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A large-scale security operation is in place in the Republic of Ireland as the authorities prepare for the extradition of alleged crime boss Daniel Kinahan.

The 49-year-old was arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in April and on Saturday an Irish government jet flew to Dubai to prepare to collect him.

The plane is expected to return to Dublin on Sunday and Kinahan will then be taken to the Special Criminal Court.

Ahead of the extradition, the Irish Prison Service bought a bulletproof and bombproof van which can be used to escort prisoners who are considered high-risk.

Irish authorities are expected to prosecute him for his involvement in leading an organised crime group.

Kinahan is not only wanted by the authorities in Ireland – the US Treasury Department once described the Kinahan cartel as one of the most dangerous in the world.

The US government imposed sanctions on Kinahan in April 2022 after he and other members of his family were identified as leaders of the Kinahan organised crime cartel.

He fought attempts to extradite him back to his native country, where the Kinahan cartel was involved in a long-running gangland feud that claimed 18 lives.

Kinahan himself became a target for murder and escaped an attempt on his life during a fatal shooting at a Dublin hotel in 2016.

He left Ireland and spent time living in Spain and more recently in Dubai, where a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Irish courts in April.

He appealed the extradition order over the past few months but his attempts were unsuccessful.

It is expected that shortly after his arrival in Ireland he will be taken to the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin to face charges for alleged involvement in leading an organised crime group.

No casualties were reported after the flames broke out early on Sunday, the Saudi Energy Ministry says.

A fire reported at a facility belonging to Saudi Arabian state oil giant Aramco has been extinguished, authorities say.

The blaze broke out early on Sunday at a site in the coastal city of Jizan, the Saudi Ministry of Energy wrote in a statement on X. No casualties were reported.

“The competent authorities are completing the necessary procedures to deal with the incident,” the ministry added.

It did not say what caused the fire.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi armed group claimed it carried out an attack on the facility, located on the Red Sea near its border, the latest in a series of Houthi claims of strikes targeting Saudi oil sites.

A military spokesman for the Houthi led government in the capital Sanaa, Yahya Saree, wrote on X the group “succeeded in targeting the Aramco refinery in Jizan with a drone, and the strike was precise”.

He said the attack came in response to Saudi Arabia’s “breach of the airspace of the provinces of Saada and Hajjah” with drones.

There was no immediate comment on the claim from Riyadh. Al Jazeera has contacted the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Houthis last month claimed attacks on Aramco facilities in Jizan. The Houthis also said they targeted oil installations in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s principal west coast export gateway.

Aramco chief Amin Nasser said last ⁠week that recent attacks on the company’s facilities had caused some production interruptions but that he was confident operations could be restored quickly. He said the attacks ‌had no material operational or financial impact.

The attacks have added to growing strains on a 2022 truce in the war between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government, backed by Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis, which took control of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, also declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month, threatening shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

Saudi authorities have also blamed Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq for attacks on its oil facilities.

On Friday, Riyadh signed a defence pact with Turkiye and Pakistan amid rising regional tensions from the US-Israel war on Iran.

One of my favourite protest songs rings out every year on August 9, which is Women’s Day in South Africa. The song works as a call and response: one set of voices cries out, “You have struck a woman,” while another set responds, “so, you have struck a rock!”

The chant dates back to the historic protest that gave South Africa’s Women’s Day its date and meaning. In 1956, 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria in opposition to “pass laws” that the apartheid regime was seeking to extend to African women. African men were already subject to the indignity of carrying passes, and with this latest move, thousands of domestic workers across the country immediately understood that they too would be subjected to random stops and searches by police. What little freedom of mobility they enjoyed would be snatched away.

Led by the multiracial Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) and the Women’s League of the African National Congress (ANC), a group of politically engaged women organised a petition and a march to oppose the incoming laws.

After months of hard work, thousands of women, most of them Black, woke up at the crack of dawn and began to make their way to the Union Buildings, the seat of power of the Afrikaner government. By nine that morning, they had gathered in front of the office of the Minister for Native Affairs.

It was no accident that the rally took place on a Thursday, which was also known as “Sheila’s Day.” In the 1950s and 1960s, Sheila was a generic name used to describe Black women who were domestic workers; a casual way for white women employers to refer to the African women who worked in their homes without having to remember their actual individual names. Most madams gave their staff Thursdays off and so it came to be known as Sheila’s Day.

As a delegation handed over a petition, the women broke out in song, pointedly addressing then Prime Minister JG Strijdom and insisting, “Strijdom, you have struck the women, so you have struck a rock!”

I was a young feminist in the 1990s and I remember singing that song countless times at rallies, protesting gender-based violence and calling for treatment for pregnant women living with HIV and AIDS. I remember, too, the stories of older women who marched on August 9, who reminded younger activists that many of them had taken to the streets over the objections of their husbands and fellow male comrades. They explained that at the time they did not have the language to explain how race, class and gender intersected; they just knew how sexism felt in their bodies.

By the time we were marching for a new set of rights, they had gifted us the language and analysis to describe how race, class and gender shaped women’s experiences. Their stories also showed us that sexism did not sit neatly outside the struggle against apartheid: women could stand alongside men in a liberation movement while still having to fight for equality with those same men. This was one of the most important legacies of the women’s march in 1956.

The rally that day failed to stop the pass laws, but it had a far more significant impact on the South African political landscape, effectively launching the South African women’s movement. The momentum and defiance of that day gave women in subsequent generations a blueprint for activism and analysis.

When apartheid ended in 1994, many of the women who had been at the forefront of the march in 1956 were still active in politics. The movement they had helped build was such a powerful force in the transition to democracy that almost a third of the incoming parliament comprised women, making South Africa one of only a handful of countries with such strong women’s representation in politics.

Once they were in power, the daughters of 1956 pushed through numerous legal and policy changes on reproductive rights, customary law and marriage – and the rights of domestic workers.

As a result of their efforts, South Africa has some of the most progressive laws and policies promoting gender equity and equality in the world. More than 30 years after the end of apartheid, women still constitute about 45 percent of parliamentarians and 44 percent of ministers.

Yet these gains have not translated into safety. South Africa’s first national gender-based violence study found that 33.1 percent of women aged 18 and older had experienced physical violence in their lifetime, while one in five men surveyed admitted to perpetrating physical or sexual intimate partner violence. The persistence of such violence exposes the limits of formal equality: laws can change faster than the attitudes, relationships and behaviours that shape women’s lives.

The same gap between formal rights and lived reality is evident in economic life. The disconnect between the rights enjoyed by women in positions of power who have helped shape South Africa’s laws and the lives of women in the poor communities to which they are accountable is stark.

South African women living in poverty are besieged by high levels of unemployment, gender-based violence and poor access to health and education services, while middle-class women enjoy many of the privileges once reserved for whites only. This is because in the last 30 years the ANC-led government has done little to dismantle the underlying economic structures that upheld apartheid. Formal equality has not translated into material equality for millions of women.

It is hard to find hope for women in South Africa’s statistics. Indeed, many women I know don’t celebrate Women’s Day – they are weary. Yet the women’s movement that the march helped galvanise 70 years ago still has much to teach us.

The lesson we learn from the vibrant movement that was created that day is that gender equality cannot be driven by women’s demands alone. Real progress requires call and response. Women have been making the call for generations. It is time for men to respond.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

New illegal settlement tender in West Bank deepens Israeli efforts to sever Palestinian ties to Jerusalem, officials warn.

Israeli authorities have issued a tender for 627 new housing units in the Kochav Yaakov settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC).

The Israel Land Authority on Thursday published the tender for the project, which will be built on land in the Ramallah and al-Bireh governorate, the commission said on Saturday.

Israel set November 30 as the deadline for construction companies to submit bids, moving the project from planning to construction just 15 months after it was first approved, it said.

CRRC slammed the expansion, saying it is designed to “deepen the separation between Jerusalem and its Palestinian surroundings”.

The illegal Israeli settlement of Kochav Yaakov sits between northern Jerusalem and the twin cities of Ramallah and el-Bireh, within a cluster of settlements Israel administers under the name “Binyamin”.

According to CRRC, the new project covers 253.7 dunams (25.37 hectares or about 63 acres) and was approved by Israeli authorities on April 27, 2025.

It says the tender marks the transition from planning to the “marketing and implementation” stage of settlement construction, with the new units expected to expand the illegal settlement’s built-up area and strengthen its links to nearby settlements and access roads. It added that the decision reflects growing investment in settlements’ economic infrastructure, not just housing.

The Israeli decision is one of several the commission has tracked this year aimed at tightening Israel’s illegal control and pressure on the Palestinian region.

According to CRRC, Israeli authorities have made 12 illegal settlement tenders in the first half of 2026, including 1,138 housing units concentrated in five main settlements, alongside a separate wave of tenders for industrial zones, offices, nursing homes and tourism facilities.

Illegal settlement expansion and settler violence have surged dramatically across the occupied West Bank this year. Palestinian monitors have recorded more than 11,000 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers across the West Bank since January 2026.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly said Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and constitute a “flagrant violation” of international law.

A 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion deemed Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful.

Ekaterina Alexandrov took down four-time Grand Slam singles champion Aryna Sabalenka in a three-set marathon in Toronto.

World number one ‌Aryna Sabalenka suffered a setback in her US Open ⁠build-up after ⁠she was beaten 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-4 by Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova in the fourth round of the Canadian Open ⁠in Toronto on Saturday.

The 16th-seeded Alexandrova fought a hard battle, lasting nearly two and a half hours, to secure her quarterfinal berth.

Sabalenka, a four-time Grand Slam champion and reigning US Open winner, recovered from a set down to force a decider but was unable to halt Alexandrova’s aggressive shot-making in the final set.

The Belarusian ‌broke early in the opening set before Alexandrova rallied to force a tiebreak, which the Russian won to move ahead.

Sabalenka responded by seizing control of the second set with a break for a 4-3 lead before serving out to level the match.

Alexandrova held her nerve in the decider as ⁠Sabalenka’s error count rose. Serving to stay ⁠in the match at 4-5, the top seed saved two match points, but a double fault on the third handed victory to the Russian.

“I just tried to ⁠play every single point as if it was the last one because with her, you ⁠don’t [get] a lot of chances during ⁠the match,” Alexandrova said in her on-court interview.

“Honestly, I was trying not to think about the score or anything. Just hit the ball, and that’s it.

“I’m super ‌happy that I could win because after the second set, I thought (the chance) was already past me.”

Alexandrova will face Ukraine’s Elina ‌Svitolina, ‌who defeated American eighth seed Amanda Anisimova 6-2, 6-4 for a place in the semifinals.

A fast-moving wildfire has forced more than 20,000 people to evacuate parts of British Columbia’s Okanagan region in Western Canada. The Bald Range fire has grown to about 9,500 hectares, threatening homes and farms as firefighters battle blazes across the province.

Football superstar Lionel Messi returned to Rosario, Argentina with his family on Saturday, a day after his father and longtime agent Jorge Messi died aged 68. His cause of death hasn’t been disclosed, though he had suffered a prolonged illness. Jorge helped guide his son’s career from childhood.

Meyby Ugueto-Ponce is an Afro-Venezuelan activist, dancer, and researcher. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and currently works at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC). In this interview, she addresses some of the main themes of her research, including structural racism in Venezuelan society, restorative justice, and the impact of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Many Venezuelans deny that there is systemic racism by reducing it to isolated incidents. How would you explain the ways in which racism operates in everyday life? What is the difference between everyday micro-racism and structural racism?

To address this topic in depth, we must examine the historical and political project that underpins it. The dominant, mainstream narrative on racism in Venezuela denies its existence. It claims that the colonial contradictions between “races”, which provided the cultural and historical foundation for who we are today, were overcome following the nineteenth-century independence struggle.

In our collective imagination, there is often this entrenched idea that the biological and cultural mixing that occurred among “Indigenous peoples,” “Africans,” and “Spaniards” during the colonial period generated a kind of “harmony” that erased the violence and the racial and economic hierarchies characteristic of more than 300 years of slavery and a caste-based society.

Another idea prevalent in Venezuela is that, having achieved the long-cherished republican dream and with Bolívar decreeing “equality among men,” it was believed that deepening this mixing would guarantee the harmony the future republic needed, giving rise to a “new man” superior to the three component parts.

The white political, intellectual, and economic elite has insisted that the fact that we established ourselves as a republic made us equal as citizens, without questioning that this same elite perpetuated social and economic hierarchies based on criteria of race, gender, and caste.

Furthermore, we Venezuelans have many times been told that we should thank the Europeans who arrived in the early decades of the twentieth century for the country’s modernization, following the selective immigration policies such as the “February Program” of 1928. These policies were grounded in scientific positivism, which ascribed the essence of civilization, progress, and culture to the “white race.”

Faced with this “truth effect” constructed over centuries, what is the logical next step that can guarantee citizenship, inclusion, and acceptance of the population? Logically, it is to mix culturally and biologically in order to become part of the nation and a modern citizen.

And if the “seed” of citizenship lay with the “white race,” as claimed by Venezuelan intellectual Arturo Uslar Pietri, then what was the implied direction of that mixing? One that privileges whiteness, of course. That is, a veiled logic toward “whitening,” which simultaneously implies a rejection of African and Indigenous identities.

How did this construct evolve over the rest of the 20th century?

This dissociative narrative gained strength throughout most of the twentieth century, marked by an intense marginalization and denial of Indigenous and African identities, and at the same time a veiled glorification of whiteness. Just imagine: we were building the country, internalizing the values of European and later Anglo-Saxon whiteness in a disguised way, while silencing the other two components, which were understood as synonymous with backwardness.

Every institution, every administrative procedure, every university curriculum, every cultural policy, every public policy, every beauty standard, every food habit, every religious sentiment, every idea about care, about health, and so on, had to be modernized. In other words, it had to be “whitened” at the expense of the diverse and unique aspects inherited from the misnamed “primitive” African and Indigenous traditions.

Systemic racism was thus gradually established; it seeped into the collective imagination, into people’s emotions, and into the everyday and institutional relationships of Venezuelans. This results in racism flowing in a “naturalized” way through the veins of the country’s entities, coagulating in administrative procedures, in state bureaucracy, in the creation of belief practices, in the ways the deceased are laid to rest, in the conceptions of sport and beauty, in what is considered art, in what is deemed worthy of ridicule, and so on.

Racism is systemic because it circulates through the arteries of the state. And mestizaje is the mechanism created to “harmoniously” instill whiteness into society, not just in Venezuela but throughout the entire Latin American region.

What a contradiction, isn’t it? The psychological effects of this are very powerful, given that it involves a dissociation and denial of both the individual and society. That is why, when a person of African descent, for example, for whatever reason or due to culinary tradition, decides to bring their lunch to the office or school, and that lunch consists of foods typical of their region of origin, prepared using local methods rather than processed products, an uncomfortable situation can arise, one that may go unnoticed as micro-racism.

Something as simple as lunch can be questioned or made to seem exotic by others through the most common mechanism: the joke, which is considered harmless. The person in question may feel out of place, uncomfortable. They may wonder if no one else eats that way, if their way of eating is weird. Possible consequence: they stop bringing their lunch and instead go to fast-food chains or restaurants, or eat alone.

This is the mechanism of “whitening” at work. Although it may not appear to be violence, we are dealing with a form of micro-racism. It is a way of denying practices, aesthetics, care, and local knowledge surrounding food and, at the same time, with an unconscious encouragement to conform to behaviors and practices considered more modern.

This affects positive self-perception, leads to the devaluation of family wisdom, and causes local food practices to be forgotten. In other words, it fosters endoracism, the erosion of small-scale local economies based on Afro-family logic, and, at the same time, the strengthening of the logic of the globalized food system. It is deeply racist.

How can we present these issues to new generations?

It’s not easy, but the only way to teach it is to put it into practice in the situations that arise, since each one is different and unique; or to think about it structurally within the classroom, together with teachers, specialists, students, decision-makers, mothers, and others.

For example, when I worked with preschool and elementary school children through dance, I focused on conveying the importance of the country’s cultural diversity. I created a workbook featuring various traditional dances to help them learn the alphabet and understand the cultural practices associated with each of these forms of movement.

I also implemented an exercise in which participants must match magazine clippings featuring images of people with different skin tones, hair textures, eye colors, professions, and clothing with other magazine clippings depicting various objects, elements, and themes such as money, pots, airplanes, cars, landscapes, professions, tools, technologies, and so on.

The task is to associate the people with these objects. The goal is to uncover the associations participants make and the reasons behind them. I believe this brings to light the mental constructs surrounding gender, race, and class that lift the veil of racial mixing and make structural racism visible along with its everyday micro-racist manifestations.

“Restorative justice” has become an important element in the discourse and thinking of Afro-descendant peoples. Can you explain this concept?

To answer this question, the first thing we must consider is the meaning of “to restore.” Restoring, or repairing, is synonymous with fixing, amending, remedying harm, correcting an error, and making amends to the offended party. There are at least three premises from this definition:

1. There is another person or entity who has caused harm, an injustice, or an offense to someone;
2. In the face of harm, there are laws that classify it as a crime and determine who committed it; and
3. The word “restore” is a verb that calls for actions that address the aggrieved party’s condition. In other words, those who cause harm commit an offense or crime that requires compensatory actions to improve the affected person’s circumstances.

In 2001, at the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were declared crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, very recently, in March 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution, proposed by Ghana and earlier by the African Union, declaring that the transatlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans have been the most serious crime against humanity in history.

Faced with this historical truth, what must be done? We are talking about at least four centuries of a system and a logic of inhuman exploitation; about the systemic nature of the devaluation of individuals who were considered inferior, lacking in intellect, spirituality, and existence, and treated as property.

The normalization of these practices following the invention of “race” served to establish a hierarchy across all levels of society, leaving structural consequences for future generations in the form of accumulated dispossession and inequality.

Knowing this, what is the most urgent form of reparations demanded by the Afro-descendant people? I would say that we should overhaul the entire system, precisely because of what we discussed earlier regarding systemic racism. Racism is a global order of economic and subjective power.

However, we can make a list. After all, we have to start somewhere. First, of the 54 countries that abstained from voting this past March 2026 at the UN, the Western bloc and the countries directly involved in enslavement and the transatlantic slave trade (the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, etc.) must issue a public apology, as Pope Leo XIV recently did on May 24, for the leading role the Catholic Church played in the crimes of colonization, the slave trade, and slavery.

Furthermore, these countries must develop joint policies and plans for material and symbolic reparations among nations, aimed at ending the perpetuation of the inequality that was institutionalized during 400 years of slavery and modernized over the following 200 years.

And in the case of Venezuela, what form would this restorative justice take?

In particular, Venezuela has a restorative agenda developed by social movements, intellectuals, institutions, Afro-Venezuelan communities, individuals, and others. It highlights several aspects, such as:

1. Territory;
2. Afro-Venezuelan epistemology, thought, and spirituality;
3. The deracialization of the justice system; and
4. Recognition as citizens in all dimensions, from legal rights, through culture, to public safety.

As an Afro-Venezuelan movement, we have highlighted two specific projects. One that directly addresses territorial reparations: the return of land to the people of Turiamo, Aragua State, who were displaced in 1957. On the other hand, a demand for reparations regarding symbolic memory linked to the right to justice and the recognition of Afro-Venezuelan thought and culture: clarifying the circumstances surrounding the death of the Madera Experimental Folkloric Group in 1980.

By all this, I mean that reparations must be understood as multidimensional and multilateral, involving specific actions by nation-states and concrete policies tailored to each territory, aimed at moral and economic compensation. This includes formal recognition of the affected individuals, as well as territorial, cultural, and political restitution, and the removal of economic and legal barriers that prevent the active participation of the Afro-descendant population.

At the same time, this must include a review of technologies that can improve education, health, security, and justice, while recognizing Afro-diasporic knowledge in the wake of the deliberate actions of the powers that perpetrated crimes against humanity.

For its part, Venezuela supports a reparations plan introduced by CARICOM (Caribbean Community) in 2014. At the same time, it is pursuing lines of research that, using specific and local data, can showcase the affected areas and the extent of the impact.

Recently, the Ministry of Science and Technology has funded research so that the Afro-Venezuelan people themselves can lead the process, which demonstrates greater awareness in understanding Afro-Venezuelan identity and the social debt owed to them, ensuring they are treated as citizens with full rights. Much remains to be done. An immediate step would be the inclusion of Afro-Venezuelans in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Building on the example you mentioned earlier, and since it is a topic of your research, let us talk about “food racism.” How can we understand traditional Afro-Venezuelan cuisine as a space of memory, resistance, and justice?

I think the food sector is one of the least recognized as a site of racist attack because folkloric tradition is conflated with recognition, reparations, and redistribution. Examples include the label “traditional food” or the exoticization of cacao by luxury markets. Public validation does not eliminate racism. Rather, it can help conceal it. My goal is to show how the food system reproduces racism as a mechanism for accumulating privilege and dispossession.

I acknowledge the Afro-Venezuelan intellectual contribution to dishes such as Caracas-style asado negro, the versatility with which Afro-Venezuelan women use coconut, the Holy Week rice dish, and the complex concept of sazón [seasoning]. All of that exists, but it is not my focus as a researcher: I want to concentrate on how the historical structure of the food system, both globally and in Venezuela, is underpinned by hierarchies of race, class, and gender established since European colonization. This leads to the erasure, devaluation, and “whitening” not only of people but also of food-related knowledge and practices.

Monocultures such as sugarcane, cacao, and coffee consolidated the colonial order. White landowners and merchants exercised power over bodies, knowledge, and labor. The plantation economy extracted raw materials and subordinated people and spices to the European markets, shaping how food is produced, consumed, and valued, including health and food aesthetics. Despite this, Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and mestizo communities preserved agricultural techniques and knowledge, such as the conuco, and plant-based health practices, knowledge on which the elites depended even though they did not recognize it. Cacao is a symbolic case in point: it has organized material and symbolic inequality since the eighteenth century.

In this context of structural racism and inequality, what was the impact of the Bolivarian Revolution?

After the formal end of slavery and the wars of independence, the model did not change: capitalism maintained racial hierarchies in order to perpetuate itself. In the twentieth century, “modernization” and colonization policies favored white agricultural settlements, deepening inequality. The oil boom urbanized the economy and rebuilt it around rent, leading to massive food imports and stigmatizing of Afro-Venezuelan and Indigenous dietary practices as “backward,” thereby standardizing class-based consumption patterns.

The agrarian reform of the 1960s was limited. The crises of the late twentieth century and neoliberal measures widened inequality and led to uprisings such as the Caracazo [1989], demonstrating that modernization did not resolve the racial-class hierarchy.

The Bolivarian Revolution sought to reverse this model. Examples of such initiatives included the Seed Law, the Land Law, rural programs, and land titling for Afro-Venezuelan communities, all aimed at valuing ancestral knowledge and promoting food sovereignty. However, sanctions, corruption, and the logic of large-scale capitalism constrained these policies. The creation of the CLAP [subsidized food distribution program] in 2016 to alleviate shortages fostered imports with no nutritional controls, and the pandemic worsened access to food, hitting the working class, which is predominantly Afro, Indigenous, and mestizo, the hardest.

In the face of the crisis, families developed subsistence strategies: cutting back on meals, substituting staples with less nutritious options, resuming bartering and solidarity-based exchanges, buying directly from producers, and reviving ancestral recipes with high nutritional value. That is why I maintain that recognizing racism as a foundation of the food system explains current inequality and offers guidance on how to build food sovereignty. The ancestral knowledge of Indigenous peoples and Afro-Venezuelan communities embodies memory and resistance: these are practices of food, health, and territory that connect people to the land and pave the way toward food justice.

Three Colombian tourists from same family are among the victims of Saturday’s crash on mountainside forest of Tijuca National Park.

At least four people have been killed in a helicopter crash in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, according to a statement from the Colombian consul in the country.

Saturday’s crash involved a pilot and three Colombian women who were members of the same family.

They were reportedly on a sightseeing flight over Tijuca National Park, a densely forested, mountainous area on the edge of the city.

In the aftermath of the crash, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Cavaliere called for more oversight of helicopter flights, a popular tourist activity. He even suggested such flights could be suspended “for a week or two”, as new safety measures are implemented.

“My solidarity to the families of the victims of the helicopter accident that happened today near Vista Chinesa within the Tijuca National Park,” Cavaliere said in a social media post.

He added that he had been in contact with Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency, ANAC.

“City Hall has requested that ANAC take immediate action to intensify oversight and ensure safety in helicopter flights that are circulating with increasing frequency in our city,” Cavaliere explained.

“We place the entire apparatus of City Hall at the disposal of ANAC to support the measures and actions that may be necessary.”

The crash took place near Vista Chinesa, a lookout point crowned by a small bamboo pagoda. Tijuca National Park is a top destination in Rio de Janeiro, famous for its Christ the Redeemer statue and sweeping vistas of the coastal city.

Diana Paez, the Colombian consul general in Rio de Janeiro, told the news agency AFP that the three women on Saturday’s flight were part of a family that had travelled to the city to celebrate a girl’s 15th birthday.

The group of six had split up since the helicopter could only fit three people. The girl’s grandmother, aunt and cousin died in the crash.

Helicopter rides have become a popular way for tourists to see the city and its various monuments from above, a practice that has attracted growing concern over safety.

Six people were recently killed when two helicopters collided in midair over the city. That incident took place over the western suburb of Recreio dos Bandeirantes on June 14.

Utah wildfire response continues despite loss of helicopter crew, with containment standing at 24 percent.

A pilot and one crew member have been confirmed dead after their firefighting helicopter crashed while battling a massive wildfire in central Utah.

The Sikorsky S-64 ‘Skycrane’, operated by Helicopter Transport Services under contract with the United States Forest Service, went down about 10am local time on Friday (16:00 GMT) near Richfield, in the Three Creeks Reservoir area southwest of the city, close to the southeastern edge of the Widemouth 2 fire.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) confirmed the deaths on Saturday, more than 24 hours after the crash, saying the two crew members were “fatally injured” and extended its “condolences to the friends and family of the deceased”.

In a situation report, the NIFC said extreme fire conditions and steep terrain had kept rescue teams from reaching the wreckage. The bodies were recovered on Saturday, but the names of the deceased have not been released.

The NIFC has issued evacuations for residents in the area and imposed road closures.

Deputy incident commander Tyler Hecht said on Friday that crews took a “tactical pause” to regroup after the crash before resuming their firefighting work.

“It’s not going to change how we operate,” Hecht said. “We’re going to continue to fight fire and utilize aircraft to support our firefighters on the ground.”

Utah Governor Spencer Cox called wildland firefighting “among the most dangerous jobs in the world” and asked residents to keep the crew “in your prayers”.

The Utah Highway Patrol organised a procession Saturday evening to escort the remains of the “fallen heroes”.

The Widemouth 2 fire ignited from a lightning strike in Fishlake National Forest on July 27 and has since burned more than 111,000 acres (45,000 hectares), putting it on pace to become Utah’s largest wildfire this year.

Officials listed containment at 24 percent on Saturday, with extreme fire behaviour – including crowning and long-range spotting – still threatening nearby communities.

This is Utah’s second fatal wildfire incident this summer. Three firefighters died in June while battling the Knowles and Gore fires near the Colorado border. A fourth firefighter later died from injuries sustained in the incident.

The path of totality crosses the western part of Iceland and they hope to find a spot in the Westfjords peninsula to witness it.

Although they’ve heard rumours of roads being closed to stop too many people overwhelming the area, so are keen to get there a couple of days before the spectacle.

Samantha, who her husband describes as an “obsessive travel planner”, is all over the Facebook groups and social media pages being used by eclipse hunters to share information and advice.

She’s expecting a good turnout given the number of eclipse glasses she’s seen people with in Iceland. “They’re really trying to prepare everybody,” she says.

“What I expect, as we start inching westward, is we’re going to see more and more of them.”

Andrew Wills is also going to an island to see the eclipse, albeit a much warmer one: Majorca.

He’s travelling with his wife and his dad, who is 90. Father and son witnessed Europe’s last total solar eclipse together in 1999 while stood atop St Agnes Beacon in Cornwall.

The landmark, believed by some to be a Bronze Age bowl barrow, offers panoramic views across the Cornish countryside and out to the Atlantic. It was a cloudy day, remembers Andrew.

“We didn’t see the shadow rushing across the sea towards us, though we did see the dawn appearing and it getting closer very quickly,” he says. “It was awe-inspiring.”

Andras Baka, a strong advocate for judicial independence, becomes Tisza’s pick for Hungary’s next president.

Hungary’s governing Tisza party has nominated Andras Baka, a former Supreme Court chief removed from his post by Viktor Orban’s government in 2012, as its candidate for the country’s presidency.

The nomination, announced Saturday by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, marks the latest step in Tisza’s effort to dismantle Orban’s influence over state institutions since the party’s landslide election victory in April ended his 16-year rule.

The decision to nominate Baka for the presidency comes weeks after Tisza used a constitutional amendment to remove Orban-era President Tamas Sulyok from office.

On Tuesday, Baka, 73, is expected to be elected by parliament, where Tisza holds a constitutional majority.

Magyar wrote on Facebook that the nomination, made by secret ballot within the party’s parliamentary group, was “one of its most important decisions so far”.

Tisza lawmakers said Baka had always “attached paramount importance to the principle of separation of powers, consistently standing up for the rule of law and judicial independence”, adding that his experience represented “a significant asset” as the party lays “the foundations for Hungary’s new constitutional order”.

Fidesz, the party now in opposition, said it would boycott the vote, accusing Tisza of authoritarian tactics – allegations it denies.

Baka served two terms as a judge on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg before being elected head of Hungary’s Supreme Court in 2009.

He was removed two years later after publicly criticising Orban’s government reforms, which he said threatened judicial independence. The European court later ruled that his dismissal had violated his rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression, a judgement the Council of Europe said Hungary failed to fully implement.

Hungary’s presidency carries mostly ceremonial powers, with limited authority to veto or refer legislation, though the nomination is being treated as a heavily symbolic move.

The pact includes an Article 5-style mutual-defence clause, but questions remain over how it would operate in practice and how Tehran will respond.

Turkish leaders have insisted that the new trilateral defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not directed at Iran.

Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that the pact does not identify Iran, or any other country, as a common threat.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed on Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, stating that an armed attack on one of the three countries would be considered an attack on them all.

“There is no common threat that we have put in writing,” Fidan told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency, adding that countries that do not attack the signatories would not be considered targets.

An Article 5-style commitment

Fidan described the pact as “technically” similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective-defence clause, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.

But the response would depend on the circumstances.

A country under attack would have to request assistance and specify what kind of support it needed, Fidan said. That could range from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or the deployment of military units.

The alliance will also establish political and military committees, bringing together foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs, as well as a secretariat in Saudi Arabia.

Fidan said the three countries would work on joint training, intelligence sharing, logistics, threat assessments and military interoperability.

Defence-industry cooperation is also expected to be a notable part of the pact. Fidan said it was one of the main issues discussed by the three leaders in Mecca, including how the countries could benefit from each other’s military technologies.

The Turkish minister said preparations for the agreement had been under way for nearly two years and eight months, suggesting it was not drawn up simply in response to the current tensions involving Iran.

Iran pushes back

Despite Ankara’s assurances, some Iranian officials have questioned the agreement and warned Saudi Arabia against relying on its new partners for security.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Saudi leaders should understand that cooperation with Turkiye and Pakistan would not guarantee their security.

Another commission member, Ebrahim Rezaei, similarly dismissed the pact as a “paper agreement”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi did not directly mention the agreement in a message on X on Friday, but he called on regional states to rely on themselves and pursue what he described as “true brotherhood”.

At the same time, he stressed the strength and readiness of Iran’s armed forces.

Egypt could join next

Fidan portrayed the agreement as part of a broader effort to give regional countries greater responsibility for their own security.

“External hegemons coming into the region do not solve the problems; they make them more acute,” he told Anadolu.

He described Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the “core countries” of the initiative and made clear that Ankara wants the arrangement to expand.

“Under our president’s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries,” Fidan said. “We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella.”

Several countries have already expressed interest, according to Fidan, who said he expected Egypt, which he described as a “natural partner”, to join once outstanding technical issues were resolved.

For now, many of the practical details remain to be worked out, including how the three militaries would coordinate in a crisis.

But the planned committees, permanent secretariat and focus on interoperability and defence-industry cooperation suggest the pact is intended to develop beyond a simple mutual defence declaration.

IRGC sets terms to reopen Hormuz as US seeks commitments to end attacks on ships in the waterway.

The last time I ate at McDonald’s was also the first time I tried a McGriddle.

Why am I thinking about a breakfast sandwich? Well, it’s morning, for starters. And my old friend Laurie Ochoa, who runs all things food at The Times, just had her own first encounter with a McGriddle, inspired by the item’s mention in the most recent season of “The Bear.”

Should McDonald’s have a Michelin star? “The Bear’s” pastry chef Luca thinks so. Laurie is a fan too. Me? Honestly, I ordered it by accident, hangry and delusional after driving too many miles on a road trip home. To this day, whenever my son, Sean, passes that Lost Hills McDonald’s, he snaps a picture and sends it to me, captioning it: “McGriddle?”

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Does Rhea Seehorn dig McGriddles? She loves bread, so maybe the whole pancake-bun thing would put her off.

Cover story: Rhea Seehorn

(Ian Spanier / For The Times)

If you love great television, you know Seehorn from “Better Call Saul” and the new Apple TV series “Pluribus,” where she plays Carol, a sad woman forced to save the world from happiness and the hive mind.

But other than those two classics and a guest turn on the final season of “Veep,” I have not Seehorn in anything else. Which wasn’t for a lack of trying on her part, as I learned from talking with her for a recent Envelope cover story.

Seehorn moved to Los Angeles in 2003 after landing a lead role on the ABC sitcom “I’m With Her.” Seehorn played … well, I’ll let her describe the character.

“I was the naysaying, coattail-riding, bitchy, alcoholic little sister of Teri Polo’s character,” Seehorn says, laughing. “It was so much fun.”

The comedy ran for 23 episodes and was then summarily canceled, despite the season finale drawing about 11 million viewers. (“Can you imagine?” Seehorn says of the ratings. “You’d be a juggernaut now.”)

When she arrived in L.A., ABC put her up at the massive Oakwood apartment complex on Barham Boulevard, an (in)famous landing place for child actors, musicians and newcomers like Seehorn getting their start in Hollywood. On her way to work each day — she walked to the Warner Bros. lot because she didn’t have a car — Seehorn would pass older men wearing short bathrobes at 7 in the morning and “momagers” hustling their kids to an audition.

Says Seehorn: “It’s weird because you’ve landed a great job and you’re working, so, ‘Yay!’ But also, you’re staying in a one-room apartment that has a kitchenette and a Murphy bed that folds into the wall. When the bed’s folded down, it touches the couch and you can’t walk around. But when the bed is up, it’s a mirror, so you watch yourself have no friends, sitting there watching TV, eating a TV dinner. Then you’re like, is it less depressing to just sit in a bed all day, or should I watch myself sitting here?”

Needless to say, Seehorn moved as soon possible, landing in a fourplex apartment across from the Warner Bros. lot near the Taco Bell and Don Cuco on Riverside Drive. It was heaven. It had a second bedroom. And a window!

She lived there until the second season of “Better Call Saul.”

“The good news is, when you move to L.A. from New York, everything seems like a mansion,” Seehorn says, laughing.

Sitting on that Murphy bed at the Oakwood, was there ever a time when Seehorn wondered, “What am I doing?”

“I had come from supposedly being the receptionist at a construction office in Brooklyn, but what I was really doing was cleaning their bathrooms with like nine pairs of rubber gloves on because it was so disgusting,” Seehorn says. “That was my day job, and then I was working at Playwrights Horizons, a wonderful theater that I’d always wanted to work at, so I was thrilled. But theater doesn’t pay enough to live on. So life was always cobbling something together to pursue my passion, my dream.”

Read more of our ‘Pluribus’ coverage

US Vice President JD Vance claims Washington has “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear programme and degraded its military, as Tehran demands US compensation and an end to the naval blockade before reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling jet involved in a deadly midair collision with another tanker over Iraq in March is now undergoing full repairs at Tinker Air Force Base. The Oklahoma installation hosts the only unit specifically designed to repair battle damage to the Air Force’s fleet of aerial refuelers and strategic bombers.

The collision on March 12 killed the entire crew of the tanker, which had the call sign Zeus 95. Maj. John A. Klinner, Capt. Ariana G. Savino and Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt were assigned to the 6th Air Refueling Wing, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. Capt. Seth R. Koval, Capt. Curtis J. Angst and Master Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons (who was posthumously promoted) were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Columbus, Ohio.

After the incident, the surviving jet, serial 63-8017, landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. Images emerged showing that half its tail was sheared off.

Little more was known publicly about the jet – assigned to the 314th Air Refueling Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, California – until it arrived at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom on Aug. 2 with a replacement tail. Local aviation photographer Andrew McKelvey was kind enough to share images he took of the aircraft, one of which you can see below.

Serial 63-8017 left Mildenhall and finally arrived at Tinker on Aug. 3.

After McKelvey sent us the pictures, we reached out to the Air Force to find out how the aircraft was repaired and what would happen to it next. In addition, Mildenhall, as we have previously reported, was also a pit stop for at least two KC-135 tankers that returned from the Middle East full of patch mark repairs from shrapnel damage incurred during Iranian attacks.

“The aircraft are being inducted for programmed depot maintenance, where any damage patched by an Expeditionary Depot Maintenance (EDMX) unit will be fully repaired in conjunction with regularly scheduled 5-year maintenance,” an Air Force spokesperson told us Thursday afternoon. Located at Tinker, the EDMX is “responsible for maintaining the Air Force’s sole source for Aircraft Battle Damage Repair (ABDR) rapid repair capabilities for the entire tanker and bomber fleets,” according to the Air Force.

“Timelines for when the aircraft will fully return to the fleet ultimately depends on the extent of any additional defects or engineering issues identified during the inspection portion of the programmed depot maintenance,” the Air Force spokesperson added. “The current average for this regularly scheduled maintenance is 155 days, but it is reasonable to assume the timeline may be extended based on findings.”

The repair process to keep these aircraft able to maintain full mission capability can be much quicker, the Air Force spokesperson explained.

“Several damaged KC-135 Stratotankers were repaired by members of the 76th Aircraft Maintenance Group’s Expeditionary Depot Maintenance Flight [EDMX], allowing the aircraft to maintain full mission capability to complete deployed missions,” the Air Force added. The EDMX “completed more than 200 repairs over the course of three weeks; effective patches that also allowed the aircraft to return to Tinker Air Force Base for comprehensive repairs.”

The Air Force declined to provide details about the number of aircraft that arrived at Tinker to be repaired after being damaged in the war on Iran and did not immediately provide additional information about the work done on 63-8017 in Israel to enable it to fly again in the first place.

Whether coincidental or not, a few weeks after the mishap in March over Iraq, the Air Force pulled a Stratotanker out of storage and brought it to Tinker.

“At the request of the KC-135 System Program Office, the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group regenerated KC-135R, tail number 58-011, to support operational requirements,” the Air Force told us back in April. “The aircraft departed on April 2, 2026, en route to the Oklahoma Air Logistics Complex at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.”

The Air Force at the time declined to say if 58-011 was being used specifically to repair jets damaged during Epic Fury.

In addition to the tanker involved in the midair collision, an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia is said to have damaged five tankers. However, the full destruction inflicted by it and subsequent strikes on PSAB remains murky, as do potential impacts to facilities and aircraft located across the region. The lack of regular satellite imagery from U.S. providers of the Middle East has made it harder to understand what has occurred, but as we state repeatedly, satellite images would not show more minor damage to aircraft, such as the shrapnel holes in images of two KC-135s that made a temporary stop at Mildenhall before heading to Tinker.

As we noted earlier in this story, on April 12, a KC-135, serial 59-1444, belonging to the Ohio Air National Guard’s 121st Air Refueling Wing, arrived at the air base in England covered in patches installed over shrapnel damage. You can see that jet’s arrival in the following photograph.

A little more than a month later, another Stratotanker, serial 63-8028, assigned to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Wing, arrived at Mildenhall also peppered with temporary shrapnel damage repairs. The following photograph shows the aircraft at the base.

The damaged tankers are among at least 40 aircraft damaged or destroyed during the U.S. conflict with Iran. Our last tabulation is from April 10. There have been several other Iranian attacks on air bases in the region housing U.S. aircraft since then, but U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has declined to discuss battle damage. So it is possible, if not likely, that there have been additional assets destroyed or damaged.

The Air Force is seeking money to replace some of these aircraft.

“We hope to be able to address this in a supplemental for the aircraft that we’ve lost,” Air Force Chief of Staff Kenneth S. Wilsbach told Congress in April. “And the procurement going forward is meant to increase the number of tails we have, especially in the fighter force, but it will also include bombers and tankers as well. So both the supplemental and the ’27 budget is supposed to address those losses.”

You can get an idea of the extent of U.S. aircraft losses from our graphic linked here.

The fact that these tankers, which have all been in service for more than 60 years, were able to return to flight is a testament to the crews that fixed them. How much repair work they still have to undergo remains unclear.

Tankers are critical assets in high demand, and in this case of these jets, there may be at least one positive side effect from the damage. Executing a battle damage repair plan in the field to get a KC-135 back in the air is a good real-life exercise, one that could prove vital if a future conflict in the Pacific were to erupt. Lessons will certainly be learned on many levels from the war on Iran. And some of these lessons unfortunately, and perhaps needlessly, came the hard way.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The Nimitz class USS Theodore Roosevelt has become the first U.S. Navy supercarrier with an Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) fully capable of supporting the forthcoming MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone. This marks another step toward the Navy finally reaching initial operational capability with the MQ-25, now set to come in 2029 after years of delays. There is still a lot of work to be done before the Stingray can be fully woven into routine carrier flight operations.

The new details about the Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC and other information about the MQ-25 are contained in a Modernized Selected Acquisition Report (MSAR) that the Pentagon recently released. The report itself is dated April 21, 2026, and it was produced as part of work on the U.S. military’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

“In March 2026, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) UAWC became the first fully operational/deployable MQ-25 capable aircraft carrier,” according to the report. “The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) UAWC is planned to be operational/deployable at the end of Aug 2026.”

“In August 2024, the first test Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC), where Air Vehicle Pilots will control future MQ-25 airborne operations, was installed and tested aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77),” the report also notes.

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS George H.W. Bush are also Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The Navy publicly announced the integration of the UAWC on the George H.W. Bush, a first-of-its-kind development, back in 2024. It is unclear why Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC has now become the first to be fully certified to support MQ-25 operations. It has been previously reported that the Navy’s plan is to deploy Stingrays first on the Theodore Roosevelt.

As mentioned, the MQ-25 program, overall, has been beset by delays, as well as cost growth, for years now. The Navy originally hoped to see the Stingray reach initial operational capability (IOC) in 2024. The IOC timeline subsequently slipped to July 2027 and has now been pushed even further to the right to February 2029. The first production representative example only made its maiden flight this past April. An earlier MQ-25 demonstrator, also known as the T1, has been flying since 2019.

The Navy currently plans to acquire a total fleet of 76 Stingrays, which will offer critical range extension for current and future aircraft in its carrier air wings. The aim, in turn, is also to eliminate the need for crewed F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to fly in the tanker role, which accounts for a significant portion of their sorties while deployed. This will free up those aircraft up for other missions and reduce overall wear and tear on the airframes. The new drones will also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability from the start.

“The MQ-25 Air System is integrating a Ground Control Station (GCS) managed by the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) program within UCA [the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program]. The UMCS program is a separate ACAT II [Acquisition Category II] program that integrates with multiple networks and systems both afloat and ashore,” the recently released MSAR also notes. “The MQ-25 and UMCS programs are synchronized to provide complete capability to the aircraft carrier.”

While Boeing is the prime contractor for the MQ-25 drone, Lockheed Martin has been leading work on the UMCS, and has described it previously as a “system of systems.” The central element is the MD-5E GCS, which consists of operator stations with arrays of monitors, tablet-like devices, and other computer hardware. What has been seen of the MD-5 system to date in terms of the physical hardware is fully in line with other known GCS designs, including ones the U.S. Air Force has used over the years to operate MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers.

The UMCS also includes the Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX), an “autonomy platform” developed by Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division. The company has told TWZ directly in the past that MDCX “provides uncrewed vehicle autonomy, mission planning, and command and control (C2) capability.”

“In October 2025, MQ-25A and the UMCS connected for the first time during air vehicle and Ground Control Station (GCS) Integration Checkout testing, allowing the Lockheed Martin GCS to establish command and control of the aircraft, which was critical to achieving First Flight,” per the recently released MSAR.

“The first Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) Operational Network Evaluation test event was also conducted in collaboration with the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72),” the report also highlights. “This test event transmitted representative-network traffic between an at sea-configured aircraft carrier and a remote MQ-25 surrogate through operational C4I paths that include satellite communications links and the Navy’s primary tactical wide area network.”

The Navy has previously disclosed testing of the UMCS in conjunction with General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger drone to demonstrate the control system’s ability to support other uncrewed platforms beyond the MQ-25. The Navy does envision its future carrier air wings eventually incorporating multiple types of drones, including ones capable of attacking enemy forces at least 1,000 nautical miles away, as you can read more about here. A year ago, the service awarded contracts to Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman for work on concepts for future carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type designs. Navy officials have said in the past that the composition of the service’s carrier air wings could eventually become 60 percent or more uncrewed.

Beyond the important additional capabilities the MQ-25 will bring to the Navy’s carrier air wings, the Navy has long described the Stingray as a foundational “pathfinder” for its broader uncrewed aviation plans, something the new MSAR reiterates. As TWZ has explored in detail in the past, the MQ-25’s design and baseline performance, especially its extreme endurance and low-signature design, open the door to the Stingray itself being adapted to strike, advanced ISR, and other missions in the future.

There is more work still to be done before the MQ-25 can enter operational service, including demonstrating the ability of Navy carriers to launch and recover the drones. The service has laid at least some of the groundwork for that years ago with extensive testing involving a pair of X-47B stealthy demonstrator drones, which achieved many firsts for carrier-based uncrewed aviation. That very promising work was done under the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program, which subsequently morphed into the radically different Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) effort in the mid-2010s. The reasons for that shift are still not entirely clear, as you can read more about in detail here. CBARS ultimately led to the MQ-25.

Northrop Grumman’s X47-B Completes 1st Carrier Catapult Launch

The Stingrays will have to be further integrated into routine flight deck operations, including just making sure they can be safely moved around with everything else going on. As we have previously written:

“Carrier decks are very constrained environments physically, and present very different conditions to operate in compared to bases on land. This is true even for crewed aircraft operations, where individuals onboard can provide additional situational awareness. A wearable glove-like system that personnel could use for deck handling was notably used during testing of the X-47B. A different kind of portable control device has been used in testing of the T1 MQ-25 demonstrator in the past, as well. The video released today does not appear to offer any major new insights into how the Navy plans to maneuver the Stingray around on carrier decks.”

It is still unclear what the Navy will be using to manage operational MQ-25s on carrier flight decks when the drones enter service.

The Navy has already been working to establish new units and training pipelines to support the future MQ-25 fleet. The Stingray force structure is set to be deeply intertwined with that of the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft.

With the USS Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC now deemed fully able to support MQ-25 operations, the Navy has moved at least one more step closer toward finally fielding the Stingray.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

At least 200 people have been evacuated after a wildfire broke out near Italy’s Lake Garda. Authorities said the fire started in the municipality of Tignale on the western shore of the lake. Lake Garda is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye have signed a joint defence pact.

It is an alliance that analysts say highlights Riyadh’s desire to diversify its defence partnerships, expanding to Ankara and Islamabad.

The pact was announced at a time of increased regional tension.

Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has launched a military operation against the Iran-aligned Houthis following a series of attacks, while Iran and the US have yet to reach a final deal to end the war.

The trilateral Mecca pact raises questions about the effectiveness of the decades-long US military presence in the Gulf. Does this alliance offer a viable alternative to the security umbrella promised by Washington?

Presenter: Anna Burns-Francis

Guests:

Abdulaziz Alghashian – Senior non-resident fellow at the Gulf International Forum

David Des Roches – Professor at the Thayer Marshall Institute

Zaid M Belbagi – Managing partner at Hardcastle Advisory

From recent satellite imagery, the Russian Navy now looks to be using nets to protect submarines from drone attacks at a highly strategic base on the country’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. There are also signs that Russian forces have been taking new steps at a separate base along the Black Sea to shield submarines against uncrewed aerial threats. The appearance of the nets over the submarines at the base in Kamchatka point to how Russia’s concerns about drone threats have extended to critical facilities far removed from the battlefields of Ukraine.

TWZ obtained the imagery showing the netting in place over submarines at the Russian Navy’s base at Rybachiy from Vantor. Business insider was first to report on these images. Rybachiy is notably the homeport for the vast majority of Borei and Borei-A class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, in service in Russia today. It is also home to various other guided missile and attack submarines assigned to the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet.

Images of Rybachiy from Vantor taken on August 4, seen at the top of this story and below, show several different types of submarines fully covered by nets. What is visible in the imagery is broadly consistent with netting that Russian forces have employed in and around Ukraine as a countermeasure against kamikaze drone attacks against assets on the ground and in the water. Similar netting has also observed in use by other armed forces elsewhere globally.

Russian forces at Rybachiy look to have started using these nets back in May based on additional imagery from Vantor. The imagery from May and August show crane barges being used to help erect the nets around submarines at their moorings.

As an aside, floating booms are also seen strung around the piers at Rybachiy. This is something else that is now commonplace at naval bases across Russia, and can help provide an additional barrier to certain threats on or near the surface, particularly explosive-laden kamikaze drone boats.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defense in the United Kingdom also published additional imagery from Vantor of the Russian Navy’s base in Novorossiysk along the Black Sea taken back on June 13. The images show several Kilo class attack submarines partially submerged in port. Three of the boats also appear to have anti-drone armor screens installed over their conning towers. A cursory review of additional satellite imagery in Planet Labs’ archive suggests screens were a relatively new additional at that time.

“The Russian Black Sea Fleet has equipped three of its four Kilo class submarines with counter-UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] cages covering the vessels’ conning towers. This was applied as a preventive measure in response to Ukraine’s increased ability to strike targets further from the front line,” according to an accompanying assessment from British authorities earlier this week. “Analysis of commercial satellite imagery dated 13 June 2026 identified that three of the submarines had loosened their moorings and had submerged within the basin. Whilst the majority of the hull was below the surface, their conning towers remained above the waterline, explaining the need for the counter-UAS cage.”

“The fourth submarine, which had not been fitted with a counter-UAS cage, had slipped its mooring lines, manoeuvred away from nearby surface vessels and submerged within the harbour, its conning tower visible above the waterline,” the British government’s assessment continued. “The lack of a counter-UAS cage likely signifies this vessel has been de-prioritised compared to the other three.”

TWZ has also now obtained the June 13 image of Novorossiysk directly from Vantor, as well as another one taken on June 17, which shows the submarines surfaced and at their moorings as usual. This, in turn raises questions about whether or not the boats were submerged in response an attack or indications that one might be imminent. There could be another explanation for why the submarines were temporarily submerged in port, including a force protection readiness exercise in preparation for such an incident.

Growing threats posed by uncrewed aerial systems, as well as uncrewed surface vessels (USV), have already had a marked impact on the establishment of new defensive capabilities and force protection postures at Russian naval and other facilities. This is especially true of sites in more immediate proximity to Ukraine.

Back in 2024, satellite imagery of Novorossiysk notably showed that forces there had painted a silhouette of a submarine and built an actual mock conning tower on a pier at the base. This reflected a broader trend at the time to implement countermeasures against Ukrainian munitions with autonomous image-matching targeting capabilities.

Also in 2024, what looked to be additional overhead protection against drone attacks appeared on the Delta-IV class nuclear ballistic missile submarine Tula at the Russian Navy’s base in Gadzhiyevo in the country’s far northern Murmansk region. What was seen fitted to Tula at that time very rudimentary compared to what has now been seen erected over submarines at Novorossiysk and Rybachiy, which offers far greater and more elaborate coverage . More extensive counter-drone screens have also now appeared on other types of Russian naval vessels.

Ukrainian forces only continue to expand the area, both at sea and on land, that they can hold at risk with uncrewed systems, as well as more traditional missiles. As it stands now, Ukraine uses its ever more diverse arsenal of long-range kamikaze drones and cruise missiles to strike targets across whole swaths of Western Russia, including around the capital Moscow, on a near daily basis.

Footage of a Ukrainian FP-2 attack drone slamming into a Russian Wildberries distribution center in Yekaterinburg this morning.

The Russian distribution center, hit by multiple Ukrainian drones, is now ablaze. pic.twitter.com/W2r9t6f9q1

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 7, 2026

Ukrainian kamikaze USVs also regularly prowl the Black Sea. Submarines at Novorossiysk, as well as bases on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, have been the wide array of targets struck. There sas another daytime USV attack just yesterday on the Russian-occupied port of Yalta in Crimea. It’s also worth noting here that Ukraine has developed USVs capable of launching kamikaze UAS, combining those two capabilities and creating additional threat vectors Russia’s force have to contend with. In addition, Ukraine now has the ability to hit even moving targets using long-range drones equipped with miniaturized satellite communications terminals. This leaves even ships not sitting static in port very much at risk, which Ukraine has highlighted in recent months as it goes after Russia’s logistics ships in the Sea of Azov, a campaign that is only accelerating and spreading.

As noted, the appearance of the nets at Rybachiy, which sits thousands of miles from Ukraine, speaks to how much further the threat of drone attacks has expanded. This goes beyond long-range strikes, as well. Ukraine’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb attacks on Russian airbases last year highlighted the dangers posed by near-field attacks launched from deep inside hostile territory closer to their actual targets. Bases in Russia’s far eastern regions were among those targeted in the clandestine operation. Ukrainian forces have also launched attacks on Russian-linked ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

СБУ показала унікальні кадри спецоперації «Павутина», у результаті якої уражено 41 військовий літак стратегічної авіації рф

➡️ https://t.co/OSxqEsI9CD pic.twitter.com/aGSZNEsoX3

— СБ України (@ServiceSsu) June 4, 2025

The russian terrorist state no longer has the ability to produce Tu-95s or any kind of strategic bomber. This is a tremendous victory for Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/SVeQE78v0h

— Michael MacKay (@mhmck) June 1, 2025

It also worth mentioning here that just this week, a small quadcopter drone equipped with explosive payload was discovered at next to Ukrainian An-124 cargo plane at an airport in Germany. CNN reported today that U.S. authorities have now assessed that uncrewed aerial system to have belonged to a Russian intelligence service. This follows year now of concerning drone incursions over military bases and other critical infrastructure across Western Europe.

Just this week, the US assessed that an explosive-laden drone discovered at an airport in Germany overnight on Wednesday belonged to a Russian intelligence service, a US defense official in Europe told CNN — https://t.co/axn5uQRTiG

— Haley Britzky (@halbritz) August 7, 2026

Uncrewed aerial threats large and small are not at all limited to the context of the conflict in Ukraine and spillover from it into Europe, either. Drones have been a major factor in the conflict this year with Iran, as well as in other crises in and around the Middle East in recent years.

With the barrier to entry so low, drone threats are only becoming more commonplace globally as they proliferate to increasingly more capable degrees even among smaller nation state armed forces and non-state actors. For the U.S. government, counter-drone defenses for military installations and other critical infrastructure within the homeland, as to protect forces abroad, has become a major priority. Still, American authorities continue to lag in many respects in responding to the serious dangers that very present already.

Altogether, the expansion of counter-drone defenses around submarines at the Russian Navy’s bases at Rybachiy and Novorossiysk reflect very immediate threats emanating from Ukraine, but are also a sign of larger trends globally. Similar force protection measures could well continue to emerge elsewhere, and not just in Russia.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Carrick has confirmed Marcus Rashford will rejoin the Manchester United squad for their trip to the Republic of Ireland.

Rashford, England team-mate Kobbie Mainoo and Argentina defender Lisandro Martinez are the final three players to return for United after the World Cup.

Although it was not expected Rashford would return to the club when he joined Barcelona on loan in July 2025, the La Liga champions failed to trigger a £26m option to buy the 28-year-old at the end of the season.

Despite interest elsewhere, there has been no deal, meaning Rashford will return to United for the first time since January 2025, when he moved to Aston Villa after falling out with former manager Ruben Amorim.

United are training at the plush Carton House hotel in Maynooth and have a friendly with Leeds United at Croke Park on 12 August.

They complete their pre-season programme against Amorim’s new club AC Milan in Wroclaw on 15 August, when Rashford could make his first United appearance since December 2024 if Carrick decides Wednesday is too soon.

A former team-mate, coach and manager of Rashford, it has been felt if anyone can patch up the relationship between club and player – which includes his number 10 shirt being given to Matheus Cunha who is also due to be on the trip after a minor injury ruled him out of the Gothenburg encounter – it is Carrick.

“I’ve played with him. I played in the game he made his debut, so we have a history,” Carrick said.

“We have got a full squad this week in Dublin. We fly straight there and have a few days where we have the whole group back together. Marcus is part of that, and Kobbie [Mainoo] and Lisandro [Martinez]. We look forward to seeing them.”