Night time celebrations filled the air as Iraqis observed the start of a four-day holiday to mark the withdrawal of US troops and international forces after more than a decade in the country fighting ISIL.
Published On 1 Oct 20261 Oct 2026
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TILLY Ramsay has celebrated her fourth anniversary with her very rarely seen boyfriend in a new social media snap.
The daughter of chef Gordon took to Instagram to mark the occasion by sharing a new loved-up image with her man, Henry Farrow.
Tilly and Henry have been dating for four years but unlike her sister Holly in her union with Adam Peaty, Tilly has aimed to keep the romance private where possible.
Sharing a snap from a recent luxe getaway together, Tilly paid tribute to Henry with a gushing post.
Tilly captioned the snap with: “Four years with the best.”
She then shared another mirror selfie of the pair with the caption: “Love love love you.”
Read More on Tilly Ramsay
Tilly and Harry have largely kept their romance out of view and only went public for the first time on Valentine’s Day 2023.
He only briefly appeared alongside her on the family’s Netflix programme and Harry has largely shunned taking on any of his own media appearances.
In episode 5 viewers caught a glimpse of Henry smiling supportively at Tilly.
He travels down with her family to surprise her whilst she is training in Cork, Ireland.
Henry is from Bristol and is the Son of an entrepreneur father.
Little else is known about him but he is believed to have graduated from Nottingham University in 2024 alongside Tilly.
What happened to the future we were promised? The vision that grew out of the 1990s techno-utopianism, when the internet was still a place of freedom and experimentation. Where are the infinite possibilities the early years of the millennium afforded, when social media meant AOL Instant Messenger and GeoCities, when our cellphones were not yet smart, and when personal tech evoked whimsy and excitement rather than anxiety and dread?
On a recent night in L.A., that digital optimism still existed. Here, at a clothing store on La Brea Avenue in the Fairfax District, something that felt lost was rediscovered. People were huddling around to play 1999’s “Crazy Taxi” on a Sega Dreamcast, or 2005’s “Tekken 5” on a PlayStation 2. They were surfing a perfectly re-created Y2K-era internet, and navigating an early version of Apple’s Photo Booth to snap selfies with a first-generation iSight webcam.
Paizley Lee created Dead Internet Theory to bring guests back to an era when tech evoked excitement rather than dread.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Yes, almost everyone was staring at screens, but almost no one was looking at their phone. Instead, the room felt alive and buzzing with energy. Technology was creating human connection rather than isolation.
Welcome to Dead Internet Theory, an event hosted by game designer Paizley Lee that’s both a celebration of vintage tech and a place to build community. The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the theory that the internet today is mostly bots, AI slop and corporate algorithms, while the human element is quickly disappearing from the web.
Lee started the event earlier this year after seeing how her friends reveled in hacking old hardware but had nowhere to show off their reimagined contraptions. She said Dead Internet Theory is a space to highlight “artists who don’t see the light of day,” a cyberpunk show-and-tell of sorts. “There’s a world of knowledge that comes from that person that can share and collaborate with another artist, and that’s really the future that we were promised, right then and there,” Lee said. “It’s the ‘Hey, look at what I made, look at what I’m interested in, and let’s share that.’ ”
Benjamin Palmer shows his project called Pan and Scan.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
One of those artists sharing his work was Dan Ruth. Atop a low credenza, he displayed a black, leather suitcase that housed inside of it an old laptop attached to an external zip drive. On the laptop’s screen was a menu of various banned books — the Unabomber’s manifesto and “The Anarchist Cookbook” among them. Ruth had recently bought the trademark rights to the digital storage systems iOmega, Zip and Jaz. “They were what we all used in the ‘90s to transfer larger files,” he explained of the era before online storage and transfer infrastructure like Google Drive.
With his setup at the event, participants could choose whatever banned book they wanted and write it to a physical Zip disk (about the size of a saltine cracker) to keep forever. If Ruth’s installation is a bit provocative, his message is less controversial. At a time when servers are being shut down, physical media is being digitized out of existence, and the subscription model is supplanting personal ownership, Ruth believes this is a way to have data autonomy.
Guests play retro video games.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Lee’s own contribution to the evening is the full rainbow of Apple’s iMac G3 computers — those bubbly, teardrop-shaped desktops that debuted in 1998 to the famous “iCandy” ads displaying their colorful shells, and TV commercials scored to the Rolling Stones’ “She’s Like a Rainbow.” Over several months and multiple trips, Lee drove across the country collecting the G3s in their core five colors. And it wasn’t easy. She recalled sleeping in her car in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel for a few nights because she had spent all her money on acquiring the computers.
It was the people Lee met in the months of gathering the G3s, however, that made it worth it: a single dad who collected vintage iMacs to bond with his son, an elementary school teacher who held onto the old computers because the school was going to destroy them.
“I met these really witchy, cool, queer programmers from MIT in Medford, Massachusetts, who invited me back for MIT Swap Fest, where I found Indigo,” said Lee, referring to another G3 color not part of the core five. “I met a guy who used to work in broadcast, and his wife just died of cancer. His mom moved in, and she has been trying to support him in getting rid of old things and not holding on to them too much.” Human moments made possible almost by the accident of holding onto a computer longer than most.
Lee’s pursuit of old tech hardware has always been, at its root, a means to meeting new people, hearing their stories and creating a relationship with them. “I care about people a lot,” she said. “I think every single person that touches any of my projects knows that I really care about people feeling good.”
Paizley Lee spent months collecting the full rainbow of iMac G3s.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
With a mouse, Jaimie Wan clicks into the past.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
When Lee finally acquired all five original colors (blueberry, strawberry, lime, tangerine and grape), plus all the additional colors (ruby, indigo, snow, graphite, sage and three limited edition colors), she began booting up the G3s computers to make sure they still worked. In the process, she discovered the forgotten digital detritus left on their hard drives: old resumes, photo albums, Word documents.
“It’s somebody’s life,” she said. “It feels weird to do anything with it, but it also feels weird to alter it.” In the end, she kept the old files and built a replica of the early ‘00s internet to live beside them on the computers. At Dead Internet Theory events, participants are given free reign to the G3s and slowly find clues Lee has left on their desktops that lead into a mystery game she created.
Back at the event, people flocked to the bank of iMac G3 computers. They clicked around, laughing, their eyes lighted up. “It’s really a trip seeing the old MacBooks,” said Shannon Stack after navigating one of the relics. “I remember having those in my elementary school classroom. Now, these are archival pieces. It’s freaky!”
Lee herself hovered around the computer bank, watching people interact with them and discovering the random documents left behind or playing one of Apple’s preset games. She asked a couple who had been tinkering around for over half-an-hour if they wanted a hint to her mystery. “No!” they respond excitedly.
While Dead Internet Theory has only been held in Los Angeles, Lee’s dream is to take it on the road. “I’ve got kids in Seattle, in Nashville, in Dallas that are emailing me and going, please bring it here,” she explained. The only thing stopping her was money, but that changed recently. A few weeks after the event on La Brea, she was approached by a sponsor. Now she’s making a tour happen, first with a pop-up event in New York City on Wednesday.
The event has become a place to gather and build community.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Recently, as Lee began driving across the country to set up, she stopped at a bed and breakfast near Red Lodge, Mont. When she learned the innkeeper had an old blueberry iMac G3 in her basement, she asked to take a look.
“I spent an hour getting her back on,” Lee said of rebooting the machine to give the innkeeper access. “And the face she made when it came back to life — literally priceless.”
The woman browsed through old photos of her daughters, their old school projects and other files forgotten over time. Afterward, the innkeeper gave Lee the computer, telling her it deserves a second life.
Tehran, Iran – Iranian authorities and state media have praised the Houthis’ capture of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, which some see as giving Tehran more leverage against the United States.
The Houthis, a political and armed group dominated by Zaidi Shia Muslims, have been fighting against the Western-backed Yemeni government since capturing the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
The Houthis captured a series of Red Sea coastal cities and islands this week, essentially giving them control over the vital Bab al-Mandeb strait.
The Iran-allied group’s recent victories have been praised in Iran, and are viewed by some as part of Tehran’s wider war against the US, ongoing since February 28.
“The victories of Yemen’s Ansar Allah in the western coast is a narrative of a divine triumph and the fruit of years of steadfastness in the most difficult of battlefields,” Hossein Mohebbi, spokesman of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), wrote on X on Saturday.
Amid the Houthis’ recent battlefield wins against the fragmented Saudi-backed forces, senior Iranian officials have cheered their Yemeni allies on.
The Houthis’ capture of the port city of Mocha on Friday delivered a huge blow for the Yemeni government, which now has no direct access to the Red Sea.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator with Washington, reposted a comment made by slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2024, saying the “resistance” of the Houthis will inevitably lead to victory.
“The brave Yemeni people will certainly triumph, by permission of God Almighty,” Ghalibaf added on Thursday, in Arabic.
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the government is happy with the Houthi advances, and urged leaders in the region to pursue “the rationality of liberation from dependency [from the US and the West], and unity under the banner of Islam”.
The “grand victory” of the Houthis once again proved that “security is not a commodity that can be bought,” added Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
The Houthis began to attack several vessels in the Red Sea they claimed were linked to Israel in 2023, as part of their stated aim to pressure Israel to end the genocidal war on Gaza.
This prompted bombing campaigns by the US, United Kingdom and Israel against Houthi positions in Sanaa, Hodeidah and other areas.
Saudi Arabia, which joined the war against the Houthis in 2015, has largely stayed out of the current eruption in fighting in Yemen.
After their recent victories, the Yemeni group can now exercise more control over the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
The Houthis’ control of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and multiple islands – including the island of Mayun, also known as Perim, sitting about 3km (1.9 miles) off Yemen’s mainland – provides the group with close-range access to the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
A video published on Friday showed a Houthi commander telling soldiers they will no longer need missiles and drones to threaten shipping in the crucial waterway. They could simply position artillery along the coast and fire in all directions at ships, he said.
The Houthis have not declared the strait closed, but the group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said on Friday that “maritime navigation is safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels.”
Likewise, Iran’s partial control of the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula has been a key tool of leverage for Tehran in the war against the US.
The prospect of closing down the strait could potentially be used by Tehran in future negotiations over ending the war with the US.
Iranian officials are expected to meet regional Arab representatives on Monday for talks over how to facilitate shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran maintains remains closed.
They have said they favour a collective regional approach on passage through the strategic waterway.
Iran claims it has reached an understanding with Oman, which also has territorial waters in the strait.
The US, which has continued its naval blockade of Iran’s ports and intensified sanctions on Tehran, reportedly opposes the agreement.
Authorities in Tehran have signalled there will be no talks with Washington under the current circumstances.
“As long as the American side does not accept all of Iran’s conditions, dialogue and negotiation are of no use,” Ebrahim Azizi, head of the hardline Iranian parliament’s national security commission, wrote on X on Saturday.
At the start of the working week in Iran on Saturday, hardline and IRGC-linked newspapers and media outlets celebrated the recent Houthi advances.
Keyhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Ali Khamenei, called the advances “the miracle of resistance” and said they had “put the US and Israel in a bind”.
The Quds newspaper, published by the influential Astan-e Quds Razavi in Mashhad, called Iran and the Houthis “the lord of the straits”.
But even though Tehran has repeatedly threatened that Bab al-Mandeb could be further disrupted if the war continues, Iran’s diplomatic apparatus did not immediately link the Houthi advances with the current fight against the US.
As has often been the case, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs insisted that the Houthis make their decisions independent of Tehran, with their own interests at heart, including ending Saudi Arabia’s blockade on Yemen.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry also called for an end to the Saudi siege on Houthi-controlled areas, an immediate return to negotiations between the group and Riyadh, and respect for Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The ministry also pushed back on the idea that the Houthis act merely as a proxy for Tehran.
“What is happening now in Yemen is the result of the Yemenis losing patience,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told state television on Friday night.
“It is not fair to ignore the fact that they were under a cruel blockade for years, and concluded that the United Nations and regional mechanisms could not resolve the issues.”
