LOTS of family shows claim to be for everyone aged 5 to 95, but in practice, very few are.
Now You See Me Live is one of those rare West End unicorns that will have all ages on the edge of their seats (or standing on top of it in my son’s case).
The big-budget magic shows are based on the Hollywood films starring Isla Fisher and Sir Michael Caine and Mark Ruffalo, but fear not, you don’t have to have seen the movies to understand the theatre production.
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They have almost nothing in common, aside from the fact that there are four main magicians known as ‘The Horsemen’ – Enzo Weyne, Andrew Basso, Gabriella Lester and Matthew Pomeroy – alongside three supporting magicians who all appeared on Britain’s Got Talent – Eden Choi, Fraser Penman and Rafferty Coope.
This is, however, as close to a Vegas-style magic show as you’re going to get in the UK, which is why it makes sense that the next stop on its world tour will in fact be the Nevada city.
Running in London until September 6, it had my son and I engrossed from start to finish.
His jaw practically hit the floor, I squealed, the middle-aged man sitting next to me shouted aloud in wonder… the acts the magicians played out for the audience were truly mesmerising.
Without spoiling too much of the magic, the moment the escapologist is locked, handcuffed, upside down in a tank of water in a recreation of Houdini’s water torture stunt, is undoubtedly a highlight of the show.
As was the moment the cast appeared to travel through time, carrying possessions from the audience.
And I’ll never work out how they tasked the entire theatre of 2000-plus people to rip up a bunch of playing cards and the result that ended up in my hand.
Meanwhile, my seven year old son’s favourite act by far was Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Eden Choi, who appeared to shoot hundreds of playing cards out of his hands across the stage.
But for the most part, this is a full-on audience participation event, from start to finish.
We threw bouncy balls around the venue, we ripped up packs of cards, we collectively took part in mind-reading – there were very few parts of the show where we were required to stay silent.
In fact, we were actively encouraged the holler at the stage on several occasions.
When the time came for the curtain to close, my seven year old actually stood on his seat (sorry London Coliseum staff) to give his final round of applause.
Which surely shows you quite how impressive it was.
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Tehran, Iran – Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have expanded their mutual defence pact to add Turkiye, raising questions about the emergence of a new security architecture at a time when the United States and Iran have yet to reach a final deal to end their war.
Under the agreement signed in Mecca on Friday, any external armed attack on either of the three countries will now be considered an attack on all.
The trilateral pact was announced more than five months after the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran, triggering a conflict that quickly spread to the Gulf and disrupted maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, however, have been careful not to antagonise any regional or international actors while finalising what they said was the result of years of hard work and negotiations. They have stressed the pact, which does not identify a specific threat, is not targeted against any country – particularly Iran – and does not abrogate or replace any existing agreements with others.
In Tehran, the reaction has largely been subdued, with officials mostly focusing on aspects of regional and Muslim cooperation and what they perceive as a declining role for the US.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that when Muslims stand together, “we can face every challenge by malicious outsiders head-on”.
“Time to rely only on ourselves and embrace true brotherhood,” he wrote on X, without directly mentioning the trilateral agreement signed hours earlier.
But Iran certainly sees some reasons to be concerned in the long run, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a researcher and analyst on Iran and Middle Eastern geopolitical dynamics.
The associate at Clingendael Institute told Al Jazeera that the timing is important, since the agreement comes after months of a war in which Saudi Arabia has faced attacks from the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen and armed groups in neighbouring Iraq.
“From Tehran’s perspective, the concern is therefore not only that the pact could strengthen Saudi deterrence, but that it could eventually facilitate coordinated pressure on Iran in Yemen, Iraq, and even economically through Turkiye and Pakistan,” he said.
On Sunday, the Houthis claimed another successful drone strike on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan. Saudi Arabia confirmed a fire was extinguished without inflicting casualties, but did not mention the cause.
Separately in Yemen, Houthi missiles and drones struck the Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government’s Red Sea port of al-Makha, with officials reporting at least seven people killed, 15 wounded and severe infrastructure damage. The Yemeni group, which has also been hitting or turning back Saudi-linked ships in the Red Sea over recent weeks, said it targeted weapons depots.
‘A strong bloc’
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not released a formal statement about the Pakistan-Saudi-Turkiye deal, but a senior official outlined Tehran’s diplomatic thinking in an interview with local media on Saturday.
Hossein Noushabadi, a director general for parliamentary and legal affairs, told the state-linked ISNA news service that the ministry predominantly regards the agreement within the context of a diminishing direct US presence in the region.
The pact “is being viewed as the beginning of the collapse of US security hegemony in West Asia and the Persian Gulf”, said Noushabadi.
“It appears that, in the not-too-distant future, a new regional security order based on cooperation among regional states will replace the power structures imposed by extra-regional actors, heralding the end of the prevailing security and geopolitical paradigm and West Asia’s departure from the sphere of vital US interests,” added the official, who is a former Iranian envoy to Oman.
Political scientist Vali Nasr said he does not believe the pact is currently a threat to Tehran.
“For now, these are all elements of a post-American security order in the Middle East,” the professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University told Al Jazeera.
“This is also as much a balance to the Abraham Accords as a direct challenge to Tehran,” he added, in reference to the US-pushed regional normalisation effort with Israel, which US President Donald Trump last month tied with a civil nuclear deal sought by Saudi Arabia.
Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University of Qatar, also agreed that decision-makers in Iran do not immediately feel threatened by the pact, especially since they have maintained cordial relations with both Pakistan and Turkiye even under trying circumstances.
“Ultimately, this pact is not that new, nor is it something that, at present at least, has a great deal of substance beyond its symbolic significance. For example, neither Turkiye nor Pakistan would be willing to get involved in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen despite recent Houthi attacks on the kingdom,” Kamrava told Al Jazeera.
Not all inside Iran are content with the pact, however, with some hardline lawmakers and media arguing that it could ultimately be directed against the “resistance front” of Tehran-backed armed forces across the region, and degrade Pakistan’s credibility as a main mediator between Iran and the US and others.
“It’s clear that Arab states finally understand security cannot be imported; it must be built within the region. However, a roadmap is still missing,” Ebrahim Azizi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in a more hawkish viewing of the pact.
“Warning: Miscalculation is a historical mistake. Iran has proven that every error comes at a cost. Balance is the only way forward,” he wrote on X.
Ebrahim Rezaei, another member of the commission, also wrote on X that “a paper agreement with Turkiye and Pakistan” will not bring Saudi Arabia security, “just as years of one-sided dependence on the Americans did not bring them security”.
Is Iran missing out?
Clingendael Institute’s Azizi said Tehran’s priority will likely be to avoid turning the pact into an explicitly anti-Iranian coalition amid a war with regional repercussions, and that would mean preserving individual relations with each of the three countries.
He said Tehran can also continue to emphasise its long-standing argument that regional security should ultimately be organised by regional states rather than external powers.
“If those states come to see the pact as providing meaningful protection against Iran or Iran-aligned groups, that would make Iranian membership even more difficult,” said Azizi. “Over the longer term, however, if the arrangement evolves from a balancing coalition into a broader regional security architecture, the question of Iranian participation could look quite different.”
Experts also said it could be a possibility that Iran itself would be seeking potential membership in the pact in a distant future, but that would mean a sustainable end to attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and across the region, while expansion to other regional Arab states seems more plausible in the near term. Egypt has already been floated as a candidate, but that could be a complex decision for Cairo to make.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North African Programme at Chatham House, said the trilateral pact reflects both short- and long-term security concerns and opportunities for Riyadh, Islamabad and Ankara.
“They are driven together to forge greater diplomatic and defence cooperation in reaction to US unreliability, Israeli revisionism and Iranian retaliation,” she told Al Jazeera.
INBETWEENERS star James Buckley’s wife Clair was rushed to hospital in an ambulance after “not being able to stand up”.
The couple shared on their podcast that Clair, 38, had been unwell and needed to seek urgent medical attention.
The Inbetweeners star James Buckley has revealed his wife was rushed to hospitalCredit: Instagram/thebuckleyspodClair was taken to hospital in an ambulanceCredit: Instagram/thebuckleyspod
In a snippet from the latest episode of The Buckleys, Clair revealed: “I’ve not been very well.”
James, 38, then replied: “No, you ended up in the old hospital there, didn’t you?
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“Didn’t an ambulance come and take you away?”
Explaining what happened, the mum-of-two said: “So basically it was some sort of virus that I had had, but it was slowly sort of chipping away at me and I was getting more and more dehydrated and I didn’t even really know.”
The Inbetweeners star then said: “I feel a little bit bad. Because I went away, I was working.
“And you were calling me up, sort of. I’d get to my hotel and I’d check, see how you’re getting on. You’d be going, ‘I’m really ill, I’m really sick.’
The couple have been married for 14 yearsCredit: Shutterstock EditorialJames shot to fame in The Inbetweeners in 2008Credit: Handout
“And I was going, ‘Alright, see how you feel in the morning.’
“I came home and the only way I can describe you, you look like when little weak Lord Voldemort was being carried and he’s got his little thin little legs like hanging out and he’s got like a little shawl over him!”
James and Clair first found love when they met on Twitter.
Clair, then an actress and model living in Glasgow, previously revealed how she had never watched The Inbetweeners before meeting the actor – who was currently starring in season three of the hit show at the time.
“I knew of the show and what it was but I didn’t tune in. I didn’t watch it, which might have been a good thing,” the Scottish podcaster told The Sun in 2023.
“I did watch a couple of episodes after we met but to this day I don’t think I’ve seen every single episode. James and Jay are nothing alike thank God.”
The couple bonded on Twitter over their love of The Beatles before meeting in person .
After a whirlwind romance, they welcomed their first child Harrison, now 14, in 2011.
They then wed the following year, before Jude, 12, was born in 2013.
Welcome back to The Times’ Lakers newsletter where the NBA is slipping into its summer slumber.
The long league-wide nightmare is over (or, depending on your team, just beginning): LeBron James has chosen a suitor. The 22-time All-Star is heading to the Philadelphia 76ers. James’ much-anticipated decision was the last major domino of the eventful offseason that shifted the balance of power in the league, relocated some of the sport’s biggest stars and completely remade the Lakers roster.
As we get ready to go into offseason rest mode, here’s where the Lakers stand heading into the summer:
All things Lakers, all the time.
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Roll call
He got a new deal and new jersey number on his new team. Now Walker Kessler can move on to more important things.
“Still learning names,” the Lakers’ prized offseason acquisition told reporters last month. “That’s probably the hardest thing right now.”
The former Utah center was the centerpiece of the Lakers’ transformational offseason. Wanting to pair Luka Doncic with a new center, the Lakers reached for the 25-year-old Kessler, signing him to a four-year, $130-million deal while sending four first-round picks to Utah.
Now the focus will be whether these moves can pay off. Getting a roster with nine new players to jell will be a season-long journey for the Lakers. The process is starting even before training camp as Doncic invited all of his teammates to Slovenia for a minicamp/group vacay this summer, according to ESPN. The superstar point guard stayed in Europe this offseason to rehab his hamstring injury and spend time with his two young daughters. Doncic elected not to play for his national team during the FIBA World Cup European Qualifiers to focus on his family.
Doncic’s leadership was a major theme during his first full season with the Lakers, when he organized team activities including a Porsche Driving Experience for players and gifted everyone in the organization electric bikes for Christmas. With James and fellow vocal leader Marcus Smart now elsewhere, Doncic’s presence off the court will be almost as important as his outsized impact on it.
From a basketball perspective, the Lakers already know they can count on Doncic.
“All four guys around him, it just makes it a lot easier for them to do what they need to do,” Kessler said of playing with Doncic. “What I can do for him is obviously play defense for him, set great screens. Get him some assists. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. I’ve never played with a point guard of that kind of size and stature to where he’s just a matchup nightmare.”
Kessler already has experience with some of his new Lakers teammates. Even before he played with guard Collin Sexton in Utah from 2022-25, Kessler was familiar with the fellow Atlanta-area native from their high school days.
Kessler also played with Austin Reaves during the 2023 FIBA World Cup, in which the United States finished fourth. Reaves was the United States’ second-leading scorer, averaging 13.8 points per game, while Kessler, then only one season into his NBA career, tied for the team lead with nine total blocks while playing the fewest cumulative minutes (56).
“He’s a big, goofy dude that just enjoys life and has fun,” Reaves told reporters during summer league about his impressions of Kessler. “Obviously you see what he does basketball wise and how he impacts the game. He’s good defensively, good in the pocket. Just a smart player. So I’m happy to have him on the team and get to play with him.”
The center depth behind Kessler remains one of the biggest question marks for the Lakers. Their only other option at the position is the 30-year-old Kevon Looney, who signed on a one-year, $3.9-million, veteran minimum deal. The UCLA alumnus and three-time NBA champion played only 21 games for the New Orleans Pelicans last year, averaging 2.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.
Despite turning over more than half of their roster, the Lakers cannot be done with offseason moves. They already went overboard with 16 players. One has got to go before the regular season begins to reach the league maximum. Maybe more will be on the way out if the Lakers continue to pursue options to fill a persistent hole on the wing. Former Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga is still floating in the open market.
Pending the finishing touches, the Lakers roster still might not be enough to supplant Oklahoma City and San Antonio in the Western Conference. Kessler’s play will determine the Lakers’ ceiling this season, and he hopes to make the team’s bet on him worth it.
“For me, I’m somebody that if I know that they have that belief in me, I’m gonna run through a brick wall for them,” Kessler said. “That’s just how I’ve been wired my whole life and it definitely makes it a lot easier to go out there and compete for a team.”
Favorite thing I ate this week
Clockwise from top left: cocobread fish cutter, sweet spiced plantains, red pepper goat, jerk chicken wings, cucumber salad and mom’s curry chicken roti.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: When in doubt, consult the L.A. Times 101 best restaurants list.
A hunt for a convenient post-gymnastics class snack brought us to Bridgetown Roti in East Hollywood. It’s a Caribbean cuisine gem specializing in roti, a type of flatbread, they use to make curry-filled wraps, but the chicken curry roti was only the beginning of our feast. We also got a cocobread fish cutter, sweet spiced plantains, red pepper goat, jerk chicken wings and cucumber salad.
Did it feel like we ordered almost the entire menu? Yes. Did we regret it? Absolutely not.
All the dishes were fantastic, but the red pepper goat, which can be served in a wrap, over rice or on a plate with crispy potatoes and slaw, was my favorite, and the honey jerk whole wings were another standout. And if you order a flight of sauces — which range from sweet to spicy enough that it comes with a warning — it basically multiples every dish by four with all the different combinations you can make. It’s food math.
When a pitcher purposely throws high and inside, the batter has four choices.
He can stare down the pitcher. He can charge the mound. He can get revenge by walloping the next pitch for a hit.
Or he can ignore the intimidation tactic and continue as if nothing happened.
The last choice is the wimp’s way out, since the batter will lose his teammates’ respect, while opposing pitchers will consider him a pushover and fire more brushback pitches at him.
So how have the Boys in Blue responded in defense of the metropolis they wear on their jerseys and the community that has sustained them for nearly 70 years, making Dem Bums one of the most valuable franchises in baseball?
They’re scheduled to visit the White House today so Trump can use them as a photo op and bask in their 2025 championship.
That’s like staying in the dugout during a bench-clearing brawl after a pitcher plonks a batter, then offering the offender a handshake the next inning.
Winning back-to-back titles and blazing through this season has brought Angelenos much-needed happiness during a terrible stretch for the city — but winning is what the Dodgers are supposed to do. They’re also supposed to do more.
This is the team of pioneers like Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax, Glenn Burke and Fernando Valenzuela. The squad whose mythology insists it’s a franchise apart from the rest of professional sports because the Dodger Way is kinder, braver and more willing to take moral risks that transcend baseball and make society better.
And yet manager Dave Roberts told Times sports columnist Bill Shaikin in February that he would gladly accept another White House invitation “to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”
Well, thank God the Dodgers broke baseball’s longstanding tradition of segregation long before Roberts, who is Black and Japanese American, was born!
Manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers looks on from the dugout during a 2025 game against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park in San Diego, California.
(Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Most of the Blue Crew fans I know — who are mostly Trump haters, by the way — roll their eyes every time a wokoso member of Dodger Nation complains about the team’s White House visits or the failure of players, coaches and executives to speak out more forcefully against Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign. Politics have no place in baseball, my friends and family members will say.
But standing up for L.A. by snubbing Trump or calling out his war against us isn’t political at all.
Angelenos need a champion on the Dodgers to say what needs to be said: The City of Angels is wonderful, and Trump is wrong to target it. If you can’t stand up for the simple belief that we don’t deserve to be Trump’s personal piñata, then you have no place playing for the Dodgers.
Only two players have announced they’re not going to the White House: superstar Mookie Betts and fan favorite Kiké Hernández. The latter, a native of Puerto Rico, endeared himself to the Dodger faithful last year during the height of the immigration raids with an Instagram post that read, “I cannot tolerate watching our community continue to be violated, attacked, abused and separated. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and their human rights.”
This time around, Hernández told the Times that he’s not going so he can focus on a rehabilitation stint in the minors. When pressed by reporter Maddie Lee, he said, “I’d rather take a day off than do team activities.”
Nice way to rhetorically strike out, Kiké.
Betts, meanwhile, said he wants to spend time with his newborn child — as legitimate a reason as any. But then he sat down for a short interview with Fox News.
“I don’t know why the world sees athletes as political figures or these people that can make change,” Betts said. The future Hall of Famer, who like Roberts owes a lot to Robinson for paving the way for him and other Black players, hemmed and hawed as if he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
Dodgers past and present haven’t been averse to political stands — they just usually happen to be of the conservative variety.
After his retirement, Robinson campaigned for Richard Nixon’s unsuccessful 1960 presidential bid but left the GOP eight years later, accusing Nixon of “prostituting himself to the bigots in the South” to win the presidency.
Other Dodger legends, from former owner Peter O’Malley to Steve Garvey to Tommy Lasorda, were proud, vocal Republicans as well. Reliever Blake Treinen pitched in a game with “Charlie Kirk” written on his hat after the assassination of the far-right commentator — you know, the guy who lambasted L.A.’s response to Trump’s immigration hammer as “open rebellion to American sovereignty and authority … in a corrupt blue city.”
Treinen — who skipped the Dodgers’ 2021 White House visit when Joe Biden occupied the Oval Office — was at it again this year when he and teammate Alex Call declined to wear Pride Night-themed caps, choosing instead to play with the standard-issue one. They followed the example of Dodgers titan Clayton Kershaw, who wore a Pride cap last year but adorned it with a verse from the Book of Genesis commandeered by MAGA Christians to accuse LGBT+ people of appropriating rainbow colors to celebrate their supposedly wicked ways.
Dodgers management didn’t browbeat Treinen and Call, and that’s fine — ballplayers should be entitled to share their personal thoughts, however noxious. I even understand why the team might want to ham it up with Trump this week — that’s what multimillionaires seem to want to do these days, after all.
Federal agents stage outside Gate E of Dodger Stadium on June 19, 2025.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
What offends me most is that Dodgers owner Mark Walter knows what Trump is doing to L.A. is wrong, even if he’ll never publicly say anything.
Last June, the team announced that it had prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering the Dodger Stadium parking lot — the feds denied that this happened. The Dodgers also announced they would donate $1.1 million to nonprofits to assist people affected by the immigration raids — a response to community disgust about video of federal agents in front of a Dodger Stadium gate with people who had been detained at a nearby Home Depot.
Soon after, the Dodgers were hit with a federal civil rights complaint, filed by a legal group co-founded by Stephen Miller, accusing them of discrimination because of their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. This year, Walter’s investment firm rid itself of all shares in GEO Group, which runs immigrant detention centers on behalf of the federal government.
Yet now, the Dodgers are going to the White House.
Enjoy the trip, fellas. Hey, maybe one of you will shake Trump’s hand and tell him that multicultural, immigrant, Dodgers-blue Los Angeles is all right.
A post-game fireworks show went awry at BMO Stadium on Friday night, when fireworks set off on the playing pitch sent flares streaming into the stands, forcing fans to scatter to safety.
Angel City FC played the Orlando Pride at BMO Stadium, coming back from a month-long break to win the match 2-0. But it was the promised post-game fireworks celebration that made the biggest splash.
Videos of the pyrotechnics display show the pitch filling with tall showers of sparks and dense smoke as dozens of fireworks launched upward. At what was to be the climactic finale of the show, however, fireworks began to take off horizontally, headed into the half-filled stands.
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From her club seat with her friends, season ticket-holder Jade Greenhut captured the center circle spectacle. She said she took out her phone and started recording after the first errant missile from the fusillade sped directly toward the Angel City team bench.
“Oh my god!” a woman’s voice on Greenhut’s video screams as at least two fireworks launched into the stands nearby, sending fans scrambling to get clear. Two more fireworks bounded across the field and into the stands. Off-camera, a man says, “Everybody’s running!”
A spokesperson for the soccer club said the organization had no information “of any serious injury” from the wayward pyrotechnics.
“A third party vendor was hired to facilitate the pyrotechnics,” said Stephanie Rudnick, head of communications for the Angel City Football Club, from her home in Australia.
“A fireworks malfunction did occur during last night’s post-match celebration at Angel City FC’s game vs. Orlando at BMO Stadium,” the team said in a statement to The Times. “Our medical and safety teams were on site and ready to respond. Stadium operations confirmed the venue was secure and guests, staff, players, and crew were able to depart safely.
“We are working closely with our pyrotechnics vendor to review the incident and evaluating appropriate next steps.”
Greenhut was nonplussed about the post-match mayhem. She said many fans had already left in the 20-minute interlude between the end of the game and the fireworks show, leaving the stands relatively empty and reducing the likelihood of injuries.
The air was already clearing by the time the stadium was evacuated. Her ticket ambassador approached her afterward to apologize. “He was like, ‘We did this for the [Los Angeles Football Club], and everything was fine,’” she said. “I don’t blame them at all.
“Honestly, the game was great. We played phenomenal,” Greenhut said.
But perhaps next time, she said, Angel City could go with drones.
The Foreign Office has lifted its no-go travel warning after Iran and the US signed a deal
Simon Calder says airlines will be desperate for people to ‘take summer holidays’ after the easing of travel advice
A travel expert has provided an update on journeys to and from the Gulf region following the US and Iran reaching an agreement to cease hostilities between the two nations. Speaking outside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Simon Calder confirmed that travel insurance was ‘once again valid’ after both the Iranian and American presidents put pen to paper on a deal to end the conflict.
Mr Calder stated that those wishing to visit the region could now do so ‘with some confidence’. He said: “I’m at the Foreign Office which has just changed its advice for travellers going to the Gulf region, in particular Dubai, which last year was visited by 1.4 million British travellers.
“As from now, the no-go warning which prevailed for the whole of the UAE, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as to the countries of Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, has been lifted. The Foreign Office still warns that you need to be ready for trouble to resume at any time, but it means that travel insurance is once again valid and anybody planning a trip to the UAE or Qatar or elsewhere in the region can do so with some confidence.
“The immediate effect, I think, is going to be a big marketing campaign by the giant airlines: Emirates of Dubai, Etihad of Abu Dhabi, and Qatar Airways based in Doha. They will be wanting to get people to both connect through their hubs, but also to take summer holidays. Be warned, it is extremely hot with average daily highs around 40°C.”
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Not only do millions of holidaymakers head to the Gulf states, but countless others use them as a stopover for journeys to Asia and Australia. That meant the tourism industry took a particularly severe blow when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February.
The FCDO decision means tourists can now return without putting their travel insurance at risk. But that doesn’t mean flights will restart straight away.
Virgin Atlantic halted flights until winter 2027 after the conflict began, and a spokesperson confirmed on Thursday that this ‘remains the case’.
British Airways announced earlier in June that it wouldn’t restart flights to the UAE until October 2026. Emirates has maintained flights to and from the region throughout the hostilities.
Mr Calder continued: “The immediate effect, I think, is going to be a big marketing campaign by the giant airlines: Emirates of Dubai, Etihad of Abu Dhabi, and Qatar Airways based in Doha. They will be wanting to get people to both connect through their hubs, but also to take summer holidays. Be warned, it is extremely hot with average daily highs around 40°C.”
“But it means that anybody who’s planning to travel perhaps to Asia or to Australia now will be able to travel with confidence through one of the Gulf hubs. In addition, I imagine that airfares will fall because the Asian carriers will not be able to command such a premium.
“Stand by for some really good holiday offers, but I personally won’t be seeing you on the beach in Dubai until about November.”
Emily Ratajkowski posing topless, with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, while pretending to breastfeed a plastic baby dollCredit: Instagram/emrataA ‘lover’ seen in boxers as Emily poses with the dollCredit: Instagram/emrata
But that seems tame compared to her latest stunt — posing topless, with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, while pretending to breastfeed a plastic baby doll.
In the same shock shoot, a “lover” in boxers is pictured at her window as she nurses the doll.
But that seems tame compared to her latest stunt — posing topless, with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, while pretending to breastfeed a plastic baby doll.
Emily, 35, who has previously been linked to Harry Styles, shared the controversial images with her army of 27.9million Instagram followers.
It was to promote an explict essay she wrote, titled MotherF***er, for lifestyle and culture website The Cut.
But is this bizarre shoot — in which she has been accused of sexualising breastfeeding — an act of genius from the Gen Z favourite rumoured to be worth £6million? Or a sign her star power is waning?
Many believe the backlash is what London-born Emily had hoped for.
A source says: “She has perfected the art of turning internet outrage into a multi-million pound brand.
“For every ‘disgusted’ comment, she gets another thanking her for her honesty. The business she has built around her body and brain is astonishing. Emily is incredibly intelligent, but most people don’t see that.”
The insider adds: “Women abhor and adore her in equal measure, and most men lust after her.
“She wants to empower women, she is open about her sexual expression.
“When people tear her down, it only goes to prove her point about how she is perceived by people.”
A close-up of the fake ‘breast-feeding’ picCredit: Instagram/emrataEmily joins Kim Kardashian for a topless selfie in the bathroom in 2016Credit: Refer to Source
Emily’s Instagram post from her latest photoshoot drew more than 8,000 comments within hours.
Nude images The size 6 model pouts toward the camera while pressing the toy to her 32C chest.
She wears a black leather blazer and matching trousers, heavy eye make-up, and her brunette hair has been styled as dishevelled.
One Instagram user wrote: “That photo is genuinely disturbing.”
Another said of the shot: “When art becomes awkward, uncomfortable and unnecessary.”
Others called it a “desperate cry for attention” — which echoes criticism recently faced by Emily’s close pal Sydney Sweeney.
American actress Sydney shocked viewers of US coming-of-age TV drama Euphoria when the 28-year-old’s character Cassie Howard dressed as a baby while making content for her OnlyFans account.
It seems Emily and Sydney — both regulars on “hottest woman in the world” lists — will go to extreme lengths to make headlines.
Emily in ‘nude’ briefs with Thicke, for his Blurred Lines video in 2013Credit: Refer to SourceA source says: ‘She has perfected the art of turning internet outrage into a multi-million pound brand’Credit: Getty
Emily’s MotherF****er essay has also proved divisive, as she reveals she turned to casual dating after her marriage to Sebastian Bear-McClard failed in 2022 following the birth of their son Sylvester.
She writes about motherhood and marriage: “It was a violent transition into a new reality of screaming baby on my aching tit and ring on my swollen finger.
“And then, in a time period that felt both instant and excruciatingly slow, my marriage collapsed. Six months after my son was born, my husband and I stopped having sex. Less than a year later, we separated.”
The divorce was finalised last year and she reveals how it changed her as she began “compulsively dating”.
But Emily, who spent the first five years of her life in London before moving to the US with her family, writes of her time before that: “I knew that boys didn’t treat girls they thought of as sluts tenderly. Boys didn’t fall in love with, want forever with, raise babies with, or take care of sluts.
“I wanted to be taken care of — desperately. I tried to be a ‘good girl’.
“Keeping my body count low was insurance. I thought it meant no one would ever cheat on me, that I’d always be loved, happy and safe.” But she adds: “None of that had turned out to be true.”
In graphic detail, she recalls dates with a man she refers to as the “elder millennial” — and performing a sex act not long after they first met.
She writes: “I’d found everything I’d come there for — a praying mantis devouring her mate.”
Sparing the blushes of the men she has previously dated — including a whirlwind romance with Brad Pitt, and US comic Pete Davidson — Emily uses pseudonyms in the essay.
She adds: “I decided to f*** my way into a new kind of woman. I wanted to destroy the Madonna, the special girl I’d worked so hard to be before an eight-pound baby had torn my vagina in two, and replace her with the whore.”
She goes on to write that, “men are turned on by motherhood”, adding: “I’d been so scared that, as a single mother, I was unlovable, used up and discarded. I soon came to find out it was quite the opposite of ‘they don’t care’. In fact, they liked it. There were many men who experienced the loneliness that comes with years of selfishness. They were particularly attracted to the idea that being a parent meant self-sacrifice was a given in my life. Did they want me as their mummy? Maybe.”
Emily is snapped with Harry Styles in 2023Emily has a tender moment with her real-life son SylvesterCredit: instagram/emrata
Emily was first signed as a model at age 14 but got her big break in the controversial Blurred Lines video.
She was then named as one of the world’s “hottest sex symbols” by Rolling Stone mag, and soon after announced as FHM’s “fourth sexiest woman in the world”.
Emily, who was born to an English mum and American dad, moved into acting while also modelling for the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, DKNY, Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu.
But as her fame grew, she became vocal about protecting women.
In 2016, she went to war with US photographer Jonathan Leder, who used Polaroid images of her from a shoot four years earlier in a book she claimed was a “violation”.
Emily said she believed the photos were taken for a magazine — and that she did not give consent for the pictures, which included nudes, to be used in a book.
She wrote at the time: “Five out of the now hundreds of released photos were used for what they were intended: an artful magazine shoot back in 2012.
“These photos being used without my permission is an example of exactly the opposite of what I stand for — women choosing when and how they want to share their sexuality and bodies.”
Pals Sydney Sweeney, left, and Emily in New York last yearCredit: GettyEmily said: ‘Like any art, there’s a million ways to interpret it. All I can say is that when a woman is naked, that’s not immediately anti-feminist’Credit: Instagram
She was supported by Kim Kardashian — who similarly has turned controversy into cash.
The pair posed topless together for a selfie taken in a bathroom after Kim was reviled for posting a naked photo online.
Emily captioned the shot: “We are more than just our bodies, but that doesn’t mean we have to be shamed for them or our sexuality.”
It led to uproar on social media, as Emily became embroiled in a row with broadcaster Piers Morgan — who claimed they were undermining feminism.
Emily later hit back, explaining: “Kim said to me, ‘You know, when Lena Dunham takes her clothes off, she gets flak, but it’s also considered brave. When Justin Bieber takes his shirt off, he’s a grown-up’.
“When a woman who is sexual takes off her top, it plays into something. The whole idea is that when Kim takes a nude selfie, she’s just seeking attention. That’s not the issue. A woman can be seeking attention and also make a statement. They don’t need to be mutually exclusive.”
Emily later started writing essays that she made into a book, My Body, which became a New York Times bestseller in 2021 — and she also launched her own swimwear business, Inamorata.
The book saw Emily discuss being sexualised and exploited during her career — and allege she was sexually assaulted by singer Robin on the set of Blurred Lines.
Of the video and how it changed her life, Emily writes: “I wasn’t just famous; I was famously sexy, which, in many ways, felt gratifying.”
She adds: “I am complicit. But I also think it’s a mistake to shame a young woman for wearing a tight dress because she wants to be noticed by someone powerful.
“I don’t think we should continue to criticise women for saying, ‘This is how I can succeed and capitalise off of my image or my body’. That is an extension of the same misogyny I’ve seen so much in my life. We are all complicit.”
Those close to Emily believe she will steadfastly continue baring her soul despite the pushbacks that come her way.
A friend says: “Emily’s honesty is uncomfortable for some, but provides validation and solidarity for others.
“People will always have something to say. There’s nothing she can do about that.
“Emily’s said it herself, she doesn’t care what people think. It’s white noise. She is doing what she wants and saying what she wants. It is her truth and it is her choice to say it.”
As Emily put it: “Like any art, there’s a million ways to interpret it. All I can say is that when a woman is naked, that’s not immediately anti-feminist.
“I have no apologies for it, and I’m not ashamed at all.”
A day after California’s primary election, President Trump took to social media with baseless claims of election fraud — predictable, but also dangerous.
“Look what’s happening in California, the Dumocrats, right before our very eyes, are stealing the Vote,” Trump wrote in one post.
“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote in another, apparently enamored of his latest juvenile slur.
California has once again become the main dish on Trump’s buffet of bull-hockey as he continues to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power, using this disingenuous and patently untrue narrative that American elections are rigged by shadowy Democratic forces working in collusion with illegal immigrants.
The twist this time is that Hilton, the man who wants to represent all Californians, seems to be jumping on the election fraud conspiracy train with the president. I get it, there’s the MAGA base to feed, and it’s a base that feasts on outrage and fakery. Serving up resentment glazed with lies and propaganda has been the MAGA playbook for years under Trump, a strategy that no one can deny has been heartbreakingly effective.
But Hilton is a smart man and must certainly know that voter fraud is rare, to the point of being inconsequential to election outcomes. Hilton by his own admission understands voting patterns, and that in this cycle, Republicans have voted early and often by mail, despite Trump’s claims that all vote-by-mail should be suspect. So Hilton understands that early votes have skewed his way, and that later vote tallies will likely favor Democrats.
And Hilton is definitely intelligent enough to expect that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly three to one, he will not keep the top spot in this primary, and a slim chance remains that he will not make it into the top two. That’s just simple math.
So if Hilton truly seeks to represent this state as its top elected executive, now is the time to renounce election fraud myths and stand up to Trump’s lies. If Hilton can’t say that he believes our recent election was free and fair, then he has no business being our governor.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the path he’s taking, even as it seems increasingly likely that he will advance to the general election.
This week, speaking with far-right podcaster and former Turning Point USA creative director Benny Johnson (who was allegedly duped into working for a Russian influence operation), Hilton said that while “so far we’re not seeing any signs” of cheating, “we’re going to be all over it. We’re not going to let them do that.”
Hilton was responding to a question from Johnson on whether Hilton will sue over “cheating.”
On a post-election appearance with Laura Ingraham, the conservative Fox News host who has repeatedly promoted the Great Replacement Theory, Hilton delved into more conspiracy.
“Just to really underline the point that you made about the corruption,” he told Ingraham an anecdote about supposed fraud in a previous election cycle when a “whistleblower” at the post office told him that they were instructed that a handwritten postmark was acceptable when sorting ballots to deliver to the county registrar.
“It’s just unbelievable, and of course, that’s why so many people don’t believe the results, but it just undermines confidence,” he told Ingraham, certainly knowing that the post office forwarding a ballot on to a county registrar in no way means it will be certified or counted. Would we really want the USPS deciding which ballots to deliver? Disingenuous on Hilton’s part at best.
“The whole thing is a joke,” Hilton went on to say of California elections, which of course, is absurd.
Thursday, when I asked Hilton’s team to speak with him about his views on voter fraud, they sent back a response that focused on the slowness of the California vote count; voter rolls Hilton has described as “wildly inaccurate,” which is a wildly inaccurate claim; and two instances of actual fraud with voter registration — not examples of votes that were counted.
To be sure, all those items are important. Any malfeasance should be punished, and the system should always strive to improve.
But how hard is it to simply be against fraud, while accurately acknowledging that it is rare and our current system provides accurate results?
I am against voter registration fraud. I am against vote fraud. I am absolutely pro-democracy, including policies such as mail-in voting that increase participation.
I do not believe that there is widespread fraud in the California primary, or in American elections in general, because the evidence does not support that conspiracy. I do not believe that Democrats are running a decades-long, nationwide conspiracy to replace white voters with votes from Black and brown undocumented immigrants, because that is both false and racist.
Pretty basic stuff, and statements in line with the values and common sense of the majority of Californians Hilton says he will represent.
If Hilton can’t come out and clearly say that Trump is wrong — about fraud and about the Great Replacement Theory — can he really be trusted to represent the values of the Golden State?
MIAMI — The Trump administration has quietly instructed federal prosecutors in Miami to avoid pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials, in the latest sign of warming relations between the White House and the oil-rich nation.
It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.”
But DEA records obtained by the Associated Press earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials.
The directive to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was meant to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela after the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, among other reasons, a current official said. It was not clear whether the White House, which deferred comment to the Justice Department, was involved in the decision.
“Everybody has been told to stand down,” one of the former officials said.
The former officials, who had been briefed on the development, as well as the current official all spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.
Rodríguez, a U.S. attorney representing her and the Venezuelan Communications Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The move eases pressure on Rodriguez
Removing the threat of potential indictment, even temporarily, eases pressure on Rodríguez as the Trump administration seeks to work with the acting leader to stabilize Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster and open the country to U.S. investment.
President Trump praised Rodríguez as a “terrific person” shortly after the U.S. military took Maduro and his wife to New York to face federal narcotics charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.
In recent months, the U.S. has lifted sanctions against Rodríguez and recognized her as Venezuela’s sole head of state, allowing her to re-establish ties with western banks and more freely work with U.S. investors seeking to tap into the world’s largest petroleum reserves. As ties between the two governments have deepened, some have held out the Venezuelan playbook — characterized by oil blockades, indictments of top leaders and threats of military intervention — as a model to drive regime change from within as the U.S. pressures other longtime adversaries in Iran and Cuba.
Rodríguez and her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the National Assembly, were hit with U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first term for their role in undermining Venezuelan democracy and cementing Maduro’s authoritarian rule.
Rodríguez “is doing a great job,” Trump wrote on social media in early March. “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”
In recent months, Rodríguez has hosted ceremonies with a steady stream of American oilmen, some of them partaking in high-profile delegations led by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
Election talk deferred amid Trump’s praise
Missing in all the mutual backslapping is any talk of elections, even as Rodríguez last month blew through a 90-day limit set by Venezuela’s high court to fill Maduro’s position on a temporary basis.
“I don’t know,” she responded in English when a visiting U.S. journalist earlier this month shouted out a question about her time frame for holding elections. “Some time.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has demanded the administration explain its favorable treatment of Rodríguez, calling her a “central figure in Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.”
“Sanctions have been lifted on Ms. Rodríguez without any indication that she has taken concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order,” Sheehan, joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent last week.
Rick de la Torre, a former CIA chief of station in Caracas, said that the decision to shield Rodríguez fits well with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals in Venezuela.
“She’s a lifelong Marxist and was a senior leader of one of the world’s most corrupt regimes but the U.S. is providing her with breathing space and carrots to lay the foundation for democracy and U.S. investment,” said de la Torre, the CEO of Tower Strategy, which advises companies on Venezuela.
“There’s a shelf life to her utility, however. At some point she will face justice,” he added.
Rodríguez has been on DEA’s radar since 2018
The DEA had amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, and has received allegations about her ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling, the AP reported earlier this year. One confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show.
Her name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations — several of which remained ongoing as recently as this year — involving field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York. She had even been linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities first arrested in 2020 on money-laundering charges, the records show.
Rodríguez deported Saab this month as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are accused of having enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.
It’s unclear in which Miami investigations Rodríguez’s name surfaced. Two of the former officials said Rodríguez has also come up in meetings with investigators in Tampa, Fla., tasked last year by former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi with looking into financial crimes in Venezuela.
At the time, Rodríguez was serving as Maduro’s vice president. Justice Department policy requires the attorney general to personally approve the charging of any foreign head of state, who are normally immune from prosecution under international and U.S. law.
Halting high-profile criminal probes of foreign leaders
The pausing of the investigations into Rodríguez comes as the Trump administration has similarly tapped the brakes on ongoing federal investigations into another prominent Latin American leftist, Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The DEA had also designated Petro a “priority target” over alleged ties to drug traffickers that had been probed for months by federal prosecutors. The New York Times reported in March that U.S. officials recently assured the Colombian government Petro does not face charges in those cases.
Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who worked for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, said it would be “deeply troubling” for law enforcement to be “told to stand down from a legitimate investigation for political or transactional reasons.”
“The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” Levin told AP. “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety — not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.”
Goodman, Richer and Mustian write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington and Mustian from New York. AP Writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Look, up in the stands — it’s J.K. Simmons and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!
The Academy Award-winning actor, who portrayed Daily Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson in director Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, was reunited with his onscreen nemesis at the New York Mets game Tuesday.
After a clip from “Spider-Man” was shown on the stadium screen at Citi Field during the Mets game against the Cincinnati Reds, the camera cut to Simmons in the stands. In the row behind him was Jameson’s favorite masked menace, reading a copy of the Daily Bugle.
The “Whiplash” actor played along with the bit, turning around to face Spider-Man and waving his arms to express his displeasure. Channeling his inner Jameson, a spirited Simmons then motioned for Spider-Man to get tossed from the game. Photos and videos of the moment have been shared across social media.
(A devoted Detroit Tigers fan, Simmons repped his favorite team under the Mets jersey he wore at the game.)
The next installment of the webslinging superhero’s adventures is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which hits theaters July 31. Simmons’ involvement has not officially been confirmed.
