faces

June 18 (UPI) — Political and social tensions in Bolivia are intensifying two months ahead of the general elections Aug. 17, raising concerns the vote could be marred by violence, deep polarization and institutional instability.

The unrest began after Bolivia’s Constitutional Court barred former President Evo Morales from running again, citing term limits. His supporters responded with protests and roadblocks across several regions.

The protests have left six people dead, including police officers and farmers. Nearly two weeks of roadblocks and military deployments in key areas have drawn comparisons to some of Bolivia’s darkest periods of political unrest.

Óscar Hassenteufel, president of Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, warned in a recent news conference that “dark forces” are trying to prevent the election from taking place. He said public distrust is rising as electoral institutions may not be strong enough to withstand pressure in an increasingly polarized climate.

Despite the TSE’s assurances that the election date remains set after talks with all three branches of government, public uncertainty persists.

The absence of a preclusion law — which would block indefinite legal challenges to the electoral process — has raised concerns. The TSE has warned that without such legislation, the election could be suspended or annulled.

“The country is facing various challenges, and evidently, today our country’s democracy is at risk,” President Luis Arce said at a news conference in Santa Cruz. “Democracy must win. Social peace must win in our country against all destabilizing attempts to stop the election.”

Bolivia is grappling with a deepening economic crisis. Annual inflation was 18.46% in May, the highest level since 2008. Prices for basic goods, such as beef and chicken, have climbed nearly 24% over the past year. Protests over fuel and currency shortages have further intensified social unrest.

A joint report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program warned that acute food insecurity in Bolivia is expected to worsen in the coming months, driven by high inflation and declining foreign reserves.

“This is expected to further weaken import capacity and household purchasing power, limiting access to food,” the report said. It also warned that fuel shortages could disrupt agricultural activity and further reduce corn production, after already below-average harvest in 2024.

According to the U.N. report, as of October 2024, 2.2 million Bolivians — about 19% of the population — were experiencing acute food insecurity.

Any delay in the elections or attempt at electoral fraud could trigger widespread unrest in a country already strained by economic crisis and public distrust, political analyst Franklin Pareja said in an interview with eju.tv radio.

Pareja said rising frustration over the economic crisis has created strong expectations around the election, which many see as a potential turning point for the country.

“There is deep concern that everything in Bolivia is at risk and nothing is guaranteed,” he said.

A remote archipelago situated some 110 miles off the UK mainland was once home to a skilful community that lived off the land. However, 94 years ago – all residents asked to be evacuated, except one

A breath-taking UK archipelago stranded in the North Atlantic Ocean is under threat – almost 100 years after it was abandoned by humans.

Situated some 110 miles off the west coast of mainland Scotland, forming part of the Outer Hebrides, lies the ‘rare beauty and drama’ of St Kilda. Often touted as the ‘islands at the edge of the world’ due to its remote location, the archipelago consists of five unique islands: Hirta, Dùn, Soay, Boreray and Levenish, alongside a number of towering sea stacks and islets.

For around 4,000 years, the cluster was home to a community that lived off the land – isolated from the rest of the world but described as ‘much happier than the generality of mankind’. Due to the treacherous waters, fishing on the island wasn’t very feasible.

Instead, islanders survived on the ‘dense colonies’ of gannets, fulmars, and puffins – catching them for good, oil, feathers, and bones. However, over time, life became much harder on the island – and the population started to decline.

READ MORE: Tiny UK island ‘abandoned by humans’ after ambitious £3m plan axed decades ago

It is believed the islands’ contact with the outside world started to increase in the 19th and 20th centuries, tempting younger locals to immigrate to the likes of Australia and Canada for a better life. This, combined with bouts of disease that wiped out many residents, meant few able-bodied people remained on the island.

Towards the end of the 1920s, the crops failed several times – meaning many islanders faced starving to death during the upcoming barren winter. However, on August 29, 1930, the last 36 residents voluntarily evacuated the island – hopping on board a ship that would sail them away to their new homes.

According to the BBC, the only person who opposed the evacuation was Neil Ferguson, who lived at number five. “He was the only one to dig his croft ready for planting for a summer harvest, and was the last to leave his house, delaying for as long as he could the boat that would take them away,” the publication states.

After the island was abandoned, it took on a new breath of life – becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a haven for almost one million seabirds, including the UK’s largest colony of Atlantic puffins. Now run by the National Trust for Scotland, the archipelago is a popular tourist destination, attracting thousands of visitors every year.

“If you do explore the islands directly, you’ll have a rare experience of walking through a landscape abandoned by the entire community in 1930,” hailed Visit Scotland. “You’ll also visit preserved archaeological sites and relics, which reveal the close relationship the islanders had with their unique natural environment, and how they adapted to outside influences. You can see this up close in the remnants of houses, enclosures and cleits – drystone storage structures – remnants of World War I guns and communications.”

While many of the seabirds were hunted for food, they’ve been able to live a more peaceful life since residents were evacuated. However, they now face a much greater threat: climate change.

With rising sea temperatures, warm waters mean food sources the seabirds rely on – like eels and plankton – are shifting north, meaning they’re too far away for many seabirds to fly to. As a result, the colonies are dying out, with the Atlantic puffin ‘creeping dangerously near to the endangered list’.

“Seabirds are part of life on St Kilda” says Susan Bain, Property Manager of St Kilda. “They’re bound up in its archaeology and history, and with them, that’s disappearing. If it were a building, or a monument under threat, we wouldn’t let that happen. The loss of the seabirds will have impacts that we don’t even know until they take place – they are pieces of a unique and fragile ecosystem.”

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June 13 (UPI) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is in the final stage of a historic trial before Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court over his alleged role in an attempted coup following his 2022 election loss.

The trial, now in its final phase of evidence collection, will determine Bolsonaro’s legal fate and could end his political aspirations to reclaim the presidency.

Since mid-May, Bolsonaro and several former aides have faced legal proceedings unprecedented in Brazil’s recent history. On Tuesday, Bolsonaro appeared in court to respond to the charges.

Prosecutors accuse Bolsonaro of plotting to overturn the 2022 election results to stay in power. He faces charges of rebellion and attempting a coup. Local news media report he could face up to 40 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

During the hearing, Bolsonaro apologized to Justice Alexandre de Moraes and other members of the court for previously alleging election fraud, admitting he had no evidence. At one point, Bolsonaro even asked De Moraes if he would consider being his running mate in 2026 — the justice replied, “I reject the offer.”

Bolsonaro admitted discussing with advisers and military leaders the possibility of finding a “legal mechanism” to overturn Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election victory, but insisted, “There was never a possibility of a coup in my government.”

That statement, though defiant, could alienate parts of Bolsonaro’s base who continue to defend the Jan. 8, 2023, rioters, said Bruno Pazos Barboz, a professor at the Social Observatory of Rio.

On that day, thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brasília — just one week after Lula took office — vandalizing property and stealing documents and official government symbols.

“This trial, which has drawn both national and international attention, is not only about individual accountability,” Pazos said. “It’s also a test of the strength of Brazil’s democratic institutions. That’s why what’s happening — and how it ends — is so important.”

Bolsonaro is already barred from holding public office until 2030 by the Superior Electoral Court, due to his baseless attacks on the country’s electronic voting system. A conviction in the current case could result in prison time and further extend that ban, effectively ending his short-term presidential ambitions.

Despite the charges, some of his supporters and political analysts have not ruled out his return.

A Genial/Quaest poll conducted between May and June 2025 found that 65% of Brazilians believe Bolsonaro should drop out of the 2026 presidential race and allow another right-wing candidate to take his place, The Rio Times reported — signaling broad rejection beyond his core base of supporters.

Still, “Bolsonarismo” remains active, said Pazos Barboz. The movement holds significant influence in Congress and maintains a loyal base that continues to mobilize periodically. Its rhetoric often centers on themes of “victimization” and claims of “political persecution.”

Two additional factors continue to sustain Bolsonarismo. One is the growth of Brazil’s Protestant evangelical population, a demographic traditionally aligned with Bolsonaro and estimated at about 50 million people. The other is the lack of a unifying leader capable of bringing together the country’s right-wing parties — a gap that could reshape the 2026 electoral landscape.

If convicted, Bolsonaro could appeal to the same court and possibly to the full bench. The entire legal process — including trial and appeals — could extend into late 2025 or early 2026.

WASHINGTON — The mission of President Trump’s extraordinary deployment of U.S. Marines and National Guardsmen to Los Angeles depends on whom you ask — and that may be a problem for the White House as it defends its actions in court on Thursday.

The hearing, set before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco, will set off a rare test over the legality of a military deployment on American soil.

While California has asked for a temporary restraining order against the government, a judicial decree ordering a full withdrawal would be extraordinary, scholars said. But so, too, was the deployment itself, raising the stakes for the judge entering Thursday’s hearing.

Breyer, a veteran of the bench appointed by President Clinton and the younger brother of Stephen Breyer, the former Supreme Court justice, could instead define the parameters of acceptable troop activity in a mission that has been murky from its start over the weekend.

In an interview, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta told The Times that he was told that Trump’s mission set for both the Marines and the National Guard in Los Angeles “is to protect federal property, functions and personnel.”

“The property part may well be compliant with the Posse Comitatus Act,” Bonta said, referring to a landmark law passed after the Civil War prohibiting the use of U.S. troops to engage in local law enforcement.

“If all the Marines do is protect buildings, that might be compliant,” he added. “But it needs to be made clear that they cannot go out into the community to protect federal functions or personnel, if that means the ‘functions’ of civil immigration enforcement conducted by the ‘personnel,’ ICE. That means they’ll be going to Home Depots, and work sites, and maybe knocking on doors.”

Vague mission set

Trump told reporters Tuesday that without federal involvement, “Los Angeles would be burning down right now,” suggesting their role was to confront violent rioters throughout the city. But that same day, Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot told The Times that Marines sent to L.A. County were limited in their authority and without arrest power, deployed only to defend federal property and personnel. The Los Angeles Police Department continues to lead the response to the protests.

Still a third potential mission set emerged within 24 hours, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a photo on Facebook indicating that National Guardsmen were accompanying its agents on the very immigration raids that generated protests in the first place. And White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times that the president’s primary motivation behind the federal show of force was to send a message to protesters — an effort to deter agitators in the crowd from resorting to violence.

Clarifying the true nature and purpose of the deployment — whether to protect federal property, to supplement ICE raids, to quell unrest, or all of the above — will prove critical to the administration’s success on Thursday. Breyer denied California’s request for an emergency restraining order on Tuesday, instead giving both sides 48 hours to prepare their case for the hearing.

“He’s the most well-regarded district judge in the United States,” said Robert Weisberg, a professor at Stanford Law School. “He will be very meticulous in asking all of these questions.”

‘Posse Comitatus’

Unprecedented though Trump’s actions may be, signs of caution or restraint in his decision to refrain from invoking the Insurrection Act could ultimately salvage his mission in court, experts said.

The Insurrection Act is the only tool at a president’s disposal to suspend Posse Comitatus and deploy active-duty Marines on U.S. soil. While Trump and his aides have made a coordinated public effort to reference the L.A. protesters as insurrectionists, he has, so far, stopped short of invoking the act.

The president instead invoked Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which grants him the authority to federalize the National Guard. Even still, California argues that Trump has overstepped the law, which still requires directives to the Guard “be issued through the governors of the States.” And the White House has suggested that Title 10 authority also justifies the Marine deployment.

“We expect an order from the court making clear what’s lawful and what’s unlawful, and part of that is making clear that the deployment of the National Guard by Trump is unlawful,” Bonta said.

“And so he might just strike down that deployment,” he added, “returning the National Guard to the command of its appropriate commander-in-chief, the governor.”

Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, said that Title 10 “requires a ‘rebellion or danger of rebellion,’ and inability of regular law enforcement authorities to execute the laws.”

“I would be shocked if a court determined that those conditions were met by what is actually happening in L.A. at the moment, as those of us living here know,” Arulanantham added.

Yet, by relying on Title 10 authorities and by refraining from invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump could save himself from a definitive loss in court that would probably be upheld by the Supreme Court, Weisberg said.

“I do think that Trump is trying to take just one step at a time,” Weisberg said, “and that he contemplates the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, but it’s premature.”

“There’s always the possibility he’s being rational,” he added.

Another front in California vs. Trump

For Bonta, the case before Breyer is just the latest in a series of legal battles California has brought against the Trump administration — cases that have compelled the White House to lay out evidence, based on truth and facts, before seasoned judges.

Moments before Bonta spoke with The Times, Leavitt told reporters in a briefing that “the majority of the behavior that we have seen taking place in Los Angeles” has been perpetrated by “mobs of violent rioters and agitators.”

“It’s completely untrue and completely unsurprising,” Bonta responded. “It’s what the Trump administration — the press secretary, the secretary of Defense and the secretary of Homeland Security — it’s what they’ve been on a full 24-hour campaign to try to do, to manufacture and construct a reality that’s not actually true.”

The LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, Bonta noted, have dealt with worse in the past, not just during major historic events such as the Rodney King riots of 1992 or the George Floyd protests of 2020, but after relatively routine annual events, such as the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the National Guard was unnecessary here,” Bonta said, adding, “They’re using words like insurrection and emergency and rebellion and invasion, because those are the words in the statutes that would trigger what they really want. They want the president to be able to seize more power.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: 9-year-old Torrance Elementary student deported with father to Honduras
The deep dive: Newsom, in California address, says Trump purposely ‘fanned the flames’ of L.A. protests
The L.A. Times Special: Brian Wilson, musical genius behind the Beach Boys, dies at 82

More to come,
Michael Wilner

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Tusk called the vote as he seeks to regain momentum after his ally lost the presidential election earlier this month.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says his pro-European Union coalition has the mandate to govern ahead of a crucial confidence vote in parliament.

Tusk called the vote as he seeks to regain momentum after his ally Rafal Trzaskowski was defeated by nationalist Karol Nawrocki in the country’s presidential election earlier this month, prompting predictions of his government’s demise.

Tusk, whose fractious centrist coalition built around his Civic Platform party holds 242 seats in the 460-seat Sejm, or lower house, is expected to survive the vote, which could potentially trigger early elections, not scheduled until 2027.

“Governing Poland is a privilege,” Tusk told politicians ahead of the vote on Wednesday. “We have a mandate to take full responsibility for what’s going on in Poland.”

He listed higher defence spending and a cut in his government’s visa issuance for migrants as major achievements since he took power in October 2023 from the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS).

But a win is unlikely to bring the “new beginning” the 68-year-old leader is hoping for after this month’s presidential race left his coalition rattled, raising questions over his leadership against a backdrop of surging support for the far-right in the country of 38 million.

Following the presidential election, there has been growing criticism that Tusk’s government has underdelivered on its campaign promises, failing to fulfil pledges of liberalising abortion laws, reforming the judiciary and raising the tax-free income threshold.

Tensions within the governing coalition, particularly with the Polish People’s Party (PSL), which advocates for socially conservative values and wants more curbs on immigration, could spell more trouble.

President-elect Nawrocki, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, is also an EU-sceptic who is expected to work to boost the opposition PiS party that backed him.

An SW Research poll for Rzeczpospolita daily showed that about a third of Poles thought Tusk’s government would not survive until the end of its term in 2027.

‘Is it the end of Tusk?’

Polish presidents can veto legislation passed by the parliament, a power that will likely hamper reform efforts by Tusk’s government, such as the planned introduction of same-sex partnerships or easing a near-total ban on abortion.

It could also make ties with Brussels difficult, particularly over rule of law issues, as Nawrocki has expressed support for the controversial judicial reforms put in place by the previous PiS government.

Ties with Ukraine could become more tense as Nawrocki opposes Ukraine’s membership of NATO and has been critical of the support for Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

Nawrocki is expected to begin his five-year mandate formally on August 6 once the election result has been legally validated.

The election commission has found evidence of counting errors in favour of Nawrocki in some districts.

Parliament speaker Szymon Holownia, a government ally, said there was “no reason to question the result”.

Tusk previously served as Polish prime minister from 2007-2014 and then as president of the European Council from 2014–2019. He resumed his leadership of the country as prime minister again in December 2023.

Bangkok, Thailand – A brief text message informed Chonlada Siangkong that she had lost her job at a solar cell factory in Rayong, eastern Thailand.

The factory operated by Standard Energy Co, a subsidiary of Singaporean solar cell giant GSTAR, shut its doors last month in anticipation of United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs on solar panel exports from Southeast Asia.

From Monday, US Customs and Border Protection will begin imposing tariffs ranging from 375 percent to more than 3,500 percent on imports from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

The punishing duties, introduced in response to alleged unfair trade practices by Chinese-owned factories in the region, have raised questions about the continuing viability of Southeast Asia’s solar export trade, the source of about 80 percent of solar products sold in the US.

Like thousands of other workers in Thailand and across the region, Chonlada, a 33-year-old mother of one, is suddenly facing a more precarious future amid the trade crackdown.

“We were all shocked. The next day, they told us not to come to work and would not pay for compensation,” Chonlada told Al Jazeera.

US officials say Chinese producers have used Southeast Asian countries to skirt tariffs on China and “dump” cheap solar panels in the US market, harming their businesses.

US trade officials have named Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, Taihua New Energy Hounen, Sunshine Electrical Energy, Runergy and Boviet – all of which have major operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia or Vietnam – as the worst offenders.

Thai solar exports to the US were worth more than $3.7bn in 2023, just behind Vietnam at $3.9bn, according to the latest US trade data.

Standard Energy Co’s $300m facility in Rayong had been in operation for less than a year, producing its first solar cell to great fanfare in August.

“I’m baffled by what’s just happened,” Kanyawee, a production line manager at Standard Energy who asked to be referred to by his first name only, told Al Jazeera.

“New machines have just landed and we barely used them, they’re very costly too – a few million baht for each machine. They’ve also ordered tonnes of raw materials waiting to be produced.”

Ben McCarron, managing director of the risk consultancy Asia Research & Engagement, said Southeast Asian manufacturers are facing a serious hit from the US turn towards protectionism.

“There are suggestions that manufacturing might exit Southeast Asia entirely if tariffs are introduced either in a blanket way, or that specifically address Chinese-owned manufacturing capacity in the region,” McCarron told Al Jazeera.

“The implications are significant for these countries; Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia accounted for about 80 percent of the US’s solar imports in 2024,” McCarron said, adding that “some manufacturers have already begun shutting down and moving out of the region”.

Unfair advantage

US officials and businesses have accused China of giving its solar firms an unfair market advantage with subsidies.

China was the largest funder of clean energy in Southeast Asia between 2013 and 2023, pouring $2.7bn into projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, according to Zero Carbon Analytics.

The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, a coalition of seven industry players, was among the loudest voices to lobby for a sharp rise in levies on Chinese imports.

Without a reprieve from the notoriously unpredictable Trump, companies affected by the tariffs have little recourse apart from the ability to file an appeal once a year, or after five years, once a “sunset review” clause takes effect.

Some observers believe the sector may never recover.

“It’s not just the low-skilled labour that was affected by the trade war; many workers in the solar cell supply chain are technicians, skilled labourers,” Tara Buakamsri, an adviser to environmental organisation Greenpeace, told Al Jazeera.

“Even if you make a lot of savings, solar cell exporters would still need to cut down on these skilled workers.”

Others take a more bullish view, arguing that, once the dust has settled, Chinese solar firms will drive the supply of products needed to meet regional emissions targets.

While Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam welcomed Chinese solar companies in part due to the large sums of up-front investment on offer, they are all also seeking to meet more of their energy needs with cleaner sources.

Before Trump entered office with his tariff agenda, Thailand had announced plans to become carbon neutral by 2050 and produce net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2065.

“A slowdown [or halt] in solar exports as a result of US tariffs may supercharge efforts in Southeast Asian markets by Chinese solar companies, which see the region as a critical and well-aligned destination for green technologies,” McCarron said.

“Leftover supply from slowing exports could be absorbed by domestic markets in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, particularly if governments use the situation as a cost-effective opportunity to rapidly accelerate policy initiatives that stimulate domestic solar.”

For Southeast Asia’s solar companies, survival is also likely to depend on governments cutting red tape and loosening the control of oil and gas monopolies over the energy mix.

At the same time, the US’s exclusion of Southeast Asian solar imports could hamper the shift towards greener energy in the world’s top economy.

“Thailand’s solar cell production is heavily export-driven and the US has historically been a major export destination,” Pavida Pananond, a professor of international business at Thammasat Business School in Bangkok, told Al Jazeera.

But solar tariffs will “also hurt American consumers and the green transition in the US as prices become higher”.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was met with sharp questions and criticism Tuesday by lawmakers who demanded details on his move to deploy troops to Los Angeles, and they expressed bipartisan frustration that Congress has not yet received a full defense budget from the Trump administration.

“Your tenure as secretary has been marked by endless chaos,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told Hegseth. Others, including Republican leaders, warned that massive spending projects such as President Trump’s desire for a $175-billion space-based “Golden Dome” missile defense system will get broad congressional scrutiny.

The troop deployment triggered several fiery exchanges that at times devolved into shouting matches as committee members and Hegseth yelled over one another.

After persistent questioning about the cost of sending National Guard members and Marines to Los Angeles, Hegseth turned to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who said it would cost $134 million. Hegseth defended Trump’s decision to send the troops, saying they are needed to protect federal agents as they do their jobs.

And he suggested that the use of troops in the United States will continue to expand.

“I think we’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland,” he said.

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing was the first time lawmakers have been able to challenge Trump’s defense chief since he was confirmed. It is the first of three congressional hearings he will face this week.

Lawmakers take aim at Pentagon’s planned spending

Lawmakers complained widely that Congress hasn’t yet received details of the administration’s first proposed defense budget, which Trump has said would total $1 trillion, a significant increase over the current spending level of more than $800 billion. And they said they are unhappy with the administration’s efforts to go around Congress to push through changes.

Key spending issues that have raised questions in recent weeks include plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security upgrades to turn a Qatari jet into Air Force One and to pour as much as $45 million into a parade recently added to the Army’s 250th birthday bash, which coincides with Trump’s birthday Saturday.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) quizzed Hegseth on deploying about 700 Marines to assist more than 4,100 National Guard troops in protecting federal buildings and personnel during immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.

She engaged in a testy back-and-forth with him over the costs of the operation. He evaded the questions but later turned to MacDonnell, who provided the estimate and said it covers the costs of travel, housing and food.

Hegseth said the 60-day deployment of troops is needed “because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops are prohibited from policing U.S. citizens on American soil. Invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to do that, is incredibly rare, and it’s not clear if Trump plans to do it.

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, told lawmakers at a separate budget hearing Tuesday that the Marines who have arrived in Los Angeles have not yet been called on to respond. He said they have no arrest authority and are there only to protect federal property and federal personnel.

When asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, whether a possible use of lethal force by the Marines could result in injuries and deaths, Smith said, “I have great faith in my Marines and their junior leaders and their more senior leaders to execute the lawful tasks that they are given.”

Pentagon learns from Ukraine but will cut funding

Committee members pressed Hegseth on Ukraine’s surprise drone attack in early June that destroyed a large number of Russian bomber aircraft. And they questioned the administration’s future funding for Kyiv.

Hegseth said the strikes caught the U.S. off guard and represented significant advances in drone warfare. The attack has the Pentagon rethinking drone defenses “so we are not vulnerable to a threat and an attack like that,” he said, adding that the department is learning from Ukraine and is focused on how to better defend its own military airfields.

He acknowledged, however, that funding for Ukraine military assistance, which has been robust for the past two years, will be reduced in the upcoming defense budget. That cut means that Kyiv will receive fewer of the weapons systems that have been key to countering Russia’s onslaught.

“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” he said. “We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests.”

The U.S. to date has provided Ukraine more than $66 billion in military aid since Russia invaded in February 2022.

What Hegseth has focused on so far

The panel zeroed in on funding issues, with only a few mentions of other entanglements that have marked Hegseth’s early months. They touched only briefly on his moves to fire key military leaders and purge diversity programs. And there was no discussion of his use of the Signal messaging app to discuss operational details of strikes in Yemen.

Hegseth has spent vast amounts of time during his first five months in office promoting the social changes he’s making at the Pentagon. He’s been far less visible in the administration’s more critical international security crises and negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Iran.

Hegseth has posted numerous videos of his morning workouts with troops or of himself signing directives to purge diversity and equity programs and online content from the military. He has boasted of removing transgender service members from the force and firing so-called woke generals, many of whom were women.

He was on the international stage about a week ago, addressing an annual national security conference in Asia about threats from China. But a trip to NATO headquarters last week was quick and quiet, and he deliberately skipped a gathering of about 50 allies and partners where they discussed support for Ukraine.

Baldor and Copp write for the Associated Press. Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., contributed reporting.

SHE’S on a roll. There’s no doubt about it.

After a brief flirtation with being a member of the Royal Family, Meghan Markle/Sussex/Mountbatten- Windsor/Spencer is flying solo.

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The reports that Meghan is now seeking to trademark future ventures in the hospitality sector for her As Ever brand suggest she is now fully invested in life as an influencer and entrepreneur.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But it has absolutely nothing to do with being royal.

Marrying Prince Harry fired her into global fame and now she wants to capitalise on it.

Somebody has to fund their Californian lifestyle, and Harry claims he has been financially cut off by his family.

After almost obsessive secrecy about their children and their home life, Meghan is now bombarding her growing band of social media fans with updates of what she, Harry and the kids have been up to.

To add some mystery, the children’s faces are obscured.

It’s a telling contrast to the pictures we see of William and Catherine’s young brood as they grow up.

Everything Meghan posts — from twerking videos on the labour ward to a family trip to Disney — multiplies the clicks and the potential revenue.

She’s turning out to be a shrewd operator — which perhaps she always was.

Again, I have no problem with that.

But to try to cling to the vestiges of her blink-of-an-eye time as a working royal is disingenuous.

So, Meghan, how about dropping the Duchess nonsense and the HRH which you are no longer entitled to use?

Be independent and successful.

Make your As Ever brand bigger than ever on your own.

You are an independent woman with a husband who adores you.

Just because he’s a prince doesn’t mean you have to hang on to the idea of being a princess.

You tried being part of the Royal Family and hated it.

Time to move on, which, I think, is what this is all about.

GERWYN PRICE claims he has plenty left in the tank – but won’t be content until he’s world champion again.

The 40-year-old won the PDC’s biggest prize back in 2021.

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Price proved himself king of the oche as he downed rival Gary Anderson 7-3 four years ago.

But he hasn’t made it past the quarter-finals at Ally Pally since.

Gezzy was KO’d in the final four of the Nordic Darts Masters by Rob Cross on Saturday.

It followed a successful Premier League campaign for the Welshman, reaching the finals at London’s O2.

Price claims he is more than happy to keep competing for the next decade at least.

And he’s made sure to put to bed any lingering questions of retirement.

Price told talkSPORT: “I’m sticking around for the next 10 years.

“I mean, one World Championship, it’s not good enough.”

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Price turned pro in 2012 after picking darts over rugby.

He’s been the winner of seven major PDC titles – but admits as time goes on, he may be forced to pick and choose events.

The Iceman continued: “I would never give up totally.

“But the Pro Tours and Europeans, depending on how many it’s going to be at that time, because it’s getting more and more every year, but I’ll stop doing those.

“I would never give my Tour Card up. I’d still do events and if they invite me to the Premier League and World Series, I’ll still do them.

“But none of the lower events and just stop the travelling.”

Darts’ hectic pro schedule has become a major talking point among the sport’s elite.

Nathan Aspinall recently branded the calendar “absolutely obscene”.

The Asp fumed: “For us to take a weekend off, I have to pull out events.

“So I’m losing ranking money because I just need a few days off.

“And I’ve done that over the last couple of weeks because I was in a tight position in the Premier League, I really wanted to make the playoffs.”

The former chairman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission is under investigation for alleged retaliation against a Sheriff’s Department sergeant who faced scrutiny for his role in a unit accused of pursuing politically motivated cases.

Sean Kennedy, a Loyola Law School professor who resigned from the commission this year, received notification from a law firm that said it had “been engaged by the Office of the County Counsel to conduct a neutral investigation into an allegation that you retaliated against Sergeant Max Fernandez,” according to an email reviewed by The Times.

Kennedy and other members of the commission questioned Fernandez last year about his connections to the Sheriff’s Department’s now-disbanded Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail, a controversial unit that operated under then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Kennedy said the commission’s inquiry into Fernandez appears to be what landed him in the crosshairs of the investigation he now faces. Kennedy denied any wrongdoing in a text message Thursday.

“I was just doing my job as an oversight official tasked by the commission to conduct the questioning at an official public hearing,” he wrote.

Last week, Kennedy received an email from Matthias H. Wagener, co-partner of Wagener Law, stating that the county had launched an investigation.

“The main allegation is that you attempted to discredit Sergeant Fernandez in various ways because of his role in investigating Commissioner Patti Giggans during his tenure on the former Civil Rights & Public Corruption Detail Unit,” Wagener wrote. “It has been alleged that you retaliated for personal reasons relating to your relationship with Commissioner Giggans, as her friend and her attorney.”

The Office of the County Counsel confirmed in an emailed statement that “a confidential workplace investigation into recent allegations of retaliation” is underway, but declined to identify whom it is investigating or who alleged retaliation, citing a need to “ensure the integrity of the investigation and to protect the privacy of” the parties.

“In accordance with its anti-retaliation policies and procedures, LA County investigates complaints made by employees who allege they have been subjected to retaliation for engaging in protected activities in the workplace,” the statement said.

The Sheriff’s Department said in an email that it “has no investigation into Mr. Kennedy.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Fernandez said that he doesn’t “know anything about” the investigation and that he has not “talked to anybody at county counsel.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” he said. “Who started this investigation? They haven’t contacted me. I don’t know how that got into their hands.”

In a phone interview, Kennedy described the inquiry as “extraordinary.”

“I think that this is just the latest in a long line of Sheriff’s Department employees doing really anything they can to thwart meaningful oversight,” Kennedy said. “So now we’re at the point where they’re filing bogus retaliation complaints against commissioners for doing their jobs.”

Kennedy resigned from the Civilian Oversight Commission in February after county lawyers attempted to thwart the body from filing an amicus brief in the criminal case against Diana Teran, who served as an advisor to then-L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.

The public corruption unit led several high-profile investigations during Villanueva’s term as sheriff, including inquiries into Giggans, the Civilian Oversight Commission, then-L.A. County Supervisor Shelia Kuehl and former Times reporter Maya Lau.

One of the unit’s investigations involved a whistleblower who alleged that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority unfairly awarded more than $800,000 worth of contracts to a nonprofit run by Giggans, a friend of Kuehl’s and vocal critic of Villanueva. The investigation made headlines when sheriff’s deputies with guns and battering rams raided Kuehl’s Santa Monica home one early morning in 2022.

The investigation ended without any criminal charges last summer, when the California Department of Justice concluded that there was a “lack of evidence of wrongdoing.”

Asked Thursday about the claim that Kennedy — who served as a lawyer for her while she was being investigated by the public corruption unit — interrogated Fernandez as a form of retaliation, Giggans called it “bogus” and said Fernandez “was subpoenaed because of his actions as a rogue sheriff’s deputy.”

Lau filed a lawsuit last month alleging the criminal investigation into her activities as a journalist violated her 1st Amendment rights. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ultimately declined to prosecute the case against Lau.

Critics have repeatedly alleged that Villanueva used the unit to target his political enemies, a charge the former sheriff has disputed.

In October, Kennedy and other members of the Civilian Oversight Commission spent five hours interrogating Fernandez and former homicide Det. Mark Lillienfeld about the public corruption unit, of which they were members.

Kennedy questioned Fernandez’s credibility during the exchange, asking about People vs. Aquino, a ruling by an appellate court in the mid-2000s that found he had provided false testimony during a criminal trial that was “deliberate and no slip of the tongue.”

Fernandez argued that he had “never lied on the stand,” adding that “that’s ridiculous, I’m an anti-corruption cop.”

Fernandez also fielded questions about whether he was a member of a deputy gang. Critics have accused deputy cliques of engaging in brawls and other misconduct.

Fernandez said he was not in a deputy gang or problematic subgroup. But he acknowledged that he drew a picture of a warrior in the early 2000s that he got tattooed on his body.

A lieutenant tattooed with that image previously testified that it is associated with the Gladiators deputy subgroup, of which Fernandez has denied being a member.

Kennedy also asked Fernandez about a 2003 incident in which he shot and killed a 27-year-old man in Compton. Fernandez alleged the man pointed a gun at him, but sheriff’s investigators later found he was unarmed.

In a 2021 memo to oversight officials, Kennedy called for a state or federal investigation into the Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail and its “pattern of targeting” critics of the Sheriff’s Department.

Then-Undersheriff Tim Murakami responded in a letter, writing that the memo contained “wild accusations.”

On May 30, Wagener questioned Kennedy about “why I examined Max Fernandez about his fatal shooting of a community member, his Gladiators tattoo, his perjury in People v. Aquino, and why he put references to people’s sexual orientation in a search warrant application,” Kennedy wrote in a text message Thursday. “I told him I was just asking questions that relate to oversight.”

Robert Bonner, chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, provided an emailed statement that called the investigation into Kennedy “extremely troubling and terribly ironic.”

“The allegation itself is rich,” Bonner wrote. “But that [it is being] given any credence by County Counsel can only serve to intimidate other Commissioners from asking hard questions.”

In April, Nandy said the 68-year-old sports media rights executive was the “outstanding candidate” to fill the position, despite not being on the original three-person shortlist.

She has now removed herself from the final decision, delegating responsibility to the Sports Minister.

Last month, Kogan told MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMS) during a pre-appointment hearing that he was being “utterly transparent” by declaring his donations.

The committee endorsed Kogan, but said he must work to “reassure the football community that he will act impartially and in a politically neutral way”. Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage warned that Kogan’s “past donations to the Labour Party will inevitably leave him open to charges of political bias in a job where independence is paramount”.

Kogan said he had donated “very small sums” to the campaigns, as well as thousands of pounds to Labour MPs and candidates in recent years, but had “total personal independence from all of them” and pledged “total political impartiality” if appointed.

A DCMS spokesperson said: “We have received the letter from the Commissioner for Public Appointments and we look forward to co-operating fully with his office.

“The appointment is in the process of being ratified in the usual way.”

Kogan declined to comment.

It has also emerged that Nandy has written to the CMS Committee and told them: “I heard clearly the Committee’s comments regarding David’s transparency and candour regarding previous political donations that he had made and the need for him to take concrete steps to avoid the perception of any bias or lack of independence from government.

“As a first step to avoid any risk of this, I am writing to inform you that I have delegated the final decision on the chair’s appointment to the Minister for Sport.”

Conservative shadow sports minister Louie French has previously said the failure to disclose the donations when first put forward for the role was “a clear breach of the governance code on public appointments”.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister added Kogan had been appointed through a “fair and open competition”, and the BBC has been told his donations were below the threshold that requires declaring.

The Football Governance Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament after being reintroduced by the Labour government in October, will establish a first independent regulator for the professional men’s game in England.

The legislation will hand power to a body independent from government and football authorities to oversee clubs in England’s top five divisions.

Kogan – a former BBC journalist who also previously advised the Premier League, EFL and other leagues on broadcast rights – said he wants to put “fans at the heart of the regulator” and help the football pyramid.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. “is never going to default” as the deadline for increasing the federal debt ceiling gets closer.

“That is never going to happen,” Bessent said in an interview for CBS’ “Face the Nation” scheduled to air Sunday. “We are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall.”

Republican congressional leaders have attached an increase in the debt limit to President Trump’s tax and spending bill, which potentially puts avoiding a default at the mercy of complex negotiations over the legislation. The U.S. Senate returns this week to take up the bill.

Bessent declined to specify an “X date” — the point at which the Treasury runs out of cash and special accounting measures that allow it to stay within the debt ceiling and still make good on federal obligations on time.

“We don’t give out the ‘X date’ because we use that to move the bill forward,” Bessent said. Last month, Bessent told lawmakers that the U.S. was likely to exhaust its borrowing authority by August if the debt ceiling isn’t raised or suspended by then.

Wall Street analysts and private forecasters see the deadline falling sometime between late August and mid-October.

Bessent also pushed back against a warning by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon that a crack in the bond market “is going to happen.”

“I’ve known Jamie for a long time, and for his entire career he’s made predictions like this,” he said. “Fortunately none of them have come true.”

“We are going to bring the deficit down slowly,” Bessent said. “This has been a long process, so the goal is to bring it down over the next four years.”

Czuczka writes for Bloomberg News.

As Israel’s devastating war on Gaza grinds on, pushed forward by a prime minister insistent that a goal of total military victory be met, the divisions within Israeli society are growing increasingly deeper.

In the last few weeks, as Israeli peace activists and antiwar groups have stepped up their campaign against the conflict, supporters of the war have also increased their pressure to continue, whatever its humanitarian, political or diplomatic cost.

Members of the military have published open letters protesting the political motivations for continuing the war on Gaza, or claiming that the latest offensive, which is systematically razing Gaza, risks the remaining Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.

Another open letter has come from within Israel’s universities and colleges, with its signatories doing a rare thing within Israel since the war began in October 2023: focusing on Palestinian suffering.

Elsewhere, campaigns of protest and refusal of military service have spread – a result of a mixture of pro-peace sentiment and more prevalent anger at the government’s handling of the war – posing a risk to Israel’s war effort, which is reliant upon the active participation of the country’s youth.

The war’s critics say that the man they oppose, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has become reliant upon the extreme right to maintain his coalition, and an opposition too cowardly to confront him in the face of mounting international accusations of genocide.

Powerful far right

It is important not to confuse the growing domestic criticism of the Israeli government’s handling of the war with any mass sympathy for the Palestinian people.

A recent poll reported that 82 percent of Jewish Israeli respondents would still like to see Gaza cleared of its Palestinian population, with almost 50 percent also backing what they said was the “mass killing” of civilians in enemy cities occupied by the Israeli army.

And on Monday, thousands of Israelis led by the country’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, rampaged through occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City, chanting “death to Arabs” and attacking anyone perceived to be either Palestinian or defending them.

Also addressing the crowd at the “Jerusalem Day” march was the country’s ultranationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has been vocal in his push for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, and the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Smotrich asked the crowd: “Are we afraid of victory?”; “Are we afraid of the word ‘occupation?’” The crowd – described as “revellers” within parts of Israeli media – responded with a resounding “no”.

“There’s a cohort of the extreme right who feel vindicated by a year and a half of war,” the former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera. “They think their message that, if you blink you lose; if you pause, you lose; if you waver, you lose, has been borne out.”

Growing dissent

Alongside the intensifying of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, which has now killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, voices of dissent have grown louder. In April, more than 1,000 serving and retired pilots issued an open letter protesting a war they said served “political and personal interests” rather than security ones. Further letters, as well as an organised campaign encouraging young Israelis to refuse to show up for military service, have followed.

Perhaps sensing the direction the wind was blowing, the leader of Israel’s left-wing Democrats Party, Yair Golan – who initially supported the war and took a hardline position on allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza – launched a stark broadside against the conflict earlier this month, claiming that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state” that killed “babies as a hobby” while giving itself the aim of “expelling populations”.

While welcomed by some, the comments of the former army major-general were rounded upon by others. Speaking at a conference in southern Israel alongside noted antiwar lawmaker Ofer Cassif, Golan was heckled and called a traitor by far-right members of the audience, before he had to be escorted off the premises by security.

Cassif, who refers to himself as an anti-Zionist, has long attracted the outrage of mainstream Israeli society for his loud denunciation of the way Israel treats Palestinians.

“There have always been threats against me,” Cassif, who has been alone among Israeli lawmakers in opposing the war from its onset, told Al Jazeera. “I can’t walk down my own street. I was attacked twice before October 7 and it’s gotten much worse since.

“But it’s not just me. All the peace activists risk being physically attacked or threatened, even the families of the hostages are at risk of attack by these bigots,” he said.

“Many people are coming to realise that this government and even the mainstream opposition aren’t fighting a war for security reasons, or even to recover the hostages, but are carrying out the kind of genocidal mission advocated by Smotrich and the other messianic bigots,” Cassif said of the finance minister and his supporters.

“This has been allowed by people like [Benny] Gantz, [Yair] Lapid and [Yoav] Gallant,” he said, citing prominent politicians opposed to the prime minister, “who didn’t dare criticise it [the war] and Netanyahu, who has manipulated it for his own ends.”

Cassif’s comments were echoed by one of the signatories to the academics’ open letter criticising the war, Ayelet Ben-Yishai, an associate professor at the University of Haifa.

“The opposition has nothing,” she told Al Jazeera. “I get that it’s hard to argue for a complicated future, but they do and say nothing. All they’ve left us with is a choice between managing the war and the occupation and Smotrich and his followers. That’s it. What kind of future is that?”

Inherent within Israel

Many members of the government and opposition have previously served in senior roles within the army, either engaging in or overseeing combat operations against Palestinians, and maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

Democrats Party head Golan was even previously criticised by the army in 2007 for repeatedly using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“What we’re seeing right now is a struggle between two Zionist elites over who is the greater fascist in different forms,” Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said of the political struggles at play within Israel.

“On the one hand, there are the Ashkenazi Jews, who settled Israel, imposed the occupation and have killed thousands,” he said of Israel’s traditional military and governing elites, many of whom might describe themselves as liberal and democratic, and were originally from central and Eastern Europe. “Or [you have] the current religious Zionists, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who [the old Ashkenazi elite] now accuse of being fascists.

“You can’t reduce this to left and right. I don’t buy into that,” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “It goes deeper. Both sides are oblivious to the genocide in Gaza.”

While resistance against the war has grown both at home and abroad, so too has the intensity of the attacks being protested against.

Since Israel unilaterally broke a ceasefire in March, almost 4,000 Palestinians have been killed, hundreds of them children. In addition, a siege, imposed upon the decimated enclave on March 2, has pushed what remains of its pre-war population of more than two million to the point of famine, international agencies, including the United Nations, have warned.

At the same time as Israel’s war on Gaza has intensified, so too have its actions in the West Bank. Under the guise of another military operation, the Israeli army has occupied and levelled large parts of the occupied territory displacing a reported 40,000 of its inhabitants as it establishes its own military network there.

On Thursday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz, alongside Smotrich, who as finance minister enjoys significant control over the West Bank, announced the establishment of a further 22 Israeli settlements, all in defiance of international law.

Smotrich’s announcement came as a surprise to few. The far-right minister – himself a settler on Palestinian land – has previously been clear about his intention to see the West Bank annexed, even ordering preparations to do so in advance of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, who he expected to support the idea. He has also said Gaza will be “totally destroyed” and its population expelled to a tiny strip of land along the Egyptian border.

For Shenhav-Shahrabani, little of it was surprising.

“I went with some others to South Africa in 1994. I met a justice of the Supreme Court, a Jew, who’d been injured by an Afrikaner bomb [during the struggle against apartheid],” Shenhav-Shahrabani said. “He told me that nothing will change for Palestinians until Israelis are ready to go to jail for them. We’re not there yet.”

Within the context of an enduring relationship dating back to May 1975, the establishment of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a regional bloc with an aspiration of transforming the elongated region along the Atlantic coast and stretching across the Sahel-Savanna bordering the Maghreb. ECOWAS sets out its broad operations incorporating politics, economy, security, social, and culture. The long-term goal is ensuring regional economic sovereignty and political unity among its twelve countries of West Africa.

Today, ECOWAS’s 50 years of its existence represent its marked achievement. It has lagged with issues of fostering strategic solidarity and commitments to its expected goals of sustainable economic transformation. As the regional bloc marked its 50th anniversary in May 2025, ECOWAS had a few achievements to show to the public but faced remarkable and daunting challenges, and these have raised questions about its future.  

On the stage of its aggrandizement, on May 26, ECOWAS officially launched activities commemorating its 50th anniversary in Praia, the capital city of Cabo Verde. The ceremony brought together high-level dignitaries, including the Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Cabo Verde, Miryan Vieira; the Acting Resident Representative of the ECOWAS Commission in Cabo Verde and Executive Director of ECREEE, Francis Sempore; the Director of the Multinational Maritime Coordination Centre for Zone G; members of the diplomatic corps; representatives of various municipalities; and ECOWAS officials in Cabo Verde.

Francis Sempore emphasized the importance of the golden jubilee, noting that “this 50th anniversary is a remarkable milestone — a time not only for celebration but also for reflection. As we mark five decades of regional cooperation and solidarity, we must redouble efforts to strengthen integration and foster collaboration for a brighter, united future in West Africa.”

Miryan Vieira commended ECOWAS for its continued presence and impact in Cabo Verde. Referring to the promotion of sustainable energy, she underlined the immense growth potential of the ECOWAS region and further called for a “people-centered approach” to regional integration that prioritizes human development and inclusivity.

The final launch was preceded by a press conference at the ECOWAS Representation in Praia. It is most important to remember here that ECOWAS’s golden jubilee commemorations aimed to deepen citizens’ connection to the regional vision, promote shared values, and inspire the next generation of West Africans to contribute to a more integrated and prosperous community.

Despite its excellent aspirations and objectives, regional security has been one of the main obstacles in the region. ECOWAS has seemingly been losing its decades-old credibility primarily due to its approach in ensuring regional peace and stability. The overarching combined narratives starkly pointed to this as its major weakness. The ultimate failure to comprehend the neocolonial goals of foreign powers has created deep cracks in ECOWAS.

According to our monitoring, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, on 29 January 2025, declared withdrawal from the bloc. The three French-speaking West African countries, currently governed by military juntas, have formed the Alliance of Sahel States, citing sovereignty concerns and dissatisfaction with ECOWAS’s responses to political and security developments. As the Sahel region continues to grapple with instability and conflict, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger sought other alternatives, and foreign powers are competing to explore and control the abundant mineral resources of these countries in West Africa.

The regional bloc still looks for mechanisms to resolve the security crisis. It has persistently come under fierce criticism; it slackens on its primary responsibilities. Some experts have called for staff changes, attributing them to deep inefficiency. In fact, its reputation has been at stake, and most probably, it needs new dynamic faces at the Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria.

On May 16th, the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC) and the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council (MSC) held their second joint consultative meeting at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which served as a strategic platform to strengthen cooperation on governance, peace, and security within the frameworks of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), the African Governance Architecture (AGA), and the AU’s Master Roadmap to Silence the Guns by 2030.

Opening the session, Ambassador Harold Bundu Saffa, Chair of the AU PSC for May 2025, welcomed the symbolic significance of holding the meeting and called for a deeper AU–ECOWAS cooperation built on mutual trust and joint responses to emerging challenges such as climate-related security risks, digital conflicts, and youth-led peace initiatives.

In his remarks, Ambassador Musa Sani Nuhu, Chair of the ECOWAS MSC, stressed the urgent need to intensify regional cooperation amid rising insecurity across the continent. He cited threats such as unconstitutional changes of government, terrorism, transnational organized crime, and humanitarian crises. “Africa stands at a defining moment in its history,” he stated. “It is vital that we engage in open and constructive dialogue to identify synergies and build a strong, united response to the challenges we all face.”

For his part, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, emphasized the need for inclusive and responsive governance, as well as stronger regional solidarity. “History will not remember our communiqués, but the peace we built, the lives we protected, and the future we dared to imagine together,” he said. Musah, however, advocated for the full involvement of youth and women in peace processes and urged Member States to make subsidiarity a practical foundation for trust and cooperation.

In his keynote address, Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, highlighted the importance of long-term institutional partnerships and regular consultations to secure regional peace and foster economic integration. “The AU PSC and ECOWAS MSC must work hand-in-hand on peace and security issues in West Africa,” he stated, commending ECOWAS’s leadership and achievements over its 50-year history, especially in conflict prevention and peace support operations.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the African Union and ECOWAS reaffirmed their strong commitment to strengthening their partnership in addressing the continent’s peace and security challenges through preventive diplomacy, mediation, and joint peace support operations, guided by the principles of subsidiarity, complementarity, and comparative advantage. Nevertheless, there is hope, most probably in the near future, to overcome these existing development roadblocks and make way for practical strategic development, as the countries in the region have both abundant human and natural resources under the umbrella of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Avelo Airlines, a struggling, Houston, Texas-based budget carrier, has faced weeks of backlash after taking a contract with the United States government to use its planes to deport migrants, the first commercial airline to do so.

Avelo, which started the deportation flights in mid-May, defended the move in an April 3 letter to employees, saying its partnership with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is “too valuable not to pursue”.

Founded in 2021, the airline has been in financial turmoil and was projected to have only about $2m in cash on hand by June, the trade publication Airline Observer reported last month. An Avelo spokesperson told Al Jazeera that that reporting is outdated.

The airline has not disclosed the terms of the deal with ICE but is said to be using three of its Boeing 737 aircraft for the flights. Avelo has 20 aircraft in its fleet.

At the beginning of 2024, Avelo reported its first profitable quarter since its founding but hasn’t released any financial results since then. Because it is not a publicly traded company, Avelo is not legally obligated to regularly disclose its financial status to the public.

Avelo’s deal was brokered through a third-party contractor, CSI Aviation, which received $262.9m in federal contracts, mostly through ICE, for the 2025 fiscal year. While CSI Aviation did not confirm to Al Jazeera the specifics of its deal with Avelo, federal spending records show the company was awarded a new contract in March and received $97.5m in April when the Avelo flights were announced.

April’s contract marks the biggest for CSI Aviation since it began receiving federal contracts in 2008. Until now, CSI Aviation’s highest payouts had come more frequently during Democratic administrations. In October under former President Joe Biden, the federal government paid out more than $75m to CSI Aviation.

CEO Andrew Levy has said Avelo operated similar flights under the Biden administration but the public outcry against Avelo this time is because of how Republican President Donald Trump’s administration has conducted deportations.

“In the past, the deportees were afforded due process,” aviation journalist and New Hampshire state lawmaker Seth Miller said. “[They were] not snatched off the street, moved multiple times to evade the judicial process and put on planes before they could appeal. In the past, they were returned to their country of origin, not a third country. In the past, they were not shipped to a labour camp from which no one is ever released.”

“These are, to me, not the same deportations as in the past, and any company signing on in April 2025 to operate those flights knows that,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

The US government has awarded CSI Aviation $165m for deportation charter flights so far in the current year until August 31, and that could be extended to February 26. The data does not specify how much goes to each subcontractor. However, the March 1 $165m contract was modified on March 25 with an additional $33.7m tacked onto it just days before Avelo announced its deal.

Al Jazeera was unable to confirm the specific dollar amount for the Avelo contract.

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

Avelo, led by Levy – an industry veteran who previously served as CEO of another US-based budget airline, Allegiant, and as chief financial officer for United Airlines – has stood by the deal despite the public outcry.

“We realize this is a sensitive and complicated topic. After significant deliberations, we determined that charter flying will provide us with the stability to continue expanding our core scheduled passenger service and keep our more than 1,100 Crewmembers employed for years to come,” Levy said in a statement to Al Jazeera, comments the company had also provided to other publications.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong pressed the airline for the terms of the deal. Avelo responded by instructing Tong to file a  Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. FOIA requests typically take several months to process. Connecticut is home to one of Avelo’s biggest hubs in New Haven.

Avelo declined Al Jazeera’s request for information on the terms of its agreement with CSI Aviation, saying in an email that it was not “authorised to share the details of the contract”.

Al Jazeera has submitted a FOIA request for the contract terms. ICE denied our expedited request for the contract terms, saying our request lacked “an urgency to inform the public about an actual or alleged federal government activity, if made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information”. The phone number ICE gave to challenge the request through its public liaison did not work when called.

“For reasons of operational security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not release information about future removal flights or schedules in advance. However, the removal of illegal aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States is a core responsibility of ICE and is regularly carried out by ICE Air Operations,” a spokesperson for ICE told Al Jazeera.

Several lawmakers, including Senator Alex Padilla of California and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have voiced concerns over these flights.

“Given the Trump Administration’s mission to indiscriminately deport our nation’s immigrants – without due process, in violation of the Constitution and federal immigration law, and, in some cases, in defiance of court orders – it is deeply disturbing that Avelo has determined that its partnership with ICE is ‘too valuable not to pursue,’” Padilla’s office said in a news release.

Flight attendants have also raised safety concerns, saying there is no safe plan in the event of an emergency and it is only a matter of time before a tragic incident occurs.

As first reported by ProPublica, ICE Air detainees have soiled themselves because they did not have access to bathrooms while being transported to prisons without due process.

ICE has denied allegations that detainees lacked access to bathrooms during flights.

Are financiers concerned?

Avelo’s largest investor is Morgan Stanley Tactical Value, whose managing director, Tom Cahill, sits on Avelo’s board. Morgan Stanley’s fund invested an undisclosed amount in the airline’s Series A funding round, the first major investment stage for a company.

That round raised $125m in January 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a US and global emergency. A subsequent Series B round in 2022 brought in an additional $42m, $30m of which came from Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley Tactical Value remains Avelo’s largest shareholder. Cahill, who has been with Morgan Stanley since 1990, has not publicly commented on the deal. He did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Avelo has also hired Jefferies Financial Group, an investment bank and financial services company, to raise additional capital in a new investment round, reportedly aiming to raise $100m, according to the Airline Observer, information that Avelo said is outdated.

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

A public image problem

Avelo’s involvement in the deportation programme has sparked intense public backlash. Upon the launch of the flights, protests erupted at airports in Burbank, California; Mesa, Arizona; and New Haven, Connecticut.

A Change.org petition calling for a boycott of the airline has garnered more than 38,000 signatures. Avelo did not comment on the petition.

“From a reputational perspective, someone in a boardroom somewhere made the decision that the hit to reputation wasn’t as important as staying alive,” said Hannah Mooney Mack, an independent strategic communications consultant.

Miller has taken action to raise awareness about the airline’s recent contract, funding two billboards near Tweed New Haven Airport that criticise Avelo’s participation in deportation flights. The signs read: “Does your vacation support their deportation? Just say AvelNO!”

“I love almost all of the things that aviation does in helping bring people together and connect communities and things like that. This is decidedly not that. And it rubbed me the wrong way,” the congressman told Al Jazeera.

“I certainly understand that from a financial perspective there may be a need. I happen to disagree with it from a moral perspective and think it’s abhorrent.”

Miller said he spent $7,000 on the billboards and 96 people contributed to the effort. Avelo reportedly convinced billboard operator Lamar Advertising to take down the ads, citing copyright concerns. Miller has since sued Avelo on First Amendment grounds. He said he’s fighting because he thinks people need to know about Avelo’s contract.

“I don’t like that this is happening, and I think other people should not fly Avelo as long as they are running these deportation flights.”

JOE Biden is facing fresh scrutiny over his health while in office amid his “aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis.

The former president, 82, claimed to have had cancer in a speech he gave three years ago – which sparked fears for his health at the time.

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Biden’s comments came during a speech about “cancer-causing” emissions from oil refineries near his childhood home in Delaware.

He said: “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer and why for the longest time Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”

Biden’s use of the present tense led to speculations that the president was suffering from cancer.

But these were dismissed after it was suggested that the comments were a reference to “non-melanoma skin cancers”.

Before assuming the presidency, Biden had a number of “localized, non-melanoma skin cancers” removed by surgery.

In November 2021, Biden had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion.

And in February 2023, he had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.

Non-melanoma skin cancer typically develops in the areas of the body most exposed to the sun such as the face, ears, hands, shoulders, upper chest, and back.

But Biden is now facing fresh scrutiny over his cancer comments following the announcement of his cancer diagnosis on Sunday.

This comes as Donald Trump took a swipe at his predecessor and said he was “surprised” the public wasn’t told long ago about Biden’s cancer.

The US President cast doubt on the timeline of Biden’s diagnosis on Monday as he said it usually takes a “long time” to reach such an aggressive stage of cancer.

Trump was backed up by a leading oncologist who claimed that the former president likely had cancer when he took office in 2021.

Dr Zeke Emanuel said: “He had it while he was President.

“He probably had it at the start of his presidency, in 2021.”

Biden announced his cancer diagnosis in an official statement from his personal office on Sunday.

The statement said that he was seen by doctors last week after suffering urinary symptoms, with a prostate nodule then being found.

He was then diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

The statement read: “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.

“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.

“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

A Gleason score of 9 means the cancerous cells “look very abnormal” and that the disease is “likely to grow quickly”, according to Cancer Research UK.

Biden served as US president from 2021 to 2025, with his term ending on January 20 when Donald Trump took office.

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Avelo Airlines, a Texas-based budget carrier, is facing backlash from both customers and employees over its decision to operate deportation flights under a new contract with the Trump administration.

Avelo, which has been struggling financially, signed a contract with the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last month to transport migrants to detention centres inside and outside the US, according to an internal company memo reviewed by the Reuters news agency.

On Monday, the airline flew its first flight under the deal from Arizona to Louisiana, data from flight-tracking services FlightAware and Flightradar24 showed.

Avelo plans to dedicate three aircraft to deportation operations and has established a charter-only base in Mesa, Arizona, specifically for these flights, according to the company memo.

The union representing Avelo’s flight attendants called the contract “bad for the airline”, and one customer has helped organise a petition urging travellers to boycott the airline.

US President Donald Trump has launched a hardline crackdown on undocumented immigration, including the deportation of Venezuelan migrants he accuses of being gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Immigration authorities also detained and moved to deport some legal permanent US residents. Trump’s policies have triggered a rash of lawsuits and protests.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was deporting illegal aliens who broke the country’s laws. She called the protests “nothing more than a tired tactic to abolish ICE by proxy”.

“Avelo Airlines is a sub-carrier on a government contract to assist with deportation flights,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “Attacks and demonization of ICE and our partners is wrong.”

On defence

The airline on Wednesday confirmed its long-term agreement with ICE and said it was vital to Avelo’s financial stability. It also shared a statement from CEO Andrew Levy acknowledging that it is a “sensitive and complicated topic”, but saying that the decision on the contract came “after significant deliberations”.

The statement added that the deal would keep the airline’s “more than 1,100 crewmembers employed for years to come”.

Avelo said it will use three Boeing 737-800 planes in Mesa, Arizona.

“Flights will be both domestic and international,” the company said, declining to share more details of the agreement.

Avelo, which launched in 2021, was forced to suspend its most recent fundraising round after reporting its worst quarterly performance in two years.

In a message to employees last month, Levy said the airline was spending more than it earned from its customers, forcing it to seek repeated infusions of capital from investors.

“I realize some may view the decision to fly for DHS as controversial,” Levy wrote in the staff memo, which was reviewed by Reuters, but said the opportunity was “too valuable not to pursue”.

Widespread backlash

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents Avelo’s crew, has urged the company to reconsider its decision, which it said would be “bad for the airline”.

“Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder any evacuation and risk injury or death,” the union said. “We cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”

The Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants labelled as Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Photos and videos have shown deportees in handcuffs and shackles.

Customers have also expressed outrage. Anne Watkins, a New Haven, Connecticut, resident, said she has stopped flying with Avelo. She and her co-members at the New Haven Immigrants Coalition have launched an online petition urging travellers to boycott the airline until it ends its ICE flight operations. The petition has garnered more than 38,000 signatures.

Watkins, 55, said the coalition also organised a vigil on Monday to mark the launch of Avelo’s deportation flights.

“Companies can decide to operate in wholly ethical and transparent ways,” she said. “Avelo is not choosing to do that right now.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, has threatened to review the state’s incentives for Avelo, which has received more than $2m in subsidies and tax breaks.

In California, Los Angeles resident Nancy K has co-founded a campaign called “Mothers Against Avelo”. She plans to lead weekly protests every Sunday in May at Hollywood Burbank airport, one of Avelo’s six operating bases.

AN ICONIC F1 grand prix track is at risk of being axed from the race calendar.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola could be set to host its last F1 race.

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The famous circuit is the host for this weekend’s race in the 2025 season.

But F1 president Stefano Domenicali has admitted that it could be cut from the calendar.

There are currently two races in Italy, the one in Imola as well as the Italian GP at Monza.

Domenicali has suggested that with the increased interest in the motorsport, it could prove “difficult” for both to be kept.

He told RAI radio: “Italy has always been and will be an important part of Formula 1.

“It will be increasingly difficult to have two races in the same country because interest in F1 is growing and it’s a situation we will have to deal with in the coming months.

“It’s hard for this situation with Imola and Monza to continue together on the calendar for long.”

The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari debuted back in 1981.

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However, it has previously been cut as it was left off the calendar from 2006 until it was reintroduced in 2020.

This was when the race was rebranded as the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

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No other country in Europe has more than one race but Spain will have next year.

This is down to the overlap between the new Madrid track and last year of the Barcelona circuit.

The USA has three races with tracks in Miami, Las Vegas and Austin.

Speaking in 2024, Domenicali admitted that some tracks in Europe could become rotational in the calendar.

He said: “We have some news to share very, very soon with regard to the possibility in the mid-term to have some rotational European Grand Prix and some other new options coming later.

“This is something that, of course, we will clarify in the due course.

“It is true that we have a large demand for new possible venues that want to come in.

“Our choice will always be balanced between the right economic benefits that we can have as a system and also to leverage in the growth of the market.

“That we can see potential that will be beneficial for us to grow our business even further.”

Meanwhile, ahead of this weekend’s race Ferrari star Charles Leclerc has missed media duties due to illness.

California is facing an additional $12-billion state budget shortfall next year, a deficit largely caused by overspending and that Gov. Gavin Newsom said was made worse by President Trump’s federal tariff policy.

“California is under assault,” Newsom said. “The United States of America, in many respects, is under assault because we have a president that’s been reckless.”

Newsom unveiled the forecast during a presentation Wednesday of his $321.9-billion revised spending plan that proposes walking back free healthcare for low-income undocumented immigrants, eliminating Medi-Cal benefits for expensive weight loss treatments and cutting back overtime hours for in-home supportive service workers, among dozens of other trims.

The new deficit comes in addition to $27.3 billion in fiscal remedies, including $16.1 billion in cuts and a $7.1-billion withdrawal from the state’s rainy day fund, that lawmakers and the governor already agreed to make in 2025-26.

The overall $39-billion shortfall marks the third year in a row that Newsom and lawmakers have been forced to reduce funding for state programs after dedicating more money than California has available to spend.

Newsom’s proposed cuts

Among the new cuts Newsom put on the table Wednesday is a call to cut back on his signature policy to provide free healthcare coverage to income-eligible undocumented immigrants.

Newsom is proposing freezing new Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented adult immigrants as of Jan. 1 and requiring those over 18 to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal.

The cost share will reduce the financial burden on the state and could lower the total number of people enrolled in the healthcare program if some immigrants cannot afford the new premiums. Freezing enrollment may prevent the price tag of the program from continuing to balloon after more people signed up for coverage than the state anticipated.

The changes offer minor savings of $116.5 million next year, with savings growing to $5.4 billion in 2028-29.

The governor is also following the federal government’s lead and cutting $85 million in benefits for Ozempic and other popular weight loss medications from all Medi-Cal coverage plans, while saving $333.3 million by eliminating long-term care benefits for some enrollees.

Newsom wants to cap overtime hours for in-home support service workers, according to his budget, to save $707.5 million next year.

The governor’s budget includes a controversial proposal to grab $1.3 billion in funding in 2025-26 from Proposition 35, a measure voters approved in November that dedicated the revenue from a tax on managed care organizations to primarily pay for increases to Medi-Cal provider rates. The decision is expected to draw pushback from a coalition of doctors, clinics, hospitals and other healthcare groups that supported the proposition, which nearly 68% of voters backed.

Under another cost-saving measure, the governor wants to shift $1.5 billion in funding for Cal Fire from the general fund. Instead, Newsom wants to provide that $1.5 billion from the greenhouse gas reduction fund paid for by proceeds of the state cap-and-trade program next year.

The governor’s budget proposes extending the cap-and-trade program — a first-of-its-kind initiative that sets limits on companies’ greenhouse gas emissions and allows them to buy additional credits at auction from the state, and he wants to dedicate at least $1 billion each year to high speed rail.

A spending deficit

The budget marks a continuation of years of overspending in California under the Newsom administration.

After predicting a lofty $100-billion surplus from federal COVID-19 stimulus funding and the resulting economic gains three years ago, Democrats have not reduced spending to match up with a return to normal after the pandemic.

Poor projections, the ballooning cost of Democratic policy promises and a reluctance to make long-term sweeping cuts have added to the deficit at a time when the governor regularly touts California’s place as the fourth largest economy in the world.

State revenues have exceeded expectations since April, but so has state spending.

Despite the shortfall, California has more money to spend than in the prior budget approved in June, and the governor and lawmakers still plan to take $7.1 billion from the state’s rainy day fund to cover the total 2025-26 deficit.

A “Trump Slump”

Though personal income tax and corporate tax receipts in the state came in $6.8 billion above projections through April, Newsom is predicting that overall revenues will be $16 billion lower than they could have been from January 2025 through June 2026 because of the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs.

The governor originally released the new information, which his team dubbed the “Trump Slump,” on the eve of the presentation of his revised 2025-26 state budget plan, seeking to blame the president for California’s expected revenue shortfall.

Trump in April implemented a series of tariffs on all imported goods, higher taxes on products from Mexico, Canada and China, and specific levies on products and materials such as autos and aluminum. The president has backed down from some of his tariffs, but Newsom alleges that the policies and economic uncertainty will lead to higher unemployment, inflation, lower GDP projections and less capital gains revenue for California.

California filed a lawsuit last month arguing that Trump lacks the authority to impose tariffs on his own. On Tuesday, the state said it will seek a preliminary injunction to freeze the tariffs in federal court.