Last year, Arsenal won the Champions League but will be mere spectators when Barcelona and Lyon face off next Saturday (17:00 BST).
The Gunners reaching the semi-finals but were dispatched by the French giants in a one-sided second leg.
Chelsea went out a round before, to Arsenal, while Manchester United were seen off by Bayern Munich.
The Ballon d’Or will likely reflect this European balance.
Nominations come later in the summer but with no international tournaments this year, it will be enlightening to see which WSL players make the shortlist.
Nine made the top 30 last August – and that did not include anyone from Manchester City, for whom Khadija Shaw, Vivianne Miedema and Yui Hasegawa among others have staked huge claims.
Others such as Arsenal’s Alessia Russo and Mariona Caldentey, Chelsea’s Alyssa Thompson and Manchester United’s Jess Park have also all had exceptional seasons and may feature.
Yet when the biggest award is doled out, it is still likely to be dominated by players from elsewhere. After all, a Barcelona player has won each of the past five years
Perhaps until Champions League success becomes commonplace, the leading WSL clubs must accept second billing to Europe’s other heavyweights.
Having said that, with Georgia Stanway, Ona Batlle and even Alexia Putellas linked with switches to England this summer, the balance could flip sooner than expected.
May 15 (UPI) — CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Havana this week opened a new political chapter inside and outside Cuba, with analysts and opposition figures interpreting the meeting as a sign of direct pressure from Washington on a regime battered by massive blackouts, fuel shortages and an increasingly deep economic crisis.
The trip marked an unusual development in bilateral relations. The Cuban government confirmed that a U.S. delegation led by Ratcliffe met with his counterpart Thursday at Cuba’s Interior Ministry.
Washington had requested the meeting, which was approved by “the leadership of the Revolution,” according to the state-run newspaper Granma.
The CIA released photos of the meeting — “the most significant milestone so far in the two months of opaque negotiations taking place between Washington and Havana,” Spanish newspaper El País reported.
In another twist, according to reports by CBS News, USA Today and NBC News, a U.S. Justice Department official said the United States is considering formally charging former Cuban President Raul Castro over a 30-year-old incident in which the Cuban government shot down two aircraft operated by Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
The Ratcliffe visit, which lasted a brief time, was not announced in advance. He him Air Force plane flew from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and returned hours later.
For decades, the Cuban government systematically accused opposition figures, independent journalists and dissidents of acting as agents or collaborators of the CIA. However, it was the regime itself that officially announced the meeting with agency director.
“The Cuban government announced the CIA visit first. For Cubans, that means important things are happening or about to happen,” Sebastián Arcos, acting director of the Institute for Cuban Studies, told UPI.
“This increases expectations and anxiety inside and outside the island.”
Energy has become the central focus of Cuba’s crisis. Ratcliffe arrived on the island precisely as Cuba declared a total energy collapse, formally running out of diesel fuel because of the U.S. naval blockade, while multiple technical failures at thermoelectric plants have left millions of people without electricity for up to 22 hours a day.
According to posts shared by activists and users on Facebook, protests have spread across the Cuban capital for four consecutive nights, while reports of internet outages in areas where gatherings have taken place have increased, Diario de Cuba reported.
Professor Jorge Piñón, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Energy Program at the University of Texas’ Energy Institute, said the visit by the CIA chief to Cuban territory “puts on the table what the rules of the game are from the point of view of the United States,” amid a crisis he described as “hour zero” for Cuba’s energy system.
Piñón told UPI that Cuba has practically exhausted its fuel reserves at storage facilities, ports and refineries, while thermoelectric plants operate on the verge of technical collapse.
The consequences extend far beyond the lack of electricity.
Piñón warned that the crisis affects ground transportation, water and food distribution, agriculture and even humanitarian operations by religious organizations that lack diesel to transport aid.
The deterioration of the electrical system also stems from structural problems accumulated over decades. Cuba depends on thermoelectric plants more than 40 years old, many adapted to burn extra-heavy domestically produced oil with high levels of sulfur and contaminating metals.
According to Piñón, that fuel accelerates the deterioration of already obsolete equipment, generating a “vicious cycle” of temporary repairs and new breakdowns.
He said the island produces about 40,000 barrels a day of heavy crude, but needs about 100,000 barrels a day to cover its energy demand, leaving a critical deficit of refined fuels mainly intended for transportation.
At the same time, Professor Raúl Rodríguez, director of the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies at the University of Havana, described a society marked by daily exhaustion, uncertainty and the progressive deterioration of living conditions.
He told UPI that prolonged blackouts affect food preservation, access to drinking water and hospital operations.
The crisis also has deep economic consequences. Tourism, one of Cuba’s main sources of foreign currency, operates at less than 50% of capacity, affecting employment and the flow of resources into the country.
Rodríguez estimated that about 300,000 workers linked to the tourism sector face direct impacts from the economic slowdown.
Additional problems include health and environmental issues stemming from the lack of fuel for fumigation, garbage collection and basic urban services. The academic warned of growing risks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.
Despite intensifying social unrest, the experts agreed that the crisis will not necessarily lead to an immediate political change.
Rodríguez argued that protests over blackouts and shortages “do not constitute, by themselves, a trigger capable of provoking regime change,” due to the absence of an organized political alternative with social legitimacy.
Piñón, meanwhile, said that although signs of social exhaustion exist, the country currently lacks leadership capable of channeling a political transition or with enough authority to organize a possible post-crisis scenario.
According to press reports, the U.S. demands delivered directly by the CIA director focus on an ultimatum conditioned on deep and immediate structural changes.
Washington is demanding that the Cuban government carry out political reforms toward democratization, release all political prisoners and fully open the economy to the private sector.
“From the information that has emerged, the CIA director traveled to Cuba to deliver an ultimatum: either you move, or the United States will,” the Institute for Cuban Studies’ Arcos said.
The reaction of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s government has reflected pragmatism forced by extreme economic suffocation and the collapse of basic services on the island.
Although Havana agreed to receive the CIA delegation to avoid a violent social outcome, it formally maintains its rhetoric defending national sovereignty, rejecting political conditions that threaten the socialist system.
Cuban officials used the meeting to present evidence that the island does not represent a threat to U.S. security, demanding in return its removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and an end to the naval blockade preventing fuel shipments from reaching the island.
Describing the country’s daily deterioration, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura recently portrayed Cuba as a nation where old social protections have collapsed, while the political structure remains intact.
In an essay published on the website La Carta de las Ideas, Padura recalled that July 2021 protests represented an unprecedented social explosion on an island historically marked by strong surveillance and state control mechanisms.
The government response, he wrote, was a severe “order to fight” accompanied by exemplary judicial proceedings aimed not only at punishing, but also at discouraging future public expressions of dissent.
Padura said that precedent helps explain why, despite economic and social conditions now being even worse than in 2021, street demonstrations have been more limited than many outside Cuba expected.
Another expert thinks the United States will dominate as Cuba sinks into crisis.
“The CIA currently has the upper hand. Without the CIA, [President Donald] Trump can do nothing, and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio knows nothing because he has never even been to Cuba,” Lillian Guerra, professor of Cuban and Caribbean history and director of the Cuba Program at the University of Florida, told UPI.
Guerra argued that the agency holds a dominant position over the Cuban state because of its understanding of the regime’s “theater and discourse of lies and subterfuge” amid the crisis.
Guerra said “nobody is buying” the government’s official explanations anymore and warned that Cuban authorities “are running out of time” as public frustration grows across the island.
She added that the meeting shows Washington is negotiating with Cuba’s “real leaders” linked to the Ministry of the Interior, a structure she described as more powerful than the Revolutionary Armed Forces and primarily focused on preserving political control.
SACRAMENTO — Dana Williamson, one of the political heavyweights at the center of a financial scandal involving gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, looked shell-shocked Thursday morning in a federal courtroom in downtown Sacramento, as most folks do when bad choices collide with the hard realities of the justice system.
A thousand-yard stare in her eyes, Williamson responded “guilty” three times in a voice that required a microphone to be heard as the judge walked her through a plea deal reached days before with the U.S. Department of Justice. She likely won’t be sentenced until fall (possibly close to the general election) but will — again, just a likely here — at best face home confinement and at worst upward of three years in prison.
It was her savvy and ability to deliver whatever was needed through her deep connections and knowledge of the complicated structures — official and cultural — that govern the California halls of power that make her predicament all the more confounding. Especially because, far from stealing money for self-enrichment, she actually paid money to be part of this scheme.
That alone, to me, raises questions.
Though Williamson’s guilty plea may seem like an ending to the saga, it shouldn’t be, because there’s still a lot lurking in the dark corners of this deal.
If Becerra makes it past the primary, which seems (I’ll use that word again) likely, voters have a right to know.
Here’s the simple backstory, according to court documents. Becerra’s close aide, Sean McCluskie, took a pay cut to remain with his boss when he moved to Washington to become President Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services.
Strapped for cash, McCluskie asked Williamson to receive money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account — which Becerra was legally not allowed to manage while holding federal office — and pass it through a bunch of other accounts before giving it to McCluskie’s wife as payment for a nonexistent job.
Williamson’s attorney, McGregor Scott, said Thursday that Williamson received $7,500 each month from the Becerra account and added $2,500 from her own funds before sending it on to ultimately reach McCluskie — for a total of $10,000 a month.
McCluskie was “living on a government salary,” Scott said Thursday after court. “Wife is home with the kids. They didn’t have enough money, and that’s where this all originated. [Williamson] was simply trying to help a friend in a pinch as best she could.”
Scott, a former Bush and Trump United States attorney, managed to get Williamson’s original 23-count indictment knocked down to the Becerra account issue, along with lying to the FBI and filing a false tax return.
Becerra, who is a slim-margin front-runner for governor, was the victim in this case — or more precisely, his state campaign bank account was, according to court documents.
There has never been any indication that Becerra was investigated as a participant, and he has forcefully denied wrongdoing, calling it a “gut punch” that his advisers allegedly betrayed him.
That, of course, hasn’t stopped the other candidates from using the case against him.
“My opponents have spent millions spreading lies to purposefully mislead voters,” he wrote Thursday on social media. “Today confirms what I have said from day one: I did nothing wrong. Case closed.”
Meanwhile, Scott, the attorney, also said Thursday that Williamson assumed, based on her conversations with McCluskie, that McCluskie had spoken to Becerra about the concept of the money transfer. Text messages in court records show a brief and ambiguous exchange between McCluskie and Williamson that backs that up.
Scott said that Williamson never spoke directly with Becerra about the scheme.
That leaves the distinct possibility that Williamson believed Becerra knew what was happening — but never asked him. Dumb? Maybe. But Williamson isn’t usually dumb.
“The understanding that McCluskie conveyed to my client was it was OK to proceed,” Scott said.
Becerra has repeatedly said he believed the $10,000 a month was a legitimate fee being paid to manage the funds in the dormant account while he could not — though that is an amount above what is usual for such work, as my colleague Dakota Smith has reported.
Becerra has also repeatedly used some variation of the “case closed” line, seemingly hoping to move past this scandal without further answers.
But at the very least, it deserves some kind of mea culpa from Becerra or lessons learned, a more robust conversation than the brush-off it’s been getting. Because either McCluskie is one heck of a con man who rolled both Becerra and Williamson, making both believe what was happening was kosher with entirely different tales, or someone isn’t being entirely honest.
Did Becerra never question why an account with almost no activity was costing so much to manage? Did he never wonder what Williamson was doing to earn all that money? Should he, with his decades of legal and political experience, have seen red flags, even with a trusted adviser? Or is Williamson, facing sentencing, just trying to paint herself in a sympathetic light?
“I’m not trying to paint my client as a victim,” McGregor said. “She’s accepted responsibility today for what she did by pleading guilty. She’s now a felon. So you know, we’re not trying to do anything to dance away from that.”
Williamson may be done dancing, but the music’s still playing, and the fancy footwork of politics continues.
In Congress, Katie Porter’s blunt, combative style helped rocket her to progressive stardom. It has also become her biggest vulnerability as she campaigns to be California’s next governor.
Her brusque approach, prosecutorial instincts and suburban mom appeal fueled Porter’s rise during her three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she rattled CEOs and Trump administration leaders and batted away GOP challengers in a competitive Orange County district.
Her tack, however, made her a polarizing force within her own party, where fidelity remains an essential currency of success and power. In Congress, Porter clashed with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and L.A.’s Rep. Maxine Waters.
The same rough edges that endeared Porter to many voters have also alienated some Democratic insiders and interest groups whose support could prove critical in the race to replace outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Then-Rep. Katie Porter meets with parents, doctors and diabetic patients in her Irvine office in 2019.
(Mark Boster / For The Times)
“She came in [to the governor’s race] as an outsider, as a mom, as a fighter. She wasn’t pulled into the establishment,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “I think that’s why she’s popular with voters, because they want somebody who’s going to fight, and sometimes that ruffles feathers.”
In the campaign for governor, Porter, a single mother of three, has struggled to convert grassroots popularity into broader institutional support. Even after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race amid allegations of sexual assault, she has yet to see a major surge in support or endorsements from Democratic power brokers.
A pair of embarrassing videos continue to hang over her campaign. The videos, which surfaced in October, showed Porter yelling at a staff member and threatening to walk out of a television reporter’s interview.
As former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has ascended and she remained stagnant in polls following Swalwell’s exit, Porter has increasingly sought to redeem her image. She poked fun at the incident with her staffer in an ad, smilingly asking a group of whiteboard-wielding supporters behind her to “please get out of my shot.”
In recent debates, Porter has sought to play up the qualities that made her a standout among resistance-era progressives, needling former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer over his past investments in private prisons and the pressing Becerra for a “yes” or “no” on statewide single-payer healthcare. Porter emphasizes her support for single-payer healthcare, providing free child care and college tuition and making wealthy corporations pay their “fair share” in taxes.
Porter said she wants to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents but doesn’t support the proposed billionaire’s tax ballot measure because it is a “one-time tax” that won’t solve the state’s underlying budget issues.
“I can’t believe, with [the] interrupting and name-calling and shouting and disrespect for everyone up here who’s stepping into public service that anyone wants to talk about my temperament,” she said during the May 5 debate on CNN.
Though she acknowledged she mishandled both caught-on-tape situations and said she apologized to the staffer, the videos hindered her early momentum and have undercut her efforts to make inroads with potential allies in the race.
Porter speaks at a gubernatorial candidates forum on Sept. 28, 2025, in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Influential lawmakers, labor groups and party insiders have coalesced behind Becerra and Steyer, her top Democratic rivals.
Porter has scored some key endorsements. She is one of three candidates backed by the California Federation of Labor Unions, along with Steyer and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She also has support from Teamsters California, the National Union of Healthcare Workers and progressive groups such as Emilys List and California Environmental Voters, which dual-endorsed her and Steyer.
Union support is pivotal for Democratic candidates in California, sending a clear signal that they support the priorities of working-class voters. For Porter, who has proudly refused to accept corporate donations throughout her political career, the labor endorsements also help her attract the small-dollar donations that are essential to her campaign.
While in Congress, Porter proved to be a prodigious fundraiser. In her last reelection campaign for the House of Representatives in 2022, she raised more than $25.6 million in contributions — the second-most in Congress, behind only Bakersfield’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was then the House Republican leader.
Still, her backing from elected Democrats remains comparatively thin. Along with her mentor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), just three members of Congress have endorsed her gubernatorial bid: Reps. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, Dave Min of Irvine and Derek Tran of Huntington Beach. She also picked up an endorsement from Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) after Swalwell dropped out.
Though none would speak publicly, multiple sources who work in and around the state Capitol expressed concerns about Porter’s temperament and her willingness to work collaboratively with people she disagrees with.
“Katie Porter hurt herself big time because she needs anger management and she doesn’t have the temperament” to be governor, Democratic former Sen. Barbara Boxer said during a recent interview with NewsNation’s Leland Vittert.
Through her campaign spokesperson, Porter’s declined to be interviewed for for this story.
Porter questions Tim Sloan, president and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington in 2019.
(Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg)
Defenders argue the backlash reflects a double standard for women in politics — a salient point in a state that, despite its liberal reputation, has never elected a woman as governor.
“Sacramento sizes up every gubernatorial candidate the same way: Can they win, and is this someone I actually want to work with?” said Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic consultant who is not working with any of the candidates running for governor. “The videos showed an angry woman, and for a lot of people that translated to ‘I don’t want her as my boss.’
“It’s a double standard that dogs women in politics. Jerry Brown was famous for his loud, unfiltered outbursts and nobody questioned whether he was up to the job,” said Ashford, who served as the former governor’s deputy press secretary.
Gonzalez agreed, arguing that women who stand up for themselves “are often labeled as ‘difficult.’ Probably a lot of people think I’m difficult,” the labor leader added with a laugh.
Born in Iowa, Porter often connects her politics to her family’s financial struggles after losing their farm during the 1980s farm crisis. She earned degrees from Yale and Harvard, where she studied bankruptcy law under Warren. In 2012, while working as a law professor at UC Irvine, Porter was appointed by then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to oversee California’s $18-billion mortgage settlement.
After defeating Republican incumbent Rep. Mimi Walters in 2018, Porter quickly emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable progressives. Armed with a whiteboard and other visual aids in congressional hearings, she confronted banking and pharmaceutical executives over drug prices, consumer debt and corporate profits.
The props, theatrical at times, seemed to aggravate Waters, then the Democratic chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee. On several occasions, Waters sided with Republicans who challenged Porter’s use of visual and audio aids during hearings.
“Please do not raise your board. We’ve talked about this before,” the chairwoman scolded when Porter tried to hold up a “Financial Services Bingo” card during a 2019 hearing on debt collection. (She later got to show the board on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”)
Eager to force change they campaigned on, Porter and other freshmen, including members of “The Squad,” at times clashed with Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.
Porter speaks to volunteers while campaigning in Mission Viejo in 2018.
(Victoria Kim / Los Angeles Times )
Porter has slammed lawmakers, including Democrats, for stock trading and funneling earmark funding to their home districts, arguing that such practices breed corruption and mistrust in Congress. The critiques irked Pelosi, a powerful force in California politics.
In her second term, the Orange County Democrat lost her coveted spot on the Financial Services Committee after she listed it as her third choice and requested a waiver to stay on it. Typically, members prioritize such high-profile committees and request waivers to serve on lesser ones in addition. The move was seen as a risk, the result a check on Porter’s ambition.
“So many of us, regardless of ideology, run on ‘shaking up Washington.’ But then when you actually come here, there’s a lot of consequences for doing that,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The Times after Porter lost the committee position.
Porter’s willingness to buck party norms also raised eyebrows during her Senate campaign, when she entered the race for Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat before Feinstein had announced retirement plans in early 2023. Although then-Rep. Adam Schiff also launched an early campaign, he did so only after privately seeking Feinstein’s blessing. She ultimately finished third in the primary.
Her decision to run for Senate did not ingratiate her with Washington’s Democratic leadership. The party was forced to spend millions to ensure another Democrat was elected to her contested Orange County congressional seat, and Schiff, her top rival in the race, was a close ally of Pelosi — who endorsed him — and helped lead the first impeachment effort against President Trump.
Controversy surrounding Porter’s personal relationships have also surfaced during previous campaigns. In 2024, she obtained a five-year restraining order against a former boyfriend who she said bombarded her and her children with threatening messages.
When a whisper campaign about the end of her marriage threatened her first House run, Porter shared details of her 2013 divorce with the Huffington Post, including that her ex-husband, Matthew Hoffman, physically intimidated and verbally abused her. Hoffman also claimed to be the victim of abuse, including an incident in which Porter allegedly threw hot mashed potatoes at him. Both filed for restraining orders and sought anger management during the divorce.
Former employees have also rallied to her defense. In an open letter last month, 30 former staffers described Porter as a “workhorse” who “asked of us what she expected of herself.”
“She demanded a lot, but she also fought for us, mentored us, and stood by us when life got hard,” the former aides wrote. “We believe the public should understand the full person we know, not a caricature built from a few clips on a bad day.”
Porter has argued that voters are looking for someone willing to challenge powerful interests rather than accommodate them.
Katie Porter is interviewed after the California Gubernatorial debate at Skirball Cultural Center on Wednesday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s on me to keep campaigning and keep demonstrating that,” she told reporters after a recent gubernatorial debate in San Francisco. “It’s also not lost on me that the last time the Democratic Party had a woman nominee for governor was 1994, when I was in college.”
The affordability crisis is at the forefront of the race to replace term-limited Newsom. As a single parent, Porter argues she is acutely aware of gas and grocery prices — as well as higher-stakes consequences.
She described feeling shocked when, during a recent conversation with her 17-year-old son, he asked if she would visit him if he moved to another state.
“I said, ‘Paul, you love California, why would you leave California?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m thinking I might want to have a family and I might want to have a house, and I know that means I’ll have to leave California,’” Porter recounted at a March forum hosted by the California Assn. of Realtors. “We need to be a state that doesn’t just retain people like my son … but welcomes new families.”
The centerpiece of her proposed “affordability solutions” are free child care, free tuition at UC and CSU schools for students who complete two years of community college, and ending income taxes for those who earn less than $100,000 — an idea she acknowledges she “stole” from Republican candidate Steve Hilton. “I will take a good idea anywhere I can get it,” she said at a recent forum.
To pay for it, Porter would impose a progressive corporate tax, meaning more profitable businesses and corporations would pay a higher rate. A less than 1% tax hike on businesses that earn hundreds of millions in profit would bring in around $8 billion, according to her website.
“I think she deeply and personally understands the everyday struggles that so many Californians are grappling with right now,” said Petrie-Norris, who last month became the first state legislator to endorse Porter.
While Petrie-Norris describes herself as more politically moderate than Porter, the Irvine assemblywoman praised her as a “pragmatic problem-solver” and “proven fighter” who has taken on corporate interests and the Trump administration.
For a while, Porter was one of four women among the major candidates running for governor. One by one they have dropped out of the race, citing difficulties raising money and support.
After sharing the debate stage with five men recently, Porter was asked whether California is ready for a female governor.
