deep

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has called for “deep reflection” in the United States about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that “many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now.”

The Chicago-born pope was responding Tuesday to a variety of geopolitical questions from reporters outside the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, including what kind of spiritual rights migrants in U.S. custody should have, U.S. military attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.

Leo underlined that scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world: “How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made about what is happening.”

He said “the spiritual rights of people who have been detained should also be considered,’’ and he called on authorities to allow pastoral workers access to the detained migrants. “Many times they’ve been separated from their families. No one knows what’s happening, but their own spiritual needs should be attended to,’’ Leo said.

Leo last month urged labor union leaders visiting from Chicago to advocate for immigrants and welcome minorities into their ranks.

Asked about the lethal attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela, the pontiff said the military action was “increasing tension,’’ noting that they were coming even closer to the coastline.

“The thing is to seek dialogue,’’ the pope said.

On the Middle East, Leo acknowledged that the first phase of the peace accord between Israel and Hamas remains “very fragile,’’ and said that the parties need to find a way forward on future governance “and how you can guarantee the rights of all peoples.’’

Asked about Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, the pope described the settlement issue as “complex,’’ adding: “Israel has said one thing, then it’s done another sometimes. We need to try to work together for justice for all peoples.’’

Pope Leo will receive Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican on Thursday. At the end of November he will make his first trip as Pope to Turkey and Lebanon.

TORONTO — It was a game that started on Saturday and ended on Sunday, a World Series contest so packed with the rare, the historic and the dramatic that it couldn’t possibly be confined to one day.

At 11 innings, it was the longest Game 7 this century, and it equaled the longest in more than a century. It was the first Game 7 that had a ninth-inning home run to tie the score and the first to feature two video reviews that prevented the go-ahead run from scoring.

“It’s one of the greatest games I’ve ever been a part of,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 to win its second straight World Series and end the longest season in franchise history, one that began in Japan and ended in Canada.

The victory made the Dodgers the first team to win back-to-back titles in 25 years and with that championship, Roberts’ third, he passed Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda to become the second-most-decorated Dodger manager ever. He now trails only Walter Alston, another Hall of Famer, who won four World Series with the team.

Roberts, however, won his three titles over six seasons, something no Dodger skipper has ever done.

“It’s hard to reconcile that one,” said Roberts, whose jersey from Saturday’s game is on its way to Cooperstown, joining the cap the Hall of Fame requested after last year’s World Series win.

“I’m just really elated and really proud of our team, our guys, the way we fought. We’ve done something that hasn’t been done in decades. There was so many pressure points and how that game could have flipped, and we just kept fighting, and guys stepped up big.”

So did the manager.

Every move Roberts made worked, every button he pushed was the right one. Miguel Rojas, starting for the second time in nearly a month, saved the season with a game-tying home run in the top of the ninth while Andy Pages, inserted for defensive purposes during the bottom of the inning, ran down Ernie Clements’ drive at the wall with the bases loaded to end the threat.

In the 11^th he had Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitch around Addison Barger, putting the winning run on base. But that set up the game-ending double play three pitches later.

“Credit to him, man. Every single move he did this postseason was incredible,” said Tyler Glasnow, one of four starting pitchers Roberts used in relief Saturday. And he had a fifth, Clayton Kershaw, warming up when the game ended.

Added Dodgers co-owner Magic Johnson: “He did some coaching tonight. This was a great manager’s game from him. He’s proven how great a manager he is. He’s a Hall of Famer.”

Roberts asked Yamamoto, who pitched six innings Friday to win Game 6, to throw another 2 2/3 innings in Game 7. It worked; Yamamoto won that game too.

“What Yoshi did tonight is unprecedented in modern-day baseball,” said Roberts, who came into the postgame interview room wearing ski goggles and dripping of champagne. “It just goes down to just trusting your players. It’s nice when you can look down the roster and have 26 guys that you believe in and know that at some point in time their number’s going to be called.”

And Roberts needed all 26 guys. Although the Dodgers players wore t-shirts with the slogan “We Rule October” when they mounted a makeshift stage in the center of the Rogers Centre field to celebrate their victory early Sunday, October was only part of it. Their year started in Tokyo in March and ended in Toronto in November, making it the first major league season to begin and end outside the U.S.

“We really extended the season,” Max Muncy, whose eighth-inning homer started the Dodgers’ comeback, said with a grin after the team’s 179^th game in 226 days.

“Look back at the miles that we’ve logged this year,” Roberts said. “We never wavered. It’s a long season and we persevered, and we’re the last team standing.”

That, too, is a credit to Roberts, who has made the playoffs in each of his 10 seasons and went to the World Series five times, trailing only Alston among Dodger managers. His .621 regular-season winning percentage is best in franchise history among managers who worked more than three seasons. And he figures to keep padding those records.

“We’ve put together something pretty special,” said Roberts, who celebrated with his family on the field afterward. “I’m proud of the players for the fans, scouting, player development, all the stuff. To do what we’ve done in this span of time is pretty remarkable.

“I guess I’ll let the pundits and all the fans talk about if it’s a dynasty or not. But I’m pretty happy with where we’re at.”

On Sunday morning Glasnow, who missed the playoffs last season with an elbow injury, was pretty happy with where he was at as well.

“To be a part of the World Series is crazy,” he said, standing just off the infield as blue and gold confetti rained down. “You dream about it as a kid. To live it out, I feel so lucky. This group of guys, I’m so close to everyone. So many good people on this team. It’s just the perfect group of guys.”

The perfect manager, too.

Islamabad, Pakistan – After three days, talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Istanbul, aimed at ending a tense and violent standoff between the South Asian neighbours, appeared to have hit a wall in Istanbul on Tuesday.

Mediated by Qatar and Türkiye, the negotiations followed an initial round of dialogue in Doha, which produced a temporary ceasefire on October 19 after a week of fighting that left dozens dead on both sides.

But even though officials and experts said that “last-ditch” efforts were expected to continue to try to pull the two countries back from a full-fledged conflict, the prospects of new hostilities between them loom large after their inability, so far, to build on the Doha truce, analysts say.

Pakistani security officials said that on Monday, talks went on for nearly 18 hours. But they accused the Afghan delegation of changing its position on Islamabad’s central demand – that Kabul crack down on the Pakistan Taliban armed group, known by the acronym TTP. One official, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the dialogue, alleged that the “instructions received from Kabul” for the Afghan team were complicating negotiations.

Kabul, however, blamed the Pakistani delegation for a “lack of coordination,” claiming the Pakistani side was “not presenting clear arguments” and kept “leaving the negotiating table”, Afghan media reported.

The Afghan team is being led by the deputy minister for administrative affairs at the Ministry of Interior, Haji Najib, while Pakistan has not publicly disclosed its representatives.

Recent cross-border attacks between the militaries of the two countries have killed multiple people, troops and civilians, and injured many more in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

United States President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly sought credit for resolving global conflicts, also waded in, saying he would “solve the Afghanistan-Pakistan crisis very quickly”, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia earlier in the week.

Yet, any long-term settlement appears difficult due to the two nations’ “profound mutual distrust and conflicting priorities”, said Baqir Sajjad Syed, a former Pakistan fellow at the Wilson Center and a journalist who covers national security.

Syed added that their historical grievances and Pakistan’s past interventions in Afghanistan make concessions politically risky for the Afghan Taliban.

“In my view, the core issue is ideological alignment. The Afghan Taliban’s dependence on TTP for dealing with internal security problems [inside Afghanistan] makes it difficult for them to dissociate from the group, despite Pakistani concerns,” he told Al Jazeera.

A fraught friendship

Historically, Pakistan was long perceived as the primary patron of the Afghan Taliban. Many in Pakistan publicly welcomed the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 after the withdrawal of US forces.

But relations have sharply deteriorated since, largely over the TTP, an armed group that emerged in 2007 during the US-led so-called “war on terror”, and which has waged a long campaign against Islamabad.

The TTP seeks the release of its members imprisoned in Pakistan and opposes the merger of Pakistan’s former tribal areas into its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Although independent from the Afghan Taliban, the two groups are ideologically aligned.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing sanctuary not only to the TTP but to other groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army and the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP), charges Kabul denies.

The Afghan Taliban have insisted that the TTP is a Pakistani problem, repeatedly arguing that insecurity in Pakistan is a domestic matter. And the Taliban have themselves long viewed the ISKP as enemies.

Mullah Yaqoob, Afghanistan’s defence minister who signed the ceasefire in Doha with his Pakistani counterpart, Khawaja Asif, last week, said in an interview on October 19 that states sometimes used the label “terrorism” for political ends.

“There is no universal or clear definition of terrorism,” he said, adding that any government can brand its adversaries as “terrorists” for its own agenda.

Meanwhile, regional powers including Iran, Russia, China, and several Central Asian states have also urged the Taliban to eliminate the TTP and other armed groups allegedly operating from Afghanistan.

That appeal was renewed in Moscow in early October, in consultations also attended by Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Rising toll, rising tensions

In recent days, several attacks have killed more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers, including officers.

The year 2024 was among Pakistan’s deadliest in nearly a decade, with more than 2,500 casualties recorded, and 2025 is on track to surpass that, analysts say.

Both civilians and security personnel have been targeted, with most attacks concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. TTP operations have increased sharply in both frequency and intensity.

“Our data show that the TTP engaged in at least 600 attacks against, or clashes with, security forces in the past year alone. Its activity in 2025 so far already exceeds that seen in all of 2024,” a recent Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) report said.

Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, an Islamabad-based security analyst, says that Pakistani negotiators must recognise that ties between the Taliban and the TTP are rooted in ideology, making it hard for Afghanistan’s government to give up on the anti-Pakistan armed group.

Journalist Sami Yousafzai, a longtime observer of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, agreed, saying that the prospects of a détente now look increasingly remote.

Both Mehsud and Yousafzai pointed to the Taliban’s history of sticking by allies even in the face of international pressure, and even military assault.

“We have seen this same attitude from the Afghan Taliban in 2001, when, after the 9/11 attacks, they continued to remain steadfastly with Al al-Qaeda,” Mehsud said.

According to Yousafzai, “the Afghan Taliban are war veterans, and they can withstand military pressure”.

Failed diplomacy?

In recent months, both sides have pursued diplomacy, nudged also by China, which has mediated talks between them, in addition to Qatar and Turkiye.

Yet, analysts say Islamabad might soon conclude that it has few nonmilitary options to address its concerns.

Syed pointed to Pakistani Defence Minister Asif’s recent threat of an “open war” and said that these comments could presage targeted air strikes or cross-border operations against alleged TTP sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

“That said, mediators, particularly Qatar and Turkiye, are expected to make a last-ditch push to revive dialogue or shift it to another venue. There is also a small possibility of other countries joining in, especially after President Trump’s latest signal of readiness to step in and de-escalate the crisis,” he said.

Syed said that economic incentives, including aid, in exchange for compliance with ceasefire provisions could be one way to get the neighbours to avoid a full-fledged military conflict.

This is a tool Trump has used in recent months in other wars, including in getting Thailand and Cambodia to stop fighting after border clashes. The US president oversaw the signing of a peace deal between the Southeast Asian nations in Kuala Lumpur last weekend.

Unintended consequences

While Pakistan has far superior military capabilities, the Taliban has advantages, too, say analysts, cautioning against overconfidence on the part of Islamabad.

Yousafzai argued that the crisis with Pakistan had helped bolster domestic support for the Taliban, and military action against it could further elevate sympathy for the group.

“The response by the Afghan Taliban of attacking the Pakistani military on [the] border was seen as a forceful response, increasing their popularity. And even if Pakistan continues to bomb, it could end up killing innocent civilians, leading to more resentment and anti-Pakistani sentiment in [the] public and among [the] Afghan Taliban,” he said.

This dynamic, according to Yousafzai, should be worrying for Islamabad, particularly if the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, steps in.

“If Akhunzada issues an edict, declaring Jihad against Pakistan, many young Afghans could potentially join the ranks of [the] Taliban,” Yousafzai warned. “Even if it will mean a bigger loss for Afghans, the situation will not be good for Pakistan.”

The only beneficiary, he said, would be the TTP, which will feel even more emboldened “to launch attacks against the Pakistani military”.

Many actors talk about process but Ethan Hawke has made the act of creation central to his work. He’s played musicians and writers and when he’s gone behind the camera, he’s focused on the stories of composers, novelists, movie stars and country singers both famous and forgotten. Sometimes, it feels like he’s the unofficial patron saint of art suffering, fixated on the glory and anguish of putting yourself out there in the world.

So Hawke’s portrayal of Lorenz Hart, the brilliant but troubled lyricist responsible for beloved tunes like “My Funny Valentine,” in a story set shortly before his death would seem to be just the latest chapter of a lifelong obsession. But “Blue Moon,” Hawke’s ninth collaboration with director Richard Linklater, cuts deeper than any of his previous explorations. Imagining Hart on the night of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers’ greatest triumph — the launch of “Oklahoma!” — Linklater offers a wistful look at a songwriter past his prime. But the film wouldn’t resonate as powerfully without Hawke’s nakedly vulnerable portrayal.

It is March 31, 1943, eight months before Hart’s death at age 48 from pneumonia, and Hart has just gruffly left the Broadway premiere of “Oklahoma!” Arriving early at Sardi’s for the after-party, he plants himself at the bar, complaining to bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) that the show will be a massive success — and that it’s garbage. Eddie nods in a way that suggests he’s often lent a sympathetic ear to Hart’s rantings, allowing him to unload about the show’s supposedly banal lyrics and corn-pone premise and, worst of all, the fact that Rodgers will have his biggest smash the moment he stops working with Hart after nearly 25 years. “This is not jealousy speaking,” Hart insists, fooling no one.

As played by Hawke, Hart adores holding court, entertaining his captive audience with witty put-downs and gossipy Broadway anecdotes. Begging Eddie not to serve him because of his drinking problem, which contributed to the dissolution of his partnership with Rodgers, this impudent carouser would be too much to stand if he also wasn’t such fun company. But eventually, Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and his new lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) are going to walk through that door and Hart will have to swallow his pride and pretend to be happy for them. From one perspective, “Blue Moon” is about the beginning of “Oklahoma!” as a pillar of American theater. From another, it’s Hart’s funeral.

Set almost exclusively inside Sardi’s, “Blue Moon” has the intimacy of a one-man stage show. After Hart vents about “Oklahoma!,” he readies himself for the arrival of Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a gorgeous Yale undergrad he considers his protégée. (He also claims to be in love with her, which baffles Eddie, who rightly assumed otherwise.) If the universal acclaim of “Oklahoma!” will force Hart to confront his professional irrelevance, maybe Elizabeth’s beaming presence — and the promise of them consummating their feelings — will be sufficient compensation.

Linklater, the man behind “School of Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles,” has made several films about creativity. (In a few weeks, he’ll debut another movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” which focuses on the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s epochal “Breathless.”) But what distinguishes “Blue Moon” is that, for once, it’s about someone else’s achievement — not the main character. Fearing he’s a has-been, the diminutive, balding Hart slowly succumbs to self-loathing. He can still spitefully quote the negative reviews for his 1940 musical “Pal Joey.” And he nurses a paranoid pet theory that Rodgers decided to collaborate with Hammerstein because he’s so much taller than Hart. (“Blue Moon” incorporates old-fashioned camera tricks to help Hawke resemble Hart’s under-five-feet frame.) Linklater’s movies have frequently featured affable underdogs, but by contrast, “Blue Moon” is an elegy to a bitter, insecure man whose view of himself as a failure has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Of the many artists Hawke has honored on screen, he has never depicted one so touchingly diminished — someone so consumed with envy who nonetheless cannot lie to himself about the beauty of the art around him. Turning 55 next month, Hawke shares with Hart an effusive passion for indelible work but also, perhaps, a nagging anxiety about the end of his creative usefulness. If he were younger, Hawke would have come across as self-regarding. Here, there’s only a poignantly egoless transparency, exposing the lyricist’s personal flaws — his drunkenness, his arrogance — while capturing the fragile soulfulness that made those Rodgers and Hart tunes sing.

Apropos of his relaxed approach, Linklater shoots “Blue Moon” with a minimum of fuss, but one can feel its enveloping melancholy, especially once the next generation of artists poke their head into the narrative. (Sondheim diehards will instantly identify the brash young composer identified only as “Stevie.”) But neither Linklater nor Hawke is sentimental about that changing of the guard.

That’s why Hawke breaks your heart. All of us are here for just a short time: We make our mark and then the ocean comes and washes it away. In an often remarkable career, Hawke has never embraced that truth so completely as he does here. Ultimately, maybe the work artists leave behind isn’t their most important contribution — maybe it’s the love they had for artistry itself, a passion that will inspire after they’re gone. That’s true of Lorenz Hart, and it will hopefully prove true of Hawke and this understated but profound film for years to come.

A Russian fiber-optic-controlled first-person view (FPV) drone made a precision strike within the city of Kramatorsk for the first time on Sunday, the city council said. Though no one was injured in the attack, a fiber-optic FPV drone strike on one of the largest cities in the east raised alarms in Ukraine.

Unlike radio-controlled drones, FPV drones that link to their controllers via very long spools of fiber-optic wire are immune to jamming and terrain features that can impede line-of-sight radio signals. While they also have disadvantages, such as having a range defined by the length of the wires they trail and degraded freedom to maneuver, they are hugely threatening due to their resiliency. And the range at which they can reach out is only increasing.

Kramatorsk was home to about 200,000 people before Russia’s all-out invasion, but that has dwindled to about half that population. Located 12 miles from the front lines in Ukraine’s war-torn east, Kramatorsk has come under increasing attack from Russian radio-controlled FPV drones. 

Boosting the range of Russia’s fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones extends the depth of the front lines and increasingly puts civilians at risk.

“One strike and one damaged car will not change the security situation on the front line or directly in Kramatorsk, but it demonstrates a trend,” the Ukrainian Radio Liberty media outlet reported. “However, firstly, the Russian troops have demonstrated the reach and vulnerability of the administrative center of Donetsk Oblast to fiber optic. Secondly, if strikes with different types of FPV are scaled up, we can talk about a threat to civilian and military logistics in order to create the prerequisites for a future offensive…”

The video feed from the drone itself is incredibly clear, which is a major feature of this class of FPV drone. On the other hand, a radio-controlled one would have an intermittent video feed dominated by static due to the great distance from its controllers and especially amongst tall buildings and general urban terrain. The video shows the drone flying over a relatively pristine street in Kramatorsk, before making a sharp turn to the left and striking a pickup truck — much like the ones many Ukrainian troops use — parked near an apartment building.

Both sides have developed fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones that can now reach as far as 25 miles, but generally, those in operation fly a fraction of that distance carrying much smaller spools of wire. Still, efforts to extend the range to more than 30 miles are underway now, which could be highly problematic for forces operating deep behind enemy lines and civilians, as well.

It’s worth noting that the Russians started the use of fiber optic wires on the FPV drone in the spring of 2024, and Ukraine quickly followed suit. You can read more about that in our original story here. The use of fiber optic cables to transmit the guidance data between the controllers and the FPV drones has become so prevalent on both sides that fields once used for farming are now covered in the strands.

The increasing range of Russia’s fiber-optic-controlled FPVs is worrisome to one of Ukraine’s major players in drone development and production efforts.

“The enemy’s FPV drones can fly even greater distances,” Serhii Sternenko warned on X. “There is no such thing as a rear area up to 30 kilometers (about 18.5 miles) from the front. This needs to be realized now, especially by local officials.”

Sternenko is urging Ukrainian city leaders to adopt new defensive measures to protect civilians.

“All settlements in this zone should already be closing roads with anti-drone nets,” he suggested. You can see a driver’s view of traveling through one such system in the following video.

A Ukrainian logistic route that has covered with the anti drone nets and fence. pic.twitter.com/8O1QQHFPMe

— 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝕯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝕯𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔱△ 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇺🇲🇬🇷 (@TheDeadDistrict) April 5, 2025

These nets are a measure first introduced by Russia and later adopted by Ukraine to create miles-long ‘tunnels’ designed to protect military transport vehicles from drone attacks. Russia has even designed a system to protect buildings with nets.

In addition, Sternenko wants civilian movement on the streets to be limited and ultimately have non-combatants evacuated.

“It will only get worse, because technology doesn’t stand still,” he posited. 

Though fiber optic cables increase the range of FPV drones, there are also limitations, as we have previously discussed and touched on at the opening of this article.

The extra weight of the large spools needed to operate over long distances slows them down and makes them less maneuverable. In addition, environmental factors come into play, the head of Ukraine’s defense tech incubator recently told us. Just because such a drone can reach 25 miles doesn’t mean it will.

“It depends on what we are measuring, the length of the fiber optics, or the distance between the ground station and the target,” Andriy Hyrtseniuk, the new head of Ukraine’s Brave1, told us. “It’s two different stories because, because of the wind, the fiber optics is moving,” reducing the range of these drones.

Still, given the advantages offered by longer fiber optic cables, both sides are in a race to increase their distance, Hyrtseniuk explained.

“This is very similar to the game of cat and mouse, and the innovations are enhancing [the range] very, very quickly,” he stated.

Ukraine was slower to develop the fiber-optic-controlled FPV drones, but it is catching up.

“This is actually one of the very few areas where Russia was faster than we were, but we are very quickly reducing the [gap],” he posited. “And right now, more than 35 Ukrainian companies are building the fiber optic drones and have scaled their production. So right now we are comparable with Russia.”

“Of course,” he added, “we and the Russians are working on the increasing distance and increasing lengths of the fiber optics…I don’t want to give more detailed information about fiber optics, but the level of 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) was completely reached, and it works.”

There has been very little movement on the front lines, providing Ukraine a degree of security within a dozen or so miles from them due to Russia’s lack of air superiority. But AI-infused drone technology, using Ukraine’s own telecom network to control long-range drones far beyond the front, and long-range fiber optic drones could disrupt this delicate balance. We discussed how AI-enabled Shaheds could have a massive impact on the war in a story we wrote last year. Even putting nearby towns at risk of highly resilient fiber-optic FPVs could have major impacts, especially on both sides’ ability to supply troops at the front.

So far, Kramatorsk is battered, but 100,000 people still call it home. Right now, cable-guided FPV drones are an emerging threat to this city. However, as we have seen across the battlefield, the ability to extend the range of these weapons makes defending against them even harder.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM 1.50%), also known as TSMC, is one of the premier manufacturers of advanced processors, many of which are used for artificial intelligence. The company’s strong position in this space and its growth over the past few years have resulted in its stock price soaring nearly 200% over the past three years.

Recent research from The Motley Fool sheds some light on how TSMC’s manufacturing technology is a step ahead, how it makes the majority of its revenue, and where most of its customers are located. Importantly, all of these factors work together to set TSMC apart from the competition and make its stock a smart one to own for years to come.

1. The company is a leader in advanced chip manufacturing

TSMC manufactures some of the world’s most advanced processors, and the breakdown of the company’s revenue shows just how much comes from its different manufacturing capabilities. Chip companies use the term chip node to describe how many transistors will fit onto a semiconductor, with the unit of chip measurement being nanometers (nm). Generally speaking, the smaller, the more advanced the processor.

Here’s a snapshot of Taiwan Semiconductor’s top five revenue generators, by chip size:

Data source: Taiwan Semiconductor.

This revenue composition is important to highlight because it shows that a whopping 60% of the company’s semiconductor sales are from the smallest and most advanced processors (3nm and 5nm) on the market.

No other company compares to TSMC’s manufacturing prowess, and it’s likely to continue outpacing the competition. TSMC has already sign 15 deals with tech companies for 2nm semiconductor manufacturing, leaving rivals, including Samsung, far behind.

2. Its advanced processors are driving its growth

Just as important as the technology behind TSMC’s revenue is what technologies those processors power. If we go back five years, smartphones were the driving revenue force for TSMC. Now, it’s high-performance computing (think AI data centers).

The company has dominated the manufacturing of advanced processors so well, in fact, that TSMC makes an estimated 90% of the world’s most advanced processors.

Here is the company’s revenue distribution over the past four quarters:

Data source: Taiwan Semiconductor.

TSMC’s making the majority of its revenue from high-performance computing is important because it shows that the company successfully adapted with the times, moving from its previously dominant smartphone segment to sales from chips to AI data centers.

More growth could be on the way, too, considering that semiconductor leader Nvidia believes technology companies could spend up to $4 trillion on AI data center infrastructure over the next five years.

3. U.S. tech giants drive demand

Taiwan Semiconductor is based in, you guessed it, Taiwan, but the vast majority of its sales come from selling processors to North American companies. About five years ago, North America accounted for just over half of TSMC’s sales, but that’s jumped to 75% currently. China and the Asia-Pacific region tie for second place with just 9% each.

Why does this matter? Some of the most advanced artificial intelligence companies, including Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are based in North America. Taiwan Semiconductor’s shift toward sales in this geographic area is a reflection of the company successfully attracting the world’s leading AI companies to have their chips made by TSMC.

Is Taiwan Semiconductor a buy?

With TSMC making an estimated 90% of the world’s most advanced processors, the company outpacing its manufacturing competition, and artificial intelligence companies poised to spend trillions of dollars to build out and upgrade data centers, TSMC is well positioned to be a great AI stock for years to come.

Just keep in mind that the stellar gains TSMC stock has experienced over the past several years have been a result of the early AI boom, which means future returns may not be quite as impressive.

A delegation from Kyiv was in Washington this week to work out the details of what could be a huge deal to sell the U.S. tens of millions of drones. After nearly four years of brutal all-out war with Russia, Ukraine is a world leader in some types of uncrewed weapons technology, and there is increasing demand for these systems. 

The potential deal has the support of both U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukrainian military officials said they presented U.S. counterparts with the latest developments in their drone tech as well as proposals for “specific models, their effectiveness and conditions of use,” according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. 

The MoD did not provide details about exactly what kinds of systems were discussed. We’ve reached out to the Pentagon and Ukrainian officials for more information.

“The American team noted Ukraine’s expertise in developing the drone industry – the production of not only UAVs, but also sea drones and ground robotic complexes,” the MoD explained. “The negotiations of the technical teams became a preparatory stage for the signing of the Drone Deal agreement,” previously announced by Zelensky.

Ukraine is “working on the issue of exports – controlled exports of our weapons, some types that we have in surplus, which can really give Ukraine additional finances for the production of scarce items that are so needed on the front now, and those that have shown themselves best in strikes deep into Russian territory,” Zelensky said in his evening message on Wednesday. “There are already agreements on four export platforms: the United States of America, Europe, the Middle East, and also Africa. We will prepare the appropriate agreements.”

Zelensky had previously said Kyiv had proposed a five-year, $50 billion framework “that would involve producing up to 10 million drones annually, with the program not expected to take effect until the war with Russia ends,” the Kyiv Post noted. It is unclear if the drone deal is part of an exchange for weapons from the U.S. or another type of compensation deal.

We have reached out to the White House for comment.

The U.S. military is already testing out Ukrainian long-range attack drones that Kyiv has used to great effect in attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure. You can see one of those attacks in the video below.

As we have frequently reported, Ukraine has developed weapons like Baba Yaga bomber drones, many types of first-person view (FPV) drones, Magura uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) with a wide range of capabilities and several models of ground drones. Just as importantly, Ukraine has also developed the tactics and techniques to use these weapons in an evolving changing battlespace. This includes incorporating emerging artificial intelligence capabilities into some of its drone systems.

You can see a Magura V7 USV, armed with a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles, shoot down a Russian Su-30 Flanker fighter flying over the Black Sea in the following video.

Some of this could be of great value to the U.S., which makes more exquisite, complex and expensive drones, but in numbers that pale in comparison to what Ukraine produces. America is very far behind in its development and use of some drones types at scale and this deal could help change that. However, it also benefits Kyiv in several ways, a top Ukrainian defense official told us.

“I truly believe we can support this, because it is a win-win for both nations,” Andriy Hyrtseniuk, the new head of Ukraine’s Brave1 defense tech incubator, told The War Zone in an exclusive interview in August. “This is a very good deal that needs to be concluded with the best conditions for both sides.”

Hyrtsenuik said not only does he have confidence that Ukraine has the capacity to supply the U.S. with drones, but such a deal would have major benefits for Kyiv beyond a massive infusion of funds.

“Joint ventures between the companies and teams from both parties will allow us to create even more effective and better solutions,” he noted.

The parameters of this deal are being worked out as Trump has seemingly changed his stance toward Russia after failing to secure a pathway to peace, moving strongly in favor of Ukraine’s point of view. Following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last month, Trump seemed far more amenable to Moscow’s point of view. However, the American leader’s messaging appears to be moving strongly in favor of Kyiv, calling Russia a “paper tiger.”

As we noted last week, Trump’s change of heart could result in massive policy shifts. Yesterday, reports emerged indicating the U.S. has agreed to provide Ukraine with targeting intelligence for the aforementioned long-range strikes against Russian energy infrastructure. These attacks are depriving Russia of critical resources to fight Ukraine and raise revenue. You can read more about that in the story we published today here.

The Trump administration will provide Ukraine with intelligence for long-range missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure https://t.co/OvFWtNimXY

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 1, 2025

In addition to talking about the drone deal, Ukrainian officials also discussed the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative. Created by the U.S. and NATO in August, PURL sells U.S. weaponry to NATO, which then provides it to Ukraine.

“Six NATO member states have already funded four defense support packages for Ukraine totaling more than $2 billion,” under PURL, Zelensky’s office said.

Deliveries of the first two packages began in mid-September. In addition, the United States has already finalized with Canada and Germany the composition of the third and fourth packages.

“The initiative is working, providing very active assistance – it is precisely the mechanism that allows us to purchase American weapons with funding from our NATO partners,” Zelensky said. “These include items such as missiles for Patriots and missiles for HIMARS.”

It will take several months for the drone deal to be finalized, if it comes together at all. Given that it all depends on the war ending, it may be years to kick off, even if a deal is worked out.

Regardless of whether this sees the light of day, the drone deal being discussed is a major sign of how far ahead Ukraine is from the rest of the world when it comes to uncrewed weapons. It also highlights how the U.S. has a long way to go to ramp up its production of drones, something we have discussed at length. Leveraging Ukrainian production and expertise, as well as battle-tested tactics and systems, could give the U.S. a jump start on certain drone capabilities, especially on the lower-end of the capability spectrum.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Tuesday as they pounded Gaza from the air and ground, as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York demanded an end to the two-year war.

Residential buildings continue to be flattened as Israel presses ahead with its plan to seize the enclave’s largest city.

Satellite imagery analysed by Al Jazeera shows Israeli army vehicles tightening a stranglehold around Gaza City, surrounding it from several directions. Footage verified by Al Jazeera shows tanks pushing into the Nassr neighbourhood, barely a kilometre from al-Shifa Hospital.

This destruction forms part of a pattern that a UN commission says amounts to genocide.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday warned that Israel’s military actions are “inflicting terror on the Palestinian population of Gaza City and forcing tens of thousands to flee”.

The suffering of Palestinians has drawn the attention of the global leaders, who have used the UNGA platform to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Addressing the UNGA, US President Donald Trump said that the Gaza war should stop “immediately” but dismissed the recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western countries, calling it a “reward” for Hamas.

The US president met leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on the sidelines of the UNGA. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the meeting was “very fruitful,” adding that a joint declaration from the meeting would be published.

‘Stuck under the rubble’

Israeli strikes have hit civilians across Gaza. One man was killed and others wounded in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, while another strike hit Palestinians queueing for water in Gaza City’s Daraj neighbourhood, sources told Al Jazeera.

Medical infrastructure is also being dismantled. Israeli shelling destroyed the main medical centre in Gaza City, injuring at least two medical workers, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

The charity said that troops prevented the evacuation of equipment and supplies, even as the facility served the wounded, cancer patients and blood donors. Other clinics in Tal al-Hawa and the Shati refugee camp have also been destroyed or besieged.

Hind Khoudary, reporting for Al Jazeera from az-Zawayda, described the devastation: “The situation continues to deteriorate, especially in the heart of Gaza City, where Israeli forces have been using artillery shelling and quadcopters to push more Palestinians to evacuate to the south and central areas.

“There have been endless appeals from Palestinian families saying their relatives are stuck under the rubble, but no one can reach them.”

No safe zones

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Gaza City have ended up in the central and southern areas of the enclave, which are under constant bombardment. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” of al-Mawasi has itself been attacked repeatedly, with health officials warning that it lacks the basic necessities of life, including water, food [and] health services, while disease spreads through overcrowded camps.

Experts say the forced movement is itself part of the machinery of genocide: driving families into displacement under fire and stripping them of shelter, food and dignity.

At Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, doctors report that three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces near the supposed safe zone further south. Three children died from malnutrition in southern Gaza, according to hospital sources.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared that famine was under way in northern Gaza and would spread south. Gaza’s Ministry of Health warns that hospitals are now “entering an extremely dangerous phase” due to fuel shortages.

This collapse of health services and the deliberate obstruction of food and fuel deliveries has led to UN experts accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

West Bank under attack

While global attention remains fixed on the destruction in Gaza, events in the occupied West Bank may carry even deeper implications for the future of the conflict.

Israel has threatened to accelerate annexation plans in the West Bank in the wake of recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries, including France and the United Kingdom.

On the ground, violence has intensified. Armed settlers shot dead Saeed Murad al-Nasan in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

Israeli forces raided multiple towns around Nablus and ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, the only gateway for goods and people between the West Bank and Jordan.

The tightening of settlements, killings and closure of borders are not isolated incidents. Together, they form part of what a UN report on Tuesday described as a systematic effort to secure permanent Israeli control over Gaza and entrench a Jewish majority in the West Bank.

It comes after a UN commission concluded last week that Israel’s policies – forced displacement, denial of return, destruction of infrastructure and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon – meet the legal definition of genocide.

Terry Reid, the bombastic British singer who famously passed on fronting both Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, has died. He was 75.

Reid’s representatives confirmed his death in a statement to the Guardian. He had been treated for cancer just before his death, and a GoFundMe had been set up for donations.

Reid, born in Cambridgeshire, England, had a uniquely resonant and soulful voice with an enormous range that earned him the nickname “Superlungs.” He was a coveted figure among the arena-rock titans of the era — even vocal powerhouse Aretha Franklin once claimed in 1968 that “There are only three things happening in England: the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Terry Reid.”

Reid first found local success in the teen rock group the Redbeats, and soon joined the band Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers. After a performance at London’s Marquee club, where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards caught Reid’s set with the Jaywalkers, the Rolling Stones brought the group on a support tour. Also on that package — Ike & Tina Turner and the Yardbirds, then the main project of guitarist Jimmy Page.

Reid, who had also become close friends with Jimi Hendrix then, left the Jaywalkers to become a solo act. The Stones asked him to support them on a U.S. tour. Citing those tour obligations, he declined Page’s offer to front a new group he was forming. Reid instead recommended vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham of Band of Joy, and that group soon debuted as Led Zeppelin.

“Lots of people asked me to join their bands,” Reid told the Guardian. “I was intent on doing my own thing. I contributed half the band — that’s enough on my part!”

Led Zeppelin wasn’t only the massive act Reid nearly fronted. He also turned down Ritchie Blackmore’s pitch to front Deep Purple, after Rod Evans left the band in 1969. Ian Gillan took the job instead.

As a solo artist, Reid signed a deal with the influential talent manager Mickie Most, and his debut 1968 LP, “Bang Bang, You’re Terry Reid,” included a song, “Without Expression,” he wrote at 14. That song would become a popular cover of the era — John Mellencamp, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and REO Speedwagon all took a crack at it.

He supported Cream, Fleetwood Mac and Jethro Tull on tour (and nearly opened for the Stones at the infamous Altamont festival, but skipped that date), but he never achieved chart success commensurate with his proximity to fame. Yet exquisitely performed albums like 1973’s ‘River” remain cult classics in the ’70s rock canon, and in the ’80s he turned to session work with Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Jackson Browne. Reid befriended Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso after they moved to the U.K. during Brazil’s military coup, and he played both the first Isle of Wight festival and opened the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury’s 1971 festival, with David Bowie side stage.

Reid later moved to California and lived outside Palm Springs in his later years. His musical reputation was revived by both the crate-digger era of DJs (the virtuoso turntablist DJ Shadow collaborated with him) and the ’90s and 2000s rockers enamored with his vocal prowess. Chris Cornell, Marianne Faithfull and Jack White’s band the Raconteurs covered his songs. He reportedly recorded a number of unreleased tracks with Dr Dre. Reid told the Guardian the rap mogul “became fascinated with [Reid’s album] ‘Seed of Memory’ and invited me into his studio where we reworked it alongside his rappers, a fascinating experience.”

Reid is survived by his wife, Annette, and daughters Kelly and Holly.

DeShaun Foster is a beloved Bruin, so the doubts of his being in over his head as the UCLA football coach are merely whispered. Attending a recent panel discussion, I heard Times columnist Bill Plaschke refer to Coach Foster as “a placeholder.” Saturday’s game against Utah only solidified both perceptions. In today’s college football landscape there are plenty of teams who use the transfer portal to be competitive while building toward something better. One game in, UCLA appears to be failing miserably to do so. As a 42-year season-ticket holder and alumnus, the football program, its fans, and the university deserve so much more.

Eric Forseth
Murrieta

All we heard from UCLA preseason was Nico, Nico, Nico [Iamaleava]. After watching his performance against unranked Utah, he has to be the most overrated transfer in the country. Add in the fact that the defense was absolutely pathetic, it’s another losing season. Rose Bowl you better order more tarps.

Joe Novak
La Crescenta

As I walked out of the UCLA-Utah football game in disgust in the fourth quarter after watching an uninspired and incompetent defense and a team that looked, frankly, soft, I had to smile as the PA system in the Rose Bowl appropriately blasted the song “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Uninspired and untalented. Basically, buttercups.

Alan Abajian
Alta Loma

Will somebody please explain to the Bruin defense that it is called TACKLE football??

Steve Cizmar
Huntington Beach

After UCLA’s humiliating, devastating and humbling 43-10 loss to Utah in the season opener, coach DeShaun Foster said, “We were close.”

Close to what, Division II?

Jack Wolf
Westwood

The Chargers gave up the fewest points in the NFL last season (301) and will need that kind of stout performance again to get a firm foothold in the AFC West.

They will be tested right away, as they open in Brazil against the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs — a team the Chargers haven’t beaten since 2021 — then face Las Vegas and Denver in the following two weeks. All three division opponents in a row.

Coach Jim Harbaugh was especially pleased with his defense after it notched a strip sack and made a goal-line stand in a preseason victory over New Orleans.

“They just played with a lot of want-to and I’m thrilled with that,” Harbaugh told reporters. “I love guys that play like they want to be on this team. They want to show that they belong. That’s the way they practice and that’s the way they go out and play in the game. That warms the cockles of the heart.”

The defense is transitioning from a familiar fixture. Although his production had tailed off the past few years, Joey Bosa was a stalwart for this team since 2016, predating the club’s move to Los Angeles. The five-time Pro Bowl defensive end signed a one-year deal with Buffalo in March. The Chargers have moved on.

The leader up front is Khalil Mack, who is entering his 12th season and pointed to Harbaugh and general manager Joe Hortiz in explaining why he decided to re-sign with the franchise this offseason.

“Why not here?” Mack asked reporters. “Got tremendous leadership here. … Knowing what Coach Harbaugh is building and what Joe is building, that was a no-brainer.”

It might be an outlier, as he’s typically in single digits for the season, but Mack had 17 sacks in 2023.

Chargers linebacker Khalil Mack will once again be at the forefront of the team’s pass-rushing effort.

(Peter Aiken / Associated Press)

A promising disruptor off the edge is former USC standout Tuli Tuipulotu, who had 8½ sacks last season.

“My standard is to play Khalil,” he told reporters of entering his third season. “He is the standard, that’s what I’m chasing.”

Another seasoned veteran in the rotation is Bud Dupree, who played in all 18 games last season and was tied for second with six sacks. The 11-year veteran re-signed with the team this summer.

A youth infusion could come from outside linebackers Caleb Murphy, in his second season, and rookie Kyle Kennard, who was SEC Defensive Player of the Year at South Carolina last season.

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh congratulates defensive tackle Teair Tart after a win over the Raiders in September 2024.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Moving to the interior of the defensive line, the Chargers leaned on Teair Tart and Otito Ogbonnia last season, and in an effort to get deeper and similarly athletic at the position, signed veterans Naquan Jones and Da’Shawn Hand.

Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter has praised Ogbonnia’s improved footwork and counter moves in camp.

Jones played with Tennessee and Arizona over the past four seasons and adds depth to the rotation along with Hand, who played with Detroit, Tennessee and Miami during the past six years.

A player to watch is 340-pound rookie Jamaree Caldwell, who is coming off a strong showing at camp.

Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley could be primed for a breakout season.

(Denis Poroy / Associated Press)

Backing up that defensive front in the middle is Denzel Perryman, the veteran of the linebacker group. He’s in his second stint with the Chargers after brief stays with the Las Vegas Raiders and Houston Texans. He was arrested on a felony weapons charge during training camp, although no criminal charges have been filed in the case.

Among the defenders to watch is Daiyan Henley, a third-year linebacker who had 147 tackles last season, 10½ of those behind the line of scrimmage.

Harbaugh called him “a shining star… ascending to be a superstar.”

Rookie Marlowe Wax was spectacular in the preseason finale against San Francisco, making key tackles all over the place, so it will be worth watching whether he can continue that production when it counts.

The Chargers didn’t break the bank in free agency, but they did open their wallet wide for cornerback Donte Jackson, who had five interceptions for Pittsburgh last season after spending six years with Carolina.

Second-year corners Cam Hart and Tarheeb Still were pressed into duty last season and join Jackson as starters, with Still on the third receiver. There’s going to be a lot of passing in the AFC West with opposing quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Bo Nix and Geno Smith lurking.

The Chargers had 15 interceptions last season, almost one per game, putting them in the top quarter of the league.

Minter said during camp that he considers corner Benjamin St-Juste a “fourth starter.”

A young corner to watch is Nikko Reed, who had a pick-six in the Hall of Fame Game and consistently made big plays throughout camp.

“Derwin James told me Reed is a baller,” Harbaugh said. “I’m now agreeing with that statement.”

As for James, he rivals quarterback Justin Herbert as the best player on the roster.

Chargers safety Derwin James Jr. will once again be the biggest force in the secondary this season.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I know when Derwin’s there, he’s going to be a wrecker,” Still told reporters. “It’s kind of like, he’s on the side of me and I got to know how he’s going to fit the run, what is he going to do in pass, if I can help him or how I can protect him, how he can protect me.”

Put bluntly by Jackson, intending this as a compliment: “I think DJ’s brain is a football. Literally, you open his head there’s probably a football in there.”

The Chargers line up James all over the defense.

Penciled in to start at free safety is Alohi Gilman, who is entering the final year of his contract. Elijah Molden and rookie R.J. Mickens figure to make significant contributions.

The announcement came hours after overnight Russian strikes on energy sites left 60,000 Ukrainians without electricity.

Ukraine intends to strike deep into Russia following a large Russian drone attack that left 60,000 Ukrainians without electricity, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Speaking on Sunday after a meeting with his top general, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian president confirmed the new planned strikes on X.

Both sides have intensified their air strikes in recent weeks, with Moscow attacking Ukraine’s energy and transport systems as well as launching deadly strikes in recent days on civilian areas in Kyiv and Zaporizhia, and Ukraine targeting Russian oil refineries and pipelines.

Overnight, Russian drones hit four energy facilities in Ukraine’s Odesa region, according to the private energy company DTEK. The strikes left 29,000 people without electricity, local authorities reported.

The port city of Chornomorsk near Odesa, where one person was injured, was the worst-affected place, regional Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram. “Critical infrastructure is operating on generators,” he said.

DTEK said emergency repair work would start following the all-clear from the Ukrainian military, which reported that in total, Russia had attacked Ukraine with 142 drones, all but 10 of which it claimed to have downed.

The Russian military suggested on Sunday that it had shot down 112 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov blamed Europe for the continuation of the war and for hampering United States President Donald Trump’s peace efforts.

“The European warring party is maintaining its fundamental course; it is not giving in,” he said from the sidelines of a summit in China, in a reference to the European Union’s arms deliveries to Ukraine.

His words came just days after a Russian air strike killed at least 23 people and damaged EU diplomatic offices in central Kyiv.

Speaking just hours before Trump’s deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he thought the war, which began more than three and a half years ago, would not finish soon.

“I am preparing myself inwardly for this war to last a long time,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday, noting that diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end could not come “at the price of Ukraine’s capitulation”.

Elsewhere, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, travelled to Poland on Sunday as part of her tour of EU states that border Russia and its ally Belarus.

Speaking alongside the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, von der Leyen called Putin a “predator” who could only be kept in check through “strong deterrence”.

The EU Commission president also said that member states bordering Russia and Belarus would receive additional funding from the bloc, calling the defence of its borders a “shared responsibility”.

While the EU continues to highlight Russia’s security risk for the wider continent, the Kremlin has sought to embellish its military achievements in a bid to make its victory in Ukraine seem inevitable, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank.

In its latest assessment of the conflict, ISW said that Russian army chief General Valery Gerasimov’s claims on Saturday about Russian gains were exaggerated.

The Russian general had suggested that the Kremlin’s forces had captured 3,500sq km [1,351sq miles] of territory and 149 settlements since the start of March.

“Gerasimov’s claims notably inflate Russian gains by roughly 1,200 square kilometres [463sq miles] and 19 settlements,” the ISW said.

In Nicholas Boggs’ lively and vigorously researched biography of James Baldwin, the great writer’s search for the source of his art dovetails with his lifelong search for meaningful relationships. Black, gay, born without the benefit of money or guidance, repeatedly harassed and beaten in his New York City hometown, Baldwin physically removed himself from the turmoil of America, living abroad for long stretches to find proper distance and see his country plain. In “The Fire Next Time,” “Another Country” and “Giovanni’s Room,” among other works, Baldwin gleaned hard truths about the ways in which white people, white men in particular, deny their own sexual confusions to lash out at those who they feel may pose a grave threat their own machismo codes and their absolute dominion over Black Americans. In his novels and essays, Baldwin became a sharp beacon of hard truths.

Baldwin was reared in an oppressive atmosphere of religious doctrine and physical violence; his stepfather David, a laborer and preacher, adhered to an quasi-Calvinist approach to child-rearing that forbade art’s graven images in the home and encouraged austerity and renunciation. Books, according to Baldwin’s father, were “written by white devils.” As a child, Baldwin was beaten and verbally lashed by his father; his brief tenure as a religious orator in the church was, according to Boggs, a way to “usurp his father at his own game.” At the same time, Boggs notes, Baldwin used the church “to mask the deep confusion caused by his burgeoning sexual desires.”

As a child, Baldwin is marginalized for being too sensitive, too bookish, a “sissy.” At school, he finds mentors like Orilla “Bill” Miller and the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, who introduced him to Dickens and the 18th century Russian novelists. When his stepfather loses his job, it is down to Baldwin to support his mother and eight siblings. Taking a job at a local army base, he is confronted with virulent race-baiting from his white supervisor and co-workers.

Baldwin leaves Harlem behind shortly thereafter and falls into the artistic ferment of Greenwich Village in the ‘40s. He shares ideas about art, music and literature with a fellow budding aesthete named Eugene Worth until he jumps to his death from the George Washington Bridge in the winter of 1946. His death “cast a pall over Baldwin’s life,” Boggs writes, “but it would also play a major and enduring role in his development as a writer.” Baldwin, who had developed strong romantic feelings for Worth but never made them plain to his friend, makes a promise to himself, vowing to adjoin his private life as a gay Black man to the public life of an artist, so that “my infirmities might be forged into weapons.”

Beauford Delaney, a respected painter and Village fixture, becomes Baldwin’s lodestar and encourages him to confront his sexuality head-on in his art. What that art might entail, Baldwin doesn’t yet know, but it would have something to do with writing. Delaney would become a lifelong friend, even after he began suffering from mental deterioration, dying after years of hospitalization in 1979.

Baldwin’s life as a transatlantic nomad begins in 1948, when he arrives in Paris after winning a scholarship to study there. More importantly, he meets 17-year-old Lucien Happersberger, a Swiss painter, and a relationship blossoms. Happersberger shares deep artistic and sexual affinities with Baldwin, but Lucien is also attracted to women and becomes a kind of template for Baldwin’s future partners, most notably the Turkish actor Engin Cezzar, that he would pursue until his death in 1987.

Baldwin held these romantic relationships in tantalizing suspension, his love affairs caught between the poles of desire and intimacy, the heat of passion and long-term commitment. The love triangles these relationships engendered became a rich source for his fiction. Boggs asserts that many of the author’s most enduring works, including “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and his breakthrough novel about gay love “Giovanni’s Room,” sprang from these early, formative encounters. “The structure of a not fully requited love was a familiar and even eroticized one for Baldwin,” Boggs writes, “and would come to fuel his art.”

Away from the States, Baldwin was freed “from the trap of color,” but he was pulled ever deeper into the racial unrest in America, taking on journalism assignments to see for himself how systemic racial oppression worked in the Jim Crow South. In Atlanta, Baldwin meets Martin Luther King Jr., who invites him to Montgomery to witness the impact of the bus boycott. Entering a local restaurant, he is greeted with stony stares; a white woman points toward the colored entrance. In Mississippi, he interviews NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, who is busy investigating a lynching. Baldwin notes the climate of fear among Black citizens in the city, speaking to him like “ the German Jews must have talked when Hitler came to power.”

Nicholas Boggs tracked down a previously unwritten-about lover of James Baldwin for his new biography.

(Noah Loof)

These eyewitness accounts would feed into Baldwin’s impassioned essays on race such as “Down at the Cross” and his 1972 nonfiction book “No Name in the Street.” For Boggs, Baldwin’s nonfiction informed his fiction; there are “continuities and confluences between and across his work in both genres.” The throughline across all of the work was Baldwin’s ire at America’s failure to recognize that the “so-called Negro” was “trapped, disinherited and despised, in a nation that … is still unable to recognize him as a human being.”

Baldwin would spend the rest of his life toggling between journalism and fiction, addressing racism in the States in articles for Esquire, Harper’s and other publications while spending most of his time in Turkey and France, where a growing circle of friends and lovers nourished his muse and satisfied his need for constant social interaction when he wasn’t wrestling with his work, sometimes torturously so. Boggs’ book finds Baldwin in middle age poised between creative fecundity and despair, growing frustrated with America’s failure of nerve regarding race and homosexuality as well as his own thwarted partnerships. Despite a powerful bond with Engin Cezarr and, later, the French painter Yoran Cazac, who flitted in and out of Baldwin’s Istanbul life across the 1970s, the picture of Baldwin that emerges in Boggs’ biography is that of an artist who treasures emotional continuity but creatively feeds on inconstancy.

In fact, Cazac had never been cited in any previous Baldwin biography. Boggs discovered him when he came across an out-of-print children’s book called “Little Man, Little Man,” a collaboration between Cazac and Baldwin that prompted Boggs’ search. After following a number of flimsy leads, he finally finds Cazac in a rural French village, and they talk.

The novels that Baldwin penned during his last great burst of productivity, most notably “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Just Above My Head,” have been maligned by many Baldwin fans as noble failures lacking the fire and dramatic power of his early work. Yet Boggs makes a strong case for these books as successful formal experiments in which Baldwin once again transmuted the storms of his personal life into eloquent indictments of systemic racism. The contours of Baldwin’s romantic engagement with Cazac, in particular, would find their way into “Beale Street,” the first time Baldwin used a female narrator to tell the story of a budding young romance doomed by a gross miscarriage of justice. Boldly experimental in both form and content, “Beale Street” and “Just Above My Head” were, in Boggs’ view, unjustly criticized, coming at a time when Baldwin’s reputation was on the decline. Only novelist Edmund White gleaned something special in his review of “Just Above My Head,” Baldwin’s final novel, finding in his depictions of familial love a Dickensian warmth which “glow with the steadiness and clarity of a flame within a glass globe.”

A literary biography needn’t be an artful accretion of facts, nor should it traffic in salacious gossip and cheapen the subject at hand. Boggs’ even-handed and critically rigorous biography of James Baldwin is guilty of none of these things, mostly because Boggs never strays from the path toward understanding why Baldwin wrote what he did and how his private and public lives were inextricably wound up in his work. Boggs has dug much deeper than his predecessors, including Baldwin’s biographer David Leeming, whose book has been the standard bearer since its 1994 publication. “Baldwin: A Love Story” is superlative, and it should become the new gold standard for Baldwin studies.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown.”

Jamie Overton removes Akash Deep for 66 as England finally get their breakthrough in a frustrating morning session against India, with the tourists 189-3 at lunch on day three of the fifth Test at the Oval.

FOLLOWLIVE : England v India – Day Three

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Centuries by Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar send England-India series to fifth test match decider at The Oval.

India, led by captain Shubman Gill, batted with great character to secure a hard-fought draw in the fourth test against England and keep the series alive going into the final game.

After losing two wickets before they had scored a run in their second innings, India batted for over five sessions for the loss of two more wickets to end the match on 425-4 at Old Trafford in Manchester on Sunday.

A courageous hundred from Gill – his fourth of the series – and dogged unbeaten centuries from Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar – gave the home crowd little to cheer on a tough day five for England.

A closely fought series remains at 2-1 to England, and the hosts must avoid defeat in the final test at The Oval in London, starting on Thursday, to win it.

“This is no less than a win for us, given we were around 300 runs off the lead. Our batsman put on a great display,” Gill told the BBC.

“As soon as England got the new ball, it was doing a little bit, but our batters did really well, and it was tremendous, with a little bit of luck going our way as some balls can get dragged on, brilliant batting and brave batting.”

England captain Ben Stokes, who took five wickets in India’s first innings but was not fit to bowl much on Saturday, brought himself into the attack on Sunday morning with India resuming on 174-2.

The hosts were firm favourites to seal victory at this point, even more so when Stokes’s reintroduction paid dividends. The 34-year-old trapped KL Rahul by lbw for 90, ending his excellent third-wicket partnership with Gill at 188.

Gill remained undeterred, however, even after getting a nasty blow on the hand. In his first series as captain, the 25-year-old became only the third skipper to score four hundreds in a single test series.

Gill Falls

After almost seven hours at the crease, a tired-looking Gill wafted at a Jofra Archer delivery to fall just before lunch for 103. Jadeja was dropped on the next ball by Joe Root, a tough chance at first slip.

England still had plenty of time to secure victory, but the home side barely created any chances, with India seeing out the draw in relative comfort.

Washington moved along conservatively after lunch, but hit successive boundaries, one a huge six, to move to his fifth test half-century. Jadeja reached his fifty and passed 1,000 test runs against England, becoming the third Indian player to do so this series.

After tea, with their chance of victory gone, England offered India the opportunity to call a halt to proceedings early, but Gill kept his team out there.

With England rotating their bowlers, Jadeja swept to his fifth test ton under no pressure, before Washington quickly completed his maiden test hundred.

India did then agree to a draw – the first non-rain affected draw for England since coach Brendon McCullum and Stokes came together in 2022.

“Another hard-fought test,” Stokes told reporters. “Another five-dayer. We set the game up really well, the way we put the Indian bowlers under pressure, focusing on batting once.

“We gave ourselves a great chance of bowling them out. We played the game how we wanted to; it didn’t just pan out the way we wanted,” Stokes added.

“Mentally, I feel fine; physically, I’ve been better. It has been a pretty big workload this series.”

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is set to premiere on BBC One this weekend. Here’s everything you need to know about the highly-anticipated series…

Much-awaited television drama The Narrow Road to the Deep North is poised to debut on BBC One this week.

The Australian miniseries, penned by Shaun Grant and helmed by Justin Kurzel, features Jacob Elordi, Odessa Young, and Ciarán Hinds in leading roles.

The five-episode series, adapted from Richard Flanagan’s acclaimed novel, initially premiered on Amazon Prime in Australia back in April, earning glowing praise from audiences and critics alike.

With The Narrow Road to the Deep North finally reaching British screens, we’ve compiled all the essential details about the programme, covering everything from its stellar cast to its compelling storyline….

What is The Narrow Road to the Deep North about?

The Narrow Road to the Deep North draws its inspiration from Richard Flanagan’s novel bearing the identical title, reports the Express.

The drama follows Dorrigo Evans through three distinct chapters of his existence: his pre-war years before Second World War deployment, his harrowing experience as a prisoner of war in the Far East, and the decades that followed his return home.

Each timeline reveals fresh layers of Dorrigo’s passionate romance with Amy, his uncle’s wife.

The five-part drama explores the “cruelty of war, the tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love” as witnessed by an Australian medic turned prisoner of war.

The opening episode’s synopsis states: “While writing a speech for an upcoming book launch, renowned surgeon and celebrated war hero Dorrigo Evans is thrust back into memories of his time as a POW during World War II and of his brief, unforgettable love affair with Amy Mulvaney.”

The cast

Jacob Elordi and Odessa Young are set to captivate audiences in The Narrow Road to the Deep North, portraying the characters of Dorrigo Evans and Amy Mulvaney.

The star-studded cast also includes Olivia DeJonge, Heather Mitchell, Thomas Weatherall and Ciarán Hinds, alongside Show Kasamatsu, Taki Abe, Charles An and Akira Fujii.

Simon Baker, Masa Yamaguchi, Sean Murphy and George Simitzis are also part of the ensemble, joined by Jack McGreal, Rupert Bevan, Essie Davis, Dan Wyllie and Ewen Leslie.

How to watch

The Narrow Road to the Deep North initially premiered on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, following its debut at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

The BBC subsequently acquired the series for UK viewers, set to air on BBC One and available for streaming on iPlayer.

Episodes will start broadcasting from Sunday, 20 July at 9.15pm on BBC One. The series will continue to air weekly on BBC One, with episodes also accessible on iPlayer.

Tune into The Narrow Road to the Deep North every Sunday on BBC One at 9.15pm.

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