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China is set to launch its Chang’e-7 unmanned, robotic space mission, possibly as early as Monday morning, to look for ice water in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s south pole.

This marks China’s seventh and most ambitious moon mission so far. Here is what we know about it.

What do we know about Chang’e-7?

The Chang’e‑7 launch window runs from Monday, August 24 to Monday, August 31, according to launch observers. That means the mission could lift off on any day in that period.

The Chang’e-7 comprises an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a hopper.

• The orbiter is the main spacecraft which will remain in the moon’s orbit, mapping the surface and taking images while the mission is under way. It will also relay data and communications between the other Chang’e‑7 components and Earth.
• The lander is the vessel that will touch down on the lunar surface, loaded with the necessary scientific instruments for lunar exploration, near the edge of the Shackleton Crater, a 21km-wide (13-mile-wide) pit close to the moon’s south pole. Lunar missions before this have never come this close to the pole.
• The rover is a small robotic vehicle which can drive around the landing site and which carries equipment to analyse the local environment, including rocks and soil.
• The hopper is a small robotic craft powered by solar energy, designed to “hop” – or fly – short distances from the surface of the moon and land again. It will be used to explore the Shackleton Crater.

How do we know there is water on the moon?

Over the past two decades, several space missions have established that there is water on the moon.

Since the 1960s, even before the first Apollo landing in 1969, scientists speculated that water could exist on the moon. However, when Apollo crews returned samples for testing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they appeared to be dry.

Finally, in 2009, NASA deliberately crashed a rocket segment and its probe into a shadowed lunar crater to analyse the dust plume it kicked up. This provided one of the clearest direct confirmations that significant ice water does exist on the moon, building on earlier detections of water and hydrogen by probes.

In October 2020, NASA scientists announced that water on the moon is more widespread than previously known. They said water molecules had been found to be encapsulated within mineral grains on the lunar surface and speculated that more water is hidden in ice patches which are in permanent shadows.

NASA describes these permanent shadows as dark areas inside deep craters near the north and south poles of the moon where sunlight has not reached for millions or even billions of years. In 2018, prior to confirming it in 2020, NASA had detected water ice in shadowed parts of the moon through mapping.

Why is it important to find out more about the water on the moon?

Expanding knowledge about water on the moon is vital because ancient polar ice may have preserved a record of lunar volcanic activity and of water delivered by comets and asteroids to the Earth-moon system, offering clues to how our own oceans originally formed.

Additionally, if there is enough water on the moon that is realistically accessible, it could serve as a source of drinking water for crewed lunar missions, and could also help to keep equipment cool.

Hydrogen could also be extracted from moon water to provide fuel, while oxygen could be extracted to breathe, supporting onward missions to Mars or lunar mining.

Could anyone ‘own’ the water on the moon?

The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty bans any nation from claiming sovereignty over the moon or owning it as territory. It does not explicitly prohibit commercial operations, but it requires private activities in space to be authorised and supervised by states and leaves key questions about resource ownership unresolved.

Which recent space missions have searched for frozen water on the moon?

In 2023, Russia’s lunar spacecraft, Luna-25, was launched to look for frozen water in the moon’s south pole. However, the Luna-25 spun out of control and crashed. The crash prevented any scientific data collection or water discovery.

Racing against the Luna-25 mission was India’s Chandrayaan-3, which also aimed to expand knowledge of lunar water ice. Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed in August 2023 and found critical new evidence of water on the surface of the moon’s south pole through soil temperature readings.

Why is exploring the moon’s south pole a challenge?

Attempted landings at the moon’s south pole have failed before because of its challenging terrain, which is full of craters and deep trenches.

The south pole is far from the equatorial region targeted by previous missions, including the crewed Apollo landings.

What is different about the Chang’e-7 mission?

The upcoming Chang’e-7 is aiming to expand knowledge about where, exactly, water is located in the craters of the moon, how deep it is, what form it is in and whether it is indeed possible to access it.

The Chang’e-7’s six-legged hopper has been designed to jump into and out of the deep, shadowed craters near the south pole that are hard for traditional rovers to reach, to look for water ice and other resources.

No previous space mission has used a dedicated hopper to jump in and out of lunar craters in this way.

A fresh wave of US tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods has come into effect as of midnight on Saturday after a last minute break down in trade talks.

Announcing the suspension of negotiations shortly before the Friday night deadline, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would impose reciprocal tariffs on US goods “dollar for dollar”.

Carney said “last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal”.

Trade negotiators had been engaged in intense talks since July, after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50% levy on nearly $20bn (C$28bn) of Canadian imports by 19 August.

Trump had temporarily paused those tariffs earlier in the week, saying the two sides were close to signing a trade deal that was “very good” for both countries.

But minutes before a deadline for a deal, Carney said that while “important progress” had been made in the talks it was “not enough to meet our objectives for Canadians”.

“As a result, this evening, I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed negotiators to return to Ottawa,” he said.

“Last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

After Carney’s announcement US trade representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement: “Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.

“Despite the US offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” the statement on X said.

The breakdown in talks marks a significant shift in tone from earlier in the week, when both US and Canadian officials sounded optimistic that a trade deal beneficial for both countries was within reach.

Negotiators were reportedly discussing a deal that would reduce US tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium from 50% to 25%, and on Canadian autos from 25% to 15%.

In exchange, Carney had asked Canadian provinces to restore US alcohol to store shelves.

Tensions between the two major trading partners have been simmering since Trump returned to office in January last year and unleashed a wide-ranging global programme of tariffs, upending decades of free trade between Canada and the US.

Now that talks have broken down, Canada will be hit with new 50% US tariffs imposed by Trump using a Depression-era law called the Tariff Act of 1930.

They will be applied on a range of goods, including wine, dairy, cement, clothing and hockey equipment.

They are in addition to existing tariffs the US had already imposed on Canadian steel and aluminium, autos and lumber.

Doug Ford, the traditionally outspoken premier of Canada’s largest province Ontario, said “the prime minister has my full support for a strong response—tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” following Carney’s announcement.

Canada has been engaged in on-again, off-again trade negotiations with the US for over a year in pursuit of a deal that would see the US drop or reduce tariffs on these key sectors.

The US, meanwhile, has been asking for a number of concessions from Canada, including removing its remaining retaliatory tariffs on American autos and adjusting its dairy quotas to allow greater access for US cheese producers.

It has also asked for the ban on US alcohol sales, imposed last year by most Canadian provinces in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, be removed.

Businesses and stakeholders on both sides of the border had pushed for a deal to be reached, arguing that the new US tariffs on Canada will be harmful to both countries.

The US Chamber of Commerce said earlier in the week in a statement that “higher tariffs would damage both economies, drive up costs for US families, further disrupt critical supply chains, and risk the 13 million American jobs that depend on trade under the US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement”.

A recent poll by Canadian firm Abacus Data suggested that around 36% of Canadian would support retaliating to US tariffs, while another 30% would want the Carney government to continue negotiating.

Retaliation risks upsetting the Trump administration, with trade representative Jamieson Greer saying the US is “not going to tolerate” counter-tariffs.

“We’ll take action,” he told reporters last week.

Dramatic footage verified by the BBC shows the second drone hitting the already burning shopping centre in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Russia’s military has not commented.

Another 130 people – including 23 children – were injured in the attack on city’s biggest mall. More people are also reported to be trapped in the rubble.

Early on Saturday Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said the death toll had reached 16 after another body was retrieved from the rubble.

There are still nine people – including two children – reportedly missing in the shopping centre, Hanzha said on Telegram.

Earlier on Friday, Hanzha said that of the 130 people injured, 29 were in a serious condition. There are fears the death toll could rise further.

Rescue teams from four other Ukrainian regions are being urgently deployed to help search for survivors.

Kryvyi Rih Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said the Russian drones were flying at “extremely low altitudes”, describing the attackers as “animals”.

“There are missing people who are not responding to calls,” the mayor added.

In Kyiv, the city’s military administration said a fire had broke out in a warehouse in the capital’s Darnytskyi district early on Saturday.

“According to preliminary information, unfortunately, there is one person dead and several injured,” the administration said on Telegram.

In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian drone strike had killed at least one man and injured four people, according to Ivan Fedorov, the head of the regional military administration.

Omani and Iranian foreign ministers hold a call as Washington prepares economic sanctions amid ongoing shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for an end to the months-long war with the United States, stating that Tehran holds a position of strength as diplomatic talks remain stalled.

“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” Pezeshkian said in a meeting with doctors on Friday. “The whole world acknowledges our victory and emphasises that America has attacked our schools, hospitals and infrastructure in violation of all regulations and is hated around the world.”

Pezeshkian – whose authority as president is ultimately subordinate to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – also defended the June memorandum of understanding agreed with Washington against hardline domestic critics in parliament, who accused his administration of giving concessions to the US.

“They cannot find even a single clause in this agreement that indicates capitulation. All the commitments concern the other side,” he said.

However, days after the memorandum of understanding expired, Iran’s military leadership has warned that the country remains ready to strike back against any new threats.

“With preparedness across land, sea, air, air defence and cyberspace, Iran’s armed forces will respond to the enemy’s new threats with crushing, punishing and devastating responses,” Major-General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Strait of Hormuz

Meanwhile, Omani and Iranian foreign ministers discussed in a phone call on Friday ways to create suitable conditions for resuming dialogue and negotiations, as well as developments affecting navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Oman’s state news agency.

Tehran continues to keep the key waterway partially shut while Washington persists with a naval counterblockade. Reports in US media indicate the US navy has been organising and protecting secret convoys of tankers through the southern sector of the strait, enabling between five and 10 million barrels a day of oil to be exported.

In Washington, President Donald Trump expressed scepticism over Tehran’s willingness to negotiate, telling reporters when asked if US military options with Iran were limited: “It just means that we’re seeing what happens.”

“We have total control of that entire region having to do with the Strait of Hormuz, and that means well into it, the land areas. So, they would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion,” Trump added.

He has also warned of economic consequences against any country that provides “any type of lifeline to Iran”.

The comments came as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Washington would “collapse” the Iranian government with a sanctions campaign.

Bessent will hold a news conference at the Department of the Treasury on Monday, where he is expected to outline planned sanctions against Iran, marking a shift by the Trump administration towards economic rather than military pressure as the war nears the six-month mark.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already condemned the US plan, accusing Washington of “economic terrorism” and stating that “the instigators of these sanctions are deserving of trial and punishment”.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian also criticised the US measures, stating that “sanctions and pressure will not help resolve the issue” and urging all parties to “take responsible measures and resolve the problem through political and diplomatic means”.

Andhra Pradesh’s regional minister of education says he is taking legal action with a committee against those responsible.

Authorities in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have launched an investigation after a six-year-old child collapsed and reportedly died after he was slapped by his teacher in a school classroom.

The incident was captured on a security camera in the school in Visakhapatnam in the southeast Indian state, before being shared widely by local media on Thursday. The incident is already causing an uproar around corporal punishment in the country.

The video clip, which has been verified by Al Jazeera, shows a female teacher holding a child by his clothes before slapping him on the face, after which he collapses.

“We are taking legal action against those responsible and the school management,” Nara Lokesh, Andhra Pradesh’s education and IT minister, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

Police are also investigating the circumstances around the death of the child, who local media have named as Pranay Tej.

“As a father, I can’t get over what happened to little Pranay Tej. I cannot imagine the pain his parents are going through. Corporal punishment has no place in our schools. No child should ever be subjected to violence in the name of discipline,” Lokesh wrote on X on Friday.

“I have already directed a full investigation and strict action against anyone found responsible. My heart goes out to Pranay’s family in this moment of unimaginable grief.”

Relatives gathered at the hospital after learning about the boy’s death and demanded strict action against those responsible, according to NDTV India.

Pranay Tej’s father said his son appeared healthy in the morning before going to school. “In the morning around 8am, my son woke up and said he wanted to go to school. He insisted on going to school,” he told NDTV.

Police Inspector Pudi Vara Prasad told Press Trust of India: “Following a written complaint from the boy’s father, we have registered a case under Section 194 of the BNSS and launched an investigation.”

Prasad said the body was handed over to his parents after police “completed the inquest and post-mortem procedures”.

He added that “once all relevant reports are received, we will determine the exact cause of death”.

A 2018 study by the Indian NGO Agrasar found that roughly 80 percent of low-income school children in India experience corporal punishment from teachers, despite it being officially illegal.

Palla Srinivasa Rao, Andhra Pradesh state president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), told Press Trust of India that “the government has reacted appropriately” in the aftermath of the incident.

“Our IT and Education Minister, Nara Lokesh Garu, has already formed a committee, and based on the committee’s report, we will definitely take action,” he said.

For the first time since becoming vice president of the United States, JD Vance has returned to his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, with a goal of rallying Republican voters ahead of November’s pivotal midterm elections.

Vance delivered Friday’s speech at a symbolic location: the steel plant where his late grandfather once worked.

He used the appearance to tout a $1bn investment from the steel manufacturer Cleveland-Cliffs that was supported by $500m in government awards.

That funding, he said, illustrated his party’s commitment to the manufacturing sector and reinvigorating the US economy overall.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy – or it’s all going to happen overnight – but in just 18 months, we have seen an explosion of rebuilding in the American heartland,” Vance said, crediting the growth to policies under President Donald Trump.

Vance’s speech comes at a critical time for the Republican Party and Trump in particular.

November’s midterm races will decide whether Republicans are able to maintain control over both chambers of Congress. Should their hold on the legislature slip, Democrats could stymie Trump’s policy priorities for the last two years of his presidency — or even impeach him, as Trump himself has suggested.

Polls have shown that the state of the economy remains the top issue ahead of the midterms.

But how voters perceive each party’s ability to address economic strain has shifted. Before the start of Trump’s second term, the Pew Research Center found that voters were more likely to favour Republican policies on the economy.

In July, however, the dynamic had switched: Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed backed the Democratic approach to the economy, compared with 36 percent for Republicans.

Another poll this month from the news agency Reuters and the firm Ipsos likewise found slightly more respondents siding with the Democrats on economic policy than Republicans, upending a longtime trend that stretched back to 2017.

Trump, for his part, has publicly appeared to dismiss cost-of-living issues as a partisan invention, calling questions of affordability a “hoax” and a “con job” engineered by Democrats.

At Friday’s speech, Vance took a different approach, trying to assuage concerns about the administration’s handling of the economy.

“We got a lot of work to do, but we’re making progress on all the things that matter the most,” Vance said, citing efforts to make homeownership more affordable.

The speech is part of an intensifying campaign under Trump to boost the prospects of Republican candidates ahead of the midterms, with the president and other top officials holding rallies for their party’s candidates.

Ohio, part of a historic manufacturing region known as the Rust Belt, has become increasingly conservative since Trump’s first White House victory in 2016.

But amid rising dissatisfaction with Republican leadership, Democrats see a chance to win back the state’s governor’s office, as well as the US Senate seat left vacant when Vance became vice president.

Whoever wins the special election in November will serve the remainder of Vance’s Senate term, which would have ended in January 2029.

The Republican nominee in the race, Senator Jon Husted, joined Vance on stage at the Middletown rally on Friday. Husted was appointed to fill Vance’s Senate seat until a special election could be held.

Vance, for his part, dedicated part of his speech to attacking Husted’s Democratic rival, former Senator Sherrod Brown, who lost his re-election race to Republican Bernie Moreno two years ago.

He accused Brown of being among the politicians “who pretend to be friends of the workers in this facility”, while instead advancing their own priorities.

“It’s hard to understand what these modern Democrats actually stand for,” Vance said, characterising the party as having strayed from its ideals.

He pointed to Brown’s record of siding with the policies of former Democratic President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential race.

“[Brown] was a man who claimed to represent this state but never once raised his voice against Joe Biden’s border crisis or against the inflation that was brought on by Joe Biden underinvesting and trying to destroy American industry,” Vance said.

The vice president also singled out Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, repeating a false claim that the Democratic Senate candidate called for “Sharia law” in the US.

“I’d love to go back in time and tell my papaw that there’s a man who claims to stand for working people, who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticise it, you are a white supremacist,” Vance said about El-Sayed.

Trump’s approval rating currently sits at 33 percent, according to Reuters-Ipsos polling from this month.

TikTok has agreed to pay $400m (£293m) to the US to end a lawsuit alleging its platform violated childrens’ privacy, marking one of the largest ever settlements over the issue.

The deal stems from a 2024 suit by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden alleging TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected “vast amounts of data” on millions of users under the age of 13.

Doing so was against the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law enacted in 2000. It is the same law that dozens of US states are now suing Meta over.

“Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began,” assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

Other companies to have paid penalties to the US government for COPPA violations include Google’s YouTube, which in 2019 paid $170m, and Epic Games, which in 2022 paid $275m.

Meta is also now facing penalties that could exceed hundreds of billions of dollars stemming from COPPA violations alleged by attorneys general of 29 US states. A jury trial in the lawsuit started this week, with the Instagram and Facebook owner accused of targeting child users and profiting off of them.

While the TikTok lawsuit predates last year’s split of TikTok’s US business and operations from its original base of China, the settlement only involves TikTok’s operations in China.

ByteDance, which is a privately held company, was most recently valued by investors at $550bn, external.

Under the terms of the deal, TikTok and ByteDance will immediately pay the DOJ $300m. It will pay another $100m when the government vacates a 2019 consent decree, external with the Federal Trade Commission.

As part of the agreement, the predecessor to ByteDance, Musical.ly, was required to pay a $5.7m fine for COPPA violations and ensure it sought parental consent for any user aged under 13.

The justice department did not detail on Friday any action against TikTok beyond the fine. But the department noted that since it sued the platform, TikTok has “undergone significant changes,” including to its ownership, privacy practices and platform controls for young users.

When the lawsuit was filed, attorneys for the US said there were more than 170 million teenagers using TikTok and that the app was “directed to children.” Yet, it did not effectively gauge the age of users or get parental consent for use from those underage.

In 2024, former President Biden pushed for TikTok to be either banned, or have the company divest its US operations. President Donald Trump went on to support divestment of the app, which occurred last year.

Its US operations are now 81% owned by a consortium of investors, while Bytdance maintains a 19% stake.

A representative of TikTok did not respond to the BBC for comment.

Court cuts Infowars founder’s penalty for false claims that school shooting was a ‘hoax’ from $50m to $1.5m.

A court in the US state of Texas has slashed a fine that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay for capitalising on false claims that the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting was a “hoax”.

The unanimous opinion by the Texas Third Court of Appeals on Friday reduced the $50m judgment to $1.5m. The court found that parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son was one of 20 children and six staff killed in the shooting, did not provide enough evidence of harassment to pass the state’s $750,000 cap on damages.

“The families care not at all about this irrelevant ruling which affects only two of the 19 claims they all share. Jones still faces over a billion dollars of liability, so this changes absolutely nothing. All it does is highlight the absurdity of Texas law,” said Mark Bankston, an attorney for Heslin and Lewis in Texas.

The decision does not affect a separate ruling against Jones in Connecticut that ordered him to pay $1.25bn for his claims that the shooting was a hoax perpetrated by the government to justify gun regulations.

The case centred on the allegation that Jones knowingly pushed false claims about the victims and their families – including that the children who were killed were actors – to capitalise on attention around the shooting for his Infowars platform, even as his claims led to a torrent of abuse for the families of victims. Many said they faced death threats and were forced to relocate as a result.

Jones and his company have filed for bankruptcy, and he gave up the Infowars brand in April. He has continued to broadcast online and share his shows on the social media platform X.

Jones called the Friday ruling a “gigantic victory for the First Amendment”, which protects freedom of expression in the US Constitution, adding that he will continue to appeal the case to the Texas state Supreme Court in a bid to have the remaining charges dismissed.

“I got lawyers who are good constitutional lawyers and they are not backing down,” Jones said.

China opposes the US and Western escalation against Iran and insists on condemning the US and Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear targets. China considers the US and Israeli military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities a blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter. While Beijing officially adheres to nuclear non-proliferation, it will hold the US directly responsible and will oppose the imposition of new international sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. China will work to hold Washington accountable. Beijing believes that the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement is the root cause of the current impasse in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) negotiations. The Chinese Foreign Ministry asserts that the policy of maximum pressure and economic sanctions against Tehran will not resolve the crisis but will only exacerbate tensions. China views Tehran’s threat to withdraw from the NPT as an understandable reaction to the maximum pressure exerted upon it, but it consistently prefers diplomatic solutions and supports maintaining the international legal framework to prevent escalation.  The Chinese stance came after Iranian parliamentarians, including Ebrahim Rezaei, asserted that withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the best response to the Trump administration’s escalation of economic warfare.

The main dimensions of the Chinese position regarding the Iranian threat to withdraw from the NPT are embodied in China’s rejection of pressure and sanctions against Iran. China maintains that the escalating US sanctions and policies against Tehran will not resolve the nuclear crisis but rather exacerbate it. Chinese intelligence, military, political, and strategic circles have adopted a strategy of legal consideration versus feasibility. Experts and observers close to Chinese circles argue that Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT is a legitimate legal right for independent states, but Beijing implicitly suggests that such a move could trigger harsher international sanctions against Tehran. Therefore, Beijing is working to (obstruct UN sanctions against Iran). China, along with Russia, has expressed its readiness to block the activation of the snapback mechanism or any harsh international sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council to protect its interests and regional stability, while adhering to a political settlement. Beijing is calling on all parties to return to the negotiating table and maintain regional and international stability, instead of taking radical and escalatory steps that violate international treaties.

In my analysis, China will insist on referring the Iranian issue to international forums, such as the Security Council, using its veto power to condemn and block any resolutions issued against Iran. Here, China is expected to cooperate with Russia to obstruct any Western or American Security Council resolutions aimed at condemning Iran or imposing new, harsh UN sanctions. China will maintain its commitment to dialogue by continuing to call for a return to the political negotiating table, while publicly acknowledging Tehran’s previous assurances that it is not seeking to produce nuclear weapons. Here, we must understand all the strategic parameters of China’s position regarding the escalation against Iran over its nuclear program through the lens of China’s opposition to nuclear armament. Despite China’s understanding of Iran’s motives and its right to peaceful energy, it categorically rejects Tehran’s move towards acquiring a nuclear military arsenal in order to preserve the stability of the international order and prevent a regional arms race. This is coupled with the desire of relevant circles in Beijing to safeguard their interests. Therefore, Beijing will strive to avoid sliding into a direct confrontation with the West and the United States while continuing to provide Iran with as much economic and diplomatic support as possible in order to alleviate Iran’s isolation.

China supports Tehran diplomatically, emphasizing dialogue and rejecting the unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington. Despite the ongoing pressure, the likelihood of direct war remains low, as a major war of attrition is avoided. China’s position is characterized by its call for diplomatic solutions and dialogue based on mutual respect, its rejection of unilateral US economic sanctions against Iran, and its insistence that all parties address the root causes of the tension and resume the nuclear agreement. This is especially relevant given the Iranian threat to withdraw from the agreement, voiced by several members of the Iranian parliament who believe that remaining in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is pointless under continued US pressure.  Intelligence, military, political, and strategic circles in Beijing considered the Iranian parliamentary proposal a political response to the tightened US economic sanctions against Tehran. Chinese intelligence circles are well aware that an actual Iranian withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires the approval of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Should this occur—a slim possibility according to Chinese strategic assessments—it would mean the potential outbreak of a full-scale war. Therefore, strategic assessments in Beijing suggest that the potential confrontation between Washington and Tehran will likely escalate into a protracted war of attrition rather than a full-scale military clash. According to Chinese analyses, both Washington and Tehran prefer economic pressure and the prospect of open negotiations to the option of open warfare. Hence, China seeks to curb any military escalation that could threaten energy security and regional stability.

Accordingly, China supports the continuation of the diplomatic and political track to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis. It rejects pressures, escalatory policies, and economic sanctions against Tehran, while simultaneously calling for dialogue based on mutual respect and the preservation of regional stability, without supporting any sudden steps that could fuel the conflict. China’s general position stems from its rejection of sanctions. Beijing believes that the policy of maximum pressure and economic sanctions does not resolve the nuclear issue. Therefore, China consistently calls for adherence to dialogue to resolve differences through peaceful political and diplomatic means and to resume negotiations. China also provides strategic support to Iran. In this regard, China stands with Iran in the face of Western and American pressure. China is working alongside Russia to submit draft resolutions to the UN Security Council to support de-escalation, extend the agreement’s framework, address threats of withdrawal, and avoid mutual escalation. China urges all parties to avoid any unilateral steps or escalatory measures, such as triggering the snapback mechanism or mutual withdrawals from international agreements and treaties, which could lead to a loss of control.  Therefore, Beijing prefers to contain this crisis and the Iranian threats to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty through negotiating frameworks that preserve the basic structure of the non-proliferation regime, while holding the United States and European countries partly responsible due to Washington’s previous withdrawal from the same nuclear agreement that Tehran is now threatening to withdraw from.

Since Iraola replaced Arne Slot as Liverpool head coach, the Reds have signed Victor Munoz for £34.5m and Ronald Araujo on loan from Barcelona.

Jeremy Jacquet, the French centre-half, also arrived from Rennes in a deal worth £60m, but that was agreed back in January.

In terms of outgoings, Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate all left the club over the summer while Curtis Jones is in Italy to complete a £30m move to Inter Milan.

Iraola added: “You are asking me what we need – there are certain situations that for me are clear – especially now on the wing because we don’t have enough players specific to play in those positions.

“And then in other positions, I think we have to be open-minded in the market to see situations that honestly can improve our team.

“It’s not about signing because we need a player here. No, it’s about improving the squad. And we have very good players already here, so to improve our very good players, you need like a specific level of player, yes.”

In a separate interview with Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports, he said: “We will definitely sign some players. Some deals you have to wait until the end. But the end is the important picture, the one we will have on September 1. Because it is true that we are still quite thin.”

It’s not the first time that Iraola has said words to that effect, having echoed similar sentiments during Liverpool‘s pre-season tour in the USA when discussing Liverpool‘s defensive options, and internally the belief at Anfield is that it will be a busy end to the window for Liverpool

On Jones’ move to Inter Milan, Iraola said: “With Curtis, you know. I think it’s still not official but there is an ongoing situation. I understood with Curtis. I talked to him. I think in the first or second training session we talked.

“I value him a lot as a player. He loved this club – it was very clear since the beginning for me – but I understood that probably the outcome was going to be what it has been at the end.

“I’ve never hid it – for me Curtis is a very good player. A very, very good player, but I understood straight away when he talked to me about his situation. It was a situation that could happen and it looks like it is going to happen.”

Israeli settlers fatally shot 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh in Hebron, while Israeli forces killed 58-year-old Fathi Khazem in Jenin.

A Palestinian teenager in Hebron and a former colonel in Jenin have been shot and killed in separate incidents involving Israeli settlers and soldiers, as escalating attacks and the rapid expansion of illegal settlements drive a wave of forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Friday that 17-year-old Karim Sanad Shalaldeh was fatally shot in an Israeli settler attack in Khirbet Hamroush.

Shalaldeh sustained a gunshot wound to the chest and was reported to be in critical condition before he was announced dead. A 70-year-old man was also shot and injured during the attack.

Local sources told the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, that large groups of armed Israeli settlers raided the Khirbet Hamroush area, opening fire at residents and setting Palestinian homes on fire.

In a separate incident on Friday morning, the Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs informed the Health Ministry that 58-year-old Fathi Khazem was fatally shot by Israeli forces in Jenin. The Israeli military was raiding the home of retired colonel in the Palestinian National Security Forces when the shooting occurred.

The Israeli army claimed Khazem attempted to stab Israeli troops during a military operation before the soldiers opened fire and killed him.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli army did not release the body to the victim’s family for burial, and Wafa reported that Israeli forces prevented emergency services from reaching the house after the shooting.

Earlier, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews treated a 14-year-old boy who was shot with live ammunition in the chest and back during an Israeli raid near Jenin. The boy was transferred to a hospital, it added.

The Israeli military also arrested six people during a separate raid on the city on Friday.

The ‘most immoral’ army

Amid new attacks and Israeli army raids across the occupied West Bank, in Qusra, south of Nablus, Israeli settlers continue to besiege three Palestinian homes for a 13th consecutive day under the protection of Israeli forces.

Qusra Mayor Abdel Azim Wadi said Israeli forces and settlers were preventing families in the Ras al-Ain area from entering or leaving their homes, while one of the houses had been seized and turned into a military post. The area has also been declared a closed military zone.

Wadi said the families were running short of food and medicine because Israeli forces were preventing supplies from reaching them, Wafa reported.

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, called the Israeli military “the MOST IMMORAL ARMY” in a post on X.

“In the West Bank, soldiers and settlers cut water pipes, while Qusra’s siege continues,” she wrote. “In Gaza the pulverization continues and so the massacres. Since the ceasefire Israel has killed 1,200+ people, including 300 children.”

A report by Human Rights Watch on Thursday found state-backed Israeli settler violence fully or partially displaced 107 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank since January 2023.

The US-based rights group said increased settler attacks, along with the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law, are driving a wave of forced displacement of Palestinians.

Israeli plans to build a major new illegal settlement under the E1 settlement project, which would cleave the occupied West Bank in two, have provoked widespread condemnation from around the world.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway on Thursday called Israel’s opening of construction tenders for more than 1,200 housing units under the project “unacceptable” and in violation of “the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

“Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel’s international standing,” the statement said.

London, United Kingdom – The United States and Israel’s war on Iran was largely unexpected, given the repeated warnings from most US allies, as well as their lack of enthusiasm for a potential conflict.

Iran’s retaliation, too, has been unexpected, particularly Iranian missile strikes on several countries not party to the conflict, in the Gulf, and more recently, Jordan.

Beyond the immediate regional sphere, the Iranian military has reportedly attempted to hit targets as far as the joint US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia, 2,350 miles (3,780 kilometres) away from Iran.

And Tehran has recently threatened southeastern Europe – in particular, Bulgaria.

Bulgaria’s Bezmer airfield

In July, Bulgaria’s parliament approved the use of its Bezmer Air Base for refuelling US military aircraft, an agreement that functions as a support mechanism for the US military operations in the Middle East and against Iran.

Speaking to his Bulgarian counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any country aiding US “aggression” against Iran would be considered a legitimate target of retaliatory attack by Tehran.

According to a recent report in the Financial Times, citing unnamed Iranian sources, Tehran will consider attacking Europe if Washington escalates the conflict.

According to Armida van Rij, a senior fellow at the Centre for European Reform, southeastern Europe could be seen as an attractive target.

“[The region] is the soft underbelly of Europe as it is strategically important, hosting a number of NATO bases and key supplies to Ukraine and being on the Black Sea”.

In Bulgaria, the Iran war is perceived as something “remote”, Angel Petrov, a Sofia-based journalist who covers southeast Europe and the Middle East for the news website, Dnevnik.bg, told Al Jazeera.

Bulgarians do not view the Iran war “as important as Ukraine, and whose implications in terms of oil prices seem bearable, given general inflation”.

According to Petrov, Sofia lacks the institutional capacity to defy a brash administration in Washington while managing the war in Ukraine and an increasingly active Russia. So it was not surprising when Bulgarian leaders obliged the Trump administration’s request for the use of the Bezmer Air Base.

By firing missiles at Bezmer Air Base, Iran might hope to raise the costs of that cooperation and possibly drive a wedge between Bulgaria and the US. Bulgarians would find themselves under threat from the Iran war, to which they are indifferent, at the behest of a US ally that has shown increasing reluctance to support them in the war in Ukraine that they consider more important.

Could Iranian missiles reach Europe?

While Iranian missiles could indisputably reach parts of Europe, whether those attacks would further Iranian goals is less clear.

Ali Bakir, a senior non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said an Iranian attack on Europe would play into Trump’s hands and intensify Iran’s isolation.

In the event of an attack on countries such as Bulgaria, Iran would effectively force an additional front on Europe to a conflict that many European leaders have resisted joining, much to the irritation of the US leader.

According to Bakir, engaging Europe in the Iran conflict would likely benefit Russia’s war in Ukraine, aided by further straining Europe militarily, “potentially triggering a much wider and more dangerous war with serious international economic and security consequences”.

It may be that, for Tehran, the threat of an attack on a less powerful European country is worth more than missiles actually fired towards Europe.

The threat could shape domestic politics in Europe, keeping focus alive on a conflict that is farther than the immediate war in Ukraine and making European leaders and populations more hesitant to give passive support to the US military effort against Iran.

Iran’s declared aim is to prise Europe away from the US campaign.

However, an actual strike on a member of both the European Union and NATO would turn Europe from a hedging bystander into a belligerent party, trigger Article 4 – which quite possibly results in military retaliation, and hand Washington the European coalition it has so far failed to assemble.

For now, a reasonable conclusion is that Iran has held back by calculating that an Iranian missile attack on Europe could hand Washington a strategic victory.

However, several factors keep the risk of an attack on Europe above zero.

The first is the credibility trap. Having declared that any base used to attack Iranian territory is a legitimate target, Tehran has threatened to extend its retaliation beyond the Middle East if pressed further by the US, but that threat will only remain effective as long as US allies believe Iran is actually willing to do so.

Another factor is that Iran would not consider itself to be attacking Europe at all, but US assets that happen to stand on European soil. Tehran has used a similar distinction in missile attacks against other countries in the region, such as GCC countries. Gulf nations have rejected that notion, saying their nations, populations and infrastructure should not be assaulted amid a war they did not launch, but have not thus far retaliated against Iran directly.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, the cohesion of the command and control mechanisms in Iran matters deeply. If the decision to attack is not made by those who devise political strategy, retaliation could be unpredictable. The desire to respond to renewed US attacks by attacking a perceived weak point could result in disastrous overreach.

The longevity of the conflict is arguably a greater threat to Europe than Iranian missile capabilities that NATO defences over Europe could well protect against.

As the war drags on, the real danger for Europe is a prolonged US-Iran war that Washington treats as dormant, with financial effects being felt in European streets and support diverted away from Russia and the Ukraine war.

Nico Iamaleava discusses career

From Connor Dullinger: Nico Iamaleava became a household name among college football fans.

Not because of his five-star, blue-chip status, leaving Warren High as the second-ranked prospect in the 2023 class and top-ranked recruit out of California.

Not for leading Tennessee to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance and a 10-3 record — tying for the Volunteers’ second-best finish since 2001.

Instead, Iamaleava is remembered for his tumultuous exit from Knoxville, a parting characterized by head coach Josh Heupel that the program would move on without its starting signal-caller, leading the Long Beach product to UCLA.

More than one year removed after his departure, Iamaleava reflected at preseason media day on his time with the Volunteers, the effect last season had on his mental health and his mindset heading into 2026.

“In Tennessee, I was in a rough mental state as far as being far from home, but that’s what came with me growing and maturing,” Iamaleava said Wednesday. “So coming back home has been a great transition, and I can’t wait to play this year.”

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Can Mark Walter keep the Dodgers?

When the news broke last week that Mark Walter was selling the Lakers just one year after buying the storied basketball franchise, executives working for another crown jewel in his sports empire — the Dodgers — were quick to say the billionaire had no plans to sell the team.

The Dodgers have won three of the last six World Series and 12 division titles since an ownership group led by Walter bought the then-bankrupt team in 2012, and the Dodgers now are considered the most successful — and lucrative — franchise in Major League Baseball.

Yet, amid Walter’s financial difficulties, including a federal inquiry into his insurance empire regarding $16 billion to $21 billion in undisclosed loans to his own companies, questions remain over whether the blowback will hit the Dodgers.

Walter has denied wrongdoing, and sports business experts say it’s far too soon to know whether the Dodgers will be in play. No charges have been filed against Walter or anyone associated with his businesses.

“If you’re judging on that — winning and revenue created — he’s been at the helm of all of that. … He does truly look like a white knight as it relates to his ownership of the Dodgers,” said Patrick Rishe, executive director of the Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis. Still, “we don’t know what the issues are, and we don’t know the severity and the magnitude.”

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Cox customers can finally watch the Dodgers on SportsNet LA

Rams hope for some Aaron Donald answers soon

From Gary Klein: The Aaron Donald watch continues.

On Thursday, coach Sean McVay was asked if Donald, a three-tine NFL defensive player of the year, would do more workouts before deciding whether or not he will come out of retirement to join the Super Bowl-favorite Rams.

Donald worked out at Loyola Marymount when the Rams were in training camp, and last week at the Rams facility in Woodland Hills.

“We’ll see,” McVay said. “I would love to be able to have all this stuff figured out but … I know he’s feeling good, and I think he will continue to work out, and I’m hopeful that we’ll have some answers on that sooner than later.”

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Angels rout the Astros

Zach Neto was five for six with his 21st homer and a career-high seven RBIs and the Angels scored their most runs in three years to rout the Houston Astros 18-3 on Thursday night.

The Angels (51-77) had a season-high 18 hits and scored their most runs since a 25-1 victory over Colorado on June 24, 2023.

Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez (4-5) gave up just two unearned runs across seven innings while striking out six.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Takeaways from Chargers’ preseason loss to 49ers

From Sam Farmer: Jake Slaughter could be the first Chargers player to touch the ball on every offensive snap. He has never done so in an NFL game that counts.

Slaughter, the rookie second-round pick from the University of Florida, is the leading candidate to start at center after Tyler Biadasz went down with a knee injury at practice this week. There is no timetable for the return of Biadasz, who signed a three-year, $30-million contract in March.

Although Slaughter played some guard in college, center is his natural position. He played just nine snaps Thursday in a 41-17 preseason loss to the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium.

It’s understandable that the Chargers (1-1) only wanted light duty from him, considering they slogged through a brutal 2025 season when they lost their two outstanding tackles and endured a revolving door along the offensive line throughout the season.

As is common throughout the NFL, lots of Chargers starters were merely spectators for the second of three preseason games.

Here are some more observations from the Chargers’ preseason loss to the 49ers:

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Sparks are eliminated from playoff contention

From Jordan Puente: After 15 years in the WNBA, the Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike is content with her decision to call this her final season.

“I think that ended up being a blessing in disguise,” Ogwumike said of returning to the Sparks during the offseason. “Once training camp hit, I realized, you know what? I think what I have left is one more season, and I was OK with that.”

The Sparks opened a three-game homestand and the first since Ogwumike’s retirement announcement with a crushing 124-88 loss to the Atlanta Dream.

Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said before tipoff she wanted her team to get off to a better start, but the team could not deliver Thursday and extended its losing streak to six games. The defeat officially eliminated the spiraling Sparks (12-24) from playoff contention.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

This day in sports history

1901 — William Larned wins the first of seven men’s singles titles in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Assn. championship.

1914 — Walter Hagen captures the U.S. Open golf title by edging Chick Evans.

1920 — Jock Hutchinson wins the PGA golf tournament with a 1-up victory over J. Douglass Edgar.

1932 — Helen Hull Jacobs beats Carolyn Babcock to win the women’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Assn.

1982 — Mystic Park becomes the first 3-year-old trotter to win the American Trotting Championship.

1985 — Mary Decker sets the world record in the mile run with a time of 4:16.71 in Zurich.

2003 — Paul Hamm puts together a near-perfect routine on the high bar to become the first American man to win the all-around gold medal at World Gymnastics Championships. Needing a 9.712 or better to beat China’s Yang Wei, Hamm strings together four straight release moves during his 60-second routine — one of the toughest feats in gymnastics — for a 9.975 and the gold.

2004 — American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his sixth gold medal of the Athens Olympics even though he doesn’t swim the final of men’s 4 x 100m medley relay; US wins in world record 3:30.68.

2008 — At the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Yukiko Ueno pitches 28 innings in two days, including seven to shut down the U.S. softball team, 3-1, and give Japan the gold medal. It was the first loss for the Americans since Sept. 21, 2000 — 22 straight games. LaShawn Merritt upsets defending champion Jeremy Wariner to lead a U.S. sweep of the 400 meters track event. David Neville gets the bronze. The U.S. men and women both drop the baton in the Olympic 400-meter relays and fail to advance out of the first round. Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown easily wins the 200 meters to cap the first sweep of all four men’s and women’s Olympic sprints in 20 years.

2010 — Kyle Busch makes NASCAR history with an unprecedented sweep of three national races in one week, completing the trifecta with a victory in the Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Busch, winner of the Nationwide race a day earlier and the Trucks race on Aug. 18, becomes the first driver to complete the sweep since NASCAR expanded to three national series in 1995.

2011 — The Sparks run off 16 straight points to overcome a 15-point, second-half deficit and hand the Tulsa Shock their WNBA-record 18th consecutive loss with a 73-67 victory. The Atlanta Dream lost 17 in a row in their inaugural season of 2008.

2016 — Kevin Durant scores 30 points and helps the Americans rout Serbia 96-66 for their third straight gold medal. That caps an Olympics in which the U.S. dominated the medal tables, both the gold (46) and overall totals (121). The 51-total-medal margin over second-place China is the largest in a non-boycotted Olympics in nearly a century.

2018 — Liu Xiang of China sets a world record time of 26.98 seconds to win the women’s 50-meter backstroke gold medal at the Asian Games. Liu becomes the first woman to swim under 27 seconds in the event, breaking the mark of 27.06 set by fellow Chinese swimmer Zhao Jing at the 2009 world championships in Rome.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1926 — Ted Lyons of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The 6-0 victory was achieved in 1 hour, 7 minutes.

1930 — Chick Hafey of the St. Louis Cardinals hit for the cycle and drove in five runs in a 16-6 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies.

1931 — Babe Ruth hit his 600th home run as the Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns 11-7.

1947 — The first Little League World Series was at Williamsport, Pa.

1972 — Steve Carlton of Philadelphia had his 15-game winning streak snapped when Phil Niekro and the Atlanta Braves beat the Phillies 2-1 in 11 innings.

1975 — Pitching brothers Rick and Paul Reuschel of the Chicago Cubs combined to throw a 7-0 shutout against the Dodgers. Rick went 6 1-3 innings and Paul finished the shutout for the first ever by two brothers.

1982 — Milwaukee pitcher Rollie Fingers became the first player to achieve 300 saves as the Brewers beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2.

1986 — Spike Owen had four hits and became the first major league player in 40 years to score six runs in a game as the Boston Red Sox routed the Cleveland Indians 24-5 with a 24-hit attack.

2007 — Garret Anderson of the Angels drove in a team-record 10 runs in an 18-9 rout of the New York Yankees. Anderson hit a grand slam, a three-run homer, a two-run double and an RBI double to become the 12th player in major league history to have 10 RBIs in a game.

2007 — Arizona’s Mark Reynolds tied the major league record for consecutive strikeouts by a non-pitcher when he fanned in his ninth straight plate appearance in a 7-4 loss to Milwaukee. Reynolds struck out in his first two at-bats against Dave Bush to match the record. Bush hit Reynolds with a pitch in the sixth, ending the streak.

2011 — Johnny Damon lost a grand slam to a video review in the seventh inning, then hit a game-ending home run in the ninth that lifted the Tampa Bay Rays over the Seattle Mariners 8-7. Damon connected for a leadoff shot in the ninth on the first pitch from Dan Cortes. The Rays trailed 5-4 in the seventh when Damon launched a drive to right-center field. First ruled a home run, the umpires changed the call to a three-run double after a video review.

2015 — Mike Fiers pitched the second no-hitter in the major leagues in nine days, leading the Houston Astros to a 3-0 victory over the Dodgers. Having never thrown a complete game in his five-year career, Fiers was dominant. He struck out 10 and walked three, retiring the final 21 batters. Fiers struck out Justin Turner on his 134th pitch to end it.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

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.

Washington, DC – Over the next two days, a portion of the United States capital will transform into a seven-turn professional-grade track for the city’s first-ever IndyCar race.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix, championed by President Donald Trump, is one of several special events held to commemorate the country’s 250th birthday.

But the race, which has been billed as a means of “celebrating American greatness”, is not coming without a heavy dose of criticism.

Questions have been raised about potential disruptions to life in the capital, as well as Trump’s ties to the event’s sponsor, the transportation company Penske.

Here’s what you need to know about the weekend’s automobile tournament:

Why is this taking place?

In January, Trump signed an executive order establishing the race as a means of celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary and its history of motorsport.

“This will be like no other race ever,” Trump said in July. “It’ll be one of the most unforgettable racing events the world has ever seen.”

Trump, who has described himself as a racing fan, has participated in several high-profile motorsport events since returning to office in 2025.

Last year, Trump attended NASCAR’s Daytona 500 race, after serving as the grand marshal during his first term. A few months later, in April 2025, he hosted NASCAR and IndyCar drivers at the White House.

Have similar events been held?

The Grand Prix is one of several sporting events being held in honour of the country’s 250th anniversary.

Earlier this month, as part of the festivities, high-school athletes were invited to participate in the inaugural Patriot Games, broadcast on the sport channel ESPN. And in June, Trump hosted an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn, dubbed the UFC Freedom 250.

But members of the Trump administration have compared the race to early moments in US history as a means of highlighting its historic nature.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Washington, DC, has not seen a competition like this since Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, helped mark the country’s 25th birthday in 1801 with horse races.

Is the IndyCar race part of Freedom 250?

Not officially. While the Grand Prix bears similar branding to Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative, they are separate entities.

Trump’s Freedom 250 task force was a public-private partnership that put together events like the Patriot Games and the Great American State Fair, which took place in June on the National Mall.

But critics argued that the task force undermined America250, a separate bipartisan organisation created by the US Congress to arrange festivities for the anniversary. There was also a backlash to the perception that Freedom 250 would be a vehicle for Trump’s political agenda.

The Grand Prix, meanwhile, is being “administered by INDYCAR in coordination with the America 250 Task Force”, according to the District of Columbia government website. IndyCar is a subsidiary of Penske.

What response has the race received?

The race is arguably the most ambitious of all the events Trump has hosted for America’s 250th celebration. It has also drawn concern from preservation experts.

A temporary track for the race will run 2.7 kilometres, or 1.7 miles, including through the National Mall. Part of the race will therefore take place near several buildings that contain priceless historical works and documents.

Immediately adjacent to the motor speedway will be the National Gallery of Art, featuring paintings spanning the history of Western civilisation, and the National Archives, which includes the original Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

With race cars set to pass by at speeds nearing 321km/h (200mph), the National Gallery has boarded up some windows on its building and put barriers around several of its outdoor works.

A preservationist group has also warned that historic New Deal-era murals in the nearby Cohen Federal Building could be damaged “due to vibratory impacts”.

A Freedom 250 Grand Prix spokesperson told The Associated Press (AP) news agency that IndyCar has “tremendous respect for the history and the structures” surrounding the track.

But the race’s impacts are being felt by Washington’s residents and travellers as well.

In the days leading up to the race, commuters were plagued by hours-long congestion caused by the closure of some of the city’s popular thoroughfares as organisers prepared for the event.

The Federal Aviation Administration also announced that flights at the nearby Ronald Reagan Washington national airport will be paused for three hours on Sunday so flyovers associated with the event can take place.

Who’s paying for this?

With an expected price tag of $35m, the 147-lap race will be among the most expensive on IndyCar’s calendar.

Bud Denker, the president of Penske Corporation and chairman of the race, told AP his company will pay for the “vast majority” of the event, while the city will cover some “very limited” costs to repave streets and seal manhole covers.

A spokesperson for Washington, DC’s transportation department, German Vigil, told Al Jazeera the city “will be getting reimbursed” by the Grand Prix for those repairs.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix website explains that the event is supported “by a group of key partners”, including Harbinger, a production company with ties to at least one previous Trump-hosted event.

CNN previously reported that the firm was hired to solicit corporate sponsors for the 2025 White House Easter Egg Roll.

The race’s website identifies Harbinger as an “official event partner” that will “coordinate logistics and the fan experience” for the Grand Prix. A spokesperson for Harbinger told Al Jazeera it was only handling “production”.

Several of the race’s sponsors have government contracts, including the aerospace firm Boeing and the telecommunications firm Verizon.

One, the building manufacturer WillScot, was in discussion with the second Trump administration about leasing mobile structures to house detainees slated for deportation, according to the publication Semafor.

Another, the aircraft company Gulfstream, was the recipient of nearly $200m in a controversial deal Trump’s Department of Homeland Security undertook to buy luxury jets for executive travel.

WillScot and Gulfstream did not return Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

How much does it cost to attend?

A reported 100,000 general admission tickets have already been given away for free, while premium viewing of the race comes at a steep price.

Tickets for the Champions Club, which offers views of the racetrack, cost $5,000 per person, while luxury suites are priced upwards of $250,000.

Will Trump attend?

Media reports have indicated that Trump himself is likely to attend the event.

The New York Post reported that the president may take a lap on Sunday around the track in his motorcade, to kick off the last day of the race.

But Trump’s involvement raises concerns, including from IndyCar drivers, that the event could be politicised. McLaren Racing’s Pato O’Ward, IndyCar’s only full-time racer from Mexico, has said it would be “ironic” if he won, given the president’s aggressive political stance towards immigration and Mexico itself.

Two teenagers have been seriously injured after a sword attack on a high school in Sweden, authorities have said.

Police were called to the Brinell School in Fagersta shortly after 14:00 local time (13:00 BST) on Friday, where officers arrested one man.

A third person was wounded in the attack but the extent of their injuries has not been confirmed, while reports in local media say the suspect was shot in the leg by police.

Eight other schools in the area were placed under lockdown measures – which have now been lifted – while a state of high alert was declared in the Vastmanland region following the attack.

Police have said there is currently no danger to the public.

In a post on X, Sweden’s Prime Minsiter Ulf Kristersson described the attack as a “serious incident,” and said “we do not know what lies behind the act, but we know that police are working very intensively”.

Students at Brinell School had only just returned to the classroom following the summer break, with the new term beginning either on Monday or Wednesday this week, depending on the academic year.

The school has just under 500 students on its roster, according to Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT, and is located 170km (105 miles) north-west of the capital, Stockholm.

Sweden has experienced a number of attacks on educational institutions in recent years.

The country experienced it’s worst-ever mass shooting in 2025, where 11 people, including the gunman, died at an adult education centre in Orebro.

This led to the government tightening the country’s gun laws after it was found that the suspect legally owned four rifles, three of which were found in the school where attack took place.

Two teachers were killed in a violent attack on a secondary school in Malmo in 2022 – an 18-year-old student later confessed to the attack.

In 2015, a teacher and a pupil were killed in a sword attack at a school in Trollhattan.

Russian ballistic missile attacks have begun to cause record civilian deaths in Ukrainian cities without any Patriot interceptors to stop them, but Ukraine’s long-range strikes have destroyed Russian fuel supplies.

With the Russian economy struggling, a top expert warned that social unrest could unfold in a matter of time – and consequently lost his job.

On Tuesday, Russian missiles killed at least 10 people in Pechenihy, a town 40km (25 miles) east of Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv. On Thursday, they killed 15 people in Kyiv, three in the western city of Zhytomyr and injured 40 at a border crossing between Odesa and Moldova.

Russia said it was targeting weapons manufacturing sites in Kyiv, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck 30 residential buildings, a school and a children’s hospital.

The United Nations said Russia killed a record 437 people in July and injured 2,610, surpassing its previous record in June by 30 percent.

Civilian casualties have continued in August, because Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptors and has been unable to stop incoming ballistic missile attacks since the beginning of the month.

As Zelenskyy pointed out, Ukraine’s interception rate of cruise missiles and drones is still in the 90-percent range. But Russia is doubling down on the use of ballistic missiles and has brought in an additional 50 North Korean weapons, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.

Ukraine strikes back

Since June 25, Ukraine has launched a campaign of mid-range strikes to disrupt Russian logistics and has harassed fuel and ammunition supplies so effectively that it has made 233sq km (90 square miles) of territorial gains this year.

By August 16, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces announced it had put 228 supply ships out of action in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, as well as destroying 243 power stations, electricity substations and gas distribution nodes in Crimea.

They have also been striking relay antennas used to guide Russian drones and radar stations that detect Ukrainian counterstrikes. On August 20, Ukraine struck drone launch sites in Donetsk City and Primorsko-Akhtarsk on the Sea of Azov, as well as a fuel terminal in the Kerch Strait used to supply Crimea.

Ukraine’s long-range strikes have served a different purpose – to undermine the Russian economy’s ability to fund its war.

On August 15, Ukraine managed to fly two of its Flamingo cruise missiles into the Progress Rocket and Space Centre, 800km (500 miles) east of Moscow, despite Russia’s use of four A-50 early warning aircraft and its reported downing of 822 Ukrainian drones that day.

Ukraine said it hit an engine assembly workshop for Soyuz rockets, causing a fire covering half a hectare.

Russia is using Soyuz to launch satellites for its Rassvet constellation to replace dependence on the US Starlink system, after Ukraine managed to cut Russian access to Starlink on February 1 . Russia needs satellites to increase the speed and precision of its counter-battery fire on Ukrainian positions. Its loss of that capacity has been partly responsible for Ukrainian gains this year.

“One Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle can put 20 satellites into orbit,” said Ukrainian electronics expert Serhiy Beskrestnov. “To create a basic satellite constellation in orbit, Russia needs to carry out 12-15 launches.”

The following day, Ukraine set ablaze a 25-hectare warehouse belonging to the Wildberries online retail chain, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, and said it had destroyed seven out of Wildberries’ ten largest logistical hubs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 28 that the Kremlin was monitoring the damage to Wildberries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin implied on Thursday that he might provide government funds for Wildberries to rebuild, saying “logistics and warehousing capacity certainly needs to be restored, including with government support”.

Ukraine has also succeeded in destroying Russian oil refineries and starving its economy of petrol

It has recently struck the Ust-Luga refinery, the Taneco refinery in Tatarstan and the Perm refinery, 1,500km (930 miles) from its borders.

Similar strikes this year have so reduced petrol supply in Russia. The Izvestia newspaper reported that only 28 percent of petrol stations across the country could supply fuel this week, citing mobile app GdeBENZ, which monitors real-time fuel availability.

Izvestia said only five petrol stations in Moscow were selling high-octane AI-98 fuel. Russians posted video of Rosgvardia police units sitting outside petrol stations to avert some of the fights involving motorists in recent months.

Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Novak, said lower-grade fuel was being supplied to ease market tensions, and confirmed that Russia is now importing refined fuel for the domestic market.

“We expect a number of oil refineries to complete maintenance work soon and the situation to improve significantly,” Novak told Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin, but that may be wishful thinking. Ukraine has struck Russia’s largest refineries not once but repeatedly. On Wednesday [August 19 ], it struck a refining unit at Ufa, which was undergoing repairs from a previous strike. It is 1,300km (810 miles) from Ukraine.

Ukraine also struck significant military targets during the week, including the Kamenyy Kombinat plant in Rostov, which makes solid rocket fuel for missiles, and the Savasleika airfield, from where MiG fighters armed with Kh-47M2 ballistic missiles take -off.

Russian economy in trouble

Some Russian economists have begun to warn of impending social and political upheaval as a result of the slowing economy.

Andrey Klepach, chief economist at Vnesheconombank, a state bank that finances the Kremlin’s national projects, warned on August 18 that, “Losses from Ukrainian military strikes … are already becoming a significant macroeconomic barrier to Russian economic growth.

“I believe Russia won’t collapse, but I’m almost certain we’ll reach a social crisis.”

He was removed from his post after making the comments during a discussion at the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club.

Russians are withdrawing savings in increasing amounts, reported The Washington Post. While businesses are increasing “voluntary” donations to the state defence budget, in addition to having to pay for their own air defences, putting further strain on the economy.

At a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects this week, Putin acknowledged that Ukraine’s strikes are “certainly” causing damage, adding that “overall economic performance is modest but positive”.

That damage took financial form in the $1.18bn Putin newly released to aid regional budgets, in addition to previous financial assistance. Some $52m of that was destined for Crimea.

Ukraine’s defence ministry estimated that every dollar spent on drone strikes caused five times that amount in costs to the Russian economy.

China’s new medium-sized tactical airlifter is emerging from the shadows, as much clearer imagery becomes available. Previously widely referred to as the “Y-30,” the four-turboprop transport now appears to be designated the Y-15, a change reflected by the prototype’s apparent “15001” serial number and increasingly supported by open-source reporting.

New imagery provides a much better appreciation of the aircraft’s configuration. Developed by Shaanxi Aircraft Corporation (SAC), the Y-15 is intended to provide a modern replacement for older Y-8-series transports and, eventually, the Y-9, while giving China a more capable turboprop airlifter suited to operations from relatively austere airfields. While the Y-9 is a modernized Y-8, the older design is a direct copy of the Soviet Antonov An-12, first flown in 1957.

The new Chinese aircraft first became publicly associated with the Y-30 designation after a model appeared at the 2014 Zhuhai Airshow. That designation subsequently became widely used in reporting about the program.

The program then went quiet, before unofficial reports in 2023 that work had resumed at SAC. The first flight-test imagery of the prototype appeared in December 2025, as we reported at the time.

The Y-15 has four turboprop engines driving six-blade high-efficiency propellers. Its overall configuration is notably different from China’s larger, jet-powered Y-20 and instead puts it in the same broad operational category as aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin C-130J.

The configuration also has some obvious visual similarities to the Airbus A400M. The Chinese aircraft has a relatively broad fuselage, a rear loading ramp, heavy-duty landing gear, a high-mounted wing, and a T-tail.

Unlike the swept wing of the A400M, the Chinese transport has a comparatively straight high-lift wing, with substantial winglets (lacking on the European design) at the tips. The arrangement should help the aircraft combine useful cruise efficiency with the low-speed performance needed for tactical transport operations.

A400M, the airlifter of the 21st Century

Despite its A400M-like appearance, the Y-15 appears to be a smaller aircraft in a different weight and performance class. The A400M’s four TP400-D6 engines each produce around 11,000 horsepower, while the Chinese aircraft’s WJ-10 turboprops are understood to produce substantially less — around 6,800 horsepower.

That suggests the Y-15 is a more natural counterpart to the C-130J and China’s own Y-9 than to the A400M.

Unconfirmed estimates have suggested a payload of around 30 metric tons, although that figure should be treated cautiously while the aircraft remains in testing. For comparison, the Y-9 is generally credited with a payload of roughly 25 tons, while the C-130J-30 is in the roughly 21-ton range. At the same time, the Y-15 is assessed to have a larger internal cargo space than the Y-9, with a greater height and width to accomodate bulkier payloads.

One of the most obvious features of the flight-test aircraft is the long air-data boom projecting from the nose. Such booms are standard equipment on developmental aircraft, allowing engineers to collect precise measurements of air pressure, temperature, airflow, and other parameters during testing. Previous reports have erroneously identified this feature as an inflight refueling probe.

There is currently no refueling probe fitted to the prototype. That does not necessarily mean the capability will never be incorporated, however, especially as China continues to build its aerial tanker fleet.

Chinese Y-8 and Y-9 derivatives have demonstrated how a common transport airframe can become the basis for substantially different configurations, including aircraft equipped for specialized missions. The same is likely for the Y-15, once it enters People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) service.

For the PLAAF, the aircraft’s rear loading ramp and heavy-duty landing gear will likely be particularly important. The aircraft appears designed not simply to move cargo between major airbases, but to operate closer to the battlefield and from runways that may be shorter, rougher, or otherwise less developed.

The PLAAF still operates substantial numbers of older Y-8-family transports, while the Y-9 has become the more modern turboprop workhorse. At the heavier end, the Y-20 is rapidly replacing remaining PLAAF Il-76 transports and provides the long-range strategic airlift capacity that the older fleet could not match.

Speaking to TWZ, Andreas Rupprecht, an expert on Chinese aviation and contributor to this website, said he expected the Y-15 to replace the Y-9, a type that the PLAAF does not consider adequate for the tactical transport role, on account of its small cargo hold and underpowered engines.

Its turboprop propulsion and apparent emphasis on short-field performance should make it particularly useful for moving troops, vehicles, supplies, and other equipment into locations where operating a large Y-20 would be impractical.

That could include dispersed bases and remote Chinese facilities, as well as the country’s island outposts. The rapid reinforcement of units in remote regions such as Tibet would also be an obvious wartime mission. The aircraft could also provide a useful platform for airborne assault and airdrop missions, capabilities that have become increasingly important as the PLA has expanded the scope and sophistication of its joint operations.

An export drive is also highly likely, especially as the Y-15 will be immune to the tight export restrictions that typically apply to comparable Western designs. In the meantime, the Y-9 continues to win foreign orders, most recently being bought by Kazakhstan, which already operates the A400M — another signal of these two types’ very different capabilities.

Well, that’s an interesting start into the day: Two mayor Y-9 news!!

First, as the Y-9E’s second customer (after Namibia), the Kazakhstan AF has introduced this type. pic.twitter.com/saHqbEF3oN

— @Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) August 14, 2026

With flight testing now apparently ramping up, the next major questions will be how closely its eventual performance matches the estimates surrounding it, and how quickly China moves from a single prototype to a production fleet.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Met Office predicts ‘unprecedented’ sea surface temperature rise of 3C (5.4F) plus will heighten extreme weather risks.

The impact of this year’s El Nino event is expected to be the most intense in more than a century, United Kingdom forecasters have warned.

The effect of the event will drive the risk of drought, high temperatures, intense rainfall and other extreme weather effects, the Met Office said in a statement issued on Friday.

Typically, El Nino leads sea surface temperatures to rise between 1-2 degrees Celsius (1.8-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). However, forecasts for the 2026 version predict record values of more than 3C (5.4F) in the coming months, the forecasters said.

“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” said Adam Scaife, head of the office’s long-range forecasting. “I have never seen an El Nino signal this intense in our forecasts.”

If the spike plays out as anticipated, “then 2026 will far exceed our recent experience of El Nino and its worldwide climate influences”, he added.

The chief forecaster separately told the BBC that the three-degree rise was “unheard-of in modern climate records”.

El Nino is triggered by unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, influencing global weather patterns.

Governments around the world are already grappling with historic climate events so far this year.

Wildfires have burned through more than 200,000 hectares (494,200 acres) in Indonesia and rampaged across southwestern Europe, forcing the displacement of at least 325,000 people in Spain and France. Other countries are dealing with severe droughts.

The Met Office said El Nino will spawn wetter, stormier conditions in northwestern Europe, including the UK, as autumn and winter arrive in the Northern Hemisphere.

Particularly strong effects are expected throughout the Tropics, Scaife said, “where we expect really severe droughts in places like South America, and the West Pacific”.

In mid-August, the UK recorded its hottest day of the year as the temperature in west London climbed to 38.1C (100.5F), beating the previous high of 38C (100.4F) in June.

Combined with the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office warned that the event is “very likely” to make 2027 the hottest year on record globally.

Prince Harry and a group of six other high-profile figures have been ordered to make an initial payment of £9.54m to the Daily Mail’s publisher after they lost their High Court privacy case.

The seven claimants, also including Sir Elton John and Liz Hurley, must pay the initial figure by 28 August – and could potentially pay up to £25m more after that in a victory for Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

The group had sued ANL over allegations of unlawful information-gathering, which the publisher had strenuously denied.

On 7 July, Judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the claims and said the public figures had failed to prove the allegations.

It comes just days after the Duke and Duchess announced their plan to return to the UK, with their children Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, enrolled to start school in September.

The seven claimants who have been ordered to pay an initial £9.5m in the coming week are Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, Sir Simon Hughes, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley, and Baroness Doreen Lawrence.

During the trial, dozens of people gave evidence including Prince Harry and the other claimants. The Duke of Sussex flew in from the US to attend court in person.

Many current and former Associated Newspapers journalists and executives gave evidence denying illegal activity.

In a joint statement following the judge’s ruling last month, Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, another claimant and peer whose son Stephen was murdered in 1993, said: “We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.”

“It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected”, the pair added.

ANL had asked for more than £9.9 million as an interim payment ahead of future hearings to decide its legal costs in depth.

However, lawyers for the claimants said the interim payment should be just over £7.9 million.

Mr Justice Nicklin previously said the claimants would need to pay the interim payment on August 28.

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