Greenland’s pro-business opposition Demokraatit party, which favours a slow approach to independence from Denmark, won Tuesday’s parliamentary election that was dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to take control of the island.
Demokraatit secured 29.9% of the votes with all ballots counted, up from 9.1% in 2021, ahead of the opposition Naleraq party, which favours rapid independence, at 24.5%.
Since taking office in January, Donald Trump has vowed to make Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark – part of the United States, saying it is vital to U.S. security interests, an idea rejected by most Greenlanders.
The vast island, with a population of just 57,000, has been caught up in a geopolitical race for dominance in the Arctic, where melting ice caps are making its resources more accessible and opening new shipping routes. Both Russia and China have intensified military activity in the region.
“People want change … We want more business to finance our welfare,” said Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Demokraatit’s leader and a former minister of industry and minerals.
“We don’t want independence tomorrow, we want a good foundation,” Nielsen told reporters in Nuuk.
He will now hold talks with other parties to try and form a governing coalition.
The ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit party and its partner Siumut, which also seek a slow path towards independence, won a combined 36% of votes, down from 66.1% in 2021.
“We respect the election outcome,” Prime Minister Mute Egede of the Inuit Ataqatigiit said in a Facebook post, adding that he would listen to any proposals in upcoming coalition talks.
Greenland is a former Danish colony and has been a territory since 1953. It gained some autonomy in 1979 when its first parliament was formed, but Copenhagen still controls foreign affairs, defence and monetary policy and provides just under $1 billion a year to the economy.
In 2009, it won the right to declare full independence through a referendum, even though it has not done so out of concern living standards would drop without Denmark’s economic support.
“I strongly believe that we will very soon start to live a life more based on who we are, based on our culture, based on our own language, and start to make regulations based on us, not based on Denmark,” said Qupanuk Olsen, candidate for the main pro-independence party Naleraq.
Inge Olsvig Brandt, a candidate for the ruling Inuit Ataqatigiit party, said:
“We don’t need the independence right now. We have too many things to work on. I think we have to work with ourselves, our history, and we are going to have a lot of healing work with us before we can take the next step.”
Voting had been extended by half an hour at some of the 72 polling stations across the Arctic island, where some 40,500 people were eligible to cast their ballot, although the final turnout was not immediately available. INUIT PRIDE
Leader of Demokraatit, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, reacts during the election party at cafe Killut in Nuuk, March 12, 2025. Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Trump’s vocal interest has shaken up the status quo, and coupled with the growing pride of the Indigenous people in their Inuit culture, put independence front and centre in the election.
In the final debate on Greenland’s state broadcaster KNR late on Monday, leaders of the five parties currently in parliament unanimously said they did not trust Trump.
“He is trying to influence us. I can understand if citizens feel insecure,” said Erik Jensen, leader of government coalition partner Siumut.
A January poll suggested a majority of Greenland’s inhabitants support independence, but are divided on timing.
Early on, the election campaign focused on the anger and frustration aimed at historical wrongdoings by Denmark, according to Julie Rademacher, a consultant and former adviser to Greenland’s government.
“But I think the fear of the U.S. imperialist approach has lately become bigger than the anger towards Denmark,” said Rademacher.
Reuters spoke to more than a dozen Greenlanders in Nuuk, all of whom said they favoured independence, although many expressed concern that a swift transition could damage the economy and eliminate Nordic welfare services like universal healthcare and free schooling.
“We don’t want to be part of the U.S. for obvious reasons; healthcare and Trump,” said Tuuta Lynge-Larsen, a bank employee and Nuuk resident, adding that this election was especially important. “We don’t like the attention, to put it short.”
The island holds substantial natural resources, including critical minerals such as rare earths used in high-tech industries, ranging from electric vehicles to missile systems.
However, Greenland has been slow to extract them due to environmental concerns, severe weather, and China’s near-total control of the sector, which has made it difficult for companies elsewhere to make a profit or secure buyers.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on as he attends a press conference with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (not pictured), in Tehran, Iran. February 19, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the U.S. while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want”, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they (the U.S.) give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want”, state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Only seven countries met World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards last year, data showed on Tuesday, as researchers warned that the war on smog would only get harder after the United States shut down its global monitoring efforts.
Chad and Bangladesh were the world’s most polluted countries in 2024, with average smog levels more than 15 times higher than WHO guidelines, according to figures compiled by Swiss air quality monitoring firm IQAir.
Only Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Estonia and Iceland made the grade, IQAir said.
Significant data gaps, especially in Asia and Africa, cloud the worldwide picture, and many developing countries have relied on air quality sensors mounted on U.S. embassy and consulate buildings to track their smog levels.
However, the State Department has recently ended the scheme, citing budget constraints, with more than 17 years of data removed last week from the U.S. government’s official air quality monitoring site, airnow.gov, , including readings collected in Chad.
“Most countries have a few other data sources, but it’s going to impact Africa significantly, because oftentimes these are the only sources of publicly available real-time air quality monitoring data,” said Christi Chester-Schroeder, IQAir’s air quality science manager.
Data concerns meant Chad was excluded from IQAir’s 2023 list, but it was also ranked the most polluted country in 2022, plagued by Sahara dust as well as uncontrolled crop burning.
People move through a dusty road, as air quality reduces ahead of the winter in Dhaka, Bangladesh, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain Purchase Licensing Rights
Average concentrations of small, hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 hit 91.8 micrograms per cubic metre (mg/cu m) last year in the country, slightly higher than 2022.
The WHO recommends levels of no more than 5 mg/cu m, a standard met by only 17% of cities last year.
India, fifth in the smog rankings behind Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, saw average PM2.5 fall 7% on the year to 50.6 mg/cu m.
But it accounted for 12 of the top 20 most polluted cities, with Byrnihat, in a heavily industrialised part of the country’s northeast, in first place, registering an average PM2.5 level of 128 mg/cu m.
Climate change is playing an increasing role in driving up pollution, Chester-Schroeder warned, with higher temperatures causing fiercer and lengthier forest fires that swept through parts of South East Asia and South America.
Christa Hasenkopf, director of the Clean Air Program at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC), said at least 34 countries will lose access to reliable pollution data after the U.S. programme was closed.
The health clinic where Alice Okwirry collects her HIV medication in Kenya’s capital Nairobi has been rationing supplies of antiretrovirals to one-month refills since the U.S. government froze foreign aid.
On the outskirts of the city, meanwhile, millions of life-saving doses sit on the shelves of a warehouse, unused and unreachable.
The clinic is a half hour’s drive from the warehouse, but for Okwirry, they may as well be an ocean apart.
Without U.S. funding, distribution from the warehouse, which stocks all U.S. government-donated HIV medicine to Kenya, has ceased, leaving supplies of some drugs worryingly low, according to a former USAID official and a health official in Kenya.
The 90-day foreign aid freeze, ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump after taking office on January 20, has upended the global supply chain for medical products to fight HIV and other diseases. It is also blocking the distribution of drugs that long ago reached their destination countries.
“I was just seeing death now coming,” said 50-year-old Okwirry who was diagnosed with HIV in 2008 and has a 15-year-old daughter, Chichi, who is also HIV-positive.
Okwirry used to receive six-month supplies of ARVs from the clinic but now can only get one month.
“I told Chichi: what about if you hear the drugs are doomed?” Okwirry said, growing emotional. “She told me: Mom, I’ll be leaning on you.”
The State Department issued a waiver last month exempting funding for HIV treatment from the freeze.
But the USAID payments system in Kenya is down after the cuts, meaning contractors who implement the programmes cannot be paid, said Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin, who was the deputy head of communications for USAID, East Africa, until resigning on Feb. 3 in protest at the dismantling of the agency.
“Projects are left wondering: ‘Well, how am I going to resume activities if you’re not paying me money?” he said. “The waivers that have been given are really waivers on paper.”
In Kenya, officials in Washington have not authorised the release of money required to distribute the $34 million worth of medicine and equipment at the warehouse, he added.
According to a Kenyan government document seen by Reuters, about $10 million is needed for that distribution. The Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies, the Christian charity that runs the warehouse, supplies drugs to some 2,000 clinics nationwide, its website says.
Knowles-Coursin told Reuters the commodities at the warehouse include 2.5 million bottles of ARVs, 750,000 HIV test kits and 500,000 malaria treatments.
Alice Okwirry, 50, a widow living with HIV/AIDS, sits inside her house in Kianda village within Kibera district of Nairobi, Kenya February 28, 2025. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya Purchase Licensing Rights
USAID referred a request for comment to the State Department, which did not respond. The Mission for Essential Drugs and Supplies did not respond to requests for comment.
Kenya’s Health Minister, Deborah Barasa, said she expected her government to mobilise funds to allow the supplies at MEDS to be released within two to four weeks.
“We have identified the resources that are required,” she said in an interview.
‘FEAR AND ANXIETY’
Kenya has the seventh-largest number of people living with HIV in the world, at around 1.4 million, according to World Health Organization data. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the main U.S. vehicle for funding HIV treatment, supplies some 40% of Kenya’s HIV drugs and supplies.
A health official in Kenya, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said stocks of two critical HIV treatments, Dolutegravir and Nevirapine, were low but did not know exactly how much remained nationwide.
Dolutegravir is often used to treat coinfections of HIV and tuberculosis. Nevirapine is often used to prevent mother-to-child transmission.
Barasa, the health minister, said there would be enough Dolutegravir to last five months and Nevirapine to last eight months once the MEDS stocks were released.
For the time being, some patients can only get refills of their ARVS for one week at a time, said Nelson Otwoma, director of the National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya.
Lawsuits aiming to compel the Trump administration to restore funding for humanitarian programmes and reinstate thousands of fired or furloughed USAID workers are working their way through U.S. courts.
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration has cancelled more than 80% of all USAID programmes.
The Kenyan government’s council on syndemic diseases estimated in an internal brief last month, seen by the Reuters, that the U.S. cuts had created funding gaps of around $80 million.
Donald Trump (right) and Narendra Modi met at the White House for talks in February
Indian Americans are increasingly optimistic about India’s future, but hold deep concerns about US-India relations under a second Donald Trump administration, a new survey finds.
The 2024 Indian-American Survey, conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and YouGov in October, examined Indian-American political attitudes.
Two pivotal elections happened in India and the US last year, amid a deepening – but occasionally strained – partnership. Tensions between the countries flared over a US federal indictment of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and allegations of a Delhi-backed assassination plot on American soil.
With more than five million Indian-origin residents in the US, the survey asked some key questions: How do Indian Americans view former president Joe Biden’s handling of US-India ties? Do they see Donald Trump as a better option? And how do they assess India’s trajectory post the 2024 election?
Here are some key takeaways from the report, which was based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,206 Indian-American adult residents.
Trump v Biden on India
Indian Americans rated the Biden administration’s handling of US-India relations more favourably than Trump’s first term.
A hypothetical Kamala Harris administration was seen as better for bilateral ties than a second Trump term during the polling.
Partisan polarisation plays a key role: 66% of Indian-American Republicans believe Trump was better for US-India ties, while just 8% of Democrats agree.
Conversely, half of Indian-American Democrats favour Biden, compared to 15% of Republicans.
Since most Indian Americans are Democrats, this gives Biden the overall edge.
During their February meeting at the White House, both Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised each other’s leadership, but Trump criticised India’s high trade tariffs, calling them a “big problem.”
‘Murder-for-hire’ controversy
The alleged Indian plot to assassinate a separatist on US soil has not widely registered – only half of respondents are aware of it.
In October, the US charged a former Indian intelligence officer with attempted murder and money laundering for allegedly plotting to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US-based advocate for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan.
This marked the first time the Indian government has been directly implicated in an alleged assassination attempt on a dissident. India has stated it is co-operating with the US investigation. In January, a panel set up by India to examine Washington’s allegations recommended legal action against an unnamed individual believed to be the former intelligence agent.
A narrow majority of the respondents said that India would “not be justified in taking such action and hold identical feelings about the US if the positions were reversed”.
Israel and the Palestinians
Indian Americans are split along partisan party lines, with Democrats expressing greater empathy for Palestinians and Republicans leaning pro-Israel.
Four in 10 respondents believe Biden has been too pro-Israel in the ongoing conflict.
The attack in October 2023 by Hamas fighters from Gaza killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, inside Israel and saw 251 people taken hostage. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other arrangements.
Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Talks to prolong the fragile ceasefire, the first phase of which ended on 1 March, are expected to resume in Qatar on Monday.
India’s outlook brightens
Forty-seven percent of Indian Americans believe India is heading in the right direction, a 10 percentage point increase from four years ago.
The same share approves of Modi’s performance as prime minister. Additionally, four in 10 respondents feel that India’s 2024 election – where Modi’s party did not get a majority – made the country more democratic.
The survey found that many Indian Americans support Modi and believe India is on the right track, yet half are unaware of the alleged assassination attempt on US soil.
Does this indicate a gap in information access, selective engagement or a tendency to overlook certain actions in favour of broader nationalist sentiment?
“It is hard to tease out the precise reason for this, but our sense is that this has more to do with selective engagement,” Milan Vaishnav, co-author of the study, said.
Data collected by Carnegie in 2020 shows that around 60% of Indian Americans follow Indian government and public affairs regularly, leaving a significant portion who “engage only sporadically”.
“Often people form broad impressions based on a combination of the news, social media and interactions with friends and family. Given the deluge of news in the US of late, it is not entirely surprising that the ‘murder-for-hire’ plot did not break through for a large section of the community,” Mr Vaishnav said.
Indian Americans, while cautious about Trump and generally favouring Biden or Harris for US-India relations, continue to strongly support Modi back in India. Given Modi’s nationalist policies, what accounts for this divergence? Is it driven more by personal impact than ideology?
“This is a case of ‘where you sit is where you stand’,” Mr Vaishnav said.
He said in related research, “we’ve explored this question in depth and found that Indian Americans generally hold more liberal views on US policy issues compared to India”.
“For instance, while Muslim Indian-Americans – minorities both in India and the US – maintain consistently more liberal attitudes, Hindu Indian-Americans express liberal views in the US (where they are a minority) but more conservative stances in India, where they belong to the majority.
“In other words, a person’s majority or minority status plays a key role in shaping their political views,” Mr Vaishnav said.
If Indian Americans viewed Trump as a threat to bilateral ties, why did they embrace him during his first term, as seen at events like ‘Howdy Modi!’? Has their opinion of Trump shifted due to his policies, or is it more about changing political currents?
“We should not generalise from one event or even one segment of the Indian American population. More than 50,000 Indian Americans gathered at ‘Howdy, Modi!’ first and foremost to see Modi, not Trump. Recall that Trump was added at a later date,” Mr Vaishnav said.
“Second, this is a diverse diaspora with a range of political views. While Indian Americans lean overwhelmingly toward the Democratic Party, a very sizeable minority – we estimate around 30% in 2024 – support the Republicans under Trump.”
Indian Americans remain committed to the Democratic Party, but attachment has waned. Some 47% identify as Democrats, down from 56% in 2020, a survey found last year.
Do Indian Americans have a nuanced understanding of political developments in both countries, or are their views more influenced by diaspora-driven narratives and media echo chambers?
Mr Vaishnav said data from 2020 shows that online news was the primary source of information about India, followed by television, social media and word of mouth. Within social media, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp were the most common platforms.
PM Modi strengthens cultural ties with Mauritius, emphasizing the deep-rooted bond of faith and friendship | X – @narendramodi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hailed the deep-rooted cultural connection between India and Mauritius, that he said is evident in the warmth of the diaspora present in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation.
“Our forefathers were brought here from various regions of India. When we consider the diversity in language, dialects, and eating habits, this place truly represents a mini-Hindustan — a miniature India!” said PM Modi while addressing a community programme in Port Louis during his ongoing two-day State visit to the country at the invitation of Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam.
मेरे लिए मॉरीशस का सर्वोच्च नागरिक सम्मान दोनों देशों के ऐतिहासिक रिश्तों के साथ ही उन भारतवंशियों का भी सम्मान है, जिन्होंने मॉरीशस को इस ऊंचाई तक पहुंचाने में अमूल्य योगदान दिया है। pic.twitter.com/yFN9ZwlSf6
This is PM Modi’s first visit to Mauritius since 2015 when he had outlined India’s Vision SAGAR – Security and growth for All in the Region – which along with ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, ‘Act East’ policy, ‘Think West’ policy and ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy continues to guide New Delhi’s approach to the neighbourhood and beyond while strengthening historical and civilizational ties at the same time.
प्रभु श्री राम हों या रामायण या फिर गंगा मैया के प्रति अटूट आस्था, भारत-मॉरीशस के बीच मित्रता का यह बहुत बड़ा आधार है। pic.twitter.com/Yu6yayPnPC
“10 years ago, on this very date, I was in Mauritius. Whenever I come to Mauritius, I feel as if I have come among my own people. There is a feeling of belonging in the air, the soil and the water here,” he said, adding that Mauritius remains at the heart of India’s SAGAR vision.
पूर्वांचल का सांसद होने के नाते मैं यह समझ सकता हूं कि बिहार और भोजपुरी बेल्ट के साथ मॉरीशस के कितने भावुक संबंध हैं। pic.twitter.com/RxKg2O27HR
“Mauritius is not just a partner country. For us, Mauritius is family. This bond is deep and strong, rooted in history, heritage and human spirit. When Mauritius faces a crisis, India is the first to respond. When Mauritius prospers, India is the first to celebrate,” he told the gathering at the event which also included PM Ramgoolam, ministers from his cabinet, diplomats, top dignitaries besides members of the Indian community in the country.
At the start of the event, Mauritius Prime Minister Ramgoolam announced his government’s decision to bestow the country’s highest honour ‘The Grand Commander of the Order of the Star’ and Key of the Indian Ocean’ to Prime Minister Modi.
Only five foreign dignitaries, none of them Indian, have received the honour before PM Modi, including South Africa’s first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela who fought against Apartheid. It is also the 21st international award bestowed upon him by a country.
The last decade has witnessed numerous efforts on the part of the Government of India to improve friendship with Mauritius. pic.twitter.com/bsoO3UsrkN
“The people and the government of Mauritius have decided to confer upon me their highest civilian honour. I humbly accept this decision with great respect. This is not just an honour for me, it is an honour for the historic bond between India and Mauritius,” said PM Modi.
In a special gesture, Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday handed over OCI (Overseas Citizen Of India) cards to Mauritius President Dharambeer Gokhool and First Lady Vrinda Gokhool.
During his address, the PM mentioned that a decision has been made to extend the OCI Card to the seventh generation of the Indian diaspora in Mauritius.
X was down for thousands of users on Monday amid a series of outagesImage: Jaque Silva/NurPhoto/picture alliance
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, claimed on Monday that the social media platform had been the target of a “massive cyberattack” after outages left it unavailable for thousands of users.
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk said in a post.
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” he claimed, adding that “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”
Musk blames “IP addresses in Ukraine”
Later, in an interview with Fox Business, Musk said that the computer systems used in the alleged attack appeared to have IP addresses in Ukraine but did not immediately provide any evidence for his claim.
However, some cybersecurity experts stressed that this does not necessarily mean that the attack originated in Ukraine.
Nearly 40,000 users initially reported problems with X at the peak of the outage at around 10 a.m. US East Coast time (2 p.m. UTC) on Monday, according to tracking site Downdetector.com.
Saudi Arabia is the new hub for talks on the biggest conflicts and crises, such as Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.Image: Amer Hilabi/AFP
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is increasingly busy hosting state leaders who fly in to discuss pressing global conflicts.
This Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met the Saudi Crown Prince to speak about Russia’s war in Ukraine. This is ahead of a Tuesday meeting between Ukrainian and a US teams set to negotiate a potential end to Russia’s war of aggression, as well as a security deal that would include US access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral and metal deposits.
It will be the first time that Ukrainian and US delegates talk face-to-face after the public spat between US President Donald Trump and President Zelenskyy in the White House in late February.
The fact that the two countries have agreed to meet in Saudi Arabia — and not, say, in Europe — highlights the emerging key position of the oil-rich kingdom in the Middle East.
“Saudi Arabia has indeed established itself as a platform for dialog in the last two to three years,” Sebastian Sons, a senior researcher for the German think tank CARPO, told DW.
“In Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy strategy, it currently plays a very important role to talk to everyone,” he added.
Positioning itself as a neutral mediator
In doing so, it would appear the kingdom is seeking to hold a position of neutrality, in order to maintain open channels of communication with all parties involved in the conflicts it is seeking to mediate.
In fact, “Saudi Arabia’s neutrality has led to its current mediating role,” Mohammed Kawas, a London-based political analyst, told DW.
“The country refrained from joining the West’s criticism and sanctions against Russia, while it was also in regular contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and provided humanitarian aid packages and medical aid worth millions for Ukraine,” Kawas explained.
In 2024, Riyadh helped facilitate a historic prisoner swap between Russia and the US. And in mid-Februar, the country hosted US-Russia talks, in which top Washington and Moscow officials met to discuss normalizing ties between both nations and ending the war in Ukraine.
It also seems likely that Riyadh will host a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — the first since the Republican assumed office earlier this year.
In addition to facilitating talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, Riyadh has also become a meeting spot for summits of the Arab League to discuss the conflict in Sudan and the future of Palestinians in Gaza.
“We see it providing that mediating role between the US and Russia, between the US and Ukraine, and it has become an essential player in the Middle East, certainly with regards to the Palestinians, to Syria and to Lebanon,” Neil Quilliam, a foreign affairs specialist at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told DW.
Kawas echoed this view: “With regard to the Middle East, all negotiations in the region go through Riyadh.”
Saudi interests
This pivot toward establishing itself as a neutral and reliable communication hub marks a turnaround from Saudi Arabia’s international isolation, which reached its nadir following the 2018 killing of the the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It might also help draw attention from the kingdom’s poor human rights record altogether.
Instead of defending domestic policies, the country’s new international standing enables the Saudi Crown Prince to leverage influence across other conflicts, observers point out.
“Saudi Arabia will certainly use the opportunity to mediate with Ukraine in order to present themselves as a reliable partner, as it wants concessions from Trump, especially with regard to Gaza and a future Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Sebastian Sons told DW.
Trump, a staunch ally of Israel’s, would like to see Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize ties.
However, the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resulting war in Gaza have stalled the process.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia rejected Donald Trump’s Gaza plans, in which he had proposed to turn the war-battered Gaza Strip into a “Riviera of the Middle East” under US ownership and displace some 2.3 million Palestinians to other Arab countries, such as Egypt and Jordan.Human rights experts have criticized these plans as tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Saudi Arabia has since reiterated its stance that it will not seek to normalize ties with Israel before a two-state solution, which would secure a Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state, has been implemented.
Financial incentives
When Trump assumed office for his second term earlier this year, the Saudi Crown Prince was the first foreign leader to congratulate him. Shortly after, Trump called Crown Prince Salman a “wonderful person” during an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In 2017, Trump’s first state visit abroad was to Saudi Arabia. The move was seen as controversial, especially as it coincided with Trumps admission that he had selected the kingdom as his first destination because it had pledged a series of investments worth over $350 billion (€323 billion) in the US economy.
While some victims of enforced disappearances returned home alive, others were reportedly found dead. And 330 still remain missingImage: Mosfiqur Johan/DW
A commission set up to investigate the issue of enforced disappearances in Bangladesh announced last week that at least 330 people who were reportedly picked up by authorities and vanished without a trace are believed to be dead.
Moinul Islam Chowdhury, who leads the Commission of Enquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CEED), told a press conference that top officials who served under Sheikh Hasina — the prime minister who stepped down and fled to neighboring India in August following anti-government protests — were involved in orchestrating the reported crimes.
During Hasina’s 15-year rule, from 2009 to 2024, more than 700 enforced disappearances were reported, according to the Bangladeshi human rights organization Odhikar.
After the formation of the five-member commission, however, reports of more disappearances came to light, with the figure now standing at 1,752.
Though some victims of enforced disappearances returned home alive, others were reportedly found dead.
No closure for the bereaved
During the press conference on March 4, Chowdhury said the commission was looking into the possibility that some of the victims might be incarcerated in India.
“We have received a list of 1,067 Bangladeshis incarcerated in Indian prisons over the last two to two and a half years. We are in the process of checking if any of them were victims of enforced disappearance,” he said.
Nasrin Jahan Smrity told DW that she felt shattered after listening to Chowdhury’s statement.
Her husband, Ismail Hossain Baten, an activist belonging to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has been missing since 2019.
“For six years, I have been waiting for my husband after RAB men abducted him,” she said, referring to Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite counterterrorism force.
“Following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, when a few of the enforced disappearance victims were released after years of captivity, I hoped my husband too would come out soon,” she said.
“Now, the statement from the commission chairman has shattered all our hopes. My children have been crying inconsolably since we heard the news,” she added.
Rights groups slam Hasina’s rule
Hasina has long drawn sharp criticism from rights groups for ruling with an iron fist.
In 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report that “despite credible and consistent evidence” of enforced disappearances, Hasina’s then-ruling Awami League party ignored widespread calls to “address the culture of impunity.”
After Hasina’s ouster in 2024, Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, a former brigadier general, and lawyer Ahmad Bin Kashem were freed — after having been missing for eight years following their abductions.
A day later, political activist Michael Chakma was released from captivity after he went missing in 2019.
Rights groups have long reported that the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), a military intelligence agency, operated several secret detention centers for the victims of enforced disappearances.
Azmi, Kashem and Chakma said they were tortured inside a secret DGFI-operated prison named Aynaghar, meaning “house of mirrors” in Bengali.
According to rights groups, RAB, DGFI, the police, and other security and intelligence agencies were involved in enforced disappearances of individuals during Hasina’s time in power.
After Hasina’s ouster, the DGFI released a statement acknowledging that many Bangladeshis became victims of enforced disappearances during Hasina’s time in office.
“But we are not holding anyone in captivity now,” the statement read.
Sazzad Hussain, a member of the CEED, said the team found no trace of the locations of 330 victims in the more than 1,000 cases they have scrutinized so far.
“We have visited many offices of different intelligence agencies and security forces, and exposed 14 secret detention centers in different locations in Dhaka and outside Dhaka,” he said.
“The commission did not find any survivors or trace of victims in those detention centers. Among the 1,752 victims of enforced disappearances, 330 persons are still missing,” he added.
Hussain also underlined that the commission had found evidence showing the involvement of topmost officials in Hasina’s government, including herself, in these activities.
“After reviewing the cases, we have already identified several high-ranking officials of the security forces and intelligence agencies who were involved in the disappearances,” he said.
Hasina and her senior officials have repeatedly denied such reports.
Evidence destroyed?
Some activists say the DGFI destroyed evidence related to the enforced disappearances soon after Hasina’s downfall.
“That is why the military recently refused to allow access during a government visit to the incommunicado detention centers operated by the DGFI,” Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, which has been documenting rights violations in Bangladesh for over 15 years, told DW.
“The DGFI is a powerful intelligence agency of the armed forces, which enjoys blanket impunity and evades accountability for its actions,” he said.
“When the head of the interim government planned a visit accompanying the victims, journalists and the members of the Enquiry Commission on Enforced Disappearances in early February 2025, the armed forces did their best to conceal their crimes by obstructing access to the detention center.”
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of HRW, told DW that the latest statement from the commission is “shattering” for the affected families, who, she said, deserve to know the truth about what happened to their loved ones.
“The interim government should seek a resolution at the HRC to set up an expert mechanism to analyze and preserve evidence that can be used for prosecution either in Bangladesh or elsewhere,” she said.
Over the course of Duterte’s six-year presidency, more than 7,000 people were killed in official anti-drug operations, according to police records, although rights advocates say the number is closer to 30,000 [File: Bullit Marquez/AP]Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has been arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating allegations that “crimes against humanity” were committed during his brutal “war on drugs”.
Duterte was taken into custody on Tuesday at Manila airport upon his arrival from Hong Kong, according to the Philippine government, which received the ICC request via the Interpol international police agency.
“Upon his arrival, the prosecutor general served the ICC notification for an arrest warrant to the former president for the crimes against humanity,” the government said in a statement. “He’s now in the custody of authorities.”
The charge is related to Duterte’s brutal anti-drugs drive, which he ran during his time in office in 2016-2022. Suspects were deprived of “due process under the law” and thousands of people, including children, died, according to the complaint.
The former president questioned the legality of the arrest.
“What is the law and what is the crime that I committed,” Duterte said in a video uploaded on social media by his daughter, Veronica Duterte.
“Explain to me now the legal basis for my being here as apparently I was brought here not of my own volition. It’s somebody else’s,” he added.
In a speech on Saturday in Hong Kong, he had also defended his actions as president saying he “did everything…for the Filipino people”.
Over the course of Duterte’s six-year presidency, more than 7,000 people were killed in official anti-drug operations, according to police records.
However, human rights advocates have claimed that the killings numbered more than 30,000, including those who were killed by unknown suspects, some of whom later turned out to be police officers.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called Duterte’s arrest “a critical step for accountability in the Philippines”.
“His arrest could bring victims and their families closer to justice and sends the clear message that no one is above the law. The Marcos government should swiftly surrender him to the ICC,” Bryony Lau, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.
‘Shoot and kill’
The ICC began examining the complaint in 2018.
The arrest order is seen as a major victory for human rights campaigners and families of victims, despite Manila’s decision to withdraw as signatory of the Rome Statute.
During his presidency, Duterte declared a relentless war against drugs, inciting police officers to either “shoot and kill” drug suspects, or provoke them into fighting back to justify the use of lethal force.
Most of the cases probed by the ICC took place between 2016 and 2019, when a Duterte order to withdraw from the ICC came into effect.
Earlier alleged crimes committed when Duterte was mayor of the southern city of Davao, where he served for two decades, were also investigated.
Among those killed during the anti-drug war campaign were more than a dozen town mayors and other local officials as well as lawyers and judges.
Several children, who were without any links to any drug activity, were also killed. The government dismissed these deaths as “collateral damage”.
The ICC’s investigation into the bloody drug-war had so enraged Duterte, that he ordered the the withdrawal of Manila from the ICC.
He also threatened, using racially-charged language, to arrest then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda should she visit the Philippines to conduct an official investigation.
Financial news is displayed as people work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, on March 4, 2025 [Seth Wenig/AP]The United States’ stock market has shed more than $1.7 trillion in value after US President Donald Trump declined to rule out the possibility the economy could enter a recession this year.
The benchmark S&P 500 on Monday tumbled 2.7 percent, dragging the index nearly 9 percent below its all-time high reached on February 19.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 plunged 3.81 percent, its steepest single-day loss since September 2022.
The losses, which follow two weeks of steep declines, mean that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are now at their lowest levels since September.
Tesla, the electric car company run by Trump’s cost-cutting tsar, Elon Musk, racked up some of the steepest losses among individual firms, plunging 15.43 percent.
Asian stock markets piled on the losses on Tuesday morning, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Taiwan’s TAIEX dropping more than 2.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sliding about 1.5 percent.
The market rout comes as Trump’s back-and-forth tariff announcements have unnerved investors and stoked fears that the economy could be headed for a major slowdown or, at worst, a recession.
In an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday, Trump left open the possibility of a downturn when asked if he expected a recession this year.
“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump said. “We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing…It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”
“There’s total uncertainty in the market,” Steve Okun, founder and CEO of APAC Advisors in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
“[Trump] has no credibility right now when it comes to tariffs, because of what he has done, in particular with Mexico and Canada. That’s why the markets are reacting the way they are – they don’t know what’s going to happen. “
Trump last week slapped a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada and doubled the rate of duties on Chinese goods to 20 percent, only to announce two days later that he would postpone some duties on Mexican and Canadian goods until April 2.
A separate 25 percent tariff on imports of steel and aluminium is set to take effect on Wednesday.
Goldman Sachs economists last week raised its odds of a recession within the next 12 months from 15 percent to 20 percent, while JPMorgan Chase has lifted the probability from 30 percent to 40 percent “owing to extreme US policies”.
‘Indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging’
New York Stock Exchange trader Peter Tuchman described Monday’s trading session as a “bloodbath”.
“These stocks are being eaten away and this is obviously all over fear of a recession, right?” Tuchman said in a video posted on X.
“We had a roller coaster last week, we had some up days, we had some down days – and all a function of what is coming out of the Oval Office, which is just complete indecisiveness, confusion and mixed messaging and the investing community losing confidence in the whole situation.”
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who represents the state of Massachusetts, accused Trump of jeopardising the economy with his policies.
“We’re in real economic trouble thanks to the President, and right now, the stock market is a flashing warning light,” Warren said on X.
In a rare note of dissension with Trump among Republicans, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul also raised alarm about the stock rout.
“The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading,” Paul said on X.
“The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment. When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen.”
Young girls, whose families were displaced by floods, sit on a makeshift bed, as they take shelter on higher ground during flooding in August 2010 near Thatta, near Hyderabad in Sindh province, Pakistan. Incidents of child marriage rose following these floods and, again, in the wake of flooding in 2022 [Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images]Asifa* was sitting on the cool earthen floor of her family’s home when her parents entered the room. The sun had begun to set over the small village of 250 families nestled in the heart of Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province, casting a warm glow over the surrounding arid landscape. Asifa remembers distinctly the smell of dried grass carried by the wind.
Her mother’s face was hard to read, but Asifa could tell something was different today. Her parents looked at each other briefly before turning to her. “Your marriage has been arranged,” her father told her.
Asifa was just 13 years old.
At first, she didn’t fully grasp the situation. Her mind went to thoughts of new clothes, shiny jewellery, and the celebrations she had heard about from older girls in the village. A wedding meant gifts, makeup and new outfits.
“I thought it would be a big celebration,” Asifa recalls, her voice heavy as she sits outside her husband’s home on a colourful charpai, a woven daybed, and looks out over the cracked earth of the village where she grew up. She is wrapped in a faded pink dupatta, her young face framed by dark hair. Now 15, she is the mother of a baby, a few months old, whom she holds tenderly in her arms.
Her house of mud and straw stands behind her, its roof thatched and weathered by years of harsh winds, rains and scorching sun.
“I never truly understood what marriage would involve,” she says. “I never realised that it would imply being with a man older than me, someone I didn’t know or choose.”
Furthermore, she says, her husband is in debt having taken out a loan of 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,070) to give to her family when they agreed to the marriage. “He cannot pay it back.”
The family’s decision to marry their 13-year-old daughter off was not one made from tradition but out of sheer desperation.
Asifa’s parents had been hard hit by the catastrophic floods that ravaged Pakistan in 2022. For generations, her family cultivated rice and vegetables such as okra, chilies, tomatoes and onions in the once-rich landscape of the Main Nara Valley, but the rising waters left their fields unrecognisable, swamped and sterile.
The money the family had hoped to make from their harvests and the small savings they had set aside for their daughter’s future all vanished. For months, her parents tried to rebuild what they had lost, salvaging what little they could from the remnants of their land, borrowing from relatives in an attempt to make ends meet. But the devastating loss of their crops, along with rising prices of essentials and a lack of access to clean water, made it impossible to stay afloat.
With three other younger children at home, the couple concluded they could no longer afford to keep Asifa, let alone give her the education they had once hoped for her.
“They had no other choice,” Asifa says sadly.
A community scarred
In the village of Khan Mohammad Mallah, where farming, fishing and livestock rearing are the main sources of income, Asifa’s experience is not unusual. The floods of 2022 have left deep scars on the community, plunging families, now living at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather, into extreme poverty.
With homes destroyed, crops washed away and livelihoods shattered, the practice of child marriage, where men pay an agreed sum to families in exchange for marriage to girls as young as nine, is on the rise.
Last year, there were 45 recorded cases of children – mostly girls, but some boys as well – under the age of 18 being married in this one village alone, according to Sujag Sansar, an NGO working to combat child marriage in the region.
This is not a simple matter of tradition, says Mashooque Birhmani, founder of Sujag Sansar. Pakistan’s Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 set the legal age of marriage for boys at 18 and 16 for girls. In April 2014, the Sindh Assembly adopted the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, which changed the minimum age to 18 for both girls and boys.
Birhmani believes the rise of child marriage is directly linked to the floods. Crucially, one-third of these underage marriages occurred in May and June – just before the monsoon rains begin – indicating that they took place in anticipation of the damage that was expected from the torrential downpours.
“Before the 2022 rains, girls would not get married so young in this area,” says Birhmani. “Such cases remained rare. Young girls were helping their parents make rope for wooden beds or work on the land.”
For many families, the decision to marry off young girls has become a means of survival, but it is also at the cost of the girls’ education, health and futures.
In recent years, the effects of climate change have become increasingly visible. Monsoon rains, once a lifeline for millions of Pakistan’s farmers and crucial in the normal cycle of food production, have grown increasingly erratic and severe, wreaking havoc on agricultural lands and exacerbating food shortages. In addition, rising temperatures are accelerating glacier melt in the north of the country, contributing to river swelling and overwhelming flood defences.
The climate crisis has triggered the phenomenon which has come to be known as “monsoon brides”. No formal studies of child marriage have been undertaken, but nongovernmental organisations such as Sujag Sansar say anecdotal evidence suggests the practice is becoming more widespread across the country as a whole. In the Sindh region, nearly a quarter of girls are believed to be married before the age of 18.
“There has been a notable uptick in forced marriages, particularly during the most catastrophic floods in the nation’s history – those of 2007, 2010 and 2022,” says Gulsher Panhwer, project manager at Sujag Sansar.
‘When they took her away, she clung to me’
For many, and in particular for women, these natural disasters are not distant nightmares.
The years have passed, but for Salwa, 40, the memory of her daughter’s wedding day is still hard to bear. As she plays with her four-year-old granddaughter, her tone becomes solemn as she begins to tell the story of what led to one of the darkest days of her life.
“We once lived off our land, but when the monsoons destroyed everything in 2010, we were forced to leave our home and seek refuge in another province,” she recalls. The family, which moved from Balochistan in southwestern Pakistan, depends on the cultivation of cotton and lush rice, but struggled to make ends meet in Khan Mohammad Mallah and resorted to marrying off their youngest daughter.
In 2010, Salwa married her then-12-year-old daughter to a 20-year-old man in exchange for 150,000 rupees ($535).
“When they took her to her new home, she clung to me, and we both wept. I regret this decision deeply, but I saw no other option at the time,” says Salwa, her voice cracking. She, herself, had been married at 13 because her family did not have enough money to feed her.
Despite her daughter’s marriage, she and her husband returned to live with Salwa in Khan Mohammad Mallah shortly afterwards. “They didn’t have enough money to survive on their own. They were just kids. We now live in poverty but at least we are reunited,” says Salwa, sighing, the wrinkles on her face betraying her exhaustion.
Today, Salwa is grandmother to her daughter’s four children. The eldest is 15 and studying at school, as are her siblings. Salwa says she hopes that the education they are receiving will enable them to marry of their own free will, breaking the cycle that has trapped the girls in her family for generations.
It is a fragile hope as Pakistan is experiencing more frequent and severe weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that Pakistan, being one of the most vulnerable countries, will face worsening effects on agriculture, water availability, and food provision, further driving poverty and social instability.
The floods of 2022, the deadliest to date, inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing more than 1,700 people, displacing some 33 million – almost a third of its population – and submerging vast tracts of farmland that destroyed the country’s farming backbone.
Agriculture, which contributes a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product and sustains one in three jobs, was hit particularly hard, with huge numbers of crops lost to the floods. Approximately 15 percent of the nation’s rice crop and 40 percent of its cotton crop were affected. The total cost of damage to the agriculture sector was approximately $12.97bn, with crops accounting for 82 percent of this total.
In Sindh province, entire villages have been left in ruins.
‘Significant progress’ undone by the floods
Sindh is particularly prone to flooding due to its proximity to the Indus River, which often overflows during heavy monsoon rains. Poor drainage systems, deforestation and climate change all exacerbate the risk of floods.
In this region, nearly 4.8 million people were affected by the 2022 floods, half of them children.
“With livelihoods destroyed and no reliable income, farmers, desperate to make ends meet, often resort to marrying off their daughters for an amount as modest as the price of a cow – or even less,” says Panhwer.
A lot of work has been done since 2010 to protect young girls from early marriages and people are now aware that marrying off their children is a crime, Panhwer says. “But when families are displaced in flood relief camps, they feel their daughters face higher risk of sexual assaults since they are no longer protected inside their homes. Their hope is also to protect them from the crushing poverty while raising enough funds to sustain the rest of the family.”
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Pakistan is home to nearly 19 million child brides. While the organisation reported in 2023 that there has been “significant progress” in reducing child marriages in the country, it warned that the 2022 monsoon floods could undo much of that progress.
President Donald Trump announced that discussions were ongoing with four potential buyers for TikTok’s United States operations, and a deal could be reached soon.
“We’re dealing with four different groups, and a lot of people want it,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Bloomberg reported. However, he didn’t mention the name of those four potential buyers but noted that “all four are good.”
TikTok’s Uncertain Future: Sale Deadline Extended as U.S. Market Remains Key
TikTok’s future has been uncertain since a law was enacted on Jan. 19, requiring its owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform due to national security concerns or face a ban. After taking office on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline by 75 days before the law would be enforced.
The United States is TikTok’s most important market, while its parent company, ByteDance, runs a similar app called Douyin in China. Last year, TikTok’s U.S. operations were valued at up to $50 billion. Recently, Trump mentioned that he might extend the deadline again if needed but believed a deal could happen within a month.
Key Bidders Emerge in the Race to Acquire TikTok’s U.S. Operations
Several public bidders have emerged to buy TikTok’s United States operations. One group is led by billionaire Frank McCourt and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Another includes tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley and YouTube star MrBeast.
A third bid comes from San Francisco-based Perplexity AI, which has proposed a merger. Trump has also mentioned Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison as a potential buyer, and TikTok has already partnered with Oracle to manage its U.S. user data.
ByteDance CEO Engages with Trump
ByteDance, based in Beijing, has not shown interest in selling its U.S. business. However, its CEO, Shou Chew, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December and attended the inauguration earlier this year.
The company has been trying to address national security concerns raised by U.S. lawmakers so that it can continue operating in the country. ByteDance, a privately held company, is now valued at over $400 billion by major investors like SoftBank Group.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, has published a book he hopes could be a framework for the future of Tibet AFP
The Dalai Lama published a book Tuesday he says is a “framework for the future of Tibet”, to guide compatriots in relations with Beijing after his death.
China says Tibet is an integral part of the country, and many exiled Tibetans fear Beijing will name a successor to the Dalai Lama when he dies, bolstering control over a land it poured troops into in 1950 — 75 years ago this coming October.
The book, “Voice for the Voiceless”, describes the Dalai Lama dealing with successive leaders of the People’s Republic of China on behalf of Tibet and its people.
“The right of the Tibetan people to be the custodians of their own homeland cannot be indefinitely denied, nor can their aspiration for freedom be crushed forever through oppression,” the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader writes.
“One clear lesson we know from history is this: If you keep people permanently unhappy, you cannot have a stable society.”
Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, which says it “peacefully liberated” the rugged plateau and brought infrastructure and education.
Celebrating his 90th birthday in July, he is among a fading few who can remember what their homeland was like before the 1959 uprising.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, said the book details the “persistent efforts” he has made to over seven decades to “save my homeland and people”.
“Only when we have created an atmosphere where both sides can speak and negotiate freely can there be a lasting settlement,” he writes in the book.
“Tibetans have spent nearly 75 years fighting for freedom,” the Dalai Lama wrote in the Washington Post earlier this month, ahead of the book’s publication.
“Their struggle should continue beyond my lifetime.”
Talks between Beijing and Tibetan leaders have been frozen since 2010.
“Despite all the suffering and destruction, we still hold fast to the hope for a peaceful resolution of our struggle for freedom and dignity,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement about the book.
“From a 19-year-old negotiating with Chairman Mao at the height of his powers in Beijing to my recent attempts to communicate with President Xi Jinping, I convey in this book the sincerity of our efforts.
“My hope is that the book will… provide a framework for the future of Tibet even after I am gone.”
The Dalai Lama stepped down as his people’s political head in 2011, passing the baton of secular power to a government chosen democratically by some 130,000 Tibetans around the world.
In the indie comedy “She’s the He,” which premiered at SXSW on Sunday, high school seniors Alex and Ethan decide during the last week of school to pretend they’re trans so they can sneak into the women’s locker room. If that sounds like a premise lifted right out of MAGA-era attacks on trans rights, it’s because it is — that’s the point.
First-time writer-director Siobhan McCarthy dreamed up the idea just over a year ago, in February 2024, after discovering online that the one high school comedy that spoke to them as a teenager — the 2006 Amanda Bynes comedy “She’s the Man” — was just as formative for many other trans kids. That led to a conversation with their friend, Will Geare (who co-edited “She’s the He” with McCarthy), about the kinds of trans stories they both wished they’d been able to see when they were younger.
“I made a joke about, what if we took that conservative fear of [trans people] going into the bathrooms and we really played that out?” McCarthy tells Variety. “What would that look like?”
McCarthy finished the first draft of “She’s the He” just a few days later, and by July, they were shooting the film with a cast and crew that was almost entirely made up of trans, nonbinary and queer people — including all of the background actors. To achieve that cast, McCarthy leaned heavily on the tiny network of trans professionals within the industry.
“It was incredibly difficult to not only find trans people to be in a film — and this many trans people, which is fairly unprecedented — but to then find the right people for the roles we were trying to cast, which is the goal of any film,” McCarthy says.
Trans actor Emmett Preciado (“Good Trouble”), for example, landed the role of the school’s jacked, bullying quarterback, Jacob, through a recommendation from McCarthy’s friend, trans actor and activist Ian Alexander. After McCarthy cast queer actor Malia Pyles (“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin”) as the hottest and most popular girl in school, Pyles’ boyfriend, trans actor Jordan Gonzalez, suggested casting Misha Osherovich (“Freaky”) for the film’s critical central role, Ethan — who, after pretending to be trans, realizes that she actually is trans. And McCarthy didn’t find comedian Nico Carney, who ended up playing Ethan’s horn-dog BFF Alex, until a week before filming started.
“I had no idea if he could act,” McCarthy says. “I’d just seen his stand up. When we got into that rehearsal room the first day and he did the first scene, I finally, finally breathed a sigh of relief, because I knew we had a movie.”
After “She’s the He” opened to a standing ovation in Austin, McCarthy spoke with Variety about their inspirations for the movie, the “painful” experience of making it during the 2024 presidential election, and why they hope the film — which does not yet have distribution — will make it into movie theaters.
What was the first impetus to make you want to tell this story?
It was complicated. It ended up being a trip back to my hometown, where I happened to walk by my high school. It got me thinking about what it felt like to be young and to be dissociated from your experience. Because when you don’t necessarily know that you’re trans yet, the basics of life become very difficult to comprehend. Even if someone’s saying “I love you,” if they’re saying it to you from the perspective of the wrong gender, it doesn’t sound like “I love you” the way that it does to other people. In thinking about that, it was hard to not think about the movies that I grew up with and what broke through that haze of being disassociated.
Like what?
“She’s the Man,” Amanda Bynes, that movie! I rewatched it, and realized that there were a lot of trans people who had rewatched that movie recently as well and had started to talk on Twitter and on Tiktok about how they wish they had stories like that, those Shakespearean gender swap stories that were genuine to the trans experience.
All of that happened in the span of 24 hours, and at the end of that 24 hours, I was having conversation with my coeditor [Will Geare] about what we wish we had seen, because they’re trans as well. I made a joke about, what if we took that conservative fear of [trans people] going into the bathrooms and we really played that out? What would that look like? It started out entirely as a joke between the two of us. I wrote a draft in 24 hours of the entire movie. Gave it to Will. Will read it, gave me some notes. I took it back, rewrote it. We did that for about three days, and the first draft was done, and that was 13 months before today.
Did you know right away that everyone in the cast would be queer, trans or nonbinary?
That was a line that I was willing to die on, because I knew that the movie would not work if I was casting heterosexual, cis people — and specifically cis men, in the roles of those two leading boys, Alex and Jacob, who are such a representation of a lot of the men that I grew up with. A lot of trans men, through lived experience, have a nuanced understanding of what it means to engage with some of the toxicity that can be thrust upon cis boys, and that allows them to play in that field with a little more lucidity. That’s not to say that cis men don’t have that lucidity, but I knew that in order for me to be able to talk to my cast and communicate clearly, I was going to have to be talking to trans men, because they would speak the same language as me.
You were shooting and editing in the thick of the 2024 presidential campaign, which became so centered on anti-trans messaging. What was it like to have that in the background as you were putting your movie together, especially since the Republican talking point about trans kids in locker rooms was one of the main inspirations for the film?
It was incredibly painful. It’s hard to overstate the psychological weight of that messaging on everyone involved in this film when we are trying to make something that is centering trans joy. I had to turn around the movie in six weeks to get it to South By. And all six of those weeks, every week, it felt like the stakes were ratcheting up. Every week, something new was being said. Some new bill was being posited that was potentially going to strip my rights, going to strip the rights of children who I care about, going to strip rights of my friends.
The only thing that really kept me going during that, and I think kept a lot of us going during that, was realizing how strong our community has been in the face of this oppression. There are so many generations who come before us who have done incredible work and incredible things against unbelievable odds. But it also was scary, because it made the future of this film uncertain. When you’re watching the figurehead of the country come out every day and say, “You, specifically, who are making this movie. You people. We don’t want to hear from you. We don’t want to see you. We don’t want to think about you. We don’t even want you to have the basic rights to live.” Making a movie that was not only showcasing this many trans people and putting this many trans people right in their line of sight, but also talking about the thing that they were saying back at us, was absolutely terrifying. I’m so happy to be here now, but it was a lot.
What is your hope for this movie? Where would you love this movie to live to get to the audience you want to see it?
We very much see this movie in the vein of “Bottoms” or these queer movies that are beginning to break through to the mainstream. So much of the goal of creating this was making a movie that really did represent the trans community, and really is for the trans community, but that was accessible for cis audiences and heterosexual audiences. We basically wanted to take the bubble that was all those movies we grew up on and just expand the part of it that hadn’t included trans people. So we are really hoping to get this into theaters. There’s something powerful, I think, about seeing this many trans people in an AMC or a Regal next to “Mission: Impossible” or these other blockbusters, because that inherently makes a statement as well that we are here and we’re just like you.
This film came together so fast. I can imagine a lot of your decisions were made on instinct, but it reminded me so much of the independent queer movies from the 1990s. Was that something you were going for?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, those movies live deep in my psyche. “But I’m a Cheerleader” was quintessential to my identity as a human being. But so many of these decisions, I think, were made on instinct. I animated everything in the film. I wrote the score with my brother. I edited the film with Will. All of this movie ended up having to be my brain child in a lot of ways, because this turnaround was so tight that I just didn’t have access to reach out to other people. But as it started to come together, it became clear that, because Will and I both grew up on those ’90s queer movies, we were referencing those instinctually.
The animated notebook scribbles throughout the film also evoked “Heartstopper” for me. Was that consciously on your mind?
Oh, “Heartstopper” is very much in my mind. “Heartstopper” was a huge show for me on a comfort level. I’m the older end of Gen Z, and I do find that my references skew from TikTok to those old ’90s queer movies. I want the movie to be a representation of a lot of queer history. Also, I’m trying to make a movie for my generation, for young people. There’s not a lot of people right now who are getting to speak to the experience of growing up as part of Gen Z or Gen Alpha. There is a collage aesthetic to the film, because that’s just inherent to my experience growing up, getting so much information in so many different forms of media shot into my eyes.
Dozens of Tibetan protesters clashed with police outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on Monday as Tibetans living in exile marked the 66th anniversary of their uprising against China that was crushed by Chinese forces.
As in past years, police blocked the protesters from entering the embassy and briefly detained some of them after wrestling them to the ground.
Hundreds also marched in the north Indian town of Dharamshala, the seat of the exiled Tibetan government and home of Dalai Lama, their 89-year-old spiritual leader. Separately, about a hundred Tibetan women gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, an area designated for protests close to Parliament.
The protesters shouted anti-China slogans, carried Tibetan flags and played the national anthems of Tibet and India.
India considers Tibet to be part of China, although it hosts the Tibetan exiles. The 1959 independence uprising was quelled by the Chinese army, forcing Dalai Lama and his followers into exile in India.
Many had their faces painted in colors of the Tibetan national flag. The demonstrators observed a minute of silence to remember Tibetans who lost their lives in the struggle against China. Monks, activists, nuns and schoolchildren marched across the town with banners reading, “Free Tibet” and “Remember, Resist, Return.”
Penpa Tsering — the president of the Central Tibetan Administration, as the exiled Tibetan government calls itself — accused China’s leadership of carrying out a “deliberate and dangerous strategy to eliminate the very identity of the Tibetan people.”
“This marks the darkest and most critical period in the history of Tibet,” Tsering told the gathering. “As we commemorate the Tibetan National Uprising Day, we honor our brave martyrs, and express solidarity with our brothers and sisters inside Tibet who continue to languish under the oppressive Chinese government.”
About 540 Indians lured into a cyber crime network with fake job offers have been rescued from Thailand and other countries. An Indian Air Force (IAF) flight carrying 283 rescued nationals returned yesterday and a second flight will bring back the rest from Mae Sot today. At least 42 of them are from the Telugu states, said Union Minister Bandi Sanjay, sharing information about the repatriation process.
These nationals were lured with fake job offers and sold to fake call centres involved in cyber fraud in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. “These persons were subsequently made to indulge in cybercrime and engage in other fraudulent activities in scam centres operating in regions along the Myanmar-Thailand border,” said the Ministry of External Affairs.
The Myanmar army rescued them.
Indian embassies in Myanmar and Thailand secured the repatriation in coordination with the local authorities, the MEA said. They were brought to Mae Sot city in Thailand from where they are being flown to Delhi.
The Golden Triangle Region in Southeast Asia, where the international borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet, is a cyber crime hotspot where such fake call centres operate.
The government said it keeps warning of such rackets that target Indians with fake job offers. It has advised people to verify the foreign employers through the Indian missions abroad, the recruiting agents, and companies before accepting any such job offer.
During her nine-month long extended stay at the ISS, Sunita Williams has undertaken several projects and experiments. (File)(X/@NASA)
Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, who embarked on a journey to space last year, which was originally supposed to last eight days, has been there for nine months now.
Williams, along with her fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore, went to the International Space Station aboard a Boeing Starliner on June 5, 2024. However, after the Starliner witnessed helium leaks and other technical glitches after its first crewed mission, the two astronauts got stuck at the ISS.
After a long wait, Williams’ return is now in sight as the SpaceX Crew-10 mission is set to launch on either March 12 or 13. Williams and her fellow crewmates at the ISS will head out on March 19 after a week-long handover procedure with the Crew-10.
A look at Sunita William’s time in space
Sunita Williams not just piloted the Boeing Starliner which took her and Butch Wilmore to the ISS, but also helped develop it. The project cost NASA 4.3 billion dollars
During her nine-month-long extended stay at the ISS, Sunita Williams has undertaken several projects and experiments. She has helped with cleaning and maintaining the ISS, which is the size of a football field, during her stay there, reported NDTV.
Along with maintenance and cleaning, she has also helped replace several old instruments on the space station.
Williams, along with her Boeing Starliner mate Butch Wilmore and one more astronaut, Nick Hague, has “completed more than 900 hours of research between more than 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory,” said NASA.
In order to stay fit to be able to navigate through the ISS, Williams also undertook extensive weight training aboard the space station. There were concerns about her health as well during her time at the ISS, however, she clarified later that she weighed the same as she did during her arrival
During her stay, Sunita Williams has also broke the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut by completing a total of 62 hours and nine minutes of spacewalk through all her missions. She spent 5 hours 26 minutes during her last spacewalk on January 30 and around six hours on January 16, the NDTV report said. During one of her earlier visits to the ISS, she also ran a marathon in space.
Sunita Williams also installed hardware for the Packed Bed Reactor Experiment: Water Recovery Series (PBRE-WRS) investigation. According to NASA, packed bed reactors are systems that “pack” materials such as pellets or beads inside a structure to increase contact between any liquids and gasses flowing through it. The experiment is determined to examine how gravity affects these systems aboard the International Space Station, and results could help scientists design better reactors for water recovery, thermal management, fuel cells, and other applications.
There is an ongoing examination of microgravity’s effects on biomanufacturing engineered bacteria and yeast on the International Space Station. Sunita Williams posed with bacteria and yeast samples for Rhodium Biomanufacturing 03, which is the part of the examination.
Hundreds of roofs in the informal settlements of India’s western Gujarat state have been painted in a reflective, white coating over the last two months to try to keep their occupants cooler as the hottest time of year approaches.
The effort, which involves 400 households in Ahmedabad, is part of a global scientific trial to study how indoor heat impacts people’s health and economic outcomes in developing countries – and how “cool roofs” might help.
“Traditionally, home is where people have come to find shelter and respite against external elements,” said Aditi Bunker, an epidemiologist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany who is leading the project, supported by the UK-based Wellcome Trust.
“Now, we’re in this position where people are living in precarious housing conditions, where the thing that was supposed to be protecting them is actually increasing their exposure to heat.”
As climate change has made India’s summers more extreme, Ahmedabad has suffered temperatures in excess of 46 C (115 F) in recent years.
In the Vanzara Vas slum in the Narol area of the city, which has more than 2,000 dwellings, most of them airless, one-room homes, residents that are part of the project, such as Nehal Vijaybhai Bhil, say they have already noticed a difference.
“My refrigerator doesn’t heat up any more and the house feels cooler. I sleep so much better and my electricity bill is down,” said Bhil, whose roof was painted in January.
Painters apply liquid-applied membrane (LAM) coating that according to the authorities helps to bring down the temperature inside the shanties at a slum in Ahmedabad, India, January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Amit Dave Purchase Licensing Rights
Across the world, heatwaves that, prior to the industrial revolution, had a one-in-10 chance of occurring in any given year are nearly three times as likely, according to a 2022 study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
By painting roofs with a white coating that contains highly reflective pigments such as titanium dioxide, Bunker and her team are sending more of the sun’s radiation back to the atmosphere and preventing it from being absorbed.
“In a lot of these low socioeconomic homes, there’s nothing to stop the heat transfer coming down – there’s no insulation barrier from the roof,” Bunker said.
Before joining Bunker’s experiment, Arti Chunara said she would cover her roof with plastic sheets and spread grass over them.
Some days, she and her family sat outside for most of the day, going into the house only for two to three hours when the heat was bearable.
The trial in Ahmedabad will run for one year, and scientists will collect health and indoor environment data from residents living under a cool roof – and from those who do not.
Other study sites are in Burkina Faso, Mexico and the island of Niue in the South Pacific, spanning a variety of building materials and climates.
A mural depicting late soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona is pictured outside the Diego Maradona stadium, before a celebration marking his 61st birth date, in Buenos Aires, Argentina October 30, 2021. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Argentina will begin a trial this week into the medical team of late soccer icon Diego Maradona over homicide by negligence, a case that has charged up emotions in the country where the World Cup winner still commands almost God-like reverence.
The trial, expected to last for months, starts on Tuesday, over four years after Maradona’s death in November 2020 from heart failure at age 60 after undergoing brain surgery days earlier. His medical team generally rejects the charges.
A court in San Isidro, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, will listen to nearly 120 testimonies. The defendants are charged with “simple homicide with eventual intent” in the treatment of the former Boca Juniors and Napoli player.
Maradona’s death rocked the South American nation where he was revered, prompting a period of mourning and angry finger pointing about who was to blame after the icon’s years-long battle with addiction and ill health.
Nicknamed “D10S”, a play on the Spanish word for god, and “Pelusa” for his prominent hair, Maradona battled alcohol and drug addiction, but was adored – including in tattoos for his flawed genius that led Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986.
That sharpened anger around his death, while a medical board appointed to investigate the circumstances concluded in early 2021 that the soccer star’s medical team had acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner”.
“I hope there’s justice because they killed him. Diego (Maradona) should be alive,” Argentina merchant Luis Alberto Suarez told Reuters in Buenos Aires. “They didn’t take care of him.”
A medical board appointed to investigate Maradona’s death found in early 2021 that the soccer star’s medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless manner”.
Not everyone was so sure, however.
“I can only speak from what I see from the outside. But we can’t say if they were wrong or not,” said self-employed worker Martin Milei.
“In hindsight, they got it completely wrong. But I think there are more people responsible than what’s being said.”
Unemployed Argentine Pablo Knopfler said he hoped that the trial would uncover the truth.
General view of the statue of late Pope John Paul II and Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis is admitted for ongoing pneumonia treatment, in Rome, Italy, March 10, 2025. Purchase Licensing Rights
Pope Francis is no longer in immediate danger of death and is responding well to treatment in hospital, the Vatican said on Monday, in a sign of progress as the 88-year-old pontiff battles double pneumonia.
Francis has been in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for more than three weeks. He was admitted on February 14 with a severe respiratory infection that has required evolving treatment.
In its latest medical update, the Vatican said the pope’s doctors had decided to lift an earlier “guarded” prognosis, meaning the pontiff was no longer in immediate danger.
“The improvements recorded in previous days have further consolidated, as confirmed by both blood tests and clinical assessments, as well as a good response to his drug treatments,” it said.
Although the doctors lifted their earlier prognosis, the Vatican said they still expect Francis “to continue medical drug treatment in a hospital setting for further days.”
No exact timeframe was given for his discharge.
The pope has been described as being in a stable or improving condition for the past week, following two crises of “acute respiratory insufficiency” on March 3.
The Vatican said earlier on Monday that Francis was continuing his treatment and was undergoing respiratory physiotherapy to help with his breathing.
The pontiff, who has used a wheelchair in recent years due to knee and back pain, also continued with some physical therapy to help with mobility, it said.
The pope is receiving oxygen in hospital, using a small oxygen hose under his nose during the day and non-invasive mechanical ventilation at night while he sleeps.
LONGEST PUBLIC ABSENCE OF PAPACY
The pope has experienced several bouts of ill health over the last two years and is prone to lung infections because he had pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
Double pneumonia is a serious infection in both lungs that can inflame and scar them, making it difficult to breathe.
Francis, who will celebrate the 12th anniversary of his 2013 election as pope on Thursday, has not been seen in public since entering hospital, the longest such absence of his papacy.
Doctors not involved in Francis’ care said the pope is likely to face a long, fraught road to recovery, given his age and other medical conditions.
The pope, who is known to work himself to exhaustion, has continued to work from hospital.
On Sunday, the pope held his third meeting during his recovery in hospital with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s second-ranking official, and Parolin’s deputy.
Tesla’s stock has dropped by nearly half in three months. Even so, investors are still debating whether Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle maker remains overpriced.
The company’s market capitalization has dropped 45% since hitting an all-time high of $1.5 trillion on December 17, erasing most of the gains the stock made after CEO Musk helped finance the election victory of U.S. President Donald Trump.
And yet Tesla (TSLA.O), continues to fetch a valuation far above those of the world’s biggest automotive and technology firms, judging by standard financial metrics. That’s because most investors and analysts have bought Musk’s pitch that the world’s most-valuable automaker isn’t really a car company at all, but rather an artificial-intelligence pioneer that will soon unleash a revolution in robotaxis and humanoid robots.
Tesla’s electric-vehicle business accounts for almost all of its revenue but less than a quarter of its stock-market value, according to a Reuters review of more than a dozen analyses by banks and investment firms. The bulk of its worth rests on hopes for autonomous vehicles Tesla hasn’t yet delivered, despite Musk’s promises in every year since 2016 that driverless Teslas would arrive no later than the following year.
The stock’s decline since December stems from falling vehicle sales and profits; protests of Musk’s political activity, including his mass firings of U.S. government workers as a senior Trump advisor; and investor worries that politics are distracting the world’s richest man from tending to his cash cow. Still, Tesla’s market capitalization remains up about $65 billion since the election – an amount higher than the entire value of General Motors (GM.N)
After this article was published on Monday, Tesla shares fell by more than 15%, slicing off more than $125 billion in market value, after UBS cut its forecast for the automaker’s first-quarter deliveries. The decline came in tandem with a broader market selloff on worries about tariffs and recession fears, with the Nasdaq losing 4% and the S&P 500 dropping 2.7%.
Tesla’s total worth of $845 billion as of Friday’s close still tops the next nine most-valuable major automakers combined, which collectively sold about 44 million cars last year, compared to Tesla’s 1.8 million.
Investors have long bet on Musk’s visions of Tesla’s tomorrow rather than its profits today. But the widening gap between its real-world performance and analysts’ earnings estimates for unborn products has prompted some to warn of irrational exuberance.
“For how much longer can the stock remain divorced from the fundamentals?” JP Morgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in January, after Tesla reported poor earnings and its first-ever annual vehicle-sales decline.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. In July, Musk said investors who don’t believe Tesla would “solve vehicle autonomy” should “sell their Tesla stock.”
ROBOTAXI PIVOT
Tesla’s previous peak value of more than $1.2 trillion came in 2021, in response to concrete achievements. Soaring sales of its ground-breaking Model 3 and Model Y had proved that EVs could sell profitably in mass volumes. Musk vowed then that Tesla would produce even cheaper EVs and sell 20 million vehicles annually by 2030, nearly double what the world’s largest automaker, Toyota (7203.T), sells now.
Musk, however, shifted from the mass-volume goal last year. In April, Reuters reported Tesla had killed a long-awaited, all-new $25,000 “Model 2” that investors had counted on to drive growth. Since then, Musk has pitched investors on Tesla’s robotaxi focus.
The pivot was persuasive: Tesla shares jumped 71% from last year’s low in April through the November election, even as its EV sales stalled and profits fell.
Then the stock nearly doubled in the weeks after Trump’s election. Musk spent more than $250 million supporting Trump and now serves as his top advisor on slashing government staff and regulations.
Musk’s political clout has convinced bullish analysts that Trump will clear regulatory roadblocks to deploying a vast fleet of Tesla robotaxis. Tesla, however, already faces little oversight from many U.S. states, which control most autonomous-vehicle regulation. Texas, where Musk promises to launch fare-collecting robotaxis by June, has barred cities from regulating them.
“There’s absolutely nothing stopping him from releasing this self-driving technology right now,” said Gordon Johnson, chief executive of investment-advisory firm GLJ Research, which recommends shorting Tesla’s stock. The tech isn’t road-ready, Johnson argues: “If he released it tomorrow, the jig would be up. These things would be wrecking across America.”
Tesla has faced lawsuits and federal investigations into accidents, including fatalities, involving the driver-assistance systems it has marketed as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. The company warns consumers, opens new tab the systems don’t make its cars autonomous and require drivers to pay strict attention. Musk has long said Tesla’s technology will soon be safer than a human driver.
FALLING SALES, RISING COMPETITION
The automaker’s core EV business is struggling. The only vehicle Tesla has launched since the 2020 Model Y is the Cybertruck. The triangular pickup had sales of 38,965 units last year, Cox Automotive estimates, well below the 250,000 that Musk initially predicted Tesla would produce by 2025. Tesla has also cut prices on the now-aging models 3 and Y amid slowing electric-vehicle demand globally and rising competition, especially in China, where EVs start below $10,000.
New data also show sharp Tesla-sales declines this year in European markets following Musk’s embrace of far-right political movements there.
Tesla now faces headwinds from the president Musk helped elect. Trump, a frequent EV critic, has called for scrapping EV subsidies and policies that have added billions of dollars to Tesla’s bottom line. Musk has dismissed the impact on Tesla of losing subsidies, saying rivals would suffer more.
When Tesla reported a 20% drop in annual operating profit in January, analysts on the earnings call asked no questions about Tesla’s financials or falling EV sales. They focused instead on Musk’s promises of “autonomous ride-hailing” in Austin, Texas, by June and a wider driverless-vehicle launch by year-end. Tesla shares rose 3% the next day.
Tesla still trades at huge premiums, as measured by forward price-to-earnings ratios. The measure is used by investors to judge whether stocks are fairly valued. A high ratio suggests shares might be overpriced.
People look at a Tesla Cybertruck at a Tesla showroom in New York City, U.S., January 2, 2025. REUTERS/Adam Gray/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Tesla’s forward PE ratio is more than nine times the average of the next 25 most-valuable automakers. It’s quadruple that of BYD (002594.SZ), the Chinese automaker that passed Tesla last year as the world’s top EV seller.
Unlike Tesla, BYD also has a booming business in gas-electric hybrids, driving total 2024 sales to about 4.2 million units, more than double Tesla’s deliveries. Yet BYD’s market capitalization is less than a sixth of Tesla’s.
Tesla’s forward PE ratio also is more than double or triple those of tech giants Nvidia (NVDA.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Meta Platforms (META.O), Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Amazon.com (AMZN.O), and Microsoft (MSFT.O), — the other six high-flying stocks, along with Tesla, known as the Magnificent Seven.
OPTIMISTIC MODELS
Bulls discount standard financial metrics for judging Tesla’s potential, arguing Musk is singularly capable of leading a transportation revolution. He has said robotaxis and robots will make Tesla the “most valuable company in the world by far.”
Brian Mulberry, client-portfolio manager at Tesla investor Zacks Investment Management, said Musk “always pulls off the technology,” despite long-running concerns about his “mad-scientist personality.”
Most analyst models reviewed by Reuters remain bullish.
Such models typically justify Tesla’s market value by breaking it into several categories: Its auto business, including services such as EV charging (now 90% of revenue); its energy-generation and storage business (10% of revenue); and three embryonic businesses: robotaxis; licensing or subscriptions for self-driving technology; and Optimus humanoid robots. Three such models in January rated EV sales as a relatively minor factor in Tesla’s expected growth.
Truist Securities attributed just 9% of Tesla’s value to car sales, 21% to driverless-tech services, 17% to robotaxis and 34% to robots.
Bank of America’s model attributes about half of Tesla’s value to robotaxis and 28% to self-driving software subscriptions.
Morgan Stanley attributes 21% to robotaxis and 39% to subscriptions for autonomous-tech and other services.
Tesla investor Ark Investment Management projects the stock will hit $2,600 by 2029, with robotaxis accounting for 88% of the company’s value. Ark forecasts Tesla could produce millions of robotaxis by then, generating about $760 billion in annual revenue. That would be more than Walmart, the world’s largest company by revenue.
Tasha Keeney, Ark’s director of investment analysis and institutional strategies, said she believes Tesla will achieve such growth by slashing the cost-per-mile of ride-hailing, making human drivers obsolete.
“It’s cheaper than driving your personal car,” she said. “Maybe people will stop even driving.”
TESLA TECH ‘DOES NOT WORK SAFELY’
Trump could potentially clear the path for driverless cars with no steering wheels or pedals because the federal government regulates the safety of vehicle designs. Musk last October unveiled a concept car with such a configuration, the two-door Cybercab, saying it would go into production in 2026.
But individual states govern autonomous-vehicle travel on public roads, limiting Trump’s influence. Some states, including Texas, have few rules. Tesla’s largest U.S. market, California, requires extensive driverless testing under state oversight before granting robotaxi permits.
A Trump move to loosen robotaxi regulation could benefit all competitors, not just Tesla. The tiny U.S. robotaxi industry, for now, is dominated by Alphabet’s Waymo, which operates hundreds of driverless taxis in cities including Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Waymo and most other autonomous-tech developers seek to ensure safety with many overlapping technologies, including artificial intelligence, radar and lidar. Tesla aims to develop much cheaper robotaxis by relying solely on cameras and AI.
Some investors doubt Tesla has found a unique path to cut-rate robotaxis. Mark Spiegel, an investment manager at Stanphyl Capital Partners, is shorting Tesla’s stock, an investment that pays off if shares fall.
Tesla’s approach to robotaxis “does not work safely and never will without radar and lidar,” Spiegel said.
And China’s BYD said last month it would offer — for free, as a standard feature — a driver-assistance technology similar to the Full Self-Driving system that Tesla sells in China for more than $8,000.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out $4 trillion from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump’s agenda.
A barrage of new Trump policies has increased uncertainty for businesses, consumers and investors, notably back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners like Canada, Mexico and China.
“We’ve seen clearly a big sentiment shift,” said Ayako Yoshioka, senior investment strategist at Wealth Enhancement. “A lot of what has worked is not working now.”
The stock market selloff deepened on Monday. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX), fell 2.7%, its biggest daily drop of the year. The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), slid 4%, its largest one-day decline since September 2022.
The S&P 500 on Monday closed down 8.6% from its February 19 record high, shedding over $4 trillion in market value since then and nearing a 10% decline that would represent a correction for the index. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended Thursday down more than 10% from its December high.
Trump over the weekend declined to predict whether the U.S. could face a recession as investors worried about the impact of his trade policy.
“The amount of uncertainty that has been created by the tariff wars with regard to Canada, Mexico and Europe, is causing boards and C-suites to reconsider the pathway forward,” Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard, speaking at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.
“People can understand ongoing tensions with China, but the Canada, Mexico, and Europe part is confusing. Unless that gets resolved over the next month or so, this could do real damage to the economic prospects of the US and M&A activity,” Orszag said.
Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), on Monday slashed its first-quarter profit estimates by half, sending its shares down 14% in aftermarket action. CEO Ed Bastian blamed heightened U.S. economic uncertainty.
Investors are also watching whether lawmakers can pass a funding bill to avert a partial federal government shutdown. A U.S. report on inflation looms on Wednesday.
“The Trump administration seems a little more accepting of the idea that they’re OK with the market falling, and they’re potentially even OK with a recession in order to exact their broader goals,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. “I think that’s a big wake up call for Wall Street.”
The percentage of total corporate equities and mutual fund shares that are owned by the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, ranked by wealth, stands at about 1%, while the same measure for the top 10% of the population by wealth stood at 87%, according to Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data as of July 2024.
The S&P 500 tallied back-to-back gains of over 20% in 2023 and 2024, led by megacap technology and tech-related stocks such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), and Tesla (TSLA.O), that have struggled so far in 2025, dragging major indexes.
On Monday, the S&P 500’s technology sector (.SPLRCT), dropped 4.3%, while Apple (AAPL.O), and Nvidia both fell about 5%. Tesla tumbled 15%, shedding about $125 billion in value.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., February 12, 2025. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Other risk assets were also punished, with bitcoin dropping 5%.
Some defensive areas of the market held up better, with the utilities sector (.SPLRCU), logging a 1% daily gain. Safe-haven U.S. government debt saw more demand, with benchmark 10-year Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, down to about 4.22%.
INVESTOR UNEASE
The S&P 500 has given up all gains recorded since Trump’s November 5 election, and it is down nearly 3% in that time. Hedge funds reduced exposure to stocks on Friday at the largest amount in more than two years, according to a Goldman Sachs note released on Monday.
Investors had expressed optimism that Trump’s expected pro-growth agenda including tax cuts and deregulation would benefit stocks, but uncertainty over tariffs and other changes including federal workforce cuts, has dampened sentiment.
“It was the overwhelming consensus that everything was going to be this great environment once President Trump came into office,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.
“Every time you have structural change you’re going to have uncertainty and you’re going to have friction,” O’Rourke said. “It’s understandable people are starting to be a little concerned and starting to take profits.”
Even with the recent selloff, stock market valuations remain significantly above historic averages. The S&P 500 as of Friday was at just above 21 times earnings estimates for the next year, compared to its long-term average forward P/E of 15.8, according to LSEG Datastream.
“Many people have been worried about elevated valuations among U.S. equities for some time and looking for the catalyst for a market correction,” said Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell. “A combination of concerns about a trade war, geopolitical tensions and an uncertain economic outlook could be that catalyst.”
Investors’ equity positioning has fallen in recent weeks, dipping to slightly underweight for the first time since briefly hitting that level in August, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note on Friday.
A further retreat to the bottom of the historic range for equities weighting, as seen during Trump’s U.S.-China trade war in 2018-2019, could drag the S&P 500 to as low as 5,300, or down another 5.5% from current levels, they added.
In another sign of growing investor unease, the Cboe Volatility index (.VIX), on Monday reached its highest closing level since August.
The CBP One app is being repurposed to allow undocumented migrants to self-deport.
The Trump administration is repurposing a mobile application – originally created to facilitate asylum appointments – into a way for undocumented migrants already in the US to “self-deport”.
The app, known as CBP Home, allows migrants to submit an “intent to depart”, which US Customs and Border Patrol says offers them a chance to leave without “harsher consequences”.
US officials have repeatedly suggested that undocumented migrants in the country should leave voluntarily, rather than be arrested and subject to deportation.
This is the latest move in the White House’s effort to dramatically overhaul the US immigration system, which has included promises of mass detentions.
Originally launched as CBP One in 2020, the mobile application was expanded during the Biden administration to allow prospective migrants to book appointments to appear at a port of entry.
At the time, officials credited the application with helping reduce detentions at the border and portrayed the technology as part of a larger effort to protect asylum seekers making the often dangerous journey.
Now, on the newly rebranded application, undocumented migrants identify themselves and declare their intention to leave the country.
In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that by self-deporting through the app, migrants “may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream”.
“If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return,” she added.
The app also asks migrants whether they have “enough money to depart the United States” and whether they have a “valid, unexpired passport from your original country of citizenship”.
The BBC has contacted DHS for further details about how the process works once the forms on the app are filled out.
CBP Home can also be used to apply and pay for I-94 entry and exit cards up to seven days before travel, book inspections for perishable cargo and check wait times at US border crossings.
According to DHS, the app is meant to complement a $200m (£155m) domestic and international ad campaign calling for undocumented migrants to “stay out and leave now”.
The Trump administration moved quickly to scrap the CBP One app as part of a larger shift in immigration strategy. It also paused parole programmes, and an uptick in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the country followed.
In late February, the administration said it would create a national registry for undocumented migrants and those failing to sign up could possibly face criminal prosecution.
A 2100 human, according to a study, will have a hunch back and claw -like hands(Image: Maple Holistics )
Experts have examined how technology is affecting the human body and have suggested that we may see some dramatic changes by the year 2100.
To fully realise the impact everyday tech has on us, experts conducted scientific research to help build a 3D design of what they suspect could be the physical changes humans may experience. The research comes after consistent use of smartphones, laptops and other tech we use on a daily basis.
Scientists named their futuristic model “Mindy”, based on their predictions for humans living in 2100. The model appears to have a hunched back from hours of sitting over computers and looking at phones.
Their design also shows Mindy having bigger neck muscles, which help to compensate for her poor posture; a thicker skull to protect from radiation; and a smaller brain that has shrunk from leading what they considered to be a predominantly inactive lifestyle.
A health and wellness expert at Maple Holistics who created the images, Caleb Backe, said: “Spending hours looking down at your phone strains your neck and throws your spine off balance. Consequently, the muscles in your neck have to expend extra effort to support your head.
“Sitting in front of the computer at the office for hours on end also means that your torso is pulled out in front of your hips rather than being stacked straight and aligned.”
Jason O’Brien, head of TollFreeForwarding.com, the company that produced the model and was behind the study, described these potential physical changes as what he considers the “trade-off” that comes with the benefits of modern technology use.
Speaking in 2019, he said: “Technology gives us convenience, connectivity, entertainment, and so much more – but there is a trade-off. Overexposure to technology can sometimes come to the detriment of our health.”
Experts predict that in fewer than 100 years, humans may also have claw-like hands after increased amounts of time gripping their mobile phones.
Dr Nikola Djordjevic, from Med Alert Help, said: “The way we hold our phones can cause strain at certain points of contact – causing ‘text claw’ and ’90-degree elbow’, also known as cubital tunnel syndrome.
“This syndrome is caused by pressure or the stretching of the ulnar nerve, which runs in a groove on the inner side of the elbow.
“This causes numbness or a tingling sensation in the ring and little fingers, forearm pain, and weakness in the hands – keeping the elbow bent for a long time.” As well as this, the scientists suggested that humans develop a double eyelid to protect their eyes from harmful light.
The research mainly centred around smartphones and acknowledged the growing concerns that radiofrequency radiation emitted from smartphones could cause when exposed to the brain.
Given the impact, the study shows the potential for Mindy to develop a thicker skull, and along with it, a smaller brain. The invisible change of her brain size is based on the scientific theory of idiocracy.
Jamie White, a reporter for Alex Jones’ Infowars, was killed in a suspected homicide outside of his home in Austin, Texas just before midnight on Sunday.
“We are deeply saddened to inform you that Infowars Reporter Jamie White was brutally murdered around midnight Sunday night due, in part, to the policies of the Soros Austin, TX D.A. Jose Garza,” announced Jones in a social media post on Monday. “We pledge that Jamie’s tragic death will not be in vain, and those responsible for this senseless violence will be brought to justice.”
Austin Police Department found White outside his apartment complex at around 11:59 p.m. on Sunday with “obvious signs of trauma.” While White was quickly transported to the hospital, he died of his injuries soon after arriving. Austin police are investigating White’s death as a homicide.
“Jamie was murdered last night outside of his home, just a few miles away from our studios,” said Jones in a video on Monday. “We sent some people over this morning when he didn’t answer the phone because he’s always here early, loves to work, loves to fight tyranny, loves to promote freedom, and when they got to the apartment complex there was yellow tape everywhere, blood all over the parking lot.”
Jones continued, “I’m gonna talk about in a moment who I hold responsible for this, and who is responsible for this, and who are accomplices to Jamie and so many others’ murder,” before describing Garza – whose campaign for district attorney was funded by billionaire Democratic Party donor George Soros – as “even worse than Alvin Bragg” and “probably the worst in the country.”
The Infowars founder cited the Austin Police Department’s budget being cut by one-third, as well as Garza’s own documented conflicts with Austin police, before arguing, “He’s doing exactly what he was put in by Soros to do, and I lay all of this squarely at the feet of these D.A.’s and at the Soros crime syndicate and at the Democratic Party. They are the ones that administratively cut the police, prosecute the police.”
A crew member remains missing after an oil tanker and cargo ship collided in the North Sea off the coast of East Yorkshire.
Dozens of people abandoned the vessels after the crash just before 9.50am, with the Coastguard rescuing 36 people.
All 23 on board the oil tanker Stena Immaculate are accounted for – but one of the 14 crew members of the Solong cargo ship is still missing.
A Coastguard search was called off around 9.40pm, while both vessels were both still on fire.
One of the 36 people rescued was taken to hospital.
Sky News understands there is a five-mile air and sea exclusion zone around the location of the incident, which may be widened to 10 miles if later required.
Both ships are on fire following the collision
The Stena Immaculate was carrying jet fuel and was on a short-term charter to the US Navy at the time of the incident.
The cargo ship was reportedly carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide and an unknown quantity of alcohol.
Two maritime security sources told Reuters there was “no indication” of any malicious activity or other actors involved in the incident.
‘Multiple explosions onboard’
US logistics group Crowley, which manages oil tanker Stena Immaculate, confirmed the vessel had released some jet fuel after sustaining a ruptured cargo tank.
The firm said it initiated its emergency vessel response plan and is “actively working with public agencies to contain the fire and secure the vessel”.
Crowley added: “Our first priority is the safety of the people and environment. We will provide more updates as information becomes available.”
Downing Street ‘monitoring situation’
The prime minister’s official spokesman said it was an “extremely concerning situation”.
He said: “We thank the emergency services for their rapid response. I understand the Department for Transport is working closely with the coastguard to help support the response to the incident.
“We’re obviously monitoring the situation, we’ll continue to coordinate the response and we’re grateful to emergency personnel for their continued efforts.”
Meanwhile, Hull City Council leader Mike Ross has called for the UK government to set out a rapid response plan in response to the events.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander later praised the work of the emergency services, adding: “The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has begun a preliminary assessment and I am working closely with the MCA (Maritime and Coastguard Agency) as they conduct an assessment of any counter pollution response which may be required over the coming days.”
Coastguard’s emergency message
Moments after the collision, a message broadcast by the Coastguard warned other ships to stay away from the area.
In audio shared on social media, the Coastguard can be heard warning Solong “has collided” with Stena Immaculate.
“Both vessels are abandoning,” the message continued.
“Vessels who have firefighting equipment or can assist with search and rescue, contact Humber Coastguard.
“Stena is carrying Jet-A1 fuel, which is on fire and in the water. Vessels – remain at safe distance.”
‘Inspectors are gathering evidence’
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is now investigating the collision.
A spokesperson said: “Our team of inspectors and support staff are gathering evidence and undertaking a preliminary assessment of the accident to determine our next steps.”
The oil tanker was sailing under a US flag, while the Solong cargo ship was Portuguese-flagged, according to Marinetraffic.com.
Overall responsibility for investigating this collision rests with the flag states of the vessels – in this case, Portugal and the United States.
MAIB has an interest as the incident occurred in UK waters, UK authorities are co-ordinating the response, and the crews of both ships were recovered to the UK.
The Solong had been due to travel to Rotterdam in the Netherlands after departing from Grangemouth in Scotland on Monday morning, Marinetraffic.com shows.
Moving images on the tracking site suggest the oil tanker had remained stationary as the Solong headed straight towards it before the collision.
It is believed the Stena Immaculate, which was travelling from Greece to the UK, was anchored at the time.
David McFarlane, director Maritime Risk and Safety Consultants, told Sky News it can take up to an hour to raise an anchor – meaning the tanker might not have had time to get out of the way.
It comes as Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Grimsby East, said the container ship may have been on autopilot at the time of the crash.
“Autopilot just steers a course, they don’t deviate, there’s no bend in the sea,” he added.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Saudi Arabia ahead of his team having talks with America’s top diplomat on Tuesday.
Mr Zelenskyy will not be at the meeting with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, but Mr Zelenskyy’s team will try to improve relations following his disastrous 28 February visit to Washington, which descended into an Oval Office argument with President Donald Trump and vice president JD Vance.
Mr Zelenskyy with Prince Saud bin Mishaal, and Saudi commerce minister Majid bin Abdullah al Qasabi. Pic: AP
Mr Zelenskyy briefly met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, after the end of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio is also in Jeddah. He is not due to meet Mr Zelenskyy – but he held talks with Prince Mohammed to discuss Yemen and threats to ships from Houthis, Syria, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
During talks on Tuesday the Ukrainian team will try to convince the US to restore military aid and intelligence that had helped Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Speaking to reporters while travelling to Jeddah, Mr Rubio said if Ukraine and the US reach an understanding acceptable to Mr Trump, that could accelerate his administration’s push to peace talks.
“What we want to know is, are they interested [in] entering some sort of peace conversation and general outlines of the kinds of things they could consider, recognising that it has been a costly and bloody war for the Ukrainians,” Mr Rubio said.
“They have suffered greatly and their people have suffered greatly. And it’s hard in the aftermath of something like that to even talk about concessions, but that’s the only way this is going to end and prevent more suffering.”
He said: “I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do. I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
He added: “The most important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this conflict.”
Meanwhile, British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Mr Trump on Monday ahead of the US-Ukraine meeting.
A Downing Street readout of the call said that Sir Keir told the president that “UK officials had been speaking to Ukraine officials over the weekend and they remain committed to a lasting peace”.
“The prime minister said he hoped there would be a positive outcome to the talks that would enable US aid and intelligence sharing to be restarted,” the statement said.
“The two leaders also spoke about the economic deal they had discussed at the White House and the prime minister welcomed the detailed conversations that had already happened to move this forward. Both leaders agreed to stay in touch.”
The European Union agreed last week to boost the continent’s defences and free up hundreds of billions of euros for security in response to the Trump administration’s shift in policy towards Ukraine.
Elon Musk called a Democratic senator a ‘traitor’ after he visited Ukraine. File pic: Reuters
A US senator has hit back at Elon Musk, saying the billionaire Trump adviser is “not a serious guy” after he branded the politician a “traitor” for visiting Ukraine.
Mark Kelly, the Democrat senator for Arizona and a former US navy combat pilot, made his third visit to Kyiv since 2023 earlier this month, meeting with wounded service members and Ukrainian officials.
Posting on X after he left the country, he said “what I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people”, and in a break from US President Donald Trump’s stance on negotiations, called for security guarantees in any peace deal.
“Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin,” he said.
Mr Musk, who also leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory department under the Trump administration, replied on X and said: “You are a traitor.”
Firing back at the Tesla chief, Mr Kelly said: “Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”
He then told reporters back in the US the billionaire is “obviously not a serious guy”.
It comes as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Saudi Arabia ahead of his team having talks with America’s top diplomat on Tuesday.
Mr Zelenskyy will not be at the meeting with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, but his team will try to improve relations following his disastrous 28 February visit to Washington, which descended into an Oval Office argument with the US president and vice president JD Vance.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama will talk divorce, newfound freedom, and friendship—but refuses to delve into politics—on a newly announced podcast with her brother, it was revealed Monday.
The New York Times disclosed the existence of the podcast, called IMO, which stands for “in my opinion,” and reviewed its first two episodes. The production, a video-led podcast, will be released to the public on Wednesday.
It features the former first lady and her brother, Craig Robinson, who is the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The pair talk about a variety of subjects but sidestep politics and current affairs, instead opting for a lifestyle-themed format.
That does not mean they avoid heavy-hitting subjects, however. The pair opened up about Robinson’s divorce from his first wife, Janis Robinson, in 2000, according to the Times. The former college basketball coach remarried in 2006 to his current wife, Kelly McCrum Robinson. The Obamas, too, have faced a wave of speculation about marital troubles in recent months.
The pair also discuss Michelle’s marriage with her husband, former President Barack Obama, and his relationship with politics, the paper reported.
The couple has been dogged by persistent rumors about the state of their marriage, including that he had been dating actress Jennifer Aniston.
The Friends star denied a romance with Obama on Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying that she has only “met him once.”
“I know Michelle more than him,” she said.
While Michelle Obama may address her marriage on her new podcast, one area she is keen to avoid is politics, which she said in her 2018 memoir Becoming that she “never wanted to be involved in.”
The Times reports that she addresses this subject with her brother on IMO. As a pair, they also talk about their tough upbringing in Chicago, Ill. They shared a room in a small apartment in the city.
Obama also says that after years of Secret Service protection and restrictions, she has gotten back behind the wheel.
The paper states that hosts “mainly offered advice based on their life experiences” and will eventually welcome celebrity guests, some of whom appeared on Obama’s previous production, The Michelle Obama Podcast. This includes director Tyler Perry and new guests, like actors Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer.
On the second episode of the new show, the pair will be joined by writer, actress, and producer Issa Rae, who will speak about maintaining adult friendships.
The new show is produced by the Obamas’ media company, Higher Ground, alongside Audible, which is owned by Amazon.
One audience likely to be listening assiduously is Republicans, particularly President Donald Trump, because of her formidable polling if she were to run for president. When former President Joe Biden pulled out of the presidential race last year, Trump was fascinated by the prospect of running against her, best-selling author Michael Wolff revealed in his book All or Nothing, to the extent that he had decided on a nickname for her.
AN EasyJet pilot was suspended after his packed holiday jet flew too close to a mountain and was just seconds away from disaster.
Captain Paul Elsworth was grounded following the cockpit drama as the plane descended towards the Red Sea resort of Hurghada in Egypt.
An EasyJet pilot has been suspended after almost colliding into a mountain (stock)Credit: Getty
The Ground Proximity Warning System in the cockpit was triggered and dramatically sounded an impending crash warning.
The alert rang out ‘pull up, terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up, terrain ahead, pull up’ and a dramatic last-gasp manoeuvre – pulling on the joystick to level off the plane – saved up to 190 passengers and crew on-board.
The GPWS alert is recognised as a last resort to prevent a controlled flight into terrain.
The Airbus A320 flew over the mountain range at an altitude of just 3,100ft.
The peak of the mountain near the plane was just 771ft away from the twin-jet aircraft at an altitude of 2,329ft.
Pilots normally clear the mountain range at around 6,000ft, showing just how low the plane had flown.
Sources revealed that the jet had been descending at 4,928ft per minute, which has been dubbed “ridiculously unsafe,” before the GPWS sounded and it levelled out.
The aircraft, which had taken off from Manchester, should have been travelling slower and with a shallower rate of descent, experts said.
An official investigation into the February 2 drama of Flight EZY2251 will include details of how Capt Elsworth reported the safety scare.
The Sun understands the 61-year-old pilot registered the incident the following day – February 3 – before he was due to leave the crew hotel and head to Hurghada airport, ready to pilot the plane back to Manchester.
But EasyJet officials escalated the incident within minutes – recognising the severity of the cockpit drama.
No blame has yet been apportioned for the harrowing incident.
However, in line with protocol, bosses immediately banned Capt Elsworth, who lives in Cheshire, from flying the plane back to the UK.
A source said: “Within moments of the flight drama being raised, officials stepped in and Paul Elsworth was forbidden from piloting the plane. Another flight crew brought the jet home.
“The pilot will be asked detailed questions. The GPWS only sounds when a plane is heading into terrain – in this instance a mountain.
“Passengers on-board are understood to have been oblivious to the scare, and unaware of just how close they came to the mountain range as the plane descended into Egypt.”
After being stood down, Capt Elsworth was flown back to Manchester as a passenger, seated in the cabin.
Once back in the UK, the experienced flyer was officially suspended while investigations continue.
Despite the senior pilot being banned, the same plane—registered G-UZHA—flew back to the UK, and the cockpit voice recorder was overridden, The Sun understands.
Capt Elsworth’s account, and responses from the First Officer who was sat alongside him, will help investigators.
Capt Elsworth made headlines in 2016 when his son Luke became the youngest professional pilot at just 19 after following in his father’s footsteps at EasyJet.
The proud dad said at the time: “Luke has worked really hard. I have as much confidence in Luke flying as I have in myself—and I’ve been doing this for 32 years.” Luke now flies for British Airways.
Last night the suspended pilot advised it would be inappropriate for him to comment while there is an ongoing investigation.
The Civil Aviation Authority is waiting to review how the incident is investigated by EasyJet bosses – including how the airline ‘manages their risk’.
North Korean hackers have reportedly cash out $300million out of their record breaking $1.5billion crypto scamCredit: Getty
These criminals reportedly swipe online money to help fund Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear programme.
The Lazarus Group’s latest hit was orchestrating the world’s largest heist in crypto history two weeks ago.
Fraudsters were able to access the £1.5billion wallet and transfer the contents to an unidentified address.
Authorities have attempted to track the digital coins and stop criminals from turning them into real cash.
Despite this, the alleged North Korean hackers have been able to cash out on around an eye-watering $300million.
Experts have revealed that Kim’s nation has unexpectedly become one of the best countries at crypto crime, according to the BBC.
These criminals are thought to be working round-the-clock to turn as much of their stolen Ethereum into usable cash.
Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic said: “Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing.”
Robinson added: “I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience.
“We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”
North Korea has never admitted to being behind the Lazarus group but the FBI has named Park Jin Hyok as one of the alleged hackers.
Dubai-based exchange Bybit admitted that around 20 per cent of the stolen crypto has “gone dark”, meaning it will probably never be found.
The group of high-profile, extremely skilled hackers has developed what experts describe as a powerful and sophisticated system that can breach security layers and steal money.
They have previously ripped a whopping $5billion worth of digital money from the West.
The Lazarus group then used their system on 21 February to carry out what the CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, called “the worst hack in history”.
Zhou said he would cover the lost money but the attack caused the value of Ethereum to drop by about four per cent.
Bybit, which oversees $20billion worth of assets, did not have enough on hand to cover the $1.5billion loss so borrowing from other firms to keep the company afloat.
Former central banker Mark Carney won the race to become leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and will succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister, official results showed on Sunday.
Carney will take over at a tumultuous time in Canada, which is in the midst of a trade war with longtime ally the United Statesunder President Donald Trump and must hold a general election soon.
Carney, 59, took 86% of votes cast to beat former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a contest in which just under 152,000 party members voted.
“There’s someone who’s trying to weaken our economy,” Carney said of Trump, spurring loud boos at the party gathering. “He’s attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses. We can’t let him succeed.”
“This won’t be business as usual,” Carney said. “We will have to do things that we haven’t imagined before, at speeds we didn’t think possible.”
Trudeau announced in January that he would step down after more than nine years in power as his approval rating plummeted, forcing the ruling Liberal Party to run a quick contest to replace him.
“Make no mistake, this is a nation-defining moment. Democracy is not a given. Freedom is not a given. Even Canada is not a given,” Trudeau said.
Carney, a political novice, argued that he was best placed to revive the party and to oversee trade negotiations with Trump, who is threatening additional tariffs that could cripple Canada’s export-dependent economy.
Trudeau has imposed C$30 billion of retaliatory tariffs on the United States in response to tariffs Trump levied on Canada.
“My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect,” Carney said.
Mark Carney, Ottawa, March 9, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio/Pool Purchase Licensing Rights
Carney’s win marks the first time an outsider with no real political background has become Canadian prime minister. He has said his experience as the first person to serve as the governor of two G7 central banks – Canada and England – meant he was the best candidate to deal with Trump.
The prospect of a fresh start for the Liberal Party under Carney, combined with Trump’s tariffs and his repeated taunts to annex Canada as the 51st U.S. state, led to a remarkable revival of Liberal fortunes.
RALLY-AROUND-THE-FLAG MOMENT
At the start of 2025 the party trailed by 20 or more points but is now statistically tied with the official opposition Conservatives led by career politician Pierre Poilievre in several polls.
At a protest outside Canada’s Parliament building in Ottawa on Sunday, dozens of Canadians held up signs protesting Trump with no reference to domestic politics.
“There is a rallying-around-the-flag moment that we would never have predicted a year ago,” said University of British Columbia politics professor Richard Johnston. “I think it’s probably true as we speak that the Liberals have been saved from oblivion.”
Polls though indicate that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives would be able to form a majority government. An election must be held by October 20.
Two Liberal Party sources said Carney would call an election in coming weeks, meaning one could take place much sooner.
Carney could legally serve as prime minister without a seat in the House of Commons but tradition dictates that he should seek to win one as soon as possible.
Nordic Skiing – FIS Nordic World Ski Championships – Trondheim, Norway – March 8, 2025 Norway’s Marius Lindvik in action during men’s large hill first round REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Norway’s ski jumping team deliberately cheated by using manipulated jumpsuits at the Nordic World Ski Championships, where two of their competitors were disqualified during Saturday’s ski jumping event, the Norwegian Ski Federation said on Sunday.
Marius Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang were disqualified from the men’s large hill competition, while Joergen Graabak was also disqualified from Friday’s Nordic Combined team event, but this was related to his bindings.
“The support system has explained that on Friday, they chose to put a reinforced thread in the jumpsuit of Forfang and Lindvik,” Norway Ski Federation general manager Jan-Erik Aalbu told a press conference.
“This was done knowing that this is not within the regulations, but with a belief that it would not be discovered by FIS’s equipment controller.
“The way I consider this. We have cheated. We have tried to cheat the system. That is unacceptable.”
Lindvik had finished second but was denied the silver medal following his disqualification after an equipment inspection, along with compatriot Forfang who had finished fourth.
Race director Sandro Pertile said afterwards that they had received information prior to the event about possible manipulations of the suits, and had also received an official protest from three nations.
The organisers found nothing untoward during the initial check, but after the race they discovered different material in the seams.
Earlier on Sunday, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) said that their Independent Ethics and Compliance Office had begun an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disqualifications.
“I welcome the fact that FIS is now also opening an investigation. And of course, we will cooperate fully with them,” Aalbu said.
Lindvik had earlier won gold in the normal hill event, and was also part of the mixed team which won the large hill while the Norwegian women won the normal hill. Aalbu said their cheating was related only to Saturday’s event.
“There is no indication that this form of manipulation has been used earlier in the season, or in this championship,” he said.
“I have been working again with the support system last night and throughout the day, that this was only, if you can use that word, two suits. Saturday’s competition, and nothing earlier in the championship.
DONALD Trump has warned “monster” nuclear weapons could “end the world” as he sounded the alarm over atomic armageddon.
The President issued the stark warning in a TV interview on Sunday morning after he floated new arms controls with Russia and China.
Trump speaking on Fox News on Sunday
In an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on her show Sunday Morning Futures, Trump said he believes nukes are one of the greatest threats to mankind.
In a chilling warning, he said if nukes are ever used again it could trigger the apocalypse.
The US has the second largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world with around 5,000 weapons.
Russia has the most with nearly 6,000, with China a distant third with around 350.
Nuclear weapons have only been used in anger twice – when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War 2.
Speaking on Fox, Trump said: “We spend a lot of money of nuclear weapons – the level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine.
“It’s just bad that you have to spend all this money on something that if it’s used, it’s probably the end of the world.”
The 78-year-old went on to say that too many people are focused on claims of climate change – rather than tackling the global threat posed by nukes.
The President said the threat of nuclear weapons is immediate, warning: “It could happen tomorrow.”
Trump explained: “I watched Biden for years say the existential threat is from the climate.
“I said ‘no’.
“The greatest is sitting on shelves in various countries called ‘nuclear weapons’ that are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles.”
It comes France offered to use its nukes to protect Europe from Russia.
Fears over nuclear war loom amid unprecdented tensions worldwide as war rages in Ukraine, China threatens the US over trade tensions, and North Korean despot Kim Jong-un continues to arm.
Iran is also feared to be developing nukes – with Trump sending them a letter this week calling for a new round of talks.
Nuclear weapons […] are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles
Russia has repeatedly rattled the nuclear sabre in the war in Ukraine – and Putin has long threatened the world with his ambitious “super weapons”, such as the Satan 2 nuke.
Trump has long vowed to be the president of peace and said he wants to end wars worldwide – especially the raging conflict in Ukraine.
His comments came mere days after he revealed on Friday that it would be “great” for the world to “get rid of nuclear weapons” – prompting a response from the Kremlin.
The Republican said on Friday: “I know Russia and us have by far the most.
“China will have an equal amount within 4-5 years.
“It would be great if we could all denuclearise because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy.”
Trump’s de-nuking suggestion prompted a response from Kremlin spokesman and Putin puppet Dmitry Peskov.
He said: “Dialogue between Russia and the US on arms control is necessary, especially concerning strategic stability.”
Since taking office Trump has dramatically veered in favour of Putin’s Russia, withdrawn US military aid for Ukraine, and stopped sharing intelligence with the invaded nation.
European countries have been scrambling to chip away their reliance on the US, with Keir Starmer announcing a hike to defence spending in the UK.
And on Wednesday, French President Macron said that his country could gear up its nuclear deterrent to protect the continent under a defensive umbrella against Russian aggression.
Moscow said the speech was threatening towards Russia and had “notes of nuclear blackmail”.
Trump also labelled Zelensky as “ungrateful” and believes the Ukrainian president took US cash like “candy from a baby” for war-torn Ukraine.
Top diplomats from the US including Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet the Ukrainian delegation for talks on ending the war in Saudi Arabia in a few days.
The US President said: “It was like taking candy from a baby what he did.
“He’s a smart guy, and he’s a tough guy, and he took money out of this country under Biden like candy from a baby – it was so easy with that same attitude.
“I just don’t think he’s grateful. We gave him $350 billion.”
Trump also stressed that he has been “very tough with Russia, tougher than anyone has ever been to Russia”.
Trump’s past comments, including labelling the Ukrainian leader a “dictator,” fuelled speculation that he was siding with Moscow, and he has previously cast doubt on continued US support for Ukraine.
Slamming these claims, the Republican said: “I stopped the Russian pipeline, I’m the one that put sanctions on Russia, I’m the one that gave the Javelins, but I get along well with Putin.
“Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump and they know that.”
He added that despite the tough measures previously taken against mad Vlad’s nation, he “got along with Putin,” just like he “got along with Kim Jong-un” and China’s President Xi Jinping.
Putin is said to be ready to talk about a truce with Ukraine as long as his conditions are met, sources in Moscow have said.
The Kremlin’s conditions for a potential truce were shared last month at the US-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
To secure a temporary ceasefire, Putin wants a clear understanding of an eventual peace settlement and what that entails, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
As part of the agreement, Putin will demand to establish the parameters of a peacekeeping mission and which countries take part, one of the sources said.
It comes as thousands of Ukrainian troops who took control of Russian territory over the summer, have almost been “cut off” by Russian forces who have encircled them.
As Trump left Kyiv’s troops “fighting blind” axing intelligence sharing, the Ukrainian soldiers have almost lost their main supply lines, open source maps revealed on Friday.
Over the past three days, a Russian counteroffensive has managed to reclaim territory in the Kursk region and almost cut Zelensky’s forces in two.
The creator of the disturbing ‘Trump Gaza’ AI-generated video which went viral last month has said he didn’t expect it to end up as part of a ‘propaganda machine’ and insists artificial intelligence should be banned for political use.
Captioned ‘Gaza 2025 – what’s next?’, the video showed AI-generated likenesses of displaced Gazans walking through the rubble before transitioning to a newer, Dubai-esque city.
Skyscrapers bordering the coastline with blue water and palm trees were shown in the fake video, along with Elon Musk munching on a snack of some kind in the sun.
A song singing ‘Trump Gaza is finally here, golden future, a brand new life’ played in the background of the disturbing video.
Trump was even seen next to a woman belly-dancing, as Musk threw money in the air as young children jumped up to catch it.
The video understandably sparked outrage, and Solo Avital, a US-Israeli content creator who works with EyeMix, said he intended the video to be satire when he made it – but not a ‘propaganda machine’.
The video also appeared to show Hamas members as bellydancers (Picture: Truth Social)
Atival told Reuters: ‘I believe that AI should be banned by politicians. I mean, if the politicians should do justice for AI in their own lawmaking processes, they should first and foremost ban AI for politicians, or political use.’
He and Ariel Vromen co-founded EyeMix, based out of Los Angeles, explained they were testing a new AI software, Arcane, when they thought: ‘Hey, why don’t we do that? Let’s do a little satire’, after seeing Trump’s comments about the ‘Gaza Riviera’.
Vromen said: ‘The idea was like, how Trump wants to turn Gaza into Vegas. We wanted to have an internal laugh about it. It was a joke.
‘With humor, there is truth, you know, but it was not our intention to be a propaganda machine.’
The duo claim they have no idea how Trump found the video, as they had posted it on their personal Instagram for just a few hours and then circulated it among some friends.
After it got picked up by Trump, Arcana Labs CEO Jonathan Yunger told NBC: ‘The fact that the president took it and posted it as his own, I think, is one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen in my life.
‘The video is not breaking any laws, as far as I’m concerned. And artists are going to express themselves. What people decide to do with that, you know, is up to them.’
The video concludes with a large golden statue of Trump in the centre of a city square, and a shirtless Trump and Netanyahu lounging in the sun.
Itwas inspired following a White House news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, where the president detailed a plan to build new settlements for Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip and redevelop the war-torn territory into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’.
‘Oh I think they’d love to leave Gaza if they had an option,’ said Trump on Tuesday afternoon. ‘Right now they don’t have an option. What are they going to do? They have to go back to Gaza.’
‘I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy. You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. It’s all death.
Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has been named Canadian prime minister after winning the Liberal Party leadership in a landslide victory.
Mr Carney, who also used to head up Canada’s central bank, had emerged as the frontrunner as his country was hit with tariffs imposed by President Trump.
He ended up winning 85.9% of the vote.
During his victory speech, he told the crowd: “Donald Trump, as we know, has put unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell and how we make a living.
“He’s attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses and we cannot let him succeed and we won’t.”
Mr Carney said Canada would keep retaliatory tariffs until “the Americans show us respect”.
Mr Trump’s tariffs against Canada and his talk of making the country America’s 51st state have infuriated Canadians.
The American national anthem has been repeatedly booed at NHL and NBA games.
“Think about it. If they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life… America is a melting pot. Canada is a mosaic,” Mr Carney added.
“America is not Canada. Canada will never ever be part of America in any way, shape or form.”
The 59-year-old will replace Justin Trudeau, who has served as prime minister since 2015.
Mr Trudeau announced he was stepping down in January after facing calls to quit from a chorus of his own MPs.
The 53-year-old’s popularity had declined as food and house prices rose. He will stay in post until Mr Carney is sworn in.
Mr Carney will soon have to decide when to call a general election – a vote must take place on or before 20 October.
In 2013, he became the first non-UK citizen to run the Bank of England since it was founded in 1694.
His appointment came after Canada recovered from the 2008 financial crisis faster than many other countries.
During leadership debates, Mr Carney argued he was the only person prepared to handle Trump.
The Latvian president has urged European countries to “absolutely” introduce conscription, as he conceded the continent was “quite weak” militarily.
Edgars Rinkevics told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that European countries should increase defence spending amid the “ups and downs” in relations with the US.
Latvia introduced conscription for men in 2023 and has pushed defence spending to 4% of the country’s GDP.
“Seeing what is happening in the world, the decision that we took – many other European countries need to follow that,” Mr Rinkevics said.
“A lot of people are a little bit nervous. People are following the news. Of course strong reassurances [are] one thing, but another thing is other European governments [have] to make sure that we all get stronger.”
UK Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said the government is not considering introducing conscription, but decisions may be needed in the future to respond to the “new reality” we are now living in.
He said: “We are not considering conscription, but of course we have announced a major increase in defence expenditure.
“We do have to recognise that the world has changed. The phrase ‘step-up’ is used a lot. Europe does have to step-up in terms of its own defence.”
Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Riga, Latvia last January. Pic: AP Photo/Roman Koksarov
But Mr Rinkevics said he believes that both Europe and the US “understand the risks and the threats” of the future of NATO.
“An attack against any of NATO member means an attack against other NATO members, Europeans and non-Europeans. If there is a failure to fulfil article five, then I think everybody really understands this is the end of NATO.”
While calling Latvia and fellow Baltic states Estonia and Lithuania the “litmus test of NATO”, Mr Rinkevics also called for an increase in “the overall presence” on the countries’ borders with Russia amid “increasing risks”.
“What is now important is not only declarations, but also how those declarations are being implemented. I’m fine with the wordings, but we also need some deeds,” he said.
After the US’s change in long-standing policy towards Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks, Mr Rinkevics insisted that Latvia’s cooperation with the US is “good” but insisted that “we do see the need also to apply equal pressure vis-a-vis Russia when it comes to the peace talks in Ukraine”.
He said: “I do see that the United States are right when it comes to requesting more defence spending for NATO European allies. But what I also believe is needed is the kind of diplomatic approach that we tried to explain our point of view to the United States.
“We are concentrating very much on the United States. Unfortunately, what we are not talking so much [about is] what we as Europe should do, and we see that Europe currently is quite weak.
“We all understand that we do not have military capacity, but we also understand that we need to build it up. So my current suggestion would be – while I do see some differences with the United States when it comes to how to approach Ukraine – to concentrate on our own task to raise defence expenditure.”
MARK Carney has been announced as Canada’s new Prime Minister after Justin Trudeau stepped down from the role.
Liberal Party members confirmed the 59-year-old’s new position on Sunday night at the Rogers Center in Ottawa.
Liberal Party of Canada Leader Mark Carney speaks following the announcement of his win at the party’s announcement event in OttawaCredit: AP
Carney vowed to his party’s faithful that Canada will never be part of America in “any way, shape or form”.
The rebuke of neighbouring President Donald Trump could set the important North American relationship off on a rocky footing with the American also slapping tariffs on Canada.
Carney said: “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.
“The Americans should make no mistake – in trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.
Addressing Trump’s tariff threats, Carney said: “We cannot let him succeed and we won’t.”
Carney saw off rival Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s former deputy prime minister, and won 85.9 per cent of the total votes.
His position at the helm as the governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England during the 2008 financial crisis and the fallout from the 2016 Brexit vote made him a popular choice.
The political novice was the front-runner for the role after Trudeau announced his resignation in January as he faced a crushing election defeat.
He received a slew of support including endorsements from the majority of Trudeau’s cabinet.
Carney, a centrist, will be taking over as PM at a turbulent time as Canada faces tariff and annexing threats from US President Donald Trump, which saw Trudeau hold back tears in his final days.
Meanwhile, Trudeau spoke his final words as the leader of Canada.
In front of hundreds of his party members, he opened his speech and said: “I’m damn proud of what we’ve done over these past 10 years. But tonight is about our future as a party, as a country.”
He added: “Your country needs you maybe more than ever. And I have no doubt that you will answer the call, because you’ve done it before. Liberals will meet this moment.
He describes it as a “nation-defining moment”, adding: “Democracy is not a given, freedom is not a given, even Canada is not a given.”
The process to choose Canada’s next PM began on February 26 with the almost 400,000 Liberal Party members voting online through a verified process and ranking their favourites.
The new leader is expected to trigger an election shortly afterward. Either the new Liberal party leader will call one, or the opposition parties in Parliament could force one with a no-confidence vote later this month.
On Tuesday, the US slapped a brutal 25 per cent tariff on all goods imported from Canada, and despite a softening from Trump, the damage has been done.
This is a challenge, Carney says he is more than prepared to take on.
At his final rally on Friday, the former governor slammed Trump, accusing him of “attacking” Canada.
On multiple occasions, Trump said that it would be a “great idea” to make Canada the 51st state of the US.
Carney said: “He is attacking what we build. He is attacking what we sell. He is attacking how we earn our living.
“We are facing the most serious crisis in our lifetime. Everything in my life has prepared me for this moment.”
Polling from earlier in the week by the firm Angus Reid showed that the majority of Canadians from across the political spectrum back Carney as their choice to face off with the American president.
It is hoped that the PM will be able to see the governing Liberals through the upcoming federal election as current polls show a narrow win by the rival Conservative Party.
According to data collected by Angus Reid, 43 per cent of Canadians back Carney to deal with Trump compared to the 34 per cent who support Tory leader Pierre Poilievre.
A win by Freeland would have shocked Liberals and made them more fearful of an election loss.
Thanks to Trudeau’s unpopularity following his scandal-hit decade in power, she would have struggled to shake off the connection as the Conservatives attack the former Prime Minister’s record.
The election, which must take place by October 20, could happen in a matter of weeks so Carney will have to hit the ground running to win over voters.
Carney’s new role as Prime Minister is his first position in parliament and elected office – something that could work in his favour or be to his detriment in the upcoming election.
He has sold himself to supporters as a breath of fresh air for the Liberal Party, as there is no overlap with himself and Trudeau.
At his closing rally he said that across the country, Canadians want change and that he, as a political outsider, can give them that.
“It’s getting to the point where after two months I may have to start calling myself a politician,” he joked with supporters.
A PLANE has crashed into a retirement village parking lot and burst into ferocious flames, injuring five people.
Emergency services rushed to the residential neighborhood in Manheim, Pennsylvania, to find black smoke filling the skies.
The wreckage burned away in the parking lotCredit: x/@nicksortor
The plane avoided smashing into buildings by mere meters, but landed on top of cars, “severely” damaging five and set some ablaze, officials said.
Scott Little, the fire chief in Manheim Township, said all five aboard had been taken to hospital, but did not give an update on their conditions.
Nobody on the ground was injured and no buildings were damaged.
The light aircraft came down in the parking lot of Brethren Village Retirement Home, just off the Lititz Pike road, at 3:18pm on Sunday.
The Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft had taken off from Lancaster Airport – less than a mile away.
According to audio from Air Traffic Control, the pilot told the Lancaster Airport control tower that one of the doors was open, so he needed to “return for landing.”
ATC cleared the plane to return, but a few seconds later urged the pilot to “pull up”.
Footage posted to social media shows a wreckage burning fiercely amongst parked cars, with sections of the metalwork disintegrating.
Nearby cars can also be seen blazing away, and the plane’s tail appears to be propped up on vehicle.
Huge jets of water can be made out, shot into the flames by fire fighters.
Brian Pipkin was driving nearby when he noticed the plane climbing before it suddenly veered to the left.
He said: “And then it went down nose first. There was an immediate fireball.”
Pipkin called 911 and then drove to the crash site, where he recorded video of the aftermath.
He continued: “A fire truck from the airport arrived within moments, and more first responders followed quickly.
“It was so smoky and it was so hot. They were really struggling to get the fire out.”
Duane Fisher, Manheim Township Police Chief, said: “At no point on the ground was anyone injured, at no point did the plane or aircraft strike any part of the structure.
“The fact that we have a plane crash where everybody survives and nobody on the ground is hurt is a wonderful thing.
“Anytime you have transportation, you always have risk when people are moving, but having this type of ending so far is a great day for us.”
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said: “Our team at [Pennsylvania Police] is on the ground assisting local first responders following the small private plane crash near Lancaster Airport in Manheim Township.
“All Commonwealth resources are available as the response continues, and more information will be provided as it becomes available.”
Manheim is just south of Lancaster, south-east Pennsylvania.
This comes barely a month after another plane crash in the state, when a medical jet plunged into a Philadelphia street – killing six.
Weapons such as these US artillery rockets were sent to Ukraine, until US President Donald Trump stopped all deliveriesImage: U.S. Army/Avalon/Photoshot/picture alliance
One sentence in the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) may come as a surprise at first glance: global arms exports have more or less stagnated and barely changed compared to the period from 2010-2019. But a closer look at the individual countries points to the dramatic geopolitical changes currently shaking up the world order.
Ukraine has been the largest recipient of heavy weapons in the world in the period from 2020-2024. The country attacked by Russia has increased its imports almost a hundredfold, a breathtaking development, compared to the period from 2015-2019. Almost 9% of all global arms exports ended up in Ukraine.
Russia’s aggression and fear of the US
In the same period, arms imports from other European countries rose by 155%. This is also a direct consequence of Russian aggression, which began in February 2022. According to SIPRI researchers in Stockholm, the reason for this is also uncertainty about the future direction of US foreign policy.
“The new arms transfers figures clearly reflect the rearmament taking place among states in Europe in response to the threat from Russia. However, some major arms importers, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, saw large declines in import volumes for a variety of reasons, despite high threat perceptions in their regions,” says Mathew George, one of the authors of the new report.
According to the report, 35 countries have participated in arms deliveries to Ukraine in the period between 2020 and 2024, around 8.8% of all global imports. The US accounted for 45% of all deliveries, followed by Germany with 12% and Poland with 11%.
These ratios once again clearly show how problematic it would be if the US, under the new President Donald Trump, actually withdraws military support for Ukraine altogether. Ukraine was the only European country among the top ten arms importers worldwide in the period between 2020-2024, although other European countries also significantly increased their arms orders and deliveries.
“With an increasingly belligerent Russia and transatlantic relations under stress during the first Trump presidency, European NATO states have taken steps to reduce their dependence on arms imports and to strengthen the European arms industry,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfer Program.
“But the transatlantic arms-supply relationship has deep roots. Imports from the US have risen and European NATO states have almost 500 combat aircraft and many other weapons still on order from the US,” he added. Donald Trump was already US President from 2017 to 2021 and took office again in January of this year. This week, he halted military support for Ukraine following an unprecedented dispute with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Whether it will stay that way has yet to be seen.
US remains biggest arms exporter, Russia falls behind
The United States remains the biggest exporter of weapons worldwide and delivered to a total of 107 countries between 2020 and 2024. “The US is in a unique position when it comes to arms exports. At 43%, its share of global arms exports is more than four times as much as the next-largest exporter, France,” said Mathew George.
Russia, on the other hand, exported 63% fewer weapons between 2015 and 2024, and in 2021 and 2022 the total volume was the lowest in the past two decades. No wonder: apparently the country was already arming itself in preparation for war rather than selling weapons elsewhere.
“The war against Ukraine has further accelerated the drop in Russia’s arms exports because more weapons are needed on the battlefield, trade sanctions make it harder for Russia to produce and sell its weapons, and the US and its allies pressure states not to buy Russian arms,” Wezeman said. If the country was still selling weapons, it was mainly to China and India.
Stagnation in volume but with major shifts
While arms imports by states in the Middle East fell by 20% between 2015-19 and 2020-24, four of the ten largest recipient countries of weapons from 2020-2024 were states in the Gulf region: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait. Four other countries in the top ten recipients came from Asia and Oceania: India, Pakistan, Japan and Australia.
Siemon Wezeman, another senior researcher at SIPRI, is surprised that so little attention is paid to this: “While arms imports to Europe and the Middle East continue to grab media attention, Asia and Oceania remained the largest arms-importing region in the world in 2020–24, as it has been almost invariably since the early 1990s.”
Despite the war in the Gaza Strip, which began in October 2023, there was virtually no change in Israel’s arms imports between 2015 and 2024. The Israelis have mainly used weapons that had already been supplied to them, primarily from the US, according to the SIPRI report.
The global arms trade is stagnating in terms of overall volume, but the changes between the countries that ultimately receive the weapons are serious.
Nuuk is the capital of Greenland, home to around 20,000 peopleImage: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo/picture alliance
In normal times, this election probably wouldn’t be of too much interest to the rest of the world. Around 40,000 voters will choose just 31 parliamentarians, and it will all take place on an island that isn’t even fully autonomous.
But these are not normal times and this election is in Greenland on March 11, which means it could prove a starting point for further geopolitical upheaval in the Northern Hemisphere.
Firstly, because supporters of independence for Greenland hope the ballot may result in a strong mandate for Greenland’s complete separation from Denmark. Currently Greenland, a former Danish colony, is a self-governing territory of the latter.
And secondly, and probably most importantly, because US President Donald Trump has been talking about making Greenland part of the US ever since he was elected last November.
Greenland’s mineral wealth
Trump has frequently spoken of how it would be in the interests of US security to control Greenland. Since the 1950s, the US has run the Pituffik Space Base, in the northwest of Greenland.
It is the Americans’ northernmost post and plays a key role in missile warnings and space surveillance. Previously, during the Cold War, it was called the Thule Air Base and was there to send early warnings and initiate defense against potential Soviet attacks.
Other than security issues, economics might also play a part in Trump’s claims on Greenland. In the south of Greenland, there are thought to be valuable deposits of oil, gas, gold, uranium and zinc.
Thanks to climate change, which is thawing Greenland’s ground out, mining these deposits will eventually become easier.
During his first term in office, in 2019, Trump offered to buy Greenland. The government in Denmark swiftly rejected that.
But this term, Trump has continued to express expansionist intentions, over Canada, the Panama Canal and Gaza, as well as Greenland.
Even before he took up office in January, Trump sent his son, Donald Trump Jr., to Greenland — although officially he was there as a tourist.
A few weeks later, a poll was published showing that only 6% of Greenlanders wanted their island to become part of the US, while 85% opposed to the idea.
In his speech to Congress early in March, President Trump addressed his desire again, directing his comments to the people of Greenland.
“We strongly support your right to determine your own future,” Trump said. But just two sentences later, he seemed to renege on that, stating, “I think we’re going to get it [Greenland] — one way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
Foreign interference?
Given this and upcoming elections, Greenland has had to deal with the possibility that there could be external attempts to influence the country’s vote — for instance, from Russia or China, both of whom are also pursuing their own security agendas in the Arctic.
Denmark’s national security and intelligence service, PET, warned of Russian disinformation in particular.
“In the weeks preceding the Greenlandic elections’ date announcement, several cases of fake profiles were observed on social media, including profiles masquerading as Danish and Greenlandic politicians, which contributed to a polarization of public opinion,” PET stated, although it did not link those accounts to any specific country.
Johan Farkas, an assistant professor in media studies at the University of Copenhagen, is familiar with these kinds of posts as they also circulate in Russian media. But he doesn’t think they’d have much impact on Greenland’s elections because, besides Danish, most locals speak Greenlandic, an Inuit language.
“Greenland is a very small and tight-knit community in many ways,” Farkas told DW. “And so, influencing fake accounts, or these kinds of things that we have seen in the past and in other elections, my assessment is that it’s not an easy thing to do.”
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. “My concern as a disinformation researcher has more been around how this plays out in macro-politics. Would we suddenly see Elon Musk hosting live podcast interviews with specific candidates or Trump endorsing specific candidates? That is a very problematic and threatening thing for a free and fair election,” Farkas argues, referring to the weeks before Germany’s own recent federal election.
During that time, US billionaire Musk appeared on social media with the leader of Germany’s far-right political party and US Vice President JD Vance called on German centrist parties to cooperate with the far right.
Political controversies
Since the beginning of the year, there have been a number of controversies around Greenland’s upcoming elections. Reports suggest that influencers from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement distributed $100 bills in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.
Local member of parliament Kuno Fencker traveled to Washington where he met a Republican politician who spoke to him about how Greenland should become an American territory.
Media studies professor Farkas doesn’t think the danger has passed — the elections will be held on March 11. “But,” he says, “I was more concerned about a month ago than I am right now.”
In early February, Greenland’s parliament, the 31-seat Inatsisartut, passed a law banning foreign and anonymous donations to local political parties. Danish donations are excluded.
And Trump’s offer to buy their country is not the only thing locals will be voting on in the upcoming election.
Independence from Denmark
The approximately 57,000 Greenlanders, who call themselves Kalaallit, are also worried about other issues. For example, which mineral resources their island should be developing and whether, and which, foreign partners should get concessions to do this.
The debate around mining revenues is part of the argument some make for becoming independent from Denmark. Allowing foreign interests to mine in Greenland would make Greenland less dependent on Denmark.
This is because “Denmark contributes over half of Greenland’s budget revenue to cover employment, health care, and education, with the annual cost of administrative support and direct financial transfers amounting to at least $700 million [€645.5 million] per year,” researchers at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out in January.
Independence is a long-term goal, Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede said after Trump’s speech to Congress. “We do not want to be Americans, nor Danes; we are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that,” Egede wrote on social media. “We are not for sale and cannot be taken. Our future is determined by us in Greenland.”
This dude booked the solo trip of his dreams—only to be stuck alone on an apparently “cursed” island.
A Spanish TikToker named Rubén Holgado recently embarked on a getaway in Siquijor, a remote island in the Philippines. However, upon arrival, he was in for a rude awakening.
Many travel blogs market the island as a cheap destination with an abundance of nature and pristine beaches. I mean, reading that, who wouldn’t want to book a trip?
One blogger wrote that Siquijor “is the ideal destination for travelers looking to surround themselves in nature with just the right amount of tourist infrastructure. It is also an incredibly affordable place to go with the friendliest locals.”
However, the gorgeous island seems to have some dark secrets.
“Guys, I’ve been sleeping in an abandoned luxury resort for two days and I just found out now,” Holgado said in a TikTok clip detailing his stay, Jam Press reported. “We are alone.”
“We have a private beach where we can see the sunset super well and our own restaurant where we are alone,” Holgado continued. “We entered and saw that the place was huge, like Disney, but there was nothing. There are only employees in the restaurant.”
Basically, it was like life post-apocalypse.
He went on to explain that his bathroom didn’t have a door, and the toilet wouldn’t flush—among other strange instances. However, some people in the comment section of his video pointed out rational explanations for a few of these features.
But as if the complete solitude sans resort workers wasn’t creepy enough, it appears that the island itself might have some unwelcomed and angry visitors.
“Evil spirits are all around us, in the waterfalls, forests, and seas,” a local guide named Luis Nathaniel Borongan told the BBC last year. “And if we intrude upon them, they may take revenge in the form of illness, curses or even death.”
Once a symbol of sustainability for liberal consumers, Tesla is now facing boycotts, vandalism and mass sell-offs. AFP / Jim WATSON
Elon Musk has accused organizations allegedly funded by billionaire George Soros of orchestrating anti-Tesla protests, claiming a coordinated effort to damage the company’s reputation and stock value.
Tesla has seen its public perception shift dramatically following Musk’s vocal support for Donald Trump and far-right politics. Once a symbol of sustainability for liberal consumers, Tesla is now facing boycotts, vandalism and mass sell-offs.
The company’s stock has plummeted 38% since Trump’s inauguration, exacerbating financial losses and investor uncertainty, the Economic Times reported. Meanwhile, ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform Musk linked to the protests, is under investigation for allegedly accepting illegal foreign donations.
On Saturday, Musk posted on X alleging that groups like Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America are being funded by Soros and other liberal donors to stage protests against Tesla.
An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla “protests”: Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America.
ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman,…
“An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla ‘protests’: Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America,” Musk wrote. “ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix”
He cited growing acts of vandalism, including arson attacks on Tesla dealerships and the defacement of Cybertrucks.
Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully cashed out at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist.
The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.
Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.
Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.
“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.
Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.
“I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”
Elliptic’s analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now “gone dark”, meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.
The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.
On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit’s suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.
ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.
Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.
The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is in Zhou’s words “waging war on Lazarus”.
ByBit’s Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.
All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it’s possible to track the money as it’s moved around by the Lazarus Group.
If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.
So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.
But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.
“North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don’t care about the negative impression of cyber crime,” Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.
Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.
Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.
More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.
But over email the elusive owner of eXch – Johann Roberts – disputed that.
He admits they didn’t initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn’t sure the coins were definitely from the hack.
He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are abandoning the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.
North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.
Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.
The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.
The US Secret Service shot a man outside the White House early on Sunday after an “armed confrontation”, the service said in a statement.
It had earlier received a tip-off from local police about a “suicidal individual who may be travelling to Washington DC from Indiana”, it said.
Its officers approached a man matching that description, “who brandished a firearm”, it said, adding that shots were fired. The man is now in hospital in an “unknown” condition.
President Donald Trump was not in the White House at the time, as he is spending the weekend at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.
“As officers approached, the individual brandished a firearm and an armed confrontation ensued, during which shots were fired by our personnel,” the statement said.
A man waving a Palestinian flag climbed the Big Ben tower at London’s Palace of Westminster early on Saturday, with local media reporting he shouted “free Palestine”.
Passersby look at a man with a Palestinian flag standing on the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben, next to Houses of Parliament, in London, Britain March 8, 2025. REUTERS/Hannah McKay Purchase Licensing Rights
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said they were alerted to the incident at Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) at 0724 GMT.
“Officers are at the scene working to bring the incident to a safe conclusion. They are being assisted by the London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service,” the spokesperson said.
Models present creations by designer Nadege Vanhee as part of her Fall/Winter 2025-2026 Women’s ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Hermes during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France, March 8, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes Purchase Licensing Rights
Hermes (HRMS.PA) designer Nadege Vanhee presented a fall-winter 2025 collection of glossy coats, dresses and trousers in dark-coloured leather on Saturday, showing the sleek styles on a dirt-covered runway in Paris.
Held at the Garde Republicaine, the sprawling stables of the French capital’s mounted gendarmes or police, the fashion house built a set with curved walls that resembled a Richard Serra sculpture – but were covered in brown felt.
Attendants raked the catwalk before the start of the show and the models strode out in riding boots, the toes stretched out into points, their silky hair bouncing.
They paraded skirts and micro shorts with tassels, a cropped jacket with quilted panels and long coats lined with felted wool, zippers running down the back – all of it in leather.
Extra layers came in the form of ribbed knit gloves that covered the arm and piles of sweaters worn like scarves around the neck and cinching outerwear. Contrasting with the mostly all-black looks were a few styles in beige, a brown marbled pattern molded into a fitted dress and a coat and trouser ensemble in bright green leather.
Dr. Ana Montanez, Lubbock, Texas, March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Annie Rice Purchase Licensing Rights
As a measles outbreak spreads across West Texas, Dr. Ana Montanez is fighting an uphill battle to convince some parents that vitamin A – touted by vaccine critics as effective against the highly contagious virus – will not protect their children.
The 53-year-old pediatrician in the city of Lubbock is working overtime to contact vaccine-hesitant parents, explaining the grave risks posed by a disease that most American families have never seen in their lifetime – and one that can be prevented through immunization.
Increasingly, however, she also has to counter misleading information. One mother, she said, told her she was giving her two children high doses of vitamin A to ward off measles, based on an article posted by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nearly a decade before he became President Donald Trump’s top health official.
“Wait, what are you doing? That was a red flag,” Montanez said in an interview. “This is a tight community, and I think if one family does one thing, everybody else is going to follow. Even if I can’t persuade you to vaccinate, I can at least educate you on misinformation.”
Kennedy resigned as chairman of Children’s Health Defense and has said he has no power over the organization, which has sued in state and federal courts to challenge common vaccines including for measles.
The organization did not respond to a request for comment.
As U.S. health and human services secretary, Kennedy has said vaccination remains a personal choice. He has also overstated the evidence for use of treatments such as vitamin A, according to disease experts.
The supplement does not prevent measles and can be harmful to children in large or prolonged doses, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. It has been shown to decrease the severity of measles infections in developing countries among patients who are malnourished and vitamin A deficient, a rare occurrence in the United States.
“I’m very concerned about the messaging that’s coming out,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Health in Dallas. “It’s somewhat baffling to me that we’re relitigating the effectiveness of vaccines and alternative therapies. We know how to handle measles. We’ve had six decades of experience.”
Andrew Nixon, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson, did not respond to questions about Kennedy’s handling of the measles outbreak. But commenting on a measles-related death in New Mexico, Nixon said on Thursday that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “recommends vaccination as the best protection against measles infection.”
Texas officials said on Friday that the state’s measles outbreak had grown to 198 cases, including 23 people who were hospitalized. That includes the death of an unvaccinated school-age child at a Lubbock hospital last month.
New Mexico officials have tallied 30 cases and one death of an unvaccinated adult. Those are the first deaths from measles in the United States since 2015.
‘I’M WILLING TO HOLD OFF’
A 29-year-old nurse who is the mother of three and is a self-described Kennedy fan visited Montanez’s clinic on Thursday. She asked to be identified as Nicole C. – her middle name and last initial – to protect her family’s privacy.
She said she values the doctor’s advice and appreciated that she never felt judged for not fully vaccinating her school-age daughter and toddler twins – a boy and a girl – with a second dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
After the initial shots, she said she grew more concerned about potential side effects from vaccines and embraced more natural supplements.
She said school officials told her that her daughter would have to miss 21 days of class if she remains under-vaccinated and was exposed to measles.
The risk of contact in Lubbock is real. Montanez called about a dozen families last month because they were exposed to measles in her own waiting room, which she shares with other doctors in the Texas Tech physicians group.
Still, Nicole could not go through with the vaccination during her visit this week. She said she and her husband had prayed about it and believed in their family’s God-given immune systems.
“As a mom, you naturally think, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t let my daughter miss 21 days of education.’ But who knows what effects the vaccine could cause? That could be a lifetime of issues. I’m willing to hold off on the shot,” she said.
Public health experts have said vaccines for measles and other diseases pose minimal risks of side effects and protect children and adults against diseases that once routinely killed many people.
As flu season worsened this winter, Nicole said she started giving her children a daily dose of strawberry-flavored cod liver oil, which is high in vitamin A, based on information other mothers had shared with her.
Montanez took her vaccine rejection in stride. The doctor said she has persuaded more than a dozen parents to get their children fully vaccinated in recent weeks.
Gurpreet Singh hoped to enter the US before President Trump’s crackdown began
Gurpreet Singh was handcuffed, his legs shackled and a chain tied around his waist. He was led onto the tarmac in Texas by US Border Patrol, towards a waiting C-17 military transport aircraft.
It was 3 February and, after a months-long journey, he realised his dream of living in America was over. He was being deported back to India. “It felt like the ground was slipping away from underneath my feet,” he said.
Gurpreet, 39, was one of thousands of Indians in recent years to have spent their life savings and crossed continents to enter the US illegally through its southern border, as they sought to escape an unemployment crisis back home.
There are about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, the third largest group behind Mexicans and El Salvadoreans, according to the most recent figures from Pew Research in 2022.
Now Gurpreet has become one of the first undocumented Indians to be sent home since President Donald Trump took office, with a promise to make mass deportations a priority.
Gurpreet intended to make an asylum claim based on threats he said he had received in India, but – in line with an executive order from Trump to turn people away without granting them asylum hearings – he said he was removed without his case ever being considered.
About 3,700 Indians were sent back on charter and commercial flights during President Biden’s tenure, but recent images of detainees in chains under the Trump administration have sparked outrage in India.
US Border Patrol released the images in an online video with a bombastic choral soundtrack and the warning: “If you cross illegally, you will be removed.”
“We sat in handcuffs and shackles for more than 40 hours. Even women were bound the same way. Only the children were free,” Gurpreet told the BBC back in India. “We weren’t allowed to stand up. If we wanted to use the toilet, we were escorted by US forces, and just one of our handcuffs was taken off.”
Opposition parties protested in parliament, saying Indian deportees were given “inhuman and degrading treatment”. “There’s a lot of talk about how Prime Minister Modi and Mr Trump are good friends. Then why did Mr Modi allow this?” said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a key opposition leader.
Gurpreet said: “The Indian government should have said something on our behalf. They should have told the US to carry out the deportation the way it’s been done before, without the handcuffs and chains.”
An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said the government had raised these concerns with the US, and that as a result, on subsequent flights, women deportees were not handcuffed and shackled.
But on the ground, the intimidating images and President Trump’s rhetoric seem to be having the desired effect.
“No-one will try going to the US now through this illegal ‘donkey’ route while Trump is in power,” said Gurpreet.
In the longer term, this could depend on whether there are continued deportations, but for now many of the Indian people-smugglers, locally called “agents”, have gone into hiding, fearing raids against them by Indian police.
Gurpreet said Indian authorities demanded the number of the agent he had used when he landed back home, but the smuggler could no longer be reached.
“I don’t blame them, though. We were thirsty and went to the well. They didn’t come to us,” said Gurpreet.
While the official headline figure puts the unemployment rate at only 3.2%, it conceals a more precarious picture for many Indians. Only 22% of workers have regular salaries, the majority are self-employed and nearly a fifth are “unpaid helpers”, including women working in family businesses.
“We leave India only because we are compelled to. If I got a job which paid me even 30,000 rupees (£270/$340) a month, my family would get by. I would never have thought of leaving,” said Gurpreet, who has a wife, a mother and an 18-month-old baby to look after.
“You can say whatever you want about the economy on paper, but you need to see the reality on the ground. There are no opportunities here for us to work or run a business.”
Gupreet’s trucking company was among the cash-dependent small businesses that were badly hit when the Indian government withdrew 86% of the currency in circulation with four hours notice. He said he didn’t get paid by his clients, and had no money to keep the business afloat. Another small business he set up, managing logistics for other companies, also failed because of the Covid lockdown, he said.
He said he tried to get visas to go to Canada and the UK, but his applications were rejected.
Then he took all his savings, sold a plot of land he owned, and borrowed money from relatives to put together 4 million rupees ($45,000/£36,000) to pay a smuggler to organise his journey, Gurpreet told us.
On 28 August 2024, he flew from India to Guyana in South America to start an arduous journey to the US.
Gurpreet pointed out all the stops he made on a map on his phone. From Guyana he travelled through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, mostly by buses and cars, partly by boat, and briefly on a plane – handed from one people-smuggler to another, detained and released by authorities a few times along the way.
From Colombia, smugglers tried to get him a flight to Mexico, so he could avoid crossing the dreaded Darién Gap. But Colombian immigration didn’t allow him to board the flight, so he had to make a dangerous trek through the jungle.
A dense expanse of rainforest between Colombia and Panama, the Darién Gap can only be crossed on foot, risking accidents, disease and attacks by criminal gangs. Last year, 50 people died making the crossing.
“I was not scared. I’ve been a sportsman so I thought I would be OK. But it was the toughest section,” said Gurpreet. “We walked for five days through jungles and rivers. In many parts, while wading through the river, the water came up to my chest.”
Each group was accompanied by a smuggler – or a “donker” as Gurpreet and other migrants refer to them, a word seemingly derived from the term “donkey route” used for illegal migration journeys.
At night they would pitch tents in the jungle, eat a bit of food they were carrying and try to rest.
“It was raining all the days we were there. We were drenched to our bones,” he said. They were guided over three mountains in their first two days. After that, he said they had to follow a route marked out in blue plastic bags tied to trees by the smugglers.
“My feet had begun to feel like lead. My toenails were cracked, and the palms of my hands were peeled off and had thorns in them. Still, we were lucky we didn’t encounter any robbers.”
When they reached Panama, Gurpreet said he and about 150 others were detained by border officials in a cramped jail-like centre. After 20 days, they were released, he said, and from there it took him more than a month to reach Mexico, passing through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.
Gurpreet said they waited for nearly a month in Mexico until there was an opportunity to cross the border into the US near San Diego.
“We didn’t scale a wall. There is a mountain near it which we climbed over. And there’s a razor wire which the donker cut through,” he said.
Gurpreet entered the US on 15 January, five days before President Trump took office – believing that he had made it just in time, before the borders became impenetrable and rules became tighter.
Once in San Diego, he surrendered to US Border Patrol, and was then detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During the Biden administration, illegal or undocumented migrants would appear before an immigration officer who would do a preliminary interview to determine if each person had a case for asylum. While a majority of Indians migrated out of economic necessity, some also left fearing persecution because of their religious or social backgrounds, or their sexual orientation.
Afghan women students in Oman say they expect to be sent back within weeks
More than 80 Afghan women who fled the Taliban to pursue higher education in Oman now face imminent return back to Afghanistan, following the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to foreign aid programmes.
Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), their scholarships were abruptly terminated after a funding freeze ordered by President Donald Trump when he returned to office in January.
“It was heart-breaking,” one student told the BBC, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals. “Everyone was shocked and crying. We’ve been told we will be sent back within two weeks.”
Since regaining power nearly four years ago, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women, including banning them from universities.
The Trump administration’s aid freeze has faced legal roadblocks, but thousands of humanitarian programmes around the world have already been terminated as the White House dismantles USAID and cuts tens of billions of dollars in spending.
The students in Oman say preparations are under way to return them to Afghanistan, and have appealed to the international community to “intervene urgently”.
The BBC has seen emails sent to the 82 students informing them that their scholarships have been “discontinued” due to the termination of the programme and USAID funding.
The emails – which acknowledge the news will be “profoundly disappointing and unsettling” – refer to travel arrangements back to Afghanistan, which caused alarm among the students.
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“We need immediate protection, financial assistance and resettlement opportunities to a safe country where we can continue our education,” one told the BBC.
The USAID website’s media contact page remains offline. The BBC has contacted the US State Department for comment.
The Afghan women, now facing a forced return from Oman, had been pursuing graduate and post-graduate courses under the Women’s Scholarship Endowment (WSE), a USAID programme which began in 2018.
It provided scholarships for Afghan women to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the disciplines banned for women by the Taliban.
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Just over a week ago, the students were told their scholarships had been terminated.
“It’s like everything has been taken away from me,” another student told the BBC. “It was the worst moment. I’m under extreme stress right now.”
These women, mostly aged in their 20s, qualified for scholarships in 2021 before the Taliban seized Afghanistan. Many continued their studies in Afghan universities until December 2022, when the Taliban banned higher education for women.
After 18 months in limbo, they said they fled to Pakistan last September.
USAID then facilitated their visas to Oman, where they arrived between October and November 2024.
“If we are sent back, we will face severe consequences. It would mean losing all our dreams,” a student said. “We won’t be able to study and our families might force us to get married. Many of us could also be at personal risk due to our past affiliations and activism.”
The Taliban has cracked down on women protesting for education and work, with many activists beaten, detained and threatened.
Women in Afghanistan describe themselves as “dead bodies moving around” under the regime’s brutal policies.
The Taliban government says it has been trying to resolve the issue of women’s education, but has also defended its supreme leader’s diktats, saying they are “in accordance with Islamic Sharia law”.
“Afghanistan is experiencing gender apartheid, with women systematically excluded from basic rights, including education,” a student said.
She and her friends in Oman had managed to escape that fate, as the scholarships were supposed to fund their education until 2028.
“When we came here, our sponsors told us to not go back to Afghanistan till 2028 for vacations or to visit our families because it’s not safe for us. And now they’re telling us to go,” a student said.
Last month, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly blamed the situation for Afghan women on the US military’s withdrawal from the country under the Democrats, telling the Washington Post: “Afghan women are suffering because Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal allowed the Taliban to impose mediaeval Sharia law policies.”
GENE Hackman’s wife ran errands and sent emails in her final hours before she died from a rare rat virus.
Theories about the couple’s death ended after it was revealed on Friday that the 95-year-old actor died from a heart condition seven days after his wife Betsy Arakawa died from a rodent disease.
Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa at the 60th Golden GlobesCredit: Getty
Arakawa, 65, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is caused by contact with rodents like rats and mice, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner Dr. Heather Jarrell said.
She died before Hackman – perhaps on February 11 – leaving the two-time Oscar winner alone at the house.
Hackman – suffering from the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s – is believed to have died seven days later on February 18.
He tragically lived alongside his wife’s body, likely not knowing she was dead.
Arakawa’s decomposed body was found in the bathroom of their four-bedroom house, surrounded by scattered pills from an open prescription bottle on the counter.
The couple’s dog, Zinna, was also found dead in a crate in the bathroom near Arakawa’s body. Zinna’s cause of death was still pending necropsy results, but officials said on Friday that hantavirus is not a possible reason.
Two other dogs were found distressed but alive at the home.
Just hours before her death, the 65-year-old was busy with her day-to-day chores as she became Hackman’s sole caregiver.
Arakawa’s last known movements began on February 9 when she picked up Zinna from the vet hospital, which could explain why the dog was later found dead in a crate.
On February 11, the classical pianist emailed her massage therapist in the morning of the day she died.
In the afternoon, she went to a grocery store and was captured making a brief stop at a pharmacy.
Officials said she was seen on surveillance footage wearing a mask, which could indicate that she wasn’t feeling well.
According to a report by the New York Times, Arakawa stopped by a local pet food store later that afternoon. She was not seen or heard after that.
Arakawa had “numerous unopened emails” on her computer from February 11 and no outgoing messages after that date, leading officials to believe she died around then.
She was found collapsed on the bathroom floor before the medical examiner determined she died of hantavirus.
Hantavirus spreads when exposed to rodents’ urine, droppings, and saliva, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms include fever, chills, cough, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, headaches, muscle aches, and fatigue.
What is hantavirus?
GENE Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa died from the rare infectious disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hantavirus pathogens are mainly spread between rodents.
In very rare cases, the disease can be passed to humans and cause varied disease syndromes.
These include hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
The CDC said: “Each hantavirus serotype has a specific rodent host species and is spread to people via aerosolised virus that is shed in urine, feces, and saliva, and less frequently by a bite from an infected host.”
Dr Sumaiya Shaikh, a Swedish scientist, tweeted: “The #Hantavirus first emerged in 1950s in the American-Korean war in Korea (Hantan river).
“It spreads from rat/mice if humans ingest their body fluids.
“Human-human transmission is rare. Please do not panic, unless you plan to eat rats.”
While hantavirus is rare, it carries a 38 per cent death rate according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, Hackman was found collapsed in the home’s mudroom with his sunglasses and a cane nearby.
A search warrant revealed that cops noted the legendary actor looked like he fell to the ground suddenly.
Data pulled from the actor’s pacemaker revealed an abnormal rhythm on February 18, the medical examiner said, which was the last record of heart activity.
His autopsy revealed he had no food in his stomach at the time of his death – but he also didn’t show signs of dehydration, the medical examiner said.
Hackman’s autopsy also showed evidence of poor kidney function and prior heart attacks, as well as chronic high blood pressure.
He tested negative for hantavirus, Jarrell revealed.
Neither autopsy found evidence of internal or external trauma.
EARLY MYSTERY
The heartbreaking news comes after initial autopsy reports revealed the couple had no obvious wounds on their bodies when they died.
The initial report also ruled out carbon monoxide and gas leaks as a potential cause of death.
Several initially confusing details emerged when cops rushed to the scene after a neighborhood caretaker called 911 when he found Hackman and Arakawa unmoving in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“I’m not inside the house. It’s closed. It’s locked. I can’t go in. But I see them. She’s laying face down on the floor from the window,” the panicked caller told dispatchers.
When cops arrived at the $3.8 million mansion, they found the door ajar, but there weren’t any signs of forced entry.
Near the front of the house, Arakawa was found lying in the bathroom.
An open bottle of pills was scattered on the bathroom counter near her body, cops said.
While officials didn’t specify which medicine it was, court records show cops took thyroid medication, diltiazem medication, and Tylenol from the house, according to ABC affiliate KOAT-TV.
Jarrell confirmed on Friday that the thyroid medication had been prescribed to Arakawa and wasn’t considered a factor in her death.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza initially said there weren’t any signs of foul play at the scene.
The couple was extremely private in their final years, living in a cul-de-sac of their gated community.
Neighbors who saw the couple walking their dogs in recent years said they were always delighted to see fellow pup lovers, according to The New York Times.
Hackman is survived by two daughters and a son from a previous marriage.
The pope is beginning his fourth week undergoing treatment at a Rome hospital (FILE: February 12, 2025)Image: Guglielmo Mangiapane/REUTERS
Pope Francis is responding well to treatment at a Rome hospital for pneumonia, the Vatican said Saturday, adding that the 88-year-old’s condition had seen “a gradual, slight improvement.”
“The Holy Father’s clinical condition in recent days has remained stable and, consequently, testifies to a good response to treatment. There is therefore a gradual, slight improvement,” the Holy See said in an update.
But as a precaution, his doctors have decided to keep his prognosis as guarded, it added, meaning the head of the Catholic Church isn’t out of danger.
The Vatican also said Francis had worked and rested during the day Saturday.
The 88-year-old pope was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on February 14 for what was initially a bad case of bronchitis.
The infection progressed into a complex respiratory tract infection and double pneumonia.
Pope Francis already had chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man.
He has been given high flows of supplemental oxygen during the day and a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask at night.
Cardinal steps in for ailing pope
In his absence, the Vatican’s day-to-day operations continued, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrating Mass for a pro-life group in St. Peter’s Basilica.
At the start, Parolin delivered a message from the pope from hospital on the need to protect life, from birth to natural death.
The message, dated March 5, encouraged the faithful to promote pro-life activities not just for the unborn, but “for the elderly, no longer independent or the incurably ill.”
On Friday, Francis spent 20 minutes in the Gemelli hospital chapel, praying and doing some work in between rest and respiratory and physical therapy, the Vatican said.
UN estimates that the war has littered Gaza with over 50 million tons of rubble (FILE: March 3, 2025)Image: Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo/picture alliance
France, Germany, Italy and the UK said on Saturday they supported an Arab-backed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.
The plan would cost $53 billion (€50.5 billion) and avoid displacing Palestinians from the territory.
“The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises — if implemented — swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza,” the foreign ministers of the four countries said in a joint statement.
Arab leaders on Tuesday endorsed the post-war plan, which was put forward by Egypt, to rebuild the Paelstinian enclave.
The Arab Summit in Cairo took place after US President Donald Trump floated a widely condemned proposal to turn the Gaza Strip into what he called the “Riviera of the Middle East” and displace its residents.
Arab plan welcomed by Europe, rejected by the US
Earlier this week, the Trump administration dismissed the $53 billion counter proposal after it was adopted.
The White House said it stood by Trump’s vision, with National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes commenting late Tuesday that “the current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable.”
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of the four European countries stressed the importance of recovery and reconstruction efforts built on a framework that “provides long-term peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
What’s in the Arab plan to rebuild Gaza?
The phased reconstruction plan consists of three major stages over five years.
An initial six-month recovery phase is aimed at removing debris, de-mining and building temporary housing.
In the first phase, the plan calls for the building of 200,000 housing units in Gaza over the next two years. A second stage will see 200,000 more housing units.
By 2030, the plan foresees hundreds of thousands of new homes housing up to 3 million people as well as an airport, industrial zones, hotels and parks.
One reason for reduced working hours is disincentives in the tax system, the study foundImage: Jens Kalaene/dpa/picture alliance
Women experience a significant drop in income from employment after marriage in Germany, with earnings decreasing by an average of 20%, according to a study by Munich’s IFO Institute and the University of Oslo.
The research, titled “The Marriage Earnings Gap,” attributes this decline to reduced working hours or complete withdrawal from the workforce because of increased responsibilities. In contrast, men’s earnings remain unchanged after marriage.
Income gap widens after marriage
The study, based on pension insurance data, found that income differences between men and women grow significantly after marriage, regardless of whether they have children. ”Our research shows that the income differences between men and women increase in marriage, regardless of the birth of children,” said IFO researcher Elena Herold.
Though men’s earnings remain stable, women’s income declines steadily over several years. Herold explained that this drop is not solely due to marriage-related childbirth.
Even when that factor is removed, women’s earnings still decrease by 20%, and when childbirth is included, the decline reaches nearly 50%.
The study also found that cohabitation does not produce the same financial impact. “For couples who lived together before marriage, we see no different effects than those who only move in together with the wedding,” Herold said.
She suggested that the greater legal security provided by marriage likely encourages women to reduce their working hours.
One in 10 women stop working after marriage
The income decline is not due to lower wages but rather a reduction in work hours. According to the study, one in ten women stop working altogether after marriage, while the rest work about 20% fewer hours. This shift occurs gradually over several years.
Meanwhile, household work done by women increases by a similar proportion, even when child-rearing is excluded. The study found no similar changes among men.
Tax system and gender roles reinforce the trend
A key reason for the reduction in working hours is the structure of the tax system. Herold noted that “a quarter of the reduction in income for wives can be attributed to the splitting of income between spouses.”
Gender roles also play a significant role. “For women who grew up in East Germany before reunification, we see less negative effects than for women from West Germany,” said Herold.
Four days into her full-time job, communications graduate Ada Siu knew she would be quitting soon. Two in five Gen Zers and millennials in Hong Kong often think about leaving their jobs, a recent survey found.
When Alex Wong was growing up, his father spent most of his time at work instead of at home. Family holidays were also limited to summertime.
But his father made a promise: After retirement, they would surely make up for lost time.
That promise was shattered when, shortly after Wong’s 18th birthday, his father suffered a spinal injury that left him paralysed.
It was a life-changing moment for Wong. If his father had worked tirelessly for a future that never came, he thought, what was stopping the same from happening to him?
“Previously I’d spent most of my time studying,” the 22-year-old said. “Now I want to enjoy myself enough first and think about the future only in my 30s.”
His commitment to this altered path is unwavering, even in the face of financial hardship. His mother, the family breadwinner, supports not only his father, but also his six-year-old brother. They also had to hire a domestic helper from Indonesia.
Wong copes by taking on warehouse jobs a few days a month, earning just HK$310 (US$40) a day when there is work to be found. But he is not in any rush to secure something more stable.
His mindset is far from unique. A Hong Kong government-related survey last year found that among youth (aged 15 to 29) not studying or working, 36 per cent had no plans to get a job.
Indeed, the phenomenon called “tang ping”, or lying flat — a rejection of the culture of hard work — has gained ground in the city.
About 44 per cent of secondary students in a Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association poll last year said they were lying flat or planning to do so.
For some, it is about freedom. For others, it is boredom.
Ken Hui, 26, worked full-time for about six months before quitting in 2023. His admin job, tied to sports and event planning, seemed exciting at first but quickly became repetitive.
“I don’t want to go back to full-time (work) because I don’t want my job to be very monotonous — repeating the same work every day (and) knocking off at the same time,” he said. “There’s no life.”
He now gets by with freelance gigs, like photography.
Some Gen Z professionals, meanwhile, are freelancing full-time or juggling multiple part-time jobs. They are a growing group known as “slashers” — so named because of the slashes in their job descriptions.
Make-up artist Joyce Fung, for instance, is also a part-time bagel maker at a cafe. “I’m lucky that the cafe is flexible about working hours,” the 25-year-old said. “They know that I’m a ‘slasher’ and I take on freelance work.
“After I finish my make-up work or on days with no make-up jobs, I can work there.”
She does not plan on stopping, perhaps ever. “I’m very scared of boredom,” Fung said. “If I must … work 9 to 5 every day and do work that’s pretty much the same, that isn’t a way of life I desire.”
As young Hongkongers like her eschew stable careers, the programme Insight explores whether the city’s Gen Z are growing work-weary altogether and what can move the needle for them.
FROM FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO COVID-19 IMPACT
In 2022, government data showed that Hong Kong had lost around 116,600 young workers (aged 18 to 39) over a two-year period. Many either left the city or simply opted out of the workforce.
Experts posit that one reason behind the shift in Gen Z is the financial security achieved by previous generations.
“(Their) parents are … better off and don’t expect the new generation to earn a lot to take care of them,” said Benson Chan, chief officer of the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong. “This generation doesn’t really face financial pressures.”
As a result, many young adults remain financially dependent on their families, with a majority still living at home.
This has given rise to the buzzword “full-time children”, young adults who live with their parents and help out with household chores in exchange for an allowance.
Beyond their parents’ purse strings, many Gen Zers are also focused on the present rather than on long-term financial goals.
Most of Wong’s friends, he said, have a spend-now, work-later mentality. They would rather earn just enough to buy games, upgrade their devices and enjoy life. “They think about going back to work only when they run out of money.”
Chan suggested that growing up in a world of social media and instant gratification has left Gen Zers feeling unfulfilled when their wants are not met immediately.
At the same time, long-term financial goals seem out of reach. A 2024 HSBC survey found that 61 per cent of Gen Z Hongkongers believed home ownership was “far-fetched” for them.
After all, Hong Kong is one of the world’s most expensive property markets: The average private home costs US$1.15 million.
It does not seem worth it for Hui. “I don’t want to put my money in property and cars,” he said. “I work so that I can earn money to go travelling.”
Chan believes this disillusionment runs deeper. “Many youths feel, ‘If I can’t meet expectations anyway, why should I work?’” he said.
The pandemic also helped shape Gen Z’s perspectives. It cut off their social interactions and deepened feelings of seclusion.
Wong experienced this firsthand. While studying in mainland China as a cross-border student, he found himself trapped under strict quarantine measures.
“In the small neighbourhoods, you were all boarded up, with only one point of entry and exit. You could only use delivery services to get groceries,” recalled Wong, who became “even more reclusive”.
The isolation, combined with exam stress, took a toll on his mental health. At his lowest point, he even considered taking his own life.
Chan, who works with young people experiencing mental health issues, said many of them struggle because “they face outside pressures or lack a clear goal for their future”.
“So they feel indifferent towards having (success) or not. … They think it’s okay to lie flat at home.”
CAN GEN Z AFFORD TO BE PICKY?
Despite their reluctance to work full-time, Gen Zers might not have the luxury to hold off on seeking permanent employment as opportunities are dwindling.
Take 24-year-old Ada Siu. A recent communications graduate, she and some of her classmates struggled for six months to land a full-time job. They had to submit over 100 applications each to secure a few interviews.
Hong Kong’s post-pandemic recovery has been sluggish. Gross domestic product growth last year — 2.5 per cent — was at the lowest point of the projected range. This year, growth is expected to be between 2 per cent and 3 per cent.
Small and medium enterprises have been hardest hit. High interest rates, a property slump and an exodus of investors have left these businesses struggling to stay afloat.
They make up more than 98 per cent of Hong Kong’s total enterprises, employ more than 44 per cent of the private sector workforce but must scramble to attract young talent.
A few months ago, Siu secured a full-time role at a small agency, where she helped with events and public relations. But her time there did not last long.
“On the fourth day, … I already felt (the company) was unsuitable for me,” she recalled. “I went right back to job hunting. … I left after a month.”
Two in five Gen Zers and millennials in Hong Kong often think about leaving their jobs, according to a survey last year. Many of them may be in search of greater engagement.
“I’d feel like a frog … in boiling water,” Siu said about staying long in a company. “If I feel that I’ve already learnt enough in this position or have experienced enough, then I think it’s natural to want to change.”
Job hopping is frowned upon, however, in Hong Kong’s traditional work culture.
“(Job hoppers) are … seen as a high cost for companies because you train them and then they leave,” noted Wendy Suen, the head of talent solutions for recruitment consultancy ConnectedConsult.
Adding to the challenge for Hong Kong’s Gen Z is competition from mainland China. Since 2022, relaxed visa rules have allowed more mainlanders to live and work in the city.
In 2023, there was an upsurge in applications for the Immigration Arrangements for Non-local Graduates visa, which allows non-local students to stay in Hong Kong and work after graduation, cited Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking senior economist Gary Ng.
And since November, the government has also allowed non-local undergraduates to work part-time. This applies to around 20,000 students, equivalent to more than 3 per cent of the 15 to 24 age group in Hong Kong.
That is an influx of job hunters into a labour market that is not growing, observed Ng.
“If (non-local students) want to stay in Hong Kong, … it’d be fair to assume that some of (them) may be willing to work harder to basically compete for the same jobs,” he said.
Suen added that mainlanders are increasingly drawn to Hong Kong as a stepping stone to the global arena and tend to be more receptive to traditional work expectations such as long hours.
WHAT WILL GET GEN Z TO CLOCK IN AGAIN?
To attract more Gen Z Hongkongers, who are increasingly concerned about burnout, anxiety and mental health, Suen suggested that companies should focus on implementing well-being initiatives.
A survey released last year by mental health startup Intellect and digital wealth platform Endowus found that 31 per cent of Hong Kong millennials and Gen Zers wanted their workplaces to offer mental wellness workshops.
In another recent survey, global communications firm Edelman found that Hong Kong’s Gen Z have high expectations for their leaders. They want a manager who is hard-working and someone like a friend, whom they can connect with naturally.
Young workers are also known to seek out flatter hierarchies and more collaborative work environments. Many of these preferences, however, could prove challenging in Hong Kong’s workplaces, which remain largely hierarchical, with an emphasis on rules and professionalism.
Then there is the city’s long-hours culture. According to a Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions survey in 2023, more than half of workers put in over 45 hours a week; 7.3 per cent of respondents worked over 70 hours.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump was expected to address Congress on his early achievements of his presidency and his upcoming legislative agenda. Win McNamee/Getty Images
President Donald Trump proposed in February a “gold card” visa program, which he said would offer permanent residency for a price of $5 million. But despite criticism from some experts who warned of the possibility that the administration’s cozying with oligarchs able to make the payment, this isn’t the first time a visa of this nature has floated around the immigration sphere.
The proposed new program would allow “very high-level people” a new “route to citizenship,” Trump said. The new gold card would replace the EB-5 visa program, which similarly provides a pathway to citizenship for wealthy investor types but has also been criticized, in this case as an avenue for fraud.
Alex Nowrasteh is the Cato Institute’s vice president for economic and social policy studies, he proposed a similar version of Trump’s gold card in a 2019 policy analysis. In his plan, Nowrasteh recommended charging a lower price and not removing the investor’s visa.
“My whole plan that I wrote up in 2019 is substantially and radically different from what Trump came out with,” Nowrasteh told The Latin Times. “It is merely that he stole the marketing and the idea on the names.”
Under Cato’s envisioned program, foreigners could pay an immigration tariff to the federal government in exchange for a gold card visa that would allow the holders to reside and work in the U.S. as long as they are not “inadmissible under existing criteria and do not commit a deportable offense.”
Unlike Trump’s plan, Nowrasteh’s gold card would not provide a new path to citizenship, but its holders could adjust their status to a green card and eventually earn citizenship through any other currently existing legal means. He also suggested Congress adjusting tariff rates by age and education to guarantee that all immigrants make a positive net fiscal contribution.
“The ‘gold card’ proposal is the flip side of this dark record. More than just a policy, it’s a wholesale rewrite of what it means to be an American.” an MSNBC op-ed reads. “In Trump’s vision, citizenship is no longer about building a shared national project; it is an asset reserved for those who can afford it, as it is in countries with ‘golden visa’ programs such as Malta and Cyprus. Being American would become a high-end commodity, available only to the wealthy.”
Nowrasteh agrees with the sentiment, arguing that Trump’s new visa program is “ludicrous” and fuels the oligarchy rhetoric the Trump administration has been accused of embracing. The scholar said that ultimately, the administration could sell only a couple visas a year.
“I think it fuels the [oligarchy] rhetoric, definitely. But it’s also just silly because nobody’s gonna take advantage of those. I mean nobody, like who is going to do this? I have no idea,” Nowrasteh said. “Not many people have $5 million burning a hole in their pocket, and they’re like, ‘you know what I want? A green card and have no other way to get it.”
In his last speech from the Oval Office in January, former President Joe Biden warned of a rising ultra-wealthy “oligarchy” in America posing threat to the country’s democracy, and urged U.S. citizens to defend institutions against “powerful forces.”
A few days later, some of the world’s wealthiest people stood beside Trump as he was inaugurated into office, including CEO and Founder of SpaceX and “first buddy” Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and more.
Upon announcing the new program, Trump also joked Russian oligarchs would “possibly” be able to apply for the visa. These oligarchs are wealthy and politically connected businesspeople who benefitted from Russia’s post-Soviet privatization, often leveraging their influence over politics, media and key industries.
Senior members of President Donald Trump’s team have secretly met with Ukrainian opposition figures, reportedly discussing ways to push President Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of office. Getty Images/Tetiana Dzhafarova
Senior members of President Donald Trump’s team have secretly met with Ukrainian opposition figures, reportedly discussing ways to push President Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of office as tensions between Washington and Kyiv escalate, according to a report.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has relied heavily on U.S. military and financial support. Under Trump’s presidency, however, relations have soured, with his administration pushing for a rapid end to the war, even if it requires Ukrainian concessions to Russia, Politico reported.
Zelenskyy has resisted pressure to negotiate under unfavorable terms. Meanwhile, opposition figures like former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former President Petro Poroshenko could be positioning themselves as more cooperative alternatives.
In recent weeks, four high-ranking Trump allies have held undisclosed meetings with Tymoshenko and members of Poroshenko’s party, discussing the possibility of holding early presidential elections in Ukraine, several sources told the outlet.
Currently, elections are suspended due to martial law, and many believe a rushed vote would be strategically beneficial to Russia. Despite added concerns, Trump’s team appeared confident that Zelenskyy would lose.
The talks align with the Kremlin’s long-standing goal of removing Zelenskyy, and Trump himself has accused the Ukrainian president of being a “dictator without elections.”
As President Trump puts new tariffs on goods from China and threatens a trade war with allies like Mexico and Canada, one global company is likely to suffer less than most of its competitors: Tesla.
But the electric car maker led by Elon Musk, which accounts for a third of the billionaire’s wealth, is also vulnerable if relations with China worsen. That country is the company’s second-largest market after the United States and it produces more cars there than anywhere else.
Tesla has built largely self-sufficient supply chains in the United States and China, a rarity in a world of interconnected trade. As a result, the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods, and the continuing threat to put them on Mexican and Canadian products, might help Tesla by hurting its competitors more.
Although there is no evidence that Mr. Musk is shaping trade policies, the tariffs are one of several measures adopted by the Trump administration that may benefit Tesla at the expense of its rivals. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump paused 25 percent tariffs on most autos and parts made in Canada and Mexico, but the reprieve expires in a month, leaving automakers in the United States that depend on foreign supply chains in a state of uncertainty.
The administration is also trying to eliminate financial support for the construction of fast-charging stations for electric vehicles, a move that could handicap companies seeking to compete with Tesla’s extensive network. And it is attempting to cut or eliminate loans and subsidies that competitors like Ford Motor and Rivian are using to finance electric vehicle and battery factories.
Mr. Musk has said next to nothing about trade or the administration’s crusade to promote fossil fuels and impede sales of electric vehicles, which could also hurt Tesla. And his support of Mr. Trump has inspired protests at Tesla dealerships and weighed on Tesla’s share price. But his position as a de facto member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet gives him influence that far exceeds any other auto executive.
“Conflict of interest is putting it very mildly here,” said John Helveston, an assistant professor at George Washington University who teaches engineering management.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. A White House official said that its policies predated Mr. Musk’s support for Mr. Trump.
“President Trump consistently slammed Biden’s job-killing electric vehicle policies on the campaign trail since summer 2023 — more than a year before Elon Musk even endorsed President Trump — and he has consistently pressed companies to have their products be made in America since he first ran for president in 2015,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in an email.
The trade war and other Trump policies also hold risks for Tesla when the company is already in crisis, with sales plummeting in China and Europe even as the overall market for electric vehicles is surging.
Mr. Musk’s extensive investments in China leave him vulnerable as trade tensions between the Chinese government and the Trump administration rise.
“He could become a pawn in all of this,” said Lei Xing, an independent auto analyst based in Massachusetts who is focused on China.
Tesla is already struggling in Europe and China because of competition from Chinese electric carmakers and a dearth of new models. Anger over Mr. Musk’s political activities, including promotion of far-right parties, has also hurt demand in Germany, the United States and other markets. Mr. Musk’s personal wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, which has been on a steep decline.
When Tesla began mass-producing electric cars at a factory in Fremont, Calif., in 2012, it designed a supply chain that was less dependent on imports than virtually all of its competitors. Electric vehicles were a new technology then, forcing Tesla to largely develop its own sources of batteries, motors and other components.
Tesla built a battery factory in Nevada in partnership with Panasonic of Japan, and it remains one of just a few car companies to mass-produce batteries in the United States.
When, in 2014, Mr. Musk began talking about building a factory in China, he received a warm welcome from government officials. Tesla opened a factory in Shanghai six years later under unusually favorable conditions. Beijing changed ownership rules so that the company could set up without a local partner, a first for a foreign automaker in China. The Chinese government also ensured low-interest loans, access to top leaders and even changes that Tesla had sought on emissions regulations.
But Mr. Musk kept supply chains for the Chinese and U.S. factories relatively separate, unlike other auto companies that depend heavily on imported parts.
“He set himself up nicely in the event that trade goes sideways and tariffs go higher,” said Michael Dunne, a longtime China automotive consultant. “And that serves him well today.”
Today, the cars made in Shanghai are sold in Europe, Southeast Asia or in the domestic Chinese market — but not in the United States.
The cars Tesla sells in the United States are made at factories in Fremont and Austin, Texas. Tesla also produces charging equipment for its proprietary charging network — the nation’s largest — in Buffalo, N.Y. Tesla regularly tops an annual ranking by Cars.com, an online shopping site, of how much of a vehicle is American-made.
“Tesla is in a good position” to withstand tariffs, said Patrick Masterson, who oversees compilation of the data that goes into the Cars.com ranking. “Their domestic production is robust.”
Tesla is still vulnerable to tariffs on goods from China and Mexico because a quarterof the components and materials in the car, measured by value, is imported, according to data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But electric vehicles made by Tesla’s competitors are much more vulnerable to tariffs.
General Motors’ Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle, for example, is made in Mexico. With a starting price of $34,000, the battery-powered Equinox is a threat to the Tesla Model Y, which starts at $45,000 before government incentives. The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff will erase most of that advantage, assuming it stands.
The risk to Tesla in China is harder to gauge. So far, Chinese leaders appear to see Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration as a plus, viewing him as a potential point of contact. In January, when Han Zheng, China’s vice president flew to Washington to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration, he met with Mr. Musk.
“U.S.-China policy often has operated through specific personal relationships,” said Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “There is hope in China that he could play a constructive role.”
But Mr. Musk has also lost some bargaining power in China.
When Chinese leaders greenlighted the Shanghai factory, Tesla was seen as a technology leader that would spur development of the E.V. industry. With sales plummeting in Europe and weakening in China, however, Tesla production in Shanghai fell 50 percent in February from a year earlier. Chinese automakers like BYD and Xiaomi are introducing new models that rival Tesla in features like autonomous driving.
Tesla’s prestige and leverage in China may be diminished as a result.
“Tesla can no longer control China,” said Jia Xinguang, an independent automotive analyst in Australia. “But China, by contrast, can control Tesla.”
Still, China would likely think twice before targeting Tesla and Mr. Musk because doing so could make it more difficult to attract foreign investment, said Wang Yanhang, a fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing who tracks trade issues. “China will not shoot itself in the foot,” he said. “It is the last option.”
China has so far steered clear of autos when retaliating against the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods, instead raising duties on U.S. agricultural products like chicken and wheat.
Tesla has quietly fought at least one potential tariff on Chinese materials that would have a direct impact on its competitiveness.
China is the main source of high-purity graphite, an essential material for batteries. In December, a group of companies that are trying to produce battery-grade graphite in the United States accused China of dumping and asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to impose punitive duties that could be more than 800 percent.
North Korea unveiled for the first time a nuclear-powered submarine under construction, a weapons system that can pose a major security threat to South Korea and the U.S.
The state media agency on Saturday released photos showing what it called “a nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine,” as it reported leader Kim Jong Un’s visits to major shipyards where warships are built.
The Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, didn’t provide details on the submarine, but said that Kim was briefed on its construction.
The naval vessel appears to be a 6,000-ton-class or 7,000-ton-class one which can carry about 10 missiles, said Moon Keun-sik, a South Korean submarine expert who teaches at Seoul’s Hanyang University. He said that the use of the term “the strategic guided missiles” meant it would carry nuclear-capable weapons.
“It would be absolutely threatening to us and the U.S.,” Moon said.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that “we’re aware of these claims and do not have additional information to provide at this time.
“The U.S. is committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea,” Hughes said.
A nuclear-powered submarine was among a long wish list of sophisticated weaponry that Kim vowed to introduce during a major political conference in 2021 to cope with what he called escalating U.S.-led military threats. Other weapons were solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, spy satellites and multi-warhead missiles. North Korea has since performed a run of testing activities to acquire them.
North Korea obtaining a greater ability to fire missiles from underwater is a worrying development, because it’s difficult for its rivals to detect such launches in advance.
Questions about how North Korea, a heavily sanctioned and impoverished country, could get resources and technology to build nuclear-powered submarines have surfaced.
Moon, the submarine expert, said that North Korea may have received Russian technological assistance to build a nuclear reactor to be used in the submarine in return for supplying conventional weapons and troops to support Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine.
He also said that North Korea could launch the submarine in one or two years to test its capability before its actual deployment.
North Korea has an estimated 70-90 diesel-powered submarines in one of the world’s largest fleets. However, they are mostly aging ones capable of launching only torpedoes and mines, not missiles.
In 2023, North Korea said that it had launched what it called its first “ tactical nuclear attack submarine,” but foreign experts doubted the North’s announcement and speculated that it was likely a diesel-powered submarine disclosed in 2019. Moon said that there has been no confirmation that it has been deployed.
North Korea has conducted a slew of underwater-launched ballistic missile tests since 2016, but all launches were made from the same 2,000-ton-class submarine which has a single launch tube. Many experts call it a test platform, rather than an operational submarine in active service.
For SpaceX, 2025 should have been the best year yet.
Elon Musk, the founder of the private space company, is one of the most influential people in the Oval Office, and President Trump has endorsed his vision of sending humans to Mars.
But so far, it has not been a great year for the rocket company. The vehicle that is central to the Mars goal, SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket, has launched twice this year, and twice, it has blown up.
The latest explosion occurred on Thursday during the eighth test flight of Starship, less than two months after the seventh test flight also came apart in space. Again, a shower of debris rained down, creating a novel headache for travelers around Florida and the Caribbean who were unaccustomed to seeing “falling space debris” as the reason for flight delays. Neither incident injured anyone.
Explosions are not necessarily failures for a company that has thrived on a mind-set of “launch it, break it, fix it, launch again.” With innovations like landing and reusing rocket boosters, SpaceX has slashed the cost of sending stuff to space. Starship, designed to be fully reusable, has the potential to upend the rocket business once again.
But these two Starship explosions were a step backward in SpaceX’s development process, as the flights could not even repeat the successes of earlier test flights, and they perhaps show that the company’s engineers are not as infallible as fans of the company sometimes like to think.
“There’s this persona that has built up around SpaceX, but you’re starting to see that they’re human, too,” said Daniel Dumbacher, a former NASA official who is now a professor of engineering practice at Purdue University and chief innovation and strategy officer for Special Aerospace Services, an engineering and manufacturing company whose customers include NASA, the United States Space Force and some of SpaceX’s competitors.
The delays could also have repercussions for NASA, which hired SpaceX to use a version of Starship to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2027 during the Artemis III mission.
The two lost Starships, which both failed less than 10 minutes after liftoff, were an upgraded design. Discouragingly, they were less successful than an older version of Starship that flew last year. Three previous test flights successfully coasted halfway around the world, survived re-entry through the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, and then simulated landings in the waters off the west coast of Australia.
In addition, the failures of the seventh and eighth flights occurred at about the same part of the flight, and both appeared to originate near the engines of the second-stage spacecraft. That suggests that SpaceX did not successfully diagnose and solve the problem. It could point to a significant design flaw in the upgraded Starship.
That also means that SpaceX has so far been unable to test aspects of the updated Starship design, including smaller and repositioned forward flaps used to guide the spacecraft as it falls through the air during re-entry. SpaceX also planned to test a Pez-like dispenser for deploying its Starlink internet satellites.
Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, is central to Mr. Musk’s dreams of building human settlements on Mars. A frequent cadence of Starship launches is also crucial to SpaceX’s more immediate plans to make money.
The next generation of satellites for its Starlink internet-from-space service are bigger and heavier. The voluminous cargo space of the Starship upper stage would allow the company to replenish its constellation of thousands of orbiting satellites quickly and cheaply.
The test flight failures also mean that SpaceX’s development program has not been able to move on to other objectives.
SpaceX needs to demonstrate that Starship can stay in orbit for an extended period of time, and then drop out of orbit and return to the launch site to be caught by the mechanical arms on the launch tower. (The Super Heavy booster stage, which does not go to orbit, has successfully done this three times). The company also needs to show that it can launch several Starships in quick succession.
Most critically, it needs to show that it can move liquid oxygen and methane propellants from one Starship to another. That procedure is key to allowing a Starship to accumulate enough fuel to go to moon or Mars.
Thus, the Starship that is to reach the moon will have to remain in Earth orbit as other Starships are launched to bring up propellants to refill the lunar lander Starship’s tanks.
Mr. Musk has asserted that propellant transfer is a straightforward exercise. But pumping that much liquid that quickly while floating in orbit has never been attempted, and no one knows yet how many Starship launches — perhaps as many as 20 — will be needed for a single moon mission.
“We just don’t know how the tank performance is going to be,” Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s moon to Mars program, said in December at a media event focused on Artemis at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “We just don’t.”
At the time, Mr. Kshatriya said NASA would learn that soon, because the long-duration version of Starship was expected to launch in the spring. Then SpaceX could also test its ability to operate two Starships in orbit simultaneously and determine how efficiently it can move propellants between two spacecraft.
Those findings, in turn, would help NASA put together a realistic schedule for Artemis III.
Within a year, “we’re going have a really good understanding of that problem,” Mr. Kshatriya said. “But I can’t schedule that innovation. There’s no way to.”
But the schedule Mr. Kshatriya described assumed there would not be major setbacks. With the Federal Aviation Administration grounding Starship until SpaceX completes an investigation of the Flight 8 failure, the debut of the long-duration Starship may be delayed to the middle of the year, or longer.
Mr. Dumbacher thinks that SpaceX will be able to solve the technical challenges posed by Starship. “I have no doubt that they’ll get it addressed, and they’ll get flying again and they’ll get things fixed,” he said. “I just don’t know how long it’s going to take them to do that.”
In testimony to a House committee last month, Mr. Dumbacher said the Starship system, with the multitude of fueling flights, was too big and too complicated to meet the current target date of 2027 for Artemis III, or even 2030, when China plans to land astronauts on the moon.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked Ukraine’s allies for condemning Russian strikes after one of the deadliest days for civilians in his country so far this year.
Ukraine’s president described the attacks as a “vile and inhumane intimidation tactic” by Russia.
While a warning by Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin to stop “pounding” Ukraine or else, appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
Russia launched heavy aerial attacks overnight into Saturday after the White House administration suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The US has been piling pressure on President Zelenskyy’s government to cooperate in convening peace talks with Russia.
American aerospace company Maxar Technologies said on Friday it had disabled access to its satellite imagery for Kyiv. Its ability to strike inside Russia and defend itself from bombardment is very much diminished without such images.
At least 22 people were killed in multiple Russian attacks, including 11 in the frontline town of Dobropilla in Ukraine’s embattled eastern Donetsk region.
Russia fired two ballistic missiles into the town centre, then launched a strike targeting rescuers who responded, according to Mr Zelenskyy. Forty-seven people, including seven children, were injured in the attack.
“It is a vile and inhumane intimidation tactic to which the Russians often resort,” he said.
The president added: “It was one of the most brutal strikes, a combined one. The strike was deliberately calculated to cause maximum damage. Missiles, along with a Shahed drone, targeted the central part of the town.
“Nine residential buildings were hit. Also, the shopping centre and stores were struck.”
Another seven people were killed in four towns close to the frontline where Russian troops have been making steady advances, said regional governor Vadym Filashkin.
Three others died when a Russian drone hit a civilian workshop in the northeastern Kharkiv region, emergency services reported. And one man was killed by shelling in the region.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it was one of 2025’s deadliest attacks for Ukrainian civilians.
Some 24 hours earlier, Russia struck Ukrainian energy facilities using dozens of missiles and drones.
The attacks hampered Ukraine’s ability to supply power to its citizens and run weapons factories vital to its defences.
When asked on Friday if Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the US pause on intelligence-sharing to attack Ukraine, Mr Trump responded: “I think he’s doing what anybody else would.”
Mr Zelenskyy did not mention intelligence-sharing on Saturday, but said he welcomed Mr Trump’s proposal to bring in banking sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and final peace settlement is reached.
Mr Zelenskyy also said: “I am grateful to all the leaders, all those diplomats of our partner countries, all public figures who support Ukraine, who have condemned these Russian strikes and who call all things by their proper names.
“And it is essential that we continue coordinating all our efforts with our partners to ensure that our defence works effectively and that we do everything to bring peace closer.”
Police at the scene after male travellers were pushed into a canal by three men. Pic: AP
Two men have been arrested in India over an alleged gang rape of an Israeli female tourist and a local woman.
The victims were stargazing with three male travellers – an American and two Indians – when the attack happened near a popular UNESCO World Heritage site on Thursday night.
Three men on a motorbike approached the group and asked them for money in Koppal town in southern Karnataka, according to authorities.
An argument followed and the three men pushed the male travellers into a nearby river canal, before the women were sexually assaulted, said police official Ram Arasiddi.
The American man and one of the two Indian men survived by swimming to safety but the other Indian man drowned and his body was recovered on Saturday.
The Indian woman was the homestay operator for the Israeli.
Homestay is a form of hospitality and lodging where visitors share a residence with a local host.
The arrested pair are being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder, gang rape and robbery, said Mr Arasiddi.
Previous high-profile attacks
Attacks on women in India gained global attention last year after a junior doctor was raped and murdered at a hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata, sparking national outrage and protests over a lack of safety for women.
In 2022, police recorded 31,516 rape cases, a 20% rise on the year before, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
The real figure is believed to be far higher due to the stigma surrounding sexual violence and victims’ lack of faith in police.
Rape and sexual violence have been in the spotlight since a student was gang-raped in 2012 on a bus in New Delhi and later died of her injuries.
The attack led to huge demonstrations and inspired politicians to bring in fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases and toughen up penalties.
Smoke from the fires in the Pine Barrens off Sunrise Highway in New York’s Long Island on Saturday. Pic: AP
A state of emergency has been issued in New York as brush fires sweep through swathes of Long Island and near Brooklyn.
Firefighters are battling the flames with National Guard helicopters providing air support, according to New York State governor Kathy Hochul.
The flames are being fanned by high winds that spewed thick smoke into the sky and caused the evacuation of a military base and the closure of a major highway.
Governor Hochul said emergency workers were responding to the fires around the Pine Barrens, a wooded area that is home to commuter towns east of New York City.
“This is still out of control at this moment,” she told Long Island TV station News 12.
“We’re seeing people having to be evacuated from the Westhampton area.”
Around the same time as videos started appearing on social media showing the fires, the Town of Southampton issued a warning against starting recreational fires due to the wildfire risk.
“Exercise caution handling any potential ignition sources, including machinery, cigarettes, and matches,” the weather service warned.
“Any fires that ignite will have the potential to spread quickly.”
NASA satellite data showed fire and smoke stretching roughly 2.5 miles along Sunrise Highway, a thoroughfare to the east end of Long Island.
Governor Hochul said homes, a chemical factory and an Amazon warehouse were at risk.
Reinforcement Syrian security forces deploy in Latakia, Syria, Friday, March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
More than 1,000 people have died in clashes in Syria after violence erupted between government supporters and people thought to be loyal to the ousted President Bashar al Assad.
The death toll, reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), makes the two days of violence some of the deadliest since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago, according to the group.
The government said it is responding to attacks from remnants of Assad’s forces and blamed “individual actions” for the violence.
Seven hundred and forty-five civilians were killed, mostly in massacres, as well as 148 pro-Assad fighters and 125 people from security forces, according to the British-based SOHR.
No official figures have been released.
SOHR said the violence erupted on Thursday afternoon when pro-Assad militants ambushed Syrian security forces in the Latakia region, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of the minority Alawites, who made up his support base, live.
On Friday, Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government began revenge killings against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, according to people in the region.
“They forcibly brought people down to the streets, then they lined them up and started shooting them,” said one resident of Baniyasin on the west coast of Syria.
“They left nobody. They left nobody at all. The scene that I saw was pure horror; it’s just indescribable,” he said.
The man, who Sky News is not naming for his safety, described women being forced to “walk naked” before being shot and a teenage boy being handed a rifle and forced to shoot his family.
He said he hid in a bin before escaping under the cover of night.
“The victims of this massacre were all civilians – just civilians and not Assad loyalists,” said the man.
Other residents from Alawite communities told the Associated Press (AP) about gunmen shooting Alawites, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes.
Many homes were looted and then set on fire, two residents of Syria’s coastal region told the AP from their hideouts.
The revenge killings stopped early Saturday, according to SOHR’s founder Rami Abdurrahman.
“This was one of the biggest massacres during the Syrian conflict,” Mr Abdurrahman said about the killings of Alawite civilians.
Syria’s state news agency said all roads leading to the coastal region have been closed “to prevent violations and gradually restore stability”.
According to SOHR, electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around the city of Latakia.
An unnamed Defense Ministry official was quoted by the news agency as saying government forces have regained control of much of the areas from Assad loyalists.
South Korea’s impeached president has been released from prison, a day after his arrest was cancelled.
A Seoul court cancelled the arrest so that he could stand trial for rebellion without being detained.
As he left the detention centre, Yoon bowed deeply to his supporters, waving and clenching his fists.
The crowd shouted his name and waved South Korean and US flags.
Yoon Suk Yeol greets his supporters as he comes out of a detention centre. Pic: AP
Yoon said he “appreciates the courage and decision by the Seoul Central District Court to correct illegality”, in a statement distributed by his lawyers, an apparent reference to legal disputes over his arrest.
While thanking his supporters, he also asked those who are on hunger strike against his impeachment to end the action.
Yoon faces rebellion charges linked to his declaration of martial law on 3 December.
The move set off the country’s most serious political crisis since its democratisation in the late 1980s.
The crisis began when, in an attempt to break through legislative gridlock, he imposed military rule and sent troops to the National Assembly and election offices.
The standoff lasted only hours after politicians who managed to get through a blockade voted to lift the measure.
The actor’s wife Betsy Arakawa died after developing hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) around 11 February, a pathologist said.
An illustration of what hantavirus particles look like. Pic: iStock
Actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease around a week after his wife Betsy Arakawa died of a rare infectious disease at their home, a pathologist has said. But what do we know about the rare virus?
The couple were found dead on 26 February in separate rooms of their Santa Fe home, along with one of their dogs, and on Friday the results of medical tests were released in New Mexico.
Two-time Oscar winner Hackman was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s when he died of heart disease, and it was likely he was at home alone with the body of his wife for a week before he passed away himself.
Dr Heather Jarrell, chief medical examiner for New Mexico, told reporters Betsy Arakawa is believed to have died around 11 February.
The post-mortem examination showed Ms Arakawa, also known as Betsy Hackman, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – a rare but potentially fatal disease.
But, what is it – and how do you get infected?
HPS, commonly referred to as hantavirus disease, is a respiratory disease caused by hantaviruses which are carried by several types of rodents.
It is a rare condition in the US, with most cases concentrated in the western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
The New Mexico Department of Health says hantaviruses are spread by the saliva, droppings and urine of infected rodents, which in North America is most likely to be the eastern deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus).
The virus is often transmitted through the air when people sweep out sheds or clean closets where mice have been living, or by eating food contaminated with mouse droppings.
It is not transmissible from person to person, Dr Jarrell said.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms, which vary between people, are thought to develop between one and eight weeks after exposure and the likelihood of death in the southwest of the US is about 38% to 50%.
Early symptoms of HPS include fatigue, fever, and myalgia (muscle aches), with about half of patients also experiencing malaise, headaches, dizziness, lightheadedness, chills, sweats, and abdominal problems including nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, according to the American Lung Association.
Later symptoms include coughing, shortness of breath, and pneumonia (lungs filling with fluid). Rapid breathing and rapid heartbeat are also typical.
At this stage, the disease progresses rapidly, requiring hospital treatment and often mechanical ventilation to help with breathing.
What is the treatment for HPS?
There is no specific cure, treatment, or vaccine for HPS, but patients have a better chance of survival when they are diagnosed early.
How common is it in the US?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking the virus after a 1993 outbreak in the Four Corners region – the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.
The agency said that, as of the end of 2022, 864 cases of hantavirus disease were reported in the US since that tracking began.
A protester holding a Palestinian flag gestures from the side of the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known by the name of the clock’s bell “Big Ben”, at the Palace of Westminster, home to the Houses of Parliament, in central London, on Mar 8, 2025. (Photo: AFP/Ben Stansall)
A man who scaled London’s Big Ben, and spent the day perched on the historic clock tower with a Palestinian flag, was arrested shortly after he came down after midnight on Sunday (Mar 9), police said.
Pictures from the scene showed a cherry picker transporting him to waiting emergency crews on the ground.
London’s Metropolitan Police force, which was first alerted to the climber around 7am local time (3pm Singapore time) on Saturday, said the man was arrested after the “protracted incident”.
The man spent the day perched barefoot on a ledge several metres up the landmark, even as emergency crews urged him to come down from the Elizabeth Tower in central London, more commonly known for its clock bell, Big Ben.
Negotiators had boarded a fire truck lift and used a megaphone to speak with the man, but footage on social media showed the figure in a hoodie and baseball cap saying: “I will come down on my own terms.”
In the footage, negotiators indicated concerns about an injury to his foot, saying there was “quite a lot of blood” and that his clothes were not warm enough as temperatures dropped after nightfall.
AFP journalists at the scene earlier said the man appeared to be bleeding from his foot.
Crowds gathered from behind a police cordon, with supporters chanting “Free Palestine” and “you are a hero”.
Police had closed off the surrounding area, including Westminster Bridge, while the Houses of Parliament cancelled tours.
Westminster police later said all roads in the area had been reopened.
“Every day in Parliament I see dozens of armed police officers patrolling Portcullis House and the parliamentary estate. Where were they today?” Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty posted on X.
DONALD Trump is set to fly in person to Saudi Arabia as he said he will get the peace deal back on track between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, the President said it is getting “more difficult” to deal with Kyiv
US President Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Oval Office of the White House in WashingtonCredit: ReutersHe said it “may be easier” to deal with Moscow, despite recognising that Putin holds “all the cards”.
But, Trump maintains his belief he will get the conflict “settled and stopped”.
When quizzed over Russia’s intentions to end the war, Trump said he does believe Putin is “committed to peace”.
He added: “I do believe Putin wants peace. I think we’re doing very well with Russia.”
Trump also said that Russia is “bombing the hell” out of Ukraine to take advantage of his weapon and intelligence pause to Kyiv.
He said Putin is doing what “anyone else would do”.
“But right now they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine.
“Ukraine has to get on the ball and get the job done.”
Echoing Trump’s statement on a peace deal, advisor Mike Waltz said that he expects things to get “back on track” with Ukraine.
Trump is expected to be in Saudi Arabia in the spring after Riyadh agreed to invest $1 trillion in American companies over the next four years.
He said: “They’ve gotten richer, we’ve all gotten older. So I said, ‘I’ll go if you pay a $1 trillion to American companies… over a four-year period.
“They’ve agreed to do that, so I’m going to be going there… probably over the next month and a half.”
Trump is also expected to bring up the war in Ukraine during his visit.
Meanwhile, top diplomats from the US including Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet the Ukrainian delegation for talks on ending the war.
Zelensky will not be meeting with US representatives in Saudi Arabia next week for peace talks as both sides try to build back their damaged relationship.
The talks set to take place in Jeddah, will see his team meet with Americans while the President returns to Kyiv after meeting the crown prince.
In a post he said: “Next week, on Monday, my trip to Saudi Arabia is planned to meet with the crown prince.
“After that my team will stay in Saudi Arabia to work with American partners. Ukraine is most interested in peace.
“As we conveyed to president Trump Ukraine is working and will continue working exclusively in a constructive manner to reach a quick and stable peace.”
Sanctions blast
Earlier today, Trump accused Vlad’s forces of “pounding” the cities – and said he was “strongly considering” a tough new regime of sanctions and tariffs.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.
“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”
His blasting post on is his most direct attack on the Russians since he steered his new administration into the role of peacemaker.
Trump’s past comments, including labelling the Ukrainian leader a “dictator,” fuelled speculation that he was siding with Moscow, and he has previously cast doubt on continued US support for Ukraine.
But this latest statement now marks a decisive pivot, suggesting Trump is now willing to exert economic pressure on Russia to ensure long-term peace.
Russia has been blitzing Ukraine with massive overnight strikes, targeting civilian infrastructure and residential buildings.
Just last night, Nato was forced to scramble fighter jets after Moscow launched a massive missile drone strike on Ukrainian gas facilities.
Mad dictator Putin sent up his Tu-95MS strategic bombers from an Arctic airfield to launch devastating strikes, impacting Ukrainian civilians.
The overnight missile blitz came after Ukrainians were left raging after Trump axed sharing intelligence – leaving Kyiv’s troops “fighting blind”.
The Nato fighter planes were on alert to shoot down any Russian missiles entering Polish airspace as tensions continue to spiral between Europe, Russia and the US.
Zelensky had proposed an aerial truce with Moscow following the overnight attack and having met with EU leaders at the summit yesterday.
In a social media post, Zelensky called for “silence in the skies – a ban on the use of missiles, long-range drones and bombs.
“And also silence at sea – a real guarantee of normal navigation.”
Can Europe fill the gap?
Yesterday, leaders gathered at an emergency EU summit in Brussels and signalled that a £670 billion war chest will be amassed to help Ukraine in the war against Russia.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen called it a “watershed moment” for Europe and Ukraine.
And British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that a “coalition of the willing” would come together and devise a peace plan to end the bloody war.
An overwhelming 20 countries are now lined up to join to protect against further Russian aggression.
France’s defence minister confirmed that his country was continuing to provide Ukraine with military intelligence.
A DOUBLE murderer has been executed by firing squad – but he kept breathing after he was shot three times in the chest.
Brad Sigmon is the first person to choose execution by firing squad in 15 years – and faced his lethal punishment on Friday night.
He died after three special bullets were shot at his heart by three volunteer riflemen at the South Carolina Department of Corrections in Columbia.
Sigmon, 67, was convicted of beating to death with a baseball bat his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke, at their Taylors home in 2001.
He chose the firing squad over the electric chair or lethal injection, which he feared would cook him alive and make it feel like he was drowning.
The death row inmate of 23 years wore a black jumpsuit with a hood over his head as he was strapped into a chair.
A bullseye target showed the executioners where to shoot as they took aim from 15ft away behind a curtain.
Sigmon breathed heavily as he awaited the rain of bullets.
All three gunmen opened fire at the same time, in front of about a dozen witnesses.
Sigmon tensed briefly when he was shot, the target was blasted off his chest, and he appeared to give another breath or two as a red stain spread across his chest.
A doctor entered the death chamber to examine Sigmon about a minute later, before declaring him dead at 6:08 p.m.
Gerald “Bo” King, Sigmon’s lawyer, said the decision was because he feared a lack of transparency could be covering up how painful these methods really are.
Sigmon made a last gasp for life on Wednesday, when he pleaded with the Supreme Court to halt his execution.
He argued that South Carolina’s refusal to disclose information about its lethal injection procedure violates his due-process rights.
Gerald “Bo” King, Simgon’s lawyer, said it took around 20 minutes for the last three men executed in the state to die from the lethal injection.
He said Sigmon faced “an impossible choice” between bullets that will “break the bones in his chest and destroy his heart” and a having his “lungs filling with blood and fluid” after the injection.
Bo also said Sigmon avoided the chair because he feared it would “burn and cook him alive”.
A group of protesters holding signs with messages such as “All life is precious” and “Execute justice not people” gathered outside the prison before Sigmon’s execution.
BRUTAL MURDER
Sigmon pulped the couple in April 2001, just a week after breaking up with their daughter, Rebecca Barbare.
He and Rebeca had been in a relationship for around three years, living in a trailer park near David and Gladys’s home.
After a night of crack cocaine and drinking, Sigmon told a friend he was going to “get Becky for leaving him” and would “tie her parents up”, according to court documents.
When Rebecca took her kids to school, Sigmon showed up at her parents’ house armed with a baseball bat.
He bludgeoned them alternately, striking each nine times over the head.
David’s “skull was […] almost broken in two”, the court heard during the 2002 trial.
Sigmon then stole David’s gun and waiting for Rebecca to get back.
He marched her into the car at gunpoint but she managed to escape, fleeing as he blasted shots in her direction, according to the court docs.
The murderer fled the state but was captured after 11 days on the run in Tennessee.
When he was arrested, Sigmon told detectives he had planned to murder Rebecca and then turn the gun on himself.
He said: “I couldn’t have her. I wasn’t going to let anybody else have her.”
RARE METHOD
Just three convicts have been executed by firing squad in the US since 1976 – and all of them in Utah.
Rebecca, Sigmon’s ex, told USA Today she does not believe in the death penalty, but that he “should answer for what he’s done”.
Randy Gardner, brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner, the last man to be killed by firing squad in the US, has slammed the fact the method still exists.
D’Wayne Wiggins, a mentor to superstar Beyonce and founding member of band Tony! Toni! Tone!, has died aged 64.
Wiggins sadly passed on Friday morning after a private bladder cancer battle which he had fought for the past year.
In a statement, his family said: “D’Wayne’s life was incomparable, and his music and service impacted millions around the world, including in his hometown of Oakland, California.”
Wiggins was a singer and bass guitarist for the R&B group Tony! Toni! Tone! which sold over 4million records.
They were best know for the classic 1990s hits Anniversary, It Never Rains (In Southern California) and (Lay Your Head on My) Pillow.
But it could be for his 1995 work developing Destiny’s Child and Beyonce into the global pop phenomenon that he could be best remembered.
His family added: “Through this fight, he remained committed and present for his family, his music, his fans and his community.
“He was deeply passionate about providing artist development and mentorship to emerging young musicians, helping to shape the early careers of many.”
Tony! Toni! Tone! were mainstays of the New York swing movement, but Wiggins and his brother Raphael Saadiq, another band member, were from Oakland, California.
They burst onto the music scene with their 1988 debut album, Who? with songs like Baby Doll and Little Walter.
But it was their 1990 New Jack Swing-infused Feels Good record that gave the group mainstream success, peaking at nine on Billboards’ Hot 100 chart.
The Tonyies went their separate ways after their fourth album, 1996’s platinum-selling House of Music. Fame.
Finances, miscommunication and creative differences were unsustainable for the brothers.
Wiggins then turned to production and produced and helped grow young artists who would become some of today’s brightest young stars, including Zendaya, H.E.R., and Kehlani.
In 2000, Wiggins released his solo album, Eyes Never Lie.
That featured collaborations with Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, Jamie Foxx and Carlos Santana.
In 2003, Wiggins appeared on Alicia Keys’ track Diary which was nominated for a Grammy.
The Tonies reunited in 2023 and planned new material.
Wiggins said: “We got a lot of material, and now we just want to make sure that we put out the right energy through our music.”
Meghan’s Netflix show has been renewed despite poor reviewsCredit: Netflix
MEGHAN Markle’s new Netflix show has suffered a scathing review from a Hollywood industry bible which compared it to a “forced march”.
With Love, Meghan landed on the streaming service earlier this week – before being confirmed today for a second series.
That’s despite the lifestyle show, which also featured Prince Harry, being largely panned by critics and audiences.
For many in the celeb world, the word of US trade magazine Variety is gospel but it didn’t take kindly to the Duchess of Sussex’s offering.
It described the “attitude” of the eight-episode show as “well-tailored and beige”, which was said to match Meghan’s outfit choices.
The royal – who stepped down as a working member of the Firm alongside her husband in 2020 – was labelled “less-than-adept at speaking on her feet”.
The review goes on to say: “With Love, Meghan exists as a sort of celebration of all things Duchess of Sussex — and, as with past of her media outings, no amount of praise seems enough.”
And: “With Love, Meghan is made with a great deal of love — in the sense that the greatest love of all is the one that a person has for herself.”
The harsh criticism from Variety will sting the duchess and her team, but the huge interest in the show has convinced Netflix bosses to give it another outing.
Meghan posted on Instagram saying she’s “thrilled” with the decision.
Wearing a Netflix cap she was seen grinning in a short clip on her stories, with the caption: “Lettuce romaine calm… or not(!) because I’m thrilled to share that Season 2 of ‘With Love, Meghan’ is coming!”
A TV insider told The Sun: “This may raise a few eyebrows but one thing which Netflix love is controversy – and this show certainly created alot of debate.
“Many were so scathing about the eight-part series that they thought there was no way it would get another season.
“But it seems the streamer is delighted with the chatter its created on both sides of the Atlantic this week.”
It’s not clear whether work has already started on the second series, but Netflix want it to drop later this year.
It comes after royal pros had suggested that a lot of people dislike the mum-of-two and as a result, are ‘hate watching’ her new lifestyle series.
With Love, Meghan is the second Netflix collaboration for the Sussexes, who signed a lucrative multi-million pound deal with the streaming giant back in 2020.
Meanwhile, the duchess, 43, recently renamed her lifestyle brand As Ever, switching from the name American Riviera Orchard after facing trademark issues.
Speaking to The Sun’s Royal Editor, Matt Wilkinson, on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, News.com.au Royal Correspondent Bronte Coy and The Sun’s royal photographer Arthur Edwards weighed in on the series, which was released on Tuesday and has been described as ‘absolutely awful’.
Bronte said: “There’s a lot riding on this series, I think a lot of people will have watched it, whether they hate Meghan or they love her – the hate watching part of it as well – there’s clearly interest, even though a lot of people have no admiration for her.
“But at the same time, that won’t carry through for a season two. The hate watching element would be season one.”
She added: “Harry and Meghan need to keep these deals going, they have a very expensive lifestyle, particularly with security and everything.
“I think it is in danger of being axed or significantly reduced.”
Not only this, but Arthur explained: “Eventually [Harry and Meghan] are going to run out of ideas and people are not going to be interested. People will lose interest.
“She seems to be attracting publicity. She gave it her best shot but it just wasn’t good enough.”
‘The whole thing was false’
Throughout the series, Meghan shared a variety of recipes, including a cooked breakfast, skillet spaghetti and a honey and lemon cake.
She also demonstrated her method for making tea by steeping bags in cold water under the sun for two to three hours, using “nice silk bags, lots of leaf tea, and just let it steep with the warmth of the sun.”
And whilst Matt recognised, “With Love, Meghan has been roasted, absolutely savaged by TV critics, Arthur chimed in: “I just think it was completely over-the-top.”
Clearly not impressed, the iconic photographer added: “Everything about it was false.
“The whole thing was false – it wasn’t even her house, it was somebody else’s house.”
A male coach leading an elite women’s team is an everyday sight, but the opposite is almost never true. Helen Nkwocha, who has broken that convention in soccer, is among the women and coaches who want things to change.
Helen Nkwocha still feels that as a female coach the odds are stacked against herImage: privatPacked stadiums, increasing professionalization and a 50/50 athlete gender split at the Paris Olympics. The growth in women’s sport is visible.
Though the pace of change in a few sports has picked up, decades of underfunding, prevention of opportunity and sexism are taking some time to unpick in a broader sense. That’s particularly true in leadership positions, such as coaching.
While equality was achieved at the 2024 Olympics for athletes, it was far from the case for those tasked with improving them.
Though the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has not released data, most estimates put the percentage of female coaches in Paris at 13%, around the same level as the Tokyo Games three years earlier. It’s a pattern repeated across the sporting landscape — just over a third of coaches at the Women’s football World Cup in 2023 were women.
Female coaches in men’s sports are exceptionally rare. Helen Nkwocha is one woman who managed to clear the hurdles required to break those conventions. The English coach became the first woman to coach a men’s European top-division football team in 2021 when she took over as head coach of Tvoroyar Boltfelag of the Faroe Islands.
Despite that achievement, she feels the odds are stacked against her regarding future employment.
“I’d just like a chance to say: ‘I’m a football coach, and that’s it.’ But you also need to feel that you’re not unfairly up against [less qualified] competition. It’s not an equal playing field if you’re trying to get a job, it’s saturated with people that you wouldn’t ordinarily be in competition with,” she told DW.
What’s behind the unwillingness to hire female coaches?
Nkwocha now works as director of coaching at US youth football organization Rush Soccer. She has recognized an improvement in development and opportunities for female coaches since she started more than a decade ago. But the pace of change can be frustrating, as recognized by 2025’s International Women’s Day campaign Accelerate Action.
The reluctance to hire a female coach and break with old habits is a frustration identified by many of those affected. Those in decision-making roles in sports are usually men, and many do not even consider a female coach. Some of this may be due to concerns of a backlash, some may be misogyny, but, in many cases, it is just not part of the thought process.
“I always talk about like visibility versus opportunity,” Tamara Taylor, national coach developer for the English Rugby Union, told DW. “Some people, in order to pursue something, whatever that thing is, need to be able to see someone who is a bit like them.
“Some people will do it, whether there’s visibility or not. But are they going to get given the opportunity? I’d probably say that even now they’re not.”
Less female coaches than before?
Taylor points to the top division of English women’s rugby, Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), as evidence of her belief. Three years ago, there were seven female head coaches and more than 20 female coaches working as assistants. Now, there are fewer than five female assistant coaches and no female head coaches.
Increasingly close links to men’s clubs can sometimes lead to decisions made by people with limited experience of the women’s game and a contacts book from the male equivalent. There is also a perception that women cannot understand the men’s game, which frustrates Taylor.
“You’ll have male coaches who’ve only played men’s rugby and coached in the men’s game who are very happy to go and coach in the PWR, and nobody seems to have a problem with it. And yet, you don’t see the other way around, a female coach who’s only played women’s rugby as coach in the men’s game. There is just not that crossover.”
Both Nkwocha and Taylor have benefitted from programs attempting to redress that balance. Nkwocha now runs a similar course to try to help the next generation.
“I’m overseeing the program, which allows me to do something similar. So I am hiring and having conversations with females who used to play, and I’m saying to them, Why aren’t you coaching?” she said.
“It also gives them a chance to make mistakes, because the judgment is quite harsh in football. We also want to get people exposed to the reality that maybe you’re being judged differently because you’re female.”
Since the beginning of 2025, more than 160 people have died from poisoning after drinking bootleg alcohol in Turkey. How did going out for a drink become so dangerous?
Raki, the Turkish anise-flavored spirit, is so much more than just a drink. It is deeply rooted in Turkish culture and an essential part of the country’s lively culinary tradition. Meals that take hours, lots of laughter and communal singing are all hallmarks of an evening during which raki is imbibed.
Famous Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanik once said he’d like to be a fish living in a raki bottle. Turkish pop legend Sezen Aksu sang about a drunken night where the raki flows. Even the man known as the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was famous for his hospitality, serving raki generously when he hosted friends and artists.
But more recently raki has been getting a different kind of reputation: It’s become known as the guilty party in an increasing number of deaths from alcohol poisoning, in particular in Turkey’s major cities — Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir — as well as at Turkish holiday destinations.
This year, there’s been a dramatic increase in deaths because of “fake” or bootleg alcohol. Since the beginning of 2025, at least 160 people have died as a result of consuming illegally-produced alcohol. According to Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, by the end of February the government had seized 648,000 liters of illegally produced raki, vodka, gin and other sprints. The government had also arrested 560 suspects.
Prices for alcoholic drinks have increased significantly in Turkey over the past few years due to rising taxes. A bottle of raki now costs around €35 ($38). Given that the monthly minimum wage is about €572 ($617), those sorts of prices make raki unaffordable for many ordinary Turks. In Germany, for example, a bottle of raki is much cheaper, usually selling for between €12 and €18.
For many Turkish locals, raki is a standard accompaniment with a meal — but now it’s almost unaffordableImage: Tolga Bozoglu/dpa/picture alliance
Germany’s Foreign Office, along with other governments such as that of the United Kingdom, has warned about the dangers of consuming bootleg alcohol in Turkey. Tourists heading to the country have been advised to be cautious, to ensure the label on their bottle is not a copy and that the blue-turquoise banderole (a small seal on the bottle top) isn’t damaged or tampered with.
Recently local NGO, Turkish Public Alcohol Policy Watch (Devletin Alkol Politikalarini Izleme Platformu), which monitors public policies on alcohol, added to those warnings with a post on X (formerly twitter): “Avoid restaurants that offer unlimited alcohol, take care to order an unopened bottle and then open it yourself, to make certain the original seal is intact,” the organization warned.
The main cause of alcohol poisoning is the addition of cheap methanol instead of ethanol, which is the main type of alcohol produced by grain fermentation. Methanol is highly poisonous and can lead to visual disturbances, vomiting, dizziness, organ failure and, in the worst case, death.
But a drink containing methanol is almost impossible to differentiate from one that doesn’t, says Cagin Tan Eroglu, of the Turkish Public Alcohol Policy Watch. It smells the same, looks the same and even tastes like regular alcohol, he notes.
Like others in Turkey, Eroglu criticizes the Turkish government tax policy that has led to such huge price increases for drinks. Since 2013, value-added taxes and consumer taxes on alcohol have increased automatically every six months and this has led to disproportionate price increases. Currently taxes make up about two-thirds of the consumer price for spirits. And on top of that, the Turkish economy has been suffering from galloping inflation. All this has forced people to turn to the black market where they can get a cheaper alternative to drink.
Economist Ozan Bingol, a Turkish tax expert, recently added it all up. “Fifteen years ago, the consumer tax alone was around 51.5 Turkish lira per liter of alcohol. It is currently almost 1,366 lira [per liter] — an incredible increase of 2,553%,” he wrote on X in early February.
As one local from the western Turkish city of Izmir told DW, going out to have a drink has become something of a luxury. Because buying alcohol on the black market is way too risky, the local has been distilling his own raki for almost 10 years now. He remembers when raki used to cost around €18 and is of the opinion that the Islamist-conservative government is using alcohol taxation as an instrument of repression and a way to interfere in people’s private lives, trying to force more liberal, less religious Turks to stop drinking alcohol. The government is dividing society, the Izmir local argues, and demonizing anybody who doesn’t conform to their ideals.
Erdogan’s alcohol clampdown
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes no secret of the fact that, as devout Muslim, he’s not keen on alcohol. He’ll often say so in his speeches. For Erdogan, Turkey’s national drink is the yoghurt drink ayran.
After the most recent cases of death from alcohol poisoning, two professional groups —the Turkish chambers of food and chemical engineers — made an urgent appeal to the Turkish government. They argued that high taxes haven’t led to any reduction in alcohol consumption and have in fact become a threat to public health. They called on local authorities to do more to curtail illegal alcohol production and for the government to reduce the taxes.
Eroglu, of Turkish Public Alcohol Policy Watch, agrees that the high taxes haven’t had the desired effect of lessening alcohol consumption. Rather they have led to more deaths from alcohol poisoning.
Bill Gates sold five million shares of Berkshire Hathaway in the past two quarters. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
A 13F-HR filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that the Gates Foundation Trust’s portfolio size declined by £2.31 billion to £38.4 billion in Q4 2024.
For the second consecutive quarter, Gates sold a considerable amount of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) shares.
For the quarter ended 31st December 2024, the foundation trimmed its stake in Microsoft by 1.73%, or 500,000 shares, to 28.46 million shares worth £9.26 billion.
In the same quarter, the billionaire sold 2.48 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway, reducing his stake in the company by 11.21% to 19.66 million shares worth £6.88 billion.
Despite these trades, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway remain Gates’ top portfolio holdings, making up almost 50% of his total portfolio size.
Microsoft Continues To Face Widespread Outages
Alongside a Crowstrike crash in 2024, which crippled millions of devices running on Microsoft Windows systems, the company’s services continue to struggle with massive outages, disrupting user access to key tools like Outlook and Microsoft 365.
Last week, Microsoft users in the US couldn’t access Outlook, Microsoft 365, and other services due to a widespread outage. Downdetector logged over 37,000 complaints about Outlook alone. Complaints for 365 services mounted to 24,000 users, while many people reported problems with Microsoft Teams, Azure, and Xbox services. The company has faced similar disruptions in 2024 and 2023.
Late last year, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI units, asking the tech firm to divulge details about its business practices. Since Microsoft is a top government contractor offering cloud and software products to US agencies, the FTC stated that outages impacting a cloud provider’s services as big as Microsoft could have a “cascading impact” on the overall economy.
Berkshire Hathaway Shares Could Be Overvalued
Gates sold almost five million Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway in the past two quarters. His moves coincided with his friend and legendary investor Warren Buffett’s decision not to buy back shares of his own company in Q3. This was the first time Buffett made such a decision in six years, probably because the Oracle of Omaha thought his company could be overvalued.
A company regulatory filing mentioned Buffett would purchase shares when he feels the stock price is ‘below Berkshire’s intrinsic value, conservatively determined,’ showcasing his decades-long adherence to value investing principles of buying great businesses at lower prices.
In Q4, Berkshire Hathaway’s cash reserves ballooned to £258.4 billion, fueling speculation about whether there are no bargains in the market. However, Buffett reassured investors about his preference for equities over cash.
‘Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities,’ Buffett noted. ‘That preference won’t change.’
He added that although Berkshire’s stock holdings fell last year, the value of its private holdings rose ‘and remains far greater than the value of the marketable portfolio.’
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly dragged IKEA beds and other bedroom necessities to a federal office building as the task force’s young team sets up camp. Getty Images; AFP
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly dragged IKEA beds and other bedroom necessities to a federal office building as the task force’s young team sets up camp.
At least four offices in the General Services Administration’s office building have been equipped with IKEA beds, as well as lamps and dressers, two career GSA employees told Politico.
A February invoice obtained by the outlet also indicated that the agency had been considering using about $25,000 to purchase a washing machine and dryer for the office building’s sixth floor—where the office bedrooms are reportedly set up.
Although it’s unclear how often the sleeping areas are used, one GSA employee told Politico, “People are definitely … sleeping there.”
Back in January, the Tesla CEO previously told others that he had been sleeping at the DOGE headquarters, WIRED reported. However this is not the first time Musk has done this, saying in an interview with Ron Baron in 2022 that would spend some nights at Tesla and Twitter headquarters to keep employees motivated.
“It’s exceedingly odd,” Jeff Nesbit, a former staffer, told Politico. “I’ve run the public affairs offices of five different Cabinet departments or agencies under four different presidents, two Republicans and two Democrats. I have never heard of any such thing. I can’t even imagine what the purpose is, other than to terrorize the civilian workforce.”
At the South by Southwest premiere of “Another Simple Favor,” Blake Lively spoke in public for the first time since her legal battle with Justin Baldoni began in December.
“I love this character so much. It’s probably my favorite character I’ve ever been fortunate enough to play,” she said onstage at Austin’s Paramount Theater after the screening. “So when Paul asked us to come back, I was so excited.”
Though no one referenced the Baldoni controversy directly, support for Lively among her collaborators was clear. On the red carpet before the premiere, director Paul Feig told Variety that she is “the most amazing collaborator,” adding that “every movie star has opinions about what they’re doing. I haven’t worked with one that doesn’t want to get in there and work on stuff and make it better. That’s our process. I love that Blake works that way.”
Lively skipped doing interviews on the carpet, but did visit and take selfies with fans cheering for her in front of the theater; minus the presence of one pro-Baldoni protestor outside of the premiere, who wore a shirt saying “Blake Lied,” SXSW gave her a warm welcome. There were whispers and excitement throughout the auditorium when she made her way to her seat, flanked by two bodyguards and two publicists, Leslie Sloane and Jami Kandel of Vision PR — though she she still took time to say hello to her seatmates. The crowd erupted into applause and cheers every time Lively’s name was mentioned in the introduction to the film, and even more loudly when she first appeared on screen, saying, “Boo!”
Schools in Thailand have traditionally associated short hair with tidiness – but students have been fighting for change
After years of wrangling with authorities, students in Thailand can now let their hair down. Literally.
On Wednesday, Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court annulled a 50-year-old directive by the education ministry, which had previously set out rules on hairstyles for school students: short hair for boys and ear-length bobs for girls.
In practice, hairstyle rules have been gradually relaxed across many schools. But some still used the 1975 junta-issued directive as a guideline, and would cut the hair of students who didn’t adhere.
The 1975 directive violated individual freedoms protected by the constitution and was out of touch with today’s society, the court said.
The court decision this week came in response to a petition, filed by 23 public school students in 2020, which argued that the 1975 directive was unconstitutional.
Student activists have long campaigned for hairstyle rules to be relaxed, saying it infringes on their human dignity and personal freedom over their bodies.
One of them is Panthin Adulthananusak, who recently graduated from university.
“In the eyes of kids like us back then… even though it seemed impossible, we wanted to do something,” he told the BBC. “If no student in Thai history rose up to challenge the power of the adults that suppressed us, it would be a lifelong embarrassment.”
In response to such campaigns, the education ministry in 2020 allowed students to have longer hairstyles – but there remained some restrictions. Boys’ hair could not cover the nape of their necks, while girls with long hair had to tie it up.
Those regulations were revoked in 2023, with then education minister Trinuch Thienthong announcing that students, parents and school authorities should negotiate their own common ground on what is acceptable for hairstyles in their schools.
But through all these changes, some schools continued to follow the standard laid out in the original 1975 directive.
Schools have traditionally associated short hair with discipline and tidiness – an argument that has been repeated by many social media users this week. But in recent years reports of schools banning bangs or dyed hair have sparked public outcry across Thailand.
In some parts of the country, teachers are known to shoddily cut students’ hair during morning assembly to punish them for flouting hairstyle rules. Such practices have continued even as education authorities warned teachers against it.
In January, the Ministry of Education reiterated that it had repealed restrictions on hair length for all students, saying it recognised the “importance of promoting diversity and fairness in all aspects of education”.
A coffee shop in Toronto has started handing out anti-51st state stickers to customers.
Not long after the US imposed their tariffs on Canada, a local neighbourhood pub in Toronto began removing all American products off their menu.
That means nachos, wings – and of course, beer – must all to be made now with local Canadian ingredients, or wherever not possible, non-US products from Europe or Mexico.
For Leah Russell, manager at Toronto’s Madison Avenue pub, the boycott was a no-brainer. She adds that it is “pretty set in stone,” even if the tariffs themselves are not.
“I’m glad that we’re getting rid of American products and supporting local businesses,” Ms Russell told the BBC on Thursday. “I think it’s an important thing to do.”
This defiant stance in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canada has been unfolding across the northern country.
Just ask actor Jeff Douglas, once the face of Molson Canadian Beer’s “I Am Canadian” advertisements, who has filmed and posted a light-hearted, but deeply-patriotic video on Youtube this week addressing Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric.
“We’re not the 51st anything,” declares Mr Douglas in the video, which has since gone viral in Canada.
Some of the backlash has been more symbolic, like one Montreal café changing the Americano on their menu to a “Canadiano” – a small gesture that the owners say is meant to display unity and support for their community and country.
Even the CBC, the country’s public broadcaster, is feeling the full force of this wave of patriotism, after it dared run a programme asking Canadians what they think about Canada becoming “the 51st state”, as Trump has suggested many times.
The show sparked intense backlash and accusations of “treason,” “sedition” and even “betrayal”.
Although Trump has since lifted some of the tariffs imposed this week and put others on pause until 2 April, many Canadians say the damage has already been done.
After Thursday’s reversal, foreign minister Melanie Joly told CNN that Canada has been shown “too much disrespect by the Trump administration at this point, calling us a 51st state, calling our prime minister ‘governor.'”
Meanwhile, Doug Ford, who is the leader of Canada’s most populous province, did not back down from his plan to slap export tariffs on electricity that Canada supplies some US states. The 25% surcharge will affect up to 1.5 million American homes.
“I feel terrible for the American people because it’s not the American people, and it’s not even elected officials, it’s one person,” he told a local radio show on Thursday in reference to Trump.
“He’s coming after his closest friends, closest allies in the world and it’s going to absolutely devastate both economies,” Ford said.
Canadians support their country’s reciprocal actions, saying they should remain in place until US tariffs are completely off the table.
“You go to bed every night and don’t have any idea where you stand,” said Andrew, a shopper at a Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) store in Toronto, which has stopped stocking US-made alcoholic drinks. Trump says he will delay the tariffs, “but what does that mean?” he asks.
“Let’s keep [American-made drinks] off the shelves until we know what things are going to be from day to day.”
The tariffs have been met with deep anxiety in Canada, whose majority of exports are sold to companies and clients in the US. Officials predict up to a million job losses if a 25% across the board levy went ahead, while economists warn that a recession is imminent if they persist.
The potential impact is devastating enough that the Canadian government has announced it will bring in relief measures, similar to those implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic, to help impacted individuals and businesses.
Even with the tariffs being scaled back temporarily, the uncertainty alone is hurting both American and Canadian economies, says Rob Gillezeau, an assistant professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of Toronto.
“The most sensitive thing to uncertainty is business investment,” Prof Gillezeau says, adding that firms are “not going to want to spend a dime anywhere” until they have some clarity.
Analysts suggest the mere whiff of a trade war is likely costing Canadian companies hundreds of thousands of dollars as they try to navigate through these changes, and are likely delaying deals and disrupting trade due to the confusion.
That trepidation is also seen in the stock market, which had erased virtually all its gains since Trump won the presidency in November.
The Singaporean man accused of stealing and laundering US$230 million worth of cryptocurrency will go on trial on Oct 6 in the United States.
Malone Lam’s trial date was set after he appeared in court in Washington DC on Friday (Mar 7), wearing a green prison jumpsuit.
Singaporean Malone Lam and the cars he bought after he allegedly stole US$230 million in cryptocurrency from a victim in Washington. (Photos: Broward Sheriff’s Office, court documents)
The 20-year-old had previously requested a “speedy” legal process.
The prosecution expects to have a new indictment related to the case in the next 30 to 45 days, said Assistant US Attorney Kevin L Rosenberg. He added that he expects the trial to last around two weeks.
After the court hearing on Friday, one of his defence lawyers, Scott Armstrong, said in a statement to CNA: “Malone Lam looks forward to exercising his right to trial by jury in this case.”
Lam is being held in a prison in Virginia. More pre-trial hearings are expected in the coming months and he will have an opportunity to enter a formal plea at these hearings.
Together with accomplice Jeandiel Serrano, Lam is accused of taking 4,100 bitcoins from a “high net worth investor” by pretending to be a Google support team member.
US prosecutors have described the scam as “one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts from a private individual … in the history of the United States”.
Serrano, a 21-year-old from Los Angeles, did not appear in court.
For each offence, Lam faces up to 20 years in jail, a fine of up to US$250,000, or up to twice his gains from the scams.
SPENDING SPREE
The case has drawn interest in Singapore after news of Lam’s lavish spending from the alleged theft.
He is said to have rented luxury homes, spent US$400,000 to US$500,000 per night at nightclubs in Los Angeles and Miami, as well as bought dozens of luxury cars that included custom Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches.
Social media videos purportedly show him in nightclubs, gifting Hermes Birkin bags to models and influencers.
According to the indictment, Malone Lam goes by the online monikers “Anne Hathaway” and “$$$”.
He and Serrano allegedly sent “unauthorised Google account access” notifications to the victim in the week leading up to the theft.
They used proxy and virtual private network (VPN) services to make it appear as if the access attempts were coming from overseas. This laid the groundwork for the theft through “sophisticated social engineering”, according to court documents.
The court heard that on Aug 18, 2024, Lam and his accomplice called the victim, pretending to be Google support team members and telling the victim there had been a hack attempt on his account. The pair ultimately convinced the victim to provide the security codes to his account before Lam allegedly accessed the victim’s OneDrive and Gmail accounts to locate the cryptocurrency assets.
He also looked for additional information on the victim’s private accounts and found Gemini cryptocurrency exchange records, said court documents.
The conspirators agreed that one of them should call the victim back and pose as a Gemini security team member to convince the victim that his cryptocurrency accounts had also been compromised.
More than 300,000 properties are without power as a tropical storm edges closer to Australia’s east coast, lashing the region with heavy rain.
Storm Alfred has been downgraded from a cyclone to a tropical low, but local authorities have warned that the threat it poses is “not over”.
Violent winds have already downed trees and power lines, with roads flooded in low-lying areas as the storm approaches landfall. Alfred is forecast to hit the coast near Brisbane before moving further inward later on Saturday.
Tens of thousands of people have been told to evacuate from the storm’s path, while others have been urged to stay indoors.
Four million people across Queensland and northern New South Wales are in the firing line of the storm, with dozens of weather warnings in place across both areas.
The emergency services say they are working with energy companies, after some residents were told they could be without power for days.
Around 287,000 customers are experiencing outages in south east Queensland, according to energy provider Energex, while Essential Energy said more than 42,600 homes and businesses in New South Wales had experienced blackouts.
People in Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, went to bed on Friday bracing for strong winds and heavy rain.
They woke up on Saturday to learn that the cyclone had been downgraded and the city would escape the worst of the weather.
But the danger’s not over in other parts of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said “the worst is yet to come”, and along the Gold Coast, which has been pummelled by bad weather the past few days, conditions are still pretty extreme.
There is driving rain and strong winds. There are power lines down, hundreds of trees have blown over in gardens, parks and along the main roads. There is lots of debris and emergency services have sectioned off areas most at risk.
“This emergency is not over,” said New South Wales state premier Chris Minns, adding that it is “crucially important” that the public does not “dismiss” the storm.
“It really doesn’t matter to us whether it’s been downgraded from a tropical cyclone to a weather event,” he said.
The state’s emergency service operations commander, Stuart Fisher, warned people not to be “complacent” and said authorities in the region expect flooding to continue over the next few days.
As the storm has edged closer to landfall, nearly 1,000 schools have closed, public transport has been suspended and airports are shut. Elective surgeries have also been cancelled.
Flights are not expected to resume until Sunday at the earliest.
The BBC has spoken to several people from Brisbane’s homeless community, who have taken refuge at Emmanuel City Mission, which has become a round-the-clock shelter.
Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as Director of National Intelligence at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Officials involved in diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility programs at the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence have been ordered to resign or be fired, the lawyer for two of the officials said on Friday.
Attorney Kevin Carroll said he did not know how many other ODNI officials had received the directive beyond his clients.
Unlike the CIA, which issued a similar order last month to 51 officers temporarily assigned to diversity programs, ODNI was giving those who received one a chance to appeal to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, he said.
“Like their colleagues at CIA, they are being told that they cannot apply for other jobs; unlike CIA, they are being given a right to appeal to the DNI,” said Carroll, a former undercover CIA officer.
An ODNI spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nearly two weeks ago, a federal judge refused to halt the firings of the CIA officers who were terminated under U.S. President Donald Trump’s January 20 executive order eliminating diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility programs across the federal government.
One of Carroll’s clients said in an email reviewed by Reuters that they were told to report at 11:45 a.m. EST on Monday to the ODNI visitors center, where they were expected to resign, accept deferred resignation by September 30 or be fired after 90 days of paid administrative leave.
They also could submit a written appeal of the order, the email said.
The client, whose identity was not disclosed, said they were told they were ineligible for reassignment to another post.
The CIA this week terminated an unspecified number of recent hires in cuts that current and former U.S. intelligence officials warned would risk damaging U.S. national security, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The appeal covered four protests. Pic: Just Stop Oil/PA
Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam has had his prison sentence reduced by a year after a High Court appeal.
He was among a group of 16 activists who challenged jail terms of between 15 months and five years for their roles in four demonstrations between August and November 2022.
Ten of them had their appeals dismissed.
Hallam was jailed for five years last July over a plot to disrupt M25 traffic, which saw 45 people climbing on to gantries over the motorway.
His sentence was reduced to four years on appeal.
Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin each received four-year jail terms for their involvement in the same protest, which caused four days of disruption.
Shaw and Lancaster’s sentences were reduced to three years, while Whittaker De Abreu and Gethin’s sentences were reduced to 30 months.
Gaie Delap, who was previously jailed for 20 months for her role in protests on the M25 had her sentence reduced to one of 18 months.
Her co-defendants, George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell and Paul Sousek, who were imprisoned for between two years and 20 months, had their appeals dismissed, along with six others involved in different protests.
They included Dr Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett were jailed for between three years and 15 months after occupying tunnels dug under the road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex.
The Court of Appeal also threw out challenges from Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were sentenced to two years and 20 months respectively after almost “destroying” Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers by throwing soup on its protective glass at London’s National Gallery.
Lawyers for the group of 16 told the court last month the sentences were “manifestly excessive”, breached the activists’ human rights, and should have taken into account their “conscientious motivation”.
The Crown Prosecution Service opposed the appeal, arguing “deterrence is required in order to protect the public”.
As the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr read out a summary of the Court of Appeal’s ruling, several campaigners in court stood and turned their backs, wearing T-shirts that read “Corruption in Court”.
The sentences of Hallam and his four co-defendants were thought to have been the longest ever relating to peaceful protest.
During the trial at Southwark Crown Court, prosecutors alleged the M25 protests led to an economic cost of at least £765,000 while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was more than £1.1m.
They also allegedly caused more than 50,000 hours of vehicle delay, affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, and left the M25 “compromised” for more than 120 hours.
Raj Chada, head of criminal defence at law firm Hodge Jones & Allen, which represents the other protesters, said: “The small reduction in the case of Roger Hallam recognises the extraordinarily excessive sentences that continue to be given out to protesters in England.
“It is, however, extremely disappointing that many of the other sentences were upheld.
A former Olympic snowboarder accused of running an international drug smuggling network behind four murders has been added to the FBI’s list of 10 most wanted fugitives.
A $10m (£7.7m) reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of Ryan Wedding, 43, who competed for Canada in the giant slalom at the 2002 winter games.
Wedding – whose aliases include “El Jefe,” “Giant” and “Public Enemy”- is accused of running a network that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other US locations.
He is also suspected of orchestrating four murders and an attempted murder.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of US cities and in his native Canada,” said Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
“The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man.”
Wedding was charged last year and an indictment in September alleged he and others arranged the shipment of some 60 tonnes of cocaine a year using long-haul trucks.
The FBI said a dozen people had been arrested in connection with the case.
US authorities allege the group killed two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment in what officials there said was a case of mistaken identity, as well as two other people.
“The former Canadian snowboarder unleashed an avalanche of death and destruction, here and abroad,” said special agent Matthew Allen.
“He earned the name ‘El Jefe’, becoming boss of a violent transnational drug trafficking organisation.
“Now, his face will be on ‘The Top 10 Most Wanted’ posters. He’s unremitting, callous and greed-driven.
Donald Trump has said Russia has “all the cards” in negotiations to end the war with Ukraine – as Sir Keir Starmer held talks with the French president to “compare notes”.
Speaking at the White House, the US president reiterated his desire to get a deal done to end the conflict, which he warned “could lead to World War Three”.
But he said he had found it “more difficult” to deal with Ukraine, and suggested it may be easier to deal with Moscow, because “they have all the cards”.
He was also asked if Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the decision by the US to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine, following a series of air attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent days.
“I think he’s doing what anyone else would do,” Mr Trump replied.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump during their fiery White House meeting las week. Pic: Reuters
However, he said he believed Mr Putin wanted to get the war “stopped and settled”.
“I think both parties want to settle. I think we are going to get it settled,” he added.
While on social media on Friday, Mr Trump said he was “strongly considering” placing additional sanctions on Russia to force it into peace talks with Ukraine.
“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late,” Mr Trump said.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to “compare notes” on their work towards a possible peace in Ukraine, Downing Street said.
The call, which took place on Friday evening, followed a call between the prime minister and other European leaders after European countries agreed a massive increase in defence spending.
Sir Keir and Mr Macron have been leading efforts to draw together a “coalition of the willing” to help Kyiv.
On Friday, Mr Trump also suggested his priorities are in a different order to Ukraine’s – saying he wants the fighting to end before any security guarantees are made.
“Before I even think about that, I want to settle the war, get it finished,” he said.
“As far as the question about security later, that’s the easy part. The hard part is getting it settled.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said his country needs “reliable and clear” security guarantees before a peace deal with Russia can be agreed.
Relations between the US and Ukraine have become fractured in recent weeks.
Mr Trump’s latest comments come exactly a week after his disastrous Oval Office meeting with Mr Zelenskyy – which saw the US president and his vice president, JD Vance, berate the Ukrainian leader and accuse him of being “disrespectful”.
When it comes to cringey musical tributes, nobody does it better than the Oscars. And while that chorus line of tuxedoed 007s pirouetting around the stage during the Academy’s James Bond extravaganza wasn’t quite as jaw-droppingly awkward as some previous song-and-dance fiascos — at least Rob Lowe didn’t turn up to tango with Snow White — there was one small but uncomfortable moment you might have missed.
That’d be when the camera panned into the audience to Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.
The whole reason the Academy decided to devote six full minutes of the ceremony to Bond music was that Broccoli and Wilson were the recipients of this year’s honorary Irving G. Thalberg Oscar, an accolade bestowed upon them in November at the Governors Awards to celebrate the half-siblings’ 30 years of unwavering stewardship over the spy franchise they inherited in 1995 from their father, legendary Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli. “Let me tell you, they don’t just produce Bond movies,” one-time Bond Girl Halle Berry gushed about Broccoli and Wilson in her introduction from the podium, “they were the heart and soul of this franchise for decades.”
There was just one small problem: Days before the ceremony, Broccoli and Wilson announced they were selling Bond to Amazon.
It was a bombshell development that caught much of Hollywood — including, clearly, Oscar’s musical producers — by surprise. What could have compelled them to do it? After so many years of fiercely protecting their father’s business — EON Productions, the company that’s been in charge of 007 since the character first swaggered onto the screen in 1962 — why would they decide to unload it? And to Amazon, no less, the sprawling global syndicate run by the bald-headed, rocket-building billionaire Ernst Stavro Bezos? It makes even less sense than the plot of No Time to Die.
More pointedly, what does the sale mean for Bond’s future? Amazon, of course, had purchased MGM, Bond’s longtime home, in 2022 for $8.5 billion, mostly to get its hands on 007 IP and build it into a Marvel-style universe filled with bingeable TV spinoffs. The only things stopping them were Broccoli and Wilson, who had very different ideas for their father’s legacy, as well as a decades-long deal with MGM guaranteeing them creative dominion over all things Bond. But now that they’re out of the picture, Amazon can do whatever it wants. A TV show about Moneypenny? Why not. A prequel about Blofeld’s teenage years? Sure. More 007 game shows? Please no. But anything is possible. Amazon is now free to milk the franchise dry.
Daniel Craig flanked by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson in 2005. Chris Jackson/Getty Images
“Don’t let anybody else screw it up,” Cubby Broccoli warned his children before he died. “You can screw it up if you want to, but don’t let other people screw it up.”
Barbara, 64, was 2 years old when Dr. No opened in the U.K., and by the time she was a teenager, she was working on her dad’s movies. Michael, 83, took a more circuitous route to the family business, studying law and engineering before officially joining the franchise in 1972 (though he did have an early gig as an extra in 1964’s Goldfinger). The point is, Broccoli and Wilson were practically raised on the 007 soundstage at Pinewood. Bond is in their blood. So, when they inherited their father’s franchise, they took his words to heart.
“For Barbara and Michael, it’s always been franchise first,” says one Bond insider. “Nothing else got in the way.”
When they took it over in the mid-1990s, that franchise was in critical condition. Timothy Dalton’s two Bond films — 1987’s The Living Daylights and 1989’s License to Kill — had bombed. Cubby Broccoli, the man who had, with partner Harry Saltzman, ushered 007 onto the big screen in the 1960s, was dying of heart disease after triple bypass surgery. At the time, there was doubt that another Bond movie would ever get made. But Broccoli and Wilson managed to squeeze $60 million out of the studio to produce GoldenEye, which ended up grossing $356 million worldwide.
The partnership between EON and MGM was a bumpy one during the early Pierce Brosnan era, but the studio chiefs back then — first John Calley, then Frank Mancuso — largely respected Broccoli and Wilson’s wishes, while the new producers learned to occasionally throw their corporate collaborators a bone (like giving in when MGM pushed for the casting of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough). Indeed, over the years, enough trust was built between them that when Broccoli and Wilson came up with the radical idea in 2006 of pushing the reset button on the whole series and starting over with an updated origin story based on Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel, Casino Royale — and casting an unknown named Daniel Craig as the seventh Bond — MGM barely flinched.
Those last five Craig movies turned out to be the most profitable in the franchise’s history, each grossing more than $500 million and one of them — 2012’s Skyfall — becoming the first Bond film to gross more than a billion dollars. Obviously, those numbers were a large part of Amazon’s calculations to buy MGM in 2021— they certainly didn’t spend $8.5 billion for the Pink Panther. Broccoli and Wilson were said to be nervous about the sale of the nearly 100-year-old studio to the 21st century tech conglomerate, but they knew that even under new management they’d retain creative control. Amazon knew that too, but executives there — like Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video, and Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios — apparently believed they could sweet talk the Broccolis into expanding the brand beyond the single Bond film EON had been putting out every two or three years.
As Dr. No himself would put it, that was very foolish.
“We just try to focus on making good pictures, and it takes time, it takes a couple of years,” Wilson said in an interview shortly after MGM’s sale to Amazon was announced, telegraphing to his new owners his unwillingness to put Bond on television. “Putting all that energy into making 10 or 20 hours of a TV show, that’s a big commitment. We’d have to delegate to do that. And we’ve been very reluctant to delegate.”
His half sister expressed it even more bluntly in that interview. “It’s not something we’ve ever wanted to do,” she said.
Still, Amazon had ideas. Sources close to the franchise say the streamer approached the Broccolis with pitches for a TV series based on Moneypenny, the MI6 secretary who’s been batting eyes at Bond since Sean Connery’s days, as well as a show about Bond CIA buddy Felix Leiter, and maybe even something involving a female 007. Predictably, Broccoli and Wilson weren’t interested. There was hope early on at Amazon that former Warner Bros. exec Courtenay Valenti — the daughter of late MPAA boss Jack Valenti, who had come aboard MGM about a year after Amazon bought it, and whom Broccoli was said to have liked — might have some luck loosening up the Bond IP. But not even “the Barbara whisperer,” as Valenti was reportedly called inside Amazon, could sway Cubby’s kids. Relations grew even frostier after a meeting in which Salke reportedly mortified Broccoli by calling Bond “content.” Wilson, meanwhile, was said to be complaining about how he’d been unable to set up meetings with Amazon’s top brass.
Neither Amazon nor EON could be reached for comment on any of the above, but it’s clear that in the three years since Amazon purchased MGM — and the six years since production wrapped on No Time to Die — zero progress had been made in getting 007 back onscreen. There’s no script for the next movie, no director and — most critically — no Bond. Sources say Amazon had suggested a few actors, but none the Broccolis would sign off on. In fact, the only Bond “content” that’s come out of Amazon is Prime’s little-noticed game show 007: Road to a Million, which has proved so underwhelming, not even its host sounds like much of a fan. “I actually thought, ‘Oh wow, I’m getting a James Bond film,’ ” Brian Cox recently explained about how he accidentally accepted the gig. “And then I realized it wasn’t a Bond film but a game show.”
Meanwhile, as the franchise sputtered and stalled, Wilson, nearly 20 years older than Broccoli, decided to retire, leaving Barbara on her own with the Amazonians. The half-siblings (their mother was Dana Natol, Cubby’s second wife) couldn’t be more different. She’s liberal, he’s conservative; her passion is storytelling, he’s more into production engineering. But they had complementary skill sets. And they had absolute trust and faith in each other. “They didn’t always agree,” says a source. “But they had a way of working through to a resolution that they would both stand by. They never tried to do an end run around each other. They were always in it together.”
Wilson’s departure was said to be a big factor in Broccoli’s ultimate decision to walk away from the franchise. After 30 years of Bond movies, she no longer had the stomach or stamina for the endless studio battles or the years-long Bond production marathons, certainly not on her own. And there was no obvious successor — not even Wilson’s son, Greg, who’s been working on the recent films but who, insiders say, wasn’t considered ready to step into his father’s shoes.
In any case, it all came to a head in December, a month after Broccoli and Wilson picked up the Thalberg at the Governors Awards. That’s when The Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing the chilly state of affairs between Amazon and the Broccolis in which Barbara is quoted as telling friends that Amazon executives were “fucking idiots.” Not surprisingly, those choice words did not go over well with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “He read her quote in the Journal and got on the phone and said, ‘I don’t care what it costs, get rid of her,’ ” is how one insider describes what happened, confirming that what Bezos ended up paying for the franchise was close to a billion dollars.
For that kind of money, Broccoli and Wilson must have decided, other people can screw it up all they want.
Amazon has a mixed record when it comes to franchises. It spent a reported billion dollars getting a Lord of the Rings series, Rings of Power, onto its servers, only to end up with a show that nobody, not even Tolkien fans, thought was worth a billion dollars. Same goes for spy thrillers; it spent $300 million on a splashy 2023 drama, Citadel, which earned meh reviews and drew a middling audience.
It’s no wonder, then, that news of Amazon’s takeover was greeted like a death notice by Bond fans, who plastered the internet with “RIP 007” posts following the announcement. Even Dalton got into the act, with the onetime Bond telling the British press that he was “shocked” and “sad” about the sale, though he did add an upbeat note, predicting that Amazon will do its “best to make a lot of money, so hopefully they will make good movies.”
And — who knows? — maybe Amazon will. Because there is an opportunity here, now that Broccoli and Wilson are gone, for the streamer to reinvent an icon that could, truth be told, stand a little reinventing.
The fact is, the very same qualities that made the Broccolis such superb custodians of their father’s legacy are also ones that in some ways have stunted the franchise’s growth. Their iron grip on the series and rigid insistence on total creative control hasn’t always prevented the films from flying off the handle or ballooning into bloated, confusing messes (that bit in Spectre where Bond learns Blofeld is his brother — wasn’t that an Austin Powers plot point?). It also has resulted in some spectacular missed opportunities. Broccoli and Wilson, for instance, could have been a bit more accommodating to Christopher Nolan when he was reportedly sniffing around after Tenet, hinting that he’d be interested in directing a Bond movie. Perhaps it was worth at least considering giving final cut to the guy who reinvented Batman. After all, if his film about the A-bomb could make a billion dollars, imagine what Nolan’s Bond movie could do. (Also, while we’re on the subject, is that Moneypenny spinoff really such a dumb idea? Look at what Max just did with The Penguin.)
But, of course, along with opportunities, there are huge challenges. To begin with, with the Broccolis out of the picture, Amazon will be starting from scratch as it rebuilds one of the largest franchises in the history of cinema. From the beginning, the Bond films have been something of a movable feast, with many of the same people — from casting (Debbie McWilliams) to costuming (Lindy Hemming) to screenwriting (Neal Purvis and Robert Wade cranked out first-draft scripts for the past seven films), along with stunt coordinators, publicists, caterers and others — reassembling to make a 007 movie. “It’s always been like a family,” says one member of the clan. “There are stories about Cubby on the set making pasta for everybody. And it was the same with Barbara and Michael. They became the center of the family. They were always there.”
Whoever ends up cooking pasta on the set of the next Bond movie — and Amazon hasn’t signaled who it’ll pick to produce in place of Broccoli and Wilson — they’ll likely be cooking for an entirely different crew. And that’s a problem. Despite Broccoli’s assessment in the Journal, there are smart people at Amazon with years of experience managing big-budget properties. But there’s nobody there with any institutional memory of how to make a Bond movie. And Bond movies are notoriously difficult to make, with production schedules that stretch for eight months, publicity campaigns that last even longer, and location shoots around the world.
Syrian security forces battle a nascent insurgency by fighters from the ousted leader Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect in Latakia, Syria. Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/Reuters
About 125 civilians have been executed by government security forces in north-west Syria during a rolling two-day battle with loyalists to the ousted Assad regime, a Syrian war monitor reported on Friday.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a human rights monitor considered independent and credible, documented “large-scale field executions of men and young adults, without any clear distinction between civilians and combatants”, in north-west Syria.
SNHR has documented the killing of at least 240 people since Thursday, including 100 Syrian security forces and 15 civilians at the hands of Assad loyalists.
The fighting resulted in Syria’s deadliest day since the toppling of the Assad regime three months earlier.
Fighting started on Thursday afternoon when militants loyal to the ousted Assad government ambushed Syrian security forces in a coordinated attack in a rural area of Latakia province, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of Syria’s minority Alawite Islamic sect live.
Late on Friday, interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa called on armed groups affiliated with the former government to lay down their arms “before it’s too late” and for those loyal to the new government to avoid attacking civilians or abusing prisoners.
“When we compromise our ethics, we reduce ourselves to the same level as our enemy,” he said in a video address. “The remnants of the fallen regime are looking for a provocation that will lead to violations behind which they can seek refuge.”
The wide-scale military operation is the biggest challenge to the new government in Damascus since the former Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Assad regime on 8 December.
In response to the attack, the Syrian government mobilised thousands of troops to north-west Syria, and attacked Assad loyalists with helicopter gunships, drones and artillery.
The attack by Assad loyalists seems to have provoked revenge killings in north-west Syria, which is populated heavily by the minority Islamic Alawite sect from which deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad hailed.
SNHR reported that in al-Mukhtariya, Latakia, about 40 civilians were executed together in a single location. Videos of the massacre show people dressed in civilian clothes piled on top of one another as women wailed. Another video in a second town showed gunmen executing seemingly unarmed men who were crawling on their hands and knees away from them.
The Guardian was unable to independently verify either of the videos.
Syria’s interior ministry said some “individual violations” had taken place as a result of people heading towards the villages being attacked by Assad loyalists, but did not claim responsibility for the alleged executions. “We are working to put a stop to these violations that do not represent the Syrian people as a whole,” an interior ministry source told Syria’s state broadcaster.
The Guardian asked for a specific comment from the interior ministry on the SNHR’s claims, but did not receive a response by the time of publishing.
The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged protection for civilians as clashes intensified. “There is clearly an immediate need for restraint from all parties, and full respect for the protection of civilians in accordance with international law,” Pedersen said in a statement.
Government forces continued to battle with Assad regime loyalists late on Friday night, launching a military operation in Qardaha, Latakia, the home town of the former Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, according to state media.
A source in the military of defence said security forces were targeting the buildings and hills around the town where former regime elements were hiding out.
The two-day, coordinated attack was a marked escalation by loyalists to the former government against Syria’s new rulers.
The new government in Damascus is struggling to consolidate its grip over the country. An Israeli incursion in south-east Syria, as well as an economic malaise perpetuated by western sanctions, threaten to undermine the fledgling authority’s rule.
The attack began in the town of Jableh, Latakia, on Thursday but soon spread to other areas. Gunmen cut off roads in the countryside and seized control of areas in the towns of Qardaha and Baniyas.
A video released by a former Assad regime officer shortly after the operation began called on Syria’s various sects to rise up against the government in Damascus in what it dubbed operation “coastal shield”.
Lengthy military columns of security officers and militias loyal to the government in Damascus quickly started heading towards Latakia from across Syria to quell the rebellion. Government forces began to carry out “combing operations” to catch gunmen
A curfew was established on the coast provinces and in Homs province, with people instructed not to leave their homes until 9am on Saturday.
“Civilians are being killed two blocks down from me. The fights are becoming bigger, I have no clue what’s going to happen,” said a resident of Jableh over the phone while sheltering in their home on Friday.
Saudi Arabia condemned what it described as “crimes” by “outlaw groups” and reaffirmed its backing for the new authorities.
Syria’s coast is populated by Alawites, the sect from which the Assad family hailed, though most of the sect had no relation to the former regime. Mutual suspicion between Alawites in the coastal region and the new rulers of Syria has persisted since the toppling of the Assad regime.
Despite assurances that minorities, including Alawites, would be safe in the new Syria, Alawite communities have been subject to a number of revenge killings since December.
In one case, on 31 January in the town of Arza, in Homs province, eight men were asked if they were Alawite and then executed with a bullet to the head. Ten more men were executed in Arza on Friday, with their bodies left out in the open, SNHR reported.
Syria’s new rulers have said the killings were “individual cases” committed by individuals and groups unaffiliated with the government in Damascus, but that has done little to quell the growing fears of Alawites.
Gene Hackman died a full week after his wife Betsy Arakawa died and lived in the house as her body lay in the bathroom … this according to New Mexico officials.
New Mexico officials concluded Betsy likely died February 11, and the cause of death was Hantavirus … a serious and rare disease which can be fatal.
Gene died February 18. An autopsy revealed the 95-year-old had a history of cardiovascular disease, along with advanced Alzheimer’s. He had a history of heart attacks and high blood pressure. Although the medical investigators did not use the words “heart attack,” it seemed they were going in that direction, although the medical investigator said she could not squarely say that was the cause. They did say heart disease was the cause of death, and Alzheimer’s was a significant contributing factor.
The Sheriff says it appears Betsy’s body was in the house for a week while Gene lived in the same house until his death a week later. Investigators made it clear … Gene was in poor health and the Alzheimer’s may have created confusion, which could explain why he never called authorities.
Investigators say it’s possible Gene did not know his wife had died, because of the Alzheimer’s.
Officials ruled out carbon monoxide and gas leaks.
As for the dog that died, she had a procedure at a veterinary clinic and was in a crate when found dead. A necropsy is pending.
As we told you … Gene and his wife were found dead last week, along with one of their dogs, in separate rooms of their mansion.
A local security guard performing a welfare check dialed 911 after seeing Betsy’s body on the floor near a locked exterior door, and pleaded with the dispatcher to send someone immediately. Gene’s body was later found in the kitchen.
Law enforcement authorities called their deaths “suspicious” … noting in an application for a search warrant that there was an open prescription bottle with pills scattered near Betsy’s body, and the dog was found close by.
During the subsequent search, officials retrieved thyroid medication, Tylenol and Diltiazem — a calcium-blocker used to treat high blood pressure and other heart-related issues. They also took medical records and two cell phones.
Pro-Khalistan supporters heckled External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar outside Chatham House in London. (Reuters Image)
India’s Ministry of External Affairs summoned UK Chargé D’ Affaires Christina Scott on Thursday after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s security was breached by pro-Khalistan supporters while he was leaving in a car after participating in an event at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Hours before, the United Kingdom strongly condemned the breach of security of EAM Jaishankar.
Reacting to the incident, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said, “We strongly condemn the incident that took place outside the Chatham House yesterday during the External Affairs Minister’s visit to the UK. While the UK upholds the right to peaceful protest, any attempts to intimidate, threaten, or disrupt public events are completely unacceptable. The Metropolitan Police acted swiftly to address the situation, and we remain fully committed to ensuring the security of all our diplomatic visitors, in line with our international obligations.”
Earlier, India also condemned the attempt made by Khalistani protesters to heckle EAM Jaishankar when he was leaving the Chatham House think tank in London.
India stated that it condemned the “provocative activities” and “deplored the misuse of democratic freedoms by the separatists”.
“We have seen the footage of a breach of security during the visit of EAM to the UK. We condemn the provocative activities of this small group of separatists and extremists. We deplore the misuse of democratic freedoms by such elements. We expect the host government in such cases to fully live up to their diplomatic obligations,” said a spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs.
A protest was organised by pro-Khalistan supporters outside the venue. In the video, a man was seen approaching the foreign affairs minister’s vehicle and tearing India’s national flag amid the presence of London police officers. The police officers appeared unresponsive to the act of vandalism.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would soon decide whether to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, following a Reuters report that his administration planned to take that step.
Such a move would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration and potentially put them on a fast-track to deportation.
“We’re not looking to hurt anybody, we’re certainly not looking to hurt them, and I’m looking at that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about revoking the Ukrainians’ status and deporting them. “There were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making the decision pretty soon.”
The planned rollback of protections for Ukrainians would be part of a broader Trump administration effort to strip legal status from more than 1.8 million migrants allowed to enter the U.S. under temporary humanitarian parole programs launched under the Biden administration, a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A move to revoke the Ukrainians’ status could come as soon as April, all four said. They said the plans to revoke their status got underway before Trump publicly feudedwith Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on the Reuters report in a post on X, saying “no decision has been made at this time.” U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Wednesday that the department had no new announcements. Ukrainian government agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
A Trump executive order issued on January 20 called for DHS to “terminate all categorical parole programs.”
The administration plans to revoke parole for about 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans as soon as this month, the Trump official and one of the sources familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The plan to revoke parole for those nationalities was first reported by CBS News.
Migrants stripped of their parole status could face fast-track deportation proceedings, according to an internal ICE email seen by Reuters.
Immigrants who cross the border illegally can be put into the fast-track deportation process known as expedited removal, for two years after they enter. But for those who entered through legal ports of entry without being officially “admitted” to the U.S. – as with those on parole – there is no time limit on their rapid removal, the email said.
The Biden programs were part of a broader effort to create temporary legal pathways to deter illegal immigration and provide humanitarian relief.
In addition to the 240,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, and the 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, these programs covered more than 70,000 Afghans escaping the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
An additional 1 million migrants scheduled a time to cross at a legal border crossing via an app known as CBP One.
Thousands more had access to smaller programs, including family reunification parole for certain people in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Trump as a candidate pledged to end the Biden programs, saying they went beyond the bounds of U.S. law.
The Trump administration last month paused processing immigration-related applications for people who entered the U.S. under certain Biden parole programs – placing Ukrainian Liana Avetisian, her husband and her 14-year-old daughter, in limbo. Avetisian, who worked in real estate in Ukraine, now assembles windows while her husband works construction.
The family fled Kyiv in May 2023, eventually buying a house in the small city of DeWitt, Iowa. Their parole and work permits expire in May. They say they spent about $4,000 in filing fees to renew their parole and to try to apply for another program known as Temporary Protected Status.
Avetisian has started getting headaches as she worries about their situation, she said.
A Ukrainian boy seeking asylum in the U.S. plays with a Ukrainian flag after arriving at the PedWest border crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California, U.S., April 13, 2022. Purchase Licensing Rights
“We don’t know what to do,” she said.
Ukrainian community leaders are informing people of their rights, in case they are approached by immigration officers, and what their options are for staying in the country long-term, said Andrij Dobriansky, the director of communications for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.
“Many of these people do not have homes to return to,” he said. “We’re talking about people whose entire towns have been leveled altogether. Where would we be sending them back to? Nothing.”
WANING WELCOME
U.S. allies from Afghanistan who entered under Biden have also been swept up in Trump’s crackdown.
Rafi, a former Afghan intelligence officer who asked to be identified only by his first name to protect family members still in Afghanistan, entered the U.S. legally in January 2024 using the CBP One mobile app at the U.S.-Mexico border. He was given a temporary humanitarian parole status that allowed him to live and work in the United States for two years.
On February 13, just over a year into that status, he was detained at a check-in appointment at an ICE office in Chantilly, Virginia. His status was revoked.
In Afghanistan, Rafi was trained by American officers and provided intelligence on “High Value Targets”, according to an October 2022 recommendation letter.
“As a result of his active efforts against the enemy, he is currently in extreme danger, and in need of assistance in departing the country,” the former CIA officer who trained him wrote.
The officer described Rafi as “truly one of the most dedicated and hardworking individuals I had the honor to serve with in Afghanistan.” Reuters reviewed the letter but was not able to reach the officer.
In the United States, Rafi applied for asylum and was scheduled for a hearing before an immigration judge in April.
At his February ICE check in – one of the conditions for his temporary status – he was asked to remove his belt and shoelaces, he said. He knew immediately what was happening, he said, and still, he asked: “Are you arresting me? I have broken no law.”
Rafi said he felt betrayed.
“When someone stands shoulder to shoulder with American troops and puts his life in danger…” he said in a phone call from detention, his voice shaking.
“I wasn’t expecting this behavior from them. I wasn’t expecting it.”
On February 24, his lawyer wrote to ICE asking them to release her client, noting his lack of a criminal record, that he was not a flight risk and had an active asylum case related to his work supporting the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Paramount and CBS filed motions Thursday to throw out President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview last year, calling the suit an “affront to the First Amendment.”
Trump first sued the network a few days before the November election, alleging that the program had violated a Texas consumer protection law by deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris. Last month, the president expanded the lawsuit, alleging an additional claim under the federal Lanham Act and seeking $20 billion in damages.
In a bid to establish jurisdiction in federal court in Texas, Trump also added Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, as a co-plaintiff.
The company filed two motions to dismiss the case, one for lack of jurisdiction and the other on grounds that consumer fraud laws do not govern editorial speech.
“This lawsuit is an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit has been the subject of consternation within CBS, as Paramount has indicated it may be willing to settle with Trump. In part, the company is fearful that Trump’s appointees at the Federal Communications Commission may hold up the merger with Skydance.
The motions filed Thursday laid out a forceful argument that the suit is an unconstitutional threat to free speech.
“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that public officials like Plaintiffs cannot hold news organizations like CBS liable for the simple exercise of editorial judgment,” the motion argues. “Whether Plaintiffs believe the entire unedited Interview should have aired or only edited in a way they approve, they are not entitled under the First Amendment to demand only news that fits their wishes.”
Trump filed the suit in the Amarillo federal courthouse, where nearly all cases are assigned to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee.
In the motion regarding jurisdiction, Paramount argued that there is no reason why a Texas judge should hear a lawsuit filed by Trump, a Florida resident, against CBS, which is based in New York.
CBS aired two excerpts from Harris’ response to a question about Gaza. In the first airing, on “Face the Nation,” she gave a relatively circuitous response. The clip used the following day on “60 Minutes” was more succinct. Trump has argued that CBS sought to falsely portray Harris as more coherent than she was by deleting her “word salad” response.
It’s a muggy morning the day before the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans, and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan is stuck in parade traffic and not happy about it. It’s not so much the French Quarter gridlock or the humidity that’s bothering him, but that he’s late for a meeting with a YouTube creator. They’re supposed to make a video together, and it involves slime.
“I should have pulled the trigger half an hour ago,” Mohan says to an aide, and then orders everyone out of the car: They’re going to walk the 1.7 miles to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Mohan will be damned if he’s not going to go the extra mile for the particular breed of content creator known as a “YouTuber.”
Over the past 20 years, Google-owned YouTube has become the world’s most-watched video platform, bar none. It’s the home base of countless self-made influencers, podcasters, commentators and entrepreneurs and over time has made it into the big leagues of TV through rights deals with the NFL, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal.
The platform that helped introduce the world to streaming with its launch two decades ago has had a twisty-turny journey in Hollywood on its way to establishing itself as a digital household utility. If you want to find anything on video, the search invariably starts on YouTube. This is a dramatic shift from the first few years of YouTube’s existence, when most of Hollywood viewed the Silicon Valley-born company as a copyright-infringing pariah.
Now, no major studio or network can afford not to post its trailers, clips, previews and promotional interviews on the platform. And those same studios and networks are starting to make significant money from YouTube, whether it’s in carriage fees for channels distributed via YouTube TV or by making select television shows and movies available for free viewing with advertisements.
“Today, YouTube is television,” says Jeff Zucker, former head of NBCUniversal and CNN. “It’s so many businesses wrapped into one — short-form video, long-form video, live, cable TV. I don’t think any media company today can ignore YouTube. It’s too big and too powerful.”
YouTube’s expansion into cable-like TV service with YouTube TV is another reason Mohan has made the trek to New Orleans. He’s here to schmooze top brass from one of his biggest media partners: the NFL. Starting with the 2023-24 season, YouTube became the exclusive U.S. retailer for the Sunday Ticket out-of-home package, replacing DirecTV — and beating out other highly interested parties, including Apple, for the rights.
At the same time, Mohan is using the hoopla around the Super Bowl to promote the other major part of YouTube’s business — its DIY creators, who have turned video dispatches from their basements into businesses worth seven and eight figures.
“It truly is your own world on YouTube. You run the business, and there’s no network notes or anything like that,” says Sean Evans, host of the popular “Hot Ones” series that challenges celebrity guests to nibble on increasingly spicy chicken wings. It sounds like a jokey idea, but the show that launched in 2015 is up to 360-odd episodes and counting.
Top YouTubers have traveled to the Super Bowl this year to take part in the inaugural NFL-YouTube Creator Flag Football Game, which will be livestreamed on the platform the night before the Philadelphia Eagles play the Kansas City Chiefs at the Superdome. Later in the day, Mohan will loudly cheer from the sidelines at the elaborate exhibition match featuring a mix of influencers, musicians and pro athletes. But for now, he’s on a mission to keep his date with creator Carter Kench for that promised video collab, something that has been the CEO’s calling card. Just before noon, Mohan finds Kench at the convention center. “It’s been a long walk, but it’s great to be here,” says Mohan. His wife and three children have come along too. His kids are big fans of YouTube creators, “like all kids,” he says.
Kench, an L.A-based creator with more than 5.4 million subscribers, has set up the materials for their collab in a booth: They’re going to make slime and color it for the Super Bowl teams — red and green. Kench starts to assure the CEO that making slime is pretty simple, but Mohan says, “I have a slime expert right here,” gesturing to the younger of his two daughters. Over the next hour, he delights his girls with his goopy hands.
Afterward, Mohan marvels at the talents of the creators who make the content that fuels his multibillion-dollar business — the minds behind the 3 million-plus channels who earn a cut of YouTube ad revenue. “They’re amazing, creative people,” he says. “What’s always impressive to me is how they sweat every single detail. It’s inspiring.”
As YouTube celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, Mohan, 51, is about to mark 10 years with the platform. The Google veteran signed on in November 2015 as chief product officer before becoming CEO in 2023.
The executive was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and grew up near Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his parents were both graduate students. When he was a teenager, his family moved back to their hometown of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India, where he attended high school at St. Francis College. Former classmates described him as “brilliant but shy,” according to a Times of India article.
“I do think I am a reserved fellow, as my wife reminds me,” Mohan says. “I’ll let others decide on the brilliance piece.”
After returning to the States, Mohan attended Stanford University, where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in electrical engineering and later earned an MBA. He was perfectly positioned to be part of the first dot-com boom. Mohan jumped into the budding online-advertising industry back when most Americans had slow dial-up connections and most websites moved at a glacial pace. Mohan eventually rose to senior VP of strategy and product development at digital ad firm DoubleClick. Google liked the company’s technology and acquired it in 2008. In the process of completing the DoubleClick acquisition, Mohan met Susan Wojcicki, an influential player at Google. She was the company’s 16th employee after its founding in 1998.
By the time Mohan met her a decade later, Wojcicki was head of Google’s massive advertising business. The two went on to spend 15 years working together — Wojcicki was tapped to run YouTube in 2014, and Mohan joined her as chief product officer a year later.
“We hit it off from our very first conversation in some legal office boardroom in New York City,” Mohan recalls. The two ad-tech wonks, he says, loved “geeking out on building interesting products for our customers.” He and Wojcicki became close friends.
Wojcicki’s death in August 2024, at age 56, marked the end of an era for Google and YouTube. Mohan was devastated. “I am forever grateful for her friendship and guidance,” he said at the time. “I will miss her tremendously.” Not only was Wojcicki an early employee, but it was her garage in Palo Alto, California, that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented as Google’s first headquarters. Mohan took the reins of YouTube from Wojcicki, which provided a level of continuity that was important for both enterprises.
Wojcicki was a model of a highly effective tech leader focused on building great products in a large organization, Mohan says. And part of the reason for that, he adds, is that “she was also really oriented around people.”
When YouTube was incorporated in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim — the start-up was housed in Hurley’s garage in Menlo Park, California. The very first video was uploaded April 23, 2005, by Karim; titled “Me at the Zoo,” it was a 19-second clip he shot in front of the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.
The founders actually launched the platform as a site for video dating. But after one week, not a single person had uploaded any videos. So they pivoted to promoting YouTube as a general-purpose video-sharing platform.
It was a long-shot idea, as it wasn’t clear at the time whether the internet could support video delivery at scale, says Roelof Botha, managing partner of Sequoia Capital, the Menlo Park-based venture capital firm that has backed some of Silicon Valley’s most world-beating start-ups. Botha led Sequoia’s total investment of $8.5 million in YouTube.
“The three entrepreneurs were scrappy and smart,” he says, explaining why he made the bet on the fledgling service. “The site was usable in a way that others were not.”
Two decades later, the platform is a massive fire hose that sprays out every kind of content imaginable, watched by an estimated 2.44 billion monthly users in 2024, according to researcher eMarketer. There are vlogs, how-to videos, comedy sketches, music videos, news segments, talk shows, product reviews, video-game playthroughs, life hacks, animated shows, podcasts, TV clips, full movies and movie trailers, stunts, pranks and challenges. More than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. It’s the No. 2 most-visited site in the world, behind only Google.com, and the second-biggest search engine after Google.
Worldwide, users watch on average more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs every day, according to the company. In the U.S., TVs recently surpassed phones and tablets as YouTube’s No. 1 viewing device. According to Nielsen, for two years running, Americans have spent more time watching YouTube on their TV sets than any other streamer, including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
In 2024, YouTube generated global ad revenue of $36.15 billion, up an impressive 15%. For the 12 months that ended September 2024, YouTube’s subscription revenue topped $15 billion. That was generated by YouTube TV, the biggest internet-delivered live TV service in the U.S. with 8 million-plus customers; YouTube Premium, which provides ad-free videos and other perks; and YouTube Music Premium, a music-only streaming service. This week it announced that it now has more than 125 million subscribers for YouTube Music and Premium services, up from 100 million a year ago.
As a stand-alone entity, apart from Google, YouTube would be worth more than $400 billion, Wall Street analyst firm MoffettNathanson has estimated — more than Disney, Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global combined.
When he was running NBC in the mid-2000s, Zucker saw so much conflict ahead with the upstart video-sharing platform that it drove him to partner with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox to launch a streaming competitor, Hulu, that was known internally as “the YouTube killer” when it was gestating at NBC and Fox.
“The idea behind Hulu was we couldn’t let YouTube take advantage of our IP at NBC and leave us in the dust with no ability to monetize it,” Zucker says.
YouTube now sustains thousands of businesses that have grown into small media companies, primarily by distributing their shows on the platform. Mohan calls them “the start-ups of Hollywood.” Some of the biggest names are Rhett & Link of “Good Mythical Morning”; Mark Rober; MrBeast; and “Hot Ones” producer First We Feast.
Evans and Chris Schonberger launched “Hot Ones” in 2015 as, says Evans, a “skunkworks, freak-show project” when they worked at digital media company Complex. In 2021, BuzzFeed bought Complex, and then in early 2024 sold most of the company — but held on to First We Feast. Then in December 2024, Evans, Schonberger and a group of investors bought First We Feast from BuzzFeed for $82.5 million. Today, “Hot Ones” has millions of fans and has busted into the cultural zeitgeist — including getting spoofed on “Saturday Night Live.”
“There’s no one that I look around at in entertainment and think to myself, ‘Oh, I’d rather have that,’” Evans says. “I just like being king of my castle over here.”
Meanwhile, traditional media companies have completely shifted their stance toward YouTube. Initially, many it saw it as a huge piracy threat — epitomized by the 2007 lawsuit filed by Viacom accusing YouTube of “brazen” copyright infringement and demanding more than $1 billion in damages. (The parties reached a settlement in 2014; Google did not pay out any money.)
Now, media firms “view YouTube as a really important part of their future growth strategies, and that is a night-and-day difference from where we were from those early Viacom days,” Mohan says.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says the Sunday Ticket pact with YouTube didn’t come down to just the dollar amount YouTube was willing to pay. The league wanted a partner with global reach and a younger demographic — both of which YouTube delivers. “I think Neal understood how these mediums were going to collide and how the NFL content could actually be helpful in developing their strategy overall,” says Goodell. “We have great confidence in him.”
In YouTube’s first year, its primary traffic driver was viral videos. Two stood out: In November 2005, a Nike ad featuring Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho improbably hitting a goal’s crossbar with a ball four times in a row became the first YouTube video to reach 1 million views. The following month, fans of “Saturday Night Live” and Andy Samberg uploaded copies of the Lonely Island’s mock-rap short “Lazy Sunday.” It racked up 5 million views before NBC’s lawyers demanded the three-minute clip be pulled down.
YouTube’s founders and Botha recognized that defending the site against claims of copyright infringement was one of its two major risks, along with the technical challenges of scaling performance. They relied on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which limits the liability of online platforms for user-shared material that includes copyrighted content.
But that didn’t satisfy some media companies. YouTube’s first general counsel, Zahavah Levine, recalled on a recent podcast hosted by Botha that prior to the Google acquisition, Universal Music Group “fully unleashed an orchestrated campaign of fear tactics on us” — and she had one UMG exec “literally scream at me over the phone: ‘YouTube was built on the backs of our artists and owes us hundreds of millions of dollars!’” YouTube eventually inked a licensing deal with UMG, which Google had made a precondition of the acquisition’s closing.
To address media companies’ wrath over the misappropriation of their content, YouTube developed Content ID: a system that scans uploads against a database of copyrighted audio and video content. If Content ID finds a match, a copyright owner can block the video or opt to monetize the video with ads.
But Content ID has its critics. The system favors copyright holders, giving them the ability to remove videos that should be covered under fair-use doctrine, argues Katharine Trendacosta, director of policy and advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. YouTube’s Content ID was borne out of “wanting big media companies to like them and leave them alone,” she says. “It’s more profitable for them to be partners with these big companies rather than with smaller individual creators.”
Mohan counters that Content ID is the fundamental technology that allows YouTube to be an open platform — to protect the rights of partners and make it economically viable for all creators. From 2021-2023, YouTube paid out some $70 billion to creators, artists, and music and media companies. And Mohan says that wouldn’t be possible without Content ID.
“What Content ID allows us to do is not just talk the talk [about copyright protection] but walk the walk,” says Mohan.
By the end of 2005, YouTube’s corporate headquarters had moved from Hurley’s garage to offices above Amici’s pizzeria in San Mateo, California. The company now accounted for about one-fourth of all internet bandwidth usage in the U.S., and this early surge of growth caught the eye of Google, as well as Yahoo and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Botha recalls that Google “came in with confidence, speed and precision” on an offer for YouTube. Google ultimately closed its acquisition for $1.65 billion in stock in November 2006. (The YouTube founders landed on the price tag because they thought it would be cool to sell the company for 10% more than eBay paid for PayPal in 2002.)
Zucker, who was CEO of NBC Entertainment at the time, certainly remembers “Lazy Sunday” blowing up on YouTube. “We saw it as an opportunity — and a threat,” he says. “YouTube showed us how powerful viral video could be.” He still thinks “Lazy Sunday” was a primary reason Google bought YouTube.
The dawn of the creator economy arguably was in 2007. That’s when the platform introduced its YouTube Partner Program, which shares ad revenue with creators whose channels hit minimum subscriber and viewing thresholds. (The current standard YouTube split is 55% for the channel owner, 45% for the house.) The program, known as YPP, gave rise to a brand-new job: YouTuber. For those with showbiz aspirations, it’s the new version of packing up the car and driving to Hollywood or New York. Never mind that only about 4% of an estimated 50 million creators worldwide earn more than $100,000 per year, according to Goldman Sachs research.
YouTube’s biggest star today is Jimmy Donaldson, the 26-year-old known as MrBeast. He runs the platform’s most-subscribed channel, with more than 370 million followers, garnering a global fan base for his outlandish stunts, wacky big-money giveaways and philanthropic endeavors. Donaldson earned an estimated $85 million for the 12 months ended June 2024, according to Forbes.
Donaldson says the moment he realized YouTube could become a full-time job was with his “I Counted to 100,000!” video, uploaded in January 2017 — in which he literally counted from one to 100,000. He says it took him 40 hours; the video, sped up in parts, runs nearly 24 hours. That video was “the catalyst for everything that followed,” Donaldson says. “It was a big idea, but I was all in.”
But Donaldson’s most audacious project to date wasn’t on YouTube: The reality competition show “Beast Games” was co-produced with Amazon Prime Video. The “Squid Game”-style program, which awarded more than $20 million in prize money to contestants, cost more than $100 million to produce.
“It was an opportunity to expand the MrBeast brand to new audiences and take on a bigger project,” Donaldson says. But, he adds, “YouTube will always be my No. 1 focus, as it powers everything I do. I don’t want to be a creator that loses focus and my channel dies as a result.”
Mohan says he’s “really proud when YouTube is the jumping off point for things that creators can do outside of YouTube” like Donaldson’s “Beast Games.” “I’m rooting for Jimmy in all of his endeavors because he knows, and I know, that sort of the basis of all of that is the investment and hard work that he puts into YouTube,” the CEO says.
Over time, media companies have found YouTube fertile ground for promoting content and earning revenue. Yet those companies are also competing with YouTube for consumers’ time and ad dollars. “YouTube is the ultimate frenemy,” says Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen’s senior VP of product strategy.
Netflix brass, when pressed on the question of competing with YouTube, insist the services are complementary. “We compete directly with YouTube for people’s time, for the time they spend on that TV screen. But we have very different strengths,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos told analysts on its Q3 2024 earnings interview.
Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, says any share of viewing that YouTube might take from the Mouse House’s TV and streaming properties is hugely outweighed by the upside of working with the platform. The partnership spans promotional content for Disney+ and Hulu, plus movies and theme parks, as well as advertising and pay-TV distribution.
“YouTube plays a key role in deepening fandom across each segment of our company, and not just streaming,” Walden says. It’s a deeply symbiotic relationship, she says, “one where both Disney and YouTube thrive on the scale, awareness and passion of our audiences.”
One of Disney’s goals with YouTube, Walden says, is “enabling creators to grow that love for our IP.”
René Rechtman, an alum of Maker Studios and Disney, founded children’s entertainment outfit Moonbug Entertainment in 2018 after he realized that none of the top 100 YouTube channels aimed at kids was owned by traditional media companies. “I saw how uninterested kids were in cable TV, and how engaged they were with YouTube creators,” he says.
Moonbug acquired several companies producing content for YouTube: CoComelon, Blippi and Little Baby Bum. One of CoComelon’s top all-time YouTube videos is “Wheels on the Bus” — which has a mind-bending 7.2 billion views (and counting). In 2021, two of Rechtman’s former Disney colleagues, Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer, came calling with an offer he couldn’t refuse: $3 billion for Moonbug to become part of their new media roll-up company, Candle Media.
“I think this was a greenfield for us because companies like Disney had an existential crisis with Netflix,” Rechtman says. “They were all focused on, How do we compete in this new direct-to-consumer world? They saw YouTube as a marketing platform, which was a big mistake.” YouTube is the biggest free streaming platform in the world, Rechtman says: “How great is that opportunity?”
Among traditional media companies, WWE has one of the biggest footprints on YouTube. Its main channel, launched in May 2007, has served more than 91 billion video views to date and has over 107 million subscribers. That makes it one of the top 10 most-subscribed channels on YouTube.
WWE president Nick Khan says that in the earliest days of YouTube, the only media outlets that covered WWE were those that had licensing agreements with the wrestling entertainment company. “So we were forced to push our content to other platforms to get our message out,” he says.
“We believe we deliver what our fans wanted,” Khan says by way of explaining WWE’s tremendous growth on YouTube with clips, highlights, classic matches and some exclusive material. “We like to be first movers in any space.” And the company has done that without cannibalizing viewing on tentpole properties on TV and other streaming platforms, he says.
Asked whether WWE sees YouTube as a potential distributor for its premium live events in the future, Khan notes that the company’s deal with NBCU’s Peacock runs through March 2026. He says NBCU has been a “tremendous partner,” noting it will have the have the first to renew the rights for Peacock. If not, “we will talk to everyone including YouTube, which has done phenomenally well with Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV,” says Khan.
Will McIntosh, president of NBCU’s Fandango and NBC Sports Next, sees YouTube largely as a partner and not so much as a competitor. Fandango’s content promoting movies coming to theaters and home entertainment performs really well on YouTube. “It’s inarguable — it’s the most important platform from that perspective,” McIntosh says. “Ultimately, we know that manifests itself in ticket sales.”
YouTube also is a partner for Fandango’s Movieclips business, which is currently one of the biggest channels on YouTube with more than 63 million subscribers. It’s a three-way win: Fandango, studios and YouTube each earn revenue from ads served against licensed clips of TV and movie scenes. One of the most-viewed videos on Movieclips’ channel is the “Shake It Off” scene from 2016 animated hit “Sing” (525 million views).
McIntosh says his team works with all the online platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. “None of those partners has risen to the scale of YouTube, with its audience and what we can draw into our platforms,” he says.
Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Mattel, previously ran Maker Studios, the multichannel network company that aggregated thousands of YouTube creators into different vertical segments. Disney bought Maker in 2014. Kreiz observes that YouTube’s evolution over the years — to use technology to better target content and ads to individual viewers and drive engagement — is similar to Mattel’s shift from being a toy manufacturer to a steward of franchises like Barbie and Hot Wheels that engages with fans on an emotional level.
On YouTube, “you can have a two-way conversation with fans, who create their own content around your brands,” he says. “This is not just a place where you put advertising.” Mattel, he says, is spending more creating content specifically for YouTube, where “there’s a commercial model with financial returns.”
Zucker, the one-time YouTube adversary, today is the CEO of media-investment firm RedBird IMI, whose holdings include British production house All3Media, Front Office Sports and studio Media Res. He’s a convert to the notion that YouTube is integral to any media business today. “We know the power of that platform, we know what it can do — and we’re going to continue to try to harness that,” he says.
Even as YouTube ramps up subscription revenue, advertising remains its lifeblood. The video platform continues to post double-digit growth off a large revenue base. It’s taking share from traditional TV, where ad sales have slowed or declined: GroupM projects just 1.9% growth worldwide in 2025 for linear television advertising.
Marketers have been attracted to YouTube’s ability to reach viewers from the get-go. YouTube may have been an antagonist to traditional media players — but that wasn’t the case with advertisers. “From the earliest days, advertisers were trying to work with YouTube,” says Brian Wieser, founder and CEO of Madison & Wall, an advisory and data services firm for advertising and tech industries. “If you go back to the early and mid-2000s, advertisers appreciated how important online video advertising was and would become.”
According to Sequoia’s Botha, the ad business made it profitable before the Google acquisition. “The YouTube founders made it very cost effective to deliver video. So you only needed a low monetization rate to be successful,” he says.
YouTube gained the attention of TV advertisers with the introduction in 2014 of Google Preferred. Later rebranded YouTube Select, the program lets marketers target the top 5% of popular channels in categories like entertainment and pop culture, food and music. “That’s when they started to dip their toe into the broader TV spending pool,” says Drew Corry, SVP and group director of strategic investment at ad-buying giant IPG Mediabrands. “If you’re trying to reach consumers by video, you’re going to have some level of investment in YouTube.”
YouTube also has delivered an advertising experience that, from a viewer’s perspective, is superior to TV, says Mattel’s Kreiz. “It’s more user-friendly than traditional linear television, where you have to sit through literally several minutes of advertising per hour,” says Kreiz. He notes that YouTube pioneered skippable ads — a radical concept when it was first introduced in 2010. Mohan, who was involved in developing YouTube’s TrueView skippable ad format, says he’s proud of the innovation: “I do think it’s changed the industry in terms of how advertiser value is conveyed, but in a way that actually also works for all of us as users and consumers.”
Today, YouTube is the biggest streamer on TVs — and if viewing trends continue on their current trajectory, says Nielsen’s Fuhrer, “there’s a lot more runway there.”
In 2016, Nielsen adopted a new methodology for measuring viewing on TV that encompassed streaming. And it found that while Netflix represented half of streaming, YouTube was in second place. “We thought, ‘This can’t be right. YouTube can’t be this big on TV,’” Fuhrer recalls.
Then came a tipping point: In the summer of 2022, YouTube passed Netflix on TV viewing in the U.S. for the first time, per Nielsen. And it’s held the lead for the past two years. In January 2025, YouTube had 10.8% share on TVs, with Netflix following at 8.6%. YouTube’s TV audience for a long time has been the most diverse from an age perspective and with its broad range of content has “an amazing ability to engage every ethnicity,” says Fuhrer.
In announcing the decision to postpone some tariffs on Mexico for another month, US President Donald Trump was at pains to praise his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum.
“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum”, he wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “Our relationship has been a very good one and we are working hard, together, on the border.”
The comments were in stark contrast to the kind of language he has used for the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who he continues to refer to as “Governor Trudeau”, while calling Canada “the 51st State”.
The war of words – if not yet trade – continues between Canada and the Trump administration with Prime Minister Trudeau calling the entire tariffs policy “dumb” and the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, calling him a “numbskull” in return.
The difference in tone between the US neighbour to the north and the one to the south could hardly be more striking.
Some, particularly in Claudia Sheinbaum’s camp, see it as evidence of her deft handling of an unpredictable leader in the White House, one who has made several bold statements of intent, only for them to be rolled back or watered down.
Certainly, President Sheinbaum has delivered a singular message from the start: Mexicans should “remain calm” over Trump, she has said, insisting that “cooler heads will prevail.”
In that sense, it has been so far, so good for the Mexican leader.
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Twice, now, in two months she has managed to stave off the imposition of sweeping 25% tariffs on Mexican goods through a last-minute phone call to President Trump – even though he said there was “no room” for negotiation.
It is testament to her diplomacy that Trump seems to genuinely appreciate her tone, clarity and overall demeanour in their interactions.
She has refused to accept publicly that Mexico hasn’t done enough on either of the main border issues on which Trump is demanding action from his neighbours: fentanyl trafficking and undocumented immigration north.
She began Thursday’s morning press briefing by referring to new figures from the US Customs and Border Protection agency which show seizures of fentanyl have dropped to 263 kilos, their lowest levels in 3 years. It represents a 75% drop in the last six months of her presidency.
When tariffs were avoided in February, Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border.
Her administration has also extradited (although they prefer the word “expelled”) 29 drug cartel figures to the US to face trial on charges from murder to money laundering, including a top drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been wanted by the US authorities since the mid-1980s.
Those may well have been the measures Trump was referring to when he said the two countries were “working hard, together” on border security.
Furthermore, she has often thrown the ball back in the US president’s direction.
Where do the guns which arm the cartels come from, she asks rhetorically, openly calling for the US to do more to curb the flow of weapons south and tackle its demand for illegal drugs. The drugs may come from Latin America, she points out, but the market for their consumption is overwhelmingly in the US.
Even when the Trump administration recently designated six Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”, it seemed to strengthen her hand.
That’s because her administration is currently embroiled in a legal battle with US gun manufacturers over negligence. If US weapons-makers have allowed their products to reach terrorists rather than mere criminals, Mexico could expand its lawsuit, she said, to include a new charge of “complicity” with terror groups.
And yet while President Sheinbaum is enjoying a strong start to her presidency – both domestically and in the eyes of the world – for her handling of Trump, it is worth stressing that these are early days in their bilateral relationship.
“I think she has played the hand she has been dealt pretty well”, said Mexican economist, Valeria Moy. “I’m not sure it’s time for celebration just yet. But I think she has done what she can in the face of the threat of tariffs. It makes little sense for either of side to enter into a trade war.”
The key to Sheinbaum’s success seems to have been in refusing to back down on unreasonable requests or matters of real importance, while similarly not appearing subservient or acquiescent to the White House’s demands.
That is not an easy path to tread.
On some questions – the Gulf of Mexico being renamed by Trump as the Gulf of America, for example – she can afford to remain above the fray knowing that most people around the world are unlikely to adopt his preferred terminology.
On others, particularly tariffs, the stakes are considerably higher; there’s a danger that the constant back-and-forth and instability on the issue could push the Mexican economy into recession.
The Mexican peso weakened again during this latest episode and, although Sheinbaum claims the country’s economy is strong, the markets would clearly prefer a more reliable and solid relationship with the US. Mexico remains the US’s biggest trading partner, after all.
When I spoke to President Sheinbaum on the campaign trail last year, shortly before she made history by becoming Mexico’s first woman president, she said she would have no problem working with a second Trump presidency and that she would always “defend” what was right for Mexicans – including the millions who reside in the US.
The incident happened on a Jetstar service at a Melbourne airport
Police in Australia have charged a 17-year-old who got on a plane with a shotgun and ammunition.
He was filmed being wrestled to the ground by passengers and crew as the aircraft prepared to take off from Avalon Airport, near Melbourne, carrying 160 people bound for Sydney on Thursday afternoon.
Police believe the teenager got onto the airport tarmac by breaching a security fence, before climbing the front steps to the plane, where he was tackled to the ground near the front door.
The 17-year-old – who has not been identified – was taken into custody and will appear in youth court to face eight charges.
Among them are unlawfully taking control of an aircraft, endangering the flight’s safety and creating a bomb hoax.
Victoria Police said a bomb specialist had to be brought in to search a car and two bags which were located nearby.
Footage published by Australian outlet 7News showed the suspect being restrained by a passenger, while a member of ground crew and a pilot removed a utility belt containing tools that the suspect was carrying.
The pilot can also be seen kicking the shotgun away from the teen, who is wearing a fluorescent jacket.
“How is this possible?” someone onboard can be heard saying in the footage.
Victoria Police said the 17-year-old, who is from the nearby Ballarat area, was being held in custody.
Superintendent Michael Reid told reporters that passengers had noticed the teen was carrying a gun as he climbed the steps up to the plane.
“The male was overpowered by three of the passengers, at least,” he said.
Supt Reid said the local force was in contact with counterterrorism police but that it was too early to establish a motive.
“No doubt this would have been a very terrifying incident for the passengers,” he said, while commending the “bravery” of those who had overpowered the suspect.
Barry Clark, one of the passengers, told Australian public broadcaster ABC that the teen appeared to be dressed like an airport worker and was “agitated”.
He said: “All I could do was get the gun out of the way… and then put him in a hold and throw him to the ground until the police came.”
No one was injured during the incident, police said. Investigators located a car and two bags belonging to the suspect nearby.
Avalon Airport is exclusively served by Jetstar, a budget airline operated by Qantas.
In a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, the company said it was working with authorities to investigate the incident.
Caroline Darian, the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot, is accusing her father Dominique of drugging and raping her
Caroline Darian, the daughter of Dominique and Gisèle Pelicot, is pressing charges against her father, accusing him of drugging and raping her – something he has always denied.
Last December, Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in jail for drugging his ex-wife, Gisèle, raping her and inviting dozens of men to also abuse her over nearly a decade.
Pelicot filmed the rapes of his wife, collecting hundreds of videos he neatly catalogued on a hard disk.
Among them were also two photos of his daughter, in which Ms Darian, 46, says she is clearly unconscious, sleeping in an unfamiliar position and wearing underwear she doesn’t recognise.
Dominique Pelicot has offered conflicting explanations for the photos, but has always denied sexually assaulting his daughter.
Ms Darian has long said the photos are proof her father also drugged and raped her.
“I know that he drugged me, probably for sexual abuse. But I don’t have any evidence,” she told the BBC in January, when she also talked about the shock of being shown those pictures by police for the first time.
Police will now launch an investigation, and prosecutors will later decide whether to proceed to trial.
Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, told French media that Ms Darian’s decision to press charges was “unsurprising”.
But she also pointed out that the prosecutors in the previous trial had said there were insufficient “objective elements” to accuse Pelicot of raping and using chemical submission on his daughter.
The heated courtroom exchanges between Ms Darian and her father were some of the most dramatic in the 16-week trial that shocked France and the world. “I never touched you, never,” Pelicot pleaded to his daughter during one session. “You are lying!” Ms Darian shouted back.
Ms Darian has previously said she felt she was the trial’s “forgotten victim” as, unlike in her mother’s case, there was no record of the abuse she is convinced was inflicted upon her.
She told Elle France earlier this week that the charges she is pressing against her father were “symbolic” but “in line with what I have said since the start: that I am a victim of chemical submission [drug-facilitated assault] but was never recognised as such”.
She has hired lawyer Florence Rault to represent her.
For many years, Ms Rault has been fighting for justice for two women who were the victims of violent ordeals in the 1990s.
One, a young property agent known by the pseudonym Marion, was the victim of an attempted rape in 1999, to which Pelicot has admitted.
The other – also an estate agent in her 20s – was raped and murdered in 1991. Pelicot is currently being investigated over that case, but has always denied any involvement.
Ms Darian said she saw similarities between her and Marion. “We look strangely alike. She is blonde, her hair is bobbed, we were born the same year… I wanted to meet her lawyer and hear all the details,” she told Elle France.
In her police complaint, which was quoted by French media, Ms Rault lamented that Ms Darian had never been offered gynecological examinations nor had she been tested for the drugs Pelicot used on his wife.
Ms Rault said the investigation had only focused on Gisèle Pelicot and that her client had been treated as a “peripheral victim”. She asked the authorities to launch a fresh “serious and in-depth” inquiry.
Forty-nine men were sentenced in December alongside Dominque Pelicot. All were found guilty of at least one charge – rape or sexual assault – against Gisèle Pelicot.
Tensions between Romania and Russia are on the rise as expulsions and arrests continue [FILE: 2022]Image: IMAGO/DepositphotosRomanian officials announced the arrest of six alleged coup plotters on Thursday, accused the detainees of working with “agents of a foreign power, located both in Romania and the Russian Federation.”
The group allegedly wanted to to establish a paramilitary militia, overthrow the Romanian government and pull the country out of NATO. Romanian prosecutors also said the suspects intended to introduce a new constitution.
Two of the alleged plotters are said to have travelled to Moscow in January, where they met with backers of the coup. The Romanian intelligence service SRI said the individuals “actively requested the support of officers from the Embassy of the Russian Federation.”
One of the suspects is 101-year-old retired major general Radu Theodoru. The former officer is a Holocaust denier who has praised Romania’s fascist leadership from the World War II, and has described the current government as “a system organized to rob [the] country.”
Rising tensions between Romania and Russia
The arrests follow yesterday’s expulsion of two Russian officials by the Romanian government. The officials were the Russian military attache and his deputy, both accused of colluding with the far-right presidential candidate Călin Georgescu.
The US trade gap hit a new record in January, government data showed, as imports surged AFP
The US trade deficit surged to a new record in January, government data showed Thursday, as imports spiked while tariff worries flared in the month of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Trump returned to the White House this year with pledges to ease cost-of-living pressures for voters, but on the campaign trail he also raised the possibility of sweeping levies across US imports.
The overall trade gap of the world’s biggest economy ballooned 34 percent to $131.4 billion, on the back of a 10 percent jump in imports for the month, said the Commerce Department.
This was the widest deficit for a month on record, dating back to 1992, and the expansion was more than analysts anticipated.
The latest figures came after the US economy saw its goods deficit hit a fresh record too for the full year of 2024 — at $1.2 trillion.
In January, imports came in at $401.2 billion, and this was $36.6 billion more than the level in December, Commerce Department data showed.
US exports, meanwhile, rose $3.3 billion between December and January to $269.8 billion.
Among sectors, imports of industrial goods jumped, and imports of consumer goods rose notably by $6.0 billion.
US deficits with other economies were a key focus of Trump’s first administration from 2017 to 2021, and at the time he waged a bruising tariffs war with China in particular.
This time the Trump administration has referred to tariffs as a means to raise government revenue, remedy imbalances and exert pressure on other governments over American priorities.
In January, US goods deficits with China and the European Union both widened.
On the campaign trail last year ahead of November’s election, Trump vowed reciprocal tariffs on nations that taxed US-made products, dubbing this the “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act.”
Since returning to office, Trump has launched plans for “reciprocal tariffs” tailored to each US trading partner, to tackle trade practices deemed unfair by Washington.
He has promised an announcement on these levies on April 2, while also threatening tariffs on other imports ranging from semiconductors to autos.
The U.S. Commerce Department has tapped top Morgan Stanley banker Michael Grimes, who was a main figure in Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), to lead the sovereign wealth fund being pushed by President Donald Trump, new reports revealed.
Grimes left behind 30 years of tenure at one of the country’s leading banks to join the Trump administration under the Commerce Department and lead the new project, Reuters and Bloomberg reported late Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified as the matter has not yet been made public.
Who is Michael Grimes?
Grimes is one of Morgan Stanley’s top bankers and investment industry dealmakers, but he is most prominently known for helping Musk during his acquisition of then-Twitter.
He is known for his work in locating equity investors to buy into the takeover and reduce the financial burden on Musk amid surging interests in 2022.
The initial deal fell apart but Musk was still able to secure the funds needed for his $43 billion acquisition of the social media platform. Grimes is believed to have retained close ties with the tech billionaire since then.
An industry expert called the recruitment of a prominent dealmaker like Grimes a “very smart” move.
Grimes has often been called the “Wall Street Whisperer of Silicon Valley” but “rarely” speaks with reporters or journalists.
What is the US Sovereign Wealth Fund?
Trump ordered the creation of a sovereign wealth fund last month, designating Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to oversee the fund’s creation.
Sources told Bloomberg that the project is still in the very early stages and even Grimes’ leadership may be subject to change.
One source said an idea being floated is that the fund will be paired with the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. and Export-Import Bank to drive American investment in various areas that play a crucial role toward national security, including technology, manufacturing, and defense.
A source tells Page Six that Jennifer Lopez is “not happy with constantly seeing photos,” of her ex, Ben Affleck, and his ex, Jennifer Garner.
Affleck and Garner, both 52, have been spending a lot of time together, which is generating headlines and even causing some speculation over Affleck’s feelings towards his first ex wife.
A source tells Page Six that Jennifer Lopez is “furious” over recent pictures of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner together. Getty Images for The Recording Academy
A source tells us the chummy pics have been like “salt in the wound.”
The “On The Floor,” singer and Affleck finalized their divorce just weeks ago, on Feb. 20.
