Supporters of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have rallied in countries around the world to celebrate her Nobel Peace Prize win ahead of Wednesday’s award ceremony

Thousands of people marched through Madrid, Utrecht, Buenos Aires, Lima, Brisbane and other cities on Saturday in support of 58-year-old Machado, who won the Nobel award for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela.

The crowd in Peru’s capital, Lima, carried portraits of Machado and demanded a “Free Venezuela”. With the country’s yellow, blue and red flag draped over their backs or emblazoned on their caps, demonstrators clutched posters that read, “The Nobel Prize is from Venezuela.”

Veronica Duran, a 41-year-old Venezuelan who has lived in Lima for eight years, said Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize is celebrated because “it represents all Venezuelans, the fallen and the political prisoners in their fight to recover democracy”.

Machado, who has been in hiding since August 2024, wants to use the attention gained by the award to highlight Venezuela ‘s democratic aspirations.

Her organisation said it expected demonstrations in more than 80 cities around the world.

In Colombia, a group of Venezuelans gathered in the capital, Bogota, wearing white T-shirts and carrying balloons as part of a religious ceremony in which supporters asked that the Nobel Peace Prize “be a symbol of hope” for the Venezuelan people.

Meanwhile, in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, some 500 people gathered on the steps of the law school at the country’s largest university, improvising a torchlit march with their mobile phones.

“We Venezuelans in the world have a smile today, because we celebrate the Nobel Prize of María Corina and of the entire Venezuelan diaspora, and of all the brave people within Venezuela who have sacrificed themselves… we have so many martyrs, heroes of the resistance,” said Nancy Hoyer, a 60-year-old supporter.

The gatherings come at a critical point in the country’s protracted crisis as the administration of United States President Donald Trump builds up a massive military deployment in the Caribbean, threatening repeatedly to strike Venezuelan soil.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s has branded the US operation an effort to end his hold on power.

The Trump administration has said it does not recognise Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

Maduro claimed a re-election victory last year in a national ballot that the US and other Western governments dismissed as a sham, and which independent observers said the opposition won overwhelmingly.

Machado had won the opposition’s primary election and intended to run against Maduro, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, who had never run for office before, took her place.

The lead-up to the July 28, 2024, election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. It all increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary.

Gonzalez sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest.

Meanwhile, Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in what ended up being an underwhelming protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.

The following day, Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term.

“We are living through times where our composure, our conviction and our organisation are being tested,” Machado said in a video message shared on Tuesday on social media.

“Times when our country needs even more dedication, because now, all these years of struggle, the dignity of the Venezuelan people, have been recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Machado won the award on October 10 for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness”.

According to the head of the Nobel Institute, Machado has promised to go to Norway to pick up her prize on Wednesday.

“I was in contact with Machado last night [Friday], and she confirms that she will be in Oslo for the ceremony,” Kristian Berg Harpviken told the AFP news agency.

“Given the security situation, we cannot say more about the date or how she will arrive,” he said.

GINO D’Acampo’s former restaurant empire failed to pay a £4.2million HMRC debt after plunging into administration.

The Upmarket Leisure chain of businesses was saved from closure this year in a £5million buyout — but has failed to repay the huge debt.

Administrators for the firm say it is unable to pay the money back.

They said: “Based upon estimated future realisations, we do not anticipate that a distribution will be available for HMRC.”

HMRC had issued a court petition to wind up Upmarket.

In February, Gino was accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour over 12 years, which he denies.

HOW MUCH?

Shamed Gino D’Acampo charging Geordies up to £50 extra for pricey Xmas Day meal

OH, GINO!

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Last month D’Acampo, 49, was hit with fresh allegations of bullying and intimidation, days after his TV return — claims he also denies.

ITV said that since their initial investigation was launched, they had not commissioned any further shows featuring D’Acampo.

He recently visited Toronto and Montreal to plug An Italian In Canada.

D’Acampo was contacted for comment.

An entire village was built for a Disney film in the 90s and was left completely preserved long after the hit starring Robin Williams aired – and you can still visit it today

Malta boasts a rich history within the film industry and is home to numerous notable filming locations. Game of Thrones, Gladiator, and The Count of Monte Cristo have all been filmed in the small Mediterranean country. But there’s one, more obscure film, which has preserved its legacy for good on the island – Popeye.

The 1980 film starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall has been immortalised through the famous Popeye Village, a purpose-built film set which now serves as an open-air museum and theme park. I visited the attraction during low season to see how one of Malta’s biggest tourist attractions continues to wow visitors.

Nestled in a stunningly wild and remote cove on the North-Western tip of the island, the attraction consists of a collection of around 20 rustic and ramshackle wooden buildings, featuring interactive exhibitions, actors and plenty of free activities to keep adults and children entertained.

The film, released in the UK in April 1981, received mixed reviews on its release and has fallen into relative obscurity in the grand scheme of Disney releases. It now has a 5.4 IMDb rating and a 60% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

The construction of the film set was a mammoth undertaking. It began in June 1979, with a crew of 165 working four months to build the village, which consists of 19 wooden buildings. Hundreds of logs and several thousand wooden planks were imported from the Netherlands.

While it looks amazing, the remote location of the set caused havoc for the filmmakers. Everything had to be shipped in, while the situation of the village meant it was regularly battered bt storms. In total, the budget ballooned to beyond $20 million, forcing the studio to eventually order an end to filming and a return to California with the footage they had.

I was initially skeptical about whether I would enjoy the excursion, having never seen the film and being unfamiliar with Popeye. However, once I saw the stunning cliffside view of the museum looming on my approach, it was clear that this was a special attraction.

For just 15 euros per person (around 13 pounds), the day out came in at staggeringly good value. Visitors could roam the set for as long as they like, with guided tours, puppet shows, and even a bag of fresh popcorn all thrown in for free.

There were mini-golf courses, play areas, and a cinema, all included. At a time when so many attractions can feel disappointingly overpriced and extortionate, it was refreshing to see an entry-free attraction go such a long way.

There were also actors dotted around the museum, interacting with people of all ages and providing atmosphere, entertainment, and of course, those all-important photo opportunities for visitors.

My visit was at the height of Malta’s low season, at the end of November, and I was blessed to have the weather on my side, aside from some fairly gusty sea winds. The views alone were worth the entry fee, with jaw-dropping vistas of waves rumbling in from the open Mediterranean and crashing against huge limestone cliffs.

Each house and ramshackle hut was expertly preserved and surprisingly explorable. Guests were encouraged to sit in the furniture, use props where they found them, and immerse themselves in the world that Disney created in 1980. Bars and cafes were aplenty, and I was hard pressed to find a single queue, thanks to the joys of the low season.

Time seemed to fly by as I explored the nooks and crannies and the abundance of exhibitions, and I ended up spending well over three hours at the village, with the day out becoming the highlight of the trip.

Now all that’s left for me to do is to watch the film.

Over the course of USC’s undefeated start, with its star freshman still out, its leading scorer nursing an ailing shoulder and one of its best defenders down because of an injured hip, coach Eric Musselman still managed to make the best of his ravaged roster.

USC had won eight straight, sweeping its nonconference slate and winning its Big Ten opener at Oregon. It swept through the Maui Invitational, beating three real teams in the process. With every punch, the Trojans had been ready to punch back.

Then came Saturday, when a former Trojan delivered the knockout blow in the Big Ten home opener at Galen Center, ending USC’s undefeated start in the most painful fashion possible in an 84-76 loss to Washington.

USC led for all but six minutes and in the first half looked primed to run away with its second Big Ten win, leading by 18 at halftime. But it all came unraveled in the final 10 minutes as Washington scored 24 of the last 30 points to stun USC. It was Desmond Claude, the Trojans’ leading scorer last season, who propelled Washington to victory.

The Trojans still led by 10 with 10 minutes remaining, and after such a resounding start it seemed only a matter of time before they kicked back into gear. But they shot just 25% in the second half after making 50% in the first.

Chad Baker-Mazara led USC with 21 points but made only one of seven shots after halftime. Without him the offense dried up in a hurry.

Washington caught fire late, led by Claude, who had just four points in the first half but finished with 22.

USC cut Washington’s lead to three with just over a minute remaining. But Washington put the ball in Claude’s hands and he delivered, driving for a lay-in high off the glass and getting fouled.

The Huskies started the game in dismal fashion, turning the ball over seven times in the first seven minutes and making only two of their first 12 shots.

But those tides turned completely in the final minutes, dealing USC its first loss — and a brutal one at that.

Dec. 6 (UPI) — West Virginia National Guardsman Adam Wolfe is showing progress in healing from the head wound that he suffered in an ambush attack near the White House on Nov. 26.

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced the current status of Wolfe, 24, who remains hospitalized ahead of a vigil held for Wolfe Friday night at Musselman High School in Berkeley County, W.V.

“His parents report that his head wound is slowly healing and that he’s beginning to ‘look more like himself,'” Morrisey said in a prepared statement.

“The family expects that Andy will be in acute care for another 2-3 weeks but have been optimistic about his progress,” he said.

“We continue to ask all West Virginians and Americans for their prayers,” Morrisey added. “They are making a difference.”

Wolfe and National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, 20, were shot while patrolling near the West Farragut Metro Station that is located about two blocks northwest of the White House.

Beckstrom died on Thanksgiving Day, and accused gunman Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and related charges on Tuesday.

Lakanwal is accused of ambushing the two National Guard members and shooting each in the head with a .357 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver.

He was attempting to reload when nearby Guardsmen engaged Lakanwal and shot and detained him until first responders arrived.

Lakanwal was hospitalized in critical condition, where he remains in custody and from which he remotely entered not guilty pleas during Tuesday’s arraignment hearing.

Lakanwal is a citizen of Afghanistan and was a member of an Afghan military unit that cooperated with the CIA before the U.S. military pulled out in 2021.

He entered the United States in 2021 as part of a Biden administration program that brought Afghans to the United States to escape the Taliban, which regained control of Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal.

Lakanwal lived with his wife and five children in Bremerton, Wash., and applied for asylum in 2024, which was granted in April.

Greek coastguard says two survivors in critical condition have been hospitalised.

The bodies of at least 17 migrants and asylum seekers have been found in a partially deflated boat off the Greek island of Crete, according to the country’s coastguard.

The victims, as well as two survivors, were discovered on Saturday, some 26 nautical miles (48km) southwest of Crete.

A spokeswoman for the Greek coastguard told the AFP news agency that all of the victims were men.

“Two survivors in critical condition have been hospitalised,” the spokeswoman added. “Autopsies have to be carried out as the circumstances of the sinking are not known.”

The Athens News Agency reported that the boat was spotted by a Turkish cargo ship, which alerted the authorities. The Greek coastguard rushed two vessels to the scene, while the European Union’s border agency Frontex sent a boat, an aircraft and a Super Puma helicopter to help in the rescue effort.

The coastguard said that the two survivors had said their vessel had become unstable because of bad weather, and they had no way to cover up, nor to eat or drink anything.

The boat had also been taking on water when it was discovered.

Manolis Frangoulis, the mayor of Cretan port Ierapetra, told reporters that all the victims had been young.

“The vessel the migrants were on was deflated on two sides, which forced the passengers into a reduced space,” he added.

Coroners are looking at the possibility that the migrants died of dehydration, Greek state television channel ERT reported.

Over the last year, migrants and asylum seekers have turned their attention to the Greek island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, as a way of reaching EU territory from Libya, in North Africa.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 16,770 people seeking asylum in the EU have arrived there since the start of the year.

In July, Greece’s conservative government, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, suspended asylum hearings for migrants, particularly targeting those arriving on Crete from Libya.

Libya has been gripped by conflict since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison was on the cusp of conquering Hollywood.

Just four months earlier, he had bankrolled his son David’s $8-billion acquisition of the storied Paramount Pictures.

Now the Ellison family had designs on scooping up Warner Bros. Discovery, too, offering to buy the entire company for at least $60 billion. The bold play had suddenly thrust this Silicon Valley titan and his son, David — chief executive of the newly-merged Paramount Skydance — into one of the most powerful positions in the film and TV industry.

By most outward appearances, Warner Bros. Discovery was theirs for the taking. Wall Street analysts, Hollywood insiders and even some of the other bidders expected Paramount to prevail. After all, it was backed by one of the world’s richest men. And it even had the blessing of President Trump, who openly expressed his preference for the Paramount bid.

But Ellison’s crowning moment was ruined when Netflix swooped in Friday announcing its own blockbuster deal.

The streamer snapped up Warner Bros. in a $82.7-billion deal for the Burbank-based film and television studios, HBO Max and HBO, delivering a massive blow to Ellison and his son, David.

In the Paramount bid, Larry Ellison was once again the primary backer. But the Warner Bros. Discovery board believed the Netflix offer of $27.75 a share, which did not include CNN or other basic cable channels, was a better deal for shareholders.

The announcement stunned many who had predicted that Paramount would prevail in the contentious auction. It also marked a rare defeat for Ellison, who was outmaneuvered by none other than Netflix’s co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos and his team.

Analysts and multiple auction insiders told The Times several factors complicated the process, including Paramount’s low-ball offers and hubris.

“This is a bad day for for Paramount and for the Ellisons,” said Lloyd Greif, president and chief executive of Greif & Co., a Los Angeles-based investment bank. “They were overconfident because they underestimated the competition.”

Representatives of Paramount and Warner declined to comment. A representative for Ellison at Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.

Characteristically, Ellison is not backing down, say sources close to the tech mogul who were not authorized to comment. Paramount — whose chief legal counsel is the former head of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division during the first Trump term — is preparing for a legal battle with Warner Bros. over the handling of the auction. They are expected to urge the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice to investigate claims that the Netflix deal would be anticompetitive and harmful to consumers and theater owners.

Paramount’s lawyers sent Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav a blistering letter Wednesday, accusing the studio of rigging the process in favor of a “single bidder” and “abdicating its duties to stockholders.”

What went wrong

Several sources said Paramount’s first mistake was making low-ball offers.

Paramount submitted three unsolicited bids by mid-October, the first for $19 a share. Warner’s board of directors unanimously rejected all of the bids as too low.

Top Warner Bros. executives were incensed, feeling that the Ellisons had just shown up in Hollywood and now were throwing their weight around to take advantage of Warner Bros.’ struggles.

Paramount had Larry Ellison guaranteeing its Warner bid with $30 billion of his Oracle stock, according to one knowledgeable person who was not authorized to comment.

But as the price of Warner went higher, Paramount needed considerably more money. It turned to private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

In late October, Warner opened the bidding to other suitors. Netflix and Comcast jumped in. Paramount’s leaders seemed to underestimate Netflix, according to several people close to the auction. A senior Netflix executive had publicly downplayed its interest.

“Maybe Netflix was playing possum,” said Paul Hardart, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Paramount “thought they were the only game in town,” said a person close to the auction who was not authorized to comment.

At one point, Paramount’s team seemed more concerned about the movements of Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts, who had visited Saudi Arabia, reportedly on theme park business.

David Ellison and RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale were scrambling to line up Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to provide more financing for their offer.

“They were going around trying to get money from elsewhere and that probably sowed some doubts among the board at Warner Bros. Discovery,” Hardart said.

Paramount’s negotiations with wealth funds for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were widely noted, people close to the auction said.

“It invited skepticism of the strength of the Paramount commitment,” said C. Kerry Fields, a business law professor at the USC Marshall School of Business.

When Oracle stock started dropping amid concerns of an AI bubble, it left Paramount‘s bid in a more precarious position.

Worries over Trump ties

In Hollywood, Larry Ellison’s close ties to Trump dampened enthusiasm for Paramount’s bid.

Oracle is among a group of U.S. investors expected to hold a majority stake in the U.S. business of TikTok, after the hugely popular video sharing app is spun out from Chinese parent company ByteDance — in no small part due to the influence and support from Trump.

This summer, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS for its edits of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, as it was seeking to gain regulatory approval for the Ellison Skydance takeover. Days later, Paramount’s CBS announced that it was ending Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show, citing its financial losses.

David Ellison in October made a controversial hire of the Free Press founder Bari Weiss to run CBS News — which delighted the president.

“Larry Ellison is great, and his son, David, is great,” Trump told reporters in mid-October. “They’re big supporters of mine.”

After Trump’s reported intervention, Paramount agreed in late November to distribute Brett Ratner’s “Rush Hour 4,” a project that had been shelved amid sexual assault allegations against the director highlighted in a Los Angeles Times report. Ratner has disputed all the allegations against him.

“They were in the pole position with the Trump administration, but then that [position] started to be not as appealing to people,” Hardart said.

Last month, there was a meeting at the White House to discuss Paramount’s bid and the threat of Netflix, sources said. That same week, David Ellison was among the guests at a White House dinner hosted by Trump for Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

A report in the Guardian also raised alarm bells among some foreign regulators, one knowledgeable person said. The newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources, that White House officials had informally discussed with Larry Ellison several female CNN anchors whom Trump disliked and wanted fired should Paramount succeed in buying Warner.

People close to Paramount contend that Zaslav and his mentor, John Malone, who serves as a Warner board member emeritus, were biased against Paramount and that Zaslav is angling to retain his mogul status.

Paramount ultimately submitted six offers to Warner, including a final $30 a share offer, but none were as strong as Netflix’s proposal, said two people involved with the auction.

Paramount executives knew last Monday that they had been bested, according to people close to the company. Two days later, they lobbed a missive at Warner: “WBD appears to have abandoned the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process,” Paramount’s lawyers wrote.

Netflix said Friday its deal won’t close for a year to 18 months, the anticipated time it will take to win regulatory approval. That’s far from guaranteed, however, given possible antitrust concerns over Netflix’s market dominance.

Now Warner Bros. Discovery is girding for a fight over its handling of the auction.

Playing himself in ‘Iron Man 2’

Until recently, Larry Ellison was perhaps best known in Hollywood circles for playing himself in an “Iron Man 2” cameo during which Tony Stark refers to him as the “Oracle of Oracle” — and as the father who quietly bankrolled the film business careers of his children, David and Megan.

Those who know Larry Ellison say he should not be counted out.

At 81, a determined and resolute Ellison has shown no signs of slowing down. Although he stepped down as Oracle’s CEO in 2014, he remains its executive chairman and chief technology officer — and continues to be deeply involved in the company and its growing tentacles.

Larry Ellison, third from right at the White House with President Donald Trump, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, appears to announce Stargate, a new AI infrastructure investment.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

“He keeps reinventing the company. Right when you think that they can’t figure it out, they figure it out and they’re pretty resilient,” said Brent Thill, a tech analyst at Jefferies.

The son of a 19-year-old unwed mother, Ellison grew up in a modest walk-up apartment on Chicago’s South Side, where he was raised by her aunt and uncle.

As he told Fox Business, “I had all the disadvantages necessary for success.”

Larry Ellison at the Oracle OpenWorld 2018 conference in San Francisco.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Smart and headstrong, Ellison attended the University of Chicago, but dropped out and drove to California in a used Thunderbird. He got a job as a bank computer programmer, the first of several computer jobs at various companies.

In the early 1970s, Ellison began working on early databases for a company called Ampex. As the story goes, it became the precursor to Oracle’s systems.

By 1977, Ellison co-founded Oracle with $1,200 and ideas deeply inspired by an IBM research paper. The start-up transformed how companies and organizations stored, managed and retrieved huge volumes of data. The software company quickly became an influential tech giant. Oracle’s first contract was with the CIA.

In 1986, Oracle went public and seven years later Ellison landed for the first time on Forbes billionaire’s list, with a net worth of $1.6 billion.

Even among the ego-driven billionaire eccentrics of Silicon Valley, Ellison stood out. “The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison” is the title of a 1997 biography — one of at least 10 tomes examining the life of Larry.

Unlike many of his tech titan peers, who preferred quiet pursuits and carefully crafted public personas, Ellison reveled in his flamboyant escapades and the attention it attracted.

Ellison has flown fighter jets for fun, won the America’s Cup, twice (in 2010 and 2013), collected super yachts, mansions and samurai swords.

As both Oracle’s and Ellison’s fortunes swelled, he earned a reputation for ruthlessness. For years, his archnemesis was Microsoft founder Bill Gates. During the rival’s antitrust trial in 2000, Ellison not only admitted to hiring private investigators to go through Microsoft’s garbage but he also defended his actions, calling the move his “civic duty.”

Mike Wilson, one of Ellison’s biographers, called him “the Charles Foster Kane of the technological age.”

At Oracle, Ellison pushed to expand into cloud computing, healthcare and, more recently, artificial intelligence, forging close partnerships with AI chipmaking behemoth Nvidia, Meta and xAI.

Hollywood, however, was the domain of Ellison’s children, David and Megan, whom he had with his third wife, Barbara Boothe. They divorced shortly after Megan was born.

Larry Ellison and his children, the producers Megan Ellison and David Ellison.

(Lester Cohen / WireImage)

The Ellison scions grew up with their mother on a horse farm in Woodside, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent time with their father during school breaks, sailing around the world on one of his super yachts.

Early on, the tech entrepreneur set up trusts for his children with large tranches of stock in Oracle and later NetSuite, an enterprise software company he helped finance, that went public in 2007. Over time, the trusts, in addition to their independent holdings, have made David and Megan phenomenally wealthy.

With Ellison’s deep pockets, both pursued filmmaking. Megan launched Annapurna, an indie production company behind such acclaimed movies as “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Her.” David, after a brief, unsuccessful stint as an actor and producer of the 2006 flop “Flyboys,” established Skydance Media, bankrolling a slew of massive box office and television hits such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Star Trek” and “Grace and Frankie,” later broadening into animation, sports and gaming.

“David made money, his sister made the art,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

And Larry Ellison often stepped in.

In 2018, he shepherded a major reorganization of Annapurna after the company stumbled into hundreds of millions in losses amid several box office misfires.

It was Ellison who put up the bulk of his son’s $8-billion bid to buy Paramount, the iconic studio, as well as CBS, MTV and other properties — and he holds nearly 78% of the newly formed company’s stock, making him its largest shareholder.

The Ellison family announced plans to remake the fabled Paramount studio through major investments, leveraging technology and building on popular franchises including “Top Gun,” “Star Trek” and “Yellowstone.”

And they aren’t ready to walk away from Warner Bros.

If history has proven anything, Ellison is always up for a fight.

Times staff writer Queenie Wong contributed to this report.

Budget airline announces flights to Greek islands and European cities starting May 2026 with one-way fares from £44.99

Travelling to a European island destination with balmy winter weather and a stunning historic centre is about to become much simpler.

This week Wizz Air revealed the launch of six fresh routes from London Luton Airport, including one to Chania in Crete. One-way tickets start from £44.99.

The city is positioned on the northwest coast of the Greek island and is renowned for its 14th-century Venetian harbour, winding alleyways and waterside eateries. At the harbour entrance stands a 16th-century lighthouse showcasing Venetian, Egyptian and Ottoman influences.

In stark contrast to the UK, this week and next Chania is forecast to hit highs of 19C. Brian Dillon, a writer for the Express, recently explored Chania and was utterly captivated by the city. “The holiday destination enjoys stellar weather throughout August, September, and October, and my September trip there was filled with sunshine and scorching temperatures in the high 20s,” he wrote.

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“Compared to Spanish hotspots I have been to, such as Gran Canaria, Salou and Mallorca, Chania felt like an authentic taste of where I was. The aforementioned destinations that attract a huge number of Brits have very much adapted themselves to their visitors. However, Chania felt like the best of both worlds, with plenty for tourists to do but still a unique Greek charm, which was more than evident in the food.”

Brian was impressed not only by the climate, but also by the standard of cuisine he sampled, and the overall atmosphere of the island. “Food is perhaps the best way to immerse yourself in a place, and the food in Greece took me on a journey that I will never forget. Dining in Greek restaurants every night, I was blown away by the exceptional service and tantalising flavours I experienced each time,” he elaborated.

“From stuffed aubergine to the most delectable sea bass I’ve ever tasted, Chania’s culinary scene completely exceeded my expectations. Given its popularity among Brits seeking an affordable escape, I had braced myself for something a bit more kitsch. How wrong I was. There was no shortage of classic sun holiday entertainment, including an exhilarating waterpark, beach clubs and a boat trip that was the highlight of my stay.”

Starting next spring, Wizz Air patrons will have access to Chania and four additional Greek destinations – Mykonos, Rhodes and Zakynthos – from London Luton Airport. The airline is also introducing routes to the European cities of Bordeaux and Dortmund.

Flights to Mykonos will operate thrice weekly, while the other three Greek destinations will see twice-weekly flights.

The new routes to Greece are set to commence from 13 May 2026, just in time for the summer season. Fares begin at £44.99* and tickets are currently available for purchase on wizzair.com and through Wizz Air’s official mobile app.

These new routes come as Wizz Air continues to expand its operations at London Luton Airport, with the addition of a 14th aircraft to its Luton base. Wizz Air now services 60 destinations from this airport.

Yvonne Moynihan, managing director at W.

The representative from Wizz Air UK announced: “With holidaymakers already dreaming of their 2026 getaways, we’ve got an early Christmas gift for our customers: six brand-new routes from our London Luton base! These exciting additions will whisk travellers away to some of Europe’s most-loved destinations, including Greece’s stunning beaches. As London’s low-cost airline, we’re all about making those dream holidays affordable and accessible. And with our 14th aircraft joining the fleet at London Luton Airport, we’re giving UK customers even more flexibility and choice, because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like more holidays to look forward to.”

Shabaz Masoud beat Peter McGrail by unanimous decision to claim the vacant European super-bantamweight title in Monaco.

Liverpool’s McGrail started the stronger before Stoke fighter Masoud grew into the fight.

McGrail ensured the closing rounds were tight but the judges scored it 116-111 115-112 114-113 in favour of Masoud.

It was Masoud’s first fight in 13 months, after injury meant a planned June meeting with McGrail was postponed, and now he has his eyes on a world title shot.

“I’ve got big plans,” he said. “I’m struggling making super-bantamweight and I don’t mind moving up for a world title.

“There’s a British world champion at the weight above, Nick Ball. That’s the fight I want. I need to move up.”

Earlier, in another all-British bout, British welterweight champion Conah Walker beat 2020 Olympic silver medallist Pat McCormack with a 12th-round knockout.

The Monte Carlo crowd also saw Turkey’s Elif Nur Turhan become the new IBF lightweight champion.

The 30-year-old demolished Brazil’s Beatriz Ferreira, finally stopping her in the fifth round – the two-time Olympic medallist’s first professional defeat.

These are the key developments from day 1,382 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Sunday, December 7:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “large-scale” attack on the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk overnight on Sunday, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local officials. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, it said.
• A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack damaged power facilities in eight Ukrainian regions, causing blackouts and forcing nuclear power plants to cut power output, officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
• The Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 653 drones and 51 missiles on Ukraine in the overnight attack, adding that its forces downed 585 drones and 30 missiles.
• Power and heat generation facilities in the Chernihiv, Zaporizhia, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions were targeted in the attack, while port facilities in the Black Sea city of Odesa were also damaged, according to the Ukrainian government.
• The Ukrainian state railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, a railway hub near the capital, Kyiv, was also hit, with damage caused to the depot and railway carriages. The were no reports on casualties from the attack in the town of Fastiv.
• The IAEA said Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian control, temporarily lost all off-site power overnight due to the widespread military activities. It said the plant reconnected to a 330 kilowatt power line after a half hour outage, but that a 750 kilowatt line is still disconnected.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed the attack on Saturday, saying its forces launched a “massive strike” in response to what it called Ukrainian assaults on civilian targets in Russia. The ministry said the strike used high-precision, long-range air- and ground-based weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and long-range drones.
• The ministry also said its air defences had shot down 116 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight into Saturday.
• Poland also announced scrambling jets due to the Russian attacks on Ukraine on Saturday, but the Operational Command of the Armed Forces said there were no airspace violations.
• Ukraine’s military, meanwhile, said that its forces had hit the Russian Ryazan oil refinery, as well as a shell-casing manufacturing plant located in Alchevsk, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.
• Ukraine’s military also denied Russian claims that it had encircled the embattled towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in the Donetsk region, according to the Kyiv Independent. The military said that its defence units were expanding logistics routes and maintaining control over key positions in the area.

Chornobyl

• A protective shield at Ukraine’s Chornobyl nuclear plant, built to contain radioactive material from the 1986 disaster, can no longer perform its main safety function due to drone damage, the IAEA said after a strike that Kyiv blamed on Moscow.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a long and “substantive” phone call with United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on the push to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
• “Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace. We agreed on the next steps and formats for talks with the United States,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
• The call followed talks between Witkoff, Kushner and Ukraine’s negotiator, Rustem Umerov, in the US city of Miami. Ukraine’s envoy to the US, Olha Stefanishyna, told the Axios news website that “the main challenging issues concern territorial matters and security guarantees”.
• Zelenskyy is set to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in London on Monday, according to media reports.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said he would also travel to London for Monday’s meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the ongoing negotiations with Russia under US mediation.

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced dispatching a business delegation to Russia in the coming days in preparation for the end of the Ukraine war. Orban addressed the situation during a rally in the central city of Kecskemet, ahead of legislative elections in the spring.

It was a wild show on Saturday night’s Strictly Come Dancing – but things could be about to get even more dramatic.

Strictly Come Dancing was full of drama on Saturday night, with a Perfect 40 score (well done Amber Davies), a star in tears (poor Balvinder Sopal), a singing Paddington and even Neil Jones taking abuse from the stage despite being sat not-so-quietly in the audience.

Well, the drama is set to continue tomorrow night if the latest spoiler to leak out of the BBC hit is accurate. As has been the case for many years now, a well-known account has posted the couples it says enter the dance off and who it is that ultimately gets axed. As ever the information is unverified by the BBC but it has already got fans very hot and bothered.

One said simply: “My jaw just hit the floor.” Another branded the drama set to unfold on Sunday night “wild” while another insisted they were “absolutely gutted”. A third called the verdict: “A bit of a shocker.”

As ever here at the Mirror we don’t want to ruin the fun so we won’t reveal who it is goes until it’s announced on BBC One on Strictly Come Dancing: The Results with Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, which starts at 7.45pm.

As the show ended last night the field seemed wide open, with one fan writing: “I have absolutely NO IDEA who will be in that bottom two tonight. There are reasons why it could be any of them.”

Another added that they felt the leaderboard may have ended up delivering a close race intentionally: “Tonight I feel the judges were told to, bar any massive mistakes, score the couples the same so whoever is in the dance off, it’s the public’s ‘fault’,” they said.

The leaderboard at the end of Saturday’s show put Amber and Nikita top with 40, followed by George and Alexis with 35, Balvinder and Julian also with 35, Lewis and Katya with 35 and Karen and Carlos bottom on 34.

As many have pointed out, any couple could wind up in the dance off from that sort of scoring. With three couples ranking second, three couples have four points already so Amber being at the top of the leaderboard does not make her safe if she is at the bottom of the public vote.

It was a strong week for many couples with Amber – who “lives, sleeps and breathes musicals” – dominating Musicals Week with her top score. But it was also a good week for Balvinder, who picked up her biggest score yet.

With nines from everyone bar Craig Revel Horwood (grim-faced, he lifted the 8) it was clear how much it all meant to her. She broke down in tears mid-way through Motsi Mabuse‘s remarks about the Viennese Waltz she performed to Never Enough from the The Greatest Showman.

The EastEnders star, who has been working throughout the series, later told Claudia: “I have waited all competition for that feeling, and I’m so grateful. I’m actually really grateful for what I’ve heard tonight, and it’s just it’s blown my heart to love this and to do justice to that song.”

It had been a performance impressive in its nothingness.

Zero points, zero rebounds, zero assists, zero steals and zero blocks in 15 minutes.

The only tangible statistical sign that UCLA’s Eric Dailey Jr. had played against Washington earlier this week came in the four fouls that he logged, which contributed mightily to his struggles across the board.

So it was encouraging for the Bruins to see their usually productive forward back to his old ways Saturday.

An early spin move leading to a turnaround jumper put Dailey on the board against Oregon, topping his total production from three days earlier less than three minutes into the game.

Dailey was just getting started. There were a couple of free throws after getting fouled on a putback attempt. A three-pointer after coming around a screen from Tyler Bilodeau. Another three-pointer. Another spin move leading to a turnaround jumper.

By then there were nearly eight minutes left in the half and Dailey was already well on his way to a big afternoon during the Bruins’ 74-63 victory over the Ducks at Pauley Pavilion.

Oregon center Ege Demir (16) puts a hand to the face of UCLA forward Tyler Bilodeau (34) while battling UCLA forward Steven Jamerson II for a rebound in the first half of the Bruins’ 74-63 win Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Finishing with 14 of his season-high 18 points in the first half, Dailey logged his latest excellent showing against Oregon after having averaged 20 points on 88.2% shooting during the two games between the teams last season.

As UCLA (7-2 overall, 2-0 Big Ten) tends to do, it had trouble closing out the Ducks (4-5, 0-2) after building an 18-point lead. Oregon was within 61-58 after guard Jackson Shelstad (20 points) pump-faked Bruins counterpart Donovan Dent (13 points, three assists) out of the way and rose for a jumper.

But three consecutive assists from UCLA guard Skyy Clark fueled a 7-1 run that gave his team a slightly more comfortable cushion. The Bruins were firmly in control a few minutes later after center Xavier Booker finished a give-and-go involving Bilodeau with a ferocious dunk.

The next step for Dailey, who made six of nine shots and grabbed eight rebounds, will be to repeat his performance from Saturday as he continues a search for consistency in his second season as a Bruin. He’s alternated single- and double-digit games over each of his last four games.

Dailey had plenty of help in pushing UCLA to a second consecutive victory while handing Oregon a fifth consecutive loss.

Clark continued his fiery streak from long range, making three of six three-pointers on the way to 13 points, and Bilodeau (14 points, eight rebounds) and Booker (12 points, five rebounds) were also productive.

UCLA reserve guard Trent Perry had two points in 10 minutes in his return from an ankle injury that had forced him to miss the game against Washington.

Dec. 6 (UPI) — Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles at targets in Ukraine during the overnight hours into Saturday morning, which destroyed a railway station and damaged rolling stock.

Most of the drones and missiles were intercepted by Ukraine’s aerial defenses, but some managed to strike a railway hub in Fastiv, which is about 45 miles southeast of Kiev, the BBC reported.

Russian officials said the strike targeted energy and port infrastructure and military-industrial locations.

The attacks injured at least eight in the Kyiv region, and Ukrenergo, the national energy provider in Ukraine, reported the attack mostly targeted power stations and other types of energy infrastructure, according to The Guardian.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he will meet with British, German and Ukrainian leaders in London on Monday to discuss pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago.

“We must continue to put pressure on Russia to force it toward peace,” Macron said in a social media post.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will meet in London to assess peace negotiations that are being mediated by U.S. officials.

The recent proposal by Russia to facilitate the negotiations between the Pakistani government and the Afghan Taliban is another indication that the security of the region is not a solo task. Islamabad has received the move by Moscow as a positive and genuinely good move aimed at helping stability in a region where geopolitics, militancy, and humanitarian forces come together. However, Pakistan has not changed its stance, and it is clear the Afghan land should in no way be utilized by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Al-Qaeda (AQ), Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), or any other armed proxy against Pakistan. Such a position is not a rhetorical argument or an opportunistic one; it is based on the verifiable facts, decades of diplomacy, and the mere fact that the sovereign borders should be considered.

Islamabad has not used ultimatums and isolation despite the articulateness of the Pakistani concerns. Starting in 2021, Pakistan has involved the Taliban regime by means of a mix of formal dialogue rounds, high-level diplomacy, institutional devices, and regional forums. A system of three dialogue rounds, including one within the Doha Agreement framework and two within the Istanbul track, was used to present hard intelligence of TTP, BLA, and AQ sanctuaries within Afghanistan. Such dossiers contained cross-border entry points, training camps and base areas, and command bases. The call of Pakistan has been the same: the terrorist networks need to be destroyed to achieve any lasting peace across the Durand Line.

This commitment is supported by the magnitude of the diplomatic outreach of Pakistan. Within four years, Islamabad has sent four foreign minister trips, two high-ranking defense/ISI trips, five special representative trips, five secretary trips, and an NSA trip to Kabul. In the meantime, institutional processes have also been busy with 8 Joint Coordination Committee meetings, 225 border flag meetings, 836 protest notes, and 13 formal demarches. Such diplomatic patience and endurance can be boasted of by very few states that have to go through cross-border terrorism. The history of Pakistan disapproves any indication of withdrawal; the attempts it has made are unparalleled in good spirit, consistency, and seeking peaceful solutions.

At the same time, Pakistan has used multilateral forums, the Moscow Format, and quadrilateral and trilateral structures to reinforce the argument that destroying TTP and BLA hideouts is not a bilateral problem but a security problem of the region. The issue of terrorism within Afghanistan does not just stay within the borders of Afghanistan, but it spreads all over South and Central Asia, destabilizing the economic routes, communities on the border, and counterterrorism models.

The issues that Pakistan is concerned with are not constructed out of speculation. The fact they were supported by hard evidence: 172 Tashkeel of almost 4,000 militants infiltrating Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; 83 Tashkeel into Balochistan; and the discovery of 214 Afghan nationals engaged in fighting Pakistani forces in 2025 alone. The suicide bombing of the G-11 Judicial Complex, Islamabad, on November 11 is the latest example. An Afghan national of Nangarhar was deployed by TTP/FAK leadership, and all the operational details, including lodging and preparation of the explosives, were coordinated across the border. The Pakistani agencies killed the cell, but the situation reiterated the seriousness of uncontrolled militant sanctuaries.

The evaluations of the international community reverberate the warnings put on Pakistan. Based on the 36th UN Analytical Support & Sanctions Monitoring Team Report (July 2025), it is evident that the Afghan Taliban administrations are still known to provide a free hand to various terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda has fighters and training stations in the six provinces: Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Kunar, Uruzgan, and Zabul. Al-Qaeda-TTP integration of operations is further solidified through three new camps. The very Taliban officials support logistics, weapons, financing, and safe havens for the 6,000-strong TTP presence in Afghanistan, which is directly opposed by the official denials of Kabul.

This alienation between rhetoric and reality endangers the peace in the region. Although Pakistan is willing to have dialogue with the help of Russia or any other neutral party, it demands that the discussions be translated into action that is verifiable and irreversible. The demands of Islamabad are quite obvious: the TTP as well as the related leadership should be kept in check, entry points should be barred, the guest houses of the Taliban used by the militants should be closed down, the stipends and logistical channels should be stopped, and all entry points across the borders should be eliminated. Mediation efforts can only make sense then.

Furthermore, Pakistan has also indicated clearly that any subsequent significant terrorist attack being launched using the Afghan territory will be directly linked to TTP/BLA safe havens within the Afghan territory. In this eventuality, Pakistan will have the right to retaliate with a decisive action as provided in Article 51 of the UN Charter. It is not a question of escalation but the very right of self-defense that every sovereign nation has.

The mediation offer by Russia is diplomatic, but it can only be successful upon the goodwill of Kabul and not Islamabad’s. Pakistan has already shown that it is willing to engage with everyone without leaving a single channel of peaceful resolution. The only thing left is that the Afghan Taliban must put their words to the test and follow their promises with deeds as per international and bilateral agreements.

Counterterrorism collaboration should be based on transparency, verification, and shared responsibility to help the region to move towards sustainable peace. The aim of Pakistan is easy: to have secured borders, a stable neighborhood, and a mutually respectful relationship with Afghanistan. The diplomatic channel of Russia can contribute to the stability of the region by contributing to the achievement of this goal, which in turn is a welcome addition.

“Peace cannot be negotiated in abstraction; it must be built on the concrete dismantling of the forces that destroy it.”

AFTER 41 dates, spanning 13 countries on five continents, Oasis have certainly earned a rest over Christmas.

But instead of putting his feet up in front of the fire here in the cold, wet UK, Noel Gallagher is heading to the Maldives over the festive season.

I can reveal that the guitarist, who is expected to earn £50 million from ticket sales alone, is whisking his family away to the tropical island to celebrate the end of the Live ’25 World Tour.

And he has told pals that he is heading off to the sunshine this month.

A source said: “Noel has loved spending time with his family on tour, but this trip will allow him to fully recharge.”

“He has put everything into making the Oasis reunion a success and is now looking forward to pressing pause over Christmas.”

RULED OUT

Oasis REJECT big money offer to play at iconic venue after sell out reunion tour

big news

Oasis’ Liam Gallagher fuels rumours band are about to announce Knebworth 2026

“Noel will also make sure to spend time with mum Peggy and brother Liam Gallagher over the Christmas period.”

Noel was accompanied on the tour by his girlfriend Sally Mash, daughter Anais and her actor boyfriend Callum Scott Howells.

His two teenage sons Sonny and Donovan — from his marriage to ex Sara Macdonald — were also spotted backstage on a number of the tour dates.

Meanwhile, Noel has been telling pals he is working on new music. The insider added: “Noel is enjoying getting back into the studio after the whirlwind of the tour.”

Liam sent fans into meltdown with a post earlier this week on X, titled: “Big announcement imminent”.

It comes as whispers of dates at Knebworth House and the Etihad Stadium — home of their beloved Manchester City — have swirled.

Hopefully, Noel and Liam will put some extra tour dates in our stockings this year.

Liam’s mud for it

LIAM GALLAGHER shifts life down a gear after months on the road – by taking a ride on his bike.

The star, sporting a beard, was seen for the first time since the Oasis Live ’25 Tour ended as he cycled through London.

And the splatter of mud up his back suggests he’s had a run-in with a few mucky puddles.

Meanwhile, I can reveal Liam’s son Lennon Gallagher has split from his model girl­friend Isobel Richmond.

The pair have unfollowed each other on Instagram after “growing apart” during the summer.

A source told me: “They have a lot of respect for each other, but realised they are better off single.”

It comes after they posed for a British Vogue photoshoot in June.
Sounds like the romance has gone out of fashion.

Freddy and Princess keep mum

THEIR mums Jade Goody and Katie Price were pals back in the day, and Freddy Brazier and Princess Andre are now chums, too.

I’m told the duo have exchanged messages online, with Princess revealing that she and Freddy have bonded.

Speaking at the Winter ­Wonderland launch in London last month, ­Princess said: “Me and Freddy are friends. I see him at events all the time.”

Meanwhile, newly single Freddy, who recently split from his pregnant girlfriend Holly Swinburn, has been messaging Princess regularly.

A source said: “Freddy thinks Princess is beautiful and has got her head switched on.

“A lot of their pals see them becoming an item.”

Princess has just landed another series of her ITV2 reality show The Princess Diaries – so maybe she can give Freddy some tips, as I hear he is keen to get into telly after appearing on Celebrity Race Across The World with his TV presenter dad Jeff last year.

Hopefully, he will settle down a bit after being accused of drug-fuelled antics by his ex and being barred from star hangout Sheesh for boozy behaviour last week.

Princess sounds like a good influence . . . 

Deadline looming for Raye

HER single Where Is My Husband! has soared to No2 in the UK charts.

But I hear Raye, who performed at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball at London’s O2 last night, is still working on the final tracks for her upcoming second studio album.

I am told the collection is weeks behind schedule and bosses want it finished ahead of her tour, which begins in Poland on January 22.

A source said: “Raye is a perfectionist and will not be rushed if she is not happy with a track.

“There has been a lot of back and forth over tracks, but Raye will not rest until she is completely happy.

“The success of her single has been overwhelming and Raye wants every other track to be as good.”

Raye poked fun at her perfectionism on TikTok this week, saying: “Album isn’t ready yet but it’s brewing like a cup of tea.”

In September, she told fans to “trust the process”.

Raye always delivers and I expect this album to be no exception.

Ab’s fab trip back in time

RISING star Absolutely has revealed she tapped into her childhood to create new album, Paracosm.

I was lucky enough to get the first listen of it at Sony’s HQ in London on Thursday.

Absolutely – real name Abby-Lynn Keen – told me: “Someone commented on my YouTube, ‘She is my paracosm’. I was, like, ‘What is that word?’.

“I connected to it as I’d been feeling that child­­like wonder in the creative process.”

The term means an imaginary world that was created in childhood and develops into adulthood.

And Abby, whose sister is singer Raye, added: “I have always loved fantasy, movie Alice In Wonderland and Tim Burton.”

Kim’s magic treat

KIM KARDASHIAN turned heads with her glam look at mum Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday last month – but it wasn’t her make-up that caught my attention.

I spotted a peculiar bar of PolkaDot “magic mushroom” chocolate on the table as she got ready for the party.

Makers say the treat contains fungi but not psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, though they warn it’s not for kids.

At £37 a bar, I’d agree with that.

Rita’s sheer elegance

C-ORA blimey! Rita Ora leaves little to the imagination in a transparent silver gown.

The Hot Right Now singer dazzled at a Red Sea International Film Festival function in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, wearing this eye-popping Elie Saab number.

And in another bejewelled dress, Rita treated the audience at Friday night’s Women in Cinema event to an acoustic version of her 2014 hit, I Will Never Let You Down.

Revealing she enjoys expanding her skills, the hitmaker said: “I see myself an amateur everyday as I’m constantly learning.”

Sign me up to the School Of Rita.

Billy: No preach speech

AMERICAN filmmaker Billy Bob Thornton has slammed actors for virtue signalling during awards acceptance speeches.

The Bad Santa actor made the dig as Hollywood gets set for a string of awards ceremonies, including the Golden Globes next month and the Oscars in March.

He said: “They should just stick to what the honour is and thank the people who helped them win.”

Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he added: “Don’t go up there and talk about saving the badgers in Wisconsin or something. You know what I’m saying?

“People might argue and say, ‘Well, no, because I have a voice and because everybody knows me. This is a great platform for me to put this out there’.

“If you have a billion dollars and you want to save the badgers, f***ing save them.

“I mean, you’ve got plenty of money to save the badgers, trust me. That’s barely going to cut into your budget.”

I couldn’t agree more.

ZIPLINES, dolphins and unforgettable food – the island delivers one fine family hol, says Lifestyle Editor Catherine Bennion-Pedley.

It’s 8.03am when my phone buzzes on the bedside table with a message that will lead me to one of the most breathtaking experiences of my life.

Dolphins have been spotted nearby, so it’s now my mission to wake my husband and kids and get them all to the boat as soon as possible.

Luckily, from our beachfront family suite at Le Méridien Ile Maurice on Mauritius’ north-west coast, we’re less than a 30-second walk to the golden sands and our waiting skipper (Marriott.com).

It means it’s not long before we’re out on the ocean with everything crossed, and soon enough, we catch our first glimpse of fins.

“Wanna jump in?” shouts the captain, cutting the engine, and I don’t need asking twice.

WAIL OF A TIME

I drove Irish Route 66 with deserted golden beaches and pirate-like islands

TEMPTED?

Tiny ‘Bali of Europe’ town with stunning beaches, €3 cocktails and £20 flights

I’m straight into the water, snorkel gear on, and gasp as I spot a pod of 19 spinner dolphins swimming right below me.

As I follow them, I spy a mother suckling her baby and soak up the sound of their squeaky chatter before they return to the surface, gracefully leaping out of the ocean right in front of me.

Special? The word doesn’t even come close. And it’s £120 well spent.

Winter Wins

Swimming with wild dolphins hadn’t crossed my mind when I booked our flights to Mauritius.

I just knew there were great August deals because of it being the island’s winter.

Winter here, of course, means temperatures in the mid-20ºCs and possible rain showers, but the chances of spotting dolphins where we are staying are actually higher during these off-season months.

Le Méridien Ile Maurice was given a swish makeover three years ago, and spacious, nautical-chic family suites come with freestanding baths and rain showers.

Giant, colourful bean bags are dotted along the beach – water shoes prove handy for the kids as it’s a little rocky – and paddleboard and kayak hire is free on the generous all-inclusive package.

As is waterskiing from the pier which, as my husband Andy finds out, is way harder than it looks.

The main pool still feels a tad tired, but the second family pool, with its giant flamingo inflatables and water hammocks, hits the spot.

As does the excellent cocktail menu.

Each of the three à la carte eateries offers signature creations with interesting ingredients, such as timur berry and tumeric syrup.

Shaking up our own watermelon and rum tipples (mocktails for the kids), while the sun sets and a DJ mixes chilled beats, certainly brings the happy to the Happy Monday sesh at beachside spot Waves.

It also serves up superb seafood, such as red tuna with strawberry gazpacho and sticky rice, while Kumin offers decent Indian cuisine and Jade nails pan-Asian dishes, such as beef lok lak alongside mouth-watering sushi.

One night, we feast at Jade’s teppanyaki table, sipping cocktails of tequila, plum sake, yuzu, chilli and ginger, as chef Edgar crafts a feast of Japanese soup, duck gyoza, lobster, black Angus steak and flambéed pineapple.

Edgar is soon declared “the coolest chef ever” as he throws up a raw egg and catches it in his hat.

But when he then pulls out a wind-up chick as a souvenir of our evening, he’s definitely secured fans for life, and the meal is worthy of the £32 supplement.

A lot to lychee

Of course, there’s a kids’ club, which is handily next to the beach volleyball court, so as the kids get kitted out with braids and henna tattoos, Andy joins fellow dads for a game.

Another day we take a cooking class and learn how to whip up a flavoursome Mauritian curry and rotis, before digging into the fruits of our labour with glasses of very gluggable, locally made lychee wine.

Our visit to Mauritius coincides with the Hindu festival Ganesh Chaturthi, so we jump in a taxi to the white sands of Mont Choisy beach, 15 minutes away, to enjoy the celebrations.

Locals carry incredible clay idols of the elephant-head god to the turquoise waters and the air is filled with the scent of incense and the beating of huge drums.

The feeling of joy and togetherness is all-encompassing.

Flying high

A few days later, I’m trying to hide my nerves from my six year old, Poppy, as we clip on to a zipline that will hurtle us across a river to the top of a waterfall.

When we land at the crest of the frothy, white water, we realise the only way back to solid ground is ziplining again across the ravine and I fear we may be in trouble.

But her confidence grows on the second ride and she begs to try more.

Sadly, she’s not old enough for many of the adrenalin-filled activities here at Vallé Advenature Park, which includes Mauritius’ longest zipline and the longest suspended bridge in the Indian Ocean, so I guess we’ll have to return one day.

But racing Andy and our son Raffy, four, down the mountain on a luge not long after gets more megawatt smiles from both kids, before we take snaps of the hill of 23 colours, a geological phenomenon of volcanic sands formed over millions of years.

Experiences at Advenature cost from £11 per person (Adventure.vallepark.com).

We can also hardly believe our eyes when we spot the number and size of the giant tortoises at nearby La Vanille Nature Park, and we all adore feeding them their favourite snack, scaevola leaves.

One even mistakes Andy’s leg for a twig and gives him a nip – ­much to the kids’ delight.

Later, having swung by the lemurs, iguanas and monkeys, the croc-feeding show feels a bit outdated, but there’s no denying the real crocodile nuggets at the cafe make a tasty lunch, £8, with Raffy wolfing them down, just like their chicken counterparts.

Entry costs £17 for adults and £12 for under-13s (Lavanillenaturepark.com).

Meanwhile, one thing is for certain – if I were to ask the kids if they’d like to repeat this adventure, they’d snap up the chance!

Reporting from Washington — President Obama’s proposal to lower the corporate tax rate to 28% from 35% shows a growing consensus in Washington that many companies need to pay less in taxes for the U.S. to stay competitive globally.

But exactly how to do that — and which companies should pay more to make up the difference — remains elusive in a volatile election year.

Democrats and Republicans have starkly different ideas about how far to lower corporate tax rates and whether changes to individual tax rates, including the Bush-era cuts that expire at the end of the year, should be part of the reform debate.

Obama laid down his marker Wednesday with a 23-page framework for a plan to eliminate dozens of breaks for specific industries, particularly oil and gas production, and new incentives for domestic manufacturing and alternative energy.

“Our current corporate tax system is outdated, unfair and inefficient,” he said. “It provides tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas and hits companies that choose to stay in America with one of the highest tax rates in the world.”

Key Republicans welcomed Obama’s call for a lower corporate rate. But they said his proposal wouldn’t reduce the rates enough and that his broad framework needed much more detail.

The GOP also wants to tackle corporate and individual taxes at the same time, laying the groundwork for a nasty and complex battle this fall as Republicans fight to save all the Bush tax cuts. Obama wants to let the tax cuts expire for households making more than $250,000 a year.

“It’s official: President Obama, congressional leaders of both political parties and the Republican candidates for president all support lowering corporate tax rates,” said John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, a top industry trade group. “Now let the debate begin.”

Legislative action on taxes probably will have to wait until after the November elections because the topic is tightly intertwined with key campaign issues, including how best to boost job creation, how to limit the growing size of government and whether large corporations and wealthy individuals are paying their fair share.

Highlighting the political stakes, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose Wednesday to release a tax plan of his own, one that calls for slashing individual rates by one-fifth. He already was on record calling for a deeper corporate tax-rate cut, to 25%, which is the same as proposed by a key House Republican.

Other Republican presidential candidates want to go further. Rick Santorum is calling for a 17.5% corporate rate, and Newt Gingrich wants it to drop to 12.5%.

Engler, as well as Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, criticized Obama’s plan for not lowering taxes on foreign earnings. Both industry groups want corporate profits abroad to be taxed only by the country in which they are earned. The U.S. now taxes those earnings when they are brought back to the country.

Obama rejected that idea.

Instead, he proposed a new minimum tax rate for foreign earnings that companies would be required to pay even if they did not bring those profits back to the U.S. That provision is part of Obama’s effort to use the corporate tax code to provide incentives for domestic manufacturing while reducing the tax advantages for companies to build facilities overseas.

His plan, so far, doesn’t specify what that new minimum rate on foreign earnings would be, one of many details the administration is leaving to Congress.

Through the expansion of some widely used breaks, such as one for research and development, the administration wants to reduce the overall rate that domestic manufacturers pay — known as the effective tax rate — to no more than 25% from the current 32%.

The administration’s tax plan would not add to the budget deficit because the elimination of dozens of existing breaks would raise an additional $250 billion over the next 10 years, enough to offset the cost of the lower rate and a smaller set of targeted tax breaks.

The administration wants to get rid of several oil and gas industry tax breaks, such as the ability to write off certain costs related to drilling and the use of wells. Offsetting those cuts would be an expansion of tax incentives for alternative energy investment, including a permanent tax credit, now temporary, for the production of electricity from renewable sources.

The plan also would eliminate a tax break for hedge fund managers, private equity partners and other managers in partnerships. Most of their pay, known as carried interest, now is subject to a capital gains tax of 15%. Under Obama’s plan, that income would be taxed at their ordinary income level, which could be as high as 35%.

Obama’s proposal tries to spur U.S. manufacturing and innovation by focusing and expanding a domestic production tax break on manufacturing.

A current research-and-development tax credit would be expanded, simplified and made permanent. Congress now extends that credit for a year or two — and at times has allowed it to expire temporarily — and some businesses said that the uncertainty has dampened their R&D efforts.

Small businesses would see their taxes cut and simplified with changes that would allow them to write off the cost of certain investments, up to $1 million, the White House said.

More elements, however, weren’t available. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he was “profoundly disappointed” in the lack of detail.

“America’s tax system is broken to the point that it’s putting our nation at a competitive disadvantage around the world,” Hatch said, complaining that the White House produced “a set of bullet points designed more for the campaign trail than an actual blueprint for fixing our tax code.”

The White House said it was holding out some hope that the politically divided Congress may find a way to advance some elements of the proposal. But in an election year, it is far more likely that the fight over taxes will be used largely to underline each party’s campaign message, rather than a starting point for compromise.

“This process is going to take some time,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said. “It will be politically contentious.”

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic advisor to GOP Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and the president of the American Action Forum think tank, said he saw no chance that reform plans would pass this year. But the Obama plan and others could lay the groundwork for action next year.

“The reason there are no details …is that it makes enemies,” he said of the Obama plan, and neither Democrats nor Republicans want to do that in an election year.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

For Farke, the pressure was close to boiling point, with BBC Sport reporting that, according to sources, the process of identifying potential replacements had already begun.

But with four points against three of England’s top teams in eight days, Farke’s job will be safe for now.

The Leeds boss was asked by Sky Sports if this was one of his best weeks as a Premier League manager, and said: “No, one of the most exhausting ones.

“If you play against Pep Guardiola, Enzo Maresca and today against Arne Slot and their world-class teams, we know in terms of quality we can’t compete with them, so we have to be spot on in tactical terms and try and surprise them sometimes and change the game a little bit.

“Yes, it’s joyful after the game to get good results but, to be honest, I’m happy that I can spend the weekend with coffee and cake on the sofa.”

Even when Leeds lost four in a row, Farke insists he “never lost faith”.

“It’s not a question I am even thinking about – because before this week, I was 100% convinced,” he added. “I work with these guys every day and I see what it means to them and how united they are and their spirit and togetherness.

“It is outstanding. I am a big believer that you get what you invest in and these boys are willing to invest and to present this club in the best possible way.

“It’s a long road. Nothing is achieved yet, but we should take lots of confidence out of this.”

With less than six months to go until the FIFA World Cup 2026, the schedule for the 39-day tournament co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States has been released.

Widely considered the most famous sporting event in the world, the 2026 edition of the FIFA World Cup will be its biggest ever, with 48 nations participating instead of the usual 32 and with 104 matches to be played in the 16 venues across the three host nations.

Argentina will look to defend the trophy they lifted under their iconic captain, Lionel Messi, at Qatar 2022, while Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan will make their debut at the finals.

The tournament will begin in Mexico and wrap up in the US.

Here’s everything you need to know about its teams, groups, format and schedule.

What are the groups for the FIFA World Cup 2026?

Group A:

• Mexico
• South Korea
• South Africa
• Denmark/Macedonia/Czechia/Ireland

Group B:

• Canada
• Switzerland
• Qatar
• Italy/Northern Ireland/Wales/Bosnia

Group C:

• Brazil
• Morocco
• Scotland
• Haiti

Group D:

• USA
• Australia
• Paraguay
• Turkiye/Romania/Slovakia/Kosovo

Group E:

• Germany
• Ecuador
• Ivory Coast
• Curacao

Group F:

• Netherlands
• Japan
• Tunisia
• Ukraine/Sweden/Poland/Albania

Group G:

• Belgium
• Iran
• Egypt
• New Zealand

Group H:

• Spain
• Uruguay
• Saudi Arabia
• Cape Verde

Group I:

• France
• Senegal
• Norway
• Iraq/Bolivia/Suriname

Group J:

• Argentina
• Austria
• Algeria
• Jordan

Group K:

• Portugal
• Colombia
• Uzbekistan
• DRC/Jamaica/New Caledonia

Group L:

• England
• Croatia
• Panama
• Ghana

When and where is the opening match of FIFA World Cup 2026?

The tournament will open on June 11 at 3pm (21:00 GMT) at the Mexico City Stadium in Mexico.

When and where is the final of FIFA World Cup 2026?

The MetLife Stadium, which will be called the New York New Jersey Stadium during the tournament, will host the final on July 19 at 3pm (20:00 GMT).

Why has FIFA changed the names of the stadiums hosting World Cup matches?

In a move to restrict ambush marketing for brands not associated with FIFA, the governing body has changed stadium names for all venues to match with the host city.

Therefore, the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey has been rebranded as the New York New Jersey Stadium and the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles has been renamed the Los Angeles Stadium for the tournament.

What’s the format of the FIFA World Cup 2026?

The tournament will be made up of one group-stage round and four knockout rounds before the final.

Unlike previous editions, the knockouts will begin with the round of 32, followed by the round of 16, the four quarterfinals and two semifinals.

The stage-wise breakdown of the tournament’s schedule is:

• Group stage: June 11 to June 27
• Round of 32: June 28 to July 3
• Round of 16: July 4-7
• Quarterfinals: July 9-11
• Semifinals: July 14-15
• Bronze medal match: July 18
• Final: July 19

What’s the full match schedule of the World Cup?

Group stage

Thursday, June 11

Mexico vs South Africa at 3pm (21:00 GMT) – Mexico City Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

South Korea vs TDB at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Friday) – Estadio Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico

Friday, June 12

Canada vs TBD at 3pm (20:00 GMT) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

USA vs Paraguay at 9pm (05:00 GMT on Saturday) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Saturday, June 13

Qatar vs Switzerland at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Brazil vs Morocco at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Haiti vs Scotland at 9pm (02:00 GMT on Sunday) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Australia vs TBD at midnight (08:00 GMT on Sunday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Sunday, June 14

Germany vs Curacao at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

Netherlands vs Japan at 4pm (22:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Ivory Coast vs Ecuador at 7pm (00:00 GMT on Monday) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

TBD vs Tunisia at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Monday) – Estadio Monterrey, Guadalupe, Mexico

Monday, June 15

Spain vs Cape Verde at 12pm (17:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Belgium vs Egypt at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Saudi Arabia vs Uruguay at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

Iran vs New Zealand at 9pm (05:00 GMT on Tuesday) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Tuesday, June 16

France vs Senegal at 3pm (20:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

TBD vs Norway at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Argentina vs Algeria at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Wednesday) – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US

Austria vs Jordan at midnight (08:00 GMT on Wednesday) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Wednesday, June 17

Portugal vs TBD at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

England vs Croatia at 4pm (22:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Ghana vs Panama at 7pm (00:00 GMT on Thursday) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

Uzbekistan vs Colombia at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Thursday) – Mexico City Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

Thursday, June 18

TBD vs South Africa at 12pm (17:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Switzerland vs TBD at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Canada vs Qatar at 6pm (02:00 GMT on Friday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Mexico vs South Korea at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Friday) – Estadio Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico

Friday, June 19

Scotland vs Morocco at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

USA vs Australia at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Seattle Stadium, Seattle, US

Brazil vs Haiti at 9pm (02:00 GMT on Saturday) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

TBD vs Paraguay at midnight (08:00 GMT on Saturday) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Saturday, June 20

Netherlands vs TBD at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

Germany vs Ivory Coast at 4pm (21:00 GMT) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

Ecuador vs Curacao at 8pm (04:00 GMT on Sunday) – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US,

Tunisia vs Japan at midnight (06:00 GMT on Sunday) – Estadio Monterrey, Guadalupe, Mexico

Sunday, June 21

Spain vs Saudi Arabia at 12pm (17:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Belgium vs Iran at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Uruguay vs Cape Verde at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

New Zealand vs Egypt at 9pm (05:00 GMT on Monday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Monday, June 22

Argentina vs Austria at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

France vs TBD at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

Norway vs Senegal at 8pm (01:00 GMT on Tuesday) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Jordan vs Algeria at 11pm (07:00 GMT on Tuesday) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Tuesday, June 23

Portugal vs Uzbekistan at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

England vs Ghana at 4pm (21:00 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Panama vs Croatia at 7pm (00:00 GMT on Wednesday) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

Colombia vs TBD at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Wednesday) – Estadio Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico

Wednesday, June 24

Switzerland vs Canada at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

TBD vs Qatar at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Seattle Stadium, Seattle, US

Scotland vs Brazil at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

Morocco vs Haiti at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

TBD vs Mexico at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Thursday) – Mexico City Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

South Africa vs South Korea at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Thursday) – Estadio Monterrey, Guadalupe, Mexico

Thursday, June 25

Ecuador vs Germany at 4pm (21:00 GMT)– New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Curacao vs Ivory Coast at 4pm (21:00 GMT) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

Japan vs TBD at 7pm (01:00 GMT on Friday) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Tunisia vs Netherlands at 7pm (01:00 GMT on Friday  – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US,

TBD vs USA at 10pm (06:00 GMT on Friday) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Paraguay vs Australia at 10pm (06:00 GMT on Friday) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Friday, June 26

Norway vs France at 3pm (20:00 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Senegal vs TDB 3pm at (20:00 GMT) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

Cape Verde vs Saudi Arabia at 8pm (02:00 GMT on Saturday) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

Uruguay vs Spain at 8pm (02:00 GMT on Saturday) – Estadio Guadalajara, Zapopan, Mexico

Egypt vs Iran at 11pm (07:00 GMT on Saturday) – Seattle Stadium, Seattle, US

New Zealand vs Belgium at 11pm (07:00 GMT on Saturday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Saturday, June 27

Panama vs England at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Croatia vs Ghana at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

Colombia vs Portugal at 7:30pm (02:30 GMT on Sunday) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

TBD vs Uzbekistan at 7:30pm (02:30 GMT on Sunday) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Algeria vs Austria at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Sunday) – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US,

Jordan vs Argentina at 10pm (04:00 GMT on Sunday) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Knockout stage

Sunday, June 28

Round of 32 match at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Monday, June 29

Round of 32 match at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

Round of 32 match at 4:30pm (22:30 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Round of 32 match at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Tuesday) – Estadio Monterrey, Guadalupe, Mexico

Tuesday, June 30

Round of 32  match at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Round of 32 match at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Round of 32 match at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Wednesday) – Mexico City Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

Wednesday, July 1

Round of 32 match at 12pm (17:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Round of 32 match at 4pm (00:00 GMT on Thursday) – Seattle Stadium, Seattle, US

Round of 32 match at 8pm (04:00 GMT on Thursday) – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, San Francisco, US

Thursday, July 2

Round of 32 match at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Round of 32 match at 7pm (00:00 GMT on Friday) – Toronto Stadium, Toronto, Canada

Round of 32 match at 11pm (07:00 GMT on Friday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Friday, July 3

Round of 32 match at 2pm (21:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Round of 32 match at 6pm (23:00 GMT) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

Round of 32 match at 9:30pm (03:30 GMT on Saturday) – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US,

Saturday, July 4

Round of 16 match at 1pm (19:00 GMT) – Houston Stadium, Houston, US

Round of 16 match at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – Philadelphia Stadium, Philadelphia, US

Sunday, July 5

Round of 16 match at 4pm (21:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Round of 16 match at 8pm (02:00 GMT on Monday) – Mexico City Stadium, Mexico City, Mexico

Monday, July 6

Round of 16 match at 3pm (21:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Round of 16 match at 8pm (04:00 GMT on Tuesday) – Seattle Stadium, Seattle, US

Tuesday, July 7

Round of 16 match at 12pm (17:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Round of 16 match at 4pm (00:00 GMT on Wednesday) – BC Place, Vancouver, Canada

Thursday, 9 July

First quarterfinal at 4pm (21:00 GMT) – Boston Stadium, Boston, US

Friday, 10 July

Second quarterfinal at 3pm (23:00 GMT) – Los Angeles Stadium, Los Angeles, US

Saturday, July 11

Third quarterfinal at 5pm (22:00 GMT) –  Miami Stadium, Miami, US

Fourth quarterfinal at 9pm (03:00 GMT on Sunday) – Kansas City Stadium, Kansas City, US

Tuesday, July 14

First semifinal at 3pm (21:00 GMT) – Dallas Stadium, Dallas, US

Wednesday, July 15

Second semifinal at 3pm (20:00 GMT) – Atlanta Stadium, Atlanta, US

Saturday, July 18

Bronze medal match at 5pm (22:00 GMT) – Miami Stadium, Miami, US

Sunday, July 19

Final at 3pm (20:00 GMT) – New York New Jersey Stadium, New Jersey, US

Palestinians hope first Christmas tree lighting ceremony in three years will encourage tourists to return to the city, which has been undergoing a severe economic crisis.

Between Israel’s genocidal war on people in Gaza and near-daily Israeli assaults on Bethlehem and other cities across the occupied West Bank, Palestinians have endured great suffering over the past two years. They have had little to celebrate, and for the past years, all public Christmas celebrations were cancelled.

But Saturday brought a glimmer of hope to the crowds who gathered in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, outside of the Church of the Nativity, to watch the Christmas tree there be lit for the first time since 2022.

The lighting of the Christmas tree “was really some cheer that everybody needed”, said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Bethlehem.

“I haven’t seen the square filled in quite a long time, and it was filled to the brim. Families were here, dignitaries, people who came from across the occupied West Bank and even Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

Bethlehem’s Christmas tree lighting ceremonies are “usually a lot rowdier and a lot more cheerful with dances and songs”, said Odeh.

However, this year’s two-hour celebrations were “subdued”, with “only hymns and prayers for peace”, she added.

Bethlehem, where Christians believe Jesus was born, is also suffering from a severe economic crisis, with many businesses that have been around for generations forced to shut their doors due to severe Israeli restrictions that cut it off from the rest of the world.

“Members of the family have moved to other countries just to keep living and support the others here. Of course, you can’t cover high expenses, high rent,” business owner Jack Gaccaman told Al Jazeera.

Hotels like Bethlehem’s Manger Hotel, just a few steps from the Nativity Church, have had very few guests for two years.

Some of them are just scraping by thanks to the occasional customer.

“Otherwise, here, it will be a disaster. When you abandon a car for two years, it will not work again. And this is what we did,” hotel owner Fares Banak told Al Jazeera.

Unemployment and poverty have risen across the occupied West Bank during the last two years.

“Unemployment is at 34 percent and the number of people living under the poverty line has increased. More than 40 percent are struggling to survive,” Samir Hazboun, a representative of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, told Al Jazeera.

Bethlehem has also suffered from a historic drop in tourism.

According to the city’s Chamber of Commerce, Bethlehem experienced a 90 percent drop in its number of visitors compared with two years ago. It adds that, during this period, the city lost $1.5m a day.

At least Palestine boasts a long Christmas season – marking the significant date of December 25 for Western Christians and January 6 and 7 for Armenian and Eastern Orthodox Christians, respectively – finally culminating in the tree coming down on January 20.

Despite this year’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony being more subdued than in the past, Odeh said Palestinians in Bethlehem see it “as an opportunity to – on the one hand – give their kids some joy, but on the other tell the world that Bethlehem is open and ready to receive them” in the hopes of “breathing some life into their strangled economy”.