woman

Arrested at the age of 17 during the early days of Nepal’s civil war in the late 1990s, Devi Khadka was accused of being a rebel, tortured and raped in custody. Rebel leaders exposed her as a “rape victim”, marking her with a taboo that led to depression and social ostracism. Battling these horrors, Khadka joined the rebel front lines and rose through the ranks.

After the war ended, she was elected to Nepal’s new parliament but became disillusioned upon discovering that Nepal’s leaders sought to bury the painful truth of wartime rape. As the public face of the survivors, Khadka can no longer stay silent. Driven by a fierce determination for justice, she sets out to unite Nepal’s forgotten women and to reconstruct the history that has been deliberately erased.

Devi Khadka: The Undefeated is a documentary film by Subina Shrestha.

A trio of Angel City players were called up to the women’s national team Wednesday for a pair of friendlies against Ireland and one with Canada.

Sisters Gisele and Alyssa Thompson will be reporting to their fourth training camp together when they arrive Monday in Commerce City, Colo., alongside teammate Angelina Anderson. A goalkeeper, Anderson is one of six players still looking for her first cap with the senior national team, making this 25-women roster one of the most inexperienced in recent USWNT history.

Four players will be training with the national team for the first time.

The U.S. will play Ireland on June 26 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City and again on June 29 at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati before finishing the FIFA competition window against Canada at Audi Field in Washington on July 2.

“We want to continue to improve our understanding of how we want to play and widen the player pool, and those are some of the key goals of this three-game window,” U.S. coach Emma Hayes said in a statement. “On this roster, we have players with a varied amount of experience, and my priority is to deepen the exposures required for international soccer.

“These are three challenging matches and as always, we want to win, but also to make sure we are ready for the next steps.”

In 13 months, Hayes has given 27 players their first call-up to the senior national team.

Returning to the roster this month will be World Cup and Olympic champion midfielder Rose Lavelle, whose 110 caps and 24 international goals are both tops among players called up this month. Lavelle is returning to the national team after losing more than six months following ankle surgery.

Missing, however, are most of the team’s Europe-based players, among them defenders Emily Fox and Crystal Dunn, midfielders Lindsey Heaps and Korbin Albert, and forward Catarina Macario. Hayes said those players would get the FIFA window off to recuperate after a long club season. Defender Naomi Girma, who missed much of Chelsea’s schedule because of injury, is the only player on the camp roster from outside the NWSL.

Anderson, 24, has played every minute for Angel City this season, allowing 21 goals and making 37 saves. Gisele Thompson, 19, leads the team with four assists while Alyssa, 20, is second with five goals. All three players will be with Angel City (4-5-3) for Friday’s game in Kansas City. The NWSL will then take nearly seven weeks off to allow players to compete for their countries in international competitions such as the Women’s Euro and the Copa América Femenina.

USWNT roster

Goalkeepers: Angelina Anderson (Angel City), Claudia Dickey (Seattle Reign) Mandy McGlynn (Utah Royals)

Defenders: Kerry Abello (Orlando Pride), Jordyn Bugg (Seattle Reign), Naomi Girma (Chelsea), Lilly Reale (Gotham FC), Tara McKeown (Washington Spirit), Avery Patterson (Houston Dash), Izzy Rodriguez (Kansas City Current), Emily Sams (Orlando Pride), Emily Sonnett (Gotham), Gisele Thompson (Angel City)

Midfielders: Croix Bethune (Washington Spirit), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns), Claire Hutton (Kansas City Current), Rose Lavelle (Gotham), Sam Meza (Seattle Reign), Olivia Moultrie (Portland Thorns)

Forwards: Lynn Biyendolo (Seattle Reign), Michelle Cooper (Kansas City Current), Yazmeen Ryan (Houston Dash), Emma Sears (Racing Louisville), Ally Sentnor (Utah Royals), Alyssa Thompson (Angel City)

Why is it always the women who stand up first?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course. But it’s one that has a basis in fact because girl power is real.

From Joan of Arc to Cassidy Hutchinson, whenever men have proven too cautious, cowardly or complacent to act, women have had the courage to do the right thing. The latest example of this feminine fearlessness came last Saturday, after federal immigration agents launched a series of raids throughout the Southland targeting everyone from schoolchildren to elderly churchgoers.

Within hours of the first arrests, Angel City, a women’s soccer club, became the first local sports franchise to issue a statement, recognizing the “fear and uncertainty” the raids had provoked. A day later LAFC, Angel City’s roommate at BMO Stadium, released a statement of its own.

That was a week and a half ago. But Angel City didn’t stop there. While the collective silence from the Dodgers, the Galaxy, the Lakers, Kings and other teams has been deafening, Angel City has grown defiant, dressing its players and new coach Alexander Straus in T-shirts that renamed the team “Immigrant City Football Club.” On the back the slogan “Los Angeles Is For Everyone /Los Angeles Es Para Todos” was repeated six times.

“The statement was the beginning,” said Chris Fajardo, Angel City’s vice-president of community. “The statement was our way of making sure that our fans, our players, our staff felt seen in that moment.

“The next piece was, I think, true to Angel City. Not just talking the talk but walking the walk.”

Angel City, the most valuable franchise in women’s sports history, has been walking that walk since it launched five years ago with the help of A-list Hollywood investors, including Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, Jessica Chastain, America Ferrera and Jennifer Garner.

Angel City coach Alexander Straus wears a shirt with the words, “Immigrant City Football Club” before Saturday’s match.

(Jen Flores / Angel City FC)

It has used its riches and its unique platform to provide more than 2.3 million meals and more than 33,000 hours for youth and adult education throughout Southern California; to provide equipment and staff for soccer camps for the children of migrants trapped at the U.S.-Mexico border; and to funnel $4.1 million into other community programs in Los Angeles.

But while much of that has happened quietly, last Saturday’s actions were provocative, boldly and publicly taking place in a city still under siege from thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of U.S. Marines.

“We always talk about how we wanted to build a club that was representative of our community. But we built a club where we are part of the community,” said Julie Uhrman, who co-founded the team she now leads as president.

“In moments like this it’s how do we use our platform to drive attention for what’s happening, to create a sense of community and tell our community that we’re there for them.

“Our supporters wanted to do more,” Uhrman added. “And we wanted to support them.”

Angel City’s Sydney Leroux poses for photo before a match against North Carolina on Saturday.

(Ian Maule / NWSL via Getty Images)

So Fajardo reached out to the team’s staff and supporters. What would that next step look like this time?

“We knew we wanted to do shirts but like, is this the right move?” Fajardo said. “Also, let’s talk about language. It had to resonate and it had to be something they felt was true.

“And so it was through conversation that we landed on the Immigrant City Football Club and everybody belongs in L.A.”

That was late Wednesday afternoon. Fajardo needed more than 10,000 shirts to hand out to players and fans by Saturday morning. That led him to Andrew Leigh, president of Jerry Leigh of California, a family-owned clothing manufacturer based in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to be a part of it,” Leigh said. “These were definitely a priority as we believe in the cause and what Angel City stands for.”

That first run of T-shirts was just the start, though. Leigh’s company has made thousands more for the team to sell on its website, with the net proceeds going to Camino Immigration Services, helping fund what the team feels is a pressing need.

The campaign has resounded with the players, many of whom were drawn to Angel City by the club’s commitment to community service and many of whom see this moment as especially personal.

“My mom’s parents came here from China, and it wasn’t easy for them,” captain Ali Riley told the team website. “They had to find a way to make a life here. My dad is first-generation American. Being from Los Angeles, everything we do, everything we play, everything we eat, this is a city of immigrants.”

“It feels so uncertain right now,” she continued, “but to look around the stadium and see these shirts everywhere, it’s like we’re saying, ‘this is our home, we know who we are, and we know what we believe in.”

It has resonated with the supporters as well.

“It is great that they showed support and put it into action,” said Lauren Stribling, a playwright from Santa Clarita and an Angel City season-ticket holder from the club’s inception. “They really showed an empathy for the community they serve.

Shirts with the words “Los Angeles Is For Everyone” in English and Spanish were handed out to fans before Angel City’s game against North Carolina at BMO Stadium on Saturday.

(Jen Flores / Angel City FC)

“They stand up. It makes me proud of the team and makes me a bigger fan.”

And it makes the Dodgers, the Galaxy and the other Southern California franchises who have remained silent look smaller. On the same night Angel City was stepping up, seven miles away the Dodgers were once again stepping back, warning singer Nezza, the daughter of Dominican immigrants, to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in English, not Spanish.

“I didn’t think I would be met with any sort of like, ‘no,’ especially because we’re in L.A. and with everything happening,” said Nezza, whose real name is Vanessa Hernández. “I just felt like I needed to do it.”

So she sang in Spanish. Of course she sang in Spanish.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

Growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, Nora Princiotti lived two hours away from the nearest mall, so the Scholastic Book Fair was her lifeline to pop culture purchases.

In fall 2003, the then-9-year-old made a beeline to the fair and bought gum, glitter gel pens and “Metamorphosis,” the second studio album from “Lizzie McGuire” star Hilary Duff.

At that time, Duff was “the single most important person in the world to me outside my immediate family,” Princiotti writes in “Hit Girls: Britney, Taylor, Beyoncé, and the Women Who Built Pop’s Shiniest Decade.” “This is the first day of the rest of my life.”

This proclamation is no exaggeration. Duff’s CD was Princiotti’s gateway to the vibrant pop music universe of the 2000s — an era that “Hit Girls” thoroughly examines through the lens of some of the decade’s music icons.

The chronological book opens with Britney Spears reigniting industry interest in mainstream pop after the roaring success of her snappy debut single, 1998’s “…Baby One More Time.” Princiotti subsequently devotes chapters to Rihanna’s world-shifting dance music and savvy use of technology; the scrappy (and occasionally bumpy) pop-punk odyssey of Avril Lavigne; and the complicated relationship between indie rock and pop, exemplified by “American Idol” sweetheart Kelly Clarkson.

She also reexamines with a much kinder eye the music of Ashlee Simpson, whose career cratered after she was caught lip-syncing on “Saturday Night Live,” and then-tabloid fixtures Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

Princiotti, a staff writer at the Ringer who covers pop music and the NFL and co-hosts the podcast “Every Single Album,” says she was certain which artists needed to be included in “Hit Girls.”

“I had the idea a little bit before the Y2K resurgence that we’ve experienced over the last few years,” she says. “But it was trickling into the ecosystem. And I had this very clear idea that there are all these disparate segments of the pop star world and the version of that world that existed in the 2000s. … Even though that music is different, it all fit together to me really obviously, because I was the fan.”

Princiotti augments her rigorous research with colorful memories from this era, including chatting on AIM (her handle was mangorainbow99), digging up Taylor Swift rarities on YouTube and hearing Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” at a high school dance.

Finding a cohesive story of the 2000s was more challenging. “The question that I had to answer [in the book] was, ‘Other than the audience — and other than having this feeling inside me that a book that covered the rise of Britney Spears also needed to cover ‘Rumors’ by Lindsay Lohan and also needed to cover Ashlee Simpson, because that’s how I lived it — what actually ties these artists together?’”

That uniting thread is Spears. The book deftly traces the parallels between the evolution of Spears’ career and how the decade itself unfolded — from the way her music broadened beyond teen pop (e.g. the electro-disco “Toxic”) to the negative impact the intense tabloid scrutiny had on her mental health.

“She is the artist of the 2000s,” Princiotti says. “If you think of the aughts as a whole, it starts with Britney, [and] she manages to keep it going. There’s so many things that I think just come back to that one woman.”

Princiotti also concludes that the female pop stars of the 2000s helped legitimize pop music.

“There’s something about what all of these women — because it is women in the book — did to chip away at the idea that pop is disposable and unserious music, that somehow got us to this place where it is more often recognized as a serious art form, something that moves culture [and] is worthy of real, deep criticism,” she says.

“You’re seeing every day where there are thesis-driven projects about Taylor Swift and the music of Taylor Swift, and [people asking,] ‘What does she mean to society?’ and ‘What does she mean to culture? The thing that struck me was, ‘Oh, we didn’t have that. It wasn’t like that — and now it is.’”

“I came away with an appreciation of just how early in her career she laid the blueprint of how she would develop her fan base,” Nora Princiotti says of Taylor Swift.

(Ballantine Books)

Given the book’s narrow time frame — “Hit Girls” starts just before Y2K and ends in the early 2010s — the book also takes a different spin on the careers of Swift and fellow superstar Beyoncé.

The latter was newly emerging as a solo artist with 2003’s “Dangerously in Love” after breaking through with Destiny’s Child. Princiotti argues that Beyoncé’s success on the pop charts opened doors for hip-hop and R&B artists, which had a seismic impact on culture as a whole.

Although these genres had started making massive inroads into the pop charts and mainstream music starting in the late 1990s, Princiotti observed in her research that magazine and tabloid covers still largely prioritized white artists.

“While there was a clear relationship between the interest in an artist like Britney Spears’s life and the interest in her music, that feedback loop did not exist for a lot of Black artists,” she writes. “Which meant that hip-hop could dominate popular music while being shut out of the elite celebrity spaces that promote true pop stardom.”

Swift, meanwhile, was an earnest country-pop wunderkind building her fan base one MySpace comment at a time — and even then happened to be a genius at understanding the psychology of fandom and the online habits of her followers.

“I came away with an appreciation of just how early in her career she laid the blueprint of how she would develop her fan base,” Princiotti says. “When it’s all said and done, we will look back at her artistic legacy, yes, as the songwriter of a generation, yes, as the poet laureate of young women.”

“But I do think that the legacy of Taylor Swift is going to start with the communities of people that she brought together within her fan base — and how powerful and sometimes scary and how mobilized that fan community has become, and how she built it to be that way.”

As with Swift, many of the artists in “Hit Girls” remain popular today. Lavigne and Beyoncé are currently on major tours; Clarkson has found success with her daytime talk show; Rihanna is a billionaire business mogul thanks to her brands Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty. And Duff, who now has four kids, starred in the TV show “Younger” and, most recently, the short-lived “How I Met Your Father.”

Near the end of “Hit Girls,” Princiotti explores the ongoing influence of these artists and this decade — from the current crop of young pop stars led by Olivia Rodrigo and nostalgia festivals like When We Were Young to fashion trends such as dark denim, “going-out” tops and butterfly hair clips.

Princiotti herself maintains a love of pop stars and offers solid theories about why this specific era remains such a fascination: a heady mix of nostalgia, second chances and perspective.

“For people like me who lived through at least some of it, it’s the ability to go back a little bit older and wiser,” she says. “We can take the best of it and then reexamine the worst of it with more open eyes. And there’s something to me that’s very satisfying about that.”

June 16 (UPI) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the first woman head of the country’s secret intelligence service, MI6, since it was formed in 1909.

Blaise Metreweli will be promoted from her current role as “Q,” in which she is the agency’s lead on technology and innovation. She will take over from the current holder of the role of “C,” MI6 Chief Sir Richard Moore, when his term is up in the fall, No. 10 Downing Street said in a news release Sunday.

“The historic appointment of Blaise Metreweli comes at a time when the work of our intelligence services has never been more vital. The United Kingdom is facing threats on an unprecedented scale — be it aggressors who send their spy ships to our waters or hackers whose sophisticated cyber plots seek to disrupt our public services,” Starmer said.

As C, the 47-year-old will serve as the face of British intelligence in more ways than one, since she is the sole named operative. The identities of roughly all 3,600 agents of the organization a closely guarded state secret.

A career intelligence officer who has also held senior roles at the sister-domestic intelligence service MI5, Metreweli is a Middle East specialist with a lengthy track record as an operative in the region, as well as in Europe.

“I am proud and honored to be asked to lead my service. MI6 plays a vital role — with MI5 and Government Communications Headquarters — in keeping the British people safe and promoting U.K. interests overseas,” she said.

“I look forward to continuing that work alongside the brave officers and agents of MI6 and our many international partners.”

Outgoing chief Moore said in a post on X that Metreweli was the right person for the job, particularly with the current tensions in the Middle East and her out-of-the-box thinking in using technology.

“I am absolutely delighted by this historic appointment of my colleague, Blaise Metreweli, to succeed me as ‘C’. Blaise is a highly accomplished intelligence officer and leader, and one of our foremost thinkers on technology. I am excited to welcome her as the first female head of MI6,” said Moore.

MI6, which began life as the Secret Service Bureau, has never been led by a woman, in contrast with MI5 and the electronic surveillance agency GCHQ. MI5 has previously been headed by two women, while Anne Keast-Butler continues to head GCHQ after being appointed in April 2023 by the previous Conservative government.

The Guardian noted that the on-screen M, James Bond‘s handler in the film franchise was played by Judi Dench for almost two decades, starting alongside Pierce Brosnan in his first stint as 007.

A 22 year old woman was left horrified by the view after travelling for over 30 hours to see the historic World Heritage site, Machu Picchu – and others were just as disappointed by their visits

Set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, you’ll find the majestic Machu Picchu. Built in the fifteenth century, it was abandoned when the Incan Empire was conquered by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. It wasn’t until 1911 that the archaeological complex was made known to the outside world.

As well as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was selected as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007. This ramped up the number of tourists who visit – and the Incan citadel attracts around 1.6 million visitors a year.

One of the many tourists who has visited the historic site is globe-trotter Leonie, who took to her TikTok page to share a video of herself after reaching Machu Picchu. She travelled for around 30 hours to get there, so was expecting big things.

However, she seemed pretty underwhelmed when she saw the view. In an online post, she said: “Seeing one of Seven Wonders of the World: Machu Picchu. Did 8 hours plane, 17 hours of bus, biking and rafting, 5 hours of hiking for this view.”

Leonie posed with her hands over her mouth in dismay, before turning the camera to show how cloudy it was on site. Instead of seeing the historic houses and buildings, the view was concealed by a thick, grey fog that made the whole mountain look eerily creepy.

According to Exploor Peru, Machu Picchu is often covered in fog, especially in the early mornings, due to its high altitude and proximity to the Amazon rainforest. The fog can be quite dense, particularly during the rainy season (November to March), and can obscure views of the ruins and surrounding peaks.

However, the fog often clears out as the day progresses, and sunny periods can follow, revealing the stunning landscape.

Several people soon took to the comment section of Leonie’s video, which has been viewed more than 8.8 million times. It turns out, Leonie wasn’t the only one who had been left underwhelmed by her visit.

“Machu Picchu was so disappointing when I went in January,” one person commented.

Meanwhile, a second viewer wrote: “I’d stay there for days waiting to clear out – no way.”

Another person said: “Bruh this is why I’m avoiding planning a trip to see Machu Picchu or the Northern Lights – I couldn’t deal with the disappointment.”

However, on the bright side, another viewer wrote: “You know it’s about the journey, not always the destination.”

Fire changes whatever it encounters. Burns it, melts it, sometimes makes it stronger. Once fire tears through a place, nothing is left the same. Kelly Ramsey wasn’t thinking of this when she joined the U.S. Forest Service firefighting crew known as the Rowdy River Hotshots — she just thought fighting fires would be a great job.

But fire changed her too.

In her memoir, “Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West,” Ramsey takes us through two years of fighting wilderness fires in the mountains of Northern California. She wrote the book before January’s deadly Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, and what she encountered in the summers of 2020 and 2021 was mostly forests burning, not city neighborhoods. But at the time, the fires she and her fellow crewmen fought (and they were all men that first year) were the hottest, fastest, biggest fires California had ever experienced.

“My first real year in fire had been a doozy, not just for me but my beloved California: 4.2 million acres burned,” she writes, in the “worst season the state had endured in over a hundred years.” That included the state’s first gigafire — more than 1 million acres burned in Northern California.

The job proved to be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but something about fire compelled her. “At the sight of a smoke column, most people feel a healthy hitch in their breath and want to run the other way,” she writes. “But all I wanted to do was run toward the fire.”

Ramsey’s memoir covers a lot of ground, skillfully. She learns that being in good shape isn’t enough — she has to be in incredible shape. She learns how to work with a group of men who are younger, stronger and more experienced than she is, and she figures out how to find that line between never complaining and standing up for herself in the face of inappropriate behavior.

She also writes about the changes in her own life during that time: coming to terms with her alcoholic, homeless father; pondering her lousy record for romantic relationships; searching for an independence and peace she had never known.

“It wasn’t fire that was hard; it was ordinary life,” she concludes.

Sometimes her struggles with ordinary life threaten to take over the narrative, but while they humanize her, they are not the most interesting part of this book. What resonates instead is fire and all that it entails — the burning forest and the hard, mind-numbing work of the Hotshots. They work 14 days on, two days off, all summer and fall, sometimes 24-hour shifts when things are bad. They sleep rough, dig ditches, build firebreaks, set controlled burns, take down dead trees and, in between, experience moments of terrifying danger.

Readers of John Vaillant’s harrowing 2023 book “Fire Weather” — an account of the destruction of the Canadian forest town of Fort McMurray — might consider Ramsey’s book a companion to the earlier book. “Wildfire Days” is not as sweeping or scientific; it’s more personal and entertaining. It’s the other side of the story, the story of the people who fight the blaze.

Ramsey’s gender is an important part of this book; as a woman, she faces obstacles men do not. It’s harder to find a discreet place to relieve herself; she must deal with monthly periods; and, at first, she is the weakest and slowest of the Hotshots. “Thought you trained this winter,” one of the guys tells her after an arduous training hike leaves her gasping for breath. “I did,” she said.

“Thinking you shoulda trained a little harder, huh,” he said.

But over time she grows stronger, more capable, and more accepted. In the second year, when another woman joins the crew, Ramsey is torn between finally being “one of the guys” and supporting, in solidarity, a woman — but a woman whose work is substandard and whose attitude is whiny.

“Was I only interested in ‘diversity’ on the crew if it looked like me?” she asks herself. “Had I clawed out a place for myself, only to pull up the ladder behind me?”

But competence is crucial in this dangerous job, and substandard work can mean deadly accidents.

For centuries, natural wildfires burned dead trees and undergrowth in California, keeping huge fires in check. White settlers threw things out of whack.

“The Indigenous people of California were (and still are) expert fire keepers,” Ramsey writes. “Native burning mimicked and augmented natural fire, keeping the land park like and open.”

But in the 20th century, humans suppressed fires and forests became overgrown. “Cut to today,” she writes. “Dense forests are primed to burn hotter and faster than ever before.”

Ramsey’s descriptions of the work and the fires are the strongest parts of the book.

“We could hear the howl — like the roar of a thousand lions, like a fleet of jet engines passing overhead — the sound of fire devouring everything,“ Ramsey writes.

Later, she drives through a part of the forest that burned the year before to see “mile upon mile of carbonized trees and denuded earth, a now-familiar scene of extinguished life.”

But she also notes that the burned areas are already beginning to green up. “New life tended to spring from bitterest ash,” she writes.

“The forest wouldn’t grow back the same, but it wouldn’t stop growing,” she observes earlier.

There is a metaphor here. Ramsey’s memoir is a moving, sometimes funny story about destruction, change and rebirth, told by a woman tempered by fire.

Hertzel’s second memoir, “Ghosts of Fourth Street,” will be published in 2026. She teaches in the MFA in Narrative Nonfiction program at the University of Georgia and lives in Minnesota.

Marta Budzyska moved to Madrid in 2022 after having lived and studied in Italy for years – but there’s one thing she just can’t get her head around when it comes to Spanish culture

Spain remains a top holiday hotspot for UK sun-seekers, with a staggering 17.8 million visits from Brits in 2023. That year, Spain emerged as the favourite escape for British holidaymakers, commanding an impressive 21% of all overseas jaunts by those from the UK, according to stats from the Office for National Statistics.

It’s also believed that thousands of Brits each year also make the sunny Spanish shores their home. But having soaked up Spanish sun and culture beforehand doesn’t necessarily mean that people looking to make the country their home won’t come across a few surprises when moving to their new country.

This was exactly what happened to Marta Budzyska, a Polish woman who moved to Madrid in 2022 after years of living and studying in Italy.

Marta thought she was fully clued-up on Spanish and Mediterranean ways of living before moving to the Spanish capital. However she quickly encountered one aspect of daily life in Spain that continues to baffle her – and it has nothing to do with the sunshine.

Marta turned to her TikTok account to share her major cultural shock since moving to Spain.

“One thing that will never stop surprising me about Spain is that they go to eat so freaking late,” Marta said in her video.

She continued to explain that she’d gone out for dinner with friends the previous evening, but that their booking hadn’t been until 10pm. Even then, people arrived more than half an hour late, which she said is a common occurrence in Spanish culture.

“And you know you have to think about the order, gets some starters, the main meal. And literally it took so much time,” she said, explaining that they were eating until midnight.

“And I’m not complaining, it was so much fun, I love it,” she said. “I love to live fully with another culture where I’m living or where I’m at, like at holidays. Spain is my home now, but like, that is just so funny and I think it’ll never stop surprising me.”

Marta went on to advise tourists: “So if you go to Spain, just don’t be necessarily on time. Stick […] with easy and chill, it’ll be better for you.”

People quickly took to the comments to share their own experiences, with many Spanish people relating to what Marta had to say.

“As a Spanish this is so true haha,” one viewer wrote. A second person said: “It’s shocking haha. How do you even work the next day.”

A third person also confirmed that similar eating habits also existed in Italy, but that the times could differ between 8pm and 10pm depending on what area of the country you were visiting.

Have you experienced eating dinner at a later time when you’re on holiday? Let us know in the comments.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions at a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.

Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded “yes” or “no” answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.

In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) asked whether the Pentagon has developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.

“Our job at the Defense Department is to have plans for any contingency,” Hegseth said several times.

It is not unusual for the Pentagon to draw up contingency plans for conflicts that have not arisen, but his handling of the questions prompted a Republican lawmaker to step in a few minutes later.

“It is not your testimony today that there are plans at the Pentagon for taking by force or invading Greenland, correct?” said Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).

As Hegseth started to repeat his answer about contingency plans, Turner added emphatically, “I sure as hell hope that is not your testimony.”

“We look forward to working with Greenland to ensure that it is secured from any potential threats,” Hegseth responded.

Time and again, lawmakers pressed Hegseth to answer questions he has avoided for months, including during the two previous days of hearings on Capitol Hill. And frustration boiled over.

“You’re an embarrassment to this country. You’re unfit to lead,” Rep. Salud Carbajal snapped, the California Democrat’s voice rising. “You should just get the hell out.”

GOP lawmakers on several occasions apologized to Hegseth for the Democrats’ sharp remarks, saying he should not be subject to such “flagrant disrespect.” Hegseth said he was “happy to take the arrows” to make tough calls and do what’s best.

Questions emerge on Signal chats and if details Hegseth shared were classified

Hegseth’s use of two Signal chats to discuss details of the U.S. plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen with other U.S. leaders as well as members of his family prompted dizzying exchanges with lawmakers.

Hegseth was pressed multiple times over whether or not he shared classified information and if he should face accountability if he did.

Hegseth argued that the classification markings of any information about those military operations could not be discussed with lawmakers.

That became a quick trap, as Hegseth has asserted that nothing he posted — on strike times and munitions dropped in March — was classified. His questioner, Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and Marine veteran, jumped on the disparity.

“You can very well disclose whether or not it was classified,” Moulton said.

“What’s not classified is that it was an incredible, successful mission,” Hegseth responded.

A Pentagon watchdog report on his Signal use is expected soon.

Moulton asked Hegseth whether he would hold himself accountable if the inspector general finds that he placed classified information on Signal, a commercially available app.

Hegseth would not directly say, only noting that he serves “at the pleasure of the president.”

He was asked if he would apologize to the mother of a pilot flying the strike mission for jeopardizing the operation and putting her son’s life at risk. Hegseth said, “I don’t apologize for success.”

Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg raises Democratic concerns about politics in the military

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who appeared along with Hegseth, was questioned about Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg this week and whether the military was becoming politicized.

The Defense Department has a doctrine that prohibits troops from participating in political activity while in uniform. Members of the 82nd Airborne Division were directed to stand behind Trump at Fort Bragg, and they booed and cheered during his incendiary remarks, including condemnation of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

There also was a pop-up MAGA merchandise stand selling souvenirs to troops in uniform.

Caine repeatedly said U.S. service members must be apolitical but that he was unaware of anything that happened at Fort Bragg.

Hegseth is pressed about policies on women in uniform and transgender troops

Hegseth got into a sharp debate about whether women and transgender service members should serve in the military or combat jobs.

He said he has worked to remove diversity programs and political correctness from the military. He said he has not politicized the military but simply wants the most capable troops.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) demanded to know if Hegseth believes that both men and women can pull a trigger, cause death, operate a drone or launch a missile.

“It depends on the context,” Hegseth said, adding that “women carry equipment differently, a 155 round differently, a rucksack differently.”

Hegseth, who has previously said women “straight up” should not serve in combat, asserted that women have joined the military in record numbers under the Trump administration. He said the military “standards should be high and equal.”

He also was asked about three female service members — now being forced out as part of the Pentagon’s move to ban transgender troops.

Hegseth agreed that their accomplishments — which Houlahan read out — were to be celebrated, until he learned they were transgender.

Republican lawmakers jumped to his defense, criticizing any Pentagon spending on gender transition surgery.

Democrats ask about plans for action against Greenland and Panama

President Trump has said multiple times that he wants to take control of the strategic, mineral-rich island nation of Greenland, long a U.S. ally. Those remarks have been met with flat rejections from Greenland’s leaders.

“Greenland is not for sale,” Jacob Isbosethsen, Greenland’s representative to the U.S., said Thursday at a forum in Washington sponsored by the Arctic Institute.

In an effort not to show the Pentagon’s hand on its routine effort to have plans for everything, Hegseth danced around the direct question from Smith, leading to the confusion.

“Speaking on behalf of the American people, I don’t think the American people voted for President Trump because they were hoping we would invade Greenland,” Smith said.

Baldor and Copp write for the Associated Press. AP writer David Klepper in Washington contributed to this report.

Location, Location, Location viewers were left baffled while watching the Channel 4 show as one property hunter struggled to find a one bedroom flat in London with a hefty budget

Location, Location, Location fans were left enraged during a recent episode of the Channel 4 property show. It came after a woman with a whopping budget struggled to find a one-bedroom flat in the capital.

Hosts Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp were back to help buyers find their dream homes, as Phil headed to central London to find a flat for Chloe. The medic had a generous budget of £450,000, and told the host she wanted a one-bedroom flat with parking for her motorbike.

Junior doctor Chloe had been searching for a flat for 7 months, telling cameras it had been “a bit of an epic fail.”

Viewers saw Chloe and Phil head to areas such as Tooting, Balham, and Earlsfield to find her dream home. However, fans were distracted as they left fuming with how little property hunter Chloe could get with her hefty budget.

“£475k for a one bed house, Wtaf #locationlocationlocation,” said one enraged fan, while another penned: “Nearly half a million pounds and yet still hard to find a one bedroom flat in South London with space to park a motorbike pretty much sums up how much London is f****d.”

A third called for Chloe to move out of London, by writing: “How can you have a budget of £450k and it not get you a one bed flat with a bloody front door? Just move out of rip off London!”

However, another thought Chloe was being “too picky” with her search. “To picky in London and she only has £450,000!” they exclaimed.

Despite the struggles, Phil helped Chloe to find a flat in Earlsfield for £415,000.

The episode comes shortly after duo Phil and Kirsty 25 years of Location, Location, Location. At the end of April, Channel 4 celebrated with a whole night of programming dedicated to the show, including a special containing never-before-seen bloopers and outtakes.

The series kicked off its 43rd run on 14 May, and just before, Phil and Kirstie took a look back at the changing socio economic trends of the UK property market over the period.

Speaking on their 25 years together, Phil gushed: “Although quite surreal, it’s also been fun looking back and seeing not only how we have changed through the 25 years, but also watching how our friendship developed and then strengthened across the years.

“Being able to visit every part of the four nations and support hundreds of people in their home searches has been an enormous privilege – none of which would have been achievable without so many brilliant people behind the camera.”.

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