PORTLAND, Ore. — Dearica Hamby scored 23 points, Nneka Ogwumike had 20 of her 22 in the second half and the Sparks — after learning star teammate Kelsey Plum was traded — ended a six-game losing streak with a 106-101 win over the Portland Fire on Sunday.
Plum, sidelined since June 21 with a leg injury, was sent to the Phoenix Mercury late Saturday night. The Sparks are now 3-9 without Plum.
Ogwumike hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 1:25 to play, making it 98-96. Hamby followed with a layup off an Ogwumike assist. In the last 24 seconds, Ogwumike and Erica Wheeler went six for six from the foul line.
Wheeler, Ariel Atkins, Rae Burrell and reserve Jihyun Park all added 12 points for the Sparks (11-17). Hamby and Ogwumike both had 10 rebounds and Wheeler had eight assists.
Bridget Carleton hit seven three-pointers, scored 24 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for the Fire (11-19), who lost their fifth straight, four times allowing 100-plus points. Carla Leite added 21 points and eight assists and Megan DiLeo scored 19.
Portland took advantage of four offensive rebounds and six Los Angeles turnovers to lead 29-22 after one quarter. The lead reached 10 in the second quarter and the Fire were up 49-43 at the break.
Wheeler and Ogwumike had back-to-back three-pointers to give the Sparks their first lead since 10-8 at 65-64. Carleton’s three in the last minute pulled the Fire into a 72-72 tie entering the fourth quarter.
Up next for the Sparks: Play at Chicago on Wednesday.
Asian stock markets extended their sharp selloff on Wednesday as investor concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) valuations deepened ahead of a crucial round of earnings from major U.S. technology companies and the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy decision. The decline reflects growing skepticism over whether massive investments in AI infrastructure will generate sustainable profits, while renewed tensions in the Middle East added fresh inflationary risks through higher oil prices.
The market downturn comes after months of extraordinary gains driven by optimism surrounding AI, particularly among semiconductor manufacturers and technology giants. However, disappointing earnings signals and concerns over corporate cash flows are prompting investors to reassess whether the sector’s lofty valuations remain justified.
Technology heavy markets across Asia led the global decline as semiconductor stocks came under intense pressure.
South Korea’s KOSPI plunged more than 11 percent, reaching its lowest level since April after suffering another double digit loss a day earlier. Taiwan’s benchmark index dropped 5 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei declined 2.6 percent. The broader MSCI Asia Pacific index excluding Japan also fell sharply, highlighting widespread investor caution across the region.
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The weakness was concentrated in technology stocks that have largely fueled this year’s market rally through expectations of sustained AI demand.
Semiconductor companies remained at the center of the selloff despite reporting robust financial results.
South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix reported operating profits that increased more than sixfold compared with the previous year. Nevertheless, its shares fell 9 percent after investors judged the results against exceptionally high expectations.
Market participants are increasingly demanding stronger evidence that companies can convert enormous AI related capital expenditure into long term profitability. Investors are also seeking clearer commitments regarding shareholder returns and long term supply agreements before assigning premium valuations.
The reaction illustrates how market expectations have evolved from rewarding growth alone to demanding measurable financial returns.
Attention has now shifted to earnings from Microsoft and Meta, which are expected to provide important insight into the financial sustainability of AI investments.
The results follow disappointing updates from Alphabet and Tesla, whose weaker cash flow performance raised concerns that rising AI spending may be placing increasing pressure on corporate finances.
Investors will closely examine whether major technology companies can demonstrate that billions of dollars invested in AI infrastructure are producing corresponding improvements in revenue growth and profitability.
Failure to provide convincing evidence could accelerate the ongoing market correction.
Geopolitical developments added another layer of uncertainty after renewed military activity between the United States and Iran pushed energy prices higher.
Brent crude rose more than 3 percent while West Texas Intermediate crude also gained over 3 percent following reports of Iranian ballistic missile launches and renewed concerns over the security of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The waterway remains one of the world’s most strategically important energy corridors, and any disruption raises fears of tighter global oil supplies and renewed inflationary pressures.
Higher energy prices have complicated the outlook for financial markets by increasing uncertainty over future monetary policy.
The Federal Reserve’s policy announcement has become increasingly significant as investors attempt to balance slowing market sentiment against persistent inflation risks.
Markets remain divided over whether the central bank will maintain current interest rates or opt for another increase. Rising oil prices have strengthened expectations among some analysts that policymakers may adopt a more cautious stance toward inflation.
A more hawkish outcome could place additional pressure on technology stocks, whose high valuations remain particularly sensitive to higher borrowing costs.
The latest market correction suggests that the AI investment narrative is entering a more demanding phase. Investors are no longer rewarding technology companies solely for expanding AI infrastructure but increasingly expect tangible financial returns from unprecedented levels of capital expenditure.
At the same time, renewed geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have introduced fresh inflation risks through higher oil prices, complicating the Federal Reserve’s policy choices and adding further uncertainty to global financial markets. Higher interest rates typically reduce the attractiveness of high growth technology stocks by increasing financing costs and lowering future earnings valuations.
While the long term outlook for artificial intelligence remains strong, the market appears to be transitioning from optimism driven by expectations to a phase focused on profitability, efficiency, and sustainable returns. Companies that fail to demonstrate clear commercial benefits from their AI investments may continue to face heightened investor scrutiny, making upcoming earnings reports a defining test for the next phase of the global AI driven market cycle.
With information from Reuters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long presented his closeness to the United States – both politically and personally – as evidence of his indispensability to Israel.
Arriving with a camera-ready American accent after spending a large portion of his youth in the country, Netanyahu is said to have used his unique understanding of US politics to charm and cajole numerous presidents into maintaining their unflagging support of Israel and his personal political projects.
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For a time it appeared as though US President Donald Trump was the most amenable of all past presidents to Israel and to Netanyahu, particularly after he became the first US leader to agree to participate in a joint war with Israel against Iran.
And yet, with that war stalling, Trump appearing more willing to make deals in the Middle East without Israeli input, and increasing criticism of Israel in the US, there is a sense in Israel that Netanyahu’s Trump card may not be as useful as it once was.
That has come at a bad time for Netanyahu, who faces an election at home in late October and an ongoing trial for corruption, as well as several unresolved conflicts in the region.
Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on Tuesday to meet Trump – his first since the war on Iran began – therefore is an opportunity for a refresh – and a photo opportunity to remind the Israeli public of his ties to the US president.
Strains in Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump have been growing since the start of the war on Iran, after reporting emerged that it was the Israeli prime minister who convinced the US president of the feasibility of the mission, and the potential for the Iranian state to be overthrown.
Concern has also grown within the US Congress over Netanyahu’s apparent indulgence of Israel’s increasingly violent settler movement – which included the extrajudicial detention of a US senator by settlers – alongside friction over Washington’s decision to consider selling F-35s to Israel’s regional rival Turkiye and agreeing a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The real reason Netanyahu’s got this visit [to Washington] is purely cynical,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera. “He’s claimed that he’s flying all the way to the US to attend the wake of his apparently great friend [deceased Republican Senator] Lindsey Graham.”
“Supposedly there’s an agenda, supposedly they’re going to talk about Iran, F-35s and Saudi Arabia’s potential nuclear deal,” said Pinkas.
“But really this is about two things: hoping to assure allies and critics within Israel that the relationship with Trump holds and, separately, hoping that Trump will again call for his pardon in the corruption trial,” he added, referring to Trump’s unorthodox intervention in Israel on Netanyahu’s behalf in November 2025.
However, while Netanyahu may be hoping that a good meeting with Trump may help him in the polls, he arrives at a time when his stock in the US is potentially at its lowest.
Netanyahu has received widespread criticism from figures on the American right, such as podcast host Tucker Carlson and the former Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Vice President JD Vance has also been critical of “some” Israelis, using an interview with US podcaster Joe Rogan to suggest that figures within the Israeli government were trying to derail the agreement he was brokering with Iran to end the war.
Analysts have suggested that the Trump-Netanyahu meeting will combine public flattery with private cynicism on the US president’s part. Asked about Netanyahu’s public resistance to the F-35 sale to Turkiye on board Air Force One on Monday, Trump told reporters, “Nobody tells me what we should be selling”.
![President Trump used a press conference on board Air Force One on Monday to push back against Israeli concerns over the potential sale of fighter jets to Turkiye, telling reporters, ‘Nobody tells me what we should be selling’ [Evan Vucci/Reuters] Burnt bridges](https://i0.wp.com/occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-27T175408Z_243069669_RC2HMMAGKU6C_RTRMADP_3_USA-TRUMP-1785181801.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
“Netanyahu arrives in Washington at a time when even many around [Trump] are suspicious of him. He has become toxic in the US,” Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow in the Department for War Studies at King’s College London. “He is regarded in the US – rightly or wrongly – as the one who dragged Trump into a war of choice that has turned into a strategic catastrophe. Nobody, not even Trump, will let him pretend to be the cleverest guy in the room. Those days are gone.”
While few expect any overt signs of disharmony from the visit in public, Netanyahu’s ability to present himself as uniquely positioned to manage the country’s relationship with the US – a key factor in the upcoming election – may be limited.
“Netanyahu’s had a tremendous track record with the US, but he’s burned a lot of bridges,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and a former Netanyahu aide in the 1990s, told Al Jazeera, adding that the criticism of Netanyahu was not isolated to figures within the nationalist wing of the Republican Party, but included Israel’s traditional allies within the party’s centre right.
“We’ve seen tension through Trump’s comments on the various F-35 sales, including most recently to Turkiye, as well as US criticism of Netanyahu at the start of the Iran war, so I’m not too sure if Trump’s going to be stumping for Netanyahu for all that much longer,” Barak said. “It could easily be that Trump declares Netanyahu was a great wartime leader, but that it was time for Israel to move on, before meeting with [other Israeli politicians] and endorsing a new prime minister for Israel.”
Ryan Johnson struck out five and gave up one run in five solid innings, Jorge Soler and Zach Neto delivered RBI hits and the Angels ended a four-game skid with a 3-2 win over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Johnson (2-4) gave up two hits and walked three. The right-hander escaping a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the fifth when he struck out Dillon Dingler with an 82-mph sweeper. Samy Natera Jr., Chase Silseth and Sam Bachman worked scoreless innings of relief.
Ryan Zeferjahn, who gave up just two earned runs in 19 1/3 innings of his previous 18 games since June 1, gave up a homer to Riley Greene in the top of the ninth as Detroit closed within 3-2. But, Zeferjahn retired the next three batters and earned his third save.
Tigers reliever Drew Anderson (3-4) issued a pair of walks that set up the Angels’ tiebreaking rally in the fifth. Nolan Schanuel, who had three hits, singled to load the bases, and Soler followed with an RBI groundout for a 2-1 lead.
The Angels pushed the lead to 3-1 in the sixth when Oswald Peraza singled, stole second, took third on Tyler Heineman’s groundout and scored on Neto’s RBI single to right.
Detroit starter Casey Mize gave up one run and five hits in 3 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking one. He left after being struck on the left hand by a 109-mph comebacker off the bat of Jo Adell in the fourth inning.
Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle homered to leadoff the game. The Angels tied it at 1 in the second when Vaughn Grissom led off with a double, took third on Josh Lowe’s sacrifice bunt and scored on Peraza’s infield single.
ON the same day as the 2022 World Cup final, England lost one of its most beloved singers – Terry Hall of The Specials.
“Terry passed away right after the game,” recalls his bandmate and best buddy, Lynval Golding. “I was in Jamaica when I got the phone call to tell me he’d gone.”
On December 18, Lynval had been watching Argentina beat France on penalties after a 3-3 extra-time thriller.
He says: “It was a fantastic game and I thought to myself, ‘Terry, that game was played for you’.”
While Lynval is a Chelsea fan, Terry supported Man United — but both had been following the Three Lions.
Four years on, as England’s 2026 campaign ends in defeat to Argentina, The Specials have released their final album, recorded in the summer of 2019 in their teenage stomping ground of Coventry.
Across 24 tracks, it is a reminder of a band that smashed racial and class divides — yet one that did it with horn-fuelled hooks primed for the dance floor.
Live From The Cathedral draws on a four-night homecoming stand in the ruined shell of the old St Michael’s Cathedral, bombed almost to oblivion in the Blitz.
It includes all The Specials’ favourites — Too Much Too Young, Rat Race, Nite Klub, Stereotype and Ghost Town among them.
There’s also room for songs from Encore, the band’s studio album released earlier in 2019, including Vote For Me, B.L.M., and a reworking of Fun Boy Three’s The Lunatics.
It ends with The Specials’ lilting cover of You’re Wondering Now with the Coventry crowd, given encouragement from Terry, chanting the chorus of, “You’re wondering now, what to do/Now you know, this is the end.”
As it has turned out, the album does mark the end of The Specials, the ska revivalists with punk attitude who formed in 1977 and captivated the nation as members of the 2 Tone movement alongside The Beat, Selecter and Madness.
And that’s why I’m speaking to the surviving core members, guitarist and occasional vocalist Lynval, who came to Britain as part of the Windrush generation, and bassist Horace Panter.
I’m supposed to be talking to them together — but then I didn’t take the World Cup into account.
Only when Horace and I are winding up our chat does Lynval join the video call.
“I just woke up. I was watching football all night!” he exclaims.
It’s the day after England beat Mexico and though Lynval lives near Seattle these days, he’s in London staying with family.
He adds: “Obviously every four years, football is the most important thing in our lives. I’ve got my England shirt!”
Lynval is the extrovert who wears his heart firmly on his sleeve while Horace seems to be a calm and thoughtful character.
Hearing from these contrasting souls, one thing becomes abundantly clear. They think it’s all over.
“This live album is the last hurrah, the final full stop,” says Horace.
“Losing Terry was a tragic way for it to end, but it’s been an absolute joy to have been part of this band. Incredible.
“I’ve moved on,” he continues. “Life happens.
“In 2021, I was handed a granddaughter which I wasn’t expecting.
“My son and his wife have moved up to live near us (not far from Warwick), so I’m involved in looking after her.
“I still play music — noisy blues rock with some buddies from Leamington and Coventry.
“I do other musical stuff and I’ve got this art career. I paint pictures.”
As for Lynval, the loss of Terry aged 63 from pancreatic cancer, came as the bitterest of blows. “It took me three years to even listen to those live recordings,” he says. “It felt so raw.”
He sees Live From The Cathedral as a tribute to all those members of the 2 Tone family “who are no longer with us”, including Specials drummer John Bradbury, trombonist Rico Rodriguez and The Beat’s Ranking Roger.
“But it is more focused around Terry than anyone else,” he says.
“I was absolutely blessed to work with him, one of the best lyricists England has ever produced. He never got the credit he deserved — he was so damned good.”
Lynval vividly describes his heartbreak at discovering his close friend was seriously ill.
Terry had just got back from Los Angeles where he’d been writing songs for the next (and never to be released) Specials album and Lynval had flown over from Seattle for sessions.
He says: “The next day, I went to the studio and Nikolaj [Torp Larsen], our musical director, was there.
“We listened to some of the music — one song had the feeling of Funky Kingston.
“I waited but Terry didn’t turn up. I was the only one he would let visit him at home in Islington so I got on the Underground, came off at the Angel, and walked right to his house.
“His wife Lindy opened the door. She looked a bit concerned and said, ‘Terry’s in bed’.
“We both had jet lag so I decided to leave him that way. I had my usual cup of mint tea and chatted with Lindy.”
Later that week, Lynval heard that Terry had been to hospital and received devastating test results.
He says: “I went to Coventry and hit a bottle of rum. I went into a black space — completely dark.”
Soon after his pilgrimage to the Midlands city where they had formed The Specials, Lynval rang Terry.
“Terry rarely talked to anyone on the phone but he knew we had something to discuss.
“He said, ‘I’m going to fight this’, and I said, ‘Terry, I’m going to be right by your side, fighting with you brother’.”
Lynval firmly believes he is “spiritually connected” to Terry and, by way of example, explains how he came to sing Moon River at his funeral.
“When Brad [John Bradbury] died in 2015, I sang Redemption Song as a tribute, with just cello, violin and viola.
“Terry’s wife asked me what I was going to do this time. I said, ‘I don’t think I have the strength to do anything’.”
But then, Lynval heard a radio playing Andy Williams’ definitive version of Moon River.
He says: “It was beautiful. I rang Lindy and said, ‘I will sing for Terry and I know what I’m going to do — Moon river, wider than a mile’.
“She started crying and said, ‘It was our wedding song and I played it to him on his deathbed, you’re a genius’, and I hadn’t known.”
So, along with Nikolaj and guitarist Steve Cradock, Lynval performed Moon River in the same crematorium as John Bradbury’s funeral.
He says: “When I sang that line, ‘Two drifters off to see the world’, I thought of Brad and Terry.”
The loss of two such important bandmates prompts Lynval to echo Horace’s sentiments that The Specials have run their course.
He says: “My book is always open, but not to do anything as The Specials ever again.
“I was so blessed to work with these musicians but I can’t play the guitar any more.
“My nerves were damaged after I was hit by a bus.
“I’ve passed my guitars and keyboards on to my 18-year-old great-nephew Jayden. He’s a jazzer and a Golding!”
I ask Horace for his thoughts on Terry and he talks of “a private person despite the fact that he could go out in front of four or five thousand people”.
He adds: “I would kill to go on Desert Island Discs but Terry was like, ‘No, I won’t do that’.
“But there was always something to laugh about with him. He could be very funny. We bonded over Northern working men’s club comedians and Spinal Tap.”
Now it’s time to return to those balmy summer nights in 2019 when Terry, Lynval, Horace, Nikolaj, Steve Cradock and the rest of the ace live Specials band performed those hometown gigs in Coventry.
Horace says: “It was a real coming together of people in Coventry and the ruins of the cathedral was a fantastic venue.
“Usually when we went to Coventry, we would play this big soulless concrete shed up by the football stadium.”
He adds: “I was still living there in 2019 so I would walk over the green to Empress House, catch a No13, which dropped me off at Pool Meadow. Then I’d cross the road, go up through the university, and I was at the cathedral. It was great.”
He remembers Coventry being “a tough place to live” back in the Seventies when The Specials got together, the other members who made the debut album besides Terry, Lynval, Horace and Brad being Jerry Dammers, Neville Staple and Roddy Radiation.
“By the time we came to prominence in 1979, there was an enormous amount of unemployment and disaffection in Coventry,” says Horace.
Although Dammers’ masterpiece Ghost Town could be about any downtrodden city with big social problems, it could, he suggests, also have been about their hometown.
He says: “Lynval suffered racism in some of the jobs he had. At night, he’d go out to the clubs and getting home could be quite an adventure.”
Though The Specials were associated with Rock Against Racism, Horace says: “We didn’t play many of the gigs because we were the working definition of white guys and black guys making music that works. It was unity in action.”
He draws my attention to the great Friday Night, Saturday Morning which The Specials perform on Live From The Cathedral and is dedicated by Terry to the fabled Parson’s Nose fish and chip shop in Coventry.
The song goes: “Hope the chip shop isn’t closed. Cos’ their pies are really nice. I’ll eat in the taxi queue. Standing in someone else’s spew.”
Horace says: “That was one of Terry’s first forays into songwriting and a really important song of ours. He gave it a very droll delivery.
“The Parson’s Nose was the chippy that stayed open late after you’d been to clubs like Mr George’s, La Chaumière or Tiffany’s. You’d go there for a steak and kidney pie and mushy peas.
“Nite Klub mentions Tiffany’s. The shows we did there were the apogee of 2-Toning in 1979.”
Lynval says: “I got chased in Coventry, I got stabbed in Coventry. It could be a running battle because of the racial problem.”
But he adds that he had “wonderful” Friday nights and Saturday mornings that ended up at The Parson’s Nose or the Chinese takeaway next door.
“We were youth, we were growing up and I really did ‘wish I had lipstick on my shirt instead of piss stains on my shoes’.”
Horace maintains that The Specials gave Coventry something to smile about and to be proud of in the late Seventies “and that was acknowledged during the gigs in 2019”.
So, I can’t help but ask, how did Horace get his stage name, Sir Horace Gentleman?
“That was Lynval’s fault,” he replies. “I was raised in Kettering, Northamptonshire, and had a very plummy accent.
“I was at art college and wasn’t working class by any stretch. And, of course, lots of people had reggae names like Prince Buster or Sir Coxsone.”
Horace says The Specials “owed as much a debt of gratitude to The Clash as we did to the Jamaican artists.
“We had the great good fortune to open for The Clash for three weeks in 1978 so we could sit side-stage every night and watch how those guys delivered and what they delivered.
“We thought, ‘Well, OK, if we’re going to be any good, we’ve got to be at least as good as these guys’. The Clash set the benchmark.”
But the final words are with Lynval, who has nothing but fond memories of his time in a very special band.
“I feel so honoured to have been in The Specials,” he says.
“It’s nearly 50 years since we first got together. What an achievement!
“And, hold on a minute, those songs are just as relevant today.”
Lynval leaves us with a quote from a song that Horace insisted they play live at every show because it served as a mission statement.
“Just because you’re a black boy. Just because you’re a white. It doesn’t mean you’ve got to hate him. It doesn’t mean you’ve got to fight.
“It doesn’t make it alright.”
For the first time in more than two weeks, the Sparks won a game.
Nneka Ogwumike scored 24 points with eight rebounds, Rae Burrell added 22 points and Dearica Hamby had 21 in what felt like a near must-win game against Indiana on Wednesday night to snap a three-game losing streak, 106-92.
“I think people were tired of how we were losing,” Ogwumike said. “Not just losing, but how we were losing, and we knew that there was more that we could give. … I think we all individually held ourselves accountable to be able to do more, to pour more into what we got going on. I took it upon myself to try my best to like, you know, play harder in possessions.”
The Fever committed 17 turnovers, which the Sparks (9-11) converted into 22 points, and All-Star Caitlin Clark scored her second-fewest points this season with just nine in limited minutes while returning from injury. Kelsey Mitchell scored 29 points for the Fever, but the Sparks seemed to have an offensive answer each time.
Indiana (12-9) was without star center Aliyah Boston (lower right leg), who Fever coach Stephanie White said would play in the second game of a back-to-back set Thursday in Phoenix. Clark, in and out of the lineup because of a back injury all season, never got going and was an abysmal minus-16.
Coming off an 18-point loss to Seattle at home on Monday, Ogwumike said that injured All-Star guard Kelsey Plum gave the team an inspired speech Tuesday.
“Everyone had a little bit of feedback that she gave, both encouragement and also points of improvement for each person, and I think it was received,” Ogwumike said. “It was received in a way that not only did we want to change how we, you know, approach today, but also to familiarize ourselves with sustaining the way that this feels moving forward.”
“KP lit a fire under our ass,” Burrell added.
All five Sparks starters scored in double digits, and the 106 points were the most the franchise has scored in a home game.
Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever talks with teammates during the second quarter.
(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
“I’m happy we won, obviously, but I’m more happy with how we played,” coach Lynne Roberts said. “The response that we showed from just laying an egg on Monday to coming back and, you know, we talked about playing more connected, having a little more smarts out there, defensively emptying the tank, getting out and running and playing with pace.”
The Sparks rode a 16-2 run midway through the second quarter to lead by as many as eight before the half.
They didn’t slow down going into the third frame, opening with 18 points in the first five minutes to take a 13-point lead. Burrell and Kiana Williams hit consecutive threes late in the third after the Fever cut the lead to eight points, and it was never close again.
Plum (lower left leg) and center Cameron Brink (left ankle) remained out of the lineup, and the Sparks extended their bench to give significant minutes to Alissa Pili, Jihyun Park and Williams.
Pili, signed to a developmental deal this week, scored four points with five rebounds in her first WNBA action since last September because of a right ankle injury.
Wednesday’s win also snapped a three-game losing streak to the Fever dating to last season.
The Sparks will complete their three-game homestand against Chicago (7-14) on Friday.
“We wanted to play harder,” Ogwumike said. “We wanted to own each possession and to compete at every level for the full 40 minutes of play. It’s really that simple. I think when you put your heart into playing that hard, the schemes, the plays, the execution, it comes to fruition. And tonight, it felt good. It felt good emptying the tank.”
ConocoPhillips (COP) shares snapped six straight sessions of losses, as the stock was up 1.4% at $104.63 on Thursday.
The oil and gas exploration and production company fell 3.5% in the preceding six sessions. COP is down 11% over the past one month.
Since its opening in 1967, Pirates of the Caribbean has stood as an anchor at Disneyland, a statement piece that has defined the direction of the park.
And that remained true last week when Walt Disney Imagineering unveiled a new audio-animatronic pirate. It’s wow-inducing. It’s also narrative-wrecking. And it fundamentally shifts the vibe of the attraction’s early scenes.
The high-tech pirate, we can bet, is just a small preview of the park’s next-gen toys. Because when changes come to Disneyland, they often hit Pirates of the Caribbean first. Over a half-century ago, the robotic figures of Pirates were a symbol of Disneyland’s technological ambitions, dazzling audiences with characterized but lifelike movements. With the ride, Disneyland made it clear that as the world advances, so, too, would the park.
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As culture shifted and the lecherous buccaneers of the ride began to look more like symbols of sexual harassment, they would be forced to undergo some welcome personality adjustments. A redheaded victim of sex trafficking would transform into one of the ride’s most striking characters, and a number of rides from the Jungle Cruise to Splash Mountain would eventually undergo similar reassessment.
For Pirates of the Caribbean, after all, is the attraction that defined the Disneyland template. Its mastery is that it is a series of larger-than-life dioramas constructed around an abstracted narrative where themes of greed, lust and intemperance take precedence over a plot with a firm beginning, middle and end. And thus it made sense for Imagineering, the outfit of the company responsible for theme park experiences, to unveil its latest tech-driven master work on the ride.
A new animated pirate on Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean shifts from living to dead using projection technology.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Reaction, however, has been less than enthused. Disneyland’s own social media accounts are flooded with pointed critiques, but even if we consider that social media tends to lead with gripes, some of the park’s most ardent fan sites have referred to the reimagined scene as a gutting. Why so much hullabaloo over a single robot? If we allow that Disneyland is a place that generations make pilgrimages to, then Pirates of the Caribbean is its most sacred temple. Handle with care.
There is, of course, a series of stages most Disneyland fans go through with any major changes, and it’s usually one of shock or confusion followed by acceptance and eventually new nostalgia. And Disneyland’s recent attraction updates have by and large been winners, as evidenced by the lovely Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the exploratory Adventureland Treehouse and the bewitching Snow White’s Enchanted Wish.
This one, however, is more complicated.
Where once was a foreboding skeleton frozen in time atop a treasure and swords, there is now an animated figurine built with the latest in projection technology. The latter transitions from living to dead, caught in a perpetual loop with each glimpse of the cavern’s “cursed treasure,” which it continually lifts and drops. The pirate is placed after the ride’s two dips in a gold-filled room among the winding, mysterious underground chambers that help set its tone.
Dead pirates fill the caverns of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Since the attraction’s opening, the only living beings in this portion were a lone seagull and maybe a stray sea critter or two. It is here where the mystique of Pirates of the Caribbean is set, and guests are placed in the active role of piecing together the time-shifting narrative. Story is hinted at rather than fed to us. We hear tales of the hexed fortunes found in the caves via ghostly narration, but see only its after-effects — skeletons locked in a chess battle or standing behind the wheel of a crumbling ship.
The centerpiece treasure room, where our new pirate is found, has long been a breathtaking scene. Previously, a now decayed body sat atop a mountain of wealth, an empty, soulless figure done in by selfish pride. It was disquieting, and a bit ghoulish. Stray, soft musical notes underscored the tragedy. Further on, a trapped pirate quietly transitions from living to dead via an old theatrical mirror illusion, and the boats float into a city filled with battles and buffoonery.
Gone is the subtlety. A somber tableau is now relatively loud, as our eyes no longer take in the full set but zero in on a bright and at times lively figurine. I cannot deny that it is an impressive piece of technology. On the multiple rides that I took Monday morning, I overheard two teens describe it as “pretty cool” and watched as a young child excitedly shouted to his mom and dad that the figure’s face was changing.
The caverns of Pirates of the Caribbean set a foreboding tone.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Such reactions are no doubt what Imagineering is hoping for. Part of the job of stewarding a classic attraction, after all, is ensuring it maintains an appeal to future generations. But I believe two things can be true. The new pirate may captivate some audiences and it can also stylistically and tonally clash with the attraction. This is the right tech, perhaps, for a more animated experience, one such as the in-development “Coco” ride coming to Disney California Adventure. Unfortunately, in Pirates it’s misplaced. Worse, it’s distracting, as we’re immediately drawn to its movement, grunts and quick-transitioning face.
I lament losing what was there. Projected figures, even the best of them, such as this one, are still media and can still gleam with light. And while the original Pirates of the Caribbean designs by Marc Davis were exaggerated, they were brought back to reality by Blaine Gibson, who sculpted them with bold, hardened features that made them at once heightened but believable. They may have been cartoonish, but they weren’t actual cartoons, and this figure is too much of a contrast, its comic-like excess feeling less relatable, less human. And that says nothing of its snort-like laughs, which reminded me too much of the huffs and puffs of the ride’s donkeys.
It also raises more story questions than it answers. Why, for instance, aren’t the other skeletons caught in a loop? Sometimes more is said by saying less, and this feller leans silly in a portion of the ride that calls for spooky. Ultimately, it just feels unnecessary, a symptom of our often exhausting, tech-obsessed, digital-drenched age where new, needless tools are shoved in our faces daily.
Thankfully, the rest of the attraction serves as a reminder that no computer wizardry can out-class old-school theater. Theme parks should evolve with the times, but sometimes it takes artful restraint to not mess with what’s already timeless.
Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.
Ride on,
Todd Martens
Visitors tie paper tags bearing wishes onto trees in the courtyard of the Broad as part of an exhibition dedicated to Yoko Ono.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Theme parks often are about the power of imagination, allowing us to play pretend in heightened, alternate worlds. And I had theme parks on my mind while I traversed the Broad’s excellent current exhibit dedicated to Yoko Ono.
What, perhaps you wonder, does Ono have to do with theme parks? “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” documents the entirety of the artist’s career, and much of her early work centers on play. Real, philosophical play, essentially the idea that through creativity, fantasy and a bit of silliness, we can all see the world differently.
Whether it was communicating with her audience while in a bag (1964’s “Bag Piece”), an antecedent to Meow Wolf’s “Experience Tube,” or offering instructions to count stars, tally our wrinkles, drop off peas on a morning walk, attach wishes to a tree or create fictional maps of our neighborhoods, much of Ono’s career was dedicated toward building community and connections through playfulness and imagination.
It’s freeing work, and a reminder that a little frivolity via participatory art — and that’s really what theme parks and so-called immersive entertainment provide — is a necessary ingredient for happiness.
SACRAMENTO — Angels outfielder Mike Trout is back on the injured list.
The team announced before Thursday night’s 5-0 loss to the Athletics that the 11-time All-Star was put on the 10-day IL due to a right hamstring strain. The Angels recalled infielder Christian Moore from Triple-A Salt Lake among a flurry of moves.
Injuries have hindered Trout for much of this decade. Since winning his third AL MVP award in 2019, Trout has played more than 82 games in a season just twice — 119 in 2022 and 130 in 2025.
The 34-year-old Trout had played in 74 of 75 games this year in a resurgent season. He’s batting .234 with an .866 OPS, 17 homers, 36 RBIs and seven steals.
He entered Thursday with an AL-leading 54 runs, a total that was tied for second in the majors behind Washington’s James Wood. Trout’s 66 walks also ranked second in the big leagues, behind the Athletics’ Nick Kurtz.
Trout had the second-highest vote count of any AL outfielder in the All-Star Game balloting totals that were released this week. He grew up near Philadelphia, where this year’s All-Star Game will take place next month.
The injury to Trout created an opportunity for Moore, who was hitting .333 with a .468 on-base percentage, nine homers, 45 RBIs and 10 steals in 51 games at Salt Lake while playing second base, third base and the outfield.
Moore hit .198 with a .284 on-base percentage, seven homers, 16 RBIs and three steals in 53 games with the Angels last season.
In other moves, the Angels recalled right-hander Ryan Johnson from double-A Rocket City, released left-hander Drew Pomeranz and optioned right-hander Brett Kerry and catcher Logan Porter to Salt Lake.
In Thursday’s game, Gage Jump gave up one hit over seven innings, and Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom hit back-to-back homers in a five-run first for the Athletics.
The first six A’s batters got hits off Johnson, who was recalled before the game.
On the 100th day of the US-Israeli war on Iran, Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall explains how Tehran’s patience has reached its limit with the continuous violations of the ‘ceasefire’. Iran fired missiles at Israel after Israel attacked Beirut on Sunday.
Published On 7 Jun 20267 Jun 2026
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Anthropic is proposing that the world’s top artificial intelligence companies come up with a coordinated way to pause development of advanced AI systems, warning that the technology is improving so quickly that there’s a risk humans would lose control.
The company behind the Claude chatbot said in a blog post on Thursday that, as cutting-edge AI gets increasingly faster at carrying out tasks, “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development.
Anthropic said its internal research institute plans to explore the issue in collaboration with others and “take actions” to help build the systems for a credible slowdown or pause, without being more specific.
Anthropic rival OpenAI argued for a different approach in a report published on Wednesday, saying that “democratic governments — not private companies acting alone — must ultimately determine the rules, safeguards, and accountability mechanisms”.
“Our view is that decisions about the pace of AI innovation should not be left to any one lab, company, or special interest group,” it said.
AI models are getting faster, with rapid increases in how quickly they can carry out software tasks like coding on their own, Anthropic said in its post. Based on current trends and given enough computing power, an AI system could be able to design and develop its own successor, in what is known as “recursive self-improvement”.
Self-building AI would be a major technological milestone that would bring benefits in science, healthcare and other areas, Anthropic said, but it “also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems”.
Some tech industry figures have long warned of such a scenario.
Anthropic’s post comes after a different warning this week from a team of researchers at the University of Toronto who showed how AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI “worm” that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.
“I think it’s really important that people understand that it’s not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,” lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.
The authors of the Anthropic post, company cofounder Jack Clark and Marina Favaro, head of its research institute, said the pause would be used to enable “societal structures and alignment research” to keep up with AI advances. Alignment is industry shorthand for making sure the technology matches human values and intentions.
The proposed coordination would let advanced AI labs verify that global rivals have actually stopped or slowed their work, “and that a bad actor could not use the auspices of a coordinated slowdown to jump ahead in secret”.
The company said a coordinated global mechanism is needed because, without it, a slowdown in AI development could let the “least cautious” players catch up and add to pressure on companies and governments as they make tough choices about AI safety.
Fears that advanced AI systems may get out of human control and cause societal harm have risen as the technology becomes increasingly capable. Anthropic’s own Mythos model sent shockwaves through industries, including banking and software, earlier this year with its ability to find vulnerabilities in existing code.
But regulation has been slow, especially in the US, where most leading AI labs are based. A Trump administration executive order earlier this week put the onus on the labs themselves, asking them to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity testing before public release.
AI researchers have also urged a pause before, but have had little success. Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among the backers of a 2023 push by the non-profit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time for safety guardrails.
Anthropic has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab. Earlier this year, it refused to let the US military use its models for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, prompting backlash from the government, which put it on a national security blacklist, set to take effect later in 2026.
Anthropic’s post comes as the company and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI race to sell shares on the stock market, in an IPO that could value Anthropic at nearly a trillion dollars.
Papernot notified Canadian cybersecurity authorities prior to releasing his report, which shows how researchers developed the worm in a laboratory by using an “open-source” AI tool that is easy for software developers to cheaply access and modify.
“In the past, cyber attackers would focus on targets that are very high value,” he said. “Banking systems, hospitals, electricity grids, water treatment systems, schools.”
Papernot agreed that there should be more collaboration between companies, government agencies and academic researchers to develop countermeasures as AI-powered hacking tools supercharge the search for computer vulnerabilities.
“That old laptop you have in your basement that you don’t check on regularly doesn’t seem like a very high-value target, but it can be used as a launch pad to attack these higher-value targets,” he said. “Anything connected to the internet is now at risk because of how low the cost has become to mount these cyberattacks.”
It’s always spectacular to see a big shot getting caught. Especially when he’s made a long career at the top of an European democracy under a mask of respectability. And, oh so suddenly, it turns out he’s made a fortune dealing with a Latin American dictatorship.
The sequence was— as people love to say today—worth of a Netflix series.
Hours before getting on another flight to Caracas, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero decided to stay in Madrid once he knew he had just become the first former prime minister in the history of Spain’s 50-year-old democracy to be indicted for a crime. For those who turn on the phone in the morning across the Atlantic, when it is noon in Spain, the news of the indictment came as one bundle with the footage of Zapatero’s office being raided by an anti-corruption investigative unit of Spain’s National Police Corps, known as UDEF.
Zapatero was indicted by Audiencia National (an equivalent of the Supreme Court) for selling his influence to get a financial relief kit for an airline, Plus Ultra, the smallest of four Spanish carriers that received assistance from Madrid as a result of the demand-side shock during the pandemic. This company, with a fleet of seven aircrafts, was also the youngest of the lot, and had the particular feature of having inaugurated routes to Caracas in the annus horribilis of 2017, a time when international operators were withdrawing from the country en masse. As Armando.Info investigative reporter Roberto Deniz would reveal in December 2018, Plus Ultra’s majority stakeholders were from Venezuela.
Eight years later, Zapatero is being prosecuted over allegations of political influence peddling related to the €53 million bailout of Plus Ultra. He also faces charges of criminal conspiracy, document forgery and money laundering. The judge handling the case describes Zapatero as the head of “a stable and hierarchical influence‑peddling structure” meant to “obtain financial benefits as an intermediary, exerting influence over public bodies on behalf of third parties, mainly Plus Ultra.” At least six other individuals are under investigation, including Plus Ultra’s chairman, its CEO, and Alicante-based businessman Julio Martínez Martínez.
The UDEF report says Zapatero and Martínez were at the center of a structure of businesses and consulting firms meant to syphon money coming from China, Venezuela and Spain into his personal accounts.
This latter will be a key character in this story: Martínez Martínez is not only being accused of acting as Zapatero’s frontman in a number of entities that received payments linked to the Plus Ultra (et al) scheme. His own personal records, such as notebook annotations UDEF just made public, suggest he was fully aware of Zapatero’s business and political dealings with the Maduro regime. That evidence seems to point at both opaque trade deals (over Venezuelan light crude, gold, fuel, asphalt, which were the subject of US sanctions until recently) Martínez and Zapatero may have promoted, and knowledge about a number of high-profile political prisoners released this year. The son-in-law of Edmundo González, security expert Rocío San Miguel and opposition moderate Enrique Márquez (who has publicly praised Zapatero) appear mentioned. Martínez´s notes also provide previously undisclosed details about the contents of a constitutional reform Maduro toyed with, but never brought about after stealing the presidential vote in 2024.
All of this adds to the investigations about shady business in the pandemic that involved Spanish businessman Víctor de Aldama, former Transport Minister and PSOE Organization Secretary José Luis Ábalos, and his close advisor Koldo García. The trio famously met Delcy Rodríguez in the tarmac of the Madrid international airport, for a purported conversation over the sale of Venezuelan gold lingots, despite her being the subject of EU sanctions and therefore unable to step on European soil. These three Spaniards (with Ábalos and Koldo being amongst the closest collaborators of Pedro Sánchez in his primary campaign and early government) are the main actors in a series of corruption scandals that have been getting closer to the Spanish head of government, a darling of the International Left whose reputation has been boosted by a knack for antagonizing Donald Trump. But the former aides of Perro Sanxe have been arrested without bail and indicted (and will soon face a sentencing hearing). His brother is facing trial. His wife has also been indicted and is on the verge of facing trial. And now it looks like his political mentor will also face a lengthy process before Spanish justice.
Just after the Zapatero news broke in Spain, predictable reactions began to come across the political spectrum: bloodthirst at the Right, accusations of conspiracy at the Left. Then, the judge made public the 88-page file, fed with a probe that began in 2024, and the ambiance turned in a second. Many allies of the graft-plagued socialist government admitted that the accusations are solid, the evidence overwhelming, and the outlook quite bleak for Zapatero. The conspiracy theory that this was lawfare against the Sánchez government faded away. Spain’s paper of record, El País, traditionally aligned with Zapatero’s party PSOE, wrote a stern op-ed saying that the Sánchez government was forced to investigate this properly to prevent the “enemies of democracy” in the Far Right from charging against the democratic system. “Full cooperation with the judiciary, full respect for the presumption of innocence, and all my support for President Zapatero,” Sánchez said today.
As you may have noticed, authorities have released more evidence this week. Spanish media ranging from the State-owned, left-leaning broadcaster RTVE to the investigative El Confidencial are carving out a map of the Zapatero network of sociedades mercantiles. While not all of these companies are under investigation, together they received an estimated €2.6 million between 2020 and 2025 from Chinese capital and entities under investigation.
The investigation will likely reveal more details about the dealings between the chavista regime, Zapatero and other politicians and businesspeople close to the Sanchista government.
The UDEF report says Zapatero and Martínez were at the center of a structure of businesses and consulting firms (under not-at-all pretentious names like Inteligencia Prospectiva and Análisis Relevante) meant to syphon money coming from China, Venezuela and Spain into his personal accounts. Money that looks, in many cases, like kickbacks. For instance, Whathefav, a social media agency owned by his two daughters, got a payment of half a million euros for creating a website and a promotional video for Inteligencia Prospectiva SL, which is owned by Guillemo and Domingo Amaro Chacón. These two are Spanish-Venezuelan citizens who happen to be the sons of a businessman involved in a case of insurance fraud with PDVSA. Inteligencia Prospectiva reported losses, but was paying juicy bills to other businesses of the same network, like Whathefav.
UDEF also cites evidence of conversations between Domingo Amaro Chacón and Julio Martínez Martínez, from 2021 to 2024, discussing a deal with Minerven (coded as “comercialización de amarillo”), nickel reserves in Venezuela, a major tourism development project on La Tortuga Island, and what seems like efforts to promote the opening of the UAE embassy in Caracas (coded as “the desert guys”). All of this may have something to do with UDEF’s suggestion (reviewed here by The Objective) alleging that the Plus Ultra case might be linked to a money-laundering operation involving proceeds from the Venezuelan CLAP food-box scheme, as well as the shipment of 5-8 tons of gold from Caracas to Dubai.
Yes, it’s a lot. And we’re not even getting into other grim details, like reports that Whathefav received a €100,000 payment from the company behind VenApp, which you’ll remember as the mobile app Maduro promoted in the past two years to encourage chavistas to snitch on dissidents.
Until that day, Zapatero was able to sell to the Spanish people that he had been in Venezuela not just as a negotiator helping take people out of jail, but as a peacemaker trying to prevent the country from falling into a civil war. Apparently through his good heart and blue eyes.
Suddenly, Spain has discovered that a former president, adored among socialists for his term’s achievements like the disbandment of terrorist group ETA, who left Moncloa Palace with no scandals on his shoulders, and who kept enough prestige to back the rise of Sánchez, is an international operator that used his connections and knowledge to make at least 2.6 million euros in ways that spill way beyond the disputable boundaries of legal lobbying.
Once again, Venezuelans raised their eyes to the sky and whispered with resignation. That “yes, moron, we have known this for years” feeling we are so familiar with.
This case should remind the EU that post-Maduro Venezuela still harbors kleptocratic networks embedded well within European jurisdictions.
For Venezuelan media, and we dare to say a great deal of the public, Zapatero has been known for years as a loyal operator of the chavista regime who works at the expense of the people to help Maduro, and now the Rodríguez siblings, to preserve power. In doing so, he has kept the boardgame tilted against the opposition. The statesmanship that many Spaniards attribute to Zapatero has served only to defend Maduro’s interests during several negotiation rounds with international presence, and to corner the opposition into disadvantageous arrangements by presenting himself as an arbiter when, in fact, he’s no more than an able messenger of Miraflores. Former political prisoners like Lorent Saleh have recalled how Zapatero pressured their families to keep quiet about torture and abuse endured in prison. All that work, of course, has been handsomely rewarded.
We saw his shadow in the humiliation of president-elect Edmundo González Urrutia, in the Spanish ambassador’s house in Caracas, during his last hours in Venezuela in August 2024. Edmundo was pressured by Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez to sign a self-incriminating letter as a condition for being allowed to leave for Spain. After that, the Rodríguez siblings and Zapatero have actively endorsed each other: one of the Spaniard’s last visits to Caracas saw him declaring next to Jorge and other National Assembly lawmakers as a key international sponsor of the 2026 amnesty law, which Delcy recently discontinued. One of those lawmakers, fake opposition politician Timoteo Zambrano, is another close friend and ally of Zapatero. The latter’s influence looks so significant that Delcy just appointed Zambrano as the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid.
The investigation will likely reveal more details about the dealings between the chavista regime, Zapatero and other politicians and businesspeople close to the Sanchista government. It will all depend on what prosecutors can find and prove, but it’s fair to say that a wave of scandals and a thickening of corruption dossiers of this kind could make any democratic government in the world collapse (though with Sánchez, in the end, we’re talking about a man Spanish voters know for surviving all kinds of reputational crises).
The Spanish government was among the first to recognize Delcy Rodríguez as head of state. As early as January, its top diplomat said he would request that the EU lifts sanctions on Delcy. Just a few weeks ago, the same official confirmed that Caracas would resume talks with the IMF. The Spanish Foreign Ministry used to be run by Josep Borrell, a socialist from the non-Zapaterista faction (the more moderate, Felipista wing) of the ruling PSOE, who has become a vocal critic of both the Maduro dictatorship and Zapatero. But Madrid’s latest efforts to normalize relations with Delcy haven’t gone unnoticed, perhaps encouraged by the Trump administration, and also by Maria Corina Machado’s close ties with the Spanish Right.
With such accusations against a key enabler of this bilateral relationship, the image of normalcy (and common sense) both Sánchez and Delcy are trying to project should take a hit. This case should remind the EU that post-Maduro Venezuela still harbors kleptocratic networks embedded well within European jurisdictions.
We should note this is not a problem where Delcy can turn to the Trump administration for help. Not only because Trump despises Sánchez, but because Homeland Security reportedly gave leads to Spain’s National Police in the Plus Ultra case, in cooperation through the American embassy in Madrid.
A big winner in this case is María Corina Machado, who recently held a massive rally in Madrid’s main square that few Spanish politicians could have matched. Machado was lambasted by Foreign Minister José Luis Albares for refusing to meet Sánchez or other leftwing leaders during her Madrid visit. Throughout her trip, when asked by journalists about this decision, Machado did not name Sánchez but thanked the Spanish government for receiving Venezuelan migrants over the years, while also stressing her utmost respect for Spanish institutions. It is false that Machado only met with the right-wing opposition: she appeared publicly with former PM Felipe González, a historic figure of Spanish social democracy and a key leader of the country’s famous Transition.
Machado may now be feeling some relief about how the whole Spanish saga is unfolding (both Zapatero and Machado have acknowledged they have never spoken to each other).
In another era, she might have summed it up with one of her classic phrases: se los dije.
09:45, 22 May 2026Updated 13:46, 22 May 2026
Russell Arrowsmith has not been in contact with friends or family (Jam Press/Nicky Arrowsmith)
A man has vanished while on a stag do in Spain, leaving his wife and friends concerned. Russell Arrowsmith disappeared from the group during their trip for his friends’ pre-wedding celebration.
His wife Nicky lost contact with him before his friends called her to say they had lost him. Russell vanished around 4pm on May 21. He was last seen near the 3-star Hotel Gala Placidia in Benidorm, Alicante, Spain.
Russell, from Doncaster, is believed to have been wearing a pink or black t-shirt at the time he went missing. He is described as having mid-length curly dark hair with a beard. Russell is around 5ft8 and is of a slim build.
The scaffolder started his own business in June last year, with his son Riley also joining him. Both his wife Nicky and his sister Jennifer are pleading with locals and Brits abroad to keep an eye out for him.
His partner is now on her way out to Benidorm to help aid the search. Nicky said: “He was on a stag do but left the group and no one can find him. They’ve rang me to fly out, so I’m on my way there now.
“Can everyone keep an eye out for my husband. He’s been missing since 4pm today (21 May). If you see him please send me location.”
The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. Air Force has confirmed it has come up with a new set of requirements as it continues to look for a successor to its hard-working MQ-9 Reaper fleet. In contrast to the Reaper, the replacement aircraft is likely to be more flexible in terms of mission spectrum. At the same time, the service wants to use new manufacturing technologies to ensure that it can be built at scale and at a lower price point than the MQ-9. This would allow it to be bought in larger numbers and risked more freely in contested environments.
All this reflects the continued high utility placed on the MQ-9 fleet, as well as its considerable loss rates sustained against mid-tier and lower-tier adversaries. It also points away from filling the MQ-9’s role with a far more exquisite, costly, but more survivable asset, which seemed to have been the direction the Air Force was heading, at least in part, for many years now. With this in mind, this new direction appears to accept that many losses will occur in future combat scenarios and embraces that reality to leverage quantity over quality for whatever eventually takes over from the MQ-9.
Testifying before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Maj. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the acting head of Air Force Futures, said that a new requirements document for an MQ-9 replacement had been approved. Aviation Week was first to report the development.
The approval clears the path for the Air Force to begin a new acquisition process for an uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) that will assume the MQ-9’s role. A medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) system, the Reaper is primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions.
Niemi told the Senate Armed Services Committee that improvements in technology since the MQ-9 was developed mean the service now considers it possible for a new drone to be “more flexible,” leaning upon open architectures.
At the same time, modern production methods mean the new drone will be easier and cheaper to produce “in mass numbers,” Niemi said. The result should be a drone that the Air Force can “use in a more attritable way.”
Interestingly, within the Air Force, there has in recent years been a shift away from the term attritable — meaning inexpensive enough to be willing to lose on high-risk missions while being capable enough to be relevant for those missions — to “affordable mass.” This is something TWZ previously highlighted was already happening back in 2021.
This change came about as a way of helping define the kinds of advanced drones that the Air Force is planning to acquire in the coming years, reflecting that their capabilities will necessarily come at a cost that will make them less than “attritable.”
Last month, the Air Force published a market survey notice, requesting information from industry on a new attritable ISR drone.
This notice included some key performance parameters for the drone, including a range of up to 932 miles and a 20-hour endurance. The attritable nature of the drone was reflected in a requirement for it to fly 100 missions with a “low-to-medium acquisition” cost.
The basic Reaper can fly for more than 20 hours unarmed, or more than 12 hours with weapons. In the case of the MQ-9B version, with an extended wingspan, flight endurance can be increased to more than 40 hours.
“Operators desire low-cost, fast-to-field, fast-to-deploy airborne ISR mass to increase mission flexibility and mission surging,” the market survey notice added.
The process of figuring out what to replace the Reaper with has been ongoing for many years now. However, the latest effort is noteworthy for its emphasis on a lower-cost, more attritable platform.
Back in 2020, the Air Force published a request for information for a program dubbed MQ-Next, also seeking an MQ-9 successor. This was focused on ISR and strike capabilities, but also stated a desire for reduced operating costs and greater persistence, survivability, and range.
By 2021, the Air Force was concentrating more on a family of systems — the so-called Next-Generation Multi-Role Unmanned Aerial System Family of Systems (Next-Gen Multi-Role UAS FoS) — including a growing emphasis on low-observable (stealth) technologies. The same year, the service said it was seeking a replacement for the MQ-9 that could possibly include defensive counter-air capabilities to protect high-value manned aircraft, such as tankers, as well as potentially fly red air aggressor missions. Fast forward to today, and it’s clear that these higher-performance air-to-air focused missions could be taken over, at least in part, by the current Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. As a result, whatever replaces the MQ-9 is unlikely to have such broad requirements.
The Next-Gen Multi-Role UAS FoS included scope for platforms that could be survivable and reusable, or ones that would be attritable or expendable. This was not a single platform solution, either. It would likely need to include a mix of systems.
The 2021 document also stipulated that the MQ-9’s successor should be tailored for Great Power Competition, pointing to a drone ecosystem suitable for the kinds of highly contested environments that would be encountered during a conflict with a peer rival such as China or Russia. At the same time, the solution was also intended to fly missions in more permissive environments, like the MQ-9.
Around this same time, the Air Force also said it wanted to leverage advances in development and manufacturing, meaning that smaller numbers of manned aircraft could be produced quickly to meet dynamically evolving threats. This reflected the Air Force’s “Digital Century Series” that was in vogue at that time, and which led to talk about “throwaway” technology and essentially “disposable” aircraft. Some of this appears to have made it into these new requirements, which stipulate that the aircraft needs to be able to fly just 100 missions.
Meanwhile, the latest statements from the service describe a drone with increased flexibility achieved through open architecture, rather than building bespoke batches of drones for particular requirements. Previous statements from the service outlined an aspiration to have its new drone capable of accommodating rapidly reconfigurable payloads, something that open architecture would expedite.
Above all else, the MQ-9 successor will still have to operate in contested environments.
In his testimony yesterday, Niemi presented a vision of a new drone, the design of which would stress being attritable, rather than survivable.
The Pentagon has long worked on the basis that a future conflict with a peer rival, and especially with China in the Pacific, would see it facing highly robust anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) scenarios. With that in mind, previous Reaper replacement studies had suggested that low observability would need to be incorporated into the design.
The latest thinking seems to reject that, or at least reorient the program toward a lower-cost platform of the kind that the Air Force would be able to field in mass, as well as to absorb the anticipated attrition in a high-end conflict. This does not preclude this airframe from featuring low-observable elements. In fact, it most likely will. But those would be more aggressively balanced against cost.
Concerns over the MQ-9’s vulnerability to air defenses have been ongoing for years now, although usually the nuances of this issue are not portrayed accurately in the media. Regardless, many MQ-9s were lost over Yemen, against a bottom-tier force. The war with Iran earlier this year underlined both the great utility and vulnerabilities of the platform. At least 24 Air Force Reapers were destroyed during the war, but these aircraft were pushed deep into Iran, loitered there for hours on end, and did some of the most important air-to-ground strike and surveillance work during the air campaign. While the Air Force says it plans to “buy back” some of the losses from that conflict, that will come with a hefty price tag, something that the service will want to avoid with its next ISR/strike drone. Furthermore, production of the MQ-9A model has now ended in favor of the MQ-9B.
The assumption that the MQ-9 replacement will be acquired in significant numbers is also noteworthy in terms of the current Air Force Reaper fleet, which includes more than 130 MQ-9As, according to Aviation Week.
What appears to be missing at this stage, or at least obscured, is an acquisition strategy for the new drones. As well as the aerial platforms, the MQ-9 successor will require suitable new ground control systems, sensors, and data exploitation technologies, all of which are compatible with open-architecture standards. These systems will also have to leverage the latest technologies to allow the drones to be more effective and more survivable over the battlefield.
Since MQ-Next, the U.S. drone landscape has changed considerably in terms of manufacturers. A few years ago, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics would have been seen as the front-runners for the MQ-9 replacement. Now, there are more contenders, often with a founding focus on rapidly scaling up production at low cost. Still, these firms have much to prove, especially considering the risk in replacing an aircraft as important as the MQ-9. At the same time, in the more advanced drone space, the legacy defense “prime” contractors are also making major progress in leveraging new technologies to reduce production costs and migrating away from exquisite, very expensive drones as their default offerings.
Back in 2021, the Air Force was promoting a “Speed to Ramp” initiative for its MQ-Next, which would see the first iterations of this capability fielded before “the 2026/2027 timeframe.” Other solutions under the same effort would begin to be fielded “in the 2030 timeframe,” the Air Force said.
While the latter timeline might still be somewhat achievable, it will require a considerable effort and investment and, not least, the firming up of the requirements for exactly what the Air Force wants its MQ-9 replacement to look like.
What we do know is that, while the Reaper’s replacement might not be as survivable as once envisioned, it will certainly be tailored to the increasingly harsh realities of a conflict against an advanced peer-state adversary.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
From Maddie Lee: Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski had a chance to slam the door shut on the Braves’ second-inning rally. He fielded Sean Murphy’s comebacker, and set his feet to start a would-be inning-ending double play at second base.
Angled up the mound, however, he sailed the throw, which second baseman Alex Freeland wrangled to at least salvage an out.
The way the Dodgers’ offense has been scuffling, however, their 7-2 loss hinged on that four-run second inning.
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“It’s just,one half-inning of being pissed off about it, and then you’ve got to keep going back out there and doing your thing,” said Wrobleski, who was charged with seven runs but gutted out a career-high 8⅔ innings. “So yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s annoying because now I look back at it and, yeah, that’s what cost me from having a good outing.”
With the Dodgers’ rubber-match loss, the Braves took sole possession of the best record in the majors. The Dodgers (24-16) dropped the series to the Braves (28-13) after scoring three or fewer runs in each game.
“I thought we turned the corner in Houston,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We kind of got back down a little bit this series. … It’s hard to articulate. There’s some empty at-bats, there’s some early outs that are not just quality outs. There’s the passing the baton to the next guy — and sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”
After Wrobleski cruised through the first inning in just six pitches — first-pitch flyout, four-pitch strikeout, first-pitch groundout — he had an uncharacteristically long second inning.
Lakers star LeBron James slaps hands with coach JJ Redick on his way to the bench in a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday night.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
From Bill Plaschke: They possessed a halftime lead with one of the most accomplished playoff players in NBA history.
They possessed the best scorer in NBA history at the controls of a sizzling offense in a loud arena against a team that had every reason to pack it in.
They lost by 23.
To those who witnessed the first three games of these Western Conference semifinals between the Luka Doncic-less Lakers and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, it is no surprise that the Thunder lead three games to none.
What is shocking is that, with a 131-108 win Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, the Thunder steamrolled to victory over the prone body of an NBA legend.
Lakers forward Rui Hachimura tries to shoot a layup in front of Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jaylin Williams in Game 3 on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
From Broderick Turner: In their darkest playoff hour, Lakers coach JJ Redick advised his players during practice Sunday to take the same mental approach for the win-or-go-home Game 4 that they’ve used since the first day of training camp.
The Lakers trail the Oklahoma City Thunder 3-0 in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series. The Lakers must beat the Thunder at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night or their season is over.
“Our first slide that we put up in training camp was [to] win the day,” Redick said. “Today was a quick offensive review and then just going over some stuff defensively. Got to win today and we got to win tomorrow. We know what we’re facing being down 3-0. So it’s just more of a mindset check than anything else.”
Ducks forward Alex Killorn, second left, celebrates with teammates after scoring against the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday at Honda Center.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
From Kevin Baxter: The Ducks’ second-round playoff showdown with the Vegas Golden Knights has become a best-of-three series.
With a 4-3 victory Sunday before a raucous sold-out crowd at the Honda Center, the Ducks evened the series 2-2 as it heads back to Las Vegas for Game 5 on Tuesday. But it wasn’t easy, with the Golden Knights twice rallying from one-goal deficits, only to see the Ducks answer each time.
And the Ducks’ power play, so lethal in the team’s first-round win over Edmonton and so ineffective in the first three games of this series, finally found a spark, scoring goals in each of the first two periods.
The Ducks’ goals came from Beckett Sennecke, Mikael Granlund, Alex Killorn and Ian Moore. Pavel Dorofeyev, Brett Howden and Tomas Hertl scored for Vegas.
Sparks guard Kelsey Plum, left, and forward Dearica Hamby, right, battle Las Vegas center A’ja Wilson for the ball during the Sparks’ 105-78 loss at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.
(Luiza Moraes / Getty Images)
From Marisa Ingemi: Before the Sparks opening day loss to the Las Vegas Aces, coach Lynne Roberts said that this year “felt different.”
After one game, though, it feels a lot like the same.
During their season opener, the Sparks couldn’t get momentum against the defending champion Aces and fell 105-78 behind a remarkably efficient shooting day from the visitors at Crypto.com Arena.
After posting the worst defense in the WNBA last season (88.2 points per game), the Sparks made a flurry of offseason moves prioritizing stopping opponents. It’s why they brought in Nneka Ogwumike, Ariel Atkins and Erica Wheeler.
More: Sparks sign fan favorite Kate Martin to developmental pool
The Washington Wizards won the draft lottery on Sunday and are poised to pick first overall for the first time since 2010.
(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
From the Associated Press: The league’s worst team this season is getting the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
The Washington Wizards won the draft lottery on Sunday and are poised to pick first overall for the first time since choosing John Wall in that spot in 2010. Wall was the Wizards’ on-stage representative for the lottery.
Washington had a 14% chance of winning No. 1, tied with Brooklyn and Indiana for the best odds. The Wizards had basically a 50-50 chance of getting either a top-four pick or the No. 5 spot.
Oswald Peraza celebrates after hitting a two-run home run for the Angels in the fifth inning of a 6-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday.
(Cole Burston / Getty Images)
From the Associated Press: Jo Adell hit a pair of solo homers, José Soriano struck out seven over 7⅔ innings to stop a three-start winless steak and the Angels avoided a three-game sweep by beating the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 on Sunday.
Oswald Peraza added a two-run homer as the Angels ended an eight-game road losing streak dating to April 16, while also ending a nine-game slump in Toronto.
Soriano (6-2) gave up two hits and a walk in the first inning, including Kazuma Okamoto’s RBI double, but didn’t allow another runner until Myles Straw reached in the eighth with an infield hit, ending a streak of 20 consecutive outs.
Houston’s Antonio Carlos, top, heads the ball over LAFC’s Eddie Segura, left, and Ryan Porteous during LAFC’s 4-1 loss Sunday at BMO Stadium.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
From the Associated Press: Jack McGlynn scored a goal in each half and the Houston Dynamo thumped LAFC 4-1 on Sunday night at BMO Stadium.
McGlynn used an assist from Lawrence Ennali in the 25th minute to score on a shot from well outside the box, giving Houston a 1-0 lead. It was McGlynn’s first goal after scoring a career-high six times last season.
Guilherme Santos scored off a free kick in the 34th minute for a two-goal lead. The first-year midfielder has six goals in 11 matches.
Second round
All times Pacific
Game 1: at Oklahoma City 108, Lakers 90 (box score)
Game 2: at Oklahoma City 125, Lakers 107 (box score)
Game 3: Oklahoma City 131, at Lakers 108 (box score)
Game 4: Monday at Lakers, 7:30 p.m., Amazon Prime
Game 5*: Wednesday at Oklahoma City, ESPN
Game 6*: Saturday at Lakers, TBD
Game 7*: Monday at Oklahoma City, TBD
*- if necessary
Second round
All times Pacific
Game 1: at Vegas 3, Ducks 1 (summary)
Game 2: Ducks 3, at Vegas 1 (summary)
Game 3: Vegas 6, at Ducks 2 (summary)
Game 4: at Ducks 4, Vegas 3 (summary)
Game 5: Tuesday at Vegas, 6:30 p.m., ESPN
Game 6: Thursday at Ducks, 6:30 p.m., TNT, truTV, HBO MAX
Game 7*: at Vegas, TBA, ABC or ESPN
*-if necessary
1892 — Azra, ridden by Alonzo Cayton, wins the first three-horse field in the Kentucky Derby, nipping Huron by a nose.
1900 — James J. Jeffries KOs James J Corbett in 23 for heavyweight boxing title.
1918 — Exterminator, a 30-1 long shot ridden by Willie Knapp, loses the lead but regains it to win the Kentucky Derby by one length over Escoba.
1923 — Setting several Pacific Coast League records, Pete Schneider of Vernon hit five homers and a double to drive in 14 runs in a 35-11 romp over Salt Lake City.
1928 — British Open Men’s Golf, Royal St George’s GC: Walter Hagen wins 3rd of his 4 Open Championship titles, 2 strokes ahead of fellow American Gene Sarazen.
1959 — New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s errorless streak of 148 games ends.
1963 — LA Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax throws his second career no-hitter.
1966 — European Cup Final, Heysel Stadium, Brussels: Fernando Serena scores the winner as Real Madrid beats Partizan Belgrade, 2-1; Madrid’s 6th title.
1968 — The Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup, completing a four-game sweep over the St. Louis Blues with a 3-2 victory.
1972 — The Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup in six games with a 3-0 victory over the New York Rangers.
1977 — Ted Turner manages an Atlanta Braves game.
1980 — Pete Rose, 39, steals second, third, & home in one inning for Phillies.
1983 — Aberdeen of Scotland win 23rd European Cup Winner’s Cup against Real Madrid of Spain 2-1 in Gothenburg.
1988 — KV Mechelen of Belgium win 28th European Cup Winner’s Cup against Ajax of Netherlands 1-0 in Strasbourg.
1992 — The Portland Trail Blazers win the highest-scoring playoff game in NBA history, 153-151 in double overtime against the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference semifinals.
1994 — The Phoenix Suns, down 104-84 with 10 minutes left, come back to force overtime and beat Houston 124-117 for a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals. The Suns start the fourth quarter trailing by 18 and are down 20 with 10 minutes to go. Phoenix holds the Rockets to eight points in the quarter and Danny Ainge hits a three to tie the game at 1:08 and send the game into overtime.
2008 — PGA Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass: Sergio García of Spain claims the biggest win of his career to date in a sudden-death playoff over American Paul Goydos.
2009 — Cleveland makes it an NBA-record eight straight wins by double digits with an 84-74 victory over Atlanta to advance to the Eastern Conference finals. The Cavaliers are the second team to sweep the first two rounds of the playoffs since the NBA expanded the first round to best-of-seven in 2003.
2013 — English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London (86,254): Wigan Athletic upsets Manchester City, 1-0; Ben Watson scores 90+1′ winner.
2016 — Max Scherzer strikes out 20 batters, matching the major league record for a nine-inning game as he pitches the Washington Nationals past the Detroit Tigers 3-2.
2014 — PGA Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass: German Martin Kaymer leads after each round to win by 1 stroke ahead of Jim Furyk; first 8-figure purse in golf with winner’s share $1.8 million.
2018 — Top-ranked Rafael Nadal loses to Dominic Thiem 7-5, 6-3 in the Madrid Open quarterfinals, breaking the defending champion’s run of 21 straight wins on clay courts. Nadal hadn’t lost a single set on clay since falling to Thiem a year ago in the Italian Open quarterfinals. Nadal had come to this event fresh off winning his 11th titles at both Monte Carlo and Barcelona.
Compiled by the Associated Press.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
DENISE van Outen has opened up about her heartbreak over losing a Towie “family member” as she revealed plans to pay tribute to Jake Hall.
The TV star shared an emotional message, reflecting on the devastating loss.
The Only Way is Essex star Jake Hall was found dead at a Spanish holiday villa with head injuries after a night out partying on Thursday.
He was a regular on the reality TV series from series 14 to series 17.
Denise has been voicing the show since it started in 2010 and has opened up about his tragic death.
She told the Daily Mail: “I’ve worked on the show since it started and with any loss within our TOWIE family it is heartbreaking.
“But he was so lovely whenever I saw him out and he was so friendly and so talented.
“I really feel for his family, my thoughts go out to them, and it is just really sad and he was way too young to go.
“I do wonder what TOWIE will do, I think they’ll do a tribute as they’ve lost a few people recently. I was just really really shocked when I saw it.”
Cops found the 35-year-old former reality show hunk in a pool of blood with fatal head wounds apparently caused by shards of glass.
Officers say inquiries focused on the theory of a tragic accident in which the 6ft 4ins star smashed his head through a glass door.
A source said: “Witnesses told investigators he had been out partying all night and decided to carry on the party back at the place he was renting.
“It appears from what police have been told that he became agitated, possibly from alcohol and other substances he may have consumed.”
The source also said at one point things “turned aggressive” and he may have “tried to harm himself by banging his head against things.”
Officers were called to the rented house in Santa Margalida in the north of the holiday island at around 7.30am on Wednesday morning.
A police source said: “We are focusing on the theory the victim died in a tragic accident after hitting his head against the glass door but it is still too early to say definitely what happened.”
No arrests were believed to have been made as inquiries continued and an autopsy is due to take place in the Majorcan capital, Palma.
An ongoing investigation is being led by the Spanish Civil Guard.
He often spent time in Majorca where he had a second home used as a base for work and leisure.
Jake had a daughter, River, with model and Real Housewives of Cheshire star Misse Beqiri.
A statement shared by her talent agent said: “At this time, Misse’s focus is on supporting and protecting their child as they come to terms with this devastating loss.
“The family are asking for privacy, compassion and respect while they grieve privately.”
Jake joined TOWIE in 2015, and dated co-star Chloe Lewis before leaving the programme in 2024.
He also ran a menswear brand called By Jake Hall.
Nathan Gothard knocked David Darke to the ground days before Christmas last year.
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The man sued his tour operator for allowing people to reserve sun loungers with towels despite a hotel ban on the practice.
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