Firefighters check the platform at Jongno 3-ga Station on Seoul Subway Line 1 on Jan. 23 after smoke was reported from beneath an uptown-bound train, prompting passengers to evacuate. Fire officials said the smoke was suspected to have been caused by overheating brakes. Photo by Yonhap News Agency
Jan. 23 (Asia Today) — Smoke was reported from beneath a subway train at Jongno 3-ga Station on Seoul Subway Line 1 on Friday afternoon, prompting an evacuation of passengers, fire officials said.
The incident occurred at about 2:38 p.m. on an uptown-bound train, authorities said. Fire officials said the smoke is suspected to have been caused by overheating brakes.
No injuries were reported.
Seoul Metro said it was returning the train to a depot for inspection and that northbound trains were passing through Jongno 3-ga Station without stopping.
Curren Price’s political career appears destined to end before his criminal trial.
Prosecutors first charged the L.A. City Council member in 2023 with embezzlement, perjury and having a conflict of interest in votes on City Council matters in which his wife stood to benefit.
A long-delayed preliminary hearing began this week, where more evidence against Price will be put forth and a judge must decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed. If it moves forward at the current rate, Price’s case is almost certain to drag on after he is forced from office by term limits at the end of 2026.
Price, 75, is unlikely to face prison time even if convicted — and he is expected to retire from public service at the end of the year after decades as an elected official in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Some of his colleagues have questioned whether his alleged impropriety should be addressed by the city’s ethics commission rather than a jury.
But with his preliminary hearing expected to last several more days, more evidence against Price is becoming public — meaning the consequences of the case may echo beyond the courtroom.
There are seven candidates running to replace Price in November, including his deputy chief of staff, Jose Ugarte. The crowd trying to upset Ugarte — Price’s handpicked successor and the current favorite to win — could seize the moment to shake up the primary field. Ugarte has also faced allegations of unethical behavior for failing to disclose income he made through lobbying and consulting work outside of City Hall.
Ugarte — who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article — has defended Price’s record as a legislator and denied that the council member committed any crimes. Ugarte recalled joining Price when he had his fingerprints taken for the criminal case.
“I was just heartbroken,” Ugarte said in November on the podcast “What’s Next, Los Angeles?”
“They’re going to find him not guilty and he’s going to be exonerated of everything,” Ugarte added.
Jose Ugarte is running for Los Angeles City Council District 9.
(Jose Ugarte)
The case could also complicate Price’s legacy.
He has survived a tumultuous and scandal-ridden time in City Hall, marked by colleagues getting marched out of office following federal prosecutions, a leaked racist recording and the continued success of young and progressive challengers unseating politicians of his generation. A conviction could see his name forever associated with peers taken down by allegations of graft.
The veteran politician, who served as a member of the Inglewood City Council and in the state Senate and Assembly, has called himself a “progressive, positive, inclusive” leader. He has supported higher wages for low-income workers in the city and has close ties to organized labor.
In an interview this week, Price reiterated that he never intended to do anything wrong and questioned the fairness of a prosecution over what he said was essentially a paperwork error.
“These offenses are built around the intent to do wrong and I had no intent, no knowledge of us doing anything wrong at the time,” he said.
No matter what happens in court, Price believes city residents will remember him for bringing jobs and affordable housing to the district, rather than the corruption charges.
“I’ve got a sophisticated constituency. They certainly know the work we’ve been doing around housing, around economic development… I think I’m going to be judged on how those programs have changed the atmosphere and the temperature in the district,” he said, referencing his work on green space initiatives, boosting wages and the construction of BMO Stadium during his time in office.
Curren Price speaks at a news conference on the L.A. Convention Center expansion along with local union members in Los Angeles in September 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Price, who grew up in South Los Angeles before attending Stanford, faces 12 counts of violating state conflict of interest laws by voting on city matters in which he had a financial interest, perjury and embezzlement.
Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted on items before the City Council that benefited agencies and companies that had previously done business with his wife, Del Richardson, and her consulting company, Del Richardson & Associates.
Richardson’s company received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from LA Metro, the city housing authority and land developers before Price voted to approve projects, grants and funding for those businesses and agencies, prosecutors allege.
The perjury charges stem from Price’s alleged failure to disclose Richardson’s income on state forms. Prosecutors say he committed embezzlement by claiming Richardson as a dependent on his city-funded healthcare plan despite them not being legally married at the time. The insurance flub cost taxpayers roughly $30,000.
Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, has maintained Price had no knowledge of the conflict and the payments to Richardson had no effect on his votes. All of the votes cited in the complaint passed by wide margins, meaning Price did not swing any council decisions.
In court this week, Schafler continually tried to paint his client’s alleged crimes as little more than clerical errors.
While cross-examining the top attorney for California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, Schafler pointed to disclosure forms where Price declared he’d received income from a developer in the same exact amount he’s alleged to have failed to disclose in one of the perjury counts.
The count, Schafler argued, related to income from a business that the developer, Thomas Safran, owns.
“His brazen conduct, even after the L.A. Times brings this to public light, is that he keeps doing it. His explanations might be to blame his staff, to blame Del Richardson’s staff, to blame lawyers, to blame basically everyone but himself,” he said. “But when you have these myriad criminal violations, all roads lead to just one person who is responsible.”
Witnesses in the preliminary hearing — which began on Tuesday and is expected to end next week — included former members of Richardson’s company and Price’s City Hall staff.
On Wednesday, longtime Richardson employee Maritsa Garcia and Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Higgins sparred on the witness stand over what information the consulting firm provided to the councilman’s office about possible conflicts. At one point, Higgins noted that Garcia had an attorney in the room, paid for by Richardson, and suggested her testimony might be “biased.” The attorney, Michael Freedman, declined to speak with a Times reporter.
Mike Bonin, a former city councilman, said he believed Price’s alleged malfeasance should be handled by the city’s Ethics Commission — not criminal prosecutors. One of the votes at issue was about a project in Bonin’s district that sailed through the council, with Price’s vote unimportant to the project’s outcome.
“Unlike every other homeless or affordable housing project in my district, this one had no objection. It went straight through. There was absolutely no controversy,” Bonin said.
Bonin said the criminal case never “passed the smell test” to him, and that it didn’t seem as serious as crimes committed by other city councilmembers like Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar.
Englander pled guilty in 2021 to obstructing a federal investigation into whether he improperly received gifts from developers while in office. Huizar pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion two years later, after federal prosecutors accused him of taking in millions in bribes and perks in what they described as a pay-to-play scheme.
“I felt like for whatever reason they wanted to find something against Curren,” Bonin said.
An employee from the L.A. City Ethics Commission — which accused Price of a litany of violations in 2024 — testified this week that Price would still have a conflict of interest even in votes that passed by wide margins.
After former Dist. Atty. George Gascón quietly charged Price in 2023, Hochman added two charges against Price last year and has pursued the case aggressively. His prosecutors have also tried to force Richardson, who has attended court every day this week in support of her husband, to testify against him. Richardson was described as a “suspect” in the initial investigation in 2022, according to documents made public last year, but she was never charged with a crime and has denied all wrongdoing.
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at the Loyola Law School, said Hochman should continue pursuing cases involving political corruption, especially given the recent history at City Hall.
But with Price’s career winding down and the charges not indicating a major financial loss to taxpayers, she questioned if the case has lost value over the years.
“The importance of this case can very much change over time,” she said. “He’s not in the same political space as when [Gascón] first brought the charges, and there might have been a lot of incentive to do it then.”
Hochman confirmed attempts were made to resolve the case through a plea deal, but they were not successful. He declined to elaborate on the potential terms. Schafler also declined to detail those conversations.
Price has no intention of stepping down before his term.
The race to replace Price is likely to be one of the more competitive in June, with numerous well-funded candidates. Estuardo Mazariegos is running to Ugarte’s left and has been endorsed by Controller Kenneth Mejia and the Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles. Also running is Elmer Roldan, a nonprofit leader who works to keep students from dropping out of schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Roldan was endorsed by Mayor Karen Bass on Thursday.
A dedicated group of supporters has flanked Price at nearly every court hearing. In the past, he’s held miniature rallies and prayer circles in the courthouse hallways.
Rose Rios, 80, who is the head of a homeless outreach group in South L.A., said she believes prosecutors are unfairly maligning Price and expressed concern the charges will overshadow his legacy of “building up South-Central.”
Rios said she will never accept a guilty verdict in the case, and neither will many of Price’s constituents.
“I trust him. I trust him with my life. He’s loved through all the district,” she said. “That many people wouldn’t love you if you weren’t doing the right thing.”
I’m going to introduce you to your new favorite chocolate chip cookie. It’s a sizable bronze round with big boulders of semisweet chocolate buried into the surface. The center is soft and chewy, with a lavish brown butter flavor that carries notes of toffee. It’s surrounded in a halo of crisp, golden cookie and finished with a sprinkling of salt. The cookie can go toe to toe with the one you make at home, and whatever other cookie you love around town.
“We had a cookie, but it didn’t work because it was too gluten-free tasting,” says owner Leah Di Bernardo. “I tasked Helen Cho, our lead baker, with using brown butter to make the cookie, and she did.”
Di Bernardo and her daughter, Gigi, run the Pasadena bakery, where the cookie, and everything else at the restaurant, is gluten-free.
In the bakery case, you’ll find tender, cheesy biscuits made with almond flour, decadent doughnuts topped with passion fruit, mini Basque cheesecakes with almond and coconut flour crust and wedges of vegetable frittata.
Di Bernardo transitioned out of a career in film production in the early 2000s to open Eat Marketplace in Temecula. She grew up on a small farm in Oregon, cooked throughout Europe in the ‘80s and ‘90s and was an early adopter of the slow food movement before it had a name, or a following.
“We choose to not be too preachy, but to gently encourage people to understand the connection of your food and the beauty of your food and what it can do for all of us,” says Di Bernardo.
The Pasadena bakery and coffee shop was mostly gluten-free when it opened near the end of 2023, but after feedback from customers, Gigi and her mother transitioned the business to completely gluten-free in 2024.
The biscuits incorporate almond flour, yogurt and eggs, based on a family recipe developed by one of Di Bernardo’s sisters. For breakfast, they’re split and used to cradle eggs, bacon and cheese.
The doughnuts are baked into small rounds and glazed with chocolate, maple, matcha and seasonal fruit flavors. Recently, a passion fruit doughnut featured a dollop of the sharp, tropical fruit in the center.
“All the baked goods have always been culinary driven, or farm-to-table, before it was cool,” says Di Bernardo. “We built really strong relationships with our farmers and anything that can be upcycled, we do it.”
A MAJOR railway line will experience significant disruption this weekend as engineering work is carried out.
Parts of the route, which serves one of the busiest airports in the UK, will be out of service until Monday, 19 January.
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Passengers have been advised to plan ahead as engineering works get underway on a busy rail route (stock image)Credit: NETWORK RAIL
Network Rail has confirmed plans to carry out essential improvements to the railway between Brighton, Gatwick Airport, and East Croydon on Saturday, 17 January and Sunday, 18 January.
This marks the second consecutive weekend of maintenance works on this route, with more closures scheduled for Saturday, 24 January and Sunday, 25 January.
The essential engineering works will continue over the next few months, taking place on selected weekends until Sunday, 10 May.
Additional engineering works have been confirmed for Sunday, 1 February, Saturday, 21 February, Sunday, 22 March, and Sunday, 10 May.
Network Rail has advised passengers to plan their journeys in advance, with buses set to replace the service on the effected dates.
These buses will serve Brighton Main Line stops between Gatwick Airport and Purley / East Croydon, as well as the branch lines between Reigate and Redhill, and between Redhill and Tonbridge.
In addition, a train service will run between Gatwick Airport and London Victoria using a diversionary route, calling at Clapham Junction.
“The busy Brighton main line is among the most complex and congested routes in the country, with the infrastructure being some of the oldest and most intensively used,” said Lucy McAuliffe, Network Rail Sussex route director.
“Because of this, we need to carry out this work to try to prevent delays to passenger journeys.”
The stretch of railway serves the Southern, Thameslink, and Gatwick Express services.
Key improvements to the route will include track renewal, a new electric conductor rail, earthworks, drainage repairs, bridge maintenance, and addition of road-rail access points.
A NEW railway line linking two major cities in the UK is set to be announced tomorrow.
Train travel across the north of England could be smoother and faster in the future if the plans go ahead.
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The new rail link is part of plans for the Northern Powerhouse Rail projectCredit: Alamy Stock Photo
Ministers are expected to confirm proposals linking Manchester and Birmingham as part of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, which is aimed at slashing travelling times and boosting local economies.
A plan to link the two cities as part of high-speed rail network HS2 was scrapped by the then prime minister Rishi Sunak in 2023 after costs ballooned.
Mr Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, had already scrapped plans for HS2 to extend to Leeds.
The original cost of the network was expected to be just more than £30bn but a leaked report later stated this could rise to more than £100bn.
Satellite images show Israeli forces repositioning yellow cement blocks hundreds of metres inside Gaza’s yellow withdrawal line.
Satellite images show Israeli forces repositioning yellow cement blocks hundreds of metres inside Gaza’s yellow withdrawal line in violation of the October 10 ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
Jim McBride, the Grammy-nominated country songwriter who partnered with singer Alan Jackson on songs including “Chattahoochee” and “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” died Tuesday. He was 78.
“Jim was a good man and a great and genuine songwriter,” Jackson wrote on Thursday in an Instagram story. “He understood country music and touched many with his songs. Jim and I wrote some of my favorite songs together and I don’t know if my career would have ended up quite the same without his help, inspiration, and encouragement in my early years. Thank you Jim, rest in peace.”
Jackson’s photo showed him and McBride as younger men, smiling and holding ASCAP certificates. In 1994, “Chattahoochee” won the Country Music Assn.’s award for song of the year and they were nominated for the Grammy for country song of the year as well.
“I am in shock. I am devastatingly sad. My phone has been ringing and dinging all day, so I hope my friends will understand I’m just not able to talk right now,” songwriter and close friend Jerry Salley wrote Wednesday on Facebook, noting that McBride died after a fall on Monday. McBride had texted Salley just hours before falling, the latter said.
“I’ll never know why he took a chance to write with me” when they met in Nashville in the early 1980s, Salley wrote, “but man, we hit it off, became instant friends, and loved being in the writing room together. He always brought out the very best in me.”
Though best remembered for his Jackson collaborations, McBride’s songs were also recorded by artists including Conway Twitty, Johnny Lee, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Alabama, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Kris Kristofferson, Randy Travis, Toby Keith and Dwight Yoakam.
“We will greatly miss Mr. McBride — may his legacy live on forever,” the Alabama Music Hall of Fame said Wednesday on Instagram. The hall remembered the songwriter as a “beloved Alabamian, songwriter, friend, mentor, and so much more.”
Born Jimmy Ray McBride in Huntsville, Ala., on April 28, 1947, he began writing songs a child, but didn’t get one recorded until much later.
“The songs just started coming in my head and after a while I decided to try it,” he said in an interview published by American Songwriter at the end of 1997. “I just thought I’d write some songs and bring them to Nashville and see what happened.”
He said he was always drawn to anything about music and learned early on that “that little bitty name beneath the song was the person who wrote the song.”
McBride’s first bid sending songs to Nashville didn’t result in instant success. He knew only one guy in town, songwriter Curly Putman, who served as a mentor.
“Curly gave me good advice and he was always very honest. He told me, ‘Unless I’m honest I can’t help you,’” McBride told American Songwriter. “I’d play him a song and he’d tell me what was wrong with it and he was always right. But if there was something there, he would be sure and let me know that I had done something right. And he always encouraged me to get another opinion, but I never did; his opinion was always good enough for me.”
He saw several of his songs performed in the early 1970s on the show “Hee Haw,” but in the mid-’70s he wound up tucking his dreams away and staying at his job with the U.S. Postal Service. Even then, he kept writing songs with Roger Murrah, who would be a Grammy nominee in the early 1990s for “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” recorded by Jackson.
He promised Murrah and others that he would return to Nashville if he got “that big lick.” Then came Conway Twitty, who wanted the song “A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn.”
“Roger called me one night and said, ‘I guess you need to pack your bags, we’ve got Conway’s next single,’” McBride told American Songwriter. “I quit the post office the day after Christmas, 1980, and then started work the first of January with Bill Rice and Jerry Foster. The only other writer they had was Roger Murrah.”
Events at that time were bittersweet for McBride, whose mother — his biggest musical influence growing up — died of cancer in 1981. She was buried the same day he was supposed to get his first music award, for “A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn.”
That September he had his first No. 1 hit, “Bet Your Heart On Me,” with singer Johnny Lee. And he fine-tuned his songwriting.
“I don’t think I’d ever had a bridge in a song until I moved here,” he told American Songwriter. “Another thing I had to unlearn was that I wasn’t Kristofferson. I cut back on the poetic stuff. I was writing a lot of stuff where every line had to be brilliant. Through the years, I learned to write conversational lines.”
McBride didn’t have a hit single again for six years, until Waylon Jennings recorded “Rose in Paradise,” his last No. 1 track, in 1987.
“I had songs on 14 albums and couldn’t get a single,” McBride told Huntsville’s News19 in 2023. “Randy Travis kinda kicked the door open and Waylon.” After that, McBride said, “Things started picking up.”
That’s when he met Alan Jackson, with whom he would have four No. 1 hits, “Chattahoochee” being the biggest of them.
“He said, ‘Will you write with me?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s get together,’” McBride told News19. “So, we got together and hit it off just like that. It was like writing with myself, really.”
McBride was inducted into both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2017 and was a past president of the Nashville Songwriters Assn. International.
But for more than 30 years, that hit song “Chattahoochee” was a part of his life — especially the one line at the beginning where it talks about it getting “hotter than a hoochie coochie” down on the Chattahoochee River, which borders Alabama and Georgia. Everyone wanted to know what that meant, apparently.
“Alan got tired of everyone asking him,” McBride told News19. “He told everybody to call me, and they did. When the county fair would come to town, there was always a side show with the hoochie coochie girls. So that’s what I was thinking. And the deal was if you were a young man, you’d try to get in there before you were 18.”
And why, pray tell?
“They’ll show you a little bit,” he said, “but you’re going to have to pay if you see any more.”
McBride is survived by his second wife, Jeanne Ivey, and sons Brent and Wes from a previous marriage.
All the new cruise ships sailing in 2026 from Disney Cruise Line to Royal Caribbean – The Mirror
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Royal Caribbean, Disney Cruise Line and MSC Cruises are some of the cruise lines preparing to welcome new additions to their fleets for 2026
(Image: X / @mspnorthernmi)
There are five new cruise ships set to sail in 2026, all offering the likes of water parks, dazzling theatre shows, huge pools, heaps of bars and restaurants, and of course plenty of sun-soaked itineraries for passengers. We take a look at the five ships that any cruise fan will want on their radar.
Royal Caribbean will be welcoming Legend of the Seas to its fleet in summer 2026, which will be the world’s largest cruise ship, a sister ship to Icon of the Seas and Star of the Seas. It will sail from Barcelona before doing a winter season from Florida around the Caribbean. The ship will boast heaps of entertainment but highlights are sure to include the largest waterpark at sea and a 40ft-long surf simulator.
Norwegian Cruise Line’s latest ship, Norwegian Luna, is set to sail in March 2026 from Miami around the Caribbean. The ship will boast waterparks, games arcades, its own beach club, and the world’s first hybrid rollercoaster and waterslide at sea. For the very brave there’s also The Drop, the world’s first free-fall slide at sea that plunges you down 10 storeys (and therefore definitely not for the faint-hearted).
TUI Cruises (based in Germany) is adding the Mein Schiff Flow cruise ship to its InTUItion class in July 2026. It will boast 17 bars and lounges, a spa, gym and reading lounge as well as a 25m-long outdoor pool.
MSC Cruises’ highly-anticipated MSC World Asia will sail on her maiden voyage in December 2026 around the Mediterranean. The mega ship will host up to 6,758 passengers and could rival a small city thanks to the bars, restaurants, theatre, water parks and rollerskating arena on board.
Disney Cruise Line’s fleet is about to expand with the addition of Disney Adventure, which will homeport in Singapore. With themes including characters from Disney, Pixar and Marvel, the ship will offer dazzling shows, deck parties, movie screenings and more. Restaurants will include various themes including Pixar, and Disney films Tangled and Frozen.
For those already booking their 2027 sailings, there will be another wave of new ships next year too. Disney Cruise Line, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises are all expected to welcome new ships in 2027, although they have yet to confirm names and full details of what will be onboard for passengers…
Have you got a cruise story to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com
Spirits. Cosmetics. Apparel. Fragrance. As the categories most closely associated with the rise of celebrity brands become increasingly saturated, A-list talent is venturing into new terrain — and taking on names like Clinique, L’Oreal, Kiehl’s and Harry’s in the process.
With the likes of Beau Domaine, Papatui and Loved01, male stars such as Brad Pitt, Dwayne Johnson and John Legend, respectively, have broken into the growing market for men’s skincare, which was estimated at $18 billion in 2025 and is projected to nearly double by 2034, according to Precedence Research.
“Beauty is almost becoming its own genre, like music and sports,” says Katie Martin, executive vice president and managing director of e-commerce and marketing agency Front Row. “It’s becoming more genderless, community-based and something people talk about and share.”
Even as men’s shaving products and fragrances aligned with celebrities — think Johnny Depp for Dior’s Sauvage — have long been accepted, there’s been a cultural shift when it comes to beauty. Quickly vanishing is the stigma of men buying and using their own skincare products. In many quarters, it’s desirable and even expected for men to care about their skin. And celebrity skin, often seen in revealing high-def and on the big screen, is certainly a model to emulate.
“Men’s personal care habits have shifted significantly in the past decade, and many more men are open to and interested in taking care of themselves, skin included,” says Allison Collins, co-founder and managing director of advisory firm the Consumer Collective. “This shift started with younger millennial and Gen Z men, but has stretched upwards — and now skincare is something many men are into.”
(Photos by Dana Richards / Golden Hours)
With Papatui, Johnson, whose long career as a wrestler and actor defines a certain brand of masculinity, hopes to change the perception that skincare for men is complicated. “That’s something we’re actively changing. Taking care of yourself on the outside is just as important as the inside,” he says. “Just like training, nutrition or recovery. Papatui removes the intimidation and makes it straightforward and focused on what men really need.”
Johnson founded the company after learning important tips from dermatologists over the years, which he says made a difference given his long work days, demanding training regimen and constant travel.
“I wanted products that feel good, are powered by high-performing formulas, and fit into a busy guy’s routine. I’m hands-on with everything along with our incredible team of experts,” Johnson says.
Another selling point is the line’s availability at Target and Walmart. “Dwayne Johnson’s line is super-approachably priced, which is good for today’s market when consumers are a bit more strapped for cash,” notes Collins.
Johnson is especially proud of the fact that he’s getting guys to use under-eye patches for hydration, brightening and smoothing fine lines. His own routine is pretty basic: cleanse, tone and moisturize along with using the line’s other products including facial scrub, antiperspirant and body washes.
(Photos by Tamera Darden and John Campos / Loved01)
After collaborating with other brands including Kiehl’s and SKII, Legend’s Loved01 launched in 2024 with a pop-up store at Westfield Century City and at CVS locations around the country. It is now sold mostly via QVC, on Amazon and on the company’s website. A TikTok shop launched in early December.
“We’re really trying to meet our customers where they are and adjust to the way they’re buying things,” Legend says. “We were getting much more traction through e-commerce and so we’ve really been focused on that along with television.”
The company just released its hydrating cream cleanser, joining other bestselling products like hand wash, face and body moisturizer, cleansing wipes and face and body oil.
“We believe that it shouldn’t cost luxury prices to get the kind of care that everybody deserves,” Legend says. ”That was one of the beats for the company from the very beginning, that everybody deserved great skincare with great ingredients and that are vegan and cruelty-free with wonderfully sourced ingredients from Mother Nature.”
“John Legend is famous for being a really good family guy and his brand is about increasing equity and how people buy into their family,” says Martin.
Pitt espouses a concept of simplicity in his men’s skincare routine — a three-step ritual starting with cleansing, serum to target signs of aging and then cream to lock in moisture.
Teaming with the Perrin family, winemakers in the South of France, Beau Domaine incorporates organic grape water, known for its soothing and moisturizing properties, into some of its products. The three-step regimen lists for $279 on the brand’s website, which also boasts enthusiastic reviews from users.
“Brad Pitt does have a higher price point, and you could say he’s leaning on ease, but it is probably much more about being premium. And of course Brad Pitt is premium,” says Martin. “He is obviously very well known for being very good-looking. They’ve been really smart there with the equity that Brad holds as a celebrity.”
Whatever the target demographic, all three companies are representative of the evolution of celebrity brands to include the full gamut of product categories and meet the needs of a changing marketplace. And with men’s skincare set for further growth, you can bet you’ll see more Hollywood names in the space before long.
The Israeli military has spent the past 24 hours expanding the so-called “yellow line” in eastern Gaza, particularly in eastern Gaza City’s Tuffah, Shujayea, and Zeitoun neighbourhoods, according to Al Jazeera teams on the ground, squeezing Palestinians into ever smaller clusters of the enclave.
The Israeli army’s actions on Monday are also pushing it closer to the key artery of Salah al-Din Street, forcing displaced families sheltering near the area to flee as more of them come under intensive threat, as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza shows no signs of abating.
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Israel now physically occupies more than 50 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Since the ceasefire took effect, Israeli attacks have killed at least 414 Palestinians and injured 1,145 in daily truce violations despite the ceasefire deal mediated by the United States on October 10.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said, “The ongoing Israeli attacks on the ground, the expansion of the ‘yellow line’ are meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering.”
“Everyone is cramped here. The population here not just doubled but tripled in many of the neighbourhoods, given the fact that none of these people is able to go back to their neighbourhoods. We’re talking about Zeitoun, Shujayea, as well as Tuffah,” he added.
“It was not until the past few minutes that the sounds of hums, the drones buzzing, faded away, but it had been going on for the past night and all of yesterday. Ongoing explosions that could be heard clearly from here,” Mahmoud said.
Intense artillery bombardment and helicopter fire also resumed on Monday in the areas south of the besieged enclave, north and east of the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
On Sunday, Israel launched more attacks into parts of Gaza outside its direct military control. At least three Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
A five-storey building belonging to the al-Shana family in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza collapsed. It had been subjected to Israeli bombing at the end of 2023.
Civil Defence teams are searching for missing people under the rubble. The Wafa news agency reported that at least five people were injured.
Israeli push to make Rafah crossing ‘one-way exit’
Expectations have heightened around the possible reopening of the Rafah crossing, fuelling both desperate hope and deep fear.
For many in Gaza, there is some hope it could offer a lifeline, allowing the sick and wounded to access medical care, reuniting separated families, and giving some people a rare chance to move in or out of the Strip. Some also see it as a potential sign of easing restrictions.
But fears remain strong. Many worry the opening will be limited and temporary, benefitting only a few. Others fear it could become a one-way exit, raising concerns about permanent expulsion, effectively Israeli ethnic cleansing, and whether those who leave will be allowed to return.
“Until this moment, there’s nothing on the ground other than the headlines we’ve been reading over the past couple of days, the expectation now that within days the Rafah crossing is going to open and allow for movement in and out of Gaza. So far, we know the Israeli military is pushing for Rafah to be just a one-way exit,” Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud reported.
After months of uncertainty, people in Gaza who have suffered unimaginable loss and destruction are cautious. Even the possibility of relief comes with questions and little trust in what will happen next.
At least 71,386 Palestinians have been killed and 171,264 injured since the start of the war in October 2023, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health. At least 420 people have been killed since the ceasefire was agreed upon three months ago.
The Israeli military continues to block a large amount of international humanitarian aid amassing at the Gaza crossings, while maintaining that there is no shortage of aid despite testimonies by the United Nations and others working on the ground.
Well, wouldn’t you want to know… We’d like to know for sure. As usual with Venezuelan constitutional matters, there’s no easy answer to this. We have to look at what is, what should be, what shouldn’t be but probably will be, and speculate what it would be like in the Upside Down.
During yesterday’s presser on Operation Absolute Resolve, Donald Trump very casually said that they (the US) were going to run the country. Not very clear yet what this means, but at some point he also said that they were talking to Maduro’s VP, Delcy Rodríguez (without naming her), and that she was willing to collaborate in making Venezuela great again. There was no mention of democracy during the press conference. If we want to be really optimistic on what they have in store for Venezuela in their plans, it’s likely that somewhere down the line they are looking at some sort of presidential election. This leaves a bunch of questions in the air, but the biggest one in all caps and neon lights: What about Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, who just won a presidential election by almost 70%?
There should be no doubt that according to Venezuelan law, González Urrutia is the president elect of Venezuela and he should be sworn in. Chavismo decided to derail us from the constitutional path once again when Maduro stole the 2024 presidential elections. Machado and her team have been trying to get the country back to that path, but they don’t only have to deal with Maduro, but also with the one calling the shots in the strategy to depose him: Trump. A harsh reality is that, from the T2 standpoint, a transition with the participation of chavismo is cleaner and cheaper than trying to enforce what the Venezuelan Constitution establishes.
Chavismo may be trying to apply chavista rules to a Trumpist game.
We spoke to the Caracas Chronicles Legal Eagles and asked them what the Venezuelan Constitution said and how it can be interpreted by the different interested parties. And in lawyerly fashion they said: it depends. Depends on what standpoint you’re using to look at it, obviously. Chavismo will look at it assuming that Maduro is legitimate and, of course, the rest of the country looks at it with Edmundo González Urrutia as the depository of the people mandate. The US has its own, independent, POV.
One important caveat: while chavismo steals elections and violates human rights, they do have a very strange legalist fetish, and at moments when one would think that they’ve thrown the book out the window, they come back saying that procedures have to be followed. This doesn’t mean that they follow their laws to the letter, but that they usually leave everything in writing even if they need to come up with far fetched, absurd legal interpretations.
Chavista Law
So, from the chavista standpoint, the capture of Nicolás Maduro by United States special forces should constitute an absolute absence of the President of the Republic. Although Article 233 of the 1999 Constitution establishes the circumstances that qualify as absolute absence—and detention by foreign forces is not expressly listed—it is evident that the current situation constitutes a case of absolute absence.
Because the absolute absence would have occurred within the first four years of the presidential term, a new election must be held within the following thirty consecutive days. In the interim, the office of president would be assumed provisionally by the executive vice president. Easy-peasy, right? Well, not exactly. More on this later.
Venezuelan Constitution
If the will of the Venezuelan people were to be upheld, the legitimate president, González Urrutia, should be sworn in. Therefore, the currently chavista-controlled elections authority, CNE, would be required to formally proclaim him to then proceed with the swearing-in before the chavista-controlled legislature, AN. Let’s be real, for this to take place, a larger amount of lead than what we saw on Saturday would be required.
If it were not possible for the president to be sworn in before either of those two instances, the swearing-in could take place exceptionally before the chavista Supreme Court. Not gonna happen.
Comment from one of the Legal Eagles: “If that were also not possible, the 1999 Constitution provides no explicit solution to the constitutional crisis. Under that scenario, one option would be to consider a swearing-in before the Delegated Committee of the National Assembly elected in 2015. Some constitutional law scholars have suggested that the swearing-in could instead take place before the Supreme Court in exile.” And then we would have another useless president in exile.
Reality (bites)
Yesterday, Delcy Rodríguez held her media event in a sort of veiled response to Trump’s. With the presence of the chavista top brass, Rodríguez said that, even when Maduro was under US custody, he was still the president of the country. Clearly, Maduro will not return and it’s an absolute absence that would require elections 30 days after the Delcy Rodríguez takeover. The Maduro Supreme Court (or perhaps now we should say the Delcy Supreme Court), prompted by her request to approve an internal commotion decree, said that they would not decide immediately over the absence of Maduro and instead granted her the powers of the presidency as if it was a temporary absence (according to article 234, temporary absences of the President are covered by the VP for up to 90 days, which may be extended by 90 more). Again, clearly Maduro isn’t coming back, but this allows chavismo to control the moment when elections should be called, if such elections are called at all. In the past they’ve used similar techniques to win time (for instance, there’s no certainty over the moment of death of Chávez, but elections were held within the timeline from the moment it was announced).
Is this a challenge to what the Trump administration is putting on the table? It’s not clear yet. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in short, told The New York Times that the chavista leadership was to be judged by their actions and not by their words. Another important point is that they didn’t talk about elections or a timeline for them. Rubio, today, was clear in saying that they had to deal with chavismo, that they had to focus on what will happen in the next three weeks or three months, and that they were hoping that they would receive better cooperation than what they were receiving with Maduro. He implied that the opposition couldn’t offer this. Probably a nail on the coffin to the idea of having González Urrutia as president of Venezuela. Although the future looks bleak, Machado may have an opportunity to jump back in the game (but this is for another post).
The regime is likely looking at this as part of their regular game during negotiations and try to keep on dragging time to stay in power. But the truth is that they are negotiating with a gun against their heads. Chavismo may be trying to apply chavista rules to a Trumpist game. And that’s dangerous. Because, whether you like it or not, the game changed on Saturday. For everybody.
Africa is burning, not metaphorically, but in measurable realities of conflict, collapse, and abandonment. Old wars refuse to end, new crises are born faster than diplomacy can name them, and the continent has become the gravitational centre of global disorder. This is not accidental. It is the consequence of a world order that has lost both its moral authority and its will to act reasonably.
Across Africa, unresolved conflicts metastasise into permanent emergencies. From the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where rebellion has become cyclical rather than exceptional, to Nigeria, where life has become short and brutal, even for schoolchildren, to the broader Sahel, where state authority continues to retreat.
West Africa alone has recorded more military coups and counter-coups in recent years than any other region in the world, a stark signal of democratic erosion and widespread disillusionment with governance models that no longer deliver security or dignity.
At the same time, global terrorist organisations once concentrated in the Middle East, such as Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State, have strategically relocated their operational centres to Africa. This shift is not because Africa is inherently prone to extremism, but because prolonged neglect, weak international engagement, and fragmented security cooperation have created fertile ground. Terrorism has followed power vacuums, not cultures.
Climate change compounds these failures. Shrinking water sources, desertification, and unpredictable weather patterns are intensifying violent competition over land and livelihoods in countries like Nigeria. Farmer–herder conflicts, insurgent recruitment, and forced displacement are increasingly linked to environmental stress. Africa, which has contributed the least to global carbon emissions, is paying one of the highest prices for climate inaction.
Meanwhile, the continent’s once-vibrant wildlife and ecological heritage are being depleted at alarming rates, seen as collateral damage of conflict, illegal exploitation, and weak global enforcement. The loss is a planetary failure dressed up as a regional problem.
Yet the world’s response is disturbingly muted.
The traditional self-appointed guardians of international order – the global ombudsmen who once spoke the language of human rights, rule of law, and humanitarian responsibility – are increasingly selective, inconsistent, or complicit in many wars. While African conflicts smoulder with minimal global outrage, these same powers are actively involved in or defending genocide in Gaza. International law, once presented as universal, is now applied with geopolitical discretion.
More troubling still is the open disregard for sovereignty and legal norms by states that brand themselves as “civilised democracies”. From extraterritorial military actions to extraordinary renditions and unilateral interventions, practices once condemned when carried out by authoritarian regimes are now normalised by democratic ones—often without consequence.
This double standard carries profound implications for Africa. It weakens already fragile states, delegitimises global institutions, and reinforces the perception that African lives and laws matter less in the global calculus. When rules are enforced selectively, power, not justice, becomes the governing principle.
The world today is not merely facing a crisis of conflict; it is facing a crisis of leadership.
What is missing is rational, principled global leadership that upholds the rule of law not only within national borders but across them; leadership that does not excuse violations when committed by allies; leadership that understands Africa not as a theatre of endless emergencies but as a central pillar of global stability. Africa, long treated as the periphery of global concern, may yet prove to be the mirror in which the world’s moral failure is most clearly reflected.
Africa faces a crisis of conflict, with unresolved wars and new emergencies worsening due to a global order lacking moral authority and effective action.
The continent experiences numerous military coups, terrorism relocation, and environmental challenges exacerbating violence and displacement.
Despite Africa’s minimal contribution to global emissions, it bears severe climate consequences and wildlife exploitation is rampant. However, the international community’s response is subdued, with traditional powers displaying selective and inconsistent involvement.
This double standard undermines global institutions and underscores a leadership crisis, highlighting the need for principled global action that respects Africa’s importance to global stability.
This Swiss train route is often listed among the most beautiful in the world, but the ticket price is unaffordable for many travellers. However, there’s a trick that allows you to see the same sights for much less
This stunning train journey takes you through the most beautiful places in the Alps(Image: Glacier Express AG)
There are many stunning train journeys across the world, and luckily, many of them can be found in Europe, with views from unspoilt mountain scenery to stunning coastlines.
Unfortunately, many of these bucket list experiences also come with a hefty price tag, especially if you choose to travel on a vintage train or opt for extras such as afternoon tea or fine dining with champagne.
However, on one route, often considered among the most beautiful in the world, you can enjoy the views without maxing out your credit card, thanks to the local train service.
The Glacier Express is an epic eight-hour train journey that connects the Swiss mountain towns of Zermatt and St. Moritz. It starts at the foot of the Matterhorn, an iconic peak in the Alps, then passes through spectacular scenery that includes lakes, mountains, and over 291 bridges.
The route was high on the list of Conde Nast’s best train trips in the world, and reviews of the train call it a “once in a lifetime experience”. The Glacier Express has huge panoramic windows, comfortable seats with tables, and an audio guide to point out the highlights of the route, making it an incredible way to see the Alps.
Passengers can also upgrade to Excellence Class for extras such as Champagne on departure, a five-course Alpine meal served at their table, and access to an individual iPad which provides interesting facts and figures along the way for an immersive tour. This carriage also features its own exclusive bar, situated under a gold dome, where passengers can enjoy fine wines and cocktails throughout the journey.
As you can imagine, this kind of experience doesn’t come cheap, and tickets often sell out well in advance. A second-class seat costs around CHF 213 in total, just under £200, while a first-class seat costs CHF 326, just over £300. Excellence Class costs around CHF 812, approximately £761, although this does include your meal with wine accompaniments, plus many extras that add to the experience.
However, the Glacier Express isn’t the only train to run on this line. Railway operator Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB), the national railway company of Switzerland, also runs a regular service which is often used by locals.
This means, if you’re willing to forgo the panoramic windows and plush seats and travel on a normal train, you can enjoy the same route for a fraction of the cost. Tickets can be booked on the SBB website, making it easy to view the available dates and times.
Simply search for trains from Zermatt to St. Moritz, or vice versa, and make sure they’re the ones travelling via Brig and Andermatt. This brings the cost of the journey down to CHF 44 for second class, about £41, or CHF 59 for first class which is about £55, and offers larger seats.
Doing this journey on a normal train will mean making a few changes along the route, so it’s not just one journey. However, some tourists prefer to do the route this way, spreading it out into smaller journeys and stopping to explore the towns along the way. It gives you more flexibility to visit sites along the way, for example, you may wish to leave the train at Brig to hike the Aletsch Glacier, the largest glacier in the Alps.
You could also spend some time in Andermatt, a charming Alpine village with traditional wooden homes set among the mountain landscapes. From here, you can also visit Schöllenen Gorge, crossing the famous stone Devil’s Bridge, which gives you spectacular views across the area.
And while you won’t see butlers serving Champagne on an SBB train, some of the longer routes have buffet cars serving food and drink. You can also bring your own picnic, and alcohol is allowed, so bring your own bottle to enjoy while taking in the scenery.
Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com
The Packers are locked in as the No. 7 seed, and the Vikings are playing for pride. Have to believe with all the injuries his team has dealt with, Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur is going to make preserving health a priority. So no matter what happens at quarterback, I like the Vikings winning at home.
Justin Herbert could glimpse at the Chargers’ “See the lighting, Feel the thunder” branding above the field-level suites as his offensive linemen pulled him up on the SoFi Stadium turf.
Herbert certainly felt the thunder against the Texans. The NFL’s top defense recorded 26 pressures as it swarmed through the Chargers’ offensive line en route to a 20-16 win Saturday.
And Herbert saw the lightning, best represented by second-string defensive end Derek Barnett’s back-to-back sacks to halt the Chargers’ first drive of the second half.
The latter of Barnett’s takedowns — part of the Texans’ five sacks and eight tackles for loss — came when he spun past Bobby Hart and brought down Herbert for a seven-yard loss.
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Sam Farmer breaks down what went wrong for the Chargers in their 20-16 loss to the Houston Texans on Saturday.
“I mean, it’s just football,” Hart said when asked if he was dwelling on Barnett’s pair of sacks or losing a one-on-one against Texans defensive end Danielle Hunter in the first quarter that left Herbert grimacing and favoring his surgically repaired left hand.
Hart added: “People make plays — defenders, guys, catch the ball. Quarterbacks might have some throws that you want back. It’s just a part of the football game.”
Coach Jim Harbaugh said he pulled Hart in the third quarter because the 31-year-old was “having trouble getting in the rhythm.”
Austin Deculus replaced Hart and Trevor Penning temporarily replaced Mekhi Becton Jr. at right guard for a drive, creating the Chargers’ 24th offensive line combination of the season. But in a game previewing the quality of defenses the Chargers could face in the postseason, the offensive line — hit hard by the losses of Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt to injury — struggled to adequately protect Herbert.
“Just too many mistakes,” right tackle Trey Pipkins III said. “Whatever it was — sacks and untimely situations — we started really slow.”
Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert walks on the field during the second half of a 20-16 loss to the Houston Texans at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
The Chargers trailed 14-3 at halftime, punting in each of its first four drives. Herbert, who had 236 passing yards along with a touchdown and an interception, capitalized on Houston penalties and standout plays to extend drives.
Late in the third quarter, Texans defensive lineman Sheldon Rankins burst past left guard Zion Johnson, and then swiftly ran by center Bradley Bozeman in help protection and grabbed Herbert by the waist. Instead of falling to the ground for the sack — a potential sixth overall — Herbert connected with wide receiver Quentin Johnston for the first down.
Moments later, rookie running back Omarion Hampton scored on a five-yard run to make it a four-point game. Outside of the touchdown run, the Chargers’ run game was close to non-existent. Herbert had a team-leading 37 rushing yards, 28 coming on a single run.
Hampton had just 29 yards on 14 carries for a career-low 2.1 yards per carry. The Texans’ downhill attack gave up just 74 rushing yards, the second fewest Houston has given up this season.
“We just shot ourselves in the foot,” said Johnson, who along with Bozeman has appeared in all of the Chargers’ line combinations. “It starts with us up front. We’ve got to protect [Herbert] better. We got to execute better in the run game. There’s too many missed opportunities.”
The Texans revealed the extent of the Chargers’ offensive line weaknesses. With the wild-card playoffs two weeks away, will they be able to figure out their protection issues?
“Learn from it,” Harbaugh said. “Some of the things that happened today, clean up, and use those to be better tomorrow.”
Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert runs with the ball against the Dallas Cowboys on Dec. 21.
(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
Saturday, 1:30 p.m. TV: CBS, NFL Network.
Line: Chargers by 1½. O/U: 39½.
Houston has been a hard matchup for the Chargers, and can turn up the heat on Justin Herbert. But Jim Harbaugh’s team has found new ways to win, and is capable of outscoring the Texans, who are really struggling in the red zone. Low-scoring and physical.
NEW YORK — Mayor David N. Dinkins, battered by the budget crisis and seeking to project a message of personal accountability, invited ordinary citizens to his office Monday with suggestions on how to better life in the city.
Hundreds of people started lining up before dawn with complaints and ideas–including sending a squad of cowboys and cowgirls through poverty-stricken areas to preach AIDS-awareness and anti-drug messages, offering centralized computer access to municipal information, encouraging volunteerism and sacrificing a day’s pay a year to help the city.
After being pre-screened in front of City Hall, people in line were funneled through a metal detector to chat with the heads of appropriate agencies. A far smaller group met the mayor himself.
Was it a sincere search for innovation or a folksy public relations exercise? “I’d say it was 50-50,” said Michael Attisano, who emerged from the mayor’s office after suggesting a consolidation of the city’s separate housing and transit police forces. “I think he is going to get a lot of good ideas today.”
“Even now, there are those who see this as some sort of a gimmick,” Dinkins said. “It really is a desire to convey to the people of our city that this government really cares about them.”
The mayor’s invitation for ordinary citizens to meet with him came during a major televised address on July 30 that was designed to reassure both the city and the New York State Emergency Financial Control Board, created during the great fiscal crisis of the 1970s. The review board has the power under certain circumstances to seize financial control of the city.
In his speech, the mayor laid out a mixture of money-saving ideas, including ordering the heads of all city agencies, except for the police and fire departments, to give up their chauffeurs.
The mayor announced that he would not accept a pay raise for at least a year and set aside Monday as the day when New Yorkers with concerns and innovative ideas could come to see him.
And come they did. Coreen Brown of Brooklyn, arrived before dawn with a complaint about a sewer problem. When she emerged from the mayor’s office after waiting in line for hours, she admitted that she had broken into tears and Dinkins had given her a tissue.
“I forgot everything I wanted to say. I was going to invite him to my house,” Brown said.
Others remembered to deliver their messages.
Irving Scharf, a store owner from Brooklyn, suggested among other things that the mayor set up a lending-library system of math videotapes so children who miss classes because of illness or those who need extra credit can increase their learning skills.
“I am not here to berate the mayor. I am here to encourage him,” said Thelma Williams of the Bronx, who pushed for increased volunteerism and the sacrifice of a day’s pay by New Yorkers to help the city.
Carlos Foster, a rodeo producer who also lives in the Bronx, arrived wearing cowboy garb and proposed riding into poorer areas of the city with 10 cowboys and four cowgirls to preach against substance abuse and for safe sex.
Hulan Jack Jr., the son of a former Manhattan borough president in the 1960s, suggested putting all city data in central computer depositories for quick access.
Jack said that Dinkins listened and then had a municipal computer expert deliver a 30-second capsule of what already was being done. “Then we talked another minute and a half, and that was it,” he explained after leaving the mayor’s inner office.
The Dinkins invitation to New Yorkers brought out a summer Santa Claus, complete with red suit, and a woman dressed as the Easter Bunny. Police looked on bemusedly, except when Tasia Figueroa arrived with her 11-foot python, Shorty, draped around her neck.
The mayor’s staff, after quick consultation with police, asked that the snake be parked with Figueroa’s fiance while she went into City Hall to voice her municipal license complaint.
