He said the quiet part out loud. As the artistic director of New York’s Public Theater and one of the art form’s most prominent leaders, Oskar Eustis is known to do that. And as always, he got the art world talking.
When Eustis, 67, announced Wednesday that he would step down from his role at the Public in 2028 — after 23 years — he said in a New York Times interview that “the American nonprofit theater movement is over.” This has been whispered about and lamented since the COVID-19 pandemic led to temporary theater closures across the country that have since become permanent, but it is rare to hear it expressed so candidly.
Did Eustis, one of the key players in that vaunted movement — the man who helped foster “Hamilton” — really mean what he said? And if so, how does theater move on in the face of obstacles that at times feel as though they are scattered across an increasingly difficult course? In a wide-ranging follow-up interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eustis addressed the path forward.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Phillipa Soo portray Alexander and Eliza Hamilton in “Hamilton.” The megahit premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater under Oskar Eustis in 2015.
(Disney+)
It’s not an easy one, but Los Angeles theater leaders working in the trenches, including Tarell Alvin McCraney at Geffen Playhouse, Danny Feldman at Pasadena Playhouse and Snehal Desai at Center Theatre Group, already knew that. They talked with the Los Angeles Times about their plans at the crossroads reached by American theater in light of Eustis’ imminent exit.
Eustis traces the rise of the American nonprofit theater movement to the late 1950s when W. McNeil “Mac” Lowry, director of the arts and humanities program at the Ford Foundation in New York, began organizing existing regional theaters into a national movement.
“What happened during that period was that a consensus emerged,” Eustis said, noting that it was expressed in the form of national endowments, state arts agencies, public policy institutes and corporate philanthropic departments. “An idea of the common good was held throughout the country, and there were many stakeholders. And part of that idea of the common good was a broadly held belief that Americans deserved serious, non-market-driven performing arts.”
With no feudal background, America lacked a capital city like London or Paris designed to showcase the arts, so the idea spread across all 50 states. This led to the proliferation of the regional theater movement, said Eustis, as well as that of symphony orchestras and ballet companies.
“The explosion of the regional theater movement is actually, in retrospect, astonishing,” Eustis said. “From a few scattered theaters in the 1950s, by the early ‘70s, there were over 400 professional nonprofit theaters in every state of the union. Tens of thousands of people were employed. Millions and millions of audience members every year. That’s the field that I walked into in the early ‘70s.”
Fifty years later, those stakeholders have “absolutely zero consensus on whether theater should exist as a nonprofit performing arts field or whether we should exist at all,” Eustis said. “It’s gone.”
“We’ve kind of been living, in a way, off inertia of this old idea,” he added.
The great pandemic pause, along with the racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the continued fracturing of a shared reality under President Trump, served to reveal how fragile that consensus was, Eustis said, and, “It’s not coming back.”
Where does that leave American theater in 2026?
“We’re faced with the need to prove to the people in our individual communities that we matter enough to them that they should support us,” Eustis said. “Now, that’s not a very bad demand to put on an art form.”
Except, as every theater that has lately dared put on a show created by new, experimental or unknown artists knows, it can feel like an insurmountable task.
Danny Feldman, artistic director of Pasadena Playhouse, said that the days of theaters underpaying talent are over.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Smaller theaters across the country, including many in L.A., have shuttered with staggering regularity in the last six years, which puts even greater pressure on the city’s most prominent nonprofits to shine a light on a sustainable model moving forward.
Feldman, Pasadena Playhouse’s artistic director, noted that Eustis represents the second generation of leaders of the “first chapter” of the nonprofit regional theater movement. “And that to me is what is now undeniably at the end.”
He said he and Eustis have discussed the subject at length. “We are now in a very different era. And the things that got us to this point are not the things that are going to get us to the next chapter.”
McCraney, Geffen Playhouse’s artistic director, said forging a path forward in nonprofit theater without succumbing to commercial pressure to produce only guaranteed hits requires the delicate balance of surfing.
“And there’s no better place to surf than in L.A.,” McCraney said over the phone from the Public, where he was meeting with Eustis and other theater leaders to share ideas. “I feel very connected to a bunch of folks who recognize that the regional theater model has always had to have radical vision, and that those radical visions need revision, because our most practical job is to make sure that communities have stories.”
Tarell Alvin McCraney, artistic director of Geffen Playhouse, compared the balancing act theater leaders must perform to surfing.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
It’s not just the way theater tells — and funds — stories that must evolve. It’s the entire business model, the leaders note.
The beauty and the founding of the original regional movement, said Feldman, was artists saying, “New York is not just where it’s at. We’re going to go to our communities. We’re going to make things with and for them, and really build these ecosystems that are deeply entrenched in these local communities around the country. … And I think the underbelly of that — that maybe has not been discussed as much — was always an element of subsidized labor involved.”
In L.A. and elsewhere that meant a lot of artists in the front and back of the house working for incredibly low wages. The pandemic effectively put an end to that, and as workers demanded fair compensation, the cost of producing shows skyrocketed. Most theater leaders agree that part is as it should be. Eustis points to the recent unionization of the Public’s production department as a case in point.
“For the first time in history, everybody who’s swinging a hammer on our productions has health insurance,” he said. “They have it through the union. That’s a good thing. And it’s put a shock wave through the whole industry, but you know what? We figured out how to pay development directors. We should figure out how to pay carpenters. That’s part of growing up.”
Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Snehal Desai said Oskar Eustis’ departure from New York’s Public Theater represents a “pass the mantle” moment.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
Desai, CTG’s artistic director, said he views Eustis’ decision to step down as a “pass the mantle moment.”
“Oskar has been a huge mentor to so many of us,” Desai said. “It’s up to us, the next generation of leaders, to figure it out, just as his generation did in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s when they built these institutions for us.”
At CTG that means exploring a new way of doing things including touring shows, intensive work in various communities and site-specific productions, all of which “can change the financials and the model of how we’re doing business.”
As for Eustis? He plans to leave the Public in the best possible shape for the next generation of artists, and never wavers from its core mission. “This is a theater of democracy that believes that the culture belongs to everybody,” he said.
The budget airline has confirmed it’ll be cutting the number of aircraft from one of its city bases by five, and its schedule will have two million fewer seats to a popular city break destination as of winter 2026
Two million seats will be cut from Ryanair’s schedule(Image: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ryanair has slashed the number of seats from its schedule for a city break destination that’s famous for its Christmas market and historic sites, as well as being a major business hub.
The decision was made in response to the country’s decision to raise aviation taxes, with Ryanair releasing a strongly-worded statement to announce they would be cutting two million seats from two of the capital’s airports.
The Federal Government of Belgium announced plans to raise the country’s aviation tax from €5 (about £4.20) to €7 (about £6) as of January 2027. This was erroneously described by Ryanair in a statement as a “250% increase since 2025.”
As a result, the budget carrier plans to cut five aircraft from its base at Brussels South Charleroi Airport, and reduce capacity by two million seats overall from Belgium’s Charleroi and Zaventem airports. The reductions will be applied to the winter 2026 and summer 2027 schedule.
Brussels is not the first destination to see a cut in the number of Ryanair seats this year. Earlier this year it announced reductions in services to Spain and Portugal, with smaller regional airports the most affected.
Valladolid and Jerez saw cuts to their services, while scrapped routes included Asturias and Vigo. A service to Tenerife North was also scrapped as a result of a dispute over airport fee hikes, leaving the airport with no alternative direct UK routes. Ryanair also closed its two aircraft base at Santiago de Compostela which reduced capacity.
As a result over one million seats were taken from the winter 2025 routes, and 1.2 million cut from the summer 2026 schedule. Another cut was to a Portugal service, with Ryanair cutting six routes to and from the Azores, an emerging tourist destination. It was estimated the cuts affected around 400,000 passengers.
At the time, Ryanair blamed this cutback on growing airport charges set by Portuguese authorities and environmental taxes linked to the EU Emissions Trading System. John Paul II Ponta Delgada Airport, the islands’ main airport, now only has a single seasonal UK route from London Heathrow operated by British Airways.
Speaking about the cuts in Belgium, Ryanair CEO, Eddie Wilson, said in a statement: “It’s absurd that the Federal Govt have decided to increase Belgium’s aviation tax by 250% from Jan ’27, especially when competing EU countries, like Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, regional Italy, and Albania are abolishing aviation taxes to grow traffic, tourism and jobs.
“We warned Prime Minister De Wever that increasing Belgium’s aviation tax would result in traffic cuts, but he failed to listen. As a result, Ryanair will now remove 5 aircraft from our Charleroi base and 2m seats from our Brussels schedules (Charleroi and Zaventem) for Winter ’26/Summer ’27 and relocate to more competitive economies.”
Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com
Despite this being lower than expected, Ryanair said it is still too high.
When the tax increase was announced at the beginning of the year, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary slammed the plans, calling them “silly” and “damaging”.
He added: “Over the last 20 years, Ryanair has grown to be Belgium’s largest airline.
“This growth can easily be lost to tax abolishing countries like Sweden Hungary,SlovakiaandItaly, and if Charleroi and Belgium don’t reverse these taxes.”
Ryanair currently carries 11.6million passengers to and from Belgium, making it the largest airline operating in the country.
It’s not yet clear whether the routes axed will be from the UK.
Current flights routes to Charleroi include from Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh.
Escape to the Country presenter Sonali Shah’s mystery house pick left a buyer facing a difficult decision
Sonali Shah is a presenter on Escape to the Country(Image: BBC screengrab)
Escape to the Country’s latest buyer confessed he was “flummoxed” as he faced a difficult decision.
The series sees property experts helping people to find new homes, often miles from where they live. The presenters show potential buyers a series of houses plus a mystery pick.
And it was the mystery property that proved to be a problem for Andrew, when he fell in love with it after he had already come close to committing to a more affordable cottage, reports Leeds Live.
Andrew had decided to relocate from his city residence in the Netherlands to the countryside of the Peak District, where he’d spent childhood years and where his grandmother had lived.
The BBC show’s presenter Sonali Shah found him a cottage from 1850 that ticked all his boxes, but complications arose when she unveiled a mystery property that actually consisted of two distinct dwellings, each with its own bedroom, kitchen and outdoor area. The catch was its £400,000 price tag, exceeding his £375,000 budget.
Andrew was impressed with the position of Sonali’s mystery pick, saying the view was “definitely the best so far”. He went on: “It’s the kind of view of fields that I was asking for. That’s what I really like.”
He also liked the way the property had been finished, noting: “It has all the charm of an old cottage, and it’s completely renovated.”
His sister Sue said she thought they were going to have “a problem” and Andrew admitted that was the case.
“What have I done? What have I done?” exclaimed Sonali as she perched on the stairs listening to them.
She continued: “They really liked a house. They were probably going to make a move on that, and then I come in with this mystery house that is amazing. Oh, dear.”
Later, Andrew conceded that seeing the mystery house had made his decision “more difficult”.
And after deliberating with Sue, he remained uncertain about which property to pursue.
“I really like, obviously, house number one, but I really like the mystery house too so I’m flummoxed now,” he explained. “I have to do a lot of soul searching.”
Sue said: “I think this mystery house has definitely delivered something different for Andrew, something he certainly wasn’t expecting, and now he’s a bit flabbergasted, I think. I think that as Andrew’s sister I’ve now been put in a very, very difficult position, because I don’t really know what to advise him to do.”
Nevertheless, Andrew ultimately went back to the first cottage and submitted an offer, which was accepted.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The largest, longest and most complex World Cup in history came to a close Sunday, with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 in extra time. But FIFA president Gianni Infantino didn’t bother waiting for the final result before passing judgment on the tournament.
“By all means this World Cup has exceeded all expectations,” he said during a reception at Trump Tower two days before the final kicked off. “This has not just been the greatest FIFA World Cup of all time. It is the greatest human social and cultural event that mankind has ever witnessed.”
No, but it was pretty good, with FIFA emerging as the World Cup’s biggest winner, allowing Infantino to reportedly shore up support within the organization despite a number of norm-shattering decisions during the tournament.
Attendance topped 6.8 million, a World Cup record averaging more than 65,000 fans a game. FIFA estimated the cumulative global TV audience topped 5 billion people across linear television, digital streaming and social platforms while more than 1.8 billion people were expected to watch the final, according to the BusinessStats website, making it the most-viewed sporting event in history.
Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez reacts as Spain’s Ferran Torres scores during the World Cup final in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday.
(Julio Cortez / Ap Photo/julio Cortez)
Exact figures won’t be known for a few days.
Revenue for the four-year World Cup cycle is anticipated to reach $13 billion, making it the first $10-billion sporting event in history — bolstering Infantino’s case for reelection as FIFA’s president next year.
The final was among the most expensive U.S. sporting events of all time, with the get-in asking price for a single ticket on the secondary market peaking at about $7,400 three hours before kickoff and the average purchase price topping $10,800. One seat sold for $32,502, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you’re buying the ticket or selling it.
Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium hosted eight games, including two of the U.S. team’s three group-stage games and Spain’s quarterfinal win over Belgium. The matches had a total attendance of 561,656 people, about 99.6% of capacity — that’s more than each of the first three World Cups drew for the entire tournaments.
U.S. and Paraguay oversized flags are featured on the pitch before a World Cup group stage match at SoFi Stadium on June 12.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Weather disrupted just a handful of matches, not the dozen or more that were feared, and the logistical nightmares of staging the 39-day tournament across three countries for the first time — the U.S. co-hosted the event with Mexico and Canada — never materialized. The expansion to 48 teams and 104 games, meanwhile, made room for a number of surprises that gave the tournament its life and sparkle.
Tiny Cape Verde, the second-smallest country to qualify for a World Cup, made a memorable debut, playing Spain to a scoreless draw in its opener, then taking Argentina to extra time before falling in the cruelest way possible, on an own goal, in the knockout rounds.
Norway, playing in the tournament for the first time this century, made it to the quarterfinals behind its hulking striker Erling Haaland, who quickly became a fan favorite while the team’s supporters saw their synchronized “Viking Row” celebration go viral.
Canada and Egypt both won World Cup games for the first time, advancing to the Round of 16, with Egypt becoming one of nine African teams to make it to the knockout rounds. Of FIFA’s six continental confederations, only UEFA, representing Europe, did better than Africa, sending 13 teams beyond the group stage.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi erased any doubt that he’s the greatest player in World Cup history — if not soccer history — by willing his team to the final and winning the Silver Ball, runner-up for the tournament’s most outstanding player. On Sunday, Messi was thwarted in his attempt to win a second straight World Cup and third Golden Ball, but he walked off the field at MetLife Stadium as only the second man to play in three World Cup finals.
And he finished his record-setting sixth tournament as the all-time leader in games (34), assists (12) and goal contributions (33), more than standing the test of time. Two of the players Spain started against Argentina in the final hadn’t even been born when Messi, 39, made his World Cup debut in 2006.
But if those were the highlights, there were also lowlights.
This was by far the most political World Cup in history and the first in which a host country, the U.S., was actively at war with a participating one, Iran.
Iran defender Ramin Rezaeian celebrates with teammates after scoring during a World Cup match against New Zealand at SoFi Stadium on June 15.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
That had all kinds of ramifications, starting with the State Department’s refusal to grant visas to more than a dozen members of Iran’s official delegation. Iran was also forced to move its base camp from Tucson to Tijuana, and though it played all its games in the U.S., it was denied permission to remain in the country after each match, an option granted to every other team.
Despite the harassment, Iran did not lose a game, playing to three draws despite having three goals — any of which would have sent it to the knockout rounds — erased by video reviews.
The State Department also denied entry to Omar Abdulkadir Artan, a decorated Somali referee, turning him away at Miami International Airport in June, citing “vetting concerns.” Artan, named Africa’s top referee last year, had a valid entry visa and was selected by FIFA to work the tournament last April.
Iran wasn’t the only team to have its World Cup ended early by technology. Although the video assistant referee (VAR) system was adopted primarily to alert the head official to potential clear and obvious errors or serious missed incidents, in this tournament it became intrusive, eliminating Croatia on evidence from a NASA-level ball sensor and costing Egypt what would have been a game-winning score for a perceived foul that took place nearly 100 yards from the goal.
Coaches and players are still allowed to make mistakes, but the technology now has referees making calls on things that are imperceptible to the naked eye, something critics say has removed any sense of judgment or nuance, robbing the game of much of its drama.
“Football is an art. That’s why we love it,” said Christina Unkel, a former FIFA referee and a rules of the game analyst for multiple TV networks. “When you do pursue black and white — objectivity is what they’re trying to get to, and I get it; they want to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible — what everyone is hating is this perfection thing.”
Then there was the official’s call that President Trump took credit for overruling from 2,800 miles away.
When striker Folarin Balogun, the U.S. team’s leading scorer, was given a red card in the second half of his team’s Round of 32 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was immediately suspended from the Americans’ next elimination game with Belgium. But Trump admitted he phoned Infantino three times, lobbying for the suspension to be rescinded.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun stepped on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic’s foot during a World Cup match and received a red card at Levi’s Stadium on July 1.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Less than 30 hours before the Belgium game, the card penalty was suspended and Balogun was placed on one year’s probation by FIFA’s disciplinary committee, marking just the second time in World Cup history that a player who received a red card was allowed to play in his team’s next game. The international uproar that followed overwhelmed the U.S. team, which played its worst game of the tournament against Belgium.
Trump, who was booed as he saluted the national anthem Sunday from a luxury box before the game, was booed again by the crowd of 80,663 when he strode onto the pitch for the awards ceremony afterward.
UEFA, the FIFA confederation in which Belgium plays, protested the decision to let Balogun play, saying it had “crossed a red line.” It was far from the only bright red line Infantino crossed in this tournament. And some of that line crossing could set dangerous precedents.
Allowing the U.S. to turn away the Somali official and limit the Iranian team’s time in the country, for example, could embolden future World Cup hosts to do the same. What’s to stop Morocco, co-host of the 2030 tournament, from banning officials and players from Algeria over the two countries’ territorial dispute in the Western Sahara? And if a red card is handed to a player from Spain, another 2030 co-host, would the Spanish prime minister call Infantino to try to get it rescinded? Despite FIFA’s insistence that the disciplinary committee works independently, many believe Trump’s meddling worked.
But as always with FIFA, money speaks the loudest, so Infantino’s norm-shattering behavior over the last year doesn’t seem to have cost him much support. The Guardian reported last week that as the World Cup neared its successful conclusion, nearly 200 of FIFA’s 211 member associations are endorsing Infantino’s bid for reelection to a fourth term as president next March.
Which is why Spain wasn’t the only winner in this tournament.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This summer’s World Cup will be remembered for a lot of things.
It was the first to be played in three countries, the first with 48 teams and the overall attendance nearly doubled the previous record. Norway’s Erling Haaland and Cape Verde’s Vozinha were captivating while Egypt and Canada both won World Cup games for the first time, advancing to the Round of 16.
But the tournament will also be remembered for a classless and churlish Argentina, which forever stained itself with a thuggish performance in the game and an ungracious one afterward.
If La Albiceleste had simply kept its composure it would have secured a place next to Brazil and Germany, the only other countries to reach three finals in four World Cups, as one of the greatest teams of all time. Instead, some of its players turned the postgame handshakes into a brawl, with Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes drawing a red card for grabbing Spain’s Eric Garcia by the throat and shoving him to the turf.
It was believed to be the only red card ever handed out after a World Cup final, and the ignominy it brought was well-deserved. But the childishness was just beginning. When Spain assembled on the podium to accept the World Cup trophy, which had been Argentina’s moments earlier, the South Americans turned their backs.
More than an hour later Lionel Messi, who has cemented his stature as the greatest player in World Cup history, soiled that status by leading the players out of the locker room and through a back exit to the team bus, avoiding the media many had been so eager to speak with during the team’s unbeaten run to the final.
Argentina’s Nahuel Molina, top, reacts after Spain won the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, N.J.
(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)
It was an attack on class and decorum as well as violation of FIFA rules, which require players to leave the stadium through a “mixed zone” accessible to media. They are not required to stop or speak, but certainly someone owed some accountability to the tens of thousands of fans in Argentine jerseys who packed Times Square and MetLife Stadium over the weekend and the millions in Argentine who filled plazas and town squares to watch the team play.
“We’ve been great in victory and we need to be great in defeat,” Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni said moments after Paredes was booked for assault. “We have shown today that we know how to lose, too. We lost the game and we accept that.”
Scaloni, who did address the media, later broke down in tears.
“I already cried all the tears I had in the dressing room,” he said in Spanish.
Scaloni, 48, may be out of a job when his contract expires in December, but his message for the fans was don’t cry for me, Argentina.
“It is hard to ask people to enjoy this equally. It is very hard to convince people that this is a triumph,” said Scaloni, who has lost just twice in 15 World Cup games.
“When you win, not everything is good. When you lose, not everything is bad.”
But while Argentina was being petty and petulant, Spain was practically perfect in every way. Not only did it concede just one goal in the tournament, it held Argentina without a shot into extra time Sunday — the first time that’s ever happened in a World Cup final — and ran its unbeaten streak to a record 38 games overall.
The win, which came on substitute Ferran Torres’ goal moments into the second extra-time period — and less than 20 minutes after Argentina was reduced to 10 men when Enzo Fernández was given a second yellow card for a foolish tackle — not only made Spain the first country to be the men’s and women’s world champion at the same time, it also made it the first to be the men’s world, European and Olympic champion at the same time.
No country in history has dominated the sport as Spain is dominating it now. And since Spain is the second-youngest team to win the World Cup in 56 years, La Roja could be on top for some time.
“After the match, some of the players who have been with us the longest asked me ‘coach, what is left for us win? We’ve won everything,’” said Spain’s manager Luis de la Fuente. “I told them, well the next match in September.”
That’s a UEFA Nations League match with England, which finished third in this World Cup. A little further down the road is the 2030 World Cup, which Spain will co-host, making it the first country in history to defend its title at home.
“When you arrive at a moment like today and think about the journey we’ve taken, you realize the importance of that process,” said De la Fuente, a former youth national team coach who managed many of the players on the World Cup team — among them Dani Olmo, Mikel Merino, Mikel Oyarzabal, Unai Simón, the tournament’s top goalkeeper, and Rodri, tournament’s top player — to U-19 and U-21 European titles.
“We certainly wouldn’t be here today — we wouldn’t have achieved anything — without the journey we’ve shared with these players,” the coach continued. “We have that raw material, those wonderful Spanish footballers. And they way they compete, that is what brought us here.
“That goes back many years.”
De la Fuente, soft-spoken and professorial, is also scrupulously polite, an example many of his players follow. And while it is undoubtedly easier to display grace and dignity in victory than it is in defeat, the difference in the way Argentina and Spain exited the World Cup was far greater than the gap that separated them on the scoreboard, something De la Fuente unwittingly highlighted in speaking about his team late Sunday.
“It seems people were surprised that, alongside talent and brilliance, good people can also play the game,” he said. “This proves that it is possible; that good, supportive, generous people with strong values can form a genuine team.
“We played against the best national teams in the world, yet we were the best team. We demonstrated that a team built on good people — supportive people, people who hold values and principles that prioritize the common good over individual interests. Traveling with people like that makes for a better, safer journey.”
In Spain’s case, it also makes a World Cup champion.
Staff writers Eduard Cauich and Jad El Reda contributed to this story.
BEIRUT — President Trump long railed against forever wars.
For years, whether as president or candidate, he flayed electoral opponents and previous presidents with his signature barbs, calling their entanglements a “complete waste of time” (Afghanistan), “the worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country” (Iraq) and “stupid” (Ukraine).
Yet he now appears to be stumbling into a forever war of his own.
From the first days of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, Trump and his officials insisted their adventure abroad would be the exception, that the conflict would end in a matter of weeks.
Now, 4½ months later, after a torturous, start-stop vacillation between truce and war, the U.S. is pressing on with a fight that has no end in sight — or even a clear definition of what an acceptable end would be.
In the last week, the ceasefire collapsed, with the U.S. and Iran trading daily waves of strikes, leading to the deaths of two American servicemen on Friday when Iranian ballistic missiles struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where U.S. assets and personnel are stationed.
On Sunday, as the U.S. and Iran launched more air assaults, the U.S. announced that a service member was killed Saturday in Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.
On March 9, the remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky., then the seventh U.S. service member to die in combat during the Iran war, are transferred at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
The deaths in Jordan were the first combat fatalities since the U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire. One soldier remains missing, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command.
Including the most recent casualties, 17 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 430 wounded since the war began, the Pentagon says.
In Iran, at least 57 people have been killed and more than 517 injured in U.S. attacks in the last three weeks, according to Iranian health authorities. The death toll since the beginning of the war has surpassed 3,500, and more than 27,000 have been wounded.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have — in the telling of Trump and various officials — decimated Iran’s navy and air defenses, eviscerated multiple layers of its leadership and bombed tens of thousands of targets across the country.
Despite that military pressure, and Trump’s insistence that members of Iran’s leadership “want to make a deal” (he’s said that an accord was on hand no less than 46 times since the start of the war), Tehran has refused to surrender its nuclear and missile arsenals and continues to support its regional militia allies.
Iran has also created a new pressure point to use against adversaries by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas flowed before the war. And it has widened the war’s footprint by targeting countries hosting American military assets.
Trump has vowed to expand bombings to include civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges in what he says is a bid to force Iran into negotiations once more.
Trump thought wars in the Middle East would be like Venezuela: a big in-and-out without a prolonged war. And the reality is that it’s backfired
— Vali Nasr, Middle East expert
He has also brought additional forces to the Middle East. According to Centcom, there are now 50,000 troops in the region, along with 20 naval warships and hundreds of warplanes.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, declined to comment on the deployments, though on Sunday the New York Times reported that the U.S. was sending to the region F-16 fighter jets from Germany and stealthy F-35 jets from Britain.
For observers, those moves signal that Trump is falling into an escalation trap.
“From Trump’s perspective, the easiest way to demonstrate resolve and power is by just bombing Iran and seeing what that brings about,” said Andreas Boehm, a Middle East expert and lecturer on international law at University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Although those strikes seem tactically impressive, they have not helped him strategically, he said.
“In reality, it doesn’t change the situation because the Iranians won’t budge. And if you confuse tactical and strategic success, then you’re not going anywhere in any kind of war,” Boehm said.
An escalation on Washington’s part is also certain to spark a similar reaction from Tehran, said Vali Nasr, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
“Iran gets a vote here,” Nasr said, adding Iran could up the ante by closing Bab al Mandab, the vital strait connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. It could also widen attacks on infrastructure in Persian Gulf countries — moves that would trigger an even bigger ripple effect across global markets.
“Trump thought wars in the Middle East would be like Venezuela: a big in-and-out without a prolonged war,” Nasr said, referring to the Trump administration’s strike that saw U.S. forces abduct Venezuelan leader Nicholás Maduro and force the remaining members of his government to submit to U.S. control.
“And the reality is that it’s backfired,” he said.
Trump is not the first American president to think a foreign engagement wouldn’t last long. Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, U.S. leaders dispatched troops on operations they thought would last weeks or months, dismissing warnings that they would be bogged down in years-long occupations.
Iran would be an especially sticky quagmire if Trump were to commit ground troops.
The country’s area — about 636,000 square miles — is more than double the size of Afghanistan, almost four times the size of Iraq, and five times the size of Vietnam — all nations where the U.S. struggled to prevail against adversaries not as well equipped and arguably less ideologically motivated than its adversaries in Iran.
Meanwhile, for a president whose central foreign policy campaign promise was no more wars, the growing number of casualties, along with the escalating damage inflicted by Iran on U.S. assets and allies, has exposed cracks in the support the Teflon-like Trump has enjoyed from his advocates.
Onetime MAGA acolytes, including flagship conservative figures such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, have already turned on the president over the war and other issues. And Republican figures who had tied their star to Trump fear a drubbing in the midterms so long as the war continues.
If negotiations were to resume, it’s unclear whether Trump and his coterie of negotiators have the stamina or the foreign service expertise to bring about an accord.
After all, the 2015 Obama-era deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear program took 600 days and hundreds of diplomats and technical experts to negotiate.
With Trump relying on unconventional fixers such as his son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate investor Steve Witkoff, not to mention his evisceration of the diplomatic corps, an agreement of that scale appears unlikely.
“Everything is dependent on the mood of one man,” Nasr said.
“It’s not the system that’s making the decision; it’s not the country making the decision,” he said. “It’s one man, and it depends how he feels like at one particular point in time.”
Tehran too may be less amenable to negotiations with Trump, given his history: During his first term, he pulled out of the nuclear deal and ordered the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, a leading Iranian general.
In his second term, he launched bombing campaigns on Iran during negotiations — twice. And Iran accused the U.S. of repeatedly violating the April ceasefire and the memorandum of understanding signed in June.
Asked on NewsNation on Sunday about Iran’s announcement that it would no longer abide by the memorandum, Trump said, “I couldn’t care less.”
Such factors, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, lead to a formula for prolonged conflict.
“It’s a forever war in the making, and the reason why is that Trump has proven he’s impossible to negotiate with,” Vaez said.
If an agreement as superficial as the memorandum of understanding — which deferred thornier issues for late negotiations — was derailed, then there’s little option other than repeated cycles of violence.
“Once you’ve proven that diplomacy doesn’t work,” he said, “then there’s only war.”
MIAMI — Cuban dissident and Grammy-winning musical artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on condition that he leave his country.
Alcántara, 38, was greeted at the airport by a crowd that was cheering, singing and holding their phones high in the air to get a photo of him. They draped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words “Patria y Vida” — Homeland and Life — the title of a song he shared a Grammy for that became an anthem for Cuba’s political opposition against repression.
The United States granted him parole into the country last week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism.
Alcántara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement, named for the neighborhood where Alcántara lived.
He was arrested July 11, 2021, during a public protest. In 2022, a court sentenced him to five years in prison for public disorder, contempt and disrespect toward national symbols.
His arrest and incarceration had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the U.S. government. Groups including Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, a designation the Cuban government rejected.
Alcántara was held in a maximum-security prison, he said, and was expected to be released earlier this month. But for days, advocates said they still could not contact him and did not know where he was.
The organization Cubalex, which legally advises dissidents and reports human rights violations from outside of the country, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf Monday.
Until he boarded a plane Saturday, his advocates were unsure of his location or whether he truly had been released.
His said his first stop on American soil would be at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami to make an offering.
Other political prisoners remained behind bars in Cuba, including his fellow artist Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez, his advocates said, and they hoped Alcántara’s release would lead to Pérez also being freed.
Alcántara brought from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin Mary, which he described as a symbol of hope and healing, a chance to put back together something from fragments.
A federal prosecutor in Texas has shared new details about the moments before an immigration officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo that cast doubt about the government’s claim that the man struck an ICE vehicle before he was shot.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national and longtime American resident, on July 7 as he was driving to a Houston construction job site with three co-workers, including his brother. ICE has acknowledged he was not the target of the operation.
The shooting sparked protests in the nation’s fourth-largest city, echoing Salgado Araujo’s family’s calls for transparency. The family describes him as a hardworking father who was close to obtaining legal status in the U.S. after living in the country for 35 years.
The shooting came just days before two other men were killed, in Florida and Maine, in confrontations in President Trump’s federal immigration crackdown, renewing scrutiny on the Department of Homeland Security’s law enforcement tactics.
Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said for the first time Thursday that ICE officers were targeting two Guatemalan men who were potentially subject to deportation. He said they were driving a van similar to the one Salgado Araujo was driving when he was killed. In an earlier statement released the day Salgado Araujo was killed, Homeland Security said he was targeted in an immigration enforcement operation and he was living in the country without legal permission.
Reitz also said that the officers believed that Salgado Araujo and the passengers in his car fit the description of the Guatemalan men the agents were looking for.
Four officers driving two separate law enforcement vehicles attempted to pull over Salgado Araujo’s van using their police lights. Salgado Araujo then made a U-turn and drove over a median to evade getting pulled over, Reitz said.
Later that morning, the officers again encountered Salgado Araujo’s van and for the second time tried to pull him over, this time essentially surrounding the vehicle, Reitz said. Two of the four agents got out of their cars and told Salgado Araujo to put the vehicle in park. Just before he was shot, one of the agents was “partially inside the van or immediately next to it” when Salgado Araujo tried to reverse the van and then drive forward again, Reitz said.
An earlier Homeland Security statement accused Salgado Araujo of “weaponizing” his vehicle. The agency said he rammed his van into a law enforcement vehicle and said an officer opened fire in self-defense. The most recent statement from the U.S attorney’s office, however, didn’t mention any collision between Salgado Araujo’s van and a law enforcement vehicle. It also didn’t explicitly say that the officer feared for his life. There are no reported injuries among the officers involved.
The latest statement didn’t name the officer who killed Salgado Araujo, nor did it specify whether the officer who fired the shot was the same person who was next to, or partially inside, the van.
Reitz also said in the statement that officers “saw in plain view several small bags of a white, crystal-like substance inside the van” and that the FBI later executed a search warrant to investigate for possible illicit substances.
Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van when the shooting happened, has been in ICE detention since the incident. His attorney said the white substance was a salt mixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.
Few photos or videos surrounding the shooting in Houston have emerged on social media, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are making a growing effort to adopt a pragmatic focus as they campaign on affordability in the midterms, as some within the party push for moving away from ideological arguments.
Across the country, Democratic candidates are trying to win over voters by talking about real-life scenarios, framing other platform issues in economic terms and, strategists say, aiming to shift a perception that Democrats deal in the abstract.
They see an opening created by voters’ focus on the economy and their ability as the party not in power to leverage affordability as the key midterms issue as Trump’s economic approval remains low. Trump has dismissed the issue, calling affordability a “hoax” by Democrats while also promising economic improvements.
“There has been a learning process in being able to take what Trump and the Republicans are doing and make sure that [candidates] are coming back to the real-world economic implications of whatever that might be,” Democratic strategist Alex Jacquez, who served in the Biden White House. “That’s where maybe [Democrats] haven’t always, in the recent past, made the full connection all the way through.”
Now, “the moment is ripe,” he suggested, for the party to shift its image.
The Democrats’ concentration on affordability and the economy has defined their midterm messaging, playing off elevated inflation, the effects of Trump’s tariffs and high gas prices caused by the war in Iran. The party is attempting to capture enough swing voters to win a House majority in November, and some believe the Senate could also be within reach.
Polling shows pessimism about the economy has increased among all Americans and most believe the country is in an affordability crisis. Americans most frequently mention government leadership and economic issues as the country’s most important problems in Gallup polling.
Voters also increasingly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, including working-class white voters who make up a key part of his base. In an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll last month, Americans gave the president his lowest-ever approval rating on the economy at 33%.
Speaking in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump said of affordability: “That’s a fake word that they use. They caused the affordability problem. It’s called high prices.”
Rep. Adam Gray, a Democrat who represents a purple Central Valley district and is a member of the center-left Blue Dog Coalition in Congress, said he believes voters have grown frustrated by the failure of Washington lawmakers to pay attention to what the people want out from government.
He pointed to Central Valley growers whose business has been affected, he said, by the rising price of fuel and fertilizer, the squeeze on the labor market caused by immigration enforcement and changes to federal programs.
“How regular people experience politics, it’s not the kind of ideological debates we have in Washington,” Gray said. “It’s the experience of doing something, whether that’s shopping for groceries or going to the lake to go boating with your family and realizing the price of gas is through the roof or the road to the lake is in disrepair.”
At a time when Democrats have debated how to embrace a party identity beyond opposing Trump and intra-party fights between progressive and moderate candidates have drawn attention, some believe the “practical” tactic may offer one key to the party’s path forward.
In Texas, Democratic candidates are pointing to the impact of data centers on water supply or the consequences of the state’s abortion ban, said Matt Angle, director of Lone Star Project, a political research organization that works to help get Democrats elected.
“The fact that Corpus Christi is running out of water … [or] you have women who have died because they were denied abortion services,” Angle said. “It’s very important that those things not be talked about in ideological terms but in practical terms. I think Democrats are doing a better job of that than ever before.”
“Real life is happening on the ground,” Angle added. “I think Democrats see that.”
Republicans pursued a similar strategy successfully in 2024, and their attacks on Democrats for focusing on cultural issues may have been successful in pushing Democrats away from that messaging, said Republican strategist Brittany Martinez.
“They have made it clear that’s the direction in which they’re trying to go,” she said of Democrats. “I also think you have outliers of the party that sometimes suck all the oxygen out of the room and maybe derail that message.”
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Christian Martinez said Democrats’ economic record, including in California under Gov. Gavin Newsom, demonstrates a failure to prioritize working families.
“It’s laughable that Democrats are trying to make kitchen-table issues their brand,” he said. “It only proves their political brand is broken, while Californians continue living every day with the receipts from Democrats’ failed agenda.”
Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said Thursday at a summit convened by the Washington-based news outlet the Hill that he was confident the party would retain the House and Senate and projected optimism about the economy.
“He’s going to bat for the American worker every single day,” Gruters said of Trump. “He’s going to continue to do everything he can to get the nose of the economy in this country up and to get prices down.”
But as Trump appears to prioritize other issues, Martinez said, Republicans are facing their own uphill battle to win over swing voters.
“When the president has mocked affordability, said it’s not a crisis, I don’t think that helps [Republicans],” Martinez said. “Democrats have an opportunity to capitalize on that right now.”
Both moderate and progressive Democrats see the moment as a chance to define what the party stands for beyond opposing Trump, and both have seized on real-life arguments, though the approaches differ.
Progressives have long framed a spectrum of issues in economic terms, said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive caucus Justice Democrats.
“That has always been the progressive economic playbook, and I think it’s about time that the other wings of the Democratic Party catch up to us,” Andrabi said.
That also means, he said, not backing away from other issues, such as abortion, foreign wars and healthcare.
“It has always been the right that has sought to divide our communities on these so-called culture war issues,” Andrabi said. “Our vision forward should be one that includes everyone… That does not mean simply ignoring some people’s most urgent crises to focus on something else, because these are interconnected.”
Climate advocates, for instance, are “effectively connecting” climate to top midterm issues, including including gas and utility costs, AI data centers and the Iran war, said Jamie Henn, executive director of nonprofit communications lab Fossil Fuel Media, and have encouraged Democratic candidates to do the same.
“Climate, like many issues, doesn’t win itself on its own merits. It’s in the ways that you talk about it and connect it to kitchen-table issues,” Henn said. “Do it in the right way – it’s not a science lecture on global warming, it’s a story about how clean energy can reduce your bills.”
Still, getting more candidates to pick up those messages can be a steep climb, he said. Advocates in some spaces, including climate, have worried about their issues being sidelined.
“There are Democrats that could be threading this needle who aren’t,” Henn said. “We know the issues that climate needs to be connected to, but [politicians] need… to do a better job to clearly articulate the messages.”
The Chinese leader called for more international cooperation in developing the technology at a conference in Shanghai.
Published On 17 Jul 202617 Jul 2026
Artificial intelligence should not be dominated by one country, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, urging international cooperation on development at a major conference in Shanghai.
Xi also emphasised the importance of a “people-centred” approach to AI technology in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on Friday.
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The conference showcases the cutting-edge technology Xi hopes will soon rival that of the United States.
Chinese AI models are gaining ground on the most powerful offerings from the US, attracting global users with lower costs.
But how to govern the booming sector has become a topic of debate amid concerns over the deployment of AI in military combat and its use by hackers or criminals.
In his address, Xi spoke of China’s role in ensuring equitable access to AI capacity-building for developing countries to prevent the creation of “new historical injustices”.
To that end, he announced China’s plans to cooperate with international bodies, including from Africa, Latin America, Asia and BRICS countries, to provide AI-related opportunities.
“AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,” Xi said. “We should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI or placing one country’s security over that of others.”
‘Ensure AI is always under human control’
The US and European Union have imposed restrictions on Chinese tech imports, citing national security concerns, while recent tussles between Washington and American AI labs have raised questions about who controls access to top technology.
In May, the US Commerce Department issued a notice affirming its restrictions on shipments of semiconductors to subsidiaries of Chinese companies located outside China amid concerns about loopholes in Washington’s export control regime.
The guidance said its licensing requirements for the export of advanced AI chips applied to all businesses with headquarters or a parent company in China.
At Friday’s conference, Xi also stressed the need for a “people-centred” approach to AI with humans at the wheel.
“We should put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning, and emergency response systems, in order to … ensure AI is always under human control,” he said.
AI has become a strategic pillar of China’s industrial policy, driven by state investment aimed at building a domestic ecosystem, from chip production to consumer use.
Daily consumption in China of “tokens” – the industry unit of AI usage – has increased a thousandfold over the past two years, according to state media citing officials.
As Al Jazeera reported earlier, China, while lagging behind the US in access to the most cutting-edge semiconductors, holds the edge in powering the huge data centres that run on AI chips.
A typical data centre can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, while next-generation “hyperscale” facilities can gobble up as much power as two million homes, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
China’s access to an abundant supply of cheap electricity places it in the ideal position to meet such colossal energy demands.
It already generates more than twice as much electricity as the US, a lead that is expected to widen amid an aggressive state-led investment in the country’s energy grid.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday convened leaders from more than 60 countries to take part in the Trump administration’s latest effort to quell what it calls “left-wing” political terrorism, a marquee issue for Republicans heading into the midterm elections.
This focus comes even as studies show that there are very few reported cases of such incidents in the U.S., especially compared to historically higher levels of far-right violence.
With sweeping statements about the “alarming rise” of political violence by the left, Rubio and other U.S. officials painted a dark image of the future if the “communists and Marxists” perpetrating these supposed acts are not defeated. He urged officials in attendance — mostly from European and Latin American countries — to unite to address the issue, which he says has been a “blind spot” in counterterrorism doctrine.
“So many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression, so long as they served a left-wing cause,” Rubio said in opening remarks. “A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was ‘a nefarious and murderous act of evil.’ It is, but a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary, well, that’s just merely a tragic excess of idealism.”
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that left-wing terrorism attacks as of July 4, 2025, had surpassed those from the far right for the first time in more than 30 years. However, a closer look at the data reveals that the uptick reflects a very low starting level and a concurrent drop on the far right.
There was an average of 0.6 left-wing incidents annually from 1994 through 2000, compared with an average of 20.6 on the right, the report shows. From 2016 to 2024, there was an average of four per year on the left and 22.7 per year on the right. Those numbers had dropped dramatically on the right as of early July 2025, with only one incident. Meanwhile, there had been five from the left.
But the report’s authors note that right-wing terrorism could easily return to elevated levels and that it is important to fight terrorism on both sides of the political spectrum.
President Trump and his allies have prioritized talking points against the far left ahead of the congressional elections this November. Trump has repeatedly stated that the Democratic Party’s ascendant left are communists who want to “completely destroy the traditional American way of life” and even engage in assassinations.
Vice President JD Vance has similarly called out communism as a political shift that is “something we haven’t seen in the U.S.” House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried “radical candidates” who are “self-described, self-identifying Marxists.”
For Rubio, his worldview on this issue has been largely shaped by his own history: he is the son of Cuban immigrants who arrived in Miami in May 1956, a few years before communist leader Fidel Castro rose to power in Havana. The former Florida senator said Thursday that it was that same government’s sprawling intelligence and ideological network that “helped to build the far left in our country and in our hemisphere.”
Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and main architect of the administration’s immigration policy, followed Rubio’s remarks, aiming to drive home the immediacy of the perceived threats he saw to American institutions coming from the left, and what response is needed in return.
“If your civilization is your home, you must defend it with the same passion and force as if an enemy intruder is inside your own house where your family lives,” Miller said. “That is the level of dedication and urgency that is required.”
This ideological focus has repeatedly conflated democratic socialism — which often centers on securing universal healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy and stricter corporate regulation — with communism, under which private ownership is largely eliminated.
It has only intensified in the last year, after the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani to become New York City mayor and several of his proteges who won their New York City congressional primaries last month, beating out incumbents.
One of the ways the administration has started to target left-wing efforts is through sanctions. In November, the State Department designated four antifa or anti-fascist groups in Europe as foreign terrorist organizations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in his remarks Thursday that targeting these entities’ financial networks is the best way to circumvent their efforts.
“We have spent decades developing the world’s most sophisticated financial counterterrorism capabilities, and now we are mobilizing some of the same tools that we have deployed against terrorists abroad to confront this emerging threat here at home,” he told the conference.
Amiri and Kinnard write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York and Kinnard from Columbia, S.C. AP writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed to this report.
A backhoe removes earth as a preventative measure to reduce overflows and flooding in the Ramon Ravine in Santiago, Chile, on Tuesday Chile declared a preventive state of emergency across 10 of its 16 administrative regions as authorities warned that an exceptionally severe weather system. Photo by Elvis Gonzalez/EPA
SANTIAGO, Chile, July 16 (UPI) — Chile declared a preventive state of emergency across 10 of its 16 administrative regions as authorities warned that an exceptionally severe weather system linked to El Niño could bring life-threatening conditions, widespread flooding and significant property damage.
President José Antonio Kast’s government issued the emergency declaration ahead of a powerful frontal system expected to trigger flooding, overflowing rivers and landslides in the Andes foothills.
Chile’s Meteorological Directorate forecast that the system, which already has reached the country’s southern regions, will persist for five consecutive days, bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds, snowfall in the Andean foothills and hazardous coastal conditions.
Central and southern Chile are expected to face three consecutive frontal systems, including a Category 5 atmospheric river, the highest level on the scale used to measure these corridors of concentrated atmospheric moisture. In response to the multi-hazard event, authorities issued the country’s highest meteorological alert.
Meteorologists warned that Santiago alone could receive between 4 and 6 inches of rain during the event, more than half the precipitation the capital typically receives from four to six major winter storms.
According to records from Santiago’s main weather station, the city averages 11.27 inches of precipitation annually. The approaching system could deliver between 35% and 52% of the city’s average yearly rainfall within just a few days.
Metropolitan Gov. Claudio Orrego said the situation could become even more challenging because the region has experienced an unusually dry year.
“The metro area is expected to get [5.5 to 8 inches] of rain over four days, with winds reaching about [45 mph], and the freezing level has climbed above [11,500 feet]. That adds up to a difficult situation for the region. We expect the power companies to respond appropriately to what’s coming,” Orrego said.
Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service, known as Sernageomin, warned of a high probability of mudslides, landslides, rockfalls and flooding.
Kast said the Armed Forces had been placed on preventive standby to strengthen the government’s emergency response capabilities.
“The Armed Forces have ordered their personnel into preventive readiness so they will be available if a response is required,” Kast told Radio BioBio.
As an additional precaution, authorities suspended classes at preschools and schools in the affected areas.
Officials also urged residents to prepare for possible disruptions to essential services, including drinking water and electricity. One of the government’s main concerns is the resilience of the power grid after severe storms in August 2024.
During that event, wind gusts exceeding 74 mph damaged critical infrastructure, leaving more than 80,000 households without electricity for as long as six days.
Carolina Martínez, director of the Coastal Observatory at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, warned that the storm’s effects could continue even after rainfall subsides.
“We should not only be concerned about the rain, but also about the behavior of the ocean, the response of beaches, unstable coastal cliffs, hillsides reacting to higher river flows at river mouths and intense or concentrated rainfall,” she said.
Martínez said the storm could cause localized flooding, shoreline changes, wave overtopping, increased pressure on wetlands and river mouths, along with sinkhole risks in the most vulnerable areas.
The preventive state of emergency will remain in effect through Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — President Trump appeared poised to question the security of U.S. elections with a planned prime-time speech Thursday night, eliciting fears from Democrats and voting rights advocates that he is planning yet another play for federal control over voting in November’s midterms.
The exact reason for the speech has not been disclosed by the White House, with Trump only characterizing it to reporters this week as “really, really big news.” He confirmed it would have to do with “free and fair elections.”
The Washington Post reported, citing sources, that Trump planned to argue that there are vulnerabilities in the nation’s election infrastructure and claim that China had accessed U.S. voter data. The White House declined to confirm any such details Wednesday.
The announcement of the speech set off concerns among the president’s political opponents, as well as elections experts and voting rights advocates, that Trump could again escalate claims that the nation’s voting system is vulnerable to domestic fraud and foreign attacks.
He has previously said that Republicans should “nationalize” election administration, a job that falls to the states under the Constitution, and has pressured his party to tighten federal voting rules.
“We don’t know anything about what he might say … or what he might try to do with his very limited powers, as the president, over elections,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “I expect we’re going to hear a lot of rehashed and debunked claims.”
The president could potentially use new claims to argue that the nation is facing an emergency in upcoming elections that necessitates further federal intervention into voting, Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which has oversight of elections, said in an interview with The Times.
“This is going to be the rationale for declaring a national emergency,” Morelle said. “It’s transparent that he is creating the emergency and he’s creating the evidence out of whole cloth to suggest there is an emergency.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections, told The Times on Wednesday that Trump was using a known playbook to “[sow] doubt about the outcome before a single vote has been cast.”
“All signs show that tomorrow’s speech will be more of the same: debunked conspiracy theories offered up not because they’re true, but because chaos and doubt are the only cards he has left to play,” Padilla said.
The speech, which Trump announced on social media Monday, comes four months ahead of midterm elections that will determine whether his party retains legislative control in Washington.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt dismissed news reports about what Trump might say in the 6 p.m. PDT speech as speculation, and said “nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say.”
The address also comes as Trump’s ceasefire with Iranhas fallen apart, renewing expectations for increased gas prices, and his approval rating on the economy has steadily dropped. On Tuesday, it also became public thatTrump had paid $5.6 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll, as ordered by a jury that in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
“What we’re going to be talking about Thursday is, it doesn’t get bigger,” Trump told reporters who asked Tuesday about the speech. “Because without free and fair elections you don’t have a country.”
Trump has spread baseless claims of widespread election fraud for years. But his prioritization of his claims about the voting system — even as much of the nation’s attention is on cost-of-living issues — has been on particularly clear display in recent days.
He has aggressively lobbied reluctant Republican senators to pass his voter ID legislation,refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill over it; hefired all remaining members of the bipartisan U.S. Elections Assistance Commission; and his Justice Department said it would send election monitors to six states.
Since the midterm primaries began, Trump has also sown doubt about election security — chiefly in California, where he suggested Democrats had cheated or attempted to in the gubernatorial and Los Angeles mayoral primaries.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, whose state was often at the center of Trump’s 2020 fraud claims, said the president’s speech posed a threat to voting rights.
“I expect him to use whatever he puts out there on Thursday as a pretext, either for some attempted unconstitutional use of federal power to interfere in the election,” Ossoff said Tuesday on MS Now, “or to give his proxies and loyalists in state and local jurisdictions some cover for whatever they might attempt, or to lay the groundwork for challenging the result.”
Any effort to federalize or take over elections would face serious legal obstacles, said Nahal Kazemi, a Chapman University law professor. Although Congress can pass laws regarding election administration, as it did with the Voting Rights Act, the executive branch doesn’t play a role in running elections.
“You run into essentially a brick wall that is the Constitution, which makes very plain that states run elections,” Kazemi said.
When it comes to concerns about foreign interference, experts say there is little evidence of other countries attempting to hack systems or change votes. Instead, foreign actors have largely operated via disinformation campaigns, as the U.S. determined had occurred in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
“Of the information that is available to us now, there’s no reason to be alarmed about the possibility that a foreign adversary is going to take over election systems,” said Kazemi, who has studied foreign election interference.
One of the things that helps make American elections generally secure, she said, is that they are not centralized but are run by thousands of counties. Hacking into so many voting systems would be extraordinarily difficult for a foreign adversary, she said.
Jenny Farrell, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, said California “takes elections security extremely seriously” and has one of the most secure systems in the country, subject to strict voter verification measures and intense chain of custody and auditing procedures.
Democrats have worked with elections experts in recent months on attempts to assure the public that U.S. elections are safe and secure. They have also tried to counter claims by Trump that mail ballots and voting machines are unreliable.
A slew of 2020 election reviews, including by Trump’s first administration, concluded that Trump lost and Biden won. Election experts say there is no evidence that widespread fraud determined the outcome of the election.
A judge also found that claims pushed by Trump and his attorneys that the company Dominion Voting Systems manipulated votes cast through its machines in favor of Biden were untrue.
WASHINGTON — The world has largely viewed the U.S. more favorably than China for years, but those opinions have flipped in Beijing’s favor this year, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, a remarkable shift driven in part by tensions between the Trump administration and U.S. allies.
More people have favorable views of China than the U.S. in 25 out of the 36 countries and territories that were surveyed, including Canada and Mexico. The poll was conducted from February to May, a period when the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
In only six countries do people still see the U.S. more positively than China, according to the findings released Wednesday.
Views in 22 out of the 36 countries and territories also are more favorable of Chinese leader Xi Jinping than President Trump, including in Canada, Mexico and major European powers including France, Germany and the U.K. However, people in many of the countries have low confidence in both men.
It marks the first time in the roughly 20 years Pew has been tracking global opinions that China has been viewed more positively than the U.S., said Laura Silver, associate director of Pew’s Global Attitudes Research and one of the researchers on the study. Views of Beijing and Washington have been very similar at some points in the past but have not been significantly more favorable for China until now, she said.
The shift follows the COVID-19 pandemic becoming a distant issue and as global views of the U.S. have soured, Silver said.
“There was just an actual relationship between the outbreak of the war and the sense that the U.S. is just not contributing to peace and stability and that people have less confidence in Donald Trump,” she said.
Trump’s demands to control Greenland, the American military raid that captured Venezuela’s then-leader Nicolás Maduro, and the U.S. handling of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza also have led to low approval in many countries, Silver said.
“The U.S. has done a lot in terms of global engagement in recent months to years that is not being perceived positively internationally,” she said.
Aside from benefiting from the fading memory of the pandemic, China appears to have gained from comparison with the U.S., Silver said.
“By comparison, we know that China is seen to be a more reliable partner in many places. It’s more likely to be seen to contribute to global peace and stability,” the researcher said.
Notably, those in some U.S. allied countries have drastically shifted their views in recent years, such as Canada. In the new survey, only 33% of Canadians have positive views of the U.S., down from 57% in 2023. Over the same period, their favorable opinions of China rose from 14% to 44%.
Trump slapped a barrage of tariffs on Canadian goods last year, and even claimed that Canada could be the “the 51st state.”
Major European countries — including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy — all have switched their opinions toward the world’s two largest economies.
People in the U.K., where about 6 in 10 held positive views of the U.S. in 2023, now view China and the U.S. similarly. Three years ago, the spread was 32 percentage points in Washington’s favor.
Of the six countries where people have more favorable views of the U.S., Israel leads the way. About 8 in 10 Israelis view the U.S. positively, compared with 19% for China.
The other five countries are Japan, India, South Korea, the Philippines and Poland. Still, even their views of the U.S. have dimmed over recent years.
The U.S. is still ahead of China when it comes to government respect for personal freedoms, though the gap is shrinking, the Pew report says.
While China’s standing has improved somewhat, the narrowed divide is “driven largely by the fact that people in nearly every country surveyed have become less likely to say the U.S. government respects its people’s personal freedoms” since 2021, when Pew last asked the question.
For the new study, Pew surveyed more than 42,000 people across 35 countries plus the West Bank and east Jerusalem, with margins of error ranging from 2.3 to 5.5 percentage points depending on the country.
Tang writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Linley Sanders, Emily Swanson and Kevin S. Vineys contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — The Senate unanimously approved a measure Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent across the United States next year.
The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Biden, to become law.
“No more switching clocks, more daylight hours to spend outside after school and after work, and more smiles — that is what we get with permanent daylight saving time,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the original co-sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement.
Markey was joined on the chamber floor by senators from both parties as they made the case for how making daylight saving time permanent would have positive effects on public health and the economy and even cut energy consumption.
“Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,”said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Americans want more sunshine and less depression — people in this country, all the way from Seattle to Miami, want the Sunshine Protection Act,” added Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
Nearly a dozen states across the U.S. have already standardized daylight saving time.
Daylight saving time is defined as a period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the country are set one hour ahead of standard time. Americans last changed their clocks on Sunday. Standard time lasts for roughly four months in most of the country.
Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The proposal will now go to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing to discuss possible legislation last week.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the chairman of the committee, agreed in his opening statement at the hearing that it is “time we stop changing our clocks.” But he said he was undecided about whether daylight saving time or standard time is the way to go.
Markey said Tuesday: “Now, I call on my colleagues in the House of Representatives to lighten up and swiftly pass the Sunshine Protection Act.”
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told lawmakers Tuesday that a sharp increase in threats targeting her and other justices is increasingly encroaching on their personal and family lives.
During a rare appearance by justices before Congress, Barrett said she had to wear a bulletproof vest home a few years ago, something she struggled to explain to her 12-year-old son.
“I didn’t expect that performing this service would put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was, why I had to wear one,” she said.
She and Justice Elena Kagan testified before a House appropriations panel in support of a request to increase security funding for members of the nation’s highest court.
Judges around the country have seen a rise in threats of violence and intimidation. Barrett’s home was also targeted by a swatting call to police in May.
The hearing comes two weeks after the conservative-majority court finished handing down a series of major opinions, including a decision that increased President Trump’s power over federal regulatory agencies and another that rejected his wide-ranging tariffs, sparking harsh personal criticism.
It’s the first time justices have testified before Congress since 2019, and the two justices are facing wide-ranging questions about the court’s work.
Security is central to the Supreme Court’s budget request
The Supreme Court requested a total of $228 million for next fiscal year, a roughly 10% increase over the year before. About $18 million of that is for maintaining the building and grounds.
Much of the requested increase, $14.6 million, would go to expanding personal protection for justices, with six more agents for each.
An additional $2 million would fund an off-site residential security post aimed at making emergency responses faster, as well as increasing the number of Supreme Court police officers.
The U.S. Marshals Service, responsible for protecting judges, reported 564 threats in the government fiscal year that ended in September, an increase from the year before.
That total includes threats to the hundreds of federal judges around the country, though the nine-member Supreme Court has not been immune.
In May, Barrett’s security detail worked with police to quickly deal with the swatting incident, a fake 911 call designed to provoke a police response. Last year, her sister was the victim of a bomb threat in Charleston, S.C., police said. No bomb was found.
In 2022, shortly after the leak of a draft opinion overturning the Roe vs. Wade abortion decision, a would-be assassin was arrested near the home of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh with weapons and zip ties. Threats to the Supreme Court increased after that leak and have continued to grow, Kagan said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has condemned the threats to all U.S. judges, saying during a speech in March that criticism of judicial opinions is understandable, but personally directed hostility is “dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”
Major changes are set to impact British holidaymakers entering a European hotspot, and it’s good news, with the plans aimed at making travel smoother and quicker for Brits
British holidaymakers will benefit from easier travel to this European hotspot (Image: Getty Images)
A beautiful European hotspot is set to make travel easier for Brits by relaxing its entry rules.
British holidaymakers have been facing significant disruptions when travelling to Europe, partly due to the new European Union (EU) Entry/Exit System (EES), which was rolled out on 10 April 2026, and the increased demand for short-haul getaways, particularly during peak periods. In a bid to offer a smoother journey for Brits, without relentless delays and lengthy queues, Switzerland has eased some of its restrictions.
Under a new agreement between the UK and Switzerland, Brits will be allowed to use the Swiss e-gates at airports, providing a smoother experience at passport control. British tourists and business travellers visiting the country, known for its snow-capped, dramatic peaks, will also be able to benefit from scrapped roaming charges.
Mark Tanzer, ABTA chief executive, said: “We want travel to be as easy and smooth as possible, so this announcement includes great outcomes for British holidaymakers and business travellers. Removing roaming charges would give people one less thing to think about before their trip and should make it cheaper to stay in touch, too.
“Plus, giving UK visitors access to Swiss e-gates will make going through the airport smoother and quicker for tourists and business travellers alike.
“We know it’s not something that can just happen overnight, but it is encouraging to see that Switzerland has a plan in place to make it happen. Removing travel frictions like these with major European partners is so important for UK tourism and exports.”
Initial plans, set to be in place by the end of 2026, will allow Brits to enter through the e-gates at Zurich Airport, the country’s largest international airport. There are also plans to introduce this at the airports in Zurich, Geneva, and Basel.
The significant changes were announced following a new Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which could ultimately offer an estimated £5.2 billion a year in additional UK services exports to Switzerland. Meanwhile, news that thousands of British holidaymakers and business travellers could use the Swiss e-gates was confirmed outside of the FTA.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer commented: “Whether you’re growing a business or travelling for work, this agreement is about making life easier and creating more opportunity for people across the UK. It means British firms will find it easier to sell their expertise in one of our most important markets in Europe, supporting jobs and investment here at home.
“British people will also be able to enjoy using their mobile in Switzerland without extra roaming charges, and alongside the FTA, they will soon also have quicker trips through Swiss airports.”
UK holidaymakers keen to visit Switzerland do not need a visa to enter the Schengen area, and can travel for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. Meanwhile, for UK services professionals, the changes will also introduce visa-free travel to Switzerland for up to 90 days a year.
The government website outlined: “UK businesses will be able to transfer people to work in Switzerland for up to 5 years, without being subject to stringent economic needs tests, making it easier to secure Swiss work permits for UK graduates in areas like finance, insurance and consultancy.”
Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said: “This is the most significant services trade deal the UK has ever negotiated. It will bring huge benefits to British business and consumers and comes after a slew of deals with the US, Europe, the Gulf, South Korea and India.
“This deal will mean faster journeys through the border, cheaper phone use for families and business travellers to Switzerland, and new opportunities for British firms selling their world-class services overseas.”
Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
They came to this country without papers as teenagers. Lack of legal status didn’t stop them from building beautiful lives — a wife, a home, a loving dog. A blue-collar job that paid the bills, weekend carne asadas with friends and family, children who followed their father’s example of hard work.
The Lorenzos enjoyed the fruits of their labor in their adopted land, even as they battled to become American citizens while politicians demonized immigrants as invaders and worse.
Lorenzo Arellano arrived in the United States in 1968 and didn’t get his citizenship until nearly 30 years later. Back then, the path to naturalization was far easier.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo arrived in the early 1990s, when those opportunities were becoming severely limited.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, who ran his own construction crew, was on his way to a job with his brother and two other men when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot him dead on July 7 in Houston.
When I see a photo of Salgado Araujo beaming in front of a cake with the number 52 on it at the well-kept home he built with his own hands, I’m reminded that we’ll be celebrating my father’s 75th birthday next month. When I see video of Salgado Araujo’s feet twitching on the ground with two ICE agents next to him as he bleeds out and moans for help, I weep.
Only geography, age and Donald Trump separated the Lorenzos. Even their children — he had three boys, while my father had two boys and two girls — are similar. The Salgado Araujos, like the Arellanos, are college-educated. The eldest son, Ronaldo, is a teacher like my sisters. He wears glasses like me and is now telling the story of his father to the nation, as I have for decades.
I write about my Papi as the puckish personification of immigrant America.
Ronaldo is eulogizing his dad way too soon.
“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” Ronaldo said proudly at a news conference the day after his father’s death — words I’ve always said about my Papi. “He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE’” — words I hope to never utter but can sadly see as a possibility given la migra’s unapologetic shoot-first approach and indiscriminate targeting of anyone brown.
Salgado Araujo’s killing came as part of the Trump administration’s newest deportation surge — the New York Times reported that the feds have arrested nearly 2,000 people a day since the end of June. The rate is higher than ICE’s campaign of terror last summer, yet it hasn’t drawn the same attention, fulfilling the promise of newish Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that la migra would operate far more quietly and efficiently than under his reckless predecessor, Kristi Noem.
Those quiet times are over.
Ronaldo Salgado, son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, dries his tears while talking at a news conference on July 8 in Houston. His father was shot and killed by ICE agents the day before.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Vigils are popping up across the country in Salgado Araujo’s name. Stories about his life and death have replaced those about Mexico’s World Cup run on my social media timelines. They are heartbreaking, infuriating and a baleful reminder for Mexican Americans that these last five weeks of soccer, as joyful as they were, didn’t change our precarious status in this country under President Trump.
“He deserved to live a quiet life as a husband, a father and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream,” Ronaldo said at the news conference through tears as his younger brother, Lorenzo Jr., comforted him. That their father never will — that the Department of Homeland Security is now smearing his name by claiming he “weaponized” his van by trying to run over an agent, even though video evidence proves no such thing — is the latest indictment against the Trump administration’s cruelty toward the undocumented.
Salgado Araujo wasn’t even the target of ICE’s operation. His family said he had applied for a work permit and was on his way toward finally obtaining legal status.
We should heed Ronaldo’s words about his father. As people protest and seek justice, we should also hail the life of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo the way we one day will hail the life of Lorenzo Arellano — as Mexicans who made it, challenges be damned. And we should continue to fight for immigrants who remain in legal limbo, afraid for their lives more than ever.
I called my father to ask how he felt about a tocayo — someone with the same first name — losing his life to la migra.
“I put myself in his place and lament that ese [that] Lorenzo couldn’t get the citizenship that I could,” Papi said in Spanish.
He remembered how immigration agents “did it with respect” when they caught him living in this country illegally in the 1970s and 1980s.
“They asked you for your papers, and if you didn’t have them, they put handcuffs on you, you got deported and that was that. None of these beatings or shootings that are happening now under Trump,” he said. The worst it ever got was when he said he was going to Los Angeles, and an agent snapped that he was going to L.A. but now had to return to Mexico.
Papi asked me what justification ICE has offered for killing Salgado Araujo.
“I hope they put those people who killed him in prison for many years,” he said with disgust. “Will they?”
I replied that probably wasn’t going to happen. ICE has shot and killed 11 people during Trump’s second term, both citizens and noncitizens, and scores more have died in immigration detention. No agents have faced charges for any of these deaths. The agents involved in Salgado Araujo’s killing didn’t even have dashboard cameras or body cameras, a convenient oversight that a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson blamed on “multiple government shutdowns.”
“Pues, Dios sabe que todo se paga en la vida,” my dad responded. Well, God knows you reap what you sow.
Ronaldo Salgado and Lorenzo Jr., sons of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, hold a photograph of their father during a news conference July 8 in Houston.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
Nothing can bring Lorenzo Salgado Araujo back to his loved ones. But I hope they find solace in his namesake, St. Lawrence. Tradition has it that Roman authorities roasted the Spanish deacon to death after Emperor Valerian demanded that he turn over the treasures of the Church. Instead, Lawrence presented the emperor with the city’s poor and maligned, insisting that he confront the oppression he had forced on them.
May we remember Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as a modern-day martyr, killed because our government refused to give him and so many others a chance at living in this country without fear.
May his name resonate through the ages as embodying the promise and tragedy of the American dream.
Wizz Air is launching new flights to MoldovaCredit: Alamy
The route will operate year-round, four times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Flights will take off on October 25 and cost from £36.99.
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Yvonne Moynihan, Managing Director at Wizz Air UK, said: “We’re delighted to give our UK customers another opportunity to discover Chișinău with the launch of our new service from London Gatwick.
“Moldova is one of Europe’s emerging destinations, offering everything from fascinating history and vibrant culture to some of the world’s oldest wine regions.
Sun reporter Felix Naylor Marlow visited the country last year and here are his thoughts:
“Despite sharing a continent, Chisinau feels a world away from the UK with its stark Soviet design
“Once there, pretty much every local I met was shocked to see a tourist doing a spot of sightseeing.
The flights will launch from London Gatwick on October 25Credit: AlamyThey will the operate year-round, four times a weekCredit: Alamy
“Their confusion was understandable though, as the largely forgotten country of Moldova – squeezed between Ukraine and Romania – holds the title of ‘least visited country in Europe’.
“Chisinau is a city that has been through a lot – a mind-boggling 70 per cent of it was destroyed in wars across the twentieth century.
“During my stay in the city in early March, as the UK was seeing temperatures of 6C, I was wandering around the city in a T-shirt thanks to highs of 24C.
“I spent a very pleasant evening ordering several martinis in the bar’s cute cocktail garden, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.
“If you fancy somewhere completely different, cheap as chips, and where people are genuinely pleased to see you, book a flight.”
Madrid, Spain – Badr Tmairi, 22, from Morocco, has spent six years living in Spain without legal status. He arrived at 16, alone, without his family. He held legal residency briefly after turning 18, but lost it when he failed to renew it in time.
“What I want is to get my papers back so I can work as a hairdresser and travel to visit my family in Morocco,” he said.
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Tmairi is one of more than a million people who have now applied for regularisation under a new scheme that contrasts with a growing European trend against irregular immigration.
He has been homeless for the past year. Without documents, finding work and decent housing in Spain is difficult.
“It’s very encouraging to know that so many people submitted an application and are trying to regularise their situation, but that huge number is also proof that the state has failed in its duty to protect the most vulnerable,” Edith Espinola, president of the Active Domestic Workers’ Service Association (SEDOAC) and spokesperson for the Regularizacion Ya (Regularisation Now), told Al Jazeera.
Regularizacion Ya, a collective made up of migrants, has led the push for regularisation since 2020. The measure grew out of a broad social consensus and has been backed by civil society organisations, the Catholic Church, trade unions and business associations.
Living without legal status, Espinola said, condemns people to social exclusion, as it has for Tmairi. Without rights or protection from abuse, they are unaligned with most of the rest of the population.
The new initiative, Spain’s first regularisation process since 2005, began in April and closed on June 30. The government now has three months to resolve the vast majority of the applications submitted.
Of the 1,174,978 applications, according to the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, only 11,000 have received a favourable resolution so far. About 608,000 have been accepted for processing, granting provisional residency and work permits until a final resolution.
‘All I want is to work’
Rocio Neciosupe, 54, is a Peruvian migrant who has spent two years without legal status in Spain. “Regularisation isn’t a handout; all I want is to work. To work without fear and with rights, so that if I fall and I’m sick, I don’t have to go to work that day and can still get paid, like anyone else,” she said.
Neciosupe, a cleaner in private homes, is busy across six different buildings around Madrid. But she is currently recovering from a back injury sustained in a fall at work. Without documents or a contract, she has no right to sick leave.
Unable to afford to lose her income while she recovers, her husband accompanies her to work each day and helps her with tasks she cannot manage alone.
Rocio, her husband and their two daughters, aged 22 and 17, have all had their regularisation applications accepted for processing and are now awaiting a favourable resolution.
“I want to support the country I live in, and if the country grows, we grow too,” Neciosupe added.
It is precisely in the contribution and growth potential of people like her that the Spanish government has framed its case for the measure.
“By 2050, Spain’s GDP would be 19 percent lower, 90,000 bars would close, 50,000 classrooms would shut and 220,000 farms would disappear,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said recently in a public address.
Gonzalo Fanjul, director of ISGlobal’s policy and development team and head of Research at the porCausa Foundation, said: “If you look at what’s happening in the United States, there are already estimates of the impact of the government’s violent, hostile anti-migration policies. Whole economic sectors are struggling to keep functioning.”
One of those sectors is care work. With an ageing population, Spain needs trained workers to fill positions in that sector, among others.
Josselyn Aguirre, originally from Ecuador, works as a carer for a family in Madrid [Courtesy of Josselyn Aguirre]
Josselyn Aguirre, 32, is one of those workers. A nursing assistant, she migrated from Ecuador to Spain in 2024. Her original plan had been to move to the United States, but her visa application was rejected.
“My goal is to stay and help older people. I really enjoy working with them,” she said.
“Here, in my country and in other countries around the world, this sector is collapsing due to a shortage of staff. That’s why I believe that being able to regularise your status and contribute as a professional benefits everyone,” she told Al Jazeera.
Migrants and refugees who applied for regularisation had already been living in Spain, working in the informal economy for years; 57 percent are men, most come from Latin American countries, and six out of 10 are below the age of 34.
So far, 159,097 additional people have registered with the Social Security system as a result of the regularisation process.
With this measure, “Spain has made a bet on growth. We’re going to be a country of 50 million people,” Fanjul said. “But it’s not enough.”
Amid a European political climate in which anti-migration rhetoric appears to be gaining ground, Spain’s approach shows another path is possible, though “regularisation is only the beginning”, Fanjul said.
“The system has been reset, but none of the underlying reasons that brought us to this point have been resolved.
“For the state to open up legal, safe and orderly channels for labour mobility is simply common sense,” he concluded.
Espinola is in no doubt.
Despite criticism from those opposed to the regularisation, she stressed, “We have come out stronger. The migrant community has once again shown its capacity for mutual support in difficult situations.”
The regularisation process is not yet over, she added: “We will remain vigilant to make sure the more than a million applications submitted are processed properly.”
![Josselyn Aguirre, originally from Ecuador, works as a carer for a family in Madrid [Courtesy of Josselyn Aguirre]](https://i0.wp.com/occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Josselyn-Aguirre-originally-from-Ecuador-works-as-a-carer-for-a-family-in-Madrid-2-1783945381.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)