losing

The most important college football story in these parts is about the downtrodden program from Westwood and whether it will leave its dump of a stadium in Pasadena.

UCLA’s incompetence has overshadowed every team in this market outside of the Dodgers and Lakers, and that includes USC.

Which speaks to where USC stands right now.

The Trojans have become afterthoughts in a market they once owned, and they only have themselves to blame.

Their 29-10 victory over the Bad News Bruins at the Coliseum on Saturday didn’t change that.

The 17th-ranked team in the country, the Trojans are by no means a bad team.

They’re something worse.

They’re stuck.

USC coach Lincoln Riley congratulates tight end Walker Lyons after a successful two-point conversion attempt against UCLA at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

USC literally can’t afford to buy out coach Lincoln Riley’s contract, which means that until further notice the Trojans will be known as the team that’s good enough to not embarrass itself but not good enough to reach the College Football Playoff.

In this particular time in this particular market, that pushes USC to the margins of Los Angeles’ congested sporting landscape.

About to complete his fourth season with the Trojans, Riley seems to be aware of the perception of his program, or at very least what this market expects of a program defined by championships.

“I understand Los Angeles is a place where people aren’t going to show up just because,” he said. “You have to win. You have to give them something. And when you do, there’s no sports town better.”

Riley pointed to the packed Coliseum on Saturday night as evidence the Trojans were doing something right. Almost 70,000 tickets were distributed for the UCLA game.

The loyalty of USC’s fans, however, shouldn’t be mistaken for excitement. In the eyes of the program’s most fervent supporters, the team has underachieved.

Riley talked up the Trojans’ 7-0 home record, which included victories over Michigan and Iowa, but the truth is that the season will be defined by the games that weren’t won.

The loss at Illinois.

The loss at Notre Dame.

The loss at Oregon, which effectively knocked USC out of CFP contention.

As a program that defines itself by championships, the Trojans measure success on a binary scale. They’re either competing for a national title or they’re not. These Trojans aren’t.

Riley made the case that this season helped establish a foundation on which future teams will be built.

“This year was better than last year, and then next year is going to be better, even better than this, just going to keep growing and growing,” he said.

USC backup quarterback Gage Roy leaps into the arms of offensive lineman Tobias Raymond after Roy completed a two-point conversion pass against UCLA at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

He’s made similar statements before, and USC’s fans are still waiting for the return to glory that he promised.

By now, words alone won’t convince many people about the program’s future. Riley will have to deliver results, and he will have to deliver them soon.

The team Riley will coach next season will look a lot like the team he coached this season but almost certainly without receiver Makai Lemon. No. 2 receiver Ja’Kobi Lane could also declare for the NFL draft.

As much as Riley spoke about USC’s improved physicality, the Trojans couldn’t stop the run in any of their three defeats, which raises legitimate concerns about whether he will be able to address the problem in the coming months.

The Trojans will welcome the country’s top-rated recruiting class, but how many freshmen could they realistically count on to produce right away?

Ryan Kartje, the Times’ USC beat reporter, wrote a story last week about a situation at quarterback involving starter Jayden Maiava and five-star freshman Husan Longstreet. Kartje raised the possibility of Longstreet entering the transfer portal if Maiava returns for his senior season.

In another time or place, this would be a major story. That’s basically Riley’s job now, to return USC’s profile to where the next quarterback controversy is front-page news. The Trojans aren’t close to that at the moment.

President Trump has united the Latino vote … in its disdain for the policies of his second term.

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that a majority of U.S. Latino adults disapprove of the job Trump has done since returning to the White House earlier this year.

Ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids throughout the country and continued economic turmoil have led many Latinos to grow upset with the politician — whose 2024 campaign centered on carrying out the “largest deportation operation in American history” and fixing the nation’s fledgling economy.

Pew’s findings revealed that 70% of Latinos disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president. When it came to immigration, 65% disapproved of the current administration’s approach to the issue. Regarding the economy, 61% said Trump’s policies have made economic conditions worse.

However, party affiliation still played a significant role in how Latinos graded Trump’s performance. Overall, 81% of 2024 Latino Trump voters approved of his job so far — an impressive level of support, though it has notably dipped from 93% since the onset of his second term.

Among Latinos who voted for Kamala Harris, Trump had a 4% approval rating in February, which has since plummeted to 0%. His approval rating with 2024 Latino nonvoters moved from 42% down to 27%. As a whole, the president’s approval rating among all Latino groups has slumped from 42% at the beginning of the year to 27% this fall.

In the Pew study, Latino voters also expressed pessimism about their future in the U.S. Of those surveyed, 68% said the situation for U.S. Latinos is worse today than it was a year ago, 9% responded that it was better and 22% felt it was about the same. Harris voters overwhelming felt the situation is worsening for Latinos at 89%; 66% of nonvoters agreed with that assessment; and 31% of Trump voters felt Latinos were worse off now than last year.

A plurality of voters who went red in 2024 — 40% — felt the situation for Latinos in the U.S. was about the same year over year. Additionally, 28% of that voting bloc believed U.S. Latinos are better off now compared with 2024.

This data set lines up with a recent Axios/Ipsos poll conducted in partnership with Noticias Telemundo.

Of the more than 1,100 people surveyed, 65% said that it’s a “bad time” to be Latino or Hispanic in the U.S.; when the poll was conducted in March 2024, that figure stood at 40%. When broken down by party, 84% of Democrats said it was a bad time, compared with 68% of independents and 32% of Republicans.

At 78%, a majority of those polled by Pew felt that Trump’s policies have been more harmful than helpful to the Latino community. Harris voters were once again united against Trump with 97% agreeing that his policies have negatively affected their community. Nonvoters were in agreement with 78% feeling the Republican president’s policies have had adverse effects on Latinos.

Trump voters were split on the issue with 41% saying Trump’s policies have been helpful to Latinos, 34% believing they’ve been harmful and 22% responding that they’ve had no effect.

These findings seemingly muddle the narrative that Latinos nationwide have made a rightward turn politically in recent years.

In the 2024 presidential election, Trump garnered 48% of the Latino vote compared with Harris’ 51% share and significantly jumped past the 36% clip that he got in the 2020 presidential election. Initial 2024 exit polls actually underestimated Latinos’ Trump support, with the Republican candidate tracking at 46% of the Latino vote on election day.

Additionally, 47% of naturalized citizens of all ethnic backgrounds voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 38% in 2020. In that same voting bloc 51% voted for Harris in 2024, a notable drop from the 59% who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Latino naturalized citizens recorded a 12% bump in voting for Trump, jumping from 39% in 2020 to 51% in 2024.

IS SHE a crusader or a Rebel without a cause?

That’s the question surrounding Rebel Wilson this week, as she stares down the barrel of yet another legal wrangling — while passionately claiming she’s a “whistleblower” fighting for justice.

This week, in a bombshell TV interview, the 45-year-old broke her silence on the legal battle she is fighting surrounding her feature film directorial debut.

The star, who was born and raised in Sydney, told 60 Minutes Australia she had been the target of “incessant . . . bullying and harassment” by the producers of her comedy musical, The Deb.

The producers are suing her for defamation, breach of contract and sabotage and the lead actress has also launched a lawsuit against her.

It comes just 18 months after Rebel accused Sacha Baron Cohen of inappropriate behaviour on the set of another production — which he denies — and eight years after a landmark defamation battle.

Now, with her star showing signs of waning Down Under, have the endless litigations and allegations destroyed Rebel’s career?

In the latest real-life drama, the producers of The Deb — Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden — launched their legal action after Rebel claimed they had embezzled film funds.

She also accused Amanda of sexually harassing lead actress Charlotte MacInnes on set.

Charlotte, who denies she made claims of sexual harassment, is suing Rebel for defamation after the latter implied she had “changed her story” and was backtracking to save her career.

Rebel says the producers’ complaints against her are “an attempt to sling mud at [her] reputation”, and that all the muck and mess surrounding the project has been her “worst nightmare”.

‘Smear campaign’

She is now countersuing the producers, accusing them of financial misdeeds, misconduct and coercion.

She claims she had been subjected to suppressive measures, saying: “They locked me in a room and forced me to sign documents. I was like, ‘This is like the KGB.’ ”

The producers vehemently deny Rebel’s allegations, which she initially highlighted in an Instagram video in July 2024.

In the original clip, Rebel accused them of “bad behaviour”, “embezzling funds” and of perpetrating “inappropriate behaviour towards the lead actress”.

She subsequently claimed it was Amanda Ghost who had taken things too far with Charlotte. Rebel alleged Amanda had “asked [Charlotte] to have a bath and shower with her and it made her feel uncomfortable”.

In an extra layer to the mudslinging, both Charlotte and the producers have also accused Rebel of being behind several websites allegedly created as a smear campaign, which have since been taken down.

What is very clear is that she is not as loved here in recent years as I think she expected to be

Eleanor Sprawson, a journalist based in Australia, on Rebel Wilson

These websites accused Amanda, who is of Indo–Trinidadian heritage, of being akin to “the Indian Ghislaine Maxwell” and referred to her as a “full pimp” who was “procuring young women for the pleasure of the extremely wealthy”.

Rebel has denied any involvement in a smear campaign or the creation of websites against her legal foes, claiming she was heavily involved in getting them removed.

The cases rumble on and Rebel remains undeterred.

Not only does she stand by her story and appears willing to fight to the end, she is also loudly promoting new projects on Instagram and is looking forward to seeing The Deb finally hit screens in Australia in January.

Rebel’s history suggests she is not someone to be provoked.

In 2016, Rebel — who found global fame in 2011 comedy Bridesmaids, before her scene-stealing turn as Fat Amy in 2012’s Pitch Perfect — set fire to the media landscape in Australia after launching a legal battle against Bauer Media.

In a landmark defamation case, Rebel sued the publisher over a series of articles published in 2015, that accused her of lying about her age, real name, and details of her upbringing, to advance her career.

Rebel said these stories had painted her as a serial liar and fraud, and had caused her to lose major film roles in Hollywood. She added that they had been perfectly timed to harm her as her career peaked post-Pitch Perfect.

Initially, the judge ruled in her favour, granting her $4.5million (£2.3million) — the largest defamation payout in Australian history — which she vowed to donate to charity and film projects.

But a later appeal saw the damages reduced to $600,000 — and Rebel was also ordered to pay 80 per cent of Bauer’s appeal costs.

While the appeal court upheld the initial verdict, it found the actress had not proved she had lost specific Hollywood roles solely because of the articles written about her. Another appeal followed — this time from Rebel — but the courts didn’t budge on the reduced payout.

Standing outside the High Court of Australia in November 2018, the actress told reporters: “To me, it was never about the money, but about standing up to a bully and I have done that successfully.”

Such a stance — pushing back against oppressors — is what Rebel has always argued she is doing. More so, perhaps, than the average celebrity — because, as time has passed, Rebel has continued to set the cat among the pigeons.

Last year, she hit the headlines again, as she released her  autobiography Rebel Rising — taking to Instagram to identify Sacha Baron Cohen as the unnamed “massive a**hole” that a controversial chapter of the book centres on.

The Borat actor had directed and starred opposite Rebel in their 2016 movie Grimsby.

Rebel claimed she had been pressured to perform a “lewd act” that was never in a script.

Reflecting on the filming process, Rebel alleged Sacha made repeated, inappropriate requests to her, like: “Just go naked, it will be funny”.

She said she had felt “bullied, humiliated and compromised”.

‘The boy who cried wolf’

While no legal action was taken by either side, Sacha slammed the claims as “demonstrably false” and argued that all evidence — including film footage, production notes and eyewitness statements — contradicted her account.

The book was published in its entirety in the US, but was partially redacted in the UK and Australia — with any mention of Rebel’s allegations against Sacha blacked out due to the legal risk of defamation.

In March 2024, Rebel railed against her suppressors, writing on social media that she would not be “bullied or silenced by high-priced lawyers or crisis PR managers”.

And now she is doubling down on that promise, thanks to her latest public battle.

So, where does that leave Rebel, who, ten years ago was considered to be one of Hollywood’s funniest women.

Eleanor Sprawson, a journalist based in Australia, where Rebel initially found fame, says the temperature has changed towards the actress in recent years.

“What is very clear is that she is not as loved here in recent years as I think she expected to be,” Eleanor explains.

“She was loved, way back 20 or more years ago when she was in a comedy series called Pizza, and I think people were excited for her when she took off in Hollywood.

“So when she presented a local show called Pooch Perfect, TV executives definitely thought they were on to a huge winner: ‘Local girl turned Hollywood star returning to do humble Australian TV’-type thing.

“But in fact the show bombed — and it bombed literally when people were locked in their houses because of the pandemic, with nothing to do EXCEPT watch TV. I think it proves that Australians have not taken her to their hearts.”

She adds: “She certainly did herself no favours by slagging off that old show Pizza in her memoirs. This show is very fondly remembered about a kind of class of people who don’t get much exposure on Australian TV in general.”

No one in the industry will want to work with her in the future if this behaviour is kept up. They’d be scared of legal issues or defamatory language

PR expert Quincy Dash

Meanwhile, Rebel could be seen as fighting causes that matter. In 2021, she donated $1million to the Australian Theatre for Young People.

She’s certainly combative, but has needed to be. In 2022, she came out as gay by posting an Instagram photo of her and her then girlfriend, now wife, Ramona Agruma.

Rebel revealed she’d had to “rush” her coming out after The Sydney Morning Herald contacted her representatives for comment on the new relationship

The actress also had to face constant scrutiny over her fluctuating weight, which — while she previously said made her the go-to funny girl.

But, as PR expert Quincy Dash tells The Sun, her litigious and provocative behaviour sometimes makes her seem like “the boy who cried wolf”.

He warns that “no one in the industry will want to work with her in the future if this behaviour is kept up. They’d be scared of legal issues or defamatory language.”

As it stands, Rebel is pushing ahead, and will next be seen in the Sky Original festive film Tinsel Town next month.

But as for her once-glistening career, she’s going to have to really ask herself: Does she really have a cause worth fighting for?

Islamabad, Pakistan – A new assessment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded that corruption in Pakistan is behind an economic crisis driven by “state capture” – where public policy is manipulated to benefit a narrow circle of political and business elites.

The Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA), finalised in November 2025, presents a grim picture of a system marked by dysfunctional institutions that are unable to enforce the rule of law or safeguard public resources.

According to the 186-page report, corruption in Pakistan is “persistent and corrosive”, distorting markets, eroding public trust and undermining fiscal stability.

The report, requested by the Pakistani government, warns that without dismantling the structures of “elite privilege”, the country’s economic stagnation will persist.

While corruption vulnerabilities are present at all levels of government, according to the report, “the most economically damaging manifestations involve privileged entities that exert influence over key economic sectors, including those owned by or affiliated with the state.”

The report argues that Pakistan stands to gain substantial economic benefits if governance improves and accountability is strengthened. Such reforms, it notes, could significantly lift the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), which stood at $340bn in 2024.

“Based on cross-country analysis of the reform experience of emerging markets, IMF analysis projects that Pakistan could generate between a 5 to 6.5 percent increase in GDP by implementing a package of governance reforms over the course of five years,” the report said.

Stefan Dercon, a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford who has advised the Pakistani government on economic reforms, said that he agreed that the absence of accountability in corruption cases was eating away at the country’s economic potential.

“Failure of implementation [of laws and principles of accountability] gives vested interests too often free rein and addressing this must be at the core of efforts for economic reform,” he told Al Jazeera.

Here is what we know about the IMF report, the areas of weakness it highlights, the policy recommendations it makes, and what the experts say.

What does the IMF report say?

Pakistan has turned to the IMF 25 times since 1958, making it one of the fund’s most frequent borrowers. Nearly every administration, whether military or civilian, has sought IMF assistance, reflecting chronic balance of payments crises.

The current programme was started under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The GCDA’s release comes ahead of the IMF executive board’s expected approval of a $1.2bn disbursement next month, part of the ongoing 37-month-long, $7bn programme.

Pakistan narrowly avoided default in 2023, surviving only after the IMF extended an earlier nine-month deal, which was followed by the ongoing 37-month programme.

According to the GCDA, Pakistan consistently ranks near the bottom of global governance indicators among nations. Between 2015 and 2024, the country’s score on control of corruption remained stagnant, placing it among the worst performers worldwide and within its neighbourhood.

At the heart of the IMF’s findings is the concept of “state capture”, where, according to the fund, corruption becomes the norm and, in fact, the primary means of governance. The report argues that the Pakistani state apparatus is frequently used to enrich specific groups at the expense of the broader public.

The report estimates that “elite privilege” – defined as access to subsidies, tax relief and lucrative state contracts for a select few – drains billions of dollars from the economy annually, while tax evasion and regulatory capture crowd out genuine private sector investment.

These findings echo a 2021 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, which said economic privileges granted to Pakistan’s elite groups, including politicians and the powerful military, amount to roughly 6 percent of the country’s economy.

Ali Hasanain, an associate professor of economics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, said the IMF’s description of elite capture is accurate but added that it was “hardly a revelation”.

He pointed to the 2021 UNDP report and other domestic studies that describe how Pakistan’s economic system has long served politically connected actors who secure “preferential access to land, credit, tariffs and regulatory exemptions.”

“The IMF diagnostic repeats what many domestic studies, including those by the World Bank and Pakistan’s own institutions, have already emphasised: Powerful interests shape rules to maintain their advantage,” he told Al Jazeera.

The new report notes that tax expenditures, including exemptions and concessions granted to influential sectors such as real estate, manufacturing and energy, cost the state 4.61 percent of GDP in the 2023 fiscal year alone.

It also calls for an end to special treatment for influential public sector entities in government contracts and urges greater transparency in the functioning of the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC).

The SIFC, created in June 2023 during Sharif’s first term, is a high-powered body comprising civilian and military leaders and tasked with promoting investment by easing bureaucratic obstacles. Although positioned as a flagship initiative jointly owned by the government and the military, it has faced sustained criticism for a lack of transparency.

The report describes broad legal immunity granted to SIFC officials, many from the armed forces, as a major governance concern. It warns that this immunity, combined with the council’s authority to exempt projects from regulatory requirements, creates significant risks.

Highlighting the absence of transparency, the GCDA says the SIFC should publish annual reports with details of all investments it has facilitated, including concessions granted and the rationale behind them.

“The recently established Special Investment Facilitation Council, which has been vested with substantial authority to facilitate foreign investments, operates with untested transparency and accountability provisions,” the report said.

Judiciary and rule of law

The report identifies the judiciary as another critical bottleneck. Pakistan’s legal system is overwhelmed by more than two million pending cases. In 2023 alone, the number of unresolved cases before the Supreme Court increased by 7 percent.

Over the last 12 months, Pakistan has passed two constitutional amendments, both of which faced severe backlash from many in the legal community who said that they represent a “constitutional surrender”. In essence, the amendments create a parallel Federal Constitutional Court that critics say will reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, while also changing rules that guide how judges are appointed and transferred, in ways that opponents say could give the executive great control over whom to promote and whom to punish.

The government, however, has insisted that the changes were made to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the judicial system.

Similar credibility challenges affect the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the two principal bodies responsible for investigating corruption.

The GCDA cites a 2024 government task force, which found that NAB has, at times, exceeded its mandate and launched politically motivated cases. This selective accountability, the report says, has damaged public trust and created a climate of fear within the bureaucracy, slowing decision-making.

While NAB says it recovered 5.3 trillion rupees ($17bn) between January 2023 and December 2024, the report notes that conviction rates remain low.

The diagnostic calls for fundamental reforms to NAB’s appointment processes to ensure independence and a shift from “political victimisation” to “rule-based enforcement”.

Was the report necessary?

The IMF outlines reforms which experts acknowledged would be comprehensive if pursued by authorities.

Yet analysts also note that international institutions and domestic researchers have repeatedly made similar observations in the past, with little follow-through by the government.

Sajid Amin Javed, a senior economist at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Islamabad, says the fact that Pakistan is already under an IMF programme may compel the government to take the findings more seriously.

He said that the IMF report could have gone further than it has by acknowledging that many of its recommendations have been made by others in the past, “without bringing any change”.

“Perhaps the assessment could have been made to see why these failures happened,” he said.

Javed welcomed the report’s attempt to quantify economic losses from corruption, hoping it might push policymakers to act.

“Corruption and governance are intrinsically tied to each other. Corruption leads to weak governance, and weak governance promotes corruption, making them conjoined,” he said.

Hasanain, however, was more sceptical, questioning why the IMF waited for a formal request from the Pakistani government despite having its own internal assessment mechanisms.

What can the government do?

Analysts said Pakistan’s economic landscape has long been shaped by politically connected actors who enjoy preferential access to land, credit, tariffs and regulatory exemptions. The IMF’s observations, they noted, are not new.

Hasanain argues that corruption, including elite capture of markets, regulatory bodies and public policy, is political in nature and cannot be addressed without deeper reforms.

“Without a broader political awakening, governance reforms will remain technical fixes built on unstable foundations. Ultimately, elite capture is undone only when political incentives change,” he said.

Javed, meanwhile, pointed to what he called policy design capture, arguing that those responsible for drafting governance and anticorruption reforms are often part of the same elite ecosystem.

“Elite policy capture on policy design is perhaps the most important component which allows the elite capture. The report’s recommendations show that we must go for participatory and inclusive methods to get out of our current conundrum,” he said.

For Hasanain, the most urgent reform is a unified economic turnaround plan that is fully owned by the prime minister and communicated clearly.

He said that Pakistan’s economic landscape was cluttered with “committees, councils, task forces and overlapping ministries”, each producing its own documents without accountability.

“The government should consolidate these scattered structures into one clear reform platform with defined priorities, timelines and measurable outcomes. Progress should be published monthly, debated publicly, and subjected to independent scrutiny,” he said.

Hasanain argued that such consolidation would improve coordination, build public trust and signal seriousness to investors.

For Javed, the most immediate priority is reforming the public procurement system, which governs how government bodies buy goods and services using public funds.

“Our procurement system is not working on value of money, but instead it focuses on quantity of money, where lowest bidder wins the bid,” he said, arguing that this approach meant that contracts often did not go to those best suited to deliver what was needed. “This system needs urgent modernisation.”

“An urgent realisation is the order of the day that if we need to have a flourishing, transparent economy, we have no choice but to overhaul our entire economic framework,” Javed said.

Global stocks rose on Thursday after strong Nvidia results eased concerns of a market crash, linked to the perceived overvaluation of AI firms.

Bitcoin, the world’s most established cryptocurrency, also enjoyed a modest lift — rising 0.73% by early afternoon in Europe.

This comes after a hard few months for the token. On Monday it briefly slipped below the $90,000 mark for the first time in seven months before rising to around $91,800 on Thursday.

A turning point in crypto’s trajectory can be traced back to 10 October, when a meltdown wiped out more than $1 trillion in market value across all tokens. More than $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were offloaded, notably after US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China.

“There have been several catalysts (of the recent price drop), but it seems as if the biggest drivers are long-term selling by ‘OGs’, an uncertain economic climate, and a mass deleveraging event on the 10th October,” Nic Puckrin, CEO of Coin Bureau, told Euronews.

“OGs are the term used to describe older Bitcoin holders with massive amounts of Bitcoin. They have been selling for several weeks which has led to a flood of supply hitting the market,” he added.

Analysts note that the US economy is in a period of deep uncertainty at the moment, partly as a government shutdown has prevented the publication of key data releases, with the uncertainty driving crypto lower.

The outcome of the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision, due in December, is hanging in the balance — with investors now paring back expectations of a cut.

Transcripts released this week from the Fed’s October meeting show the policy-setting committee deeply divided over whether to reduce the benchmark interest rate.

“Bitcoin is increasingly driven by macro moves,” Puckrin argued.

Analysts fear that as crypto grows more interconnected with mainstream financial markets, contagion will make both crypto assets and stock markets more volatile.

‘A football match with no referee’

Bitcoin reached its price high in October thanks to increased institutional acceptance, expectations of Fed rate cuts, and support from the Trump administration.

For Carol Alexander, crypto expert and finance professor at Sussex University, Bitcoin’s volatility must nonetheless be associated with aggressive trading techniques — rather than simply pointing to the macro environment.

“Bitcoin’s price is determined primarily by the behaviour of professional traders operating on offshore, unregulated trading platforms. These are not hobbyist investors; they are major hedge funds and specialised trading firms,” she told Euronews.

“On these offshore crypto exchanges, professional traders can deploy aggressive order-book strategies — sometimes labelled spoofing or laddering … Their business model relies on generating sharp volatility. They do not care whether the price rises or falls; they care only that it moves quickly.”

In other words, these traders make money from price swings by buying in the dip and selling when crypto rebounds, meaning they aren’t focused on long-term holdings.

The losers in this scenario are often non-professional traders, who can sometimes take on enormous leverage — borrowing money to increase the size of their investments. When the market moves against these investors, they are often forced to sell, losing everything.

“When too many of these non-professional traders have been wiped out, liquidity dries up, and the pros step back,” said Alexander. “At that point, the price often rebounds sharply, encouraging new entrants to join. The whole system behaves like a football match played in a stadium with no referee.”

Puckrin also predicted that crypto is set for a rebound, forecasting that it won’t fall much below current levels.

“I still think it’s a bright future despite the price action. Crypto has been through multiple cycles and it always emerges stronger. We are also seeing the mainstreaming and institutionalisation of the industry. This means more people can use the technology in their daily lives.”

LOOSE Women star Ruth Langsford has revealed she gets ‘frightened’ over having ‘senior moments’ after losing her dad to Alzheimer’s.

The 65-year-old beloved television host has opened up about her health fears after her parents were both diagnosed with dementia and her dad died from complications of the disease.

Ruth’s father Dennis sadly died in 2012 from complications from dementia.

The TV star’s mother, Joan, 94, was also diagnosed with the disease. 

Because of the way in which Alzheimer’s is influenced by generics, Ruth has revealed her health fears after experiencing “senior moments”.

Speaking to The Mirror this weekend, Ruth got candid when she said: “All the time, literally all the time, if I ever have a senior moment where I go, ‘what’s her name again?’, somebody that I know quite well, and I have a complete and utter blank, it really frightens me.”

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She added: “I’m 65 now, my dad was officially diagnosed when he was 72.

“But looking back on it, we think he was displaying signs, we just didn’t know what they were – but he was in his late 60s and I’m 65.”

Ruth continued: “Of course I worry about it with both parents having had dementia, but I just think, what will be will be.”

Back in August of this year, Ruth opened up about her mother’s diagnosis and how she and her family found it “doubly hard”.

She told Hello! Magazine: “It’s very upsetting when your loved one is given that diagnosis.

“For my family, we found that doubly hard as my dad had Alzheimer’s, so we knew what was ahead for us and my mum.”

Ruth revealed at the time: “At the moment, mum knows who I am, she always recognises me and is very happy to see me.

“I know that that could change at any time, it did with my dad, and that is heartbreaking.”

Discussing her dad’s death in 2017 in an episode of Loose Women, Ruth said: “I was grieving and losing my dad but my mum was losing the love of her life, the man she married and had children with.

“They had years and years of memories.

“You don’t often hear people talking about that side of it.

“When my dad went into care, my mum was so distraught…

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting emotional and wiping a tear from her eye at the time.

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“You do hope, but you know they probably won’t get better.

“I’m sorry, sometimes I just can’t talk about it. It’s thinking about my mum, that side of it that gets to me.”

For Zuri Crawford, the last several weeks have been an emotional whirlwind — swinging from fears to frustration to now partial relief.

A 20-year-old single mother and Riverside City College student, Crawford depends on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to buy groceries for herself and her young son. Earlier this week, she braced herself for the possibility that — because of the federal shutdown — she would not receive the $445 that typically gets loaded onto her state-issued debit card on the sixth day of every month.

“I really feel like I’m going to be burnt out. I feel like it’s going to be hard on me because I am a single mom,” she said on a recent afternoon. “I have to push through, but I am going to be overwhelmed.”

On Thursday, however, Crawford was surprised to learn that the $445 payment had showed up on her card. Soon after, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that, because of a court victory, “food benefits are now beginning to flow back to California families” — at least temporarily.

Crawford is one of roughly 5.5 million statewide who depend on this food aid — known in California as CalFresh — and one of 42 million people nationwide. In recent weeks, this group has been caught in the crosshairs of a political battle that has shifted from Congress to courtrooms amid a federal shutdown that has now lasted more than five weeks.

As of early Friday, two federal judges had ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use billions of dollars in contingency funding to continue providing SNAP support — the reason Crawford and many others nationwide received their full benefits Thursday. On Friday the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to block one of those orders. The appeals court let the order stand, and then late Friday the Trump administration succeeded in persuading the Supreme Court to block the judicial rulings and — at least temporarily — withhold food benefits from millions of Americans.

Many recipients in California already have their payments, but the legal drama late Friday may add to their anxieties. Many were already improvising, and may have to do so again.

Zuir Crawford, 20, loads groceries bought using gift cards supplied by Riverside City College.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

In Crawford’s case, she already juggles college coursework, picks up shifts as an UberEats driver and cares for her 1-year-old. When she learned her food aid would be delayed this month, she made a plan: She would drop two classes and then pick up additional work as a caregiver so she and her son could afford to eat. She would use that money to supplement the support she is receiving from her school and community.

Even with food aid, she depends on food pantries to help her obtain items such as canned ravioli, Rice-a-Roni and frozen dinners for the last two weeks of the month.

Single parents could be hit especially hard by the delay in food benefits. Nationwide, single-adults make up nearly two-thirds (62%) of all SNAP households with children, according to the USDA. In California, almost a quarter of single working parents (23.2%) are in poverty, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Households headed by single mothers are especially vulnerable amid a worsening gender wage gap and rising costs for education, housing and child care, said Jesseca Boyer, vice president of policy and strategic initiatives for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “All of those factors require a single mother to stretch their already limited dollars even further,” she said.

In the Bay Area city of Mountain View, Abigail Villavicencio usually gets between $500 and $700 each month loaded onto her CalFresh cards, she said. It depends on her fluctuating income delivering food for apps such as Uber Eats. A single mom with three children, she first qualified for SNAP in 2021, and at that time was able to stretch the money to cover groceries for an entire month.

“But over the last year, it hasn’t been enough. I spend $500 in 2 weeks. I noticed prices were going up,” she said, and her weekly grocery trip often now costs $200 to $300. “I have two weeks when I have to figure out what to do.”

Villavicencio said she augments her benefits by collecting donated food at her son’s school twice a month.

The last few weeks have been particularly hurtful, she said, when she sees commenters on social media deriding food stamp recipients as “lazy.” She notes that she has to show her bank accounts every six months to qualify for CalFresh. For the past three years, she’s been home with her twin daughters as they went through intensive behavior therapy for autism.

News of the delayed SNAP benefits gutted her carefully calibrated food plan. She dipped into her savings for the last grocery trip and bought enough to make meals she could sell to construction workers to earn a few extra dollars.

Now that her twin daughters are in kindergarten, she’s also been searching for more consistent work — but it’s been challenging, she said, to find one that will allow her to drop off and pick up her children from school.

Holding her dog Bear, Zuir Crawford, 20 fears losing her SNAP benefits because of the federal government shutdown. “I really feel like I’m going to be burnt out. I feel like it’s going to be hard on me because I am a single mom,” she said on a recent afternoon. “I have to push through, but I am going to be overwhelmed.”

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

As for Crawford, she said she experienced “trauma after trauma” growing up, bouncing between homes in Los Angeles and Riverside counties. She has sought stability since becoming a teen mom to her son, whom she affectionately calls Baby Z.

She is in her second semester at Riverside City College, where she is taking prerequisite courses to pursue a nursing career. She makes “little to nothing” driving for Uber Eats, she said, “but it’s enough for me to at least put gas in my tank.”

Without the financial support of her family or a partner, she relies on a patchwork of government programs.

Two months ago, she, her son and her fluffy white dog Bear moved into a one-bedroom apartment that she obtained through a county housing program for the homeless. She uses the nearly $900 a month she receives through CalWorks, a state welfare program, to cover her rent, utilities and phone bill. Along with CalFresh, she gets a monthly allotment of healthy food through the Women, Infants and Children program.

She said she’s also sustained by her Christian faith. She attends regular Bible studies and uses a portion of her food budget to make meals for the homeless.

Inside the college’s Basic Needs Resource Center on Wednesday afternoon, Crawford filled a black basket with peanut butter, jelly, oatmeal, a can of pozole and hygiene products. While students can typically access the pantry every two weeks, they can collect staples once a week during the shutdown, a volunteer explained.

Crawford is in her second semester at Riverside City College, where she is taking prerequisite courses to pursue a nursing career.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

As a community college student and single parent receiving public assistance, she is also eligible for additional support including meal vouchers and grocery gift cards.

With SNAP beneficiaries becoming pawns in the shutdown fight, she said she’s grateful for the public assistance, which she views as a “stepping stone” to a more financially secure life.

“It’s not my fault that I was born into the family I was born into,” she said later that day, as she sliced and spiced chicken and steamed vegetables for a low-cost meal. “I can’t control that. But what I can control is my outcome. And I know that if I keep on working hard, if I keep on persevering through all the hardships, I’m going to be OK.”

Zuir Crawford, 20, carries groceries from a local market and also from a food pantry to her apartment in Riverside.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Up until Thursday, both Villavicencio and Crawford were preparing for hard times. The Mountain View mom was worried about telling her children about a diminished Thanksgiving this year. Crawford was calculating how to further improvise on using her food budget wisely.

Both women were relieved that, on the sixth day of the month, their benefits had fully reloaded.

“I can breathe now,” Villavicencio said Friday.

“I’m super-shocked,” added Crawford with a laugh. “I feel relieved. I just feel happy.”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

WASHINGTON — President Trump made historic gains with Latinos when he won reelection last year, boosting Republicans’ confidence that their economic message was helping them make inroads with a group of voters who had long leaned toward Democrats.

But in this week’s election, Democrats in key states were able to disrupt that rightward shift by gaining back Latino support, exit polls showed.

In New Jersey and Virginia, the Democrats running for governor made gains in counties with large Latino populations, and overall won two-thirds of the Latino vote in their states, according to an NBC News poll.

And in California, a CNN exit poll showed about 70% of Latinos voting in favor of Proposition 50, a Democratic redistricting initiative designed to counter Trump’s plans to reshape congressional maps in an effort to keep GOP control of the House.

The results mark the first concrete example at the ballot box of Latino voters turning away from the GOP — a shift foreshadowed by recent polling as their concerns about the economy and immigration raids have grown.

Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill celebrates with supporters after being elected New Jersey governor.

(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

If the trend continues, it could spell trouble for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections, said Gary Segura, a professor of public policy, political science and Chicana/o studies at UCLA. This could be especially true in California and Texas, where both parties are banking on Latino voters to help them pick up seats in the House, Segura said.

“A year is a long time in politics, but certainly the vote on Prop. 50 is a very, very good sign for the Democrats’ ability to pick up the newly drawn congressional districts,” Segura said. “I think Latino voters will be really instrumental in the outcome.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are feeling optimistic that their warnings about Trump’s immigration crackdown and a bad economy are resonating with Latinos.

Republicans are wondering to what degree the party can maintain support among Latinos without Trump on the ticket. In 2024, Trump won roughly 48% of the Latino vote nationally — a record for any Republican presidential candidate.

Some Republicans saw this week’s trends among Latino voters as a “wakeup call.”

“The Hispanic vote is not guaranteed. Hispanics married President Donald Trump but are only dating the GOP,” Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida said in a social media video the day after the election. “I’ve been warning it: If the GOP does not deliver, we will lose the Hispanic vote all over the country.”

Economic issues a main driver

Last year Trump was able to leverage widespread frustration with the economy to win the support of Latinos. He promised to create jobs and lower the costs of living.

But polling shows that a majority of Latino voters now disapprove of how Trump and the Republicans in control of Congress are handling the economy. Half of Latinos said they expected Trump’s economic policies to leave them worse off a year from now in a Unidos poll released last week.

In New Jersey, that sentiment was exemplified by voters like Rumaldo Gomez. He told MSNBC he voted for Trump last year but this week went for for the Democratic candidate for governor, Rep. Mikie Sherrill.

“Now, I look at Trump different,” Gomez said. “The economy does not look good.”

Gomez added he is “very sad” about immigration raids led by the Trump administration that have split up hardworking families.

While Latino voters fear being affected by immigration enforcement actions, polling suggests they are more concerned about cost of living, jobs and housing. The Unidos poll showed immigration ranking fifth on the list of concerns.

In New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats’ double-digit victories were built on promises to reduce the cost of living, while blaming Trump for their economic pain.

Marcus Robinson, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Democrats “expanded margins and flipped key counties by earning back Latino voters who know Trump’s economy leaves them behind.”

“These results show that Latino communities want progress, not a return to chaos and broken promises,” he said.

Republicans see a different Trump issue

GOP strategist Matt Terrill, who was chief of staff for then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said the election results are not a referendum on Trump.

Latino voters swung left because Trump wasn’t on the ballot, he said.

Last year “it wasn’t Latino voters turning out for the Republican party, it was Latino voters turning out for President Trump,” he said. “Like him or not, he’s able to fire up voters that the Republican party traditionally does not get.”

With Trump barred by the Constitution from running for a third term, Republicans are left to wonder if they can get the Latino vote back when he is not on the ballot. Terrill believes Republicans need to hammer on the issue of affordability as a top priority.

Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican and former political director of the California Republican Party, has a different theory.

“They’re abandoning both parties,” Madrid said of Latinos. “They abandoned the Republican party for the same reasons they abandoned the Democratic party in November: not addressing economic concerns.”

The economy has long been the top concern for Latinos, Madrid said, yet both parties continue to frame the Latino political agenda around immigration.

“Latinos aren’t voting for Democrats or Republicans — they’re voting against Democrats and against Republicans,” Madrid said. “It’s a very big difference. The partisans are all looking at us as if we’re this peculiar exotic little creature.”

The work ahead

Democrat Abigail Spanberger was elected governor in Virginia in part because of big gains in Latino-heavy communities. One of the biggest gains was in Manassas Park, where more than 40% of residents are Latino. She won the city by 42 points, doubling the Democrats’ performance there in last year’s election.

The shift toward Democrats happened because Latinos believed Trump when he promised to bring down high costs of living and that he would only go after violent criminals in immigration raids, said Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, who worked with Spanberger’s campaign on outreach to Spanish-language media.

Instead, she argued, Trump betrayed them.

Cardona said Medicaid cuts under Trump’s massive spending package this year, along with the reduction of supplemental nutrition assistance amid the government shutdown, have Latinos families panicking.

“What Republicans misguidedly and mistakenly thought was a realignment of Latino voters just turned out to be a blip,” she said. “Latinos should never be considered a base vote.”

Political scientists caution that the election outcomes this week are not necessarily indicative of how races will play out a year from now.

“It’s just one election, but certainly the seeds have been planted for strong Latino Democratic turnouts in 2026,” said Brad Jones, a political science professor at UC Davis.

Now, both parties need to explain how they expect to carry out their promises if elected.

“They can’t sit on their laurels and say, ‘well surely the Latinos are coming back because the economy is bad and immigration enforcement is bad,’” Jones said. “The job of the Democratic party is now to reach out to Latino voters in ways that are more than just symbolic.”