wait

Authors: Kung Chan and Yang Xite*

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent state visit to China, which was his first foreign trip of 2026, is a clear indication of the shifting dynamics of the bilateral relationship. Accompanied by an unprecedented delegation of 39 high-ranking officials, including five deputy prime ministers, eight ministers, the central bank governor, and energy executives, the scale resembled a partial cabinet relocation. This massive mobilization reflects Moscow’s urgency to secure an agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline, a strategic super-project stalled in commercial negotiations since 2012. Planned to span over 2,600 kilometers with an annual capacity of 50 billion cubic meters, the pipeline would traverse Mongolia to link Russian fields with Chinese markets. For Russia, finalizing this energy artery is an economic imperative to replace the European market, where Western sanctions aim to eliminate Russian pipeline gas imports by the end of 2027.

Evaluating the geopolitics of this energy relationship requires analyzing five distinct strategic dimensions.

First, Beijing has strong incentives to resist quick concessions. The negotiation deadlock is largely on pricing. Russia reportedly seeks approximately US$ 265 per thousand cubic meters to cover the high extraction and infrastructure costs of its Yamal fields in Western Siberia, whereas China targets roughly US$ 120. Unlike Russia, China commands significant leverage, boasting robust domestic pipeline networks, stable Central Asian infrastructure, and diverse liquefied natural gas imports. Given Russia’s acute financial pressure and diminishing options due to sanctions after the war in Ukraine, Beijing has the luxury of strategic patience, allowing it to wait for terms that align with market principles rather than rushing a deal under political pressure.

Second, the pipeline is less about energy revenue for Moscow and more about maintaining global geopolitical relevance. In the current international order, Russia finds itself sidelined from primary great-power management. Consequently, Putin seeks to leverage the Ukraine conflict to engage Washington while simultaneously trying to bind Russia’s economic future to China, much like it previously did with Europe. This anxiety within the China-United States-Russia triangular relationship was highlighted by the timing of the visit, which occurred just days after the U.S. President Donald Trump departed Beijing. As the war enters its fifth year and energy weaponization loses its potency in the West, shifting exports eastward has transformed from a strategic choice into a necessity for regime survival. By proposing a 30-year, multibillion-dollar pipeline network, Moscow hopes to anchor itself to the world’s largest energy consumer, ensuring it remains an indispensable player rather than a marginalized resource base.

Third, the proposed pipeline route serves as a geopolitical lever within the post-Soviet space. Passing through Mongolia, the route allows Russia to entrench its influence over Ulaanbaatar, which has recently deepened its engagement with the United States and NATO, while monitoring China’s northern energy ingress. This alignment requires Beijing to pay substantial transit fees and leaves its energy security vulnerable to the political stability of a third country. For Moscow, the project simultaneously secures the Chinese market and reinforces its traditional sphere of influence across Central Asia and Mongolia, using infrastructure to manage the economic and diplomatic trajectories of neighboring states.

Fourth, the protracted timeline works in Beijing’s favor. The longer negotiations stall, the more China’s bargaining position strengthens against an increasingly isolated Russia. While Moscow faces a liquidity crisis within its National Wealth Fund and the fiscal drain of a prolonged war, China’s energy diversification has progressed rapidly. Construction on Line D of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline is advancing alongside commitments from Turkmenistan, while maritime LNG capacity expanded by over 10 million tons recently with imports from Qatar, Australia, and the United States. Furthermore, China’s domestic shale gas production and global leadership in renewable energy insulation provide a structural ceiling on long-term natural gas demand. Middle Eastern instability in the Strait of Hormuz elevates the short-term value of overland corridors, but it ultimately reinforces Beijing’s commitment to resilience rather than a singular dependence on Moscow.

Fifth, China’s optimal energy architecture centers on the Southern Corridor, specifically what can be called the “Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan (TUT) Corridor” framework. This network offers a direct alternative that circumvents Russian territory, extending through Xinjiang and across the Caspian Sea toward Azerbaijan and Europe. Lines A, B, and C of the Central Asia-China pipeline are already operational, and the completion of Line D will raise total capacity to 65 billion cubic meters annually. This infrastructure is backed by deepening diplomatic ties. Beijing and Dushanbe codified their strategic partnership via a friendship treaty, and China’s trade volume with the five Central Asian republics surpassed US$ 100 billion, cementing its status as their primary trading partner. A fully integrated Central Asian energy network directly erodes Russia’s traditional influence in its southern flank, creating a new economic center of gravity.

Ultimately, while Putin’s high-profile delegation sought to secure a vital economic lifeline, the unresolved pipeline agreement exposes the cold calculation of national interests underlying the partnership. For Beijing, maintaining a deliberate pace maximizes its buyers’ advantage and allows alternative supply chains to mature. The true key to Eurasian energy security lies not in a single northern pipeline, but in a diversified, networked western corridor that mitigates risk and ensures supply chain autonomy, a structural reality that will shape the continent’s geopolitical architecture for decades.

*Yang Xite, a Research Fellow at ANBOUND.

According to Abs Mechial, there is a specific minute every day in which holidays can be booked for cheaper on average – but you may need to set your alarm to take advantage of it

If you are yet to book a getaway this year and are wondering when the ideal moment might be to do so, a financial expert has identified precisely when you should – and shouldn’t – make your move. Abs Mechial turned to TikTok to reveal that not only are certain days preferable for booking, but specific times of day matter too.

“When is the worst time to book a holiday and when is it actually cheapest? he asked his followers in a video. Surprisingly, according to research, Abs claimed there is a one-hour window in each day when holidays can cost you significantly more money to book.” he asked his followers.

“According to the data, the most expensive time to book is between 9am and 10am,” he explained. “Bookings in that window came in around 30 per cent more than the cheapest time of the day – so no more booking holidays as soon as you log in for the day.”

As for the most economical time of day, Abs warned that you might need to set your alarm. “Early… and I mean really early,” he said. “Between 4am and 5am – and the logic does make sense.”

Abs highlighted that overnight, demand “drops off” and consequently prices “reset” to their baseline.

He elaborated: “Then as the day goes on, the more searches and more clicks result in prices starting to creep back up again.”

For those reluctant to wake up before sunrise, however, Abs provided guidance for anyone wanting to book during “more realistic hours”.

“Late evening, around 8pm to 10pm tends to be noticeably cheaper than the morning rush,” he enthused. “But if you want to go even further and want the exact moment – not just the hour, but the minute – according to the data, the single cheapest minute to book a holiday is 2:48am.”

Surprisingly, bookings made at that precise time worked out up to 60 per cent cheaper on average, according to Abs.

He concluded with a word of caution, however: “Now, definitely take that with a pinch of salt – booking at 2:48am isn’t going to make every holiday 60 per cent cheaper, but the pattern is clear – if you want to save money, avoid peak booking hours because timing, just like everything else with money, makes a massive difference.”

Responding in the comments, one TikTok user offered their own unverified tip: “Best to search in private browser so prices do not increase if you are searching for same destinations. Prices increase with demand so private searching will prevent this.”

A second person added: “I usually book mine within 72 hours of departure… like 50% cheaper! I find the hotels I want and then I wait for them to deal them off.”

A third exclaimed: “Wow that’s crazy how the time of day can cost you!”

While a fourth TikTok user pointed out: “Doesn’t change if you want a certain resort at a certain time of year.”

In a typical midterm year, Donna Layne casts her ballot long before election day.

But this time around was different for the 75-year-old Democrat. Late-cycle controversies and fear of a “wasted vote” leading to a lockout for Democrats in the race for California governor meant she didn’t make her final decision until Friday.

California Democrats have been wringing their hands for weeks about who would emerge as front-runners in the crowded race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. The sudden departure of high-profile candidate Eric Swalwell amid sexual assault allegations and California’s jungle primary system, which sends the top two vote-getters to the November general election regardless of their party affiliation, added pressure for Democrats to coalesce around candidates who had the best chance of advancing.

“I was concerned,” Layne said as she slid her ballot into a drop box. “I wanted to make my ballot count and I was afraid that there might be two Republicans because they had been polling pretty high, so I wanted to be strategic about it.”

On Friday morning, voters — predominately Democrats like Layne — trickled into the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana to turn in their ballots. A few told The Times they frequently wait to vote until the days leading up to the election so they can watch all the debates and get the most up-to-date information about the candidates.

But most said they hung onto their ballots this year for far longer than usual.

As of Friday, 19% of California Republicans had already cast their ballot, compared with roughly 16% by the same time in the 2022 primary cycle, according to data from Political Data Inc.

An election worker separates ballots from vote by mail envelopes to be tallied at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Ballot Processing Center on Thursday in City of Industry.

(Gary Coronado/For The Times)

Meanwhile, only 14% of the state’s far-more-numerous registered Democrats have returned their ballots, down from 17% at this point in 2022. Only 29% of Democrats age 65 years and older — generally enthusiastic voters — had returned their ballots, down from 33% in 2022, data show.

But that doesn’t mean that Democrats will stay on the sidelines. Data show Democrats have started returning their ballots in earnest over the past several days, a trend that’s likely to continue through election day, said Paul Mitchell, the vice president of Political Data Inc.

“It’s the predominance of this fear that they’ve heard in the media — and that’s largely abated — that a Democrat won’t make it to the runoff,” Mitchell said. “In fact, there’s a growing sense that we could have two Democrats make the runoff, so that fear has — for the political class — gone away, but voters are still clinging to it.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, has risen steadily in recent polls, positioning him well to potentially advance to November. He was the leading candidate in a poll released Thursday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, garnering support from 25% of likely California voters.

Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, a front-runner in the race for governor, shares a light moment with supporters at the UFCW Local 1167 Union Hall in Bloomington, on Friday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Slightly behind with support from 21% of likely state voters was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator whom President Trump has endorsed. In third place with 19% support was another Democrat: Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder and environmental activist.

With support increasing for Becerra, Hilton and Steyer since the last Berkeley IGS/Times poll in March, the survey provided the clearest indication yet that those candidates have separated themselves from the rest of the field.

Support for Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the only other major Republican candidate in the race, dropped 5 percentage points from the March poll to last week’s, putting him in a distant fourth at 11%. Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter saw her support drop by almost half to 7%. Other prominent Democrats — San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — were all in the low single digits, the poll found.

Republican candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a news conference outside the CIF State Track Championship in Clovis, where transgender athlete AB Hernandez will be was to compete Friday.

(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)

Roughly a dozen registered Democrats interviewed by The Times said they cast their ballots last week for the person they thought would have the best chance of making it through the state’s jungle primary, even if it wasn’t their ideal candidate.

“I love Katie Porter,” said Connie Wadsley, 78. “I really do, but I just didn’t see her as being able to pull it off. I just don’t think society is ready for a woman governor as much as that pains me to say.”

In the end, Wadsley and her husband, Victor, cast their ballots for Steyer. Becerra, she said, is too much of a career politician for her liking, but Steyer impressed her with his promise not to take corporate money and his position on social justice issues.

“I think we need to shake things up in this state — in this nation,” she said. “Yeah, [Steyer] is a billionaire and I’m not really excited about that, but he truly seems to be spending his money on things that I feel are important.”

For some voters, the sheer volume of gubernatorial candidates — 61 in all — was off-putting. Some even organized gatherings with politically like-minded friends to discuss the best course of action.

“I think it was really overwhelming for a lot of people, especially when they got their ballot and saw all of those names,” said Linda Verraster, co-president of the Democratic Women of South Orange County. “There was this fear of making a mistake — air quotes — that would lead to two Republicans in the runoff.”

Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, and Gov. Gray Davis joke with each other as Davis shows Schwarzenegger the governor’s private office at the Capitol in Sacramento on Oct. 23, 2003.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

The race seems somewhat reminiscent of the 2003 recall election when 135 candidates vied to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis amid the state’s energy crisis. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, won decisively with roughly 48% of the vote.

But this race differs in a few key ways, experts say.

Mainly, while all of the top candidates have impressive resumes, there’s a lack of star power that could help propel someone to the forefront. Instead, Democrats “have an option of like moderate Dem to slightly less-moderate Dem,” said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.

“There’s a lot of people, but they occupy a very similar lane and I think that’s been a lot of the problem,” he said. “They’re loathe to really critique some of the foundational problems like a real ideological opponent would.”

Verraster put it even more simply: “There’s no unicorn.”

Still, she’ll be happy if either of the two Democratic front-runners — or both — make the ballot.

British travellers heading to Portugal have been warned that they could face major delays

Ryanair is cautioning Brits heading to Portugal that they could face waits of up to 2.5 hours at the airport. The budget airline has been an outspoken opponent of the new Entry/Exit System (EES).

EES is a digital biometric scheme that is taking over from traditional passport stamps. It requires travellers to have their fingerprints recorded and photographs captured when entering the Schengen Area, which comprises 29 European countries, predominantly within the European Union. For British travellers, this typically takes place at foreign airports.

Ryanair has been a fierce critic of the scheme after reports emerged of lengthy delays lasting several hours at destinations including Milan, Porto, and Lisbon. Greece has announced that it will postpone the full rollout of EES for British tourists until after the busy summer period has passed.

In a social media post titled Lisbon Airport Trivia Quiz, the airline offered a string of responses to tongue-in-cheek questions. These included asking what was slower between a tortoise, a snail, or Lisbon border control queues. Ryanair also issued a warning that travellers could be held up for as long as 2.5 hours.

It stated: “If you haven’t noticed the trend, Lisbon border control wait times are up to 2,5 hours. It’s time for the Portuguese Government to suspend the new Entry/Exit System (EES) until after the peak summer season and ensure adequate staffing at Lisbon border control and all Portuguese airports.”

READ MORE: EasyJet flight makes emergency landing after being struck by lightningREAD MORE: Travel expert issues EES update for Greece, Portugal, and Germany

EES was initially launched in October last year, with its implementation stepped up on April 10. Under current EU regulations, the checks can be temporarily suspended to prevent queues during busy periods, reports Glasgow Live.

Industry body Airports Council International recently revealed that EES was leading to hold-ups of up to three hours, with airports across Spain, Portugal, France and Italy among those hit hardest. More than 100 easyJet passengers missed a flight from Milan Linate to Manchester last month due to hold-ups at passport control caused by the intensified rollout of EES.

WAITING times in airports have increased since the introduction of EES – but one destinations has had travellers queueing for up to six hours.

Portugal is a beautiful country for a family break, but the lengthy queues mean that some are spending longer lining up in the airport than they do on the plane.

Follow The Sun’s award-winning travel team on Instagram and Tiktok for top holiday tips and inspiration @thesuntravel.

EES delays and travel chaos have dominated the news, and some airports in Portugal in particular have passengers waiting in very long queues.

One travel blogger posted on Instagram: “Last week a family I advised landed in Lisbon and stood in line for 6 hours and 40 minutes. Their toddler slept on a suitcase. They missed their transfer to the Algarve.

“EES (the EU’s new biometric entry system) is now live. Faro processes 7x more summer traffic than its capacity. Luggage handlers are striking April through June. And the airport you choose to land in will define your first 24 hours in Portugal.”

ALL IN

Holiday spot slashes prices to entice Brits – from 7 nights all inclusive for £289pp

LAST MINUTE

All the CHEAPEST holidays you can still book for May half term – from £163pp

The flight time between the UK and Lisbon is up to three hours, so some British travellers are standing in the airport for longer than they’re on the plane.

Queues through Lisbon Airport have been causing frustration amongst many travellers.

One Brit wrote just yesterday on X: “Warning if you are flying to Portugal any time now, actually spent longer queuing than the actual flight, was a shambles with half the machines not working, and further queues to passport control.”

Another said leaving Lisbon Airport was the “one of the worst passport control experiences” with hours of waiting.

The EU’s EES (entry/ exit) system has increased the queuing time for inward and outward passengers by four and even five times as much, according to The Resident.

It’s not just Lisbon either; Faro Airport in the south is experiencing lengthy delays too with some saying that they’ve queued from the terminal to airside.

One big reason for the delays that Lisbon and Faro airports suffer from is caused by what’s called ‘bottlenecking’.

Essentially it’s airport congestion from when lots of flights land at the same time, or delays cause lots of passengers to be in one place at the same time.

They occur mostly at security checkpoints, passport control, boarding gates, and baggage handling areas resulting in lengthy queues.

One of our own Travel Reporters experienced the situation herself in Lanzarote when multiple flights landing at the same time ended up in a three-hour queue through the airport.

The queues have been getting so bad that airlines like Ryanair have even called for EES to be suspended until September – after the peak summer travel period.

While you can’t avoid EES queues, there are ways to make them less uncomfortable.

Make sure to check out our tips from where to sit on the plane to the best time to take a flight.

Former captain Michael Vaughan says it is “ridiculous” England are yet to appoint their new national selector.

The process to name the successor to Luke Wright, who announced he was stepping down on 22 January and left after the T20 World Cup concluded in March, has reached the final stages, with interviews for the position held this week.

There have already been four rounds of action in the County Championship and England are set to name their squad for the first Test against New Zealand in two weeks’ time.

“It’s ridiculous how they’re announcing a selector so late,” Vaughan said on the Stick to Cricket podcast.

“I wanted the selector there on 1 April, going out, having a look, gathering information.

“Luke Wright quit at the back end of Australia. We knew didn’t we?

“It’s a long time, four months, to find someone.”

Every two years for more than a decade, Melani Candia has gotten approved to stay in the U.S. with her husband and two cats and — more recently — continue to work in special education in Florida.

But this year, delays in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that has shielded her and hundreds of thousands of others from deportation, led to her missing her renewal deadline, losing her job and fearing detention in the country she has called home since she was 6 years old.

She said that as an immigrant in the U.S., fear has become her “new baseline.” “But now, having a new level of vulnerability, it was a very quick increase in the fear,” said Candia.

Renewal wait times for the Obama-era program that allows people who were brought to the U.S. as children to temporarily remain in the country and work have increased to levels not seen since 2016 when there were significant technical issues.

Some of the program’s more than 500,000 beneficiaries, often referred to as “Dreamers,” have waited months for an answer only to see their deadline pass without a decision. Now they’re stuck in a type of limbo in which their work authorization disappears, oftentimes along with their driver’s license, and their ability to stay in the U.S. is at risk.

“It’s not just anecdotal; it’s happening at a larger scale than we’ve ever seen before,” said Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led network.

No numbers were available on how many people have recently missed their renewal deadline despite applying 120 to 150 days before their DACA lapses, which is what U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, recommends.

“Under the leadership of President Trump, USCIS is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens, which can lengthen processing times,” Zach Kahler, an agency spokesperson, said in a statement.

Wait times nearly 5 times longer

DACA grants those who qualify two-year, renewable permits to live and work in the U.S. It does not confer legal status but is meant to offer protection from deportation.

From October 2025 through the end of February 2026, the median wait time for renewals was about 70 days, compared with about 15 days in fiscal year 2025, according to USCIS. This is the longest median wait time since 2016, when it was about 79 days, according to the agency’s data, which did not include 2020 because of the pandemic.

The Department of Homeland Security attributed the 2016 delays to technical issues that emerged as it transitioned to fully processing DACA renewals in its electronic immigration system.

At the end of April, USCIS was reporting that the majority of renewal requests were being completed within about 122 days. That marked a two-week increase from the processing times listed earlier that month.

Federal lawmakers and immigrant groups say some applicants recently have had to wait six months — about 183 days — or longer.

“The delays that people are concerned about used to be sort of a matter of weeks at a time,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “Now it’s from a few months to many, many months.”

He is one of dozens of lawmakers behind letters sent to federal agencies that question the inflated wait times and whether people who have missed their renewal deadline are being targeted for arrest or deportation.

More than five months after Elsa Sanchez submitted her DACA renewal request, she is still waiting for an answer. When the deadline passed at the beginning of April, she was put on leave at her job at a healthcare IT company and now, as a single mother of a college freshman, has no income.

It’s made her worried about everything from traveling to spending money on pricier household products like shampoo and detergent.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t know, maybe I can cut down on that. Maybe I don’t need this,’” she said. “Because I’m saving every penny.”

Sanchez said something similar happened about a decade ago, but this time she’s scared of the possible repercussions amid Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Since DACA’s introduction in 2012, it’s faced myriad legal battles, including two that made it to the Supreme Court. And now, though the government is still approving renewals, a 2025 federal court decision means it isn’t processing first-time applications and has left the door open for another possible trip to the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of ‘Dreamers’ arrested

In the first 11 months of 2025, more than 250 DACA recipients were arrested and 86 deported, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier this year. She said the majority of those arrested had “criminal histories,” without indicating the nature of the crimes or if they were arrests, charges or convictions.

In a separate response to a Democratic congresswoman’s inquiry, Homeland Security reported conflicting numbers, saying that 270 were arrested and 174 DACA applicants were removed in the first nine months of 2025.

Their eligibility is dependent in part on not having a felony conviction, a significant misdemeanor or three misdemeanors. Previously, if their status was in jeopardy, they would get a warning and still have the chance to fight it before immigration officers detained them and began efforts to deport them.

Kahler of USCIS said that DACA recipients are not automatically protected from deportation.

“Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons — including if they committed a crime,” he said, using an outdated term for immigrants widely considered disparaging.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions about whether DACA beneficiaries were being targeted after missing their renewal deadlines.

But federal lawmakers have recently noted people picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after their DACA lapsed.

Their protections may have been further eroded with a precedent decision recently in which the Board of Immigration Appeals determined that DACA status alone is not enough to stop deportation.

Losing DACA eligibility, and a job

Experts have suggested the longer wait times could be related to the restarting of biometric appointments, which were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Some may also not be getting approved by their deadline because they’re not sending it in by the recommended time.

Maria Fernanda Madrigal is an immigration attorney and DACA recipient who submitted her renewal application about a month and a half before the deadline because she said that’s all the processing time that’s been needed in the past. She said she was also waiting for her job to hold a DACA workshop so she could get the more than $550 fee for renewal waived.

Her DACA lapsed recently, and the mother of three was let go from her job.

“My first concern was my cases, to be honest, because I knew I was going to have to hand off everything, and my team is already overworked,” said Madrigal.

Immigration attorneys have also said that USCIS has paused processing renewals for people from dozens of countries the agency described in recent policy memorandums as “high-risk” following presidential proclamations. The National Immigration Law Center estimated that as many as 3,000 to 4,000 people could be impacted.

“This process that has no timeline is leading to people from certain countries experiencing a pause. And we don’t know how long that pause will be in place,” said Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

Every day, Candia checks on her renewal. She said she’s most afraid of being locked up in bad conditions in an ICE detention facility, but also thinks about what it would be like returning to Bolivia after more than 25 years.

“If God forbid that happened, it would break my heart because I’ve been in this country since I was 6,” she said. “My entire life is here.”

Golden writes for the Associated Press.