LEIGH-ANNE Pinnock shrugged off her Jesy Nelson drama as she flashed her underwear at a film premiere – after Little Mix reunion hopes were dashed this week.

Day ago, Jesy, 34, shocked fans when she released her bombshell documentary which, according to sources, was “upsetting” for Leigh-Anne, 34, and fellow bandmate Perrie Edwards, 32, and Jade Thirlwall, 33.

Jesy’s Prime doc, called Life After Little Mix, caused shockwaves when she made claims of “feeling alone” during a tough time in the girl group.

But putting on a brave face, Leigh-Anne pulled out all the stops at the London premiere of Charli XCX’s movie, The Moment.

The mum-of-two looked incredible in the daring crochet maxi dress.

The outfit showed off her incredible figure, and she completed her sexy look with a striking neon green bandeau top.

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Leigh-Anne also cheekily flashed her thong in the see-through outfit.

The star’s striking look made sure to turn heads on the red carpet, and she looked incredible as she posed for the waiting cameras.

Little Mix was the first group to win The X Factor back in 2011, before going on to break UK singles chart history with five No. 1s and selling more than 75million records worldwide.

Jesy quit the band after nine years, blaming battles with her mental health and struggles with the pressures of fame as her reasons for leaving.

The band then went on a hiatus in 2021.

Last week, Little Mixers everywhere had been hopeful the girlband would regroup after Jesy hinted that their six-year feud was over after the girls had privately reached out.

In her recent documentary Jesy revealed her secret suicide attempt days before quitting the group – suggesting her cry for help was ignored by bandmates.

Fighting back tears in the doc, she said: “That made me feel really alone. I felt like there was no point. That no one cared.”

But while Jesy gave fresh hope about the possibility of reconciling with the girls, Leigh-Anne, Jade and Perrie’s reactions over the last week, suggest maybe not.

A source told The Sun: “Jesy’s confession has obviously opened up a can of worms for the girls.

“The documentary itself and the backlash that has followed, has brought up a lot of bad feeling from the past.

“It’s been upsetting for the girls, but they are focused on their solo careers and the future now.”

It comes after Jade broke down in tears on stage as she sang Natural At Disaster, whilst on her current solo tour.

The track is said to have been written about her struggling friendship with Jesy, with lyrics including: “It’s hard to love you when you hate yourself. Can’t be there for you without negatively impacting my mental health.”

Seemingly in another swipe at Jesy, she then chose to play Natural At Disaster over her latest Instagram post.

Sharing video footage from behind the scenes at her show in Chicago, JADE wrote: “And all that jazz.”

One fan commented: “The song choice… I hope you’re not shading Jesy. I love you all.”

Perrie meanwhile has kept off social media, last posting a week ago to promote her new song Woman In Love.

She brought forward the release by four days after originally announcing it would be available on the same day as Jesy’s doc.

While Leigh-Anne has been more active than usual on social media.

She has been busy posting about her new album My Ego Told Me To as she goes on tour.

She told fans: “I can’t tell you how excited I am to perform this album live for you!

“Get me back to my happy place nowww! This one’s going to be so special!”

WASHINGTON — President Bush marked Black History Month Saturday with a promise to deliver big funding increases to black colleges “even in a time of recession and war.”

Bush, who won less than 10% of the black vote in the 2000 election but has seen his popularity soar since the Sept. 11 attacks, used his weekly radio address to urge Americans to “reflect on the contributions of African Americans.”

Bush sought to assure black leaders he would not renege on a promise to increase funding for historically black colleges and Latino-serving institutions by 30% by 2005.

He also touted the education reforms enacted last month to help narrow the achievement gap between low-income students and their wealthier counterparts. “We have come far, and we have a way yet to go,” Bush said.

“Today we are fighting for freedom in a new way and on new battlefields. And we continue to press for equal opportunity for every American here at home. We want every American to be educated up to his or her full potential,” Bush said.

According to some polls, Bush’s support from blacks more than doubled after the Sept. 11 attacks. Eager to hold on to these gains, the White House has stepped up its outreach to black leaders.

But Bush has come under fire from Democrats, including prominent black lawmakers, for proposing deep cuts in job training and other domestic programs in his fiscal 2003 budget in order to fund more tax cuts and the biggest military buildup in two decades. The 2003 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), in the Democrats’ weekly radio address, said Congress will “stand shoulder to shoulder” with Bush to fight terrorism, but he blasted Bush’s proposed budget for bringing back deficits.

“Part of national security is economic security,” Conrad said. “The problem with the president’s budget is that his plan will return us to deficit spending–not just today, but for years to come.”

Comparing Bush’s budget to collapsed energy giant Enron Corp., Conrad accused Bush of making “the Enron mistake: underestimating our debt and endangering retirement benefits.”

Many Democrats charge that the $1.35-trillion, 10-year tax cut Bush pushed through Congress last year was too costly, imperiling the Social Security retirement program and the Medicare health care program for the elderly as the baby boom generation nears retirement.

The Bush administration defended its proposed cutbacks as part of an effort to shift federal resources away from what the White House deemed wasteful programs.

The top two teams in each group – A to D – will progress to the Super 8s, which will be made up of two groups of four.

If any teams are level on points after the four group-stage fixtures, they will be separated by number of wins and then net run-rate.

The International Cricket Council has pre-determined the Super 8 groups if the eight seeded sides qualify:

X Group: India (X1), Australia (X2), West Indies (X3), South Africa (X4)

Y Group: England (Y1), New Zealand (Y2), Pakistan (Y3), Sri Lanka (Y4)

If any of those sides do not progress, the teams who do in their place will just fill the spot.

Each team plays three more matches in the Super 8s phase, facing each of the other teams in their group once.

After those fixtures, the top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals, with the winner of each Super 8s group facing the runner-up from the other.

Peru’s Congress has ousted President Jose Jeri just four months into his term over multiple corruption allegations. The decision was made just weeks before a general election.

Tigray, Ethiopia – Saba Gedion was 17 when the peace deal that ended the conflict in her homeland of Tigray in northern Ethiopia was signed in 2022.

She hoped then that fighting would be a thing of the past, but the last few months have convinced her that strife is once again looming, and she feels paralysed with despair.

“Many people are leaving the region in droves,” Gedion told Al Jazeera as she sat under the shade of a tree, selling coffee to the occasional customer in an area frequented by internally displaced people (IDPs) in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle.

Gedion – herself a displaced person – is from the town of Humera, a now-disputed area with the Amhara region that witnessed heavy clashes during the 2020-2022 war between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The now-21-year-old remembers the horrors she witnessed. Some of her family were killed, while others were abducted into neighbouring Eritrea, she says. She has not heard from them since.

Though she made it out alive, her life was turned upside-down when she was forced to flee to Mekelle for safety.

Years later, Gedion sees similar patterns as people leave Tigray – most headed to the neighbouring Afar region – once again looking for the safety that has become elusive at home.

“Recurring conflict and civil war have made us zombies rather than citizens,” she told Al Jazeera.

In recent weeks, enmity between Ethiopia and Eritrea has escalated amid separate accusations by both sides.

Speaking to Ethiopia’s parliament in early February, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addressed his landlocked country’s access to the sea, saying “the Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever”. This has led to accusations by Eritrea that Addis Ababa is seeking to invade its country and trying to reclaim the Red Sea Assab seaport, which it lost in 1993 with the independence of Eritrea.

Ethiopia, meanwhile, has accused Eritrean troops of occupying its territory along parts of their shared border, and called for the immediate withdrawal of soldiers from the towns of Sheraro and Gulomakada, among others. Addis Ababa also accuses Eritrea of arming rebels in the vast Horn of Africa country.

Observers say the heightening tensions point to an impending war between the two countries – one that could once again involve Tigray.

Unhealed scars of war

In Tigray’s capital, a once-booming city of tourism and business, most streets are quiet.

The young people who previously frequented cafes are now often seen applying for visas and speaking with smugglers in the hope of leaving Tigray.

Helen Gessese, 36, lives in a makeshift IDP camp on the outskirts of Mekelle. She worries about what will become of the already struggling region should another conflict erupt.

Gessese is an ethnic Irob, a persecuted Catholic minority group from the border town of Dewhan in the northeastern part of Tigray.

During the Tigray war, several of her family members were kidnapped, she said, as Eritrean troops expanded their hold of the area.

As the war intensified, she fled to Mekelle, about 150km away, looking for safety. Her elderly parents were too frail to join her on foot, so she was forced to leave them behind. Like Gedion, she has not heard from them or the rest of her family since 2022.

“My life has been held back, not knowing if my elderly parents are still alive,” she told Al Jazeera, the stress of the last few years making her seem much older than she is.

In Mekelle, it is not uncommon to meet people who are anguished or frustrated – some by the renewed tensions, and many by the trauma of the previous conflict.

More than 80 percent of hospitals were left in ruins in Tigray during the war, according to humanitarian organisations, while sexual violence that defined the two-year conflict is still a recurring issue. Hundreds of thousands of young people are still out of school, foreign investment that created jobs in the past has in large part evaporated, and the economy remains crippled after years of war.

Meanwhile, nearly four years later, the federal government’s decision to withhold foreign funds meant for the region is deepening a humanitarian crisis. The bulk of the public service in the region, for instance, has not been paid for months.

The Ethiopia-Eritrea relationship has also deteriorated in recent years.

The longstanding foes had waged war against each other between 1998 and 2000, but in 2018, they signed a peace deal. They then became allies during the 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray against common enemy, the TPLF.

But the relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been in sharp decline since the signing of the 2022 accord that ended the Tigray war – an agreement that Asmara was not party to.

‘Acts of outright aggression’

Earlier this month, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gedion Timothewos wrote an open letter acknowledging the presence of Eritrean troops loitering on the Ethiopian side of the border and calling for them to leave.

“The incursion of Eritrean troops …” he wrote, “is not just provocations but acts of outright aggression.”

Asmara continues to deny the presence of its troops on the Ethiopian side, and Eritrean Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel has called such accusations “an agenda of war against Eritrea”.

As a sign of the worsening of the relationship between the two neighbours, Ethiopia’s Abiy, in his address to lawmakers early in February, also accused Eritrean troops of committing atrocities during the Tigray war. The accusation was a first from the prime minister, following repeated denials by his government about reported mass killings, looting and the destruction of factories by Eritrean troops during the Tigray conflict.

Eritrea’s government rejected Abiy’s claims about atrocities, with Gebremeskel calling them “cheap and despicable lies”, noting that Abiy’s government had until recently been “showering praises and state medals” on Eritrean army officers.

As the tensions escalate, many observers say war between the two is now inevitable and have called for dialogue and the de-escalation of the situation.

“The situation remains highly volatile and we fear that it will deteriorate, worsening the region’s already precarious human rights and humanitarian situation,” the United Nations Human Rights spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, said this month.

Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College, told Al Jazeera a new war would have “wide-reaching implications for the region” – regardless of the outcome.

He believes the looming conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea could take the shape of a new civil war, positioning Addis Ababa against Tigray’s leadership yet again.

From Ethiopia’s side, he argues the objective would be regime change in both Asmara and Mekelle, noting that “regime change in Eritrea may lead to Ethiopia gaining control of Assab”. For Asmara and Mekelle, the aim would also be regime change in Addis Ababa, he suggests.

“If it erupts, it will be devastating for Tigray,” Tronvoll said. “The outcome of such a war will likely fundamentally alter the political landscape of Ethiopia and the Horn [of Africa],” he warned, pointing out that regional states could also be pulled into a proxy war.

Fears for the future

For many in Tigray, memories of massacres committed during the 2020-2022 war are still fresh.

Axum, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the central zone of the Tigray region, is known for its tall obelisk relics of an ancient kingdom. But for 24 hours in November 2020, the city was the site of killings carried out by the Eritrean army. “Many hundreds of civilians” were killed, rights group Amnesty International said.

While the killings were denied by both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments for many years, this month Abiy acknowledged they had taken place.

However, despite speaking of “mass killings” in Axum, he has been silent about the fact that the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies worked together openly as allies during that war.

Marta Keberom, a resident in her forties who hails from Axum, says very few people in her hometown have not been touched by violence in the last five years.

“The killings that happened during the war wasn’t just a conflict, it had the hallmark of a genocide where whole families were murdered without a cause,” she said of the killings that targeted Tigrayans.

“To relive that,” Keberom said, speaking at an IDP centre in Mekelle, would be “something I can’t begin to comprehend.”

Waiting for customers at her coffee stand in the city, Gedion is also afraid of what might come next.

She once aspired to be an engineer, but since being uprooted from her village, she now dreams of a future far away from Ethiopia.

She has already contacted a smuggler to help her leave, she says, through Libya and on towards the Mediterranean Sea – despite the extreme risks of such a journey.

“I would rather take a chance than die a slow, certain death with little future prospects,” she said.

In 1994, the Rev. Jesse Jackson declared war on Hollywood.

The civil rights leader, who died Tuesday, set his sights on the entertainment industry, accusing it of “institutional racism” and calling out what he called the lack of representation of people of color and women, an issue that reverberates today.

Jackson aimed his trademark fiery dynamism at studio and network executives, forming the Rainbow Coalition on Fairness in the Media — an offshoot of his Rainbow Coalition that focused on social justice and economic equality — and threatening boycotts against projects that excluded minorities.

Comparing his campaign to the historic march in Selma, Ala., and other civil rights demonstrations during a news conference, Jackson said, “They think they have the right to not include us in recruitment, hiring, promotion, projection, decision making. But we have consumer power, we have viewer power, we have the power to change dials. … The networks have time now to get their house in order. They can begin to change now.”

The pronouncement was a dramatic contrast to Jackson’s 1984 hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live” and his memorable reading of “Green Eggs and Ham” during a 1991 appearance on the sketch variety series.

But despite his characteristic command and media savvy, Jackson’s campaign never gained true momentum, scoring mixed results. Black actors and creators within Hollywood for the most part failed to rally around him, and leaders of some advocacy groups accused him of losing focus. Whoopi Goldberg made fun of him while hosting the 1996 Oscars.

By 1997, the battle had fizzled out and Jackson had moved on to more political concerns.

The clash with Hollywood was first sparked after several Black-oriented shows on Fox, including “South Central,” “Roc,” “In Living Color” and “The Sinbad Show” were canceled in the July 1994. Jackson felt there would not be much improvement in the diversity on the shows in the upcoming fall season.

“We know that significant shows were cut off from Fox this season, and that is of great concern to us,” Jackson said at a news conference at the African American Community Unity Center where he was accompanied by Brotherhood Crusade founder Danny Bakewell and comedian Sinbad, who starred in his own eponymous sitcom.

And Jackson said it wasn’t the only TV network with this problem. “We look at the data we have on NBC. It is substantial. It is ugly. We look at the projected format for CBS this fall. In the real sense, all of them are recycling racist practices. It is called institutional racism. It is manifest not only in their hiring, but in their priorities.”

He added that he was also concerned about what he claimed was poor representation of people of color and women among network news anchors and on writing staffs on prime-time network series. He criticized the prominence of Black actors having major roles that often involved criminal activity.

Jameel Hasan as Homey Jr., left, and Damon Wayans as Homey D. Clown on Fox’s “In Living Color,” which was canceled in 1994.

(Nicola Goode / Fox)

“We have written the networks letters, and the response, by and large, has been defensive as they attempt to justify what is unjustifiable,” Jackson said at the news conference. “While we’re willing to talk, we’re also willing to walk. It’s now time for aggressive direct action.”

In a separate interview, he targeted politically oriented Sunday news shows, saying they excluded Black journalists and news figures: “Those all-white hosts determine their guests and set the political agenda for public policy for Monday morning. That’s not America.”

His newly formed commission was researching network hiring practices and minority images. He vowed that boycotts and other actions would take place if there was not significant change.

But those demonstrations never materialized, and no boycotts were called. Roughly a year after his initial declaration, observers inside and outside the industry said networks had mostly ignored Jackson, and that little had changed.

Some leaders at the time questioned his commitment, saying he did not seem truly dedicated to aggressive action.

Sonny Skyhawk, founder and president of American Indians in Film, one of the organizations that had joined forces with Jackson, said the campaign against the networks should have been stronger.

“I would hate to criticize him for not being more diligent, but it is frustrating,” said Skyhawk in a 1995 interview about the initiative. “I don’t know where (the issue) is or why he is not continuing on this. But I think he got sidetracked on a lot of other things.”

Sherrie Mazingo, who was then head of broadcast journalism at USC, said she was not surprised that the Jackson campaign had lost steam: “What happened last season isn’t new, it’s perennial, and may even be cyclical. Protests and accusations and talk like this goes on all the time, and nothing ever happens. Nothing.”

Mazingo cited similar efforts by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in the early 1980s that had attacked Hollywood’s hiring practices. A boycott of films that failed to use Black artists in front of or behind the camera was proposed but never materialized.

“I believe what happens when these things start is that an individual in the organization who is pushing forward on these issues gets tired of banging their head against a brick wall,” Mazingo said. “They make an all-out assault, exhaust a lot of energy and money, and nothing ever significantly changes, except for a token gesture here and there.”

Sumi Haru, who was president of the Assn. of Asian Pacific Artists, said Jackson had been sidetracked by more topical issues such as a conservative power grab in Washington, D.C., and calls for abolishing affirmative action programs.

“He needed to focus his energy on the civil rights initiative, and affirmative action was a much bigger deal,” said Haru.

But Billie Green, president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch of the NAACP, said Jackson’s campaign would have been more effective if it had joined forces with other organizations that had members within the television industry.

Jackson pushed back against the criticism, insisting that the fight against Hollywood “is still very high on our agenda.” He pointed out that he had worked to continue government funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, protested the cancellation of the Nickelodeon series about two Black brothers, “My Brother and Me,” picketed conservative “hate radio” programs and sent out a fax to 8,000 supporters asking them to rally CBS to bring back the family drama “Under One Roof.”

“It’s going to get more intense,” Jackson said.

In 1996, Jackson turned his attention to the Academy Awards, angered that there was only one Black nominee among the 166 artists nominated. He called for picketing in major cities and and said Black people attending the Oscar ceremony should wear a symbol expressing solidarity against what he called Hollywood’s “race exclusion and cultural violence.”

But during the Oscars, which was produced by Quincy Jones, Goldberg, who was hosting, took a swipe at the civil rights leader who was picketing across town.

“Jesse Jackson asked me to wear a ribbon. I got it,” Goldberg said during her opening. “But I had something I want to say to Jesse right here, but he’s not watching, so why bother?” The remark drew applause and laughter from the black-tie audience.

Some leaders, producers and directors were not amused by Goldberg, saying her remarks were insulting and dismissive of a serious fight to gain diversity within the motion picture industry. But others criticized Jackson, calling his action ill-timed and ill-advised. Several of the most prominent African Americans present, including Oprah Winfrey, Sidney Poitier and Laurence Fishburne, did not wear rainbow-colored ribbons as a sign of solidarity with Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition.

Even though he concentrated on other endeavors, Jackson was not totally done with Hollywood. He and the Rev. Al Sharpton spearheaded a protest in 2002 against the comedy “Barbershop” and its jokes about Jackson and ciivil rights icons Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. The two leaders also threatened a boycott against the 2004 comedy “Soul Plane.”

ONE ride at Legoland is set to be knocked down to make way for something new.

The Viking River Splash ride in Land of the Vikings closed back in 2023 and was once a favourite amongst visitors.

The clearance of the site is to make way for a new attraction within the park.

The Viking River Splash, a water rapids ride, first opened in 2007.

After 16 years, Legoland announced news of the ride’s closure on Facebook. They wrote: “Calling all Vikings! It is time to lay down your oars and say a fond farewell to Viking River Splash.

“Join the LEGO® Viking fleet one last time and make your last voyage before Monday 25th September, after which the ride becomes part of Viking history.”

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When the ride was first announced to close, lots of visitors were disappointed – but excited to see what came next.

One said: “Sad to see this ride go! However it needs it! Can’t wait to see what the park does with the space.”

Another added: “Surprising move. However I’m curious as to whether it will be re-themed or replaced.”

This isn’t the first application from Legoland this year.

It has also submitted another to build a new 390-capacity 4D cinema at its Imagination Theatre.

The Imagination Theatre is one of the oldest attractions at the theme park, which celebrates its 30th anniversary next month.

Both applications are waiting for approval from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM).

Last summer, Legoland Windsor revealed its brand new entryway.

Over the years, the main entrance had remained relatively unchanged until August 2025.

It now has two new huge 32 feet tall structures on either side of the Legoland sign.

These look like giant Lego bricks and on top of them are characters like knights and ninjas on the towers.

Other upgrades around the park will be a new Brick Street Cafe, upgraded bag search and ticket areas, and improved crossing.

The plans were given the go-ahead in November 2024.

The park’s Miniland revealed its £1.2million makeover in early 2025 too – the revamp of Miniland includes new buildings such as The Cheese Grater, The Gherkin and Canary Wharf buildings.

While there are 10 other Legoland theme parks around the world, Legoland Windsor is the biggest – it has 55 attractions to explore.

One Legoland resort has announced it will open the world-first Harry Potter land with rides and wizard themed hotel rooms.

And one Disney fan reveals what they thought of the Legoland Windsor resort after visiting for the first time.

DID you know that the UK is home to Europe’s largest wave pool?

The resort that’s a haven for surfers has just been named as the best of its kind in the world – it also has on-site restaurants and luxury lodges.

Lost Shore Surf Resort in Ratho has been named the World’s Best Surf Park by Blooloop.

The publication assessed the likes of on-site food and drink, overnight accommodation, hot tubs and recovery pools, viewing areas.

The resort was a £60million project and is found on a Craigpark Quarry just outside of Edinburgh.

It opened in 2024 and last year welcomed 200,000 visitors – of course most were enticed by the fact that it’s home to Europe’s largest wave pool which provides top tiers water conditions for keen surfers.

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Surf lesson start from £65 (£55 for children) and is coached in groups of eight with qualified instructors.

For those who are more experienced, a ‘surf session’ starts from £60 (£50 for children) – you can choose the wave setting and get started.

There are also surfskate lessons on offer which is a form of skateboarding that feels like surfing on dry land – and is recommended for beginners before heading into the water.

These start from £22.50 (£17 for children).

While Lost Shore Resort is obviously a haven for surfers, but there’s so much more to do on-site too from checking out its food options, to checking into its beautiful pods and lodges.

The high-end luxury Hilltop Lodges at the resort have sweeping views across the cove.

Inside are open plan living areas with up to four bedrooms and are ideal for families or large groups.

A stay in a Hilltop Lodge which sleeps up to eight people starts from £200 (with a minimum two night stay).

The cheapest stay is in the waterfront pods which are right next to the wave pool and each comes with a floating super king bed.

It’s high-tech so guests get touchscreen and app control over the pod -it has mood lighting and the en-suite bathroom has underfloor heating.

A one-night stay in the pod which sleeps up to two people starts from £100 per night.

There are plenty of offers for those who want to ‘surf and stay’ with one night in a Waterfront Pod along with four surfs starting from £300.

Blooloop added: “The venue goes above and beyond the core surf park offerings through its Surf Therapy collaborations with The Wave Project and Inclusive Surfing Scotland.

“Weekly events fill the calendar like Quiz Night, dance events, movie premieres, kids surf camps and specialty surf competitions.”

The resort focuses on wellness too, so the resort also has a spa with a wood-fired sauna – a 30-minute session is just £10.

Visitors and members can also book massages and other treatments.

There are even surf-inspired treatments like ‘soulful surfer’ which is an aromatherapy and rebalance ritual.

It’s loved by visitors too, one wrote on Tripadvisor: “Lost Shore is a Phenomenal place. The food was amazing, surf was awesome and the accommodation was stunning. I would highly recommend a visit.”

Another guest added: “The facility is incredible, looks beautiful and the attention to detail of every aspect is clear to see. We stayed in a large pod and it was amazing, right beside the pool, big rooms, kitchen, all the amenities you could want.”

Over the Easter holidays, Lost Shore Resort is offering family stays in the Hilltop Lodges from £150 per night.

And for anyone staying in the months of February and March, guests can enjoy a free brunch, from pastries to granola, toasted croissants and breakfast baps.

There are three different restaurants at the canteen on the resort – lost Kitchen which serves up the likes of chunky fish fingers and fried chicken with chips.

At Lost Taco, dig into Mexican favourites of tacos, burritos and nachos, or opt for Civerinos or pizzas and crispy gnocchi.

As for where to find it, Lost Shore Resort is 25 minutes from Edinburgh‘s city centre.

For more on surfing, one writer visited The Wave near Bristol – which is the second best surf park in the world.

Plus, check out this exotic new ‘floating’ outdoor swimming pool to open right by the River Thames.

WASHINGTON — In a simple ceremony attended by their families and a few well-known friends, Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum and former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. were married Saturday, the first time two people who served in the Senate have ever tied the knot.

“She was beautiful, he was handsome, and they were happy,” said former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, who attended the wedding with his wife, Honey, at St. Alban’s Church in Washington.

The bride, 64, who is retiring in a few weeks after serving three Senate terms from Kansas, wore a dark purple dress just below knee length, accented by rolled pearls. Baker, 71, who served three Senate terms from Tennessee ending in 1985, wore a navy blue suit, white shirt, and navy tie with small yellow dots.

Viewed through the glass outer doors of the church, the couple clasped hands before the ceremony and then walked together down the aisle of the stone church, which is adjacent to the huge National Cathedral.

The 15-minute ceremony before 80 guests was performed by former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, an ordained Episcopal priest, and the Rev. Martha Anne Fairchild, a Presbyterian minister from Baker’s hometown of Huntsville, Tenn.

The matron of honor was Kassebaum’s daughter, Linda Johnson. Baker’s son Darek was best man.

After sealing their marriage with a kiss and greeting guests, the newlyweds came outside in a steady, cold rain to talk to reporters. Kassebaum said she wasn’t nervous, but Baker felt a little differently.

“I’ve been nervous for days,” he said.

Aside from their families, guests at the wedding included former First Lady Barbara Bush, former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, former ambassador Robert S. Strauss and former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

The couple planned a honeymoon, but wouldn’t reveal where they will go.

Feb. 18 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1841, the first filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It ended March 11.

In 1865, after a long Civil War siege, Union naval forces captured Charleston, S.C.

In 1930, dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

In 1954, the Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles. L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the church based on his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, died in 1986.

In 1967, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” died in Princeton, N.J., at the age of 62.

File Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

In 1979, snow fell in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the first known time. It fell a second time in 2016 and a third time in 2018.

In 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr., stock-car racing’s top driver, was killed in a crash in the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500. He was 49.

In 2003, nearly 200 people died and scores were injured in a South Korea subway fire set by a man authorities said apparently was upset at his doctors.

In 2004, 40 chemical and fuel-laden runaway rail cars derailed near Nishapur in northeastern Iran, producing an explosion that killed at least 300 people and injured hundreds of others.

File Photo by Ali Khal/UPI

In 2006, 16 people died in rioting in Nigeria over published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that enraged Muslims around the world.

In 2008, two of four masterpieces stolen from the Zurich museum a week earlier, a Monet and a van Gogh, were found in perfect condition in the back seat of an unlocked car in Zurich.

In 2013, eight men disguised as police disabled a security fence, drove two vehicles onto a Brussels airport tarmac and stole diamonds worth $50 million.

In 2014, violence erupted between protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, eventually resulting in 98 dead with an estimated 15,000 injured and 100 believed missing.

In 2021, NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance made a robotic landing on Mars, starting a high-tech mission to hunt for signs of life in an ancient lakebed.

In 2024, Fifty-five people died following an ambush in Papua New Guinea’s remote Highlands region amid a years-long series of clashes among warring tribes.

When India’s top court banned a controversial scheme in February 2024 that allowed individuals and corporates to make anonymous donations to political parties through opaque electoral bonds, many transparency activists hailed the judgement as a win for democracy.

Between 2018, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government introduced the electoral bonds, and when they were scrapped in 2024, secret donors funnelled nearly $2bn to parties.

More than half of that went to Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has held India’s central government since 2014, and also governs at least 20 Indian states and federally controlled territories, either directly or in coalition with allies.

In striking down the scheme, the Supreme Court said that “political contributions give a seat at the table to the contributor” and that “this access also translates into influence over policymaking”.

But two years later, data shows that big business continues to pump in millions of dollars in funding to political parties, with the BJP retaining its position as the biggest beneficiary, frequently raising serious concerns over a quid pro quo with donors.

The donors have returned to an older funding mechanism: electoral trusts. Introduced in 2013 by the Manmohan Singh government led by the Congress party that preceded Modi, the trusts, unlike bonds, require the donors to disclose their identities and the amount of money being given.

But that relative transparency is not dissuading companies from major mega-donations to parties directly positioned to benefit them through policies and contracts, an analysis of recent political funding by Al Jazeera reveals.

‘Money determines access’

In 2024-25, nine electoral trusts donated a total of $459.2m to political parties, with the BJP receiving $378.6 million — 83 percent of it. The main opposition Congress party got about $36m (8 percent), while other parties received the remaining amount.

This data is sourced from disclosures made during the first full year after the Supreme Court ban on bonds.

Two major corporations stood out, due to their significant financial scale and policy influence:  The Tata Group, founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, is a global conglomerate with more than 30 companies spanning steel, IT, automobiles, aviation, and more. Its aggregate revenue for FY 2024-25  exceeded $180bn. The Murugappa Group, founded in 1900 by A M Murugappa Chettiar as a money-lending business in Burma (now Myanmar), is a prominent Indian conglomerate with 29 businesses in engineering, agriculture, financial services and beyond. Its turnover stood at $8.53bn in 2024-25.

Documents submitted to the Election Commission of India in 2024-2025 show that the Progressive Electoral Trust, backed by 15 companies belonging to the Tata Group conglomerate, distributed approximately $110.2m to 10 political parties in the run-up to the 2024 general election.

The BJP received about $91.3m – again roughly 83 percent of the total fund – while the Congress got $9.31m, with smaller sums going to several regional parties. Tata made its contribution on April 2, 2024, while Murugappa did so on March 26, 2024.

India’s general elections began on April 19 and concluded on June 1, 2024.

The timing and scale of these donations are significant, say experts. Tata’s donations came within weeks of the government approving two semiconductor projects worth more than $15.2bn announced by the Tata Group in Gujarat and Assam – both BJP-ruled states.

The Modi government also provided additional support of about $5.3bn under India’s plans to promote semiconductor development.

Meanwhile, in February 2024, the Indian government approved a semiconductor assembly and testing facility proposed by CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd, a Murugappa Group company. The project, to be set up in Sanand, Gujarat, with an investment of approximately $870m, also received central and state government incentives.

In the same financial year, disclosures showed that yet another trust called Triumph Electoral Trust received $15.06m from Tube Investments of India Ltd, another Murugappa Group company. The entire money went to the BJP, with no contribution by Triumph to other parties.The scale of these donations surprised observers as the Murugappa Group had been a modest political donor over the previous decade.

“Electoral trusts may be legal, but they normalise a system where money determines access, policy, and electoral success,” Parayil Sreerag, a political strategist, told Al Jazeera. Sreerag argued that such a mechanism “favours the ruling party, marginalises smaller movements, and erodes democratic competition and public trust”.

To be sure, corporate funding in India has a long history.

The Birla group of companies was a major financier of Mahatma Gandhi in the years leading up to independence in 1947. Since then, other companies and parties have continued the practice.

“Business houses have traditionally supported ruling political parties,” G Gopa Kumar, former vice chancellor of the Central University of Kerala and a political strategist, told Al Jazeera.

India’s legal framework governing corporate donations to political parties has evolved alongside political shifts. The Companies Act, 1956, first regulated such contributions, barring government companies and young firms, while mandating disclosure of donations. Corporate funding was later banned in 1969 under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The ban was lifted in 1985.

A major overhaul came in 2013 with the introduction of Electoral Trusts and the Companies Act, 2013. The new law capped corporate donations at 7.5 percent of average net profits, required board approval, and mandated disclosure, marking a significant attempt at regulation and transparency.

But while the Modi-era electoral bonds between 2018 and 2024 drew the bulk of the criticism over electoral finance from transparency activists, the return to electoral trusts has coincided with what is, in effect, an increase in corporate funding for parties. Between 2018 and 2024, the electoral bonds led to an average of under $350m in total donations per year.

Trusts – to which corporates turned after the bonds were scrapped – donated more than $450m by contrast, in 2024-25.

“Left unchecked, it [soaring corporate funding] risks creating a duopoly between political power and corporate capital,” Sreerag said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Tata Group, the Murugappa Group and the Election Commission of India for their responses to concerns over links between donations and influence, but it has not yet received any response.

Uncovering corruption in election funding

Transparency activists argue that the surge in corporate funding, especially for the ruling party, both reveals the access and influence enjoyed by major firms and sheds light on the disadvantages faced by smaller parties and independent candidates.

Shelly Mahajan, a researcher at the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a prominent Indian election watchdog, said unequal access to private donations undermines political participation and electoral competition.

“Despite decades of reform proposals, the nexus between money and politics persists in India due to weak enforcement and inadequate regulation,” she told Al Jazeera.

To many, the electoral bonds scheme came to epitomise that dark and cosy “nexus”.

In December, Nature magazine published a study on alleged corruption under the scheme, authored by academics Devendra Poola and Vinitha Anna John.

The authors found that newly incorporated companies made unusually large donations soon after their formation, pointing to expectations of gains from the government. In several cases, firms accused of tax evasion or other financial crimes donated after raids by India’s enforcement and investigating agencies, raising concerns of coercive political pressure: 26 entities under investigation bought bonds worth $624.7m, including $223.3m after raids by investigating agencies.

Bond purchases peaked around election cycles. That timing – around elections and after raids – was “significant”, Poola told Al Jazeera. “That sequencing is analytically difficult to dismiss as coincidence.” While the data cannot establish legal intent, Poola stressed that the pattern points to an “institutionalised quid pro quo ecosystem enabled by opacity”.

Yet critics say transparency alone does not resolve the link between public policy and political funding – as the data since the ban on electoral bonds shows.

‘What kind of democracy is this?’

Mahajan, the ADR researcher, said that in its decision to strike down the electoral bonds, the Supreme Court invoked the 2013 law on electoral trusts to reimpose a 7.5 percent cap on corporate donations based on their net profits.

Companies were ordered to disclose both the amounts and the recipients, creating greater scope for public scrutiny and detailed analysis. But that is not happening. Abhilash MR, a Supreme Court lawyer, said large corporate donations raise serious concerns, particularly under Article 14 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees political equality and administrative fairness.

He said there is mounting evidence of generous government incentives followed by large corporate donations.“When policy decisions appear calibrated to facilitate corporate funding, the very idea of a welfare state is undermined,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that proving corruption in courts remains extremely difficult.

“Temporal proximity between policy benefits and donations rarely meets the evidentiary threshold needed to trigger an independent judicial inquiry,” he said. “In such situations, accountability shifts from courtrooms to the public domain.”

Mini S, a politician from the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) party, had hoped for that shift among voters when she contested the 2024 national elections from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Kerala state.

She couldn’t fund air-conditioned vehicles, so her campaign during India’s notorious summer moved through neighbourhoods on hired motorbikes and autorickshaws. She hoped to unseat Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat and politician from the opposition Congress party, who had been representing Thiruvananthapuram in parliament since 2009. When the votes were counted, Mini secured just 1,109 votes, while Tharoor won by a landslide. She also forfeited her $275 security deposit.

But for Mini, the outcome was less a personal defeat than an indictment of how Indian elections are fought. Her entire campaign ran on $5,500, she said, an amount much lower than the $105,000 limit set by the Election Commission of India on expenditure by a parliamentary candidate.

“India likes to call itself the world’s largest democracy, but it’s not,” Mini told Al Jazeera. “When corporate money openly funds mainstream parties – through electoral bonds and trusts, often in clear quid pro quo arrangements – and the Election Commission stays silent, what kind of democracy is this?”

In such a scenario, Mini said, government policies “serve corporate interests, not the constitution”.

“Ordinary people are sidelined, and the marginalised are pushed further into the margins. With money of this scale in elections, anyone without corporate backing, like us, is effectively locked out of politics,” she said.

The cause of death for Victoria Jones, the daughter of Hollywood legend Tommy Lee Jones, has been revealed a month and a half after she was found dead in a hotel in San Francisco on New Year’s Day.

The San Francisco medical examiner released a report Tuesday ruling her death accidental, the result of the toxic effects of cocaine. The 34-year-old was discovered dead at the Fairmont San Francisco in the early hours of Jan. 1.

San Francisco police responded to a call at 3:14 a.m. regarding a report of a deceased person at the hotel. Officers met with medics at the scene who declared an adult female dead.

Jones briefly pursued acting, making a cameo alongside her father in “Men in Black II” (2002) and later appearing in “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005), which was directed by her father. She later largely remained out of the spotlight and struggled with substance abuse.

In August 2023, her father petitioned that she be placed under temporary conservatorship, according to Marin County court records.

At the time of the filing, she was under a 14-day involuntary psychiatric hold at a hospital in the community of Greenbrae, and her father wanted her to be transferred to a rehabilitation facility, according to a copy of the petition acquired by the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The proposed conservatee needs to recover and work towards sobriety,” the petition stated. “For these reasons, the proposed conservatee will suffer irreparable harm if her residence is not changed from a hospital to a rehab facility.”

Margaret Caron Schmierer was granted temporary conservatorship over Jones in August 2023. Jones retained an attorney and fought the conservatorship.

Then, in December 2023, Tommy Lee Jones filed a petition for the convervatorship to be terminated, which was granted, court records show.

In 2025, Jones was arrested twice in Napa County.

She was charged with three misdemeanor counts — being under the influence of a controlled substance, possession of a narcotic and obstruction of a peace officer — from an incident on April 26. She was later charged with misdemeanor domestic battery from an incident on June 13, court records show. She pleaded not guilty to all charges and the cases remained open at the time of her death.

Jones was the daughter of Tommy Lee and ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley. She is also survived by her older brother, Austin Jones.

Tommy Lee Jones is known for his Academy Award-winning role as U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in “The Fugitive” (1993) alongside other iconic roles such as Agent K in “Men in Black” (1997) and as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in “No Country for Old Men” (2007).

Staff writer Tracy Brown contributed to this report

SACRAMENTO — After months of partisan warfare and weeks of hard-nosed bargaining, Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law a historic reform package Monday transforming welfare in California into a program that provides only temporary aid to the poor and requires work in return for assistance.

With legislative leaders standing at his elbow, the Republican governor formally set into motion revolutionary changes in the welfare law that will affect 2.3 million people, mostly women and children, who depend on government assistance for the basic necessities of life.

“This was not an easy task, but in the end the effort produced a solution based on very sound and very equitable principles,” Wilson said. “From now on public assistance in California will be temporary, it will be a transition, it will be strictly time-limited.”

The new program, named CalWORKS and slated to take effect Jan. 1, 1998, will limit to 24 months the time that current recipients can be on aid. It also will provide community service positions for those who reach that limit and cannot find work, require recipients to participate in job searches and job training, and penalize those who refuse to accept a valid job offer.

Mirroring a federal welfare reform act passed almost exactly a year ago, the program sets a five-year lifetime limit for adults to receive aid, but at the same time it obligates the state to make massive investments in job training and child care to ease their movement into the work force.

In the first year alone, state officials estimate that $1.3 billion will be spent on child care and $530 million on employment.

Because of the investments in child care and training, the $7-billion-plus welfare program initially will not produce savings. And, in the first year, the legislative analyst estimates that welfare spending will increase by $223 million.

But the program–designed to comply with the new federal law–is expected to significantly reduce welfare rolls in the next five years and result in cost reductions.

“In a vibrant economy that creates jobs and enables entry-level workers to climb the ladder of success,” Wilson said, “we have a duty to encourage [welfare recipients] to escape from dependency to the independence and dignity of work.”

Smiling legislative leaders, many of whom only a week ago were exchanging barbs with the governor, praised the reform package as an example of compromise at its best.

“Today we put behind us politics and enacted a bipartisan welfare reform plan,” said Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno). “CalWORKS is a tough and fair plan that makes welfare what those of us in the middle have always thought it should be–temporary help to let families get back on their feet.”

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) said the high-level bargaining between legislators and the governor had forced them to find a middle ground that “appropriately combines the doctrines of personal responsibility, market discipline and humanitarian efforts to help those who are needy.”

But amid the enthusiasm, he sounded a cautionary note, warning that the real test of their compromise would come at the county level, where the reforms would have to be implemented in the next few years.

“We hope [these] efforts will survive the next economic downturn,” he said.

Left undone in the reform package, said Sen. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), one of the authors of the legislation, was any attempt to create the low-level jobs that welfare recipients will need if they are to leave welfare.

Even California’s current robust economy, he said, does not produce hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be needed in the coming years to provide employment for recipients who move out of the welfare system.

“I am struck by the fact,” said Assemblyman Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), “that while this seems like the end, it is really but the beginning.”

In recognition of the new responsibilities that the law places on counties, Wilson flew later in the day to Los Angeles County, which has a welfare population that is larger than the entire populations of more than half the states.

“We have a lot riding on the success of this program,” said County Board of Supervisors Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky. “We have to place tens of thousands of people into jobs in the coming weeks and months, but it can be done.”

Calling the new reform act a “testament to what happens when both parties try to find out what they have in common,” Yaroslavsky said passage of the act should not be considered a belittlement of welfare recipients.

“People who are on public assistance should not all be painted with one negative brush,” he said. “Most of the people we have on public assistance today want to work. They are productive and talented. They just need a chance and, given a chance, they will perform.”

Herman Mancera, a single father of two who appeared at the news conference with Wilson and Yaroslavsky, said that, after receiving assistance for four years, he had been able to move into a job program sponsored by United Airlines for welfare recipients.

“It feels great being able to be part of the work force again,” Mancera said.

HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS
TUESDAY’S RESULTS
SOUTHERN SECTION
BOYS

OPEN DIVISION
Pool A
#1 Sierra Canyon 95, #8 Corona del Mar 65

Pool B
#7 Harvard-Westlake 83, #2 Santa Margarita 62

Pool C
#3 Redondo Union 69, #6 Corona Centennial 57

Pool D
#4 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 69, #5 St. John Bosco 60

Note: Quarterfinals Friday; Semifinals Feb. 24; Finals 6 p.m. Feb. 28 at Toyota Arena.

QUARTERFINALS
DIVISION 1
Crean Lutheran 83, Village Christian 58
Rancho Christian 71, Millikan 62
Inglewood 82, Fairmont Prep 69
JSerra 66, Rolling Hills Prep 49

DIVISION 2
Bishop Amat 74, Anaheim Canyon 70
Eastvale Roosevelt 74, Edison 65
Mater Dei 82, El Dorado 72
Hesperia 55, Rancho Verde 53

DIVISION 3
Murrieta Mesa 64, Ontario Christian 50
Warren 56, Golden Valley 53
Aliso Niguel 78, Alta Loma 58
Gahr 65, Woodbridge 55

DIVISION 4
Trabuco Hills 99, Blair 92
Norte Vista 70, Cathedral 63
Shalhevet 46, Long Beach Jordan 45
Colony 63, Walnut 60

DIVISION 5
Gardena Serra 65, Rancho Mirage 49
Vasquez 80, Oakwood 71
Pilibos 55, Temple City 33
San Juan Hills 70, Verbum Dei Jesuit 63

DIVISION 6
Placentia Valencia 57, St. Bonaventure 39
Ramona 66, Montclair 52
Laguna Hills 73, Orange Vista 62
Moreno Valley 49, Buckley 45

DIVISION 7
Canyon Country Canyon 60, Vista del Lago 55
Salesian 52, Webb 32
Rowland 48, Riverside Notre Dame 47
Rialto 63, Rosemead 32

DIVISION 8
Redlands Adventist 58, Twentynine Palms 48
Victor Valley at Barstow
South El Monte 65, Coastal Christian 50
Edgewood 58, Dunn 56

DIVISION 9
Colton 54, Sherman Indian 47
Santa Maria Valley Christian 53, Loma Linda Academy 51
Samueli Academy at Santa Barbara Providence
Pacific 68, Mesrobian 56

Note: Semifinals Friday; Finals Feb. 27 or 28.

WEDNESDAY’S SCHEDULE
(Games at 7 p.m. unless noted)

CITY SECTION
BOYS
QUARTERFINALS

DIVISION IV
#8 Hawkins at #1 East Valley
#5 San Fernando at #4 Gardena
#6 Angelou at #3 Bell
#7 Conteras at #2 Franklin

DIVISION V
#8 Legacy at #1 Van Nuys
#21 Camino Nuevo at #13 Magnolia Science Academy, 2 p.m.
#19 Santee at #11 Torres
#7 Monroe at #2 Canoga Park

Note: Semifinals Friday; Finals Feb. 27 or 28 at TBA.

SOUTHERN SECTION
GIRLS

OPEN DIVISION
Pool A
#8 JSerra at #1 Ontario Christian

Pool B
#7 Lakewood St. Joseph at #2 Etiwanda

Pool C
#6 Corona Centennial at #3 Sierra Canyon

Pool D
#5 Mater Dei at #4 Sage Hill

Note: Quarterfinals Saturday; Semifinals Feb. 24; Finals 8 p.m. Feb. 28 at Toyota Arena.

QUARTERFINALS

DIVISION 1
Windward at Ventura
Valencia at Troy, 6 p.m.
Moreno Valley at Orange Lutheran
Villa Park at La Salle

DIVISION 2
Portola at Saugus
Camarillo at Summit
San Clemente at Crescenta Valley
Rosary Academy at Dos Pueblos

DIVISION 3
Murrieta Valley at St. Monica
Oxnard at Trabuco Hills
Leuzinger at Mark Keppel
St. Margaret’s at Canyon Country Canyon

DIVISION 4
Long Beach Jordan at La Canada
Anaheim Canyon at Eastside
El Dorado at Long Beach Wilson
Pasadena Poly at Marina

DIVISION 5
Sunny Hills at Bishop Diego, 6 p.m.
Godinez at Torrance
Whitney at Oakwood
Burbank Burroughs at Carter

DIVISION 6
San Jacinto vs. Immaculate Heart at LA City College
Palm Desert at Savanna
Rowland at Hillcrest
Santa Fe at Warren

DIVISION 7
Laguna Hills vs. Foothill Tech at Rio Mesa
Patriot at Rosemead
Ridgecrest Burroughs at AGBU
Cajon at La Palma Kennedy

DIVISION 8
Yucca Valley at University Prep, 5 p.m.
Riverside Notre Dame at Orange
Schurr vs. CAMS at Cabrillo
Santa Monica Pacifica Christian at Chadwick, 5 p.m.

DIVISION 9
Vista del Lago at Santa Clarita Christian, 4:30 p.m.
Channel Islands at Desert Hot Springs
Redlands Adventist at La Sierra
Sierra Vista at Western

Note: Quarterfinals Saturday; Semifinals Feb. 24; Finals 8 p.m. Feb. 28 at Toyota Arena.

Rousey will return to MMA for the first time in nearly a decade when she challenges ⁠Carano on ⁠May 16 in California.

Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano will end their lengthy retirements from mixed martial arts (MMA) to fight each other on May 16 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.

The two pioneering fighters announced their returns on Tuesday for a bout that will be staged by Most Valuable Promotions, the combat sports promotion established by influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul and his business partner, Nakisa Bidarian. The show will be broadcast on Netflix.

The 39-year-old Rousey hasn’t fought since 2016, while the 43-year-old Carano’s eight-bout MMA career ended in 2009. They’ll fight at 145lb (66kg) for five five-minute rounds.

Despite their lengthy absences, Rousey and Carano remain two of the most iconic fighters in MMA history for their trailblazing careers. Carano led their once-outlawed sport into the mainstream of broadcast television, while Rousey secured the enthusiastic acceptance of women’s MMA by Dana White and the UFC.

Rousey (12-2) rose to become arguably the biggest athlete in all of MMA after winning an Olympic medal in judo in 2008. Her armbar finishes and cage charisma single-handedly prompted White to begin the promotion of women’s MMA, with Rousey at the centre of his plans.

Rousey won the UFC’s first-ever women’s bout in 2013 to claim the bantamweight title belt, and she still holds the promotion’s record with six title defences.

After ending 11 of her first 12 fights in the first round, her career abruptly stalled when she lost back-to-back bouts to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, prompting her to move on to acting, professional wrestling and motherhood.

“Been waiting so long to announce this: Me and Gina Carano are gonna throw down in the biggest super fight in women’s combat sport history!” Rousey said. “This is for all MMA fans past, present and future.”

Carano (7-1) fought in the first Nevada-sanctioned MMA bout between women in 2006, and she won a series of fights that made her a network television draw in the sport’s early days. She was stopped by Cris “Cyborg” Justino in her most recent fight in August 2009, and she moved on to an acting career despite repeated rumours of a return to the cage.

“Ronda came to me and said there is only one person she would make a comeback for, and it has been her dream to make this fight happen between us,” Carano said.

“She thanked me for opening up doors for her in her career and was respectful in asking for this fight to happen. This is an honour. I believe I will walk out of this fight with the win, and I anticipate it will not come easy, which I welcome. This is as much for Ronda and me as it is for the fans and mixed martial arts community.”

Carano, who turns 44 in April, landed several prominent film roles and became a cast member of Disney’s “The Mandalorian” before her contract failed to be renewed in 2021, after she expressed controversial right-wing views in a series of social media posts.

Carano settled a lawsuit last year against Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company over her claim that she was fired for the posts.

General Atomics’ air-launched LongShort drone has made new progress toward its first flight with the completion of various tests on the ground, including a demonstration of its weapons release capabilities. LongShot, now also designated the X-68A, is set to be carried aloft first by an F-15 fighter. The goal of the program has been to explore how an uncrewed aircraft capable of firing air-to-air missiles could extend the reach and reduce the vulnerability of the launch platform, among other benefits.

The U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released new details about the LongShot program, which it is leading, today. A “multitude of U.S. government stakeholders” have also been involved, including elements of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and NASA, according to DARPA.

General Atomics, as well as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, received initial contracts to work on competing concepts for the drone in 2020. DARPA chose General Atomics’ design for continued development in 2023. The original hope had been that the uncewed aircraft would make its maiden flight before the end of that year. The current goal is to begin flight testing before the end of the year.

“DARPA’s LongShot with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has successfully completed a series of technical milestones, moving its air-launched uninhabited vehicle – recently designated the X-68A – closer to flight testing,” according to DARPA’s release. “Recent achievements, including full-scale wind tunnel tests and successful trials of the vehicle’s parachute recovery and weapons-release systems, demonstrate significant progress in developing this next-generation capability.”

Previously released renderings of LongShot have depicted it as capable of releasing at least one AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) from an internal bay running along the bottom of the fuselage.

The overall LongShot design that has been shown to date is akin to that of a cruise missile, with an elongated fuselage and a chined nose. It has reverse-swept main wings toward the rear of the fuselage and small canards at the front, both of which pop out into their deployed positions after launch. It also has an inverted V-shaped twin-tail configuration and a vertical strake that sticks up just slightly from behind the top-mounted dorsal engine air intake.

The official entry for the X-68A in the U.S. Mission-Design-Series (MDS) designation system says that the drone is powered by a single Williams WJ38-15 turbojet, according to the Designation-Systems.net website. The use of the WJ38-15 may point to a high subsonic top speed for LongShot. This engine is also used on the German-Swedish Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched cruise missile, a 3,000-pound-class design with a stated maximum speed of Mach 0.95.

It is also worth noting that LongShot’s parachute recovery is intended, at least at present, for use in testing and training, rather than any actual combat employment of the drone.

“LongShot is intended for conflict. In combat scenarios, recovery isn’t really practical, and the price point doesn’t make it necessary,” C. Mark Brinkley, a General Atomics spokesperson, told TWZ last year. “However, for test and training, it is recoverable, and we have options for that.”

As mentioned, the first live test launch of a LongShot drone is set to be from an F-15 fighter, an aircraft type particularly well known for its ability to carry outsized payloads. F-15 variants have already been used in the United States, as well as in Japan, as aerial launch platforms for jet-powered drones. For years now, TWZ has been highlighting the particular potential of the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle II to carry oversized payloads and act as airborne drone controllers.

DARPA and General Atomics have also talked about the potential to launch X-68As from bombers’ internal bays, as well as from cargo aircraft using the Rapid Dragon palletized munitions system.

As TWZ has previously written:

“LongShot is intended to extend the range at which a launch platform can fire on targets, which, in turn, helps keep them further away from threats. The drones can fly forward into higher-risk areas before launching their own missiles. As designed, LongShots also simply expand the total area in which a launch platform, especially a tactical jet like an F-15, can engage threats.”

“LongShot drones could also leverage targeting data from sources other than their launch platforms. This would rely on, but also take immense advantage of long-range ‘kill web’ architectures in development now. As those kill webs expand in scale and scope, the likelihood of munitions engaging targets outside the range of a launch platform’s organic sensors will only grow. You can read more about these developments here.”

These capabilities could be further magnified by bomber or cargo aircraft carrying larger numbers of LongShot drones. Larger launch platforms could saturate a particular section of the battlespace with air-to-air assets quickly, enabling the rapid deployment of a temporary counter-air screen. The uncrewed aircraft could also provide more localized defense for larger and more vulnerable aircraft, and they would only have to be deployed as necessary in that role. That, in turn, would help reduce strain on escorting assets.

The LongShot program has so far been described in terms of scenarios that center more on direct control for the launch platform. However, control of the drones after launch could similarly be localized or executed across longer distances via beyond-line-of-sight datalink capability and/or signal relays. This could also allow for control to be handed off from one node to another. Higher degrees of autonomy would allow for the performance of tasks after launch with fewer direct human inputs, as well.

“We’ve got a program right now with DARPA that we’re working on. It’s called LongShot. And that effort is really, if you think about, it’s about an air-launched fighter,” Patrick “Mike” Shortsleeve, Vice President of DoD Strategic Development for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc (GA-ASI), told TWZ‘s Jamie Hunter in an interview at the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2025 Air, Space, and Cyber Conference last September. “So, we’re talking about a smaller UAS [uncrewed aerial system], … but it also will be able to carry air-to-air missiles and be brought into the fight in mass when needed. So LongShot represents sort of another iteration of what we’re doing for disruption, to help the Air Force change or revolutionize the way air dominance is being done.”

General Atomics Update From Air, Space & Cyber 2025: CCA, LongShot, 9M Flight Hours

There are still questions about how efficient it would be in real combat to use an expendable drone like LongShot to get missiles closer to potential engagement areas, as well as offer some loitering capability. What the cost equation might be, in particular, compared to using more advanced, reusable drones and/or longer-ranged missiles, is unclear. Still, the Air Force and/or other services could see LongShot as a necessity for meeting certain operational needs that cannot be addressed by any other solution.

As we have highlighted in the past, LongShot could feed into other uncrewed aircraft efforts, especially separate, but intertwined Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programs now being run by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Navy. In an interview with Breaking Defense last year, David Alexander, President of General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc., division (GA-ASI), said that LongShot could be a “great fit” for Increment 2 of the Air Force’s CCA program. General Atomics and Anduril are already developing separate drone designs, designated the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively, under Increment 1 of that program. The Marines are also now set to utilize the YFQ-42A design at least as a surrogate for a future CCA capability.

When it comes to LongShot, DARPA says that “ground and integration testing currently underway” is now steadily building up to “the safe and effective employment of the X-68A from an F-15, confirm the flight worthiness of the LongShot vehicle, and demonstrate its ability to safely eject a captive sub-munition” after years of schedule slips.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

THE cause of death of Victoria Jones, the daughter of Hollywood legend Tommy Lee Jones, has been revealed after more than a month.

The 34-year-old was tragically found dead at a luxury San Francisco hotel in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Officials have now confirmed the former child star died from a cocaine overdose.

A harrowing 911 call came in to emergency services at 2:52am on January 1 saying a woman had suffered a suspected overdose.

Staff thought Jones had been drinking when they found her lying on the ground on the 14th floor of the ritzy Fairmont hotel.

She was spotted by a guest who thought she “might be drunk”, a source told The Daily Mail.

LEGEND GONE

The Godfather icon Robert Duvall dies at 95 as wife mourns Hollywood ‘great’

Paramedics rushed to save her, but desperate attempts to revive her failed and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

The initial investigation ruled out foul play and stated that there were no signs of drugs around the body.

Today, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in San Francisco announced that Victoria’s death was due to the “toxic effects of cocaine” and ruled it an accident.

Victoria Kafka Jones was the daughter of the actor Tommy and his ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley, who divorced in 1996.

Her heartbroken family spoke out the day following her death, saying: “We appreciate all of the kind words, thoughts, and prayers.

“Please respect our privacy during this difficult time. Thank you.”

Victoria acted as a child, appearing in Men in Black II and later The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. 

She also made a one-episode appearance on One Tree Hill.

Although she stepped away from acting, Victoria still appeared with her father at public events.

In the year before her death, Victoria was arrested at least twice, court records show.

A police report was made in April last year by her husband, Navek Ceja, 44, who alleged she had been taking cocaine, the Daily Mail reports.

He claimed his wife had been using the drug over a 48 hour period while staying at his family’s luxury winery in Napa.

Cops arrived at the scene and said Jones was talking quickly and “was fighting with her body movements”.

She tried to fight away the officers and claimed the 911 call was a mistake, the report adds.

Jones later admitted to using cocaine and was taken to a local jail where officers found a white powder inside her coat.

She was charged with being under the influence of drugs, resisting arrest and possessing a controlled substance.

Two months later, Jones and Ceja reportedly got into a heated fight at the Carneros Resort and Spa in Sonoma.

Ceja, 44, told police that they got into an argument after he confronted her about her drug and alcohol use.

Jones allegedly slapped Ceja around the face twice.

Police were called and Jones was arrested and taken back to the Napa County Jail where she was charged with a misdemeanour domestic violence charge.

Both of the cases were never resolved with Jones due to be in court on the domestic violence count on January 20.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and the campaign’s efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted.

Elements of the ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan could be appealed by Trump’s campaign, with just over three weeks to go until election day in a state hotly contested by Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The lawsuit was opposed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration, the state Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP’s Pennsylvania office and other allied groups.

“The court’s decision today affirms what we’ve long known, that Pennsylvania’s elections are safe, secure and accurate, and residents can vote on Nov. 3 with confidence that their votes will be counted and their voices heard,” Wolf’s office said in a statement.

“The ruling is a complete rejection of the continued misinformation about voter fraud and corruption and those who seek to sow chaos and discord ahead of the upcoming election,” the statement added.

However, Trump’s campaign indicated in a statement that it would appeal and looked forward to a quick decision “that will further protect Pennsylvania voters from the Democrats’ radical voting system.”

The lawsuit is one of many partisan battles being fought in the state Legislature and the courts over mail-in voting amid the prospect that a presidential election result could be delayed for days by a drawn-out vote count in Pennsylvania.

In this case, Trump’s campaign wanted the court to bar counties from collecting mail ballots using drop boxes or mobile sites that are not “staffed, secured and employed consistently within and across all 67 of Pennsylvania’s counties.”

More than 20 counties — including Philadelphia and most other heavily populated Democratic-leaning counties — have told the state elections office that they plan to use drop boxes and satellite election offices to help collect mail-in ballots.

Trump’s campaign also wanted the court to free county election officials to disqualify mail-in ballots where the voter’s signature may not match their signature on file and to remove a county residency requirement for poll watchers.

In guidance last month, Wolf’s top elections official told counties that state law does not require or permit them to reject a mail-in ballot solely over a perceived signature inconsistency.

The Trump campaign had asked Ranjan to declare that guidance unconstitutional and to block counties from following it.

In throwing out the case, Ranjan wrote that the Trump campaign could not prove its central claim that election fraud in Pennsylvania threatened to cost Trump the election and that adopting the changes the campaign sought would remove that threat.

“While plaintiffs may not need to prove actual voter fraud, they must at least prove that such fraud is ‘certainly impending,’” Ranjan wrote. “They haven’t met that burden. At most, they have pieced together a sequence of uncertain assumptions.”

Ranjan also cited decisions in recent days by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in hot-button election cases, saying he should not second-guess decisions by state lawmakers and election officials.

The decision comes as Trump claims he can’t lose the state unless Democrats cheat, and, as he did in the 2016 campaign, suggests that the Democratic bastion of Philadelphia needs to be watched closely for election fraud.

Democrats counter that Trump is running on a conspiracy theory of election fraud because he cannot win on his own record of fraud and mismanagement.

HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS WATER POLO PLAYOFFS
TUESDAY’S RESULTS
SOUTHERN SECTION
SEMIFINALS

DIVISION 2
La Serna 16, Bonita 15

DIVISION 3
Glendora 15, Chaparral 4
San Dimas 6, Northwood 4

DIVISION 4
La Canada 12, Ramona 11
Schurr 15, Beaumont 11

DIVISION 5
San Bernardino 6, Laguna Hills 4
Edgewood 5, Rowland 4

Note: Finals Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College.

WEDNESDAY’S SCHEDULE
CITY SECTION
FINALS
At Valley College

OPEN DIVISION
#2 Granada Hills vs. #1 Birmingham, 7 p.m.

DIVISION I
#2 Palisades vs. #1 San Pedro, 5 p.m.

SOUTHERN SECTION
SEMIFINALS
At Woollett Aquatic Center

OPEN DIVISION
#5 San Marcos vs. #1 Mater Dei, 6 p.m.
#3 Oaks Christian vs. #2 Newport Harbor, 7:30 p.m.

DIVISION 1
Beckman vs. Foothill, 3 p.m.
San Clemente vs. Agoura, 4:30 p.m.

DIVISION 2
Murrieta Valley at Santa Barbara, 5 p.m.

Note: Finals Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College.

Navigating the high slopes of Portugal’s Serra da Estrela in midwinter requires serious negotiation with the elements, but my guide, João Pedro Sousa, makes it look simple. Angling his lean frame into the wind, he digs his plastic snow-shoes into a steep drift and pauses, scanning the white ridgeline. He’s looking for mariolas – small cairns of rocks, fused by ice, that will indicate our onward trail. “The landscape changes every day so you have to learn how to read it afresh,” he says, setting off again. “At this time of year, nature is a true artist.”

I plod inelegantly in his wake, still clumsy in the frames clipped to my boots to keep me from sinking into the powder. At a quartzite outcrop rippled with rose and amber, we pause and drink in the view. Below us, cupped in the glacial scar of the Zêzere valley, is the terracotta-roofed town of Manteigas – founded in the 12th century and today the modest hub for tourism in the region. Ahead, on the horizon, João Pedro points out mainland Portugal’s highest peak, the 1,993-metre Torre, home to a small ski resort suited to beginners. “This region is full of surprises,” he grins.

As head of activities for Casa das Penhas Douradas, a design-led hotel created in 2006 and inspired by Alpine lodges, João Pedro leads treks through the massif in all seasons. More than 100 miles of trails extend from the property, following old shepherd paths into pine forests, around lagoons and across barren passes stacked with huge granite boulders – the remnants of the last ice age, scattered like a giant’s abandoned toys. This is wild country – recognised in 2020 by Unesco as a global geopark for its remarkable biodiversity and geology – but the human story is equally rich.

The hotel is a renovated 100-year-old sanatorium, its 17 birch-panelled rooms and suites gazing eastwards to the rising sun. All have vast sliding windows and doors to let in the curative mountain air during the milder months. Down the main corridor, leading from one log fire-warmed sitting room to another, a gallery of sepia photographs remembers the pioneering 1881 expedition by the Lisbon Geographic Society to this high plateau, looking for a place to treat the scourge of tuberculosis.

“The refined air, pure water and protein-rich diet here worked wonders for patients. For a period at the start of the 20th century, this was Portugal’s answer to the Swiss health resorts of St Moritz or Davos,” João Pedro tells me when we are back at the lodge, warming up with apple cake and carqueja mountain tea. The chalets peppering the surrounding slopes certainly look as if they have been plucked from northern Europe, with steep roofs, sunrooms and occasional fairytale flourishes, like finials or turrets. “Built from stone, not timber, though,” João Pedro clarifies. “The style is mixed with our Lusitanian mountain architecture.”

For the rest of my stay, the Serra is a violently shaken snow globe, the whiteout preventing safe hiking and forcing a thorough exploration of the hotel instead. I shuffle between the indoor sauna and bath-temperature swimming pool; seek out the resident masseuse for a thoroughly undeserved sports massage; and indulge in a series of three-course meals where I sample the region’s famous Iberian pork – always tender and expertly sauced. Afternoons are seen out with a glass of port and a well-thumbed tome on mountaineering from the library, a lived-in space charmingly decorated with antique skiing paraphernalia. The pièce de résistance of the property? The Nordic-style wooden hot tub, which I book for a late-night soak after the storm subsides, the stars winking down at me through spindrift and steam.

As well as injecting some panache into the local tourism scene, I discover the founders of the hotel have been pivotal in saving a dying mountain craft: burel fabric, a thick, water-resistant weave made from bordaleira sheep’s wool and used for shepherds’ capes since the middle ages. “I fell in love with the local material when creating the upholstery for the hotel – it’s amazingly tough and versatile,” owner Isabel Costa tells me, as we tour her warehouse of whirring antique looms on the outskirts of Manteigas. “Nine textile mills had already gone out of business when this one closed – I knew we had to buy it.”

In 2010, the mill reopened as the Burel Factory, with a fresh directive: vibrant colours, modern designs and new applications as tactile wall art and furniture coverings, as well as fashion. Isabel was able to rehire experienced artisans, who in turn trained a new generation of craftspeople. I meet some of them in the Room of Light, where workers stand before great windows reeling bolts of cloth to check for skipped stitches. “Generations of Manteigas women have worked in this business,” seamstress Marta Neves tells me. “It’s delicate work, and with the quantity of bespoke commissions now coming in, every day is different.”

Owing to the success of her initial projects, Isabel was able to expand further, opening the town’s first five-star hotel in 2018, Casa de São Lourenço, with a third property currently in the works. The fabric of local life has been rewoven in the process: with expanding job opportunities, young people are choosing to stay and build lives. The local school has even reopened. Today, burel shops sit on Lisbon and Porto’s most upmarket thoroughfares, popularising a native art form – and a destination – long overlooked. “It was my husband who first fell in love with Manteigas. The nature, the people – it’s like nowhere else in Portugal,” Isabel says.

I stay on in the small town itself, checking into Casa das Obras, a time-warp mansion that has been in the noble Ribeiro de Portugal family since its construction between 1770 and 1825, serving as a guesthouse for the past two decades. Here, history is palpable. Stern-looking ancestors of the current owner, Maria Amélia, look down from oil paintings lining the monumental stone staircase. Lower chambers include a tapestried billiards room and bar, while the upstairs breakfast room – a living museum of antiques, trinkets and heavy drapes – boasts original ceiling art. The bedrooms are underwhelming in comparison, but there’s a pretty garden blooming with camellias, and the location is unbeatably central.

Not that there’s too much of Manteigas to explore. One twisting lane of commerce offers up a souvenir shop stacked with knitted socks and wool slippers; a bakery famous for creating the town’s signature sweet treat, the syrupy pastel de feijoca; and a couple of delis selling wheels of creamy Serra de Estrela sheep’s cheese. The great treasure of the town is its looks, its cobbled streets and snow-dusted churches framed in all directions by dramatic valleys and forested peaks, all seemingly ripped from a storybook.

Come summer, the community will be humming with hikers and adrenaline junkies – biking, paragliding, climbing and ATV buggy rides can all be organised here, with information at the little tourist office. But for now, during its coldest months, Manteigas insists on visitors slowing down – filling their lungs with crisp air, lining their stomachs with hearty cuisine and exploring scenic mountain trails when Mother Nature allows.

The trip was supported by Casa das Penhas Douradas, where rooms start at €189 B&B, including guided hikes and a tour of the Burel Factory. Rooms at Casa das Obras start at €55 B&B. Manteigas can be reached via taxi (30min) or twice-daily bus from the town of Belmonte, which is connected to Lisbon by direct train (3h 50min).

North Korea has been designated a “high-risk jurisdiction” for money laundering and terrorism financing for the 16th consecutive year, financial authorities said Wednesday.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is tasked with combating money laundering and terrorism financing, has put North Korea in the highest risk category along with Iran and Myanmar, according to the Financial Intelligence Unit under the Financial Services Commission.

“The FATF remains concerned by the DPRK’s continued failure to address the significant deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism regime and the serious threats posed by the DPRK’s illicit activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and its financing,” the organization said on its website, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The FATF, which works under the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, has categorized North Korea as a “high-risk jurisdiction” since 2011.

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