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Release of Mahdieh Esfandiari comes a week after Iran released two French citizens held on espionage charges.

Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari has returned home after being held in France for more than a year as part of what appears to be an exchange of detainees between the countries.

Iran’s state television reported on Wednesday that the “rights activist”, sentenced to one year in prison after making online comments supportive of Palestine and the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that prompted the genocidal war on Gaza, had returned to Iran.

The University of Lyon graduate, who had been living in France since 2018, where she worked as a translator, was arrested in February last year on charges of promoting “terrorism”, and released on bail in October.

“I think it’s clear for everyone that there is no freedom of speech, at least not in France where I was. The court’s ruling was very unjust,” Esfandiari told state television in a Wednesday broadcast.

Esfandiari’s release comes a week after French citizens Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72, arrived in France after being held for more than three years in Iran.

Kohler and Paris were arrested by Iranian authorities in May 2022 but were freed in November last year, after more than three years in prison on espionage charges that their families vehemently deny.

They were taken by French diplomats to France’s mission in Tehran, where they lived under house arrest until their full release on April 7. Upon their release, they were driven from Iran to neighbouring Azerbaijan before taking a flight to Paris.

President Emmanuel Macron’s office said their release was the outcome of a “long-term effort”, but talks accelerated in recent weeks due to pressure from the US-Israel war on Iran, giving a sense of urgency to the situation.

While an exchange was not explicitly acknowledged by France, Iran’s state-run agency IRNA had previously said Tehran reached an agreement with Paris for the release of the French citizens in exchange for Esfandiari.

David Haye stuns I’m A Celeb camp with comments about pretty girls and their ‘ugly mates’ in a chat about his girlfriend

David Haye left the I’m A Celebrity camp stunned with a string of sexist comments. In the second week of the ITV show, the 45-year-old former boxer made a series of statements related to how women look and their personalities, during a group discussion.

It all started innocently enough when it was suggested the group of celebs should meet up for a party when they left the show, and David said his girlfriend Sian was a great cook and could possibly provide food for the event. He then added: “She’s like tall, blue eyes. She’s lovely. She’s got the personality of a proper ugly bird.”

Scarlett Moffatt replied: “You can’t say that.” But David brushed off the response and added: “She has. Most ugly girls realise they don’t they’re not pretty enough to….they gotta have a personality to banter and to tell jokes and s**t, so people overlook the fact that they’re not aesthetically amazing, straight away.

“Which is what’s called Ugly Duckling syndrome, where girls are ugly, when they start off, and then they and then they kind of they, they get pretty as they get older. But they still got the personality of when they’re ugly. Does that make sense?”

As Scarlett and others made shocked noises, David continued to express his opinions. Haye added: “You get a girl who’s pretty from day one, you get a girl who’s different day one. Everyone goes ‘You’re so beautiful. You’re amazing’. She grows up thinking, I’m amazing. Everyone loves me. I can open any door. I can go anywhere I want.

“They don’t have to have a personality, because most super pretty girls are just idiots. But then their ugly friend, they’ve got work a bit harder, be more personable. They got to be nicer to everyone. Gonna get you a drink.”

READ MORE: Inside David Haye’s ‘throuple’ relationships where ‘one woman will never be enough’READ MORE: I’m A Celebrity’s Beverley Callard breaks silence on David Haye feud ‘It’s not over yet’

Scarlett again took David to task over the comments. She explained: “It is not just ugly people saying ‘would you like a drink’. What are you talking about? You are just talking s***.”

And actor Beverley Callard added: “Complete claptrap. So do handsome men have s*** personalities? I have never heard anything so sexist in all my life.”

Haye then changed to conversation onto the fact when he was growing up only pretty girls were allowed into nightclubs in London’s West End.

He said: “They only let pretty girls into the club, and the pretty girls go, oh, so sorry about that. They leave their ugly friend behind. I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it. I’ve watched it with my own eyes. I’ve seen it. It’s horrible. I feel terrible for these poor girls. She’s the one normally driving as well.”

Admitting he was “digging” a bigger hole for himself, Bev replied the shovel was “not big enough”.

Sinitta tried to bring the chat back to his own situation and Haye concluded he would be with his girlfriend “even if she didn’t look how she looked”.

But on Haye’s girlfriend, Beverley said: “He has hit the jackpot, but his partner has got the booby prize.”

The camp were not the only ones surprised by the comments from Haye.

Show hosts Ant and Dec also weighed in. Dec said the comments “might be interpreted as sexist” and Ant said he made “nine jaws drop to the floor” without throwing a punch.

Haye has been in a relationship with model Sian Osborne since 2020, but over recent years he’s also been linked to Saturdays singer Una Healy. He has been in the headlines more for his colour love life than his former skills in the ring in recent years, with suggestions he was in a throuple situation.

The one-time heavyweight champion is non-monogamous which is when someone has multiple romantic and sexual relationships, with the consent of a partner or spouse. Ant and Dec have commented on this during the series, but Haye himself is yet to bring up his relationship status in camp.

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US vice president in Hungary calls Ukrainian leader’s ‘threatening’ remarks ‘completely scandalous’.

US Vice President JD Vance has said Ukraine’s prime minister made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv is trying to influence the upcoming elections there.

Vance’s remarks on Wednesday came during a visit to Budapest days before the far-right Orban, a Trump ally, faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in an election on April 12.

Hungary’s strained relations with Ukraine have taken centre stage in the election campaign, with Budapest’s government accusing Kyiv of deliberately stopping flows of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline in an effort to sway the ballot.

Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian drone attack in late January, and it is fixing it as quickly as it can.

Hungary responded by blocking a 90-billion-euro ($105bn) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own language”.

‘Completely scandalous’

Speaking at a Hungarian university, Vance said Orban had told him about Zelenskyy’s remarks.

“It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said. “You should never have a foreign head of government … threatening the head of government of an allied nation.”

Vance then accused the media of double standards in their coverage of alleged foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election and in the Hungarian vote.

“You saw this back in 2016 where a lot of the American media said that it was a true scandal that the Russian government bought like $500,000 of Facebook advertisements … That’s foreign influence,” he said.

“But what’s not foreign influence is when the European Union threatens billions of dollars withheld from Hungary because you guys protect your borders… What’s not foreign influence is when the Ukrainians shut down pipelines, causing suffering among the Hungarian people in an effort to influence an election.”

Budapest has been embroiled in a long‑running dispute with the European Union over issues ranging from judicial independence to the treatment of migrants.

Vance had already lambasted what he said was EU meddling in the Hungarian vote at a news conference on Tuesday.

A European Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday Brussels would use diplomatic channels “to convey our concerns to our US counterparts” following those comments, according to the Reuters news agency.

Ecuador has recalled its ambassador from Colombia over remarks related to a high-profile criminal case that has stirred tensions across Latin America.

The case in question is that of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, a left-wing figure currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for corruption.

This week marks the two-year anniversary of a controversial police raid that saw Ecuadorian authorities storm the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest Glas, who had sought asylum in the diplomatic facility.

But the right-wing government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, which authorised the raid, has denounced criticisms of the Glas case as a violation of his country’s sovereignty.

Wednesday’s decision to recall Ambassador Arturo Felix Wong from Bogota is the latest sign of cross-border strife with Ecuador’s neighbour, Colombia, and its left-wing President Gustavo Petro.

In a local radio interview on Wednesday, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld confirmed that her country’s ambassador to Colombia had been recalled.

The criticisms of the Glas case, she added, were uncalled for. “It’s clearly a provocation because these kinds of messages come out of nowhere,” she said.

Her remarks echoed those of Noboa himself, who has led a months-long feud with the Colombian government.

“This country has waited years to see the corrupt answer to justice,” Noboa said in a social media message on Tuesday.

He denounced critics, like Petro, who consider Glas to be a “political prisoner” and warned that he considered such rhetoric to be a form of foreign interference.

“I wish to be emphatic: This constitutes an assault on our sovereignty and a violation of the principle of non-intervention,” Noboa said.

His statement appeared to be prompted by a series of social media posts Petro wrote on the anniversary of the Mexican embassy raid, which took place on April 5, 2024.

That episode resulted in Mexico breaking its diplomatic relations with Ecuador, a rupture that endures to this day.

Critics called the raid a violation of international law. Treaties like the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations protect embassies and consulates from military and law enforcement actions without prior consent.

Glas had been sheltering in the Mexican embassy since December 2023, claiming he was facing political persecution in Ecuador.

After the raid, he was sentenced to an additional 13 years in prison for the misuse of public funds, in addition to prison terms for two prior corruption cases.

Glas was one of several politicians who were convicted as part of the Odebrecht scandal, which saw government officials across Latin America accused of taking bribes in exchange for issuing favourable contracts to certain business interests.

In 2017, Glas was sentenced to six years in prison for allegedly accepting bribes worth $13.5m, and in 2020, he faced an additional eight-year sentence. He has been barred from ever holding public office again.

Last September, Colombia granted citizenship to Glas. President Petro then called for Glas to be transferred into Colombian custody. He reprised that request in a social media post on Monday.

“I called for there to be no political prisoners in any country in the Americas. It is undeniable that Jorge Glas is a political prisoner,” Petro wrote in the first of two posts on the subject.

In the second, published the next day, Petro raised concerns about Glas’s health and wellbeing. The former vice president is serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison in Ecuador, El Encuentro.

“Jorge Glas is a Colombian citizen, and he is a political prisoner,” Petro said.

“I call upon international human rights organisations to safeguard his rights. His health condition now poses a threat to his life; due to his imprisonment, he has not received adequate sustenance and is currently suffering from severe malnutrition and muscle mass loss.”

Petro added that “allowing a person to starve to death” would constitute a “crime against humanity”.

The heated rhetoric between Petro and Noboa is part of a long-running spat between the two leaders.

Since March alone, Noboa has slapped Colombia with 50-percent tariffs, based on accusations it has been too lax in its fight against drug trafficking.

Petro, meanwhile, has accused Noboa of carrying out a bombing campaign near the Colombian border, resulting in the recovery of 27 charred bodies.

Noboa has been leading an aggressive, military-led anti-narcotics campaign with the support of United States President Donald Trump, who has similarly criticised left-wing governments like Petro’s for failing to tamp down on drug trafficking.

Noboa and Trump have grown close since the US president was sworn in for a second term in January 2025, and Ecuador’s policies towards regional governments and drug-trafficking have echoed those of the US.

California built its tradition of open government — including for citizen boards that set the rules for such functions as automotive repair and security guard licensing — precisely to keep well-funded corporate interests in check. Lobbyists and special interests are constantly scheming to defeat the will of the majority. Now they are able to do more damage using artificial intelligence to simulate fake grassroots opposition to clean air measures, and they are surreptitiously using the identities of real people to deceive regulators.

Last June, the South Coast Air Quality Management District received more than 20,000 comments opposing a pair of clean air rules that would have prevented 2,500 premature deaths and 10,000 new cases of asthma. A February investigation by the Los Angeles Times revealed that those comments were submitted through CiviClick, a Washington-based AI-powered comment generation platform, orchestrated by a local political consultant with ties to the natural gas industry. When the district’s cybersecurity team reached out to a small sample of commenters to verify their identities, a majority of respondents said that they had not submitted the comments in their names.

Even so, the flood of fake comments seemingly worked. These rules, vehemently opposed by the natural gas industry, already watered down by the district to near-toothlessness, were ultimately rejected by the board — apparently overwhelmed by the flood of fake opposition to even the mildest effort to limit pollution from gas-burning appliances.

This Southern California campaign was not an isolated incident. A recent investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle also revealed that an industry front group used Speak4, a platform that advertises its use of AI, to submit dozens of comments regurgitating talking points from the fossil fuel industry in an attempt to weaken and delay clean air rules in the Bay Area. The scheme was exposed when 10 residents whose identities were used on these emails said they absolutely did not send them, calling the messages “forged.”

In both cases, organizations submitted emails and comments to regulators using real people’s identities without their knowledge or consent. This playbook has been employed in other states: CiviClick was used by fossil fuel companies to support a gas-pipeline-expansion project in North Carolina last year. When elected officials reached out to a few respondents to verify the messages, some constituents stated they had no knowledge of the emails sent under their names.

The opposition campaign to South Coast’s clean air rules was run by one of the state’s most powerful lobbying firms. Its client list includes Sempra, the parent company of SoCalGas, which opposed the clean air standards, which would have encouraged the sale of pollution-free heat pumps and threatened the utility’s business.

The industry front group using AI to undermine clean air rules in the Bay Area, Common Sense Coalition, also has ties to fossil fuel companies. Common Sense Coalition is a project of the Bay Area Council, a local business group that features members such as the Western States Petroleum Assn., Chevron, Martinez Refining Co. and Phillips 66.

The question of whether fossil fuel interests financed astroturf AI campaigns to defeat clean air rules should be answered through full investigations, which also ought to address whether the campaigns committed fraud and identity theft.

Californians deserve to know what is going on — how AI was used, where the lobbyists got the names and addresses they attached to the robo-messages and who paid for the deceptive campaigns. What’s most concerning is the use of actual residents’ identities — without their knowledge or consent — to oppose life-saving clean air standards.

Top law enforcement officials should be investigating — including Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins.
If the law on using a person’s name in a scheme to thwart action by a public agency is not clear enough to support prosecutions, then the law needs to be tightened up — and there is legislation, Senate Bill 1159, aiming to do that.

If this seems like a niche issue, I can assure you it is not. I spent 17 years at the helm of the California Air Resources Board, and I am deeply disturbed by the potential co-opting of public input processes using forgery through automated tools. Gathering public input is fundamental to the legitimacy of regulatory agencies.

We frequently heard from individuals or business associations concerned about the cost or burden of proposed regulation, and we worked hard to understand and tailor our rules to make them as streamlined and cost-effective as we could, while still making progress toward reducing the air and climate harms of a wide array of equipment and activities.

The destruction of meaningful public input through deceit isn’t just an environmental issue; it’s a democracy issue — and it demands urgent attention and accountability. California should draw the line to protect our democratic institutions.

Mary Nichols was chair of the California Air Resources Board, where she occupied the attorney seat. She is distinguished counsel to the Emmett Institute on Climate and Sustainability at UCLA Law School.

Driver Daniel Dye has been suspended indefinitely by NASCAR for “insensitive comments made during a recent livestream,” the organization announced Tuesday.

The full-time driver in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series was also suspended indefinitely by his team, Kaulig Racing.

In the video, Dye imitated IndyCar driver David Malukas. At one point during the livestream, Dye referred to the voice he had used as a “David Malukas gay voice.”

According to a NASCAR news release, Dye was punished for violating a rule that states members should not make “a public statement or communication that criticizes, ridicules, or otherwise disparages another person based upon that person’s race, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, age, or handicapping condition.”

“Dye used language that officials deemed unacceptable, resulting in Tuesday’s suspension,” NASCAR stated. “Dye must complete sensitivity training before he may return to competition.”

On Tuesday, Dye posted a statement on social media, in which he apologized to Malukas and others for his “careless comments.”

“I chose my words poorly, and I understand why it upset people,” Dye wrote. “I’m sorry to anyone who was offended. That’s not how I want to represent myself.

“I have some close friends in the LGBTQ+ community who I would never want to feel less of themselves because of what I said, and that’s exactly why I should hold myself to a higher standard. In talking with them, I realize that a true friend would know better than to act the way I did and for that I need to be a better friend. What I said doesn’t reflect how I feel about them or anyone else.

“I didn’t think enough before I spoke, and I in no way meant any harm. I know that intention does not erase impact and I need to do better.”

Malukas and his team, Team Penske, did not immediately respond on Wednesday to requests for comment.

Dye, 22, was also suspended four years ago as a driver in the ARCA series, which NASCAR owns. He had been arrested and charged with felony battery for allegedly punching a high school classmate in the groin area. He was reinstated when the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor.

In 49 Truck Series starts, Dye has two finishes in the Top 5 and 10 finishes in the Top 10, earning one pole position. He is in 13th place through three races this season.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nico de Boinville has been cleared of making racist comments towards fellow jockey Declan Queally at the Cheltenham Festival.

De Boinville, 36, had “categorically” denied the accusation he used such language.

Irish amateur jockey Queally had alleged he was racially abused before the Novices’ Hurdle, when it was held up because of a false start on day two of the meeting.

Queally, riding I’ll Sort That, and Englishman De Boinville, on Act Of Innocence, could be seen exchanging words at the start line.

Queally later told ITV Racing he had received abuse and then told the Racing Post some of the abuse was racial in nature – though De Boinville denied this was the case.

The two then appeared on ITV Racing together and shook hands at the entrance of the weight room, where the Irishman said the matter was “all sorted”.

However, a British Horseracing Authority investigation had been opened. It has now concluded and found “no evidence to support the allegation made by Mr Queally of racist comments”.

“It is understood, and accepted, that strong language was used by De Boinville at the start and directed towards Mr Queally,” said a BHA statement.

“It was also stated that a number of riders were also verbally expressing their frustration at the start, away from the incident being enquired into.

“There was no audio evidence or verbal evidence given from any party during the course of the enquiry to corroborate that any language used was of a racist nature.”

While Queally’s complaint was not upheld, De Boinville was reminded of his “obligations and the expectations to ensure he behaves in a professional manner, and this includes when pressure is heightened at the start of high-profile fixtures”.