faces

Prosecutors have requested a 45-year jail sentence for Thaci and three wartime commanders accused of war crimes.

The Kosovo war crimes tribunal will on Wednesday deliver its verdicts in the case of former President Hashim Thaci and several wartime commanders accused of murder and torture during the self-declared republic’s break from Serbia.

Thaci, 58, is facing several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and persecution, along with three former commanders from the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a separatist militia that fought Serbian troops.

Thaci and the other former high-ranking commanders, Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Kadri Veseli, deny the charges.

Prosecutors have requested 45-year prison sentences for each of the men.

The case is extremely contentious within Kosovo, where Thaci remains a revered figure for many Kosovan Albanians due to his role in the 1998-99 independence war.

On Saturday, tens of thousands gathered in the capital, Pristina, to call for their acquittal in the latest of several rallies since the trial began. Portraits of the four former KLA fighters have been plastered across the city along with a huge digital clock counting down to the verdicts.

“In the name of the people, declare them innocent,” one banner read.

According to prosecutors, the men targeted political opponents and civilians perceived as collaborators and traitors during their time in the KLA.

Thaci’s lawyers argued in February there is no evidence that directly links him to any of the crimes.

“There are no orders in the record from Thaci to perpetrators of crimes. There are no reports from perpetrators of crimes to Thaci,” lawyer Luka Misetic told judges at the Kosovo tribunal in February.

Most of the 13,000 people who died in the war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day campaign of NATO air attacks against Serbian forces ended the fighting. About one million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were driven from their homes.

In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, a move that Belgrade refuses to recognise. Ties between Kosovo and Serbia remain tense, despite years of negotiations mediated by the European Union.

Board of trustees recommending that the main building be closed immediately due to costs, US newspaper reports.

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, is on the brink of bankruptcy and could close as soon as Tuesday, The Washington Post has reported.

According to the report in the United States newspaper on Sunday, the institution’s board of trustees, of which President Donald Trump is the chairman, has argued that putting the president’s name on the facade could be the only way to avoid imminent and “certain fiscal collapse”.

The trustees also say the institution will not be able to pay employees or meet maintenance costs within a few weeks.

The assessment was set out in a 57-page report before a special meeting on Tuesday, when the Trump-led board is expected to consider the two main issues affecting the performing arts centre: A financial crisis and a physical one, as the building needs renovation.

The Post reported that board members are recommending that the main building be closed immediately due to costs.

The ⁠Post also said Trump ⁠would help the Kennedy Center if his involvement is acknowledged. The trustees’ report represents “a remarkable new phase in Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy ⁠Center, which has been engulfed by financial turmoil, leadership upheaval and litigation ⁠since he installed himself as chairman ⁠last year”, the paper said.

The Kennedy Center was named in honour of the late US president who championed civil rights before he was assassinated in 1963.

Trump placed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Centre shortly after beginning his second term last year, and in December his hand-picked board voted to rename it the “Trump-Kennedy” Centre, a move later blocked in court.

In response to Trump’s takeover, a host of artists have cancelled concerts, with US media reporting that ticket sales had fallen to their lowest levels since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Post reported that the centre was expected to collect about $124m of the projected $220m in revenue that it had budgeted, “leaving a roughly $23 million deficit even after substantial spending cuts” this past fiscal year.

It added that a spokesperson for the centre blamed the problems on “financial mismanagement by previous leadership” and said Trump’s name had attracted new donors.

ABIDJAN: A senior official in Ivorian former president Laurent Gbagbo’s opposition party has been remanded in custody on charges including terrorism over electoral unrest in 2025, a prosecutor said Friday.

Violence left 11 people dead during the October 2025 election, won by President Alassane Ouattara, who has led the country since 2011.

Several dozen opposition party activists, including senior figures, were arrested or jailed over the unrest. Some have since been released.

A court opened a judicial investigation against Justin Kone Katinan, vice president of the PPA-CI party and a former minister under Gbagbo’s 2000-2011 presidency, prosecutor Oumar Braman Kone said in a statement on Friday.

He said it remanded Katinan in custody on several charges, including terrorist acts and conspiracy against the state.

Katinan’s lawyer, Roselyne Serikpa, told AFP: “These proceedings are irregular and unlawful. They are in complete violation of the penal code.”

The PPA-CI on Thursday denounced what it called a “judicial trap” targeting Katinan.

He was initially summoned by police on Wednesday over defamation accusations by the ruling party after he accused it of being behind the growth of illegal gold mining.

If there’s one thing Jed Wheeler and Marcus Ruiz Evans agree on, it’s that things in California need to change.

The state sends too much money to Washington, they say, and is both politically and culturally out of step with a country that lacks its openness and vitality.

“We can solve our own problems and don’t need to wait on a government 3,000 miles away,” said Wheeler, echoing Evans’ suggestion that Democratic-leaning California would be far better off going it alone as a separate country.

They sharply disagree, though, on the matter of how and precisely when California should seek a divorce from the other 49 states.

Evans is pushing a ballot measure that would put the question of secession before voters in 2018, believing the time has never been so ripe to form a breakaway nation. Wheeler is working to create a pro-secession political party, looking a dozen or more years down the road when its candidates hold office, and fears that a premature vote would undermine the effort.

In short, the effort to cleave California faces a crackup of its own.

At least four proposals are floating about to reshape the state in some fashion, including two that would split up California along different axes. All work at cross-purposes, and the result is varied degrees of hostility among proponents; none of the plans seems likely to reach fruition anytime soon, if ever.

That is something they have in common.

Since 1849, when the state was remade in a rush of greed and ambition, there have been more than 200 efforts to split apart, pull away or otherwise reimagine the vast empire known as California. Not one has succeeded.

The latest, most conspicuous attempt, a proposed ballot initiative fueled by anti-Trump sentiments and titillated national media coverage (those wacky Californians!) seems destined to fall short of qualifying for the ballot, barring a sudden change in fortune.

Supporters of the measure, led by Evans, have until July 25 to collect nearly 600,000 valid signatures to place an independence measure before voters in November 2018. The group, which received the go-ahead to collect signatures at the end of January, has yet to reach a quarter of that number, according to the California secretary of state’s office.

The group has also not reported raising any campaign contributions, according to the secretary’s office, which oversees elections.

Evans, 40, a former government affairs consultant now working full-time on the “Calexit” campaign, insisted a robust signature-gathering process was underway, engaging thousands of volunteers in 82 chapters across the state. However, the precise number collected was unknown, he said, because of the loose structure of his pro-secession group, Yes California.

“Some are mailing them in. Some are holding them. Some are taking them directly to their county registrar of voters,” he said. Asked to assess the odds of making the ballot, Evans responded, “Good. I won’t say great.”

The effort, uphill from the start, has not been helped, he said, by reports linking the Calexit movement to Russia, which Evans called preposterous and unfair. The co-leader of Yes California is Louis Marinelli, a former San Diego-area Assembly candidate now teaching English in Russia, where, among promotional activities, he appeared last fall at a Kremlin-backed pro-secession conference in Moscow.

“It has definitely been damaging to us getting big donors and hurting our ability to bring on new members because of clouding the issue without accurately reporting all the facts,” Evans said, citing the organization’s 44,000 “likes” on Facebook as just one example.

Nor, he said, was it beneficial when Nigel Farage, a leading proponent of Britain’s exit from the European Union and prominent Trump supporter, recently flitted into California to talk up a vague plan to split the state down the middle, creating a coastal “West California” and interior “East California.”

“They’re trying to confuse people,” Evans huffed. “Classic Trump.”

It seems Evans and his pro-secession movement might have found an ally in Wheeler and others working to form a political party dedicated to achieving state independence. Many tenets of the left-leaning California National Party — the state needs to keep more of the money it sends to Washington and establish home-grown policies on issues such as immigration and healthcare — echo those propounded by Yes California.

The nascent party has taken no official position on the 2018 secession drive. But Wheeler, the party’s vice chairman, believes the initiative would lose, damaging the independence movement. Better, he said, to elect sympathetic lawmakers under the National Party banner who could then work to bring about California’s eventual departure.

“We’re trying to be very pragmatic and realistic where we are as a movement,” said Wheeler, 36, who works for a digital media company in San Francisco.

While “the idea of having a ballot initiative is seductive and appeals to a lot of people,” he said, “you can’t harvest the crop without the work of planting the seeds, then tilling the soil and all that stuff first.”

In California’s far north, a determined group of dissenters have done that labor for decades — so far to no avail.

Efforts have been underway since before World War II to break off more than a dozen rural counties and combine them with a chunk of southern Oregon to form Jefferson, the nation’s 51^st state.

The impetus is the same that drives backers of secession: the notion of a far-off government (in this case, Sacramento) ignoring local sentiments and a sense of being outnumbered and outvoted by a population whose social and political views are at odds with the prevailing (in this instance, conservative) culture. The proposed flag — a pair of Xs, or double cross — captures the animating sentiment.

“We really don’t have fair representation,” said Terry Rapoza, 67, a leader of the Jefferson movement in Shasta County, where he sells T-shirts and other souvenir clothing in Redding.

He cited recent passage of a 10-year, $52-billion road repair and transportation bill; the hike in gas taxes, he said, will have much less impact in urban California than in rural stretches, where people might drive 20 miles to the grocery store, or a dozen miles to pick up their mail.

But he has little use for secession, which strikes him as bizarre — would the new California nation have its own nuclear arsenal and U.N. representative, he wonders — and fruitless in ending the urban-rural divide he blames for persistently short-changing his part of the state.

There’s something wrong and even vaguely un-American, he suggested, about trying to break the country apart. “We want to add a star to the flag,” Rapoza said. “Not take one off.”

mark.barabak@latimes.com

@markzbarabak on Twitter

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Multiple new cases have been filed against OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT played a role in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting.

OpenAI is facing another wave of lawsuits in the wake of the February mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge in Canada’s province of British Columbia, which left eight people dead.

On Wednesday, 30 new complaints were reportedly filed in a United States federal court in California, including teachers and students who were witnesses and survivors at the school where most of the shooting took place, joining seven initial lawsuits filed in April.

The lawsuits accuse the San Francisco, California-based artificial intelligence giant and its CEO, Sam Altman, of negligence, as well as aiding and abetting a mass shooting.

The suits, brought by lawyer Jay Edelson, allege that the company knew about the intentions of the 18-year-old shooter who, in her interactions with OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, had described scenarios involving gun violence, but that the leadership did not report their concerns to law enforcement, echoing earlier lawsuits on the matter.

In April, Altman penned a letter to the community apologising that the company did not alert law enforcement about the shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar.

“While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered,” Altman wrote in the letter.

Authorities say that Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother before going to the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and opening fire. Five children and one educator were killed at the school. More than 25 others were wounded before Van Rootselaar died from what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

One of the new cases filed was on behalf of a 13-year-old identified as A C, who played dead after watching the shooter kill their classmates and the teacher. Another new case was brought by a grade seven teacher named Deidre Rushlow, who hid under her desk with her students during the rampage.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about what happened at Tumbler Ridge, or the victims of this devastating tragedy and their families. It’s a constant and sobering reminder of the important and incredibly difficult work that many people in my team do each and every day,” Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s head of strategy, wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

“We’ve been approaching this litigation with respect for both the legal process and the families and victims of this tragedy, and we’ll continue to engage in good faith with that process.”

Edelson did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Growing legal pressure

In July, British Columbia’s Attorney General Niki Sharma announced that the province would also pursue “all legal avenues to hold OpenAI and its decision-makers accountable” for the shooting.

The company has faced a growing slate of suits, apart from the ones from British Columbia, alleging that its product played a role in incidents that led to users harming others and themselves.

A recent lawsuit in Florida alleges that the company “actively assisted and encouraged the mass shooting” at Florida State University in April 2025.

There are other complaints filed on behalf of victims across the US and Canada alleging that the victims took their own lives after being pushed by ChatGPT to do so, including a case in Quebec earlier this year.

A new plan by California lawmakers to help fund the state’s struggling journalism organizations could advance in the coming days but faces an uncertain future.

Assembly Bill 2222 would create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ, which in practice would provide direct cash infusions to participating newsrooms.

The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) earlier this year, is the latest effort to provide a lifeline for the news industry. There has been much talk both in California and globally about government support for journalism. But this is potentially the largest relief plan to date, with the state tax board estimating it would make more than $40 million available to newsrooms annually. The bill passed the Assembly and needs approval from the Senate to reach the governor’s desk.

Publishers, journalists and their unions have long argued that online search and social media platforms are harming the journalism business by eating up advertising revenue while publishing content they don’t pay for.

Previous attempts by California lawmakers focused on forcing Google, Meta and other platforms to pay their share, but this proposal has a unique solution to funding the program.

Ward described the bill as an important step in keeping a strong press corps in California, which he said is more important than ever in an era of digital misinformation.

Ward said the bill would “strengthen democracy” and “keep the lights on” in newsrooms. He cited President Trump’s own attacks on the press. “We thought, ‘What more can California do to help support them?’” he said.

Trump’s efforts to strip public radio and television stations of federal funds and the steep downward profit-losing trend for commercial newsrooms has meant, Ward said, that newsrooms have severely scaled back operations. Rural areas in particular have altogether lost their news sources, with many forced to shut down.

The amount of advertising to local newspapers declined by 82% — a $40 billion drop — since 2000, Pew Research Center said in 2023. And almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, according to an annual report on the state of local news put out by Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school.

A report last year by data firm Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News, a nonprofit advocating for government help for the journalism sector that is sponsoring AB 2222, estimates there has been a 75% decline in the number of local journalists per 100,000 of population in the U.S. since 2002.

The law, if approved, would work by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions would be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist headcounts.

To pay for the credits, the bill would amend California’s tax code to align with a little-discussed component of Trump’s “Big Beautiful” tax bill that expanded taxes on some companies by eliminating a deduction for executive salaries of over $1 million annually.

It is common practice for the state to consider aligning its tax code with the federal structure to make filing taxes easier and administering them more cheaply. But California has not yet sought to adopt this federal tax expansion.

As a tax measure, AB 2222 requires approval from a supermajority two-thirds of the Legislature, no easy task in an election year and with a fast-approaching deadline for lawmakers to approve bills Monday, which marks the end of this year’s legislative session.

The California Taxpayers Assn. and groups representing business interests such as the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the bill because it raises taxes on employers that they argue already face billions of dollars in new taxes. They contend that the higher costs will be passed along to consumers, and they also take issue with funneling a new funding source to a niche industry without going through the budget process.

“Financing an industry-specific tax credit with a tax increase on an unrelated group of taxpayers is an unsound way to budget,” the taxpayers association wrote in its letter of opposition.

Republican lawmaker Carl DeMaio of San Diego has vocalized his opposition in discussions of the bill, criticizing the idea of providing funding to outlets that make political endorsements. DeMaio did not provide a response to a request for comment about his current position on the proposal.

The bill’s backers are hopeful it will wriggle through this legislative session and land on the governor’s desk.

Yet they are not sure whether Newsom will sign it. In the past, Newsom has been reluctant to greenlight laws that tinker with the state budget after those fiscal discussions conclude in the first half of the calendar year.

The governor’s finance office issued an analysis opposing the bill for not including a cap on the tax credits, thus creating “unlimited fiscal liability to the state,” and argued the bill mainly subsidizes existing activity rather than encouraging the creation of new jobs.

An analysis by the state’s Franchise Tax Board — the agency that levies personal and corporate income taxes — found that the funding stream would bring $29 million in new revenue to the state’s general fund in the 2026-27 year and $58 million the following year.

Meanwhile, the estimated amount of the tax credit for local news organizations would be $19 million the first year and $43 million the second year. After accounting for the tax credits as well as the administrative costs, the budget would still see a net increase of $10 million and $15 million in those years.

“It’s fully paid for,” said former state senator Steven Glazer, who is a passionate proponent of the bill. Glazer during his Senate term pushed similar legislation that was ultimately shelved in a deal with tech giants.

In recent years California lawmakers have also weighed tax credits for Hollywood jobs. In June, lawmakers approved a major expansion of the funding allocated each year to the state’s film and television tax credit program, moving to raise that cap to $750 million from $330 million. The legislature is also considering a bill that would provide some $100 million in annual funding to post-production work.

The newsroom bill is designed specifically so as to be as neutral as possible on the medium — whether print newspapers, digital news sites, ethnic media or television broadcasters — as well as the business model of the newsroom — whether for-profit, nonprofit or publicly subsidized. The point is to prevent the government from having strong influence or being able to pick winners and losers in the industry, said Matt Pearce, a director of policy for bill sponsor Rebuild Local News, which successfully backed similar legislation in Illinois.

“You have practically the whole range of the local news world represented in some form. Big, little, independent,” Pearce said.

Pearce formerly worked as a reporter at The Times, and served as president of Media Guild of the West, the union that represents Times journalists.

The bill is also supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.

Bogota, Colombia – Opposition politicians and migrant communities in Colombia have decried President Abelardo de la Espriella’s plan to launch a deportation campaign against foreign nationals living irregularly in the country.

De la Espriella unveiled the crackdown during a security council meeting on Sunday, ordering police to begin operations as soon as this week.

The policy is expected to primarily affect Venezuelans, by far the largest migrant population in Colombia.

It marks a stark departure from measures under previous administrations, which largely sought to create legal immigration pathways for those fleeing hardship in neighbouring Venezuela.

“I will not accept any illegal immigrants, wherever they come from,” said de la Espriella in a video shared on the social media platform X on Sunday evening. “They will have to leave and be deported. It is a political decision I am taking responsibility for.”

The far-right president – who was inaugurated earlier this month – said his government will first target those “committing crimes” and then those whose “status has not been regularised”.

While de la Espriella did not address any specific nationalities, some 95 percent of Colombia’s migrant population are Venezuelan, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental group.

Approximately 2.8 million Venezuelans reside in Colombia, making it home to the largest Venezuelan migrant community in the world.

While nearly 2 million have a Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) authorising them to live in the country, an estimated 500,000 lack permission to be in Colombia, according to migration authorities. Many of them were granted temporary permits that have since expired.

De la Espriella, a political outsider, pledged to tackle illegal immigration during his presidential campaign, his first bid for elected office.

The former lawyer has aligned himself with right-wing leaders such as US President Donald Trump, who initiated his own deportation campaign in the United States.

De la Espriella’s declaration on Sunday triggered uproar among opposition leaders, including leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda, who narrowly lost the presidency in a June run-off. He leads the Historic Pact, the largest party in Colombia’s Congress.

“Today, de la Espriella has added xenophobia to all the authoritarian, despotic and discriminatory traits of his policies,” Cepeda wrote on X.

Cepeda then accused de la Espriella of failing to protect Colombian deportees from the United States.

“De la Espriella is bold enough to target migrants from Latin American countries in Colombia, yet cowardly when it comes to protecting our fellow migrants in the United States,” he said.

Maria del Mar Pizarro, a Historic Pact congresswoman, also denounced de la Espriella’s plans in an interview with Al Jazeera. She questioned whether the deportation campaign was about security or discrimination.

“Foreign nationals who commit crimes must be prosecuted,” she said. “But persecuting and deporting someone — simply because their immigration status is not in order — is populism, not security.”

Given the porous nature of the roughly 2,200-kilometre (1,370-mile) land border between the two countries, Pizarro added that there is little to stop deported Venezuelans from returning to Colombia.

“Without border control, legalisation and intelligence efforts against criminal gangs, the government pays for the deportation, and the problem returns,” she said.

Venezuelan diaspora fears policy implications

De la Espriella has announced that the deportation operation will begin with a pilot programme in the coastal city of Barranquilla, which is home to an estimated 182,000 Venezuelans.

Members of the Venezuelan diaspora in the city, however, fear that the crackdown will feed into stereotypes about their community.

“We must not confuse irregular immigration status with criminality. They are two completely different things,” said Juan Carlos Viloria Doria, the vice president of Venezuelans in Barranquilla, a migrant advocacy organisation.

While he backed the need to prosecute those who commit crimes, he said the law should apply to everyone “independent of nationality”.

Viloria also noted that many migrants could face political persecution if deported back to Venezuela.

Experts at the United Nations and other human rights watchdogs have accused the Venezuelan government of “repressive” activities, including the arbitrary detention and torture of political dissidents.

“We have people who left because they believed their lives, their freedom, or their safety were at risk,” Viloria explained. “Added to that are the economic, social and humanitarian conditions that Venezuela still faces.”

Despite being home to the world’s largest petroleum reserves, Venezuela has suffered from a plummeting gross domestic product (GDP) and rampant hyperinflation in the past decade.

Critics of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) say it has presided over chronic economic mismanagement, funnelling oil profits to a small elite while underfunding public services.

The Venezuelan government, however, argues it has been constrained by US sanctions, which have affected oil revenue, trade and foreign investment.

Faced with Venezuela’s economic crisis and threats of political persecution, some 7.6 million citizens have left the country since 2014, according to the UN.

Ronald Vergara moved to Colombia in 2016 and founded Fundacion Hermanos Caminantes, a nongovernmental organisation that supports recently arrived migrants. He fears how de la Espriella’s crackdown may harm an already struggling community.

“It would truly be inhumane to deport people who came here to survive and to work – decent people, who account for the majority of us,” he told Al Jazeera.

Despite living in Colombia for 10 years, Vergara was only granted a Temporary Protection Permit a few months ago, due to delays in the system. He said that residing in Colombia without papers limited his opportunities.

“I always felt excluded. I was never able to get a job that paid a decent wage,” he explained.

Vergara also said he has seen cases where those who had a Temporary Protection Permit lost their legal status because their identity card was lost or stolen. Thousands of others are still waiting to be granted their papers, including his son.

“He’s 17 and about to graduate from high school, but he can’t graduate without the PPT,” said Vergara.

A departure from political tradition

De la Espriella’s announcement heralds a new era of anti-immigrant politics in Colombia, according to experts.

Since the Venezuelan migration crisis began, successive administrations in Bogota have responded by offering new arrivals assistance and opportunities for integration.

In 2017, for instance, then-President Juan Manuel Santos introduced a two-year temporary permit for Venezuelans called the Special Permit of Permanence and bolstered humanitarian assistance on the border.

His successor, right-wing leader Ivan Duque, severed relations with Caracas in 2019, closing the land border to vehicular traffic and suspending air travel. But he still offered migrants the chance to remain in Colombia by rolling out the PPT in 2021.

Most recently, Colombia’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, presided over a thaw in bilateral relations with Venezuela and adopted a pro-migrant stance. His presidency ended this year, with de la Espriella’s victory.

Ronal Rodriguez, a spokesperson at the Venezuela Observatory, a research centre at Bogota’s Rosario University, said de la Espriella’s policies interrupt a years-long trend.

“Everyone had a favourable stance toward migration and, in particular, used language that promoted integration,” Rodriguez explained.

“Unfortunately, I believe that this ends – for the moment – with what President Abelardo de la Espriella is now saying.”

While the president has pledged a crackdown on irregular migrants, the full details of his deportation platform have yet to be revealed.

For Rodriguez, de la Espriella may yet back down from his bold declarations.

He hopes that the president will “reconsider and return to the Colombian government’s policy of integration”.

THE new Ali G film is facing a cinema boycott as a major UK chain “have no plans” to show the sequel.

The movie mockumentary revives Sacha Baron Cohen‘s famous character after the original movie was unveiled 24 years ago.

The brand new film, Ali G: Who Iz I?, sees Sacha play the character once more in a ‘real-life’ setting.

But in a surprise move, Picturehouse Cinemas, which has 25 cinemas across the UK, will not show the upcoming film after its release in October.

Media watchdog NewsCord demanded cinemas to refuse to screen the film due to “satire using a cover for enforcing racist stereotypes”.

The platform claimed Baron Cohen had “enforced harmful stereotypes across marginalised communities through his characters”.

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So far they have sent around 27, 000 emails from supporters to cinemas nationwide to stress their concerns.

In a statement, Picturehouse confirmed to Metro: “We currently do not have any plans to screen this film on its release.”

NewsCord also claimed that the film’s studio Amazon MGM had “revived a racist caricature”.

Joining Ali G in the flick will be his girlfriend, Julie, played by actress and impressionist, Morgana Robinson.

She filmed the role alongside Sacha in secret over the course of a year and replaces EastEnders star Kellie Bright in the part.

In the movie, she will be revealed to be eight months pregnant – something that the characters struggle to get their head around.

In one of the clips from the film’s preview, they can be seen at a doctor’s office with Ali G begging the doctor to simply say that Julie is “bloated” and not actually pregnant – despite her visible baby bump.

He later puts her positive pregnancy test in his mouth and pretends to use it as a vape.

Elsewhere, the trailer sees Ali G poking fun at Ed Sheeran as he remarks on what the world has ‘survived’ since the original movie’s release in 2002 and insisted things had “turned to c**p”.

Speaking in the trailer, he said: “I’ve been gone for 20 years, chilling.

“And in that time, the world went to c**p.

“There’s been Wars. Covid. And Ed Sheeran.”

He continued: “I’m going to get back on top with a brand new thing called a ‘documentary.’

“For the first time ever, this is with real people not actors. For more than a year we let the cameras follow me everywhere.

“Nothing was off limits.”

The film is expected to be released in cinemas on October 23 with the movie being distributed by Amazon MGM.

The character was first introduced by Sacha on Channel 4‘s The 11 O’Clock Show in 1998 before the character became even more widely known for the 2000 sketch comedy series, Da Ali G Show.

Carlos Alcaraz will start his US Open title defence against Russia’s Roman Safiullin in the first serious examination of his fitness following a long-term wrist injury.

Second seed Alcaraz, who won the men’s title in New York last year, has not played a competitive singles match for more than four months because of inflammation in his playing right wrist.

Despite his lack of action, the 23-year-old Spaniard is still considered by many as the favourite to triumph again – particularly because his great rival Jannik Sinner is not playing due to a knee injury.

The pair may have been a cut above the rest of the tour for the past two seasons, but Alcaraz coming back from a prolonged absence with such a delicate injury and beating the rest of the field – even though he is a generational talent – would be remarkable.

The seven-time major champion missed this season’s French Open and Wimbledon as a result of the issue, which did not require surgery, before making his return to court in the US Open mixed doubles alongside Serena Williams earlier this week.

Wearing a long compression sleeve on his right arm, Alcaraz did not look totally convincing in the exhibition-like event. Understandably, he appeared to be holding back on his serve and return as he eased himself back into matchplay.

There is no doubt that a Grand Slam singles bout played over five sets will be another step up physically. Safiullin, with a hefty serve and attacking groundstrokes, is not an ideal opponent to start against.

The 29-year-old Russian, who reached the Wimbledon fourth round last month before falling to Novak Djokovic, is likely to take time away from Alcaraz, test the Spaniard’s durability at the baseline and generally make him feel uncomfortable.

Predicting how Slam draws will pan out is always a fool’s errand, but if Alcaraz does get past Safiullin and goes as far as the fourth round, there are more potential opponents who appear daunting given the length of his absence.

If you analyse Alcaraz’s projected draw by the seedings, he could face rock solid American Tommy Paul or unpredictable Kazak Alexander Bublik in the last 16.

Athletic Frenchman Arthur Fils and huge-serving Ben Shelton are potential quarter-final opponents. Djokovic could lie in wait in the semi-finals.

Nobody outside of Alcaraz and his core team knows how his wrist is likely to stand up to the rigours of playing five-set matches in the heat of a Grand Slam tournament.

A challenging start at Flushing Meadows and a potentially intimidating second week will tell us.

STRIKES at one of Spain’s busiest airports have already caused problems for holidaymakers – and could continue into next month.

Groundforce workers who cover ground-handling services, check-in and boarding started indefinite industrial action in early August with no end date in sight.

The strikes have been heavily impacting Barcelona El Prat which is Spain’s second busiest airport.

Due to the strike action by Groundforce, it’s been estimated that 11,600 flights and close to two million passengers could be exposed to the action across the two months.

Indefinite industrial action started on August 4 and has continued across the summer holidays with warnings that it’s set to continue.

Groundforce workers at Barcelona El Prat cover ground-handling services including check-in, boarding, ramp operations and flight coordination for 20 airlines at the airport.

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Airlines that use Groundforce include Lufthansa, Air France/KLM, Turkish Airlines and Finnair.

Many airlines fly from the UK to Barcelona including Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet and Vueling.

While they don’t use Groundforce, passengers could still be impacted by delays and queues in the airport.

The strike has had an impact on services with the CGT union reported 250 cancelled flights and 6,000 affected bags between August 4-18.

Talking to Breaking Travel News, Jürgen Himmelmann, Co-Founder of Global Work & Travel, said: “The important thing for anyone with a Barcelona trip coming up is that this strike doesn’t currently have a fixed end date.

“If you’re travelling in September, don’t assume that because your holiday is a few weeks away the issue will have been resolved by then.

“That doesn’t mean your flight will be disrupted, but it does mean it’s worth preparing now. Check which airline you’re travelling with, keep monitoring your booking and think about what you’d need with you if your checked luggage was delayed.”

A minimum service requirement has been set by Spain’s Ministry of Transport during the months of August and September.