turn

Bolivia’s presidential runoff on October 19^th 2025, marked a major political shift for the country. For the first time since 2005, no candidate from Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party is on the voting ballot. In the August primary, centrist Rodrigo Paz won 32.2% of the vote versus only 3.2% for the official MAS ticket, while conservative former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga was second with about 27%. With MAS’s candidate trounced, Paz and Quiroga, both market-friendly, right-leaning politicians advanced to the runoff.

This officially put an end to MAS’s two-decade dominance and will establish Bolivia’s first non-MAS government in nearly twenty years. Analysts see this as a turning point, a moment when Bolivia moves away from the leftist model that defined the Morales era.

Legacy of Morales and the “MAS” Era

MAS, founded by President Evo Morales in the early 2000s, reshaped Bolivia’s politics and economy. Morales, who served from 2006 to 2019, was the country’s first indigenous head of state. Under his rule, poverty fell sharply, and millions of bolivians moved up into the middle class.

Critics say the party became overly centralized and failed to diversify the economy before gas revenues fell. Questions over term limits and alleged corruption defined Morales’s later years, culminating in his ouster in 2019 amid disputed elections and unrest. Even after Morales went into exile, MAS remained powerful, with Luis Arce, Morales’s former economy minister, winning the presidency in 2020.

By 2025, MAS no longer had the popularity it once took for granted. Voters cited inflation at a 40-year high and fuel shortages.

The Two Right-Wing Contenders

Rodrigo Paz, a senator and son of a former president, ran as a centrist populist in the Christian Democratic Party. He vowed to maintain social programs for the poor while promoting private-sector-led growth. Paz campaigned on a moderate platform: decentralize government spending, give tax incentives to small businesses, and phase out fuel subsidies gradually.

Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga is a veteran conservative. He served briefly as president in 2001-02 and campaigned on a bold austerity agenda, deep cuts to public spending and wanting to abolish or privatize loss-making state firms. Quiroga pitched himself as a reformer, arguing that the country is broke and pledging dramatic, radical change. In debate, he framed Bolivia’s last 20 years as lost and promised a return to business-friendly policies and property rights.

Shifting Alliances Abroad: From China and Russia to the U.S.

The expected rightward turn will reshape Bolivia’s foreign policy. Under Morales and Arce, Bolivia had aligned itself mostly with China and Russia. Chinese firms had multibillion-dollar lithium contracts, and Russia’s Rosatom planned a lithium plant in return for Bolivian uranium access. The MAS government often distanced Bolivia from Washington.

Now, both Paz and Quiroga pledge the opposite: a return to the U.S. orbit. They argue that better U.S. relations can bring investment, aid and energy deals. The U.S. State Department has already praised the election as a transformative opportunity, with Secretary Marco Rubio saying both candidates want stronger, better relations with the United States.

The U.S. may seize the chance to expand its footprint, as it did recently in Argentina, by offering aid or investment in exchange for political alignment. That would be a dramatic flip, with some observers framing the vote as a pro-market shift and U.S. embrace. Argentina and Bolivia’s swings may reveal the fate of other similar political regimes in Latin America, such as Chile’s and Colombia’s upcoming elections.

Domestic Impact and the Path Ahead

Domestically, the new government will face immediate challenges, like the economy having inflation above 20%, empty reserves, and protests over low growth. Paz and Quiroga both promise stimulus, insisting that fuel and social programs will not vanish overnight. Economists warn the fiscal hole is immense, meaning politically unpopular changes are unavoidable.

Any cutbacks will anger MAS’s former base. The powerful miners’ union COB has already warned it will oppose any threats to the social and economic gains of the 2010s. Indigenous groups and rural voters, whose support lifted MAS to power, may feel betrayed if subsidies and jobs are slashed. Paz and Quiroga will need to show voters they can fix the economy without undoing all of Morales’s legacy.

Both candidates have signaled that Bolivia will de-emphasize its former leftist alignment and turn east to west. For U.S. and European observers, that could perhaps mean more cooperation on trade, investment and regional security. But it also raises questions: will Bolivia’s rich lithium and natural-gas resources be opened more to Western firms and can the country still maintain the social gains of the MAS years under a pro-market agenda?

As Paz himself said, “ideologies don’t put food on the table”. Voters clearly decided they wanted change, but whether that leads to better conditions or new problems for Bolivia will depend on how this new government balances its reforms.

With information from Reuters.

Hello and happy Thursday. It’s me, California columnist Anita Chabria, filling in for your usual host, Washington bureau chief Michael Wilner.

Andrea Grossman was a kid when her mother pulled her out of school to join the 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, a nationwide day of peaceful protest. They held hands while her mom walked in a knit suit and ladylike shoes, joining more than 2 million people nationwide.

Grossman, now one of the organizers of the Beverly Hills segment of the “No Kings” marches being held in more than 2,000 cities this weekend, remembers that opponents of that long-ago protest threw stinky rat poison on the lawns in Exposition Park so participants couldn’t sit on the grass. But protesters were not deterred.

“It made it all the more rebellious of us to be there,” Grossman told me. “It made us more insistent that we had to be there.”

Today, that rat poison is being metaphorically hurled by MAGA leaders such as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), in the form of noxious allegations that the No Kings marches are “Hate America” rallies staged for a “rabid base” of criminal agitators.

“It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they’re all coming out,” Johnson said on Fox News.

Of course, that is dumb and false. It would be all too easy to write off comments such as Johnson’s as partisan jibber-jabber, but his insidious words are the kind of poison that seeps into the soil and shouldn’t be ignored.

Participants in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrate in 1969 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

(Clay Geerdes / Getty Images)

The ‘enemy within’

Johnson isn’t the only Republican working overtime to smear everyday folks such as Grossman. Talk about organized campaigns — Trumpites are all going after No Kings with the same script.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said: “These guys are playing to the most radical, small, and violent base in the country. You’ll see them on Saturday on the Mall. They just do not love this country.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has parroted similar messaging, and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), diving into old, antisemitic conspiracies, described the events as “a Soros paid-for protest,” adding that the National Guard would probably need to be activated.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi added her two cents, apparently confusing printed signs, the kind that say, a union or organizations such as Planned Parenthood or the ACLU, might have made up, with evidence of diabolical terrorist networks.

“You’re seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match,” Bondi told Fox News. “They are organized and someone is funding it. We are going to get to the funding of antifa, we’re going to get to the root of antifa and we are going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos.”

Note to Bondi: Matching signs are not a conspiracy. Just ask Kinko’s.

But in her defense, it was a mere two weeks ago when President Trump addressed the leaders of the U.S. military at Quantico, Va. There, he warned that the use of military troops on American protesters was about to become reality, if he has any say in it.

“This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said.

That came on the heels of his executive order declaring antifa — a general descriptor for anyone who opposes fascism — as a terrorist organization.

So to recap: The president declares “antifa” a terrorist organization, warns military brass that they must be ready to defeat internal enemies, then MAGA Republicans begin to falsely claim No Kings rallies are full of “antifa.”

Andrea Grossman, second from left, with other activists in 2024 discussing efforts to protect a Beverly Hills abortion clinic.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Bad journalism

Grossman calls the idea that she is anti-American “preposterous.”

“We wouldn’t be out there spending our time and energy if we weren’t desperately worried for our country. Of course we love America,” she said.

Here’s where I eat my own: Media are failing miserably and unforgivably in covering this issue — this terrifying march to turn peaceful protest into a criminal offense. We shouldn’t be asking Grossman whether she hates America. We should be pushing Johnson and his ilk to defend his attack on people like her.

“We can both recognize that it’s ridiculous and also that it’s pretty sinister,” Leah Greenberg told me.

She’s the co-executive director of Indivisible, the organization behind the No Kings effort, and she’ll be at the D.C. event — the one Johnson specifically condemned. At the first No Kings rally in Philadelphia, her husband led more than 1,000 people in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, some real anti-American stuff.

“We have to see what is currently happening here, not only as Republicans desperately grasping for a message, but also of them creating a permission structure to, you know, invite a broader crackdown on peaceful dissent,” Greenberg warned.

I asked Grossman whether she felt personally at risk by taking on this organizing role at such a fraught moment, even in Beverly Hills, that hotbed of radicalism. At first, she said she didn’t. But when I asked her why not, she paused for a bit.

“We have to put ourselves out there and it takes risk sometimes,” she finally said. “I mean, I don’t consider myself a freedom fighter by any means. I consider myself a woman of a certain age, you know, who has to stand up and be loud and noisy.”

In her regular life, Grossman runs one of the preeminent literary salons in Los Angeles, drawing authors and luminaries including Rob Reiner, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and legal podcaster Joyce Vance. She was also one of the “abortion yentas” who last year fought a losing battle to protect a controversial abortion clinic in the neighborhood. So she knows risk and doesn’t shy away from it.

But this moment is different, because it’s not normal for a president to declare protests to be terrorism, or for legislators to deem them un-American. It is not normal to fear that the military will be used to silence us.

Which is why No Kings is so crucial to this moment.

It is a movement that seeks to draw the most normal, the most average, the most mild of people to highlight just how abnormal this government is. No flags are going to be burned (though that is a protected 1st Amendment right, no matter what Trump says). No Molotov cocktails will be tossed. Hamas is not invited.

Greenberg said that “anybody with eyes” can see who comes to a No Kings rally.

“You see veterans, you see members of faith communities. You see federal workers, dedicated public servants. You see parents and grandparents and kids all coming together in this joyous and defiant opposition,” she said.

Those are exactly the types that turned out in June, when somewhere between 3 million and 6 million people marched in what felt like a cross between a fall school carnival and a Fourth of July parade. People sauntered, they sat, they sang. But most of all, they showed up.

“If we’re going to be afraid and not say anything, then [they] win,” Grossman said. “The only way to stand up to oppression is to get out there in huge, great numbers.”

So like her mom, she’ll march and she’ll ignore the poison — and much to the dismay of MAGA, I suspect millions of others just like her will too.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: Justices lean toward rejecting race in redistricting, likely boosting GOP in 2026
The what happened: Mike Johnson’s nightmare: Kevin Kiley is unhappy with the speaker and has nothing to lose
The L.A. Times special: USC finds itself in funding battle between Trump and Newsom over the campus’ future

P.S. This is another bit of propaganda from the Department of Homeland Security. “Remigrate” is a term often embraced by the far right that alludes to the forced deportation of immigrants, legal or not, especially those who are not of European origin.

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WASHINGTON — Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The U.S. government has called the new rules “common sense.”

News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.

Many of the reporters waited to leave together at a 4 p.m. deadline set by the Defense Department to get out of the building. As the hour approached, boxes of documents lined a Pentagon corridor and reporters carried chairs, a copying machine, books and old photos to the parking lot from suddenly abandoned workspaces. Shortly after 4, about 40 to 50 journalists left together after handing in badges.

“It’s sad, but I’m also really proud of the press corps that we stuck together,” said Nancy Youssef, a reporter for the Atlantic who has had a desk at the Pentagon since 2007. She took a map of the Middle East out to her car.

It is unclear what practical effect the new rules will have, though news organizations vowed they’d continue robust coverage of the military no matter the vantage point.

Images of reporters effectively demonstrating against barriers to their work are unlikely to move supporters of President Trump, many of whom resent journalists and cheer his efforts to make their jobs harder. Trump has been involved in court fights against the New York Times, CBS News, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press in the last year.

Trump supports the new rules

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump backed his Defense secretary’s new rules. “I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace,” Trump said. “The press is very dishonest.”

Even before issuing his new press policy, Hegseth, a former Fox News Channel host, has systematically choked off the flow of information. He has held only two formal press briefings, banned reporters from accessing many parts of the sprawling Pentagon without an escort and and launched investigations into leaks to the media.

He has called his new rules “common sense” and said the requirement that journalists sign a document outlining the rules means they acknowledge the new rules, not necessarily agree to them. Journalists see that as a distinction without a difference.

“What they’re really doing, they want to spoon-feed information to the journalist, and that would be their story. That’s not journalism,” said Jack Keane, a retired Army general and Fox News analyst, said on Hegseth’s former network.

When he served, Keane said he required new brigadier generals to take a class on the role of the media in a democracy so they wouldn’t be intimidated and also see reporters as a conduit to the American public. “There were times when stories were done that made me flinch a little bit,” he said. “But that’s usually because we had done something that wasn’t as good as we should have done it.”

Youssef said it made no sense to sign on to rules that said reporters should not solicit military officials for information. “To agree to not solicit information is to agree to not be a journalist,” she said. “Our whole goal is soliciting information.”

Reporting on U.S. military affairs will continue — from a greater distance

Several reporters posted on social media when they turned in their press badges.

“It’s such a tiny thing, but I was really proud to see my picture up on the wall of Pentagon correspondents,” wrote Heather Mongillo, a reporter for USNI News, which covers the Navy. “Today, I’ll hand in my badge. The reporting will continue.”

Mongillo, Youssef and others emphasized that they’ll continue to do their jobs no matter where their desks are. Some sources will continue to speak with them, although they say some in the military have been chilled by threats from Pentagon leadership.

In an essay, NPR reporter Tom Bowman noted the many times he’d been tipped off by people he knew from the Pentagon and while embedded in the military about what was happening, even if it contradicted official lines put out by leadership. Many understand the media’s role.

“They knew the American public deserved to know what’s going on,” Bowman wrote. “With no reporters able to ask questions, it seems the Pentagon leadership will continue to rely on slick social media posts, carefully orchestrated short videos and interviews with partisan commentators and podcasters. No one should think that’s good enough.”

The Pentagon Press Assn., which has 101 members representing 56 news outlets, has spoken out against the rules. Organizations from across the media spectrum, from legacy organizations like the Associated Press and the New York Times to conservative outlets like Fox and Newsmax, told their reporters to leave instead of signing the new rules.

Only the conservative One America News Network signed on. Its management probably believes it will have greater access to Trump administration officials by showing its support, Gabrielle Cuccia, a former Pentagon reporter who was fired by OANN earlier this year for writing an online column criticizing Hegseth’s media policies, told the AP in an interview.

Bauder writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Laurie Kellman in London contributed to this report.

Manager Michael O’Neill felt had Northern Ireland beaten Germany at Windsor Park in World Cup qualifying on Monday night that they would have been in a “strong position to achieve something amazing”.

It was not to be with Nick Woltemade’s somewhat fortuitous goal the difference between the two sides in Belfast.

When the dust settles on a window during which his young side also beat Slovakia 2-0 on Friday, O’Neill will surely feel encouraged that such a possibility remains on the table as he seeks to take the side to the game’s biggest stage for the first time in four decades.

For the second time in five weeks, Northern Ireland’s players left the field against the four-time World Cup winners believing they could and perhaps should have taken something from the game.

In Cologne last month, it took until after the 70th minute before the visitors tired and quick-fire goals from Nadiem Amiri and Florian Wirtz secured an unconvincing 3-1 win.

Back in Belfast on Monday night, it was Northern Ireland who finished the stronger of the sides, but they could not find an equaliser during a final 25 minutes played largely in Germany’s third of the pitch.

The result ends any realistic chance of O’Neill’s side topping Group A, but the performance, allied with wins in their other two matches to date, means they can have real belief that they can both make and then succeed in the play-offs.

A draw in next month’s seemingly crunch fixture in Slovakia followed by a win over Luxembourg, provided as O’Neill put it “Germany take care of business at home when they play Slovakia” in the final matchday, would be enough for second place.

Even should that not come to pass, there remains a likely backdoor into the play-offs as an otherwise unqualified group winner from last year’s Nations League, although that would potentially mean a considerably stronger opponent in an away semi-final.

“We’ve gained some momentum and picked up some good results,” said defender Paddy McNair, one of two players in O’Neill’s current squad who played for Northern Ireland in their last major tournament at Euro 2016.

“If I was the opposition, I would not like to face us in the play-offs.

“It’s pretty hard to finish first now, but I think we have to get to Slovakia and get three points and you just never know what could happen going into the last game.”

As you think about and plan for retirement, you may be wondering how to get to a nest egg of $1 million. (Note, though, that the precise amount you will need for retirement might be more or less than that.) Let’s see how you can grow your wealth — whether you start with $100,000 or $0 or some other sum.

There are multiple ways you can achieve your financial goals. I’ll review a few here. Even if you’re very late to retirement planning, you may be able to significantly improve your financial condition.

Image source: Getty Images.

I mentioned $100,000 because lots of people feel that they’re behind in saving for retirement, but many might have saved that much by now. If you have less than that, take heart — you’re not alone. Check out these numbers from the 2024 EBRI/Greenwald Research Retirement Confidence Survey.

Source: 2024 EBRI/Greenwald Research Retirement Confidence Survey. *Excluding the value of a primary home.

See? Fully 47% of workers had less than $100,000 socked away, and 29% had less than $25,000.

1. Index funds for the win!

For most of us, simple low-fee index funds that own shares in a variety of stocks can be all we need to amass significant wealth. An index fund tracks a particular index of securities, aiming to deliver roughly the same return (less fees) by owning roughly the same securities. So an S&P 500 index fund would aim to deliver roughly the same results as the index — which has averaged annual gains of close to 10% over many decades, though that includes up years and down years and isn’t guaranteed to be up when you need the money.

To do some math, here’s how your money would grow over time at 8%. The table below assumes you start with $0:

Calculations by author.

As long as you’re not retiring soon, you may be able to get to that $1 million goal. Remember, too, that you can speed up the process if you can sock away more money regularly, especially in your early years, giving those dollars more time to grow. And if you’re starting with $100,000, you’ve got a great head start!

Here are three index funds to consider:

• Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO): This fund has a very low annual fee and includes the shares of 500 of the biggest companies in America, which together make up around 80% of the entire U.S. market.
• Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEMKT: VTI): This ETF has a wider scope, aiming to own shares of all U.S. stocks, including the small and medium-sized ones that don’t make it into the S&P 500.
• Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (NYSEMKT: VT): This ETF aims to encompass just about all the stocks in the world.

2. Dividend stocks

While index funds can be all you need, you may want to consider dividend-paying stocks for your portfolio, too, as they have beaten other types of stocks.

Data source: Ned Davis Research and Hartford Funds.

If you have, say, $300,000 invested in dividend payers with an overall dividend yield of 4%, that would generate $12,000 annually — about $1,000 per month. That’s very handy income in retirement, and it doesn’t require you to sell any shares, either. Better still, healthy and growing dividend payers tend to increase their payouts over time, which can help you keep up with inflation.

3. Growth stocks

If you want to aim for much higher average annual growth rates for your portfolio, you might add some growth stocks to it. Just know that this introduces more risk — because while many growth stocks will deliver phenomenal returns, others will flame out. Growth stocks tend to grow faster than other stocks, but when circumstances change, they can fall harder.

You might try to manage the risk by spreading your dollars across a bunch of them. The Motley Fool investing philosophy suggests buying into around 25 or more companies and aiming to hang on to your shares for at least five years. Investing is best used as a long-term money-making effort. 

Those are three approaches to building your wealth as you aim for a million dollars or more. You don’t have to choose just one of them, either. You might engage in them all, to some degree.

Warren Buffett is well known for being perhaps the greatest stock picker of all time, and for good reasons. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A -0.88%) (BRK.B -1.03%), the conglomerate Buffett has led since the mid-1960s, has delivered unbelievable returns for investors over the years, and a big reason is Buffett’s success with using Berkshire’s capital to invest in stocks.

What makes Buffett’s investing style so extraordinary is how simple it is. Buffett invests in great businesses (mostly ‘boring’ ones) that he believes trade for significantly less than their intrinsic value and holds them for as long as they remain great businesses.

He doesn’t chase technology stocks or try to get in on the ground floor of the ‘next big thing.’ He doesn’t trade short-term. And he uses fairly basic investment principles, which he often shares with everyday investors. In addition to being the most successful investor, he is also the most quotable.

Image source: Getty Images.

Buffett’s advice to the average investor

Yes, Warren Buffett has an extraordinary track record when it comes to choosing individual stocks to invest in. But it’s also important to know that he spends many hours (usually over 10 per day) researching and reading.

Of course, you don’t need to spend that much time, but the point is that being a successful individual stock investor requires time and knowledge. As Buffett says, “If you like spending six to eight hours per week working on investments, do it. If you don’t, then dollar-cost average into index funds.”

To be perfectly clear, Buffett doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with this option. In fact, he has directed that his own wife’s inheritance be invested in this way after he’s gone.

Buffett has specifically mentioned the S&P 500 as a great way to bet on American business. And he says that “American business — and consequently a basket of stocks — is virtually certain to be worth far more in the years ahead.”

Buffett is a big fan of this S&P 500 ETF

There are several excellent S&P 500 index funds in the market, but one that Buffett has owned in Berkshire Hathaway‘s portfolio is the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -1.28%). This fund simply tracks the 500 stocks in the index, in their respective weights, and should mimic the performance of the benchmark index over time.

Buffett is a big fan of Vanguard, which pioneered the low-cost index fund years ago. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF has a rock-bottom 0.03% expense ratio, which means that you’ll pay just $0.30 in annual investment fees for every $1,000 in assets. To be clear, this isn’t a fee you physically have to pay — it will just be reflected in the fund’s performance over time. But it’s so low that it will barely have any impact on your long-term results.

You might be surprised at the potential

One final Buffett quote I’ll leave you with is “it isn’t necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” And it certainly applies to index fund investing.

Over the long run, the S&P 500 has produced annualized returns of about 10% over long periods of time. Let’s say that you invest just $200 per month in the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF and that you achieve 10% returns going forward.

• In 10 years, you’d have about $38,250.
• In 20 years, you’d have $137,460.
• In 30 years, you’d have nearly $395,000.
• In 40 years, you’d have about $1.06 million.

The key is to invest consistently and hold for a long time. The magic of long-term compounding will do the heavy lifting for you. As you can see, if you’re not comfortable with picking individual stocks, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t use the stock market to build extraordinary wealth over time.

Huge numbers of people have turned out at pro-Palestinian rallies across Europe, calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and the release of activists on board a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the territory.

Police in Rome said about 250,000 people attended a fourth consecutive day of protests on Saturday after Israel intercepted the 45-boat flotilla trying to reach Gaza last week.

Protesters in the Italian capital, including families with children, shouted: “We are all Palestinians,” “Free Palestine” and “Stop the genocide” as many carried Palestinian flags and wore black-and-white-chequered keffiyehs.

In Spain, about 70,000 people took to the streets in Barcelona, according to the police, while the government in Madrid reported nearly 92,000 marched in the capital.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, which was intercepted on Wednesday, departed Barcelona in early September and had been seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, where a United Nations-backed hunger monitor says famine has taken hold. About 50 Spaniards on the flotilla have been detained by Israel, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told public television in an interview broadcast on Saturday.

Marta Carranza, a 65-year-old pensioner demonstrating in Barcelona with a Palestinian flag on her back, said Israel’s policy “has been wrong for many years and we have to take to the streets”.

Elsewhere, several thousand people marched through the centre of Dublin to mark what organisers described as “two years of genocide” in Gaza. Along with Ireland, Spain is among the fiercest European critics of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

In Ireland, speakers called for sanctions on Israel, an immediate end to the conflict and Palestinian involvement in any ceasefire plan.

In London, police said they made at least 442 arrests at a gathering in support of the proscribed Palestine Action group.

In Paris, where about 10,000 people gathered, a spokesperson for the French contingent of the Sumud Flotilla, Helene Coron, told the crowd: “We’ll never stop.”

“This flotilla didn’t get to Gaza. But we will send another, then another until Palestine and Gaza are free,” she said.

In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government has been criticised for its inaction regarding the siege of Gaza. On Saturday, Meloni accused demonstrators of defacing a statue of Pope John Paul II with graffiti in front of Rome’s main railway station, calling it a “shameful act”.

On September 14, about 100,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators forced the final stage of the Vuelta a Espana cycling race in the Spanish capital to be halted because an Israeli team was competing. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel should be barred from international sport over the war in Gaza, just as Russia has been penalised over its invasion of Ukraine.

In September, Spain announced it would ban imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

A MAN was brutally gunned down while smoking outside a cafe during a shocking attack at a luxury Spanish resort.

Brit holidaymakers watched on in horror as the 25-year-old was gunned down in Puerto Banus on the popular Costa del Sol yesterday.

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The victim was caught unawares and shot from close range in broad daylight as he spoke on the phone and smoked on the cafe terrace.

CCTV footage seemingly shows the gunman disguised as a tourist with a baseball cap.

The killer is believed to have got out of a car before targeting his victim.

He can be seen approaching his target before opening fire and continuing to shoot him as he lays on the ground.

The injured man was rushed to the nearby Costa del Sol Hospital, but sadly died hours later despite the efforts of medics to save his life.

Local cops confirmed last night they had made an arrest.

A spokesman for the National Police said: “We can confirm a 38-year-old man has been arrested over the fatal shooting of another man in Puerto Banus.

“The investigation is ongoing and we cannot offer any more details at this stage.”

Cops said they couldn’t comment on the nationalities of the victim and the man held.

Unconfirmed local reports are pointing to both the alleged killer and the victim being Swedish passport holders.

Although another report describes the gunman as Afghan-born.

The shooting happened just after 1.30pm yesterday, when Puerto Banus was bustling with tourists.

Police confirmed the victim died at around 8.15pm local time.

This follows earlier reports he had been shot half a dozen times but was still alive and in hospital.

Shootings in Puerto Banus and surrounding areas over the past few summers have led to high-profile police operations.

This includes a number of raids on upmarket clubs following criticism from locals the port area has become like the ‘Wild West’.

Last June, Manchester City star Erling Haaland was caught up in a dramatic police raid at a beach club called Playa Padre in Marbella.

The Norwegian was filmed putting his hands into his pocket to pull out his ID after cops in balaclavas demanded to know who he was.

The surprise raid resulted in the arrest of an Iranian fugitive.

One of the shootings last year in Puerto Banus included a March 11 attack on British-run eatery La Sala.

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It led to the arrests in April of a British man and Irish national described by police as having links to organised crime.

Contract killers from Sweden have been blamed for an bout of violence around Europe, including the Costa del Sol.

Marbella has been dubbed the ‘United Nations of Crime’ because of the number of violent gangs operating there.

Bomb blasts on the famous coast in October 2018 led to the arrests of three ‘hitmen’ in Sweden and Marbella.

In a statement, Spanish National Police revealed the blasts had been linked to a criminal organistion of contract killers.

It read: “The investigations… linked the incidents to a criminal organisation of contract killers based in Sweden.

“This organisation is believed to be behind a number of violent incidents in Sweden in which explosives have been used.

“Several members of the organisation, all aged between 20 and 30, were identified and evidence established linking them to the bomb blasts.

“Two were in the Swedish city of Malmo where they were arrested in a well-planned police operation.

“The third individual was held in Marbella.”

The so-called Mocro Maffia have also been identified as a problem on the Costa del Sol.

A 17-year-old Belgian youngster working for the feared organisation was arrested last month.

The teen was accused of flying to the resort of Fuengirola to assassinate a Dutchman next to a cannabis club in December last year.

Police have described it as the first case in Spain in which an underage hitman was the main suspect.

Kerry Katona claimed she had U-turned on a decision to move to the famous Costa del Sol resort with her family.

She changed her mind on moving with then-fiancé Ryan Mahoney because she no longer felt safe following the violent incidents there.

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Moroccan authorities have arrested more than 400 people during violent protests demanding reforms in the public health and education sectors, the Ministry of Interior says.

A fifth night of youth protests was under way on Wednesday in cities across the North African country, but authorities said the fourth night had turned more violent than before. They reported 263 members of the security forces and 23 civilians were injured as demonstrators torched cars and ransacked shops.

The demonstrations have been organised online by a loosely formed, anonymous youth group calling itself GenZ 212, using platforms including TikTok, Instagram and the gaming application Discord.

On Tuesday night, young men brandished knives and threw Molotov cocktails and stones, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said in a statement. He said 409 people were taken into police custody.

Administrative buildings, banks and shops were looted or vandalised in the Souss region cities of Ait Amira, Inezgane, Agadir and Tiznit as well as the eastern city of Oujda, he said.

Videos circulating on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed damaged ATM machines and a bank building that appeared to have been looted with broken glass scattered across the ground.

In posts discussing the protests, the GenZ 212 group said it rejected violence and was committed to continuing peaceful protests. It said it had no argument with security forces, only with the government.

The Interior Ministry statement said 142 vehicles belonging to the security forces and 20 private cars had been set on fire.

Peaceful protests over economic and social conditions have been recurrent in Morocco, but this week’s demonstrations are the most violent since at least 2016 and 2017 when protesters clashed with security forces in the Rif region in the north.

The Interior Ministry will uphold the right to protest in accordance with legal procedures and will respond with “restraint and self-control, avoiding provocation”, the spokesperson said.

Investing in the stock market is one of the most surefire ways to build life-changing wealth, and the right investment can transform your savings.

Owning an exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a fantastic way to gain exposure to high-growth stocks with minimal effort on your part. A single ETF can contain dozens or hundreds of stocks, and you’ll own a stake in all of them by owning just one share of that fund.

If you’re looking for a high-powered ETF with a history of earning significantly above-average returns, the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT 0.29%) could potentially turn just $100 per month into $2 million or more over time. Here’s how.

Image source: Getty Images.

A simple way to invest in tech stocks

The technology sector has a long track record of outperforming the market, and investing in a tech-focused ETF — like the Vanguard Information Technology ETF — can make it easier to invest in these stocks without having to research dozens of individual companies.

One of this ETF’s major strengths is its balance between industry-leading giants and smaller corporations. Around 44% of this fund is allocated to Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple — the three largest holdings by a substantial margin. But it also contains an additional 313 stocks from all corners of the technology sector.

Major companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple are often more stable than their smaller counterparts. While they can still face significant volatility during economic rough patches, they’re very likely to recover and go on to see positive total returns over the long term.

Up-and-coming companies can be shakier than the industry titans, but these stocks also have more potential for explosive growth. If even one of them becomes the next tech powerhouse, investing now could set you up for substantial gains.

Building a $2 million portfolio

There are never any guarantees in the stock market, and past performance doesn’t predict future returns. That said, it can sometimes be helpful to look at historical returns to get an idea of roughly how much you might earn with a particular investment.

Over the last 10 years, the Vanguard Information Technology ETF has earned an average rate of return of more than 22% per year. For context, the market itself has earned an average return of around 10% per year over the last 50 years.

Again, this ETF may or may not continue earning 22% average annual returns. So to play it safe, let’s assume that going forward, you could earn either a 22%, 16%, or 11% average annual return. If you were to invest $100 per month, here’s approximately what you could accumulate over time.

Data source: Author’s calculations via investor.gov.

To build a portfolio worth $2 million or more, you’d need to invest consistently for around 30 years while earning returns in line with this ETF’s 10-year average. But even if you can’t invest that long or this fund underperforms in the future, you could still rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.

Keep in mind, too, that if you decide to invest in this ETF, double-check that the rest of your portfolio is well-diversified. While this fund has a diverse assortment of tech stocks, investing in just one sector of the market — especially an industry as volatile as tech — increases risk.

Technology ETFs can supercharge your net worth with next to no effort on your part. By starting early and investing consistently, the Vanguard Information Technology ETF could turn small monthly contributions into millions.

Leading activist says three to five people feared killed in police fire, but no official word yet on casualty figures.

A protest in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh demanding statehood for the federal territory has turned violent as protesters clashed with police and set fire to a paramilitary vehicle and the office of the country’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Police fired tear gas on Wednesday and charged demonstrators with batons, injuring dozens of them, police said. Some among the injured were in critical condition, residents said.

Authorities banned the assembly of more than five people in Leh district, the capital of the Ladakh region, after the clashes.

No official statement has been released on the number of casualties, but a local activist who has been on hunger strike seeking more power for the region bordering China told Indian media that three to five people are believed to have been killed in police gunfire.

“We have reports that many people have been injured. We don’t know the exact count,” Sonam Wangchuk was quoted as saying by the Indian Express site.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the casualty figures.

Protests erupted after youth groups called for the shutdown of Leh.

The protests are part of a larger movement in the federally governed region that seeks statehood and constitutional provisions from the Indian government for autonomy over land and agricultural decisions.

Ladakh lost its autonomy in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government carved the region out of India-administered Kashmir. Since then, the majority Muslim-Buddhist territory has been directly governed from New Delhi.

Protesters have called for Ladakh to be given special status that would allow for the creation of elected local bodies to protect its tribal areas.

At its core, the protests are calling for Ladakh to be included under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which provides provisions for tribal areas and allows local communities to have a say in how the regions are administered.

Wangchuk called for restraint as he called off his hunger strike, which he launched two weeks ago. “My message of peaceful path failed today. I appeal to [the] youth to please stop this nonsense. This only damages our cause,” he said.

In a public notice, District Administrator Romil Singh Donk announced a ban on demonstrations, public gatherings and inflammatory speech.

Activists and local politicians in Ladakh have accused Modi’s government of not addressing their concerns. Several rounds of talks between local politicians and representatives from New Delhi in the past few years have not yielded results.

The next round of talks is expected to take place on October 6.

Ladakh, which shares a long border with China, is a strategically important territory for India. Ladakh was the site of deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in 2020 that strained the ties between the two Asian countries. The two Asian giants have recently moved to mend their ties in the wake of Trump’s punishing tariff war.

It’s probably safe to say that the world hasn’t seen a better capital allocator than Warren Buffett. His incredibly long track record running Berkshire Hathaway speaks for itself, as his investment prowess transformed the company into a $1 trillion conglomerate.

Average investors are right to listen to Buffett’s advice. And one of his recommendations is extremely simple. The Oracle of Omaha says to buy this Vanguard exchange-traded fund (ETF). It could turn a monthly $1,000 investment into $264,000 in a decade.

Image source: Getty Images.

Simple is best

Every investor wants to be like Buffett, picking individual businesses based on expert financial analysis skills. However, this is obviously not something everyone can do. Even professional money managers struggle to find success, with many funds lagging the overall market.

Buffett believes that most retail investors are better off taking a simpler approach. This means buying a low-cost ETF that tracks the performance of the S&P 500, such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -0.56%). It carries an extremely low expense ratio of 0.03%, which is probably why Buffett is so supportive of it.

What’s more, investors are buying an ETF offered by a leading firm in the asset management industry that has been around since 1975. Vanguard had $11 trillion in total assets under management as of July 31, highlighting its tremendous scale and the amount of capital it’s trusted to handle.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF tracks the performance of the S&P 500. Investors in the fund get exposure to 500 large and profitable companies, with tech behemoths like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple having big weights. However, there is still broad diversification, as all sectors of the economy are represented.

Owning this ETF essentially means that investors are betting on the ongoing growth and ingenuity of the U.S. economy. That doesn’t mean there isn’t international exposure. Many of the companies in the S&P 500 generate revenues from overseas markets. This can be beneficial as other countries potentially register more growth than the U.S. in the long run.

Stellar performance

In the past decade, the S&P 500 has generated a total return of 304% (as of Sept. 19). On an annualized basis, this translates to a gain of 15%. It’s hard to complain with this performance, which has been driven by historically low interest rates, lots of passive capital flowing into the stock market, and the rise of massive tech companies.

If trailing-10-year returns (from August 2015 to August 2025) repeated over the next decade, investing $1,000 monthly into the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF would turn into $264,000 by September 2035. This proves that even small sums of money can result in huge returns over the long term.

This approach is considered dollar-cost averaging, and it works so well because investors are building a consistent habit of allocating capital to their portfolios. Plus, it lessens the importance of trying to correctly time the market, which is a losing proposition.

But to be clear, past returns provide no guarantee of future results. Looking out over the next decade, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF could generate worse performance than it did since 2015. This is entirely in the realm of possibilities. One area of concern is the historically expensive valuation of the S&P 500, which might be one of the main reasons Buffett and Berkshire have been net sellers of stocks in recent years.

It’s best to have realistic expectations. While the returns could be great, it’s also possible that the S&P reverts back to its long-run average of 10% yearly gains. Either way, buying the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF on a monthly basis is perhaps one of the best things investors can do, at least in Buffett’s opinion.

Meta Platforms (META -0.61%) is one of the most dominant companies on the face of the planet. Through its various social media apps, it counts a whopping 3.48 billion daily active users. There might be no other business that has this kind of reach, impacting so many people each and every day.

This “Magnificent Seven” stock has been a huge winner, more than tripling in the past five years. But can Meta shares turn a $10,000 investment into $50,000 by 2030?

Image source: Getty Images.

Lower expectations

If an investment rose five-fold in a five-year period, it implies a compound annual gain of 38%. This is an unbelievable result that might typically only come from hyper-growth companies or from struggling businesses trading at dirt cheap valuations that start reporting improving financials as they successfully turn things around.

To be clear, Meta isn’t going to put up a 400% total return between now and the end of the decade. This is a more mature company. However, if the stock price and valuation tank for whatever reason, like they did in 2022, there might be huge upside in the years that follow.

Should you buy Meta stock now?

While Meta won’t climb five-fold by the end of the decade, turning $10,000 into $50,000, it still looks like a smart investment. Revenue and earnings per share are soaring at impressive rates. And leadership is fully focused on developing artificial intelligence capabilities.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the stock double over the next five years. The current valuation is also reasonable, at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 26.4. Investors should consider buying shares today.

A UK airport is reportedly in talks to increase its number of flights, with hopes to become a “major hub” for holidaymaker around Europe.

Huge upgrades are included in the plans which hopes to have the airport better connected to more destinations.

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East Midlands Airport is having talks “already underway” with airlines about plans for more cargo and passenger flights.

Currently, passengers can fly to and from 70 destinations through East Midlands Airport.

These include countries in Europe and North Africa.

But new commerical director, Adam Andrews, revealed the airport wants to provide more one-stop connections for passengers.

He said: “We will build relationships with key decision makers and businesses from our region and its large three big cities to understand how we can work together to maximise the airports potential what they want from their local airport.

“This includes looking to increase the mix of leisure destinations, introduce business routes and enable year-round connectivity to the world.”

Increasing flight options during peak seasons, such as summer holidays, is in the works.

And plans for more flights during the traditional off-peak seasons are also being considered.

This would mean travellers are able to just go to their local airport for their flights rather than having to get across the country first.

Andrews hopes to draw on the airport’s success as the UK’s “number one express air freight hub” due to being central to both the country and world.

East Midlands Airport is strategically located between Africa, Europe and the US.

It has been a hub for low-budget airlines like Jet2, Ryanair and TUI Airways.

The airfield was originally built as a Royal Air Force station in 1943, before it was redeveloped as a civilian airport in 1965.

Busiest routes from East Midlands Aiport have been Alicante, Tenerife, and Mallorca.

But it has no direct access via a passenger rail network, with the nearest being East Midlands Parkway about four miles away.

Proposals have been made in the past for a dedicated railway station to be installed at the airport, but is unlikely to be completed for another decade or so.

Plans for East Midlands Airport come after it was announced over the weekend the Gatwick Airport would be getting a new full runway.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander signed off on the plan that involves a £2.2billion expansion.

The project will shift Gatwick’s emergency runway 12 metres north so it can be used alongside the main strip.

This will pave way for 100,000 extra flights a year from the second busiest airport in the UK.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — President Trump and prominent members of his Make America Great Again movement paid tribute Sunday to Charlie Kirk, praising the slain political conservative activist as a singular force whose work they must now advance.

The memorial service for Kirk, whom the president credits with playing a pivotal role in his 2024 election victory, drew tens of thousands of mourners, including Trump and Vice President JD Vance, other senior administration officials and young conservatives shaped by the 31-year-old firebrand.

Speakers highlighted Kirk’s profound faith and his strong belief that young conservatives need to get married, build families and pass on their values to keep building their movement. Those close to Kirk prayed and the floors shook from the bass of Christian rock bands as the home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals took on the feel of a megachurch service.

“Charlie looked at politics as an onramp to Jesus,” said the Rev. Rob McCoy, Kirk’s pastor.

Kirk’s killing at a Sept. 10 appearance on a Utah college campus has become a singular moment for the modern-day conservative movement. It also has set off a fierce national debate about violence and free speech in an era of deepening political division.

The shooting has stirred concern among some Americans who say that Trump is harnessing outrage over the killing as justification to suppress the voices of his critics and target political opponents.

High security and a full stadium

People began lining up before dawn to secure a spot inside State Farm Stadium west of Phoenix, where Kirk’s Turning Point organization is based. Security was tight, similar to the Super Bowl and similar high-profile events.

The 63,400-seat stadium quickly filled with people dressed in red, white and blue, as organizers suggested.

“I think that this is going to change things, and I think he made such a difference,” said Crystal Herman, who traveled from Branson, Mo. “He deserves us to be here.”

Photos of Kirk at work or with his wife, Erika, were on easels throughout the concession areas of the main concourse level. Some people posed for photos next to them.

“We’re going to celebrate the life of a great man today,” Trump told reporters before heading to Arizona. He said he was bracing for a “tough day.”

Trump has blamed the “radical left” for Kirk’s death and threatened to go after liberal organizations and donors or others he deems to be maligning Kirk or celebrating his death.

Many people, including journalists, teachers and late-show host Jimmy Kimmel have faced suspensions or lost their jobs as prominent conservative activists and administration officials target comments about Kirk that they deem offensive. The retaliation has in turn ignited a debate over the 1st Amendment as the Republican administration promises retribution against those who air remarks to which it objects.

Kirk was a provocateur who at times made statements seen by many as racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant and transphobic. That has drawn backlash from some conservatives who cast the criticism as cherry-picking a few select moments to insult the legacy of someone they see as an inspirational leader.

A 22-year-old Utah man, Tyler Robinson, has been charged with killing Kirk and faces the death penalty if convicted of the most serious charges. Authorities have not revealed a clear motive in the shooting, but prosecutors say Robinson wrote in a text to his partner after the shooting that he “had enough” of what he considered to be Kirk’s hatred.

Kirk’s legacy

Turning Point, the group Kirk founded to mobilize young Christian conservatives, became a multimillion-dollar operation under his leadership with enormous reach.

“Charlie’s having some serious heavenly FOMO right now,” Turning Point Chief Executive Tyler Bower said, likening the moment to bringing “the Holy Spirit into a Trump rally.”

The crowd was a testament to the massive influence Kirk accumulated in conservative America with his ability to mobilize young people.

“I think he spoke on more than just politics,” Michael Link, 29, said outside the stadium. “Now that he’s gone, it’s like, who’s gonna speak for us now?”

His impact on modern-day conservatism went beyond U.S. shores.

Kirk “was very effective because he was convinced of his views and knew how to argue them,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at a political rally Sunday in Rome. “But he never stopped smiling, never stopped respecting his interlocutor and anyone who challenged him.”

Kirk was a MAGA celebrity with a loyal following that turned out to support or argue with him as he traveled the country for the events like the one at Utah Valley University, where he was shot. Kirk expanded the organization, in large part through the force of his personality and debating chops.

Arizona is the adopted home state of Kirk, who grew up outside Chicago and founded Turning Point there before moving the organization to Phoenix. Vance has said Kirk’s advocacy was a big reason Trump picked him as his vice presidential running mate last year.

Scheduled speakers at the service included Trump, Vance, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Donald Trump Jr., right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson and White House aides Stephen Miller and Sergio Gor also were set to speak.

Also scheduled to speak was Kirk’s widow, who has been named Turning Point’s new leader and has pledged that “the movement my husband built will not die.”

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, whose official residence was set ablaze by a suspected arsonist in April while the governor was celebrating Passover with his family and friends inside, said in a television interview broadcast Sunday that Americans must now come together to find “our better angels.”

“We’ve got to universally condemn political violence no matter where it is,” Shapiro said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Cooper, Garcia and Madhani write for the Associated Press. Cooper and Garcia reported from Glendale, Madhani from Washington. AP writers Tiffany Stanley in Washington, Silvia Stellacci in Rome and Terry Tang contributed to this report.

BRYAN ROBSON has told Manchester United chiefs to back Ruben Amorim for the long haul and slammed the club’s recent history of signing flops.

The United legend says the revolving door of managers since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013 has wrecked any chance of stability, and insists under-fire former Sporting Lisbon boss must be given at least THREE years to fix the mess.

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Speaking to The Telegraph, Robson said: “We’ve changed managers that many times since 2013.

“I feel you have to stick and say, ‘No, we are not sacking the manager. We are not blaming.’

“When you have a little bit of money and the club are going to allow you to change your squad, you need three years to get the team right.

“For me, three years at Manchester United should be enough.”

Amorim, 40, has had a disastrous start to life as United boss, winning just eight of his first 31 games.

But Robson is urging the board to give him more time, despite fans on social media calling for his sacking.

Robson didn’t hold back when reflecting on the transfer blunders of the Ed Woodward era, suggesting too many signings simply weren’t up to scratch.

He fumed: “Look at the money we spend. It’s up to you to go around the world and get top players who are going to improve you.”

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“I think five years ago some of the players we bought were just not good enough to be Manchester United players. It’s an accumulation of that.”

And Robbo, who captained United through some of their most hard-fought years, believes the club lost its way by ignoring experienced Premier League stars in favour of flashy foreign names.

“The other thing I think we went away from is getting good, experienced Premier League players.

“So when they get to 28, you bring them on board if you can. There have been loads of players who have left clubs.”

And his message to United’s decision-makers couldn’t be clearer.

He added: “When I was in management, I believed that if you bought average players, you got an average team.”

United will get a chance to bounce back from their derby defeat to Manchester City last weekend when they host Chelsea in Saturday’s late Premier League kick-off at Old Trafford.

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“Wait your turn.”

Those three words are repeated again and again by parents trying to teach their young sons and daughters good manners, whether it’s at the dinner table, the amusement park or the ice cream shop.

So why do parents suddenly forget or ignore their words of wisdom when their kids become teenagers, find themselves in sports competitions, lose out on a starting job or don’t receive the attention they think they deserve and decide to flee rather than “wait your turn.”

At least the Lee family stuck to old-time parenting. Taylor Lee was a huge talent at quarterback after enrolling at Oxnard Pacifica as a freshman. He got to play a little when needed as a freshman and sophomore, but he wasn’t the starter. He stayed and waited his turn and what a reward he’s received.

In the last two games, the junior has thrown 15 touchdown passes for 4-0 Pacifica. He’s passed for 1,356 yards and 22 touchdowns with no interceptions this season. He’s picking up scholarship offers. He’s become an example for his coach, Mike Moon, though who knows how many will learn the lesson.

“For all these kids who transfer around and with not a ton of success, maybe the old-school way of grinding and waiting for your time is best,” he said.

Yes, patience is hard. Passing up an opportunity offered elsewhere is hard. Accepting the decision of a coach is hard. Listening to third parties with agendas speak glowingly of your talent is hard.

As many stories as there are of successful player movements, there’s many others of those who remember the wisdom, of “wait your turn.”

Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo.

(Craig Weston)

The No. 1 quarterback in Southern California, Ohio State-bound Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo, accepted sharing time for two seasons, trading off every other series with his teammate. He and his parents were patient and supportive. This season, on his own, he’s led the Diablos to an unbeaten record and keeps adding to his reputation as a great quarterback with great character.

Years ago, in a different era, Matt Cassel became an NFL starting quarterback without ever starting a game at USC as the backup to Heisman Trophy winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.

The environment has changed with the introduction of the college transfer portal. No one is saying there’s anything wrong with switching schools while looking for an opportunity when someone’s path is blocked, but there’s also the old-fashioned way of staying and competing, waiting your turn, trying to get better and being ready when opportunity beckons.

It’s the quarterback position, in particular, where athletes and their parents are unwilling to be backups. Only one person gets to start. But the failure to recognize there’s other positions to try (tight end, receiver, defense?) is also a forgotten alternative.

The responsible thing is to never try to take away a dream from a passionate, committed teenager. Let them keep grinding if that’s what they want to do. But sometimes someone has to be the adult in the room, just like when they were four or five and rushing ahead in the line for an ice cream cone and mom or dad says, “Wait your turn.”

There’s proof that option still works.

Robert Redford looked like he walked out of the sea to become a Hollywood god. He was physically flawless. Pacific blue eyes, salt-bleached hair, a friendly surfer-boy squint. Born in Santa Monica to a milkman and a housewife, his first memory was of sliding off his mother’s lap at the Aero Theatre as a toddler and running toward the light, causing such a ruckus that the projectionist had to stop the film.

He definitely grew up to grab the movies’ attention. He wasn’t just telegenic but talented, although that wasn’t a requirement for stardom when he emerged in the late ’50s when the industry was scooping up hunks like him by the bucket for television and B-movies. All a male ingenue needed to do was smile and kiss the girl. It would have been so easy to do that a couple times and wind up doing it forever. You can understand why so many forgotten actors made that deal, without realizing that forever can lead to a fast retirement.

But if Redford had sensed at 2 years old that he was meant to be onscreen, by his 20s, he insisted he’d only do it on his own terms. At 27, with nearly zero name recognition, he horrified his then-agent by turning down a $10,000-a-week TV gig as a strait-laced psychiatrist to do a Mike Nichols theater production for just $110. His rejection of the easy money was an unusual choice, particularly for a cash-strapped father of two.

To appreciate Redford fully, we have to applaud not only the work he did but the simple, feel-good roles he rejected. He could have become a celebrity without breaking a sweat as the war hero, the jock, the husband, the cowboy, the American ideal made incarnate. Yet, he had the rare ability to sidestep what audiences thought we wanted from him to instead give us something we didn’t know we needed: selfish victors (“Downhill Racer”), self-destructive veterans (“The Great Waldo Pepper”) and tragic men who did everything right and still failed (2013’s “All Is Lost”).

In spirit, Redford never strayed far from the teen rebel he’d been — a truant who’d skipped school, stole booze and crashed race cars — and the radical artist he hurled himself into becoming by quitting everything traditional (the football team, his fraternity, college altogether) to move to Paris where he took up oil painting and marched against the Soviets. He might have excelled at the sleazy roles that made Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino famous. On the outside, he knew they didn’t fit, either.

Sometimes Redford said no even when I wish he’d have said yes. Imagine if he’d agreed to face off against Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Instead, he told Nichols he’d rather tangle with Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate,” only to be rejected as too handsome for the role. “Can you honestly imagine a guy like you having difficulty seducing a woman?” Nichols told him.

Instead, Redford used his all-American good looks to make us question our flattering image of ourselves. In the 1974 adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” he was the first person you’d think of to play the title role because he fully understood the point of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book — how it felt to represent our country’s whole image of success while knowing it’s a phony put-on. I imagine him making a devil’s bargain with his face, vowing that he won’t hide behind goofy accents and stunt wigs the way other too-handsome oddballs do, if he’s allowed to use his appeal like a Trojan horse.

If there’s one thing that unites his roles, from 1966’s “The Chase” to “Lions for Lambs,” it’s his willingness to give the screen his full charisma — to let audiences stare at him for the whole running time of a movie — as long as we’ll agree to ask what’s lurking in his underbelly. Most often, we’ll find frustrated idealism just at the moment it starts to sour.

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The films of the 1960s and ’70s that made Redford an icon mostly cleave into two categories: scamps and truth-seekers. (The latter can overlap with suckers and stooges.) His antihero crooks in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting” captured something in our national id, our not-so-secret belief that it’s OK to break a few rules to get ahead — that we can forgive a sin if we like the sinner. I like how those movies give you a guilty little tingle about rooting for Redford even when it means scratching off a couple of the Ten Commandments. (Thou shalt not steal unless you’re Robert Redford, who got away with it all the way through 2018’s “The Old Man and the Gun.”)

Lately, the Redford roles I’ve been thinking about are the ones where his all-American appeal makes us examine all of America, good and bad. The two that instantly jump to mind are his pair of political thrillers: “Three Days of the Condor,” in which he plays a CIA agent on the run from his own co-workers, and “All the President’s Men,” in which he doggedly uncovers the Watergate scandal. Both films believe in the power of getting the truth out to the press; neither is so naive as to think the truth alone will save the day.

But let’s not overlook “The Candidate,” a movie that has Redford as underqualified political scion Bill McKay, pressed to run for governor of California. “He’s not going to get his ass kicked — he’s cute,” his father (Melvyn Douglas) says. Meanwhile, his own campaign team cares more about the length of his sideburns than ideas in his head. Released in 1972, five years into former actor Ronald Reagan’s own governorship, the movie hammers home that superficiality might be democracy’s downfall — and the stakes are bigger than who is Hollywood‘s latest heartthrob.

Vice President Dan Quayle once said “The Candidate” inspired him, triggering its screenwriter Jeremy Larner to dash this off in an op-ed: “Mr. Quayle, this was not a how-to movie, it was a watch-out movie. And you are what we should be watching out for!”

In his later years, Redford became a filmmaker himself and I can picture him pulling Brad Pitt aside on the set of “A River Runs Through It” to whisper: You don’t have to stay in that pretty–boy box. Feel free to get weird. As an actor and director, Redford continued to create characters who uncovered our our hidden rot, whether in our purported national pastime, baseball (“The Natural”), or in our actual one, watching television (“Quiz Show”). His turn in “Indecent Proposal” as the wealthy man who offers to rent his employee’s wife lives on as shorthand for tycoons who assume they can buy whatever, and whoever, they want. When he eventually signed on for a superhero film, it was, fittingly, alongside Captain America, that upright paragon of virtue — and Redford played the villain.

What Quayle missed about “The Candidate” is that when it comes to a Robert Redford movie, truth is never as plain as what your eyes can see. There’s always a deeper level and there’s no guarantee that justice would win. In fact, I’d argue in Redford’s films, it rarely does.

A good investment will double for you in the next five years. What about a great investment? Rounding up a couple of names that can turn $1,000 into $5,000 in five years isn’t easy. You have to take some risks. A spunky survivor of the home-flipping space? An out-of-favor mass market retailer that has missed the mark? The leader of a travel niche that has yet to materially catch on with the mainstream?

Opendoor Technologies (OPEN 69.71%), Target (TGT 0.84%), and Royal Caribbean (RCL 3.11%) are three stocks that I think can become five-baggers between now and 2030. You might be curious, so I won’t waste your time. Let’s dive right in.

1. Opendoor Technologies

Putting one of this year’s hottest stocks on this list seems like a recipe for disaster. Opendoor is also a meme stock, a nascent niche that has produced speculative jumps in the near term only to fall back to earth when the viral boards get bored. However, the catalysts for Opendoor to keep climbing are pretty clear right now. Come on in to the Opendoor open house.

Opendoor is a pioneer in the iBuying market. It buys residential properties that its tools suggest are underpriced. It then touches them up a bit, puts them up for sale, and ideally makes enough on the sale to cover the purchase, reno work, and holding costs. It’s not a bad place to be when home prices are moving and demand is strong. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case lately.

Image source: Getty Images.

Shares of Opendoor turned $1,000 into $5,000 in a single year already. This happened in 2023, when investor enthusiasm for a residential real estate recovery was percolating. Things didn’t pan out, and the stock would go on to shed nearly two-thirds of its value last year. It’s off to a hot start in 2025, but that is mostly because it’s part of the latest wave of meme stocks being talked up in speculative online circles.

What if this isn’t just a flash in the pan? All indications suggest that the Federal Reserve will start lowering rates this month, with at least two more smaller cuts to come before the end of this year. Opendoor is a high-beta stock built for this kind of shift in fundamentals. The two things holding back the business right now are homeowners who are reluctant to put their properties locked into low mortgage rates on the market and potential homebuyers looking for lower rates to feel comfortable making a long-term, big-ticket purchase.

The past isn’t pretty, with trailing revenue since 2022 down about as much as Opendoor stock was last year. The valuation also isn’t pretty, but things will change with this scalable model if business starts surging again the way it did a couple of years ago. In the meantime, Opendoor can be confident that the two leading online portals for residential real estate — that entered the niche before pulling up a bloodied white flag — aren’t going to dive in even if the climate seems inviting. They tried. They failed. They’re not going to put their shareholders through that. In other words, Opendoor will be the lone publicly traded business tackling a real estate niche that is about to become viable again.

2. Target

Some kings lose their crowns, and that seems to be case for Target. It was cheap chic retail royalty for a long time. Then it messed things up. It had an unfortunate hack into client accounts. It made some controversial moves that somehow angered both side of the political community. Today’s Target is losing market share, but it still has a crown.

When Target boosted its quarterly payouts to shareholders this summer — extending the streak of annual hikes to 54 years — it was able to retain its Dividend King status. The payout remains safe, at least in the near term. Despite posting negative net sales growth for third consecutive fiscal year, the chain’s guidance calls for a profit between $7 and $9 a share this year. Its forward payout ratio is 51% to 65% that profit outlook.

It’s true that comps remain problematically negative, and after years of being the cool discounter it’s now yielding market share. However, with a turnaround plan in place and a juicy 5% yield to reward patient investors, why can’t Target be a five-bagger come 2030? It trades at a low earnings multiple on depressed earnings, currently 10 to 13 times its guidance for this fiscal year’s earnings. When things start clicking again it’s easy to see strong comps and margin expansion turning this market laggard into a leader.

3. Royal Caribbean

If you channel surf through streaming services, you’re going to run across some documentaries about things that didn’t go well on cruise ships. This is unfortunate timing for an industry that has battled back from the longest COVID-19 shutdown among travel segments. The growth story is kinder than the sometimes horrific mishaps at sea.

Royal Caribbean isn’t the largest cruise line by revenue, passengers, or fleet, but it’s the most valuable. Royal Caribbean has earned the market’s attention with a business that has historically grown faster with strong margins and customer loyalty than its rivals. It was the best investment in this space before the pandemic stoppage. It’s only natural for it to be leading the way as the first player to become profitable and reinitiate dividends.

Strong results and record future bookings find Royal Caribbean perpetually raising its guidance. The midpoint of its guidance at the beginning of this year was for a profit of $14.50 a share. Now that midpoint is at $15.48. Royal Caribbean is trading at a reasonable 22 times this year’s earnings midpoint. That’s a bargain, and this is knowing that Royal Caribbean has a long streak of “beat and raise” reports that should continue to nudge the next quarterly report higher and higher.