Italian leader Giorgia Meloni says a new US proposal has sparked “hope” of ending the Israel-Hamas war
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has told a flotilla sailing towards Gaza to stop, saying the latest attempt by activists to deliver aid risks derailing a US plan to end the war.
More than 40 boats sailing in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) have been accompanied by an Italian naval frigate, which Italian officials said would stop once the flotilla was 150 nautical miles (278km) from Gaza’s shoreline.
Shortly after reaching that point on Wednesday, GSF said it was on “high alert” and that drone activity was “increasing” above the flotilla.
Meloni said the US proposal had sparked “hope” of ending the Israel-Hamas war, adding it was “a fragile balance, which many would be happy to destroy”.
“I fear that the flotilla’s attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade could serve as a pretext to do so,” Meloni said.
Israel has told the flotilla to deliver the humanitarian aid to an Israeli port instead, according to the AFP news agency.
The flotilla consists of more than 500 people, including Italian politicians and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
In a post on Telegram, GSF said that it has now entered the area “where previous flotillas have been attacked and/or intercepted”.
Italian officials have urged the flotilla to accept a compromise and drop the aid in Cyprus to avoid a confrontation with Israel.
“Any other choice risks becoming a pretext for preventing peace, fuelling conflict and therefore affecting above all the people of Gaza,” Meloni said.
But in a statement, the Global Sumud Flotilla said it would continue to sail.
“The Italian navy will not derail this mission. The humanitarian demand to break the blockade cannot be walked back to port,” it said.
Watch: Greta Thunberg on whether Gaza flotilla is a ‘publicity stunt’
Last week, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto condemned what he said was an overnight drone attack by unidentified perpetrators on the flotilla.
Italy and Spain deployed naval ships to the flotilla, then off the coast of Crete, after it reported explosions, drones overhead and communications jamming – accusing Israel of a “dangerous escalation”.
Israel did not comment on the incident – but has repeatedly said the flotilla is a Hamas operation, without citing evidence.
Pope Leo XIV also expressed concern for the safety of the flotilla. “From all sides, people are saying, ‘let’s hope that there will not be violence, that people are respected’. That’s very important,” he said.
In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Greta Thunberg pushed back against criticism that the flotilla was a publicity stunt.
“I don’t think anyone would risk their life for a publicity stunt,” she said.
The US peace plan for Gaza proposes an immediate end to fighting, the release within 72 hours of 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas as well as the remains of the more than two dozen hostages who are believed to be dead – in exchange for hundreds of detained Gazans.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rendered obsolete the 4th Amendment’s prohibition on suspicionless seizures by the police. When the court stayed the district court’s decision in Noem vs. Vasquez Perdomo, it green-lighted an era of policing in which people can be stopped and seized for little more than how they look, the job they work or the language they speak.
Because the decision was issued on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” the justices’ reasoning is unknown. All we have is Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s solo concurrence defending law enforcement’s use of race and ethnicity as a factor in deciding whom to police, while at the same time playing down the risk that comes with every stop — prolonged detention, wanton violence, wrongful deportation and sometimes even death. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her impassioned dissent (joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson): “We should not live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” But now, we do.
The practical effect of this decision is enormous. It strips away what little remained of the guardrails that prevented police (including agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from indiscriminately seizing anyone with only a flimsy pretext.
Now there is no real limit on police seizures. History teaches us that people of color will bear the brunt of this policing regime, including the millions of immigrants who are already subject to police roundups, sweeps and raids.
This decision is no surprise for those of us who study the 4th Amendment. The police have long needed very little to justify a stop, and racial profiling is not new. Yet prior to the Vasquez Perdomo order in most instances, police had to at least articulate a non-race-based reason to stop someone — even if as minor as driving with a broken taillight, not stopping at a stop sign long enough, or walking away from the police too quickly.
Now, police no longer need race-neutral person-specific suspicion (pretextual or real) to seize someone. Appearing “Latino” — itself an indeterminate descriptor because it is an ethnicity, not defined by shared physical traits — along with speaking Spanish and appearing to work a low-wage job is enough, even if you have done nothing to raise suspicion.
Some might believe that if you have nothing to hide there is no reason to fear a police stop — that if you just show police your papers or offer an explanation you can go on your way. Even if that were the case, this sort of oppressive militarized police state — where anyone can be stopped for any reason — is exactly what the 4th Amendment rejected and was meant to prevent.
Moreover, ICE agents and police are not in the business of carefully examining documents (assuming people have the right ones on them) or listening to explanations. They stop, seize and detain — citizens and noncitizens alike. If lucky, some people are released, but many are not — including citizens suspected of being in the country illegally, or individuals whose only alleged crimes are often minor (and the product of poverty) or living peacefully (often for years) in the United States without legal status. And as evidenced by plaintiffs in this case, even if eventually released, a single stop can mean harassment, violence, detention or a life permanently upended.
Even if the 4th Amendment doesn’t prevent them, can’t race-based discrimination and police violence often be addressed through civil rights lawsuits? U.S. Code Section 1983 allows individuals to sue officials who violate their rights. But the reality plays out differently. In a recent decision, this Supreme Court dramatically limited class-action lawsuits, the primary vehicle that would allow widespread relief. The court has created a world in which law enforcement can largely act with impunity under the doctrine of qualified immunity. And there is likely no recourse if a federal official such as an ICE agent violates one’s constitutional rights, as the Supreme Court has sharply limited the ability to sue federal officials for money damages even if they commit a clear constitutional wrong.
The recent decision virtually declaring that the 4th Amendment allows police to engage in express racial profiling may not be the final word on the matter. We hope it isn’t. But longstanding court doctrine had already allowed racial profiling to flourish under the guise of seemingly neutral language of “reasonable suspicion” and “consent.” By allowing a further erosion of the limits on seizures, the Court entrenches a system in which the scope of one’s constitutional rights depends upon the color of one’s skin. If the 4th Amendment is to retain meaning, it must be interpreted to constrain — not enable — the racialized policing practices that have become routine in America.
Daniel Harawa and Kate Weisburd are law professors at NYU Law School and UC Law San Francisco, respectively.
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The Supreme Court’s stay in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo has effectively rendered the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on suspicionless seizures obsolete, allowing law enforcement to stop and detain individuals based primarily on their appearance, language, and occupation rather than individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
This decision represents a dangerous expansion of police authority that strips away constitutional guardrails, enabling officers to seize people with only flimsy pretexts and fundamentally altering the balance between law enforcement power and individual rights.
People of color and immigrants will disproportionately suffer under this new policing regime, as the decision legitimizes racial profiling by allowing stops based on appearing “Latino,” speaking Spanish, and working in low-wage occupations.
The ruling creates an oppressive police state where anyone can be stopped for any reason, directly contradicting the Fourth Amendment’s original purpose of preventing such indiscriminate government seizures and representing exactly what the constitutional provision was designed to prevent.
Available civil rights remedies are inadequate to address these violations, as the Supreme Court has systematically limited class-action lawsuits, expanded qualified immunity protections for law enforcement, and restricted the ability to sue federal officials for constitutional violations.
Different views on the topic
Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence emphasizes that immigration enforcement stops based on reasonable suspicion represent a longstanding and legitimate law enforcement tool, particularly in high-immigration areas like Los Angeles where an estimated 10% of the population may be undocumented[1].
The government’s enforcement actions rely not solely on race but on a combination of four specific factors that, when considered together, can establish reasonable suspicion under established precedent such as United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975)[1].
Proponents argue that judicial consistency and neutrality require courts to avoid improperly restricting reasonable Executive Branch enforcement of immigration laws, just as courts should not compel greater enforcement, with Justice Kavanaugh noting that “consistency and neutrality are hallmarks of good judging”[3].
The Supreme Court found that the government was likely to succeed on appeal due to potential issues with the plaintiffs’ legal standing and questions about Fourth Amendment compliance, suggesting the lower court’s injunction may have been legally flawed[1].
Some legal observers note that the district court’s injunction created ambiguity about what enforcement actions remain permissible, with Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Sotomayor characterizing the injunction’s scope very differently, indicating the legal parameters were unclear[2].
Former Coronation Street star Sarah Lancashire ‘knew when to stop’ doing Happy Valley despite its major success, according to the show’s creator Sally Wainwright
19:42, 28 Sep 2025Updated 19:42, 28 Sep 2025
Sarah Lancashire ‘knew when to stop’ doing Happy Valley despite its major success, according to the show’s creator (Image: BBC/Lookout Point/Matt Squire)
Sarah Lancashire ‘knew when to stop’ doing Happy Valley despite its major success. The actress, 60, starred as Catherine Cawood in Sally Wainwright’s hit drama over the course of three series that were filmed over a decade, and even helped write its final episode, which pulled in almost 10 million viewers.
Despite the show’s incredible popularity, creator Sally, 62, insisted that a short run had always been agreed upon. She told The Sunday Times: “Sarah’s good at knowing when to stop and when to say no. There were a couple of things in the script that she wanted to question, and it was a good process.”
However, fans of the programme need not be disappointed as seasoned television writer Sally explained that she and Sarah, who won a BAFTA for her portrayal of policewoman Catherine, are already working on a new project together, insisting that they are ‘still friends’ and the character is ‘still there’ in their minds.
As well as Happy Valley, Sally is also the creator of several other hit series such as Last Tango in Halifax and Gentleman Jack. She started out writing episodes of radio soap The Archers before going on to work on Coronation Street, which turned Sarah into a household name when she was cast as barmaid Raquel Wolstenhume, in the late 1990s.
Following the advice of late TV writer Kay Mellor, she went on to create At Home With The Braithwaites, which starred Amanda Redman as a woman who had won the lottery but tried to keep it all a secret from her dysfunctional family. Reflecting on those early days of her career writing episodes of the long-running ITV soap, Sally admitted that she worked with some ‘fabulously clever’ people at the time.
She said: “The Coronation Street storyline meetings were amazing. There were some fabulously clever story-makers. Dialogue comes easily, characters come easily, but story is relentlessly hard. I have to just really bash it out. With Happy Valley, I do pride myself on the last episode being just as good as the first episode.”
The scriptwriter previously admitted that she got ‘bored’ of writing for the soaps because of how all the stories had become so similar, and acknowledged that viewing habits have changed dramatically in recent years as streaming services have become the norm.
“I think one of the reasons I got bored of the soaps (is that) all the stories got a bit samey,” she admitted. Referencing the amount of choice TV viewers now have, Sally added: “There is so much content, it is increasingly easy for people to turn over.”
She explained: “You’ve got to be captivating your audience moment by moment… its seems increasingly important.” Discussing her time on Corrie, Sally revealed that she did not initially have the ‘confidence’ to contribute to storylines at Coronation Street.
Sally said she was ‘in awe’ of everyone who worked in the writer’s room when she joined, which had two women within its 15-writer team at the time. Wainwright recalled that it was a time when writers would go to the pub at lunch which she said would mean the afternoon could be a ‘bloodbath’
She added: “It wasn’t a nasty atmosphere, it was very lively and often fun.” Wainwright revealed that writing is how she can ‘make sense of the wppr;d’. In a discussion with broadcaster Adrian Chiles, she reflected on how she began writing as a child with her sister creating strip cartoons and plays.
“It’s just a childhood habit that has continued,” Sally explained. “I make sense of the world by writing about it. I also love the idea of writing dialogue, creating characters, I love the idea of making people say things, I love the actors and love the whole process of drama.”
United States President Donald Trump has told the United Nations General Assembly that Israel’s war on Gaza must stop immediately as he called the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by several Western countries a “reward” for Hamas.
“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately,” Trump told world leaders in New York on Tuesday, adding that he has been “deeply engaged” in trying to secure a ceasefire.
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He reiterated his call for the captives held in Gaza to be returned home. “We have to get it done. We have to negotiate peace. We have to get the hostages back. We want all 20 back,” he said, referring to the 20 of the 48 remaining captives still believed to be alive.
Those who support peace should be united in demanding the release of the captives, he told the leaders gathered for the General Assembly.
“As if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognise the Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” he said.
In contrast, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a meeting on Sunday at the UN aimed at reviving the two-state solution that statehood for Palestinians “is a right, not a reward”.
Gaza truce offers
Trump called for an end to the war in Gaza, but had little criticism for Israel, instead blaming breakdowns in negotiations on Hamas. He insisted that Hamas, the Palestinian group that governed Gaza, “has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace”.
On the other side of the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually been accused of stalling the ceasefire negotiations since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
Israel targeted Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital, Doha, this month as the Palestinian leaders were meeting to discuss the latest truce proposal put forth by the US.
The Israeli prime minister broke the last ceasefire with Hamas in mid-March and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, triggering famine and starvation deaths.
Hamas said it is ready for a truce that will lead to the release of captives and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and a withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, but Netanyahu has refused to commit to a full withdrawal. This month, Netanyahu decided to seize Gaza City, launching a ground invasion that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced thousands.
More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war. The US has been heavily criticised for continuing to arm Israel in a war that a UN commission described as amounting to genocide.
Trump also dedicated some of his speech to the General Assembly to Iran, describing Tehran as the “world’s number one sponsor of terror”. He promised Iran would “never possess a nuclear weapon”.
“Three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer, seven American B-2 bombers dropped 30,000lb [13,600kg] each bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally obliterating everything. No other country on Earth could have done what we did,” Trump said.
While the US president claimed the operation demolished Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, a US defence assessment later suggested the strike only delayed Iran’s nuclear progress by several months.
‘Nobel Peace Prize’
The US president delivered his remarks minutes after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had spoken, denouncing authoritarianism, environmental destruction and inequality, a contrast in tone to Trump’s focus on unilateral strength, nationalism and grievances.
Trump began his speech by taking aim at the teleprompter and a broken elevator he said he encountered at the UN headquarters before moving on to paint his administration as an economic success story.
At several points, Trump returned to his record on foreign policy, claiming to have brought an end to “seven different wars” and suggesting his achievements warranted the Nobel Peace Prize. “Everyone says I should get a Nobel Peace Prize for these achievements,” he said before adding that he did not care about awards, only “saving lives”.
Taking a dig at the UN, Trump said the world body was not coming close to living up to its potential. “I had to end wars instead of the United Nations,” he said.
As the Ukraine conflict rumbles on, Trump argued the war would “never have started if I was president”. He described his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a good one” but said Moscow’s invasion is “not making Russia look good”.
He criticised Europe for continuing to buy Russian oil and gas despite sanctions, calling the practice “embarrassing”, and he singled out China and India as “primary funders” of Russia’s war effort.
“Everyone thought Russia would win in three days, but it didn’t,” Trump said while urging European Union nations to impose tariffs on Moscow.
Attacks on immigration and the UN
As the UN grapples with what experts describe as one of the most volatile periods in its 80-year history, Trump used the platform to attack the institution itself, accusing the body of “funding an assault on Western countries and their borders”. He claimed the organisation was helping “illegal aliens” enter the US by providing food, shelter, transportation and “debit cards”.
The International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, does provide assistance through disbursement cards and transport programmes but in coordination with governments – not to facilitate irregular border crossings.
On Europe, Trump warned of what he called an “invasion” of migrants and took aim at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, falsely claiming the Muslim politician wants to impose Islamic law.
The US president characterised migration and renewable energy as the biggest threat to the “free world”. He said some countries are “going to hell” over their border policies, while calling climate change “the greatest con job”.
“In closing, I just want to repeat that immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” he said.
He also renewed attacks on climate policies and accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of aiding drug smuggling.
Later on Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet Guterres as well as leaders from Ukraine, Argentina, the EU, and a group of Middle Eastern and Asian states. He will host a reception for more than 100 world leaders before returning to Washington, DC.
People were left in stitches after one woman shared a video of her arrival at a tiny airport in the US, with the baggage carousel leaving people in hysterics as to how small it is
The baggage carousel had travellers shocked(Image: Prasit photo via Getty Images)
When you jet off for a weekend city break or embark on a holiday abroad, it’s always intriguing to see the variety of airports.
Some are grand and contemporary, others retain an old-world charm – and some are surprisingly petite. One US airport has left passengers astounded with its unique baggage claim system.
Hattiesburg Laurel Regional Airport in Mississippi, US, has a baggage conveyor belt so compact that bags only make one circuit before being collected. Established in 1967, this airport primarily serves international flights and caters to a region spanning ten counties.
Nestled in the ‘Hub City’, renowned for its ‘Southern hospitality’, it is a significant business hub for much of America’s Southeast.
The airport recently left one traveller gobsmacked upon reaching the baggage claim area. Casey, hailing from Chicago, garnered over eight million views after posting a video of the diminutive conveyor belt, where she observed bags making just a single round before collection, reports the Express.
Casey said: “Please, this airport is so small. Small but efficient.” In another video documenting her journey to Hattiesburg Airport, Casey added: “I knew this airport would be small but when we pull up and there is one singular gate, I could not stop laughing.
“I got my bag plane-side but I couldn’t help but take a look at this fun-size baggage claim. When she [a staff member] rolled this door open and then just started individually placing them [the bags] on the carousel, this was the funniest thing to me.”
People were quick to comment, with one saying: “Just hand me my bag. Why you playing with me with this lil baby belt?” Stop, why is this so cute,” another chimed in. “I’ve seen bigger sushi belts,” quipped a third.
Another added: “Oh bless it, and the little baggage claim sign.” “At this point do they even need the baggage belt,” Booking.com questioned. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines joined in, stating: “At this point the baggage belt is just there for the vibes.
“At this point, why even put a belt in it?” agreed another. “Just call my name at this point,” added another. One person joked: “And passengers will still be asking what carousel their luggage is at… like babe there’s only one.
“The Starbucks in LAX airport is bigger than this space,” another pointed out. Another shared: “I remember I was landing there and I told my boyfriend (who is from Hattiesburg) to meet me in the airport so I didn’t get lost… he was so confused and then I landed and saw this.”
While Hattiesburg may be a small airport, there are others which are even smaller. Morgantown in West Virginia is also home to a tiny airport, served by just one commercial airline offering direct flights to two places – Clarkburg and Washington.
Other small airports around the globe include Barra Airport in Scotland, Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Nepal, Saba Airport in the Caribbean and Agatti Airport in India.
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California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Monday accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr of unlawfully intimidating television broadcasters into toeing a conservative line in favor of President Trump, and urged him to reverse course.
In a letter to Carr, Bonta specifically cited ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air after Kimmel made comments about the killing of close Trump ally Charlie Kirk, and Carr demanded ABC’s parent company Disney “take action” against the late-night host.
Bonta wrote that California “is home to a great many artists, entertainers, and other individuals who every day exercise their right to free speech and free expression,” and that Carr’s demands of Disney threatened their 1st Amendment rights.
“As the Supreme Court held over sixty years ago and unanimously reaffirmed just last year, ‘the First Amendment prohibits government officials from relying on the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech,’” Bonta wrote.
Carr and Trump have both denied playing a role in Kimmel’s suspension, alleging instead that it was due to his show having poor ratings.
After Disney announced Monday that Kimmel’s show would be returning to ABC, Bonta said he was “pleased to hear ABC is reversing course on its capitulation to the FCC’s unlawful threats,” but that his “concerns stand.”
He rejected Trump and Carr’s denials of involvement, and accused the administration of “waging a dangerous attack on those who dare to speak out against it.”
“Censoring and silencing critics because you don’t like what they say — be it a comedian, a lawyer, or a peaceful protester — is fundamentally un-American,” while such censorship by the U.S. government is “absolutely chilling,” Bonta said.
Bonta called on Carr to “stop his campaign of censorship” and commit to defending the right to free speech in the U.S., which he said would require “an express disavowal” of his previous threats and “an unambiguous pledge” that he will not use the FCC “to retaliate against private parties” for speech he disagrees with moving forward.
“News outlets have reported today that ABC will be returning Mr. Kimmel’s show to its broadcast tomorrow night. While it is heartening to see the exercise of free speech ultimately prevail, this does not erase your threats and the resultant suppression of free speech from this past week or the prospect that your threats will chill free speech in the future,” Bonta wrote.
After Kirk’s killing, Kimmel said during a monologue that the U.S. had “hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Carr responded on a conservative podcast, saying, “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Two major owners of ABC affiliates dropped the show, after which ABC said it would be “preempted indefinitely.”
Both Kirk’s killing and Kimmel’s suspension — which followed the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” by CBS — kicked off a tense debate about freedom of speech in the U.S. Both Kimmel and Colbert are critics of Trump, while Kirk was an ardent supporter.
Constitutional scholars and other 1st amendment advocates said the administration and Carr have clearly been exerting inappropriate pressure on media companies.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, said Carr’s actions were part of a broad assault on free speech by the administration, which “is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st amendment.”
Summer Lopez, the interim co-chief executive of PEN America, said this is “a dangerous moment for free speech” in the U.S. because of a host of Trump administration actions that are “pretty clear violations of the 1st Amendment” — including Carr’s threats but also statements about “hate speech” by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and new Pentagon restrictions on journalists reporting on the U.S. military.
She said Kimmel’s return to ABC showed that “public outrage does make a difference,” but that “it’s important that we generate that level of public outrage when the targeting is of people who don’t have that same prominence.”
Carr has also drawn criticism from conservative corners, including from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC. He recently said on his podcast that he found it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”
Cruz said he works closely with Carr, whom he likes, but that what Carr said was “dangerous as hell” and could be used down the line “to silence every conservative in America.”
The company’s business model and strategy help secure an ongoing stream of income for investors.
Investors in energy stocks, such as Chevron(CVX -1.71%), always need to keep a close eye on energy commodity prices. That’s one significant reason why the stock is intriguing right now, as the share price has outperformed during a period of downward drift in oil prices. That makes it particularly appealing for passive income investors looking to buy Chevron shares for a 4.3% dividend yield.
Chevron offers protection
The chart below compares Chevron to two higher-quality energy exploration and production companies, Devon Energy and Diamondback Energy. While the others have performed in line with the declining price of oil, Chevron has outperformed.
This is a valuable demonstration of what many income-seeking investors are looking for from energy stocks. While pure-play exploration and production stocks have demonstrated a correlation with the price of oil, the benefits of Chevron being a vertically integrated oil major are becoming increasingly apparent.
This means it combines upstream operations (exploration and production) with downstream operations (refining, marketing, and chemicals), and in doing so secures the cash-flow generation to support a growing dividend.
In addition, Chevron’s $53 billion acquisition of Hess Corporation has added significant international assets (in Guyana) that tend to have a lower break-even cost (the minimum price of oil a producer can cover costs in producing oil), and adds assets in the Bakken (North Dakota) to Chevron’s existing strength in the Permian (West Texas and New Mexico).
Image source: Getty Images.
What it means to investors
While Chevron will never be completely immune from falling oil prices, its downstream assets and efforts to diversify by acquiring lower break-even-cost international assets protect it from a moderated decline, which is good news for income-seeking investors. At the same time, it has upside potential coming from a possible increase in oil prices.
Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chevron. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
United States President Donald Trump has said he is ready to sanction Russia, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow and impose their own sanctions on Russia to pressure it to end its more than three-year war in Ukraine.
“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, which he described as a letter to all NATO nations and the world.
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Trump proposed that NATO, as a group, place 50-100 percent tariffs on China to weaken its economic grip over Russia.
Trump also wrote that NATO’s commitment “to WIN” the war “has been far less than 100%” and that it was “shocking” that some members of the alliance continued to buy Russian oil. As if speaking to them, he said, “It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia.”
NATO member Turkiye has been the third-largest buyer of Russian oil, after China and India. Other members of the 32-state alliance involved in buying Russian oil include Hungary and Slovakia, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
If NATO “does as I say, the WAR will end quickly”, Trump wrote. “If not, you are just wasting my time.”
As he struggles to deliver on promises to end the war quickly, Trump has repeatedly threatened to increase pressure on Russia. Last month, he slapped a 50 percent tariff on India over its continued buying of Russian oil, though he has not yet taken similar actions against China.
Trump’s social media post comes days after Polish and NATO forces shot down drones violating Polish airspace during Russia’s biggest-ever aerial barrage against Ukraine.
Poland and Romania scramble aircraft
Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale anywhere in NATO territory.
Wednesday’s incident was the first time a NATO member is known to have fired shots during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Poland said it and its NATO allies had deployed helicopters and aircraft as Russian drones struck Ukraine, not far from its border.
Poland’s military command said on X that “ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached their highest level of alert”, adding that the actions were “preventative”.
Also on Saturday, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said that the country’s airspace had been breached by a drone during a Russian attack on infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine.
The country scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the situation, tracking the drone until it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, said the ministry in a statement.
Little sign of peace
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed the prospect of penalties on states still doing business with Moscow.
In an interview with the US media outlet ABC News last week, Zelenskyy said, “I’m very thankful to all the partners, but some of them, I mean, they continue [to] buy oil and Russian gas, and this is not fair… I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries that continue to make deals with Russia, I think this is the right idea.”
Last month, the US president hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss an end to the war, in their first face-to-face meeting since Trump’s return to the White House.
Shortly afterwards, he hosted Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington, DC, for discussions on a settlement.
Despite the diplomatic blitz, there has been little progress towards a peace deal, with Moscow and Kyiv remaining far apart on key issues and Russia persisting in its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
Russia claims advances
Russia on Saturday said it had captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, which Moscow’s forces say they reached at the beginning of July.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka near the border with the Donetsk region – the epicentre of fighting on the front. The AFP news agency was unable to confirm this claim.
DeepState, an online battlefield map run by Ukrainian military analysts, said the village was still under Kyiv’s control.
At the end of August, Ukraine had for the first time acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow had claimed advances at the start of the month.
The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for halting hostilities, something that Kyiv has rejected.
The Dnipropetrovsk region is not one of the five Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Crimea – that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.
On Friday, Zelenskyy said that Putin wanted to “occupy all of Ukraine” and would not stop until his goal was achieved, even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.
Sept. 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday outlined the road to new sanctions against Russia in an effort to stop that country’s war in Ukraine.
“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“The purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia.”
Trump earlier in the week reportedly delivered the same message to European Union countries, urging them to enact new 100% tariffs on China and India for their purchases of Russian oil.
“Just say when? I believe that this, plus NATO, as a group, placing 50% to 100% TARIFFS ON CHINA, to be fully withdrawn after the WAR with Russia and Ukraine is ended, will also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR,” Trump wrote Saturday.
“China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia, and these powerful Tariffs will break that grip.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright this week called on EU countries still buying oil and gas from Russia to shift their business to the United States.
“We want to displace all Russian gas. President Trump, America, and all the nations of the EU, we want to end the Russian-Ukraine war,” Wright said this week.
“The more we can strangle Russia’s ability to fund this murderous war, the better for all of us. So the answer to your question is absolutely.”
US President Donald Trump has said he is ready to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, but only if Nato countries meet certain conditions which include stopping buying Russian oil.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said he was “ready to do major sanctions on Russia” once Nato nations had “agreed, and started, to do the same thing”.
Trump has repeatedly threatened tougher measures against Moscow, but has so far failed to take any action when the Kremlin ignored his deadlines and threats of sanctions.
He described the purchases of Russian oil as “shocking” and also suggested that Nato place 50 to 100% tariffs on China, claiming it would weaken its “strong control” over Russia.
In what he called a letter to Nato nations, Trump said: “I am ready to ‘go’ when you are. Just say when?”
He added “the purchase of Russian oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia”.
Trump also claimed the halt on Russian energy purchases, combined with heavy tariffs on China “to be fully withdrawn” after the war, would be of “great help” in ending the conflict.
Europe’s reliance on Russian energy has fallen dramatically since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, the EU got about 45% of its gas from Russia. That is expected to fall to about 13% this year, though Trump’s words suggest he feels that figure is not enough.
Warsaw said the incursion was deliberate, but Moscow downplayed the incident and said it had “no plans to target” facilities in Poland.
Denmark, France and Germany have joined a new Nato mission to bolster the alliance’s eastern flank, and will move military assets eastwards.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also made a demand to European nations over the purchase of Russian oil and gas.
In an interview with ABC News, he said: “We have to stop [buying] any kind of energy from Russia, and by the way, anything, any deals with Russia. We can’t have any deals if we want to stop them.”
Since 2022, European nations have spent around €210bn (£182bn) on Russian oil and gas, according to the think tank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, much of which will have funded the invasion of Ukraine.
The EU has previously committed to phasing out the purchases by 2028. The US want that to happen faster – partly by buying supplies from them instead.
Trump’s message was to Nato, not the EU, therefore including nations such as Turkey, a major buyer of Russian oil and a country that has maintained closer relations with Moscow that any other member of the alliance.
Persuading Ankara to cut off Russian supplies may be a far harder task.
Trump’s most recent threat of tougher sanctions on Russia came earlier in September after the Kremlin’s heaviest bombardment on Ukraine since the war began.
Asked by reporters if he was prepared to move to the “second phase” of punishing Moscow, Trump replied: “Yeah, I am,” though gave no details.
The US previously placed tariffs of 50% on goods from India – which included a 25% penalty for transactions with Russia that are a key source of funds for the war in Ukraine.
THE last time I wore a pencil skirt, my brother affectionately told me I looked like Nessa Jenkins from Gavin & Stacey.
Brotherly love — always there to keep your feet firmly on the ground.
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Even Victoria Beckham has given in to the pencil skirt revival and created her own design, with a matching blazer, to revamp power-dressingCredit: Instagram
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Get the look wrong, though, and you will end up looking like Nessa from Gavin & StaceyCredit: BBC
But, sadly, he was right.
My black, knee-length leather skirt and then short brown hair did make me look like the Welsh slot machine worker, minus the tattoos.
Despite my affection for the show and actress Ruth Jones, who plays Nessa, the comment was enough to put me off that look for life.
Nessa is not exactly known for her chic style.
Now, as trends for autumn/winter start to appear, I’ve spotted that curve-clinging pencil skirts are back — from Gucci and Givenchy to high-street favourites Zara and Mango.
And now I’m wondering, has the time come to give the style another whirl?
There was a 12,000 per cent increase in searches on shopping site LTK for “pencil skirts” following the autumn/winter 2025 fashion weeks earlier this year.
This thirst for a more slimline look tells us one thing, if nothing else — many of us, myself included, want to jump off the conveyor belt of loose midi and maxi styles.
Five years on from lockdowns, we’re ready for a bit of wiggle. We want to get dressed up!.
Now, I’m not for one minute suggesting we revert back to peak Noughties pencil skirt trends, when going “out out” was all about looking like a sexy businesswoman.
tried on my teen era Topshop dress from 9 years ago & the results were insane, people say I look like a 50s movie star
Think peroxide blonde Victoria Beckham in her peak Wag era, complete with skintight skirt and peplum boob tube. Or reality stars like Towie original Amy Childs.
But there was a time before this when the pencil skirt was stylish and classy.
THE last time I wore a pencil skirt, my brother affectionately told me I looked like Nessa Jenkins from Gavin & Stacey.
Clemmie Fieldsend, Fashion Editor
Starlets like Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe were big fans of the style, which became hugely popular in the late Fifties, with tucked in blouses and knits to show off their waist and bust.
As Marilyn tottered along the train platform in Some Like It Hot, the tight-fitting style may well have played a part in her trademark wiggle walk.
In the Eighties, pencil skirts were paired with shoulder-padded blazers. Women were making moves in boardrooms and this was power-dressing at its best. Think Melanie Griffith in Working Girl and Joan Collins in Dynasty.
Over the next few decades, the pencil skirt became a workwear uniform.
But recently, aside from wives of world leaders such as Melania Trump or contestants on The Apprentice, it has disappeared from our office attire.
Especially since Covid, you are more likely to wear flats and comfy trousers than a restrictive, uncomfortable and somewhat dated knee-length skirt.
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Recently, Pamela Anderson has been channelling Marilyn Monroe with her retro looks, including her trademark wiggle skirtCredit: GC Images
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Fashion darling Daisy Edgar-Jones wore one of the skirts at Wimbledon and another to a recent eventCredit: Getty
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Back in time to peroxide blonde Victoria Beckham in her peak Wag era, complete with skintight skirt and peplum boob tubeCredit: Getty
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Reality stars like Towie original Amy Childs were also keen to get in on the peak Noughties pencil skirt trendsCredit: Getty
It seems, though, that we have now come full circle. As well as the designers’ offerings, we’ve seen a pregnant Rihanna wear a pencil skirt to a pre-Met Gala bash.
Pamela Anderson has been channelling Marilyn Monroe with her retro looks, including her trademark wiggle skirt.
Even Victoria Beckham has given into the revival and created her own design, with a matching blazer, to revamp power-dressing.
I am convinced that there’s a way to wear this season’s wiggle skirts without looking like a string of sausages
Clemmie Fieldsend, Fashion Editor
We’ll also see the pencil return to screens this season as Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts and Niecy Nash-Betts star as outrageously fierce and successful lawyers in Disney’s legal drama All’s Fair later on this year.
But after enjoying years of elastic waistbands and roomy skirts, are the rest of us now ready to squeeze into a tummy-sucking number?
Personally, I’ll never get back into a black pleather version again.
I can’t shake my Nessa past and rarely get dolled up enough to dust off my peplum and six-inch heels.
But looking at the styles around on the high street, I am convinced that there’s a way to wear this season’s wiggle skirts without looking like a string of sausages.
The faux-leather options out there are looser and more flattering, and they come in a range of colours.
There are also cosy knitted versions or softer viscose numbers with bold patterns.
I like the idea of wearing one with an oversized blazer and knee-high boots to the office in the autumn, to sharpen up my workwear.
For drinks, I might even plump for a faux-leather number in sage or burgundy, with heels.
But for the majority of the week, I will be sticking with my favourite flats.
And I’m sorry, but you just can’t do a pencil skirt with ballet pumps or brogues without looking like a wally.
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Marilyn Monroe nails the look in 1959 movie Some Like It HotCredit: Getty
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Rihanna wears a pencil skirt to a pre-Met Gala bashCredit: Getty
Non-crime hate incidents should stop being recorded by the police, the policing watchdog has said.
Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said current legislation places police in an “invidious position” with “discretion and common sense” not always prevailing.
“I think we need to separate the offensive from the criminal,” he added.
The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he agreed with Sir Andy’s call and highlighted the “limited” levels of discretion available for officers, adding: “We need more flexibility.”
The visit attracted a lot of online comment at the time. Essex Police since clarified “at no stage” did its officers tell her the investigation was related to a “non-crime hate incident” while Ms Pearson said she was left “dumbstruck” by the visit.
Non-crime hate incidents are alleged acts perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards people with certain characteristics, such as race or gender.
They are recorded to collect data on “hate incidents that could escalate into more serious harm” but do not amount to a criminal offence, according to Home Office guidance.
Police guidance on the recording of NCHIs was first published in 2005, following recommendations by an inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the publication on Wednesday of the annual State of Policing in England and Wales assessment, Sir Andy said: “I’m a firm believer that non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and that intelligence can be gathered in a different way, which would cause less concern to the public and would make recording of such issues much easier for policing.”
He added: “We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law.”
He underlined that the role of the police is to deal with criminality “across the board” which at times means dealing with issues that occur online.
“It can be a fine line, and that’s one of the reasons why we need to look again at the policy and the legislation that sits around this because it places the police in an invidious position and, as we know, discretion and common sense don’t always win out in these issues.”
At the time, the government’s then-Policing Minister Diana Johnson said the plan was “unworkable” and “would prevent the police monitoring serious antisemitism and other racist incidents”.
PA Media
The chief inspector has said gathering such intelligence in different ways would cause less concern for the public
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark reiterated on Wednesday calls he made last week for the government to “change or clarify” the law after the arrest of Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan.
Linehan was arrested on suspicion of an alleged criminal offence of inciting violence in relation to posts on X – police were not seeking to record a non-crime hate incident.
The situation sparked a backlash with public figures and politicians weighing in and reignited a wider debate about the policing of comments made on social media.
Linehan has since said he does not regret any of his posts – adding he would be suing the police “for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment”.
Sir Mark defended the officers involved, although said “perhaps some things could have been done differently”.
He added that he recognised “concern caused by such incidents, given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world”.
“The policies that lead officers to make these decisions are wrong.
“We need to pull those policies back to give officers more discretion to make different decisions in these circumstances.”
Asked by media about this arrest, Sir Andy added: “Was it a great public optic? No, it wasn’t. Is there individual criticism from me in relation to the officers who were there? No, there isn’t.
“Lessons I’m sure will be learned in relation to it, but it does make policing’s job harder when these things occur, because this becomes the focus of attention.”
The State of Policing annual report was published on Wednesday with the chief inspector saying this constitutes a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to start the reform that policing needs.
“It will be a missed opportunity if it’s not properly funded from the start,” he added.
Among Sir Andy’s findings were:
Police forces and the government are “working hard to rebuild public confidence”
The service faces “significant” workforce challenges
Forces need better collaboration between themselves and to improve how consistently they communicate with communities
The inspectorate will carry out an inspection next year into police leadership – including a focus on the role of chief constable
Melbourne, Australia – Lee Little recalls the phone call with her daughter in December 2017; it was just minutes before Alicia was killed.
“I spoke to her 15 minutes before she died,” Little told Al Jazeera.
“I asked her, was she OK? Did you want us to come up to pick you up? And she said, ‘No, I’ve got my car. I’m right, Mum, everything’s packed.’”
Alicia Little was on the verge of finally leaving an abusive four-and-a-half-year relationship.
Not only had Alicia rung her mother, but she had also called the police emergency hotline for assistance, as her fiance Charles Evans fell into a drunken rage.
Alicia knew what to expect from her partner: extreme violence.
Evans had a history of abuse towards Alicia, with her mother recounting to Al Jazeera the first time it occurred.
“The first time he actually bashed her, she was on the phone to me. And the next minute, I heard him come across and try to grab her phone,” Little said.
“I heard her say, ‘Get your hands off my throat. I can’t breathe.’ And the next minute, you hear him say, ‘You’re better off dead.’”
Little told how she had taken photos of her daughter’s terrible injuries.
“She had broken ribs. She had a broken cheekbone, broken jaw, black eyes, and where he’d had her around the throat, you could see his finger marks. It was a bruise, and where he’d give her a kick, and right down the side, you could see his foot marks.”
Like many abusive relationships, a pattern would emerge, whereby Alicia would leave temporarily, only to return after Evans promised to change his behaviour.
“This went on and off for the four and a half years,” Little said.
“He’d bash her, she’d come home, and then she’d say to me, ‘Mum, he’s told me that he’s gone and got help.’”
Yet the violence only escalated.
Lee Little with a photograph of her daughter, Alicia Little, who was killed by her partner in 2017. Alicia’s killer served only two years and eight months in jail for the crime [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
On the night Alicia decided to leave for good, Evans drove his four-wheel-drive at her, pinning her between the front of the vehicle and a water tank.
Alicia Little, aged 41 and a mother of two boys, died within minutes before the police she had called could arrive.
As she lay drawing her final breaths, security camera footage would later show her killer drinking beer at the local pub, where he drove to after running Alicia down.
Evans was arrested, and after initially being charged with murder, had his charges downgraded to dangerous driving causing death and failing to render assistance after a motor vehicle accident.
He would walk free from jail after only two years and eight months.
The statistics
Alicia Little is just one of the many women in Australia killed every year, in what activists such as The Red Heart Campaign’s Sherele Moody are saying is so prevalent that it amounts to a “femicide”: the targeted killing of women by men.
Moody, who documents the killings, contests those statistics, telling Al Jazeera they do not represent the true scale of deadly attacks on women in the country.
Government data records “domestic homicide”; women killed resulting in a conviction of murder or manslaughter.
As in the case of Alicia Little, the lesser charges her killer was convicted on related to motoring offences and do not amount to a domestic homicide under government reporting and are not reflected in the statistics.
“One of the key weapons that perpetrators use against women in Australia is vehicles,” Moody told Al Jazeera.
“They almost always get charged with dangerous driving, causing death. That is not a homicide charge. It doesn’t get counted despite it being a domestic violence act, an act of domestic violence perpetrated by a partner,” Moody said.
“The government underrepresents the epidemic of violence. And in the end, the numbers that they’re using influence their policy. It influences their funding decisions. It influences how they speak to us as a community about violence against women,” she said.
Moody said that between January 2024 and June this year, she had documented 136 killings of women; many – like Alicia Little – by their partners. “Ninety-six percent of the deaths I record are perpetrated by men.”
“Around 60 percent of the deaths are the result of domestic and family violence,” she said.
Sherele Moody, from The Red Heart Campaign, speaks with the media at a Stop Killing Women protest earlier this year in Melbourne, Australia. Moody says the official government data underrepresents the true scale of ‘femicide’ in Australia [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
While much focus is on women’s safety in public spaces – for example, walking home alone at night – Moody said the least safe place for a woman is actually in her own home.
“The reality is that if you’re going to be killed, whether you’re a man or woman or a child, you’re going to be killed by someone you know,” she said.
Data shows that only about 10 percent of female victims are killed by strangers, deaths often sensationally covered by the media and prompting public debate about women’s safety.
“Yes, stranger killings do happen, and when they do, they get a lot of focus and a lot of attention, and it lulls people into a false sense of security about who is perpetrating the violence,” Moody said.
Male violence in Australia
Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, a national task force to prevent violence against women, said attacks on women are the “most extreme outcome of broader patterns of gendered violence and inequality”.
“When we refer to the gendered drivers of violence, we are talking about the social conditions and power imbalances that create the environment where this violence occurs,” Kinnersly said.
“These include condoning or excusing violence against women, men’s control of decision-making, rigid gender stereotypes and dominant forms of masculinity, and male peer relations that promote aggression and disrespect towards women,” she said.
“Addressing the gendered drivers is vital because violence against women is not random; it reflects deeply entrenched inequalities and norms in society. If we do not address these root causes, we cannot achieve long-term prevention,” she added.
Patterns of male violence are deeply rooted in Australia’s colonial history, in which men are told they need to be physically and mentally tough, normalising male aggression, write authors Alana Piper and Ana Stevenson.
“For much of the 19th century, men far outnumbered women within the European population of the Australian colonies. This produced a culture that prized hyper-masculinity as a national ideal,” they write.
Colonial male aggression also resulted in extreme violence perpetrated on Indigenous women during the frontier times, through rape and massacres.
Misogyny and racism were also promoted in Australia’s parliament during the 20th century, as legislators crafted assimilationist laws aimed at controlling the lives of Indigenous women and removing their children as part of what has become known as the “Stolen Generations”.
Up to a third of Indigenous children were removed from their families as part of a suite of government policies between 1910 and 1970, resulting in widespread cultural genocide and intergenerational social, economic and health disparities.
This legacy of colonial racism and discrimination continues to play out in vast socioeconomic inequalities experienced by Indigenous people in the present day, including violence against women, activists say.
Recent government data shows that Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised due to violence than non-Indigenous women in Australia and six times more likely to die as a result of family violence.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are among the most at-risk groups for family violence and intimate partner homicide in Australia,” First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence (FNAAFV) Chief Executive Officer Kerry Staines told Al Jazeera.
“These disproportionately high rates are the result of historical injustice and ongoing systemic failure,” Staines said, including forced displacement of Indigenous communities, child removals and the breakdown of family structures.
“Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been affected by multigenerational trauma caused by institutional abuse, incarceration and marginalisation. When trauma is left unaddressed, and support services are inadequate or culturally unsafe, the risk of violence, including within relationships, increases,” she said.
Indigenous women are also the fastest-growing prison cohort in Australia.
On any given night, four out of 10 women in prison are Indigenous women, despite making up only 2.5 per cent of the adult female population.
Staines said there is a nexus between domestic violence and incarceration.
“There is a clear and well-documented relationship between the hyper-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the high rates of family violence experienced in our communities,” she said.
“The removal of parents and caregivers from families due to imprisonment increases the likelihood of child protection involvement, housing instability and intergenerational trauma, all of which are risk factors for both perpetration and victimisation of family violence.”
‘Toxic culture’
While Australia was one of the first Western countries to grant women voting rights, deeply rooted inequalities persisted through much of the 20th century, with women being excluded from much of public and civic life, including employment in the government sector and the ability to sit on juries, until the 1970s.
This exclusion from positions of authority – including the judicial system – allowed a culture of “victim blaming” to develop, particularly in instances of domestic abuse and sexual assault, activists say.
Rather than holding male perpetrators to account and addressing violence, focus remained on the actions of female victims: what they may have been wearing, where they had been, and prior sexual histories as a basis for apportioning blame to those who had suffered the consequences of gender-based violence.
Such was the case with Isla Bell, a 19-year-old woman from Melbourne, who police allege was beaten to death in October 2024.
A missing poster for Isla Bell, who was beaten to death in October 2024 [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
Media reporting on Isla’s death focused largely on her personal life and provided graphic details about her death, while little attention was given to the two men who were charged with Isla’s alleged murder.
Isla’s mother, Justine Spokes, said the reporting “felt really abusive”.
“The way in which my daughter’s murder was reported on just highlights the pervasive toxic culture that is systemic in Australia,” said Spokes, describing a “victim-blaming narrative” around the killing of her daughter.
“It was written in a really biased way that felt really disrespectful, devaluing and dehumanising,” she said, adding that society had become desensitised to male violence against women in Australia.
“It’s just become so normalised, which I think is actually a sign of trauma, that we’re numb to it. It’s been pervasive for that long. If that’s the mainstream psyche in Australia, it’s just so dangerous,” she said.
“I really think that this pervasive, toxic, misogynistic culture, it’s definitely written into our law. It’s very colonial,” she added.
The Australian government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has committed to the ambitious task of tackling violence against women within a generation.
A spokesperson from the Department of Social Services told Al Jazeera the government has invested 4 billion Australian dollars ($2.59bn) to deliver on the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032.
“The Australian Government acknowledges the significant levels of violence against women and children including intimate partner homicides,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Ending gender-based violence remains a national priority for the Australian Government. Our efforts to end gender based violence in one generation are not set-and-forget – we are rigorously tracking, measuring and assessing our efforts, and making change where we must,” the spokesperson added.
A petition that documents women killed in Australia since 2008 at a Stop Killing Women protest in Melbourne, Australia [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
Yet for Lee Little, mother of Alicia Little who was killed in 2017, not enough is being done, and she does not feel justice was served in the case of her daughter, describing the killer’s light sentence as “gut-wrenching”.
Little is now petitioning for a national domestic violence database in a bid to hold perpetrators accountable and allow women to gain access to information regarding prior convictions.
“Our family would love a national database, because perpetrators, at this moment, anywhere in Australia, can do a crime in one state and move to another, and they’re not recognised” as offenders in their new location, she said.
Little said public transparency around prior convictions would protect women from entering into potentially abusive relationships in the first place.
Yet the Australian federal government has yet to implement such a database, in part due to the complexities of state jurisdictions.
The federal attorney-general’s office told Al Jazeera that “primary responsibility for family violence and criminal matters rests with the states and territories, with each managing their own law enforcement and justice systems”.
“Creation of a publicly accessible national register of perpetrators of family violence could only be implemented with the support of state and territory governments, who manage the requisite data and legislation.”
Despite the apparent intransigence in law, Little remains committed to calling out violence against women wherever she sees it.
“I’ve been to supermarkets where there’s been abuse in front of me, and I’ve stepped in,” she said.
“I will be a voice for Alicia and for a national database till my last breath,” she added.
Kellie Carter-Bell, a survivor of domestic violence and speaker at the Stop Killing Women protest in Melbourne, told Al Jazeera: ‘I had my first black eye at 13. I had my last black eye at 36. My mission in being here today is teaching women that you can get out safely and live a successful life.’ [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
Last fall, indie pop auteur Tei Shi immersed herself in the British Columbia backwoods during a creative retreat — an experience that helped her reclaim artistic control over her decade-long career.
Out Friday, the Canadian Colombian singer shares her most intimate album to date, “Make believe I make believe,” a 10-track record she’s self-releasing through Tei Shi LLC and the Orchard.
“Being back home, reconnecting with family and old friends, and working without any outside voices or pressure — no label, manager, or restrictions — allowed me to fully dive into my mind and emotions,” says Tei Shi in a statement.
The 35-year-old singer-songwriter attended the weeklong retreat in Vancouver Island, Canada, with longtime collaborators Noah Beresin (co-creator of the alternative hip-hop project Chiddy Bang) and Tommy English (the record producer behind many of Børns’ hits).
“The result is a really versatile collection that captures a wide range of feelings and touches on sonics from Canadiana to neo-perreo,” she adds.
Since emerging in the music scene with her breakthrough 2013 debut EP, “Saudade,” and follow-up 2015 EP, “Verde,” Tei Shi — whose real name is Valerie Teicher Barbosa — remains untethered to a genre, ebbing and flowing between dream-pop, indie folk and shoegaze.
Her new, fourth studio album expands on the 2024 LP, “Valerie,” her first independent project, which was released after departing her previous label, Downtown Records (then under Geffen), which left her feeling creatively wounded. With new control of her artistic vision, unfettered by the demands of the mainstream music industry, the move has allowed Tei Shi to release songs in both English and Spanish.
This time around, the artist leans into her multicultural identity, experimenting whimsically with what she has lovingly dubbed Canadianatón — a sonic palette inspired by her upbringing in Vancouver’s mountainous terrain and the melancholic Latin ballads she was raised with.
She digs further into the gritty neo-perreo sound with tantalizing tracks like “222,” featuring Loyal Lobos, and the sticky, synth-laden melody of “Don’t Cry.” In contrast, Tei Shi’s feathery vocals float lightly over a sensual bolero beat in “Aphrodite.”
In the album’s focus track, “Montón,” an upbeat reggaeton track, the artist surrenders herself to the natural motions of love and lust.
“‘Montón’ is a song about falling for someone, crushing hard and giving into it,” says Tei Shi. “I picture it as a late night with your bb, up all night just the two of you in your room, dancing together and tuning out the world.”
It also wouldn’t be a complete Tei Shi album without the thoughtful layering of ethereal beats, most evident in the advance single “Best Be Leaving,” which echoes the essence of legendary dream-pop band Cocteau Twins.
The “Bassically” singer also dropped details on her upcoming U.S. headline tour, which kicks off Sept. 26 in Los Angeles’ Lodge Room. Tei Shi will make a stop in 11 other North American cities, including stops in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Toronto and more.
WASHINGTON — This year’s most far-reaching immigration case is likely to decide if immigration agents in Los Angeles are free to stop, question and arrest Latinos they suspect are here illegally.
President Trump promised the “largest mass deportation operation” in American history, and he chose to begin aggressive street sweeps in Los Angeles in early June.
The Greater Los Angeles area is “ground zero for the effects of the border crisis,” his lawyers told the Supreme Court this month. “Nearly 2 million illegal aliens — out of an area population of 20 million — are there unlawfully, encouraged by sanctuary-city policies and local officials’ avowed aim to thwart federal enforcement efforts.”
The “vast majority of illegal aliens in the [Central] District [of California] come from Mexico or Central America and many only speak Spanish,” they added.
Their fast-track appeal urged the justices to confirm that immigration agents have “reasonable suspicion” to stop and question Latinos who work in businesses or occupations that draw many undocumented workers.
No one questions that U.S. immigration agents may arrest migrants with criminal records or a final order of removal. But Trump administration lawyers say agents also have the authority to stop and question — and sometimes handcuff and arrest — otherwise law-abiding Latinos who have lived and worked here for years.
They could do so based not on evidence that the particular person lacks legal status but on the assumption that they look and work like others who are here illegally.
“Reasonable suspicion is a low bar — well below probable cause,” administration lawyers said. “Apparent ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion,” they added, noting that this standard assumes “lawful stops of innocent people may occur.”
If the court rules for Trump, it “could be enormously consequential” in Los Angeles and nationwide, said UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy. “The government would read this as giving immigration enforcement agents a license to interrogate and detain people without individualized suspicion. It would likely set a pattern that could be used in other parts of the country.”
In their response to the appeal, immigrant rights advocates said the court should not “bless a regime that could ensnare in an immigration dragnet the millions of people … who are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally entitled to be in this country and are Latino, speak Spanish” and work in construction, food services or agriculture and can be seen at bus stops, car washes or retail parking lots.
The case now before the high court began June 18 when Pedro Vasquez Perdomo and two other Pasadena residents were arrested at a bus stop where they were waiting to be picked up for a job. They said heavily armed men wearing masks grabbed them, handcuffed them and put them in a car and drove to a detention center.
If “felt like a kidnapping,” Vasquez Perdomo said.
The plaintiffs include people who were handcuffed, arrested and taken to holding facilities even though they were U.S. citizens.
They joined a lawsuit with unions and immigrants rights groups as well as others who said they were confronted with masked agents who shouted commands and, in some instances, pushed them to the ground.
However, the suit quickly focused not on the aggressive and sometimes violent manner of the detentions, but on the legality of the stops.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong said the detentions appeared to violate the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
It is “illegal to conduct roving patrols which identify people based on race alone, aggressively question them, and then detain them without a warrant, without their consent, and without reasonable suspicion that they are without status,” she said on July 11.
The crucial phrase is “reasonable suspicion.”
For decades, the Supreme Court has said police officers and federal agents may stop and briefly question persons if they see something that gives them reason to suspect a violation of the law. This is why, for example, an officer may pull over a motorist whose car has swerved on the highway.
But it was not clear that U.S. immigration agents can claim they have reasonable suspicion to stop and question persons based on their appearance if they are sitting at a bus stop in Pasadena, working at a car wash or standing with others outside a Home Depot.
Frimpong did not forbid agents from stopping and questioning persons who may be here illegally, but she put limits on their authority.
She said agents may not stop persons based “solely” on four factors: their race or apparent ethnicity, the fact they speak Spanish, the type of work they do, or their location such as a day labor pickup site or a car wash.
On Aug. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift the judge’s temporary restraining order. The four factors “describe only a broad profile that does not supply the reasonable suspicion to justify a detentive stop,” the judges said by a 3-0 vote.
The district judge’s order applies in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
The 9th Circuit said those seven counties have an estimated population of 19,233,598, of whom 47% or 9,096,334 identify as “Hispanic or Latino.”
Like Frimpong, the three appellate judges were Democratic appointees.
A week later, Trump administration lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in Noem vs. Perdomo. They said the judge’s order was impeding the president’s effort to enforce the immigration laws.
They urged the court to set aside the judge’s order and to clear the way for agents to make stops if they suspect the person may be in the country illegally.
Agents do not need evidence of a legal violation, they said. Moreover, the demographics of Los Angeles alone supplies them with reasonable suspicion.
“All of this reflects common sense: the reasonable-suspicion threshold is low, and the number of people who are illegally present and subject to detention and removal under the immigration laws in the (the seven-county area of Southern California) is extraordinarily high,” wrote Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer. “The high prevalence of illegal aliens should enable agents to stop a relatively broad range of individuals.”
He said the government is not “extolling racial profiling,” but “apparent ethnicity can be relevant to reasonable suspicion, especially in immigration enforcement.”
In the past, the court has said police can make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” or the full picture. That should help the administration because agents can point to the large number of undocumented workers at certain businesses.
But past decisions have also said officers need some reason to suspect a specific individual may be violating the law.
The Supreme Court could act at any time, but it may also be several weeks before an order is issued. The decision may come with little or no explanation.
In recent weeks, the court’s conservatives have regularly sided with Trump and against federal district judges who have stood in his way. The terse decisions have been often followed by an angry and lengthy dissent from the three liberals.
Immigration rights advocates said the court should not uphold “an extraordinarily expansive dragnet, placing millions of law-abiding people at imminent risk of detention by federal agents.”
They said the daily patrols “have cast a pall over the district, where millions meet the government’s broad demographic profile and therefore reasonably fear that they may be caught up in the government’s dragnet, and perhaps spirited away from their families on a long-term basis, any time they venture outside their own homes.”
If you browse through social media, it’s easy to find commentary about canceling the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
There are Angelenos who lack confidence in the city and county’s ability to roll out the red carpet due to perceived failures during the Palisades and Altadena fires.
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One syndicated columnist pleaded with L.A. not to work with “a lawless U.S. regime,” while sportswriter and author Jeff Pearlman wondered if Latin American athletes would feel safe in the U.S. due to the Trump administration’s current deportations.
There are pushes from some, but how possible is it that the Games will be canceled?
Why is backing out difficult? We’re three years away
Host cities and host country national organizing committees (in this country, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) sign a host city contract (HCC) after the International Olympic Committee officially awards the Games.
The contract for the 2028 Games, signed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti and then-City Council President Herb Wesson in September 2017, includes procedures for termination from the IOC’s perspective but doesn’t leave the same option for the host city or the national organizing committee.
“While one cannot foreclose all potential theories, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Los Angeles could terminate the HCC without facing substantial legal issues,” Nathan O’Malley, an international arbitration lawyer and a partner at Musick, Peeler & Garrett, wrote in an email. “Especially if the reason for ending the contract was a political disagreement between the federal, state and local branches of government.”
When even COVID-19 didn’t stop the Games
After an initial one-year delay of the Tokyo Games, medical professionals pleaded to cancel amid rising COVID-19 cases.
LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman has emphasized that he has assurances from the federal government that the United States will be open, despite recent travel bans and tighter scrutiny of international travelers arriving in the U.S.
Trump’s June proclamation includes exemptions for athletes, team personnel or immediate relatives entering the country for the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.
If any city should be ready to host the biggest Olympics in history, it should be L.A. Not only because of the existing venues, but because of the unprecedented 11-year planning time after the IOC awarded the Games in 2017.
Now with less than three years remaining, relocating to a city that would likely have to build new venues would be unrealistic for the IOC.
“For Los Angeles, a city whose identity is partly predicated on staging the Olympics twice, and now having a third time,” said Mark Dyreson, a sports historian at Penn State University, “I think it would be really, really difficult for L.A. to give up the Olympics.”
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Jamie-Lee B.)
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THERE is a reckoning coming. The people of Britain have had enough.
A new poll by Find Out Now has Reform UK winning a majority of 140 seats at the nextgeneral election. The big poll-of-polls gives us a 10-point lead. People are fed up. And one thing they are fed up with the most is illegal immigration.
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Reform Party MP Lee AndersonCredit: Getty
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Demonstrators gather during an anti-immigration protest outside the New Bridge Hotel in NewcastleCredit: Getty
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Nigel Farage will unveil Reform’s deportation plan on TuesdayCredit: Alamy
I went along to watch a protest outside the Britannia Hotel in London’s Canary Wharf, now a luxury hostel for asylum seekers, and felt for myself how high feelings are running.
Protesters like the famous Pink Ladies don’t want these illegal immigrants in their communities. Does anybody? Who voted for this madness?
That’s why our party, Reform UK, is backing more peaceful protests and asking people to demand that their local councils take action to empty the migrant hotels. But we can’t stop there.
We need to detain and deport illegal immigrants. Then I think they’re going to stop coming, and we can get back to some sort of peace and normality.
It’s no wonder people are angry. Just look at the shocking numbers that came out this past week.
We learned that, in the year up to June 2025, 110,000 more migrants applied for asylum in Britain –that’s the highest number since records began. More than 50,000 illegal immigrants have landed on our beaches since Labour were elected last July.
At the end of June, 32,100 asylum seekers were housed in hotels at taxpayers’ expense – up another 8 per cent since Keir Starmer moved into 10 Downing Street.
Over that same year, the Labour government spent £4.76 billion managing the asylum mess that they and their Tory predecessors have created.
This outrageous sum is the equivalent of hiring 86,500 more police officers, or 16 million winter fuel payments for British pensioners at the higher rate.
If I were a young male over the Channel in a migrant camp, I’d be thinking to myself it doesn’t matter where I’m from or what I’ve done in the past, get on a small boat to Britain and within 24 hours I could be in a four-star hotel, three meals a day, wifi, mobile phone, free to roam the streets and do pretty much whatever you want, because the authorities haven’t got the foggiest who you are.
Small boat crossings under Labour are on brink of hitting 50,000 – one illegal migrant every 11 mins since the election
What have we done as a nation? We see it in the news every week now, that an asylum seeker has been either charged or found guilty of disgusting attacks on women and girls.
The door’s open, we’ve invited these people in, some of them serious wrong ‘uns, and treated them like honoured guests.
But the tide is starting to turn. Last week the decent people of Epping in Essex won a big victory for us all, when the high court ruled that asylum seekers must leave the town’s Bell Hotel.
Parents and concerned residents had been protesting outside the hotel since an illegal migrant housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
They were slandered as “far-right” lunatics by Labour and the BBC, and attacked by leftie “Antifa” thugs who we saw being bussed in by the police! But they bravely stood up and won, despite home secretary Yvette Cooper shamefully hiring expensive lawyers to attack them in court.
People around the country are now protesting outside migrant hotels and telling their councils to take action. Nigel Farage was the first to call for more peaceful protests, and the councils that Reform won in the May elections will do everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead.
Now we need to go further. Next week, Reform UK will announce our proposals for mass deportations that will finally stop the boats and tackle the crisis.
And we are very clear that, to make this happen, the UK will need to quit the European Convention on Human Rights, which lets liberal foreign judges override the sovereignty of our parliament on immigration law.
National emergency
This is a national emergency. Labour’s latest scheme, to move migrants from hotels into homes into our communities, can only make matters worse.
But let’s not forget that the last Conservative government started the problem. So it’s a bit rich for them to start attacking migrant hotels now.
When I was a Tory MP, I spoke up asking the government to detain illegal immigrants in secure camps ready for deportation. Instead, they housed them in hotels.
I was constantly told to shut up by the “One Nation” lot of Conservative MPs. This is of their making, and they should all apologise right now.
Reform Uk stands foursquare with the people protesting peacefully across Britain. And we will defend free speech against the authorities that want to lock up anybody who speaks out.
On a protest in my constituency of Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, some women in their sixties and seventies came up to me and said Lee, are we really far-right? And I said no, you’re just right.
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Migrants board a smuggler’s boat in an attempt to cross the English ChannelCredit: AFP
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A demonstrator holds a placard during a counter protestCredit: AFP
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Demonstrators during an anti-immigration protest in NewcastleCredit: Getty
Archer is positioned to be a leader in the emerging air taxi market.
The low-altitude economy is on the verge of rocketing higher over the next few decades. Bank of America sees the global adoption of electric vehicle take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to increase by 62% by 2030.
While Joby Aviation is one way to profit from this opportunity, it’s worth noting that Cathie Wood of Ark Invest has placed her bet on Archer Aviation(ACHR 2.93%) for the Ark Innovation ETF, which holds almost 18 million shares. There’s one reason that may explain why Wood is bullish, and it’s also why I hold shares — and that’s a steady flow of positive developments in the past year that position Archer to be a leader in the air taxi market.
The Midnight model eVTOL aircraft. Image source: Archer Aviation.
Why buy Archer Aviation stock
Over the past year, there have been a number of announcements that show the company progressing toward receiving the required certifications and launching commercial operations. This has had a significant impact on the stock price, which has doubled over the past year despite the company not generating significant revenue yet.
Archer has previously announced partnerships with United Airlines and Southwest Airlines to operate air taxi networks across major cities in the U.S. It also has financial backing from Stellantis and other investors as it works toward its goal of manufacturing 50 aircraft per year. In its second-quarter earnings report, Archer reported there were six Midnight aircraft in different production stages, with three in final assembly at its Georgia and Silicon Valley facilities.
In June, Archer, along with the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation, announced an alliance with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand in streamlining the certification and commercial launch of eVTOL aircraft.
Finally, Archer Aviation was recently named the official air taxi service for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, which will be valuable marketing in demonstrating its capabilities. Given these developments, Archer Aviation is a potential breakout growth stock to watch over the next year.
Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. John Ballard has positions in Archer Aviation. The Motley Fool recommends Southwest Airlines and Stellantis. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
![Lee Little with a photograph of her daughter Alicia Little, who was killed by her partner after being driven into by a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Alicia's killer would serve only two years and 8 months jail for the crime [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Stop-Killing-Women-1-1756363322.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C512&quality=80)
![Sherele Moody, from the Red Heart campaign, speaks with the media at a Stop Killing Women protest earlier this year in Melbourne, Australia. Moody says the official government data under-represents the true scale of femicide in Australia [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Stop-Killing-Women-03-1756363768.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C512&quality=80)
