Centrist Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira won Bolivia’s first presidential runoff election on Sunday, which prompted the United States and eight other nations to welcome his win on Tuesday. Photo by Luis Gandarillas/EPA
Oct. 21 (UPI) — Bolivian President-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s win heralds a time of change in the South American nation that was a leading socialist state, the leaders of nine nations said on Tuesday.
Paz, 58, prevailed over challenger and former President Jorge Quiroga on Sunday in Bolivia’s first runoff election to determine its next president, and the U.S. State Department released the joint statement.
“The undersigned countries congratulate President-electRodrigo Paz Pereira on his election as president of Bolivia,” the joint statement said.
“We also commend the Bolivian people for their unwavering commitment to democracy, as demonstrated through their active participation in this electoral process.”
The statement said the “Bolivian people made their voices heard in a decisive manner.”
The outcome “reflects the will of the Bolivian people to embrace change and chart a new course for their nation and our region, signaling departure from the economic mismanagement of the past two decades.”
Paz is a centrist, while Quiroga is more conservative, and both campaigned on the platform of ending the 20-year reign of socialist presidents and government and returning Bolivia to a market-based capitalist economy.
He secured 54.6% of the 6.5 million votes cast to Quiroga’s 45.4% in the first Bolivian presidential election that did not involve a socialist candidate for the first time in two decades, according to The Guardian.
Paz was the Christian Democratic Party’s candidate, while Quiroga, 67, ran on the Free Alliance ticket. Both ran on a pro-capitalism platform.
The Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism) Party candidate Eduardo del Castillo obtained 3% of the vote during an initial election and did not qualify for Sunday’s runoff election.
The MAS Party has controlled both houses of the Bolivian Legislature and the presidential office for the past 20 years.
Paz said he intends to end the nation’s gas shortages and wants to encourage international investment to boost growth of the Bolivia’s private sector, the BBC reported.
His win effectively ends the MAS Party’s rule in Bolivia.
“The undersigned countries stand ready to support the incoming administration’s efforts to stabilize Bolivia’s economy and open it to the world, reinforce its democratic institutions, boost international trade and investment, and deepen its engagement with regional and global partners on a wide range of issues,” the nine nations said in the joint statement.
“We are committed to working closely with President-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira and his government to advance shared goals of regional and global security, economic prosperity and growth that benefit all of our nations,” they added.
“We encourage Bolivia’s renewed proactive participation in addressing regional and global challenges.”
In addition to the United States, the governments undersigning the statement are Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Paz is a Bolivian senator and the son of former Bolivian President Jaime Pax Zamora, who served in that role from 1989 to 1993.
Strictly Come Dancing have released the first look images of the 2025 cast as the 15 celebrities prepare to take to the dance floor for the first live show in just two weeks time
Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly will return to hosting duties (Image: PA)
It’s almost time for the 2025 cast of Strictly Come Dancing to take to the dancefloor, as the BBC has released a first look picture of the cast in their glitzy ballroom outfits.
The cast certainly look the part – but will they be able to dance the part? Viewers will find out when the launch show airs next Saturday, with the live shows kicking off the week after.
The 15 new contestants, who will be joined alongside hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, dressed to the nines for their first looks, with pink being the colour of choice for most…
Strictly Come Dancing have released the first cast picture of 2025(Image: PA)
In the glitzy image, Love Island winner Dani Dyer wore a tassled pink number with a plunging V-neck to her waist, while ER actress Alex Kingston and model and actress Ellie Goldstein also joined in with the pink tassled theme.
They weren’t the only ones, as former England footballer Karen Carney wore a hot pink dress, with Olympian and Gladiator Harry Aikines-Aryeete opted for bright pink trousers.
Drag Race finalist La Voix stood out in a bright red number, with an eye-catching thigh slit. .
Vicky Pattinson and Balvinder Sopal stunned in bright colours, with the former Geordie Shore star wearing bright yellow, while the EastEnders star opted for a a turquoise dress.
Judges Shirley Ballas, Motsi Mabuse, Craig Revel Horwood and Anton Du Beke will return to the panel
Former footballer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Emmerdale actor Lewis Cope matched in electric blue, with Cope showing off his arms with a sheer sleeveless top and tailored trousers.
Stefan Dennis, broadcaster Ross King and former England rugby captain Chris Robshaw stood out in patterned suits, whereas Thomas Skinner wore a pale blue suit.
The first look picture comes after a huge win for Strictly at the NTAs, picking up the National Television Award for Talent Show after the last scandal-filled 18 months.
Last year’s celebrity cast took to the stage to accept the award, with Pete Wicks and JB Gill giving a speech. The current cast were unfortunately able to attend the award ceremony as they were off filming the launch show which will air next Saturday.
“It gives me a little bit of PTSD that theme tune,” Pete said while accepting the award. “But look, Strictly is one of the best things that I have done and as much as us guys are the ones dancing, it’s all about the crew and the people who work behind it.”
JB Gill then went onto thank the judges as well as Chris McCausland and Diane Buswell who “made history” as last year’s winners. “Last but not least, thank you to all the viewers, all the people who voted for this incredible award. We absolutely love you.”
Pete Hegseth, widely considered the least qualified Defense secretary in American history, is hardly anyone’s version of the ideal Christian husband and father.
Only 45 years old, he’s been married three times.
His first marriage — to his high school sweetheart — lasted a mere four years, deteriorating after Hegseth admitted to multiple extramarital affairs.
A couple of years later, he married his second wife, with whom he had three children. During that marriage, he fathered a child with a Fox News producer who eventually became his third wife.
He paid off a woman who accused him of sexual assault (he denies the assault). He routinely passed out drunk at family gatherings and misbehaved in public when inebriated, according to numerous witnesses. His own mother once accused him of being “an abuser of women,” though she later retracted her claims when Hegseth was facing Senate confirmation.
Still, the Senate’s Republican majority, cowed by President Trump, confirmed his appointment. Hegseth has two qualities that Trump prizes above all others. He is blindly loyal to the president, and he looks good on TV.
In March, he shared classified information about an impending American airstrike in Yemen on an unsecured Signal group chat that included his wife, on purpose, and the editor of the Atlantic, by accident.
He is, in short, the least serious man ever to lead this nation’s armed forces.
As if all that weren’t dispiriting enough, Hegseth is now in bed (metaphorically) with a crusading Christian nationalist.
In the interview, Wilson expounded on his patriarchal, misogynistic, authoritarian and homophobic views.
Women, he said, should serve as “chief executive of the home” and should not have the right to vote. (Their men can do that for them.) Gay marriage and gay sex should be outlawed once again. “We know that sodomy is worse than slavery by how God responds to it,” he told CNN’s Pamela Brown. (Slavery is “unbiblical,” he avowed, though he did bizarrely defend it once, writing in 1990 a pamphlet that “slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since.”)
When a new outpost of his church opened in Washington, D.C ., in July, Hegseth and his family were among the worshippers. CNN described Hegseth’s presence as “a major achievement” for Wilson.
“All of Christ for All of Life,” wrote Hegseth as he endorsed and reposted the interview. That is the motto of Wilson’s expanding universe, which includes his Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the center of his Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a network of more than 100 churches on four continents, parochial schools, a college, a publishing house and media platforms. “All of Christ for All of Life” is a shorthand for the belief that Christian doctrines should shape every part of life — including government, culture and education.
Wilson is a prolific author of books with titles such as “Her Hand in Marriage,” “Federal Husband,” and “Reforming Marriage.” His book “Fidelity” teaches “what it means to be a one-woman man.” Doubtful it has crossed Hegseth’s desk.
“God hates divorce,” writes Wilson in one of his books.
Given the way sexual pleasure is celebrated in the Old and New Testaments, Wilson has a peculiarly dim view of sex. I mean, how many weddings have been graced with recitations from the Song of Solomon, with its thinly disguised allusions to pleasurable sexual intimacy? (“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.”)
Wilson’s world is considerably less sensual.
“A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants,” he writes in “Fidelity.” “A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.” Mutual sexual pleasure seems out of the question: “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.” Ugh.
There is nothing particularly new here; Wilson’s ideology is just another version of patriarchal figures using religion to fight back against the equality movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries. They are basically the hatemongers of the Westboro Baptist Church dressed up in respectable clothing.
“Some people may conflate Christian nationalism and Christianity because they both use the symbols and language of Christianity, such as a Bible, a cross and worship songs,” says the group Christians Against Christian Nationalism on its website. “But Christian nationalism uses the veneer of Christianity to advance its own aims — to point to a political figure, party or ideology instead of Jesus.”
What you have in people like Hegseth and Wilson are authoritarian men who hide behind their religion to execute the most unchristian of agendas.
God may hate divorce, but from my reading of the Bible, God hates hypocrisy even more.
Shakira Austin didn’t realize how important fashion would become when she entered the WNBA in 2022.
Her introduction to game-day tunnel fashion began at the University of Mississippi in 2020.
“My school started doing their own tunnel fits,” she said. “It was cute, but I definitely didn’t know [the WNBA tunnel walk was] as popping and as big as it is now.”
During the last few years, college and WNBA social media teams have photographed players walking into arenas and to their locker rooms on game day. Tunnel walk fashion now quickly spreads on social media on game days.
The Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese poses on the orange carpet during WNBA All Star Game week in Indianapolis.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
What started as a social media trend that fans enjoyed has become a high-profile chance for WNBA players to show off their personal style and potentially land endorsement deals. A Vogue article published last season declared that “The WNBA Tunnel Is Officially a Fashion Destination.”
Austin has adapted to the spotlight and says she enjoys expressing herself through clothing.
“It gives a little bit of a model essence,” Austin said. “You go through, you pick out your fit for the day, and all cameras are on you, so it’s definitely a nice little highlight off the court before you start to lock in for the game.”
Now in her fourth year with the Washington Mystics, Austin’s sense of style is fully her own.
Without much styling advice from teammates as a rookie, she leaned on her passion for creativity and beauty to guide her looks.
“I’ve just always liked to express myself through beauty — from either masculine or feminine looks,” she said.
At 6 foot 5, Austin has had to work with limited clothing options.
“Being that I am a tall girl, it’s kind of hard to find clothes, so repeating stuff is a big deal for me,” she said. “Also, just making [the outfit] a different vibe each time.”
The Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers poses on the orange carpet during a WNBA All-Star Game event in Indianapolis.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
Connecticut Sun center Olivia Nelson-Ododa didn’t get comfortable until she partnered with stylist Kristine Anigwe, a former WNBA player and owner of KA Creative Consulting.
“Figuring out, ‘OK, this is my style, this is what I actually like and enjoy wearing. How can I put it together in something that is comfortable and makes me feel confident?’” Nelson-Ododa said.
She describes being a “serial pieces repeater,” choosing to mix and match rather than follow trends.
“Honestly, it’s fashion, there’s like no rules to it.”
Off the court, fashion is now a way for her to show different sides of herself beyond her basketball identity.
“We already have an amazing job like this, and being able to add on by showing ourselves in a different light is super fun,” she said.
Although she doesn’t have the biggest interest in fashion, Sparks center Azura Stevens has seen tunnel fashion evolve into something much bigger.
The Sparks’ Rickea Jackson poses on the orange carpet during a WNBA All-Star Game event in Indianapolis.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
“It’s cool to put together different fits, kind of show your personality through style,” she said. “I am kind of used to it now — it’s just a part of the game-day routine.”
During her time in the league, fashion has become a natural part of the culture.
“It has become a really big thing for it to be like runways almost before the game. It’s a part of the culture now of the [league],” she said.
Stevens’ teammate, veteran forward Dearica Hamby, has had a career full of fashion transitions since she entered the league in 2015 when fashion wasn’t a major part of the WNBA culture.
“Mine has changed over the course of the years,” she said. “For me, I’m sometimes business-like, but overall just really well put together.”
Hamby credits her time with the Las Vegas Aces as the moment she saw the shift.
“I kind of feel like my time in Vegas is when it really took off. We had a really talented photographer who was able to capture our fits,” she said.
Hamby is still learning what works best for her style. One thing she’s noticed: how an outfit looks in a photo matters.
“Sometimes things don’t photograph well, and that’s what I am starting to learn,” she said. “It could look good in person, but it doesn’t necessarily photograph well, so you wanna wear things that are cut and crisp.”
As tunnel walk content grows on social media, so can critiques of players and their outfit choices.
“I’ve definitely gotten flamed before for certain outfits,” Nelson-Ododa said. “Some people are not fans and some people are fans. I really don’t care, as long as it feels good on me, I’m fine.”
“You definitely know that eyes are going to see, and you’re going to be talked about — whether it’s a positive view or negative view,” Hamby said.
What matters most to Hamby is the feeling behind the fit: “Just remind yourself that if you feel good and you feel like you look good in it, that’s all that matters.”
Following on from those 1980s stars like Miller, Prohm, Fairburn and others such as Mark Broadhurst, Mike Smith and David Watkinson, the current crop are equally well-stocked for talent.
Kiwi enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves brings the fear factor of a Broadhurst, captain Elliot Minchella captures the swashbuckling ball-handling of former Man of Steel Miller, and semi-final hero Jack Broadbent will be doing the Fairburn job from full-back with Arthur Mourgue cup-tied.
Peters will have taken heart from the way these Robins have managed the excitement of reaching Wembley and continued their relentless form in Super League on the back of beating Catalans Dragons in their York semi-final.
Equally, the run to Wembley included the intensity of a quarter-final against neighbours Hull FC, added to a league derby against their rivals which were both negotiated smoothly amidst a run of tricky games.
With Warrington at times failing to match their cup highs in league matches given they lie eighth in the table, the league leaders could be forgiven for feeling the weight of expectation in Saturday’s showpiece.
It is a different scenario from their 2023 experience when Rovers and Leigh were considered equal odds before the Leopards triumphed in Golden Point, and last year’s Grand Final when holders Wigan were hotly-tipped to take the prize, and did.
“I don’t think it [form] does bring pressure, it should give the players a lot of belief knowing that we’ve had a lot of challenges in different situations this year,” Peters added.
“We’ve had different scenarios this year which would have put us under the pump if we’d allowed it to, but we didn’t and I’m proud of the players for that.
“You are going to go through setbacks and you need to experience adversity to grow, that’s what they’ve done.”
CANNES, France — In Cannes, the weather changes so fast that you can enter a theater in sandals and exit in desperate need of rain boots and a scarf. On Friday, I ran to my room to grab a warmer shirt for an overcast outdoor party. I checked the window and added a jacket, then checked the window again and was stunned to see the sun. By the time I raced back down the Croisette (in something sleeveless), the cocktail hour was over. C’est la vie.
The mutability is a lovely parallel for the filmgoing itself. At the end of a great movie, you feel like the world has changed. And when a film is bad, the director suffers the shock of their forecast being dramatically upended. Before the premiere, they were chauffeured around in festival-sponsored BMWs and now their friends are stammering how much they like their shoes.
Harris Dickinson, the young British actor who convincingly dominated Nicole Kidman in last year’s “Babygirl,” seemed a tad flustered introducing the premiere of “Urchin,” his directorial debut. Jacket and tieless with his dress shirt’s sleeves rolled up lopsidedly, he hastily joked, “I’m nervous, but I hope you enjoy it — and if you don’t, tell us gently.”
That barometric pressure is especially intense in Cannes, but onscreen (so far, at least), the wind is only blowing one way: south. Almost every film so far has been about a character braving a storm — legal, moral, political, psychological — and getting dashed against the rocks.
Joaquin Phoenix, left, and Pedro Pascal in the movie “Eddington.”
(A24)
“Eddington,” Ari Aster’s twisty and thistly modern-day western, is set in New Mexico during that first hot and crazy summer of the pandemic. To his credit and the audience’s despair, it whacks us right on our bruised memories of that topsy-turvy time when a new alarm sounded every day, from the social-distancing rules of the coronavirus and the murder of George Floyd to the rumors that Antifa was rioting in the streets. With “Hereditary,” Aster made horror trauma hip; now, he’s shifted to satirizing our shared PTSD.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a sheriff with a soft heart and mushy judgment, who rejects the mask mandate of Eddington’s ambitious mayor (Pedro Pascal), arguing that COVID isn’t in their tiny rural town. Maybe, maybe not — but it’s clear that viral videos have given him and everyone else brain worms. Joe’s wife (Emma Stone) and mother-in-law (Deirdre O’Connell) are fixated on conspiracies involving everything from child trafficking to the Titanic. Meanwhile, Eddington’s youth activists, mostly white and performative, are doing TikTok dances advertising their passion for James Baldwin while ordering the town’s sole Black deputy (Micheal Ward) to take a knee. No one in “Eddington” speaks the truth. Yet everyone believes what they’re saying.
Phoenix’s Joe watches Henry Fonda movies and wears a symbolic white hat. Yet, he’s pathetic at maintaining order, pasting a misspelled sign on his police car that reads: Your being manipulated. Having lived through May 2020 and all that’s happened since, we wouldn’t trust Aster anyway if he’d pretended a savior could set things right. Still, there’s no empathizing with hapless, clueless Joe when he whines, “Do you really think the power is with the police?”
Well, one person in a Cannes film does: the lead of Dominik Moll’s “Dossier 137,” a single mother named Stéphanie (Léa Drucker), who just so happens to be a cop herself. Once, Stéphanie investigated narcotics. Now, she gathers evidence when her fellow officers are accused of misbehavior. An inspired-by-a-true-story detective movie set in the aftermath of the 2018 Paris demonstrations, the film’s central case involves a squad of undercover officers who allegedly shoot a 20-year-old protestor in the head with a rubber bullet, shattering the front of the boy’s skull.
Moll has made the kind of sinewy procedural that makes your palms sweat. “I have no personal feelings,” Stéphanie insists, even as her ex-husband and his new girlfriend, also police officers, accuse her of being a traitor. More precisely, she allows herself no visible emotions as she questions both the accusers and the accused. It’s impressive to watch the meticulous and dogged Stéphanie put together the pieces and make the liars squirm. But she’s the last person in the movie to see the big picture: No matter how good she is, she can’t be a hero.
Aleksandr Kuznetsov in the movie “Two Prosecutors.”
(Festival de Cannes)
Sergei Loznitsa’s Stalin-era drama “Two Prosecutors” lugs its own protagonist along that exact same journey; it’s affixed to cynicism like a train on a track. Here, the ill-fated idealist is a recent law student (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) who wants to interview a prisoner that the government would rather remain disappeared. The voices that once boldly spoke out against the Soviet regime have long since been silenced. Now, the Great Purge is locking up even the Russians who swear they love their leader.
Methodical and dreary, the film’s key image is of Kuznetsov (who coincidentally-but-on-purpose has a nose that appears to have been busted around) walking down endless dismal hallways. He’s polite and stoic, but we all know he’s not getting anywhere. The film plays like a sour joke with an obvious punchline. I respected it fine, but slow and inevitable don’t make great bedfellows. The jet-lagged stranger next to me nodded off for a nap.
Snores weren’t a problem at “Sirât,” a nail-biter that had its midnight crowd wide awake. The fourth Cannes film by the French-born Spanish director Oliver Laxe, it’s about dirtbag ravers who’ve gathered in a barren stretch of Morocco for a stunning party: orange cliffs, neon lights, thumping EDM beats and dancers thrashing in the dust like the living dead. The only sober attendees are a father (Sergi López) and his young son (Bruno Núñez) who are hoping to find the boy’s sister, a bohemian swept up in the relentless rhythm of this road-tripping bacchanalia. But when the party gets busted up by the police, this fractured family joins a caravan headed in the vague direction of another fest. Next stop, disaster.
An image from the movie “Sirât,” directed by Oliver Laxe.
(Festival de Cannes)
The small ensemble cast looks and feels like they’ve already lived through an apocalypse. Two of his actors are missing limbs and nearly all are flamboyantly tattooed. As these battered vans hurtle through the desert, it’s obvious that “Sirât” believes the age of “Mad Max” has already begun. But Laxe’s cadence of death is nasty and arbitrary and delightful. He’s unconvinced that we can form a community able to survive this harsh world. At best, he’ll give us a coin flip chance of success. I’ve got to watch the film again before I decide whether (a) it’s a comedy and (b) it has anything deeper to say. But a second viewing won’t be a hardship. Even if “Sirât” proves half-empty instead of half-full, witnessing another audience gasp at its mean shocks will be sweet schadenfreude.
Which finally brings us back to Harris Dickinson. His film “Urchin” is good. Great, even. The last time he was in Cannes, it was as the lead in Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” but he’s a real-deal director. It’s high praise to his acting that I don’t want him quitting his day job just yet.
“Urchin” lopes after a drug-addled boy-man named Mike (Frank Dillane, fantastic) who’s been sleeping and scavenging on the London streets for five years. Yes, Dickinson has gone 21st-century Dickensian; Mike pesters people for ketamine, vodka and spare change like Oliver Twist begged for porridge. But this isn’t a pity piece. “Urchin” is energetic and filled with life: funny asides, tiny joys, stabs of recognition and flourishes of visual psychedelia.
Mike is given multiple chances to change his fortunes. Yet, he’s also stubbornly himself and we spend the running time toggling between being scared for him and being scared of him. Dickinson, who also wrote the film, wants us to know not just how easy it is to slide down the social ladder but what a small step forward looks like, even if his tone is ultimately more Sisyphean than self-help.
After the movie, I ducked into the drizzle, then into a cafe. A man was monologuing to an acquaintance about his career change from tech to film and this is my favorite place to eavesdrop.
“I was rich and successful but I had to look for something more jazzy,” he explained, stabbing at the other person’s plate of charcuterie. He’s now broke, he said, and divorced. But somehow, he seemed content. He’d emailed his script to Quentin Tarantino. Maybe next Cannes, he’ll be the one getting fêted and chauffeured. Maybe the wind would start blowing his way. A great movie really can change your life.
