men

London police arrest woman after 4 men stabbed in Covent Garden

Aug. 5 (UPI) — Officers arrested a woman accused of stabbing four men in London’s Covent Garden neighborhood, the Metropolitan Police said Wednesday.

All four victims — aged 34, 39, 42 and 52 — were transported to the hospital. Two have been released, while the other two were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart said officers responded to the area — a dining and entertainment district — “within minutes” of receiving reports of the attacks.

“While still at an early stage of the investigation, we would like to reassure the community that we currently believe this to be an isolated, mental-health related incident,” he said in a statement on X.

“A visible police presence will remain in the area while evidence is gathered at the scene and we thank the pubic for their understanding.”

People who worked in the area told The Guardian the suspect was known in the area and often displayed erratic behavior. Witnesses said it appeared she chose the victims at random and used scissors in the attack.

Arjan Gjorga, who works at a restaurant near the incident, told The Guardian he witnessed the attack.

“I see her all the time, she’s a homeless person. She walks around up and down asking for help, she visits the church at the top of the street,” he said.

Police cordoned off part of the area, including St Mungo’s homeless shelter. A representative for the facility told the BBC they couldn’t “confirm whether anyone from St Mungo’s is involved at this stage.”

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and assault.

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Black men killed by police – what did Kamala Harris do about it?

Kamala Harris was distraught as she stood before an audience one morning in July 2016. In the previous three days, violence involving police had rattled the nation.

Officers had shot and killed one black man in Baton Rouge, La., and another in his car outside Minneapolis as his horrified girlfriend and her toddler watched. At a protest against those shootings, a sniper had killed five Dallas police officers.

“I have to tell you, my heart is breaking,” Harris said at a meeting on racial bias in policing. Her voice wavered.

“As a prosecutor, my heart is breaking. As the top law enforcement officer in this state. And as a black woman.”

Harris, then California attorney general, paid tribute to officers whose families pray they stay out of danger. She also said she’d never known a black man who wasn’t racially profiled or unfairly stopped.

It was an unusually frank acknowledgment of the forces pulling her in opposite directions in the two years since police killings of black men had set off demonstrations across the country and fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Seeking to reconcile the competing demands of police and civil rights groups, Harris tried to avoid inflaming either side. That relatively safe approach has left her open to criticism that she could have done more to lead California’s efforts to limit police use of lethal force.

Harris did make tangible advances in police accountability. She focused on programs inside the attorney general’s office, drawing praise from civil rights advocates and scant resistance from law enforcement.

At the same time, Harris, the state’s first black attorney general, steered clear of the legislative brawls over bills on policing, including what became a groundbreaking law to curb racial profiling. Harris also rejected pleas by civil rights activists to investigate deadly police shootings of young black men in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“She is maybe a modest reformer, and that’s fine,” said Anne Weills, an Oakland civil rights attorney. “But I don’t think that means she is particularly progressive. She doesn’t look at the big picture about how to make structural change.”

On July 8, 2016, the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board met to begin its work under Assembly Bill 953, focusing on eliminating racial and identity profiling in law enforcement.

For months, Harris has been fending off accusations, most recently in a debate Wednesday, that she did too little to fight racial bias in the criminal justice system.

Harris told The Times she was frustrated by the slow pace of change, but pointed to progress made during her tenure.

“You’d be hard pressed to find any other attorney general in America who at that time was doing the kind of transformative work that we did,” Harris said.

Harris had been attorney general for nearly four years when a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man in Ferguson, Mo. The shooting on Aug. 9, 2014, reshaped the politics of race and law enforcement in America.

Video of Brown’s body, left face down in the street in a pool of blood for four hours, went viral on social media. Over the next several days, images of white cops in military vehicles firing tear gas and rubber bullets at mainly black protesters came to symbolize police violence against African Americans.

Police shootings became major news in the months that followed as they were captured in smartphone videos that spread nationwide.

“The death rate from police use of lethal force has been stable for a long time,” said Franklin Zimring, a criminologist and law professor at UC Berkeley. “What happened with Ferguson … was people started to notice that these things kept happening.”

Civil rights groups pressed for new limits on police power. Law enforcement, feeling besieged, fought many of the proposals.

For Harris, the timing was difficult. Police unions had overwhelmingly opposed her when she first ran for the job in 2010, in part because she declined to pursue the death penalty against the killer of a San Francisco police officer, Isaac Espinoza, when she was the San Francisco district attorney. She labored hard to secure their overwhelming support in her run for reelection.

“She had to walk a fine tightrope,” said Brian Marvel, a San Diego police officer and president of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, the state’s top police advocacy group.

But civil rights advocates also set high expectations.

“We always hope that because you look like us, you talk like us, you walk like us, you come from where we come from — that you’re not just reading about this in the news. You know there is a war being waged against black bodies,” said Cat Brooks, an Oakland activist who thought Harris fell short.

Officers in riot gear walk past a McDonald's drive-thru sign during protests in Ferguson, Mo.

Police advance through tear gas toward demonstrators protesting the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

California lawmakers put police accountability high on their agenda after Ferguson. Among the most contentious bills was one pushed by civil rights organizations to collect data on the race of everyone stopped by police statewide to shed light on racial profiling.

Police groups — still a powerful political force in a state that has only recently tempered its strict law-and-order culture — resisted the bill, arguing it would be too burdensome.

Harris declined to take a position. After Jerry Brown, then governor, signed the bill into law, Harris won credit from civil rights groups for drafting strong rules putting it into effect.

Bill Lockyer, a former state attorney general, said Harris avoided battles in the Capitol, just a few blocks from her Sacramento office, and concentrated instead on running her own agency.

“I saw it as a general reluctance to have an active legislative role,” said Lockyer, a onetime state Senate leader who remained closely engaged in lawmaking as attorney general.

Daniel Suvor, Harris’ chief policy advisor at the time, said her preference was “to work directly with law enforcement and the civil rights community to get things done as opposed to engaging in superfluous dialogue.”

“She had to walk a fine tightrope.”

— Brian Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California, on Kamala Harris

Harris’ authority over police practices was limited. In a state with nearly 80,000 police officers, the attorney general employed only about 300 — special agents who investigate healthcare fraud, gun violations and drug crimes. By November 2015, all agents in the field were equipped, on Harris’ order, with body-worn cameras.

Some advocates were seeking mandatory body cameras for nearly every officer in California. They tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill to create a statewide standard for their use. Harris spurned the proposal, saying she opposed a “one-size-fits-all approach.”

Another Harris project was anti-bias training for law enforcement agencies statewide, which proved popular. More than two dozen agencies participated in the first course. It remains part of the state’s formal officer training.

Harris’ signature achievement from this period was Open Justice, an online portal that, for the first time, made a wide array of criminal justice data available to the public, including tallies of deaths and injuries in police custody.

“She saw there was so much emotion and anecdote around the criminal justice reform conversation, and she wanted to inject data, facts and evidence into the conversation,” Suvor said.

It was the rare initiative embraced by both police and reform advocates.

“That was really, really helpful to the movement, because there was no place that we could look at in-custody deaths at the hands of law enforcement prior to that,” said Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter organizer who chairs Cal State L.A.’s Pan-African studies department.

Harris was less successful in dodging political fallout when it came to calls for state investigations of high-profile shootings. Civil rights advocates viewed local prosecutors as inherently compromised in cases against police they worked closely with every day.

State intervention in local cases was a fraught issue for Harris. In 2004, Lockyer, then attorney general, had second-guessed her refusal to seek the death penalty for the killer of Espinoza, opening his own investigation into her decision. (He ultimately sided with Harris.)

“There’s no question that has influenced and did influence my perspective on this,” Harris said, adding she believed local officials are best held accountable by voters.

Community activists urged Harris to investigate two high-profile police shootings in California — Ezell Ford’s death in Los Angeles in 2014 and the 2015 killing of Mario Woods in San Francisco — but she demurred, saying she lacked legal grounds to overrule local prosecutors.

“I wouldn’t even say disappointed is a strong enough word for how we felt about how she did as attorney general,” said Kim McGill, an organizer with the Youth Justice Coalition.

At left, Tritobia Ford speaks next to a framed photo of her slain son, Ezell Ford. At right, people protest the shooting death of Mario Woods.

Tritobia Ford, at left, mother of Ezell Ford, speaks in January 2017; protesters demonstrate against the shooting of Mario Woods in December 2015

(Los Angeles Times / Associated Press)

Critics suspected a political motive behind Harris’ stand against state probes of the L.A. and San Francisco police shootings.

“When she was running for attorney general, she was already running for president,” Weills said. “It’s a very calculated process. For her to start to alienate the whole law enforcement establishment by taking on these investigations … it might have destroyed her career.”

A 2015 bill, which failed to pass, would have required the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to take on cases involving police use of deadly force. Harris decline to support it.

Yet Harris did not always take a hard line against state probes of local police misconduct. She privately asked the governor for money to create teams of prosecutors to conduct such investigations in jurisdictions that consented to them. Brown refused, she told The Times.

After she won election to the U.S. Senate, and in her final days as attorney general, Harris opened civil rights investigations into the Kern County Sheriff’s Office and the Bakersfield Police Department, which remain ongoing under her successor, Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra.

Now, as she runs for president, Harris has more forcefully backed independent investigations of police wrongdoing. She has promised the U.S. Justice Department would pursue more robust oversight of racial bias in police departments nationwide. She has also vowed to push legislation to end racial profiling.

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Explosive Cardi B doc to lift lid on rapper’s life before fame including wild stripper past which saw her rob boozy men

CARDI B is about to let everyone in on the story of her rollercoaster life — including working as a stripper.

I can reveal the rapper is the subject of a major new documentary from the same team behind programmes on Victoria Beckham, Pamela Anderson and Coleen Rooney.

Cardi B is about to let everyone in on the story of her rollercoaster life — including working as a stripper Credit: Getty
Rapper Cardi is the subject of a major new documentary Credit: Getty

Production company Dorothy Street Pictures is secretly working on the special, in which she will speak about her rags to riches story.

Cardi, who wore this eye-popping pink catsuit and matching hat for a performance in New York on Sunday, has quite a backstory, so I’m sure it will be riveting viewing.

She started off her working life as a stripper, and would entice men to hotel rooms and steal their money.

Her fortunes changed when she became a viral sensation a decade ago on apps such as Vine and Instagram, and eventually got signed to a label and scored hit songs including Wap and I Like It.

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Cardi has not been short of controversy during her time in the showbiz spotlight, famously throwing a shoe at rival Nicki Minanj during a spat in 2018.

She has also had a difficult love life, getting married to Migos rapper Offset in 2017, and having four kids with him before they separating in 2023.

A source said: “Cardi is one of the most in-demand rappers in the world and is also one of the most interesting.

“She has lived her life in the public eye to some degree. But there’s a lot that she’s never opened up about, and this is her chance.

Cardi, who wore this eye-popping pink catsuit and matching hat, has quite a backstory, so I’m sure it will be riveting viewing Credit: Getty
Cardi released her long-awaited second album Am I The Drama? last year and then went on a tour across North America Credit: Instagram

“Next year will mark a decade since she released her major-label debut single Bodak Yellow and so there’s a documentary in the works which will mark that.

“There’s a lot to talk about and she wants the public to see who she really is, because she often feels misunderstood.

“It’s expected to air on a big streaming service like Netflix, but the deal is still being hatched out.”

Cardi released her long-awaited second album Am I The Drama? last year and then went on a tour across North America.

And I won’t be surprised if we see her back on stage at British festivals next summer.

KOJO: LADIES RULE

Kojo Funds has worked with acts ranging from Wizkid and Tion Wayne to Kano and Bugzy Malone since bursting on to the music scene a decade ago Credit: Nana Kinq

Kojo Funds has worked with acts ranging from Wizkid and Tion Wayne to Kano and Bugzy Malone since bursting on to the music scene a decade ago.

But the British singer has saluted the work ethic of top women in the industry and says they have inspired him.

His biggest chart hit to date is 2017 collaboration Finders Keepers with Mabel, and has also worked with Raye on a 2018 track called Check.

Kojo said in an exclusive interview: “Female artists who are operating at that level take their craft seriously. Put effort into what you’re doing, don’t do it anyhow.

“They’re very hard-working, I respect them for that. The work ethic… that’s the kind of thing I took from them.”

Kojo’s new single How Many will be on his EP Hello It’s Me Again, which is out on August 21.

And one person who’s bound to be giving it a spin is Cardi B.

Recalling how the US rapper discovered his music, he said: “Her first time in London, she went to a club and they were playing my music.

“Dun Talkin’ came on and she saw how people were hyping her up while she was moving to it.

“The next morning, she’s on Instagram singing it, with her hair messy, a little bit tipsy.”

They’ve since performed together and hung out, so I’m hoping a collaboration with her is on the cards next.


Vanessa Bauer has been tipped for a career in Hollywood by Football Factory and The Business actor Tamer Hassan Credit: Getty

DANCING On Ice beauty Vanessa Bauer has been tipped for a career in Hollywood by Football Factory and The Business actor Tamer Hassan.

She has re-trained after the ITV show was axed, and plays Tamer’s girlfriend in new film Rise Of The Footsoldier: Retribution.

On how great she was playing Isabella Chaika opposite his character, Colonel Sullivan, he told me: “Vanessa has a future in films, 100 per cent.

She looks great, she carries herself well.

“She’s definitely got some chops to be an actress.”

Vanessa joined Dancing On Ice in 2018 when the show was revived.

She won with Jake Quickenden, and was a runner-up several times with celebs including Diversity’s Perri Kiely and Towie’s Joey Essex.

But the show ended again in 2025 and now she is exploring new paths, having also appeared in Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club.


THE race for No1 is hotting up.

Shakira’s Dai Dai now is just 118 copies ahead of Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In – closing the gap from 609 copies the previous day.

The World Cup anthem will be her third chart-topper if she can hang on to the lead until Friday.

But if Rein Me In can clinch it, it will become the longest-running No1 of all time, with 19 weeks at the top.


ROMCOM TOO TOUGH FOR CHRIS

Christopher Nolan says there’s one genre that’s too hard for him to tackle – the romcom Credit: Getty

OSCAR-winning director Christopher Nolan says there’s one genre that’s too hard for him to tackle – the romcom.

The man behind movies such as Oppenheimer, Interstellar and The Dark Knight would be “terrified” at the prospect of making one.

The Brit whose new epic The Odyssey is No1 at the box office, explained: “I think doing a romcom would be incredibly difficult.

I love watching those movies. But no, I think people who direct comedy, people who do comedy . . .  that’s one of the hardest things in the world, to make people laugh that way.

“If I show a film to people and maybe they don’t respond to bits of it, I’m like, ‘Ah, they don’t get it. Whatever’. There’s no hiding behind that when you do comedy, so I would be terrified.”

TYLA POPS TO UK ON TOUR

Tyla is hitting the road for a 34-date global tour following the release last week of her second album A*POP Credit: Getty

TYLA is hitting the road for a 34-date global tour following the release last week of her second album A*POP.

The Chanel singer has announced she will open the tour in Paris on October 12 before shows at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on October 15 the O2 Apollo Manchester on October 19 and O2 Academy Glasgow on October 18.

Tickets will go on sale at 10am this Friday through tylaworld.com.

Zara’s latest feet

Zara Larsson wore these slippers as part of a campaign for re-sale site Depop Credit: Depop

THERE was no chance of Zara Larsson getting cold feet about her latest brand deal with these slippers.

She wore the funky footwear – designed as giant feet in flip flops – while reclining on a sofa as part of a campaign for re-sale site Depop.

Zara put 30 pieces of clothing from her own wardrobe up for sale, and they sold out almost straight away.

She said: “I’m not particularly sad about releasing anything of mine into the world because I know I’m gonna get many more beautiful things back. Fashion is fun in that way.”

Given all the designer brands desperate for her to wear their clothes, I am sure she has plenty of options.

LIFE OF RILEY FOR RAY AND DANNY

Danny Dyer and Ray Winstone are teaming up again, two decades after appearing in TV film All In The Game Credit: Getty

DANNY DYER and Ray Winstone are teaming up again, two decades after appearing in TV film All In The Game.

The hardmen, pictured together in 2006, have been cast in UK crime thriller Going Under, which is due to hit cinemas next spring.

Production on the film has just been completed, after being shot in secret.

It will follow Ray’s gangster character Riley and his right-hand man Don, played by Danny, trying to pull off one final deal.

Charli’s bra-t summer

Charli XCX is ready for our fourth heatwave of the summer – and has stripped off to prepare Credit: Instagram
This image of Charli will go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London Credit: PA

CHARLI XCX is ready for our fourth heatwave of the summer – and has stripped off to prepare.

She shared this photo of her wearing a bra and sunglasses on Instagram, just as it was revealed there will be a picture of the singer going on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

A 2024 photo of Charli in a white crop top, which was taken by Harley Weir and used to promote her album Brat, has been added to the gallery’s collection and will be in its History Makers Now space.

Senior curator Brandei Estes said: “We are delighted to acquire this striking portrait of Charli XCX, which captures one of the defining cultural figures of her generation.”


WILD Child actress Emma Roberts has tied the knot to afellow screen star Cody John.

Emma, who appeared in American Horror Story and is the niece of Hollywood A-lister Julia Roberts, wore a Monique Lhuillier dress, and told Vogue: “I’ve been married in a movie before, and I tried out wedding dresses for that, which feels so weird. Now, it’s the real deal.

“I wanted it to feel very vintage-inspired.”

The couple started dating in 2022.


LIZ & BILLY LOVE BIRDWATCHING

LIZ HURLEY has revealed the secret to her romance with Billy Ray Cyrus is a shared love of birdwatching.

She said: “We’ve been together nearly 18 months, but we spend the vast majority of our time in the countryside, whether it’s in England or Tennessee.

“We like doing the same things, which some people would think is a little odd. We like bird watching. We’ve got binoculars, we’ve got long lenses.”

The relationship has been especially good for her son, filmmaker Damian, who has been able to meet Billy’s superstar daughter Miley.

Liz added on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live in the US: “When he was a young teen, he used to love all her music. I used to have to watch her music videos like Wrecking Ball a zillion times with him, so we were very familiar with who she was, and I knew I was going to like her, and I do like her.”

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Sophie Cunningham: ‘Biological men’ don’t belong in women’s sports

Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham stands by her comments about transgender athletes competing: She says she just ‘wants to protect’ women’s sports.

Despite her views that were expressed in an ESPN article published Tuesday, Cunningham insisted the next day that she doesn’t have anything against the transgender community.

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” Cunningham said in the article. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

The article became fodder for questions Wednesday before the Fever’s 123-88 victory against the Connecticut Sun.

“I think it’s kind of common sense,” Cunningham told reporters. “And I think I’ll always believe in that. I think it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category. And so I’ll stand on what I said, and I’ll always believe that.”

She reiterated that her feelings on the matter don’t stem from hatred.

“I think there is room for absolutely everyone here, and I think there is room to love everyone,” Cunningham said. “I truly think when you get people in the same room and you have conversations, you actually have a lot in common with a lot of people. And so I’m there to love.

“But I’m also there to love biological women, and I think that there are rights that need to be protected. And, like I said, I’m gonna stand true to that. I’ll never falter in my beliefs in that. But I have never once said that I hated the trans community. Like I said, I think there’s space for everyone.”

Cunningham appeared to triple down on her comments Thursday morning on Instagram, writing simply, “I said what I said.”

The topic of transgender athletes participating in women’s sports has become a polarizing issue in recent years. In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that looked to ensure that entities receiving federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the administration’s view that a person’s sex is the gender they were assigned at birth.

Last month, the Supreme Court upheld laws in West Virginia and Idaho that banned transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams. Days later, two transgender girls who were the first to challenge Trump’s executive order dropped their lawsuit in New Hampshire.

“Men should not be playing in women’s sports. It’s completely ludicrous that anyone could support that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “It’s even more ludicrous that you do have [Sophie] Cunningham — a female athlete herself, very accomplished in her own right — coming forth and speaking that truth that men shouldn’t play in women’s sports, we want to protect women and girls, and the backlash she is receiving from Democrats and left-wing figures across the country is astonishing.”

The league’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but does not specifically exclude transgender women. When reached for comment, a WNBA representative referred The Times to a statement released by the Fever on Wednesday.

“Our players are thoughtful adults with their own perspectives and voices, and those views are their own,” the team said. “We are committed to welcoming fans from every background and treating everyone with respect, and that’s what guides us as an organization.”

Cunningham has been called “MAGA Barbie” since her college days at Missouri, according to Complex, because some of the people she follows and engagement with conservatives on social media.

In 2022, when Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship, Cunningham reposted a since-deleted tweet stating that “female collegiate athletes deserve so much better than this.”

Soon after, Cunningham posted a statement saying that she stands “with all people, especially my fellow athletes.”

“I do not judge, but support all races, religions, sexual preferences and gender equity,” she wrote. “We all have a place in this world to compete and I hope we are able to grant everyone that opportunity fairly.”

Even with a seeming endorsement from the White House and a nickname that’s followed her, Cunningham says her political views are “very much in the middle.”

“I agree with things on both sides, disagree with things on both sides,” she said in the ESPN article. “And that’s all I’ve ever said about my political beliefs. But people love to assume.”

On Wednesday, Cunningham went into more detail, telling reporters “I’m not a very political person.”

“But I do have beliefs, I have morals, and I’ll always stand on those and be true to who I am,” she added. “… And so when it comes to just protecting young girls in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly about that.

“That’s why you have Title IX. That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports. If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport.”



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2 of 8 men charged in alleged plot to attack the White House UFC event plead not guilty

Two of the eight men indicted in an alleged drone and sniper plot to attack President Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show on the White House lawn pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal conspiracy charges.

Clothed in jail garb and shackled, Tycen Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, and Chandler Scaggs, 21, of Chapmanville, W. Va., entered the pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Ohio, where the case has been consolidated. They and the other six defendants are each charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to commit murder on federal government territory and to murder a federal government official.

Sargus scheduled their trial to begin Sept. 14.

“What would have happened or could have happened, that’s never going to be clear, because, thank God, there was an intervention here and this thing was disrupted,” U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace II told reporters last week as he detailed the group’s July 9 indictments. “But, in my view, when I look at what’s been alleged there, it seems pretty likely that someone or multiple people were driving to Washington, D.C., to do something.”

Attorneys for Proper and Scaggs declined to comment after the hearing.

According to the indictment, the plot began in May. Members of the group — citing grievances about government corruption, water-guzzling data centers and the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files — began amassing money, firearms, ammunition, body armor, explosives, drones, medical equipment, communications equipment and other items.

The attack was planned to take place at the cage-fighting show dubbed UFC Freedom 250, which was held on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. Law enforcement officials said they learned of the possible threat four days before the event was scheduled to take place.

One of the defendants told investigators that they planned to fly explosive-laden drones into the event and then shoot panicked crowd members as they fled, according to a federal affidavit.

The Justice Department announced charges against seven people from across the country last month, including from Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska and California. Officials said the suspects harbored fringe conspiracy theories and hoped the attack would destabilize the government.

Four alleged conspirators charged in Missouri, Nebraska and California the weekend of the event and two more charged about a week later in Washington and Missouri are still in the process of being moved to Ohio to face charges. They are likely to be tried as a group.

Scaggs was arrested separately later, but was brought to Ohio ahead of the other out-of-state defendants.

Smyth writes for the Associated Press.

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New Zealand v Ireland: Robert Baloucoune starts as Irish recall key men for Nations Championship game

Fit-again wing Robert Baloucoune returns to the Ireland line-up for Saturday’s much-anticipated Nations Championship game against New Zealand in Auckland.

Baloucoune, who won the Six Nations Rising Player award after starring in Ireland’s Triple Crown campaign earlier this year, missed the wins over Australia and Japan with a hamstring issue.

Head coach Andy Farrell recalls a host of key players after fielding a heavily rotated in last week’s 36-20 victory over Japan, with the return of captain Dan Sheehan, prop Tadhg Furlong and fly-half Sam Prendergast among nine changes.

Tom O’Toole, Tadhg Beirne, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Stuart McCloskey and Jimmy O’Brien are the six players retained in the line-up.

Having beaten the Wallabies and Brave Blossoms, Ireland aim to round out the southern hemisphere leg of their Nations Championship campaign with a statement win at Eden Park (08:10 BST).

The All Blacks, who beat France and Italy in their first two games, have not lost at the Auckland venue since 1994, a run of 52 Tests.

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‘Jackass: Best and Last’ review: The old men and a sea of pain

The best weapon in the “Jackass’” arsenal isn’t the taser, the beehive or the booby-trapped latrine. It’s the explosion of relief when a prank ends, often in humiliation, always with hoots and claps. The first film, 2002’s “Jackass: The Movie” was slow to discover that carnage without camaraderie is painful; several injuries limped off-screen in horrified silence. Laughter heals, except for the brain hemorrhage that Johnny Knoxville suffered in 2022’s “Jackass Forever” when, dissatisfied by the clobbering he took from a bull, requested a second ramming that knocked him out cold.

Hence “Jackass: Best and Last,” the goon squad’s alleged final film, is underwhelmingly tame. Shot quickly by stalwart director Jeff Tremaine this spring, half of it is a clip reel of past hits, like the time fan favorite Steve-O slingshotted into the sky in a port-a-potty. The rest is scraps of hastily assembled chaos, the most elaborate of which is a puppet show in which veterans Ehren McGhehey, Dave England and Jason “Wee Man” Acuña dangle helplessly from strings, trying to recite cue cards while being pummeled by tropical fruit. “A pineapple!” Wee Man moans.

I’m no sadist. They’ve suffered plenty for our amusement. Still, it’s a shame that for the first time in two and a half decades of cringe comedy, the guffaws feel forced.

Acknowledging the Jackasses’ age, if not maturity, are a couple skits about prostate and rectal checkups. (The gnarliest involves clear pants, colonoscopy prep liquid and a game of Twister.) Modern technology enters the arena with a nimble-fingered robot. If the team had invested any actual energy into brainstorming this entry, they’d have played paintball with a sniper drone. At least for the sake of torch-passing, someone should have thought of something for the newish members introduced in “Jackass Forever” to do besides stand around and applaud.

These fresher faces — Jasper Dolphin, Rachel Wolfson, Zach Holmes — prove brave and resilient when allowed to participate. Only one of them, Sean “Poopies” McInerney, a surf bro so gullible that I’m not sure he’s capable of informed legal consent, fits into “Best and Last” like a well-worn punching bag. (When Poopies yelps that “my mind is getting to me” while wearing a shock collar around a sensitive area, people snort because, as sweet as he seems, the only thing rattling inside his cranium is a moth.) Early on, Poopies gets swollen lip injections that, someone claims, will last the whole movie. You expect his trophy wife pout to be a running sight gag. But his disfigurement never even gets another closeup.

“Jackass” started with a bang. In January of 1998, Knoxville, then a 26-year-old aspiring actor, strapped on a cheap bulletproof vest padded with a stack of “Hustler” magazines and fired a gun point-blank into his chest. His dumb derring-do went viral on VHS tapes, earning him an MTV show and five feature films. Watching that Rosetta Stone-cold stupid footage here, you’re struck not only by his audacity, but by the scene’s excruciating comic pacing. As there’s only one bullet in the pistol, empty chambers click multiple times before the bullet finally fires. Logically, you know Knoxville will live long enough for his hair to turn fright-wig white. Yet the lizard brain making you gawk is shrieking.

Do not attempt any of the stunts you’re about to see, the prefatory caution blares. Absolutely. The thing is, no one else could. “Best and Last’s” flashbacks are a walloping reminder that Knoxville is inimitable: a telegenic and extroverted entertainer with a charisma he wields like a skunk aims its stink. Upset him at your own risk. Like Buster Keaton before him, Knoxville has an uncanny awareness of how his death-defying escapades appear on camera. Even in that near-suicidal early segment, note how Knoxville stays on his feet, enduring agony with a magician’s “Ta-da!” He might have given himself a bruise the size of a baseball but he’s focused on the audience’s delight.

Over the years, the visuals dramatically improve, from snuff film aesthetics to confidently silly splendor. “Jackass Number Two,” released in 2006, expended major energy on a musical homage to Old Hollywood that nodded to Keaton and bathing beauty Esther Williams who, in MGM’s “Million Dollar Mermaid,” plunged 50 feet into a pool and broke her neck. By 2010’s “Jackass 3D,” which riffed on classic cartoons with Knoxville strapping himself onto an Acme-style red rocket, one could admit they went to see a Jackass movie for the cinematography with even more sincerity than if Knoxville claimed he bought “Hustler” for its life-saving properties.

The new movie doesn’t have any artistic ambition. The charitable excuse for its reliance on old material is that the gang wanted one more film that summed up their entire legacy — from the impact of seeing them age to the opportunity to include departed colleagues Ryan Dunn, who died in 2011, and Bam Margera, fired in 2020. The other explanation is it’s a cash grab made for pennies. Still, Steve-O strives for memorable moments, gathering the gang in a generic office building corridor to watch him take off his pants and pop out a ping-pong ball. There’s a lot of nudity but the setting feels half-assed.

“Best and Last’s” intro splat-tacular, typically a highlight of each film, hinges on the posse standing still on a moving floor. But the monochrome staging — white walls, white ground — looks almost like CGI, the antithesis of their appeal, and it takes us a minute to understand what’s actually going on. Worst, it lacks both suspense and surprise, that no-they-aren’toh-god-they-are drama that once elevated the franchise to the peak of pure cinema.

There is — and I mean this — existentialism in witnessing a person embrace shame and terror. Actors have won Oscars without achieving the transcendence of, say, misery glutton McGhehey in “Jackass Forever,” bound to a chair and coated in salmon and honey, realizing that his friends have released a bear into the room. Meryl Streep could never do that (and wouldn’t have to). McGhehey’s sole path to stardom is that he did.

Not everything in a “Jackass” movie needs to be that sublime. One of my few genuine howls in “Best and Last” came in a three-second rehash of someone stepping on a rake; another was the percussion Chris Pontius makes with his swinging nethers before attempting a naked Fosbury flop. There’s a great accidental gag in a cut bit from the original MTV pilot when a deputy pulls up to arrest Knoxville and forgets to put her car in park. Yet the snippet I keep thinking about is a throwaway beat in a new skit when McGhehey willingly gets into the wrong chair again and, once freed, attacks Knoxville who coolly knees him in the nuts. Everyone chuckles.

Once, in anthropology class, my professor lectured on an insular island tribe that cackled whenever someone got hurt. Schadenfreude was the community’s way to vent tension. I thought of that village throughout “Best and Last,” especially during Knoxville’s nonchalant disarmament of his pal. Team Jackass has stayed united even while at each other’s throats. In bad times, they’ve borne each other’s struggles with sobriety and mental health. In good, they’ve seen the inequality of success that’s left Knoxville in a better financial position to retire than the rest.

While “Best and Last” is a whiff, I can forgive this band of bozos’ urge to make it. No one seems happy to still be zapping themselves with electrodes. They just want to rally together for the final time to choke out one last laugh.

‘Jackass: Best and Last’

Rated: R, for extremely dangerous stunts and crude material throughout, graphic nudity, pervasive language and sexual material

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes

Playing: Opening Friday, June 26 in wide release

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Two more men arrested in alleged White House UFC attack plot

June 22 (UPI) — Federal authorities have arrested two additional suspects allegedly involved in last week’s foiled attack targeting the Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, prosecutors said Monday.

Both suspects made their initial court appearances Monday, the Justice Department said in a release. Jordan Rincker, 28, of St. Joseph, Mo. appeared in a Kansas City court, and William Lee Spartacus Falkner appeared before a judge in Tacoma, Wash.

They each have been charged by criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

Prosecutors said Falkner was arrested midday Friday, while Rincker was arrested Sunday.

A total of seven people have now been arrested and charged in a sprawling scheme that federal authorities have said involved 23 people conspiring to attack the White House’s Freedom 250 event on June 14, staged in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary and the birthday of President Donald Trump.

According to federal prosecutors, the alleged conspiracy planned to attack the north side of the event with explosive-carrying drones, which would force an evacuation to the south side of the event, where snipers would be deployed to open fire on the fleeing crowd, court documents state.

Authorities learned of the alleged attack from the parents of Tycen Proper, who alerted police to their son’s purchase of weapons and online activities. Proper, 19, was among the initial batch of five suspects arrested and charged last week.

The court documents state the group’s alleged grievances appear to be purported government corruption and involvement of U.S. lawyers with Israel.

FBI agents reviewing Proper’s communications were able to identify several alleged co-conspirators, including Falkner.

Prosectuors alleged that Falkner indicated in those communications that he had experience manufacturing and piloting drones and discussed loading them with explosives.

Online communications reproduced in the criminal complaint against Falkner allegedly show discussions on logistics of the attack, including potential flight costs, 3D printing and shipping of the drones.

“I can fly 40+ drones at the same time at the same target,” Falkner is alleged to have said.

Federal prosecutors alleged that just two days before the alleged attack, Rincker met Abraham Alvarez, 31, who was arrested and charged last week along with Proper, in person and accepted $1,200 from him. Rincker then allegedly sent a $100 CashApp payment from the money he received to another previously arrested and charged suspect, Bryan Roa, 24, to pay for his drive from California to Washington, D.C.

Authorities identified Rincker as an alleged member of the conspiracy through information they received from Alvarez following his arrest, according to court documents. Authorities also learned that Rincker allegedly gave a 12-gauge shotgun to Alvarez during an in-person meeting they had in Omaha.

The FBI executed search warrants for Rincker’s residence and storage unit, uncovering a trove of weapons and related paraphernalia, such as a gas mask with cartridge, night vision goggles, ballistic plates, a 3D printer and more.

No attack occurred at the UFC event, at which Trump and other members of his Cabinet were in attendance.

Asked about the thwarted attack a day after the event, Trump told reporters that he had heard about it.

“The attack that I watched were the fighters,” he said, to laughs.

“They were as good a fights as I’ve ever seen. The best.”

President Donald Trump and UFC CEO Dana White stand in the octagon after the UFC Freedom 250 event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on June 14, 2026. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

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5 men stabbed in alleged anti-Muslim attack in Edinburgh, Scotland

June 20 (UPI) — Police arrested a man after stabbing five people in Edinburgh, Scotland, in suspected anti-Muslim attacks.

The man was allegedly roaming the streets of the city Friday night and stabbed five people and damaged a car and business. The attacks began near a mosque in the west of Edinburgh, where two men were injured. The Scottish Association of Mosques said two worshippers were attacked in a park after leaving the Broomhouse mosque.

Police said that five men in total, two of them 22 years old, and others ages 24, 27 and 39, suffered a range of injuries. Three of them were treated at a hospital, though none of the injuries was life-threatening.

A 36-year-old white man was arrested, and counter terrorism officers have joined local Police Scotland in an investigation.

Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton said in a statement that there is “no place for racism or faith-based hate in Scotland.”

Police got reports of attacks near shops in the west and north of the city, and said three other men were attacked in the Telford Road and Leith Walk areas. Police eventually confronted the man with a taser and arrested him, though they said the taser was never used.

“There is a profound sense of shock, alarm and anger within Muslim communities across Scotland today,” Omar Afzal, director of public affairs for the Scottish Association of Mosques, told The Scotsman. “These latest attacks are deeply disturbing. However, they do not exist in a vacuum. For years, Muslim communities have warned about the consequences of anti-Muslim hatred becoming normalized in public discourse. When prejudice is left unchallenged, it creates an environment in which some individuals feel emboldened to act on that hatred.”

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Flawed but relentless Scotland show themselves as men of substance

Clarke’s masterplan, so to speak, was playing Kieran Tierney ahead of Robertson on the left, two vastly experienced operators to deal with the threat of Hakimi and Brahim Diaz.

A risk, for sure. And so much for the thinking behind it. Just over a minute gone – Diaz assist, Ismael Saibari goal, the nightmare scenario come true.

The traffic cone guys weren’t letting such trifling issues dampen their day.

Everybody else had a haunted look about them, their noise and passion reduced to soft groans, the lusty pride they all displayed with another thumping rendition of Flower of Scotland now replaced with shrieks as Morocco ran amok.

Or threatened to run amok. Seventy seconds it took them to score. For much of the opening half they were like a cultured fighter, boxing the ears off an over-matched rival, bamboozling their punchbag with their movement before what felt like an inevitable knockout.

Scotland were on the ropes, covering up and praying that the punishment would stop. And minute by minute, it did.

Morocco’s intensity was wonderful for half an hour and they could have been two or three ahead by then, but they weren’t. They’re terrific footballers, very easy on the eye, but they’re not ruthless, not killers. Scotland’s resilience kept them in it.

When Morocco’s energy started to dissipate, it became a contest.

Scotland finished the opening half strongly, their confidence rising, those worried stares on the faces of their supporters giving way to blessed hope.

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The Men Lining Up to Replace Al-Minuki

The death of Abakar Minuki, one of the most influential leaders of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), in a joint United States and Nigerian military operation, marks one of the most consequential blows to the insurgent group in recent years. Yet, analysts and insiders familiar with the terror group warn that history offers little reason to assume the killing will significantly diminish the long-term threat posed by the group.

Multiple sources familiar with ISWAP’s internal structure told HumAngle that Minuki’s most likely successor was Baba Shuwa, commonly known as Ba Shuwa. However, indications emerging from the aftermath of the operation suggest he may also have been killed. If confirmed, the simultaneous removal of both men would trigger the most significant leadership transition in the organisation since its emergence from Boko Haram’s internal schism nearly a decade ago.

For the first time, leadership could pass not to the insurgency’s founding generation, but to a second generation of fighters raised entirely within the movement’s war ecosystem. Two names have emerged as the strongest contenders: Abu Salem and Bana Chingori.

“This would represent a generational shift unlike anything the movement has experienced before,” a source familiar with ISWAP’s internal dynamics told HumAngle.

From village barber to insurgent leader

Known variously as Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al Mainoki, Abor Mainoki, Abubakar Mainoki, and Abakar Minuki, the slain commander was himself a product of the insurgency’s evolution.

Born in 1982 in the village of Mainok, a settlement along the Maiduguri-Benisheikh corridor in Borno State, he adopted his nom de guerre from his hometown. Long before becoming one of the most feared figures in the Lake Chad Basin insurgency, Minuki was known as a young barber operating a modest salon in the village.

Those who encountered him during the rise of Mohammed Yusuf’s movement recall a quiet young man who blended into daily life. That anonymity would eventually disappear. By the time Boko Haram transformed from a fringe religious movement into a powerful insurgent force, Minuki had become part of its military structure.

Abu Mus’ab, Abu Fatima, and other Boko Haram leaders had to secure Minuki’s approval before finalising their escape from Abubakar Shekau in the Sambisa forest to the islands of the Lake Chad Basin, shortly before ISWAP split from Boko Haram. Minuki not only provided refuge for members of the newly formed ISWAP fleeing Shekau’s crackdown, but also protected them and facilitated their settlement in his territory, where he ruled as one of Shekau’s most formidable Amirul Fiya.

He belonged to the first generation of fighters who entered the organisation before the 2009 uprising that transformed the movement forever.

The last men of Yusuf’s generation

To understand what Minuki represented, one must return to Boko Haram’s earliest years. According to sources familiar with the group’s formative history, Mohammed Yusuf’s original armed contingent consisted of fewer than 100 members. These men were responsible not only for security but also for recruitment.

As the organisation expanded, Yusuf reorganised fighters into military formations named after prominent figures from Islamic history. Among them were the Zubair Ibn Awwam Battalion, Umar Farouk Battalion, Salmanu Farisu Battalion, Khalid Ibn Walid Battalion, and Salaudeen Ayubi Battalion.

Several battalions survived years of expansion, state crackdowns, factional disputes, and battlefield losses. Over time, however, only two retained their original lineage and remain operational: the Timbuktu formation, associated with Faruk, and the Buhairiya structure, which absorbed the remnants of several earlier battalions.

Man lying on the ground, eyes closed, surrounded by dry grass and sandy soil.
Multiple sources have identified this undated photograph as depicting the corpse of Abakar Minuki. The image is currently being circulated widely across the Lake Chad region by both active and ex-insurgents.

Minuki was already a Naqeeb, a junior commander, during the pre-2009 period. Ba Shuwa, by contrast, was merely a foot soldier. While Abu Salem, who is now touted as the likely successor of ISWAP, was still a child. That generational distinction highlights that few survivors remain from the movement’s founding era.

The rise of the second generation

If Minuki and Ba Shuwa are both dead, the succession process could elevate men who never knew the insurgency before it became a regional war. Among them, Abu Salem stands out. Sources describe him as both a military commander and a religious authority within the insurgency. He currently serves as Amirul Fiya, based in Krinua, a battlefield commander with influence extending beyond purely military affairs.

His biography mirrors the insurgency’s own evolution. The son of a respected first-generation Boko Haram member, Abu Salem benefited from mentorship by senior leaders from an early age. His pedigree gave him access to influential networks that many younger fighters lacked.

He also carries the scars of combat. During one battle with members of Nigeria’s armed forces, he sustained serious gunshot wounds to the lower abdomen. The injuries required long-term medical management involving a Foley catheter. According to sources familiar with his condition, he continued participating in military operations despite the injury for years.

Within ISWAP, Abu Salem has cultivated a reputation for bravery, clerical authority, and charisma. Several sources compared his influence to that once exercised by Abu Musab al-Barnawi and Minuki himself.

Another contender is Bana Chingori, regarded as Ba Shuwa’s closest deputy. Unlike Abu Salem, however, Bana faces a structural challenge: He does not originate from the Faruk battalion network, which sources estimate supplies approximately 70 per cent of ISWAP’s current fighters and leadership, including Minuki.

In an organisation where battlefield alliances and battalion loyalties remain deeply influential, that may prove decisive.

The ethnic question behind ISWAP leadership

Leadership succession inside ISWAP is not determined solely by military competence. HumAngle understands that ethnicity, lineage, dialect, and social hierarchy continue to shape power within the organisation.

Public portrayals often reduce Boko Haram and ISWAP to ideological movements driven exclusively by extremist interpretations of Islam. The reality is considerably more complex. The overwhelming majority of ISWAP’s estimated fighting force originates from the Kanuri ethnic nationality, which has historically been dominant across the Lake Chad Basin. Yet, the Kanuris are far from homogeneous.

They are divided into numerous dialect communities, clan networks, and social categories that carry significant political weight, all of which the insurgents take very seriously. These divisions influence recruitment, promotions, alliances, and leadership legitimacy.

Mohammed Yusuf, for example, belonged to the Manga dialect group, one of the most prestigious Kanuri communities. His lineage strengthened his standing within the movement’s formative years. Abubakar Shekau came from the Kaama-speaking Ngala’a community, often viewed as socially marginal within traditional Kanuri hierarchies.

Several researchers and former members argue that Shekau’s relationship with the broader movement was shaped partly by this outsider status. Minuki himself emerged from Borno Central, where multiple Kanuri dialect groups intersect. Ba Shuwa’s ancestry has also been the subject of internal scrutiny.

Sources say rivals occasionally questioned the purity of his Kanuri lineage, reflecting how deeply social stratification continues to influence perceptions of authority within insurgency networks in the Lake Chad basin.

For this reason, sources told HumAngle, the emergence of a non-Kanuri leader remains highly unlikely. Even if such a figure were elevated, sustaining authority would be extraordinarily difficult. “The movement talks about Islam and the caliphate,” one source familiar with internal deliberations said, “But when leadership questions arise, ethnicity still matters.”

The foreign fighters effect

The leadership transition unfolding inside ISWAP is taking place within an organisation that has undergone profound internal transformation in recent years. Sources familiar with the group’s operations told HumAngle that the growing presence of foreign fighters from across the Sahel and beyond has reshaped not only the movement’s military tactics but also its internal security culture.

As foreign fighters increasingly settled in the Lake Chad region, ISWAP imposed some of its strictest operational security measures to date. Members were ordered to delete existing photographs and cease documenting activities through images. The use of smartphones was largely prohibited, reflecting mounting concerns about surveillance, geolocation tracking, and intelligence penetration. 

The restrictions marked a sharp departure from earlier years when both Boko Haram and ISWAP routinely photographed preaching sessions, training exercises, weapon displays, and daily life in territories under their control. Such imagery formed a central component of the group’s propaganda and recruitment machinery.

According to sources, the new rules were enforced ruthlessly. Several fighters accused of taking photographs or retaining images on their devices were reportedly executed. The killings served as both punishment and deterrence, reinforcing a culture of secrecy that now permeates much of the organisation. 

“The message was simple,” one source familiar with the group’s internal directives said. “Any digital trace that could expose fighters, commanders, or locations became a security threat.” The arrival of experienced foreign fighters appears to have accelerated this shift. Many brought with them lessons learned from conflicts across the Sahel, where drone surveillance, signals intelligence, and electronic tracking have increasingly shaped the battlefield.

The influence of foreign fighters introduced a greater emphasis on counter-intelligence, operational discipline, compartmentalisation, and the elimination of digital footprints that could expose personnel, camps, supply routes, or command structures. The result is an insurgent organisation that has become considerably more cautious than its predecessors. While leadership losses continue to disrupt, ISWAP’s evolving security architecture suggests a movement increasingly focused on institutional survival rather than on dependence on individual commanders.

Fractured, not defeated

The killing of Minuki undoubtedly represents a serious disruption, and the elimination of Ba Shuwa, if confirmed, would considerably deepen that disruption. Yet, military and intelligence officials caution against interpreting the development as a strategic defeat for ISWAP.

“The organisation has experienced similar moments before with the deaths of Mohammed Yusuf, Mamman Nur, Abu Musab al Barnawi, Ba Idrissa, and several other senior commanders, each of which generated predictions of organisational collapse,” said Kyari Mustafa, a conflict researcher in Maiduguri.

Those predictions never materialised. Instead, the group adapted. The pattern has become familiar across the Lake Chad Basin.

HumAngle has documented a pattern where successful military campaigns weaken the insurgency. Communities experience a period of relative calm. The group regroups, reassesses, and eventually resumes attacks. This cycle has repeated itself for more than 15 years. What makes the current moment significant is the possibility that an entire generation of commanders may be disappearing simultaneously. If Minuki and Ba Shuwa are indeed gone, the future of ISWAP may soon be shaped by men who were toddlers when Mohammed Yusuf built the movement.

Whether that transition produces fragmentation, renewal, or further violence remains uncertain. What is clear is that the Lake Chad Basin has witnessed enough leadership decapitations to know that the death of a commander, however important, does not automatically mean the end of the war.

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Rescuers free four more men from flooded Laos cave, two still missing | Floods News

Five of seven men who entered cave seeking gold are now out after being trapped for 10 days.

Rescuers have pulled four more men from a flooded cave in central Laos, bringing to five the number freed from a group of villagers who became trapped while searching for gold. Two others remain missing.

The four were brought out on Saturday, a day after the first man was rescued, ending a period of about 10 days during which the group was cut off underground.

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The Thailand Rescue Diver Facebook page said that “rescue officials were able to bring out four more people trapped” at about 3:10pm (08:10 GMT).

Rescuers said the water inside the cave had finally dropped low enough for the men to walk and swim out alongside the divers who had reached them.

The operation has drawn diving teams from several countries, but the danger is far from over, with two members of the group still unaccounted for deep inside the flooded passages.

Lao and Thai rescue groups posted images of the men being carried out on stretchers, caked in mud, wearing oxygen masks and wrapped in foil blankets.

Footage shared online showed some of them collapsing as they emerged, before being embraced by rescuers.

The five had been located alive on Wednesday, huddled on a rocky ledge in a chamber about 300 metres (980 feet) from the entrance. Unable to bring them out straight away, rescuers passed in water, soft food and blankets to keep them going.

“The first one is out. Safe and sound!!!” Manat Artmongkron, a technician with a Thai rescue group, wrote on Facebook after the first evacuation on Friday.

Divers described treacherous conditions in the narrow, flooded tunnels, where visibility was almost nil. One stretch was a 25-metre passage too tight to turn around in.

The group had entered the cave around May 19 or 20, to look for gold and other minerals, according to local officials, before heavy rain triggered flash flooding that sealed off their way out.

An eighth villager who escaped in time alerted the authorities to those left behind.

Rescue teams said they were now preparing to push deeper into the cave – about 20 to 25 metres beyond where the survivors were found – to look for the two missing men, though that section remained heavily flooded.

Local officials said residents of the remote, mountainous province of Xaisomboun often forage for a living and enter such caves in search of gold, despite repeated warnings about the risks.

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Flight attendant shares 1 quality men really need to be able to date cabin crew

A flight attendant has said men need to possess a specific quality to be able to date them. According to Yasmeen Golden, dating cabin crew isn’t for the fainthearted

When we travel, we often come across flight attendants, and sometimes they apparently use clever code words to tell you they fancy you. However, according to a woman known as Yasmeen Golden, things can get a little bit more complicated when it comes to dating cabin crew.

The flight attendant, who posts videos about her life on TikTok, said men actually need to possess a specific quality to be able to date people who work in air travel. Yasmeen claimed dating someone like her “isn’t for the weak”, as there are some things prospective partners need to come to terms with if they really want a relationship.

It’s not the only revelation a flight attendant has revealed recently either. Just weeks ago, another confessed the real reason they greet passengers on planes.

In the clip, Yasmeen admitted it’s not unusual for flight attendants to “break up” with their boyfriends. She explained: “Initially, to a guy who might think he’s secure, becoming a flight attendant sounds like a good deal.

“It sounds like, you know, ‘I’m never going to pay for flights again, you’re going to have flight benefits, we’re going to be able to see the world together’ etc etc.

“As glamorous as it seems from the outside, being able to obtain this job and go through the training to get this job and going through probation to get this job, will show you whether this relationship can stand the test of time or not. It is so common that people who become flight attendants, go through flight attendant training and make it out of flight attendant training, come out of flight attendant training single.

“It doesn’t matter how long the relationship was before. Men think this sounds like a good idea until they think about the fact that their woman is going to be on a layover multiple times a week without them and, for some reason, there is this pre-conceived notion that all flight attendants are cheaters.

“So they think, ‘you’re going to enter a field where every single night you’re going to be in a new city, and you’re going to find somebody else and cheat and I’m not going to stick around and let you do that to me’, which is always really funny coming from the man who acted like they wanted you to do the job so that they can travel the world with you and use the benefits.”

Warning: Below video may contain language some find offensive

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Of course, Yasmeen said this idea is “dead wrong”, especially as flight attendants get so tired after a day at work. Most tend to spend their downtime sleeping, according to her.

She said this is why men have to be secure enough to accept her dream if they want to be in a relationship with a flight attendant, otherwise she fears things just won’t last. She also noted having space can be “healthy”, so they shouldn’t worry about being apart for days at a time.

Yasmeen added: “And then I think men realise that they don’t really have it in them to be with the woman who has the power to be in any country, in any state that they want to any time. It’s not for every man, you know?

“All in all, being with a flight attendant will show you if you’re really as secure as you thought you were. If you’re not, you’ll get kicked out of the relationship before the good job even starts.”

The video has been viewed thousands of times since she shared it and people were quick to comment too. They offered all sorts of ideas.

One commented, stating: “Dated for eight years and the night before my final exam he said ‘it’s either me or this job’. Left him right then, passed my exam with flying colours and now me and my best friend travel the world together! Thanks boo.”

Another added: “Love being a flight attendant, but finding that sweet spot between always wanting to be somewhere new, but also spending quality time at home/maintaining all kinds of relationships is definitely challenging at times. 100% worth it though and has taken some practice finding what works!!”

A third replied: “Yeah, my boyfriend is really secure. He does not care about the benefits nor is worried about what I’m doing. It’s a blessing.”

Meanwhile, a fourth also wrote: “Starting out it’s going to be tough. But, as seniority builds, that pay goes up and so do the days off. This job truly exposes who is in your life for the long run and who is temporary.”

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