When the explosive devices from the US airstrike landed in Birkini, a satellite village in Jabo town, Sokoto, North West Nigeria, on Thursday, Dec. 25, locals said they were alarmed after years of relative calm that allowed them to sleep peacefully at night. More than 18 civilian neighbouring communities were similarly shaken after the blast in Tambuwal Local Government Area (LGA), prompting some residents to pack their belongings and flee. 

The villagers believed they were under direct attack.

Before the news of the incident became widespread, rumours spread in the area that the American government was targeting Muslim-dominated settlements in Nigeria. 

Muhammad Bawa, a commercial driver from Birkini, said the airstrike, which targeted suspected Islamic State terrorists, occurred close to his farm. He said locals read social media posts claiming that “the American government is envious of Nigeria’s long history of peace and has been misled into believing that Nigerian Christians are being persecuted”.

“As a result, the US seemed prepared to target us, especially the Muslims in the North. This is why we are all feeling frightened and anxious about these unusual incidents,” he said. 

HumAngle found these claims to be false and misleading. However, with little media literacy and limited access to reliable information, many residents chose to leave rather than risk being caught in another strike. 

“That night, people from all 18 neighbouring communities gathered to move to Jabo in search of safety, as we were unsure of what might happen next,” Muhammed told HumAngle. 

As dozens of residents attempted to flee, Aminu Aliyu, the Information Officer of Tambuwal LGA, addressed some of them, urging calm and asking them to return to their homes. He assured them that the strikes were not aimed at civilians. 

Although the primary impact site was Birkini, fragments of the explosive device were later found across neighbouring communities, including Sakanau, Tungar Barke, Aske Dodo, Barga Hordu, Gasa Lodi, Yangwal, Lungu, Tungar Doruwa, Tungar Kwatte, Tungar Na’adda, and Darin Guru.

Muhammad recalled sitting on a mat watching a movie when the device flew above, “shaking our roof and sounding like strong wind before it fell”. “I didn’t give a damn and went on watching the movie,” he said. “We suddenly heard a high-sounding explosion strike like thunder. It came with the fire catching dried shrubs and farm straws, swirling like a storm.”

The Nigerian government later claimed the explosive devices found in Jabo and other rural communities in Tambuwal LGA, as well as in Offa, Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, were debris from precision weapons fired at terrorist camps within the Bauni forest axis of Tangaza LGA, Sokoto State, several kilometres from Tambuwal. 

Mohammed Idris, the country’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, said intelligence showed the Bauni forest was “being used as assembly and staging grounds by foreign ISIS elements infiltrating Nigeria from the Sahel region, in collaboration with local affiliates, to plan and execute large-scale terrorist attacks within Nigerian territory”.

He further noted that the strikes were launched from maritime platforms in the Gulf of Guinea after extensive intelligence gathering. Sixteen GPS-guided munitions were deployed using MQ-9 Reaper drones, and the targeted ISIS elements were successfully neutralised. Although specific damage assessments have not been released, Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said “those who handled the operational aspects of the episode will return with the details”. 

The origins of fear and terror

The Dec. 25 airstrike in Sokoto was first announced by US President Donald Trump, who said American forces struck ISIS positions in the northwestern region. The Nigerian government later confirmed the operation, noting that it was a joint effort between the Nigerian military and US forces, targeting terrorist camps in the state. 

“No civilian casualties were recorded in Jabo Town or any other affected area,” according to Abubakar Bawa, the spokesperson for the Sokoto State government. He added that recovered objects were under investigation by Nigerian and US military authorities. 

Trump justified the strike using a Christian genocide narrative, claiming that ISIS terrorists in Nigeria were “viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries”. This echoed earlier US rhetoric that designated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” for alleged state-backed religious persecution. 

Nigerian officials and conflict researchers have rejected this framing, stressing that terror groups target both Muslims and Christians. Nevertheless, the framing of the narrative heightened fear among Muslim communities in Sokoto’s Birkini, Sakanau, and Kagara, where many interpreted the strike as an attack on them under the guise of protecting Christians.

“I fled my community and will resettle in Jabo town for fear of the unknown,” Sani Yale, a resident of Sakanau, told HumAngle. “Drawing from what I watched in American films exposing the powers of the US in war, I fear that the bomb explosion will come to our villages again. We feel we are not safe at all.” Several other residents share the same fear.

Umar Yusuf, from the Kagara community near Jabo, said he was asleep when his wife woke him screaming that an American attack was underway. They fled to Jabo town, where they encountered others debating what they described as “America’s ill intentions toward Nigeria”. 

“How can the US claim precision targeting at ISIS and throw bombs at us here, where we have never experienced a terrorist attack?” asked Ibrahim Shehu, a retired security officer from Jabo. “They claim intelligence sharing, yet miss the correct locations where terrorists, bandits, and Lakurawa reside and camp. This is just deliberately done to finish us, but God protected us.”

Nigeria’s foreign minister reiterated that the joint operation was intended “to fight against terrorism, to stop the terrorists from killing innocent Nigerians, be (they) Muslim, Christian, atheist, whatever religion.” Over the years, Nigeria has grappled with insecurity driven by a variety of causes, including terrorism, criminality, and ethno-religious violence. 

Security analysts believe the strike targeted Lakurawa, a violent criminal gang active in the northwestern region. The group first arrived in the Gudu and Tangaza areas of Sokoto State around 2018, after some communities invited them to act as protectors against terror attacks.

At the time, security authorities described them as “herders [from the neighbouring Niger Republic] not known to be violent but strongly suspected to be armed”. The group became more lethal last year, frequently assaulting communities while taking refuge in the forests spanning across the region. The Nigerian Defence Headquarters designated Lakurawa a terrorist organisation in Nov. 2024.

A study by the Combating Terrorism Centre suggests Lakurawa may have had links to Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (the al-Qaeda affiliate in the Sahel) between 2017 and 2018, but is now associated with the Islamic State’s Sahel Province (ISSP). Meanwhile, a Nov. 2025 study by Good Governance Africa notes that “the group currently maintains a nominal or permanent presence in at least 19 local government areas and 82 villages across Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara”.

As authorities and residents continue to make sense of the recent strikes, concerns persist over the careless collection of unexploded fragments scattered across affected areas. Some of the devices have yet to detonate, according to Aminu, the Tambuwal LGA spokesperson. 

“Military personnel were here to see for themselves, but did nothing to stop it. There are strong indications that it will probably explode at any time. People are barred from visiting the area,” he said. 

A funny thing about this year’s best films: Half of them are adaptations. As a movie lover who’s always hunting for new talent, new ideas and new stimuli, I used to view that as creative inertia. But 2025 has changed my mind.

Now I see artists drawing inspiration from the past to show that Hollywood should trust the sturdy bones that have kept it running for over a century: good yarns, bold casting, films that don’t feel made by focus groups or doomsaying bean-counters (or, God help us, AI), but by blood and sweat.

Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.

From original tales to radical reworkings of classics both high-falutin’ and raucously lowbrow, these 10 filmmakers all know that the most vital part of the storytelling business has stayed exactly the same. They have to wow an audience. And they did.

1. ‘Sinners’

Michael B. Jordan as twins Smoke and Stack in the movie “Sinners.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

A period-piece-vampire-musical mashup could have been discordant, but writer-director Ryan Coogler confidently makes all three genres harmonize. In “Sinners,” Coogler double-casts his longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan as twin bootleggers Smoke and Stack, then pits them against a pack of banjo-picking bloodsuckers helmed by a roguish Jack O’Connell. We’re expecting a big, bloody brouhaha and we get it. Underneath the playful carnage, however, the question at stake is: Why suffer the daily indignities of the Jim Crow-era South when you could outlive — and eat — your oppressors? “Sinners” is the most exciting film of 2025, both for what it is and for what it proves: that fresh blockbusters still exist and people are eager to gobble them up.

(“Sinners” is available on multiple platforms.)

2. ‘Hedda’

Tessa Thompson in the movie “Hedda.”

(Prime Video)

The stage’s iconic mean girl glides from 1890s Norway to 1950s England in this vibrant and venomous adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler.” Tessa Thompson stars as the restless housewife who needs to secure her milquetoast husband (Tom Bateman) a promotion and has a nasty habit of playing with guns. Keeping pace with her manipulative anti-heroine, writer-director Nia DaCosta (“Candyman”) makes a few calculated moves of her own, including gender-swapping Hedda’s ex into a curvaceous career woman (a haughty Nina Hoss) whose drab and geeky new girlfriend (Imogen Poots) irritates their hostess’ insecurities. As a capper, “Hedda” stages its brutal showdown at an all-night vodka-and-cocaine-fueled mansion shebang with a live jazz band, a lake for skinny-dippers and a hedge maze where former lovers are tempted to canoodle. The original play is over a century old, but every scene feels screamingly alive.

(“Hedda” is available on Prime Video.)

3. ‘Eddington’

Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in “Eddington.”

(A24)

No film was more polarizing than Ari Aster’s COVID-set satire about a mask-hating sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix), a sanctimonious mayor (Pedro Pascal) and the high-tech cabal that benefits when these two modern cowboys come to blows. “Eddington” immortalizes the bleak humor and lingo of May 2020 (think murder hornets, Antifa and toilet paper hoarders). More stingingly, it captures the mental delirium of a small town — make that an entire planet — that hasn’t yet realized that there’s a second sickness seeping in through their smartphones. Everyone’s got a device in their hand pretty much all the time, aiming their cameras at each other like pistols in a Wild West standoff. Yet no character grasps what’s really going on. (I have a theory, but when I explain the larger conspiracy, I sound cuckoo too.) This is the movie that will explain pandemic brain to future generations. With distance, I’m pretty sure the haters will come around.

(“Eddington” is available on multiple platforms.)

4. ‘One Battle After Another’

Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “One Battle After Another.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Every shot in Paul Thomas Anderson’s invigorating nail-biter is a banger: sentinels skateboarding over rooftops, caged kids playing catch with a crumpled foil blanket, Teyana Taylor’s militant Perfidia Beverly Hills blasting an automatic rifle while nine months pregnant. It’s the rare film that instantly imprints itself on the viewer. On my second watch, I was shocked by how much of “One Battle After Another” already felt tattooed on my brain, down to the shudder I got from Sean Penn’s loathsome Col. Lockjaw licking his comb to tidy his bangs. Riffing from Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” the central drama follows flunky anarchist Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) fumblingly attempting to rescue his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from Lockjaw’s clutches. But he’s not much help to her, and as the title implies, this is merely one skirmish in humanity’s sprawling struggle for freedom that has, and will, drag on forever. Anderson’s knack for ensemble work stretches back as far as “Boogie Nights,” yet here, even his unnamed characters have crucial roles to play. His world-building has never before felt this holistic and inspirational.

(“One Battle After Another” is now playing in theaters.)

5. ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

(Roadside Attractions)

The backstory behind this stunner couldn’t be more baroque: Director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”) boldly revamped a Broadway musical of an Oscar-winning drama (itself taken from an experimental novel) about two inmates in an Argentine cell who mentally escape into the movies. Each incarnation has doubled down on the sensorial overload of what came before. If you know “Kiss of the Spider Woman’s” lineage, you’ll be impressed by how Condon ups the fantasy and stokes the revolutionary glamour with more Technicolor dance showcases for Jennifer Lopez’. (She’s doing her best Cyd Charisse, which turns out to be darned good.) If this is your first taste of the tale, give yourself over to the prickly but tender relationship between prisoners Luis and Valentin, played by feisty new talent Tonatiuh and a red-blooded Diego Luna. This is go-for-broke filmmaking with a wallop. As Luis says of his own version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” playing in his head, “Call it kitsch, call it camp — I don’t care, I love it.”

(“Kiss of the Spider Woman” is available on multiple platforms.)

6. ‘A Useful Ghost’

A scene from the movie “A Useful Ghost.”

(TIFF)

Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s Cannes Grand Prix winner opens with a haunted vacuum cleaner. From there, it gets even more surprising. Ghosts have infested a wealthy widow’s factory and are possessing appliances, seducing her son and cozying up to the prime minister for favors. Some of these people have died by accident, some by corporate neglect or worse. This droll spook show bleeds into romance and politics and, to our shock, becomes genuinely emotional. (It helps to remember that the military killed over 80 Bangkok protesters in 2010.) But why vacuum cleaners, you ask? The conceit is more than a sticky idea. Ordinary people can get crushed but the anger they leave behind lingers like fine dust.

(“A Useful Ghost” opens Jan. 16, 2026, in theaters.)

7. ‘The Roses’

Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch in the movie “The Roses.”

(Jaap Buitendijk / Searchlight Pictures)

Technically, “The Roses” is rooted in the 1980s hit novel and subsequent blockbuster “The War of the Roses,” which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as an estranged couple who attack each other with lawyers, poison and chandeliers. In spirit, however, this redo is pure 1930s screwball comedy. Leads Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are skilled verbal ninjas who hurl razor-sharp insults at each other’s egos, and although their characters’ divorce happens in California, director Jay Roach lets the actors keep their snippy British accents. The script by two-time Oscar nominee Tony McNamara (“The Favourite,” “Poor Things”) adds a cruel twist to the original: This time around, the marrieds truly do try their damnedest to love and support each other. And still, their walls come tumbling down.

(“The Roses” is available on multiple platforms.)

8. ‘In Whose Name?’

Ye and Elon Musk in the documentary “In Whose Name?”

(AMSI Entertainment)

Nico Ballesteros was a high schooler with an iPhone when he entered Kanye West’s orbit in 2018. Over the next six years, the Orange County kid shot over 3,000 hours of footage as Ye (as the artist legally became known in 2021) jetted from Paris to Uganda, Calabasas to the White House, meeting everyone from Kenny G to Elon Musk on a quest to fulfill his creative and spiritual goals while incinerating his personal life and public reputation. Ye gave the documentarian full access with no editorial oversight, besides one moment in which he tells the camera that he wants the film to be about mental health. This riveting tragedy definitely is. We see an egomaniac whose fear of being beholden to anything motivates him to go off his meds, a billionaire provocateur who believes he can afford the consequences of his bigotry and, above all, a deeply flawed man who nukes his entire world to insist he’s right.

(“In Whose Name?” is available on multiple platforms.)

9. ‘Sirāt’

An image from the movie “Sirāt,” directed by Oliver Laxe.

(Festival de Cannes)

The techno soundtrack of Oliver Laxe’s desolate road thriller has rattled my house for months. Lately, I’ve spent just as much time contemplating the movie’s silence — those hushed stretches in which this caravan of bohemians speeds across the Moroccan desert looking like the only free people left on Earth. A father, Luis (“Pan’s Labyrinth’s” Sergi López), and his 12-year-old son team up with this band of tattooed burnouts in the hope of finding the boy’s runaway sister. Before long, Luis is just hoping to make it to safety, assuming anywhere safe still exists. Static on the radio warns that World War III might be underway. These outsiders click off the news and crank up the music. The paradox of “Sirāt” is that I’m dying to talk about it more but I’ve got to keep my mouth shut until people experience its dramatic twists for themselves.

(“Sirāt” returns to theaters on Feb. 6, 2026.)

10. ‘The Naked Gun’

Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in the movie “The Naked Gun.”

(Frank Masi / Paramount Pictures)

Liam Neeson needed this pummeling pun-fest. So did everyone else in 2025. Director Akiva Schaffer’s continuation of the “Police Squad!” franchise let the 73-year-old “Taken” star poke fun at his own bruising gravitas. Playing the son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt. Frank Drebin, Neeson kept us in hysterics with a stupid-brilliant barrage of surreal wordplay and daffy slapstick. The casting was as odd — and perfect — as rumors that he and his co-star Pamela Anderson started dating on set. This fourth sequel didn’t try to outsmart the classic Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker template. It simply told the same old story: Cop meets babe, cop and babe canoodle with a magical snowman, cop drops his trousers on live TV, this time minus the blimp. Goodyear? No, the worst — which made Neeson our hero.

(“The Naked Gun” is available on multiple platforms.)

Since I’m all jazzed-up about great movies, here are 10 honorable mentions very much worth a watch.

“The Ballad of Wallis Island”
A kooky millionaire strong-arms his favorite mid-aughts folk duo into playing a reunion show on his Welsh island. Sounds cutesy, but it’s the movie I recommended most — to everyone from my mailman to my mother. They all loved it. Join the fan club.

“Bunny”
This East Village indie by debut director Ben Jacobson is a scummy gem. A gigolo’s birthday goes very wrong. But all the characters racing up and down the stairs of his uber-New York walk-up hovel are a howl.

“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Rose Byrne excels equally at comedy and drama. This audit of a breakdown smashes both together and cranks the tension up to eleven. Playing a high-stress working mom of an ill child, her try-hard heroine leans in so harrowingly far, she goes kamikaze.

“Lurker”
Today’s celebrity might be viral on Instagram and unknown everywhere else. Alex Russell’s stomach-churning psychodrama stars Archie Madekwe as an L.A.-based singer on the brink of genuine fame and Théodore Pellerin as the hanger-on who endures — and exploits — the fledgling star’s power moves and hazy boundaries.

“Magic Farm”
Filmmaker Amalia Ulman’s rascally farce stars Chloë Sevigny and Alex Wolff as clickbait journalists who fly to Argentina to shoot a viral video about a singer in a bunny costume and wind up looking twice as ridiculous.

Keke Palmer, left, and SZA in the movie “One of Them Days.”

(Anne Marie Fox / Sony Pictures)

“One of Them Days”
Keke Palmer and SZA play broke Baldwin Hills roommates who have nine hours to make rent. I’d happily watch their stoner high jinks in real time.

“The Perfect Neighbor”
Pieced together primarily from police body-camera footage, Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary unfurls in a Florida cul-de-sac where a community — adults, kids and cops — agrees that one woman is an entitled pill. The problem is she thinks they’re the problem. And she has a gun.

“Sisu: Road to Revenge”
If Buster Keaton were alive, he’d hail this grisly, mostly mute Finnish action flick as a worthy successor to “The General.” It even boasts a thrilling sequence on a train, although director Jalmari Helander also brazenly poaches from “Die Hard” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

“Train Dreams”
Trees fall in the woods and a 20th-century logger (Joel Edgerton) plays an unheard, unthanked but beautiful role in the building of America.

“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery”
Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) teams up with a soul-searching priest (Josh O’Connor) to solve a perplexing church stabbing. From deft plot twists to provocative Catholic theology, Rian Johnson’s crowd-pleasing murder mystery is marvelously executed.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The parents of a 13-year-old girl killed by a hockey puck got $1.2 million in a settlement with the NHL and other groups, according to a copy of the agreement made public Wednesday.

Brittanie Cecil’s family reached the settlement last year, but it was sealed until Wednesday, when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that it was a public record and must be made public in response to a request from WBNS-TV of Columbus.

Brittanie Cecil died after being struck at a March 2002 Columbus Blue Jacket game.

The team, league and Nationwide Arena agreed to pay $705,000 to Jody Sergent, the girl’s mother, and $470,000 to David Cecil, the girl’s father.

The court ruled, 6-1, that Preble County Probate Judge Wilfred Dues erred in creating an exception to the state’s public records laws to protect the family’s privacy rights.

Dec. 28 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday arrived at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump about a proposal for a cease-fire and end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Zelensky and his entourage arrived Sunday to discuss a 20-point plan — that may include conceding territory and shared operation of a nuclear power plant — to potentially end the war that started more than three years ago with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone for more than an hour, during which reportedly agreed that a long-term peace deal is preferable to a cease-fire, with Putin calling for Zelensky to make a “courageous, responsible political decision,” The New York Times reported.

Zelensky arrives for the meeting as Russia has amped up its attacks on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine in recent days, which some have called a tactic on Russia’s part to force the Ukrainians hand in making a peace deal.

“Given the situation on the front lines, Kyiv must not delay making that decision,” Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s foreign policy aides, said during a press briefing on Sunday.

Trump told reporters when he welcomed Zelensky to Mar-a-Lago that he believes “we have the makings of a deal,” and that both Putin and Zelensky are both serious about making a peace deal, CNN reported.

Zelensky, Trump and representatives from both of their administrations are negotiating the 20-point peace plan that Zelensky reworked from a U.S.-proposed 28-point plan earlier this year.

Plans have also been drawn up for a three-party security guarantee between Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe, as well as a bilateral deal with the United States, in addition to economic cooperation to rebuild Ukraine, which has been brutally battered by Russia for the last three years, the Kyiv Independent reported.

According to the BBC, Putin and Trump are likely to speak later on Sunday after the meeting at Mar-a-Lago.

Elsewhere in the Africa Cup of Nations 2025, Cameroon and Ivory coast draw 1-1, while Sudan see off Equatorial Guinea.

Mozambique have claimed a historic first victory in the Africa Cup of Nations, breathing new life into their campaign after overcoming Gabon 3-2 in Agadir, while Algeria have booked their place in the last 16 of AFCON with a narrow win over Burkina Faso.

Beaten in their tournament curtain-raiser by Ivory Coast, Mozambique scored twice before half-time in their Group F game on Sunday as Faizal Bangal headed home and Geny Catamo netted from the penalty spot.

Former Arsenal and Chelsea forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang pulled one back for Gabon before the break, but Diogo Calila restored Mozambique’s two-goal cushion. It was ultimately enough to seal a maiden win for Mozambique in this tournament at the 17th attempt, despite Gabon’s Alex Moucketou-Moussounda pulling one back.

Elsewhere in the group, defending champions Ivory Coast ‍took ‍a lead that lasted only five minutes before Cameroon equalised to secure a 1-1 ⁠draw in their heavyweight clash on Sunday.

Amad Diallo scored for a second successive game to ‍open ⁠the scoring for the Ivorians in the 51st minute, but full-back Junior Tchamadeu levelled for Cameroon with the help of a deflection ​in the 56th ‌minute at Marrakesh Stadium.

Cameroon and the Ivory Coast, who have eight AFCON titles ‌between them, now share the lead in ‌Group F with ⁠four points apiece, followed by Mozambique on three.

Gabon need to win their final group game to have any chance of reaching the knockout stages as one of the best third-placed teams.

Algeria have secured their place in the last 16, after a Riyad Mahrez penalty gave them a 1-0 victory over Burkina Faso.

Captain Mahrez converted from the spot midway through the first half at the Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat on Sunday, and Algeria then held on to win a bruising contest against a determined Burkina outfit.

The penalty that decided the game was awarded when Manchester City’s Rayan Ait-Nouri was bundled over.

Mahrez made no mistake with his 23rd-minute kick as he followed his brace in the opening 3-0 defeat of Sudan to take his tally at this Cup of Nations to three goals. The former Leicester City and Manchester City winger, appearing at his sixth AFCON, now has nine goals at the tournament, an Algerian record.

Pierre Landry Kabore, the Hearts’ striker, came close to equalising for Burkina Faso with a header from a corner, before Mahrez teed up Mohamed Amoura for a shot that was saved by goalkeeper Herve Koffi at the end of an Algerian breakaway in the first half of stoppage time.

Bayer Leverkusen’s Ibrahim Maza twice failed to convert good opportunities in the second half, while substitute Georgi Minoungou fired just over as Burkina Faso pushed unsuccessfully for an equaliser.

Algeria, African champions in 1990 and in 2019, have the maximum six points after two games in Group E and are yet to concede a goal, with Vladimir Petkovic’s side living up to their billing as one of the pre-tournament favourites.

Burkina Faso and Sudan come next on three points each, but they play each other in the final round of group games on Wednesday. This means Algeria are guaranteed a top-two finish even if they lose their final outing against the currently pointless Equatorial Guinea.

Sudan boosted their chances of qualifying for the knockout stage of the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday after a Saul Coco own goal gave them a 1-0 win over Equatorial Guinea.

Unlucky Torino centre-back Coco saw the ball come off him and ricochet into the net in the 74th minute in Casablanca when his teammate Luis Asue attempted to clear a Sudan free kick.

Sudan won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1970, but this is just their second victory in 18 matches across six appearances at the tournament since then.

There was no shortage of engrossing art with which to engage in Southern California museums during the past year, although the considerable majority of it had been made only within the past 50 years or so. Art’s global history before the Second World War continues to play a decided second fiddle to contemporary art in special exhibitions.

Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.

The chief exception: the Getty, where its Brentwood anchor and Pacific Palisades outpost accounted for three of the 10 most engrossing museum exhibitions in 2025, all 10 presented here in order of their opening dates. (Four are still on view.)

Art museums across the country continue to struggle in attendance and fundraising after the double-whammy of the lengthy COVID-19 pandemic shut-down followed by culture war attacks from the Trump administration. That may help explain the unusually lengthy, seven- to 14-month duration of half of these shows.

Gustave Caillebotte, “Floor Scrapers,” 1875, oil on canvas.

(Musée d’Orsay
)

Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men. Getty Center

An emphasis on men’s daily lives is very unusual in French Impressionist art. Women are more prominent as subject matter in scores of paintings by marquee names like Monet, Cassatt and Degas. But homosocial life in late-19th century Paris was the fascinating focus of this show, the first Los Angeles museum survey of Gustave Caillebotte’s paintings in 30 years.

A view into a dance gallery is framed by Guadalupe Rosales’ “Concourse/C3” installation.

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

Guadalupe Rosales – Tzahualli: Mi Memoria en Tu Reflejo. Palm Springs Art Museum

Vibrant Chicano youth subcultures of 1990s Los Angeles, during the fraught era of Rodney King and the AIDS epidemic, are embedded in the art of one of its enthusiastic participants. Guadalupe Rosales layers her archival work onto pleasure and freedom today, as was seen in this vibrant exhibition, offering a welcome balm during another period of outsized social distress.

Don Bachardy, “Christopher Isherwood,” June 20, 1979; acrylic on paper.

(Don Bachardy Paper / Huntington Library)

Don Bachardy: A Life in Portraits. The Huntington

The nearly 70-year retrospective of portrait drawings in pencil and paint by Los Angeles artist Don Bachardy revealed the works to be like performances: Both artist and sitter participated in putting on a pictorial show. The extended visual encounter between two people, its intimacy inescapable, culminates in the two “actors” autographing their performed picture.

“Probably Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha,” China, Tang Dynasty, circa 700-800; marble.

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art Across Asia. LACMA. Through July 12

“Realms of the Dharma” isn’t exactly an exhibition. Instead, it’s a temporary, 14-month installation of Buddhist sculptures, paintings and drawings from the museum’s impressive permanent collection, plus a few additions. It’s worth noting here, though, because almost all of its marvelous pieces were in storage (or traveling) for more than seven years, during the lengthy tear-down of a prior LACMA building and construction of a new one, and much of it will disappear again when the installation closes next summer.

Noah Davis, “40 Acres and a Unicorn,” 2007, acrylic and gouache on canvas.

(Anna Arca)

Noah Davis. UCLA Hammer Museum

A tight survey of 50 works, all made by Noah Davis in the brief span between 2007 and the L.A.-based artist’s untimely death in 2015 at just 32, told a poignant story of rapid artistic growth brutally interrupted. Davis was a painter’s painter, a deeply thoughtful and idiosyncratic Black voice heard by other artists and aficionados, even while still in invigorating development.

Weegee (Arthur Fellig), “The Gay Deceiver, 1939/1950, gelatin silver print. Getty Museum

(Getty Museum)

Queer Lens: A History of Photography. Getty Center

Assembling some 270 photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries, “Queer Lens” looked at work produced after the 1869 invention of the binaries of “heterosexual and homosexual,” just a short generation after the 1839 invention of the camera. Transformations in the expression of gender and sexuality by scores of artists as well-known as Berenice Abbott, Anthony Friedkin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Man Ray and Edmund Teske were tracked along with more than a dozen unknowns.

“Sealstone With a Battle Scene (The Pylos Combat Agate),” Minoan, 1630-1440 BC; banded agate, gold and bronze.

(Jeff Vanderpool)

The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece. Getty Villa. Through Jan. 12

The star of this look into the ancient, not widely known Mycenaean kingdom of Pylos was a tiny agate, barely 1.3 inches wide, making its public debut outside Europe. The exquisitely carved stone, unearthed by archaeologists in 2017, shows two lean but muscled warriors going at it over the sprawled body of a dead comrade. Perhaps made in Crete, the idealized naturalism of a battle scene rendered in shallow three-dimensional space threw a stylistic monkey-wrench into our established understanding of Greek culture 3,500 years ago.

Ken Gonzales-Day digitally erased Illinois Black lynching victim Charlie Mitchell from an 1897 postcard to focus instead on the perpetrators.

(USC Fisher Museum of Art)

Ken Gonzales-Day: History’s “Nevermade.” USC Fisher Museum of Art. Through March 14

The ways in which identities of race, gender and class are erased in a society dominated by straight white patriarchy animates the first mid-career survey of Los Angeles–based artist Ken Gonzales-Day. The riveting centerpiece is his extensive meditation on the American mass-hysteria embodied by the horrific practice of lynching, in which Gonzales-Day employed digital techniques to erase the brutalized victims (and the ropes) in grisly photographs of the murders. Focus shifts the viewer’s gaze toward the perpetrators — an urgent and timely transference, given the shredding of civil society underway today.

Kara Walker deconstructed a monument to Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson for “Unmanned Drone,” as seen at the Brick gallery as part of “Monuments.”

(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)

Monuments. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and the Brick. Through May 3

The nearly two-year delay in opening “Monuments,” an exhibition of toppled Confederate and Jim Crow statues that pairs cautionary art history with thoughtful and poetic retorts by a variety of artists, turned out to give the much anticipated undertaking an especially potent punch. As the Trump Administration restores a white supremacist sheen to “Lost Cause” mythology by renaming military installations after Civil War traitors and returning sculptures and paintings of them to prior perches, from which they had been removed, this sober and incisive analysis of what’s at stake is nothing less than crucial.

Peak moment: As a metaphor of white supremacy, Kara Walker’s transformation of the ancient “man on a horse” motif into a monstrous headless horseman — a Euro-American corpse that tortures the living and refuses to die — resonates loudly.

Installation view of sculptures and a painting by Robert Therrien at the Broad.

(Joshua White / Broad museum)

Robert Therrien: This Is a Story. The Broad. Through April 5

The late Los Angeles-based artist Robert Therrien (1947-2019) had a distinctive, even quirky capacity for teasing out a conceptual space between ordinary domestic objects and their mysterious personal meanings. In 120 paintings, drawings, photographs and especially sculptures, this Therrien exhibition offers objects hovering somewhere between immediately recognizable and perplexingly alien, wryly funny and spiritually profound.

Guardiola – who takes his side to Sunderland on New Year’s Day – held several talks with his squad during the Club World Cup in America in the summer and believes the breakthrough came there.

He said: “When we went out to Al Hilal, it wasn’t the fact we didn’t win but that we were so good there. It was then holidays so I said: “OK, go on holidays” but I was annoyed because we were good there, good with the guys training, good with the competition.

“The place we were in, Boca Raton in front of the beach, everyone was happy. We made a lot of dinners, a lot of talks, [about] what we have to do next season. What we have to do. We wanted to extend it, just to live that.

“After talking with Pep [Lijnders] and James [French], Manel [Estiarte], Hugo [Viana], Txiki [Begiristain], we turned around and said something changed. Something [you can feel].

“Energy, energy, energy. We lost it last season. We started to train better, compete better.

“It doesn’t mean you are going to win but that you are able to recognise the team. Now it is eight victories in a row. It is not easy but compete in a way we do. We have to improve, absolutely, but this mindset is better.”

Voting is under way in Myanmar’s heavily restricted election, the first since the military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically-elected government in a coup in 2021. Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng explains the process from a polling station in Yangon.

GORDON Ramsay gave a fiery speech at daughter Holly’s wedding to Olympian Adam Peaty — saying his wife Tana “will be a good mum to them both”. 

The celebrity chef waded into the swimmer’s family feud as it emerged 31-year-old Adam has blocked their texts. 

Ramsay, 59, gushed at how beautiful Holly looked and told Adam he was a “lucky man”, adding: “Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to.” 

And in a sly dig at Adam’s absent parents he told Holly, 25: “Shame you don’t have the same.” 

Adam’s feud with mum Caroline, 60, exploded last month after she was not invited to Holly’s hen do.  

Last night a Peaty family source hit back at Gordon’s speech saying: “It just goes to show that this was the Ramsays’ plan all along.”  

ICY MESSAGE

Adam Peaty ‘sent brutal text by aunt moments before marrying Holly Ramsay’

FACE OF GLOOM

Adam Peaty’s parents look devastated as they break cover after wedding snub

And it emerged Adam’s aunt Louise texted him moments before he walked into Bath Abbey on Saturday — but he never read it because he has blocked family messages. 

The triple Olympic gold medallist, 31 yesterday, acknowledged the pain caused by the bust-up in his speech at the reception at Kin House in Kington Langley, Wilts.  

He told how his swim coach Mel Marshall has been “everything”, “grounding and inspiring” him. 

After an emotional pause he said she was, “like a mum”. 

Adam also hailed the 200 guests’ support in a “difficult time”. Sister Beth, 32, was his only family at the service, maid of honour with Holly’s sisters Megan, 27, and Tilly, 24. 

Adam’s mum, dad Mark, 65, and brothers James and Richard stayed at home in Staffordshire. 

The family source said: “This was the Ramsays’ plan all along. They wanted Adam’s family gone and they have succeeded. 

“You’d think that as parents, Gordon and Tana would have a bit more compassion towards Caroline, Mark and the family. 

“Caroline did everything and more to help Adam. She and Mark sacrificed a lot to get him where he is. Adam ought to be ashamed of himself for going ahead with the wedding without them after everything they did to support him.  

“Beth has betrayed her mum to see what she can get out of being the only family member who gets on with Adam and Holly. 

“This isn’t the Bethany we all know, she’s changed her appearance and personality to fit in with the Ramsays’ celebrity lifestyle.” 

The source also revealed Adam had disinvited his great-aunt Janet and her husband Eddie days before the wedding — despite them booking accommodation and purchasing outfits. The source added: “It’s completely unacceptable.” 

In her message, shortly before Adam entered the abbey with son George, five, his aunt Louise wrote: “I hope you never suffer the depth of pain you have put your mother through and despite it all she loves you still. Shame on you both. 

“Remember on this, your happiest day, and on each anniversary of your happiest day, that you hurt your mum so deeply her soul screams.”

A family source confirmed Adam did not receive or read the message.  

This was the Ramsays’ plan all along. They wanted Adam’s family gone and they have succeeded

Family source

Holly wore two outfits at the reception — including Tana’s gown when she wed Gordon in 1996. 

A DJ announced the tribute, sparking applause from guests including Ramsay pals David and Victoria Beckham. 

A source said: “David and Victoria were on the dance floor most of the evening. And they were almost the last to leave it. They happily mingled with everyone else.” 

Adam’s best man was Ed Baxter, a former swimmer and business partner. Adam’s coach Mel sparked laughter by referring to her student as Golden Balls, while pointing out “the other” Golden Balls, Becks. 

Mel told of her pride and joy at seeing Adam win the 100metres breaststroke gold at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and Covid-hit Tokyo Games postponed to 2021. 

All guests wore a wristband embossed with Adam and Holly’s initials to prevent wedding crashers. 

A pal said last night: “Nothing interrupted what was a peaceful, joyous day with those closest to Holly and Adam. 

“The ceremony was magical and the reception very emotional, there were a lot of tears. 

“Gordon made an amazing speech that had everyone laughing and crying. None of the outside noise overshadowed what was an occasion filled with heartfelt joy and happiness for two people who are very much in love.” 

Gordon walked his daughter down the aisle and Tana gave a reading during the hour-long service. 

Look at Tana and that’s what you have to look forward to

Gordon Ramsay

Holly arrived nearly 30 minutes late, wearing a bridal cape over her Christmas-themed dress. 

A crowd of onlookers cheered the couple as they emerged. They were later whisked to the reception in a black Rolls-Royce. The maids of honour wore red dresses designed by Victoria, while Tana wore a similar style dress in green. 

Other celebrities in attendance included Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies and TV presenter Dan Walker, who said on social media: “We had a lovely time celebrating with Adam and Holly. 

“Great wedding, top people, wonderful service, unforgettable reception, brilliant speeches and we got to sing some bangers in the church too.” 

A select few were invited to a breakfast gathering yesterday. 

£50,000 FLOWERS JOKES IN SPEECH

Exclusive by Stephen Moyes

MEGABUCKS chef Gordon jokingly complained about the wedding’s £50,000 flowers in his speech.  

And he poked gentle fun at Holly — calling her easily the most expensive of his six children. 

Gordon revealed how young Holly worked out how to attach his credit card to her Apple Pay. 

And he joked his other children will have to marry in a register office. 

He said: “Only Holly could pick the most beautiful church and choose to cover its stunning windows in white roses.” 

Holly will show off her wedding dress in Vogue magazine, published on New Year’s Day. 

A source added: “Holly has always wanted to do Vogue so this is a coup.” 

Her and Adam’s gift list included a £1,450 Big Green Egg outdoor cooker. 

Other options were a £995 mahogany table, £800 chair and footstool, and £450 log storage bin. 

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Lauren Betts had 18 points and 16 rebounds as No. 4 UCLA extended its winning streak to six games with an 82-75 win over No. 19 Ohio State on Sunday.

Kiki Rice added 16 points and Angela Dugalic scored 15 as UCLA (12-1, 2-0 Big Ten) beat the Buckeyes for the fourth straight time, dating to December 2023.

Jaloni Cambridge led all scorers with 28 points, and Elsa Lemmila added 13 points and seven rebounds for Ohio State (11-2, 1-1) which had its nine-game winning streak halted in its conference home opener.

The Bruins built a 76–60 lead midway through the fourth quarter before Ohio State closed the gap behind strong defense and key late baskets from Cambridge, T’yana Todd and Chance Gray. The Buckeyes closed within six points with about two minutes remaining, but got no closer.

UCLA outrebounded Ohio State 47–33, including a 19–10 edge on the offensive end that led to a 35–10 advantage in second-chance points. Betts anchored the Bruins in the paint as UCLA outscored the Buckeyes 50–32 inside.

Ohio State struggled from three-point range in the first half, missing its first 11 attempts before Lemmila connected with 3:43 left in the second quarter. The Buckeyes found some rhythm in the third quarter, hitting six three-pointers, and finished seven of 30 (23%) from beyond the arc.

Up next for UCLA: at Penn State on Wednesday.

Diplomacy over the Russia-Ukraine war is in its “final stages”, said US President Donald Trump as he welcomed Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to his Florida estate.

The two leaders stood outside the Mar-a-Lago resort on Sunday and addressed reporters as they prepared to discuss a new proposal to end the bloody conflict.

The US president has been working hard to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the fighting.

“I think we’re … in final stages of talking and we’re going to see. Otherwise, it’s going to go on for a long time, and millions of additional people will be killed,” said Trump, adding he did not have a deadline for the process.

“I do believe that we have the makings of a deal that’s good for Ukraine, good for everybody.”

He added there would be “a strong agreement” to guarantee Ukraine’s security, one that would involve European countries.

“We have two willing parties. We have two willing countries … The people of Ukraine want [the war] to end, and the people of Russia want it to end, and the two leaders want it to end,” Trump said.

Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s capital in the days before the Florida meeting.

Zelenskyy, by Trump’s side, said he and the US president would discuss issues of territorial concessions, which have so far been a red line for his country. He said his negotiators and Trump’s advisers “have discussed how to move step by step and bring peace closer” and would continue to do so in Sunday’s meeting.

During recent talks, the US agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO.

The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.

Oleksandr Kraiev, an analyst with the think-tank Ukrainian Prism, said the people of Ukraine are “quite cynical” about the talks brokered by the United States.

“We tried this in 2015, 2016, 2017, and unfortunately each time the Russians broke even the ceasefire regime, not even talking about the peace process,” he told Al Jazeera.

“So we have little faith that a proper peace process will take place. As of now we’re striving for a ceasefire as a precondition for any kind of talks… We cannot trust the Russians with a peace deal, but a ceasefire is something we’re working on.”

‘Blindsided yet again’

Trump’s upbeat tone comes despite widespread scepticism in Europe about Putin’s intentions after Russia carried out another massive bombardment of the Ukrainian capital just as Zelenskyy headed to Florida.

Before Zelenskyy arrived, Trump spoke with Putin by phone for more than an hour and said he planned to speak again after the Zelenskyy meeting – catching Ukrainian leaders off guard, reported Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi.

“From what we’re hearing, the Zelenskyy delegation here have been blindsided yet again by Donald Trump. And according to the Russians, it was at the Americans’ insistence there should be a call with Vladimir Putin the hour before Zelenskyy arrived,” said Rattansi, speaking from Palm Beach, Florida.

Meanwhile, while there is talk about land concessions from Ukraine’s side, they are outside the framework Zelenskyy is hoping for.

The Kremlin gave a more pointed readout of Trump’s talks with Putin, saying the US leader agreed a mere ceasefire “would only prolong the conflict” as it demanded Ukraine compromise on territory.

Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.

Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognised as Russian territory. He also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces have not captured.

Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.

Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s conditions, making the case that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region, and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.

Misrata, Libya – After days of mourning, Libya is laying to rest its army chief, General Mohammed al-Haddad, and four other prominent military figures.

Al-Haddad, his senior adviser, Mohamed al-Essawi, and his military cameraman, Mohamed al-Mahjoub, were transported to their hometown in Misrata on Saturday evening for burial.

Also killed in the aircraft crash in central Turkiye on Tuesday were the commander of army land forces, General Fetouri Ghrebil, and the head of military manufacturing, Mahmoud al-Gedewi, whose remains were moved to their respective hometowns for burial.

The five were returning to the North African country from Ankara after meetings with Turkish defence officials, just a day after the Turkish parliament voted to extend the presence of its troops in Libya, as part of efforts to bolster military cooperation between Turkiye and the internationally recognised government in Tripoli.

Turkish authorities say preliminary investigations suggest a technical failure.

A Libyan military committee went to Ankara on Wednesday to help the investigation. A committee member told Al Jazeera that both countries agreed to transfer the aircraft’s flight recorder to a neutral country for a full investigation.

‘A dreadful scene’

After visiting the site of the crash, sources from the Libyan military committee told Al Jazeera it was a “dreadful scene”, with body parts scattered everywhere.

Identification was so difficult that authorities had to perform DNA testing on the body parts to identify which of the aircraft passengers they belonged to.

It was only after the long, painstaking process was completed that the bodies were finally repatriated to Libya.

A Turkish military ceremony was held in their honour early on Saturday morning, then the bodies were put on an aeroplane for the journey to Libya, but matters became complicated at that point.

The seemingly straightforward matter of holding ceremonies for the deceased became an issue as details like where they would be held were debated hotly in the fractured country.

Is General al-Haddad replaceable?

The Tripoli government is overseen by the Presidential Council, a three-member body that serves as the supreme commander of the military, according to the Libyan Political Agreement.

However, Libya’s rival authorities in the east, controlled by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar, do not recognise them, despite the eastern-based parliament signing the agreement.

Al-Haddad was seen by some as a man of peace, well-respected by people across the country, even those he fought against.

He played a crucial role in the fight against Haftar during the latter’s military campaign on Tripoli in 2019, an assault that saw Haftar’s forces on the outskirts of Tripoli.

Under al-Haddad, government forces retook western Libya and forced Haftar back to the east, and al-Haddad helped pave the way for the national ceasefire agreement signed in 2020.

Haftar released a statement saying he was “deeply saddened” by al-Haddad’s death and expressed his condolences to his family.

In May, clashes broke out around Mitiga international airport between government forces and the Special Deterrent Force, a powerful armed group that reports to the Presidential Council and opposes the interim prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.

Dbeibah gave the Special Deterrent Force (SDF) an ultimatum to hand over the airport, their prisons, and assimilate into the state security apparatus, or be targeted by the government.

With help and intervention by the Turkish government, a ceasefire was reached, and a truce committee, chaired by al-Haddad, was established by the Presidential Council and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

There is no doubt that finding a replacement for al-Haddad will not be an easy task. The Presidential Council appointed his deputy, General Salah al-Namroush, temporarily.

During his eulogy, al-Namroush “bid farewell to the men of the nation who carried the nation’s burdens and made discipline a way of life and leadership a responsibility”.

He said he would follow in the footsteps of al-Haddad, and pledged “to continue unifying the army”.

Although it will be difficult, political analyst Mohamed Mahfoudh told Al Jazeera: “Discussions are already under way; given the importance of the position, I expect a decision to be made within the next 10 days.”

Libya has seen widespread frustration and recent protests against the government over the economic situation, prompting officials to announce a plan to reshuffle the cabinet earlier this month.

The shuffle was scheduled to be announced on December 24, but al-Haddad’s death postponed that.

“Now, the chief of staff position will be entered into the cabinet reshuffle discussions. That means Haddad’s replacement could be a political decision to appease certain stakeholders, rather than someone who is qualified for the position.

“That’s a fear many of us have,” Mahfoudh said.

A tale of two airports

In an illustration of Libya’s split, the government in Tripoli had to receive the bodies of al-Haddad and other military officials at the city’s international airport, which was destroyed in fighting in 2014.

It is currently under renovation and now serves only government and emergency medical evacuation planes.

However, normally the bodies would have been received at Mitiga international airport, which is now Tripoli’s main commercial airport, but since it is under SDF control, PM Dbeibah could not be there.

He is not welcome.

So, Dbeibah, members of the Presidential Council, and senior government and military officials waited for the bodies at Tripoli international airport.

They were taken to an army base in southern Tripoli for a military ceremony in their honour, where Presidential Council head, Mohamed al-Menfi, declared “the promotion of each martyr to the next rank”, making al-Haddad a field marshal posthumously.

“Field Marshal Mohamed al-Haddad was a cornerstone to protecting the state and maintaining stability,” said Dbeibah at the ceremony.

He assured people that investigations into the crash “are continuing with full accuracy and credibility in coordination with Turkiye”.

Al-Haddad, al-Essawi, and al-Mahjoub’s bodies were flown to their hometowns in Misrata on Saturday evening.

On Sunday morning, people came from all over the country to lay them to rest.

Thousands of people gathered in the Misrata football stadium for a farewell prayer for the departed. Misrata city officials announced the day as an official holiday to give people time off to attend the funeral.

Abdullah Allafi, a tribal leader from al-Rajban in the Nafusa Mountains of western Libya, left home at 3am to drive hundreds of kilometres to pay his respects.

When asked about al-Haddad’s death, he said: “It’s a huge loss. Mohamed al-Haddad’s death is a loss for all of us and for Libya. He was a true patriot. May Allah rest his soul.

“Our presence here is a symbol of unity. Enough divisions, it’s time to come together and build a nation and a united military.”

Brigitte Bardot, the French actor idealized for her beauty and heralded in the midcentury as the prototype of liberated female sexuality, has died at 91.

Long withdrawn from the entertainment industry, Bardot died at her home in southern France, Bruno Jacquelin of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals confirmed to the Associated Press. He gave no cause of death. Bardot had dealt with infirm health in recent years, including hospitalization for a breathing issue in July 2023 and additional hospital stays in 2025.

Bardot was known for being mercurial, self-destructive and prone to reckless love affairs with men and women. She was a fashion icon and media darling who left acting at 39 and lived out the rest of her years in near seclusion, emerging periodically to champion animal rights, lecture about moral decay and espouse bigoted political views.

And, as if in protest of her famed beauty, Bardot happily allowed herself to age naturally.

“With me, life is made up only of the best and the worst, of love and hate,” she told the Guardian in 1996. “Everything that happened to me was excessive.”

In her prime, Bardot was considered a national treasure in France, received by President Charles de Gaulle at the Élysée Palace and analyzed exhaustively by existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. She was the girl whose poster adorned the bedroom of a teenage John Lennon.

While Marilyn Monroe was playing it coy, Bardot was forthright and free about her sexuality, sleeping with her leading men without apology, sweaty and writhing barefoot on a table in the controversial 1956 film “…And God Created Woman.” Though many of her films were largely forgettable, she projected a radical sense of self-empowerment for women that had a lasting cultural influence.

Born Sept. 28, 1934, in Paris, the daughter of a Parisian factory owner and his socialite wife, Bardot and her younger sister were raised in a religious Catholic home.

Bardot studied ballet at the Paris Conservatoire and, at her mother’s urging, pursued modeling. By 14, she was on the cover of Elle magazine. She caught the eye of filmmaker Marc Allegret, who sent his 20-year-old apprentice, Roger Vadim, to locate her.

Vadim and Bardot began a years-long affair during which he cultivated the sex-kitten persona that would seduce the world. But Bardot wasn’t one to be cultivated. As Vadim once said, “She doesn’t act. She exists.”

Bardot married Vadim at 18, and that same year he directed her in “…And God Created Woman,” as a woman who falls in love with her older husband’s younger brother. The film, which prompted moral outrage in the U.S. and was heavily edited before it reached theaters, made Bardot a star and an emblem of French modernity.

“I wanted to show a normal young girl whose only difference was that she behaved in the way a boy might, without any sense of guilt on a moral or sexual level,” Vadim said at the time.

In real life, Bardot left Vadim for her costar Jean-Louis Trintignant. She went on to master a comic-erotic persona in the popular 1957 comedy “Une Parisienne” and portrayed a young delinquent in the 1958 drama “Love Is My Profession.”

By 1959, she was pregnant with the child of French actor Jacques Charrier, whom she married as a result. Together they had a son, Nicolas.

In Bardot’s scathing 1996 memoir, “Initiales B.B: Mémoires,” she details her crude attempts to abort the child, asking doctors for morphine and punching herself in the stomach. Nine months after the baby was born, she said, she downed a bottle of sleeping pills and slit her wrists, the first of several apparent suicide attempts during her life. When Bardot recovered, she gave up custody of her son and divorced Charrier.

“I couldn’t be Nicolas’ roots because I was completely uprooted, unbalanced, lost in that crazy world,” she explained years later.

Bardot earned her greatest box-office success in the 1960 noir drama “The Truth,” playing a woman on trial for the murder of her lover. Her best performance likely came in Jean-Luc Godard’s acclaimed 1963 melancholy adaptation “Contempt,” as a wife who falls out of love with her husband. She was later nominated for a BAFTA award for her performance as a circus entertainer turned political operative in the 1965 comedy “Viva Maria!”

All the while, though, Bardot courted drama and lived large.

While she was married to German industrialist Gunter Sachs, she had an affair with French pop star Serge Gainsbourg. He wrote Bardot the erotic love song “Je t’aime … moi non plus,” which went on to become a hit by Donna Summer, altered and retitled “Love to Love You Baby.” By 1969, she had divorced Sachs and was romantically linked to everyone from Warren Beatty to Jimi Hendrix.

The celebrity life eventually exhausted Bardot, and she grew to fear that she’d end up dying young like Marilyn Monroe or withering away in public view like Rita Hayworth. Though she exuded confidence, she admitted in her memoir that she battled depression as she sought to juggle the many moving pieces of her chaotic life.

“The majority of great actresses met tragic ends,” she told the Guardian. “When I said goodbye to this job, to this life of opulence and glitter, images and adoration, the quest to be desired, I was saving my life.”

Nearing 40, she quit acting and spent the rest of her life bouncing between her Saint-Tropez beach house and a farm — complete with a chapel — outside Paris. She devoted herself to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals.

As an animal rights activist, her list of enemies was long: the Japanese for hunting whales, the Spanish for bullfighting, the Russians for killing seals, the furriers, hunters and circus operators.

At her home in Saint-Tropez, dozens of cats and dogs — along with goats, sheep and a horse — wandered freely. She chased away fishermen and was sued for sterilizing a neighbor’s goat.

“My chickens are the happiest in the world, because I have been a vegetarian for the past 20 years,” Bardot said.

In 1985 she was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest civilian decoration, but refused to collect it until President François Mitterrand agreed to close the royal hunting grounds.

In 1992 she married Bernard d’Ormale, a former aide to Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Front and frequent candidate for France’s presidency. Later, Bardot became an ardent supporter of Le Pen’s daughter Marine, leader of France’s anti-immigration far right.

Two French civil rights groups sued Bardot for the xenophobic and homophobic comments she made in her 2003 book, “A Cry in the Silence,” in which she rails against Muslims, gays, intellectuals, drug abusers, female politicians, illegal immigrants and the “professionally” unemployed. She was ultimately fined six times for inciting racial hatred, mostly while speaking out against Muslims and Jews. She was fined again in 2021 over a 2019 rant wherein she dubbed the residents of Réunion, a French Island in the Indian Ocean, “degenerate savages.”

“I never had trouble saying what I have to say,” Bardot wrote in a 2010 letter to The Times. “As for being a little bunny that never says a word, that is truly the opposite of me.”

Bardot stirred controversy again in 2018 when she dismissed the #MeToo movement as a campaign fueled by a “hatred of men.”

“I thought it was nice to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass,” she told NBC. “This kind of compliment is nice.”

She remained firm in those views in the final year of her life, decrying the societal shaming of playwright-comedian-actor Nicolas Bedos and actor Gérard Depardieu, who were both convicted of sexual assault. “People with talent who grab a girl’s bottom are thrown into the bottom of the ditch,” she declared in a 2025 TV interview, her first in 11 years. “We could at least let them carry on living.”

As she aged, Bardot mostly kept to herself, content to do the crossword puzzle when the newspaper arrived, tend to her menagerie and mail off hotly written pleas to world leaders to halt their animal abuses. She was largely vague when asked if she was still married to D’Ormale.

“It depends what day it is,” she said, laughing gently.

Piccalo is a former Times staff writer. Former staff writer Steve Marble contributed to this report.

R.J. Prewitt has been a Ducks fan since the first puck dropped in Anaheim, so he’s known good times and bad.

He was there when the team won the Stanley Cup in 2007, for example, and when it took another final to a seventh game four seasons earlier. But he was also there through each of the last seven seasons, when the Ducks never placed higher than sixth in the Pacific Division and finished a combined 74 games under .500.

“It’s my team,” said Prewitt, wearing a white-and-orange Ducks’ sweater as he waited to enter the Crypto.com Arena for Saturday night’s game with the Kings. “I’m going to have faith no matter what.”

That faith is getting another stern test this month. Because after entering December atop the division standings for the first time in more than a decade, the Ducks have lost six of their last eight, with the most ignominious loss coming Saturday in a 6-1 thrashing by their neighborhood rivals and winger Alex Laferriere, who got his first career hat trick.

Ducks left wing Alex Killorn skates with the puck during a loss to Kings Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.

(Katie Chin / Associated Press)

For the Kings, the season-high six goals comes at the end of a slide that had seen them lose six of their last seven, averaging less than two goals a game over that stretch.

Laferriere scored more than that by himself Saturday.

The Kings’ first two goals, from Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore, came in the first four minutes. Laferriere got his first midway through the first period and when Quinton Byfield scored on a power play just before the intermission, the Kings took a 4-0 lead into the locker room at the break.

For the Ducks, who have been plagued by slow starts — 11 of their 21 wins came in games in which they trailed; only the Philadelphia Flyers have more — that deficit was too much to overcome.

“That’s unacceptable,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “You’re not going to make the playoffs being at that level. So we’ve got to make sure that we recapture that feeling of what it takes to be consistent.”

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville yells instructions to his players during a game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 19.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

Yet despite Saturday’s loss, the Ducks and their fans still have a lot of positives to celebrate — especially given the team’s recent history.

The Ducks’ 21 wins are still most in the division; they didn’t get their 21st win until Jan. 28th last season. And their 130 goals through 38 games — an average of nearly 3 ½ a night — rank fourth in the NHL. They were in the bottom three in scoring in each of the last three seasons.

But what had been the most remarkable turnaround in the league through the first three months has suddenly hit a rough patch, challenging the narrative that new coach Quenneville had finally taken the team from pretenders to contenders.

“Well, we’ve got to prove it,” Quenneville said after Saturday’s humiliation, the Ducks’ most lopsided loss of the season. “We can talk about [how] we want to be a harder-working team this season. But the game tonight didn’t indicate that at all.

“The tenaciousness and the relentless has to go be part of our identity. But we can’t talk about it. We’ve got to prove that.”

Quenneville has been here before. In 2008, he took over a young Chicago Blackhawks team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in five seasons and guided it to the conference finals. A year later, it won the Stanley Cup.

Then in 2019, he took over a young Florida Panthers’ team and led it to the franchise’s first playoff appearance in three seasons.

Both teams had to learn to win, had to believe they could win, before they actually did so. Now Quenneville’s young Ducklings are having their beliefs tested by their worst eight-game stretch of the season.

“I’ve never been on a winning-record team in the NHL. And I’m not the only guy,” said 22-year-old center Mason McTavish, one of six Ducks younger than 23. “It’s a learning curve for sure.

“But at the same time we know how good we are. And this last six, eight games, it’s not been up to our standard. We’ve taken a huge step this year. But that’s not our end goal. We want to make the playoffs. We want to win the Stanley Cup.”

The Ducks will have to become a lot more consistent to have a chance to make that happen. Because while they’re one of the league’s top scoring teams, only the St. Louis Blues have allowed more goals than the Ducks, who have a minus-2 goal differential. And they’ve been outscored 34-19 in their last eight games.

The slump, then, is looming as a test of character and resolve. At a similar point in Quenneville’s first season in Chicago, the Blackhawks lost five times in an eight-game stretch. But they rebounded by winning nine of their next 12 and never looked back.

McTavish, who had his team’s only goal Saturday, said the Ducks have to do the same thing if they hope to show the playoffs are now a realistic goal for a franchise that hasn’t had a winning record in seven seasons.

Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal is congratulated by Nikita Nesterenko and Mason McTavish after blocking a shot by Panthers center Evan Rodrigues to win during a shootout on Oct. 28 in Sunrise, Fla.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

“We have to come out the next game and really prove to ourselves that we can play with the top teams in the league,” he said. “And beat them.”

The Ducks long-suffering supporters are also ready for the pain of the last seven seasons to ease.

“Yes, yes, yes. I believe,” said Daniel Núñez of Bakersfield who, like Prewitt, has been a fan from the first season. “We have a good shot, I think, to win the Pacific Division. We have a really good team.”

“Whatever they’re doing,” Prewitt agreed “I’m there with them.”

Several countries and regional blocs have condemned Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an independent nation. Somalia called Israel’s announcement a ‘deliberate attack’ on its sovereignty that undermines efforts for regional peace.

Happy Valley star Siobhan Finneran has discussed her relationship with Death in Paradise actor Don Gilet, explaining their decision to maintain separate homes in different cities

Happy Valley star Siobhan Finneran, 59, has offered a rare glimpse into her relationship with Death in Paradise actor Don Gilet, 58, revealing why the pair have chosen to maintain separate households.

The duo initially crossed paths whilst working together on ITV’s crime drama The Loch, where Siobhan played DCI Lauren Quigley and Don took on the role of forensic psychologist Blake Albrighton.

Around a year afterwards, in 2018, their professional connection developed into something more romantic. Yet Siobhan calls Saddleworth home, whilst her other half, Don, is based in north London.

Despite the geographical gap between them, Siobhan insists she and the DI Mervin Wilson actor manage perfectly well, noting that Don spends most of his time abroad anyway, filming Death in Paradise in Guadeloupe.

Speaking to The Times, she said: “That’s just the way it is, isn’t it? That’s how it’s always been. And he’s out of the country for seven months a year doing Death in Paradise anyway.”

Siobhan also disclosed that she’s made the journey to the French Caribbean island, which she calls an “amazing place”, to see Don whilst he’s working.

The Protection actress was swift to reject any notion that they’re a “power couple”, confessing they can be “hopeless” when attempting to organise themselves, joking: “I’ve not heard that one before.”

She continued: “We are both off the telly. Other than that we’re pretty normal. You wouldn’t think we were a power couple this morning, both running around trying to get out of the house on time. Hopeless.”

After months of rumours, Siobhan first hinted at her romance with Don when she lovingly called the actor “my fella” during a chat with The Guardian.

Before this revelation, the couple had been photographed holding hands at various showbiz gatherings prior to making their relationship official.

Don is set to return to television screens as DI Mervin Wilson for the Death in Paradise Christmas Special.

He will be joined by guest stars Josie Lawrence, Kate Ashfield, Pearl Mackie and James Baxter for the festive episode.

The Death in Paradise Christmas Special airs on Sunday 28th December at 8.30pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

For the latest showbiz, TV, movie and streaming news, go to the new Everything Gossip website.

A look at The Times’ top 25 boys’ basketball rankings for the Southland after Week 6.

Rk. School (Rec.); Comment; ranking last week

1. SIERRA CANYON (10-1): Trailblazers getting close to full strength; 1

2. REDONDO UNION (13-2): Sea Hawks looking like Sierra Canyon’s major challenger; 3

3. SANTA MARGARITA (15-2): Drew Anderson is a big man rising in performance; 2

4. ST. JOHN BOSCO (9-3): Overtime loss to Phoenix (Ariz.) Sunnyslope; 4

5. CREAN LUTHERAN (12-3): Semifinalist for Classic at Damien; 8

6. HARVARD-WESTLAKE (15-2): Face JSerra on Friday; 5

7. SHERMAN OAKS NOTRE DAME (10-4): Josiah Nance is back from injury; 6

8. ARCADIA (11-1): Win over San Gabriel Academy makes Apaches the real deal; 16

9. CORONA DEL MAR (14-0): Fourteen straight wins for Sea Kings; 11

10. CRESPI (11-4): Celts advance to Classic at Damien semifinals; 13

11. CORONA CENTENNIAL (14-3): Stanford commit Isaiah Rogers is delivering; 9

12. ETIWANDA (15-1): Lost in overtime for first defeat; 10

13. SAN GABRIEL ACADEMY (6-5): Freshman Zach Arnold continues to perform well; 7

14. DAMIEN (14-3): Came within one point of upsetting Redondo Union; 14

15. VILLAGE CHRISTIAN (11-5): A 41-point performance from freshman Will Conroy; 12

16. JSERRA (12-5): Lions starting to make improvement; 17

17. LA MIRADA (8-5): Matadores keep challenging themselves; 15

18. THOUSAND OAKS (13-0): Dylan McCord is firing in threes; 18

19. BRENTWOOD (15-1): Thirty-point performance from AJ Okoh; 22

20. EASTVALE ROOSEVELT (10-5): Big performance from Sloane Harris; 21

21. MIRA COSTA (15-1): Made it to Torrey Pines semifinals; 23

22. ELSINORE (18-0): Undefeated season still going strong; 24

23. MAYFAIR (6-3): Next up is Crossroads on Monday; 20

24. INGLEWOOD (11-4): Jason Crowe Jr. is averaging 44.0 points per game; 25

25. CYPRESS (12-5): In divisional semifinals at Torrey Pines; NR

Dec. 28 (UPI) — More than 30 years after New York City switched from tokens to the magnetic swipe of a MetroCard to ride its subways and buses, the card’s era is about to end.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2026, transiting residents and tourists alike will be required to move into the 21st century by using a contactless form of paying fares by tapping a phone, credit card or other device as they enter stations and buses.

Although the contactless system was introduced in 2019, 94% of subway and bus trips in the city already use the OMNY system for their travel payments, ABC News reported.

“New Yorkers have embraced tap and ride and we’re proud to see that as more and more people return to the city, they are choosing mass transit,” Shanifah Rieara, chief customer officer for New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), said in a press release.

“As the end of MetroCard sales nears, we are focusing on reaching the remaining 6% to make the switch and unlock the benefits and convenience of tap and ride technology,” Rieara said.

According to the MTA, the last day to purchase or reload a MetroCard will be Dec. 31, while the last day to use one of the magnetic swipe cards will be some time in mid-2026.

The OMNY system offers three ways for riders to pay: with their phone using a digital wallet or contactless bank card, as well as a physical OMNY card that works with the digital system.

MTA said that by eliminating MetroCards and move to a single method of fare collection, the agency expects to save at least $20 million, as well as gain the ability to offer customer promotions and fare discounts more easily.

From 1953 until 1994, the New York City subway system’s main method for paying were dime-sized tokens with a hole in the middle shaped like a “Y,” which the MTA at the time said made it easier to increase fares without having to accept a variety of coinage, CNN reported.

In 1983, as other large cities had started using magnetic swipe technology for their public transportation systems’ payments, the MTA started moving toward the reloadable cards that have been an essential part of life for New Yorkers for more than three decades.

I am a Palestinian. And increasingly, that fact alone is treated as a provocation.

In recent months, I have watched anti-Semitism — a real, lethal form of hatred with a long and horrific history — be stripped of its meaning and weaponised to silence Palestinians, criminalise solidarity with us, and shield Israel from accountability as it carries out a genocide in Gaza. This is not about protecting Jewish people. It is about protecting power.

The pattern is now impossible to ignore.

A children’s educator, Ms Rachel, whose entire public work is built around care, learning, and empathy, is branded “Anti-Semite of the Year” — not for her engaging in any form of hate speech, but for expressing concern for Palestinian children. For acknowledging that children in Gaza are being bombed, starved, and traumatised. For expressing compassion.

As a Palestinian, I hear the message clearly: even empathy for our children is dangerous.

Then there is Palestine Action, a protest movement that targets weapons manufacturers supplying Israel’s military. Instead of being debated, challenged, or even criticised within a democratic framework, it is proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation, casually equated with ISIL (ISIS) – a group responsible for mass executions, sexual slavery, and genocidal violence.

This comparison is not just obscene. It is deliberate. It collapses the meaning of “terrorism” so completely that political dissent becomes extremism by definition. Resistance becomes pathology. Protest becomes “terror”. And Palestinians, once again, are framed not as a people under occupation, but as a permanent threat.

Language itself is now being criminalised. Phrases like “globalise the Intifada” are banned without any serious engagement with history or meaning. Intifada — a word that literally means “shaking off” — is torn from its political context as an uprising against military occupation and reduced to a slur. Palestinians are denied even the right to name their resistance.

At the same time, international law is being actively dismantled.

Staff and judges at the International Criminal Court are sanctioned and intimidated for daring to investigate Israeli war crimes. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, has not only been sanctioned, but also relentlessly smeared — because she uses the language of international law to describe occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

When international law is applied to African leaders, it is celebrated.
When it is applied to Israel, it is treated as an act of hostility.

This brings us to Australia — and to one of the most revealing moments of all.

After the horrific Bondi Beach attack, which shocked and horrified people across Australia, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Australian government of encouraging anti-Semitism. Not because of any incitement, not because of inflammatory rhetoric — but because Australia had moved towards recognising Palestine as a state.

Read that again.

The diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood — long framed as essential to peace and grounded in international law — is presented as a moral failing, even as a contributor to anti-Semitic violence. Palestinian existence itself is treated as the problem.

What makes this moment so disturbing is not only that Netanyahu made this claim, but that so many centres of power ran with it rather than challenged it.

Instead of forcefully rejecting the idea that recognising Palestinian rights could “encourage anti-Semitism”, governments, institutions, and commentators allowed the premise to stand. Some echoed it outright. Others stayed silent. Almost none confronted the dangerous logic at its core: that Palestinian political recognition is inherently destabilising, provocative, or threatening.

This is how moral collapse happens — not with thunder, but with acquiescence.

The result is not safety for the Jewish people, but erasure of the Palestinian people.

As a Palestinian, I find it devastating.

It means my identity is not merely contested — it is criminalised. My grief is not simply ignored — it is politicised. My demand for justice is not debated — it is pathologised as hatred.

Anti-Semitism is real. It must be confronted seriously and without hesitation. The Jewish people deserve safety, dignity, and protection — everywhere. But when anti-Semitism is stretched to include children’s educators, UN experts, international judges, protest movements, chants, words, and even the diplomatic recognition of Palestine, then the term no longer serves to protect Jewish people.

It protects a state from accountability.

Worse still, this weaponisation endangers Jews by collapsing Jewish identity into the actions of a government committing mass atrocities. It tells the world that Israel speaks for all Jews — and that anyone who objects must therefore be hostile to Jews themselves. That is not protection. It is recklessness masquerading as morality.

For Palestinians like me, the psychological toll is immense.

I am tired of having to preface every sentence with disclaimers.

I am deeply pained by watching my people starve while being lectured about tone.

I am angry that international law seems to apply only in certain politically convenient cases.

And I am grieving — not just for Gaza, but for the moral collapse unfolding around it.

Opposing genocide is not anti-Semitism.

Solidarity is not “terrorism”.

Recognising Palestine is not incitement.

Naming your suffering is not violence.

If the world insists on calling me an anti-Semite for refusing to accept the annihilation of my people, then it is not anti-Semitism that is being countered.

It is genocide that is being justified.

And history will remember who helped make that possible.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

DRAGONS’ Den star Sara Davies has broken her silence on being invited to Adam Peaty and Holly Ramsay’s star-studded wedding.

The entrepreneur, 41, met Olympic swimmer Adam during their time competing on Strictly Come Dancing and has admitted they have stayed close ever since.

She’s now taken to Instagram to speak about the “emotional” big day as she hinted Adam teared up at seeing his new wife walk down the aisle at the plush Bath Abbey ceremony.

Alongside a collection of snaps of her and Adam from over the years, TV favourite Sara said: “Yesterday I had the privilege of being at this amazing man’s wedding – and it also gave me a moment to reflect on how lucky I’ve been to have him in my life over the past four years.

“From the first day we met on Strictly, we’ve been firm friends, and it was a real honour to sit in Bath Abbey and watch him get emotional as the love of his life walked down the aisle.”

Sara continued: “It was such a special day.

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“Simon and I had the best time, the service was beautiful – and I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to hear me say, it was hands down the best wedding food I’ve ever had.

“Wishing my wonderful friend and his gorgeous bride a lifetime of happiness together.”

Sara looked sensational as she strutted her way into the ceremony yesterday.

The business mogul wowed in a black and blue gown that featured lacy floral detailing.

One of the best dressed attendees at the event, Sara flashed a smile and waved to the crowds as she made her way inside the venue.

The big day was not without its controversy amid the ongoing family feud tearing the Peaty family apart.

Adam’s parents were absent from the big day after a feud erupted among the clan.

We revealed that Adam allegedly told dad Mark he could only attend if he sat at the back of Bath Abbey, where the lavish celebration took place.

But Mark declined, finding the offer insulting, and remained at home 150 miles away as Adam tied the knot.

The family was split last month after Caroline was not included at Holly’s hen do at the swanky Soho Farmhouse, Oxfordshire, and was subsequently uninvited from the wedding.

Holly’s mum Tana and close pal Victoria Beckham were both in attendance at the girly get together near to the Beckhams’ country home.

Caroline made her feelings clear earlier this month when she shared a cryptic post on Instagram that read: “This year, I met the most broken version of myself but also the strongest. 2026, get ready, because I’m coming back stronger than ever.”

The feud escalated when bride Holly called cops after Adam’s brother James allegedly made threats via text while Adam was on his stag do.

Adam was also branded “spiteful” this Christmas for failing to buy gifts for his parents or brothers.