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It’s a badge of honor to be called a surfer dude. There are plenty on the Laguna Beach High football team, led by their 6-foot-4 junior quarterback Jack Hurst.

Surfer dudes are fearless, agile and stay calm under pressure when there’s an approaching wave. They have good timing, great instincts and enjoy moments of serenity while gliding on a board waiting to test themselves against a wave.

Hurst has to avoid tacklers, so when a wave suddenly appears it’s good practice making quick decisions just like he does in football.

“I do surf a little bit. Don’t know about good. Being on the water is time to be calm for me,” he said.

Hurst has put together a breakthrough junior season after being a two-year understudy to Jackson Kollock, who is now at Minnesota. Hurst has passed for 2,560 yards and 41 touchdowns with four interceptions this season.

“I was sitting behind Jackson and waiting for my moment and my chance,” Hurst said. “We helped each other. It was great walking that journey with him.”

He’d get mop-up duty and learn from Kollock. Both have strong arms but Hurst is more of a drop-back passer.

“Jack’s improvement has been astounding,” coach John Shanahan said. “He turns 17 later this month. How quickly he processes coverages is great. He’s got lot of savvy in him.”

Laguna Beach is a true neighborhood team at 26 players strong, having gone 9-1. The Breakers have drawn Sherman Oaks Notre Dame in a Southern Section Division 3 playoff opener on Friday at Notre Dame.

Hurst is one of the first players to have joined Laguna Beach when it started a seventh-grade team trying to keep local players from leaving. There’s one middle school in the district. The same coaches and same players have followed Hurst through, so the camaraderie and chemistry is an important advantage for overcoming lack of depth.

“It’s been the same kids and same coaches since we were young,” Hurst said. “We’re all very close and play as a team.”

His top target, junior Brady Stringham, has caught 17 touchdown passes. “He’s in the right spot at the right time,” Hurst said.

Notre Dame coach Evan Yabu said of Hurst, “He’s accurate. He’s as sharp as a tack.”

There are few coaching staffs more impressive than the one put together by Shanahan. John Selbe (Cypress), Scott McKnight (JSerra), Mike Milner (El Toro, Fountain Valley) and Mark Flippin (El Toro) are former head coaches. Mike Walcott was defensive coordinator at JSerra. David Ricci coached at Tesoro and Capistrano Valley.

“Once you hear the resume, it’s wow,” Hurst said. “They know some football.”

It’s a reunion of sorts for Laguna Beach. Last season, the Breakers faced Notre Dame quarterback Wyatt Brown when he was playing for Santa Monica. Laguna Beach won 21-9. Brown has passed for 1,504 yards and 13 touchdowns and run for 912 yards and 18 touchdowns.

Laguna Beach and Hurst will need a collective effort on Friday night from his best football buddies.

“I really like that everyone is competing, whether in surfing or skateboading,” Hurst said.

If someone is using surfer lingo after the game — stoked! — you’ll know it was a good night for the Breakers.

Rapper Cardi B is willing to get “nasty” when it comes to defending her kids.

Following the release of her second full-length album “Am I the Drama?” in September, the “I Like It” singer publicly feuded with Nicki Minaj. Both rappers’ children were also pulled into the fracas.

In a recent interview with Paper magazine, Cardi B opened up about the combative exchange.

“This week I showed the world that I will get the most nasty about mine. I never had to get that nasty for my kids. But I did, and I really feel like a lioness,” she said. “This has been one of the moments I got tested the most about being a parent.”

The beef between music’s biggest female rappers has been an ongoing saga dating back to 2017. The most recent spat took place on X in late September, when Minaj belittled Cardi B’s record sales. The two proceeded to tear apart each other’s personal and professional lives.

Cardi B called out Minaj for feuding with her on X instead of celebrating her son’s birthday. Minaj called Cardi B’s 7-year-old daughter “ugly,” among other mean-spirited names, and started to question her son’s brain development. The spat ended with Cardi B asking to meet up with Minaj — they have not posted about each other since.

Cardi described her behavior as that of a “mother warrior” and explained the lengths she would go to protect her kin. The 33-year-old performer is currently pregnant with her fourth child, her first with New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs. The “WAP” performer shares three children — Kulture, Wave and Blossom — with rapper Offset.

“Am I the Drama?” is Cardi B’s first full-length project in seven years. The 23-track album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard 200 and hit platinum 10 days after its initial release. Her debut, “Invasion of Privacy,” earned her a Grammy for rap album in 2019 and made her the first solo female artist to win in that category.

While doing press for her newest LP, Cardi B hasn’t strayed away from talking about parenthood. She told Paper that she aims to instill a hardworking mentality in her children.

“You have to hope that your kids have that work ethic in them, and I just pray that they do,” she said. “I don’t want one of them to feel they’re behind their siblings. You just got to work and not think too much. … Procrastination is what kills you. It’s what slows you. Don’t ask too much questions. Just go and f— do it.”

When Mukhtar Dahiru saw a TikTok video promising he could make money on WhatsApp, he clicked without hesitation. Within days, after he shared a one-time password with the “recruiters”, his WhatsApp account was hijacked, his cryptocurrency wallets drained. He later realised the “opportunity” had been a scam.

“The road is tricky, and this time I fell for it,” he said.

Behind his loss lies a wider scam network preying on thousands. For several Hausa-speaking social media users across northern Nigeria, the promise of making money has become a lure into a sprawling fraud that turns ordinary people into unwitting accomplices and casualties.

On TikTok, the promise appears in dozens of videos, usually featuring a speaker in Hausa urging viewers to join a WhatsApp group to start earning. “Click on the link below to learn how to make money,” one of the videos says.  “I’ve made a large amount on WhatsApp, and so can you.”

HumAngle’s month-long monitoring revealed that many of these accounts belonged to real users, while others used deepfakes or manipulated videos. Nearly all featured genuine human faces to strengthen credibility and lure victims.

What makes the scheme particularly effective is TikTok’s algorithmic boost. The clips are upbeat, under a minute, tagged with captions like “samu kudi ta WhatsApp” (“earn money on WhatsApp”), and often promoted through paid sponsorships. This visibility pushes them into thousands of feeds, magnifying their reach. 

As of January 2025, TikTok had an estimated 37.4 million users in Nigeria. Meanwhile, WhatsApp remains the country’s most widely used messaging app, with over 51 million active users — about one in four mobile lines nationwide. Together, these figures show how even a small fraction of TikTok’s audience clicking through can funnel hundreds of thousands of people into WhatsApp scam networks.

The funnel of fraud

Once viewers click the link from the videos, they are funnelled to hastily built websites or directly into WhatsApp groups, which present themselves as “training hubs” offering “tasks” or “affiliate opportunities”.

One WhatsApp group, named Daily Updates, had more than 400 members when archived by HumAngle. These groups act as the glue of the operation; hundreds of recruits are placed into shared chat rooms, where the scam is scaled and coordinated.

Inside these rooms, the onboarding phase is simple: surrender your credentials in exchange for small, regular payouts. This is where the exploitation sets in. LetShare.ng, a central website in the network, even promises ₦2460 instantly through QR codes that secretly grant scammers control of users’ WhatsApp accounts.

LetShare.ng was registered in December 2024, according to WhoIs.com, a website that documents who owns and registers a website. The registrant details are hidden, typical of scam operations. Several other related websites were created within weeks of each other and masked by privacy-protected registrars, giving the network a veneer of legitimacy through glossy logos and testimonials.

The glue holding this ecosystem together is referrals. On the LetShare site, recruits are promised ₦300 for every person they bring in. One man told HumAngle he had earned over ₦30,000 this way, meaning he had introduced more than 100 people. 

This referral model fuels relentless promotion on TikTok, as each recruit scrambles to register others under their name. “Everyone is looking for someone to register through them,” he explained. 

‘It looked like a real job’

The abstract funnel becomes devastatingly real in people’s lives.

This was how Aminu Usman nearly lost money. He told HumAngle that someone posing as his friend asked him for ₦5000, promising a quick repayment. Suspicious, Aminu called his friend, who denied sending the message. His friend later admitted he had been hacked after joining a so-called digital hustle group.

Others were less fortunate. One young man, who declined to give his name, told HumAngle that he had handed over his WhatsApp credentials after being promised steady commissions. “It looked like a real job,” he said. “They paid me ₦12,000 the first week after I gave them access to my WhatsApp account.”

However, within a short period, his WhatsApp number was suspended. He later learned it had been used to spread fraudulent offers to strangers, mostly among his contacts and which forced him to make a disclaimer.

For recruits like these, the cycle almost always ends the same way: suspension, blacklisted numbers, and reputations in tatters, while the operators move swiftly to fresh victims. The people caught in this web are sometimes referred to as “mules.”

“The motivation is always greediness,” Mahmud Labaran Galadanci, a cybersecurity expert, told HumAngle. “In reality, the people who join such schemes end up becoming victims through phishing attacks and leverage scams.”

The Hausa connection

What makes this operation distinctive is its local tailoring. Hausa is one of Africa’s most widely spoken languages, with more than 60 million speakers across Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and beyond. On platforms like TikTok, it bridges anglophone and francophone audiences, giving scammers both reach and trust.

HumAngle found dozens of Hausa-language TikTok videos promising ways to “make money on WhatsApp.” Some had racked up thousands of views, with comments reinforcing the illusion of legitimacy.

By using Hausa and familiar slang, operators project trust and cultural proximity. Viewers see themselves reflected on screen, searching for opportunity in a region where unemployment is high and digital literacy is low.

“It is not just about language,” said Mahmud. “It is about trust. These messages are crafted to convince people to click and join the long trail of the scheme.”

However, it is not happening only in Nigeria’s North. Similar schemes are targeting social media users in the country’s South and around the world, where authorities describe them as “task scams” — small paid actions that lure people into larger fraud.

Globally, platforms are struggling to respond. Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, periodically reports banning millions of accounts linked to scams. 

TikTok, meanwhile, insists it is stepping up enforcement. Announcing new safety guidelines that came into effect on Sept. 13, Sandeep Grover, the company’s Global Head of Trust and Safety, said: “Over 85 per cent of the content removed for violating our Community Guidelines is identified and taken down by automation, and 99 per cent of that content we remove before anybody reports it to us.”

“We want to make sure that our community is able to safeguard against such scams,” Grover added. In August 2024, the company also launched a Sub-Saharan Africa Safety Advisory Council.

Yet, HumAngle found that TikTok had accepted sponsored promotions for scam videos of this kind, despite policies that claim to prohibit it.

Back in Northern Nigeria, the consequences are particularly severe. Weak digital literacy and high unemployment make communities vulnerable, while the absence of Hausa-language moderation on TikTok has allowed scammers, like jihadists before them, to exploit the platform unchecked.

Ladakh, a high-altitude cold desert region in the Himalayas that has been at the heart of recent India-China tensions, was rocked on Wednesday by violent Gen Z-led protests as youth torched the regional office of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

As protesters, including school students, clashed with the police in Leh, the regional capital, at least four of them were killed and dozens were injured, protest coordinators told Al Jazeera, following additional deployment of the armed forces. Authorities said dozens of security forces were also injured in the clashes.

For the past six years, thousands of people in Ladakh, led by local civic bodies, have taken out peaceful marches and gone on hunger strikes demanding greater constitutional safeguards and statehood from India, which has governed the region federally since 2019. They want the power to elect a local government.

On Wednesday, however, groups of disillusioned youth broke with those peaceful protests, said Sonam Wangchuk, an educator who has been spearheading a series of hunger strikes.

“It was an outburst of youth, a kind of Gen-Z revolution, that brought them on streets,” Wangchuk said in a video statement, referring to recent uprisings in South Asian countries, including in Nepal earlier this month, that led to the overthrow of the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

So, what’s happening in Ladakh? What are their demands? How did the Himalayan region get to this point? And why does the crisis in Ladakh matter so much?

What triggered clashes in Ladakh?

On Wednesday morning, a hunger strike by local Ladakhi activists, led by the Ladakh Apex Body, an amalgam of socio-religious and political organisations, entered its 15th day.

Two activists, aged 62 and 71, had been hospitalised the previous evening after two weeks of hunger strike, leading to a call by organisers for a local shutdown. The protesters were also angry with the Modi government for delaying talks with them.

These issues led the youth to believe that “peace is not working”, Wangchuk said on Wednesday evening in a virtual press meeting, during which he appeared frail.

Then the youth-led groups broke away from the protest site in Leh at the Martyrs’ Memorial Park and moved towards local official buildings and a BJP office, raising slogans, leading to clashes with the police. Four were killed and another remains critical, while dozens were injured.

“This is the bloodiest day in the history of Ladakh. They martyred our young people – the general public who were on the streets to support the demands of the strike,” said Jigmat Paljor, the coordinator of the apex body behind the hunger strikes.

“The people were tired of fake promises for five years by the government, and people were filled with anger,” Paljor told Al Jazeera. Amid the violence, he said, his organisation withdrew the hunger strike, calling for peace.

In a statement, India’s home ministry said that clashes “unruly mob” had left over 30 forces personnel injured — and that “police had to resort to firing” in self defence, leading to “some casualties”.

The government said that “it was clear that the mob was incited by [Wangchuk]”, adding that the educator was “misleading the people through his provocative mention of Arab Spring-style protest and references to Gen Z protests in Nepal.” Wangchuk has been warning that youth sentiments could turn to violence if the government does not pay heed to the demands of peaceful protesters — but insists he has never advocated violence himself.

What do protesters want?

In 2019, the Modi government unilaterally stripped the semi-autonomous status and statehood that Indian-administered Kashmir had previously enjoyed under the Indian constitution.

The state had three regions – the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu-majority Jammu, and Ladakh, where Muslims and Buddhists each form about 40 percent of the population.

Then, the Modi government bifurcated the erstwhile state into two territories: Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature, and Ladakh without one. While both are federally governed and neither has the powers of other states in India, Jammu and Kashmir’s legislature at least allows its population to elect local leaders who can represent their concerns and voice them to New Delhi. Ladakh, locals argue, doesn’t even have that.

Kashmir is a disputed region between India, Pakistan and China – the three nuclear-armed neighbours each control a part. India claims all of it, and Pakistan claims all except the part held by China, its ally. Indian-administered Kashmir borders Pakistan on the west, and Ladakh shares a 1,600km (994-mile) border with China on the east.

Since the end of statehood, Ladakhis have found themselves under the rule of bureaucrats. More than 90 percent of the region’s population is listed as Scheduled Tribes. That status has prompted a demand for Ladakh to be included under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which provides autonomous administrative and governance structures to regions where recognised Indigenous communities dominate the population. There are currently 10 regions in India’s northeastern states that are listed under the schedule.

However, the Modi government has so far resisted both statehood and the protections of the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh.

The separation of Jammu and Kashmir from Ladakh has meant that it is harder for Ladakhis to find work in Jammu and Kashmir, where most jobs in the previously unified region were. Since 2019, locals have also accused the Indian government of not putting in place clear policies for hirings to public sector jobs.

“[The young protesters] are unemployed for five years, and Ladakh is not being granted [constitutional] protections,” Wangchuk said on Wednesday. “This is the recipe of social unrest in society: keep youth unemployed and then snatch their democratic rights.”

Ladakh has a 97 percent literacy rate, well above India’s national average of about 80 percent. But a 2023 survey found that 26.5 percent of Ladakh’s graduates are unemployed – double the national average.

On Wednesday, the anger tipped over.

“What’s happening in Ladakh is horrific,” said Siddiq Wahid, an academic and political analyst from Leh. “It is scary to see Ladakh sort of pushed to this edge.”

“In the last six years, Ladakhis have realised the dangers that their identity faces,” he said, adding that the people have been “adamant about the need to retrieve their rights since they were snatched away six years ago”.

“The youth anger is a particularly worrisome angle because they’re impatient. They’ve been waiting for a resolution for years,” said Wahid. “Now, they are frustrated because they don’t see a future for themselves.”

Have there been protests earlier in Ladakh?

Yes. Since the abrogation of the region’s semi-autonomous status and the removal of statehood, several local civic groups have staged protest marches and at times gone on hunger strikes.

Wangchuk, the educator, has led five hunger strikes in the last three years, demanding constitutional protections for Ladakh. He is also the most well-known face of the protests in Ladakh – having a wider reach due to his past sustainability innovations. Wangchuk’s life has also inspired a Bollywood blockbuster movie that has also gained legions of fans in China.

The site of the hunger strike, the Martyrs’ Memorial Park, is also dedicated to three Ladakhis who were killed in August 1989 in a firing incident during protests. At the time, the protests were over anger about perceived Kashmiri dominance in the unified state that Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir belonged to.

The site also honours two other protesters who were killed in January 1981 during an agitation demanding Scheduled Tribe status for Ladakhis.

But Wednesday’s protest marked the deadliest day in Ladakh’s political history.

Sajad Kargili, a civil member of a committee constituted by the Modi government to speak with the protesting activists, said that the violence in Ladakh “highlights the frustration of our youth”.

“The government needs to understand that there are young people here who are angry and not opting to sit on a hunger strike,” Kargili said. “The Modi government should not turn its back on these calls.”

Why Ladakh is so significant

Ladakh sits at India’s Himalayan frontier, bordering China.

The region also connects to vital mountain passes, airfields, and supply routes that are critical for India’s military in the event of a conflict with China. In 2020, the Indian and Chinese forces clashed in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), following a Chinese incursion.

At least 20 Indian forces personnel were killed alongside four Chinese. The confrontation triggered the mobilisation of tens of thousands of troops on both sides, with heavy weaponry and infrastructure being rushed to high-altitude posts.

Since then, Ladakh has remained the nerve centre of India-China border tensions. Multiple rounds of military and diplomatic talks have led to a thaw since late last year.

Now, Wahid, the political analyst, said that the Modi government’s actions in 2019 are returning to haunt India with a new threat in Ladakh – an internal one. Indian authorities, he pointed out, have long had to deal with Kashmir as a “centre of discontent”. Now, they have Ladakh to contend with, too.

DES MOINES, Iowa — U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iraq War combat veteran and Iowa’s first woman elected to Congress, is expected to announce next month she will not seek reelection, leaving another vacancy in an Iowa seat that could have ripple effects down the ballot as Democrats look to the state for pickup opportunities.

As Senate Republicans work to maintain their majority in the chamber, Ernst is joining a wave of her peers making headaches for the party. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina turned down a reelection bid after clashing with President Trump.

Ernst plans to announce in September that she will opt out of the race for a third term, according to three people familiar with her plans who spoke Friday on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement.

Ernst, a former Army National Guard member and a retired lieutenant colonel, was first elected to an open Senate seat in 2014. She served for several years in the No. 3 spot in the Senate GOP leadership and was considered a vice presidential contender for Trump’s first White House run.

Her decision comes after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, the state’s first female governor, said she would not run for reelection. It prompted the state’s many Republican elected officials to consider the open opportunity to run for higher office, a process that may begin again with Ernst’s departure.

Democrats have been looking for an opportunity to mount a political comeback in the once-competitive state, an uphill battle even in the potentially favorable midterm year. Ernst drew backlash after a retort about Medicaid cuts at a town hall. As Ernst explained that the legislation protects Medicaid for those who need it most, someone in the crowd yelled that people will die without coverage, and Ernst responded: “People are not … well, we all are going to die.”

The crowded primary field of Democratic candidates for the Senate have capitalized on that moment and Ernst’s Senate votes for early messaging. They’ll have to pivot once other Republicans enter the fray.

The election will be without an incumbent for the first time since 2014, when Ernst was elected in the first open Senate race in decades. Chuck Grassley, Iowa’s senior U.S. senator, has held his seat for 45 years.

Ernst emerged among a field of lesser-known candidates seeking the Republican nomination in 2014, rising to national recognition with advertisements that spoke of her experience slinging guns and castrating hogs. She won reelection in 2020 by more than six percentage points, coming in with just shy of 52% of voters.

Among Trump supporters, Ernst made waves earlier this year after signaling a hesitance to support his pick for the secretary of the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Hegseth has said in the past that he did not think women should serve in combat roles, and he was accused of a sexual assault that he denies.

But Ernst, who is herself a survivor of sexual assault and has worked to improve how the military handles claims of misconduct, made clear she wanted to hear him respond to those points. It provoked a pressure campaign that underscored Trump’s power on Capitol Hill and included threats of a bruising primary.

It wasn’t the first time Ernst went toe to toe with Trump supporters. She also faced condemnation for her 2022 vote to protect same-sex marriage.

Still, Ernst would have benefited from nearly 200,000 more active voters registered as Republicans than Democrats, a significant shift from even a few years ago. Ernst announced a campaign manager in June, an October date for her annual fundraiser and had raised just shy of $1.8 million in the first half of the year.

Several Democrats are seeking the party’s nomination for the seat, including state Sen. Zach Wahls; state Rep. Josh Turek; Jackie Norris, chair of the Des Moines School Board; and Nathan Sage, a former chamber of commerce president.

Two Republicans — former state Sen. Jim Carlin and veteran Joshua Smith — had already entered the primary to challenge Ernst.

Kim, Fingerhut and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. Kim and Cappelletti reported from Washington.

THIS is the incredible moment that Prince Harry cruised over a wave on his surfboard. 

Footage of his surfing skills was uploaded to social media by his wife Meghan Markle, accompanied by an iconic 90s track.

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In the 18-second video, the Duke of Sussex can be seen flying over the waves.

Wearing a baseball cap backwards, a long-sleeve top and shorts, Harry crouches down as a wave forms behind him.

Able to stay stable on the board, the Prince can be seen lifting his hands above his head and cheering. 

And, then, Harry managed to stand up by himself while floating over the water on the surfboard.

Throughout the video, Salt-N-Pepa’s mega-hit Whatta Man, featuring En Vogue, can be heard. 

Meghan chose the chorus of the song to play during the footage, including the lyrics: “What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.”

She captioned her Instagram post: “We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important message.”

The Duchess topped off her caption with a fox emoji.

Meghan made headlines in 2020, when she bought her husband surfing lessons for his birthday.

At the time, a source told Page Six: “Harry’s loving Montecito, Meghan bought him surfing lessons for his birthday and he’s having the best time.”

The Prince showed off his skills in 2024, when he was videoed at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Leemore.

The latest surfing video comes after the couple announced a new deal with Netflix, which gives the streaming giant first refusal over their suggestions for new programmes. 

Their original deal was worth £100 million and ran out this year. 

Reportedly, the pair are planning to create a documentary about the late Princess of Wales and Harry’s mother – Princess Diana. 

The show would mark the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death, after she tragically died in Paris on August 31, 1997. 

An industry source said: “If Harry wants to do it then Netflix will bite his hand off.”

The Prince has spoken candidly about losing his mother in the press, as well as in his autobiography Spare.

In the book, Harry also revealed he had visited a medium, who told him that “your mother is with you”.

The psychic said: “Your mother says, ‘You’re living the life she couldn’t. 

“You’re living the life she wanted for you’.”

Harry gave his daughter Lilibet – named after the late Queen Elizabeth II – the middle name Diana in a reference to his mother.

Meghan Markle’s ventures after stepping down as a working royal

THE Duchess of Sussex has kept busy since stepping down as a senior working royal in 2020 and relocating to California. Here are some of her business ventures…

• Archewell Foundation – A nonprofit supporting charitable initiatives.
• Netflix Deal – Producing content like Harry & Meghan and With Love, Meghan.
• Archetypes Podcast – Former Spotify show on female stereotypes.
• Clevr Blends – Investment in a women-owned wellness latte brand.
• Cesta Collective – Minority stake in a handbag brand supporting Rwandan artisans.
• As Ever – Previously known as American Riviera Orchard lifestyle brand selling jam.
• ShopMy Page – Online store featuring her curated fashion and beauty items.
• New Podcast – Confessions of a Female Founder focusing on entrepreneurship.

Aug. 15 (UPI) — Spain on Friday warned of “very high or extreme fire danger in most of the country,” as firefighters there continue battling 14 blazes in temperatures up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

“The danger will remain at very high or extreme levels during the weekend and Monday, days when the heatwave affecting us since the beginning of the month continues,” AEMET, the state weather association, said on X Friday.

Wildfires in the European country have already consumed approximately 580 square miles of land, leading to seven deaths.

“Today will once again be a very tough day, with an extreme risk of new fires,” Spanish President Pedro Sanchez wrote on X Friday.

“The government remains fully committed with all resources to stop the fire. Thank you, always, to those who fight on the front line to protect us.”

The flames have forced the closures of highways and rail systems in parts of the country, including the train connecting the northern Spanish region of Galicia to the capital of Madrid.

Neighboring Greece and Portugal are dealing with similar weather conditions.

Spain’s total makes up around a quarter of the 2,429 square miles burned by wildfires across Europe, roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

On Thursday, the European Union sent two planes to help fight wildfires in Spain, under a reciprocal agreement. Spain is the fifth country so far this year to ask for help under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, with Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania also seeking assistance.

One of those countries, Greece, is dealing with a fire on the Greek island of Chios, which is largely without water and electricity.

EJ Antoni, United States President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data, has been embroiled in criticism from economists.

Antoni was chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation and an author of Project 2025, the far-right wish list the think tank created for then-candidate Trump – or the next Republican president.

His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicisation to a producer of measurements of the nation’s economic health that has, for decades, been widely regarded as a nonpartisan and reliable agency.

“Trump has nominated a sycophant to tell him exactly what he wants to hear. Make no mistake: This selection is a clear assault on independent analysis that will have far-reaching implications for the reliability of US  economic data,” Alex Jaquez, a member of the White House National Economic Council under former President Joe Biden, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

Many former Labor Department officials say that while it is unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.

Antoni was nominated by Trump after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a jobs report on August 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency and the broad condemnation of experts.

“Firing officials for reporting accurate data unflattering to the regime is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. It is an attempt to mislead the American people, to avoid being held to account for their failures, and to rewrite history,” Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

Antoni’s nomination comes as Trump continues to spin fabrications throughout the US economic data, including claiming gas prices are lower than they are and that egg prices have fallen 400 percent – a mathematically impossible figure.

Government data critic

Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.

On August 4, a week before he was nominated, Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.

The monthly employment reports are probably the most closely watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.

When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.

“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that, “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”

Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue, instead of a careful economist who considers tradeoffs and prioritises getting the math correct.

“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favour Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics, told The Associated Press.

Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; he called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15 percent.

His argument that the US was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.

“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the centre-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.

On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.

Flawed data

Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.

“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”

Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.

The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.

“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the administration’s proposals to cut BLS funding.

Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners do not think Antoni, if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. He could push for changes in the monthly press release and seek to portray the numbers in a more positive light.

William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said he did not see the figures until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.

“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organise it.”

Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’

It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. Antoni will likely face stiff opposition from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.

Senator Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded that the GOP chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a confirmation hearing for him.

Alanna Kennedy scored a late equalizer and Angel City tied the San Diego Wave 1-1 on Saturday night in their Southern California rivalry.

Just as the Wave looked to be securing a first home win over Angel City since 2022, Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir sent in a cross and Kennedy scored on a header to make it 1-1 in the second minute of stoppage time. The goal was Kennedy’s first for Angel City.

San Diego opened the scoring in the 85th minute, when Makenzy Robbe curled in a shot across the goal from the right side of the box. It was Robbe’s first goal of the season, but her 10th career goal for the Wave.

In the first half, after being struck in the head by the ball, Angel City defender Sarah Gorden left the game with a concussion.

The fourth-place Wave (7-4-4) are undefeated in their last four matches, although the last three have been ties.

Angel City (4-7-4) remains 11th in the standings and is winless in its last seven games. The team is winless since coach Alex Straus came aboard in June.

The Indiana Fever arrived in Los Angeles draped in momentum: Five straight wins, a knack for winning without Caitlin Clark and betting lines tilting their way. Their tear was proof they could keep pace even with their franchise centerpiece in street clothes.

But another storyline might’ve been tucked beneath Indiana’s.

The Sparks had ripped off six wins in their previous seven outings, probably fueled by the rare luxury of having every piece of their roster back for the first time in more than a year. And by night’s end at Crypto.com Arena, they had won seven of eight, the Sparks grinding out a 100-91 victory.

“Tonight was a great step in the right direction,” guard Kelsey Plum said. “That’s an incredible team, and they’re as hot as anyone. … They got everything it takes to make a run for a championship. So for us to come out and have that level of intensity, I was really proud.”

Sidelined since July 15 with a right groin injury, Clark never touched the hardwood Tuesday. But her presence was impossible to miss.

About an hour before tip‑off, Clark entered the arena to a wave of shrieks. Fans crammed shoulder‑to‑shoulder against the banisters and barricades, stretching jerseys, bobbleheads and posters toward her for autographs. But once the ball went up, Clark left her imprint not in ink but as an assistant coach to her Fever squad.

For all of Clark’s fire from the bench, the Sparks (13-15) seized on her absence to wrest control from one of the league’s hottest teams and move closer to a playoff berth.

“We’ve got enough pieces and talents to make a playoff run,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “We just got to keep our foot on the gas. As I always say, we didn’t come into the season saying we wanted to beat Indiana at home. We came in the season saying we want to make the playoffs.”

Roberts, who has spent much of the season juggling lineups amid injuries and roster turnover, can finally exhale, with a healthy starting five, Cameron Brink back in uniform and a bench ready to contribute.

With stable rotations came steady results. Plum set the night’s tempo, piling up 25 points and 11 assists. Around her, the Sparks’ scoring core — Rickea Jackson matching with 25, Dearica Hamby dropping 16 and Azurá Stevens racking up 19 — kept the scoreboard humming. Julie Allemand steered the offense in sync, dishing out seven assists to go with five points and eight rebounds.

We all in this room know she [Plum] can go for 40,” Roberts said, “but she wants to win more than go for 30. And if going for 40 is what it takes to win, then she’ll do it. But tonight, she gained so much attention from the other team’s scouting report — as she should — but she’s … trying to win.”

Midway through the first quarter, Brink checked in, snagged a couple of boards, and promptly stuffed a shot by 6‑foot‑2 Natasha Howard for the first of five rejections on the night.

“We’re just getting that chemistry on and off the court,” Jackson said. “But when we’re playing like that and feeding off each other’s energy, that’s fine, and that’s when we’re going on our runs, and that’s when we’re not flinching because we trust each other that much.”

After Rae Burrell spun in an acrobatic layup to put the Sparks ahead 32‑30, they never loosened their grip, stretching the lead to 90‑68 midway through the third quarter. But Aari McDonald and Kelsey Mitchell sparked a 21‑5 run that, suddenly, had the game uncomfortably tight with under two minutes remaining.

But in a building where wins have been scarce, the Sparks clutched this one tight and handed it back to the L.A. faithful.

Sex toy tossed on court

A sex toy landed near Indiana’s Sophie Cunningham after it was thrown from the stands.

The incident occurred with 2:05 left in the second quarter, with the object landing in the lane near Cunningham, who had been vocal on social media admonishing fans for throwing sex toys on the court during other games. The Fever forward jumped back in surprise and then Plum kicked it into the stands.

“I think its ridiculous, it’s dumb, it’s stupid,” Roberts said. “It’s also dangerous and players’ safety is number one. Respecting the game. All those things. I think it’s really stupid.”

Plum added that she thought both teams did a great job “playing on, don’t give it any attention. The refs too, I really appreciate them too, was just like hey let’s go.”

Cunningham walked over to the Sparks bench and was laughing about it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The surf can be fun on the right tides, but it is most often best for beginners unless the waves reach over 3 feet and begin to close out quickly. It is a popular spot with foil boarders who like to practice on the rolling waves commonly found on smaller days.

If you don’t like the occasional wag of a wet dog, you should pick another spot. There is a short trail leading up to the cliffs. From the top, you get a great view of the strand heading south into Del Mar with Torrey Pines and La Jolla in the distance. At high tides, you lose access to a strand that heads north to Solana Beach for short periods.

Best for: Dog lovers, volleyball, walkers and joggers, families

Bathrooms: Porta-potties

Parking: Paid street parking along Coast Highway

Dog-friendly: Yes, off-leash from the day after Labor Day to June 15 and from dawn to 8 a.m. the rest of the year, otherwise must be leashed.

ADA-accessible: Yes, paved ramp leading to the beach, but there is no path leading out onto the sand.

What’s nearby: The Del Mar Fairgrounds, home of the Sound, an indoor music venue that fits 1,900, is just behind the beach. Also, try the breakfast burrito at Ranch 45 Local Provisions.

Cleethorpes Pier, circled by the local gull squad, looks at its picture-postcard best. Ahead of the lunch crowd making for Papa’s Fish & Chips restaurant, I’m taking a seat in the pier’s ballroom to hear seaside historian Kathryn Ferry talk about her latest book, Twentieth Century Seaside Architecture.

Ordering a pot of tea, I’m taken back to my student days. Back in the late 1990s, the ballroom hosted Pier 39, a sticky-floored nightclub where getting your heels wedged in the planks after too many vodkas was considered par for the course. Following a shift waitressing at a nearby fish restaurant, our girl gang would douse our hair in Charlie Red body spray to mask the fug of haddock before dancing the night away where the Humber estuary meets the North Sea.

The pier first opened on August bank holiday 1873 to a flock of locals and day-trippers, many of whom were taking some of the first train and ferry-service packages across the Humber from South Yorkshire and the Midlands. It’s not hard to imagine the giddy thrill of glimpsing this elegant pavilion structure for the very first time: it stretched 365 metres into the sea.

Ferry cites the pier as one of a trove of local architectural treasures: postwar buildings with funky rooflines, illuminations, shops fronted with Victorian cast-iron verandas … “enough surviving seaside things”, she tells the crowd, “to ensure Cleethorpes retains its very distinctive feel”.

I grew up in Grimsby, just a couple of miles up the road. Cleethorpes had long felt like a sandy wonderland, filled with bright lights and sugar highs. During the pandemic, after 20 years living away, I came back to Cleethorpes from London and I now feel lucky to be raising a family in the sandy footsteps of my childhood. Summer feels magical – we are tourists at home. My nine-year-old and toddler both love splashing about in the free, open-air paddling pool, riding the dinky Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway and cycling along Buck Beck – a long, calming coastal path where ice-cream at the family-run Brew Stop cafe is a rite of passage. In summer, you can rent the owners’ little beach hut and watch the world go by from your stripy deckchair.

During my university and London years – roughly 2000 to 2020 – the resort’s cultural identity began to shift with the closure of iconic venues such as, in 2007, the Winter Gardens. An entertainment venue dating back to the 1930s, its stage was once graced by acts including Elton John, the Clash and Roxy Music, not to mention playing host to the feted “Bags Ball” weekly dance night. Also closed, after a 23-year run as one of the area’s leading theme parks, was Pleasure Island and its beloved Boomerang ride, which ceased functioning in 2016. And some of the area’s big-draw events – including the Radio 1 Roadshow, which made its last stop here in 1999 fronted by S Club 7 – were scratched from the listings. In the words of one local: “It felt like the fun police had come to town.”

Now, building on events such as the Summer Steam festival and the Great Grub Fest, there’s a definite sense of cultural renaissance brewing. Cleethorpes seafront is in the process of a long-awaited £18.4m regeneration project that will focus on a reimagining of the Pier Gardens and the reintroduction of the old market place. With a potential direct train link from Cleethorpes to London in the offing, the resort is extending its bucket-and-spade appeal to a new generation.

On 2 August – with the stage still warm from sets by the Charlatans and Ash as part of DocksFest – Cleethorpes’ Meridian showground is set to transform into an open-air celebration of cool and contemporary sounds covering jazz, funk and soul, as the area’s newest festival, Everybody Loves the Sunshine, lays down 10 hours of live music for just £10 a ticket. Together with Brighton-based record label Tru Thoughts, the festival is curated by the Culture House, a local charity that has been instrumental in plugging the cultural gap across North East Lincolnshire, an area that can often feel on the fringes of the national arts and culture scene.

Beyond the music, nature abounds. At Marine Embankment beach, bird lovers can spy curlews, lapwings and oystercatchers nesting in the saltmarshes (check tide times), while the sandy dunes around the Humber Mouth Yacht Club (about an hour’s walk from the Pier) are the perfect spot for big-sky sundowners and picnics. Steel & Soul runs a blissful drop-in morning yoga class on the beach here every other Sunday until the end of September (£10 a class).

A must-visit at this end of the town is the Humberston Fitties, an otherworldly village of about 300 beach chalets that sprang up beside the sand dunes after the first world war. Many of these small dwellings, including artist Sarah Palmer’s home (£80 a night for a two-night minimum stay, sleeps up to four), are available to rent and make a cosy weekend base.

For a stylish home-from-home in the heart of Cleethorpes, check into Cloves B&B (from £95), tucked off the main promenade. Hosts Nick and Maria Ross serve up beautiful home-cooked breakfasts, and if you land on a Friday you can build a picnic hamper from their pop-up larder, which sells freshly baked sourdough and pastries, as well as fruit, veg, cheese, butter and juices, many of which are organic and locally produced. From Saturday to Tuesday, the Edwardian breakfast room then transforms into Cafe Cloves, an intimate dining spot serving a menu of five seasonal dishes. On our last visit, we shared tandoori king prawn skewers with a chopped spinach and red onion salad, cucumber raita and charred lime along with the signature Cloves fishcake – which I could happily eat every day.

Another great spot for lunch is Nasturtium, where head chef Jack Phillips riffs on classics such as catch of the day with a smoked butter sauce, Japanese kosho and a tempura enoki (fried floured mushrooms). Phillips also channels his passion for Asian cooking through his popular pop-up food stall Wakame Cleethorpes. Follow up lunch with a mooch down Sea View Street for boutique threads and heavenly plants and flowers, ending with a slice of lemon meringue pie at Marples.

As for fish and chips – you’re spoilt for choice. An old-fashioned booth at Steel’s Cornerhouse Restaurant for haddock, chips and a pot of tea with bread and butter always feels special. Or, if the weather’s fine, nothing beats walking along the beach with a Papa’s takeaway, eating a tray of chips drenched in vinegar, with the sand between your toes.

“Cleethorpes feels like a sleeper, on the cusp of being awakened,” says Kathryn Ferry. Something tells me this resort is about to have its time in the sun again.

In Arizona’s borderlands, the desert is already deadly. People crossing into the United States face blistering heat, dehydration, and exhaustion. But for years, another threat has stalked these routes: Armed vigilante groups who take it upon themselves to police the border – often violently, and outside the law. They have long undermined the work of humanitarian volunteers trying to save lives.

Now, a new artificial intelligence platform is actively encouraging more people to join their ranks. ICERAID.us, recently launched in the United States, offers cryptocurrency rewards to users who upload photos of “suspicious activity” along the border. It positions civilians as front-line intelligence gatherers – doing the work of law enforcement, but without oversight.

The site opens to a map of the United States, dotted with red and green pins marking user-submitted images. Visitors are invited to add their own. A “Surveillance Guidance” document outlines how to capture images legally in public without a warrant. A “Breaking News” section shares updates and new partnerships. The platform is fronted by Enrique Tarrio – a first-generation Cuban American, far-right figure and self-styled “ICE Raid Czar”, who describes himself as a “staunch defender of American values”.

I have been researching border surveillance since 2017. Arizona is a place I return to often. I’ve worked with NGOs and accompanied search-and-rescue teams like Battalion Search and Rescue, led by former US Marine James Holeman, on missions to recover the remains of people who died attempting the crossing. During that time, I’ve also watched the region become a laboratory for high-tech enforcement: AI towers from an Israeli company now scan the desert; automated licence plate readers track vehicles far inland; and machine-learning algorithms – developed by major tech companies – feed data directly into immigration enforcement systems.

This is not unique to the United States. In my book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, I document how similar technologies are being deployed across Europe and the Middle East – from spyware in Greek refugee camps to predictive border enforcement by the EU’s border agency, Frontex. These tools extend surveillance and control. They do not bring accountability or safety.

Since Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, these trends have accelerated. Surveillance investment has surged. Private firms have flourished. ICE has expanded its powers to include unlawful raids, detentions and deportations. Military units have been deployed to the US-Mexico border. Now, ICERAID adds a new layer – by outsourcing enforcement to the public.

The platform offers crypto rewards to users who upload and verify photographic “evidence” across eight categories of alleged criminal activity. The more contributions and locations submitted, the more tokens earned. Surveillance becomes gamified. Suspicion becomes a revenue stream.

This is especially dangerous in Arizona, where vigilante violence has a long history. Paramilitary-style groups have detained people crossing the border without legal authority, sometimes forcing them back into Mexico. Several people are known to have died in such encounters. ICERAID does not check this behaviour – it normalises it, providing digital tools and financial incentives for civilians to act like enforcers.

Even more disturbing is the co-optation of resistance infrastructure. ICERAID’s URL, www.iceraid.us, is nearly identical to www.iceraids.us, the website of People Over Papers, a community-led initiative that tracks ICE raids and protects undocumented communities. The similarity is no accident. It is a deliberate move to confuse and undermine grassroots resistance.

ICERAID is not an anomaly. It is a clear reflection of a broader system – one that criminalises migration, rewards suspicion, and expands enforcement through private tech and public fear. Public officials incite panic. Corporations build the tools. Civilians are enlisted to do the job.

Technology is never neutral. It mirrors and amplifies existing power structures. ICERAID does not offer security – it builds a decentralised surveillance regime in which racialised suspicion is monetised and lives are reduced to data. Recognising and resisting this system is not only necessary to protect people on the move. It is essential to the survival of democracy itself.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Video shows a barrage of Iranian missiles making impact in Tel Aviv and other sites in Israel in its second wave of attacks, killing at least 10 people. The strikes are retaliation for Israel’s bombing of civilian and energy infrastructure in Iran.

Iran launched a retaliatory attack against Israel with a barrage of missiles. Video shows one projectile hitting Tel Aviv. The attack was in response to Israeli strikes that killed top Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists.

Colombia on edge as attacks come just days after assassination attempt on conservative presidential hopeful.

Southwest Colombia has been rocked by a series of explosions and gun attacks near police stations that have left at least four people dead, according to police, an apparent coordinated attack that authorities have blamed on rebel groups.

The attacks hit Cali – the country’s third-largest city – and the nearby towns of Corinto, El Bordo, and Jamundi, targeting police stations and other municipal buildings with car and motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone, the head of police Carlos Fernando Triana told local radio station La FM on Tuesday.

The bombings came just days after the attempted assassination of presidential hopeful Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay at a campaign rally in the capital Bogota, allegedly by a 15-year-old hitman, an attack that rattled a nation with a dark past of assassinations.

In Corinto, an AFP journalist witnessed the tangled wreckage of a car that had exploded next to a scorched and badly damaged municipal building.

“There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead,” said Triana.

Police later said at least two civilians were among those killed, and 12 others were injured.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, but military and police spokespeople blamed the strikes on the FARC-EMC, which is known to operate in the area. The group is led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who broke away from the group after it signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.

Colombia on edge

Triana suggested the attacks may be linked to the third anniversary of the killing of FARC dissident leader Leider Johani Noscue, better known as “Mayimbu”.

The bombings just three days after Uribe’s attempted assassination have set Colombia further on edge.

Uribe, a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Centre party, underwent successful initial surgery on Sunday. The hospital treating him said on Tuesday that he remained stable but in critical condition.

“We continue to take the necessary actions to mitigate the impact of the injuries,” the Santa Fe Foundation hospital added in a statement.

Thousands have taken to the streets in major cities to light candles, pray and voice their anger at the assassination attempt. Authorities say they are investigating who was behind the attack on Uribe. Leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to bring peace to the country, said on Sunday that he had ordered additional security for opposition leaders in response to more threats.

Many Colombians are fearful of a return to the bloody violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks and political assassinations were frequent, sowing terror across the nation.

Colombia’s government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after its peace deal with the government.

Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the government broke down last year after a series of attacks on Indigenous communities.

“‘Oya Oya, tell am make him wire us ₦200k before we leave you; if not, na Kaduna we go carry you go like this,” yelled the driver who abducted Precious Joseph during a phone call with her fiancé. 

What was supposed to be a normal evening for Precious, a businesswoman in her thirties in Abuja, North-central Nigeria, turned out to be a harrowing ordeal that left her traumatised. 

It was around 6 p.m. in February when the incident happened. That evening, she was patiently waiting for a roadside taxi in Gwarimpa, popularly called ‘along’, after receiving a call from an unhappy customer waiting at her other shop branch in Garki. 

A green-coloured Golf taxi stopped for her — a lady sat in the front, and two men occupied the rear seat. Unsuspecting, she entered the vehicle after negotiating the fare. It wasn’t until they approached the Oando Filling Station along the Gwarimpa highway that she realised something was deeply wrong.

“The lady in the front started winding up her window; then the driver and the guy next to me did the same,” Precious recounted. “Mine was the only window still down, so the man beside me reached over to wind it up. I refused. That’s when he slapped me.”

Her panic escalated after the driver confirmed her worst fears: “You think say we be normal human beings? You de craze?” She recalled him saying. 

From that moment, she knew she was in the hands of ruthless criminal drivers notorious for robbing and sometimes harming unsuspecting commuters in Abuja. The criminal enterprise is commonly known as ‘one-chance’.

“I told them to take whatever they wanted. But the driver just laughed and said, ‘We don’t want anything from you yet. When we reach where we de go, we go know whether we want something,’” Precious recounted.

Her panic intensified when the driver asked her what she could offer because they had been paid ₦5 million to bring her. 

At that moment, she peed on herself.

An unending crime

Precious is just one of many victims of one-chance operations in Nigeria’s capital city. 

These operations, where criminals disguise themselves as taxi drivers and passengers to lure unsuspecting commuters, are not a new phenomenon. It is not only a menace widely recognised by Abuja residents but also one of the most persistent security threats that has remained a frightening norm in the capital city and other states in Nigeria. 

Several victims told HumAngle that these criminal gangs operate with precision, selecting their victims carefully based on vulnerability, isolation, and distraction. 

Unsuspecting commuters are lured using gang members of any gender, who disguise themselves as everyday passengers. In some cases, these members are scattered along different routes, where they are then picked up by the drivers at intervals to avoid suspicion. Within minutes of the ride, they then reveal their true intentions.

Findings by HumAngle, based on interviews with victims, revealed that some of the hotspots for one-chance operations in Abuja include but are not limited to the Gwarimpa expressway, Wuse, Berger Roundabout, Area 1, Central Area, Jabi, and Lugbe Axis.

Though there is no publicly available data specific to one-chance victims or incidents in Nigeria, a report published by The Guardian, a Nigerian newspaper, revealed that over 100 cases have been recorded since 2015. 

Some of these tragic incidents, as also reported by HumAngle in the past, have led to injuries and, in some cases, death due to their inability to provide a police report. This raises concerns about how much value is being placed on the lives of average citizens.

In June 2024, Prisca Chikodi, a personnel of the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS), was killed by one-chance operators after boarding a vehicle at Area 1 bus stop. Her body was later found in Utako, with no visible signs of gunshot wounds or stabbing.

This year, precisely in February, a social media clip revealed how two suspected one-chance operators were apprehended by mobs in Lugbe. The suspects had allegedly picked up a young woman, who raised an alarm upon sensing danger. Bystanders intercepted the vehicle, rescued her, and took justice into their own hands.

Kabir Adamu, a security expert and the director of Abuja-based Beacon Security Intelligence, explained that despite attempts by previous commissioners of police and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to end the menace through the banning of illegal parks, advocacy, and arresting drivers or vehicles that are not registered, it has not succeeded in reducing the crime in the FCT.

He also revealed that the lack of efficient public transportation in the capital city is one of the reasons why ‘one-chance’ remains a growing menace that needs urgent attention, as residents increasingly experience horrific ordeals.

“Public transportation is not adequately provided in the FCT, which is principally a working city with a lot of workers with limited public transportation arrangements. The need for transportation is extremely high, and those who cannot afford to use the registered taxis will now have to depend on less expensive rides, making them more vulnerable to criminals. Until we address public transportation needs in the FCT, I’m afraid to say this challenge will remain with us,” Kabir told HumAngle. 

Some victims of one-chance incidents revealed that their horrifying experiences have pushed them to use alternative and, to a certain extent, safer modes of transportation, like ride-sharing apps for commuting within the capital city. 

Mardiya Umar, another victim of the one-chance crime, told HumAngle that even though ride-sharing apps have their share of challenges, they offer a much safer alternative compared to on-the-spot taxis, which are mostly used for one-chance operations in Abuja. 

“[Ride-sharing apps] are not completely a haven; it is just something we are trying to explore, but I will say that it is safer, and right now, I don’t even care about the exorbitant prices.  If I can afford it, why not? If I can’t afford to be somewhere at a particular time, I’d rather stay in my house because the trust issue is still there,” Mardiya said. 

The extortion spree

For Precious, the horror was far from over.

After inflicting physical harm, the criminals ensured that her nightmare extended beyond just that. They were not merely looking for cash and valuables; they wanted access to her bank accounts.

Before then, the woman, a member of the one-chance syndicate, seated in the front seat, demanded her phone and bag. As she scoured through her belongings, they found her credit card. That signalled the commencement of the extortion spree.

“I had ₦27,000 cash that I made from my shop in Kagini before leaving; she then asked me how much I had in my account,” Precious recalled. 

Due to the psychological and physical horrors she was experiencing, she explained to them that she had three bank accounts but was only carrying the card for one. They ordered her to transfer all the money from the other accounts into the one linked to the available card so they could withdraw it.

Under duress, she complied, giving them access to her account and transaction PIN.

As they continued the journey, one of the criminals got out at multiple locations to withdraw cash from her account. She remembers them saying, “This money never do. E be like say this girl get money.” 

Helpless and trapped in the backseat, she had no way to resist. 

A desperate plea for help

As the one-chance criminals continued their crime spree stretching through the night, Precious’s phone rang — it was her fiancé calling to query why she hadn’t reached, as the customer was still waiting for her. Her fiancé was in the shop when she left for Garki and promised to come back as soon as possible so that they could go home together.

“They gave me the phone and told me to tell him I had been kidnapped. They demanded that I tell him to transfer ₦200,000 or they would take me to Kaduna,” about four hours away in Nigeria’s North West.

The moment she spoke, he suspected something was off and asked if she was okay. She had barely responded before they took the phone from her, demanding a ransom from him, threatening to take her to an undisclosed location where they could extract even more money if he didn’t comply. 

Her fiancé begged them, told them he didn’t have the money and that the bank network was bad. But they just kept repeating, “Na you no bail am o.”

About 30 minutes later, Precious’ fiancé sent money into the account as instructed, and the criminals withdrew the amount before letting her go. The horrifying seven hours left her disoriented, alone, and vulnerable.

“I wasn’t aware that they were on the Abuja-Kaduna highway until they dropped me in a nearby bush. I had to trek out to the express,” Precious said. 

Vehicles sped by, none stopping to help her. It is a dangerous stretch of highway, and no driver wants to risk falling victim to another crime. She kept walking until she found a vehicle that brought her back to Abuja.

Between trauma and a flawed system

At the centre of one-chance and car break-ins in Abuja, victims juggle between overcoming trauma and the lack of effective law enforcement response to track criminals, either through car registration linked to phone numbers, Bank Verification Number (BVN), or National Identity Number in the event of such crimes.

After enduring physical abuses (especially for one-chance victims), financial losses, and psychological trauma, some victims told HumAngle that they don’t even report the incidents to security operatives due to the hurdles they are likely to face. Even those who report barely get help.

Mary Akwu is one such victim.

She entered a one-chance vehicle along the Gwarimpa expressway and was beaten by the criminals, leaving her with a swollen face. When she visited the police station at Games Village in Garki the following day, the officers told her that the crime happened outside their jurisdiction, so they referred her to the Wuye division. 

After meeting with the Divisional Police Officer at Wuye, she was asked to visit a hospital and her bank before they could proceed with the case.

When she returned the next day, the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) assigned to the case told her that she needed to make some payments to cover the running cost of the investigation, but since she didn’t have the money in her account due to the incident, he told her to go and work for some months to gather the amount needed – she left without help from the police, only with the physical and mental scars of the incidents.

Since then, Mary has been caught up in traumatic rollercoasters. She told HumAngle that the experience from that incident made her scared of everything.

“I had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” she said. “I would scream in my sleep at night. I was scared of going anywhere. Everybody seemed like they were going to hurt me. I avoided every male figure around me. Unconsciously, I was traumatised. I got a job and had to quit because of how the man was talking to me. I didn’t trust him.”

They transferred ₦530,000 from her account, most of which belonged to her church group. When she reported the incident to the church, her pastor notified the church’s head of security, who advised them to move the case to the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Abuja.

On getting there, the FCID informed them that they would write to the initial IPO at Wuye to transfer the case. Before then, they also requested some payments be made to ‘facilitate’ the process. 

“We paid, and they told us they were going to work on the case. They called me like two times to get the bank details and some other things. Since then, I haven’t heard from FCID and the IPO. Even the suspect whose account the money was traced to was unreachable,” Mary told HumAngle. 

Aside from the cash, the criminals went away with her jewellery. 

“I haven’t recovered anything. I’m still working on balancing my life,” she said. 

Security experts like Kabir believe that greater synergy and less territorial behaviour among public security managers would allow government agencies and private sector players to combine their cybersecurity strengths and better support efforts to combat these crimes.

“The public security cybersecurity capability is extremely weak, and its refusal to integrate the non-security cybersecurity component that we have is also a huge challenge. We have the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, where we have parastatals like the Nigerian Communications Commission and Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency that have enormous capability to support the sector, but because of the territorial nature of our public security managers, they don’t see these players as capable of supporting them,” he said. 

“So, what they are trying to do is to raise their capabilities independent of this other existing one, and because of that, you now see a huge gap, and it’s affecting virtually everything cyber-related in the country.”

Emmanuel Onwubiko, the National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers of Nigeria, added that one-chance operators are exploiting existing loopholes within certain government agencies to execute their plans and unleash violence on citizens.  

While calling for the installation of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) for improved intelligence across the FCT, Onwubiko said synergy between the police, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and other security forces will help fight the crimes of one-chance and car burglary.

“It is important that the government examines the state of the FRSC because it has collapsed. The licensing management system has collapsed. All kinds of people are driving without properly registered information somewhere because the FRSC cannot even produce licences swiftly,” he noted.

On the recurring complaints that police officers often demand money from victims before investigating their cases, Josephine Adeh, the FCT Police Public Relations Officer, told HumAngle that the command maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards unprofessional conduct.

“Incidents of one-chance robbery in the FCT have been reduced to the barest minimum,” she said. “The current Commissioner of Police has employed extensive and strategic tactics to effectively combat one-chance activities within the FCT. These proactive measures have yielded positive results, as evidenced by the significantly low, often non-existent reports of such incidents in recent times.”

The police spokesperson added that the FCT Command works closely with victims of one-chance robberies who come forward to report their cases, insisting that no one is ever asked to pay before their complaints are addressed. 

“The Command remains committed to providing professional and compassionate support to all victims of crime,” she added.

But for Precious, Mary, and the many others who have suffered at the hands of one-chance and car break-in syndicates, the trauma runs far deeper than financial loss. While some bruises have faded with time, the psychological scars linger. And as long as the criminal networks continue to exploit gaps in the system and prey on unsuspecting commuters, the sense of fear and vulnerability remains, a heavy price for simply trying to get home or to work. 

Many of the world’s poorest countries are due to make record debt repayments to China in 2025 on loans extended a decade ago, at the peak of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a report by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank has found.

Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a state-backed infrastructure investment programme launched in 2013, Beijing lent billions of dollars to build ports, highways and railroads to connect Asia, Africa and the Americas.

But new lending is drying up. In 2025, debt repayments owed to China by developing countries will amount to $35bn. Of that, $22bn is set to be paid by 75 of the world’s poorest countries, putting health and education spending at risk, Lowy concluded.

“For the rest of this decade, China will be more debt collector than banker to the developing world,” said Riley Duke, the report’s author.

“Developing countries are grappling with a tidal wave of debt repayments and interest costs to China,” Duke said.

What did the report say?

China’s BRI, the biggest multilateral development programme ever undertaken by a single country, is one of President Xi Jinping’s hallmark foreign policy initiatives.

It focuses primarily on developing country infrastructure projects like power plants, roads and ports, which struggle to receive financial backing from Western financial institutions.

The BRI has turned China into the largest global supplier of bilateral loans, peaking at about $50bn in 2016 – more than all Western creditors combined.

According to the Lowy report, however, paying off these debts is now jeopardising public spending.

“Pressure from Chinese state lending, along with surging repayments to a range of international private creditors, is putting enormous financial strain on developing economies.”

High debt servicing costs can suffocate spending on public services like education and healthcare, and limit their ability to respond to economic and climate shocks.

The 46 least developed countries (LDCs) spent a significant share – about 20 percent – of their tax revenues on external public debt in 2023. Lowy’s report implies this will increase even more this year.

For context, Germany used 8.4 percent of its budget to repay debt in 2023.

Lowy also raised questions about whether China will use these debts for “geopolitical leverage” in the Global South, especially with Washington slashing foreign aid under President Donald Trump.

“As Beijing shifts into the role of debt collector, Western governments remain internally focused, with aid declining and multilateral support waning,” the report said.

While Chinese lending is also beginning to slow down across the developing world, the report said there were two areas that seemed to be bucking the trend.

The first was in nations such as Honduras, Burkina Faso and Solomon Islands, which received massive new loans after switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China.

The other was in countries such as Indonesia and Brazil, where China has signed new loan deals to secure critical minerals and metals for electric batteries.

How has China responded?

Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was “not aware of the specifics” of the report but that “China’s investment and financing cooperation with developing countries abides by international conventions”.

Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said “a small number of countries” sought to blame Beijing for miring developing nations in debt but that “falsehoods cannot cover up the truth”.

For years, the BRI has been criticised by Western commentators as a way for Beijing to entrap countries with unserviceable debt.

An often-cited example is the Hambantota port – located along vital east-west international shipping routes – in southern Sri Lanka.

Unable to repay a $1.4bn loan for the port’s construction, Colombo was forced to lease the facility to a Chinese firm for 99 years in 2017.

China’s government has denied accusations it deliberately creates debt traps, and recipient nations have also pushed back, saying China was often a more reliable partner than the West and offered crucial loans when others refused.

Still, China publishes little data on its BRI scheme, and the Lowy Institute said its estimates, based on World Bank data, may underestimate the full scale of China’s lending.

In 2021, AidData – a US-based international development research lab – estimated that China was owed a “hidden debt” of about $385bn.

Does the Lowy report lack ‘context’?

Challenging the “debt-trap” narrative, the Rhodium consulting group looked at 38 Chinese debt renegotiations with 24 developing countries in 2019 and concluded that Beijing’s leverage was limited, with many of the renegotiations resolved in favour of the borrower.

According to Rhodium, developing countries had restructured roughly $50bn of Chinese loans in the decade before its 2019 study was published, with loan extensions, cheaper financing and debt forgiveness the most frequent outcomes.

Elsewhere, a 2020 study by the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University found that, between 2000 and 2019, China cancelled $3.4bn of debt in Africa and a further $15bn was refinanced. No assets were seized.

Meanwhile, many developing countries remain in hock to Western institutions.

In 2022, the Debt Justice Group estimated that African governments owed three times more to private financial groups than to China, charging double the interest in the process.

“Developing country debt to China is less than what is owed to both private bondholders and multilateral development banks (MDBs),” says Kevin Gallagher, director of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

“So, Lowy’s focus on China lacks context. The truth is, even if you remove China from the creditor picture, lots of poor countries would still be in debt distress,” Gallagher told Al Jazeera.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, inflation prompted the United States Federal Reserve, as well as other leading central banks, to hike interest rates.

Attracted to higher yields in the US, investors withdrew their funds from developing country financial assets, raising yield costs and depreciating currencies. Debt repayment costs soared.

Global interest rates have since come down slightly. But according to the UN, developing country borrowing costs are, on average, two to four times higher than in the US and six to 12 times higher than in Germany.

“A crucial aspect about Chinese lending,” said Gallagher, “is that it tends to be long-term and growth enhancing. That’s precisely why a lot of it is focused on infrastructure investment. Western lenders tend to get in and out faster and charge higher rates.”

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who longs for the expansion of dirty soda chain Swig so we can feel better equipped to deal with #MomTok drama (IYKYK).

It’s been a week since the second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” dropped on Hulu, but die-hard reality TV watchers have likely already inhaled all nine episodes with the same unwavering commitment as the cast member trying to make us believe that her husband is related to Ben Affleck. (Spoiler alert: He is not. But we sure hope the actor watches while sipping on a 44-ounce iced coffee.) Taylor Frankie Paul, the self-proclaimed founder of #MomTok, the TikTok infuencer group that unites them, stopped by Guest Spot to talk about the new season of friendship and backstabbing.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our resident true-crime expert Lorraine Ali tells you why a docuseries about 1982’s unsolved Tylenol murder case is worth watching, and TV critic Robert Lloyd dives into the pleasures of watching professional surfers chase giant waves. Be sure to also find time to take in Lloyd’s tender tribute to “quintessential Regular Guy” George Wendt, who died this week at age 76; it’s linked below.

ICYMI

Must-read stories you might have missed

Actor George Wendt, best known for his role as Norm in NBC’s long-running sitcom “Cheers,” holds a glass of beer in a barroom in Los Angeles on June 13, 1983.

(Wally Fong / Associated Press)

Appreciation: George Wendt, quintessential Regular Guy: George Wendt, who died Tuesday, will be most remembered for his character on ‘Cheers,’ whom he played straight and without affectation.

On his travel show, Conan O’Brien is on a treasure hunt for the unexpected: The comedian and host of ‘Conan O’Brien Must Go’ spoke about the latest season of his Max travel show, his recent Mark Twain Prize and acting in his first feature film.

At this year’s Cannes, bleak is the new black and miserable endings are très chic: On the Croisette, Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’ with Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal and a strong directing debut by ‘Babygirl’ star Harris Dickinson grab attention.

Everyone knew Pee-wee Herman. But few knew the man behind the man-child: ‘Pee-wee as Himself,’ a two-part documentary directed by Matt Wolf on HBO, supplies a vivid portrait of Paul Reubens, who receded behind his character.

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Professional big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara in HBO’s “100 Foot Wave.”

(HBO)

“100 Foot Wave” (Max)

The continuing story of big-wave surfer Garrett McNamara, his family and friends becomes a trilogy with the third season of Chris Smith’s great HBO docuseries, crazy to contemplate yet beautiful to behold. Garrett, a maverick who put the Portuguese town of Nazaré on the map for its massive waves, set a record there, surfing a 78-footer — imagine an eight-story office building coming up behind you. But with the spot well-established and many records having been matched, the series has become less about competition than community and compulsion. (A middle-aged adolescent with a seemingly high tolerance for pain, Garrett, despite age and injury, cannot stop surfing.) Back again, with a cast of top big-wave surfers, are charismatic Nicole McNamara, Garrett’s level-headed wife and manager and mother to their three, one might say, “other children,” and her brother C.J. Macias, suffering from surfing PTSD after breaking his arm at Nazaré. The climax of the season is a surfing safari to Cortes Bank, 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, where an undersea island creates huge waves with no land in sight. — Robert Lloyd

A still showing Tylenol pills from the Netflix documentary “Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders.”

(Netflix)

“Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders” (Netflix)

If you’re not ready to switch to Advil, stop reading here. Netflix’s three-part, true-crime docuseries deftly chronicles one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history involving the 1982 murder of seven victims in Chicago who died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol tablets laced with cyanide. No one was ever charged with their murders.

Directed by Yotam Guendelman and Ari Pines (“Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes”), the series includes interviews with family of the victims, investigators, police and prosecutors who were directly involved in the case. Together their accounts recall the bizarre and terrifying nature of the crimes, the national panic caused by the tainted pills and the stunning lack of scrutiny on the medication’s manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson.

Private citizen James W. Lewis eventually emerged as one of two main suspects in the case, and he served 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to “stop the killing.” But authorities couldn’t pin the murders on Lewis. The documentary features an exclusive interview with Lewis before his death in July 2023 in which he proclaims his innocence yet appears to still revel in the media attention. The series also calls into question the culpability of Johnson & Johnson and the possibility that the poisoned capsules may have come straight from the factory before landing on drugstore shelves, where they were purchased by the unwitting victims. The murders ultimately led to an overhaul on the safety packaging we see on today’s over-the-counter medication.

Also worth your time is “This is the Zodiac Speaking,” Netflix’s riveting 2024 docuseries chronicling a family of siblings who were intimately involved with the top suspect in the still unsolved Zodiac killings of the 1960s and ‘70s. Sleep tight. — Lorraine Ali

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

Mayci Neeley and Taylor Frankie Paul in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”

(Fred Hayes / Disney)

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” feels like the new wave of soapy reality TV in the way it builds off social media personas to create ridiculously addictive drama. The Hulu reality series follows the lives of a group “momfluencers” who push against traditional Mormon norms — they’re the breadwinners, some are divorced, many drink, and at least one faced the dilemma of promoting a sex toy brand. Taylor Frankie Paul, the founding member of #MomTok, stopped by Guest Spot to discuss what makes great reality TV versus social media content and the scripted show that reminds her of her life. — Yvonne Villarreal

The women spend a lot of the season saying #MomTok has veered away from what it was initially conceived to be about — women supporting women. How do you think the reality show — this additional layer of sharing your personal life with an audience — has both helped its evolution and threatened its survival?

I think it’s threatened the survival because when you share, you get vulnerable and, unfortunately, when doing so it could eventually be used against you. With that being said, it helps the evolution by doing the same thing — being vulnerable can bring people closer together as well.

What have you learned makes great reality TV and how is that different from what makes great social media content?

What makes great reality TV is sharing as much as you can — both pretty and ugly — so they [followers] can see [the] bigger picture. What makes great social media content is leaving some mystery. It’s ironic that it’s opposite!

Viewers had a strong reaction to how your family engaged with you about your relationship with Dakota, particularly at the family BBQ. What struck you in watching it back?

Watching the scene at my family BBQ made us all cry because my family loves me dearly and the approach was maybe not the best (including myself), but everyone’s emotions were heightened. A lot was happening and all I remember is feeling overwhelming pain. But I do know my family has my best interest [in mind] even if that moment doesn’t show that. I know and that’s all that matters. I don’t like seeing the backlash because they are my village and I love them so much.

I notice that I come off intimidating or harsh, however I’m very soft and forgiving. I typically need to feel safe to show more of that. I feel like I’m always on defense, and I need to give people the benefit of the doubt — not everyone is going to cause pain; in other words, [I need to] open my heart more.

What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?

My current go-to watch is “Tell Me Lies” [Hulu]. I’m not a reality TV girl, ironically. I’m obsessed with this show. It’s so toxic and so good. It’s a lot like my life, so it’s entertaining to watch someone else’s life.

Israeli attacks come as residents of Lebanon’s southern districts prepare to vote in municipal elections on Saturday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has denounced a wave of Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to respect a ceasefire reached in November with Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said on Thursday that the Israeli military struck a building in Toul, a town in the Nabatieh governorate. The army had earlier warned residents to evacuate the area around a building it said was used by Hezbollah.

Lebanese media outlets also reported Israeli bombardment in the towns of Soujod, Touline, Sawanna and the Rihan Mountain – all in the country’s south.

In a statement, Salam’s office said the Israeli attacks come at a “dangerous” time, just days before municipal elections in Lebanon’s southern districts on Saturday.

The contests are expected to be dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, and there have been growing concerns about the safety of voters, especially in border towns, amid the continued Israeli occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.

“Prime Minister Salam stresses that these violations will not thwart the state’s commitment to holding the elections and protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese,” his office said in its statement.

As part of the November ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah fighters were to pull back north of the Litani River and dismantle military infrastructure south of that demarcation line.

For its part, Israel was to withdraw all forces from Lebanon but it has kept troops in parts of south Lebanon. It argues it must maintain a presence there for “strategic” reasons.

The truce was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in southern Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces had carried out several strikes targeting Hezbollah sites and killed one fighter in the southern Lebanon town of Rab el-Thalathine.

Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Israeli army’s claim.

Separately, a shepherd was injured in a different Israeli attack nearby, the NNA reported.

The Israeli military said its forces also “struck a Hezbollah military site containing rocket launchers and weapons” in the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon.

The NNA described Israel’s attacks as some of the heaviest since the ceasefire went into effect.