violent

The decision on Stokes and Atkinson brings an element of closure to an extraordinary period, as English cricket has had to deal with yet another off-field controversy.

Without Stokes and Atkinson, an inexperienced England team showing five changes to the one that won the first Test was soundly beaten in the second.

It means Stokes will be back for a crucial decider at Trent Bridge, with England desperate for a series win to alleviate pressure that has grown over the dismal Ashes winter and this latest chaotic episode.

And while Stokes’ return as a leader and all-rounder is vital for his team, there will be renewed scrutiny on his relationship with the rest of the England hierarchy, in particular head coach Brendon McCullum.

All of Stokes, McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key denied the captain and coach were at odds during the Ashes, when England were hammered 4-1.

Speaking on Sunday, after the loss at The Oval, McCullum said he is ready to work with Stokes again.

“We’ve worked together intimately for four years,” said McCullum. “We’ve achieved some cool things and let ourselves down in other things.

“Our motivation, belief and ambition for this side has not wavered. We have robust conversations all the way through and I think that is to be expected when you’re in positions of leadership. There is a mutual respect to how we operate with those.

“I anticipate we’ll be able to work together really well in the week coming and I’m sure that both of us have that same vision for this cricket team.”

As the noise-rap-electro act Jane Remover shrieked and pleaded through a 90-minute marathon set at the Fonda on Thursday night, one very young couple dressed right out of a conservative‘s nightmare — gender-ambiguous, purple hair, facial piercings — tapped me on the shoulder. They politely asked if I could mind their newly bought vinyl for a bit as they thrashed in the heaving crowd. Of course, this unc obliged them.

Anyone who laments that L.A. crowds don’t dance should go to one of the last sets of Jane Remover’s three-night stand at the Fonda this weekend. It had the most genuinely raucous pit I’ve seen in 2026, made all the more feral for how sweet and earnest it was. After a hotly tipped Coachella set, this Live Exhibit tour affirmed that the subculture Jane Remover built may or may not have wider pop potential, but it’s getting big enough to count for stardom in the fractured music world of today.

Jane Remover is a trans polymath producer and singer-songwriter with influences across rave, shoegaze, trap and beyond. They’ve built up a ferocious elaboration on the hyperpop of predecessors like Sophie, who similarly packed so many good ideas into songs they became talismanic to fans, a tonic to reinvent yourself (new Charli XCX opener Underscores is another fellow traveler).

The music itself sounds like reverse-engineering the moment in the 2000s when metalcore kids discovered EDM. Only now it’s Discord-disaffected youth ramping up hardstyle techno, autotuned girlypop ballads and rage-rap to an explosive fusion point. “Census Designated,” Jane’s brash and dramatic 2023 coming-out LP, tipped them as a force beyond the underground. But they soon eclipsed it with 2025’s “Revengeseekerz,” a deliriously overheated mix of romantic yearning, internet score-settling and virtuosic production prowess.

Backed by just a DJ (Dazedgxd, who opened the set) and a retina-scorching light rig up front, Jane acknowledged on Thursday that the stakes were getting much higher. They joked that they’d played the El Rey like three times before this tour, and to judge by the wild-eyed passions out in the audience, the Fonda will probably be the smallest venue they’ll play for some time. “It gets so cold this high up,” Jane sang on “Turn Up or Die.” “Can’t go to hell but I can drop you off.”

The sentiments driving the music are ultramodern: self-aware, vicious and desperately vulnerable. The hilariously zesty “Angels in Camo” (home to the all-time banger of a line: “Jesus never had it with a freak b—”) wrapped up with a bloodletting plea that “I can’t let you b— win.” Jane wields that word like the flaming sword on the “Revengeseekerz” album cover, with all the casual lustiness of Future but also the wrath of a reclaimed slur.

On “Professional Vengeance,” they grappled with the weird lures of celebrity and intimacy, where no one really knows anyone but desire still courses; “Experimental Skin” found them craving and fighting off God and nihilism and technology and addiction all at once.

The tension in these tracks are the binding agent for Jane’s fan base — the music is full of contradictions and incompatibilities smashing together that just feel like being young right now. Other than a quick affirmation that fans of all identities and backgrounds will always be welcome at their shows, they let the contorting, violent music speak for itself about the way queer fans are feeling about life under siege in the United States.

If the set was a bit too long for the limited setup onstage, it was because Jane simply had that much music to let out — that caliber of emotion to unburden, that much want to acknowledge. It seemed like the set was closing with “In the Dark,” an aching ballad from their Venturing side project, plainly declaring “I still dream of us” through a fog of effects. But instead they ramped it back up for one last cathartic blast to close, sending their faithful out onto Hollywood Boulevard, sweaty and filthy and fundamentally known.

Irish activist Caitriona Graham, who was filmed being dragged by her hair and forced to the ground by Israeli forces, recounted the violent interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in an interview with Al Jazeera after being deported to Istanbul.

WASHINGTON — Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche on Tuesday wouldn’t rule out the possibility that people who carried out violence during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol will be considered for payouts from a new $1.776 billion fund to pay individuals who believe they were targeted politically.

Pressed during a Congressional hearing over whether those who assaulted police officers would be eligible for compensation from the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” Blanche responded that all people can apply if “they believe they were a victim of weaponization.” The acting attorney general also refused to say whether he would direct those responsible for deciding who receives payments — a commission whose members he is tasked with appointing — to restrict funds to those convicted of violence.

“What I will commit to is making sure that the commissioners are effectively doing their jobs, and that includes setting guidelines as you’re describing,” Blanche told Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat. The decisions on payouts will be made a five-member commission appointed by the attorney general.

Appearing before Congress for the first time since taking the reins of the Justice Department last month, Blanche was peppered with questions about the fund announced on Monday to compensate those who believe they were mistreated by prior administrations’ Justice Department. Blanche said the fund was “unusual” but not unprecedented, adding that those who benefit will not be limited to Republicans or to people who were investigated or prosecuted by the Biden administration. At one point, Blanche said President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter — who faced gun and tax prosecutions under his father’s administration — could also apply.

Blanche defends $1.8 billion fund

Tuesday’s hearing was meant to address the Trump administration’s budget request for the Justice Department but quickly delved into other controversies that have escalated concerns about the erosion of the law enforcement agency’s tradition of independence from the White House. Blanche defended the creation of the fund without any acknowledgment that the Trump administration has pursued investigations of Trump’s political opponents, sparking criticism that the department is being weaponized in precisely the same way they allege it was under Biden’s administration to prosecute Trump.

In the weeks since assuming control of the Justice Department after Pam Bondi’s firing, Blanche has moved aggressively to advance the president’s priorities — pushing forward cases against Trump’s political foes, cracking down on leaks to media outlets and establishing the new fund to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

Democrats described it as an illegal abuse of power designed to line the pockets of Trump supporters with taxpayer dollars. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations subcommittee holding the hearing, blasted the move as a “pure theft of public funds.”

“Rewarding individuals who committed crimes is obscene,” the Maryland Democrat said. “Every American can see through this illegal, corrupt, self-dealing scheme.”

The fund is in keeping with Trump’s long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponized against him, even though then-President Biden himself was investigated during that time and his son was prosecuted. Merrick Garland, who served as attorney general during the Biden administration, has repeatedly denied allegations of politicization and has said his decisions followed facts, the evidence and the law.

Trump administration has been rewriting the history of Jan. 6

The mere possibility that violent rioters at the Capitol could be considered for payouts is consistent with a Trump administration pattern of rewriting the dark history of Jan. 6, a trend that began when the president pardoned and commuted the prison sentences of the participants in the melee and that continued with the Justice Department firing some prosecutors who put them behind bars.

Under questioning from Merkley, Blanche said that he “will definitely encourage the commission” responsible for deciding on the payouts to “take everything into account.” But when asked whether he believes those convicted of violence should be entitled to compensation, Blanche said: “My feelings don’t matter.”

When Merkley suggested that Trump was using the Justice Department to target his political enemies, Blanche replied that this was precisely the sort of “disgusting” behavior of the Biden administration that the fund was meant to address.

“That is completely inappropriate and wrong,’ Merkley said. “There is no comparison to the absolute fair minded pursuit of justice under the previous administration, and this administration’s pursuit of an enemies list.”

Questions over the meaning of ‘weaponization’

In announcing the fund Monday, the Trump administration did not name specific individuals who might stand to benefit from it. The money itself would come from the federal judgment fund, which pays out court judgments and compromise settlements of lawsuits against the government.

Blanche told lawmakers that the Justice Department is committed to “full transparency” in providing public information about beneficiaries of the new fund.

“It’s not limited to Republicans. It’s not limited to Democrats. It’s not limited to January 6th defendants. It’s limited only by the term weaponization,” Blanche said, though the administration has not said how it will define “weaponization.”

Meanwhile, there were signs of discomfort about the fund even among some Republican members of Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that he’s “not a big fan,” adding that he isn’t sure how the administration intends to use it, but doesn’t “see a purpose for that.”

Thune’s comments come after Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost reelection in a GOP primary on Saturday, called it a “slush fund.”

“We are a nation of laws,” Cassidy said. “You can’t just make up things.”

Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed various areas of the West Bank, set cars on fire and attacked Palestinians.

Israeli settlers have launched another wave of raids in the occupied West Bank, with houses and cars set on fire and a Palestinian child attacked.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that a man and his child were attacked with “sharp instruments” in the village of Khirbet Shuweika, south of Hebron, on Friday.

The father and child were taken to hospital due to head injuries.

Israeli settlers torched a home in the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya, south of Nablus, after which members of the Palestinian Civil Defence arrived to extinguish the blaze.

In Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, Wafa cited security sources that the settlers “stormed the outskirts of the village, burned a citizen’s vehicle, and wrote racist slogans on the walls of houses”.

In the village of al-Asa’asa in Jenin, Israeli forces forced residents to exhume a newly buried body and take it elsewhere. They claimed the first site was too close to an illegal Israeli settlement.

Israeli settlers also attacked a Palestinian man in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, and stole his mobile phone.

A group of Palestinians were picnicking in the Burak Sulayman (Solomon’s Pools) area, south of Bethlehem, but were forced to leave after Israeli forces fired stun grenades at them.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society treated two people for tear gas inhalation and evacuated five others from the scene after the attack.

‘Tear gas and sound bombs’

In the town of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, the mayor, Taysir Abu Mufreh, told Wafa that Israeli forces fired “tear gas and sound bombs” at a group of worshippers who were leaving a local mosque and locked a number of them inside.

On Friday, Israeli forces arrested four Palestinian men in the town of Battir, west of Bethlehem, while they were hiking near a railway line. The following day, three more Palestinians were arrested during a raid on the city of Nablus.

Settlers attacked the town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, leading to clashes when residents confronted them.

Human rights groups say Israeli authorities have allowed the settlers to operate with total impunity in their attacks against Palestinians.

In February, Israel approved a plan to claim large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property”.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

April 27 (UPI) — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt condemned negative comments and rhetoric about President Donald Trump in a press briefing Monday.

Leavitt addressed the press, likely for the last time before she begins her maternity leave, in the wake of a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. Leavitt blamed the incident on “violent rhetoric” from Democratic lawmakers, television personalities, the media and others on social media.

“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump day after day after day for 11 years has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment,” Leavitt said. “Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy, and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fueling this kind of violence.”

Leavitt said one member of the U.S. Secret Service was shot in the chest but survived because they were wearing a bulletproof vest.

The Department of Justice will address the arraignment of the alleged gunman, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, on Monday, Leavitt added. She also acknowledged that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner may be rescheduled.

“When you read the manifesto of this shooter, ask yourselves how different is the rhetoric from this almost-assassin from what you read on social media and hear in various forums every single day,” Leavitt said. “Much of the manifesto of the would-be assassin is indistinguishable from the words that we hear daily from so many.”

In response to the shooting, Leavitt said that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles will be meeting with Department of Homeland Security leadership to discuss the security of the president.

Asked why she felt it was important to delay her maternity leave after Saturday’s shooting, Leavitt said she is “honored to speak on behalf of President Trump.”

Violent clashes between fans and police caused the abandonment of a match between the top two sides in Paraguay on Sunday.

Hundreds of spectators escaped onto the pitch as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the stands at the Superclasico, played between Olimpia and Cerro Porteno, both based in capital city Asuncion.

According to witnesses, the trouble began when firecrackers were detonated in the section of the Defensores del Chaco Stadium which was allocated to Cerro Porteno supporters.

The police detained around 100 people, and while it was not immediately clear whether any fans had been injured, security forces reported that at least six officers were hurt, with one in a serious condition.

David Torales, a spokesperson for a local hospital, said the “officers sustained head injuries, lacerations, including possible stab wounds, and other injuries”.