”

His comments came after Trump’s threat to add 200% tariffs on French wine to punish France for supporting Greenland and Denmark.

Macron described the threat of tariffs as “unacceptable.”

“No intimidation or threat will influence us — neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations,” he said on X. “Europeans will respond in a united and coordinated manner should they be confirmed. We will ensure that European sovereignty is upheld.”

A reporter asked Trump about his relationship with Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“I think I get along very well with them. They always treat me well,” he said. “They get a little rough when I’m not around. They gotta straighten out their countries on immigration and energy. They gotta stop with the windmills.”

Earlier, Trump posted a screenshot of a text conversation with Macron.

“My friend, we are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”

He offered to meet with Trump in Davos and to call an emergency G7 meeting.

At his press conference, Trump said he wouldn’t meet with Macron because of logistics. Trump is leaving Tuesday evening for Davos, and he said Macron likely won’t still be there.

Usha Vance, the wife of Vice-President JD Vance, has announced she is pregnant with her fourth child.

In a post on X, the second lady said she is looking forward to welcoming a boy in late July.

“Usha and the baby are doing well,” a statement posted on Tuesday to the second lady’s social media account read.

Vance and his wife, Usha, 40, have three young children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

Usha Vance (née Chilukuri) was born and raised in the working-class suburbs of San Diego, California, to a mechanical engineer father and a molecular biologist mother who had moved to the US from Andhra Pradesh, India.

She met JD Vance as a student at Yale Law School in 2010, when they joined a discussion group on “social decline in white America”.

JD Vance has been one of the most vocal members of the Trump administration in calling for higher birth rates in the US.

Roger Allers, a veteran Disney filmmaker who co-directed the original “The Lion King,” died Saturday. He was 76.

The Academy Award-nominated director’s decades-spanning work at Disney also included turns as a writer, storyboard artist and animator for beloved films such as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.”

Allers’ death was announced by his colleague Dave Bossert, a former Disney animator.

“Roger was an extraordinarily gifted artist and filmmaker, a true pillar of the Disney Animation renaissance,” Bossert wrote Sunday on Facebook.

Bossert described his longtime collaborator as “one of the kindest people you could hope to know and work alongside.”

“Roger had a joyful, luminous spirit, and the world is dimmer without him,” Bossert wrote. “Rest in peace, my friend. Until we meet again on the other side.”

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger also paid tribute to the director, whom he called “a creative visionary whose many contributions to Disney will live on for generations to come.”

“[Allers] understood the power of great storytelling — how unforgettable characters, emotion, and music can come together to create something timeless,” Iger said Sunday in a statement on Instagram.

“His work helped define an era of animation that continues to inspire audiences around the world, and we are deeply grateful for everything he gave to Disney,” the executive wrote.

Allers’ tenure at Disney began more than 40 years ago, when he worked on the storyboard team for the sci-fi thriller “Tron” (1982). He went on to play “a pivotal role in the Disney Animation renaissance of the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s,” Walt Disney Animation Studios wrote Tuesday in a social media post.

The entertainment multihyphenate’s crown achievement came in 1994, when he and “The Lion King” co-director Rob Minkoff brought to life the movie that former Times film critic Justin Chang referred to as “one of Disney’s biggest gambles.”

“The Lion King” boasted an estimated $42-million domestic opening weekend, the studio’s largest ever at the time. It is still the highest-grossing traditionally animated film of all time.

Allers — born in 1949 in Rye, N.Y. — looked back on the film’s success in 2011, telling The Times that it “gave an opportunity for a lot of young animators who hadn’t had a chance to lead a character. So they were fired up to do a good job — it was quite an inclusive and creative circle.”

“Everyone was listened to,” Allers said. “When it came to fruition and everyone could see the message it was putting out and the heart the movie had that went on to be embraced by the audience … it was very gratifying. I am still kind of overwhelmed by the response.”

Allers is survived by his children, Leah and Aidan, and his partner, Genaro, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

As the official celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence culminate on July 4, a well-financed, privately funded initiative will kick off to try to connect hundreds of millions of Americans with efforts to solve local problems.

The “Be The People” campaign aspires to change the perception that the U.S. is hopelessly divided and that individuals have little power to overcome problems like poverty, addiction, violence and stalled economic mobility. It also wants to move people take action to solve those problems.

Brian Hooks, chairman and CEO of the nonprofit network Stand Together, said the 250th anniversary is a unique moment “to show people that they matter, that they have a part to play, and that the future is unwritten, but it depends on each one of us stepping up to play our part.”

Funded by a mix of 50 philanthropic foundations and individual donors, Be The People builds on research that indicates many people want to contribute to their communities but don’t know how. The initiative is targeting more than $200 million for its first year’s budget.

Founding members include nonprofits GivingTuesday, Goodwill Industries, Habitat for Humanity and More Perfect, businesses such as Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and the National Basketball Assn., and funders like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Hooks said this is a 10-year commitment toward trying to achieve what would be a profound shift in behavior and culture. He referenced a 2024 Pew Research Center survey that found most Americans in 2023 and 2024 did not believe that the U.S. could solve its most important problems, saying it was a “red alert” for the country.

Hooks said the initiative envisions actions far beyond volunteering or service that people could do in their free time. He pointed to a role for businesses and schools and said the initiative would launch a major data collection effort to track whether people are actually more engaged and whether problems are actually getting solved.

Stand Together, which was founded by the billionaire Charles Koch, works across a broad range of issues and communities in the U.S. and has carved out a role for itself as a convener that can bring coalitions together across ideological lines.

“Be The People,” will not incorporate as a new nonprofit, but act more like a banner for groups to organize under and use to connect to resources. As an example, at the Atlanta Hawks game on Monday, Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, linked a program they launched last year, Realize the Dream, which aims to increase acts of service, to the new campaign.

“Our vision is that ‘Be The People’ helps lift up what is already happening in communities across the country and reminds people that service and shared responsibility are defining parts of the American story,” the Kings said in a written statement.

Asha Curran, the CEO of the nonprofit GivingTuesday, said small actions can build on each other like exercising a muscle.

“Our experience with GivingTuesday is that when people volunteer together, when people work together on something to do with positive social impact, they find it harder and harder to demonize each other,” said Curran.

The initiative comes against a backdrop of deep polarization, economic inequality and the degradation of democratic norms and institutions in the U.S.

Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, has studied civic engagement and said people need more opportunities to authentically participate as problem solvers when connecting with local organizations.

“They’re more likely to be invited into things where people are asked to let professional staff do most of the problem solving and they show up and give their time or their money,” she said.

The result is that people feel less committed and don’t see their participation as helping to achieve their interests or goals.

A growing number of private foundations have started funding issues related to the health of U.S. democracy, said Kristin Goss, a professor who directs the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Voluntarism at Duke University. While foundations cannot participate in elections, Goss said they can influence policy or public opinion in other ways.

“Funders are getting more concerned about of the health of American democracy, the future of the democratic experiment and pluralism and inclusion,” Goss said.

Another group of funders, including the Freedom Together Foundation, launched a project last year to recognize people and groups who stand up for their communities, which they called a “civic bravery” award. In a November report, they issued a similar call for funders to invest in helping individuals organize together in response to a rise in authoritarianism.

Hooks and the other leaders of “Be The People” have also convened major communications teams to help tell these stories, which they think are lost in the current information ecosystem.

“What we’re doing is we’re helping to lift up the story of Americans that is unfolding at the local level, but is not breaking through,” Hooks said. “So we’re holding up a mirror and a microphone to Americans to reveal to each other who we truly are.”

Beaty writes for the Associated Press.

Alberto Mendoza won the College Football Playoff national championship with Indiana on Monday night as the backup quarterback to his older brother, Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza.

On Tuesday morning, the younger Mendoza took to his Instagram Story and reposted an ESPN College GameDay graphic that paid tribute to the title-winning brothers and included the caption “Been there every step of the way.”

Alberto Mendoza reposted something else on his Instagram Story at roughly the same time — a media report that he plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal.

A spokesperson for Indiana confirmed to The Athletic that the former three-star recruit has entered the portal.

While the transfer portal closed for most players last Friday, players from Indiana and Miami are allowed to enter through Saturday because of their participation in the national title game.

Fernando Mendoza was the Hoosiers breakout star during their undefeated run to their first-ever national title in football. After transferring to Indiana following two seasons at California, the former two-star recruit completed 72% of his passes for 3,535 yards with 41 touchdowns and six interceptions.

During the Hoosiers’ CFP quarterfinal victory against Alabama and semifinal win against Oregon, the Associated Press college football player of the year combined for more touchdown passes (8) than incompletions (5). He also rushed for seven touchdowns this season, including a spectacular 12-yard scramble on fourth and four with 9:18 left in regulation to help lift Indiana to a 27-21 victory in the championship game.

Fernando Mendoza is widely expected to enter the NFL draft and could very well be selected by the Las Vegas Raiders with the No. 1 overall pick. Indiana already appears to have his successor in place — but it’s not his little brother.

Former Texas Christian quarterback Josh Hoover committed to Coach Curt Cignetti’s program earlier this month. Hoover went 19-12 as the Horned Frogs starter, completing 65.2% of his passes for 9,629 yards with 71 touchdowns and 33 interceptions. He also rushed for eight touchdowns.

The addition of Hoover appears to have prompted Alberto Mendoza to look for opportunities elsewhere.

The younger Mendoza has three years of eligibility remaining after redshirting his first season at Indiana in 2024. He didn’t see the field much this year but made the most of his playing time when he got it, completing 18 of 24 passes for 286 yards with five touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed for 190 yards in 13 attempts with one touchdown.

Emergency teams are searching in a mountain range of the Spanish countryside for the victims of a train crash that killed at least 41 people Sunday evening. Officials are promising transparency as they investigate the cause of the collision.

BROOKLYN Beckham’s wife Nicola Peltz “sent a subtle message to the Beckhams”, in a post days before he launched his explosive rant at them.

Last night, Brooklym, 26, launched a nuclear attack on his famous parents – with mum Victoria, 51, feeling the brunt of his damning social media message.

The eldest of the Beckham kids made a number of damning allegations in his explosive post, but he also used it as an opportunity to slam claims made about his wife Nicola 31, who he wed in April 2022.

Now it has emerged that the actress sent a cryptic message amid her husband’s family drama.

It came when she shared a photo on social media which went unnoticed following the huge fall out from Brooklyn’s scathing post.

In a picture posted on Instagram, Nicola can be seen posing in a green bra.

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Just under her right breast her tattoo is on display that is written in Yiddish.

However, when the inking is translated it reads “family is first”.

Nicola’s brother Will also reportedly has the same tattoo.

WEDDING DANCE FALL OUT

The fall out from Brooklyn’s scathing post reached fever pitch today.

He focused a lot of the message on his relationship with Nicola and his “controlling” parents.

In his jaw-dropping upload, Brooklyn made 12 key accusations towards his loved ones in his full statement including allegations of “bribery” and telling Nicola “she’s not family”.

One claim in particular spoke about how Victoria is said to have hijacked their first dance by performing “inappropriate moves” which left him embarrassed.

Part of the statement detailed: “In front of our 500 wedding guests, Marc Anthony called me to the stage, where in the schedule was planned to be my romantic dance with my wife, but instead my mum was waiting to dance with me.

“She danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”

Yet during a report in British Vogue – who sent a journalist to the wedding and interviewed the couple at the wedding, the scenario was set very differently.

The report in the glossy mag told how South African singer Lloyiso performed Elvis Presley classic, Can’t Help Falling In Love, for the couple’s first dance.

Then Nicola was joined by her father for a routine to Bette Middler’s Wind Beneath My Wings.

The publication reported it was only at 11pm when Marc Anthony’s live set started and Brooklyn “invited” mum Victoria “on stage for a dance”.

It also claimed that David and Harper were also welcomed onto the revolving stage.

The latest on Brooklyn’s seismic statement…

Brooklyn and his mum’s dance appears to have come hours after the pair’s first dance according to Vogue – leaving question marks as to whether Victoria actually had a part to play in hijacking it or not.

Sources close to Victoria have also told The Sun she is “embarrassed” about various memes circulating online about her “inappropriate” dancing.

As such, Posh Spice has been left distraught by the mockery.

A source said: “Victoria is really embarrassed now she’s being mocked online, it’s just devastating to her.”

BECKHAMS STAY SILENT

As yet, Victoria and David have not commented on Brooklyn’s six-page statement.

Friends of the Beckhams told The Sun how the pair have been left “floored” by their son’s accusations.

However, the former footballer has been seen for the first time since the scandal broke as he attended the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

During his public appearance this morning, David stayed silent and refused to answer questions on Brooklyn.

Instead he put on a brave face as he posed for pictures with fans.

LONDON — A startled British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after President Trump attacked the plan, which his administration previously supported.

Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland.

“Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” he said in a post on his social media website. “There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.”

“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” Trump said.

The blast from Trump was a rebuff to efforts by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to calm tensions over Greenland and patch up a frayed transatlantic relationship. Starmer on Monday called Trump’s statements about taking over Greenland “completely wrong” but called for the rift to be “resolved through calm discussion.”

The British government said Tuesday that despite the president’s post, it believes the U.S. still supports the Chagos deal.

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said that a flurry of social media posts from Trump “criticizing a number of world leaders” showed the president “is frustrated right now” as European allies push back on his desire for Greenland.

“I don’t really believe this is about Chagos. I think it’s about Greenland,” McFadden said.

Remote but strategic

The United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the Chagos Islands after two centuries under British control, though the U.K. will pay Mauritius at least $160 million a year to lease back the island of Diego Garcia, where the U.S. base is located, for at least 99 years.

The U.S. government welcomed the agreement at the time, saying it “secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint U.S.-U.K. military facility at Diego Garcia.”

In recent years, the United Nations and its top court have urged Britain to return the islands to Mauritius, and the British government says it’s acting to protect the security of the base from international legal challenge.

A government spokesperson said that “the U.K. will never compromise on our national security,” and “this deal secures the operations of the joint U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia for generations, with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out.”

But the deal has met strong opposition from British opposition parties, which say that giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia.

Islanders who were displaced to make way for the U.S. base on Diego Garcia say they weren’t consulted and worry the deal will make it harder for them to go home.

Strong opposition

Legislation to approve the agreement has been passed by the House of Commons but faced strong opposition in Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, which approved it, while also passing a “motion of regret” lamenting the legislation. It’s due back in the lower house Tuesday for further debate.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch criticized Starmer’s Labor Party government over the agreement.

Badenoch said in an X post that Trump is right and that Starmer’s “plan to give away the Chagos Islands is a terrible policy that weakens UK security and hands away our sovereign territory. And to top it off, makes us and our NATO allies weaker in the face of our enemies.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, an ally of the president, said: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.”

The U.S. has described the Diego Garcia base, which is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

The Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814, when they were ceded by France. Britain split the islands away from Mauritius, a former British colony, in 1965, and evicted as many as 2,000 people from the islands so the U.S. military could build the Diego Garcia base.

An estimated 10,000 displaced Chagossians and their descendants now live primarily in Britain, Mauritius and the Seychelles. Some have fought unsuccessfully in U.K. courts for many years for the right to go home.

The U.K.-Mauritius deal calls for a resettlement fund to be created for displaced islanders to help them move back to the islands — apart from Diego Garcia.

Lawless writes for the Associated Press.

Although Audi ran its new car at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week, the car unveiled at the event was a show car not representative of the actual Audi design.

Audi will join the rest of the teams at the first pre-season test, which is to be held in private at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya next week.

Audi unveiled a slogan for their new project: “To start something, stop at nothing.”

Binotto said this described “our approach to the journey – we aware there may be bumpy periods and failures, but to never stop, to have the passion to grow, it is the mindset to never stop pushing forward.”

He added: “We spent a long time discussing what our targets should be for 2026, whether it be championship positions or points. It is to become competitive. We need to stay humble. There is much to learn. It is more about the attitude, being here learning. And becoming competitive means average is not an option anymore.”

Wheatley added: “It is about a commitment, if we are going to start something, we are going to finish it. We are serious, and we are going to do whatever is necessary to make this a success.”

Racing Bulls gave their 2026 car a brief shakedown at a private test at a wet Imola on Tuesday.

Their rookie British driver Arvid Lindblad spun at the Villeneuve chicane and the car had to be recovered on a truck. His team-mate Liam Lawson also briefly drove the car at a test that was limited to 15km by F1 rules.

Jan. 20 (UPI) — Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., on Tuesday announced her candidacy to challenge incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., in the Republican primary after she secured President Donald Trump‘s endorsement.

Letlow announced her primary bid during a private breakfast meeting in Baton Rouge, and afterward made her decision by posting it on social media.

“I have fought alongside President Trump to put America first, standing up for our parents, securing our borders, supporting law enforcement, rooting out waste, fraud and abuse that drives up inflation, and fighting to fix an education system too focused on woke ideology instead of teaching,” Letlow said in a 2-minute ad announcing her candidacy.

“A state as conservative as ours, we shouldn’t have to wonder how our senator will vote when the pressure’s on,” Letlow added. “Louisiana deserves conservative champions, leaders who will not flinch.”

Cassidy is being challenged by multiple GOP candidates in the Republican primary after he voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

He was one of seven Republican senators who supported the impeachment effort that ultimately failed and said Letlow called him on Tuesday to inform him of her decision.

“She said she respected me and that I had done a good job. I will continue to do a good job when I win re-election,” Cassidy said in a social media post.

“I am a conservative who wakes up every morning thinking about how to make Louisiana and the United States a better place to live,” he added.

The primary challenge will undergo a new system in Louisiana, which will hold a closed Republican primary on May 16 and a runoff in June if no candidate secures a majority of votes.

The British government has given China approval to build the largest embassy in Europe in London eight years after Beijing bought the site.

The British government has given China approval to build the largest embassy in Europe in London eight years after Beijing bought the site.

Housing Minister Steve Reed’s decision to grant planning permission on Tuesday came before an expected visit to China by Prime Minister Keir Starmer later this month, the first by a British leader since 2018.

China’s plans to build a new embassy on the site of the two-century-old Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London have stalled for three years over opposition from residents, lawmakers and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners in Britain.

Pro-democracy campaigners from Hong Kong fear Beijing could use the embassy to harass political opponents and even detain them, while nearby residents fear it could pose a security risk to them and attract large protests.

Politicians in Britain and the United States have warned the government against allowing China to build the embassy on the site over concerns that it could be used as a base for spying.

The future embassy could still face legal challenges as residents said they planned to challenge the approval in the courts.

Reed said the decision was now final, barring a successful challenge in court.

A government spokesperson said intelligence agencies had helped to develop a “range of measures … to manage any risks”.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said China would continue to pose national security threats but added that after “detailed consideration of all possible risks around this new embassy … I am assured that the UK’s national security is protected”.

The Chinese government purchased the Royal Mint Court in 2018, but its requests for planning permission to build the new embassy there were rejected by the local council in 2022 over safety and security concerns.

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked Starmer to intervene.

Starmer’s government had repeatedly postponed its decision in recent months after multiple cases of alleged Chinese spying and political interference underlined concerns about the proposed embassy.

In November, the domestic intelligence agency MI5 issued an alert to lawmakers warning that Chinese agents were making “targeted and widespread” efforts to recruit and cultivate them using LinkedIn or cover companies.

Beijing has strongly denied those claims, calling them “pure fabrication and malicious slander”.

Starmer has stressed that while protecting national security is nonnegotiable, Britain needs to keep up diplomatic dialogue and cooperation with the Asian superpower.

Fat Mike doesn’t do birthdays.

So it was probably just a coincidence the NOFX retrospective at the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas last weekend took place on his birthday.

“My wife is going to spank my a— really hard 59 times,” Michael Burkett, a.k.a. Fat Mike, said on the roof of the museum as the sun was setting and the lights of Las Vegas were coming on. “Then she’ll do it again with a cane, and then with a paddle. That’s my kind of birthday.”

That’s an answer NOFX’s fans have come to expect from the front man known for his scabrous humor and irreverent lyrics. Fat Mike has made a career out of letting it all hang out and not taking himself too seriously, often courting scandal along the way.

From insulting country music fans in 2018 after the Las Vegas massacre the previous October, to convincing the crowd at SXSW in 2010 that his alter ego Cokie the Clown had peed in the tequila he’d just shared with the audience, Fat Mike has always been a provocateur.

But that’s just one side of the performer.

Fat Mike outside the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas.

(Melanie Kaye)

As the owner of Fat Wreck Chords, the label that put out most of NOFX’s material, as well as albums by scores of other bands, a lack of seriousness was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“It’s a lot of responsibility,” he admitted with a sigh of relief now that the band has stopped touring and the label has been sold to Hopeless Records. “But being out of NOFX now is wonderful. I can do so many different things that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”

Despite his ambivalence to birthdays, the museum, which was co-founded by Fat Mike in 2023, pulled out all the stops for a “this is your life”-style birthday party.

Two rooms on the 12,000-square-foot museum’s second floor displayed ephemera documenting the accomplishments of a grimy little punk rock band that stayed in the shadows of peers like Offspring, Green Day and Blink-182, but remained completely independent of major label influence — from its humble beginnings in 1983 to its final show in 2024.

Photos and fliers lined the walls, road cases were stuffed with memorabilia, and the sound of early demos played on actual tape recorders filled the space. “It’s the most substantial exhibit we’ve ever had,” said Vinnie Fiorello, one of the museum’s co-founders.

Meanwhile, down on the main floor, Mike’s former bandmates Aaron “El Hefe” Abeyta and Eric “Smelly” Sandin led guided tours through the museum, telling stories about their unlikely success as punk rock lifers. Later that afternoon, they gathered in the museum’s event space for a sold-out roundtable discussion.

The event kicked off with the trailer for the upcoming NOFX documentary titled “Forty Years of F— Up,” directed by James Buddy Day, and in typical NOFX fashion, they uploaded the wrong file. The showing had to be aborted after a few shocking scenes of bandmates bickering and Fat Mike blasting lines of cocaine.

Talk about a teaser.

For the discussion, Fat Mike, El Hefe and Smelly were joined by their longtime crew who are like a second family to the band. They shared irreverent stories and raucous laughter. At times, you could almost forget about the elephant in the room.

Almost.

Smelly read from a prepared statement addressing the reason why one of the bandmembers, rhythm guitarist Eric Melvin, wasn’t present.

Just a few hours after the final show of their final tour, Melvin’s lawyers served Fat Mike with papers accusing him of “legal and financial malfeasance.” He broke off contact with the band and directed all communication to go through his counsel.

After the roundtable, Fat Mike went out on the museum’s rooftop, feeling sad and vulnerable.

The acrimony that bedeviled so many bands that NOFX avoided for 40 years had finally caught up with them.

“We never had a f— argument, ever,” Fat Mike explained. “Things got a little sketchy during COVID, because people got desperate and we couldn’t play. But before that, we were all best friends. It was so beautiful. It wasn’t like other bands.”

Not being like other bands was the secret to NOFX’s success. While other bands chased record deals, NOFX stayed indie. When the kind of skate punk that NOFX helped pioneer went mainstream, Fat Mike didn’t tone down his act to appeal to a wider audience. He was willing to wager that, if they stayed true to their fans, their fans would stay true to them.

“When we were kids … we made ourselves targets. By the cops, by the jocks, by everybody. Why did we do that? Why did we make ourselves targets? I don’t really know why. It felt good, and it was like, ‘I don’t want to live like you.’”

That determination to live on one’s own terms, no matter how gnarly or weird other people thought you were, is what fueled Fat Mike and NOFX, and judging from the trailer, that hasn’t changed. That’s what Fat Mike means when he says, “NOFX is a completely authentic band.”

NOFX drummer Erik “Smelly” Sandin, left, and Aaron “El Hefe” Abeyta in the Punk Rock Museum.

(Melanie Kaye)

When members of NOFX were interviewed for the documentary, they were upset. Despite a wildly successful final tour, not everyone wanted the band to end and they spoke candidly about their feelings. Even though they were hard to watch, Fat Mike decided to include those scenes in the documentary.

He didn’t want to shy away from material that made him uncomfortable, including footage from a gory near-death experience he had after contracting a bacterial infection in his ulcer. “I’m on the floor and there’s blood and puke everywhere,” Fat Mike said, setting the scene. At that moment, he asked his wife to film him. “I think I’m dying, and I want my last words to be on camera.”

Even more shocking than the documentary’s content, is the way it will be distributed. You won’t be able to watch it on a streamer, download it off the internet or purchase a physical copy. The only way you can see it will be by getting off the couch.

“You have to go see the movie,” Fat Mike explained. “We’re playing it at over 100 theaters around the world once a month.”

Inspired by midnight screenings of his favorite movie, “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Fat Mike went to Cisco Adler, whose father Lou Adler co-produced the camp classic that made Tim Curry a legend, to devise a bold plan for showing the documentary. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Landmark Theater are on board to make the dream a reality.

“I want our fans to have a place to go,” Fat Mike said.

It’s a reasonable DIY strategy that feels completely radical. NOFX in a nutshell.

The documentary includes new songs performed by El Hefe, Fat Mike and Smelly, and they’re creating merchandise for the screenings like popcorn buckets, chocolate bars and NOFX 2-D glasses.

“It’s gonna be a party,” Fat Mike promises. Would you expect anything less?

“Forty Years of F— Up” will premiere in Austin during South by Southwest on March 15 and 16 and at the Nuart Theater on March 19 before opening worldwide on April 10.

Jim Ruland is the author of “Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records” and is a columnist for Razorcake Fanzine, America’s only nonprofit independent music magazine.

WASHINGTON  — Do licensed gun owners have a right to carry a loaded weapon into stores, restaurants and other private places that are open to the public?

California and Hawaii are among five states with new laws that forbid carrying firearms onto private property without the consent of an owner or manager. But the Trump administration joined gun-rights advocates on Tuesday in urging the Supreme Court to strike down these laws as unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment.

Such a law “effectively nullifies licenses to carry arms in public,” Trump’s lawyers said.

If you “stop at a gasoline station, you are committing a crime,” Deputy Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris told the court.

An attorney representing Hawaii said the issue is one of property rights, not gun rights.

“An invitation to shop is not an invitation to bring your Glock,” Washington attorney Neal Katyal told the court. “There is no constitutional right to enter property that includes a right to bring firearms.”

The justices sounded split along the usual ideological lines, with the court’s conservatives signaling they are likely to strike down the new laws in five Democratic-led states.

“You are relegating the 2nd Amendment to second-class status,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told Katyal.

He said the court had ruled law-abiding persons have a right to carry a firearm for self-defense when they leave home. That would include going to stores or businesses that are open to the public.

“If the owners don’t like guns, why don’t they just put up a sign?” Alito said.

Both sides agreed that business owners are generally free to allow or prohibit guns on their property. However, state officials said, the laws are important because business owners rarely post signs that either welcome or forbid the carrying of guns.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the 2nd Amendment should have the same standing as the 1st Amendment.

He said it was understood based on the 1st Amendment that a political candidate may walk up to a house and knock on the door or drop off a pamphlet. He questioned why the court should uphold a law that limits gun owners from entering places that are open to the public.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh said they too believed the “right to keep and bear arms” included the right to carry weapons, including into stores.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said property rights should prevail over gun rights.

“Is there a right to go on private property with a gun?” Sotomayor asked repeatedly. She said the court had never upheld such a broad right.

But with the possible exception of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, none of the conservatives agreed.

Four years ago, the court ruled law-abiding gun owners had a right to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense when they left home. They also said then that guns may be prohibited in “sensitive places” but they did not decide what that meant.

In the wake of that decision, California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey and Maryland adopted new laws that restricted carrying guns in public places, including parks and beaches.

The laws also said gun owners may not take a gun into a privately owned business without the “express authorization” of an owner or manager. California’s law went a step further and said the owner must post a clear sign allowing guns.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the laws from Hawaii and California, except for the required posting of a sign in California.

Three Hawaii residents with concealed carry permits appealed to the Supreme Court and won the backing of the Trump administration.

Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler will miss the rest of the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.

Butler, 36, sustained the injury in the third quarter of the Warriors’ 135-112 win over the Miami Heat on Monday.

His agent Bernie Lee confirmed the news in a statement to ESPN,, external calling it a “gut punch” to Butler and the Warriors team.

After a mixed start to the season, the Warriors have won 12 of their past 16 games and are eighth in the Western Conference, with a record of 25 win and 19 losses.

The top six teams in each conference qualify directly for the play-offs, with the teams ranked seventh to 10th competing in the play-in tournament.

Butler’s injury leaves the Warriors facing a decision on how to approach the rest of their season and the market before the trade deadline on 5 February.

Under coach Steve Kerr and with star point guard Stephen Curry, the Warriors have won four NBA titles since 2015 but have been a fading force since their last championship win in 2022.

The Warriors acquired Butler from the Heat in February 2025 to give Curry, 37, a star team-mate to support another championship bid, but must now consider whether to seek further reinforcements or rebuild for the future.

However, Lee is confident six-time All-Star Butler, who is contracted with the Warriors to the end of the 2026-27 season, will bounce back from this injury blow to win his first NBA title.

“I’ve known for over 10 years now that Jimmy is going to win a championship before he is done,” said Lee. “My belief in that is unwavering.”

Jan. 20 (UPI) — The Israeli government began demolishing the East Jerusalem building that houses the United Nations’ agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees Tuesday, a move the international organization called “an unprecedented attack.”

The BBC reported that demolition teams used heavy machinery to rip through the roof and tear down walls of the headquarters of the UNRWA, formally known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini issued a statement calling the demolition “a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law.”

“This constitutes an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises.”

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the site during the demolition and said it was “a very important day for the governance of Jerusalem,” Sky News reported. He called workers for the UNRWA “supporters of terror” and said the organization was “infested” with Hamas members.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed laws in October 2024 banning the agency from operating in the country. The government accused the UNRWA of being infiltrated by members of Hamas and participating in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed hundreds of people. The ban went into effect in January 2025.

The UNRWA, which has 30,000 workers in the region, denied the accusation, saying it fired nine employees after uncovering evidence they were involved in the attack that ignited the war.

The International Court of Justice in October ruled that Israel must allow the UNRWA to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. The opinion from the United Nations’ highest court is non-binding but has a moral and diplomatic weight.

The UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide relief to Palestinian refugees and began working out of its East Jerusalem headquarters shortly after. It is situated within occupied territory, having been seized by Israel in 1967.

Israeli officials took control of the building late last year, removing equipment and raising an Israeli flag. The government said it can now demolish the building because it belongs to Israel and is vacant.

An unnamed U.N. official told Sky News that the justification was “absolute nonsense.”

“They can say what they like, but it doesn’t make it real.”

Bloomberg via Getty Images

American response

Melani Sanders is over it.

She’s over meticulously applying makeup before leaving the house or, even, having to wear a bra when running errands. She’s over wasting time plucking chin hairs, searching for brain fog-induced lost reading glasses and — most of all — withholding her opinions so as not to offend others.

As a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman, Sanders is no longer searching for outside validation and is over people-pleasing.

The dedication page in her new book sums it up best: “To the a— who told me I had a “computer box booty.”

Who is this dude, and is Sanders worried about offending him?

She doesn’t care.

Author, Melani Sanders, in an outfit she typically wears in her social media videos.

(Surej Kalathil Sunman Media)

That’s Sanders’ mantra in life right now. Last year, the West Palm Beach, Fla.-based mother of three founded the We Do Not Care Club, an online “sisterhood” into the millions of perimenopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal women “who are putting the world on notice that we simply do not care much anymore.” Sanders’ social media videos feature her looking disheveled — in a bathrobe and reading glasses, for example, with additional pairs of reading glasses hanging from her lapels — while rattling off members’ comments about what they do not care about anymore.

“We do not care if we still wear skinny jeans — they stretch and they’re comfortable,” she reads, deadpan. “We do not care if the towels don’t match in our house — you got a rag and you got a towel, use it accordingly.”

Sanders’ online community of fed up women grew rapidly. She announced the club in May 2025, and it has more than 3 million members internationally; celebrity supporters include Ashley Judd, Sharon Stone and Halle Berry. It’s a welcoming, if unexpected, space where women “can finally exhale,” as Sanders puts it. The rallying cry? “We do not give a f—ing s— what anyone thinks of us anymore.”

That’s also the message of Sanders’ new book, “The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook: A Hot-Mess Guide for Women in Perimenopause, Menopause, and Beyond Who Are Over It.” The book is part self-help book, with facts about the perimenopause and menopause transition; part memoir; part practical workbook with tools and resources; and part humor book, brimming with Sanders’ raw and authentic comedic style. (It includes a membership card for new club inductees and cutout-able patches with slogans like “lubricated and horny” or “speaking your truth.”)

We caught up with Sanders while she was in New York to promote her book and admittedly “overstimulated from all the horns,” she said. But she just. Did. Not. Care.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The We Do Not Care Club came about after you had a meltdown in a supermarket parking lot. Tell us about that.

I was in the parking lot of Whole Foods. I needed Ashwagandha — that was my holy grail at the time for my perimenopause journey, and I was out of it. I got back in my car and looked at myself in the rear view mirror. I had on a sports bra that was shifted to one side. My hair was extremely unstructured. I had a hat on and socks mismatched — I was a real hot mess. Nothing added up. But in that moment, I realized that I just didn’t care much anymore. I just said, “Melanie, you have to take the pressure off, girlfriend. It’s time to stop caring so much.” I decided to press the record button and see if anyone wanted to join me in starting a club called the We Do Not Care Club. I released the video and drove home, which took about 20 minutes, and by the time I got home it had [gone viral].

You got hundreds of thousands of new followers, internationally, within 24 hours. Why do you think the post resonated so greatly at that moment?

I had to dissect that because it was kind of unreal. Like, what is it about country, old Melanie that hit record and asked about a little club that she thought maybe 20 or 30 women would want to join? Over the summer, I studied this and did more videos and I listened. It was the relatability. It was the understanding. It was just letting my guard down and just saying it out loud. Speaking my truth. Also, for many women, we have this silent pressure to get it all done. But we’re at capacity. In the book, I talk about how, once I was in perimenopause, I didn’t want to have sex with my husband. I didn’t want to see my kids — like, everyone just close the door! And that’s kind of shameful, you know? It’s not like I don’t love my family. I really do. But I can’t do it all anymore. And I just think that resonated with a lot of sisters throughout the world. It was like: Now is the time for us to just explode and I think we all did it at once.

“The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook.”

(William Morrow)

You entered perimenopause (or “Miss Peri,” as you call it) at age 44, after a partial hysterectomy. How did your life change after that?

I did not expect it. I knew that I had fibroids and I was uncomfortable because of that. So when I had the hysterectomy, I was expecting to now be a whole person again afterwards. But I just went into this dark place. It was like you’re fighting against yourself to just be normal again. And your body is changing in so many ways. For me, that was the hot flashes, the insomnia, the depression, the rage. My joints were really, really stiff all of a sudden. It’s like, ‘wait a minute, how and why?!!’ And [I got] frozen shoulder. Frozen shoulder was how I discovered I was in perimenopause because I was not told by my doctor who performed my hysterectomy that this could happen. And I didn’t know where to turn or where to go because I was just being told everything was normal. I was so frustrated with the process, the lack of education, the lack of resources. The lack of compassion, I would even say.

Your book and social media videos are so funny. Do you have a comedy background?

I don’t, and I get asked that often. I just say what’s on my mind and sometimes, I guess, it comes out funny — but I’m not trying. The [wearing multiple pairs of] glasses: I do that because, with perimenopause, my eyesight went bad really quickly. I was out in public one day and I could not read. I was just traumatized. So every time I would see glasses, I would just put them on me because I don’t want to get stuck without them. That neck pillow, when I got frozen shoulder, I was using it a lot. Then one day when I hit record, I had the neck pillow on and I just didn’t care. And it stuck.

You’ve appeared on TV, been featured in publications, and People magazine named you creator of the year for 2025. What has this sudden fame been like for you?

It’s surreal. I have not completely processed it yet. It’s a lot to take in. I’m just an everyday woman that decided to press record and accidentally started a movement. Impostor syndrome is there from time to time. But I’m just trying my best to accept everything that’s going on — and keep just being Melani.

Has the overwhelming response from new members fueled your own resolve to be true to yourself or otherwise changed you personally?

It absolutely has. It’s the strength that the sisterhood gives me. Because I’m very scared. You know, the book is coming out. And the tour is sold out in several cities. This is all within an eight-month span. It’s a lot. But when everyone is saying they love you, and when you have a group of women that understands you and feels the way that you feel, absolutely, there’s strength in numbers. Now I don’t care about making mistakes.

You live in a very male household. What do your sons and husband think of all this?

Once I decided that I didn’t care anymore, I just expected for them to kind of allow things just to go to hell around the house — but it was quite the opposite. All three of my sons and my husband, they’re just very supportive. Because it was very sad for me. It was very hard to not want to watch movies or anything and just be by myself. But they rose to the occasion and they make sure things are done when they’re home. They really show how they love their mom during this time.

How can other men become allies to the women they love during the menopause transition?

Just either get out of our way or, you know, just kind of read the room! Because we don’t know who we are from day to day. We don’t know what’s gonna ache. We don’t know what’s going to hurt or what’s going to itch or what’s going to be dry. And if it’s an off day, then darling, it’s just an off day — and it’s OK.

What are some things that you do still care about greatly?

I care about sisterhood. Because when women bind together, it’s a game changer. We will move mountains. I just think that, in this world, there’s so much pressure, so much overstimulation. So I care about being able to live authentically. To feel free. To be OK with who you are. Within WDNC, the two things that I definitely want to convey that I care about is: that you are enough. And you are not alone. And of course I love my kids. I love my family immensely.

Where does the WDNC go from here? What’s the future?

Retreats. That is definitely a dream. To have a weekend retreat where women can come and the only thing that you need to bring is some clean underwear and some pantyliners! (You can’t have a good, hard laugh or a good sneeze or a good cough without pissing your pants.) No makeup, no nothing, just come and be free. I want three different rooms. One will be the rage room and you’ll go in there and just throw stuff around and scream and punch, whatever you want. Then a quiet room. No talking, no nothing, just silence. And the last room will be the “Let that s— go room.” That’s where we’ll put everything that we have in us, that we’re holding onto that’s keeping us from living a blissful and peaceful life, and write it down and let it go. I just want to touch sisters and let them know it is OK. We are OK. I have my s— I go through. You have your s— you go through. It’s OK. Let’s live.