face

Al Jazeera Arabic presenter Jamal Rayyan, the first face on the channel when it launched nearly three decades ago, has died at 73.

UCLA coach Mick Cronin expects his team to embrace lofty expectations that follow the Bruins any time they take the floor during the NCAA tournament.

The program has won an NCAA record 11 national titles and made 19 Final Four appearances.

No. 7-seed UCLA’s (22-11) push for another deep NCAA tournament run begins Friday against No. 10-seed Central Florida (21-11) in Philadelphia in the East Regional. If the Bruins win, they will face the winner of No. 2 Connecticut (29-5) versus No. 15 Furman (22-12).

Cronin was hoping the Bruins, who flew home from the Big Ten tournament in Chicago on Sunday morning, would get a break and open postseason play Friday rather than Thursday. He recalled playing in the American Athletic Conference tournament championship on Sundays and still getting assigned Thursday NCAA tournament games, but Purdue coach Matt Painter told Cronin on Saturday night that he should be in line for a Friday NCAA tournament opener and the forecast proved accurate.

Cronin said the universal UCLA program focus on NCAA tournament success drove his decision to hold forward Tyler Bilodeau and guard Donovan Dent out of a 73-66 Big Ten semifinal loss to Purdue on Saturday night at the United Center. Bilodeau’s injury was a minor knee sprain suffered in the win over Michigan State on Friday, while Dent suffered a minor calf strain early in the game against the Boilermakers. Both are expected to be ready to play Friday.

“Tyler could have played [against Purdue.] You know, Donny could have played. They would have been playing hurt,” Cronin said after the loss to the Boilermakers. “I wouldn’t have played them in a regular season game. I just try to take care of guys.”

The coach said the extra minutes played by Eric Freeny, Xavier Booker, Steven Jamerson II and Brandon Williams will help the Bruins when the full lineup is in place for NCAA tournament games.

He called the team’s effort to push eventual Big Ten champion Purdue valiant, but the games ahead in March simply mean more to the Bruins.

“With all due respect to the Big Ten, you could see how hard our guys are trying to win,” Cronin said. “But our guy are well aware, because they practice under 11 banners that say national championship every day. They warm up under another banner with 19 Final Fours on it. We don’t even have one with conference championships cause there’s 36 or something. There’s so many. So [this] week is what it’s about for us.”

UCLA enters the tournament on a 4-1 streak, looking especially strong since the calendar hit March.

“I was happy with the way we competed,” Cronin said when asked whether he learned anything about his players during a spirited Big Ten tournament run. “… We got talent, we just haven’t always had our mind on defense, which is very rare for teams that I coach. We got great guys. Since March 1 or whenever the heck we played Nebraska, it’s been a noted change in our team, we’ve just got to keep it up. And we’ve got to get some rebounds out of the five spot.

”… We’re at UCLA, no matter who we take the floor against in the NCAA tournament, we’re going to be the ones wearing the baby blues and four letters. So we believe in ourselves.”

UCF is coached by former Duke star Johnny Dawkins. Point guard Themus Fulks is a key leader for the Knights, earning third team All-Big 12 honors after averaging 14.1 points and 6.7 assists per contest during the regular season.

UCF posted top-25 wins over Kansas, Texas Tech and Brigham Young.

The Palestinian presenter delivered the network’s first-ever bulletin when it went on air in 1996.

Al Jazeera Arabic presenter Jamal Rayyan, the first face ever seen on the channel when it launched nearly three decades ago, has died at the age of 73.

Rayyan passed away on Sunday after a broadcasting career spanning more than five decades, during which he covered major global and regional events for the channel – from the United States wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Arab Spring.

He had been with Al Jazeera since its first day on air on November 1, 1996, when he presented the channel’s opening bulletin at the start of what would become a major broadcaster in the Arab world.

Born in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank in 1953, the Palestinian presenter began his career at Jordanian Radio and Television in 1974 before working with several broadcasters in the region and beyond, including Emirati television, South Korean public broadcasting, and BBC Arabic.

Rayyan later recalled being sworn to secrecy after being quietly selected for the historic role.

“The vice chairman of the board came and said to me, ‘You have been chosen to be the first face on Al Jazeera, but we want one thing from you: do not tell anyone,’” he told Al Jazeera’s In-Depth Studies, a collection of testimonies from the channel’s founders and early staff.

Measured delivery, distinctive voice

The announcement that Rayyan was presenting the first bulletin was made public half an hour before airtime. He entered the studio deliberately on an empty stomach, he recalled, to ensure he could breathe well and deliver.

“As the broadcast started, my heart began beating rapidly. However, after I appeared on the screen and said, ‘Welcome to the first broadcast of Al Jazeera channel,’ I returned to my natural state and finished the broadcast. As soon as I finished and exited the studio, the entire room erupted in applause,” Rayyan said.

He spent nearly three decades as one of Al Jazeera’s most recognisable presenters, building a following of 2.3 million on X.

Over the years, Rayyan became a familiar presence in homes across the Arab world, his measured delivery and distinctive voice closely associated with Al Jazeera’s news bulletins.

In the Arab world and beyond, his broadcasts and the channel’s editorial approach reached wide audiences and helped shape regional news coverage in the years that followed.

Sinner has won 21 of his 24 titles on hard courts and looked on top form as he raced to victory in one hour and 23 minutes.

The 24-year-old is aiming to become just the third man – after Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic – to capture all six ATP Masters 1000 hard-court titles.

“It was a great performance – very solid from the back of the court. I tried to go for shots and that felt like one of the keys,” he said.

“He has a huge serve so I tried to mix it up. From my side I was very precise and it was a solid performance.

“I thought the match would be more physical but when both serve well it’s difficult to get into a rhythm with short points.”

Sinner has endured a frustrating start to 2026, failing to reach a single final prior to this event, but was inspired as he attempts to correct that record.

It was in the first set where the mental damage was done as the Italian, who has won seven of their 11 meetings, dropped just four points on serve and broke twice.

Zverev struggled to find his rhythm on serve in the opening set and Sinner made him pay – winning six of the eight second-serve return points.

The German, 28, stood firm to save three break points in the opening service game of the second, but was ultimately broken to trail 4-3 with the remainder of the match staying on serve.

LORNA Luxe has been seen out for the first time since her husband John’s death – joining race-goers at Cheltenham Festival this week.

The fashion influencer, 43, was seen out on Friday for the Gold Cup and was quids in after backing a horse in John’s memory.

John, 64, died in February following a lengthy illness, but sent a “sign” to Lorna who won £250 after backing a horse with long odds.

Johnny’s Jury was priced between 25/1 to 33/1 with bookmakers like Betfair before jockey Gavin Sheehan took him from last to first to win the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.

Lorna said in a video message to fans: “It’s been raining all week, but the weather was perfect with blue skies.

“I started betting on the horses but didn’t get any winners at all.

LORNA’S PAIN

Lorna Luxe speaks after husband’s death & reveals his funeral has taken place

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Lorna Luxe returns to social media after husband’s death with new message

“I bumped into Amanda Wakely, whose dress I wore for my wedding to John, and we went to the betting box.

“She said ‘look, one of the horses is called Johnny’s Jury, shall we have a go?’

“It was a bit of an outsider but I put £20 each way – and it won.

“It flipping won. I’m absolutely buzzing. I had all this cash.

“It was just, so John.”

Lorna’s voice cracked as her eyes filled with tears.

She added: “It really made me smile. It was just a brilliant moment.

“I was really teary to be honest. I’m teary now just thinking about it.

“Even though he wasn’t there with me, it felt like he was there in spirit.”

Lorna was dressed in Holland Cooper, the official luxury fashion partner of The Jockey Club, to enjoy a day at the races.

The brand’s founder – Jade Holland Cooper – described Lorna as “the strongest woman I know”.

Lorna’s late husband John was initially diagnosed with stage three cancer, but it developed to stage four while he was undergoing treatment.

Lorna kept her followers updated throughout his journey, and they supported her when he went into remission in November 2023.

But his cancer returned in May 2024, spreading to his brain.

Tragically, just before Christmas, he was rushed back to hospital with organ failure, following a complication with his chemotherapy treatment.

Lorna was advised to prepare for the worst but John defied the odds and was able to recover and spend Christmas at home, before passing away two months later.

Mukalla, Yemen – A reported decision to impose thousands of dollars in fees on shipping headed for Yemen has experts worried that the price of imported goods and food will increase in the war-torn country, as it starts to feel the economic impact of the United States and Israel’s conflict with Iran.

Local traders and officials have said that international shipping companies informed importers earlier this month of the imposition of new fees of about $3,000 on each container bound for Yemen, described as “war risk” fees. The surprise move prompted government officials to scramble to assess and address its potential repercussions.

Because Yemen imports nearly 90 percent of its food and other essential commodities, economists and humanitarian organisations warn that the rise in shipping and insurance costs could quickly translate into higher prices for fuel, food and other goods, further worsening an already dire humanitarian situation.

Mohsen al-Amri, transport minister in Yemen’s internationally-recognised government based in the southern city of Aden, said he had instructed that the fees not be paid by ships already docked at Yemeni ports or those bound for the country, insisting that the ports remain safe.

“Our ports are far from the areas of geopolitical tension in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, making the imposition of ‘risk’ fees on shipments to these relatively safe areas unjustified from both operational and security perspectives,” he said in a social media post last week.

Al Jazeera has reached out to shipping companies to confirm details of the fee, but has yet to receive responses.

For more than a decade, Yemen has been gripped by a bloody war between the Saudi-backed government, based in Aden, and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which controls the capital, Sanaa. The conflict has killed and wounded thousands of people and displaced millions, creating what the United Nations once described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Hostilities have significantly declined since April 2022, when the warring parties agreed to a temporary United Nations-brokered truce.

‘High-risk’

Abdulrab al-Khulaqui, deputy chairman of the Yemen Gulf of Aden Ports Corporation, said Yemeni ports have long been classified as high-risk, prompting shipping companies to impose war-risk surcharges. These can reach about $500 per each 20-foot container and $1,000 per each 40-foot container, on top of regular shipping costs.

Al-Khulaqui said that the $3,000 fee now being demanded was “very high and unusual”, but was justified by shipping companies because they regard Yemeni ports as unsafe, despite their distance from Iran.

Although the Houthis are allied to Iran and previously attacked shipping in the Red Sea following Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Yemeni group has yet to intervene in the US-Israel-Iran conflict. Other Yemeni parties are also not involved, making Yemen one of the few regional countries yet to see any violence related to the fighting.

In addition to barring local traders from paying the new charges, the Yemeni government is considering other measures to pressure shipping companies to cancel the fees, including threatening to stop vessels belonging to those companies from docking at Yemeni ports. Authorities may also allow traders to contact exporters directly in countries of origin to negotiate any additional charges.

The new surcharges come as the United Nations has again sounded the alarm over Yemen’s worsening humanitarian situation, saying nearly 65.4 percent of the population – about 23.1 million people – will require urgent humanitarian assistance and protection services this year. This marks an increase of roughly 3.5 million people compared with 2025.

“Yemen continues to face an escalating food security crisis entering 2026,” the World Food Program said in its February Yemen Food Security Update, released on March 5. “January data revealed that 63 percent of households nationwide are struggling to meet their minimum food needs, including 36 percent facing severe food deprivation.”

Bypassing Yemen’s ports

In addition to rising insurance fees on shipments to Yemen, the war in Iran and potential disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz could cut vital supply routes from regional hub ports such as Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates.

Mustafa Nasr, head of the Studies and Economic Media Center, told Al Jazeera that shipping companies may begin seeking alternative hub ports to deliver goods to Yemen, which could increase costs and cause delays.

“The closure of Jebel Ali port would force shipping lines to seek alternative ports that may be farther away and involve significantly higher transportation costs,” he said.

Nabil Abdullah Bin Aifan, manager of the government-run Maritime Affairs Authority in Hadramout province and a maritime researcher, said most goods arriving at Mukalla port – the province’s main seaport – are transported on wooden dhows from Dubai.

He said that if disruptions occur in the Strait of Hormuz, traders may turn to alternative regional hub ports such as Salalah in Oman or Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

“Large ships come to Dubai to unload their containers, and traders then unload the goods from the containers and load them onto those primitive ships, which have no insurance,” Bin Aifan told Al Jazeera.

For now, wheat shipments from Ukraine and goods transported from China to Yemen may see price increases due to rising insurance costs, while products imported from Gulf countries could disappear from the market.

Shipping lines may also consider routing cargo through the Cape of Good Hope rather than the Gulf, Bin Aifan said.

“Even before the recent developments involving Iran, ports in our region were considered high risk. However, after the relative calm that followed the halt to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, confidence gradually returned and ships began sailing back to the region. Now, the war has brought the problem back again,” he said.

All of this means that Yemenis, already struggling with poverty and hunger after years of war, will likely have to pay more for imported food and goods.

Abdullah al-Hadad, an English teacher from the city of Taiz with 40 years of experience in the profession, said that his monthly salary – less than $80 – is already not enough to cover his basic needs. Meat and fish have become luxuries for his family, and he still owes nearly one million Yemeni riyals (about $670) to a local grocery shop.

To make ends meet, he works additional jobs as a taxi driver and in a grocery store, while his children also work after school to help support the family and pay for medication for his 10-year-old son, who has autism.

“What I suffer from as a government employee is the extremely low salary, which does not even cover basic necessities such as bread, tea, salt and sugar,” al-Hadad told Al Jazeera.

“Other foods that are essential for a healthy diet, like meat or fish, have become a distant dream.”

Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie beat Australian qualifier Rinky Hijikata in the last 16 at Indian Wells and could meet world number one Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals.

Norrie is yet to drop a set at this year’s tournament, backing up his win over sixth seed Alex de Minaur in the previous round with an impressive 6-4 6-2 victory over world number 117 Hijikata in one hour and 16 minutes.

The 30-year-old left-hander broke Hijikata’s serve in the opening game of the match and, after wrapping up the first set, broke twice more in the second to race into the last eight.

On his own serve, the 27th seed faced only one break point in the match.

Norrie has a good record at the hard-court event in California.

This is his eighth appearance in the men’s singles and it is the fourth time that he has made it to at least the quarter-final stage.

He won the title in 2021, but lost in the last eight in the following two years.

The US president repeats claims that Cuba is ready to negotiate as it faces a spiralling energy and economic crisis.

United States President Donald Trump has signalled that his administration is still pursuing a government overthrow in Cuba even as the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second week.

Trump said on Monday that the US Department of State is still focused on Cuba, where plans by the White House may or may not include “a friendly takeover” of the island, according to the Reuters news agency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “dealing” with Cuba, the president told reporters in Florida.

“He’s dealing [with it], and it may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down to … as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money,” Trump said.

“They are going to make either a deal or we’ll do it just as easy, anyway,” he said.

Cuba has been grappling with an energy crisis since January, when US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and halted fuel exports from Caracas to Havana, cutting the country off from one of its few allies and a key source of oil for the Cuban economy.

White House officials have suggested that Cuba is facing an economic collapse and that its government is ready to negotiate with Washington.

Trump has said on multiple occasions that Cuba’s government is ready to “fall” and that its leaders want to “make a deal” with Washington, according to NBC News.

Cuba has denied reports of high-level talks, according to Reuters, but it has not “outright” denied US media reports of “informal talks” between Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, and US officials.

Cuba has been in the crosshairs of the US for decades, but Trump is the first US president since the Cold War to openly discuss and pursue a government change in Havana.

Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and Cuba are in line with his revival of the “Monroe Doctrine”, a 19th-century policy that states the Western Hemisphere should be solely under the sway of the US and no other foreign power.

Trump first raised the notion of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba in February.

Her gleeful cruelty was matched only by the audacity of her incompetence.

Packaged in cosplay costumes — cowgirl, solider, even firefighter and pilot — we were supposed to see her as strong. But far from the mother of dragons she seems to envision herself as, she came across as the killer of Cricket (poor pup), a childish narcissist in a deadly serious job.

It was so over the top, you don’t even need a name. You know who I’m talking about. So there’s little wonder that when President Trump dumped Kristi Noem as the head of Homeland Security this week, much of America — even a bipartisan slice, I dare say — reacted much like the residents of Oz when the house landed on the wicked witch.

From late-night talk shows to the halls of power, there was more than a bit of celebration, and some actually reasonable schadenfreude. Normally, the misfortune of others isn’t something I pile on, but oh, did that woman earn some scorn.

But while I’m not one to discourage a moment of joy in these troubling days, Noem’s unceremonious firing and what comes next likely won’t provide the relief and reset many are hoping for — or are claiming this is. For all the chaos and pain that federal agents from various departments have caused under Noem’s leadership, there’s every reason to believe Trump has plans to continue and even expand his deportation efforts, and maybe even use these poorly trained, poorly vetted troops to impose his will on the next election.

What we are witnessing, rather than any acknowledgment of policy gone awry, is spotlight envy from a petty president who doesn’t like to share attention, and a backroom concession that maybe optics do matter when you’re attempting to cram white nationalism onto a pluralist country.

It was, according to Fox News and other media, a claim under oath that Trump authorized Noem to spend more than $200 million on commercials promoting herself instead of him that got her canned. Pointing to just how deeply unpopular Noem made herself even within the Trump-verse, this death knell came courtesy of a set-up by a GOP senator, John Kennedy (R-La.), who walked Noem to her own demise with awe-inspiring political skill.

After forcing Noem to claim on the record multiple times that Trump knew about and approved the mega-spend on Noem’s ludicrously over-produced ads (while also raising questions about the contract and who benefited), Kennedy — almost certainly knowing Trump would see it — laid this dig on her with dripping Southern knife-in-the-back charm.

“To me, it puts the president in a terribly awkward spot,” Kennedy drawled, likely implanting grievance directly into the president’s brain. “I’m not saying you’re not telling the truth. It’s just hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million … running them,’ that he would have agreed to that.”

Soon after, Trump posted on social media that Noem was out. I bring this up because it wasn’t, after all, the substance of Noem’s actions that ultimately got her fired. In that same hearing on Capitol Hill, Democrats blasted Noem for the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and her subsequent false portrayal of them as domestic terrorists; the conditions inside our ever-expanding network of detention centers that have led to deaths; and even her mile-high airplane bedroom where she may or may not be conducting an extramarital affair.

None of that seems to have bothered Trump. It was her self-promotion. And it was that same self-promotion, the constant demanding of attention, that likely also ultimately convinced those around Trump to dump her — because it was adding to the deep unpopularity of immigration roundups that have been dragging down Trump’s approval ratings and which therefore could hurt the midterm chances of down-ballot Trumpers.

Last month, a Quinnipiac poll found that 58% of voters wanted Noem removed, and almost 60% of voters disapproved of Trump’s immigration policies.

Noem was the public face of that disapproval, strutting forward with arrogance in the face of public censure, a veritable clown show of ineptitude. With her ouster, and the possible replacement by another Trump stalwart, Oklahoma first-term Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Trump removes the most visible and annoying sign of the unpopularity of his policies.

While pugnacious (he’s a former MMA fighter) and happy to create his own questionable headlines, Mullin is also far more low-key than Noem, and knows who the spotlight belongs to. He is almost certain to put a more palatable face on deportations and detentions (for some anyway) simply by not being so thirsty for press. A low bar, but there you have it.

But Mullin has made it clear that he backs the most extreme immigration policies Trump world can offer, and has little difference of opinion from Stephen Miller, the architect of this bleak moment, who seems to be running things slightly off screen.

The risk now is that Mullin can continue these policies, even expand them, with less scrutiny simply because he’s less offensive than Noem. Detention centers are being built at breakneck speed. In Arizona, ICE has begun charging legal immigrants with a Cold War-era law if they don’t carry their papers with them at all times. The Department of Justice is gutting the ability to appeal deportations, in an effort to hasten them without recourse. Nothing is changing — except the speed and force with which ICE is moving forward.

And Trump has doubled down on claims that illegal immigrants are responsible for massive voter fraud, laying the groundwork for some sort of intervention in the upcoming election. Election deniers have been installed in key positions — Mullin himself is one of them.

So far from a reset, Noem’s removal is a retrenching — an effort to remove our focus from the deeply troubling link between immigration policy and the threat to democracy while actually grinding forward on that dark path.

Because Noem was a train wreck we couldn’t help but watch, at a moment when the government would prefer we stop looking.

March 4 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s prosecution service is facing criticism from legal experts after abandoning appeals in several major cases, including those involving President Lee Jae-myung and figures from the ruling party.

Legal analysts say the trend raises concerns about the erosion of prosecutorial independence amid pressure from the government and political circles.

Prosecutors declined to appeal the first-instance ruling in the Daejang-dong development corruption case involving President Lee in November last year. Reports later suggested that senior leadership at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office overruled recommendations from the investigation and trial teams to pursue an appeal.

The decision also effectively halted efforts to recover approximately 780 billion won ($585 million) in alleged illicit profits from developers linked to the Daejang-dong project.

Prosecutors also chose not to appeal a similar case involving alleged corruption in the Wirye new town development project.

Appeal decisions have also drawn attention in other politically sensitive cases.

In the first-trial verdict related to the 2020 West Sea shooting of a South Korean fisheries official, prosecutors filed what observers described as a “partial appeal” against former National Security Office Director Seo Hoon and former Coast Guard Commissioner Kim Hong-hee.

In a separate case involving allegations of illegal political funding tied to former Democratic Party leader Song Young-gil, prosecutors did not file an appeal to the Supreme Court even after the appellate court overturned the earlier ruling and issued an acquittal.

Prosecutors also declined to appeal rulings involving current and former Democratic Party lawmakers connected to a National Assembly fast-track legislation dispute. Officials said the decision was based on a judgment that further appeals would have “limited practical benefit.” Prosecutors likewise did not appeal convictions involving lawmakers from the opposition People Power Party in the same case.

Under South Korean law, prosecutors are required to perform their duties independently. However, some legal experts argue that recent decisions suggest political pressure may be influencing prosecutorial discretion.

President Lee previously criticized prosecutors during a cabinet meeting in September last year, saying prosecutors sometimes file indictments even when cases lack legal grounds and pursue appeals after acquittals to avoid responsibility.

Lee also ordered an internal inspection after prosecutors staged a collective walkout during the trial of former Gyeonggi Province Vice Governor Lee Hwa-young.

Following those developments, lawmakers from the ruling party introduced legislation to revise disciplinary procedures for prosecutors and pushed for amendments to the Criminal Act aimed at punishing judges and prosecutors who intentionally distort legal interpretation or misjudge facts during investigations or trials.

The ruling party has also formed a parliamentary group advocating for the withdrawal of charges against President Lee and for a national investigation into what they claim were politically motivated indictments.

Cha Jin-ah, a professor at Korea University Law School, said prosecutors appear increasingly reluctant to challenge the administration.

“Prosecutors who might once have pursued investigations or maintained indictments against the government with conviction are now watching the political climate,” Cha said. “This risks subordinating prosecutorial decisions to political power.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260304010000994

F1’s technical changes pose challenges for drivers and engineers alike while raising concerns about the quality of racing.

Formula One’s new era ⁠starts at this weekend’s season-opening ⁠Australian Grand Prix, where teams will leap into the unknown and grapple with sweeping technical changes under race conditions for the first time.

F1 has simultaneously overhauled chassis and power unit regulations for the first time ⁠in decades, posing a challenge for drivers and engineers while raising concerns about the quality of racing.

With near-parity between electrical and combustion engines and cars running on 100 percent advanced sustainable fuel, drivers gained some insight into the changes during winter testing. But all ⁠are in the dark about how the reset will play out when going wheel-to-wheel on race day.

“I’m certainly more comfortable now than I was a couple of months ago with how to drive these cars and how to try and get the most out of them,” McLaren’s Oscar Piastri told reporters on Wednesday.

“But I think there’s still the saying of ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’”

Australian Piastri said McLaren ‌thought they had the cars worked out two months ago, only to find they had “a whole bunch of stuff” they did not understand during winter testing.

With more power generated by electricity than last year’s engines, there is more emphasis on drivers needing to be tactical with energy deployment and regeneration.

The old drag reduction system has been replaced by a new overtake mode, giving extra power for overtaking.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen described the changes as “like Formula E on steroids” and “anti-racing”.

Formula One Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali defended them and assured fans there will still be plenty of thrills.

The changes may have different effects at ⁠different circuits, leaving all teams to learn on the fly, week by week.

Piastri said Sunday’s race ⁠at Albert Park, a suburb of Melbourne, would probably showcase the more “unnatural” parts of driving.

“You know, a lot more lift and coast, a lot more kind of just driving to maximise the power unit,” he said.

“You’ve got power units that are reducing in power down the straights at different points. And there’s a lot of unknowns, ⁠a lot of challenges in there.”

The new regulations raised hopes of a more open championship and the prospect of a disruptor team emerging to force change at the top. But preseason testing in ⁠Bahrain hinted at a familiar top four, with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and ⁠McLaren all performing well.

Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley said the gap between the “best and the rest” might only widen.

“I think it’s going to be a very different year in terms of the competitiveness in the sport,” he told the Reuters news agency. “We’re already seeing the gap between the fastest teams and the slowest teams but larger than it’s been ‌in the last few years.”

Whatever the pecking order, F1 race tracks will be more crowded with the addition of the new Cadillac team although there may be more breathing room at Albert Park, given Aston Martin’s preseason troubles.

Despite the technical guidance of Adrian ‌Newey, ‌who joined from Red Bull, the Honda-powered team completed few laps during winter testing and have reliability problems.

The AMR26 cars will be in Australia – something of a relief for F1 management – but may only race for a few laps before retiring.

AUSTIN, Texas — James Talarico did not mention President Trump when he greeted exuberant supporters at his primary night celebration.

But the newly minted Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Texas is now a front man for the political opposition to the Republican president, not just in his own state but around the country. With his victory over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the state lawmaker from Austin will test whether a smiling message of unity and change is enough to answer voters’ frustrations amid discord at home and now a war abroad.

“We are not just trying to win an election,” Talarico told supporters in the Texas capital early Wednesday. “We are trying to fundamentally change our politics, and it’s working.”

The campaign provided “Love thy Neighbor” signs to people in the crowd.

The question for Talarico as he heads into the general election campaign is whether he can generate enthusiasm from voters who opted for Crockett because they saw her as the more aggressive fighter against Trump. Crockett conceded to Talarico on Wednesday morning, saying that “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.”

Talarico will need all the help he can get in a Republican-dominated state where Democrats have gone decades without winning a statewide race. He will face either U.S. Sen. John Cornyn or state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who advanced to a Republican runoff on Tuesday.

Conventional political wisdom has it that Talarico was the stronger Democratic candidate in November, especially if Republicans nominate Paxton, a conservative firebrand who has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity over the years.

Although Democrats are often choosing between moderate and progressive candidates in primaries, they faced a largely stylistic choice in Texas.

Talarico, 36, is a Presbyterian seminarian who quotes Scripture and rarely raises his voice. Crockett, 44, is an unapologetic political brawler who hammers Trump and other Republicans with acidic flourish.

Both have been reliably progressive votes in their current roles and telegenic faces across cable news and social media. Both represent generational change for a party with aging leadership. Each called for a more equitable economy and society. Each talked about bringing sporadic voters into their coalitions.

But Talarico’s broader argument is one that he could have made regardless of whether Trump was in the White House. Talarico’s campaign, he said often, is about addressing a country whose fundamental divide is not partisan but “top vs. bottom.” He regularly assails the rise in Christian nationalism. A former teacher, he has advocated for public education — and against Texas conservatives’ policies to restrict curriculum and reshape how U.S. history is taught.

“He’s just a good friend and he’s a serious advocate for the disenfranchised and a serious policymaker,” said Lea Downey Gallatin, 40, an Austin resident who became friends with Talarico when they interned together for a congressman.

Crockett promised Democrats that she could increase turnout within the party’s base, while Talarico campaigned on the theory that he could pull new people into the party’s tent.

“I can’t tell you how many have come up to me, whispering that they’re not a Democrat,” Talarico said as he campaigned in San Antonio in the closing days of the primary campaign. “I can’t tell you how many young people have said it’s the first time that they’ve ever voted, and that they are participating for the first time.”

As he strolled through the city, Talarico posed for pictures and greeted the singer of a Tejano band playing nearby. He later spoke to hundreds of people at the historic Stable Hall, a 130-year-old circular structure built for showing horses and now a converted event center. Hundreds more, unable to get into the full event, wound around the corner and along the sidewalk for blocks.

Inside, Lori Alvarez, a 39-year-old who works for a disaster relief nonprofit, said she supported Talarico because “he really listens to what we need.”

“I think he’s going to be able to make change in Washington for us,” said the married mother of three young girls.

Yet that was not what attracted so many voters to Crockett.

Troy Burroughs, a 61-year-old Navy retiree, called Crockett “rugged” and “the only one I see fighting for us.”

He added: “I like how she doesn’t back down from anybody.”

Burroughs said some voters probably saw Talarico as more electable because he is more soft-spoken. But, he said, “We’ve got to get into the gutter with these folks, because that’s where they are.”

Talarico, meanwhile, keeps fighting his own way.

“Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope,” he said Tuesday, “and a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.”

Barrow, Figueroa and Beaumont write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta, Figueroa from Austin, Texas, and Beaumont from San Antonio.

Elsewhere, Barcelona will face Newcastle, Tottenham will play Atletico Madrid, and Arsenal will take on Bayer Leverkusen.

Real Madrid will play Manchester City while defending champions Paris Saint-Germain will face Chelsea in the pick of the 2025/26 Champions League last 16 games after the draw was made by UEFA in Nyon, Switzerland.

The draw for European football’s biggest club competition on Friday determined that City will face Madrid for the fourth consecutive season in a knockout Champions League clash.

Meanwhile, PSG and Chelsea will repeat their FIFA 2025 Club World Cup final, which the Premier League side won 3-0.

Elsewhere, Barcelona will face Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur will play Atletico Madrid, and Arsenal will take on Bayer Leverkusen.

Liverpool will renew hostilities with Galatasaray in a rematch of their league phase game, which the Turkish giants won 1-0 in Istanbul.

Norwegian minnows will face Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon, while the only Italian side left in the competition face a daunting encounter with German champions Bayern Munich.

The first legs will be played on March 10-11 and the second legs will be played on March 17-18.

The eight seeded teams – who finished in the top eight spots in the league phase – will be at home for the second legs against the eight teams who qualified through the playoff round.

The last 16 draw in full:

• Paris Saint-Germain vs Chelsea
• Galatasaray vs Liverpool
• Real Madrid vs Manchester City
• Atalanta vs Bayern Munich
• Newcastle vs Barcelona
• Atletico Madrid vs Tottenham Hotspur
• Bodo/Glimt vs Sporting
• Bayer Leverkusen vs Arsenal

Familiar foes

Real Madrid knocked City out in the last 16 last season, as they did in the 2024 quarterfinals and 2022 semifinals.

City beat Madrid in the 2023 semifinal en route to lifting the Champions League trophy for the first time.

The two clubs have played each other on 15 occasions, with each team winning five games and the rest ending as draws.

City and Madrid have already faced each other in the league stage this season, with City coming from behind to win 2-1 in December.

PSG will be eager to take revenge on Chelsea after the Blues stunned the French champions to win the inaugural the Club World Cup title in a bad-tempered game last year.

The clubs have previously faced each other in the Champions League, with Chelsea triumphing in a 2014 quarterfinal and PSG eliminating the Blues in the last 16 in 2015 and 2016.

The draw on Friday also mapped out the potential route to the final, to be held in Budapest on May 30, as every team now knows their possible quarterfinal and semifinal opponents.

In the quarterfinals, City or Madrid will face the winner of Bayern Munich vs Atalanta, while PSG or Chelsea will take on either Liverpool or Galatasaray.

Quarterfinal draw

• Paris Saint-Germain or Chelsea vs Liverpool or Galatasaray
• Real Madrid or Manchester City vs Bayern Munich of Atalanta
• Newcastle or Barcelona vs Tottenham or Atletico Madrid
• Sporting Lisbon or Bodo/Glimt vs Arsenal or Bayer Leverkusen

Semifinal draw

• Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea, Liverpool or Galatasaray vs Real Madrid, Manchester City, Bayern Munich of Atalanta
• Newcastle,Barcelona, Tottenham or Atletico Madrid vs Sporting Lisbon, Bodo/Glimt, Arsenal or Bayer Leverkusen

Champions League knockout round schedule:

• Last 16 : March 10-11 and March 17-18, 2026
• Quarterfinals: April 7-8 and April 14-15, 2026
• Semifinals: April 28-29 April and May 5-6, 2026
• Final: May 30, 2026

A rare weather phenomenon known as calima is set to sweep across parts of Europe, hitting major holiday hotspots with ‘blood rain’ possible, leaving dramatic orange-coated scenes

Brits could be battered by ‘blood rain’ during a rare weather phenomenon set to engulf parts of Europe.

A Saharan dust cloud is set to sweep across parts of Spain and the Balearic Islands, hitting major holiday hotspots such as Tenerife, Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza. The phenomenon, known as Calima, is being driven by a high-altitude, isolated depression (DANA) that is transporting large amounts of sand from Morocco and Mauritania into southern Europe.

Instead of basking in the Spanish heat, tourists face the prospect of orange-tinted dust, hazy skies and reduced visibility. The Spanish weather agency, AEMET, also warned that calima “worsens air quality due to microscopic particles, which can reach the respiratory tract”.

READ MORE: Foreign Office warns about Turkey after seven Brits dieREAD MORE: Passport holders told to take action now or risk ‘being turned away at airport’

Holidaymakers and locals should also brace themselves for “blood rain,” which occurs when the orange dust is mixed with rain. Heavy rain has been predicted for parts of Spain, which could result in thick layers of dust engulfing the Spanish hotspots, dramatically changing the scene, leaving cars scattered with dust and murky swimming pools.

The weather is forecast to be worse in the southeast parts of Spain, along the Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands. The AEMET issued a weather warning on X, formerly Twitter, and said: “Very adverse weather in the Canary Islands: showers that could be very heavy, today accompanied by storms in the eastern islands; very strong wind gusts; rough seas.”

The agency noted on Sunday that the “weather is expected to improve.” The phenomenon has also brought an unusually warm air mass, with soaring temperatures up to 25C in southeastern regions and the Canary Islands, and Bilbao hitting a blistering 27C in February.

This isn’t the first time the Canary Islands have experienced a calima, including Lanzarote, which typically occurs during the winter months. The calima is a hot, oppressive wind that arises when high pressure builds over the Sahara, subsequently driving winds that carry Saharan temperatures and sand.

Explaining further, Lanzarote Information said: “During a calima, the air turns a white or even a yellow colour and you can literally smell the sand in the air from the Desert.

“Visibility is reduced, and there’s a kind of otherworldly quality to the light. Often strange insects accompany the winds – in recent years we have had locusts, ladybirds and dragonflies that arrive on the island.

“They rarely last for very long here, as there is so little for them to eat due to the desert nature of Lanzarote. Sometimes unusual birds are blown over on the wind as well, so look out for them.”

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Aden, Yemen – Lying on the outskirts of Yemen’s interim capital, Aden, al-Basateen district starts where the paved roads end, stretching into narrow, sandy alleyways. It reveals a decades-old refugee story in which Arabic blends with Somali and the faces harbour memories of a different place, across the sea.

Residents know the area by several names, including “Yemen’s Mogadishu” and “the Somalis’ neighbourhood” – a reference to the demographic shift it has seen since the 1990s, when civil war in Somalia pushed thousands of families across the Gulf of Aden in search of safety.

Today, local sources estimate the district’s population at more than 40,000, with people of Somali origin making up the majority. They live in harsh conditions where economic vulnerability overlaps with an unresolved legal status.

Some arrived as children holding the hands of relatives, while others were born in Aden and have known no other home. But they all share one thing in common: the refugee label stamped on their official documents.

Harsh living conditions

As dawn breaks, dozens of men gather at the entrances of the area’s main streets, waiting to be picked up to do a day’s work in construction or manual labour. Many depend on this fragile pattern of employment to put food on the table.

Residents say the lack of regular work has become the defining feature of life in al-Basateen, as extreme poverty spreads and humanitarian aid declines.

Ashour Hassan, a resident in his mid-30s, waiting at a main road junction for someone to hire him to wash a car, told Al Jazeera that he earns between 3,000 and 4,000 Yemeni rials a day (less than $3). That amount is not enough to cover the needs of his family, which lives in a single room in a neighbourhood lacking basic services, surrounded by dirt roads and piles of rubbish.

In a voice mixed with fatigue and despair, Ashour summed up life in al-Basateen: “We live day to day. If we find work, we eat. If we don’t, we wait without food until tomorrow.”

Families in al-Basateen typically rely on both men and women to be breadwinners.

Some women work cleaning homes, while others run small businesses, such as selling bread and traditional foods that blend Yemeni and Somali flavours, and which become especially popular during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Many children also find themselves pushed into work despite their age. One of the main jobs for children involves sifting through waste for materials they can sell, such as plastic or scrap metal, to help support their families.

Little sense of belonging

Poverty is clearly visible in al-Basateen’s architecture and appearance, with tightly packed homes, some made of metal sheets and consisting of only one or two rooms, separated by dirt roads covered in rubbish.

But that is not the only burden weighing on al-Basateen’s Somali residents. A deeper feeling of what many here call “suspended belonging” hangs over them, with the first generation of refugees still carrying memories of a distant homeland and speaking its language, while the second and third generations know only Aden and speak Arabic in the local dialect, with Somalia only known through family stories.

Fatima Jame embodies this paradox. A mother of four, she was born in Aden to Somali parents. She told Al Jazeera: “We know no country other than Yemen. We studied here and got married here, but we do not have Yemeni identity, and in front of the law, we are still refugees.”

Fatima lives with her family in a modest two-room home. Her husband works as a porter in one of the city’s markets, while she helps support the family by preparing and selling traditional foods. Even so, she says their combined income “barely covers rent and food” because of the high cost of living and few job opportunities.

A bleak reality

Conditions in Yemen were never the best for migrants and refugees, but they have significantly worsened since a civil war began in 2014 between the Iranian-backed Houthis and the central government in Sanaa, in Yemen’s north.

The violence from that war, along with declining aid and shrinking job opportunities have increased pressure on both host communities and refugees.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that funding for support programmes in Yemen in 2025 met only 25 percent of the country’s actual needs, directly affecting the lives of thousands of families. Residents of al-Basateen say the aid they used to receive has sharply declined, and in many cases has stopped altogether.

Youssef Mohammed, 53, says he was one of the first Somali arrivals to the district in the 1990s, and now supports a family of seven.

“[We] have not received any support from organisations for years,” Youssef said, adding that some families “chose to return to Somalia rather than stay and die of hunger here”.

He believes the crisis affects everyone in Yemen, “but [that] the refugee remains the weakest link.”

Despite the bleak picture, a few have managed to improve their material conditions through education or by opening small businesses that have helped stimulate the local economy. But they remain an exception, and the flow of refugees continues.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, but is also the region’s only signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and therefore allows foreign arrivals to apply for asylum or refugee status. According to the United Nations refugee agency, Yemen hosted more than 61,000 asylum seekers and refugees as of July 2025, the vast majority from Somalia and Ethiopia.

Arrivals in recent years have typically travelled to Yemen via boats, with many planning to use Yemen as a transit point before moving on to richer countries like Saudi Arabia.

Hussein Adel is one of those recent arrivals. He is 30, but leans on a crutch on a street corner in al-Basateen.

Hussein arrived in Aden only a few months ago, having made the dangerous journey on a small boat carrying African migrants.

He told Al Jazeera that he fled death and hunger, only to find himself facing a harsher reality. Hussein shelters on the rooftop of a relative’s home and spends his days searching the city for occasional work. His leg injury, he said, was caused by Omani border guards who shot him while he was crossing into Yemen.

As evening falls, the noise in al-Basateen’s alleyways quiets down. Men lean against the walls of worn-out homes, and children chase a ball through narrow passages barely wide enough for their dreams.

On the surface, life looks normal – like any working-class neighbourhood in a city exhausted by crises. But here, in “Yemen’s Mogadishu”, there is an extra trauma – the sense of a lack of belonging, the memory of refugees fleeing danger and poverty at home, and a lack of stability that will not go away.

Paris St-Germain defender Achraf Hakimi says he is set to face trial after an allegation of rape was made against him.

A woman has accused the Morocco captain of raping her at his home in the French capital in 2023, when she was aged 24. He denies the allegations.

The public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris, began a preliminary investigation in March 2023.

“Today, a rape accusation is enough to justify a trial,” Hakimi posted on X, external.

“This is as unjust to the innocent as it is to the genuine victims. I calmly await this trial, which will allow the truth to come out publicly.”

No date has been set for the trial.

Hakimi’s lawyer confirmed in a statement that a “trial has been ordered” and that “it is with determination and resolve that we await this trial so that justice may be served”.

BBC Sport has contacted the Nanterre prosecutor’s office for comment.

Paris St-Germain host Monaco in the second leg of their Champions League knockout round play-off tie on Wednesday.

Hakimi was named in PSG’s initial squad, published last Tuesday.

The 27-year-old was born in Spain but represents Morocco and has made 194 appearances for Paris St-Germain, winning the Champions League and Ligue 1 titles last season.

His performances led to him being honoured at the Best Fifa Football Awards ceremony held in Paris on Monday, where he was named in the Fifpro men’s world team of the year.

Morocco will face Scotland, Haiti and Brazil at the World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada this summer.

The EGM news comes at a time of turmoil for Welsh rugby off the field.

Swansea Council has applied for a High Court injunction to halt the proposed deal between the WRU and Ospreys owners Y11 Sport and Media to buy rivals Cardiff.

Ospreys are under threat of being removed from the professional tier with owners Y11 the WRU’s preferred bidders to buy Cardiff from the governing body.

The WRU wants to cut one professional men’s side in Wales with Ospreys now in the firing line if Y11 buy Cardiff.

The WRU has told Swansea Council a deal will not be completed with Y11 before 16 March.

On the field, Wales, who have lost the opening three games against France, England and Scotland, finish their Six Nations campaign against Italy in Cardiff on Saturday 14 March after travelling to face Ireland in Dublin eight days before.

The WRU statement continued: “The WRU published its plans for the future of the elite game in Wales at the end of October 2025, following an extensive consultation process.

“We are now focused on rolling out that plan and have been working tirelessly with the key stakeholders during the last months to agree a consensus on its implementation.

“This detailed work has been undertaken with the professional clubs, the United Rugby Championship and player representatives, and we remain committed to reaching consensus on the next steps.

“We ask all stakeholders to continue working with us. We recognise that change is challenging, but it is essential for the long-term health of the game in Wales.”

At a recent meeting of California’s high school sports governing board, two seniors from Arroyo Grande High School spoke out against a transgender peer competing on their track and field team and allegedly “watching” them in the girls’ locker room.

One of the Central Coast students said she is “more comfortable” changing in her car now. The other cited a Bible verse about God creating men and women separately, and accused the California Interscholastic Federation of subjecting girls to “exploitative and intrusive behavior that is disguised through transgender ideology.”

“Our privacy is being compromised and our sports are being taken over,” she said.

During the same meeting, Trevor Norcross, the father of 17-year-old transgender junior Lily Norcross, offered a starkly different perspective.

“Bathrooms and locker rooms are the most dangerous place for trans students, and when they are at their most vulnerable,” he said. “Our daughter goes to extreme lengths to avoid them. Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t.”

Lily Norcross with her parents, Trevor and Hilary Norcross.

(Owen Main / For The Times)

Norcross said Lily’s teammates had for months been misrepresenting a single moment from the year prior, when Lily had to use the restroom after a full day of avoiding it, chose to use the one in the locker room because it is monitored by an adult and safer for her than others, and briefly stopped to chat with a friend on her way out.

“There’s always more to the story,” he said.

The conflicting testimony reflected an increasingly charged debate over transgender athletes participating in youth sports nationwide. Churches, anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, cisgender athletes and their conservative families are organizing to topple trans-inclusive policies, while liberal state officials, queer advocacy groups, transgender kids and their families are trying to preserve policies that allow transgender kids to compete.

The battle has been particularly pitched in California, which has some of the nation’s most progressive statewide athletic policies and liberal leaders willing to defend them — including from the Trump administration, which has attacked transgender rights and is suing the California Department of Education and the CIF, alleging their trans-inclusive sports policies violate the civil rights of cisgender athletes.

Along with a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on the legality of policies banning transgender athletes from competing in states such as Idaho and West Virginia, the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California could have sweeping implications for transgender athletes — with a state loss potentially contributing to their being sidelined not just in conservative states, but nationwide.

For the handful of transgender California teens caught in the middle of the fight, it has all been deeply unnerving — if strangely motivating.

“I have to keep doing it, because if I stop doing sports, they won,” Lily Norcross said. “They got what they wanted.”

A coordinated effort

The movement to overturn California’s trans-inclusive policies is being coordinated at the local, state and national levels, and has gained serious momentum since several of its leaders joined the Trump administration.

At the local level, cisgender athletes, their families and other conservative and religious allies have expressed anger over transgender athletes using girls’ facilities and resentment over their allegedly stealing victories and the spotlight from cisgender girls.

In 2024, two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside filed a lawsuit challenging the participation of their transgender track and field teammate Abigail Jones, arguing her participation limited their own in violation of Title IX protections for female athletes. A judge found insufficient evidence of that, and recently dismissed the case.

Last year, Jurupa Valley High School track star AB Hernandez won several medals at the CIF State Track and Field Championships despite President Trump personally demanding she be barred from competing. Critics argued Hernandez’s wins were unfair, despite CIF having changed its rules so that her cisgender competitors received the medals they would have received had she not competed.

AB Hernandez competed for Jurupa Valley High School in the long jump at the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships.

(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)

The challenges to Abigail, AB and Lily competing have all been driven in part by a network of conservative organizations working across California and beyond to oust transgender girls from sports, including by coordinating with evangelical churches, pushing social media campaigns, lining up speakers for school board meetings and working with cisgender athletes to hone their messages of opposition.

Shannon Kessler, a former PTA president and church leader who is now running for state Assembly, has worked within the wider network. In March 2025, Kessler founded the group Save Girls’ Sports Central Coast, and the next month distributed fliers at Harvest Church in Arroyo Grande that called on parishioners to challenge Lily’s participation on the track and field team.

Kessler said the two seniors on Lily’s team, who did not respond to a request for comment, had initially asked if she would “speak on their behalf,” so she did, but she has since let the girls “take the lead.”

“They took the initiative to speak and wrote their own speeches,” Kessler said, of their remarks at the recent CIF meeting.

Norcross said the effort to sideline his daughter has clearly been coordinated by outsiders from the start. He blames Kessler, Harvest Church and the state’s wider network of conservative activists for stirring up baseless fears about transgender athletes, exposing his family to danger and leaving them no choice but to defend themselves publicly.

“It’s not a fair position to be in,” he said.

Tied up in court

Within months of Trump issuing his February 2025 executive order calling for transgender athletes to be barred from competition nationwide, two leaders within the California conservative network turned Trump administration officials — Harmeet Dhillon, who is now assistant attorney general for civil rights, and former state Assemblyman Bill Essayli, who is now in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles — quickly moved to bring the state to heel.

They launched an investigation into California’s trans-inclusive sports policies, ordered its school districts to comply with Trump’s order in defiance of state law, and then sued the Department of Education and the CIF when they refused — alleging the state’s policies illegally discriminate against cisgender girls under Title IX by ignoring “undeniable biological differences between boys and girls, in favor of an amorphous ‘gender identity.’”

Neither Dhillon nor the Justice Department responded to a request for comment. Essayli’s office declined to comment.

Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon arrives for a news conference at the Justice Department in September.

(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

The Department of Education and the CIF have called for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that Title IX regulations “do not require the exclusion of transgender girls” and that the Justice Department had provided no evidence that the state’s policies left cisgender girls unable to compete.

The CIF said in a statement that it “provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law,” but it and the Department of Education said they do not comment on pending litigation. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has slammed the Trump administration’s efforts, and filed its own lawsuit to block them.

Separate from the California litigation, there is a major case on transgender youth athletes before the U.S. Supreme Court.

After athletes successfully challenged West Virginia and Idaho bans on transgender competition in lower federal courts, the states appealed. During arguments last month, the high court’s conservative majority sounded ready to uphold the state bans — but not necessarily in a way that would topple liberal state laws allowing such athletes to compete.

Pressure and resolve

Lily, AB and Abigail — all of whom are referenced anonymously in the federal lawsuit against California — agreed, with their parents, to be identified by The Times in order to share how it has felt to be targeted.

Abigail, 17, graduated early and is preparing to start college but hasn’t stopped being an advocate for transgender high school athletes, continuing to show up to CIF and school board meetings to support their right to compete.

“This is a part of my life now, whether I like it or not,” she said.

Speaking can be intimidating, Abigail said, but it has also become familiar — as has the cast of anti-transgender activists who routinely show up to speak as well. “It’s always the same people,” she said.

Abigail Jones participates in a protest against President Trump and his attacks on transgender people in April in Riverside.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

AB, also 17, said last year — when everyone, including Trump, seemed to be talking about her — was “just so much — too much.”

She felt she had to constantly “maintain an image,” including among her peers, that she was “not bothered by anything and just confident,” which was exhausting, she said. “There were a lot of times I just didn’t go to school, because I felt like I couldn’t keep up that image and I didn’t want them to see me down.”

It still can be overwhelming if she looks at all the vitriol aimed her way online, she said, but “off the internet, it’s a completely different story.”

AB was nervous headed into last year’s championships, but a couple of other competitors reached out with their support and the meet ended up being “a blast,” she said. At track practice this year, she’s surrounded by friends — one of her favorite things about being on the team.

For Lily, the last year has been “different and interesting, in not really a good way.”

She has had slurs lobbed at her and been physically threatened. She sometimes waits all day to use the toilet, nearly bursting by the time she gets home. When she has to use a school restroom, she times herself to be in and out in under three minutes. She took P.E. courses over the summer in part because she felt there would be fewer students around, but faced harassment anyway. Like AB, she feels as though she’s under a constant spotlight.

And yet, Lily said she is also “a lot happier with who I am” than she ever was before transitioning a couple of years ago. She said she’s enjoying her classes and her school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, where LGBTQ+ kids gather at lunch to swap stories, and is optimistic about the future — even if things aren’t great right now.

Her dad said watching her come out and transition has been gratifying, because “the smile came back, the light in her eyes came back.” Watching her navigate the current campaign against her, he said, has been “really hard,” because “she has been forced to grow up too quickly — she has been forced to defend herself in a way that most kids don’t.”

Mostly, though, he’s just proud of his kid.

“We had our fears as parents, as any parent would, that, OK, this is a different path than we thought our kid was going to be on, and we are worried about her safety and her future in this world,” he said. “But she is amazingly strong — amazingly courageous.”

Maryna Bondarenko, a 51-year-old journalist, has three packed suitcases in her apartment in Poland, hopeful for the return of peace in Ukraine. She fled Kyiv with her son and mother when Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, expecting to be away for just a month or two. Now, four years later, she continues to work in a Ukrainian language newsroom serving over 1.5 million Ukrainians in Poland. Bondarenko recounts many moments of anticipation for returning home, having even packed her belongings multiple times, convinced the war would soon end.

The ongoing war has resulted in Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War Two, with over 5 million Ukrainians dispersed across Europe, particularly in Central and Eastern regions. Most refugees are women and children due to martial law in Ukraine that prevents military-age men from leaving. Bondarenko expresses a strong desire to reunite with her husband, Andrij Dudko, who works as a drone operator on the front line. However, the harsh conditions in Kyiv, including devastating air strikes and bitter winter, keep her from returning with her child.

In Poland, large Ukrainian communities have formed in cities like Warsaw and Krakow, but this has sometimes led to tensions with local residents over jobs and welfare benefits. Bondarenko wishes to return home but acknowledges that Ukraine will be significantly changed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hopes that 70% of Ukrainians abroad will go back after the war, but surveys indicate that many want to stay away, particularly among younger generations. Her 11-year-old son, Danylo, finds it hard to remember life in Ukraine and finds Poland more familiar, though he has faced some hostility at school.

Additionally, Iryna Kushnir and Olga Yermolenko, who were high school friends in Kharkiv, found each other again in Istanbul, where they moved at the start of the war. Kushnir had hoped for a quick return home but remains in Turkey, now married and employed as a teacher at Istanbul University, while she left her 19-year-old daughter Sofia to study in Ukraine. Yermolenko works remotely for Ukrainian clients and stays in touch with her mother who still lives in Kharkiv. Despite her efforts to adapt to life in Turkey, she feels caught between her past and an uncertain future. Both women follow the war closely, with Yermolenko expressing fear when seeing news of missile strikes in Kharkiv and making sure to check on her mother’s safety.

With information from Reuters

Team GB face an uphill task to win an Olympic medal in the four-man bobsleigh as they sit seventh at the halfway point.

Pilot Brad Hall had showcased why the British team are medal contenders in Cortina with a brilliant first run of 54.39 seconds, which left them in third place.

But they dropped off the pace in the second, clocking 55.04secs – the 12th-quickest time in heat two – to lose four places in the standings before Sunday’s medal-deciding heats.

The three German teams remain the ones to beat and they occupy the top three spots with Johannes Lochner, who won two-man gold earlier this week, leading the charge with an overall time of 1:48:61.

There was a long delay to competition at the Cortina sliding track after Austria suffered a crash during heat two, with one of the athletes treated for a lengthy period on the ice before being stretchered off.

Action resumed after about a 20-minute delay but, with the track now slower because of the rising temperature, the British team were unable to find the speed of their first run and currently sit on 1:49:43.

More to follow.

Brazil’s President Lula says fate of Venezuelan president should be determined by the ‘people of Venezuela’ and ‘not by foreign interference’.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro should face trial, but that it should take place in a Venezuelan court, rather than in the United States, where he is currently being held after his abduction by the US military.

“I believe that if Maduro has to be trialled, he has to be trialled in his country, not trialled abroad,” Lula said in an interview, emphasising that “what matters now is to re-establish democracy in Venezuela”.

“It has to be solved by the people of Venezuela, and not by foreign interference,” said Lula, citing a history of US-backed dictatorships in Latin America, including Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

“We cannot accept that a head of state of one country could invade another country and capture the president,” the Brazilian leader added.

Lula’s comments come as Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, has been working to release hundreds of politicians, activists and lawyers jailed during Maduro’s residency, which began in 2013.

The Brazilian has openly criticised the abduction of ⁠Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a military operation ordered by US President Donald Trump on January 3.

Maduro was flown to New York after his abduction in a bloody night raid on Caracas. He has since been accused by US authorities of planning to transport drugs to the US alongside other charges.

The US government’s own data shows that Venezuela is not among the world’s major drug producers; however, Trump administration officials have accused Maduro and others of working with the region’s largest drug trafficking groups, including in Colombia and Mexico.

While the Trump administration has claimed that its military buildup near Venezuela and maritime blockade of the country were focused on combating drug trafficking, Trump has laid claim to Venezuelan oil reserves since removing Maduro.

Trump has also invited US oil companies to exploit Venezuela’s oil and said he wants proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States”.

Brandi Glanville finally has some answers about what caused her mysterious facial issues — her breast implants.

The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum is “taking care of the face now that [she’s] figured out what was wrong,” Glanville told TMZ on Wednesday. The outlet caught up with her as she was leaving a doctor’s office where she had been treated with “lasers and different things.”

Last week, InTouch reported that Glanville had surgery to remove her breast implants earlier this month. According to the outlet, she got her implants in 2007 after the birth of her son Jake. Glanville was told her left implant had a “slow leak,” while her right implant was “completely ruptured.”

“I had silicone all over my lymph nodes,” the reality TV star told TMZ. “That’s what caused the infection in my face. … [I]t couldn’t get out because my lymph nodes were all clogged.”

Glanville had been struggling for the last few years with a mysterious ailment that caused recurring facial swelling, speech impairment and the loss of teeth, leaving her reluctant to go out in public. In 2024, she revealed that, after she’d spent more than $70,000 on treatments, doctors were still stumped by what could be causing her facial disfigurement, though some suggested it could be because of a parasite. Glanville even tried using Nair, the hair-removal product, to fight the parasite.

Glanville told TMZ that she had been shocked to learn that her breast implants had been the cause of her facial disfigurement. She said she had visited 21 doctors over the years trying to investigate her condition, to no avail. She only learned that her nearly 20-year-old breast implants were damaged after having them examined with a sonogram.

“I learned a really, really hard lesson,” said Glanville, advising people to make sure to get their implants checked after 10 years even if they feel fine.

“I’m not saying don’t [get implants],” she added. “Just do it and make sure you stay on top of it. [And] you really have to be vigilant about [getting] sonograms. Ask you doctor.”

Glanville appeared to be in good spirits now that she is on the road to recovery. She plans on getting her teeth fixed next.

Despite doctor’s orders, “I can’t rest,” she said. “I’ve been home for three years.”