project

WASHINGTON — A new National Park Service report backs President Trump’s proposed arch, despite what it says are adverse effects to the sightline between a host of landmarks in Washington, including the Washington Monument and Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.

The report released Friday says the 250-foot-tall arch is likely to disrupt the historically significant layout of dozens of sites near its planned location adjacent to Memorial Bridge.

Many of Washington’s monuments, buildings and sites have been carefully planned over decades to reflect significant moments in the nation’s history and to evoke symbolism through sightlines that connect them to other sites. The arch will disturb the sightline between more landmarks than anticipated, the report said.

But the Park Service report says “the same characteristics that make Memorial Circle sensitive from a preservation perspective are also the characteristics that make it the historically appropriate location for the undertaking.”

The project’s effects cannot be “fully avoided without either relocating the Arch away from the historically identified site or eliminating the principal commemorative feature, both of which would fail to meet the undertaking’s purpose and need,” the report said.

“For this reason, alternative locations outside Memorial Circle are not reasonable avoidance alternatives,” the report said.

The 133-page report by the Park Service supports Trump’s plans for the controversial arch and could play an important role in bolstering the administration’s case in its fight against a legal challenge filed by three veterans and a group of historians.

The proposed towering arch, which last month received initial approval from a key federal commission, would impact the “integrity” of dozens of historic properties because it would change “character-defining visual and spatial relationships” between them.

One of the most obvious elements the report cited is that the arch would break alignment between the Lincoln Memorial, Memorial Bridge and Arlington House that was formerly Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s home. That alignment was “intended to physically and symbolically unite North and South through a coordinated monumental composition extending across the Potomac River,” the report said.

The Lincoln Memorial Arlington House connection was one of dozens of historic sites and structures listed as being impacted directly by the proposed structure. It added that the National Mall, the U.S. Capitol, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Georgetown Historic District, Old Naval Observatory, Key Bridge, National Cathedral and other sites also would be affected.

Nicolas Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group representing the plaintiffs, said the report again “confirms what we’ve been saying all along: the project will have an enormous impact and transform that National Mall.”

The report underscores the legal challengers’ claim that a project of this size and importance “is a decision for Congress to make” and should not be rushed through by executive decree, Sansone said.

Daly writes for the Associated Press.

Some locals claim the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a murdered teenager.

Hidden at the bottom of the world is a tunnel which is shadowed in years of history. Thousands of cars travel through it daily, and as they do, they sound their horns.

The tunnel is a cacophony of beeping and tooting at all hours of the day and night – all thanks to a murder which has haunted the city since 1931. The Mount Victoria Tunnel is part of a well-used stretch of highway in Wellington, New Zealand.

According to legend, the reason drivers lean on their horns as they travel through the tunnel is in tribute to murdered teenager Phillis Symons.

Phillis was buried alive in dirt fill during the tunnel’s construction.

She was only 17 and was pregnant when her boyfriend George Coats, a worker on the construction of the tunnel, knocked her unconscious with a pipe.

George then dumped Phillis in the dirt fill. Her body was found hunched over, meaning she had tried to escape the soil.

George was sentenced to death for the murder, and was hanged in December 1931.

The tunnel was opened to the public in the same year.

Now, almost a hundred years later, the 632 metre long tunnel echoes constantly with the sound of car horns which residents believe either wards off spirits, or pays tribute to the memory of Phillis.

Some locals say the tunnel is haunted – others say the constant beeping is the only thing that haunts the road.

The tunnel is the subject of a £1.27billion (between NZD$2.9b and NZD$3.8b) infrastructure project which would see a second tunnel built alongside the first to try and alleviate the severe bottlenecks which occur in the tunnel.

The current one is only two lanes, and frequently closes due to crashes, causing traffic jams that can last hours.

According to RNZ, the project has been granted fast track approval – but as of last week there was still no expected start date.

The Trump administration is considering trading a parcel of Yosemite National Park to a private commercial developer, according to administration officials, members of Congress and documents reviewed by The Times.

The proposed deal would allow the developer to build a road connecting adjacent property it already owns in the Stanislaus National Forest to a service road within Yosemite, providing any future development on that property with unique access to the famed public wilderness, documents show.

According to a Friday report by the news outlet NOTUS, Trump administration officials have been quietly pressuring the National Park Service to approve the deal for the land despite such pressure being highly unusual and previous proposals for the land being repeatedly denied under the Bush and Obama administrations and in court.

The Department of the Interior, which includes the National Park Service, acknowledged in a statement to The Times on Friday that a land deal is under consideration, but denied any inappropriate influence from the White House.

It said negotiations for the land will comply with all federal rules for federal lands, and that “no final decisions have been made.”

An attorney for the private developer said the deal has nothing to do with politics and is in fact an “environmentally friendly” solution, in that it would dramatically cut down on the amount of driving the future upscale development’s residents would have to do to access the park.

President Trump speaks to astronauts aboard the International Space Station as he visits NASA’s Mission Control Center on Aug. in Houston, Texas.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Congressional Democrats — including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California — are trying to block the deal, after being informed of it earlier this year by the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The fund was created by Congress in 1964 to safeguard natural areas and public lands, and often works to acquire lands to add to national parks.

A fact sheet on the project reviewed by The Times identified the parcel by a former name, the “Hazel Green Ranch,” and said the landowner is seeking to acquire an “interest” in land within the park in order to build a new road connecting “a planned commercial development” to Big Oak Flat Road, an existing federally owned road that “provides access to the park and is a major route to Yosemite Valley.”

The fact sheet said the National Park Service does not have the authority to grant that interest, but has been working with the landowner to facilitate an “exchange” of the land for some other, unidentified parcel of land that is beneficial to the U.S., as allowed under law for federal land swaps.

The project has been identified to lawmakers, without explanation, as a “priority.” Both Padilla and Schiff have objected to it, and Padilla’s office said it is working with Senate Appropriations Committee staff to block the deal.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund exists to acquire land and interests in land in order to safeguard natural areas, water resources, and cultural heritage — and to provide recreation opportunities for all Americans,” Padilla said in a statement to The Times. “Projects should be chosen on merit, not on an applicant’s connections to high-ranking Trump administration officials.”

Schiff, in his own statement, said Yosemite is “one of California’s natural wonders, and must be protected from further development.”

He said the Trump administration “appears hellbent on moving forward in the face of opposition from the public, Congress and the courts,” and that “the only thing the administration cares about is whether there is money involved.”

The company behind the private development is Nevada-based real estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital. According to Federal Election Commission records, Kingsbarn CEO Jeff Pori is a donor to Trump, the Republican National Committee and other Republican groups.

Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Clinton, represents Kingsbarn, and said the notion the project is moving forward due to Trump administration pressure and Pori’s political contributions despite being environmentally detrimental is false.

He said Kingsbarn wants to build “upscale, single-family houses” on its property, but hasn’t so far because residents would have to drive 28 miles using current roads to reach the park.

To cut that distance down and make the development more feasible, it asked the National Park Service to purchase an 11-mile strip of land within Yosemite to build a shorter, more direct access road, Davis said.

The Park Service responded by saying the company could not purchase park land directly, but could purchase other nearby land of equal or greater value, and then swap it for the park land, Davis said.

It is now working with the Interior Department to identify such land, and is “very close” to doing so, Davis said — calling it a “pro environmental solution” that follows federal law and has “nothing to do” with Pori’s politics.

The White House referred questions about the proposed deal to the Interior Department.

In its statement to The Times, the Interior Department said the NOTUS story “relies on anonymous allegations to manufacture a political narrative that simply is not true. There has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome, and claims suggesting the Department is secretly working to hand over National Park Service land to a private developer are false.”

If a proposal does advance, the statement said, the department will follow established procedures with “transparency and public involvement consistent with federal law. Anonymous speculation does not change those facts.”

The department did not respond to a request for more details as to the proposal.

The land in question represents a tiny portion of the sprawling Yosemite National Park, which is nearly 750,000 acres in total — or roughly the size of Rhode Island. Still, slicing off any piece of the California wilderness — considered a crown jewel in the national park system — runs counter to promises from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

“My Administration is committed to protecting every acre of our lands and preserving the cleanest air and water in the world,” Trump said in a presidential message on Monday.

Ceding federal lands is also anathema to land preservation groups, which expressed dismay at the idea that any piece of Yosemite might be lost, no matter how small.

Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said that the NOTUS reporting was “consistent” with what his organization has been hearing “for several months” — and would be inconsistent with public desires for national park lands.

“The American people have consistently said that our public lands, especially our national parks, are not for sale,” he said. “If Secretary Burgum spent more time listening to Americans instead of indulging President Trump’s whims on the National Mall, he’d understand what a terrible idea this is.”

Jayson O’Neill, a spokesman for the group Save Our Parks, said the proposed deal as described by NOTUS represented the latest attempt by the Trump administration and Burgum to gut the Park Service and “then quietly cede treasured park land to private developers, thinking nobody’s watching.”

“National parks belong to the American people, not monied developers who are part of Trump’s donor class,” O’Neill said.

Mark Rose, senior Sierra Nevada program manager for the National Parks Conservation Assn., slammed the proposed land swap as a “secretive, backroom deal” and “an attack on the American people that own this national park.”

He said Yosemite is already facing overcrowding due to “run-away lodging” development outside its borders and the Trump administration’s decision to do away with the park’s reservation system, and a new development would “exacerbate the chaos.”

“The National Park Service needs to get back to prioritizing conservation, not helping bulldoze land, cut down towering trees and construct a luxury development that will harm Yosemite’s wildlife and increase wildfire risks,” Rose said.

PHOENIX — The Trump administration has begun work on a project to build a stretch of border wall in southern Arizona along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation, pushing ahead with one of its signature projects despite protests from the tribe.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the area is a dangerous smuggling route and that building the wall will close a longstanding security gap. But members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose membership spans both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, have accused the administration of trespassing and say the construction will damage land sacred to the tribe.

The wall segment is part of a $46 billion effort by the Trump administration to fill the border with 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers, and technology designed to stop undocumented immigration and smuggling.

But as building efforts have ramped up, the administration has run into opposition from landowners, environmental groups, and Native American tribes who say construction is violating property rights and desecrating sacred Indigenous sites.

The Tohono O’odham Nation said in a statement Tuesday that about 20 Customs and Border Protection officers, working with contractors, went onto the tribe’s land early that morning to begin construction.

Drone videos published by nation officials show roughly 14 vehicles and an industrial drill at one of the sites.

A federal judge permitted the government to move forward with construction earlier this month, but the tribe says the contractors are violating tribal codes and trespassing to access the border wall site.

The Tohono O’odham Nation, which has 37,000 members including thousands who live in Mexico, sued the federal government in June in an attempt to block construction of the border wall. The tribe argued that the wall would cause “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks sacred to the tribe, and would alter boundaries of their nation.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled in favor of the government, noting that the border wall would be built on a 60-foot wide buffer zone of federally owned land called the Roosevelt Reservation.

“Defendants have not yet articulated plans to construct outside the Roosevelt Reservation,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

The Tohono O’odham Nation said that even if construction were contained to the Roosevelt Reservation, driving onto tribal land to access the area still constitutes trespassing.

“The contractors, who are on the Nation illegally, were accompanied by agents as they worked on three separate locations near the border with drill trucks to conduct soil sampling and other activities,” tribal officials said in a statement.

The CBP agents were masked, armed, and set up a vehicle blockade to stop tribal police from removing the contractors, according to Tohono O’odham officials. The nation had set up “No Trespassing” signs before Tuesday.

So far, no physical confrontations between police or members of the Tohono O’odham Nation have been reported.

CBP defended the need for the wall in a statement Tuesday, saying the desert spanning the Tohono O’odham Nation is a corridor for drug smuggling.

“The project will close one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors on the Southwest border: remote desert that has facilitated decades of drug loads, migrant deaths, and cartel activity,” said CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott.

Tribal officials said they’re exploring further legal actions in an effort to remove contractors.

SLSCO Ltd., the Texas-based construction company building the section in Arizona, has secured over $390 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security to build the border wall since 2023.

Schuettler writes for the Associated Press.

When Dolly Parton sang, “Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living,” it was an understatement.

The legendary country singer, who died Tuesday after a brief battle with cancer, “worked up until the day she died” on multiple projects, her longtime manager Danny Nozell said in a statement to The Times.

“She loved seeing her dreams come to life, and loved knowing her work brought people joy,” Nozell said. “Ever the planner, Dolly worked with the team that she handpicked, for the past several years to build a project roadmap that will guide us for decades to come.”

The projects vary from a line of Dolly Parton dolls, which will launch online Sept. 15, to a biopic and a docuseries with release dates to be revealed later. A scripted show and an animated series based on Parton’s “Billy the Kid” book franchise are scheduled to be released on a date to be determined.

Other projects announced were Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop — a travel center in Cornersville, Tenn. — which will celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week beginning Sept. 13; and Dolly Parton’s SongTeller Hotel in Nashville, where patrons can book stays starting Sept. 14, with a grand opening scheduled for Sept. 29.

The Parton estate will open the 20,000-square-foot Dolly’s Life of Many Colors Museum at the SongTeller Hotel on Sept. 29 and launch Dolly’s Cup of Ambition Coffee online on the same day. The coffee line will be available at retail stores starting spring 2027.

Dolly’s Dog Treats are on the calendar for early 2027, along with Dolly Bedding & Home Decor debuting in the third quarter of next year.

Broadway previews for “Dolly: A True Original Musical” will begin in December, with opening night scheduled for Jan. 19, 2027. The estate is also collaborating again with fashion designer Kendra Scott for a “9 to 5” jewelry collection.

Nozell guaranteed Parton’s fans that if any unreleased music, products, books, experiences and campaigns are launched through the official Dolly Parton channel, each was personally stamped on by the singer.

“As the leader of the team responsible for overseeing her legacy, we will ensure the many dreams she had yet to fulfill are brought to life,” Nozell said. “Many projects were in various stages of development, and we want to be transparent with her fans about this fact.”

NOT ONE but three new theme parks have been given the go-ahead to open in Europe, which they claim could even rival Disney.

A deal between France and Saudi Arabia for three theme parks near Paris has been announced.

The project is expected to cost €6bn (£5.13bn) overall and will include a manga-themed park, inspired by the popular Japanese franchise Dragon Ball Z.

Little details have been revealed about the theme parks, but local media has reported that it could be built on the site of the former Mirapolis park in Val-d’Oise, which has been closed for 35 years.

The opening dates for the parks are not known yet, but they will be built near Cergy-Pontoise and expected to take years to construct.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that the development would be “extraordinary” and would create a “new global destination”.

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He also said: “Nothing like this has been seen since Disneyland Paris.”

The project is thought to have transpired from a conversation between Macron and bin Salman about their love for Japanese comics.

It is expected to create around 22,000 jobs.

Despite no details being revealed about the new theme parks yet, it is believed that the Dragon Ball Z theme park could be based around the park of the same theme currently being built by Qiddiya in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Riyadh theme park is set to have seven zones including Turtle House, Capsule Corporation and Beerus’s Planet.

There is also set to be a 70-metre high rollercoaster running through the park.

Overall, the Riyadh theme park is expected to have 30 themed attractions, five of which are set to be next generation rides.

Guests will be able to stay in themed hotels as well, and there will be a number of restaurants at the park.

“Wonder Man” star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has addressed the recent discussions regarding Marvel’s track record on projects led by Black actors after the abrupt cancellation of his show.

“I think the optics are obvious,” the Emmy award-winning actor told Vanity Fair in an interview published Thursday. “If I’m a big business, if I’m Disney, if I’m Marvel, I don’t want to be attached to these optics. So it should be a priority to change that narrative and to do what it takes to responsibly change that narrative with quality stories, with quality resources.”

In “Wonder Man,” Abdul-Mateen portrayed Simon Williams, a struggling actor with superpowers that he had to keep secret so he could work in Hollywood. The grounded series — more a love letter to Hollywood than superhero spectacle — was well-received by critics and fans. But just weeks after Abdul-Mateen was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show, “Wonder Man” was canceled despite the announcement that the series had been picked up for a second season back in March.

Abdul-Mateen was told that the decision “had something to do with the viewership numbers.”

“I wasn’t told what those numbers were, but ultimately, for whatever reason it was, I think they decided that it didn’t make sense for business, and that’s the decision that we live with and we keep on marching forward,” the actor said to Vanity Fair.

Marvel’s abrupt reversal on “Wonder Man” invited scrutiny from fans who had also noted how “Blade” had been stuck in development for years. The film, which had been announced in 2019, was set to star Mahershala Ali as the titular human-vampire hybrid.

“If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it,” Ali said to GQ in a recent interview, confirming he had “moved on” from the project. (Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said during a recent podcast appearance that he felt like “a gigantic loser and failure” for not getting “Blade” made.)

Fans have also pointed to other Black characters whose storylines have been sidelined or left unresolved over the years, such as Ironheart and Monica Rambeau.

There is one Black-led project for which Marvel has ambitions plans, though.

Marvel recently stoked excitement for the “Black Panther” franchise at San Diego Comic-Con with the announcement that David Jonsson has been cast as T’Challa’s son and the new King of Wakanda. “Black Panther 3,” from filmmaker Ryan Cooger, will be released on Dec. 15, 2028.

Despite his disappointment, Abdul-Mateen said in his Vanity Fair interview that he understands “business and life move on.” But he also believes there are things Marvel and the industry can learn from “Wonder Man.”

“I felt that our show did have quality story, did have quality resources, did have quality actors and people, and did produce quality results that the viewers responded to positively, that the [Emmy] voters responded to positively,” he said. “So our show does deserve some study and some real, hard information about why a show like this did not continue forward, because it had all of the ingredients that one would want in a show.”

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is allowing the White House to continue construction on President Trump’s $400 million ballroom project for now.

Roberts signed a temporary order on Friday allowing work to continue while the court considers an emergency appeal from the Trump administration.

Lower courts had ordered a halt to the project, finding that it must have congressional approval. That ruling was set to take effect on Friday. Roberts signed the order because he oversees appeals of Washington-based cases.

The case comes before the nation’s highest court as Trump, a Republican, exercises unparalleled assertions of presidential power and increasingly seeks to mold the capital in his own image.

The Trump administration has scored a series of victories on the high court’s emergency docket, though the justices have ruled against some of the president’s signature policies after fuller review.

The administration has argued that the president has total authority to renovate the White House and other federal buildings as he sees fit and that the ballroom project must be completed due to national security concerns.

When Trump first announced the plans for a new ballroom, he did not emphasize national security. He said the project would be funded by private donations, including from himself.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation argues that Trump has no unilateral authority to undertake the work, which has included demolishing the East Wing. Lawyers for the preservation group accused the White House of trying to “outrun the courts” by accelerating construction.

The Trump administration says 65% of work has already been completed on the planned 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom, where the East Wing stood before the president ordered its demolition. Crews are working 20 hours a day, seven days a week on the project, where about $200 million in private donations has been spent or committed, Justice Department attorneys said in court documents.

A district court judge ordered a stop to aboveground construction of the planned ballroom in April in a ruling that was suspended before being upheld by an appeals court panel. The order from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington allows belowground work on bunkers and military installations to continue. Leon was nominated by President George W. Bush, a Republican.

Two appeals-court judges appointed by Democratic presidents found the project was for Congress to decide and “not a matter for Executive self-help.” A third judge, appointed by Trump, found that the preservationist group that challenged the project had no legal right to sue.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer picked up on that argument, calling the decision halting the work “extraordinary and unlawful.” He said the completion of the project was “vitally required by national security.”

Whitehurst and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press.

Oscar winner Sir Anthony Hopkins has reflected on his mortality, his Welsh roots, his new Life Is A Dream album and his battle with alcoholism. in a ITV News special which airs today

Music is his first love but it’s taken Sir Anthony Hopkins 88 years to land a record deal.

The Welsh star tells ITV News Arts Editor Nina NannarIt his latest project is “is beyond his belief” in an exclusive interview in LA, the place he’s called home for five decades.

His album, Life is a Dream, is being released by Decca Classics, and it reflects where he is in his life right now – remembering his Welsh roots, his parents, the streets where he grew up, the cinema in Port Talbot where he discovered the movies.

Hopkins arrived for the interview accompanied by his wife, Stella Arroyave, and his niece, Tara, both of whom inspired tracks on the album. “Hello Nina,” he says. “You were born in Scunthorpe, weren’t you?.

It is later revealed that Scunthorpe means a lot to him because it was where his actress friend Joan Plowright, the wife of Laurence Olivier, was also born.

Although he appears a little physically frail, he is bright, funny, perky even and his memory of dates and his acting history going back to the early days in repertory theatre, is truly impressive.

Anthony started playing the piano at the age of four, on an instrument his mother got for him, but he had no technical training then. He just knew he loved it.

Even in the early 60s, when an actor at the Liverpool Playhouse, he would spend downtime in the Green Room backstage, playing the piano, and a couple of the tracks that started there have made it onto his new album.

Life Is A Dream has six decades of compositions, all brought together and performed by acclaimed conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Its origins lie in a gesture Hopkins never saw coming. Without telling her husband, his wife Stella sent one of his compositions, And The Waltz Goes On, to the Dutch violinist and conductor Andre Rieu.

He orchestrated it, and it too is on the album with 10 other compositions by the actor. Beginning a collaboration that ultimately helped bring Hopkins’ music to a wider audience.

For Hopkins, the album is also an act of remembrance. Born and raised in the Margam area of Port Talbot, South Wales, he describes a childhood shaped by modest beginnings as the son of a baker. At school, he struggled academically and recalls being labelled a “dunce” with little prospect of success.

Today, he rejects the idea that academic achievement alone defines a person’s potential. He credits a determination to prove doubters wrong, including his father, as a powerful motivation throughout his life and career.

Several tracks on the album, including Bracken Road and My Fatherland – all about the streets where he lived, pay tribute to the landscapes and communities that shaped him. Hopkins says he regularly uses Google Maps Street View to revisit the streets of Margam, retracing the roads of his childhood and reconnecting with memories of a young boy who often felt like an outsider.

Full interview can be seen on ITV News YouTube channel with an extended edit on ITV Evening News at 6:30pm on Friday, August 21

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge said Tuesday that paint tests on a 19th-century historic landmark building next to the White House can go ahead, advancing President Trump’s plans to add a new coat of white paint to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, for now.

Trump has suggested the massive building be painted as part of his push to remake and beautify the nation’s capital. Planners said the paint job would cost at least $7.5 million.

The proposal to paint the building has alarmed preservationists, architects, historians and others who argue that granite is not meant to be painted and that paint would trap moisture and degrade the stone.

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich said plaintiffs in an ongoing case had not shown that minimal tests planned for the historic building would cause irreparable harm if those tests go ahead.

The plaintiffs, which include cultural preservationist groups, had sought a restraining order and a temporary injunction to stop the Trump administration from conducting tests and other preparatory work.

At issue was whether that work would get ahead of a larger question before the court over whether the General Services Administration could delegate its authority for such a project to the Executive Office.

“The plaintiffs’ motion rises and falls on irreparable harm,” Friedrich said from the bench. The test areas would include about 8 square feet of the building’s massive exterior and several panels that can’t be seen by the public, she said.

Friedrich said that while she was allowing that test to move ahead, she would not hesitate to step in and rule if the administration moved beyond the limited testing. She asked the parties to provide a status report by next Tuesday and ordered regular reports following that.

Gregory Werkheiser, a lawyer with Cultural Heritage Partners and one of the plaintiffs, said that while he and others challenging the painting plan were disappointed, “the reasons we brought this case are untouched by today’s decision.”

The larger issue, he said, is whether “the president has taken power illegally from the GSA and put it in his office in terms of this project and the implications of that. If that holds true for historic properties around the country, that could be devastating.”

Fields writes for the Associated Press.

The Trump administration has moved heavy-duty construction equipment into Big Bend National Park and started work on a border security project despite bipartisan concern about damage to the environmentally sensitive area of west Texas.

Bulldozers and other machinery appeared last week in the remote park, which sits about 300 miles southeast of El Paso and includes one of the least crossed stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Laiken Jordahl, a national public lands advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued the Biden and Trump administrations seeking to halt border-wall construction.

Jordahl said he and other activists watching the work have seen bulldozers plowing through vegetation “clearing a path for the barriers, the wall or whatever is going in.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection “is building an access road, improving existing roads, installing detection technology and placing vehicle barriers in limited, strategic locations,” Commissioner Rodney Scott, the agency’s top official, said in an email Thursday. “We are securing this park to protect its legacy — keeping it safe, secure, and pristine so American families can enjoy the beauty of our country, free from fear of cartel activity.”

The Trump administration is moving ahead with the project over the objections of not just environmental activists and others opposed to the crackdown on immigration, but also local residents, many of them Republicans who otherwise support President Trump, as well as retiring GOP Sen. John Cornyn. They note that the rugged terrain — mostly desert with steep ravines and scrubland covered in creosote bushes and prickly pear cactus — serves as a natural barrier from anyone trying to cross from Mexico, making the infrastructure unnecessary.

They say the construction and equipment will mar the landscape and imperil the animals who live in the park, including javelinas, ringtails, mountain lions and desert bighorn sheep.

In June, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin formally waived all environmental laws and reviews that could otherwise slow any work in the park.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office has said he supports using every tool available to help deter illegal immigration, including deploying technology in rugged and isolated areas such as Big Bend.

Trump has long pledged to build a wall along all of the roughly 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico, though Customs and Border Protection has repeatedly said it wouldn’t build his preferred 30-foot barrier in the environmentally sensitive park.

Earlier this year, the administration issued a $1.7-billion contract for the project in Big Bend. The vehicle barriers set to be installed are typically 5-foot steel posts set a few feet apart and intended to block cars or trucks from crossing.

The park is part of the Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector, which has for decades been one of the least crossed areas along the whole of the border. In June, agents there made 148 arrests. Since Oct. 1, the start of the government’s fiscal year, agents have made 1,509 arrests, about 1.5% of all apprehensions along the Mexican border, according to Customs and Border Patrol arrest data.

Brandon Herrera, the GOP candidate for a House district that includes the park, met with White House and Department of Homeland Security officials in March to pitch a less-invasive “alternative solution.”

In a letter this month, Cornyn asked Mullin to meet with local officials who have voiced concerns over the project, citing complaints about its effect on the region’s natural beauty, wildlife, cultural sites and economy. Cornyn wrote that his “constituents believe that the 1,000-foot riverbank cliffs and remote Big Bend terrain offers its own source of deterrence for any illegal migrants crossing into the United States.”

James Talarico, a Democratic state representative running to succeed Cornyn in the U.S. Senate, echoed the Republican’s concerns and called the project irresponsible spending.

“This monument to corruption represents wasteful, irresponsible government spending that no Texan asked for, enriching wealthy contractors without making Texans one bit safer,” he said.

Texas’ Big Bend region relies on tourism as an economic driver, with more than 568,000 visitors to the national park in 2025. Local businesses in Terlingua, a small gateway town west of the park, have revolted against the proposed wall, with workers at one restaurant wearing shirts that read “No Al Muro” — No to the Wall.

Caldwell and Lovinger write for Bloomberg.

The White House defended reports it planned to spend nearly a $1bn on controversial construction projects.

The Trump administration has responded to controversy over construction and expansion projects at the White House by saying the work was “long-overdue and necessary” and “inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets”.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has long insisted construction is being funded by private donors and is necessary for security reasons. But on Wednesday, The Washington Post cited documents it obtained that showed the administration was planning to spend nearly $1bn on the construction work, which includes a large new ballroom to replace much of the White House’s East Wing.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle, in a statement to Al Jazeera, cited recent security incidents, including attempted attacks on the president and events around the 250th anniversary of US independence, as reasons for the work.

Ingle said the work was being done in coordination with the Secret Service and White House Military Office. He also said approximately $400m in funding for the new ballroom was coming from “President Trump and generous American patriots”.

About $875m has been put into the White House Repair and Restoration account, which typically has only several million dollars and is used for routine maintenance and upkeep. Some $500m of that money came from the Secret Service and the White House Military Office, tasked with securing the president and his family, as well as top US officials. Another $305m, according to The Post, came from private donations, while the provenance of another $70m was not indicated.

The White House reconstruction project has faced scrutiny from lawmakers, as well as courts, over concerns that vested interests, including private businesses seeking government contracts, are paying for the work in exchange for government favours. A federal judge in Washington, DC, last week ordered a halt to work specifically for the ballroom, saying it needed Congressional approval under existing law. In June, the advocacy group Public Citizen said it found corporate donors to the project had received more than $50bn in government contracts during the previous six months.

It’s a few minutes after 10 a.m. on a recent morning and the thermometer is closing in on 95 degrees, but Marc Papas isn’t fazed. “The heat doesn’t bother me much,” he said, unloading his bicycle — a blue and yellow 1989 Trek 400 — from the trunk of his car on a side street in Reseda. “I just keep going.”

Papas adjusted the heart monitor underneath his T-shirt, checked the bike computer attached to his handlebars, then set off on the day’s ride; he’s taken it upon himself to bike every public street in Los Angeles. The Phoenix native has completed over 78% (about 5,840 miles) after two years. He calls it “The Project,” and says there’s about 7,516.07 miles in total, when you include various enclaves and adjacent cities like Beverly Hills or Burbank. Today he’s headed toward the longest continuous bike lane in Southern California — a stretch of Reseda Boulevard. It’s an unexpected amenity in a part of the city that seems otherwise hostile to pedestrians and cyclists, but one Papas wants incorporated around more of Los Angeles.

“Somebody once asked me on a Reddit Ask Me Anything what is one street you think needs a bike lane,” he said. “I wrote him a whole essay in response, because I can’t just say one street.”

Marc Papas estimates he covers about 75 new, unique miles each week, putting him on track to complete the entire city after nearly three years of riding.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Marc Papas sets his blue and yellow 1989 Trek 400 near a graffiti post along the Los Angeles River.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

After a few blocks on Reseda, Papas turned back into the neighborhood centered around Etiwanda and started tracing loops across the blocks. It’s his standard pattern for covering any area he rides for the Project. “I base my routes on a math theory called the Eulerian Path,” said Papas, a mechanical engineer by training. Each new segment of the city he rides is generally a rectangle bound by major streets. “Then, I start with loops around the edges and work my way in,” he continued. “It’s the most efficient way to cover an area without overlapping.”

Today’s ride would yield eight new miles for Papas. “So, I’ll be about 12 miles away from 80%,” he calculated.

Papas started his biking project almost by accident. He moved to Los Angeles in late 2020 after finishing his PhD at Georgia Tech. He had taken up biking around Atlanta as part of triathlon training and worried he wouldn’t be able to continue once arriving in L.A.

“I remember having a sort of fear around it,” said Papas. “I’d heard it’s just so car-filled and dangerous to be on the roads.” But riding along the beach and around much of the Westside quickly changed his mind. With perfect weather year-round and a mostly flat topography, why wasn’t everyone in L.A. riding bikes?

He was soon cycling to work in Monrovia from his apartment in Pasadena, and biking more than he ever had in his life. “Sometimes friends would be surprised to learn I have a car,” he said. “They thought I bike everywhere because I don’t drive.”

Then, on Dec. 31, 2023, Papas decided to get in one last bike ride for the year. He rode a section of San Marino that he and friends refer to as “The Mitochondria” for the shape the streets make when viewed in the tracking app Strava. After riding the Mitochondria, he decided to keep going — making a path up each street and block — until he was satisfied. It gave him the idea to ride every mile of street in San Marino. “It’s only 60 miles total,” said Papas. “That seemed doable.”

“There are beautiful pieces of art on the walls that you wouldn’t imagine,” says Marc Papas, who has spotted murals throughout the city.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Marc Papas cruises along the Los Angeles River bike path.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Finishing the 60 miles of San Marino led to completing the 400 miles of Pasadena. He next found himself taking detours to cover new streets in Northeast Los Angeles as he’d ride to and from Koreatown Run Club meet-ups at Los Angeles Community College. But it wasn’t clear to himself, or anyone else, what he was doing. “Friends were seeing my Strava activities and texting me like, ‘What the heck are you doing, man?,’” Papas recalled. One friend jokingly asked if he was drawing the Nazca lines across the city, but Papas wrote it off as just trying to clock extra mileage. “There’s a level of self-deception, because riding the whole city of Los Angeles seemed impossible to do,” he said. Still, his treks around Northeast L.A., East Hollywood and Los Feliz were starting to build up mileage — he had completed about 18% of the city.

When Papas drove out to North Hollywood in November 2024 specifically to track new mileage, he realized he had crossed the Rubicon. “At that point, I can’t lie to myself anymore about what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m driving out to these places to get miles more efficiently. When that happened, I was like, all right, I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Biking is like a superpower to gain familiarity with your neighborhood,” says Marc Papas.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

As Papas covered more and more of the city, he began growing an appreciation for various architecturally-significant neighborhoods as well as the many murals across large swaths of South and East L.A. “There are beautiful pieces of art on the walls that you wouldn’t imagine,” he said. “I want to take people to these places and do a mural tour.” He was especially moved when he was riding in Pacoima and saw a Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens mural that memorializes the tragic plane crash that killed both Holly and Valens. “So many of these murals are commemorating people and events that are culturally important to those specific areas,” he added.

The bike rides were connecting him to his city in ways he never expected. “I’m not necessarily saying that everybody needs to go out and ride their bikes,” said Papas, though he’d certainly love it if more Angelenos did. Instead, he hopes his biking project is showing people what’s possible — in the most extreme way. Yes, you can bike in Los Angeles, as many Angelenos often do out of necessity. It’s even enjoyable. And yes, you can do it across every single mile of the city, even if the cycling infrastructure isn’t perfect yet. “I think to me, success would be if people just go out and explore their own neighborhood,” he said. He views cycling as a form of civic engagement and a way to see things otherwise invisible when speeding by in a car. For beginners, Papas recommends sticking to bike paths and joining cycling groups. More experienced riders should venture out into new areas, said Papas. “Biking is like a superpower to gain familiarity with your neighborhood, but it just needs to be unleashed.”

“At this point, I can’t lie to myself anymore … I’m in it for the long haul,” says Marc Papas. He’s already clocked thousands of miles on his mission to cover every street in L.A.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Last September, Papas passed the 50% mark of his project and estimates he’s been covering an additional 1% (or about 75 new, unique miles) every week since. That puts him on pace to finish sometime around mid-December — should everything go smoothly — nearly three years after he first began. Does he know what his final mile will be? “Eldred Street in Mount Washington,” he said. He notes it’s one of the steepest streets in the entire country.

“It’’s a fitting end, like a final boss [in a video game], just one last all-out hard effort to completely finish things off,” Papas said. “It gives me goosebumps to think that would be the time and place that this years-long project would be done.” Of course, there’s always the rest of Los Angeles County to conquer.

It’s been seven years since Mahershala Ali was announced as Marvel’s Blade, but the acclaimed actor says that his involvement in the project is officially dead and buried.

According to the two-time Oscar winner, if the project does get off the ground, it won’t be with him. Ali told GQ during an interview published on Friday that he has “moved on” from the plan to play the iconic vampire hunter that Wesley Snipes made famous in the ‘90s and early aughts.

“If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it,” Ali told GQ.

Last month, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige told the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that he wasn’t proud to have let the project slip through his fingers, saying, “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.”

In the same interview, Feige said he was very excited to have gotten Snipes back “for a time” as Blade in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

In Snipes’ scene in the 2024 Marvel hit, he may have answered any lingering questions on the matter just before blowing up a building with a missile launcher: “There’s only been one Blade,” he said, “there’s only ever gonna be one Blade.”

The project had notably gone through a slew of writers and directors; writer-director Bassam Tariq stepped away in 2022, work was stalled due to the writers’ strike in 2023, and the project just couldn’t seem to get its bearings amid all the brouhaha. During Ali’s interview with GQ, the outlet asked if “Blade” was any closer to becoming a reality.

“Not with me. The best way I can answer this question is, when I look at what is for me, is it was either this or that — and I’ll take this,” he said, referring to “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” his forthcoming action-adventure film penned and directed by Tariq that hits theaters Sept. 25.

“No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not,” he continued. “For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for. I don’t really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways.”

Though Ali seemed to be at peace with what happened with “Blade,” he still threw some shade Marvel’s way.

“Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie,” he said. “So we’re not doing the movie.

“When I look at this and ‘Blade,’ I couldn’t have done both, and the reason this even exists is because that project fell apart and Bassam had the time, space, energy and focus to go and write this and then re-approach me,” he continued. “And I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for ‘Blade.’ In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself and I. But I feel ready to move on from the ‘Blade’ questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”

This building was so loathed that it inspired a construction ban.

Bursting skyward from one of the most iconic skylines in the world is a building that was so hated after its construction, a law was passed to stop any more like it being built.

Tour Montparnasse is a towering, 210 metre high office skyscraper which juts up above the Montparnasse area of Paris. It was built in 1969, and is the fourth tallest building in all of France still to this day.

The tower does have an observation deck which offers views across Paris. However, there is a common joke amongst Parisians that it is the most beautiful view in the city purely because it is the only place from which you cannot see the tower itself.

Designed by architects Eugène Beaudouin Urbain Cassan and Louis de Hoÿm de Marien, the tower is a simple monolithic office block that is at odds with the rest of the surrounding buildings.

It was so strongly disliked that two years after its construction was finished, a law was passed banning the construction of any building over seven storeys in Paris.

This law stayed in place up until 2015 and was reinstated in 2023 after the construction of the Tour Triangle, the 180 metre tall pyramid-shaped glass skyscraper at Porte de Versailles.

The construction of the building was delayed by 12 years due to the backlash and multiple legal and planning battles.

In 2017, Paris approved a £680 million renovation project to revitalize Tour Montparnasse by stripping it back to its frame and replacing the dark facade with transparent glazing.

There were plans for sky gardens to soften the outline, and openings to allow natural ventilation to the building.

There was even a plan to transform the upper floors into a luxury hotel, but the entire project was scrapped earlier this week.

According to sotiraparis, this is because the asset manager of the building told the co-owners that it no longer wished to pay for the transformation and instead wants to opt for a more modest renovation which isn’t so expensive.

The future of the building now looks uncertain. A new team of architects will need to make a new plan for the renovation, but the building permit expires in November of this year, which makes things even more challenging.

There has been no timeline announced for the new project as of yet.

A 15-year campaign led by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to conserve Watts Towers has run out of budget at the same time that a $22-million renovation of the campus is poised to take flight. The situation highlights what community organizers and the site’s leadership say is a piecemeal approach to the protection and preservation of one of the city’s most important cultural landmarks.

For decades, the city of Los Angeles and private foundations have invested in preserving the towers, the 102-year-old masterpiece of folk art built by Italian immigrant Sabato “Simon” Rodia. But while the landmark itself underwent years of painstaking conservation, which was recently halted at 90% complete, the arts campus surrounding it evolved in fits and starts.

Now, after 14 years of planning, an equally ambitious investment is being made to transform the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus (WTACC), which has served as an essential cultural and educational center for more than 50 years. The work will mark the first major upgrade of the WTACC since it opened in 1970, and leaders hope the transformation continues uninterrupted until it reaches the finish line.

“This is about investing in the people of Watts and creating a space the community can be proud of,” Mayor Karen Bass wrote in an email. “Thanks to the dedication of our state, county and local partners, philanthropic supporters and community organizations, we’re one step closer to creating a greener, healthier and more vibrant campus that honors the legacy of Watts while serving generations of Angelenos to come.”

The campus renovation is slated to break ground in October, with completion targeted before the 2028 Summer Olympics. The project is funded through a patchwork of public and private sources, including a $10.1 million investment from the Bezos Earth Fund, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Amazon Executive Chair Jeff Bezos.

The redesign will reshape how visitors experience the campus. More than 30,000 square feet of park space will be added along E. 107th Street, while climate-resilient landscaping will reduce flooding, improve stormwater management and create cooler public spaces. More seating and shade will be added to its amphitheater, new public art will be commissioned, and additional walkways, gathering areas and 200 trees will make the towers the physical centerpiece of what will be a 5-acre campus.

“It’s been the right time for a long time,” said WTACC Director Rosie Lee Hooks of the project’s long gestation during a recent interview.

A girl plays near the Watts Towers at the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which is poised to undergo a $22-million renovation just as funding for the restoration on the towers themselves has run out.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The center offers free art, film and music classes for students and seniors, houses an art gallery and hosts two annual music festivals. Thousands of artists, filmmakers and musicians have passed through its doors as students and instructors.

Hooks, who has led the center since 2010, said the project’s long timeline reflects more than bureaucracy.

“It took so long because we’re in Watts,” she said, noting that the neighborhood has faced decades of disinvestment dating back to the 1965 Watts uprising. “People are still scared to come down here. However, our community is very, very rich in culture.”

That history of underinvestment is reflected in the campus itself, supporters say.

“This is the story of development in Watts and other communities of color in Los Angeles, where racist planning practices, combined with a lack of investment in the city’s arts and culture facilities, create a haphazard approach to management and design,” Tori Kjer, executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (LANLT), wrote in an email. The organization has partnered with the city on the campus’ redesign since 2012, when planning began to incorporate a vacant lot adjoining the towers into the campus.

The landscape design echoes Rodia’s own artistic process. Over the course of 33 years beginning in 1921, he transformed thousands of disparate objects — including mosaic tiles, plates, glass, shells and pottery — into 17 interconnected structures, one of which rises more than 99 feet.

“Assemblage is the practice of creating something meaningful from many distinct parts,” Sara Zewde, founder and principal of Studio Zewde, the landscape architecture firm designing the campus, wrote in an email. “Rather than erase those histories and make the campus feel as though it had always been a singular space, we wanted the landscape to celebrate them.”

A model created by landscape design firm Studio Zewde of the proposed renovations to the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus. Groundbreaking is set to begin in October on the $22-million project.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The campus’ landscape has remained largely unchanged since WTACC opened. Since then, several buildings and public artworks have been added, but LANLT’s Kjer described the site as a “hodgepodge of concrete, worn-out planting areas and grass … with a disjointed flow and limited way-finding.”

Around the time that LANLT partnered with the city, a separate proposal to build a skate park on the adjoining lot drew community opposition and, according to Kjer, delayed the project by about four years. The skate park ultimately opened a few blocks away, allowing the parcel to become part of an expanded campus.

The WTACC project gained momentum in 2021 when California’s Proposition 68 Statewide Park Program awarded a $4.5 million grant. The following year, Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson) secured an additional $4 million in the state budget.

Once that funding was committed, “it was just a domino effect,” Gipson said, helping attract additional public and private investment.

“This will be a space that will be nourishing for the soul,” said Daniel Tarica, general manager of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the towers. “We’re finally going to be able to make the whole campus useful.”

A building at the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which will receive a $22-million renovation beginning in October. Community members and supporters say the work has been a long time coming.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Watts Towers attract about 40,000 visitors a year, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and were designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1990. In June, the site was added to the World Monuments Fund’s “Irreplaceable America” list of 10 endangered historic sites in the United States.

While Gipson hopes the renovated campus will attract additional international visitors, he also wants more Angelenos to discover one of the city’s defining cultural landmarks.

“The towers tell a story about Los Angeles,” Gipson said. “We want people to know that the Watts Towers are part of who Los Angeles is.”

Tarica said the project is designed to serve neighborhood residents as much as tourists.

“It’s a huge resource, and we have fought as a department, and as a city, to make sure that we have the funding to continue teaching … and programming,” he said.

A statue of Watts Towers creator Sabato “Simon” Rodia stands at the entrance to the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus, which is getting a $22-million renovation beginning in October, with the goal of completion in time for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

For Hooks, however, the renovation’s success will ultimately be measured by its impact on the surrounding community.

She sees the campus as filling a void left by decades of cuts to arts education while providing a place where residents can gather and learn.

“Our community cannot afford art, especially now with all of the issues around health, around food, around jobs, around ICE separating families,” she said.

The project’s funding is restricted to renovating the campus and does not include the conservation of the Watts Towers themselves. LACMA Deputy Director Diana Magaloni said about $412,000 is needed to finish the project. The city has allocated $150,000 for ongoing maintenance and monitoring, and both Magaloni and Tarica said they remain optimistic the conservation campaign and campus transformation will be completed before Los Angeles welcomes the world for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“It would be amazing to have this funding to be able to do the campus restoration and [the towers restoration] in preparation for us to be on the world stage,” Tarica said.

Heathrow Airport will be allowed to charge airlines more for its services to recover money spent on the early stages of its third runway project.

The aviation regulator is permitting the airport to claw back up to £320m through higher airport charges to airlines for each passenger, which is likely to end up being added to ticket prices.

A bidder which unsuccessfully put forward a rival design involving a shorter runway, Arora Group’s Heathrow West, will also be allowed to recover £4.1m pounds in costs.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Heathrow said safeguards would be put in place to protect consumers from unjustified costs.

At this stage, the costs being recovered are only for the early planning and design of the runway during 2025 and 2026.

Tim Johnson, the CAA’s director of consumers and markets, told the BBC: “We’ve announced that the first tranche of costs, which is to help with the planning of this, can be recovered from passengers. That’s up to a maximum of £320m.”

Heathrow airport will also be able to collect Heathrow West’s costs up to November last year by adding to its airport charges.

The CAA said allowing these costs to be recouped will result in the maximum airport charge per passenger increasing by around 15 pence in 2028, rising to an estimated 30 pence in the following years.

In November, the government announced it preferred the £33bn scheme put forward by the airport over Arora’s alternative plan.

At the time, the Department for Transport said Heathrow’s own proposal offered the most deliverable option, and the “greatest likelihood” of getting a decision on planning approval within this parliament.

The CAA’s director of consumers and markets, Tim Johnson, said today’s decision “strikes a balance between supporting the delivery of benefits to consumers through timely progress on Heathrow expansion, whilst also protecting them from undue increases in costs”.

The regulator said “safeguards” designed to monitor cost efficiency would include transparency and cost reporting requirements, and assurance by independent experts.

Airlines often complain that Heathrow is the world’s most most expensive hub airport, and have repeatedly voiced concern that the airport’s expansion plans will make it pricier.

The government hopes for a planning decision by 2029.

Plans for a third runway stretch back decades, with the government backing the plans in 2003.

However, the idea has also long faced opposition from climate campaigners, many local residents, and several politicians.

They worry an additional runway will increase air pollution, noise pollution, and breach the government’s legally binding climate commitments.

Germany has approved almost 800 million euros ($913m) in arms export licences to Israel in the first five months of 2026, more than in the previous 20 months combined, the government in Berlin has confirmed.

According to a Federal Foreign Office reply to a parliamentary question by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, nearly all the approvals were cleared in April and May.

The approvals portend a dramatic surge in weapons exports to Israel from one of the country’s most steadfast allies in Europe despite the German government’s insistence that it is concerned about the devastation wrought by Israel’s military in Gaza.

The big spend

The government said more than 60 percent of the value of the arms licences is earmarked for a single, unnamed “major maritime project”.

The most likely candidate, analysts said, is a submarine built by the German manufacturer TKMS.

The INS Drakon, a nuclear-capable Dolphin II-class submarine, underwent its maiden voyage last year at a shipyard in Kiel on the Baltic Sea. Its estimated value is 480 million euros ($548m). It was officially handed over to the Israeli Navy last week, according to German media reports.

According to several reports, it could feature a vertical launching system (VLS), enabling it to launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. Israel would become only the second navy after South Korea known to field a VLS on a modern, air-independent propulsion (AIP), conventionally powered submarine.

During its sea trials, the submarine’s tower was covered with tarpaulins and fibreglass plates to prevent observers from determining its weapons configuration. Strategically, submarines of this class could provide a sea-based second-strike capability – the ability of a country to fire back nuclear weapons after it has itself faced a nuclear attack.

In May, TKMS signed a memorandum of understanding on future collaboration with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private defence contractor.

The German Foreign Office and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, under whose purview arms export licences fall, both declined to comment on the matter.

Max Mutschler, a senior researcher with the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, told Al Jazeera: “Unfortunately, the fact that the federal government does not explicitly mention this is also typical of the lack of transparency surrounding arms exports.”

Last year, reports conflicted over whether the export licence for the submarine had been granted. The order dates back to 2012. While TKMS indicated approval, the German government denied it at the time.

Germany’s shifting positions

The hesitation might have stemmed from legal concerns surrounding proceedings against Germany at the International Court of Justice in The Hague as well as shifting public opinion in Germany, which has largely turned against arms exports to Israel. According to media reports, Germany is helping finance about 30 percent of the costs for the Drakon and roughly one-third of those for the future Dakar class.

This month, TKMS was also selected by Canada as the preferred bidder to build up to 12 submarines in what would be the largest order in TKMS’s history. The value of the vessels alone is estimated at 12 billion euros ($13.7bn) to 18 billion euros ($21bn).

For years, submarine deals with Germany have been under investigation by the Israeli judiciary over bribery allegations involving close associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ruth Rohde from the British research organisation Shadow World Investigations told Al Jazeera: “Israel has used German ships to fire at Gaza, to blockade and starve Gaza, and is using submarines to station nuclear weapons. At a time when Israel is waging brutal wars on its neighbours and is committing a genocide in Gaza, this submarine export would give Israel another tool in its arsenal of mass destruction.”

Berlin’s arms export policy towards Israel has been marked by reversals. In early August, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Germany would issue no further licences for military equipment that could be used by Israel in the Gaza Strip. By that time, an Al Jazeera investigation had shown that Germany had already exported almost $12m worth of weapons consignments to Israel since October 2023 when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

And the partial suspension proved short-lived: In November, the government lifted the restrictions and returned to reviewing export applications on a case-by-case basis. Even during the suspension, previously approved deliveries continued. In September, for instance, a $794,000 weapons consignment from Germany landed at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

Mutschler told Al Jazeera that some people in government “found the export of certain weapons to Israel problematic in light of numerous and credible reports of Israeli war crimes during the military operation in Gaza”. However, it was not enough to “bring about a generally restrictive arms export policy toward Israel”.

The economic calculation

Germany is one of the world’s largest arms exporters. In the first six months of 2026, licences were granted for arms worth 13.87 billion euros ($15.8bn), according to the Arms Export Report of the Ministry of Economics, published in mid-July. That is more than four times as much as during the same period in 2025. Ukraine remains the primary recipient of German arms exports.

Mutschler explained: “Arms exports have been and continue to be viewed by most federal governments primarily from an economic perspective and welcomed as a means of strengthening the defence industry.” He added: “The fact that these arms shipments can also be used to commit war crimes seems to play a significantly smaller role in the decision-making process.”

As a crisis in Germany’s economy – whose strength has relied primarily on exports, particularly in the car industry – has intensified, its defence industry has boomed in recent years. This development was publicly attributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine although plans for increased defence spending had already been prepared beforehand, according to reports.

Pieter D Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, sees this as a general trend. He told Al Jazeera: “The demand for arms in Europe has increased dramatically over the past few years whereas the demand for arms in many other parts of the world does not seem to be decreasing or is likely to increase.”

The German market remains very important to the country’s arms industry as Germany is set to double its military spending from well below 2 percent of it gross domestic product to a stated goal of 3.5 percent of its GDP within a few years, Wezeman explained. “Germany is now the largest military spender in Europe [not counting Russia], and its arms industry is a core component of the European military-industrial base.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has acknowledged in court documents that it canceled $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state,” including California and 15 other states that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The statement, included in a court filing last week in a lawsuit over the canceled funding, contradicts repeated assertions by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other officials that the projects were canceled because they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or had other problems that made them a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.

The Department of Energy said in the filing Wednesday that “DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants … was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State. DOE will not contend that it looked beyond the prime grantee(s) to consider the political identity or geographic distribution of downstream beneficiaries of the grant funds.”

The agency also said that it “accepts that the differential treatment resulting in the October 2025 termination of Blue State grants and the non-termination of non-Blue State grants was not based on a rational connection between the recipient’s location and/or place of performance and DOE’s past or current agency priorities.”

Democrats and environmental groups seized on the court filing, saying the administration had “weaponized” the federal government to kill good jobs and punish working families because of their political views.

A ‘corrupt abuse of power’

“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: it terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said in a joint statement. Both are high-ranking Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively.

“Weaponizing the federal government like this is outright un-American, and it’s hardworking families already struggling with sky-high costs who are suffering the consequences of this corrupt abuse of power,” Kaptur and Murray said.

They called on congressional Republicans to join them in holding the Trump administration “accountable for the President’s failure to look out for all Americans.”

The Energy Department announced in October that 321 funding awards across 223 projects were terminated, saying that after review, they “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable.”

The cuts, part of broader attacks from President Trump on climate programs and clean energy funding, slashed federal support for projects to build battery plants, develop hydrogen technology, upgrade the electric grid and capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Russell Vought, the White House budget director, highlighted the cutbacks in a social media post, saying that money “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Projects from many states were cut

Projects that were cut were located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. All 16 targeted states supported Harris, but Wright said the cuts were “business decisions” based on whether the projects were a good use of taxpayer money or not.

The cuts were immediately challenged in court, and more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, led by California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wrote a letter to the Energy Department’s acting inspector general requesting a formal investigation. The department’s internal watchdog launched an investigation in December.

Government lawyers had previously confirmed in a court filing late last year that the selection of grants in fact “was influenced by whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect … Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called ‘Blue States’).”

That filing came in a separate suit filed by clean-energy groups and the city of St. Paul, Minn., over the canceled funding. The most recent admission came in a case called Thakur vs. Trump that’s been ongoing since spring 2025. Federal lawyers acknowledged that they used keywords related to diversity, gender and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities.

Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, said the latest court filing shows “the Trump administration is brazenly admitting to a vindictive approach to cancelling much-needed energy infrastructure that ignores the job losses, air pollution and increasing bills that people are experiencing everywhere.”

Instead of “building the energy projects we desperately need,” billions of American taxpayer dollars are “going to line the pockets of a small handful of fossil fuel company CEOs,” Bender said, citing nearly $3 billion pledged by the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind projects in favor of fossil fuel projects such as natural gas and coal.

Daly writes for the Associated Press.

Tax incentives for film and television productions have not been enough to counter a still-sluggish environment for filming in the greater Los Angeles region, according to a new report.

For the three-month period that ended June 30, there were a total of 4,711 shoot days in the greater L.A. area, a nearly 13% decline from the same time last year, according to second-quarter data from FilmLA, a nonprofit that tracks local filming.

Compared to the five-year average, that second-quarter figure is a drop of about 36%.

Feature film shoots were down 20% in the second quarter compared to last year, while TV production decreased by 30%.

Incentivized productions are, however, making up a growing number of shoot days. For instance, 33% of the 443 total shoot days for feature films in the second quarter came from productions that received a tax credit. For the TV category, roughly 28% of the 1,607 shoot days last quarter were for projects that benefited from the tax incentive, particularly for dramas and comedies.

“While there is still much work to do, FilmLA’s quarterly report is proof that incentives are working: local incentivized productions are on the rise,” said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass in a statement.

Shoot days for TV dramas were down 6.4% to 732 days this past quarter, with just over 38% of those days coming from incentivized projects. TV comedy production saw a 43% decline to 57 days, with 21 of them coming from projects that received a tax credit. FilmLA noted that many local comedy productions are based on stage and not accounted for in the latest research.

“Because scripted television production supports more industry jobs than any other production category, helping to attract these types of productions is an important step towards bringing filming back to the region, restoring jobs and strengthening our local production economy,” said FilmLA Chief Executive Denise Gutches in a statement.

But any boost from the incentives was offset by serious declines for productions that are not eligible for the state’s film and TV tax credit program.

Shoot days for reality TV, for instance, were down 40% to 676 days compared to the second quarter of 2025. While large-scale competition shows are eligible for the state’s tax credit, such as Jimmy Kimmel’s “Schooled!” science experiment series for kids, other kinds of popular reality TV shows cannot apply for production incentives.

Filming for commercials in the second quarter was down nearly 22% from last year to 543 days. That total marked a 46% decline compared to the five-year average.

In a bright spot, FilmLA’s “other” category, which captures shoot days for student productions, still photography, documentaries and music videos, climbed 10% in the second quarter to 2,118 days.

That boost came largely from online content shoots, which rose by 47%. Filming for short films and documentaries were also higher in the second quarter, though those two segments had much smaller numbers of shoot days, FilmLA said.

So what is the project Codina sees at West Ham?

Guarino, who led Juventus to four successive Serie A titles, took over from Rehanne Skinner at West Ham midway through last season.

She stated in January that “step by step” they would improve their style of play, but it was clear that organisation and a focus on defensive stability was the priority.

But that could change this season.

“Honestly, I think that we’re going to see a West Ham that the fans will be proud of, and that’s the main thing for me,” said Codina.

“It will be a recognisable West Ham – a team that can play football, and that will try to have the ball as much as possible.

“With Rita, you could see their main characteristic was to defend, but I think that this season we’re going to try to improve on the ball.”

Codina says she already feels at home, having begun pre-season training this week, but it helps that she is still living in London.

The centre-back moved to England in 2023 after nine years at Barcelona, where she progressed from the club’s academy and into the first team.

Now she wants to give back to the community and is already giving up her time to help West Ham’s foundation work with young children in east London.

“I’m enjoying the life here. I love to learn new cultures. London has something special. I’m trying to enjoy it as much as possible,” said Codina.

“Football gives me this opportunity and I’m going to try to use it as good as possible.

“I tell [the children] that it’s not only about winning. It’s not only about going to WSL. It’s not only playing for the national team. It’s all the other things.”