A rescue team on an air force helicopter has spotted what appears to be a small aircraft window in a forested area on the slope of Mount Bulusaraung.

Indonesian rescuers have recovered wreckage from a missing plane that is believed to have crashed with 11 people on board while approaching a mountainous region on Sulawesi island during cloudy conditions.

The discovery on Sunday comes after the small plane – on its way from Yogyakarta on Indonesia’s main island of Java to Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi province – vanished from radar on Saturday.

A rescue team on an air force helicopter on Sunday morning spotted what appeared to be a small aircraft window in a forested area on the slope of Mount Bulusaraung, said Muhammad Arif Anwar, who heads Makassar’s search and rescue office.

Rescuers on the ground then retrieved larger debris consistent with the main fuselage and tail scattered on a steep northern slope, Anwar told a news conference.

“The discovery of the aircraft’s main sections significantly narrows the search zone and offers a crucial clue for tightening the search area,” Anwar said. “Our joint search and rescue teams are now focusing on searching for the victims, especially those who might still be alive.”

The plane, a turboprop ATR 42-500, was operated by Indonesia Air Transport and was last tracked in the Leang-Leang area of Maros, a mountainous district of South Sulawesi province.

It was carrying eight crew members and three passengers from the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry who were on board as part of an airborne maritime surveillance mission.

Ground and air rescue teams continued moving towards the wreckage site on Sunday, despite strong winds, heavy fog and steep, rugged terrain that had slowed the search, said Major-General Bangun Nawoko, South Sulawesi’s Hasanuddin military commander.

Photos and videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency on Sunday showed rescuers were trekking along a steep, narrow mountain ridgeline blanketed in thick fog to reach scattered wreckage.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport and ferries to connect its more than 17,000 islands. The Southeast Asian country has been plagued by transport accidents in recent years, from plane and bus crashes to ferry sinkings.

University students have proposed banning corrupt officials from politics and investigating their wealth.

Thousands of people have rallied in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, as university students who have led more than a year of mass demonstrations pledged to continue fighting against endemic corruption during the tenure of right-wing nationalist President Aleksandar Vucic.

Protesters, chanting “thieves”, accused the government of rampant corruption. University students told the crowd on Saturday that they had drawn up a plan on how to rid Serbia of corruption and restore the rule of law. They proposed banning corrupt officials from politics and investigating their wealth as first steps for a post-Vucic government.

The protest was dubbed “What victory will mean”. Last month, students said they had collected about 400,000 signatures in support of their election bid.

The next protest rally is planned for January 27 in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, organisers said.

Regular student-led protests have gripped Serbia since a November 2024 train station disaster in the northern city killed 16 people, becoming a symbol of entrenched corruption.

Thirteen people, including former Construction Minister Goran Vesic, were charged in a criminal case over the collapse. The Novi Sad High Court dropped the charges against Vesic last month, citing a lack of evidence.

A separate anticorruption inquiry continues alongside a European Union-backed investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds in the project.

Tens of thousands of people marked the first anniversary of the train station roof collapse in Novi Sad in November, observing 16 minutes of silence for the 16 victims of the tragedy.

The protests over the station’s collapse have led to the resignation of the prime minister, the fall of his government and the formation of a new one. But Vucic has remained defiantly in office.

Vucic has denied accusations of corruption and regularly labelled demonstrators as foreign-funded coup plotters, while members of his SNS party pushed conspiracy theories, claiming that the train station roof collapse may have been an orchestrated attack.

Vucic has refused to schedule an immediate early election that students have demanded. Hundreds of people have been detained, or reported losing their jobs or facing pressure for opposing the government.

Vucic came to power more than a decade ago, promising to take Serbia into the EU. But he has since strengthened ties with Russia and China, while facing accusations of curbing democratic freedoms in Serbia and allowing corruption and organised crime to flourish.

The student movement has garnered big support among Serbs who are largely disillusioned with mainstream politicians. Vucic has accused the students of working under unspecified Western orders to “destroy Serbia”.

BERLIN — Erich von Däniken, the Swiss author whose best-selling books about the extraterrestrial origins of ancient civilizations brought him fame among paranormal enthusiasts and scorn from the scientific community, has died. He was 90.

On Sunday, Von Däniken’s representatives announced on his website that he had died the previous day in a hospital in central Switzerland.

Von Däniken rose to prominence in 1968 with the publication of his first book, “Chariots of the Gods?,” in which he claimed that the Mayans and ancient Egyptians were visited by alien astronauts and instructed in advanced technology that allowed them to build giant pyramids.

The book fueled a growing interest in unexplained phenomena at a time when, thanks to conventional science, humans were about to take their first steps on the Moon.

“Chariots of the Gods?” was followed by more than two dozen similar books, spawning a literary niche in which fact and fantasy were mixed together against all historical and scientific evidence.

Public broadcaster SRF reported that Von Däniken’s books had sold almost 70 million copies in more than 30 languages, making him one of the most widely read Swiss authors.

While Von Däniken managed to shrug off his many critics, the former hotel waiter had a troubled relationship with money throughout his life and frequently came close to financial ruin.

Born in 1935, the son of a clothing manufacturer in the northern Swiss town of Schaffhausen, Von Däniken is said to have rebelled against his father’s strict Catholicism and the priests who instructed him at boarding school by developing his own alternatives to the biblical account of the origins of life.

After leaving school in 1954, Von Däniken worked as a waiter and barkeeper for several years, during which he was repeatedly accused of fraud and served a couple of short stints in prison.

In 1964, he was appointed manager of a hotel in the exclusive resort town of Davos and began writing his first book. Its publication and rapid commercial success were quickly followed by accusations of tax dodging and financial impropriety, for which he again spent time behind bars.

By the time he left prison, “Chariots of the Gods?” was earning Von Däniken a fortune and a second book, “Gods from Outer Space,” was ready for publication, allowing him to commit himself to his paranormal passion and travel the world in search of new mysteries to uncover.

“Chariots of the Gods?” was made into a film in 1970 and was a huge box-office success, especially at drive-ins in the United States. It also received an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature, despite criticism of its pseudoscience and largely unsubstantiated claims about “ancient astronauts.”

Throughout the 1970s, Von Däniken undertook countless field trips to Egypt, India, and above all, Latin America, whose ancient cultures held a particular fascination for the amateur archaeologist.

He lectured widely and set up societies devoted to promoting his theories, later pioneering the use of video and multimedia to reach out to ever-larger audiences hungry for a different account of history.

No amount of criticism dissuaded him and his fans from believing that Earth has been visited repeatedly by beings from Outer Space, and will be again in the future.

Von Däniken gained the damning accolade of being the first recipient of the “Ig Nobel” prize for literature in 1991 — for raising the public awareness of science through questionable experiments or claims.

Even when confronted with fabricated evidence in a British television documentary — supposedly ancient pots were shown to be almost new — Von Däniken insisted that, minor discrepancies aside, his theories were essentially sound.

In 1985, Von Däniken wrote “Neue Erinnerungen an die Zukunft” — “New Memories of the Future” — ostensibly to address his many critics: “I have admitted [my mistakes], but not one of the foundations of my theories has yet been brought down.”

Although his popularity was waning in the English-speaking world by the 1980s, Von Däniken’s books and films influenced a wave of semi-serious archaeological documentaries and numerous popular television shows, including “In Search of …” and “The X-Files,” which featured two FBI agents tasked with solving paranormal mysteries, as well as the long-running cable series “Ancient Aliens.”

In 1998, Von Däniken revisited the subject in the book “Arrival of the Gods,” focusing on Peru’s mysterious Nazca lines. “‘Arrival of the Gods’ is a grotesque parody of scientific inquiry devoid of any intellectual credibility or literary merit whatsoever,” wrote British anthropologist and UC Santa Barbara professor Brian Fagan in a review for The Times. “The book is typical of the genre, with its haphazard and uncritical use of an astonishing range of sources from all parts of the world in order to fashion an implausible jigsaw puzzle the author claims is science.”

Von Däniken’s last major venture, a theme park based on his books, failed after just a few years due to lack of interest. The “Mystery Park” still stands, its man-made pyramids and otherworldly domes rotting as tourists prefer to explore the charms of the nearby town of Interlaken and the imposing Swiss Alps that surround it.

Erich von Däniken is survived by his wife of 65 years, Elisabeth Skaja; a daughter, Cornelia; and two grandchildren.

Signed on Saturday with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the EU-Mercosur deal is designed to bolster the EU’s geostrategic position. Yet it has already exposed deep political fault lines inside the bloc, with France emerging as the most vocal opponent.

“We choose fair trade over tariffs, we chose a productive long-term partnership over isolation,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the ceremony in Asuncion, Paraguay.

She called the agreement, “25 years in the making”, an “achievement of a generation”, for “the benefit of generations to come”, in her message on X.

That, however, goes against the wishes of Paris, which voted against the agreement in a key Council vote on 9 January, even as a majority of member states backed the deal, a split that risks fuelling a narrative that the Mercosur agreement is being imposed on France by Brussels.

Supporters argue the agreement, which would create a transatlantic free-trade zone, is critical to counter China’s growing influence in Latin America.

Commission figures show the EU’s share of Mercosur imports was about six times larger than China’s in 2000. Today, China’s share is roughly 40% higher than the EU’s.

In Brussels, the deal is also seen as essential to diversifying EU trade ties as the US tightens market access and Beijing continues to weaponise European dependencies on Chinese materials and technology.

“Given the geopolitical and geo-economic context – where, for instance, Donald Trump is imposing insane tariffs on us – what we want is not the law of the strongest, but to negotiate, as the European Union has always done, with our partners,” Spanish MEP Javier Moreno Sánchez (S&D) told Euronews.

The debate in Paris grows increasingly heated

After 25 years of negotiations led by the Commission, the agreement has been approved by a majority of member states and formally signed. On Monday, it will be taken to the European Parliament for the final steps of its ratification.

Lawmakers are already divided along national lines, mirroring the 9 January Council vote. France, Poland, Hungary, Ireland and Austria opposed the deal, while Belgium abstained. Supporters hope last week’s approval will build momentum in Parliament, though attention is focused on a resolution to be voted next week seeking to challenge the deal before the EU’s top court – a move that could still draw backing from hesitant supporters.

In France, the Mercosur saga has turned into a political flashpoint that could deepen euroscepticism in a country whose largest delegation in the Parliament already comes from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which is ahead in the polls of the next presidential election.

After Paris failed to assemble a blocking minority against the agreement, RN leader Jordan Bardella initiated a no-confidence vote in the European Parliament that is scheduled for next week. He also filed a no-confidence motion in France’s National Assembly this week, which was rejected.

The debate in Paris is increasingly heated, with political forces across the spectrum opposing the deal. Critics argue it would expose EU farmers to unfair competition from Latin American imports that do not meet the bloc’s production standards.

Supporters counter that France’s agricultural woes are home-grown and that the EU-Mercosur agreement has become a convenient scapegoat.

“The blame is a purely a French one, because the problems are French,” Jean-Luc Demarty, former director-general for trade at the European Commission, told Euronews. “After 15 years of absolutely lamentable national agricultural policy – and economic policy as well – the competitiveness of French agriculture has deteriorated considerably. The Mercosur (deal) is a scapegoat.”

Opponents have nonetheless secured key environmental provisions, tariff-rate quotas on sensitive products such as beef and poultry, and safeguard clauses to prevent market disruption. The Commission has also pledged €45 billion in support for EU farmers from 2028 – commitments that helped sway Italy’s crucial position into backing the deal. But not France.

Paris points now the limited economic gains of the deal. On 8 January, French President Emmanuel Macron cited Commission estimates in a post on Xshowing the agreement would lift EU GDP by just 0.05% by 2040.

Tariffs on EU cars – currently at 35% and a key driver of German support – would be phased out only over 18 years, by which time Chinese automakers may have already secured significant market share in Mercosur countries.

EU companies wait for the deal’s implementation

MEPs backing the deal say other sectors stand to gain in areas including services, dairy, wine and spirits, while EU firms would gain access to public procurement markets.

“We have a large majority of industrial players and service providers who are waiting for this agreement and are keeping a low profile,” Moreno Sánchez said.

Those arguments have struggled to gain traction in France, where resistance to free-trade deals runs deep. The EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA), provisionally in force since 2017, has yet to be ratified by the French parliament, and the Senate voted against it in 2024.

German MEP Svenja Hahn (Renew) noted that fears may be overstated. “Only 2% of the quotas that are in the CETA for beef have been used,” she told Euronews.

In countries opposed to the Mercosur deal, supporters have found it hard to be heard after years of vocal criticism.

“In a number of countries, there was a narrative portraying this agreement as something that had to be fought against in order to secure certain concessions,” Eric Maurice, an expert at the Brussels-based European Policy Center, told Euronews. “It was therefore initially presented in a negative light, before its benefits were later defended.”

More than two decades after talks began, the Mercosur deal risks fuelling especially untimely resentment towards the EU.

SATURDAY’S RESULTS

BOYS

CITY SECTION

El Camino Real 51, LACES 46

Granada Hills Kennedy d. Manual Arts, forfeit

SOUTHERN SECTION

Adelanto 51, Lancaster 38

Arcadia 70, Burbank 49

Calvary Baptist 56, Ayala 54

Cantwell-Sacred Heart 80, Westminster 44

Carpinteria 42, Nordhoff 41

Compton 86, Ocean View 59

Corona Centennial 66, Rolling Hills Prep 60

Damien 53, North Torrance 32

Garden Grove Pacifica 85, Valor Academy 14

Gardena Serra 61, Shadow Hills 43

Heritage Christian 68, St. Anthony 45

Los Alamitos 73, St. Francis 70 (OT)

Loyola 70, Oakwood 26

Monrovia 67, Glenn 41

Murrieta Mesa 70, Orange County Pacifica Christian 69

Paramount 51, Artesia 48

Pasadena 89, Burbank Burroughs 44

Rancho Cucamonga 66, Anaheim Canyon 62

Rancho Mirage 64, La Salle 50

Redondo Union 82, JSerra 53

Rio Hondo Prep 48, Edgewood 34

Santa Paula 71, Oxnard Pacifica 66

Trinity Classical Academy 62, PACS 46

Viewpoint 75, Blair 73

Webb 76, Southlands Christian 18

Windward 73, Eastvale Roosevelt 71

INTERSECTIONAL

Agoura 75, LA Marshall 64

Alemany 69, Bakersfield North 65

Bellflower 82, Foshay 34

Bernstein 56, Long Beach Cabrillo 54

Beverly Hills d. San Fernando, forfeit

Birmingham 82, Valencia 71

California City 77, Corcoran 52

Corona Santiago 61, Carlsbad 54

Culver City 90, Sylmar 84

Del Norte 62, Chaparral 58

Elsinore 74, Chula Vista Mater Dei 45

Etiwanda 63, Torrey Pines 54

Fairfield (CT) Notre Dame Prep 72, Mater Dei 57

Gahr 82, LA Wilson 42

Garden Grove Pacifica 85, Valor Academy 14

Howard 65, Westmark 40

Huntington Park 54, Lynwood 34

Inglewood 81, West Haven (CT) Notre Dame 80

Lab School (Washington D.C.) 73, Westlake 40

La Mirada 67, Francis Parker 55

Leuzinger 82, Sotomayor 36

Mayfair 68, Bakersfield 61

Palisades 72, Legacy Christian Academy 48

Palm Desert 83, Calexico 60

Rancho Bernardo 64, Temescal Canyon 30

Rancho Christian 83, Rancho Buena Vista 53

Richmond Salesian 71, St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 43

Sierra Canyon 75, Miami (FL) Columbus 58

St. Bernard 77, Washington 56

St. John Bosco 58, Logan-Rogersville (MO) 53

Summit 57, Taft 50

Temecula Prep 64, Coronado 54

Thousand Oaks Hillcrest Christian 83, Fulton 65

Vistamar 60, Samueli Academy 37

Warren 81, Carson 43

Winston Salem Christian National (NC) 80, DNA Prep Academy 64

GIRLS

CITY SECTION

Arleta 58, LACES 35

Fairfax 41, Bravo 16

SOUTHERN SECTION

Aquinas 26, Vista del Lago 22

Arroyo 47, Mountain View 8

Avalon 40, Webb 17

Bishop Amat 46, Cantwell-Sacred Heart 37

Bishop Diego 54, Thacher 29

Bonita 69, South Pasadena 38

Burbank Burroughs 69, Pasadena 32

Chino Hills 52, Anaheim Canyon 49

Crescenta Valley 104, Hoover 22

Esperanza 53, Buena Park 40

Etiwanda 72, Lakewood St. Joseph 44

Flintridge Prep 62, Troy 35

Gardena Serra 72, St. Mary’s Academy 25

JSerra 85, Windward 44

Knight 37, Louisville 33

Marlborough 65, Saugus 52

Mary Star of the Sea 40, Pomona Catholic 24

Mission College Prep 59, Coastal Christian 15

North Torrance 50, Keppel 39

Palm Desert 55, Riverside Prep 19

Patriot 49, La Habra 33

Ramona 79, Linfield Christian 26

Riverside King 67, Hillcrest 23

Santa Maria 57, Carpinteria 50

Santa Maria St. Joseph 69, Oxnard Pacifica 40

Silverado 43, Corona 39

South Torrance 53, St. Anthony 51

St. Bonaventure 53, Leuzinger 39

St. Margaret’s 58, Maranatha 28

St. Paul 48, St. Bernard 31

St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 52, Ramona Convent 17

Summit 58, Rolling Hills Prep 48

Trinity Classical Academy 83, PACS 11

Valencia 74, Santa Monica 25

Ventura 59, Redondo Union 47

Viewpoint 36, Louisville 34

Villanova Prep 51, Santa Barbara Providence 24

Vistamar 31, Samueli Academy 28

Westminster La Quinta 35, Garden Grove Pacifica 11

West Torrance 52, San Clemente 47

Yucca Valley 49, Elsinore 20

INTERSECTIONAL

Bakersfield Christian 72, Beckman 67

Brentwood 73, La Jolla Bishop’s 42

Birmingham 84, El Segundo 43

Calabasas 60, Van Nuys 29

King/Drew 61, Lawndale 59

Mira Costa 40, Palisades 39

Oakwood 65, Larchmont Charter 16

Ontario Christian 78, St. John-Vianney (NJ) 70

Riverside Poly 56, Rancho Buena Vista 44

Westlake 57, Cleveland 55

Los Caños de Meca, Cádiz, Spain

Wild, windswept and wonderfully unspoilt, the Costa de la Luz is the Spanish coastline time forgot; a great swathe of Atlantic drama, fringed with sandy beaches and small seaside villages and resorts. Hotel Madreselva, surrounded by the pine forest, wetlands, dunes and sea cliffs of the Breña y Marismas de Barbate nature reserve, makes a suitably tranquil base, with a palm-shaded courtyard, flame-walled pool area and 18 stylish rooms, all with a private patio. A minute’s walk from the beach at Los Caños de Meca, the hotel is perfect for watersports lovers, as well as exploring this unspoilt corner of Andalucia. The hilltop pueblo blanco of Vejer, a 20-minute drive away, has charm in spades, while Cape Trafalgar, a lighthouse with views over the Strait of Gibraltar, is 10 minutes’ walk along the beach.
Doubles from £83 B&B, hotelmadreselva.com

Sagres, Algarve, Portugal

The views are the main draw at Memmo Baleeira, a modernist hotel on the Algarve’s south-westernmost tip. With the beach just a few steps away and infinite skies, there is a genuine sense of holidaying at the edge of the world. Sagres is steeped in history – it was the gateway to the unknown world during Portugal’s Age of Sail and has a spectacular windswept fortress, dramatic cliffside scenery and a chilled-out, surfy vibe. A member of Design Hotels, Memmo Baleeira has rooms in crisp shades of cream, shell and taupe. The restaurant serves fish and seafood straight off local boats and there’s a large lawned area around the pool that is ideal for kids. Down at the harbour, boat trips head out each day to spot pods of dolphins, and the long-distance Rota Vicentina (Fishermen’s Trail) runs through the town, offering fabulous hiking.
Doubles from £105 B&B, memmohotels.com

Pelion, Thessaly, Greece

The gloriously unspoilt Pelion peninsula is home to little more than holiday villas owned by wealthy Athenians, and small, family-run hotels. The Pounda Paou is one, set on a hillside above the sea, with rooms linked by shady paths and leafy sitting areas, and a pool terrace with glorious sea views. A car is essential (the nearest village, Argalasti is a few minutes’ drive away); half the fun of a visit to Pelion is following the quiet country roads to hilltop villages with excellent tavernas, or small coves with barely anyone else there. The village of Chorto, around 15 minutes’ drive (or a two-mile hike), has a good selection of tavernas, although dinners at Pounda Paou – home-cooked, hearty dishes including slow-cooked meats, vegetable stews and handmade pastries – are not to be missed.
From £399pp a week B&B, ionianislandholidays.com

Elounda, Crete

Elounda’s transition from sleepy fishing village to five-star haven has been one of the biggest changes on Crete, but in spite of numerous glitzy hotels, the area remains extraordinarily beautiful. The village is a patchwork of tavernas and stone houses clustered behind a harbour that opens on to the vivid blue lagoon that separates the mainland from Spinalonga island. The opening of the new Innside Elounda on 1 May means this gorgeous slice of Cretan coastline will now be affordable (once again) for mere mortals. It will have chic, comfortable rooms stepping down the hillside (most with sparkling sea views), two restaurants, outdoor yoga classes and works by local artisans dotted around the communal spaces. And it is perfectly placed for exploring some of Crete’s ancient sites, including Knossos.
Doubles from £92 room-only, melia.com

Tučepi, Dalmatian coast, Croatia

In between Croatia’s glittering islands and big draws such as Dubrovnik and Split, the Makarska Riviera stays happily under the radar – a long stretch of coast fringed with quiet beaches, pine forest and small resorts that attract far fewer crowds than their glitzier siblings. Tučepi is one of them, with traditional stone houses and a handful of hotels scattered along a stretch of pebbly beach, with a palm-lined promenade edged with seafood restaurants and traditional konobas (taverns). Villa Andrea opens out directly on to the prom, with 18 comfortable, unfussy rooms (it’s worth upgrading from a classic to a standard room for £17.50 a night). There are wine tastings in the cellar and friendly staff who can arrange everything from restaurant reservations to white-water rafting on the Cetina River. For a little more life, the larger resort of Makarska is just 10 minutes’ drive away.
Doubles from £94.50 B&B, villa-andrea.info

Near Essaouira, Morocco

Sometimes the best kind of beach holiday is to be away from everything, but with somewhere lovely to pop to for an afternoon’s shopping or a spot of dinner. Kasbah d’Eau, a striking, contemporary hotel, softened with vibrant Moroccan textiles, tiles and hand-carved woodwork, is on a stretch of unspoilt beach 25 minutes’ drive from the buzzy seaside town of Essaouira. Cooking classes, horse-riding and quad-biking are all on offer, along with visits to Essaouira’s picturesque medina, with its art galleries, cafes and stalls selling everything from Berber rugs to leather goods. Haggling is still expected, but it’s less of a competitive sport than elsewhere, while the town’s rooftop bars are ideal for sundowners. Back at base, the restaurant serves local dishes – grilled chicken, garlicky prawns, lamb tagine – with aplomb.
Doubles from £122 B&B, kasbahdeau.com

Salento, Puglia, Italy

The Maldives in Italy? It might sound like an exaggeration, but the white-sand beaches and glassily clear seas that roll out along the protected coastline of the Litorale di Ugento natural park really do have that desert island feel. A short stroll from the beach, Masseria Fontanelle is a restored 17th-century convent that oozes tranquillity (not least because of its 12-plus age policy), with cool, cocoon-like bedrooms that have whitewashed walls and stone floors. The underground cavern spa offers restorative treatments, and on summer evenings there’s outdoor cinema, with classic Puglian dishes in the restaurant terrace and a gin bar to explore. The beachfront village of Torre San Giovanni has a clutch of trattorias, while the nearby town of Ugento boasts stunning baroque architecture and a historic centre that’s easily explored on foot.
Doubles from £122 B&B, masseriafontanelle.it

Panarea, Aeolian Islands, Italy

A house for two, tucked away on an island that’s car-free and crowd-free, with a nightly light show from Stromboli, rumbling away in the distance … what could be more blissful? A Picciridda is the cherry-pick of the clutch of small rental properties on Panarea, the smallest of the seven inhabited Aeolian Islands, off the north coast of Sicily. It is a blue and white cocoon for two, perched on a hillside, close to the picturesque village of San Pietro. Like all of Italy, it gets busy in August, but the average day here is a mix of gentle hikes through olive groves, lazy hours on quiet coves and long lunches in waterfront restaurants, while evenings are for suppers on A Picciridda’s lovely private terrace – with fresh fish bought from the harbour.
From £1,005 a week self-catering, sawdays.co.uk

All prices are for May/June and were correct at the time of going to press

The U.S. Navy is putting major emphasis on containerized weapons and other systems to make up for limitations in the built-in capabilities of its forthcoming FF(X) frigates. The design’s lack of an integrated Vertical Launch System (VLS), which TWZ was first to confirm, and other capabilities, has prompted questions and criticism. As it stands now, the FF(X)s will have nearly the same armament installed as the Navy’s much-maligned Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

Navy officials shared new details about the FF(X) design, which is derived from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Legend class National Security Cutter (NSC), at the Surface Navy Association’s (SNA) annual symposium this week, at which TWZ was in attendance. The service rolled out the new frigate program last month. The announcement followed the cancellation of the abortive Constellation class program, which had been intended to address the chronic shortcomings of the LCSs, but had turned into its own boondoggle.

“We are pursuing a design [for FF(X)] that is producible, it has been proven, it is operationally in use today, and it will evolve,” Chris Miller, Executive Director at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told attendees at the SNA conference yesterday.

The Navy’s FF(X) frigate design, as it exists now, is 421 feet long, has a beam (the width of the hull at its widest point) of 54 feet, and displaces 4,750 tons. It can sail at up to 28 knots, has a range of 12,000 nautical miles, and an endurance of 60 days. For comparison, the Coast Guard says its NSCs are 418 feet in length, have a 54-foot beam, and a displacement of 4,500 tons. The previously planned Constellation class frigate was a significantly larger ship that displaced thousands of tons more.

In terms of integrated capabilities, the ships will have a 57mm main gun in a turret on the bow, as well as a 30mm automatic cannon mounted on the rear of the main superstructure alongside a point defense launcher that will be loaded with up to 21 RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM). They will also feature an AN/ALQ-32(V)6 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block II suite, launchers for expendable Nulka decoys, and an AN/SPS-77 Sea Giraffe medium-range multi-mode surveillance radar. There is a flight deck and hangars at the stern that will allow for the embarkation of helicopters and uncrewed aerial vehicles. The 30mm cannon, RAM launcher, and Sea Giraffe radar are not found on the Coast Guard’s NSCs, which also have an earlier variant of the SEWIP system. Both ships have a standard crew complement of 148.

The biggest difference between the NSC and the FF(X) is the Navy’s plans to use the fantails on the latter ships as a space for containerized weapon systems and other modular payloads.

“We are going to evolve it over time. Everybody keeps asking me, what about this? What about that?” NAVSEA’s Miller said. “You know, my answer back is, I care about getting this ship into production, [and then] learning, adapting, and figuring out what this ship needs to grow into.”

“The vision here is we will have capability in a box,” he added. “I think you all will agree that we have come a long ways in our ability to use shipping containers, and I am excited.”

The Navy says it is looking first at installing launchers for up to 16 Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), a stealthy anti-ship cruise missile with secondary land attack capability already, or as many as 48 AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The Navy has also presented the Hellfire armament option as being focused on knocking down hostile drones, though they could be employed against other target sets. As noted, the NSC-based frigates will not have an integrated VLS array, at least initially.

“We developed these [FF(X) requirements based on what we thought we needed in a frigate,” Rear Adm. Derek Trinque, head of the Navy’s surface warfare division, or N96, also said while speaking alongside Miller and other members of a panel yesterday. “There was a lot of desire to put an awful lot of expensive capability into these ships. And that would have been cool, except that wasn’t really what we needed, because we have in the Flight III [Arleigh Burke class] destroyers coming down the ways right now, the large surface combatants that are appropriate for today.”

This is a pronounced shift in thinking from what led to Constellation class program, which explicitly sought a larger and more capable warship to make up for the shortcomings of the Navy’s two classes of LCSs.

The LCS program also notably focused heavily on modular capability packages, or modules, to help give those ships flexibility to perform different mission sets as required. In practice, the Navy has deployed LCSs with largely fixed configurations. More recently, the service has been looking to containerized weapon systems as a way to bolster the still-lacking firepower of those ships.

“I want to distinguish between LCS mission modules and containerized payloads. One of the challenges with LCS mission modules was we were taking systems that did not yet exist and marrying them with a ship that we were just starting to build,” Rear Adm. Trinque explained. For FF(X), “we are going to take existing systems and to all intents and purposes, put them in a box with an interface to the ship’s combat system. That will make this work, and it will allow [for] rapid switch out of capability, [and] rapid addition of capability.”

NAVSEA’s Miller also stressed the benefits containerized payloads would offer in terms of being able to “burn down risk.” A system that does not prove itself or is otherwise found not to meet the Navy’s needs could simply be unloaded from the ship and readily replaced with something else.

It is important to note here that the containerized payloads the Navy is eyeing for FF(X) could include more than just additional weapons. This modularity is seen, in particular, as a way to address the design’s current lack of a built-in sonar array (fixed and/or towed) and other anti-submarine warfare capabilities, which were expected to be another important feature of the Constellation class frigate. In 2022, the Navy also scrapped plans for an anti-submarine warfare missions module for its LCSs.

“We are not walking away from ASW [anti-submarine warfare] at all. We are all in on ASW,” Rear Adm. Joseph Cahill, Commander, Naval Surface Force Atlantic, another member of the panel at SNA yesterday, declared. At the same time, he put emphasis on the Navy’s workhorse Arleigh Burke class destroyers as the main warship for executing that mission, while also acknowledging how other assets, and not just at sea, could contribute to the anti-submarine fight.

Overall, the Navy has made no secret that its main goal with FF(X) is to get hulls in the water as quickly as possible to start helping make up for shortfalls now in its surface fleets. The hope is that this will also have a positive impact on the naval shipbuilding industry in the United States by jump-starting demand for work that could be spread across multiple yards, as you can read more about here. The service has expressed a clear willingness to trade capability, at least up front, to meet its aggressive timeline goals. The hope is that the first FF(X) will be in the water by 2028.

The schedule for the delivery of the future USS Constellation had slipped to 2029 at the earliest before that program was cancelled. The Navy had awarded the first contract for those ships in 2020. The Constellation class design was also based on a proven in-production frigate, the Franco-Italian Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM; European Multi-Mission Frigate in English). However, successive changes meant that it ultimately had just 15 percent in common with its European ‘parent.’

“This ship [FF(X)] is done being designed,” NAVSEA’s Miller said yesterday. “We are going to go through a very, very, very – like, on one hand – number of engineering changes to get it to be what we want.”

“This frigate is designed off of a proven blue water modern hull, [the] NSC. That hull is designed following Navy rules, standard structural ship design Navy rules for the Navy,” Rear Adm. Trinque also noted, in part to address separate questions about vulnerability and survivability in using a ship based on design intended for Coast Guard use. “It’s a very, very common rule set that we’re familiar with back to DDG-51 [the Arleigh Burke class destroyer]. That’s how that platform was designed. So, there’s commonality in the robustness of that design, and that’s something that we would leverage and depend on in looking towards the ability to address the vulnerability issue.”

There are still questions about whether the focus on containerized payloads will hamper the FF(X)’s operational utility, even as the Navy works to evolve the design. The missile options the Navy has presented so far are decidedly limited compared to the 32-cell Mk 41 VLS array that was a central requirement for the Constellation class, each of which would also have carried 16 NSMs. TWZ previously explored in detail earlier questions about whether that was even a sufficient number of VLS cells for that ship to perform its expected missions. On top of this, the Navy is looking at major losses in total VLS capacity in its surface and submarine fleets with the impending retirement of the last of the Ticonderoga class cruisers and its four Ohio class guided missile submarines toward the end of the decade.

Though containerized payloads do offer flexibility, any ship can only be configured in one way at a time, on top of only being able to be in a single place at once. As an example, the Navy would not be able to readily re-task an FF(X) at sea and loaded for the surface strike mission to go hunt submarines. The service does see the frigates being deployed as part of larger surface action groups, which would have the benefit of a wider array of capabilities spread across multiple types.

“If one of those things is something that we need to get into the design of the ship [FF(X)], [it] is something that we will go consider,” NAVSEA’s Miller did add yesterday. “We will figure out what has to be done, but we’ll do it in a smart, controlled way. I am trying to control the appetite.”

Integrating a VLS and other capabilities into the existing FF(X) design is certainly a possibility in the future, but it could be a complex and costly proposition if the design is not configured to accommodate those additional features to begin with. The Navy will likely look to build more substantially modified versions of the ship in future ‘flights’ down the line, as it has done with some other classes. Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which designed the NSC and is now working on FF(X), has done work in the past on other design concepts in this general family that have VLS arrays, as well as expanded suites of sensors and other systems, as seen in the video below.

Patrol Frigate Variants – Information Video

The Navy is also planning to further bolster the FF(X)’s built-in capabilities by deploying them as motherships for future fleets of uncrewed surface vessels, likely offering a distributed arsenal, as well as additional sensors. As TWZ previously wrote:

“In this way, an FF(X) could still call upon a deeper and more flexible array of weapon options without having to have a VLS integrated directly onto the ship. The uncrewed platforms would also be able to operate across a much broader area than any single crewed frigate and present a different risk calculus for operating in higher-risk environments. All of this would expand the overall reach of the combined force and present targeting challenges for opponents. But there are also substantial development and operational risks with this kind of arrangement. As it sits, this kind of autonomous vessel and manned vessel teaming is still in development. Operationally, leaving the ship without, or with very limited, area defense capability is at odds with many future threat scenarios.”

This last point underscores some of the biggest still unanswered questions about FF(X). There does not appear to be any explicit talk so far about options for expanding the frigate’s anti-air arsenal beyond its integrated point defense capabilities and add-on counter-drone interceptors. BAE Systems has been working on a Next Generation Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Launch System (NGELS) based on its modular Adaptable Deck Launching System (ADL) for the U.S. Navy and American allies. Around SNA, the company also put out a computer-generated video showing a containerized launcher firing a surface-to-air missile from an uncrewed surface vessel. There could be other options, but it is unclear how many Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles or other longer-range SAMs in total could be loaded on the FF(X)’s fantail. The ship’s sensor suite may limit just how many aerial targets can be engaged rapidly and what type, as well. A lack of radar illuminators would prevent the use of some legacy anti-air missiles.

The lack of any real anti-air warfare and area defense capability is one of the biggest criticisms leveled at the Navy’s existing LCS fleets, and that imposes limitations on their ability to conduct more independent operations. Anti-air and anti-submarine warfare capabilities would be very relevant, if not critical, for the kinds of missions one would expect to assign to a frigate in a future major conflict, such as convoy escort.

Overall, despite its clear hope that the FF(X)s will eventually take on many roles in a variety of operational contexts, there are signs already that the Navy is looking at a relatively limited mission set for these ships to start, and one that aligns more with how it is employing its LCSs today.

“In 1995, I did counter-drug ops in my first ship, [the Ticonderoga class cruiser] USS Philippine Sea. Using a guided missile cruiser, or nowadays a guided missile destroyer, for counter-narcotics ops is a choice I don’t want the fleet commander to have to go through,” Rear Adm. Trinque said during the panel at SNA. “So there are great photos of [the Arleigh Burke class destroyer] USS Sampson having successfully completed counter narcotics ops in the Eastern Pacific recently, and I think that puts Vice Adm. [John F. G.] Wade [commander of the Eastern Pacific-facing U.S. Third Fleet] in a bad position.”

Adding more blue water hulls to the Navy’s surface fleets would certainly be a boon and offer valuable capacity to help free up larger warships for missions that are more in need of their capabilities, but this will require ships that can perform useful missions. At the moment, the Navy is betting big on the ability to swap out containerized payloads to give FF(X) what it will need to have a meaningful impact.

Eric Tegler contributed to this story.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

One night, Natalie Davis, a married woman who also has a married boyfriend, is enjoying a first date at a bar with yet another man. He’s attractive and interesting, but as they talk she realizes they have something unexpected in common: He’s just gone out on a successful first date with her boyfriend’s wife, Winnie.

It’s an awkward situation even for a polyamorist.

Davis’ revealing memoir, “Saying Yes: My Adventures in Polyamory,” doesn’t shy away from such potential misfires. In this case, Davis is more amused than embarrassed, and soon cedes the new man to Winnie. “He was nice enough,” she writes, “but I did not feel the spark.”

In an author’s note, Davis, a lawyer, says that she changed “all names and some characteristics,” compressed time frames and re-created dialogue. But, apart from those narrative liberties, she purports to be chronicling true events, in all their messiness.

Author Natalie Davis

(Courtesy of Natalie Davis)

The book’s main thread is Davis’ journey from a conventional, mostly happy but imperfect marriage to a full-throated embrace of polyamory, a subject that’s recently earned its share of cultural buzz. This account has no great literary merit, but it’s an undeniable page-turner with utility to anyone contemplating the lifestyle.

Polyamory, meaning “many loves,” denotes a form of consensual, or ethical, nonmonogamy involving more than swinging or occasional hookups. It emphasizes relationships, not just sexual variety. Partners may be defined as primary or secondary or mere “comets,” who swoop in occasionally. Metamours, the partners of partners, may become friends or remain anxious rivals. And polyamorists may be linked in intricate relationship structures, or polycules, whose contours change over time. Davis’ book makes sense of all this without being overly didactic.

The idea of openly pursuing multiple romantic interests isn’t itself particularly exotic. As Davis notes, single people commonly embrace “dating around,” or what our 1950s-era mothers termed “playing the field.” As part of the search for the monogamous ideal, or an expression of anxiety about commitment, the practice is often time-limited. Polyamory is more permanent — a stable lifestyle flexible enough to accommodate instability and rupture.

Davis, to her credit, doesn’t sugarcoat just how difficult it can be, especially for those new to its often inchoate norms. Not everyone can shed jealousy, let alone manage “compersion,” which entails rejoicing in a partner’s happiness with someone else. Another issue is just how “out” to be, at work and elsewhere, about one’s preferences; the Davises worry about how and when to break the news to their teenage son.

Salient to Davis’ particular story is her lack of early romantic and sexual experience. She fell into an exclusive relationship with her future husband, Eric, at 19. It’s not surprising that there is a frantic, adolescent quality to her first ventures into the polyamorous dating pool, including bedding strangers, lying about her age and drinking to excess. “More often than I would have expected,” she writes, “polyamory made me feel like a teenager.”

None of this might have happened without the prodding of Eric, “extrovert, voyeur, risk-taker, kink appreciator” — and two-time adulterer. In each instance, despite her pain, Davis forgave him, trusting in the underlying strength of their bond. Sensing monogamy was not his jam, Davis agreed to try swinging. That meant going to sex clubs and looking online for couples who might be a fit for them both, a challenging endeavor — and just a waystation, it turned out, to something more ambitious.

With Davis’ uneasy acquiescence, Eric reconnected with the second of his adulterous lovers, a woman with whom his wife (unsurprisingly) never got along. “My first year of polyamory was one of the worst years of my life,” Davis admits. Eric eventually moved on to other (in Davis’ view, far nicer) girlfriends, and welcomed them into their marital home, practicing “kitchen table polyamory.” In Davis’ description, he is devoid of jealousy, a generous soul always rooting on her efforts to find worthy secondary partners.

Davis, in contrast, struggled. Finding lovers was not a problem. She comes across as intensely sex-positive, easily orgasmic and devoid of any trauma or shame around sex. (Explicit passages underline those points.) But for a while, a new love — a mutual one — proves elusive.

Author Natalie Davis with husband, Eric.

(Courtesy of Natalie Davis)

Felix, whom she meets on a kink site, is a sexy dominant who thrills her but keeps canceling dates. Hank, from OkCupid, describes himself as “completely bloody insane.” He nevertheless becomes both her first real boyfriend and an object of obsession. The main problem is his tempestuous marriage. His wife, Sylvia, has boyfriends of her own but can’t abide Hank’s obvious passion for Davis. “I cringed at being a sacrificial pawn in their game of relationship chess,” Davis writes. But it’s hard not to sympathize with Sylvia too.

As Davis becomes a more experienced polyamorist, her satisfaction grows. She chooses more emotionally intelligent partners and finds more accepting metamours too. She and Eric attend gatherings — from a poly conference to a “kink camp” — in which strangers quickly become lovers and friends.

Per her author bio, Davis is now a force in the poly community, presenting workshops on polyamory and editing an online publication called “Polyamory Today.” She’s also described as living in the Washington, D.C., area with her “partner and metamour.” Online research clarifies that the partner is still her husband, Eric, whose wandering eye started it all.

Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Before the Lakers took the court Saturday night, they added two more starters and a key reserve to the injured list. But the Lakers still had LeBron James and they hoped he could carry them past Portland.

Starters Luka Doncic (left groin soreness) and Deandre Ayton (left knee soreness) did not play. In the fourth quarter, Marcus Smart went down amid a pile of players in the lane and eventually limped to the locker room never to return.

As for James and the rest of the Lakers, all of the injuries were too much to overcome in a 132-116 loss to the Trail Blazers at the Moda Center.

Smart had 25 points before he went to the locker room. James had 20 points but was just six for 16 from the field. He had nine rebounds and eight assists for a Lakers team that has lost five of its last six games.

Lakers guard Marcus Smart shoots over Portland center Donovan Clingan in the first half Saturday.

(Amanda Loman / Associated Press)

Drew Timme was a positive for the Lakers, scoring a career-high 21 points. Rui Hachimura and Maxi Kleber each had 11 points.

Shaedon Sharpe led Portland (21-22) with 25 points. Jerami Grant and Caleb Love each scored 22 points and Donovan Clingan finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Doncic, who underwent an MRI and is listed as day-to-day, was dealing with the injury all of last week despite playing against the Kings, Hawks and Hornets.

“I think it was an accumulation of a longer week, more lingering, if anything,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said before the game.

The Lakers (24-16) aren’t sure if Ayton will play against Toronto on Sunday. The center is day-to-day with left knee soreness.

“He took a hit in his knee and there was no swelling, just some soreness,” Redick said.

The Lakers were also without backup center Jaxson Hayes, who didn’t play against the Trail Blazers because of left hamstring tendinopathy. Redick said there’s a chance Hayes could play Sunday.

James missed his first five shots in the first quarter, finishing one-for-seven from the field for just two points.

The Lakers were called for 13 fouls in the first quarter, leading to 22 free-throw attempts for the Trail Blazers, a big reason why they opened a 40-27 lead after the first 12 minutes of play.

Officials say 46 workers are being held, with gang members behind the riots seeking better conditions.

Prisoners in Guatemala have taken at least 46 workers hostage in riots across three detention centres, according to authorities.

Officials said the incidents, which began on Saturday, appeared to be coordinated by gang members in response to their leader seeking a transfer to another facility for better conditions.

There were no reported deaths ​or injuries among the hostages, Interior Minister Marco Antonio Villeda said at ‍a news conference.

Villeda said those behind the riots were members of the Barrio 18 gang, while the Interior Ministry described the unrest as a “direct reaction” to its moves to revoke privileges from gang leaders.

“I am not going to make any deals with any terrorist group. I will not give in to this blackmail, and ​I will not restore their privileges in exchange for them ‌stopping their actions,” Villeda said.

The hostages are mostly guards, but also include a psychologist, a prison official said.

At the Renovacion 1 maximum security prison in Escuintla in Guatemala’s south, police and soldiers formed a perimeter around the prison, as ambulances and firetrucks were ‌standing by to intervene if necessary.

Inmates, some wearing jumpsuits but most in tank tops and shorts, their faces covered ‌by masks improvised with pieces of clothing, watched from ⁠above, perched in the prison’s patrol towers.

One masked inmate, speaking from behind barbed wire, said they were not safe at the prison and were demanding to be moved.

“They can’t even guarantee their own security, ‌so how are they supposed to guarantee ours?” he said, referring to prison authorities.

Guatemala has struggled to control its prison population in recent years amid rampant gang influence. Inmates, meanwhile, have reported harsh and dangerous conditions.

In October, President Bernardo Arévalo accepted the resignations of three top security officials after 20 gang members escaped over a period of days.

“The link between the prison system and the criminality outside has to be cut,” Arevalo said in an interview with The Associated Press news agency earlier this week.

“That’s why all this effort to regain control of the prison system is very important.”

Kianna Underwood, a cast member of the former Nickelodeon children’s sketch comedy series “All That,” was killed in a hit-and-run accident early Friday in Brooklyn, N.Y., authorities said. She was 33.

Anthony Underwood, a family member of the actress, confirmed the death in a social media post asking for privacy.

A report by WABC7 in New York said that Underwood was identified as the pedestrian who was crossing an intersection in the Brownsville area when she was struck by an SUV. A second car also hit and dragged her several feet, the report said.

Underwood appeared on the final season of the popular series “All That” in 2005. Her other credits include the animated series “Little Bill” as the voice of Fuchsia Glover and the animated 2001 musical “Santa Baby!” as the voice of Dakota.

She also played Little Inez in the first national tour of the musical “Hairspray.”

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan revealed Thursday that he secretly underwent 44 days of radiation treatments for prostate cancer while serving out his second term in City Hall. He said he is now free of all signs of disease.

Riordan seemed to suggest that, after months of conspicuously weighing whether to run for governor of California, he had resolved to do so. Asked in a brief interview, he said he was making his ordeal public now “because I’m running for office and I think the voters have a right to know about it.”

Riordan said he plans to make a final decision on a bid next month.

The cancer was discovered in October during a routine examination, Riordan and his doctors said. His radiation treatments stretched from late February until May 1. Riordan left office on June 30.

Cancer specialists say that men with the type and degree of cancer that afflicted Riordan have a high rate of long-term survival, if promptly treated.

He has a “clean bill of health,” said Dr. Derek Raghavan of USC, who coordinated Riordan’s cancer care. “His prognosis is excellent.”

In his opinion, Raghavan said, the 71-year-old Riordan would be fully capable of serving as governor for two terms.

Opponents of his presumed statehouse bid have already sought to make an issue of his age, and Riordan acknowledged that detractors are likely to try to use his health history to suggest he isn’t up to running a state with the world’s fifth-largest economy. He is 13 years older than Gov. Gray Davis, the probable Democratic candidate. If elected governor in November 2002, Riordan would be 76 at the end of the first term and, if reelected, 80 at the close of a second.

By disclosing his successful bout with the disease, which is the second most common cancer in men, Riordan evidently sought to allay concerns about his health weeks before he announces his plans.

Riordan and his doctors consented to separate interviews Thursday that were arranged by his gubernatorial exploratory committee. He said he had informed a dozen or more associates and supporters in recent days about the affliction and treatment.

His bout with cancer is certain to heighten talk of whether he has the endurance to be governor of the nation’s most populous state.

Even without formally entering the governor’s contest, Riordan, a Republican, has absorbed age-related barbs from Davis supporters. In a recent press missive, Garry South, the governor’s chief campaign strategist, noted that no incumbent has been denied a second term in California in 60 years.

“Of course, the only potential candidate around who remembers that last one is Dick Riordan,” South jibed.

The announcement of Riordan’s recent cancer adds to the national debate over how much personal information, particularly regarding illness, officials should disclose. New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s withdrawal from the U.S. Senate race last year because of prostate cancer is among the cases that stirred discussions of a candidate’s right to privacy and the voters’ right to know.

Riordan said he wanted to announce that he had cancer right away, but his oncologist advised against it because the ensuing hubbub would distract him from his duties and treatments.

“I felt he would be able to do his job better if he kept it private,” said Raghavan, chief of oncology at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Political experts and ethics experts said Riordan’s handling of the problem appeared to strike a reasonable balance between public and private interests, though the unwritten rules that guide disclosures vary widely.

“It’s very tricky,” said Gale Kaufman, a Democratic strategist who worked for former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign, which was hampered in midstream by revelations of the Democrat’s heart arrhythmia.

She suggested there was one standard when Riordan was leaving City Hall and another now that he may run for governor. “During the last six months as mayor he may have felt it was nobody’s business,” Kaufman said. “But now it’s a different situation. As a candidate, or at least a prospective candidate, he opens himself up to a whole other level of scrutiny.”

A similar standard was voiced by George Annas, a law professor at Boston University and a specialist in medical ethics. Candidates have a responsibility to inform the public of any affliction that might affect their job performance, he said.

But officeholders have no obligation to disclose medical problems unless they significantly impair functioning, he said. And just having cancer, he added, probably would not qualify as requiring disclosure.

Moreover, a political culture that demands detailed medical information from officials could be self-defeating, he said, if it ultimately deters them from seeking treatment for serious illnesses lest they be exposed.

“We’re all better off if our public officials get treated,” said Annas, who lauded Riordan for keeping the problem to himself.

Riordan’s cancer was detected by a blood test taken as part of a physical exam last October, said his personal physician of more than a decade, Santa Monica internist Charles R. McElroy.

A subsequent biopsy of the prostate gland confirmed the cancer, known as adenocarcinoma. Further tests, including CT and bone scans, provided no evidence that the tumor had spread elsewhere in the body, McElroy said. He added that the tumor was confined to the inner prostate and had not penetrated the outer capsule of the walnut-sized gland.

The physicians would not specify the tumor’s so-called grade, which describes its aggressiveness.

The primary treatment consisted of external radiation aimed at the prostate five days a week for 44 days, in February, March and April. The treatment ended on May 1–the mayor’s birthday. He also took the drug Proscar, which is thought to reduce prostate swelling.

Riordan underwent the radiation treatments, which lasted less than half an hour, at an undisclosed hospital in the Valley before going to work, he said.

Remarkably, he and his doctors said he developed no side effects from the regimen, which can cause fatigue, impotence, diarrhea and other problems.

“I didn’t feel any effect whatsoever,” Riordan said. “I did as much exercise” as usual, he said, “and worked just as hard.”

The former mayor and his oncologist said the decision to treat the disease with radiation, rather than a more disruptive surgical procedure, was based exclusively on the medical prognosis and not on any desire to keep the treatments secret. Only his security detail and a close aide were aware of it, Riordan said.

Body scans and other tests performed after the treatments ended and as recently as a month ago have found no evidence of cancer anywhere in his body, his doctors said. Riordan is not undergoing any treatment for prostate problems and is taking no medication other than an anti-cholesterol drug.

“I think his illness is in complete remission and his prognosis is super,” Raghavan said. He has a good chance of being cured, Raghavan added, a term justified only if the disease vanishes for some years.

According to American Cancer Society statistics, Riordan’s outlook is good. Of those men whose prostate cancer is detected early and eradicated, 100% survive at least five years unless they die of something else. And 72% of all prostate cancer patients, regardless of at what stage the disease was found, are still alive 10 years after diagnosis.

Dr. Timothy Wilson, director of urology at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, estimated that a man diagnosed and treated as Riordan was would have an 80% to 85% chance of having no recurrence of the disease.

Because prostate tumors grow slowly, short-term survival rates are generally good, added Wilson, who was not involved in Riordan’s care. “You’ve got to follow men for 10 or 15 years to see if they’re going to die of the disease,” he said.

Prostate cancer, the second leading malignancy among men after skin cancer, strikes 198,000 men annually. It is also the second most deadly cancer, after lung cancer, killing 31,500 men annually. More than 80% of men with prostate cancer are over 65.

Riordan said he didn’t think voters would even consider the cancer and will instead reflect on his record as mayor and whether he has the energy to be governor.

“I’m probably more likely to get killed crossing the street or having a tree fall on me than from something like this,” he said.

SEATTLE — Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, Kenneth Walker III rushed for three scores and the Seattle Seahawks advanced to the NFC championship game with a dominant 41-6 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night.

Sam Darnold threw a touchdown pass and got his first career playoff win in his first season with the Seahawks (15-3), who will host either the Chicago Bears or the Rams next Sunday with a trip to the Super Bowl at stake.

The Seahawks led 7-0 13 seconds into the game thanks to Shaheed, who fielded the opening kick and took it 95 yards to the end zone. It was the fourth kickoff return for a touchdown to open a playoff game since 2000 and the longest postseason kick return in franchise history.

Darnold, who had been listed as questionable because of an oblique injury, guided the Seahawks on two more scoring drives before San Francisco got on the board with the first of its two field goals.

After he flopped in his playoff debut last season with the Minnesota Vikings by taking nine sacks in a 27-9 loss to the Rams, Darnold completed 12 of 17 passes for 124 yards and connected with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a touchdown in the star receiver’s playoff debut.

The 49ers (13-6) were never competitive in the second-most lopsided playoff loss in franchise history. San Francisco lost 49-3 to the New York Giants in the divisional round in the 1986 season.

The Niners were missing three injured All-Pros: tight end George Kittle, linebacker Fred Warner and defensive end Nick Bosa.

San Francisco’s Brock Purdy completed 15 of 27 passes for 140 yards with an interception and a lost fumble against the Seahawks’ “Dark Side” defense. Seattle also recovered a fumble by tight end Jake Tonges.

Walker’s three rushing touchdowns tied him with Shaun Alexander for the most in a playoff game in franchise history.

United States President Donald Trump has begun to invite world leaders and other prominent figures to be part of his so-called “board of peace“, reportedly outlining a wider vision for a long-term body that responds to global conflicts beyond Gaza.

Trump had initially unveiled the board as part of phase two of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, envisioning that the body would oversee “governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilisation” in the enclave.

But letters written by Trump, which were posted to social media on Saturday by two leaders invited to be part of the board – Argentinian President Javier Milei and Paraguay’s leader, Santiago Pena – pointed to wider ambitions. A so-called “charter” that accompanied the letter also pointed to loftier goals, according to several reports.

In Trump’s letter to Milei, the US president said the board would seek to “solidify Peace in the Middle East”, adding that it would “embark on a bold new approach to resolving Global Conflict” at the same time.

The Financial Times, meanwhile, quoted the accompanying “charter” as saying that “the Board of Peace is an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”.

“Durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed,” said the charter, which did not directly reference Gaza, according to the newspaper.

Two diplomatic sources also told the Reuters news agency that the invitations included a “charter” that outlined a wider mandate for the body.

“It’s a ‘Trump United Nations’ that ignores the fundamentals of the UN charter,” one diplomat aware of the ‌letter told the news agency,

A senior US official, meanwhile, told The Associated Press news agency that an expanded role for the board of peace remains “aspirational”.

The official added that Trump and his advisers believe such a role is possible, particularly as Washington and other UN members have repeatedly expressed frustration with the international organisation.

However, the official said the board of peace was not intended to replace the UN.

Gaza focus

To be sure, the Trump administration has so far publicly said that the board of peace will initially focus on Gaza.

On Friday, Trump announced that Tony Blair, the United Kingdom’s former prime minister, would be among the board’s founding executive members, alongside Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

Also initially announced were Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management, World Bank Group President Ajay Banga, and Robert Gabriel, a US deputy national security adviser.

Many of those figures were also named to a separate “Gaza executive board”, which is set to oversee a technocratic committee of Palestinians, named the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). The committee is expected to handle day-to-day governance in Gaza in lieu of Hamas.

The 11-member executive board includes Blair, Kushner and Witkoff, as well as Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan, Qatari diplomat Ali Al Thawadi, UN Middle East peace coordinator Sigrid Kaag, United Arab Emirates Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy, and Israeli-Cypriot billionaire Yakir Gabay.

Beyond Argentina’s Milei and Pena, Turkiye and Egypt have confirmed their respective leaders, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, have been invited to join the wider board of peace. A European Union official said that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had also been invited to represent the EU.

Four sources told Reuters that the leaders of France, Germany, ⁠Australia and Canada were also invited to sit on the board, although there was no official confirmation.

The White House said it would announce more members in the coming weeks.

Still, the initial announcement of board members sparked outrage among many in the Middle East for not including any Palestinians, but instead elevating staunch supporters of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, raised opposition to the Gaza executive board on Saturday, saying its composition “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office did not specify what exactly it opposed about the board’s makeup.

Remarkable videos have emerged showing the dramatic failure of an Israeli Air Force (IAF) helicopter sling-load operation, involving a CH-53 Sea Stallion carrying a UH-60 Black Hawk, resulting in the transported rotorcraft plummeting to the ground. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported among any of the crew or on the ground, but the incident does illustrate the fine margins involved during these kinds of missions.

WILD FOOTAGE ?

Fresh video shows a damaged Israeli Air Force UH 60 Black Hawk going down during transport near Gush Etzion (close to Jerusalem) pic.twitter.com/abJ4L3M398

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 16, 2026

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the sling-load operation was originally launched to recover an IAF Yanshuf medium-lift helicopter — the local name for the S-70/UH-60 Black Hawk. The Yanshuf had made an emergency landing earlier this week when it encountered bad weather in the Gush Etzion area, directly south of Jerusalem, in the West Bank.

Earlier today, a Yasur (S-65/CH-53 Sea Stallion) heavy-lift helicopter was sent to recover the Yanshuf, using the sling-load method. It’s unclear what exactly went wrong at this point, but the IDF confirmed that the damaged aircraft became detached while being airlifted.

Subsequent images reveal the Yanshuf lying on its side in rocky terrain, with the tail boom broken off, but otherwise largely intact. Nearby is another Yanshuf, which had landed at the crash site, having also been involved in the recovery effort.

The chief of the IAF, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, has ordered a military investigative committee to work out what happened.

The CH-53 has long been a go-to platform for sling-load operations, most prominently with the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marine Corps, in particular, is expected to undertake these types of recoveries both in peacetime and especially during a conflict. For a fight in the Pacific, being able to rapidly pluck stricken aircraft from remote locales is regarded as a critical capability, with the latest CH-53K King Stallion version bringing additional performance in this regard.

The CH-53K was originally cleared to conduct a 27,000-pound external lift, subsequently increased to 36,000 pounds. The CH-53K can also lift heavier objects for longer distances compared to its predecessor. Externally, it is designed to carry up to 27,000 pounds over a distance of 110 nautical miles in a high and hot environment. This is compared to the CH-53E’s ability to carry 9,654 pounds over the same distance.

CH-53K lifts F-35C

Sling-load operations involving aircraft are an especially delicate balance act. As well as the sling being strong enough for the load, the overall set-up of the rig, as well as the pitch and bank attitudes of the aircraft being transported, and its control surface states, where applicable, need to be worked out in advance. Should something go wrong during the flight, there remains the option of jettisoning the load, as in the video below. This could be required if the payload starts moving dangerously outside of parameters, or if there is any issue with the transporting aircraft, such as a loss of power. In this case, we don’t know if the crew deliberately jettisoned the load.

A CH-53E jettisons a CH-47 carried as a slung load during operations in Afghanistan, after it began to swing out of control:

CH-53e lost control over CH-47 Chinook

As to the aircraft involved in the mishap, the Yanshuf (Desert Owl in Hebrew) is the workhorse of the IAF’s rotary-wing fleet. First acquired in the mid-1990s, the fleet comprises ex-U.S. Army UH-60A/L aircraft as well as new-build UH-60Ls, the last of which arrived in 2002. More recently, Israel has ordered ex-U.S. Navy SH-60F Seahawks as its new naval helicopters, which will be used aboard the Israeli Navy’s Sa’ar 6 class missile corvettes.

The Yanshuf has been widely used in the IDF’s various campaigns and has undergone local modifications, including a new self-protection system and hoist. Some of the aircraft have been additionally configured with external fuel tanks and an in-flight refueling probe for longer-range missions. The Yanshuf fleet is split between two squadrons at Palmachim Air Base and Hatzerim Air Base.

As for the Yasur (Petrel in Hebrew), this is very much the veteran of the IAF’s helicopter fleet.

The first S-65s began to be supplied to Israel in 1969, during the War of Attrition. These aircraft were then supplemented by former U.S. Marine Corps CH-53As, delivered in two batches in 1974 and in 1991. In the 1990s, survivors were upgraded to the Yasur 2000 standard and, with no replacement in sight, they were then brought up to the Yasur 2025 standard in the 2000s.

Between them, the Yasur 2000/2025 upgrades brought modernized avionics, structural improvements, new self-protection equipment, communication systems, and terrain-avoidance systems.

Two IAF squadrons were equipped with Yasur helicopters, both operating from Tel Nof Air Base, but these have more recently been combined as a single super-squadron at the same location. Some aircraft have been converted for electronic warfare missions, as you can read about here.

For both the Yanshuf and Yasur, the primary role is troop transport, but they also regularly fly search and rescue and combat search and rescue (CSAR) missions. The latter usually involve carrying teams from the elite Unit 669.

Due to its age, the Yasur fleet is becoming more difficult to operate and maintain, something that has become increasingly apparent in recent years. In November 2019, a Yasur made an emergency landing after a fire broke out on board. Everyone on the helicopter escaped unscathed, but the CH-53 was destroyed. The incident led to the grounding of the entire fleet. In January 2020, two weeks after that grounding was lifted, another Yasur had to make an emergency landing due to a technical issue. Three months later, yet another one of the helicopters suffered a technical fault that forced it to land. More recently, the Yasur has suffered combat attrition, with one example being destroyed by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, with no casualties reported among the dozens of troops (plus crew) on board.

The IAF is now looking forward to updating its helicopter fleet, while retaining and even enhancing its heavy-lift capabilities, through the acquisition of the CH-53K — which will be named Onager (a type of wild donkey).

In 2021, Israel officially selected the CH-53K, which was developed for the U.S. Marine Corps, and which was chosen in favor of a variant of Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook. An initial batch of 12 is on order at a cost of around $2 billion.

“It [the CH-53K] is essential to the IDF’s ability to carry out a wide range of operational activities,” the then Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz said at the time. “The new helicopter is adapted to the [IAF’s] operational requirements and to the challenges of the changing battlefield.”

Once the CH-53Ks arrive, the Israeli Air Force will be even better equipped to carry out heavy-lift rotary transport tasks, including sling-load operations. While we don’t yet know what went wrong in this morning’s sling-load sortie, the incident does underscore the inherent challenges in these kinds of movements. For now, we should be thankful that no one was injured as a result.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

LAMAR Odom has allegedly been arrested for driving under the influence in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The former basketball player, 46, who was previously married to Khloe Kardashian, has battled drug and alcohol addition in the past.

According to TMZ, who reported the arrest, Lamar was also given two traffic violations during the arrest.

The celebrity news site claims that he was slapped with the violations for driving more than 41+ miles per hour over the limit and improper lane change/failure to maintain lane.

TMZ also claimed that Lamar remains in police custody currently.

The Sun has reached out to Lamar’s rep for comment.

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Lamar has made no secret of his struggles with alcohol and drugs in the past, and in 2023, fronted a TMZ documentary titled Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs & Kardashians.

During the documentary and in his memoir, Darkness to Light, Lamar detailed his struggles with substances and his journey getting clean from cocaine.

His recovery came following a highly publicized near-death experience back in 2015, when the sportsman overdosed in a brothel.

Following a four-day bender, Lamar was found unresponsive after having 12 seizures, six strokes, and his heart stopping twice.

“My doctors from Cedars-Sinai said, like, I’m a walking miracle,” he previously told ABC.

After the harrowing experience, Lamar admitted to having “no memory” of taking drugs that day, despite the near-lethal doses.

The incident – which came shortly after his split from wife Khloe – pushed Lamar to have a stint in rehab the following year.

However, he previously detailed how he has used small doses of ketamine under medical supervision in order to get clean.

In 2019, Lamar told ABC that he does occasionally have a social alcoholic drink, but has steered clear of any other substances.

Lamar rose to prominence for playing in NBA team Los Angeles Lakers, winning several accolades during his run in the professional league.

At the height of his fame, he married Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Khloe and the pair even had their own reality show, Khloe and Lamar.

However, things took a downward spiral for the couple as Lamar’s drug addiction worsened and he admitted to infidelities.

He has apologized publicly several times to his ex-wife, whom he split from in 2013 following four years of marriage.

The divorce was finalized two years later, in 2016.

MINNEAPOLIS — Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally Saturday in support of the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.

There have been protests every day since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.

Conservative influencer Jake Lang, who was among the Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by President Trump, organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Quran” on the steps of City Hall. It was not clear whether he carried out that plan.

Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.

Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.

Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes, serving four years in jail while awaiting trial, until Trump pardoned him last Jan. 20 along with other Jan. 6 defendants and convicts. Lang recently announced he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.

In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.

“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”

National Guard ‘staged and ready’

The state National Guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”

Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the Guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.

The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the Guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.

During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and using other aggressive tactics. The operation in the liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, who was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.

On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear-gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.

Living in fear

During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.

Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.

Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.

Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.

The White House denied the account of the rearrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.

Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.

“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.

DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”

“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.

‘Your home is gone, you won’t need to come here anymore’

Once a bustling community, it was home to numerous farms, a pub, cemetery and over 200 men, women, and children whose forebears had cultivated the land for generations. However, within a few months, centuries of history were erased as Epynt became a ghost town – its voices hushed, its homes abandoned, its livestock gone.

In September 1939, following the onset of World War Two, an Army officer arrived to survey this secluded area in mid Wales. By Christmas, each of the farms (whose names the officer had difficulty pronouncing) received notices, informing the incredulous residents that they had until the end of April 1940 to vacate their ancestral homes.

The Ministry of Defence had set its sights on the region’s 30,000 acres, intending to use it as a training ground. The locals were informed that their sacrifice was crucial to the war effort and that they would be compensated for their inconvenience. With bombs already dropping, the War Office was in dire need of additional land and facilities.

For a fleeting moment in 1940, the predominantly Welsh-speaking community believed they had persuaded the MoD to rethink their plans. However, as Hitler’s Nazis stormed through Europe, London dismissed the heartbroken community’s pleas, instructing them to find new places to live, raise their families and rear their animals, reports WalesOnline.

Regrettably, there were limited local alternatives for the 54 farming families who needed to relocate, resulting in many being compelled to leave the area. Many held the belief that this arrangement would be temporary and they would return once the conflict ceased. However, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) today still owns the 30,000 acres of Mynydd Epynt, now known as the Sennybridge Training Area, which continues to serve as a training and live firing ground for British soldiers.

Nearly all of the original structures, including the farmhouses, have been demolished. The Drovers Arms Inn pub remains standing, along with the gravestones in the cemetery. These are virtually the only remnants of the families who resided there 80 years ago in what was more a community than a clearly-defined village. Although satellite images on Google Maps reveal a small network of roads in the area, many are inaccessible from Street View.

‘We’ve blown up the farmhouse — you won’t need to come here anymore’

Back in 1940, families held onto hope that they would eventually be permitted to remain – or at the very least, make their return. As late as March 1940, St David’s Day festivities were held at the chapel, known as Capel y Babell.

One resident, Thomas Morgan, would allegedly make regular journeys back to kindle a fire in his fireplace to protect the stonework from weathering until he and his family could come home. He continued this daily ritual until two soldiers approached him with devastating news that his house no longer existed — it had been demolished. They purportedly told him: “We’ve blown up the farmhouse. You won’t need to come here anymore.”

A descendant of one of Epynt’s families, Bethan Price, revealed her great-grandmother left a key in the lock of her front door, maintaining faith she’d return. Others, however, were more conscious of the permanent nature of their departure.

One woman even demanded to take her front door with her when she abandoned the village. For many it marked the conclusion of an era and the world they had cherished was finished.

In June 1940 the school and chapel shut their doors, the Army even began removing hedgerows and on July 1, 1940, heavy artillery bombardment commenced.

According to NFU Cymru, Elwyn Davies, who was 10 at the time, remembered how his grandmother was compelled to relocate, ultimately securing a new residence in Carmarthenshire: “It was a very sombre time. It was war time, and there weren’t many options locally. Just a week after she left, they flattened her house. They flattened everything.”

Iowerth Paete, the previous curator at St Fagans National Museum of History, was dispatched there to document the event with his camera. He remembered horses drawing carts piled high with belongings travelling down the road away from the village and an elderly woman weeping whilst seated in a chair outside the house she was being compelled to abandon.

The current MP, Ben Lake, is the grandson of Beryl Lake, the final infant to be born at Epynt. He informed NFU Cymru: “The takeover of the Epynt 80 years ago is a significant but often overlooked chapter in the history of Wales. An entire community was displaced, and families had to vacate farms that had been farmed by their ancestors for generations.”

Nevertheless, despite the fury experienced at the time, voicing opposition was considered tantamount to undermining the war effort and the Allied forces’ battle against Hitler. Consequently, the compulsory evacuation of Epynt did not achieve the same historical prominence as, for instance, Capel Celyn in Tryweryn Valley, which was intentionally flooded in 1965 to supply drinking water to households in Liverpool. Indeed, 81 years later, Epynt’s memory has faded, rather like the names of its former inhabitants carved on the worn gravestones at its 19th century chapel.

Can you visit Epynt today?

You can traverse the Epynt Way on various walks of differing lengths where “sheep roam freely on artillery ranges and red kites soar above troops on exercises” but “the sound of the wind is punctuated by booming mortars”. The Epynt Way visitor centre is housed in one of the original farmhouses.

It cautions: “If you see any military debris, don’t worry, you are safe but please don’t pick things up. You may see soldiers training but you are more likely to see red kites, hares and other wildlife.”

Earlier, Nix threw three touchdowns to book the Broncos’ first appearance in the AFC Championship game since winning the Super Bowl in February 2016.

Nix has played an instrumental role in Denver finishing as top seed in the AFC with a 14-3 record in the regular season.

The second-year quarterback has led eight game-winning drives this season, the most by any player in the Super Bowl era aged 25 or under.

He has thrown 25 touchdowns, rushed for four and thrown for 3,931 yards in the Broncos’ best season since last winning the Lombardi Trophy.

Stidham is in his third year in Denver but appeared in just one game this season and has not attempted a pass in the NFL since the 2023 season.

“We’ll be ready for the next challenge,” said Payton, who now has to plan how to make it to the Super Bowl without their star man at quarterback.

Jan. 17 (UPI) — Eight NATO member nations will be subjected to tariffs if they don’t remove recently deployed troops from Greenland, President Donald Trump said.

Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom will be assessed 10% tariffs as of Feb. 1, which would more than double to 25% on June 1, if they do not remove their troops from Greenland, Trump said Saturday.

Greenland is a territory owned by Denmark, which Trump wants to make part of the United States for military purposes and says will be occupied by China or Russia if it does not become a U.S. territory.

“World Peace is at stake!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it.”

He said Greenland has “two dogsleds as protection, one added recently,” and could not defend itself against an incursion by Russia or China.

“Only the United States of America … can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!” the president said. “Nobody will touch this sacred piece of land, especially since the national security of the United States, and the world at large, is at stake.”

He said the eight NATO nations targeted with tariffs “have journeyed to Greenland for purposes unknown” and called it a “very dangerous situation for the safety, security and survival of our planet.”

The president said Greenland is needed to deploy the proposed “golden dome” aerial defense system and other modern weapons systems that can support offensive and defensive military operations to protect North America against military attacks.

“This very brilliant, but highly complex system can only work at its maximum potential and efficiency, because of angles, metes and bounds, if this land is included in it,” Trump said.

“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them, including maximum protection, over so many decades.”

The president wants to buy the whole of Greenland, which has been rejected by leaders in Denmark and Greenland.

The United States has a military base on Greenland, which has become more strategically important due to new shipping lanes emerging near it and more natural resources becoming accessible in the region as the world continues to warm.

U.S. officials have tried to buy Greenland for more than 150 years, but Denmark consistently has opposed such offers.